Giles Brown
THE middle of October mellowing into the autumn months always seems to be bring a confusing jumble of celebrations in supermarkets throughout Spain.
I froze in my tracks when I saw a display of the unedible turrons – those rock hard cakes that I am always being given for Christmas and that I save to give away as presents for the following year. Even worse was seeing huge decorations hanging from the ceiling at my local shopping centre.
What is more surreal is that at this time of the year they have to jostle for space on the shelves with the Halloween decorations. Halloween never used to be a huge affair in Spain, with the focus being more on All Saints Day (I never knew that the all girl band were that big over here, never mind had their own public holiday).
But over the past ten years or so there has been an explosion of the little and not so little trick or treaters banging on doors, throwing rubbish about and generally causing havoc. Obviously, living in a house on its own by a lake, down a three kilometre track, I don’t get many trick or treaters, but I’ve got the laxatives coated in chocolate for them, just in case..
No more nudity
Another worrying trend around this time of year are charity calendars. It seems that merely having a picture of a cute kitten is no longer enough. Firemen, policemen, housewives and seeming every other group seem to want to get their kit off for charity.
A group of British women made more than a million pounds and worldwide headlines when they came up with the idea of a discreet nude calendar for 2000 to raise money for leukemia research. Their story was made into a hit movie, Calendar Girls, and since then there every club, society or association have been flashing their bits.
A few years ago however seven middle-aged Spanish mothers who posed for a tongue-in-cheek nude calendar — a fundraiser for their children’s tiny, rural school — were left saddled with €16,000 debt and 5,000 unwanted copies.
Unfortunately that sad tale has disuaded the Editor of the Olive Press of publishing our own nude charity calender. And I was so looking forward to being Miss April.
Muesli Matters
As I’ve mentioned several times, I live in a cottage by a lake. My main power source comes from a generator, located at the far end of the garden as it makes a hell of a racket. This does have its drawbacks however. Stumbling around the kitchen, I couldn’t be bothered to tramp down the path to turn the thing on, so blindly reached for my breakfast cereal poured the milk, and hungrily tucked in.
I really must remember not to store the dry cat food next to the muesli in the future…
Rock and (Bread) Roll
The other week I was getting a few bits and bobs for my radio show and saw, for the first time, AD DC lager in the drinks section.
Which got me thinking about other Rock n Pop Food/Drink combinations. I mentioned it on air, thinking it would fill ten minutes, but hour and a half later I ran out of time on what was one of the funniest shows I have ever done.
Highlights were White Snakebite, Prefab Brussels Sprouts, Thin Based Pizza Lizzy, Bon Appetit Jovi, Buns and Roses, Alice Coopers Marmalade, Joe Cockerleekie Soup, Black Pudding Sabbath, Jimi Hendricks Gin, Arctic Roll Monkies, Fleetwood Big Mac and my favourite, ZZ Lager Top!
Be still my beating heart. I can barely breathe for laughing. What jolly japes. Devastated that I missed your “almost funniest show ever” Giles. Did you choose the bums picture? Which is your favourite?