Jimena de la Frontera - thoughts on ruins, heritage and the price of historical interpretation

At Jimena de la Frontera in Andalucia there is a ruined Moorish castle above the town. You can see the castle from a fair way off (I suppose that's why they built it there) but to actually reach it you have to go up through the old town, up steep winding streets lined with white-fronted houses. The streets are very narrow - so narrow that the trip down is not for the faint-hearted or the owner of anything bigger than the Citroen we were driving. And, so typically of Andalucian hill villages, every second front step was occupied by an elderly man, woman or some small children.

There are no signs to the castle. One supposes that this is because anyone local knows where it is - at the top of the village - so directions would be a waste of space. Which problem provides our first clue about the attitude to heritage here. Back home there would be brown signs containing the appropriate castle symbol, there would be an expectation that visitors would arrive and want to visit the castle.

Anyway, we wound our way to the castle. You know you've arrived because there's no more road and a tatty little car park in which we found one of those international groups that bring a smile - a chatty Spanish chap with some very fine photography equipment and an elderly Austrian lady (who was really a local as she lived in the village and had done for a lot of years). A brief chat with this pair revealed that they were - I wasn't quite clear why - showing a young Irish couple around.

Now imagine what such a location would be like in England. There would be a barrier or gate, a little visitor centre and shop. And, of course, a charge of £4 or £5 just to go in and look at the ruins (you would be able to pay extra for a little guide book that explains the history). You get none of this in Spain.  No visitor centre, no shop and no charge. We simply have to walk up through the old Moorish gateway.

At some point in the past the local council had put up a series of "interpretative" notices. Over the years these had become rather tatty and, in some cases, difficult to read and where still legible really didn't assist much in understanding who had built the castle and how it became a ruin. It seems that Jimena has been there a long time though:

This gem of a village, has a fairly checkered historical past, having been inhabited at various times by the Iberians, Phoenicians and Carthaginians as well as by the Romans, who made good use of the rich metal deposits found there. Around the year 750, it was of great commercial importance to the Moors, who also used it as a strategic military point. Over the centuries Jimena was conquered and re-conquered on many occasions and twice fell into the hands of the Christians, but by in 1879, during the reign of Alfonso XII, Jimena was so highly considered that it was given the title of Cuidad (Town). With a present population of just over 9,000 inhabitants (some 1,000 of whom are foreign residents - many British), its narrow cobbled streets and white washed Andalusian houses, it certainly retains its village ambience and is a delight to visit.

Whatever the history, the ruins are just that - untidy, unkempt, uninterpreted by the mavens of plastic history. You can wander round at liberty, there aren't any don't go there, don't do that signs. There are no rails, no barriers - just the ruins of a Moorish castle with kites, kestrels and vultures in the skies and the most spectacular view.

It seems to me that, in our desire to inform, to educate, to manage our heritage, we have lost a little of the magic of looking at the ruins of what once was great. Rather than staring at the old tower, looking up through a hole broken in the ceiling. Rather than allowing the visitor's mind to wander, their spirit to soar in personal reflection and speculation, we force that visitor's eyes down to the approved, official interpretation of the heritage. Visiting an "interpreted" castle we come away better informed but less inspired than is the case with the uninterpreted place like this castle at Jimena.

This isn't to say that we shouldn't cherish our heritage but this needn't mean turning it into an "attraction" resplendent with a visitor centre, shop and cafe. Leaving it stark, allowing us to draw our own lessons, get our own undirected pleasure from the visit, might be as good, if not better. Maybe Jimena's apparent lack of care relates to past poverty rather that present decisions - indeed the big board by the castle bedecked with EU symbols suggests that the dead hand of officialdom is creeping closer. For once, I hope that the usual path of European funding in Southern Europe applies and it vanishes into the dusty hills rather than into shiny attraction management at this lovely little castle.

It was a delight to visit this castle, to wander its walls, to poke my head into the tower, to look out at the view - the reason the castle was built here I'm sure - and to ponder on how different is was a thousand years ago when the Moors were running Andalucia. Whether the cork woods were still the same, if the fields were filled with horses and fine cows - plus the great bulls destined for the blood and passion of the ring - and what the economic importance might have been? Above all it was a delight to look out and soak up the spirit of the place.

Maybe it will stay that way?

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...and no you didn't miss me!

Back. Eight hundred or so e-mails herded into the further corners of the interwebs, several thousand examples of other folk's fine words (and some stuff from newspapers) beaten down and a pile of old-fashion, paper-based communications opened and placed into a differently configured pile. Ah, the end of a holiday - it used to be so exciting before you all got so wordy and so keen on communicating. Now it's a morass to wade through, a well of treacle, And I know I will miss the one that matters!

Anyway this little missive is by way of announcing my return. Not, of course, that you'd noted my absence. However, allow me the indulgence of believing you did, that the odd tear dripped down the bereft cheek as you waited vainly for wise words to drop into your in-box. Words that, while not life-changingly profound, are crafted to inspire and to challenge.

So what have you to look forward to? There's a blog about foreign languages in election campaigns and another about Moorish ruins and the scandal of EU waste. I might treat you to a sausage and asparagus recipe and I plan a little bit of a 'New Puritan' series in which I try to understand the mindset that inspires the readership of both the Guardian and the Daily Mail - a mindset of judgementalism, control and an unswerving belief that "we know better". And this might morph itself into a celebration of lower middle class pleasures - a sort of "joy of suburbia".

Or I might just rant at you all every now and then. Whatever!

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It's just a recipe...

 

It’s a recipe I tell you. I’ve eaten some awful “traditional Cornish Pasties” in the eponymous county and some pretty ace ones made elsewhere. Yet – unlike Yorkshire pudding, Lancashire Hot Pot or the London Particular – Cornish pasty gets a Protected Geographical Indication (PGI):

So what you're looking for is this: under new protected status, a genuine Cornish pasty must be made in Cornwall. It must have a distinctive "D" shape, crimped on one side (never on top); the filling should be "chunky" (minced or roughly cut chunks of beef – representing no less than 12.5% of the content); add potato, swede (in Cornwall, some of us call it turnip), onion and a light seasoning, packed into a pastry case ("golden in colour, savoury, glazed with milk or egg and robust enough to retain its shape") and slowly baked.

Sounds lovely and I’m sure there’s a few black and white flags waving but, in truth, it’s just protectionism. It’s just a fix to protect one set of folk who make something from other sets of folk who might make that something. And, worse still, it’s arbitrary – Melton Mowbray Pies get protection despite, like the Cornish pasty, that pie just being a recipe, a variation to a pie of no greater merit than any other pie.

I could wander through the utter nonsense that is EU protection of geography – a world where one product is protected while another isn’t, where we can’t call fizzy wine champagne unless it comes from Champagne but where anyone can make Cheddar or Wensleydale. These are recipes, methods, approaches to the making of something and no more deserve special protection than any other technique.

Take this to its logical conclusion and Yorkshire Puddings could only be made and sold in the ‘Broad Acres’ and Lamb scouse will be something only saleable in Liverpool. What matters isn’t the precise location of manufacturer but the quality of the food being made – all PGIs do is grant a license to certain producers, they give no indication of quality.

I like food and seek out ‘authenticity’ but I don’t think that this authenticity merits protection under the law. Nobody is fooled into thinking a Cornish pasty is always made in Cornwall any more than we believe all the Eccles cakes come from Eccles or Lincolnshire sausages from Lincolnshire. This is simply protection – and arbitrary, selective protection at that.

I’m sure that Ginsters – that massive Cornish maker of food for petrol stations – will be delighted. Indeed, I might try and buys some shares – the EU has just given a big boost to their profits after all!

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In which I find myself agreeing with Nick Clegg (except I don't believe him)

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In an interview with Henry Porter at The Observer, Nick Clegg - professional euro-crat turned Deputy Prime Minister said something I agree with:

"I need to say this – you shouldn't trust any government, actually including this one. You should not trust government – full stop. The natural inclination of government is to hoard power and information; to accrue power to itself in the name of the public good."

Absolutely Mr Clegg, my sentiments entirely. So why is your "Protection of Freedoms Bill" so selective in the freedoms it wants to protect? And why don't I believe you when you make such an agreeable statement?

Is it because I watched your party colleagues calling for intrusive and draconian extensions to police power under the licensing act? Plus of course the Liberal Democrats illiberal and undemocratic support for minimum alcohol pricing! And should I mention the smoking ban - introduced on the back of bad science - that has further harmed our struggling pubs.

And why not restrictions on speed cameras, voyeuristic (and pretty useless) CCTV and the hounding of innocent motorists on the back of ANPR? Where is the removal of rights of entry to private property for public officials and the reform of family courts to stop the police seizing the children of innocents?

I could go on, Nick. I know you mean well. But these "Protection of Freedoms" come while your government extends restrictions and while your old pals in Brussels drift slowly towards a secret, unaccountable, almost fascistic superstate.

So Nick, I don't believe you.

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We want referendums not patronising debates in parliament

I watched the Winslow Boy on TV the other day and was reminded of parliament’s arrogance and tendency to nonsense. I fear that nothing much has changed since those Edwardian days, parliament and government remain concerned primarily with creating the semblance rather than the reality of democratic debate. So it is with these proposals for on-line petitions to get a debate.

I have concluded that the idea of on-line petitions to get debates in parliament or even – bless – a bill proposed is a load of patronising nonsense intended as a sop to those wanting a genuine extension of participatory democracy. Indeed the dire warnings about petitions for withdrawing from the EU (yes please) and capital punishment (no thanks) reinforce just what out masters really think of us. And remember that those besuited, well-connected BBC media types are our masters too – not our friends.

From next year, voters are to be guaranteed that the petition with the strongest public backing on a government website will be drafted as a bill and put before MPs.

The Coalition will also pledge that petitions which reach a fixed level of support will be ensured time for a Commons debate.

Sir George Young, the leader of the Commons, has indicated that he intends to press ahead with the concept, conceived in the Coalition agreement, in the New Year.

The scheme is intended to reconnect voters with parliament amid concerns of waning trust in the political system following scandals such as disclosures over MPs’ expenses.

However, there are fears that the proposals could become a vehicle for campaigners
promoting populist causes célèbre, such as a return of capital punishment or withdrawal from the European Union.

So what? MPs will just ignore any serious proposals and focus – as they do now with private members bills – on the Government’s agenda. That is all that matters. The petition driven debates will be frothy and exciting but will amount to nothing in the end, will make no substantive change to a Government’s agenda and will cover up the failure to introduce a real provision for citizen referendums.

Real citizen initiatives – resulting in a question on a ballot paper for us all to vote on – would challenge the basis of our court-centred government. Rather than policy – such as avoiding a referendum on our membership of the EU – being decided in a choreographed, gentile discussion between ministers, opposition leaders, the media lobby and the top of the civil service, we might get policies that people actually want. And a real debate not the pane et circenses we get from parliament.

If it is right – and it is – to encourage local referendums on levels of council tax, elected mayors and other matters, it must also be right to encourage citizen-led national referendums. Imagine if the government had to put tax increases to a ballot? Or signing treaties? And think of the real debate that referendums on legalising pot or abolishing inheritance tax would bring?

Wouldn’t that be good for democracy?

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The Commission President's Party!

Seems this huge advertising effort did work for some:

Other sources have revealed that Jose Manuel Barroso, the Commission President, has become concerned about his expanding waistline because, as a frequent visitor to Mr Van Rompuy, he is unable to keeps his hands off the Ferrero Rocher chocolates that are piled in bowls scattered around the office.

And I thought Belgium's sole purpose was to show others what chocolate should taste like?

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All things must end....

The last great European union - that of the Catholic Church - collapsed under the weight of its own arrogance and corruption. Between the selling of tickets to paradise and the operation of a secular empire in central Italy, the church lost much of its purpose. We should not be surprised by the fact that the pope who caused such bother to Henry VIII was a Medici - essentially a man appointed for his political clout in the interminable wars of the Italian renaissance rather than as an adequate leader of a great union. And that Medici pope succeeded a previous Medici pope - a man not even a priest before his appointment to the Holy See.

For all the good that the Catholic Church achieved in the thousand years from the fall of Rome and the reformation - and there was much - it had served its purpose. The idea of a Europe unified under one church did not suit a continent of city states and emerging nations. And the rulers of these places seized on the fragmentation to set out their own paths - adopting protestantism as an opportunity to escape the priests' controls. But the big driver of change wasn't just the power hungry like Henry but a change in the world. People were now more literate. The success of trade had brought about a new, powerful merchant class and it was this class in Germany, England and France who become the vanguard of reform.

Today we look again at an out-of-touch, arrogant, secretive and powerful European elite - fawned over by the courtiers of kings but loathed by those shaking the earth's foundations. The response of this elite - as was the case with the Catholic Church before - is to restrict, to ban, to control, to direct. To make use of their power to subdue legitimate protect, to prevent the propagation of contrary opinion and to suborn merchants, mayors and guildmasters.

I do not know the day this edifice of corrupt power will fall - it is only five decades old, a mere flash in time compared to the rule of the Church. But fall it will. When the people are asked about the choices of the elite they reject them. Votes are characterised by protest, abstention and anger. And the courtiers continue their dance around the elite - unaware that their time has gone. These are the men and women - some well-meaning but mostly self-serving - who stand between us and the day of liberty.

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All things must end....

The last great European union - that of the Catholic Church - collapsed under the weight of its own arrogance and corruption. Between the selling of tickets to paradise and the operation of a secular empire in central Italy, the church lost much of its purpose. We should not be surprised by the fact that the pope who caused such bother to Henry VIII was a Medici - essentially a man appointed for his political clout in the interminable wars of the Italian renaissance rather than as an adequate leader of a great union. And that Medici pope succeeded a previous Medici pope - a man not even a priest before his appointment to the Holy See.

For all the good that the Catholic Church achieved in the thousand years from the fall of Rome and the reformation - and there was much - it had served its purpose. The idea of a Europe unified under one church did not suit a continent of city states and emerging nations. And the rulers of these places seized on the fragmentation to set out their own paths - adopting protestantism as an opportunity to escape the priests' controls. But the big driver of change wasn't just the power hungry like Henry but a change in the world. People were now more literate. The success of trade had brought about a new, powerful merchant class and it was this class in Germany, England and France who become the vanguard of reform.

Today we look again at an out-of-touch, arrogant, secretive and powerful European elite - fawned over by the courtiers of kings but loathed by those shaking the earth's foundations. The response of this elite - as was the case with the Catholic Church before - is to restrict, to ban, to control, to direct. To make use of their power to subdue legitimate protect, to prevent the propagation of contrary opinion and to suborn merchants, mayors and guildmasters.

I do not know the day this edifice of corrupt power will fall - it is only five decades old, a mere flash in time compared to the rule of the Church. But fall it will. When the people are asked about the choices of the elite they reject them. Votes are characterised by protest, abstention and anger. And the courtiers continue their dance around the elite - unaware that their time has gone. These are the men and women - some well-meaning but mostly self-serving - who stand between us and the day of liberty.

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European Union has served its purpose. Time to scrap it.

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What follows isn’t one of those ‘Little Englander’ rants about the iniquities of Johnny Foreigner and how Britain’s membership of the European Union is a bad thing – probably because there’s too many foreigners involved, don’t you know! Instead – as someone who once was a swivel-eyed Euro-fanatic – it is a simple and straightforward argument for the whole show to be shut down.

The European Union has done its job. Now it should pack its bags, shut up shop and shuffle onto the dusty shelves of history.

Whenever the leaders of Europe speak of the project they inevitably – as in some sub-clause to Godwin’s Law – refer to the need to prevent European nations tearing themselves asunder in an orgy of war and terror. This is why – as we heard most recently from Helmut Von Rumpuy – the Euro-enthusiast desires to link the sceptical view of the project to nationalism. By saying that scrapping the EU will lead to a renewed ‘nationalism’ (by which of course the speaker means brown or black shirts and jackboots), a further seed of doubt is sown into the mind of the undecided.

However, having presided over the reconstruction of Europe’s industry (behind tariff walls that, once removed, meant the terminal decline of those same industries), the rebuilding of good relations between the peoples of the continent and the collapse of centralist socialism as a national model, the EU now has no purpose. Indeed, it has become an anachronism, an historical nonsense. And an expensive one to boot!

European nations – for all our football fan bluster about the French or the Germans – are not going to war with each other. We’ve got pretty used to rubbing along with our neighbours and share an enormous amount with them. Continuing with supranational institutions achieves nothing – other than to create tensions where there need not be tensions.

So it is with Ireland. A little place. Smaller in population that London or Paris and stuck out on the fringes of Europe. A nation with a difficult relationship with its immediate neighbour and whose talent has, in the past, mostly left on boats and planes to create a noisy diaspora. This was the “Celtic Tiger” – explosive growth fuelled by an asset boom the like of which the place had never seen! And, as these things do, the economic train hit the wall.

But there’s a problem. Ireland – just as with Greece and soon, Portugal – is no longer master of its own destiny. The option of reducing the value of the currency has gone as has the ability to use a central bank to support actions in the market. Ireland can either default – with all the problems that entails – or cut spending.


The EU is in the way. Local economies in Europe are less able to respond to changes in the economic climate since the Governance of Europe will always be about German business and French government. For a while this mattered since the aim was to stop another war between these two countries. Today that's more likely with the EU than without. And, in the meantime, the economies of small countries are threatened by the controlling, economic dirigisme of the European system.
It is time for Europe to be set free again to grow, to create and to succeed. And for the Bonapartist myth of a single Europe to be returned again to the back shelves of history.
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Travelling is a lifestyle choice...

Now, dear reader, I know you are of a sensitive disposition so it is only fair to warn you that some people might find what is to follow offensive. Not offensive as in “I’m really upset by what you said about me” but offensive as in “I’m not really offended at all but I am going to display my supposed moral superiority by saying that you are being offensive to some or other group in our diverse society.”

So here goes, dear reader…

Being a traveller is a life style choice.

Living in a caravan and wandering from place to place is not an inevitable function of ethnicity – assuming there is actually some real ethnic specificity to being a traveller. There are plenty of Gypsies (or are we supposed to called them Roma these days – I lose track of the precise and politically correct designation) who live in houses, who don’t wander from place to place and who go about an otherwise unremarkable life. These people are not travellers (except on those occasions when they go some place for a visit).

As I said, being a traveller is a lifestyle choice. And it is a lifestyle choice that doesn’t always endear those making that choice to other folk. It is also a lifestyle choice that makes it pretty difficult to ensure that children get an education, get vaccinated and get treated for illnesses.

Now I don’t have any problem with people deciding that they want a life on the open road – that’s their business. I can even deal with some of the negatives in a pretty laissez-faire manner. And I have had a few ‘live and let live’ arguments with locals about travellers.

But I do object to vast sums of public money being directed to picking up the pieces behind ‘travellers’ and I can think of better ways for Yorkshire Councils and the European Union to spend £1,000,000 than on “RomaSOURCE” which intends:

“…to make sure that local communities in Yorkshire, which have only recently seen significant migration by European Roma, learn from the experiences of other European countries where Roma have traditionally lived. This will benefit not only Roma themselves, but also lessen the impact on existing communities in places where Roma have settled.”

And I don’t agree with Cllr Rowley from Wakefield that:

“This project will provide a great opportunity to make sure we are developing the skills and knowledge we need to provide services to this extremely vulnerable group. Doing this will benefit both Roma people and the communities that they live alongside.”

Note the word "alongside" there! As I said – being a traveller is a lifestyle choice.

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Might we still get the referendum we were promised?

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The Taxpayers Alliance have pointed out that the Lisbon Treaty needs to go back to parliament for "re-ratification" presenting an opportunity for that august body to get it right this time and have the referendum that was promised to us back in 2005.

"In order to rush the Treaty through in the first place, the current draft failed to sort out the vexed issue of the distribution of seats in the European Parliament. As a result, there are various imbalances in the number of MEPs held by each country – and there are several “ghost” MEPs who currently work in Brussels but don’t actually have any voting powers. To sort this out, the European Parliament is expected to vote this Thursday in favour of holding a new Inter Governmental Conference on 17th and 18th June. At that conference, part of the Lisbon Treaty will be rewritten – requiring full ratification again by the Parliament of each and every EU member state."

Over to you Dave!

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