Letter from Spain #13
Carlos Alcaraz, and political TV debates in Spain ...
This is just a very short note this week, as I’m still trying to recover from watching Carlos Alcaraz beat Novak Djokovic in the ‘five-set thriller’ at Wimbledon. I don’t mean I’m at Wimbledon, like King Felipe VI and Miquel Iceta, Spain’s culture and sports minister (a bit odd - or maybe timely - that Iceta could find the time to hop over there just seven days before the general election), but I wish I had been.
Anyway, the Alcaraz victory over Djokovic has just become the main story from Spain this week, and the statistics explain why:
Djokovic had not only been been bidding to equal Roger Federer’s record of eight Wimbledon titles, but also match Margaret Court’s all-time mark of 24 Slams.
When Djokovic won his first major at the Australian Open in 2008, Alcaraz was still three months shy of his fifth birthday.
Djokovic was playing in his ninth final at Wimbledon and 35th at the majors, while for Alcaraz it was just a second in the Slams following his US Open triumph.
Alcaraz has became the third-youngest player to win the Wimbledon Men’s Championship at the age of 20, after Boris Becker in 1985, aged 17. Before Becker, the youngest champion was Wilfred Baddeley, who was 19 when he won the trophy in 1881.
The age gap betweenDjokovic and Alcaraz was the widest in any men’s Slam final since 1974.
Have you had enough statistics yet?
Okay, the other main story of the week was Spain’s socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and Alberto Núñez Feijóo, leader of the main opposition party, the right-wing People’s Party (PP), taking part in a chaotic ‘face to face’ live TV debate on Monday, ahead of the general election due to be held on 23 July. It was, in my opinion, a farce.
Not only did the two continually interrupt and talk over one another, but the debate’s two hosts, Vicente Vallés and Ana Pastor, just let them to do so. Feijóo also told a few blatant lies, and the presenters should have corrected him - but they failed to do so.
This time next week, we’ll know who’s won the election … so I’ll wait until then to write further about this.
The Barcelona Connection - Research
For those following this blog, you’ll know I’ve been writing about my research for The Barcelona Connection, starting with Chapter 1 in ‘Letter from Spain#7’ (Benjamin waking up at the service station); Chapter 2 in #8 (the home of the Marqueses de Guíxols, not far from La Bisbal d’Empordà); Chapters 3-4 in #9 (Marcos Constantinos in Hampstead, plus Benjamin at the UEA & Stansted); and Chapter 5 in #11 (Elena in Girona). I wrote about Séverin and Jürgen (Chapter 7 in #12) last week … and my notes on the research will start again next week.
The Barcelona Connection - Reviews, News & Events
I am doing an event at The Secret Kingdoms bookstore in Madrid on Thursday 28 September. More details on that very soon.
The Dalí Museum in Florida will be planning an event around the book, and as soon as I have a clearer idea of what it will involve, I will post details about it here.
Links to reviews & articles
Here’s the link for a review of The Barcelona Connection that came out in La Revista, a publication of the British-Spanish Society.
Here’s a link to a review of the book published by the Spain in English online newspaper.
Here’s the link to an article I was asked to write for The Art Newspaper about my research on Salvador Dalí.
You can also click here for the latest reviews on Amazon, as well as on Goodreads and at Barnes & Noble.
The book is available on Amazon or you can also click here to choose where else to order your copy from. It can also be ordered from any bookshop simply by giving the ISBN number: 978-1-7393326-1-7.
