Letter from Spain #43

Late-night drinking and eating will never be scrapped in Spain.

‘Late-night drinking and eating could be SCRAPPED in Spain,’ screamed a Daily Mail headline on Tuesday, and which went on to add, ‘to the dismay of British tourists’. Yes, that really was the headline (accompanied with a few obligatory pics of Brits boozing in Magaluf) - but no, late-night drinking and eating will NEVER be scrapped in Spain.

The whole debate about Spain’s nightlife – and the long working hours required to sustain it – was thrown into the spotlight at the start of the week, after the Labour Minister Yolanda Díaz said that the country’s late-night restaurant culture was out of step with the rest of Europe.

‘A country that has its restaurants open at one o’clock in the morning is not reasonable,’ she said. ‘It is madness to continue extending opening hours until I don’t know what time.’ She also warned that working past 10pm can pose a risk to mental health.

It comes amid a wider initiative by her party, the left-wing alliance of Sumar (and the junior partner in the current coalition government), to introduce new protections for workers in the tourism and hospitality sector, imposing limits on working hours, reduced opening times and earlier closures. Earlier this year she launched negotiations with labour unions and business associations in an attempt to reduce the country’s legal working week from 40 to 37.5 hours, without any loss of pay.

I have a lot of respect for Yolanda Díaz, but I think she’s fighting a lost cause with trying to curtail the hours of Spain’s bars and restaurants - and not only the right-wing opposition were quick to criticise her, but the hospitality sector, too.

The president of the Madrid regional government, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, always a fierce critic of the central government, accused them of wanting people to be ‘bored and at home’ in comments made on social media.

‘Spain has the best nightlife in the world, with streets full of life and freedom. And that also provides employment,’ said Ayuso, whose political career saw a boost after she insisted on keeping bars and restaurants in Madrid open, at least more than in the rest of Spain, during the Covid-19 pandemic. ‘They want us to be puritans, materialists, socialists, without soul, without light and without restaurants because they feel like it,’ she said.

The move was also met with criticism from restaurant proprietors who argue longer opening hours are an essential part of what customers have come to expect - and what venues rely on for survival.

Members of the Spanish hotel industry said that Yolanda Díaz’s views did not reflect their own, with the president of Hostelería de España even boasting that ‘the whole of Europe is modifying its working hours to resemble us’ and that it was ‘a real luxury’ to be able to provide service at one o’clock in the morning ‘to those who leave the office late’.

His views were echoed by the nightlife industry. ‘We reject any proposal which questions Spanish lifestyle, which distinguishes and sets us apart in the tourist market,’ said España de Noche (Spain at Night), an association representing the Spanish nightlife sector.

The number of weekly working hours in Spain is actually in line with the European average, but the day is more spread out and ends later, with Spain being the European country with the most people working after 6pm.

It all goes back to Manuel Fraga, the tourism minister under Franco, who wanted to appeal to potential foreign visitors and investors using the slogan ‘Spain is Different’.

I’d been thinking a lot recently not just about the opening hours of restuarants and bars in Spain, but the timetable of the whole day, because it is one of the themes in ‘A Load of Bull’ - which is just about to be re-issued (see below).

… when Francisco and Mayte suggested they collect me at ten o’clock from the Centro Colón one night, I assumed it was for a nightcap. In fact, I was even offended that we weren’t going for dinner. I took my revenge by having a slap-up room-service meal alone in my apartamento at eight, polished off a bottle of wine, and by ten o’clock I was ready for bed. When they finally turned up at the hotel at ten, saying, ‘We’ve booked a table for half past,’ I didn’t have the courage to tell them what I’d been up to for the past two hours. Instead, I waded my way through another three-course meal. Our feast ended well after midnight – and then we went on for that nightcap in some backstreet music bar. By the time I was back at the apartamento, I’d dined twice and drunk four times as much as I should have.

Spain’s traditional way of life is that people dine late, often at 10pm, and that also means that they have even later leisure hours, and which has a knock-on effect on other sectors, too, notably shops - which end up closing late.

It took me a while to get used to the hours in Spain, but I love them and I wouldn’t want them to change. I used to sometimes get irritated that speciality shops were closed between 2pm and 4.30pm, sometimes even 5pm - but I’d chosen to live here and that was the norm, so … live with it. I remember being amazed that some estate agents would refuse to show me properties during 2-4pm that I was considering renting - ‘because they were having lunch’ - especially when it was the only free time I could view them. But, hey … first world problems, no?

Thanks for reading. I apologise for not posting last week, but there’s been a lot going on. I will not be posting next Sunday 17 March either, as I will be in England - but I will post a short note here again very soon with all details of the new edition of A Load of Bull (see below). My weekly ‘Letter from Spain’ will appear again on Sunday 24 March. Hasta pronto!

Books, Reviews, Research, News & Events

The Dalí Museum in St.Petersburg, Florida - home of The Hallucinogenic Toreador - recently sent me photos of The Barcelona Connection prominently on display at the store - and which I’m delighted about.

I always love to hear from readers - and someone sent me a message on Friday to say that she’d bought the book at the museum, had already read it and had ‘enjoyed it immensely’, adding that she now wanted to go back and spend more time with The Hallucinogenic Toreador. Fantastic - thank you!

Re-issue of ‘A Load of Bull’

Big News! A new edition of A Load of Bull - An Englishman’s Adventures in Madrid is being published on 15 March. It has a new introduction, five extra chapters and a new cover design. It will be available in print and as an eBook. I will be sharing further details about this on the day … and then I will probably also start posting photos of Madrid here each week … so watch this space!

Forthcoming Events

A date for your diary: I am going to be chatting about The Barcelona Connection and A Load of Bull at a brilliant new English bookshop in Barcelona - the Backstory Bookshop (C/Mallorca 330) - on Friday 19 April. The event will start from 5pm. More details will follow soon …

The Barcelona Connection - Research

In my weekly ‘Letter from Spain’ from #7 right up to #42, I also included notes about all the research I carried out for The Barcelona Connection. Many of the posts include photos and descriptions of locations that appear in the book, from Nîmes, Figueres, Cadaqués, La Bisbal d’Empordà and, of course, many areas of Barcelona. There are also posts about Salvador Dalí’s Hallucinogenic Toreador and ‘The Face’, the Dalí Museum in Figueres, the Picasso Museum and MNAC in Barcelona, even Girona Airport and nearby motorway service station - as well as the G20 Spouse Party, museum visits and ‘art attacks’. I hope the notes about the research are of interest … and I hope you might buy, read and take The Barcelona Connection with you to some of the locations that appear in the book! If you do, please send me a photo and I’ll post it here …

The Barcelona Connection - Book & Reviews

A murder. A kidnapping. A lost Salvador Dalí painting. Just 36 hours to resolve all three. Every crime scene is a work of art …

Benjamin Blake is no ordinary detective. Specialising in the criminal underworld of stolen and forged art, things don’t always go the right way for Benjamin. But when they don’t, he has a stubborn determination to put them right.

Within hours of being sent to Barcelona to authenticate a possible Salvador Dalí painting, Benjamin is left stranded without his cell phone at a service station alongside a bloody corpse in the early hours of the morning, after being savagely attacked with his hire car stolen, together with the painting.

Helped and hindered by the fiery Elena Carmona, pursued by a psychopathic hitman, Benjamin becomes the prime suspect in a politically motivated kidnap and murder. All this on the eve of Barcelona hosting a G20 summit and UN climate change conference, with the police in hot pursuit fearing a wider terrorist threat.

From Nîmes in the South of France, across the border to the sweltering humidity of Girona, Barcelona, Figueres and Cadaqués, The Barcelona Connection is a fast-paced, gripping page-turner sprinkled with black comedy, blending the real with the surreal, art crime and mistaken identity … and where the clues at the crime scene might just be the mirror image of a long-lost work of art …

If you can’t locate a copy of The Barcelona Connection in your local store, it can be ordered from any bookshop simply by giving the ISBN number: 978-1-7393326-1-7.

It is also available in print or as an eBook via Amazon and Barnes & Noble, or you can also click here to choose where else to order your copy from.

Click here for the latest reviews on Amazon and on Goodreads.

A review by Michael Eaude of The Barcelona Connection was published in the October 2023 edition of Catalonia Today.

‘Short, fast-moving scenes and the deft joining of two completely different plots … the novel is not just breathlessly rapid and action-packed, but overflows with humour and satire.’

‘The excellent plotting, the local knowledge, the surreal humour, the political satire and the speed of events … it’s an admirable and very readable crime novel.’

A review by Dominic Begg of The Barcelona Connection was published in La Revista, a publication of the British-Spanish Society.

‘The Barcelona Connection is a fast-moving page-turner with a helter-skelter plot.’

‘The background to this thriller is realistic and familiar to those who know Barcelona well. It’s a world of cynical, ambitious politicians; civil servants promoted via enchufe; friction between Spanish and Catalan investigators; disruptive anti-capitalist activists; bumbling US dignitaries and security guards; the continuing influence of old supporters of Franco; the soulless 21st century, exemplified by apartment hotels seemingly without human staff-members …’

Here’s a link to a review of the book by Eve Schnitzer published by the Spain in English online newspaper.

‘Tim Parfitt very cleverly weaves together two parallel though quite different stories, set against the background of a contemporary Barcelona that is even busier than usual with major international meetings.’

‘Two plot lines interweave, with some highly ironic as well as suspenseful results … this book has a lot to offer the reader, from pure entertainment to solid information and, possibly, a fuller understanding of the complexities of Spain and Catalonia in particular.’

Here’s the link to an article I was asked to write for The Art Newspaper about my research on Salvador Dalí.

A Load of Bull - An Englishman’s Adventures in Madrid - Book & Reviews

The hilarious true story of an Englishman sent to Madrid to help launch Spanish Vogue …

A new edition of A Load of Bull - An Englishman’s Adventures in Madrid is being published on 15 March. It will have a new introduction, five extra chapters and a new cover design. It will be available in print and as an eBook. Further details about this will be posted here very soon. In the meantime, here is a link to the original eBook edition on Amazon.

You can click here for all the reviews of A Load of Bull on Amazon, as well as on Goodreads.

Links to newspaper and magazine reviews:

‘A hugely entertaining memoir ... frequently laugh-out-loud funny.’ (The Daily Express)

‘Parfitt is no ordinary Englishman … his light touch and neat line in self-deprecating humour perfectly suits this entertaining urban spin on the old tale of Brits having fun under the Spanish sun.’ (The Sunday Times)

‘A love letter to Madrid ... brilliantly captures a truly eccentric and hedonistic place.’ (The Daily Mirror)

‘Often hilarious ... a side-splittingly funny travel memoir.’ (BBC Online)

‘Vivid yet affectionate … fascinating, escapist stuff.’ (OK! Magazine)

‘Magnificent ... brilliant and moving, hilarious and truthful.’ (La Vanguardia)

‘Don't miss it … Madrid through the eyes of an Englishman.’ (Vogue España)

Spanish edition

A Load of Bull was also published in Spanish under the title, Mucho Toro - las tribulaciones de un inglés en la movida. Click here or on image below for the current eBook version.

Contact Details

You can email me at: tim.parfitt@hotmail.co.uk

For professional enquiries, please contact my agent Justyna Rzewuska at the Hanska Literary & Film Agency.