Letter from Spain #53

Whoever wins on the pitch tonight, the real victory will hopefully be more tolerance of the multicultural, changing face of Spain.

Jul 14, 2024

Lamine Yamal Nasraoui Ebana celebrated his 17th birthday yesterday (Saturday). On Tuesday evening, at the age of 16 years, 11 months and 26 days, the Spanish winger became the Euro Championship’s youngest ever goalscorer as Spain beat France 2-1 to reach the final to be played this evening against England in Berlin.

Born on 13 July 2007, Barça player Yamal was born in Esplugues de Llobregat (Barcelona) to a mother from Equatorial Guinea and a father from Morocco. His grandmother first moved to Spain from Morrocco in 1988, making Lamine of Equatoguinean and Moroccan descent.

When Yamal celebrates his goals, he crosses his hands across his chest and uses his fingers to spell out the numbers ‘3-0-4’ - the last three digits of the 08304 postcode of his working-class home neighbourhood of Rocafonda, in the Catalan city of Mataró.

Spain’s other lightning-fast winger, Athletic Bilbao’s Nicholas ‘Nico’ Williams Arthuer (pictured right, below, alongside Yamal), celebrated his 22nd birthday on Friday.

Born in Pamplona (Navarra) to Ghanaian parents who first entered Spain by climbing the border fence into its north African enclave of Melilla – Nico Williams once said in a post-match interview that his parents had to cross the Sahara desert barefoot to reach Spain. His older brother Iñaki is a Ghana international player.

Both Yamal and Williams had offers from their parents’ countries to represent their national sides at football, but they chose Spain - their country of birth, mother tongue and upbringing. I’m delighted that they did.

Spain’s national team manager, Luis de la Fuente, has made reference to the players as ‘the reality’ of 21st century Spain - an increasingly multicultural society due to global migration trends. Both Yamal and Williams are the sons of African migrants who settled in Spain - a country that is rapidly changing its demographics as well as relying on migration to keep afloat, off-setting the country’s declining birth-rate. Spain is set to gain another five million people by 2039, and foreigners account for almost 100% of this population growth.

Yamal and Williams are not the first mixed-race or black players to represent Spain’s national team; in the last five years a few others have donned the La Roja’s jersey. Yamal and Williams, however, are certainly the first to be hailed as the team’s two main stars.

Spain reaching the final of the Euro Championships has coincided with a nasty debate over taking in hundreds of children who have arrived in the Canary Islands as migrants and refugees.

Just on Thursday, the far-right Vox party said it was abandoning its five regional coalition governments with the right-wing People’s Party (PP) over the latter’s refusal to oppose the socialist-led central government’s plans to move about 400 unaccompanied minors from the Canaries to mainland Spain.

And just as a sideline: Yamal’s father once had to pay a €600 fine for chucking eggs at far-right Vox supporters …

While these two players, Yamal and Williams, are being praised as the future ‘reality’ of Spain (at least on the football pitch), there are hundreds, if not thousands more migrants’ kids dying on the perilous journey they take trying to reach Spain every year.

Even if this Euro football tournament doesn’t change how these poor kids are viewed in the short, medium or long term, I hope that the achievements of Yamal and Williams might at least help tackle another major issue in Spanish football more than any awareness-raising campaign has done up to now: racism.

This is just a short post this week, to say that I’m still here! My last post was on 3 June, when I explained I wouldn’t be posting here weekly during this summer as I’m entrenched with writing ‘The Madrid Connection’. That’s all on-going, so bear with me! More soon …

Books, Reviews, Research, News & Events

Forthcoming Events

On Friday 20 September, I am doing an event at the Secret Kingdoms Bookshop at Moratín 7 in Madrid. Whilst the event is free, places will be limited. You can reserve a place by buying a €3 voucher redeemable in the store on the night. Hope to see you there! You can reserve your place here via this link - or click on image below.

The Barcelona Connection - Research

In my weekly ‘Letter from Spain’ from #7 right up to #42, I 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

Eighteen years since it was originally published, ‘A Load of Bull - An Englishman’s Adventures in Madrid’ has just been re-issued, with a new introduction, new cover and five extra chapters that were cut from the original book.

It is available in print and as an eBook, and this time worldwide, in both formats. Bookshop distribution is underway but in the meantime you can order the new paperback or digital edition via Amazon and Barnes & Noble, or the digital version on Apple, Kobo, Smashwords, or on many other platforms by clicking here.

If you’ve never read the book, I hope you will now acquire a copy and laugh out loud. If you did read and enjoy the original edition, I think you’ll love this new edition with additional chapters! More details about the book and links to many reviews are below.

A LOAD OF BULL - An Englishman’s Adventures in Madrid

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

In the late eighties Tim Parfitt blagged his way into a job at Condé Nast in London and from there into a six week stint in Madrid to help launch Spanish Vogue. Six weeks turned into nine years, and helping out turned into running the company. Along the way, Tim Parfitt discovered the real 'real' Spain. He never saw a Costa and he certainly never bought an olive grove. Instead, he discovered a booming city in hedonistic reaction to years of fascism, where sleep was something you only did at work and where five hour lunches invariably involved a course of bull's testicles.

Tim Parfitt's rise from unwanted guest to paparazzi-pursued mover in Spain's glamorous social scene is a hilarious comedy of errors. Frothing with a language designed to make foreigners dribble, hospitalised by tapa-induced flatulence and constantly frustrated by the unapproachable beauty of the women parading through the Vogue offices, he nevertheless falls in love with a city, a country and its people - despite the fact he hasn't a clue what they're on about.

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.