Letter from Spain #54

Madrid, here we come ... plus the America's Cup, tourism & the king

I’m back. I hope you have had and/or are still having a great summer. I haven’t posted here since 14 July, and prior to that was on 3 June, when I’d explained that I wouldn’t be posting much during the summer months as I was entrenched with writing ‘The Madrid Connection’ - the sequel to The Barcelona Connection. I’m delighted to say that I’ve now completed a first full draft of the book, which was a target I’d set myself by 31 August.

Despite temptation, my method was to not go back and re-write anything at all. I just ploughed on, ‘getting words down on paper’, an average of four pages a day (however bad) since the start of June - some written on this MacBook, some in pencil on a beach - but with the idea of having 360 pages of ‘something’, and which I now have, more or less.

It’s not a great draft but it’s a good starting point to now start the real writing (and re-writing) process. Along the way, I was researching, too (and reading a lot about Caravaggio), and the plot was developing all the time, and so although I knew that many earlier passages I’d written would need to change, or become irrelevant, or that a character would be a good guy instead of an evil female, or not even exist at all, I just ploughed on, resisting all temptation to start again.

Now I’m going to spend September until early December writing what I hope will be a first ‘polished’ draft of the book, before re-writing and re-writing and then re-writing even more, once I’ve got some feedback and comments from early readers and my editor. But I can envisage the book clearly now and I’m excited about it. Very.

I’m again going to try and post a weekly letter here, though (on a Sunday or Monday) - so thanks for reading. I will also share news about forthcoming events (I’m coming to Madrid this month, see below).

During this past week I’ve been fortunate enough to watch some of the America’s Cup in Barcelona, although mainly on big screens in the ‘race village’, ‘fan zones’ and media centre, not on a luxury gin-tub floating on the Med. It all goes on until the end of October, so there are plenty of opportunities to see more of it if you are here and ‘into it’. I put it like that as many people, it seems, aren’t ‘into it’. At least many locals in Barcelona.

Billed as the ‘ultimate sporting competition’ (for the super-rich), the America’s Cup has been ‘sold’ as bringing in €1bn to the city (and/or Catalonia), creating 19,000 jobs and attracting (from late August until the end of October) an extra 2.5 million visitors to the city … and a city already stretched and protesting about tourism saturation and gentrification.

I’ve written about Spain’s double-edged sword regarding tourism in a previous post, but with the country set to break records of visitors this year (last year it was 85.1 million international tourists), there have already been many protests on the mainland and in the Balearic and Canary Islands against tourism.

No one has really explained where the so-called €1bn of income to the city is going to be distributed or end up - and I’m also unsure about the 19,000 jobs created. I’ve spoken to many volunteers at the America’s Cup race village and fan zones. They seem happy enough, these volunteers, but that’s what they are: volunteers. There are 2,000 of them.

The new director of the public-private body Barcelona Tourism, with its new ‘This is Barcelona’ campaign, recently said: ‘We need to improve the quality of those who visit.’ He also said: ‘The people who follow the America’s Cup are people who love the sea and have plenty of disposable income.’ And: ‘What we want is people who come here to do something, whether it’s to visit museums or enjoy the architecture and the gastronomy.’

Unfortunately, however, one of the more ‘apt’ stories of Barcelona during this America’s Cup has been that the skipper of the British yacht’s team, Sir Ben Ainslie, was mugged at knifepoint only last weekend and had his €20,000 Rolex stolen.

Barcelona is Barcelona. It’s not Aspen. It’s not Saint-Tropez. It’s not Cannes.

What these tourism big-wigs always forget - when they set out to seek ‘quality [tourists] and not quantity [of tourists]’ - is that Barcelona, whilst not Magaluf or Benidorm, will always also be a mass tourism destination city, a hen and stag-party city, a cruise ship drop-in, a football oasis, etc etc’ - and the Louis Vuittoners who love the sea and have disposable income will always have to visit and enjoy the city side-by-side with ‘them’ - the rest of us.

Talking about ‘them and us’, I also attended the America’s Cup ‘Institutional Welcome’ on Thursday evening, at the Maritime Museum in Barcelona - and which King Felipe VI attended. He managed to do so without any protests from the Catalan pro-independence camp, or anyone burning posters of him in the streets outside, so things have clearly moved on a bit in the last few years. Maybe it’s apathy; I’ve written before about this, too.

To be honest, I’m not a fan of Felipe, especially since his 3 October 2017 speech, so I didn’t approach him for a chat or a selfie (although many did). I simply took one from a distance for … well, for a laugh.

I did speak to the new President of Catalonia, Salvador Illa, though. I told him I thought he’d done a great job as the former health minister in Madrid during the Covid pandemic, and we chatted about other things, including Sitges, where I live - and he genuinely seemed to be a nice guy. Whether he’ll do a great job leading the Catalan government remains to be seen, however …

More next week. Thanks for reading - and I hope to see you in Madrid (see below)!

Books, Reviews, Research, News & Events

Forthcoming Events

I am coming to Madrid! I’m actually going to be there for a week, with various meetings - but on Friday 20 September, I’m doing an event at the Secret Kingdoms Bookshop at Moratín 7 in Madrid. Please come along if you can - I hope to see you there!

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. You can reserve your place here via this link - or click on image below.

I have also been invited to do two events at the Hotel Castell d’Empordà in La Bisbal d’Empordà (Catalonia) on Friday 8 November and Friday 13 December alongside the hotel’s owner, Albert Diks (pictured with me below), as part of the hotel’s 25th anniversary. The hotel is part of a key plot element in The Barcelona Connection (mentioned in Letter from Spain #8) and which is based on true events. Following a very enjoyable meeting with Albert at the hotel at the end of July, the event is planned to be about ‘The Dalí Connection’ to the hotel and, of course, the book! More details about these events will follow in due course …

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 ISBNnumber: 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 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 worldwide, in both formats. You can also 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.

As with previous posts showing images and locations that form part of the research I carried out for The Barcelona Connection novel (above), I am also planning to publish an archive of photos here of Madrid that relate to many chapters in ‘A Load of Bull’ - although it will take time! In Letter from Spain #52, I cover Chapter 1 - the Centro Colón aparthotel (entrance) Watch this space for further images …

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.

Contact Details

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

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