Letter from Spain #56

'Casing the Prado Museum' and not getting arrested ...

I was half-expecting to be detained and questioned in Madrid, but I’m posting this short letter (if the WiFi holds) on the train back towards Barcelona - and so fortunately it didn’t happen.

Anyone who’s followed the links to previous posts below will know that I took my research very seriously in writing The Barcelona Connection - and it will be the same for the sequel I’m now working on, The Madrid Connection.

In between meetings in Madrid since I arrived there last Wednesday afternoon, and a wonderful book event on the Friday evening (see below), I also spent my free time clocking up an average of 20,000 steps a day just wandering the streets to research different barrios and key locations for the next book (OK, as well as enjoying many tapas and cañitas with a good friend).

In order to be able to write about somewhere, I feel you have to have been there - if you can. You have to have seen it, heard it, felt it and smelt it - at least that works for me. I’m hoping to get over to Madrid much more over the coming months to do more seeing, hearing, feeling and smelling. On this trip, I also got to see that Almodóvar exhibition I mentioned a couple of weeks ago (also see below).

Anyway - why was I half-expecting to be detained and questioned?

Many years ago, when I used to live in the Calle Lope de Vega opposite the Prado Museum (plug: A Load of Bull - An Englishman’s Adventures in Madrid), I used to visit the museum regularly, not just to enjoy the art but to also plot how to rob the museum. For fictional reasons, not for real. I’m talking about the years 1988-1992 … so once again, that’s how long I’ve had the idea for a specific sub-plot for this next book.

Back in those days, Goya’s Tres de Mayo masterpiece was in Room 39 on the first floor, just above the Murillo Entrance and where there’s a large balcony facing the city’s Botanical Gardens. There were no metal bars or grills on the large windows looking out to the balcony, and it would have been easy enough to get the painting out that way - and I even videoed the room many years ago, before a guard told me off.

Fast forward to me now writing The Madrid Connection and no, it’s not Goya’s Tres de Mayo that interests me - they’ve moved it from Room 39, anyway - and it’s not actually Room 39 that interests me anymore, either - it’s Rooms 5 and 6, and sometimes it’s been Room 7A - and it’s a different painting altogether, but I can’t tell you which one.

I’ve now been to Rooms 5-7 three times, on three separate visits. Last year, with Juliane, I made detailed notes on the Floor Plan of the museum of where each CCTV camera is positioned (and other elements), and the blind spots on a specific staircase that leads to the galleries on the floor below, Rooms 51C & 51B - and 58 & 58A (the Medieval ‘stuff’).

I’m mad, I know. Juliane told me. Last year, she almost walked out of the museum as she was so embarrassed when I started shouting things excitedly, like, ‘Look! We can get the painting out via this window …’ She was seriously expecting a guard to ask what the hell I was doing. I had that same sensation when I did the same ‘casing the joint’ on Friday morning, this time alone. But so far I’ve got away with it …

To be honest, I’ve emailed the press and communications department of the museum several times asking for a meeting and, if possible, some time with the head of security for ‘research on a book’, but so far they’ve never replied. So I’ll just have to keep sneaking in and out myself, making notes and taking photos, until they tell me to stop.

If the Italian Embassy in Madrid check their CCTV cameras then they’ll also see images of an Englishman slowly walking several times around the perimeter of their ‘palace’ on Sunday, just after noon, making detailed notes and taking photos of the security camera positions on the railings along the streets of Velázquez, Juan Bravo, Lagasca and Padilla. It’s another sub-plot in the book.

And then I also turned up uninvited at the Consejo Superior de Deportes government building in the Ciudad Universitaria area of the city and asked for an appointment, only to be told (and which I expected) that I would need to apply for one ‘online’ - all because I wanted to know how Elena Carmona will feel when she makes her way over there and demands the same thing in The Madrid Connection …

Here are some images that I grabbed at the Prado on this latest visit. More soon …

Almodóvar Exhibition

The ‘Madrid, chica Almodóvar’ (‘Madrid, Almodovar Girl’) exhibition that I mentioned a couple of weeks ago is well worth seeing, if you are an Almodóvar fan. There’s almost too much to take in, though - some 270 locations across Madrid from all his films, on a map that you can purchase at the Ocho y Media cinema bookshop just off the Plaza de España. There’s also a shorter map/version online that you can download, I think.

Very near the exhibition venue of the Conde Duque cultural centre, I then came across the Café Moderna in Plaza de las Comendadores (see images below) The plaza has a significant history from the Franco era and so it was apt for Almodóvar to use it for several scenes in Madres Paralelas (Parallel Mothers) which deals with people searching for family members who disappeared under Franco’s dictatorship.

And by chance, on another day I found myself on the steps between the Calle de Segovia to the Calle de Cañon Viejos - as seen in the film Los Abrazos Rotos (Broken Embraces), as well as the taberna ‘Rayuela’ in the Calle de la Morería near the top of the steps.

My pictures are those on the right in the images below. On the left are snaps I took from the Almodovar exhibition.

Books, Reviews, Research, News & Events

It was a sell out and a wonderful event on Friday 20 September at the brilliant Secret Kingdoms Bookshop in Madrid to celebrate the re-issue of ‘A Load of Bull - An Englishman’s Adventures in Madrid’ (see details of book below), and to also chat about The Barcelona Connection. With many, many thanks to David Price and Ann Louise Bateson and for all who made it along!

Forthcoming Events

The event at the Hotel Castell d’Empordà in La Bisbal d’Empordà (Catalonia), which is scheduled to be part of the hotel’s 25th anniversary, will now take place in April next year. 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. The event is planned to be about ‘The Dalí Connection’ to the hotel and, of course, the book! More details about this event 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

Thanks for reading Letter from Spain! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.