Spain
Friend of Elizabethan exiles: the colourful life of Jane Dormer
Thomas Cromwell’s biographer Diarmaid MacCulloch once told me that my father’s family, the Dormers, had been servants of the great…
Spain's shift towards the radical right
Yesterday’s snap election in Castile-León, one of the 17 regional autonomies into which Spain is divided, was another excellent day…
Can Spain save its dying villages?
In a little village on the Spanish Meseta, I once asked an old lady about the next village some three…
Vega Sicilia: the best Spanish wine I have ever tasted
Four hundred and fifty years ago this month, a great victory helped to safeguard European civilisation. The battle of Lepanto…
Bullfighting and the fight for Spain’s future
Being sanctimonious about foreigners and their cruelty to animals has long been a British tradition. The taste for dog meat…
Spain's growing culture war over General Franco
There are hundreds of mass graves dotted around the Spanish countryside. In roadside ditches, down hillside gullies, dumped in pits…
Sweet and sour: Barcelona Dreaming, by Rupert Thomson, reviewed
I’ve never been to Barcelona, but Rupert Thomson makes it feel like an old friend. The hot, airless nights and…
Spain's pardoning of Catalan separatists may backfire
In one of his adventures on the highways of 17th-century Spain, Don Quixote encounters a gang of prisoners ‘manacled and…
Is this a new dawn for the Spanish right?
In Tuesday’s regional elections in Madrid, the right-wing Partido Popular emerged as by far the most successful party, more than…
Can Spain's Europhilism last?
‘Suppose a man be carried, whilst fast asleep, into a room where there is a person he longs to see…
Spain's anarchists are rioting
Michael Bakunin, the 19th century revolutionary Russian anarchist, identified Spain as the place where his creed was most likely to…
Catalonia’s grievance culture
‘Scotland,’ declared the Times in 1856, is ‘manifestly a country in want of a grievance.’ The same could be said…
Can Spain's faith in the EU survive Covid?
According to ancient Moorish legend, when the world was created each land was given five wishes. Spain’s first four wishes…
Spain's transgender wars are turning nasty
Lidia Falcón O’Neill is a legendary figure in Spanish politics. Half a century ago, she stood up to Franco as head of…
Will Spain’s nation of rogues comply with the curfew?
A few years ago, when I was in the queue to catch a plane, a Spanish lady caught me watching…
The lockdown battle of Marseilles is a warning for Boris
From the vantage point of Downing Street, Boris Johnson may feel reassured that the further measures against Covid-19 he imposed…
The finest Rioja in all of Spain
It had been a long and no doubt fractious sea voyage. The crew would have signed up for a variety…
Does Catalonia really want independence?
In 1714, after a long siege, Spain managed to regain control of Barcelona after the War of Spanish Succession. Catalan…
Why poetry matters
Juan Carlos, ex-King of Spain, behaved foolishly in relation to money and sex, and so his decision to leave Spain…
Can Boris avoid a winter lockdown?
As the government struggled on Saturday with the question of whether to impose a quarantine on those returning from Spain,…
Portrait of the week: Second wave fears, cash for cyclists and a cat catches Covid
Home At a few hours’ notice, the government removed Spain from the list of countries from which it was possible…
The Spanish approach to face masks
We self-critical British should never forget that other nations are pretty crazy too. I write this from Andalusia, Spain; and…
Joyous and very, very funny: Beastie Boys Story reviewed
The music of the Beastie Boys was entirely an expression of their personalities, a chance to delightedly splurge out on…
Covid statistics are just politics by other means
Statistics is the continuation of politics by other means, to misquote Clausewitz. One hundred and fifty years after the crushing…
Spain's fiendishly complex rules for easing the lockdown
Once upon a time, when travel was still allowed, I checked into a small hotel in back-of-beyond Extremadura, in South-West…
