Free-D

I’ve never really had much time for local newspapers – my father used to pick his way through their grammatical errors and laughable style – so it has been a real eye-opener actually writing for one, however effortless my task might seem. There aren’t that many who are given carte blanche to write about anything they want not because of the quality of their insight but due to the simple fact that the editor doesn’t understand a word that’s been written. One of the few comments (and the only positive one) I’ve had on the recently established D-Gratis blog was from a reader who said he kept on reading though he didn’t understand “ni papa”. I’ve always liked the idea of being some mysterious literary icon whose work people find incomprehensible, like Joyce or Pynchon. Well, it may not be exactly the same but I’ll enjoy the fantasy whenever I can. At first I suppose I had some misguided pride in my writing and spent hours honing the passages down and finding something enlightening to say… but now like any mediocre hack, I seem to have grown complacent and cynical. The main priority is to meet the target number of words with the least effort possible before the deadline.

So, I ask myself, how has the world changed over the last four years: a new pope, a new prime minister, but the same mayor. No one had heard of Josef Ratzinger, Zapatero seemed like the perfectly decent leader of the opposition, Spain was part of the Coalition of the Willing, in an Iraq where Saddam Hussein was not only still alive, but also still on the run. In Britain, a sizeable minority still thought that Tony Blair was an honest kind of bloke. March 11th was a date like any other. July 7^th was too. Madrid’s Galactico’s were just about to become champions of La Liga and one David Beckham was discussing terms to join them. The Archives were still in Salamanca. The Boat still spoilt the view across the river. 500,000 empty houses hadn’t been built and prices were expensive rather outrageous. There was one less bridge and far fewer traffic jams. But at the end of the day, has anything changed that much for us ordinary folks?

By now my father would have exclaimed “Hogwash” and thrown the newspaper down in disgust. I know, I know. It is the vain labour of every so-called journalist to bear witness to events around him,  Salamanca history is as interesting as any other but after four years, I sometimes wonder is there anything all that interesting still left to say?