Just if you want to know what kind of dirty words I’m teaching to my fellow Catalans.

This week you’ll love it. It’s about “No Worries, mate!“

Another post about this bloody Catalan shit, you might think, but it’s just that I can’t help it! I’m not very into politics neither sports here in Australia or Brissie, so the only thing I can do at the moment is to show you part of my baggage and later I’ll talk about aussie staff…

And no, I haven’t written anything yet about that damn article about queenslander-style houses that I promised you weeks or months ago.

But anyway, I just want to announce you that I’m spreading aussie culture around Catalonia through a friend’s blog about english lessons and I’ve written about Aussie English. A completely different language here down under from English, sometimes

Yes, this blog is written in Catalan as well, but I think its fair sharing this with you.

Here you can go to the first entry I’ve written in the blog.

Pere couldn’t believe what was he living at the moment. There he was: just landed in Madrid, at Moncloa’s press room and chatting with a corrillo of veteran journalists with the State Secretary of Communication, Félix Monteira. Certainly, he has been very lucky. The titular correspondent of the radio station was sick and the politics editor found him in the kitchen of the office and state him “I need somebody to go to Madrid now. How you feel about that?” At first, he was frozen. He didn’t knew what to answer. At last he was able to articulate “Yes, I suppose. Yes, sure. What’s the beef?”

“Zapatero has convened a press conference to talk about the crisis. Seems that there will be some important news and the bastard of Robert just had the great occurrence to become sick. Talk to Eva to find the tickets and a taxi to go to the damn airport. Once you’ll be there we’ll talk”.

The rest of the events appeared to him like a soundless movie where the actors were moving on a syncopated way. He grabbed the tickets (and an envelope with €500 for expenditures) and get into the first taxi at the same time he shouted “to the airport!”, to reach the terminal just at time to catch the noon Air Shuttle flight.  The call for the press conference was at 5pm, so he was plenty of time. During the flight he reviewed the last events, ordered his ideas and took some notes about the key questions he would like to make, in case he could make any. His head was like a boiling pot. He knew it was a unique opportunity  to convince the director of the radio station to hire him in as an intern: with a bit of luck he will earn till €800 neat monthly and be able to help at home, where the situation was not good at all. His dad was fired four years ago from the automobile factory at 52 years old and since then he only could achieved a couple of jobs payed cash in hand. His mom had to begin as a cleaner when the compensation (his dad did still earned 45 days for every year worked, a number he won’t be able to aspire never ever after the penultimate laboral reform) started to fly away. The biggest worry at home now was mortgage. How his parents could ever started a change of household near their 60s? How they could be cheated for that real estate agent from the Santander bank who assured them that with the benefits they could change their dark apartment in the Sants neighborhood to that sunny duplex in Poblenou?  The 10-year mortgage (now they were paying €900 but the quota reached until €1.200) was heavier as a marble slab. His dad had to sold a ceramic collection reunited after a whole life spend in fairs and markets of all Europe. That day, he will never forget, his dad weeped bitterly in his room while promising himself to struggle to death to recover part of the collection. After a certain time, his dad will confess him with tears on the eyes that was cheated by a supposed expert on antiques who offered him a very inferior price to the market established, and this just finished to drown him. Actually, yesterday he went to visit his dad to the hospital, on his third admission with an angina pectoris starting. Antidepressants only hurt him, but without them was completely unable to wake up every morning and face reality. Thank god mom was standing. Without her all the familiar building would be down time ago. His older sister saw all the drama coming and when she had a chance, she left to Germany for an Erasmus and settled there. In the last three years they only have seen her for Christmas. This exile was only more fuel for dad’s depression and he became the last hope, the only one able to redeem a family that time ago travelled around Europe with a camper (at last, they had to undersell it by the Internet) and that never missed anything. Lastly he wasn’t hangin’ out so often with his friends to fill the fridge, and in the radio he became the King of the Tupperwares. About clothing, he only bought when it was sales. He was lucky because in the radio he could take some books from time to time, and some CDs, and with a little bit more of luck some tickets for live concerts.

Suddenly, the corrillo melted down. Monteira went to the first row, and he just stared to the hall, looking how the totems of Madrid journalism, earning astronomical wages, took their pens off from their pockets. When he saw Zapatero, he couldn’t help thinking “Crisis is doing no good to this man. Look at his face!”.

But today I visited a website of a book written in english about Catalonia. Of course, targeted mainly to foreigner people. But guess what, they don’t sell the book online! And the tour presentation of the book is mainly within Catalonia! Is like writing a tourist guide of Brisbane and sell it to the same Brisbanites. Well, yes, I usually bought a couple of tourist guides of Barcelona as well, but it was for professional affairs (and is something to be aware of, some of this kind of guides lie like Jim Carrey in “Liar Liar” about history and why the places to visit are places to visit… For not to mention the restaurants to go).

Anyway, the book is called, as the title of this post “What Catalans Want“ and it went to my attention because is another sample of how we Catalans are: we want international recognition, but we don’t have any idea on how to do it and sometimes this brings to this kind of situations were a book in english targeted to non-Catalan people is bought basically by Catalan people. In Catalonia this is called “being more popeist than the same Pope”. Or even chauvinist.

Maybe the excuse of this kind of behaviour is that Catalonia is still not a proper state, and there is a lot of people who grip to that excuse to achieve anything related to Catalonia if it was the last memorabilia available in the whole world. Obviously, this is not the way. Look at the Scots, they are closer to have their own state rather than we are, and with the good look of the British Parliament! (something unthinkable with the Catalan case!).

Anyway, my point of view is that if you are doing something for the foreigner market, instead of encouraging the sells of the product with advertisings and banners of the style: “buy it for the friend who came with an Erasmus scholarship and left still thinking that he was in Spain” (this really happens and is very sad, actually), encourage directly the sells of your product to the foreigner market! For God’s sake, send a copy to the NY Times or to the Courier Mail (er, no, better don’t send it there. They are quite worried right now with all the Murdoch’s Hackgate affair) or the Sydney Morning Herald for a review! Sell on the Internet, instead of the traditional bookshops! Go to Amazon! To iTunes Store! The book version for Kindle is not enough, yet!

And if you don’t have any money with that, it is no excuse! You can always make a video with some grace and hang it on Youtube! Look at the people from Ok Go: their two videoclips that made them famous cost them no more than US $50 both! (the price for the videotapes).

Ok Go – A Million Ways to Be Cruel

Ok Go – Here It Comes Again

Who says you can’t make something like this for your product? Oh, come on! If the most crowded lip-dub ever was a catalan pro-independence one, you can do something as well!

Lip Dup per la Independència. Obrint Pas – La Flama

As I say to my friends when they want to be notorious or want to promote anything: Make your time and money worth!

This is a band from Barcelona, fellas of mine, called Los Rotos. And they do good Rock and Roll. Yes, in Spanish. So what?

This is the new single of their new EP “Rojo” and is called “Retorica II”

Enjoy!

For further information about the band you can always visit www.losrotos.com

Because I like Rugby Union more than Rugby League.

No offences for those NRL fans, I do like Rugby League as well, but I just prefer Rugby Union because it has real contact. Yes, it’s true, there is not a serious, massive or popular Rugby Union competition in Spain, as the main sport is real football, that you call, mistakenly “soccer”. But in Catalonia Rugby Union has its fans, and in Northern Catalonia (the French part) the USAP from Perpignan is one of the best Rugby Union teams in the French league. And guess what, the Catalan Rugby Federation was one of the founder members of FIRA-AER, although since the Francoism this honour has fallen to the Spanish Rugby Federation. Several attempts to restore the Catalan Federation as a founder member (so as well as a full member) have been done several times unsuccessfully. Shame on all of them.

So, for these and much more reasons, tonight I’ll be very very very happy if Queensland Reds will win the SuperRugby Final vs the Crusaders.

WE ARE RED!

Well, now that you know who am I, I’m going to explain you what is going to be this blog. Of course it is going to be about my point of view about Australians! And very particularly about Queenslanders. And if we have to go deeper, about Brisbanites. Yes, let’s face it. Brisbane is not the most exciting city in the world, but it have a lot of wonders, as well. It is impossible to see this green in any way in Barcelona. Or something too easy as going in a ferry through the river as a public transportation… Well, of course in Barcelona we don’t have a river like the Brisbane. But going to uni by ferry is pretty cool! Looking at the stars by night in the inner suburbs is something unthinkable in all the metropolitan area, as well.

Brisbane has its pros, and its cons, as like other city in the world. And Australia as well, so one of the goals of this blog (if it happens, I shave my head) is to connect this two cultures, pretty similar (because we are “civilised” western countries blah blah blah) but in other ways we are light ages one from each other.

Let’s face it! There are not a lot of catalans in Brisbane! And if there are more than the ones of my acquaintance, another goal of this blog is “fer pinya”, that in catalan means “doing pineapple”… Yes, we catalans are nuts.

So, as a starter for this intercultural exchange. This is something you aussies got to learn to do from catalans.

Castells.

And this is something I really enjoyed yesterday night. Queenslander! Queenslander!

Cheers!