Wrafter Writes

Blue and deep red, blaugrana, the colours of the near-religious Barcelona FC football team.

Little kids as young as two are taught the team’s chant, an attractive ditty - and most certainly they come to recognise it before the airs of the national anthem, which isn’t necessarily revered in Catalunya.

So, with great pleasure, on the way back from the bakery this morning, buttered-croissant and barra-de-pan in hand, I heard the tune bounce up along one of the local alleyways, this at 10 in the morning, no drunken fan, this.

Ten-seconds later appeared, an old lady, plastic bags in both hands, though one hand also held a walking stick. The blaugrana lady she has become known, for every day she passes this way, and every day she sings the same song, and once she finishes, she starts again. She has a special thing for younger men, for she feels it’s from them she’ll get the most animated reaction, and she does. She gave me the eye today, her 65 year old eye, and I smiled back.  Long may she sing!

I received a wedding invitation today.

Ceremony in local town hall, and celebration afterwards in “Bar No Sweat”.

I wonder if they’re trying to tell us something?

I met a chap today, Valentí Feixas, who has a business, selling liquors. The company’s offline branding is fabulous. We spoke about his website, as I tend to do (saddo!) and he revealed that he had a domain name www dot a to z dot es. Meaning http://www.abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz.es/ - I was flabbergasted. I came home this evening and typed it in. Low-and-behold!

Via my wee web business wrafter.com allow me give you, my dearest readers of Wrafter Writes on markwrafter.com, the first ever preview of , something I’m hoping will causes some merriment and hub-bub in Barcelona. Those unfamiliar with “bicing” please scroll down and you’ll discover more. For the first public, yet oh-so-private, preview of the site-to-be, please go here: bicingTag.

The Irish would pronouncing it Bicing, with a ‘k’ sound on the c; but Barcelona City Council has decided it should be the ’s’ sounding version.

Regardless, what we’ve got here is a fantastic initiative. Website located here: www.bicing.com

Don’t think of this as bicycle hire per se, rather public transportation that happens to be a bicycle, and which is integrated into the existing metro, bus and tram public transportation system.

Users pay EUR6 per quarter year, and receive a card to their home address at the outset, with this card users can use any one of the Bicing “stations”.

On May 2nd 2007 there were 10,000 users of the service, and 50 stations; by May 16th, the number of users had increased to 20,000 - it’s ramping up fast, and I’ve encountered many new stations being built in the last week - the initial target for new stations is 100, which will cover the city.

The idea is this: you swipe your card, you get 30 mins, in these 30 minutes you are expected to get from A to B, this 30 minute period is included in your EUR6 per quarter; if you go beyond these 30 minutes it’s 30 cent per half-hour; and if you go beyond 2 hours, then you’re fined EUR3 per half-hour - because using Bicing for more than 2 hours goes beyond reasonable use - remember, think public transportation, not bicycle hire.

Bicycles are basic enough; but a light front and back turns on after dusk automatically; there are three gears on each bicycle, but unfortunately (and a bad oversight, I think), no helmet is provided. When a user wants to return their bicycle, two metal prongs at the front of the bicycle are inserted into reciprocal slots at the station, and the trip comes to an end.

An inspired idea, which is receiving full support from the city council. On a five-minute study in Placa Cataluyna last week six bicycles were taken, and three returned, all by users in the mid-20’s to mid-30’s age bracket.

Some possible problems however:

1. The bicycles already are showing wear and tear. I had to return THREE bicycles at one station last week because the front wheel on EACH was rubbing against the frame. Another had a saddle that kept slipping, and yet another had gears that slipped. Further, the underside of the saddle on every bicycle I’ve used (specifically the vertical bar), which you must hold to adjust the seating to your size, is coal-black and leaves a stain on the hand. In the first month of use, if the bicycles already have problems, then this will be a big thorn in the side of the maintenance crew.

2. In some stations, such as one near the beach at Barceloneta, the stations are often full - for example at 10am on a Saturday morning, when more people are going TO the beach than coming FROM the beach. That means if someone arrives to deposit a bicycle, and there is no space, they must find another station to return the bicycle - that’s not always gonna be easy, particularly if you don’t know where the other stations are. Conversely, sometimes there are no bicycles available to take, as I experienced at Portal de l’Angel yesterday.

3. Clear Channel are involved somehow. Their logo appears on the back of the saddle of each bicycle. They’re inconspicuous right now, but I don’t like Clear Channel, and I’m afraid how this relationship might develop.

4. Barcelona is trying, but there’s simply not enough bicycle lanes in the city centre yet, so users have to jostle for position amongst scooters, cars and buses - it’s not altogether safe.

But overall I commend the service; it’s enviro-friendly, it’s innovative, the branding is excellent, and the novelty factor is high. Plus it’s better being on a bicycle in the sun, than down the depths of the metro sweating in August.

Those of you in the know know that Google likes to put nice relevant search results at the top of its listings.

You’ll also know that businesses value getting to the top of Google.

Some might know that Google likes blogs. And Google pays attention to links appearing in good blogs that go to good, relevant sites, particularly good, relevant search-engine-optimised sites.

So that’s what I’m at here. Apologies for this, dear readers. But one has to pay for the bread and butter.

And one has to put relevant related keywords next to the link, in addition to being embedded in the link too, did you know that? See next line for this.

For excellent bespoke event management in Barcelona, where events are organisation and arranged in Catalunya, particularly in Barcelona, the capital of the region, which is famous for congresses and conventions, professional event management by Event Management Barcelona is a good option.

And there you go. Thanks for reading, perhaps you learned something, even!

I have great admiration for Barcelona City Council - they do great work, and really seem to care about the city and its people.

But they’ve made a huge bollix out of something this morning.

Cines Paris, in the cities main shopping thoroughfare of Porta de l’Angel has been ripped down.

For what purpose? ANOTHER ZARA - as if the city, the country, and Europe didn’t have enough of this sprawling chain.

Zara’s parent Inditex already owns most of the street with Often, Massimo Dutti (twice), Zara (twice already), Pull and Bear, Bershka and Oysho. Now they want a third Zara within 100 metres of each other. (They have 1,627 shops of various flavours in Spain today.)

And to make this third Zara, what did they do? They pulled down an attractive old cinema. See photos for a before and after.

I can live with there being another Zara, but I can’t condone their pulling down of the facade, could they have not been inventive, keep the facade, and build their shop into the existing structure. It may even have been an opportunity to do something very cool, keeping the existing screen intact, for example, and play old movies onto it in the middle of the retail space - what a lost opportunity!

In my after-shot taken within the last hour, note the number of people standing around looking at the construction site. This isn’t normal. People weren’t happy this morning, particularly the elderly, I spoke to one woman in her sixties who lamented that this is where she went when she was a young woman on her first night’s out in the city. Where are Barcelona’s plethora of hippies, objectors and okupa/squatters when you need them? Certainly not here, certainly not in the midst of this bloody mess, where they might have gained some popular support for their movements.

Shame. And shame on Zara.

Poor old Barca, the locals are really giving them a tough time.

White rags, papers and tissues were being waved through the stadium at the end of 90 minutes in the Camp Nou to show the fans had had enough, and were surrendering.

Betis - who really shouldn’t be troubling a team which boasts Ronaldinho, Deco, Eto’o, Edmilson, Messi - took a last-minute goal to even things up 1-1.

This aside, (thanks to a pair of VIP tickets from Grup Norte), with cava flowing pre and post game (no alcohol can be consumed during the game itself, a Barcelona rule), and beef albondigas and tuna empanadas served-up at a speedy rate, this was an altogether enjoyable affair!

In the changing room there are another set of rules.

And I don’t just mean the don’t-look-below-the-waistline-rule.

I’m a white-assed, freckle-endowed, non-muscular, burn-easy Irishman in Barcelona.

Today, having been at the pool, I found myself in the midst of a very busy male changing room, Catalan being spoken all around me, with a race of people who a) actually have summers where you can go to the >outdoor< pool; b) who have white-asses, sure, but who are already tanning deeply though it’s only early May; c) and who have grown up in swimming pool changing rooms, unlike me.

There’s an unhurried cool in Barcelona swimming pool changing rooms; and this contrasts wildly with my hurried-to-get-my-underwear-on style, one still-wet foot in the air, other foot balanced precariously atop a flipflop.

I realise I’m getting it all-wrong. I’m letting my shorts drip on an otherwise dry floor; my swimming attire was cool in 2005; I haven’t brought a hairbrush, nor skin moisturiser for that matter, nor a separate towel for my face. I’m an Irishman for God’s sake, we don’t DO that kind of thing.

It’s a cultural thing, tell me it is, it’s about the only comfort I can take. I wonder if another year, or ten, of post-pool Saturday-morning experiences will ever give me that natural changing room cool? Personally, I doubt it.

… and my silver lining today is that I’ve scored VIP tickets to the Barca FC Vs Betis game this weekend. Nice!
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