Bocadillo or Sandwich to you and me

michaelgcasey Uncategorized 23/02/2019 4 Minutes

Bocadillo or Sandwich to you and me ©
By
Michael Casey

I’m listening to JM Jarre as I talk to you, Souvenir of China has just played, which is a sad piece and in my mind I could use it when Big Sid is “dead” and transported away from Dudley Rd hospital to the  undertakers. I can picture what will happen and how it will look, all I have to do is write it all down. Then the miracle of getting a producer to turn Tears for a Butcher into a film or a tv series. So much Hope, or is it self delusion? Well if Guatemala can be reading The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker today in Spanish translation, and a Russian translation being read in Kazakhstan who knows what the Future might bring.

Are you hungry after all that? I am, so lets talk bocadillos, I know you all think I talk a load of old bocadillos already, but as my Guatemala readers will tell you a bocadillo means sandwich. So go Google, better still go make your own bocadillo with a few cervezas, or beers. Its a long time since the Spanish exam so forgive the bad Spanish. You normally can speak 4 times more than you can write. Oh, and don’t forget me, I’ll have a beer and a sandwich too, just leave it next to the screen, just as you leave something for Santa.

Ok now that we are all ready let’s talk bocadillos. As a child I used to get a big mug and mix cocoa milk and sugar in it, then I dipped sliced white bread into it. All the varieties of bread did not exist when I grew up, or we didn’t think to buy them, 1960s I talking of. I was left with a clown’s smile in cocoa all over my mouth and face as I enjoyed dunking the folded white bread into the cocoa. Try it for yourself if you have never done it before. You can put photos on Facebook, and tell everybody it was the fat silver haired writer in shades from Birmingham’s idea.

When we went on a family Pilgrimage to Lourdes in 1966 we did not like the French food in hotel Biarritz, so dad had to improvise. So we bought baguettes and bananas and made banana bocadillos for all 8 of us, we 6 kids were aged 16 to 3 at the time. Then we got lost and my biggest brother in his Joe 90 glasses said, “ou est hotel Biarritz” to everybody. A couple of years later he had gold octagonal glasses and long hair, was it even in an Afro, and he was at Queens Oxford studying Modern Languages.

1999 in the February, so that’s 20 years ago I decided to go to Spain. I had been relearning my Spanish, just 15 mins a day but every day for 4 months prior to going and guess what, it worked. I did nearly mix up blue and yellow, and nearly caught the wrong bus to Barcelona but I corrected myself in time. So I was in the middle of Barcelona asking people “donde esta hotel Paral Lel” Just as stupidly as my brother in Lourdes 33 years previously.

Though my Spanish was better than his French was in 1966, I had am better trick up my sleeve. “ Me llamo Miguel, audarme” So this little old lady and her friend helped me. Because her son’s name was Miguel too. They took me up Las Ramblas and showed me which metro to take. I also told them I was hungry too, all in Spanish so they took me into a Tapas bar, and said Feed this Man.

And that is how I was introduced to Tapas and Bocadillos in a bar in Barcelona. For which I will be eternally grateful. In actually fact every day I went to the same Tapas bar.  “Otra Vez” was what they said when I turned up.  I might be on the other side of Barcelona, I’d look at my watch and say “Tapas” then jump on the metro, so I could have my dinner in a nice place. It really was a great holiday. I bought a leather jacket which I still have, and I still fit in it, again. I also have a Writer’s style briefcase which I still have. I also saw the Russian ballet in Barcelona too.

My holiday there was a bocadillo in itself, a sandwich of tasty events, I even met a pretty girl at the Tapas bar. I struggled to hold a full conversation. At the end she said in English, it was good for me to use Spanish. She’d been to England, the South coast, it may have been Bournemouth, was there a failed romance too, I cannot remember much more. She was elegantly dressed with her coat neatly folded on her lap hiding her beautiful legs. And yes that was my last holiday before wife and family appeared like a star in the East, from Shanghai.

So make sure your own life is a bocadillo, on the outside simple, like bread, but inside full of a variety of tastes and adventures. Make sure you have wine or milk to wash it down with. Then you’ll be able to bore all your friends with your stories 20 years later, or is that what only Michael Casey the fat silver haired writer in shades from Birmingham does? Hasta Luego, hasta entonces. Miguelito.
Translations
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