Have Beer, Will Sail

Custo of Barcelona has designed a very eye catching sail for the boat that's going to take part in the next Regatta World Race, coinciding and celebrating the 134th anniversary of the popular beer Estrella Damm. The Catalan designer Custo Dalmau has already designed a new packaging for this beer, a aluminum monoblock to commemorate the event, as well as the hull and a beautiful sail, with vivid floral motifs, almost 3D, that stand out on the flaming red background. The design is a homage to ecology according to the firm. I know next to nothing about boats. But I do love looking at their beautiful sails. This one is quite modern and outstanding don't you think? Tags:Estrella-Damm,Sail

Current Mood: Artistic

Best Friends

I was talking to a friend who said he had spent the whole day yesterday visiting several apartments in Barcelona. To that I inquired whether he was considering moving from Roses to the big city.

"Oh no, leaving Roses where there are beautiful beaches, mountains nearby, peace and quiet in winter, colourful and fun in summer, for the city of concrete jungle?" he replied. Naturally I asked why then he should be looking at so many apartments there in the jungle. To cure or alleviate his depression he said! What a curious idea!!

He has been depressed for some time, feeling lonely since his partner (also male) died more than a year ago, and felt that he was not taken seriously by people nor respected. Going around looking at apartments was just something to do, to pass a couple of hours, chatting to people and being treated with courtesy and driven around like you are someone important. Well a potential buyer of property today is considered important when money is tight in that particular sector and generally.

From that point he launched his rather strange theory that, these days, the estate agents are the best friends one can have. Before the economic crisis you are just a chance customer, now with the property market having been hit the worst, the estate agents receive every new client with extra effort to being polite and pleasant. They welcome you with a big smile from ear to ear, offer you coffee, agree with everything you say, and compliment your good taste even if you turn up wearing torn jeans. They make the best friends he insisted.

Best friends. Two people both act under false pretences for personal gains,

Tags:bestfriends,estateagent

Current Mood: Blah

Landing On The Goddess

What was that round disc of light in the night sky, that controlled the dark and light and regulated the fertility cycle? The Goddess, thought the ancient and the Chinese. The magicians use it to turn out magic, the poets to compose verses, and the novelist to imagine travels and love stories. And all these gave place to the historic non fiction on the 21st of July in 1969, when Neil Armstrong came down the steps of his vehicle, and became the first man that had walked on the Goddess. That was 44 years ago.

During these 44 years of space exploration, brilliant stories and technical advancement had been written and recorded, but nothing has touched the same impact of that Apollo 11, commanded by Armstrong in the personal or collective imagination. The live transmission of that moon walk of the astronaut broke all the previous viewing records in the history of television, including that of the Beatles's performance in the Ed Sullivan show. The conversation of Richard Nixon with Armstrong was the most historic call that had ever came out of the White House, according to the president himself, and he added: " I hope that's not going to be put on my bill."

The account is now precisely the problem. Space exploration is dangerous, human life is always too high a price to pay, and some terrible accidents contributed to put on the brake to the manned space mission. But economy was the main reason that in the last manned operation to the moon in 1972, the race with the Russians recent years, justified with conceit the political strategy of NASA that evaporated in 1974, when the then Soviet Union cancelled the programme of manned missions to the moon with which they had intended to surpass Armstrong.

But the NASA is already deep in the project of sending out 4 astronauts in 2018, and the scientists do not consider impossible establishing future colonies in the moon. Nor do they consider the cost prohibitive because it's based on local resources. The rocks in the moon, for instance, contains 40% oxygen.

Men will return to the moon and some day might even to stay. It's a matter of time ... and of money.

Tags:moonwalk,goddess

Current Mood: Awake

Analysis Of The Paella

This morning an American couple in my regular Cafe haunt had some difficulty getting the waiter to understand what they wanted, which was 'bacon with double eggs, sunny side up', so I helped with the translation. Our tables were right next to one another, so after expressing their gratitude and my 'Don't mention it', we got to chat a little. They said they were surprised how the Spanish could make a foreign dish, like what they had ordered (bacon & egg a foreign dish? I thought it was universal these days) so well, yet the Paella, 'the national dish (national?) they had the night before, was so terrible. With their description, I understood that the Paella was too 'wet', the seafood was too 'hard' (overdone they meant I am sure), and the mixing of meat and vegetable together was 'disgusting'.

I regard the mixing of meat and certain vegetable in the Paella as wonderful, but agreed that few restaurants, very unfortunately, do it properly if not downright terrible and disgusting as they had put it. To start with, why every foreigner regards the Paella as a national dish of Spain is something that had intrigued me for years. Spain has many good regional dishes as well as many adapted international ones. Paella originally came from Valencia but it's popularity had encouraged all other regions to put that on the menu. No more a national dish the sweet & sour pork in China, nor shepherd's pie a national dish of Ireland. True It's certainly the dish almost every visitor orders as soon as they touch the Spanish soil.

It's undoubtedly a tasty dish, well balanced nutritionally and, when done well (different from well done, which would make the seafood like leather), it's just wonderful. The composition is most positive health and nutrition-wise: rice, green beans or peas, king pawns and mussels, optional addition like chicken, rabbit or lean pork ribs; or all of them together (my favourite) This combination offers nearly all that one needs of a well balanced diet, with the right proportions of carbohydrates, protein, vitamins, and certain fibre for roughage and pure virgin olive oil, none of the saturated fat.

It's therefore an energetic and nutritional food, all in one complete dish. Like every other food considered good for health, we have to remember of course the mistake of 'the more the better' self deceiving greed to overeat. The downside is that it's so delicious it's hard indeed not to overindulge.

Tags:paella

Current Mood: Accomplished