1. Tomorrow is the 65th anniversary of the end of the Spanish Civil War. Paul Preston is preparing a book called The Spanish Holocaust, to be published in 2005: in an El País interview today, he states that the mass graves in Iraq are no different from those in Spain and that "con la Guerra Civil, los historiadores tenemos trabajo para 50 o 100 años más". So much history yet to uncover. The interview includes the following overheated question, as the interviewer, presumably in search of a good quote, compares the alleged media manipulation following the bombings with Franco's denial that the Guernica bombings had taken place:

P. El 11-M y el manejo que hizo el Gobierno de Aznar de la información, ¿pueden leerse como un regreso a viejas prácticas de la derecha española que en su momento intentó incluso negar el bombardeo de Gernika?

Preston is quick to put the lid on such an irresponsible question. If there was media manipulation, he says, it has less to do with the Civil War and more to do with the cynicism and ambition of politicians:

Yo soy reacio a hacer comparaciones entre lo que ha sucedido recientemente y la Guerra Civil. Creo que hay que verlo en su propio contexto. Si hubo un intento de ocultar el origen verdadero del atentado y las atrocidades de Atocha, no se relacionan con la Guerra Civil, sino con el cinismo y la ambición de los políticos. Intentar sacar provecho de ese horror y ese dolor masivo es una indignidad.

Anyway, call it shameless pluggery if you will, but the contents of PdS's small-but-vital contribution to the issue of the war and its lengthy aftermath can be viewed here.

2. Anna Kisselgoff of the New York Times wrote back in 2001 that "At 18, Farruquito is already one of the great flamenco dancers of this new century", and I mentioned him on PdS blog after seeing him perform in Madrid, brilliantly, last year. His international star was on the rise: he's performed regularly in the U.S. But now he seems to have got himself into trouble. It's a slightly tawdry story which doesn't have much to do with the grace, dignity or passion which journos inevitably talk about when discussing him.
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This appealing phrase from a fine article by Mario Vargas Llosa in today's Guardian, originally published last week in El País. It includes a eulogy to Madrid, an explanation of why the city was the target for the bombings, and what MVL thinks the future holds for Spain (presumably, he doesn't agree with the election result). The print version of the story features a picture of something called the "Puerto del Sol" - not the first time I've seen that basic error made over the last few days. But that's nothing compared to some of the other-wordly pronunciations of "Leicester" which were doing the rounds on the Spanish media following the arrest of those three bad boy soccer players.

And - tentative link though it may be - while we're on translations of Spanish-language novelists into English, here's Javier Marías, in the Threepenny Review, writing interestingly (and unusually concisely) on the William Faulkner legend.
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Today there took place an extremely moving, dignified memorial service at Madrid's Almudena Cathedral for the victims of the bombing of 11th March. It was attended by the Spanish Royal Family, and by many visiting dignitaries, but not all the family members of the victims were present, apparently, since they felt, rightly or wrongly, that some of the dignitaries in attendance were to blame for the deaths (I heard one very bitter woman on the radio yesterday morning, telling the presenter Iñaki Gabilondo that on no account did she intend to go.) Some expressed their unhappiness, prior to the service, that it should be taking place in a Catholic cathedral. There was thus sorrow, but also anger. An extract from the homily of Archbishop Antonio Rouco Varela can be heard here.

Security, apparently, was very tight.

Update: an elegantly-written, thought-provoking report on the service, from Elizabeth Nash in The Independent, here.
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Make of this what you will, and everybody will, but El País reports today that the recently-elected José Luis Zapatero is planning to send 125 troops to Afghanistan, objective Al Qaeda, if the UN hasn't taken control of Iraq by June 30 and he fulfils his much-questioned promise to withdraw the Spanish troops. Such action would come with the backing of the UN, and is intended to show the PSOE's commitment to combatting terrorism.

Update: ... and if it's true, it may of course be the result of a behind-the-scenes deal struck with the U.S. to counterbalance the threatened removal of troops from Iraq. Just an interesting thought, suggested by my ex-student Victor.

For better or worse, the "blogosphere" (ugh) has been humming with matters Spanish recently, and FYI I've just come across a couple of lively links: A Fistful of Euros and Living in Europe.net.
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Breaking news: Four more arrests in Madrid, three of them in the Madrid neighbourhood of Lavapies. 14 arrests so far. I lived very near Lavapies for a long time, and mostly enjoyed it. It's definitely not good to see it coming up in such a context in news stories around the world.

Update: I've only just spotted this remarkable blog entry, already a few days old, at Pensamiento Radicales Eclécticos, where JR trawls the web for Stateside references to 11th March and finds, apparently, every opinion under the sun. Though many, it has to be said, are anti-Spanish.
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Pedro Almodóvar's been a bad boy over the last few days. First, he allegedly didn't turn up at the polling station where he'd been assigned to work on election day last Sunday (a legal obligation if you're called). Secondly, he suggested that at midnight last Saturday night, the Partido Popular was on the point of provoking a coup d'état (he has since apologized, claiming he was merely reporting a rumour). And thirdly, he has released his new film, La mala educación (Bad Education), whose release was greeted by a protests at his political opinions. BE supposedly deals with sexual abuse by Catholic priests, but is really just a very cleverly put-together piece of film noir. The abuse theme, which is the one getting all the tongues wagging, is touched on only fairly briefly, in fact, and never in the enquiring, emotionally gruelling way the theme actually deserves, as displayed in The Magdalene Sisters, for example. Don't get me wrong - I did like it, a lot. There's always something I like about an Almodovar film, as I hope my Variety review shows. But I'm getting increasingly weary of his visually beautiful treatments of morally unbeautiful things. Here are a few clips from the review, if you're interested. (I can't link to it, because it's a pay site.) Apologies for the rather odd Variety house style: "meller" means melodrama, "pic" means the film. And I won't give any of the plot away and spoil it (El Deseo, his production company, have been frantically asking journalists to give as little of the plot away as possible):

"Pedro Almodovar's long-gestated, instantly identifiable "Bad Education" welds autobiographical matter relating to his troubled religious education onto a classic noir structure, repping a generic shift from the classy, emotionally involving mellers that have dominated his recent output. Superbly orchestrated, visually impressive pic has the potential to extend Almodovar's offshore appeal beyond its already broad arthouse-to-crossover base. Pic has already presold to several major territories, including the U.S. (where Sony Classics plans a fall release [and is released in the UK at the end of May]). Following its Spanish bow March 19, pic opens the Cannes Film Festival in May... Almodovar aficionados will be reassured that most of his later stylistic hallmarks are present and correct: abundant pop-culture refs in the form of cheesy Italian pop songs, nods to classic movies (including "Double Indemnity" and "Breakfast at Tiffany's") and film posters; a brief trip to a pueblo, which contrasts with the slick urban setting of the rest of pic; games with identity and fiction vs. reality; and, as ever, truckloads of transvestites... In terms of plotting, "Education" is Almodovar's most ambitious project to date... The price the pic pays for the pleasing complexity of its plot is a lack of room for maneuvering characterization. One of the joys of Almodovar's movies has always been their offbeat, throwaway lines, or oblique, ironic glances; here, there are precious few of either. Humor, likewise, is scarce... the visual assault of dense, creamily rich colors and super-crisp light and shadow, always framed to perfection, feels at odds with the priests' squalid morality. A lengthy swimming pool sequence is erotic but emotionally barren, with an emphasis on beauty per se -- dripping buttocks, slo-mo bodies under water -- that's closer to pop videos... The shift away from melodrama leads to a loss of the emotional undertow visible in recent Almodovar pics like "Talk to Her" and "All About My Mother," with their grief-stricken, profoundly sympathetic protagonists. It's ironic that the most affecting moments are for the hateful but weak Father Manolo, as he struggles to control his inner conflict. Other characters are largely a gallery of self-seeking types..."

And so on. (Possibly another PdS Blog scoop, by the way - this is surely the first blogged English language review of the year's biggest Spanish film. A major moment in the history of journalism.) My favourite sentence of the review was actually edited out, as quite often happens: "Almodovar’s special gift, again evidenced here, is for creating worlds in which terrible things happen, but where you’d want to live anyway." Neither, by the way, am I responsible for the idea that an "emotional undertow" can be "visible". Everyone else will probably call BE a masterpiece - many people, especially abroad, where his reputation stands higher than it does at home - believed Talk to her was one. I don't think he's quite made a masterpiece yet. Maybe, God forbid, I'm slowly turning into a Spanish critic.
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I've put together a series of links, generally in English, on the horrific event of a week ago, the election last Sunday, and their aftermath. It's been a strange week: a student told me that she thought Madrid was in a kind of trance, which I thought was about right. The nation is currently split, quite dangerously, into two distinct camps with very little to say to each other. At the Complutense University, I gave one of the most intense classes of my life last week to a group of about thirty students, mostly Spaniards, some of whom were part of the protests the night before the elections. Many of them were unconditionally thrilled that Zapatero had been elected. They'd voted for the first time, and their vote had made a difference. On the other hand, there are the rather dour people who are saying that there were "two attacks" last week, one on Thursday and one on Sunday, which is quite simply in appalling bad taste. Or the taxi driver who was listening to the radio, just muttering to himself "joder, han jodido el país", as a presenter on the Onda Cero radio station assured us that with the election of the PSOE, there'd be "an end to debate and analysis" on the radio. Apropos of that, it should be fairly clear to all by now that the PSOE victory was not simply cowtowing to El Qaeda, as has widely been reported by much of the neoconservative press in America, where the military perspective dominates. It was also very much a protest against misinformation and media manipulation at home. But anyone who believes that media manipulation is over now that the PP is out should think again: it goes with the territory.

And then there was last night, St Patrick's, which was also the night of the Spanish cup final (Zaragoza beat Real Madrid 3-2, which cheered me up no end). I was playing guitar with an Irish band in the centre of Madrid. About half the people in the bar were watching us, and went respectfully silent as our singer did a fine version of "Danny Boy" in memory of the victims of the bombing. In the next room, the other half of the people carried on watching the football, cheering and groaning, heedless. That's another split: the people who are concerned, whatever their political perspective, about what's happening to Spain at the moment, and the millions - the 23% of people who didn't vote - who couldn't care either way as long as there's soccer on the TV. Or who, unforgivably, have already forgotten.

Anyway, those links:

A concise, clearly-organized and informative history of the day of the bombing and its aftermath. And the BBC, offering its usual wealth of perspectives.

The standard neo-con "appeasement" arguments, suggesting that last Sunday's vote was a vote for terrorism, are rehearsed here. And here, a nicely balanced argument from the other side.

An impassioned insider's view from the left wing by Spanish novelist and anti-war campaigner Almudena Grandes.

A warning against trying to make instant sense of the senseless.

Some bloggers and their threads. Calpundit reflects a range of opinions; Roger L. Simon and Beautiful Horizons blog from different sides of the political spectrum.

A series of powerful cartoons from around the world.

Brief reflections on the significance of technology for both the bombings and the anti-government protests. Technology as both threat and liberator.

A special Spanish-language site with many more links, to both blogs and official sites.

And lastly, some very moving biographies of the victims (in Spanish).
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The Guardian offers a good summary of the state of play at the moment.

Zapatero has called for all Spain's political parties to meet to develop a common strategy against terrorism. He has also reiterated his intention to remove Spanish troops from Iraq on June 30, referring to the war in Iraq as a "disaster which has only generated more disaster". When asked by a foreign journalist whether, when a terrorist attack changes an election result, it isn't a victory for terrorism, he replied that the foreign media should understand that in Spain, there was a desire for change.

Workers at the Efe press agency, the state TV channel RTVE and the local channel TeleMadrid have lodged official complaints about the "censura" y "manipulación" that their work was subjected to during coverage of the bombings and its aftermath. They are demanding resignations.

Kaleboel provides this link to El Mundo's guide to some of the figures who'll probably appear in the new government.
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On the one hand, the victors: the PSOE, led by new PM José Luis Zapatero, stressing, in an interview with Iñaki Gabilondo this morning, that Spain has voted for change and for peace, that young people have realized that their vote can make a difference, that he is prepared to take Spanish soldiers out of Iraq if necessary - this is where the international repercussions of the PSOE's defeat will be most strongly-felt - and that his mandate is going to be about dialogue, openness and democracy. On the other hand, the defeated Partido Popular, who must be in a state of shock and whose more hardline supporters suggest that this is a victory for Al Qaeda (or, if not AQ, then terrorism), that the PSOE's electoral victory shows terrorists that bombs can unseat a democratically-elected government. This may turn out to have been a defeat for José María Aznar which translated into a defeat for his party, not all of whose members were in favour of Spain's unqualified support for the U.S.

But it should be remembered that the PSOE's victory, though catalyzed by last Thursday's bombings, has also come as the result of many people's concern with the manner in which the PP has handled several recent political hot potatoes, particularly the Prestige oil spill, and its high-handedness with regard to its manipulation of the media, not least the state TV channel. (Apparently messages were sent to Spanish embassies following the bombing, telling them to report the bombings as the work of ETA rather than of Al Qaeda: the revelation of that particular fact was a further blow to the PP's electoral prospects.) Internal concerns, if you will. A month ago, Zapatero was not doing too badly in the polls, and though he never really looked like winning, to suggest that his election is purely the result of what happened last Thursday would not be correct for many of the Spaniards who voted for him yesterday. The PP actually lost less than a million votes: the PSOE has been partly elected on votes lost by the left-wing Izquierda Unida coalition, and partly on votes by people who did not vote last time around.

The reading that this election result has given a green light to terrorism generates the fear that it will encourage further pre-election attacks in other countries. Sadly, this will probably be the case - and it would probably also have been the case had the PP won yesterday's election. But I've seen it written in blogs that the Spanish electorate, therefore, are in some sense responsible for future deaths at the hands of terrorists (this is not something that would ever be said in Spain, and the people who say it are forgetting the support that the US has received from Spain's governing party thus far). This kind of reasoning gets us nowhere. Surely very few of the people who voted yesterday are pro-Al Qaeda, pro-ETA, pro-whatever. Quite the opposite. This, coming days after the worst massacre on Spanish soil since the Civil War, was presumably a vote against both war and terrorism, and against the circumstances in which war and terrorism flourish. It was a vote which said "something here's not right: let's use our democratic system to see whether a change wouldn't be better". It seems to me that, albeit in very particular circumstances, democracy has been exercised, pure and simple.
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These are intense days in Spain, even more so in Madrid than in the rest of the country. The nation is under a great deal of pressure, but it's bearing up well. The bloodiest massacre in Spain since the Civil War and its emotional fallout; the protests, involving some eight million people all over the country; the accusations; the not-knowing, and the political manipulation, on all sides, of the not-knowing; the impromptu meetings, accusing the government of being economical with the truth - it's not often that people here spontaneously take to the streets in protest - and the counter-accusations by the government that their behaviour was anti-democratic; the arrests of five people allegedly involved in the bombings; and now a general election, with what will probably be a very high turnout. The sun's shining, as though to encourage voters to do their duty as citizens - something all parties want. This times, voting feels like a meaningful exercise. All of a sudden, nobody really has any idea about which way it will go: Spain is also a nation in the balance. I predict a PP victory, but not by anything like the kind of margin they expected a few days ago. After all, a PSOE victory would be what the bombers, who have rapidly rewritten the agenda of these elections, were seeking. But if the PSOE do take it, then it will have been a spectacular turnaround, a victory which will have been gained on one issue alone - the fact that most Spaniards did not want to participate in the war in Iraq. Symbolically, a PSOE victory would thus represent a national declaration of Spain's belief in peace over violence. Intense days, indeed.

22.15, Spanish time: It's looking like a PSOE majority at the moment, with 85% of the votes in and the PSOE having 164 seats. This would mean that if they form a coalition with the CiU and can find a seat elsewhere, then Zapatero will be president. (They also have to try and stop their own party from falling to pieces before our eyes.) This means either that large numbers of people who weren't going to vote have voted PSOE (it's a high turnout), people have changed their voting intentions following Thursday's massacre, or simply that you can't trust the predictions (including mine!). It's an anti-government, anti-war and not pro-PSOE vote, and that should be remembered. But it's cataclysmic stuff, given the state of the Socialists a few years ago (and, some would say, today also). Anybody wishing for what will probably be more regular updates than I can manage this evening - I had a request for commentary from the US - could try the BBC site, or Iberian Notes, an English language blog from Barcelona with a right-wing perspective. In Spanish, El Mundo (for example) will keep you posted. It's amazing, really - pre-Thursday, you wouldn't have put money on this happening. But Thursday touched something deep in the fibre of the Spanish character, and Spain, apparently, has voted for change.

22:38: The Partido Popular is currently officially conceding defeat.

N.B: There are readers of PdS Blog who are Spanish, and who I'm sure would thank the considerable number of sympathizers who sent messages of support following the bombings of last Thursday. Luckily, José Luis Zapatero, Spain's new president, opened his victory speech with a minute of silence for the victims. I'm glad he did that. The shouting in the streets by his supporters, though understandable, seems a little obscene.
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Are where the victims were from.

Yesterday there was rain for the marches, today just grey skies. The hush which took hold of Madrid, normally the noisiest of cities, is starting to give way to the old babble. But not round Atocha, from where I've just returned from my Saturday walk with Marco. There, there's respectful, reflective silence: there are flowers, hundreds of candles, messages, the images of white hands, lookers-on, tears. In a way, the full power of what has happened has only just hit me: I've been busy, I haven't seen as much TV or heard as much radio as I'd have liked. And there journalists. A journalist quietly asks me whether I'm Spanish, and when I tell him no, he moves on, because it has to be Spaniards who speak. The flags are at half mast, the shop windows are full of messages of solidarity, there are black ribbons everywhere. They're selling T-shirts which say "Yesterday I lost 190 friends". The money obviously goes to the victims, but I'm I'm not sure about it - leave it for a few days more, at least.

The reaction of the nation has been remarkable and dignified, in terms of both spirit and organization. Spaniards aren't great planners, but they can think on their feet better than anyone. What hasn't been so dignified, in some of the things they've said and surely thought ahead of tomorrow's general elections, are the reactions of the politicians.

What I mean is this. ETA has denied responsibility, something it doesn't normally do if it is responsible. However, this significant fact was not mentioned by Ángel Acebes, the Minister of the Interior, in a press conference he gave a couple of minutes ago. (Neither, astonishingly, was this fact mentioned on the national 3 p.m. news, since La Primera (the main state TV channel) is well-known for being a government mouthpiece, as I mentioned in a post last Friday.) As I wrote two days ago, it's important because if it was ETA, then the PP will win the elections hands down. If it was Al Qaeda, then they might not. That's what it boils down to. So from the PP's point of view, even though it isn't known who did it, it's important, today, that the guilty party is generally perceived as having been ETA.

It's all just rather obvious to those with eyes to see.

Some say that it doesn't matter who did it, whether ETA, or Al Qaeda, or both, or whoever. That it's terrorism, and it must be eradicated, full stop. In terms of the victims of Thursday's attack, of course, it's tragically too late to matter who did it. But in terms of the future of Spain, surely it's crucial to know.

So many words. I wonder if any of them will be any good for anything?
***
Later: A wonderful letter from Carmen, written yesterday, offering a Spanish perspective. She's allowed me to use this on the blog. She dislikes the political turn it's all taken so soon.

Jonathan,

Como ya te adelanté ayer, yo y los míos estamos bien, cuando bien significa estar vivo y no ser uno de los 1000 y pico heridos. Ayer algunos de nuestros alumnos no llegaron a la universidad y venían de las zonas afectadas, esperemos que fuera porque no pudieran llegar a coger el tren. Por lo demás, estamos, como todo el mundo, sacudidos [shaken] por esta masacre, y tratando, como todos, de asimilarlo. Uno de los trenes era el que cogen mis suegros [parents-in-law] todos los días para bajar desde Alcalá de Henares a Madrid, y tengo amigos que también suelen desplazarse en esa línea... Ayer, por casualidad, mis suegros estaban de vacaciones y mis amigos fueron a trabajar en coche. Creo que ayer todos los que vivimos en Madrid hemos estado demasiado cerca de todo esto, o es que no se podía estar lo bastante lejos, y mira que Madrid es grande... Precisamente estuve todo el día acordándome del 11-S, que a mí me cogió en [which happened when I was in] Estados Unidos, en Boston, y he revivido las sensaciones de impotencia, de rabia [anger] y de caos de entonces y que ahora, maldita sea [damn it], se repiten aquí.

Lo que más me impresionó ayer, además de las concentraciones silenciosas, era el silencio que había en todo Madrid. Pasado el caos de la primera hora, apenas había [there were hardly any] coches en la calle, y la poca gente que había en la calle andaba mucho más despacio y como apesadumbrada [heavyheartedly], y no se hablaba, o sólo en voz baja. Ayer, a las 8 menos algo, hemos visto lo peor a lo que puede llegar el ser humano, pero luego se han repetido gestos de generosidad y de entrega [commitment] que demuestran que también hay mucha bondad y solidaridad dentro de nosotros. Han tenido que pedir a la gente que no fueran ya a donar más sangre porque estaban saturados (yo, pese a que sabía que por peso no me iban a dejar, me acerqué a intentarlo a la puerta del Sol, y el silencio, con toda la gente que había allí, daba incluso miedo). Hay historias de personas trasladando heridos [the wounded] en sus coches a los hospitales, de vecinos ofreciendo sus casas y bajando mantas, toallas [towels], o cualquier cosa con la que pudieran auxiliar. . Tengo una amiga enfermera que lleva ya 20 horas trabajando como voluntaria, primero en uno de los hospitales de campaña que instalaron en Atocha y durante toda la noche en IFEMA [where the temporary morgue was set up], y como ella cientos de personas. Ahora mismo, mientras leo las noticias, trato de centrarme en [concentrate on] esos gestos hermosos y humanos, que compensen un poco la barbarie asesina de hace 24 horas.

Un fuerte abrazo para ti y todos tus seres queridos [loved ones]. Seguro que estos días estaremos juntos todos los que creemos que se puede vivir en un mundo en paz y mejor.
***
Later (20:40): Five arrests were made several minutes ago.

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Nothing else matters today. The grief is palpable. Bombs on trains coming into Madrid this morning killed 62 people, perhaps more. We live close to Atocha, which was the focal point of the attack. Everyone's busy but nobody knows what to do, in the temporary limbo this kind of thing causes, the shock that paralyses you. Many are heading for hospitals to give blood, to make up for the blood that has been lost. But I don't think they've provoked terror in Spain at large. Anger, sorrow and shock, yes. And solidarity against them, of course. Lots of solidarity. So, whatever it was that they thought they were trying to achieve by this, then they've failed miserably.

Later: this terrible day continues as night falls. I just walked up the hill to Atocha, and life is carrying on, as it must, but obviously there's talk of little else on the streets, even in the playgrounds as parents push their children in swings and wonder what sort of world they're handing over to them. You say "buenos días", and people reply "no son tan buenos". Outrage and grief are what it comes down to, and everything is strangely muted. The protests throughout Spain have begun, and there'll be more. Foreign press coverage is unprecedented - they only really wake up when its either bombs or Beckham - and Irish national radio rang me to ask if I can offer them a little political analysis, but I've only been able to keep up with it intermittently through the day, and feel I have to say no to them. The aim of the attack was that the Atocha train should enter the station and then explode, taking the station with it, which would have meant even greater loss of life, and which brings it even closer, since my wife was due to travel from Atocha to Seville at 4pm this afternoon. The TV images are appalling, heartbreaking, like images of the aftermath of a battle, and as ever the media are intruding on grief in the absence of facts. People tell the TV cameras that they haven't seen their relatives since the early hours of this morning, and some of them cross the city hopelessly from hospital to hospital in search of their loved ones: it's all horribly familiar from two and a half years ago. (And precisely six months separates a 3/11 from a 9/11.) People travelling into the centre for work or study, it was: people from the south of Madrid, from the poorer suburbs, which have regularly been targeted by ETA down the years, God knows why. All political parties have suspended their campaigns for the forthcoming elections. The numbers of dead and wounded have reached unprecedented figures, with the former slowly rising all the time.

And now, at around 21.00 local time, comes the vaguest of suggestions - a recording of the Koran in a van, a letter to the Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper in London -that Al Qaeda may have had a hand in it. Some have been saying so all day, and have been roundly abused for doing so. "ETA in the Basque country of Spain, the IRA in Ulster, the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka and the PLO in Gaza remain based in one or a few countries...," John Gray reminds us in Al Qaeda and What it Means to be Modern. "In contrast, El Qaeda is global in its activities." There were plenty of Al Qaeda/Spain connections in the lead-up to 9/11, and several people have pointed out that as it stands today, the much-reduced ETA is little more than a criminal organization consisting of around 200 thugs, perhaps incapable of setting up something like this alone, involving 13 bombs (and several that didn't explode - although leaving bombs in backpacks doesn't seem too sophisticated). The Spanish media want it to be ETA, the international press are playing up the AQ angle. Are ETA and AQ working together? Does ETA want us to think it was AQ? These are important questions, and more than just conspiracy theories. We'll see. One glimmer of hope, suggested by an Irish friend: the Omagh bombing is widely perceived as meaning the beginning of the end for the IRA, because it was just too big. Call it clutching at straws, but let's hope that today's event turns out to be just too big in the same way.

And meanwhile, unforgotten, the families and friends of the victims. God forbid, wherever you are, that you may know anyone involved, but here's a provisional list of the wounded, distributed by the emergency services at 22.30 tonight.

Update (23.52): The forthcoming elections on Sunday are currently being debated on the radio. If it was ETA, then that hands victory to the Partido Popular on a plate, since they are the hardline opposition to ETA. If it was Al Qaeda, then the PSOE's prospects look good, since the PP took Spain into a war which many Spaniards disapproved of. It may indeed have been ETA, y ya está. But if ETA denies responsibility for the bombings tonight, then suddenly, today's tragedy acquires far-reaching political significance for the future of Spain. There's always the chance, of course, that by Sunday nobody will be anybody the wiser.

The name of this city, of course, is synonymous worldwide with vibrancy and life, qualities it can call on to defeat all this.
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Hay Motivo is the name given to a series of 32 short films made, in the run-up to the general election on March 14, by Spanish directors as a critique of what they see as the injustices and falsehoods imposed on Spanish society by the ruling Partido Popular (which will probably still be ruling on March 15). Higher-profile contributors to the project include Vicente Aranda, Julio Medem, Isabel Coixet, Iciar Bollaín and David Trueba. All the films can be seen by clicking though from here. I haven't seen them all, but the ones I've watched aren't for the politically faint of heart: saying everything in three minutes concentrates the message. Try Aranda's Técnicas para un golpe de estado or García Sánchez's Español para extranjeros to get the general idea. The project also suggests that the Spanish film industry is creatively healthy - something you wouldn't pick up from watching the often woeful full-length fare on display at the cinema. And while we're on films, I've seen La mala educación, the new Pedro Almodóvar film (he isn't part of Hay Motivo), and I'm just trying to work out what I think of it. More when I do.
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Here in full, the Independent's obituary, written by Michael Mullan, of Fernando Lázaro Carreter, the philologist who died on March 4th, and whose book El dardo en la palabra should be owned by anyone who values precision in language. Look out for the lack of accents and the curiously old-style spelling of "Zaragoza". Incidentally, a sample of FLC's more recent writings on language can be found here.

When a reader of Spain's premier daily, El Pais, wrote to reproach an ungrammatical usage, she exclaimed: "If only Lazaro Carreter were still around . . ." But he was, and, when he quoted the correspondent in his next column, one could sense his relish at being cited as the yardstick for correct Spanish. Emeritus Professor Fernando Lazaro Carreter was a keen monitor of the mass media and its use of language, a subject on which he wrote with formidable erudition and mordant wit.

He headed the language's governing body, the Real Academia Espanola (RAE) from 1991 to 1998. Like his fellow academician Emilio Lorenzo, Lazaro saw the Spanish vocabulary absorbing influences from without and everyday speech learning nuances and malapropisms from talkshow hosts, football commentators or pompous politicians.

Although he leaves a hundred-odd learned monographs in philology and literary criticism, his best-known work was a long series of newspaper columns on the way the language of his adored Cervantes was mutating into what he called a form of "neoespanol". Appearing first in ABC, then in El Pais, these acerbic essays were collected as El dardo en la palabra ("A Dart to the Word", 1997; followed by El nuevo dardo en la palabra, "A Fresh Dart", 2003) and have sold nearly half a million copies.

Born in Saragossa, Lazaro Carreter was educated in the city's Instituto Goya and enrolled first at Saragossa University, graduating in 1945 from the Complutense in Madrid, where he stayed to complete a doctorate in Romance languages. He lectured there until 1949 when - at just 26 - he won a chair in linguistics and literary criticism at Salamanca University. He loved Salamanca, later becoming its dean of philosophy and letters. In 1972 he moved to the Autonomous University of Madrid and was elected to the RAE. He returned to the Complutense for the last decade of his university career, retiring in 1988. He was twice elected head of the illustrious academy. Internationally, he was one of the most renowned Hispanists of his age, addressing conferences in Britain, Italy, Japan and Latin America, earning visiting professorships and being awarded too many honorary degrees, literary prizes and decorations to catalogue.

The literature of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries was his forte; he was a world authority on Gongora, Lope de Vega, Menendez Pelayo and Quevedo. At the RAE, he led the creation of enormous new databases of Spanish usage and re-edited the standard school dictionary. His RAE became less of an aristocratic ornament and more of an organic protagonist in Spanish culture.

His erudition was leavened with a sense of humour that had something of the P.G. Wodehouse or Flann O'Brien about it. Sloppy or pretentious writing amused him as much as it irked him. He would nail a reporter to the wall for tautologically referring to a "humanitarian disaster", for misusing the word "ethnic" or reporting that "a third per cent of voters abstained". A radio report that "a bus pulled up and six people disembarked from the latter" prompted him to wonder what kind of circumlocutions people might routinely employ in 10 years' time. He imagined someone arriving home: "I could have sworn I put the key in my jacket pocket, but I can't find the aforementioned in the latter."

Lazaro Carreter would have rejoiced in the missionary success of Lynne Truss with Eats, Shoots and Leaves - he had been there and done that for his own beautiful language. He savoured every change in its flavour, unerringly shot his darts at its misuses and has left it healthier than he found it.

His essential message was universal: that journalists, politicians, broadcasters and all who make their living from words have a duty as guardians of the use of language. Interviewed for his 80th birthday, he was asked whether he despaired of present-day Spain. He replied: "This is the only Spain I have."

Fernando Lazaro Carreter, philologist and critic: born Saragossa, Spain 13 April 1923; married Angelita Mora Salvo (one son, two daughters); died Madrid 4 March 2004.
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Some interesting reflections in the Guardian from David Hockney on the relative truth-telling values of painting and photography, with particular reference to Goya. "Having been so long in America," the article concludes, "there's a lot of Europe he hasn't seen. He's just been to Andalusia for the first time. The Spanish, he says - they know how to enjoy themselves."

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It's perhaps strange to see ABC newspaper being overly critical of anything Partido Popular, but a couple of days ago they came out against the obvious political bias (and general brainlessness) of the Spanish state's broadcasting network, RTVE, in no uncertain terms. The following translation of the original ABC editorial is from BBC Worldwide Monitoring:

"The crisis of Spanish state television does not simply boil down to main channel TVE-1's poor ratings for the month of February, when they dropped to their lowest level - 22.2 per cent of the viewing figures - since records began in 1993, putting it within reach of the private channels. The figures, in any case, are a symptom of the body's general state, which is perpetuated by the frustration of failing to consolidate itself as a well-managed and well-run example of public media, in both economic and professional terms, which is especially serious in a channel which can count on a qualified workforce. The role of state television in a democratic society is to guarantee quality media for citizens, capable of combining, with the aim of satisfying general interest, the demands for news, leisure, entertainment and culture. How to do it is a responsibility which falls to those in charge of running it, who have a duty to provide a better and more dignified response than what Spanish society is currently being offered. A response which cannot be created without professional rigour or a vocation to serve the public."

And on it goes:

"An essential aspect of the crisis in which RTVE is immersed is down to its news policy, which is burdened by serious reproaches for bias and which has even provoked unprecedented judicial resolutions, such as that derived from the coverage of the general strike on 15 July 2002. Equally serious is the vulgar display of dependency on certain private interests which the body shows, as well as the content of certain "star programmes", less profitable for its own coffers than for others which are apparently unconnected..."

I don't find myself agreeing with ABC too often, but it's all true. I rarely watch La Primera, but I was surprised tonight to sit down with my baby son, Marco, on my knee to find myself watching 1-2-3 - a revival of the old 70's programme which, like Eurovision, I'd foolishly thought belonged to a bygone, pre-democratic time. The audience, rows and rows of them, sat in knitted woollen sweaters in various shocking tones and all applauded at precisely the same moment, and laughed at jokes which were threadbare even when 1-2-3 was first shown. It wasn't too long before Marco started crying. RTVE treats its audiences as idiots, and seems to believe that its mandate is to foment further idiocy in the nation, to get it to unlearn the democratic values it's spent the last couple of decades struggling to absorb. All debate has vanished from its prime-time news programmes. Even RTVE's recent showcase series, an ambitious history of Spain from its origins called Memoria de España, rarely rises, from the brief extracts I've seen, above the level of an educational, made-for-school history video. (Fernando García de Cortázar, the historian leading the series' research team, is also a known PP sympathizer, whose nomination provoked predictable howls of protest from the opposition parties.) If poor ratings are RTVE's reward, then fine, since it's the only logic it will understand. By switching it off in large numbers, Spanish people might one day get the kind of state TV channel they deserve - though some would say that by voting the PP in, as they look increasingly likely to again on March 14th, they've already got the TV channel they deserve.
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The BBCi site is pushing Spanish the Spanish language today. It's pretty basic stuff, but it gives you some useful phrases for the ski slopes, including ¡Mira al presumido ese! (What a poseur!) and ¡Peligro! ¡Avalancha! (Danger! Avalanche!). It would take great presence of mind to remember to do it, but at least, as you reached for your phrase book with the great white wave coming tumbling down, you'd be showing the kind of commitment which is necessary to learning a language well.

If you're British, white, middle-class, born in the 1960's and like reading, then you may be interested in this nostalgia trip, a chance to understand how Martin Aitchison, who you may never have heard of, shaped your childhood world. Also, today I discovered this, which is sort of chatty. If you weren't interested in either of those, then this might at least raise a smile in these oft grim times (last two links via Blogdex). Atlético de Madrid managed to win a game of football tonight. I'm not sure how they managed it, but un golazo de Fernando Torres unsurprisingly had something to do with it. Ah, surely this is what blogging should really be like. All over the bloody place. Messy, Spontaneous. And finally, John at Iberian Notes gave me a mention today, so here I am giving him one back. You might not agree with everything he says, but he's interesting and informed. I've also put up a couple of new links in the sidebar, including Kaleboel, a blog which, like John's, is written from Barcelona by a guy with a very non-Spanish name.
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