30 July 2015, The Tablet

The concept of a holiday in Spain is ambiguous


 
They were making human towers outside Tarragona cathedral last week. Castells they call them in Catalan. The teams were mostly young.Each member first rotated slowly while a great length of woollen cloth a foot wide was wrapped round his or her waist. Once secured, this stomacher acted as a foothold for the ones who climbed up the outside of the tower being constructed on the shoulders of the next storey down. It’s done quite quickly, like a telescope being extended, before the strength of those at the bottom wavers. Little children (who nowadays wear hard riding hats) climbed to the top of the five storeys built that evening, and waved to their applauding mothers and neighbours far below.I mention this in relation to the big news for many last week in the Spanish press: the record
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