Christmas Chronicle

In my year and a half as ARA's Readers' Advocate, I've connected with every reader whose comments have appeared in the newspaper; I still have a few left to respond to publicly. And whenever possible, I've helped those who've called me about technical subscription problems, especially on weekends, when the corporate phones are on hold—a piece of Bach would be good hold music; when Jaume Badia, from ARA's Editorial Board, and I were hanging around the Palau de la Generalitat, we played the aria from the... Goldberg Variations—because President Maragall liked it so much—. Now I wanted to take a step further and meet a reader personally, and explain who's behind this open access. And I hope to hold some meetings with readers, to be able to speak with those I haven't reached beyond the automated email reply, and exchange ideas face-to-face, which the pedantry, a victim of technology, now calls "in-person," although before, you were only physically present when you kicked the bucket.

I democratically elected Andreu Suriol, the reader who has contacted me most often (ten emails, all recorded in my Excel spreadsheet), always with justified complaints and sensible comments, though not without a touch of irony more Mediterranean than English, perhaps because the reader, besides being fluent in French (and more so than any other language), speaks and occasionally utters a word that expresses something better than his own tongue. He praised me... Stop machinesÀlex Gutiérrez's section, which is very useful for my work, has presented me with linguistic issues, warned me that when we talk about wines we are also talking about alcohol – here the pharmacist emerges – and praised local commerce in the face of the invasion of online shopping.

Andreu Suriol signed his most recent email with the genitive "de l'Arboç, villa modernista" (from L'Arboç, a modernist town), a good starting point, then, to place it in context. Furthermore, it turns out that three readers, Pere Galimany, Ignasi Forcada, and Joan Jesús Rovira, sent me complaints about the Penedès region, which, like others, receives only relatively little attention from the newspaper. There are honorable exceptions, such as the supplement for Tarragona and the Terres de l'Ebre, which has been published from the capital cities, due to the logical issue of news-producing areas. Well then, let's begin with L'Arboç, where Andreu Suriol was born the year of the two atomic bombs, as he writes in an autobiographical book. Because he, although a pharmacist, writes magnificently, was a great friend of Marsé, and corresponded with Antonio Tabucchi.

Regarding his relationship with Tabucchi, he wrote an excellent non-fiction account, "The Path of a Poem," which I hope will be published. He is also the author of a collection of letters from his posthumous father-in-law. The letters come from ParisThe book, which draws on some of the letters, concludes with another compelling story about a vicar from Arboç who, a hundred years ago, was nicknamed "The Bullfighter" because of his amorous adventures. One ended tragically with an abortion, and the whole thing was covered up by the ecclesiastical hierarchy. The Bullfighter faced other accusations for other shady dealings and ended up leaving the town, but was assigned to a parish in Barcelona. A tedious protocol as usual.

All of this means that the record holder for letters to the Ombudsman fortunately does a good job of reading.

The first thing you see in L'Arboç, whether you arrive by train or road, is the Giralda. When you first see it, it might seem like you're hallucinating or that an astral projection has landed you in Seville while you were stuck between two trucks on the AP-7 highway. But no. The Giralda of L'Arboç is a very accurate reproduction, with precise dimensions: it's half the size of the original. Inside, a diverse sensory world awaits, and the spectacular contrast of looking through an Arabesque window and, next to a sgraffito inscription that reads "Allah the Greatest, the Most Merciful," seeing Montseny in the distance and Montserrat in the foreground; it's clear that Montserrat is also present in the ancestral home of Abbot Escarré and a statue that pays homage to him. The abbot is one of the town's most illustrious sons, along with Josep Gener i Batet, who made his fortune in Cuba with tobacco—his excellent brands are still among the most coveted—and built a magnificent palace in L'Arboç that dwarfs Downton Abbey. Thanks to Gener, L'Arboç also boasts a statue of Columbus by the same sculptor as the one in Barcelona, ​​Rafael Atché, which appears to have originally been a model of the figure that crowns the Rambla, its finger pointing like a compass. The other illustrious figure from L'Arboç is Salvador Sadurní, one of the legendary goalkeepers in Barça's history. The Suriol family home, on the main street next to the church, is also a Modernista gem; it houses his pharmacy and a compounding laboratory that supplies the pharmacies of the Tarragona region, where he served as president of the College of Pharmacists.

I've left many things unsaid, because L'Arboç's architectural heritage, from Roman remains at the foot of the Via Augusta and from the Middle Ages to the marriage of convenience between Modernism and Noucentisme, is abundant, and I'm grateful for the explanations from Eduard Jané, who has it all memorized because he acts as a guide, and he should. However, the latest news interest surrounding L'Arboç isn't all of this, but rather because the televised reality show focused on a surreal house with two balconies whose doors are bricked up and two others with proper doors, but without any way out because there's no soil. This brings us back to a kind of journalism that, woe betide us, and I work for the... ombuds.

At Christmas, this Defender embraces the traditions of the last of the Mohicans and writes a chronicle in which humanism prevails, certainly very present in the celebration of the 15th anniversary of the ARA, as Antoni Bassas highlighted in his column of last November 29, already denotatively titled "A bath of humanity"And until next year, which is next month. Happy holidays to the readers, wishes the Defender, as in those old couplets, "don't look at us," and know that I'll be waiting here if you have anything to criticize, correct, and/or improve us with, because this page is "my house is your house, if there are any houses of anyone," as a woman from Poble-sec says, who also described the seven heavens aboard Dante's ships, from Florence.

And the solstitial/providential desire for a journalism of the people and proximity and to extend the informative attention as much as possible to where language makes us a community, independent of the square meters of the municipal area and the number of inhabitants.

The Reader's Advocate pays attention to doubts, suggestions, criticisms, and complaints about the newspaper's content in its digital and print editions, and ensures that the handling of information is in accordance with the codes of ethics.

By contact the Reader's Advocate You can send an email to eldefensor@ara.cat or record a message of no more than one minute to the WhatsApp number 653784787. In all cases, identification with name, surname and ID number is required.