We read in l'ARA

Throughout Sant Jordi's day, between book signings, canapés, and plane tree pollen, I watch the news and listen to the radio. In the afternoon, once the fish is sold, they provide economic data for the day. The sales figures for flowers and books give me goosebumps. No one will take away our merit for this day. To talk about it, the reporters deployed in the capitals share anecdotes, tender moments, and try to talk about the flood. They all talk about the territory. "Throughout the territory" or "we are now going to another part of the territory" or "and if the number of roses sold has been high throughout the territory, the sale of books has also been high"...

After the crusade to change the name of Saint George's Day, I hope the thick heads are creating a manifesto to change the name of Saint Patrick's Day (intolerable that it is called that) to "beer day", damn it. Now then. Saint George's Day is such a radiant, radical and joyful day, so unique, so sensible and wild, that wanting to change its name or intention, wanting to change a thread of its dress, is wanting to crash against the fence. The tradition of making the 'tió' poop, which we love, you can explain with a gesture of sufficient irony in your mouth – "they hit a log so that it poops gifts, hehe" –. But with Saint George's Day, irony and sufficiency would not be understood, they have no place. Saint George's Day is the tangible and angel-touched proof of that "los catalanes hacen cosas" from the missed M. Rajoy. You take the most civilized and cultured being in the world to see how we queue under the sun to get them to sign... a book, and he rubs his eyes and asks for medication.

The passage of the seasons, in the countryside, is marked for us by the arrival of swallows, the leaves on the vines, and green or brown fields, but in cities there are other markers. In the city, you know Christmas is coming because in a taxi, one day, Last Christmas by Wham! plays. And you know that spring has arrived, definitively and resplendently, because the phenomenon that we try to describe below, after the paragraph break, occurs.

Since I'm in an era of misdeeds, when I feel I have to do everything I haven't done before (skydiving, walking the Camino de Santiago, getting a tattoo), I decide I'll take the infallible railways to go to Terrassa and, from there, take the dangerous Renfe to my Bagenc village. My daughter tells me: "You're not old enough to be doing crazy things as if you were fifteen." She doesn't dare. She'd rather hitchhike and let herself be picked up by one of those criminals who trick young girls than let herself be picked up by Renfe.

“Hello, my name is Montserrat, I'm from Plans de Cornet I'm eighty-three years old, and today I'm going to make you a wild boar stew”, she tells us, as she opens the farmhouse door for us. If we look in the Diccionari Català-Valencià-Balear we find that singlar, also written singlà, appears “as a synonym for senglar" in Igualada, Calders, Centelles, Manresa, etc. Our wise woman is from Bages. She lives in a neat farmhouse, where geese, dogs, rabbits, and chickens also live, in addition, of course, to part of her family. Today she is accompanied by one of her granddaughters, from Manresa, who, smiling, tells us: “I'm her assistant, but she goes on her own!” It's true. Our wise woman is agile, she doesn't stop moving, lifting pots. She immediately cuts fuet (homemade) to offer it to us.

The ad appears from time to time for those who don't have Spotify Premium and the editorial's kind press officer makes me aware of it. These days on a book tour, we've heard it in various cars, many times. It's a paradoxical ad. It tells you that if you had Spotify Premium you wouldn't hear this ad.

After Eduardo Mendoza, who thinks it's better not to say “Sant Jordi” (now that tourists had learned it, darn it!), the author of Cobi, Mariscal, wanted to contribute to Catalan design. On El matí de Catalunya Ràdio he said: “I really like changing things. It makes me very nervous that we still say Semana Santa. ¿Semana Santa of what? Or Navidades. These are those Catalan things that... You can't touch that, like bread with tomato. ¿What are you telling me? Come on, screw it!”

I am at the house of a friend who lives in Santa Coloma. The days are getting longer and by the riverbank there are lots of people practicing sports outdoors. Some are boxing, some are running, some are playing ball. The space is pleasant and well-maintained and looks safe and clean. I stop for a moment to watch. I like the normality exuded by those who use it. Before, I lived in Vallès, near Collserola Park. I myself used the park to go running. When there is a conducive state for an activity, it is easier for that activity to take place. If you live in a place where there is a bicycle circuit, where cycling is easy, it will be more likely that you will use the normality of cycling. If there is a park for outdoor activities, it is more likely that you will do outdoor activities. It is more likely that you will become a casteller if you live in Vilafranca than if you live in Manresa, and it is more likely that you will become a sommelier if you live in Manresa than if you live in Vilafranca, not that it's impossible.

They are a family made up of the mother, a girl with black braids, about six or seven years old, the boy, her brother, perhaps a year younger, and the grandmother, a young, petite woman with short hair, glasses, and wearing jeans. They speak in Spanish with a perhaps Peruvian accent. The young grandmother, it's evident, is the one in charge. The one who knows that all four have to get off at Pallejà and how many stops are left, the one who tells her daughter (or perhaps it's her daughter-in-law) that there is a free seat at the back of the carriage and that she should take it, and the one who entertains the two children, who have sat with her. The girl takes out a book of the kind with magnetic pages where you can stick letters or flowers and animals, which come with the book itself.

The medical director of IMO Grup Miranza Barcelona offers us this headline in ARA: "We have advanced solutions to say goodbye to glasses". Before continuing to read that it refers to the treatment of myopia, cataracts and all kinds of boomer conditions, I smile sarcastically. My fifty best friends and I have a few solutions to say "goodbye" to glasses:

I arrive at the Parcir bookshop, in Manresa, to preach, as authors are let loose around Sant Jordi. As it's early, I ask the booksellers (we've known each other for many years) to let me have a corner to write. And here I am, allowed to sit at the counter. "But they'll come to ask you for books," they warn me. Nothing makes me happier than playing bookseller or bartender. I sit down. On my desk screen, there's Les gratituds, by Delphine de Vigan, pending entry. The customers laugh and talk about me as "this new intern".

We read in ARA

We read in ARA an interview with the former curator of the Lleida Museum Albert Velasco, regarding a book, absolutely essential, that he has just published: Les pintures de Sixena. Un foc que encara crema

Our parents or your grandparents followed, in the old way, the arrival of man on the Moon, on television, that July of 1969. We called him “man”, because we used the generic to mean “humanity” or “human being”, but also because the astronauts who stepped on it were men. We remember their names and their words. Those of Neil Armstrong: “That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”. The rocket was called Apollo 11 (the name of the god of medicine and masculine beauty).

We read in ’ARA that Vox resorts to Catalan only in the regions where Sílvia Orriols' party is strong. They have made posters with the slogan of Plataforma per Catalunya, “First our own people”, in one language or another, depending on the market, and so on. In the provinces of Barcelona and Tarragona you will see the posters in Spanish, while in Girona and Lleida you will see them in Catalan.

We writers are invited, around Sant Jordi, to talk about the paper-paste article that we have had the joy and audacity to create. “I haven't finished the book”, Basté told me, apologizing. I know authors who get offended or upset if the journalist hasn't read them. But does the journalist need to have read a book, seen a movie, listened to a record, or gone to a restaurant to interview the author? It seems to me that it's not necessary. That, sometimes, it is, perhaps, desirable. Cultural journalists often make this joke: “We are eternal readers of half a book”. Tomorrow they will have another one, and the day after tomorrow another one. Books should be enjoyed calmly (without eternity) and abandoned if necessary, because sometimes it's necessary, like series. The journalist's questions don't necessarily have to be about the plot. It seems to me that an interview with Melville (I love Melville) shouldn't be about cetaceans, even though, of course, on a day like today we would ask him about that extraordinary video we saw on ARA, which shows that whales, my goodness, help each other to give birth. Interviews are advertisements, and it doesn't matter if the author talks about their childhood or what they think of Donald Trump.

I read in ARA a very good interview by David Miró with a politician who, without me agreeing with him at all, I find brilliant. Alejandro Fernández, a man who I think loves music and cooking. Talking about the frigate that Pedro Sánchez has sent to Cyprus, he says: “It doesn’t matter, John Lennon isn’t there singing Imagine

The headline leaves me stunned. Donald Trump explained on Fox News that "Iran asked him for a seven-day truce in attacks on power plants and other energy facilities, but that he granted them ten." Apparently, Tehran is "very grateful" to him.

We hear on the radio about Noelia's case, the girl who by the time these lines are read will have received euthanasia. They have spoken to us about it. We know her father opposes it with the support of Christian Lawyers. But the difference is that, a few days ago, she gave an interview on television. Then "Noelia's case" goes from being general to specific. The girl talks about her father. The father said: grandmagrandma was hell." The case is not "just" a paraplegic girl who wants to die. It's a girl who was raped and, as a reaction, tried to commit suicide without succeeding.