The South African golfer Gary Player explains in the new documentary on Severiano Ballesteros, Seve (Prime Video), that the first time he saw the Cantabrian player was in the 70s in a championship in La Manga (Murcia), and he warned that that young man was going to get to be a champion because I had ‘it’.
A literal translation of ‘it’, is to have that, what you have to have to succeed, to have that impulse or that characteristic that allows you to be different, or, simply, to be the best. In the case of Ballesteros, his ‘it’ was a peculiar way of getting out of compromising situations, his courage, his physical power and his extraordinary game around the green.
Player (Johanesburg, 1935) won big moves, and that young Spanish player, whom he observed in special ways, would win two Masters and three British Opens, in addition to becoming a golf legend. Ballesteros died at the age of 54 as a result of a type of brain tumor that currently has a chance of being cured.
‘Item’. What you have to have. To have or not to have. To be or not to be.
Since he became mayor of Barcelona thanks to the support of BComú and the Popular Party, Jaume Collboni has been on everyone’s lips and there is a great coincidence of opinions about him. Summarizing them, it is thought of the new mayor that he does not have ‘it’.
It would be important for Barcelona if the new socialist mayor proved otherwise. That he had the ability to lead the city, make courageous decisions and that after tidying up and cleaning up Barcelona’s dirt, he would propose new urban models that were more logical and acceptable than those of her predecessor, Ada Colau.
Collboni has municipal experience, but his challenge is now personal and it confronts him before the citizens and history. It is now, in these first weeks, when the new mayor has to start setting his agenda. This is when he has to be brave, step up and show leadership. Empathy with Colauism will be seen by a large majority of citizens as a sign of weakness.
The new mayor would do well to rectify some of Colau’s works, and be clear that to change a city, before doing new things, you have to know how to maintain the old ones. A simple walk along Paseo Picasso would give the mayor and the citizens an idea of ??what has happened in Barcelona in these eight years with Colau.
Paseo Picasso was one of the first interventions of the mayor Narcís Serra and the first democratic town hall. The restorations and the new contributions gave the whole promenade an impressive result. The Castle of the Three Dragons from the 1888 International Exhibition, the Natural Sciences Museum, the Hivernacle, the Martorell Museum of Geology, the Umbracle, the Tribute to Picasso (1983) by Antoni Tàpies, the longitudinal fountain along the promenade on its Besós side, the Ciudadela park itself… It is an incredible space that today presents a grotesque setting with closed facilities, in a state of ruin for years and filthy as hell.
The piece by Tàpies, the magnificent five-meter-edge glass that floats on a lake, now dry, housing antique furniture pierced by iron beams, continues in a permanent state of restoration, while the other facilities fall down.
Full of supermarket carts parked by the homeless, canvas tents next to the benches, with an unbearable smell, the promenade, full of fences and located in the most touristic and leisure area of ??the city, is a shame.
Today, while common councilors praise the drastic changes they have imposed on the city, and still do not acknowledge the dirt, insecurity, lack of subsidized housing and traffic chaos that they have generated, take a walk along Paseo Picasso It is a good idea to see the level of degradation of the city of Colau.
Definitely, the new mayor should walk along the Paseo Picasso or the Via Augusta. There he will be able to be inspired, along with the homeless or the thousands of motorists trapped on the asphalt. By visiting the city of Colau, Collboni will know what he does not have to do and convince himself that in order to build the city of the future one must not forget, destroy or abandon the city of the past.
Collboni was a councilor criticized for not auditing Colau, but now it is up to him to find his own way and find his own ‘it’. In order to be another good socialist mayor and return to Barcelona the illusion of other times, Collboni has to change and for the city to be aware of it.
