Today, La Vanguardia’s El Burladero del Lector reaches its 100th chronicle as an Official News Bulletin since it was launched in March 2022. We were going to blow out the candles on the cake, but we have ceded this honor to the new Government spokesperson from Ukraine, which is an AI-generated female figure. Yes, yes, no joke. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has created Victoria Shi, which is what she is called. She is an avatar that broadcasts official statements on video. What we do not understand is why they insist on continuing to send, both Ukrainians and Russians, their flesh and blood citizens to the slaughterhouse when they could create soldiers with Artificial Intelligence and kill each other in the metaverse.
But, more than reciting verses, we could start singing to give thanks that it has rained so much in recent days that we will even be able to have swimming pools full (of water) this summer in Catalonia. There are those who had proposed filling them with cava if the drought persisted in order to help this sector that is so important for our economy (and for our celebrations). So, follow us and sing with us: “Plou i fa sol, les bruixes es pentinen” (that is, “it rains and it shines, the witches comb their hair”). Joan Amades explains in Costumari Català that there are a large number of variants of this song about rain. But, above all, there are two curious facts that have caught our attention.
One is that “the belief that combing one’s hair causes rain is common to many peoples, both civilized and barbarian.” Therefore, we should have combed our hair much more in recent months and thus we would have invoked the rain. But, the problem is that Spain is the country in the world with the most bald people. Is that why it rains little?
And the other element that catches our attention is that one of the versions of this traditional Catalan song about rain has another sadly topical component, because it continues saying: “Aiga a la bassa, aiga de neu, garrotades al jueu.” That is, “Water in the raft, snow water, sticks to the Jew.” Yes, yes, the lyrics literally say “beat the Jew.” With what is falling now with the increase in anti-Semitism due to the Gaza War, the only thing missing is for it to become fashionable in American universities to sing something like “sticks to the Jew” (literal quote). At Columbia they have even canceled graduation due to the students’ pro-Palestine protests.
Where there is no shortage of water or tourists is in the Italian city of Venice, with its gondoliers and beautiful canals. They have managed to make the thousands and thousands of tourists who visit it feel like “monkeys in a zoo” after implementing the 5 euro toll to access its streets and bridges. In Barcelona, ??where there has been much debate about whether it was implemented a London-style car toll, they still do not dare to piss off tourists with the Venetian method. The Catalan capital is rather a city of invisible tolls, those that only affect the long-suffering Barcelonans, increasingly fed up with them. living in a city with a skyrocketing cost of living due to tourism, the speculative economy and the arrival of expats from wealthier pockets.
It must be taken into account that Barcelona, ??since its origin as the Roman city of Barcino, has a great tradition of tolls, taxes and fees. Not in vain was it a walled enclosure for centuries. There is also evidence of the existence of portals at different points in the urban fabric outside the old fortified enclosure of Roman origin, as detailed by the Barcelona History Museum. It was necessary to “control the access of people and goods in some way, the physical and administrative limits of the city had to be established.”
There are documents from the 13th century that mention several portals, such as the Pont d’en Campderà, the Pou d’en Moranta, the one next to the houses of Berenguer de Vilar-Joan, the Boqueria, the Drassana and the one on Born street. It is considered that they were places with an administrative purpose, collection of fees and taxes. They did not work with a QR code like today in Venice, but it is clear that Barcelona has always been a city of tolls. There will surely come a day when there will be them again in the Venetian style, although by then they will already be controlled by some AI, like Victoria Shi. But, until that day arrives, it still has to rain a lot. So, as the song says, no one leaves home without combing their hair.
