From soul to soulless: The best and the worst of Granada's nightlife

We have experienced the best and the worst of Granada's nightlife, in one night and with the same group of friends.

As always we begin with the positive, and so to cool Airplane-themed bar Aterriza Como Puedas ("Land however you can") with DJ Oscar. On certain Saturday nights he plays funk and soul 45s to a small but appreciative crowd on a downstairs dance floor.

Oscar effortlessly mixes classics like Gloria Jones' Tainted Love with more obscure Northern Soul numbers and a whole host of funk and disco records. It works well. Beats are matched. Everybody dances. When the bar starts to close at 4 am, everybody complains and demands 'one more tune'. This is always a good sign.

All that's needed here is a later finish and better advance publicity. It's obvious that Oscar puts the hours in. He has real talent and a record box to die for. His mate Jesús has also played at the same bar, and he too needs more exposure. (How about a Soul Allnighter sometime, lads? Watch this space!)

And so to Sugarpop, the lamest disco I have ever inadvertently stumbled into. The only positive things to say about this place are that the staff and crowd are friendly and that the central heating seems to work okay. The music is 'una mezcla' (a mixture of everything - as if this could ever be a good idea): imagine terrible rock and pop records from the 1980s and 1990s, including worthless B-sides, played in no discernible order at half-volume and with a nice gap between each one.

Whoever is choosing these records has no idea how music works or even what tunes will keep drunks happy. The 'sound system' is barely audible with no bass element whatsoever, and it's quite possible that the playlist is fixed in advance and played straight from a tape.

Look, at 5 am on a Sunday in a place where you have to pay to get in, the only music being played should be excellent dance music of one kind or another, not this lame shit. Question: How can someone who has clearly never danced to anything be allowed to work as a DJ? Does he or she get paid for this?

During a wasted hour at Sugarpop I heard just two or three ostensibly good records - something by the Killers, something by the Jam - but A Town Called Malice followed after a short pause by some heavy metal number and then by Friday I'm in Love by the Cure is just not funny.

Don't get me wrong, I've been to many kitsch Spanish clubs before (and, indeed, Chinese ones) where everyone laughs and dances along to native pop and daft songs by the Buggles and Gloria Gaynor; not my cup of tea but in those places everyone has a good time, for sure. And it's good sometimes to not take music too seriously (right, Ol?).

Sugarpop, however, is just a room full of bored people waiting for something to happen, with the world's crappiest jukebox for a DJ. I've had more fun waiting for a bus in the rain. If you visit me in Granada and I suggest going to Sugarpop 'for a laugh', take me outside and shoot me. But make sure I introduce you to DJ Oscar and his friends first! GG

Aterriza Como Puedas is on c/ Lavadero de las Tablas, (off c/ Tablas) and just 2 minutes' walk from Plaza Trinidad, central Granada. There is a separate bar upstairs and they sometimes show short films too.

Sugarpop is somewhere nearby, but who cares? Just stay in instead and randomly search YouTube for old pop videos: it's loads more fun and free, too.

Sun and Snow - on to the peaks of the Sierra Nevada

The Sierra Nevada. At last. As you can see we didn't even wait to put a blog entry on to put the photos up. We have glimpsed it from afar almost every day we've been here. You can see it on the horizon from the very centre of the city. And at last we got up there and stamped our feet into the snow. And it was good, very good indeed. Even the sunburn.

We caught a bus that took 40 minutes to take us up to Pradollano, the 70's ski resort town on the highest road in Europe. Pradollano itself is at 2100 metres above sea level.

We didn't go skiing, or snowboarding. We had a beer, took a microbus up as high as we could and walked past all the sledgers and people picnicking next to their cars on the roadside (why would you do that in a place like this? They had their own tables and chairs and... everything). After fifteen minutes' walking we couldn't hear a single person or car horn or expletive.

Then we had lunch and cups of real tea looking out over the valley towards Guejar Sierra. Lacking crampons, we crunched through the snow following footprints that told us we wouldn't fall off a cliff edge or into a ravine. Later we went back down into town and had pizza.

It's a good life. ES

Monachil - 30 minutes away and 1 euro on the bus...

Last weekend we headed up to Monachil, a pueblo on the outskirts of Granada. On the outskirts of the village, walking up towards Los Cahorros gorge, there is a smallholding where we encountered the techno goats last October.

Unfortunately the goats weren't there this time (maybe they were at a rave?) although we did meet a man leading a donkey laden with hay. That was quite country.

Los Cahorros is stunning. Rocky outcrops, a deep valley with a river winding through it and a pretty scary suspension rope bridge. After the rope bridge is a path that sticks out from the sides of the gorge with the river on the other side. It's not high, it's not deep but there are bits that you have to climb round or under, and La Cueva de las Palomas (the cave of the pigeons/doves - depending on how romantic you like your names to be) to pass through. It's ace!

Then you reach the valley, from where there are a variety of walks high and low, forest or mountain (or both). We headed up and found a high meadow to have lunch, a doze and be stared at by a billy goat.

On our way back we bumped into a Scottish lad who takes mountain bike tours up into the hills around Monachil. Looked like a lot of fun, I think we'll be popping in to see him at some point.

Incidentally it was fiesta weekend in Monachil, and although we didn't stay for the festivities we were told that one of the highlights was the climbing the greasy pole to win a pig competition. We ain't in Barcelona now... ES

More photos of Monachil

From the Alhambra into the countryside

One Saturday in January we got up too late to go for the walk we had hoped to do. So a bit grumpy about that, we set off to go somewhere, anywhere that was a bit out of the city.

With a map in hand we set off towards the Alhambra, hoping to find a pleasant walk up beyond the Alhambra hill. And what a walk we found!

All grumpiness was forgotten when faced with incredible views of the Sierra Nevada, and the way the blue of the sky contrasts with the red soil and the peculiar green of olive trees. Here are some more pictures. Need I say more? ES

The Spaghetti Harvest of 1957

For my students, here is the original BBC film of 'The Spaghetti Harvest' that fooled so many people back in 1957. Listen for key vocabulary from the reading text.

The Techno Goats of Granada

When they're not chilling out with their mates Dog and Hen, they party hard. They know how to dance, too...

"Anticipated purchase of entrances"

La Caixa is Spain's biggest bank. Its name is in fact Catalan, not Spanish, and the company pushes a modern, international image. The display on their cash machines informs you - in lots of different languages - that their staff speak, er, lots of different languages, including English.

A printed notice in my local La Caixa branch here in Granada reads:

"PURCHASE OF ENTRANCES ALHAMBRA AND GENERALIFE

One inquires that the anticipated purchase of entrances to the Alhambra and Generalife can be made through: internet or telephone (not in the offices of La Caixa).

The entrances will take shelter in the terminals of sale and collection that Serviticket has placed in the enclosure of the Alhambra, in the zone of the ticket offices.

The purchase of entrances for the same day, will only be able to become in the ticket offices or the terminals of sale and collection of the enclosure."

Well, at least that's clear.

In its favour, it's worth mentioning that La Caixa runs a social fund and also refuses to support bullfighting, which many other banks do sponsor.

I've written to La Caixa's head office to ask what their notice means, and whether they need an interpreter to write their English language material for them here in Andalucia. I'm expecting an interesting response, which of course I will share with you... GG