¿Qué es la Marca España?

     En los últimos tiempos se oye a todas horas dos palabras que me tiene sorprendido: "Marca España", refiriéndose al prestigio o imagen que se quiere ofrecer al extranjero de las bondades de este país. Pero cuanto más las oigo, menos sorprendido estoy y más furioso me siento, al ver que los políticos han optado por "vender" nuestro país al exterior como si de una empresa privada se tratara.

     Lo que antiguos y recientes logros de españoles, véanse el Premio Nobel de Fisiología y Medicina de 1906 y 1959, otorgados a D. Santiago Ramón y Cajal y a D. Severo Ochoa respectivamente, el Nobel de Literatura de 1956 y 1989, en los que se galardonó respectivamente a D. Juan Ramón Jiménez y a D. Camilo José Cela, los Tours de Francia de Bahamontes (1959), Ocaña (1973), Perico Delgado (1988), Indurain (1991-1995), Óscar Pereiro (2006), Sastre (2008) y Contador (2007 y 2009), los ganadores del Roland Garros, Santana (1961 y 1964), Andrés Jimeno (1972), Bruguera (1993 y 1994), Moyá (1998), Albert Costa (2002), Ferrero (2003) y Nadal (2005-2008 y 2010-2012), la elitista Fórmula 1 con Fernando Alonso a la cabeza, los medallistas en los distintos Juegos Olímpicos, los éxitos de las selecciones de baloncesto y de fútbol,.... que han llenado de orgullo al españolito de a pie, está a punto de irse al garete por una nueva forma de promocionar a España.

     ¿Qué es eso de la "Marca España"? Entiendo que los políticos quieren dar una imagen de excelencia de nuestra España que actualmente carece, que lo bueno que hay en España es por la única y sencilla razón de provenir de este país, que hay unas medidas de control de calidad fuera de lo común que certificarían una manufactura de altísima calidad,.... Se equivocan con las maneras. Primero porque las empresas españolas tienen que tratar de ser buenas y competitivas sin que el "honor" de ser españoles las diferencie del resto, y segundo y más importante en la actualidad, es que si yo tuviera una empresa, lo último que querría es verme involucrado con la clase política que nos gobierna.

     ¿Quién se va a creer esa perorata, si el primero quien no se lo cree es el propio español? ¿No sería mejor empezar la casa por los cimientos y, sin sacar tanto pecho en el exterior, se comience por tratar de convencernos a nosotros mismos? A mi me gustaría sentirme orgulloso de ser español, no por lo éxitos deportivos, que también, sino más por que España sea un país de referencia en la cultura, en el mundo empresarial, en la tecnología, en la investigación,....

     Los políticos, sean de un color u otro, en lugar de impulsar y promocionar ideas españolas, de alentar a los científicos españoles que se marchitan en la cola del paro o emigran a países punteros donde los reciben con los brazos abiertos, de defender los intereses de las empresas españolas y de sus empleados,... quieren dar una imagen de España en el extranjero que no es real. Tampoco es como se publicó en un diario New York Times en su portada del 25 de septiembre de 2012 (foto más abajo), pero desde luego no es como el gobierno nos lo quiere pintar.

     Creo que lo primero que deben conseguir nuestro políticos es que los españoles volvamos a sentirnos orgullosos de serlo, y una vez dado ese paso mostrar las bondades que ofrecemos. 

     Si el esfuerzo de los españoles y sus empresas es utilizado por nuestros gobernantes para promocionarse ellos mismos más allá de nuestras fronteras, me cambio de nacionalidad ¿Por dónde cae Benín?

Los siete cabritillos y el lobo - Teatro

Hace unos años, y con ocasión del Día del Libro de 2009, algunos padres de alumnos del Colegio "Ramón Muñoz" de Luarca (Asturias), decidimos representar una obra de teatro para que los enanos desfrutaran un rato a costa de sus padres. La obra elegida fue "Los siete cabritillos y el lobo", y este es el resultado:

                                                                           Parte 1

                                                                            Parte 1

Wrong love

      The moment I had been expecting had arrived. Paul was tall, good-looking, funny and nearly bald. For the last weeks I had been seeing him everyday and I know he had seen me too. I know that because I had realized some furtive glances when he thought I was absent-minded. I suppose it may have been love at first sight although he looked a little shy to say something at the moment.

      Every morning and every evening I saw him walking by the same pavement I was. When he did not look at me I tried to catch his attention speaking louder.

      One Saturday morning he came into the restaurant where I used to have breakfast. After he had asked for something to the waiter he began to talk to me. I had some trouble to understand him so I thought he must be a foreigner. But it did not matter because we fell in love immediately. So quick was our love that he gave me a gorgeous necklace.

      As I had not any money I accepted to go to his home when he proposed it to me. I was living a dream!!!! But when the night came he did not want me to sleep in his bedroom and he put me in another one. “It may have been a bad day for him”, I thought. But he repeated this behaviour the next days. The only moments I felt fine were early in the morning and late in the evening when we went out for a walk in the park. The rest of the time I was alone at home with nothing to do but cry. Yes, crying was the only thing I did when I was alone and when we slept separate at night. Perhaps my lover may not have enough time to enjoy with me, I do not know but I was getting depressed.

      After a month living together we went to the place where we had met,... but it was not a restaurant.... it was a pet shop!!! I could not belive it!! When I looked in the shop window I could see a terrible thing: a tall, good-looking, funny and nearly bald man with a dog with a nice leather strap in its neck. I need not to say that the dog was me.

The Snowman´s dream

Con este relato gané un diccionario. No éramos muchos compitiendo, jejeje

     Once upon a time, in a cold and solitary land far, far away, there was a snowman. It was not a common snowman, it was very old and a little heart beat inside it. It had only seen a human: the boy who had build it 60 years before. Now, the boy was an old man who lived alone in a small wooden house near there. Every Christmas Eve, “the boy”, as it used to think about him, told it the important things he had done the year that was just about to finish and tried to repair the parts which had been damaged, put another carrot in the nose, filled the holes with fresh snow and the like. The snowman was expecting all the year to meet “the boy” and hear his stories. It dreamt to become a human, a real human being and talk to his only friend. But the man´s health wasn´t very good in the last years and when the meeting hour passed he had not gone. The snowman become worried and sad and his little heart began to beat weaker and weaker. When its heart was near to stop, just before the last beat, a little fairy who had seen the love between the human and the snowman since it was build, rewarded the snowman with a mortal life as human. Suddenly, a 12-year boy appeared instead the snowman. He could not belive it. It...he was a human now! He´d be able to talk to his friend and tell him all things he could not say when he was a snowman, he´d live with him and they would be together forever. Then, he ran to the house where his friend lived, opened the door and saw the old man laying on the bed. He was cold but still alive. For the next two hours they talked each other until the old man died. Before he died he revealed a great secret: before he was a child he had been a snowman too. The boy cried until the first lights of the new day appeared. Next morning, Christmas Day, when the boy realised about his loneliness, the first thing he did was build a snowman in the place where he had lived the last 60 years.

Searching for love

-      Daddy, tell me a story!

-      All right, go and get your storybook

-      No, no, not one of those, a real story

-      A real story?

-      Yes! Tell me about when you were younger

-     Well, then, I´ll tell you a love story that could be a bit sad but I hope it provides you a little awareness.

    -      As you know I got married very young. We got a head start on our relationship because we love each other very much and we only thought in our future. After some years we decided to live together and we lived happyly some years more. She had always dreamt about having a baby, so few years later Jonh was born. But our life changed completely because we could not do the same things we used to do before and we could not sleep well because of his cryings, and as result of this we were very irritable and irritate. Any little problem could become a mountain. First months and years passed away and it became better but the baby took up too much time and his mother only payed attention to him. I felt like a abandoned dog; the flame of our love was disappeared.

           One day I knew a woman who told me she liked me and we began to meet in hidden places... I deceived my own wife into thinking that I had much work or I had to travel for work to spent my time with the other woman. We felt in love but I didn´t know what to do: stay with my family in a safe life or began a romantic story with another woman.

 You know the rest of the story. Well, that´s it, have you enjoyed the story?

-      Yes, it was great. Thanks

-      I´m glad, now off to bed.

-      Daddy?

-      Yes?

-      I love you very much but I miss mammy

-      I know it, so do I. She must not have died....

-      Well, what are we doing tomorrow?

-   I don´t know, we may go to the zoo with John, your stepbrother must stay with us this weekend.

Try again!!!!

Desde que finalicé los estudios en la Escuela de Idiomas no he escrito nada en inglés, pero ahí va el primero de los que teníamos que escribir. Al ser relatos cortísimos tenía que plasmar historias con gancho. Espero que os guste y no contenga demasiados errores:

I have not had much luck in my life: my mother died when I was born and I was brought up by my alcoholic father who never looked after me very much. He hit me every day until one day we fought and I killed him; I could hide my guilt so since I was a teenager I have had to manage by myself. My best friends were older than me and they were always in trouble with the police. I learnt from them how to rob a shop and how to steal a car but after some years in the streets I improved a lot and before I was 20 I had already raped a woman, shot a man and entered prison.

After twelve years in hell I was free again but I needed to move to another city far away from my street to start my new life. I went to Los Angeles and looked for a job but nobody wanted to hire me, my money ran out and I was desperate. I had some beers and when I went out of that bar the night had already come. The streets were empty, the public lights were on and the sounds of some TV could be heard in the distance. Having walked all day asking for a job I was tired and angry so when I saw that pregnant woman I thought about her as an easy source of money. She was trying to start her car when I got into it and showing a knife I asked for the money. She began to shout like a mad woman so to avoid being discovered I put my hand on her mouth. No sooner had she stopped her movements than I realised she was dead. I did not kill her, I promise it was an accident.

I really wanted to have a normal life, moreover I was sure I would have got it if I had been hired but now I know I will never kill again. I am walking through a dark and narrow corridor with a pair of policemen and a priest by my side. On the right and on the left some men are praying, crying or looking at me inside their cells, knowing this is the last time they will be able to see me alive. At the end of the corridor an electric chair is waiting for me.