Tag Archives: Gemma

New ‘drunk girl’ theft scam being tested in Barcelona for MWC!

Catalonia, , , , , , , ,

Yesterday was Gemma’s birthday, which we celebrated with tapas, cake, cava and beer at Glaçiar in Plaça Reial. We left at about 2am, and headed through the passage way back onto the Rambla dels Caputxins, emerging onto that stretch with a taxi rank between Ferran and Escudellers, also known as pickpocket central. Here is the basic info you need to know about the ‘drunk girl trafficked’ scam:

People involved: At least 3 people take part. Firstly, a young blonde woman who appears to be drunk – she’s eating a kebab and with her podgy body and blonde hair could have been English… from her accent we think she was more likely from he former Soviet Union; secondly, one Latin-American man with a mobile phone, and a Spanish-looking man with a pony tail.

What happens: blonde girl approaches from the centre of the Ramblas. Apparently drunk, she collapses and nearly drops her kebab in front of bemused locals/marks who tut and then try to help her out of the road. Meanwhile, two men apparently unknown to each other join the melée, eventually making it appear that they’re both tying to take the girl away. Ideally, civic attitudes and ‘having heard of people trafficking’ kick in, making the marks attempt to ascertain whether the ‘victim’ really knows her new friends. Of course she does, but not it’s not how it looks!

At this point, the girl dropped her kebab. Looking back, this could either have been a genuinely convincing piece of acting, or it was a signal to move on to phase 3.

While Gemma’s aunt continued trying to establish if the girl was OK, one of the guys managed to move behind me. As he made a grab for my wallet, he nudged me – certainly accidentally – and alerted me to their intentions. I barked “We’re going!” in Catalan to Gemma’s aunt, and dragged her into the waiting cab. We got away safely and without anything missing.

In all, this little piece of street theatre took about one minute to unfold. It must have been carefully planned and although I think I’ve heard of something similar, I can’t find any references to the scam at the excellent Kovaks PI website. This, like all the most pernicious scams, is based on manipulating a person’s built-in civism (rather than, say, their greed or lust, when in my opinion the mark gets all he deserves). As soon as the girl fell over, we were probably at risk of losing our bags/wallets. The fact that my man with the ponytail messed up his move on my wallet suggests that either this particular iteration of the scam is new, or the guy was new to it. It might well be that they thought they’d practice the scam on Saturday night because from today until next weekend, BCN will be rammed with sales executives packing expensive mobile phones and American-style wallets full of cash.

The thing to do, of course, when a girl falls over in the street, is call for the Mossos d’Esquadra (Catalan police force). Likewise, if two men seem to be fighting over a drunk girl who doesn’t know either of them, the thing to do is call for the Mossos. Shouting “Mossos! Policia!” might make you look like a berk but there are lots of cops around there and they’ll turn up in no time.

Some useful info for visitors to Barcelona:

Catalan police phone number: 088
General emergency number: 112
Police officers on Les Rambles will always be in uniform and will always have an ID card (and normally a gun!)
Kovaks P.I. – the #1 resource for Barcelona street scam stories. Worth a read even if you’re not coming to Barcelona

Feliç Sant Jordi

Catalonia, Politics, , , ,

Saint George’s day is here again, and with it some lovely weather (it always seems to be sunny on April 23rd). As I’ve mentioned before, in Catalonia today is the ‘day of lovers’ or the ‘day of the book and the rose’. Each year, we’re encouraged to buy eachother roses and books as an expression of love and friendship. I think that, as well as giving the publishers and rose traders a bumper day, it’s a lovely tradition.

One of the funny thing about it is that there are lots of places to choose from when it comes to buying your gifts. You can go to El Corte Inglés, as did one of my colleagues, and buy two roses for €16… but it’s far more normal to purchase your flower either from a gypsy rose merchant (visible on many street corners all through the day), or a stall in your local plaça. These stalls are often (though not exclusively) operated by charities and political groups, so while buying your rose you get to choose which pressure group or political party you want to support.

This year, I bought Gemma’s rose at the Solidarity with Palestine stall. For much less than the Corte Inglés price, I got a lovely rose and a poem (apparently about Palestine). The stall was also selling wallets, tshirts and so on… but I prefer to wear my heart on my blog.

Right… off to enjoy the sunshine!

Well *I* liked it

Spain, , , , , , , ,

I’ve got to admit that the best film I saw this year was the new Bond film, Casino Royale. I’m not saying that it was the best executed, acted, written or produced… probably it wasn’t. But it was by far the most enjoyable and quite frankly, I’ve kind of given up on watching films which are supposed to trigger some sort of emotional or intellectual response.

This process began with Donnie Darko, a movie which was made for people like me (drop-out, pot-smoking philosophy students who listen to independent record labels). Anyway, lots of people I knew loved it and eagerly recommended it to me so I watched it and thought it was completely abysmal. It just seemed so pointless that I didn’t care enough to ‘unravel’ the ‘secrets’ of the film. Ooh the old lady and the tunnels and the rabbit… it’s all so cryptic and yet full of imagery!

I felt sorry for George Clooney when the press started going on about Syriana and saying it was an indictment of US petro-policy and so on. Well, I didn’t exactly feel sorry for him: he’s an incredibly wealthy movie star who can do whatever he likes. But I did think ‘Oh no, poor old George is going to have a lot to live up to after all this attention’. And I was right: Syriana, whatever it was intended to do or say, did and said nothing to me. It was a jumbled, waffly, trite, emotive work in mental masturbation. It said “See, we’ve made the world shit” in the way that only a $50 million movie can.

I’m afraid that I was also singularly underwhelmed by this year’s smash hit, Pan’s Labyrinth (El Labarinto del Fauno). This film was made half to appeal to me and half to appeal to mental people like Gemma’s cousin in C.R. who believe in pixies and fairies (which they insist on spelling ‘faeries’) and other such nonsense. The half that was supposed to appeal to me was the fact that it was set in post Civil War Spain and there were nasty Franquistas running about everywhere.

The thing is: this is one of the least talked about periods of recent history here. After the Civil War which you can argue about for decades and never agree, Franco formed a dictatorship and set about rebuilding a heavily traumatised Spain in his own image. I’ve never seen a film which dealt with this subject matter and was interested to see Pan’s Labyrinth and how it treated this delicate, fascinating subject matter. Thing is, the film is set then but doesn’t really say anything about it. The setting is pretty much irrelevant to the plot – and as such doesn’t interfere with the delicate, magical story surrounding the little girl who’s the main character. The problem is that I can’t abide mythical beasts or any of that stuff and so even though I got what was going on, I couldn’t stand it.

Bond, on the other hand, was great. Simple, manly action; beautiful, exotic women in low-cut dresses; a dab of betrayal and lost love. It’s not a film which will change the world but by heck, it was thrilling and that’s what it set out to be.

I used to love the more avant-garde, emotional, witty and moving films made by directors like Godard. Actually, I still do… thing is that no one’s making films like that these days and the closest alternative is the pseudo-art-movie. I’d rather eat fresh bangers and home made mash than a pre-cooked fancy ready-meal from Sainsbury.