I was recently interviewed by Barcelona Metropolitan (the May issue) about this blog and Barcelona blogging in general.

I was one of a number of Barcelona bloggers so they only used a small, edited piece. As my answers were so brilliant and enlightening I thought I’d publish the whole thing here for you to read.

I hope it piques your interest about blogging. They say writing is good for the soul.

The interview

Please could you tell us a little about yourself: e.g. where you are originally from and when you moved to Barcelona? Read the rest of this article…

Last summer I was asked to contribute to a guide called ‘Barcelona – 10 Locals Tell You Where to Go, What to Eat, and How to Fit In’.

Well I did. And Gigi Griffis who produced the guide sent me a copy, and then I promptly forgot about it. I came across it on my iPad recently. So I read it. And it’s actually very good.

Gigi interviewed 10 people who live in Barcelona and asked them where their favourite places are in Barcelona, their hidden gems, and any tips they might have for visitors to the city.

It guide includes:

• Great restaurants and bars away from the tourist trail;
• Day trip suggestions outside Barcelona;
• And tips for how to make friends, avoid rip-offs and pick-pockets, and fit in with the local culture.

The guide has had some great reviews! Read the rest of this article…

Inside Barcelona with… Homage to BCN

I was asked by the guys at Generator Hostels to answer some questions for a series of interviews they are doing called Inside Barcelona.

The questions were:

• Introduce yourself, who are you and what do you do?
• Tell us about your blog and what made you start it.
• What aspect of Barcelona life excites you most?
• How prominent is design in Barcelona?
• Tell us about your favourite historic Gothic and medieval buildings in Barcelona?
• What about your favourite contemporary style buildings in Barcelona?
• Tell us about the Barcelona landscape, what do you like most about it? Where are the best places to go to capture it?
• Tell us about some of your favourite hidden gems in the city?

Read the rest of this article…

The final scene of Lapin

Mention Barcelona and lots of things come to mind, but filmmaking is probably not the first. Yet you’d be surprised how fertile a filmmaking ground this city is, and it’s not just the sunshine. The locals are very film literate and have a long list of festivals to prove it, from D’A and L’Alternativa to In Edit and Mecal. There’s even a festival dedicated entirely to film and football!

At a time when obituaries are being written for cinemas all over, Barcelona has seen several new art-house venues open. But it isn’t just film buffs that love this town — so do filmmakers. Plenty of big name directors have come through here, from Woody Allen to Alejandro Iñárritu, but we’re talking about homegrown talent, filmmakers who live and work in Barcelona.

Among them is Andrés Bartos, the writer and director of the short film Lapin, une étrange histoire d’amour. The film is a dark fable about a man who falls in love with a rabbit-like girl and discovers a strange world under his apartment. The director described it to me as “though Before Sunrise were directed by David Lynch possessed by the ghost of Chuck Jones.” Consider my curiosity piqued. I met up with Andrés Bartos to find out more about the film and get his take on what makes Barcelona a good place to shoot a movie. Read the rest of this article…

In case you hadn’t noticed Miniguide, in my opinion the best what’s on guide in Barcelona, has a new website. And this time a new app too!

I know a website redesign with such a lot of content can be a nightmare project so I caught up with Michael of Miniguide to ask him how it’s all gone.

The Miniguide Interview

So, the new Miniguide is finally here! Has it been a painful process? Have you achieved what you set out to do?

Finally! It’s taken longer than I expected, even though I took that into account (Hofstadter’s Law). So that’s just the nature of making something.

I wanted us to build a simple, clear way to give people recommendations on things to do – events and places – that we could update every day. And we have accomplished that using our own technology, not something evil like WordPress.

We still have a mountain to climb, but it’s a good feeling. And people seem to like and use what we’ve created, which is all that matters.

Read the rest of this article…