Fast talking is a bit of an art practised by people selling goods at markets and at auctions. Americans seem to be particularly good at it and so too are the Spanish!
We often accuse the locals of speaking too quickly for us to comprehend what they say but actually in comparison with other parts of Spain, they speaks slowly in Bigastro.
Yesterday in Orihuela, on the day of San Antón, they had a competition to find out who was the fastest talking market trader.
The traders covered everything from bees honey to a machine that was described as the Mercedes of the kitchen, a gadget that extracts the juice from lemons and oranges, removes the cores from pears and apples and even makes a hollow in potatoes ready for you to add a filling. Yet another vendor was selling a pocket typewriter that turned out to be a ball point pen - that is clever, I bet he was good.
In the end there were just three finalists who then had to expound on a general topic. The winner was an ex actor who chose the poems of Miguel Hernanadez as his subject – a wise choice for Orihuela in the centenary year of the poet’s birth especially since he finished with the line “How it does not win”.
Elsewhere in Spain, people would have taken their pets to the priest for a blessing because of course San Antón is the patron saint of animals. I suppose cats and dogs are alright but then people take along all sorts of exotica. Imagine blessing someone’s pet tarantula; you’d be more likely to curse it.
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