Rolling from Barcelona to London

I've just spent 6 brilliant days with my brother in Barcelona. Three months ago he and his friend, Joan, opened a skate shop there.

By the time he was sixteen, my brother was already a fearless aggressive in line skater, the type who grinds hand rails and jumps off roofs. I would follow him around, wishing I was as brave. Instead I'd end up with bruises on my shins from jumping at curbs instead of on them. 

That was a long time ago though and it had been years since I last skated.

As soon as I landed, my brother lent me a pair of skates and was a very considerate guide on my first trip to his shop. 

On day 2 I successfully completed the journey alone, arriving at his shop with a big grin on my face. Only trouble was, the groovy pink skates hurt my ankles. My brother, thrilled I was skating, let me test out another pair. Those gave me blisters. 

          

"I guess I'll have to miss the night skate then," I said. The night skate began at ten and went all through the city. 

Joan,  one of the most encouraging and upbeat person I've ever met, wouldn't even consider it. He ordered me to get some Compeed plasters and test a third pair of skates. I felt a twinge of pain from the previous blisters, but then my brother added four flashing wheels to my skates, and the pain was replaced with child-like excitement!

Post by Roller Outlet.

          

That night, skating through Barcelona, I fell in love with those skates. I fell in love with skating.  

          

"I'll give you them if you use them," my brother said.

          

I thought of London. I thought of wet streets, cobblestones and lots of pedestrians.

          

"I'll skate to work," I said, the beer encouraging me to believe it. "I can do this..."

          

I dreamt of the journey to my part-time job from North London to West London. I'd run it before in an hour and a half. I visualised skating the same route in my mind. I tried to remember the terrain. Could I do it?

          

My flight back coincided with rush hour on the tube. I was jostled in between sweating, sullen commuters all wishing they were somewhere else. I thought of my skates in my bag and felt that tug of nervous excitement in my stomach. I had to skate from work tomorrow, before the fear persuaded me not to.

          

Today I skated back from work.

          

I slowly weaved in between the pedestrians, feeling a control in my legs I'd rediscovered in Barcelona. The roads were smoother than I'd anticipated and soon I was gliding confidently towards home. There were a few hairy moments: braking on slopes, traffic crossings (also on a slopes), blind bumps, cobble stones... but mostly, it felt liberating!

          

I didn't beat my tube time. At an hour exactly, I was ten minutes out, but at least I wasn't pushed and squashed between sticky armpits. I felt healthy, strong and happy!

I've always been a bit of a grass is greener person, and I often think of Barcelona with dreamy nostalgia. It's a better quality of life, I think, imagining everyone outdoors in the sunshine. 

But today, skating towards Regent's Park, I felt, well, that maybe it's just about making different lifestyle choices and having the courage to follow those choices through. It's what you make of where you live... that, and having people in your life, who won't let you be a chicken, who push you to do things you know, deep down, you can do.

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The Dirty Side of Mr Puig's 'Clean Up'

"I only felt afraid after the moments captured in the photos, when thousands of supporters surrounded the square and booed at the police. I was afraid they would jump at them and that the police would respond and there would be a tragedy. Those were moments of great, great tension. They were moments from another era, one which I believed we had overcome long ago. " Sebastian Ledesma Moran (man in wheelchair - full account below)

I don’t feel like being cynical.

These demonstrations may die down eventually but I believe a significant seed has been sown.

It might just take a while to germinate.

Right now, all I want to do is raise awareness of the injustice that has been committed.

Felip Puig, the leader of the Catalan police, has shown no remorse after his brutal ‘clean up’ operation.

The memo he passed onto his loyal team on the morning of the 27^th May must’ve read something like this:

1. Steal all their stuff

2. Beat them up (even if they are really old!)

3. Don’t give away your identity (even though the law says you have to!)

The police confiscated computers, microphones, speakers, cables and other personal possessions.

Owners who tried to retrieve their belongings were told they must present a receipt to prove ownership and if they didn’t the items would be destroyed.

Despite footage showing brutal beatings of individuals, attacks on passive youngsters and elderly, and police vans swerving dangerously into people, Mr Puig maintains that the police were protecting the population from a violent group.

Judges are unable to investigate complaints because police have been ignoring the law that requires them to wear an identity number.

Puig is currently trying to abolish this rule so that police can remain anonymous.

One image has become symbolic. It’s of a man in a wheelchair holding a flower.

In front of him a police man is lashing out with a club at the people behind.

When asked about this incident, Felip Puig said that the policeman was defending the man in from the violence behind him.

This man was so disgusted with the counsellor’s lie that he wrote to the newspapers.

And this is what he said:

(I have translated from Catalan to English) Click Here for the Original.

"I am the person in the wheelchair who appears in a number of photographs of the attempted eviction of Plaça Catalunya and I want to name the issues in this controversy. My name is Sebastian Ledesma Moran, I am 55 years old and I want to clarify three things:

1) That the images are a true reflection of what happened there.

2) That the Mosso d'Esquadra (Catalan police) was not defending me as Felip Puig and some of the media have claimed, but that he was attacking me, as the bumps and scratches on the left side of my wheelchair caused by a club can prove.

3) That I did not receive any blows to my body because the Mosso who was threatening me with his club (as seen in the photo) was stopped by another Mosso who said, ‘No, fuck, not that one, because they’ll take us to court.’

I also want to make it clear that I am neither a hero nor a victim, not a "yob" or, much less an idiot. I am just one more ‘indignant’. Every day I participate in the activities of Plaça Catalunya, especially in the functional diversity committee, which among others deals with issues of disability.

And you can rest assured that we will continue our protest and peaceful struggle until the situation changes.

I will have to take my chair to the workshop for repair, because if they don’t paint over the scratches they will begin to rust. I do not know or care about whether this cost will come from my account, mind you. What really worries me is that when I was young I had to run away from ‘los grises’ (national police) and that these policeman, who I believed were on my side, had made me run away from them. How will I explain to my daughters that this is the police we asked for?

During the police charge I heard several Mossos d'Esquadra saying: "What is this man doing here? Take him away! Take him away! " I am fed up of people questioning why I was there: I have every right and every duty to be as outraged as the next person. Why didn’t they want me to be there? Is it because it makes it difficult to dole out blows with pleasure? And I think it’s very serious that controversy was generated by the possibility that I was struck and that it doesn’t seem to matter that other people were harmed or suffered severe panic attacks. We are all equal before the law and have the same right to protest and defend ourselves, especially against the senseless aggression last Friday.

Those who were behind my chair, who the police were trying to hit, were there because Iold them to hide th tere, convinced that they wouldn’t do much to me. Nobody manipulated me or told me to protect my fellow ‘indignants’, as has been reported. It is only I who felt manipulated by the version given by Felip Puig about the police action.

We were carrying out peaceful resistance at the entrances of the square to prevent the trucks leaving with all our belongings. As you have seen, we were not able to recover anything that they took, not the signatures we collected nor our mobile phones, or anything at all. Added to that, they have now left our belongings in a type of dump.

I only felt afraid after the moments captured in the photos, when thousands of supporters surrounded the square and booed at the police. I was afraid they would jump at them and that the police would respond and there would be a tragedy. Those were moments of great, great tension. They were moments from another era, one which I believed we had overcome long ago. "

Volcano Strikes Back

-->I’m going to visit my brother in Barcelona.

I haven’t seen him since Christmas.

It’s the last time I’m going to see him before heading off to Colombia for a few months to meet my future in-laws. What a blog that’ll be!

I’m also off to write a novel.

But before all that, it’s really important I see my brother.

I can’t go away unless I see him.

I pack my suitcase, leave work early and get the train at London Bridge station.

My phone rings before the train doors shut.

“It’s cancelled,” Mum says.

The Volcano has struck again.

I’m in tears. The three day window of opportunity I had to see my brother is closing.

I transfer my flight to the following morning and pray the ashy farts will stop (the volcano’s not mine).

Mum drives me to the airport at 4am.

I hate airport procedure and even more at that time in the morning.

No, I won’t be putting my mascara in a little clear plastic bag.

I never do and no one ever says anything when it goes through the X-ray.

I overhear the security staff complaining to each other about a passenger’s response to their questions:

“Do you have paste? ... No, only toothpaste. Do you have gel? .... No, only hair gel.”

I sympathise because I’m an airport know-it-all.

Why is everyone so frantic anyway?

It’s not even 5am and passengers are having cooked breakfasts washed down with pints of beer, as if it was their last supper.

It will be if their cholesterol has anything to do with it.

Usually I shun the queue to the plane until the last minute but this time I join it.

Behind me I listen to a couple getting anxious because they can’t find their seat numbers on their easyjet boarding pass.

Really? I think.

Do people still not know easyjet don’t have seat numbers?

Their panic is contagious and finally I turn around and tell them to stop looking for because there aren’t any.

“Oh,” the woman smiles with relief. “We’ve never flown on easyjet before, have we?”

“Not had that luxury,” her partner adds.

Perhaps they’ve only been on Ryanair. I think you have to bring your own seats with that lot.

Soon they’ll dole out aeroplane kits where you have to make your own plane. You’ll have to pay extra if you use sellotape.

I have a coffee and get chatting to the lady in the seat next to me.

Our friendly chat culminates in an offer of a mint. This is the pinnacle of plane friendship.

I start to feel excited.

It’s miraculous, in a few hours I’ll see my brother.

No volcano can stop me now.

Picture by www.olibenet.com