The Big Debate

Monday night saw the long-awaited debate between the two main candidates for the Spanish premiership, Alfredo Rubalcaba and Mariano Rajoy. Although this debate is unlikely to change the result of the election, some debates in history have had a bigger impact.

In 1858 election for a new senator to represent the state of Illinois, a lawyer named Abraham Lincoln and his opponent Stephen A. Douglas held a series of seven debates which became famous worldwide. Douglas won the election, but Lincoln's reputation was made. Just two years later, in 1860, the two candidates ran against each other again, this time for the White House, and Lincoln became one of the greatest presidents in US history.

In the extremely close 1960 presidential, John Kennedy and Richard Nixon held another famous debate (see extract below). People who watched the debate on TV thought the telegenic Kennedy won but those who listened to it on the radio said Nixon performed better. Kennedy's final margin of victory was so narrow, there can be little doubt that his debate performance won him the election.

Ronald Reagan used humour to good effect in his 1980 debates with Jimmy Carter and in 1984 against Walter Mondale. In 1984, at 73 years of age, he was the oldest man ever to be a candidate for president. The moderator asked him about the issue of his age and you can see him very funny response below.

The only knock-out blow is recent debate history was in the 1988 vice-presidential debate between the inexperienced Republican candidate Dan Quayle and the veteran Democrat Lloyd Bentsen. The moderators challenged Quayle about his lack of experience and in his answer, he compared his length of service in public office to John Kennedy when he ran for president. This prompted the most devastation put-down in recent history from Bentsen. Watch for yourself below.

Cena Italiana e Film

Lo scorso venerdì 4 novembre, gli studenti di italiano abbiamo cenato insieme in una pizzería molto centrale, a Granollers. Questa cena fa parte delle attività sociali organizzate dal reparto Lingua Italiana della scuola.

Prima, alle 19:00 ore, un bel gruppo di studenti di tutti i livelli siamo andati al Centre de La Caixa a vedere il film ‘La Prima Cosa Bella’, del regista livornese

Paolo Virzì. Questo film è stato scelto come candidato italiano all'Oscar 2011 per il miglior film straniero.

Grazie a tutti per la vostra partecipazione e agli ex-studenti che siete anche venuti, sia al cinema che alla cena.

Alla prossima volta!

Ecco algune fotografie della cena. Belle, vero? ;-)

ETA: An End To Violence

The big story in Spain last week was the announcement by the Basque separatist group ETA of a permanent end to their fifty year terrorist campaign. The announcement was greeted with a mix of hope and scepticism and with a political initiative to try to bring the group's political supporters into the political mainstream.

The long process which saw the end of the IRA's campaign of violence in Northern Ireland has been cited by many as a potential model which the Basque Country could follow. Indeed, some of the protagonists of that process, Gerry Adams, the president of Sinn Fein, Tony Blair, the British primer minister at the time and George Mitchell, the former US senator who helped negotiate the peace have offered words of encouragement and advice.

Northern Ireland has been transformed since the 1998 Good Friday Agreement which ushered in the era of peace. Former enemies now work together in government and the province has an optimism and dynamism that could only have been dreamed of a generation ago. The process of building trust through compromise was long and involved many difficult decisions but with patience, imagination and good faith it was achieved. Let's all hope the politicians in Madrid and in the Basque Country have the same determination and vision to achieve the same.

Here's a CNN video about last week's announcement:

Training To Be An English Teacher

Every year in Cambridge School we run five training courses for people who want to become English teachers. We are certified training centre for the University of Cambridge and their most popular teaching qualification, the CELTA (Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults).

This week in our Granollers centre 15 trainees have started their CELTA course. The course offers a combination of training sessions on teaching methodology and the opportunity to put the ideas into practice with volunteer students. Once teachers qualify, they can use it to teach all over the world. Teachers who have passed the CELTA at Cambridge School at currently teaching in Asia, South America and all over Europe.

Here's an interview with Samantha Helps, who qualified on the CELTA course we ran in June-July 2011.

How Bad Is Street Crime in Barcelona?

The UK-based Times newspaper published a polemic this week about the high level of mugging and pickpocketing in Barcelona (see it here).  In one heading it described the city as being 'Heaven for Tourists and Thieves'.  You can read a report in El Periodico about the article here.  The article refers to a website called www.robbedinbarcelona.com which was created by a British man living in the city.  The man, whose pseudonym is Rob Daily (robar diariament) says he set up his one-man campaign against the city's opportunistic thieves after his parents, who were visiting him, were robbed twice in one day.


The reaction to the Times article and the British-owed www.robbedinbarcelona.com has been mixed.  Many of the comments which respond to the report on the El Periodico website are very critical.  They retort that London has its problems with crime as well, as the shocking looting this summer demonstrates.  British tourists often behave very badly too, they say; getting excessively drunk, behaving aggressively and disturbing the peace.  What's more, the company which owns the Times, Rupert Murdoch's News International, has just been the centre of the phone-hacking scandal.


Although all of the points above are undoubtedly true, there's no doubt that in some parts of the Catalan capital, street crime is out of control.  It's no excuse to say that other cities have similar problems and it isn't just British people who are unhappy about the situation - many Catalans feel the politicians, police force and judicial system need to do more.  Tourists (and foreign residents who look like them) are very frequently the victims of these crimes, so maybe foreigners make more noise about the issue for this reason.


A policeman based in the Raval told me last year that the vast majority of the crimes committed in that area were carried about by 50-80 professional thieves.  Unfortunately, he said that although these delinquents are frequently caught and arrested, they are almost never convicted because tourists won't return to Barcelona to appear as witnesses in their court cases, and even when convicted they only have to pay a fine or serve a short period in detention.

Quiz Night in English - Granollers

You are invited to a Quiz Night in English on Thursday 27th October 21:00-22:30 at El Gra (Plaça Església 8, Granollers).


Come and play with other students and teachers.  There will be prizes for the winning team!

R.I.P. Steve Jobs

The death of Steve Jobs, the founder and driving force behind Apple, died at the age of 56 last week.  Jobs, along with co-founder started the company in his garage in 1976.  It is now the world's second most valuable company and has revolutionised the computer, music and telecommunications industry.

This video of his speech to graduating students at Stanford University in 2005 is interesting for two reasons: it's a good example of his remarkable communication skills and it also has some fascinating anecdotes from his own extraordinary life.