- Do you live where you want to live?
- I've been living in Barcelona for twenty years, before that I lived in Terrassa, Gavà and Sabadell, where I was born. I'm an actor and I'm currently working in El mètode Grönholm by Jordi Galceran; I work in the TV series Ventdelplà, at Diagonal TV, and now and then I do dubbing and voice jobs.
- Would you like to move? Why and where to?
- Carrer de Sardenya is not the most idyllic place on the planet, but I prefer to live where I make my life. I'd rather get out of the city on occasion than live there.
- Do you spend time in your neighbourhood and with your neighbours? Do you have the shops you need nearby (baker's, grocer's, dry cleaner's)?
- We have the essentials within easy walking distance, shopping is convenient and we know the shopkeepers; we have the sort of personal relationships that make the big city just as human as a small town.
- As well as doing your daily shopping (if you do it), do you have places and services for all your needs?
- My neighbourhood is extraordinary as far as shopping and services goes, maybe one of the best in the city; you can get everything from a blood test to sailing lessons within a four-block radius. What I miss is a good bookshop.
- Do you stroll around your own neighbourhood for pleasure or do you go elsewhere?
- For me half the pleasure of a stroll is the pleasure of discovering places at a leisurely pace, taking your time, changing your route, taking detours and stopping all the time to look at things.
- Which are your favourite cinemas, theatres and clubs?
- Cinemas the Verdi and Icària, theatres the Poliorama and Romea. At night, the clubs El Aleph and Jamboree.
- And which are your favourite restaurants, bars, and cafés?
- Restaurants, there are a lot of good ones. The ones I frequent are, in order of price: Roig Robí, A Contraluz, Flash-flash and the bar Casajuana, in my neighbourhood.
- Is there any public area where you like to go to chat?
- The port. Especially the fishing port. It's shame it's not open to the public.
- If you ever have to be a guide for a visitor, where do you take them?
- Day 1: Montjuïc, Poble-sec. Day 2: walk round Gràcia, Rambla, Gòtic, Carrer de Montcada. Day 3: Forum, beach, Barceloneta. Day 4: Parc Güell, Sagrada Família, Palau de la Música.
- What is the most appropriate, funny or surprising adjective you have heard to describe Barcelona? Which one would you use?
- The title of one of the chapters in Robert Hughes' book about Barcelona: "The Colour of a Dog Running Away". It refers to Barcelona before the Olympics.
- Which is the best place (a park, a café, a seat in the city) to have a romantic date, or to be able to whisper sweet nothings to a loved one?
- It depends on the loved one; if she's ambitious, the restaurant at Hotel Arts. If she's imaginative, the Miró Foundation. If she's an outdoors type, along the River Besòs. If she tends to be shy, the breakwater. If she's not into romance, El Bagdad.
- What colours or smells, when you see or smell them anywhere in the world, remind you immediately of Barcelona?
- The smell of the milk bars where they do hot chocolate with whipped cream, and the smells mix with the coffee. When I was a kid going to Barcelona often meant tea at a milk bar. It's not the smell of a pastry shop or a churros shop, or quite that of a café. The best way to describe it is as the smell of Carrer de Petritxol.
- When you have had to leave the city for a while, what have you missed most?
- I tend to think more about what the new city has to offer me and that I can't find in Barcelona: the civility of Stockholm, the light in Lisbon, the atmosphere in Madrid... or the hazelnuts in Reus. It's probably because I know I'll only be there a short time.
- Which of the changes that have been made in the city recently are you happiest with?
- Most everything they've done is good. They managed to fix that chaotic agglomeration of 25 years ago. What matters most now is the integration of the immigrants and the sustainability of consumption.
- What don't you like, and what would you do to change it?
- Question: do you want us to buy a car made in Martorell that costs twenty thousand euros because it's made to go 180 kilometres an hour, to pay insurance that costs as much as a hundred cab fares, motor vehicle tax that doesn't give you the right to stop your car and get out anywhere, to pay to keep it in the parking garage all week and take it out from eight to ten on Sunday morning to go to the carwash without driving over fifty? Or would you rather we didn't buy it?
- Add anything you would like to say, and that we haven't asked...
- Call me provincial, but I hate the idea of Barcelona becoming a modern, fast-growing urban monster.