- Do you live where you want to live?
- Definitely, yes. I love Barcelona, and as I get older I love it more. I have travelled enough to have it clear in my mind that it is a great city, happy and special.
- Would you like to move? Why and where to?
- I like where I live very much, in Sant Gervasi near to Gràcia. In September I am moving to the Plaça de la Virreina. Officially, I have always felt at home in Sant Gervasi until now, but I feel more at home in Gràcia.
- 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)?
- In my neighbourhood there is all one could need, and I love spending time in it. I confess I am very urban; I don't need the tranquillity of detached houses in the suburbs, nor the clean air outside the city, for me to feel happy. I like to be from the neighbourhood and live in it.
- As well as doing your daily shopping (if you do it) do you have places and services for all your needs?
- As I said, I love my city, not only my neighbourhood. When I was little, my father showed me how to enjoy the simple fact of being able to walk all over the city. Especially, it's true, I have a soft spot for the Raval, Ciutat Vella, Barceloneta... I can go there for no other reason than to be a witness to its peculiarity and spontaneous events.
- Which are your favourite cinemas, theatres and clubs?
- My favourite cinemas are the Verdi and Renoir, without doubt. In second place perhaps the Meliés and the Filmoteca. And one I admire but don't often go to is the Icària. I don't have a car, and I am too lazy to go so far. Theatres... I am a regular at small venues, but after seeing and living, at first hand, the closing of the Artenbrut (as I was in the last play on at the theatre, Actes Indecents) I have less and less hope for the theatre. Despite this, the Beckett is a great theatre, of course. Places to go at night, if I go to Gracia, there is the Isidro, the Cafè del Teatre, the Gaviota (now open at night), Rick's... if I go to the Raval, there is more choice: the legendary Marsella, Manchester, London Bar, Cangrejo, Benidorm... The Plaça Reial also calls to me sometimes with the Kabul y Sidecar... and in the Born, a great bar, perhaps the best, unequalled: La Palma, of Santi. For concert halls: the Apolo, Magic, and the dear Rock & Trini, in the Trinitat.
- And which are your favourite restaurants, bars and cafés?
- La Palma is a great place for a good aperitif, and if you want, to end up eating fried meat with dreamy sauces made reality, and the well researched list of cheeses in Santi, in Carrer de la Espaseria. The Boqueria drives me wild, with the Pinotxo, and Quim's constant comments. There is also the Papitu, simpler but ideal in summer; Bodega Manolo, in Gràcia, in Torrent de les Flors, it is a place for the initiated, "grande". I want people to know it, but deep down it hurts me to betray its peculiar and little known quality, to the general public. To end the route, it is indispensable to spend a lunchtime, early, at the Quimet Quimet, in Poble-sec, and the Xampanyet in Born; in Barceloneta, who has not stepped into the Cova Fumada is very unlucky!
- Is there any public area where you like to go, to sit and chat?
- I have always been a regular in Rius i Taulet. Also the Rambla del Raval.
- When you have to act as a guide for visitors, where do you take them?
- I show them what I would like to see, which is more the clandestine and curious part of Barcelona. Not so much its monuments as curious places, such as the bars I have talked about, or a magic place such as the Plaça de Sant Felip Neri. The truth is that, knowing your city well is a very seductive weapon, both for those from outside as those who are here, who are probably more impressed.
- 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?
- Sant Felip Neri is, by a long way, one of the most romantic places in Barcelona. There is a kind of calm nostalgia, always with a stream of water, which reminds you of being alive. And for sure with a few homeless people, or without motivation, who have to look for consolation in an essence that is only possible to understand if you have touched the troubled, living land. On one occasion I was asked to do a piece of cinema, which consisted of describing a space in Barcelona through a camera: I chose Sant Felip Neri immediately. I remember that the whole team felt the same respect for that essence, in silence, like stroking the square while we photographed in black and white; I will never forget it.
- When you have had to leave the city for a while, what have you missed most?
- Walking. Walking in sandals at night with the freshness of Gràcia in the festivals, or by day in the centre, with its heroes and anti-heroes, making the madness of the streets theirs.
- Which of the changes that have been made in the city recently are you happiest with?
- I am glad that there are more pedestrian areas and wider pavements.
- What don't you like, and what would you do to change it?
- I can't stand that neighbourhoods such as the Born, even the Raval, on a smaller scale, and now Gràcia (I hope they don't manage it) have become areas with less personality than they used to have. Neighbourhoods which are not neighbourhoods, but more cosmopolitan in the globalised sense of the word. With more little clothes shops, with the fashion that has been decided we should wear, bars compulsorily elegant, and restaurants which have misinterpreted the new Catalan cooking, producing highly conceptualised, gourmet menus.
- Add anything you would like to say, and that we haven't asked.
- The other day I saw how three people, not from Catalonia, laughingly scoffed at the size of the Canaletes, where great sporting events are apparently celebrated. I was just about to intercede, but then I decided that this is exactly what defines Barcelona. That's how we are: grandiose is not for us, for us its too much, and we always go for what is nearer, honest, and deep down more emblematic. I left them laughing and I had a drink from the fountain. "¡Visca el Barça!"