Tony Bryant

One of the topics that attracted a lot of media attention in 2018 was the Spanish Congress agreeing to consider a bill drafted by the governing Socialist Party (PSOE) to make euthanasia a right that would be available through the public healthcare system in Spain. The proposal had a majority backing from left-wing Unidos Podemos, and from regional Catalan, Valencian and Basque parties. However, the main opposition, Party Popular (PP), opposed the bill, while Ciudadanos expressed its concerns. The debate was reignited in Spain after Madrileño Ángel Hernández was arrested for ending his wife’s life by administering a lethal dose of pentobarbital, a drug used in physician- assisted suicide in the Netherlands. Hernández spent a night in a Madrid police station, before appearing in court the following day. He was released on bail pending an inquiry. At the time, euthanasia was considered homicide in Spain, so the country’s criminal code punished co-operators in assisted suicide, albeit w...

  Art is something that has fascinated me since childhood. Although I am no painter, art was one of the few subjects, along with drama and English, that I truly enjoyed at school. Two of my favourite Spanish artists are Murillo, whose realist portraits of flower girls, street urchins, and beggars I find irresistible; and Julio Romero de Torres, the Cordovan artist whose symbolist style portrays a reflection of Andalusian customs and traditions. My early fascination with art began with Francis Bacon, for I found his raw, unsettling imagery somewhat arousing. The screaming faces in his series of Popes (based on Valázquez’s portraits of Pope Innocent X), and the Study for Three Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion confused me as a youngster. Did these eerie paintings actually reflect Bacon’s character? Art critic Michael Peppiatt claimed that ‘it would be no exaggeration to say that, if one could really explain the origins and implications of this scream, one would be far clo...

  Daredevil pensioners Some of my most memorable and fulling encounters have been with the older generation, because they often show a capacity for plain speaking having passed that point when they care about inhibitions. We often ignore the link between the older and younger generations, and overlook the fact that senior citizens often act as an inspiration to the young. There are many senior citizens on the coast whose unprecedented determination to help others can sometimes put the younger generation to shame. I am often amazed at the zeal of the people involved with the various charities on the coast, especially seeing as most of them are well past retirement age. One such charity is Age Concern, a Fuengirola-based association that caters for the needs of the over 50s. Along with its programme of events to raise money to run the association, Age Concern also organises an annual challenge, a charity fundraiser that is not for the fainthearted. In 2018, the charity organise...

Having been part of the punk rock movement that shook the UK with the ferocity of a native uprising in the mid to late 1970s, reviewing The Wasps latest CD was something of a trip down memory lane.   Having written about the band several times since their reformation in 2020, and interviewing both the original lead singer and song writer, Jesse Lyn-Dean, and his guitarist, Martin Hope, reviewing Punk Prayer was a task I undertook with enthusiasm. The CD is the follow up (although delayed by some 40 years) to The Wasp’s 1976 album, Punkryonics Plus, an album that brought the band considerable success.  Described as one of the best bands to emerge from the original British punk explosion, the band launched their latest offering with a mini tour in June 2022, which took in several dates in Spain, Portugal and the UK, including the celebrated Water Rats venue, located in the increasingly vibey music scene of Kings Cross. The first thing that struck me about the new disc was...

I loved to read biographies as a youngster. Some of my favourites were James Dean, Elvis Presley and Gene Krupa. Some of the stranger ones included Rasputin, Che Guevara, and the Kray Twins. The infamous East London gangsters had fascinated me as a child and I even went as far as writing to Reggie Kray in the late 1980s after reading his autobiography, In his own Right . To my surprise, and more so, to my mother’s, I received an answer from the notorious gangster thanking me for my comments. Several months later, I received a Christmas card from his brother Ronnie. Apparently, according to their biographer, John Pearson, the brothers would occasionally swap letters, and at Christmas would send out cards to those who had touched them in some way. Whether this is true, I’m not sure, but the Christmas card did arrive, although I have no idea whatever happened to it.   Interviewing authors is another part of my work that I particularly enjoy, for you never know what stories are...