Spain Is the Best Country in Europe, Zoe

British journalist Zoe Strimpel has written a column against Spain in The Spectator. I don’t know, I wouldn’t want to jump the gun, but it sounds like Strimpel, after visiting us, is not “another satisfied customer.” Well, you will understand that I just had to revisit some of her statements here. I had planned to argue with her over her insults and lies, but I’ve ended up falling in love. I love toxicity. Let’s see:

Thanks to a host of savvy media stories, we’re now supposed to think of Spain not just in terms of package holidays, sangria, and Catholicism but also as chic, romantic, stylishly left-wing.

I don’t know who sold you that merchandise, Zoe, but it’s broken. Leftism and stylish are antonyms. Let me explain: for me, James Stewart was stylish, not Judith Butler. Yes, we are festive, holidays, sangria, Catholicism, chic, and romanticism.

The cities are dire — some of the least appealing on the continent.

Spanish cities are beautiful. Some of the most appealing on the continent. You must, amiga mía, realize: that when it’s everyone who falls in love with Seville, Santiago, Valencia, or Salamanca but you, Zoe, maybe the problem is not with “everyone.”

My trips to Seville, Granada, and Córdoba as a kid were marred by the stink of drains in every room we slept in.

Really? Are you sure that your roommates remembered to use deodorant?

The baked, dull avenues of Madrid, the endless and fruitless quest for the best place for cured meat.

Madrid has some of the most majestic avenues in the world, watched over by a sky that only Velázquez, whom you can meet at the Prado museum (he’s dead, I mean his paintings), could capture. For the rest, it is very, very, very difficult to find a bar in Madrid where you get bad cured meat. To eat poorly in Spain is an endeavor that needs to be taken extremely seriously if you are to succeed.

Politically, Spain is nasty.

Don’t you believe it, Zoe. Let me know if you can recall any other nation going from dictatorship to democracy without firing a single shot, on the initiative of the politicians who held dictatorial power, then going on to celebrate a peaceful transition. We must not be so bad politically if we have achieved something unique in the world.

It’s got a loony left and right with far too much power.

I’m not going to deny that the left here is crazy, like all postmodern lefts. Does the right have too much power? No, honey, otherwise our economy would be doing just fine for once, damn it. We’re just a great nation in the hands of a moron. In that sense, we’re even.

I’d give special mention to its knee-jerk hatred of Israel.

If you talked to people on the street you would know that only the extreme left political elites are pro-Palestinian, they love any terrorism, but this is not exclusive to Spain. Israel and Spain have a long tradition of anti-terrorist cooperation. We have particularly enjoyed the mass sex change operation of Hezbollah terrorists.

country’s rambunctious anti-tourism?

Oh dear, don’t tell me you’ve visited Barcelona! Why did you do that? For decades, the Catalan political elite have hated everyone because they think they are a superior race, and they engage in anti-tourist nonsense. Don’t worry, we’re fixing it. If instead of Barcelona you had visited Madrid, San Sebastian, La Coruna, or Cadiz you would know that it’s hard to find a more open, fun, and welcoming country.

Barcelona is a bewildering tundra of tat and dive bars…

You should have visited it a few decades ago, before enemies of Spain like you took over and screwed up the region.

…dotted with the ugliest architecture on earth – that of Gaudi.

Call me perceptive, if you will, but I suspect you’re not too keen on Gaudi’s artistic talent.

It’s got a bang average beach.

Do-it-yourself tip: try the Bay of Biscay for beaches.

overpriced food.

Really? Since when in your native London do they give it away?

And you’ll get pickpocketed as a bonus.

That is true. There is a lot of pickpocketing. Especially among foreign columnists.

Spanish history is also horrid if one begins with the Inquisition, the bloodiest, most sadistic, most pathological manifestation of Catholic dogma in Europe.

Calm down, Zoe. Have a glass of water, you’ve got a bit of Black Legend stuck in your throat.

and moves through to Franco and the long love affair with fascism.

Franco decided that Spain would remain neutral in WWII. Maybe he should have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Jokes aside, whether you like it or not, he was a dictator acclaimed by the people until his death, peacefully, in bed. I don’t know what your history book says, but thanks to Franco, Spain became a retaining wall against Stalinism, which otherwise would have swept through Europe. If it had happened, probably, neither you nor I could be writing this now. Instead of educating yourself with The Guardian, try reading Stanley Payne one day.

And what of a great Spanish literature — is there one? I mean other than Cervantes?

Not at all, Zoe. The only thing we know to do with our hands is kill bulls. A word of advice at this point in your article: try putting down the bottle of whiskey when you write.

Bringing it all together is the bullfighting; slowly and cruelly torturing animals for sport in view of tens of thousands of baying onlookers.

For a moment, I wasn’t sure if you are describing the noble art of bullfighting, or what Madrid looks like every time your hooligan friends decide to pay us a visit to attend Champions League matches at the Bernabeu.

(bullfighting) This is not a tradition fit for the modern era.

You’re right. I’ll tell my bullfighter friends to trade the bullring for showing off their salami with a gay dance on TikTok.

I won’t be troubling Spain with my tourism any time soon.

Oh, Zoe. Don’t do that! I’m so sad. I was close to falling in love. How brief our love story has turned out to be. Just as I was about to invite you to dinner at an expensive, stinky, romantic restaurant, full of pictures of Gaudi, and decorated with bull’s heads! Anyway, another Spanish trait: we don’t hold grudges. I’d be delighted to show you this paradise on your next visit, if only you’d let me be your guide, my dear.

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