Filling the Sink

This year marks the 120th anniversary of the opening of the notorious La Model prison, located in the Eixample district of Barcelona.  The facility closed in 2017 and has since become a site for Catalan historic memory, open to the public. Behind its high beige walls lies the history of a prison that sought to be exemplary, but during the Franco dictatorship held thousands of political prisoners, many of whom were tortured or executed.  Cillian Shields joins Lea Beliaeva Bander to talk about the agonizing history of La Model and its impending transformation into a place of life.   We speak with Isabel Centeno, historian and tour guide at La Model, and we hear from Gemma and Carme Puig Antich, the sisters of Salvador Puig Antich, the last political prisoner to be executed at La Model, and their lawyers, Maria Servini and Magda Oranich.  The Catalan phrase of the week is “pagar justos per pecadors”, in English to pay for the sins of others. 

In January 2024, the Catalan government joined other European countries in the fight to regulate the use of mobile phones by young children.   A new set of regulations restricting the use of mobile phones in Catalan primary or secondary schools starting from the 2024/2025 academic year saw the light of day.  But the idea behind the regulations didn’t come from the Catalan politicians themselves, but from the parent initiative Adolescència Lliure de Mòbil, A Phone-free Adolescence, which started in the Barcelona neighborhood of Poblenou in November 2023, and soon spread to other parts of the Catalan capital, then the rest of Catalonia, and then all of Spain.   Parents and experts alike are concerned that the early use of cell phones and the easy access to social media could affect children’s mental health and cognitive development.   The new rules will mean that the use of mobile phones will be completely banned for school children in Catalan public primary schools, while older children in secondary school will still be able use them in certain circumstances, with permission of teachers.   Lea Beliaeva Bander is joined by reporter Oriol Escudé Macià to talk about what the new regulations mean and why some experts are discouraging children from using smartphones.   We will hear from Lluna Porta, one of the spokespeople for Adolescència Lliure de Mòbil about how the group got started.  Jose Ramon Ubieto, a clinical psychologist and author of ¿Adictos o amantes? offers advice on how to reduce phone time for children and adults alike.   This week's Catalan phrase is 'bufar i fer ampolles'. Literally, 'to blow and make bottles', it's used to express something that’s easy to do, similar to the English phrase “piece of cake”. 

Society of the Snow and Robot Dreams miss out on coveted Academy Awards, but plenty of fun is had along the way.  In Los Angeles, Natàlia Segura catches up with the nominees – Barcelona filmmaker JA Bayona, director of Society of the Snow, Montse Ribé and David Martí, nominated in the Best Makeup and Hairstyling category for their work on the same film, and Pablo Berger, director of Catalan production Robot Dreams, nominated for Best Animated Feature.  On the big night itself, Natàlia heads to an Oscars party at the Teleferic Barcelona in LA, meets a survivor from the Uruguayan plane crash in 1972 that inspired Society of the Snow, and fills in a weary-eyed Cillian Shields back in Barcelona.  The morning after the night before, Lorcan Doherty joins Lea Beliaeva Bander to chat about Catalonia's Oscars history and the two nominated films.  Robot Dreams' lead character designer, Daniel Fernández Casas, explains the secret of the movie's success.  This week's Catalan phrase is 'somiar truites'. Literally, 'to dream omelettes', it means to dream big, perhaps unrealistically so!

March 8 is International Women's Day. To mark the occasion, Filling the Sink pays homage to ten women who changed Catalonia.  Writer Caterina Albert (aka Victor Català), educator Francesca Bonnemaison, anarcho-syndicalist Teresa Claramunt, trans activist Silvia Reyes, flamenco dancer Carmen Amaya, operatic soprano Montserrat Caballé, singer and songwriter Rosalía, chef Carme Ruscalleda, middle-distance runner Carmen Valero, and footballer Alexia Putellas.  This week's Catalan phrase is 'Visca la lluita feminista' – 'Long live the feminist struggle'. Presented by Lorcan Doherty with Lea Beliaeva Bander.

The world's biggest mobile technology fair is taking place in Barcelona once again, but Mobile World Congress goes way beyond phones. MWC 2024 showcases all kinds of emerging technology from tech giants such as Samsung, Google, Huawei and Microsoft, with artificial intelligence the buzzword on everyone's lips.  Lorcan Doherty chats AI with Mobileum founder Avnish Chauhan, Dell's beer guy (and business development manager) Warren Jackson, and IMA CEO Eyal Reshef.  Lea Beliaeva Bander talks to two Catalan companies at 4YFN (Four Years from Now), the startup space at MWC: Francesco Pititto, CEO of Envjoy Nature, and Dhespina Mena from WindowSight.  Oriol Escudé Macià checks out one of this year's top attractions, Alef Aeronautics' flying car prototype, as well as other aviation innovations – SK Telecom's urban air mobility (UAM) aircraft, an AI-assisted drone used by Catalonia's Mossos d'Esquadra police, and Aalto's High Altitude Platform Station (HAPS).  Cillian Shields heads to a session called 'Quantum Industry: A Bird's-Eye View' to discover more about this cutting-edge technology and how it is evolving in 2024.  This week's Catalan phrase is 'A camí llarg, passa curta', which means 'On a long path, short steps'.

All across Europe, farmers are protesting, stopping traffic with their tractors to sound the alarm on what many feel is the slow death of the agricultural sector. On February 6, Catalan farmers drove their tractors out of the fields, draped them with slogans such as “La nostra fi, la vostra fam”, or “Our end, your hunger” and marched slowly but determinedly toward Barcelona in one of the largest coordinated protests in years.  We hear from 12 farmers who took part in the protests about the disappointments, demands, and dreams of a sector that feels neglected as it deals with everything from environmental regulations to rising production costs, excessive red tape, and a lack of drought relief, just to mention a few.  Lea Beliaeva Bander is joined by Oriol Escudé Macià, who sheds light on the farmers' protests and explains what lies ahead.  This week's Catalan phrase is 'picar pedra'. Literally, 'to crush stone', it means to work hard at something without necessarily achieving a gain in the end.

Viquipèdia, the Catalan version of the free, collaborative online encyclopedia, is a real success story, with almost 750,000 articles and over 1,000 active editors. Wikipedians Xavier Dengra and Àlex Hinojo explain what drives them to volunteer their free time and contribute their knowledge to the project. Lea Beliaeva chats to Núria Ribas, president of Amical Wikipedia, and Carme Fenoll, a wikipedian and librarian, about gender bias on the website and how Viquipèdia is trying to increase diversity, in terms of contributors and content. This week's Catalan phrase is 'ser un setciències'. Literally, 'to be a seven-sciences', it means 'to be a know-it-all'.  Presented by Lorcan Doherty. 

Record stores and listening bars are popping up everywhere in Barcelona. Vinyl sales in Catalonia surpassed CD sales in 2023 for the first time since the 1980s. Why has this old, impractical way of listening to music gained popularity in a time when everyone can access whatever music they want on their phones? Lorcan Doherty joins Lea Beliaeva Bander to chat about the vinyl revival. Carlos from Surco and Marc from Wah Wah explain how it is affecting two of the city's older record stores. David Ayllón from the cultural association Salvadiscos talks about the social side of sharing music. This week's Catalan phrase is 'com un disc ratllat'. Literally, 'like a scratched record', it's used like the English phrase 'like a broken record'. 

Catalonia's number one football team has always been FC Barcelona, until now! Tiny Girona FC are making it big, battling it out at the top of La Liga in just their fourth season ever in Spain's top division. Cillian Shields joins Lorcan Doherty to chat about the players and manager making the miracles happen. Pepe Sierra, a Girona fanatic and president of the federation of Girona supporters' clubs, and Eduard Solà, a journalist at Catalunya Ràdio who has covered Girona for many years, talk about what the club and this season means to them. This week's Catalan phrase is 'deixar-hi la pell' – you could say Girona FC are playing out of their skin. 

Filling the Sink turns the spotlight on education after Catalonia finished almost bottom of the class in Spain in the latest PISA international tests, sat by students around the world in reading, maths, and science. The results have raised questions for Catalan schools: what's behind the decline, and what can be done about it? Have changes in education gone too far, or not far enough? Oriol Escudé joins Lorcan Doherty to discuss the issues and hear the views of Mònica Nadal, research director of the Fundació Bofill, Xavier Massó, a secondary school teacher and general secretary of the Professors de Secundària union, and Toni Pedragosa, a secondary school teacher and member of the Clam Educatiu platform. This week's Catalan phrase is 'Fer mans i mànigues'. It means to make a big effort to achieve something.