Urtian

José Manuel Ibar Azpiazu was born on May 14, 1943, in the Basque town of Aizarnazabal. He was the second of ten brothers and became known as Urtain, referring to the village of Cestona where he spent all his childhood.

Since 1960, living in Cestona, José Manuel stood out in typical Basque sports as aizkolari (cutting logs), Harri-jasotzea  (stone lifting) and idi probak (stone dragging by oxen).

Urtain enjoyed great fame and popularity in his time as a boxer. Urtain became a household name in popular culture. In 2004 the writer Juan Bas published the work La cuenta atrás, loosely based on the biography of Urtain. In 2008 the theater company Animalario premiered at the National Drama Center  the work "Urtain", based on the life of boxer.

Joana Machado

Joana Machado (1980) is a Brazilian personal trainer, photographic model and reality television personality, best known for being the winner of the fourth season of the Brazilian version of The Farm.

Joana Machado was brought to media attention in 2008 following her on-and-off affair with football player Adriano, marked by scandals and mutual aggression. These headlines made her into a media personality.

Since then, she appeared on several television shows, magazine covers (which included a nude photoshoot for Sexxy magazine in March 2011) and other media.

Ricardo Carrás Trallero

Ricardo Carrás Trallero learned the trade of being a potter from his father Antonio in the 1920's. The techniques used at that time in Huesca (Aragon, Spain) did not differ much from those used in the fourteenth century. 

The work with clay began with the digging up of clay in areas close to the city.
Ricardo opened his own shop in 1942 where he worked until his retirement in 1981. In January 1979, he received his first diploma from the Culture Committee of the College of Architects of Aragon and Rioja, in recognition of his work on behalf of the Aragonese Culture. 

Some parts of the work of Ricardo Carrás are presented in "El Museo de Alfarería Tradicional Aragonesa” in Huesca.

Acín Aquilué

Acín Aquilué (1888) was a man of many aspects, a committed anarchist militant, a libertarian teacher, a writer and an artist of the avant garde.

In 1913 he helped set up the magazine La Ira (Anger) in Barcelona. Its subtitle was “organ of expression of the disgust and anger of the people”. In that year he got a grant to travel round Spain and to create large oil paintings.

He was a producer of droll cartoons, informed by a biting political humour, against the Church, war and bullfighting. He was also a gifted sculptor who used metal and magic lanterns in his work.

Inspired by the libertarian educational theories of Francisco Ferrer, Joaquín Costa and Célestin Freinet, Ramón Acín endeavoured to continue in this form of education when he gained the post of teacher of design at the Escuela Normale in Huesca in 1916. He organised free evening classes for workers and in 1922 set up his own academy of design in his house.

His many articles earnt him several stretches in prison. Participation in some of the anarchist uprisings meant that he had to seek exile in Paris in 1926 and again in 1931, where he met artists of the avant garde. He was a friend of Picasso and Dali. He and his compañera Conchita Monrás educated their daughters Katia and Sol themselves.

In 1936, the authorities in Huesca refused to arm the people and the army and Guardia Civil were easily able to take power. In the massacre that then took place, Ramón Acín and Conchita were among many to face the firing squads.

The filmmaker Buñuel wrote that, "When the war started, in 1936, an extreme right group turned up to arrest him at Huesca. He managed to easily escape them. The fascists then seized his wife and announced that they were going to shoot her if Acín did not present himself. The next day he did. They shot the two of them." All his works of art at his house were destroyed by fascists too, and other sculptures were hidden by them.

Basque Txakolina Wine

The presence of the vine in Bizkaia goes back a thousand years. From the 12th to the 13th centuries onwards, wine growing for self-sufficiency and local consumption began. Etymologically the word comes from “etxakoa” (“home-made”) or “etxeko ain” (enough for home).

During the 14th and 15th centuries, local wines began to be controlled and protected. The first documented evidence appears in a text dated 1616, containing a reference to ‘vino chacolin’ to designate the local wine. But early in the 20th century, the competition from foreign wines and industrialisation together with a phylloxera outbreak destroyed much of the 2,874 hectares which had figured in the census in 1891.

Despite this uncertain outlook, at the end of the 19th century and early in the 20th century txakoli experienced one of its greatest moments of glory with the emergence of “chacolines”, bars for the exclusive sale of txakoli where, in addition to salted cod, squid and elvers were served in a happy, popular atmosphere. 

Halfway through the 1980s a small group of producers drove forward the revival of the vineyards and improvement in txakoli production in Bizkaia. This work received recognition with the granting in 1994 of the “Txakoli de Bizkaia-Bizkaiko Txakolina” Designation of Origin.

Right now, the term Txakoli-Txakolina is a traditional term protected by European regulations.

It is a wine with a marked personality in which white ones predominate over “ojo de gallo” rosés and red ones.

The cellar of Iker Ulibarri (pictured) is made of stone and is actually an extension of his home. In the backyard they have 2 hectares of hondarrabi zuri grapes. The soil contains clay, sand, slate and schist. The wine is fermented in stainless steel and aged on the lees with more than average of ‘batonnage’. It’s bottled unfined and unfiltered with minimal SO2 added, and it’s one of the few wines in this “difficult” coastal area that is both organically grown, and certified too.

Mounaques

The Mounaques are life-size dolls, made ​​with rags and hay, typical of the village of Campan (Hautes- Pyrénées).

They are dressed in clothes and represent men, women and children in daily life.

Every summer, from July to September, Mounaques are exhibited in the streets, on balconies or in gardens of houses in the village of Campan.

Traditions in Campan are strong and (like wearing berets) the Mounaques are still made in the same way as the forefathers did; it takes some 6 hours per model.

 

Cagots

The Cagots were a persecuted and despised minority found in the west of France and northern Spain: the Navarrese Pyrenees, Basque provinces, Béarn, Aragón, Gascony and Brittany. Their name has differed by province and the local language: Cagots, Gézitains, Gahets, and Gafets in Gascony; Agotes, Agotak, and Gafos in Basque country; Capots in Anjou and Languedoc; and Cacons, Cahets, Caqueux, and Caquins in Brittany. Evidence of the group exists back as far as AD 1000.

Cagots were shunned and hated. While restrictions varied by time and place, they were typically required to live in separate quarters in towns, called cagoteries, which were often on the far outskirts of the villages. Cagots were excluded from all political and social rights. They were not allowed to marry non-Cagots, enter taverns, hold cabarets, use public fountains, sell food or wine, touch food in the market, work with livestock, or enter the mill. They were allowed to enter a church only by a special door, and during the service, a rail separated them from the other worshippers.

They were compelled to wear a distinctive dress, to which, in some places, was attached the foot of a goose or duck. So pestilential was their touch considered that it was a crime for them to walk the common road barefooted or to drink from the same cup as non-Cagots. The Cagots were often restricted to the trades of carpenter, butcher, and rope-maker.

The Cagots were not an ethnic group, nor a religious group. They spoke the same language as the people in an area and generally kept the same religion as well. Their only distinguishing feature was their descent from families identified as Cagots. Few consistent reasons were given as to why they should be hated; accusations varied from Cagots being cretins, lepers, heretics, cannibals, to simply being intrinsically evil. 

The Cagots did have a culture of their own, but very little of it was written down or preserved; as a result, almost everything that is known about them relates to their persecution. Their cruel treatment lasted through the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Industrial Revolution, with the prejudice fading only in the 19th and 20th centuries.

A Lucky Find: Vintage Beret Labels

A very lucky find on Ebay this morning: a collection of old beret labels I have never seen before.

Beret aficionados know how many beautiful labels there are (or were in times gone) and I must have close to 300 different models in my collection now.

And yes, sometimes I find a whole lot that I have never seen, in real life or published.

Some are true works of art in their own right; often depicting beret wearers with a nice sense of humour, showing rain, turned up umbrellas (to prove impermeability and the superiority of a beret over an umbrella) and always a happy face.

Chechen Berets

When working in Chechnya in 1997, I managed to get hold of two berets of the Chechen fighters ("Boiviks"); a woolen green beret and a beautiful black velvet affair (that is now rapidly disintegrating).

Both carried the original badge of the Chechen wolf, a national symbol of the Chechens.

Later on, the Chechens abandoned by the West, other badges started appearing with stronger symbolism of Islamic affiliation. Pictured here Isa Munayev who was was killed while leading a Chechen volunteer unit on the Ukrainian side in the War in Donbass in 2015.

Below the famous picture of a boivik by photographer Romano Cagnoni. 

The Black Panzer Beret (Schutzmütze)

One beret-like hat I often come across while researching historic berets, is the Schutzmütze, the black "Panzer Beret" of the Nazi's German army. I have long resisted, for obvious reasons, but of course, it is still a real part of beret history.

With the creation of the new Panzer arm of the German Army in 1934, a special style of uniform was designed and issued for wear by all ranks. Known as Sonderbekleidung der Deutschen Pantertruppen (special uniform for German armoured troops); this new uniform exemplified the elite status of the new arm and was regarded as highly prestigious. 

It had a special protective headdress (Schutzmütze), designed to offer protection against the hazards of head injury inside the armoured vehicle. The headdress consisted of a rubber crash helmet which was covered with a detachable black wool beret. The earliest examples bore the oakleaves badge and cockade attached to the front in white and national colours (red/white/black for the cockade). From May 1936 the Nazi's eagle and swastika badge was applied.

During the invasion of Poland in 1939, the Schutzmütze proved impractical when worn in conjunction with improved tank communications headsets and so by the winter of 1939-40 became increasingly unpopular; it was phased out over the following two years. 

Gent's Fashion with Beret

Charles Albert Cingria

Charles Albert Cingria (1883 - 1954) was a Swiss writer and musician.

The family of his father Albert was from Ragusa (now Dubrovnik ) and lived in Constantinople; his mother Caroline Stryjenska (1846 - 1913), born in Carouge (Geneva), was a Polish-French painter.

Between 1902 and 1909, Cingria travelled in Switzerland, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Africa and Turkey, before moving to Paris in 1915. The Second World War forced him to return to Switzerland. After a stint in Lausanne and Geneva, he moved to Freiburg where he found a miserable attic room .

Cingria travelled around Switzerland by bicycle. He survived by publishing in journals of the local press and giving lectures. In 1944 , he returned to France. Thereafter, he lived in Paris, Aix-en-Provence and in Switzerland. In 1954, he was repatriated to Geneva, where he died of cirrhosis on August 1, the Swiss national holiday.

Cingria's manuscripts are kept at the Cantonal and University Library of Lausanne.