OK, what have I missed??
Well last week, Rafa was in Palma with Cristiano Ronaldo dining out in a restaurant called The Seahorse after having filmed something for Nike. All I can say is that Dorky and his mate must have dined out at bed-time, because Rafan and I fell foul most nights during our trip to Mallorca of the dreaded Spanish time-keeping, ie. we are English and like to eat dinner at 7pm, Spaniards on the other hand are happy for a plate of tapas and no self respecting restaurant serves anything before the hour of 10 pm. I kid you not, but we must have sat down in three places and then had to stand up to leave because we were not going to get anything to eat!!
Never has MacDonalds tasted so good.
Then, of course, on Thursday evening we had the IB3 special on Rafa from Manacor's Theatre. It was on at 9.30 pm local time, and of course with the pair of us being in the country we were keen to watch it live on TV. Our problem, however, was that whilst we had satellite TV in the apartment we rented for our stay - and something like 612 channels - 609 of them were channels from the Middle East. Have you ever watched Kuwaiti TV, Saudi TV, Jordan TV, Iran TV, UAE TV, TV from the Lebanon, prayers in Mecca?? Well we have, and not a local Spanish TV channel in sight.
But undeterred, plucky Rafan took the remote control in one hand, the Spanish TV instructions in the other ... and searched terrestrial channels, then hit SAVE. And guess whot?? At 9.36 pm precisely, when Rafa slathered in hair gel entered that boxing ring (what was that all about?) there we were on the settee, ready to enjoy it all.
And can that boy talk. Obviously because it was in Catalan (or Mallorquin ...) we couldn't understand a word, but we enjoyed watching Rafa's body language and particularly the clips they showed in between. After having a full day sight-seeing in Palma, I was knackered, and ready to call it a day when after one hour of talking, prolonged adverts seemed to suggest an end to the show. But no ... on the interview went for yet another hour, when I just had to give up the ghost and go to bed. Rafan stayed up for a bit longer and after the interview, they showed another programme about Rafa, and then there was a programme about Uncle Toni. I mean seriously ... when do the locals sleep??
Rather than post video clip after video clip to cover the whole show, are you happy with the two minutes I've posted above? Hehe ...
To finish Rafa's busy week, he was back in Palma again to record a TV interview with TVE which was shown at breakfast time on Monday morning. No, we weren't up to go stalking. You'll need to do a mangle of this link for a translation of the interview, but its largely around a number of much discussed topics now including Djokovic, the French and their doping obsession and Rafa's taxes. To be honest, I just think these topics need to die a death a bit now, so I'm not too sure why Rafa is talking about them again. Rafa's so-called doping didn't do too much for him in 2011 so maybe he needs a bit of what Djokovic is having and frankly, these baseless claims are just getting ludicrous. As for the taxes, so long as Rafa is doing nothing illegal, I don't really care about it. Sure, Rafa is a public sportsman, but he's not a public person elected to public office so frankly, his taxes are his personal business and not our concern. He did bring up the Olympics and how he would love to carry the flag for Spain ... I really, really hope that he gets it.
And following the interview, Rafa hot-footed it to the airport in order to start his journey to the Dominican Republic. Rafan was leaving on Sunday, and of course, he was there a few hours before she was. Thwarted again.
It seems like a series of near misses in that we were in the same places as Rafa at the same time, but never did our paths cross (unless you're Uncle Rafael of course ;) ). But to be honest, we never fell over ourselves to make it happen, and that wasn't the purpose of the holiday. We just had a really, really nice time on Rafa's island, enjoying our Winter break.
Plenty of opportunities to see him in Monte Carlo. Keep reading ...
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