• Those who bemoan the demise of the sit-down lunch in London and elsewhere would like it here. It’s very, very hard to get takeaway food, or much resembling fast food, really. A languid bocadillo over a beer in a tiny cafe is more the Madrid style, which I very much like, now I’m used to it.

• Graffiti notwithstanding, Madrid is, I think, the most beautiful city I’ve visited. From the shambolic, but completely charming old centre to the deft neoclassical elegance of the Palacio Real, it’s a stunner all over. And unlike many cities with a rich pre-20th century architectural heritage, it’s embraced modernity with gusto. The Paseo de la Castellana, the long avenue that divides the old town from more recent Northeastern areas, is packed with impressive buildings from the 70’s and 80’s banking and insurance boom, notably the Peurta de Europa (see below). Underwhelming in film and from a distance thanks in part to its bland location, it’s awe-inspiring up close.

• The city also has a truly impressive slate of parkland to its East. From the three spaces surrounding the palace - the exquisite Plaza de Oriente, the Campo del Moro, which was closed when I went past, and the Jardines de Sabatini to the North with some excellent surrealist sculpture - to the massive Casa de Campo, kind of Madrid’s answer to Hampstead Heath, accessible by cable car from another excellent space, the Parque del Oeste.

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First sights:

* Hostel is astonishing glow-white slab of ultramodern, and shares space with the local drama school, which is both nice and bizarre.
* McDonald’s appears to have exactly the same menu as in the UK. Bit disappointing.
* Euros aren’t as cheap as I thought.
* The hostel charges an extra 4 euros a night to the over-26’s. I feel like a paedophile just being here.
* Madrid has a serious grafitti problem (see picture). I saw a maid standing in the doorway of an upmarket-looking apartment block, but she couldn’t budge the mass of spray-paint all over the door.
* Also saw a dreadlocked white guy, early twenties, presumably homeless, shaving hastily in a car wing mirror.
* I walked behind a TV interview, and will therefore be on Spanish TV.
* Sat in a cafe eating fries with garlic mayonnaise, watching Spanish TV (not looking out for my cameo), I was struck by the tacky presentation of Spanish daytime TV, with on-screen captions and idents that could have been from the early 80’s. And the program, which seemed to be enitrely celebrity gossip (Spain invented the modern celeb mag, of course, with Hola! - which begat Hello!), didn’t feature a single American or British celeb. No Winehouse, no Beckhams, no Britney. Perhaps, I thought, all this talk of globalisation is nonsense. Perhaps TV is the great local medium, maintaining individual cultures, local obsessions. Then I noticed the background music to the feature I was watching was “Matinee” by Franz Ferdinand.

PA100166, originally uploaded by Rav Casley Gera.

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