The statue of John Lennon in the Rambla in Almeria has been vandalised yet again. Somebody really hates that statue.
This time, he’s had a face paint and his guitar broken. His glasses vanished quite a while ago – why the sculptor thought it was a good idea to place some glasses on his face without attaching them is anybody guess.
The statue commemerates the story (no idea if it’s true, and couldn’t much care) that Johnnie wrote the song “Strawberry fields” while pottering around the province.
It somehow makes Almería even more firmly ‘third world’ than it merits. I was once in Belize City where the best they could do was a millionaire who lived on a yacht which was moored in the harbour there during several years. He eventually died in his stateroom. The fellow was called ‘Bliss’ and, while he never once came ashore, he was the best thing the locals could find… and they now have Bliss Street, Bliss Bay and Bliss House (possibly a brothel this last one). Almería wants its claim to fame to be that an English pop star once spent a couple of months there (well, in Nijar actually) and wrote a… let’s be clear here… second rate pop song about a lunatic asylum in Liverpool. Pathetic.