El Puto Guiri welcomes the news this week that 20 years after passing away, the late Floquet de Neu (Copito de Nieve in Spanish, Snowflake in English) is finally being recognised with a statue and a street name. The albino gorilla was originally captured in the jungles of Equatorial Guinea and rehoused at Barcelona Zoo in 1966 where it became an iconic symbol of the city. The virile ape was fairly ‘active’ throughout its life and fathered 21 mini gorillas, none of which were also albino - to the dismay of tourism chiefs. It became so famous it even made it on to the cover of National Geographic magazine.
I’m not someone who has ever been especially militant either way about zoos although I do wonder how long this primate would have survived in the wild. The zoo has no real star performers nowadays although I’m sure it still serves a purpose for natural historians, schooltrips and intertwined honeymooners alike. Its adjacent position at Ciutadella does remind me slightly of Regent’s Park where in the summer in a former life I would sometimes flop out on the grass after a heavy nightshift at work (or play..)
Ciutadella similarly provides a vital function in bringing some greenery and respite to the city centre. Amidst the families, cyclists and tourists hurling themselves into the Josep Fontserè designed fountain, the park is also continuously populated by a cast of street vendors, buskers and other performers from all over the world - a Mediterranean Haight-Ashbury?
Strategically positioned between the port and the old railway tracks and the beach to the east, the park is also steeped in political history. Home also to Catalonia's Parlament, dramatic scenes unfolded there in October 2017 as some MPs declared independence from Spain for all of 7 minutes before the central government intervened. Snowflakes too, some would argue, although that is a whole other discussion..