To Kill a Mockingbird packed for road trip to Madrid this weekend
Athletic Bilbao fan and season ticket holder, Beltza Apezetxea, is eagerly awaiting the delivery of an English version of To Kill a Mockingbird this Easter Friday after incorrectly grasping the plot of the American classic.
Beltza stumbled across the novel while deep in a Reddit rabbit-hole, a semi-frequent occurrence for the 41 year old, who is fluent in Basque and Spanish, while he also speaks what he likes to call "Tapas-English" — small bits at a time. Beltza finds the online social forum the best way to keep up to date with the shifting nuances of the English language — a useful practice come tourism season as his small, family owned cantina is just a short stroll from the city's main square, Nueva Plaza.
In this instance, however, having bought the book for his upcoming 8 hour bus journey to the Spanish capital, Madrid, Bletza is likely to arrive either utterly confused, or a changed man.
The over-confidence in his English comprehension, combined with his racist disposition, is what led him to the ill-fated Facebook Marketplace search for the book. Originally hoping to utilise the tedious bus journey to Sunday's match researching new, offensive ways to insult at Madrid's star man, Vinicius Junior, from the away end, one can only hope the words of Atticus Finch ring loud as he steps off the coach.
“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view...until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”
or, “Are you proud of yourself tonight that you have insulted a total stranger whose circumstances you know nothing about?”
or, “As you grow older, you’ll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don’t you forget it - whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, that white man is trash.”
Read up, Beltza, and let's hope the rest of Spanish football fans make a similar book purchasing error.