There is an interesting documentary called “The Secrets of Pickpockets”, originally aired on Channel 4 and now available on Youtube, that explains some of the tricks scam-artists get up to and the mechanics of how they operate. Most of the action takes place in London and a large part of the documentary is devoted to following undercover cops in their endless pursuit of these devious and slippery fellows. Unsurprisingly, many of them are known to the police on account of their multiple previous convictions for theft and fraud and such. The line-up includes some rather colourful characters and one of these serial offenders is a very tall and lanky Romanian with deep-set features and large jug ears who first appears in the documentary whilst secretly being filmed eyeing up potential victims on the tube, sticking out noticeably in the crowd on account of his height and his peculiar looks. “He’s not exactly hard to miss”, one of the undercover cops points out archly, off camera, “…I mean, he’s got a head like a witch doctor’s rattle.” Although witty and tongue-in-cheek at times, the documentary does emphasize the misery that these people inflict on their victims. Other than explaining how some of their scams are sprung, what is interesting to know is how organized these criminals are and the relative mobility that they enjoy within the borders of the EU. When things get a bit hot for them in London they often go to ground for a few months by taking off to some other city where there are large numbers of unsuspecting tourists and easy pickings to be had. One of these places is Barcelona; another city perpetually in high season.

Where I now live with Cristina is a district that is off-centre without being peripheral. Just up the hill from Diagonal with Villaroel, it is relatively affluent and urbane – with its many cozy restaurants and small businesses – yet residential, quiet, native and inviting. There is much that I like about living here. I enjoy the warmth of the exchange of a nod and a smile with my neighbors when I cross them in the street and the familiarity of walking into a shop and being asked – I think sincerely – how I am today. We might even address each other by name. There is also much to be said for the pleasure of sitting down at a café terrace and feeling free to put ones affairs on the table without fear of someone running past and snatching them.  As boring and parochial as this might seem, it is a welcome contrast to the constant subliminal tension of living in the historic centre of Barcelona where you are just a nameless someone else amongst countless other foreigners. These days, if I’m heading down towards the centre I’ll move into defensive mode as soon as I cross Gran Via.

It’s not that Barcelona is a dangerous city by any means. Quite the contrary, in fact; violent crime here is relatively rare. There is something mellow and benign in the air and you can usually saunter home calmly, perhaps quite pissed, in the small hours of a Sunday morning with due care but without having to worry too much. Cities like London or Paris resonate at a higher frequency, for numerous reasons, and are in a different league altogether so they do not bare comparison, but suffice to say I’ve felt more passive aggression on “school nights” in the likes of Lisbon or Madrid than I have ever felt in Barcelona late-late on a Friday. When the credit-crunch started to bite around here in about 2009, myself and certain friends – in conversation amongst ourselves – wondered how long it might be before we witnessed a spike in violent crime as elements of society were forced to the very edge of endurance. I don’t know that it ever got that bad, despite the obvious hardships. Stories circulated in the local press of violent gangs targeting  households in the gilded ghettos of the city, often subjecting their victims – if they happened to find them at home when they broke in – to extreme beatings or worse, but I cannot confirm these allegations. Neither can I say I ever felt  a noticeable rise in aggression on the street.

Where Claudia and I lived at that time, on Muntaner with Valencia, the indicators were different. Many small businesses soon began closing for good, one after another, to be replaced in many cases by shady merchants hiding behind windows they had blocked up with garish vinyl decals of attractive women flashing wads of cash, advertising their willingness to buy precious metals – gold, platinum, silver –  for their weight.  In terms of where we lived, it was the rapidly growing number of these merchants, seemingly popping up like mushrooms amongst the ever increasing quantity of struggling businesses, that told us things were looking grim. A few years later, when Claudia and I were no longer together, finding myself in a momentary but critical financial jam, I went into one of these grubby places to sell my wedding ring. I recall the sickening feeling of barely disguised indignation that possessed me as I watched the man behind the plexiglass scrape at it with a file. He then tested it with some chemical – to his satisfaction –  before informing me what it was he was willing to pay for it. I nodded my consent at his offer but requested the ring back for now, telling him I’d be back later to conclude the transaction. I slipped it back on my finger and took it for a last walk around old haunts, for an hour or so.

I suppose we also began to notice a bit more drama on the streets around where we lived.  I vividly remember the time Claudia, Alejandra and I were sitting at a café on the corner of Enric Granados with Valencia and we watched a disheveled and sweaty, very breathless, middle-aged man run past us at quite a pace, clutching a Louis Vuitton handbag under his left arm and glancing nervously behind himself as he ran across the road whilst dodging the oncoming cars.  This sort of thing, albeit comparatively rare, in what had previously been a pretty calm neighborhood , became a bit more prevalent. But nothing compared to what went on, on a constant basis, in the historic centre of town.

When I first moved here almost eleven years ago, Claudia and I rented a tiny flat in the Raval, on a street perpendicular and to the right of La Rambla as you walk past the Liceu on your way down towards the port. The first half of the street is called Carrer del Uniò; notable for its Russian deli, its tattoo parlor and its youth hostel. After about two hundred meters the street narrows considerably and then changes name to Carrer del Marqués de Barberà. This was our end of the street. We had “The Quiet Man” (an Irish Pub), a flamenco place whose name I cannot recall and a whole number of small shops and little businesses selling all matter of products from toys to stationary to mobile phones and even lightning conductors. Follow the street down another couple of hundred meters, past our old front door on the left, and you end up at a square that at that time was occupied by huge numbers of curbside hookers of all races and types imaginable and with all their retinue. At first glance, during daylight hours,  it was all quite colourful at our end of the street, between the working girls going about their business and all the tourist spill-off from La Rambla but I was somewhat concerned, when we first moved there, that things might get a little hairier later on at night, particularly if Claudia found herself walking home alone for some reason. As it turned out, the girls and their pimps kept things very much under control at all hours – rowdy drunks and troublemakers being bad for business, I assume – and it always felt quite safe, no matter what time we got home. I was propositioned a fair amount initially when I first moved there but once the girls had understood that I was a local and a resident they stopped pestering me and we moved on to nod our mutual hellos in the corner shops and cafés that surrounded the square.

Living in the centre you grow accustomed to the gritty liveliness that surrounds you twenty four hours a day. You maintaining a guarded awareness of where your possessions are on your person and of who might be around you at any given time, learning to read when something doesn’t seem quite right. Having lived for three years in El Born, I witnessed countless bag snatchings happen right in front of me as I wandered about the district. The bins below my flat were often used as a drop-off point for stollen goods. I’d sometimes be at my window smoking a cigarette and watch a man leave an item on top of the lid. Within twenty seconds a woman would come along from the opposite direction and pick it up. I remember the time I was just around the corner from my flat on Argenteria, both of my hands hung with bags containing all my recyclables that I was taking to the bins on Princesa. Walking towards me was an elderly gentleman, holding his wife by the arm on his left and clutching a tablet against his chest with his right arm. The man that was walking past him on his right glanced over, his body stiffening and contorting as if in slow motion, like a cat about to spring on its prey, before jumping on the old boy’s arm in an effort to snatch his tablet. I instinctively shouted “Watch Out” in Spanish as the thief leaped on the man and watched the two of them come down to the ground with a heavy thud. Before anyone knew what was happening the thief scrambled off into the nearest alley – minus the tablet, as it turned out – and I rushed over to help the man to his feet. Both he and his wife were quite shaken as he patted himself down, assuring me he was unhurt. I noticed a set of keys on the floor and, assuming they might be his, I picked them up and tried to hand it to them. At this the woman seemed to come out of her state of shock, drawing back from me theatrically as she spat “those are not ours, thank you very much!” I looked her in the eyes and understood immediately that she must have thought I was part of the ruse. I dropped the keys, gathered my bags and headed off to the bins on Princesa. Two minutes later, half way down the street, the thief walked right past me, limping noticeably and glaring at me with utter contempt.