Rising to the occasion

It’s one of those epic events that we had been meaning to cover for years, yet somehow it never made it to the page. But this time, finally, we were there for the biannual castells competition that’s held in the Spanish city of Tarragona. The castells in question are towers constructed from tiers of people, with each level balanced on the broad shoulders of the folk below. To triumph in the competition, you need to make a tower that’s tall (the highest castells can reach a giddy 10 storeys) but also complex. To achieve this, you must place the sturdiest adults on the lower levels and allow the nimblest and lightest to occupy the upper tiers – often the peak position is taken by a very young child.

The event has taken place since 1932 but, in recent years, the number of teams, or colles, taking part has grown apace – in part because of the way these towers represent Catalan identity at a time when many have sought independence for the region. But whoever you are, wherever you’re from, whatever your politics, the pictures of the castellers (taken by Julia Sellmann) are moving, uplifting (literally). It’s because those towers depend on trust, on the ability to endure, to collaborate and to rely on youth to win the day. The castells are living metaphors. Those strained shoulders, those pulsating veins, those taut muscles say, “This is what we can achieve when we work together.” I am seeing a castells workshop for every business hoping to grow, every community in search of harmony – it would be better than some paintballing team-building exercise.

The power of photography to deliver stories, to hold our attention, is also explored in our culture lead, which delivers a guide to buying photography. In a world where apps, AI and clever camera phones allow even the numptiest of us to take a reasonable picture, what makes a great work stand out? And why do images at auction command such varied prices? Our culture editor, Sophie Monaghan-Coombs, has come up with the answers.

In recent months we have been slowly rethinking how the magazine works, from looking at new formats for the cover to adding new regular features. There’s another change this issue. During our Paris edition of The Quality of Life Conference, we held a session called “The Concierge”. The format was simple and fun. The editors donned sweatshirts emblazoned with the crossed-keys symbol sported by concierges worldwide, and delegates were invited to ask us any travel-related questions that came to mind – but on one condition: that they got out of their seats to bang a hotel-desk-style bell.

Since then, The Concierge has been a radio series, a feature in our Weekend Edition newsletter and a returnee panel at all subsequent Quality of Life Conferences. Now it’s a section in the magazine, taking over the pages previously occupied by Inventory. It even gets a new paper stock and, importantly, the actual concierge comes to life in the style of a French illustrated comic (he’s a cool guy).

The enterprise has been overseen by monocle’s editor, Josh Fehnert, who delivers a line-up of stories that runs from Viennese sausage stands (there are many sausage puns, the Würst you can imagine) to a guide to modern hosting. Yet the new head of The Concierge is a refusenik when it comes to getting on stage for the live sessions (he sometimes claims that this is because he’s a nervous soul; other times that the sweatshirt is too restrictive). But we’ll gloss over that as it’s a time of year when goodwill should be the go-to sentiment; when we should all find our inner cas teller as we pull together for some seasonal cheer and community spirit. So from all at monocle, here’s wishing you a great Christmas and a towering success of a new year.

If you would like to send ideas, reflections, suggestions, please email me at at@monocle.com. — L