Beast of a movie

DIVERSE: Foster (right) with wife Elena has designed the Gherkin and Sevilla poster

By Walter Finch

But despite being the world’s richest living architect, Norman Foster somehow found time to knock up a local bullfighting poster for Sevilla. Now, the British architect - behind a string of local buildings, including Madrid’s Torre Bankia and Barcelona’s Nou Camp redesign - has designed Sevilla bullring’s annual festival poster. The architect will certainly lose credibility in the eyes of animal rights activists after he was commissioned by the Real Maestranza to promote its controversial season of ‘corridas’. His reputation is bound to take a wobble, like his infamous Millenium bridge, in London, that had to be shut and fixed at a cost of

HE miraculously escaped death when his siblings were buried alive. Now, Bobi, a pure-bred mastiff, has been declared the oldest dog that ever lived.

According to the Guinness World Records (GWR) he will be 31 in May.

His Portuguese owner, Leonel Costa, explained that his parents had decided they couldn’t afford more animals, so when a new litter was born they had dug a hole and dumped the unfortunate pups in it. But they somehow missed Bobi, a Rafeiro do Alentejo mas-

Great escape

tiff, who grew up in Leiria, between Lisbon and Porto.

By ‘tradition’ once a pup had opened its eyes burying was no longer an option. So when Leonel - then just eight - and his brother found Bobi hiding, they kept quiet until his eyes opened and he gained a reprieve.

The previous ‘oldest dog ever’ was an Australian cattle dog named Bluey who was born in 1910 and lived for 29 years and 5 months.

millions after it wobbled on opening. But the Pritzker-prize winner, who has a home in Madrid, is unlikely to worry, being married to Spaniard Elena Ochoa, 64, for nearly three decades. Foster, 87, based the artwork on the striking red and yellow of the celebrated festival and on the minimalist architecture of the historic Plaza de la Maestranza.

Wild

It depicts a bull's head sat above the symbolic hide of a wild bull with the contours of the arena framing the imagery. Foster explained he took inspiration from ‘the symbolic’ features of the bullring, including the bullfighter's cape, the colours of the festival and a bull’s head adorning one of its doors.

THE movie As Bestas (The Beasts) was the big winner at the 37th Goya Awards, which took place in Sevilla.

The film, which follows a middle-aged French couple who encounter shocking violence after moving to a village in Galicia to be close to nature, won nine of the 17 categories for which it had been nominated.

These included Best Film, Best Director and Best Actor for Denis Menochet (inset).

Then came Cinco Lobitos (Lullaby), a story about motherhood, which won three awards: Best Actress for Laia Costa (above), Best Supporting Actress for Susi Sanchez, and Best New Director for Alauda Ruiz de Azua.

Jankto’s declaration

SPAIN has finally got an officially gay player.

Getafe’s Jakub Jankto has become the first current La Liga player to say publicly that he's gay.

The 27-year-old Czech internation al is back in his native country playing on loan for Sparta Prague. Jankto took to social media saying that ‘I want to live my life in free dom, without fear, without prej udice, without violence, but with love’.

He added: “I'm gay and I don't want to hide anymore.”

He is the highest-ranked Euro pean player to 'come out' with 45 international caps to his name.