Bullfighting

Meet England’s octogenarian matador

It’s a sunny October morning at a bull-breeding ranch north of Seville, and 82-year-old Frank Evans is preparing to step into the ring. Born in Salford, Evans is one of the few British men ever to become a professional bullfighter, or torero. There is something of the retired rock star about him. He is dressed in the traditional matador’s outfit of black trousers, white shirt and red-and-black waistcoat. Although a little frail, he is toned. His thinning hair is dyed brown but still reaches his shoulders. ‘There are a million people in the local cemetery who’d love to have my eye problem’ Evans and I are here for a tienta

Bullfighting and the fight for Spain’s future

Being sanctimonious about foreigners and their cruelty to animals has long been a British tradition. The taste for dog meat in parts of Asia seems to incense many who perhaps should have matters closer to home to worry about – such as our collective addiction to cheap, factory farmed meat. When I was a child in the 1980s, ghoulish Spanish practices usually involving donkeys at some out of the way fiesta were a mainstay of Esther Rantzen’s unfathomably popular Sunday night programme, That’s Life. But sentimentality about animals has a way of catching on: South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in has suggested banning the consumption of dog meat and Spain is