The Storm That Never Was

Being in my twilight years, I must search each night, with only limited success, for a decent sleep. So many things can go wrong: from the owl hooting outside my window, a sudden cramp or an irritating mosquito-bite; but I suppose being uncomfortably hot (or cold, depending) is the most common. A week ago, I wasn’t even wearing a sheet.

Followed by waking up to take a leak halfway through the night.

I’ve switched on the ‘no phone calls after 10pm’ button on the mobile phone so at least I won’t be roused by some nitwit…

Once I awaken, it’s the very devil trying to get back to sleep and that enjoyable dream I was probably having – which I’ve since forgotten. 

So, I decided on an early night on Wednesday (my book is a bit boring).

You know, it wasn’t five minutes after I fell asleep when an alarum went off on my phone Waddoo, Waddoo, Wadd- the fuck? 

Yes, those fine people at Civil Protection had put out an Es-Alert warning in red capital letters regarding a most terrible storm that was approaching, man the lifeboats and sleep upstairs; and please, Take Care because we love you!

I put something rude about them on Facebook and tried to go back to sleep.

My place is on a hill beyond a dry riverbed. On the other side, there’s a fast road that connects our village with the next one along. If it’s useful by day, then it’s a cracker at night, especially if you own a tricked-out motorcycle and enjoy a good thrill. I’ve become impervious over my time here to the noise of a throaty exhaust pipe, taking about twenty seconds or so to rise and fall in decibels as it goes past, but I think this time somebody must have organised a race, because I am suddenly wide-awake once again at three.

No rain yet, as I peer out over the terrace. Grumpily I try and get to sleep again. I’ve had about four hours by now, so I’m not going to pass out again for a while. After a bit, and grouchy because of my interrupted night, I switch on the bedside lamp and check my e-mails. Maybe have another go at my book.

At six on the dot, a single clap of thunder teases me.

I stagger from bed at nine this morning, go and feed the cats, and check once again for the terrible storm.

So far, as I open a can of pet food, it appears to have drizzled slightly.

I consider having an early siesta.

Last night’s alarm was apparently something to do with Valencia, 356 kilometres to the north, where it’s been raining heavily.

It reminded me (and no doubt them) that the last flooding up there, almost two years ago, was greeted by silence from the authorities, and in consequence 230 people drowned. They also failed to warn us down here with their noisy and effective siren when the hills around next-door Bédar caught fire with fifteen victims back in July. A horrible event that I could see for three nights from my bed-room window.

So now, there's an alarm to wake the dead. Better safe than sorry, eh?

I am once again on the Internet as I sip a coffee – no rain for my area, it says, until Saturday!

Remind me on Friday night to leave the phone under the seat in the car.

…and later: Saturday started out overcast, then it cleared up again. There’s never any rain where I’m living!

Doomed, I Tells Ya!

 

There were a lot of posts on my feed the other day about how the AI Data Centres are going to become our nemeses. Firstly, by taking all the water and electricity. A large facility needs tens to hundreds of megawatts of electricity and up to five million gallons of water every day. The Spanish Data Centre Association (Spain DC) forecasts almost 67,000 million euros (‘€66.9billion’) invested in this country through 2030. 

Bad enough perhaps, but it gets worse as we ask: what place will humans have in the scheme of things when the machines can do everything we can do, only better? Already they can write poetry, resolve an impossible math equation, create ‘improved’ weapons, watch us and even think for us. It won’t be long before Artificial Intelligence checks the tea leaves and decided we aren’t wanted on the voyage anymore. I don’t exaggerate, as we read: ‘AI could kill all humans in next decade, warn experts: but how seriously should we take them?’

I have been hoarding recently. Not old bits of cardboard, unread newspapers and empty toothpaste tubes, but stuff which might be useful for when a calamity befalls us.

Cans of sardines, jars of fruit and veg in water, tins of unperishable sustenance made in Eastern Europe, some Nescafé and sugar, a bottle of Butano, a lighter, lots of drinking water and a jug of vodka in case the first people through my front door turn out to be Cossacks.

The thing is it could be anything. Russians or Chinese perhaps (anyone seen Red Dawn?), or a meteorite, or another round of covid – even more dangerous than the last one. 

An American friend of mine bought a cave in Missouri some time ago, turned it into a fortress complete with guns and booby traps (and hopefully something to eat). He emailed me back in 2020 when the pandemic came along with a marvellous line that reads ‘All things considered, I would have preferred zombies’.

Such people as my Yankee friend are called preppers or survivalists – being ready for almost any calamity. In fact, while you are waiting for the Big One, you may want to get yourself into shape and learn how to trap, kill and dress a wild boar, then cook it over a fire (don’t let the neighbours see the smoke!).

The billionaires (who may well be at fault when things eventually go pear-shaped) are said to be building enormous underground bunkers loaded with groceries, guns, oxygen, medical supplies, bimbos and mercenaries. The plan being to, um, start again once the world ends, with the enthusiastic help of the bimbos. The return of Adam with a fistful of Eves. Rather obviously, when the hired-muscle realise that their wages aren’t going to be of any further use, they’ll certainly decide on cutting out their boss and helping themselves to both the girls and the supply of twenty-year-old Scotch.

To prepare ourselves, as above, we need tinned food, plenty of fresh water, a battery radio (so we can pick up Richard over at Spectrum FM), a torch, a few candles, plenty of lavatory paper (it’s hell when you run out) and an AK-47. I’m about there, except for the firearm, but I do keep a knotted sock full of marbles, and if things become hand to hand, there’s some nail-clippers in the drawer.

Well, let’s ask the GoogleAI what else I need: ‘a basic disaster kit’, it says. Don’t forget the medical box (Elastoplasts, Paracetamol and a tongue-depressor), a whistle in case it was an earthquake, some pocket-money (which reminds me, I ran out of cash the other day and had to raid the tin), a power-bank charger for the phone, and finally, in a waterproof bag: the trusty passport and a change of underwear.

I live on a hill across a (normally) dry-river bed. If it fills up, then I will no doubt be OK even if it hasn’t drained three days later. Maybe a bit tired of lunching on tinned rhubarb, but otherwise fine. Unfortunately, most disasters are going to be lasting a lot longer than a panicky weekend, indeed, they may become permanent.

What are the most likely? I ask Wikipedia: it says under ‘Global Catastrophic Risk’, that ‘Human-made risks carry a much higher probability of ending civilization than natural cosmic events’. And very jolly reading it is too. On the same subject, GoogleAI warns of ‘The creation of an artificial superintelligence that outpaces human control and pursues goals not aligned with human survival’. Something like Terminator 2. On this grim possibility, The Guardian says: ‘Lawmakers blast AI companies after researcher warns of human extinction by 2030’. That’s just four years from now!

The GoogleAI disaster-list continues (plus a few of my own) with ‘engineered pandemics’ (maybe I should add a bottle of American Health Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr.'s Ivermectin equine laxative to my store), followed by ‘invasion from a foreign force' - perhaps they'll be robot-soldiers, the kind that never sleep - and worse still: ‘nuclear war and nuclear winter’.

It continues spreading its gloom with ‘rapid climate change’ (and here am I living in Southern Spain where the heat this summer broke records), volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, powerful cyclones, rising sea levels, methane poisoning, el Niño and microplastics.

How about a putsch from one or another of the billionaires (I’m thinking of YOU Elon Musk)? Then there’s the – I have to say – rather unlikely threat of the Rapture, where the most faithful of the evangelicals will ‘rise in the clouds’ while the rest of us are burned by Beelzebub, and finally the surprise arrival of either a huge asteroid or an unexpected attack by a horde of bug-eyed Martians. Frankly, I’m amazed we’ve made it this far.

Living in Spain, there’s also the outside chance of a coup d’état. Unlikely perhaps, but they did it once before. In my opinion, it’s pretty much on the cards right now for the USA.

Really, and after reading my own notes, I should probably go and make myself a nice cup of tea and then have a lie down.

Just in case, and don’t tell my neighbour I’m stockpiling, I might pop round this evening to the local German discount supermarket again and pick up a few more tins of pickled beets.

We're Staying the Course

Our village fiesta coincides with both the end of August and the day when everybody must pack the car with suitcases, family and a straw donkey and join the caravan heading back to the city. A little bit sunburned, a little lighter in the wallet and a slight headache from that late last-night revelry.

School, work and various obligations call for many if not all our visitors. But there will be some folk, with less encumbrances, to buck the trend and set out for the resorts now in September, knowing that there are fewer crowds and rather better weather.

There were six point nine million vehicles chasing each other home for operación retorno this past weekend. The cities fill up, and the resorts – if not now empty – have certainly taken a hit.

Between the swarms of Spanish holidaymakers and the foreign tourists (the INE claims 11.3 million during August), things have been decidedly busy. Employment has been high – even if a lot of those jobs (as everyone who can will have taken a holiday) have been filled by Latin Americans or the few Eastern Europeans who haven’t returned to their countries, considerably wealthier than when they left ten or twenty years ago.

Spain spends a lot on promoting tourism. Google says that Spain invests tens of millions of euros annually on direct international marketing through its official tourism body, Turespaña: with advertising, influencers, national and regional promotions (like ‘Think You Know Spain? Think Again’), the easy call of Sun, Sea and Sangria, plus various international tourist fairs: the giant one in Madrid, Fitur, which is held in January, along with the others in Berlin, London and so on.

Tourism creates lots of jobs, lots of money. Even the destinations themselves will have spent some of their budget on sprucing up the gardens, the streets and beaches. How much is a fully-grown transplanted palm-tree anyway?

It also creates its own problems. ‘Go Home Tourist’ daubed on the wall, or the locks for the airbnb apartments filled with super-glue. In Palma, or Barcelona or Marbella. Less tourism, more available homes for Spaniards!

In 2024, domestic and international tourism combined accounted for 12.6% of Spain’s GDP, or 200,699 million euros. Tourism generated more than 2.7 million jobs, representing 12.3% of total employment. The international tourist expenditure in 2024 was around 126,000 million euros.

But back in 2020, with the coronavirus, the numbers were very different: In short, tourism, particularly foreign tourism, whether from disease, war or climate, is fickle.

Whereas residential tourism, as the Spanish like to refer to us guiris, is constant. A tourist may have little loyalty to Spain, but we’ve hung our hats here. Like them, our money largely comes from elsewhere. They might spend a few hundred euros on their holidays (how much of that actually reaches Spanish hands?), while we have a house, a car, twelve months of shopping and a new kitchen appliance under our belt. One foreign resident of the expat variety could easily have spent the same in a twelve-month period as a hundred tourists.

Google says that ‘Spain is home to over 1.5 million foreign residents from high-income, Western nations’. Multiply that by one hundred, and we are worth to Spain as much or even more than international tourism. The figure would be considerably higher if someone fixed the 90/180 rule for non-Europeans, since many foreigners own homes in Spain which they can’t fully enjoy.

We may not fill the pockets of hoteliers and other powerful lobbyists in the tourist industry, but we bring our money to lawyers, builders, dentists, vets, mechanics and shopkeepers.

I ask, where are the state-sponsored promotions – ‘Come live in Spain: You’ll love it’? And I find the answer with Google AI here: ‘Severe domestic housing crises, inflation, and local backlash have forced a policy split. Governments now actively court tourists for fast economic injections while penalizing foreign homebuyers to protect local real estate markets’, the post contrasts the ‘Red Carpet Treatment’ for tourism from the authorities with a ‘Cold Shoulder’ for settlers.

I don’t believe that we affect the real-estate market as much as is feared, as most of us inactive retired types (at least) prefer to live in small villages in the hinterlands or on the coast rather than in a seventh-floor apartment in Madrid.

We also take pride in our surroundings and rarely stay up until 4.00am – and are almost never sick in the shrubbery on our street.

And when we residents decide on a whim to transform ourselves briefly into tourists, we will stay in Paradors or other nice hotels as we explore little-known regions of Spain, arriving with our (Spanish-bought) car and, at least, a smattering of spoken Spanish.

A Couple of Silly Songs about Mojácar

 The first one is mine, the second (rather better?) is from my friend Mr Google AI. 

Would you please all rise for...
The Mojácar anthem: 

'Ho, Ho, Mojácar and Ho! 
The purtiest town I ever did know, 
There's no place that's like it wherever you go, 
With three thousand souvenir shops and money to blow'. 
Hey, Hey, Mojácar and Hey!
I think of you often when I am away
Your flag and your anthem are things that I say
Will never be bested in many a day.
Hi, Hi, Mojácar and Hi!
The neighbours are jealous, I hear them sigh
They want a few hotels, your lift to the sky
Your sweet little beach-bars and this lullaby.
Hoo, Hoo, Mojácar and Hoo!
The secretive town that’s known to a few.
The car-loads of tourists, if only you knew
Are here for your treasures, your sunshine and you.

 

Mr Google's poem:

The Song of Mojácar.

High upon the mountain stone,
Where ancient winds and sun are blown,
A crown of white against the blue,
Mojácar waits to welcome you.
The winding alleys, steep and old,
Hold stories of the brave and bold,
Of Moorish kings and ocean spray,
And golden light at end of day.
Below, the endless beaches gleam,
Where desert meets the sapphire stream,
The blue Mediterranean sighs,
Beneath the vast Andalusian skies.
An Indalo paints the weathered wall,
To watch and guard through rise and fall,
A timeless town, both wild and free,
A song of mountain, sun, and sea.

 Maybe lines 10 and 11 need a little work if I'm picky...

A Whole Lotta Shakin'

Spain has recently experienced an intense wave of seismic activity, with over 55 earthquakes hitting the province of Granada in a single day. The strongest tremors reached magnitudes of 4.7 and 4.8 on the Richter Scale. The last time Granada was hit by quakes was in 1955.

The Richter Scale, incidentally, is not linear but exponential. Each whole number increase on the scale (e.g., from 4.0 to 5.0) represents a 10-fold increase in the measured wave size. Thus, an earthquake of magnitude 6.0 has waves 100 times larger than a 4.0 magnitude earthquake.

Spain sits directly above the active collision zone of the African and Eurasian tectonic plates, exposing several regions to notable seismic hazards. Multiple earthquakes, as just occurred in Granada, are known as a swarm. Very frightening they are, too.

According to the seismic data monitored by the Instituto Geográfico Nacional, Spain’s risk is concentrated along five key fault lines:  Andalucía (Granada, Málaga, Almería), Murcia (Lorca region), the Pyrenees (North Border), Galicia and finally, the Canary Islands.

Google AI grimly lists several major destructive earthquakes and notes that they are rare. The 2011 Lorca Earthquake (Magnitude 5.1), struck at an extremely shallow depth, causing severe building collapses, nine fatalities, and hundreds of injuries in the Murcia region, while the 1884 Andalusian Earthquake (Magnitude 6.5), is one of the most destructive in Spanish history, claiming over 800 lives in Granada and Málaga.

Another major strike occurred in Torrevieja, Alicante, back in 1829, with almost 400 reported dead (a computer mock-up scenario of this same earthquake, now centred around a major residential and tourist area, figures a similar event could produce as much at 20,000 dead today).

Going back, there was the Lisbon earthquake. This, perhaps the worst earthquake in the history of the Iberian Peninsula, is dated November 1st, 1755 (All Saints Day) and is estimated at 7.7 in strength. The tremor ‘claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people and opened a profound debate among theologians and philosophers about how God could have allowed such a tragedy’ (it was, after all, a religious holiday). In combination with subsequent fires and a tsunami which reached as far as Huelva and Cádiz, the earthquake almost destroyed Lisbon and adjoining areas. Up to 100,000 lives are thought to have been lost on that fateful day.

My own region of Mojácar and Vera was largely destroyed in an earthquake which occurred on the night of November 9th, 1518.

There had been a series of worrisome tremors occurring that year ever since the middle of June, but nothing to match the final convulsion. 

It was a Tuesday, and the earthquake arrived around about midnight. The market-town of Vera was totally destroyed and Mojácar was badly hit. There's an eye-witness account from the then mayor of Mojácar – Iñigo Guevara – who described the collapsed castle in these terms: 'I saw it all fallen in, until the very foundations were visible. There is almost nothing left of the fortress which is so flattened that it appears to have been destroyed by all the artillery of the world'. A report from the time says that almost a third of the eighty homes which made up Mojácar had collapsed. Another report says that the clergy were frightened to give Mass in the church due to its state. It says in the original:  "En la dicha villa de Moxacar no se dize misa a causa que los clerigos no osan entrar a dezir misa a la yglesia porque esta para caerse a causa del terremoto que agora hizo”. A little over a dozen people died in Mojácar because of the earthquake. In Vera, the death-toll reached 150.

Just four years later, in 1522, Almería City was almost completely destroyed in another major quake, with at least 2,500 deaths. Those modest numbers, if ‘una terremoto’ of a similar size visited us today, could easily be much higher.

‘We are waiting’, says one newspaper, ‘…for the next major earthquake in Spain: “The clock is ticking and we’re not prepared”. They can’t put a date on it, but some geologists believe we’re in “extra time” for a repeat of an earthquake as destructive as those that shook the peninsula more than a century ago. They also warn that regulations are outdated and fail to consider the worst-case scenario’.

Which reminds me, next week I shall be in Granada, staying with my in-laws. I doubt I’ll get much sleep.