Some Time Spent in Pamplona

Pamplona is the capital city of Navarra, in the north of Spain. The province is also an autonomy. Navarra was once a larger area, stretching as far north as the Atlantic coast in the area which is now the Basque Country. This happy time was when Sancho el Fuerte ran things - from 1000 to 1036 AD, and on the back of this, the Basque nationalists consider that Navarra is not only part of the Greater Basque Country, along with three French provinces and the three current Basque provinces, but that Pamplona is the hereditary capital.
The top picture looking west is the view from my hotel, the 'Toq H'.
The southern part of city is rather tame, with wide avenidas and plenty of space and always a sight of the surrounding hills. Walking up Pio XII one will eventually get to a large park with an old fortress on it. This efectively divides the new town from the old - the area famous for its bull-runs, the San Fermines in July and the Hemingway bars.

The main square in the 'old town' is breath-taking with narrow streets branching out and a presence of Basque speakers. The famous café pictured here is the Iruña, which means 'Pamplona' is Euzkera (Basque).

I've spent a week so far, when not visiting the massive hospital complex to the south of the city, wandering around the streets and looking for a large black Basque beret ('txapela') in my size. Also looking for something to read in English, but there is little tourism outside the famous fiesta in a few months time and the book shelves are a bit empty so I have been reduced to thundering through 'War and Peace'.
The city has a system of special pedestrian traffic lights at some of the crossways which show a kind of 'count-down' to cross the street, which, at least for a country rube like me, seems sensible. You can huddle in a shop entrance out of the rain and wait for the timer to approach 'green'. On other zebra crossings, where there are no lights, often on roundabouts and in difficult corners, the cars actually stop as you attempt to cross - unless of course the motorist happens to be visiting from Almería. So far I've been safe.
The banks here offer 'ethical investment' which was all the rage in England about thirty years ago. It means that your money won't be invested in paying children in Cambodia tuppence an hour to make running shoes. I know - it never caught on in England either...
The city is full of Guinness bars, very fashionable. I asked for a Guinness in one, much to the barman's surprise. There's one 'English Bar' nearby where I'm staying called something ethnic (can't remember what), but it should be avoided as it is for fruits. Cor what a surprise I 'ad there! In the hospital café you wash down your beer with a 'vegetable sandwich' which usually has one leaf of lettuce, a suspicion of tomato and a huge plug of tuna mayonnaise. Very good too.
I found a Mexican restaurant last night and felt the better for it.
There's a large store down the road from here which sells all those things one forgets to take on an extended visit to foreign parts, like these rather nifty running shoes I've bought to help me get about. The streets are full of nuns and priests who all look benignly on as I canter past with my guidebook.

Blevins Franks - Independent Financial Adviser

Blackstone Franks - now known as Blevins Franks - started out its rise in Spain together with The Entertainer. This was in 1985. In those days, Mike Connolly the manager of the paper gave them a free page in all editions in the hope of raising more financial advertising. There would be an advert with some 'caution' or 'warning', together with an article - as often as not, written by Bill Blevins. How much advertising came from our paper running the Blackstone Franks loss-leader? Well, we started a monthly financial insert called 'Blue Chip' on the back of the various banks, money-lenders, IFAs and the occasional scoundrel that preyed on the Brits.
After about a dozen years, I managed to persuade Bill Blevins to pay 100 pounds a week for his presence - not so bad on a print-run in the early nineties of 40,000 copies.
I got to know Bill quite well and to a lesser degree his partner David Franks (who, when he came to Mojácar, would put on his shorts and singlet and go jogging).
But, they are bean-counters. Money men. They follow the dosh.
When the... (*edited by Court Order*)...
In all those years - despite me starting another smaller newspaper, despite various attempts to contact them and so on - I have never heard back from Blevins Franks.
I would imagine that this is for two reasons. Both to do with money.

Rocking Horse and Teddy Bear

There's a nice picture. The rocking horse was made about twenty years ago by a German called Mickel. All done beautifully, with wooden pegs holding it all together and leather stirrups and saddle. Truly a work of art. Mickel is a long-time resident of Mojácar and is known (just by us locals) as a master carpenter.

Now, the poor rocking horse has had twenty years of loving by a number of children. The other day I asked Mickel if he'd like to - ahem - repair him for me. He kindly said he would.

You'll find Mickel - as often as not - in the Truffy Bar (another place only known to locals).

The Bear in the photograph is 'just a friend'.

Bloody Holidays

‘And now, for those of our viewers who still haven’t decided where to go for their Easter Break…’, began the newsreader on CNN+, the 24 hour news channel, ‘we shall offer some ideas about… blah blah…’.
So now it’s a ‘right’ I suppose. We shall all have hol-ee-days. Tens of millions of cars are reversed out of garages under the apartment blocks by inexperienced drivers and driven merrily off towards the mountains, the parks, the ski-slopes and the playas. A parade? Oh Good-ee, let’s go and have a look.
With the result that a huge number of out-of-town vehicles fill the car-parks and the streets-verges. Sometimes they’ll double-park. Streams of people mill about. The parade – if there is one – is filled with folk taking pictures with their telephones (who the Hell thought of that?). So many people clog up the small event that, understandably, the local people stay at home (either that, or they’ve driven over to some other pueblo to keep the ball rolling).
We have some sort of a fiesta and, bugger me, half of Spain descend upon us. We shall have to watch it on the TV!
The only people who are glad to see the visitors are, inevitably, the shopkeepers, the restaurants and the hoteliers. But the local trade keeps the restaurants going – if they are any good. Tourists aren’t going to worry about the quality (or, if they do, there are plenty more of ‘em!). We local people won’t be sleeping in the hotels or indeed buying rubbish from the knick-knack shops: ever.
So, we have our own fiestas, parades, concerts and exhibitions ruined by huge crowds. The town hall (i.e. – us!) pays for these events which we are obliged to miss and the hotels and shopkeepers continue to pander towards a tourist trade which does little or no good for the residents.
Or do you think Mojácar really needs eight hundred bars?
At the FITUR, the international tourism fair held in Madrid in late January, Mojácar once again had its own stand. It has always had this stand since the FITUR started 16 years ago. It could go in with the ‘Patronato de Turismo de Almería’, but no. The event costs around 60,000 euros and is used to, uh, get tourists. However, the business of ‘getting tourists’ is held outside the fair, in well-appointed offices. These are the tourists which fill the hotels which are scattered along part of the beach.
These tourists provide jobs (to Ecuadorian immigrants). These tourists spend money (uh – inside the hotel). The tourists will be back next year (you think?).
In fact, when the Town Hall suggested this year that the hotels should help pay for the FITUR stand, a whip-round was held by all the hotels, collecting the princely sum of 4,000 euros.
Our town, Mojácar, has a population of about 8,000 – according to the Town Hall’s list – the padrón (which half the British population is determined not to be inscribed on). The town receives funding, licences, permits and publicly-funded repairs more or less according to its official size. In our case, 8,000. In fact, during the summer months, when you can’t park, when you have to queue, when you can’t visit the village, or go to the post-office; when the late-night noise is incessant and where the supermarket runs out of basic necessities; when we rise to 30,000 people, including illegal campers, we are still considered to be just 8,000.
So we return to the main point. Why should we waste our tax money on promoting our pueblo so that, every time something happens, we find we are squeezed out of seeing it?

A Ragbag of Mags

In our small corner of enchantment there are more and more newspapers (or rather, ‘free sheets’) than you can shake a pair of nine euro farmacia spectacles at. Besides our own The New Entertainer, the eponymous Weenie, the Sol Times and Sol News, The Messenger, The Advertiser, the (sometimes) Talismán, The Satellite Monthly, the 89.8, the Focus, Lifestyle, The Post and the one euro ten cent Costa de Almería News... In these times of recession, when everyone must tighten their belt a notch or two, we welcome some brand new mags such as The Seaside Gazette and The Sentinella into the stable. And, blimey, here’s another one: the Community Times Mojacar! Here, move over a bit and we should all fit in...
Of course, it doesn’t stop there. There are the various Spanish titles including our own El Indálico... along with Actualidad Almanzora, The Noticias and a few others, plus of course various in-house property mags, outhouse property mags, sundry one-offs, imprints, oddities and commercial leaflets, pamphlets, flyers, posters, stickers, booklets, maps, planos and listings, together with a clutch of radios, endless web-pages, billboards and other material, all designed to ease the odd shilling out of the customer’s purse.

No wonder the accordionists left – they couldn’t stand the competition.
A hundred different commercial propositions to help get yourself known - plus the fellow with the airplane who flies up and down the beach towing a sheet with a message written on it behind him.
Don’t knock it - it works for Coca Cola!
Curiously, this plethora of material, with purple prose very much in evidence, once away from the pirated Internet material, is surprisingly coy on local affairs. There is some coverage of local news, either collected professionally as with the Costa de Almería News, or written up as, for example, in The Messenger, recalled as in The Advertiser or the Gazette, or randomly translated in toto (as in The Weenie). Some make no mention of the area at all, which makes one wonder how much fun they’re having…

One glossy mag is particularly disappointing: it could highlight this area with good photographs and timeless reportage (people don’t throw away glossies), but concentrates exclusively on lipstick and crow’s feet. Advertisers, meanwhile, place their promotions in the strangest places. I mean, fair’s fair: if they are watching SKY TV, then they already have a home. Right?
There are two mags that provide full listings of local businesses (Focus and 89.8) but not all local business. In the Focus (open in front of me), I find phone numbers for everything from bouncing castles to tattoo artists via radio stations (seven listed) but no mention, oddly, for mags and newspapers. It seems that solidarity is not in general supply in the world of publishing – in fact, this article excluded, you will rarely find mention of this particular cottage industry that is sweeping the English-speaking coast and hinterland of Almería. What is the reader to think?

The reader? These magazines aren’t for the reader!

The customer for all these endeavours, in broad strokes, is the local business, bar, shop, restaurant, builder, gardener, phone company, SKY provider, realtor, agent, second-hand car dealer, doctor, dentist and candlestick maker. He’s the one on the sharp end. Yes, of course advertising pays: but you can’t put your message in all the options available. In fact, how do you choose? By what’s popularly read or by who’s the first salesperson who catches you.
I sometimes wonder - does the owner quake slightly as the door-bell goes? Does a small drop of sweat dribble down his shoulder-blades as a nice looking girl holding a carpeta shimmers up to his desk? I mean - customers don’t smile that much! When the phone rings, is it the wife saying to come home for lunch, the bank manager who wants to talk about the mortgage or could it be someone in telesales sat in a smoky office in Albox who wants to flog a quarter-page next to some Tommy Cooper jokes for just half price?

Chicken Tights

Now, there’s a dish worth trying. A blogger writes about his visit to Cordoba where he was presented in his diner by a menu in Spanish and, um, English. We’ve all been there of course – not necessarily Cordoba, but in front of a mistranslation, misprint or spelling mistake. The Spanish, for reasons unknown, would much rather be laughed at than buy some foreigner a beer and say ‘look over this translation, would ya?’.
I’ve seen glossy magazines, even mags printed by the State or the Junta de Andalucía, with heavy amounts of cash spent on them: lovingly produced photographs, superb printing, massive distribution etc… and an English translation which will make snot shoot out of your nose. In Spain, if we are going to put something down in English for the thirty million English speaking tourists or the million foreign residents that live here year round, we like to use Cousin Bertín, who once spent a fortnight in Newcastle.
Bloggers, by the way, are people who ‘blog’, that is, who write about something of interest – at least to themselves – on the Internet. There are quite a few sites that are about Spain and are written by English-speaking residents. The best of them write every day, recounting the events that affect them locally, poking fun at the Spanish customs and habits or getting on to politics (I know some heavy left wingers and rabid right wingers, but no ‘centrist’ sites, because you can’t write a wishy-washy political column, now can you?). There are other sites that recall their writer’s trips around the country, while still others are just great fun to read. An American woman married to a Madrileño… another woman farming in the Alpujarras… a third wandering around Salamanca…
There are several local (Almería) ones and, if you are up to it, of course there is a wealth of blogs (or bitácoras) in Spanish. In all, the Spanish blogs - or blogs about Spain - are a kind of tolerated samizdat written by armchair revolutionaries.
Generally, you The Gentle Reader can ‘send a comment’ to add your ha’penny’orth to the discussion at hand. Indeed, if you like sending the odd pithy remark but can’t be bothered to write to your local newspaper or to start your own page on the Web, you can always subscribe to the various ‘forums’ that are home to any number of people who are interested in Spain. There are several local ones that touch on fraud, building licences, travel, tickets, bullfights, food and the nearest decent bodega. Again, they are worth regular visits as new topics can quickly take off with interesting submissions from Joe Public who, unlike the blogger, will probably use an alias.
I’ve put a list of 130 links on The Entertainer Online, itself a ‘blog’. You should spend some time wandering around them. There are some very good and knowledgeable writers out there…
Meanwhile - pass me another one of those chicken tights…


I should point out here that this article, like a lot of this site, will find its way into The New Entertainer - a monthly newspaper I produce in Almería. Those that read the above on the blogsite will, I hope, be patient.

La Vieja

We have a local fiesta in late February called 'el Día de la Vieja Remolona'. It's kind of a jolly picnic in the countryside with a piñata full of sweeties (representing an old woman) which the children attack with sticks.

Here's a picture from Pepe Obradors of the aftermath.

Here be Monsters...

There is one thing that we are all to find out – sooner or later – when living in Spain. There are lots of rip-offs. Beyond paying a bit too much for a coffee, or an extra euro fifty surcharge for a brick of orange juice at the gas station, the main cons and scams are usually something to do with our ‘fellow foreigners’.
It’s so easy. ‘Hello, are you English? Me too! I speak the lingo and can show you around…’ Blah, blah.
I have been helping to distribute a magazine locally called ‘The Costa del Sol Action Group Magazine’ with its ‘Sharks Exposed’ cover. The magazine was started by a few people from down Marbella way who were ripped off some years ago by conmen calling themselves ‘financial advisers’. You sometimes see them advertising in the free press.
My favourite from the early nineties was the ostrich farms scam where you bought an ostrich for 48,000 pounds and waited for the eggs to hatch. I asked the Madrid Zoo at the time as to the going rate and was told that a pair of ostriches would cost around 600 pounds. Some people lost their shirt.
But gained some feathers.
If the reward sounds too good, then it probably is a con. Fairly obvious stuff perhaps, but the salesman seemed so nice, so sure and after all – you have to stick with your own; watch out for those Spaniards – they’ll skin you alive! Quite!

The magazine touches on some (but not all) of the Costa’s best-known financial fraudsters. That it can do so is because the editors have the appropriate proof – usually letters from the government’s financial watchdog, the CNMV – together with letters and complaints from local (often British) residents. Of course, it’s hard to sue here in Spain (takes years), is harder still when it's foreigner against foreigner (takes more years), is expensive as hell and is largely useless anyway.
As an example of the last piece. Mike Metcalf – now known as Michael Home of Royal Marbella Estates – operated a company called Eurosol back in the mid eighties in Mojácar. He would sell houses and neglect to pass on the deeds. In one case, he sold a house to John G in around 1987, and sold the escritura to someone else called Helen. I knew John and since he didn’t speak Spanish, I helped him over the years. Firstly, I found that John, Metcalf and Helen were all using the same lawyer! Then, after a long struggle to take the case to court, John G finally won his case against Metcalf in 1998 and was awarded his costs (around 48,000 euros) in an Almerian court, albeit losing the title to the house while gaining life-possession, and saw his wife die from the strain. Metcalf – who got a six month suspended sentence – has yet to pay John a penny of the money he was ordered to hand over.
So much for Spanish justice.
Cases rarely get as far as this. One must consider the time and the expense, plus the option of the scammer making a ‘quick departure’.
Lawyers aren’t allowed to do a ‘no win - no fee’ deal (of course, they sometimes do).
If you are being robbed by a non-Spaniard, and if things start to look bad for them, they can always 'do a runner'.
‘Scairdy Paints’, the major second-hand car dealer, scarpered a few weeks ago. A well-known local estate agent looks about ready to do the same thing. Rumour has it that he is actually going to Brazil!
It is indeed curious that there aren’t more whistle-blowers about. Especially now with the Internet. Most ‘forums’ won’t touch the subject of libel for fear of being sued. They don't need the hassle. On the other hand, try suing from Spain an Internet provider, with a Korean address…!
One such property forum, having presumably received various threats, has a famous ‘sticky’ which reads ‘All discussion of MacAnthony Realty International (MRI) is strictly forbidden in this forum. Posts that do not even mention the company by name, but refer to it in some other way, are also forbidden, and will be removed’. (Spanish Property Insite)

The Costa Action magazine deals in this edition with (some issues which have since been resolved 28 feb 2010), Donald Nott, unlicenced financial advisors and the truly awful ‘asset release’ scam which is doing the rounds and preys on the elderly and so on. There is some small reference to property companies – such as Palmera Properties – but as I was distributing copies in Albox saying something like ‘it’s a magazine about financial fraud’, one Englishman took a copy and answered ‘they should have a go at the estate agents’.
Many large estate agents are indeed in trouble. Viva Estates has closed all but one office. It is one of several companies that fly you out, escort you around, sell you something hot and take anything up to a 25% commission. You may have seen their cars.
The British Home Office (Ministerio del Interior) actually got involved in one case, a company called Oasis Properties had been scamming so many people that the Home Office asked the Spanish police to arrest the owner of the company and sling her in jail. In 2004, Audrey Dixon was incarcerated in Malaga for fraud. However, you can't rely on the British authorities taking an interest in your case. They won't.
Spain is currently in the shit for its 'land grab', its expropriations, its demolitions, rule-changes, land reform, illegal urbanisations and so on. The Spanish seem largely unaware of this self-damage. Unfortunately, no one will bail out the unfortunate victims. They are toast.

You can see the magazine on http://www.costa-action.co.uk/

Some other groups can help. Those that commit fraud don't like the light, and naturally the British press is always interested in writing up the 'dangers' of Spain...
Also very useful are Abusos Urbanisticos - NO , the Spanish Property Scandal Petition , Illegal Villas Spain , Corruption in Spain and of course, you can cheer yourself up with the famous detective Larry Kovaks P.I. at http://kovakspi.blogspot.com/.
The Comisión Nacional de Mercado de Valores, which lists unauthorised financial advisers in Spain, is at http://www.cnmv.es/ .

Edited. Feb 28 2010

Nice Election - (but all I got was a lousy tee shirt)

There are elections in the air – the American ones which appear to take a year to resolve (or longer if they can’t agree on those Florida ‘chads’) and the Spanish ones, which essentially take a couple of weeks. Now, we all know and argue about Hillary, about Obama and perhaps even the Republican John McCain – who at his age ought to be staying home with his grand-children; but – hands up who is keeping up with the Spanish contests for both prime minister and, nearer to home, supreme Poo Bah of Andalucía?
I would suggest that, apart from starting the odd war which the Americans are so good at, the Spanish elections are far more important to us and our future. Nationally, we have President Rodríguez Zapatero weighing in for another round, against the apparently unsure Mariano Rajoy, he of the scruffy beard and delicate manners. That is, the socialist PSOE (plus the usual expensive ragbag of hangers on) against the PP, the conservatives. In Andalucía it’s Manuel Chaves versus Javier Arenas. Both contests have been played before and last time, the PSOE took all the laurels.
Apart from the posters, the free lighters and the logo-bearing caps, will it make any difference to us as to who wins?
Have you seen those tee shirts that read ‘Adióz’? The joke is, of course, that they refer to Zapatero, who has managed to create a culture of ‘Z’. Not just because of his name, I say, because his policies have pretty much been a ‘Z’ as well, from his ‘culture of civilizations’, his pandering to the future independent states of Catalonia, Euskadi and Galicia, to his managing to put half the country at the throats of the other half. Adiós, meaning, of course, ‘goo-bye and thanks for all the fish’.
Did you catch the pro-Zap video made by the country’s pop stars and actors who all put themselves behind the PSOE (‘no probs, mate, as long as the cheque’s good’)?
But I shan’t be wearing the tee shirt or watching the video. It might be misconstrued by those who are allowed to vote.
I feel like something out of the cartoon of the two missionaries in the pot with the tag-line ‘I say, Carruthers, the natives are restless tonight’. I may have lived here for a long time and move more-or-less in Spanish circles (as far as one can in an area like this), but I must occasionally be reminded that I am a foreigner, and there is no time like elections for that.
While the natives are getting decidedly restless, we can only watch. But what comes from these elections, both nationally and regionally, will have a large impact on our lives. We live in interesting times yet there is little we can do beyond watching uncomfortably from the cooking pot.
‘But’, says someone over a vino, ‘you can take out Spanish nationality’. True enough, but what I would like to do is to have ‘European’ nationality. First Class. A Texan doesn’t have to become a Californian to vote in Los Angeles.
What… the Yanks are more democratic than the Europeans?
Our concerns are local but the decisions about our area are made elsewhere – and apparently with no interest or concession towards the foreign residents that have pretty much made this area what it is. Of course we should participate in the bloody elections!
We are concerned about the demolition in Vera and the many other homes which are threatened. We are worried about the plan to send water from Carboneras to Barcelona (at least, my rose-garden is decidedly agitated) and we are worried about the insane plan to build a gigantic city on our doorstep – which, give or take, the local English-language press has been rather quiet about.
So, as Chaves sweeps his way to another victory in Andalucía - guaranteeing another four years of gloom for the region, and Zap and Mariano fight it out in Madrid, it becomes increasingly apparent that our small corner of enchantment is just a plaything for the powerful.


By the way, there are 144,000 Andaluces who are residents abroad and yet can vote in the Andalucian elections!

The Second Mojácar POTALA Meeting

The second meeting was held tonight, Wednesday, in the hotel Continental. The meeting was in English and chaired by Albert Schroter with the mayoress Rosa María Cano and the vice-mayor Angel Medina. The subject was covered as before with about seventy people in attendance, including Len and Helen Prior. Albert spoke of the need for integration and the importance of the European community locally.
The map, just showing the Mojácar and Turre area, is above. Just below the green swathe (the river) and to the left of the star is the pueblo of Mojácar (just below the green bend). Small! Further to the left you can see Turre (with a dotted line and arrow around it). The large gray spot to the bottom right is Macenas. Garrucha is on the coast, in gray with another star on it. The very large yellow area to the top, backing on to Garrucha, is the proposed new city - proposed, that is, by the Junta de Andalucía without any recourse to local opinion. This new city will cover 55 square kilometres and could house anything up to 100,000 people, or more. The blue line dropping through it and heading left is the route of the AVE high speed train. There will be a train station somewhere within this new conurbation. Albert wondered why this area should be urbanised and, since the Junta de Andalucía would hardly be building fifty hotels on its own, who exactly was behind this plan.
Of course, said the mayoress, instead of investing in badly needed local infrastructure, like pavements, water, cleaning, police and so on - a hospital or some other major investment in our community - the Junta's plan was to put all of their efforts into this new 'city' and essentially 'starve' Mojácar of much needed income. Oddly enough, said Albert, the POTA (the master plan for Andalucía of which the POTALA is but a local part) precluded building new urban nucleuses. This indeed was the 'reason' for demolishing the Prior's home in January.
After the meeting, people were asked to sign a protest.

POTALA Blues

The POTALA - the Plan de Ordenación Territorial del Area del Levante Almeriense, the Junta de Andalucía-driven plan for our future, was the subject of a meeting today at the Centro de Artesanía in Mojácar. The POTALA, and what the town hall is planning to offer to the Junta next week in its disagreement. The table shows, from the left, Angel Medina, Diego Flores, the mayoress Rosa María Cano, the town architect Rodrigo and Carlos Cervantes.

Essentially the POTALA is a plan by the Junta de Andalucía to build a giant city to tack onto the back of Garrucha and to stretch, to the north of the Garrucha/Turre/Los Gallardos road as far as Antas: an extension of 55 square kilometres. Of this, half will be parks and green belt, and the remainer will be 30% homes, 30% hotels (fifty of them to compete with those already in operation locally) and 40% industrial, shops and leasure. What will happen to the owners of this land? Who knows as yet. Perhaps 'land-grab' (where they take half your land and charge you urbanising costs for the remainder). Very wonderful for those who bought here to get away from it all...

Now, the ayuntamiento, together with the other ten town halls that make up the 'mancomunidad', can't do much about this. It was barely mentioned. What the town hall was concerned about is the rest of the package. Essentially, the Junta has taken away Mojácar's right to plan its own future growth. Most of the rest of Mojácar (some of it is in this new 'city') will be green-belt. The sea to have 200 metres protection, a vast 'parque' from La Mata, running below and beyond the pueblo, along the south side of the river-bed, to Turre and beyond, the side above the 'Parata ring-road' all to be protected. In all, of Mojácar's 72 sq kilometres of extension, just 3% will be urbanisable. Ever.

All of this, times eleven (the eleven towns of the Mancomunidad), will be discussed for the final time with the representative of the Junta de Andalucía, in Huercal Overa on Friday 15th of February - although apparently the goon from the Junta can only spare half an hour...!

Next Wednesday, Councillor Albert Schroter has called for a meeting to explain this in detail in English at the Hotel Continental on Mojácar playa at 8.30pm.

Tell me about Democracy

It was a few years ago now when the Algerian elections were won by a group of fundamentalist Muslims called the FIS. The Algerian government was shocked that these hardliners could have won the elections and immediately vetoed the result. In this, they were supported by NATO and other organisations and governments. Good thing perhaps?
In Spain, two radical communist nationalist parties in the Basque Country, who support ETA’s vile activities, are on the brink of being declared illegal, following the road taken by the Batasuna party.
In Europe, now validated by the new European Treaty (the old European Constitution under another name), displaced Europeans cannot vote in the regional or national elections of their country of residence. Or in national referenda. In Spain, there are a million of us: disenfranchised by Brussels.
Also in Spain, the Constitutional court has confirmed the Government’s ruling to put quotas in all political party-lists, with 40% minimum of any one sex. It’s called the law of Equality. Luckily, thanks to the same government, one can now change one's sex legally without having to drop by the doctor's.
Democracy – one man one vote?

'No to illegal Demolitions' - The Result

Picture: Portalbox.net

Canal Sur dedicated about ten seconds to it on its evening news. Canal Sur TV (Prop. Junta de Andalucía) noted ‘that about 400 ingleses came along to protest against an illegal house being demolished, (roughly adding in their impartial coverage that) even though the house was thoroughly, completely, violently and appallingly illegal and the peace-loving forces of order, freedom and socialism had been obliged to knock it down’. The cameras couldn’t bear to show the ingleses who were massed on one side of the square so they showed the, uh, 400 Spaniards who also showed up in support.
The Voz de Almería was more generous – estimating the crowd at 1,000 people. They quote me in their full-page spread: ‘It’s not a natural case when the bulldozers suddenly show up at your door after five years of living peacefully in your home knowing that your house-paperwork was all approved by the town hall, your lawyer and your estate agent’. I also go on record saying that buying a house can never become some type of a lottery. El Mundo and Ideal also had full-page coverage of the event.
So – it may have been a day to support an unfortunate family who had lost their house arbitrarily and disgracefully, but, Spain being Spain, it was, of course, a day devoted to politics.
Angel Medina (president of Ciudadanos Europeos del Levante) spoke of the Junta’s intention to implement their own plans for our area, including the 50 square kilometre artificial city planned to be raised between Turre, Los Gallardos and Garrucha, and their intention to take away powers from the local town halls guaranteed by both the European Treaty and Spanish Constitution. ‘This area, with no tall buildings and 85% green-belt, with a population living in harmony and with a good standard of living should be the ideal that other areas should aspire towards’, he said.
The councillor for urban planning for Vera, Paco Vázquez, attacked the local PSOE chapter, which was passing round a flyer that roughly said – in allusion to the demolition - ‘good thing too, keep within the law’. ‘They should at least support their fellow citizens of Vera before yapping to their masters in Seville’ the councillor said. The PSOE wants to punish Vera for being run by the wrong party. Vera is Partido Andalucista; Félix López is the mayor who had turned down the PSOE’s offer to switch to their party just before last summer’s local elections.
The mayor of Vera was not allowed to speak ‘to not enter into contempt of court’ and the mayoress of Mojácar told El Mundo that the demolition was ‘inhuman’. The paper also noted the presence of the mayors of Zurgena and Antas (neither of whom, added the reporter, are from the PSOE).
Even Mrs Prior – most understandably – touched on politics in her short speech of thanks to the people when she said that she would like Zapatero to look her in the eye and explain why her home had to go.
The British GMTV and the Daily Telegraph, both with perhaps their own political agenda to make, were also present.
The AUAN – a home-owners’ association based in Albox, a growing town in the interior of the province - had decided not to send their president as special-interest construction groups in that town had suggested that the Vera demonstration might descend into violence. Which was, of course, a most unlikely scenario. Other members of the AUAN, together with members of other groups, associations and so on, came from Cantoria, Turre, Bédar, Los Pinos and Zurgena to lend their support for the Priors.
The autonomous elections (where, as I note in the Ideal article, the Northern Europeans are not allowed to vote) are to be held in March. The assembled protestors applauded Mr and Mrs Prior and the demonstration achieved its first and most important point of solidarity with the British family. The second goal, to stop future demolitions, will be answered one way or the other in the weeks to come.

Demonstration in Vera

Some pictures of today's demonstration in Vera to support Mr and Mrs Prior, whose home was demolished earlier this month by order of the courts. Around 800 people came to lend their support to the Priors. First picture shows Angel Medina from Ciudadanos Europeos del Levante. second picture is of Paco Vázquez, Vera councillor for urban development addressing the crowd. Third picture shows Mrs Prior thanking everyone for their support and kindness. No picture here of me (I spoke and introduced the act), or of the mayor Félix López, who, while present, was not allowed to touch the subject for legal reasons.

1000 cases

There are around 1,000 'illegal' homes in the province of Almería, denounced as such by the Junta de Andalucía: mainly in the eastern part of the province. Not all the judicial resolutions will end in demolition, says a judge, but he adds that there is a need for more funcionarios (public officials) to study each and every one of the cases. A judge has the final decision regarding demolition or no. The final course of calling in the bulldozers is not an obligatory solution in law (says Judge Luís Columna, the senior Almerian judge).
Readers are reminded that there will be a demonstration in Vera this Sunday at 12 noon in support of the Prior family, whose house was demolished in Vera on January 9th.

Ahhh - Democracy in Action

You will no doubt be pleased to read that Democracia Nacional (Love the name, guys) has been (finally) granted permission to hold a demo this Sunday in our capital city to 'recuperate Madrid' against 'all that shite that have come here for far-away lands'.
Me, I'll be staying home.




Come to think of it - the PSOE should ask these bozos to come along to Vera on Sunday 27th January to do a 'counter-demonstration' against what the Voz de Almeria calls 'los británicos que se concentrarán ... para protestar conta las amenazas de derribo que pesan sobre muchas de sus viviendas'.
Nazis soon sort them out...

Demolition in Vera - Part Two

From the top.

*Mrs Prior and a neighbour collected signatures and expressions of support from the people of Vera outside the Town Hall. You can see their 'before and after' pictures.

*Mrs Prior (centre) is joined by Angel Medina, the vice-mayor of Mojácar and president of the Ciudadanos Europeos de Mojácar, a political party which helps to support foreign residents locally.

*A meeting with the mayor of Vera Félix Lopez. See http://www.theentertaineronline.com/ for report.

*The remains. The house, left, has been removed. The garage and store-room, on a separate building certificate, survive on the right of the picture.

The Ripple Effect

I had a message on my phone to call someone. ‘The house next door is being knocked down! The police are there and workers and a big bulldozer…’
It was the beginning of a scandal which is rocking Spain, putting off potential settlers here and, of course, worrying many of the foreign residents already established. One house, as if the Junta de Andalucía was testing the waters to see what would happen. ‘We’ll knock down some foreigner’s house in the middle of Almería’, you could hear them thinking back in Seville, ‘and see what happens’.
Seville, the city and capital of the Andalucian autonomy, is as far away from Vera as is Madrid. Here in Almería – a wealthy province with agriculture (intensive farming under plastic to the west), marble in the north and tourism along the coast – we feel independent of Seville. They take our cash and keep it for themselves, we gripe. They don’t look after us in the way they look after themselves, we groan.
Just like they did with the South American colonies centuries ago.
In 1978, when Spain divided itself into seventeen autonomies, the people of Almería distinguished themselves by being the only provincials who voted against their proposed autonomy. Waste of time, of course; they got shuffled in anyway.
So, the opinion here is that the demolition of a house, located on some scrub-land near Vera, away from the motorway, the proposed AVE train-line, the beaches, hotels, apartment blocks and so on, was a calculated political act.
The national elections, together with most (but not all) of the autonomous elections, come up on March 9th. Already, we are in the ‘pre-campaign’. Under the law, they can’t ask for your vote (until the last fifteen days), but, by Gum, they can suggest wonderful and improbable ideas, reward their friends and, as here, punish their enemies.
I’m being a bit strong? The government has just agreed to export water from the desalination plant in Carboneras, in large sea-tankers, to Barcelona. Fresh water from Almería (the driest province in Spain), for our Catalonian friends who, three years ago, managed to stop the proposed water canal from the Ebro river down to Murcia and, uh, Almería.
It’s all politics. Vera town is controlled by the Partido Andalucista. The mayor of Vera recently put a spoke in the Junta’s delightful plan to build a gigantic eight-town sewage plant in Vera. Perhaps this is payback time.
Let’s look at the facts. There are half a million houses with some problems with their paperwork. So, instead of making an example by knocking down an illegal eyesore (the Hotel Algarrobico in Carboneras springs to mind), or an empty block of flats built by some rich pirate, we are faced with one single demolition of one house owned and used by what should be Spain’s dream customer: a reasonably wealthy retired couple who puts money into the local economy every day of the week.
If each British resident spends 500 euros a month (most of us spend more) and there are a million of us (according to the BBC), then we have five hundred million euros a month being sloshed merrily into the Spanish economy. Six billion euros a year. Throw in (forgive me) the French, Dutch, Germans, Scandinavians, Irish, Americans, Argentineans and so on and you can double the figure – 12 billion euros a year – at least – all for the cost of an occasional letter to a local town hall complaining about the noise.
Why on earth would our dear politicians be so foolish as to put this at risk? Perhaps they thought that there was no down-side, beyond putting a couple, with no political voice whatsoever, into the street.
However, the British press has played the story up. The British TV has run it on the morning shows. It's front page in Le Monde. A German magazine has just taken a room at the nearby hotel. A friend tells me his son saw it on Australian television! So what happens? Instead of one family being destroyed – no big deal in the great scheme of things – a whole wave of wealthy people who were considering buying in Spain, in injecting yet more money into the Spanish economy – at a time when sales are down, mortgages are tight and builders are hurling themselves off the top floor of their own skyscrapers – are deciding that, all things considered, perhaps they’ll buy in Cyprus instead.
One foolish pebble thrown into a pond has caused a gigantic ripple. Let’s hope its enough to swamp the PSOE.

The National Anthem

For years the tune never had any words. Duh duh, duh duh, di da da da... etc. Now, finally, the lyric to Spain's National Anthem has been written and approved.

¡Viva España!
Cantemos todos juntos
con distinta voz
y un solo corazón

¡Viva España!
desde los verdes valles
al inmenso mar,
un himno de hermandad

Ama a la Patria
pues sabe abrazar,
bajo su cielo azul,
pueblos en libertad

Gloria a los hijos
que a la Historia dan
justicia y grandeza
democracia y paz.

Plácido Domingo will introduce the hymn officially on January 21st.

Actually, no he won't. The lyrics have received such bad press that they have been retired and can now only be read on blog-sites like this one.

It's back to - Duh Duh, duh duh, di da...

Demolition in Vera, Almería

Here's a picture of the home of a retired English family being demolished by Junta de Andalucía goons. The house had building permission, was connected to the water and electricity supplies and had been built four and a half years ago. The owners have now been left destitute.



The top photo comes from the local paper.



I went over there this morning and found the bulldozer still at work (second photo). There are several homes nearby and - according to a local TV channel - perhaps another ten are at risk.



The house in the picture has a name-plate affixed to the wall outside: 'Tranquilidad'.

A picture of Helen Prior, worried, angry, tired... and currently homeless.

....

In answer to a comment below about planning permissions.



The rules have changed recently regarding the rights of the town hall, being the local authority, to grant building licences (and make money from the permits). Now, the Junta de Andalucía has taken on this right and is in direct conflict with many town halls throughout Almería. They have even sanctioned this in a daring new plan - opposed by all the local town halls. The new 'plan', rather more fully known as the 'Plan de Ordenación Territorial del Levante Almeriense' (POTLA), designed by the Junta de Andalucía, sees this part of the autonomy as hotels and tourism. Towns are severly restricted in the number of homes they can now build. There is no reference in the POTLA to 'residential tourism'. In fact, the short-sighted document wants to provide cheap hotels to East European tourism (wow!) and to build a conference hall in Garrucha (where there are currently no hotels).

From the government buildings of San Telmo in Seville, occupied since time immemorial by the PSOE apparatus, Almería is too big a prize to leave to the Almerians.

We may see more demolitions, particularly in Cuevas, Vera and Albox - where the fault can be placed at the door of the PP or the PA. Meanwhile, in Carboneras (PSOE) the gigantic, empty hulk of the Hotel Algarrobico remains on the shore. Unfinished, unusable... yet undemolished.