What on earth is happening to Spain? We've seen the cruel demolition of a British-owned house in Vera by the authorities back in January (the man who ordered the demolition, the 'delegado provincial' , since promoted, has just signed the go-ahead for the POTALA for the same area of eastern Almería – the Junta de Andalucía’s insane plan to build 35,000 homes in the boonies!). We've seen the institutionally approved land-grab - which despite European-wide criticism - continues to this day. We read of town-halls taking Europeans arbitrarily off the padrón (especially before elections). We 'residents' have had our 'tarjetas de residencia’ removed in favour of some meaningless and worthless piece of paper to be carried around together with our passport and a NIE identification (so much for the la union europea) and now those non-residents who have bank accounts here can discover that they have had them 'frozen' in a kind of grotesque 'cash-grab' to do with tax matters! How do you pay the utilities when your bank arbitrarily freezes your account? By the way, according to my bank, all you need to do if you live in foreign parts is toddle along to your nearest Spanish consulate every two years...
Don't they want us anymore...?
But now, as September swings round and the politicians and bureaucrats go back to work, things may be changing. From the European Court we hear that Spain is being sued for the flagrant and cynical land-grabbing in Valencia (a pisser this, as Madrid is PSOE and Valencia is its biggest PP thorn). Meanwhile from the European press the message remains loud and clear… don’t buy in Spain. While I don’t particularly share the British media’s view of Spain, or indeed its reasons for attacking this country where we have chosen to live, it is at least encouraging that the sometime mistreatment of the Northern Europeans who are, let’s be clear here, pumping money into Spain, is worth the occasional banging of a saucepan with a stick.
The politicians may be responding… perhaps even with some gesture towards the foreign community. Luís Caparros, he of the Vera demolition, now says (according to the Spanish press, this is) that he is willing to consider legalizing all illegal homes except those built in the nation’s ramblas (I have to say here – can you imagine some local mayor absently fingering his brown-paper envelope while watching as an urbanization takes shape in his town’s dry river-bed?). The provincial press also assures their readers that Caparros is in contact with ‘the foreigners’ and will meet with them/us. Hands up anyone who’s had a call from this man. But, of course, it’s only the beginning of the month and many things could still happen.
One thing that will happen, as the Britons living in Almería start to harden in their opposition to this general mistreatment, is more confrontation. We know of several truculent groups of property owners that are ready to ‘join battle’, such as the AUN and AULAN, but another group, the Cantoria Residents Association (there’s 23 ‘illegal’ homes in Cantoria with final demolition orders on them), has called for a peaceful demonstration. Join them in front of the old railway station in Cantoria (next town inland after Albox) at 12 noon on September 18th.
Well fine, you don’t live in Cantoria and your house isn’t under threat.
Are you sure about that?
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Friday, August 29, 2008
Burn Baby, Burn
A festive scene taken during the Mojácar fiesta. The hideous building on fire is the 'Angelas' (was 'Sondras') a nick-nack shop now owned by the senator and ex-mayor Bartolome Flores (of Huerta Nueva fame in Los Gallardos). By dint of hard work, this socialist leader owns quite a lot of other real-estate locally. We do hope that when he comes to replace this treasure he finds an architect with a bit more vision than the previous one.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Summer's Almost Gone
Summer ends - or begins, depending on if you are a tourist or a resident - with the passing of August and the final convulsion of the Mojácar fiesta.
The fiesta itself is pretty bad, with 'jousting' for the dubious prize of a maiden's honour at the 'fuente' as the main event, together with a ferocious number of fireworks blasted off at all hours and a couple of second rate pop groups. All up in the village.
It seems that - when it comes to entertainment paid for by us residents - the sum total is splashed on those who live at 'la fuente' or those who live up at the top of the hill in the old and noble pueblo of Mojácar.
The proportion of those who live in this municipality but not in those two aforementioned areas, being around 90%.
Should we ask for some events to be held on the playa? Should there be a separate fiesta for the beach-residents? A kind of four day long bacchanalia with free paella and an overdressed pop group from Almería? How about a beauty contest open to all the girls who live in Mojácar, not just those whose grandparents still run the place with an iron fist and a friendly judge.
In fact, I think a 'Foreigners Day' could be a jolly occasion. Something like fifty per cent of Mojácar is British (!) and counting the rest of us put together our numbers must reach around 70% of non-locally born residents, it would be nice to open the place up a bit. Many towns on the Costa del Sol and the Costa Blanca have a 'Día de los Extranjeros' without any local person feeling slighted. These fiestas are fun events, with music, culture and competitions from all over the world. Not just for those few people who have become rich from the forasteros without giving much back in return.
August will soon be over, the visitors from Madrid and Valencia all safely back in their cities and as the last firework final fizzles into silence (round about 4.00am next Saturday night), we can consider that the summer has just begun.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
'The Future is Mine', I'm pretty sure he said in his own language
I was reading some rubbish in the comments section of a Spanish webpage called Meneame (Stir Me Up) at http://meneame.net/ which collects stuff from the Internet of note to its editors and brings it to the attention of its readers, which apparently include a generous sprinkling of those small-minded nationalists and thin-skinned patriots who are eternally worried that Spain might lose face in some august journal printed elsewhere in the world.
And why not, every service and inclination is available on the Internet, from the Screwsden's pornography site Contactsonline dot es to Why I Hate the President dot nit. I mean net.
The particular rubbish alluded to started with an article about nationalisms and regional languages and quickly descended into what turds we, the Brits are. Drunk, useless, ignorant, monolingual and the rest of it. Well, the literally hundreds of comments on this fascinating topic were written – I have to say (contentiously) – by under-educated trolls and bored teenagers who need to get out more. I make no more apologies for them.
But Gibraltar came up. Anything to do with a discussion about the English always ends up with some pathetic attack against Gibraltar ('The English’ as they are known here rather than ‘The British’, since it is abundantly clear that the rest of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland are obviously all under the Jackboot of Westminster).
‘Gibraltar is a colony and should be Spanish’.
Sounds good to me. Let me walk you though what would happen.
1 Gibraltar becomes part of Spain. English is by necessity added to Spanish, Galego, Euskara, Valenciano, and Català as another official language of the Spanish State.
2 Gibraltar sues for independence from Spain, supported by the Basques, the Galicians, the Catalonians, the Mallorcans, (some of) the Valencians, the people from Cartagena in Murcia and the Olivencians. And, of course, by the British.
3 Gibraltar, currently a bi-lingual society, decides to remove castellano from its school curriculum.
4 Manuel Chaves, the Robert Mugabe of Europe, decides that Andalucía must become an independent state and he crowns himself emperor. The andaluces are forced to learn ninth century Arabic.
5 Those of us who wish to remain living in Spain will eventually be obliged to move to one of the only two areas which will never (ever) reject their true loyalty to the King and the orange and yellow flag. Ceuta and Melilla.
And why not, every service and inclination is available on the Internet, from the Screwsden's pornography site Contactsonline dot es to Why I Hate the President dot nit. I mean net.
The particular rubbish alluded to started with an article about nationalisms and regional languages and quickly descended into what turds we, the Brits are. Drunk, useless, ignorant, monolingual and the rest of it. Well, the literally hundreds of comments on this fascinating topic were written – I have to say (contentiously) – by under-educated trolls and bored teenagers who need to get out more. I make no more apologies for them.
But Gibraltar came up. Anything to do with a discussion about the English always ends up with some pathetic attack against Gibraltar ('The English’ as they are known here rather than ‘The British’, since it is abundantly clear that the rest of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland are obviously all under the Jackboot of Westminster).
‘Gibraltar is a colony and should be Spanish’.
Sounds good to me. Let me walk you though what would happen.
1 Gibraltar becomes part of Spain. English is by necessity added to Spanish, Galego, Euskara, Valenciano, and Català as another official language of the Spanish State.
2 Gibraltar sues for independence from Spain, supported by the Basques, the Galicians, the Catalonians, the Mallorcans, (some of) the Valencians, the people from Cartagena in Murcia and the Olivencians. And, of course, by the British.
3 Gibraltar, currently a bi-lingual society, decides to remove castellano from its school curriculum.
4 Manuel Chaves, the Robert Mugabe of Europe, decides that Andalucía must become an independent state and he crowns himself emperor. The andaluces are forced to learn ninth century Arabic.
5 Those of us who wish to remain living in Spain will eventually be obliged to move to one of the only two areas which will never (ever) reject their true loyalty to the King and the orange and yellow flag. Ceuta and Melilla.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Letters
There are several subjects that can always guarantee to generate letters (without which, by the way, you can’t seriously call your publication a ‘newspaper’ or a ‘magazine’). Bullfighting is probably the most obvious one. An article about the beauty or the passion of the corrida will inevitably attract correspondence from those who consider it a barbarity. And why not, perhaps they’re right. Even though Fernando the Bull is in fact rather less intelligent that Rupert the Rat (according to a veterinarian friend), it probably isn’t right to torture dumb animals. Personally, I don’t care much. The corrida has tradition, bravery and catharsis to counterbalance the touchy-feely arguments against it and is, at any rate, a better way to pass the time than watching football (Queue… letters…).
Another ‘red rag to the bull’, or easy provocation to the readers, is to write about minority languages. Catalan, Welsh, Galician and whatever it is that they speak on the Scilly Isles. Apparently, it’s not that the nationalists want their people to learn whatever obscure tongue was preferred by the natives in the ninth century; it’s that they want them to use it exclusively, with the rather obvious problems for the next generations carefully buried under a rock.
Peter Gooch, one of the writers at The New Entertainer, ‘does’ politics. He and I agreed from the beginning to ‘go over the top’ so as to generate remarks in the street along the lines of ‘I do like that Peter Gooch’s articles, he’s very sound!’ and letters of condemnation or approbation from the public. In politics, you can always displease half the people all the time.
Now and again, people come up to me and comment about the newspaper, usually when I'm reading somebody else's. Well, I say, why don’t you write me a letter?
There is, of course, one section of society who doesn’t read letters in the English-language press, and this is the Spanish authorities. Don’t feel that a quick letter from ‘Disgusted of Arboleas’ about the municipal pig-farm is going to make any difference. You have to take the next step. Write a petition… Demonstrate!
Letters of course show that there is a relation with the readers, a feedback. In my opinion, the letter writer should have the last word. An article has said its piece: bullfights, says Ric, are fun. The letter back begs to differ, perhaps. So fine, allow the public their say. Mrs Ed take notice.
There’s a magazine I know that, while set in Spain, deals pretty exclusively with articles about nail extensions and highlights in your hair. The editor claims to want letters. Sorry, can’t type with these nails…
Another local mag has two editors with a regular editorial along the lines of:
‘Cor ain’t it hot. Well, this is another great issue with a great article from Ben about cooking spinach on page nine and a super new competition for the kids on page fifteen. Till next time, have a smashing read. Yours, Bertha and Robin.’
They don’t get any letters either.
People don’t write much? How about the forums. There are a clutch of them in our area with endless subjects tossed here and there by literally thousands of members. It’s taking letter-writing to a brand-new age.
Another ‘red rag to the bull’, or easy provocation to the readers, is to write about minority languages. Catalan, Welsh, Galician and whatever it is that they speak on the Scilly Isles. Apparently, it’s not that the nationalists want their people to learn whatever obscure tongue was preferred by the natives in the ninth century; it’s that they want them to use it exclusively, with the rather obvious problems for the next generations carefully buried under a rock.
Peter Gooch, one of the writers at The New Entertainer, ‘does’ politics. He and I agreed from the beginning to ‘go over the top’ so as to generate remarks in the street along the lines of ‘I do like that Peter Gooch’s articles, he’s very sound!’ and letters of condemnation or approbation from the public. In politics, you can always displease half the people all the time.
Now and again, people come up to me and comment about the newspaper, usually when I'm reading somebody else's. Well, I say, why don’t you write me a letter?
There is, of course, one section of society who doesn’t read letters in the English-language press, and this is the Spanish authorities. Don’t feel that a quick letter from ‘Disgusted of Arboleas’ about the municipal pig-farm is going to make any difference. You have to take the next step. Write a petition… Demonstrate!
Letters of course show that there is a relation with the readers, a feedback. In my opinion, the letter writer should have the last word. An article has said its piece: bullfights, says Ric, are fun. The letter back begs to differ, perhaps. So fine, allow the public their say. Mrs Ed take notice.
There’s a magazine I know that, while set in Spain, deals pretty exclusively with articles about nail extensions and highlights in your hair. The editor claims to want letters. Sorry, can’t type with these nails…
Another local mag has two editors with a regular editorial along the lines of:
‘Cor ain’t it hot. Well, this is another great issue with a great article from Ben about cooking spinach on page nine and a super new competition for the kids on page fifteen. Till next time, have a smashing read. Yours, Bertha and Robin.’
They don’t get any letters either.
People don’t write much? How about the forums. There are a clutch of them in our area with endless subjects tossed here and there by literally thousands of members. It’s taking letter-writing to a brand-new age.
Saturday, August 09, 2008
Divided They Fall
We were talking about how a community can divide against itself when under threat. Sticking together is not always the answer, it seems, with some residents taking the opinion that ‘something must be done’ while others go with the ‘don’t rock the boat’ approach. Sometimes, but of course not always, members of the second group are themselves part of the initial problem – perhaps they work for the builders or promoters. Perhaps they feel ‘we should respect our Spanish hosts to our own detriment’ or perhaps they are just foolish. Take Albox as an example. There, massive illegal urbanizations exist under threat of demolition. The homes were built on non-urban land with the complicity of previous town halls and sold to Northern Europeans. The regional authority could – but probably won’t – knock those houses down, as they did in the singular case of the Priors in Vera (January this year) and even refuse to pay any meaningful compensation. There is a continued sense of worry locally which is far from the anticipated delights of peaceful retirement that had been cherished by the thousands of home-owners.
An association called the AUAN which exists to defend the rights of property owners is based in Albox and has had some success in, at least, publicizing the situation, and has even had a visit from some Euro MPs from Brussels on a fact-finding tour.
However, the opponents to this group have a blog-site called The Albox Blog at http://alboxblog.com/ which provides the most remarkable (if completely unfounded) attacks on the AUAN and its leader Bob Preston. The blog, claiming to be ‘distilling all the juicy gossip’, rarely veers from its criticism against the AUAN’s leader. A quote from today: ‘…although we note from the AUAN website that the AUAN ‘is open to both UK nationals and Spanish alike’ precluding one would assume Irish and other nationalities. We thought we had seen an end to this sort of racialism and bigotry. Sadly, ‘No Blacks, No Irish, No Dogs’, would still appear an acceptable adage within the lower strata of the ex-Pat community’.
The ‘comments’ from the Irish readers that follow this remarkable bit of idiocy beggar belief.
Today I was at a meeting to do with an urbanization in Los Gallardos. The problems there are apparently containable. Smells, sewage overflow, dirt, lack of care and broken promises – all easily fixable by the town hall if it was sufficiently pushed towards doing something. Perhaps the residents there can join together, or perhaps they can’t (or won’t). It was certainly clear that without a unified voice nothing much will change on their urbanization. The Spanish authorities know that there is strength in numbers.
An association called the AUAN which exists to defend the rights of property owners is based in Albox and has had some success in, at least, publicizing the situation, and has even had a visit from some Euro MPs from Brussels on a fact-finding tour.
However, the opponents to this group have a blog-site called The Albox Blog at http://alboxblog.com/ which provides the most remarkable (if completely unfounded) attacks on the AUAN and its leader Bob Preston. The blog, claiming to be ‘distilling all the juicy gossip’, rarely veers from its criticism against the AUAN’s leader. A quote from today: ‘…although we note from the AUAN website that the AUAN ‘is open to both UK nationals and Spanish alike’ precluding one would assume Irish and other nationalities. We thought we had seen an end to this sort of racialism and bigotry. Sadly, ‘No Blacks, No Irish, No Dogs’, would still appear an acceptable adage within the lower strata of the ex-Pat community’.
The ‘comments’ from the Irish readers that follow this remarkable bit of idiocy beggar belief.
Today I was at a meeting to do with an urbanization in Los Gallardos. The problems there are apparently containable. Smells, sewage overflow, dirt, lack of care and broken promises – all easily fixable by the town hall if it was sufficiently pushed towards doing something. Perhaps the residents there can join together, or perhaps they can’t (or won’t). It was certainly clear that without a unified voice nothing much will change on their urbanization. The Spanish authorities know that there is strength in numbers.
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
English as She is Wrote
I've written before about how the Spanish would rather get it wrong, or check with somebody's cousin's son (who once spent a week-end in Cornwall), or use 'Babelfish', anything... rather than ask some Briton if they've got the translation, sense or spelling right. Most of us would be willing to help as long as it's not more than a paragraph or two; and there's a million Britons living in Spain (many of whom can read and write), plus a good half million Americans, Irish, Australians and other native English speakers, plus a good ten million trippers from Anglophone countries during the summer thrash, so don't tell me it's very hard to find someone to help, as often as not, for the price of a beer.This venerable sign has been hanging in thousands of Almería's businesses for at least thirty years (there's an older version in our office, with the previous six digits telephone number). It comes from the Almería tourist and services department. You are meant to display it by law so you can hand out your 'complaining sheets' as necessary.
You see, what happens is, when foreigners read something purportedly in their language, with contextual and spelling mistakes, they often react by not taking you seriously. They think 'yes, they want our money, but, y'know, they don't really give a rat's arse for us...'.
Now, I'm sure that the tourist and services department doesn't want us to think that. Do they.
Sunday, August 03, 2008
Bédar (revisited)
It's got a bit smart up there, a bit chi-chi. Here's a picture of the town hall square. The old bar on the left, Paco's, has been closed for years and no longer exists. His dad used to speak a bit of English, I think he'd been working in Baltimore in the forties. To the right, the man on the ladder is putting up a sign (or fixing a light) over the old panadería which had a pressed metal souvenir from America inside as decoration - with Bobby and JFK and Martin Luther King.Notice how the street has been improved.
But the main change in this picture is of course the ayuntamiento itself. It now occupies all the square to the left (with glass doors, already) and, yes, you are right: that is a digital illuminated sign which informs those that can read of forthcoming attractions.
Bédar, incidentally, is second in Spain in towns over 1000 inhabitants with foreigners, according to some article I read (and forgot) recently.
Friday, July 25, 2008
What You Have is What You’re Worth
I’ve been in Madrid for the past couple of weeks and I returned to the coast a few days ago by car. Vrrm vrrm. Madrid is a good place, but rather expensive. I had the good fortune to catch a summer ‘flu shortly after arriving there and so I was able to save a bundle on drinks, shopping and dinners in company with my daughter, who appreciates the fancy places when it comes to being taken out by her dad.
Actually, a similar thing happened to me a couple of years back when I flew to America.
Madrid, New York, San Francisco, bed, New York, Madrid and home.
With the credit card in almost perfect shape.
Lying abed in Madrid, and trying to keep up with the terrible financial news which is worrying most of Spain (banks and politicians not included), I heard the words of the president of the Banco de Santander (and a load of other banks – Central, Hispano, Abbey Nat and so on) regarding the current situation. The president of the Santander, by the way, rejoices in the name of Emilio Botín. Botín in my dictionary translates as ‘swag’ or booty’. Like a pirate.
Perhaps his wife calls him ‘my old booty’…
Anyway this financier was saying that the crisis is like a child’s summer cold. It won’t last for long or do any lasting damage. That said, he then turned to his shareholders and told them that this year the group expected to make around ten billion euros.
In banking, you see, every year is a ‘good year’.
Of course, banks don’t ‘make money’; what they do is they take it out of everybody else’s pockets. They ‘take’ money. Botín also means ‘spoils of war’…
So pleased were the folk from the Banco de Santander on considering their good fortune, they rushed out the same day and bought the Alliance and Leicester.
All good things come to an end and one morning I woke up to discover that my daughter had hidden the thermometer, possibly because she had just heard from a friend about a fancy new restaurant that had just opened in a particularly posh bit of Madrid.
Feeling woozy, I got dressed and staggered out into the street in search of a hole-in-the-wall. The nearest one, as luck would have it, belonged to the same Banco de Santander. I put in my card… secret number… amount… and, bugger me, the machine wanted a commission of almost six euros, a thousand pesetas, for my modest wallop. Bastards!
Which explains how the Banco de Santander, Central, Hispano and the rest of it can go around picking up extra banks every few months.
You know, the word 'bank' or ‘banco’ comes from the bench - ‘banco’ in Italian - where the moneylenders used to sit outside the churches to catch anyone who wanted to take his daughter out to dinner or buy himself a new cow. These were the ‘lombards’ that charged you a few points of interest on your loan.
I know an English girl who was given a cheque for sixty euros by her mother a month ago. She put it in the local caja de ahorros who said that it would take six weeks to clear. You know, we are in the 21st century and we do have communication by computer with London. Some shit is sitting on sixty euros for six weeks and making - ooh - maybe anything up to five céntimos off of it. Meanwhile, the same caja de ahorros charges me a ‘maintenance fee’ for the pleasure of holding my money, which it probably spends on the geegees.
Banks famously only lend money to people who already have it or, as is said, ‘they’ll only lend you an umbrella when the rain stops’. But, rain or shine, banks make their money. The last time we were in crisis, back in 1992, I was three million pesetas overdrawn. That was when I ran a big newspaper here (later to be ripped off by those fucks from the Euro Weekly). To cheer me up, the bank downstairs cranked up the interest to a massive 27% - which, I think you will agree - ain’t bad work if you can get it.
I have to say that I don’t like usury, greed, avarice… or banks.
So… anyway… could you lend me some cash?
Actually, a similar thing happened to me a couple of years back when I flew to America.
Madrid, New York, San Francisco, bed, New York, Madrid and home.
With the credit card in almost perfect shape.
Lying abed in Madrid, and trying to keep up with the terrible financial news which is worrying most of Spain (banks and politicians not included), I heard the words of the president of the Banco de Santander (and a load of other banks – Central, Hispano, Abbey Nat and so on) regarding the current situation. The president of the Santander, by the way, rejoices in the name of Emilio Botín. Botín in my dictionary translates as ‘swag’ or booty’. Like a pirate.
Perhaps his wife calls him ‘my old booty’…
Anyway this financier was saying that the crisis is like a child’s summer cold. It won’t last for long or do any lasting damage. That said, he then turned to his shareholders and told them that this year the group expected to make around ten billion euros.
In banking, you see, every year is a ‘good year’.
Of course, banks don’t ‘make money’; what they do is they take it out of everybody else’s pockets. They ‘take’ money. Botín also means ‘spoils of war’…
So pleased were the folk from the Banco de Santander on considering their good fortune, they rushed out the same day and bought the Alliance and Leicester.
All good things come to an end and one morning I woke up to discover that my daughter had hidden the thermometer, possibly because she had just heard from a friend about a fancy new restaurant that had just opened in a particularly posh bit of Madrid.
Feeling woozy, I got dressed and staggered out into the street in search of a hole-in-the-wall. The nearest one, as luck would have it, belonged to the same Banco de Santander. I put in my card… secret number… amount… and, bugger me, the machine wanted a commission of almost six euros, a thousand pesetas, for my modest wallop. Bastards!
Which explains how the Banco de Santander, Central, Hispano and the rest of it can go around picking up extra banks every few months.
You know, the word 'bank' or ‘banco’ comes from the bench - ‘banco’ in Italian - where the moneylenders used to sit outside the churches to catch anyone who wanted to take his daughter out to dinner or buy himself a new cow. These were the ‘lombards’ that charged you a few points of interest on your loan.
I know an English girl who was given a cheque for sixty euros by her mother a month ago. She put it in the local caja de ahorros who said that it would take six weeks to clear. You know, we are in the 21st century and we do have communication by computer with London. Some shit is sitting on sixty euros for six weeks and making - ooh - maybe anything up to five céntimos off of it. Meanwhile, the same caja de ahorros charges me a ‘maintenance fee’ for the pleasure of holding my money, which it probably spends on the geegees.
Banks famously only lend money to people who already have it or, as is said, ‘they’ll only lend you an umbrella when the rain stops’. But, rain or shine, banks make their money. The last time we were in crisis, back in 1992, I was three million pesetas overdrawn. That was when I ran a big newspaper here (later to be ripped off by those fucks from the Euro Weekly). To cheer me up, the bank downstairs cranked up the interest to a massive 27% - which, I think you will agree - ain’t bad work if you can get it.
I have to say that I don’t like usury, greed, avarice… or banks.
So… anyway… could you lend me some cash?
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Super-Turre: Architectural Charms of Almería
Turre may not be the most beautiful town in Almería - actually, come to think of it, it's probably one of the least attractive of the lot - but, even so, the old supermarket lets the place down a bit. The 'new' wing, on the left of the building, was finished about eight years ago and the supermarket expanded into the newly available space, selling its wares apparently from the moment they put a lock on the door.But, in my opinion, the building still needs a teeny bit of work on it to bring it up to the standard of the rest of t
he Avenida de Andalucía.Has the town hall ever asked the Super-Turre people to just fling a bit of plaster and paint on the exterior to give the building a final flourish? Apparently, yes. Repeatedly.
One story I heard was that a previous ayuntamiento had objected to the bit of roof terrace that sticks up above the skyline and that the ensuing disagreement was with the pesky local lawyers.
Which would neatly explain the eight years and counting.
Meanwhile, civic pride not counting for much in our local communities, the scruffy Super-Turre megastore continues to provide us with everything from yoghurt to Butano to gin to trousers. All, of course, in the best possible taste.
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
Lost Luggage
The parking lot by the office is far too small. There’s nothing new about that in Spain, where the nation’s last architect died in 1922, run over by a tram in Barcelona.
Where I work, there are around ninety shops and offices, plus a supermarket and some cafés, and there is parking for about sixty cars. So, it’s usually full. Crammed and double-parked. Emergency lights (which can last for hours), people taking up two parking lanes, cars parked so close that you need a shoe-horn to get into the rear-door to clamber over the seats and dog-basket to get to the controls, impatient honking, trucks unloading, all the fun of owning a car in a country where the parking lot still hasn’t been invented.
Word has it that the main post office is moving here from the other end of the beach in a few months time so soon there will be even more cars, double parked, excuse me, yes, I shan’t be a moment.
How can Mojácar be so badly planned? We have seventeen kilometers of playa, served by one narrow road and enough parking spaces for about a quarter of the cars which are endlessly circulating during the summer months.
I get to the Commercial Centre quite early – incredibly early by local standards – and cruise around the block until I find a space. Lock the car, tum ti tum, and meander off to see who’s in the café, and on, away to the office on the third floor. If the lift is working, all well and good. If not, I must trail up the stairs to arrive panting outside the door of Nº 90 where I fiddle with the keys, let myself in, make a joke about the heat or the tourists, and get on with my day.
When I come downstairs a few hours later, I find that I can’t find my car. It’s not that I’ve forgotten where I parked it; it’s that I never remembered.
If I go to Granada, there’s no way I’m going to forget where I left the car; but leaving it somewhere in those small and badly designed spaces that surround the commercial centre where I work, twice a day, where half the spots are actually double-yellow line no-parkee spaces, not that anyone takes any notice, Spain being Spain, I am obliged to wander around the outside of the entire building, ugly thing that it is, twice a day in search of my car.
At least I remember what kind of car it is – an old and very scratched one. There’s not much point in having any other kind with these narrow parking places which are laughingly designed by Spain’s master (ahem) architects.
So, I patiently look for the stupid car. Perhaps Einstein would have had a similar problem with his neutrons.
But things are getting worse. I’ve been by myself the last couple of weeks with the family away for various reasons. Home alone. Living like an old bohemian.
Today, it took twenty minutes to find my underwear.
Where I work, there are around ninety shops and offices, plus a supermarket and some cafés, and there is parking for about sixty cars. So, it’s usually full. Crammed and double-parked. Emergency lights (which can last for hours), people taking up two parking lanes, cars parked so close that you need a shoe-horn to get into the rear-door to clamber over the seats and dog-basket to get to the controls, impatient honking, trucks unloading, all the fun of owning a car in a country where the parking lot still hasn’t been invented.
Word has it that the main post office is moving here from the other end of the beach in a few months time so soon there will be even more cars, double parked, excuse me, yes, I shan’t be a moment.
How can Mojácar be so badly planned? We have seventeen kilometers of playa, served by one narrow road and enough parking spaces for about a quarter of the cars which are endlessly circulating during the summer months.
I get to the Commercial Centre quite early – incredibly early by local standards – and cruise around the block until I find a space. Lock the car, tum ti tum, and meander off to see who’s in the café, and on, away to the office on the third floor. If the lift is working, all well and good. If not, I must trail up the stairs to arrive panting outside the door of Nº 90 where I fiddle with the keys, let myself in, make a joke about the heat or the tourists, and get on with my day.
When I come downstairs a few hours later, I find that I can’t find my car. It’s not that I’ve forgotten where I parked it; it’s that I never remembered.
If I go to Granada, there’s no way I’m going to forget where I left the car; but leaving it somewhere in those small and badly designed spaces that surround the commercial centre where I work, twice a day, where half the spots are actually double-yellow line no-parkee spaces, not that anyone takes any notice, Spain being Spain, I am obliged to wander around the outside of the entire building, ugly thing that it is, twice a day in search of my car.
At least I remember what kind of car it is – an old and very scratched one. There’s not much point in having any other kind with these narrow parking places which are laughingly designed by Spain’s master (ahem) architects.
So, I patiently look for the stupid car. Perhaps Einstein would have had a similar problem with his neutrons.
But things are getting worse. I’ve been by myself the last couple of weeks with the family away for various reasons. Home alone. Living like an old bohemian.
Today, it took twenty minutes to find my underwear.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
El Cid and other Chiringuitos
Mojácar is famous for its chiringuitos - its beach bars. The playa has been scattered with them since the first ones opened in the early seventies, with places like the 'Kon Tiki' (operated for a while by our most famous resident - Gordon Goody, the Glasgow Train robber), the 'Aku Aku', the 'Patio' (Fuck-a-duck Ric who came here to work on the desalination plant being built by the apologetic American government after the Palomares incident in 1966), 'Tito's', and Lloyd and Tish's 'El Cid'.The Cid is thirty years old this month so celebrations are underway, including a golf tournament pictured above with Lloyd giving Tish what might be a bottle of something. How on earth they could spend thirty years behind the same bar is a mystery...
The beachbars in Mojácar are anarchic. Many are on private land and the others all seem to manage somehow to get around the rules of the government 'costas' agency. Good for them.
In other parts of the Spanish Med, beach-bars have to be taken down in the winter (to make room?) and are usually made to one design and put out to tender to anyone who wants them (as long as they are related to the mayor). These soviet joints of stainless steel, clapboard, bad flamenco and waiters in white shirts and black bow ties have yet to make their appearance in Mojácar, but, my friends, plans are afoot.
So, raise a glass to Lloyd and Tish, who are known to many thousands of happy visitors and contented residents, on this their thirtieth anniversary. They are part of the charm and magic of Mojácar.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
What You Say
Language is power. If you can communicate with someone you are in a far better situation than if you can’t. Both socially and commercially. That’s why we need to speak Spanish and, by the same token, why local businessmen, town halls and official organisations need to speak English.
Many Spanish owned businesses now use bi-lingual staff and, the fact is, there are plenty of young people who, despite being British, have lived here since their earliest years and are comfortably bi-lingual. In the town halls, you will find English-speakers only in the tourist departments – as if tourists, who, during their five day visit, spending 200 euros on the choo choo train or whatever other vulgarity is available, are somehow more useful to the community that the foreign residents.
A doctor I know who works at the hospital in Huercal Overa says that up to 20% of the patients there are English speakers. Some of the doctors studied in the United States and are fluent in English, but none of the staff can speak a word. Why should they?
Because it makes things a lot easier.
In Spain at large, the problems of ‘language’ are currently upsetting the purists from two different directions. Firstly, as Spanish nouns generally end in either ‘a’ or ‘o’, being ‘feminine’ or ‘masculine’ (remember your Latin), certain people of a liberal disposition feel in some cases slighted. A woman minister (ministress?) has upset the Real Academia Española by describing herself as a ‘miembra’ rather than a ‘miembro’ of the government. One member (thankfully, masculine) of the Royal Academy says ‘If it’s not an error, it’s a stupidity. The minister is a champion of shallowness regarding the subject of sex and gender’.
In Spanish, a ‘masculine’ word doesn’t connote masculinity. It’s just a word. The masculine form is also the fall-back when there’s a group of articles or people of both sexes. You say ‘vosotros’ rather than ‘vosotros y vosotras’. Except for leftist politicians and fringe groups. Some people now use the arroba sign to cover themselves – such as in compañer@s. ¡Idiotas! (sorry, ‘idiotos’ doesn’t exist in castellano).
But a far more serious problem for purists, patriots, pragmatists and conservatives is the limits to which the nationalists in parts of the north and east of the country are prepared to go to crank up the ‘bilingüismo oficial’ which is now an accepted ‘coñazo’ (pain in the arse) in Catalonia, the Balearics, and to a lesser extent in Valencia, the Basque Country and Galicia. Nowadays, for purely political ends, Catalonian children must take practically all their classes in catalán and they will grow up to speak Spanish (if they are lucky) as about as well as I do. Very useful when they want to leave the confines of their community.
In Mallorca recently, a nutter – sorry, a ‘senior nationalist politician’ – accused Air Berlin, which flies in more tourists to the islands than they can count, of disrespecting their amusing local patois by only using German and Spanish on their flights. His thrust was that the company is run by Nazis and he calls the service ‘Air Goebbels’.
The Germans are not amused.
Of course, every Catalán, Basque, Gallego and Ibicenco speaks Spanish (at least, this generation does) so the whole language question is at best, artful. Returning to the Almerían coast, most of the English (the word is ‘ingleses’ in Spanish, which is accepted to mean something nearer ‘northern Europeans’) don't unfortunately speak any Spanish, so there is evidently a certain commercial, social and political case for bilingualism.
Many Spanish owned businesses now use bi-lingual staff and, the fact is, there are plenty of young people who, despite being British, have lived here since their earliest years and are comfortably bi-lingual. In the town halls, you will find English-speakers only in the tourist departments – as if tourists, who, during their five day visit, spending 200 euros on the choo choo train or whatever other vulgarity is available, are somehow more useful to the community that the foreign residents.
A doctor I know who works at the hospital in Huercal Overa says that up to 20% of the patients there are English speakers. Some of the doctors studied in the United States and are fluent in English, but none of the staff can speak a word. Why should they?
Because it makes things a lot easier.
In Spain at large, the problems of ‘language’ are currently upsetting the purists from two different directions. Firstly, as Spanish nouns generally end in either ‘a’ or ‘o’, being ‘feminine’ or ‘masculine’ (remember your Latin), certain people of a liberal disposition feel in some cases slighted. A woman minister (ministress?) has upset the Real Academia Española by describing herself as a ‘miembra’ rather than a ‘miembro’ of the government. One member (thankfully, masculine) of the Royal Academy says ‘If it’s not an error, it’s a stupidity. The minister is a champion of shallowness regarding the subject of sex and gender’.
In Spanish, a ‘masculine’ word doesn’t connote masculinity. It’s just a word. The masculine form is also the fall-back when there’s a group of articles or people of both sexes. You say ‘vosotros’ rather than ‘vosotros y vosotras’. Except for leftist politicians and fringe groups. Some people now use the arroba sign to cover themselves – such as in compañer@s. ¡Idiotas! (sorry, ‘idiotos’ doesn’t exist in castellano).
But a far more serious problem for purists, patriots, pragmatists and conservatives is the limits to which the nationalists in parts of the north and east of the country are prepared to go to crank up the ‘bilingüismo oficial’ which is now an accepted ‘coñazo’ (pain in the arse) in Catalonia, the Balearics, and to a lesser extent in Valencia, the Basque Country and Galicia. Nowadays, for purely political ends, Catalonian children must take practically all their classes in catalán and they will grow up to speak Spanish (if they are lucky) as about as well as I do. Very useful when they want to leave the confines of their community.
In Mallorca recently, a nutter – sorry, a ‘senior nationalist politician’ – accused Air Berlin, which flies in more tourists to the islands than they can count, of disrespecting their amusing local patois by only using German and Spanish on their flights. His thrust was that the company is run by Nazis and he calls the service ‘Air Goebbels’.
The Germans are not amused.
Of course, every Catalán, Basque, Gallego and Ibicenco speaks Spanish (at least, this generation does) so the whole language question is at best, artful. Returning to the Almerían coast, most of the English (the word is ‘ingleses’ in Spanish, which is accepted to mean something nearer ‘northern Europeans’) don't unfortunately speak any Spanish, so there is evidently a certain commercial, social and political case for bilingualism.
Sunday, June 08, 2008
Bite De Dust
I recently wrote a piece about knocking down a billboard and, today, found this picture on the web.
AULAN
The first meeting on the fledgling association AULAN was held on Friday 6th June at the Hotel Continental with about fifty people present. I chaired the meeting and in my opening remarks contrasted the Prior’s home in Vera with the Hotel Algarrobico in Carboneras and chided them for not having built a 22 storey home in their quiet backwater as, perhaps, the Junta de Andalucía wouldn’t have ordered it to be pulled down.Three people spoke of their experiences with property in Spain and their mixed results. The first was Richard Kaleta whose home in Turre was under threat from the route of the AVE high-speed train. His house had received all permissions from the Turre town hall even though they knew the route of the tracks. After support from Gerardo Vásquez (a British lawyer based locally) and enthusiastic coverage in the British press, the Kaletas and six other families won a last minute reprieve and the route has now been modified.
The second speaker was John Bowling who is suffering from the threat of ‘land grab’ in El Pinar, Bédar, together with a clutch of British residents there. The third speaker was Manuel Esteban who was able to resolve his land problems in Mojácar after the regional edition of El Mundo ran a four-part report on the situation.
Gerardo Vásquez spoke of the need for an association to cover our area, to complement the AUAN in Albox and other areas with urban problems caused by the authorities. The new association to be called the Abusos Urbanisticos del Levante Almeriense – No!. The AULAN.
Those that wish to join the association can contact either Gerardo or myself.
Saturday, June 07, 2008
Civilization III
When things go bad – rather than face the crisis, I like to settle down for an agreeable moment in front of the computer; to conquer the world.
It’s a game which takes several months to play. You start with a tiny pueblo and a chap with a pickaxe and you slowly go out exploring, meeting (raping and conquering) the neighbours. It’s called Civilization III (Number II is a bit infra dig and Number IV is a bit too busy to be enjoyable).
It’s a game which takes several months to play. You start with a tiny pueblo and a chap with a pickaxe and you slowly go out exploring, meeting (raping and conquering) the neighbours. It’s called Civilization III (Number II is a bit infra dig and Number IV is a bit too busy to be enjoyable).
I've sometimes tried other computer games. I have to say that I don't like any of them. It has to be Sid Meier's CIV III.
So now my secret is out. Things go wrong in the office; I’ll come home and put another civilization to the sword. Yes, I know: pathetic.
Unfortunately, the CD has been working too hard recently and no longer loads. You might say that it has ‘risen up’ against its master.
So, as I tear out my hair in clumps, I wonder – does anyone out there have a copy?
So now my secret is out. Things go wrong in the office; I’ll come home and put another civilization to the sword. Yes, I know: pathetic.
Unfortunately, the CD has been working too hard recently and no longer loads. You might say that it has ‘risen up’ against its master.
So, as I tear out my hair in clumps, I wonder – does anyone out there have a copy?
Monday, June 02, 2008
Mojácar's Old Lags: The 1970s
They were the first billboards for Mojácar. One was a construction company, another advertised the Tío Edy (a small German hotel run by an ex Luftwaffe pilot) and two more promoted Mojácar’s first knick-knack shop, an establishment down to the rear of the pueblo called ‘Jean-Pierre’.
The souvenir shop was owned by Felippe Paccini, an ugly Corsican who had arrived in town in 1970 claiming that ‘he had been thrown out of many places during his life, but he wasn’t going to be pushed out of Mojácar’.
Actually, I’ve just heard that he was wheeled out last week. RIP you French bastard!
My dad, myself and another Mojácar resident called Tony Hawker had decided late one night in the spring of 1971 to remove these billboards in a daring terrorist action. Not having any useful connections with the IRA, we used saws. The four signs fell, one after another, around four in the morning following on from a rather heavy night in the Bar Sartén. One sign was in front of a house on the playa and as it fell, we saw a surprised – and we hoped – rather pleased looking man peering out at his improved view.
We knew the cops pretty well: the Guardia would come by to visit our house once a month on their mopeds to get our signature to prove their patrol schedule and to try a whisky or two. Relations were most friendly and it was a very chastened corporal who told us, three months after the event, that we were to report to the Vera calabozo, the clink. The two other advertisers had ‘let us off’, but the Frenchman wanted his pint of blood.
My mum packed a suitcase and we went to collect Tony who lived somewhere in the pueblo. We arrived around five that afternoon in Vera only to be told that ‘the beds hadn’t been made yet’ and to go and get a drink. The lock-up was in the downstairs of the Vera town hall, looking into the church square. Our cell was ample, with an en-suite thunderbox. One wall was decorated with a large mural of Jesus going about his business clearly chalked by a previous inmate. There was evidently time to kill.
Our suitcase had been searched by another apologetic policeman and the vodka confiscated. We were left with a radio, a few books and some lavatory paper. Tony, a thin man in his forties, had some ‘Bustaid’ slimming pills which, it was claimed on the street, would get you high.
My mother visited constantly, bringing my dad vodka in a Casera bottle (well, it fooled the jailers). Otherwise, supplies had to come through the window of the next-door cell, inhabited by a young villain, and passed through into our quarters in exchange for a small coin or a cup of good cheer.
The judge saw us on the third day. Our excuses fell on deaf ears. ‘¿Cuantos años tienes?’ he asked Tony, who was dressed in a rather scruffy leather suit. ‘How long are you?’ translated the interpreter. ‘About this long’, said Tony, holding his hands a generous distance apart.
He was returned to ‘solitary’ where he complained bitterly through the walls of his jail-mates, ‘a bucket of shit and two thousand flies’. My dad and I were returned to our own quarters and released on bail two days later. Tony was let out on bail the following day.
Franco had an amnesty about that time for evil-doers and we were released from the threat of a three month stay in a proper jail. Well done the Caudillo!
I was seventeen at the time – making me one of the youngest old lags in the business.
The following year, the same Frenchman had another run-in with a foreigner. Paccini lived upstairs from Til, a Swiss sailor who owned a restaurant in the village (‘the customer is always right… except at Tillies’). A misunderstanding arose as to who owned Til’s roof-terrace and after Til had tossed Paccini’s bricks, cement and bathroom fittings into the street, Til found himself in our old cell in Vera. The window had been covered by chicken wire and the young felon had departed so Til was unable to get any refreshment during his stay.
Next to visit the Vera clink was Eddie, a film type who had been denounced for some form or other of wickedness. He arrived at the calabozo in his Rolls Royce, leaving it wedged in the narrow street outside. Within an hour, the gaoler had allowed him his freedom, if he would only agree to move his car.
Cheap Pete was a small and very American character who bought and sold antique carpets ‘by the yard’. There’s a street named after him in the pueblo (‘Calle de Pedro Barato’). He married Josephine and inherited a step-son, a large red-headed bruiser who took a violent dislike to Pete. The subsequent fight was so noisy and bloody that the local police felt honour-bound to put the two of them in the Cooler for three days. With the calabozo near to capacity, they placed them in the same cell. For one reason or another, Pete lost a lot of weight during his captivity.
Fritz was an American artist. He was known for his loud ‘haw haw haw’ laugh, his beard and his bottomless capacity for booze and illicit substances. For some reason – the accusation was ‘gamberrísmo’ – he was locked up in the brand-new Mojácar cell, a small room that gave onto the street. By the evening of his first (and last) day, he had managed to decorate his new abode with several paintings, a radio, a carpet and a pot-plant.
By 1980, the cops had appeared to have given up on the foreigners.
I’d call it a long-term truce.
The souvenir shop was owned by Felippe Paccini, an ugly Corsican who had arrived in town in 1970 claiming that ‘he had been thrown out of many places during his life, but he wasn’t going to be pushed out of Mojácar’.
Actually, I’ve just heard that he was wheeled out last week. RIP you French bastard!
My dad, myself and another Mojácar resident called Tony Hawker had decided late one night in the spring of 1971 to remove these billboards in a daring terrorist action. Not having any useful connections with the IRA, we used saws. The four signs fell, one after another, around four in the morning following on from a rather heavy night in the Bar Sartén. One sign was in front of a house on the playa and as it fell, we saw a surprised – and we hoped – rather pleased looking man peering out at his improved view.
We knew the cops pretty well: the Guardia would come by to visit our house once a month on their mopeds to get our signature to prove their patrol schedule and to try a whisky or two. Relations were most friendly and it was a very chastened corporal who told us, three months after the event, that we were to report to the Vera calabozo, the clink. The two other advertisers had ‘let us off’, but the Frenchman wanted his pint of blood.
My mum packed a suitcase and we went to collect Tony who lived somewhere in the pueblo. We arrived around five that afternoon in Vera only to be told that ‘the beds hadn’t been made yet’ and to go and get a drink. The lock-up was in the downstairs of the Vera town hall, looking into the church square. Our cell was ample, with an en-suite thunderbox. One wall was decorated with a large mural of Jesus going about his business clearly chalked by a previous inmate. There was evidently time to kill.
Our suitcase had been searched by another apologetic policeman and the vodka confiscated. We were left with a radio, a few books and some lavatory paper. Tony, a thin man in his forties, had some ‘Bustaid’ slimming pills which, it was claimed on the street, would get you high.
My mother visited constantly, bringing my dad vodka in a Casera bottle (well, it fooled the jailers). Otherwise, supplies had to come through the window of the next-door cell, inhabited by a young villain, and passed through into our quarters in exchange for a small coin or a cup of good cheer.
The judge saw us on the third day. Our excuses fell on deaf ears. ‘¿Cuantos años tienes?’ he asked Tony, who was dressed in a rather scruffy leather suit. ‘How long are you?’ translated the interpreter. ‘About this long’, said Tony, holding his hands a generous distance apart.
He was returned to ‘solitary’ where he complained bitterly through the walls of his jail-mates, ‘a bucket of shit and two thousand flies’. My dad and I were returned to our own quarters and released on bail two days later. Tony was let out on bail the following day.
Franco had an amnesty about that time for evil-doers and we were released from the threat of a three month stay in a proper jail. Well done the Caudillo!
I was seventeen at the time – making me one of the youngest old lags in the business.
The following year, the same Frenchman had another run-in with a foreigner. Paccini lived upstairs from Til, a Swiss sailor who owned a restaurant in the village (‘the customer is always right… except at Tillies’). A misunderstanding arose as to who owned Til’s roof-terrace and after Til had tossed Paccini’s bricks, cement and bathroom fittings into the street, Til found himself in our old cell in Vera. The window had been covered by chicken wire and the young felon had departed so Til was unable to get any refreshment during his stay.
Next to visit the Vera clink was Eddie, a film type who had been denounced for some form or other of wickedness. He arrived at the calabozo in his Rolls Royce, leaving it wedged in the narrow street outside. Within an hour, the gaoler had allowed him his freedom, if he would only agree to move his car.
Cheap Pete was a small and very American character who bought and sold antique carpets ‘by the yard’. There’s a street named after him in the pueblo (‘Calle de Pedro Barato’). He married Josephine and inherited a step-son, a large red-headed bruiser who took a violent dislike to Pete. The subsequent fight was so noisy and bloody that the local police felt honour-bound to put the two of them in the Cooler for three days. With the calabozo near to capacity, they placed them in the same cell. For one reason or another, Pete lost a lot of weight during his captivity.
Fritz was an American artist. He was known for his loud ‘haw haw haw’ laugh, his beard and his bottomless capacity for booze and illicit substances. For some reason – the accusation was ‘gamberrísmo’ – he was locked up in the brand-new Mojácar cell, a small room that gave onto the street. By the evening of his first (and last) day, he had managed to decorate his new abode with several paintings, a radio, a carpet and a pot-plant.
By 1980, the cops had appeared to have given up on the foreigners.
I’d call it a long-term truce.
Friday, May 30, 2008
Equity Release
From the Costa del Sol Action Group:
'...of especial concern are the Equity Release schemes which have been peddled on the Coast in recent years and have mostly been a disaster for those who have participated. The Action Group has discovered that a number of them have involved criminality. Bearing in mind the average age of the participants of the ER schemes is well over 70 many of the schemes have amounted to abuse of the elderly and robbing the aged of their life savings. The CDSAG is trying its hardest to assist such people. There was one case of a person starving to death and not knowing which way to turn. There has even been the fear of suicide where an elderly victim was too ashamed to tell their partner. The CDSAG stresses that victims should feel no shame at having been caught out by these slick conmen. The perpetrators of these schemes are in many instances highly skilled and seemingly very professional and trustworthy businessmen. Such con artists can take the best of us for our money. Imagine the creative genius and convincing manner it took to sell the Eifel Tower, never mind release the cash tied up in your property!
The CDSAG has found that up-front charges of up to 20% have been imposed in some cases (the norm being around 8/9%) with annual 'management' fees on top of this - with the released cash being invested in disasterous funds in emerging markets (these dodgy bonds paid higher commissions to the financial advisors.) All this has meant that the remaining 80% - 90% of the released capital could never make enough to support the borrowings of the 100%, and provide the promised income. They were in the main commission-driven schemes offered by unqualified, unregistered, heartless, smooth talking, cowboy salesmen'.
'...of especial concern are the Equity Release schemes which have been peddled on the Coast in recent years and have mostly been a disaster for those who have participated. The Action Group has discovered that a number of them have involved criminality. Bearing in mind the average age of the participants of the ER schemes is well over 70 many of the schemes have amounted to abuse of the elderly and robbing the aged of their life savings. The CDSAG is trying its hardest to assist such people. There was one case of a person starving to death and not knowing which way to turn. There has even been the fear of suicide where an elderly victim was too ashamed to tell their partner. The CDSAG stresses that victims should feel no shame at having been caught out by these slick conmen. The perpetrators of these schemes are in many instances highly skilled and seemingly very professional and trustworthy businessmen. Such con artists can take the best of us for our money. Imagine the creative genius and convincing manner it took to sell the Eifel Tower, never mind release the cash tied up in your property!
The CDSAG has found that up-front charges of up to 20% have been imposed in some cases (the norm being around 8/9%) with annual 'management' fees on top of this - with the released cash being invested in disasterous funds in emerging markets (these dodgy bonds paid higher commissions to the financial advisors.) All this has meant that the remaining 80% - 90% of the released capital could never make enough to support the borrowings of the 100%, and provide the promised income. They were in the main commission-driven schemes offered by unqualified, unregistered, heartless, smooth talking, cowboy salesmen'.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Changing a Bulb
The wiring is a bit wonky in our house, no doubt thanks to the age of our establishment. The sockets come in two different sizes, necessitating an array of ‘ladrones’ and gizmos to put the right plug in the right hole. Some of the sockets have burnt out over the years, or their fuses are of the type that no longer exists. Spain, when it comes to bricolaje, is enthusiastic about ‘progress’. We persevere.
Long bits of wire with multiple plugs snake under the carpets to keep the gadgets going. It’s a system.
The light bulbs though, are a menace. First of all, they don’t last 1,000 hours as it says on the box. In fact, some of them go ‘floop’ just as you are screwing them in, standing inevitably on a wobbly chair. Once, I went clean through the seat of an antique chair while reaching up to change a light. You should stand on the edges apparently.
But the real problem here is the light sockets, the fundas. These are made either from a thin plastic that soon cracks or from a sturdy plastic which cooks and cracks. The cable behind obligingly rots when it gets a chance. Half the time, changing a bulb (while standing on that wobbly chair, the spare bulb in your pocket) means having to change the whole fixture – in the dark, with a screwdriver which has a crooked blade.
That’ll be when the phone rings.
Shortly after I’d finished the above masterpiece, the Spanish government decided to change things, lightbulbwise (perhaps it was simply pure coincidence, although I think they’ve been checking my blog).
In three years time, the old incandescent bulb will be phased out, in exchange for those new, expensive to buy and cheap to run bulbs. If Spain tossed its 350 million light bulbs in favour of these new-fangled ones, why the country would save 3% on its energy bill and households would see their electric (which just went up by 10%) go down again.
I looked. They cost about ten euros a pop (actually, perhaps ‘pop’ isn’t the best word here, as, one would not be too happy if the light didn’t do its duty and last for ever).
Property Meeting in Mojácar
Levante Almeriense: AULAN
Covering the municipalities of: Mojacar, Carboneras, Garrucha, Los
Gallardos, Cuevas, Bédar, Huercal Overa, Pulpi, Antas.
12 AM 6TH JUNE 2008.
HOTEL CONTINENTAL, MOJACAR PLAYA
AGENDA:
(1) Discussion of the aims of the Association.
(2) Talk on planning and real estate problems.
(3) Consideration of steering committee.
(4) Consideration of membership fee.
(5) Next steps.
(6) Other matters arising.
CHAIR: Lenox Napier.
In attendance representatives of: Abusos Urbanisticos Almanzora No, Asociacion
de Vecinos del Pinar de Bédar, Levante Sostenible, Ciudadanos Europeos de
Mojacar.
Anyone interested in joining who has not already done so, please call Mary on 661
742 102 to confirm attendance.
Covering the municipalities of: Mojacar, Carboneras, Garrucha, Los
Gallardos, Cuevas, Bédar, Huercal Overa, Pulpi, Antas.
12 AM 6TH JUNE 2008.
HOTEL CONTINENTAL, MOJACAR PLAYA
AGENDA:
(1) Discussion of the aims of the Association.
(2) Talk on planning and real estate problems.
(3) Consideration of steering committee.
(4) Consideration of membership fee.
(5) Next steps.
(6) Other matters arising.
CHAIR: Lenox Napier.
In attendance representatives of: Abusos Urbanisticos Almanzora No, Asociacion
de Vecinos del Pinar de Bédar, Levante Sostenible, Ciudadanos Europeos de
Mojacar.
Anyone interested in joining who has not already done so, please call Mary on 661
742 102 to confirm attendance.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)