Dumb Critters

There’s a leading stop-the-press story in one of our crappier free-sheets this week along the lines of… ‘Brave Woman Foils Puppy Killers’. Yes, this week we give you the fiend in human form who kills a certain number of puppies in either a barbaric or reasonably painless way. Or doesn't, perhaps.
You see, I never read the article.
Mind you, knowing our friends the Spanish and their approach to animals, together with the Brits and their approach to any (preferably house-trained) woolly four-legged creature, it could have gone either way.
Which is why Zapatero and the 'crisis' got chucked off the ‘news’.
It’s a funny thing, the British love of domestic animals. They are elevated out of their place as dogs, cats or guinea-pigs and instead they become much loved companions. It’s like that in my house, ‘don’t forget to buy cat-food’ shouts Mrs Rambeau as I’m backing out of the parking lot to go and have a beer. The cats’ food (as far as I’m concerned) trilling thoughtlessly in the tree above having just made a poop on the bonnet of the car. ‘And lavatory-paper, while you’re at it’ she adds, confusingly.
We have cats and dogs and rabbits and birdies and, new to the menagerie, two young chickens I bought from the feed-store in Turre the other week. Now, finally, a useful animal: one that lays eggs.
We’ve had endless pets over the years and my fondest hope is that, when I am finally pushed off the cliff by fate and zoom off to my place in the sky, I don’t find them all waiting for me. Where would you start? ‘Oh Freckles, there you are, and Digby and Snowy and Archie and Little Boy Kitty and Tootles and Beetroot and Frixtu…’
On consideration, it probably wouldn’t be a good thing to find all my old girlfriends waiting there either (I really wouldn’t want to forget any of their names as I’m told that one’s Reward apparently lasts for a real long time).
It’s odd how we fawn over animals. The biggest charities among the British ex-pat populations the world over are invariably to do with critters. Forget the Vietnamese waifs and the starving millions. Huge amounts of time and money are spent on saving dogs, castrating cats, shoving suicidal whales back into the sea and clubbing together against clubbing baby seals in Canada. We have those PETA ladies with their jolly campaigns (which involve pulchritude and nakedness in an agreeable combination), we have the anti-bullfight gang and the British Woodworm Society and its sterling work with our six-legged friends.
A Spaniard was complaining bitterly about the English the other day. It appeared that his tom cat had gone out for a stroll and had tottered back home two days later with a dirty bandage where its balls used to be. He said that it wasn’t that he was worried about his cat, but since he lived in a mainly British neighbourhood, he had become a bit concerned about going out after six o’clock himself.
Down on the coast, there’s a gang of feral ladies that roam about at will, yawling and gibbering under the full moon. They leave food out for our growing population of wild cats. Is there nothing to be done?
But the Spanish are far more pragmatic about animals. Stick a gaily coloured spear into them being the basic point to start from. Shoot, eat, stomp, kick and, if that doesn’t work, run ‘em over. Nothing, it appears, is safe. While Paws lieutenants are vainly trying to give mouth to mouth to a three-legged dog with rabies, scabies and what can only be described as a poor character in the hope of giving it an extra twenty years of life; our neighbour will be tying a suspiciously short piece of rope around its sibling’s neck somewhere close to a remarkably tall tree. Another neighbour, let’s call him Juan, will be crouched inside a crudely-made ‘hide’, fingering his daddy’s blunderbuss as his pet perdíz squawks dismally from its tiny cage. You’ve seen the little black and white triangles or the words ‘coto privado’ – private hunting. That’ll be the neighbours blasting away at anything that moves.
Then there’s the annual ‘matanza’, when the pig from across the street has its throat cut outside the kitchen door by someone who you had previously considered to be a game old bird always dressed in black and invariably kind to small children. No wonder they never gave it a name.
In fact, I’ve noticed this seeming cruelty for all animals is also extended to plant life. I remember the gardener who used to spray my mother’s flower beds with his finger over the end of the hose, giving it some punch. He’d blow off the flowers themselves and tell my mum that it was nature’s way. His view was that if it wasn’t edible, there wasn’t much point in growing it in the first place (an opinion I’m slowly coming around towards as well). He never pruned as much as lopped. A tree would have a razor-cut: no branches left and just the suspicion that maybe this bald trunk pointing mutely to the heavens might one day produce a small green shoot somewhere along its length.
Years later and freed from the ravages of our expert topiarist, we now have a luxuriantly overgrown garden, full of all sorts of giant weeds and proper animals, like tree-rats, doves, sparrows and tortoises.
All apparently quite inedible.

Trust us on Geography (at least)

There we are just setting out on Km0 on the road - apparently - from Tabernas to Garrucha. Nice day for a drive. That's Mojácar in the distance.
Only thing, this Junta de Andalucía managed road doesn't go from Tabernas (the place where they used to make all those Spaghetti Westerns) to the delightful fishing port of Garrucha. It goes from Los Gallardos. Tabernas is forty kilometres away.
Now the thing that worries us natives about the Junta de Andalucía, based as it is in Seville, over five hours of hard driving from here, and clearly not much good on basic geography - even on the bits that they own and control - is that it has some huge plans for our quiet area.
First of all, there will be a high-speed train whizzing through just in front of where we are standing with the photographer, having a smoke. This is the AVE, which will unite Almería with Murcia (despite the apparent low demand from the burghers of those two cities to have anything to do with each other). Jolly modern though, hugely expensive and, if Spain wasn't a supremely honest country when it came to commissions, very remunerative for a few jokers down there in our regional capital.
Then, to cheer us up, and supposing they can find us on the map, the Junta fellows are going to build a special AVE train station (for those of us who want to go to Murcia or Almería - not, of course some pueblo ten minutes up the line) in a creek somewhere over there to the left towards Vera.
It takes a long time for a high speed train to slow down and stop... have a fellow in a zippy uniform shout 'aaaall aboaaard', wave a flag and then speed up and awaaaay, the municipal band tootling, so you obviously need a few more passengers than just the one stereotyped old girl dressed in black clutching a chicken. So the Junta chappies have decided to build a town - well, a city really - over there on the left. On 55 million hectares, or 55 square kilometres of scrub. 35,000 houses, fifty hotels, golf courses coming out of the kazoo, parks, roads and all the usual things. Here - why not a few more of those public heated indoor swimming pools none of our local towns can afford to run? A convention centre maybe. How about an interplanetary flying saucer landing-port.
The 35,000 houses, 50 hotels etc will generate 130,000 jobs. Which is great since there are only around 40,000 of us within half an hour's drive (not including those who live in Tabernas) so we shall all have three jobs each.
The Junta geniuses meanwhile will have to find the people who want to live in those 35,000 houses (perhaps this is why they are making all the English-owned homes in the province illegal). The hotels, too, may prove a problem since they won't be on the beach and, believe you me, you can only spend so much time watching a high-speed train as it zooooms past.

The Levante Almeriense

Isn't that a beaut? The map comes from about 1988 and was flashed around in the FITUR (international tourist fair) in Madrid. It shows all of our cute little villages and... oh oh, hold on... one of them is missing!
That's right, the place that is (or was when we started) the most famous destination in Almería, bigger that the province it's located in, known throughout the world for its high times, attractive pueblo, sandy beaches and jolly bars and restaurants, is unaccountably missing from the tourist map for the eastern part of the province.
Mojácar, where art thou?
Turns out, the tourist councillor from the time, fresh from having just got rid of our famous totem, the Indalo (the stick man holding a rainbow), by allowing the provincial tourist board to adopt it, also decided that our town would not go in with its share of the printing for the above leaflet. So, we got left out.
Which is why, Dear Reader, you can't leave important things like promoting one's tourist resort, to idiots!

I’ve been dubbed, subtitled and translated into sign-language

It seems that we can blame that old sod Franco for the size of the Spanish dubbing industry. Where other countries tamely put subtitles on their cinema or television screens, the Spanish are much more partial to James Dean’s mouth making a ‘hi’ movement as a strange and gravely Madrid voice says ‘hola, ¿que tal?’ Sometimes, they don’t even remove the original soundtrack – just turn it down with the Spanish version bellowed out on top. There’s David Attenborough telling us about snakes in his whispery voice – which at least this viewer can – or could understand – if it wasn’t for the same bloke from Madrid thundering out something about serpientes venenosas rendering the whole thing impossible to understand in any language.
Franco didn’t approve of foreign languages – Basque and Catalonian of course – but anything else either. They might be saying something untoward, immoral or revolutionary. So he banned them. No one was to speak anything but Spanish – including the nation’s deaf, who were not allowed to use sign-language (and even today they sign in a rather furtive sort of way, as if they are still on the look out for a Guardia Civil).
So, forget subtitles, everything imported had to be dubbed. Except, come to think of it, pop music. It would have been a stretch having our friend from Madrid crooning ‘she loves yer ya ya ya’ in castellano over the Beatles. Can’t see many people buying the record either. Anyway, in some cases, films were translated away from their original meaning – if immoral or faintly subversive – and represented in a more acceptable light ‘she’s my girlfriend’, for example, might become ‘she’s my fiancée’. Of course, if the film strayed to far from the Catholic Church’s view of morality, or the Government’s view of political propriety, it would never be shown here anyway. Which is why everyone had to drive up to Perpignan to see Marlon Brando’s ‘Last Tango in Paris’ and why they currently sell porn films (apparently by the lorry-load) out of Spanish gas stations.
But, going back to dubbing. Televisions now have this special button for those who wish to see something in its ‘versión original’. Press it and – whoops – up’ll come David in all his glory, except for anything from the BBC (David again) which won’t for, no doubt, copyright reasons. Bloody nuisance. The National Geographic channel has the choice of Spanish or English, but the Documanía channel next to it on the dial has Spanish or Portuguese – even though most of the material is American. Most peculiar. Some comedies – such as Frasier on Canal Plus – have the original version wiped, and as anyone who has seen a comedy in translation, you know that the jokes don’t always make it past the dictionary. On the ordinary bog-standard television, several channels operate the original language knob, but you have to re-tune it after every commercial interruption (which, in Spain, is about every five minutes). Read a book, why don’cha?
In Madrid, there are a few cinemas that show films in ‘V.O.’ with subtitles, usually lowbrow comedies. They do well with the American students.
Well, at least the Continentals are prepared to look at foreign cinema, as well as their own (and the Spanish make quite respectable movies). In Britain, we think that everything good, if not ours, comes from Hollywood. When was the last time you saw a French film, an Italian TV show or a Spanish documentary? Bloody Americans – if there’s a decent European film out there, they’ll churn out a re-make (gotta have that Tom Cruise as the Good German who wants to murder Hitler).
In Greece or Portugal or Denmark or Poland (well, I’m guessing about Poland to be frank), you’ll sit down with the local version of popcorn and watch the movie in its original language, the subtitles wobbling there at the bottom of the screen and – in the Mediterranean cinemas at least – with the entire audience talking at once.
I suppose dubbing can be useful. The first thing I learnt in Spanish was ‘Hands up’, which I have to admit that I’ve still yet to use in my private capacity. A German friend once told me that he’d learnt English from listening to pop music. Apart from coming out with some odd expressions occasionally ‘(‘Baby, light my fire’, ‘you’re my Rockafella’ and so on), he managed a certain fluency without, apparently, an undue amount of effort. Perhaps some of my readers might want to follow his example and start practicing singing along to Miguel Ríos or Camilo Sesto (If I were you, I’d save the Flamenco until a bit later).
So the dubbing industry, started and encouraged by Franco, had, by the time of his death, become so powerful (in a relatively small field) that it has managed to continue on into modern times.
Where you won’t find it, of course, is in politics. While Carod Rovira, a Spaniard who is powerful in Catalonian politics, won’t speak in Spanish on Spanish television (for which, the American expression ‘go figure’ seems remarkably apt); he drones on in Catalonian – apparently with a slight Spanish accent – and is subtitled by the news channel. Since he’s talking a lot of independence stuff, no one bothers to read what he says.
Curiously though, when he – or any other Catalonian politician - wants to appeal to the larger public about something other than politics, why, he’ll address us in Spanish. This does not happen in the Basque County, however, where all declarations, political or otherwise, are made in Spanish. Perhaps they don’t have a good subtitling service there…

Future Imperfect

‘So what do we want the future of our town to be like?’ I asked the founding members of the latest version of our chamber of commerce. ‘We can have tee-shirt shops and bus loads of tourists, fancy hotels and convoys of BMWs or lots of satisfied residents living in peace and tranquillity’.
Behind me, a champion of the tee-shirt school of thought got to his feet. ‘We need more tourists and we need to bring them in through aggressive advertising and promotion,’ he said. Paid for, no doubt, by thee and me.
The occasion was a meeting in a local hotel. We were about thirty, divided as always in ex-pat Spain by the twin curses of monolinguality and self-interest. The local people consider that the town is for their exclusive use and that the visitors here (even those who are third generation) have as few rights and opportunities as possible.
Our town is beautiful. It’s a white cubist village with narrow walking streets, which has adorned the top of a hill overlooking the sea since the dawn of time. It had almost disappeared, falling into rubble and abandonment, by the mid to late fifties and only the arrival of artists, followed by settlers from elsewhere during the following decade, allowed the village to re-group, and those of its citizens who had moved away to France, Germany or beyond, to consider returning. At least to sell off a few plots.
So it began. The older kids had inherited the agricultural lands – land where the water was no longer arriving. Many of them had left for better opportunities elsewhere. The second-born got the worthless beach-land, where no one lived, no one fished and no one went.
Now, years later, the greed has set in. The village overlooks seventeen kilometres of beach, strung out beside a narrow and poorly planned road with no possibility of widening it and equally no chance of building a parallel road to relieve the increasing traffic density. The tourist hotels don’t really work in the town’s benefit as their visitors aren’t going to walk very far along the thin coastal strip, and because the hotels themselves, having been forced to make cut-throat offers, don’t want their customers to leave the premises. If they are going to drink, by Golly, they’ll do it here.
Bad news for our eight hundred bars and restaurants.
Since builders make better money off apartments than they do houses, our town has built an endless number of small, ugly and, by necessity, cramped apartments that are, inevitably, used only a few weeks of the year. Our eight hundred bars and restaurants mentioned above are therefore beholden to the year-long residents who either live in the reduced number of houses that the town possesses or, if they are in those small apartments – usually paying quite ferociously high rents - they probably can’t afford to go out anyway. The best return on one’s buck for the builders (and the corrupt officials who sign them off), being apartments, then the worst return is parking spaces, roads and gardens. As far as the first two go, there are never enough parking spaces, which mean that there are never enough places for the customers to leave their cars (I have to spell it out here), which in turn means that the eight hundred bars and restaurants (many of whom also pay a cripplingly high rent) don’t get enough customers. I usually drive up to the pueblo for dinner; drive around looking for a space without success… and then motor on inland to the next town.
I’m sorry, I was hungry.
The narrow roads, which kink and higgle n’ piggle around the different borders and narrow pavements, are usually too tight for two cars to pass, or one to park. Nice planning from the tee-shirt shop philosophers who, unfortunately, have run the town hall for the past thirty years.
Teddy bears, humorous ashtrays, wobbly pots, rag throw-rugs and vulgar tee-shirts: Louche shops selling tourist-tat. Where are the theatres and the noble buildings? Why haven’t the wealthiest (and, trust me, they’re wealthy!) local families donated as much as a wooden bench to their community in all these years?
I turned to the chap who wanted busloads of tourists – one can only imagine that his interest was in his three-storey emporium – and asked him if his new shop (his old one had tragically burnt down last summer) would be a fraction less ugly than its predecessor. ‘Oh’, he said, ‘I don’t know, you’ll have to ask the architect’.
‘¡Ay Pobre Mojácar! La tratamos como una vieja puta. Todos querremos joderla y nadie quiere comprarla flores’: Poor old Mojácar, we treat her like an old whore. All we wanna do is fuck her. No one wants to buy her flowers.

The First Swim

The weather is just perfect for an early-year swim in the sea. Perhaps if I didn’t live here I would take up my own kind offer and jump off a handy rock and splash about for a bit before staggering out for a refreshing glass of tinto de verano, easy on the ice. However, since I do live here, I tend to forgo the splashy stuff and get straight in to the bar for my order. I mean, it’s still too cold for us thin-blooded locals, and anyway, come to think of it, I haven’t swum in the sea besides a couple of ill-considered visits after an extended lunch for about twenty years.
I may have a very slight case of hydrophobia, the fear of water, which is apparently a side effect of rabies. As far as I know, no other signs of this dreadful plague are in evidence on my person and I wonder if it might just be a minor and slow-moving dose that I might have picked up that time I was savaged by a bad-tempered vole which I was attempting to attach to a hanky prior to parachuting the rodent from the roof of the family pile while I was still of a tender age. Still, forty years on and I’m still going strong, no twitches or obvious widow’s peak, although I do like to keep the windows open during the full moon.
The sea is protected by ‘Costas’, a selfless organisation that makes sure that the primal brine isn’t sullied by anything beyond an occasional bather while the pristine sands of the coast are free from skyscrapers, dog messes, barns, garages, piers (a huge no-no) and, above all, any suggestion of permanence from those temporary ‘dismountable’ buildings which we call ‘beach bars’. Anything really beyond a happy sprinkling of ‘Blue Flags’ which denote ‘excellence’ in the beach facilities, cleanliness, showers and wheelchair access together with no interference in Mother Nature’s soft and salty embrace. So protected is the sea these days, that I wonder exactly what the showers are for – are they like swimming-pool showers, where you are meant to wash yourself down before getting in so as to keep the water clean? Apparently, the ‘Costas’ people have decreed that any tussocks of grass which grow on the sand, or any seaweed washed up onto the shore, can’t be removed by the local town halls (except after midnight when the ecologists are all tucked up asleep on their futons). In short, the sea and the beach belong to us all, are to be left au naturel, and we have free access and use for all its treasures, except when told differently.
The other day, I took the dog down to one of those ‘unimproved’ beaches along the coast a way. No metal benches, beach bars, life savers, peculiar white-painted cabins – with the inevitable ‘Goofy was here’ graffiti: no football or beach-ball courts, no playpens, swings or broken whirly-things, no flags, dustbins, informative signs in three languages, showers, accordionists, tulip-vendors or public lavatories. Just a few of those highly colourful motor-caravans as favoured by the wealthy trekkers from the far north that the police are now talking about fining after three days camping outside of the ‘approved areas’. Peaceful. I even anticipated seeing a few dolphins near the shore nodding and squeaking at us. They’re asking for fish really.
My dog seemed to be happy enough with the lack of clutter on that particular beach and ran about chasing pebbles and bits of flying seaweed (oops!). I took my socks off.
Things went well until I began to drive home with the window up to stop the cloud of sand and dust thrown by the wheels. The car stank of warm and wet hound and the thunderhead of dust, it turned out, upset a group of hiking Germans dressed in old-fashioned shorts who were coming the other way, intent on invading the next-door beach. Boy, did I get an earful.
On reflection, I should have been carrying a Blue Flag.

Sports Night

The Spanish have a lively interest in something called the NBA, the American basketball league. We have it stuffed down our throats every time we switch on the telly or pick up a newspaper. The reason for this is because there are three very tall Spaniards who play in different Yankee teams. One of the players is called Pau Gasol and he plays, I believe, for the Lakers. I hope any red-blooded American readers of this blog are suitably impressed. Our boys beating you at your game. Oh, the irony. Mind you, one can’t help wondering if, in the happy event that there were no very tall Spaniards galloping about on a hard-floor in Denver and scoring hoops or baskets (or whatever) every five seconds, then we wouldn’t be subjected to being obliged to watch this peculiar game with quite the same fervour. But then, who’s to know. Tonight, on the other TV channels – the ones that aren’t showing football or golf or tennis – we are swamped for choice between (and I’m not making this up) a Hollywood weeper about an ‘American Football player’ who finds a small child on his step and, I’m wiping away a tear as I write this, finds some classy form of redemption; and another film on Channel Five about another ‘American Football player’ who, for a change, befriends a disabled black kid who – well, I won’t spoil the plot for you.
In Spain, if you go out for a beer on a football ('soccer') night, which is essentially almost any night of the week, then there will be lots of bars with big-screen televisions to choose from, pumping out as loud as possible the entire enervating and nerve-wracking game for their customers' pleasure; and around the corner there will be other places, quieter, full of what are known as football widows. And people like me.
Between Spain’s fervent love of watching soccer at the drop of a beer-mat, a game as ephemeral in its importance as a weather forecast, or the paeans of praise tossed – or rather ‘lobbed’ - onto the shoulders of the NBA star Pau Gasol (he’s probably Catalonian), I think that we should give thanks that no one has ever moved from Spain to New Zealand… and joined a cricket team.

A Town Divided

Someone has posted a thread on a local forum suggesting that our mayoress is a racist.
We live in a town of between eight and ten thousand inhabitants on the coast of Spain. It’s a cosmopolitan place and many extranjeros – foreigners – have come to settle here over the past forty years, attracted by its beauty, its bohemian lifestyle and its prices. All three qualities have since been watered down, of course, by the resulting nouvelle bourgeoisie, but we stay, victims of our own excesses. Too many four-wheel drives these days and not enough (indeed, any) donkeys. The settlers now outnumber the locals and, if all of us bothered to register with the town hall (hence the variance between the population numbers), we would probably run to about 65% or 70% of the entire population.
Our town can be divided into three groups. Local people; forasteros (a relatively small number of Spaniards from the rest of Spain) and extranjeros. As far as natural alliances go – if it wasn’t for the language problem – you could say that the forasteros and extranjeros are in the same boat. If there’s a pie, public money or jobs to be had, then the town hall and the mayoress, like the mayors before her, is definitely not going to share it round outside the immediate circle of the village-folk. The non-local Spaniards know this and they know how to circumvent most problems thrown at them. After all, who in Spain doesn’t number a judge, a lawyer, a politician, a bank-manager or a policeman among his cousins? The foreigners, unfortunately, have few or no good contacts and often are even unaware of the non-level playing field that they have elected to live on. While the local politicians routinely buy votes for a few hundred euros each, making a mockery of the democratic process, many of the foreigners refuse to join in or belong. ‘We don’t know the issues’ they say pathetically.
One day, we should all rise up and boycott the local businesses, just to show our strength; but as someone remarks on the same thread on the abovementioned forum, most of the foreigners here wouldn’t want to do such a thing. After all, they say weakly as they finger their little yellow triangles, it’s not our place… all things considered, we’re just guests here.
Which is why, dear friends, our mayoress is the way she is. She has nothing to fear from us.

The Beach Bars of Cadiz

‘The ecologists are coming…’ – it sounds like something out of an Alan Arkin film about the Cold War. ‘Egermency, egermency, please to leave the beaches’ shouts the Russian submariner in his bad English.
But what could be upsetting the good people of Chipiona, in Cadiz?
Well, the evil and insane boogers from ‘Costas’ ( a shadowy organisation similar to SMERSH, dedicated, in this case, to the downfall of Spain’s tourist industry and The Way of Life as We Know It), has ordered the demolition of a famous land-mark on the Playa de las Tres Piedras on the Atlantic resort of Chipiona. The Bar Eduardo, a chiringuito, a structure built on the playa where you can get a cold San Miguel and a bowl of pescaito – fried fish – is to be knocked down, for our convenience, after being there minding its own business since 1967. The owner, we read in the socialist pro-government newspaper El País, is philosophic: ‘Well, we are a historical part of Chipiona, but the laws are there for us to obey’, he says. Poor deluded Eddie – who makes these laws up? Gods or humans? In his case, since the Dirección General de Costas has swung this 1988 law about any structure on the beach being illegal into overdrive, the chiringuito must be moved 100 metres inland. Eduardo is re-building, and his new bar, gushes the article, will cost him 127,000 euros which the 66 year old must borrow from the bank. Well, there goes the retirement in Miami, mate.
Costas is contenting itself this year with scouring out any structure on the Cadiz coast, but the rest of Andalucía should tremble, Malaga, Granada and Almería are next.
So concerned are both President for Life Chaves and his doomed-to-lose-every-election rival Javier Arenas, that both have spoken out in favour of a little comprehension from the zealots. ‘Our chiringuitos’, says Chaves, 'as long as they maintain the proper standards of excellence’ (cue hoards of inspectors and paperwork), ‘are a traditional attraction to our beaches'. Javier Arenas added his voice against 'this intolerable crusade' against our beach bars which are 'part of the identity' of our coasts.
But no one fucks with Costas…

Two Tribes

One of our local opposition parties, led by Diego García, has sent out a note to the effect that the town hall of Mojácar in general and the mayoress in particular don’t like the Europeans much. According to Diego (who presumably does), ‘She has shown on more than one occasion a particular hostility towards this important part of the community' (Costa Almeria News). In fact, it’s fair to say that none of the town halls of Mojácar since democracy began with the passing of Franco in 1975 have particularly liked the ingleses. You know, this isn’t the cultural capital of Spain. I don’t suppose they particularly dislike us either. We just are.
Diego says that a lot of young Europeans are leaving and – presumably – going back to England or wherever they come from (I know, Spaniards are Europeans too – please don’t try and complicate things), but this is not because of the lack of interest shown us by the local authorities. Now, the national ones, they obviously don’t like us – either trying to knock down or confiscate our homes, or take away our residence cards (that’s my new 21st century European ID documents in the photograph that I'm meant to carry at all times - including the rare occasions I'm allowed to vote - as recommended by Pérez Rubalcaba, the Minister of the Interior).



But locally… weeell. So, we keep the place alive. We’re like animated piggy-banks. After forty years of living pretty much exclusively from funds brought in from outside, by rich retired people who buy a house and bring in their monthly pension or other income, who buy a car locally, buy washing machines, stay in the nation’s Parador hotels, create jobs for gardeners and maids: who eat out, drink out and shop, who keep those small towns of the province from switching out the last light and so on, still our local ‘hosts’ don’t seem, in Diego’s words, ‘to like us much’.
In Mojácar, where there are more Britons (leave alone Europeans or foreigners) than Mojaqueros, we still don’t have anyone in the town hall who can speak English or (gasp!) is English – born here or not. We aren’t invited to the romerias or the ski-trips to Andorra. We don’t have any say in what’s going on. Government funding or our tax money is squandered, misspent or, at best, pretty poorly managed.
There are no streets or buildings named after us. We are like the Visigoths. If we all disappeared tomorrow, then there would be no proof of our having been here at all after all the gardens had died from lack of watering. Well, everyone would be broke again, of course, but not much else to show.
So, are we leaving in droves as Diego suggests? Not particularly. The pound has fallen from one euro fifty to about one euro five, so our pensions are down and perhaps we save by not going out to the restaurants and bars (where these days, the alcohol cops are waiting for us anyway). It could be, with business down (the Spaniards – perhaps understandably – don’t go to English restaurants if they can avoid it), some of us must downsize, sell up or leave. Then again, some of us are really old and maybe lonely and, who knows, perhaps some family members in Britain want us back.
But, new people arrive. Especially those that don’t watch the British TV and the ‘Homes from Hell’ franchise. In exchange for bringing our dosh and being left more-or-less in peace, or being ignored if you prefer, we would be able to live pretty well here – if it wasn’t for the power-crazed regional and national politicians who want to knock down our homes, confiscate, expropriate, tax, fine, arrest or otherwise vex the foreigners for reasons only known to themselves.
They aren’t helping our mayoress and her town hall much, now are they?

Caravaca de la Cruz

Nothing much to do today here in Paradise – so Mrs Rambeau and I took the car and went for a drive to the town of Caravaca in the next-door province of Murcia.
The route is easy enough – take the autovía from here as far as Lorca, the town with the castle and those amazing Easter parades, and then, just past the tunnel, turn off towards Caravaca de la Cruz, a medieval town some sixty kilometres north towards the rolling hills of the interior.
The road out of Lorca took us through some nice looking countryside, empty and slightly green with fresh shoots of grass or purple with swathes of wild flowers (it’s springtime). The almond trees are in furious blossom at the moment and they bring their rose-pink or white flowers to the scenic passage. There are a couple of small villages on the way, including one with the improbable name of La Paca. It’s a one-street town with a supermarket, a bank or two and a stop-light. The speed limit is rather optimistically put at 30kms. It’s a quiet and enjoyable drive. Old half-tumbled-down farm houses appear sporadically across the valleys and the road passes at one point between a nunnery and a chapel, at another time past a large cortijada, an old and apparently disused farm with barracks for several dozen workers. Some of the buildings we see have been left to their fortune, while others have been bought by Britons, anxious as always to shake the mud off their boots and turn their back on the country of their birth.
Apparently, between Cehegín, Calasparra and Caravaca, an unknown part of Spain by any standards, there are in all about 4,000 Brits living there, bringing with them some useful additional income to the area: particularly to the chemists.
Caravaca starts as another large and ugly southern Spanish town. The scenery turns from dust and the odd tree to an avenue between four and five storey apartments in an instant. The Spanish are partial to apartments, preferring them to the old, cold and leaky farmhouses that the Northern Europeans gratefully buy off them for a song. The avenue is ugly, with contradictory lanes and lights which, after a few forgivable detours, eventually took us to the approaches for the small original town of Caravaca de la Cruz, famous not only for its churches, chapels, hermitages and nunneries, but for its Cruz – its double-sided cross located since the XIII Century in the ‘Santuario de la Santísima y Vera Cruz’ and for its fame as one of the seven pilgrimage centres of the world because the Cruz in the Sanctuary contains a sliver of the ‘lignum crucis’, a piece from the Lord’s Cross itself.
We drove through an arch into a small square. Beyond this, with the walls pressing in on both sides of the car, we continued through to a place where some limited parking was available. Here the town had narrowed to a single street crossing a narrow bridge with water flowing slowly below. Houses and no doubt more churches began again after the crossing.



Walking around the medieval streets, we saw a few shops open – selling souvenirs, the ‘double cross’ and so on, a cake shop, a vegetable and flower shop and a place that gloomily attempted to sell out-of-date fashions - and a lot more shops which were boarded up. Through the windows upstairs, as often as not you could see the sky. We ducked into the tourist office (the man looked surprised and pleased to see someone) and later into the beautiful Church of El Salvador. In this old and almost forgotten part of Caravaca, far away from the hurly burley down below in the ‘new town’, there are at least ten other churches. They don’t pack them in anymore though.
Caravaca is also blessed with a seemingly endless number of museums (where, it appeared, no one also goes) all housed in old palaces. There is a magnificent collection of ancient musical instruments in one (so says the tourist guide), a collection of miniatures in another, an archaeological museum in a third and a strange and presumably temporary art exhibition of paintings and metal monsters in yet another. Besides these attractions, there is the 'Caballeros del Vino' tradition (the horse races through the streets, the Moors and Christians festival and the brightly coloured costumes all in evidence during the May fiesta) which, inevitably, spends the rest of the year in yet another museum, this one appropriately called ‘El Museo de la Fiesta’.
The people, the few who scampered past us about their business, are all remarkably short. Medievaly so, methought. Methinks.
We went back down towards the newer part of town to meet some people who were trying to sell us a house.

The Voice of Mojácar

Here's a picture of Mojácar (Almería) taken from below. On the other side, the pueblo overlooks the sea. Fantastic. Do yourself a favour - click on the picture!
There is a new trade association called 'The Voice of Mojacar' which argues that the town hall fails to promote our area and this is why business is down, tourism is quiet and property sales are in the doldrums. The association can't understand why more people don't come here to visit or to live.
Frankly, neither can I.

Regional Elections

They are voting today up in the north of Spain: in Galicia in the north west and in the País Vasco, the Basque Country, just south and to the west of the Pyrenees. Both places are important bits of Spain - two of the seventeen autonomous regions that make up this country, or, if you prefer, then they are future independent states lying adjacent to the rest of España. One day perhaps with foreign ministries and their own languages. One can hardly wait. Actually, the area best known for its independence and funny language is Catalonia, which already has a few embassies and consulates scatttered around. I think there's one in Andorra.
The two areas are voting today for their autonomies, their regional governments. For these, anyone can vote, down to a third (or apparently even fourth) generation of emmigrant. This includes a fantastic number of Galicians living in South America. In Argentina (where a Spaniard is apparently called 'un gallego') there are 121,219 people with the right to vote in Galicia! In fact, almost 13% of the Galician vote comes from those who not only don't live there, but in many cases those who have never been there, and sus padres tampoco!
I can imagine being allowed to vote in England, where my grandfather came from. So did my father, in point of fact and, come to think of it, so did I. I left when I was thirteen. However, if I don't live there, own stuff there, have any relationship with the UK, besides being blessed with a passport, then why should I either want to or even have the right to vote for Mr Brown or Mr Whasseecalled?
But, it is clear that if I lived in Galicia as a European, then naturally I should have that right, which of course I don't (wouldn't). It goes down to the whole idea of democracy. You should be able to share in the decisions of your community. Not one your grandfather left seventy years ago.
Of course, the Europeans in Galicia and the Basque Country would feel a bit foolish showing up to vote. There are all the local people queuing up with their ID cards ready to cast their ballot, and (thanks to Minister Rubalcaba's latest fiddling with the foreigners) We'd see a few startled Brits standing around holding their passports and the snappy looking unfoldable green A4 which bears the fateful admonition 'Aviso: Documento no válido para acreditar la identidad ni la nacionalidad del portador' (trans: 'This document is stupid and useless'). Pretty soon, if these politics continue, we'll all be wearing a pink triangle with a G (for 'guiri', means white foreigner) sewn to our jackets.
So, the elections will be announced later tonight, unless the huge number of postal votes need to be counted; but they won't reflect the truth of the situation in those two regions.
Furthermore, and much more important, is the added problem in the Basque Country about the number of 'illegal parties'. These are the parties promoted by the ETA terrorists who want independence. Not like the PNV, which apparently wants legal independence, but the harder kind where everyone can vote, but only for secession. So, any party which doesn't condemn terrorism has been illegalised. Taking, apparently, about ten per cent off the top of the vote.
Maybe Spain needs to re-evaluate all this. Let them vote and allow certain areas to leave the Mother Country. Or better still, if we foreigners could only vote in the autonomous (and national) elections, bearing in mind how much we all like Spain, and how poorly equipped we are to learn another (regional) language, then we'd surely vote to help you señores stay integrated and united.

The Warm Mediterranean Sea

There we are - either me or my son on the playa a few days ago. With dog.
There's talk on the forums about whether one should wait another year or two before buying a house in Spain and moving out here to live. Perhaps the prices will fall a bit more.
Well, perhaps they will. However, are you going to stay another couple of years living in the UK, with all those amusing things going on there - thirteen year old fathers (worth a million quid), Big Brother (both the George Orwell version and the dreadful TV show), a finance minister called 'Darling' and... well... the food! Come on now. Seriously!
Another couple of winters? I've seen the weather forecasts on the telly. I know what you're going through. The best houses over here are going to be snapped up while you're still wondering if you'll still have the energy left in a few years to dig yourself out with your snow-shovel and escape to the sun.

Let Them Eat Cake

Now, concentrate here, because I'm only going to say this once. Our 'locally elected representives' don't have a clue.
Yes, I know we are in a crisis, particularly here in Mojácar, where there isn't enough funds in the town hall to pay the 135 employees plus eight councillors their fourteen payments per year, plus social security. Spain, as the Gentle Reader will be aware, introduced the idea of two (or sometimes three) extra payments for the staff during Franco's time. When it comes to trashing the old sod, the workers are ready with their rocks and banners but, please don't raise the subject about the extra payments, muchas gracias. Or how public employees, known as funcionarios, have their jobs for life. Both measures introduced by the mad Generalísimo.
So, Mojácar, a town of 8,000 inhabitants and with its employees, mostly taken from the families who were briefly... indecisive when it came to voting on local elections over the years. Now, since the money is getting scarse - no more building licences for a start while the crisis grinds on - the town is having to cut back.
Can it pay the school-bus company, for example?
Enter, stage left, the Government. José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has released monies to all the town halls of Spain, according to their size (as counted by the padrón, the town hall registry), to create some employment and generally let us subjects and vassals know that they are fondly thinking about us up in their ivory towers.
Cake, you might say.
In fact, of the 8,000 million euros earmarked for us townies, an impressive 2% - that's 160 million euros - will be spent on billboards to remind us of the Government's generosity.
Each town has a plan to spend their own particular wallop - and no doubt, another plan as to where to site the spiffy government billboard.
In Mojácar, where we have a crisis of monumental proportions, we are going to spend our 1,200,000 euros on, of all things, tarmac.
You see, we once had a football field. It's actually the old cemetery up in the pueblo, but, and I've boned up on this, it's been a football field for better than half a century. Since our team is crap, it's actually done service as a parking lot for the past ten years, plus as an amusement park during the fiestas and a market-place on Wednesdays, weather permitting, since moved further down the hill. The team, or at least those of our young men who enjoy soccer, can practice in Garrucha next door.
The Campo de Fútbol was therefore used as a car-park, an overflow for our mountain village with its narrow streets and rare parking spaces. The shop-keepers, bar owners, 135 town hall employees and so on used most of the spaces, with the remainder going to the visitors, the punters, the customers, tourists and ordinary residents who make up the balance of local society.
Then, a couple of years ago, we despatched the football field once and for all by building a huge swimming pool and indoor sports-centre which took up almost half of the space, plus a swanky plant nursery with an electric roof and hydroponics for the kids to study nature. We were left with half a football field - or, if you prefer, half a car-park, which, with the same number of town hall employees and bar owners as ever, left no space for the thirsty visitors and their cars.
Well, our Lords, (Ladies) and Masters said, we are going to build a three-storey car-park on the half of the football field that remains, bringing the parking back to what it was before.
But they didn't because no one would pick up the tender.
However, the nursery was soon abandoned because no one would look after it. Then, as the crisis bit deep, the sports centre with its somewhat redundant swimming-pool was left unfinished - at least until happier days - and more building licences - and the moderately superfluous solar-heating was never installed and we were left with... half of the car-parking space we had five years ago.
Besides being well out of pocket.
So, the bail-out money that the Government is graciously sending us... is to be used to tarmac the surviving half of the municipal parking lot (can't have them leaving their cars on gravel, now, can we?). Hard thought must have gone into that one.
What the hell - I'll say it again. Our locally elected representatives just don't have a clue.

Later: So, what has your town hall spent its wallop from the Government on? See here.

Power is... er, Power!

I've been in Madrid for the past few weeks and have just now returned to the coast - the 'costa' as it's known by us high-rolling Brits with our innate command of foreign languages. The costa. Down here in our area, which has the largest power station in Andalucía just along the beach - which is apparently building up its output to 2,500MW of coal-produced energy for our distinctly small community - we are continually surprised by power-cuts. Those brief click-clack ones which bugger up the fridges and switch off the televisions and so on. Lots of smog, too, considering that half of our reach is plain sea and the other half is mountains with a few casas scattered around here and there. Casas. Homes.
I asked the local head of the power company about this a few years back (they were putting in giant electric towers along the dry riverbed at the time - including one behemoth which was just a few metres away from a private home) and was told that the power cuts came about when all the birdies were sat together on the cables and - whoosh! - took off all at the same time. Click-clack.
I still don't believe him.
However, despite the monopolic electric company's recent price hike and new monthly billing (and bi-monthly meter-reading), things haven't improved much.
Here we are. I've got the telly on, watching a piece about how the pound is going down against the euro or, tired of that, some unlikely American escapist dribble on Ch 21 when - click-clack - the power goes for a second. The computer is OK - somebody once gave me a battery doohickey - but the telly dies on the spot. Let's see: find control. switch on. warm up. tune to 21. press knob to change language to English (so much for our polyglotism).
No - we're on the stupid adverts.
Whether it's good for your electric kit to have a power surge come along several times a day during many years of use or not is a question which the complaints department of the electric company - if only there was one - would no doubt be well equipped to answer.
Meanwhile - I'm off down to the beach - the playa - for a beer.

The Expat Association

I have received an email from the British Expats Association to the effect that, after a lot of hard work and little support from the Expats (as we seem to like to call ourselves), they have decided to close down. You can find their erstwhile objectives on their site at http://www.ukgovabusesexpats.co.uk. Their first point says it all - To remove the discriminatory culture towards Expats that exists in both UK and Spanish Government Departments.
Neither the British nor the Spanish authorities take much - or perhaps any - notice of the British citizens who live in Spain. The Spanish don't employ us or grant us any rights they can avoid, and the days of the British government sending a gunboat to sort out Johnny Foreigner have long gone.
You are on your own.
In Europe!
And that's the strangest thing of all. We are all Europeans, merely living in a different bit of it from where we were born. And yet, we can't vote (outside of local elections) and we have no champions.
Oh - and judging by the news from the expat association above, we don't even care.
I'll leave out the bit about the endemic fraud - as often as not committed by one Brit against another - and the lack of the offer of any white-collar employment by the Spaniards towards the foreign community, which is now standing at over ten per cent of the entire population (with the honorable exception of a massive number of Argentinian dentists). Here in Spain, we are in cowboy country.
One of the things that the expat association decided to belabour the European Union - acting as God-given Brits abroad - was to make the point that Britons don't have identity cards and it was unlawful for them to have to carry them in Europe! So, while the rest of the European countries carried on as normal - Italy with its police card and France with its Carte de Séjour (police card again), Spain decided to tear up our residence cards - a card which looks like the Spanish ID card, fulfilling the same function and carrying our tax/ID number and used to identify oneself or to guarantee a credit card - in short, a pretty useful document - switching this to the current system which is designed, apparently, to discriminate still further against fellow-Europeans in the 21st century.
Now, we are expected to carry both our passport (our British ID as it were) together with a letter from the immigration authority to say that - we need to carry our passport and that our Spanish ID/tax number is such and such and that this letter is not in itself an identity document, don't you see? Whoops, better not fold it inside your wallet because it'll fall to bits.
In Almería, the gestorias (street lawyers - the citizen's first line of defense against the swollen bureaucracy of the state) reduce the letter to a managable if hard to read size and plastificate it. No news on how legal that is. In Madrid, they give you back your old out-of-date residence card, with the corner cut off, and tell you you can leave your suitcase full of passports and sundry police-documents at home.
Not sure about how legal that is, too.
The Spanish know perfectly well how idiotic this whole performance is, but they explain that, with the huge numbers of new civil-servants which are entering the system (to try and lower Spain's dreadful un-employment figures, despite the evident risk of bankrupting the country) they all need something to do.
You could of course become Spanish, taking out Spanish nationality. Highly visible sports figures manage to do just this in a matter of days (do you remember the Spanish olympic skier who cheated in the winter games a few years back? - Ullrik Von Schtipfelgrüber or some other equally Castillian name - or then there are all those goal-scoring Spanish footballers which strange African looks and a bare smattering of the language), however it takes the normal joe several years to get the same deal. Then again, if we are Europeans, why should we need to become Spaniards anyway? And furthermore in my case, a bit like old Ullrik, no one would believe me if I said I was Spanish - too tall and blond for a start.
So we come to the thrust of the expats and their association - essentially to get the British government to look after those millions of us Brits who have decided to go and live in foreign parts. The government, naturally - unless we send money home or support the British Labour party with generous and regular donations - couldn't give a rat's arse for us. But, we made our choice. This doesn't make us 'expats' or 'exiles' on the one hand, or really 'immigrants' on the other. Somewhere in the middle lies 'émigrés' - those that live happily enough outside their own countries, with little desire to ever return but similarly without much intention of tearfully kissing the local flag.
If only Europe was a proper state (rather than simply a commercial opportunity) then the subject wouldn't arise.

El Colectivo Olvidado

I argue here in castellano that the 'Foreign Residents' are undervalued by the Spanish authorities.

Según el Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas, somos 352.289 los británicos que vivimos en España. Deberían de tener razón, ya que el INE nunca está mal informado. ¿Has visto las cifras que publican de vez en cuando sobre los turistas? Son exactos. Cincuenta y dos millones novecientos mil trescientos ochenta y dos o lo que sea (siento escribir que no me he molestado en buscar la cifra)... Da gusto una vez más festejar a los contables y economistas su empeño en sacar números tan exquisitos.
Espero que obtengan su recompensa.
Verás, ya que no hay controles en las fronteras con Portugal o Francia, gracias al Tratado de Schengen (de libre circulación), y como no se pueda controlar a los turistas que vienen a España, por ejemplo, en un coche/caravana, o que pasen sus cinco días (¡de media!) con unos amigos, o los que son de múltiples visitas por negocios, o los pobres negros que llegan por patera de camino a Francia, o los musulmanes con sus coches llenos a tope que pretenden cruzar la península lo más rápido posible en camino a Algeciras, o los que bajan del amarre un par de horas en el puerto de no sé que, resulta que el sistema de control (para sacar estos resultados tan sublimas) está efectuados por los hoteleros.

Los Residentes Europeos

Pero, viviendo en España, somos, insisto, 352.289 británicos de pura cepa. No 352.290 ni siquiera 360.000. Aquí, vamos exactos. Claro, esta cifra viene de los registros de empadronamientos que hay en los municipios nacionales. No incluyen los británicos que han vuelto a su país o que han abandonado España para, por ejemplo, irse a Portugal, ya que, ningún ayuntamiento en el extranjero va a comunicar a su homólogo español sobre un asunto así. Pero, de vez en cuando, algunos ayuntamientos donde “hay demasiados guiris” hacen una pequeña “limpieza étnica” para bajar un poco la amenaza del voto mal-informado. Al menos, esto es la sospecha. Pero, más importante, hay muchos europeos que sencillemente no se molestan en registrarse. ¿Para qué hacerlo? Según el ministerio de exteriores británico, la Foreign Office, hay entre 750.000 y un millón de británicos viviendo en España. Mas del doble de las mejores estimaciones españolas. ¡Figúrese, hay más ingleses aquí en este país que almerienses! ¡Y los españoles sin darse siquiera cuenta del fenómeno!
Como los británicos, también sucede lo mismo con los alemanes, los suecos, los irlandeses y los holandeses. Se lo digo en serio: las autoridades y los del INE no tienen ni idea.
Cada residente inglés, sin ir más lejos, gasta una media de mil euros en este país al mes. ¡Haz la suma! Un millón de ingleses son… mil millones de euros. Todos los meses.
Derrochan todo este dinero, aparte del gasto inicial de comprar una casa, un coche, electrodomésticos y todo el tinglado, además de crear puestos de trabajo, en los pequeños pueblos olvidados, moribundos y maltratados del interior de las provincias andaluzas (y la costa Valenciana, y las islas…) y los autoridades sin tener ni idea.

Turismo Residencial

Que los pequeños pueblos de la provincia, los que no tienen ni turismo, ni industria ni agricultura, se benefician de recibir muchas parejas mas o menos solventes que pretenden jubilarse allí en busca de la tranquilidad almeriense no es de sorprender, ya que se trata de un buen y necesario ingreso en los bolsillos locales, pero que los autoridades no lo sepan, o que ponen trabas - tirando casas y declarando “ilegal” hasta a varias urbanizaciones, o apoyando la compra forzosa de terrenos por razones comerciales (conocido en todo Europa por “the Spanish land-grab”), que hay corrupción institucionalizada, arbitrariedad, pufos, estafas; poblado por abogados, alcaldes y promotores “picaros”, que impere la codicia y el engaño – es sencillamente trágico para los pueblerinos de la provincia.
Lo anterior ha sido noticia en el resto de Europa desde hace un año cuando decidieron derrumbar la casa de una pareja de jubilados ingleses que vivían a gusto en la pequeña ciudad de Vera (que tiene la desgracia, como Marbella y cuantos más, de ser gobernado por un partido “pequeño e independiente”). Esta familia lleva desde entonces un año malviviendo en un garaje, sin agua ni luz. Una pareja de 65 años de edad. Sin compensación ni explicación. El politiquillo progre responsable por haber demolido la casa dice “mis manos están atadas, sólo cumplo con la ley”. ¿Y El Algarrobico?

Perdidas Garrafales

Haber tirado esta casa, y no pagar ni un duro en compensación, está costando a los almerienses cientos de millones de euros en ventas perdidas. Los europeos antes pensaban que en España reinaban las leyes de Europa. Ya no están tan seguros…
En Andalucía, región que gasta (y gracias al INE por contármelo) unos doscientos mil euros diarios en publicidad institucional, es fácil entender por qué los medios andaluces no quieren criticar al Presidente vitalicio Chaves y sus amigüetes por la pésima gestión de los últimos décadas. ¿Quién pagaría los costes de impresión? Los medios europeos sí hablan de aquí, pero los de aquí…
Se trata de la reputación española en el exterior. Empiezo a pensar en gallinas de oro y huevos rotos…
La otra semana, se organizó una protesta en la Ciudad de Almería. Un grupo de ingleses de avanzada edad, interrumpiendo el tráfico, gritando y caminando en sus zapatillas hasta… pero, ¡para ahora mismo! Sin hablar de sus reivindicaciones, tenemos una noticia de sucesos de primera. ¿Una cuadrilla de quinientos jubilados ingleses protestando en una gran ciudad?
Nada. Dos centímetros en La Voz de Almería. Luís Caparros, delegado provincial bla bla… legalizando las viviendas… bendito sea la Junta de Andalucía… etc etc. Unas líneas en El País según lo cual los europeos sueñan con comprar casas “ilegales” ¡porque les van a salir más barato! ¿Quién iba a pensar que los jubilados extranjeros, en busca de la tranquilidad, van a ir a vivir a otro país con tantas ganas de burlar sus leyes y poner en riesgo sus ahorros y últimos años de descanso?
Yo creo que se nos debe un respeto. Los Norte Europeos han traído vida a los pueblos. Mojácar, como ejemplo, estaba muriendo de miseria y pobreza en los años cincuenta. La riqueza que ahora gozan sus súbditos viene todo del exterior. Más de la mitad de este municipio son forasteros – muchos más si estuvieran todos inscritos en el padrón – pero no hay el más mínimo reconocimiento de ellos. No hay ni una calle para honrarles, ni un edificio ni siquiera un banco de madera. Ni Walt Disney – que dicen ha nacido en aquél pueblo almeriense hace un siglo – es recordado con una glorieta o una avenida supongo que por el pecado de tener un nombre extranjero.
Los europeos, ignorados por los políticos y las instituciones, empezamos a sentirnos marginados y molestos. ¡No tiréis nuestras casas!

Not Much Racism in Spain

It always seems to me rather a waste of time being a racist when you live in somebody else's country than your own. If you don't like foreigners (for reasons which you no doubt hold dear but which I find repugnant) then the first thing to do is not go and live somewhere abroad. You may find that your own country is overrun by people with bones through their noses and you should feel free to write letters to your favourite newspaper or join your local equivalent of the KKK and make a fool of yourself every other Friday. But you should re-consider moving to another country. It'll be full of foreigners.
Here's a letter in one of our 'freebies' written by someone who may not have noticed the irony of being a Brit living in Spain:
'I am incensed by the ‘do gooders’ and ‘race-card players’ who are making capital out of Prince Harry’s casual remark that one of his fellow officers was a Paki - which I believe is an abbreviation of “he is a Pakistani”'.
Is that what it means, by Gum.
We all know the paper I've quoted - it's a 'free-sheet' distrubuted among and read by the more home-sick members of the English-speaking community living along the costas. It offers some anodyne pieces of news, plus stuff about Britain, has seven pages of British television (really!) and a weekly article by Leepy Lee which rarely veers from race-hatred in Britain, even though the writer has lived in Mallorca for twenty years or more.
I once asked a British friend over a beer if there were many foreigners living in his street on the playa - 'Oh no', he answered, 'they're all English'. He's lived here about twenty five years and doesn't speak a word of Spanish. He nevertheless has quite a high opinion of them, as long as they leave him alone. 'It's their country', he concedes. Just not their street.
There's no reason to be a second-class citizen here, which many Britons tend towards, with their 'I'm just a guest here' and so on, but it is equally absurd to get ah, uppity, about being somehow superior. Waste of time when you're living in Spain. Innit?
Yesterday, there was a small (and rather embarassing) protest in Madrid by some skinheads and assorted riffraff against the new American president, Barack Obama. I'm sorry... you what?
That's right. Pathetic. So anyway, a girl who is staying with my daughter goes out for a coffee and comes across some idiot who has a swastika tattooed on his neck and 'orgullo blanco' - white pride - thumped in on his bald head. Oh dear, a lunatic. Now, the girl is Spanish, but black. So this idiot starts in on her with insults. she is soon surrounded by a passing gang of South Americans who take her side. Some more Nazis drift into the bar...
Followed by the police.
My mum's cousin was a leading member of the British National Front - our version of the Frente Nacional at one time - and he told my dad (in one of the rare times they met) that the extreme right prefers its members to come from the poor and the uneducated. While there must no doubt be intelligent racists here and there, it appears that they are not welcome in the party. Le Pen, the leader of the French version, says the same thing: 'bring me les petits Français', he says, 'the ones whose jobs are under threat from the immigrants'.
Spain has its Nazis like anywhere else, plus those who remember the good old days with the Generalísimo - Francisco Franco, who, as dictators go, was a reasonably aimiable one. Dentro de lo que cabe - that is, as far as power-mad dictators and their minions can ever be thought to be 'reasonable'. Spain today, where there are over four million 'inmigrantes', plus a large number of foreign residents (me and my pals there on the costa) is surprisingly affable towards its foreigners. There may be a lively institutional racism (you should see our new residence cards) regarding foreigners, who are rarely employed in any white-collar capacity, but we manage, we manage. Just don't try and homologar your papers here, the Spanish will move mountains to fuck you. It's the breaks.
The Spanish reserve their dislike for Jews (for some odd reason) and for Gypsies. While Gypsies have been in Spain since the sixteenth century, they are still thought badly of, and beside producing Flamenco and working with horses, their universaly recognised main occupation is thievery.
It's odd though, since you shouldn't really be a racist, it seems to me, if you live in another country; and if you only got to know your new neighbours then you would perhaps be pleasantly surprised, but we Britons haven't quite caught the message yet. I sometimes ask people who have just returned from a visit to England as to how it was. The first or second criticism (believe me, no one here likes England) will always be something to do with the asylum seekers, the Muslims, the Poles, the foreigners...
But they'll justify it. I return to the letter featured above:
'(The writer is quoting John Howard, a conservative Australian prime minister)"...We opened our doors to you and made you welcome. We have our laws and our customs to which we expect you to conform. If you don’t like our laws and our customs and our way of life, then go home. We are not stopping you.”
If only we in England had some politicians with the GUTS to stand up and say that.' In England, a letter like this would never be printed, nor probably would it be in Spain in a Spanish paper at least, but unfortunately, there is no one to check the foreign-language free press which is distributed along the costas.
So, if you are thinking of living here, do come. The Spanish will treat you well, although they will probably never come to your bar or your shop, or hire you to work for them. That's the breaks.

Peaceful Retirement in Spain

The New Year’s Revolution

Let’s just take a step back for a moment for a better look. The Mediterranean coast of Spain is Europe’s answer to Florida. We don’t have much industry and, until relatively recently, the land wasn’t worth much either. A few people lived here, usually dreaming of a better life. Preferably somewhere else.
In Andalucía, they moved to the industrial areas of Catalonia in the north. They went abroad to Germany or France. Some went further and settled in Argentina or Mexico. Those that remained lived badly and without comfort. Our town of Mojácar in the province of Almería, now an expensive resort with apartments squeezed into every crevice that the planners (and their cousins) can find, used to be a forgotten ruin.
In 1900, there were some six thousand people living in our municipality. By 1960, this had fallen to 600. There was no money, no income. The agriculture was gone with the fall of the water table. Beach-land went for a handful of cents. There were no takers.
Nowadays, we are a wealthy town, built exclusively on foreign income. The local people have become rich. Those that went to Barcelona, or perhaps their sons, have returned. The money has come from tourism (a fickle mistress, where the report of better or cheaper resorts elsewhere can sucker-punch the hotels) and ‘residential tourism’, as the Spanish like to term the relocation of the Northern Europeans to Southern Spain. Most of these settlers are retired and are here for the sun, the (relatively cheap) prices, the security and, above all, the consideration that their new home and their other investments locally are safe.
Which, it appears, they aren’t.
One must remember that Spain was run by the Moors for eight hundred years and was only finally ‘liberated’ (if that’s the right word) the very same year that Columbus discovered America. The last caliphate, Granada, fell in 1492.
So, there is still a very real difference between the Spanish system of doing things and the one more familiar to those Anglos who have moved here to live. Not a problem, we say, and indeed the Levantine Spanish system of laissez faire is superior to our own (the much maligned 'rule of law' or perhaps the strict ‘zero tolerance’ of modern day Britain or America!). Spanish bohemianism versus Northern bourgeoisie.

Until things go wrong.

There are around 380,000 Britons living full-time in Spain, if you believe the Spanish statistics agency (INE), which number is based, unfortunately, on the Britons themselves who have registered themselves as being resident. Many, inspired no doubt by the laissez faire system championed above, simply don’t bother. The British Foreign Office estimates the number of Britons who have left the UK for a new life in Spain, at somewhere between 750,000 and a million. That’s quite a difference.
Then, you can add the Dutch, the Germans, the French, Norwegians and Irish, together with a healthy number of Americans, Canadians and Australians and so on – all living quietly in Spain, mostly congregated in the Mediterranean provinces and the islands. Very nice too.
The Spaniards, as we have seen, have little idea of the numbers involved. They can state with some authority how many tourists come to Spain each year (with numbers supplied by the hotels), but the foreign residents don’t particularly stay in hotels. There are no more border controls with France or other members of the Schengen Accord of Free Circulation, so visiting Spain for most Europeans is about as well-documented as might be a Californian visiting Oregon, or somebody from London going to Manchester. Since there is no direct link between 'residential tourism' and the creation of wealth, there's no ministry or department or spokesperson for this large yet powerless group. There's no one to advise them, help them or defend them. If you don't like it Señor... then there's always Portugal!

Cheap Tourism

Forget the five-day tourism in poorly maintained hotels which clogs up the beaches during the summer months. Most of those tourists pay their holidays in their own countries, where much of the money stays. The hotels, obliged to be ever cheaper to keep their agreements with the ‘tour-operators’, must keep their visitors as close as possible. They won’t encourage their guests to go out and spend their money in the nearby bars, shops and restaurants. It’s a tawdry business where the cost of the staff, as often as not underpaid immigrants from the Third World, works out as the main expense.
The Northern European retirees, if they stay in a hotel, will do so as part of a tour around Spain. They’ll more likely be in the five-star Parador – converted from a castle or a monastery – and located in some historic town of the interior. But more than this, a resident will be here all year long, spending money for 365 days rather than just five (apparently the average stay of a tourist). They’ll not only spend more, they’ll be doing it for seventy times longer in any twelvemonth period! This makes them far more useful (per capita) to the Spanish exchequer.
But, they are more useful still, as they must import funds to buy a house. A car, furniture, clothes and a thousand other things a tourist doesn’t buy. They will generate jobs – builders, painters, gardeners. They’ll keep the local stores and restaurants running. Will the Spanish authorities see this?
It appears not.

Urban Corruption

While there are now many towns along the southern coast where there are more Northern Europeans than Spaniards, the former group has made no effort to acquire power through their money or their influence. Through good old politics. Unlike Miami where over the decades the out-of-towners have eventually wrested control of the city, the foreign residents have made no effort: perhaps because, when you are retired, all you want is some peace and quiet.
Which is where things start to get tricky.
The ‘laissez faire’ thing, together with the lack of political strength of this group, means that sooner or later something will go wrong. It’s not a social problem as the Spanish are easy-going and welcoming; it’s a political problem.
A year ago, a foreign-owned house in Vera, Almería was bulldozed down by the regional authority – the Junta de Andalucía based in far off Seville. It was as if the Texans knocked down a house – just one – in California belonging to a New Yorker. The reason was patently absurd: the house was ‘illegal’ according to the authorities, built with the town halls permission, but without the Junta de Andalucía’s blessings. Oddly, the surrounding houses, with the same conditions, seem to be OK. The family was a retired couple from England, tossed into the street without explanation or compensation. A year later, they are (still) living in a nearby shed, with no water or electric connection.
While this news hit the international media (friends of mine in Miami and Boston separately heard me talking about this on the BBC World Radio), nothing appeared in the Spanish press which – remembering the old Moorish way of doing things – wouldn’t want to upset the financial applecart of truly staggering ‘institutional advertising’ which keeps them both alive and mute.
While it is incomprehensible why the Junta de Andalucía would do such a thing – risking massive investment from abroad for those small communities along the coast which have no industry or agriculture to speak of – they decided to compound the error by declaring an extra 5,000 homes in the interior of the province of Almería to also be ‘illegal’. Homes which, in every case, belong to Northern Europeans. Homes, even urbanisations, which are apparently without the proper paperwork. All of them built by local builders, with the town hall permits in place, the notary public’s signatures, the bank, the lawyers and everyone else’s best wishes and permissions. All these local politicians and professionals, we are now told, corrupt and without honour. These events usually occuring only in those communities run by people from a different political party to the Junta de Andalucía, the PSOE Socialist Workers' Party. Demolition orders, confiscations and brinkmanship are now happening all over the Andalucian autonomous region (the south of Spain). Foreign owned homes in Marbella, in Granada, in Ronda, Jeréz and in Almería are under threat. In the Valencian Region, it’s even worse. There they have a thing called ‘land-grab’ where local businessmen can legally take half your land – for commercial interests – and charge you a massive fee into the bargain.
The Andalucians are said to be intrigued by the idea.
In Spain in this time of crisis, of property surplus and high unemployment, it appears that we suffer from institutional and arbitrary demolition orders, corrupt town halls, bent lawyers and crooked public servants.
So, last week we held a protest in the local city of Almería. Upsetting the traffic and blowing whistles and waving banners, the ex-pat Brits (plus friends) put on their carpet-slippers and their sun-tan oil (the weather is very good here) and hit the streets. We gave speeches outside the Junta’s building and we talked to the press: after all, several hundred elderly foreigners, some even in wheelchairs, clogging up a modern Spanish city, doesn’t happen every day of the week. On the same day, by coincidence, a group of Euro-deputies from Brussels visited Valencia to see for themselves how ‘displaced Europeans’ are treated in Spain. They weren't impressed.
Did the protest make a difference? Once again, the foreign media covered it: once again, the Spanish media barely touched it. Perhaps the Junta de Andalucía took some notice, as their short-sighted policy of disturbing the reasonably wealthy foreign investors here must be costing them (and their voters) hundreds of millions of euros a year in lost sales.
For many of us, living under the threat of losing our house, or having to pay massive extra fees to ‘legalise’ it, or being forced to wait for years in some form of limbo, when one is elderly and retired from an active career, is unnecessary, stressful and unfair.
As for the unfortunate couple who had both their dream and their house taken from them in that callous attack a year ago, they were able to briefly interview the local representative of the Seville government following the protest. Let’s introduce them. They are called Len and Helen Prior. They are both 64 years old and they live in a garage. The creature from the regional government, in charge of ‘public works and housing’, said that he personally felt for them but that ‘the law must take its course’.
Have you ever heard a Spaniard say that before?

Press Reactions to Friday's Protest March

Photo: John Bowling


Photo: Helen Baker

It seemed to go well. We were lucky that the weather was warm and sunny (!). We met up at the top of the main street, the 'Paseo de Almería' and I gave some speech in Spanglish to the assembled protestors (and passers by). The 'carpet-slippers and cocoa' protestors (as one of them said), escorted by the police, then took off down the Obispo Orberá and on down to the offices of the Junta de Andalucía's gauleiter in Almería where speeches from various people with land-grab and other problems were made. I read Helen Prior's speech for her ('...sometimes I think that I would rather have been put against a wall and shot than to have gone through with this') as she was in the office of Luís Caparros (he who ordered the demolition a year ago) together with the leaders of the AULAN and AUAN protest groups and their lawyer.
We were told afterwards that 'progress had been made' (which means little) and that we should have a clearer picture by next week. I'll continue to write this up as I get information.
Meanwhile, here's some press clippings. For forum comments, follow 'the usual links' (as below).

Picture: Luís Caparros. Photo by Chris Marshall

In English:
http://almerimarlife.com/almeria-protest-march This is a full article from Chris with photos and video.

Sunday Telegraph Note the last paragraph!!

In Spanish:
http://www.ideal.es/almeria/20090109/local/almeria/cientos-britanicos-almeria-exigen-200901091742.html

http://www.elalmeria.es/article/provincia/320262/medio/millar/britanicos/exigen/una/politica/honesta/proceso/regularizacion/sus/viviendas.html (I like this one - where I apparently say that there are 750,000 Brits living in Almería)


http://www.ideal.es/almeria/20090110/almeria/ingleses-enganados-manifiestan-capital-20090110.html

http://www.teleprensa.es/almeria-noticia-154336-La-poblaci26oacute3Bn-brit26aacute3Bnica-de-Almer26iacute3Ba-se-manifiesta-para-solicitar-justicia-y-transparencia-con-las-viviendas-del-no-urbanizable.html



http://www.europapress.es/andalucia/noticia-almeria-junta-inventariado-60-5000-viviendas-irregulares-almanzora-pide-calma-vecinos-britanicos-20090109180621.html



http://www.elpais.com/articulo/andalucia/calle/casas/ilegales/elpepiespand/20090110elpand_11/Tes

La Voz de Almería (a terrible daily for Almería that doesn't have a proper webpage) reveals today (on Page 26) that there are six thousand 'illegal homes' in Almería province and only Luís Caparros and the peace-loving forces of the Junta de Andalucía can sort out this terrible problem. Oh, and by the way, some English came along to the city and protested. 'There will be more demolitions' said a beaming Sr Caparros, 'but just the necessary ones'. The paper ends by quoting me: '...we don't care who pays for these demolitions, the promotor, the town hall or the Junta, but there must be compensation for the owners'.

... ...

Estimates vary for the numbers - from 200 to 2000 (thanks Chris). As I said at one point, there were many people who were yesterday with us in spirit, or who had sent emails or forum messages of support. I think that in fact there were tens of thousands of Northern Europeans, together with many almerienses, standing shoulder to shoulder with us on the protest. I also believe that there will now be some positive movement from the authorities within a short period of time.
Meanwhile, Almería is losing its repution and its income. Luís Caparros needs to lose his job.

YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfrVvgJ0cI4

35 minute video of events at http://www.eyeonspain.com


Joint AUAN and AULAN press release: 11 January 2009

AULAN (Abusos Urbanisticos del Levante Almeriense, No!) and AUAN (Abusos Urbanisticos Almanzora, No!) would like to thank the demonstrators for their commitment and support during the 9 January 2009 march in Almeria.

During the protest, Sr Caparros, the regional delegate for housing and planning, held a private meeting with Len and Helen Prior and representatives of the AUAN and AULAN. Sr Caparrós said that he understood and sympathised with the human aspect of the Priors’ situation, but reiterated that “the Junta (regional government) acted correctly within the law and compensation must be sought from the mayor who issued the license”.

He said that it was the courts that had ordered the demolition of the house, not his department, and that he was “forced to work within the framework of the law”.

During the meeting, the representatives of the marchers said that they considered what had happened to Mr & Mrs Prior and their current situation to be a breach of their human rights. Mrs Prior said they were living in their garage and did not even have a bathroom. She said that they had done everything legally and were forced out of their house with no compensation in sight. Mr Prior asked Sr Caparrós how he would have felt if, after he retired and had spent all his money on a house and done everything correctly, that he found himself thrown out of it. Mr Prior also asked why in the area there were other houses recently built and yet his house was the only one knocked down.

Sr Caparrós did agree that after the AULAN and AUAN jointly broker a meeting between the mayor of Vera and Mr & Mrs Prior, he would speak directly to the mayor of Vera to see if a solution could be found.

He also said that although it was the democratic right of people to protest, he was disappointed that the AUAN had not followed up on his offer of a meeting to discuss the issues. Maura Hillen, representing AUAN, said that after the initial meeting back in September, AUAN had indeed attempted to set up a meeting but had received no response. Sr Caparros replied that there had been no point in holding such a meeting at that time given that there was as yet nothing to report.

The representatives of the marchers stated that they reserved the right to stage further marches.

They will also be making the arrangements shortly for the meeting with Felix López, the mayor of Vera, and the Priors.

With respect to the issues of the Almanzora Valley, Sr Caparrós also agreed with Mrs. Hillen to a technical meeting between representatives of the demonstrators and the Junta in Almeria to discuss progress and steps currently being taken and to be taken in the future to resolve the problems created by planning irregularities. Arrangements are to be made next week.

AUAN and AULAN committee members consider these results to be positive given that the demonstrators rate ongoing dialogue, transparency and consultation with affected parties to be of highest priority. They also believe that if the victims of planning and real estate abuse were kept involved, matters would proceed more smoothly.

Mrs Hillen advised Sr Caparros that the AUAN has submitted an allegation to the Human Rights Council (OHCHR-UNOG) based in Geneva highlighting the failure of the Junta de Andalucia to act in a timely manner with respect to the provision of interim services (electricity and water) to homes caught in the illegality trap. This topic is also tabled for discussion at the technical meeting with Junta representatives.

The issue of “land grab” was discussed, when someone who has bought a property in good faith is later required to give up roughly 50% of their land, is not compensated for the land but forced to pay for infrastructure costs. Sr Caparrós stated that this was the law in Spain. It was pointed out to Sr Caparrós, however, that the protesters considered this practice to be against the human rights of homeowners and that the European Parliament had passed a resolution last year stating the same. Sr Caparrós argued that the law was the law, but conceded that an application could be made to his department on an individual case basis for further discussion.

The Decalogue of the protesters’ demands has been forwarded to the Junta.

Street Names

One thing about Madrid - there are plenty of street names to celebrate the memory of the Great and the Good. Those whose efforts during their lives served to make the world a better place, a wealthier place (at least for the family that bears the name in question) or a place in keeping with the politics of the times. Which is why there are so many generals you've never heard of but who, you just know, did Great Things on the Republican side during the Civil War. And why there are practically none of those 'Plaza del Generalísimo' left. Or, for that matter, any statues of the old sod.
I did see one 'Franco Square' in the small granite pueblo of Pelahustán (Madrid province) the other day if any 'progres' are reading this. There may even have been a 'José Antonio' street round the corner...
In keeping with the rest of Spain, in Mojácar, Almería, the town where I have lived for most of my life, there are no street names to honour 'the other lot'. In Mojácar, however, the 'other lot' are the better than sixty per cent Northern Europeans (well, Brits) who live there. Registered on the padrón or not.
There are no streets, avenidas, glorietas, public buildings or anything else to mark the passing of the Brits in Mojácar, whose lolly, sorry to say, must be responsible for 99% of the wealth of the whole community. There's no 'Calle Paul Becket' or 'Museo Fritz Mooney' or 'Avenida Bill Napier' (yep, my Dad). There's not even a 'Glorieta Walt Disney' because you see, although they claim him as a mojaquero de buena fé, he has a 'furrin' sounding name.
There once was a foreign street. When the Mojácar mayor of the day decided to open the pueblo to trash tourism, we were greeted with the 'Avenida Horizon' which stretched - briefly under that name - from the fuente to the Plaza Nueva.
There is another: An alley in the town is called 'Calle Pedro Barato'. It was put there by 'Cheap Pete' himself and no one, so far, has bothered to take it down or re-name it 'Calle de Gibraltar Español' or something equally stupid.
There are lots of place-name streets on the coast. There's a Calle España and a Calle Francia. A Calle Romania and a Calle Ecuador. But not a Calle Reino Unido, Inglaterra or even Europa.
So how about it RosMari? How about pulling the place together with a bit of positive integration?

Strange Pink Buttons

...and a happy new year. ¡Feliz año nuevo!
I'm still in Madrid and have been working here with a small portable PC which a friend has kindly lent me for the duration. The 'portatil' is painted an attractive shade of pink and is decorated with flowers. It has a few - uh - quirks which occasionally send me mad, but we more or less get along. Because, for some reason, it has what 'techies' (frikis in Spanish) refer to as 'open software' - which means it doesn't use Bill Gates' products - I am sometimes presented with odd little things which weren't quite what I expected. I know, a bad workman blames his tools...
Of course if I was clever, I could write my own software and add it to the program (Ubuntu, for those in the know).
In other words, I'll sort out the links in the entry below when I get home...

Later: Now home. Villanous virus on my home PC (thanks to junior family member). However... office computer still works... Links fixed below!