The Alliance of Civilizations

Spain has long maintained a relationship with Arab countries, through its proximity to North Africa, its many centuries under ‘Moorish’ dominion and, more recently, Franco’s reliance on Moroccan forces during the early years of the Spanish Civil War. Saddam Hussein’s shotgun, famously fired in provocation against the West from his terrace just before the first Gulf War, was given to him by Franco during Saddam’s state visit to Spain in 1974 (along with a medal, the Gran Cruz de la Real Orden de Isabel la Católica). Saddam replied by presenting Spain with two full tankers during the oil crisis of the same year. This cosiness with the Arab world stumbled with José María Aznar’s very visible alliance with Bush and Blair following the summit meeting in the Azores in 2003.

Following on from the changes in Spain’s relations with Arab countries, socialist leader José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero proposed the Alliance of Civilizations at the 59th General Assembly of the United Nations in 2005. It was co-sponsored by the Turks. The initiative sought to galvanize international action against extremism through the forging of international, intercultural and inter-religious dialogue and cooperation with an emphasis on defusing tensions between the Western and Islamic worlds. By July of that year, the Spanish government had approved a million euros spending money to the new agency, earmarked another twenty million for a headquarters in Barcelona and, above all, Zapatero’s initiative was playing well to the galleries back home in Spain. Spain had taken a shot at becoming the moral leader of the world, although it was sadly obvious that Zapatero was punching outside of his class.

One can almost imagine a flying saucer landing in a field somewhere. ‘Take me to the chairman of the Alliance of Civilizations’ says a small green individual holding a ray gun.

The historian Henry Kaman was one of the critics of the Alliance. In 2004 he wrote: ‘Presumably the intention is not to export the decadent western cultural concepts such as democracy, women's rights, freedom of expression and freedom of religion or sexual tolerance. If Zapatero does not intend to delve into these issues, does he then seek to further develop concepts such as dictatorship, control of the press and the denial of sexual freedoms?’.

By the end of 2006, a report from the ‘high level group’ chosen by the United Nations to outline recommendations and practical solutions on how the Western and Islamic societies could solve mutual misconceptions and misunderstandings was issued. According to the report, ‘politics, not religion, is at the heart of growing Muslim-Western divide’.

In 2011, Spain’s contribution to the Alliance was down to 800,000 euros and the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Gonzalo de Benito, notes that this year’s payout will be even smaller ‘since there is no alternative’ but ‘will still be a significant amount’.

A Spanish right wing outlet called Periodista Digital recently stated: ‘It appears that the personal adventure in which Zapatero obsessively immersed himself will now disappear after many millions wasted, much time lost and countless absurd and senseless projects that went nowhere and which no one will remember’.

One gets the feeling that Spain may enjoy the reflected glory of being the originator of such a fine plan, yet now finds that there are other more important fish to fry.

Animo in Almería

Equinotherapy or ‘equine facilitated therapy’ is used in Northern European countries as ‘riding for the disabled’.

More properly, riding for the disabled is a way by which the gait of a horse can be incorporated to help a rider who has little or no control of their lower limbs. This could come through an accident, or a congenital condition. Many people, disabled in some way, have found that they can improve their life through either some therapeutic program with a horse, which could be anything from being placed on the back of an animal, surrounded by side-walkers, a leader and a number of medical experts – to just learning to ride for its own pleasure. A young girl with polio famously once learnt to ride and she went on to win the Silver at the Helsinki Olympics in 1952 in Dressage proving that people with disabilities can participate in sports – this long before the introduction of the Paralympics in 1960.

Long-term local resident Barbara Napier worked as a young woman in California with disabled children and, betimes, enjoyed her hobby of horseback riding. The two disciplines were always going to come together. She was a board member, for a number of years, on the Federation of Riding for the disabled International (now re-named as the HETI) and represented Spain.

On Sundays, Barbara and I drive to a stable outside the city of Almería. There, we join a group of friends – including a riding instructress, a physiotherapist and a psychologist – and work with some special needs children. This is true hippotherapy, with a growing number of disabled children attending each week: children with cerebral palsy, autism, genetic disorders, some hemiplegics and quadriplegics. Barbara and her friends and volunteers have recently resuscitated ‘Animo’, Spain’s first animal assisted therapy charity, started by Barbara in 1986 (and based then in Mojácar) until her health made it impossible to continue some ten years ago.

Barbara has almost completed a book about her experiences over the past ten years, it’s called ‘Riding For My Life’ and it details how a regular course on horseback (with and under expert tutelage) can save one’s life by slowing down or reversing sickness or extreme cures like chemotherapy.

Animo is a nationally registered charity and Barbara’s personal webpage can be found at animospain.blogspot.com

Disabled Parking

I sometimes write about how parking could be a bit easier if the authorities only planned for a few more places than those absolutely necessary for the staff. You know, for customers. To keep the never over-generous quota of parking spaces as scarce as possible, we have any number of boxes, trees, kioscos, dustbins, bottle banks, skips, electric poles, zebra crossings and whatever else (which is why we all park on roundabouts here), but this is the first time I've ever seen a disabled parking - or two - put to such good and practical use.
The picture comes from Puerto Rey (Vera Playa).

The Beginnings

The first edition of The Entertainer - a free weekly newspaper for Almería, came out on 4th April back in 1985. It was one of the first English-language newspapers around, preceded by Guidepost (started in the fifties), Lookout, The Iberian Daily Sun, The Costa Blanca News, Sur in English and, closer to home, The Talisman. The first edition was produced by Mike Connolly, Sue, Pauline and Alan. None of them had any experience in making newspapers (the adverts were at the top of the page) and the printers, La Voz de Almería, had to make up each page in their antiquated printing press, by re-typing each and every piece (two Spanish girls with zero English), laying it out (sometimes in dis-order) and making up the photoliths.
The Chief of Police in those days, whose main job was to make sure that foreigners didn't get work-permits, caused the whole project to be a year late and finally relented only when Mike found another foreigner with a work-permit (for a donkey taxi, but let's not split hairs) to act as editor. This was Barbara, my wife. A director was provided - the only rule was that he had to be a Spaniard - and paid to do nothing. In fact, no one ever met him at all.
I was approached to 'put some money in' round about the fourth edition of the paper, when it became clear that something needed to be done (to me, that is, rather than to the paper).
Mike and his two friends, Keith and David, had a local band called The Flying Vultures. There would be pictures of them in old back numbers, but between the fire of 2010, plus some willful vandalism in 1999, there aren't many copies left, although the Diputación de Almería has a complete set, and used one as a full-page illustration in its exhibition and subsequent book on Almería's press.
The Entertainer eventually went to three weekly English editions, Costa de Almería, Costa Blanca (1986) and Costa del Sol (1987), plus, as 'Entertainer En Español', two irregular editions for Mojácar and Altea.
In 1999, it passed from my control - but that's another story.

This Whole Thing About Parking

Down at the Parque Comercial in our town of Mojácar, there are three stories full to bursting with shops, bars, restaurants and offices. The notary, three or four lawyers, a dentist, a doctor, six bars (I think), a couple of restaurants, tickytack souvenirs, fancy shops, boutiques, three telephone shops, a couple of radio stations, an internet shop, a book-shop, a tattooist and a bank. A large furniture shop and a giant supermarket. A lottery and a beggar. Right next door, there's a second shopping precinct with more bars, a slot machine place, the post office with 1500 post boxes, the Euro weakly office and who knows what all else. The two malls rely on one small parking area surrounding the first of them. By around ten in the morning, when the staff are all in attendance in their various places of business, there is no room for customers to park. This is called 'bad design'. It happens. To exacerbate things further, there are a number of things taking up the few parking spaces (everybody already ignores the yellow lines). These are the bins and skips. Together, they inconvenience some ten cars or so, who will either park nearby, or will go to Garrucha which has a better selection anyway.
So how is it that Mojácar, with 72Km2 of space, an average of about 100 inhabitants per square kilometre, one person per hectare, manages to plan its parking so badly? Narrow residential streets festooned with parked cars making them all one-way (at best). A range of hotels and a golf course with an obligation to drive one way, right through the whole entire urbanisation, as the designers apparently forgot entirely about traffic and the width of roads. They finally had to remove half of the grass along the front just to add an extra parking area.
A village with a spanking new parking lot used as a market on Wednesdays. The Fuente - where another market runs on Sundays, with cars clawing onto the cliff beside the road down towards the beach. There's a roundabout at the Fuente which defies description; so people park on it. On the Playa again, a thin two lane blacktop runs, over innumerable traffic mounds, from Garrucha to the Hotel Best Indalo (I hope never to see the Hotel Worst Indalo), a distance of eight or ten kilometres of chock-full traffic during the summer, mostly looking for a parking space (while watching out for the traffic police).
When you can park - in a cramped spot which as often as not was never designed for that use - you may find that you will have to 'get out of the other door', climb over the gear shift, then walk to your destination.
It's fun though - especially now, when things are quiet.

A Small Problem With Bugs

One exhausted Swallow arrived today from Africa and perched on a pole near our gate. It may be just the first of what appears to be rather a late arrival by the rest of the Gang, or perhaps - things being what they are - the only one that made it across the Mediterranean without ending up as pot luck somewhere.
At any rate, there's no rest for the wicked, and there are a whole lot of mosquitoes - three different varieties of them - to feast upon. So, Little Swallow, get off your feathered backside and get busy.
We are being eaten to death!

Roads, in a Roundabout Way

What fun it must be to design a roundabout. Sometimes they are located in the middle of a road, with other roads leading off in different directions. You must slow down to eighty sixty forty thirty and that car parked on the right, the one with a fellow sat in the passenger seat, he'll be a radar cop ready to repair Spain's GOP at your expense. Sometimes, though, the roundabouts are just there, interrupting the smooth flow of the road without any reason or any other exits. Perhaps there are some municipal plans we don't know about. One day, there'll be an urbanisation. Perhaps somebody will be parked on the edge of the roundabout, sat in his enormous and unnecessary 4X4, as a temporary decoration.
Still, these traffic circles, with their two lanes - down from three or up from one - are fairly humdrum. European affairs. Even the overwrought gardening, designed to hide the vehicular flow from the left, hardly makes them intriguing.
Much more popular here are the 'shy circles', those roundabouts that touch rather than intersect. These are used as a complicated and confusing method of bleeding onto another road, usually by obliging you to zip across half its width and then, breathlessly, joining the speeding traffic from the left and dovetailing in behind the red BMW that ain't stopping for nobody. Then crank it before the lorry coming up catches you with a roar on its air-horn. Confusing but rather satisfying I think. There will be no badoom badoom road studs on the approach to the shy roundabout, but the main road which hurtles past will have any number of rows of these charming studs, to entertain and bemuse drivers hurrying past the eccentric circular bifurcation.
These roundabouts, whether true or shy, are designed by young achievers in the second year of high school. They are rewarded with yellow stickies to put on their exercise books. First year students cut their teeth on petrol station forecourts, where a large expanse of concrete will be decorated with obtuse traffic routes, stops, bleeds and parking areas.
Favourite local ones: the Los Gallardos to Garrucha road has three shy roundabouts, all very dangerous indeed. Turre has a hidden shy roundabout, covered in rampant plant life. There is no view whatsoever for drivers of on-coming traffic coming from the left. A right-of-way route powers in from the right.
For a gas station forecourt, nothing beats the Ballabona on the motorway between Vera and Huercal Overa. Several hectares of cement have been turned into a horizontal snakes and ladders set. Most enjoyable to ignore.
But, fresh from our labours driving around the immediate area, why not come and shop in Vera? You can leave your car in the handy underground parking lot which has just been opened. Apparently, a British firm got the tender, since you have to follow a cross-flow into the establishment, going from the right lane to the left. Now, that puts the fun back into motoring.

The Proof Reader's Eye

Anyone can make a mistake. Once we were putting together a newspaper and managed to spell our own name wrong. 'The Enterainer'. Took a while to live that one down. Then there are those mistakes which have two meanings, or don't really work as titles. You can buy books full of them at PAWS sales.
But here is one that must have missed the proof-reader's eye. It is the only possible explanation. It's in one of our local newspapers in the classified columns and follows right after a notice which says 'Readers of a sensitive disposition may find some of the advertisements in this section offensive'.
Boy, they may have understated themselves on this one.

El Kiosco

Ángel Medina has lived in Mojácar for about twenty five years. He built what still remains as one of our best small hotels, the Rio Abajo. He has worked in publishing (he was the director of El Indalico) and in radio with Cope Mojácar. He has also been in local politics, running both cultura and turismo in the last two legislatures.
Ángel is from Valencia, and is well-known locally as a cook and bon viveur. So now, he is running El Kiosco, the kiosk outside the Parque Comercial on Mojácar Playa.
Today, he made a paella.

Joe Bloggs

Spain has four special names for unknown or forgotten people: these are Fulano, Mengano, Zutano and Perengano. The most used is Fulano, 'Whassisname', which comes, apparently, from the Arabic: fulān which means 'anyone'.
Mengano, or 'Whojammie', is also from the Arabic man kān and means 'whoever'. The other two names, 'Thingy' and 'Spike' are used less. The first, Zutano, may come from scitānus, Latin for 'wise one', but it's anybody's guess about Perengano.
The Spanish use these names for handy reference, Fulano and Mengano above all.
The diminutive version, Fulanito, is particularly useful for jokes, along the lines of 'little Jimmy'.
The female of Fulano, Fulana, is used (as is always the way) pretty much exclusively to mean a puta.
And now, looking at Wikipedia, I find all sorts of other versions, in every language: including Miðalhampamaður from the Faeroe Islands.
I know, time to go and do some work...

Yabba Dabba Doo

Mojácar's underground car-park looks rather like the film-set for The Flintstones today. Although - why is nobody working?

Barbara is My Heroine

I am very proud of my wife Barbara. She has a terrible disease to deal with called Wegeners' granulomatosis which has weakened her over the past decade, besides obliging her to suffer innumerable operations and hospital stays. She was accused by one spiteful local newspaper article of having a self-induced injury - although they were unable to explain how this could have come about - and, over the years, she has been sorely treated by her own two brothers, who live nearby.
Despite these setbacks, she remains strong and positive, and she has done this to a large degree by taking to horse.
Barbara worked for many years, both in her native USA and here in Spain, with disabled children; introducing riding for the disabled into Spain in 1986 and starting her association Animo around the same time. She now works on a hippotherapy program in a centre in Almería called Animo-Albero.
Barbara has meanwhile developed a program which has helped to keep her strong and has attracted the interest of her doctors - this is to sit bareback on a horse, allowing the animal's own strength to exercise and stimulate her body (it's close to the philosophy behind hippotherapy). This has not only energized Barbara but has slowed down or even reversed some of her symptoms.
She was sent a beautiful therapy horse called Cookie by the therapeutic riding cooperative Cadí Moixeró (an RDI centre in Barcelona) last September and, previous to this, she had been riding in Almería once or twice a week at the Centro Albero, helped by the owner and trainer at the centre Loli Berenguel. Cookie is now in Almería working with the disabled children and Barbara has now acquired a second horse, pictured, thanks to a donation from a local businessman called Diego Mañas Romera, at the Yeguada Valdesol in Sorbas.
Barbara is strong and has all my love and support.

Malicorne

Driving up to Andorra la Vella in my first car, an old Renault van (that went like a cracker, it had an Ondine engine), sometime in the early seventies. For no particular reason. The town didn't have much nightlife beyond a few stainless steel bars. From one of them, some fantastic music was wafting up from the cellar. Down there I met a Frenchman who was playing Malicorne, a Celtic folk band. This one is called L'écolier assassin Enjoy.

The Underground Car-park (again)

Here is the latest picture of our new car-park. Not long now. Will it be in time for the Moors and Christians in Mid June? We hope so, otherwise Mojácar's internationally famous fiesta may be something of a squib...
Meanwhile, where are the photos and in-depth analysis of this folly in the pages of the Weenie and its imitators?

Mojácar Cutre

I took quite a few pictures, but my hands must have been shaking... or maybe the camera just flat refused to record what it was seeing. At any rate, here's the best one:

The event was the latest exhibition at the Mojácar Art Gallery (Museum... almost) at the Fuente. Mojácar was arguably discovered, at its weakest moment, when less than 600 people lived here, by a small group of 'intelectuales' who arrived here in the mid-fifties. These included well-known artists like Cantón Checa, Jesús de Perceval and others. They christened both the 'Indalo' (the local hombrecillo mojaquero totem) and themselves as 'Los Indalianos'. Partly through their efforts and influence, together with Mojácar's striking light and appearance, other artists found their way here, and the town became a Bohemian destination during the sixties.
Paul Becket, Fritz Mooney, Matts Hojer, Marisol González, local artist Clemente Flores, Mojácar artist Nicolás Carillo Murcia, Juan Guirado, Manolo Coronado, Luz Marqués, Michael Sucker who painted the church fresco, Francisco Reyes, Win Wells, sculptor Charles Salerno and a hundred others I've missed all contributed to the notoriety of Mojácar.
But politics and art don't mix. You can't make a buck off of culture, it seems. One mayor got a grant to build an art gallery, while another allowed exhibitions to be held there - under the authority of Leslie, the only foreign worker out of the 160 municipal staff (Mojácar these days is about 40% local and 60% out-of-towner - a mixture of Spaniards, Britons and a sprinkling of East Europeans, West Europeans, some South Americans and a few others). The gallery was closed down by the current incumbent, who built a large what-was-going-to-be art museum at the Fuente but is now a mixture of Spanish library and exhibition hall. This ran for a while with art exhibitions, proving to be very popular with the foreign settlers here, but has now changed to something else.
The show tonight, running until February 29th, was well attended by the local people, including the Partido Popular hierarchy, but I was the only forastero there. You see, instead of art, Raquel the young Councillor for Culture had plumped on a show of carnival costumes together with photographs of previous celebrants in all their finery sellotaped to the walls.
Now, Mojácar is not noted for its carnavales. Here, the children dress up in matching outfits and are fêted in the Artisan Centre. That is pretty much all there is. A few local adults giggling and shivering in the cold wander around the fuente area for a day or two. The local celebrants don't seem to know the customs very well - after all, Carnival has only been going since Franco died - and the dates are sometimes a bit off. The costumes are often unmasked and the saturnalia aspect is rather muted. We have Cadiz and Águilas for those who really want to party...
So, a month without art may not be a particular loss - but it is a sign of what Mojácar is becoming.
Cheesy.

Pan Para Todos

We have friends who apparently can't eat without a slice or two from a barra de pan to help them. Fork in the right hand, lump of bread in the left. Wine in front... and fill it up won't you?
And if we are out of bread, would you like to nip down to the gasolinera to pick some up? Why bread, along with pornographic videos, wine, cigarettes again (that didn't last long), cigars, Butano and chocs are all freely available at the gas station is one of those strange things about life here. Anyway, we have a crisp warm barra de pan and we are all set for our meal.
In the morning, half a small panecillo is toasted in the local café and then spread with tomate - crushed or whizzed up - which the customer then covers with olive oil and salt. It's good with a coffee. For the mid-morning merienda, what is better than a bocadillo, an entire barra cut lengthways, and filled with cheese, ham or sausage?
But, with sublimity, comes its cousin crappo. Spain's aptly named pan de molde, bread-in-a-mold or, in American terms wonder-bread, is no Hovis. The best brand (apart from a couple of British-style ones occasionally available where foreigners are likely to shop) is Bimbo. It's not very good. Imitators of this brand are many - Panrico being the best known - and are also not up to much. You can make un sticky sandwich with them or toast them on the plancha with a thick gob of margarine but the taste of a piece of industrially-made pan is poor and dry. Some British restaurants serve a buttered slice if you ask them nicely, but I prefer to munch on real Spanish bread: 'Con pan y vino se anda el camino'.
Better stick to 'Spanish bread'.

Madrid Olympics

Not sure about the latest campaign for Madrid to hold the Olympics - this time in 2020 (or is it 20020, and why spell Madríd with an accent?). Or is an 'M20' that we read here? Madrid campaigned for the 2012, the 2016 and now, the city is back again with more. How much have they spent in their various efforts to date?

Censorship is Greed

Spain has passed its own Internet copyright law called the 'Ley de Sinde', after apparent heavy pressure from the American embassy, pressed in turn by Hollywood. Oddly, the Ley de Sinde, Sinde's Law, was crafted by the Minister of Culture from the last Government, the PSOE Ángeles González-Sinde, where it was pulled at the last moment by popular opprobrium. The masses, for once, had spoken. Then, as the PP Government took over in December, the socialists' law was quickly switched through Parliament and will be on the books from March. You would think that a Minister for Culture's job would be to support culture, rather than cut it, but there you go - and to Hell with the masses, by the way.
So, the Americans forced through the anti-copy law here in Spain, yet a few weeks later, failed (thanks again to the masses) to do the same thing through their own Congress back in Washington.
The Pirate Bay, a Swedish file-sharing site, recently commented that Hollywood itself was born out of filmmakers moving away from the East Coast, where Edison had just invented the first movie projector, to avoid his patent and to market their own systems.
Well fine. All this becomes the second step in the policing of the Internet in the West. The first was to do with paedophilia (and who is going to argue with that?), now it's about protectionism and later, when we get around to it, it'll be about freedom of speech.
In fact, a ripped-off film may lose someone a few cents, but that someone is either a copyright owner - a rich corporation - or a wealthy participant. The money won't go to the stage-sweep, who might be grateful for it. With music, the trail is even easier. Real musicians do what they do to make music or to make money?
Who gets that money by the way: all competent musicians, or those whose production is manipulated by the companies?
We won't mention the SGAE here - who collect the royalties and sometimes put them to creative use...
Today, a piece of Spanish news about copyright ownership appears, that the family of the writer Valle-Inclán, the Civil War poet who died seventy five years ago, should have the copyright ownership extended by three years because their sugar-ticket didn't receive any rents during the war years. The family has apparently fought ever since over who should get what from the plunder and has even held back some material from the Public view for their own reasons of profit. Should families (or record companies) live from dead authors and musicians?
The other night I saw a film. It came from a friend who had bought it from a market stall. It was an illegal copy. It was also very bad, but that's beside the point. I have three alternatives with such a film: see it and pay, see it for free or not see it. If I pay for it, and it turns out to be bad - can I get my money back? If I see it for free, or I don't see it - is there any material difference to the copyright owner?
For that matter, if I like a CD and play it a hundred times, should I perhaps be paying the record company some more moolah? Can I lend a book to someone without alerting the family of the author?
Now, if I am not going to pay for something, having obtained it for free, then the film or music company will not be taking my shilling, whether I see or listen to it or not. However, since the film from the other evening, 'Mr Popper's Penguins' (truly awful rubbish with Jim Carey), could never be classed as 'culture', there may be a way out here. Put a block on downloading or copying rubbish and leave cultural material alone. Call it 'Censorship on Entertainment' and leave it at that. We could have a 'Ministerio de Entretenimiento' whose job would be to collect our savings and send them to the moguls.
Meanwhile, those who, for monetary considerations, decide against downloading 'Fast and Furious Part V' will have a choice - read a book, download something of value, or watch telebasura.
The certainty is, with all of those clever kids out there equipped with a digital brain and a keyboard, the Internet should remain safe from the lawyers, politicians and bankers who would like to control both it and, of course, us.

The Underground Car-park

Mojácar is quiet these days - as in 'there's no one open and no one comes to visit' rather than 'it's quiet'. Ever morning, the bangbangbang of the drills wakes up the neighbours at an early hour. The dust rises and the trucks come in and out. This underground car-park for just 37 cars will cost over 1,5 million euros and oblige the pedestrian village to have a drive-through lane past the church. The whole thing should be ready before June's Moors and Christians festival.

The Availability of Books

Without television (long story), we read a lot at home; either churning through the Internet or staying up with a good book. Years ago, when there really wasn’t a TV option, and satellite watching was still a far-off idea, we would carefully write our names in our stash of well-thumbed novels – spy stories, thrillers, derring doos and bug-eyed-monster books – and lend the best ones to our friends, who would rarely, if ever, return them. Sometimes, I find one of our collection in a jumble sale or on a friend’s shelf.

There isn’t much in the way of book-shops here – and the rare one that opens usually doesn’t last long (there’s a good one called Bookworld in San Pedro that bucks the trend) – so I go along to the local markets now and again to fill up with the reasonably latest used and cast aside thrillers. Mojácar has a Wednesday market with one chap with a good selection in English and a second Sunday flea-market with a few stalls of books of every and any description. Turre has an English language book-stand on Friday market and Albox has a large Saturday flea-market, although I have yet to visit. Otherwise, a few supermarkets – notably SuperTurre - sell a cheap range of new books at five euros, and there are no doubt other places besides.

Perhaps the best choice is to join the Mojácar English Library (bottom floor at the Centro de Artesanía, now confusingly re-named at the Centro de Usos Multiples) which is open Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 11.00am until 1.00pm.

Besides these outlets, we have the three fallbacks of Amazon dot com, friends coming out from England (via a good bookshop) or the wonders of electric books with Kindle and so on.

All of these mean I have plenty of books in the house, on shelves, in boxes and trunks and in an unsteady pile beside the bed. Being blessed with a faulty memory, I'm slowly working through the old ones again with the same sense of wonderment and surprise as the last four or five times.

The best book I have read in the past few months is called ‘The City and the City’ by a British author called China Miéville. It’s a murder mystery set in a city populated by two different nationalities that speak their two exclusive languages and walk through their city totally ignoring anyone or anything connected to the other population. They are taught from birth to ‘unsee’ the others as if they didn’t exist and, in the book, few people are able to ‘cross’. Odd, but makes sense. It also reminds me rather of life in Mojácar where many people also ignore the other nationality as if they simply weren’t there. The difference is, the English-speakers here don’t have a Council or an Elder.

Although they do,without doubt, have a better library.

The Day Trip

The odd things that happen in Spain. Yesterday we went to Almería to pick up two friends and to continue on to the Province’s other big city, El Ejido. Just along from our first destination is a feed store, so we stopped there for a few things, including happening on a clip to hold the dog safely in the car – the police being very keen on stopping you these days if your pet isn’t properly secured.

Next door at the stables, we transferred to Loli’s car, and four of us boarded along with two miniature ponies and a baby sheep that happened to be loitering nearby. The ponies jumped into the rear of the vehicle without much prompting. Noticing my surprise, Loli told me she once went to some children's pet-show with no less than eighteen critters in her buggy, including ponies, tortoises, chickens, rabbits and a slightly bilious coatimundi.

Today, we were off to a party for disabled children given by a physiotherapist called Beatriz, who with Loli and Barbara, makes up the senior members of Animo.

Loli’s vehicle has tinted rear windows, so our load of horseflesh was safe from the public eye, as long as our passengers didn’t neigh too loudly. Unfortunately, one of them was minded to produce ear-splitting whinnies through most of the trip, which included the part where we drove across the city of Almería.

I had the window down (to combat the smell – Dutch ponies can be stinky in confined quarters, especially after breakfast). We arrived at the lights at one point just as another shriek came from somewhere in the rear of the vehicle. A man in the car next to us looked up in horror. All he could see was Loli and me. ‘She’s had this cold for weeks’ I told him gamely ‘nothing seems to shift it’.

It was a good day with the children in El Ejido. We gave them rides on the ponies and told them stories about the sheep, a black and white male that stuck firmly beside Loli during the entire experience, as if his friend could somehow explain what the whole thing was about. A Wise King showed up towards the end of the afternoon and pulled presents out of a sack on the back of one of the ponies. Each child got a calendar decorated with his or her photo (I got one of me posing with our chicken, Maude). Barbara and Loli, co-writers of Manual Básico de la Hípica Terapéutica, both received hard-covered printer’s copies of their book.

Once again wedged into the car and lulled into drowsiness by another sustained chorus of bellows, we returned safely past any and all police check-points to the stables in Almería and, transferring to our vehicle, we continued home, the car full of tomatoes from El Ejido, some grain for our horses and a box of mixture for Maude.

A Stuffed Bull's Head

The age old problem of 'what to buy someone for Christmas' has just been answered. A stuffed bull's head. These are not just any old bulls, these ones come from the top farms, breeders and some of them even met their ends at the hands of a famous bullfighter! Imagine the jolly stories you can make up as you swirl your glass of wine and ripple your pencil-thin moustache.
When I was around nine or ten, I came to Spain for holidays with my parents. We went to Playa del Haro (as it was comfortably called in those days) and saw a thrilling bullfight in Gerona. I got a large raffia bull's head to crown my experience and it decorated my bedroom in England for the next few years.
I found this flyer at the Sicab horse fair in Seville last month and thought that it would interest those Gentle Readers who don't like raffia. So there you are, your very own genuine stuffed Bull's Head.

The Siege of Mojácar

It seems that this retablo, showing 'el asedio de Mojácar', is in Toledo. The wooden carving was made by Rodrigo Alemán (1470-1542) and the picture is part of a new collection of historical photographs held by the Ministerio de Cultura and the Instituto del Patrimonio Cultural de España. The 'search page' is here.
Mojácar was attacked in 1488 as part of the final surge against the Moor. The fortified town either gave in after an agreement between the alcaide and the Christian leader that they would all get along peacefully (the disneyesque version suggested by a plinth at the fuente) or the more historically accepted version is that the whole town was put to the sword and repopulated by 400 properly Christian Spaniards from Lorca.

A slightly neglected copy of the retablo, made in 2004, is affixed to the back of the Mojácar church.

All This?

All this for 37 cars? That's not someone who cares for Mojácar.

Banco de Sabadell

Full marks to the Banco de Sabadell. I know that they are merely after our savings, but it's not often that you see an acknowledgement towards the foreigners who are living here full-time rather than those who are enjoying a short holiday here (and yet seem worthy of the spending of millions of euros in their pursuit). Tourists, you see, have no reason to be loyal. They'll take their next holiday somewhere else.
As the bank manager knows, there is a huge amount of money being pumped into Spain by those foreign settlers. There would be a lot more if the politicians woke up.

The Nice Picture from Carboneras

There you are, leafing through the various catalogues, magazines, webpages and so on, in search of that vital holiday: as guaranteed by the State and your Employer both. Hard work for fifty weeks means a fortnight of some rest and relaxation to compensate. Where to go?
There are the tried and true holiday destinations, where you pretty much know what to expect, having perhaps been there before, or from hearing reports from your work-mates. There are farther away resorts, with new and cheaper offers: well, why not?
There are new places as well, perhaps more exciting, or adventurous... and won't those same work-mates be jealous when they hear about your discovery?
So, Carboneras. It's a small fishing port in Almería, just along from Mojácar. It has some good and cheap fish restaurants and a castle. There's an attractive bay and some famously wild nudist beaches. The tiny and pretty village of Aguamarga is just next door. Carboneras also has, as you can see from the picture, a splendidly odd sculpture cum farmhouse, built in the early sixties by a Belgian who ended up being eaten by a tiger in Bengal.
But here's the thing. The Carboneras Tourist Board has to work with what it's got, which in this case is the most polluting power station in Spain (according to the European Environment agency) which, by the way, was cropped from the above photograph. The massive plant, accompanied by another behemoth, the Holcim cement factory, are within scant metres of the above oddity - jus' saying. The town is also known for the Hotel Algarrobico, an unfinished 22 storey hotel where completion was put on hold several years ago by the Ministry of the Environment because it was built both too close to the sea and also in a national park, breaking two planning laws in the event. However, with politics, inertia and a whopping demolition bill, no one has actually got around to knocking it down.
Carboneras isn't a bad place, the food is good and the people seem nice, but is it really the best choice for a holiday? Perhaps not.

This Beats Garden Gnomes

So, what's this? A mansion in El Ejido, the Almería city famous for its farming under plastic and opulent wealth. The owner of this tasteful looking house, in a clear homage to the past, has seen fit to decorate his garden with a selection of mechanical hardware, including an old Moto Guzzi 98cc with a stick shift hanging from some chains, an antique 1950's Citroen stood on a plinth, and just inside the garden, to the right, an artillery piece. Is that a bit of a airplane disappearing around the corner? One day, I'd like to see inside the house!

Spanish Invention

You probably knew that the submarine is a Spanish invention. There is an early example raised on the port in Cartagena. Designed and built by a local engineer called Isaac Peral in Cadiz in 1887, it ran on electric current. The earliest Spanish submarine, however, was built by a Catalonian called Narcis Monturiol and ran manually. For (presumably) rather short distances. A later version ran on steam.
But Spain has invented many other useful gadgets (a friend of mine here in Mojácar lives comfortably off a garlic peeler he came up with a few years ago).
The Autogiro being one such (or so I read here). This was a variation on the helicopter, with stubby rear wings and a forward propeller. A large free-spinning propeller pointing upwards kept the thing (more or less) in the air. A British version called 'The Flying Bedstead' used to putter loudly over our garden when I was a child in Norfolk. The autogiro was developed by Juan de la Cierva in the nineteen twenties. Another useful invention, the arquebus, comes from Spain, although Wikipedia appears to disagree, suggesting Hungary instead. Better luck, perhaps, with the easy-to-assemble Molotov cocktail, which was first used by the Republicans during the Civil War before finding its way to the Finnish resistance to the Russian invasion of 1939.
More peaceful inventions include the famous Chupa Chup, the gob-stopper on a stick, introduced by Enric Bernat in 1958. I know that he sells a lot of them to the Chinese and Kojak used to swear by them when solving crimes. Chupa Chups are often used to wean one off another Spanish invention, The cigarette. This was manufactured originally by Seville beggars, who would roll odd bits of tobacco collected from the cigar makers into tubes made from rice paper. The first commercial cigarettes in a packet appeared in 1825 and where commercially named as 'Cigarrillos Superiores' in 1833. They didn't carry health warnings in those days.
The fregona is a fine Spanish invention. I've no idea what it's called in English, but it is a sponge on a stick used for washing floors. It comes from a airman called Manuel Jalón Corominas, introduced in 1956. Another, the pencil-sharpener, dates from 1945 from the workshop of Ignacio Urresti. Then, two partners called Juan Solozábal and Juan Olive came up with the stapler in around 1930.
Finally, according to the comments that follow the Spanish original (an article which promises more inventions in a second part), much of the above is erroneous.
Now they tell us!

The Underground Carpark

For those readers who haven't been up to Mojácar village recently - either because they live in California, Coventry or Kiev - or because they don't fancy a short drive up from the beach, here's how the famous dig is coming along. The picture comes from upstairs at the Town Hall's urbanismo building. The church is on the left and there's a narrow string of slightly worried shops and bars running along the top of the picture. Will it all be ready for Easter?

Quality Tourism

As the Mojácar Town Hall wonders how much to budget for the Madrid tourist Fair in January - the Fitur - I would like to suggest a few things which might be done to attract visitors (and package-tour trippers, for what they're worth to the local economy), all without breaking the bank.
A sign on the motorway exit to start with, similar (for example) to the one off Puerto Lumbreras (Ciudad de Alfarería) or the nifty models - rather mistreated these days - outside Nijar. According to a study made in a tourist destination in Cadiz somewhere, about 10% of the tourist traffic that arrived off the motorway was impulse-driven. How much would a sign cost?
Jacinto Alarcón, our old mayor, once recommended visitors 'to summer your winter in Mojácar'. The point is, the small and inadequate infrastructure in Mojácar is full during the summer and yet it is completely empty during the rest of the year when Mojácar, thanks to its extraordinary micro-climate, is extremely comfortable. That's a season to promote... and it would be directed to people willing to listen.
Make the pedestrian entrance to Mojácar near to where the cars are parked. Three hundred metres walk to the Plaza Nueva and another three hundred metres back...? Along a narrow road with a miserable pavement...? Put an elevator up to the back square and make it - now that we are building there anyway - into something attractive and vehicle free (dentro de lo que cabe).
Support up-market hotels, like the Parador, where the clients have money to spend, rather than run-down tripper hotels, whose agenda is to cut every corner, while encouraging their guests to stay within the walls.
Encourage foreign retirees to buy in Mojácar - they will be bringing in large sums of money and spending all year long. Stop treating those foreigners, now local residents in good faith, as pariahs: allow them a bowling green if they want one (no one here plays padel tennis). Perhaps celebrate 'International Day' like they do in the Costa Blanca and the Costa del Sol instead of the just-mojaquero-days like the Romería and the Día de la Virgen. Mojácar's reputation could improve.
A silly thing perhaps, but maybe a street name to honour the foreigners who, between them, brought this town back from absolute poverty? We don't have any Calle Fritz Mooney, Plaza Paul Becket or Avenida Bill Napier. In fact, while there are Calles de Rumanía, Francia, Suecia, Dinamarca etc... there isn't one honouring Inglaterra or Reino Unido. We are 50% of the population you know.
The sign in the photograph is good, isn't it? It comes from Granada and doesn't have any mistakes in the English. It's as if... they asked someone to check the spelling.

Rosmari's Carpark III

Work has started to speed up a bit, some fifty days into the project. Soft 'fill' is being taken out of the upper side of the square. Already one unsuspected water pipe has burst. One can see the church with its protection and the metal chapa that surrounds the entire square. The best viewpoints being either from the upstairs of the Town Hall's urbanísmo department (above the Tourist Office) or from a handy stump outside the Vientos del Desierto restaurant. The leader of the Moros Viejos, the founding club from the 'Moors and Christians' festival held each June, has expressed his dismay in the speed of the obra to the mayoress, Rosmari Cano in a letter delivered recently.

Rosmari's Parking II

I was in the pueblo this evening for a look around and a drink. The two squares are now one, with our old house and the 'schoolmaster's house' demolished. As things stand, it's quite nice, although, with the high metal fence (to stop us seeing any rare artifact from the past two thousand years...?), the view is pretty limited. The church has a lona (a canvas cover) to protect it and rumours are about that the floor is already giving way. At La Sarten, the local foreigners are enjoying 'quiz night'. Some questions, however, remain best unanswered.

The Lavatory Bar

In the old days, before the passing of Franco, the bars closed at 1.00am. Most of them no doubt closed a lot earlier, right after the black and white football game on the telly ended, but the bars in the tourist towns at least, would remain open for the boozy foreigners until the bell went. By the late sixties, prices for a gin and tonic had crept up to fourteen pesetas, and a beer cost anything up to a duro – five pesetas. Our town lush, Old Antonio, would patrol the bars in Mojácar on the look out for a drink, looking more and more dishevelled after each invitación. ‘Rubio, dame un duro’, he’d whine.

The local bars were dressed in simple stone, marble, slate, tiles and plaster. There might be a calendar for decoration, the obligatory shelf of bottles, Green Fish gin and so on, perhaps a TV or a radio or a juke box – or with luck, all three. Noise was the keynote of a good bar, with the walls rebounding the sound and lifting it on high.

The few foreign bars would be decorated with paintings from local artists (who always attempted to drink for free) and would have the lights on low. Music came from a record player.

By 1.00am, those who wished to continue with the business of drinking would move to our solitary discothèque, run by Felipe, a Frenchman from Casablanca. Felipe would charge a little more for a cubata, the generic name for a mixed drink, but he had a disk jockey and a dance floor. At 2.00am, according to the rules, he’d close the door and pretend to be shut while we finished our drinks.

This could take some time, as the next legal establishment, the Fisherman’s Bar in nearby Garrucha, didn’t open until three.

In those days, the local Guardia Civil had to provide their own transport, which would generally be an old moped. They wouldn’t bother hiding behind a road-sign to catch the occasional drunk driver – they couldn’t stop you without ‘probable cause’ anyway. At best, they might be in the village watching the small car-park and helping drivers reverse safely out of their space and away down the hill.

The trip to Garrucha took about fifteen minutes and included a drive through the dust, ruts, or puddles, depending on the season, of the floor of the riverbed, the oddly named ‘Rio de Aguas’ that, in those days, more or less divided the two towns geographically.

Garrucha High Street was and remains, a narrow and ugly road that flows straight through the fishing village and away towards Vera and civilization to the north. In those times, it was a two-way street. Half way down it was the Bar Bichito, a bar with a special licence to open at 3.00am for the fishermen to have an early morning carajillo, a black coffee and brandy. This particular mixture always seemed like a good idea to the inebriates from Mojácar who would order a round as a song began to bubble up from within them.

Hitherto, the drinking had been reasonably quiet, with the music taking the strain, but in the Bichito, fetchingly designed in white tile throughout and known to the foreigners as ‘The Lavatory Bar’, there was no music and entertainment had to be found elsewhere. The bar made ordinary local bars of the times look positively attractive. The door was on the end and opened into a narrow bar which stretched along in a small 'el' shape parallel to the street. There were two small tables and a few chairs just inside the door, and, if feeling faint, one could always sit outside on the curb. Otherwise, we stood at the chest-high bar (or even higher for some of the vertically challenged local fishermen), blinded by the bright lights and namesake decor and watched, between songs, as Pedro man-handled his one-spout Italian coffee machine. The toilet facilities, a throne with a long drop, were through the back and doubled as a storage room for the beer and soft drinks.

The fishermen and the old municipal cop would look on in a friendly way as the small group of plastered Britons, French, Germans and Americans, depending on the draw, would start on their lengthy repertoire. A family favourite of ours was ‘I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now’ (an old song immortalised in the late sixties by the New Vaudeville Band) followed, perhaps, by the popular drunken bawl ‘I’ve Got Sixpence’ or perhaps ‘Bless Em All’. A cockney couple, Pat and Tony Farr, had taught us a number of songs, such as ‘I’m One of the Ruins that Cromwell Knocked Abaht a Bit’ or ‘I’m Henry the Eighth I Am’ and so on.

More carajillos as Pedro, face pitted with acne, would tell everyone to hsss, to be quiet. People are trying to sleep (apparently).

Things could only get worse as the Rugby Songs were unleashed. Rugby Songs are England’s answer to folk music and run along the lines of ‘My Little Sister Lily’ or ‘They Were Tattered, They Were Torn…’ with lots of lines ending in –uck and so on. Curiously, many of them are set to opera music, which gives the performers a chance to really crank out the key words with enthusiasm. At times, even the extranjeros can be loud.

The ride home was always uneventful I’m sorry to report. No accidents or arrests. But those were different times. Cheap, basic and fun.

Rosmari's Underground Parking (update)

Apart from the hive of activity that is Bartolo's nick-nack shop, the cigarette shop and the lotería (we never close), the village of Mojácar is dead this windy Sunday morning. Up by the Church, the Mayoress' plan for an underground car-park totters on, slowly. As the pictures show, nothing much has been accomplished so far, beyond removing the parked cars from the two upper squares and closing off the entire area with 'chapa'. One section of this stamped metal has ceded under the heavy wind, blocking off the narrow run into Liberio's house. Liberio the Carpenter is not amused. 'Will this crap be finished by Easter?' I ask him. 'Maybe the following one' he says.
LATER: apparently, on Monday 7th November, work started on the demolition of the two houses centred in the photos. The one on the left, originally built as two apartments, was our first home in Mojácar in 1966.

Welcome Home

One of our oldest residents decided in May to return to England. She had lived abroad since the fifties, first for many years in Tangiers, and later here in Mojácar. Her house is a beautiful home bathed in light and our friend is always full of cheer and warmth. Sometimes there were parties around her pool - a chance to catch up with some of the older residents who don't 'get out much'.
Family pressures obliged her to move to a nice country retreat near Brighton, and it was with a mixture of surprise and pleasure that I heard her voice on the phone a few days ago. 'I'm back', she said. 'No more England for me'.
It seems that she had missed her home and her friends and, despite being 93 years old, she is back here 'for good'. With so many people leaving - or wishing they could leave - it is great to see what must be our oldest resident back amongst us.
Another small garden party yesterday. Tapas, wine and some good laughs. I think that all of us present felt both pleased that she had returned, and in some way, we felt confident that we too will stay.

Horses

We went to see some horses yesterday, at a large lettuce farm between Cuevas and Pulpí. I know the owner from years back and he has - besides any number of thousands of hectares of lettuce - around a dozen Pura Raza Española horses and a donkey. Barbara, who has a blog about horses and riding therapy at Animo, rode a beautiful nine year old mare around the ring, bareback as usual.

A Day in Granada, with Friends

Barbara is now getting the Animo work with hippotherapy going again, and we now have a new therapy horse here in Mojácar (see Animo) . As a small part of this, we went to Granada yesterday to meet a Japanese friend who works in a similar field at the Tokyo University. Aki speaks some English, and his uncle, here on the left of the photo, speaks a bit of Spanish as part of his studies into Flamenco. So, as they had a spare day or two before returning to Madrid (and on to Vienna), the three of them (that's Student Nim in the middle) were able to spend some time with us - which, ineviatably, included a visit to the caves of the Sacromonte to see some real Flamenco.

AECC

A large group of people turned out today for a walk from Mojácar Pueblo down to the Hotel El Puntazo to support the Spanish cancer association. Among them was our mare Cuqui. You can meet her over at Animo.

The Mojácar Square

This is the square in the old part of Mojácar that is being made-over as an underground car-park. In the picture, taken last Thursday, the square is, for once, without any cars. It looks rather better than usual. Will it look like this (smarter and so on, but similarly spacey) after the work has finished... sometime next Spring?

One must hope for the best, while recognising that our ayuntamiento and its alcaldes have never managed to improve the pueblo in thirty years of attempts (atentados, a good mis-translation) . Much has been written elsewhere about this project (the estación de metro) which has the unqualified support of the local Partido Popular: members, supporters and honorary Romanian Glee-clubbers; with the horrified resistance from everyone else, including those who chose to live in Mojácar because of its beauty, magic and appeal.

Still, they had their chance in the local elections last May.

The house on the right of the picture, with a whimsical no-parking sign in front of it, was our old house, bought new off a very young Juan García in 1966 for the peseta equivalent of 540 euros: two apartments, upstairs and down. I stayed upstairs for the school holidays while my parents were there full-time. Downstairs, a Frenchman called Michel rented for 18 euros a month, which he could rarely afford, preferring to bring along a melon on the first of the month and then stay for dinner.

We eventually sold the place to Joan Noble (an artist type with hair died a fetching shade of blue) and she lived upstairs and rented out the downstairs to a succession of restaurants and bars. The town hall was the final buyer, buying it earlier this year for a fortune, so as to have clear title to knock it down (a figure not reflected in the latest budget for the final tally of the underground car-park).

Behind the now demolished block, is a flash of brickwork. This is the relic from the same Juan García's demolition, as mayor, of an old ruined house there which was built over a narrow street-tunnel - the famous Arco de Luciana, known in English as Lucinda's Arch. Lucy was a Mojácar girl who fell for a Christian prince who died in battle in 1488. She promptly threw herself to her death (or perhaps tripped over the entrance to the tunnel, built in around 1890). Never mind - it was pretty and attracted tourists with their cameras.

After Juan idly had it knocked down, a succession of mayors promised to replace it. Salvador, Carlos, Gabriel and Rosmari. None of them ever did - or ever will. Even - and here's a thought - by putting it somewhere else. Luciana wouldn't mind.

So, as work begins on the upper square, dooming the casco viejo to an eternity as a non-pedestrian village, the mayoress admits in a sparsely attended pleno (there were four of us), that she doesn't like the final plans for the square's embellishments either: stone sails to soar above the streets.

Food and Some Sex

At the risk of being thought a bit smutty - here's a picture of a poorly-named restaurant - or maybe 'snack-house' might be better - which adjoins onto our local knock-shop, the Hotel Argar on the outskirts (damn, I'm doing it again) of Vera.

The delightful name of this establishment, clearly readable on the photograph, means in Spanish of course 'Eat, Eat'.

But, what is on the fare this evening (after a strenuous session next door)? I don't know what you're having, but I'm winding up my meal with a brandy and, as a special treat, a piece of the tarta de la casa.