Political Talk

An article written by me in Spanish, which appeared in El Indalico here, touched on the two subjects of how the foreign population has been sidetracked from gaining any employment in our town's public sector (town hall, police and so on) despite our majority in this evidently multi-ethnic municipality (many of us foreigners having lived here for a long time and even schooled here) and secondly the lack of concern from our local authority regarding the sudden announcement that the population of Mojácar had been re-adjusted downwards by almost 20%, with the Town Hall  sublimely visiting FITUR in Madrid to drum up trade for the all-inclusive hotels during the short summer season.
This was received by the Tourist Department with a certain amount of hostility and an answer was soon forthcoming as a 'Press Release', oddly just in English (I think they don't have any friendly Spanish local media). The piece appeared on the Facebook page of Spectrum Radio, our only local radio (although there is apparently a licence for a Spanish municipal radio sitting patiently in the Mayoress' desk). Obviously, most of those who saw it - or who regularly visit the Spectrum Fb page for that matter - are perhaps unused to reading material in Spanish, so may have missed my original piece.
The answer, reproduced below under the flag of the local Partido Popular, quickly politicised the affair.

 
PARTIDO POPULAR (PP) MOJACAR PRESS RELEASE 09-02-15

We cannot turn a blind eye to the statements made in the Indalico newspaper on 31st January 2014 by Lenox Napier, the number two of the political party "Ciudadanos Europeos” (European Citizens) Mojácar.
Amongst other things he expressed a preference for encouraging more foreign residents instead of extra tourists the justification for such preference being the economic benefit of the former being greater than that of the latter. This assumption, by Mr. Napier, is like comparing apples with oranges, as a resident, be they foreign or not, is not a tourist. A tourist, as you say, will travel to Mojacar or Corfu for five, six or seven days holiday according to his or her budget. According to the service, facilities, leisure alternatives and the local environment… they may decide to return the next year, or not! The needs of a tourist can be met by the existing services for residents as well as others specifically aimed at them, but they need not necessarily coincide.
But you, Mr. Napier are not interested in tourism, as you said, so your opinion on whether Mojácar should attend Fitur or not, is irrelevant. What you want Mr. Napier is to rise up as the voice of those foreign residents in Mojácar that say our town is "poorly served", what a nonsense! Saying that there is no foreign representation in the local police, or the public or private health services is, in short, showing contempt for our current services.
Your attack Mr. Napier, would be credible, if it did not come from the number two of a local political party, elected by those foreign residents whose interests it claims to defend. Instead, the councilor in the town hall of the same political party, yes Mr. Napier your councilor of the “Ciudadanos Europeos” who has been absent from local politics for over two years. Not attending council meetings he has not represented the interests of those residents who have bestowed their trust in him. Whilst on the contrary, has found enough time to cash the cheques that the State, according to the law, has to pay to your political party. Mr. Napier’s attack therefore reeks of the self-serving cynicism and hypocrisy of someone who shows disregard those he is supposed to defend and thereby he discredits himself.
Finally Mr. Napier, we ask you kindly and respectfully, not to confuse, misinform or deceive people any longer.

And here's the response from a commentator over at El Indálico:

The Councillor for Tourism of the city of the Mojácar has made some statements on the article by Lenox Napier "The fall of 20% of the population of Mojácar" which appeared in El Indálico recently, statements which appear in a Press Release from the Town Hall, for some reason in English, which we won't feature here thanks to its impossible understanding and low literary quality. Besides which, it has only been published in English, no doubt so that Spaniards would not realize the profound ignorance of this man in the field of tourism.

More than twenty years ago, when Juan García was the mayor, representatives of the City Council maintained some working sessions with leaders of the World Tourism Organization to learn about the subject in an attempt to try and improve the situation of Mojácar in that field, which has always been our main source of wealth.

Even then, the conclusions were very explicit: Mojácar's two kinds of tourism must coexist: that's to say, holiday and residential tourism.

It was agreed that holiday tourism was very difficult to improve or to channel through the Town Hall. First of all because converting Mojácar into a world tourist centre was an almost impossible task thanks to the investment that would be necessary. We could never become another Disney World nor could we grow to challenge any of the cities or areas that were already consolidated in Spain such as the Costa Brava, Mallorca, Canary Islands, Benidorm, Marbella and so on. The recommendation from the WTO was that the Town Hall should facilitate as much as possible the performances of the hotel companies established in the municipality and leave the hotels to be responsible, for their own evident interest, to promote tourism. And of course the best thing the Town Hall could do to contribute in this respect would be by having clean beaches, well repaired and well-lit streets and all of our available services in tip top condition.

But the most important conclusion of those meetings was that the municipal effort should be devoted to promote residential tourism. Here, it was clearly possible to exponentially increase the number of people living locally and to enjoy the economic, cultural and social benefits which would follow.

Coexistence was seen as a key factor, and the sharing of both the benefits and the burdens with foreign residents if that could lead to a significant increase of the population and the level of income of the community.

To make this work, the local authorities would have to take a series of measures which should have been done long ago and now, in these pre-election times, are being described as to appear absurd and deceptive.

Yes, Mr Councillor, there must be a percentage of police officers, civil servants and all kinds of employees taken from the British inhabitants here, because this involves accepting the reality of our Community. But you, Mr Councillor, you do not understand anything, indeed, you are the one who confuses oranges with apples. Such a demand, does not, of course, show 'contempt for the existing public sector staff'. It is merely giving acceptance to the actual multiculturalism of the people who live here.

Since more than fifty per cent of the population of Mojácar is British, all the forms, notifications, announcements and so on must be in both Spanish and English, and correctly written, it goes without saying. There must be foreign staff at municipal offices to cater to the English-speaking public as well as police officers, teachers, doctors, councillors from the two nationalities, as well as multicultural festivals and celebrations, as they do in Huercal-Overa, Lubrin, Albox (to say nothing of the Costa Blanca and the Costa del Sol)...

Forget this silly nonsense of being one of the twenty-five most beautiful towns of Spain and work so that Mojácar will become a leading residential town which will provide both activity and income the twelve months of the year, not for just a few summer weeks as it is now!

And that loss of 20% of the population, as mentioned by Mr. Napier, should have caused concern and should also have motivated your team to research the causes and to propose solutions, instead of throwing a childish tantrum.

Mr Councillor, arrange some time to spend on study why don't you, perhaps an online course on tourism, or better still do nothing; but please do not write such nonsense, otherwise everyone will realize why Mojácar is in so deep a hole that it will be difficult to get out with a government such as yours and Citizens will understand why other resorts and communities are growing by leaps and bounds while Mojácar inexplicably continues to stare uselessly at its navel.

News, Mines and Industry.

Of course there have been lots of different newspapers produced in Almería in the last hundred and fifty years - here's one from Bédar from 1896 which 'defends those who represent the Spanish mining industry'. Bédar was an important mining town a hundred years ago, and I remember traces of the rusting funicular which once brought ore down to Garrucha when I first arrived here in 1966 (apparently built from Serrena to Garrucha in 1888). Back at the turn of the century, Bédar had a railway (the tunnels still exist) built thanks to the efforts of the British Vice-Consul in Garrucha (those were the days, hey?) called George Pecket (or George Clifton Pecket, as local historian prefer). The rail-line was taken out in 1942.

Pecket was around as far back as 1890, and he apparently died in Algeria in 1904. Garrucha itself was an important port, since there were barely roads into this area, and was a major exporter of ore from as far back as 1838 when silver was discovered in Cuevas del Almanzora. Iron from Bédar and lead followed in the 1850s. The first British Vice-Consul - in 1850 - was Mr Kirkpatrick, and a French Vice-consul opened shop a few years later and the port eventually had representation from Germany, Austria, Greece, Norway, Peru, Portugal, Italy and Uru­guay. Garrucha had its share of wealthy establishments and became in time (I read here) a sort of mini San Sebastian.
The Bédar mines, run by a partnership of Pecket and a Viscayan businessman called Victor Chaverrí was the 'Sociedad Vizcaína de Bédar', and Chavarrí made enough money to later build the ornate twin-towered palace in what is now the Pueblo Marina in the Mojácar coast (the palace cruelly turned into a never-opened hotel a few years ago).
So, what was the weekly 'El Minero de Bédar' concerned with (and did it take adverts)? 

El Cortijo del Fraile

I took a drive through Rodalquilar, the urbanisation and the old gold mines behind it, and climbed a raw graveled road several kilometres into the hinterlands of the Cabo de Gata/Nijar natural park. Eventually the track took me to the scene of 'Bodas de Sangre', Lorca's celebrated play set in events that occurred at El Cortijo del Fraile. Love is the only force stronger than hate, said Lorca (perhaps unwisely). Sometimes, well-wishers agitate to have the old cortijada repaired. It's too late for that now.

The Web-Edition

How to make money of your Internet news edition?
All newspapers want to make some extra dosh off the web-edition, and they want a high volume of visitors at the same time. But by making it hard to read, or copy, or share, or find... they will evidently lose volume, readership and advertising income.
Some newspapers have a special web edition, includes all sorts of perks, for a low monthly rate. El Mundo for example. Otherwise, you can visit their news site around 100 a month. Some others allow visits of eight or ten times a month...
Some newspapers have a 'pay wall' which means you have to pay them a subscription, otherwise you get just the first paragraph and a teasing fade out...The Financial Times does this.
Others only print a brief  news item and hope that you will buy the copy. The Costa News prefers this rather silly idea (which only works, rather obviously, if you are on the Costa).
Murcia Today uses the idea of transforming its text into a jpeg, so you can read the article, but you can't copy from it.
El Diario has a good idea - it runs stories which subscribers can immediately read, but ordinary readers must wait an extra 12 hours.
Some free newspapers show a faithful cyber-edition, relying all along on their advertising - such as The Olive Press.
The AEDE, association of Spanish dailies, are trying to control all the news on the Internet, through scare tactics. The Google News aggregator responded to this by closing down its service, causing a fall in viewing numbers across the board. Sites like Meneame have decided to ignore this threat, although they don't post links to AEDE sites. To combat this, the ABC has taken to sending me and anyone else they know, 'seven and a half' items of news, daily on my email address.
At Business over Tapas, which is a service for foreign property-owners in Spain, I charge a modest annual subscription, then send the weekly edition by e-mail. 

Residents, Residence.

There aren't that many bars open outside of Tourist Season, as if we must live in the shadow of this blight - 'Disney World' for a couple of months (me dressed as Pluto) and then 'Disney World Shut (Come Back Next Season)' for the rest of the year. Now with the official number of inhabitants of Mojácar down by 20% (the padrón falls from 8,360 in 2013 to just 6,838 on December 31st 2014 in what I am told by the Mayoress is an adjustment), perhaps we should spend some energy on re-population. Bring in some Murcians, as Queen Isabela did in 1486 when she defeated the old town. Or some more wealthy foreigners. How about a budget to bring back the fortunes of Mojácar? A campaign to attract settlers? It's all right, we promise not to vote... or ask for jobs, or representation, or an integrated community.
The picture comes from La Taberna, a great tapa bar in Mojácar Pueblo, under the old Moorish Gate.

Spanish Whimsey

I sometimes go to a jazz bar in Almería to enjoy some live music. This supposes some live musicians, sometimes from foreign parts. Here's the sign on their door, with an explanation of how to pronounce 'Backstage'. Heh!
The club, well worth regular visits, is the Clasijazz.

San José, with the Beachwalkers

A short visit to the large beach beyond San José, on the Cabo de Gata (which translates into English as 'The Cape of Rest-Harrow Cammock', according to my South American dictionary, which also reluctantly admits that a gata could be a madrileña or even just a cat).
The road is a track, with several prominent no-parking signs. It runs straight and determinedly a few hundred metres from the sea, accompanied by flowering century plants and a large plantation of chumbo, prickly pear, still free from the plague that is besetting most of the province of Almería. In winter, there are few visitors around, beyond a modest clump of German campers (er, visitors, campers aren't allowed) in the parking area. A short walk down from the cars took us to the magnificent bay of the Playa de Los Genoveses: the Genoese Beach. Obviously.
The fine sandy beach was almost empty, with just a sprinkle of walkers with their dogs, some wading birds who ignored us with the aplomb granted to all locals while being plagued by tourists, and over in the far pools, some anemone, sea-urchins and hermit crabs. Peaceful and quiet with the sea as calm as the shore.
Back in San José, a lunch with some Spanish friends, salad, beer and an alarming dearth of olive oil and bread. We made some disparaging jokes about the voracity of the visitors after a refreshing walk along the shores of the beautiful beaches that surround this resort. I would guess: don't come in the summertime, or if you do - bring your own aceite.

(I found this picture on Facebook):

Strange Food

An article about Mojácar food in España Fascinante, tells of  el cuscús, los gurullos, la morcilla mojaqueña, el ajo colorao, los guisos de pelotas, el caldo de pimentón, las migas and los arroces caldosos. For fish, there's el gallo pedro, los espetones de sardinas or jureles, los calamares a la plancha or a la romana, los boquerones rebozados or en vinagre, los salmonetes, la sepia en salsa, el pulpo a la vinagreta and la exquisita gamba de Garrucha.
Sounds mouthwatering.
In reality, we have many more curry houses than ajo colorao stands, More English diners, French eateries, Mexican, Chinese, Belgian, Greek, Argentinian, Irish, German, American-Cowboy, Italian, Thai and Romanian restaurants, Madrid and Catalonian joints, Valencian paellas, pizzas and greasy spoons, all turning out a varied and delicious menu, but being all run by outsiders, they don't count.
What a strange town, over half of us are foreigners, yet we are treated with the same policy as the Visigoths: Completely written out of the script.
After all, have you ever eaten a bowl of guisos de pelotas?

A Short Piece on a Long Story

It's an old town, Mojácar, stretching back when the mood takes it to the very earliest times. Juan Grima, a local historian, says it moved about a bit during the millennia, but always on the same fall of mountains, dodging Moorish corsairs, Phoenicians, tourists, Christian conquerors, tax-inspectors and Visigoths - in no particular order. Now the town is white, before it was brown. There's probably a double meaning there if you care to look. But it was always a little aloof, crouched on the final hill or two before the Sierra Cabrera clambers in jagged steps down to the sea below. We don't have much to show for it, there's no museum or particular collection of memorabilia in the Town Hall although they have just placed some old memories and a piece from a flour-mill down behind the 'Fuente' - an area that could do with some more parking, but the years show in the old stone work, the narrow streets, the broken bits of pottery, in the eyes of the old women.
Mojácar, from the prehistoric... all the way to 2015.

Tourism in Mojácar

With the build-up to the local elections of Sunday May 24th, we shall be hearing ever more about how 'tourism is our only industry' and how we must plan our town for the benefit of our visitors.
Very nice. Why do we actually want tourists though? It's in the quote, 'it's our only industry'. You see, we don't particularly want tourists, they slow everything down, get in the way, cause queues, caravanas, empty the shelves; they are noisy, belligerent, they throw up in our gardens and they crash merrily into our cars. They don't respect our quaint customs and often don't bother to dress when they go to the supermarket. Next year, they'll chose Corfu instead. The fact is, of course, that we don't want or like tourists at all: it's their money we like.
So, we have parades, concerts, rubber castles, fiestas, endless shows in the village square and an expensive tourist department (where the councillor is, for some reason, monolingual in Spanish). All paid for by the local residents so that we can have lots and lots of tourists. In the summertime, anyway. There's a great quote in this week's Business over Tapas that comes from a company in Mallorca called NT Incoming, 'one Russian tourist is worth five British ones', they say. Heh. They don't mean - I think - that our sock and sandal society is five times harder to bear than that of a Cossack, but rather that the Rooskies spend more dosh while holidaying in the Balears.
Those of us who have shops want tourists, but the shop-owners are only interested in those who come through their doors and buy stuff. Which in Mojácar, means tee shirts, leather bracelets and cheap Chinese-made nick nacks. No one who lives here buys this junk, it's for the tourists; cheap tourists evidently (no swanky American-Express-carrying Russians in the Hotel Best or its charming sister the Second Best). If you don't own a shop - and of course there are many, many families who do - then you don't have an abiding interest in seeing tourists take the last parking space outside the Parque Comercial. Now, those families with shops like tourists, under certain conditions already outlined, so they will support a political party, especially one run like a pirate ship by a close family member. The rest of us will merely wonder why the place looks like Disneyworld in the summer months and Disneyworld After It's Shut for the rest of the year.
Residents buy a house, they buy a car, a washing machine (or several if they choose López). They pay local taxes. They bring in money every month from outside. They love their home, their street and their town and want to see it pretty, not covered in sick. A calculation says that a resident spends the same in one year as 500 visitors to our town. Remember, the hotels are as cheap as they can be, with the food prepared in Málaga, with cheap foreign labour cleaning the rooms and scrubbing the floors (so, no jobs for the local there). Our tourist office spends its time and our money pandering to this kind of cheap tourism (remember the Hotel Moresco, closed for eight years now and owing 165,000€ in IBI) and, remarkably, forgets the one hotel open all year, full all year, and with wealthy patrons (who naturally wouldn't buy many tee shirts): The Parador.
Those foreign-born residents who live here all year round, enthusiastic settlers, are served by one English-speaking local woman in the Town Hall. That's their lot. There's no 'Foreigners Department' manned with fellow-Brits to help them get through the paperwork, or advise them of their rights and obligations. There's no alternative to clambering up the steep hill to the village ayuntamiento (strategically located as far away from any parking as is possible), to see if they have had their names taken off the padrón, or if there's something about them on the tablón de anuncios. There's no European Day or Foreigners Day or, despite being more than 60% of the entire community, there's no one from the foreigners with a job in the swollen town hall, where those locals who don't sell saucy tee shirts seem to end up.
Hotels are ugly things and they only last for so long. They might be converted into apartments eventually (like the old Hotel Mojácar), or left to rot like the Moresco. They may be built by speculators but never opened (the Hotel Chamberrí in Marina de la Torre or the ghastly hulk in Playa Macenas), or their permissions might be unkindly withdrawn (Hotel La Mata). Their owners are usually murky businessmen from Catalonia, plotting from afar to close down local apartment rentals.
Why should our politicians crow about tourism being our business? It's not: it's theirs!  

The Simple Life

I was asking the mayor of the small town where I was staying in Oklahoma about planning permits. Specifically I said, to build on a piece of land outside city limits. 'Well, there are three types of building; housing, commercial and industrial. For housing, building a place on your own land, there are no requirements at all'. You just build... whatever you like. No one comes from Washington with papers and judges and bulldozers, no one from Oklahoma City tries to interfere in local planning.
Public official are there - and this is a novel idea - to help rather than to obfuscate as they must in Spain.
The town where I was staying - I'd been to visit two of my kids over Thanksgiving - is growing. There is no limit imposed by the regional or state capital about growth. It's simply supply and demand.
The mayor works for the interest of his community. He is helped by an official called a Town Administrator, a professional who knows the rules and regs. Such as they are.
Paperwork is minimal in Oklahoma. Your 'title' to your car, for example, you can keep in the glove-box, or at home. You can sell your car, transfer title, just by giving the buyer the paper, a bit like how in works in a game of Monopoly. You then go to the local registry (there's one in every town, not like booking a visit with Tráfico and then trailing into the City for an entire morning). Simple. The transfer fee is 25 dollars. For that matter, a driving licence, obtainable in a morning from scratch, is 25 dollars!
Sales tax is low at 9% in that town, as compared with the flat 21% enjoyed across Spain.

Parking is easy in Oklahoma. There's room because there's planning. Planning because it makes sense to have parking spaces for clients or visitors. It's a practical society.
Walking around the town, I saw signs in many shop windows looking for staff. 'If you don't have a job here', I was told, 'it's because you don't want one'.
Yes, there's more room than we have here in Almería; but looking out of the window of the airplane as I flew in to our airport, I saw a lot of empty space... We have an unemployment of 36%, a black economy of 31% and a kleptocracy for a government. If it wasn't for the guns, I'd prefer Oklahoma...

Another One Bites the Dust (Heh!)

Following on from a recent post in The Entertainer Online...

Post by Alvaro Ojeda Sacaluga Mundo Ojeda.