Semana Santa

Holy Week in Spain is a big event. Especially in Andalucía.

The capital cities of each province vie with each other for the biggest, best and most lavish processions.

Seville, reputedly, is the classic one to visit, closely followed by Málaga and Granada. Depends what you read as to which one is ‘best’. Other great Andalucían ones include Córdoba, Jaen, Cadiz and Almería. Not sure about Huelva, but probably up there with the rest of the best.

Our neighbours were discussing it some years ago. Córdoba, pronounced José to his family, had the best procession.

His daughters looked at him in disbelief.

‘You’ve never been to Córdoba,’ said Marcella.

‘I’ve seen it on the TV,’ he answered back knowledgeably and thereby ending the discussion with his patriarchal viewpoint.

Except he didn’t. The daughters laughed at him and told him he was talking a load of rubbish. They probably agreed that Málaga had one of the best.

My first view of Semanta Santa in Málaga was before the actual Holy Week (ie this week) when they basically have trial runs and cart out the religious effigies from their normally sleepy post in church to somewhere else. I have no idea why they do this, but it means that on a Saturday afternoon approaching Málaga bus station, your bus will be stuck in a queue.

So, dear readers, what happened when I later went to Málaga to view some Semana Santa processions?

Well there were a number of considerations to take into account. All of which I failed to do.

1. Processions start off late (remember this one, it’s important)
2. If they don’t start off late, they end up late as they traipse around quite long routes carrying extremely heavy tronos
3. If it rains, they start off even later (if they start at all)
4. There are a lot of people. This is not for the claustrophobically challenged. The pavements, bars, streets are just full of people. Forget going where you want. You go where you can, and even that is difficult.
5. There is a timetable. Ignore it and hope you are lucky enough to see something.

Not being aware of any of those, I had planned an energetic leap around Málaga to catch three processions. Good huh?

No. We got stuck in crowds, bars, rain and decided to catch the last bus home without seeing anything. But wait! Before we did, a procession approached. All was not lost. We stayed to watch. And it made the whole evening worth it. Semana Santa in Málaga is worth the effort. Well, only once anyway.

Next up, Vélez-Málaga. My local county town. Much smaller. While the Málaga processions are on main streets, you could touch the tronos in Vélez. A trono is probably a litter for want of a better word, but I can’t think of a good translation.

We were so close to one that was swaying so much I thought it might fall on us. The tronos are incredibly heavy, which is why the processions take so long. Every ten steps (or so it seemed), they put down the trono and take a rest.

The processions are organised by brotherhoods of the churches. In Vélez I was surprised to see a number of women carrying the tronos. Rather them than me.

Music is solemn and religious. Lots of battering drums. Very atmospheric. As many of the processions take place in the evening, or night, some are done by candlelight.

I do have some SLR photos of Vélez so if I find them, I will scan and add them on here, or maybe Everypic.

Photos are of the posters that are printed every year to publicise Semana Santa. It is a big event.

The penitents who form part of the procession. Eat your heart out KKK.

Jésus. Looking a bit waxy. As you do when you have died and come back to life

This is just a poster. Imagine this on a float surrounded by flowers, trees and whatever else

I’m always surprised it doesn’t happen in Gib, given the huge Catholic population and that Gib does celebrate Día de los Reyes (Day of the Kings for Epiphany).

But apart from that odd anomaly, Gib sticks to Brit traditions, so our Easter is Good Friday and Easter Monday, whereas Spain takes holiday on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. [Note, when I was in the civil service we got the afternoon of Maundy Thursday off too, for some reason I never worked out.]

Let’s finish with a little spice.

I see the Spanish are trouncing the Brits.

This time, in the crappy royal family stakes.

The head of Spanish intelligence was quizzed behind closed doors in parliament on Tuesday over whether public money had been spent on a woman whose friendship with King Juan Carlos has fueled talk of scandal and abdication.

[Reuters]

Nice one Juan Carlos. I wrote about his hunting safari in Botswana last year, but it seems this woman was involved in that as well. She ran a British-based company that acted as an intermediary, oh and well, just fill in the script yourselves, you can work it out.

But is Felipe (crown prince and heir to the throne) any better than Juan Carlos? Not in my opinion, certainly not with his anti-Gib stance. So why swap one poor monarch for another?

In this most important week of the Christian world, don’t you just love a Catholic monarchy where:

a. Sofia of Greece had to change her religion to Catholicism on marrying Juan Carlos of Spain (got to love religion getting in the way of personal relationships)
b. The king in his seventies is rumoured to have a lover in her late 40s
c. The heir to the throne of a Catholic country (Prince Felipe) marries a divorcee

Juan Carlos and Corinna.

And, of course the Daily Wail.

I’m eleven words short for a WPLongform tag. I think I can soon fix that ;)

A few sparks

‘Hola! Buenos dias,’ says our neighbour as usual.

‘Tengo algo para tí.’ (I’ve got something for you).

Well normally that means some veg, but it seemed he needed to bring whatever it was personally rather than hand it over the wall, so Partner skipped out of the gate and waited on the pavement.

In fact it was a business card from an electrician. Hardly something that couldn’t have been passed over the wall. Personally I think José just wanted to come on the terrace to tell me what to do with the garden again.

Apparently, when all sensible people (ie us) were taking their siesta, this electrician turned up to talk to the three or four houses in our part of the street. It seems he has been contracted by the electricity company to change the main cables from the power line to the houses so that we get more current. And he was going to start next week, ie this week.

But our neighbours had told him we were travelling back to Gib, so he could maybe start last week, so I had to ring him.

Well, the first thing to say is that it cost a bloody fortune on roaming for a brief mobile to mobile call. He’ll be getting a text in future.

Next, he didn’t want to work last week at all. He said it was going to rain so obviously he couldn’t be fiddling around with cable in the wet. Zzzzzzzzz! One frizzled sparky.

I asked if he could do the work without us, but apparently not, because he needs to test the leccy inside the house when he has installed the new cables. Fair enough.

We left it that I would ring him when I was going back to Spain so that he could schedule it in.

So we tells the neighbours.

‘Who rang him?’ demanded José.

Well it was me, as I do most of the Spanish ‘phone calls, although Partner can actually do ‘phone calls with people he knows, ie the ones who can understand his Spanish accent by way of Wales, Australia and Newcastle.

José looked put out.

‘Why didn’t you argue with him?’

About not faffing around with mains electricity from the grid when it’s raining? I don’t think so. Not something I would be doing in a hurry.

You could see José was biting his tongue not to ask, ‘Why didn’t you let your partner speak to him? This is Men’s Business.’

I should say at this point, that the original wiring for our house was put in by his wife Adelina, and her sister (used to be her sister’s house). Electrics aren’t José’s strong point. We have since rewired, after the original ceramic switch fell on the floor and shattered our electrics.

It fell on the floor, because I blew the fuse (the whole house was on one circuit) by using the hairdryer to try and look seductive on Valentine’s Night, and the water heater was still on, so boom! or rather bang! And when Partner was trying to sort the fuse he dropped the little ceramic thingy that passed for a fuse control box. Thereby wrecking our electricity supply totally.

Back to the impending visit of the electrician. We told next doors that they have a key so they could let him in. They didn’t want to take that responsibility.

They started arguing between themselves. ‘Sigue!’ snapped Adelina. ‘Sigue tu!’ replied José. ‘Follow,’ as in presumably follow the conversation, because he often doesn’t listen. We stood there laughing waiting for them to finish their marital spat.

‘How about we ring you up when he arrives and you can just drive up?’ suggested Adelina.

Yeah. That’s a great idea. We’ll just sit around waiting for a ‘phone call, jump to attention, put forty quidsworth of diesel in the Landy, pay 15€ in tolls (there and back) for the peaje, drive for three hours, and just scrub our commitments in Gib when we only drove back down a couple of days ago.

No. Life does not work like that. I’d reached an agreement with the electrician so what was the problem? We all have electricity, and quite frankly I don’t care if it gets replaced anyway. Why do I need more current? I don’t.

Anyway, here, for no particular reason, is a photo of the hills behind us that I took that morning. I loved the mist drifting between the low hills and the higher sierras.

The sierras de something or other

Of course when I get back, the cables may well have been replaced anyway!

And it’s all go…

Or rather – all grow – in the garden.

Firstly, the white jasmine, pink jasmine, winter jasmine or jasmine polyanthum in the header photo. Called winter jasmine because it flowers in winter, and the other two refer to the colour of the jasmine. Unlike yellow jasmine, which is not called yellow jasmine, but yes, winter jasmine.

The jasmine is especially for Andrew in Hong Kong for whom I have provided an internet gardening consultancy service. While I may not have solved his problems, or his jasmine’s problems, I provide photos of mine just to prove that mine is rampant and more. Luckily it thrives on neglect. Less is more when gardening, I think.

I doubt my broad beans/habas would thrive on neglect but luckily José has been watering them, and we’ve had some rain over the past few weeks, so I got a nice harvest of two or three kilos, of which naturally some went over the wall to next doors.

Beans

My spinach/espinacas or acelgas/beet spinach whichever it is, is also producing a decent harvest.

Spinach, next to Easter cactus

I use the small leaves for salad and the larger ones in casserole.

Spinach leaves, fresh from the garden

For the past few weeks I’ve also had a small plant that decided to seed itself on the garden path which is on the side of the street. Amazingly no-one has taken the leaves. I did though on this week’s trip, in case they tempted anyone in future.

Spinach is one of my favourite plants. Apart from the fact that it is so versatile as a veg, it also happily settles itself anywhere. Here it is nesting with the aloe vera which is just coming into bloom. Another useful plant, although we don’t drink the juice, I do use the gel for cuts, grazes, and as a general skin emollient. And, for cat bites of course.

Aloe vera, and more spinach

Wandering around town early one morning, we noticed some work generation going on. Because there is so much unemployment around, the local council tends to generate additional work for unemployed people. When their two years dole has run out they get three months work, and then can go back to signing their benefits.

Work generation although not much income generation (not much work either given that two out of three are standing around)

As well as construction labourers, the other work tends to be gardening and cleaning the beach from Easter onwards. Hard work that one. They get dropped off at one point and then just work their way down the beach picking up rubbish. Sounds ok, but it isn’t much fun in 30 odd degrees of blazing sun walking eight kilometres on sand/pebbles and wearing protective clothing while holidaymakers are idling around in beachwear doing nothing.

And here we have a van catering for the English-speaking market. Or attempting to.

Spot the error

Meanwhile before I left Gib for Spain, I noticed the Spanish Foreign Minister, José Manuel García-Margallo, said he would never set foot in Gibraltar unless the Spanish flag was flying above the Rock.

It may have escaped García-Margallo’s notice, but I don’t think Gibraltarians have the slightest interest in whether or not he ever sets foot on the Rock. Quite frankly if he did, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was stoned. With rocks. From the Rock.

This beliigerent and aggressive ‘politician’ has rejected the previous Cordoba Agreement signed by the socialist government under Zapatero, and, stated before the United Nations that the only talks on sovereignty of Gibraltar will be between the UK and Spain. Thus pushing Gib’s nose right out of it. After all, what do the people who live here matter? That’s before we even get into the Treaty of Utrecht, which as you all know by now, was signed 300 years ago by Great Britain and Spain, and included Spain ceding Gib in perpetuity. Simple.

He has, of course, also bleated on about waters and air space and criticised the local mayor in La Linea, Gemma Araujo, (who happens to be socialist and not right-wing) of siding with Gibraltar. Well, it’s hardly surprising when the economy in La Linea is, like most of Spain, up shit creek. And without Gibraltar providing a paddle, or rather, jobs for Spaniards it would be a hell of a lot worse.

Note, García-Margallo wants to continue with co-operation between the UK and Spain, and Gibraltar and the Campo (ie the countryside area across the frontier in Spain). Well, he would, wouldn’t he? How to have your cake and eat it.

In fact, never mind García-Margallo, it would be helpful if a lot of other Spaniards stopped setting foot in Gibraltar every day to work here and take money out of Gib to spend in Spain while Gibraltarians are STILL unemployed. Maybe you should recommend that to them Señor? And provide jobs for them in Spain? Sí, Señor.

On a closely-related theme, the first news I looked for on returning to Gib was the result of the Falklands referendum. You know, those Malvinas that belong to Argentina.

It was hardly surprising that the Falkland Islanders wished to remain British. In fact, they even topped the Gibraltar referendum results with a massive 99.8% in favour of remaining British. The Gibraltar results were, in 1967 – 98.64, and in 2002, a slight decrease to 98.48%. Hardly a vote in favour of leaving the UK though, just like the Falklands result.

But what do we have next? Oh, yes, the new pope, Francis 1, pressing Argentina’s claim to the Falklands, well, that’s surprising isn’t it? seeing as the 76-year-old pensioner is Argentinian. Bet Kirchner was clapping her pretty little hands when he got in.

It strikes me as being excessively hypocritical that the major players on the world scene bleat on about self-determination and then totally ignore it. Both Spain and Argentina refer to the problem that needs solving and that there should be bi-lateral talks only, thereby negating the people concerned to less than nothing. There. Is. No. Problem. But does anyone do anything about their claims? Do they stuff. Not only are they allowed to whinge on about it, people, ie the UN and other countries (invariably with Spanish speaking and/or Catholic interests), actually give them credence. Why?

Fact Number One. These are British Overseas Territories.
Fact Number Two. The population of said overseas territories wish to remain British.
Fact Number Three. People do not wish to be either Spanish or Argentinian.

The only problem about Gibraltar and the Falklands is that Spain and Argentina want them and the people who live there don’t want to change.

I did wonder to myself, after reading about García-Margallo’s comment, why the Foreign Minister of Spain was dealing with Gibraltar. If Spain is so convinced it is theirs, surely it should be the portfolio of the Home Office? Or whatever the Spanish equivalent is. Perhaps the Spanish haven’t thought of that. Too busy allegedly accepting backhanders, quelling protest marches and refusing to pay people dole money.

Yes, that’s right. The word on the street today was (could be right, could be wrong) that a number of Brits who live in Spain, and have worked in Gib, and their contributions have been transferred to Spain, are not entitled to dole money because they are not Spanish and there isn’t enough money to pay everyone. Good one eh? Compare that with the good old UK where every immigrant under the sun seems to be able to get housing, benefit, and health care, although naturally I couldn’t because I have lived out of my own country for too long. In which I paid 40% tax rate.

Disclaimer: I have never claimed any benefits from Spain, nor has my partner. We have paid wealth tax, which was an illegal tax imposed on foreigners in Spain and has since been scrapped due to an EU ruling. It wasn’t much, a hundred euros a year, but still, I’ve not had it back.

The phrase ‘couldn’t run a piss-up in a brewery’ comes to mind. In the case of the Spanish politicians (I’m talking both local and national here), they would accept a load of back-handers to fund the piss-up, sack all the staff, drink the brewery dry, before the guests arrive, and then lay claims to a neighbouring brewery on grounds of territorial integrity and shortage of beer in their own brewery.

However, while Spanish politicians are the scum of the earth, our local neighbours are lovely people.

Walking around the beach one day, we did the usual Hóla, buenos días, to anyone and everyone and acquired a new walking friend. In her dressing gown, naturally.

I say we, but I mean he, because as usual, being a woman I was superfluous. I amused myself by taking a few photos, while the two of them chatted happily together.

‘You speak very good Spanish, and understand very well,’ she said adoringly to Partner. I groaned. Until she told us she was ‘viuda’ and I could see Partner didn’t understand. ‘Widow,’ I said. Smugly. That was my sole contribution to the conversation. She still loved him to bits anyway, hell, it was only one word he didn’t know.

She was 83, and she’d been a widow for 16 years. Her husband had been killed in a car accident. She liked to get out and walk every morning and every afternoon. Partner and her had the usual Spanish conversation about if you don’t use your legs, they won’t work. ‘Exacto,’ she said.

Walking and talking in step

Got to admire a woman of that age, walking out in her dressing-gown, doing a couple of miles twice a day, and not being afraid to speak to a foreigner. One of the many good things about Spain.

And another one, that I have learned to admire, is their capacity to make something out of nothing. Beach furniture outside a bar/hut/mini-chiringuito, made out of pallets and scrap timber.

Tables and benches to go

To end up, yet more jasmine. After all, it only lasts for a few weeks a year, so might as well make the most of it.

Jasmine

Yet more jasmine

Housing prices in Gib – rent or buy?

Or live in Spain?

The housing market in Gib is odd to say the least.

1) Rent government housing

2) Rent privately

3) Buy government housing

4) Buy privately

As with any small heavily populated space, the usual maxim holds true. You don’t get much for your money, whether you are renting or buying.

After all, on a couple of square miles of land housing 30,000 people (more or less, depending on the ones who are illegal, and the ones who say they live here but are actually living in Spain) you can’t really have a palatial residence unless you are millionaire status.

Let’s start with renting. Standard private rent starts off at five or six hundred – if you are lucky. It’s more likely to be seven, eight or nine hundred a month. People in our not remotely flash block – no gym, no swimming pool, no parking, well not much really – are paying those prices.

An older tenant pays around four hundred a month, but he’s been here for ages and is probably on protected rent.

But what about government housing? A dream come true. Around £20 a week, or around £100 a month. No wonder Gib is full of Range Rover Evoques owned by tenants in government housing.

New government housing at Mid Harbour

Of course, when you are unemployed and living in government housing, it’s a couple of quid a week and no need to pay electricity/water bills. Or so we were told.

You may need to wait a while for one of these cheap flats though. One of our neighbours was on the housing list for nine years before she traded her £700 a month private flat for her £109 a month government one. She’s also since swapped to a far better estate.

Alameda Estate, built in the 50s. Very nice. Especially at £20 a week.

Flats in the private sector in Gib are often small, poky and badly maintained. So, many people opt to live in Spain. Cheaper cost of living and better value for money in terms of rented accommodation. People we know pay four or five hundred euros a month for much more space in Spain.

Buying a house is cheaper in Spain too. Even moreso now with the recession/crisis.

In Gib, prices of flats and houses vary hugely. If you want a house, a quick glance at Bray Properties suggests a cheap house is available for a quarter of a mill, while the most expensive one (looks ghastly) is somewhat over £4.2 mill. You do get six bedrooms, six bathrooms, a pool, garage, parking for four cars and views of the tankers in the Bay of Algeciras.

Expensive house

A house we worked on – the one in the pic above – detached, great views, pool, double garage, was on the market for one and a half mill, but is now under offer for one point three something. I wouldn’t buy it for £1300. OK, I would, but only to sell on or rent out.

Working on a house gives a huge appreciation of faults. Steep staircases, gardens difficult to maintain. Especially the ones where you are perching 20 foot in the air on a ladder or a ledge, I know, I did it. Grappling with bougainvillea or that stinky lanterna shrub. Then, internally, there are the damp problems, water ingress into the staircase. And the swimming pool that seems to lose water.

Back in plebland where I live, ie small flats, prices vary amazingly. You can buy a larger flat with more rooms than you can for a small one in the right area. What’s new?

Now, I mentioned government housing for renting. But, there is also government housing to buy. However, you can’t buy into these properties unless you have been a Gib resident for three years. Invariably, these properties are good value, ie larger properties for less money than on the open market.

Government housing here is not like council housing in the UK. Oh no.

There are some prestigious rental blocks. There are some shit holes – the ones that are full of drugs, crime, fast cars, the usual. One of our decorating clients (a lawyer) sold her private flat to buy in a new government development.

In fact, the only people who could afford to buy into the block had to be professional because when the minimum wage is £5.70 an hour how the hell can people afford to buy a flat costing more than £100K out of that?

You ain’t going to get much of a mortgage on less than twelve grand a year.

Of course, there are always the hostels. Toc H, charges around £40 a week, usually full of Moroccans and Portuguese. The youth hostel, Emilio on Line Wall Road, anywhere between £15 and £20 a night, used to include breakfast, no idea if it still does, although it was only toast anyway. Then there is the one in Devil’s Tower Road, no idea about those prices, but it is about to be redeveloped and current residents are being shipped out. To a former prison ship. About which they are not happy.

Don’t come to Gib without money. People do. But it isn’t cheap and the jobs don’t come easy.

My partner was talking to a fellow Welshman this morning, they were but a few valleys apart in South Wales. The name Abertillery came up which I always wanted to pronounce – Abber- tillerry. A bit like distillery. But no, it seems it is Aber – till – airy. That’s the Welsh for you.

However, seems you can buy a house in Aber-till-airy for £35K. There’s no work, but the housing is certainly cheap. Same Welshman also said he thought it had rained every day last year.

‘That’s why I left,’ said Partner, sagely. (Probably 30 years ago by now and it’s still raining there).

But bottom line – £2 a week for rent, if you are unemployed (allegedly), £20 a week in government housing, £500 a month and upwards for private rental. You can pay well over a grand. All plus bills.

Buying – £100K to nearly five mill.

And all this in just over two square miles of land.

Happy pig

Top marks for everyone who has dutifully taken their history lesson and learned:

a) who ‘occupied’ Gibraltar and for how long [answers: Moslem 700+ years, British 300+ years, Spanish <250 years, added bonus point for those of you who remember it is currently a British Overseas Territory]

b) that England (later Great Britain) took Gibraltar in 1704 as part of the Spanish war of succession, and the rights to Gibraltar were later ceded by Spain in perpetuity to GB under the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 at the end of the war of succession.

Remember that though, because there will be more on this next week.

Back to present-day Spain.

Wandering around our pueblo we noticed a new development at one of the local bar-restaurants (the village has six for some bizarre reason) – take-away pizzas. That could be useful for an evening meal. If we aren't asleep by the time it opens. Shall have to ask around and see if it is any good and find out when it opens.

Pizza para llevar

The nearest pizza places before this were in town which is four kms away. Not exactly five minutes walk down the street, and cold and soggy before you return, so you might as well eat at the restaurant in town which is far too much like hard work.

On we walked around the houses lining the main road, and we noticed this new and extremely compact vegetable garden. Got to love the way people use space in Spain. In the UK, we like to have lots of space to wander around in and feel affluent. Here, many people use whatever tiny bit of space they have to best advantage.

Compact veg garden

The house itself has been reformed and has been for sale for some time now. The entrance is below street level and it's not a very big house. A British acquaintance we knew went to look at it (it was cheap) but obviously decided not to buy.

The reformed house

A closer look at the veg garden: peas, broad beans, runner beans, cabbage, cauliflower, lettuce and onions. Pretty impressive. So impressive that when we returned home, we started making our plans for adding another veg plot on the terrace.

So little space, so many crops

On the return leg we stopped to talk to a pig. As you do.

(Just out of the picture on the right is a young cockerel, but I have my own, so he didn't get his pic taken).

Happy pig?

(The happy pig was the name of one of my childhood books – I loved it – happy pig had balloons and was generally such a smiley pig).

Hello pig.

Gently snoseing

Oh, here is his/her pal. With the evil eye.

Perhaps s/he didn't like my camera.

What’s going on here?

So cute, rubbing their sensitive noses together.

Still got my eye on you though

Poor little porkers, they will probably end up as jamon serrano. It is ironic that I come to live in one of the best cured ham-producing countries in the world when I am vegetarian, but life is like that. And I couldn’t eat either of those pigs. Not even evil eye.

And back up the main street, one of the local fieldworkers ploughing his ground. I can't call them farmers because basically everyone rents the plots of ground so they are not landowners and they don't have farms. So while I say 'his' ground, I mean the ground he rents. He's never without a huge cigar in his mouth, but sadly he kept turning round to check his work as he was ploughing, so no pic of cigar. Maybe next time.

Earning a living

Still, on with the gardening/growing/crops theme, here is what is left of my nispero tree. One of two, both of which sadly we had to cut down because the roots were beginning to cause cracks in the walls and we didn’t want to see the wall in the street one day, especially not on top of someone or someone’s car.

A sad looking nispero stump

Now being a right-on person and not using pesticides or herbicides, I didn’t want to use poison to kill it off. I did plenty of internet-searching and came up with a few options.

1) Dig it out.

All well and good but because it is in a narrow wall we couldn’t even get a spade in there. No leverage.

2) Salt.

This is meant to work, but apparently it doesn’t do much for the neighbouring part of the garden and remains in the soil. Another no.

3) Human urine.

Worth a go in the dark.

4) Chicken manure.

Got plenty of that too.

5) Seal up the stump to prevent the light getting to it.

Easy enough as well.

So, we reckoned on 3,4 and 5 as our options for a natural way to kill off the stump and roots.

It’s nearly two years since we cut them down, and initially after a period of a few months, I was sad to see that new shoots were vibrantly growing back, even under the plastic and black plastic pot.

This month however, those perky shoots seem to have died back. Could be a success story for urine and chicken manure. And certainly nothing else in the same patch of garden wall has any problems with growing. Two of my lettuces are right next to this tree stump.

Oh, and as well as being chemical-free, it was money-free as well.

When I’m not gardening, walking, cooking, or losing at cards at the finca (a disaster, I got beaten at seven card rummy and gin rummy) I’m reading.

Three books read were: two Jack Higgins, Exocet and Thunder Point, and Len Deighton’s Funeral in Berlin.

Good reads

As soon as I started Exocet I realised I’d read it before. An officer in the Grenadier Guards is seconded to the SAS, goes to the Falklands, gets pulled back to do another job regarding the potential (illegal) acquisition of more Exocets by the Argentinian government. The story moves through UK, France, Falklands and Argentina, and is a good action novel. Also somewhat timely given the 30 year anniversary of the war conflict and the forthcoming sovereignty referendum in the Falkland Islands. Needless to state I read it again and enjoyed it all over. Sometimes books are often better the second time around.

Thunder Point had a wicked anti-hero, or villain for a goody. An ex-IRA killer, who went on to sell his services to any terrorist organisation, is employed (under duress) by the British Secret Service to carry out a job for them in the Caribbean. Another good read.

Funeral in Berlin was a different kettle of fish. Apart from anything else it was set in the Cold War period – hence the scene of activity being Berlin and lots of toing and froing across the wall.

I did get lost in some of the double deals and triple deals and twists with every turn, but that may have been because I read too quickly and I also read it at night. The plot is centred around the premise of the Russians selling a scientist to the west, but nothing is ever what it seems with Deighton.

What is good about both these authors, is that they are hard-hitting (in different ways) and although there are plenty of deaths, there are no gory details or gratuitous murders. The people in their books are professionals and killing is their job. Whether you or I agree with that is another matter, but at least they aren’t writing about sick psycho serial killers and giving us every vile horrific detail about victims being tortured to death.

Before we left Gib, our neighbour plonked a load of books with us. I managed to read one of them at the finca (after I had finished the decent library books). It was the Ravenscar Dynasty by Barbara Taylor Bradford.

This is not a book I would ever choose. But it was readable, at least it was largely set in Yorkshire (Ms Bradford comes from Leeds, and worked in journalism for the Yorkshire Post company so I suppose we have something in common) so that was a minor advantage. It’s about family feuds, family business, handsome hero and, well, you get the idea. Oh, everybody is rich too.

Not one I would recommend, because it isn’t my taste, but if you like that sort of thing then no doubt you would enjoy it. It wasn’t well written, it wasn’t badly written, it just wasn’t anything. Looking up Ms Bradford, I see that her original manuscripts are housed in the Brotherton Library of the University of Leeds alongside those of the Brontës. Does that mean they are comparable authors? I would like to think not. I see Ms Bradford even has an award (OBE) for services to literature. Um.

Speaking of awards I can neatly mention some of the ones I have totally failed to acknowledge over the past few months.

Thanks to the following:

Gerry at Restawyle for Blog of the Year 2012 (told you I was late)

Helen at The Venomous Bede for Versatile Blogger Award

Sisterhood of the World and Very Inspiring Blogger from being mrscarmichael

There were some questions with this sisterhood one, so I thought for once I would graciously answer them.

1) Favourite colour – sludge green

2) Favourite animal – all of them (excludes people of course)

3) Favourite non-alcoholic drink – tomato juice with ice, lemon and tabasco

4) Facebook or Twitter – neither

5) Favourite pattern – Vogue Designer by Armani (I think, because I don’t have it to hand) an asymmetrical jacket, short skirt, all seams over-stitched on the front, and the jacket stiffened with iron-on interfacing before it was put together. Great design. Pic to follow at some point when I remember.

6) Getting or giving presents – getting simple ones – food or flowers

7) Favourite number – 5 and all its multiples, followed by sevens, followed by twos

8) Favourite day of the week – Sunday, it is so peaceful in both Spain and Gib, and when I don’t have to work Monday, there is none of that depression that sets in post lunch when you start thinking about WORK. It’s also a great day to cycle or walk in Spain due to less traffic.

9) Favourite flower – gladioli, lilies, crocuses, jasmine, hibiscus – oh, only one?

10) My passion? – Not a word I use often, although it does occur in my about me page. Otherwise those of you who read Clouds can work out what I get remotely animated about (the latest post being about horse meat in lasagna). Those of you who don’t read Clouds will just have to wonder.

And on blog awards generally, about which I am extremely lax, I never realised there was any value in them until I read timethief’s excellent post about backlinks today.

I’ll end on a serious point for Valentine’s Day because it merits it. Maurice on Duck? Starfish? but…23 has written an excellent post commemorating a tragic oil industry disaster that happened 31 years ago on this day. Not just that, he points out we still don’t learn our lessons from history.

Well worth a read.

Better than reading blog posts about red roses – £45 a dozen today apparently – and no, thank goodness, he didn’t buy me any.

The time has come ..

.. the Walrus said, ‘To talk of many things ..’

I’ve managed ships and cabbages in the last post, so let’s move on to sealing wax and kings (not sure I can fit in the shoes) with the Treaty of Utrecht, signed in 1713.

First up, a little context, and a rush through some Gibraltarian history.

Archaeological remains have shown that Neanderthals inhabited Gibraltar at least 100,000 years ago, and the Rock was possibly the last place of refuge for them, with other remains being found dating back to around 24-28,000 years ago. More on every pic about our archaeology.

The first modern occupation of Gibraltar, though, is regarded to have started from the eighth century (AD or whatever it is currently called) when it was conquered by Moslems in 711. Berber general Tarik ibn Ziyad landed in Gib to begin his conquest of southern Spain. The Rock became known as the Mountain of Tarik – Jebel Tarik – and the current day name Gibraltar comes from that.

Gibraltar was happily Moslem for many years, as was Andalucia, and we have the Moorish castle and remains of Moorish baths in the basement of our city museum. But in 1309, the Spanish decided to get their sticky little mitts on it, the 1500 inhabitants were allowed to leave for North Africa and Spain held it until 1333 when they surrendered to a Moslem siege.

As part of the reconquest of (Moslem) Spain, Gibraltar was taken by Spain in 1462 and remained part of Spain until 1704.

Note then, to get this into perspective, Gibraltar was Moslem for more than 700 years, and Spanish for less than 250.

So, how did England (it was before the Union of Great Britain in 1707) come into it? The short answer is the Spanish war of succession following the death of Charles II, the last of the Spanish Hapsburgs, who left no direct heir.

Back in the early eighteenth century things were no different to now, countries were hungry for power, territory, money – the usual really.

The main players at the time were England, France, Spain, Austria/Prussia/Hanover, the Netherlands and Portugal. This is a time of big empire building, particularly in the North Americas, and while all these countries were grappling for power in Europe, they were fighting for ownership and possession in the Americas and the Caribbean too.

Plus ça change?

Needless to state, France and England weren’t very pally, and when Spanish King Charles II died leaving his relative by marriage, Philip of (Anjou) France as his heir, England wasn’t prepared to see a potential union between two of the biggest powers in Europe. Neither was the Netherlands. So they found a different candidate for the Spanish throne, Archduke Charles, also a Hapsburg but from the northern (ie Austria/Prussia/Hanover) branch of the family. Portugal joined in with the Dutch and the English.

It’s slightly more complicated than that, but you get the general idea, and the war lasted from 1701 to 1714, although various countries continued in a state of war long after that.

So this is the background to why an Anglo-Dutch fleet took Gibraltar from the Spanish in 1704 in the early years of the war.

Towards the end of the war, the Treaty of Utrecht was signed, although it is in effect a number of treaties relating to all the various participants and different provisions eg some trading ones, slavery for example.

While the main provision of the treaty was to ratify Philip as king of Spain and for him to renounce all claims to the French crown, there were numerous articles where the countries swapped bits of ground around. Including Gibraltar. And interestingly Britain gained Minorca too, but we didn’t hang onto that one too long.

So, here is the bottom line. In 1713, through the Treaty of Utrecht, Spain ceded Gibraltar to Great Britain in perpetuity, ie for ever. Later in 1729, Britain’s right to Gibraltar (and Port Mahon in Minorca) were repeated in the Treaty of Sevilla.

Perpetuity however, wasn’t on the Spanish agenda, (still isn’t), and so they besieged the citadel of Gib in 1727, and again with a joint French force in 1779. This Great Siege lasted for three and a half years – Gib stuck it out, or rather the British forces did. The war finally ended with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in 1784. And the reason for that war, incidentally, was a trade war regarding the Americas.

As I said, power, territory, money.

So that’s the background and the reason why Gibraltar is British and has been for more than 300 years. Longer than it was Spanish, although not as long as it was Moslem.

Let’s get up to date with a laugh at a few journalistic blunders. I’ll start with my favourite, one of, or the oldest newspaper in the world, depending on whose claims you believe, our very own Gibraltar Chronicle, first published in 1801, and hopefully their standard of journalism was slightly better then. These days it rivals the Grauniad in terms of errors.

The Spanish cross-border workers association Citypeg has apologised to the Gibraltar Government over claims of discrimination it made last December. The claims led to Employment Minister Joe Bossano and the Gibraltar Joinery and Building Society issuing libel proceedings against Citypeg’s president, Francisco Ponce.

Unless I have something wrong, GJBS is a construction firm not a building society, Gibraltar Joinery and Building Services, I believe. Either way, I won’t be rushing to their offices to invest my money.

And in a story about the Royal Marines running to the top of the Rock, here we have a nice little error, regarding dates. Those of you who have paid attention to this history lesson will remember that Gibraltar was taken from the Spanish in 1704. Not 1702. Fine proof-reading there, Chron. And lack of historical knowledge/walking around with eyes shut. It’s not as though there aren’t flags all over the place proclaiming Gib’s tercentenary with the dates 1704-2004.

The Royal Marines were founded in 1664 and were instrumental in leading the capture of The Rock for the British in 1702 during the War of the Spanish Succession; hence the only battle honour which adorns their caps is the legend ‘Gibraltar’. Next year they celebrate their 350 years and it is fitting that they should commemorate the anniversary back on ‘their’ Rock where it all began – in aid of Royal Marine and Gibraltar charities.

Moving onto British/international newspapers, nice little gaffe from the FT (Financial Times – the pink pages). I used to like the FT and thought it was a decent paper.

Our Chief Minister, Fabian Picardo, had a letter published in the FT correcting the hopeless journalism, written apparently, in a leader column (aka editorial). His letter was restrained in my opinion.

(quote from the Chron which at least can manage to criticise other newspapers accurately)

Chief Minister Fabian Picardo this week wrote to the Financial Times after the respected financial daily made a glaring error about Gibraltar in an editorial column centred on Argentina.



“To be fair, the UK does not insist that Gibraltar islanders attend talks with the Spanish,” the FT said. 

“Then again, Spain has not elevated Gibraltar to the centre point of its foreign policy.”

Let’s deal with these one by one:

1) Gibraltar is NOT an island. The Falklands are islands. Gibraltar is a peninsula stuck on the end of Spain (and happily dominating the entrance to the Mediterranean – just thought I would add that one). Writing about the Falkland Islanders and then calling Gibraltarians Gibraltar Islanders because you are comparing the two is the sloppiest of journalism. And this from a leading international newspaper. Appalling. Equally as bad as a Gib Chron reporter getting the date of the Anglo-Dutch victory wrong.

Don’t they have atlases any more in newspaper rooms? Or alert news editors, sub editors with an iota of general knowledge?

2) Some sleazy deals were being done between the UK and Spain when Jack Straw was kicking around back in 2002 and Peter Caruana was Chief Minister of Gibraltar. But that was more than ten years ago. Perhaps the FT reporter isn’t aware our government has changed, we have a new Chief Minister, and the government is putting the interests of Gibraltarians before political deals.

Similarly the UK government has changed too. And as Picardo wrote in the FT:

“Successive British Foreign Secretaries have insisted that they will not engage bilaterally with Spain on Gibraltar issues, referring their counterparts to the Trilateral Process for Dialogue in which the UK, Spain and Gibraltar have agreed to discuss all matters of mutual interest except sovereignty.

“In addition, the UK has long agreed that it will not engage in talks about Gibraltar’s sovereignty with Spain unless the people of Gibraltar wish such talks to be commenced.



“Rightly, the UK is therefore clearly on record setting out that it is not going to engage bilaterally with Spain on the future of our homeland.”

[Another pedantic journalistic point. Someone on the Chron obviously hasn't learned how to use quotation marks. I've changed them on the above quotation, but when you open a quote, you put the marks at the beginning of each par. You only add them to the end par when you close the quote. I always remember that one because I got it wrong when I first started on a newspaper.]

3) Spain hasn’t elevated Gib to the centre point of its foreign policy. Does Spain have a foreign policy I ask myself? Does Spain have any policies at all apart from corruption, funding banks, continuing to employ dubious executives and chief officials in top positions, and stamping its foot and blustering about Gibraltar?

Meanwhile, I pointed out to my partner these appalling examples of journalism. He rolled his eyes, and said, ‘People aren’t what they were, they’ve been dumbed down.’

‘Down down, deeper and down,’ I sang, launching into a rendition of Status Quo at 7.12 am. It wasn’t popular.

Note, more posts to follow on the Treaty of Utrecht, and Spanish claims, border incidents, and some more on the comparison between Argentina and Spain, and the Falkland Islands and Gibraltar (not an island).

Key dates:

Falklands referendum on sovereignty: March 10 and 11 2013

Tercentenary of Treaty of Utrecht: April 11 2013

Credits: Andrew in Hong Kong for his witty take-off on my last post in the comments.

And Lewis Carroll for the original.

Roses, beans, lemons and cabbages

‘You can’t eat roses,’ my neighbour Adelina snapped at her husband José. ‘Why do you keep growing more of them?’

‘I like them,’ he said obstinately, and off they ranted away at each other having one of their convivial spats.

In fact, it’s not the first time she’s said that, according to Partner, who heard a similar conversation a few weeks back. When money’s tight, and times are hard, why grow roses?

The fact that he used to work in a nursery propagating roses and carnations amongst other tasks, might explain it.

And the gripe about not being able to eat them was probably influenced by my broad beans, which I took the first harvest from at the weekend.

‘You’ve got a sackful there,’ said Adelina leaning over the wall admiringly. ‘Not quite,’ replied Partner, laughing.

‘But at least there is enough for a meal, so that’s good,’ she said. And in fact there was, around one and a half pounds. Along with some new potatoes from the 15kg sack we’d bought, I added half a pound of my beans to give to next doors. After all, if José didn’t water my garden and nip out the top of the beans to encourage the pods to set, I wouldn’t have any beans at all.

Partner had just walked in from handing over the goodies when he was called back to the wall by José. Ah, yes, four avocados and three lemons.

‘We had visitors yesterday and they brought avocados, the lemons are from my daughter’s,’ he explained. I hate buying lemons when the trees all around are full of them, so I was well pleased.

Then we decided to walk down to the beach. As we wandered around the circular loop, one of our neighbours who works in the field called us over. He was picking some beautiful cabbages to take to the local corrida (veg wholesaler). Because our village is the centre of an agricultural area – a lot of the land was previously sea – we have a very large corrida, which gets trucks buying and selling from all over Andalucía and further afield.

Joss (well actually he is another José but he reminds us of Joss out of Bonanza) asked us if we wanted some cabbage. Yes please. How many? One, two, three, four? I thought he was going to keep counting so we interrupted and said one would be fine. He looked most miffed, and said ‘Two or three?’ One clearly wasn’t the right answer. ‘OK, two.’ He cut three anyway.

Luckily we’d taken some shopping bags to call at the village supermarket on the way back. The golden rule in Spain is that you should always take a plastic bag with you, and preferably a knife in case you find something growing wild, eg wild asparagus, prickly pears, or even just veg that have fallen off the carts on the way to market. The trouble was, the cabbages (around two kilos each), filled the shopping bag, so as we approached the village, I took the cabbages in my arms and walked home up the stream bed, and he went on into the village. Six kilos of cabbage is ok to start with, but by the time I’d walked up the stream bed – uphill – they were getting pretty heavy.

Later on when Partner had returned, Adelina came to the wall to chat and asked why we had given them beans when we had muy poco (very few). Odd, earlier on it had been a sackful! We explained that we wouldn’t have any if it wasn’t for them. Sometimes the gesture is worth as much as the gift. We gave her a cabbage as well, we can’t really eat six kilos of cabbage that quickly. Expect a few cabbage recipes appearing on the recipe page here!

It’s impossible to give something to next doors and win the game though. Later on, José returned from his daughter’s garden with yet more lemons.

The next day on our walk – the same one, why walk another route when walking around the beach is peaceful and beautiful? – we met a couple of neighbours. No idea what he is called, probably José or Juan like the rest of the village, but we refer to him as Walking Man.

Hauling in the net after an early morning/night-time fishing session

We’ve always chatted to him since we moved here, and some years ago, he told us he had gone to the village medico. Like a UK GP I suppose. The doc told him that his problem was that he spent all his time in his car and he should get out and walk more. So he did, and has been doing ever since. Each morning, around eight (earlier in summer), he sets off for a walk of at least an hour. Often with his wife, and sometimes with other neighbours or family.

When we met, we had come along the beach road whereas they had come in the opposite direction down the beach, a harder and longer walk than ours as they were walking on sand. We met them again as we approached the village, and they were still striding out energetically.

Contrast that with another neighbour who was given the same advice. He bought a bike and cycled off to visit relatives in the next village. The next we saw, he had ‘phoned his wife to walk to the village and meet him, so she could push it back for him, he was so exhausted. Hopefully he’ll throw the bike out at some point and we can rescue it for our free bike collection. He’s certainly never used it again after that first and fateful outing.

Next door, the two younger generations all weigh 90kgs plus. But, when we were chatting to the daughter and her husband on Saturday afternoon, they were going out for their daily walk too. ‘We try and do seven or eight kilometres,’ she said. which basically means walking into town and back. Do hope she doesn’t stop for an ice cream though when they get there.

The doctor who ‘prescribed’ exercise to the first two men was Peruvian, he’s gone from the village now, but what eminently sensible advice to give someone. No prescription for a silly gym. Just, get out of the car, and walk more. Of course, although people might well make a special effort to go for that walk, what they don’t do (with the exception of Walking Man) is build walking into their normal routine. Walk or cycle to the shops, don’t drive. My father would get the car out of the garage, pull out of the drive to go to the newsagent a couple of hundred yards down the street. You could have walked there faster. And all to buy a newspaper or a packet of fags. Honestly!

Meanwhile, as soon as I leave Gibraltar, chaos reigns. I received an email updating me about the dog’s Twitter account. No he doesn’t tweet either, but as neither of us log in, I’ve not got around to unsubscribing from the pesky emails.

ROYAL NAVY CONFRONTS SPANISH WARSHIP INVADING BRITISH/GIBRALTAR WATERS

Headline from the Daily Wail and full Daily Mail article here.

In summary, large Spanish warship decides to cruise into British/Gib waters and do some sabre-rattling. As you do when you have a country with nearly five million unemployed people and financial scandal surrounding the government about secret slush funds of £25M in Swiss bank funds.

According to the Gib Chron however, the figure in Spain unemployed is six mill, the highest since Spain returned to democracy following the Franco régime.

Over the border in La Linea, some 11,000 people are out of work in a town with a working population of 44,000. That’s an easy sum, 25%, slightly lower than the national average of 26%, but without Gibraltar it would be way higher.

Enough of politics however. Maybe next post. Time for some sunny Spanish pix from our beach walk. Our beach used to be a favourite location for wild camping by northern Europeans in campervans, but not any more. It seems there is a big clamp down. Given that there aren’t enough camp sites in winter, I see no reason for that.

There are a couple of chiringuitos (beach bars) down there, both run by the same people, but the one hasn’t been opened for some time. This time we went, it had been burned down. Doubt it was to claim on insurance as they probably don’t have any.

And the 48-hour vigil, which ended yesterday, by the Defenders of Gibraltar Group.

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Just another week in Spain

The biggest disaster of the holiday was undoubtedly the lack of chips.

Driving up the N340 from Gib, we planned to stop midway at Marbella to have a leg stretch for us and the dog, and grab a nice ración of freshly cooked chips.

It was a bit chilly with a nasty cold breeze, so we agreed to eat inside, although normally we would sit out by the Landy and Pippa would let us have a few chips share the chips with Pippa.

I walked around to enter the restaurant and order the chips. I looked at the door perplexed. Not only was it locked, the iron grille was in front of it and a chain was through it and padlocked. I shut my eyes, shook my head, opened my eyes and waited for the doors to be open. Open Sesame?

It didn’t work. Still closed and very firmly locked. I looked at the opening hours. Yes, winter hours were ten until something or other. Kitchen hours 12-4.30. That means full meals, you can always get a toasted sandwich or chips if you don’t mind waiting for the fryer to heat up.

This was so not good. I desperately wanted chips. I had spent the last hour and a half fantasising about chips. We agreed to stop off elsewhere and get chips but by the time we got there I didn’t want chips. I had wanted chips earlier. We pressed on home.

The next biggest disaster was the freezing cold wind that seemed to be gusting all over the Costa. For those who don’t know the Costa del Sol used to be called the Costa del Viento until it was renamed. After all, the Windy Coast isn’t quite the same incentive for tourism as the Sunny Coast.

It’s nothing like as windy as Tarifa which has to take the prize for mind-numbing wind (hence the high suicide rate in the town), but days of cold winds in winter is no fun at all. It means no sitting outside, no gardening, no external maintenance, and no cycling. OK, some idiots go cycling in the fierce cold winds, but I’m certainly not going to when there are plenty of nice warm calm days to cycle.

But when the sun comes up, and the wind drops, life is good.

The good life?

I am NOT asleep – A good life for dogs too?

However it’s not so good in the rest of Spain. We noticed some of our neighbours, who have/had a construction firm, had fallen back to the staple living in our area – growing veg. No idea whether they are growing it to sell or just to live on, but if you have enough to rent a bit of ground, at least you won’t starve.

Broad bean coming along nicely in my garden

The best trick is to try and sell your produce directly. The local corrida (wholesale veg market) not only takes commission (obviously) but also takes a minimum of six weeks to pay out. Although our village is small, we are at the centre of a big agricultural area and our local corrida is huge, with massive frigitrucks coming from all over Andalucía, and further afield, to buy and sell.

In fact, many of the local veg shops both in our village and in the nearby town, only manage to survive because they grow some of their produce themselves or their families do, or their neighbours do, etc etc. Quite a few of the veg shop owners in town come from our village, and the others come from other villages where crops are the mainstay of the economy.

For anyone who doesn’t know, the approximate unemployment rate in Spain is 25%, and that rises to 50% among young people. That obviously doesn’t include all the stay-at-home women who have never registered for employment because they spend all day cleaning, shopping, and cooking.

Does the high unemployment among young people explain the horrific incident in Valencia towards the end of last year when a dog was burned alive? Nothing better to do with their time? Want to victimise something, someone? Amazingly it survived and was treated – and then died. I’ve not included the link as the photos are very distressing.

But what about Fat Cats in Spain? Gatos Gordos literally, but for some reason the Spanish have Fat Fish – Pez Gordo!

While half the nation’s young people are out of work, and a quarter of all adults are unemployed, the royal family has managed to claw back a salary reduction they took in July last year. Or to be precise, Juan Carlos (king) and Felipe (his son), have recovered their previous salary reductions of 20,000 euros and 10,000 euros. That was a really significant gesture eh? ‘We’ll drop our salaries by seven per cent for six months, and then go back to the previous rate in the new year.’

Readers of this blog may recall that any respect I had for the Spanish royal family went out of the window last April when Juan Carlos cleared off on a private hunting trip to kill elephants in Africa (Botswana) while most of the country was suffering from the economic depression and imposed austerity measures. That’s before I even start on Felipe’s comments about Gibraltar. Hello royal family, don’t dabble in politics, there are enough idiots doing that as it is.

Naturally in the spirit of equality, Sofia (queen), and daughters Elena and Cristina, have had their budgets cut by 55,000 euros leaving them with a mere 260,000 euros to spend on their appearance expense budgets this year. The men get their money back and the women take a bigger fall.

The royal garage has taken a bit of a hit too, with the number of offical vehicles now standing at a mere 45 (!!!) from a whopping previous 72.

However, overall the budget has been cut by four per cent and for the first time is under eight million euros. ‘Twould be interesting to compare with other royal budgets, but I have better things to write about. And it’s a shame Juan Carlos and Felipe couldn’t quite manage on that tighter budget. Families live on that sort of money that they have clawed back – and less – all year.

Meanwhile, I should also add that the household budget does not include:

• royal trips – paid for by the foreign ministry
• security – paid for by the interior ministry
• vehicles – (all 45 of them) paid for by the finance ministry
• palace maintenance and other royal residences – paid for by national heritage

It must be good to be a taxpayer or on the dole in Spain, knowing that the king and heir to the throne couldn’t manage on a pay cut, and that the public is also funding their trips, personal security, cars and accommodation.

What about Iñaki Urdangarin? Royal son-in-law, married to Princess Cristina, who has been under suspicion of fiddling funds for nearly six years now. Tax officials are investigating alleged fraud and say that he used a ‘ghost’ company with his wife to conceal a million euros in earnings and avoid paying tax on the money.

Then there is the former Popular Party (Partido Popular) treasurer, Luis Bárcenas, who is under judicial investigation and just happened to have an undeclared 22 million euros in a Swiss bank account.

The PP is currently under fire regarding allegations that party members have received huge illegal cash bonuses on top of their legitimate salaries. The PP, is of course, the party currently in power in Spain. If you can call bailing out the banks, wrecking the economy, and leaving the average person on the street without a job, ‘in power’. Or perhaps they are indeed in power, a clear-cut case of ‘Yo estoy bien Juan,’ (I’m all right Jack) so stuff the rest of you.

Meanwhile, the PP wasn’t too happy that Spanish TV company Telecinco had the audacity to host a programme on the topic and threatened to take legal action against the company.

Surprised and stunned, several commentators on the show suggested it might be more appropriate for the PP to bring legal action against Bárcenas rather than a TV show.

[El Pais]

How about convicted criminals being allowed to head up Spanish banks? The government started a consultation this week reducing the requirements for people wanting to be in charge of the country’s banks. The banking chiefs don’t seem to have done a brill job so far, but let’s open it up a bit wider for even more irresponsible people to get their dedos in the till.

For the first time ever, having been convicted for criminal offenses will not be sufficient cause to stop an executive from taking a senior role in a bank.

Good news eh? Let’s have a few convicted crims running the banks – rather than unconvicted ones – or those who have been pardoned like Alfredo Sáenz, head of Banco Santander, initially sentenced to three months in jail but later let off.

Meanwhile the Catalunyan parliament has approved a sovereignty declaration. Not surprising really is it? given the brief summary of news above. Whether or not it will get anywhere is another matter as Madrid is not too keen on Catalunya – or any of the other more bolshie communidades – leaving Spain.

All stories on this post from El Pais which tends to be my preferred Spanish source of news, there is an English version, although the Spanish one gives more info.

Some very different perspectives of life in the real Spain this past week.

But back to the Costa del Viento.

Wandering onto the terrace one morning at sunrise I was surprised to see the clouds on the horizon looking remarkably like the view I see from Gib of Morocco. For a minute, I thought it had floated up the coast!

Is that Morocco I see?

We played at identifying cloud images. Before they quickly drifted off and floated away into nothing.

Pterodactyl?

By sunset the cloud had moved around again and Morocco was now in the southwest.

Morocco at sunset?

And Ensalada de Axarquía, a local salad named after the area where we live. The key ingredients are radish, orange and avocado, all of which are currently in season. Wonderful combination however strange it may sound. My neighbour adds the inevitable Little Gem lettuce hearts, but my taste is for something a little greener. Doesn’t matter what you add, so long as you get the three basic ingredients, usually a little onion as well, fresh green cebolletas.

Supper

What price life?

Honestly! I can’t leave Gibraltar for a couple of days before the place falls to rack and ruin.

There I am happily taking my Christmas/New Year holiday finally, when I get a notification on the Twitter account I never use, about the shooting in Gibraltar last week!

What shooting?

It seems last Tuesday that a man was shot in the late afternoon at Europa Point (photos of which were on my previous post – Europa – not a shot man). His injuries were so severe that he was moved from the local Gib hospital, to a specialist one in Cadiz.

Where, the daily bulletins were, that his status was critical. For those of you not familiar with hospital/journo speak, it means you might die, you might not. Fortunately a few days later, he was pronounced stable – ordinary speak: on the mend, and may survive.

The police arrested three men to help them with their enquiries/on suspicion of attempted murder. And then released them on bail without charge. Six vehicles were also seized. The cliff face at Europa was abseiled and a diver found a firearm on the seabed. Another gun was recovered from a local residence. As well as searching the six vehicles, police also searched four homes, two stores, two commercial premises and a garage. Ninety police officers were involved in the investigation – yes Gib does have a lot of police officers.

As for the injured 38-year-old man? He’s a member of the Royal Gib Police although statements have said the shooting was not work related and he was off duty at the time.

But this is no good. Gib is a safe place. The last time I remember a shooting was when I was crossing the frontier and the Guardia Civil opened fire. (Not at me, that I know of).

Meanwhile all this was going on, I had arrived back in Spain to chill out for a week. As soon as we arrived at the finca, José decided to come and cut back my garden. He used to work at a nursery, and still propagates carnations and roses, ferns, spider plants, and anything he feels like really. As you do at nearly 86.

However this was not what I had planned. Rushing around like the proverbial fly picking up after roses, jasmine, plumbago and everything else he recklessly chucked on the floor.

He cut down rosebuds and flowers. I decided to stick them in vases glasses. The jasmine and roses smell delicious, the plumbago is pretty, and the pelargonium may root. Or not.

Rosebuds and jasmine

Plumbago and jasmine

My first afternoon back is meant to be, have a beer, eat some food (often that I’ve left in the freezer before), read a book, and fall asleep at siesta time. Wake up and make salad. This plan was not happening. At all.

Next day, I tripped off down to the veg shop. My dear readers will know that I will never win shopaholic prize of the year, my only concession being visiting veg shops/market stalls, and health food shops.

For once, I even recorded the prices, so you can all consider I live cheaply or expensively. Prices per kilo and in euros unless pound sign added. And a Gib comparison added where appropriate.

Tomatoes – 80 cents, the cheapest ones and just as good if not better than the others. Gib price – I normally buy organic from Morrisons, £1 for four, no weight, I’d estimate around 10 ozs for the four.

Peas – 3.30/3.50. No peas in Morries at the moment, but in summer they vary between £1 on special, or £1.50/1.75 per bag. Unhelpfully I can’t remember the weight of the bag.

Setas (oyster mushrooms – but ours are huge!! and very fresh) – 4.50. In Morries they are now £8 a kilo!! They are so dear they are priced by the 100 grammes at 80 p so it doesn’t sound so expensive.

Avocado – 2.50. Mine came to around 43 cents. Morries prices – £1.50 ish for two organic ones. They didn’t seem to be ripe.

Oranges – 1.20, they were mid price range, there were some cheaper and some dearer.

Lemons – 80 cents. Around £1.75 in Gib.

Cebolleta. Fresh green onions – 1.40. No comparison with Morries because they don’t sell them and can’t remember the Gib market price.

Potatoes – 15 kg sack for 8.50 ie 56 cents a kilo. At Mercadona (Spanish supermarket) a five kilo sack is 3.50. In Gib, normal potatoes are around a quid a kilo. Organic Marie Piper salad pots are £1.40 for 750gms. The Spanish potatoes are much better.

Two barras of pan rustica in the same pack, 95 cents. A loaf of pain de campagne in Gib – 400gms, £1.85.

A block of tempeh, 250 gms, (does for two or three meals) – 3.34. Not available in Gib.

Jar of Delicious capers – 65gms – 1.20. Can’t remember Gib price. £1.75 maybe?

Jar of gazpacho olives – 1.80.

Pack of San Miguel, 12 x 33 cl – 5.10. In Gib, a pack of 6 x 50 cl is £5.20 (although went down to £3.99 before Christmas). I’m sure you can all work out that four litres for 5.10€ is cheaper than three litres at £5.29.

Bottle of cava – Jaume Serra Brut Nature – 2.15. Bottle of Montcadi in Gib, £4.29.

Meanwhile, I escaped going to the shops today and partner was chatting to a local on the bus. He’s got UK relatives so he’d been back for Christmas.

‘Rained every day,’ he moaned. ‘And so expensive.’

The cheapest cigarettes he could find were £7.50 a pack!! Really?? Just, good grief.

Beer was £5 a pint.

As far as I know because a) I don’t smoke and b) I don’t go to the pub, fags are about £2 a packet here (that may possibly explain a little of the smuggling?) and I think beer is around £3 a pint in the pubs.

Falklands and Twelfth Night

Cristina Kirchner has once again repeated Argentina’s erroneous claim to the Falkland Islands.

Really. What is it with Argentina and Spain that they want to claim territory that quite frankly is not theirs?

Unless the forthcoming Falkland Islands referendum proves otherwise, it seems to me that Falkland Islanders are quite happy being British. As are Gibraltarians.

So that should be the end of the story.

Or maybe Britain should say that it wants to recolonise America, Australia, Canada, India, Pakistan, Mauritius, Ceylon, South Africa, New Zealand, half of France, Belize, British East Indies, Malaysia etc etc

In cabinet papers released at the end of 2012, more information has been revealed about the Falklands War.

I do think this silly insistence on calling it a conflict is ridiculous. When one country invades another, people are killed, and a lot of armed forces are deployed, that strikes me as a war. Just because war hasn’t been ‘declared’ doesn’t alter the facts.

Unsurprisingly, our local newspaper, the Gib Chron, includes news from three parts of the world. Gibraltar, the UK, and the Falklands – because of the similarity in our status, ie British overseas territories claimed by a Spanish-speaking country. Because you know, we are nearer to them than we are to the UK.

There is a great comment in this Yahoo answers page about territorial integrity which is the phrase used by aggressive countries who want to expand – and colonise? invade? take over? – the nearest possible place.

 http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=1006052303523

The main items in the Chron were about :

1) Supply of arms from various countries to both sides
2) Reagan’s plea to Thatcher to hand over the Falklands to ‘international peacekeepers’ (my quote marks as I have no high opinion of peacekeeping)
3) Thatcher’s fear that Spain would invade Gibraltar

My personal memories of the Falklands War are limited. Although I was working in journalism at the time, our stories were limited to the ‘human interest’ ones. Who was going to sail to the Falklands, and what their families were feeling. Invariably pride that they were serving their country and hope that they would return safely.

I also remember the Gotcha headline. This, for anyone who doesn’t know, was published by The Sun newspaper when the Argentinian ship, the Belgrano, was sunk by British forces.

The sinking was controversial, apart from the huge loss of lives, because the Belgrano was outside the 200 mile exclusion zone (sounds a bit like fishing limits) and allegedly sailing away from the Falklands.

However, reading around, it seems that the British had changed their military rules to ‘attack anything that is a potential threat.’ And, the captain of the Belgrano later said that he was to attack anything that came within firing range. Seems the Belgrano was also preparing to return to the zone for a rendezvous, and not going home at all. A report at the time about the true destination of the Belgrano wasn’t made public by the British government as Thatcher didn’t want to compromise British intelligence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARA_General_Belgrano

Kirchner, of course, referred to it as a war crime last year. I ask you. Apparently the Argentinian government was considering taking the UK to the International Court of Justice. I mean that’s a bit rich isn’t it? Invade somewhere and complain when your ship gets sunk?

On the other hand, the Argentinian navy has always regarded the sinking as a legitimate act of war. (Even though we weren’t at war of course).

At least the military was honest about what was going on, even if politicians weren’t – and still aren’t.

I confess to not being pro the war at the time. I saw it as nothing more than Thatcher being desperate to be re-elected, and willing to risk military lives. Now I’m living in Gibraltar with continual claims from Spain to repossess Gibraltar, I have a somewhat different view.

So the release of the three documents I mentioned all look at very different aspects of the war.

1) Apparently Libya, ie Gaddafi, was planning to supply arms to Argentina. I read elsewhere that this was a route used by Russia, to save them getting directly involved.

2) Argentina was using a Brasilian airport as a staging post to receive weapons and then ship them into Argentina. And Reagan suggested sending a joint US/Brasilian peace-keeping mission to the Falklands? Seems not only America, but Brasil (allegedly in favour of the British) were both sitting on the fence, or jumping on and off as convenient.

But what about the American involvement in the war? Again, my memories of that, are that America didn’t help, and was initially sticky about letting ‘planes refuel at the American base on Ascension Island (which just happens to be British, I might add). Reading around however, it seems that America did provide significant help in terms of weapons and political support in the end too.

It’s interesting what a distorted view we have of international events. I didn’t realise how split the Reagan government was regarding the issue, with Secretary of State Alexander Haig, and UN Ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick both in favour of a settlement on the side of Argentina. Defence Secretary Caspar Weinberger, however, leaned towards Britain.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303816504577313852502105454.html

And yet, even when the British were entering Port Stanley, Reagan asked Thatcher to hand over the Falklands to avoid humiliation for the Argentinians. Uh?

However:

Thatcher was having none of it. The United Kingdom, she said, could not contemplate a ceasefire without Argentinian withdrawal.

According to the official No 10 note, she told him: “Britain had not lost precious lives in battle and sent an enormous task force to hand over the Queen’s islands to a contact group.

“As Britain had had to go into the islands alone, with no outside help, she could not now let the invader gain from his aggression. The prime minister asked the president to put himself in her position.

“She had lost valuable British ships and invaluable British lives. She was sure that the president would act in the same way if Alaska had been similarly threatened.”

Got to say, Good one there, Maggie.

And the British ambassador in Washington at the time, Sir Nicholas Henderson, had this to say:

“For a long time Britain has been identified with decline in the American press and in the mind’s eye of many people here – a deterioration not just in industrial output but in national will, in the essential dash and doggedness that were regarded by Americans as a hallmark of the British character,” he wrote.

“Well, the Falklands have corrected that.”

3) Perhaps the most interesting document from my perspective is the concept of Spain invading Gibraltar as a result of the Falklands war.

Margaret Thatcher feared a Spanish military assault on Gibraltar in the wake of the 1982 Argentine invasion of the Falkland Islands, previously secret papers have revealed.

Three days after Argentina’s ruling military junta seized the British dependency in the South Atlantic; the Prime Minister Mrs Thatcher called for an “urgent assessment” of Britain’s ability to defend Gibraltar, prompted in part by the “jubilant reaction” to the invasion in the Spanish press.

and

“Are we READY should such an invasion occur?”

In secret evidence to the Franks inquiry into the Falklands crisis in October 1982, which has been declassified today, Mrs Thatcher admitted that the threat to Gibraltar had left her living “on a knife edge”.

And at the same time, negotiations were ongoing to lift the border closure imposed by Spain.

Despite a delay, caused by the Falklands crisis, the land border with Spain was opened to pedestrians on 15 December, 1982. 

After Franco died November 20 1975 Spain worked towards democratic government and Britain tried to encourage the opening of the border by offering discussions on Gibraltar issues, including allowing sovereignty to be raised, through the Lisbon Agreement in 1980. When Spain joined NATO in 1981 it aspired to have use of military facilities on the Rock, but the 1982 Argentinean invasion of the Falklands saw negotiations suspended.

Can’t say I’m too happy about the raising of the sovereignty issue. Why defend the Falklands and allow sovereignty discussions about Gib? Politics, politics.

Browsing around, I also found out about Operation Algeciras. An Argentinian plot to blow up a Royal Navy ship in Gibraltar, the theory being that if the UK was having problems in Europe they wouldn’t send so many ships down to the Falklands. Simple enough operation. Divers leave Algeciras, attach mines to ship in Gib and swim back before detonation.

Bahia de Algeciras

The operation failed, fortunately, and the Argentinian agents were arrested by Spanish police, and discretely flown back to Argentina without charges or trial to avoid any international repercussions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Algeciras

And:

An interesting Falklands site

But onto a totally different topic. Gibraltar celebrates Three Kings with a parade – cabalgata – on the evening of 5 January.

This is clearly a Spanish custom, which is ironic, as the UK certainly never did anything like that in the 40 years I lived there.

Traditionally in Spain, children would get their gifts on the eve of Three Kings, rather than Christmas Eve. Now of course, they get presents on both nights. We have a similar parade in my Spanish pueblo, where they use real horses, but in Gib the animals are fake and mounted on floats. Having said that, it is a spectacular parade. It starts in Casemates, and finishes a couple of minutes away from my house at the southern end of Main Street, giving me chance to go back and take extra pix when the floats grind to a halt.

This float was a well-deserved first prize winner with a Brasilian theme and lots of samba music. What a great effort.

Stunning bird

My Christmas cards (all nine of them) are now down, and the festive season is truly over. But it’s nice to mark the culmination with a parade, with lots of happy people and a good-natured atmosphere. So more pix on the slideshow.

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