The leader of the workers' union CCOO, Ignacio Fernández Toxo, reckons that the new labour reforms put into place by the Government, will lead to reduced wages. He is - as usual - remarkably silent about the five and a half million unemployed, who have no wages.

Meanwhile, in another 'hotspot', where the university students in Valencia are meeting stiff resistance from the 'forces of law and order' in their current protests against cuts in education, the chief of police has just referred to the protestors as 'the enemy'. Judging by the video, he ain't kidding.

Later: The Madrid head of Spain's other union, the UGT, is José Ricardo Martínez. When not at the barricades in Madrid leading the protest about labour reform, he can be found at home counting his wages which are reported to be a cool 181,000 euros per year.

2012/02/20 22:10:47

Mojácar's post office is to move from its present site down opposite the Red Cross on the playa to a handier position under the Weenie office in the Montemar Centre. The Correos will be closed tomorrow, Friday, to expedite the move and will open in its new quarters on Saturday. This should provide some interesting chaos, as the Montemar Centre has parking for perhaps a dozen cars and the next door Parque Comercial is usually full of the shopkeepers' vehicles by around 10.00h.
The Correos has 1,500 post boxes plus a lively number of customers.
And its very own beggar (stamp and deliver).

2012/02/16 19:05:31

Mojácar is blessed with a visiting cyclist team (from Rabobank) over the winter months. They peddle around in a colourful and wheezing gang up steep hills and down the other side apparently all day long.
Prompting this email from a reader:
OOOHH how I hate these packs of cyclists that seem to think that they own the roads around Mojacar. They ride 2 or 3 abreast , with a following car, on the narrow twisty road from Turre to Mojacar. This morning at certain points they were cycling on the wrong side of the road.There was a build up of 15 cars by the time that they reached the roundabout at the Fuente. Sunday morning they were holding up queues of traffic from las Bouganvillas to Villa Ricos. Where are the Guardia when you need them!

2012/02/14 10:02:28

In the old days, they used to be local, but with the (one-way) change of fortunes, our beggars are now all foreign. The two that top n' tail my local supermarket's two doors are Polish. The one at the cigarette shop is French and everyone knows the old Romanian lady who handles another Mojácar supermarket on weekdays and Turre on Sundays. I've not asked the man with his dog at the other estanco, or the one at the post office as to where they are from, but they are not from around here. In the old days, beggars would sit outside the door of the church (they still do in more traditional towns like Granada), but here they appear to prefer commerce.
On Friday, we watched as one was being harangued by some well-meeting Brits with a 'the Lord will provide' line and a few coins to help sweeten the message. We were waiting in the butcher's shop as this was happening. The beggar then got to his feet and disappeared into the lotería next door coming out with a pools ticket.
The message had evidently hit home!
I also heard that the local police have ruled on a maximum of only one beggar to an entrance - since any more than that might tarnish the image of Mojácar!

2012/02/12 11:11:36

Homes for sale, plus rentals, will soon need to have an 'energy certificate' - a study which shows how the house is energy efficient, or otherwise. Apparently, this rule is European in origin and is meant to help the environment (our house, for example, leaks heat through the wooden door and window-frames). The new certificate, to cost around 250€, depending on the size of the home, will also carry recommendations to improve the household's carbon footprint. The certificate will become obligatory by January 1st 2013.
In Andalucía, it will also show how much it would cost to demolish the house (joke!)

2012/02/09 22:30:38

You are kidding, right?
In Britain, you are innocent until proven guilty. In France, with the Napoleonic law, you are guilty until proven innocent. In Spain, with the amusing system in place here, you are guilty until (finally, eventually, agonizingly) proven guilty.
Unless you happen to be a senior politician. ¡Claro!

Later: Rather supporting my comment above, Garzon's statement on Thursday: Garzón: 'La sentencia estaba anunciada desde hace meses'. (El Mundo)
Baltasar Garzón, remember, is probably the most famous judge in the world.

2012/02/09 17:59:48

The Junta de Andalucía famously demolished a house in January 2008 belonging to Britons in an area which, they said, 'might start an urban nucleus'. Tut tut. As we know, this insanity cost Spain many billions of euros. Now that same area is planned for 35,000 homes - apparently many of them underground - together with three golf courses and an indeterminate number of hotels. This is the Llano Central for the land between Vera, Mojácar, Garrucha and Los Gallardos. Ah, think of the investment... but don't think about the lunacy...
The present junta at the Junta de Andalucía famously doesn't like foreigners (as we all know) but will soon be replaced by a new parliament controlled by the Partido Popular. One can only hope (perhaps vainly) for better and more responsible treatment in the future for the million odd Europeans living or owning property in Andalucía.
Meanwhile, in the fading days of the PSOE here in the southern region of Spain, we read the following press release from AUAN, the property protection association in Albox:

'BRITISH EXPATS IN SPAIN FACE THE BULLDOZERS ONCE AGAIN'
British expatriates in Albox, a small provincial town in Andalucía, Spain, faced an anxious New Year in 2010 after police served notice that their homes were to be bulldozed after their construction was declared illegal.
Having overturned the demolition orders on the basis that they had not been informed of the proceedings, the couples vowed to fight on. Since then they have engaged in a protracted and expensive court battle to try and defend their homes.
Yesterday, one couple received the devastating news that the courts have again decided that they must face the bulldozers. Their home, in which they have invested their life savings, was constructed with planning permission from the local council in 2002 and possesses all of its necessary paperwork.
Lawyers acting for the Junta de Andalucía successfully argued that the property risked provoking an urban nucleus. The revocation of the building licence was upheld and the retired couple were ordered to pay costs. They are now faced with the prospect of an expensive appeal.
A spokesperson for AUAN, a pressure group made up of mostly British homeowners, responded to this latest ruling saying “Welcome to the surreal world of planning in Andalucía. The regional government claims that its much publicised Decree will grant recognition to illegal buildings in Andalucía but this couple, who have a building license, face demolition”.
The regional government argues that the property runs the risk of creating an urban nucleus. Which urban nucleus are they referring to? Promoters swamped this area with urban settlements and sold houses to unsuspecting Brits whilst the administration fiddled about with its legislation and comprehensively failed to enforce it.”
“Has the Junta de Andalucía learned nothing? Demolitions damage the beleaguered property market and the international reputation of Spain. The response of the regional government to this planning disaster is more tinkering with the laws, creating, in our view, even more confusion, complexity and traps for an unwary purchaser to fall into. Oh, and by the way” the spokesperson concluded “if you want to purchase a house in Andalucía, the Property Register, currently gives this house a clean bill of health”.

Contact: info@almanzora-au.org or Tf. 661329919

2012/02/09 17:51:03

Autónomos, those who are self-employed in Spain, will no longer have to pay IVA on bills until they are paid. This comes as some creditors, notably town halls, are very slow in coughing up. Sometimes up to eighteen months after the service rendered. Well, it's a start!

2012/02/08 16:32:17

The Councillor for Culture has been changing around the system at the Municipal Art Centre (the museum at the Mojácar fuente that never was) - first dropping the scheduled list of artists and their 'time slots' and now - it appears - dropping the art altogether. From tomorrow, Tuesday, until February 29th, we are to have an exposition of carnival costumes - the 'Historia del Carnaval en Mojácar'.
Under Franco, the carnavales were banned. He and his police didn't like faces covered or disguised in any way. Thus, until the return of La Democracía, there wasn't any carnival costumes to speak of, and less still, here in Mojácar.
Mojácar's carnavales dates and attractions, such as they are, are listed here.
Spanish Shilling
Almería24h

2012/02/06 18:57:31

The sky is blue, but it's pretty cold here in Mojácar. Our consolation is that it is colder everywhere else. The weather will apparently warm up on Monday but then get cooler again on Wednesday. Check the two week Mojácar weather forecast for more.

2012/02/04 12:13:17

The new Foreign Minister José Manuel García-Margallo has started his tenure with the usual claims on Gibraltar. He wants Spain and the UK to have a bilateral talk on the subject of sovereignty - without the input from those who would most be affected by any change: the Gibraltarians themselves. Spain uses various arguments to reclaim Gibraltar (that it is a fiscal paradise like, um, Andorra) or that it is an anachronism (like, ah, Melilla and Ceuta) or that, in this post indignado world, the wishes of the people should be suborned by the wishes of the powerful.
At least something good would come out of a Spanish Gibraltar: English would join Castellano, Catalán, Euskera, Galego and the rest of them as an official language in Spain!

2012/02/02 10:20:14

The Mojácar Town Hall has confirmed that it is to build a municipal bowling green - the first in the province of Almería - on public land near the Marina de la Torre hotels. The 'grass' will be the latest type of astroturf and the installations should be completed in six months.

2012/01/31 13:36:46

Barbara Napier started her riding for the disabled association - called Ánimo - here in Mojácar in around 1988 and it ran until ill-health (and a massive fraud on our savings) caused her to close down in 2000. Following almost a decade of hospital treatment and so forth, she started riding again after a visit to Oklahoma in 2009 and found that the riding helped where medicine was unable. She has since taken to regular riding in the Centro Ecuestre Albero in Almería - she rides bareback on the lunge line while performing exercises - as well as in Mojácar where she had the use of a Hispano Bretón therapy horse donated by the Centro de Equinoterapia Cadí Moixeró from Barcelona. She has now restarted Ánimo in Almeria with a group of professionals, including a riding instructor, a physiotherapist, a psychologist, a pediatrician, a veterinarian and other volunteers.
Today, D. Diego Mañas Romera from the Yeguada Valdesol, based in Sorbas, breeders of fine Pura Raza Española horses, donated a Friesian mare to Barbara in her capacity as the outgoing president of Ánimo.
See Ánimo page here.

2012/01/30 23:43:36

Well, one can only employ so many funcionarios and even the Junta de Andalucía is slowing down on public servants. On the other hand, at 31.23%, our unemployment figures are up there with the worst of them, so the latest thinking here is to send 'em abroad. The SAE Employment Office is currently sending out letters to their customers offering them jobs 'in 28 countries' and directing them to the 'European Job Mobility Portal', according to the Seville ABC paper. Sounds like the nineteen fifties have returned to Spain.
Throw in a ticket and we'll all go!

2012/01/29 22:13:27

Owing perhaps in part to Spain's Francoist employment rules (14 months or more payments per year, expensive firings and so on, corrupt unions funded by the state...), our unemployment remains the highest in Europe and, according to El Economista, stood at Year's End at 5.27 million - almost 23% of the workforce (not including me, since like many others I don't appear on the INEM list*). Figures for Almería stand at 33.3% unemployed (December 2011).

*Parados son aquellos que buscan un empleo. Muchos no aparecen en el dato del INE porque se han ido del país o han dejado de buscarlo. (El Mundo)

And just to make the point - I and many other foreigners living in Spain really love this country and its people and only wish it and them the best. Unfortunately, until the endless political corruption diminishes and rampant greed is brought under control; until the judiciary is brought to justice and a few sensible and intelligent people are able to be heard and to act; we can only watch as the place falls to pieces...

2012/01/27 13:34:01

The Mojácar town hall pleno tonight was - as usual - poorly supported by the public. Less than ten of us came to hear (or rather not hear thanks to the mechanical bangs going on outside in the Church Square) the points of the meeting. Later, in questions and suggestions, the Councillor for Tourism said that the Town Hall was in no way supporting the 'Mojácar Spring Break' (see below) to be held in mid April. The mayoress, asked about the municipal radio, said that she still hadn't received a licence from Seville (the rumour on this is that she is sitting on it): she also denied blocking the signal ('sabotajeando' according to the PSOE councillor) of Vera Comunicación, which often casts her administration in a bad light.
Once again, Angel Medina, opposition councillor for Ciudadanos Europeos, was absent from the meeting. He has yet to show up to any of them held since the May elections, in protest, he says, at the corrupt process of those local elections in Mojácar.

2012/01/26 22:34:09

In Seville, a 178m tall office-tower is being built 'con absoluta normalidad' by a local bank, the Cajasol, against the wishes (huh?) of the town hall. More seriously, the UNESCO has threatened to remove Seville's 'World Heritage' status if the building is completed. It seems the licence was given by the previous mayor of the city. Meanwhile, in Murcia, the soon-to-be-closed airport of San Javier is currently getting a three million euro refit (having spent a further five million since last Easter). The new airport at Corvera will open apparently between March and May of this year and all commercial flights will use this new airport (easier for eastern Almería residents!).

2012/01/25 13:33:16

'The Crisis has finished Residential Tourism on the Costa del Sol' says the headline in El Mundo. In 2011, only 600 homes were bought by non-residents against 4,600 just five years earlier on the Costa del Sol, according to the indignant real-estate sector. Angry? 'The first problem, even before the crisis, was the urban corruption... which mainly concerns the foreign residential market and then the lack of legal security that we have in Spain. If you you buy a home with all the right papers and then suddenly it appears that the Junta de Andalucía, having merrily charged IVA, then claims that the houses are illegal, they won't even return the IVA and then the Superior Court of Justice of Andalucía also says the homes are illegal what would you think? No one is going to buy under those conditions' said the president of the builders and promoters association in FITUR recently, who recommends buyers to find a good lawyer.
The president of the Andalucian Federation of Urbanisers for Residential Tourism, for his part, thinks that future buyers will come from Russia and the Middle East.

2012/01/24 00:09:36

The Casa del Burro in the Cordoba town of Rute is to close down after 13 years of operation for lack of funding. The installations are closing and the director has been 'let go' by the local diputación. The fifty burros andaluzas-cordobesas - an animal in danger of extinction - are being supported (more or less) by private donations. There is the likelihood however of a large donation from the estate of a woman who died in 2009 (as the courts go through her will).

2012/01/23 10:22:36

Fiestas, music and fun for Mojácar's 'Spring Break' 11th - 15th April, according to El Almería. There will be concerts, fiestas on the beach, live DJ competitions excursions, beach hand-ball championships, volley-playa, water polo (!) and indoor football, together with special events at Mandala, Maui and the Lua discotheques. For special offers on hotels for this event (including entrance to clubs etc), see link above. 'Music, sun and good times'.

2012/01/20 14:22:30