Hard News is Good to Find

There's hardly any coverage of the, well let's call it 'News Event of the Year', especially for the British ex-pats, to be found in today's Weeniegraph.
We mean of course the Black Wednesday, the departure of the UK from the European Union: the Brexit. Whatever happens, we know that it'll happen double to the British living in Europe.
We are treated instead to an editorial about an event outside the British Parliament last week when a brutish British lunatic drove into a crowd and knifed a policeman to death before meeting his own violent end. Turning to Leaky Lee's page, we discover that '...there are thousands more goat grabbing gnat brains out there waiting to step into his shoes'.
The inference being that many Muslims prefer a good goat-fuck over even the notorious 72 virgins ('...enslaved to comply with his every twisted fantasy...') that The Leaker seems so read up about.
It's not easy filling up the spaces between the adverts in a free-sheet, and good editors are scarce, but the question returns: is this newspaper serving the interests of its readers?
For proper news about Spain; no adverts, no fluff and above all, no Leaky Lee, you should turn to Business over Tapas (here).

Fake News from the UK

From the sometimes fake news champion The Express: ‘Spain's EU exit on horizon as “only a miracle” can save nation from debt bubble bursting. Spanish university professors and economists are calling on Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy to come clean over its debt burdens as calls for the country to leave the European Union grow’. Well, let’s see – one does: Roberto Centeno from the far-right Intereconomía group (Wiki). But even he makes no mention (nor can there be one) of Spain wanting to leave the EU.

Oliver Cromwell's Commonwealth Lasted Twenty One Years

There has been talk on the Facebook about what to call the UK after Brexit - whether as a whole, or (increasingly likely) as just a core. An England and Wales sort of thing.
Naturally, those in favour of the EU (known as 'The Remoaners' by their rivals) and those who like Brexit (increasingly referred to as 'The Quitlings') have very different ideas of how to call the Royaume once the shit has hit the fan (Wednesday. Looks at watch).
But, analysing the different characters of the leavers and the stayers, those who hate racism and pettifoggery versus those who see a bright (if a trifle misty) new country, free from the shackles of garlic-eating foreigners, I think that 'The Fatherland' would be an appropriate name for whatever emerges from the wreckage.
I've even written the first verse of the new anthem:

God save our Fatherland

Long live our Fatherland

God Save Us: Please.

Long Life in Bigotry,

Here where we Once were Free
Three Cheers for Penury

God Save Us: Please.

I'll need a second verse though...

Big City News

It seems that, after several decades of doubt, interference, disapproval from Seville and 'what about my bit of land?', Mojácar's cunning urban plan - the PGOU - is to finally be approved.
The number of dwellings that catch the sun and inspire travelling artists is to increase from 9,500 to 15,000, and we can now plan for a permanent population of around 25,800 souls, says La Voz de Almería here.
This may, of course, include the Mojácar share of the massive project planned by the Junta de Andalucía back in the halcyon days of the Boom, in 2007.  That's to say, the giant 6,200 hectare Llano Central project, which will fill up the empty bit between Vera, Turre, Los Gallardos, Antas, Garrucha and Mojácar turning us, together, into the fourth biggest city in the province. (well, you didn't think the projected AVE train station in Vera was just for Don Paco and his chickens, did you?).
The Llano Central and its clutch of second-line hotels and golf courses and 25,000 homes-without-a-view went quiet after the bust of 2008, but things are now slowly improving, and a lot of important people bought some hitherto worthless land a decade ago...
If the Mojácar urban plan doesn't include the monster to the north, we are still looking at a progression from a small artists' village, to a tourist town, to a large resort.
Still with just the one narrow road along the beach... and apparently, no proper beach-bars.

The Dutch Nob

Now and again, a Dutchman called Peter Janssen likes to paint his body with provocative words and to leap over the ruedas at the bullring to make his point of view made to, precisely, the people who are the least interested in the world in knowing it: that's to say, bullfight fans. He's done this, to date, on sixteen occasions.

The aficionados have paid their money to see a legal (and state-approved) cultural spectacle, only for Dutch Pete or one of his mates to make his tiresome statement.
It's, at the very least, a presumption that his view of things is better than anyone else's.
So, he gets fined. Anything from 300 to 30,000 euros, for being a twat. He doesn't care - a 'foreign charity' coughs up the boodle.
Understandably, the toro people are fed up.  We don't interrupt your football games with silly slogans about half-naked millionaires chasing after a bag of wind, they might almost be saying.
The 'Fundación Toro de Lidia' have scraped together some dosh and gone to find some expensive lawyers, who in turn have come up with a cunning plan: Pete and his pals are now guilty of a form of violent coercion which is punishable by a jail term.
The Dutch crusader, currently in foreign parts, is now 'en busca y captura', which may help cool his jets if he ever returns to Spain.
El Mundo has more.

Beach Gravel - Not for Sitting on (though, in fairness, it does make a great sand-castle)

The beaches around here, from Mojácar to Cuevas, have just been refreshed by a large dump of sand for The Season. The timing wasn't perfect, as the last storm was still pulling the beach into the sea, but now everything is calm once again.
Except in The Ecologists' fur-lined beach-hut.
The sand, you see, isn't sea-sand, but rather comes from a gravel pit, say the tree-huggers. 15,000 square metres of gravel dust, stones, pebbles and anything in-between. Not the proper stuff.
Bad or uncomfortable for one's feet and under the bathing costume.
Furthermore, we read in Teleprensa that 'Ecologistas en Acción' reckon that the mix is mortal for the sea-dwelling fauna with which we are locally blessed.
...and so on. Those fur-lined beach-huts are expensive.
Our own opinion: Mojácar's shore-line gets very close near our famous beach-bars, and the master-plan of the Town Hall is to occupy a strip between the chiringuitos and the sea for their walk-way, bicycle lane and sundry other wonders. This will be a built-up rocky affair, looking delightful from the sea, but very crowded from the shore. The beach-bars will become kiosks, with no room to sling a hammock.
One answer to this is to make the beach wider at this point - with a small breakwater. The charming village of Costa Cabana, next to the airport, has just built eight breakwaters and their beaches are now fifty metres wide. No beach-bars of course, but lots of empty beach.
However, Mojácar doesn't do breakwaters (except where there are hotels). This could be from pressure, perhaps, by the many restaurants on the other side of the road?
So, we shall see how the Spring-break and the Easter crowd reacts to our sandy beaches. The next phase of the promenade will probably begin this coming winter...  

The End of an Era

The British government is to trigger the infamous Article 50 on Wednesday 29th of this month. This is the mechanism to begin the UK’s departure from the EU. It should apparently take two years to achieve. Maybe.

It is the beginning of – at the very least – a leap into the dark. The seminal joke circulating on Twitter says: ‘Don’t forget, the clocks go forward one hour on Sunday and then back sixty years the following Wednesday’.

This may be a tragedy for the United Kingdom (or, yes, a blithe and fearless ascent into some fluffy Wonderland), but, on the whole, it could be a good thing for the remaining 27 States within Europe.

Two reasons: firstly, because the UK was always the one putting the brakes on the European project and secondly, ensuring that no one else follows the British exit, we can expect a slightly more democratic and sensible Europe – the future Home of Straight (and Curly) Bananas.

The losers in all this are the ones that Spanish Officialdom might describe dismissively as being ‘en una situación irregular’. Those of us who weren’t planned for in the European Utopia: the expatriate British in Europe, the expatriate Europeans in Britain.

Between one thing and another, these so-called ‘bargaining chips’ (who don’t have much political representation) add up to a little over four million souls  - the population, for example, of Croatia.

We are left with the European reaction to all this – perhaps London Loves Business can explain:

‘...Fury has erupted by euro-sceptics after Jean-Claude Juncker boasted how harshly Britain will be punished and that no-one else will want to leave the EU.  He said that the member states will all “fall in love” with each other again and this will ensure the survival of the Brussels club. Theresa May was also threatened that Britain will have to accept demands on the divorce bill as Brexit negotiators are preparing of up to a £50bn settlement that is regarded as Britain’s share of the liabilities. Mr Juncker was asked by Germany’s Bild am Sonntag about his concerns of other EU member states leaving the EU following our example in quitting. Mr Juncker said: “No. Britain’s example will make everyone realise that it’s not worth leaving.”...’.

Not a happy divorce it seems, but then, they never are...