More, No Wait, Less Tourists (but More Money)

Following another successful session at the Fitur Madrid tourist fair this past weekend, Spain is preparing itself for the 2024 season.

The Costa Blanca tourist councillors and mayors at Fitur.

With numbers of visitors beginning to reach uncomfortable highs, there are plans to try and resolve the problems. After all, as we know, it’s not really the crowds of foreigners, so much as the amount they spend. The Express brings us: ‘Spain only wants to attract 'high-class tourists' as the country becomes overwhelmed. Spain is set to focus on 'high value visitors' including those with significant 'spending power' as the country battles high visitor numbers’.

Plans to spread the visitors around won’t work – after a cold and dull winter, the truth is that nobody wants to go and visit Huercal Overa (a market town in Northern Almería present – inexplicably – at Fitur) for their hols. They want Benidorm.

Tourist apartments are a low-hanging target. ‘Town councils may establish limitations regarding the maximum number of homes for tourist purposes, per building or sector’. There are, we read, 80,000 of these just in Andalucía. In Mallorca, ‘Holiday lets are to blame for Mallorca tourist overcrowding’. Controls are evidently overdue.

This is for the comfort and safety of the customer, peace of mind for the neighbours, and a more ready income for the hoteliers.

Even though tourist-rentals work out as being usually more expensive than hotel stays.  

Then we read of the ‘alarm at the boom in the number of tourist homes in Spain’.  Exeltur considers this as the worst problem facing the tourist industry in 2004 ‘ahead even of concerns regarding the Government cutting short-range domestic flights’.

Some hotels are still yet to recover from the Covid crisis, as we see in an article at Infobae: ‘Tourism is still not profitable: half of the hotels in Málaga, Madrid and Barcelona are at high risk of defaulting on the banks’.

The Bank of Spain weighs in, concerned about the ‘increases in the minimum wage, difficulties in finding staff and adapting to new technologies’ (none of which are particularly a problem for tourist lets).

But, while the high numbers of tourists staying in the downtown apartments is certainly a problem (with their little wheelie-suitcases trundling noisily across the cobble-stones) and one should always feel sorry for the grand hotels with their assembly-line business model, the long-term threat comes from elsewhere.

The looming climate-crisis.  

Why do Hackers always Wear Hoodies?

 

Hackers got into the Orange telephone last week, disrupting the service for a few hours. Later, the same hackers put out a statement saying how they did it and accusing Orange of using ‘weak’ passwords. A hacker, says Wiki, ‘is someone with knowledge of bugs or software who can break into computer systems and access data which would otherwise be inaccessible to them’.

Usually for profit.

Several big names have been attacked in Spain this autumn – with big names like Telefónica and Vodafone, TeleMadrid or PTV Telecom; Endesa, the City Hall of Seville and even a number of leading banks. All of these companies employ professional IT (information technology) people to keep their accounts safe. Spain is third in the world after the USA and Russia for the number of cyber-attacks suffered.

All we have, here in our homes, is a mild distrust of anything that looks fishy and maybe an old dog-eared copy of Computers for Dummies.

And as for ‘weak’ passwords: if they ain’t weak, then I’m not going to remember them; and if they are strong, then I will need to have them written down somewhere, probably on a Post-it stuck to the wall behind the PC.

I suppose being hacked on Facebook is easy enough, and probably reasonably painless. You see those posts sometimes about a terrible accident with someone you might know – click here! These are evidently for the gullible, but sooner or later, you’ll be caught out. This type involves you clicking on the link – the same as when your favourite bank sends you a slightly improbable message or your ‘daughter’ posts to say she’s lost her phone and can you send her some money (this is known as phishing). Click, and you are caught.

Few of us are computer experts – and we often only know a few routes through the maze without having the least idea of how the maze is built. Easy enough – who wants to design a jet-engine or an apartment block? Then, when a new update (or worse still, a full operating system) comes along – we throw our hands in the air: ‘I just got it working to my satisfaction, and now they’ve gone and fooled with it again’.

That’s probably all done to keep up with both the competition (Windows… Android… Apple…), to keep the shareholders happy and the programmers rich – or is it the other way around? – as well as potentially staying one step ahead of the hackers.

In the end, it may be for the best not to keep a link to your bank account on your mobile phone, just in case someone gets into the system. Or for that matter, keep your money under the mattress rather than in the bank – although this presents an opportunity for another kind of criminal.

Maybe – like my friend Alicia – not keep a credit card at all (usually meaning that I have to pay for lunch), although the banks will have insurance for this. Wiki again: ‘Cardholders' money is usually protected from scammers with regulations that make the card provider and bank accountable. The technology and security measures behind credit cards are continuously advancing, adding barriers for fraudsters attempting to steal money’.

So we do the best we can, keeping suspicious and full of mistrust as we answer or ignore the stuff we find on our computers and phones (in the hope that they won’t hack the banks, phone or insurance companies or anyone else who has our details).

It’s a war which we can only watch from the side-lines, hoping that the good guys win.

Drill, Baby, Drill

 The question we might ask at the beginning of this year is ‘What is in Store for Twenty Twenty Four?’ 

Nothing good by the looks of things.

The Government seems to be limping onwards, with sustained attacks from the right-wing, the media and the other usual suspects (including, unfortunately, some dark corners of the military), but it is sustained by a hodgepodge of small parties who all want one thing or another and – if it wasn’t for their dislike of the rightist Partido Popular with its sinister ally Vox – then any fracture could take place, followed by a triumphant motion of censure from the PP (thankfully, Vox doesn’t have enough seats to call for one).

So, we have lefties and commies and regionalists on the one side… and the conservatives and the far-right, often joined at the hip, on the other.

This would be manageable, but the social media, particularly TikTok, is doing all it can to raise the temperature.

With the ever-growing and largely unsolvable issue of the illegal migrants coming to Europe, the elections coming up (Galicia’s has been brought forward to February apparently to help the image of Núñez Feijóo the PP leader who urgently needs a victory) then the Basque Country to follow probably in June (no chance for the PP there), along with the European elections, there will likely be fresh gains for the authoritarian parties. Later, in the second half of 2024, Orban’s Hungary takes over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union.

There are elections elsewhere in 2024 – presidential elections in Russia in March (oh, the suspense – who could be the winner: the dictator or that fellow in the Gulag?), a General Election probably in the UK in May (where despite the Brexit being shown to be a disaster, there’s barely any pro-EU politicians with a look-in) and then later, Gor love us, Donald Trump might take the USA again.

Then there’s the invasion of Ukraine, which ‘is estimated to have caused tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilian casualties and hundreds of thousands of military casualties’.

And Gaza with over 22,000 deaths in three short months.  

Many more migrants, or refugees, or asylum seekers will be looking for our protection this year. The choice is stark: either tend to them or turn them away. Left or right solutions?

We have another worry as the summer rolls around: will it be even hotter this year? How much hotter can it get? It’s one thing living on the coast, or in the north of Spain, but what about those who live inland, where temperatures last year were as high as 47ºC and stayed that way for weeks on end. Indeed, this past year of 2023 has been the hottest since records began say the weather-folk gloomily.

Inflation worries us, as the prices are always on the rise. Maybe the wealthy suppliers are getting just a bit too greedy. Perhaps we shall post something on Facebook about them, although Spain’s wealthiest man, Amancio Ortega, gets a huge number of ‘likes’ and ‘hearts’ each time his name comes up on that platform.

Spain’s second wealthiest person, by the way, is his daughter Sandra.

Some good news might be the repeal of the 90/180 day rule for foreign home-owners (as they adapt to the new EES enter/exit IT system at all Schengen border crossings).

Maybe things will sort themselves out, with sensible people being returned to government, the world’s various wars being resolved and a cooler summer season than we either expect or deserve.

Anyway, and sorry for the above. Personally, I’m quite cheerful: I have a new house to live in with a nice view and a garden to potter about in. It's about a hundred metres above sea-level, you know, in case the poles suddenly melt... 

Inconvenience for Both British Visitors and Residents

 The British involvement with Spain has certainly taken a dive since the Brexit debacle.

We could blame the Schengen rules, or the misleading propaganda leading up to the referendum, or maybe the British sense of entitlement – whichever it is, the result for many of us comes down to inconvenience, bother and frustration.

Tourists will sooner or later have to get a permit to visit Europe. They will of course still be coming for their hols, and it’s only seven euros (good for three years) each. We read that the scheduled 2024 introduction of ETIAS, a special travel authorization covering most of Europe, will now begin sometime in 2025, so next season’s summer stay is saved…

However, another formality called the EES Entry/exit scheme has now been agreed to start from October 6th next year, with the extra obligation to provide fingerprints and facial biometrics at the border (plus the implied aggravation). Big Brother will be watching.

Visitors who hope for longer stays, but don’t have either special visas or their residence papers, must face the 90/180 rule.

Those bothered by this will likely be the people who own a house here – which, in essence – they can’t fully use. Most of these unfortunates had bought their properties when they were still able to stay here as long as they wanted: that’s to say, pre-Brexit.

The 90/180 rule is frustrating for non-Schengen Area (particularly British) home-owners in Spain. The rule states that (non-EU) foreigners from outside the partnership may only remain anywhere in the borderless zone for ninety days in any 180 days stretch. In short, only European citizens from the 26 Schengen nations (22 within the EU plus Norway, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Iceland) can enter Spain or another member state freely.

It’s not just the Brits, Americans and any other foreigner who suffer with the Schengen rules: Spain loses out as well – on house-sales, business and job creation. Most legal foreigners, at least, spend here with money brought from outside: they buy – or have bought – houses, cars and goods. Those who work here, either in an air-conditioned office or behind a bar (or indeed those poor souls who are in the plastic farms of the South) are bringing wealth to at least someone, along with their taxes and social security paid.

Understandably, there is an active resistance to the 90/180 day problem. A Facebook page called 180 Days in Spain is worth a look. With enough lobbying, maybe things will change.  Indeed, late news from France appears to show that the rule is already being eased there - so keep up the pressure! Maybe we shall hear something positive at the FITUR international travel fair to be held in late January in Madrid.

Those of us who are second-class residents can stay as long as we like; but we are, of course, only resident in the one country – in our case, Spain. Move somewhere else for an extended visit (even if there’s no border control) and we face the same 90/180 issue. Thus – I might fancy moving from Spain to Portugal to live – but what if they catch me? Could I become persona non grata? Indeed I could.

The only thing that hasn’t changed is taking out Spanish nationality. It’s still as long and as tiresome a process as ever it was.

Podemos (no podemos)

 What a phenomenon Podemos has been! From nowhere to greatness and apparently back to nowhere in just ten years!

Founded by Pablo Iglesias – the university professor with the pony-tail and a Masters in both Arts and Humanities – together with some like-minded companions back in January 2014, the party won an astounding 71 seats in the 2015 general election. Later joining with Izquierda Unida and other far-left groups, Podemos soon became the particular target of far-right politicians, together with part of the Judiciary, the Church, the Establishment, and the majority of the Media. Whenever a reasonably plausible story could be fabricated against the party, it would receive major attention from all sides: both the concepts of fake-news (‘bulo’) and judicial manipulation (‘lawfare’) became mainstream instruments of attack thanks to the group.

Many of the early members of Podemos were to fall out with Iglesias – some starting their own parties and movements (it’s perhaps a common problem with the far-left) – and Iglesias’ popularity began to wane after he and his wife bought an expensive house in Galapagar – a smart area of Madrid. The perception being that long-haired lefties should live in a draughty garret somewhere in a working-class neighbourhood.

 Pablo Iglesias with his wife Irene Montero

Following the April 2019 elections, Podemos (67 deputies) failed to join the PSOE in a government, which meant fresh elections for November of that year, where a weakened Iglesias (now with 42 deputies) finally agreed to support Pedro Sánchez.

Iglesias himself left his post as vice-president in the Spanish government in March 2021 to run for the Madrid regional elections (May 2021) where Podemos fared badly. He left the party to work as a broadcaster, leaving things to his wife Irene Montero and the current party leader Ione Belarra. In the July 2023 elections, the party ran within the Sumar movement, polling just five deputies, and in early December they subsequently quit their affiliation with the left-wing alliance and moved – possibly as renegades (‘transfugas’) – to the non-aligned Grupo Mixto instead.

The third strike against the party came from the flawed ‘only yes means yes’ law of Irene Montero – Minister of Equality in the last government. Neither the PSOE nor Sumar wanted her to return as minister, and their offer to give a ministerial position to another Podemos member was rebuffed (the member in question, feeling humiliated by his own partners, promptly quit the group, as have several other leading Podemos members in the past week).

Podemos today, ten years after it bounded onto the political scene, appears to be close to the end of its time in the frontline of Spanish politics. An editorial in the left-wing elDiario.es says gloomily: ‘Live fast, die young, and leave a beautiful corpse’. As for Pedro Sánchez, he now has another minority group to appease during this political cycle.    

Advert Blue

Why do we dislike adverts so much in our daily encounter with the computer? 

It’s one thing, I suppose, to be bombarded with commercial messages when the service we use is free - like Facebook - but even there, the main product which that company - and don’t forget its grasping shareholders - lives from, is us chickens. 

 

We are the ones, we and our information, likes, dislikes, gender, age and location, which is sold to the companies who wish to better direct their products. The fact that a proportion of those advertisers (or ‘sponsors’) are attempting to sell us a dodgy product with ‘last few days’ discounts should warn us: but no - we fall for all these scams and traps. 

 

Right now, a targeted advert from some obscure company which probably started business a week ago arrives every tenth post or so, telling me of the virtues of some household product which can cure everything, please read on… It's just a form of clickbait, a bit like the one you see in downmarket newspaper headlines. If you turn to it, the new page will offer a wordy article about the hundred different uses for salt, for example, interspaced with endless adverts. Yes, the client company pays young Mark Z to place its advert, which is in turn, full of adverts.

 

What are the moderators really there for - to stop some delightful girl from Denver writing to me out of the blue proposing a relationship if I only send her five thousand dollars?

 

If we expect it with Facebook (or the other social media pages which I must admit I’ve not sampled), then what of the ordinary news-sites? As Elon Musk says - 'Fuck the advertisers'

 

Once again, if you don’t know what the product is, then it’s you. Which is why advertisers advertise.

This is particularly unarguable with a free newspaper. The blurb is just space that wasn’t sold by the sales-reps or the ad-manager. ‘We need some filler for page eight’ calls Layout from its bunker in the back. Then perhaps, there’ll be some advertorial (that’s to say, paid-for copy) on page nine. 

Adverts: so long as they aren’t too much of an irritation, then fine. But what about - and we return to the computer or the television screen - the pop-up advert that suddenly interrupts one’s reading?

 

Of course, the medium needs an income. There are staffers, writers, printers, photographers, distributors, lawyers, owners and shareholders to pay. But we have pay-walls, subscribers and a wealthy parent-company putting out its own angled-copy. So yes, advertisers too, but we don’t have to like them (sorry!).

As for the media-sites with pay-walls - do they expect us to get our news from a single source and shouldn't they be, in consequence, advert free? How many annual ransoms should one be paying to get the full range of reporting? Mostly, one can get around them anyway with a simple paywall-bypass.

 

Then we have the war between the useful ad-block extension (a practical tool for the consumer) and the ad-block blockers, increasingly used by the media. It’s a struggle which will never end.

 

And so we come to YouTube, which will drop an ad-bomb half-way through a spoken sentence. In the same spirit of disorder, Spanish TV - which I rarely watch - will think nothing of interrupting a film with adverts, which understandably irritates the viewer while the mood is irretrievably lost.

 

But what of subscription TV? How about when one has paid to be rid of those pesky plugs that  ruin our viewing? What have we learned here?  

 

Simply this: that advertisements, or commercial interruptions, are a nuisance and a pest. If you pay enough as a subscriber and a streamer, you might be relieved of them. 

 

At least in the novel I’m currently reading, which I got from the library, there aren’t any endorsements. 

And then there’s the cinema - at least no one would dare stop the film to promote a fruit-drop. 

 

Which brings us to this question - do we ignore the advertisers buzzing around like flies at the stables, or actively decide to avoid their products? 

 

It’s easy enough when it’s a BMW, but what about - and it’s coming up to Christmas - a certain fragrance pour l’homme, or maybe a message about the many uses for potato-peel?

 

One thing’s for sure - this article will never appear anywhere outside of my blog… 

The Investiture

 The debate and probable approval of Pedro Sanchez as president is upon us. I'm in the USA right now, but the wonders of the Internet put me as close to the action as if I were sitting in the public gallery of the parliamentary chamber. 

It's been a long road to get this far. The local and regional elections of last May were disappointing for the Government and consequently, national elections were called with what turned out to be ambiguous results. The PP won the most seats, but not enough - even with their far-right Vox allies - to take the house. The PP leader Feijoo tried in the two-day debate in late September, but fell short by a tiny margin. Now comes the chance for Pedro Sanchez (sorry, there are no accents on this keyboard). 

To get this far, Sanchez had to court a number of small parties - including the regionalist ones.  One of these is the Junts per Catalunya, with its erstwhile leader Carles Puigdemont living in exile in Belgium, fearful of capture and imprisonment (like some of his associates) after the illegal referendum for independence in 2017. Sanchez needed the Junts, and the price, now agreed, was an amnesty (it will affect around 400 people in all). Some consider this as a coup d'etat, but it is better to think of it as a solution to the Catalonian unrest, which has lasted over a number of years.

The PP (which could have avoided this if it considered the interests of the country over its own) called for massive protests across Spain during the ten days running up to the investiture. This naturally attracted the Vox and other unsavoury groups - sundry fascists, the Desokupa folk, Fake-news experts, the right-wing media, anti-abortionists and other religious nutters and, for some reason, the appalling American broadcaster Tucker Carlson (tipped in some circles as Trump's running mate). Then there are the Youtubers and other keyboard warriors working their nefarious magic from home. 

Outside the PSOE offices in Calle Ferraz in Madrid, the protests have been particularly colourful. Signs such as 'Sanchez: Spain isn't for Sale'. 

We should remember the number of public companies sold to private interests (or even vulture funds) by the PP in past times (such as Telefonica, Antena3, Repsol, Endesa, Aena, Gas Natural, Iberia...). Of course, as we see these protesters wrapped in their Spanish flags, or singing Cara al Sol, we are reminded that there's more to patriotism than just hating the Catalonians.

The point is, that the PSOE and its allies have the majority and are thus equipped to run the country.  Spain has been without a government since the elections this August. It's time this was resolved. Feijoo can't continue to call for fresh elections over and again until his alliance wins enough seats.