Category: Spanish Culture and News

Amazing, for once common sense has prevailed. The ‘majority’ of the hotel mentioned in the post below will be demolished, with work beginning almost immediately. The government claims that the land on which it is built “belongs to everyone”, whilst the Mayor of Carboneras, where it has been built, claims that lasting damage will be done to the area’s economic growth. Perhaps he is right, and I am sorry for that, but there are other ways to manage areas of outstanding natural beauty whilst still keeping the local economy alive and well.

From El Mundo:

“1,500 sheep crossed the streets of the centre of Madrid observed by curious on-lookers, to celebrate ten years of the law that protects the royal flocks (ed. see first comment below – thanks Luis), and to defend their rights to seasonal livestock migration.” Photo – El Mundo.

Raul, Real Madrid Captain, has had twins, which apparently means they’ll win tomorrow…

Update: Barcelona amazing, Ronaldinho finest player on the planet, Real Madrid – Rubbish navel-gazing has-beens!
Update 2: Raul out for 3 – 4 months with knee injury. That’s nice, he can spend some time with the new borns! Might even improve Real Madrid as well…

Technorati Tags: Real Madrid, Derbi, Football

Fog has collapsed city traffic and flights into Barajas, yet another gangland shooting is discovered, train strikes are ruining half a million people’s month, and heroin is being sold over-the-counter in marginalised neighbourhoods.

But hey, none of that really counts as ‘news’ in Madrid this weekend. Far more important events are afoot. It’s ‘Clasico‘ time this Saturday night, the great Real Madrid-Barcelona football match at the Santiago Berbabeu stadium, and absolutely nothing is going to divert the city’s (or indeed the nation’s) attention from that. Forget all the recent political wrangling over Catalonia’s attempts to secure even more independence, this match is where the nation’s political, emotional and cultural pulse can truly be measured.

Bars city-wide will be packed, the police will be out in force around the stadium, on the alert for high-profile terrorist attacks and the usual hooligan nonsense, and once again the city’s most famous fountain, Cibeles, will be barricaded against the marauding celebrations of Madrid fans. With the way Madrid have been playing recently, however, it is more than likely that Cibeles will be spared any trouble this year, and real news will be allowed to trickle back through a city-wide hangover on Sunday morning.

Greenpeace are demanding the demolition of a monstrosity of a hotel built right on the shoreline of Almeria’s spectacularly wild Cabo de Gata National Park.

The activists claim that the position of the hotel is illegal, as it should be at least 100 metres from the sea. A hotel was once demolished on the Costa de la Luz in not dissimilar circumstances, but this time the construction company has building permission. For this one to be demolished the owners would have to be repaid the entire cost of the project, and that seems unlikely to happen.

But all my support goes to Greenpeace. There isn’t much unspoilt Mediterranean coast left here in Spain and what there is should damn well be left untouched. If I didn’t have ten thousands translations to finish before next week I’d be down there with them….

Anyway, my advice is to see the Cabo de Gata Park while you can, looks like it’s going to be one big Apart-Hotel golfers paradise before too long.

Check out this fine, spot on description of how to blend in with the Spanish. Can’t think of much else to add really!

(Thanks to Betty – whose blog url appeared in one of the nfs comments.)

Madrid’s sex scene doesn’t know whether it’s coming or going. The council has removed most of the prostitutes from the centre’s Calle Montera (they moved round the corner onto the emblematic Gran Via for a while, then headed en mass for the Casa de Campo park), and the city’s few ‘show centres’ do pretty poor business these days. Yet scandal reminiscent of the famous ‘Movida’ days of the eighties is set to hit the capital this weekend.

This Sunday, ‘Follartour’ (follar – def. – have sex, slang) is coming to La Riviera, one of Madrid’s biggest live music venues, for a 12 hour non-stop live sex show. The website blurb promises ‘a show that takes us to the end of our sensual limits,’ that includes ’35 mind battering sexual performances.’ This all sounds like a bit of an excuse for a giant swingers party to me, and there was I thinking that this sort of thing only went on in Paris. If it wasn’t for the 45 Euro ticket price for men (less for women), I might even be tempted to go and check it out – solely in the interests of journalistic research of course…

Mayor Gallardon has promised to plant 254,000 new trees in Madrid before the end of 2007. The plan is to cover the mess left by work on the M-30 ring road with urban forest parks, that will cover twelve times the area currently occupied by Madrid’s one and only real expanse of green, the city centre’s giant Retiro park.

Sounds great, until you listen to what the opposition has to say. Pedro Santí­n, the PSOE Environmental Director for Madrid points out that a new tree requires at least 50 square meters to survive, whereas Gallardons plans leave just 13 square meters per tree. “This means that in the space provided, the council can only plant 67,000 new trees with guarantees of survival”, said Santí­n, “if they plant 254,000 in two years, 95 percent will die due to lack of space”.

So will common sense win the day? A quarter of a million trees is such a succulent number, so appealing to the public imagination in a city with so few trees, that no doubt they will be planted anyway, water shortages will continue to prevail, and indeed many of the trees will die.

This is certainly the opinion of Rosa Villalba, a Retiro tree surgeon interviewed this week in 20 Minutos, who is fed up with seeing 40 year old trees ripped up and replaced by a dozen doomed saplings. “In 50 years we won’t see a single tree when we look upwards. We’ll just see empty sky,” she predicts, “the future is anything but green. In Madrid, at the rate were going, they’ll have to give us a bottle of oxygen to be able to survive. We’ll have to pay to breathe.” Now there’s optimism for you…