A world of sport

The Spanish World Champion is still awaited

Way back in the mists of time, when I was a much younger and fitter man, at certain times of the year, one or two televised sporting events would kind of prick my conscience and inspire me to copy the paid professionals off the box. Mid to late April was always a favourite period because at this time of year Sheffield always hosted the World Snooker Championship and, yup, you've guessed it,I'd take my bat down to the snooker hall and try and emulate Steve Davis. The realisation I was a bit shite soon kicked in though and within about six weeks, quite often sooner, I'd turn my attentions to a different ball game, just in time for the Wimbledon fortnight.

English footy fans/Spanish cyclists, not a lot of difference really. in the beer gut stakes.

Tennis too was soon added to the list of sports I really enjoyed, had a bit of a bash at, and quickly discovered I'd never be much good at. Following a three hour and five set marathon, (that I lost), a badly sun burnt me retired gracefully on a gallant defeat. Nowadays, I've grown out of all that stuff and, aside from the very occasional game of golf in late spring, (just about when The Masters is televised), I've not hit a ball of any kind in anger for quite a while. Thinking about it, there's probably not a better phrase anywhere to describe my lack of sporting prowess than "hitting -  snooker, tennis or golf - balls in anger". In Spain there is a sizeable group of people, middle aged and slightly overweight men in the main, who should have done what I did but still haven't. For them, professional cyclists are the inspiration and they don't look like growing out of their adulation anytime soon either.

Aspe cycling club - 2011 team foto

As the weather warms up, more and more of these otherwise perfectly sensible blokes squeeze their portly frames into luridly coloured spandex clobber, climb aboard their expensive looking bikes and ride off into the sunrise. Unfortunately, they seem to do this every weekend in increasingly large numbers and in the process completely forget about, or more to the point ignore, other road users. July hereabouts is always something of a misery because for three weeks the Tour de France takes place and is beamed live and direct into households around the country, thereby provoking even more interest amongst the Spanish cycling fraternity. Not being weighed down by an over abundance of patience, you can probably imagine my state of mind when just last weekend I had the misfortune to chance across a latter day Miguel Indurain and about fifteen of his mates.

A recent view from behind my steering wheel

I have a regular Saturday morning appointment at nine o'clock in Aspe, the next small town west of Elche about twelve kilometres away. Getting there was fine, I didn't even have one of those heart stopping moments that catching sight of one of the many random Guardia Civil drink driving controls, (a feature of Spanish motoring), usually induces after a skinful the night before..The journey home though became something of an ordeal as Big Mig and his peloton of cronies, all dressed like fucking Power Rangers, bimbled along four abreast oblivious to the lengthy and increasingly frustrated queue of motorists behind headed by yours truly. So slowly were they moving I had time to steer with my knees, retrieve my mobile phone from my pocket and loose off three or four perfectly focussed photos of the inconsiderate group of two wheeled tossers.

You can trust the driver of this vehicle

In that situation, being first car back is quite a responsibility you know and the decisions come thick and fast. In actual fact, of these two adjectives, only the former couild be applied to the posse up front because they certainly weren't pedalling very quickly. Their leisurely speed therefore presented me with something of a dilemma; whether to patiently wait and continue to crawl along or attempt a risky overtake without knowing how long their train stretched out before me. Five minutes and less than a kilometre of contemplation later, the decision was made for me, when, on a reasonably straight bit of road, the black SEAT Leon directly behind me dropped it down to second and came blatting past. 'Sod it' I thought, and, trusting to luck, I slipstreamed the very young looking pilot. Thankfully, I had chosen to follow one of only nine Spanish car drivers in the entire country with his wits about him, who, not only passed the lycra clad pensioners but kept going at full chat so as to allow me to pull in too.

Imagine the "fun" I'm going to have when the Tour of Spain, (La Vuelta de España) starts in the last week of August. Perhaps that would be a good time to buy a bike!!

Gizza job

Everybody moans and groans about their job at some point don't they? it's human nature. Unless you're say, the Pope or Cristiano Ronaldo, both of whom only have to step outside their respective front doors to get mobbed by thousands, job satisfaction appears to be pretty hard to come by. Obviously, there's already a Holy Father and Real Madrid don't need any more diving cheats, so where does that leave the rest of us? Well, judging by some of the employment opportunities in Spain, on that one I'd have to say better off than most, truth be told.

Destination United Kingdom

Spain doesn't have as generous a welfare system as the United Kingdom so for this reason it isn't as popular with Somali's and sundry other bogus asylum claimants, the majority of whom know Article 8 of the Human Rights Act off pat before they even clamber down from the back of the trailer at Dover. Unemployment benefit does exist in Spain but to claim it you have to have paid into the system for at least a year beforehand. If you can't provide payslips, (nominas), to substantiate the claim and prove exactly what contributions have been made then you're going to be out of luck. With a safety net with that many holes in, it's hardly surprising therefore an underclass of citizen exists in Spanish towns and cities who scratch a meagre living any way they can. So tomorrow, when you head back to the office, shop or wherever else it is you do your complaining, spare a thought for a few of these poor buggers, or better still, a few of the even poorer buggers, (me for example), that same underclass of citizen regularly aggravates.

Except if they work near Elche hospital

I shouldn't really denigrate the efforts of others to earn a few quid for themselves, but to be perfectly honest, some people don't do much if anything to garner sympathy for their cause. Take for example, and I so wish somebody in authority would, the car parking "helpers" This group are invariably found close to large public and busy buildings or anywhere guaranteed a half decent crowd. Elche hospital is one such example where parking the car is notoriously difficult. Their modus operandi for want of a better phrase is to stand in the road and helpfully point out a parking space you've already seen and were going to use anyway. If it's quite a small gap, by means of dramatic hand signals, they'll enthusiastically assist as you back in inch by inch. Proud of yourself for getting it in there pretty straight, you emerge from your immaculately parked car to be met by an outstretched palm expecting at least a euro to be placed there. That filthy palm belongs to the hobo you almost ran over. I once had a massive row with one of these itinerants outside the Rico Perez football stadium in Alicante, refused to hand over anything and then proceeded not to enjoy Hercules versus Tenerife because I was shit scared the mush outside had damaged my car.

Splash and dash at the lights

Quite a few large Spanish towns have major thoroughfares, these are frequently two lane jobbies, with traffic lights to disrupt the flow of vehicles. The problem is when the smooth progress of motorists has been interrupted by, say, a red light which really can't be ignored, from nowhere comes a horde of bucket and sponge wielding carwashers. Whether you want them to or not, they then proceed to remove all the dead flies and crap of your windscreen, again in exchange for a handful of small coins or a couple of euros. In the approximately thirty seconds it takes for the lights to change, these extremely well practised folk can knock off four or five shampoos and sets, and, given the time available to them, they do a really good job. So too though can my windscreen wipers and washer bottle and these two are nowhere near as aggressive as the South Americans outside. Over time and because I know many of the likely ambush spots, some of which you just can't avoid, I've become pretty adept at second guessing the old red, amber and green. This invariably entails either absolutely blatting it past, a split second after the Spanish Highway Code demands I stop or hanging back in second gear two hundred metres from the junction before picking up the revs and cruising past with a cheery wave of my middle finger.

Slightly whiffy in the summer

Perhaps the most unfortunate of all the people who have fallen between the pretty wide cracks of the Spanish system are the late night bin scavengers, the hours are shitty, and, judging by the clothes they wear the work isn't that well paid either. Unike the United Kingdom, where household refuse is collected every three weeks if the weather isn't too bad, Spain has a daily trash collection, (usually in the early hours of the morning), with a weekly run for things like paper and glass. At this point it's worth mentioning, just for clarity, that our towns and cities have huge neighbourhood bins every couple or three blocks for the entire local community to make use of. This then represents a heaven sent opportunity for the less fussy to go rummaging through before the arrival of the nightly truck, (in the heat of summer the scent is sometimes altogether different and fucking horrible)!! The occasionally pungent aroma doesn't deter the intrepid scroungers though, who can often be seen, late into the evening, wielding long sticks, supermarket trolleys for their plunder and all manner of metal objects liberated from the piles of debris left at the side of colour coded skip thingy's. I've even seen tiny kids emerging empty handed from the receptacles after unsuccessful sortie's

Why not let Judy decide?

I'll finish up with a true story, or at least I think it is, about a couple who appeared on the Spanish equivalent of Judge Judy. The television show is called De Buena Ley, (A good law), and airs on Telecinco, the national channel five. A couple of weeks back it featured a bloke suing his wife because he objected to her job. Which was, wait for it, a sex line operator! So there you go, some people aren't simply content with bitching about their own work - this ungrateful sod saw fit to moan about his old lady's efforts for the family budget too.

Elche: City of..............

 ............a million palm trees and hardly any British people. Obviously there's loads of other stuff because more than 200,000 people live here, but I just used those two as my examples to grab your attention. A few blog entries ago, I can't recall which one otherwise I would have linked to it, I rather sarcastically suggested Elche only has two good things about it; a football club and the bypass on the edge of town. Some weeks after that rather stroppy event, I realise I was completely mistaken, should have chosen my words rather more carefully, and did my smashing adopted city a bit of a disservice. So here goes with my belated attempt to make amends.

A fabulous Moorish legacy

I've already done to death things that really bother me about the place, but what I would just add to that statement is check out this article a friend recommended, it's about a small Welsh town the author could easily have replaced with Elche. Anyway, I'll bash on now in an altogether more positive tone about the city. Over time it's been home to various invaders, many of whom have left their own legacies. A couple of thousand years ago the Romans arrived and promptly called the place "Illice" (pronounced ee-ye-they with the 'th' of they spoken very softly), to this day locals are still known as Ilicitano's or, for a single female, Ilicitana. Next up to try their luck were invading armies of North African Arabs, (Moors), who, upon finding very little sand and no dates, began to feel somewhat homesick. Their little leaving gift, just prior to being kicked out by some angry Christians, was hundreds of thousands of palm trees, which, these days are protected by law. The Greeks too also had a brief stay and nowadays one or two local organisations still bare the name Helike, although this Grecian handle is nowhere near as prevalent as the much better known Roman moniker.

Altamira Castle - in the heart of Elche city centre

Right bang up to date, estimates put the population of Elche, twinned with Toulouse in France and Oran in Algeria, at anywhere between 210,000 and 250,000 people; it's not at all scientific but taking the mean of these two puts it on a par with the city of Derby in the UK. I've never actually been to Derby, I'm sure it's really nice, given the choice though I'll stick with Elche, dog shit and graffiti notwithstanding, it's the kind of city that looks and feels old, I quite like that. Packed with historic buildings, and architectural gems, including Altamira Castle and the Basilica of Santa Maria, Elche combines the very best of ancient and modern, which are at ease with each other sitting side by side in comfort.

The Elche Alicante Santa Pola triangle, far safer than the one in Bermuda

Geographically, Elche is give or take twenty kilometres inland from one of my most favourite places, Santa Pola, the resort and fishing port that I once called home. Imagine, if you will, a triangle with these two places as the bottom corners, at the top about the same distance away and also on the coast is Alicante, the provincial capital. Rather curiously, folk from each of the three places aren't that fond of each other; so much so that I have it on reasonably good authority that not long back an Elche businessman was compelled to close his cafeteria/bar in Santa Pola because the locals refused to use it. Urban myth it may be but certainly one with a little credibility. (Is that not an oxymoron?).

A beauty spot within a beauty spot

I have to say, I first came to Elche for a day out years ago not long after arriving in Spain and, truth be told, I hated it. The city centre had a complicated one-way system, car parking was, (and still is bloody expensive), and on a stifling hot August day, I was scrabbling around for shade in a city I didn't know well. A very cleverly engineered chance encounter in April 2007 changed that biased opinion and since then I've grown to understand and love a very underrated small city. Elche doesn't have the cache of say, Granada or Salamanca, two of the more famous and historic Spanish cities, but it's no less nice. Visitor numbers are increasing year on year, and, thanks to a town council with an abundance of the handy pairing of civic pride and nous, so too are the amenities and attractions on offer. What doesn't half help to raise the Elche profile is the title, (in Spanish); Patrimonio de la Humanidad. Bestowed upon the city by UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, it's a World Heritage award given to the Elche Palmeral Park, a fabulous green oasis, one of many, in the heart of the city. For first time visitors, this ungrateful sod excepted, that is just the start of the surprises.

I wonder if they do mature students

Educational, Scientific and Cultural sum up Elche pretty well perfectly in just three words. A leisurely stroll through the city centre and beyond offers up a wall to wall cultural experience second to none, you can also add to that half decent culinary and shopping experiences too. Educational is taken care of in fine style by not just one but two seats of learning. The Miguel Hernandez University, (UMH), is a publicly funded facility that enjoys a burgeoning reputation with five campuses shared around the region, one of which is situated in Orihuela, birthplace of the Spanish poet after whom the University is named. The second, University Cardinal Herrera - CEU, is a private establishment and altogether smaller. It's the first of these two that does the business with the scientific in the shape of institutions specialising in neuroscience, bio-engineering and all matters biological, molecular and cellular amongst loads of other really complicated stuff.

The Basilica of Santa Maria

2011 is my fourth year living in Elche, and, having been so rude about the place a while back I hope these words have painted an altogether more flattering picture. I certainly intended them to. During the creation of this blog entry I've done quite a bit of walking around and it's only when you stop and stare that you can appreciate your surroundings. I live no more than five minutes away from the very best the city can offer and it's only recently I've started to realise how lucky I am. If you get the chance do pop by, Elche won't disappoint. As I began to say at the start, it's a city of so much.

Pyromania: The people's passion

Dangerous in inexperienced hands

Search for long enough in my blog and you'll stumble across articles describing the fun of the fiesta and the Spanish national obsession with dangerous things like matches and fireworks. What I forgot to mention, accidentally on purpose but for a good reason I'll come to presently, is that once a year the city of Alicante has a bit of a shindig involving both. Think about that for a quick second while I just add that the United Kingdom can only be trusted to play with bonfires and fireworks on one evening a year.

A typical Hoguera

For quite a few weeks now some incredibly talented and artistic citizens of the provincial capital have been hard at work preparing exquisitely detailed papier mache caricatures of fictitious, and sometimes famous, people which will all be painted with the same love and attention to detail in all manner of pastel shades.  Financed by neighbourhood collectives, Comissió's,  these fabulous monuments, Hogueras, some of which are 15 or 20 metres high, will then be strategically placed at important road junctions and plazas throughout the city on the evening known as La Planta. This, in order to be inspected by a local judging committee and admired, photographed and generally swooned over by the passing public.

Alfresco dining? certainly Sir!

In keeping with fiesta week everywhere else in Spain, various different events take place during Las Hogueras de San Juan, (the city's homage to Saint John and the coming of the summer solstice), which run from June the 20th until the 24th. For seven nights the second category Plaza de Toros is put to good use as bull fight aficionados enjoy the best corridas of the year in Alicante. Glance around and you'll see marquees and sound stages being erected, beer pumps being polished and the outdoor caterers begin to see euro signs. Meanwhile, the clock ticks inexorably onward to the 24th!!

Smell that gunpowder

In and around Alicante city, the 24th of June is the biggie; all fire brigade leave would have been cancelled months ago, burns units at local hospitals are on red alert, (have you figured out yet where I'm going with this?) and nearly every major thoroughfare is closed to traffic. The day starts just like most others and slowly gains momentum, until, by early afternoon, the real fun kicks off with a mascleta competition, which, the official guide book describes thus.   .....an explosive display of the concussive effects of co-ordinated firecracker and firework barrages, where people catch the pungent smell of gunpowder smoke and feel the earth shaking beneath their feet.....    Not a bad Spanish to English translation at all I'd say.   You like??
Read on then because that's just the start of all the mayhem.

Sometime around midnight, a few hours after the last bull fight of the week has finished, a sparkling palm tree rises from the highest part of the city, Benacantil Mount, atop which sits the imposing Santa Barbara Castle. This signals the start of the burning of all those street monuments, La Crema, the part of the evening the thousands and thousands of people, who by now have thronged the streets. eagerly await. One by one the simply brilliant Hogueras are burnt down to their skeletal wooden frames under strict instructions from those ever so attentive officers of Blue Watch, who I'm reliably informed, douse the millions of spectators with their hoses as each blaze dwindles away.

Alicante city map with the location of each Hoguera

This year, my sixth Spanish summer, I'm going to make the handy five minute walk from my house to Elche railway station and leap on the train for the twenty five minute ride to Alicante. Very thoughtfully, those jolly kind RENFE folk have laid on return chuffers round the clock so I'm going to make good use of their generosity and invest 3.50€ of my hard earned on the very comfy return trip. Assuming I make it there and back, look out in the coming days for a post script to this blog entry. If you don't see one immediately you can rest assured I'm being given expert medical attention at the Spanish equivalent of Holby City.

Alicante's beautiful Esplanada on a quiet day

POSTSCRIPT - SATURDAY JUNE 25TH 2230 HOURS

Well, we made it there and back unscathed and with nothing important singed off. I would just add though that my faith in RENFE, the national rail operator, was badly misplaced. Their promise of a return train every hour turned out to be when they fancied sending one, invariably at a random departure time only when the things were full, rather than anything close to a scheduled service. Maybe that's just me being churlish. Whatever. Alicante city centre and waterfront on the night of the Hogueras really are the places to be and busier than I've ever seen them; with visitors squashed into the usually large, open spaces shoulder to shoulder, the evening is a pickpockets heaven and a demophobics hell.

Fireworks, as always in Spain, start things off.

So difficult is walking from place to place with that number of people, the girlyfriend and I quickly realised our intended viewpoint, somewhere near to Alicante town hall close to the historic old town, was going to be out of the question. Instead, we settled for a spot at the northern end of the Esplanada, an exquisitely tiled walkway lined on either side by palm trees that runs parallel to the yacht marina. We'd been here a few days earlier on a leisurely stroll to admire the impressive Hogueras and could see immediately the lines of masceleta's strung around the model specifically for tonight. A short time later, an ear shattering racket from these strings, accompanied by plumes of grey smoke, fireworks and a huge roar from the crowd, signalled the start of the burning.


It was all over within moments, the flames licked hungrily skywards as weeks and months of detailed work caved in on itself, sending showers of sparks and dense black smoke skywards. Sooty smuts then headed in the opposite direction, covering my immaculate white polo shirt in unwanted black extras. Almost immediately, I was struck by a feeling of intense disappointment, a mammoth anti-climax in real time exacerbated by narrowly avoiding being soaked from the jet of high pressure water sprayed in my direction by an over eager fireman playing to the gallery. We sloped away, with me deep in thought or dismay, quite probably both, wondering what all the fuss was about and feeling somewhat underwhelmed.

Beautiful works of art were soon reduced to a water soaked pile of ash

Spain's biggest religion

El Rosario

The answer to my rhetorical question may not actually be the one you were thinking of. Judging by the vast quantities of rosary beads, for which the best description can only be ubiquitous, Catholicism is clearly massively popular up and down the country. As a rule of thumb though its devotees tend to come in two large groups; older folk and pre-teenage children who, from a young age learn the teachings of the Catholic faith, (Catechism), as the precursor to taking their first communion at about the age of eleven or twelve. Itself a massive event for the families involved. That then is the young and old catered for but what about the people, and there are millions of them, who are neither? Who are they and where do they perform their acts of religious devotion? Read on for those answers and more. 

Bill Shankly once said.........

For a start, and unlike kids and pensioners, they get the whole summer and every second Sunday off, although at busy times Tuesday and Wednesday nights can be a bit of a nightmare and every couple of years they might have to put in a few hours in June or July. So who exactly are they? If you've not guessed yet I'm going to torment you for another five or six lines. The objects, (plural because they often have more than just the one deity), of their desire alternately delight or dismay and yet these passionate followers still turn up in their droves week in week out in hopeful expectation. So fervent is their dedication, a great many television companies in Spain now feel compelled to broadcast events live for the insatiable masses. Masses that worship a pastime involving a spherical object made of leather being hoofed about various green fields in all weathers by eleven grown men.

Recre' - by Royal appointment 

Believe it or not, football in Spain genuinely does equal or better the huge popularity of that German bloke from Rome with a hat that's just a bit too small for his head. To prove my point I'll also just add that the biggest selling daily newspaper in Spain is a football based publication; when you've finished screwing your face up in disbelief, rub your eyes and read that again because it's true. Presumably though sales of Marca in and around Barcelona are a little down on other parts of the country because it's so heavily biased in favour of Real Madrid. Fans of Gimnastic de Tarragona and Athletic Club de Bilbao would strongly disagree, but Recreativo de Huelva are generally accepted to have been the first football club in Spain and just to ensure nobody forgets it, especially the aforementioned two clubs, both ends of Recre's Nuevo Colombino ground have the year 1889 spelled out in the blue and white seats.

Four hours to Old T by car

Obviously, believers in Spain can't practice two religions and so something has to give, invariably the confessional, because during the season a great deal of top class, in fact every category of football, takes place on a Sunday. In the UK much is made, usually by fans of Manchester City or Liverpool, of the fact Manchester United's fans don't have a Lancashire accent and travel to Old Trafford from somewhere like York or Basingstoke. Imagine then the fun this lot, with their sour grapes, could have in Spain, where every small or medium sized town wherever that may be in the country, has a traditional supporters club, Peña, (penya), where the members can pay homage to their heroes at Barcelona or Real Madrid. Even with a top division of twenty clubs and a couple more than that in the decent quality second category to choose from, you wouldn't believe the following the two giants of Spanish footy have built up. In point of fact, many fans have a "clasico" favourite, Madrid or Barca, and like me also follow their home town club. You can probably guess the preferred option faced with a choice of whether to watch one of the big boys live on television or head of to the stadium to watch a Second Division match. This a particular problem at Elche CF who have to make do on gates of considerably less than ten thousand, an ongoing problem exacerbated greatly by attractive looking fixture clashes.

Sunday best in Bilbao

The final word goes to season ticket holders at Basque outfit Athletic Club de Bilbao for whom, much to their disgust, the history books don't lie. Not only are they blessed with a successful side, (eight times league champions and second only to Barcelona on the all-time list of Spanish cup winners), their stadium, the San Mamés, is also affectionately known by their flock as The Cathedral, (La Catedral). This therefore bestows upon them the honour of being the only club side in Spain revered in a place of worship, mighty handy I'd say for the kids and the OAP's. Rather aggravatingly, Spanish blokes look good in football shirts too, probably the absence of a beer gut and tattoo's I spect!!

15 May 2011.....

Do keep up

....was a Sunday, just one of fifty two scheduled to take place this year. It was also the one hundred and thirty fifth day of 2011 and for those of a female persuasion looking to make an early start on the shopping, there were two hundred and twenty three days to Christmas. Family birthday's aside, anything else spring to mind? Thought not, so put the news on!!

Last December, Mohamed Bouazizi,  a Tunisian fruit and vegetable street seller set himself alight in protest at the dictatorial Government regime which denied him, and many others of his impoverished ilk, the opportunity to scratch a meagre living. Long before his death, he was the first of hundreds, the protests had spread far and wide as downtrodden citizens found their voices. Other nations, Algeria, Bahrain, Libya, Yemen, Egypt and Syria to name but a few, soon followed and for the same reasons as countless pro-democracy rebellions took hold and a popular uprising, the Arab Spring, very quickly grew a pair.

The Cathedral or great Mosque of Córdoba

Even though they both begin with the letter C, Cairo isn't Cordoba and even the giant Mezquita, (pronounced meth-kee-ter), once a great mosque in the beautiful Andalusian city, provides little more than a tenuous connection between the two. Sentiment clearly crosses continents though because, inspired by the manner in which mass resentment forced historic change throughout the Middle East and North Africa and fearful for their own future, Spanish students, youth groups, unemployed folk and a great many employees; the self styled "Indignados" (The indignant), embarked upon their own campaign of protest in the very heart of their nations capital Madrid. Tahrir Square anyone?

Left - Mr Bean   Right - The Spanish PM 

The Spanish economy is massive, the fourth largest in the eurozone and amongst the top twelve in the world, it's also in deep, deep trouble. Soaring unemployment, presently well in excess of 20 per cent of the workforce, is only matched  by the rate at which Spain is accumulating debt, a burden becoming harder and harder to service with plummeting tax revenues. Beleaguered Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, unkindly likened to Mr Bean, appears to have few answers and a year ago introduced massively unpopular austerity measures in an attempt to tame the spiraling deficit.  Spaniards aren't stupid though and on Sunday May 15th hundreds gathered in Madrid's iconic Puerta del Sol square to vent their anger and frustration. Many simply stayed on at the end of the day and so began the first tented city with more and more of the disenchanted and jobless joining the completely peaceful protest every day.

The movement known as 15-M after the day on which Puerta del Sol was first occupied soon spread to other Spanish towns and cities, and, at the last count more than 160 locations nationwide, mainly town squares and plaza's, housed protesters demanding economic and political reform. While the world watched, just as it did as events unfolded elsewhere, Mr Bean, (does anyone actually know his first name?), was dealt another humiliating blow by the Madrid group on the eve of the countrywide local elections scheduled for May 22nd. The Spanish Electoral Board ordered a "day of reflection" free of campaigning, mass gatherings and political messages for the Saturday before the poll. This order was upheld by the Supreme Court who also decreed protesters should vacate their encampment by midnight on Friday the 20th. The deadline came and went; unlike the "squatters in the square" who studiously ignored the instruction and mockingly painted one placard with the words, "leave us alone we're reflecting" A day later the ruling Socialist party were stuffed out of sight in all four corners of the country.

Finally, the authorities in Barcelona, the scene of another massive protest camp, lost patience and began to forcefully remove people from the the site at the city's Plaza de Catalunya on the flimsy pretext of clearing the area to allow Barcelona football fans to celebrate their teams victory, or otherwise, in that weekend's Champions League final. Predictably, heavy handed police action resulted in injuries and outrage. 
Spain is a Constitutional Monarchy and has been so with a democratic Government, albeit a largely successful one, for less than forty years. The politicians at the top of the tree mistakenly believe that they control the reins of power, an error they'll need to put right pretty quickly because the people who elected them to high office in the first place have never been more disgruntled. A salutary lesson.

Any flimsy excuse

Friday May 20th

None of their countrymen live in Elche

It started at about eleven o'clock on Wednesday night, completely unannounced, just like always and must have gone on for a good half an hour. Each time I thought it had finished, even more bangs, in rapid succession and increasing in volume, rent the air until it stopped as abruptly as it had begun. Living in Spain, these things are commonplace and are rarely publicised beforehand, at first I thought Real Madrid or Barcelona had just won something important, that's often the start of most of the impromptu ones. But no, Barca had had the whole day off and earlier in the evening Madrid had taken part in a pretty docile friendly in Murcia for the Lorca earthquake victims. FC Porto had just won the Europa League but to the very best of my knowledge not many, if any, Portuguese live in Elche, so unless a few American pilots had inadvertently bombed my home town instead of Tripoli, which is perfectly feasible for the US military, I was well and truly stumped.

Ring-fenced

If you haven't already guessed, I'm writing about the mightily impressive firework displays Spain, and the Costa Blanca in particular, do so well, seemingly on a whim. I guarantee you that whatever the size of the national debt, however many jobs or services get chopped as part of cost cutting exercises, the Spanish obsession with  pyromania will continue unabated and the budget for sending hundreds of thousands of euros up into the night sky amid colourful and noisy plumes of smoke will be ring fenced. Forever! It isn't just town councils spanking all that dosh either, I'll get to that in a bit, but whatever the rights and wrongs of whether or not it's money well spent, the end result is, well, pick an adjective; spectacular, amazing, brilliant, incredible. They're all appropriate.

Doh

In the United Kingdom, there's probably only November the fifth and New Year's Eve where, to any great degree, fireworks are that popular. This is just as well because on "Bonfire Night" the fire service is at full stretch and casualty departments have to bring in extra staff as people set fire to themselves, lose fingers, eyes and generally do themselves all kinds of avoidable damage. Even innocent animals aren't immune to the mayhem either, some people, delinquent teenagers in the main, think it's a bit of a spoof tying a Catherine Wheel to a dog's tail or sticking a rocket in a cat's bottom and then videoing the ensuing terror on their mobile phone once the blue touch paper has been lit. Even the "organised" displays are dismal, because from behind the safety perimeter, which is usually about three thousand yards away, you can see still a team of blokes in silhouette scurrying around lighting the fireworks individually by torchlight. Britain needs to get with the programme!

Fire Brigade not required

For a start, in Spanish towns and cities whole blocks are closed  to traffic and off limits to pedestrians the day before a big show and miles and miles of cabling criss crosses the streets. Sure, it never starts at the time the organisers advertise, (nothing, not a single thing ever does here), but it is always, without fail, worth the wait. Having been weaned on a diet of asthmatic ten minute shows in England which you can just about see let alone hear, the first proper event I witnessed since moving to Spain took my breath away for a variety of reasons; the ear popping sounds, the length of the thing, the carefully choreographed timetable and the sheer spectacle. Even the vast amount of smoke generated during and after was thoughtfully blown out to sea. For the record too, this, (and loads more of comparable brilliance since), took place in a small town - Santa Pola - that has no permanent Bomberos (Fire Brigade) presence.

Briefly because there's a little more I'd like to say, every August in Elche, the thirteenth actually, the mother and father of all firework shows takes place. I've covered it before so read my words here and then check this out on You Tube which is just one view of a city of 200,00 people celebrating the most amazing event, an occasion that makes the national news the morning after. It's called the nit de l'alba, the evening when all four corners of the city lob monumental quantities of explosive ordnance into the sky for almost an hour. You have to see it to believe it, if only once.

Never under-estimate the element of surprise

Weddings seem to be quite a favourite amongst the unofficial or private "do's" at which fireworks feature quite prominently, not at the church obviously but I bet someone has tried in the past. I once had the misfortune to be walking past an apartment building when a bride in her pretty frock emerged. A split second later a string of fire crackers fifty metres long erupted into life just the width of a road away on the opposite pavement. To say I was startled would be slightly understating things. I wasn't sure what to do first;  gather my scrambled senses, attend to my badly ringing ears or double check I hadn't just filled my nappy. Spain just seems to be the kind of country that knows how to celebrate properly; where the Brits get blind drunk and then fight, (New Years Eve is a case in point), natives here import shed loads of Chinese fireworks with the stated aim of setting fire to the bleedin' lot of them. The football season has just ended and because it's only ever one of two teams that win anything, both sets of fans stockpile ammo ready for the middle of May. It's great. On Sunday, as I've described before, it's the Municipal elections here so no doubt in the early hours of Monday morning one or other of the warring factions will be getting the matches out.

Getting back to Wednesday night, apparently this was the tenth anniversary of the city of Elche being conferred with the title Patrimonio de la Humanidad.  The designation is assigned by UNESCO to signify cultural magnificence or something like that. I think the bods down the town hall were a bit pleased to get the award a decade ago, so as I said, any flimsy excuse!!