Never too old to blog

Spain's blogger granny dies at 97

A Spanish grandmother who billed herself as the "world's oldest internet blogger" has died at the age of 97.

Maria Amelia Lopez only began blogging from her seaside home in Galicia two years ago.

But her postings on international affairs, Spanish politics and old age quickly turned her into a celebrity, attracting followers around the world.

Towards the end of her life Maria Amelia used video rather than text to offer her thoughts.

'Elderly in action'

Maria Amelia Lopez only discovered the internet at the age of 95, when her grandson set up a blog (amis95.blogspot.com) as a birthday present.

But she quickly became a phenomenon.

A mix of opinions and nostalgia, tinged with a waspish sense of humour, her postings gave a deeply personal insight into the process of getting old.

She enlightened younger readers about her experience as an opponent of the Franco regime. And she blogged on modern-day politics ranging from the threat from Basque separatism to Iran's nuclear ambitions.

As her fame spread, the blog won rave reviews from as far afield as Alaska, China and Nigeria - and a prestigious international media award. There was even a meeting with Spain's prime minister.

This was one of her final postings, in February this year: "When I'm on the internet, I forget about my illness. The distraction is good for you - being able to communicate with people. It wakes up the brain, and gives you great strength."

Just three months before her death, Maria Amelia was introduced to the social networking site Facebook, where she set up a group called "the elderly in action".

Remembered fondly here as the "blogging granny" the internet has lost one its great characters.

Source: BBC News

Costa del Despair

They dreamed of an idyllic life in the sun. But thousands of expat Britons hit by the falling pound are caught in a terrible trap...

Climbing out of the cockpit of his Spitfire after completing his final mission as an ace World War II fighter pilot, Ian Ross made a solemn promise to himself. Having cheated death countless times - on one occasion staging a dramatic last-ditch landing with black smoke billowing from a shattered wing - he swore that he would cherish every day of life as a civilian and never worry about anything again.

To the young RAF Flight Lieutenant, that simple philosophy seemed the most fitting way to honour the many comrades he had seen killed, and for 64 years he managed to adhere to it.

This week, however, at his retirement home on the Costa del Sol - a small, sparsely-furnished second-floor flat near Marbella, which vibrates to the traffic streaming incessantly along the nearby main road - Mr Ross confessed that his wartime resolution is being tested to breaking point.

For like tens of thousands of expats who left Britain in search of the Spanish dream, this 94-year-old war hero is facing an enemy so pernicious that even he can see no way of defeating it.

In the UK we face spiralling national debt, plunging house prices, sky-rocketing unemployment and the return of 50 per cent income tax - but for the British expats on the Costas the situation is even worse.

The Spanish economy is predicted to shrink by 3 per cent this year and one in five people is expected to be out of work - twice the EU average. Home repossessions have doubled, bankruptcies soared, and the bottom is fast falling out of the tourism industry.

All this means that the recession is bad enough for the Spanish nationals, yet, as I discovered this week, when visiting many embattled expat communities on the Costa del Sol, for a rapidly increasing number of the estimated 750,000 Britons who live in Spain it has become a fullblown catastrophe.

The broad reasons are well-documented. Barely six months ago, £1 bought about €1.4, but with the exchange rate now at virtual parity, the private and state pensions on which many expats depend - and which are paid in sterling - have lost almost one-third of their value.

At the same time, interest rates on their investments have fallen from around 6.5 to 1.5 per cent. To compound their problems, many are tied into long-term Spanish mortgages at much higher fixed rates, so they are not benefiting from falling interest rates.

For many, this seismic shift in their financial circumstances has left them so broke that the Spanish Dream has turned into a nightmare.

Even such essentials as paying the rent or mortgage and clothing and feeding their families are beyond them, and they are being forced to sell heirlooms and trinkets at car-boot sales and to second-hand gold dealers (one of the few new boom businesses).

As if their plight was not serious enough, in recent weeks the situation for many expats has worsened dramatically. With the property market in freefall, they are finding themselves trapped.

There are now an estimated one million surplus homes on the conspicuously over-concreted costas, many of them purpose-built for the British market, but estate agents are closing down all along the coast.

And as the only buyers are speculators making audaciously low offers (50 per cent of the asking price is not untypical), the villas and apartments expats bought for optimum prices during the recent property boom - in the belief their value could only go up - have become virtually un-sellable.

So, even if they want to start afresh in rainy old Britain, they can't - or at least not without losing their entire outlay. An increasing number are so desperate, though, that they are doing just that; handing back the keys to banks and mortgage companies, packing up and flying home.

Since the British community in Spain is so vast and diverse, the casualties span the social spectrum, and, of course, some cases are clearly more deserving of our sympathy than others.

In the upmarket Marbella suburb of Nuevo Andalucia, stamping ground of Premier League footballers and soap stars, I met Stan Cornell, a roguishly charming property speculator from Slough, Bucks, who still dances and drinks till dawn at 62 years of age and describes himself as 'a bit of a playboy'.

A couple of years ago, the entrepreneur snapped up a fabulous threestorey villa built with wrap-around views encompassing Gibraltar and the Atlas Mountains of Morocco, intending to gut and revamp it and sell it for a handsome profit.

Mr Cornell paid €900,000 (£640,000) for the then-desirable property and has spent a further £300,000 on it so far. Only a few months ago he could have expected it to fetch about £2 million when it was finished, turning a profit of more than a million.

But the mortgage alone is costing around £90,000 a year to service, and, with a buyer nowhere in sight, the property is 'bleeding me dry', he says. He is so desperate to get rid of it that he would gladly drop the price by a million and write off his losses.

'I've lost everything in recessions before, so I'm not quite on the little green and black pills yet,' he joked. 'But at this rate you never know.

'The one thing I won't do is go home. You can't behave like a teenager in your 60s in Britain, but you can in Marbella. And anyway, in the pubs at home my girlfriend couldn't dance on the tables.'

If our hearts don't exactly bleed for characters like Mr Cornell, who are in it for a fast buck and know the risks, one finds all too many genuinely sad stories; and surely none more so than that of former Spitfire pilot Mr Ross.

An Ulsterman, he returned to County Antrim after the war, where he married happily and carved out a career as an auctioneer.

When he retired, during the early Eighties, he and his wife, Maureen, who had no children, moved to a golf course villa in Spain, living modestly but comfortably on his state and RAF pensions, together worth about £13,000 a year.

His wife died from cancer 15 years ago, whereupon he moved to a smaller home and stoically set about making the most of the life that had been denied to so many of his generation.

Even at his advanced age, and suffering from arthritis, he still shops, cooks and cleans for himself, swims twice daily, and stays mentally alert by doing Sudoku puzzles. The problem is that at 94 he knows he cannot remain self-sufficient indefinitely and will soon need to be cared for professionally.

'Until a few months ago, I had made plans for what I would do when things reached that stage,' Mr Ross told me, sitting in the communal garden at his apartment complex on a beautiful April morning.

'As I have no family in Northern Ireland now and virtually all my friends are here, I thought I'd move into the old people's home at the end of my street. It's very pleasant there, and there are all different nationalities - English, Swedes, Americans - so even though I don't speak much Spanish I'd have plenty of company.

'But I've looked into this carefully, and because my pensions are paid into my bank in sterling, and the pound has fallen so badly, I won't be able to afford the home's £500-a-week fees.

'The only way I'll be able to manage is by going into a home in Belfast and I'm dreading that.

'Spain is my home now and I feel quite apprehensive about the prospect of having to go back to a strange place. I think that, and the miserable British weather, might just do for me.'

Unlike many Britons caught up in this mess, Mr Ross, who has all but given up his little luxuries, pities himself not at all. 'It's just how things are,' he says resolutely. He smiles and adds: 'My mistake was that I never expected to live this long. If I had known, I'd have put a bit more money by to provide for myself. It's all a bit unfortunate.'

This is something of an understatement. The situation is also 'a bit unfortunate' for thousands of others, among them Andrew Anderson, president of the Marbella-based British Association.

Mr Anderson is in a reverse bind to Mr Ross. His pensions have also sharply declined in value - but he is keen to return to his native Dunfermline. With Se Vende (For Sale) signs sprouting up all over the area, however, the 73-year-old architect knows he has little hope of selling his apartment unless he slashes the €225,000 (£205,000) asking price.

Thus, at a time when he would like to be roaming the Scottish heather with his new Trinidadian wife, he is trapped. 'With climate change, even the weather here is not as good as it was,' he said ruefully. 'Now it rains in summer.'

The picture grows more depressing still when you drive 40 minutes along the coast to the cheap-and-cheerful British enclave of Fuengirola, with its brash, football-themed bars, and cafes serving English pub grub.

Strolling along 'Fish Alley', a gourmet thoroughfare for British stodge and lager guzzlers, it soon became clear that the glutinous gravy-train has well and truly hit the buffers.

Usually by late April, the canopied terraces would be filling up with the Union Jack shorts brigade; but on Tuesday afternoon, with the thermometer tipping 72 degrees, they were eerily deserted.

Indeed, a good many British landlords have thrown in the towel and gone home. Among those still struggling on gamely, I found former London publican Fred Hill and his wife Anne, who paid about £65,000 for the lease to Friar Tuck's restaurant almost three years ago.

Like most of his rivals, he is attempting to lure customers with cut-price meals. 'This is the REAL deal,' reads his latest sign. 'Fresh Icelandic fish, fresh chips and mushy peas - only €7.50.'

Since imported fish prices have risen five times since he took over, one wonders how he does it.

'Business was fantastic at first,' said Mr Hill mournfully. 'We only needed to open from 6pm till 10.30pm, and we would get 90 customers. Now we open for 13 hours a day, and we're lucky if we get 30.

'I know two people who've just locked up and gone, losing everything they invested - tens of thousands of pounds. But we haven't quite reached that stage yet. Besides, there's nothing to go home to, is there?'

Sadly, the experiences of those who have returned to Britain suggest he is right, and not only because there are so few job opportunities and the economy lies in ruins.

Although the Spanish welfare system is far less generous than ours, affording scant protection to incomers who lose their jobs or fall on hard times, unemployed expats actually often find themselves worse off when they come back home.

What they fail to realise is that, by switching their residency to Spain, they have forfeited the right to claim UK benefits. Before they can do so, they must go through a laborious reregistration process which can take months. They must do the same to become eligible for NHS treatment.

'It can often be very difficult for those who go home because they find that the UK is not the great benefactor people seem to think,' says Tony Aldous, of Age Concern in Estepona, near Malaga. 'There should be a cross-border arrangement whereby benefits are transferable, but that is a long way off.'

Among those to have discovered the harsh truth are Suzanne Carmichael, 38, and her partner Carl Butler, who were forced back to Britain recently with their children, Zoe, 11, and Luis, two. Five years ago they sold their townhouse in Rochester, Kent, for £229,000 and took out a whopping €795,000 mortgage (£709,000 at today's exchange rate) to buy the home of their dreams: a white, Moorish castle-style villa with sumptuous views of the Mijas costa.

When times were good, they had no problem meeting their €3,000 (£2,500) a month repayments. But when their fixed interest rate ended, sending the monthly instalments soaring to €4,700 (£4,200), and they lost their jobs - she as a software company executive and he in construction - they couldn't manage.

Falling on the kindness of Mr Butler's mother, who offered to put them up at her home in Chatham, Kent, at the end of January, they gave back their keys (in an arrangement which at least preserved their credit rating) and flew home.

Almost three months later, the family who once dined nightly on a starlit terrace scented with bougainvillea, and spent idyllic weekends picnicking on the playa, are still humble lodgers.

'Coming back has been quite an eye-opener,' says Ms Carmichael. 'The first shock came when we were told that our UK passports and the fact we were born here meant absolutely nothing. The woman at Jobseekers even said to us: "Can you not just go back to Spain?"

'Since we got back, all we've had to live on is the £90-a-week Jobseekers allowance. The system is so severely under strain with the number of new people on housing benefit that we are still waiting for our claim to go through. Our child benefit forms haven't been processed yet, either.

'Another thing we have found is that people have such a negative attitude towards us. I class myself as very intelligent and hard-working, but because we have to claim benefits, through no fault of our own, we are treated as scum.

'That's very hard to take, particularly when you walk down Chatham High Street and see how standards of behaviour have deteriorated here since we left for Spain five years ago.'

Even after all they have been through, the family haven't given up on their Mediterranean idyll. Ms Carmichael says they may move abroad again once their daughter's education is completed.

Meanwhile, we must hope the battered pound strengthens sufficiently for Spitfire pilot Mr Ross to avoid spending his final years among strangers in some draughty British old folk's home.

He surely deserves his place in the sun. And when it comes to helping hapless victims of the Costa Credit Crunch, the country for which he fought so valiantly is no longer a land fit for heroes.

Source: Daily Mail

Economic pain in Spain

Spanish economy woes

Spain, which has enjoyed 14 years of consecutive growth, has gone into sudden reverse.

Analysts expect figures to show that the country is already in recession, with GDP falling since the middle of last year.

The gloomy statistics are building up. Last week, they showed that industrial output had tumbled by 15.1%, the biggest fall on record, and the country's unemployment rate hit a 12-year high in 2008 of three million.

BBC News website readers in Spain have been sending their stories about how the slowdown is affecting them.

ELISA ARIAS, JOURNALIST AND PR, MADRID

I came back to Spain after two and a half years living in the UK because the credit crunch prompted me to do it earlier than I expected to - and the situation cannot be more devastating.

I was hired by an online newspaper and was promised a one-month contract but when I arrived there was no contract, so I worked there on a temporary basis for three weeks.

The newspaper closed down this week and 40 people, some with young children, will lose their jobs.

Because I had no contract, I have no unemployment benefit or social security. I lived in Madrid, but was forced to go to Malaga to my parents' house.

Many magazines, websites and local televisions have closed down, so it is almost impossible to get a job.

I feel ridiculous leaving CVs everywhere, because I know it's not worth it, it just doesn't make any sense.

It is almost impossible for highly-educated job-seekers like me to find a job. The problem in Spain is that almost everyone has a university degree, so you have to do something else, like a masters or doctorate degree. But in this situation, it doesn't even help.

The figures given yesterday by the government were depressing: three million unemployed - one million more than last year. And the figures may rise one more million in 2009.

Many young people are like me, they don't have any proper contracts or social security. That's why we all live with our parents until we are 30 years old.

You usually have to stay and put up with almost illegal contracts until they finally hire you, and this happens very frequently with journalists.

I think for employers it is too expensive to hire new people, because they have to pay many benefits. This should be regulated in a different way so that more jobs are created.


RICARDO, COMPANY DIRECTOR, BARCELONA

The economy here is at its worst, hundreds of jobs and companies disappearing every day and prices rising.

From the point of view of operating a business in Spain, it is unsustainable in the long run. Spanish legislation is so rigid and in favour of employees, that it is hard for businesses to restructure and adapt to the crisis.

If you need to restructure and cut jobs or change the salaries, even if it is temporary, you are not allowed to do so. So you can't save your business and end up in bankruptcy.

This affects employment because as an employer, when I want to hire people I would rather employ them as freelancers because it is too expensive to give them a contract.

Credit is very difficult to get and it is not easy to get credit cards or get in debt. So people are not heavily indebted, but they are definitely poorer because the salaries are low and haven't gone up in line with prices.

People are not buying and demand has certainly gone down. Demand for our products has fallen by 50%.

If the current situation persists and the government does not change its legislation I do not see many companies staying in Spain or investing in the future. The outlook is definitely gloomy.


LOUISE BRACE, ADVERTISING, MALAGA

I live in Malaga province and have been running a small advertising agency for five years. Our agency tries to help Spanish business communicate with the ex-pat market and we also help the British connect with the local businesses.

We have been exceptionally hard hit here, because of the crash in the construction and real estate market and of course the bad publicity that we have received, because of the ongoing problem of fraud within local councils.

This region relies a lot on real estate and tourism and this is what has kept the southern region of Andalucia going.

Now it's all drying up and business is next to nothing. We try to find jobs to supplement our business and pay our mortgages, but there are no jobs.

Our bank has now frozen our overdraft and asked for the money back immediately. They just told us that we should try to find the money from another bank to pay it off, or ask my family.

The treatment of small to medium-sized businesses by the banks here has had a huge effect on the crisis. With nearly 90% of the business population in this category, they are literally wiping us out with their lack of support in times of crisis. They are taking away loans and overdrafts, not helping to fund our survival.

As much business from ex-pats has been going badly many people, including ourselves, are trying to sell their properties, but it's difficult.

Everybody is selling their properties on the Costa del Sol well below what they are worth, because of the recession and because of the drop in foreign buyers.

Brand new developments with gymnasiums and pools are selling at half-price. There are many empty buildings and empty complexes without a licence. It used to be said that Spain's emblem was the crane, but I think promoters and builders just built and built and now not enough people are buying their properties.

I think they built to satisfy a market of people who were trying to get away from built-up areas and then ruined it by overbuilding.


NEIL SCOTT, CONTRACTOR, SITGES

We live and work in Spain and have been here for the last ten years, my brother and I have a company that does renovations. Around 60% of our clients are from overseas and the rest are residents.

We haven't been affected particularly as our client base is strong and in the upper market level and people are still doing renovations, but construction has taken a nosedive.

We have seen expensive properties which were started a couple of years ago and now just standing partially completed and the machinery abandoned.

We didn't notice the downturn until September, as we usually rest for two months during the summer. Spain shuts down in that time.

But when we came back to work and went to buy materials, we found out that all our credit accounts had been suspended. We usually buy all the materials, put a deposit down and then pay the rest over the next six weeks, but that has stopped.

I didn't know it, but this credit line is debt factored by an insurance company which guarantees the money, and they just stopped the credit.

We managed to survive doing private arrangements because we have been living here for ten years, always pay on time and have a good track record. But many contractors now can't get any credit and this dries up construction.

What is really noticeable now is that shops are starting to close in the towns, and the once busy bars and restaurants are also closing and are virtually empty in the evenings.

Sitges on a Friday night is now totally dead - this was unheard of before.

You have to remember that here in Spain the personal debt problems that people experience in the UK just don't exist to the same level. Here, if you haven't got money in the bank they won't let you spend it and credit cards are paid at the end of the month in full. It is very difficult to rack up a large personal debt.

Source: BBC News

Has the economic downturn affected you or the sector where you work? How do you see the economic situation evolving? What do you believe should be done?

Has luck accompanied you?

Spaniards shrug off gloom with Fat One's fat cheques

Spain's traditional Christmas lottery, known as El Gordo, "the Fat One," showered its riches today on the historic centre of Barcelona, making it especially likely that British tourists have a winning stake this year in the 2.32 billion euro pot.

Hundreds of top-prize tickets – worth a total of 384 million euros – were sold at a single vendor on the famed Ramblas thoroughfare, next to the bohemian Raval neighborhood, home to immigrants, students and emerging artists – and popular with many British holidaymakers.

The lucky lottery vendor, Isabel Moliner, rushed to buy bottles of cava, Catalonian sparkling wine, as ecstatic immigrants clutched their winning stubs.

"I'm going to open a restaurant," a man from Bangladesh told a herd of national television cameras. "I'm unemployed," said a man with the winning number, 32365, shaved across the back of his head. "Now I can buy a house and a car."

Moliner expects that some of the prize money fell into the hands of the tourists or expatriates who pass by her state lottery shop.

In Alicante, a British resident of Torrevieja was reported to have been among the top prize winners. The man was said to have purchased a number ending in a five because he was born in 1945.

Each year thousands of foreigners – and three out of four Spaniards -- buy tickets in the world's oldest and richest lottery, a tradition that stretches back to 1812. It has become so famous abroad that consumer groups in the United States, Britain and elsewhere often warn potential lottery players of frauds. And now purchasing the tickets has been made even easier through internet sales.

Despite the economic crisis, a total of 3.32 billion euros in tickets were sold this year – down less than three percent from last year. Many Spaniards hope that a lucky number will boost them into better times.

"There is hardly money for food but it's worth it in case this year we win," said Eusebio Porras Sanz, a 60-year-old flamenco dancer, while queuing at a lottery vendor in Madrid's bustling Puerta del Sol earlier this week. "Hope is a great thing. If you win, you are poor no more".

Indeed, throughout Spain, mortgage troubles, threatened job cuts and other headaches of the economic crisis seemed a far away as millions of euros in prizes graced depressed working class neighborhoods.

In Soria, a city in central Spain, a single bar, Gari, sold 97 million euros worth of third-prize winning tickets. Dozens of happy customers doused themselves with champagne, danced and pounded drums in the street. The owner of the bar declared "drinks on the house" as he, like millions of Spaniards, sat glued to the television set watching the three-hour drawing with 1,787 prizes.

"I'm going to pay off all my debts and then go for a week of skiing – and I'm not going to worry about how much I spend," said one woman dancing outside the bar.

The drama of the day occurred in at a shopping mall outside Madrid, where Carmen, a 70-year-old grandmother-to-be, came running to her lottery vendor in tears. She bought a ticket that won a 100,000 prize, but had left it in the pocket of her housecoat. And washed it. She raced to the shopping mall with the torn bits of the ticket pieced together in a plastic bag. The ticket will be sent to the National Coin and Stamp Factory to determine its authenticity. If so, Carmen said she will use the money to help her unemployed son.

El Gordo creates few millionaires, but it spreads the wealth widely because of a complex pay-out system that divides prize money among 195 series of tickets, each further divided into 10 smaller parts, known as décimos, which cost 20 euros a piece. Many people further subdivide these décimos, like share of stock, among friends, family or clients. This generous division ensures that the bounty is sprinkled among thousands of people – often entire businesses, villages and sporting clubs.

Last year, a cluster of small towns in the northern coal mining region of Asturias won a total of 219 million euros. "It changed our life," said Juan Martinez Serrano, the mayor of the Valdesoto, a few days before yesterday's drawing. "You can see how the money is being spent, you see better cars, a lot home renovations, and even though lightening never strikes twice, the number of people who came here to buy tickets this year is barbarous." Unfortunately for him, it was the one year he neglected to purchase the lottery. "But I was happy anyway to see how it transformed the town," he said.

Source: The Independant

Brits fought in Spanish Civil War

"Better to die on your feet than live for ever on your knees" - Dolores Ibarruri


Freedom fighters welcome honour, 70 years on

Seventy years have passed since they marched out of Barcelona amid crowds of weeping, cheering Spaniards, but it is only now that the last few British volunteers who fought in Spain against General Franco's fascist-backed rebels are finally to be rewarded by the Spanish state.

The handful of British survivors from the 2,300 men and women in the International Brigades during the civil war are now in their 90s or have passed 100, and most are physically frail.

They still cling to the memories and spirit of battles fought seven decades ago and have welcomed an offer by the cabinet of the Socialist prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, last week, that would allow them joint nationality.

"It is a gesture to those of us who survived and I'll take it in memory of all those who paid the final price and who lie unknown under Spanish soil," said Sam Lesser, 93. "There are so few of us left now."

Lesser is one of seven members of the brigades thought to be still alive and living in Britain. All have said they will take up the offer of joint nationality.

The veterans said they retained vivid memories of a country and a cause which, in many cases, changed their lives. "It certainly made a big difference to my life," said Penny Feiwel, 99, who volunteered as a nurse and ended up as an officer running a frontline mobile operating theatre before being injured. She had felt a natural sympathy for what was seen as a struggle by Spanish workers against the growing forces of fascism in Europe.

"I come from a working-class family. My father had been without a job for a long time. People today don't realise what times their grandparents went through or what they achieved."

While Hitler and Mussolini sent arms and troops to help Franco, Britain and Europe's other democracies stood on the sidelines as tens of thousands of volunteers from around the world travelled to Spain to help the Republic.

The civil war was, for many, a first big commitment in what became lifelong careers as leftwing campaigners. Among those still alive is Jack Jones, who went on to lead the Transport and General Workers Union. Jones said he would also accept the offer of nationality. Like many other members, however, he had had some doubts about Spain's current condition as a constitutional monarchy when he and the other brigaders had fought to defend a republic.

"The answer is yes, I would welcome it very much. I've had a very active life and have been leader of a large trade union, but this was a very special period."

A mixture of politics, romance and adventure drove people to sign up for the International Brigades or find their own way to Spain to fight after Franco led a rightwing rebellion against the government in 1936.

"I wasn't a communist but I was rather leftwing as a young man," said Paddy Cochrane, 95. "I hitchhiked down to London from Liverpool and went to the Communist party but they wouldn't take me on as they said I had no military experience.

"Then I saw an advertisement in the newspaper saying that drivers were needed to take ambulances to Spain, so that is what I did. Once there, he was able to enlist and was wounded by shrapnel from a hand grenade in fierce fighting at the town of Belchite. A bit of it went in at my hip and out of my bottom without hitting a bone."

Some of those wounded found it hard to stay away from Spain. Lesser was injured in a battle near Córdoba in which the poet John Cornford was killed. He later returned to do political broadcasts in English and became correspondent for the Daily Worker newspaper.

He was there in Barcelona when the brigades, who had been formally disbanded, marched away in October 1938. The firebrand communist politician Dolores Ibárruri, known as La Pasionaria, gave them a rousing send-off as tens of thousands of people packed the streets of Barcelona. "You can go with pride," she said. "You are history. You are legend. You are the heroic example of the solidarity and the universality of democracy. We will not forget you."

Brigaders from across the world will travel to Barcelona this month to mark the 70th anniversary of their departure.

Most would like to have taken Spanish nationality when the idea was first floated in 1996, under the rightwing government of prime minister José María Aznar. The small print of that offer, however, meant they would have had to renounce British nationality. None of them were willing to do that.

"It is a shame," said Marlene Sidaway, of the International Brigade Memorial Trust. "They were all much haler and heartier then."

Among those unable to take up the offer was her partner, David Marshall, who died in 2003.

Even some of those still alive fear they might not live long enough to pick up the reward of Spanish nationality.

"I'd love to take it," Les Gibson, who fought at the Jarama front, said in a telephone interview. "But I'm now 95 years of age and I am not sure I will be able to.

"I'm still very interested in Spain and the Spanish. It was an important part of my life. I lost some good friends there, mind you, but I managed to scrape through somehow."

A fifth of those who reached Spain from Britain did not get back alive.

"We felt we weren't just defending Spain but also our own country," said Lesser. "We were also fighting to save peace and to save Britain."

Source: Guardian

Read about La Pasionaria Memorial (pictured above) which is dedicated to the British who lost their lives during the Spanish Civil War.

Have any of your older relatives told you what life was like during the war?

Ever seen a €500 note?

Spanish hoards of €500 notes could aid liquidity

It is, perhaps, the strangest idea yet for pumping extra liquidity into Europe's troubled banking system. Spanish officials were yesterday reported to be looking for ways of encouraging Spaniards to remove the estimated 108m €500 notes they have hoarded in safes or under floorboards and take them to the bank. That averages out to at least two per Spaniard, or a total of €54bn, circulating outside the country's banking system.

A combination of tax-cheating and a long-standing mistrust of banks, means Spain soaks up a quarter of all the €500 notes - one of the world's highest denomination bank bills - released every year.

One option for getting the notes into the banking system, by offering a no-questions-asked fiscal amnesty, was ruled out by the finance minister Pedro Solbes yesterday. El Mundo newspaper reported, however, that there had been pressure from within the government's finance team to consider a fiscal amnesty. Spain's tax inspectors, whose job it is to root out the notes when they are used for tax fraud, were among those opposing the idea.

The purple €500 notes are so rarely seen that they have earned the nickname "Bin Ladens".

Most are used in real estate deals, where property is often bought and sold in a mixture of fiscally opaque cash and fiscally transparent bank transfers. The price of property deals reported to the tax authorities is, therefore, often much lower than that really paid.

Other notes circulate in the country's black economy. Sectors including the footwear industry, construction or silversmiths are thought to do much of their business in black currency.

Spain is estimated to have one of the biggest black economies in Europe, accounting for between 20 and 23% of annual GDP. Spanish tax authorities are investigating 12,000 big transactions involving €500 notes.

Source: Guardian

Do you trust the banks? Have you had any unfair treatment at the hands of them?

Robin Bank

€500,000 scam of a Spanish Robin Hood

He calls himself Robin Bank and acts as the self-appointed avenger of downtrodden loan defaulters and all poor victims of the global financial meltdown.

Like his hero Robin Hood, Spanish outlaw Enric Duran steals from the rich and gives, if not to the poor, at least to the activist groups who are sworn enemies of the banking system.

Yesterday Duran circulated 200,000 copies of a single-issue free newspaper called Crisis to show how he had spent the past two years fooling banks into lending him nearly half a million euros (about £395,000).

He said he had given it all away to social activists or spent it on the newspaper. He is refusing to pay the money back and daring the banks to get him sent to jail.

"If we include interest on arrears the present amount of debt is over €500,000, which I will not pay," he said.

As Duran, 32, went into hiding, copies of the newspaper were being handed out by friends and relatives to commuters at dozens of metro and railway stations in his home city of Barcelona.
Friends said he had fled the country earlier this week.

News of his exploits caught Spain's high street banks, consumer finance houses and building societies by surprise. They were busy yesterday checking their loan portfolios to see whether Duran was on the list.

He has provided a list of all the 39 banks he took loans from. They include one bank, Cetelem, that gave him five loans.

The police and the local attorney general's office said they had not yet started looking for Duran as they were waiting for one of the banks to lodge a formal request for him to be found.

Duran said he had raised the loans partly by setting up a false television production company. He paid back some of the early loans to ensure he had a good credit rating but stopped paying them all earlier this year.

He had started out by getting personal loans but eventually used a company name to avoid being placed on a list of bad debtors.

A small businesses office of the regional Catalan government unwittingly helped him raise at least one of the loans, according to reports yesterday.

Most of the money had been donated to social activism groups.

"What could be better than robbing the ones who rob us and distributing the money among the groups which are denouncing this situation and building alternatives?" he asked.

Bankers reacted angrily. "It is not permissible for someone to laugh [at the system] like this," Jordi Mestre, director general of the Caixa Sabadell savings bank, told the Europa Press news agency.

Other banks said they would have no trouble writing off the lost money.

"Even if it is confirmed that he took €31,000, it won't mean anything to us," said a spokesman for Bankinter.

Duran posted a video interview of himself on the internet yesterday.

"It has been an individual disobedience action against banking that I have carried out to denounce the banking system," he said.

"Banks need to grant loans because that is the main way for them to get profits. It is a wheel that will not stop until the system comes to a standstill. As individuals, instead of helping the wheel to roll by asking for loans we have the opportunity and responsibility of making things difficult for this system."

The social activist could face a prison term of up to six years if convicted.

"When I started this action I was already prepared for that possibility," he said.

Source: Guardian

Do you admire this scamster? Can you think of any other criminals that you, if not admire, at least consider clever?

McCain Gaffe

You gotta feel for José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. Here the Spanish Prime Minister is only four months from an end to his government's strained relations with that of President George W. Bush and blam! — along comes John McCain to suggest that the next four years might not be any better. During an interview in Miami earlier this week with Spanish-language station Union Radio, a reporter asked McCain whether, if elected, he would receive Zapatero in the White House. McCain answered, "Honestly, I have to analyze our relationships, situations and priorities, but I can assure you that I will establish closer relationships with our friends, and I will stand up to those who want to harm the United States."

Ouch. The question about Zapatero came after a series of questions on how McCain sees relations with Venezuela, Bolivia and Cuba. He said he would not speak to Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez "without any sort of preconditions, as Senator Obama has said he would," and said Chávez was "depriving his people of their democratic rights." He judged Bolivia's Evo Morales as "very similar" and also condemned Cuba's Raúl Castro. When the questioner said, "Now let's talk of Spain" and asked whether he'd invite Zapatero, McCain responded with a vague statement that he would meet "with those leaders who are our friends" and then cited Mexican President Felipe Calderón as an example. The questioner tried several more times to steer the Senator back to a clear answer on Spain, but McCain never directly addressed the nation, saying, "What I would say is that my record is that of someone who has worked in a friendly atmosphere with those who are our friends and faced up to those who aren't."

From this, much of the Spanish press has concluded that the Republican candidate, who hails himself as the experienced foreign policy choice in this election, confused Spain — a NATO member and key ally in the fight against terrorism — with one of those troublesome Latin American states. That was certainly the interviewer's impression, for she followed up with a gentle reminder that Spain was a country in Europe. As Spanish newspaper El País put it, "In the best-case scenario, [his answer] demonstrates his ignorance with respect to Zapatero."

Of course, there's a worst-case scenario: that McCain would, if elected, maintain his predecessor's chilly relationship with Spain. Spaniards may, on the whole, revile American politics and American comida de basura (junk food), but they still tend to measure their Prime Minister's international worth by the esteem with which the U.S. President holds him. And so, for the past four years, the Spanish Prime Minister has tried, ever so earnestly, to prove that he's one of the big boys. At every international summit he has tried to maneuver himself into position for a photograph with Bush. The press has breathlessly reported on every perfunctory exchange the two have had. And the much longed-for invitation to the White House — let alone to a certain ranch in Texas — has been the object of countless pages of speculation. But for all the aspiration, Zapatero has never managed to achieve anything like that famous 2003 photo of his predecessor, José María Aznar, in the Azores looking like he just got invited to the cool kids' party.

Of course, the fact that the cool kids' party happened to be taking place in Iraq explains a lot of the distance between the two current leaders: upon taking office in April 2004, Zapatero immediately pulled Spanish troops out of "the alliance of the willing." Which is one of the ironies of this situation — that Spain can so strongly support a foreign policy opposed to the Bush doctrine (whatever that is), while so strongly hoping for a show of respect from Washington. On Thursday, Spanish newspaper ABC's regret was palpable when it lamented that "the coldness between the governments of the U.S. and Spain could continue if the Republican candidate John McCain reaches the White House."

As for Zapatero himself, the Prime Minister is apparently taking this latest attack on his ego with characteristic equilibrium. McCain may not know who Spain's leader is, but Zapatero promised to work with the new Administration "whatever it is."

Source: Time

18,000 Euros to leave Spain

Spain's radical plan for migrants

On the northern outskirts of Madrid, the Tres Cantos railway station is getting a makeover.

Under a fierce midday sun, immigrant labourers from North Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe shift huge concrete slabs into place on the platform, and scatter fresh layers of shingle between the rails and sleepers.

This back-breaking work pays €1,200 (£950) per month, and everyone is making the most of it.

With the construction industry in dire trouble, their Spanish boss has no other projects in the pipeline, and the entire workforce will be laid off when this job ends.

So, any takers for the government's new offer to unemployed immigrants?

If they volunteer to go back to their home countries and not return to Spain for three years, foreigners will qualify for lump-sum benefit payments, typically worth around €18,000 (£14,200).

The scheme applies to the citizens of 19 non-EU countries which share social security agreements with Spain.

"If someone offered me that cash now I'd go," says Patrick, from Equatorial Guinea. "Back home, it would go further; I could invest it," he adds.

Guillermo, from the Dominican Republic, warns that: "if the economy carries on like this, we'll all have to leave". But given a choice, he would rather stay. "I now consider myself Spanish," he grins.

Unemployment benefits

In the space of barely a decade, Spain's immigrant population has leapt by an astonishing 800%, and cheap immigrant labour was a vital factor in the construction-led economic boom.

As long as there was work to go round, Spain mostly avoided the kind of immigration-related tensions witnessed in other European countries.

Today, however, with an EU-high unemployment rate of 10.7%, the picture looks very different.

"Immigrants were seen by everyone as helping," explains Pedro Schwarz, an economist.

"They took jobs in construction - boosting growth and keeping wages down. But today, with the jobless total rising, some Spanish-born citizens are complaining that the new immigrants are beginning to hog the unemployment benefits."

For the time being, the 2.1 million foreigners registered for Spanish social security are net contributors to the system - paying in more than they receive.

But, over the past 12 months, the number of immigrants claiming unemployment benefit has surged by 81%, to 178,230 in July 2008.

"What we're trying to do is link immigration to the labour market," says Celestino Corbacho, Spain's minister for work and immigration.

"The forecasts say it'll take two or three years for the economy to recover, so we think it's good to offer people possibilities.

"If someone is entitled to $15,000 (£8,000), that's going to create more opportunities in their home country than here in Spain."

"Thank you and goodbye"

Under the new scheme, scheduled for launch in September, participating immigrants would receive two years worth of up-front unemployment benefits - 40% when they volunteer for the scheme in Spain, the rest on arrival back in their country of origin.

To qualify, they would have to surrender their Spanish work and residence papers for the duration of the deal.

The government insists this is merely a common sense response to Spain's undeniable economic problems, but immigrant welfare groups view the policy with suspicion.

"I feel that we've been used," complains Washington Tobar of the Hispano-Ecuadorean Foundation in Madrid.

"When they needed cheap labour, the doors opened. And now they don't need us, they just say 'thank you and goodbye' - and expect us to go back to our own countries."

In a modest apartment in Madrid's La Latina district, 42-year-old Leonardo Ramirez prepares lunch for his two children.

A marketing graduate in his native Ecuador, he paid his way here through construction, until the work dried up a year ago.

Now renting out a spare room to help pay his mortgage, Leonardo is one of 100,000 unemployed foreigners whom the government hopes immediately to tempt with its offer. But he is far from keen.

"Even $20,000 or $30,000 isn't that much money, in terms of capital to invest back home," he explains.

"They are people who'll have to buy a house, and children's schooling is expensive. Also, immigrant families are integrated here - they don't want to start all over again."

Avoiding conflict

Outside, on Leonardo's housing estate, immigrant children play football, while Latino pop blares out from several apartments.

This new Spain is unrecognisable from the country of 10 years ago, and the government is controversially trying to turn back the clock.

But Mr Corbacho denies that Spain is ungrateful for the contribution made by immigrants, or that foreigners are being made scapegoats for the country's economic woes.

"Immigration is not a problem, it's a phenomenon," says Mr Corbacho.

"And phenomena are never neutral - they change a lot of things and create new challenges. Our challenge is to manage this phenomenon, so that our diverse, multicultural society avoids conflict in the future," he says.

It is a radical approach to immigration from a socialist government which appeared to run shy of the issue in the lead-up to its election victory in March.

Now, the politicians hope - quite literally - to make the problem go away. And other EU governments, facing similar challenges, will be closely monitoring the Spanish scheme's progress.
Source: BBC News

Last post on football - maybe!

On the eve of Euro 2008, I sought an assessment of Spain's chances from a waiter in a spit-and-sawdust restaurant.

"They'll be knocked out in the group stage," came the gruff reply. As I mumbled something about the virtues of Torres and Fabregas, my underwhelmed analyst was already pouring vino tinto at another table.

For decades, pessimism has been hardwired into the footballing psyche of this otherwise proud sporting nation. Only once, as hosts of the 1964 European Championship, have Spain won a major tournament.

In subsequent competitions, talented Spanish teams have shone brightly early on, only to burn themselves out or self-destruct when it really mattered.

The tag of "perennial underachievers" hurt because Spaniards, more than anyone, knew it to be true.

No longer. "We are the best!" proclaimed the respected sports daily Marca, following Spain's semi-final demolition of Russia.

In opinion columns, the Spaniards' artistry was likened to an orchestral symphony, a ballet and (inevitably) a bullfight.

"Whoever wins the final," declared Marca's editorial, "Spain is the best team in Euro 2008."

What has most delighted fans here is the way they have done it.

Occasionally criticised for a lack of physicality, Spain's triumph in reaching the final has been one of style and guile over brute force - at times, the passing and movement of the "bajitos" (little guys) has bewildered bigger, stronger opponents.

Whatever happens on Sunday night, Euro 2008 has marked a new start.

In past tournaments, Spain's failures have produced angst-ridden debates about alleged refereeing conspiracies, player cliques and the very commitment of footballers to their national team, in a nation which remains politically and regionally fractured.

This time, a fresh generation of players have quite simply gone out and had fun.

Tens of thousands of young Spaniards will throng Madrid's Plaza de Colon for the final, while King Juan Carlos will lead the travelling support in Vienna.

Millions more will watch the match on La Cuatro Television, whose studio is adorned with voodoo dolls in the colours of Spain's past victims. Already, a Germany doll has a pin through its heart.

But for most Spaniards, voodoo trickery is an unnecessary evil.

Instead, there is a mounting belief in the ability of Spain's players to secure their own destiny. The mood is best summed up by La Cuatro's one-word tournament jingle - "podemos!" ("we can do it!")

Source: BBC News

Vocabulary Practice:

Which of the expressions mean the same as or similar to the following?

1. eliminated from
2. crowd into
3. spoke indistinctly
4. compared to
5. looked for
6. increasing
7. confused
8. decorated
9. make exhausted
10. full of anxiety
11. a catchy slogan
12. brusque
13. a label
14. summarized
15. cunning

Truck Drivers on Strike

Spanish hauliers on fuel strike

Tens of thousands of Spanish lorry drivers have begun an indefinite strike over the soaring price of diesel, which has risen by 20% this year.

After stopping work at midnight, many disrupted traffic at one of the border crossings between Spain and France.

A number of lorries crossing the picket lines had their windscreens broken, lights ripped out and tyres slashed.

The government is preparing a package to assist the sector, with emergency loans and more flexible contracts.

It would also offer cash payments to older lorry drivers who are willing to retire.

Wide support

Overnight, about 200 lorry drivers parked their vehicles beside roadside toll booths in the Catalonian town of La Jonquera, close to the border with France.

The protesters prevented other lorries from passing, and caused delays to car traffic. There have also been protests in Barcelona, the Basque country and Valencia.

Most of the 90,000 hauliers participating in the strike are self-employed, or working for small and medium-sized haulage companies, and they have warned that many supermarkets will run out of goods within days.

They are receiving support from counterparts in south-eastern France, who had threatened to disrupt the flow of traffic along one of the main routes into Spain.

However, Spain's largest hauliers' trade union is not taking part.

The drivers want the Spanish government to establish, by law, a minimum price for their services, and to ensure that haulage contracts better reflect the fluctuating cost of fuel, which has risen by more than 20% since the start of the year.

Their strike follows action by hauliers in France and other European countries.

They are following the lead of Spanish and French fishermen, many of whom are already on strike because of the soaring price of fuel.

The fishermen have said they will go out of business unless the EU allows national governments to give them more financial aid and subsidise maritime diesel.

However, the EU has insisted that any fuel subsidies would be illegal under European law and unsustainable in the long term.

EU rules state that the value-added tax (VAT) rate on fuel cannot be less than 15%. Member states are free to set VAT rates at or above that minimum.

Source: BBC News

Do you have any sympathy with the truck drivers?

Is it right that workers with grievances can disrupt the lives of the public?

Can you think of any strikes which achieved their purpose?

We were robbed of Eurovision!

Cliff was denied illegally!

According to TV documentary “1968. I lived through the Spanish May” - aired on La Sexta - the Eurovision Song Contest of 1968 was rigged by the Fascist regime of Francisco Franco to ensure the Spanish entry won.

The Spanish singer Massiel won the competition, with the creatively titled song ‘La, la, la’, by only one point, beating UK legend Cliff Richard, who was singing his (now) classic ‘Congratulations’.

Director Montse Fernandez Vila has claimed that RTE executives toured Europe offering cash and promising to buy television series and contract unknown artists from other Eurovision member states to influence the vote. At that time the winner of the competition was decided by a jury comprised of 10 members from each of the 17 countries participating with each member awarding one point to their favourite song.

”There is evidence that votes were bought to secure a win for Massiel,” said the director. ”The regime was acutely aware of the need to improve their image… Looking back at the parties that were organised and the way Massiel was turned into a national hero - it seems a bit excessive for a song festival but it all served to glorify the regime,” she said.

No need to rig this year’s soon upcoming contest though. After last year’s debacle, when the Spanish thought they had a winner and were cruelly denied by colluding newly arrived Eastern European nations who all voted for each other, they’ve gone ironic. For 2008 their entry is called ‘Chikichiki’ - a comedy, samba rap complete with crap-but-easy-to-learn dance.

Even if Chikichiki gets nul points in the competition it’s bound to* be a summer hit. So consider yourself warned if you’re holidaying on the playas this season.

This is a certain sign that the country has grown up after its fascist interlude and joined the top table of cynical, self-knowing western democracies. No more rigging pointless competitions, now they just take the piss. Or ‘toma el pelo’ as they say.

Source: Madrid-Uno Weblog

Vocabulary Focus:

* to be bound to : when you are certain something is going to happen

eg He is bound to be tired; he has been working all day and night.

eg I haven't studied at all; I am bound to make a mistake.

No footie or totty for army

Minister orders military internet ban

Spain's new defence minister, Carme Chacon, has caused an outcry after ordering her staff to stop browsing sports and entertainment websites while on duty.

Military personnel who check football results and surf for nude celebrities have been blamed for clogging up the ministry's computer system and bringing it close to collapse.

The ban was introduced within 10 days of the controversial appointment of Ms Chacon, 37, who is Spain's first female defence minister and is seven months pregnant.

A furious Mariano Casado, the secretary general of AUEM, the military's professional association, said: "It seems that the military is to be treated like children with filters placed on computers to control access."

Source: Telegraph

Meet the world's best chef

On Monday night the world's top chefs and critics met in London for the S.Pellegrino World's 50 Best Restaurants Award and, for the fourth time and third consecutive year, awarded the number one slot to El Bulli. It's an amazing achievement by any standards but perhaps not much of a surprise. In the 21 years since Ferran Adrià became head chef at the restaurant in Roses on the Costa Brava, his rise to success has run parallel with the explosion in fine dining and the attendant phenomenon of gastro-tourism. In the past two decades, a golden age for the restaurant business, Adrià has become the single most significant player in the culinary world, almost universally loved and respected by customers, cooks and critics.

The story of Adrià's rise is well documented. As a teenager he worked as a dishwasher in hotel kitchens and began learning traditional Spanish cuisine. At the age of 19, while drafted for military service, he became a cook and was quickly placed on the personal staff of a high-ranking officer.

At 22 he became a line cook at the already successful El Bulli restaurant, citing as his major motivation the desire to meet the girls who hung out at the nearby beach. Within 18 months he was head chef. The style of cooking Adrià pioneered, along with chefs such as Heston Blumenthal in the UK and Pierre Gagnaire in France, has been termed "molecular gastronomy" though Adrià himself doesn't recognise the title. As he says: "People write that I began molecular cooking but if you ask them no one can define what it is." Instead, he refers to his style, if pressed, as "avant garde" or "deconstructivist".

When nouvelle cuisine first appeared in the 70s, there was a small body of restaurant goers and a tiny coterie of restaurant critics to notice. Today, the pronouncements of restaurant cuisine's most prominent theorist affect an industry that starts in the dining rooms of Michelin-starred restaurants worldwide and spreads through the ever-growing food media - television, books, journalism, a vast subculture of online chef-watchers - and at conferences such as Madrid Fusion. The event itself would have been impossible to conceive of even a decade ago, where chefs exchange ideas, techniques and philosophy, and occasionally present manifestos.

Adrià is usually set up as the brooding, saturnine genius. Though in the dark corner of the hotel bar where we are granted a brief audience just hours before Monday's award ceremony he's dapper and immaculately turned out, with a disarmingly twinkly eyed manner. He speaks no English so his interviews always feature an interpreter, a fact that probably explains the tone of his statements: a complex philosophy of food expressed by a genius in ornate Spanish then mediated through an intense acolyte has an odd quality. About his restaurant, for example, he says: "Being intellectual can be almost anybody, but having soul and emotion ... A man in the fields, collecting things, a normal worker, he can also have feelings, soul and emotion. If you do not work at El Bulli it is impossible to understand." Though he endeavours to clarify: "It is like a building. You can see the building, you can feel the emotion, but you cannot intellectualise the building because you have not studied it. You must study El Bulli to understand it.

And El Bulli is certainly studied by legions of fans and would-be diners around the world. It is closed for six months of each year while Adrià works on the next menu in his laboratory. The restaurant is permanently booked up and currently turns down three-quarters of a million requests for tables every year. At the moment, according to the foodie websites where such things are endlessly discussed, the best way to get a table is to book 10 days' holiday in Barcelona, phone each morning to ensure you're on the cancellations list, keep your mobile switched on and be prepared to drop everything. There are lists of other, merely brilliant, restaurants where you can console yourself while waiting for the call.

To add to the palpable sense of panic among the gastro-pilgrims, there is the persistent, tantalising rumour that he's going to shut the whole place down. "We know about the rumours," Adrià says, "and we're not going to close El Bulli." There is a deft pause before he continues: "But every single day we must face the challenge to reinvent the model through which we express ourselves. In the end, the important thing is what we say. Perhaps the model may change.

To those outside the food world, Adrià is a gift - the wacky food science makes for great headlines. There's always a ready one-liner in his apparently absurd notion of serving lunch as a foam - even though he says he stopped doing this in 1998 - and it may well be true that Adrià's work will have little long-term influence on the way we eat at home.

But his real coup has been much more significant than the science tricks. He has, perhaps unintentionally, become the figurehead of a global rebellion against the culinary hegemony of France. Though brilliant young chefs all over the world were innovating frantically, the measure against which they tested themselves was always classical French cuisine, until Adrià's scientific approach, inspired by the work of, among others, French physical chemist Hervé This, who led Adrià to deconstruct ingredients and dishes.

Deconstructing recipes and ingredients by definition makes the combinations of a traditional canon irrelevant. Suddenly the world's best food was not about 400 years of French tradition but ingredients, technique and creativity. At the conclusion of his long acceptance speech at the awards last night, Adrià invited his compatriot Spanish chefs onto the stage at the Freemasons Hall in London to celebrate the fact that their country had more chefs in the top 10 than any other - even France. It's no wonder chefs love Adrià. His personality validates them as artists, his stature puts reviewers and critics in their place, his technique opens new possibilities and his non-Frenchness gives chefs of every nationality an equal chance to succeed. Adrià became a standard around which innovating chefs could cluster, giving restaurant cooking a new direction.

In a 2006 speech, he said: "One day people will come to my restaurant not for nourishment, but for an experience," a statement that seemed to open a whole new territory, beyond food, into which creative chefs can expand. And creativity, never commercialism, is what, he says, drives him. "It is impossible to combine the goal of making money with making people happy with what we do," he says. And yet nor does he care about making everybody happy. "In the end, what is important is what you have inside yourself, what you believe - not the opinion of 10 million."

Because he's Spanish, because of his creativity and his iconoclasm, Adrià is often placed in the tradition of Gaudí, Dali or Picasso. These might be useful comparisons but, like many creative people recognised in their own lifetimes, Adrià has also come to represent something more: his importance reaches far beyond the food he can create and the diners he can please by serving it.

As he held aloft his award on Monday night and gave his thanks and dedications, it seemed that, like a film star whose presence somehow transcends his performances, he has become an icon, representing how the whole of the "fine dining" world see themselves.

Yet with his creativity and cheerful disregard for convention he could at any moment turn his back on the whole of the industry, and it would only increase their regard for him. And might he? Could the most important chef in generations succeed in deconstructing himself out of running a restaurant?

"But, of course," he answers, smiling, "El Bulli is not a restaurant. We don't make any money. The books, the hotel, the other businesses, they make money. But it would not be possible to make money and continue to do what we do at El Bulli. We want to experiment, to please people, but we would never change something we do because of what people say. Is that a restaurant?"

Source: Guardian

Vocabulary Focus

Find the meaning of "to turn your back on" and test your knowlege of body idioms.

Lottery Scam

Spanish lottery scam warning
Published: 19 March, 2008

POLICE have issued warnings about a Spanish Euro Lottery letters which are in circulation across the area.

This scam is based in Europe and advises the recipient of huge cash winnings due to them if they make contact with the originator.

Inspector Neil MacKinnon said: "The simple test for the public is if you have not bought into such a scheme you cannot win. On no account should you send money to unknown individuals who represent these schemes.

"Unfortunately, in recent weeks the police have been made aware of a victim of the Spanish Lottery Scam who has suffered considerable financial loss."

Inspector MacKinnon added: "We would urge the public to bin letters which promise lottery wins or unexpected financial windfall.

"Unscrupulous individuals based in Europe, and also Africa, distribute these letters to gain financial reward. This often results in huge personal distress to individuals across the UK as there are no winners.

"BBC's Watchdog programme has in the past exposed this type of scam. Anyone with a personal concern is advised to contact their local police office."

Source: Inverness Courier

Focus on Grammar


On no account should you send money to unknown individuals.

The above is an example of a negative adverbial. Notice the construction of the sentence:

adverbial + auxiliary + subject + main verb
On no account = under no circumstances.

We use this construction to give greater emphasis in more formal language.

Other negative adverbials include:
Time expressions: never, rarely, seldom

These time expressions are used with a perfect form or with modals and often include comparatives:
Never have I been more ashamed.
Seldom has he experienced such kindness.
Rarely has she been off work for so long.

Time expressions: hardly, barely, no sooner, or scarcely

These time expressions are used when a there are a succession of events in the past:

No sooner had we arrived at the beach, it started to rain.
Scarcely had I got out of bed when the doorbell rang.

After 'Only' Expressions such as 'only after', 'only now', 'only then', etc.

'Only' is used with a time expression:

Only now can I appreciate how good our last teacher was.
Only then did I notice that she hadn't come .

"No way" means that something is completely impossible.

It is common in informal, spoken language:

No way will we be finished by 9 o' clock.
No way am I going to work hard for so little money.



Spain holds lottery scam suspects

Spanish police have arrested 87 Nigerians suspected of defrauding at least 1,500 people in a postal and internet lottery scam.

The arrests were made in and around Madrid in an operation co-ordinated with the FBI.

Police said millions of euros were taken from the victims, most of them in the United States and European Union.

Those targeted were wrongly told they had won a lottery and asked to send a payment before prize money could sent.

Thousands of letters and e-mails, most in ungrammatical English, were sent out to prospective victims every day, police said.

The faked documents asked them to make an initial payment of 900 euros ($1,400, £720) in taxes or administrative costs.

The scam is estimated to have netted around 20 million euros, but the actual sum could be many times that, say police.

Anglican bishop

Police said the number of those defrauded could run into many thousands, as most of them probably failed to report the crime out of embarrassment.

Police estimate that only one in 1,000 recipients of the letters needed to fall for the fraud for it to make a profit. An Anglican bishop was among those duped, according to Spanish officials.

The operation to track down the gang began in May 2007 when a huge number of identical letters destined for addresses in the US was discovered at Madrid's Barajas airport.

Police confiscated hundreds of computers, mobile phones and 60,000 letters in a raid on more than 30 homes and businesses.

Law enforcement officers also seized a suitcase full of fake $100 notes which they say was used to convince some victims who came to Spain in person to collect their "prize money".

Source: BBC News