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Spanish News Today Editors Roundup Weekly Bulletin Dec 8
FEATURED ARTICLES: "Budgeting bungle leaves dozens of towns in southern Spain without Christmas lights" and "AlertCops app in Spain soon to be available in French, German, Italian and Portuguese"
Festive fun or Christmas chaos?
🔴🔴VIDEO atentan contra el Belén monumental de Santo Domingo en Jerez 🔴🔴 pic.twitter.com/FCtGnYlxSA
— COFRADEMANIA (@cofrademania) December 1, 2023
Spain MacGowan
Recently (it wasn’t this week, granted, it was on November 30), we said goodbye to one of the great poets of our time, Shane MacGowan of The Pogues, a man who lived and sang with all the bright-burning fury of any romantic poet you’d care to name. He was the voice of the London Paddy, and in a broader sense of the Irish diaspora the world over, which is where he has something in common with those of us who emigrated from our home countries to Spain.
Shane himself also had a bit of a love affair with Spain. Ever heard The Pogues song ‘Fiesta!’, a rambunctious, frenetic whirl through a boozy Spanish trip through the Andalucía locality of Almería?
Somewhat bizarrely, the music video for the song was filmed in Barcelona, but it’s Almería where Shane’s heart lies. He fell in love with the place while filming the spaghetti western parody movie ‘Straight to Hell’ alongside The Clash’s Joe Strummer and Courtney Love. Loads of spaghetti westerns have been filmed in the desert of Almería, of course, and there is even an cowboy town there which has been turned into a sort-of theme park you can visit.
As well as acting in the film, The Pogues contributed three songs to the soundtrack, including ‘If I Should Fall from Grace with God’, and Shane also wrote a song about that other great poet and national Spanish hero, Federico García Lorca, native of Granada. ‘Lorca’s Novena’, released a few years later in 1990, tells the story of Lorca’s murder in 1936 at the hands of Franco supporters during the Spanish Civil War, and of how his body – which was never recovered – was rumoured to have gotten up and walked away.
Alert! Cops…
If you’re lucky, you’ll never have to contact the police while you’re in Spain, but tragedy is only ever one mishap away and anyone could find themselves on the wrong end of an accident or emergency situation.
The main emergency number in Spain, of course, is 112, which is the freephone number you can call for police, ambulance, firefighting, rescue and other services. But there is another tool that many people find very useful, and that’s the ‘AlertCops’ app.
It’s an app for your phone or tablet developed by Spain’s Home Office and it allows you to report crimes or emergencies in real time and with precise geolocation data so officers can pinpoint exactly where you are to be able to help you more quickly and easily. It’s got two-way communication abilities so not only can you send a message to the police but they can also talk back to you, and it’s available in Spanish (naturally) and also English.
Now, this is nothing new, but what is new is that the app will soon be translated into a host of new languages, including French, German, Italian and Portuguese. This is obviously great news for the wider foreign population living in Spain, and also for those who come to visit Spain on vacation. It is also a pleasing example of how the Spanish do – contrary to what many people might tell you – recognise and appreciate the value of the foreign community in their country and that they are prepared to invest in making life better and safer for us.
Murcia
Murcia has a new permanent tourist attraction as of this week with the opening of the Isla del Barón, and island sitting out in the middle of the Mar Menor lagoon and the largest island in the Region of Murcia. The owners of the privately held Barón Island have decided to allow tourists to visit the island for the first time, with boat tours available from around 48 euros per person to go and discover the island’s remarkable palmetto forest, its amazing neo-Mudejar palace and learn about the important role it plays in the local environment.
But beyond that, possibly the biggest draw of visiting the Isla del Barón is the fact that it’s haunted. Legend has it that the Spanish baron who owned the island back in the 1800s of who gave it its name held a fancy shindig which was attended by, among others, a beautiful Russian princess.
The baron fell head over heels in love with the tsarina and so, naturally, her parents gave her away without her consent and the Spaniard kept her prisoner on the island. It is said that she eventually died of a broken heart, or in more macabre tellings of the story, that she was murdered. People sailing on the Mar Menor swear they’ve seen the ghost of that forlorn Russian damsel wandering along the cliffs, naked and desperate for rescue. So by all means go and visit the island… if you dare!
Talking of scary and gruesome, have you ever seen ‘Squid Game’? Ultra-violent Korean TV programme? Was all the rage a couple of years back? Had everyone digging their red ‘Casa de Papel’ boiler suits back out of their closets for Halloween?
If you haven’t, don’t worry. All you need to know is that Netflix, buoyed by the success of the programme, have created a new reality TV show, ‘Squid Game: The Challenge’, where contestants take part in a series of “high-stakes children’s games” for big cash prizes, though much less blood and gore is involved than the original (fictional) series.
Fair enough, I hear you say, but how does this relate to Murcia? Well, it seems that in one version of the show’s opening credits, Netflix managed to – probably by accident – include a 3-second clip of a famous Murcia landmark along such others of global fame as the Sydney Opera House and the New York skyline.
The short clip that opens the programme shows the 14-metre-high statue of Christ that stands on a mountaintop in Monteagudo, just north of Murcia city, looking passably like the much more famous 38-metre Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. If you’ve never seen it, the Monteagudo statue is quite the sight, and work is currently underway to make the nearby 12th-century ‘Castillejo’ fort visitable very soon.
The inclusion of Monteagudo in the Netflix show was most likely a mix-up, of course, but maybe – just maybe – this is the proof we needed all along that Murcia _is_ on a par with the great cities of the world and that it can pull its weight like any other. Next thing you know there’ll be a character called ‘Murcia’ in the next La Casa de Papel/Money Heist spinoff.
Lastly, after the news that Renfe would soon be banning electric scooters from all its trains during peak hours due to the not-insignificant chance of them spontaneously combusting, the tram network in Murcia city has come out in favour of doing the same.
While Murcia Tram has said they would like to take this measure to continue to ensure the safety of their passengers, ultimately it is Murcia City Council that will have to make the decision to change the regulations.
These scooters are already banned in several other public transport networks, most notably the Barcelona metro, and if Murcia Tram have their way it will be forbidden to take them on this popular form of transport in the Regional capital as well.
Remember that this Christmas, travel on Murcia’s trams, as well as on urban buses within the city and the hire of transit bicycles, will be all free of charge in an effort to improve mobility while road works are going on in the city centre.
Remember, you can always check the EVENTS DIARY to see what’s coming up soon in the Region of Murcia:
Spain
Alicante
Check out the Costa Blanca What’s On and Where to Go Facebook group to see more things to do around Alicante province!
Andalucía
It’s been something of a washout of a week in many parts of the autonomous community of Andalucía, which is fair enough as we’re in December and the rain was fairly welcomed by those parts of the region, including several municipalities along the Costa del Sol, that have incredibly been labouring under water restrictions and pre-drought alerts, even this late in the year.
What with it having been such a dry year so far, the rain feels like a blessing from above, even if it did choose this long ‘puente’ week to finally show up.
It is hoped that the downpours this week will go some way towards topping up depleted aquifers and securing precious stocks of water for the next few months so that more water restrictions are not necessary this winter.
Considering the tinderbox-dry conditions, we were very lucky to get away with a relatively quiet summer for forest fires this year in the south of Spain. Now the rains will help to douse the ground, which is an important natural defence against the spread of wildfires.
It’ll be a sunny weekend this Saturday and Sunday, at least, to give us time to enjoy the weekend before more drizzle sets in come the middle of next week. Then again, for Monday and Tuesday meteorologists are actually predicting temperatures to rise to nearly unprecedented levels for this time of year!
So, as ever, while there is good news in the arrival of the rain this week, the continuing strange mix of weather, shifting from cold to hot and from wet to sunny at the drop of a hat, doesn’t bode well in the long term.
You may have missed…
- Ryanair has denied passengers have been charged to download boarding passes.
Ryanair is back in the headlines again, this time accused by dozens of passengers flying from the UK to Spain and other destinations of unfairly charging them to download their boarding passes. - Cartagena kicks off the Christmas season with 300 activities for the whole family.
Cartagena has prepared more than 300 special activities to celebrate Christmas which will officially begin on Tuesday December 5 with the inauguration of the municipal Nativity Scene at 6.30pm in the Plaza San Francisco and the switching on of the lights in the Plaza del Ayuntamiento. - Golden holiday: Spanish and foreign tourists fill the Costa Blanca.
The Costa Blanca is preparing for another record-breaking weekend in what has turned out to be a golden year for tourism along the Alicante coasts. More than 1.7 million holidaymakers from at home and abroad are expected to descend on the region between Wednesday December 8 and Sunday December 9 over the Constitution break. - German tourist arrested for stabbing his mother in Costa del Sol.
A 22-year-old German tourist has been remanded in custody without bail in the Costa del Sol municipality of Velez-Malaga for the attempted murder of his mother. The young man allegedly stabbed his 61-year-old mum while the pair was holidaying in Benajarafe. - Aguilas Town Hall presents the municipal nativity scene for the 2023-24 festive season.
The official municipal Belén, or nativity scene, was presented on December 6 at the Águilas Plaza shopping mall in a ceremony attended by Mayoress Mari Carmen Moreno, Councillor Maido Simó and other local dignitaries.
That’s all for now folks. We hope everyone enjoys the rest of the Constitution long weekend and we'll be back with you next week with the latest news and happenings throughout Spain.
Take care!