Spanish News Today Editors Roundup Weekly Bulletin Nov 5

CLICK HERE FOR THE FEATURE ARTICLES "40 Celtic fans kicked off Spanish train for antisocial behaviour" and "Discover the top 5 English words the Spanish use but can’t pronounce"

It’s Guy Fawkes’ Night this Saturday November 5, when the English traditionally burn guys of the Catholic who fought for the Spanish and tried to assassinate the king who united Scotland and England under a single union. There are several events happening in Spain to celebrate Guy Fawkes’ Night, but it’s also somehow poetic that Glasgow football fans were causing high-profile trouble in Spain this week.

In other news, the Spanish are having trouble testing out their alert system that’s supposed to warn people when there’s trouble, and there’s double trouble trying to get their teeth around the terrible twistiness of the English tongue. There may be trouble ahead…

ES-Alert

So how’s that emergency alert system going that the government is testing out? Have you received a text message to your phone yet warning you of a ‘TEST TEST TEST not a real emergency situation’?

In the autonomous communities of Spain where it’s already been trialled, there’s been, suffice it to say, varied success and a mixed response. There have been plenty of people who didn’t receive any message at all – about 3 in every 10, it’s estimated, including yours truly – and even those who did get one sometimes got a slightly different message from their friends and neighbours.

The phones are supposed to beep loudly, even if they’re on ‘silent’ mode, but some people have reported that their mobiles only showed the visual message up on the screen but didn’t make any noise or vibrate at all. Others had the opposite problem, where their phones made a trilling alarm noise, loud enough and sudden enough to scare you out of your skin, but there was no text up on the screen to explain why the phone had just done that, which almost seems worse. Still others even say they received the message twice, which isn’t that bad; if it were a real disaster scenario, you’d have twice as much chance of being informed and ready.

All these problems that the Public Safety and Civil Protection have learned about with the test system will be reported back to the central government in Madrid at a big meeting after November 16, when the last test alerts will go out. They will assess the success or failure of the scheme and see how they can make it better. But one thing’s for sure – sooner or later this will become a widespread system in common usage.

But not everyone is so keen on the idea. For some people, it’s not a good or reliable way of disseminating important information. We receive so many emails and messages on a daily basis that are scams, hoaxes and phishing attempts, so when you get an unexpected alert telling you “This is an emergency, click here to accept”, it’s understandable that not everyone will believe it.

That said, it will be on the TV and radio and in newspapers and all over the internet too. If there really is a fire, flood or famine, a 5-minute alert on your phone isn’t the only thing you’re going to know about it. It’s not meant to replace these other media. It’s meant to complement them. And it’s a good way of reaching people who don’t regularly watch terrestrial Spanish television or similar, and who otherwise may not have known there was an emergency situation.

Once they work out all the kinks, it’s hoped that this system will be agile, flexible and measured in its scope – there can’t be a ‘possible flooding’ alarm flashing up on your phone in big RED LETTERS from the emergency services every time we get a little bit of rain. It would generate unnecessary alarm and hysteria. Let’s hope that the next time your phone rings like this (assuming it did ring), it’s for a good reason.

Or better yet, let’s hope we never have to use it at all.

Fitba

There was tension between Spanish riot police and Glasgow Celtic supporters in Madrid this week on the occasion of the Real Madrid Champions League match up with the Scottish team this Wednesday. Nearly ten thousand Celtic fans descended on the Spanish capital, of whom only 2,000 actually had tickets for the match. Which left about 8,000 of them wandering the Madrid streets and trying to find a bar to watch the game in. They inevitably ended up congregating in large central areas like the Plaza Mayor, where there were some who got into scuffles with Madrid police, who had already set up a special security deployment consisting of police helicopters and almost 50 officers in the expectation of trouble.

To be honest, though, it was nowhere near as conflictive as it could have been, despite (or because of?) a 5-1 loss by the Scots to Real Madrid. It also helped that the bars were told by police to shut up their outdoor terraces early.

The worst trouble actually came a couple of days before that when 40 Celtic fans were kicked off a Madrid-bound, highspeed AVE train from Alicante because of their antisocial behaviour, verbally abusing other passengers and rail workers and causing a 52-minute delay.

The Scottish so-called ‘hooligans’ boarded the 2.45pm train from Alicante, but it was less than an hour before their journey was cut short due to their unruly and intimidating antics. Police came and booted them off the train in Albacete – about 150 miles from where they wanted to be. It took almost an hour to get the Celtic supporters off the train, during which time they held up the rest of the passengers, who train company Renfe has confirmed will be “fully compensated” for the disruption.

It's unlikely that Renfe will pay out of their own pocket, though. If anything, they’ll probably try and make the Scottish fans pay, just as the 11 members of a bachelor party causing disturbances and delays on an AVE train from Madrid to Malaga were court-ordered to pay 7,676 euros in damages.

¿Qué?

English is basically the universal lingua franca these days, and there’s no shortage of English language words that have made their way into everyday Spanish lexicon. The only problem is – and I’m sure it won’t have escaped your notice – Spanish pronunciation is quite different from English and Spaniards frequently mispronounce the English words and phrases they use.

Taking a selection of 50 common phrases that the average Spaniard uses in everyday life, an online learning platform recently studied the Google data based on online searches for ‘how to pronounce’ and ranked them according to their difficulty. This is what they found.

The top 5 English words that the Spanish use but never pronounce correctly are: Tupperware, Wi-Fi, Freaky, Sidecar and Iceberg (try reading them all in a Spanish accent and you’ll get the point). Close contenders for the top spots included Wood, Tuesday, Sleep and Beach.

Can you think of any more? And are there any Spanish words we have coopted into the English language that we are probably saying all wrong?

Murcia

Cartagena is lucky enough to be getting a visit from the world’s largest cruise liner, Royal Caribbean's Wonder of the Seas, this month of November. She will be pulling into port on November 7 if you want to go down and see all 363 metres of her. But that’s not all. This could actually be a bumper month for Cartagena port, with more than 35,000 passengers scheduled to disembark from 26 liners, sometimes up to five ships in one day – the third best month of 2022, which is sure to bring more cash to the city’s shops, businesses, museums and hotels.

As well as the Wonder of the Seas, there will be three cruise ships arriving in Cartagena this month for the first time ever: Norwegian Dawn; Azamaran Onward; and MSC Seaview. While it’s always astounding to see these behemoths of the ocean from the outside, and marvel at just how big they are, the influx of cruise passengers and the stepping up of operations in Cartagena begs the question of whether the Murcia port city will eventually become fed up of all these tourists tramping around the streets leaving their trash, and follow Palma de Mallorca in actually limiting the number of cruise ships allowed to dock at any one time; or whether Cartagena is actually positioning itself as an alternative tourist destination to Mallorca.

While Cartagena is awash with seaborne travellers, Mazarrón, Águilas and Lorca are a desert. Literally.

According to a new report compiled by Spain’s meteorologists, the coasts of Mazarrón, Lorca and Águilas are some of the territories with the most arid climate in Spain, along with two small areas in Almería and Alicante, and the islands of Lanzarote, southern Tenerife, Gran Canaria and Fuerteventura. So arid are they, in fact, that they are officially classified as ‘deserts’ thanks to the rising temperatures and drop over the last 70 years in the amount of rainfall they receive.

Arid climates have been steadily increasing in Spain, going from 11% of the country’s territory in 1990 to almost 21% now, changing once fertile lands into dry dustbowls as a direct result of the changing climate and affecting the habitats and ecosystems of many species of plants and animals, leading ever more of them to become endangered.

Mazarrón has managed, however, to finally – after many years of trying – secure a promise to construct a new seafront promenade along the El Alamillo beach to the tune of 3.7 million euros. While there have been attempts to build a ‘paseo marítimo’ in El Alamillo for around two decades now, this time it seems like it’s really going to happen as the process is already going out to tender for construction companies to begin bidding on the right to undertake the project.

The plan for the new promenade will cover 1,280 metres stretching from the Paseo del Rihuete and reaching the Punta del Alamillo, and will include green areas, street lighting, a bike lane, drinking water fountains and benches, as well as new toilets, foot-washing shower stations and wooden paths to provide better access the beach. Once work starts, it will take just nine months to complete.

Events this weekend in Murcia: don’t miss the annual Dog Show at the IFEPA exhibition centre in Torre Pacheco! Hundreds of doggy-related activities taking place across the Saturday and Sunday. Just 4 euros to get in – dogs welcome and encouraged to join (dogs go free!).

For more activities and goings on like this in Murcia, check out our EVENTS DIARY:

Spain

Spain is obviously a popular destination for many Brits, with thousands of them taking planes, trains and automobiles to arrive in the sunny Mediterranean country each year. But not many of them try to kayak there.

That’s exactly what Ryan Ball, 28 from Oldham, tried to do. Without great success. He was discovered last Thursday by Dutch fisherman, clinging to a buoy in the middle of the English Channel wearing only a pair of swimming shorts and claiming he had survived 12 days at sea after his departure from Dover.

Ball told his rescuer, Tunis Van Luut, that he had been at sea since October 15 but had capsized and had been totally exposed to the elements for days, surviving by eating seaweed and drinking rainwater. When the fishermen picked him up, he could barely stand or speak and was suffering hypothermia and dehydration. His body temperature was just 26 degrees, and the fishermen immediately called the coastguard to say he would need hospital treatment. But not before he had drunk “five bottles of water, three cans of Fanta and one Coke straight down”.

Presumably he’ll think again before trying the sea route over to Spain, and maybe next time try it in summer. And not in a kayak.

Back in Spain, telecoms company Telefónica has informed that it suffered a cyber-attack a couple of weeks ago and so is advising all its customers – including anyone who uses Movistar – to change their Wi-Fi passwords for both home and business use.

It’s not known how many customers may have been affected by this problem. They do point out that no sensitive personal data has been stolen or hacked into, of the kind that would allow customers or their bank details to be identified, but they are sending out letters to clients now to alert them of the attack and tell them what they should do in order to change the passwords on their Wi-Fi routers.

Finally, Spanish truck drivers are warning that they plan to go on strike again, with work stoppages that will be “much more forceful” than the ones that brought the country grinding to a halt last March. Back then, the strike action lasted for 20 days, caused massive disruption to the supply chain and even resulted in an accidental shooting in Madrid.

Now, shops and supermarkets are once again preparing for the worst (food shortages, not shootings) if the Spanish government can’t subsidise more fuel costs for HGV drivers, most of whom are self-employed and are not even breaking even at the moment. Let’s hope they sort it out quickly!

Alicante

From hero Hollanders saving the skins of foolhardy Brits, to dangerous Dutchmen on the Costa Blanca. A violent and dangerous Dutch national who was on the run from the authorities in the Netherlands has been arrested in Benidorm. The 32-year-old was wanted for assault, making threats and illegal detention, crimes which he is alleged to have committed in Amsterdam back in 2019.

Spanish police officers caught up with the fugitive merely by chance during a routine crime prevention and anti-drug patrol. When he spotted the police, the Dutchman tried to make a run for it. The officers quickly caught up with him, of course, and when they came to check his identity discovered there was a warrant out for his arrest. He now faces a 12-month prison sentence, of which he has to serve 150 days.

Elsewhere, a Colombian woman who was on Europol’s Most Wanted list for trafficking women from Ecuador and Colombia, forcing them into prostitution in Alicante province, has been arrested in Elche.

This time, police were deliberately trying to track down the woman. Working with authorities from overseas, they managed to trace her to an Elche flat, 25km from Alicante city where she is reported to have managed a brothel.

The women she trafficked over from South America were brought to Spain under the illusion they would have to pay back 1,500 euros, but when they arrived in Spain, they were told this debt had been doubled. They were coerced into sex work around the clock, seven days a week, and could only leave the flat for one hour a day to run personal errands. That is, unless a ‘client’ specifically requested their services, when they had to return immediately. It’s still not known just how many women were crammed into the small Alicante apartment, but police said they had to “share rooms where they performed sexual services” and the money they earned was taken from them to “pay off their debt”.

The ringleader of this horrible scheme, who was leading a fully integrated life in Elche, has now been charged with human trafficking for sexual purposes, money laundering and drug trafficking (since she allegedly supplied cocaine which was offered to punters).

Andalucía

The town of Nerja in Malaga province on the Costa del Sol is a very popular and picturesque resort destination and is home to many expats in southern Spain. Which is why the news coming out of Nerja this week was so shocking, especially the arrest of a 70-year-old Irishman who had been wanted by police in his home country for the last five years on charges of sexual assault of minors and possession of child pornography.

He was found and detained by Spanish police based on an international search and arrest warrant issued against him by a court in Dublin last Thursday, and has now been imprisoned in Torrox, awaiting extradition to Ireland.

Meanwhile, another 70 year old washed up dead on the local Playa Burriana beach in Nerja. The poor woman’s lifeless body was discovered washed up near an area of rocks by several witnesses on the beach, who called the police.

Deaths and paedophiles aside, the Costa del Sol is actually a wonderful place to live and go on vacation, of course. This autumn/winter season 2022/2023, there are over a hundred flight connections between Malaga airport and other European and world destinations, which means over a hundred reasons to visit this low season. Here’s a full list of all the places you can fly to from Malaga airport this winter 2022/23.

You may have missed…

Why does Murcia have one of the fastest growing caravan fleets in Spain?
The Region of Murcia is the autonomous community in Spain with the second highest increase in the sale of motorhomes and caravans over the last two years, bucking the national trend in the rest of the country.
Dozens arrested and three dead on Halloween night in Spain.
Halloween night took a terrifying turn in Spain after three people died and dozens of people were arrested for assault, robbery and other offences.
Sobering production costs send beer prices through the roof in Murcia Region.
A sobering mix of soaring energy bills, a shortage of cereals and other raw material price hikes has seen the cost of beer production hit dizzying heights in the Region of Murcia.
Spanish government throws its weight behind Andalusia tourist tax proposal.
Madrid has said that a tourist tax in Andalusia – an issue which frequently gets people's blood up – is not such a strange concept, but has warned that it must be approached "through the process of dialogue".
Gibraltar is preparing for Brexit negotiations to fail.
The Gibraltar Government has issued a technical notice with guidance for businesses and public services to prepare for a “no negotiated outcome” (NNO) with Spain on the future of the Rock’s withdrawal from the European Union, a sign that they are laying the groundwork for the worst-case scenario in the event of a failure of the negotiations.

That’s all from us for this week, thanks for reading. Have a lovely Bonfire night, and we’ll be back next week.

Until then!

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