Don’t let thebanks cash in

www.hifx.co.uksee page 13

Don’t let thebanks cash in

www.hifx.co.uksee page 13see page 29

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FREE Vol. 7 Issue 159 www.theolivepress.es April 19 - May 1, 2013

the

EXCLUSIVE By Jon Clarke

and James Bryce

Turn to page 4

NEARLY 1,000 British families faced forced eviction proceedings in Spain last year.According to figures re-leased from the College of Property Registrars, Britons accounted for 3% of repossession cas-es in 2012.In total, 30,034 first homes were repos-sessed by the banks in 2012 – or one every 12-and-a-half minutes -

EXPATS -THIRD OF EVICTIONS

HE allegedly earned mil-lions by persuading unsus-pecting investors to part with their hard-earned cash through a series of blacklist-ed companies in Spain.Now banned financial advi-sor Terence Wright is reap-ing the benefits of his scams by enjoying a luxury lifestyle in France.The Olive Press can reveal Wright has moved into a sprawling €2 million man-sion in the Dordogne region, after spending millions ren-ovating the property.The British businessman is said to have taken a keen in-terest in the building work, regularly flying in by private jet to oversee the project.The property, in Veyrines de Vergt, halfway between Perigueux and Bergerac, has even been nicknamed ‘The Castle’ by locals due to its vast size.The mansion’s most notable

feature is its own stables, which are believed to be for the benefit of Wright’s wife Lesley, who is known to have a keen interest in horses. He has furnished his life-style by buying a second home up the road for staff and two brand new Mer-cedes cars and a Bentley for him and his wife. The boss of FSA-blacklisted firms, PFR Services and Cash in Your Pension , told neighbours he has moved because he is sick of Span-iards and Spanish food.But the truth is his Span-ish operation, run out of a house in Alhaurin el Grande, was coming under

increasing scrutiny from UK regulators.“He is a very strange person, very slippery,” one neigh-bour told the Olive Press.“The reasons he gave for moving have made a lot of people suspicious, you don’t move to another country at such great expense just because you don’t like the food.”Another source who worked on the house added: “The renovation has been car-ried out to the highest and almost incredible luxury

standards. “He loves playing Lord of the Manor and has even bragged to have spent mil-lions on the renovation.“I’ve seen lots of plush plac-es in my time but this is on a different level.”The source added: “He is still involved in lots of schemes and has been in and out of Dubai over the last year living the high life.“He often flies via private jet and usually goes in and out of the UK via Biggin Hill.”The Olive Press revealed in 2011 how Wright was op-erating a so-called boiler room in Alhaurin, which

GREAT ESCAPE!Who says crime doesn’t pay as blacklisted financial advisor Terry Wright cites ‘dislike of Spanish food’ as reason for upping sticks and buying €2 million mansion in France

TIMESHARE TONI FINALLY GOES ON TRIAL OVER THE CONNING OF 15,000 VICTIMS AROUND EUROPE

But look who didn’t get so lucky!

A PP leader photographed holidaying with a notorious drug smuggler continued to contact the criminal after he was arrested it has emerged.Albert Nunez Feijoo, leader of the Galicia region, faced calls for his resignation this month after several pictures of him were published in the company of drugs lord Mar-cial Dorado.Although the politician ad-mitted to having a ‘personal relationship’ with Dorado, he insisted he had no idea about his friend’s illegal ac-tivity and immediately cut

see full story on p2 Turn to page 7

PP boss’s wild Ibiza weekends with drug lord

Turn to page 2

MINTED: Terry and Lesley Wright on recent Dubai trip

2 www.theolivepress.esthe olive press - April 19 - April 30 2013 CRIME NEWS

A COURT case has heard how Costa-based fraud-ster Toni Muldoon conned 15,000 people out of €6.6 million.Using a team of trusted lieutenants, Muldoon, 66, got unsuspecting punters to sign up to an escort website with the promise of earning up to €700 a day.Clients paid an upfront fee of over €400 to become ‘non-sexual’ companions but never received any work.The former timeshare boss, based for two decades in Fuengirola, has already pleaded guilty to two charg-es of conspiracy to defraud.But five of his accomplices have pleaded not guilty at Ipswich Crown Court.

DetectiveThe group, that includes a former police detective, in-sist that they were unaware of the scams being under-taken by Muldoon’s many businesses.One of his accomplices Bradley Rogers, 29, from

A FORMER Moulin Rouge dancer jailed for benefit fraud after fleeing to Spain has been ordered to pay back €40,000.Benefit cheat Dawn Orton, 47, was locked up for 12 months after being convict-ed of cheating the taxpayer out of as much as €100,000.An international arrest warrant was issued for the mother-of-two before she eventually handed her self in on the Costa del Sol.Now the former showgirl has been ordered to pay €40,000 in six months or face another year behind

Costa-based accomplices of conman Toni Muldoon stand trial accused of conning €6.6 million in fake escort scam

Toni’s 15,000 victims GUILTY: Muldoon has admitted the fraud

Pay-back for former Moulin Rouge dancer

TRIAL: Christopher Taylor and Bradley RogersFuengirola, is said to have received £750,000 into his account.The court also heard that it was Rogers who chose the names for the escort web-sites and booked adverts in papers such as the Daily Star.In the largest operation ever undertaken by Suffolk Tradings Standards, officer Paula Saward, called the company posing as a would-be escort.It has also emerged that various Olive Press stories were mentioned during the trail, revealed a BBC jour-

LUXURY: Wright’s pad

nalist covering it.The court heard how the group laundered millions of euros from the UK into Spanish bank accounts.Muldoon is said to have hired former police detec-tive, Christopher Taylor, 57, to launder funds from the fraud through his company bank account.Prosecutor Nic Lobbenberg said the evidence gathered shows Taylor was involved in discussions with Mul-doon about buying a villa in Spain and providing other funds.“Would Mr Muldoon con-fide such things with Mr Taylor unless he was on the inside?” said Lobbenberg.“That demonstrates that Taylor is on the inside of what is going on in relation to these frauds,” he added.In the scam a string of bogus agencies were set up using names such as AdoraBelles, Beautiful Adults and Euro-pean Escorts.

ScamThe upfront fees were then transferred through a net-work of false companies and the promised ‘dates’ never took place.“These cases involve the advance fee fraud,” said the prosecutor.“You pay something upfront for something you never get. It was a complete scam,” he added.Muldoon is also accused of masterminding another scam in which the group cold-called people and promised to eliminate their debt.“People who were caught by this fraud were people who

were very desperate,” added the prosecution.“They had vast credit card debts. They were persuaded to put more money on their credit cards to get rid of debt.“This fraud is about prom-ising debt elimination that simply does not exist.”Also accused are Colin Sam-uels, 61, Mark Bell, 41, and Geraldine French, 60.The case continues and is expected to last eight weeks.

bars.Orton claimed thousands in lone widow payments following the death of her husband, despite being in a long-term relationship with a wealthy businessman.She also claimed incapac-ity benefit payments for a shoulder injury, despite continuing to play badmin-ton and enjoying skiing holidays.

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cold-called people in the UK and persuaded them to invest in a variety of schemes. A dossier of his schemes showing he made mil-lions each year was handed to the UK’s Fi-nancial Services Au-thority (FSA).Despite insisting that he was running a legiti-mate operation he is not authorised to carry out regulated activities in the UK, including advis-ing on investments. An FSA spokesman Toby Parker thanked the Olive Press for pass-ing on the documents and confirmed the regu-lator’s ongoing interest in Wright’s activities.“The FSA is aware of Wright and is con-cerned about the type of business he is operat-ing,” he said.He continued: “You are doing a good job down there in Spain.”

A WRIGHT RIP OFF

From Page 1

3www.theolivepress.es the olive press - April 19 - 30, 2013NEWS

WELL he is definitely crocked now.The myserious reptile, dubbed the ‘La Cala Croc’, in the Olive Press in Febru-ary has become a crocker.After sparking a two month manhunt around the lake area on the bor-ders of Mijas, Ojen and Marbella, the body of the

HE will be the second fa-mous Lennon to visit the Rock.Julian Lennon is to make an emotional visit to Gi-braltar, where his Beatle father John got married in 1969.The star in his own right, who lives in France, is due to make a flying visit on May 23.The singer, the son of Len-non’s first wife Cynthia, is scheduled to visit the In-ternational Beatles Memo-rabilia and Julian Lennon Collection exhibition.Show organiser David Giles told the Olive Press: “It’s a really exciting for us

THE UK’S most famous DJ is to head-line this year’s Territorios Festival in Sevilla.Norman Cook, AKA Fatboy Slim, is to star at the music festival in May.Long-time fan of Andalucia, Cook, who has a number of holidays in the Ronda area, will star alongside Dutch dance act 2manydjs.The last time he hit the turntables in the region was at the Gaucin feria

RYANAIR will next week argue in a Malaga court why an advertising campaign featuring a bevy of scandily clad air hostesses (left) is not sexist.It came after Malaga-based consumers association Adecua blasted the budget airline’s use of an image of six bikini-clad women with the caption: ‘Red hot prices, like the crew!’Adecua complained the advert carried a ‘blatant sexu-al connotation’ unrelated to the product.The group also complain that Ryanair used the image of women discriminatingly by not including any pic-tures of males when referring to cabin crew.Last year the firm had similar adverts banned in the UK following a petition signed by over 7,000 people.Prosecutors will now assess the complaint before the hearing on April 30.

POP star Paul Young is to show the Spanish how to cook paella.It comes after the for-mer Eighties heart-throb – famous for a string of hits including ‘Wherever I Lay My Hat’- donned the whites of a celebrity chef and published his own cook book.He is due to demon-strate his version of the iconic Spanish dish at Club La Costa World, near Fuengirola, at the end of April. Paul’s book, ‘Recipes Found on My Travels’, is packed with favou-rite dishes that the star has discovered while touring the world as a singer. He put his own cooking ability to the test on TV’s Celebrity Masterchef and Marco Pierre White’s Hell’s Kitchen and discovered he had a real flair for being in the kitchen.Paul will show off his culinary skills on April 26 and 29 at the Sunset Restaurant at the Cali-fornia Beach Resort, Club La Costa World. To order tickets tele-phone 952 66 99 88.

Bikini complaint

By Frances Leate

TOP TUCKER: Paul Young is now a chef

SEE YOU LATER ALLIGATOR!

The manhunt for the La Cala Croc first reported in the Olive Press in February, has ended with the discovery of its bodycrocodile has turned up dead. The two metre-long croc was first spotted by gardener Mario Calvente

and Seprona officers later found footprints belong-ing to the giant reptile.Warning signs went up in

Mijas Town Hall and resi-dents living nearby admit-ted they were ‘freaked out’ by the sightings.But on Monday the body of the Nile crocodile was found in one of the streams known as Majada

Fatboy Flies in

three years ago, it can be revealed.He previously headlined at the Creamfields festival in Almeria seven years ago. The former singer in the legendary group The Housemartins is married to TV presenter Zoe Ball.Territorios music festival started in 1998 and has evolved into a wide mix of music styles.Festival-goers can enjoy concerts by national and international artists, as

well as dance music. Many performances are free.Promoters insist their main goal is to get audiences dancing to exhaustion. For more informa-tion visit http://www.territoriossev-illa.com/

LENNON LANDING

to have Julian visiting his own exhibition.“It’s a massive coup for the Rock.The exhibition is a personal and intimate journey which portrays the story of his father, one of the world’s most iconic figures, through his eyes. It is the first time it has been out of Liverpool.Gibraltar has a third con-nection with The Beatles, as Lennon’s own father Alf visited the enclave as a mer-chant seaman in the 1930s.

Vieja, near to La Mairena.It was discovered by per-sonnel from the Torremo-linos Crocodile Park and the Mijas Local Police after several weeks of comb-ing the area. At present the cause of death is not known, but it is reported to have had an injury to its head.

Paella, Paul Young-style

4 www.theolivepress.esthe olive press - April 19 - April 30 2013 NEWS

because of non-payment on mortgages. More than a third (36%) of these belonged to foreign-ers, with Brits accounting for 2.9%, Ecuadorians 8.8 %, Moroccans 5.5% and Romanians making up 2.8% of the homeowners. A further 8000 second homes were also repossessed, while 14,229 families effectively gave their homes back via so-called ‘dacions’, which are effectively a means of can-celling a mortgage loan by handing over the keys of the property to the bank. This practice is usually reserved for specific situations where the family in question is very poor and the bank be-lieves it will be impossible to recover the mortgage.In the past dacions have come under fire from critics who believe they encourage a culture of non-payment of loans, but these figures suggest they could be becoming normal banking practice in Spain. The hot points in Spain include Madrid, Barcelona, Valen-cia and Malaga, which saw 2,268 repossessions for first homes.

From Page 1Evicted expats

Thousands of expats will be affected by new law clamping down on short term holiday lets

By Annabel GrossmanNEW legislation could pre-vent homeowners from renting their properties to holidaymakers. If passed by the Senate, it could become illegal for pri-vate homes to be let to tour-ists on a short term basis.In a bid to help the strug-gling hotel sector, the gov-

ernment has voted to up-date the Urban Rental Law (LAU) which will hand reg-ulation of the rental area to the regional authorities.Hotel owners argue that the practice of independently

renting properties to punt-ers over the internet is un-dermining the tourist trade and creating unfair compe-tition. It is thought more than 20,000 properties would be affected should the law come into effect.“While it is true there is a lot of clandestine renting, we are against this,” explains David Tornos, president of Asotur, an organisation that handles property rentals for tourists. “We pay all our taxes and do things by the book, but the hotels think we are pirates. We just hope they don’t bring this law in and leave us alone.” Lawyer Antonio Flores, of Lawbird, insists the new law could actually drive a lot more people into illegal renting.He said: “Providing rentals are carried out legally there should not be a problem. But if this law becomes too restrictive it will drive more people into clandestine rentals.”

HOME RENTALS CRACKDOWN

OVER 200 pupils from Swans Secondary School celebrated their annual sports day at the Marbella stadium. The event was a great exhibition with both track and field events, including long jump and even shot putt. The same day, the Primary School staged its own sports day, at Swans Sierra Blanca. The highlight of which was, undoubtedly, the Fancy Dress obstacle course.

In a class of their own

A VILLAGE in Granada is changing the name of a street named after Mahatma Gan-dhi after residents complained that it was too difficult to pro-nounce.

Not handy for Gandhi

5www.theolivepress.es the olive press - April 19 - 30, 2013NEWS

CAROL Thatcher was in-formed of her mother’s death while attending Span-ish classes in Madrid it has emerged.The 59-year-old daughter of Baroness Thatcher has been attending courses at the Tilde languages school for several years. Lola Gon-zalez Martinez, the school’s co-director, confirmed she

Thatcher daughter cancelled Spanish classes after mother’s death

AN angry British mother is considering legal action after her teenage son was denied urgent medical at-tention in Spain. In a freak accident 15-year-old Josh Fryer Bloom, who was on holiday with his mother Samantha, impaled himself on a spiked fence and received a puncture wound to the testicle. With a towel wrapped around his groin to stem the bleeding, they rushed to the Benalmadena A&E to seek treatment. It was then that their night-mare began.“As soon as we walked into the hospital we were met by a woman with a clipboard, who thrust a pile of papers in my face and demanded that I pay €250 straight away and then €200 for the triage. “She added only then might they be able to treat him in three or four hours,” Lon-

EXCLUSIVE By Giles Brown

Security called in after British mother refuses to pay €450 in cash to hospital after her son suffers serious puncture wound to his testicles

doner Samantha, 47, told the Olive Press.“We were due to fly back to London that night, so I asked if they would be able to treat him quickly, but this woman said that unless I paid there and then, he wasn’t going to be treated at all.”The situation then got worse when she attempted to pay by credit card, as the ad-ministrator doubted it was her son.“Because my surname is Fryer and Josh has a dou-bled-barreled surname Fry-er Bloom, the woman was claiming that he wasn’t my son and she wouldn´t take the card. “She even started to ques-tion if Josh was even Brit-ish, even though I was wav-ing his passport in front of

her”With Josh in considerable pain and blood pouring out, it was at this point that she lost her temper.Security was called as she argued with the woman.“I told them that I didn’t ex-pect to be ransomed but did expect my son to be treated because he was an EU citi-zen,” explained the graphic designer who was over in Spain with her son for a week’s break.“The woman replied that they would refuse to treat him because she couldn’t be certain he was British and she didn’t like my attitude. “She also refused to give us any numbers of private doc-tors or clinics in the area. It was a disgrace.”In the end the pair were able to get a number of a private doctor from a friend’s girl-friend, who lives in Benal-madena.

Horrified“It took a couple of frantic calls but we found this doc-tor who treated Josh imme-diately for only €35,” she continued. “To say I was horrified would be an un-derstatement. “What is happening to the healthcare system here in Spain?” They were then able to catch their flights back to London, where he went immediately to St Mary’s Paddington where he undertook further emergency treatment. “I’m totally appalled by what happened” Samantha said. “I would expect this sort of thing to happen in the US, but not in the EU to a British citizen? And what would have happened if my son had been on his own? “Would he have been left to suffer in pain until some-body paid for his treatment?“I am now considering legal action against the hospital.”

MEMBERS of the Anglican Church of the Costa del Sol West are mourning the sudden death of their chaplain Canon Dr Alan Maude. The popular 71-year-old died in his sleep at his home in Estepona.He arrived in Spain in 2006 to take charge of a chaplain-cy that had been without a priest for nearly two years. With the constant and unstinting support of his wife Marjorie, he oversaw a rapid increase in church mem-bership and attendance figures at services.

NO CASH, NO CARE!

AGONISING WAIT: Josh before accident

Sudden death of Canon

had left during the course, adding: “I’m sure the death didn’t come as any great surprise as I understand that her mother’s health was deteriorating for quite some time but it must still be very upsetting for Carol.”Her Marbella-based twin brother, Sir Mark Thatcher, was forced to curtail a holi-day in Barbados and issued

a statement to the press shortly afterwards.Sir Thatcher said his mother ‘was blessed with a long life, and a very full one’.While a street in Madrid is set to be named after the former UK leader, Prime Minister Rajoy will not be attending tommorrow’s fu-neral. He is instead sending his foreign minister.

AN expat is appealing to Olive Press readers to help her value what she believes is a Martian meteorite.Axarquia-based Penny Hammond hopes the suspected meteorite will make her a tidy sum should tests prove it to be genuine.The Rincon de la Victoria resident got in touch with the paper after we reported how a farmer in the north of Spain discovered that a rock he was using to press ham was worth €4m.She had been given the rock as a gift from a neighbour who acquired it while working in India as a civil ser-vant. Weighing around 165g, the rock is slightly smaller than a golf ball. Hammond said she had done sim-ple tests to check the properties of the rock and is now keen to have it looked at by an expert. “If it is what we think it is, it could be worth sev-eral thousand pounds,” she added.“I just have no idea who to speak to. Can anyone help?”

Will my meteorite make me rich?

6 www.theolivepress.esthe olive press - April 19 - April 30 2013

OPINION

The original and only English-languageinvestigative newspaper in Andalucía

Tel: 951166060 (admin) or 951127006 (editorial)A campaigning, community newspaper, the Olive Press rep-resents the huge expatriate community in southern Spain - 188,000 copies distributed monthly (120,000 digitally) with an estimated readership, including the website, of more than 500,000 people a month.

Luke Stewart Media S.L - CIF: B91664029Urb Cayetano Arroyo, Buzon 13, Arriate 29350 MalagaPrinted by Corporación de Medios de Andalucía S.A.Editor: Jon Clarkejon@theolivepress.esReporters:Frances Leate frances@theolivepress.esMason Jones mason@theolivepress.esAnnabel Grossmanannabel@theolivepress.es

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FEATURE

Despite the gloomy Easter weather and equally gloomy forecast for the economy, there are still plenty of positives giving Spain hope for the year ahead... Here Giles Brown picks out his Top Ten

THANKS to its geography, seafaring tradition and strong links to Colombia, Galicia has long been a drug smugglers’ paradise. On ancient maps, this part of Spain’s north-western region was named Finistierra and mariners thought that west of the rias, the rocky inlets swept by incessant winds, was liter-ally the end of the earth.Indeed, if you were f o o l i s h e n o u g h to sail on over the sea, you w o u l d l i t e r a l l y plunge over the edge into the abyss.Even today, with all the mod-ern charts, navigating these waters – often dubbed ‘the coast of death’ or Costa del Morte - remains a hazardous business... but for some, a spectacularly profitable one. For this remote corner of Eu-rope has, in the last decade, become a principal entry point for cocaine from Colom-bia’s drug cartels. Despite Spain’s efforts to control the traffic, the au-thorities have admitted that around 90% slips through un-detected.Then, of course, there is peo-ple smuggling and a regular

How the Velvet Crab net slowly tightened on another PP leader

Galicia’s premier Alberto Feijoo (left steering boat) is under pressure to resign after links to one of Spain’s leading drug smugglers (far left) emerged, explains Frances Leate

supply of other contraband including tobacco.The most high profile case of drug smuggling has just come back to haunt Spain’s political class, already reel-ing from two months of al-legations over backhanders, bungs and ledgers, much of it revealed by the national newspaper El Pais.

For it has e m e r g e d that one of G a l i c i a ’ s most fa-mous drug smugglers Marcial Do-rado has been a long time friend and associ-ate of the

region’s PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo.Even though his neighbours and employees are long said to have known about the re-lationship between the politi-cian and the famous tobacco smuggler, Dorado never spoke about it in public.That was until photographs of him spending a day out on his yacht with the key political figure emerged in the press a fortnight ago.Posing topless and with a smug grin on his face, it was immediately apparent that this was not the sort of week-end most voters expect of their political leaders. What is less certain is when

they first met, but it has now been established that they have been on holiday togeth-er to Portugal and the famous hedonistic paradise of Ibiza even.Dorado t turns out has been the object of police and me-dia attention for years.In the late 1980s he created a company to bring contra-band tobacco into Spain, in league with Basel-based company delegate Michael Haengui, known as ‘Robert the Swiss’.It went on for years largely undetected until a delivery

driver for the organisation was locked in a refrigerated van but escaped with his life and then went to the police.From then on Dorado was under the spotlight, with the authorities launching the first big operation against the Galician tobacco mafia in 1983, producing Dorado’s first official arrest.Dorado and 94 other mem-bers of the three main Gali-cian trafficking gangs were charged in an investigation lasting so long that it was eventually shelved because the 15-year statute of limita-

“It was immediately apparent that this was not the sort of

weekend most voters expect of their politi-

cal leaders”

Stopping the scammersAFTER years of reporting the exploits of Toni Muldoon, the Olive Press is pleased to see justice finally creep up on him and his gang of accomplices.The timeshare boss has already pleaded guilty to conning 15,000 people out of their hard-earned cash and it has emerged that our reports have even been used in the on-going court case.The Olive Press was set up to make Andalucia a fairer place and knowing that we have helped stop the likes of Muldoon scamming even more people shows that we are on the right track.We pride ourselves on investigating cases like this rather than sit-ting back and looking at Spain through rose tinted spectacles like some of our rivals.We will continue to search out those who think it’s okay to take from someone else’s pocket.Next on the list, Terry Wright, with his new life of luxury in France.

Inappropriate

The horrific ordeal of teenager Josh Fryer Bloom who was refused treatment at an A&E department makes for worrying reading for holidaymakers and expats alike in Spain.The need for upfront payment at a time of serious emergency was inappropriate and cold.The appaling incident does no favours for the reputation of the Spanish healthcare system.However, while this particular nightmare story is unpleasant, we at the Olive Press still continue to hear positive accounts of ex-periences with healthcare professionals in Spain.So just like any-where else in the world, including Britain, there is good and bad.

Pedalling problemIt does seem ironic. On one side of the border the Gibraltar Govern-ment is spending money on developing greener transport and en-couraging everyone to get on their bike, while on the other Spanish authorities are busy confiscating bicycles and dumping them in a shocking display of waste and short sightedness.Since new customs regulations came in this year La Linea locals can expect to have their bikes impounded if they are caught with more than the legal amount of tobacco per month: that’s four pack-ets or 80 cigarettes. We’re not defending tobacco smuggling and in the past there was a strong argument to say it created a culture of easy living through ‘black money’. But it does seem rough jus-tice that’s targeting an area continuously passed over by Madrid for funding, not least because of its proximity to the British Territory. And a complete waste of metal.

7www.theolivepress.es the olive press - April 19 - 30, 20137FEATURE

tions had expired. However, during the same period Dorado’s name was beginning to pop up in vari-ous other European investi-gations, largely into money laundering.His links to Haengui and several trips to Basel to ne-gotiate tobacco shipments placed him in the firing line of a French-Swiss investigation known as the ‘Peseta Con-nection.’It was 1989 and the Swiss au-thorities were probing a mas-sive foreign currency scam involving 26 billion pesetas, which had been deposited in a company called Porepsa be-longing to Haengui.On June 12, 1990 Dorado was netted in Operation Vel-vet Crab, a police investiga-tion into Galician drug traf-ficking that scooped up 54 suspects. He spent a few weeks in pris-on but was released by High Court Judge Baltasar Garzón as a result of the inconsisten-cy of the slew of allegations made against Dorado by Ri-cardo Portabales, a detainee turned witness. While people in the small town of his birth, A Illa de

Arousa, celebrated, others in the area protested against the decision.His links to Basel placed him in the firing line of the ‘Peseta Connection’.Two years later, three years before the boat photographs were taken, the provincial government of Pontevedra h a d b e g u n amassing its own files on the ca-pos of the Gal ic ian mafia af-ter some of them made the move into trafficking cocaine and hash-ish. In one of the voluminous po-lice reports under the appen-dix ‘Code White’-individuals who had been placed under investigation- Marcial Dorado is listed as a smuggler with connections both to the con-struction industry through a real estate company, Lado-mar, and to the hostelry busi-ness.The same report cites the

Galician rias, the Basque Country and Santander as Dorado’s areas of operation and classifies his capacity for maritime trafficking as ‘very high’.It also lists 12 boats used for tobacco smuggling and lists the 35 workers on his payroll.Of all the tobacco smuggling

capos of the era, Dorado was best endowed to turn a profit. Competent and elusive, he tried to escape from his own media a t t e n t i o n , convincing

himself the press was respon-sible for his judicial problems.However, phone taps record-ed a conversation in which Dorado negotiated the sale of a boat moored at the Greek port of El Pireo in October 2003, implicating his involve-ment in drug trafficking after the seizure of the second-largest haul of cocaine in Galicia. Dorado admitted he was a smuggler but has always

denied any involve-ment in drug traf-ficking. “I am the victim of a set-up and they have come at me without any proof,” he said at

A FORMER PP party administrator has been charged with using public money to contract jobs for 104 people he knew.Jose Luis Baltar ‘sidestepped estab-lished procedures’ within the party to give jobs to friends and family said Judge Leonardo Alvarez.The Galician PSOE party had also asked that Baltar be charged with embezzle-ment, fraud and falsifying documents but the judge rejected their claims.

all ties following his arrest.However, it has now emerged the pair spent time together in Portugal and the party island of Ibiza in the mid-90s.And while Feijoo says he cut all ties in 1999, a judge investigating the links says that a phone tap picked up conversations with the pair in 2001.Although the judge has insisted that the tapes contain nothing in-criminating, members of the Galician Left Alternative party are de-manding his resignation unless he can offer a ‘convincing’ explana-tion for the conversations.Appearing in regional assembly last week, the Galicia leader main-tained he had no knowledge of the conversations but added: “It could have been that I called him up to wish him a happy birthday or merry Christmas. “I can’t recall every single person I spoke to during that period.” It has also emerged that smuggler Dorado received over €100,000 in state aid thanks to his links to the Galician authorities, although Feijoo has not yet confirmed exactly what it was for.

PP boss’s wild Ibiza weekends with drug lord

From Page 1

Jobs for the boys

“What is absolutely certain though is that a man like this should

not be allowed ac-cess to the highest echelons of power”

the time.After he was convicted and sentenced to 14 years in jail for drug trafficking, Customs and Excise officers went to work dismantling Dorado’s empire and uncovering his vast fortune. In 2009, his entire estate and network of businesses was embargoed, and valued at €12 million- a figure that between hidden money and property could be double that, investigators believed.While the sentence awaits revision by the Constitutional Court, the High Court is pre-paring a case against Dorado on charges of money launder-ing. In the interim Dorado launched an appeal to be re-leased on restrictive parole, which has been denied up to this point.What is absolutely certain though is that a man like this should not be allowed access to the highest echelons of power.But, as has been the case with the amount of brown en-velopes handed out willy nilly to Spain’s leading politicians over recent decades, it was probably all too easy.Either way, it is just another nail in the coffin for Spain’s political class, who now sure-ly rank with the most corrupt in the world by most people’s standards... and certainly in the eyes of the Spanish.

8 www.theolivepress.esthe olive press - April 19 - April 30 2013 NEWS

POLICE have arrested a British man accused of trying to ab-duct a three-year-old from a shopping centre in Lanzarote.The 62-year-old was arrested in London last week after Thames Valley Police launched a campaign across Europe to try to find him.The incident happened in Costa Teguise in January 2012 while a family from Milton Keynes holidayed on the popular Canary Island.The man was seen leading the toddler out of the centre into an alleyway but was stopped by the father who saw his daughter’s flashing trainers from a distance as he desper-ately searched for her.He ran to his daughter, pulling her away from the man who then left the scene.The family saw the same man on the beach a short time later and confronted the suspect, but he left before police arrived.The alleged abductor, believed to be a father of two, was caught in the UK on April 10. He has since been released on bail.The incident has chilling similarities to the disappearance of three-year-old Madeleine McCann, who went missing from her apartment in Portugal in May 2007 and has never been seen since.A near six-year search for Madeleine has yet to solve the mystery of her disappearance from the Algarve resort of Praia da Luiz.

PARENTS in the Estepona area are being urged to be extra vigilant, following what appear to have been several attempted child ab-ductions. Grandmother Stephanie Rawlings was left shaken after she saw two men lurk-ing around her car while her granddaughter was inside. Rawlings had left six-year-old Katie locked in the ve-

Police are investigating two alleged attempted child abductions in the space of a week on the Costa del Sol

EXCLUSIVE By Annabel Grossman

hicle for only a few minutes while she used the ATM at the Sabadell bank in Este-pona. When she turned back to check on her granddaugh-ter she noticed a small man crouched by the rear car door close to the child. She said: “I got into the car as quickly as possible and locked us in but when I tried to reverse another huge

man appeared and tried to block my exit.“I kept reversing with my hand flat on the horn mak-ing as much noise as I could.” As she was driving away, Rawlings saw the two men jump into the same car and

head off together. “I was so shaken I couldn’t contain myself, it’s just unbelievable that anyone would do this,” the grand-mother said. She has now reported the incident to the local police, but does not believe much is being done.One of the men is described as thin with hollow eyes and greasy long hair, while the

LANZAROTE CHILD ABDUCTION MAN ARRESTED

Watch your children

other is tall, of a heavy build with a shaved head and wearing dark clothing. The car the men drove was an old maroon peugeot 205. The grandmother, who lives in Estepona, insists she has heard of other similar inci-dents reported in the past few weeks, also involving children left unattended in vehicles.“One mother I spoke to left her eight-year-old son in her locked car outside Lidl at Laguna Village.“When she got out after ten minutes these two men were there and trying to en-

courage her son to open the door.“I heard about another case outside a nursery in the town as well. They are sup-posed to be starting a cam-paign.”Although Rawlings reported her experience to the local police, she believes they are not taking the incident seri-ously. “I just want to warn other parents out there,” she add-ed. “I’ve occasionally left my granddaughter alone in the car for a few minutes but it’s something I’ll never do

HOLIDAY CAMP PAEDOPHILE MAGICIAN JAILEDA COSTA-based Brit-ish paedophile, who claimed to be friends with footballer David Beckham, has been jailed for six years.It comes after Ivan Russell’s fiancee Georgie Lamb, 44, ex-posed her partner’s 18 years of child abuse.The pair had moved to Malaga in 2005, where Russell, 42, found work as a magi-cian working up and down the Costa del Sol.According to his fian-cee, life had been per-fect until in June 2010 she overheard him talking about sicken-ing images of children he had stored on his laptop.It soon emerged that the children’s enter-tainer - who once met David and Victoria Beckham in a restau-rant on the Costa del

Sol - had been abus-ing children at holiday camps over a period of 18 years.He apparently used a photo of himself with the famous couple to convince youngsters he was Becks’ personal ma-gician.Lamb, a writer, said: “I could not believe what I was hearing; it was one of the worst moments of my life.

“The children hero-wor-shipped Ivan because he pretended he knew the Beckhams and at one point he even tried to get me to pretend I was Victoria Beckham on the phone, but I re-fused.”He was convicted of 12 counts of indecent as-sault, one of indecency with a child and four of sexual assault.On conviction, the

judge at Northamp-ton Crown Court, de-scribed him as the ‘most selfish individ-ual I have ever come across’.Police are still trying to speak to possible victims of Russell, who worked as a chil-dren’s entertainer at youth camps in the UK and various locations throughout the Mala-ga province.

DEPRAVED: Ivan Russell and (above) with the Beckhams

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9www.theolivepress.es the olive press - April 19 - 30, 2013

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10 www.theolivepress.esthe olive press - April 19 - April 30 2013 NEWS10

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FOOTAGE from a Malaga dog pound, filmed secretly by a Spanish animal charity, has caused a shockwave of concern amongst dog lov-ers.The four minute video, which depicts smoke from a furnace and howling dogs, has led to claims by animal rights campaigners that dogs are being burned to death alive, instead of being euthanised first.The El Paraiso pound in Churriana, however, has strenuously denied the al-legations and the video has now been taken off the You-

CONCERNS OVER DOG POUND

Centre forced to deny that animals have been burnt aliveTube website.A dog lover from Malaga, who has helped to launch a petition to improve con-ditions at the state-run pound but did not want to be named, described the footage as ‘disturbing’ and ‘upsetting’.She said: “We are very con-cerned about what is go-ing on at the pound . The thought that dogs might be being killed in such an in-humane way is very upset-

ting.”The pound collect dogs from across Andalucía and because of the thousands of strays picked up every year they are forced to destroy hundreds of unwanted dogs every month if they are not re-homed.The petition, which will be sent to Malaga City Coun-cil, is available to view and sign online at http://www.change.org/users/virginia-borasteros-garcia

BIG CATS BACKA CONSERVATION programme has been hailed a huge success after helping to triple the number of Iberian lynx’s in Andalucía.The Life Lince Recovery and Conservation Programme was tasked to protect the few re-maining Iberian lynxes in Spain, estimated to number just under 100 in 1990. Now af-ter an intensive breeding programme their numbers have soared to over 300 for the first time. The project, which was carried out using EU funds, has now been voted the best conservation programme in Europe.

11www.theolivepress.es the olive press - April 19 - 30, 2013NEWSNEWS 11

12 www.theolivepress.esthe olive press - April 19 - April 30 2013 12 GREEN NEWS

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A SERIES of strange-looking trails of mist in the sky are causing concern among Costa del Sol residents. Local photographer Jane Jewson captured several images that appear to show the air steadily misting up throughout the day. Although current explanations are vague, there has been speculation that the trails could be the result of ‘geoen-gineering’ – a practice in which chemicals are allegedly sprayed into the atmosphere from drones to counter the ef-fects of global warming. Jewson said: “It’s incredibly alarming that anyone would want to spray the sky with harmful chemicals but it really does seem like something strange could be going on.”Send your thoughts to newsdesk@theolivepress.es

What are these mystery trails?

13www.theolivepress.es the olive press - April 19 - 30, 201313

A COMMUNITY of expats is fighting the construction of a chiringuito on one of the coast’s last undeveloped areas.Residents of the quiet Urbanisation Guadalmansa, in Estepona, are out-raged by plans to build a beach bar on a

Mystery over why new chiringuito is being allowed to be built in a protected green area by Moorish monument

EXCLUSIVE By Mason Jones

THE La Cala Lions club have been honoured for their gift to the commu-nity of 500 newly planted trees. Members of the club and officials from Mijas Town Hall gathered at the open-ing of an obelisk dedicated to the Li-ons. The trees, which were purchased with funds personally contributed by mem-bers, will eventually form part of a tree-lined avenue in the La Noria area.

A green gift honoured

green area just metres from an archaeo-logical site and Moorish watchtower. “The town hall uses this place every year for photographs in its tourism cam-paigns, but people don’t realise that the town hall actually has nothing to do with its upkeep,” said the lawyer acting on behalf of the community, Diego Echa-varria, 37.“The community are paying €300,000 a year to keep the green area and the town hall, which doesn’t spend a penny, is now giving out licenses to build,” he added. The site, a large grassed space which is home to a Moorish watchtower also houses the ruins of a Roman villa com-plex first discovered in 1915.Residents also complain that when the properties were built in 2000 they were assured that no building work would take place in the area.

Expat homeowner Philip Brown, 51, from the UK, expressed his outrage with the town hall: “This is one of the green-est areas left on the coast.”“To have someone take away something that they don’t even contribute to is scandalous.“They are just flaunting their own laws,” he added.The owners of the new chiringuito, who already have another beach club in Este-pona, claim the decision to develop at the site was completely out of their hands.“The truth of the story is that we have been obliged by the authorities to move and we didn’t have any choice on the new area,” said Eric Rojo from Blue Dol-phin SL.“We have never been given an official explanation on why we have to move.“I think the problems that people have are not actually environmental con-cerns, but economic ones, I think there is much more to it.“What we are doing is a very positive project for the area,” he added.

ECOLOGISTS in Ronda have appealed for ‘imme-diate action’ after discovering two dead vultures and an eagle, all electrocuted by high voltage elec-tricity pylons.The birds were found on the Ronda La Vieja road, near to the The Leech nature reserve, said wildlife protection group, Ecologists in Action.A spokesperson for the charity said: “The birds we found were adults and in breeding season, which could hinder the survival of their young.“If only one parent is left to care for their young the young birds often don’t survive.”They added: “We want something done as soon as possible to make sure this doesn’t happen again as these birds are very rare and precious.”All the birds were found a few metres from each other and now an investigation is being carried out to see how it can be prevented in the future.The ecologists have appealed to the Ministry of the Environment for the power lines to be covered with plastic sheeting.

A tragic wasteA towering mistake!

GREEN NEWS

14 www.theolivepress.esthe olive press - April 19 - April 30 2013 GIBRALTAR NEWS

HUNDREDS of people are expected to take to the streets to protest about the abandoned municipal hos-pital in La Linea.Residents from the town and nearby Jimena, Castel-lar and San Roque will de-mand that it is finished next Thursday (April 25).While the building looks largely finished, it is only a shell with no windows. Covering 32,000 square metres it is meant to have 234 rooms, 48 outpatients units, eight emergency con-sulting rooms and a heli-port.Works stopped however, over a year ago when it emerged engineering con-tractors had not been paid. They are still owed several million euros. Building works had only be-gun in February 2009 after years of political wrangling between the town hall and the Junta.Meanwhile, patients con-tinue to suffer cramped conditions in the current hospital’s mixed wards, which offer no privacy.Now the Civic Platform in Defence of the Hospital is raising public awareness by asking locals to put the

Please save our hospital

A TEAM of eight young skaters from Gibraltar have won gold at Blackpool’s an-nual ice festival.Over three days Jenni’s Ice Skating Academy took home team gold in the syn-chronised event and also Silver and Bronze in the solo figure skating.

Sliding to victory

By Rebecca Maguire

Protest aims to resuscitate unfinished hospital’s chances of survival

ABANDONED: The new La Linea project stopped

slogan ‘For the health of my family’ in their house and car windows. The protest group is confi-dent the demo will prompt a bigger reaction than in January when about 500 people took to the streets.Over 50 different groups representing businesses, health groups and politi-cal parties, as well as local mayors, will come out to

make their views heard.“There is still time to save our hospital, but the silent majority of people who usu-ally stay at home must come out and protest, otherwise we won’t succeed,” an or-ganiser said. Thousands of signatures have now been sent to the Junta and the Central gov-ernment in a bid for their case to be considered.

GIBRALTAR is about to undertake its big-gest traffic survey ever.In a bid to meet EU directives on air pollu-tion, noise and transport, the investigation will see Highways Enforcement Officers visit over 1,000 homes.They will also carry out questionnaires in the street and even on buses. Locals, border workers and tourists will all be targeted in order to understand people’s travel habits and any alternative transport they might consider using. Gibraltar has long suffered from chronic traffic congestion which the government believes is detrimental to its economy, envi-

April 20 A Wear Yellow Walk will take place from Case-mates Square to the Convent to support mental health followed by a paella lunch at the Gladys Perez CentreApril 20 An eight hour ‘Spinathon’ in aid of childrens’ charity Wobbles will take place in Casemates Square. The cost is £3 for a spin.April 24 and 25 ‘Rock masters and friends’ a new Llanito stand-up comedy show at John Macintosh Hall.April 25 8pm A piano and violin recital organised by the Philharmonic association at the Convent Ballroom. Tick-ets are £20 from Sacarellos coffee shop.April 26 An evening charity concert featuring the com-bined bands of the Corps of Royal Engineers and the Roy-al Gibraltar Regiment will take place in St Michaels Cave. Tickets are £7 and available from Solomon Levy Estate Agent, Sacarello’s Coffee Shop and Gibraltar Book ShopApril 27 A freedom parade by serving and retired mem-bers of the Corps will march from Casemates Square to the RE Memorial in Cathedral Square.April 27, An art and craft collectors’ fair of hand craft-ed items, books, etc, from 10am to 2pm at St Andrew’s ChurchMay 1, May Day Celebrations in Casemates Square start at 11am with a Fun Day, with arts and crafts and other activities for children. Live dance performances will also feature. The celebrations will finish with a rock concert with music from Headwires, Metro Motel and TAXI.

Biggest traffic survey everronment and image. Frequent border queues, regular cruise ship visitors and limited space all contribute.The study began a few months ago when large black boxes were fixed around Gibral-tar to calculate the amount and type of traf-fic. The government believes the sustainable transport plan will encourage the use of en-vironmentally friendly modes of transport and increase traffic flow. “We want to assess what we’ve got, to see where we go from here,” said a spokesman. “Parts of it will be introduced from next year, but others could take up to 20 years.”

14

ON the RockNew Olive Press guide to the best of What’s On in Gibraltar over the next two weeks

15www.theolivepress.es the olive press - April 19 - 30, 2013NEWS

16 www.theolivepress.esthe olive press - April 19 - April 30 2013 GIBRALTAR NEWSA REPLICA 1799 twin-mast-ed tall ship, the Schooner Pickle, has welcomed her first guests aboard. The boat – that is an exact replica of a warship that fought during the Napoleon-ic war – opened for the first time last weekend at Ocean Village.The original vessel that took part in the Battle of Trafal-gar, brought home the sad news of Lord Nelson’s death, but the good news of victory.Robin James, captained HMS Pickle from Wales to Gibraltar last autumn and has been getting her ship-shape. “Pickle is not an impersonal film set or theme park de-void of authenticity,” he ex-plains. “She isn’t full of signs saying ‘don’t touch’ or ‘stay behind this rope’ but instead is ut-terly hands on.“Visitors can see and touch weapons, period navigation

REBUILD: Schooner Pickle fought at Trafalgar

equipment and the medi-cal instruments of the time such as a saw resembling one that would have been used to amputate Nelson’s arm after he was hit by a musket ball. Information boards tell the story and

bring it alive with words and anecdotes.”Daily tours explain what life on a wooden warship during the Napoleonic wars was like. To book online please visit www.schoonerpickle.com.

HUNDREDS of impounded bikes have been left to rust outside the Spanish Cus-toms House by the Gibraltar border.The majority were seized from unemployed La Linea locals caught bringing more than four packets of cigarettes across the frontier in a month.The stringent new rules do not apply to expats or people from other areas and were introduced to stamp out the illegal tobacco trade the town has become infa-mous for. When Guardia Civil offi-cers stop smugglers they are asked to pay much more than the cigarettes are worth.If they can’t pay the tobacco is confiscated and goods, such as the bikes, are impounded to the value of the fee. Al-geciras Customs Police had planned to put the bikes to

SPECULATION is mounting on how much a revamp of the Gibral-tar Parliament has cost.A complete four month refit has included dou-ble glazing, air condi-tioning, power and data cabling as well as new furniture. For the first time an in-tegrated digital sound and recording system with cameras will allow live streaming of parlia-mentary sessions.So far the costing has not been made public with the government in-sisting it will announce the final cost during a forthcoming debate.

Gib IN BRIEF

Big TenderTHE government is inviting proposals to develop South Jumpers Bastion.

USA experience

Some 60 graduates from Gibraltar are being given the chance to do 15 week work placements in America this year.

Lucky studentsUNIVERSITY students can now enrol for summer jobs with the government paying around £120 per week.

Pickle meets her public

How much to keep politicians comfortable?

Total WasteScandal as hundreds of impounded bicycles are left in a pile on the border to be ruined in the rain

EXCLUSIVE By Rebecca Maguire

SEIZED: Hundreds of bikes left to rustgood use by donating them to local children’s charities, but the lengthy process has led to the bikes becoming ruined after being left out in the rain.“The majority have now rust-ed beyond repair,” a police source told the Olive Press.

“It is a real shame and quite a scandal really.”With the average price of a packet of cigarettes in Gibral-tar being only €3 smugglers can earn around 40 cents for every packet they sell.The Guardia Civil refused to com-ment on the case.

16

17www.theolivepress.es the olive press - April 19 - 30, 2013GIBRALTAR NEWS

A ROYAL Gibraltar Police Officer has been charged with five counts of rape.

GIB POLICEMAN CHARGED WITH FIVE COUNTS OF RAPE

THE OLIVE PRESS IS NOW DIS-TRIBUTING 4,500 COP-IES ON THE ROCK

Here are the main places stocking the Ol-ive Press in Gi-braltar:

• Café Fresco • O’Reileys • Ibex Insurance • Morrisons • Elliot Hotel • Sacarellos • ICC Shopping Centre • Cafe Solo • Café Rojo • Colourworks • Rolex • Caleta Hotel • Ibex Insurance • Eroski city (Waitrose) • Gala Casion • King’s Bastion

Police Constable Peter Lug-nani, 28, appeared at Gi-braltar Magistrate’s Court

on five counts of rape on two different victims, on two separate occasions.

One incident is alleged to have taken place in 2012 and the other in 2009.

The arrest was the result of an on-going police in-vestigation into allegations

against the po-liceman.Lugnani has been granted bail of £5,000 on the condi-tion that he does not ap-proach or com-municate with the two wom-en. Lugnani, a local Gibraltar-ian, has been s u s p e n d e d from the police force since his arrest.The case has been adjourned until the ac-cused appears before the Su-preme Court next Thursday.

Policeman ‘shot’ at Europa Point is accused of fraud

A MILITARY policeman – who was shot in a mystery shooting at Europa Point - has been arrested.GDP (Gibraltar Defence Police) officer Mark Galia, 38, is accused of fraud and attempting to pervert the course of justice.He had apparently been shot while off duty on January 15, but it now appears it was a set up.Three men were initially arrested and two guns were recovered in the aftermath of the inci-

dent.Despite being treated in a Cadiz hospital for the bullet wound, it now appears that Galia set the whole shooting up.Police confirmed that they are not looking for any other persons in connection with the inci-dent. “The three persons currently on police bail in connection with this inquiry will be released in due course,” explained a spokesman.

18 www.theolivepress.esthe olive press - April 19 - April 30 2013 AXARQUIA NEWS

Axq IN BRIEF

POOCHES from across the Axarquia will be giving it their best strut as Scruffs dog show returns next month.The annual event, which is organised by the Action for Animals charity, provides a light-hearted alterna-tive to the usual ribbons and rosette style event.With categories which include ‘Dog With The Waggi-est Tail’, ‘Dog The Judges want To Take Home’ and even a prize for the ‘Scruffiest Mutt’, every dog-owner is sure to have a good time. The show will also feature a raffle, lucky dip and a belly dancing display.Scruffs will be held at the Pavo Real on May 11 with registration at 2pm. For more information contact 660586040 or email nina@actionforanimals.org

NERJA is set to cement it-self as one of Andalucia’s most well known beach re-sorts.It comes after the Axarquia town is to feature in two TV commercials for Orange and Timotei.The mobile phone company used the eastern end of Bur-riana beach to film a group of young actors playing vol-leyball, while the shampoo brand opted to shoot scenes

By Mason Jones

Bollywood beach goes international again Nerja’s beaches are slowly becoming world

famous with two more big adverts set on them

on Maro beach.The Councillor for Tourism, Bernardo Pozuelo, said the advertisements were impor-tant for Nerja because they provide great promotion ‘at no cost to the town’.Production crews from Pan-asonic and French textile firm Atlas for Men also shot in the town earlier this year.Last year Nerja was used a total of 12 times as a shoot-ing location and even at-tracted several production companies from Bollywood.

SEVEN youths have been arrested af-ter allegedly robbing a woman at knife-point in her own home.The woman, who has not been identi-fied, was held for several hours while the gang ransacked her house in Rincon de la Victoria before stealing cash, a computer and jewellery.Two members of the group were identi-fied almost immediately when Guardia Civil officers found them to be in pos-session of the stolen jewellery pieces.The remaining four were tracked through an investigation into the at-tack, according to a spokesman from the Guardia Civil.

Even the scruffiest can win RINCON ROBBERS

Theatre open TORROX town hall will officially open a new 400-seat theatre on April 20 after investing over €8 million in the project.

Sports dayThe Nerja Athletics Club has held a master-class for young people with demonstrations from weightlifting champion Manuel Martinez and Olympic javelin thrower Mercedes Chilla.

Helping handThe Mayor of Rincon and the Association of the Disabled have agreed to provide free transport to the La Cala del Moral health clinic for disabled children aged six and under.

19www.theolivepress.es the olive press - April 19 - 30, 201315

20 www.theolivepress.esthe olive press - April 19 - April 30 2013

Letters should be posted to Urb. Cayetano Arroyo, Buzon 13, Arriate 29350, Malaga or emailed to letters@theolivepress.es The writer’s name and address should be provided. Published opinions are not necessarily those of the Editor.

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CROSSMOT 6

Across1 Brújula (7) * 5 Olor (5) * 8 Consideración (13) * 9 De (3) * 10 Lays (9) * 12 Cassette (6) * 13 Estado (6) * 15 Escalera (9) * 16 Esterilla (3) * 18 Intend (2, 9, 2) * 20 Holy (5) * 21 Respecto (7).

Down1 Cocoa (5) * 2 Protest (13) * 3 Feed (9) * 4 Fortune (6) * 5 Mar (3) * 6 Evidently (13) * 7 Túneles (7) * 11 Baterías (9) * 12 Castillos (7) * 14 Manera (6) * 17 Tratar (5) * 19 También (3).L = 198

Ignorance no excuseDear Olive Press,Debbie Ryder asks in her letter to the Olive Press in your last issue how someone living in Spain is supposed to know about the new law which requires residents to declare certain assets held abroad by April 30 this year.Surely she knows that a general principle of English common law (with some ex-ceptions) is that ignorance of the law is no excuse or defence. Why should it be any different in Spain, even though the legal system here is based on Roman law?Of course I didn’t expect to receive a letter telling me about the law, because it applies to ALL residents of Spain, including Spaniards, and its purpose is to dis-cover who has foreign as-sets which total more than €50,000 for each type of asset. Does any government any-where in the world notify all of its millions of residents about every new law? Of course not, and Ms Ryder must have misunderstood what was said to her in Hacienda, presumably in Spanish.I went to Hacienda in Mal-

aga to ask for information, because there’s been plenty of publicity about the law, even in the UK press and television. Surely most peo-ple watch television.At Hacienda they told me that the declaration has to be made online, on the Agencia Tributaria website (www.agenciatributaria.es), using form 720 and a digital signature. They also gave me written instruc-tions on how to download the digital signature in the Ceres website (www.cert.fnmt.es).Admittedly this wasn’t all that easy on my Mac, be-cause Hacienda expects everyone to be using Win-dows, as governments all over the world do, but after a few false starts I downloaded the signature in Google Chrome, not in Firefox or Safari. Mac us-ers will find the downloaded digital signature, along with an FNMT root certificate, using the Keychain Access app, which is in the utilities folder, which in turn is in-side the applications folder in my computer. I haven’t a clue where it will be saved to in Windows.

David FrostMalaga

Help meDear OP,I would be most interested to hear if any of your read-ers have managed to down-load this new World Wide Assets declaration form 720 which is due to be complet-ed by the end of April.RegardsDon Collins

ED: Well if you have a Mac read the above

Nobbled by the NHSDear OP,I have read, with some in-terest, the article, Nobbled by the NHS, in issue 158, which I found to give an unfair impression of the UK urgent medical treatment.I have always found, having lived in Spain as a resident for the past 25 years, that it has always been excellent when I have needed it while on holiday in the UK.I note Sue Woodman is aged 56 years, and therefore not in receipt of a UK pension. This pension would have entitled her to Spanish Na-tional Health, which in turn would have issued here with the EHIC card which again, in turn would have given her access to free, emergen-cy medical care in any EU country, whereby she would

not have been charged for medical cover. It is well known that the UK health service is riddled with people thinking they are en-titled to medical care when they are not. This is also the case with Sue Woodman.W.J.Glastonbury

Don’t forget DoghouseDear OP,I was really interested to see the Estepona supple-ment the other week, and, in particular, the bars and restaurants in Buena Vista. This is one of my ‘stomp-ing grounds’ which includes ‘Inn the Doghouse’ which has been there for many years. Sue and her girls al-ways give you a warm wel-come, and, it is one of the few bars that I know, that has Mahou on draft, a fa-vourite tipple!! Also, it is far enough from the main road, to enjoy a ‘quiet’ drink out on the terrace. It is open 7 days a week, and is ideal for a pre lunch or dinner drink, or, for relaxing with one af-terwards. Keep up the good work Sue!!Stephen Jones, Estepona

RubbishDear OP,You really should vet items contributed to your editions more carefully. In the April 4 edition on the ‘legal prob-lems’ page, your contributor Antonio Flores states the av-erage term for a court to re-

YES, LEAVE OUR BEACH ALONEDear OP,I live opposite Playa Del Cristo. In the summer the Spanish and many other nationalities flock here and bring their children, because of the shallow waters and the fact they can park close by and unload their cars. The beach is gorgeous and un-spoilt and after your article on develop-ment there in your last issue, I agree it would be a shame to start building there.It would be a real shame to ruin what I consider the best beach on the coast. Lisa Marie Robinson, Estepona

solve civil disputes in Spain is ten months, with the pos-sible addition of a few more months depending on the specific court. This is utter, pure, unadulterated rubbish and very misleading infor-mation to publish ! Substi-tute ‘years’ for ‘months’ and you are nearer the mark.Peter Hopkinson,Marbella

Dear Peter,We work on statistical data published by the CGPJ, not on individual cases and/or personal experiences.The website of the CGPJ has this information available to the public.Regards,Antonio Flores (OP col-umnist)

21www.theolivepress.es the olive press - April 19 - 30, 201331la cultura 21

what’s on

Estepona, El Patio, April 20, Un Hombre de

Suerte, Jose Luis Alonso de Santo’s tragic comedy. Starring Estepona-born actor Luis Mariano Lopez. €10. Fore more information call: 951 249 732 or 606 225 285

Marbella, La Sala, Kim’s Animal Rescue charity

fund-raiser, three-course meal, live music, raffle and auction. April 30 at 8pm. €40. For more information call: 952 814 145

Malaga, Centro de Cultura Asiatica,

Now until April 20, Images of South Korea, An photographic exhibition covering the cities and culture of South Korea. For more information call: 952 315 075

Malaga, now until June 16 at CAC Malaga.

At home I’m a tourist, an exhibition displaying some of Selim Varol’s toy collection which is the biggest in the world with over 15,000 objects. Tuesday to Sunday from 10:00 to 20:00. Free entry.

BULLFIGHTING could become a thing of the past in one of its traditional heartlands after San Sebastian took the first step to ban the age-old tradition.The ruling Basque nationalist party Bildu will refuse all licence applications for bull-

AN expat author has seen his book tracing the roots of a renowned flamenco family published in Span-ish.Tony Bryant worked close-ly with the El Pinini clan to write A time-defying heri-tage, which charts the lin-eage of some of the greatest names in flamenco.The Spanish version of the book, Herencia del tiempo,

Bull ban for San Sebastian

fights in the city from next year.New conditions for hire of the city’s publicly-owned bullring stipulate that it ‘cannot be used for events involving animal cruelty’.The city insists that the ring be used to promote a range of music, sports, artistic and cultural events, but ‘expressly prohibits activi-ties that involve any form of cruelty to animals’.The city has a long tradition of bullfighting and nearby Pamplona has the world’s most famous bull run and a celebrated passion for the art.

Among the gypsieswas released in Sevilla dur-ing Semana Santa.Bryant, who has lived in Andalucia for 19 years, said that it is a great honour to have his work translated into the language of the country he has adopted as home.He added: “I wanted the people who had helped with the book and the thousands of admirers of this family -

most of whom do not speak E n g l i s h - to be able to u n d e r -s t a n d w h a t I had written and how much the art of the gypsies means to me.”

A BRITISH screenwriter has based his debut novel on the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War.Mark Skeet, however, who has worked with Paramount, Universal and the BBC, cre-ates an alternative ending to the war in Saving Picasso.Skeet imagines that Franco was killed and the Commu-nists emerged victorious after help from International Bri-gade members like his lead character Richard Clare. The screenwriter has already re-ceived praise from comedian Harry Enfield.“It sucks you in and keeps you in its grip as it twists and turns towards its thrilling conclusion,” said the televi-sion star.

Gripping

22 www.theolivepress.esthe olive press - April 19 - April 30 2013la cultura

James Hewitt, Polo HouseLocated on the centre of Marbella’s Golden Mile and a cham-pagne cork’s pop away from the Marbella Club hotel, James Hewitt’s Polo House was an immediate hit when it opened in 2009. James might have been notorious and unloved in the UK, but he was a celebrity in Marbella and diners loved the co-lonial look and feel of his new joint, which also hosted live per-formances from soul diva Mica Paris and M People’s Heather Small. All good things come to an end, however, and the Polo House closed in 2012, reinventing itself recently as an exclu-sive Indian restaurant Chowka.

Freddie Forman, EaglesOne of the most notorious of the Kray Gang, Freddie Forman moved to Spain in the late 70s ‘Costa del Crime’ heyday to avoid the attentions of the British police. Eagles was a large bar-restaurant complete with snooker tables, darts and a large swimming pool. The signing of an extradition treaty with the UK however meant the end for Freddie’s stay in Marbella - he was arrested by Spanish police outside his Puerto Banus apart-ment and whisked back to the UK. Eagles soon flew the nest!

After the closure of Javier Bardem’s family restaurant, La Bardemcilla, in Madrid (above), Giles Brown casts his eyes over the menu to see how other celebrity-run joints have faired

Star Bites!Eddie Avoth, SilksCardiff born Eddie Avoth was a British and Commonwealth Light Heavyweight Boxing Champion, who after retiring from the ring moved to Marbella and set up Silk’s, the first celebrity restau-rant in Puerto Banus. In its 80s heyday you could expect to see Jimmy Tarbuck and Bruce Forsyth, along with soap stars Chris Quentin and Radio One DJ Gary Davies eating in the restarant, whose walls were adorned with horse racing memorabilia.

David Bentley, La SalaThe most talked about restaurant in Marbella in years, La Sala has been a phenominal success since it opened in 2010. With investors including one time England international footballer David Bentley, La Sala is a must do location for any footballer, model, or pop star in the area, with most of the cast of The Only Way is Essex, plus Katie Price, eating there last summer. Weekends and summer evenings are especially busy and last year a second restaurant, Rincon de la Sala, opened in San Pedro Alcántara.

GLAMOUR: Polo House and (right) James Hunt

23www.theolivepress.es the olive press - April 19 - 30, 2013la culturaJames Hunt, Oscar’sSoon after winning the 1976 Formula One World Cham-pionship, playboy James Hunt decided to base himself in Marbella. As well as enjoying the outdoor lifestyle that meant he could keep his fitness up with tennis, running and golf at the Aloha Golf Club, James also took advan-tage of the social side of town, meeting for drinks with fellow expat Sean Connery and opening a nightclub, Oscar’s, named after his beloved Alsatain dog. James eventually sold the club to a certain Maurice Boland...

Toni Dalli, Toni Dalli’s RestaurantIn the late 50s opera singer Toni Dalli was a household name appearing on the Ed Sullivan Show in New York, followed by major performances at the Moulin Rouge, Hollywood, Desert Inn in Las Vegas and two one-man-shows at the Carnegie Hall and Hollywood Bowl. He moved to Marbella and set up the beautiful Toni Dalli’s Restaurant, which became a popular haunt for his many showbiz chums and no evening was complete without the man himself belting out a couple of numbers. Toni now spends his time on his other passions; golf, Fer-raris and family life.

John ‘Beaky’ Dymond, Beaky’s GigThe bass player for 60s group, Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich, whose hits include ‘Hold Tight’ and ‘The Legend of Xanadu’, Beaky arrived on the Costa del Sol with Dozy, Mick and Titch in the mid 80s and played in various clubs and beach bars. While the others have moved on, Beaky has stayed and his latest venture, Beaky’s Gig in Benavista, still continues to pack them in.

Wayne Lineker, Lineker’s BarBrother of footballing legend Gary, Wayne Lineker is the colourful boss behind the chain of Lineker’s Bars in re-sorts across Spain. Lineker’s in Puerto Banus opened the flood gates to the hen and stag party invasion that hit Marbella like a Bacardi Breezer fuelled tsunami. Af-ter a short spell at Her Majesty’s Pleasure, plus appear-ing in Piers Morgan’s TV special on Marbella, Wayne sold Lineker’s Banus and is now concentrating on Ibiza.

David Silva, Fat Silva BurgerForget Beckham or Ronaldo. Manchester City player David Silva is the highest-paid footballer in the world with an estimated net worth of $275 million. He owes his fortune to smart stock investments, substantial property holdings, lucrative endorsement deals with CoverGirl cosmetics. He also owns several restaurants (the Fat Silva Burger chain) in Madrid, a Football Team (the Arguineguin Angels), has launched his own brand of Vodka (Pure Wondersilva - Spain), and is tackling the juniors market with a top-selling perfume (With Love from David) and a fashion line called David Silva Se-duction.

Antonio Banderas, Posada del AntonioWell known for his love of wines and food, it was only natural that Antonio would invest in a restaurant in his beloved Malaga. Although not a success, the heart throb actor has moved on by releasing his own brand of wine, Anta Banderas, last year. He told the press: “I always wanted to produce my own wine, but it requires time that I do not have. Then I found the Anta Project. When the Malaga-born actor was asked in an interview why he chose the northern region of Ribera he said: “Ribera del Duero has good winemakers. They have always had good winemakers. They have romantic ideas about wine. This is very important to me.”

TALENT: Bentley, while (right) Beaky and group and (bottom) Silva

la culturaKATE walked along a

narrow path at the side of the road. She had helped Carol

and Ratchet to set up the stall and then left to take a look for herself at the plastic greenhouses lining the dried out river bed running from Al-bunol down to the sea. She looked down onto the plastic roofs, lashed down by steel wires. She found a path. Tattered pieces of brit-tle, opaque polythene, torn by high winds, snapped back and forth in the breeze. The ground had been rutted by four-wheel drives during the rains two months ago. Now it was like concrete and she stumbled from time to time on the uneven ground. Across the other side of the river-bed, piles of plastic and the dried out remains of previous crops smouldered. Clouds of smoke drifted across the valley. It was eleven a.m. and the Andalu-cian sun beat down out of a clear blue sky. She could feel its heat on her back, felt it hot on her face as it reflected back off the plastic. She passed mounds of grey, crushed rock. Discarded long since and baked into a barren moon-scape. Brittle weeds pushed their way through it into the searing heat of the sun. A hellish place, she thought, ugly and brutal. She could taste the dryness, the acrid smoke burnt her eyes. She stumbled and fell. A dark stain appeared on the cotton over her knee where her skin had been torn. She sucked air in sharply and winced. She looked through a gap in the plastic. Steel wires criss-crossed a roof supported by hundreds of wooden poles. At the sides, the poles had been driven into the ground

No Inglesi in plasticos, only Moros!

at a sharp inward angle, the steel wires anchoring the structure like a gigantic plas-tic tent. She gazed down the long rows of crops. A jungle of greenery flourished in the hot, humid atmosphere. She could feel the debilitat-ing heat from where she kneeled and began to per-spire. She heard sounds, people’s voices. They were indistinct, perhaps in the next plastic, she thought. She got to her feet and made her way towards the sound. She heard a language she couldn’t recognise, then someone shouting in Span-ish, the voice angry and bul-lying. She turned a corner.

Fifty yards in front of her were the chrome bull-bars of a new four-wheel-drive. A dark thick-set man stood be-side the open door of the ve-hicle. He was waving his arm towards the plastics, jabbing his finger at an elderly man in front of him who was nod-ding his head and muttering apologies. Next to him was an elderly woman. She wore a Muslim headscarf and held the arm of the man stand-ing next to her. Kate looked through a gap in the side plastic. Thirty or forty men, women and children were busy collecting green beans. All the women wore heads-carves. They worked quickly, glancing furtively towards

the noise outside. One of the chil-dren, a boy of about ten stood crying next to what Kate sup-posed was his mother. She stooped and wiped his nose and put her finger to her lips. Then she be-gan working again, her fingers pass-ing skilfully and quickly over the crop, the beans, piling up in the basket by her side. Kate walked towards the little group. The bullying man sensed her pres-ence and broke off. He turned to

Kate and said, in English, ‘Are you looking for work?’Kate shook her head. ‘I’m not looking for work,’ she said. ‘I just wondered why there was so much shouting. Is it necessary?’‘There is a misunderstand-ing. It is no concern of yours. If you are not looking for work, please leave. This is private property,’ he said.‘You mean so that you can go on bullying these people. That’s why you want me to leave, is it?’He smiled. ‘Bullying these people? Please, this is simply a business matter. And it has nothing to do with you. This is not Eng-land. I have asked you to leave. Now, would you like to leave by yourself, or would you like the police to escort you?’Kate felt furious. She could feel something was wrong, yet she had no way of knowing what it was, or how she could do anything about it. She felt ridiculous and hu-miliated as she trudged off along the narrow track. Back at the market she told Carol and Ratchet what had happened. ‘Migrant labour, Man,’ Ratchet said. They come up the coast from Morocco. Whole families of them. They follow the har-vests. Tradition, it is. They’re travellers, like us.’Kate felt a rising sense of ir-ritation. ‘Hardly like us,’ she said. ‘We live on a campsite by a river. We’re free to do whatever we want. If things don’t work out, we can al-ways go back to England, can’t we? There’s something wrong with the way these people are treated. I can feel it. I just know it.’Over the next week, she talk-ed to her neighbours on the campsite. She heard various

rumours about what went on in the plastics. It was all apocryphal stuff but Kate was prepared to believe it. The chemical fertilisers they used. The way people had gone down sick from breath-ing in the crop sprays. The ru-mour that the plastics were growing genetically modified food. The slave wages and conditions forced onto the migrant labour. She heard tales of threats and beat-

ings, of blacklists for anyone who caused trouble. There was even the story of John who, it was said, had dis-appeared completely, mur-dered, they reckoned. She heard of the emerging power of the leading families who controlled everything. Once, they had been simple peas-ants, she was told, scratch-ing a subsistence living. Now, they were rich, they had influ-ence everywhere. They had the police and trade unions and politicians on the pay-roll. They were, it was said, Almeria’s Mafia.She saw the little boy crying by the side of his mother, the ageing couple being bul-lied, the arrogance and im-plied violence wielded by the owner she had met. There was something wrong. It was wrong that the countryside should be despoiled in such a way. It was even worse that people should be bullied and exploited in such a way. She

felt driven to do something. She felt disappointed and a little ashamed of her new-found friends. She realised that her flight to Spain was a flight from her sense of jus-tice and responsibility. She’d come to Spain because the struggle for equality in Brit-ain had seemed hopeless. She had felt defeated. She came because she wanted a quiet life. She’d had six months of drinking and talk-ing and smoking dope. She realised her life needed pur-pose. She felt she had found a cause worth fighting for.The following day, she drove down the coast to see the extent of the plastics for her-self. On the flatlands around Adra, she drove for miles be-tween the plastic greenhous-es. Beyond the flatlands, bulldozers had gouged huge terraces from hillsides. Each the size of a football pitch, the distant plastic flashed in the sunlight. It seemed never-ending. She stopped the car and looked at her map. There was a coastal town called Santa Cruz. She pulled off the main road and drove down a narrow road through the endless plastic towards the coast. The little town was marooned by the acres of polythene press-ing in on it from three sides. The only escape seemed to be into the sea. She found a bar, pushed the bead cur-tain aside and walked in. It was dark and she stopped for a moment, waiting for her eyes to focus after the intense light of the sun. The quiet murmuring stopped. A couple of men had their heads turned towards her. They were dark, wiry, their leathery faces lined by the sun. They looked blankly at her. On the floor around their feet, dropped with-out thought, lay the debris of the fish they and others had been eating, discarded shells, heads and spines of sardines, discarded tissues. She took a seat at the bar.

The bartender wiped the top in front of her. ‘Que hay?’ ‘Una cerveza,’ she said. He took a short stemmed glass and poured the beer from a high tap set into the top of the bar. ‘Inglesi?’ he said.‘Si,’ she said. ‘Habla Ingles?’He flipped a paper coaster onto the bar in front of her and put the glass on it. He rocked his hand this way and that. ‘A little,’ he said.‘I am looking for work. Tra-bajo, si? There is work in the plastics, yes?’‘Si, but it is not work for you I think.’‘Why?’‘Mucho trabajo. It is hard work. No mucho dinero. No Inglesi in plasticos. Los Mo-ros in plasticos.’‘I need money. I work hard,’ she said.He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Senor Martinez. Las cuatro horas. Aqui. Here in bar.’

In the third part of our Bad Seed book serialisaition, Kate Anderson is shocked at the way the Muslim plasticulture workers are treated when she comes over to stay with her friends Carol and Ratchet, based in a hippy commune near Orgiva, in the Alpujarras

IT’S party time in Sevilla this week as people take to the streets for the annual Easter Feria.Said to be one of the oldest fe-rias in Spain, it takes place from April 15 to 20 in Los Remedios, to the south-west of the city, next to the river. People will be dancing, drink-ing, eating and partying from midday until early the next morning.As well as parades and bullfight-ing there will be fairground rides and food stalls.

ALEGRIA, ALEGRIA, ALEGRIA!

“It was wrong that the countryside

should be despoiled and worse that peo-ple got bullied and

exploited in that way”

la cultura

A SPANISH film will recall the traumatic background-leading up to Pablo Picasso painting his masterpiece Guernica.The movie 33 Dias, out in September, stars fellow Malagueno Antonio Ban-deras, while his lover and muse Dora Maar is played by Gwyneth Paltrow.It will be the second movie on Picasso to come out this year.

Gwyneth plays Picasso muse in new biopic

The first La Banda Picasso out in February tells the story of how he found him-self under suspicion for the audacious theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre in 1911. A museum employee was eventually convicted of the crime, but Picasso was initially suspected by the police, which put his rela-tionship with other artists living in Paris under strain.

SHOEHORNED BACK IN PLACEAFTER a quick clean up, the celebrated Ron-da bull is back.The famous statue by sculptor Nacho Martin has now been levered back into place beside the town’s bullring.Town hall bosses slammed the ‘mindless’ vandals for damaging the leg of the statue, which cost €4,300 to repair.

AT first glance it may seem like a load of old rubbish, but Sevilla artist Je-sus Palomino has managed to turn a mass of shredded paper into a work of art.Running until June 9, the exhibition at CAC in Malaga asks its audience to

Waste not, want notreflect on the issues of immigration, human rights and democracy.The artist has used everyday mate-rials such as paper, cardboard and newspaper to create 11 pieces aimed to ‘educate the electorate in social jus-tice rather than simply self-interest’.

RENOWNED British historian Paul Preston has penned a cutting tome on Spain’s most famous Communist.Preston, regarded as one of Spain’s leading

By Mason Jones

Expat historian Paul Preston (left) exposes the lack of honesty and loyalty of Spain’s former communist leader

historians, pulls no punches in his book The Red Fox on former

PCE party leader San-tiago Carillo.He paints a far from perfect portrait of the anti-Franco figurehead who died last Septem-ber.

COMMUNIST: PCE leader Santago Carillo

“What resulted was not what I expected,” said Preston. “It was clear that Carrillo pos-sessed certain quali-ties in abundance: work ethic, energy and patience, skill in his writing and oratory, intelligence and guile.“But unfortunately, it was equally clear that honesty and loyalty did not figure among them.”

MassacreHe compares Carrillo to Franco and Stalin in the book and adds that his major down-fall was that he never offered a ‘sincere ex-planation’ for the Par-acuellos massacres in which 2,000 to 4,000 Nationalists and civil-ians were executed by Republicans during the Spanish Civil War.

Red Fox rogue25

26 www.theolivepress.esthe olive press - April 19 - April 30 2013

27www.theolivepress.es the olive press - April 19 - 30, 2013H Lomes, Gardens & ifestyle show27

A four-page official Olive Press pullout brochure

Get ready to digexhibitors showcasing just about everything you can imagine for your interiors and outdoor spaces.Tommy will join a number of local experts at the show, in-cluding the Olive Press’ very own herbs specialist Sue Rog-ers who will be on hand to of-fer tips and advice on organic gardening.Budding chefs can brush up on their skills at the Food 4 Thought Cooking Demo or treat their palate at the food and wine tastings.

LitigationFollowing a successful show in Estepona last year, garden-ing expert Lorraine Cavanagh is back for 2013 with her Denim Dream Garden. The summery showcase will fea-ture flowers in cooling sum-mer tones, such as blues, whites and lilacs.Author David Searle will also be giving a talk on both days on The Law in Spain, helping expats navigate the minefield of Spanish litigation issues. What’s more, there will be competitions to enter, art exhibitions to view and hun-dreds of stalls if you fancy in-dulging in some retail therapy - perfect for anyone keen to spruce up their home or gar-den this summer.

IT’S time to sharpen your shears and dig out your spade, as gardening guru Tommy Walsh is coming to

Torremolinos. The Ground Force star will be making a guest appearance at the Homes, Gardens & Lifestyle Show taking place at the Palacio de Congresos on April 27 and 28. Gardening enthusiasts will get the opportunity to pick the expert’s brains over cof-fee and cakes, with 30 tick-ets available for a chat with Tommy. There will also be a range of

Gardening guru Tommy Walsh set to star at this year’s Homes, Gardens & Lifestyle show, sponsored by the Olive Press next week

POISONOUS and peculiar plants will be put un-der the microscope by gardening expert Lor-raine Cavanagh in a talk on the Wicked Ways of Plants. The Mediterranean plants specialist will alert her audience to the hidden dangers that could be lurking in their plant pots and garden beds. “It’s a subject that most people don’t know much about,” she explains. “Some very com-mon plants in homes and gardens are poison-ous and it’s important people know about that.” Gardening enthusiasts can also take the op-portunity to pick up a signed copy of Cava-nagh’s new book, Citrus: The Zest of Life, or wander around the Denim Dream showcase garden.

Watch out for poisons in your garden

PAINTERS of all abili-ties have been called on to get creative for this year’s Avalon Art compe-tition. A number of local artists have already signed up for the contest and much of the work being exhib-ited will be available to buy.Su Derrick, who runs La Vaqueria in Benamar-gosa, will be showcasing three of her paintings in the competition. She describes her work as ‘a unique decorative style combing fine art and folk’.“I want it to be colourful and uplifting, the sort of thing people want to put on their wall,” she says.Entry to the competi-tion is €5 and all money raised will go to the Chil-dren’s Wish List Charity.

Go out and be creative!

OLIVE Press herb special-ist Sue Rogers will once again be on hand at the show, with tips and ad-vice to save cash by going organic.The expert will give a talk on Living Life for Less Naturally, showing how we can cut costs by using organic products in the home.She explains: “In these times of crisis we need to save every penny we can and by switching to all-natural products you can do so while also know-ing that you’re not using chemicals.”Sue will also be available to discuss her organic gardening courses, which promote sustainable liv-ing and self-sufficiency and take place through-out April, May and June.

Help to go organic

AT THE READY: Tommy will be around to answer all your queries

Little white villagesA WEBSITE has been launched to promote the best of the Alpujarras region.Based in Lan-jarón, LittleWhite-Villages.com of-fers the best lo-cal produce and crafts, as well as a variety of local activities and places to stay. “Because we live in the area that we love, we can offer you great prices too,” explains Freya Rodgers, one of the team behind the site.Visit them at the show or have a look at www.littlewhitevillages.com

28 www.theolivepress.esthe olive press - April 19 - April 30 2013

IT marked a happy return to the Costa del Sol for one of the UK’s most fa-mous TV gardeners.

Popular Charlie Dimmock, 45, gave a presentation and did the rounds at the Homes & Gardens show last year in Estepona, hav-ing visited the area a cou-ple of times with hit show Ground Force.“It’s great to be back. The last time I was here was up on a finca near Istan, which created all sorts of prob-lems for the team,” she told the Olive Press.“The best thing was go-ing out every night down in Puerto Banus with the team.”Dimmock has long been a regular visitor to the Iberian Peninsular, as her mother Sue – who tragically died in the Tsunami in 2004 - had a holiday home in Portugal.It was also something of a journey down memory lane for BBC football pundit Steve Claridge at the show, attended by more than 4000 punters.Working off a stand for a sports investment com-pany reminded him of sell-ing plants from a roadside stall, near Portsmouth, af-ter leaving school.The former striker, 46, who played for a host of Pre-miership clubs, often made more money as a market trader than he did in the

Great to be back in Spain

first five years of his career.“Some weeks actually made me a lot more money than when I first became a profes-sional footballer,” he told the Olive Press.“It took me five years to get to the weekly wage I often made selling plants.“In the run up to Christmas we used to make thousands selling Christmas trees, wrap-ping and other shrubs.“It particularly helped when a brand new supermarket opened up just up the road.“In fact, it wasn’t until I was at Birmingham that I finally earned substantially more.”Claridge – who played for 20 UK clubs - was in Estepona to promote company Milton

Express.The event comprised hun-dreds of companies and spe-cialists from numerous differ-ent backgrounds and areas of expertise.Both the visitors and stall-holders were happy with the event.Olive Press gardening expert Sue Rodgers of Nevada Na-turales was delighted with the turnout and the upbeat comments from visitors.Organiser Gina Marks, of GM Events, originally from Southampton said: “The feedback has been excel-lent and we are looking for-ward to our next event next week.”

TOAST TO THAT: Charlie Dimmock entertains punters at show and (inset) Steve Claridge with his wares

TV gardener Charlie Dimmock and sports pundit Steve Claridge enjoyed their weekend at the show last year

29www.theolivepress.es the olive press - April 19 - 30, 201329

HiFX– Main SponsorCambridge 800 – Tea with TommyViveros Florena – Show case garden – 80Avalon – Art Competition/Gallery – 85Presentation/Demonstration Area –Aim Building SuppliesHydrazzo – Marble Pool FinishingAffinity GlobalTelitec CommunicationsFood For ThoughtFreixenet

Costa Del Sol NewsCurrencies DirectSanitasArtisan ProductsEnergetixAlpujjara’s Little White VillagesSelf Sufficiency for youNorrbomCoastline FMAladecorSolar VentiAxarverde Artificial GrassSantana BooksSolar Powered Air HeatersVentura ArtCrafty Sew n Sew

Elizabeth Thomas –Cheeses making demonstrations and wine tastingDewill DesignsSpace Saving BagsRoyal British LegionBeppy ProductsPositively PinkEbb TideKims Animal RescuePLJ EntertainmentConcept BuildingMagnetic JewelleryFrio MistJute BagsSvenska Magasinet

Grand list of exhibitors

TOAST TO THAT: Charlie Dimmock entertains punters at show and (inset) Steve Claridge with his wares

TV gardener Charlie Dimmock and sports pundit Steve Claridge enjoyed their weekend at the show last year

CURRENCIES Direct has an unbroken presence on the Costa del Sol since 2002 and has worked closely with Gina and the team from Homes & Gardens for many years. The exhibitions around Spain have always given us a good opportunity to meet with our clients, old and new and to discuss cur-rency requirements.

Come and meet the Currencies teamWith a full range of currency and trans-fer options; whether you need assistance with transferring large sums, need an ‘in-stant transfer’, want to benefit from fixing the rate for a point in the future or regular transfers, our friendly team is ready to helpPlease come and ask us on stand 51 about our unparalleled repatriation service to send your funds back to the UK.

30 www.theolivepress.esthe olive press - April 19 - April 30 2013

IF YOUR NORMAL DISTRIBUTION SPOT HAS CLOSED OR DOES NOT HAVE PAPERS THIS WEEK PLS EMAIL ADMIN@THEOLIVEPRESS.ES

The Olive Press NOW has 34,000 papers delivered across EIGHT provinces of Andalucia and Gibraltar every fortnight by our hard-working team of distributors

ALAMEDAMobile Home Park • Posada Tempranillo • Petrol Station • Casa Benito

ALCALAConexions Centre • Hotel Torrepalma • Library • Tourist Office • Optico Real • Hotel Zacatin • Estate Agent Andaluz • BP English Food Shop (opposite Mercadona)

ALGATOCINBP Service Station

ALHAURIN el GrandeGuzman Garden Centre • BP Service Station • Alhaurin Golf • La Boma • 1st Tabacconist • Annas Butchers • Christinas Paper Shop • Arte Hair and Beauty • Martins Paper Shop • 2nd Tabacconist • British Supermarket • Posh Pets • Cudeca • BP Service Station • AID Dog Home • Las Brisas Restaurant • Montemar Restaurant • Lauro Golf

ALHAURIN de la TorreBP • Las Brisas Restaurante • Montemar Restaurante • Lauro Golf

ALMUNECARSpar Supermercado • Tourist Office • El Faro Bar • Olivares Shop • Danny s Bar • Bahia Tropical Hotel

ALORAHardware Store • Tropicana • Repsol Petrol • Cudeca • Zalea Bar

ALOZAINAPetrol Station •Dia

ANTAS INDUSTRIAL ESTATEThe Full Swing • El Poligono • Costa Cars • Cepsa

ANTEQUERALidl • La Veronica • Amapola • Antequera Golf • Tourist Office • Hotel Plaza San Sebastian • BP • Hotel Las Villas de Antikaria

ARCHIDONACepsa Garage • 3R Café /Bar • Mercadona Garage • Sunset Estates

ARDALESPaco’s Bar

ARRIATEPetrol Station

ATAJATEAndalazar

BEDAR (El Pinar)Urb. Offices

BENADALIDLos Labros

BENAHAVISCanela Cafe /Bar • Amanhavis

BENALAURIALa Molienda

BENALMADENAHalfpenny Bridge Pub • Kiosko Puerto (Marina) • Tourist Office (main road) • Culture Centre Bil Bil • Paloma Library • Irish Time Bar • Xanit Hospital • UK Foods • Discovery • Rubens xchange • Sunset Beach • Supersave • Miura Bar • Benalmadena Bowls Club • Bar IbenseFedex/ Post Office • Cudeca • Anns Bookshop • Riu Puerto Marina • Riviera Hotel • Potters Lodge • Kwik Save • Dolce Vita • Crystals • Bil Bil Golf • Dalziel Bar • Bar None • Star Bar • Wellness Centre & Gym • Aguila • Los Brothers • Martins Hair & Beauty • Jupiter • Torrequebrada Golf • Sensara

BENALMADENA COSTAWins Bar • Los Mimosas Golf Bar • Divas • Bull Bar

BENAOJANMeroil • Papeleria Ruiz

BENAVISTABowls Club • Ibex Insurance • Grumbles • Experience Group • English Butcher • Costa Less Supermarket • Plaza Hotel • Dog House • Brubecks • El Paraiso Golf •Peggoty’s Fish & Chips • Petrol Station • Kids Kingdom • Agro Jardin • Calpe School • Laude International

BENAMACARRAHotel Cortijo Bravo

BONANZA SQUAREAnne’s Book Shop • Kwik Save • Dec’s Irish Bar

BUBIONSupermercado Coviran

CABOPINOPina Pinaka • Cabo Pizza • Sportsmans Bar • Cabopino Camping • Garage •Shebeens Pub • Paper Shop/Supermarket • Plaza Bar • Alberts Restaurant

CABRATourist Office

CALAHONDAAParty Party • The Pit Shop • GT Mc Kenna Butchers • Mercadona • RBL • Club Naranja • Prensa Piscis

CALYPSOMPA Estates (Bryce) • Inspirations Haidressers

CAMPILLOSFernando s Coffee Bar • BP Petrol StationWildmann-Chard Health & Beauty Centre

CAPILEIRESupermercado Coviran • Cafe Moraima

CARTAMA ESTACIONAguamania • Topres

CASABERMEJAPetrol Station

CASARESArroyo Honda • The Forge • Venta Garcia • Villas and Fincas • La Tienda •Mi Cortijo • Venta Victoria

CHICLANATourist Office

COIN ROADThe Warehouse Outlet • RMDC Glass • Favel • Tamisa Golf • St Anthonys College • Speedys Garage • Camping Fuengirola • BP Garage

COLMENARCO2 • Bar Campesino •Belen Hotel

COMPETATodo Papel • Pavo Real and Restaurant • Sugar and Spice

CORTESCamping el Salitre • Mary Becker • La Fuente

CORDOBABodegas Campos • Hotel Casas de la Juderia • La Fuente

CORTES DE LA FRONTERAPetrol Station •La FuenteCUEVAS DE ALMANZORA (Desert Spring Golf)

Restaurant / ClubhouseDIANA

Royal Nordic Club • Man Friday Supermarket • Super Market • Aud Dublin • Big BlueBox

DUQUESA PORTPaparazzi Neswagents • Supermarket • Las Galleries • English Butcher • Duquesa Golf Club • Paper Shop • Gaston Golf • Manilva Properties • Topline Paper Shop • Clubhouse Bar • La Bella Vista Camping

El CHORROEl Kiosko • Hotel Posada el Conde

EL FAROEl Faro Supermarket • Post Room • Zurich Office • Captains Bar

EL ROSARIOGerman Bakery/Cafe • Da Fabio Restaurant • Mozaic/ Els News • Marbella Golf • The Jeans Factory

EL TRAPICHEEl Trapiche Cafe/ Bar

ELVIRIAMartys Hairdressers • EIC School • Aventura • Amazonia • TFC Restaurant • Studio B • Bar Casi Casi • Regalos Isabel y Paco • Asia Foods • Playwrights • Mancomunidad

ESTEPABP Garage

ESTEPONALongmans Bookshop • Fergussons Bar • Cudeca Shop • Dune Bar • Laguna Village Paper shop • Hospiten • Albayat Resort • Best Coches • Terra Sana • Digi PrintOptica Machin • Muebles Gavira • Furniture World • Techno Aluminio • Lidls • Amapola • Tourist Centre • Estepona Golf • International Club of Estepona • Costa Natura • Laguna Village: Entrance • Tibet Clothes Shop

ESTEPONA MARINASailors Cafe • Business Centre EportBicUniversal Estate Agents • The Irish FiddlerMarlow Chip Chop

FRIGILIANAHotel Almazara

FUENGIROLAIceland Store • Scotties Butchers • Specsavers • Cudeca • Dunnes Stores • Yorkshire Linen • Euromarkets Cayetano (C/ Malaga) •

Euromarkets Cayetano (C/ San Isidro) • Euromarkets Cayetano (Av de los Lirios) • Salon Varieties• Old Gold• Marfil• Tourist Office• Fafa Foods• Prensa Iberia• Califonia 7• Cafe Fresco• Dunnes Las Rampas• Opticos Vicente• Anthonys Diamonds• Prensa Maxim • David Bookshop • Spainsburys • Woodys • Yaramar • Prensa Quijote • Joys Pies • Prensa Don Luis • Torreblanca Supermarket • Caravajal Supermarket • Red Dragon • Oasis • Torreblanca Post Office • Wessex Bar • Cheers Bar • Manila Bar • Mananas BarTonys Shanleys/ Chequers Golf • Estanco PYR

FUENTE DE PIEDRABar Rebujito • Corner Bar • Diane’s • Donkey Sanctuary

GARRUCHAClinica Veterinaria • Hostal Timar

GAUCINRepsol Petrol Station • Hotel Caballo Andaluz • Pura Vida Health Shop • Benassim Deli • Fructosa • El Convento • Casa Antonia • La Fuente • El Puente

GIBRALTARCafé Fresco • O’Reileys • Ibex Insurance • Morrisons • Elliot Hotel • Sacarellos • ICC Shopping Centre • Cafe Solo • Café Rojo • Colourworks • Rolex • Caleta Hotel • Ibex Insurance

GRANADA Airport • Hotel Macia Plaza • La Romanilla • Hotel Fontecruz Granada • Metro Bookshop • Hannigans 1 • Hannigans 2 • Tourist Office • El Catrachod • Jardines de Zoraya • La Alacena de Andalucia • Hotel Palacio de Santa

GUADALMINATricky Rickys • Bookworld

GUAROPetrol Station

HUMILLADERORestaurante Cinco Rios

IZNAJARBP • The Yoga School • Bar Verde

JEREZTourist Office

JIMENA DE LA FRONTERACepsa• Papeleria Los Garabatos • Bar Cuenca • La Tasca • Hostal Anon • Bar Oba • Estate Agents • Casa Henrietta

JIMERA DE LIBAR ESTACIONBar Allioli

LA CALACafe Boulevard • Cocinas Plus • Prensa Quetzal • BP Garage • Snack Attack

LA CALA DE MIJASCorner Café • Lions Charity Shop • Pensioners Bar • Internet Café • Papeleria Quetzal • Captains Bar • Zurich Office • BP Garage

LA CALETAPapeleria las Colonias

LA COLONIAEuromarkets Cayetano (C/Lagasca) • KSM Properties

LA HERRADURAThe Hideaway Bar • Libreria Coral • La Tartana Hotel • Restaurante S. Nico

LA HEREDIAThe Best of Holland • The Dutch Butcher • Panaderia • La Casita • K Bar

LA VINUELAHotel Vinuela • A & N Gas Petrol Station • Bar Atilla

LANJARONCafe Bar Health • Tourist Information • Los Llanos

LAS BUGANVILLASCactus

LECRIN VALLEYE.S Leman Gasolina

LOJACafe Continental

LOS GALLARDOSSubministros Ridao • Gas station • Camping los Gallardos

LOS ROMANESCamping Bar

LUCENACarrefour Pet Shop • Hotel Bronces • B.P near the fire stn.

MALAGA CITYBritish Consulate• Dunkin Coffee (Corte Ingles)• Hotel Tribuna • Pizzeria el Laboratorio • Restaurante Vino Mio • Terra Sana & Gorki restaurants (El Muelle Uno Shopping Centre) • Calle Brusseles • Celtic Irish Bar • Café con Libro • Picasso Museum • Robert Boyd • Plaza Restaurant • Hotel Don Curro • Hotel Molino Larios • Tourist Office • Hotel Vinci •Escuela de Turismo

MALAGA AIRPORTHelle Hollis • Car Parking Malaga • Arrivals Information Desk • Monarch

MANILVAManilva Solicitors • English Bookshop • Manilva Properties

MARBELLABP Garage -Marbella Arch • Hotel Fuerte • Swans International School • Vergola • Puente Romano Hotel • MC Cafe Marbella Club Hotel• Polo House • Cocinas Plus • Panorama • International School

MIJAS PUEBLOTourist Office • Town Hall • BP Garage • Mijas Hotel

MIJAS ROADWorld of Sofas • Centro Idea Danish Centrel • Euromarket

MOJACAR PLAYA (Centro Comercial)Masko Cafe • Habana Cafe•Diego Ortega Notaria • Michael Davis Solicitors • Clinica Dental • Ibex Insurance • Pippas Cafe

MOJACAR PLAYAGas Station • Koi Cafe • Kasbah Romantic • Sal’s • Currency Exchange • Paco Salas Farmacy • El Olivo Restaurant • Total Entertainment • Tomas Supermarket • Mojacar Estates • Beachcomber Restaurant • H Puntazo Hostal• Trufibar • Kimrick Restaurant • Parador • Cafe Bellagio • K7 Real Estate • Price, Brown Partnership • Tourist Office (Playa)Tito’s • Los Arcos Bar • Los Amigos Bar • La Posada • ELC

MOJACAR PUEBLOCentro de Arte Municipal • English Library • Bar Pavana •Bar Habanero •Bar Cherigan

MOLLINABar Margarita • And Estates • Brit Shop • Lazy Days Mobile Home Park

MONDAPaper Shop • Petrol St. •Design Academy

MONTEFRIOAlan Russell

MONTE HALCONES (Ronda Road)One Stop Café • Irish Café

MONTEJAQUELas Casitas

MOTRILCafé AL Campo • Tourist OfficeLos Moriscos Golf • Bar/ Rest Moriscos • Gran Elba Hotel

NERJAHotel Carabeo • English Book Shop • Supermercado Iranzo • Smiths Bookshop • Tourist Office • John the Barber • H2O Bar • Keyhomes Estates Agents • Team Estate Agents • Olas Bar • Cocinas Nerja

NUEVA ANDALUCIAAloha News • Garden Bar • Yanks • Wilsons • Alberts • La Sala • HIFX • Mad Hatters • Terra Sana • H10 Hotel

OLVERAPetrol Station • Dynos • Olvera Properties • Via Verde • Rest. El Puerto

ORGIVAIndoor Market • Camac • Internet Café • Alpujarra Supermercado • Baraka •Limonero

PAMPANEIRA

Cafe AlfonsoPERIANA

Cantueso •VerdugaPITRES

Camping • Bar La Taha • Bar FrenazoPIZARRA

Spa • AliproxPRIEGO DE CORDOBA

Tourist Office • Kiosko MaribelCepsa Garage

PUENTE DON MANUELMoreno’s • Ian Petts Dentist • English Shop • Arkwrights

PUERTO BANUSBookworld • Iceland • Cravings Cafe • Starz Cafe • La Sala • Mad Hatters • Yanks • Asiatic Food • HIFX • Studio B • Aloha News • The Garden Bar • Terra SanaH10 Hotel • Hairworks • Currencies DirectGuey Skybar

PUERTO REY (VERA)Club Deportivo • La Esquina

RINCON DE LA VICTORIATourist Office • Hotel Rincon SolAnoreta Golf

RIO FRIOHotel Almazara

RIOGORDOCoviran

RIVIERA DEL SOLMiraflores Bowls Club • La Terraza Supermarket • La Terraza Paper Shop

ROAD BETWEEN CAMPILLOS AND RONDA

Meson Diego • Petrol Station Cuevas del Becerro • BP Garage

RONDAAlmocabar • Bar San Francisco • Tourist Office • Atrium • Chocolat • Casa Ortega • To-Toro • Traga Tapas • Hotel Maestranza • Hotel Colon • Hotel Polo • Hotel Don Miguel • Locutorio • Serrania Services • Libreria Dumas • Huskies • Heaven Irish Pub • Pedro Romero

RONDA ROADMonte Halcones One Stop Cafe • Irish Cafe

RUTEEstanco

SABINILLASEnglish Bookshop • Eden • Visage Hairdresser • Coast to Coast Properties • Bar • Lidls • Kwasi Bar • Curtain & Bedding

SALINASCasa Monolo • Meson Estacion

SALOBRENABest Western Hotel • Post Office Antonio Machado • Tourist Office Plaza Goya • 1616 Books

SAN PEDROTourist Office • Passion Café • TRE Radio Station • Staysure

SAN ROQUESan Roque Golf Suites Reception area and golf clubhouse • Okay cafe • Supermarket

SAYDO MARKETAngela Sat • Bakery • Chrissy • Hotel Reception

SIERRA DE YEGUASKiosko

SITIO DE CALAHONDAClub Naranja RBL • Plaza next to Paper Shop

SOTOGRANDE GUADIARONewsagent • Corner Café • Lemon Tree Café • Estate Agent • English Butcher Shop • Sotofiesta • Business Centre NH Hotel • Abbeygate Insurance • Mara Rest. • Anglo Wines

SOTOGRANDE MARINAVideola • 50K Bar • La Brasserie • Hairy Lemon • Hotel Maritimo • Midas

TARIFATourist Office

TOLOXCross Road Bar • Vent Garradena

TORRE DEL MARPapeleria el Faro • English Bookshop Pasatiempo • Expatriate Help Centre • Lukuma • Baviera Golf • Las Yucas • Cudeca

TORREMOLINOSTourist Offices x 2 • Cudeca Town Centre • Baileys BP Garage • Parador Golf Hotel • Parador Golf • Riu Belplaya • Shennanigans • Hotel Melia • Rubens Exchange • Nigel & Cheryls Rest. • Cosy Nook • El Mojito • Toms Tavern • Wellness Clinic • Fig & Olive • Full House • Talk of the Tyne • BP Garage

TORROXRussels English Shop • El Pino English Shop • Light of India • Tourist Office

TURREFundraiser Shop• Zambra • Casa Diego • Total Entertainment • Tio Tomas •Connexions

UBEDAGolden Poppy English Center

VEJERTourism Office • Califa • Camping Vejer • Monte Medio Golf • Barca de Vejer • Castilleria Restaurant

VELEZ MALAGAGarden Centre La Palma • Eroski Centre • Bar Jamaica • Dunnes • Pronumatico

VERAIceland • Galasaa

VILLANUEVA DE ALGAIDASLa Bodeguita

VILLANUEVA DE ROSARIOBar • Bar • Town hall

VILLANUEVA DE TAPIALa Paloma Rest.

VILLANUEVA DE TRABUCORonnies • La Plaza • La Rubia • El Rincon de Teresa • Trabuco Books

YUNQUERAPetrol Station • Bakery

ZAHARA DE LA SIERRAAl Lago

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31www.theolivepress.es the olive press - April 19 - 30, 2013

32 www.theolivepress.esthe olive press - April 19 - April 30 201330

33www.theolivepress.es the olive press - April 19 - 30, 2013Top Dollar The Olive Press fortnightly business section taking a look at the Spanish economy and offer-ing tips on how to save AND make money

THE PSOE party has called for a one-billion-euro fund to be created to tackle grow-ing poverty in Spain.Secretary general Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba described the current situation as a ‘national emergency’ and asked leaders for a ‘great commitment’ in fighting the problem.“This initiative is to bring together everyone to find a way out of this problem, which gets more dramatic by the day,” he said after an-nouncing the proposal.Rubalcaba said the initia-tive would help more than 500,000 families struggling to survive, as well as create 30,000 jobs.He estimated it would help a further 80,000 people re-turn to employment.It has recently emerged that around a third of Andalucia

THEY often say the safest place to keep your cash is often under the mattress.Well one clever company has come up with a novel idea to actually in-stall a safe right into your bed.Salamanca businessman Paco San-tos (above), 57, came up with the idea after being made redundant last year. His company Descanso

By Mason Jones

Give us a billionPSOE wants to establish a billion euro fund to help the third of Andalucia living below the poverty line

lives below the poverty line, which is €7,500 a year for a single person and €15,768 for a family.According to a recent survey 6% of Andalucians cannot afford to have one hot meal a day, while 11% cannot af-ford to heat their homes.Over half of the region is unable to afford a week’s holiday.The report by charity Cari-tas found that poverty in Andalucia is almost double that of Spain.Around half of households say they do not have the financial resources to deal with unexpected emergen-cies and 17% admit to find-ing ‘great difficulty’ in mak-ing their incomes stretch to the end of the month.

BEAT THE BANKS WITH A MATTRESS SAFE

Santos Suenos uses the slogan: “keep your money close to you”.The mattress retails at €855.00 and features a keypad combination lock safe. “With the problems in Spain peo-ple have lost confidence in the banks,” he said. “I think our grand-parents had the right idea... hide their money under the mattress!”

CONFIDENCE in the Span-ish market is on the up, with yields on the govern-ment’s 10-year bonds hav-ing dropped to their lowest level since October 2010. This suggests high levels of trading activity and should give the country a reason for cautious optimism over the coming weeks. Spain is not celebrating alone, as the past month has also been good for risky as-sets in France and Italy. The news will no doubt come as a relief to eurozone policymakers and allay any fears of a knock-on effect from the Cypriot crisis.

SUPERMARKET giant Mer-cadona created 520 perma-nent jobs in Andalucia last year. The new positions mean that the chain now has a to-tal of 16,830 employees in the region. Over the past three years Mercadona has expanded its permanent workforce by 1,930 in Andalucia alone and looks set to increase its headcount yet further in 2013.

Good news for bonds

New jobs joy

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34 www.theolivepress.esthe olive press - April 19 - April 30 2013

30

BENJAMIN Franklin once famously said that in this world noth-ing is certain but death

and taxes. Well, one insurance policy sits at the crossroads of both—life insurance. It may not help you cheat death, but it may help manage the inheritance taxes that become due.Your inheritance tax bill can be calculated to a fair-ly accurate level; here at Hyperien we have all the tables necessary to give you an indication of what your inheritance tax bill will be on your death us-ing the following information:The valor catastral of your property (this appears on your IBI bill), value of your in-vestments, bank account bal-ances and other assets held here in Spain.

Top Dollar advertorial

You can’t cheat death!Carol Crompton of Hyperien on the importance of a good life insurance policy

We would then need to know who would be inheritor of your estate here in Spain (the estate in Spain, the inheritor doesn’t necessarily need to be in Spain). There are various allowances,

depending on the inheritor’s relationship with the de-ceased; many people will fall into groups 1 or 2: descen-dants and adopted children under 21, or descendants and adopted children over

21, spouses, parents and adoptive parents. The allowances vary from just under €16,000 for group 2 relations and up to a maxi-mum of just under €48,000 allowance for group 1 chil-

dren (the younger the child, the more allow-ance they receive).The key here is you are not avoiding inheritance tax, you are simply plan-ning ahead without incurring expensive, on-going charges to have your estate managed af-ter your death. You can have as many life insur-ance policies as you like;

so if you need one for your mortgage, you can have a separate one to pay off inheri-tance tax, or have one larger policy, that covers both. Contact Carol on 952 895216 or email info@hyperien.net.

35www.theolivepress.es the olive press - April 19 - 30, 2013Top Dollar

SPAIN is refusing to put up tax despite pressure to do so from Brussels.Finance minister Cristobal Montoro pledged that the government will not in-crease items subject to the

No more tax cutsGovernment refuses to bow to EU pressure and raise IVA ratesreduced IVA rates of 10% to the standard rate of 21%.It comes after the European

Commision also suggested that Rajoy’s administration impose special levies on the

energy sector in order to meet the country’s deficit reduction targets. “There will be no new tax hikes,” Montoro said after Friday’s regular Cabinet meeting. “I can’t be any clearer than that.“We are changing our con-cept to focus solely on defi-cit targets without taking into account the impact on the economy,” he added.However, the taxation changes that will come into place have still not been fi-nalised said Montoro.

Target“Tax decisions for 2014 haven’t been taken yet and will obviously depend on negotiations with the Euro-pean Commission and other EU partners.“It will all depend on the deficit targets that are es-tablished,” he added.The minister also stated that there will be no rep-etition of the cuts on Christ-mas bonuses for public sec-tor workers which were im-posed in last year’s budget.

CATH Kidston is the latest British export to hit the Spanish high streets.The UK homeware company is set to open up to 80 stores in its first foray into Eu-rope.The brand, known for its retro floral de-signs in pastel colours, launched two pilot concession stores in El Corte Ingles in Ma-drid and Majorca before Christmas.They have done so well they will now be-come a permanent feature while other branches of the Spanish department store

UK shop has big designs on Spain

are following suit.Chief Executive Kenny Wilson explained: “We’ve done a test in Madrid in the num-ber one El Corte Ingles store. It’s been very, very successful... Clearly, if we can make the brand work in a pretty tough Spanish economy that gives us confidence that it can work across Western Europe.” The company was founded by designer Cath Kidston in 1993 and it currently has 61 British and 58 Asian stores, most of which are franchises.

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36 www.theolivepress.esthe olive press - April 19 - April 30 2013

Road to Riches, by Richard Alexander

Richard Alexander Financial Planning Limited is an appointed representative of L J Financial Planning Limited, which is authorised and regulated by the Financial

Services Authority in the UK. Contact him at Richard@ra-fp.com

Top Dollar

AS the now famous April 30 deadline comes rushing to-wards us, many

people tell me they are still struggling with, not only completing the filing, but also, getting the right information to file.I thought I would share some feedback from one Olive Press reader who has his UK pensions paid into his account each month and has had a complete nightmare trying to get to the bottom of it.

Hi Richard,

After reading your article in Olive Press about Ha-cienda’s form 720 I went

to Hacienda in Malaga and asked for the table you mentioned to calcu-late the capital value of pension funds using the amount of the annuities that you’re receiving. The man I spoke to said it didn’t exist, and when I showed him the article and translated what you wrote into Spanish, all he said was that anyone can write anything in a news-paper.At first he said that I didn’t have to declare the

What a challenge!

As the April 30 Form 720 deadline nears many are still baffled about what do, writes Richard Alexander

capital value of pension funds, but when I insisted he checked he searched in the Agencia Tributaria web-site and agreed that I did. I could have done that, but I thought it would be easier talking face to face.An accountant in Fuengi-rola had earlier told me that there is a formula for cal-culating the capital value of a pension fund using the amount of pension that you’re receiving, provided the annuities are ‘renta vi-talicia inmediata’ which is as follows:First you divide the annual pension by 0.04 (4%, the of-ficial rate of interest for last year).Then you work out a percentage by subtracting

your age at the end of the tax year from 89. The capi-tal value is that percentage of the first figure.When I mentioned this in Hacienda, the man told me he hadn’t heard of this formula. He said I should put an approximate value and correct it next year, but couldn’t tell me how to calculate the approximate value. That was up to the pension companies, he in-sisted.When I told him that I under-stood that I wouldn’t have

to submit form 720 next year if my pensions didn’t increase by €20,000, he agreed with me, but I don’t think he knew.There must be tens of thousands of expats in Spain in my position. What do we do? One accountant in Mala-ga later said I didn’t have to declare the capital value of pension funds. Another in El Rincon de la Victoria knew less than me. He said he’d phone me, but he hasn’t.How do we solve this problem? Time is running out, and I understand that there is a fine of €10,000 for each class of asset which you don’t declare

or declare incorrectly.I’m good with figures and I speak fluent Spanish, so if I can’t sort it out, who can?

Yours sincerely,

Well, dear reader, what is there to say?All I hear about is confu-sion at Hacienda and probably the only way to get this done properly is to use a professional tax adviser in Spain, despite the cost.

talk radio europe

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37www.theolivepress.es the olive press - April 19 - 30, 2013Top Dollar

Keith is head of European Sales at HiFX. To contact HiFX and find out how the team can help you with your international transactions, call in at the office in Centro Plaza, call 951 203 986 or email olivepress@hifx.co.uk

THE lion’s share of the recent column inches have been domi-nated by the passing of Baron-ess Thatcher. There has been so

much media coverage in the UK follow-ing her death with anti and pro “Mag-gie” camps having their voices heard all last week.What is most interesting though, is to compare the health of the current UK economy with when she came to power in the 80’s when unemployment was high, growth sluggish and austerity a major problem.The way she repaired the economy, it is a sure fire bet that David Cameron will hope to have similar results for the UK in the years ahead.On that note, we are soon to find out whether the UK is to go back into re-cession for a third time, the so called ‘triple dip recession’. Forecasters are suggesting the UK may now narrowly avoid it and this was backed up last week by the NIESR GBP Estimate, which comes out one month before official figures.It showed that over the last quarter UK

plc will have grown by a whopping 0.1%. A piece of good news to crow about for George Osborne following the recent loss of the UK’s AAA credit rating!Of course Cyprus is still never far from commentators’ lips with the final details about the “tax on savers” in Cyprus still to be released and still a major concern for some investors. One thing is for sure, this deal is a disas-ter for Cyprus. For a decade, the Cypriot government has courted ultra-high net worth Russian oligarchs as the offshore tax haven of choice. The breaking up of the Cyprus Popular Bank and the impo-sition of a levy on savings in excess of €100,000 will abruptly end this and lead to an overnight drop in Cypriot GDP of about 10%. This would cripple any economy but couple it with the capital controls that will need to be imposed and the genu-ine lack of an alternative way of boost-ing output in such a tiny economy and one can quickly see that President Nicos

What would Maggie have done?

Anastasiades’ administration is in jeop-ardy and is unlikely to survive. In this instance, an exit from the EU and the Single Currency would surely have been the lesser of two evils?But what for the rest of the Eurozone? Is this nothing more than an itch on the elephants skin? Well, unfortunately not. Averting an unruly exit by Cyprus will be lauded in Brussels as a good re-sult – another shining example of how to prop up the weak Southern States. However, the galacticly short-sighted move by German ministers to impose a direct levy on investors in Cypriot banks is a game changer for the whole of the EU. Previous sanctions have tar-geted bond-holders or shareholders of banks – not savers. Directly penalising, or even the possibility of penalising savers is likely to lead to the wholesale withdrawal of funds from accounts across Europe, adding to the already difficult task European banks have in attracting ‘real money’ into the system. Bluntly, cash is the life blood of any financial system and the lack of it is what is causing all the problems. Mag-gie would have understood that.

By Keith Spitalnick

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38 www.theolivepress.esthe olive press - April 19 - April 30 2013

FINANCIAL advisor specialists IFA International have extended their QROPS jurisdictions to include Gibraltar.It now means the company can offer its clients the choices of multi-jurisdictional positioning for their pension ar-rangements. “It means our clients are best placed to meet the changes faced in their personal and professional lives by ensuring their pension funds are receiving tax favourable status,” said boss Andrew Caddick. IFA International is constantly updating its services to keep them current and relevant to the financial market-place. “But what hasn’t changed is our ethos towards our clients... they are at the centre point of our business and we work with them on a regular basis, in many cases monthly.”For more information contact clientservices@ifainterna-tional.com

Top Dollar A LOOK TO THE LEFT

IFA launches in Gibraltar

FIRSTLY don’t worry, you did not miss an article here...I ac-tually wrote the first part of ‘Urban Myths’ back in 2004.It was all about the police, mafia, corruption and unjust treatment of foreigners in Spain. Yes I know, it is a long

wait for a sequel, but the good news is that the new ‘Myths’ have got a bit more interesting....So where to start, oh yes....Myth 1 and 2, I will take these together as they are linked. Nº 1 “The Russians can get instant residencies in Spain if they buy a property for over 160k”Truth: Spain’s finance minister suggested a few months back,that if the Government were to ease residency restric-tions it could boost the economy, especially if this was linked to a property purchase. Needless to say, this generated a fren-zied rumour fest within the real estate community about sell-ing whole urbanizations so that the Russians and Chinese can bring all their families over. However it also caused a lot of dis-quiet amongst the upper echelons of European governments and security services, and needless to say, this has now gone very quiet. My opinion - if it is ever revived, it will be under much stricter terms.Nº 2 “The only people buying at the moment are Russians”Truth: That is certainly not the case. Recent figures from land registry sources show that sales to Russian and other Baltic countries represent just 4.9% of the property sales on the Cos-ta del Sol. In fact, the biggest uptake of properties by foreign buyers are from ...yes the good old Brits. Buyers from England, Ireland, Scotland and even Wales accounted for approximately 34% of all property sales in the past six months. The next group are from the Scandinavian countries and the rest come from all over, from as far apart as Australia, Middle East, USA and central Europe.Myth 3 and 4 are again linked, and are about our favourite

group of people. Yes! That’s right, those lovely bankers, and the myths are as follows...Nº1 “Anyone can issue an embargo on your bank account and block all of your money so that you cannot get it”Truth: Embargoes are only able to be issued by either a judge, as the result of a court case, or by the Hacienda (Tax Office) or Social Security and other Government bodies. Theoretically a judge can issue an embargo or account freeze on the evidence of the police pending a criminal investigation. The one point many people do not understand is that an embargo is very spe-cific and that it will only cover a specific amount of money for a specific period of time. Let me explain. If you have for example and ongoing debt with social security, they will periodically try to embargo the contents of your account. If when they issue this you have for example a 100€ balance, and the debt you owe is 200, then this money will be blocked, and in about 18 days disappear. You can however use your account in the nor-mal way, as the only money they can take is what was in on the day of the embargo. Needless to say, if you are in the position, try to keep your balance as low as possible !Nº2 “The Spanish Government will do the same as the Cypriots did and take a percentage of our money for bailouts, etc”Truth: Now let me be very clear. This is just MY opinion. They would not dare... Cyprus is a small place with a small popula-tion, and therefore very easy to control. Spain is a very different kettle of fish, and despite the siesta mentality they are very used to revolutionary behaviour. It would be the end of the gov-ernment, probably mean Spain leaving Europe, and the final demise of the Euro. Mmm maybe not such a bad idea then...

Urban Myths (pt.2) David Ballard on the myths about

Russians, embargoes and bank account freezes that keep doing the rounds

38

39www.theolivepress.es the olive press - April 19 - 30, 2013Top Dollar Advertorial

Join us for tea

SPANISH Inheritance tax can be a very misleading subject due to the varying advice and ‘solutions’ talk-ed about in Spain.

Wincham has been assisting clients since 1994 to successfully and legally protect their loved ones from the huge burden that is ‘Spanish IHT’. Many property owners in Spain are sitting on a ticking inheritance tax (IHT/ISD) time bomb unaware that when they purchase their ‘dream’ property they are unknow-ingly creating a potential financial burden for their beneficiaries.The surviving partner, or beneficiaries, may have a tax bill which exceeds the value of the entire Spanish asset being in-herited plus the cost of obtaining probate in more than one country. Our solution to the problem is for the owner/s to invest the property into a UK Private Limited company which they would own as shareholder/s remaining in com-plete control of their asset. There is no 7 to 10% Property Transfer tax payable on this transaction.

One to oneThere are also many taxation benefits when investing a property into your own UK Limited Company; in addition the own-ership of the company can be structured to suit beneficiaries needs in a way that is simply not possible under Spanish law.In conjunction with the launch of the com-pany’s recently opened office in Marbella the team Mark Bailey and David Rogers will be located at three different venues this month offering personal one-to-one appointments.This will give you the opportunity to dis-cuss your individual circumstances and take away your free personalised Spanish Inheritance Tax illustration.The appointments take place between

The Wincham team are offering a cup of tea and face-to-face advice on Spanish inheritance tax liabilities at three venues this month

10am and 5pm on the following days.The Kempinski Hotel, in Estepona on Wednesday April 24, the Beatriz Palace Hotel, Fuengirola on April 25 and The Sunset Beach Hotel, in Benalmadena on April 26.To find out more about the implications of Spanish IHT, what the liabilities of your beneficiaries are likely to be and the legal steps you can take to avoid it please con-tact Wincham on 0034 965 830 991 / +44 (0)1260 299 700 or alternatively visit www.winchamiht.com to make your appointment to meet Mark or David.Wincham International is also able to as-sist you with Legal, Accountancy, Will Writ-ing and Probate issues in both the UK and Spain.

39

40 www.theolivepress.esthe olive press - April 19 - April 30 2013

ONE IS NOT AMUSEDA NEW law will mean great-er checks and more trans-parency on the spending of Spain’s Royal Family and other public figures.Representatives of the Roy-al Family have been nego-tiating for several months with the government on how to increase oversight of its activities.The move takes place as the once-popular royals are embroiled in a corruption scandal that has badly dam-

New transparency law to reveal royal family spendingBy Frances Leate

aged their public image.Earlier this month, King Juan Carlos’s youngest daughter, Princess Cristina, was charged with aiding and abetting her husband, who is accused of a number of crimes in a €6 million cor-ruption case.The case against her has now been suspended, with the prosecutor arguing

that it was discriminatory against her.The law is also designed to trigger tighter regulation of tax declarations, harsher punishments for corruption and more checks on depart-ments and figures that re-ceive public funding.The bill has been sent to parliament by Prime Min-ister Mariano Rajoy who himself has been recently embroiled in a corruption scandal.

SOLE TRADER OR A COMPANY MAN?

Ask AntQ. I have been asked to be ‘President’ of my Community of Owners, can I refuse? A. According to article 13 of the Horizontal Property Act, it is obligatory to accept this des-ignation and only a court can exempt you from fulfilling this role. On the contrary, the role of ‘Administrator’ is not obligatory.

Q. Can the community stop a neighbour from using a barbecue on his terrace? A. Yes, the Statutes of the Community of own-ers can ban barbecues but if it is not in the statutes then you will not have a problem un-less of course the smoke causes neighbours to complain, invoking an article of the above Act (7.2) that prohibits activities that are a nui-sance, unhealthy, noxious or dangerous.

MANY years back, when I was starting off in the legal world, I remember dealing with two property develop-ers and brothers, who had a smallish urbanization on the side of the motorway in Calahonda, Mijas. On carrying out the due diligence, I noted that they were not using any form of limited liability company or S.L. in Spain.Merely a self-employed civil partnership, which meant that they were personally and directly responsible for any losses sustained. As it was the first time I had come across such an audacious business set up, I asked them why they did not use a regular company, to which the answer was even more brazen: “Because we are the only property de-velopers who have the guts to do it on the Costa del Sol. We will never cheat, hide or run away”.And as it turned out, they didn’t.This isolated case-study leads us to the issue of whether it is better to be registered as a self-em-ployed trader (“autonomo”) or to set up under a limited liability company.The answer to this question will depend on the number of factors, not the least the personal preference of the

adviser in question due to his past experiences with his own clients. Issues such as taxation, protection against busi-ness debts, running costs, anonymity of investors and ability to easily dispose of the business, need to be taken into account.It is however the fiscal per-spective that is probably the most important because of the changing tax rates and the need to save as much money as possible in diffi-cult times.An ‘au-tonomo’ is now to be subjected to seven new i n c r e a s e d income tax rate band-ings which range from 24,75% to an extreme 52%, on a taxable in-come over €300,000. A company on the con-trary will allow you to pay as little as 25% in C o r p o r a -tion Tax but when you d i s t r i b u t e

profits, you will have to pay dividend tax on dividends over €1,500 (from 21% to 27%). As the director of the com-pany, it is also possible to draw a salary linked to in-come tax which, as seen above, has now gone up. As with most tax matters an assessment of the specific case, and expectations of the parties, will be needed to be taken in order to make the right decision.

AGONY ANT YOUR LEGAL PROBLEMS ADDRESSED

Law40

41www.theolivepress.es the olive press - April 19 - 30, 201351

Internet TV specialist Michael Coard explains why and when you will be losing your British TV this year

42 www.theolivepress.esthe olive press - April 19 - April 30 2013 PropertyWant to buy a village?

THE Spanish government has dedicated €2.42 billion to urban renovation and regeneration throughout the country. The latest national housing plan will attempt to revive the country’s ailing construction sector, leading to the creation of an estimated 105,000 jobs. The majority of funding will go towards supporting families who rent, with €627 million earmarked for the rehabilitation of buildings built before 1981. The budget will also be used to develop public spaces and build substitute housing to replace demolished properties.

AN increasing number of foreign investors are snap-ping up entire villages in the Spanish countryside.According to a property website the market for these uninhabited proper-ties is being flooded with foreigners seeking tourism and real estate opportuni-ties.Rafael Canales, of aldea-sabandonadas.com. esti-mates that 75% of buyers are now from abroad, with Brits, Norwegians, Ger-mans and Americans dom-inating the market.“Around 70% are bought by individuals for their per-sonal use and they have the

Large numbers of abandoned hamlets are being bought by foreigners looking for a bargain, writes Annabel Grossman

In with the oldinternet and other luxu-ries”, Canales added. “The other 30% are used for businesses, such as cottages or luxury ho-tels.”Just €350,000 can se-cure investors an unin-habited hamlet in the Galician province of Lugo (pictured above).Near the town of Fonsa-grada it comes complete with four houses, a mill, barn and hayloft. For the bargain price of €62,000 buyers can be-come the proud owner of six buildings, a water spring and 13,000m2 of farmland near Lupo.

43www.theolivepress.es the olive press - April 19 - 30, 20134157Property

POLITICIANS have de-manded a new law to stop anti-eviction protesters from coming near their homes.It comes after Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saénz de Santamaría (right) became the latest and most high profile victim of the pickets or ‘escraches’, at her home in Madrid last week. Police scuffled with up to 300 protesters outside her house in the upmarket dis-trict of Fuente de Berro. The Deputy Prime Minis-ter was at home with her husband and baby at the time, as protesters shouted “Soraya, Soraya, who pays for your house!”

HOMEOWNERS facing repossession proceedings could escape eviction, af-ter the Junta passed a de-

Not on OUR doorsteps!New anti-eviction protest laws sought after illegal gatherings outside leading politician’s home turns violent

Now she and members of her PP party have called for a 300m exclusion zone on such protests from coming

near their homes. The protestors — mostly those from the Mort-gage Victims Platform (PAH) — have been holding a string of noisy demon-strations outside the homes of law-makers and gov-ernment officials in recent weeks. Although the demonstrators are not commit-ting any crime under current Spanish law, many politicians

are calling for the Interior Ministry to step in.They claim it represents an invasion of privacy for

them and their fami-lies. Meanwhile the attorney general has ordered prosecutors across Spain to begin collecting data on pro-testors who have been harassing and heckling elected officials, in-cluding those who hold rallies outside their homes. Dozens were arrested and the government is studying whether criminal charges can be filed against partici-pants in these protests. ANGER: Protesters outside the politician’s home

Junta uses old Franco law to ease eviction worries

cree to expropriate residen-tial properties. The plan is to effectively buy the houses and allow own-

ers to live rent free for at least the first three years.Using an old law passed in dictator Franco’s day, the family must be at risk of social exclusion if evicted and their mort-gage instalments need to be more than a third of the household income. The law has ironically come under strong criti-cism from the right wing PP party, to which Fran-co once belonged. How-ever it has been initially backed by Andalucia’s high court (TSJA).Another scheme will tackle housing shortages by encouraging rentals. It will introduce rental incentives and place fines of up to €9,000 on unoccupied proper-ties owned by develop-ers and financial institu-tions.The Junta estimates that there are 700,000 empty properties in Andalucia.

44 www.theolivepress.esthe olive press - April 19 - April 30 2013 3332

3232.................................n Buen aminoCE

THE Seat Leon is the most popular vehicle among car thieves in Spain according to the nation’s leading in-

New report finds car models such as the Seat Leon and VW Golf are the most likely to get stolen

surance company.Other models commonly stolen are the Volkswagen Golf followed by the BMW

3 Series, according to re-search by insurance com-pany Linea Directa.In the report, ‘Car Theft in

Spain’, Malaga was named as one of the most likely places to have your car stolen in Spain.But other theft hotspots include Madrid and Ali-cante. In good news for Anda-lucia in general, car theft in the provinces of Huel-va, Jaen and Cordoba is among the lowest in Spain.The study was compiled by analysing over 8,400 cases of car theft from a

total portfolio of 1.7 mil-lion customers.The report also reveals that of the 50,000 vehicles sto-len in Spain last year- only 30% were ever recovered.Many of these vehicles are believed to have been ille-gally resold in Eastern Eu-ropean countries or North Africa.

Don’t text and drive insist Spanish academicsWRITING a text while driving can be as dangerous as being over the legal drink drive limit, according to Span-ish researchers.The study reveals that just a few sec-onds texting behind the wheel poses as much risk as being four times over the drink-drive limit.The team from the University of Bar-celona also found that having ‘deep’ or ‘thoughtful’ conversations on a hands-free device also carries sig-nificant risks.To gather the results, the team as-sessed the driving of 12 healthy ap-plicants on two separate occasions.The analysis looked at speeding, braking time, speed deviation and lane changing.

On the first day, volunteers were asked to undergo simulated driving tasks under several different condi-tions.These included engaging in both a ‘demanding’ and ‘simple’ conversa-tion while using a hands-free de-vice, followed by sending texts at the wheel.In the next phase of the experiment volunteers drank alcohol to reach three different blood alcohol con-centration levels before performing the driving tasks again.Leading researcher Dr Shuk Man said the findings show that having a ‘demanding, hands-free conversa-tion or texting represent significant risks’.

Changing gear at TransmaticTHEY have been thinking out of the box for over 20 years...the gear box that is.Estepona company Trans-matic now knows every-thing you need to know about gear boxes.Formed in 1991, the family business specialises in the repair and service of auto-matic and transfer gearbox-es for all makes of car. The company has grown into one of Spain’s leading transmission repair and service centers boasting the latest diagnostic equip-ment.While brothers Robert and James Sutcliffe run the business, father Paul, who

is semi retired, spends most of his time on classic car re-pairs.“We recommend drivers undergo regular servicing of the transmission,” insists Robert. “While most driv-ers understand they need to regularly service their car to keep it on the road few re-alise the gearbox can suffer from high amounts of wear and tear.”In many cases, he insists, garages and even main dealers will not change the oil and filter of the trans-mission when servicing your vehicle as they lack the knowledge and tools. “Performing this service is

a specialist job which, if not done correctly, can cause premature transmission failure and in some cases the vehicle will not even function after the service,” he adds.Transmatic has invested in machines such as the ATX PRO2 transmission fluid ex-changer and the new cool-ant contamination tester you can be sure your car’s gearbox is in the best pos-sible hands.

Book your car for a service via the website, or email info@transmatic.es or call 952796166.

Look out for your Leon!

ALSO POPULAR: Car thieves like BMWs and the VW Golf

45www.theolivepress.es the olive press - April 19 - 30, 2013

46 www.theolivepress.esthe olive press - April 19 - April 30 2013

SPRING is a time of renewal and fresh starts and it’s a tra-dition in most homes to do a thorough spring clean. Historically, the long, dark months of winter also came with soot and grime from fires, candles, kerosene and other alternatives to today’s costly electricity for heat and light. And even if we don’t have a roaring fire going through the winter, we still need to a good clean sweep of all the clutter

Give your grandparents a Spring in their step!

In a new regular column, Sotogrande-based expat and grandmother Juliet Hambro (left) gives useful and practical everyday tips on how to help your family

and dirt.And remember the senior members of the family may need this more than the youngsters. Housework and chores be-come increasingly difficult as people age. Health conditions such as weakness, fatigue, dizziness and poor eyesight contribute to a home that is less than spic and span. Why not plan a family get-

together to help your senior members with a spring clean-ing visit this month.It can be organised with a simple ‘to-do checklist’ and scheduled so that more than just one person is available to do the heavy work.Here is a partial list of typi-cal cleaning and organising tasks needed in most homes. You’ll want to tailor your proj-

ect to the specific needs of your senior. And, don’t forget to include some fun times in this family project too. Try a ‘potluck dinner’, a pic-nic, a movie or game night. Or, just spend some good, quality family time reminisc-ing about past family history.

Tasks to do in a thorough spring clean-ing project:

1) Re-organise closets. This is a good time to clear out old clothing, shoes, and general junk that is no lon-ger needed. Putting down a washable liner is also a nice touch and will help to keep the shelving clean in the fu-ture.

2) G o t h r o u g h bathroom cupboards to dispose of old or e x p i r e d m e d i c a -tions. Take a safety as-sessment for the bath - does your senior need grab bars or oth-er safety devices in-stalled?

3) Clean the kitchen cupboards and sanitise the refrigerator. Throw out ex-pired food items and check the wiring of all appliances.

4) Go through living and dining areas to dispose of clutter. Vacuum and clean carpets and be sure to look for area rugs that may pose a tripping hazard.

www.askgranny.com is a unique website and resource for grandparents and senior citizens worldwide created by Granny Juliet and provides use-ful information on a number of topics.

OP Lifestyle

5) Check the batteries in smoke alarms and be sure that fire extinguishers are in working condition. Replace light bulbs in lamps and fix-tures.

6) Wash bedding, in-cluding mattress pads and see if new mattresses or pil-lows are needed. Clean floor-ing or carpets of bathroom.

7) Clean draperies or curtains throughout the home.

8) Make a sweep of outdoor areas to check for tripping hazards or repairs needed.

9) You may want to do a drive safety test. Often if health has deteriorated or eyesight dims, the senior doesn’t want to lose driving privileges. Assess driving safety and take appropriate measures.

10) Confirm contact in-formation for doctors, hospi-tals, pharmacies and the like. Consider adding a speed-dial feature to local emergency services and to family mem-bers. Go over paperwork such as a power of attorney, will and medical directives and be sure they’re filed where they can be found.

Our grandparents enjoy living independently as long as pos-sible. Our willingness to help with annual projects such as spring cleaning will enable them to live quality lives for longer periods of time. Check out the resources below to help you with checklists and other resources for your spring cleaning project.

“My granddaughter came to spend a few weeks with me, and I decided to teach her to sew. After I had gone through a lengthy explanation of how to thread the machine, she stepped back, put her hands on her hips, and said in disbelief, “You mean you can do all that, but you can’t play my Game Boy?” ~Author Unknown

Quote of the Week

“The best babysitters are always the baby’s grandparents. You feel completely comfortable entrusting your baby to them for long periods, which is why most grandparents flee to Florida.” Dave Barry

Quote of the Week 2

Average age to become a grandparent?The average age to become a grandparent is 47 in Europe. However, it is common to become a grandparent in your 50’s and 60’s. The average age to become a great-grandparent is 74 and the average age to become a parent is 24 or 25. However, with the average to become a parent getting older then the ‘great-grandparent’ generation will soon be lost because the average age to die in the UK is not rising as quick as the age to become a parent.

Granny fact

47www.theolivepress.es the olive press - April 19 - 30, 2013 3151T Sop alud53

48 www.theolivepress.esthe olive press - April 19 - April 30 2013

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

A press realease for the Marbella Club Spring Games dropped into my in-box the other day. Ap-parently the great and the good (and Philip Junot) get together for three days of ski-ing, golfing and ten-nis with a cup inevi-tably being awarded to some minor Ger-man aristoscrat or another. I have half a mind to organise an alternative Marbella Spring Games, where the sports would in-clude escrache avoid-ing and transfering your slush fund to your Swiss bank ac-count in the shortest possible time. Iñaki Undangarin could award the prizes.

BELLA VISTA6th

And so to football. I’m not a huge fan of the round ball, but I did follow Málaga’s heroics in the Cham-pions League closely as it really did have something of the fairy tale about it. While the pundits will de-bate endlessly about whether the win-ning Dortmund goal should have been al-lowed to stand, I’ve been telling my foot-ball mad friends that they should regard it akin to being dumped after a two-week all expenses paid fling with a supermodel in Antigua. Don’t be sad it’s over...just be grateful it happened at all!!!

Bingo!Heroes

Regular readers of this col-umn - and I know that a few of you are out there - will know about my ongoing re-lationship with the Spanish police. Due to my angelic good looks, I’ve often tend-ed to get pulled over by se-curity guards at gated com-munities, stewards at foot-ball matches, and customs at the airport. Even the girls behind the counter at Mc-

Donalds look at me warily. But over the last few months I have been pulled over in my car by both the Local and Nacional Police and given a thorough grilling.The one group of boys in azul who hadn’t pulled me over though were the Guar-dia Civil. Well that was un-til last week. Now I have a very healthy respect for the Guardia. As a motorbike-

riding teenager in Spain in the 80s I had various en-counters with the old style Guardia. Franco may have been dead for a decade but most of these guys didn’t know it and acted accord-ingly. I frequently had the bruising to prove it and of-ten used the phrase ‘Don’t Fxxk with the Guardia’. Nowadays of course, the Guardia Civil are a through-ly modern force quite differ-ent from before.But they still put the fear of god up most people. So imagine my lack of surprise when out for lunch with the Olive Press’ editor, we spot-ted a couple of Guardia at the bottom of the road. They were about to wave us on when one spotted me and ‘Bam’ we were ordered to stop. “This never happens to me,” said a bewildered Ed, who at 3pm was getting very peck’ish. I however, had to fight the urge to shout ‘Bingo!’ having achieved the hattrick in just two months. I’ve now got the complete set - Local, Nacional and Guardia! My next mission is to head up to Barcelona. I can’t wait to be detained by the Mossos d’ Esquadra!

Let the Games Begin!

49www.theolivepress.es the olive press - April 19 - 30, 2013

50 www.theolivepress.esthe olive press - April 19 - April 30 2013

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DO YOU HAVE AGOLF BUSINESSTHAT IS LOOKING TO

NOT one, but two, friends ‘beat the pro’ at a prestigious golf challenge in Marbella.Hoteliers Andy Chapell and Mark Wardell came closer to the pin at the sixth hole in the La Sala Golf Classic than golf pro Daniel Williams.Williams from the Palmer Williams Golf Academy had to hand over two

Beating the pro... to a pulp!sets of new balls to the pair, who doubled the list to four people who achieved the honour.Said Chapell: “We didn’t even hit par-ticularly good shots so it was excel-lent result.”The golf challenge at Santa Clara Golf ended up at a prize-giving ceremony in La Sala restaurant in Puerto Banus.

SPAIN’S leading golf journalist has written a book on the sport’s Andalucian high-lights.Jesus Ruiz has re-leased The Andalu-cian Golf Yearbook 2012, a collection of articles on the best of the region from last year.The book not only documents the tour-naments held in Andalucia, but also chronicles the inter-national victories of players from Andalu-cia in Honk Kong and the United States.Ruiz also includes a piece on Jose Maria Olazabal following his triumph with the European team in the Ryder Cup along with a profile of Costa del Sol regular Miguel Angel Jimenez (see adjacent story).The Andalucian Golf Yearbook 2012 is ex-pected to be available at all major golf clubs in the region.

By Mason Jones

Torre’s new teacherONE of Spain’s most eccen-tric sportsmen has opened a golf academy on the Costa del Sol.Miguel Angel Jimenez has launched the school in Tor-remolinos after competing in various competitions along the coast.The academy, which fea-tures a 9-hole pitch and putt course designed by Jimenez himself, also boasts a prac-tice course for complete be-ginners.A clubhouse, relaxation

19-time European Tour winner brings his expertise to the coastzone and car park are also expected to be built in the second phase of the project.“This is a dream come true as golf has given me every-thing and I want to give back,” said 49-year-old Jimenez at the launch.“My goal was to develop and promote golf in this area and it’s been achieved with the opening of the acad-emy.”

Situated in the La Colina urbanisation, the 7-hectare school runs parallel with the railway line which runs between Malaga and Fuen-girola. “The land is a 50-year con-cession from the Town Hall. We have very popular prices and will be focused mainly on children and families with special discounts for them,” added the golfer.

Andalucian Yearbook

52 www.theolivepress.esthe olive press - April 19 - April 30 2013 COLUMNS FOOD & DRINKwith DINING SECRETS of ANDALUCIA.com

A SERIES of organisations are making headway in dealing with the huge mountains of food waste in Spain.It has emerged that a shock-ing 179 kilos of food is thrown out per person each year across Spain.At the same time new figures show that 3% of Spanish fam-ilies are unable to have hot meals every day, a figure that rises to 6% in Andalucia.The groups, inspired by US organisation Freegan, col-lect food from many sources which is then cooked to feed poor families.They even regularly under-take so-called ‘dumpster div-ing’ in which members look through the rubbish bins of hotels and restaurants.Supermarkets are also excel-lent places to pick up thrown out food.One local group in Zaragoza

A revolutionary food bank is to protect rare vegetable species for future generations

One man’s waste…Rubbish recycling movement is fighting back against hunger in Spain

was so successful in its forag-ing it was able to feed a group of 1000 people.One organisation in Madrid Comida Basura has set up a mobile outdoor oven that it moves around the city.“We produce and buy far more than we eat,” explained member Sonia Mendez. “We have been trying to raise awareness of this.”Her group claims that if all the waste food throughout the world was used 60 million people could have been fed.Next month, the group will be having a huge outdoor feast in the Madrid suburb of La-vapies.Finally, it seems, the concept is being heard in Brussels, with the EU due to vote on sell-by-date rules later this year.The moves are due to come in to tackle the almost 90 mil-lion tons of food thrown out each year across Europe. The aim is to halve the amount by 2025.Last month, Spain changed the sell by date rule on yo-ghurt, leaving it now up to the manufacturers to advise their clients accordingly.Previously it was 28 days, but now most producers are expecting to put it up to 35 days.

MALAGA is to produce its very own sparkling wine.Antequera-based olive oil producer Hojiblanca plans to put its first Cava on the market next year.Branded as Apiane, the moscatel-based wine, is being produced from hand-picked grapes from the DO Tierras de Mollina area, north of Antequera.It will be bottled by Bodega Quitape-nas and around 13,000 bottles will go on sale at Christmas.

Pop the corksFREEGANS: Waste not, want not

53www.theolivepress.es the olive press - April 19 - 30, 2013

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54 www.theolivepress.esthe olive press - April 19 - April 30 2013 46 FOOD & DRINKwith DINING SECRETS of ANDALUCIA.com

ONE of Spain’s leading cookery schools has hopefully been saved from the chop!It comes after its most famous students, Dani Garcia and Jose Carlos Garcia, launched a campaign to save it.The La Consula cookery school – set up two decades ago to promote excellence in Andalucian cuisine – was in danger of closing as it struggled with debts.The school, in Churriana - which has trained up five Michelin-starred chefs and was voted among the region’s Top Five restaurants by Olive Press restau-rant website Dining Secrets of Andalu-cia - was thrown into turmoil when its previous director Francisco Oliva re-cently resigned.Furious that it was getting no help from the authorities, he spoke out insisting it was ‘being allowed to die’.

Save us from the chop!A campaign has been launched to keep Andalucia’s best cookery school in business

By Jon Clarke

TOP CLASS: Students learn their trade, while (above right) former pupil Dani Garcia gives a lesson

55www.theolivepress.es the olive press - April 19 - 30, 201339FOOD & DRINKwith DINING SECRETS of ANDALUCIA.com

TWO unemployed sisters have truly come out of their shells by setting up a snail farm in the Serrania de Ronda.Ana Maria Doblado, 30 and her sis-

ter Emma, 32, came up with the idea after spending months on the dole.The sisters set up the farm on a barge on the Guadiaro river, in Jimera de Libar, rented to them by the town’s mayor Mayte Domin-guez at a greatly discounted rate.“We’re already taking orders and hope to be marketing by the end of the year,” said Emma. The pair are aiming to produce 60,000 snails a year. A kilo of snails (around 500) fetches between five and 15 euros a kilo.But it is anything but easy. They need their cages to be cleaned daily. They eat once a day and have to be watered three times a day with a sprinkler system.Our friends were very curious about snail rearing and started joking that we’d have to take them for walks,” said Emma. “Actually

Olive oil1 saddle rabbit, cut in chunks through bone2 garlic cloves8 ripe vine tomatoes, finely dicedPinch smoked paprikaPinch sweet paprika750 g - 1kg calasparra ricePinch saffron1 litre hot chicken stock100 g frozen peas, defrosted10 tinned snails100 g broad beans, outer layer removed20 cherry tomatoes

Start by heating a big splash of olive oil in a paella pan and sauté the rabbit chunks until lightly golden. Then add the garlic to the pan along with the chopped tomato and paprika and allow to sizzle in the pan. Next add the rice evenly in a layer and sprinkle over the saf-fron. Pour over hot stock and shake the pan to disperse before seasoning. Leave to cook for 10 to 15 minutes gently simmering. Drop the in peas, snails and broad beans before add-ing the cherry tomatoes. Monitor the mixture

But now the Junta has come to its rescue promising to help resolve the debts it has incurred with both suppli-ers and the tax authorities.After a meeting between the new director Miguel Ferrer and Patricia Alba, the head of the Junta’s education ministry, its future looks brighter.The Junta insisted it wanted to keep the school open and is working on a package to resolve the debts with So-cial Security and suppliers and the unpaid wages of the workers.Ferrer admitted that the school had been through some lean times recently and that problems with sup-pliers had affected the stu-dents, but that he was look-ing forward to the future. Alba took the opportunity to underline the fact that the

HISTORIC: Guests at La Consula included Hemingway (centre) and David NivenJunta remanined commit-ted to the work of La Cón-sula.Nonetheless the #Salve-mosLaCónsula campaign launched by double Mi-chelin-starred Garcia has been gathering support.La Cónsula which has over

600 applicants for its 44 places each year, was for-mally a celebrated private home, owned by American expats.It became famous after its owners hosted celebrated guests including Ernest Hemingway and David Niven.

Coming out of their shells

we were advised to play music to them every day, it’s supposed to help them grow.”Eating snails goes back to Medieval times. A good source of protein they now play an im-portant role in Spanish cuisine. Served in a spicy sauce, often with rice, many diners regard them as a real delicacy.

Snail paella with rabbit

constantly, adding a little more stock if the mixture is becoming too dry. Once the rice is cooked allow it to set for three minutes before serving.

56 www.theolivepress.esthe olive press - April 19 - April 30 2013

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PRIME Minister Rajoy tried to win Pope Francis’ heart through the beautiful game when the pair met last week.Rajoy, along with his wife El-vira Balboa, presented Fran-cis with a Spain shirt signed by all the players during a meeting at the Apostolic Pal-ace.Perhaps feeling the strain of his job back home, Rajoy told the pope when parting ways: “This has made me extremely happy, we were in need of it.” Francis, who has been pope since March 13, is a lifelong fan of Argentine side San Lorenzo and even became a member of the official supporters club in 2008. Italy’s national side have now invited Argentina to play a friendly this summer with the hope that the footy-mad pope may be in the stands.

JUST when he thought his day could not get any better, Barcelona midfielder Cesc Fabre-gas received news of the birth of his first child.The 25-year-old foot-baller had just played 62 minutes of a success-ful clash against PSG, helping Barca push through to the Cham-pions League semi-finals ,when he heard the good news from the touchline.Fabregas rushed to hos-pital on the final whis-tle to see his Lebanese girlfriend, Daniella Semaan, and meet his new baby.“It was the happiest day of my life,” the star later tweeted, along with a picture of Lia Fabregas Semaan grasping his finger.

And he scores..

Pope gets shirty

SAT in the snow outside Real Madrid’s training ground, one hard-on-his-luck super-fan was just about to give up hope before a chance encounter with the ‘Special One’.Abel Rodriguez, a cleaner from Mexico, had spent his last few dollars in the hope of seeing his team take on Barcelona.Unfortunately Rodriguez could only afford the flight and arrived without a match ticket or hotel reservation.Rodriguez’s only previous connection with the club was some unpaid ball-boy work for some pre-season games in California.However small the job may have been, it proved useful after being spotted by the kind-hearted manager.“I saw Abel seated on the road outside the train-ing ground,” explained Mourinho.

Miracle“It was a miracle that I saw him. There were a lot of peo-ple outside. But I told Rui, ‘Stop! It’s the guy from Los Angeles’.”“Amigo! What are you do-ing here?” Mourinho asked.“It’s my first time in Europe, and my dream has been to come and see games. I was hoping to see El Clasico,” Rodriguez replied. “But there are no more tickets,where are you stay-ing?’” Mourinho said.“I haven’t done anything about that,” the Mexi-

can answered. Amazed at the cleaner’s dedication, Mourinho booked Rodri-guez a room at the same hotel the team were staying before the Barcelona match.The manager also threw in a VIP ticket to the game before revealing his biggest treat.Over dinner before the game, Mourinho offered Rodriguez the chance to become a kit man for their Champions League clash against Manchester United.“I told him, ‘There’s no way

you’re returning home, you come to Manchester with us and work as a kit man. “You help us and you live a bigger dream, a Champions League match from the in-side,” said Mourinho.A few days he was at Old Trafford helping his favou-rite team as they triumphed over United. “I was really indecisive about going, but my wife said, ‘You should go. It’s always been your dream,” said the fan after returning home with signed shirts and a match ball.

Dopey DiegoPolice have arrested a councillor at Almogia Town Hall for growing 180 marijuana plants in a flat he owns.

Traffic blissMalaga has been named as the second least congested city in Europe by sat-nav makers Tom Tom while Barcelona has been ranked as one of the most.

Real manager gives Mexican cleaner an amazing trip of a lifetime

SUPERFAN: Rodriguez with Mourinho