Criminals on the Costa

I was watching Crimewatch onBBC last night to see if I was appearing on it...actually I was watching it because there wasn't a lot else on and I hadn't watched the programme in years.

I mention this because one of the "criminals" that was featured on there was believed to have left the UK for Spain to run away from his crimes. This is one of those things that is often talked about privately but no one talks about publicly...here I go again (I'm already in enough trouble for saying the mayor here is "camp").

I saw this again when reading "El Sur in English" newspaper (about criminals in Spain not camp mayors) . On the front page is a photo of Tony King (originally Tony Bromwich the "Holloway Strangler"). Tony King was recently jailed for the murder of a young girl from Coin and is now in court on trial for the murder of another Spanish woman. He'd already been in prison in the UK for several offences. His trial is being covered extensively in the Spanish media.

Now, this doesn't really bode well for anglo-hispanic relations really. I hate to say it but the Spanish are a bit p*ssed off already with the "invasion" of the English (primarily), I have picked up on this myself various times. And when you get such high profile cases such as Tony King in court for murdering Spanish girls it really doesn't help.

But I don't think it's a big secret that the coasts here are scattered with criminals from other countries escaping justice, many from Britain. In fact, Crimestoppers recently opened up a hotline number to call to help capture British criminals on the Costa del Sol.

Sometimes I wonder if the biggest criminals from Britain are hiding out here. Are they people I talk to? One thing I have learnt over the past couple of years is that you can't trust anyone. There are too many "desperate" people around and you're never quite sure who you're befriending.

I think you have to be much more careful here whom you make friends with than you would back home. It's just one of those sad facts.

Cheap to eat in Marbella

What do you do when you get up on a Sunday morning, the sun's shining brightly and it feels quite warm? Yep, you go to Marbella.

Some of you will know that I've gradually warmed to Marbella (I didn't really think much of it before). The place is full of "interesting" people and it has a real buzz about it. The "paseo maritimo" is really nice and people spend lazy weekends strolling up and down it.

We went there yesterday morning and it was so hot that there were even people sunbathing on the beach! We let the kids play around in a park on the bearch for a while and then headed off to a restaurant on the paseo maritimo that we've been to before....and we know is good.

It's called "El Bodegon" and if you're ever strolling around Marbella you should check this place out. They do some excellent "montaditos" to eat which are basically like mini rolls with a huge selection of fillings. They do tapas too and full meals. AND they do the BEST "patatas bravas" in the world....you have got to try those. Anyway we stuffed oursleves silly and the bill came to just 26 Euros, which included drinks.

So if you're in Marbella, you're hungry, you don't want to spend too much money and you want really good food then check out "El Bodegon".....you won't be disappointed.

Has anyone realised yet that I seem to go on about food a lot?? ;)

Want to know how to set up an online business?

In a recent article I mentioned that over 50% of my time is currently taken up with community issues. It seems many of you are curious as to how I find the time to do this. “Don’t you have any work to do?” is a question I get asked quite a lot at the moment. And the simple answer to that is “yes and no”. You see, most of our income is generated by our online businesses. We don’t have to work on them all the time, they work 24 hours for us. If my businesses were not online then I certainly would not have become president of the community. But having online businesses it means I can work on them at any time.

I know many of you have been enjoying the real life case studies that fellow members have been posting on the website and that we include in our newsletters. Many of the cases are generally people looking to set up property management and rentals businesses. Whilst these are hard work, just like any business is (even online ones), no one seems to talk about generating an income online.

So I thought….

If the interest is there I can start writing regular articles on the subject of setting up your own internet business to generate an income for you like it does for us. It’s work for us and allows us to lead a very comfortable life here in Spain. Anyone can do it, it’s not difficult you just need to know how!

If you are interested in regular information about setting up an online business then post a comment to show your interest on my blog post by clicking the comment link below.

If I get enough response I’ll kick it off for you. So for those seeking an extra income or an income to live abroad then it could be of real interest. But you need to let me know if you want it….

My meeting with the Mayor

As many of you will know by now, we have many problems with our development. The developer says the problems are down to the town hall and the town hall says the problems are down to the developer.

So this week we decided to take these issues (and there are quite a few) to the top and we made an appointment to see the mayor. The appointment was this morning and I was accompanied by Lola who is our "feisty" administrator.

I've never actually met the mayor before in person. I've seen him around and said "hola" but that's about it. He's always looked like quite a nice guy, friendly, and dare I say it, sometimes a bit camp (not that that's a problem in any way).

So we arrive at his office and accompanying him is the lady from the town planning department who let's say, we haven't seen eye to eye with before. It all starts off well, the mayor tells us we're going to be getting proper electricity and water in a couple of weeks (not bad after 18 months waiting for it) but then it starts going downhill when he tells us that phones are still going to be a luxury because Telefonica can't pull their finger out. I didn't feel the phone excuse was good enough but we moved on....and that's when things started to get nasty!

The mayor had a good laugh at the name that he gave our road..."Calle Utopia"...yes, it's the same word in Spanish. He thought it was quite amusing that this poor excuse for a road should be given this name...which he gave it himself!! I wasn't impressed to say the least. Moving on....

Things start getting animated when he tells me that the town hall will not spend a single Euro to solve ANY of the problems we are facing. He says it's the developer's fault and the fact that all the other developers in the area haven't coughed up their share. Seeing as three of the actual 5 developments here are actually stopped I don't think the developers are going to be shelling out any money for roads and infrastructure that they don't yet need.

So I told him I could not accept the fact that they would not take any responsibility for this mess which they helped to create. He started to get quite angry after I demanded some sort of resolution. I didn't get it. He just kept stating that they wouldn't pay any money at all.

I won't mention some of the things he said due to the sensitive nature of his comments towards the people living here but he is most definitely not who I thought he was. My whole impression of the mayor has changed totally. He lost his cool too quickly and as a citizen of HIS town he should at least be seen to be trying his hardest to make Manilva a place to be proud of....and he's not, he's just taking the p*ss. If that is his attitude then I can now understand why everyone's attitude in the town hall is the same. He certainly won't be getting my vote next year.

So we're back to where we started. It's such a shame because just 3 years ago Manilva was such a nice town and it's been totally ruined. I really (maybe naively so) thought the mayor would be genuinely interested in sorting out the problems that we've got but he's not. I didn't come to Spain for all this crap, I think in the New Year it's time to go house hunting again.

Now, where are those houses I saw where the roads have been finished???

Belly dancing with a bad back

Just so you understand..I'm not the belly dancer, I'm the one with the bad back. It happened yesterday, doing up the zip on my daughter's jacket, as I bent up I felt it go. I knew the sign as I've hurt my back on previous occasions. It was Saturday morning and we were just heading out to go to Estepona for the day as it was a gloriously hot and sunny day here.

I was determined that I would carry on through the pain. Before getting into the car I did a few bends and twists and eased myself in. This was going to hurt today! But I was determined to go out and have a nice day, which in fact we did. I was ok walking and sitting, but when it came to getting up off a chair and walking (read stagging) off I must have looked like I'd just had 10 pints of beer.

Got through the morning and afternoon but my real concern was the evening. I really wanted to be ok for the evening ahead. You see, we were supposed to be going out with a group of friends to a Moroccan restaurant in Sabinillas and there was to be a belly dancer there....so it wasn't to be missed really!

And I'm glad I did make it (I think the glasses of wine in the restauarant helped numb the pain). What a fantastic evening. This place was packed and the belly dancer was great. Then the Moroccan waitresses did some dancing too and the whole place was buzzing. We never even knew this restaurant was there but what a great place to go to and so reasonable. It was 19 Euros per head which includes an excellent buffet dinner (all you can eat) and a bottle of wine between three. If you're interested the restaurant is called "Restaurante Jasmine" and it's in Sabinillas.

Great place, great food and some great entertainment.

Next morning I awoke with a bit of a hangover and a very sore back!

Hanging out in the sauna

Since we moved to Spain 2 and a half years ago I seem to have ballooned and lost most of my hair! I don't really know why. I would have thought the sun would have helped me keep the little bit of hair I had left and that it would also be too hot to eat all the time.

WRONG!

Hairs practically all gone and I would now be mistaken for a sumo wrestler. OK, so it's not actually that bad but I've certainly put on a few pounds. It must be the "buena vida" or the "good life" as they say.

Anyway, about 3 weeks ago I decided to join a gym and start shifting some of the weight. I joined a really nice one as I thought unless I pay for it I'll never go. A year's membership there costs 900 Euros, but it's well worth it. It's got the latest excercise equiment and also a spa area with indoor swimming pool, jacuzzis, steam room, suana, etc, and upstairs is the coffee/ restaurant area where you can shill on comfy sofa after your work out. It really is a very nice place to spend the morning.

I tend to go in the morning myself as it's realtively quiet and not having a "real" job means I can take advantage of that. But this morning rushing out the door I forgot to pack one thing....a t-shirt! I couldn't really do the exercises with my nice shirt on. Luckily I'd remembered my swimming shorts so decided to just use the indoor pool and spa today (this is a tough life!).

After about half an hour in the pool and then jacuzzi I sweated it out in the steam room and sauna (still not quite sure what the point of these is really. It's like a sweat-a-thon in them).

Anyway, what's interesting is that the only other people in the sauna are either retired folk, those on holiday or fellow "webmasters". I bumped into another chap today who runs a website too and he too uses the facilities in the morning as it's all nice and quiet.

It seems that being a webmaster is on a par to being retired! Mind you, we were in the sauna chatting for far too long and came out looking like a hot tomato in the end.

Tough life really.

English votes count

Last Friday night there was an evening arranged by the Town Hall for the local foreign community to attend. I'm not one for these get-togethers so I never had any intention of going, but my partner Susanna went along with some friends to see what it was all about and sip some free wine.

It turned out to be a bit odd really, from the feedback I got. There was one of the local politicans there who made his speech in Spanish, which was then translated, and it was basically about making sure that everyone is registered on the padron and also registered to vote. The elections are in May 2006 you see.

Now to me this seems a bit like "you English, register now as we need your votes!". Considering that the foreign community here must now make up nearly 50% of the local population, the English votes could obviously count for a lot.

But why would they be doing this?

Well, talking to the Spanish it seems that there is a lot of bad feeling towards the current members of the local town hall. I think it's all related to the recent arrest of the ex-mayor on corruption charges. It seems no one trusts the town hall very much any more. Mind you, I haven't exactly had the best experience with them myself!

So the English vote could count for a lot really, but what are we going to be voting for? Most of us don't even know who's in the town hall now and who's proposing to stand or what. Everyone really needs to spend some time and really understand what each party's policies are before making any decision whether or not to vote and for whom.

I don't think it should be based on a glass of wine or two.

Anyone for a fake handbag?

I'm not really into handbags myself and to be honest I don't really know much about them (surely a bag's a bag?) but the markets in Spain is a goldmine for fake designer handbags of every variety you can imagine.

It was a glorious day today and we went down to the "rastro domingo" or "Sunday market" to take a look around. It seemed much busier today than usual but I couldn't help noticing that practically every other stall sells imitation designer handbags and luxury watches. The quailty of these fakes is superb. I checked out the watches you can pick up an imitation Rolex for 50 Euros, but it's a brilliant copy, only the "not the smothest second hand" give the game away a little.

I didn't invest in one myself but it was very tempting. So if you like your designer goods but don't want to pay the thousands of pounds the real ones cost, you can pick up an excellent copy at most Spanish markets.

By the way, I'm not endorsing this practice at all.... ;)

Spanish property search trend

I was having a look today at a tool that Google recently released called Google Trends. What it does is that for a given search term it will show you a plot of the searches for the term over the past 3 years. How cool is that (I know...I'm a geek!).

Anyway, I thought it would be really interesting to take a look at the trend in people searching for property in Spain over the past 3 years. There's definitely a downward trend, as I assumed there would be, but the actual search activity is changing in terms of traditional peaks and troughs.

I recorded a video to show you what I think. Take a look at it at:

Spanish property search trends video

I'd really like to know your comments too. What do you make of the trend in the search for Spanish property? How does this reflect the market? Any general comments welcome.

Click the link below to post your comment.

Thanks

Justin

English clown in town

I know it's been a few days but I can't help but keep thinking of the disaster that was the halloween party in the village.

It was meant to be a fun evening with entertainment and a competition for the kids and their costumes. It all started well, we had some friends round, we dressed all the kids up, did a spot of trick-or-treating and then headed off into the village for the "party".

All was going well until "Boco the clown" appeared on the scene. We've seen Boco in action before at a friends daughter's party and we weren't at all impressed, in fact I hate to say it but he's a pretty awful clown. So you can imagine how surprised we were to see him again here although we didn't know exactly what he was going to be doing.

A little later things begin and we're told that Boco will be doing an hour show!! Oh my! What have they done, we thought to ourselves. Anyway, we decided to give him another chance...but it didn't last long. After addressing the kids in English and then Italian (useful) he then proceeded to do the entire show in English.

I have never felt so embarrassed in my life. We had to leave. I could see the Spanish were getting edgy as it soon became obvious that this most unfunny clown wasn't going to speak in Spanish at all...as he doesn't know any only a bit of Italian! And why a clown at a halloween party anyway????

After compaints from the Spanish somebody had to get up on stage and translate everything he said which made the whole show even worse. We were long gone by then, we went and had some "montaditos" to eat at a local bar.

Normally the "fiestas" in Manilva are excellent. I think I know who organised the halloween one but I'm not going to mention names here. But what has this done for cementing the relationship between the English and Spanish here? The next day all the parents we're talking about it at the school. It's just not on.

Whatever anyone says the reality is that the Spanish keep themselves to themselves as do the English. Most English here speak so little Spanish that they don't stand a hope in hell of integrating and forming relationships with the Spanish. The Spanish already feel "invaded" to an extent with the number of English here, and the consequential rise in house prices which puts property out of range for the average Spaniard, so what could only be described as a farcical halloween party can only have helped to increase some of the bad feeling towards the English.

Let's hope the next fiesta lives up to it's name.

No money at the town hall?

I had an "interesting" meeting at the town hall yesterday. As president of the community here I´d arranged a meeting with the head of town planning to discuss the many problems that we're facing here.

I won´t mention any actual names but the person we were supposed to be seeing wasn´t there when we got there so we were attended to by one of the technical staff instead. Now, I´m not an aggressive person by any means and I know that if you want people to do things for you then it´s best to approch them in a nice manner. But there was no point with this on. I don´t know how she didn´t tear my face off. She was so aggressive, her whole manner was just appalling.

The conversation deteriorated further when I asked "when will you finish the road?" (as they have never bothered to do it) and she replied "we´ve got no money" at which point I just grinned at her. No money, what a load of b******cks. With so much construction in the area I don´t think the town hall is poor by any means. Mind you, the previous mayor was arrested last year and they found over 700K Euros in his apartment in cash!. I think I may have found the town hall´s missing money!

So the outcome of the "meeting" was that they won´t do anything for 2 or 3 years as they´ve got no money. We just have to put up with dire conditions and lack of standard services.

It looks like this one´s going to be a lot tougher than expected but I´m not waiting for 2 years.

No money....what a joke.