Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.....

....Sometimes the actions of Spanish Councils amaze the most cynical ex-pat. These are recessionary days when the pound is worth next to nothing against the Euro and rents which in 2005 were equal to £450 are now closer to £700. Benidorm is one of Spains most popular resorts amongst the British, Dutch, German and Norwegian tourists so is it resting on it laurels expecting the loyalty of their erstwhile foreign guests.

The originator of the resort worked hard and managed to gain the support of none other than General franco in allowing people to sunbathe in bikinis on the Poniente and levante beaches against the will of the Catholic church. He ensured that the layout of the high rise apartment blocks and hotel blocks enabled most balconies to receive sun for a few hours every day. The resort has also been noted for good transportation, a bus ride for 1 stop or a hundred stops in benisdorm will cost your 1 euro 20cents, or for 10 euros the cost drop to less than 1 euro a trip.

The Poniente beach rennovation should be complete this year, making it a modern clean and pedestrian friendly paseo. There are life guards every few hundred yards along the three major beaches in the resort, levante in the New town, Poniente south of the Old Town and La Cala at Finestrat. Despite all this the resort and the Costas in general have taken at least a 17% reduction in occupancy so far this year and the final toll could be worse. Benidorm and Finestrat Mayors are demonstrating their absolute ignorance of basic financial planning.

Imagine the amazement amongst the local Spanish and ex-pats communities when the Benidorm mayor in his wisdom announced new measures regarding the usage of the beach. Firstly, no alcohol will be allowed on the beach at all and offenders will have their alcohol confiscated and destroyed. next, children will no longer be able to build sandcastles or dig in the sand generally, next, people must be off the beach by midnight and not to return before 6 am. and finally it will be an offence to urinate in the sea. Now I can maybe go along with the alcohol law, but it seems a bit nanny state, the time embargo is maybe sensible in that it will deter hobos from sleeping on the beach and allow the council workers time to comb the beach each morning to make it tidy for the beach users. But, as Benidorm claims to be family friendly, I am staggered that kids will not be allowed to use a bucket and spade any more. What is the knock-on effect? Well, the shops will no longer be able to sell bucket and spades, and I would bet that every child who steps on to a beach in benidorm won't bring them to benidorm, they will buy them in resort. Next year when the brochures come out the tourists with children will steer clear of Benidorm, because a day on the beach is a cheap day out for families, but with nodigging allowed there are going to be a lot of bored children. And as for urinating in the sea! Right hands up those of you who don't know someone who has done that, and how on Earth are the 'beach police' going to enfore that one? Well my theory is, the law enforcers will be lying on the beach mingling with the tourists and have a pair of binoculars, and will scan the the faces of all those in the sea and if any one looks relieved they will be instantly knicked and taken to El plod station.....

So, being armed with this infinately flawed plan destined to cost Benidorm oodles of dosh in lost tourism, enter the fray Finestrat council! Now here we have a Council, that was reported to be in the top ten richest Spanish councils last year, and it now reports that it is skint. The outgoing Mayor seems to be being blamed, but noone can account from the riches to rags position of the council. What does Finestrat rely on? Tourism. When do the tourists like to come? As well as June, July and August because of the sun, there are one or two other events which make the local businesses take on extra staff and stock up with food drink and sundry beach equipment, the fiesta of San Juan being the premier evening in the La Cala de Finestrat diary. So how does the Mayor of Finestrat resolve the financial woes of Finestrat council? He cancelled every fiesta this year with the exception of one saints day in August which is restricted to the village in the hills. Which means San Juan is cancelled - no fireworks, no band, probably no life guard, no parade. Having attended the last four San juan fiestas I can absolutely state that there are thousands of people on the beach, they all have cool boxes stuffed with food bought in the local shops, the local shops employ local people to sell their goods, the local bars have extra chairs on the pavement to cope with the high demand and a blind eye is turned to the anti alcohol and curfew times on the beach. Many foreign tourists will have booked accommodation and transpot last year to ensure they get her for the celebration. So what will their reaction be when there is absolutely no council support for this fiesta? Well I am no tourism specialist, but I guess next years bookings will be down, which mean less money in accommodation, less sales in the shops and bars, less council revenue from taxes. It seems that the ex-pat population in both Finestrat and Villajoyosa is significant and they are entitled to vote in local election and what I am already hearing tells me that the mayors of both towns can no longer depend on the vote of the British ex-pats. So with the emancio building in such a state of disrepair that it could fall down at any time (this is Finestrats responsibility) and the eyesore of a building the Gran Magic Atrium beach still unfinished and unlikely ever to be finished (Villajoyosa responsibility) and the Finestrat brainwave to suspend all fiestas, I think the councils are going into self destruct.

Still, it should be a lot easier to get a beer in the marina bar this year........

The flying dutchman......

...Some days the Marina bar is full yet there is no-one to talk to. These are the days when people watching comes into its own. One such day occurred last week. My wife had gone to England for her mum's birthday, so at my usual time I went down to the bar. I found a good seat in the sun, a good view of the beach and the pavement which runs past the bar. The place was packed. To my left on the row in front of me were two Dutch couples, right in front of me next to a palm tree was another Dutch man on his own, to my right a group of German tourists had arrived and the waiters were meeting themselves coming backwards it was so busy.

I couldn't really understand much of what was being said around me until Peter came along. Peter is an Englishman and he like the odd drink - 7, 9, 11, 13 etc. Anyway, he arrived with two ladies and sat between me and the Duch foursome. Peter has a deep somerset accent and linked with a few beers it turns a little into a drawl or slur, and his way of speaking Spanish is to growl in a Spanish accent, not exactly saying anything, but I think the waiters interpret him by his body language. Whatever he intended the end result was him receiving a pint of Spanish lager.

The Dutch guys on the next table were intrigued with his behaviour. "Are you English?" one asked him "Yer, oi 'am" he replied "And werm you from?" he asked of them. "We are from the Netherlands" From then on they tended to speak in football team names, Ajax, Manchester United, Barcelona...well thats what it sounded like from where I am. "The man next to the palm tree behind you supports manchester United and he is Dutch too" said the first Dutchman. The other man nodded in acknowledgement of the reference. Now every now and then when Peter wanted a drink he would just shout out in a very loud deep gutteral drawl "heeeeeeeey peeeedrrrrrrrro mi amingo" and Pedro where ever he was would shout back "soon Pedro two, soon" (Pedro being Spanish for peter) meaning he is currently engaged and would come as soon as possible. But amongst the four German tourists to my left was a lady who clearly took exception to peter's behaviour because every time he did it she commented in a lound exclamation "gottenhimmel!" and he managed to catch her out every time she never saw it coming.

In the meantime a couple of smart looking Spanish guys had sat in front of me to the left they were maybe in their 30s, but effectively on a neighbouring table to peter. They too were mesmerised with the antics of Peter, who by this time had been joined by two young girls, if not teenagers only in their very early 20s. I think that was the real reason the Spanish lads chose their seats. But Peter was clearly known to the girls who seemed to have come specially to see him. I could hear them asking about his wife and daughter (I don't know this as a fact but think he may be estranged from his wife). At this stage Peter, who is clearly proud to be associated with the two girls is getting louder, and as the Dutch guys have had a few too now, they are laughing with him when he plays to the crowd. Meanwhile after Peter's latest "heeeeeeeeey peeeeeedddddrrrrro mi amigo" and the now associated "Gottenhimmel",happened as Pedro walks past the two Spanish lads who said something to pedro, the only word I caught was ".....culo" which is Spanish for Bottom, so you can make of that as you see fit, but it made Pedro giggle. There was a definite unease in general about Peter's behaviour, but fortunately he said to the two young ladies, "I am going to pay my bill now" and he made his way to the bar. Coincidentally, just as he had gone into the bar two Guardia Civil officers came into the bar. I am fairly certain they came for a free drink, but I do think others around thought they were arriving to sort Peter out. But it was merely a coincidence. The original ladies Peter arrived with had spent their time talking to the dutch foursome and only drank water, but left before Peter. Peter left with the two young ladies who joined him earlier.

I thought the entertainment had concluded, but you may remember the Dutch man sat next to the palm tree. I hadn't taken much notice of him as he was very quiet and seemed to be having a drink taking in the sun, but as he stood up to go to the Toilet, he had a very steady swagger, and on his table was evidence of a couple of beers and an empty bottle of sparkling wine. When he came back to the table he was considerably unsteady and holding his head in his hand once he had managed to land on his chair. He had clearly paid his bill whilst in the bar because he was putting his change in his wallet. He took the last drink of his glass, stood up with a great amount of effort, looked at his countymen, shook his head indicating he may have been a little silly, and set off with will and purpose I guess, to wherever he was staying. Remember the newly tiled wall out side the marina bar between the beach and the bar? Well he clearly didn't because he wanted to move forward, but his legs took him at 45 degrees in the direction of the wall, and when he found it he did a double axel that Torville and Dean would have been extremely proud of and dropped on the sand like a bull elephant being stunned by a poacher.........

......30 minutes earlier I would have predicted something like that happening to Peter, not the Dutchman......

The following Sunday I was in the bar with friends and at the back of the bar sat the same Dutchman, fast asleep with an empty beer glass and an empty bottle of sparkling wine.........

The Butler didn't do it!

...Its getting close to the busy season and the weather has been glorious for days now. It even feels warm at night which is a good sign that Summer is just around the corner. We have had a very busy week and still more to do.

Last night was a great night of entertainment. Paneils my favourite Benidorm Restaurant, held a murder mystery night. The menu fixed at 15 Euros per head which included the meal and the mystery. We got there reasonably prompt at 7 pm with Bob and John (new kids on the block) and Margaret, Andrea's mother. We took our seats and didn't need to look through a menu everyone needed to pre-order so that all the meals could be served at one time (not an easy task for the chef Neil, or the waiters, Patrick and Marge).

Four of us had spare ribs, and Ange had salad nicoise, For the main course 4 of us had Salmon and I had stuffed Pepper which was one of the nicest main courses I have ever had. There was rice, mushrooms, onions, spices and seasoning in the pepper and it sat in a rich tomato sauce which had a dash of chilli to spice it up. And for desert two had peach crumble Margaret had a fruit salad topped with Ice cream and I had sponge cake with dates and walnuts and custard. But we didn't eat in the conventional way. First of all, the Mystery master explained where we were (we were in an art gallery in Benidorm, which was owned by One of the suspects), who we all were and that each table had a suspect on it. I turned out to be the suspect on our table. My name was Ivor Biggun (I know what you are all thinking so I am just moving on swiftly) I was a bisexual gigolo, who was having a liaison with a wealthy widow who had bought me a yacht, a fast car and a luxury penthouse. There were 6 other suspects including her son and daughter, the Galery owner a lady in a wheelchair who was a childhood friend of her daughter, a sculptor and my ex-boyfriend! The suspects were given a script which explained what they were doing up to the discovery of a body. The body being Lady Plenty (my lady friend).

We were then served our starter. After the starter each of the suspects were in turn asked to stand and answer questions from the rest of the people in the room, this relaxed everyone and we were all in good spirits. Then we were given some evidence like a knife, a tram ticket and a cigarette lighter. We were then served our main course. After which the suspects were questioned again in the light of the discovered evidence. Then we were shown a couple of documents, one was lady Plenty's will and the other was a forensic report which showed that the knife which bore the initials of the sculptor, had the dead woman's daughter's fingerprints on. and a blood sample proved to be that of her daughters also. The finger of suspicion was firmly pointing in her direction. Now as well as me being a suspect, as there were 7 suspects but only 6 tables, John was a suspect too. he was the dead woman's son, and his sister was played by an older lady on another table who had certainly gone into character. We were not allowed to lie we had to tell the truth as we knew it. But if we liked to embelish it that was fair game. So when ever I asked her a question she said "Not you again!" and when my 'ex-boyfriend' was asked questions about me he looked at me in a very annoyed manner as though I betrayed him. It is surprising what a few bottles of does to someone acting a role. We then had dessert.

After dessert we had a summary of facts from the Mystery Master and all the suspects had a final quizzing.

The decision time was due, we were each given a sheet of paper, with questions who was the murderer? What was the motive? So everyone gave an answer. After being analysed the Mystery master asked us suspects to stand up. He then explained who didn't do it (a bit like Hercule Poirot) it wasn't the son, he sat down, it wasn't the Gallery owner, she sat down, it wasn't the sculptor, he sat down could it have been the daughter, he said "I will come back to the daughter", Was it the ex-boyfriend, no he sat down, which left me and the daughter standing. He went back to the daughter and it wasn't her either. I hadn't sussed who it wasm but it was me who did it!.....