Spanish News for the English (2)

The 'Spanish News for the English' is a service in support of European Multiculturalism for English Boaters considering a different type of winter break. As an alternative to the more usual ankle, leg or arm. Due to language difficulties and the unavailability of translation services. There may be one or two small inaccuracies in the news provided.

Dateline Spain: If anyone tells you that the Costa is unchanged in Spain. You need to have a look at this Click Here. The costa del concrete Mediterranean coastline then and now in pictures. If you want to know how bad its become, read the next couple of stories below.

Douglas Couet and Louis Wilmotte, both aged 23, two French oceanography students. Have just paddled their boat along the Med shoreline.  Douglas Couet said 'We only had our eyes to witness pollution. But we were very depressed by huge coastal urbanisation. Close to big cities, we saw a lot of plastic waste in the water. At some point we could actually realise we were getting close to a big city or to a national park, depending on the amount of plastic in the water.' La Manga in Spain is an example of human nonsense. '20km of city length, two kilometres wide, with huge buildings all along.' said Couet. 'What’s nonsense about it is that this place is used only two months in a year. They destroyed a unique lagoon with an interior sea to please people for two months.' Read the full story Click Here.

But following the economic downturn, almost half a million houses in Spain now lie empty – and planning, as witnessed by the kayakers up close, is out of control. 

The Spanish government has finally realised that the concrete sprawl is ruining the country and coast.  Spain's Socialist government, using the 1988 Ley de Costas (Coastal Law), announced a €4.47bn (£3.5bn) initiative to save the country's ravaged coastline from over development. It has started to buy up any available land to curb the developers and their multistory tower blocks along the coastline. Click Here.

Dateline Madrid: Trawling through the archives, the Spanish have revealed that they had a cunning plan for 'Armada' Pt II. After having their noses rubbed in it in 1558 and still smarting from the result. In a moment of madness, the cunning plan was dreamt up by boat club commodore 'Carlos the IV' in 1790. As he and a hundred of the boat club members decided to save on moorings charges and go constant cruising.  One or two had been spending a bit of time rediscovering areas that had already been discovered by the travel agent Capt. James T Cooke. Their plan was to sail halfway round the world and duff up the latest boatload of British migrants who had just forcibly sent there. However, when the boat club heard that the migrants had been sent to Australia (a large penal colony) as punishment for being very naughty. The club re-thought the whole scheme and decided to cultivate onions instead. Carlos IV was unavailable for comment. 

Dateline Alicante: News just in, about the local outbreak of influenza that is filling all the corridors of the local hospital.  This hopefully isn't a throwback to the previous outbreak of the Spanish Flu. Which occurred in 1918. Which along with the first world war was largely responsible for up to 100 million deaths throughout the world. 

However, there are reports that one expatriate woman from Essex who walked into her Spanish doctors surgery and said 'I'm feeling horribly sick!" The doctor who assessed her condition said 'Flu' The women said 'No I drove here.' 

Reports are also coming in that a lorry has crashed on the A7 Autopista into Alicante. Spilling it's load of decongestants which were intended for urgent delivery to the hospital. Traffic is now flowing much easier in both directions.  

So it might seem that we're one step away from a global pandemic with the whole of humanity at risk. I guess when you're number is up, unfortunately it's up. However, fortunately for me, my number is 7,552,647,829.  

Dateline Pego: Its market day!

Dateline Benidorm: Doctors appearing on the popular fly on the wall series for television. Have reported that the biggest biological threat to countries in the western world these days is the possibility of swine flu combining with bird flu. Yeah, and pigs might fly. 

Dateline Calpe: A Post Office employee in Calpe is retiring after 41 years without having a single day off work through illness. Her family and friends describe her as 'dedicated' However most of her co-workers remember her as, 'That cow who kept giving me the flu.'

Dateline Denia: In today's Costa Blanca edition of the Exchange and Mart. It was revealed that a Middle Eastern plague originating in Mecca is multiplying rapidly throughout  Western Europe. Causing considerable mayhem and misery wherever it goes. In other news, its been revealed that a new strain of flu has also been detected in Saudi Arabia.

Dateline Gibraltar: Spanish singer Juan Way was being interviewed on Gibraltar television yesterday. When he used the Spanish word 'mañana'. Juan was asked to explain what it meant. Juan revealed that the term means "Maybe the job will be done tomorrow, maybe the next day, maybe the day after that. Perhaps next week, next month or even next year.' The host turned to Richard Parry the head poncho of the C anal and River Truss, who was also a guest on the show. He asked Richard if he knew of an equivalent term in use on the inland waterways. He replied 'We don't have a word to describe that degree of urgency.'

Now its time for the Spanish Quiz question of the week. 

If a squat but handsome Spanish man was to meet a tall, willowy and very beautiful Spanish woman. (Think Bernie Eccleston) If they subsequently married and due to a genetic defect had three invisible children, one of each sex. Would it matter if none of them were much to look at.

Answers please on a 10 Euro note to the usual address.

Pasta Lumbago!