Live News From Spain As It Happens

MOTORCYCLISTS and moped-riders may be required by law to wear gloves, could lose extra points for not wearing a helmet and will be encouraged to fit airbags, as part of the traffic authority's draft plans for cutting down on road injuries and fatalities.

Those seeking to get their moped or motorbike licence will also soon have to take nearly twice as many theory classes – 14 hours instead of the standard eight, with the additional six focusing on risk factors, protection measures and riding techniques.

Not wearing a helmet could, in the near future, involve a loss of four licence points rather than three, but bikers who take additional, approved courses on road safety and awareness – whether or not they have committed an offence – may be able to gain another two points.

The General Directorate of Traffic (DGT) aims to raise awareness among bikers about how to dress for safety – knee and elbow pads, back and shoulder protectors, proper footwear, resilient covering for legs and a jacket that provides sufficient cushioning in the event of impact.

DGT figures show that since a concerted effort was made to clamp down on riders without helmets starting in 2006, a dramatic drop in the number who do fail to use the correct headgear has been reported – but out of the 241 bikers killed on inter-urban roads last year, 10 were not wearing a helmet at the time of the crash.

Motorcyclists make up 21% of all road crash deaths – across the board and on all types of road and terrain, 359 last year, and so far this year 147.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

LORD of the Rings star Orlando Bloom and his girlfriend, singer Katy Perry, are on holiday in the Balearic Islands and have been exploring the beautiful rural gems of Mallorca – and asking fans to translate for them.

Bloom and Perry (Roar, I kissed a girl) recently went on a hiking trip through the Tramuntana mountain range, and the former posted photographs of its dramatic scenery on Instagram.

One of them was a rock on top of a peak above the sea with an inscription in the island's local language, mallorquín.

“The best view comes after the hardest climb...if anyone can translate the last photo please leave in the comments, I'd love to know what it says,” Bloom wrote.

Some of his 2.6 million followers speak and read mallorquín, which is reasonable easy to decipher for fluent Spanish-speakers and especially those who also understand catalán or valenciano.

Several paraphrased versions of the inscription are given by Orlando's fans in reply.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

FUEL giant Repsol has taken over from supermarket chain Mercadona as the company in Spain with the highest turnover – the former reporting €22.3 billion and the latter €22.2bn for 2018.

These figures have been provided by Business Insider, which reveals that Mercadona is the company with the highest turnover in the province of Valencia and Repsol, in that of Madrid.

Business Insider has created a map showing which company in each province is the largest in terms of annual profit.

Naturally, for A Coruña (Galicia), this is Inditex, the high-street clothing chain founded by Amancio Ortega, Europe's richest man, and whose most international brand is Zara.

It is one of just two clothing manufacturers on the list – the other being Essity, in the province of Tarragona (Catalunya).

The majority of companies with the greatest pre-tax profits in their provinces are in the manufacturing – including motor - transport, energy, pharmaceutical and food or agricultural industries.

Motoring firms which are number one for turnover in their provinces are Opel (Zaragoza, Aragón), Seat (Barcelona), Rénault (Valladolid), Volkswagen (Navarra), and Peugeot Citroën (Pontevedra, Galicia).

In transport, the highest-earning company in the province of Alicante is Baleària ferries, whilst for the Balearic Islands it is Air Europa.

Airbus Helicopters has the largest turnover in the province of Albacete, Castilla-La Mancha; Benteler Ibérica automotion in Burgos, Castilla y León; Conway logistics in Guadalajara, Castilla-La Mancha; Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles rail engineering in Guipúzcoa, in the Basque Country; pre-paid transport card company Valcarce Tarjeta Transporte in León; and the motorway toll firm Iberpistas in Segovia, Castilla y León

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A 'SMART clothing' creator with an annual turnover of €600,000 is seeking sponsorship to expand the business after having invented a collection which does not crease and which repels dirt.

Sepiia, a label designed by Federico Sainz Robles, currently only includes shirts and polo shirts for men and women, but this is likely to extend if finance is forthcoming – in the first year, the firm reported a turnover of €300,000 and, thanks to a cash injection of €192,000, has managed to double that, or gain a return on this investment of €108,000.

The fabric used to make the shirts is, Sainz Robles describes, 'similar to the skin on a peach or a lotus flower', or a very fine fur-like texture, 'but microscopic', so that this is not obvious to the naked eye.

As a result, any fluids which land on it do not expand but remain on the surface, or on the tip of the tiny strands of 'hair', and can be brushed off once dry.

This fabric does not need ironing, either, does not 'store' odour or accumulate sweat marks, and is elastic and breathable.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

LOCAL Police in a Greater Madrid region town had to rescue a cow who had fallen into a swimming pool and been there for over 24 hours, unbeknown to the property owners.

Irene Larroque says she and her mother had left the house in Camorritos – which they use as a weekend retreat – on Saturday night, and got a call from the police on Monday morning.

“They said, 'there's a cow in your swimming pool',” reports Irene, who at first believed the call to be a hoax.

“We immediately alerted someone we knew who lives nearby, and then sent us a photograph confirming it was true,” she says.

The cow's owner had reported her missing two days earlier, after she broke out of her field.

It appears she had gone searching for water and fallen in the pool whilst drinking from it.

She had been in the water since Sunday morning.

Naturally, she had made a mess of the pool, since she had been unable to avoid answering the call of nature in both its formats in those 24 hours.

But the animal herself was in good health and apparently unscathed by her ordeal.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

ARTIST of the moment Rosalía has been nominated for three MTV Awards – less than a year after appearing on the mainstream music scene.

The flamenco-hip hop singer, 25, was completely unknown in 2016, but she has since built up an international following: US-based R&B artist Alicia Keys recently phoned her for help with her Spanish pronunciation recently phoned her to ask for help with her Spanish pronunciation for an upcoming new single, and British comedian James Cordenannounced on social media that he wanted her on his Late Late Show.

Rosalía has already designed and released a collection for budget streetwear fashion chain Pull&Bear – part of the Inditex empire – has duetted with Colombian Reggaeton singer J. Balvin, US rapper Pharrell Williams, of Happy fame, and British electro, soul and R&B artist James Blake, has been on tour across Europe and performed in major music festivals including Mad Cool and Primavera Sound, and is the first Spaniard to have been nominated for a BBC Sound of 2019 Award.

She has a Latin Grammy for Best Urban Fusion/Performance, another for Best Alternative Song – both for her first chart hit, Malamente – and was nominated for a third, for Best Short Form Music Video.

Rosalía made her acting début this year in cult director Pedro Almódovar's Dolor y Gloria ('Pain and Glory') and has announced a forthcoming duet with alternative-folk artist Billie Eilish, a US singer, songwriter and model of Irish descent.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

PORTUGUESE authorities have confirmed the massive wildfire in the centre of the country is now under control and has thanked Spain for its prompt help in sending equipment.

Five infernos broke out within an hour, three of them huge, on Saturday in the Vila de Rei district, mostly in and around Castelo Branco and Mação, leaving 41 people needing medical assistance.

Of these, 17 were injured, one of them seriously.

After a 70-hour battle with the flames, over 8,500 hectares (21,000 acres) of countryside, woodland and mountain landscape has been wiped out.

Minister of internal administration Eduardo Cabrita said he had thanked Spain's interior ministry for their swift response after calling on the neighbouring country for help on Monday afternoon.

“Two hours after [asking for assistance], there was a pair of fire-fighting planes already on site working,” Cabrita revealed.

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TENNIS legends Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer will face each other in an epic match in front of up to 50,000 spectators in an attempt to break the world record for audience size.

The match between the current world number two and three respectively is entirely for charity, and 100% of the proceeds will go to the Roger Federer Foundation, a humanitarian organisation set up by the Swiss player.

Federer and Mallorca-born Rafa Nadal – who is due to marry his childhood sweetheart Meri Perelló in the autumn – are arguably the two stars every tennis fan most wants to see play against each other and are universally acknowledged to give the most exciting show on earth when they face each other on the court.

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PEDRO Sánchez has failed in the first round of the investiture ceremony and will now have to work hard to persuade his non-supporters to back him in round two, on Thursday.

In the first leg of a presidential investiture, a candidate needs a majority of 'yes' votes from MPs to succeed, and if this fails, a second session will require simply more 'yes' than 'no' votes.

To this end, parties not in favour of a given candidate due to clashing values, but who consider it important for a reigning government to be formed, can abstain from voting, which may help in the second round as it will cut down the number of 'no' votes and potentially lead to the number of 'yes' votes exceeding them.

Sánchez's negotiations with left-wing Podemos, which have so far not borne fruit, and the ongoing issue of Catalunya's independence bid were the main stumbling blocks to the PSOE leader's being sworn in as national president.

Podemos, left-wing regional party in Valencia, Compromís and Basque parties PNV and EH-Bildu abstained, with the latter two insisting on better financing and support for their region before they gave a 'yes' and the other two criticising the failed negotiations between the PSOE and Podemos.

Both parties said they were still open to talks aimed at forming a successful coalition, and Sánchez appears to have buried his idea of governing in a minority and has expressed his desire to reach a deal with Podemos, but refused to answer Compromís' questions about which ministries he is prepared to allow Podemos to take charge of, stressing that the state of the talks could not be made public at present.

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IT'S NOT Provence. It's not even Norfolk. But the heady, uplifting and refreshing scent of lavender and the blanket of mauve across acres and acres of countryside, as far as you can see and beyond, might make everyone think that's where you are when you post your photos on social media. Tell them, instead, that it's actually deepest Castilla-La Mancha – the bit of Spain everyone escapes from in summer because it doesn't have a beach; the central plains rarely remarked upon for their natural beauty – flat, earthy fields that remind you of East Anglia during a drought but without the trees, a region too often overlooked for being anything other than the hinterland you cross to get to Madrid.

July in Castilla-La Mancha and Castilla y León, and specifically the former's province of Guadalajara and, within it, the rural Alcarria district, is a time and a place you need to experience together at least once in a lifetime. It's an area where 80% of cultivated land is used to grow lavender, a crop that has multiplied fivefold in the last decade in both regions and which, it is hoped, will help halt the rural exodus suffered by many inland regions a long way from the nearest large town or city. The village of Almadrones, just over an hour from Madrid, has a population of just 30, but is home to 300 hectares (741 acres) of lavender fields – literally a hectare, or two-and-a-half acres, for every inhabitant. In fact, between Almadrones, Cogollor and Brihuega in the Alcarria district, over 2,000 hectares (4,942 acres) of land is coated with this powerfully-aromatic purple flowering cereal.

THE first-ever driverless flying taxi prototype developed in Spain has been unveiled and could be 'on the road' within five years.

With a capsule cabin measuring 1.8 by two metres (5'11” by 6'7”) that includes a back door and upper window, the Aerotaxi is powered by four drones – two above and two below – each of which has four engines.

It is designed for short trips across towns and cities, flies at a low altitude, and could be in use once all the necessary testing phases are complete and the necessary legislation put in place – a process which may feasibly be successfully concluded by around mid-2024.

Presented at the Tecnalia centre for technology in San Sebastián in the Basque Country, the Aerotaxi is one of six prototypes of its kind in the world and is the third in Europe to be developed, with Germany and France having done so first.

The first test flights with people inside are expected to be carried out in the USA and Japan, pioneered in major cities such as Los Angeles and Tokyo.

Two members of the 25-strong project team, Joseba Lasa and Iñaki Iglesias, say the Aerotaxi is designed to carry up to 150 kilos (23st 8lb, or 330lb) – a weight that can be either human or in the shape of goods delivery, or both...

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A MAN whose hairstyle aroused suspicion when he landed at Barcelona airport turned out to be carrying half a kilo of cocaine underneath his toupée.

The Colombian national, who had arrived on a flight from Bogotá, was thought to be acting nervously when he passed through immigration – but it was the unfeasible height and shape of his hair that made customs officers decide to search him.

He was wearing a toupée on top of his bald patch with a plastic-wrapped package containing 503 grams of the drug glued to his head.

As it was obvious he was wearing a wig, officers ordered him to remove it and seized his illicit haul.

This poor attempt at concealment is one of the many creative ways smugglers have attempted to get drugs into Spain, mainly from Colombia but also from other parts of Latin America.

A decade ago, a man arrived from Chile at Barcelona airport in a wheelchair, with a broken leg, and it turned out his  plaster cast was made of cocaine.

In December 2012, a 20-year-old woman from Panamá arriving in Barcelona on a flight from Bogotá was operated on urgently after officials found she had bags of cocaine sewn inside her breasts as 'implants', seeing that the recent surgical wounds, still bleeding, were leaking white powder.

An identical case was reported two years later at Madrid airport when a 43-year-old Venezuelan woman arrived via a connecting flight from Bogotá with breast implants made of cocaine.

A year before, a Colombian passenger with packages strapped to his stomach admitted he had swallowed 35 condoms containing cocaine.

At around the same time, a Senegalese passenger on a flight to Madrid was arrested and given emergency medical attention after he started vomiting up what looked like whole hard-boiled eggs whilst on the plane, and which turned out to be cocaine he had swallowed and which had burst inside him.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

Horchata de Chufa is a wonderful drink made from pressed tiger nuts. Although this drink is normally associated with refreshments or desserts I thought I would show you a rather unusual recipe which uses horchata in a savoury dish with chicken.

For those who are not so familiar with this summer refreshment, It is made from chufa, which in English would be the tiger nut and as a drink it goes back thousands of years. Old civilizations such as the Egyptians left samples of this healthy product in their tombs and sarcophagi. Also, diverse Persian and Arab authors already mentioned in their writings the digestive benefits of the chufa. But it was in the 13th century when the Arabs introduced their crop into the Mediterranean area. 

Valencia was and continues to be the only area in Europe where chufa is grown. Currently it is farmed in 16 towns around the area known as L'Horta Nord (or the Northern fertile land), which surrounds Valencia. About 5.3 million kilograms of tiger nut are produced in this area, of which 90% are covered by the Denomination of Origin.

This recipe is quite different from anything else and I doubt very much that any guests you may have in the future have tried it before, so if you are looking to surprise someone this may be the dish. These are the ingredients you will need for 2 people:

½ Chicken.
4 Mushrooms.
3 Sun dried tomatoes.
50g of Pine nut kernels.
2 Spoonfuls of white rice (basmati) with freshly chopped dill.
500 ml of Horchata.
1 Teaspoonful of refined cornflour.
Olive oil.
Salt.
Pepper.

First you will need to season the chicken inside and out with salt and pepper, put it in a small non stick baking tray and smear it with olive oil. Roast it in pre-heated oven at 180C degrees for one hour and a half approximately. Baste the chicken every ten minutes with a little horchata. When the chicken is golden, remove it from the oven and cut it up into pieces.

Pour the juice from the chicken and the horchata into a frying pan to reduce it and then thicken it slightly with a little refined corn flour that needs to be previously diluted in water. Once the sauce is ready place to one side.

Now cut the mushrooms in julienne and cook them on a low heat in a frying pan with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. Season to taste. Lower the heat, add the pine nut kernels and toast them slightly. Once golden in colour add the chopped-up sun dried tomatoes and toss them all together in the pan for a minute

Serve the chicken and place the mushrooms, tomatoes and pine nut kernels garnish on top, next pour over the horchata sauce. Accompany the dish with basmati rice mixed with finely chopped fresh dill. Finally decorate with a sprig of parsley.

Enjoy!

FATHER of five-times Formula 1 world Champion Lewis Hamilton says he wants to see Spain's Fernando Alonso back on the Grand Prix circuit since the sport 'needs someone like him'.

Anthony Hamilton, interviewed during the British Grand Prix at Silverstone after his son's epic win – described as 'probably the best performance in years' – said Alonso's comeback would be 'great news' for the sharp end of motorsport.

“Personally, I think Fernando retired very early, but I understand why he did it,” says Hamilton Senior.

“If he came back it would be fantastic, because we need someone like him in the sport again.”

Dad of the British prodigy spoke to Spanish reporters live on Movístar+ just before Lewis set off from the grid.

His appeal for Alonso to return to Formula 1 contrasts sharply with the controversy between the two racing drivers in 2007 when they were competing together for team McLaren.

Hamilton's treatment by team boss Ron Dennis and his management, Anthony Hamilton's close involvement with team decisions and complaints of favouritism of the British driver led Alonso to leave the scuderia that same year, not returning to McLaren until 2015.

McLaren's, and earlier, Ferrari's failure to provide Alonso with a competitive car, leading to his constantly finishing near the back of the line or having to retire mid-race, were largely the cause of his decision to leave at the end of the 2018 season and focus on the World Endurance Championships (WEC), which he was previously dovetailing with Formula 1 with McLaren's blessing.

The Oviedo-born twice-world champion is also rumoured to have been taken on as test-driver for McLaren, and is striving hard to become only the second racing driver in history, after the UK's Graham Hill, to net the so-called motorsport 'triple crown' – the Le Mans 24-Hour, the Monaco Grand Prix, and the Indianapolis 500, of which he only now has the latter to win.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

A LEADING consumer organisation in Spain has revealed the top outlets for buying fruit and vegetables nationwide, based upon a study of 35 supermarkets, 10 fruit shops, 10 local markets and 12 hypermarkets in the provinces of Madrid, Valencia, Barcelona and Sevilla.

Each of the 67 retailers reviewed was given a mark out of 100, with points awarded for appearance and flavour, information provided about the item on sale, variety, level of customer service, and price.

The OCU focused mostly upon the most-purchased year-round greengrocery items in Spain – salad tomatoes, nationally-grown bananas (from the Canary Islands), Conference pears, Golden Delicious apples, and large strawberries.

Weekly markets and municipal indoor markets scored highest for flavour and appearance, but their wares were found to be the most expensive and, despite legal requirements, not all of them displayed full information about the produce offered.

Except in Barcelona, fruit shops or straight-from-the-farm fruit and vegetables were the cheapest, although there was 'nothing exceptional' about them in terms of flavour and appearance, the OCU said.

The cheapest fruit and vegetables in supermarkets were found in Lidl, Eroski, Alcampo, Día and Vidal, in that order, coming in at less than €10 for a typical weekly shopping basket, whilst Hípercor, Bonpreu and Condis were the most expensive, at €12 and €11.50 respectively.

Alcampo, Hípercor and Carrefour were the supermarkets with the widest variety on offer.

According to the OCU's supermarket ranking, the highest-scoring store was Ahorramás, gaining 84% of available marks, followed by Aldi and MÁS in joint second with 82%.

Municipal indoor markets and El Corte Inglés department store were joint fourth with 76%, and Condis and Mercadona joint sixth with 70%.

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HOLIDAY-HOME buying has become buoyant again in mainland Spain's Mediterranean provinces after years of lagging behind the rest of the country in pulling itself out of the financial crisis.

Nationwide property surveyors and valuers Tinsa say the second-home industry has grown by 93% in the Comunidad Valenciana – made up of the provinces of Alicante, Valencia and Castellón – within the last year, both in terms of sales numbers and prices.

The southern part of the province of Alicante is described as the 'most dynamic' and with the greatest demand from foreign buyers, although Tinsa has ruled out any risk of another 'housing bubble' – the last of which burst spectacularly in 2009 after property reached its highest-ever prices in history in 2007.

Back at the time of the previous 'boom and bust', the mortgage lending system was different and mass building rife, leading to negative equity, owners who could not meet their loan repayments and a massive stock of empty properties, often which were new and had never been owned.

Recovery was delayed in the region because of the high number of empty properties outstripping demand.

But Spain and the Comunidad Valenciana have learnt a lot since then, and the panorama is very different, Tinsa says.

The recovery in the eastern region is likely to continue for 'a good two or three years', since it is not only reflected in prices but also in a recent awakening of construction of new apartments and houses, according to Tinsa.

Given that tourism is the mainstay of the Comunidad Valenciana's economy, it has been the main driver behind the recovery in the housing market, although that recovery has come three years after it started in other coastal areas in Spain – which started to improve in 2016 – and varies vastly according to 'how touristy' different towns in the three provinces are, as Tinsa explains in its report Vivienda en Costa 2019 ('Homes on the Coast 2019').

Around three in 10 holiday homes are bought by foreigners, the largest number of whom are British, although with a slight reduction seen in non-Spanish buyers in the last few years because of uncertainty over Brexit.

Benicàssim, on the Castellón coast – the site of the famous FIB International Festival – saw a typical price hike of 16.9% year on year by the end of the first quarter of 2019, Tinsa's figures show, followed by El Campello, about halfway down the province of Alicante, the southernmost of the three, with a rise in values of 15%.

The greatest price rise in the province of Valencia has been seen in its southernmost town, Oliva, at 11.9%, after many years of being in freefall, followed by Valencia city itself, about halfway up the province.

For Castellón, the most northerly province of the three, the second-highest rise after Benicàssim was seen in Burriana, at 10.9%.

A handful of towns which had already seen homes increasing in value earlier than the rest have shown a slight fall, including in Alboraia (Valencia province), down by 4.2%; Altea (Alicante province), reducing by 2.6%; Vinaròs and Almassora (Castellón province), shrinking by 2.3% and 0.9% respectively, and Cullera (Valencia province), down by 0.1%.

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INFLUENCERS – or prolific social media users paid to advertise with their posts – tend to be human, but not exclusively; in fact, one of Spain's most famous is a Parson Russell Terrier who earns his living hiking around the country and reporting on his experiences.

Pîpper has just spent the last year travelling 22,000 kilometres and has now taken a well-earned summer break, but will be back on the road again in September, says his owner, journalist Pablo Muñoz Gabilondo.

With 60,000 followers on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, three-year-old Pipper is becoming something of an oracle for those who want to find out where in Spain they can take their dogs.

Hotels, shops, bars, restaurants, and even museums, monuments popular with tourists and golf courses, plus beaches, are gradually being opened up to pets; on average, 18% of holiday accommodation in Spain welcomes dogs, although the average in Europe is 40%, largely because of animal-friendly France, Italy and Germany where it is rare for anywhere to bar entry to customers' non-human family members.

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OVER 30 years since Spain first allowed women to join its Armed Forces, a female soldier has been promoted to General for the first time in the country's history.

Patricia Ortega, 56, from Madrid, was due to have her promotion confirmed today (Friday) when defence leader Margarita Robles proposed it in the scheduled Council of Ministers.

The Madrid Polytechnic agricultural engineering graduate completed her training and exams in March to become a General, but this never guarantees the position, since only about one in three who pass go on to achieve the promotion.

Patricia started at Zaragoza General Military Academy in 1988, a year after finishing university and the first year when women were allowed to enlist.

She continued her training at the Armed Forces High Polytechnic School, specialising in electrical and construction engineering, after passing out from Zaragoza.

The General-to-be is currently based at the National Technical Aerospace Institute, having risen through the ranks as Lieutenant Colonel and then Colonel.

Daughter, granddaughter and sister of soldiers, married with three children, Ortega says she had always wanted to follow in her family's footsteps and pursue a 'public service vocation'.

But she says she has never found her career path any more difficult because of being a woman.

“I'm a soldier, independently of my sex and, therefore, I have left behind, sacrificed and given up the same as all my other colleagues, male and female,” she says.

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THE FIRM which makes one of the top-rated moisturising creams in Spain – a €5 supermarket own-brand variety – has won a legal battle with an élite cosmetics company over 'plagiarism'.

Mercadona's Sisbela range of day and night face creams, which is exactly the same product as an €85 version retailing under a different name in independent shops, includes a variety called the Diamond Revitalizante ('Diamond Revitalising').

The national patents office refused to allow the cream to be retailed under this name, in case of 'confusion' with the Catalunya-based Natura Bissé's Diamond Extreme.

Natura Bissé, a blue-chip cosmetics firm on a par with many international leaders, described its moisturiser on Twitter: “What makes Diamond Extreme an icon? This revolutionary, intelligent formula gives your skin what it needs, when it needs it, even in extreme conditions. A pioneer in the skincare industry for being the first 360º anti-ageing treatment based on cellular energy.”

Sisbela, by contrast, has not had to advertise since it was found to be identical to the vastly more expensive brand Alain – except the scent – when it caused a similar furore to Lidl's €2.99 Cien Q10 formula, found by a consumer association to be more effective than leading brands retailing at up to €225 a pot.

In both cases, as soon as the reports were released, the respective supermarkets ran out of stock within the day and customers began to queue in the street to get their hands on the last remaining jars.

Star Healthcare, the manufacturer behind Mercadona's highly-rated, low-priced own-brand cosmetics, appealed against the patents office's decision to stop them using the 'Diamond' name.

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PENSIONERS who headed up the weekend's Gay Pride march in Madrid recall how far Spain has come in protecting their rights – and many say they attended the first-ever Pride festival in the capital 41 years ago when not being heterosexual was frowned upon and even illegal.

They could barely have imagined in 1978, when they had to hide their feelings or face prison, that within just 27 years they would be able to walk down the aisle with the love of their life.

Antonio, 63, says this weekend is only the second time he has marched in a Pride event, the first being in 1978 when he was among 7,000 people brought together by the Castilla Homosexual Liberation Front to protest against the Law of Social Danger, still in force even three years after dictator General Franco's death.

This law, which also made 'blasphemy' a criminal offence, led to hundreds of Spanish lesbians and gay men being jailed for their romantic preferences.

Ramón Linaza, who headed up the pensioners' march on Saturday, was at the first Madrid Pride in 1978 along with modern-day activists including Boti García, Jesús Generelo, Carla Antonelli and the current chairwoman of the State lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) federation, FELGTB, Uge Sangil.

Marcher Pilar, 75, said she had only admitted to her friends and family that she was a lesbian six years ago, but that now, 'everyone knows what I think and what I do' and that 'people are now more aware that it's completely normal', but recalls how, at the time of the first Madrid Pride, it was a dangerous situation to be in.

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LIFEGUARDS on Spanish beaches want to see alcohol banned to keep bathers safe, pointing out the dangers of drinking and then going into the sea.

In the same way as the public is now conscious of the extreme risk of driving after having consumed alcohol, the Spanish Life-Saving Federation (RFESS) says that same awareness needs to be created among sunseekers.

Although children are the most vulnerable to drowning in pools and the sea, statistically, most victims are adults, the RFESS says.

Exactly a third of those who drown are pensioners, according to safety and prevention commission coordinator Jéssica Pino.

“Age-related physical problems, such as reduction in mobility, heart conditions and the greater risk of heart attacks that come with age are among the main risks,” Sra Pino says.

“The middle-aged and the elderly are not conscious that their abilities, response times and mobility are gradually reducing – add to this the lack of a culture of first aid knowledge in Spain, and the risk is higher.”

CPR, mouth-to-mouth and other basic first aid skills are not habitually taught in schools in Spain, and the RFESS wants to see this changing.

“We're always putting all our efforts into preventing accidents in the water involving children, but pensioners also need our help – accidents involving the middle-aged and elderly are completely preventable,” Jéssica Pino argues.

But the main cause of drowning in the 30-45 age group is alcohol, she reveals.

“Chiringuitos [temporary beach kiosks set up for summer] are normally very close by when someone gets into trouble in the sea,” says Sra Pino.

“We need to start setting up '0,0' or '0%' beaches.

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WINNING a prize for achieving the best results in your school year is certainly something to show off about. And Lia, who lives in Sevilla, has every reason to feel proud of the award she was given this week at the city's Torreblanca high school.

Now imagine that at the start of the school year, you didn't even speak the language of the country where you went to class – not one word. That makes your achievement outstanding.

And once you add on the fact that Lia was an asylum-seeker until a month before class started, a refugee who had fled her war-torn home country almost empty-handed, it suddenly makes everything you thought was hard-won in your life appear insignificant in comparison.

Lia Motrechko (first picture), from Ukraine, was 12 when the Crimean Peninsula where she lived was annexed to Russia, and her family opted to leave immediately, setting up home in the south-east of the country.

The next four years were 'very happy', she said, but when 'Russia continued to advance' and the war spread to eastern Ukraine, her parents decided they, Lia and Lia's little brother needed to get out fast.

“It's hard living in a refugee centre”

“I was frightened, because I'd never seen tanks or the Army until that moment – I was very young and didn't understand a thing,” Lia said of her family's initial flight from Crimea.

But the move to Spain was even harder, she reveals.

“It's especially difficult for children. You have to leave your country, your life and your friends, and move to a place where you have nothing, to start again from zero.

“After everything, I feel much stronger than before, because I suffered so many things, like the occupation of my city, constantly moving and living in different places.”

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

A WELCOME change in the pension contribution system means part-time workers will no longer have to spend longer in employment to qualify for an earnings-based retirement fund – a move that is expected to affect around 1.6 million people who, at present, are not in full-time jobs.

Full details will be released on Wednesday this week in the daily State Official Bulletin (BOE), a hefty publication containing government announcements, but the basic outline of the reform has been explained in national media pending the finer points.

How were part-timers affected until now?

Salaries are, of course, lower for those who work fewer hours, meaning a correspondingly lower pension, and this will not change. To obtain a State pension at all, a worker needs to be paying 'into the system' for 15 years, but this is based upon a full-time, 40-hour-a-week job. Those working fewer hours would have to cram in more years – for example, an employee working 20 hours a week would need to be paying a stamp for 30 years to get a pension.

This changed in 2014, meaning 15 years was the minimum required however many hours were worked.

To get a full pension based upon earnings, as at 2018, a worker has to pay 'into the system' for 36 years and six months and would retire at age 65 years and six months, whichever came later.

A part-timer or full-timer who had worked for 15 years would be treated the same way in pension terms from 2014 until now, meaning once they passed this 15-year deadline, their earnings would be taken into account in calculating their pensions – but for part-timers, this continued to be on a pro-rata basis linked to their hours.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

A ROMAN sarcophagus completely intact and sealed up has been described as 'an exceptional find' and 'unprecedented'.

It is being opened by experts at Granada's Archaeological Museum this weekend, and historians believe the body inside it may be almost perfectly preserved.

The ancient coffin is made of lead and has been tightly closed, with no way for air to enter it, since the Roman era, meaning once it is opened, it could be one of the few chances the world ever has to see first-hand what people from over 2,000 years really looked like.

Archaeologists have dated the sarcophagus to between the second and fourth centuries BC, and expect to find personal items and valuables inside it along with the deceased.

This completely unique finding was made on June 11 in the Plaza de Villamena in the Alhambra Palace city when builders were carrying out works on a basement.

Although it is thought to be only the second sealed-up Roman sarcophagus ever to be found, no documentation exists about the first one, which is believed to have been discovered in 1902.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

SPAIN'S first-ever beer museum is now open in the far north-western city of Galicia – another great excuse to explore a part of the country not on the Costa package trip trail.

Its founders hope the MEGA museum will become a world-renowned attraction and that tourists will make a 'pilgrimage' to this new 'beer cathedral'.

Given that the MEGA is in the city of A Coruña, the capital of the province of the same name which is home to the famous pilgrims' cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, it is likely this mission statement was carefully chosen.

Anyone who has ever set foot in Spain will have heard of Estrella beer – this comes from Galicia and gives the museum its name: Mundo Estrella Galicia ('Galicia Estrella World'), shortened to MEGA.

'Estrella' is the Spanish word for 'star', and the six-point star was always the logo on an ale bottle in the days when few but the most highly-educated could read or write, so they knew what they were drinking.

The six points of the star depict the number of steps required in making beer.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

ELECTRICITY bills went down in price last month, making them considerably lower than a year ago, thanks to a reduction in costs of raw material.

A typical household energy bill came to €54.20 for the month of June, a fall of 1.56% on prices for May and of 9% on those of June 2018.

The actual savings based on the average monthly bill of €54.20 for June this year were 86 cents from May, and €4.87 from June last year – a time when electricity prices for consumers were beginning to soar, causing widespread public concern and creating a major challenge for the then brand-new energy minister María Teresa Ribera.

Bill reductions for last month were largely the result of wholesale energy prices' having dropped by 19.7% - not all of which would have been passed onto the consumer because of the mixed sources of power, renewable and conventional, that end up becoming household fuel.

Gas has gone down by 57% year on year in the wholesale market, but is forecast to rise again by the end of the summer.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

A NEW law which came into effect yesterday (Monday) restricts the definition of 'wholemeal bread' and brings the IVA, or value-added tax, on it down from 10% to the bottom rate of 4%.

Until now, bread labelled 'wholemeal' often contained only a tiny portion of wholemeal flour – if any at all – and other agents such as malt were used to give it the brown colour.

The flour, when described in the ingredients as 'wholemeal', was often refined white flour with the wheat bran added in afterwards – but now, it can only be given this distinction if it contains the complete wheat germ and makes up a significant part of the content.

In fact, 75% of bread sold as 'wholemeal' until now was merely white bread with extra bran and colouring.

This is largely because 'genuine' wholemeal flour is more expensive and more difficult to work with.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

CELEBRITY newlyweds Sergio Ramos and Pilar Rubio felt the earth move for them on their honeymoon – literally, they revealed on Twitter as they were due to return home.

The Real Madrid defender, 33, and his TV reporter wife, 41, had headed to Costa Rica after their lavish wedding in the former's home city of Sevilla and were still there on Tuesday when an earthquake reaching 6.7 on the Richter Scale shook the central American nation.

None of the couple's three children were with them on their honeymoon, although they did not spend their luxury break entirely alone – whilst there, Pilar and Sergio met up with the latter's football colleague Keylor Navas and his wife Andrea Salas.

Most of their trip was over before the earthquake struck, meaning they had plenty of time to enjoy sailing with dolphins, surfing, zip-lining and other adventure sports, plus visiting the natural wonders of Costa Rica – the Arenales, the Tortuguera volcano and the Monteverde nature reserve.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

AN HISTORIC trade deal has been struck between the European Union and its Latin American counterpart, Mercosur, after 20 years of negotiations – an agreement in which Spain has played, and is likely to continue to play, a key role given that its former colonies across the pond are the country's largest international commerce partners outside Europe.

The political and business alliance give both blocs access to a potential 780 million customers, or over one in every 1,000 inhabitants on earth.

It will also save EU-based companies involved in exports and imports over €4 billion a year in customs tariffs, making it the biggest trade deal the EU has achieved in its entire history.

European Commission chairman Jean-Claude Juncker (pictured speaking in the European Commission building, above left) says the agreement will create 'significant business, economic and employment opportunities' in both territories and aid sustainable growth on the two continents.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com