Live News From Spain As It Happens

NOVEMBER is set to open with Spaniards pouring into London – town halls and regional governments will be descending on the UK capital to show the country's residents why they should be heading for Spain.

The World Travel Market (WTM) is, along with FITUR in Madrid at the beginning of each year, one of the planet's largest tourism trade fairs, and any location in Spain which wants to encourage visitors from beyond national borders makes sure that even if they cannot get to any other, similar event, these two dates are firmly circled in their diaries.

For three days, destinations worldwide, emerging and established, will be attending to tour operators and other businesses in the travel industry, and to the general public, showing what they have to offer.

FITUR and the WTM are normally when Spain's globally-famous beach-holiday hotspots make a concerted effort to prove they have plenty more besides a coast and a sun shining on it for several months of the year – mild winters, springlike weather in autumn, and springs themselves more like a northern European summer mean the climate is always attractive to those in colder countries, even if it is not always 'sun-tan and seaside' weather, which makes exploring countryside, historic buildings and beautiful, colourful and ornate towns and cities much pleasanter than doing so in freezing downpours and blizzards.

Gandia: Beach breaks for Brits who 'want to avoid the Brits'

Gandia, southern Valencia province, has announced it will be at the WTM, since although its tourism industry relies heavily on its beaches, the overwhelming majority of visitors to this town of around 78,000 inhabitants are from other parts of Spain, typically Madrid and other northern, inland locations – British holidaymakers in Gandia can normally be counted on one hand with fingers left over, and the small community of foreign tourists is predominantly French. 

Being largely outside the traditional northern European 'expat belt', but just a few kilometres away from the Alicante-province border and towns where residents from this part of the continent are much more numerous, Gandia gives visitors the best of both worlds: If you want to stay away from purpose-built package resort areas and experience Spain as its inhabitants do, then you will, but if you need the kind of support that international holidaymakers do and permanent residents do not – such as someone who speaks your language – it's not difficult to find.

For this reason, Gandia, despite already having a thriving tourism industry, considers the UK to be an untapped resource and is keen to break into the British market.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

A BRAND-NEW 'aerotaxi', dubbed 'the drone of drones', has been designed, manufactured and equipped entirely in Spain and could hail the start of an eventual future 'flying car' trend.

The Umiles New Concept was created by Spanish firm Tecnicalia, and Umiles has now bought the patent.

These two companies will be working together to develop a new 'Urban Mobility' range of solutions, which have yet to be defined.

It was unveiled at the World ATM Congress and, according to its specifications, can cover a radius of 15 kilometres at present, on short flights of up to 15 minutes, reaching heights of between 100 and 300 metres – although it is capable of going up as high as 800 metres if safety and air-travel legislation and regulations permit.

Rather than being designed for personal ownership and use at present, the Umiles New Concept is more geared towards conventional taxi conveyance at the moment, replacing, or complementing, road-based cabs.

The aerodynamic passenger cabin is propelled by four drones, placed above and below it.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

A CUT-PRICE no-frills version of Spain's express AVE train, launched earlier this year, is set to run a new route ahead of spring 2022 – between Madrid and Valencia.

High-speed AVE rail links, covering long distances in less than half the time it would take to drive them – the 350 kilometres between Valencia and Madrid, for example, takes just 90 minutes – is very convenient and comfortable, but quite expensive for those who simply want to get from A to B without ceremony; these passengers would be more likely to take the Larga Distancia 'snail rail', which makes this same journey in six hours with a change midway and costs around half the price.

Now that Spain's train services have been opened up to competition for the first time in their history, rail board RENFE will have to work harder to keep customers, and one of its key strategies is the AVLO, or low-cost AVE.

The first-ever AVLO train set off on June 23 from Figueres-Vilafant station in the province of Girona at 05.35, stopping at Barcelona Sants station en route to Madrid Atocha, whilst another left Atocha for Figueres via Barcelona at 06.20.

One-way tickets back then started at €7, and have barely risen since, although full-facility peak-time trips can cost as much as €65.

AVLO trains have no buffet car, although they do have vending machines, and the fare covers a small cabin bag and personal bag.

Extras, such as on-board Wi-Fi, seating with plugs for charging phones and laptops, flexible travel times and dates, and additional luggage attract a further fee.

At present, the AVLO only runs on the Madrid-Barcelona route – Spain's busiest long-distance commuter trek by rail, road and air – with four connections in either direction daily which stop in Guadalajara, Calatayud (Zaragoza province), Zaragoza, Lleida and Tarragona.

One train daily runs from Madrid as far as Girona and Figures, and one other starts from Figueres and stops at Girona on the way to the capital.

The journey takes around two-and-a-half hours.

Next year, though, a second route will be added, between Madrid and Valencia, in time for the latter's huge mid-March Fallas fiesta.

This is celebrated all over the province of Valencia and in a handful of towns in those of Alicante and Castellón, ending late at night on March 19, although the events and monuments in Valencia city are on a much larger scale than elsewhere in the region and the festival runs for about a week, rather than four days as in other towns.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

ONE of Spain's hottest cities has become the first on earth to put 'names' to heatwaves – in the same way as storms and hurricanes – and to 'classify' them in a similar manner.

Typically, a 'heatwave' in Spain will come in July or early August, is more likely to affect the central parts of the country, and although intense and backed by weather warnings, do not normally see a rise in temperature of more than about 5ºC above the 'norm' for the time of year.

But this depends upon where it strikes: If a part of the country that sits around 25ºC in high summer soars to 37ºC and the southern or Mediterranean coasts to about the same, then the latter would not be considered as 'suffering from a heatwave' given that the usual figures for the season would be around 31ºC to 34ºC in any case.

They usually last a maximum of three or four days and, in traditionally warm parts of the country, are mainly only noticeable at night – the daytime may already be scorching and a few extra degrees make little difference, but when lows soar from around 20ºC, the cut-off figure for what is known as a 'tropical night', to almost 30ºC, this is when air-conditioning units go into overdrive and electricity use soars.

As a country with hot summers, Spain knows how to deal with heatwaves: Stay indoors when the UV rays are strongest, or outside under a parasol; make use of any large body of water – sea, swimming pool, 'river beach' – to keep cool; wear a hat or carry an umbrella; eat little but keep sugar and salt levels up when you sweat; sunscreen at all times; and never, ever leave the house without a bottle of water.

Andalucía's land-locked provinces – Sevilla, Córdoba and Jaén – are where temperatures are typically the highest in summer; it is not unusual for a 'normal' July day to see thermometers in the shade breaking the 40ºC barrier and, in fact, Córdoba even planned to name a street after the man who invented air-conditioning as a tribute to 'a person who has potentially saved lives' in the area.

But heatwaves elsewhere in the world can be much more severe and life-threatening – conversely, so can a heatwave in a typically colder country, since the infrastructure and human habits are not in place and the inhabitants are not acclimatised.

Taking heatwaves seriously: International climate conference in Sevilla

Climate change is expected to bring more heatwaves, longer and more intense ones – as well as more and much more damaging freak weather episodes and much colder, more deadly freezing spells – so scientists are now focusing as much on extreme mercury highs and their impact on society as they have always done on tornadoes, hurricanes and tropical storms, among other potentially terrifying natural disasters.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

EVEN though many of us think of ourselves as 'express shoppers' who nip into and out of supermarkets in a flash, grabbing what's on our list and getting out as fast as we can, recent research has shown we are less efficient than we believe: For every 20 minutes we spend in store, 12 of these are wasted pottering around aimlessly.

A joint study by Madrid's Complutense University and beer manufacturer Campofrío, titled 'Cathedra ShopperLab', says that even in local supermarkets which customers know the layout of as well as that of their own homes, where they are familiar with exactly where everything they need is located, they still spend 60% of their time browsing – and, typically, not buying any of the items these six minutes in every 10 are used up looking at.

The study was commissioned as market research, to find out what consumers notice, how they react to 'changes of scenery' – such as different colours, new labels, 'special offer' signs, and so on – in order to optimise positioning and, therefore, purchase.

Which aisle, shelf, colour, shape, and even the piped music played in store are no accident, and are aimed at drawing customers' attention to where marketing experts want it to be – and, according to the 'Cathedra ShopperLab' project, around 40% of what is directly at eye-level and in horizontal line goes unnoticed.

When viewing ranges of products, customers' eyes move in a zig-zag pattern, the research shows, which explains why they do not always spot exactly what they are looking for at first glance.

The average supermarket customer takes 25 seconds to choose a product when it is one they do not buy routinely on every visit, says the study.

This means practically nobody reads product labels – checking out the list of ingredients, the origin of the product or its components, or other detailed information is a routine most people have not made into a habit whilst grocery shopping.

As a result, if any of this information is to be a unique selling point, or USP, the manufacturers and package designers need to ensure it stands out clearly.

Newcomers to Spain may have noticed that the irritating practice of moving product ranges around to different locations, making them impossible to find, is less common or, at least, happens less frequently; indeed, with the pandemic, it makes sense not to do so, as this tends to lead to more customers wandering about in a directionless fashion, spreading around all over the store, and spending much longer on the premises without actually parting with more cash or picking up more products – none of which is conducive to social distancing or to profits, since a high and swift turnover of customers brings in more money than having fewer clients who are in the building for longer.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

DESPITE its variations on the much-lauded Mediterranean diet, its wealth of home-grown fruit and vegetables and ever-growing population of Michelin-starred restaurants, Spain is not all culinary virtue – in fact, one of the nation's most-famed snacks, churros, probably has near-zero or even minus nutritional value and makes up for this deficit in saturated fats and refined sugar. 

Warm, tempting, filling and a hedonistic pleasure, churros are slowly catching up with paella, tortilla (potato omelette with optional onions), and chorizo spicy sausage as the most-likely Spanish-style foodstuffs to be found, or copied, outside of Spain. 

And in Krakow, Poland, an entire café specialises in them, but in ways you'd never normally encounter them on home soil.

Churros explained 

Anyone who's been in Spain during autumn and winter fiestas, or when there's a fairground on in their town, will have seen churro-sellers and probably struggled to pass them without reaching into their purses. Made from doughnut-like batter, but long and thin and swished into loops when they come out of a spout, deep-fried and coated in enough sugar to wipe out an entire cane plantation on the average Caribbean island, then served up in a paper cone to absorb the grease and eaten whilst still hot, churros are one of the upsides of the colder months.

Traditionally, they are dipped in a small pot of a chocolatey sauce – not melted chocolate, as such, but a warm substance of a custard-like consistency flavoured with chocolate and which, if you're tempted to re-enact the churro experience at home, you can buy in litre cartons from most supermarkets and heat up on the stove or in the microwave.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

'ROCKETING' house sales in Spain have reached levels not seen in over a decade, according to recently-released statistics – and although the rental market is said to be particularly buoyant at the moment, buyers comfortably exceed would-be tenants.

Industry reports, based upon data from the National Institute of Statistics (INE), say existing residents in Spain only seeking to buy and not open to renting total 44% , compared with those who merely want to rent and are not looking to purchase a home, at 43%, and the remaining 13% are willing to entertain either depending upon the pros and cons for their individual situations.

Back in February this year, around 40% were focused exclusively on buying, and 50% solely on renting.

Of the entire adult population in Spain, during August, 34% had carried out a property transaction – buying, selling or renting – compared with 28% in February and 27% in August 2020.

The previous two Februarys – 2019 and 2020 – saw 28% and 31% of Spain's over-18s making a move, and in the last August before the pandemic, also a record year for tourism numbers, a total of 35% of adults in the country bought, sold or rented a home.

This means 2021 has been similar in numbers to 2019, the final year of 'normal life' before Covid-19 hit Europe.

Swift recovery from Covid-linked decline

Analysis of the official figures shows that it has taken less than six months for the housing market to recover since the worst weeks of the pandemic, and only just over a year since the end of the total national lockdown when 'essential errands' in one's immediate neighbourhood with no pit-stops or delays were the only excuse for being outside the home, and even five minutes on the front doorstep to 'catch some air' could be subject to a fine.

Also, based upon a combination of the INE data and enquiries at estate agencies on- and off-line, the year is showing a 'latent urge' on the part of people living in Spain to purchase new homes.

This 'urge' is at a level 'not seen in over 10 years, never mind since before Covid', according to property market analysts.

As has already been established in the past 18 months, the effects of lockdowns, restrictions and a heightened risk, perceived or actual, of one's own mortality, together with forced time away from family and friends not in the same household, having to work from home for, perhaps, the first time in one's career, and spending more time in the company of the immediate family unit – pets included – have been psychological as well as financial: Those on average or mid-range incomes, unable to spend money on non-essentials due to closures and confinements, built up a buffer-zone, and people all across the earnings scale began to question whether where they lived was where they actually wanted to be.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

TO PREVENT contagion, authorities sent suspected cases to quarantine on one of the Balearic Islands, including any arrivals from countries with a high incidence of infection. Whilst there, they could visit the 'Tower of Whispers', the panoramic viewing point and the museum, then after they were restored to health or disease-free, they were allowed to continue on their journey.

All this sounds very much like a review of summer package holidays in 2020 – but was actually a snapshot from the late 18th century, which shows history has an eerie habit of repeating itself.

The poetic-sounding Lazareto Island was purpose-built for isolating contagious conditions in 1794, and 227 years on, is now a major tourist attraction just outside the port of Mahón, or Maó, the capital town of Menorca.

Although the name, in translation, is far less beautiful: From the Italian Lazzaretto, sometimes referred to by the French Lazarette, it in fact means 'quarantine station' or 'leprosy unit'.

To this end, other walled-off outposts for quarantining patients with bubonic plague, leprosy, yellow fever, typhus, cholera and similar diseases elsewhere in Spain are known as lazaretos.

But you cannot always judge an island by its title. Lazareto is a lush green haven with an elegant sandstone fortress in its centre and splendid Baroque and neo-classical architecture, and an official national heritage site.

Nowadays, it is used for global conferences, political meetings, and the site of a university-level summer school in science subjects – as well as regular guided tours, given that it is one of the Balearic Islands' most popular visitor attractions.

Created by order of King Carlos III's minister, the Count of Floridablanca, referred to in the Balearic languages – of which menorquín is one – as a Llatzeret, this stunning, verdant corner of paradise was still owned by Spain's national health authorities until 2015 when it was handed over to Menorca's island council, or Consell Insular.

Before and since, it has been a backdrop for screen productions – the most recent being the episode of MasterChef aired today (Monday, October 18).

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

COSTA del Sol 'glamour capital' Marbella is one of the nominees for next year's 'European Best Destination' – an award which is prestigious enough in itself but, in addition, includes multi-national advertising worth a small fortune.

If it gets the most votes, a promotional campaign including extensive coverage in top global media will be launched for Marbella free of charge.

Advertising outlets for features, photos and other PR will include Forbes magazine, Yahoo, Geo, and the glossies published by Condé Nast round the world – one of which is the legendary women's fashion-and-feature monthly, Marie-Claire.

In total, the publicity the winning destination will attract as part of the prize that comes with being 'number one' is estimated to be worth around €10 million.

Even a beautiful, sunny, coastal favourite soaked in history, stunning architecture, top-of-the-range boutiques, yacht marinas, beaches, trendy bars and great restaurants such as Marbella – which one tends to think needs advertising about as much as chocolate, Coca-Cola and McDonald's would – will always benefit from international, high-profile reminders to the general public that it is still here and waiting for you to come and enjoy it.

And as well as its undeniable popularity for catching the rays on the coast, a massive, far-reaching promotional campaign is also a chance to raise the profile of Marbella's 'other bits' – the picturesque historic quarter with its bright white terraced cottages, winding lanes, balconies overflowing with multi-coloured flowers, gold-coloured roofs, pockets of greenery, splendid views, excellent connections to dramatic countryside and to other landmark sites in the province of Málaga – the parts which make it more than simply a summer beach hang-out and encourage visitors year-round, keeping the tourism industry permanently alive.

But it has to win first, and as usual, the nomination list is extensive and features high-quality and hugely attractive parts of the continent, some of them household names, and others yet to be discovered.

Just getting a nomination is a huge status symbol, though, as it secures a place in the top 20 even before the final vote count and means an extensive mention on an oft-consulted travel site – one viewed by an average of six million potential holidaymakers every year.

Last year's winner was Braga, described as 'the Rome of northern Portugal', followed by Rome itself, and then Cavtat, said to be 'the Tuscany of Croatia', in a list peppered with established favourites such as Paris, Florence, the Greek Island of Kefalonia, Turkey's awe-inspiring natural rock formations at Kapadokya (Cappadocia), and France's Dordogne Valley.

Spain gained two entries in the top 20 – the Canary Islands as a whole at number 10, and Calpe (Alicante province) at number 17.

The Canaries were lauded for the region's exceptionally mild weather, with winters that almost never drop below 13ºC or 14ºC even in the early hours, and their unique, fascinating sub-tropical landscape.

Calpe, about an hour by road north of Alicante city and 20 minutes or so north of Benidorm, was highlighted as an established beach-break destination but with a touch of the traditional – the fresh fish market and its open-air restaurants, the result of an ages-old industry still very much alive, its 'architectural treasures' including 'magnificent churches and monuments', its Muralla Roja or 'Red City Wall' of historic lanes and pink-and-blue houses, and of course, the 300-metre-high rock out to sea.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

FOOD waste is bad news for the health of our planet, and a high level of it could be avoided – in fact, Spain's government has just introduced the country's first-ever law regulating use and disposal of edibles.

The Council of Ministers has taken on board warnings from the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and its Sustainable Development Objectives (SDOs), which are based upon figures showing that a third of the human food produced on earth every year is thrown away uneaten.

According to Spain's ministry for agriculture, fishing and food, in 2020 alone, a total of 1.363 billion tonnes of food was binned.

Putting this in perspective, says the ministry, it means every single person in Spain chucks out 31 kilos of food annually – the equivalent of the average body weight of a nine- or 10-year-old child per inhabitant every year.

Excess emissions and land use, wasted water...

The negative effects of food waste mean that land for crops and grazing is used which does not need to be – often resulting in deforestation, or chopping down trees that provide oxygen and reduce harmful carbon dioxide emissions – chemical fertilisers are hard to avoid in mass production, which is why organic produce is more expensive as less of it is yielded in an average season, water is used for food which goes straight into the bin, and energy consumed and, with it, emissions that trap heat within the earth's atmosphere, when it could have been saved.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

RESIDENTIAL property sales in August this year were at their highest since 2007, the peak year of the housing market 'boom', according to the National Institute of Statistics (INE).

With nearly 50,000 homes shifted in just one month, the difference between August 2021 and the same month in 2020 was almost 60%.

Back in 2007, when home prices were at their highest in history and the buying and selling market was in constant activity – just before the 'crash' that came between 2008 and 2010 – a record 58,872 residential properties were bought in the month of August, a figure that has never been seen since.

Fast-forward 14 years, the largest volume of August home sales after the high of 2007 totals 49,884 – the most buoyant yet by a wide margin.

Only 2017, with 44,834, and 2010, with 43,610, came anywhere near the bumper August seen in 2021 – which was even more welcome for the residential property industry, as well as for sellers themselves, when taking into account a lean summer in 2020.

Not the worst year by far – these came in 2011, 2013 and 2014, when sales in August barely averaged 25,000, or about half the figure for 2021 – the first full year of the pandemic, with lockdowns and restrictions on movement and face-to-face contact hitting the homebuying market hard, these transactions totalled just 31,592, or more than 4,000 down from 2019.

By August 2020, movement restrictions had been temporarily lifted and life and business were largely back to normal in Spain, albeit with masks and social distancing - but international travel was still difficult, if not impossible, meaning the usual summer interest for holiday homes among dwellers in colder climates was mostly missing.

It was not completely back to normal even by August 2021, since Spain's key overseas holiday home-buying markets, such as the UK, France and Germany, still had limitations in place for most of the summer, including, in some cases, the obligation for residents returning from a trip to Spain to quarantine for between five and 14 days.

So a year-on-year hike of 17,292 extra sales was a huge achievement, and is likely to raise confidence in the industry as to what August 2022 might look like, with practically the whole of the western world vaccinated and Covid cases, or at least severe ones, hopefully being very rare.

Types of homes bought and sold

Pre-owned residential property sales were up by 62.6% in August 2021 compared with the same month in 2020, having been rising for the previous six consecutive months, whilst sales of new builds showed a year-on-year increase of 40.9% in what was the seventh month on the trot of ascending figures.

On average, compared with August 2020, the across-the-board spike in property purchases came to 57.9%, according to the INE.

Over the first eight months of 2021, home sales have risen by 37.2% compared with the same period in 2020; new builds seeing the largest growth, at 43.4%, with pre-owned home purchases up by 35.7% from January to August inclusive.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

A CIVIL Code reform will mean domestic animals' welfare is considered where their owners divorce, and judges have the power to decide custody and access régimes in the event of dispute.

An earlier legislation change finally recognised animals as 'sentient beings' rather than 'assets' or 'objects', meaning they cannot be embargoed in the event of an owner's debts, but the latest amendment will go one step further.

It means that pets are classed as 'living beings with sensitivity and feelings', and their owners' emotional relationship to them becomes a legal matter.

Where a couple divorces or goes through a legal separation, if they cannot agree on who keeps their joint pets, a court will decide this based upon the animals' best interests, including, where appropriate, access for the party who does not have custody, or impose a 'shared custody' régime in the same way as would be the case with any underage children the couple has in common.

Selling pets – dogs, cats, horses, rabbits or similar – in the event of a divorce or separation, the way a jointly-owned house may be sold, will now become illegal, unless both parties to the couple give their consent.

Also, judges may deny custody or access to one half of the couple to their human children if this person has been charged with animal cruelty, or even the threat of this.

The basis for the ruling is that animal abusers frequently go on to become violent towards humans, and threatened or actual violence towards pets is not uncommon in abusive relationships between couples.

In the same way as threatened or actual violence towards children the couple have in common, or towards a partner's children, is considered 'vicarious domestic abuse' – seeking to hurt the other adult by targeting the child – this behaviour towards a pet with the same aim will be considered 'vicarious violence'.

Whether the victim of this vicarious violence is an animal or a child, the abuser will be refused custody of or access to both.

The new legal status of domestic animals also means the courts can decide who will be their full-time carer if the owner dies and has not stated his or her wishes in life.

Given that the emotional relationship between a human and his or her animals is now set to be a legal consideration, the law dictates that if anyone finds a pet and the owner can be traced, the animal must be returned to them, unless the finder has grounds to believe neglect or cruelty has been involved.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

HOLIDAYMAKERS' typical profile in Spain has changed since the start of the pandemic: French visitors have outnumbered British tourists in the past 18 months for the first time in history.

In fact, entries from France have doubled those from the UK: Between March 2020 and now, approximately 6.2 million French nationals have taken their holidays in Spain, compared with 3.1 million Brits.

Since the start of the Covid crisis, one in five of Spain's 25 million foreign visitors has been French, according to the National Institute of Statistics (INE).

Although some pockets of the country, such as the Costa del Sol, reported international tourism figures this August as being nearly back to those of 2019 – the last 'non-Covid' year and one which broke all records – nationwide, about half as many foreign holidaymakers as August 2019 visited Spain in August 2021, or around 5.2 million.

British government's relaxed travel restrictions may reboot market

The trend may soon start to reverse, given that, for the first time since spring 2020, the UK government has removed restrictions on entry to the country for travellers from Spain, either residents there visiting Britain or British residents returning from a Spanish holiday, as long as they are vaccinated - no quarantine is now necessary for fully-immunised people not travelling from a 'red-list country' and, for England at least, only one test is required, which can be a cheaper lateral-flow (LFT), rather than the previously-stipulated three compulsory PCRs.

Even without having to quarantine, taking a PCR test 72 hours before arrival, two days after arrival, and a third on day eight – not including any PCRs required for entry to the other country, such as Spain - involves additional organisation headaches and inflates the cost of a trip to Europe by an average of between €350 and €690 per person, which is prohibitive for a family unit or those seeking a budget break.

Now these requirements have been replaced with one compulsory LFT, costing around €40 a head, on the second day after arrival in England, and with the only other stipulation being a passenger locator form completed for both directions – plus a 'Covid vaccine certificate', which is a permanent document that can be stored on a mobile phone or in paper format inside a passport – it means the UK's October half-term week may bring forth an influx of British tourists, and their numbers may rise next year over the spring and summer.

But while the restrictions were in place, the predominant nationality among international holidaymakers in Spain was French, and 20% of foreign visitor spending - €1.18 billion out of a total of €5.9bn – came out of French people's purses.

Why French people?

Some of the reason for this is geography – air travel rules and limitations during the pandemic did not have to apply to many visitors from France, since the majority, according to the INE, entered Spain by car; six in 10, in fact, compared with approximately four in 10 who travelled by plane and just 1.3% by train, the latter of whom probably did not stay much farther south than about Barcelona, given the limited options for long-distance rail travel along the coasts.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

ANOTHER mission to evacuate Afghans who were unable to escape their home country in August is due to take place in the next few days, confirms Spain's defence minister Margarita Robles, but details are being kept under wraps for safety reasons.

Two months ago, a total of 2,206 men, women and children were flown to safety from the Afghan capital, Kabul, to the military air base in Torrejón de Ardoz (Greater Madrid region).

Some of them were Spanish citizens based in the Asian country, although most were Afghans desperate to flee the newly-installed Taliban régime.

Women in particular were anxious to get out of the country, fearing a return of the extreme oppression of half the population seen in the run-up to the war in 2001, sparked by 9/11, leading to international troops being based in Afghanistan for the next 20 years.

One of these was Nilofar Bayat, Afghan national women's wheelchair basketball team captain, who was brought safely to Spain with her husband Ramish, captain of the men's team in the sport, both of whom have been offered similar jobs with Basque Country team Bidaideak Bilbao BSR.

They were rescued after Nilofar made an emotional appeal to Spanish reporter Antonio Pampliega.

Another family unit successfully transported to Torrejón de Ardoz was that of a student who spent his exchange year in Madrid and whose father and sister had been government workers for the previous régime, meaning they were likely to be targeted by the Taliban.

Spain's instant response to the political crisis, including evacuating Afghans who had no connection with the country rather than focusing entirely on its own nationals and Afghan citizens linked to them, was highly praised by the European Union as an example of global solidarity.

Figures from the last of the August evacuations showed that, at the time, around 70% of arrivals had applied for asylum in Spain.

The next mission will see a further 200 or so Afghans flown to Spain, this time via neighbouring Pakistan and, if all goes according to plan, should be landing in Torrejón de Ardoz some time this coming week.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

BRITISH model and pop singer Samantha Fox made a surprise appearance on a chat show on regional television this week – and sang for the audience in gallego.

Or at least, she tried, and has been lauded on social media for her valiant attempts.

The London-born voice behind the 1989 Stock, Aitken & Waterman hit I Only Wanna Be With You was guest artist on the programme Luar, on the local channel TVG based in Spain's far north-western region of Galicia, where presenter Xosé Ramón Gayoso bopped with Mrs Fox to one of her catchy numbers.

Samantha, 55, was joined on the show by actress Benedicta Sánchez, who won a Goya Award for Best New Actress in 2020 for her rôle in the hard-hitting drama Fire Will Come, or O Que Arde in the regional tongue.

Both ladies, along with the music band on set, gathered together in a rendition of the popular Galicia folk song Na Beira do Mar.

Samantha found herself rather at sea – or mar, in Spanish and gallego – but made a laudable effort to follow the lyrics on paper whilst guided by Xosé.

In the end, she had to admit defeat as she could not follow the words quickly enough, so she opted to 'cheerlead' the audience while Benedicta continued.

Gallego, known in the language itself as galego, holds co-official status in the region alongside the national language, Castilian Spanish, and is fairly close to Portuguese, largely due to the area's geographical location just to the north of the neighbouring country.

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A THIRD Covid vaccine dose has been approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) for the general population following successful trials on volunteers aged 18 to 55 inclusive, although each member State will be allowed to decide for itself whether or not to do so.

Spain has started already on giving a third jab to all elderly residents – but not staff – in nursing homes, and to the immune-compromised, such as transplant patients, people in cancer treatment, people with HIV or AIDS, or with other health conditions that make them especially vulnerable to infection.

According to the EMA, the third dose should be given six months after the second, but it has authorised this in the immune-compromised for 28 days.

Health minister for Spain, Carolina Darías, says her department has 'always been guided by the EMA', but has not as yet made a decision about a third dose for anyone other than those currently receiving it.

The Pfizer jab was the one trialled, given that its creators have always said a third injection was necessary for full immunity and have assured that those inoculated with it 'are not infectious'.

Volunteer adults aged 55 and under were found to have an 'increased level of antibodies' protecting them from the effects of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the EMA confirmed, but the European Union does not intend to make it compulsory for all 27 member States to administer it.

Countries should decide for themselves 'based upon information supplied by Pfizer', but 'also upon the possible risks of adverse effects', which are currently under investigation.

The Pfizer vaccine has not, to date, shown any potentially fatal side-effects, or any long-term life-limiting ones – most of those who received it and reported any type of reaction said the first dose caused them few or no problems, but the second gave them a mild headache, dizziness and fever for a day or two, and up to a week of tiredness and general weakness in upper limbs, potentially forcing them to take between a day and a week off work, but that once these had worn off, they were completely back to normal.

Studies are in place concerning effects of the different Covid jabs on menstruation – a survey in Spain found 14,000 women reported changes, ranging from cycle disruption with periods coming less often or more frequently, and in some cases, more severe pains – but so far, they do not appear to be long-term and have not been found to affect fertility.

A handful of isolated cases of coronary inflammation, or swelling of the heart muscle, have been reported worldwide following the Pfizer injection, but all those known have been successfully treated, and anyone who experiences unusual chest pains or shortness of breath, or who has an existing heart complaint, has been advised to seek emergency medical attention.

Spain says it is not yet considering summoning the entire population for a third dose, but is focusing more on communities who are most at risk and should be a priority for an extra immune boost, such as the elderly and those with physical illnesses that may either make them more vulnerable to catching Covid, or cause them to be more seriously ill with it if they do.

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PRACTICALLY every expat or regular visitor can remember their first words in Spanish. They may not be the first you were taught, or learned from a self-teaching course pack, but the ones that most stuck in your head, or the first sentence you were able to pronounce without hesitating.

Often, it would have been something completely pointless – no doubt at least one vegetarian will tell you their first words were, Una hamburguesa, por favor ('A hamburger, please'), or a person who never drives, ¿Se puede aparcar aquí? ('Can you park here?')

Most will remember, forever, a minimum of one occasion where their mispronunciation or incorrect vocabulary raised a laugh and left them red-faced, but that's good: Whenever anyone starts to learn a language, their biggest fear is making themselves look silly, but given that absolutely everyone who is fluent in a non-native tongue has, indeed, made themselves look silly in the past, you can reassure those new to it, and tell them it will always be a quirky anecdote they can dine out on later and, for that reason, they should be grateful for the opportunity of creating them for another day in the future.

In practice, most expats will probably say their first words in Spanish were much more run-of-the-mill. Me llamo X, being one ('My name is X', or literally, 'I call myself X') or Vivo en [insert location], to reveal where they live. Quite often, the first time you spoke in public would be when you order a drink from a café to chill out after the journey to Spain: Una cerveza, por favor ('A beer, please'), or a café con leche ('coffee with milk').

Later, you might have found out there were other types of coffee you preferred, such as a café solo (similar to an espresso), a cortado (like a macchiato, or short cup half-and-half very strong filter coffee and steamed milk).

But one thing most of us would agree on is that, however alien the language once sounded to you, there was a time when all of us were confident that, if nothing else, and even if we never drink it, we were capable of ordering a coffee in Spain.

Until we started travelling around the country and realising we probably couldn't. 

Who knew that a café bombón (short cup with half filter coffee and half condensed milk) would be a café biberón in Catalunya? What do you say when you're in the Comunidad Valenciana and they ask you if you want it del tiempo? 

For info, that one is a coffee like any other, the one you've just ordered, but with a glass full of ice on the side. Pour your drink into it, and your caffeine fix becomes a summer refresher.

Or you can just say, sí, and take the glass of ice and then use it for the bottle of water in your handbag.

Andalucía

In this southern coastal region, where a caña (half-pint or third-of-a-litre glass of beer) is actually a tubo (because it tends to come in a tube-shaped glass), and where some bars still, even today, give you a free tapa or saucer-sized snack with your drink – usually unsolicited, making it twice as welcome – the coffee vocabulary culture has evolved to such an extend it needs its own dictionary.

For example, if you request a café con leche, you'll probably be asked, “¿Un mitad?” ('A half?')

This is particularly the case in the province of Málaga, and is considered logical there, since a café con leche is typically half a cup of filter coffee and half a cup of steamed milk.

Here, also, it's common to specify the exact dimensions of the café con leche – largo means lots of coffee and not much milk, manchado means very little coffee with lots of milk (it means the same as macchiato in Italian, or 'stained', but is the opposite way around: Here, you're asking for the milk to be 'stained' with coffee), or corto, where the coffee-milk balance leans more towards the the latter than the former.

This works elsewhere in the country, too – corto de café or largo de café means, as you'd expect, 'short on the coffee' or 'long on the coffee'.

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SPAIN'S candidate for 'Best International Film' at the 2022 Oscars has been revealed – one that shows 'Bond villain' Javier Bardem as the 'perfect' business owner.

El Buen Patrón ('The Good Boss') stars the husband of Almodóvar Girl-turned-Hollywood legend Penélope Cruz, who is probably best known to non-Spanish-speaking cinema fans for being the 'baddie' in Daniel Craig's Skyfall.

Director Fernando León de Aranoa's drama will now join films from countries all over the world in the race to reach the nominee list and the chance to take home the coveted statuette at the 94th edition of the awards, due to be presented on March 27 next year.

Javier Bardem was actually competing with his own wife for the candidature – Penélope Cruz's lead rôle in cult director Pedro Almodóvar's Madres Paralelas ('Parallel Mothers') was one of the three pre-selected along with Marcel Barrena's Mediterráneo ('Mediterranean').

In total, 48 films were gunning for the top three selected by Spain's Cinematographic Arts and Sciences Academy; cast, directors and crew of 45 of them had their hopes dashed on September 14 when El Buen Patrón, Madres Paralelas and Mediterráneo were chosen; and it was announced this morning (Tuesday, October 5) that El Buen Patrón had made the cut.

The final choice was made by Irene Escolar, who won Best New Actress at the Goya Awards for her part in Un Otoño Sin Berlín ('An Autumn Without Berlin') and Ricardo Gómez, nominated for Best New Actor Goya for 1898. Los Últimos de Filipinas ('1898. The Last of the Philippines').

Just before opening the envelope revealing the candidate's name, Irene and Ricardo read extracts from the 1953 film by Luis García Berlanga and Juan Antonio Bardem, Esa Pareja Feliz ('That Happy Couple') as a tribute to National Spanish Film Day, which is tomorrow (Wednesday, October 6).

Strong candidates Spain will be up against in the running for the top-10 shortlist and, subsequently, the top-five list – the 'nominations' – include Colombia's Memoria ('Memory') by Apichatpong Weerasethakul; Germany's I'm Your Man by Maria Schrader; and South Korea's Escape from Mogadishu, by Ryoo Seung-wan.

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WOMEN all over Spain have plenty to be grateful for this month – the 90th anniversary of the female vote which, even for residents who can never cast their ballot because of being a foreigner, was still a life-changing turn of history which has made a real difference for approximately 50% of the population.

That's because it wasn't just about elections, even though that was the sole quest for the women's suffrage movement in Spain which ended with the Constitution of 1931. As a result of this landmark new law, female views are taken into account when building the institution that runs the country, being able to vote made ladies actually start to think about politics, as it was finally something they were 'allowed' to have opinions on, and felt encouraged to become involved on the front line. And perhaps as a result of the feminine influence in national and local government formation, life, legislation and society began to change towards equality between the sexes – or maybe this new outlook was purely a result of the suffrage debate itself, causing women to suddenly become aware that, actually, there was no sensible or practical reason for their being treated any differently to their menfolk, and that they should not have to just accept this as their lot in life.

Not just a stroke of the pen

As was the case in most countries – and the suffrage movement, active from the early 19th century, was international – equality at election time was not just a case of, “okay, girls, if that's what you want, we'll sign the paperwork, then.” It was an ongoing battle on the part of its supporters against continued discrimination within this new freedom: Prerequisites such as property ownership, which basically only encompassed spinsters and widows with an inheritance; married women being allowed to vote only with their husbands' permission; women's minimum voting age being much higher than men's, all had to be beaten down along the way.

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MOTORSPORT 'pioneer' Álex Palou started out training and competing with the likes of Carlos Sainz and Max Verstappen, but at the career crossroads, he swerved off down a different path – that's why you've probably never heard of him.

But Palou, 24, has just made history by becoming the first-ever Spaniard to win the IndyCar world championship title.

Now, the Barcelona-born whizz on wheels wants to be a trailblazer for his sport, raising its profile on home territory.

His results this season have been so solid that in the last race of 2021, at Long Beach, all he had to do was turn up – no need to even reach the podium, and his fourth-place finish was plenty enough to confirm his milestone achievement and immortalise his name.

Not that fame features anywhere on Álex Palou's list of priorities – despite the fact that he is constantly asked whether he plans to break into the crème of the motor-racing world, Formula 1.

“If Chip Ganassi were to switch to Formula 1, I'd dive in head-first,” Álex admits.

“But otherwise, there isn't a single Formula 1 team where I'd be able to win, and what I enjoy most is winning.

“I'm not bothered about appearing in glossy magazines; winning is where I get my kicks.”

IndyCar, mostly alien to Spain

Spain's presence in IndyCar has not been huge over the different generations of household names in the sport – until Álex came along, the most successful Spaniard to date was Oriol Servià, and his is really the only name ever associated with the country in this discipline, other than twice-world champion Formula 1 driver Fernando Alonso, whose dip into IndyCar has been more of an extra-curricular hobby and a means to an end: Trying to win the Indianapolis 500 so that, along with his victories in the Le Mans 24-Hour and the Monaco Grand Prix, he can become only the second driver in history to earn the so-called motorsport 'Triple Crown', after the UK's Graham Hill.

What is IndyCar, anyway?

Given that this branch of motorsport has not been high-profile in Spain until Álex's championship, you could be forgiven for wondering what it actually is – and having heard the name of it bandied around your entire life, feel a little embarrassed to ask anyone.

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