Bye Bye UK (if only)

It really is time for the UK to make its mind up as far as its membership of the EU is concerned.

Ever since the UK joined the European movement in the early 1970s, it has been nothing but a whining pain where the sun doen't shine. When I worked for the EU, during the 1980s and 1990s, it was embarrassing to be British: even then the UK looked far too much at its own needs and worried too much about is "national sovereignty" instead of working for the cause of European union and advancement. Now, with the other 26 member states agreeing to relatively harsh but necessary measures to shore up the Euro, the UK has once again shown its true colours and has vetoed the agreement.

Well, UK, get out, please, just go and wallow in your petty island mentality. Sadly, of course, England will take the other countries of the UK down with itself, unless Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have the means, the will, and the courage, to throw off the English chains of constraint and oppression in order to go their own way as part of a United Europe.

The current crisis is, in many ways, a good thing. It offers Europe a chance to get its house in order, it highlights both the weak and the strong aspects of Europe and demonstrates the need for the member states to forget all about their ridiculous worries about sovereignty. It really is now time to stop putting the individual member states first and instead to put a united Europe first, to work towards far more harmonisation, far closer political union, and far more freedom for the citizens of Europe.

And this can be better done without the dragging anchor of the UK to slow things down.

As for other member states, they must decide either to be in Europe, or out: no half measures, no pandering to their own right-wing, nationalist elements. From now on it must be either 100% Europe or get out and go-it-alone. And if you want to be in Europe, you use the Euro.

When It Rains, It Really Pours

I don't expect that Elvis was thinking of Spain when he recorded his magnificent version of "When It Rains, It Really Pours," but the song is certainly an appropriate one for much of Spain at the moment.

Even here in Guardamar, one of the driest parts of the country, we have had a couple of nights with some heavy rain (and no less than a small tornado in nearby Elche) and today the rain has hardly stopped. Heck, we have had to get the umbrellas out and have come home with wet shoes, something which rarely occurs here.

It is clear when driving and walking around, that the locals are not used to wet weather. This is not the case in all parts of Spain, of course, for much of the country, especially the northern regions enjoy (?) a great deal of rain, spread over the whole year. Down here in the south-east, however, rain is very unusual and there are quite simply no installations to deal with it. There are, for example, no drains in the roads to remove the water from the gutters. As a result, roads, especially those on a slope, soon turn into small rivers, with huge amounts of water reaching the lower points. And roads are laid with little or no thought to water control: they have dips in them and are often metalled incorrectly, so that large pools soon form. To add to the problems, much of the land has very little vegetation, and when heavy rain falls onto and then runs off it, the rain takes a significant amount of soil with it, often depositing that soil in the roads, thereby producing dangerous patches of mud.

The locals are pleased with the rain, for the ground is extremely dry and this quantity of rain will save a lot of money that would otherwise have to be spent on irrigation. In fact, there is no shortage of water in Spain; more than enough water falls here, but it is not equally spread over the country, with far more in the north than in the south. As with many other things in the country, however, poor management of resources leads to the crazy situation where the excess water of the northern regions is allowed to empty into the sea, while the southern regions spend huge amounts of money to develop and build desalination stations to take seawater and turn it into potable water. Madness!


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Museo de Belenes, Alicante

If you have an hour or so to spare in Alicante, a very pleasant way of passing the time is to visit the Museo de Belenes. Belenes is the plural form of Belén, or Bethlehem. In fact, the word is used here to indicate a nativity scene.

You don't have to be Christian to enjoy the displays of modelling that are exhibited in this small, but well looked after museum. I'm an atheist, but have been fascinated by the Spanish tradition of Belenes since I first discovered it some ten years ago and can only admire the work and dedication that goes into setting up these delightful models.

You can find Belenes all over Spain during the weeks leading up to the celebrations of the winter solstice (used by Christians to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ) and on to Epiphany. They range in size from small scenes that people set up in their homes to very large scenes, sometimes displayed by a village or town, either outside, or, as in Guardamar, in a special room. Sometimes the scenes are extremely large, covering many square metres, often set up by local enthusiasts. San Javier, where the Murcia airport is located, claims to have the largest open-air Belen of Spain, covering 520 square metres and incorporating more than 1200 model figures with many moving elements. Another large one not too far from Guardamar is to be found in Casillas, a suburb of Murcia. This Belén is under cover and is particularly well known for its many moving parts.

Almost all Belenes have a secret: somewhere, hidden in the scene or scenes depicted, is a man crouching down, with his trousers around his ankles, doing his business. He is known as El Caganer (the crapper) and is said to be fertilizing the soil of the Belén, so that it will flourish again the following year. Probably originating in Catalonia, the caganer has become a popular element in Belenes and a small industry has grown around this single figure, selling not only the traditional form, but others, too, often depicting well-known personalities, including royalty and politicians, such as Barak Obama and Angela Merkel, to name but two.

I have to admit that I did not notice a Caganer in the museum, which was something of a disappointment, but otherwise the museum is a jewel, with many typically Spanish displays, as well as numerous nativity scenes from other parts of the world. The models are made of all sorts of material, ranging from clay, to wood, to ceramics, as well as less likely materials.

Entry to the museum is free. It is open from Tuesday to Friday, from 10:00 until 14:00 and from 17:00 until 20:00. You can find more information and a map of the location of the museum here.

I have made a small Picasa album, showing the inside of the museum.

Ruby Dracaena draco

On 29 October (just two days time, as I write), She Who Must Be Obeyed and He Whose Task Is Simply To Obey (that's me, in other words) will have been married 40 years. We've known each other for over 45 years, but that's a different story.

40 years. So it seems that this is our ruby wedding anniversary. To celebrate this wondrous occasion, we decided yesterday to buy ourselves a Dracaena draco, otherwise known as the Dragon's Blood tree. Well, blood is red, which is the colour of ruby, or so I'm told, so it seems appropriate, especially as this particular specimen was looking rather lonely and forlorn in one of the local garden centres, so clearly needed a good home.

The stem is about a metre tall, which makes the plant about 15 years old. We've had it potted up in a good earthenware pot and it now looks happy in our ever-more overcrowded little garden, standing next to its fellow countryman, the Senecio kleinia, which is seen to the left of the photo.

Both these plants originate from the Canary Islands, with the Dracaena also being found in Madeira, the Cape Verde Islands, and the Azores.

If you have visited Tenerife, the chances are that you have seen one of the few Dragon trees to still grow in the wild: a specimen estimated to be about 1,000 years old is a tourist attraction in the village of Icod de los Vinos. It is, of course, just a tad larger than our own…

Steve Jobs dies

Steve Jobs is no longer with us.

In 2003 he was found to be suffering from pancreatic cancer; in 2009 he underwent a liver transplant.

Jobs recently retired as CEO of Apple and took on the role of Chairman of the Board of Directors. He had been on an extended leave of absence because of poor health.

Now, at just 56 years of age, the man who helped launch Apple and later helped to relaunch that same company, has died of the complications of the big C.

I have already written about Jobs and there is plenty of other information about him on the Web to make it quite unnecessary for me to write any more.

Suffice it to say that the world has lost a great innovator and motivator and the overwhelming response to his death is perhaps the best demonstration of his importance.

'Bye Steve.

Stapelia grandiflora

Five years ago some friends gave us a small tray of cacti and other succulents. I suppose there were five or six small plants in the tray, one of which was about the size of my thumb.

I had no idea what any of the plants were, let alone the thumb-sized one, as I had never investigated the world of succulents. Somehow, however, these plants spurred my interest and I gradually obtained more and more such plants, so that now the collection includes some two hundred cacti and about a hundred other succulents.

But what about the original contents of the tray?

Well, the plants are still alive and growing. Some have remained remarkably small, others have grown at what might be considered a more "normal" rate. But one has really done its very best and beaten all records: it is a Stapelia grandeflora. Two years ago, in early October 2009, it developed its first large flowers and I took a series of photos of one of these flowers opening over the course of a few hours (the photos can be seen here). Growth has continued at an almost frightening rate, despite the fact that I occasionally cut a piece of the plant off to give to other people.

Today I have had to move the plant higher, as its falling fronds had reached the ground and its now many flowers were desperately searching for a display position: the plant now sports a drop of almost a metre! The older parts of the plant are literally white with age, yet even now new shoots are appearing from the centre, and there is even a flower-bud looking expectantly from that same area.

As for other flowers, well, there is a whole host of them, mostly at the extremities of the longest branches. I have counted no less than seventeen, either in full bloom, in bud, or already drying up. And there are plenty of new shoots, too, promising a good year to come for the Stapelia grandiflora.

Paella fiesta

Sunday saw the annual Paella-making competition in El Campo de Guardamar, part of the San Isidro fiestas of that hamlet of Guardamar del Segura. Anyone can take part in the competition, but you have to be able to make a paella in the open-air, using a simple wood fire, with the paella dish supported on a tripod-like affair over the fire.

Many of the paellas thus prepared are very large, sufficient for twenty people or more, and are prepared by teams; others are much smaller efforts, some even prepared by just a single person. The size is irrelevant; the finished paella is judged purely on taste.

This year some twenty paellas were made. These are prepared in the street, the fires being built on a thick layer of sand, which protects the underlying tarmac. (When I was in the UK recently, I was explaining the procedure and a British person took umbrage at this, loudly proclaiming that the EU wouldn't allow such a thing in the UK, but that anything goes in the rest of Europe. It has absolutely nothing to do with the EU, of course, and depends solely on local ordinances, but the British always know best, don't they?) Exploding rockets are used to announce the significant moments in the competition, such as when the fires can be started, when the first ingredients can be put into the pans, when the rice can be added, when the paella must be completed…

The whole thing proceeds remarkably well and the spectacle of twenty or so paellas bubbling along on top of sometimes roaring little fires, with cooks and helpers buzzing around, carrying and adding various ingredients, tasting, commenting, encouraging, and so on, is enjoyed by several hundred visitors.

At the appropriate signal, the paellas are removed from their fires and a small portion of each is placed on a plate to be taken to the judging table. Needless to say, the judging committee includes the local priest—anything for a free meal—and rumours of corruption are rife, but only add to the fun.

As the judging takes place, the paella-makers and their supporters sit down to a highly disorganised but well-deseved picnic meal that, in spite of the lack of organisation and co-ordination, is thoroughly enjoyed and provides a wide variety of foodstuffs to accompany the star of the show, the paella itself.

Our own group prepared a most delicious paella, far better than our effort of last year, when we came second. This year we were not even placed!

Better luck next year!

If you'd like to see photos of this year's event, then visit my Picasa album.