Essential Gibraltar March/April 2015

Issue 12 • March / April 2015

S T A F F PUBLISHER AND DIRECTOR

IAIN BLACKWELL director@essentialmagazine.com

GENERAL MANAGER

ANDREA BÖJTI sales@essentialmagazine.com

ASSOCIATE EDITOR

MARISA CUTILLAS editorial@essentialmagazine.com

GIBRALTAR EDITORIAL PRODUCTION MANAGER ACCOUNTS EXECUTIVE OFFICE ADMINISTRATOR

CREATIVE DIRECTOR DESIGN & LAYOUT STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER GIBRALTAR PHOTOGRAPHY CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

COVER COVER PHOTOGRAPHY HAIR AND MAKEUP OUTFIT ART DIRECTION STYLING PRINTING DEPÓSITO LEGAL

BELINDA BECKETT belinda@essentialmagazine-gibraltar.com SUSANNE WHITAKER design@essentialmagazine.com MARIANO JEVA cuentas@essentialmagazine.com MONIKA BÖJTI info@essentialmagazine.com

ANDREA BÖJTI INMA AURIOLES KEVIN HORN JAYDEN FA IAIN BLACKWELL, ROCIO CORRALES, MICHEL CRUZ, MARISA CUTILLAS, RIK FOXX, ALI PARANDEH, TONY WHITNEY GEORGIA SALPA JAYDEN FA, www.facebook.com/jaydenfaphotography LIZA MAYNE DIVAMP COUTURE GUY BAGLIETTO ANDREA KAROLIINA JIMÉNEZ GODOY A. GRÁFICAS, MURCIA D.L. MA-512-99

EDITORIAL & ADVERTISING OFFICES COMPLEJO LA PÓVEDA, BLQ. 3, 1º A, CN 340, KM 178, 29600 MARBELLA, MÁLAGA. TEL: 952 766 344 FAX: 952 766 343

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SOCIETE GENERALE PRIVATE BANKING HAMBROS

WE MANAGE YOUR WEALTH

SO YOU CAN ENJOY IT Y O U R P R I VAT E B A N KE R W O RKS C LO SE LY W I T H A D E D I C AT E D T E A M O F I N D U S T R Y E X PE R T S. SO C I E T E G E N E RA LE P RI VAT E BA N KI N G O F F E RS Y O U H I G H Q U A L I T Y SO LU T I O N S T O M A N A G E Y O U R WE A LT H I N A C O M P L E X E N V I R O N M E N T. SO Y O U H AV E T I M E F O R T H E I M P O RTA N T T H I N G S I N L I F E . privatebanking.societegenerale.com/hambros

P a s t p e r f o r m a n c e s h o u l d n o t b e s e e n a s a n i n d i c a t i o n o f f u t u r e p e r f o r m a n c e. P l e a s e n o t e t h a t investments may be subject to market fluctuations and the price and value of investments and the i n c o m e d e r i v e d f r o m t h e m c a n g o d o w n a s w e l l a s u p. A S S U C H Y O U R C A P I TA L M AY B E AT R I S K .

Issued by SG Hambros Bank (Gibraltar) Limited, which is regulated and authorised by the Financial Services Commission, Gibraltar. © 2014 Societe Generale Group and its affiliates. © Hugo Stenson - FRED & FARID

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contents The Trend Cinema 12 Home Viewing 14 Music 16 Books 18 Cars: The New Ford GT 2017 20 Technology 22

The Local Air in Gibraltar 24 Deputy Chief Minister Dr. Joseph Garcia 30 Adolfo Canepa 32 Monica Coumbe 34

The Focus Trademark Colours 36 Natural Dyes 40 James Blunt 44 Johan Ernst Nilson 46

The Style 48 DĂŠcor: The Rock Hotel 54 United Colours of Benetton 60 Fashion News 62 Health: Sports Nutrition

The Pro 64 Enterprise 70 New Flight Service from Royal Air Maroc

The Leisure 72 Travel: Colourful Destinations

The Gourmet 78 Rock Hotel Dining 80 Wine: Caliza 82 Restaurant Guide

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Winner of the Gibraltar’s Leading Hotel Award since 2009 The AA’s highest rated hotel in Gibraltar

...the other side of Gibraltar

SIR HERBERT MILES ROAD, CATALAN BAY, PO BOX 73, GIBRALTAR. TEL: +350 20076501 Gibraltar's leading hotel since 2009

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AA’s highest rated hotel in Gibraltar

Two AA Rosettes for Culinary Excellence

www.caletahotel.com - reservations@caletahotel.gi

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WORDS BY IAIN BLACKWELL

publisher’s letter

T

his issue sees Gibraltar enter its 3rd year of operation as a luxury lifestyle title in Gibraltar. During this time, it has established a reputation as a top quality publication with an enviable editorial diversity and integrity.

It has also come to be highly regarded as a primary advertising option as shown by its stable base of prestigious advertising clients, who benefit from its monthly distribution to over 300 businesses in Gibraltar, including the suites aboard the Sunborn Yacht Hotel, the rooms of The Rock, Caleta and Eliott Hotels, the Calpe Lounge at the airport, and the many selected points in Sotogrande.

In this edition, we focus on Gibraltar’s Air, including its airspace, migratory crossings by numerous species of birds, and how pollution is affecting The Rock. We interview Deputy Chief Minister, Dr. Joseph Garcia and political pioneer, Adolfo Canepa, following the publication of his

book, Serving My Gibraltar. With the wedding season rapidly approaching, we talk with wellknown local wedding planner, Monica Coumbe.

For 83 years, the Rock Hotel has been an institution in Gibraltar, standing proud from its vantage point on Europa Road. It has recently undergone a 10-month makeover, completely renewing its interior, and Gibraltar was invited to review the transformation. At the same time, read our report on Rock Hotel Dining.

As Spring is the season of colour, check out our features on Trademark Colours, Live and Let Dye and Colourful Destinations.

We also profile enigmatic artist, James Blunt and intrepid adventurer, Johan Ernst Nilson.

Elsewhere, marvel at the new Ford GT 2017, learn about Royal Air Maroc’s new flights to Morocco, launching in March, and don’t miss our new Technology column, beginning with A.I. and the Internet of Things.

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Natural wonder.

From the moment you set foot on the Rock, you’ll find yourself spoilt for choice by everything from its heritage, history and culture to its VAT free shopping, stunning caves and botanical gardens.

Located where Europe and Africa meet, and where the Mediterranean joins the Atlantic, it was inevitable that so many visitors throughout history would leave something of a legacy – including a warm welcome.

Gibraltar. Discover it at your leisure.

GIBRALTAR TOURIST BOARD Gibraltar e: information@tourism.gov.gi t: +350 20045000 @visit_gibraltar facebook.com/visitgibraltar

There is Something for Everyone...

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trend READING / MUSIC / FILMS / GADGETS / MOTORING / TRENDS

Our words take on a more vivid hue as we embrace the magic that colour brings to our lives. Enjoy top cinematic and home viewing releases and read some of the most exciting books on colour and its effect on our moods, tastes and health. Don’t miss too, our new column on Technology, starting with Artificial Intelligence and the Internet of Things.

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12 Cinema 14

Home Viewing

15 Music 18 Books 20

Cars: The New Ford GT 2017

22 Technology

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trend

WORDS MARISA CUTILL

CINEMA

AS

e BLOCKBUSTER » GENRE

Drama

» DIRECTOR

David Cronenberg (The Fly)

» ACTORS

Julianne Moore, Mia Wasikowska, John Cusack

OF THE MONTH

Touted as a modern day morality tale about the Maps obsession with fame, to the Stars centres on sack), Stafford Weiss (John Cu elp f-h sel d a psychologist an ctive ote rpr ove an h wit r autho r me for a is wife, a son who o wh er ght dau a d an r TV sta ma fro ed eas has just been rel ’s ord ff Sta n. tio titu ins l menta s ou fam a biggest client is play the actress who is about to yed in pla r the same role her mo 0s. the 196

Maps to the Stars

» GENRE Adventure » DIRECTOR Baltasar Kormákur (2 Guns)

» ACTORS Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael

Kelly, Josh Brolin

Everest

This film is inspired on the incredible events which took place during an attempt to climb Mount Everest.

Two intrepid teams face one of the worst ever snow storms known to man, fighting against the elements to achieve the impossible and to survive.

» GENRE Action/Adventure » DIRECTOR Ron Howard (The Da

» GENRE Science Fiction/Adventure » DIRECTOR Robert Schwentke

» ACTORS Chris Hemsworth,

» ACTORS Shailene Woodley, Theo

Vinci Code)

Benjamin Walker, Cillian Murphy

In the Heart of the Sea

In the Winter of 1820, the New England Essex was attacked at high sea by something nobody imagined: a gigantic whale.

The maritime disaster would inspire Moby-Dick by Herman Melville, but the famous novel told only half the tale. In the Heart of the Sea delves into the secret of what happened afterwards, when survivors were forced to resort to ungodly means to stay alive. Faced with terrible storms, hunger and panic, the men began to question their deepest values while their captain desperately sought a way to escape to freedom from their seafaring foe.

(Divergent)

James, Ansel Elgort

Insurgent

The Divergent trilogy is the exciting story of Tris, a young girl who takes on the government to defy the latter’s classification of all young people as belonging to one of five factions: Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), Erudite (the intelligent), Abnegation (the selfless), and Candor (the honest), all of which are given a serum to keep them under control. After defying the national government, Tris seeks allies in the outskirts of the Chicago of the future, accompanied by her friend and lover, Four (Theo James).

» GENRE Black Comedy » DIRECTOR Paul Thomas

Anderson (The Master) » ACTORS Joaquin Phoenix, Jena Malone, Reese Witherspoon

Inherent Vice

In the drug-fuelled LA of the 1970s, pothead detective, Doc Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix) is visited by his ex-girlfriend Shasta (Katherine Waterston), who is now the girlfriend of real estate honcho, Mickey Wolfmann (Eric Roberts). Shasta wants Doc to help her stop Mickey’s wife from having Mickey committed to a mental institution. This film has received rave reviews and has been compared to The Big Lebowski, owing to its dark comedic flavour and the labyrinthian structure.

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It’s a stampede!

World Trade Center Gibraltar has experienced huge demand over the last few months to the point where our challenge is housing all the companies that want to move in.

As a result, there are no longer any discounts on purchases available.

However, there are stll discounts possible on rentals, so if you are interested please contact us as soon as possible on: Tel: +350 200 74724 or email: enquiries@worldtradecenter.gi www.worldtradecenter.gi

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trend HOME VIEWING

Marisa Cutillas brings us a few of the season’s top DVD releases. » GENRE Thriller » DIRECTOR Daniel Monzón (Celda 211)

» ACTORS Luis Tosar, Jesús Castro, Bárbara Lennie » IMDB RATING 6.7/10

El Niño

The Congress

If you speak Spanish or don’t mind reading subtitles, don’t miss out on El Niño, a quick-paced thriller about a Young La Línea boy who agrees to captain a speedboat carrying bags of cocaine across the strait of Gibraltar. Jesús Castro, who plays El Niño, is already being touted as ‘the new Paul Newman’ owing to his piercing blue eyes and solid acting ability, though the high point of the film, for many, is the performance of Luis Tosar, Spain’s version of Robert DeNiro. Tosar plays an obsessive cop who is hell-bent on capturing El Niño, only to lose sight of the bigger picture, in which powerful international drug lords play with local big fish as pawns in a highly sophisticated game.

» GENRE Science Fiction » DIRECTOR Ari Folman (Waltz

with Bashir)

» ACTORS Robin Wright, Harvey Keitel, John Hamm

» IMDB RATING 6.6/10

ONTH

D RELEASE OF THE M

e FEATURED DV » GENRE

Drama

» DIRECTOR

Amma Asante (A Way of Life)

» ACTORS

Gugu MbathaRaw, Matthew Goode, Emily Watson

» IMDB RATING 7.4/10

le, ry of Dido Elizabeth Bel Belle is the real-life sto the of iral adm an of er the mixed-race daught great uncle, Lord Royal Navy. Reared by her Belle is allowed certain Mansfield and his wife, t permitted to take no is privileges, yet she affairs of women of her part fully in the social y, s she will ever fit in full ubt do social class. Belle is o wh son ’s tor h a pas when she falls in love wit er, they eth Tog . ing com is nge convinced that cha the Mansfield, President of fight to convince Lord d in lan Eng in y ver sla lish Supreme Court, to abo the 18th century.

This oddball sci-fi flick gathers a number of genres (science fiction, animation, romance, comedy, drama) in the most ingenious of ways, inviting us to contemplate the meaning of freedom and the human condition. Robin Wright is sensational as usual; she plays herself, a successful middle aged actor who is offered one last tempting job which, in effect, is an invitation to sell her soul.

A fascinating flick, especially for lovers of Yellow Submarine-styled surreal animation.

Belle » GENRE Adventure » DIRECTOR Michael Bay (Armageddon) » ACTORS Mark Wahlberg, Nicola Peltz, Jack Reynor

» IMDB RATING 5.9/10

Transformers: Age of Extinction Five years after the defining battle of Chicago, people have grown to fear the Transformers. An elite CIA team has been called upon to hunt down the remaining Decepticons and Autobots, despite the fact that the Autobots were granted protection by the government. Optimus Prime and his faithful team of robots beg a struggling inventor (Mark Wahlberg), to help them overcome the secret unit that seeks to put an end to their existence.

Step Up All In » GENRE Romance » DIRECTOR Trish Sie

(Not Alone)

» ACTORS Briana Evigan, Ryan Guzman, Alyson Stoner » IMDB RATING 5.9/10

The Step Up series (this is the fifth film in the series and surely not the last) never fails to impress, with its usual plot of ‘losers vs the world’, a battle which is always won by the ‘good guys’ on the dance floor. This time, allstars from all the previous instalments battle it out for victory in Las Vegas, for the ultimate dance-a-thon of their lives.

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bmi-sanctuary-essential.pdf

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18/08/2014

15:12

Five Ultra

Luxurious Properties

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CM

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INTRODUCING THE SANCTUARY

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a private

paradise

For more details, contact BMI

experience

knowledge

BMI Group Limited, Unit 7 Portland House, Glacis Road, P.O. Box 469, Gibraltar

Tel: (+350) 200 51010

Email: info@bmigroup.gi

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trend MUSIC

¿QUÉ PASA? WORDS RIK FOXX

As we go to press there is no real action on the coast but check your local press by the week just in case.

But the name game for the Spanish festivals has started giving fans something to look forward to once the weather warms up (details below). At the time of writing, all info on this page was correct.

March 20 sees 1970s disco legends CHIC release their first material in 23 years. I'll Be There is a track from a new album which will land later this year and the group are touring the UK this month featuring their highly respected band leader NILE RODGERS.

Festival news: on the coast, LENNY KRAVITZ (July 22) and LIONEL RITCHIE (July 29) are Marbella bound and the son of BOB, DAMAIN MARLEY, is headlining the Weekend Beach Festival in Torre del Mar (July 8 - 11).

Ticket info: www.weekendbeach.es MUMFORD & SONS have downed tools and stopped painting fences to return from their hiatus to headline the Bilbao BBK Live Festival (July 9 - 11) with MUSE, JESUS AND THE MARY CHAIN, KODALINE and THE TING TINGS. Ticket info: www.bilbaobbklive.com Spain’s biggest festival, Benicàssim (July 16 -19), has so far named NOEL GALLAGHER, FLORENCE AND THE MACHINE, PORTISHEAD, CLEAN BANDIT, BASTILLE, veteran hip hoppers PUBLIC ENEMY plus THE PRODIGY as headliners. Ticket info: www.fiberfib.com Staying with THE PRODIGY, LIAM, KEITH and the rest of the crew return with a “violent-sounding” new offering, The Day Is My Enemy, features their recent Instagram hit, Nasty, on March 30.

Last month you were informed about BOB DYLAN releasing a FRANK SINATRA cover version album – well it topped the UK charts on its first week of release.

This year, Old Blue Eyes is to be celebrated globally with a series of commemorative centennial events.

His son, FRANK JR. will perform in Europe this summer and talk suggests a hologram appearance to add to the on-stage visual footage of the late legend. There is also a homage evening in Marbella on July 24 – details to follow.

Another tribute album that will no doubt go to number one is launched on March 9 – ex Y Factor runner-up REBECCA FERGUSON will put her vocal talents to the golden greats of BILLIE HOLIDAY on Lady Sings The Blues. The 28-year-old, who many in the music biz believe to be the best voice to ever come off the reality music TV show production line, took longer than expected to record this due to mid-session naps as she was heavily pregnant at the time.

US rock dinosaurs the GREATFUL DEAD are reuniting for three final farewell gigs in Chicago to celebrate their 50th anniversary in the business. And another name from the past, LULU, has somehow pulled a new recording deal and releases an album, Making Life Rhyme, on March 30 featuring a first ever complete collection of self-written tracks by the 66-year-old Scot who burst on to the scene at the age of 15 in 1964 with a cover of the ISLEY BROTHERS classic Shout.

This year’s contest is taking place in Vienna on May 23 and Spain has already announced its seeded contestant, EDURNE GARCIA. The 29-year-old came to fame on the Spanish equivalent of Pop Idol in 2005 and is the girlfriend of Manchester United goalkeeper DAVID DE GEA. And this is not an early April Fools prank – Australia has been invited to enter the competition and have been seeded straight into the final – what’s all that about?

Someone not known for his voice is MIKE TYSON but he features on Iconic, a track from the new MADONNA LP, Rebel Heart, which surfaces on March 9. Several of the songs leaked on-line last December angering Madge who said it was “artistic rape” and “a form of terrorism”. An Israeli man was arrested for hacking her computer and putting the songs on the web.

Here’s something to avoid – on March 31, the BBC’s 60th anniversary Eurovision Song Contest concert features former winners and their songs including 1976’s BROTHERHOOD OF MAN (Save Your Kisses for Me), 1980 and 1987 Irish winner JOHNNY LOGAN (What’s Another Year and Hold Me Now), 1998’s gender bender DANA INTERNATIONAL (Diva), 2006’s Finland surprise heavy metal act LORDI (Hard Rock Hallelujah) and last year’s winner CONCHITA WURST. The show is being broadcast throughout Europe.

NOEL GALLAGHER has continued his mind games while promoting his Chasing Yesterday LP which drops on March 2. If little brother wants some songs to record – "call me", and the same goes for the much rumoured Glastonbury gig. And he wouldn’t mind an ED SHEERAN free world.

The said singer has ruled himself out of the running for the theme to the forthcoming JAMES BOND movie, saying “I’m too wet to sing the Spectre theme” – there – you heard it straight from the horse’s mouth. e

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trend BOOKS

In Living Colour

In this month’s reading page, we obtain our inspiration from the primary colours that make us happy, sad or contemplative.

Colour is mood, taste and style; it dominates the way we think, and the way we express and see ourselves. Which colour of the rainbow best describes your outlook on life?

WORDS MARISA CUTILLAS

AN INTRODUCTION TO COLOUR ENERGY BY INGER NAESS

Colours are wavelengths of energy; they appear because an object reflects or absorbs different wavelengths. For instance, a red object absorbs all colours except green, a white object reflects all colours and absorbs none, while the opposite is true for black. The energy centres in our body, also known as chakras, have a corresponding colour and when our energies are imbalanced, we can use colour to bring them back in sync. This booklet discusses how chromotherapy can affect you physically, mentally and emotionally and how it can alter your mood and even heal.

WHAT COLOR IS YOUR PERSONALITY?: RED, ORANGE, YELLOW, GREEN… BY CAROL RITBERGER

Carol Ritberger asserts that we each have a single, original personality type which falls within one of the following categories: red, orange, yellow and green.

Experiences, both good and bad, may change your personality type, but the way you deal with events will always be influenced by your original character.

Additionally, prolonged exposure to an environment we are not inherently comfortable with causes us to become stressed and unhappy.

RED – YELLOW – BLUE: COLORS IN ART BY SILKE VRY

This visually stunning book invites readers to learn about the greatest masterpieces in art through a study of the use of colour – from the deepest purple to the cheeriest yellow, each chapter delves into how tonality can determine concept, symbolism, composition and theme. Readers wander through an imaginary art gallery where each room is dominated by a different hue. It begins with black and white, continues with primary, then mixed colours, and presents the evolution of pigment, ending with a treatise on the use of brown and gold.

BLUE MYTHOLOGIES: REFLECTIONS ON A COLOUR BY CAROL MAYOR

There is something about the colour blue that enamours the soul: perhaps it is because the sea, the most mysterious and profound exponent of nature, is many shades of blue. In this enlightened exploration of the colour of peace, Carol Mayor delves into how blue mythologies have made their way into science, religion, gender, sex, film and much more. Blue is the colour of death, of a newborn baby’s eyes and of optimism, depression, innocence and even a revered cheese.

COLOR CHOICES: MAKING SENSE OUT OF COLOR THEORY BY STEPHEN QUILLER

Best-selling author and renowned artist, Stephen Quiller, shows artists how to create beautiful colour blends. The book contains the author’s very own ‘Quiller Wheel’, a special fold-out wheel containing 68 hues. He demonstrates how to interpret colour relationships and mix colours for optimal effect.

He then introduces us to five structured colour schemes, suggesting how to use colour in unusual ways and to employ underlays and overlays to create unique works of art.

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trend MOTORING

2017 FORD GT SPORTS SUPERCAR Ford created something of a stir around the auto salons earlier this year when it announced plans to produce a new sports supercar. Generally known for its range of ever-improving lower and midpriced models, Ford nonetheless has something of a history in the high end race/road car ďŹ eld.

WORDS TONY WHITNEY

I

t all goes back to the 1960s when then-boss Henry Ford II was negotiating to buy Ferrari, partly to give his company a foothold in the racing field. The plans fell through so Ford decided to build his own racing GT car and beat Ferrari at Le Mans, a notion which at the time drew more laughs than praise. Working with experienced British designers and engineers, he created the GT40 which went on to win Le Mans four years in a row in the late 1960s and endow Ford with a performance image it had never enjoyed before.

Though a small number of road versions of the GT40 were built, that wasn’t the original intent.

Fast forward to 2005 when Ford launched a new Ford GT to very enthusiastic response. It bore a very sympathetic likeness to the original GT 40 and was a fine car by any standards. It was only built for a couple of years, but that was the original plan. There was even a model in the old Gulf Racing Le Mans colours of orange and pale blue.

This time around, Ford is making an even more

serious effort to take on established supercar makers like Ferrari, Lamborghini, McLaren, Maserati and the others. Production starts next year and the car will be available far more widely than the last one was. Like the original GT40, the new GT will remind Ford customers that the folks behind the blue oval can build exotic performance products as well as affordable and efficient family and business transportation. And besides that, the GT will will attract lots of customers to Ford dealers just to have a look at it.

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If the car has any hand-me-down styling cues from the original car, they don’t show very well.

It’s more of a totally new design and it looks spectacular. It’s intensively sculptured with the kind of aerodynamic elements you’ll find on most cars in this class – huge vents in the rear bodywork that morph into an efficient-looking wing and more on the bonnet and nose. Ford says that every surface was designed to reduce drag and add downforce and stability. It looks more Ferrari than Ford, but not too many people will complain about that. The doors swing upwards rather than outwards, although they seem to take up a lot of space when they’re used. This is not the kind of car you’d want to squeeze in between a couple of others in a car park.

Ford has taken the usual step towards weight reduction that’s employed by most supercar makers nowadays and carbon fibre is used extensively for the bodywork. The subframes are aluminium and the carbon fibre panels are attached to it to create a very light, though stiff, structure. Ford points out that this kind of structure will eventually find it’s way to ordinary production vehicles in the years ahead.

The rear drive, mid-engined, GT is powered by what Ford describes as the ultimate EcoBoost engine. All Ford cars use EcoBoost engines now, but I’d guess that with the GT, the customer would be getting ‘more boost than eco.’ It’s a twin-turbo 3.5-litre V-6 based on a racing engine used in the US IMSA Tudor sports car championship which includes the legendary 12 Hours of Sebring. In the GT, this powerplant should produce more than 600-horsepower, which will make for a very exciting road car indeed. The transmission is a seven-speed dual-clutch transaxle unit which

promises near-instantaneous gear changes and optimum driver control.

Naturally enough, the suspension is designed to take care of the power of this car as it should be. There’s no point having lots of power if the car doesn’t have handling to match. Adhesion is helped by huge 20-inch multi-spoke wheels shod with Michelin Pilot Super Sport tyres. The GT boasts carbon-ceramic brake discs all round so it should be easy enough to keep all those horses under control. It’s a pity, though, that the GT won’t have all-wheel drive, but this feature is sometimes difficult to engineer in cars of this configuration.

In the cockpit, there are seats that are actually integrated into the carbon fibre ‘passenger cell.’

The Formula One inspired steering wheel with paddle shifters incorporates most of the controls the driver will need and the fully digital instrument panel can be configured for specific driver needs.

It can be switched around for multiple driving conditions as required. A similar approach is used in today’s military jet aircraft and plenty of civilian variants too.

Ford has promised that the GT will go into production next year, so there will be a wait before they reach the showrooms. It will be sold in what Ford describes as ‘selected global markets’ and no specific details are available yet. It’s bound to be an expensive car which is to be expected given the GT’s power, production techniques and performance potential. There’s even talk of a racing version for the 24 Hours of Le Mans and this could certainly happen, especially when considering that 2016 is the 50th anniversary of Ford’s first of four wins at the big endurance race with the GT40. e

ZZ ENGINE: 3.5-litre EcoBoost V-6, 600-plus horsepower.

ZZ TRANSMISSION: Seven-speed transaxle with steering wheel mounted paddle shifters.

ZZ ACCELERATION: Not yet available, but expect this Ford to be seriously quick.

ZZ TOP SPEED: Not available, but bound to be in excess of 300 km/h ZZ I LIKED: Wonderful styling, though not much resemblance to the old GT40. Promising performance potential and should handle as well as it looks. Carbon fibre and aluminium bodywork probably points to future Fords. It’ll attract lots of attention wherever it goes.

ZZ I DIDN’T LIKE: Doors are going to be tough to open in tight spaces and drivers will have to almost plan ahead when it comes to parking.

All-wheel drive would have been good with that much horsepower, but Ford will no doubt come up with a well-balanced car by way of compensation.

Luggage space doesn’t look very promising.

ZZ MARKET ALTERNATIVES: This Ford is in the Lamborghini/Ferrari/McLaren class and the price will no doubt reflect this.

ZZ WHO DRIVES ONE? Serious drivers who want the latest supercar and are prepared to pay whatever it costs. Collectors of classic Ford cars. Buyers who share the view of many critics that this is the most muscular Ford ever built.

Z PRICE AND AVAILABILITY: No price has been announced yet, but the car will be available late in 2016 as a 2017 model.

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trend TECHNOLOGY

On December 2, 2014, Stephen Hawking suggested that “the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.” His argument is that humans could not compete with an AI which would redesign itself and reach an intelligence that could surpass that of humans.

WORDS ALI PARANDEH

Silicon Chip Inside Her Head T

he title of this article is actually part of the lyrics of a song by The Boomtown Rats and the words that follow are “gets switched to overload”. The song was actually about a shooting tragedy in a school and not too far off the script of the movie Terminator, with a twist. In this movie, Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a robot that becomes selfaware and perceives all humans as a threat, seeking to wipe out humanity itself. The movie might still sound like fantasy to some, but its subject is a debate at the heart of Artificial Intelligence. In the next few articles I will cover the trend and changes that have come, may come or are about to come in different forms.

I would like to start this article with the Internet of Things (IoT).

In the 2000 movie The Sixth Day, a story set in a futuristic 2015 about a family man (Arnold Schwarzenegger, again, who is cloned without his knowledge or consent), an Internet fridge talks to Arnold informing him that the milk is off and asks him to confirm a new order. In fact that same year in June, LG had launched

the world’s first Internet refrigerator.

While unsuccessful at launch, the latest 2014 model (approx. €12,000) has received very good reviews.

While it will be some time before we upgrade our main home appliances, for most of you reading this article you will have already purchased your first smart TV, smart watch or one of the current wearable devices that form part of the current generation of the Internet of Things. Devices that tell you about your sleep pattern, your use of calories and numerous health checks or bioinformatics that we did not think we needed, but now can’t live without.

What do we really want from these devices? From home appliances to Google glass and the new trend of wearable accessories, apart from the show-off factor for some, we are looking for more comfort. By comfort I include instant access to information that we already have in print or in a digital format and other insights that we don’t even notice right now. From safety to energy efficiency, the next set of appliances and devices, wearable or not, will be able to talk to each other;

shutting off furnaces, heating up just the right amount of water for your tea or shower, controlling lighting and setting themselves up to fit into the existing household by knowing what – and who – is there and adapting as needed.

The next set of household appliances will grow and change with you and your home. Imagine the doors opening as you drive up to the house, the car locking as you walk away and the tea already hot as you walk into the kitchen. Do your shopping from the fridge door by simply swiping the last empty milk bottle and having it delivered to your back door by a drone the following morning.

The IoT moves way beyond consumer electronics and household appliances to include jet engines, oil rig drills and entire factories. From a consumer standpoint IoT will be home automation, but a major part of it will go way beyond our immediate homes to become an integral part of our lives. According to a study by the International Data Corporation (IDC) the IoT market by 2020 is estimated to be worth $7.1 trillion and a recent

report by Erricson suggests that there could be as many as 100 billion internet-connected objects around the world in the next 5 years.

This is hardly Artificial Intelligence but it is part of the greater changes which are feeding AI. Devices that talk to each other and that can have more information about us, our lives and habits, probably more than you could know or wish for. Devices that will change our lives and possibly even control it in the long run. No more chocolate as the fridge door locks, detecting you’ve already had enough and anyway, you are diabetic.

In coming months, I will be covering Smart watches, self-driving cars, mind-reading robots and virtual reality.

g Ali Parandeh, is the Founder of

PC Doctor & Urbytus. He has written five books in the fields of Internet and Biotechnology. He is currently an independent mentor at the Founder Institute and helps entrepreneurs with getting their ideas and work off the ground.

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local

CULTURE / HISTORY / FEATURES / FAMOUS PEOPLE / INTERVIEWS / HUMOUR

Our lead feature, Air in Gibraltar, focuses on its airspace, bird migratory routes and pollution affecting The Rock. We speak with Deputy Chief Minister, Dr. Joseph García and glean vital information about Gibraltar’s political history from former Chief Minister, Adolfo Canepa. Those who are about to celebrate a wedding will find all the tips they need from Wedding Planner, Monica Coumbe…

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Air in Gibraltar

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Deputy Chief Minister Dr. Joseph García

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Adolfo Canepa

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Monica Coumbe

2/25/15 4:59 PM

THE FOCUS air

SOMETHING

IN THE AIR

Air – whether as a life support system, an aircraft highway or an environment for birds – is on topic in Gibraltar right now, as The Rock gears up for one of Mother Nature’s greatest shows on earth.

WORDS BELINDA BECKETT PHOTOGRAPHY DAVID CUSSEN AND AS CREDITED

W

hile Spain plots to exclude Gibraltar from the airways of Europe, 500 million birds headed this way on their annual spring migration won’t give a hoot whose sky they’re flying in.

Squadron after squadron will shoot through Spanish air space en route to their nesting grounds in northern Europe. Every migratory feathered fowl, from the noble Spanish Imperial Eagle to the common sparrow, has shared the air corridors for millennia on a rite of passage that has no exclusion zones.

With a following westerly, their course will take them directly over the Rock’s swanky airport – a safe haven, given the scarcity of big metal birds flying in and out of the British Territory of late. The flat roof makes a handy landing pad and, thanks to Gibraltar’s Air Quality Action Plan, they might even find a more plentiful supply of tasty insects to grab on the wing, fast-food style!

From cleaner air to airborne natural phenomena to Single European Sky wars, it’s all happening in Gibraltar right now.

The airport runway doubles as a road and footpath

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Osprey © Finlayson Nature Photography

HIGH SEASON FOR BIRDS Gibraltar has a ringside seat on the epic spring and autumn bird migrations and the northbound exodus is already underway.

But as you scan the skies for raptors with wingspans wider than most people are tall, spare a thought for the humble willow warbler.

This tiny creature the weight of a matchbox is also embarking on the greatest trial of its life: the marathon, circa-8,000 kilometre flight north from Africa.

Our feathered friend must cross the world’s largest desert, The Sahara, risking bad weather, food shortages, natural predators, human hunters and many other hazards – all to increase its breeding and feeding opportunities. It’s a question of survival and, when northern Europe turns autumnal, it must do it all again in reverse.

The willow warbler is not alone. Between March and the end of May, over 300 species will undertake a perilous journey from Africa that could take them as far as Russia or Greenland, setting off from different points like relay racers. Egyptian, griffon and rare black vultures, golden, imperial and booted eagles, geese, ducks and diving birds, common swifts and swallows will all converge over the Gibraltar Strait. For soaring birds which conserve energy by gliding on thermals – not present over water – the short 14.3km sea

Cormorant © Aaron Baglietto

(www.facebook.com/aaron-baglietto-photography)

crossing is a life-saver.

Some species congregate in their thousands to make the crossing more safely en masse, advancing like a fleet air arm – a spectacle that attracts flocks of bird watchers to Gibraltar.

“One day in September, back in the 1970s, from here on the Rock I counted 11,000 honey buzzards, heading south from all directions. I’ll never forget it,” says John Cortes, a committed birder who was General Secretary of the GONHS (Gibraltar Ornithological and Natural History Society) from its inception in 1976 until he became Environment Minister in 2011.

The twice-yearly migration runs like clockwork, as hormonal changes in the birds’ bodies tell them it’s time to move on. Sexual organs, hidden away during the winter, enlarge in preparation for mating and the birds embark on a feeding frenzy to fuel up for the long flight ahead. A sedge warbler almost doubles its weight from 10 grams to 20 in just three weeks!

Timing is crucial. Depart too early and they may run out of fuel, too late and they could hit bad weather. Some birds fly in V formation, allowing them to travel 70 per cent further than they would solo. The most experienced flyers take turns as lead bird to break up the wall of air and give followers extra lift.

Gannet © Aaron Baglietto

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Z BIRD’S EYE VIEWS: The spring migration runs from late February to early June.

Raptors are early birds with April and May the best months to see the greatest variety of species. In Gibraltar, the Upper Rock, Europa Point, Jew’s Gate and North Front Cemetary are among the best vantage points. Further information, www.visitgibraltar.gi or www. gonhs.org/ Z RAPTOR REHAB UNIT: Gulls and falcons regularly injure migrant birds of prey. GOHNS set up this unit to help raptors and other migrants on a safe passage back to the wild.

Z ALL OF A-TWITTER: @Gibraltarbirds posts regular Tweets on rare bird sightings, following the migration in the skies above Gibraltar with real-time commentary and photographs.

Honey buzzard © Finlayson Nature Photography

Geese travel in family groups within larger flocks, keeping in touch with contact calls and mustering at roosts along the way, the white markings on their rumps acting like ‘landing lights’, helping each bird to see its neighbour. If one becomes injured and has to land, family members will stay with it until it recovers.

With the wind behind them, birds can easily cover 1,000 km in 24 hours.

Bar-tailed godwits have been recorded migrating from Alaska to New Zealand – a distance of almost 11,000 km – in just six days!

As well as navigating by the sun, stars and familiar landmarks, scientists believe they have an internal ‘compass’ – tiny grains of a magnetic mineral called magnetite which can detect the earth’s magnetic field, allowing them to locate true north.

They can also detect infrasound, and may be able to ‘hear’ the landscape long before they see it.

Birds still fly off course – lost souls known as ‘vagrants’ in the birding world. A black-browed albatross from the Antarctic, nicknamed Albert, gained fame when he fetched up among a colony of gannets off northern Scotland and decided to stay.

Migration is a gamble many birds lose. They are on the menu of countless predators, man included.

Celebrity birders Brian May and Bill

Oddie are among those who have protested against Malta’s spring bird shoot, which sees 16,000 turtle doves and quail blasted out of the sky annually, with huge collateral damage to rarer species.

Radio masts, power lines and aircraft are other hazards, while lighthouse beams have lured entire flocks to their death when the birds become blinded and strike the beacon at speed.

Migratory birds are declining in number so data-gathering is a top conservation priority. GONHS coordinates research through the Strait of Gibraltar Bird Observatory, carrying out bird-ringing and adding to records which date back to the 1960’s. The list of sightings in Gibraltar currently stands at 311 species.

The spring migration can be more spectacular than the autumn exodus as many exhausted birds struggle over the last few kilometres and fly in low. In their weakened state, other birds will often turn on them.

One journalist visiting Gibraltar described how a gang of seagulls beat up on a short-toed eagle in mid-air. “Dozens of them converged on the hapless predator, harrying it with swoops from all sides, easily outmanoeuvring it, since their victim was a snake-hunter with wings designed for hanging in the air, rather than for rapid flight.”

The eagle doesn’t always win.

White storks arrive in Europe © Finlayson Nature Photography

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Is it a plane? No, it’s a bird...

It may be high season for birds but the eagle hasn’t yet landed for Gibraltar Airport. The swanky £70million terminal has been operating at way under capacity since it opened in 2011.

Capable of handling 1.5 million passengers a year, just 385,242 passed through arrivals and departures during 2014.

Sovereignty issues between Britain and Spain have hampered expansion although, ironically, the disputed isthmus on which the airport stands once united Gibraltarians and Spaniards in a common bond: horseracing.

Long before it was an airport, or even an emergency WW2 airfield, the isthmus was a racecourse. The sport of Kings was played out there for almost two centuries, first by the military, later as a civilian pastime attracting hundreds of Spaniards who crossed the border for a friendly flutter.

When Franco closed the frontier, pilots had to make a sharp turn-around over the bay to avoid Spanish airspace. Old newsreel footage shows the first passenger aircraft captain to complete this skilful manoeuvre being carried off the plane to a hero’s welcome.

Gibraltar figures on several Most Extreme Airport lists for its short runway, which has ocean at both ends and is also the only way into and out of Gibraltar, for both traffic and pedestrians. Nevertheless it has an excellent safety record for civilian flights. The worst air catastrophe occurred during WW2 when a B-24 Liberator II crashed into the sea after

taking off at night. The five crew and all 11 passengers were killed, including Lt. Gen. Władysław Sikorski, Commander-in-Chief of the Polish Army and Prime Minister of the Polish government-in-exile. Despite conspiracy theories, a British inquiry concluded that the plane’s controls had inexplicably jammed. The Sikorski memorial can be seen today at Europa Point.

The debacle over the new airport saw Spain excluding Gibraltar from Europe-wide deregulation initiatives and, although the 2006 Cordoba Agreement signed by Spain’s PSOE government heralded a new era, and the return of flights between Gibraltar and Madrid, both the route and the entente were short-lived. It all changed when the Partido Popular came to power in 2011.

Today, Britain is the only destination lit up on Gibraltar airport’s departures board. British Airways, Easyjet and Monarch will serve six UK airports between them in 2015, including Easyjet’s new three-times weekly service to Bristol, starting on April 19. Royal Air Maroc’s new scheduled service to Tangier starts on March 29, but there are no direct flights to anywhere else.

Z ACTIVE AIRWAVES: There are at least 14 wifi hotspots per square metre in sociallyconnected Gibraltar… and counting. Most cafés and bars provide wifi gratis and the Government has rolled out free hotspots at key attractions. Check locations at www. gibyellow.gi Z WALKING IN THE AIR: A spectacular new suspension bridge and glass sky walk are among the exciting new plans for the Upper Rock Nature Reserve. Visitors will have better and safer vantage points to view the migration while filling their lungs with buckets of bracing air from 426 metres above sea level.

Z GREEN AIR: Gibraltar’s spacious 15-acre Botanical Gardens, blooming with 1,900 plant species, surprises new visitors to the tiny British territory. It acts as a green lung for the 30,000 human population while providing a healthy habitat for resident animals and birds.

Z SHOOTING THE BREEZE: Gibraltarians love their café society and the Rock capitalises on its Mediterranean climate with a host of outdoor events, including plays and concerts at the open-air Alameda Theatre. Although you might find yourself sharing a park bench with a macaque, as Gibraltar’s mischievous monkeys are fresh-air fiends too!

Big metal birds are an endangered species on the Rock

The eagle hasn’t yet landed for Gibraltar Airport © Hufton + Crow

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Commonwealth Park, Gibraltar’s green lung

SINGLE EUROPEAN SKY WARS The isthmus impasse reached new heights at the end of 2014, with Spain attempting to veto Gibraltar from a key airspace initiative that will streamline air traffic management throughout Europe.

The Single European Sky aims to reduce Europe’s network of 73 air traffic control centres to just five to: Z Triple capacity and reduce delays on the ground and in the air Z Improve safety by a factor of 10 Z Reduce carbon emissions by 10 per cent Z Provide air traffic management services to airspace users at a cost of 50% less The new legislation is urgent as, with 33,000 flights daily, the air corridors over Europe are among the most congested in the world. Spain’s objection to Gibraltar’s inclusion has thrown a spanner in the works but Britain has made it clear that attempts to exclude it from EU aviation dossiers will not be tolerated.

In his new role as Minister for European Affairs, Deputy Chief Minister Dr. Joseph Garcia was in Brussels recently to press the point home, emphasising that Spain cannot be allowed to hold the whole of Europe to ransom by pursuing their claim to Gibraltar through the back door.

A footnote to the impending legislation states: ‘The question on how to reflect the Gibraltar issue in the text is awaiting the outcome of discussions between Spain and the UK’. Watch this space.

The open air Alameda Theatre

A Breath of Fresh Air Air quality is another bone of contention between Gibraltar and Spain.

A shocking report by the World Health Organisation last May rated La Linea’s air quality as the worst in Spain.

It’s not surprising, given that one of Spain’s largest petrochemical refineries is sited just across the bay in neighbouring San Roque.

Fumed Gibraltar’s outspoken Panorama newspaper: ‘With the refinery chimney stacks discharging into the air, 24/7, all the crap the Spaniards wish all of us to breathe, air quality in this area will continue to be at a dangerous and concerning level… and will continue to have a direct influence on our own air quality’.

Air pollution has been linked to heart disease, respiratory problems and cancer. According to the WHO, it caused seven million deaths globally

in 2012 and is “the world’s largest single environmental health risk”.

Gibraltar’s Air Quality Action Plan monitors 11 key air pollutants, nine of which fall within acceptable levels, but Particulate Matter (PM) and Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) are areas of concern.

Over 30 per cent of particle matter is attributed to prevailing winds carrying in pollutants from industries around the Bay of Gibraltar. Sea salt, vehicle emissions and dust – from Africa, road traffic, construction sites and unmade land – are other contributory factors. NO2 is largely produced in Gibraltar by power generation, road transport and shipping.

Gibraltar has been tackling the problem on several fronts. Dustmitigation measures include the landscaping of unmade land, a new dust code of practice at building sites, increased frequency of

road sweeping and street cleaning with potable water instead of sea water to reduce salt levels.

Carbon emissions are being cut with a new traffic management plan to improve flow, while the replacement of Gibraltar’s three old power stations with a new one by 2017 is expected to bring NO2 concentrations within acceptable levels.

Opening Gibraltar’s new Commonwealth Park last year, Chief Minister Fabian Picardo described it as: “A green lung; a space to breathe, think and enjoy in the centre of our city.”

Real time air quality reports can be seen on the website www. gibraltarairquality.gi and via the new GibEnviro app for Apple and Android. e

An ill wind from Spain blows Gibraltar no good

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Out of the ordinary

Most people don’t expect much from a visit to a bank.

We think they should.

At Jyske Bank, your own relationship manager will offer you tailor-made, hassle-free solutions… and a certain something that’s hard to describe – something out of the ordinary.

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26-02-2014 10:25:35

THE LOCAL people

DR. JOSEPH GARCIA The Lobbyist

If you’re wondering how Gibraltar has been winning friends and influencing people in Europe’s corridors of power of late, thank the lobbying skills of Dr. Joseph Garcia and his team in Brussels. But there’s a lot more to it than taking the right MEPs out to dinner, as the Rock’s newly-appointed Minister for European Affairs tells Belinda Beckett. PHOTOGRAPHY JAYDEN FA

T

he idea of a lobbying trip to Brussels, city of art, culture, Belgian beer and chocolate, sounds like the recipe for one hell of a jolly.

On the contrary, Dr. Joseph Garcia hasn’t had time to so much as pause at a waffle stand during 20 years of visits to the de facto capital of the European Union. He usually gets back to his hotel so late, and so tired, there’s only time for dinner and bed.

On his last trip this January he attended 25 meetings in two days and brought back just one

souvenir: enough reading material to support a second Gibraltar Literary Festival (although it would be rather a dull one).

“What never ceases to impress me, apart from the incredible amount of paperwork the EU produces, is the enormity of the buildings and sheer number of institutions,” says the Minister.

“Most countries have three embassies in the city: to Belgium, to the EU and to NATO which is also headquartered in Brussels.

“Whenever we go to the European parliament, my impression is of being rushed around what looks like a maze of corridors with no windows, from one floor to another, and one building to the next, to attend a series of meetings in different places with different people. The scale of it is massive. There’s an identical building in Strasbourg where parliament sits for a week. Once a month, they all decamp there, packing their every file and document into massive removal containers!” (The Telegraph, revealing the details for the first time this year, dubbed the 600mile, £130 million round-trip ‘The Farce of the EU Travelling Circus’.)

During January’s visit, the Minister met with two EU Commissioners, a Director-General, three Chairs of European Parliament Committees and MEPs from across the political spectrum in a whistle-stop tour organised by the Rock’s ‘man in Brussels’, former Gibraltar MEP Sir Graham Watson, now heading a newly beefed-up Gibraltar Office in the Belgian capital. Raising the Rock’s profile in Europe is not just important in the cold war against Spain but would be crucial, should Britain ever leave the EU. “It was pretty exhausting and very tense but it was a good way of putting across our message, which is to ensure that all EU members abide by the rules of the club, as Gibraltar does. There is much greater awareness now that Spain has been using the border as a political stick to beat Gibraltar and holding the whole of Europe to ransom over its attempts to exclude our airport from EU aviation legislation.”

BRUSSELS SPROUTS In fact Dr. Garcia’s new title formalises a role he has been engaged in long before he became Deputy Chief Minister or was even an MP. “I first went to Brussels with the Chief Minister about two decades ago, when Fabian was still a law student,” he says. “The two of us went on a fact-finding visit to understand the importance of the EU to Gibraltar and find out what kind of lobbying had to be done.

“Lobbying takes time by its very nature,” he continues. “With 700 MEPs from 28 member states speaking different languages, it’s always going to be a challenge and it doesn’t achieve instant results.

You have to start at the very beginning by creating awareness among people who may never even have heard of Gibraltar, or who think that the Single European Skies initiative is being held up because of us, rather than because Spain lodged an objection to advance its sovereignty claim. We need to make sure people understand where Spain is coming from, by going to Brussels and exposing this.

“But where we go, Spain goes too. Some Spanish MEPS, mainly from the Partido Popular, belong to the European Peoples Party which holds the largest block of seats in the European Parliament, so that gives you an idea of the uphill struggle we have.”

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Schoolboy Antics But little Gibraltar’s tactics are working. Clearly irritated to see the British Territory making inroads into Brussels’ corridors of power, Spanish MEPs have stooped to the kind of schoolboy antics that make their rowdy House of Commons counterparts look like well-behaved grown-ups in comparison. Last year they tried to close down Gibraltar’s exhibition stand in the parliament building, saying it infringed fire regulations. This year, a Senior Partido Popular MEP called an impromptu press conference in front of the stand claiming its presence was a ‘provocative act’. “His media outburst turned out to be counterproductive because it gave us even more publicity but this is the attitude we are up against,” says Dr..

Garcia.

Minor miracles have also been achieved, not least in convincing the European Commission to dispatch a team of inspectors to monitor the harassment of motorists and pedestrians at the border – or, as Garcia more bluntly put it, “Spain’s attempts to create a new Berlin Wall in a southern region of Europe.”

More recently, the EC ruled in Gibraltar’s favour regarding three complaints brought by Spain last year over bunkering, land reclamation and the infamous artificial reef. And a complaint filed by Gibraltar against Spain more than five years ago over pollution at western beach has finally been upheld.

“But our greatest achievement has been in convincing the European Commission that when Spain’s actions violate the civil rights of EU citizens, they are not ‘none of their business’ – hence their

reluctance to get involved before. As guardian of the Treaties, it is their duty to ensure they are upheld.”

Having been ordered by the EU to make changes at the border, Spain has been retaliating with a swathe of road works designed to cause maximum disruption. Dr. Garcia is on the case. He reads every daily entry on the government’s official Frontier Queue Complaints site, and keeps a dossier on incoming and outgoing delays, as well as relevant press cuttings and photographs which he will take with him on his next EU mission.

Softly Softly It doesn’t take muscle and a loud voice to make things happen in Brussels but, rather, patience and persistence – qualities Dr. Garcia possesses in spades. He is slightly built and softly-spoken but, as a historian, he has an appetite for research, a good memory for dates and numbers and is a stickler for detail. “People complain that I’m very meticulous so it can be seen as a weakness as well as a strength,” he quips. Certainly, one gets the impression he’s not a man to miss an un-dotted i or an un-crossed t. With his due diligence behind the scenes, and Fabian Picardo’s skills at oratory, they make a powerful double act.

Dr. Garcia has been leader of the GLP since 1992 and has served in four shadow cabinets. He was first elected in 1999, making him the second longestserving member of the government although, clearly, he thrives on it, looking younger than his 47 years. “I’m told that’s the Maltese blood on my grandmother’s side,” laughs the Minister, who also

has British and Spanish heritage.

He graduated from Hull University with a First Class Honours in history, following it up with a PhD before joining the family electronics and office equipment business. One suspects he wouldn’t have found it half as stimulating as government, to which his interest in politics and friendship with Fabian Picardo finally lead him.

He published the thesis he wrote for his doctorate as a book, Gibraltar – The Making of a People, and would like to write the sequel one day, although he had no wish to follow his father into journalism.

Joe Garcia is Editor of the outspoken Gibraltar daily newspaper, Panorama, which takes pride in its impartiality. But it has never caused conflict between father and son. “He has his own views, I have mine and we’ve always worked that way,” says Dr. Garcia pragmatically.

He married his lawyer wife Penny in 2000 and they have a son and daughter of school age. When time allows, you’ll probably find the whole family basking on the beach at Catalan Bay although that’s less often, these days. The DCM’s portfolio is wideranging, covering planning, aviation, democratic and political reform as well as ensuring manifesto commitments are on target and deputising for the Chief Minister.

“Ministers have ipads and iphones so we are always on call, even on a Sunday. Like yesterday, when it was also my daughter’s eighth birthday.

There was a bomb scare at the airport so of course, I was working. Every day is different. That’s part of the challenge… part of the excitement, too.” e

SEEING RED: Dr. Garcia and Sir Graham Watson in front of that ‘provocative’ stand

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THE LOCAL people

ADOLFO

CANEPA

Political Pioneer WORDS BELINDA BECKETT

Adolfo Canepa is the only Gibraltarian politician to have been Chief Minister, Leader of the Opposition, Speaker of Parliament, Acting Governor, twice Mayor of Gibraltar – and the first to publish his memoirs. Serving My Gibraltar is a book that history will treasure.

I

t was prophetic that Adolfo Canepa, a man destined to light up the sky in Gibraltar politics, was born in London at the height of the Blitz.

An evacuee who made his debut at St Mary’s Abbott Hospital, Kensington in 1940 while bombs rained down over the city, his mother would hide under the bed with his cot until the All Clear sounded. The story made a lasting impression on the boy, “speaking volumes about how most mothers are prepared to sacrifice their very lives for their children”, writes the man, 75 years later.

Canepa’s candid autobiography is especially timely, published in the year Gibraltar commemorates the 75th anniversary of the wartime evacuations, an epoch of deep nostalgia for many Gibraltarians today.

But neither that baptism of fire, nor his christening as Adolfo – after his uncle and a Catholic Saint, rather than ‘the Fuhrer’ Adolf Hitler – inflicted lasting damage, although he was ribbed about his name at school.

Far from it, he was destined for a stellar career spanning six decades, from becoming Head Boy and later Deputy Headmaster of The Christian Brothers Grammar School, through more than 40 years in politics, to his appointment as Speaker of Parliament in 2012.

His memoirs offer fresh insight into some of the most important events in the Rock’s history over more than half a century. “I am the only living Gibraltarian witness with ‘inside’ information about the Brussels process, the closure of the dockyard

and meetings held with Margaret Thatcher at No. 10,” he writes.

One vivid boyhood memory was witnessing the Duke of Edinburgh inaugurate Gibraltar’s new Legislative Council building in 1950. “Who would have said that 22 years later I would become a member of the House of Assembly when first elected in 1972, and that in October 2012, nearly 62 years later, I would be presiding over the proceedings of our Parliament as Mr Speaker,” he says.

Excelling at school in maths and the sciences, he went straight into student teaching. He proposed to his wife Julie, also a teacher, before graduating with a B.Sc. 2nd Class Honours from Leicester University in England – “we fell in love over a cup of tea” – referring to her as his “better two thirds” in a way so typical of a career mathematician!

His namesake Uncle Adolfo instilled his love of politics, convincing him to join the Association for the Advancement of Civil Rights, later the left-wing political party headed by Sir Joshua Hassan. In 1972, he stood for election, winning a cabinet post in the new government, although at huge personal sacrifice.

“As Deputy Head of the Grammar School, I had been earning over £1,750 per annum,” he writes. “I would only earn £700 as a Minister, less than a labourer who was earning £14.50 per week at the time.”

While his working class

background had accustomed him to frugality, he remains indebted to his wife for stepping into the breach as chief breadwinner and carer of their three children. Much later into his career, the Gibraltar Chronicle wrote: “Canepa has a reputation for hard work and political honesty. He is known as the only Minister who hasn’t made money.”

During the next 16 years – an era blighted by industrial unrest and a closed frontier – he was Minister for Labour and Social Security, Minister for Economic Development and Trade, Deputy Chief Minister and Chief Minister in successive Gibraltar Governments, serving as Mayor from 1976-78 and again now. During that time, he raised pensions and Family Allowance exponentially, introduced social security contributions for all, smoothed industrial relations and paved the way for Gibraltar’s presentday prosperity.

From 1988 until he retired from active politics in 1991, he was Leader of the Opposition. For the next two decades he worked for successive governments on a consultancy basis, chairing the Public Service Commission, receiving the OBE in 1992 and the Gibraltar Medallion of Honour in 2009. The book ends in

2012 with his election as Speaker.

In this refreshingly honest, occasionally self-deprecating account, he confesses “I am not a man with much wit” and admits to have been found “wanting in judgment” on occasions, also revealing, “I was so thin that some people called me the Pink Panther.” He “embraced the accolade”, displaying a picture of the cartoon character in his office and sporting a pink panther motif on his swimming trunks!

Among his stand-out memories are meeting Margaret Thatcher at No. 10, finding the Iron Lady “sharp and unyielding”; Albert Hammond presenting him with the Gold Disc of It Never Rains in Southern California; seeing Kaiane Aldorino’s jubilant return to Gibraltar as Miss World on his 69th birthday, “one of the most beautiful young women in God’s creation,” and sharing civic duties with her since she became Deputy Mayor last year.

But perhaps the greatest honour, as retirement slippers beckoned, was being invited to the Speakers chair on his 71st birthday. “What a wonderful birthday present”, he concludes. “It’s great to be back!” g Serving My Gibraltar is available from local book shops, price £15, with proceeds going to Cancer Research.

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THE LOCAL people

Monica Coumbe An Eventful Life

Since her regular starring role on Gibraltar: Britain in the Sun, everyone’s clamouring for the services of wedding and events planner Monica Coumbe to make their celebration special, as Belinda Beckett reports. Photography Jayden Fa

“I

’m tired, stressed and I look like a drunken driver with this,” giggles Monica Coumbe to camera as she rushes a Morrisons supermarket trolley loaded with goodies to the stars’ dressing rooms at the Gibraltar Music Festival.

There’s apple cider for Lawson, Haribo gummy bears for Olly Murs, miso soup for Emeli Sandé… but something else is interesting a gang of Barbary macaques watching her with beady eyes from the rooftops.

“Uh-oh, there’s an ape and I’ve got bananas,” cries Monica, breaking into a gallop in high heels.

“Oh no… two, three, four apes, please somebody, help,” she yelps, forced to limbo under a barrier to escape the pesky primates and get her VIP delivery to Victoria Stadium in one piece.

It’s one of many hilarious clips from the Channel 5 reality show that has endeared Monica to nearly two million British TV viewers who have watched her in all three series. Even the show’s droll narrator, Timothy Spall, is a fan although they’ve never met.

“It’s fate, every time I’m filmed there’s always some kind of drama,” she laughs. “But I believe in destiny – things happen for a reason.”

It’s certainly great PR for the events and weddings business she runs with partner Jeanette Obytz, and proof positive that not even a scary monkey encounter can divert the tenacious Monica from her mission. No matter what banana skins are waiting to trip her up, she comes up trumps, with a smile.

Clearly this former travel agent has found her true niche after an eclectic career that also took her into banking, kitchen and bathroom design, online gaming and clothing retail before she launched Hour Weddings, and sister company Hour Concierge, in 2007.

More recently, she joined forces with Jeanette’s Med Weddings business to open the events company, Orchid 49, staging corporate bashes for companies such as Lloyds Private Banking and Interbuild. They also hire out props – everything from lemonade bars and popcorn stands to candles, party favours, fairy lights and sparkly Rosie Willett tiaras – which they plan to showcase at a bridal fair later this year.

Between them, they have organised 500 events and average 50 weddings a year, masterminded from a stylish off-Main Street boutique with blackand-white-striped awnings. They have 40 weddings already on the books for 2015.

As well as the huge interest generated from Monica’s TV appearances they’ve gained kudos organising weddings for several high-profile clients,

including Gibraltar fashion designer John Galliano’s niece Elizabeth, “Elizabeth wore a stunning dress designed by her uncle in Paris and we provided a magical flamenco-themed reception in San Roque, with dancing horses from Jerez and sherry poured by venenciadores,” enthuses Monica.

She also pulled out all the stops to get Gibraltar’s busy Chief Minister, Fabian Picardo, and his bride Justine to the church on time. “We decorated the Sacred Heart Church with flowers and 500 candles, booked two tenors to sing at the service, created a white and gold theme for the reception at the Rock Hotel with a Cuban band and mojitos, finishing off with fire jugglers for the after party on Eastern Beach,” says Monica, sounding as breathless as she must have been on the day.

Thanks to John Lennon and Yoko Ono, who famously tied the knot on The Rock in 1969, Gibraltar is world-famous for its hassle-free weddings and 95 per cent of Monica’s clients come from abroad, and from as far afield as Scandinavia, America, the Middle and Far East and Australia. Monica has worked overseas herself, once organising a four-day nuptial extravaganza in Tenerife, featuring 16 gala events for 200 guests.

It all sounds very glam although Monica spends most of her day on her laptop and smart phone, rushing between the notary and the registrar, organising documentation, cars, flowers, hotels, guest transfers, photography and pretty much everything except the wedding outfits.

“Once the panic is over I enjoy the occasion and often have a tear in my eye myself,” says romantic Monica. “I love working with people and being creative. We feel very privileged at the trust people place in us to organise the most important day of their life.”

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Beyond the traditional registry office and church weddings, al fresco ceremonies are becoming increasingly popular, with the Alameda Gardens, the Sunborn Yacht Hotel and the panoramic Mons Calpe Suite at the top of the Rock among favourite locations... although ferrying canapés and wedding cake up by cable car into Barbary macaque territory is not quite such a favourite with Monica!

“People used to choose Gibraltar for small, intimate weddings but, increasingly, we’re handling celebrations for 20, 50, even 100 guests, and four or five bridesmaids is becoming the norm,” says Monica, when I ask about the latest trends. “Most people still prefer a traditional wedding album of photographs to a video. And whereas once it was only celebrities who asked for prenups, more couples are requesting them and we can arrange that too.”

A 20-guest wedding can cost from as little as £5,000 – £6,000. Civil Partnerships were legalised in Gibraltar last year and Monica, bursting with inspiration, can’t wait for her first.

Vicars falling ill, flights being diverted to Málaga in bad weather, interpreters having to be called in at the last minute – Monica has been through it all but, in a crisis, grooms tend to be calmer and more proactive than brides. “Everyone is on edge as the big day approaches, it’s understandable. That’s why we like to spend as much time as possible getting to know our couples and planning well ahead, so everything can be as they dream it will be.”

I can’t resist asking Monica about her own wedding but it was an event tinged with sadness.

“My father died four days before he was due to walk me down the aisle. But if I ever did it again it would be in an Indian temple on the beach with elephant transport for every guest,” says Monica, who is proud of her Indian heritage. It would be quite a bash as she’s the youngest of 15 children and an auntie multiple times over, with two daughters of her own.

Being invited to look after the stars at the last two Gibraltar Music Festivals was a particular honour, although among their dressing room requests were some pretty tall orders. “Not everything was easy to find”, laughs Monica, who was seen on TV scouring the supermarkets and corner shops for miso soup and elderflower water. “We were asked for everything from porcelain mugs to manuka honey and Fiji Water and I never did find out what Ella Eyre did with the yellow tennis balls she asked for! But seeing everyone’s happy faces when everything lives up to their expectations makes it all worthwhile!” g Further information: Wedding Planning: www.hourweddings.com Décor & Event Experience: www.orchidevents49.com

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THE FOCUS brands

THE BUSINESS OF

COLOUR The secret to successful sales isn’t always black and white. Belinda Beckett discovers how brands blatantly use colour psychology to tempt us with their products.

“Apple gets it right with white”

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ith the simple slogan, ‘It doesn’t have to be beige’, Apple brought colour into the dull world of desktop computing in 1998 with the revolutionary iMac G3, wrapped in vibrant ‘Bondi blue’ casing. Next came the ‘13 flavours of iMac’ – computers in fruity hues like strawberry, lime, blueberry and tangerine, promoted in a TV commercial backed by the Rolling Stones track, She’s a Rainbow.

It was a brilliant marketing ploy. The G3 became a bestseller of its time, reinvigorating a brand that had lost over $1.8 billion during the two years prior to the product’s launch and transforming our ‘greige’ offices forever.

Colour is a powerful marketing hook that is blatantly used by companies to boost sales of their products. Humans trust their sight more than any other sense. We make a subconscious judgment about a product within 90 seconds of initial viewing, and between 62 and 90 per cent of that assessment is based on colour alone, studies show.

“Colour is the first sensory touch point with a customer, before shape or smell or price. Before anything else, the customer sees colour”, says US Colour Consultant Leslie Harrington. “Colour in commerce is not an artistic choice or preference but, rather, a grounded business decision”.

Researchers at Chicago’s Loyola University found that colour increases brand recognition by up to 80 per cent. In another study, 62 per cent of people who were shown three-second advertisements recognised the brand purely by the colours they saw.

In supermarkets, we pass 300 products per minute, on average considering 1.2 brands when we stop and take 12 seconds to make our selection. As 73 per cent of purchasing decisions are made in-store, catching our eye is critical to successful sales. Garnier hair products are packaged in fluorescent lime green to jump off the shelves. Rival brands will often emulate the colours of best sellers – the reason so many washing powders are packaged in blue and orange – in the hope that consumers will select the lesser-known brand by mistake.

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Tiffany blue is synonymous with the prestigious jewellery company worldwide © GettyImages for Tiffany & Co.

Humans attach meanings and emotions to different colours. Brands use that to reflect their personalities like a subliminal language – although one that speaks in many tongues.

Preferences depend on age, gender, culture and context. Women prefer red, men prefer blue, children under seven favour yellow.

Purple means royal in Europe, excessive spending in China. Orange says fun and affordability in the West but, in the East, the sacred colour of Hindus and Buddhists speaks of spirituality.

Sometimes, brands get it wrong. Crystal Pepsi was discontinued within a year of its launch because of negative reception to its water-coloured cola in ice blue cans – a colour associated with death in south-east Asia.

The appropriateness of colour to product is key. Contact lens solutions are mostly sold in blue or green packaging but never red, with its suggestion of bloodshot eyes. A pink undertakers might seem like a great gimmick but few of us would feel good about burying grandma in a fuchsia coffin!

“Brands use colour like a a subliminal language – but it speaks in many tongues”

Conversely, Heinz proved how brands can temporarily manipulate trademark colours to boost sales when it introduced EZ Squirt Blastin’ Green ketchup in 2000. The ketchup tasted the same but kids loved the dramatic departure from tomato red and sales rocketed

by US$23 million.

Some brands have become inextricablylinked with their colours – Ferrari Red, Tiffany blue, Orange mobile, Johnny Walker Black Label whisky. Some have attempted to ‘own’ their colour – famously, Cadbury, which lost a five-year court battle against rivals Nestlé in 2013 to trademark its decadent Dairy Milk purple.

Christian Louboutin had more luck against rivals Yves Saint Laurent, when it sued for trademark protection of its distinctive redlacquered soles on women’s shoes. The court ruled that it could keep red providing the shoe’s ‘upper’ was a contrasting colour – leaving the field free for YSL to use red soles in its own red shoe designs.

Tiffany & Co’s robin’s egg blue jewellery boxes are trademark-protected in the USA. Produced as a private custom colour by Pantone numbered 1837, the year the company was founded, the shade emulates the turquoise gemstones popular in 19th century jewellery and conveys Tiffany’s timeless heritage of exclusivity and flawless craftsmanship.

One colour alone doesn’t always do it. Most companies follow the 60-30-10 rule – a three tone ratio used for background, base and accent colours – to create their corporate look and guide customers to take a particular action.

Understanding the impact of colour is essential to smart marketing decisions, bridging the gap between brand message and customer perception. Check out how different brands around the world have staked their claim with colour, to dazzling effect.

“It’s red or dead for dynamic mega-brands like Virgin and Coca Cola”

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True Blue

Z WHAT IT MEANS: The business world is an ocean of blue. The colour code for trust, integrity, logic, justice and communication is used by one third of the world’s most popular brands. Warm blue tones cause the body to produce soothing chemicals while its sea and sky associations make it a natural choice for airlines, often combined with a splash of red to convey speed. Weight lifters perform better in a blue gym and nearly all sports are enhanced in blue surroundings. Blue also works as an appetite suppressant so is rarely used by food industries.

Z WHICH BRANDS USE IT: The major social media companies are big on blue.

Twitter’s turquoise expresses the fun side of social media; LinkedIn’s darker blue adds gravitas; Mark Zuckerberg chose sky blue for Facebook for no other reason than he’s red-green colour-blind. “Blue is the richest colour for me – I can see all of blue,” he says. Britain’s National Health Service uses blue to reflect dependability – although the way things are going, perhaps it’s in need of a colour make-over too.

Juicy Orange Z WHAT IT MEANS: The most flamboyant colour on the planet is associated with exuberance, fun and vitality. Said to stimulate physical activity, competition and confidence, it is heavily used by sports teams and in children’s products. It is also seen as ‘cheap and cheerful’ healthy (oranges = vitamin C) and safe (life jackets, traffic cones) and is often used to trigger impulse buys at Sales time.

Z WHICH BRANDS USE IT: Orange by name and by nature, the telecommunications company uses the colour as a brand to promote its philosophy of positive forwardthinking: ‘the future’s bright, the future’s orange.’ Few telecommunications companies would be foolish enough to try and out-orange Orange although the easyGroup tried with easyMobile. It had better luck with easyJet. The original low-budget airline continues to fly the skies in orange livery, with huge success.

Eco Green Z WHAT IT MEANS: The buzzword for environmental awareness is also the colour of money, envy, youth, health and vitality. Deeper greens are associated with wealth and prestige (Landrover, Hunter wellies), lighter greens are calming. Labelled ‘the green effect’, one study found that participants had more bursts of creativity in a green-tinted environment.

Green is less popular with fashion brands as it doesn’t suit everyone.

Z WHICH BRANDS USE IT: Harrods uses deep moss green, embossed with gold, to emphasise its snob appeal. The green logo at the centre of every Starbucks cup underscores its fair trade coffee products. Tobacco companies use green to differentiate menthol cigarettes and are up in arms at plans to introduce plain packets next year, complaining: ‘The pack is the brand’.

Z WHAT IT MEANS: Stable, reliable, wholesome and orderly, brown is associated with all things organic. Alone, it can be perceived as boring and dull; paired with gold, silver or ivory, it delivers style with a capital S. Terracotta shades also convey an upscale look and, if you want to stand out from the crowd this season, choose marsala, a deep rust shade chosen by Pantone as 2015’s ‘in’ colour.

Z WHICH BRANDS USE IT: Original M&Ms brown packaging conveys warm comforting feelings of sweet chocolate. Louis Vuitton luggage in brown, embossed with gold lettering, suggests durability and sophistication.

Brown’s ability to hide dirt is one reason Pullman railway coaches chose the colour. Pullman brown, as it became known, was also adopted by America’s United Parcel Service to post a message of reliability.

n w ro B y h t r a E

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Racy Red Z WHAT IT MEANS: Power, passion, confidence, energy, aggression and danger are all associated with the most attention-grabbing colour in the spectrum. Seeing red activates the pituitary gland, increasing heart and breathing rate and stimulating appetite, making it a no-brainer for food brands. Most branches of the medical profession avoid red because of its obvious connotations with blood.

Z WHICH BRANDS USE IT: A great many of the world’s most dynamic mega-brands – from Coca Cola, Virigin Atlantic and Vodaphone to McDonalds, KFC and Pizza Hut. Sports car manufacturers like Porsche and Ferrari like red for its association with speed. One study showed that drivers of red cars attract more speeding tickets, possibly because red car owners drive faster or are more noticeable to traffic police.

Royal Purple

Z WHAT IT MEANS: Mystic, regal, arrogant and slightly eccentric, purple is the favourite colour of rebellious teenage girls. It is said to uplift, calm nerves and stimulate problem solving. It’s also symbolic with spirituality (purple is the colour of Advent and Lent in Christianity), bravery (America’s Purple Heart military award) and luxury (purple poker chips have the highest value).

Z WHICH BRANDS USE IT: The Cadbury brothers have wrapped their Dairy Milk chocolate in purple for more than a century in tribute to Queen Victoria, as it was her favourite colour. Yahoo! uses it to communicate its value as an online information Z WHAT IT MEANS: The colour of the robes provider. Just before tobacco advertising was banned worn by lawyers and judges represents power, in the UK, Saatchi & Saatchi created a TV campaign authority, masculinity and strength. Black also says glamour, for Silk Cut cigarettes featuring an opera singer sophistication, timelessness and exclusivity, which explains why in a purple silk dress, mirroring the colour of it is so often used in high-end products. It denotes intelligence and the ribbon on cartons and referencing the professionalism, but it’s also the colour of mourning and the dark arts saying, ‘It’s not over until the fat lady sings’. and too much can be overwhelming.

Consumers continued to associate purple Z WHICH BRANDS USE IT: Chanel (remember the ‘little black dress’) and with the low-tar cigarette long after the TV Yves Saint Laurent are among many exclusive black-sporting brands. advertising blackout.

Ralph Lauren launched its Polo Black men’s fragrances to denote dark sex appeal. Guinness, aka The Black Stuff, has strong macho appeal.

In its advertising, Guinness invites revellers to ‘paint the town black’ on St Patrick’s Day, and makes liberal use of black and white in its multi-award-winning campaigns. e

Basic Black

Think Pink

Z WHAT IT MEANS: Romance, femininity, nurturing and caring – hence the pink ribbons that have become a universal symbol of hope and awareness in the fight against breast cancer. Pink has many shades of meaning. Hot pinks suggest confidence and sex appeal (cosmetic companies love it), softer pinks convey youth and innocence. Conversely, in Japan, where pink cherry blossom is said to represent fallen Japanese warriors, it has masculine connotations.

Z WHICH BRANDS USE IT: Increasingly used in the staid business world as a punchy accent colour, T-Mobile’s eye-catching magenta ‘T’ is a prime example, building recognition and revitalising the brand. Calm pinks are typically found in female-focused industries, such as wedding planning, clothing and baking.

Victoria’s Secret is a pink-branded company that uses both hot and soft pinks to target women’s 50 shades of sexuality.

Z WHAT IT MEANS: Universally associated with sunshine, happiness and creativity, curiously too intense a shade makes babies cry and people angry! It’s eye-catching, it stimulates awareness and it’s a danger colour in the insect world, which is why it’s used for traffic warning signals and wet floor signs.

Z WHICH BRANDS USE IT: McDonald’s ‘golden arches’ symbolise the gold standard of its brand across the world. IKEA uses yellow to tell consumers that shopping in its stores is a fun experience.

Studies show we are more likely to remember what we read on yellow paper, as it makes messages stand out better, so it’s a common colour for Post-It notes and, of course, the Yellow Pages.

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THE FOCUS history

M

ankind emerged into a world full of colour – blue skies, green fields and the bright abundance of plants, flowers and wildlife all around – yet for much of our time on the planet our own immediate environment was perhaps a little drab and devoid of colour.

Think of cave dwellings in various shades of grey and brown, tan and earth-toned tents made from the hides of animals and early fashion restricted to deep brown, black or occasionally white furs.

The manmade environment wasn’t a very colourful place to be, and as we know dark, sombre tones have a way of getting us down, so it wasn’t long after people began weaving clothes that they started to look for a little bright diversion.

But colours were used even before that, when cavemen used natural pigments to draw mysterious depictions of animals and hunting scenes in dark rock cavities. These early Picassos would have used blood, soot and other by-products of everyday

cooking and husbandry. Berries would also have provided natural tones for those who wanted to ‘doodle’ or express mystical beliefs around 35,000 years ago.

Fast-forward to the Neolithic age, almost 30,000 years later, and you find settled communities farming and living in villages and the early towns that marked the birth of civilisations.

By this time, people had replaced furs and skins for woven cloth and leather sandals just as they had come out of caves and

tents to settle in mud-bricked huts and houses. The ancient knowledge of plants and animals had furnished them with the ability to make natural dyes from roots, bark, leaves, berries, fungi and other vegetation, added to by the colours and hues produced by animal by-products, charcoal, stones and minerals. Local materials usually defined the range of colours available, though as civilisations grew and trade expanded, new and exotic dyes became highly desired objects

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v e i L a

Since the earliest of times people have been looking to reproduce the splendour of nature and represent the depth of their imaginations through colour.

The wealth of tones surrounding us today have their origins in natural dyes and pigments that have been used for thousands of years to add a little colour to everyday life.

Dye

often used in religious depictions or as status symbols by the wealthy and powerful.

The original method employed to transfer colour to leather and textiles was simply to boil it in water and let the natural dye bleach into the desired object.

With time, mordants were developed that helped to transfer and retain the colour. They included salt, tannin, vinegar and even ammonia from stale urine. As a result, many a tannery developed a reputation for being an affront

L e d t n WORDS MICHEL CRUZ

to the nose even though the products they produced were kind to the eyes. The flowering of civilisations from India and China to the Fertile Crescent and Europe brought with it an explosion of colour that saw itself expressed in robes, art, temples, palaces and jewellery – all of which used natural dyes to bring bright-toned splendour into the world and celebrate mankind’s rise.

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Symbolic meaning

In Mesopotamia and Persia turquoise tones inspired by precious stones were particularly prized, while the ochre, orange, red and burgundy tones popular in India and the Buddhist world also saw themselves reflected in classical Greece and Rome. We think of white togas in the case of the latter, but the Minoans and Roman legions were more often clad in the above colours. Gradually white became a colour associated with wealth and purity, most likely because of the resources required to keep it clean, and so colours began to take on special meanings, be they as symbols of religion, power, class or state identity. Before long, kings, priests and armies were dressed accordingly, lest they be confused with subjects or enemies. With colour was born the uniform as a method not to create universality but distinction, and so we have delivered to this day the image of the British soldier in his red tunic, his French and American counterparts in blue and those of Prussia, Austria and Russia in various combinations of white, black and green.

Our ability to manipulate such colours and create endless shades and hues is a relatively recent thing, starting with the mastering of synthetic chemical dyes in the 19th century.

As chemical technologies developed, the range of tints for everything from fashion and packaging to house paint exploded in all directions, leaving us with a riot of tones long before mass media and the digital revolution added yet more pixels to our beleaguered eyes. Today, we live surrounded by neon lights, cameras, brightly coloured branding and flat screens capable of reproducing many thousands of tones in high definition, yet in classical times the few natural dyes available were the stuff empires were built upon.

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Much is made of the trade in silks and spices between East and West, but dyes were very much a part of this rich exchange in goods whereby Tyrian purple, crimson kermes, saffron, indigo and madder were bought and sold for untold sums. The rarity of some natural pigments is shown by Tyrian purple.

Also known as royal or imperial purple, this red-purple dye was derived from secretions produced by rock-dwelling sea snails. It was so prized that the legendary trading nation of Phoenicia was named for its ‘land of purple’, although they also produced the purple-blue indigo dye for which India would later become famous too. By the 16th century western fleets were travelling the oceans in search of snailbased purples, insect-derived reds, sepia brown harvested from cuttle fish and yellow from yes, cow urine.

Various plants, roots and flowers produced mustard yellows, blue, red, pink, orange, green and black dyes, which were transferred onto cotton, silk, wool, leather and used in inks and paints. Some parts of the world became famous for particular dyes, resulting not only in lucrative exports but also a daubing of their surroundings in the corresponding colour. In this way Moroccan towns like Chefchaouen and the robes of Touareg nomads of the Sahara are dipped in the light to deep blue hues of indigo dyes first established in these parts by the Phoenicians some 4,000 years ago. Where much of the world has succumbed to the chemical paints imparted to us by the industrial revolution, places such as Fez in Morocco still retain the natural dye tanneries that were so famous in medieval times.

If you can stand the smell it is a fascinating process to behold, and naturally the colours derived from non-synthetic sources are so much more subtle and engaging than those produced by chemical plants – encouraging many to return to clothes, tapestries, carpets, furniture and houses painted with pigments that live, breathe and age along with the elements. In an age of bright colours these are the truest of tones for those who seek to represent the tonal abundance of nature and find upliftment through quality rather than quantity. e

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THE FOCUS people

Though he has sold millions of albums across the globe, James Blunt divides opinion like few others. Is he as annoying as some claim or does this unusual and multifaceted artist stray just a little too far from the stereotypical norm expected of pop stars?

H

aving rocketed to fame with the hit singles You’re Beautiful and Goodbye My Lover from his debut album Back to Bedlam, James Blunt briefly basked in the glory of critical and chart success before a smear campaign began to catch on with the more easily led members of the public and he was officially declared un-cool and undesirable by the fashion police. What followed was a rare case of pop star victimisation.

Few pop stars have received as much abuse as James Blunt, yet he also has a loyal following that stretches around the world, hence the comparison with Marmite. The fact that most of his detractors are to be found in the UK, where lower forms of celebrity life such as TOWIE, One Direction and every other manufactured instant celebrity are worshipped with religious zeal is particularly interesting.

It seems to indicate that the criticism is not based on a question of talent or even musical tastes, but says more about a society keen to shoot down someone because he is perceived to be posh. Of course, this is not a unique incident of reverse class discrimination but, in James Blunt’s case, you feel it is enhanced by the fact that he doesn’t fit the comfortably conventional picture of a self-destructive, dysfunctional pop star.

James Blunt Mister Marmite

WORDS Michel cruz

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Not an ordinary pop star Most of us know that he was in the army before he became a pop star. This already makes him different, and forms the starting point for a great many myths and urban legends about the man, but in reality the graduate of Sandhurst also holds a degree in sociology from the University of Bristol.

Yes he is rather posh, coming from a military family with a long line of service, but James Blunt cannot be summed up simply as a toffee-nosed Sloane who spent a while in the forces.

In many ways he is an enigma, far more complex and contradictory than the tabloids and Twitter attacks would have you believe.

Not only did he famously serve with the Life Guards’ cavalry regiment in Kosovo, leaving after six years with the rank of captain, but Blunt is also a patron of Help for Heroes and an active supporter of Médecins Sans Frontières, an organisation of doctors, medics and nurses who risk their lives to provide first-class medical care in strife-torn regions of the world.

His military service saw him join the Household Cavalry alpine ski team, where he became the star athlete and eventually overall champion of the Royal Armoured Corps. To this day, he hits the slopes of Verbier, not just content to race down the official pistes but occasionally dropping out of helicopters to explore a tougher downhill challenge. Versed in languages, horse riding and even reliability, Blunt is indeed not your typical bad-boy pop idol. While some regard this as refreshing others seem to be threatened by it, and yet he’s not exactly a choirboy either.

Not averse to drink, parties and above all women, he is no stranger to the club scene

and seems as happy rubbing shoulders with the showbiz jet set as he is drinking with strangers in dingy bars or hanging out in the seclusion of his Ibiza finca. His voice may be posh but in many ways he is more approachable and in everyday ‘normal’ life than many of the celebrated stars on whose lips we hang. From going for cycle tours while touring cities to cruising on motorbikes and strapping his guitar to his tank in Kosovo, James Blunt’s behaviour is a hard one to pin down.

That guitar was used to provide entertainment for himself, his fellow soldiers and also refugees in camps and hospitals, a coping mechanism from which came the song No Bravery and ultimately a successful musical career. Alternating between playing the fool on talk shows, appearing a thoroughly civilised chap (for a pop star) and stage diving into the crowd at concerts, the lasting impression is of someone who tries not to take himself too seriously and retains a boyish streak about him.

as a popular artist. For the latter hit, Blunt choose the scorched fields of Mijas to shoot a video centred upon the theme of rebirth and second beginnings. The critics who, for so long, had the upper hand in their strange hate campaign appear to be losing ground to an artist whose commercial success (over 20 million copies sold) was never in doubt, and whose very unusual pop star appeal also ensures he is not merely another celebrity, but a personality. e

Back on top For several years the anti-hype around him reached a peak and radio stations responded by ‘banning’ his music in a bizarre back to the future scenario of suitability censorship. For a while he became better known for his witty responses to his Twitter detractors, but 2014 seems to have been the comeback year for James Blunt. Not only did he get married to Sofia Wellesley (yes, related to Wellington) in Mallorca last September, but his fourth and latest album Moon Landing raced up the charts.

A spate of invitations to primetime talk shows and positive reviews of the album and its first single releases, Bonfire Heart and When I Find Love Again,, have seen him reclaim his status

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THE FOCUS people

JOHAN

ERNST NILSON THE SPIRIT OF EXPLORATION

WORDS MICHEL CRUZ PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF JONAH ERNST NILSON

I

n this day and age a large part of humanity looks up to celebrities, sportsmen and entertainers for inspiration, but it is a passive activity that deflects and in some cases even replaces their own ambitions and dreams with the apparent successes of others.

Born within a ‘normal’ family in Stockholm, Sweden, Johan was not one of those highflying people destined for great things from the word go. In fact, his school grades were average, he was terrible

at gym and most sports and there was nothing he particularly excelled at. Like so many people, as a youngster he seemed to be destined for nothing too adventurous at all – and yet he has become a true 21st century explorer and adventurer who takes life by the scruff of the neck and makes the most of the experience.

“I was just tagging along until I suddenly realised that most things you do – and therefore the difference between doing and achieving – lie within your head.

In other words, we have a lot more power to shape our destinies than we realise, so if you set your sights on a goal, and are willing to develop the focus, determination and

sacrifices required to achieve them there is every chance you will.”

Having come to this conclusion at a young age, he decided that life was too short and it was time to set a goal that was ambitious yet achievable. “Like most young people I loved music, but I decided to move from passive listening to actually playing music, and while I was at it I wasn’t going to learn some chords on an electric bass guitar but learn to play the piano.”

Not just that, but he decided that within three years he would be good enough to be paid to play the piano.

“A lot of people, my friends included, thought I was boastful or even a little naïve, but naturally

I didn’t just will myself to play, I had to learn it the conventional way.” And so he took classes, not with the indifferent attitude of most who take on such an interest, but with the dedication, sacrifice and passion of the person who truly wants to master the skill in question. “It was a lot of work, I can assure you, and naturally there were times when I got fed up, but I persevered, and in this I had the full support of my parents, who were not adventurous people themselves but never stood in my way. You could say that they didn’t teach me to fly, but they never clipped my wings either, and for that I am very grateful.”

Free of the pressure to find a

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Johan Ernst Nilson is an explorer, an adventurer, mountaineer, author, speaker, environmentalist, coach, guide and peace campaigner. A man of many talents and ambitions, he is one of those people with a life force too strong to pin down to a single skill or profession. In other words, someone to seek inspiration from.

‘normal’ job, Johan could focus on achieving what was to become the first of many goals he would set himself. “One evening, after performing at the Grand Hotel in Stockholm, I was having a drink with some friends who reminded me how bad I’d been at gym back at school. They were impressed at how I had mastered the piano but put it down to an innate natural skill.

By now I knew that this was not so, and that I had opened the door to something we all have to varying degrees, which is the mental and internal power to persevere and make things happen. So I took a bet, saying that within a year I would have completed an expedition from Stockholm to the Sahara.”

It was to be the first of several such expeditions, which saw him cycle, kayak and ultimately use a flying boat of his own design to cross thousands of kilometres of varied terrain from Sweden to Marbella en route to the Sahara. In the process, a young adventurer and explorer was born whose Antarctic voyage and scaling of the world’s leading peaks, including Mount McKinley, Aconcagua and Everest have seen him awarded by The Explorers Club and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences among others. In addition to jetski adventures across the Atlantic there is also a more serious side to Johan, as he takes pleasure in guiding children with disabilities or

health problems to such peaks as Kebnekaise in Sweden or Mount Elbrus in the Caucasus, as well as providing motivational lectures on and campaigning for respect for the environment.

A Global Ambassador for an organisation called Non-Violence, which raises awareness about global violence, Johan’s latest project will see him assemble a team to become the first individuals allowed to climb Mount Hillary and Mount Tenzing in Nepal. “If we succeed, we’ll have the honour of being the first to reach the summits of these 7,600 and 7,900 metre Himalayan peaks, and we have permission to erect the symbol of the NonViolence movement, a revolver with

a knot in the barrel, on it.” Heaven knows how Johan will manage to get this large metal sculpture to the peak, but his approach to life is one of always seeking the solution, even if it isn’t immediately obvious.

“This is something that being out in the wilds on your own teaches you, especially when it becomes a question of survival.”

Johan Ernst Nilson and his team will set off on 23 March for this two-month expedition and intend to post notice of their success by mid-May, so keep a lookout for the latest challenge of this inspiring 21st century adventurer with his heart in the right place. i www.johanernst.com

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THE STYLE decor

THE RENAISSANCE OF

The Rock Hotel Breathtaking views

She turns 83 this year but, far from showing her age, the Rock Hotel is looking ravishing after a stunning 10-month makeover, ready to share her history and hospitality with a new generation of guests.

WORDS BELINDA BECKETT PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF THE ROCK HOTEL AND BY JAYDEN FA

'G

ibraltar’s new and beautiful hotel offers every modern comfort to those who wish to visit this delightful little corner of the Empire’, reads a postcard printed in the 1930s, depicting The Rock Hotel in her flapper days.

The Empire is history, and there have been four changes of British monarch since then, yet this veritable grand dame of hotels is looking just as glamorous today.

Of course, it’s no secret that she’s had ‘work done’, including massive internal surgery to lift floors, lower ceilings, reframe and double glaze windows and give her new plumbing and wiring!

With talk of sky bars and spas at one point, some of her admirers were concerned about mutton being dressed up as lamb. But like the best cosmetic surgery jobs, her refreshed new look is subtle and appropriate for an octogenarian wishing to age gracefully.

She’s still genteel British colonial meets glorious Art Deco – but now with a headturning 21st century update representing a multi-million pound investment.

A palette in 50 shades of earthy colours, from bitter chocolate to mushroom and buttermilk, creates a sepia-toned effect like a photograph from the last century, while upping the ante from faded elegance to fabulous four-star deluxe.

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“A palette in 50 shades of earthy colours creates a sepia-toned effect, like a photograph from the last century”

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The luminous lounge

Carpets have been tossed out in favour of warm, natural wood flooring, reverse hot and cold air-conditioning has replaced the cranky old heating system, many of the bedrooms sport rainforest showers instead of bathtubs, and every guestroom floor boasts a spacious lobby with squashy sofas and soft lighting.

Space has been gained by putting previously defunct areas to new use, so there are 84 bedrooms and four suites as well as five Junior Suites.

Most amazingly, the hotel has remained open throughout this magical transformation. A project management company specialising in ‘working hotel’ refurbishments came up with a schedule that caused minimum disruption for all. Guests, travel agencies and tour operators were all made aware of the project. Dust and noise were confined behind solid wall screens showcasing architects drawings, providing

updates on the work in progress. Most of the bedrooms were finished well before the start of last summer season.

First impressions count and the most obvious exterior change is the hotel’s new snow-white coat of paint. Built into the side of the limestone cliff overlooking the lush Botanical Gardens, on eye level with cable car travellers, you can see the façade shimmering in the distance from the top of Main Street. At closer quarters, you notice The Rock Hotel sign, picked out in sky blue Hercule Poirot lettering.

Indeed, you almost expect to bump into Agatha Christie’s dapper Belgian detective sipping his welcome sherry in the lobby, where one of the greatest transformations has taken place. Talk about a dramatic entrance – the long marble reception desk is now flanked by wall panels covered in hessian-textured

paper with wengue wood trim, aptly emulating the colours of Louis Vuitton luggage. The original white marble floor was partially taken up and relaid with a stunning black and white chessboard inlay.

It’s worth noting here that smart room cards have replaced the old-style keys with their cuddly toy monkey tags. This will be appreciated by most guests as, apart from the obvious bulge in the trouser pocket they created, they squeaked when pressed, often at inopportune moments!

Of Gibraltar’s real monkeys, some known to be fans of the hotel, there has been no sign… in fact, there has been a complete absence of unwelcome furry visitors since one entire troupe was shipped off to Scotland last year. But, as double insurance, monkey-proof windows in the bedrooms which tilt open from the top will keep any future inquisitive primates at bay.

Balcony for two

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Transformation: the new-look lounge and bar

“You almost expect to bump into Agatha Christie’s dapper Belgian detective sipping his welcome sherry in the lobby”

Above the lobby in the lounge, sunshine streams through the colonnade of arched windows, making this luminous space seem even more incandescent with its new pastel colour scheme and light-reflecting, mirror-panel doors. The exterior panorama has changed but you still get Imax cinema views stretching from Africa to Algeciras across one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes – now with Queensway Quay and Ocean Village marina vistas thrown in too!

Vintage-look wood floors, louvered screens and coffered ceilings with white beams and bamboo-textured paper are other nods to Gibraltar’s colonial past.

Many original pieces have been retained, like the heavy cream marble lamp bases, which are now topped with new shades.

Some new objets d’art created especially for the hotel have been added: a raffish silver rhino ornament; giant wooden wall sculptures hand-carved in the shape of leaves.

Squashy sofas and armchairs upholstered in tactile fabrics and leathers in shades of toasted teacake and clotted cream are a reminder that English afternoon tea is still a favourite time-honoured ritual, served in the Lobby Lounge Bar and on the iconic Wisteria Terrace whose gnarled old vines sprout purple blossom twice-yearly. This dreamy outdoor space has been refreshed and now hooks up with the stunning new restaurant for al fresco dining (see our restaurant review towards the back of this issue).

A snazzy new cocktail bar takes centre stage in the lounge. No longer tucked away in a separate room (now the restaurant), it has become a convivial new meeting place with comfy high seats where guests can come sociably together around the threesided bar.

Also ousted from the old bar, are framed photographs of some of the many guests who have signed the Visitor’s Book, down the decades: Errol Flynn, Sir Alec Guinness, Andres Segovia, Sir Winston Churchill, General Eisenhower, along with a representative selection of British royals, cabinet ministers, football managers and more current stars from Gibraltar’s annual Music Festival. They will take up residence in a new gallery in the upper lobby, touching mementos to the hotel’s incomparable history.

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Often, the guests themselves bring that history to life. “Only the other week, a young man came to see us because this was the hotel where his grandparents had met here during the war, when she was a nurse and he was a serving officer,” says Sales Executive Leanne Delaney.

Many guests have been holidaying at the hotel for decades and seem to heartily approve of the new look. “Everyone loves it and quite a few guests have compared it to London’s 5-star Corinthia Hotel, or Raffles in Singapore,” says Leanne. Having sipped a Singapore Sling in that iconic establishment myself, many years ago, I see what they mean.

Guest floors, minus their orange carpet and blood red bedroom doors, are unrecognisably airy and spacious in their fresh pastel hues. Bedrooms are decorated in restful shades of pale olive green, wengue and biscuit, with pine-coloured floors. The beds are romantically colonial, dressed in their crisp white canopies.

All the bedrooms are southwest-facing and en suite, as before, but now with sumptuous Porcelanosa bathrooms and showers. Some rooms still have bath tubs but no longer the playful yellow rubber ducks that drove some of the guests quackers! Wardrobes in white wood and glass slide back to reveal new safes for guests’ valuables, and there’s wifi and flat-screen satellite TV. Balconies and terraces sport new cane furniture. Guests are still provided with a kettle, cafetière, teapot and all the ingredients for brewing up their own tea and coffee.

The former restaurant becomes the new conference and meetings room, renamed the Victory Suite after its impressive mural depicting the Battle of Trafalgar raging in front of the Rock (artistic licence, as it actually took place much further west, at Cape Trafalgar). The adjoining Sunset Terrace, once a storeroom, has been given a new lease of life with a wood-effect tiled floor, rattan sofas and decorative bay trees. With its dramatic views, it will be a winner for conference coffee breaks and cocktail parties. The Rock is renowned for its banqueting and events catering and can comfortably handle small-to-medium conferences of up to 100 delegates.

En suite dreams with a colonial touch

"Fabrics and leathers in toasted teacake and clotted cream colours are a reminder that English afternoon tea is still a time-honoured ritual”

The restaurant struts sepia-toned style

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Cool pool

Over the road, next to the hotel’s private garden and outdoor pool, the sumptuous Moroccan khaima seating 220 guests is in big demand for glitzy weddings (Gibraltar Chief Minister Fabian Picardo’s included). The bottle green and burgundy canvas tent will shortly be replaced with one in white, the better to blend with bridal colour themes. The pool restaurant has a satellite kitchen and fully-stocked bar and hosts weekly barbeques, among other events, in summer.

“No other hotel in Gibraltar has a pool the size of the Rock Hotel’s and we keep it open from the beginning of April to the end of October, which is also unusual,” says Leanne.

Happily, amid all these changes, the Rock Hotel has hung on to many of the features people love best: the umbrellas ‘for the use of guests in inclement weather’; the antique afternoon tea trolley with its charming silver cake stands; the wonderful old oak newspaper

The khaima, for magical events

stand in the lounge, with its copies of The Times and The Telegraph hanging from wooden binders.

Not forgetting those 1930s hotel postcards which can still be bought today. Who needs WhatsApp when you can indulge in the delightfully anachronistic ritual of licking stamps! You can even sit at one of the antique desks from which scores of famous visitors have penned their own postcards home, over the decades. It’s all part of the special guest experience at this legendary hotel.

But if you want real history and nostalgia, talk to the people who work here. They are what’s changed the least. Many have worked here for 20, 30 or even 40 years and that’s part of what keeps guests coming back – for the wonderful staff who understand their every need, and the colourful tales they have to tell. g Further information www.rockhotelgibraltar.com

Rock Around The Clock »» 8-10am: The buffet breakfasts are legendary and you don’t have to be a guest to enjoy them.

We recommend a long, lingering full English on the Wisteria Terrace. For time-challenged executives, the continental Express Breakfast will do nicely. »» 12-4pm: For business people who need a congenial spot to talk shop, the Lobby Lounge Bar offers space, privacy and an eclectic menu: Moroccan chicken pastille, smoked salmon brioche, pulled pork and glazed cheddar sandwiches all sound lipsmackin’ good. »» 4-6pm: Everything stops for tea, as much of an institution at the Rock as the London Ritz. You get a silver cake stand heaped high with finger sandwiches, home-baked cakes and scones with jam and cream, plus a pot of English tea for £13.95. »» 6-8pm: When the sun’s over the yard arm, bar flies head to the lounge for a retro Rock cocktail, a refreshingly British glass of Pimms or a funky Rock Ape Cocktail as cheeky as its namesakes. »» 7.30-11pm: Dinner is served. Read our review further on in this issue.

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THE STYLE fashion

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In this edition, in which we celebrate all things colourful, there can be no better fashion choice than Benetton. Cool, affordable and sturdy, this fashion house has always been associated with cultural diversity, environmental awareness and social commitment, making it the number one choice for the city girl with a big heart. Benetton supports a plethora of causes – everything from children’s groups to environmental causes and animal rights. This month, we pay homage to this dynamic brand, wishing it a long and fruitful existence, for what would our world be without colour? Compiled by Marisa CUTILLAS

Not quite neutral

United Colors of

Benetton

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Orange: Colour of joy

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Indigo Inspirations

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Pastel perfection i www.benetton.com

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THE STYLE fashion

1

4

Asymmetric earrings

by Ararat Ring by Accessorize Gold gemstone earrings

by Aisling Wallace Evening bag by Ralph Lauren

Bag by Juicy Couture Colourful bangles by A Piece of Jewellery London

2

6

Tote bag by Ralph Lauren Patent leather belt

by Ralph Lauren

Crossbody bag

by Ralph Lauren One shoulder lace dress

by Juicy Couture Skinny trousers

by Juicy Couture

3 Evening clutch

by Ralph Lauren Silver and jade necklace by A Piece of Jewellery London Imperial Jade watch

by Chopard

5 Sandal by Ralph Lauren

CONTACTS ACCESSORIZE: www.accessorize.com AISLING WALLACE: www.aislingwallace.com A PIECE OF JEWELLERY LONDON: www.apieceofjewellerylondon.co.uk ARARAT: www.araratjoyas.com CHOPARD: www.chopard.com JUICY COUTURE: www.juicycouture.com RALPH LAUREN: www.ralphlauren.com

COLOUR

1

SO

2

G N I R P S F

Vivid colours are the new black, as they tend to be when Spring comes round. Marisa Cutillas brings you a select list of items which will brighten up your life.

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4 3

5

6

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THE STYLE health

SPORTS NUTRITION

Powering it Up for Maximum Performance WORDS MARISA CUTILLAS

ADVICE

Food is a fuel for most of us but for athletes, the right meal can mark the difference between breaking a record and taking home second place.

Athletes push their bodies to great extremes and this means that they require a large caloric intake which is rich in nutritional value. To achieve peak performance, athletes should ensure they consume the following foods:

Z CARBOHYDRATES Before a big game, athletes are advised to tuck into pasta, potatoes, cereals, grains and other highly nutritious complex carbohydrate sources.

In the early stages of moderate exercise, carbohydrates provide up to 50 per cent of the energy athletes need. During digestion, carbohydrates are converted into glucose and stored in the muscles as glycogen, which is reconverted into glucose for energy during exercise. If athletes engage in vigorous exercise that lasts beyond 90 minutes, they may find that they run out of stored glycogen. They should therefore load up on carbohydrates during the week prior to their high-endurance event; carbohydrates should make up around 50 per cent of the total calories consumed.

Three to five days before the sporting event, this amount should be increased to 70 per cent of the athlete’s daily calories.

Rest is also vital before the big day, so athletes should aim to sleep early for a few days before their competition.

Z PROTEINS Athletes should ensure that around 12 per cent of their daily caloric intake comprises proteins. Endurance athletes should up this amount to around 1.4 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. Athletes specialising in weightlifting and strength-based exercises may need to consume up to 1.7 grams per kilogram of body weight. Keen athletes find that sports drinks and bars can give them a real

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protein boost when they most need it. Top products include: Z USN MUSCLE FUEL ANABOLIC This tasty shake provides you with an impressive 50 grams of protein and 78 grams of carbohydrates, making it the ultimate all-in-one supplement to support muscle recovery, growth and performance. It also contains Vitamins B6, B12, C and E, zinc, calcium, biotin, pantothenic acid (which helps reduce tiredness) and tolerase TM pH-stable lactase (a lactase enzyme which can aid in lactose digestion).

Z PROTEIN DRINKS We love MaxiMuscle and USN protein drinks, which are packed full of protein and have a refreshing taste which hits the right spot after a tough workout.

Z PHD PHARMA WHEY (comprised of a unique whey protein blend, one of the

finest bio-engineered formulations on the market).

Z Holland & Barrett stocks many more protein supplements. One very popular product of late is BOUNCE PROTEIN BALL (a tasty gluten- and wheat-free pocket rocket packed with almonds and high quality protein to refuel the body and satisfy hunger, with 12g of whey protein).

Z FATS Fats are another crucial source of energy for sportspersons. When a sport activity lasts for over an hour, the body may begin to use fat for energy.

Athletes should ensure that their fat intake amounts to at least 15 per cent of their total caloric intake.

Z VITAMINS AND MINERALS Most athletes obtain the vitamins they require through proteins and carbohydrates in the foods they consume. B vitamins, thiamin and

riboflavin are vital for energy production, though they are normally present in abundance in a normal healthy diet. If you are active at sports, try to obtain all the minerals you need from nutrient-packed fruits such as bananas and citrus fruits; the latter are also antioxidant-rich, which will help the body fight the free radicals that cause oxidation.

Z FRUITS AND VEGETABLES, WHOLE GRAINS AND CEREALS will ensure your iron intake is adequate. If you are iron deficient, see your doctor about taking a product like Spatone’s Apple Liquid Iron Supplement, which contains your daily required dose of iron, plus Vitamin C, which aids in iron absorption. For optimal calcium levels and to avoid osteoporosis in the future, consume enough dairy or take a supplement like Holland & Barrett’s Calcium Magnesium & Zinc Caplets, which helps maintain bone strength. Maxifuel Sports Vitamin Capsules contain a scientific multinutrient blend designed to support health and wellness in athletes who like to push their limits. They contain everything from antioxidant-rich Vitamin A to folic acid, B vitamins and Vitamin E. Food supplements must not be used as a substitute for a varied and balanced diet and a healthy lifestyle. If you are pregnant, breastfeeding, taking any medications or under medical supervision, please consult a doctor or healthcare professional before use.

g 160 Main Street, Gibraltar. Tel: +350 200 49504. Facebook.com/hollandandbarrettgibraltar 2/25/15 5:31 PM

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local

Uni Countdown

There are only six months to go until Gibraltar’s first university opens its doors at Europa Point in September. With building well underway, new architects’ drawings have been released showing the detail of the atrium. This will be a focal feature of the campus, linking and enhancing existing buildings with a glass structure. Education Minister Gilbert Licudi recently returned from missions to universities in London and Malta to discuss course collaborations and other educational tie-ins necessary for the opening and future development of the University. “We have been provided not just with useful and encouraging advice based on experience but also with a willingness to assist us in any way and to collaborate with the University of Gibraltar on joint projects,” said Licudi. “The more we discuss our plans with others, the more exciting the University project becomes.”

Green Card

Gibraltar’s Department of the Environment has joined the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the world’s largest global environmental network. A Government statement describes it as “a ground-breaking achievement, given the international reputation and role of the IUCN, which acts as a United Nations observer and has consultative status on several international conventions on nature conservation, biodiversity and climate change.” Membership will enable Gibraltar to provide input to the policy advice and technical support that the IUCN offers to the OECD, the World Bank, the G8, the G77, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and the World Economic Forum, among other multinational institutions. It will also benefit from the IUCN’s scientific network, convening power and access to high-level political, economic and social decision-making.

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Gourmet globe-trotting Take your taste-buds on a world tour at the Caleta Hotel’s stylish new Bay View Lounge and Bistro. The restaurant’s exciting three-course gastro menu features dishes from 16 countries including Mexican fajitas, Japanse sushi, Peruvian-style quinoa lentil salad, Thai beef noodles and Greek moussaka. The adjoining lounge with its ocean views is the perfect spot to enjoy an aperitif or round your evening off. A Latin Jazz Trio every Wednesday night, and folk with The Valerga Brothers on Fridays from 7-10.30pm, provide extra excuses to linger and will be welcome additions to the Rock’s nightlife. Said General Manager, Franco Ostuni: “With our two-rosette fine-dining Italian restaurant, Nunos, and the main hotel restaurant which is open every day for international buffet style lunches and dinners, we are the only hotel in Gibraltar offering three different styles of dining under one roof.” g To book, Tel: +350 200 76501/www.caletahotel.com

Gaming Afloat, pending licence

A stylish new casino will add to the attractions for guests aboard Sunborn Yacht Hotel this spring. Casino Sunborn will offer players more than 60 slot machines, four roulette tables and four card tables. Set to open in April, subject to the granting of a licence and regulatory approval from the Gibraltar Licensing Authority, it is a joint venture between Sunborn and fellow Finnish company Paf, which has 50 years experience in running cruise ship casinos, online gaming and land-based operations. “As two well established Finnish-based companies, we have a strong platform to establish an international casino business in Gibraltar,” said Hans Niemi, Executive Director of Sunborn. “There is excellent potential for this and other future casino investments for Sunborn in Gibraltar and on future yacht hotels.” Paf CEO Anders Ingves described the venture as “a big and exciting step into Europe.” g www.sunborngibraltar.com

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Junior DJs Gibraltar’s four youth clubs have got together with local DJ Jonathan Fortunato to teach youngsters the techniques at the turntables. By learning to spin cool sounds they develop music and technology skills and get a chance to strut their stuff in public too, latterly at Laguna Youth Club’s Valentine’s Day Disco (pictured). You can see them back in action at Laguna Youth Club on March 28, part of an Easter project run in conjunction with the Royal Gibraltar Police. g Further information from Mark Zammit at gibyouth@gibtelecom.net

Book Day

Gibraltar is celebrating World Book Day on March 5 with events themed on Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, which turns 150 this year. Whacky fashion designer, Dame Vivien Westwood, has designed the cover for the anniversary edition (pictured). A Book Fair and Book Crossing (free exchange) will open at John Mackintosh Hall from 10am, with local authors signing copies from noon. Children aged four to eight are encouraged to come dressed as their favourite book character for Story Time and Fun Games at 4pm. The Library Cafeteria will provide refreshments throughout the day as well as a special afternoon tea. g Further information,

Tel: 200 75669 or email culture.info@culture.gov.gi

TTMS Joins GSX

T&T Management Services Limited (TTMS) has been formally approved as a Listing Member of the Gibraltar Stock Exchange following the inaugural launch of GSX in late 2014. Following its successful application, TTMS can now work closely with prospective applicants in order to ensure that GSX’s regulatory requirements are adhered to, in addition to providing the continuous services required by an entity listed on the exchange. “This is a significant and essential step forward which makes TTMS, as a Listing Member, an integral part of the process for entities wishing to list on the GSX,” commented a TTMS spokesperson. “At present, GSX is limited to the listing of open-ended funds but it is envisaged that it will commence listing closed-ended funds in the near future, and proceed to expand thereafter.” g Further information on GSX can be

found at www.gsx.gi or by emailing the financial services team at financial.services@triay.com

Lifestyle Quiz Gibraltar has been conducting a new doorstep survey to determine the state of the nation’s health. During JanuaryMarch, uniformed Health Authority surveyors have been collecting data from 750 adults randomly selected from the electoral roll, asking them about their health and lifestyle. The results will be published at the end of the year. The last survey, carried out in 2008, revealed that: • 60% of Gibraltarians were clinically overweight or obese

• 75% of locals were not eating their five a day • 29% of the population smoked • 31% of young people went binge drinking at least once a week Commented Dr Vijay Kumar, Director of Public Health: “Such surveys are usually conducted only every five years or so in large countries like the UK. For a small country like Gibraltar to do the same demonstrates its farsightedness.

The information gained will be invaluable in determining future health priorities.”

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WTCs Talk Turkey

Confidence Classes

Gibraltar Youth Centre is reintroducing workshops to help teenagers develop identity and self-belief through the dramatic arts. Performing Issues: Be True, Be You is open to youngsters aged 13 to 18. Workshops will use poetry, music, dance and drama to explore everything from self-esteem to adolescent social issues such as alcohol, drug misuse and self-harming. Participants will create an individual or group performing arts piece about their experiences, culminating in a full-blown production for family and friends.

Workshops commence in March and run every Wednesday from 5.30–8.30pm at Line Wall Road Youth Centre.

With a year to go until completion of its own World Trade Centre, Gibraltar has been networking with its new buddies at WTC Europe in Istanbul, and a trade mission to Moscow is in the offing as a result. The event united representatives from more than 25 WTCs (pictured), a network capable of delivering strategic partnerships which represents “a massive opportunity for Gibraltar and for companies looking to expand in specific geographies,” says Pete Burgess, Head of Sales & Marketing for WTC Gibraltar.

“We are now planning a mission to Moscow to showcase Gibraltar to businesses and individuals, which WTC Moscow will host and manage. Cities such as Tallinn have highly-developed technical sectors with a burgeoning innovation centre and skilled resource,” he adds. “Gibraltar can tap into this resource to support its own initiatives.” To date, 64% of space has been reserved in what will be Gibraltar’s largest single office centre. g www.worldtradecenter.gi

g Further information, Tel: 200 41948 or email youthcentre@gibtelecom.net

Drama Week

Budding thespians will be entertaining audiences and hoping for rave reviews at this year’s Gibraltar International Drama Festival. As well as a trophy and main prize of £1,000 for Best Play, there are awards for Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Player and Best Young Performer, among others. The festival is open to any drama group and members will qualify for a small grant to help towards props and costumes. Gibraltar’s equivalent of the Olivier Awards takes place at the Ince’s Hall Theatre from March 23 to 28. g Further information from GCS

Events Department, Tel: 200 67236/culture.info@culture.gov.gi

Darts Trophy

Gibraltar has hit the bullseye with its annual Darts Trophy, which pits the sport’s top players against local talent. This year World Champion Gary Anderson, World Number One Michael van Gerwen and reigning Gibraltar Darts Trophy winner James Wade will compete alongside four local players for a first prize of £25,000. The event will take place over six sessions from March 20 – 22, at The Tercentenary Sports Hall, with the quarter-finals, semi-finals and finals played out on Sunday from 7pm. Organised by the Ministry of Sports in conjunction with the Professional Darts Corporation, it is one of nine European Tour events being held throughout 2015, with live internet streaming worldwide. g Tickets are on sale from the Ministry of Sports, 3rd

Floor, City Hall, by phone on Tel: +350 200 47592 or email mschy.info@gibraltar.gov.gi ESSENTIALMAGAZINE.COM MARCH/APRIL 2015 / 67

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On the Money

Gibraltar is bidding to become the EU domicile of choice across the full spectrum of financial services with a ‘ground breaking’ overhaul of its legislative and regulatory framework. The Government is working with its Financial Services Commission to streamline over 80 different pieces of current legislation and multiple FSC guidance notes into one Act and one accompanying regulatory handbook. Said Albert Isola, Minister for Financial Services and Gaming: “This simpler, highly navigable legal framework will result in a more efficient and responsive regulatory regime, building on enhancing the key elements of our reputation, regulation and speed to market.” Added Samantha Barass, FSC Chief Executive: “The new framework will significantly enhance our ability to protect consumers and the reputation of Gibraltar financial and professional services, whilst being easy for the industry to do business with. g The changes are set out on the FSC website. www.fsc.gi

War Stories

To marks this year’s 75th anniversary of the wartime evacuation of Gibraltar, you can tune in to fascinating first-hand audio testimonies from evacuees on the National Archives website.

The website showcases more than 13,000 records of the event, including the names and addresses of each evacuee, their date of embarkation, destination and details of the ship they sailed on. The database also features images, records of military births, marriages and deaths and inhabitants dating back to the 18th century – some 200,000 entries prepared

by Archivist Anthony Pitaluga in an ongoing programme to digitise the Rock’s history. Commented Deputy Chief Minister Dr Joseph Garcia: “It is of incalculable historical value that these records are now open, both for serious research and also for any individual who may simply want to learn more about their friends and family at the touch of a button.” g www.nationalarchives.gi

Nature Festival

Professor Clive Finlayson, Director of the Gibraltar Museum, will be the opening speaker at the Nature Festival of the Strait of Gibraltar in Spain. Professor Finlayson will speak on Hominids in Paradise, the story of the Neanderthals and their relationships with the birds in the Strait of Gibraltar. The Huerta Grande is a rural lodge situated in Pelayo between Algeciras and Tarifa which will host the event for three days from 27 March.

The event will include lectures, workshops and field trips to observe bird migration and whale and dolphin movements in the Strait of Gibraltar. The talks will be given by ornithologists and naturalists including Alejandro Onrubia of MIGRES, who heads the current Bird Migration Investigation in the Strait of Gibraltar, and Maite Ikarán, an expert on marine turtles, reptiles and amphibians who will look at sea turtle migration. g www.huertagrande.com

Commonwealth Connections

Gibraltar’s new Tourism Minister, Samantha Sacramento, recently hosted a Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians Conference aimed at resolving the problems of violence against women and girls. The Right Honourable Baroness Scotland of Asthal QC, former Attorney General of England and Wales, spoke of her experience of reducing rates of gender-based violence in the UK during the session, chaired by Minister Sacramento. Other sessions included the sharing of police prevention strategies and how governments can work together with the relevant authorities and non-governmental organisations to prevent and protect against violence towards women and girls, including on social media. Describing the conference as “a resounding success”, the Minister commented: “Meeting with fellow women Parliamentarians was an invaluable opportunity to learn from best-practice and take away some important insights on how we can most effectively work to eradicate violence against women and girls.”

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Tangier

THE PRO business

Up, up and away from March 29

TAKE OFF FOR

TIMINGS (all local)

TANGIER

Europe to Africa in under 30 minutes is the promise of a new scheduled air link that will boost tourism to the Rock, and open up Gibraltar to the world through it’s back door, Morocco. Belinda Beckett reports…

N

o sooner than the seat-belt sign goes off, you’ll be buckling up for landing on Royal Air Maroc’s new twice-weekly hop, skip and a jump between Gibraltar and Tangier. It’s one of the world’s shortest intercontinental flights, as migrating birds know!

But what may seem to be a small blip on ATC screens when the inaugural flight takes off on March 29 is a very big deal for Gibraltar, and part of a wider approach to promote tourism, financial services and commercial affairs in Morocco.

A big bonus of the new route is that Tangier is just a stopover. The flight will actually start and finish in Casablanca, Morocco’s largest city, thereby connecting Gibraltar with the country’s financial and business nerve centre.

The city is also Royal Air Maroc’s network hub. From its Mohammed V International Airport HQ, the national airline offers regular connecting flights to Marrakech, Agadir and, beyond, to destinations throughout Africa, the Middle East and North America.

The Gibraltar-Tangier air link dates back to the 1930s and the new economy and business class service sees the return of the first scheduled flights there since the 1990s.

Operating initially on Thursdays

SEALING THE DEAL: Neil Costa (right) and Driss Benhima, President of Royal Air Maroc

and Sundays aboard 70-seater, ATR 72 turboprop aircraft, the schedule and timings are ideal for long weekend breaks. Travel agents are expected to package Gibraltar as a two-centre holiday with Morocco, using the short flight.

Priced at a competitive (circa) £75 for an economy class return – similar to ferry fares – the 25-minute flight lands at Tangier’s new city airport, a 20-minute taxi ride to the centre (cost approx. 100 dirham/£7). The onward journey to Casablanca, including the 30-minute Tangier stopover, is two hours 25 minutes with an economy return fare from around £120.

Business class fares are still to be announced.

For Gibraltarians, the route opens up exciting new opportunities, not

least the chance to rediscover a city where they frequently spent their holidays during the 1970s and 80s, when the border was closed.

It will also be welcomed by the many Gibraltarians of Moroccan descent who have relatives in Tangier.

The flight knocks an hour off the ferry service from Gibraltar to Tangier Med, which is itself a 53km drive from the city. Until now, the only way to travel directly to Tangier was via ferry from Tarifa.

Equally, the route will encourage Moroccans to experience Gibraltar as a city break destination, helping to make up some of the £37 million shortfall in tourism revenue last year, largely due to visitors’ fears of being held up in long border queues.

It also sends a clear message to

Z THURSDAYS: Flights will leave Casablanca at 09.30, Tangier at 11.05 and arrive in Gibraltar at 12.55. Return flights leave Gibraltar at 13.45, arriving in Tangier at 13.25 and Casablanca at 15.05.

Z SUNDAYS: Flights will leave Casablanca at 13.10, Tangier at 14.45 and arrive in Gibraltar at 16.35. Return flights leave Gibraltar at 17.05, arriving in Tangier at 17.05 and Casablanca at 18.45.

Spain, which has been attempting to exclude Gibraltar from important Europe-wide aviation measures.

Announcing the new service in one of his last acts as Tourism Minister, Neil Costa said: “Gibraltar has enjoyed strong links with Morocco for years and, with the new Schengen regulations allowing Moroccan nationals to visit for a maximum of 21 days, this will mean an even larger market for inbound travel to Gibraltar, both for business and leisure.

“It also highlights Her Majesty’s Government of Gibraltar’s manifesto commitment to attract new air services to promote tourism and offer outbound opportunities to the local population and business community.”

Flights can be booked via RAM’s website, as well as all the major online flight search sites and high street travel agents, giving the route worldwide reach.

Sadly, this was not the case with the charter service to Marrakech introduced by Gibraltar company, Your Flight, last summer. It was grounded after only three months due to poor sales. g Further information, www.royalairmaroc.com

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THE LEISURE travel

It’s a

We don’t always recognise it, but this world of ours is truly a colourful place – from the greens of its forests and fields to the white of the poles and glaciers, the ochre and terracotta tones of deserts, and the blue of the oceans. The human world, likewise, occasionally explodes in riots of joyous colour, and here are some of the finest examples of brightly dazzling travel destinations.

bright world WORDS MICHEL CRUZ

Night view of Manarola, one of the five villages of the Cinque Terre

Cinque Terre, Italy For mesmerising contrasts in colour, tone and texture, few spots surpass the Cinque Terre coastal region of Liguria. Amid its dramatic rocky coastline the five towns of Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggiore not only appear to cling on to jagged cliffs, but in so doing splash dabs of bright colour onto the menacing grey stone.

Set within a region also known as the Italian Riviera, the Cinque Terre forms part of a national park where both nature and cultural heritage are protected. Hard to reach, the

relative inaccessibility of these quaint coastal jewels has preserved their charm, where steeply sloped car-free streets simply add to the attraction from the visitor’s perspective.

The dark red, ochre, orange, salmon and pale blue tones are not riotous but contrast to great effect with the natural setting, creating a sense of beauty and drama that makes these five coastal towns uniquely appealing.

Tradition has it that the houses were painted like this so that the village fishermen could identify their homes from out at sea, and make sure that their wives were out on their porches working. It’s unsure if this really was the origin of the tradition, but whatever the initial cause, it has done the Cinque Terre villages no harm at all.

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Blooming spring flowers in Holland´s famous Keukenhof

Keukenhof,

Holland

Traditional flower shop at the Keukenhof Gardens, Lisse, Netherlands

A myriad of blooming tulips in the Keukenhof park in Holland

Though its explosion of colour is derived from flowers not painted buildings, the Keukenhof is very much a manmade creation. In fact, it’s more accurately described as man’s ultimate mastery of nature’s beauty, conducted and orchestrated into a symphony of colours, textures and gently swaying movement.

Also known as the Garden of Europe, the 32-hectare park forms part of a beautifully wooded estate near Lisse, a town in the midst of Holland’s famous bulb-growing region.

Here, just a short few kilometres from the dunes of the North Sea, over seven million flowers famously burst with exuberant colour every spring, heralding the arrival of nature’s rejuvenating season in the most celebratory way imaginable.

The former hunting estate, with the beautiful Castle Keukenhof at its heart, opens its doors to visitors from mid-March to midMay, when millions of visitors from around the world come here to witness a sea of colour unfurl between green carpets of grass, tall forests, lakes, streams and bridges.

Though it is a magnificent calling card for the Dutch flower exporting industry, whose extensive tulip fields surround the estate, the Keukenhof represents gardens and landscaping traditions from around the world.

A natural environment fit for a fairytale, this idyllic manmade landscape is also used as the backdrop for annual events such as the Floriade flower parade, Christmas fairs, the Ladies Winternight, classical concertos and Castlefest, a medieval folk festival inspired by the ancient pagan traditions of Europe.

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Colourful houses, church and boats on the picturesque Venetian island of Burano

Isola di Burano, Italy A striking window from the island of Burano near Venice

Like flowers sprouting in the midst of earthy tones of rock and sand, so the little island of Burano appears like the palette of an artist floating in the mirrored waters of the Venetian Lagoon. An extended part of that legendary trading city, Burano is not so much an island as four little isles joined into one rather unique village. To stand out in a place like Venice is no mean feat, but Burano has earned notoriety in its own right thanks to the brightly coloured houses that pack its quaint little streets and squares.

Situated seven kilometres from Venice and measuring just over 21 hectares in area, this ancient littoral village of fewer than 3,000 people has always lived off a combination of trade, crafts and fishing. Much of Burano’s existence has passed in the shadow of its illustrious neighbour, but in the late 15th century the making of the intricate lace for which the island village was to become renowned increasingly brought wealth and fame.

It is not exactly known when the tradition of painting houses in bright colour first originated, but the wealth that came to Burano from the 16th century

saw its architecture grow more substantial, more colourful and better maintained. It is also during this period that rules were laid down to orchestrate the colourful profusion of the Burano townscape. These days tourism has replaced lace making as the main economic activity, so as you join the visitors and soak up the happy tones of this pretty ‘floating’ town you may not be aware of the fact that the apparently random colouring actually follows a systematic pattern.

Homeowners who wish to paint or change the colour of their properties therefore have to submit a request to do so to the authorities, who will provide a fixed range of colours to choose from for each and every individual home on the island. Just to wander through Burano’s delightful streets and canals is an uncannily pleasing experience – and one that aptly demonstrates just how powerful an impact colours can have on our state of mind and sense of wellbeing. Often visited as a quaint curiosity, this little island floating between heaven and water will have you feeling uplifted by the time you leave.

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View of downtown Willemstad, Curaçao at twilight

Willemstad, Curaçao Like a Nyhavn in the Caribbean Sea, the capital of the Dutch Antilles island of Curaçao is an historical gem richly adorned with colour. Its classic Dutch gables feature not the red brickwork of Amsterdam or Leiden but present themselves adapted here to the bright ochres, blues, greens, whites and pinks of the tropics.

Captured from the Spanish in 1634, Willemstad was named after the long succession of kings and stadholders of the name, becoming the bastion of the Dutch West Indies Company

and its trading empire. The elegant old warehouses and merchant homes that line the waterfront with such dazzling tones are the product of that trade. It is this mixing of people, goods and ideas, along with the mildly riotous transient nature of ports that makes them such a melting pot of styles and open to bright colours.

It can’t, therefore, be a coincidence that port districts such as this are colourful in tone as well as ambience.

Willemstad’s eclectic population and cultural heritage also includes one

of the oldest Jewish communities in the Western Hemisphere, with synagogues standing alongside equally bright churches, grand public buildings and trader’s mansions now converted into hotels, cafés and tourist shops – all crammed into a tightly packed district that leaps out of the Caribbean water like a pastel mosaic.

The 17th century waterfront at Nyhavn

Nyhavn,

Copenhagen

Though you won’t be walking amid a carpet of purple, red, yellow, pink and green that extends as far as the eye can see, Copenhagen’s Nyhavn harbour quarter is just as much of a fairytale setting as the Keukenhof. Indeed, it just leaps off the pages of a Hans Christian Andersen tale, mixing quaint architecture and intimate spaces with bright, friendly colours to produce what must surely be the very definition of charm.

It won’t surprise you that the celebrated Danish writer lived here for many years, no doubt drawing inspiration for the tales that would travel the world. To our modern eyes the merchant houses that line this canal and 17th century waterfront in the Danish capital have all the toy box appeal of a Lego town, but back in the day

this was the place to live.

Rich merchants wanting to be close to where their ships docked built these elegant homes on the waterside and christened the area Nyhavn – or New Harbour.

Today it is above all a lively entertainment area full of cafés, restaurants and shops where locals and tourists happily rub elbows on sunny wharf-side terraces. Classical sailing boats are encouraged to moor here, adding to the historic charm of this listed heritage district. Some have been pressed into service as museum ships, theatre boats, floating restaurants or are used for sailing trips, but their presence reminds one that this lively, happy quarter of Copenhagen was once a bustling trading port – albeit one of the prettiest ones you’ll ever come across.

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Portmeirion, Wales Not as well known as the previous destinations, but famed nonetheless as the iconic setting of the cult 1960s TV series, The Prisoner, the pretty little resort town of Portmeirion is all the more fascinating for it. Though it has all the exotic lustre of a classic Ligurian resort designed for Europe’s wealthy elite, this Welsh seaside town is a relatively recent

creation. As a matter of fact, it’s spiritual father, Sir Clough Williams-Ellis, built this idyllic interpretation of a gentleman’s retreat between 1925 and 1975, though to walk through its Italianate parks, seaside promenade and brightly coloured houses conjures up the warm breezes of the Mediterranean.

Though its creator denied it, many believe the village is styled on Portofino in Italy.

The Italian inspiration, however, is as clear in the buildings of this remarkable resort as in Sir William-Ellis’s own words: “How should I not have fallen for Portofino? Indeed, its image remained with me as an almost perfect example of the manmade adornment

and use of an exquisite site.”

And that is exactly what Portmeirion represents: to take a lovely natural setting and not detract from it but actually add beauty with manmade structures.

Some might say his buildings are twee and nostalgic or even contrived, but when compared with resort towns that have been allowed to grow organically, governed only by economic motives, Portmeirion is a pearl of human inspiration and a wonderful place to visit.

Its colourful parks, palatial mansions, charming cottages and village houses, as well its promenades, gardens and water features bring together the best of a quaint Wales and elegant Italy in an inspiring coastal setting not far from Holyhead.

Red wall with decorative detailing

A wealth of ornate architecture

The ‘Campanile’ bell tower rises above Portmerion town square

Cobbled streets and painted archway, Portmerion

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Chefchaouen old medina quarter Architectural detail in blue Chefchaouen old Medina

Chefchaouen, Morocco Where most colourful destinations are characterised by their bright combinations, this town in the northwest of Morocco is famous for being… blue. Like a mesmerising bluetoned version of an Andalusian white village, Chefchaouen’s blue-washed walls combine with their flowing architecture and almost liquid lines to cast a very particular spell.

Hippies discovered the town, nicknamed the Blue Pearl, in the 1960s, when people like Mick Jagger added to its growing international fame.

Today, it is a very popular tourist destination, with the main distinguishing feature being a blueness that imparts a particularly otherworldly quality to the Rif hill town. No doubt this is one of the reasons why Chefchaouen is popular not only with backpackers and cultural visitors, but also with those in search of a spiritual ambience.

Seen from afar, Chefchaouen is a pleasant pale blue blotch spreading across the hillside; once inside, the entire world takes on ever-varying hues of blue as walls, steps, archways, doors, passages, portals and roofs cascade around you in a free-flowing stream of blue-washed plaster. Today’s popular tourist destination was originally founded as a fortress town and partly populated with Moriscos expelled from Iberia. The fortress still stands, but Chefchaouen now happily trades on its uniquely blue existence, catering to visitors with an alluring array of markets, tearooms, curio shops and over 200 hotels distributed within its ultramarine-walled labyrinths.

Wherever you go across the globe, search out the colour and you will discover that ours is a far brighter world than we often realise – you just have to know where to look for it. e

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THE GOURMET restaurant

Take one White Lady, shaken not stirred, add wistful views across the Gibraltar Strait, and you have the perfect aperitif to a fine dining experience that’s totally ‘now’ yet charmingly retro, down to the maraschino cherry on the cocktail stick!

WORDS belinda beckett Photography jayden fa

A modern take on nostalgia

Rock Hotel Dining

O

ne of the joys of dining at Gibraltar’s landmark hotel is its aura of history. Since before WW2, countless heads of state, royals and Hollywood film stars have looked out on the same twinkling horizon from its iconic Wisteria Terrace. In the modern vernacular, that’s ‘awesome’.

The Rock has been bottling its eau de colonial ambience since it opened in 1932. Now, thanks to its recent glamorous makeover, the romance continues with a 21st century twist.

The stylish new restaurant, with its sepia-toned décor and Art Deco touches, still uncorks the genie of nostalgia.

There have been big changes afoot, not least the relocation of the original restaurant – which had no outdoor seating – to the former cocktail bar, which now takes centre stage in the lounge. Its more intimate 60-cover reincarnation spills out through French windows beneath an arbour of twisted wisteria vines.

With its panoramic views of shipping in the bay, and twice-annual bloom of fragrant purple flowers forming a fairytale canopy above, the option of terrace dining will be a big attraction in summer.

The menus have also undergone a renaissance. “The emphasis is on

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lighter dishes, modern presentation, fresh produce and a fusion of British, Spanish and Moroccan cuisine,” says Executive Head, Chef Alfred Rodriguez. With longer-stay guests in mind, there’s a daily-changing House Menu, as well as seasonally-changing à la carte choices and a range of salads you can reinvent with your own selection of ingredients and sauces.

Alfred has been at the helm for 42 years and runs a tight ship. His team is also responsible for breakfasts, lunches, the Rock’s famous afternoon teas and an impressive number of conferences.

Inspired by his mother, “still a great cook at the age of 90”, at 22 he became the youngest Head Chef of a five-star hotel (as The Rock was in 1973). He studied classic cuisine under the best in the business – the Roux Brothers – ramping up his repertoire at London’s Le Gavroche restaurant, Scotland’s Gleneagles Hotel and Cunard’s QE2.

Over the years, he has satisfied many aristocratic appetites – think Prince Andrew, the Duke of Edinburgh, the Duke and Duchess of Wessex – also winning the restaurant an AA Rosette, two RAC Dining Awards and a Heartbeat Award for healthy cuisine.

Back in the day, Alfred required a brigade of 40 chefs to turn out the Chateubriands, soufflés and crêpes suzettes flambéed at the table that were once so à la mode. Such is the change in modern eating habits, he now forewarns diners about his indulgent potato purée, made with 50 per cent butter, in case they’re counting their cholesterol.

We weren’t! We began with duck foie parfait, served with hot toast, and chicken consommé, a retro dish now back in vogue which really challenges a chef’s skills. The crystal clear soup was infused with the earthy flavour of mushrooms and an aniseed hint of fennel, while the richness of the paté was perfectly tempered with slices of pear caramelised in Calvados.

Fish fans should enjoy Alfred’s three-nation take on sea bass – locally-caught in Gibraltar’s territorial waters, porsupuesto! It’s steamed with a Moroccan-spiced charmoula sauce made with ripe Spanish tomatoes in a paper envelope to retain moisture, and opened with a flourish at the table to release its fragrant aromas.

We also savoured flavour-packed corn-fed chicken with polenta, jazzed up with hints of sage and parmesan, and tender rack of New Zealand lamb drizzled with a meaty rosemary jus

and a ‘pithivier’ (puff pastry tartlet) filled with creamy leak and potato.

With the same Moroccan pastry chef for 16 years, desserts are a particular triumph. Having sampled the Moroccan orange crème brûlée, with its subtle hint of exotic spices, and a crunchy raspberry and mascarpone pavlova with mango pulp, we will be back next week for the chocolate Suchard gateau with mint ice cream!

There’s also a cheeseboard served with crackers and those essential little extras – chutney, celery, grapes and walnuts – the perfect excuse to finish up your wine from a connoisseur’s selection, or order a port.

But why drink and drive when you can stay the night and enjoy the Rock’s legendary buffet breakfast!

With the terrace doors flung wide to catch the morning sunshine, you can enjoy healthy options or go for full English breakfast, with sausages and bacon sizzling in silver chafing dishes, and a chef on duty to cook your eggs to perfection.

In 2000, Sir John Mills wrote in the Guest Book: ‘My last visit here was in 1958 when I was filming I was Monty’s Double and the Hotel is still superb’. If the late actor returned in spirit today, he would only need to add one word beneath that description: ditto.

g To book a table, call Tel: +350 200 73000 or email reservations@rockhotel.gi 2/25/15 5:23 PM

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THE GOURMET wine

CALIZA

An excellent red from the Pagos de Familia Marqués de Griñón WORDS ROCIO CORRALES, SALES & MARKETING MANAGER, ANGLO HISPANO PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF PAGOS DE FAMILIA MARQUÉS DE GRIÑÓN

W

hen it comes to wines, I wonder how many of you reading this article really know what the term ‘Pagos’ means.

The word Pago, comes from the Latin Pagus, and, according to the Real Academia Española, it is the term given to a specific district or property, with particular reference to vineyards and olive groves. It is a site where the soil and microclimatic conditions differentiate it from others, the result of which is the production of wines and oils with singular features and qualities. Usually, the size and area of a Pago is limited to maintain the high quality of its products. A true Pago will have its own winery or almazara, where products made from the grapes and olives grown on the property are exclusively bottled.

The ‘Pago’ concept is, in fact, responsible for the vast majority of great wines worldwide. The reasons are relatively straightforward.

Production on the estate itself ensures excellent care of the raw materials, harvesting at the ideal time and quick transportation to the winery or oil mill. And last, but by no means least, its transformation into wine and oil is adapted to the characteristics of each grape or olive batch, which is almost always different. In a nutshell, it is an artisanal agricultural method which is unaffected by any industrial processes. The most tangible result is the transmission of the ‘pago’ characteristics to the wines and oils ensuring their unique qualities.

The lovely red wine that I have chosen for this edition is called

‘Caliza,’ meaning ‘limestone’ in Spanish. Its name pays homage to the unique soil profile at this Dominio de Valdepusa estate. The moderate layer of clay topsoil over rocky limestone produces elegantly structured wines. Caliza is a blend of Syrah (65%) and Petit Verdot (35%) and is fermented in stainless steel vats followed by ageing in French oak casks for two years. The winemaker responsible for producing this fabulous wine is Julio Mourelle.

The Dominio de Valdepusa is located in Malpica de Tajo, near Toledo, and has been owned by the Marqués de Griñón family since 1292. It was granted its own Denominación de Origen in 2002 and recently the D.O has been recognised as Spain’s first official ‘Vino de Pago’ by setting exemplary quality standards. Full of history, royalty, academia, and fine art, the land and the Pagos de Familia Marqués de Griñón can trace it origins back to monarchs, the military, patrons of the arts, and even has links to the publication of the very first Spanish grammar book and Spanish-Latin dictionary.

All wines produced in Dominio de Valdepusa regularly appear in the list of honours of great Spanish wines in competitions, guides and articles by national and international experts.

Carlos Falcó Fernandez de Córdova, the current Marqués de Griñón, is a pioneer in the modernisation of vine growing and winemaking in Spain. In 1974 he pioneered Cabernet Sauvignon in the La Mancha area and from 1991

Syrah, Petit Verdot and Graciano in the rest of Spain. These were the first steps in a series of daring new innovations.

His achievements include Spain’s first high canopy vineyard management plan (in which plants are guided in high trellises) with drip irrigation, as well as a partial root drying system devised for planting Syrah and Petit Verdot. He was also the first to implement night time grape harvesting. He holds an agricultural engineering degree from the University of Louvain in Belgium and graduated from the University of California (Davis). The Marqués de Griñón’s title has been in the family since the 14th century.

Carlos Falcó is currently Chairman of Grandes Pagos de España (Great wine estates from Spain), the Círculo Fortuny (the association of Spain’s leading luxury firms) and the family firm Pagos de Familia Marqués de Griñón, S.A. which owns the Dominio de Valdepusa, El Rincón and olive oil estates. His daughter, Xandra Falcó is the Director General of the winery.

The winery currently has a production of 350,000 bottles and is advised by the prestigious Bordeaux oenologist, Michel Rolland.

It concentrates exclusively on red wines produced from grapes from their own vineyards. The singlevariety collection includes: Dominio de Valdepusa Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah and Petit Verdot and the blends: Emeritus, Caliza and Svmma Varietalis. It was rated with 88 points

by Robert Parker in his magazine, Wine Spectator.

CALIZA 2008 ZZ Tasting Notes Deep purple in colour with ruby reflections, this wine shows alluring notes of blackberries and cassis with undertones of cinnamon and minerals. On the palate, it is beautifully full-bodied and silky with refreshing acidity and flavours that unfold into the long-lasting finish.

ZZ Food Pairing Pair this wine with Spanish-style sirloin, prime rib, rich terrines, goat cheese dishes and pisto manchego. g Available at VINOPOLIS,

5/7 Main Street, Gibraltar.

Tel: +350 200 77210. www.vinopolis.gi facebook: vinopolisgib twitter: @vinopolisgib www.pagosdefamilia.es

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restaurants All’s Well Bar & Restaurant

Gallo Nero

Mamma Mia

solo express

Unit 4, Casemates Square, Gibraltar Tel: +350 200 72987

56/58 Irish Town, Gibraltar Tel: +350 200 77832

Unit C, Boyd Street, Gibraltar Tel: +350 200 64444

Casemates Square, Gibraltar.

Tel: +350 200 62828

BEAN & gone cafe

Gatsby’s

Mons calpe suite

Taps Bar

20 Engineers Lane, Gibraltar Tel: +350 200 65334

1 /3 Watergardens 1, Waterport Ave, Gibraltar Tel: +350 200 76291

Top of The Rock, Gibraltar.

Tel: +350 200 79478

5 Ocean Village Promenade, Gibraltar.

Tel: +350 200 67575

Mumbai curry house

Gibraltar Arms

Ground floor, Block 1 Eurotowers, Gibraltar.

Tel: +350 200 73711

Theatre Royal Bar & Restaurant

Bianca’s 6/7 Admiral’s Walk, Marina Bay, Gibraltar Tel: +350 200 73379

Bridge Bar & Grill Leisure Island, Ocean Village, Gibraltar Tel: +350 200 66446

Bruno’s Unit 3, Trade Winds, Gibraltar Tel: +350 200 68444

Cafe Rojo 54 Irish Town, Gibraltar Tel: +350 200 51738

Cafe Solo

184 Main Street, Gibraltar Tel: +350 200 72133

Jumpers Wheel Restaurant 20 Rosia Road, Gibraltar Tel: +350 200 40052

Jury’s Cafe & Wine Bar 275 Main Street, Gibraltar Tel: +350 200 67898

Khan’s 7/8 Watergardens, Waterport, Gibraltar.

Tel: +350 200 50015

Nunos

60 Governor’s Street, Gibraltar Tel: +350 200 51614

The Caleta Hotel, Catalan Bay, Gibraltar.

Tel: +350 200 76501

The Chargrill Restaurant at Gala Casino

O’Reilly’s

Gala Casino, Ocean Village, Gibraltar.

Tel: +350 200 76666

Leisure Island, Ocean Village, Gibraltar.

Tel: +350 200 67888

Piccadilly Garden Bar 3B Rosia Rd, Gibraltar Tel. +350 200 75758

Pizza Express

The Clipper 78 Irish Town, Gibraltar Tel: +350 200 79791

The Cuban

Unit 17, Ocean Village, Gibraltar Tel: +350 200 50050

21B The Promenade, Ocean Village, Gibraltar.

Tel: +350 200 67889

Pizzaghetti

the island

Sir Herbert Miles Road, Catalan Bay, Gibraltar.

Tel: +350 200 72373

1008 Eurotowers, Europort Avenue, Gibraltar.

Tel: +350 200 63868

27 Leisure Island, Ocean Village, Gibraltar. Tel: +350 200 66666

Latino’s Diner

Restaurante Nunos Italiano

Casa Pepe

194/196 Main Street, Gibraltar Tel: +350 200 46660

13a Ocean Village, Gibraltar.

Tel: +350 200 68222

Unit 18, Queensway Quay Marina, Gibraltar Tel: +350 200 46967

Latinos Music Bar and Restaurant

Caleta Hotel, Sir Herbert Miles Road, Catalan Bay, Gibraltar Tel: +350 200 76501

Champion’s Planet Bar & Grill

9 Casemates Square, Gibraltar Tel: +350 200 47755

Rooftop Bistro, O’Callaghan Eliott Hotel

15 Ragged Staff Wharf, Queensway Quay, Gibraltar.

Tel: +350 200 66100

Governor’s Parade, Gibraltar +350 200 70500

The Rock Hotel Restaurant

Grand Casemates Square 3, Gibraltar Tel: +350 200 44449

Cannon Bar 27 Cannon Lane, Gibraltar Tel: +350 200 77288

Casa Brachetto 9 Chatham Counterguard, Gibraltar Tel: +350 200 48200

Unit 2B, The Tower, Marina Bay, Gibraltar Tel: +350 200 46668

Charlie’s Steakhouse & Grill 4/5 Britannia House, Marina Bay, Gibraltar Tel: +350 200 69993

Corks Wine Bar 79 Irish Town, Gibraltar Tel: +350 200 75566

El faro Marina Bay, Gibraltar Tel: +350 200 79241

El Patio Unit 11, Casemates Square, Gibraltar Tel: +350 200 40713

Kowloon Restaurant 20 Watergardens III, Gibraltar Tel: +350 200 42771

La Mamela

La Parrilla 17/18 Watergardens, Block 6, Gibraltar.

Tel: +350 200 66555

Laziz Sail 2.2, Ocean Village Marina, Gibraltar.

Tel: +350 200 40971

Le Bateau 14 Ragged Staff Wharf, Queensway Quay, Gibraltar. Tel: +350 200 66420

Lek Bangkok Unit 50 1/3, Block 5, Eurotowers, Gibraltar.

Tel: +350 200 48881

El Pulpero

Little Rock Restaurant & Bar

Unit 12A Watergardens, Waterport, Gibraltar Tel: +350 200 44786

Casemates Square, Gibraltar Tel +350 200 51977

4 Stagioni

Maharaja Indian Restaurant

16/18 Saluting Battery, Rosia Road, Gibraltar Tel: +350 200 79153

5 Tuckey’s Lane, Gibraltar Tel: +350 200 50733

Roy’s Cod Place 2/2 Watergate House, Gibraltar Tel: +350 200 76662

Sacarello’s Cafe-Restaurant 57 Irish Town, Gibraltar Tel: +350 200 70625

Seawave Bar 60 Catalan Bay Village, Gibraltar Tel: +350 200 78739

sky restaurant & Bar Sunborn Gibraltar, Ocean Village.

Tel: +350 200 16000

Solo Bar & Grill Unit 15, 4 Eurotowers, Europort Avenue, Gibraltar.

Tel: +350 200 62828

the ivy sports bar & grill The Landings Restaurant

Europa Road, Gibraltar Tel: +350 200 73000 The Royal Calpe, 176 Main Street.

Tel: +350 200 75890

The Trafalgar Bar 1a Rosia Road, Gibraltar Tel: +350 200 45370

The Waterfront 4/5 Ragged Staff Wharf, Queensway Quay, Gibraltar Tel: +350 200 45666

Tunnel Bar Restaurant Casemates Square, Gibraltar Tel: +350 200 44878

Verdi Verdi Unit G10, International Commercial Centre, Main Street, Gibraltar Tel: +350 200 60733

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