Costa Blanca North 20 - 26 October 2022 Issue 1946

COSTA BLANCA NORTH

WINTER HELP

CHARITY Help Internation al have handed over a generous donation of €500 to Project 4 All to help the vulnerable and homeless in Benidorm this winter.

Volunteers Jonny Hell raizer (Jonny Elraiz) and Jo Hollingworth accepted the donation, which will offer regular food runs and winter supplies, in cluding sleeping bags and clothes.

Help International Benidorm require con stant funding for it to con tinue its amazing work.

Run by volunteers, the charity provides help to residents and visitors of all nationalities in emergen cies, times of need and ill ness. They may have no body else to turn to. Help operates in English and covers the area from Altea down to Villajoyosa and inland to Callosa.

The inaugural meeting of the Benidorm HELP group was in January 1995.

Since that time HELP has grown and developed giving aid, assistance and advice to hundreds of people in their homes, in hospital or just visiting the area. HELP has succeeded, through a succession of

Presidents and Commit tees to improve the scope and effectiveness of its as

sistance to the communi ty.

To make a donation,

visit https://www.face book.com/Help.Interna tional.Benidorm/.

Credit: Help International

BENIDORM CHARITY: Presenting the cheque are HELP volunteers; Jennifer Illston (left) newly elected Secretary and Linda Booth (right); Registration Co-ordinator.

Meal delivery service

Betty Henderson BENIDORM Council launched a bid for a catering company to provide healthy meals for the elderly on Tuesday October 11.

The chosen company would provide meals to el derly or disabled locals’ homes as part of the ‘Men jars a casa’ scheme. The con tract will be awarded before the end of the year and will run until the end of 2024.

Bids will be considered along a criteria of potential quality of service provision and quality of assistance to vulnerable users. The con tract is worth nearly €90,000 until the end of 2024, and payments will be divided ac cordingly.

Local councillor for Social Welfare, Ángela Llorca, ex plained that “this pro gramme is aimed at improv ing nutrition for the elderly by offering them a healthy diet at home that is adapted to their needs.” She added that the council are now

taking charge of the con tract offer “because we want to reach all vulnerable elderly residents.”

Residents over the age of 65, over 60s that have car ers, and disabled people over the age of 18 are all eli gible to receive meals at home as part of the scheme.

Police hero honoured

CALPE’S Local Police station will be named after Manuel Poli carpo Moll.

The 49­year­old officer, who was posthumously awarded the Villa de Calpe Gold Medal, lost his life on September 18 as he attempted to rescue a man trapped in his car as it was swept away during a flash flood.

He had been a member of Calpe’s Local Police force for 23 years.

“All that that the town hall can do is to pay homage to him for what he did,” declared Calpe’s mayor Ana Sala at the town hall at an Extraordinary Plenary Meeting.

“And one way of doing that is with the Villa de Calpe Gold Medal.”

Sala went on to explain that, at the request of the Local Po lice force, the station would now bear Manuel Policarpo Moll’s name.

Linda Hall

The successful bidder will provide hot nutritious meals for local elderly people.

Photo credit: Ayuntamiento de Benidorm

NIBS EXTRA

Making music

THE Generalitat has autho rised the incorporation of Al tea’s Music Conservatoire into the network of professional conservatoires attached to the region’s Department of Education, Culture and Sport. “This will guarantee the con tinuance of our conservatoire, its teachers and while also ex tending our educational of fer,” Culture councillor Aurora Serrat said.

Fire damage

THE Confederacion Hidro grafica del Jucar (CHJ), respon sible for the Jucar Basin’s wa terways, will spend €1.2 million on repairing the dam age caused by forest fires in Vall d’Ebo and Beijis (Castel lon). Work involved clearing deadfalls, debris and burnt vegetation from streams and gullies and repairing erosion.

Well-aged

THE ANCHOR on Albir’s seafront is hosting an itinerant exhibition featuring wine until November 23. Entitled ‘3,000 years of Alicante’s wine cul ture’, it has been organised by the Regulatory Committee of Alicante’s Protected Designa tion of Origin, in collaboration with the Tourism and Com merce department at Alfaz Town Hall.

Budget dismay

THE central government’s 2023 Budget plans has exclud ed provision for new head quarters for Benidorm’s Na tional Police force. The existing installation, built in the 1970s for 175 officers and now obsolete and inade quate, can no longer provide a “basic, necessary and very im portant service” lamented Benidorm mayor Toni Perez.

Keeping watch

JAVEA’S Proteccion Civil volun teers kept watch for 2,895 hours between June 1 and October 12, including at night over the August long week end. All outbreaks in Javea were rapidly extinguished al though the volunteers also as sisted at the Teulada and Vall d’Ebo fires.

Frank Abrams remembered

Peter McLaren­Kennedy

THE renowned saxophonist, Frank Abrams, was remem bered by the people of Moraira in the best way they know how with an evening full of music and entertainment.

On Tuesday Oc tober 11, The Ope in Moraira played host to an evening that saw a few hun dred people turn out on a rainy evening to say goodbye.

Nearly 20 musi cians and singers turned up to

play the music that Frank had played and enjoyed. A number of the musicians

and bands had played with Frank including Laurence Archer of L A Roxx, who spoke highly of Frank’s ability

Donation for school

WORSHIPFUL Brother Peter Johnson, the Worshipful Master of Arenal De portiva Lodge No 65, accompanied by several of his Senior Lodge Officers were delighted to attend the Raquel Paya special needs school in Denia on Thursday October 13, to make a dona tion of €1,000. The Lodge members were treated to a tour of the school by Principal Miguel Ivars and Secretary Oscar Caselles. They were shown some of the projects being undertaken by the students, which included a stop motion animation photography pro

ject and an interactive painting project by two specialised teachers visiting from Cuba! The visit was completed by a delightful serving of coffee and cakes, made and presented by students at the school. The money was raised partly from the proceeds of a very suc cessful barbecue and part of the pro ceeds from the Provincial golf tourna ment held earlier in the summer.

If you have an interest in joining Freemasonry, please contact us on the following address sec@glpvalencia.com

Breast Cancer History

AS the world marks Breast Cancer Awareness Month with fundraising activities and events to raise awareness and prevent breast cancer, we take a look at the history of the month.

The iconic breast cancer pink ribbon was cre ated in 1991 at the Race for the Cure in New York when the Susan Komen Foundation handed out pink ribbons to competitors.

Then, a campaign by Estée Lauder in 1992 handed out 1.5 million pink ribbons accompa nied by a card on breast self­exams from its beauty counters.

They explained the colour choice, “For women who experience cancer as predominantly a loss of womanhood, what better colour to pin on than pink ­ girlie, pretty, healthy pink?”

Breast cancer was detected as long ago as 1600 BC. Now, scientists encourage preventa tive action including living a healthy lifestyle to reduce risks of breast cancer. Survivor, Emma, now advocates for healthy lifestyles, saying “people should have the information they need so they can make an informed choice for them selves.”

Funding for dogs

THE Akira Dog Sanctu ary may have had an extended summer break, but they have been as busy as ever raising funds through the shop, social events, and furniture sales.

who knew Frank said he was a big character and full of fun.

Those that attended the evening were also able to sign a book of remembrance, fin ishing off a perfect way to re member one of rock’s own, Frank Abrams.

‘Oh What a Night’

THE Royal British Legion Concert Band together with Stevie Spit, Crescendo Choir and the Jersey Boys performed a spectacular show to a full house.

The gala charity concert was held on Saturday October 15, in the presti gious Don Pancho Hotel, Benidorm.

Jack Kemp, Spain District North Chairman welcomed everyone to the event and spoke about the impor tance of the Poppy Appeal Launch which had taken place earlier in the day.

It was certainly an evening to re member.

Shelter’s open day

Linda Hall

THE Adopta Bernia Cat Shelter in Benissa is holding an Open Day on Sunday, October 23 be tween 11am and 7pm.

There will also be a small market, to raise funds for the Shelter’s cats, as well as filled rolls, cakes and refreshments to buy. The Shelter is located in Arrabal Zval 30, Pedrera 38­18, Benissa. Adopta Bernia­Benissa is a non­profitmaking associa tion, dedicated to ensuring that the animals which are suffering in the area can have a second chance. The association ar ranges fostering care until re sponsible adoptions can be made, it helps sick cats and con trols the local feline colonies.

The charity always needs more volunteers and, above all, economic help for food and vet erinary expenses.

For more information, see their https://adoptapet.es /adoptabernia web page or vis it their Protectora de Animales Adopta Bernia ­Benissa Face book page.

The Shelter has also had a busy time with adoptions. This month Hugo, a very special dog, who thanks to the care he has been given over the past few years, has been trans formed from an emaci ated scared dog into one who is happy, con fident and at last has found his forever home.

Akira are also now featuring Podencos in their care, all deserving of their chance to find their forever family.

Fundraising events in October include the monthly quiz being held tonight, Thursday Octo ber 20, the previous quiz night which was won by Calpinos, raised a fabulous €441. There will also be an Autumn Fashion Show on November 16 to raise much needed funds.

To adopt, donate or for further information please go to www.aki ra­animals.com or www.facebook.com/a kiraanimalsanctuary.

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Image - Frank Abrams' saxophones

The perfect evening to remember Frank Abrams.

Best local cuisine

Betty Henderson

A FOOD festival is set to showcase the best of Gandia’s lo cal cuisine on Monday October 24. The third edition of the food festival will raise money for an initiative helping homeless people organised by Caritas.

Announcing the event schedule on Thursday October 13, councillor for Economy, Vicenta Ferrer said the festival will take place in Plaça Tirant since it was so popular last year. The event will also have the same structure, guests pay an entry fee, then can sample tapas and cocktails for free in the festival area.

Ferrer highlighted the council’s commitment to helping charities as well as the hospitality industry which suffered during the pandemic.

All proceeds from the festival will be used for the reno vation of the canteen in Caritas’ local day centre which cur rently sees 80 homeless people per day. Local company Oci Urbà is completing the construction work for free, but donations are needed for the materials and furniture. Lo cal Caritas manager, Francisco Carrió thanked the council, hospitality industry and local people for their generosity.

Tickets to the festival cost €20 and can be purchased from Caritas Gandia’s office.

UN comes to Alfaz

Linda Hall

ALFAZ has hosted a course on Civ il­Military Cooperation for the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

The week­long course was or ganised by the Helsinki Espana association, Spain’s Ministry of Defence and the Foreign Min istry’s Agency for International Development Cooperation (AE CID).

Isabel Muñoz, Alfaz’s Coopera tion and Volunteering councillor, and Residents’ councillor Martine Mertens, who attended the clos ing session and presentation of diplomas, stressed the impor tance to Alfaz of hosting impor tant meetings like these.

This was the first time that the course has been held outside Bel gium, and it was attended by 24 people from 15 different coun

tries who received training in or ganising humanitarian aid for civilians during an emergency.

Following a disaster, and at the request of the affected country, OCHA will step in to assess its needs, forward requests for fi nancing humanitarian aid to oth er bodies and organise meetings with donors and monitoring com mittees.

OCHA also supervises the sta tus of the contributions made in response to requests, and reports on developments.

Three outstanding concerts

A UNIQUE classical music festival took place in Altea over the weekend of October 15 and 16. The Baroque and Early Classical Music Fes tival saw musicians perform three outstanding concerts in distinct styles.

The festival was organised with collabora tion of Altea Council whose cultural represen tative, Aurora Serrat explained, “Over the years, the Baroque and Early Classical Music Festival has become known in the classical music calendar. The festival piques the interest of classical music lovers from all over who have found variety and quality in the perfor mances at our festival.” Visitors enjoyed free entry to the performances which were given by renowned groups, the Óscar Esplá Ensem ble, the Artean Ensemble and the Somni Duo.

The Óscar Esplá Ensemble opened the festi val on Saturday October 15 with their pro gramme ‘El Barroc i el seu geni. Les variacions Golberg ­ J S Bach’. The Artean Ensemble then performed ‘Hispanic Mass’ on Sunday Octo ber 16 before a closing concert by the Somni Duo, ‘Les veus del Barroc’.

UN COURSE: Participants learnt how to organise humanitarian aid in an emergency.

Photo credit: Alfaz town hall

Mayor not negligent

Linda Hall

THE Alicante High Court cleared Lliber’s mayor, Jose Juan Reus, of responsibility for a work­related accident on municipal property.

A worker soldering a met al structure over the sports ground at the Sant Cosme y Damia school in February 2017 fell four metres when the scaffolding where he was working toppled over.

There was no safety rail, the injured man had not been provided with a har ness or received training in avoiding work­related risks. His only equipment was a pair of gloves to wear as he welded the metal structure. As a result, he was badly in jured and unable to work for some time.

A Benidorm court subse quently ruled that the acci dent was the result of an ab sence of safety measures and both Reus and the in jured man’s employer re ceived six­month prison terms.

The High Court cancelled the mayor’s sentence on the grounds that it was not his responsibility to ensure safe ty at the site.

The tribunal nevertheless confirmed the town hall’s di rect civil responsibility and the mayor was ordered to pay €210,794 compensation, which will be covered by the town hall’s insurance com pany.

Some for everyone

THE Teulada­Moraira Fish ing Club recently fished sec tion C of the River Jucar.

There had been heavy rain two days earlier, and members were uncertain as to what state the river might be in, explained Gra ham Sewell.

“As we arrived, the flow was stronger than normal, and the water was brown due to mud which had been washed in,” he said.

At noon they reviewed the situation and, as several anglers had already landed fish, decided to fish on. “By the end of the match every one had caught something, which was a real result con sidering the condition of the river,” Graham said.

Graham was the clear winner with nine fish for 16 kilos and he also landed the best fish of the day weigh ing four kilos. Frank Povey came second with five fish (5.9 kilos) with Steve Hartwell with three fish (5.8

kilos) in third place. A total of 24 fish were landed for 36 kilos.

For further information about the Teulada­Moraira Fishing Club, contact Frank Povey on 966 490 338 or frankpovey1@gmail.com

Investing in futures

TEULADA local council announced a budget boost of more than €25,000 for local education services on Mon day October 10. The money granted will be used to deliver better class room resources, including textbooks and to subsidise transport to and from school.

Textbooks will be offered to local students enrolled in the current aca demic year through the new funding.

Transport funding will be available to all students under the age of 30 en rolled in full­time or part­time educa tion including students in high school,

university and vocational pro grammes. Representatives for the Teulada Department for Youth and Ed ucation, Rosana Caselles and Verónica Martínez announced the budget in crease. Casselles explained, “We will continue to add to this initiative throughout the school year, with the aim of optimising our educational sys tem while supporting families.”

Martínez added, “We are committed to providing opportunities for young people to develop their academic skills, since investing in their personal growth is investing in their futures.”

GOOD CATCH: Everyone caught something.

Image shutterstock.com/Rocksweeper

Rice is niceVoucher campaign

Betty Henderson

A VOUCHER programme to boost the local economy after the pandemic has been hailed as a great success in Villa joyosa. The local council an nounced that all vouchers available had been distributed on the ‘Bono Consumo’ cam paign on October 13.

In total Villajoyosa Council distributed 17,000 vouchers worth €10 each as part of a campaign to stimulate local economic activity. Sixty local businesses participated in the initiative which was created by the council and partially sub sidised by regional authorities.

GREAT SUCCESS: A council voucher campaign led to more than €300,000 being spent in the local economy.

Local mayor Marta Ronda announced the achievement and praised everyone who worked on the programme to make it such a success. She thanked businesses for “trust ing in the scheme” and con sumers for taking advantage of

OLIVA is marking World Mental Health Day with an active initiative running from October 20. Organisers of ‘Oliva Camina’ have designed custom walking routes and guided walks around green spaces in the town so residents can get outdoors and enjoy their local area.

The initiative aims to reduce social isolation by encouraging locals to socialise while caring for their health. Guided walks along the routes will take place on Mondays and Thursdays at

it. Ronda announced that the scheme had led to more than €300,000 of extra spending in the local economy.

Although the vouchers have now run out, consumers can still spend vouchers that they already have until October 23.

Oliva gets walking

9:30am and will cover different parts of the town. Organisers will also issue a guide to help people take advantage of local green spaces.

The project has been developed by the local Department for Health to improve health and well-being through light, social exercise. Miguel Monzonís, councillor for Health, announced the initiative for World Mental Health Day.

A SPECIAL rice event will mark the end of Benidorm food festival ‘Benidorm Gastronómi ca’ this week. The ‘Arro ces de la Tierra’ event lasts for 10 days after starting on Friday Octo ber 14.

Nineteen local restaurants will partici pate in the rice event, showcasing their best paella and local rice dishes.

A meal will cost €25 and include a wide vari ety of starters, rice dish es and a dessert as well as a drink.

This year’s rice event is the 11th edition and was launched by Benidorm mayor, Toni Pérez on October 13, who described the event as “bringing to gether diners and chefs through time and care and delicious local prod ucts.”

Photo credit: Ayuntamiento de Villajoyosa

Unique green space‘A Fling Called Swing’

A EUROPEAN Youth Volunteer Pro ject has brought smiles to many in Altea. The volunteer group ‘A Fling Called Swing’ visited a local care home to entertain residents and vis itors on Tuesday October 11.

The young people visited the Les Boqueres d’Altea Care Home to per form a special programme of swing music and dance which was very well received by the audience. Vol unteers hailed from countries across Europe including Croatia and Poland and from further afield in cluding the USA and Egypt.

The project is funded by the Euro pean Union as part of the European Solidarity Corps programme for youth in collaboration with the De

ENTERTAINMENT: Altea care home residents enjoyed a swing dance show by European youth volunteers.

Amicitia association and local or ganisations IMED Llevant, AFLICAS and Altea Council.

Project coordinator, Maria A Lav iós, explained, “the project aims to bring young volunteers together to bring local swing music to older people who have been affected by the pandemic, in ways including iso

lation and mental illness. The pro ject also aims to strengthen the cul tural links between schools and mu sical and artistic associations throughout the entire Valencian Community.”

Owing to the project’s success in Altea, the volunteers will now per form in other European countries.

A €362,000 BUDGET has been approved for the refur bishment of El Palmeral Park, one of the most unique green spaces in Alicante City.

Among the new features of the project is the conver sion of the BMX bicycle cir cuit into a track that ex tends its use to skateboards, roller skates and scooters.

The councillor for the De partment of the Environ ment, Manuel Villar, con firmed: “The design of an original and safe track for its users is envisaged.

“The number of users for

the track can be 20 or 30 at the same time, maintaining a safety margin of at least five metres. The course is designed for beginners and advanced riders and can be used from the age of 12 up wards.”

The councillor added: “The circuit has a wide route designed to obtain more speed and to be able to give height to obstacles. The banked curve has the appropriate measures and inclinations according to the BMX regulations of the Roy al Spanish Cycling Federa tion.”

Photo credit: Ayuntamiento de Altea

THE deputy mayor and head of the Alicante City & Beach Tourism Board, Mari Carmen Sanchez, confirmed that Alicante is “well positioned as a city break or getaway destina tion in order to weather the problems caused by inflation.”

During the second Ali

City break

cante Spanish Economic Forum, ‘Business leader ship and future prospects’ on Tuesday, October 11, Sanchez took part in a round

table discussion on Tourism together with the regional secretary, Francesc Colomer, the general secretary of Hos bec, Nuria Montes, and the president of the Ali cante Restaurant Associ ation (ARA), Cesar Anca.

The deputy mayor said: “In the current interna tional context we must be more competitive in terms of supply.

“We must have the commitment to confer ence tourism, incentive

Linda Hall WORK has recommenced at Altea’s municipal swimming pool, where repairs came to a halt some time ago.

Last May the original con tractor asked the town hall for an extension to the agreed deadline owing to increased prices and delays in building materials from international suppliers. Altea’s mayor Jaime

travel, teleworking and digital nomads, which are tourism products that complement the sun and beach that we fortunately have.”

Sanchez criticised the lack of train connection with the airport, the nonexistence of the highspeed train to Valencia and the poor connection with the rest of the coastal towns in the province, which means that it takes four hours to get to Denia.

Guaranteed water

LA NUCIA is preparing to build a new, larger­capacity deposit for the town’s do mestic water.

Building the 7,000­cubic metre deposit, which will cost €1.3 million, began last month on land adjoining the Rotes deposit, near the high school. If all goes ac cording to plan, work should be completed with in five months, the town hall announced.

Plans include renewing the waterpipes which carry Marina Baja Water Consor tium supplies from the wa

ter purifying plant to the main deposit, which was built in the 1980s, and to the new facility.

“During the previous leg islative term we built the purifying plant to eliminate cloudiness from the do mestic supply once and for all,” La Nucia mayor Bern abe Cano said. “The exist ing deposit will continue providing a service,” he added. “Our aim is to guar antee an efficient sufficient supply for the existing net work, and to be prepared for future growth.”

In the swim again

Llinares, together with Diego Zaragozi and Pere Barber ­ re spective councillors for Infras tructure and Sports ­ arranged several meetings with the construction company.

After what they described as “arduous negotiating” they

came to the conclusion that it was necessary to ask the con tractors to cede the project to another firm. The new com pany has picked up where their predecessors left off and expect to have completed the repairs within two months.

“We have had several months of meetings and red tape which held up the pro ject, but finally we came up with a good solution that suit ed both parties and, above all, will be good for Altea resi dents,” Pere Barber said.

Boat race winner

GILLIAN AINSWORTH , the wife of the chairman of the Costa Blanca Yacht Association has won the Chairman’s Card board Boat Challenge for the second year in a row and this time beat four other entrants

to retain the prize.

The challenge, which was held at the beginning of Octo ber, was to paddle boats, made only from cardboard sheets, tubes, duct tape and environmentally­friendly wa

ter­soluble paint around a mark set 100 metres off the beach At El Portet, Moraira, and back again in the fastest possible time. Not as simple as it sounds and of the partici pants, only two finished the course. The others sank! The good news was that the event raised over €800 for their nom inated charities (mainly has to be said thanks to Gillian’s ster ling sponsorship efforts).

Sadly the rest of the planned regatta had to be cancelled due to the inclement weather.

If you want to know more about sailing with the CBYA why not visit their website? www.cbya.org

Warning for tourists

A READER has re quested we put out a warning for tourists with regard to an increase in pickpocketing on the El Verger mar ket.

The gentleman in question was with his family on Sun day, October 9, at around 11.30am when he stopped at a stall on El Verger market.

During discus sions with the stall owner, the man was robbed. The thieves stole his wallet which was lo cated in the front of his shorts.

Just before the theft, a woman in her mid­40s with brown hair curly tied up with a rub ber band pushed in to the victim. She wore a lightcoloured skirt and a blue denim jacket.

The Guardia Civil was called and quickly arrived on the scene.

The victim gave the information to two Guardia Civil officers in uniform and two plain clothes policemen.

The Guardia Civil confirmed that an organised gang of thieves were steal ing from tourists in the markets. It is al legedly mostly women who do the stealing.

Image: LeaDigszammal/Shutterstock.com

Thieves on the prowl.

Image: Gillian Ainsworth

Chairman’s wife wins.

A NUMBER of Ukrainians, mainly women with chil dren, managed to drive out of the country and find sanc tuary across Europe follow ing the Russian invasion.

Those who arrived in Spain after often gruelling journeys were welcomed with open arms, but are suddenly facing an unex

Ukrainian refugee plea

pected and expensive prob lem.

Under Spanish law, once they have remained in Spain for six months, they are re quired to change the regis

Film festival aid

THE Ministry of Culture and Sport has granted aid of €1.3 million for the or ganisation of film festi vals and competitions in Spain.

Aid has been granted to 64 organisations pro moting film festivals and events that will devote special attention to the programming and dis semination of Spanish, EU and Latin American cinema, as well as special attention to animated films, documentaries and short films.

Thanks to the funds,

the grants cover the digi tisation and sustainability costs of the beneficiary festivals.

These grants are the first call for applications made by the Institute of Cinematography and Au diovisual Arts (ICAA) with new assessment criteria, such as the contribution of festivals and competi tions to sustainability, the promotion of effective equality of women in the sector, the attraction and training of new audiences and the inclusion of peo ple with disabilities.

tration on their car to a Spanish one at considerable expense or face a potentially significant fine if stopped by the police.

One person caught in this

situation, Margaryta Puga chova has launched a peti tion on change.org explain ing the problem and points out that she and many other refugees want to return to

Iberdrola’s volunteers

MORE than 7,000 people joined the International Volun teer Week with Iberdrola.

Iberdrola’s volunteers have thrown themselves into the more than 90 initiatives that have been developed through out the week in the different countries where the company is based. More than 7,000 vol unteers wanted to participate, 40 per cent more than last year, from Spain to the United States, Mexico, Brazil, the Unit ed Kingdom, Portugal, Greece, Italy, Germany, France, Bel gium, Japan and Australia. Un der the slogan ‘Together we build the world we want’, from October 1 to October 9, solidarity projects related to

environmental care, the inclu sion of vulnerable groups and social assistance were carried out. In Spain, native species were planted in the municipal ity of Solosancho in the province of Avila. There, more than 100 Iberdrola volunteers, together with 60 members of the AMAS Foundation and the Ande Foundation, collaborat ed in the planting of 800 native trees. The trees were planted in one of the municipalities af fected by the Navalacruz fire in 2021, which devastated nearly 22,000 hectares. The chairman of Iberdrola himself, Ignacio Galan, travelled to share the reforestation day with the vol unteers.

their homeland when the war is over but will then be forced to change the num ber plate back again when they return at further ex pense.

Money is not easy to come by and Margaryta is pleading with the Spanish authorities to follow the lead of Germany and Poland to allow Ukrainians to con tinue to drive their cars without changing the regis tration until the war is over and it is safe for them to re turn home.

EUROPOL confirmed on Friday October 14 that with the support of Eurojust, the Spanish National Police and Tax Agency they have dismantled an organised crime group believed to be running Eu rope’s biggest ‘narco­bank’.

Composed mainly of Syrian nation als, the criminal network provided fi nancial services to criminal organisa tions linked to drug trafficking in

‘Narco-bank’ dismantled

more than 20 countries.

Active since 2020, this criminal gang is believed to have laundered over €300 million per year.

Over 200 law enforcement officers raided a total of 21 locations in the Spanish provinces of Malaga and Tole

do, resulting in 32 arrests and the seizure of almost €3 million of criminal assets.

The sum of €428 205 in cash, 19 cryp tocurrency accounts worth €1.5 million, 11 luxury vehicles, 70 kilos of hashish, 1.2 tonnes of marihuana and a planta

tion with 995 marihuana plants were seized.

Organised crime groups could make payments, receive funds and even have their proceeds laundered by this inter nationally structured financial network.

The criminals ran their money laun dering activities from a local restaurant where their customers would come to deposit or collect bulk cash.

Healthy school meals

Betty Henderson

THE Spanish government is launching a new healthy eating initiative, tasked with improving healthy eat ing in schools, including boosting the fruit and veg etable content of school meals to 45 per cent from

2023. The project which was announced on Monday October 10 also aims to im prove nutrition education in schools. The government initiative includes reducing the amount of fried food served in schools and in crease organic food con

sumption by 5 per cent in schools.

The project also has an education focus, dedicating resources to helping stu dents learn about the ori gins of their food to in crease healthy and well­informed diet and well­being choices.

The British School of Barcelona has created its own education programme to coincide with the govern ment scheme and ‘Global Be Well Day’. Teachers pro moted sustainable nutri tional values to children through practical activities which hope to change atti tudes towards healthy eat ing.

Classes, workshops and assemblies with Saned or ganisation also revealed the environmental impact of food choices and involved interactive activities on sub jects such as ‘food miles’, incorporating a range of school subjects to engage as many children as possi ble and create a compre hensive response.

IN today’s article we will deal with a problem that many of our readers might have encountered at some time or another. The need to apostille or legalise a public document issued in one country for it to be admitted in another. Academic documents, death certificates, birth certifi cates, power of attorney, judicial sentences, criminal record certifi cates... There is a wide variety of

Apostille in Spain: How to legalise and apostille documents. Is it mandatory in all cases? Validity. Exceptions. Hague Convention. European Community. Legal advice.

documents that may need to be apostilled at any given time. Is the Apostille always necessary in Spain? What effects does it

have? Are there any exceptions? We analyse all these questions below.

Apostille. What does it mean? What are its main ef fects?

Let us take a rather common example. A British resident, with assets in Spain, dies in the UK. To process the inheritance, the death certificate issued in the UK needs to be duly apostilled. What is the role of the apostille? The apostille or legalisation is the process by which this document is given validity, legality and au thenticity, so that it can be recog nised by the Spanish authorities.

How does it work in practice? First, the competent authority will have to carry out the appro priate checks (authenticity of the signature, the status of the per son signing the document, etc). After that, a sheet of paper will be added to the back of the doc ument to be legalised, certifying

its authenticity. This sheet is known as an ‘apostille’.

Hague Convention of 5 Octo ber 1961

One of the most important in ternational conventions in this respect is the Hague Convention of 1961. Here, the signatory countries commit themselves to mutually recognise the authen ticity of any public document is sued in their respective territo ries. The importance of this convention lies in the fact that it has been ratified by almost 100 countries. These include the Eu ropean Community, the USA, Canada, Mexico, Australia, and many Latin American countries. Its wide acceptance in the inter national community has made

the ‘Hague Apostille’ one of the most broadly used mechanisms for the recognition of foreign documents.

Regulation (EU) 2016/1191: waiver of legalisation of certain documents

On 16 February 2019, Regula tion 2016/1191 entered into force in the European Union. This Regulation has simplified rela tions between member coun tries immensely. Its main novelty is that it contains a list of docu ments that will not require apos tille or legalisation. These include certificates of birth, death, mar riage, birth, divorce, absence of a criminal record, etc. All these documents must be accepted by the other member countries without any other requirement other than, if necessary, a sworn translation.

Apostille in Spain: Which au thority is competent in each case?

It depends on the type of doc ument to be apostilled. For ex ample, notarial documents must be apostilled by the notarial col leges (or the notaries appointed by them). Judicial documents, on the other hand, must be apos tilled by judicial authorities or offi cials. Spanish Royal Decree 1497/2011 determines which authorities are competent in each case.

If you need information about the apostille in Spain, at WhiteBaos we are experts in private in ternational law. Please, do not hesitate to contact us. Similarly, if you need to apostille British doc uments issued by the UK author ities before the offices of the For eign and Commonwealth Office, we can help you.

The information provided in this article is not intended to be legal advice, it simply conveys in formation related to legal issues.

Carlos Baos (Lawyer) - White&Baos Tel: +34 966 426 185 • info@white-baos.com White & Baos 2022 - All Rights Reserved.

CORPORATE and household debt fell slightly in the second quarter of 2022 year­on­year by 0.7 per cent.

More significantly as a per centage of gross domestic product (GDP), debt fell to 132.2 per cent.

Household debt increased by €5.7 billion, but fell in terms of GDP to 56.5 per cent of GDP in the second quarter of 2022 which was standing at 61.5 per cent a year earli

Falling debt

er.

Households’ gross financial wealth increased by 0.7 per cent in the last year, declining in terms of GDP to 210 per cent of GDP, down from 228.9 per cent a year earlier.

The Financial Accounts of the Spanish Economy, pub lished mid October, show

that the consolidated debt of firms and corporations reached €1,679 billion in the second quarter of 2022.

This figure is 0.7 per cent lower than the figure of €1,691 billion a year earlier and 4.2 per cent higher than at the end of 2019 before the pandemic began.

Transplant breakthrough

Peter McLaren­Kennedy

THE impossible has been achieved in Spain where doctors performed an intes tine transplant on a child taken from a donor in car diac arrest.

A report by a national news outlet on Wednes day, October 12 said the operation is a world first with the transplant of in testines not deemed possi ble due to the risk of infec tion. The chief of paediatric transplantation at the Hos pital of La Paz, Madrid, said: “The transplant of the in

Image Dan Race / Shutterstock.com

in preparing for such a transplant along came Em ma. Her small intestine was shorter than normal, which means that she can’t take in enough food. That meant intravenous feeding.

testine is unachievable: they said it couldn’t be done due to the high bacte rial load.

“It is more susceptible to ischemia, lack of oxygen.”

After three years of work

Emma who received the transplanted organ is, ac cording to her father a hap py girl and is already learn ing to crawl.

After two months post operatively, doctors said: “Her quality of life is excel lent,” having shown curiosi ty in everything that is around her in the hospital.

An organ transplant first.

Coastline renaturation

THE Olympic Port is taking a further step in the renaturation of Barcelona’s coastline with the installation of 100 biotopes, and bio­regeneration sculptures that create un derwater habitats and increase the area’s biodiversity.

The placement of these shields is in addi tion to the 2,000 concrete blocks installed in the summer of 2021 to cover the Dico de Recreo and protect the Olympic Port from the effects of storms. Of these, more than 300 were naturalised to promote marine biodiversity.

These actions are part of the process of

transforming Port Olimpic and are being carried out under the name of Barcelona Municipal Services (B: SM) on behalf of Barcelona City Council. Their objectives in clude promoting the biological diversity of the area, a task which it is carrying out jointly with Barcelona Zoo.

President of B: SM, Jaume Collboni, con firmed that: “This project is another sign of the Olympic Port that we want: a lively, dy namic space, committed to generating eco nomic activity linked to the sea, and also to raising public awareness of the need to preserve the maritime environment.”

New product launch

GOOGLE CLOUD has launched Dual Run, a new product built on top of unique technology devel oped by Banco Santander.

Banco Santander is working with Google Cloud to help other companies across multiple industries simplify their transition from legacy mainframe systems to the cloud, San tander confirmed on Thursday October 13.

The Dual Run technolo gy, which will be made available to customers ex clusively by Google Cloud, has proven application in the highly­regulated finan cial services industry, and Santander has begun utilis ing Dual Run to bring data and workloads onto Google Cloud’s trusted in frastructure.

Santander will also take advantage of Google’s

deep knowledge and tech abilities in the use of Cloud and software to accelerate its digital transformation.

In the next few months, Google Cloud will host a series of customer events to showcase their Dual Run service with the help of software developers and engineers from Santander who have been involved in the bank’s unique technol ogy.

£10bn Redevelopment

SITUATED on the banks of the River Thames, the rede veloped Battersea Power Sta tion was formally opened on Friday, October 14 to mixed reviews, following a £10 bil lion refit.

Once among the largest power stations in Europe, the station became a world icon after featuring on the Pink Floyd album Animals. Decom missioned in 1983 after more than 50 years, the sprawling site was left to decay for decades.

As a protected site, devel opment of the building was restricted to retain the original façade.

Bought by a consortium of Malaysian investors in 2012, the site has been redeveloped complete with shops, bars, restaurants, apartments, of fice space and includes a river side park and underground railway station. Among those who will be taking space is Apple, whose new London headquarters will be included in the facility.

One of the main attractions

will be the glass lift that will take visitors to the top of the chimney for panoramic views of the London skyline.

Up in smoke

A SCOTTISH derelict building fire in Cowdenbeath, Fife has led to a drugs haul of more than £1 million after emergency services found it contained a cannabis farm.

The police announced on Friday, October 14 that they were looking for assistance in identifying anyone who may have entered the building in the weeks prior to the fire.

Emergency services were rushed to the scene when the fire broke out only to find the cannabis farm and no one in the building. The police were called once the fire was extin guished with a forensic investigation suggesting that the ‘farm’ contained cannabis worth more than £1 million.

The fire is said to have involved a derelict property next to the Bingo Hall on the High Street in Cowdenbeath.

Detective Inspector Kieran Marsh, of West Fife CID, said: “Thankfully, no one was injured as a result of the fire.”

Battersea Power Station.

Credit Songquan Deng / Shutterstock.com

EXCLUSIVE

The ultimate Mick Hucknall tribute

WELSHMAN Mick Bassett looks and sings like Mick Hucknall and is just waiting to get back to Spain with his Red Mick tribute.

The former boy soprano, like many of his Welsh coun terparts, was born to sing and several years ago after selling shares that he had earned whilst working for Tesco, he purchased his own PA sys tem.

The band he played with supported other Welsh bands Catatonia and Super Furry An imals at concerts but as there wasn’t enough work, he went solo and became a singer at Butlins before returning to Wales to think about his fu ture.

“The fact that I looked so much like Mick Hucknall prompted me to take on the alter ego of ‘Red Mick’ and I started to perfect the voice which was difficult as his tone and range is so very distinc tive, but reviews suggest that I

have pitched the voice abso lutely correctly,” he told Euro Weekly News.

He had a great deal of suc cess with gigs around the UK either with a band or as a solo act which meant that he was soon booked for cruise ships and later found himself play ing at El Oceano in La Cala de Mijas, where he met up with Martyn Wood of Big M Pro motions who booked him for eight dates across the Costa del Sol in early 2020.

Looking back, Mick said “It went really well and we were talking about another possibly longer tour when the pan demic really hit and that was

the end of my musical career for quite a while.

“I had to work to live and took a job in a meat factory and then became a driver de livering vital medicines during lockdown and now I’m back singing, although a number of pubs and other venues simply went out of business but I’m still working mainly solo and finding gigs.”

His repertoire includes all of Simply Red’s top numbers in cluding, If You Don’t Know Me by Now, Star, Fairground, Money’s too Tight (to Men tion) and the autobiographical Holding Back the Years which was inspired by the upheaval

Simply the best.

following Hucknall’s moth er leaving the family when he was just three.

Red Mick hasn’t met Sim ply Red Mick as yet but did get to play at Billy’s Pub run by the son of the lady who used to look after him when his fa ther was at work as a barber and apparently his act went down very well.

Now that the Costa del Sol is seeing such a resurrection with tourists flocking in, de spite Brexit and with Simply Red drawing large crowds and great reviews whenever they play here, Red Mick hopes next year will see him performing in Spain again.

GREAT REVIEWS: Red Mick is the star of the show.

Peter McLaren­Kennedy

QUEEN fans will be excited to hear that the band are to reissue ‘The Miracle’ album which will include a lost Freddie Mercury recording.

The announcement on Thursday, October 13 by the band confirmed that the song, Face it Alone, which was originally

A real discovery

recorded in 1988 to go on the ‘The Miracle’ album, re leased in 1989, but did not make the cut and ultimate ly was forgotten, will now feature on a reissue along with some studio record

ings of the band in discus sions.

Guitarist Brian May said: “I’m happy that our team were able to find this track.

“After all these years, it’s great to hear all four of us...

working in the studio on a great song idea which nev er quite got completed... until now.”

Drummer Roger Taylor said: “It’s wonderful, a real

discovery. It’s a very pas sionate piece.”

Queen continue to tour along with American Idol star Adam Lambert on vo cals. They have, however, not recorded or released any new tracks since the death of Freddie Mercury in 1991.

Get Boris back

A PETITION calling on Boris Johnson to be brought back as Prime Minister has been signed by more than 10,000 Conservative Party members and supporters in just two days, reported a press outlet on Monday Oc tober 17.

Members of the par ty have vented their frustration as Ms Truss’ government is spiralling out of control. In a par ticularly humiliating de velopment her tax and domestic policy agenda was u­turned by Jere my Hunt, the man she brought in to save the government.

Mr Hunt demolished almost all the tax cuts in the mini Budget which got her elected over the summer. Now MPs are claiming that the new Chancellor who was only appoint ed on Friday is the ‘de facto Prime Minister’.

Party members have responded to the Con servative Post petition with demands that Mr Johnson is begged to come back. Boris John son is currently on a tour of the USA while his successor Liz Truss is fighting for her political life.

QUEEN: Are about to reissue ‘The Miracle’ album.

Credit spatuletail/ Shutterstock.com

Transatlantic scheduleBrain drain

THE loss of EU research funding has sparked a brain drain as top sci entists begin to leave the UK rather than lose access to valuable re search grants.

According to a news outlet on Thursday Oc tober 13, more than 20 top scientists have made the decision to relocate from the UK over the uncertainty of continued funding.

UK scientists lost ac cess to EU research grants due to Brexit, grants that the UK gov ernment said it would match when the time came. However, with many of these grants now nearing the end of their funding period, scientists relying on funding for their re search are being forced to make a choice.

Negotiations to con tinue UK access to the fund have stalled over impasses over North ern Ireland and other Brexit­related disagree ments.

The scientific and en gineering community are saying that it could result in a brain drain with the first signs that it has already started.

LONDON Gatwick Airport announced there will be 51 flights a week to the USA during the peak booking period for Thanksgiving and Christ mas holidays.

Passengers travelling to the USA from Gatwick Airport can now choose from 51 flights per week to popular destinations including New York, Orlando, Boston and Tampa.

The increased transat lantic schedule comes as JetBlue added a second daily flight to New York from October 31 just in time for the peak booking

period ahead of the Thanksgiving and Christ mas holiday season.

This means London Gatwick passengers will now have even more choice when heading stateside, whether to en joy New York’s world­fa mous Macy’s Thanksgiv ing Day Parade, sample the Black Friday sales, the city’s multitude of Christ mas markets or legendary Rockefeller Centre ice rink or treat the family to a once­in­a­lifetime fes tive trip to Disney World in Orlando.

Last month, Gatwick announced Delta Air Lines

would be returning to the airport next April, with daily flights to New York JFK.

Image: London Gatwick Airport

NEW YORK: Will be more accessible from the UK.

Advertising Feature

Las Coronas - Fine dining,

THE first thing that strikes you on walking through the doors of Las Coronas Bar Restau rante in Altea is the effortlessly elegant décor, including displays of artwork by local artists, their warm and welcoming terrace and a large and inviting bar.

Following its opening nine years ago, own er Remco Vermeulen has definitely stamped his mark on the place, creating a popular eaterie with an exciting European menu that is popular with residents and visitors alike. Las Coronas attracts guests from all over the world, predominantly British, Dutch and Bel gian, and adapts its dishes to suit all tastesincluding a menu that changes weekly.

Running restaurants is in Remco’s bloodhis family had four restaurants in Hollandand he thrives on taking care of the front of house side of things, making sure each and every customer feels a warm and friendly welcome as soon as they step through the doors. The hugely popular Lady Jazz treats diners to music with a vintage twist while they enjoy their dishes or dance into the evening in this relaxed restaurant.

“I love to meet and welcome our guests, I

have lots of experience in the kitchen, but this is where my heart is.” In a perfect balance, partner and chef Andrew Allsop has “had a

Address: Calle Sant Pere, 45-1, 03590, Altea - Telephone Number

Remco and Andrew give a friendly welcome.

art and a warm atmosphere

Las Coronas for four years: “I have always en joyed creating things,” he said.

“I like a challenge, so try as many new things as possible. Everything is prepared fresh and from scratch, all sauces, stews and desserts, this means we can adapt to individ ual requests where necessary,” added An drew.

Las Coronas offers a three­course meal with five choices for each course, and an al la carte menu is available. Their stunning game menu offers diners wild boar, deer and pheasant sourced from Dutch, Belgian and British butchers.

“It’s all about fresh food and great service. We want our guests to enjoy relaxed, fine dining, the whole experience. We have week ly specials to offer variety, and adapt every thing, including the music and lighting to cre ate the right ambience,” said Remco.

passion for cooking from an early age.”

Andrew, who studied French cuisine and ran a bistro in Warwickshire, has now been at

And for those who like to fine dine at home, a takeaway service is available. Per fectly located on the promenade opposite the port with wonderful views, there is free park ing a stone’s throw from Las Coronas, a bus stop outside and a train station nearby.

LAS CORONAS: Elegant decor and artwork.

Flea market for cats

Betty Henderson

A LOCAL animal lover is hold ing a fundraising flea market to raise money for healthcare for street cats. Puzzles for the Pussycats is a flea market tak ing place on October 29 and 30 in Calpe to raise money for a local organisation which cas trates street cats.

The flea market will feature plenty of stalls selling puzzles, jazz CDs, vases, dishes, glass ware, bags, household goods, bric­a­brac and much more.

Plenty of household goods and games will be on sale.

The event is taking place at Garden Rastro in Calpe at Car rio Alto, 3F from 11am until

4pm on both days of the weekend.

Local resident, Hille Becker is hosting the event to raise funds for a castration pro gramme for local stray cats. Neutering programmes are considered the best practice to stop feral cats from repro ducing and having miserable and unhealthy lives.

Those interested in donat ing or buying items can con tact Hille Becker by telephone on 865 950 069.

Halloween treat Charity fun

IT’S back!! Teulada Moraira Lions are thrilled to announce that their much loved Hallowe’en Party will be back this year. It will take place in the Church Square in Moraira on Monday October 31 from 6pm. There will be games and treats for the children. Everyone is welcome and fancy dress en couraged! Entry is completely FREE.

If you would like to know more about what TM Lions do, visit their website on www.tmlions.com or pop into the Lions Den Charity shop by the Pepe La Sal supermarket on the Centro Comercial, Moraira. Volunteering can be a great way to get out and meet people.

THE Costa Blanca Anglican Chap laincy presents from Bing to Bu ble, Roger B sings the music of the crooners. The event will take place on Wednesday, November 9, at Ermita San Josep in La Fustera at 6.00pm.

Tickets are €15 euros and in clude a buffet supper.

For more information or to or der tickets contact Helen at hbchapman135@gmail.com or al ternatively call (+34) 607 706 904.

Photo credit: Walter Vogel (by email)

Advertising Feature

NEW REGULATIONS

MANDATORY SPANISH DRIVING LI CENCE

New regulations governing the manda tory issue of Spanish driver’s licence for British citizens is an issue that’s causing concern for some of our English expatri ate customers.

Our Legal Assistance service will keep you fully updated on all the latest news and provide details on driving schools closest to your home, where you can pre pare for the exam in English, consult the registration fees and raise any questions you may have.

In this article we’ll explain the regula tions and procedures that you’ll have to follow, and the possible sanctions for non-compliance. If you need more infor mation or you’d like to speak to our Legal Assistance team, please call 919 180 022 and we’ll be happy to assist and advise you.

AUTOMATIC LICENCE EXPIRY AFTER APRIL 30, 2022

As of December 31, 2020, the UK ceased to belong to the Euro pean Union, and regula

tions that allowed driving in Spain, with a British driving licence, ceased to be appli cable.

UK issued driving licences were only au thorised to drive in Spain until April 30, 2022, and are now not valid. All existing agreements on highway regulations that protect the Member States of the Euro pean Union have ceased to be valid and applicable. However, those British drivers who do not have their main residence in Spain and travel for periods of less than six months (tourist type), may continue to drive in Spain, during that period, with their original permit.

ENGLISH FOR SPANISH LICENCE SWAP

Residents with a British driving licence, had until December 31, 2020 to swap and redeem theirs for a Spanish licence. Con sequently, they must now obtain a new Spanish driving licence from scratch, sub mitting to the requirements and tests es tablished in Spain for obtaining said li cence.

Call their English-speaking cus tomer service staff on 952 147 834 or get a competitive quote now at lineadirecta.com.

SPANISH DRIVING LICENCE: Now mandatory if you live in Spain permanently.

Travel chaos

FRANCE faced disruptions on Tuesday October 18, after unions called a nationwide transport strike, as they re main in deadlock with the government over walkouts at oil depots that have sparked fuel shortages.

The effects were already visible at Paris hub Gare de Lyon early on Tuesday, with packed suburban trains flooding platforms with pas sengers every 15 or even 20 minutes.

The broader strike comes after workers at several oil refineries and depots operat ed by energy giant TotalEner gies voted to extend walk

outs.

Motorists have also scram bled to fill tanks as the fuel strike, which has lasted for nearly three weeks, cripples supplies at around 30 per cent of France’s service sta tions and has had a knock­on effect across all sectors of the economy.

President Emmanuel

Macron’s government used requisitioning powers to force some strikers back to open fuel depots, a move that infuriated unions but has so far been upheld in the courts.

“The time for negotiation is over,” Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire Le Maire told a French broadcaster.

Calling all retirees

THE Greek National Tourism Organisation (GNTO) is testing out a new winter marketing campaign aimed at reaching out to the re tired.

In a bid to extend its tourist season by at tracting retirees to the country their new cam paign ‘Do you wanna feel 20 again?’ launched in mid October.

In May of this year, Greece’s Ministry of Tourism announced the launch of the global campaign ‘You will want to stay forever’. The campaign which was created with the support of the Onassis Foundation was to boost the country’s summer season and it proved highly success ful.

The campaign drew in nearly eight million tourists in the first half of the year, which was an increase of 428.9 per cent in comparison to 2021.

The GNTO campaign also helped generate €5.126 billion in revenue between January and June with an expected earning of nearly €20 billion by the end of the year.

Oil refineries and depots extend walk outs.

Image: Shutterstock.com/KrivosheevVitaly

IRELAND welcomed over 900,000 Interna tional tourists in September, which is only about 9 per cent less compared to the same period in 2019.

The data provided by the Irish Tourism In dustry Confederation (ITIC) on Wednesday, October 12, has revealed that so far this year, visitors’ numbers are down by 20 per cent.

Ireland’s tourism

In addition, the same data shows that during September this year, Ireland was visited by 338,000 people from continen tal Europe, which means 5 per cent less than in 2019, making it the strongest­per

Princess in hiding

THE teenage heir to the Dutch throne has been forced to give up life at uni versity and return back to the palace amid security fears.

According to Queen Maxi ma on Friday, October 14, Princess Amalia is back home where she is continuing her studies. She said: “Amalia, can’t leave home” and that has “enormous conse quences for her life.”

Amalia, 18, who is study ing Politics, Psychology, Law and Economics at Amster dam University had intended

to live with other students in the heart of the city. Instead, she is still at home in nearby The Hague, her mother said adding that “She doesn’t have a student life.”

The comments from the queen provide insight into the difficult life that the royal family and others across Eu rope are living, faced by threats from organised crimi nal gangs. Drug traffickers are said to be behind the se curity fears with gangs be coming stronger and more brazen.

forming market.

CEO of ITIC, Eoghan O’Mara Walsh, point ed out that: “Members such as hotels and restaurants were reporting that energy bills had jumped to unsustainable and unprece

dented levels, warning that profit margins have come under serious pressure.”

Meanwhile, air and sea travel statistics show that in the same month more than 1,703,200 overseas passengers arrived in Ireland. As a result, this represents a dra matic recovery compared to June last year, when the country recorded only 160,000 ar rivals.

CRYPTO.COM has an nounced Paris as its Euro pean Regional Headquar ters.

Crypto.com, the world’s fastest-growing cryptocur rency platform, announced on October 13, that it will in vest €150 million in France to support the establish ment of its market opera tions, including a regional

Parisian headquarters

headquarters in Paris. This investment follows Crypto.com being registered as a Digital Asset Service Provider (DASP) by the Au torité des marchés fi nanciers (AMF) after clear ance with the Autorité de

Contrôle Prudentiel et de Résolution (ACPR) in September.

In addition to establishing its regional headquarters in Paris, their investment will help anchor its long-term commitment to France

through the hiring of local talent.

Eric Anziani, COO of Cryp to.com confirmed: “We are incredibly excited to cement our commitment to France and Europe through the es tablishment of our regional

headquarters in Paris.

“Our regulatory approval was the first important step in our journey in France, and we look forward to continu ing to engage with stake holders across sectors to help facilitate the new digi tal economy in France and providing customers with a best-in-class crypto experi ence.”

Image: Crypto.com

European Regional HQ.

PRESSEUROPEAN

DENMARK

Inflation fight

CREATED to fight the cost-of-living crisis, new Danish discount supermarket Basalt is opening 10 stores which will only sell basic products such as pasta and toilet paper whilst replacing fresh milk with long-life in order to cut down the need for fridges and use of electricity.

THE NETHERLANDS

Mistaken identity

SIMILAR to the UK’s Long Lost Family, Spoorloos, a Dutch TV programme traces and reunites family members but it has now admitted that in at least two of the shows, the wrong person was identified and now the programme makers are investigating a further 12 suspect cases.

BELGIUM

Cat scam

CAT lovers in Belgium were so worried about the chance of their four-legged friends catching Covid-19 that they spent an average of €3,000 per animal to purchase what turned out to be a banned drug which didn’t work and now six people have been arrested.

GERMANY

War damage

GERMAN taxpayers could be in for a financial shock if a Polish government claim for €1.3 trillion in war reparations is recognised although the German government has rejected the claim relying on the fact that in 1953 the Soviet Union persuaded the communist Polish government to drop all claims.

FRANCE

Ulterior motive

A YEAR after President Macron said Algeria had “hatred towards France” things have changed and after his peacekeeping visit earlier this year, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said her recent trip had nothing to do with a need for vital liquid gas, just a chance to cement friendship.

NORWAY

Too good

A REVIEW by financial magazine Kapital has concluded that Erling Haaland who has taken the UK Premier League by storm (and actually has a humorous petition calling for him to be banned from playing for Manchester City) is likely to become Norway’s first Krone billionaire.

FINLAND National Service

A SURVEY by the Uutissuomalainen newspaper group found that 35 per cent of those responding were in favour of introducing military conscription for women although nearly half were against. Currently all males are required to spend up to one year in some form of national service.

IRELAND

Side stepping

FOR some time, those behind Riverdance have been supporting and advertising with the CLRG which arranges Irish Dancing competitions, but it has now announced that until allegations of judges fixing competitions are completed it will have to suspend all advertising with the organisation.

ITALY

Winter fashion

ITALIAN athletes taking part in the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo will be competing in outfits designed by Giorgio Armani for his EA7 line operated under the Emporio Armani brand name thanks to a deal with the Italian Winter Sports Federation (FISI).

PORTUGAL

Airport fees

HOLIDAYMAKERS can expect their trip to Portugal to become more expensive from February 2023 as the airport authority Aeroportos de Portugal is pushing to increase landing and take off fees by around 15 per cent, although this is currently being fought by airlines.

UKRAINE

Custom bikes

RALEIGH, the British bicycle brand, is supporting Alans BMX and the charity Bikes4Ukraine by creating two custom Raleigh Burner Bikes in Ukraine colours which are being auctioned on eBay to raise funds for the charity so refugees can be supplied with bikes.

SWEDEN

Nobel Prize

THE 2022 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Swedish scientist 67-year-old Svante Paabo, for his years of study to discover how to extract DNA from the bones of Neanderthals to compare similarities with Homo Sapiens who became the dominant human species.

PC decline FINANCE

BUSINESS EXTRA

Crypto tax

TRYING to control the in creasing investment in cryp tocurrency, the 2023 Por tuguese budget includes a proposal to implement a 28 per cent tax on profits if cryp tocurrencies are sold within 12 months of acquisition and this will be the first step in a crack­down.

Mortgage freeze

A REPORT by a Spanish newspaper suggests that the recently created Caixabank is in the process of discussing with other Spanish commer cial banks the possibility of freezing variable interest rates on mortgages for one year in a bid to try to cushion the finances of homeowners.

Bad news

ACCORDING to Pierre­Olivier Gourinchas, Chief Economist at the International Mone tary Fund, the euro area will continue to stall in the com ing year with the energy cri sis caused by the war contin uing to take a heavy toll, reducing growth to 0.5 per cent in 2023

More workers

EVEN though pay levels con tinue to fall in many indus tries, unemployment in the UK has dropped to its lowest level in 50 years with a total of 29.7 million employees on registered payrolls at the end of September, an increase of 69,000 in a month.

Numbers up

SPANISH airport manage ment group AENA has an nounced that by the end of September it had handled 98 per cent of the number of passengers than it forecast for the year, showing the re silience of the Spanish tourism industry following the travel difficulties caused by the pandemic.

STAT OF WEEK €135 billion

is the value of Spain’s tourism gross domestic product in 2022 according to a forecast by industry association Exceltur which is 88 per cent of pre-pandemic levels.

Economy is stressed

WHAT goes up must come down is a maxim which is proving true in the world of personal computer (PC) sales worldwide according to a report by Gartner Inc.

With the boom in home work ing during the pandemic, PC sales (including Apple products) under standably shot up but according to this latest report, in the third quar ter of 2022 worldwide sales of 68 million units was down 19.2 per cent over the 2021 quarter.

This is the largest market decline since Gartner began tracking the PC market in the mid­1990s and the fourth consecutive quarter of year­on­year decline which has not been helped by problems with supply chain disruptions.

McColl sale

ATTRIBUTED to former Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson, the phrase “a week is a long time in politics” cannot be more appropriate than the week which saw the sacking of UK Chancel lor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng and a reversal of most of his policies.

After the Chancellor blamed the problems with the September 23 mi ni­budget on the death of the queen, Business Secretary Jacob Rees­Mogg told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that it is possible that the problems were caused not by the Treasury but by the Bank of England for not raising

interest rates in line with the USA.

The new Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has acted swiftly in order to try to re store confidence in the British econo my and on Monday October 17, de molished almost every plan put into place by Kwarteng which had not al ready gone through parliament.

The basic rate of income tax will re main at 20p indefinitely instead of be ing reduced to 19p as he considers it wrong to borrow in order to fund such a reduction and this will only be changed when he believes that the government can afford to do so.

The cap on energy bills is now only guaranteed until April next year and will then be reviewed rather than keep it in place for two years as previ ously promised.

The announced cuts to stamp duty and National Insurance will however be kept in the hopes that these will help to stimulate the housing market and the economy.

All in all, the promises that Liz Truss made when campaigning against Rishi Sunak have effectively been dec imated and this cannot help her credi bility one iota.

More energy security plan

SPAIN has approved the More Energy Security Plan (+SE) to strengthen the pro tection of consumers against the rise in prices caused by the war in Ukraine.

The initiative also seeks to reduce gas consumption, improve energy autonomy, increase the competitive ness of the economy and increase energy exports.

Minister for the Ecologi cal Transition and the De mographic Challenge, Tere sa Ribera, confirmed on Tuesday October 11 that it is a plan that will continue to be updated, given the uncertainty of the evolution of the war and its conse quences, and a monthly re

port will be published which will monitor the effi ciency and savings in elec tricity and gas from the dif ferent measures.

The Plan contains 73 en ergy security measures grouped around six major objectives: savings and effi ciency; transformation of

the energy system; exten sion of protection to con sumers, especially the vul nerable; fiscal measures; transformation of the in dustry thanks to renewable energies or hydrogen, and cooperation with the rest of the European countries.

To guarantee and im

prove the protection of the population, the granting of the electric social bonus and the thermal social bonus will be expanded, in creasing the volume of the protected population.

The energy bills of 1.6 million households with community boilers will also be reduced with a view to next winter and families will have fiscal support to implement renewable air conditioning systems, cost allocators in centralised heating will be encouraged and smart natural gas me ters will be installed.

A further billion euros will be made available in or der to implement all of the plans.

THE Competition and Markets Au thority (CMA) has announced its initial findings after investigating the Morrisons reported £190 mil lion purchase of stores owned by McColl’s Retail Group plc.

It has now confirmed in princi ple that it doesn’t believe that the deal would harm the vast majority of shoppers or other businesses, but it raised competition concerns in 35 areas.

Morrisons has now offered to dispose of 28 of McColl’s stores to a purchaser or purchasers to be approved by CMA and assuming that an acceptable deal can be put in place then the CMA expects to approve the amended sale.

Lashing out

THE mayor of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, a respected member of the Partido Popular, has accused the government of Pedro Sánchez as being akin to Argentina’s “Peronist government.”

She told the Madrid Assembly that the plans to impose a tempo rary additional tax on Spain’s rich est residents is an attack on free dom as “here in Spain people want to be free.”

In her opinion, this is a form of ‘fiscal popularism’ which will harm the economy and see an increase in unemployment and she said that she would investigate appeal ing to the Courts to negate the ‘sol idarity law in Madrid.’

FINANCE to read more FINANCE scan this QR Code

INITIATIVE: Minister Teresa Ribera announced the plan.

Credit: HM Treasury flickr

POLICY REVERSAL: The new Chancellor quickly spoke with Andrew Bailey, Governor of the Bank of England.

Credit: La Moncloa flickr

C OMPANY OMPANY

3I Group 1.090,50 1.109,00 1.078,50 305,83K

Abrdn 142,65 143,00 137,95 1,72M

Admiral Group 1.950,0 1.949,0 1.911,5 51,17K

Anglo American 2.669,5 2.722,0 2.652,0 357,69K

Antofagasta 1.083,50 1.104,50 1.074,00 168,77K

Ashtead Group 4.285,0 4.309,0 4.170,0 129,91K

Associated British Foods 1.321,0 1.322,5 1.292,0 878,33K

AstraZeneca 9.930,0 9.945,0 9.800,0 478,06K

Auto Trader Group Plc 534,40 536,60 523,60 520,38K

Aveva 3.150,0 3.176,0 3.150,0 4,77K

Aviva 401,20 401,70 394,80 6,88M

B&M European Value Retail SA316,70 317,80 308,10 1,24M

BAE Systems 829,60 831,20 815,60 2,99M

Barclays 145,50 148,88 143,64 19,26M

Barratt Developments 352,68 355,40 346,45 344,29K

Berkeley 3.401,0 3.416,0 3.341,0 116,31K

BHP Group Ltd 2.236,50 2.250,50 2.211,00 139,98K

BP 463,05 465,50 460,24 5,45M

British American Tobacco 3.298,0 3.320,5 3.284,5 825,93K

British Land Company 335,90 341,70 326,90 1,09M

BT Group 122,40 123,10 121,15 3,28M

Bunzl 2.731,0 2.734,0 2.688,0 95,65K

Burberry Group 1.850,0 1.880,0 1.799,5 422,29K

Carnival 558,2 572,8 545,4 388,33K

Centrica 72,97 72,97 70,30 680,22K

Coca Cola HBC AG 1.992,8 1.998,0 1.965,0 1,99M

Compass 1.820,00 1.821,50 1.799,00 41,46K

CRH 2.886,0 2.938,0 2.843,0 173,16K

Croda Intl 6.464,8 6.560,0 6.357,4 8,29K

DCC 4.721,0 4.745,0 4.663,0 22,94K

Diageo 3.677,0 3.682,0 3.638,5 383,27K

DS Smith 268,00 273,52 266,31 338,13K

EasyJet 308,00 308,30 294,55 982,77K

Experian 2.674,0 2.681,0 2.610,0 168,22K

Ferguson 9.606,0 9.686,0 9.496,0 68,79K

Flutter Entertainment 10.485,0 10.505,0 10.305,0 632,11K

Fresnillo 728,00 739,00 721,60 270,56K

Glencore 491,55 500,30 489,40 8,19M

GSK plc 1.348,60 1.354,60 1.335,40 1,99M

Halma 2.085,0 2.096,0 2.030,0 243,59K

Hargreaves Lansdown 826,80 835,40 813,20 282,73K

Hikma Pharma 1.287,50 1.300,50 1.264,50 134,76K

HSBC 461,85 464,25 456,25 15,28M

IAG 110,42 112,30 108,42 7,44M

Imperial Brands 2.010,00 2.026,00 2.009,00 512,17K

1,39M

Intermediate Capital 992,19 1.019,50 971,00 245,56K

Intertek 3.674,0 3.698,0 3.626,0 122,14K

ITV 63,00 63,67 61,64 1,73M

J Sainsbury 180,77 182,60 178,15 1,84M

Johnson Matthey 1.843,7 1.859,0 1.816,0 75,04K

Land Securities 511,80 519,20 500,40 554,19K

Legal & General 223,79 225,55 219,12 2,26M

Lloyds Banking 43,24 43,61 42,42 30,51M

London Stock Exchange 7.348,0 7.384,0 7.236,0 94,07K

Melrose Industries 103,05 103,90 100,50 3,51M

Mondi 1.392,50 1.417,50 1.372,50 576,88K

National Grid 884,12 885,40 872,40 1,61M

NatWest Group 231,00 238,24 229,71 3,70M

Next 4.835,0 4.838,0 4.670,0 204,52K

Norilskiy Nikel ADR 9,10 9,10 9,10 0

Ocado 484,20 484,20 439,00 1,77M

Persimmon 1.235,5 1.242,0 1.206,0 476,68K

Phoenix 531,71 537,60 527,20 1,52M

Prudential 892,20 912,80 884,80 1,19M

Reckitt Benckiser 5.882,0 5.910,0 5.786,0 762,14K

Relx 2.202,00 2.209,00 2.167,00 1,78M

Rentokil 502,20 503,40 491,90 1,72M

Rightmove 478,00 478,60 460,80 2,28M

Rio Tinto PLC 4.899,0 4.964,0 4.877,0 396,66K

Rolls-Royce Holdings 71,50 71,88 69,94 8,34M Rosneft DRC 0,20 0,20 0,20 0

Sage 695,00 695,80 681,00 613,48K

Samsung Electronics DRC 981,00 981,80 971,20 9,92K

Schroders 373,8 376,1 368,2 639,96K Scottish Mortgage 744,21 748,60 729,40 1,17M

Segro 740,80 740,80 718,60 943,60K

Severn Trent 2.343,0 2.349,0 2.262,0 246,00K Shell 2.295,0 2.322,0 2.288,5 4,24M Smith & Nephew 998,80 1.007,50 992,60 2,33M

Smiths Group 1.528,50 1.544,50 1.512,00 160,20K

Spirax-Sarco Engineering 10.640,0 10.670,0 10.415,0 67,05K SSE 1.495,00 1.499,50 1.467,00 1,81M St. James’s Place 980,40 982,60 968,60 276,82K

Standard Chartered 549,00 557,80 543,80 1,06M Taylor Wimpey 89,50 90,04 87,22 6,99M

Tesco 205,20 207,00 203,00 4,51M Tui 116,90 119,45 114,70 946,65K

Unilever 3.902,0 3.917,5 3.857,0 702,42K United Utilities 865,15 869,80 839,20 690,95K

Vodafone Group PLC 100,24 101,52 99,54 12,86M Whitbread 2.514,0 2.521,0 2.457,0 166,73K WPP 748,78 757,60 738,80 929,51K

DOW JONES

3M 114,26 114,83 4,77M

American Express 141,55 142,55 130,65 4,59M

Amgen 251,66 252,37 242,84 3,29M

Apple 142,99 143,59 134,37 112,74M

Boeing 132,40 134,70 124,17 7,72M

Caterpillar 183,14 184,95 172,71 3,73M

Chevron 165,28 165,99 156,35 10,19M

Cisco 40,61 40,80 38,60 26,19M

Coca-Cola 55,87 56,08 54,26 16,20M

Dow 45,92 46,50 42,91 8,26M

Goldman Sachs 307,07 308,76 287,75 2,69M

Home Depot 282,83 284,83 268,73 3,88M

Honeywell 177,55 178,39 169,22 3,22M

IBM 121,79 122,15 115,54 5,84M

Intel 26,42 26,83 24,59 62,26M

J&J 165,15 165,99 160,75 6,46M

JPMorgan 109,37 109,90 101,76 22,15M

McDonald’s 246,75 249,30 234,46 5,01M

Merck&Co 92,49 92,72 89,27 9,37M

Microsoft 234,24 236,10 219,13 42,39M

Nike 89,56 89,81 86,05 9,23M

Procter&Gamble 126,31 126,75 122,92 6,90M Salesforce Inc 145,44 146,34 137,59 6,54M

The Travelers 165,51 166,55 155,72 1,95M

UnitedHealth 509,91 513,47 487,74 3,99M

Verizon 36,40 36,59 35,04 33,11M

Visa A 184,66 185,37 174,60 8,36M

Walgreens Boots 33,65 34,01 31,77 21,39M

Walmart 132,28 132,94 128,37 6,83M Walt Disney 96,64 96,97 90,71 10,94M

Most Advanced

Nutex Health +72.40% 42.58M

Fednat Holding Co +56.48% 40.97M

Digital Brands Group +44.93% 21.99M

Digital World Acquisition Wnt +42.57% 1.28M

Laser Photonics Unt +40.96% 45.18M

American Virtual Cloud +35.82% 16.21M

Epiphany Technology Acquisition +30.00% 23.47K

Ambow Education +28.48% 255.84K

Service Properties +27.31% 8.66M

Oblong +26.53% 5.15M

Digital World Acquisition +23.79% 5.58K

Most Declined

Relmada Therapeutics -79.57% 19.47M

Insu Acquisition -58.59% 3.75K

Otonomy Inc -53.46% 13.43M

Hippo Holdings -45.90% 185.18K

mCloud Technologies -35.90% 684.79K

9F -33.86% 906.61K

Happiness Biotech -23.64% 335.64K

Maiden Holdings -22.01% 4.05K

Pintec Tech -21.62% 2.79M

iPower -19.80% 108.75K

Adamis Pharmaceuticals Corporation -18.98% 4.93M

BUSINESS

EXTRA

Bond sale delay

FOLLOWING a report from the Financial Times on Tues day, October 18 stating that the UK government planned to delay the sale of some of its bonds through its quanti tative easing (QE) stimulus programme, a spokesper son for the central bank was quick to deny the allega tions.

J&J Q3 results

JOHNSON & JOHNSON re ported sales growth of 1.9 per cent to $23.8 billion (€24.2 billion) with opera tional growth of 8.1 per cent and adjusted operational growth of 8.2 per cent. The company also reported earnings per share (EPS) of $1.68 (€1.71) increasing 22.6 per cent and adjusted EPS of $2.55 (€2.60) decreasing by 1.9 per cent.

Horse gambling

NORWAY’S Ministry of Agriculture and Food pro posed regulations on the distribution of profits from gambling on horses on Tuesday, October 18. The proposed regulation states profits from gambling on horses must go to organisa tions that promote eques trian sports, horse keeping and Norwegian horse breeding.

Eradicating polio

THE Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation pledged on Sun day, October 16 to invest a further $1.2 billion (€1.22 bil lion) in worldwide efforts to eradicate polio.

“Polio eradication is within reach. But as far as we have come, the disease remains a threat,” Bill Gates said after announcing the pledge at a summit in Berlin.

A spokesperson for the Foundation said: “Despite historic progress, interrup tions in routine immunisa tion, vaccine misinforma tion, political unrest, and the tragic floods in Pakistan in 2022 have underscored the urgent need to finish the job against polio.”

Royal Mail job cuts

ROYAL MAIL plans to axe up to 6,000 roles, according to reports on Friday, October 14.

The company blamed delays in improving productivity and falling parcel volumes were to blame for the loss of £219 mil lion (€251 million) for the first half of this financial year.

Roughly £70m (€80m) of the loss was directly attributable to three days of industrial action, the company said, after 115,000 employees went on strike over pay and conditions.

The Communication Workers Union (CWU) said it would seek an urgent meeting with Royal Mail to discuss the planned re ductions.

A statement issued by the union said that it wanted to put forward an alternative business plan saying that “gross misman

agement” was to blame for the issues.

CWU General Secretary Dave Ward said: “The announcement

is the result of gross misman agement and a failed business agenda of ending daily deliver ies, a wholesale levelling­down

El Corte Inglés donation

of the terms, pay and conditions of postal workers, and turning Royal Mail into a gig economy style parcel courier.

“What the company should be doing is abandoning its assetstripping strategy and building the future based on utilising the competitive edge it already has in its deliveries to 32 million ad dresses across the country.

“The CWU is calling for an ur gent meeting with the board and will put forward an alterna tive business plan at that meet ing.

“This announcement is hold ing postal workers to ransom for taking legal industrial action against a business approach that is not in the interests of work ers, customers or the future of Royal Mail. This is no way to build a company.”

Huge Jet2 order

JET2 announced on Tuesday, October 18 that “to meet the future anticipated growth of its Leisure Travel business and to refresh its existing aircraft fleet, the company has entered into an agreement with Airbus to purchase 35 new firm­ordered Airbus A320 neo aircraft with the ability for this to ex tend to up to 71 aircraft.”

“The firm­ordered aircraft deliveries stretch over three years until 2031 and at base price represent a total value of approx imately $3.9 billion (€4 billion), with a total transaction value for up to 71 aircraft of ap proximately $8.0 billion (€8.1 billion),” though the company negotiated significant discounts from the base price, it said.

“This order, in addition to the A321 neo aircraft orders announced in 2021, means Jet2 now has a total of 98 firm­ordered air craft, which could eventually extend to up to 146 aircraft,” it concluded.

Anglian Water fined

EL CORTE INGLÉS donated €72,000 to UNICEF Spain thanks to the funds obtained from the ‘Solidarity Toys’ cam paign, carried out both in El Corte Inglés stores and on its website over the past year.

This was the 12th consecu tive campaign, which has been very well received by the public every year, the company said on Monday, Oc tober 17.

El Corte Inglés’ ‘Solidarity Toys’ campaign consisted of a large selection of toys, which were reduced in price by up

to 70 per cent.

Twenty per cent of the sales obtained were donated to UNICEF Spain as part of a col laboration agreement be tween the two.

El Corte Inglés is reportedly the first Spanish retailer to in corporate the Children’s Rights and Business Principles into its corporate policies.

“These Principles provide a general framework for under standing and addressing the impact of the business world on the well­being of chil dren,” the company said.

The €72,000 donated by El Corte Inglés will make it pos sible to bring water, food, vi tamins and vaccines to the most vulnerable children, provide hygiene and sanita tion services and promote ac cess to education for children and adolescents.

The company said it “sup ports the organisation’s work on behalf of children to en sure that the rights of chil dren and adolescents around the world are fulfilled and to improve their living condi tions.”

ANGLIAN WATER has been fined £350,000 (€402,000) after a pumped sewer burst for the sixth time in several years, the UK government announced on Tuesday, October 18.

Anglian Water appeared at Cambridge Magistrates Court on October 12. It was charged with causing poisonous, noxious, or polluting matter to enter inland freshwaters without an environmental permit. This is con trary to regulations 12(1)(b) and 38(1)(a) of the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016.

In sentencing, District Judge Ken Sheraton found that there had been “no effective sur veys” of the pipe in question. He went on to say that had there been surveys, the two air valves would have been noticed.

ROYAL MAIL: Blame strikes for recent loss of revenue.

Credit:

CHARITABLE DONATION: El Corte Inglés make it possible to bring water and food to vulnerable children.

Image:

LEAPY LEE SAYS IT

OTHERS THINK IT

I WAS terribly saddened by the an nouncement of the death of vocal ist Loretta Lyn. This delightful, hit producing country singing icon re cently passed over at the grand old age of 90 and will be sorely missed by her family and masses of adoring fans. I actually met Loretta on a number of occasions and found her to be a great character and ex tremely interesting companion.

We first met in 1968 when I had been invited over to America to ap pear at the Grand old Oprey in Nashville. The week I was there I al so attended the presentation of the Country Music Association awards which were scooped by Johnny Cash for his classic recording of Fol som Prison Blues among others.

My own appearance at that ter rific venue, which has now become a country music shrine, was a little earlier in that week; after I finished the act I made my way to a small bistro type restaurant situated at the rear of the building. Many of the artists would go after the show and enjoy the pure country repasts

A great character

that were on offer. After 10 min utes or so I was approached by Mervyn Conn, the English impre sario who produced the Wembley Country Music festival and was ac tually considered in in the UK as ‘Mr Country Music. “Hey Leapy” he said, “there’s someone over here who would like to meet you.”

I peered through the gloom to where he had been sitting. To my surprise I spied none other than Johnny Cash, sitting with his (then pregnant) wife June Carter and a number of others. Naturally I was delighted to meet up and joined them at the table where I was in troduced all around to the guests, one of which turned out to be Loretta Lyn.

Little Arrows was actually racing up the American country charts and they all seemed to like it. What fol lowed was a great session of drinks (Jack Daniels I seem to remember!) and jokes, which lasted far into the night. I got on very well with Loret ta and she told me she was coming over to do the Wembley festival which I had also been booked for. When the show took place she

duly arrived and, after managing a short lunch, I invited her and her fe male companion to a party I threw in my lovely new Ascot home (them were the days!) She stayed until very late and although it would have been nice to meet up again, our schedules unfortunately could n’t make it happen. Shortly after this terrific and extremely success ful interlude, my life changed some what drastically, (it’s in the book!) and we never saw each other again.

Loretta Lyn, a wonderful lady, a great talent, and a pure ‘Country Coalminer’s Daughter’. Sadly missed. Thanks for all your corre spondence. Not able to always re ply, but certainly read them all. Keep ‘em coming. And always.

Keep the Faith. Love Leapy. leapylee2002@gmail.com expatradioscotland.com Mon. Wed and Fri.1pm till 4.

For more from our columnists please scan this QR Code

Advertising Feature

Last year’s prices

NEATER HEATER, in com mon with most other retailers, are hav ing to deal with the soaring costs of manufactur ing and delivery. However, they have decided to hold the prices down on all the models advertised on their 2021­2022 cata logue. This price freeze will continue throughout October and until November 14 allowing customers, both new and ex isting, to purchase at last year’s prices.

With the cost of utilities rising all over the world it is essential that customers choose a heater that uses electricity effi ciently, effectively and therefore, more economically than its rivals.

Neater Heaters rely on Scandinavian design to provide stylish and cost effective convector heating that would grace any

style of living space. Whether you are looking for a heater to simply turn on and off manually, or prefer a heater that can be controlled via either bluetooth or wifi from an app on your phone, Neater Heater has the model for you. They are also pleased to announce a new range of Neo ‘Compact’ wi­fi heaters that take up less wall space, but have the same heat output, than the standard Neo models.

Check the Neater Heater website www.neaterheater.es for information about all the models in stock, and your purchasing options.

LeapyLee’sopinionsarehisownandarenotnecessarilyrepresentativeofthoseofthepublishers,advertisersorsponsors.

Why always to me?

DISCOVERING EMOTIONS WITH

BETINA VON HOHENDORFF

WE ask ourselves all the time:

Why is it happening to me?

Why me?

Why always to me?

But only when something negative hap pens.

Why don’t we ask ‘why’ when something positive happens to us?

Do you also ask:

Why am I so successful in life?

Why am I so healthy?

Why am I so well loved?

Think about it.

People have the tendency to always look for someone to blame. Always when some thing negative happens. But never when something positive happens.

WHY?

Because something negative is often con nected to a punishment, then we always look for someone to blame. Unfortunately, we don’t learn from our mistakes because in our thoughts it’s always someone else’s fault. In

WHY ME?: A question we always ask.

stead of asking ourselves the question:

Why do I always attract such situations?

Why do I always react the same way?

Analyse when something negative hap pens which emotions are generated.

Analyse when something positive happens which kind of emotions arise.

Look into your past; childhood, similar situ ations and then understand the WHY.

Whether positive or negative.

Everything that happens to you is part of your inner programming. If you always think the same, you always get the same results.

Who was always to blame, the father, the mother?

Were people always punishing you, even for small things?

Who or what made you feel like you are not good enough?

Were you compared to others?

My advice:

Write down what’s going wrong and what you can do to change this situation.

Love, Betina www.mindovers.com

Improve your health

THE Mediterranean diet is globally renowned for its health benefits and living in Spain, you’re in the perfect place to soak up all of its benefits. Here we share some top tips on how to get the most out of a Mediterranean diet while maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

Use extra virgin olive oil regularly. Switch to cook ing with olive oil from other cooking fats like butter or other oils. Scien tific research has shown that regularly using olive oil can reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases and even improve mood and brain function.

Load up on fruits and vegetables. This makes up the base of the Mediter ranean diet food pyramid. Take advantage of local fresh fruit and vegetables and incorporate them in

By Clinica

The Mediterranean diet has numerous health benefits and is even UNESCO recognised for its unique heritage.

to every meal in dishes or on the side as a salad.

Avoid fried products. Enjoy traditional Spanish fried fish and meat dishes in moderation. Instead, you could opt for grilled fish or meats. Fish and meat in Spain is fresher than in many places, so enjoy the flavours.

Luckily the Mediter ranean ‘diet’ is more of a lifestyle than a diet, so enjoy eating without re strictions on what you can or cannot eat. Get in to the spirit of the Mediterranean diet by eating with friends, so cialising and staying ac tive.

Pain free for up to a year

YOU may have heard about the benefits of PRP therapy to achieve a more rejuvenated complexion, but did you know it can actual ly help to ease or eliminate joint pain?

PRP or Platelet Rich Plasma injections are a state­of­the­art joint pain treatment, that can help patients achieve quick, reliable, and long­lasting relief from joint pain.

PRP is a powerful component that is found in the blood. It is packed full of nutri ent­rich cells and is recognised for its highly regenerative properties. In fact, PRP thera py is used in a variety of different ways to encourage healthy cell generation for both cosmetic and function benefits, including:

• Increased hair growth.

• Improved skin texture.

• Firmer, more youthful looking skin.

• Faster healing.

• Reduced joint and arthritis pain.

PRP injections are obtained by drawing a small tube of blood from the patient’s arm, the platelet­rich plasma is then extracted in a laboratory and made into individual injec

Would PRP treatment help you?

tions which can then be precisely injected into the affected joints.

Depending on the severity of your symp toms, you could be pain free for up to a year. PRP therapy can help with injured, painful, or arthritic joints and is mostly ad ministered to the knees, hips, ankles, and elbows.

Don’t hesitate, contact your GP to see if PRP treatment can help to alleviate the burden of your joint pain.

Photo credit: Foxys Forest Manufacture

shutterstock.com

Trust your smile to give you confidence

YOUR smile is one of the first things people notice about you, so having that perfect one to dazzle and shine for all to see, helps gives us that extra confi dence we often need. Unfortunately, not all of us have been blessed with a perfect set of pearly whites, we may suffer with misaligned, chipped, or dis coloured teeth, or even be missing a tooth due to an accident or infection, but don’t worry help is avail able.

Your Dentist can profes sionally whiten your teeth, making them up to 10 shades lighter. This can be done in­house or with cus tomised trays and profes sional whitening gel in the comfort of your own home. This option is very popular as although the procedure is per manent, a touch up after time can brighten your smile again within the hour.

Dental crowns are caps that are placed over your teeth to restore teeth that are damaged, cracked, or worn down, giving a more un formed look to the teeth that are treated.

Porcelain veneers are thin shells made of porcelain

CUTTING EDGE TECHNOLOGIES: Bringing you an inch closer to that perfect smile.

and are bonded to the front sur face of the teeth. They are cus tom­made to create a uniform and symmetrical smile.

Lastly, many of us have ugly black fillings which we can see when we talk or laugh, these are easily removed and replaced with a white composite filling material which is matched to the natural shade of your own tooth.

By Clinica Britannia

Remember before booking your appointment with a dental practice, make sure they offer a full range of services, with a team of expert dental practitioners that can help you no matter what dental procedure you require and can serve your needs in­house.

They should also offer state­of­the­art techniques and cutting­edge technologies, to give you the bestpersonalised dental plan, that will bring you an inch closer to that perfect smile.

Denture specialist

I HAVE recently moved to the area and am look ing for a Dental practice who cater for denture wearers. I worry what will happen if I drop them and they need mending. Last time I was without them for over 24 hrs. Any advice?

People wear dentures to replace lost or miss ing teeth so they can en joy a functionable and healthier looking smile, just like anyone one with a full set of natural teeth, but they do not last forever.

When choosing your Dental practice, it is ex tremely important to search and find a Den tist who specialises in dentures and that can

DENTURES: Help to replace lost or missing teeth.

also offer a fast and effi cient repair service. if your denture breaks or fractures and you can no longer wear it, it can be embarrassing and inhib it your daily habits.

Afterall, there is never a convenient time for urgent dental problems,

but they always seem to happen at the worst possible moment. For most denture wearers, broken or ill­fitting den tures are cause for an emergency and need to be treated by your Den tist as just that, ‘An Emergency’.

Don’t wait, find a Dental practice in your area that can offer an Express Dental Service, often being able to fix dentures within the hour or while you wait without compromising on the quality of the work done.

YOUR PAPER - YOUR VOICE - YOUR OPINION

Letters should be emailed to yoursay@euroweeklynews.com or make your comments on our website: euroweeklynews.com

Views expressed and opinions given are not necessarily those of the EWN publishers. No responsibility is accepted for accuracy of information, errors, omissions or statements.

SCARY HALLOWEEN NIGHT

ON a dark and scary night

There was a loud bang tonight

And the little children Ran with fright so scared tonight

And there’s laughter in the air tonight

And it’s a cold dark lonely Scary Halloween night

And the moonlight is blue and bright

And it’s a ghostly night

A cold breeze blowing all night

And there’s another loud Bang tonight

And the little children are Running with fright it’s just Skeletons and ghosts and ghouls

Tonight and the howling

Of the crazy werewolves tonight

And the dead Zombie’s walking through the Streets on this cold dark lonely

Scary Halloween night.

David P Carroll

Online reading

I have started receiving and reading all the papers from the Costas via email and just want ed to say how I enjoy Leapy’s column. We are based in Birm ingham, but are hoping to buy something in Spain in the next couple of years. Keep up the good work, it’s on point social ly and still raises a smile.

Peter Matthews

Driving licence issue

Thank you for a continuing, well­produced newspaper. (Only one in the Balearics). I got my residency in the early 90s. My UK driving licence was

issued as a ‘European Model’ and was valid in Spain. It cov ered cars, motorcycles and light goods vehicles up to 7.5 tonnes. I changed it to the Spanish licence in 1993.

At the time, I did not notice the Spanish licence covered only cars and motorcycles and that my ‘C1’ classification (‘light goods vehicles’) had been

omitted. I recently asked Trafi co to reinstate the missing clas sification, pointing out that when I obtained the Spanish version, the UK was at that time IN the EU. They are cur rently refusing to do so. I won der if this problem has come up with any other readers? Keep up the good work!

Norm MacLoud

OUR VIEW

ARISE KING CHARLES

MAY 6 next year is the date set for the coronation of King Charles III which happens to also be the fourth birthday of his grandson Archie, the son of Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, so could be the time for one rift in the family to be repaired.

Charles at 74 will be the oldest British Monarch to be crowned and this will be the first Saturday since 1902 that a coronation has taken place and may mean that the public won’t enjoy another bank holiday unless that planned for the previous Monday, May Day is moved to allow a long weekend.

His wife Camilla will be 75 and she will also take part in the ceremony at Westminster Abbey as she will be crowned Queen Consort (as was Charles’ grandmother in 1937), so although it is expected that the entire ceremony will be more modern than that for Queen Elizabeth II, it could last some hours.

Assuming that the cost-of-living crisis is still with us, the Royal Family and their advisors will have to walk a thin line to ensure that the coronation is not seen to be too extravagant, whilst at the same time still being in keeping with tradition and the expectations of the world that will be watching.

It is more than likely that although Charles will swear an oath to “maintain and preserve inviolately” the establish ment of the Church of England, the ceremony will embrace a number of different religious leaders in recognition of the diversity of faiths within the country.

Hopefully this will be a time for the nation to celebrate and for the world to once again be impressed by the pomp and ceremony of the occasion.

Keep dog’s fur in top condition

AUTUMN is officially here, and as you prepare your for a new season, here is some ex pert advice on how to care for your dog’s fur in autumn.

A dog’s fur is its protection against the elements as well as bugs and bacteria. We can tell a lot about a dog from the

condition of its fur.

Many dogs shed hair both in the spring and in autumn, but its fur coat can also be af fected by stress, poor diet and bacteria. Observe your dog’s behaviour and check its fur and skin regularly. Excess scratching can be a sign of

poor fur health or of parasites and disease. Increased fur loss could indicate conditions like alopecia. Dandruff, crusty or discoloured fur can be a sign of irritation from shampoos or allergies. Buy a suitable sham poo suitable and bathe your dog regularly.

Advertising Feature

Antibiotic resistance is a serious problem

IT is very important that medicines are used re sponsibly in animals, such as in humans. Antibiotic resistance in pets is be coming a greater chal lenge, much like it is in hu mans.

Due to bacterial resis tance, antibiotics are no longer effective and dis ease­causing bacteria are not affected by antibiotics.

To make sure antibiotics stay effective now and in the future, they must be strictly controlled and used only when really necessary and with caution.

In case of illness, your vet may need to carry out a laboratory test to find out whether treatment with antibiotics is really necessary and, if so, which antibiotic will work best.

Antibiotics are strictly controlled in animals.

In this way, your veteri narian will prescribe the appropriate antibiotic against the identified bac teria. It is also important to follow the dosage guide lines and duration of treat ment. Surgeries must be performed with maximum sterility and in most cases do not require postopera tive antibiotics. If your vet says that your pet does not need them, don’t demand antibiotics. Also in cases of viral infections, antibiotics are not usually necessary.

In Costablanca Norte: Anicura Marina Baixa Hospital Veterinario www.veterinariamarinabaixa.com

Photo credit: DCreativecatstudio

CONSTRUCTION

CONDITIONING

PLUMBERS

REMOVALS & STORAGE

CLASSIFIEDS

REPAIRS

WASHING MACHINE BRO KEN? Call Bluesky Repairs for

re

(WhatsApp)

FOR SALE

at 11.45am. C / San Bartolomé 35 bajo, No.6 campellocc@ gmail.com www.elcampellochris tiancommunity.org For more in formation call Juan Zuniga - 686 203 183 (Spanish) or Sue Bishop - 610 639 426 (English)

repair. Iberdrola paperwork. Affordable prices. Miquel 655 282 175 www.mbelectrics.es

FOR SALE/WANTED

& SELL

-

CAMPING

CHARITY

EL CAMPELLO CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY - Life and Family Sunday Service in English at 10.00am and a Spanish Service

THE SALVATION ARMY En glish Speaking Church of Denia Worship Service. Sunday 10.30am followed by a time of Fellowship. Everyone is wel come. Come as you are! For more information: Dieter Zim merer +34 698 609 658 or Bar bara Zimmerer +34 652 319 810 Email dieterzimmerer@hotmail. com, www.centrosaron.com www.helpbenidorm.org and on Facebook VOLUNTEERS NEED ED, particularly Spanish speakers for interpreter service, and car owners. Tel President 607 387 040, Welfare 607 386 964, Inter preters 607 385 842, Equipment 663 495 396. We are an Englishspeaking charity that assists resi dents and tourists of all nationali ties in times of crisis, we also organise social events for mem bers. We meet every Thursday at 10.30 in Jose Llorca Social Centre C. Goya s/n. Benidorm. It is oppo site the Foietes Car Park where there is a Wednesday market. Ev eryone welcome. It is 400m from Benidorm tram station and on bus routes 1 and 8. We loan out mo bility and medical equipment in cluding oxygen concentrators on a short-term basis. (288658)

ELECTRICIAN

MB ELECTRICS. Approved electrician. Any electrical

WANTED Gold, Silver, Rolex & Patek Philippe Watches Tel - 678 716 693 (288662)

GOLD WANTED

INSURANCE COSTS AND STILL HAVE 100% COVER. YOU HAVE TRIED THE REST NOW TRY THE BEST WITH SOS INSURANCE. WE CAN EVEN INSURE YOU FOR UP TO A €1,000 OF WATER LOSS. CALL 686 116 297 (WHATSAPP TOO) OR VISIT www.sosinsuranceinspain. com or email tracey@sosin suranceinspain.com (302024)

BENEFICIAL INSURANCE SER VICES. Car, Home, Business, Travel, Life, Funeral, all insur ances available. Policies in En glish. BEST rates, covers & ser vice. Immediate quotes. Tel 961 129 215 / 622 275 561, (What sApp) info@beneficialinsuran ceinspain.com or visit www.be neficialinsuranceinspain.com for online quote. (301135)

of full body massages. Villa martin apartment or can travel to all areas. 693 357 526 (295411)

RELAXING MASSAGE FOR MEN - Mario qualified masseur in Alicante - Spe cial Massage for Men - 7 days 10am to 10pmAPPOINTMENTS visit: www.masajeyrelax.es/en or WHATSAPP 649 761 607 (296490)

METALWORKS

HEALTH & BEAUTY

CHIROPODIST/PODIATRIST, Philip Mann, clinics in Benissa, Moraira, Javea, Calpe and Albir. 686 912 307 (287331)

WIGS

WWW.WIGS-R-US.ES Indoor Market Rincon de Loix, Benidorm. Monday-Saturday 10-3. We also have Scrunchies, Extensions, Pony tails. Catalogue orders. Private ap pointments after 3pm. 681 049 502

INSURANCE

FED UP OF NOT BEING SENT YOUR RENEWAL? CUT YOUR

MOTOR INSURANCE . For the most competitive quotes in En glish call Linea Directa on 952 147 834, you could save as much as 30% and you can transfer your existing no claims bonus. Call Linea Directa on 952 147 834 for motor insurance with a human voice in English from Monday to Friday 9am to 6pm and save money now! (200726)

STAY SAFE! Abbeygate Insur ance Call 971 277 455 For your security www.abbeygateinsu re.com

MASSAGE

FRENCH, ELÉGANTE , SLIM SOPHIE, 3 languages spoken. Experienced in a large variety

GOLD & SILVER Bought & Sold, Rolex & Patek Philippe Watches Tel - 678 716 693 (288662)

MISCELLANEOUS MOTORBIKES

Peter Zwaan Motorbikes, Pe ter Zwaan Motorbikes,A+ Occa sions showroom, Triumph Bon neville America 865cc, 2011, 14.000 kms, E 6.500,-. www.CostaBlancaMotorbikes. com (296460)

DECORATORS W.D. GILMOUR. Painter & Decorator. Established 35 years in Moraira. ESTIMATES FREE. Call William on 609 691 776 or 966 490 602 (301307)

BENIDORM and surrounding areas. Two-man removal. 622 658 992 (294208)

MAN & VAN for hire, cheap & reliable. Jalon Valley & surrounding area. Call/WhatsApp 636 100 873 (302088)

SITUATIONS VACANT

AUTO BASTIAN mobile me chanic. Tel 608 860 725.

WE are currently the market lead er in our country in the sale of di rect car, motorbike, home and company fleet insurance. Since we started out in 1995, our philoso phy has always been to offer an excellent service with the best prices in the market. For the most competitive quotes in English, call Linea Directa on 952 147 834.

OTHERS

VIAGRA / KAMAGRA / CIALIS. BEST PRICES. FREE DISCREET DELIVERY. ALL AREAS COV ERED. TEL: PETER 644 139 274

MALE/FEMALE viagra, cialis, kam agra jelly, mixed trial packs available, all areas mail order. 604 385 476. viagra4you19@gmail.com

FREE VIAGRA? (Sildenafil) 100mg Buy 3 Packs get 1 pack FREE. 1€ each tablet, packs of 10. All areas covered. FAST Mail Order GUARANTEED plus postage or discreet personal de livery available. WhatsApp your order to 665 503 333 or e-mail for details viagra@glais.com

NEED YOUR PETS TAKEN CARE OF? Not kennels, just a friendly home. Large fenced area. 699 790 080 Altea (294597)

TO

DOGS & ALL PETS VERY WEL COME – 500-year-old beamed cottage set in beautiful valley of the charming Jesus Pobre village, Javea. Beautiful pool & garden. www.littlehouseinspain.com

WANTED

RETIRED couple looking for long term rental in La Marina Baixa - prefer two beds. Needed urgently - call Janice on 0044 7736 251 800 (279523)

ROLLER SHUTTER REPAIRS, awnings, motors, mosquito blinds. Calpe + 50 kms. 659 464 992 www.toldosalchemy.com (293808)

ROLLER SHUTTERS STRUCTURAL SURVEYS

MARK PADDON BSc Hons. MCIOB, CAAT – for buyer’s sur vey & defects advice. Tel: 653 733 066 / 962 807 247 www.costablancasurveyors.com (291812)

TELECOMMUNICATIONS

FED UP PAYING TOO MUCH FOR YOUR MOBILE PHONE CALLS? THEN CONTACT TELITEC TODAY. CALLS TO SPAIN 7C PER MINUTE INCLUD ING MOBILES. CALLS TO UK 5.3C PER MINUTE. NO MONTH LY FEES, NO CONTRACT. WWW.TELITEC.COM TEL: 902 889 070 (2001)

TRANSLATIONS

SPANISH INTERPRETER for all your appointment needs, has car. Effective, Friendly & Afford able service. Call 609 679 808 (290313)

TEST byMarkSlack

EVERY so often you get be hind the wheel of a car, usu ally a cheaper model, and are surprised in the sense that you could happily drive one every day. What’s even more surprising on Hyundai’s Bay on, and unusual in this class, is that it is also incredibly comfortable and capable on long journeys. It also comes with enough standard equipment to put more expensive models to shame.

Priced from €23,385/£20,350 there are three trim levels, one engine with two power outputs along with either sixspeed manual gears or a dual clutch automatic. The turbocharged, 1.0­litre, three­cylinder engine is as sisted by 48v hybrid power.

Performance is more than capable, even if nowhere near warm hatch territory, yet feels quicker and has the

Hyundai Bayon

fortable, front are heated, and there’s decent space even in the rear, although a fifth passenger might prefer short journeys.

As one might expect of Hyundai the assembly quali ty is excellent but you can tell it’s built to a price with hard plastics evident, but they have made the effort of con trast by different textures on some of the surfaces. This gives the interior a more quality look and allied to neat and very clear instru mentation it makes the Bay on a nice place to be seated.

This is a very appealing

car, it simply does what it’s meant to do and does it well.

It has a nice driving feel with clear and simple controls, plenty of buttons rather than an overly digital experience. The climate control offers in dividual settings rather than as with so many cars’ multi ple options, ie face and feet whereas in the Bayon you can have them separately.

The style will not be to ev eryone’s taste, but it’s cer tainly different and is quite colour sensitive as to looks in my view. I really enjoyed the Bayon and was genuinely sorry to see it depart.

Facts at a Glance

Model: Hyundai Bayon Premium

Price: €25,863/£22,495

Engine: 1.0-litre, 3-cylinder, turbocharged petrol developing 100PS

Gears: 6-Speed manual

far from unpleasant charac teristic thrum of the threecylinder. My test car was mated to the manual sixspeed gearbox and unless you need an automatic is the better choice in my view.

Cross country it’s surprisingly good fun despite being aimed at urban commuting.

Hyundai describe the Bay on as a crossover SUV, not sure I’d agree with that, but you get lots of space inside,

although thanks to that hy brid gear the boot is a tad limited. It’ll fit most people’s requirements fine and you can always lower the rear seat in whole or part. Inside the cabin the seats are com

Performance: 0-100 kmh (62 mph) 10.7 seconds/Maximum Speed 230 kph (114 mph)

Economy: 5.3l/100km (53.3mpg) Combined driving (WLTP)

Emissions: 121 g/km (WLTP)

Model tested was UK-specification and equipment levels and prices may vary in other markets.

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HYUNDAI BAYON: An appealing car, it does what it’s meant to do and does it well.

JAGUAR is bidding farewell to its iconic F­Type sports model. The British car man ufacturer unveiled one last special edition of the model before it goes out of produc tion after 2023. The Jaguar F­Type 75 is being released to celebrate 75 years of the car manufacturer.

The Jaguar F­Type 75 caused quite a stir in the motoring community after it was revealed on October 11.

Commentators have de scribed the car as ‘a last hur rah’, and ‘top of the high way’, praising its sleek exterior and luxury design touches. The special edition

It’s the end for Jaguar F-Type

model also features fourwheel drive and Jaguar’s 5.0 litre supercharged V8 en gine.

The decision comes as the brand makes the move to all­electric from 2025, and ends a 75 year history of producing petrol combus tion cars.

Announcing the new model, Jaguar Exterior De sign Chief, Matthew Beaven said “For 75 years, Jaguar has been renowned for pro ducing extraordinary sports

cars that deliver perfor mance, agility and maxi mum driver reward.”

He added “The F­Type special editions hold true to these principles, adding unique interior and exterior design details to celebrate

this lineage before Jaguar becomes an all­electric brand from 2025.”

Motorists are encouraged to get their orders in sooner rather than later, as the end of Jaguar’s petrol car pro duction is nigh.

Photo credit: Sergey Kohl / Shutterstock.com

The Jaguar F-Type has been a firm favourite among sports car fans for years.

Best footballers awarded

SPANISH midfielder, Alexia Putellas, and French striker, Karim Benzema, won the Bal lon d’Or award for the best football players in the world on Monday October 17.

Alexia Putellas kept her title as the best women’s player in 2022 after scoring 18 goals to lead her team, Barcelona, to another domestic trophy. Putel las beat both Beth Mead of Arsenal and England and Sam Kerr of Chelsea and Australia for the award.

“I’m very happy to be back here,” Putellas said at the ceremony in Paris.

Karim Benzema had a stellar season with Real Madrid, scoring 44 goals in 46 games in all com petitions and helped

guide them to a LaLiga and Champions League double. His 15 goals in the Champions League guided Real to a recordextending 14th title. Benzema beat Robert Lewandowski, Sadio Mane and Kevin De Bruyne to the top men’s prize.

“This prize in front of me makes me really proud,” Benzema added.

Awarded by France Football magazine, the Ballon d’Or has been given out to men for 66 years. The women’s tro phy was created in 2018.

Club director mourned

THE former director of Real Club Deportivo Es panyol and the founder of the TV production com pany BRB Internacional, has died aged 82.

Real Club announced the death of Claudio Biern Boyd on Monday, October 17 in a tweet. Biern was director of the club for the periods 1986­1989, 1993­1994, and 2004­2006.

Biern, who was born in Palma de Mallorca to a Catalan father and Scottish mother studied law studies at the University of Deusto in Bilbao and Barcelona, between 1957 and 1962, before moving to Madrid.

There he went to work as Head of Promotion and Marketing of the multinational Lever Iberian, a position he held until 1968. In 1972 he estab lished BRB International, winning the rights to manage such series as ‘Tom and Jerry’.

In 1977 he started to produce his own series of cartoons and went on to produce ‘Football in ac tion’ (1982) which featured Naranjito, the mascot of the football World Cup in Spain.

Real Club Deportivo Espanyol have paid tribute to the former director, saying that they and the fans mourned his passing.

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Ballon d’Or awarded to the best football players 2022.