The Gavin Clinton Constabie of the Year Award Biancas'Charily Braw

The recipient of this year's Gavin Clinton Constable of the Year Award was PC 181 Elizabeth Gomez.

The Gavin Clinton Constable of the Year Award is an annual pres entation given to the Royal Gibral tar Police constable who has worked exceptionally well during the year.

The RGP Policy Group carries out the selection. Constables are nominated for the award by their respective Heads of Departments or Units. This year there were seven nominations.

PC Gomez joined the Royal Gi braltar Police on 17th March 1980. She has served most of her career in the Operations Division. At present she is in the Operations Administration Department.

Brays Giftfor Mount Aivernia

To end 2005 Bray Properties recently presented Mount Aivernia with a donation of £1000 to assist the residents.

Speaking to The Gibrtiltar Maga zine. Just Bray said:

"We are delighted to be able to support our elderly once again and especially in the Christmas season. We would like to take this opportunit)'to thank the staff of Mount Aivcrnia for their ster ling work and caring attitude to the residents and hope ou r dona tion will help with their shop ping lists at this important time of year."

Bray Properties have named Mount Aivernia again this year as their charitable cause for 2006.

In Biancas' monthly Charity Prize Draw the latest winner was Daniel Griffin who received a Robsapien robot. Daniel was de lighted with the prize, which he received just in time to give to his nephew Stephan as a Christmas present. The prize was presented to Daniel by Christopher who has

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worked at Biancas for more than two years.

The newly refurbished Biancas restaurant,on the quayside at Ma rina Bay, is gearing up for a busy summer,and we are sure custom ers old and new will be delighted with the swish new look.

Tel:73379 to reserve your table.

by Alan Gravett

rant on a February evening,cross ing a terrace where 2 diners were intrepidly eating away in a tem perature ofjust above zero. When asked why,the waiter sniffily re plied that they wanted to sit in the non-smoking area! French smok ers rule, eh?

The 1" January 2006 was more than New Year's Day in Spain. New laws were introduced and a jaw-dropping social change.

The new laws included a ban on smoking in public places. Smoking bans are being intro duced everywhere nowadays but inveterate smokers like the Span ish must find it vexing.

1Of course, Spain's climate, es pecially in the South, makes smoking al fresco acceptable enough(to the smoker),but these bans had already been introduced in Ireland, France and Scandina via where chilblains etc. are more of a threat.

IWhen the ban was introduced in Ireland, the fastest growing sales market was in patio heaters as bar owners strove to heat up any small outdoor area where the addicted smoker/drinker might be sited to avoid losing trade.

In France (another country where smokers abound), and in Paris to be precise, I read about a journalist who entered a restau-

Another new law in Spain pro hibits the hooting of car horns ex cept for the intended purpose of warning someone you are there. In Madrid, in particular,(though not the only place 1 can think of!), it is common to hoot horns for all sorts of celebrations most espe cially when Real Madrid win a game.

The fine is n60 per offence. 1 cannot think that this measure will raise much money this year given Real Madrid's compara tively poor performances!

As so to the jaw-dropping so cial change.

Civil servants and other em ployees must vacate their offices by 7pm each day.Jolly good, you might think, the poor people shouldn't be stuck in their offices at that time and later anyway.

But the point, of course, is that they work late because they have had 2 hours for lunch. So now they not only have to go home to their spouses(or sit around drink ing in non-smoking bars), earlier than has been the custom but lunch must be restricted to just a tapa or 2instead of the traditional beanfeast followed by a siesta!