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OLIVE PRESS
DELUGE: Cars swept away in 2019 floods
Floody hell
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Dig deep for Dali diptych AN original, off-the-wall painting by one of Spain’s most famous artists could fetch up to €11 million at auction today. The diptych, in art lingo, Couple aux têtes pleines de nuages (1937) depicts the Catalan artist and his wife Gala as framed silhouettes with their heads full of storm clouds. “It is full of the highly per-
sonal imagery that made Dali perhaps the most exciting Surrealist. “It reveals his obsession with Freudian psychology as much as his obsession with his great lover and muse Gala,” said India Phillips, Global Head of Bonhams, in London, where the auction will take place on Thursday. Its most distinctive feature is a burning giraffe, likely linked to the Spanish Civil War, which was raging at the time it was painted. Currently, the auction record for a Dali piece is €15 million.
Second bite Slain expat, 21, had been attacked by the same assailant in 2017
Worst offender
Also, man-made storm drains are often badly maintained and easily clog up with flora and ‘other detritus.’ The report looked at the ‘most artificial municipalities’ on the coast, with 10 each in the Canary Islands and the Balearics, two in Catalunya and five in Galicia, plus the ones in Valencia and Andalucia. Marbella on the Costa del Sol was highlighted as the most urbanised, with the report claiming it is the ‘most impacted by intensive tourism in Spain’. Next are Calvia, in Mallorca, Denia, on the Costa Blanca, Estepona, on the Costa del Sol, and Puerto del Rosario, in Las Palmas, in the Canaries. In terms of development close to the shoreline (under 500 metres) Benicassim (in Castellon) is the worst offender with 82% of its coastline developed for tourist purposes. Also criticised are Orihuela Costa, Mijas, Torrevieja and Benalmadena. The proliferation of golf courses was also pointed out in the Observatory’s findings. It claimed that the construction of greens and fairways has far exceeded the land area used for public parks and playgrounds.
expat
Vol. 1 Issue 25 www.theolivepress.es October 15th - October 28th 2020
FREUDIAN: The portraits of Dali and lover Gala
AN alarming 40% of Spain’s coastline is at ‘a high risk’ of flooding from heavy storms. A report from Spain’s Sustainability Observatory reveals that areas with recent and substantial urbanisation are most vulnerable. This includes many parts of the Costa del Sol and Costa Blanca, where 12 and 11 towns respectively are particularly at risk. It comes as the storm season - which left a number of people dead last year in Spain - is set to begin. According to the report, coastal municipalities since the 1950s have been transformed from rural undeveloped communities to large tourist resorts that have had a negative impact on the local ecosystem. Some 48 localities out of the 50 studied had seen excessive construction for tourist use, mainly in the form of homes, hotels and golf courses. Flooding after storms is generally caused by ‘a lack of suitable drainage, because traditional floodplains have been built on without planning’.
Your
EXCLUSIVE By Simon Wade in Ciudad Quesada
TRAGEDY: Nesbitt above and right
THE alleged killer of a British expat had been involved in a knife attack on the same victim in the UK three years ago. The Olive Press can reveal that Ben Nesbitt, 21, who was stabbed to death in Quesada on the Costa Blanca, on October 1, was hospitalised when three men attacked him in 2017. In the vicious assault in Southport, near Liverpool, he was left lying for dead after being knifed while he was asleep on a sofa. A court at the time was told that his mother thought he was ‘half dead’ when she visited him in hospital. The man arrested in Girona was convicted of burglary and stealing £1,600 (€1,780) and jailed for 38 months after driving two men to an address in Southport. While he stayed in the car, the others one of whom has never been identified - entered the property where they found Nesbitt lying on a sofa. One man - who was later jailed for six years and eight months - stabbed the victim, who, ac-
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cording to reports, was only saved from death by the thick clothing he was wearing. But it would appear that the violent incident was not the end of the matter. Sources have told the Olive Press that the man detained the day after Nesbitt’s death was one of the three men involved in the 2017 assault. The man was arrested in Girona by the Guardia Civil as he headed for the French border, which lay just 40 miles away, and was remanded in custody by an investigating judge. He is being probed over the fatal stabbing of Nesbitt, 21, after a party over 400 miles away on the Costa Blanca. The victim’s father Michael, told the Olive Press: “I tried to block it all out, hoping that I’d wake up the next mornsecuritasdirect@anantaseguridad.es ing and all+34 of 611 this475 was just a 892 nightmare - but it wasn’t.”
Nesbitt’s family are now waiting to cremate Ben and return his ashes to his native Southport.
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