DavidJackson.info

Here’s a video of Mojácar, made by my mate Richard, who obviously has too much spare time on his hands.

Apparantly he made it with in “stop motion” – one photo, time off 60 secs, another  photo, another 60 secs…. Fours hours later his battery ran out and he walked back down.

Watch out for his dog, who appeared desperate to get into the film!

It appears the Chilli bar (Indian restaurant in Turre) was severely “smashed up” last night after some people broke in.

Rumors as to why are… varied.

Far be it from me to spread the four (different) tales I have heard so far. So I’ll do some digging.

later

It seems that at 5,30am, a car full of people turned up at the restaurant, attached some chains to the rejas and front door and drove forwards.

Once a big hole had appeared in the door, they reversed, loaded up the fruit machine and drove off.

I tell you, it’s all go in Turre!

Callejeros, a TV programme from Cuatro, found out.

Funnily enough, I’ve never seen this in the tourist brochures.

Many, many, many years ago, Finca La Parata was the benchmark for expat food in the area.

John in the kitchen serving up exquisite delights, Anne out front with the family making you feel at home.

This all changed when they left for pastures new. Then they came back, and I wrote about their triumphal return here.

And then they left again. To open up the old Agora, next to Lua on the beachfront, as a swish modern restaurant called Restaurante La Fantasia. Together, once again, with Edd and Claire.

To those of you who reminded me I have not written about it before, despite having been spotted there on half a dozen occasions, I must apologise (especially to Hudson, who asked me months ago for a critique). Pressures of work, etc etc etc.

La Fantasia is a rather strange building. When you first arrive, you walk through the main door, only to be presented, not with a lovely dining area, but with some rather steep stairs.

Negotiating these stairs with care (every time I go, it seems to be raining) you come to the main restaurant downstairs.

The main room downstairs has a large seating area, with a big bar. Then there is a long conservatory outside, which leads onto the paseo maritimo, large outdoor terraces on either side and another dining room (not normally used except for functions) to the side. Should be great in summer when those terraces are in use.

The ambiance is… fresh. Nice and airy. Views into a gleaming kitchen, large spacious bar and tables with a bit of elbow room.

The menu is much the same as before, including John’s famous chicken kievs, of which I have fond memories from my youth (before Kings Food swamped the area with frozen imported ones).

The cuisine is very English. Imagine decent, slightly upmarket pub grub from the 90′s. Huge prawn cocktails,  Duck á la orange, chicken kiev, usually a curry dish, beef stroganoff, etc. I keep thinking I’ll glance out the window and spot an angler by the Severn.

Spanish – I have taken some there – are usually intrigued, despite the fact that the menu is translated into Spanish. The translations aren’t always 100%, in my opinion – they translate the food but the concept is lost. For example, a pie is translated as beef stew with pastry. Technically accurate…. just not quite what it is. I nitpick. I’ll be quiet now.

It is not, if I am honest, an exciting menu. It is a reliable menu. A menu that, even when it changes, remains much the same.

This is not a bad thing, as evidenced by the fact its currently one of the busiest places around. The clientele are happy, and the management has cleverly catered for their every whim.

Good solid British pub grub on hot plates.

Prices are decent. During the day we have the “menu del dia”, which is a seperate menu for 10€, and in the evenings we have the “menu luz de luna”, for 12€. Both have excellent choices. Or order off the á la carte.

They have something for everyone. Fish, meat, vegetarian and pasta / pizza. Not a huge menu that they can’t cope with, but a good solid range of food meaning there is always something for each member of the party.

Unless you’re those fruterians I once met in Malaga, who only ate windfall and lived in a Buddist temple. But I doubt they eat out much in Mojácar.

The single biggest quibble I have with the place is that they insist upon drawing their logo (a heart with stars in it) on all the puddings, usually in strawberry syrup. Frankly, it annoys me. Why, I do not know, as I do not usually eat puddings, but if someone else at the table has one I find myself using my finger to wipe up the syrup and write something with it. This, as you can imagine, makes me even more unpopular than I am now.

So yes. Go there. Reserve first, it’s often packed and I’ve had to wait for a table there. Staff are attentive and kind.

Restaurante La Fantasia
Paseo del Mediterraneo 6, next to Lua, in front of La Gaviota complex.
Mojácar Playa.
Tlf 950 475 127
Website (with menus): http://www.restaurantefantasia.com/

(Photos pinched off their website)

Almería is, I was shocked to realised this week, quickly becoming famous across Spain for rather horrific and sad deaths.
In fact, in the last three months Almería appears to have been dominating the headlines across Spain.
In December we had the shocking murder suicide when 72 year old Antonio killed his wife and disabled 80 year old brother before killing himself, in Cóbdar.
We then had the tragedy of the coastguard helicopter crash off our coast – when three brave men lost their lives whilst saving others.
We had the rather shocking case (it happened in 2004, but the judge only ruled last month in the case)  of 13 youths in Almería who kicked a tramp to death.
A Police Inspector is found guilty of blackmailing a vulnerable woman under his protection to extort money.
Last week, a woman in Sorbas killed her mother and her daughter before committing suicide.
Three people were murdered, two of them wives, in January alone in the capital city.
In fact, by the 18th of February, across Spain, 6 women had been killed by their partners.
2 of those (33,3%) were in Almería. 2 more in Madrid, 1 in Mallorca, 1 in Barcelona.
Which means little Almería is on par with the giant cosmopolitan melting pot that is Madrid when it comes to violent husbands.
And between 2005-2008, Almería was consistently the Andalucian province with the second highest rate of domestic murders.
Which is starting to lead some Andalucian commentators to ask why Almería is surging ahead in the murder stakes.
Some blame immigration. Other say that a new generation of women are more likely to take recourse to the law when suffering ill treatment, rather than quietly accepting it.
None of this is good, although only by getting the statistics out in the air can we find ways of dealing with the problem.
The real question, is why is Almería suffering these attacks recently?
Frankly, I don’t know. Possibly the reporting of these events makes it more likely they will occur again locally as it gives unstable people the idea? Better reporting of smaller cases?
Still, at least we had the Euromillion winner recently, which cheered us all up.

Like all good coups, it was swift and deadly.

But, with luck, it will signal a new and better direction for ACEM, as a truly independent business association instead of a small cartel of self interested people.

The first most people heard of it was when the following letter appeared on the internet last night (taken from http://www.spectrumfmmojacar.net/clarification_acem.php, facebook and many other sources, and printed in the EWN):

———————————————————————————

Clarification of Involvement
From: Michel & Steven Euesden of the Euro Weekly News
Richard & Jessica Shanley of Spectrum FM Mojacar
Karin Schroter, ACEM President

We would like to clarify, via this joint statement, something which appears to be causing some confusion in relation to the new businesses association ACEM and the involvement of Mr Keith Selllers.

Keith Sellers contacted EWN & Spectrum initially on behalf of ACEM to canvass their involvement and support for the new association. There was no other contact from ACEM at this stage.

They both agreed to participate as they understood the benefit of helping revitalise the local business community could only be beneficial for everyone concerned.

We all still believe that ACEM is essential to the recuperation of the local economy, and thus will continue to fully support it and all its endeavours and future projects.

However, events that took place last week has left us no option but to make it a matter of public record that there will no longer be any involvement between ourselves and Keith Sellers in relation to ACEM in any form.

All media liaisons between Spectrum/EWN and ACEM will be conducted via ACEM President Karin Schroter.

As is probably no secret, the reputation which rightly or wrongly is often associated with Keith is not one which will be of any advantage to neither ACEM nor ourselves, and appears to be detracting from what we are all trying to achieve: to help Mojacar.

We wish to move forward in a positive and constructive manner and will continue to strive to help put Mojacar back on the map which could only be beneficial for all involved.

Remember Mojacar Matters and your voice counts.
Michel & Steven Euesden, EWN Media Group
Richard Shanley, Spectrum FM Mojacar
Karin Schroter, ACEM

———————————————————————————

As far as I can make out, certain people and organisations have been invited to “leave” the ACEM, after the main backers realised they were turning the ACEM into their own little short term publicity venture, freezing out anyone who didn’t toe “their line”.

After all, locking ACEM into a tight knit little cartel, which only dealt with certain media companies, and only publically supported some Mojácar businesses, was hardly conducive to its long term survival or effectiveness.

I’ve been told that a new committee under Karin will been formed, with the main backers and founders back on board.

Now they just need to split away from the political associations they formed and they will be back on track.

Jolly good.

Just returned from a snowball fight up in the mountains above Cabrera. Lots of lovely snow. Here’ s a few pictures.

All right, we’re not talking about the depths of the Scandinavian winter here, but it’s good fun.

Ironically enough, as somebody has just moodily emailed me to point out, this is the weekend that John Gaunt was paid to come here and tell everyone how lovely and warm Mojácar is in the winter.  Ah, it’ll be lovely tomorrow again. After all, last Saturday I almost got sun burnt out on the terrace.

Some luck chap/pette has won 64 million euros on the lottery. Euromillions, which means they didn’t have to split it into decimos as you do with El Gordo and its ilk.

It would have been 128 million but two tickets won, one in Mojacar and the other in the UK.

story:  65 million euro lottery ticket sold in Mojacar

Here: http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2010/02/10/andalucia/1265835674.html

Just a pity they got the link to Mojacar’s website wrong. Ah well. I have told them, let’s see how long it takes them to fix it.

After a pleasent evening, during which we were chatting about the future of the area, I got out the old POTALA plans and had a bit of a think.

After all, what does the future have to hold for this area? Irrespective of what we Brits think or do (we are, after all, in a minority amongst immigrants to the province – there are 40% more Romanians, 60% more Moroccans than Brits here) our benevolent Junta has a plan for this area, and that is what is going to happen. Even if the PSOE is kicked out (I’m not making THAT prediction!), the money is slowly being freed up to make this happen, and the laws have already been changed to stop anything else happening.

So I’m going to make a few predictions. Let’s see what happens. I’m going to treat the four regions of Almería (Levante, Almanzora, Poniente, Campo de Tabernas) as unified regions for this purpose. Hey, nobody’s paying me to be accurate. Imagine that you’re a planner, and you see all these lovely blocks on a map, and how they interconnect. Nice and clean, isn’t it?

Levante

With the new infrastructure, and the new regional zoning plan (POTALA), I can see  the current Mojácar / Turre axis gradually withering away as a destination, to be replaced with Vera Playa / Garrucha (now with drinking water, straight from the tap!). All the new development plans for the area are concentrated on that region – the AVE station, the proposed Alcampo shopping mall, two other shopping centres, strong road connection to Vera as the local market town, Garrucha as the marina, Villaricos as the other marina, and the beaches, hotels and general tourism resorts there. And remember, several high ranking ministers (including ZP himself!) have holiday homes on Vera playa. (Hence the AVE station there).

Mojácar village itself is currently destined to be turned into a quaint day trip out for local holidaymakers, probably with even more souvenir shops and overpriced restaurants than we have now. There are only three night bars left, with one apparently going (thank you Rosmari!) before summer. No new licenses are being issued.

Remember – Mojácar development is currently limited. We have Macenas along one end, which may help in pulling tourists to that end of the strip, but the center bit appears destined to all inclusive holiday packages in ever older hotels (no new ones being planned for years, they’re all down in Vera or Llano Central). And with the exception of a rather peculiar football field, there are no developments planned, or even pencilled in.

Inland, we see Vera becoming the local market town, probably pulling quite a bit of power away from Huercal. Antas inland becomes ever more agricultural (greenhouses?) with the connection between Antas and Vera becoming a somewhat more “third industry” zone. Huercal / Pulpí probably becomes more agricultural.

The bits between Los Gallardos, Garrucha and Vera slowly gets filled in with developments and resorts.

Bédar turns towards rural tourism. New rural hotels? Cabrera is finally turned into a natural park and not much happens. Villages above Bédar slowly wither away even faster than they are now.

Carboneras turns into a much more industrial zone. The new port, the power station, the desalination plant and now high tech industry (wind farm assembly, etc) are installed there. Probably a motorway up to the A7 down to the port and it turns into the central import / export hub for the east of the province.

Almanzora

The new motorway links the A7 to Baza via the valley. So the top end of the valley (Cantoria onwards) becomes much more industrial, marble development and the like. Quarries abound, probably taken out via Carboneras. Not much else as it’s too far away from anywhere to develop an industry that isn’t artisan (ie, marble production – they ship raw marble into the area, craft it and ship out the finished product).

The lower end becomes the main population zone, with a huge new commercial centre around Arboleas and then mini towns all slowly linking up into a central urban zone, just above Huercal and Vera.

Illegal homes? Most of them get legalised after paying a lot for infrastructure and “taxes”. Couple of dozen get knocked down.

Campos de Tabernas

The region “above”, in the hills above Tabernas is, I’m afraid, destined to wither. Nothing there, bad communications. Possibly the option of developing rural tourism but nothing too mass scale.

Poniente

The economic powerhouse of the province. Almería – El Ejido as the centre, with Roquetas / Aguadulce as its’ playground. Greenhouses keep developing, as do secondary industry there. Probably more industrial units will setup around Huercal.

Almería turns into more of a city. Almerimar turns into the playground of El Ejido, with a large new development behind it, and develops up to El Ejido.

The valley up to Granada turns into a rural tourism resort with lots of guesthouses and the like.

Níjar, apart from greenhouses and Cabo de Gata, turns into an interesting central axis for the whole province. Splot in the middle, it has good road, (soon) rail, port and airport access. A large new “dry port” is planned for Níjar, where people swing in content on a mass scale and then pushed out to different local points over small transport links.

Ahhh…. the crystal ball is getting misty from my breath. I shall take it away to clean it and may try again later. Or call on my new 906 number (4,5€ plus IVA a minute!)