My Tailor´s name is Tomàs.

How much does a tailor made suit cost? This question has a variety of possible answers but if you are Francisco Camps, president of the Valencian community for the ruling Popular Party, it could cost your position, your credibility and your future. At this very moment Camps faces corruption charges for receiving suits and a waistcoat (in which to meet the Pope) to the value of around 12,000€ paid for by a group of businessman who have received millions from the public purse of the Generalitat and the private purse of the Popular Party. While the latter is of no concern to anyone outside that party, the former is most certainly a matter for public concern.
Every grand event, political meeting, trade fair or public celebration of any kind requires an enormous amount of organization so that everything runs like clockwork on the night. This is something that we,the public who attend, usually take for granted without a second thought as to who designed the set, who bullt the stage, rented the seats, provided the flowers etc.etc. As you can imagine , this is a highly specialized business which needs all the right contacts and an artist`s ability to visualise and then create the right scenario and ambience to create the successful effect desired. In this area, the Valencian company Orange Market seems to have been THE BEST. La créme de la créme.
This we can safely assume, as it appears that Orange Market is the ONLY company to have organized events of the aforementioned kind during the last five or six years. The astronomical sums of money received by this company is unknown but it is safe to say that it runs into several millions of euros. In this country, when public sector contracts are adjudicated, they are supposed to be submitted to a process of scrutinization and later offered to the company with the lowest tender, assuming that the standard of workmanship and guarantees be the same. This system is the one which functions in just about every democratic state. let`s face it , it is one of the fundamental parts of a democratic system. Strange then that not one other company has been capable in all these years of offering a better tender to the Valencian authorities than the flamboyant Alvaro Perez head of Orange Market. Indeed the philanthropical Mr Perez, who has become a wealthy man during this period as well as a personal friend, not only of President Camps and his wife, but also of other high ranking members of the Popular Party in the three provinces of the Valencian community, is known to be a very generous person. Amongst the presents which have allegedly been received from him by his political benefactors figure the hand made suits adorning the sprightly figure of Francisco Camps. That is the sad situation. One could interpret it as corruption or simply a friendly gesture from a generous friend. The judge will be the one to decide. What is not on trial here is whether or not this has been a hidden way of illegally funding the Popular Party, and I, for one would prefer to keep MY opinion to myself.

BARCA or MADRID?

Could you imagine entering a pub in Liverpool and discovering its decor to be dedicated to the glory of Manchester Utd? Or a Birmingham coffee bar decorated with memorabilia of Arsenal? No? Nor me and yet you will find bars full of Barcelona or Madrid mementos from Sevilla to Compostela to Valencia. And the bar on the corner of your street? Chances are that it won´t be decked out with posters or scarves of the local team. Have you ever wondered why these seemingly incongruous circumstances exist? To find the answer, we must travel back in time to the days of the dictatorship and advance from there.
With the civil war over and Franco installed in power, Spain, while officially at peace was a deeply and bitterly divided land. While supporters of the regime lived and worked in relative comfort, the repression continued against known or suspected dissenters be they communists, socialists, anarchists or simply believers in democracy. Now Franco, apart from his hunting was a passionate supporter of Real Madrid C.F. He rarely missed a match which he would watch from his seat of honour in the tribune. As a result of this of course his entourage, followers and arselickers in general also declared their undying devotion to the "equipo del govierno", the government`s team as Real Madrid is still known in many parts of the country. There are many accusations from that period of unfair advantages favouring Real, bent referees, star players from other countries only being facilitated the paperwork if they signed for Madrid and not other clubs and a large etc. which cannot be proved and is now irrelevant.
In those dark days of closed frontiers there were only two teams with the ability to take on and beat Real Madrid. They were Barcelona and Athletic Bilbao. The overiding difference between these two clubs of course was that Bilbao , staunchly nationalist would only play with Basque born players (although the club now insists that its players be Spaniards while preferring those of Basque origen), whereas Barca played with a mixture of Spanish and foreign born footballers. Therefore, outside the Basque country, Barcelona C.F. became the symbol of anti-franquism attracting supporters from every corner of the Spanish geography whether interested in football or not.
Although a lot of agua has passed under the bridge since the dictatorship, human nature is still human nature. It would be difficult to find a Spurs or an Aston Villa supporter for example, whose father or grandfather hadn´t supported that club. Football fanaticism runs in the family however much the younger generation may rebel against their parents. So is it for the sons and grandsons in whose bars you may find yourself observing football paraphenalia of Barca or Madrid even though you are at 1000km distance from either Camp Nou or el Santiago Bernabeu. Remember,you are not looking at football but at the political history of modern Spain and don`t be surprised at the passion aroused in any match between these two teams. It runs much, much deeper than simple sporting rivalry.

Valencia formula one

VALENCIA STREET CIRCUIT: ALL FUR COATS AND NO KNICKERS 18 years ago it was common to see in grafiti sprayed around Valencia capital the words, "volem circuit" we want a circuit in Valenciano. Then ,as now, there was an enormous group of motor sport fans, especially motor cyclists, who were demanding not only a circuit nearby where they could watch their idols, but also a circuit where they themselves could race at speeds not permitted on the public roads. As a result of this lobby, the beautiful circuit of Cheste was developed. This circuit is one of the best in the world for spectators as almost all the circuit can be seen from almost all the grandstands. It is set in a natural amphitheatre with excellent road communication( at the side of the A3 motorway) with ample parking facilities and sufficiently far away from the urbanised area to cause only minor acoustic problems for the local residents.

In their desperate need to grab votes before fhe municipal and autonomic elections of 2007 and spurred on by the success of the America`s cup yacht regatta, the local right wing Popular Party enticed Formula one`s owner and mentor Bernie Ecclestone, whose true colours are becoming daily more evident, into not only agreeing to stage a race on the projected Valencia street circuit, but also into conditioning this event to the re-election of his good friend Francisco Camps president of the Generalitat . Neither Ecclestone nor Camps paid for the construction of this circuit. We did, the taxpayer 90 odd million euros worth of asphalt and a swing bridge across the waters of the harbour. Now ;I don`t know about you other taxpayers but if I invest money in something, I expect a good return on it. Not,of course,if its a hospital: better health care is its own recompense for the investment, but in an unnecessary, non ecological, environmentally unfriendly cnstruction of this type ,I want some profit. I am getting none.Three big time operators (their names are not important although one happens to be ex-president Aznar`s son in law) have the rights to the exploitation of the circuit and, after paying Ecclestone the paltry 18million euracos for his slice of the cake, any profits made go into their three already well-lined pockets. So what´s in it for us? If you´re a fan and wish to watch the race, you will have to fork out a minimum of 200€ each for a poor seat where, if you´re lucky, you may just be able to see 100 metres of track. If, on the other hand, you are unfortunate enough to live in one of the three neighbouring areas Nazaret, El Grau or El Cabañal and are not a motor racing maniac, through no fault of your own you are in for a week of misery, which you helped to pay for. Travelling from one of these areas to the other (normally 5-10 minutes by bus converts itself into an

odyssey of anything up to an hour and a half " I m just going to see if Mum`s O.K. I`ll be back in three and a half hours." " What! you want to drive down your street and park your car in the underground parking space that cost you 27,000 € Forget it. You ain´t going down there til Monday" You want some peace? Go to Cheste. There`s a beaautiful natural amphitheatre there with absolutely nothing going on.

Around the circuit is a mixture of wasteland, vacant lots and semi-derelict industrial buildings whose appearance is so dilapidated that in the first,2008, edition of the race they had to be covered up by giant tarpaulins with photo imposed images of how they once looked so that the world´s T.V audiences would not see the real and apalling state in which the long neglected surrounding area has fallen. "Ah," I hear you thinking," but that was the first year. This year will be better¨Wrong. NOTHING has been done in 300 odd days Everything is just as it was and is ready to be disguised once again so that from Japan to Montreal, from Oslo to Rio de Janeiro T.V. vieweres will be able to enjoy the "virtual" Valencia and not the real one.As my old Mum used to say, " All fur coats and no knickers".

What´s this bog all about?

Are you a guiri? an expat? enjoying a better life in a better climate? Are you popular? With the Spanish community or just with your fellow countrymen and women?I suspect that many of you are missing out on a whole lot of information that could help you to become REALLY integrated in this generally beautiful (and on occasions very ugly)country called Spain. How much do you know about your host country? Why are the Spanish people like they are.? What makes THEM tick? What do they and what don`t they like about you? How is your local community governed? and your comarca? your autonomous community? Who is getting rich at your expense? Is public money, your money, being spent wisely on concepts that you consider important? If you get your information from Sky and the local free newspapers in English or Deutch you will no doubt be up to date in matters varying from Coronation street to Gordon Brown`s personality deficit and whatever else may be going on "back home" in the country that YOU LEFT BEHIND. So what use is this information to you? You don`t live there any more. YOU LIVE HERE. This blog is designed to tear down the walls of ignorance and with YOUR help open up a whole new understanding of what the issues are, who the people are, what is right,what isn`t right and how it all works. HERE. Right here in our host country. So stop saying that "back home it`s all gone to the dogs" and wise up to why and how your new adoptive home country might just be going in the same direction.

This blog will contain OPINIONS. Some may NOT be POLITICALLY CORRECT although every attempt will be made to NEVER resort to personal insult. It is hoped that YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS will maintain the same criterion and if not they will be excluded. This is a FORUM where the REAL ISSUES in our municipalities, comarcas and communities can be aired OPENLY. Alone this task would be impossible. With YOUR help this can become an interesting and widely consulted blog and,who knows, we may even be able to solve one or two problems and not just moan about it. So, to anyone who has read this far let me welcome you to this new blog knowing that unity is strength.