Google to create Jauja!

The future of work, according to Google, will take place in woodland glades and wildflower meadows, next to trickling streams and verdant allotments, among bike paths and yoga classes and gushing fountains, with fresh produce on tap. It will be a pastoral utopia-with-WiFi, all safely swept beneath a series of gigantic glass tents.

Silicon Valley’s mother of all tech companies has today unveiled plans for its gargantuan new headquarters in Mountain View, California, designed by global star architects Bjarke Ingels and Thomas Heatherwick. And it looks like a futuristic Center Parcs.

The proposal takes the form of a series of vast greenhouses, nestling like misshapen dew drops in the suburban landscape of Mountain View, beneath which a flexible series of structures can accommodate all manner of interdisciplinary, cross-pollinating, hot-desking tasks. And lots of swoopy bike paths.

“The idea here is simple,” says David Radcliffe, Google’s vice-president of real estate. “Instead of constructing immoveable concrete buildings, we’ll create lightweight block-like structures which can be moved around easily as we invest in new product areas.”

At the core of the plan is the dream of ultimate flexibility, a future-proofing strategy based on the idea that we don’t know what work will be like in 10 or 20 years’ time. It’s treating architecture as software, imagining a building that can be continually updated just like the latest apps.

Nice place to work but unfortunately, it will still mean hours spent at a desk staring at a computer. In the end, work is still work whatever the environment it takes place in. 

A bunch of porkers

The anticorruption prosecutor, Paul Romero is seeking 12 years disqualification from office for four past members of the Orihuela council, Antonio Rodríguez Barberá, José Antonio Aniorte, Manuel Abadía and Antonio Rodríguez Murcia (all PP).

The original complaint, which was lodged by Antonia Moreno for the PSOE,  was about the awarding of contracts to the two companies owned by Angel Fenoll – Proambiente and Colsur.

Over 1.9m euros of contracts were awarded for work on the coast including rubbish collection, cleaning and removal of seaweed. None of the contracts had been budgeted for nor had they been approved. They were paid for by using credit from the bank which of course involved interest payments.

The prosecutor also believes that Aniorte Romero and Rodriguez Murcia  were guilty of fractioning contracts to avoid having to go to tender. He quotes the example of three contracts for road works singed by Aniorte  that were in reality one and eight contracts for street lighting signed by Rodriguez Murcia that were all related.

Corruption in Spain was not related to one party or another. Whichever party was in power made no difference, they still had their “snouts in the trough”.

How incredible

It isn’t often that AEMET get the weather 100% correct but they just did. According to their forecast the wind, which has been blowing quite strong – enough to rattle the furniture on the roof, has just dropped to 0 as they said it would.

Be on your guard at the airport

The Coast Rider warns us to watch out for thieves at Alicante Airport car hire collection point.

Apparently, one out of every five British passports stolen in Alicante province are taken at the airport and half of them are taken from vehicles there. A further one in five passports are stolen from cars parked on the road or in car parks.

In a move to try and reduce the risk, the British Consulate and the national police have held discussions with car rental companies and have come up with the following suggestions:

First off, they asked the companies to remove their stickers from the back of cars because that makes them an obvious target. In fact doing so could be beneficial to the companies because one firm claims that, after taking that step, the number of cars with broken windscreens had reduced. If you pick up a hire car and it has a sticker on, the best thing to do is remove it for your own sake.

The advice to customers is as follows:

1.       Never leave personal belongings visible from outside the vehicle
2.       When your vehicle is full of suitcases or other valuables, leave it in a proper car park with security cameras, not on the street
3.       Be extra wary when loading and unloading – keep your valuables close to you
4.       Ignore attempts to distract you when on the road or in a car park - this could be part of a ploy to rob you

Whilst Pam and I do not hire cars from the airport, we do use a company there to park my car whilst we travel to the UK.

Instead of taking the car to a depot and leaving it there, we park up outside of departures where one of the reps meets us to take the car away. We have to be vigilant during the process because apparently thieves wait in that area ready to steal any unattended luggage. With a car parked nearby, they look for any cases and bags that are not being watched, take them and then make a get away in their car.

It isn’t just people using the company we use that fall victim of this ruse, those that are simply dropping off friends and relatives get caught out as well. So often I see people park up, get the luggage out of the boot and then leave it whilst they say their goodbyes. If I can observe this happening, so can the thieves. It is not usually the large luggage that they are after, it is the hand luggage and bags where you would normally keep passports, money and valuables. 

Not so sleepy Bigastro

A joint operation by the Guardia Civil and the National Police caught a gang of armed, masked men who were guilty of thefts from twenty petrol  stations in the Vega Baja and Baix Vinalopó  areas during recent months.

The operation was launched by members of the Civil Guard and Specialist and Violent Crime Unit (UDEV) of the National Police at Elche It ended with the arrest of four suspects, one in Bigastro and the remainder in the municipalities of La Union Murcia and Cieza. In addition to the twenty petrol stations, the four were involved in various house break ins.

The National Police and Civil Guard kept track of this band of robbers after registering numerous robberies in similar circumstances at service stations before Christmas. In most cases the gang used shotguns to intimidate employees. They always wore face masks and within a few minutes of entering the premises,  fled with the money. The latest assaults were committed earlier this year in Orihuela and Elche.

After a wave of such robberies, the Civil Guard  were able to identify the suspects and gave chase. The criminals eventually abandoned their car on a road of Vega Baja and fled into the countryside. The vehicle contained some of the weapons used in the attacks and gave the police clues as to the identity of the thieves.

Yesterday, the Civil Guard, closed Calle San Pascual in Bigastro from 7am in order to search an apartment block where they arrested a foreign national – one of the four in the gang.

Pioneers

When I first started in photography, it was with film. I quickly learnt how to develop my own black and white images in a darkroom situated above the Junior Common Room at the college where I studied to become a teacher. Then there was a darkroom at the school where I first taught in the room next door to mine. I also set up a darkroom in the spare bedroom of our first house.

Apart from black and white, I processed colour slides using Ferrania colour film and later tried my hand at colour printing with varying degrees of success.

However, once digital photography became more widespread, I got rid of all my equipment: developing tanks, measuring jugs, thermometers, enlarger etc etc and took to working my pictures on a computer instead. I can’t say that I missed being in the dark with smelly chemicals but there was something magical about watching a print appear in the developing tray.

I can only imagine what it must have been like for those early pioneers of photography who wowed the public with images that had hitherto been impossible to capture except with the skill of an artist’s brush. 

There is an exhibition -  Salt and Silver: Early Photography 1840-1860 on at Tate Britain, London SW1, until 7 June. Here are some examples of photos from that show.

Cossack Bay, Balaclava, 1855, by Roger Fenton	Nelson’s Column Under Construction, Trafalgar Square, 1844, by William Henry Fox Talbot
Five Newhaven fisherwomen, c 1844, by David Hill and Robert Adamson	Newhaven fishermen, c 1845, by David Hill and Robert Adamson

Even if you are not a photographer, these images provide a fascinating account of life at that time.

Next council meeting

With 18 items on the agenda, the council meeting scheduled for Friday 27th March at 8pm promises to be a long affair.

I would say that there doesn’t appear to be much that is contentious but then this is Bigastro! We have had name calling, councillors being sent out even the police called to remove councillors before now.

A message from the band

Dear partners

You, our friends, are an essential part of the of band. We count on you for your economic and moral support, your applause at each of our performances and for the interest that you show in our society.

You are very much a part of our great family and so the Bigastro band dedicate the ‘Concierto del Socio’ to you.

This year though, we are doing something different because we have organised a Big Band Festival and have invited the A.M.C. "Las Musas" of Guadalupe (a 1st level band) to join with us and play.

Remember, the concert is for you!

If you like music you are INVITED!

15th March at 6pm in the Auditorium Francisco Grau.

PS I will be there armed with my camera and my digital audio recorder to bring you pictures of the event and a recording for the band’s archives.

Honing their skills

Aspiring bullfighters have to practice to perfect their art. These days most go to bullfighting schools but that was not always the case. Matadors like Juan Belmonte and El Cordobés  would visit ranches at night and under the cloak of darkness sharpen up their skills.

The practice died out years ago but was recently revised by three would be matadors. They had approached the owner of the ranch and sought permission. Having been turned down, the three hatched a plan for moonlight sessions instead.

They took the precaution of parking their car well away from the ranch and arrived on foot. However, just as they were getting started, the three were surrounded by police. They claimed that they were practising on cows but the ranch owner argued that it was actually bulls which then had to be put down. Under Spanish law, any bull that has been involved in fighting has to be slaughtered, because it is feared they might remember the bullfighter’s moves in a subsequent encounter. The ranch owner is claiming 53,000 euros for the loss of 20 animals.

NB the past when bullfighting was common in most small towns throughout Spain, rather than being killed, the same bulls were taken to several corridas. By the second or third town, the bulls were highly dangerous to fight and many would be matadors were either badly injured or died as a result.

The rise and fall of Eurener

When Pamela and I moved to Bigastro there was no Eurener here. I recall that the building of the factory alongside the bypass was controversial because that was land not designated for industrial purposes. That was in 2007, 10 years after the company first formed.

Eurener specialised in making solar panels at a time when demand for them was high. With an annual production capacity of 90 MW Eurener manufactured monocrystalline, polycrystalline and glass-glass photovoltaic modules in their factories in Bigastro and Portugal.

They had lucrative government contracts as well as supplying panels to companies and private individuals keen to save money by using renewable energy. 90% of the production was for the export market.

Having opened their factory in Bigastro, they rapidly expanded by taking over further premises in the town,  by operating 24 hours a day and even creating a showroom for their products in the Plaza de la Constitution.

Their problems though arose when cheaper Chinese imports started to flood the market. In 2010 they had an income of 54.09m which dropped to 35.98 the following year. They  applied for voluntary bankruptcy 25th September 2013 and at the same time planned to move to Latin America and develop project there.

Six months after they applied for bankrupcy, the company threw in the towel. The factory in Bigastro is now closed, there are weeds growing in the gravel, one of the panels on the huge billboard is broken and the fountain is empty of water. This is a sad state of affairs because Eurener used to employ 150 people.

Be aware

Yesterday, when Pamela was going down to the town, she saw a man going through the rubbish bins. She said that he was opening the bags and sifting through the contents.

We regularly see a man coming up to the urbanisation looking for anything that has been left by the bins. If we have anything that might be of use, we leave it at the side and we have seen him taking such items away.

However,  someone going through the bags could be potentially a problem if people put documents inside them.

Pamela shreds any documents that contain any information that could be useful but there could be the odd document, a bill or something similar that slips though the net.

After the Oscars

As the celebrities left the ceremony for the party that followed, they could drop by at the studio created by Mark Seliger  for a portrait shoot. With its chequered floor, distressed walls, a staircase and some vintage props, it provided the backdrop for some timeless portraits including these.

Adam Levine and Bahati Prinsloo	Jennifer Aniston and Justin Theroux
Rita Oro	Sofia Vergara

Seliger and his assistants must have worked quickly to change the lighting around because these people are not known for their patience and they did have a party to go to.

We are relatively safe

Living in an earthquake zone, you have to be aware of the risks and the potential for a serious situation that may occur.  The earthquake yesterday alerted us all to the risks of living in Spain.

How many earthquakes are there in the Iberian Peninsula?

Each year there are between 1,200 and 1,400 earthquakes in the Iberian peninsula. An earthquake of magnitude 5 or higher, such as the one yesterday, are rare with about one detected every 3.5 years. Earthquakes between 4 and 4.9 are more common with about five annually. There are 110 earthquake of magnitude between 3.9 and 3 and 760 of magnitude between 2.9 and 2.

What is the magnitude of an earthquake?

The scale measures the energy released by an earthquake, while its intensity refers to the damage caused. Remember that the scale is logarithmic. For example, an earthquake of magnitude 6 is 30 times higher than one of 5, in terms of energy released.  An earthquake of magnitude 6 is equivalent to a detonation of 30,000 tonnes of chemical explosive trinitrotoluene (TNT) or a nuclear explosion of 30 kilotons according to IGN.

How much energy was released by the shake yesterday?

The earthquake Ossa de Montiel  released the equivalent of 100 tons of TNT energy according to the Association of Geologists (ICOG). The agency notes that the earthquake was actually two shakes about four or five seconds apart  which were especially felt in the towns of Alcantarilla (Murcia), Aranjuez, Coslada, San Fernando de Henares, Getafe and  Ajalvir (Comunidad de Madrid). The earthquake intensity was between 3 and 4 on the Mercalli scale, which meant it was widely felt by the population.

Have there been any major earthquakes in Spain?

Spain is NOT a risk area for ​​large earthquakes like the one that shook Chile on May 22nd, 1960 which was of magnitude 9.5 and considered the largest earthquake in history. However, there are many other minor tremors and some relatively powerful ones in Spain, even greater than magnitude 7.

For example, on February 28th, 1969, an earthquake of magnitude 7.8 with its epicentre southwest Cape San Vicente collapsed several buildings in Huelva. And on March 29th, 1954, an earthquake of magnitude 7  was recorded in Durcal (Granada) but that one was 650 kilometres underground.

The December 25th, 1884 an earthquake of magnitude 6.5 in Arenas del Rey (Granada) destroyed 4,400 buildings and damaged another 13,000 - 839 bodies were recovered. On November 1st, 1755, another earthquake of magnitude 8.5, centered in south western Cape San Vicente, caused a tsunami 15 meters high that hit Western Europe and North Africa. It was the worst recorded earthquake tragedy in Spain, according to IGN.  Known as the Lisbon earthquake, the destruction caused in the Portuguese capital, caused 15,000 deaths.It also affected Huelva and Cadiz.

Maybe there is a need for change

Last Sunday, the local PSOE executive in Bigastro held a meeting during which Raúl Valerio Medina officially launched his candidacy ahead of the May election. However, Aniorte Fidel, another of the Bigastro socialist councillors, also came forward as an alternative candidate for the leadership of the party.

The supporters of Raúl Valerio Medina were apparently not best pleased about this announcement. The  executive went on to discuss the various scandals that Medina was involved in for which some believe there has not been sufficient explanation given. Although Fidel Aniorte does not believe that Medina is guilty of misappropriation of funds, he thinks that the party needs a new start if they are to enjoy any success at the forthcoming election.

We will know within a few days which one of the two the socialists have chosen to lead them.

The lastest earthquake

An earthquake with its epicentre in Ossa de Montiel, Albacete, has rocked the centre of Spain. The quake took place at 17.16 (CET Spanish) and has been felt in several provinces, as confirmed by the National Geographic Institute (IGN). The earthquake had a magnitude of 5.2 on the Richter scale - IGN say it was an earthquake of "moderate-strong" magnitude.

The epicentre was located 10 kilometres from El Bonillo, Albacete, according to sources, who add that the data is at the moment provisional. It was located about 14 kilometres deep, which is considered "very superficial", according the National Geographic Institute.

Today's earthquake occurred in the same fault as the one in Lorca, Murcia. The May 11th Lorca earthquake was of magnitude 5.1 and was preceded by an earthquake of 4.5.

Today’s quake was felt in Valencia, Murcia, Castile-La Mancha and Madrid. Questionnaires  are being sent out to determine if any damage occurred. None has so far been reported to Civil Protection, nor to IGN.

IGN’s website is down at the moment, presumably because of the high volume of traffic to it. I had to get my information from El Pais and from the IGN Facebook page.

Brilliant effort

We have to thank the Comisión de Fiestas, the  concejala de Cultura and all who took part in yesterday’s Medio Año Festero. It proved to be a huge success, one which we hope will be repeated in future years.

Although we gave the charanga and El Tío del Tractor a miss, Pamela and I went  to the park for the paella.The comparsas had long tables set out and arrived with bags and baskets full of food and drinks. Around the outside of the carpa were tables and chairs for the general public – it was all very civilised. There was plenty of paella for all and even seconds for those who wanted them.

You can see my album of photos at http://keithw.jalbum.net/Paella%20for%20all/

At about 7pm, the comparsas took part in a parade along Calle Purisima which was both colourful and amusing. They were followed by the Asociación de Carretilleros. These are the people who go into the cage at the end of the Fiesta in August and set off the loud fireworks that are laden into shopping trolleys.

You can see my album of photos from the parade at http://keithw.jalbum.net/Desfile/

We did explain to them that setting off fireworks in the street in that way would not be permitted in Britain under any circumstances. If you look closely at my pictures, you can see that some of the people taking part didn’t even wear gloves. However, nobody was hurt – I did have noise in my ears for several hours afterwards though and could smell the sulphur in my nostrils.

Fingers crossed

Today we have scheduled the mid year fiesta starting at 11am with an ad hoc band parading the streets followed by free beer from the tractor.

At 1pm there will be a disco in the park followed by paella at 2pm.

At 6:30pm there will be a parade of townsfolk in fancy dress. Then fireworks and a return to the disco in the park.

The big question is, “what will the weather be like?”.

The answer to that is, “nobody really knows!”.

AEMET forecast rain for this morning.  Looking out my window, I can see that we have already had a shower and the sky looks decidedly dismal. The forecast is for the rain to dry up by noon but the sky will stay grey and cloudy. I don’t suppose that will put many of the young in Bigastro off coming out to enjoy a free show.

February is a fickle month in this part of Spain. We can have warm days of sunshine with clear skies followed by a period of heavy cloud and rain. The wind can be a problem as well at this time of year. It is only when we get into April and May that you can generally count on having good weather day after day.

Easter in particular can be a problem. It doesn’t seem to matter whether it is late or early, the weather can spoil the scheduled parades.  

More music to your ears

The Department of Culture invites you to attend the local phase of the Local Music Performance Competition that will take place on Sunday February 22 at 18:00 pm in the Municipal Auditorium Francisco Grau.

Compulsory game play in Spanish schools

Don’t misunderstand that title, we are not talking about video games here. The compulsory game will be chess.

Courtesy of cross-party support, a resolution was passed in the Spanish parliament to make chess a compulsory subject in schools here.

The move follows a recommendation by the European Parliament and was based on a study at Girona and Lleida universities that showed the educational benefits of the game. Apparently, playing chess improves children’s abilities in maths and reading.

Although I learnt the basics of the game, I was never that good at playing it. Others, who had studied the tactics more closely, could beat me easily. As those who have played will know, you have to be able to think out the consequences of your moves three, four or more steps ahead. I could never get my head around the concept of giving a piece away to gain an ultimate advantage.  

Yesterday’s lesson

Yesterday, we spent our time in class talking about where we were born, where we lived, why we came to Spain and what we particularly liked about the places where we lived.

Our teacher, Antonio started off by telling us that he was born in Bigastro on Calle Purisima just down the street from where he now lives. in fact he has spent his whole life, not just in the same town but  living in the same street. He was bemused to hear how members of his class had moved around so much, not just within Britain but abroad as well.

Antonio went on to explain that, at the time of his birth, there was no hospital or nursing home nearby.  Babies were delivered in the home courtesy of the midwife. In the case of complications, she would call a doctor in Orihuela who would then have to drive over to offer assistance. For anything more serious, the mother to be would have to be taken to either Elche or Alicante – a thirty minutes to one hour drive.

Antonio had already told us, if a mother was unable to feed her baby then a neighbour would step in as a “wet nurse” and that weaning meant mixing flour, water and milk to make a paste which was offered as solid food.

In the era that Antonio was brought up, there was no form of sex education in schools and censorship in Spain meant that films and books made no reference to sexual acts. He told us that many Spaniards travelled to France for the grape harvest and there they were able to experience a more liberal society that opened their eyes to a lot more than was available to them in Spain. You have to remember that, in Bigastro most of the houses were single storey with two bedrooms at the front, living quarters at the back and a patio where animals were kept. There was no television nor were there telephones and the streets were just soil. The town ended at the church, after that it was farming land. Things were a lot more primitive here than in Britain where we all came from. 

It was very much a male orientated society in Spain at that time; the men went out to work, the women looked after the house and children. Men would never consider offering a a hand to help with the chores, instead they would go out to a bar for a beer or two in the evening. Being a catholic country, there was no form of contraception readily available and so families simply grew as the women would have baby after baby.

Spaniards are not coy when it comes to talking about sex and so Antonio was able to fill in the details about relationships without pulling punches. It was both entertaining and enlightening to listen to what he had to say.