Facts and figures

In the year 2000 there were just 392 foreigners living in Bigastro. You can see from the latest table below how that number has grown. 

The numbers have remained reasonably steady since 2007. The largest figure was in 2011 when there were 1,253 foreigners here. The group that has grown most is that from Africa. 

Población según nacionalidad (principales nacionalidades), 2022 (Unidad: personas)
Nacionalidad	Total	Hombres	Mujeres
TOTAL POBLACIÓN	7.130	3.591	3.539
Españoles	5.873	2.937	2.936
Total Extranjeros	1.257	654	603
Total Europa	518	267	251
Total Unión Europea	245	130	115
Alemania	11	5	6
Bulgaria	89	45	44
Francia	9	6	3
Italia	6	6	0
Polonia	14	8	6
Portugal	6	4	2
Rumanía	29	13	16
Total Europa No Comunitaria	273	137	136
Reino Unido	174	90	84
Rusia	29	12	17
Ucrania	52	26	26
Total África	592	321	271
Argelia	93	56	37
Marruecos	481	249	232
Nigeria	0	0	0
Senegal	16	14	2
Total América	117	49	68
Argentina	8	4	4
Bolivia	13	7	6
Brasil	8	3	5
Chile	1	1	0
Colombia	48	14	34
Cuba	6	2	4
Ecuador	22	14	8
Paraguay	0	0	0
Perú	1	1	0
República Dominicana	4	1	3
Uruguay	1	0	1
Venezuela	3	1	2
Total Asia	30	17	13
China	11	6	5
Pakistán	9	7	2
Oceanía y Apátridas	0	0	0
Fuente: Instituto Nacional de Estadística. Revisión Padrón 2022. Fecha de consulta: 26/01/2023

Save 20 Euros

To encourage people to spend locally, the Town Hall have started a campaign they call Bono Consumo. In essence you can claim two vouchers of 10 Euros to spend in a selection of local businesses.

 

 Application form

Give yourself a treat

 Geoff Durkin kindly alerted me to the Butterflies Cafeteria in Jacarilla where he regularly visits after going to the gym. 

Pam and I went there this morning to see for ourselves and we were not disappointed.

The ambience is smart tea room and the food ranges from savouries to cakes all of which are home made on the premises.  Just don't ask for a hamburger and chips because they don't do them!

What they do make are the most delicious pastries (sweet and savoury) and cakes to die for. 

Here is the fruit scone that I enjoyed this morning. 

 You will find other items to tempt you into visiting Butterflies in the album I've posted in the side bar.

A word of warning though - you may just go in for a coffee but you won't be able to resist a treat - or two! to accompany it. 

Saturday night sorted-

Each year the Alicante Province allocates money to musical societies to encourage and promote concerts along with training of young musicians. The grants are between 1,200 and 2,500 Euros per musical society. The programme is called Música Als Pobles (Valenciano).

Oh dear

 With all the things that are going on in the world, it is unbelievable that so much attention should be given to Gary Lineker's remarks on Twitter. 

He was outspoken and his reference to Germany in the 30s have offended some - particularly right wing members of the Government. 

Let's face it, Braverman has some form on using offensive language to refer to migrants - she previously described them as "invaders". I also do not care for her veiled threat that millions could try to enter the UK if the Government did not take a strong stance. It reminded me of the threat that millions of Turks would come to Britain if the country stayed in the EU. That was not true and neither is it true what Braverman now says. All she is doing is whipping up support amongst  people who believe her populist garbage. 

Of course, the country needs to stop the rubber dingies for the sake of safety to those who use them as a means to get to Britain. Of course there needs to be limits on the numbers that any country can take.. Except of course when Britain needed more workers, they were not only allowed to enter the country, they were encouraged and given a cheap passage. 

Ultimately, Lineker was expressing his own opinion - not the opinion of the BBC. The remarks were made on his personal Twitter account. In the same way Clarkson made comments about Meghan Markle on his own Twitter account. Neither were reflecting the views of the organisations they worked for. A statement  from the BBC to say that Lineker's views were his own and not necessarily those of the Corporation was all that was required. 

No, no and no!

 It comes as no surprise that Boris Johnson has produced a list of 100 nominations in his resignation honours list, more than any other retiring PM. 

It is inevitable, given Johnson's reputation,  that some of the names on his list will raise eyebrows. None more so than his father, Stanley Johnson who is listed for a knighthood. 

It is not unusual for relatives to be given honours. For example, Margaret Thatcher put her husband Denis forward for a knighthood. 

However, there is a difference between Denis and Stanley. Denis was the rock who stood behind Thatcher. Stanley's sole contribution to his country was siring possibly the worst Prime Minister the country has known. That, along with the allegations that Johnson's father was violent to his former wife, should preclude him from any honour. 

Never mind "f*** business" and "f*** Americans",  let's f*** Johnson's honours list instead.

By comparison

Latest weather updates in the UK show temperatures are expected to plunge as low as -15C and yellow warnings will be issued for large swathes of the UK - with roads, trains and bus services likely to be affected.

In the meantime, looking at the graph, Spring is arriving with a vengeance here on the Costa Blanca. 

Would we prefer to live here or back in the UK?

This is where the squatters were

This is the house in the Altas de la Pedrera development where the squatters have been.

One neighbour reports that there is a speaker, a sofa, a mattress, a pillow, a toaster, coke bottles and a blanket inside. 

The local police have been around and have left the door open. 

Apparently there have been no confirmed sightings of people entering or leaving the house. However, it is clear from the photo and the evidence of the neighbour that squatters have been there and nothing to suggest that they won't return. 

How difficult is it for the bank, that own the property, to seal it off  securely - making sure nobody is inside of course?

The house is on the corner of  Calle Escocia and Canada Andrea. If I remember correctly it was bought by a lady in a wheelchair who had the steps around the outside of the property replaced with sloping ramps. 

Squatters

 Pam has had a message tonight from our neighbours to say that squatters have been spotted in one of the derelict houses on our estate. I presume it it one of the Altas de la Pedrera houses. 

A WhatsApp group has already been formed to discuss the problem. 

One of the three policemen on the estate has pointed out that, although squatting is illegal, it is the responsibility of the owners of the property to sort the issue out. In this case it is the bank that own the houses. 

From the comments so far, it seems that the squatters are still there but have not gained access to either water or electricity. 

Although, it is clearly undesirable to have squatters in those houses, we should perhaps concede that they must be pretty desperate to be there without electricity and water in this cold weather. Let's  hope that there is some local organisation that can find them more suitable accommodation. 

Oh the bright light!

 After the pause caused by Covid, the Medio Ano Festival returned to Bigastro yesterday 

Instead of starting at the far end of town, the procession this year started at the Plaza Constitución. The turnout was brilliant and the inventiveness of the participants was unbelievable.

You could argue that the weather was perfect for the occasion. It was after all warm and sunny not dull and drizzly as predicted days ago. 

However, strong, bright sunlight poses a real problem for photographers. If the subjects are looking into it, they squint, if they turn away they are in deep shadow. Light cloud cover is what we hope for. 

One solution to the problem on a bright day is to use fill in flash to bring light into the shadow areas. You can tell from his pictures that the local professional uses fill in flash most of the time for his outdoor work. Obviously, this only works when you are relatively close to the subject,

In the days of film, dynamic range was a real issue. You could not record strong highlights and deep shadows on film. The usual advice was to expose for the highlights and let the shadows take care of themselves. 

Digital sensors are different. The best are capable of recording detail in both shadows and highlights. You just have to work a little magic in a program like Lightroom to bring them out. Even still, it is a challenge if you have a lot of photos to process. 

My friend Fonta has published his excellent photos from the event and you can see the struggle he and I had in some of our photos to bring the highlights under control and at the same time show detail in the shadows. Que sera, sera!

Let them eat turnips!

 Newspapers in the UK are showing empty supermarket shelves again. This time, it isn't panic buying that is causing the problem, it is the shortage of salad products. The government are blaming the bad weather in Southern Europe for shortages 

However,  people have posted pictures of markets, supermarkets and  shops in Spain, Italy and Southern France with an abundance of items such as lettuce and tomatoes. So, why does the problem seem to be confined to the UK?

Therese Coffrey says that the situation will remedy itself in two to four weeks time. In the meantime, people in Britain should turn to locally grown seasonal products like turnips to feed themselves. She specifically mentioned turnips.

In a sense she is right. Britain relies far too much on importing food and people do not eat seasonally. They expect everything they want to be available all year round. However, even during the summer months, Britain still has to import the majority of what the people eat so seasonality is not necessarily the root of the problem (please excuse the pun!).

Unfortunately Britain is not giving the support that is needed to its farmers. I watch Countryfile on Sundays. On the program we regularly get items highlighting the difficulties farmers face. For example, the greenhouses in the South of England used to produce more than enough tomatoes during the winter.. That was until gas prices hit the roof making it too expensive to heat them. 

The plain truth is that it would be impossible for Britain to be self sufficient for food. Let's face it, Britain isn't self sufficient for many things. Damn it, the country even imports coal!

If people did try to follow Coffrey's advice, they would soon have problems buying the root vegetables she suggests they eat.  Ms Coffrey, when the turnips run out, what should they turn to next?

But where is it?

 

I've driven around looking for a sign, checked the map of the town but still can't find it.

The English corner

 

It will apparently have something for both children and adults.

https://www.facebook.com/blablaenglishbigastro/

Join in the party

 

Proud of her

 Yesterday, my daughter Jemma went on strike. She was the only teacher from her school to do so even though there were other staff in the NEU at her school. 

Why did it come to this?

The Institute for Fiscal Studies have calculated that long-serving and senior teachers – accounting for nearly a third of those working in England – would have earned the equivalent of £50,300 in 2010. But below-inflation wage increases over the past 12 years has meant their pay in 2022 was just £43,700.

Experienced teachers have experienced similar real-terms cuts across the national pay scale, meaning that half of the teaching workforce has had the value of their annual earnings fall by thousands of pounds compared with what they would have earned in 2010, when the Conservative party came into government.

By contrast, average earnings across the whole economy are thought to have increased by about 2% in real terms during the same period. MPs, for example, earn £18,306 more per year than they did in 2010. 

Dwindling pay is one of the main reasons for the government is missing recruitment targets, and why it faces shortages in specialist subjects such as physics, which are forcing schools to rely on non-specialists to plug gaps in classrooms.

It is a fact that nearly a third of teachers  leave the profession within five years of qualifying.

So the issues the government faces are recruitment and retention. 

Did they want to go on strike? Definitely not! My daughter has already lost a day's pay and stands to lose three more days pay if the impasse is not resolved. 

PS She is right behind the bloke in the brown jacket and the one with a bald head - centre right of the photo.