Private Eye

Footballer’s strike in Spain

Spain's players' union (AFE) is threatening to strike unless clubs will pay wages owed to their players.
While the majority of the professional players back this move, the AFE continues negotiating with the football federation (RFEF) and the professional football league (LFP) in a bid to find a solution.
If no solution is found, the AFE will order a strike during the weekend of April 16-18. It will be the fifth time that footballers called for strike in Spain, with the last strike call in 1997 ended in an agreement at the last moment.
Our local Spanish team, not in La Liga, is always compromised by accusations of not paying the players. Last year the Supporters paid the players wages for a month, as a loan, but the Directors paid themselves first and there was no money for the players. And then said the money was a gift and did not have to be paid back!
Since then the directors have resigned leaving debts (some of which, allegedly, are not the clubs, but the Directors) and the club is about to go under.
Shades of Chester City here.

Out of the mouth of Sepp

Sepp Blatter has taken another pop at the Premier League this week, saying it has fundamental flaws and should be run more like La Liga.
Blatter trotted out a bunch of facts and statistics which, as is often the case with the Fifa president, don’t stand up under scrutiny. He said that most clubs in Spain belong to the fans, or socios. It turns out, after research by The Guardian, that the actual number is four out of forty from the top two divisions; hardly most then.
More disturbing are the figures on debt. The overall debt of clubs in the top three Spanish divisions is £5 billion, more than in England. Of that, Barcelona and Real Madrid between them are £1 billion in the red.
Added to that, 85% of clubs are behind on the payment of players’ wages and there are fears of a players’ strike. (see next Blog).
Of course, fans of Portsmouth will probably testify that the system in England is far from perfect but putting up the La Liga as the preferred model in taking yet another pot shot at the EPL shows just how poorly informed Blatter is.

Tempus Fugit

 The 21st Hillsborough Memorial Service will take place today at Anfield.

The service will commence at 2.45pm prompt, however access to the Stadium will be available from 1pm.
I was there with my eldest daughter, Z. Time flies.

Tai Chi

The Lady of the Villa and I do Tai Chi twice a week and this intrigued me.
A vicar and senior members of the church community saw a more sinister side to Tai Chi and decided the ancient martial art, with its roots in the Chinese Taoist philosophy, was incompatible with Christianity and should be banned. So the Rev David Rhodes told the group of around 20 regulars who attended the classes at the All Saints Church Hall in the South Yorkshire village of Totley that they were banned and must find an alternative venue.
Needless to say, the decision has brought ridicule upon the vicar and his church 'elders' who have been condemned as 'bigots'.
Tai Chi combines deep breathing and concentration with slow, controlled movements aimed at developing strength, balance and calm. It is beneficial to the joints and works the muscles gently.
The Rev Rhodes said 'Within the church we see Tai Chi as being an aspect of the Taoist religion. We want to promote a whole life spirituality which centres on following Jesus and and we feel that the two things clash. Our understanding is that the basis of Tai Chi is in Eastern religion and from the church's point of view that isn't something that we want to be involved in.
Ronnie Robinson, spokesman for the Tai Chi Union for Great Britain, said 'These little old ladies in the church hall will have no knowledge or concern about Taoism or anything like that.'
We have been involved in Tai Chi for a year now and religion has never ever been mentioned and I don’t expect it ever to be!

UK public happy to be scanned at airports

While surfing the ‘net I occasionally get asked to join a survey, if it looks interesting and if I  have the time I fill it in. I always wonder what the results of the survey was.
Just recently I filled in a survey and one of the questions was would I use a full-bodied scanner at the airport. I answered yes. Anything for security and speed.

Again surfing the net I came across an article in The Scotsman:- As many as 90 per cent of the UK public are happy to use the new full-body scanners at airports, according to a poll yesterday.
Acceptance of the scanners, being rolled out at UK airports, is far higher in Britain than in any other of the 11 countries in the survey of 10,000 people by IT company Unisys. As many as one in three people in Germany and Belgium would object to the scans, the poll found.
Interesting!

Apollo 13 – Forty Years On

Apollo 13 is one of our favourite films and the whole mission was called "a successful failure".
Hard to believe it was 40 years ago.We will watch the film again I think, tonight.

Apollo 13 is a film based on Lost Moon, Jim Lovell's book about the event, was released in 1995. It was directed by Ron Howard and starred Tom Hanks as Jim Lovell. Lovell  and other principals have stated that this film depicted the events of the mission with reasonable accuracy, though some dramatic license was taken. Technical inaccuracies have also been noted. The film is among several to misquote the famous statement, "Houston, we've had a problem". However, the filmmakers purposely changed the line because the original quote made it seem that the problem had already passed. The film was a critical and box office success, and was nominated for several Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress.

The film engendered new interest in the history of the Apollo program and American space flight in general.

Resident in Spain

We have been in Spain a couple of years now and we both have NIE numbers (National Insurance numbers) that were required so that we could purchase a villa and open a bank account to be ‘officially in Spain (despite being an EEC resident) takes more. We needed to become fully resident.
We found a English/Spanish translator (Mark from Liverpool) previously when Theresa had her handbag stolen, and from conversations with him we knew we had other documents to be obtained.
We needed a Residentia. This is an official document allowing us to reside in Spain. Mark also said that having got our residentia we could get a Padron each. A padron is the English equivalent of the Electoral role and means we can vote, but more importantly get us a SIP card. The SIP card allows us access to the Spanish NHS. (I hope you are following this, because it gets more complicated).
So we started off, with Marks help, in getting a residential. Mark got the forms and filled them in and we trooped off to our Area Administration Offices to get registered. Taking our forms, our passports, our NIE, copies of the house deeds (all 72 pages) and 80 Euros each. Having got there and queued in the English tradition (there is no Spanish one and when you add the Germans, Rumanians and Russians into the mix, please imagine the bedlam).
Anyway after waiting for 2 hours we got to the desk had the forms scrutinised and stamped we received our residential. Total time including travel, parking and waiting time 4 hours.
The next day The Lady of the Villa and I went of to the local town hall to get our Padron. Carrying our Residentia, copy of our NIE’s and copy of the deeds to the house (yes all 72 pages). While waiting we looked at the residentia and found that Theresa was living at no 72 Calle (Street) Ebro while I was at no 19 (She was correct). This we thought was going to be a problem at the desk.
It was not. The lady took out a large scale map and asked us to point to our plot. We did and she produced our Padrons (after scrutiny of our documents). The Padron said we lived at no 72 Calle Guardiana! Although we had been told by the builders we lived on Ebro we don’t. (Please remember that all the documents at our Area Administration Offices had stated our address as Ebro (as we thought it was) - Bugger.
Never mind, we went off to the local Hospital to queue again for our SIP cards, got to the front with our Padrons and explained what we wanted and were promptly asked for our UK E111 cards, which by sheer luck we had, so we got our SIP cards. They last 6 months and we have to go back and renew them every 6 months just like the Spaniards do. Weird.
A couple of days later we got in touch with Mark  and when I explained to him all the address problems, he just laughed, he had seen it before. He could fix all the documentation more or less online once the documents as they stood were on file which could take 3 to 6 months.
Anyway we are now fully registered in Spain. Next we are off to the Tax offices to sort out our Spanish Tax.

Scafe Cartoon - Just Brilliant!

Weather in Spain Week 5th April – 11th April 2010

Monday: Overcast day with a temp of 17C. Overnight overcast with wind and  coldish at 11C
Tuesday:Very Overcast day with 10/10 cloud. Temp of 14C. Overcast night with a temp of 9C
Wednesday: Bright start to thye day with the clouds disappering by the afternoon. Cold wind kept temp to 16C. Overnight cool and a temp of 12C
Thursday: Sunny start to the day and it got warmer in the afternoon. Temp of 19C. Overnight temp of 14C.
Friday: Very sunny and warm day. Temp of 22C. Overnight clear and bright with a temp of 16C
Saturday: A bright and sunny day, unfortunatley the wind had a bite to it that kept the temp to 17C. Overnight clear with a temp of 12C
Sunday:Sunny all day but the wind again kept the temp to 18C. Overnight temp of 13C
For an advanced forecast in the area I live in see http://www.metcheck.com/V40/UK/FREE/europe_forecast_7days.asp?locationID=3222 which is Mercia Airport, our nearest point on this site.

Are You Blind Ref?

It was the referee’s fault that Manchester United went out of the Champions League on Wednesday night. Ask Alex Ferguson. “He showed insufficient resolve when surrounded by the Bayern Munich players. The referee has got to handle it.”
I thought it was down to Rafael Da Silva being sent off for two obvious fouls.
“With 11 men, no problem, we would have won the game. They got him sent off. Everyone sprinted towards the referee.” Eh, don’t your players do that Alex?
When was the last time the referee cost United the result they so clearly deserved? Their last match, actually. Mike Dean turned down two appeals for penalties as they lost 2-1 to Chelsea and Simon Beck, one of the assistants, ruled that Didier Drogba was onside for Chelsea’s second goal when he was not.(A mistake admittedly).
Referees have done many other terrible things to the Mancs this season.
Alan Wiley was “unfit” when United drew 2-2 with Sunderland in October. Not that Sunderland played really well.
The same month, when United lost 2-0 against Liverpool, it was because the referee, Andre Marriner, did not “have the experience”. Not that Liverpool were the best team on the day.
When Chelsea beat United 1-0 in November, it was Martin Atkinson’s fault. “The referee’s position to make the decision was absolutely ridiculous. The goal shouldn’t have been allowed. You lose faith in refereeing sometimes.” Not that your defenders were at sixes and sevens for the goal.
In his consistency, Ferguson ref-bashing takes attention away from his players’ — and his own — failings. Without the latest rants, we might all be talking about the unprofessional behaviour of Rafael or United’s overreliance on Wayne Rooney.
Look Alex Ref’s make mistakes, players make mistakes and believe it or not you make mistakes. Live with it and stop moaning

The Leaking Pool – Part 2 – Fixing the Leaks

Having found that the autofill was leaking how to fix them was the next problem for Mr. Fixit.
To describe how the leaks occurred and how they were fixed needs a description of the autofill, so here goes. Consider the autofill to be a bucket with a controlling ball cock, not unlike a toilet tank. The water comes in at the top and goes out at the bottom through sealed entrance and exit and the water controlled by a floating ball cock that keeps the water level in the autofill and pool exact.
The leak on the pool side had been caused by a piece of concrete being lodged in egress pipe. This had been noticed by the installers but instead of getting it out they drilled another hole through the top of the pipe, unfortunately, they also drove it through the bottom. However, it only leaked a little, hardly noticeable in the overall evaporation that takes place in hot weather.
On the inlet side, they had not allowed for any movement of the soil and had only just by a couple of turns joined the inlet pipe to the autofill. so over a couple of years the soil around the pool moved causing the inlet pipe to leak more and more and this leak causing more erosion until it the outlet pipe started leaking more and more. Now as this was under water this caused the pool to leak but then it auto filled causing more erosion and more leakage. Only when we stopped auto filling did the cycle stop.

To correct the poolside leak Mr Fixit removed the blockage and inserted another smaller pipe in the hole. He then created a false bottom in the autofill tank and pushed the pipe through. Finally he sealed the false bottom and the pipe to make them watertight.

This was the connection through the autofill tank.
A further L shaped connection at the left hand end went into the pipe in the concrete.


The Inlet leak was fixed by taking out a tile at the side of the pool and excavating through the concrete until all the pipe was exposed. Then by taking all the individual bits off he found that there was not enough of one of the connecting pipes connecting to another pipe. He refurbished what he could, bought some parts and an extension. Over one or two hours he carefully fitted everything back together and ensured a watertight fit. It was nearly over.
The addition of an extension caused a problem, the ball cock float did not fit, but cutting a piece off (it was made of polystyrene) he mad it fit. This, however, caused the ball cock to not float correctly. He found another piece of (polystyrene) and fitted this and hey Presto it all worked. Replacing all the excavated concrete with sand and a broken tile and the job was a good ‘un.
From this point it just need filling in.

Thanks Mr. Fixit.

The Grand National – Spenner’s tips

The Grand National is run in my home town and not far from where I spent my youth.

I enjoyed it more on the TV than actually being present, mainly because you can see more!

However, the atmosphere at Aintree is electric.

My tips for this year (and please remember I can’t tip rubbish) are:

• King Johns Castle
• Mr Pointment (an outside bet so each way)

The Premier League – Spenners Tip

The BBC news web site, in its sports section, has a predictor for the Premier League.
What you do is identify the remaining results for games in the Premier League and it predicts the final placings in the league.
I did it and the results were
1st Arsenal
2nd Chelsea
3rd Man U
4th Liverpool
Have a go yourselves!

The Leaking Pool - Part 1 - Finding the Leak

As you may recall we have been having pool problems were the pool leaked from time to time. Over the last two months this had happened so regular that we had stopped filling the pool to see what happened. It had eventually stopped leaking, just under all of the possible ‘leak areas’.
The pool is tiled and if any of the tiling had broken it would have stopped there, however, we also have other possible ‘exits’, skimmers (which move the water towards the filter exits), the filter exits themselves and the autofill.

We checked all the tiles above the waterline and found no problems, the assumption was: as the water had stopped no tiles below the waterline were leaking. It must be one of the ‘exits’.
As luck would have it our friends and business partners from Crewe where coming over for a visit. Mr. A likes his projects and challengers and being an all round Mr. Fixit  he wanted to investigate and fix.
Her had only been over a day or so when he decided, early one morning to seal all the exits and by opening them up one by one identify the leak. Here he is in the pool (which believe me was very very cold) doing the sealing.

The water was clean and blue, what you cant see is how blue Mr. Fixit is!
By a process of elimination and trial end error a few days later he had found not one but two leaks, both in the same area. It was the autofill. A low pressure leak on the pool side and a high pressure leak on the land side.

Looks OK from here but the installers (5 years ago) had made two errors that over time had caused our pool too leak and cost us about 250 euros in excess water charges.

The Full Penny

Congratulations to V & J for completing the Liverpool 2010 Half Marathon.

Love to you both. Well Done!

Officially an Abnormal winter in Spain

Scientists from the Spanish Council of Scientific Investigation (CSIC) say that this winter in Spain had the most extreme weather since the year 1900. Temperatures throughout the winter have reached new highs and lows for the time of year and rainfall has been above average across most of Spain.
Scientists have been reported in the daily press as saying the erratic climate has been due to the persistence of atmospheric instability linked to the crossing of polar front Atlantic storms. They continued to say that there is not enough evidence to suggest that the abnormal weather is an effect of global warming.
I can without doubt confirm the above report. This is my 3rd consecutive winter in Spain and it was by far the coldest. I even bought a mobile heater! Still we did not see any snow and the extra rain has improved the contents of the Spanish reservoirs so there should be no shortage of water.

Weather in Spain Week 29th March 2010 - 4th April 2010

I think at long last the winter in Spain is over. This week has been sunny and warm with warm to cool evenings. I had shorts on during the day so that must say something!

Monday: Misty start to the day. The sun burnt off the mist by 9:30 giving a very sunny and warm day. Temp of 24C. Overnight clear with a temp of 15C.
Tuesday: Fine sunny start to the day that lasted until sunset. Temp was a very warm 24C. Overnight it was clear with a temp of 15C
Wednesday: Another sunny day with a temp of 21C. Overnight clear and a temp of 14C.
Thursday: Fine and sunny with a bit of cloud around. Temp was 20C. Night time was partly cloudy and a temp of 13C.
Friday: Fine and sunny with no cloud, temp of 24C. Overnight clear with a temp of 15C.
Saturday: Warm and sunny day with temp of 19C. Overnight cool with a temp of 12C
Sunday:Sunny and bright day with a temp of 20C. Overnight clear skies and a temp of 11C.

For an advanced forecast in the area I live in see http://www.metcheck.com/V40/UK/FREE/europe_forecast_7days.asp?locationID=3222 which is Mercia Airport, our nearest point on this site.

Easter in Spain

Easter is celebrated throughout the world with great pomp and show. It is a major Christian festival which marks the resurrection of Jesus after the crucifixion. It is one of the holiest days according to the Christian calendar and is celebrated in many different ways across the world.
Easter celebration in Spain is a manifestation of ancient rituals that provide glimpses to the country's fiercely religious history. The Easter Week, known in Spain as Semana Santa, begins with the Domingo de Ramos (Palm Sunday) and end with Lunes de Pascua (Easter Monday). The holy week of Easter consists of 2 holy days - Ash Wednesday, and Good Friday. 
On Palm Sunday, people go to mass in the morning and children carry palm leaves to be blessed by the priest. On Palm Sunday most churches organize a parade to mark the arrival of Christ into Jerusalem. The congregations in Spain carry huge, leafy palms or olive branches that have been blessed in the church.
As Ash Wednesday is the first day of the penitential season of Lent in Spain, the day is marked by a special ceremony where the ashes are placed on the foreheads of the worshippers as a sign of remorse.
On Easter Sunday, in Almaden de la Plata near Seville, rag and straw effigies of famous people are placed at different locations of the village. These dolls are finally torn apart and the pieces thrown into the air. In Castilblanco de los Arroyos, they place similar dummies in the streets which are later set on fire. The dolls are known as ‘Judas dolls’.
The feast of Easter Sunday on Spain is also special. On this day, godfathers presents their godchildren with a cake known as ‘La Mona’. These are generally traditional pan shape found in various shapes from simple round or oval to Disney characters, toys and anything else. Another popular Spanish Easter dish is the torrijas. It is a blend of slices of warm bread soaked in milk, sugar and egg, then fried in olive oil. They are served along with wine, syrup, honey, sugar or cinnamon for extra touch of festivities.
Note no chocolate Eggs!

Dr Who

Maybe it’s me, it probably is, but with a new series starting with a new Doctor over Easter, I still like the older series of The Doctor. It is not so much as missing the old flimsy scenery or the ‘best we can do effects’ its the story lines.
I enjoyed all the battles with the daleks (what an invention!), the cybermen etc. more science fiction than the science fantasy it has become. I will still be watching it after all these years. Lol.
The doctors in order:

William Hartnell 1965 – 1966

Patrick Troughton 1966 –1969









                                                                                                                       Jon Pertwee 1970 - 1974

Tom Baker 1974 – 1981

Peter Davidson 1981 – 1984

Colin Baker 1984 – 1986










Sylvester McCoy  18987 -1989

                                                                        Paul McGann 1996

Christopher Eccleston 2005

David Tennant 2005 – 2010





And the latest Matt Smith