This is a new annual competition I am running. Here is the first entry from Barcelo Raval Hotel Foyer in Barcelona. A life size horse, with the lamp coming out of its head. This one gets 7/10 for nonsense factor. 
Barcelona is known for many things, a cruise port, football team at Nou Camp, tapas, wine, sunshine and much more. That is all true. However whilst sitting on the upper floors in a hotel during a meeting it was sad to see groups of young people, mainly males, just sitting on benches and hanging round. Wasting time, nothing to do, nowhere to go, no money to spend. This was in an area only 200 yards from Las Ramblas. It real was striking that unemployment in the young is now 55% in Spain. It showed. That was my memory of Barcelona. Sad. Very sad. The impact has been acute for 16 to 24-year-olds, who saw the rate in the last quarter of 2012 surge to 55.13% from 52.34% in the previous three months.Official data showed that the jobless rate in the last three months of 2012 rose 1% to 26%, or 5.97 million people in the whole population.
No evidence of crime but strong evidence of a police presence. No one buying things in shops at all. A sad , sad, city at least in this part. 
spain, unemployment, youth spain, barcelona, tapas, you camp, football, barcelona, squid, sunshine, espana, unemployment rate in spain
Do not be fooled by the glamarous sounding name, this is a very average place. The people who may thrive here are few but will be folks that like to smoke and drink constantly. Preferably dont eat, or drink coffee , because these vices are incredibly expensive. The fun part of Gibraltar falls into 3 components
The bad things?
I bring you the photographic evidence.
Standing on the runway in Gibraltar
There is nothing wrong with Spanish food but what I have been served this week has been in general terms very poor. Let me rant through it. The hotel breakfasts at Diagonal Zero hotel were the same each day, and I don’t mean the same type of food but the same food exactly. What was not eaten was put back. Pineapple with black bits attached of dubious origin appeared each day. Eggs of various descriptions appeared and all uniformly ranging cool to cold in temperature.
Dinner night 1 – in the hotel bar an alleged Salmon Club Sandwich – well ok, nothing major to complain about
Night 2 – Dinner in Barcelona FC. Set menu. first course smelled of rotten fish and I think was rotten fish ( octopus in ravioli with squid ink sauce) followed by uncooked steak with vegetables so small that they may have been grown in Gullivers Kingdom . Lukewarm
Night 3 – Tapas. Ok ish. Everything fried. Fried cheese on a stick, fried this, fried that……..no vegetable. Lukewarm.
Night 4 – Harmless Burger and chips in hotel
Night 5 – Set menu in restaurant called Limbo. Strange assiette of starters , I assume a sort of Tapas, including deep fried asparagus. Main course of chicken bones in nondescript sauce, all Lukewarm
Maybe this goes down as good food there but for me I just cannot eat uncooked, lukewarm, horrid looking food. And thats why I have lost weight this week in Barcelona. What I would have given for a KFC
Squid Ink surrounds a lukewarm octopus in pasta. Believe me it smelled worse than it tasted.
Painshill is a place that I have been coming to for over 10 years. It may be my favourite place in the United kingdom. Each season makes it seem so different. I am guessing here but if you look back through this blog over the last 8 months there will be a fair few hits about Painshill. Sunday as the ice and snow was melting on the paths i captured the bleak side of Painshill. The lake was frozen with slush on the top and hence the “geeseprints”. enjoy and do please visit.
Birdprints mean bird was here
Geeseprints on the lake
Cold Goose
A bleak wintry Painshill
One of the best things, arguably the only good thing about gibraltar, was the dolphin trip. Apparently we had a huge slice of luck in that more than 100 dolphins were feeding that morning, and normally 3 pm was the time to see the most dolphins. Beautiful creatures.
Dolphins in the Gibraltar Straits
Its that time of year to make a new calendar and the good news was in one of those generally tedious emails we call spam. However the news was that Jessops were giving 50% off cost of calendars with no catch at all except the offer ran out at midnight last night. So here are a few photos that made it into the final selection of 12 photos. Really very difficult to pick 12 photos over a year particularly when one is banned from including football or cricket photos………… Probably need to explain that this photo was taken maybe 7pm at night near Anteqquera in Spain, maybe 40 km from Malaga heading north, at a wolf Park.
This is kind of unique really. This guy best described as a sort of Wolf version of Steve Irwin but totally into his wolves. He keeps them wild but in huge fenced areas of thousands of acres but gets in with them sometimes and had his hand almost bitten off once before. Website URL is http://www.lobopark.com/04_einrichtung/e/facilities.htm and well worth a visit
Not so sure what one writes about a whole weeks cruising. Grandeur of the Seas was the boat. A 2 am wake up call for a 6 am flight to Palma and lunch on the boat at 10.30 UK time. Not bad. Appalling lack of food choices at Gatwick and frankly Gatwick and Heathrow must be in competition for the worst airport in the world. Thomson airways, decent charter airline.
the places were quite interesting. Barcelona, Ibiza,Malaga and Gibraltar. No deaths on board this time unlike xmas but there was an emergency helicopter evacuation and a return to port at Malaga because of another medical issue. huge number of dolphins seen in a dolphin safari in gibraltar. What was astonishing though was the food. It was pretty much available 24 hours a day and yet folks had to push and shove in a frenzied way each mealtime. The size of the cohort on board was frankly again worrying and appalling. The average BMI had to have been 30. Photos will follow later this week
apologies for no blogging recently but am still in spain. Southern spain is maybe a little coller than usual and definitely less busy. Pool and Beach etc. Managing to watch some of the football in the bars and charles and I saw that infamous Man u v Arsenal game. We could not believe how bad Arsenal defence was! we were in a bar with some lovely clientele best summarised as “dubious”. Gentleman with ” not guilty” tattoed across his back, which charles thought read ” mr fatty” as was written in some odd font……..
went to Mijas last night for pizza dinner and was nice to be back there. Entertained if that is the right word by Flamenco dancers………..then a guy playing some classical guitar music who was quite good.
somehow charles managed to burn himself on the beach yesterday, dont know quite how as it is his 6th day in the sun and is bright red. No jellyfish around but strangely we did see a squashed tortoise in the road outside the apartment. Bizarre. Where did it come from? First time round I presumed it was some toy but on closer inspection most definitely real. Then last night half a squashed cat in a car parking area………little lizards seem to think it fun to crawl over my foot…..but oddly no mosquitos. Am sure there are usally always some. I also must apologise for my awful spelling which is due partly to this terrible keyboard in the internet cafe. Not even a Mac!!!
anyway we return midnight thursday assuming easyjet allow…….
This was a few months ago. I tried to catch a lizard that came into the flat thinking I was being helpful. All I managed to do was pull the end of its tail off which it seems is an escaping manoevre. Anyway this might or might not be the lizard in question!
chris1957
Arcticterntalk.org 