Playa Jardín y Punta Brava

Playa Jardín

In contrast to a walk along Playa Jardín last weekend, when cool and cloudy, this afternoon warm and sunny.

• PHOTOS Playa Jardín y Punta Brava

El Rastro en el Mercado

El Rastro en el Mercado

Todos los Sábados.

Every Saturday

Ground floor and top floor of Municpal Market.

Mainly junk, but you can find everything: books, clothes, antiques, jewelry, knives, watches, honey, clothes …

Omega pocket watch

Omega pocket watch

cameras

Most is cheap rubbish, but can find Rolex and Omega watches, old cameras.

First floor is food, mainly fruit and vegetables, including organic, but also fish and meat.

un perro en un bolso de mano

A dog in a bag whilst having lunch

• PHOTOS El Rastro en el Mercado

Concierto de jazz en Teatro Timanfaya

concierto de jazz en Teatro Timanfaya

Dusan Anastasijevich

Excellent concert with Dusan Anastasijevich.

I am no fan of jazz, I find boring, but this was anything but boring.

A long piece, form of a sonata, improvisation. Influence of Scriven, jazz, snippets of Autumn Leaves, then variants of.

Followed by two shorter pieces. Followed by honky tonk encore.

Enchanting.

Wonderful sounding piano played by a very talented pianist.

More’s the pity only an hour as over all too soon.

Also a pity not recorded live, then mixed, mastered and uploaded to bandcamp. Could be a series of recordings, En Vivo en Teatro Timanfaya, shared 50:50 with artist and Teatro Timanfaya.

Almuerzo en El Limón

parrillada

1. sopa de calabaza
2. parrillada

Pumkin soup, followed by stir fried vegetables cooked on a hot plate.

Both were excellent.

V for Varoufakis

German newspaper Bild smeared Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, comparing with Vladimir Putin, and claimed posed the same threat to Europe.

One must believe @BILD's tall stories (about us Greeks) at one's peril.

— Yanis Varoufakis (@yanisvaroufakis) February 20, 2015

Talking to people in an international setting, there is widespread support for Greece, there is no support for EU/Germany, even from Germans.

Germany has huge budget surplus, but at what cost, decaying infrastructure, collapsing bridges?

Last weekend there was massive demonstrations in Athens, across Europe, in London, for Greece.

• EU bullying of Greece
• Greece’s fate: In Angela Merkel’s hands?
• Greece’s Varoufakis says EU deal a ‘fig leaf’

Muchas gracias Annie.

@yanisvaroufakis have you watched this? it is hilarious https://t.co/c3sVDkTHbm #minister_of_Awesome! #Varoufakis

— An other Alice (@another1alice) February 26, 2015

Cappuccino y florentina en El Limón

cappuccino y florentina

El Limón

Cappuccino y florentina en El Limón.

Agora Más Que Un Bar

Agora

The average local bar in Puerto de la Cruz is dire, awful loud music, widescreen TV, not content with inside, now widescreen TV outside, often ignorant local peasants shouting their heads off. The atmosphere in these bars is unpleasant to say the least.

Then they wonder why bars are closing, why their tourist industry is collapsing.

For the last couple of years, bars that would have stayed open until midnight, later if customers, are now closing at ten o´clock, where they employed three or four people, now one, most are empty, or near empty.

Last year, friends and I went in a bar around ten o´clock. We were the only ones there. We asked were they closing? They said no. The widescreen TV deafening us outside, we asked would they turn it down, or better still off? They said no, they liked it. They then started dragging tables and chairs in around us.

Agora a bar cum coffee bar, located in Plaza de Benito Pérez Galdós, a pleasant little plaza with traditional housing, in the old part, not far from Playa Jardín, is a rare exception.

Pleasant ambience inside, quiet, with pleasant music playing, often MOM playing outside (when they turn the music inside off), tables and chairs outside, good beer, excellent cakes, let down though by their awful coffee, conversation encouraged, Wednesday evening language interchange.

• PHOTOS Agora Más Que Un Bar

Almuerzo en Centro de Dia Para Mayores

tortilla con ensalada tuna

1. Potaje de espinas
2. Pescado maltratadas

Spinach soup, but nearer a stew, very tasty and filling, followed by tortilla with a tuna salad (as I did not fancy fish in batter).

I was offered yoghurt as dessert. This I declined as alreday full, plus I had a banana which I ate outside.

Centro de Dia Para Mayores, circa los correos, is one of the best places to eat in Puerto de la Cruz. Delicious and nourishng meals.

The UK Gold

Now is the time to reveal the revolving doors between government and the City that has bred lies and corruption for so long, siphoning money through our tax havens for the global super rich, while now preaching that we the people must pay our taxes and suffer austerity. Just who does our government work for? — Thom Yorke

Where is the gold buried when crisis is looming and society begins to demand its share?

With eloquence and polite mutual support, the British business establishment elegantly winds its way out of society’s demands of accountability and community, and vast amounts of money are diverted away from the state coffers through a net of confusing transactions, Caribbean tax havens and a shelter of bureaucracy. All wrapped up in the “Union Jack”.

We are guided through the darkness by the film’s hero, Father William Taylor, who with his indomitable social spirit and chivalrous character seems to be the moral anchor of a world whose laws fluctuate with the economic cycles.

Taylor joins a battle where the good argument is of little value in a world of closed doors and mutually protective silence – where democracy is no more than an illusion and the cards have been dealt in advance.

The UK Gold takes a powerful swipe against the British Empire behind the white gloves, and tells the story of a contemporary crisis and an ancient practice, which shows how deep deception is ingrained in our proudest institutions and traditions. Dominic West (“The Wire”) narrates; Thom Yorke (Radiohead), 3D (Massive Attack) and Guy Garvey (Elbow) provide a spellbinding score.

Offereing live streaming of an album is nothing special. This is the norm on bandcamp. We need to be able to download and listen off-line. Please upload to bandcamp, where for a donation, it would be possible to download.

The UK Gold is essential viewing. An in-depth investigation of the tax avoidance industry in the UK, The UK Gold tackles tax dodging corporations and government complicity so directly that both BBC and Channel 4 refused to run it. It is, they claimed, ‘too controversial’.

The film is premiered tonight live on London Live, or Freeview 8 / Sky 117 / Virgin 159 / YouView 8.

• Stream the UK Gold score
• HSBC the crooked bank

Restaurantes no ocupados

restaurantes no ocupados

Walking through the town after a concert at Abaco, about half the restaurants not open, the other half, very few people.

This evening, almost empty.