Issuu

FREE!

For daily news online www.rtnnewspaper.com

COSTA BLANCA NORTH

27th April - 3rd May

Camping crackdown continues on coast By Darren Parmenter A FEW weeks ago, Elche City Council announced that it was introducing tougher controls on the amount of illegal caravans and motor homes using public streets to camp. Now others in the Marina Baixa region that have coastal areas under their control are starting to follow suit. Every year from March, the Costa Blanca attracts a large number of ‘mobile tourists,’ many of whom shun the official camping sites and choose instead to spend their days and nights on or close to local beaches; something that, over a period of time the local councils have tried to combat. Benidorm, Alfaz del Pi, Altea, Finestrat and Villajoyosa have particularly struggled with this annual influx, and

have now resorted to implementing the law of the land that expressly prohibits parking of such vehicles in these areas. In addition, they have also added a number of local bylaws that relate to specific points in the municipality. In recent weeks, authorities in Benidorm have begun to warn people that have camped up illegally that they must move on or face fines. In nearby Villajoyosa, the council has also started to take action with those caravans parked up at the mouth of the Rio Amadorio, with them also being asked to leave. Despite notices prohibiting certain parking areas from being occupied by caravans and motor homes, they are ignored. Regulations approved in 2015 by the Spanish Traffic Authority (DGT) state that

New location for foreigners help THE Foreign Tourist Assistance Service (SATE), located in the Rincon de Loix area, has begun to offer help and guidance to all foreigners in the city who need it and includes advice from the National Police in the event that they have been victims of crime. The new service, next door to the also recently opened Benidorm Tourism Office in Avenida Derramador is right in the centre of the zone where the majority of foreign visitors congregate, especially those from the UK. Previously, this service was located in the Torrejo building where it also shared facilities with the Tourism Office. Not only will users of the SATE find members of the National Police on duty if required, there will also be translators in situ.

Issue 966

INSIDE THIS WEEK ... ICONIC BULLS CAUGHT IN GRAFFITI ROW

P4 BONNIE URGENTLY NEEDS A PACEMAKER PLEASE HELP!

P19 INTERPRETATION: Can people carry on camping... or not?

these vehicles ‘can park up but they cannot camp.’ However, the interpretations of those laws vary from council to council, with some saying it’s wrong to evict this type of tourist and others stating that they must use an official car park or a campsite.

FROM BLACK & WHITE TO COLOUR

P31

27th April - 3rd May

Bird of prey rescued from sea TWO local Javea residents have saved the life of a booted eagle that had been attacked by a flock of seagulls. The bird of prey was rescued by the two young Spanish men while they were out in their boat. Speaking to Spanish media, Carlos Andarias said that he and a friend were fishing in the area of Punta Plana off the Cap de la Nau - and they were surprised to see so many seagulls in the area who were diving into the sea. At first, they assumed that the gulls had found a shoal of tuna or other fish which is quite a common sight, but then they noticed another bird struggling in the water which tur ned out to be the booted eagle. After the two men scared off the seagulls, Carlos then grabbed one of their fishing nets and managed to scoop the ea-

Photo credit: Sandipang Wikimedia

gle from the water and bring it into the safe ty of their boat . He immedi ately wrapped it up in his jacket and with his knowledge of wildlife knew straight away that they had a booted eagle in their care. They quickly returned to port and called ahead to the Local Police to warn them of their arrival. As they disembarked, the police took the bird, which was not hurt during the ordeal, and according to reports later released it on the Montgo. SAVED: Booted eagle attacked by aggressive seagulls.

Second nursing home needed DENIA Town Council has announced firm plans to build a second nursing home to cover the needs of the municipality. Making the announcement this week, Councillor Elisabet Cardona said: “There is a waiting list to enter the municipal-run home as the 92 places are always occupied,” she said. “The only time there is a vacancy is when one of the residents dies.” Therefore, the PSPV and Compromis coalition government have stated that they will be commissioning a feasibility study into building another home on a council owned plot in La Pedrera.

Drive to catch fake permit holders OVER the course of a month four people have been caught in Benidorm using fake disabled parking permits. As a result, the city council will be studying the possibility of adding more official parking places to maintain their commitment to making Benidorm accessible for all. Local Police have detected the misuse of these illegal cards which are intended for disabled people and have been used to park in a number of spaces in the city and have thus prevented those who really need them. Councillor Lorenzo Martinez insisted that this behaviour “cannot be tolerated” in a city that is doing its best to pro-

mote disabled tourism. He went on to thank the police for their work in finding those who have abused the system and said that they will be checking every vehicle that parks in these dedicated areas. Benidorm City Council urges its locals to respect these special parking places, and also confirmed that they will be looking to expand the number available as more and more tourists and residents use them. In recent weeks, Benidorm has enhanced the services available for the disabled and those with reduced mobility which has included adapted traffic lights for the deafblind.

27th April - 3rd May Photo credit: Guardia Civil

SECURE: Two of the five attack dogs after the death of the farmer.

Two years in jail for owner of killer dogs BENIDORM’S Nº3 Criminal Court has given a man a sentence of two years and two months after the dogs he owned killed a farmer in Beniarbeig. T he dogs - all breeds classed as potentially dangerous - fatally attacked a 76-year-old farmer in an orange grove in Febr uar y 2017. According to repor ts of the case in the Spanish media, the dogs hadn’t undergone any of the basic tests and veterinary controls, nor were they properly trained. It’s also understood that

On ‘yer bike for longer BICISANVI - the park and cycle service available in San Vicente del Raspeig has extended the hours that riders can use the bikes. There are nine points of use in the municipality and from now on there is no limit to the amount of time the cycles can be picked up; up from eight hours to 24 hours a day. To cover the anticipated extra use, BICISANVI will make an extra 30 new cycles available, taking the overall total to 80.

he had no insurance for the animals or official papers to prove he was their rightful owner. T he guilty man is a 48year-old of Dutch nationality and he has not been named by the Spanish press. He has been found guilty of the crime of ‘homicide for serious impr udence ’ under Spanish law, and in addition to the prison sentence has been ordered to pay €170,000 to the dead man’s widow and his three children. The Dutchman lived in a house he rented in Beniar-

beig from July 2016 to February 2017 with five mongrel dogs similar to the Pit Bull Ter rier breed which needs to be kept secure at all times. But during the case it became clear that the animals were able to get out of his property with ease. Before the attack on the farmer, it is understood that the dogs had previously carried out a savage attack on two people outside the perimeter fence of where they were kept. Both incidents were reported to the police at the time.

27th April - 3rd May

Five robbers caught red-handed DURING the course of one evening, officers from the National Police arrested five people red-handed as they tried to break in to three different buildings in Alicante. One was a private house, and the other two were commercial premises. At the first incident, police were alerted to a possible robbery taking place in a house in the north of the city while the owners were in the premises. They had been warned that the front door had been forced and so within moments of arriving at the scene discovered two men inside the property. Despite fleeing the scene, a chase on foot through the streets followed and the alleged thieves were apprehended, although not before one of the police officers was almost attacked with a screwdriver. Two hours later another person was arrested in the process of breaking into slot machines. The alarm was raised by a passer-by and the National Police were able to arrive at the scene as the intruder was in the act of removing the cash. The final incident saw two of the detainees surprised by police as they carried boxes full of what they had just stolen from the building. Again, police received a call from a member of the public who spotted a robbery in progress. As they arrived, it coincided with the two running away with their booty and virtually straight into the arms of the officers. The five people detained in the three separate crimes are three men and two women aged between 32 and 38.

A LOC AL cultural association has cleaned up two of the famous black Osborne bulls after they had been subjected to graffiti. T he two bulls locate d between Campello and Villajoyosa (at Casa Nova and Venta Lanuza) had been daubed with slogans and members of the MEC C ultural A ssociation covered up the damage with black paint of their own. Speaking to the Spanish media, the MEC president Jesus Planelles stressed that “the Osborne bull has a histor y wor thy of both respect and promotion. “Although the original function was purely an advertising tool, with the passage of time they have become an accepted par t of the scenery in some areas and a cultural symbol of Spain.” They began to be erected back in 1958, and it was in 1994 that they were officially declared as part of the countr y ’s heritage. Currently, there are 91 Osborne bulls across Spain. Planelles clarified that covering up the graffiti - which was essentially anti-bullfighting and against a n i m a l a b u s e i n g e n e ra l - d i d n ’ t mean that they were in favour of it. “We simply want to take care of the Osborne bulls which are officially listed as protected property.” However, the group understands that it may have broken EU legisla-

ALL BULL: Graffiti clean-up may have broken EU rules.

Iconic bulls caught in graffiti row tion by repairing the damage without getting official permission first from the local council; something that it is understood the EU are trying to establish. The MEC explained that they be-

lieved official permission was not needed and carried out the clean-up o p e rat i o n i n b ro a d d ay l i g h t a n d were happy to tell the world what they had done. They had nothing to hide...

27th April - 3rd May

Pioneering translating service continues Photo credit: Generalitat Valenciana

THE Marina Baixa Hospital in Villajoyosa has been actively seeking an interpreter to enable them to help more and more foreign residents and tourists using their facilities. The successful applicant will be announced today (Friday) and the hospital hopes they will take up their new role on Wednesday in readiness for the summer season and will replace the previous incumbent who has retired. The new interpreter will continue the hospital’s pioneering initiative of having someone available to enable a patient to explain in greater detail their illness or conditions and thus speed up potentially vital treatment. The service began in 1996 and has since attended many thousands of non-Spanish-speaking people, breaking down the understandable language barriers. The in-house service also means that people don’t need to bring their own translators with them, often at great expense. There are around 70,000 officially registered foreigners in the

MULTILINGUAL: Villajoyosa hospital sees new interpreter start next week.

Marina Baixa area and with Benidorm and other popular tourist areas close by, the Villajoyosa hospital is one of the most used and more than 6,000 translations a year are required. The Spanish person who is retiring was an expert in nine lan-

guages; English, Norwegian, Swedish, German, Dutch, Danish, Finnish, Belgian and French. However, as long as the applicants fulfilled the basic requirements to speak Spanish, Valencian, English and French with official and recognised qualifica-

tions, they were considered for the position. The demand for help with translations is more than covered at the Villajoyosa hospital, but many foreigners complain that similar systems don’t exist in other health centres.

Police undergo firefighting training LOCAL POLICE based in Finestrat have joined the growing list of bodies that have now received training in dealing with fires in town and city centres. Around 20 members of the municipality, as well as the commander of the Guardia Civil, have participated in the Training Workshop on Coordination in Urban Firefighting aimed at adapting procedures that take into account the latest fire risks caused by new technologies in the home and in vehicles. The course was under the control of Sergeant Jaume Lloret who said that “coordination between the emergency services is essential and all members are facing new tests on a daily basis.” Lloret made particular reference to this week’s storms which swept across the region and saw over 150 calls made in the space of 12 hours due to the extreme weather conditions. With members of the Local Police often first on the scene of many emergency situations, the more areas in which they can be trained such as medical and basic firefighting techniques, vital seconds and minutes saved could be the difference between life and death in some scenarios.

27th April - 3rd May

MORE FOOD: For those in need.

Pedigree CHUMS continue to help JUST over a week ago CHUMS (friends of charity) went shopping with the ladies from La Nucia’s social services and spent just under €550 on food for La Nucia’s food bank. In the picture you can see Pat, Peter, Tony and Marilyn from CHUMS with some of the food. They are a small registered charity that raises money to help the food banks. If you would like to join them or find out more please ring Marilyn on 965 864 394.

Four dogs ‘tortured’ to death IN one of the most horrific cases ever witnessed, it’s been revealed that four dogs have been tortured in the municipality of Muchamiel. The events date back to Holy Week at the end of March when the owners of the dogs reported to the Guardia Civil that they believed their pets had been tortured to death and abandoned in a water tank on a farm in Muchamiel. It was the owners themselves who were greeted with the grizzly scene as they found them lying dead in the tank and floating in the green, stagnant water. Some had suffered signs of violence, and another had been so badly mutilated that only parts of the body had been recovered. The reservoir where the dogs were

discovered is located inside ground that houses a greenhouse business in the Les Peñetes area where the owners have a house that they shared with their dogs. The original alarm was raised when the dogs didn’t return from their daily exercise through the field and, after several days waiting for them to return, they went out searching the area. One of their ports of call was to ask the owners of the business if they could come inside and have a look for them. Shortly afterwards, the horrendous scene was uncovered. Photographs of the scene have been released but the RTN have decided that they are simply too distressing to print.

Lions Club guides the way CONTINUING with their initiative to make Benidorm as accessible to everyone, the latest guide book for the city has been released. It’s in six languages, but the main difference is that it has been specially produced to help groups such as the blind. The idea came from the Benidorm Lions Club after seeing that tourist books in other cities contained information using Braille and QR codes, with the latter linking the user to an audio link.

27th April - 3rd May

Costa Blanca moving up the charts Photo credit: Phillip Capper Wikimedia

by Darren Parmenter DESPITE fears that more tourists are returning to Turkey and Tunisia after a number of years of security issues, the Costa Blanca is still able to attract high numbers of visitors. In fact , and following the latest figures released by the Spanish National Statistics Institute (INE), the area unseated Mallorca from its third place in Spain. The Costa Blanca is now only behind the Costa del Sol and the Costa Brava and relegated the popular B alear ic island into fourth. The data comes in spite of the continual uncertainty of British tourism

POPULARITY: Costa Blanca now attracts more tourists than Mallorca.

in the after m ath of the Brexit vote and with the re cover y of the likes of Egypt, Turkey and Tunisia that is now offer ing - in some resorts - holidays at 40 per cent cheaper than those in the A licante Province.

T he statistics went on to show that of all the tourists who visited the Valenci an Community during 2017, the Alicante Province accounted for 70 per cent of the market and spent a total of €3.3 billion.

This was 7.6 per cent of the total tourist spend in Spain during the same 12 month period which was €44.2 billion. It has been calculated that the average foreign tour ist to Spain spent €826 per tr ip... €101 per day.

British drugs baron in court BACK in 2013 when he was arrested at his home in Calpe, Brian Charrington was one of Britain’s most wanted criminals. Five years later, his trial is underway in an Alicante court with eight others accused of a number of drugs offences. Known by police as ‘The Coke King’ - but nothing to do with the soft drink - Charrington, aged 62, was one of 13 people detained in both Spain and Venezuela, and at the time he was one of the 10 criminals most investigated by European police and leader of an international drug-trafficking organisation. When arrested, officers seized 220 kilos of cocaine from an apartment in Albir, close to Benidorm, and also impounded property and bank accounts worth more than €5 million. Images of his arrest have often been featured as part of the BBC TV series that looked at cooperation between the UK and Spanish police. The organisation used a group of drug mules to fly cocaine into Spain using commercial flights from Venezuela, and one was intercepted at Madrid-Barajas airport carrying five kilos of cocaine in eight packages distributed across specially adapted underwear. Reports in the UK-based newspapers at the time also stated that the arrests led to curtailing a further plot to smuggle tons of cocaine into Europe via ‘an armada of yachts.’ Charrington used to operate throughout the northeast of England during the 1980’s. He rose to fame as a major drug baron in 1992, when a raid at his Middlesbrough home unearthed almost €2.3 million in cash, which was all allegedly linked to drug dealing. While arrested in 1992, he was never formally charged, due to alleged irregularities in police procedures.

27th April - 3rd May

TRAM passenger loyalty grows

Tiger death prosecutions FOLLOWING the death of an employee of Terra Natura who was mauled by a tiger in July 2016, three people have now been charged by prosecuting authorities in Benidorm. Ainhoa Pariente died while cleaning a tiger’s cage. Apparently one of the doors was left open, which allowed the tiger to attack the theme park employee who wouldn’t have been aware that the big cat could get into that part of the cage. Subsequent police investigations ruled out any recklessness on the part of the cleaner who had followed the usual security protocols.

Denia’s San Carlos hospital... fit for the 21st century Photo credit: Denia.com

PASSENGER numbers using the TRAM service continue to grow, and this is despite the programme of renovation works which has been taking place along various sections of the line for almost two years. Numbers are particularly up for those using the Benidorm station, with a total of 39,909 users in March... up more than 8,000 since February. This has shown a passenger loyalty to the TRAM in preference to other and potentially faster ways of moving around the area.

by David Bennett A F T E R two ye ars of renovat ion work, the hospital HL A San Carlos in Denia is pleased to present its new facilities. The total investment to modernise the 3,000m2 of space has exceeded €2 million. T he new building will be one of the most up-to-date of its type featuring state of the art accident and emergency, outpatient consultations and diagnostic imaging units. The renovated space on the first floor will have specialists dealing in Traumatolo g y and O r thopaedic Surgery, Cardiology, Neurology, Oncology, Gynaecology and Obstetrics, and Neurophysiology, among others. In addition space for inpatients has been ex tended on the second and top f loors with eight modern rooms which are equipped with the latest continuous monitoring technology. HL A San Carlos also has a ne w

INVESTMENT OF €2 MILLION: To make the hospital one of the most modern around.

Spor ts Me dicine Unit which will have a group of specialists available to patients such as a sports doctor,

physical trainer, nutritionist, podiatrist, cardiologist, and a physiotherapist.

Denia car crash tragically claims life of driver A YOUNG man from Denia has been killed and his passenger left in a serious condition following a crash on the CV-7221 close to Ondara. According to reports, the 21-year-old driver was crushed by the car. For reasons that are still being investigated,

the driver lost control of his vehicle which fell down a nearby embankment around three metres deep. The car collided with a tree with such force that both occupants were thrown from the vehicle. However, as the car finished flipping it end-

ed up falling on top of the driver where he was lying on the ground. Emergency vehicles from all the major services were soon on the scene, especially those from the Denia Fire Department whose base is only one-kilometre along the road from where

the accident took place. Local Police from both Denia and Ondara were also on hand to help with the rescue and clean-up operations, and paramedics with the SAMU ambulance service took the seriously injured passenger to the nearby Denia hospital.

27th April - 3rd May

DANGER: Portuguese man-of-war make a rare visit to the Costa’s beaches.

Jellyfish invasion closes beach by Darren Parmenter VISITORS to beaches up and down the Costa Blanca have been greeted by a larger than expected number of jellyfish for this time of the year. The plague of the poisonous Portuguese man-of-war species has reached the Alicante Province after being brought on the current from their usual breeding areas in Cadiz and Huelva. In recent weeks, lifeguards in Benidorm have removed 14 from their beaches and returned them to the sea. From Torrevieja to Guardamar and from Alicante to San Juan the invasion was noticed by people on the beach and in the water. Such was the danger to San Juan beach that the authorities raised the red flag on Sunday to warn bathers. Known as one of the most dangerous of sea creatures, the Portuguese man-of-war

has a ver y painful bite and contains 10 times more venom than a normal jellyfish. Victims can suffer from fever, paralysis; vomiting and the bites can leave nasty scars. A biologist at the Institute of Coastal Ecology, Juan Guillén, said that the Portuguese man-of- war are rare in the Mediterranean and as it has its habitat in the warm waters of all the world’s oceans, it is more usual to see it in the Atlantic. He said that usual practice requires the raising of the red flag raised until they disappear from the area. Speaking to Spanish media, Guillen went on to say “we know that they are appearing in Calpe, Benidorm and San Juan at the moment and I am sure if we will also see them very soon in other zones. They come from the area of Huelva and Cadiz where the authorities have already closed a number of beaches.”

Farm shooting fugitive arrested ALICANTE police have caught and detained a fugitive wanted for attempting to shoot three people eight years ago. The 35-year-old Algerian citizen had been on the run for more than three years after fleeing from justice following a shooting incident between alleged drug traffickers on a farm in Cartagena. His days of freedom are now over... The detained man had a number of arrest warrants in his name as allegedly being behind three crimes of attempted homicide, one for the possession of weapons and a further crime of robbery with violence and intimidation. The events relate back to an incident on a farm in Cartagena in 2010, and according to reports in the Spanish media the Guardia Civil arrested four people at the time for their involvement in the robbery and subsequent shootings that injured three people. It’s one of those original four that has now been caught.

27th April - 3rd May

Pedreguer...where are they?

‘More than 1,000 pigs drown at farm in Spain after river burst its banks.’

One year’s jail for rental scammer

Nothing like a good book

A WOMAN has been sentenced to one-year in prison after being found guilty of renting out a flat in Javea that didn’t belong to her. The ruling made by the Superior Court of Justice of Valencia (TSJCV) has only been made public this week. The Provincial Court of Alicante has confirmed that the sentence originally handed down in January last year must be carried out after the appeal by the defendant was rejected. The events date back to May 2014 when the subsequent victim contacted the defendant through a website that specialised in the buying and selling of second-hand items. On it was advertised a house up for rent for the summer in Carrer de la Barraca at a charge of €1,200 per week. One such viewer took up the offer and ended up making a reservation for one week, signed an agreement and placed a deposit of €600 into the now guilty woman’s bank account. However, on August 11, 2014 the tenant showed up at the address and discovered the apartment occupied by the genuine owner who had no intention of renting it out. The scammer was also instructed to return the €600.

MORE than 500 books have been given a second chance in La Nucia! The municipality is showing its support for reading by once again organising a book exchange fair; the sixth time it’s been held in La Nucia. Hundreds of books in different languages were on display in the Plaza del Almassera according to subject and language. Special guests were local authors Manuel Sanchez, Inma Castellote, Joan Lluis-Moreno and Manuela Gonzalez.

June Reddan Why on earth did they not open the gates at least they could stand a chance? Elisabeth Knight Hope that SAPRONA use the new animal abuse law and prosecute them, but I won’t hold my breath.

@RTNNewspaper Most liked posts from this week • PILOTS’ STRIKE: 246 flights cancelled in Spain • Balcony fall injured five-year-old child in southern Spain • Jellyfish invasion closes Costa Blanca beach • Valli Seasons tour update • Summer strike threat by air traffic controllers in Spain In Total 20,825 people reached 6,571 reactions

rtnnewspaper.com Send us your comments on Facebook, Twitter and on our website. Or if you prefer you can email our editor directly: admin@rtnnewspaper.com

News & Views from the North & South Costa Blanca & Costa de Sol

All adverts must be prepaid whether they are placed at our offices, by email or fax, or via our sales team. The advertisers full name, address and ID number must be supplied (not for publication). RTN does not accept any responsibility for claims made by advertisers, either in advertisements or advertorials, nor can it be held responsible for any inaccuracies, errors, or the nonappearance of advertisements or advertorials. This publisher cannot accept responsibility for any errors as a result of poor quality artwork or logos supplied by advertisers and no responsibility is accepted for any loss or damage caused by any error or inaccuracy or non-appearance of an advertisement or advertorial. Every effort will be made to ensure the authenticity and accuracy of articles and advertisements in this publication, however the publisher does not accept responsibility for claims or opinions in the same. The publisher does not accept responsibility for opinions expressed by readers in the ‘Mailbox’ section of this newspaper. Reproduction of any part of this newspaper without the consent of the publishers is prohibited.E:&O.E. All rights reserved/Todos los derechos reservados Edita : RTN Publishing and Media SL

• General Enquires:

situation that is their responsibility. According to a report in the Spanish media, the last time central government was contacted about this perceived anomaly was in 2016 and allegedly wasn’t answered. However, the company that operates that stretch of the AP7 - Albertis Autopistas - justified the possible absence of Pedreguer from the signs saying that Ondara is there because of the location of the tolls; Denia for being the nearest town with the largest population; and Javea due to ‘its importance for tourism.’ There was no reason given why Pedreguer didn’t appear other than possible restrictions of space on the signage that is only permitted to have four lines of script.

LOST: The town of Pedreguer.

951 386 161

• Deadlines Adverts: copy changes, classifieds and editorial Copy: Tuesday 5pm for following Friday’s edition.

Deposito Legal : South A-853-1999 North: A-134-2004 Costa del Sol MA-630-2017

Customer service If you are dissatisfied with any aspect of our service you can call us or write to: EURO WEEKLY NEWS MEDIA SA Avda Ramon y Cajal 54. Edf River Playa, local 2. 29640 Fuengirola - Málaga

951 386 161

www.rtnnewspaper.com

A popular post on Facebook reaching 2,252 with 40 reactions

AS people speed along the AP7 motorway in either direction in the Marina Alta area, only a select number of people would notice that there is something missing from the many signs that accompany the journey. Where is Pedreguer? It’s a question being asked by many local residents and has now once again been brought to the attention of the traffic authorities who are being asked to add the name of the town to the appropriate exits. Pedreguer is the only town accessible from exit 62 of the AP-7 that isn’t listed. Only the names of Ondara, Denia and Xabia/Javea appear and it’s resulted in representations being made to the Ministry of Public Works in Madrid to resolve the

Credit: Polytaz

HAVE YOUR SAY

• Enquiries sales@rtnnewspaper.com accounts@rtnnewspaper.com

• Editorial newsdesk@rtnnewspaper.com

• International Enquiries marketing@rtnnewspaper.com

• Distribution distribution@rtnnewspaper.com

• Complaints complaints@rtnnewspaper.com

NATIONAL

Try some new grub

LEGISLATION: EU laws now permit insects, such as grasshoppers to be part of a diet.

Carrefour says insect snacks are environmentally friendly, because breeding the species and turning them into food involves a process which reduces greenhouse gases by 99 per cent compared with

‘Hotel alone’ while parents go drinking Photo credit: MaxPixel

SHOPPERS filling their weekly trolleys with food and drink in Carrefour supermarkets in Spain h ave b e e n te m p te d to t r y s o m e thing a little different. Thanks to recent European Union leg islation, Car refour has been the first in Spain to jump on the bandwagon to sell food containing... insects. These inc l u d e c r i s p s , ce re a l s a n d e n e r g y bars. According to the United Nat i o n s Fo o d a n d A g r i c u l t u r e O r g a n i s a t i o n ( FA O ) , o v e r t w o b i l lion people worldwide already eat insects as part of their normal diet and consider them ‘the food of the future’. T h e FA O s a y s t h e y a r e r i c h i n protein, vitamins B1, B2 and B3, a s o u rce o f O m e ga 3 a n d O m e ga 6, all essenti al amino acids , and other vital minerals such as iron. Carrefour have included a numb e r o f d i f fe re n t i n s e c t s i n t h e i r new lines, all of which are considered edible by the new EU legislation, such as grasshoppers, dragonf lies, giant water bugs, silkworm and super worm lar vae, and ants , par ticularly weaver or green ants. Crickets are also on the list, a n d t h e s e h ave b e e n e ate n f r i e d for d e c a d e s i n C a m b o d i a , w h e re they are a popular cinema snack , in the same way that people in the western world eat popcorn.

27th April - 3rd May

other manufacturing methods. Prices at Carrefour in Spain range from around €4.50 for cereals and €2 for snack bars, with t h e m o s t e x p e n s i v e i te m s b e i n g around €7.

A BRITISH couple have been arrested in Palma de Mallorca after apparently leaving their children on their own for two days in the hotel while they went off drinking, The hotel where the couple were staying hasn’t been named, but security staff notified the authorities when the plight of the young children was brought to their attention. Reports in the Spanish media suggest that the family arrived at the hotel two days before the arrest took place, with the adults said to be ‘constantly drunk’, as they went out all day and night, leaving the children behind. However, the arrested couple were more than aware that leaving children of such an age unsupervised in the hotel was illegal and so allegedly asked another British couple - complete strangers to them - to keep an eye on the children while they went on a series of pub crawls in and around Palma. When they returned - very drunk - the woman is said to have then physically attacked the other couple in public in the hotel, without any known reason or provocation, which needed members of security to intervene and call the police.

27th April - 3rd May

RTN Feature by Jennifer Cunningham

WHAT interesting times we live in and I could add, quite scary times. I shudder when I think that the free world’s peace is controlled by a very volatile and frightening man. Is it acceptable to threaten another country’s leader via Twitter? What about the old-fashioned way of diplomatic channels and ambassadors, in private? Still, I am an old-fashioned gal who wouldn’t dream of going on Facebook to discuss my private life and to see the office of the US president using social media in this way when there is a conflict, disagreement, or just lashing out, I find appalling. I am now going to drop a bit of a bombshell. Do you realise that when you get your Residencia accepted by the Spanish authorities, it is a European document which states you live in Spain. However, to be a full legal resident in Spain, you must be a fiscal resident. This means you must be registered by the Spanish tax office and submit yearly tax returns in Spain. This does not mean you necessarily have to pay tax in Spain, but you must do

Unique house policies a yearly tax return, which is a legal requirement. This costs very little and protects you from a fine. If you are autonomos or working on contract, you are a fiscal resident. I feel, with Brexit on the horizon, it would be very wise to get your paperwork in order, because obviously there are checks being carried out on behalf of the governments in both Spain and the UK already. IBI, basura and road tax are a totally separate issue, as they are in the UK. Would you consider council tax, rubbish collection and car tax in Britain as your tax return? Of course not! Staying on the subject of legality and as part of Expat Services, when talking to my chosen financial advisor, he reminded me of a very good piece of sound advice. Although the company you are dealing with may be authorised to sell financial investments, did you realise that the advisor offering advice also has to be fully registered and regulated? Unless they are, they are not allowed to work in the UK at any time or offer advice in any other country, so take care and select your advisor very carefully, because it could spell trouble with a capital T. If you are in any doubt on either of these two issues or wish to do a tax return, which is due in June, you can always organise an

appointment with one of my associates (the first consultation is free), telephone 966 461 690 or visit www.expatservices spain.net. I am very excited about my new advertisements which are just starting to appear in the newspapers. I hope you agree with me that they are very ‘relaxing’. There are eight different advertisements informing you of the services we offer, one of which is a unique house insurance for your largest asset. It is a very good policy and as far as I am concerned, knowing my way around the market as I do, it is the best. It might however, not be the cheapest but the extent of the cover is exceptional. Liability, water loss and especially accidental damage on both the contents and the building, are unique. A big percentage of the claims which come through my office are the result of accidental damage. With regard to contents cover, my sales consultants will advise you to take out a realistic sum and you would be amazed when you think about how much you spend on furnishing your home, clothes, personal items and valuables. Be very careful when it comes to expensive jewellery, paintings, watches and collections. For example, it you have rings

and watches, you will need a full risk policy, not just insurance cover when they are locked in a safe. Also, do not be persuaded to underinsure, because when it comes to total loss, you will find yourself in trouble with the insurance company. Never forgetting outbuildings, solar panels, pools and garden furniture, the list is endless. When you take all of this into consideration, you should expect to pay a realistic premium to reflect the cover. If it seems too cheap, whilst at the same time being assured it covers everything, I suggest you look very closely before committing. Liberty Seguros has specially designed policies for second homes, and for those properties which are rented or uninhabited for a certain length of time. When you are renting your property legally, long-term, special landlord insurance is a necessity and includes cover for non-payment of rent and Liberty also have policies for tenants to cover their own contents and liability. Protect yourself and your home in the best possible way. For more information or a quotation, please contact one of my consultants or visit my website www.jennifercunning ham.net.

SPOTLIGHT ON MORAIRA

27th April - 3rd May

Photo credit: Dr Gerald Hales

Vive Teulada Moraira! LOVERS of food in Teulada-Moraira are in for a treat beginning tomorrow (Saturday) as the 9th annual gastronomy and commercial fair - ‘Vive Teulada Moraira’ is being held at the Castillo Moraira. The event is on for four days and ends on Spanish red day bank holiday Tuesday May 1. It will be formally opened at 12.30pm on Saturday. As every year in the past, the fair will be organised by the municipality and the local association of entrepreneurs and retailers AECO. Visitors and residents alike will get the opportunity to sample some of the very best products that will be proudly displayed.

TRADITION: Masons and their guests at the recent Ladies’ Night .

Masonic Brotherhood grows THE District Grand Lodge of Mark Master Masons of Spain covers the whole of Spain, but it was in Teulad a that Mark and Royal Ark L o dges held their

combined Ladies’ Festival, the only such festival in these Lodges in Spain. Nearly 100 guests from Marina Alta and a contingent from the Torrevieja

area attended. In his address printed in the Festival Programme, Distr ict Grand Master Barrie Mansell said “this evening is symptomatic of the friendliness of the deg re e of Mark Mas onr y that abounds within this area.” Worshipful Master Bill Russell from the chair took up this theme saying “ Welcome to Masonic Brethren present who are not members of Mark deg ree and indeed those members of Mark who have not yet joined Royal

Ark Mariners and welcome to those who are not Brethren and are supporting us.” Mrs Brenda Russell received the toast on behalf of the ladies, given both in words and in song! Over €700 was raised in the raff le for the Mark Benevolent Fund. Freemasonr y is the largest Brotherhood in the world and exists in almost ever y countr y. The Mark degree is a sub-group of Masonry. The first records of Mark Mas onr y d ate from the mid 1700s and

its pur pose is to teach a moral and ethical way of life. The Royal Ark Mariners are another g rouping which particularly emphasises the individual using his skills and labour to improve life. More infor mation can be obtained about Masonry in general from the Secretar y of the Province of Valencia (sec@glpvalencia. com) and about the Mark and RAM degrees in Spain by sending an email to s e c re t a r y @ d i s t r i c t m a r k spain.com.

Put those lights back on! A N electr ical fault in a set of traffic lig hts in B enitachell had consequences for Teulada and Moraira on Wednesday morning. They failed to work at the ver y busy junction that link s many of the towns and villages in the Marina Alta and, according to repor ts in the Spanish media, were out

of action since Tuesday night. This led to traffic hold ups dur ing the early morning rush hour, particularly in the absence of any members of the Local Police, with a number of d angerous situations somehow being avoided. T he lig hts were fully restored by midd ay on Wednesday.

27th April - 3rd May

U3A Calpe on an awayday Credit: Superchilum

FIFTY-FIVE members and friends of the Calpe U3A left the Esmeralda Hotel in fine weather for a trip to Novelda. After the coach driver had to endure a strong wind on the AP-7 motorway and following the usual comfort break, the group continued on their journey and arrived at their destination at 10.30am. Left to their own devices, 22 of the group visited the modernist house built in 1901, although it has been restored to its former glory thanks to an investment from a local bank. In its time, the house would’ve been very popular with the wellto-do and the gentry, featuring three floors full of artefacts, art nouveau drawings and enamel signs. After enjoying a wonderful lunch at a local restaurant which was nicely walked off during a browse of the nearby shops, the next part of the trip began at 4pm as the coach made its way up the hill to the unique church called St Mary Magdalene’s Sanctuary. This is classed as a modernist building - designed by Jose Sala Sala - and took around 30 years to construct on La Mola. Inside, the visitors saw the unusual organ that has its pipes made from Alicante red marble and when finished it will feature 700 in total. For more details of the organisation, log on to www.u3acalpe.org.

DAYTRIP: St Mary Magdalene’s Sanctuary.

Bonnie urgently needs a pacemaker - please help! IN March 2018, Bonnie, a beautiful English Bull Terrier, arrived from Gran Canaria at a local rescue centre for Pitbulls and Bull Terrier breeds. Sadly, it soon became apparent that Bonnie’s heart stops every few seconds for a few seconds and an ECG revealed that she needs a pacemaker. The veterinary specialist for this operation is in Gran Canaria, so she will have to be flown back there for the operation and then brought back to mainland Spain for recovery. She was brought to the mainland because Bull breeds are viewed as dangerous in Gran Canaria and are often just sent to a killing station, which is why Hannah’s Rescue Hounds and the PPP Kennels specialise in bringing these breeds to the mainland.

Hannah’s vet and the specialist are flying with her at their own cost, and will stay with her for four days so the pacemaker can settle and so they can be on hand after both flights. They need €4,000, and this is just for the pacemaker and holster, not for her recovery period. So far, Hannah and her team have raised a total of €2,000, but the operation needs to be done as soon as possible. This is a high-risk operation, but as Bonnie is still young and acts like a normal, playful Bullie, Hannah feels she deserves this chance of a new life! Paypal donations: hannahsrescuehounds@gmail.com. BONNIE: The bouncing Bullie needs your help.

Caprice - Summertime ALL ladies choir, Caprice are delighted to announce that their next concert, Summertime, will take place at The Anglican Church, La Fustera, Benissa, on Thursday June 7 at 7.30pm. Caprice are combining some of their usual musical theatre and Gershwin songs (including the wonderful Summertime which gives the concert its title) with a few more modern songs, such as the beautiful, A Thousand Years, by Christina Perri. As usual the choir will be conducted by their musical director, Aileen Lightfoot, and accompanied on the piano by Kirsty Glen.The performance will be helping to raise funds for the Costa Blanca Anglican Chaplaincy. Tickets cost just €10 and are available from Margaret & Elena’s Card and Bookshop, Galerias Mar Azul, 9 Gabriel Miro, Calpe, from choir members, or by contacting musical director Aileen on 696 514 613 or by email at: aileen@capriceladieschoir.com. For further information about Caprice, check the choir’s website www.capriceladieschoir.com.

27th April - 3rd May

Foreign aid an international swindle by Michael Walsh

Credit: US Navy

keyboardcosmetics@gmail.com AMIDST savage cuts in Britain’s social services South African President Cyril Ramaphosa returns from his visit to London having trousered £50 million in foreign aid. South Africa recently passed laws that allow the state seizure of legally held white-owned assets. No wonder people, who should be paying an interest in politics, avoid the topic even whilst their pockets are plundered; they are bewildered by what is done in their name. Perception is that foreign aid is an act of charity towards nations less fortunate than our own. Nothing could be further from the truth. Foreign aid is the elite’s use of taxpayers’ money to enrich themselves; it is a money laundering

FOREIGN AID: Can be a double-edged sword. swindle legitimised by the perpetrators. The reason Africans are poorer today than they were in 1960 is because fictional aid is a bribe, an inducement, blackmail. It is the imposition of dependence, an accessory to looting a country’s natural assets. The countries most hooked on providing foreign aid just happen to be running the biggest debts in

the history of mankind. The United States tops the list yet its national debt for the first time has topped $21 trillion. Why is the world’s most indebted war-economy nation with eyewatering unemployment, poverty, suicides, collapsing infrastructure, civil unrest, disastrous health and education services, etc seemingly the most generous giver?

Britain is drastically cutting welfare, pensions, education, social services. It is a country where merely to step into the streets reveals grinding poverty and misery, social deprivation, inequality, yet the UK is responsible for £1 in every £8 spent in global ‘aid’. This year the UK increases its already bloated foreign aid budget by £14 billion. If that worries

you then best not to remember that six-seventh’s of the aid iceberg are unseen. Other clues to look for include overseas development, debt relief, military aid, economic development assistance, disaster assistance relief and suchlike. What most people believe to be charity is investment by the elite with the obligation to return investment in manufacturing and corporate services in which they hold substantial shares. It also secures access to natural resources in which the elite have an interest. Foreign aid greases the palms of arms-buying oligarchs and opens doors to natural resources in which the elite invest. In effect, politicians use your money to invest in lucrative ventures including the arms trade. This is why 77.7 per cent of parliamentarians are millionaires, many are multi-millionaires in a country where only 0.07 per cent of the population have assets exceeding £1 million. Duplicitous parliamentarians occasionally protest but then like pigs to the trough they do whatever is necessary to enrich themselves by perpetuating poverty.

Mike Walsh’s opinions are his own and do not necessarily represent the views of the publishers advertisers or sponsors.

SPOTLIGHT ON CALPE

27th April - 3rd May

F OLLOWING the news that the Partido Popular (PP) has once again taken control of Alicante following weeks of political turmoil and infighting, PP leader and Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s office sent a tweet of congratulations to the victor. However, accompanying the message was a photograph of Calpe featuring the iconic Peñon de Ifach in the background. Once the mistake was pointed out to them, the image was replaced with one of the port of Alicante.

Guardia Civil gives driving advice Photo credit: N332 Facebook

Will the real Calpe stand up...

C A L PE w a s t h e l o c at i o n for the latest of a ser ies of talks carried out by the Guardia C ivil that is g i v i n g a d v i c e o n t ra f f i c rules and regulations. Francisco Morales is a member of the Guardia C i v i l i n To r r e v i e j a a n d created the popular N332 Facebook account back in 2015 to give advice in English on some of the main problems experienced by foreign dr ivers in Spain. “This from the fact that out of ever y 10 cars we stopped, eig ht were dr iven by foreigners as many of them tend to drive using their own ‘home ’ regulations and therefore don’t realise they ’re breaking the Spanish rules of the road,” explained Morales.

T he Faceb o ok si te h a s gone from strength to strength that now attracts 125,000 followers and is the largest English account in Spain in that respect. Francisco Morales is currently preparing a full English translation of Spanish traffic law which will also include comments on each section to clarify the rules. It is scheduled to be published online in September with the idea to keep it updated each time a change in the law is introduced.

AWARENESS: Calpe residents informed of the do’s and don’ts on Spanish roads.

THE owner of a pub in C a l p e h a s s u ff e r e d burns after a fire in the kitchen. Firefighters from Benissa Fire Station were called to the scene to fight the flames in the business on Calle la Nina which is currently closed for business and

Pub owner burnt in kitchen fire up for sale. The 50-year-old owner suffered slight burns to his legs when he tried to put the fire out himself with his own extin-

guisher before calling the fire brigade after it got out of control. He was later taken to the local health centre for treatment.

Triathletes in town T HI S S u n d ay s e e s C a l p e sta g ing their annual tr iathlon and even thoug h registrations are still open, more than 500 people from all over Spain have already declared their intention of taking part. Among those are 116 women which is further evidence of the growing popularity of the discipline. Sara Bonilla, r unner-up in the Spain Triathlon is the race favourite. T he co urse is not as tough as those undertaken by the UK Brownlee brothers, with 750m swimming, 18 kilometres on the bike and finished off with a 5.6kilometre run.

27th April - 3rd May

money Gibraltar financial expert honoured Credit: HM Government of Gibraltar

PHILL BREAR, Gibraltar’s retiring head of gambling was awarded the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award at the Gambling Compliance Awards, which was held at the Sheraton Grand hotel in central London. His years of regulatory service to the sector and the excellence of his work in a changing and challenging sector is what set him apart from his competitors for the award. The presentation was made at a packed gala event hosted by Gambling Compliance and attended by gaming firms, professional advisors and service providers to the sector. Gibraltar firms were also successful in other awards made including Playtech and Kindred. Mr and Mrs Brear and his successor Andrew Lyman and Mrs Lyman were hosted by Peter Montegriffo and Peter Isola in a joint Hassans/Isolas table. Minister Isola commented, “this is recognition from an in-

RECOGNITION: Presentation of the award. dependent body, of what we all in Gibraltar already know;

Mr Brear has been an outstanding contributor to our

success as a gaming jurisdiction, and more widely has been a key driver to the online gaming model as it has evolved and developed these past 10 years. “Regulators like Phill are an unusual breed; expert in this area, frank and open in his deliberations and pragmatic and proportionate in his approach. “This with his integrity, has contributed hugely to the respect he enjoys, not just in the sector or its professionals, but with the ministers and chief ministers he has served since his appointment. “We are fortunate to have him continue to work with us, despite his retirement, to support his successor and the jurisdiction.”

Britain may be excluded from Galileo AN unexpected development of Brexit may see Britain having to spend an unbudgeted £5 billion (€5.5 billion) to develop its own satellite navigation system away from Europe’s Galileo. The UK has already pumped £1.2 billion (€1.3 billion) into the development of the EU rival to the US GPS system, but it has now been told that it is likely to be excluded from future use of the system. Business Secretary Greg Clark is reportedly taking legal advice as to whether the country can either reclaim the money already spent or preferably continue to be part of the ‘club’ as it is considered to be an important component of security within Europe. It is suggested by Brussels that if Britain is no longer part of the European Union, then it may not be trusted with secret information about the makeup and future use of the satellite and this has come as blow to the UK armed forces as well as it was expected that they would be able to take advantage of the system. At the moment, the American system only allows US Forces access to certain programmes within the system and without secure and trustworthy satellite navigation the British armed forces will be pushing for the creation of a UK satellite launch.

Advertising Feature OEM PARTS OEM parts are Original Equipment Manufactured parts as made by your car’s manufacturer. They are brand new, usually more expensive and sometimes take longer to order. But they are a no brainer. Body shops love them because they fit perfectly and install easy. LÍNEA DIRECTA ONLY USES OEM PARTS Línea Directa is the only insurance company that guarantees the use of OEM parts in their repairer network. Thanks to an exclusive purchasing and distribution agreement with the major manufacturers, when you repair your vehicle through its exclusive network of body shops and repairers, they guarantee the use of OEM parts. After vehicle repairs are complete, they send a list of the OEM parts used for you to keep in your log book. It’s one less thing to worry about.

OEM parts exclusively used in national repair network

LINEA DIRECTA: Guarantees the use of OEM parts in their repairer network.

DO ALL INSURANCE COMPANIES USE OEM PARTS? At the time of publishing this article, no other insurance company in Spain guarantees the exclusive use of OEM parts in their repairer network. Some insurance companies rely on after market parts and used parts

to keep the repair costs to a minimum, only paying for OEM parts if no other parts are available. After-market parts are parts made by a company other than your vehicle’s manufacturer. They are new and the spec should be very close to the original specs. However, some minor

fitting adjustments may be required by the body shop. Used parts come from the scrap yard. Cars involved in accidents, engine trouble or age, mean that scrapped cars will have some working parts, which can be resold. The used parts are usually OEM parts.

NATIONAL NETWORK OF BODY SHOP REPAIRERS Using the Línea Directa network to repair your car means more than just OEM parts. The whole repair service is handled from start to finish. Your vehicle is collected at the agreed time and place. The repairs are carried out swiftly, efficiently and according to original manufacturer specs. You can request a replacement vehicle for the duration of the repair. They will keep you updated on progress and after completion; your vehicle will be delivered at the agreed time and place. We hope the information provided in this article is of interest. If you would like to contact Linea Directa please call 902 123 309 More information about Linea Directa online at www.lineadirecta.com

NATIONAL

27th April - 3rd May

More than just a kiss Photo credit: Escarlati Wikimedia

ONE of the smallest provinci al capitals in Spain has found its way into the Guinness Book of Records. Ter uel, in spite of only h av i n g a p o p u l at i o n o f 35,564, managed to attract 1,051 people onto the streets to take part in the world’s biggest ‘kissathon’. Among many of the popular folk tales in Spain, this true story of the ‘lovers of Teruel’ surround a Romeo and Juliet-type couple who had similar issues to their more famous counterpar ts... and it is this love that has been celebrated on this record-breaking event. The couple are believed to have died 800 years ago this year and their final resting place - with their statues atop them - sees them lying together in the southernAragón city’s cathedral. And so to mark the anniversar y ye ar, Ter uel soug ht to br ing to gether couples who have come together in life and join them up together, all kissing at once, in the central Plaza del Seminario to show that - in the words of Mayor Emma Buj - ‘Teruel really is the city of love’. U p until now, the most p e o p l e i nvol ve d i n a ‘ k issathon’ chain were

RESTING PLACE: Catedral Mudéjar de Teruel. 351... but Teruel managed to almost treble that figure. The first link in the chain was actor Diego de Marcilla, who played the male half o f t h e f a m o u s ‘ l o ve r s ’ i n the film version, with Mayor Emma second, and the final link was the actress w h o p l aye d I s a b e l i n t h e screen production, Teruel’s ‘Juliet’.

“ We wanted to g ive the le gend a happy ending at last, even though it’s taken 800 years for the ‘lovers’ to get together,” Sra Buj said. A jur y member from the Guinness Book of Records, a notar y and Teruel’s official historian witnessed the event to confirm the feat, w h i c h w a s re c o rd e d o n camera as additional proof.

27th April - 3rd May

by Barry Duke

THE books I read and the movies I saw as a kid gave me the impression that Spaniards, indeed all Latinos, were hot-headed and fierytempered. Frequent visits to Spain later convinced me that nothing could be further from reality. I got into a conversation about the Spanish temperament when a visitor to Benidorm questioned me about my decision to settle here eight years ago. He wanted to know how I managed to adapt to life among ‘foreigners’. “Most of them are OK,” I replied, “but I prefer living alongside the Spanish.” I was parroting something I’d said to others who asked the same question. Usually, the penny drops immediately, but at other times I’ve had to explain that “YOU will be the foreigner (extranjero), and it’s your choice whether you integrate or live in an expatriate bubble of ignorance as far too many choose to do.” His next question was “so, what do you like about the Spanish?” I replied it was their calmness, and pointed out that since moving here I have only seen only one street

Keep calm dear, you’re in Spain fight. It was between two old geezers in their 80s and it was sparked by dog poo. When one failed to bag up his dog’s excrement on a seafront walkway, the other, strolling behind, scooped it up with a paper napkin, seized the pooch’s owner, and ground the mess into one of his hands. All hell broke loose. The poodle looked on with mild amusement. I can cite numerous instances of Spanish tranquillity that would profoundly irritate Brits or Americans, but my favourite was the example set by Santiago Carrillo, leader of Spain’s Communist Party, almost 40 years ago. On February 23, 1981, around 200 Guardia Civil, in a failed plot to overthrow the government, burst into the Spanish parliament brandishing sub-machine guns. They fired bullets into the ceiling and ordered MPs to lie on the ground. Carrillo refused; he remained seat-

ed and calmly lit a cigarette. Carrillo died in 2012 aged 97, suggesting that seven decades of chain-smoking, combined with a determination to always keep cool, might well be the answer to a long and productive life. He attributed his iron constitution to the advice given him in Moscow in 1936 to take an aspirin every day. The Englishman grilling me then asked whether there was anything in the Spanish make up that ever got up my nose. “Sure, several things but mainly the fact that sometimes their tranquillity is enough to make me hurl a brick through a stained-glass window.” Case in question: on a hot July day last year, sweating like a sinner in church, I boarded a crowded bus. I was in a desperate hurry to get to my bank before it shut. As I was the last passenger to board, I assumed that we would set off immediately. No. One other person at the bus

KEEP COOL: Santiago Carrillo. stop shouted to the driver to wait until he’d finished the cigarette he’d just lit. The driver said “vale, tranquillo”, turned on a football broadcast and waited ‘til the fellow had finished his fag. In any other country, passengers in a sauna on wheels would have gone ballistic and pelted the driver with anything that came to hand, but no one batted an eyelid. That said, I was hugely thankful a few weeks later for this ‘tranquillidad.’ I spotted a bus a few hundred yards up the road and sprinted to try and board it before it made off (it

was the last one of the evening and I was anxious to get home to walk the dogs.) To my relief, the driver, with the longest dreadlocks I’d ever seen outside of Brixton, was standing in the street, nonchalantly dragging on a spliff. “Tranquillo,” he said, flashing me a brilliantly white smile, then, when we boarded, he asked what music I would like him to play. All I could think of was the Stereophonic’s 2009 number ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’. He’d never heard of it, so instead I was treated to 15 minutes of Bob Marley.

27th April - 3rd May

Introduction to present simple

Basic Spanish for everyday needs

by Jane Cronin

I SEEM to have found a new mission in life. Only a few years ago everyone wanted to know how to buy fruit and veg in the market, how to order food and drink and how to identify cuts of meat. I was pretty good at the first two, never so good at the dead animal thing, but I managed to make a living out of going over and over basic phrases to help people ‘get by’ in Spanish. In recent years there has been a dramatic change in my working life on many fronts, but one of them is to do with the type of Spanish language people are now wishing to learn. Most of the people I come into contact with have managed to get by in Spain for a year or two and are now

keen to move forward and understand the language in more depth. I put this change partly down to the shortage of new English-speaking people moving to Spain at present, but mostly because the ones who have been here for some time seem to have got themselves into a huge muddle about grammar. So now I spend most of my time trying to sort them out, and getting the message across that Spanish grammar isn’t as difficult as it looks - it’s just different! In view of this, we’re now going to look at one of the most basic aspects of Spanish grammar which is the verb in the ‘present simple’ tense. In English this simply means saying things like ‘I go, you go, he goes, we go, they go’ and so on, for every verb you can think of. We mainly use this tense to talk about things that are habitual or part of our daily routine (I get up at 7am, I

start work at 9am etc). We also use it to describe general truths about the world. (The sun rises in the east; the world is round, my mother lives in Wales). In Spanish it has one or two more uses, but all I’m concerned about for now is that we all know what we’re talking about. Now if you look at our English example again (I go, you go, he goes, we go, they go) you will notice that we make no changes to the word ‘go’ at all, apart from ‘he goes’ and ‘she goes’. To communicate the information about ‘who goes’ we have to place the person word, in front - ‘I, you, he, she, we and they’. In grammar these person words are called ‘personal subject pronouns’, although you don’t need to know that to use them. Now the Spanish language does all this rather differently, because that word ‘go’, and every other verb as well, changes in form depending on

‘who’ is performing the action. Also, because of this change of form, it is not that important to place a person word in front. The form of the verb itself gives us the information about ‘who’ by the way it has changed. L e t ’s l o o k a t a n e x a m p l e w e a l l (hopefully) recognise, so that you know what I mean. ‘Tengo’ - most of us know by now means ‘I have’ and ‘tienes’ means ‘you have’ in the familiar form. If we wanted to be more complete we would say ‘yo tengo’ (I have) and ‘tú tienes’ (you have) as ‘yo’ means ‘I’ and ‘tú’ is the familiar word for ‘you’. However, because the words ‘tengo’ and ‘tienes’ are completely different from each other and recognisable, the Spanish do not usually bother adding the person words as well, unless they want to be particularly emphatic. This is basically why English-speaking people find Spanish verbs so difficult: it is because they function in a fundamentally different way from English. My mission over the next few weeks then is to explain how they do work and hopefully dispel some of those clouds of confusion that have accumulated over the years!

Advertising Feature

The Ace Band rocking the Costa Blanca and further FIRST formed in 2013, The Ace Band is an international group who play pop and rock from the 60’s until now with a heavy influence from some of the great rock bands of the past. They love Queen, The Beatles, Snow Patrol, Eric Clapton, Rolling Stones, Bon Jovi, Oasis, Ramones, Metallica, Radiohead, Santana, Brian Adams and play all styles, from rock’n’roll to blues, pop and rock playing everything that would make a venue or even a party buzz. The current line-up was finalised in 2017 and the band plays across the Costa Blanca but has also made a number of journeys to Belgium where they are very popular. Music is of prime importance but so is the quality of the sound as the best of bands can appear amateurish if the sound is badly balanced or muddied. The band consists of a hardcore of five members, but there are actually six members, as there are two bassists as one or other are not always available. A brief run-down of band members follows: Dave Marriott - singer - is considered to

THE ACE BAND: Always ready to perform. be one of the best voices in the Costa Blanca. His voice is superb and he is a great frontman who performs exceptionally in all styles. Paco Moncholi - drummer - has a wide experience as the former drummer of Calpe Rock, and former guitarist of the Perla Negra Band. In this band, he takes charge of the sticks but on occasion plays

guitar and piano during a gig. Paco Corona - keyboard player- another experienced musician as well, he was the former keyboard player of the Perla Negra Band and he will also play drums when needed. Paco Mulet - a very talented guitarist, able to play different styles, adding the magic touch of his guitar to

every performance. Felipe Cortijo - recognised as a firstclass bassist and great musician, who used to play with Calpe Rock and the Perla Negra Band. Donato Asensio - second bassist. Very young talented musician, able to play all styles. Although they play a huge range of music from the 70’s and 80’s with a number of more recent hits, they don’t just copy the originals. The band is available to perform at private parties as well as small and large venues, both indoor and outdoor, and have full equipment including sound and lights. The Ace Band are currently recording a number of video clips which will be available on their Facebook page and a CD will be available after the summer. The band’s fee depends on the equipment required and distance to travel but they always intend to give great value for money. For information and bookings email pa copiloto1@gmail.com or call 652 963 767.

FRIDAY 11:00am Homes Under the Hammer 12:00pm Heir Hunters 12:45pm The Housing Enforcers 1:15pm Bargain Hunt 2:00pm BBC News at One 2:30pm BBC London News 2:45pm Doctors 3:15pm 800 Words 4:00pm Escape to the Country 4:45pm Flipping Profit 5:30pm Flog It! 6:15pm Pointless 7:00pm BBC News at Six 7:30pm BBC London News 8:00pm The One Show 8:30pm Sounds Like Friday Night 9:00pm EastEnders 9:30pm The Button 10:00pm Have I Got News for You 10:30pm Home from Home 11:00pm BBC News at Ten

5:20am This is BBC Two 7:00am Flog it! Trade Secrets 7:30am Heir Hunters 8:15am Rip Off Britain 9:00am Great Continental Railway Journeys 10:00am Victoria Derbyshire 11:00am Snooker 1:00pm The Daily Politics 2:00pm Snooker 7:00pm Eggheads 7:30pm Britain in Bloom 8:00pm Antiques Road Trip 9:00pm Gardeners' World 10:00pm The City and the City 11:00pm Episodes 11:30pm Newsnight 12:05am Front Row Late 12:35am World Championship Snooker Highlights 1:25am World Championship Snooker - Extra 3:25am Panorama 3:55am Civilisations

9:30am Lorraine 10:25am The Jeremy Kyle Show 11:30am This Morning 1:30pm Loose Women 2:30pm ITV Lunchtime News 2:55pm ITV News London 3:00pm Judge Rinder 4:00pm Tenable 5:00pm Tipping Point 6:00pm The Chase 7:00pm ITV News London 7:25pm Party Election Broadcast 7:30pm ITV Evening News 8:00pm Emmerdale 8:30pm Coronation Street 9:00pm Love Your Garden 9:30pm Coronation Street 10:00pm Lethal Weapon 11:00pm ITV News at Ten and Weather 11:30pm ITV News London 11:45pm The Keith and Paddy Picture Show 12:15am Through the Keyhole

11:00am 11:30am 12:00pm 12:30pm 1:00pm 1:30pm 2:00pm 2:30pm 3:00pm

9:00am Absolute Genius: Monster Builds 9:30am Beyond Bionic 10:00am Robot Wars 11:00am Snooker 1:00pm Wanted Down Under 1:45pm Flipping Profit 2:30pm Britain's Biggest War Ship 3:30pm Top of the Shop with Tom Kerridge 4:30pm Top of the Shop with Tom Kerridge 5:30pm Snooker 6:30pm Britain in Bloom 7:00pm Antiques Road Trip 8:00pm Snooker 9:00pm The Forest 9:30pm Dad's Army 10:00pm Civilisations on Your Doorstep 11:00pm Performance Live: Akala Presents 'the Ruins of Empires'

8:45am 9:00am 9:25am 9:30am 10:25am

Adventure Time Thunderbirds are Go ITV News Zoe Ball on Saturday Saturday Morning with James Martin Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang ITV Lunchtime News ITV Racing: Live from Sandown Tipping Point The Chase ITV Evening News Regional News and Weather Ninja Warrior UK Harry Hill's Alien Fun Capsule Britain's Got Talent The Keith and Paddy Picture Show ITV News Overboard

7:00am Rude(Ish) Tube 7:30am Rude(Ish) Tube 7:55am Couples Come Dine with Me 8:55am Couples Come Dine with Me 10:00am Made in Chelsea 11:00am Don't Tell the Bride Ireland 12:00pm The Goldbergs 12:30pm The Goldbergs 2:00pm The Goldbergs 2:30pm Brooklyn Nine-Nine 3:00pm Young Sheldon 3:30pm The Big Bang Theory 4:00pm The Big Bang Theory 5:00pm The Big Bang Theory 6:00pm The Big Bang Theory 7:00pm The Big Bang Theory 8:00pm The Big Bang Theory 9:00pm Snow White and the Huntsman 11:30pm The Inbetweeners 12:00am The Inbetweeners 12:30am The Inbetweeners

7:35am Gardeners' World More handy horticultural tips from the gardening experts. 8:35am Countryfile 9:30am The Beechgrove Garden 10:00am Saturday Kitchen Best Bites 11:00am Snooker 12:00pm Triathlon World Series: Bermuda 1:15pm MOTD2 Extra 2:00pm Snooker 7:00pm Super Fast Falcon 8:00pm Snooker 9:00pm Britain's Biggest War Ship 10:00pm My Year with the Tribe 11:00pm Famalam 11:20pm Josh Widdicombe

11:00am Peston on Sunday 12:00pm Best Walks with a View with Julia Bradbury 12:30pm ITV Lunchtime News 12:40pm Britain's Got Talent 1:55pm Britain's Got More Talent 2:55pm Britain's Brightest Family 3:25pm Ninja Warrior UK 4:30pm Paul O'grady: For the Love of Dogs 5:00pm The Real Camilla: Hrh the Duchess of Cornwall 6:00pm The Chase: Celebrity Special 7:00pm Harry Hill's Alien Fun Capsule 7:30pm ITV Evening News 7:45pm Regional News and Weather

9:30am Made in Chelsea 10:35am Couples Come Dine with Me 11:35am Couples Come Dine with Me 12:35pm Animals United 2:30pm The Goldbergs 3:00pm Brooklyn Nine-Nine 3:30pm The Big Bang Theory 4:00pm The Big Bang Theory 4:30pm The Big Bang Theory 5:00pm The Big Bang Theory 5:30pm The Big Bang Theory 6:00pm The Big Bang Theory 6:30pm The Big Bang Theory 7:00pm Young Sheldon 7:30pm The Big Bang Theory 8:00pm Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters 10:00pm Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 11:00pm The Inbetweeners 11:35pm The Inbetweeners

3:30pm 4:00pm 4:30pm 5:00pm 5:30pm 6:00pm 6:30pm 7:00pm 7:30pm 8:00pm 8:30pm 9:00pm 9:30pm 10:00pm

2 Broke Girls 2 Broke Girls Brooklyn Nine-Nine Brooklyn Nine-Nine The Goldbergs The Goldbergs The Big Bang Theory The Big Bang Theory How I Met Your Mother How I Met Your Mother New Girl New Girl Brooklyn Nine-Nine Brooklyn Nine-Nine The Goldbergs The Goldbergs The Big Bang Theory The Big Bang Theory Hollyoaks Extreme Cake Makers The Big Bang Theory The Big Bang Theory Red 2

6:30am

The Great Wall: Special 7:00am Lou 7:15am Rampage: Special 7:45am Palm Swings 9:30am Rough Night 11:25am The Dark Tower 1:15pm Girls Trip 3:20pm The Wizard - An American Wrestler 5:30pm Gifted 7:20pm The Dark Tower Adaptation of Stephen King's fantasy saga about a mysterious gunslinger locked in an ages-old battle with sinister sorcerer the Man in Black. 9:00pm Girls Trip 11:10pm Rough Night 1:00am Palm Swings 2:55am Broken Vows 4:40am Sky

12:45pm SPFL Greatest Games 1:00pm La Liga Show 1:30pm EFL Matters 2:00pm La Liga Icons 2:15pm La Liga Icons 2:30pm La Liga Icons 2:45pm La Liga Icons 3:00pm La Liga Show 3:30pm EFL Matters 4:00pm Football's Greatest 4:30pm Football's Greatest Teams 5:00pm Scottish Cup Greatest Games 5:15pm Scottish Cup Greatest Games 5:30pm La Liga Greatest Games 5:45pm La Liga Greatest Games 6:00pm La Liga Preview 7:00pm SPFL Matters 7:30pm EFL Matters 8:00pm Football 11:15pm SPFL Matters

6:35am House Doctor 7:00am Milkshake! 10:55am Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 11:30am The Gadget Show 12:30pm Police Interceptors 1:30pm Police Interceptors 2:25pm Police Interceptors 3:30pm Live Premiership Rugby 6:15pm World's Scariest Animal Attacks 7:00pm World's Deadliest Weather 8:00pm Can't Pay? We'll Take it Away! 9:00pm Can't Pay? We'll Take it Away! 9:55pm 5 News 10:00pm Football on 5 11:00pm Football on 5 11:30pm Criminals Caught on Camera 12:25am Fergie v Wenger: The Feud

4:40am Sky 6:30am Moana: Special 7:00am The Wizard - An American Wrestler 9:10am Gifted 11:00am Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie 12:45pm Top Ten Show, the 2018 1:00pm Girls Trip 3:15pm The Dark Tower 5:05pm The Wizard - An American Wrestler 7:15pm Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie 9:00pm Girls Trip 11:10pm The Dark Tower 12:50am Rough Night 2:40am Palm Swings 4:35am Sheikh Jackson

7:00am Football 10:15am Scottish Cup Greatest Games 10:30am SPFL Matters 11:00am Soccer A.M. 12:30pm SPFL Matters 1:00pm Football 3:30pm Gillette Soccer Saturday 4:15pm Gillette Soccer Saturday 6:15pm Football 8:40pm Football 10:45pm EFL Goals: Championship 11:15pm The Best La Liga Goals 2016/17 12:15am La Liga Icons 12:30am La Liga Icons 12:45am La Liga Icons 1:00am La Liga Highlights: Real Madrid 1:15am Football 3:40am EFL Greatest Games 4:00am Football Years

10:40am Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 11:15am Football on 5 The Championship. 12:10pm Football on 5 Goal Rush. 12:45pm FIA Formula E Highlights 1:50pm Police Interceptors 2:50pm Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole 4:35pm Zookeeper 6:25pm Ace Ventura: Pet Detective 8:00pm Biggest Dog in the World 9:00pm Before They Were Stars 9:55pm 5 News 10:00pm Greatest TV Talent Show Moments 1:00am Greatest Ever Celebrity Wind Ups

6:30am The Great Wall: Special 7:00am Gifted 9:00am The Wizard - An American Wrestler 11:10am Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie 12:45pm Girls Trip 2:50pm Rough Night Things get badly out of hand when five college friends reunite for a wild bachelorette weekend. 4:35pm The Dark Tower 6:15pm Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie 7:50pm Girls Trip 10:00pm Brawl in Cell Block 99 12:25am The Dark Tower 2:15am Rough Night

9:00am La Liga Highlights: Real Madrid 9:15am La Liga Greatest Games 9:30am EFL Goals: Championship 10:00am EFL Goals: League One and League Two 10:30am Sunday Supplement 12:00pm SPFL Greatest Games 12:15pm SPFL Greatest Games 12:30pm Football 3:15pm The Best La Liga Goals 2016/17 4:10pm Football 6:15pm La Liga Greatest Games 6:25pm Football 8:30pm La Liga Greatest Games 8:40pm Football 10:45pm Football 12:00am Football

9:05am 9:20am 9:35am 9:55am 10:05am 10:15am 12:15pm 1:10pm 1:15pm 2:15pm 2:45pm 3:15pm 4:15pm 6:00pm 6:30pm 7:00pm 7:30pm 8:00pm 9:00pm 10:00pm

Paw Patrol Floogals Digby Dragon Rusty Rivets Mofy The Wright Stuff Paddington Station 24/7 5 News Lunchtime GPs: Behind Closed Doors Home and Away Neighbours NCIS The Nightmare Nanny 5 News at 5 Neighbours Home and Away 5 News Tonight The Gadget Show Britain's Great Cathedrals, with Tony Robinson Portillo's Hidden History of Britain

SATURDAY 11:00am Saturday Kitchen Live 12:30pm Hairy Bikers Asian Adventure 1:00pm Football Focus 2:00pm BBC News 2:10pm Weather 2:15pm Snooker 5:30pm Final Score 6:20pm A Question of Sport 6:50pm Celebrity Mastermind 7:20pm Ready or Not 7:50pm BBC News 8:00pm Regional News 8:05pm Weather 8:10pm Pointless 9:00pm Who Dares Wins 9:40pm Casualty 10:30pm Mrs. Brown's Boys 11:00pm BBC News 11:15pm Weather 11:20pm Match of the Day 12:45am The Button

12:20pm 2:20pm 2:30pm 5:00pm 6:00pm 7:00pm 7:15pm 7:30pm 8:30pm 9:00pm 10:15pm 10:45pm 11:05pm

SUNDAY 2:00pm BBC News 2:10pm Weather for the Week Ahead 2:15pm Bargain Hunt 3:00pm The Truth About Obesity 4:00pm Britain's Fat Fight with Hugh FearnleyWhittingstall 5:00pm Points of View 5:15pm Songs of Praise 5:50pm Pointless 6:35pm BBC News 6:50pm Regional News 6:55pm Weather 7:00pm The Big Painting Challenge 8:00pm Countryfile 9:00pm Antiques Roadshow 10:00pm The Woman in White

The schedules for the television programme pages are provided by an external company: we regret that any changes or errors are not the responsibility of RTN.

27th April - 3rd May

RTN Life EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW by Darren Parmenter YOU would need to be a certain age to remember the Black and White Minstrels. Not only were they not-tobe-missed Saturday night TV, they also had a long-running stage show at the prestigious Victoria Palace Theatre in London. One of the dancing troupe who made up the stage version was Jan Cave Barry, who for the past 14 years has made her home in La Mata, Torrevieja with her husband of 47 years, Jim. Jan has had entertainment and music in her blood since a very early age, as her father was a percussionist... but no ordinary one. He ended up as Principal of Percussion for the Philharmonia Orchestra and a regular performer with the London Symphony Orchestra. As Jan told the RTN, “I have been dancing since I was three and my parents encouraged me to make a career in the theatre,” and so Jan joined the Arts Educational School (AES) in London at the age of 11 where she was in illustrious company... although at that time she wasn’t to know it. Among her class were actors Jane Seymour and Nigel Havers, and when it came to being taught ballet to tap to jazz to modern, who better to have as teachers than Ben Stevenson and Dame Beryl Grey. During her time at the AES, Jan gained a role in pantomime and worked with Tommy Trinder and Bruce Forsyth. “Bruce was a lovely man,” said Jan. “He was very generous... an absolute joy.” Much to the consternation of the AES, Jan left aged 17 to join the ‘Black and Whites’ and after a time touring with the company around the UK, became resident at the Victoria Palace doing the two-shows-a-day, six-daysa-week routine. After leaving the Minstrels Jan continued her dance career with a mixture of stage and TV work that saw her alongside Norman Wisdom, Barry Humphries, Diana Dors and Michael Palin. In 1970, she ended up working at the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin and when she brushed past a man on the

From black & white to colour TOGETHER: Jan and Jim.

WORK OF ART: One of Jan’s landscapes.

stairs didn’t realise that he would be the person who would share her life for the next 48 years. She married Jim Barry already an established singer/songwriter in Ireland -

and continued with her dancing and subsequent career as a choreographer and teacher, somehow finding time to have and raise five children, all of whom have followed their parents to

have singing and dancing careers. “My parents always knew when Jim was home from touring,” said Jan with more than a twinkle in her eye. Jan and Jim retired to

Spain in 2004, but it’s hardly been a retirement. Jan began to write children’s novels and has also appeared to move seamlessly into the world of painting, which now takes up most of her time in

the same way as it does her equally talented husband. “I can’t stand the quiet when I paint,” said Jan, which is probably not a surprise when you consider her background. “I’m happy when I have a TV series or a good film on... but not music. “My favourite style of painting to do? It has to be woods and water and if I can combine the two, all the better. It’s a challenge,” beamed Jan. There is no doubt that many people would have found a dance career, being an author and a painter, AND raising five children a challenge too... but in her case it’s been a remarkable achievement.

MONDAY 11:00am Homes Under the Hammer 12:00pm A1: Britain's Longest Road 12:45pm The Housing Enforcers 1:15pm Bargain Hunt 2:00pm BBC News 2:30pm BBC London News 2:45pm Doctors 3:15pm 800 Words 4:00pm Escape to the Country 4:45pm Flipping Profit 5:30pm Flog It! 6:15pm Pointless 7:00pm BBC News 7:30pm BBC London News 8:00pm The One Show 8:30pm Civilisations Stories 9:00pm EastEnders 9:30pm Panorama 10:00pm The Woman in White 11:00pm BBC News 11:30pm BBC London News

5:10am 7:00am 7:30am 8:15am 9:00am 10:00am 12:00pm 12:30pm 1:00pm 2:00pm 7:00pm 7:30pm 8:00pm 9:00pm 9:30pm 10:00pm 11:00pm 11:30pm 12:15am 1:05am 3:05am 4:00am

This is BBC Two Flog It! Heir Hunters Rip Off Britain Hugh's Wild West Victoria Derbyshire BBC Newsroom Live The Week in Parliament The Daily Politics Snooker Eggheads Britain in Bloom Snooker Only Connect Coast Lives Secret Agent Selection : Ww2 QI Newsnight World Championship Snooker Highlights World Championship Snooker - Extra Countryfile MasterChef

10:25am The Jeremy Kyle Show 11:30am This Morning 1:30pm Loose Women 2:30pm ITV Lunchtime News 2:55pm Regional News and Weather 3:00pm Judge Rinder 4:00pm Tenable 5:00pm Tipping Point 6:00pm The Chase 7:00pm Regional News and Weather 7:25pm Party Election Broadcast 7:30pm ITV Evening News 8:00pm Emmerdale 8:30pm Coronation Street 9:00pm Give it a Year 9:30pm Coronation Street 10:00pm The Royal Wives of Windsor 11:00pm ITV News at Ten and Weather 11:30pm Regional News and Weather

Flog It! Neighbourhood Blues The Super League Show Sea Cities Victoria Derbyshire Snooker The Daily Politics Snooker Eggheads Britain in Bloom Snooker Top of the Shop with Tom Kerridge Hospital Cunk on Britain Newsnight World Championship Snooker Highlights World Championship Snooker - Extra

10:25am The Jeremy Kyle Show 11:30am This Morning 1:30pm Loose Women 2:30pm ITV Lunchtime News 2:55pm Regional News and Weather 3:00pm Judge Rinder 4:00pm Tenable 5:00pm Tipping Point 6:00pm The Chase 7:00pm Regional News and Weather 7:20pm Party Election Broadcast 7:30pm ITV Evening News 8:00pm Emmerdale 8:30pm Devon and Cornwall Cops 9:00pm This Time Next Year 10:00pm The Royal Wives of Windsor 11:00pm ITV News at Ten and Weather

10:00am 11:00am 12:00pm 1:00pm 2:00pm 3:00pm 3:30pm 4:00pm 4:30pm 5:00pm 5:30pm 6:00pm 6:30pm 7:00pm 7:30pm 8:00pm 8:30pm 9:00pm 9:30pm 10:00pm 11:00pm 12:05am

New Girl 2 Broke Girls Brooklyn Nine-Nine The Goldbergs The Big Bang Theory How I Met Your Mother How I Met Your Mother New Girl New Girl Brooklyn Nine-Nine Brooklyn Nine-Nine The Goldbergs The Goldbergs The Big Bang Theory The Big Bang Theory Hollyoaks Extreme Cake Makers The Big Bang Theory Young Sheldon Made in Chelsea Don't Tell the Bride Ireland The Big Bang Theory

9:05am 9:20am 9:35am 9:55am 10:05am 10:15am 12:15pm 1:10pm 1:15pm 2:15pm 2:45pm 3:15pm 4:15pm 6:00pm 6:30pm 7:00pm 7:30pm 8:00pm 9:00pm 10:00pm 11:00pm 12:05am

Paw Patrol Floogals Digby Dragon Rusty Rivets Mofy The Wright Stuff Can't Pay? We'll Take it Away! 5 News Lunchtime The Gadget Show Home and Away Neighbours NCIS Deadly Dance Mom 5 News at 5 Neighbours Home and Away 5 News Tonight Aviva Premiership Rugby Highlights Police Interceptors Paddington Station 24/7 Britain's Cocaine Epidemic Gangland

7:00am

The Wizard - An American Wrestler 9:10am Top Ten Show, the 2018 9:30am Rough Night 11:30am Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie 1:15pm Where's the Money 3:00pm Girls Trip 5:15pm Broken Vows 7:00pm Top Ten Show, the 2018 7:15pm Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie 9:00pm Girls Trip 11:10pm Where's the Money become the first African-American member of an allwhite fraternity. 12:40am Brawl in Cell Block 99 2:55am Palm Swings 4:40am Rough Night

10:30am La Liga Greatest Games 10:45am La Liga Greatest Games 11:00am Football 1:05pm Football 3:10pm Football 5:15pm La Liga Icons 5:30pm La Liga Greatest Games 5:45pm La Liga Greatest Games 6:00pm Football Years 6:30pm Football Countdowns 7:00pm La Liga Highlights: Barcelona 7:15pm La Liga Highlights: Real Madrid 7:30pm Football's Greatest 8:00pm Soccer A.M. 8:30pm La Liga Greatest Games 8:40pm La Liga Icons 8:55pm Info not available 11:00pm SPFL Round Up 2017/18

Digby Dragon Rusty Rivets Mofy The Wright Stuff Can't Pay? We'll Take it Away! 5 News Lunchtime GPs: Behind Closed Doors Home and Away Neighbours NCIS Running for Her Life 5 News at 5 Neighbours Home and Away 5 News Tonight World Rally Championship 2018 The Yorkshire Vet British Airways Missing: Flight Mh370 - Inside the Situation Room

4:40am Rough Night 6:30am Ready Player One: Special 7:00am Palm Swings 8:50am The Wizard - An American Wrestler 11:00am Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie 12:35pm Happy Birthday, Toby Simpson 2:10pm Girls Trip 4:20pm Where's the Money 5:50pm Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie 7:30pm Happy Birthday, Toby Simpson 9:00pm Girls Trip 11:10pm Brawl in Cell Block 99 1:30am Where's the Money

2:00pm 2:15pm 2:30pm 3:00pm 4:00pm 4:30pm

TUESDAY 11:00am Homes Under the Hammer 12:00pm A1: Britain's Longest Road 12:45pm The Housing Enforcers 1:15pm Bargain Hunt 2:00pm BBC News 2:30pm Regional News 2:45pm Doctors 3:15pm 800 Words 4:00pm Escape to the Country 4:45pm Flipping Profit 5:30pm Flog It! 6:15pm Pointless 7:00pm BBC News 7:30pm Regional News 8:00pm The One Show 8:30pm EastEnders 9:00pm Holby City 10:00pm The Split 11:00pm BBC News 11:30pm Regional News

7:00am 7:30am 8:10am 9:00am 10:00am 11:00am 1:00pm 2:00pm 7:00pm 7:30pm 8:00pm 9:00pm 10:00pm 11:00pm 11:30pm 12:15am 1:05am

11:30am 12:00pm 12:30pm 1:00pm 1:30pm 2:00pm 2:30pm 3:00pm 3:30pm 4:00pm 4:30pm 5:00pm 5:30pm 6:00pm 6:30pm 7:00pm 7:30pm 8:00pm 8:30pm 9:00pm 9:30pm

2 Broke Girls Brooklyn Nine-Nine Brooklyn Nine-Nine The Goldbergs The Goldbergs The Big Bang Theory The Big Bang Theory How I Met Your Mother How I Met Your Mother New Girl New Girl Brooklyn Nine-Nine Brooklyn Nine-Nine The Goldbergs The Goldbergs The Big Bang Theory The Big Bang Theory Hollyoaks Extreme Cake Makers The Big Bang Theory The Big Bang Theory

9:35am 9:55am 10:05am 10:15am 12:15pm 1:10pm 1:15pm 2:15pm 2:45pm 3:15pm 4:15pm 6:00pm 6:30pm 7:00pm 7:30pm 8:00pm 9:00pm 10:00pm 11:00pm

5:00pm 5:30pm 5:45pm 6:00pm 6:30pm 7:30pm 8:00pm 8:15pm 8:30pm 9:00pm 9:30pm 10:30pm

La Liga Icons La Liga Icons Revista de la Liga Eredivisie Football's Greatest Football's Greatest Teams Scottish Cup Greatest Games La Liga Greatest Games La Liga Greatest Games Revista de la Liga Eredivisie MLS Round Up Show SPFL Round Up 2017/18 SPFL Greatest Games Football Years Revista de la Liga Eredivisie Revista de la Liga

The schedules for the television programme pages are provided by an external company: we regret that any changes or errors are not the responsibility of RTN.

27th April - 3rd May

Out of the mouths of babes and cats Credit: Angela N flickr

by Colin Bird The opinions published in Colin’s weekly column are not necessarily representative of those of the publishers, advertisers or newspaper sponsors. RECENTLY I overheard a gentleman mouthing off in the cafe, about stray and feral cats and how they should be treated as vermin. Had it not been for the fact that I am a pacifist, I would have taken him to task and given him a good slapping. Well alright, he was six foot six, built like Stonehenge and had muscles on his earwax, and that I admit helped keep my temper in check. Woody and I were watching the News at Ten last night (Woody is one of our two rescued felines) and a segment on the Brexit negotiations seemed to catch his close attention. “These are complex matters”, pontificated the self-important Monsieur Barnier, prompting a nod of agreement from David Davis, his grinning face resembling an overripe Cheddar cheese. At which point Woody turned to me with a puzzled look and asked:

CATS: Are more perspicacious than many humans.

“What’s complex about it? Why can’t you all just, you know, trade together freely?” He didn’t actually say that, but if he could have, he would. Woody is a clever cat. You may be wondering what this has to do with strays and vermin, but I’ll get to it.

And Woody was absolutely right. When you get right down to it the only thing stopping everyone in Europe, and the world for that matter, trading happily together and getting along swimmingly, is us. The so-called complex world in which we live has only been made that way by our own inability to co-ex-

ist peacefully and contentedly, and the underlying reason for that is the insidious presence of vested interests. And those vested interests, when distilled right down to their very basic elements, are religion, money and the pursuit of power. “I read in one of your magazines”, Woody went on to tell me: “It has been calculated that if the world’s resources were pooled together, there would be no hunger, no drought, no energy shortages and almost certainly no disease.” Woody is also an avid reader. We live alongside natural disasters such as earthquakes, flooding and tornados, but nothing that nature throws at us compares with the savagery and selfish brutality born out of greed, that we Homo sapiens have inflicted on Mother Earth and each other. Life could be so very simple and fear-free if we just took the time to look around and fully appreciate the bountiful world that we inhabit. And if I see Kong from the cafe again, I will point out to him in my best manly voice, that the most malevolent vermin on planet Earth is humankind - not furry liddle puddy cats.

27th April - 3rd May

Puzzles Code Breaker Kenny Corris I For Readings, Consultations and Castings email: kennycorris@hotmailcom / www.kennycorris.net Mobile: 686 361 594 / Tel: 965 878 424

Play on Words

Answers: One good turn. A large (big) overdraft.

Mars squares Kora and there may be a small glitch in some advanced plan you have in mind. Be prepared for minor changes and enlist back up, forewarned is forearmed. Just lately you have taken things on that expand your consciousness and this has shown you what you are capable of, and given you a well/deserved lease of life.

Word Wheel The goal of a word wheel puzzle is to create as many words possible with the letters in the word wheel. You can only use each letter once and every word must have the letter in the centre of the wheel. Can you find the 9 letter word?

Saturn’s influence on Venus this week serves to delay temporarily actions from your heart. You are a loving and caring person, but you are not about to be abused in any way too. Those who truly love you would never ever think of treating you in any shabby way. See beyond a request because here there is more than meets the eye. Clearly somebody has their wires crossed right now, and you have to utterly assure them of your absolute good intentions. After the Mercury trine with Ceres there comes a time to open all channels of communication and whilst you are at it, ensure that the message goes out loud and clear… you are not to be messed with! A time for contemplation and regeneration. Rather than a customary domicile within your protective shell take time to see what’s really going on right now, and what part you could play in the subsequent positive action that ensues. Moon magic will open your heart this week, and do not find yourself saying no, when yes suits much better. Your planetary leader takes on both Saturn, bringer of wisdom, and Ceres, governess of time. Spend your time wisely this week as things become clearer now, and this clarity brings you an opening, that you are waiting patiently for, but now have to expedite. Don’t wait for things to happen, go out there and make sure that they do! Accept that whilst you have been hurt by recent actions, that now comes the time to set the record straight and to enlighten those who seem to want to judge you right now. As an Earth sign you have both feet firmly on the ground, but the time has come to put your cards on the table and to selectively take on that which you can. Libra is the sign of partnerships and you need somebody by your side this week. Secretly you need to let go and just do something you are seeking advice about. Look to your opposing sign of Aries to see that you need to take a page out of the book to achieve that which you very well could. End the struggle and put yourself first. Mars has recently actioned Pluto and this has brought something forward in your agenda. Pluto’s dogged determination and the frenetic energy of Mars gives you the power you need to succeed on a new and exciting venture. Don’t dream it, be it! Open the door to the new and forget the past, you are free and enabled and ready, at last! The Sun in Taurus aspects a tightening of the belt where money is concerned this week. The strain on finances is never more obvious than now, especially since unexpected financial outlays have seen savings dwindle. Mercury begins the month of May in a positive and inspiring way, so take an advantage whenever you can.

Each number in the Code Breaker grid represents a different letter of the alphabet. In this week’s puzzle, 21 represents N and 22 represents J, so fill in N every time the figure 21 appears and J every time the figure 22 appears. Now, using your knowledge of the English language, work out which letters should go in the missing squares. As you discover the letters, fill in other squares with the same number in the main grid and the control grid.

Kenny’s Postbag Kenny, I am wondering when you are next coming to the Torrevieja area? I had a reading with you in San Miguel de Salinas a few years ago. It would be lovely to see you again! Miranda D. Miranda, why don’t you organise some readings with me with your neighbours, family and friends? That’s the best way of getting your reading even quicker. I can travel, but to do this just for one reading makes the cost prohibitive. Call me for any further details. I look forward to hearing from you.

Kenny Corris

With Mercury in a square position there comes a warning regarding aspects of your professional life, and communication, especially with close friends and family. You may seem to have to work harder than ever, but your positive energies will inspire and others will end up thanking you for your positive and inspiring input.

Don't forget to email or message me with your Postbag Questions!. Check out my new website: www.kennycorris.net

Every cloud has a silver lining and whatever you are doing right now it is having a significantly learning influence on decisions and assisting you in taking the right actions. Those who keep close to you right now truly do have your very best interest at heart. Saturn trines with the Sun to bring about those changes deep within you.

For Birthday Celebrants

Be assertive and boost that self/confidence. You are who you are and you are loved because of your honesty and simplicity. Your openness and creativity are themselves a true inspiration to others. Mercury starts May with a calm energy entering your career and communication centres bringing opportunities too good to miss.

Take the time to clear away negative aspects this Astrological year and bring in the positive with a clear call for the abundance you both need and deserve. Ask for nothing and nothing is just what you get! Rewards may be slow in coming but they are out there!

The 9 letter word is:

Kakuro Fill all the empty squares using the numbers 1 to 9, so that the sum of each horizontal block equals the ‘clue’ on its left, and the sum of each vertical block equals the clue on its top. No number may be used in the same block more than once.

27th April - 3rd May

More Puzzles Cryptic

Across 1 Element from uncommon planet (4,5) 8 Crude oil’s in store (4) 9 A cat and a lion wandering in Spain (9) 10 Cancel Royal Engineer’s ding-dong (6) 13 Harridan’s dead crafty (6) 15 Outer form, of course (5) 16 A healer from an insecure relationship (5) 17 Grant given to a section of a hospital (5) 18 Film award for first one seen crying about refugees (5) 21 Celebrity new owner has changed (6) 22 Formal and avant-garde art seen in school (6) 25 True novel about an unpaid worker (9) 26 Cocktail after meal in wood (4) 27 Drink to the crashing of Beetle car (9)

English - Spanish

Futoshiki

Down 2 Conscious of a town in Herts (5) 3 Venezuela teacher demonstrates lift (5) 4 Some take a poll on who is God (6) 5 Dehydration results from a scruffy T-shirt (6) 6 Raids pier by mistake, as it’s in poor shape (9) 7 Amassed a crowd outside Germany (7) 11 Repeated and rewritten in real pen (9) 12 A royal dispute for a missile (5) 14 Listen to team leader with compassion (5) 16 Greek city in the Adriatic or in Thessaly (7) 19 Doze off while ozone’s dispersed (6) 20 Take for granted cook amuses (6) 23 Change old German sovereign (5) 24 Charlie and Henry eat shark (5)

Fill in the squares so that each digit from 1 to 6 occurs exactly once in each row and column. Greater-than and less-than signs indicate the relationship of the two adjacent squares. There is only one solution, and you can find it without guessing.

The clues are mixed, some clues are in Spanish and some are in English.

Across 2 Chairs (6) 5 Supper (4) 6 Well (for water) (4) 7 Wall (interior) (5) 10 Palabras (5) 13 Thing (object) (4) 14 Side (of person) (4) 15 Slice (6)

Down 1 Silk (4) 2 Venta (4) 3 To rain (6) 4 Piedras (6) 7 Lápiz (6) 8 Pasa (6) 9 Rocío (3) 11 Pan (for cooking) (4) 12 Doubt (4)

Quick

Across 1 Young swan (6) 4 Tedious (6) 9 Covetousness (7) 10 Blemish (5) 11 Share of something (5) 12 Objectives (7) 13 Rigorous (6) 15 Periodic count of the population (6) 18 Bring to an end (7) 20 Clean with hard rubbing (5) 22 Distinctive, typically pleasant smell: (5) 23 Easily agitated (7) 24 Israeli currency (6) 25 Comes to an end (6) Down 1 Talons (5) 2 Glassworker (7) 3 Expel from a country (5) 5 Watch closely (7) 6 Empty, void (5) 7 First book of the Bible (7) 8 God or goddess (5) 13 Distinguish oneself (7) 14 Assemble in proper sequence (7) 16 Grave (7) 17 Deceive by a mock action (5) 19 Range (5) 20 Rise suddenly (5) 21 Groundwork (5)

Word Ladder Can you by changing 1 letter at a time, get from the first word to the last word in the given number of moves?

LIVE 1 2 3 4

TALK

Sudoku

Fill the grid so every column and every 3x3 box contains the digits 1-9

27th April - 3rd May

More Puzzles Irregular Soduku Wordsearch:

Glee

2. Built between 1739 and 1752, which building is the official residence of the Lord Mayor of London?

8. Which 95-storey London skyscraper is the tallest building in the UK?

3. Built on the site of Newgate Prison between 1903 and 1906, how is the Central Criminal Court in London better known?

9. Which singer-songwriter reached number two in the UK singles charts in 1974 with The Streets of London? 10. With which sport would you principally associate the London Broncos?

3. OLD BAILEY, 4. THREE (1908, 1948 1. TIN PAN ALLEY, 2. MANSION HOUSE, Answers

6. On a map of the London Underground, what colour is the Jubilee Line?

Not a lot of people know that… the exact centre of London is marked by a plaque in the Church of St Martin's-in-the-Fields overlooking Trafalgar Square

and 2012), 5. HIGHGATE, 6. SILVER,

5. In which London cemetery is Karl Marx buried?

Quiz

7. GEORGE ORWELL, 8. THE SHARD

4. How many times has London staged the Summer Olympic Games?

LONDON CALLING

also referred to as the SHARD OF

7. Published in 1933, Down and Out in Paris and London was the first full-length work by which English author?

GLASS, SHARD LONDON BRIDGE and

1. Because of its large number of music shops, what is the three word nickname of London’s Denmark Street?

DOWN 2. A half of 24 across 3. 16 down minus two hundred 4. See 26 down 5. Its digits total 28 down 6. Three times 30 down 9. A half of 31 across 11. 20 down plus eleven 13. 19 down squared 14. Twice 28 across 16. Three times 6 down 17. Its digits total 28 across 19. Four times 14 across 20. 27 across plus 24 across 22. 27 across plus 8 across 23. 32 across plus 6 down 25. A half of 12 across 26. 4 down plus 16 down 28. 25 across minus 25 down 30. See 6 down

formerly LONDON BRIDGE TOWER, 9.

ACROSS 1. 20 down plus 14 down 4. Nine times 14 across 7. 17 across minus 4 across 8. Twice 28 down 10. Three times 28 down 12. 21 across minus 32 across 14. 27 across minus 7 across 15. Four times 10 across 17. Four times 30 down 18. 12 across squared 19. Its digits total 2 down 21. Four times 4 down 24. See 2 down 25. 28 down squared 27. 30 down minus 29 across 28. A quarter of 27 across 29. 14 down minus 28 down 31. 12 across plus 19 down 32. 24 across squared

RALPH McTELL, 10. RUGBY LEAGUE

Cross Figure

GLEE WILL SCHUESTER CHEERLEADER COACH SYLVESTER EMMA TERRI RACHEL FINN MUSIC KURT ARTIE TINA HIGH SCHOOL

27th April - 3rd May

More Puzzles Giant Crossword ACROSS 1 Tempting type 8 1930s boxing champ Max 12 Fruit discard 16 Bit of fiction 19 Neighbor of Djibouti 20 Backward 22 Love of Lennon 23 Polar bear's long sleep 25 Rival of JVC and LG 26 Desert region of Israel 27 Fruit discard 28 IRS worker: Abbr. 29 "Shakedown" singer Bob 31 Stair feature 34 Gem colored by trace amounts of boron 37 Listlimiting abbr. 40 Dietary unit 43 Actor Bana of "Troy" 44 Sit for a photo 45 Cold person's bumps 48 Chose (to) 50 Bestows 51 Thinnest coin 52 Beddybye garb 55 Palme (Cannes prize) 56 Author Deighton 57 "You bet!" 58 Joyous hymn 60 Camera since 1924 64 Big (large German gun) 66 Eminent senior member 70 LAX guess 71 Dog sound 73 Pig sounds 74 Tac 75 Author Levin 76 It might be next to a napkin holder

80 Hurls 82 Tropical fish 83 "Around parts ..." 84 Prefix with hazard 86 N.Y.toL. A. dir. 87 Part of USMA: Abbr. 89 Exhaust 90 Watchful person 92 Marshy inlet 94 Thrills, informally 98 Flight hub in East Boston 101 Oftentwisted treat 102 TT carmaker 105 Bucharest's land 106 A, in Spain 107 Thanksgiving follower 110 Individual 112 Sri 113 Poke (candy) 114 Mineo of film 116 Author Ephron 120 Individual 121 Pun on a phrase meaning "square one" that hints at this puzzle's theme 127 NFL 6pointers 128 Best Actress of 2016 129 Ordinary 130 Toping type 131 "FYI" part 132 Flew through, as a test 133 Reduced DOWN 1 Like a quilt 2 Great Lakes tribe 3 Little dent 4 Verbalize 5 Fissures 6 Always, to a poet

7 Sideline cry 8 Actress Besch or Andersson 9 Working without 10 Be fallible 11 Relating to kidneys 12 Big bird dog 13 Prefix with linear 14 " Beso" 15 HighIQ club 16 Definitively 17 Holy smoke? 18 Got on, as a bus 21 Indefinite 24 "Cross my heart" 30 Kingdoms 32 Exhaust 33 Skip over, as a sound 34 Cell buzzer 35 Carried out 36 Like coated cupcakes 37 Yolk holder 38 Eau de (cologne) 39 Design on an album, say 41 LP speed 42 Bit of land in le Rh ne 46 Dispatched 47 Gleams 49 Old name in video game consoles 53 Actor Eisenberg 54 Formed a lap 57 Unit of length 58 Cylindrical pasta 59 Cable TV's Geo Wild 61 Words to an absent lover 62 Fatigued by worry 63 Santa (some hot winds) 64 Finest 65 Oahu locale 67 Easy gaits

68 Rig fuel 69 Mambo great Puente 72 In shape 77 Wrestler's restraining move 78 Mu pork 79 Make operational again 81 Exchange 85 Origami bird 88 Bit of foliage 90 Roman "I" 91 Thanksgiving tuber 92 Just issued 93 Hagen of Broadway 94 Groups of odds and ends for sale 95 Florida city near Epcot 96 Least fatty 97 South, in Mexico 99 Suffix with direct 100 Roman "3" 103 Ban from law practice 104 Does nothing 108 Actress Sagal 109 Vital blood line 111 Pop or jazz 114 January 1 song word 115 Laid up, say 117 Truth bender 118 "Bus Stop" writer William 119 Up in years 122 Med. plan 123 Aussie bird 124 Fabled bird 125 "My Sal" 126 Nobelwinning poet Andric

Boggled How many English words can you find in the Boggled grid, according to the following rules? • The letters must be adjoining in a ‘chain’. They can be adjacent horizontally, vertically or diagonally. • Words must contain at least four letters and may include singular and plural or other derived forms. • No letter may be used more than once within a single word, unless it appears twice. • No vulgarities or proper nouns are permitted.

TARGET • Average: 18 • Good: 25 • Very good: 36 • Excellent: 47 SCORING 4 letters: 1 point 5 letters: 2 points 6 letters: 3 points 7 letters: 5 points 8 or more letters: 11 points

Nonagram How many English words of four letters or more can you make from the nine letters in our Nonagram puzzle? Each letter may be used only once (unless the letter appears twice). Each word MUST CONTAIN THE CENTRE LETTER (in this case T) and there must be AT LEAST ONE NINE LETTER WORD. Plurals, vulgarities or proper nouns are not allowed.

• Average: 9 • Good: 12 • Very good: 17 • Excellent: 22

27th April - 3rd May

WEDNESDAY 4:45pm 5:30pm 6:15pm 7:00pm 7:30pm 8:00pm 9:00pm 10:00pm

11:00pm 11:30pm 11:40pm 11:45pm 12:15am

Flipping Profit Flog It! Pointless BBC News Regional News The One Show Watchdog Live Britain's Fat Fight with Hugh FearnleyWhittingstall BBC News Regional News Weather A Question of Sport Ambulance

2:00pm 7:00pm 7:30pm 8:00pm 9:00pm 10:00pm 11:00pm 11:30pm 12:10am 12:15am 1:05am 3:05am 3:35am 4:35am

Snooker Eggheads Britain in Bloom Snooker Top of the Shop with Tom Kerridge Love in the Countryside Detectorists Newsnight Weather Snooker Snooker See Hear MasterChef Pilgrimage: The Road to Santiago

6:00pm 7:00pm

Snooker Eggheads Britain in Bloom Snooker World's Most Extraordinary Homes Syria: The World's War Match of the Day Newsnight World Championship Snooker Highlights Secret Agent Selection: WW2 Josh Widdicombe

6:00pm 7:00pm 7:30pm 8:00pm 8:30pm 9:00pm 9:30pm

7:30pm 8:00pm 8:30pm 9:00pm 9:30pm 10:00pm 11:00pm 11:30pm 11:45pm 12:45am

The Chase Regional News and Weather ITV Evening News Emmerdale Coronation Street Info not available Coronation Street Benidorm ITV News at Ten and Weather Regional News and Weather UEFA Champions League Highlights Play to the Whistle

3:30pm

How I Met Your Mother 4:00pm New Girl 4:30pm New Girl 5:00pm Brooklyn Nine-Nine 5:30pm Brooklyn Nine-Nine 6:00pm The Goldbergs 6:30pm The Goldbergs 7:00pm The Big Bang Theory 7:30pm The Big Bang Theory 8:00pm Hollyoaks 8:30pm Extreme Cake Makers 9:00pm The Goldbergs 9:30pm The Big Bang Theory 10:00pm Timeless 11:00pm Naked Attraction

6:00pm 6:30pm 7:00pm 7:30pm 8:00pm 9:00pm

5 News Neighbours Home and Away 5 News Police Interceptors GPs: Behind Closed Doors 10:00pm Rich House, Poor House 11:00pm Billionaire Babies: 24 Carat Kids 12:05am Named and Shamed 1:05am Celeb Trolls: We're Coming to Get You 2:00am Super Casino 4:10am GPs: Behind Closed Doors

4:30am 6:30am

Sky The Great Wall: Special 7:00am Growing Up Smith 9:00am Ready Player One: Special 9:30am Rough Night 11:30am Broken Vows 1:15pm The Dark Tower 3:05pm The Wizard - An American Wrestler 5:15pm Gifted 7:10pm Rough Night 9:00pm The Dark Tower 10:45pm Sheikh Jackson 12:30am Broken Vows 2:15am Sky

Scottish Cup Greatest Games 5:30pm La Liga Greatest Games 5:45pm La Liga Greatest Games 6:00pm Football Years 6:30pm Football Countdowns 7:00pm Revista de la Liga 7:30pm La Liga World 8:00pm Magical Messi 9:00pm Revista de la Liga 9:30pm La Liga World 10:00pm Eredivisie 11:00pm The Debate - Live 12:00am La Liga Icons

3:15pm 4:15pm

7:00am Happy Birthday, Toby Simpson 8:35am Where's the Money 10:15am Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie 12:00pm Girls Trip 2:10pm Austin Found 4:10pm Happy Birthday, Toby Simpson 5:45pm Where's the Money 7:20pm Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie 9:00pm Girls Trip 11:10pm Austin Found 1:10am Brawl in Cell Block 99

4:00pm Football's Greatest 4:30pm Football's Greatest Teams 5:00pm Championship Season Reviews 6:00pm Football Years 6:30pm Football Countdowns 7:00pm Championship Season Reviews 8:00pm EFL Matters 8:30pm EFL Greatest Games 9:00pm Football's Greatest 10:00pm Championship Season Reviews 11:00pm The Debate - Live 12:00am La Liga Show

5:15pm

THURSDAY 4:45pm 5:30pm 6:15pm 7:00pm 7:30pm 8:00pm 8:30pm 9:00pm 10:00pm 11:00pm 11:30pm 11:45pm 12:45am

Flipping Profit Flog It! Pointless BBC News at Six BBC London News The One Show EastEnders Britain's Best Home Cook Ambulance BBC News at Ten BBC London News Question Time Election 2018

2:00pm 7:00pm 7:30pm 8:00pm 9:00pm 10:00pm 11:00pm 11:30pm 12:15am 1:05am 2:05am

10:00pm 11:00pm 11:30pm 11:45pm

The Chase ITV News London ITV Evening News Emmerdale Tonight Emmerdale Paul O'Grady: For the Love of Dogs Prince Harry's Story: Four Royal Weddings ITV News at Ten and Weather ITV News London UEFA Europa League Highlights

5:00pm 5:30pm 6:00pm 6:30pm 7:00pm 7:30pm 8:00pm 8:30pm 9:00pm 9:30pm 10:00pm 10:30pm 11:00pm 11:35pm 12:10am

Brooklyn Nine-Nine Brooklyn Nine-Nine The Goldbergs The Goldbergs The Big Bang Theory The Big Bang Theory Hollyoaks Extreme Cake Makers The Big Bang Theory Young Sheldon Brooklyn Nine-Nine Let's Get Physical The Inbetweeners The Windsors The Big Bang Theory

NCIS Murder, She Baked: A Deadly Recipe 6:00pm 5 News at 5 6:30pm Neighbours 7:00pm Home and Away 7:30pm 5 News Tonight 8:00pm The Nightmare Neighbour Next Door 9:00pm Bad Tenants, Rogue Landlords 10:00pm Can't Pay? We'll Take it Away! 11:00pm Undercover: Nailing the Fraudsters

talk to us

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

RTN welcomes Readers’ views for publication in its Letters to the Editor section. All letters by email or post should carry the writer’́s address, and contact number, though only the name and town will be published.

Email letters to admin@rtnnewspaper.com with your full name and address

this week weather FRI

SAT

SUN

MON

TUE

WED

THU

April 27

April 28

April 29

April 30

May 1

May 2

May 3

22º/13ºC 22º/11ºC 21º/11ºC 17º/9ºC 19º/12ºC 20º/12ºC 20º/10ºC Rain

Partly sunny

Cloudy and a little rain

Partly sunny

Cloudy and Cloudy and a little rain a little rain

The schedules for the television programme pages are provided by an external company: we regret that any changes or errors are not the responsibility of RTN.

27th April - 3rd May

health Pain won’t go away but can be eased Affordable tooth replacement as alternative to implants or conventional bridgework Advantages • No injection or impressions • All done in one visit • No damage to adjacent teeth • Repairable at chairside • Excellent aesthetics • Guaranteed pain free If you are looking for a low cost, minimally invasive procedure give us a call for a free consultation.... Email us on britannia.calpe@gmail.com, call 965 837 553 or visit Avenida Ejercitos Españoles 16 BIS, 1st Floor, (Not ground floor) Piso 1D, E-03710 Calpe (Alicante).

IVF found to cut birth defects risk for older mothers A STUDY has found that women aged 40 or over are less likely to have babies with birth defects if they con-

ceive by IVF. Older women have a higher risk of babies with conditions such as Down’s syndrome and

c e r e b r a l p a l s y, b u t a study’s findings suggest that IVF children born to older women have less than half the risk of birth abnormalities than those conceived naturally. The study looked at births in south Australia from 1986 to 2002 and found birth defects in 3.6 per cent of babies born to women aged 40-plus u s i n g I V F. T h i s c o m pared with 5.7 per cent for all naturally conceived births. The researchers said this implies a previously ‘undescribed protective mechanism’ but could only speculate as to why. The findings cannot be attributed to the use of donor eggs from younger women as this was excluded from the study.

ONE in five Spaniards suffer some type of chronic pain, but 45 per cent of them do not go to a doctor to help alleviate their condition. That’s according to the Spanish Society of Pain (SED), on the occasion of World Day of Pain. According to the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP), chronic pain is a sensory or emotionally unpleasant experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage. The World Health Organisation (WHO) said that when it becomes a chronic disease, its treatment is a ‘human right.’ One of the main problems is that when not treated effectively it can cause depression, social withdrawal, anxiety, sexual dysfunction, and can even increase cardiovascular risk. In addition, pain is the most common cause of absenteeism in Spain, and more money should be spent on dealing with it. Joint pain is the most common type of ailment, and osteoarthritis is the most common musculoskeletal disease in the elderly population. The SED said there is often no cure but there are therapies that can improve the quality of life. They call for more training about pain for medical professionals.

It’s time for a healthy cocktail!

CONFUSED about which product combinations and treatments will give you clear, glowing skin? Well go for the skin cocktail, that works! DermaPen is the latest in pen needling technology, a motorised instrument which uses a disposable needle tip to create small ‘wounds’ in your skin. But don’t worry - it’s not painful. Superficial treatment levels are tolerable with nothing more than some topical numbing gel. This treatment, also called facial mesotherapy, or ‘the lunchtime treatment’ in which complexion-brightening vitamins are shot three to five millimetres below the epidermis to improve skin’s texture and tone. When a person hurts themselves, the skin will generally initiate skin repair by stimulating growth factors that will, in turn, lead to the generation of collagen and elastin. Therefore, when the punctures are made using the Dermapen, the skin will treat the punctures as wounds and initiate healing. This means that micro needling tends to trick the skin to produce collagen and elastin to promote ‘healing’ and the

effect will be a rejuvenated skin. We also put a rich serum on, containing vitamins, minerals and amino acids. This is to give the newborn cells the best cocktail to develop in. Dermapen is used mostly for face wrinkles, scars, stretch marks and facial lines. For wrinkles and facial lines, basically, the produced collagen and elastin will cause the skin to thicken and also tighten leaving the skin looking youthful. Generally, Dermapen has been effective and quite advantageous over other skin treatment procedures. This has seen to it that its popularity keeps growing. At Derma Clinic Spain, our team of medical professionals takes pride in providing expert care to help you achieve a healthy, natural, rejuvenated appearance. If you’re interested in learning more about DermaPen micro needling or any of our other skin rejuvenation treatments, please give us a call. In May we have a special offer of this treatment, so don’t wait to make your appointment!

Derma Clinic Spain are located at Camino del Pincho 2, 03580, L’Alfaz del Pi, Alicante. For more information call 674 255 579 or email info@dermaclinicspain.com. Alternatively see our Facebook page facebook.com/DermaClinicSpain.

27th April - 3rd May

home & garden

Lavender has so many uses in garden and home der scent permeating the whole house before setting out the jars of potpourri to maintain its presence. There is a huge range o f d i ff e r e n t v a r i e t i e s o f lavender to choose from with the hardiest generally being the more original species, but the newer selected and developed varieties provide a much broader range of colours and forms. The Spanish lavender, Lavandula stoechas, is a favourite in the ornamen-

tal garden for its wonderful scent but the English lavender (Lavandula angustifolias and hybrids) is best for the culinary herb garden. They love to be in the sun and become scraggly in areas of too much shade where the bushes do not thicken up enough to have dense flowering. To grow lavender, the natural soils being alkaline in Spain are ideal and just a few handfuls of compost mixed into the surrounding soil may be

Photo Caption; Cora Mueller Shutterstock

LAVENDER is a must for every Mediterranean garden design to be complete. It is a native plant to the region and the naturally occurring species are perfectly adapted to the alkaline soils, summer sun and periods of low rainfall. This is a great plus for one of the most pleasantly fragrant small shrubs with natural oils which are very soothing and relaxing due to the aroma emitted from the whole plant. The bluish to violetcoloured flowers are a rarer shade of colour for flowers and they are prominently displayed on long stems extending out from the plant for all to see. If you grow your own it is very easy to take cuttings and tie a bunch to hang in the house to make the home more fragrant. You can even dry some bunches briefly in the oven for potpourri and have the benefit of laven-

FRAGRANT: Lavender has a multitude of uses. needed to ensure good drainage, some water retention and nutrients. Lavender do not like wet feet and too many nutrients promotes growth but fewer flowers. More lavender are killed off by overwatering than dryness as they prefer a dry environment and too much water encourages

fungal problems. To k e e p t h e p l a n t s t r o n g , p r u n i n g o ff t h e spent flower heads is necessary if you havenâ€™t already harvested them for use elsewhere. Usually this is done in autumn all at once as the plants flower uniformly and finish flowering at the same time so you can wait for

the last ones to finish. If you wish to reduce the size of the plant it is best left until spring, when the plant starts to reshoot, to ensure a quick recovery from the pruning. Normally you should only cut about one third to a half of the plant each season. If you want to grow them in containers. choose a compact varie t y. U s e a w e l l d r a i n e d potting mix with at least 10 per cent sand or fine gravel added. If growing them alone in a c o n t a i n e r, m a k e t h e container a minimal size larger than the root ball as excessive pot space invites fungus to move in. Make sure the container is placed where there is sunlight and if using a drip tray elevate the pot or container a little in the tray so that it does not sit in the excess water. Lavender provides the ideal atmosphere for relaxing, diddling around and enjoying the Mediterranean garden.

27th April - 3rd May

pets BEFORE bringing home a new dog, introduce your new pet to your resident pet in a neutral area like a park. Keep both dogs on leashes for a short time. Be matter-of-fact about the situation but stay alert. If either dog reacts aggressively, consider getting a different second dog or none at all. Keeping two dogs who do not like each other under control is a huge and dangerous task. After a few minutes take the leads off and let the dogs explore each other, at this point walk away and keep quiet. Dog fights generally involve a struggle between an existing resident dog and a new arrival, often of the same gender. Dogs in the household, just as in a wild pack, have a hiera-

Introducing a new pet to a resident pet rchy, with one animal being the dominant one. Respect this hierarchy when you introduce the new dog; you will cause conflicts if you treat both dogs equally. Assess which dog is the dominant one, it is usually the older pet, and act accordingly. The dominant dog generally should be first when greeting the owners, passing through a door or getting fed. But he shouldn’t mistreat the new

HAPPY HOUSEHOLD: Takes effort.

pet in any way. Reinforce your own position in the household by teaching your dogs the commands ‘down’ and ‘st ay.’ Giving them a ‘downstay’ command while they’re side-by-side communicates to them that this is your house, and they will behave themselves here regardless of how they feel about each other. To get a cat and new dog used to each other put the new dog on a leash when they meet. Prepare yourself for some major upset on your cat’s part. Do not get too concerned over a good-natured cat and dog chase, but do correct your dog when it happens. Ask your pup to ‘sit’ instead and praise him when he complies. If you feel it’s neces-

sary, keep the leash on the dog so you can step on it to correct him mid-chase. Your cat will take a while to adjust to the newest member, possibly even a few months. Help by ensuring she has open doors and windows to escape. Give her a place to eat where she can feel secure, like a tabletop or a strictly ‘no-doggy’ area. Keep the litter box out of your dog’s domain. Put the dog on a ‘downstay’ while you pet your cat; she will know she’s still loved, and your dog will realise the cat is not to be touched simply because you say so. Some cats prefer to adjust on their own. Try putting yours in a room with food, water, toys, a litter box and a scratching post.

Open the door after a few weeks and let her decide how extensively she wants to interact. Keep a baby gate across the door to the room so she can escape when things get too hectic. You may want to consider keeping her in her crate/carry case so the dog can sniff her and she will feel secure. Don’t hesitate to seek pro-

fessional help if you don’t feel able to teach your pets to get along. A professional trainer will implement methods to help your current pet cope with the new arrival. Well-trained pets adjust better to changes and are easier to control when conflicts arise. Contact your vet or a trainer immediately if any of your animals react aggressively. They will decide if you should try to keep everyone happy or make other arrangements for the new dog. Keeping a happy household with more than one pet takes a lot of effort. Be alert and attentive while everyone’s getting used to each other and never let them forget who’s boss.

27th April - 3rd May

AIRPORT PARKING

2.4 SATALITE DISH COMPLETE WITH STAND TWIN L&MB, €180 ONO, FOR FURTHER DETAILS CALL 637 221 240 OR 0044 797 363 7018 (276099)

MOTORING

TV & SATELLITE SKYLINE SATELLITE EXPERTS IN REPAIRS, SERVICE CALLS OR ADVICE ON uk AND International tv installations 965 838 225 info@skylinesat.com SPECIALIST IN COMMUNITY AND APARTMENT INSTALLATIONS, and Solutions, no dish, no problem. Satellite and TV accessories available 965 838 225 info@skylinesat.com (254325)

INSURANCE

COMPUTERS & IT

FOR SALE COMPLETE LARGE SOLAR SYSTEM, 12 × POWER SAFE TO BATTERIES (18 MONTHS OLD), 12 SILIKEN SLK36P6L SOLAR PANELS COMPLETE WITH FRAME, ASP TOP CLASS STANDALONE SINEWAVE INVERTER, SOLARMASSEL BOARD, TRI STAR SOLAR CONTROLLER TS45, KAISER MOD K2000/24/80M RECTIFIER, 4.8KVA SUBARU PETROL GENERATOR, RESONABLE OFFERS, FOR FURTHER DETAILS CALL 637 221 240 OR 0044 797 363 7018 (276099)

COLUMNIST

PLUMBING

TEACHERS/Host Families needed July Planet English Javea 695 216 889 plan etenglishjavea@gmail.com (259448)

BRADLEY 2 TON TWIN AXLE TRAILER VGC, €795 ONO. FOR FURTHER DETAILS CALL 637 221 240 OR 0044 797 363 7018 (276099)

COMPUTER Repairs. Home Visits – Laptops / PC ´s Qualified Technician 648065224 No Call Out Charge. No Fix No Fee. andy@wizardcomputers.biz (259452)

SITUATIONS VACANT

POOLS

PEST CONTROL BENEFICIAL INSURANCE SERVICES. Car, Home, Business, Travel, Life, Funeral, all insurances available. Policies in English. BEST rates, covers & service. Immediate quotes. Tel 961 129 215 / 622 275 561, (whatsapp) info@beneficialinsuranceinspain.com or visit www.beneficialinsurancein spain.com for online quote. (259397)

METAL WORKS MOBILE WELDING SERVICE Gates, rejas, railings etc. Made to measure or repaired. Free quotes. No job too small. Calpe. Made to measure or repaired onsite. Call Dave 965 834 869 or 616 173 699 (257061)

BUGBUSTERS BENIDORM: Fully Legal Costa Blanca Pest Control Company. EST 1994. For all pest problems, commercial and domestic. Call Lois Clark 619 054 939/96 686 5204. bugbuster slois@hotmail.com. ROESB 05552 CV (276061)

REMOVALAS/STORAGE CITYBOX LA NUCIA. RENT PER M2 IS POSSIBLE !!! SUPERVISED SECURITY !!! FREE FROM MOISTURE AND PESTS !!! CHEAPEST IN SPAIN !!! INFO: 669 003 985 (259454)

HOME & GARDEN

REMOVALS & STORAGE

SITUATIONS VACANT

27th April - 3rd May SPANISH COURSES

SITUATIONS VACANT

Puzzle answers Puzzle answers Puzzle answers Puzzle answers Puzzle answers Wordwheel aa ae am an ar at ma na pa ta ama amp ana ane ant

ape apt ara are arm art ate att ear eat era eta mae man map

Codebreaker mar mat nae nam nap pam pan par pat pea ram ran rap rat tae

Cryptic

tam tan tap tar tat tea amen anta ante aper area atap atma earn etna

maar mana mane mara mare mart mate matt mean meat meta name napa nape neap

Quick

near neat nema pane pant para pare part pate pean pear peat pram prat ramp

rant rape rapt rate ream reap tame tamp tapa tape tara tare tarn tarp tart

tate team tear teat tepa tram trap aetat ament anear antae antra antre apart apnea

apter arame arena arepa armet arpen atman attar manat manta marae mater matte meant menta

namer paean parae paten pater peart praam prate ramen ramet ratan reata reman remap tamer

taper tatar tater tetra tramp trapt treat arpent enrapt entrap mantra marten matter natter parent

partan patent patera patten patter preman ramate rattan ratten tampan tamper tantra tapeta tarpan tartan

trapan trepan mantrap pattern ramenta rampant reptant parament apartment

FAKE FARE FORE FORK CORK COOK

Giant

English-Spanish

Irregular Sudoku

Word Ladder

Cross Figure

Futoshiki

Sudoku Nonagram

alec calf caul clef clue cult felt flat flea flue fuel lace late leaf left luau lute tael talc tale teal cleat cleft fault fetal flute latte cattle cutlet cuttle tactful FLUCTUATE

Kakuro

Boggled that tart tarp target haft hart harp harpy fund fundi faith trap trait tryptic tufa tung tiptoe dung diary dice dicey dicot nudity raft rapt rapid raid path part parget paid pith pita pity piton picot icon graft grapy ghee yeti typic city cite cote notice note noetic otic once ounce unco

27th April - 3rd May

motoring

BMW iFE 18 electrifies the competition BMW Motorsport continued the development of its new BMW iFE 18 Formula E model with a test at the Calafat circuit in Cataluña. The race car is equipped with a drivetrain exclusive to BMW, and will compete in the ABB FIA Formula E Championship in 2019 in the first series for fully-electric racing cars. Bruno Spengler was behind the wheel of the iFE 18 at the 3.2-kilometre circuit, and the 2012 DTM champion completed a comprehensive testing programme. BMW’s first 100 per cent electric car made its world debut in a testing session at its driving academy in Maisach, near Munich recently. After months of collaboration between production engineers and racing developers, the results are now being seen. The engine is 50 per cent lighter and 66 per cent more compact than the BMW i3, and the car’s test at

Calafat went smoothly. Driver Bruce Spengler said: “In a project as new as this one, the initial tests are primarily about gaining experience. “For me, as a driver, it is very special to be involved here from the word go and working on the development of a new car is a unique task.” The 2019 season of Formula E will see BMW join Jaguar Land Rover, MercedesBenz, Nissan, Mahindra, and Porsche AG on the starting grid. BLACK BEAUTY: The slick yet angled design gives the car a Batmobile look.

27th April - 3rd May

sport

Champion of Champions Competition Tennis held at Quesada and San Luis conqueror Credit: Ayuntamiento de La Nucia

LUCÍA LLINARES DOMINGO a young tennis player from La Nucia became Valencia under16 champion when she beat Judith Perelló in a great game. T h e 4 2 n d Va l e n c i a n Junior Tennis Championship was held at the Tennis Club el Collao, in Valencia. In the under-16 female category some 64 players took part and this is the fourth singles championship that Lucía has won. As she has grown and moved up age categories, so she has been a consistent winner and the local federation has high hopes for her future professional career.

LUCIA: Triumphant.

BENITACHELL BOWLS CLUB (BBC) made the finals of the singles and the rinks at the Champion of Champions, which were held at Quesada last week. Christine Mawson played an excellent singles games throughout the competition winning all her games to play in the finals only to lose the last game to become a runner-up. Sunday also saw the finals of the last of the disciplines - the rinks played by Skip Jeff Richards, Lynda Warnes, Linda Richards and Rod Warnes, who after a long and hard-fought game lost to San Luis. BBC were well represented during the week with the mixed pairs of Jacquie and Dave Roberts, Lynda Warnes and Yvonne Browne in the ladies pairs, Greg Sperring, gents singles and triples team of Jeff Richards, Lynda Warnes and Rod Warnes who lost

Valldigna Golf Society IT was yet another great day at La

tested this month and went to the follow-

Galiana, the course looked stunning and

ing people, Hole three went to Hans

was in great condition.

Benzler, Hole five went to Derek Ashton,

The breeze was very kind to everyone

Hole 14 went to Vernon de Jaeger, Hole

keeping the players at a balmy 26 de-

15 went to Eddie Butterfill, Hole 16 went

grees. The greens were slick and quick-

to Steve Arnold, Hole 17 went to Peter

er than usual which didn’t stop some

Nunn.

very good scores coming in, even from some of the very low handicappers Although the course was busy everyone managed to come in within 30 min-

The Longest Drive in 2 on Hole 11 went to Don Cubbon and the Longest Drive on Hole 12 went to Vernon de Jaeger.

utes of each other and the prize-giving

La Galiana only managed to grab 97

was done and photos taken within 30

balls from the society this month and the

minutes of this.

lucky winner of the Lost Balls competi-

This month’s winners were members

tion was Mike Clarkson who took €38.

1st Hans Benzler 31 points off 11, 2nd

The next home game at La Galiana is

Mike Clarkson 29 points off 13, 3rd

on May 15 followed by a rematch

Derek Ashton 26 points off 18. This

against Edetania on May 28 at El

month’s guest prizes went to 1st Alan

Bosque.

Littlewood 33 points off 22, 2nd. Ger-

The society welcome visitors and new

hard Muchitsch 32 points off 18, 3rd.

members so if you fancy joining a friend-

Nicklas Tack 29 points off 1.

ly golf society email them at valldig

The nearest the pins were hotly con-

nagolfsoc@hotmail.com.

CHRISTINE MAWSON: Runner up for BBC.

out on the semi-finals to a team from Javea Green who went on to win. This is an excellent competition

which is played yearly with representatives from the winners of the Bowling Club’s competitions from the north and the south.

Cadena Sunrise 10 pin bowling league 18th April 2018 (week 24) THE BANDITS THE PHANTOMS GI GI'S HOOKERS S***T HAPPENS SOL AMIGOS PIN PALS

RESULTS 4 - 4 0 - 8 4 - 4 5 - 3 8 - 0 2 - 6

999s ALLEY CATS ALLEY GATORS PIN PUSHERS SUNRISE COLEGAS STRIKE FORCE