Cucumber Mountain
Anybody that strolled onto the beach at Carchuna would probably have done a double back flip, as we did, when they came across the incredible amount of discarded cucumbers on the beach… but we’re not talking about the odd slice left over from a cucumber sandwich, nor the peelings from a salad, but the 25 million kilos of surplus cucumbers that were dumped in protest.
There were two causes to this problem: the overproduction of this kind of vegetable, and the eternal problem of mark up prices on the way to the shop shelves. The farmers, for instance, were offered just eight cents a kilo by the big warehouses, whereas it was costing them 48 cents a kilo to grow. It escaped nobody’s attention that by the time the same cucumbers were gracing the supermarket shelves, the price tag was 150% over what the warehouses had paid for them, even though the distance between the greenhouses and some supermarkets was less than 20 kilometres away – in some cases, in the same town.
Spanish greenhouses basically stock the whole of Europe with cucumbers of this variety, and to be more precise, Granada produces 60% (2,100 hectares) and Almería produces the remaining 40%. So how much is the Costa Granadina (between Charcuna and La Rabita) producing? A staggering 100,000 kilos a day! One farmer, whom we interviewed, claimed that the figure was closer to one million, but farmers are like anglers…
On a positive note, this shared calamity has brought the coast’s farmers into a tighter union. Their one-week-long boycott, during which no pepinos were delivered to the wholesalers, brought the selling price up to 30 cents, but still below their growing costs.
Yet the farmers are not budging because they cannot accept a selling price that remains under the production costs… so the daily dumping of 100% of the crop output continued into the following week. If they couldn’t earn from their labour, they are darned sure nobody else was going to!
Another factor that contributed to this disaster was the unusually high temperatures, that had the cucumber plants spouting their fruit in a frenzy, normally during mid November, there would be snow on the Sierra de Lújar and things would have settled down.
Finally, by the very end of November, the selling price had reached 35 cents/kilo and colder weather had set in, causing production to slow down, so the dumping was halted and trading resumed. Europe was running out of cucumbers and prices were rising.
On the 1st of December the Town Hall started cleaning up the mess, removing 350 tonnes on the first day. Unfortunately the surge of rotting cucumbers overwhelmed the rubbish-treatment plant in Montecastillo and the rest had to be taken to Alhendín.

Talking of the Campo…
Suddenly there is an abundance of volunteers to harvest the olive crops – before few would deign to consider such a job, preferring the lucrative building sector. Consequently, immigrant workers were the salvation of the farmers, who were desperate to find hands.
According to recent figures, the number of Granadinos who are looking to work this harvest has doubled, now that unemployment benefit has been exhausted in many cases.
As a direct consequence of this renewed ‘interest’ by nationals, immigrant labour has been put on the back burner and many, realising that there simply is no work for them, are returning to their countries of origin.

Bullets for the Boys
The City Hall of Granada has ordered 50,000 pistol bullets for the Local Police. This little Christmas present will be stashed away at the Local Police headquarters, where they will be used on the firing range. Each of these blue killing machines gets to fire off approximately 100 rounds a year, bless them.

Nice Change!
It is certainly novel that a town hall is embargoed for faulting on payments… I mean, they’re always faulting on payments, but they don’t normally have their bank accounts frozen by a Judge and the sum of an outstanding debt extracted, do they? The town hall in question is the Town Hall of Cájar in the Alpujarra.
Chance would have it that the Mayor recently had to cancel a first-occupation certificate for the village’s Vice Mayor, who resigned over alleged building irregularities on his new house.
The administration’s accounts have been frozen over a debt of nearly 6,000 euros owing to a company that provided equipment for a kiddies’ play park – to be more precise, a rubber floor cover and the necessary glue, coming to 4,825 euros. The bill was submitted to Raúl Montoya, who is the chap that resigned, by the way.
No payment was forthcoming, despite a litany of requests and threats. Finally, the company decided to sue the Town Hall in September. The provincial law court decided in favour of the company and ordered that the Town Hall’s bank accounts be seized. Included in the sum to be charged is 1,000 euros in court costs.
The Mayor recognised that the money was indeed owed and that it would be met within days. He put the blame at the door of the dismissed Vice Mayor, whose task it was to oversee the payment, but whose ‘laxity’ allowed the situation to reach this lamentable end.

Sneaky Fines
Many people have the impression that their town halls’ fine everything that moves in a desperate attempt to get funds into the wheezing municipal accounts, and in the case of the good folk of Caserío de Cerro (northern Granada district) it certainly seems to be the case.
You see, the Local Police are slapping fines on them for using the only road that they have to gain access to their houses, thanks to sprawling road works created by the metro project.
Every day the locals have to use this one remaining street to be able to reach their homes and garages, even though there is a no-entry sign at the entrance to the street. However, the no-entry sign also bears text reading: accept to authorised vehicles. Well, if they live there, you would think that they are authorised, wouldn’t you?
When you take into account that some residents have to use this street several times a day, clocking up a 60-euro fine each time, you can imagine just how annoyed they are.
The Local Police, it seems, don’t even bother to stop the cars to inform the drivers, but limit themselves to noting down the number plates as they pass, with glee…

Talking of Fines…
A mother has been fined 120 euros for shouting in public that her son’s female teacher was a racist. The incident occurred about a couple of months ago at the Colegio Julio Rodríguez in Armilla (Granada).
The mother had stormed into the school to berate the said female teacher because her son said that she had ‘had a go at him,’ even though, in reality, the teacher didn’t even have this pupil in her class, so she was left wondering what the mad cow was going on about.
She had just come out of class and suddenly the mother started shouting, “Mierda de Maestra (shitty teacher), “No sierves como maestra” (You no good as a teacher), “Eres un racista” (you’re a racist).
The teacher could have let it go as just another case of verbal aggression from parents, but after thinking about it, decided to sue the woman, not so much for her own benefit, but so that it would serve as an example.
The teacher didn’t demand any compensation and the mother fully admitted her culpability, which made the whole thing go through very quickly.

And talking of Schools…
A 3-year-old child in the city of Sevilla decided to return home from kindergarten and managed to arrive home, by himself, without anybody at the school having realising that he was missing. The parents were not impressed.
In fact, they went ballistic, firing off letters of complaints to the Regional Education Board, the City Hall of Sevilla and the state-run primary school CEIP Maestra Natalia Albanes.
On the said day, when classes concluded at 13.45, the pupils that were to have school dinners – our globe trotter amongst them – were to be accompanied to the school dining room. But in the case of the child in question, he turned up at the doorstep of his home at 14.40, having walked between 500 and 600 metres home.

Reluctant to Return
Do you remember that article that we ran about a public functionary (Tax-Office clerk) that sneaked a camera into the women’s toilet to secretly film them? Well, he’s not over keen to return to work, it seems, now that he can. And to avoid having to return, he has demanded that he receives a month’s paid holiday owing to him for 2009.
He was sentenced to 6-months suspension by the disciplinary board, which he has completed, and as his case has still not reached the law courts, then the Tax Office has no further reason to deny him his post, until his case is heard, or better said, re-heard. You see, five of the ladies caught on film could not be identified and therefore did not have the opportunity to bring their own suits against the man, who admitted to installing the cameras. For that reason, a sentence has still not been handed down until the five come forward, or not, and have the possibility to file their own suits against him.
In the tax office in Calle Tablas there are 130 personnel, of which 70 are women. The women staff, as well as some of their male counterparts, have threatened to walk out en masse if Mr F.J.T.J. (Furtive Jiving in The John?) shows his face at work. So, as you can imagine, although it might seem a bit of a cheek on the part of the man, the solution of his taking a month’s holiday comes as a welcome respite to impending doom. It is hoped that the paperwork for his transfer to another department will come through before he concludes his month’s leave…

Quite a Few!
Have you ever wondered just how many condoms you can fit in a car – you know, filling every available space, right up to above the rear-view mirror? Well of course you have!
Fear not, because thanks to the much-needed work done by university student in Granada, you will now be able to inform those around you – incurring much admiration – the exact number!
Now, if you think that I’m going to spill the beans right off, at the very beginning of the article, then you’ve just over-dosed on optimism, my fine furtive friends! You’re just going to have to read to the very end – ha!
The organisers had parked a bulging car in the forecourt and posed the question that would require university-level mathematics to solve. The prize was the car itself, although you could probably make more money selling the condoms within than by selling the car, admittedly.
The organiser, by the way, was the condom manufacturer, who also supplied the car. They had set up a small booth where the students were invited to submit their answer.
And here’s the answer… wait for it… I don’t know. Sorry, the answer still has not been given and so, like me, you’re just going to have to wait to find out. I’m so dead.

Insurance Fraud Increasing
It is always just a tad suspicious if an insurance policy covers up to 600 euros, the claimant just happened to have 600 euros in their handbag or wallet, which was stolen. Yet, you’d be surprised to learn that there are many such transparently obvious false claims made in these economically meagre times.
The favourite is the ‘snatched-bag’ claim, where the claimant was quite happily walking along and a swarthy gentleman in desperate need of a shave and image consultant, snatched the handbag, with its improbably expensive contents: Marbella, jet-set, designer sunglasses, a NASA-level, mega-wow, mobile telephone and, of course, buckets of cash.
During 2008, for example, investigators working for insurance companies tracked down false claims to the tune of 200,000 euros on a national level. These cases were discovered because the 16 major insurance companies in Spain investigated 76,569 cases. These false claims range from muggings, burglaries, house fires and, of course, motorcar accidents.
In the case of road accidents, it doesn’t matter how minor a collision was, everybody seems to have suffered whiplash, strangely enough.
And talking of cars, one of the recent favourites is car fires: depending on the type of motor insurance, if the car is less than two years, they’re liable to receive the full value of the car and the money received goes to paying off the loan for the car that they could not pay anymore.
As we said in the title, the numbers of fraudulent insurance claims is on the rise because of the economic down turn: during 2008, the Guardia Civil arrested 37 people for having made false claims, while in just the first nine months of 2009, there were already over 50 arrests.