Hotel Salobrena was the scene of some serious Chiringuito bonding, as the Chiringuito Association of the Costa Tropical held its annual meeting there.

They come together to discuss their business, cry in each other’s beers, and to wonder if the new concessions, now controlled by the Junta, will ever come to pass. The Federal Government previously held the reins and was quite hard on these beach bars, seeing them as a plague or a contaminant instead of as viable businesses doing what beach bars should be doing.

In effect, they wanted to eliminate them altogether by moving them off the beaches (“we will never surrender,” they were heard to mutter) but the troops rallied and managed to stave off an early execution probably because someone up high realised how imbecilic was the idea to kill off these establishments.

Anyway, they like to celebrate and honour their own, and so chose Rafael Garciolo as Chiringuito Man of the Year. Raff’s 74, owns La Gaviota en La Herradura, and has always supported the Association.