Celibacy and the Church

The old choir boys are singing again but this time they are not doing it in unison with their old teachers. They are vocalizing the abuses received by these eminent and learned lechers.
I read today that in Rome they are investigating 3000 cases of abuse by the clergy in Europe, Australia, the U.S.A. and Asia. The problem as I see it is not one of homosexuality which in itself is as old and well-established as Methusalem, practiced by adults of the same sex and tendencies all over the world with great enjoyment and satisfaction. Some of my homosexual friends are horrified reading about these clothed men torturing children in order to satisfy their libido. Who are these people? Certainly not just homosexuals!
I´ll tell you who they are; members of a religious order who, in order to follow their vocation have to take a vow of celibacy( as if legislating celibacy implies the same as removing the need).There are places such as prisons, convents, seminaries and single sex schools that normal sound minded people should avoid at all costs. It breeds unnatural situations, where physical sex manifests itself in the form of sadistic games, bringing out the worst in peoples subconscious.
If the Catholic Church genuinely wants to reduce the number of children abused it should do away with the vow of celibacy right away. The only other alternative is that it should chemically castrate every member of the clergy. The right way is to put it to the vote and accept for the first time in history a democratic decision. Whatever happens we have to stop calling the perpetrators of these terrible acts homosexual, because they are not. At least the vast majority of them are not gay but just perverted sick people who live from guilt to guilt teaching compassion in the name of a God never met nor ever will. The one who are genuinely homosexual usually join the Anglican faith!!

Long live the Costa del Sol

After the wettest winter in Andalucía in living memory the sun looks like it’s appeared again. I took a short walk in the garden admiring beautiful flowers being assailed by colourful butterflies. In the vegetable plot three different type of lettuce are thriving together with a half dozen cauliflower, four cabbages and a row of fennel.
Tomorrow I will play at Lauro Golf with a group called the Frogs. They are a great bunch of people, mainly British, living on the Costa del Sol. My wife is planning to take my seven year old skiing to the Sierra Nevada for the first time. What I am trying to say is that life is beautiful on the Costa del Sol. Despite experiencing the same economic problems as the rest of the world, we live in a privileged environment with wonderful facilities available allowing us to enjoy life to the full. I would not like to live anywhere else.
If anyone out there wants to join us and buy or rent a property in Alhaurin el Grande, Coin or anywhere on the Costa, why not check out our webpage http://www.propertysearchspain.com
We have lots of bargains at the moment so it is a great time to start looking.

Alba Golf on the Costa del Sol

I just came back from a week long golfing holiday on the Costa del Sol. My friends, eleven of them came from Scotland, so you can imagine how much they looked forward to playing in the sun. However it was not meant to be as we were presented with one of the wettest weeks in history.
Despite the rain and thanks to a truly professional agent called Michael Falvey from Alba Golf Holidays S.L. (who was in contact with our group on a daily basis) we managed to get four good days of golf and golf vouchers valid for a year for the courses we did not manage to play because of the impossible weather.
I cannot recommend Alba Golf enough. Michael Falvey managed to change our itinerary on a daily basis according to which course was available and he did it with such a professional attitude that my Scottish friends and I were very pleasantly surprised and determined to come back next year.
Well done Michael!
Check it out-
http://www.albagolfholidays.com/

Fair Weather Advisors.

The discredited U.S. President Richard Nixon is often quoted as saying that he had ‘one hundred economic advisors’. He was convinced that in any given situation one of those advisors were right. The problem was that he did not know which one!
In Spain we have exactly the same situation; the important difference is that Mr. Zapatero knows that none of his economic advisors are right as all of them lack the knowledge and the impartiality necessary to give advice that would benefit the country as a whole. They are usually appointed on the grounds of family ties, favouritism and friendship. So in the present economic climate they are about as useful as an ashtray on a motorbike.

Judgement Day

The incessant rain of the last few weeks which has been afflicting Andalusia like never before has prompted me to start a new project. I am going to build a boat. It will be a big one; it has to be in order to accommodate at least one pair of each animal species on earth. Once all the animals have been accommodated I hope there will be room for me and my wife and of course all our immediate family. If there is room I will also take on board a few friends, those who play golf will be given priority. Looking into the future when the rain subsides and things get back to normal I would like to bring with me a few people who I feel could contribute to a better society in the future. The first name that springs to mind is Tom Waite. Bansky whoever he is would be included, Ferran Adriá (El Bulli) also. If he is not dead already I would like Jonathon Miller on board as well as Nelson Mandela. They could act as the wise old men.

Procreation will be an important factor for the future especially as there won’t be any television so Penelope Cruz, Angelina Jolie, Beyonce, Scarlett Johansson and a few well chosen others will be a welcome addition to the crew. The boat will be leaving Malaga sometime in the near future so anyone who is not a priest, politician or pedophile is welcome to apply for passage to I do not know where. Interviews will be strict but fair. Basically you have to prove that you are a good person. The rest who screw up this world can go to hell.

I dream of tax cuts!!!

In order to aid the recuperation of the immensely depressed housing market the Spanish government has announced a number of economic measures which will come into effect from the 1st of March 2010.
1-Property transfer tax will be reduced from 7% to 2.5%.
2-Vat on new built property sold by promoters will drop to 6% instead of the present 16%
3-Capital Gains Tax on the sale of first residences which at present is a 18% will be scrapped whilst second residences will be increased to 25%.
4-First time buyers will be able to repay capital only for the first three years of their mortgage as the government will make good the interest to the banks via a national agreement on corporation tax incentives. All the above measures are part of an actual dream I had last night. The rest of the dream consisted of reopening more offices, employing more people, living an active productive life in a beautiful country with a fantastic climate. When I told my wife about this dream she said that if I believe it can happen strongly enough it will happen.

Let me know your thoughts on this!

Confessions of a Real Estate Agent!

Confessions of a Real Estate Agent

Until a few years ago I used to assure my clients that in Andalusia at least all properties which were not 100% legal could be legalised with the help of a competent lawyer, efficient Notary, a scrupulous registrar and a sympathetic politician (be it a mayor or a councillor for urban matters). That is how it used to work as recently as 2002. That was the year when the regional government came out of twenty years of voluntary hibernation and realised that the rats had emptied out the larder and indiscriminate building, resembling an overspill from a giant Lego, set had taken place. It is the normal practice of politicians in power to find ways of blaming others for their own mistakes. So The Junta de Andalucia proceeded to shut the stable door( the horse had already bolted), and beat the hell out of everyone left inside by issuing new normatives regulating urban and building matters in such a strange way, that no one can now understand what can legally be built, if anything!

The new normatives basically castrated all local councils whose main source of income was the issuing of building licences and the negotiated agreements with promoters, who would part with vast sums of money in order to see the their cheaply bought rustic land converted into building land.
Honest councils used the money received from these activities to improve the infrastructure of their towns and villages, while other not so honest politicians improved their own and their family’s bank accounts. Nobody in their right mind, with a minimum of social consciousness, likes to see the destruction of the Mediterranean coast or the spoiling of the Andalucian country side. Therefore clear laws, albeit too late, that regulate the building industry in Andalusia would be welcomed if and when they arrive.

What’s not welcome is the Andalucian Government’s current strategy of persecuting individual property owners, by the use of inquisition like tactics (aided and abetted by the notoriously dense and bureaucratic justice system) to the point that anyone who owns a legal property in the country side could be receiving hefty fines and in some cases demolition orders. What this region really needs (apart from a change in government ASAP) is an amnesty for all individual proprietors who possess a legal Escritura for their property, because the majority bought in good faith (advised by lawyers) and paid their transfer taxes, registration and notary fees.

Although personally I think it is a waste of public money, I understand the need to arrest and try corrupt politicians, speculators and promoters, who have made themselves rich by breaking the vague and confusing existing laws. What I cannot understand is that the weight of the judicial system should fall on individuals and families, most of them from northern European countries, who acted in good faith. The Andalucian government is projecting a banana republic image abroad, which will take a generation to forget, as well as damaging the already tenuous economy of the region.