Euro Weekly News - Costa de Almeria 18 - 24 July 2019 Issue 1776

46
EWN 27 June - 3 July 2019 www.euroweeklynews.com FEATURE
NORA JOHNSON
BREAKING NEWS
Nora is the author of popular psychological
suspense and crime thrillers and a freelance
journalist.
To comment on any of the issues raised in her column, go to
www.euroweeklynews.com/3.0.15/nora-johnson
I WAS, as you’d expect, minded to write
about the Middle East this week or, if not
that, the UK PM wannabes or, failing that, the
latest gaffe/threat of the Trump regime, but
fortunately I came across a story of real AND
international importance.
The story I spotted was that scientists have
discovered that coffee doesn’t just keep you
alert; it keeps you alive. As little as two cups
of coffee a day can raise your life expectancy
by as much as TWO years, reducing the risk
of cancer, heart problems and even neurodegenerative
brain diseases. Wow!
Well, not exactly another MOBO study
(Masters Of the Bleeding Obvious), but I’d
really love to read the methodology section of
this ‘research.’ What nonsense, and how did
they come up with such a random number
even if TWO years is in anyway believable.
Walking every day will do that for you and
more. And it’s ridiculous to ignore the number
of other variables in someone’s dietary
habits and lifestyle to focus simply on a single
item.
And next week: too much coffee will be
bad for your haemorrhoids! Just what ARE
these researchers drinking to come up with
Hey, wake up! Study uncovers
yet more useless bits of research!
such conclusions? Nonetheless, I love coffee
so I’m just going to accept it. Now all I need
is to find studies with similar conclusions on
alcohol and dairy...
So, along with fake news and fake facts,
we also have this so-called scientific ‘research’
from which scientists take the facts
they like best, gently and carefully manipulate
them, ignoring anything ‘inconvenient’ or
likely to give a contrary impression. Paid for
by big business with highly trained professionals
happy to do anything for the money.
In the end, it’s all about telling porkies, isn’t
it? And telling porkies can even be extremely
profitable these days.
In other news, researchers discover a link
A CUPPA A
DAY: Does it
keep death’s
door away?
between the Pope and Catholicism. And the
Marriage Foundation says marriage is good
for you. Well, who’d have thought?
As always, I am available to solve any of
the world’s remaining problems, for a small
fee (#piousface)...
Nora Johnson’s psychological crime
thrillers ‘Betrayal,’ ‘The Girl in the Woods,’
‘The Girl in the Red Dress,’ ‘No Way Back,’
‘Landscape of Lies,’ ‘Retribution,’ ‘Soul
Stealer,’ ‘The De Clerambault Code’
(www.nora-johnson.net) available from
Amazon in paperback/eBook (€0.99;£0.99)
and iBookstore. All profits to Costa del Sol
Cudeca cancer charity.
LEGALLY SPEAKING
Can they pay the president?
I live on an urbanisation of 100 properties.
Only 12 properties are inhabited by permanent
residents. Seven of these have previously acted
as president. At the end of this year our president and
vice president are standing down and there are no
volunteers for the positions. We were informed at our
last AGM that, if there were no volunteers, the names
of permanent residents who had not previously been
president would be grouped together. One of these
would then be randomly selected to take over the duties
of president for one year. This would be a random
selection from five names. As owners who are nonresident
are equally responsible for the community,
should their names also be legally included in this selection?
N K (Costa Blanca)
Of course it
is better for the
president to be a
full-time resident
DAVID SEARL
YOU AND THE
LAW IN SPAIN
of Spain, but you are right. The absentee owners
must share the responsibility. Here is an idea. Recent
changes in the law allow for community presidents to
be paid for their services. Perhaps the offer of a
stipend in the amount of community fees would attract
some volunteers to be president
Send your questions for David Searl through lawyers
Ubeda-Retana and Associates in Fuengirola at
Ask@lawtaxspain.com, or call 952 667 090.
Are we easy targets?
MIKE SENKER
IN MY OPINION
Views of a
Grumpy Old Man
mikesenker@gmail.com.
LAST week the BBC announced they were
scrapping free TV licences for over 75s except
those receiving pension credits. The BBC was
told that it could increase the licence fee if it
covered free TV licences for over 75s, but
now seem to have broken the terms of that
deal. How do they get away with it? They
made a deal, that’s it.
Anyway they have got away with it, but
they shouldn’t and the government shouldn’t
let them. It was probably always going to happen
with scumbag, lying politicians and a
massive corporation involved. But it doesn’t
have to happen. If I was in charge this is how I
would solve it.
Advertisements. In this day and age every
single bit of media exists because of advertising.
It’s not the dark ages for goodness sake.
I’m not even talking about normal advertising
like ITV or many other stations. One idea is
that every programme is sponsored by one
company.
They already do product placement. It
would stop the silly bits of duct tape on people’s
hats, sweatshirts etc. I mean, how daft is
that anyway? Another way it could be funded
is by taking the lead from many apps that you
have on your ‘phone. Have BBC Premium,
which keeps it advert free and you pay the licence
fee that you pay now or even charge a
bit more.
Or have BBC Light, which is free, but has
ad breaks like the other 500 TV channels I
have now. But either way the 75+ group
wouldn’t have to pay. It really annoys me
how often this type of thing happens to OAPs.
Is it just we’re easy targets and believed to be
of no use to them?
By now everybody knows my thoughts
about Donald Trump and I know that his hard
core followers think he can do no wrong, but
even ignoring his lies, his racist, homophobic,
misogynistic remarks and his all-round, just
plain ignorance he has manged to sink to a
new low.
He is now re-tweeting Katie Hopkins in his
ramblings and if you don’t know how bad that
is, google Katie Hopkins. Here’s a small resume.
She’s the one that was fired from LBC
in the UK after a tweet that called for a ‘final
solution’ to Islamic terrorism, which, some
suggested, was a reference to the extermination
of Jewish people by Hitler. I don’t think
anything else has to be said about her but it
just confirms my feelings about Trump.
Pause for self-assessment
A FEW weeks ago we were highly impressed
to find ourselves driving along a very new section
of dual-carriageway on the main 900km
highway from Dar-Es-Salaam, Tanzania to
Nairobi in neighbouring Kenya.
This, the primary route in Tanzania, carries a
vast amount of highly diverse traffic, little of
which would have any chance of passing the
Spanish ITV, on a poor-quality, pot-holed road
with few crash-barriers protecting even the
most extreme roadside chasms, and frequent,
utterly vicious speed-humps, so that attaining
an average speed above 50 kph is quite challenging.
The appearance therefore of this new 14km
section of dual-carriageway between Kilimanjaro
and Arusha, just as dusk was falling after a
hard day’s driving, was a welcome relief, allowing
an immediate increase in speed. But
not for long! Surely that couldn’t be headlights
approaching in our lane, could it?
But yes it was; and we just managed to
squeeze back into the line of traffic we’d been
passing, before a bus, two lorries, several cars
and an assortment of miscellaneous other traffic
thundered by in the opposite direction!
How dangerous was that? But I later gathered
that for many, the four lanes of a dual carriageway
are treated with flexibility; if your carriageway’s
busy, then it makes sense (to the
East-African mind anyway) to cross the central
reservation and use the spare capacity of the
other lanes!
There was an acknowledgement by most I
spoke to that it was wrong and potentially dangerous
for anyone else to drive the wrong way
down a dual carriageway, but pretty well everyone
reserved the right for themselves to do so if
circumstances made it beneficial for them. But
before being too critical, isn’t there just a little
of this logic in each and every one of us?
How often we condemn the wrongdoing or
‘sin’ we see in others, whilst finding excuses to
justify our own failings. How much we could
all benefit from a little bit of honesty in our
own self-evaluation, with the words of the ancient
confession: ‘We have left undone those
things which we ought to have done; And we
have done those things which we ought not to
have done; And there is no health in us.’
Duncan Burr is Licensed Lay Reader for the Anglican Chaplaincy
of Costa Almeria and Costa Calida (further detail available at
www.mojacarchurch.org) and may be contacted at
d.burr@albox-online.net