Editorial:
August 15th was the national Assumption holiday. A good excuse for a party if ever there was one. The summer season is on its final lap. The Assumption itself is a little obscure – it’s the belief that the Virgin Mary was taken body and soul into heaven at the end of her life without her body decaying on Earth. The rest of us can only raise a glass to this excellent news, so we do.
Many cities and towns in Spain have their fiestas patronales in the second half of August. Málaga has its fair along with Bilbao, Vitoria, San Sebastián, Almería and many others. If the festival is based on a saint’s day, which it is, it would be churlish of the City Fathers not to spread it across a couple of days, or a week maybe – or perhaps even longer. A quick procession and a Holy Mass by all means, but then some fireworks, speechifying, a mini-marathon (in this heat!), some pop concerts, exhibitions, horse and carriage stuff, perhaps some bullfights, a magic show for the kids, late night dancing and plenty of bunting in the main square.
Seriously though, you can’t fit that all into one day, can you?
There are some standout festivals going on, including the one where everyone throws tomatoes at each other in Buñuel (Valencia) on August 26, the Festa Major de Gràcia in Barcelona (current) and then our own modest fiesta here in my pueblo in celebration of San Agustín de Hipona (who I have to say that no one has ever heard of) on August 28th. Now, that’s a Friday, so we have lengthened the revelry (jolgorio in Spanish) to cover the weekend, plus the two preceding days, giving us in all five sublime days and noisy nights.
This sees us comfortably through to August 30th, which in happier times would mean the end of the hols and the beaches once again available for those of us who consider ourselves residents.
September, unfortunately, no longer means ‘they’ve all gone, three cheers!’. But the weather at least is slightly cooler, so we may be feeling a fraction more generous towards our visitors.
You can’t have a santo in a Spanish pueblo without a santa – usually but not always la Virgen María. Our own – celebrated (a trifle less noisily than the August thrash) – is la Virgen del Rosario on October 7th (where the Spanish army prayed for victory in 1571 to the Virgen María against the Ottomans). There’ll be a picnic (una romería) in the countryside plus some events down at the Barrio de la Fuente.
A local fiesta should, and I think that the clue here is in the name, be for the local folk. These days, there are so many visitors (all clutching their telephone cameras) that we tend to get pushed to the back. The free paella gets gobbled by people from Madrid, Manchester or München; the tin-bar in the square has run out of sausages; the carpark is full and I must walk half a mile to get to the bus stop. The local businesses (including the disturbingly large number of souvenir shops) – are making out like bandits, and meanwhile the cops are stopping the live music in the foreign bars along the beach at 7.30pm.
In short, the fiestas are a time for dressing up, eating sticky buns (with a certain amount of care), dancing in the village square with the grandchildren and taking lots of selfies.
Once it’s over, there are other celebrations not so far away. You’ll hear the thunder-flashes.
I’ll have to check my engagements, but our local market town of Vera has theirs, (San Cleofás – never heard of him either) in just a few weeks from now.
Housing:
Idealista has: ‘City or coast? Where are the most expensive homes in Spain? The Barrio de Salamanca (Madrid) and Costa d'En Blanes (Calvià) top €10,000/m² as luxury home prices rise in Spain's prime urban and coastal markets’. Other expensive city neighbourhoods and the Spanish Gold Coast – districts within Mallorca, Ibiza and the Costa del Sol – are listed.
‘The Valencian Community sells more homes to foreigners than Madrid and Catalonia combined. The region leads in absolute sales to clients from outside Spain in the second quarter, with 7,800 transactions’. Found at Las Provincias here.
Mark Stücklin from Spanish Property Insight reports that ‘Funcas (a financial think-tank) in a new report, argues that Spain’s housing problem is fundamentally one of inadequate supply, not excessive demand. For more than a decade, the country has built fewer homes than needed to accommodate new households, creating a structural shortage that is now estimated at around 750,000 homes...’
Once you’ve turned the bedrooms into separate rents, what else can you do to squeeze extra money out of your spare apartment? Well, says Infobae, the communal sitting-room could go. It would make an extra income, and anyway, the tennants can always meet up in the kitchen. An average ‘room’ these days (we are talking cities) is 500€ a month.
Sekdoor, a company which wants to sell you protection against squatters, says: ‘Illegal occupation remains one of the most pressing concerns for private property owners, businesses, and public administrations in 2025. Beyond the media hype, the data confirms that it is a persistent phenomenon, evolving unevenly across different regions, and with an economic and social impact that cannot be ignored…’ By region, it says, Catalonia has some 43% of the okupas, followed by Andalucía at 14%. It divides occupation into four types: 1. Ocupación por necesidad (vulnerables) being the majority – nowhere else to go, usually unfinished or abandoned buildings; 2. Ocupación mafiosa (organizada) – where there’s a need, there’s a business; 3. Ocupación exprés (allanamiento) – break-ins; and 4. “Inqui-okupas” (impago del alquiler) – tenants in arrears.
A plan to build 488 chalets in Llíber (Marina Alta, Alicante) hits a snag. There’s no water.
Tourism:
Tourist numbers are growing and Spain sets its sights for 100 million foreign visitors in 2026, but it’s also getting warner and warmer and warmer… From Infobae here, ‘Carsten Brzeski, a renowned German economist, warns of the changes in tourism that will transform summer in southern Europe. The chief economist at ING warns that in two years summer tourism in Madrid, Rome and Barcelona will decline due to the increasing frequency of extreme heatwaves’.
According to El Economista here, ‘The French and Italians are getting tired of Ibiza: almost empty beaches and the collapse of tourism are putting the most important sector in the island's economy on alert’.
The Majorca Daily Bulletin brings happier news: ‘…the British holiday market is performing best in Spain and the Balearics this season, so much so, they look set to save the season according to industry sources. Holiday bookings for the Balearics have risen by 36.3 per cent over the past seven days compared with the same period in 2025, and by 3.8 per cent compared with the previous week, according to figures published on Monday by the booking platform Travelgate’.
Seniors:
From The Guardian here: ‘Extreme heat is more dangerous for people aged sixty and over than was previously thought. A study finds older adults could face harmful heat stress at just 1.5ºC of warming above preindustrial levels’.
Politics:
elDiario.es has an essay on ‘The international far-right's agenda is hijacking Spanish politics. National priorities, deregulation, the unborn, electoral fraud... the major issues that the far right is pushing worldwide have become the focus of national debate, fuelled by the pacts between the PP and Vox and the legislative proposals of Isabel Díaz Ayuso’.
From Straits Times here: ‘Spain rejects discussing sovereignty of enclaves with Morocco. The status of the North African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla as Spanish territories is not up for discussion, Spanish officials said last week, after Morocco's justice minister reiterated Rabat's sovereignty claims over the cities’. You watch out, says Santiago Abascal, Sánchez will hand them over to the Moroccans (says the ludicrous El Español here).
There could be anything between 8,000 and 10,000 migrants still in Ceuta says the irate city president Juan Jesús Vivas, insisting that the Government must resolve the issue.
Europe:
From The iPaper here: ‘British expats would lose benefits under Reform welfare ban for foreign nationals. Under the terms of Brexit the EU could launch economic retaliation over the plan, Farage has been warned’. Take this to the extreme, the UK and the EU would one day be exchanging citizens at the Dover/Calais crossing. There are 1,300,000 Brits living in Europe – has Nigel Farage planned a huge settlement for us in drafty Nissen Huts erected on the Salisbury Plain?
From the Turkish Yeni Şafak here: ‘Israel wants civil war in Europe. The Israeli Minister of Diaspora Affairs Amichai Chikli stated that the rise of the far right in Europe would lead to significant political shifts, remarking, "We could see civil wars in Europe." Chikli also revealed their intentions by mentioning that they have established close relationships with far-right politicians across the continent, from Spain to France and the UK to the Netherlands’ (‘The links between Vox and Israel have been steadily increasing since 2023’).
Crime and Punishment:
From Cadena Ser here: ‘Blow to inheritance fraud ring in Málaga: three lawyers arrested for stealing one million euros from deceased elderly folk. The Guardia Civil have arrested three people and is investigating eleven others for a network that falsified documents and wills to steal the estates of victims who died in the Axarquía region’. The fraud was committed by these lawyers against the estates of deceased foreign residents.
Media:
Granada: ‘Spain holiday hotspot rocked by 5.0 magnitude earthquake as tourists flee with homes damaged. The incident occurred in the Spanish city on Saturday morning with an emergency declared’. The breathless headline comes from the Manchester Evening News here. Following this, several more earthquakes hit the city on Tuesday morning, including one of 4.7 on the Richter Scale. El Plural reporting ‘Six earthquakes in one hour shake Granada, injuring three’. The worry is that more quakes might be on the way.
The Guardian asks: ‘Who is the real Pedro Sánchez? and what lessons can Andy Burnham learn from his tenure?’
A reminder: if a page-link doesn’t open properly on your screen, then simply copy the code, open https://archive.ph/ and paste.
Ecology:
From The Olive Press here: ‘Heatwave breakthrough: Spanish scientists develop material that cools buildings by more than 10C without electricity. It’s based on a polymer called PVDF, which is particularly good at releasing heat as infrared radiation. It is also resistant to ultraviolet radiation and moisture, which means its water-repellent surface can help it stay clean outdoors. To improve its ability to reflect sunlight, the researchers treated the material with ultraviolet radiation, effectively turning it whiter and increasing its reflectivity…’ The researchers say the technology is still at an early stage, with more work needed before it can be used commercially.
From Google AI: ‘Spain is experiencing an exceptionally severe and historic wildfire season in 2026, with nearly 300,000 hectares burned—a figure more than 200% above the 20-year average. Driven by relentless heatwaves exceeding 42°C, low humidity, and strong winds, the country declared a national emergency in late July as massive blazes forced the evacuation of over 80,000 people’. 20Minutos notes that the increasingly intense and frequent periods of drought play a significant role, which is especially dangerous when these coincide with negligent behaviour, and warns that in extremely dry conditions, a single act of carelessness is enough to cause a fire to spiral out of control.
Público makes the point about cutbacks in fire-prevention. ‘The economist Julen Bollain paints a picture of the PP's handling of the wildfires: "They cut funding for prevention and then look for a scapegoat in Sánchez."’.
Various:
From El País here: ‘Fascist squads against insecurity in Valencia. The far-right party España 2000 disguises itself as an NGO – ‘the Angels of the Night’ – to patrol the city's barrios with the highest immigrant populations’.
Federico García Lorca was executed ninety years ago this week. His remains have never been discovered. From BBC News (en castellano) here: ‘No matter where you are in Spain, there's a mass grave within 50 kilometres. There are around 6,000 of them across the country, according to Spanish government data. More than 11,000 people remain buried in them, unidentified, executed during the Civil War (1936-1939) that ravaged the European country or during the subsequent repression of Francisco Franco's regime.
These are the government figures. But experts estimate that the number could be between 20,000 and 25,000. Among all these mass graves, there is one in particular that has been searched for decades without success. It is the one where the remains of the Granada-born poet and playwright Federico García Lorca lies…’
The magnificent sleight-of-hand card magician Juan Tamaríz has passed. Here he is on the famous TV show Un, Dos, Tres back in 1993.
Finally:
Pepe Viciana Quartet In a sentimental mood #bassclarinet on YouTube here. Pepe played an afternoon concert with Antonio Gómez guitar at the Delfos in Mojácar on Sunday. Sublime!
Si (
No(
