Using the crystal ball ...

CampoPulse will be updated less frequently than usual this month - Prospero is having to re-do all his paperwork (see, I told you: never get ill in August in Spain) but this time with and by the people who know what to do, instead of their substitutes, who don't. Which is why Prosp decided to let things ride until this new month. The details are boring, but we might be able to come up with some sage advice about health cards, and who to see and what to do. In the meantime, we beg your patience... You will see as much advertising as usual because there is a financial commitment in many cases, and believe us, the finances need our full-time support (a donation via PayPal on the sidebar would be very handy... or in the middle of the street, for that matter!)

Coming up on CampoPulse this week, God and the health service willing

Lots of things coming up this week, if possible: the full programme for the Novena at Jimena Estación, the best of all the local 'ferias' (which this is not officially); Can Ceuta and Melilla be compared to Gibraltar?; Is he or isn't he? (is Jimena exMayor José Carracao Chief Minister Fabian Picardo's close advisor and mediator?); Flamenco Festival in Estación de Jimena; latest news on changes to your TV channel availability;>>>

Just an update - and a lot of gratitude

The moral of this story is: Do NOT get ill in August in Spain - but you knew that already. There is no-one to make a decision other than what is written down under 'procedures'. The ball keeps getting passed from one substitute to another, and in the meantime the patient is at risk of ... Never mind, here's Prospero's present condition: there are heart, lung, intestinal, prostrate and other issues involved, but these cannot be determined until he has seen a couple of specialists (see the first paragraph), which appointment dates are imminent  ON THE VERY POSITIVE SIDE (which there always is):>>>

He's not quite all off...

Thanks for asking!

...further to Prospero's item below about being away for a few days, etc. - we can warn you that he's back, at least part of the time. A quick report for those who have posted kind questions and good wishes (yes, Prosp hasn't been werry well) on Facebook and other social media (NOT Twitter), for those who didn't know and for those who don't give a damn anyway: having finally been dragged to the doctor by friends who care, via the emergency (urgencias) department at La Línea hospital, Prosp was seen by a brand new triage person (two days into his ungrateful job) and eventually into the presence of a very nice looking doctor by the name of Laura (had Prosp been feeling better, he would have twirled his newly-grown moustache - to little effect, no doubt). This is a long story to be cut short::>>>

He's off!

Yes, Prospero has been off for years but this time he may well have to be away for a few days. Or not, depending on a much-put-off visit to the doctor and the extent of his hypochondria. So if things other than advertising don't go up here, you will understand. As you well know, Dear Reader, Prospero is very low tech, so things like iPads and 77G phones and the like are not really the thing. Never mind, you'll soon see him back (unless, of course, his hypochondria was right all along...)

Have a good weekend

Enjoy!

Living in a cloud, a CampoPulse facility

It's over there, near the bottom of the sidebar, it's called a cloud list and reflects the number of items labelled under any of the words: the larger the size the more articles on or referring to that subject. (The one marked Jimena is in another colour here only because just checked on it.) If you click on a word that interests you, you will access every item labelled with it, going back several years in most cases. After that, all you have to do is scroll down. Labels for each item in the original article are listed below it. For more serious stuff, click on Law, Property or Business, for example. If you want a laugh, there's always Funnies or Sunday Laughs. Then there's Music, say, or Sex (now, now). Or even a more general label like Spain, or Tarifa, or Sotogrande. Try it, it's fun!

Schools in Andalucía start summer holidays

ANDALUCÍA As the time approaches, we are getting more and more questions about when schools start their summer holidays - that, of course, is why we published (and took a great deal of trouble with) our School Calendar, which has been on the sidebar since the beginning of this school year. If you click on the image here, you can see for yourself. However, it is unlikely that we will be repeating the experience of creating another calendar for the 2013/2014 school year, as the (considerable) effort went entirely unappreciated (and un-donated) by all -except one - of the people who used it.

Why we haven't mentioned Drummer Lee Rigby or Woolwich until now

Unlike most of the world, we haven't seen any images of the appalling assassination that took place in Woolwich last week - and we're not likely to. We haven't mentioned the victim, Drummer Lee Rigby until now. We haven't said anything about any of it for one simple reason: WE SIMPLY REFUSE TO LET THE ('ALLEGED') MURDERERS GET THE PUBLICITY THEY SO MUCH CRAVE. This does not mean we don't care. This does not mean we in any way support the ('alleged') bastards. It means we will not fall into their trap - and we strongly believe that the world's media shouldn't either, no matter how many more sales they can get.

WE'RE BACK ONLINE - AGAIN!!!

An alternative header picture we considered, but the real one won

CampoPulse had been removed because an automatic system thought we were spamming (definition of spam in blogs by Wikipedia here). As we told Blogger (by Google), we wouldn't know how to do that. However, as a precaution, we have asked our commentators to register with one or other of the social media when wanting to make a comment (see what we mean by clicking on Comments below). It was there that the problems began. We apologise for any inconvenience. We will continue to post things on Alberto Bullrich Ward (formerly Prospero Campo on Facebook)

CampoPulse is now on Blog-Connect

CampoPulse is on the German blog listings at Blog-Connect, a very nice fact we discovered when we checked who is looking into your favourite site. This is another proof that many of our readers are not native-English speakers. Indeed our readership includes speakers of French, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Polish, various Arab languages, Turkish, several Malaysian languages, and a lot more. Many of them are looking for information on Spain, particularly in the South, before and after taking a holiday in the area. (Another good reason to advertise here!)

Happy St. Patrick's Day

ALL THE BEST TO OUR MANY IRISH READERS!

Slowly but surely, we're recovering from the enforced hiatus

What Blogger did to our stats

Our faithful readers -and plenty of the unfaithful ones, we notice- will know that Blogger, one of Google's myriad children, had us removed for almost a month. We certainly had withdrawal symptoms, so now we're OD-ing, slowly but also surely. Here are some of the things you may have missed: Estimated electricity bills to disappear in April; Spanish Embassy in London opens employment website; How to pay traffic fines; The state of the Spanish nation; address in Congress; Andalucía has a 'dignified death' law; Are there any defaulting owners in your homeowners association?; Is your fish what it's supposed to be? There are several ways to catch up with your favourite site's posts: you can scroll all the way down till you reach 'OLDER POSTS' and click on that for the next page; you can go to the Archive close to the bottom of the sidebar and click on it, then the month you want, where you'll find everything that went up at that time; you can check the Most Popular Posts (last 7 days) on the sidebar to see what everyone else is looking at; you can turn over and go back to sleep, too, if you like...

WE'RE BACK ONLINE!!!

We got a communication from Blogger this morning: Hello, We have received your appeal regarding your blog http://campopulse.blogspot.com/. Upon further review, we have determined that your blog was mistakenly marked as a TOS (Terms of Service) violator by our automated system and, as such, we have reinstated your blog. We apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused in the meantime and thank you for your patience as we completed our review process. Thank you for understanding. Your sincerely, The Blogger Team.- (At this point, we're glad we didn't publish all the nasty things we were about to ... ) Now all we have to do is catch up, so we still beg your forbearance (nice old word that) and will be fitting items in approximate order of appearance - so keep coming back to scroll down and catch up, too! NOTICE TO ADVERTISERS: Your ads will appear for an extra month at the end of your contract. Please contact us with any questions.

CampoPulse leaves Facebook for Google+

EDITORIAL Alberto Bullrich, Prospero, JimenaPulse and CampoPulse are leaving Facebook. If they'd let us, we would erase everything on there, but they won't, so readers, friends and enemies can still leave messages, posts, etc. there but we won't see them. We have moved to Google+ under Alberto's name, and will learn how to use that, which, believe us, is a steep upward learning curve for him. To view our posts, comments, photos, and so on, go to https://plus.google.com/101640408236537106160/posts then bookmark it. The reasons behind this decision is our increasing level of frustration with Facebook, the inanities posted there, the time it takes to navigate when there are better things to do in a day, etc. etc. In any case, we're hard at work getting another site together for launch this month (God and Internet prevailing) that will eventually swallow up CampoPulse and probably our very own pulse as well. That site -SpainInformer.com still under construction and unavailable for viewing - will also appear separately on Google+.

2013 is here already!

Spain is in a mess: here are some of the reasons

Regular readers will have seen an occasional series on why Spain is in the mess it's in. We, in fact, have been reporting on corruption and other reasons since 2007 (on JimenaPulse back then). We've put some of the series more salient articles on the sidebar for easy access. You will notice that there are only three titled CORRUPTION, but that's mainly because the list would take up the entire sidebar.  You can find them all if you write 'corruption' in the Search facility at the top of the sidebar. Custom-written articles such as these will soon be included on a new website requiring subscription. Watch this space.

Facebook problems force change of address

We have been having enormous problems with Facebook (which we have always HATED but gave in to the 21st century). For some unknown (by us) reason, we can no longer update or even access properly Alberto's timeline, or even his second page called CampoPulse. So we are now posting on Prospero Campo, to which we urge you to switch. We would love to be able to transport all our friends there, but can't, so we would also be very grateful if you would 'friend' and 'like' us on there as well. Just a couple of clicks and we'll be friends forever - or so Facebook would like us to believe. (Thought: is Facebook's dismal stock market behaviour forcing people to leap from their desks, leaving a load of strings unattended? Just wondering.) ('Nother thought: we ain't goin' nowhere near Twitter!) (Yet.)

What's on the boil at CampoPulse?

CAMPO DE GIBRALTAR If the IT gods allow it and technical hitches don't become bitches, this week and next we will be putting up some photos of what's going on at the castle in Jimena, the social scene says hasta pronto, whassup with J.A.W.S., why was a killer doctor allowed out?, new drink laws for the young, prince's Dad sued for allowing his son to handle guns, Factory Guadacorte changes hands, more on William's Way Tunnel fire, new medical coverage restrictions, and a whole lot more.

CLOCKS DO NOT GO BACK THIS WEEKEND!!

Sorry
(c)2012 CampoPulse

OOOOPS! We got it wrong. If you got to your computer earlier than we did this morning, you will have been stunned to discover that your clocks would go back this weekend. Well, they DON'T!! Thanks to one of our early-rising readers, who called to say we had made a mistake. Apologies, we got the month wrong. Chocolate brain, no multi-tasking capabilities ... They go back one hour on the weekend of October 27/28 and we will try to remember that then.