Paco de Lucía in London and Jimena

Yes, it's 1976, and yes, the genius of Paco de Lucía is on ITV in London.

He also played at one of the last International Music Festivals in Jimena

London, a mosaic of inequalities: how the Spanish media sees Britain's capital

Olympic Torch at Battersea Dog's Home

The Olympic city is full of contrasts between different and separate social classes and a diversity of cultural identities

LONDON The Olympic Torch was carried through 33 of London's boroughs this week, the idea being to show an image of unity and harmony. The reality is very different, however. London is full of contrasts and inequalities, although, together with Paris and Berlin, the capital of the old British Empire is one of Europe's popular cities, having welcomed over 15 million tourists in 2011. This is a generalization of some of the comments offered up by the Spanish media, where the diversity of opinion is as varied as the variety of cultures of London's inhabitants.>>>

Gibraltar is on the agenda for London talks

GIBRALTAR / UK (Agencies) Although the subject is not high on British Foreign Secretary William Hague's list of priorities, he will have to broach it when he meets his Spanish counterpart, José Manuel García-Margallo, next Tuesday in London. The subject, of course, is the dispute about fishing rights in the waters surrounding Gibraltar, which are claimed by Spain. Another thorn in the Spanish side is the visit to the Rock by Prince Edward in July, which Spain sees as 'provocation'. It was Hague's idea that the two should discuss the state of bilateral relations, but the last couple of weeks of tensions, plus a build-up of incidents between the Royal Gibraltar Police and the Guardia Civil that now seemed to have calmed down, have seen Gibraltar creep into and up the meeting's agenda. Britain is also expected to make a formal complaint about the long queues resulting from border controls on the Spanish side.

Royal Gibraltar Regiment guards the Crown Jewels

Photo & text: panorama.gi

LONDON  (Panorama, Gibraltar) While the Royal Gibraltar Regiment has been engaged in public duties in London, much of the focus of attention has been on the soldiers at Buckingham and St James’s Palaces. But a third group of troops, based at the Tower of London, has been performing an equally important task - that of guarding the Crown Jewels. ‘As well as providing two sentries throughout the day, our primary role is to provide a Quick Reaction Force 24 hours a day, 7 days a week,’ explained Sgt Maj Dean Castrey. ‘Every day we carry out clearance patrols where we look for anything out of the ordinary, such as suspicious packages or tourists where they shouldn't be. In our time there haven’t been any incidents but not long ago a unit found a body washed up on the edge of the Thames by the Tower and it isn’t unusual for drunks to try to climb the walls of the Tower during the night.’>>>

Royal Gibraltar Regiment takes up guard duties at Buckingham Palace

(Photo: militaryphotos.net)

LONDON Fifty children from St Anne's Middle School in Gibraltar were amongst the huge crowd that gathered last week to watch the ceremony as the Royal Gibraltar Regiment Band led the regiment's detachment out of Wellington Barracks, in through the huge gates of Buckingham Palace, and onto the centre of the Palace forecourt where they were met by the cheers of the Gibraltar schoolchildren. The RG's scarlet tunics were a perfect match for those of the waiting Guardsmen but their white Kitchener helmets were in sharp contrast to the black bearskins of the Old Guard. (Read the full story on MercoPress)

Flamenco Festival takes London

Top performers also came to the International Music Festival in Jimena, sadly lost

LONDON (New York Times/InTransit/Valerie Gladstone) Feet will be stamped, guitars strummed and cries of love sung as the Flamenco Festival returns to Sadler’s Wells on Tuesday through  Feb. 19. Now one of the city’s most popular festivals, it features the guitarist Vicente Amigo [who came to he International Music Festival in Jimena], the soulful singer José Mercé, and dancers as varied as the formidable, legendary Manuela Carrasco [also came to the Festival] and the young iconoclast, lovely Olga Pericet. On two gala evenings, Carrasco, Pericet, Rafaela Carrasco (no relation) and Carmen Cortés join forces in an explosion of fiery movement, demonstrating the varied forms of today’s flamenco. The Antonio Gades company will also perform the late choreographer’s dramatic, folk dance interpretation of Lope de Vega’s play, “Fuenteovejuna.” At the other end of the spectrum, the young and alternative flamenco group La Shica merges hip-hop, reggae and bossa nova in the experimental piece “Supercop.” “Every year I put together entirely different line-ups so that audiences get an idea of the wide variety of artists now making their mark in flamenco,” said Miguel Marin, the presenter of Flamenco Festival London. “There’s nowhere, other than Spain, where you can see so many different styles and such a high caliber of performer in this art form.” [This festival, with similar lineups, will also be performing in New York, Boston, Miami and other US venues, supported by the Instituto Cervantes]

Spain's Ferrovial bids for Crossrail contsruction project

Farringdon connection - artist's impression

UK/SPAIN (Agencies) Spanish construction company Ferrovial is preparing to become the most important cog in the Crossrail development, one of the largest railway projects currently in Europe. Having been awarded the first contracts at the end of last year, the consortium headed by the Spanish giant has now prequalified for five of the six tenders that Crossrail has put out to build stations in central London. The six contracts amounts to almost €1,700million. The consortium, made up of Ferrovial, Bam Nuttall and Kier Construction, is among those qualified to build stations at Bond Street, Tottenham Court, Whitechapel Station, Paddington and Farringdon, which are due to connect extensively with the rest of the UK transport network.

London, the Spanish Main (Dish)

LONDON/SPAIN It was astonishing to realize that several of the people one knows in Spain, who had until then been thought well-travelled and knowledgeable about food and wine, had never heard of Ferrán Adriá or his restaurant El Bulli (photo), a sort of cathedral for gourmands on the Cost Brava where the waiting list for a table was six months long. Some had vague recollections of having read about him and it, others looked blank. Adriá, of course, is the Spanish chef who, with other innovative colleagues and competitors, created a new cuisine that took the feeding troughs of the rich and famous by storm. Until this year, he had been named the world´s top chef for five years in a row. That's like winning the World Cup five times in succession, or five Wimbledons, or ... you get the picture.>

Gibraltar business trio to raise money at London Marathon

(Gibraltar Chronicle) Three well-known faces within Gibraltar’s business world are about to face their biggest challenge – the Virgin London Marathon on 25 April 2010. The trio of forty-somethings – publican John Hunter of Lord Nelson and O’Reilly’s, Brian Stevendale from Ocean Village and International Boat Show organiser John Wood – all aim to raise as much as they can for charity Mencap. If you would like to sponsor any of them, please click on their names to find the relevant webpages.