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Notes from Zahara de Los Atunes.

by Doctor Beard

Bad vibes in the supermercado. Godzilla in Gibraltar, burger bars and English tequila freaks.

Tuesday 12th September. 12.50am.

The moon is shining down on the mountainside in front of me and the cool night air is alive with the sound of insects. Big ones too. Great shiny black Gria's, Grasshoppers and Scorpions. A few lights from houses dot the steep incline up the mountainside. Like little T.V's into other people's lives, the lives of the rich and successful Spanish and the silent majority of secretive Germans. A small German colony that is completely secretive to the locals of the area. There is definitely a deep sense of suspicion in the Spanish community here towards these people.

After speaking to various people in the area I could soon see why. According to the locals, the German population slowly appeared here just after the Second World War soon establishing a prominent German community on the mountainside in Zahara de Los Atunes. They even have two German terrestrial television channels in that area. Two music channels, one that blasts out the very latest in angry rock and alternative music for all those depressed and confused teenage angst victims. The other is full of dance and black music. A twenty-four hour masturbation tool full of gyrating oily women in bikinis and loads of half naked, six pack men singing about being a nigger, packing and being down.

Today the German population has totally isolated themselves, from what I could see the two times I have been here. Occasionally you see them on the beach, or in the supermarket, or maybe even a bar. And it's in places like that that you can plainly see the disgust from both sides of life. A German couple I watched in a supermarket literally lifted people out of their way just to get to the door, the entire staff frozen in disbelief at the sheer superior arrogance of this evil piece of white shit. I would have said something but my usually heavily twisted state got the better of me yet again and my brain didn't even register the situation until he and his young, mean, pinched faced girlfriend were well out of the door.

But I'm not here to talk about evil rich young German men assaulting the locals in supermarkets. Hell no. There are more important things afoot here that should be spoken about. I'm sat in the cool night air with beer and smokes and Buffalo Springfield is playing on the tape box. The late summer moon lights up the patio and Geckos are scurrying about all around me. Big white looking ones that sit on the wall and stare at you for hours without moving a muscle.

Probably not even sixty miles Southeast of here lies an ecological time bomb waiting to burst from its sleepy moorings like a giant black Godzilla and generally fuck things up around this coastline for about the next four hundred years. The British nuclear submarine Tireless sits in Gibraltar dock crippled after its limp all the way on auxiliary power from the seas around Sicily on the 19th of May this year. According to Royal Navy statements issued on the 18th of May, whilst operating in the Mediterranean sea around Sicily and North Africa, the nuclear submarine Tireless had to shut down its nuclear reactor. The reasons for this according to Captain Carney of the Royal Navy were that there was "a leak in the coolant water from the nuclear reactor." On the 19th of August the Tireless submarine appeared at Gibraltar harbour. No one seems to know what is happening with the submarine, especially not the British government. Or at least they are not saying.

Yet Tony Blair's blase attitude and deliberate fob off of the Spanish press is a downright joke. He seems to be treating these people as second rate uneducated Okie fools. This is wrong. The one thing I have noticed about the Spanish people in the few years I have known them is that they will not take any shit. Hell, who would after forty years of Franco?

And Tony Blair's evil grinning face spilling into Spanish homes from almost constant television news coverage is like jabbing a rabid dog with a cattle prod. It's only a matter of time before the bastard will bite back.

The Spanish Ecological group Voice of Gibraltar are going crazy as a shroud of secrecy has fallen over the Gibraltar dock in the last four months and Tony Blair's regular visits to Spain are greeted with more and more protest. Yet as this news goes out all over Spain, in England there is nothing. No mention whatsoever of the mass protests in the street that greet Tony Blair every time he gets off a plane over here.

And with the BSE-CJD crisis slowly sweeping across the continent, with blame falling on the English where this first showed it's ugly face over four years ago, Tony Blair is probably the most unpopular Brit. in Spain at the moment. Which you can take as bad or good really. For me it raises a smile every time I think about it.

The man that waltzed his way into power under the ruse of a working mans politician. He wanted to be a goddamn rock star at college. Lying his way to the top with promises of tax cuts and better health and education services. All that ended up in nothing but hot air, wasted words that are soon forgotten in the sedated land of Great Britain.

The mood in Zahara de Los Atunes is no better than anywhere else across the coastlines of Gibraltar, Andalusia, La Linea, Algeciras and the heavily populated Costa Del Sol. There is talk full of fear about what would happen if this thing leaked. What if it has already leaked? How much damage would this cause?

For these people the ocean is their livelihood and four hundred years with an irradiated coastline would definitely not do anyone any good. For a start you could kiss goodbye to most of the worlds tuna supply, as this is one of the main areas where it comes from. Hence the name of this village I am sat in under the stars, drinking beer and smoking a local blend supplied by a group of extremely friendly Moroccans. No sir, this is indeed a bad situation for all concerned.

The general feeling I've interpreted from various station broadcasts on the television here is that the people of south Spain don't want this ecological monstrosity here, they fear it. They feel that England is dumping its problems in Gibraltar and it'll be the Spanish, not the English, who will suffer if something goes wrong.

The Voice of Gibraltar was quoted as saying, "We only seem to be here for the problems like nuclear submarines, that nobody wants."

Keith Vaz, the Junior Minister at the Foreign Office answered in response. He was quoted as saying in extremely arrogant terms, "It's not quite on their doorsteps, I am sure it will remain in the water."

He followed with, "It is here because it is here and that is the end of the matter s far as I am concerned."

The Spanish people definitely don't trust Tony Blair and the demonstrations have already started in Gibraltar since the middle of August. And from what I saw the clashes between demonstrators and police were already getting violent. The vibe in Gibraltar is getting down right ugly.

And Britain isn't listening to a damn word the Spanish people and government is saying. They feel Britain is dumping it's problems in Gibraltar with no thought for the safety or well being of the people it would directly affect if something did happen. Which is kind of ironic when a spokesman for the Royal Navy was recently quoted as saying, "The submarine service has operated nuclear submarines safely for more than forty years and it has stressed that the safety of the public and serving Royal Navy personnel is of paramount importance."

Tony Blair ensures the ravenous television reporters that there is "no cause for alarm". Nothing is going to happen because the Submarine has docked for routine checks, nothing more. This may be true, but then why all the security? Why all the blatant refusals to answer anyone's questions?

For some reason I get the feeling the British Government are facing the firing squad and there is only so long you can string out your last request, that last cigarette or glass of gin. Time is running out for Tony Blair and the Spanish people are becoming increasingly impatient for his next call to the television cameras to fob off more questions.

One thing the British government has underestimated though is the Spanish people themselves. They are not like the subdued British public, complacent to sit by as spectators in their own lives and watch as their country crumbles around them. Fuck no. Like I said before, these people endured forty years of Franco and foiled a military take-over in nineteen eighty-two who wanted to go back to the old ways of the fascist dictatorship. Before we knew what had hit us they would be beating our monarchy out on Pall Mall with large clubs and screaming for the blood of every politician in the country. Just think of it man.

No, if they want to calm these people they had better be seen to be starting some serious action soon. Either limp it back to a port in England, start looking like they are trying to fix it, or at least start levelling with the people about what the problem is and giving out iodine pills. And if it is what the people of Zahara and the other villages and towns of the area around here think, then they really should have this submarine isolated in one way or another, rather than having it in direct contact with the open ocean.

Gibraltar is a Z berth dock which basically means a nuclear submarine should not even dock here let alone hold up for repairs. But during the time I have been here the Commander of British Forces, Commodore Andrew Willmet, has decided that the Gibraltar dock will now be upgraded to an X berth, a dock that is allowed to repair nuclear submarines.

But no, instead our government prefers to leave everyone in the dark especially the British public, thus creating a more hostile situation, as the people trust Tony Blair less each day.

The people across this coastline rely on the sea for all their work. Firstly for the good fishing and secondly Tourism. Although many English people may not know of Zahara de Los Atunes, it is a popular resort for the Spanish, German and Dutch. In my time here I did encounter several British holiday groups, both occasions were extremely embarrassing on a nationality level. Firstly I met an English woman in a Moroccan friends shop. She was burnt and wearing very little. She asked me where the nearest burger bar was.

"A burger bar? Here, in Zahara? Are you crazy woman?" I said.

I instantly lost my temper with this woman. Being confronted by a complete Ibiza tourist in the depths of a peaceful hash den is not relaxing material in my eyes. Hell no thank you very much. The Moroccan shop owners were laughing at this woman and she knew it, but she persisted for a minute more asking, "well, what am I going to eat?" hoping this would help the situation but instead made the Moroccans fall about laughing. She spun on her heals and left the shop humiliated and fuming. What with all the fine restaurants here, some of the finest fish and meat in Spain and this wretched piece of package holiday trash wanted a goddamn Burger King. Maybe she'll get robbed down a back alley I thought or get into a vicious argument with a taxi driver because he can't speak much English and end up be carted off by stoned police officers to rot in some stinking cell for the night.

The next encounter was in a hotel bar hidden in the slow incline of Zahara's mountainside. I sat watching a group of British tourists getting slowly drunk, from their accents I'd say they were from Essex or Kent. They were mixing white tequilas with beer and several bottles of white wine. The first thing that hit me was their immense stupidity to the tequila slammer. They were unsure as to what came first.

"I think its Tequila, lemon then salt."

"No, I think you should have the lemon first."

And it went on like that all night. I sat and knocked back several Tequila gold's with my beer and my girlfriend sipped her way through a large gin. Then the finale. The bartender brought six glasses with a bottle of clear liquid on a silver tray. He told the English group that the bar was closed and there was no more tequila, which was a lie as it was only one in the morning and I had just ordered another tequila and a beer at the bar not five minutes before.

The drink was called Arujo and incredibly potent. The bartender poured six generous glasses telling the English group that this was the local drink and it was all he had left to give them.

We sat back and watched as these six young, upwardly mobile people knocked back this foul smelling local moonshine. I had been sat over fifty yards away and I could smell it as they downed them in one. Definitely a smell close to petrol. As the bartender left them unable to speak, he stopped at our table and told us they always give the stupid drunk English this to make them feel like lizards with liver fluke and scales on their tongues in the morning. Apparently according to the bartender this was common practice when it comes to drunken tourists. Just tell them it's the local drink and away they go. Later that night a king hell thought crossed my mind. Thousands of twisted bartenders feeding the tourists booze to deliberately make them ill. Across the coasts of Spain, maybe even the world. Wonderful. An army of booze server's hell bent on destroying tourists holidays with heavy doses of drink that would be best used as window cleaner or disinfectant for soiled toilets. If you want my advice, when they offer you the local drink from the area, wherever it is in the world, don't accept it. Just tell them bluntly, "I'm not falling for that one."

But we seemed to have drifted from the subject again. I was talking about fishing and tourism and somehow I've ended up with deranged barmen and foul drinks. Lets get back to the point at hand.

Zahara de Los Atunes has its tourism and there are even more hotels and holiday homes this year than in 1999, but the Ibiza syndrome hasn't hit here yet and I hope to God it never will. That's why I'm here. A place to get away from the hellish society England has become. The everyday face of office life, politics and the hatred and mistrust that comes with it. There was something my girlfriend said to me once that really stuck and that was the everyday sickness in British working life, all the hierarchies of the office world, the abuse of power and general lack of respect to the lower staff, the ones who in my eyes generally do the work or make the product. All this is just a reflection of the country its self and the governing bodies in it. But don't think about that now, just sit back, smoke a few and drink beer and tequilas under the moon and stars. Get sun stoned on the beach and hurl yourself into the Atlantic Ocean for a freezing jolt to the system. A perfect escape from the blistering mid-day sun.

Zahara de Los Atunes is a truly beautiful place, probably one of the most stunning places I have ever visited and it would be a king hell crime to loose this place due to some arrogant floundering government officials in Britain who failed to pull their finger out in time. And all because of some post cold war death machine, which have no real purpose anymore, or at least shouldn't have any purpose anymore, not in this day and age. To tell you the truth, I thought we would have evolved a little more than that in the twenty first century. The fact that we are still playing political games with tin cans under the oceans of the world with enough radioactive material in them to lay waste to hundreds of miles of coastland and vast areas of sea seems absurd.

And now the holiday is coming to a close. Still plenty left to smoke and drink.

It's 1.30am and the emporado-boracho state is taking its toll. Ween is blasting from the tape box. My scrawled handwriting seems to be jumping all over the page and there seem to be bugs and spiders crawling everywhere. I think it could be time for relaxed dreams of untouched, sun-drenched coastlines and drift into a comfortable sleep. All I can hear sat here on the veranda is the sea crashing onto sandy shores nearby and the constant chorus of the insects on the mountainside. Yes, indeed, a truly wondrous place. Let's not lose it or any place like it wherever it may be.

Doctor Beard signing off.

 
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