GPs are being encouraged to send them on a six-week course, where they will learn to write jokes and perform stand-up routines. A pilot scheme is being launched in Bristol this month, designed to help people suffering from anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress 'see the funny side' of their predicament. The courses are being run by comics including Angie Belcher, who is described as Comedian-in-Residence at Bristol University. She sounds a laugh a minute. (Somehow I didn't expect the NHS ...
Jan 04, 2022
King George III called slavery 'repugnant' in an essay he wrote five decades before he signed Abolition, it has been revealed. The monarch's arguments against trading in human life come in a 200-page manuscript called 'Of Laws relative to Government in general', written while he was under the intellectual mentorship of John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute.
Dec 23, 2021
Dec 21, 2021
Malta has become the first European Union country to legalise cannabis at home and for personal use. MPs approved a legal reform on Tuesday, allowing citizens to grow and possess limited amounts of marijuana. Under the new law, citizens aged 18 and over will be allowed to possess up to seven grams of cannabis, and cultivate up to four cannabis plants at home. Grey amber or whale poo is worth more than its weight in gold, the 1.7 kilogram chunk being worth an estimated €80,000....... Spanish law ...
Dec 16, 2021
December Riot police used water cannons and tear gas on demonstrators to disperse masked protesters who had set fire to plastic bins and rubbish in the street to block the road. Police used water cannons to disperse protesters as thousands of people marched through the streets towards the headquarters of the European Union, shouting 'Freedom! Freedom!' The Pope said while on board the papal plane on return to the Vatican: 'It is something that throughout history has not worked. 'In history, many...
Dec 08, 2021
Birmingham City Football Club offers its respects to little Arthur Labinjo-Hughes..... Supporters at the home match with Cardiff will be invited to pay tribute to Arthur after six minutes — his age, in years, when he died at the hands of his stepmother Families have told of their 'disgust' after trespassers urinated and vomited on the memorial garden for the victims killed in the Manchester Arena terror attack before its official opening. Premier Sanna Marin, 36, was seen enjoying a night out at...
Dec 07, 2021
The fashion world is now seeing its very own Succession moment play out in real life. mirroring the series, which sees a father grooming his children to take control of his empire, Spain's richest man and Zara founder Amancio Ortega has announced his youngest daughter Marta Ortega Perez, 37, will take over as chair of the retailer's parent company Inditex, bypassing her two older siblings. Dogs that are only fed once per day may be less likely to go to develop age-related conditions like gastroi...
Dec 02, 2021
Neil Colbourne joins @vincetracy discussing the UK news including the #Omicron Variant #Barbados now a republic #China #Teenage Gun Killing #ClimateChange #Gender Paygap and #MaleChauvinism
Nov 30, 2021
Edward Snowden, one of the world’s most wanted fugitives, has warned us of what is to come. And it’s already here. This Reuters storey confirms that Amazon is spying on us in such detail that there is no longer any privacy in any aspect of our lives. Ibraheem Samirah, a Virginia lawmaker, has spent a lot of time studying internet privacy issues and openly discussed how to regulate tech firms’ collection of personal data. Nonetheless, he was taken aback when he learned the full extent of the data...
Nov 24, 2021
Hydrogen vehicles will be on the road sooner than expected. Technology giant Bosch recently announced a €1 billion investment in new technology, with the clear goal of putting hydrogen lorries on European highways in the near future. As the world has spent the last two weeks watching COP26 discuss the future of power, technology giant Bosch has identified hydrogen as a huge new trend. According to its research, the European Union market for green hydrogen will be worth more than €40 billion by 2...
Nov 18, 2021
Neil Colbourne discusses the news from UK looking at #LiverpoolBombin #DrinkDriving #Ceicket #EcoWarriors #Santa #BrainwashingChildren #IllegalImmigration #France #Cyclists #AirPollution
Nov 16, 2021
Far from calming down, the conflict between truckers and the government is growing.Yesterday Thursday the Minister of Transport, Raquel Sánchez, said she hoped that the strikeannounced for December 20-22 -just before Christmas- The new measure proposed by the Government to meet Brussels’ demands on pension savings, which involves extending the pension calculation period from the current 25 years to 35 years, would mean a reduction in the benefit of 8,6%, according to a study published on Thursda...
Nov 13, 2021
Keir Starmer risked the wrath of Corbynites today as he hinted at ditching the promise he made during his leadership bid to abolish the House of Lords. The Labour leader pointedly avoided repeating the commitment, instead saying the upper chamber 'certainly needs change'. Yorkshire County Cricket Club are expected to release a damning reportinto allegations of racial abuse at the club as early as Wednesday, with several England internationals fearing they could be implicated.... The National Rai...
Nov 09, 2021
Police are hunting thieves who stole more than 40 exclusive bottles of wine from a famous Spanish restaurant hotel including one worth an estimated £262,000. The Chateau d'Yquem 1806, bought by the owners in an auction more than 20 years ago at Christie's London, was the most valuable of the wines taken. A man in Murcia was shocked to receive his monthly telephone bill showing a total of €19,500. The bill was eventually cancelled by the telephone company after a consumer organisation got involve...
Nov 04, 2021
According to La Razon, Klaudia Tanner asserted that the question was not whether there was going to be a blackout, but rather that “the question is when it will be”. Portugal’s political situation is hanging by a thread. This is after the country’s Socialist Party minority government failed to secure the necessary support from other parties for its 2022 state budget to be approved. As a result, a snap election could well be called by President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, which would be two years ah...
Oct 28, 2021
@vincetracy and @ericmalpus discussed the banner on display at #CrystalPalace where the visitors were #Newcastle. The police have been asked to investigate and have decided no action is necessary
Oct 26, 2021
Counter terrorism officers are tonight leading the investigation into the murder of Tory MP Sir David Amess, as forces across the country are being urged to launch an 'immediate review' of security for politicians. News from Norway as a bow-and-arrow attacker who killed five people in Norway was a Muslim convert who was known to police for radicalisation, officers have said, as they revealed he escaped arrest before going on to kill five people. Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of the Social...
Oct 15, 2021
A neo-Nazi march in Madrid has created concern over the rise of homophobia in Spain. Around 200 people gathered on Saturday in the gay- friendly neighborhood of Chueca, known as the center of Spain’s annual Pride celebrations...... set off flares, carried signs with far-right symbols and expressed their contempt for unaccompanied migrant minors and migrants more broadly. ............ Sources from the central government’s delegation in Madrid said it had authorized the demonstration on the unders...
Oct 01, 2021
The President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sanchez, stood up before the plenary session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York today, Thursday, September 23, and warned that he believes “democracy is threatened”, calling for its “defence”, as the only alternative against any totalitarian, exclusive and intolerant drift”.
Sep 25, 2021
LOW KEY celebrations for Gibraltar National Day September 10 2021 due to the aftermath of the pandemic. Traditionally, Gibraltar makes a huge show of celebrating National Day with thousands of locals and visitors teeming into Casemates Square wearing red and white to listen to speeches and enjoy musical entertainment as they celebrate their identity.
Sep 13, 2021
SPAIN must urgently change its rules on how much British pensioners need to earn to live there or its economy will suffer badly, a leading ex-pat said to The Express. Speaking from the Expat Centre in Costa Blanca South, Moira Carmenate said she was “surprised” that Spain hadn’t dropped its requirement for pensioners to prove an annual earning of more than £21,000 (€24,697). Spain is a second home to many criminal groups, in particular the Italian mafia. The recent arrests of two mafia bosses hi...
Aug 29, 2021
A 600.000 euro bill to replace burned containers in Valencia angers city officials because the money could be better used elsewhere. In the last two years 518 containers in Valencia have been destroyed in acts of vandalism, 278 standard, gray containers, 165 containers for paper and cardboard, and 75 for plastic. According to the City Council, most of them were burned. The search for quality land in the Province is reminiscent of the days of land grabs in the United States, with various companie...
Aug 27, 2021
Spain is the number one country for Erasmus exchange students, and Valencia University is Europe’s most desired university… Valencia has become a favourite among European students participating in the Erasmus exchange programme, according to European Commission data. In the municipality of Tijarafe, on the island of La Palma, one of the Canary Islands, located among pine and almond trees in the northwest corner of the island, you can discover one of the most incredible sights, Poris de Candelari...
Aug 06, 2021
The price of electricity in Spain has been rising for more than a year, but on July 21st 2021, it reached a new historic high of €106.57 / MWh, according to data from the Iberian Electricity Market Operator (OMIE). This amid an economic crisis due to the Covid-19 pandemic and a national heatwave, has dealt another blow to Spanish pockets and has caused a wave of complaints. SPANISH town of Otero de Sanabria gets its own AVE train station for its 24 inhabitants Alfonso Fernandez Mañueco, the Pres...
Jul 24, 2021
From July 1, the European Union is going to put into use a “coronavirus passport” that will allow its citizens to travel across the 27-country bloc without the need for quarantines – assuming the epidemiological situation does not take a new turn for the worse. The “EU Digital Covid Certificate,” as the scheme is known, is seeking to standardize the documents issued by each country so that they can be recognized by each member.
Jun 17, 2021
Nuria Montes, general secretary of Hosbec, the hoteliers association of Benidorm and the Costa Blanca, made a scathing attack of the UK’s criteria for classifying countries in their traffic light system and accused Prime Minister Boris Johnson of protectionism. Emiliano García-Page, president of Castilla-La Mancha, has said that his government is planning to end the compulsory use of face masks outdoors in the region by July. According to a recent study published in early April 2021, by research...
Jun 01, 2021
Eitan Biran, five, the sole survivor of a horror cable car crash in Italy which killed his parents,brother and great-grandparents, was protected by father Amit who 'wrapped his son in aninstinctive embrace', medics said........plus much more news from Spain and UK
May 25, 2021
The trends are clear. Eurostat has studied 1,216 regions – or provinces in the case of Spain – in 31 countries. Almost nine out of 10 will have a higher average age in 2050 than in 2019. Not all areas will age at the same rate. The fastest aging populations are expected to be those located mainly in Eastern Europe – the Baltic countries, Poland, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria; and southern Europe– Italy, Spain and Portugal. Spain’s Social Security system could be about to change. Negotiations un...
May 18, 2021
Podemos as a party was born from the 2011 citizen movement known as 15-M, a series of protests in response to austerity policies in place at the time and political corruption. The emergence of the group in 2014, led by Iglesias, who back then was a university professor and television host, shookup the traditional two-party system in Spain. In 2019, Podemos joined forces with the United Left (IU) and Equo, to create Unidas Podemos ahead of a general election that year. In Spain, large groups of r...
May 13, 2021
The Italian government expects its debt to rise above 159.5 percent of GDP later this year, the highest figure in a century. To support its members the EU has agreed to a €672.5billion (£585billion) rescue package named the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF)......and lots more
May 04, 2021
