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The Olive Press Podcast ep 2: fake power of attorney stole my home, Nolotil, English fans in Bilbao
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Jun 1, 2025
Welcome to the second ever edition of the new Olive Press Podcast, in which the team discusses the big issues of the week for expats in Spain. Caroline Lips sits with Olive Press owner and publisher Jon Clarke and Digital Editor Walter Finch. This time over we explain the horrifying situation of the Swedish expat whose home was stolen from under her feet by crooks using a fake power of attorney from Colombia. We then discuss our ongoing campaign against the painkiller Nolotil, linked to dozens - or perhaps hundreds - of deaths of Brits, Irish and other north Europeans in Spain over the years. We also run the rule over how 60,000 English football fans fared when they descended upon Bilbao for the Europa League final between Manchester United and Tottenham Hotsputs. And of course much more, please tuck in!
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0:00
somebody took the fake power of attorney from her and stole her home if you don't get them out in the first 48 hours you
0:07
are in deep trouble and I know I would say well if it's not dangerous why is it banned in something like eight out of 10
0:13
countries in Europe the rest is Spain
0:20
welcome to the Rest is Spain podcast by the Olive Press brought to you by Stacial Expat where we discuss the
0:26
issues that matter to expats in Spain i'm joined by John Clark editor of the
0:32
Olive Press and Walt Finch who is the digital editor welcome guys thank you good afternoon so I think we have to
0:39
start with the front page news which is all about this terrible story of poor
0:45
lady who basically had her identity stolen and somebody took the fake power
0:51
of attorney from her and stole her home so tell us more about that and it's remarkable i mean you couldn't make this
0:57
up i've been doing this 20 years now in Spain Caroline and I I just couldn't quite believe it when I heard about it
1:04
and I we looked into the story and bit by bit it did seem to stack up and then
1:10
finally we spoke to a local lawyer and we said "Have you know have you heard about this before?" And he said "You
1:15
know what this is the fourth time in the last year." Shock so it's it seems that
1:21
this is something that's becoming pretty typical so um just in a nutshell
1:26
somebody somehow abroad set up a a fake power of attorney for this woman that
1:32
went through a notary and they actually bought the property from her according to the notary and then the catastral
1:39
which is Spain's official uh um body for it to regulate all property sales has
1:46
now registered that property from this poor woman to somebody else wow but how
1:51
did they make this fake power of attorney how do you do that it's not so easy right if you go back this is
1:57
something that's going to worry lots of people so what happened was they had what they thought was a fairly innocuous burglary in their house and they lost
2:03
their television i think she lost her guitar she lost a few other bits and bobs but what she didn't realize was
2:10
they'd obviously copied her passport they copied the deeds of the property
2:16
they copied obviously other documents so she thought she went to the police and reported what she had stolen and how x
2:24
many thousands that had been stolen went through the insurance did the normal claim and didn't think anything more
2:30
about it meanwhile somewhere in Colombia there were a bunch of thieves who has
2:36
started to piece together all her information and uh creating who knows
2:42
she they may have opened bank accounts for her they may have done many other things for her and you know the end
2:48
result of it is is this um this incredible fake parabatony document that
2:54
is just shocking isn't it i mean how did this story come to you well actually it's interesting that this this woman
3:00
got in touch with us a couple of weeks ago and sent an email said you know I can't believe it I'm in my house that I
3:06
don't own anymore and I've got these guys threatening to kick me out of my house apparently they had they'd come to
3:13
her and they'd sent her WhatsApps and sent her uh actually dropped a document through her door saying "You need to
3:19
leave the property or we're going to get one of these dissoc these anti-quatters groups to come in and kick you out of
3:26
this house cuz it's not your house." Can you imagine how that must feel i guess you're not safe in your own home anymore
3:32
well we hope we are so what do you what's your take on this is this something that the olive press is going
3:37
to explore further and do a campaign about or you know I don't know what you think W I mean this is something that I
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mean interestingly when we spoke to Diego who's the who's the boss of fairway lawyers here on the on the coast
3:50
the first thing he said was yeah we've had three or four of these cases before and then I drilled him down a bit more
3:55
and he told me this morning actually that one of them was in Mexico and involved the purchase of an 800,000 plot
4:01
in Estapona that someone was buying and it went through the notary ies and I think the money had been transferred but
4:08
somehow at the last minute they managed to work out that the money had gone to the wrong place that it was the wrong buyer it was going into the wrong name
4:14
and they were able to reverse it but he said he's going to have a look further into it but he said he's heard this from
4:20
a number of other people this power of attorney thing I mean questions have to be asked of the notaries I mean are
4:26
these guys in on it did we get in touch with the notary for this one the story well why do you have to have notaries in
4:32
the first place I mean we don't in England if you buy a property do you use a I've never met one in England or it just doesn't exist i mean they do
4:39
notoriize documents in England i mean it does happen doesn't it but I mean when you buy a property in England or I'm
4:45
assuming in Germany and I'm assuming in Holland and I'm assuming in France you buy a property you don't actually have
4:50
to have this extra element of of security i mean so why why do we pay notaries for for these documents i mean
4:57
how many times have you had to go to a notary you guys oh all the time not a bureaucracy here um and and also I'm
5:04
wondering how this could possibly happen because even for example I know um someone I know was getting their NA
5:11
number and there's a lot of you and there's a lot they had to do to get that just a NEA number steal somebody's whole identity
5:18
yeah i don't know how you know that's quite scary that they've done that and
5:23
copy the deeds deeds are many pages long i mean is identity theft would you say
5:29
it's growing isn't that one of the biggest crimes now in the kind of modern world i guess they the the criminals are
5:35
ahead of the the law enforcement as they normally are to be honest and they've figured out that here's the loopholes
5:41
they can get in and they can you know steal people's identities get their bank accounts get their homes and eventually
5:47
in 5 years they'll tighten up the laws and then they'll find the new loophole that's the um you know the cycle cycle
5:53
criminality i mean this woman she came to us she's staying in the house she's saying that
5:59
I'm not going to leave but do you think there would be other people who might just go "Okay fine i'll leave." I don't
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know yeah you go to the lawyer wouldn't you you say "Lawyer help me out with this one." What is What is she actually
6:12
doing now then apart from raising awareness I mean how can she take this forward is she going to pursue this
6:17
legally or She is indeed uh she's got a lawyer involved she said it's an expensive process she wouldn't say how
6:24
much it was costing her but one can imagine that it may be tens of thousands it does beg the question could the
6:30
lawyer be involved i mean you know I don't know but is
6:36
isn't that a horrible thing she's actually I think 6 months pregnant or 5 months pregnant yeah that's part of the story i I saw that but this this kind of
6:44
story for us is it's not um it's one of our most common thematic stories property fraud in the Costel Soul
6:49
especially and just this weekend while I was at Spanish communion on you know having a nice time with friends and
6:55
family I got a text from an old story we did last year do you remember the German
7:00
couple who had the house stolen because the mother had Alzheimer's oh what a Yeah they came back to me this weekend
7:06
with more information on this one and the news previously until the weekend had been very positive it seemed like
7:12
the law had caught up they had wisen up with what the scam was so this man had come to the house of the uh the couple
7:18
the father who's you know compass mentors was out for some reason the mother was home alone the the the scam
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artist knew about this knew she was alone and vulnerable sat down in a house cuz they knew each other they had had
7:30
dealings before and he with his kind of charming snake words convinced her to
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sign away the deeds of the house that's himself well he convinced her to give him the right to buy it for 100,000
7:43
okay euros when it's worth I don't know much much more than that and then the couple came back the next day or the
7:49
next same night I can't remember and they found the locks changed alarms installed and the house was no longer theirs and they're still out now still
7:56
living with their daughter and it seemed the police were on the side it seemed they were going to evict these guys and
8:02
there was it recognized there was fraud but then a separate call has now um
8:08
granted permission for these fraudsters to sell the very house they're talking about so they're back to square one
8:13
basically even if they it's like one section of the the system recognizes the
8:19
crime and then the courts don't recognize it like they don't talk to each other you know it's like property
8:24
fraud as you say is is a really hot topic here and there are too many people who come and don't get the right advice and get caught out i mean if you go back
8:32
do you remember the prior in Almaria who who had that house and got a license for a house and then the license rescended
8:38
so they just turned up and bought their house yeah i mean that is just awful and and talking of these stories that are
8:44
really heart touching I think it kind of is a parallel to the Natil story that
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you've been talking about um for years now you know there's just so many people
8:55
in Spain that have been prescribed this drug and I know you've done a big story about that um so tell us a bit more
9:02
about the history of nonatil um and how how that's you know how that's been
9:08
administered in Spain to people well we'll we'll we'll explain how the drug
9:13
works or doesn't work um but I should say that we first heard about it in
9:19
2016 when we had the family of a victim contact us and said that they'd lost a
9:24
loved one who died having taken this drug and having done their research they realized it was dangerous and that it
9:31
affected him in a bad way we researched it and sure enough it did seem to be having side effects on British Irish
9:39
northern Europeans I Scandinavians having quite serious effects so we ran
9:44
the story if I remember correctly on the front page within about a month we had
9:50
two or three other victims came forwards to the point that we ran another story on the front page later in
9:57
2016 and it just gathered steam and we just realized that there were there was a lot more people affected by this than
10:04
anyone knew about i mean this it was being created being made by a big German company and so of course it being
10:10
brushed under the carpet as best as possible and we realized that in
10:15
2017 we came across a woman called Christina Delampo who was also compiling
10:22
victims and so we kind of teamed up with her and we started working with her we sent sending families to her and she was
10:29
representing them in in these kind of patient uh victim groups and it kind of
10:35
gathered steam from then in fact later in 2017 we actually launched a campaign to have nonil banned or at the very
10:41
least have a warning on it um but I mean what I mean can you explain a little bit about how how this drug works well well
10:48
it's not it's not straightforward it is quite controversial because natto for Spanish people it's the most everyday
10:55
drug you take from infancy it's like Kalpool I guess in the UK they for them it's just a trusted drug that has you
11:02
know never done them wrong painkiller drug isn't it it's painkiller yeah so for any kind of ailment or whatever you
11:08
have you take knowilt and then these people started saying wait a minute this is kind of sometimes killing tourists
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and it was always um so strange yeah it kind of it seemed like it was targeting tourists which how can that be that
11:20
makes no sense and the other controversial aspect of this whole campaign is that there's no
11:26
definitive science that backs up the claim that it's it's hurting um so let's
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say blonde blue-eyed types of people but the correlations are enormous i think we've calculated at the minute at least
11:38
40 deaths deaths not even injuries deaths in the last I guess 10 years let's say from people who who took
11:45
native with an innocuous injury maybe you know some guy fell off his bike for example one guy was playing golf and um
11:52
they take nil and then they develop uh organ failure and then they die in sepsis sepsis yeah and um there's no
11:59
direct smoking gun pointing to not but just the correlation is is enormous which is why a lot of Spanish people and
12:06
a lot of um there's a lot of resistance to the idea that this is the the culprit you know I guess there's also a sort of
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a pharmaceutical incentive not to not to um point the finger either but it's been
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quite a struggle to get recognition or to get acknowledgement of of what's going on does it not kill your red blood
12:22
cells yeah i mean it reduces red blood cells that affects um
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your ability to your immune system and then you can you get sick and you get some granulitis
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I think it's called or something and then but very quickly if you're not in a in a conditions like in a hospital very
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quickly you can drop from being relatively unwell to being extremely critically ill uh and you say 40 deaths
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I think I I would like beg to differ I think it's over a hundred now um and and it has been amongst as you say sort of
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Anglo-Saxon blue-eyed you know blondhaired uh characters you know and
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that seems to be the makeup that's affected and it it's not just are saying it because eventually the authorities in
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Spain have actually sanctioned have actually put a warning have forced the
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the uh medicine makers to put a warning on the side of the drug i think in 2018
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there was a directive from the hund or some some governing body saying don't give it to tourists but the majority of
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medics or nurses just didn't know about it so it wasn't that the advice wasn't there it was the the awareness was was
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out of touch with the reality yeah i think they said you can give it to tourists but only under clinical
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conditions in other words you've got someone in hospital you're monitoring them you can see what happens to their
13:41
white versus the red blood cells and then it you know cuz not everyone's affected by it you might take it well
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and be absolutely fine it seems that a drug can excuse me only affect a certain race you know never heard of that before
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there's some genetic I mean I wouldn't even begin to want to explain it but some genetic um something that we have
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in our DNA if if you're sort of North European that doesn't exist but we should probably ask the German drug
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manufacturer is it boring we should probably ask them to come on and try and explain the other side of it because
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they'll they argue that it's not dangerous and they continue to say it's not dangerous and I know I would say well if it's not dangerous why is it
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banned in something like eight out of 10 countries in Europe and why is it now being sanctioned in Spain finally for
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for northern Europeans or tourists so clearly is a drug and so people anyone listening nolil it's called if you ever
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turn up in hospital your loved ones in hospital and you see someone being given natil think twice remember ibuprofen
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we're not being paid to say this but aspirin ibuprofen whatever you know other painkiller drugs use those first
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definitely and that's where the journalism that you guys do can really help educate people here in Spain um and
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actually didn't one of your journalists win an award award um for this yeah we've got um well now she's she sadly
15:00
left us but Isabelle Boston she won trainee of the year from the
15:06
National Council of Training of Journalist training journalist best to top award in the UK actually great it's
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a benchmark for journalism in the UK she won traininee for a number of different
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um stories that she did for us not only this Nolletil one but um this is probably her flagship cuz she she was
15:25
doing all the investigation for us for at least a year into Natal and she did a lot of great stories and um yeah and she
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she won the award it was her award we very proud of her i mean I think I think I should add that that you're talking
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about a British journalistic award of excellence award that any journalist
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should have shorthand should have media law and should have what's called an NCTJ certificate and that is really
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important and we try only to employ journalists who have that certificate it's very very important and she was
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singled out from all the journalists in England and I should point out on the short list for the final three was a
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journalist from the Times newspaper and also a journalist from the Express and Star which is I think 11 different
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newspapers in the Midlands coming out of Wolverampton around there so for her to win this award coming out of Spain being
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trained in Spain look bear in mind she left university and came straight to us in Spain and the likes of Wards and
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Deepipe our news editor and I I hope we put her through quite a rigorous
16:26
training and and got her to this position where you know she she's got this award and as Walt says you know the
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campaign against she continued we we we launched it in 2017 and it continued and
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she if anything increased it to the point that eventually that that you know the drug um was
16:45
effectively taken off the shelves so you know fantastic and I mean you know this kind of
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journalism another story that interested me was the one about the hotel in El
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Maria where it wasn't just something that just comes up you guys are researching for a long time you guys are
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covering these stories time and time again so um can you just explain a little bit about this demolition story
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in this is the Algora Hotel in Almaria but you you couldn't make it up and anybody who's driving down through
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anywhere from Valencia or from Barcelona down towards Andithia or vice versa just take a detoata because not only is it
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famous for spaghetti westerns it is the most beautiful corner of Spain it's a national park it's it's hauntingly
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beautiful the beaches there are some of the only beaches actually on the whole coastline in Spain that are unspoiled
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are actually not built on they're heavily protected which is why it makes this story all the more remarkable
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because at some points the Hunter Dandeluthia changed this is in the dark
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days of the Hunduthia i should point out they're better now i hope so but they changed the zoning from C2 to D2 for
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this area in the park which somehow meant that Carbonaris Tanhole could give a license to build a 411 room hotel over
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18 floors actually on a beach that has no other buildings on it apart from one
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small farmhouse in the hills you couldn't make it up almost but it
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incredibly when when eventually locals and and the local environmentalists and
18:23
Greenpeace realized what was happening they went to the courts said "This is clearly wrong this is not meant to be
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built on this is a protected beach." The courts said "Yeah we can accept this we'll start investigating guess how long
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it took for them to actually come to a ru?" Say at least a few years what do you think what three years three years
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it took them by which time it was 95% finished wow okay and it is it is quite
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beyond belief and so it was in 2007 we launched in 2006 2007 we started we got
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in touch with Greenpeace and we met the head of the chairman for Spain and went down there and reported on it and since
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then we called it the El Horrible rather than alobico which is a bit of a mouthful and it really is horrible and
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uh we must have reported I don't know 20 30 times on the kind of you know the
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changes that have gone through the uh the kind of draconian changes that have happened and uh it is now thankfully
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fingers crossed as we speak they might have finally decided they're going to knock it or they have decided they're
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knocking it down they might start the demolition process imminently they say
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before the summer so but I think there's um still a few few little issues to iron
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out because the last thing I heard about this they they had this How big is it how many floors how many rooms 18
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absolutely enormous illegal hotel that never was used never no one made a profit from it so the people who built
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it refused to be the ones who demolished it basically there was a lot of buck passing well who's actually going to pay
19:55
to demolish this one of the biggest buildings ever built in Spain so this has been what's holding it up what's been holding up for the last I don't
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know how many years well it'll be interesting to see what actually happens with that so I look forward to reading
20:06
about the demolition when it happens walt's right actually because the courts ruled that it has to be knocked down and
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in fact this is the thing the central government said "We'll knock down half of it if you the Hunter knock down the
20:18
other half of it right?" Because you've got the socialists in power in Madrid and you've got the PP in power in the
20:23
Hunter so we don't get along that way you might see half I guess no and what's the sign on
20:30
it hotel illegal or something legal hotel green piece turned up i don't know how much paint they got hold of it can't
20:36
have been very environmentally friendly thinking about it cuz they painted this enormous sign circular sign that said
20:42
hotel illegal and then the company as out of Delaw got a sense of humor cuz they came in and they got a whole lot of
20:49
paint then painted out the eye so it said hotel legal oh really i didn't know that that's hilarious that made that
20:55
went around the world and so you know anyone globally would know that uh this was one of the worst abuses of Spanish
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coastline and you know so let's fingers crossed that it finally gets knocked down it's also a funny one because it's
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not fraud as such no one's run away with all the money in this one it's just um
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like a clown show really you know well I mean it technically so Aar del who
21:20
bought the land from another company technically got a license so they had not According to them they've not broken
21:25
the law because they got a license from the town hall to build this hotel but the town hall would give they'd say it
21:30
wasn't our fault because it was in Sevilla where they changed the zoning from C2 to D2 so it was obviously
21:36
somebody a draftsman or an architect in the Hunter in Sevilla in the late '9s
21:42
who somehow oh wasn't thinking and just changed the C to a D i mean we can all do it right that makes sense
21:51
now we're going to take a quick break from talking about the news to hear from our sponsor
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22:23
ergo seor and I wanted to sort of touch on something that's really topical for
22:30
expats it's all about this tension to do with Spain and foreigners and there's
22:36
two stories and one of them is one you reported on actually which is you called foreign invasion census trends um 20% of
22:45
people in Malaga are foreign um and Brits are the majority of those and in Benhavis you know that's the richest or
22:52
most foreign municipality in Spain i mean we're foreign we live here i mean
22:57
what are your thoughts on this well right 60% of Benovis isn't it are foreigners actually Marba is 37% and you
23:04
go to Javian in Valencia it's like 40% actually I think in Madrid and Barcel it's higher right W
23:10
the figure I have on the top of my head or off the top of my head it's 25% in Manila which is actually well to be lit
23:18
barcelona this the the numbers always change and people don't register but yeah it could be half and there there
23:23
they have huge problems with um housing with that too many people trying to live
23:29
in one place basically and a lot of those are foreign yeah buy properties
23:35
and then of course you know do short-term letings Airbnb them it's
23:41
logical isn't it I mean make that's how you make a business rather than having long-term rents and people are terrified of getting
23:46
squashers and you Given how many stories we report on it I can sort of understand both sides of the coin really i think
23:53
it's been two years this month almost to the day since they made the new housing law um leenda
24:00
oh yes 2023 and this has been blamed for a lot of the problems in Spain because the the socialist government you know
24:06
they they like to champion the people the workers and of course most of us are workers and most of all rural people but
24:13
um they they've made this law that's very favorable to tenants and and you
24:18
know the working man which you know is quite quite nice of them the result is that you can't evict your tenants very
24:24
easily if they don't stop if they stop paying the rent and you can't even stop paying the the bills you can't leave
24:31
them without electricity or water so you keep paying thousands a month for for their bills while they live the life of
24:36
Riley and you don't even get anything in return in the way of rent so it's a catastrophic process for a lot of people
24:42
how long is it taking generally to to get people out if you don't get them out in the first 48 hours you are in deep
24:48
trouble well send 40 72 hours or something like that i think it's 48 hours if someone do on a Friday night and you have to wait for the weekend you
24:55
get back on Monday is it too late i think so and they change the locks and then you you can't go and you know kick
25:01
them off forcefully that's that's illegal you can't deprive them of a home especially often these you get I mean
25:06
sometimes it is just unlucky unfortunate people but you also get professional squatters and then if they have women
25:12
and children or like a pregnant woman or two children once they're in there for 48 hours you can't get them back but
25:18
then aren't they depriving you of you know by taking your home well it's kind of communism isn't it take your home and
25:24
live in it and not try and not pay rent and you're trying to you know you probably got a mortgage right and as Wall says you're paying the utilities so
25:31
you're out of pocket and as I understand it to answer my own question it's taking sometimes two three years to get people
25:36
out years and years and years but then on the other side of the coin I do believe that is it 10% of the housing
25:42
stock in Spain is empty it's owned by banks it's not private property it's owned by banks and financial
25:47
institutions and they just they don't pull a finger out and they don't do what they need to do to flip it into something habitable so there's um
25:55
it could be yeah it could be more read like even just this weekend it was like that's one almost one or five houses is
26:01
just empty yeah and so I think if if you're a squatter if you're you know someone you know in hard times if you
26:08
can get into one of these houses owned by the bank not really hurting anyone but obviously what does happen is that
26:14
homes especially on the coast where the second homes they get squatted and then they stay in they trash the place as
26:20
well i mean we had the other day our our office here we had some people coming around walking around having a look and
26:26
they were clearly scoping the joint knocking on doors and asking oh is this a hair store clearly is looking in the
26:31
window yeah and and then there was a girl with a Ukrainian car and she presumably might have been the tenant i
26:37
don't know exactly but I do remember in the lockdown um in Casar when I lived up the coast in Casares we had uh a series
26:44
of squatters moving into the houses there and this woman and a guy came around they were driving around and no one was meant to be in the streets by
26:50
the way you're only meant to be allowed to go to the supermarket once a week or whatever it was you know and they were driving around and they were clearly
26:56
looking to see which houses were empty or not and so I confronted this uh guy i said "Why are you here you don't live
27:02
around here that was the law at the time she went absolutely crazy with me came out and started screaming "How dare you
27:09
tell me what to do?" I just came down to the beach have a look around and I mean it was so obvious Eastern European it
27:14
was so obvious that they were checking houses and Yeah yeah i mean it's it's
27:20
it's unfortunate you know and things will have to be done to improve it and it also you know coming on from that
27:28
story about all the foreigners in the region and in Spain there's still a lot
27:34
of tension that came up with the UEFA um Europa League final um in Bil Bao um
27:40
where there was a lot of backlash about British you know tourists so you actually went there John i think it's
27:46
time to put on my hat i don't I don't think will like it very much being being a Manchester United fan but I'm going to
27:52
put on my my hat lovely our tenition here Keith is also a Spurs fan so we
27:57
know he's still smiling as well which is great you support so but you were there so what really happened in Bill Ba i was
28:05
there i have to say first of all I just listened to another podcast you ever listen to the news agents podcast have you heard that so Emily Mateless and
28:12
John Soap well John Soapel was missing on the podcast on Friday and uh right at the end of the podcast there was it was
28:19
uh they suddenly said "Oh we located uh John he's somewhere in Ptoria in the
28:24
Basque region he came on and he was like "Hi I've just want I'm reporting here it's very quiet i've lost my voice." And
28:32
yes by the way I am a Spurs fan but yeah I I mean more seriously it was obviously
28:37
a wonderful win for us and I'm delighted but I I was there right from decided to get on the Monday so we could report on
28:44
it properly for the Olive Press and so a lot of the videos I saw people put up
28:49
people peeing in the street which is obviously disgusting and breaking this traffic lights well that made a big
28:55
story all around the world but I happened to be at this junction the traffic lights broke because two guys
29:00
exuberantly got up climbed up the the lamp post and thing fell over both of them fell over so they started carrying
29:08
them around and but there was there was no mal intention there at all and you know it was quite clear that the people
29:14
these were Spurs fans they were obviously pretty drunk and having fun and singing the riot police turned up at
29:21
a certain point at about 9 or 9:30 and I
29:26
could not fault them to a tea they turned up three van loads of them one of the vans emptied out the about seven or
29:32
eight of these guys with full riot gear battons and they stood about 50 yards away and they just walted and at within
29:41
the next half an hour to an hour bit by bit people just started drifting off and they just started behaving themselves
29:47
and you just it was so clever the way they did it it was I when I'd seen football games in the south of Spain and
29:53
Seville I've seen crowd trouble a number of times where the police are looking for trouble but these guys in Bil Bao
30:00
handled it perfectly well that and I you know I should also point out that the mayor came out two days later and he
30:06
said the it's an 8% tourism in the Basque region and he said for Bill Ba it was the biggest gift ever people turned
30:13
up there there were eight arrests over three days eight arrests the amount of
30:18
money that was spent was incredible he said a couple of traffic lights got broken have you any idea how many
30:24
millions and millions this brought to the city you know how much joy it brought to our local fans and how much
30:30
joy it brought to people here so it was you know they were delighted so you know there was a bit of trouble in San
30:35
Sebastian well that's an hour away so you know but it was it was football fans from England from England from
30:41
Manchester United tournament causing the trouble so it's one of those things as a digital editor we had to kind of make a
30:48
few judgment calls as well because we were getting these videos of English football fans kind of semi- rioting not
30:55
rioting but fighting in in San Sebastian we had videos of um like an old old man
31:01
in in Bil Bao kind of jabbing a stick at these kids who climbed onto his the scaffolding of his funny yeah it was
31:08
lovely oh god there was um well one naked guy dancing on the scaffolding and he's like at what point is it haha funny
31:15
in what point is it good point disrespectful and there was another very funny video I got to say I think it was
31:20
live TV from Basque um some Bas channel news channel and the camera's panning around and somehow it focuses on a guy
31:28
urinating in the street in the middle of the crowds and this is live TV sort of the the news for a B's like cut they
31:35
could have put up more portal loose perhaps if you wanted to ask How could they improve on the situation more porter you know they I wouldn't I don't
31:42
want to fault the fan zones they're really good but they could have been slightly better organization certainly from midnight until 7:00 in the morning
31:48
where were the night buses yeah where were the trains night trains where were the taxis cuz it was almost impossible
31:54
to get them i mean luckily for for myself and my son we were out till about 5 so you know we we kind of only had an
32:01
hour and a half wait for a taxi but there were some people who waited 5 hours what did he do all that time John
32:06
i I I don't remember i know i I know I lost I know I'd lost my voice but I I think I think English I
32:14
think it's got any fans anywhere in the world are going to have lots of fun
32:19
especially when they've been drinking there is some crowd trouble but I think English fans now are so much different
32:25
to English fans were in the 70s and 80s i think we're much better behaved perhaps better behaved than German fans
32:31
better behaved than Italian fans possibly even better behaved than Spanish i mean it's a very good point because in Italy for example they have
32:37
the the ultra culture which is extreme hooligan football fans who go around and every time anytime not anytime but many
32:44
times when British fans go to Italy there's a stabbing so it is a different um it's another level of of football fan
32:51
hooliganism and the English fans sometimes they're a bit loudish you know they drink a lot they sing they're a
32:57
little bit obnoxious but yeah the old school hooliganism that we saw in the 80s long gone at say it all right and
33:03
when in fact the Liverpool Tottenham final in 2019 you've got even more than 80,000 this time there were 100,000 last
33:10
time there were nine arrests in Madrid so I think it says it all i mean we are
33:15
we're not misbehaving like we used to in fact the fans in Bil Bao a lot of the locals were saying how great the English
33:22
fans were they said when Rome had come in the quarterfinals they said they turned up they were like Nazis they said
33:27
they were black shirts like you two today but they said they were doing salutes i said but isn't Roma a kind of leftwing club wasn't it Latio that's a
33:34
sort of farright club and they were like yeah but they came in and they were just being they were really aggressive and
33:39
they were really not pleasant and so it's actually a breath of fresh air having the British fans that's what we
33:45
don't see you know you just hear these stereotypical comments and then you might see one video of some loudish
33:51
behavior and it's blown up isn't it I mean there's also trouble and severe angry Albetus against I can't remember
33:58
some Italian team this was just now like four weeks ago and there was fighting in proper fighting but the problem is it
34:05
doesn't get the traction as it does when English fans do it's it's so true you know what happened west Ham were playing
34:10
in Sevilla if I remember correctly two years ago i think it was the semi-final of the conference which I think they
34:16
went on to win and the night before Frankfurt had been playing against
34:22
Sevilla if I remember correctly or it was the other way around Sevilla or Betettis the German fans hung around for
34:27
the West Ham fans to arrive and then attacked them basically it was the German fans who caused the trouble and
34:32
everybody told me that this was the case so clearly the West Ham fans who have a bit of reputation were definitely not
34:38
looking for trouble i think also now there's a perception so there's the perception that English football fans are hooligans i think they're not
34:44
anymore but because they're perceived that way the clubs that now have the hooligans you know such as Frankfurt or
34:49
Latio they go looking for fights with English fans and then English fans to blame for and and Yeah and and they will
34:55
if they start doing that they will end up getting trouble because the English fans will rise to it and they they don't
35:00
like it i mean you can see what the Brits are like when they do get attacked but where do you think this puts British
35:08
the reputation of the British in Spain Alan i mean we we didn't want to um fan
35:14
the stereotypes when we're trying to do our coverage you want to be fair and accurate and if you it's easy to um
35:21
especially when you're trying to run a online business you do need eyeballs and clicks and and traffic and you do know
35:28
that if you put certain videos online that's going to get the eyeballs but it's going to get the outrage and it's kind of outrage bait they say and so we
35:36
we were I mean because we didn't want to feed stereotypes cuz Brits
35:42
have relatively bad reputation in Spain well I was going to say if you look at let's say Benadorm or Tormolinos or
35:48
Player Lasas Americas surely in many ways the way the Brits are when they go to these resorts
35:54
or stag weekends or holidays with their mates tops off and you know they're doing exactly the same if not worse than
36:01
a lot of these football fans who if anything have really saved up for these trips who who are there with their families you know so Lance trips I mean
36:08
it's interesting I'll tell you this when I was at the male I did a story called holidays in hell and the male worked out
36:15
we're going to do a story in the six worst resorts in the world can you guess how many were in Spain oo five correct
36:22
really can you guess which one wasn't oh someone in Greece inappa ironappa well done exactly so of course because I was
36:29
based here they said "Look can you do a can you top and tail can you do a write up on each of these five resorts?" Well
36:35
that must have been a fun uh project it was I didn't have to go to them thankfully it was even more fun because I didn't have to go but can you even
36:41
name them do you reckon you guys can name them the resort halfway there benadorm that one in Tener correct pelas
36:47
Cristiano yes correct um Pas America the same one right sal um is it Sal all the
36:57
students going down south actually missed out
37:03
to two of the worst san Antonio and Magaloo magaloo yeah magaloo okay yeah
37:12
so what joy eh so on that note I think you know that was a very interesting conversation about the reputation of
37:18
Brits in Spain but yeah um it's not all like that though is it as you know
37:24
there's a lot of different um stories and a lot of different ways of looking
37:30
at this so it's funny on my my weekend I was with lots of Spanish people and the um some of them were football fans and
37:35
one of the topics obviously was the B the Europa League final and they as the
37:40
English person they kind of look at me like why why do you do this and and I I got a sense of how it would feel to be a
37:46
Muslim when there's a terror attack you know depending people we're not all like that I think I think we've we've got
37:53
this sort of tiny little chip in us somewhere that that is always sort of fighting to come out and you know most
37:58
of us most of the home keep it well locked up but every once in a while it it does come out and we need to let go i
38:04
think that's the sort of Anglo-Saxon culture a bit isn't it cultures much more placid i mean they're quite fire in
38:10
their own way but they don't break things and you know not like Americans or Canadians or Germans
38:18
actually you know the same northern Europeans like Scandinavians we we sometimes we just sort of let go I think
38:26
let talking about myself here not anymore but I you know I think what was what was really apparent when I was in
38:33
Bill Bao was that the lo we teamed up with a bunch of local Spanish and Bas who took us around the city and they
38:39
were just saying how nice it was that that you know that that we were talking together and how nice the English fans
38:44
had been we ended up in a nightclub you asked this question earlier so I'm going to tell you we ended up in a nightclub at 3:00 in the morning and on the dance
38:51
floor in fact when we came in there was three or four of us with Spurs shirts on and and we came in there's about seven
38:56
or eight Manchester United fans and I thought "Oh god this could get a bit." But actually they were fantastic and
39:02
when the Smiths came on and they played this charming man there was all of us together going around singing the
39:08
singing to the Smiths this guy had a ca had a Manchester United flag with Casemiro on it jumping around the dance
39:14
floor it was brilliant you know and the the Basks were saying how lovely it was and how they they hadn't seen any
39:19
trouble so I think I think we're learning i think we're growing up as a race perhaps but do we still have image
39:26
management issues things are better in reality but in perception I don't think there's the the same kind of Yeah cuz
39:32
what you do hear about are the bad stories you know so yeah let's blame that on the you know social media let's
39:38
blame that on the sun and the male i think the truth is look that's why we're here right you know this is Spain we're here to talk about the good things and
39:44
and and there's so much amazing stuff that goes on and 99% of people that I
39:49
meet here are really well behaved and you know here for all the right reasons you know more on British culture in
39:55
Spain and perhaps to finalize on a nicer note it's great to see one of the storewarts of British culture M&S doing
40:03
so well here in Spain and doing a partnership with you guys so tell us just a little bit more about that yeah
40:09
we're absolutely delighted they're opening a new store in in Granada i think it's their fifth store and uh
40:15
we've worked with them over the years a number of times and they approached us and said we'd like to do a deal both
40:20
online and through the newspaper we'd like to promote our new shop and we're giving you 30% off so I was like great
40:27
socks underwear you know and also a new pair of swimming trunks for the summer but yeah know it's they've been going
40:33
since 1884 and uh they've had a few issues over the years but they seem to have weathered the storm and you know
40:39
get a copy of the paper or just get a photograph of it online on our on our digital edition take it to the shop and
40:45
and there's your discount fantastic i'm sure you you get to M&S without any
40:50
Walt there's an M&S in Jibralta near where I live you get the food the food's good though isn't it i don't think that
40:57
one does food it's old school no it does there's a little food section there's a time I should go and but it's mostly
41:03
like kind of biscuits and instead of you know non- perishables yeah but I don't
41:08
know i've been there for a while but I mean do you I mean you must go and get your your your lingerie from M&S i don't
41:14
I don't get it end of that conversation
41:21
all right no um so M&S has its place and it's it's a great shop for if you want
41:28
that recognition of something from home good work fantastic best of Britain i agree absolutely i know we're all
41:34
suckers aren't we that we all like we love i don't know about you guys but I have to have a PG tips first thing in
41:39
the morning absolutely you know it's trying to think what else we have that I can't do without marmmites you know I
41:45
love bit of Marmite baffa cake baffa cake yes i wonder our guest we'd love to
41:51
hear some anyone who's listening or watching we love them to send in what they like maybe a photo or some
41:57
suggestions of what we you know what they're missing or find in the comments yeah or in the comments put in the
42:02
comments exactly what are your go-tos what are your go-to foods or your go-to foods yeah or can you can you live here
42:08
for a certain amount of time where you just forget it and you can no longer need it is there a point that you know is it 20 years is it 30 or do you always
42:15
have to have that for me it's just tea i could probably live without most other
42:20
British things but tea i remember for Christmas two years ago I got a huge order for Terry's chocolate oranges oh
42:27
wow like I bought 15 of them god bless well on that note um on that sweet note
42:34
I think we've said enough for today so thanks guys good ending thanks very much thank you cheers thank you brilliant
42:40
thanks up
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