Ibiza Taxi

Driving out of San Jose yesterday, Jaki spotted a taxi on the taxi rank. That's a first, she said, and I pointed out that the driver wasn't in it, and had probably just parked up outside the town hall to nip in and renew his license.

It's quite easy. Here's question 1 on the form

1. Are you related by birth, marriage, or both to someone who works in the town hall?

A. If yes, go and collect whatever you want in reception in 5 minutes.
B. If no, answer the other 149 questions on this form and come back in 6 months to be told you've been unsuccessful.

VFT (Ibiza) V Caption Comp

I spent most of Christmas watching ITV's Christmas pantomimes - best line ever delivered my Debra Stephenson (Corrie's Frankie Baldwin), 'I miss my Dick,' referring of course to the protagonist of the opus, Dick Whittington.

Despite an overdose of double entendres I can't think of a caption of this photo Jaki took of the opera La Boheme. It shows her little cat and a woman with one of those hand warmer things posing for an artist.

I'm completely writer's blocked.

Ibiza Sunset, Heineken Style

If  Heineken did Ibiza sunsets, they'd probably look like this one. Taken from our roof a few minutes ago

Ibiza Version Original

Chatting to the girl in Sluiz the other day, she told me she preferred watching films in English with subtitles because she felt it wasn't right listening to Spanish voices dubbed over themes which should have been in English.

I said what about El Cid? Wasn't it strange to hear Charlton Heston speaking English as he rode round the walls of Valencia?

Anyway, did you know that when Hollywood films are dubbed into Spanish the same actors are always used to dub the same star. For example Arnold Schwartzenegger's stunt dubber is always a little fat guy (I've forgotten his name)

Here's a definate case for watching the original version of a film - whoever dubbed this sounds like an airline steward announcing that duty free's coming round - not psyching himself up for a night of mayhem and ultraviolence.

Blew a Fuse

Don't fuses blow at the most inopportune moments? One of ours went last night plunging half the house and the broadband router into the stone age. Don't worry, the oven and water pump still worked so we could eat by candle light but it put a stop to my groundbreaking live twitter broadcast from Ibiza.

A shame really because when I bobbed out to the marquee last night where San Jose's Christmas entertainment takes place there was a live concert by the Rolling Stones in progress! If I'd been all Internetted up I could have blogcasted live from a San Jose rock concert - a first I believe.

Anyway, just to prove I was there, here's a photo I took

Mard Dogs and Englishmen

Won't go out in the mid-day Ibiza rain!

Floyd has revealed himself to be a right mard arse recently. Here he is queueing at the gate to get back in after a mere 3 second walk because it was raining. It's a bloody good thing he lives in Ibiza and not Manchester!

Ibiza: Back to the Future

I'm waiting for some people on a flight from Madrid. Thanks to the Internet, their flight arrives in Ibiza 20 minutes before it takes off from Madrid.

Still, at least it's warmer here.

Ibiza: Life on Mars

“See the mice in their million hordes,
From Eyebeetha to the Nawfuck Brawds”


Warbled David Bowie in his song about 70's package tourism “Life on Mars” which was also the inspiration for the TV detective series of the same name about Life before the Internet.


Whilst swearin', smokin', bein' politically incorrect and drivin', a Ford Cortina were all fab in the world before computers, goin' on hols was an odd affair.


Take us, in the world of 30 years ago we went to Mallorca, which in holiday brochure speak was then called Majawka, and we didn't know a thing about it, and once we got there we didn't know a thing that was happening in the outside world.


Newspapers (and only the southern editions at that) arrived 2 days late and you needed a magnifying glass to find the rugby results amongst all the reports about football teams you'd never heard of like Chelsea, Spurs and Arsenal. And if you actually wanted to watch a football match, there was only one night a year when you could do this – European Cup Final night when Liverpool (or Forest or Villa) would show the foreigners how it was done.


Don't forget that Franco had threatened to ban football in Spain unless his favourite team Real Madrid won everything, something that the Scousers obviously didn't know about when the beat Franco's lads in the final when we were in Mallorca.

Totally reliant on our holiday rep, we booked a fun night in an all you can eat BBQ, along with hundreds of others who were all bussed in and seated on benches cheek by jowl with fellow happy holiday makers.


It was awful, but not quite as bad as the coach ride back, full of people too full of pork chops, chips and salad, and more importantly cheap champagne. I've never eaten pork chops, chips and salad since.

Anyway, here's a picture of one of the ritual tortures we were subjected to in the BBQ – drinking from the porron. I've never done that since either.

Cursa Popular de sa Salsa

It's actually an annual fun run in San Jose but could be translated as the 'curse of the sauce.'

The organisers of the race had thoughtfully decided that the runners should be protected from traffic on the routes through the bustling Sunday morning centre of the village by putting barriers up blocking the entrances to traffic.

In a land of joined up thinking the bloke doing the blocking (the village's street sweeper) would have realised that for all the people who live within the area of the route those entrances were also the only exits to the world outside!

Anyway, we got out without knocking any runners down, only a barrier, and made it to Talamanca beach.

And here's the proof

Flying the Flag for San Jose

Council workmen surprised us this week when they moved into the street under the cover of darkness to decorate every lamp-post with twin black flags advertising a photo exhibition at our new cultural centre.

Looks a bit like Cap'n Jack and the Black Pearl's hove to in the centre of San Jose doesn't it? You don't need to be a marketing genius to notice that there aren't any opening times given on the flags (I went on the 17th and it was closed) and that a marketing campaign that nobody sees isn't very good. Why put all the flags out on a street where only 10 people live and which is a dead end in a goat farm?

The answer of course is that all the other lamp posts in the village are too low to have a flag attached so there is some logic to the decision.

Ibiza Shut Down

Monday and Tuesday this week were public holidays. This means that everything closed on Saturday at 1.30 pm and didn't open again until this (Wednesday) morning.

That's not quite true, all the bars and restaurants remained open so local folks could eat and drink all afternoon, but what kind of a holiday is that for them? They do it everyday anyway.
R Jaki, in England to see about having her eyes lasered, keeps ringing me, rubbing it in that she's got things to do - 'I'm in a shop. I'm at a Christmas fair. I'm at the till, paying for something.' and just to show her that there was life in Ibiza I drove 13 kliks to the throbbing metropolis that is Ibiza town to find something going on.

The emergency chemist on the Vara de Rey was open AND there was a queue of people in it!!!

Pink Floyd in Ibiza

Floyd's progressing really well. He's putting some muscle on his back legs again so he can now run a little bit and can even keep up with me and my gammy knee.

Here's a video from this morning at Las Salinas beach in Ibiza showing Floyd 'in the pink' though I've no idea why it looks like one of those 'The Thirties in Colour' programmes.

A Dog's Tale III

Ibiza odd one out

Here's a game that's easy to play, take a look at these 4 photos (nicked from the Diario de Ibiza) of the recent country fair held in ibiza town.

Which is the odd one out and why?

The correct answer is the dogs, because they've got no food or water in their cage. All the animals which can be accompanied by roast potatoes and red wine are extremely well provided for.