JimenaPulse
About Jimena de la Frontera, the province of Cadiz and Spain as a whole, focused on this small village in the mountainsArchive for EDITORIAL
NO LIGHT AT THE END OF THIS TUNNEL
On this day in 2003, the statue of Saddam Hussein was toppled in Firdus Square, Baghdad. Five years ago today, the US said that the Iraq war was over. It is five years since then, and estimates of civilian deaths are above 90,000 while coalition forces have lost over 5,000 troops, according to some sources. As we write, the news says 7 people, including 3 children, were killed today in Basra. We could go on, but should the war?
CORRECTION
Our friend and frequent correspondent known as ‘TSi’ deserves our apologies. We have all too often, especially recently, mistakenly identified him as of the Tesorillo Independiente party, of which he is not. There is such an ‘independentist’ party but TSi does not belong to it. Our fullest apologies.
VANDALISM!
This is how Calle San Sebastián, perhaps Jimena’s most ‘typical’ street, awoke this morning (See more photos below). According to several neighbours, a group of Spanish-speaking people came through at about 2am smashing as they went. Read the rest of this entry »
ONE YEAR OLD
TO US!
JimenaPulse started its life on March 4th, 2007. Alas we were unable to celebrate our first birthday on that date thanks to having electric/electronic problems at the time. No matter, we’re happy to be here and celebrate it today.
We have grown since then, of course, but that wouldn’t have happened without you. We had 3 visitors on that day; yesterday we had 489 and 879 on Monday the 10th – our best day ever. Until a few moments ago we had a total of 42,296 visitors (how many now?), most of them from Spain, Britain and Ireland, but we are also visited regularly by people who have been in Jimena at some point: they come from as far away as Australia and New Zealand, the US and even India. You can check this out by clicking on the map at the end of our left sidebar.
We have tried to be of help to as many people as possible. We’ve had requests for information about a variety of things, perhaps especially from families planning to move to or visit our village. Two curious ones: somebody in America who came through Jimena and, 3 years later, wants to get married here (we sent her as much information about venues, photographers, etc. as we could); and someone from California who wanted a t-shirt from one of our sponsors (Carnicerías Diego Pérez, the butcher!), presumably for her boyfriend with the same name – we had to tell her that, alas, there were no t-shirts but the meat was excellent if a little too far away for her. And we are aware that many students of English use JimenaPulse as a learning tool: what an honour!
This is a good moment to say thank you to you, Dear Reader, and to you, Dear Sponsor, for your support, without which it would be impossible to continue. Thanks are also due to Tio Jimeno, with whom we have always had a loose co-operation agreement (we can no longer tell whose photos are which!) and with whom that arrangement is about to expand (watch this space). We should thank a lot more people, organizations and institutions, but the list would be too long to put up here – you each know who you are and how you’ve helped; so do we, and so we thank you, too.
Interest in Jimena has grown exponentially, which has led us to create several other sites with their own objectives. bBay, in its English and Spanish versions, is a way to return something to the village that has given us so much, but we need you to make it work. JimenArte, bilingual, is a permanent exhibition for Jimena and district artists of all disciplines, created in memory of Phil Ward de Bullrich, Prospero’s mother, who lived here for over 30 years. JimenaPolo and JimenaGolf, also in their English and Spanish versions, are self-explanatory – and they will be taking off properly soon. JimenaLinks is where past and present sponsors are lodged, a service to them and to our readers that has often been called invaluable.
This is also the moment to look into our motives and objectives. JimenaPulse began as a hobby that has become a job of sorts (no pay – see and click on the PayPal icon on the left sidebar, please) and lots of pleasure. The original idea, which began cooking about 3 years ago, was to offer a way for English-speaking residents and visitors to know more about the village we have chosen as our home and have come to love, and to in some way help them to integrate; that is still our aim. In the meantime we have also become a reference for anyone who has any interest in or about Jimena; we are pleased about that and want to do more. To quote from our welcoming message on our home page:
This is your free space, where you will be able to find updated information on what, where, when, how, who, etc. goes on in Jimena de la Frontera, San Pablo de Buceite, Marchenilla, San Martín del Tesorillo and the district around. If you live here, have a holiday home or are just visiting, there is something here for you. Your contribution is a valued part of our purpose. You can contribute easily on any subject relating to Jimena but we reserve the right to edit or publish it. This is not to prevent free expression but to avoid offense. So, keep yourself and others posted. Feel free.
WE’RE BACK, WE’RE BACK, WE’RE BACK!
Our last post was on March 3rd (below) – that’s 5 days ago. And that was just by chance…
We blamed Telefónica, though we should really have blamed the electricity company, Sevillana/Endesa, with all their little cuts and surges that burned out our router modem. In the meantime, we’ve been having a little holiday from the daily commitment. However, we have a large backlog of news & views that we’ll try to catch up with over the next few days. And we also have some new and renewed advertisers you will want hear about – you will, honest.
The curious thing is that, on March 6th we had our best viewership ever with 451 visits on that day! Of course, in consequence of our penchant for self-flagellation, we have to wonder if this surge of readers has anything to do with the fact that we had been unable to post for several days before that… We came to the conclusion that it probably did but that we wouldn’t let that get in the way of boring our Dear Readers to death anyway. So keep watching this space, people. AND THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATIENCE!
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