Euro area unemployment rate at 11.6%

The euro area (EA17) seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate was 11.6% in September 2012, up from 11.5% in August. The EU27 unemployment rate was 10.6% in September 2012, stable compared with August. In both zones, rates have risen significantly compared with September 2011, when they were 10.3% and 9.8% respectively. These figures are published by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union.

Orihuela Costa's missing street-name signs.

Dotted around the streets of Orihuela Costa there are numerous two metre tall royal blue poles that have lost their purpose in life: standing alone, forlorn, ignored by passers-by.

Calle Leman

Sometime ago the Orihuela Town Council decided that the time had come when every road should finally have its name on display. The poles began to appear, in some instances in the most seemingly inappropriate, ludicrous, places, adorned with an oblong aluminium plate heralding for all to see the official name of the road in which they stand. Presumably in order to save costs the name plate was made of the thinnest aluminium sheet possible. It was attached to a small part of the circumference of the circular pole by two small screws: not the most secure method of fixing a flat surface to a curved one.

It was not long before the name plates in both our and the adjoining road became misshapen, bent in half, and then completely absent. This was either as a result of the strong winds; which could be seen to be violently shaking the thin plates; or drunken vandals, or both, tearing the plate off the pole; what a surprise! A scenario duplicated in many locations in Orihuela Costa. In two cases that I know of the pole has gone as well.

At the end of June 2012 I sent an email to two separate recipients, with a copy of the photograph at the top of the page attached, in the Town Hall offices requesting a replacement name plate. I wrote: 'Could you please make a request on my behalf for a replacement for the missing street name sign for 'Calle Ontario'. The blue pole is lonely on its own! '.

I received a reply informing me that in order for the Council to action my request I had to travel to the Town Hall to complete an official form, in person. As I was preparing for the start of our two month trip to the United Kingdom, I was not inclined to waste my time, and the expense of petrol for the car, to visit the offices in Orihuela Costa to complete, what I consider, an unnecessary duplicate request of my email. I thought a replacement sign would be of benefit to my neighbours, visitors, the community, delivery companies and helpful to the Council.

Calle Baikal

Several months on and still our blue pole is standing there without a purpose. So I've decided to see if the Orihuela Town Council will react again to a posting on my weblog.

If so, Sr. Alcaldesa, Mr Mayor, I have a question and a suggestion for you. Can the Council replace our missing street name sign? As the Urban Cleaning Services household refuse collection lorries travel throughout the area on a daily basis they would be an excellent source of information about the location of other missing signs and dis-functional poles.

[I wonder if any of the readers of this weblog living in Orihuela Costa know of any more examples and will send the location as a comment.]

By the by.

On the day that the two Council employees came and installed one of the signs for our road, we (my wife and I) were sitting in our lounge drinking our morning coffee when we suddenly heard the sound of drilling directly in front of our house. Opening the front door we could see the workers starting to drill a hole in the path directly in-line with our garden entrance gate. On enquiring we discovered that this was being drilled for the installation of one of the street-name poles. We pointed out to them that to site it there would seem a little inconsiderate as it made entry to our house through the gate a little inconvenient. It was pointed out to us that that was where their instructions indicated the sign must be. We eventually managed to get the 'Jobsworths' to agree to move it, all be it less than one half of a metre northwards further along the pavement; not directly in front of anyone's gateway.

Orihuela Town Council has almost cleared all the rubbish.

Following on from my previous postings; at approximately 08:50 am today 'el Pulpo', the Orihuela Council's hydraulic lift refuse lorry, arrived to collect the growing pile of dumped garden rubbish.

With its keeper precariously perched on the roof of the driving cabin – a possible 'Health and Safety' issue—to supervise its eating, like an elephant grazing, the long prehensile trunk lifted its breakfast into its cavernous stomach.

When 'el Pulpo' had been fed there was nothing left, the road was almost clear of rubbish.

The household rubbish skip has been emptied. The garden rubbish skip has been emptied. The loose, illegally dumped, garden rubbish has been collected. But however there is still the matter of the removal of the dumped building 'escombros', debris, shown in the photograph below.

The household waste collection service (two tone grey skip) and the garden rubbish service (metal skip) operatives won't remove it, because its not in the respective containers. The hydraulic lift garden rubbish service won't grab it. So who is going to remove it; the bin scavengers don't want it; is there another subdivision of the Council's cleaning services department? Or is it to stay there, overlooked, ignored as usual by the three main divisions as it isn't their responsibility?

It would be nice to see the road cleared of all dumped rubbish: even though it will almost certainly be back to square one, our very own landfill site, within a few days. Why? Because people don't care. They have dumped their rubbish somewhere, anywhere, so it's not their problem.

It is a continual problem that the Orihuela Town Council has to deal with and should by now be geared up to handle waste efficiently. But it has repeatedly shown that it falls short of providing a dependable urban cleaning service. It would seem that it is only residents' complaints that awake it from a comatose condition of complacent inefficiency.

Orihuela Town Council have reacted to my Weblog.

On Tuesday 16^th October 2012, two days ago, I added the article to this weblog entitled 'Orihuela Town Council fails to maintain a clean environment for its inhabitants'. I put a link to it on my Twitter and Facebook social media pages, and emailed the link to a few of my contacts.

Today I received the following email from the Orihuela Town Council:

“Buenos días Sr. Sampford:

Por medio del presente, habiendo tenido conocimiento de la situación en que se encuentra el punto de recogida de podas sito en la C/ Ontario, deseamos informarle de las actuaciones previstas por el servicio de Aseo Urbano de la Concejalía de Infraestructuras, Servicios y Mantenimiento para tratar de atajar la acumulación de podas/escombros/basura en la zona indicada.

En primer lugar y, como acción inmediata, se procederá esta misma tarde, salvo caso fortuito o fuerza mayor, al vaciado y retirada de la poda que pudiera estar depositada in situ, tanto en el suelo como en los contenedores habilitados a tal efecto; y, en segundo lugar, como medida de disuasión, se colocará en breve en dicho emplazamiento un cartel indicativo que informe de la prohibición de arrojar basura, podas y escombros en la vía pública.

Aprovechando este correo, le indicamos igualmente que el contenedor habilitado para la recogida de poda domiciliaria será vaciado los días establecidos al efecto según zonificación; lo que en su zona se traduce en Sábados / Lunes; no obstante, en caso de hallarse el mismo lleno, siempre pueden Vds. contactar con esta Dependencia para comunicar este extremo y requerir su vaciado.

Agradeciendo su colaboración, reciba nuestros cordiales saludos.

P.D.: Se adjunta folleto informativo sobre sistema de zonificación para la recogida de poda y enseres.”

To summarize the letter: it informs me that the Council are now aware of the problem of the large volume of uncollected rubbish, and the action that is to be taken by the Urban Cleaning Service department of the Council's Department of Infrastructure, Services and Maintenance to rectify the situation.

Their plan is that the rubbish, both that which has been dumped on the road and that in the skip, will be collected today - unless something else gets in the way. In addition, as a preventative deterrent, it is their intention, sometime in the future, mañana, to place a sign at this location informing the public that it is an illegal act to dump rubbish of any sort on public highways: what optimism on their part.

It is pleasing to have received a reaction from the Council on two counts. The most important is that the unsightly; unhygienic; pile of rubbish will be collected at long last and with possible action to alleviate future problems. The other is knowing that people read my weblog and that the content can cause a response, of some degree, where the subject is relevant to them.



Follow up article: Orihuela Town Council has almost cleared all the rubbish. 

Orihuela Town Council fails to maintain a clean environment for its inhabitants.

Just over one week ago I posted an article entitled 'Mr Stupid dumps his palm leaves' (I moved them for him) about the large mounds of rubbish left by the Orihuela Town Council in the road close to my house. The substantial pile of garden rubbish had been there for over one week before my observation.

Well it is now eleven days later; as can be seen in the photograph above, the quantity of rubbish has doubled and still the Council has done nothing to remove it. The metal skip is full and the surrounding pile is growing daily aided by householders and commercial gardeners.

Almost, every evening a Council refuse collection lorry empties the two tone grey plastic household waste skip (seen on the left in the photograph). Assuming that there exists a system whereby the driver of the nightly lorry can report problems of large quantities uncollected rubbish in the streets to his managers, it would not seem unreasonable to expect the problem to have been cleaned-up! But of course; I'm forgetting this is Spain and the Orihuela Town Council.

This is not a new situation. In October 2010, two years ago this week I wrote an open letter to Monica Lorente, the then Alcaldesa (Mayor), about the 'Orihuela Town Council's 'Streetfill' Site Policy' and followed it up with two updates . Two years later and the new tripartite Council lead by Monserrate Guillén, leader of the Los Verdes (Green) party, has continued with the previous government's policy of leaving the rubbish in the streets, to decompose, to save collection costs.

There have been many regular occasions when it has been necessary for me to send a photograph of a pile of uncollected rubbish to the council's technical department, asking for action to be taken to clear the road. A recent example is that on the 10^th July 2012 after the rubbish had been left for 10 days, just three months ago, the council was asked to clean-up the rubbish in the photograph below. It took them until the 28^th July 2012 to act, by which time the pile had grown.

There have been several articles recently in the local papers about similar examples of the problem my neighbours and myself experience as a direct result of the failure of the Orihuela Town Council to maintain a clean environment for its inhabitants. It shouldn't be necessary for residents to continually have to remind the Council of its responsibilities and its continuing failings!



Follow up article: Orihuela Town Council have reacted to my Weblog.
 

Mr. Stupid dumps his palm leaves.

The stupidity of some of the home owners living close to our house never ceases to amaze me.

This morning the council refuse collectors emptied the metal container (in the picture) for garden rubbish. They had considerable trouble getting the skip to their lorry, for attachment to the lifting and emptying hydraulics, because rubbish had been piled all around and on top of the bin. The space where the container was removed from amongst the rubbish can be seen.

After it had been emptied, the refuse disposal operatives; so much easier when they were called dustmen; decided to place the bin to the left of the remaining large pile of rubbish, rather than struggle to return it to where it came from. A logical conclusion it would seem.

Then this afternoon Mr. Home-owner came along dragging some palm leaves for disposal.

His logical action would have been to either put the prunings into the empty garden rubbish container or, as a less favourable option, to have put them onto the already present, large, easily seen, pile of uncollected garden refuse to the right of it.

That's too difficult a decision for Mr Moron. To save him walking any further than he already had; to save him exerting any more effort; Mr. Stupid dumped his palm leaves to the left of the skip.

Perhaps he wasn't so unthinking: perhaps he wanted to make his own statement of individuality!

Both Jasons went to her aid.

Jason had had what would be considered as an ordinary working class life until that eventful day.

His father, who was a bricklayer by trade, had only been involved in Jason's life on a daily basis until he was about six or seven years old. He couldn't remember the exact time when his father stopped being around every day.

Mother had been a housewife until father left. But then she had to find work to keep the family together, housed and fed. From shop assistant to waitress, to hotel receptionist, to bar manager: any job that would pay enough money for basic essentials.

For most of Jason's childhood there had only been him, mother and his older brother Andy. There would have been four if his twin sibling Jack, he would have been called, had survived at birth. On infrequent occasions Jason would spend short periods of time, just him, with his father. For a short period, when he was about nine, he and Andy had to live with his grandparents because their mother suffered another period of depression and was hospitalised. The cause was linked to the death of the baby: a death that was never talked about. There cannot be any doubt that it was not an easy life for them all.

There were times in his childhood when Jason was left on his own; when his mother was at work and Andy was out doing his own thing. But he recalls on these occasions he never felt totally alone.

In his early twenties he married Sophie and they had two children, John and Ann.

The special day was to celebrate their thirtieth wedding anniversary. All his family, except his father who by this time had died, were at the party. It was to be a day of celebration of happy times. But time will only show what significance the day actually had.

The arrangements for the celebration meal had gone to plan. The family decided to take a table for ten people at the local summer 'black tie' charity ball. As usual the ball was held in the Majestic Hotel in the neighbouring town as it was the only one capable of seating 250 diners. Jason and Sophie had used the hotel and its restaurant facilities before and were glad to be there again. All the family members seemed to be enjoying themselves; the ladies looking beautiful in their glamorous dresses; the men like a waddle of penguins in their dinner jackets.

After the meal, Dave, one of Jason's cousins, saw him at the bar getting a refill of drinks for Sophie and himself, and said: “What you up to you old devil? I saw you at reception and then going up the stairs to the bedrooms. Are you checking it out for you and Sophie to stay the night?” Jason looked at him with a puzzled expression and said: “What are you going on about? Sophie and I have been here in the bar for ages.” “Sorry mate I could have sworn it was you, it must be your doppelgänger again!”

That's what other people had said when they thought they had seen Jason in the past, but they couldn't have. With hindsight, he should have thought more about those many times when his friends and colleagues mentioned that they had seen him at different places and on different days when they couldn't have; because he was never there. Too often friends and acquaintances had said: “I called and waved to you, but you obviously didn't see me.” or “What were you doing in Canterbury (Maidstone, Ashford or other local towns) the other day?” or “Who was that lady with you when I saw you last week?” and other comments on a similar theme.

The evening celebrations were drawing to an end and the taxi to take Jason and Sophie home had arrived. They had agreed to take his mother home, as they were passing her house on their journey, so Jason went to the lounge area to find her. Sophie was still in the bar when her brother Phil found her saying: “I've just seen Jason in reception waiting for you.” as Jason returned from the lounge with mother.

Having said their good-nights to any remaining party-goers in the bar, the three of them, Jason with Sophie on one arm and mother on the other, headed for the taxi via the reception area.

As they turned left out of the bar they came to a sudden halt. Jason thought he had turned the wrong way and was facing a mirror. He was looking at himself. But why couldn't he see the ladies on his arms?

He felt someone pull on his left arm. It was mother as she fainted with shock and fell to the floor. Both Jasons went to her aid.

Sophie stepped back in amazement saying “It can't be, it's impossible . . .”


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