Tenerife Magazine’s round up of some of the most interesting news stories of the week in Tenerife.
A taste of rain at last
After months and months of drought, a decent amount of rain finally fell on Tenerife soil. The rain on Thursday affected mainly the northern side of Tenerife where it was welcomed like mana from heaven with some people cheering and others signalling their thanks to the heavens. In La Laguna up to 15 litres of water per square metre fell in ten minutes.
Whilst residents in the north of Tenerife danced in the rain, the south remained sunny; although strong winds in southern parts restricted sea going excursions.
The weather front was short-lived, leaving the islands by the end of Thursday. Relief was brief but it did breathe a bit of life back into the thirsty soil.
Top Tenerife hotels
Congratulations to the seven Tenerife hotels that featured in tour operator TUI’s top 100 hotels of the world at TUI’s Holly awards in Valencia. The seven hotels loved by TUI clients are the Gran Hotel Roca Nivaria, Hotel Atlantis Park, Hotel Botánico, Hotel Colón Guanahani, Hotel Jardines de Nivaria, Hotel Rui Garoé and the Hotel Tigaiga.
The popular Hotel Tigaiga in Puerto de la Cruz was also picked out for a special award for its ongoing commitment to implementing innovative environmental awareness projects that are quite a bit more advanced than signs saying ‘if you hang up your towel neatly, we won’t replace it and you’ll be helping to save the planet. Leave it in a heap on the floor and we’ll change it for a fresh one even though it shows you’re environmentally unaware and a messy devil”.‘
Pigeons close a school
One of the oddest stories of the week was about the boycott by students of a college in a suburb of Puerto de la Cruz because there were too many pigeons about. Around 300 people turned up at the college to protest about the plague of palomas which parents claimed represented a health risk. The college’s director seemed unsure as to how he was going resolve the situation and get rid of the feathered pests; you could say he came across as being coo-less.
Nul points at Carnaval 2013
There will be a change of voting procedures at next year’s carnival queen contest in Santa Cruz. In comes a Eurovision Song Contest style where each of the judges will award points to each candidate after they’ve swished their huge, flamboyant outfit around the stage.
This style of voting was tried before in 2009, but immediately dumped after being criticised by designers who said that the members of the jury didn’t quite understand how the voting worked. Now they’ve had 3 years to get to grips with the concept, everybody seems happy to try it again… that is until the first time a juror utters those words that no-one wants to hear “nul points”.
The election for the Carnaval Queen for 2013 takes place on February 6th.
And finally the TIT (This is Tenerife) of the week award goes to… The curse of Tenerife; bad business practices
Latest culprits on the long, long list of not paying their employees, according to the Spanish newspaper El Dia, is Gestión de Restauración de Canarias SL; the company responsible for staffing the wonderful Mirador de Humboldt in La Orotava. Staff who are owed months of unpaid wages are holding a one day strike on the 30th September in a bid to try to jolt the company into paying them what they are owed.
Every week there are reports on Tenerife of workers not being paid by employers; it’s an endemic disease that stretches all the way up to the top.
There are some in the Canary Islands who complain about being viewed as being backward. Guess what? Continuing to indulge in abhorrent, outdated and unacceptable businesses practices, such as not paying workers timeously, only serves to prove to the more developed parts of Europe’s business community that backward is exactly what the islands are when it comes to business practices.
