A gang of Balkan jewel thieves who call themselves The Pink Panthers have been nicking luxury goods and raiding jewellery shops from Tenerife to Timbuktu. One of the gang, Rifat Hadziahmetovic, from Montenegro was arrested as he tried to leave Cyprus on a fake passport and is currently being held pending a hearing regarding his extradition to Spain on March 31st

Inspector Clous… Andreou informed the press that the suspect was “…initially detained on suspicion of possession of forged documents, but further inquiries revealed he was wanted by Interpol for being a suspected part of the Pink Panther gang,”

Apparently the suspect was also identified by a tattoo on his leg though no information is currently available to support the rumour that it was of a large pink cat.

Hadziahmetovic is wanted in Tenerife among many other places for the theft of luxury items including watches and precious jewels, with the watches alone having an estimated value of 660,000 euros (877,000 dollars), according to an Interpol message received by Cyprus police.

Tonight celebrate Earth Hour with more than a billion other people from 83 cities and countless communities around the world.  Just flip the off switch from 8.30 till 9.30 tonight to register your comittment to energy conservation and Vote Earth.

You can Twitter, Flickr, Blog and Youtube about your Earth Hour experience :

Update your Twitter on the night and write #earthhour or #voteearth and your #location in your update to tag it.

Write a live blog post during the event and tag it with earthhour or voteearth, and your location.

Make a video of your event, upload it to YouTube and add it to the Earth Hour group.

Take a photo on the night, upload it to flickr and add it to Earth Hour’s flickr group and tag it with your city and country.

COMMENT

Send a comment to this thread on Tenerife Tattle to say what you got up to  during Earth Hour. (Within reason – this is a family show).

Seeing as how in my last post I admitted that I only got round to cleaning my desk because the computer was down thanks to Tenerife’s electricity blackout I think the following quote from IBM is warranted except in my case, instead of the computer being a product of my laziness it is the cause of it

El ordenador ha sido hasta ahora el producto mas genial de la vagancia humana

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Well that was interesting. One bolt of lightning and kaboom. Lights out from one end of Tenerife to the other. That certainly inspires confidence in the island’s infrastructure in the event of a real emergency doesn’t it.

This past few months we’ve had a bit of a survivor thing going on anyway watching Les Stroud struggle to feed himself and get a fire started  in various extreme, exposed and uninhabited parts of the globe.  We’ve snorted at Bear Gryls ridiculous efforts to be rugged before nipping off back to his four star for the night and marvelled at Ray Mears’ effortless ability to stay warm, dry and fed in the most unlikely of places.

The 80’s series of Survivors in which 98% of the world’s population is killed off by a deadly virus  attracted our attention for a while. The acting and sets seem a bit jaded now but in a lot of ways it can still hold its own next to last year’s version which finished on a cliff-hanger so all we know  is that after surviving plague, kidnap and a murderous politician, Abbey has now being taken into custody by some mad scientists who are quite willing to kill her to crack the secret of her immunity … oooohhh.

Anyway, you’d think with all that I would be quite well prepared to deal with a couple of electricity-free hours wouldn’t you? I could’ve practiced my skills with my fire key and flint stick, rustled up a few rabbit snares and picked some wild berries and edible leaves. I could have but I didn’t.  Instead I patted my unconscious computer and wandered past the kettle a couple of times before resigning myself to the very mundane task of cleaning my desk. Under piles of to-do lists and Extremely Important Papers! I found my lost ipod shuffle and a bowl of unused sugar sachets. Here’s a picture specially for John who recently cast doubt on the existence of my sugar sachet Spanish stash.

I also walked the dogs and sat for a while watching the clouds gathering in the distance. Though we were anticipating a wild night it didn’t come to much more than a downpour in the early hours of this morning and the sun was out again by the time I took the wee ones to school this morning.

Even so, half the little guy’s class didn’t show up and his teacher led in the fila muttering under her breath about those who were afraid of a little bit of agua.

How could Sir David Jason, Del Boy to legions of Only Fools and Horses fans, have been such a plonker?

Never mind the silly uproar in the newspapers about his ‘Me hat, me coat’,  joke being, ‘…inappropriate’, it wasn’t funny! Coming from such a legendary comic, I am in shock!

Here is a funny inappropriate joke about a Scotsman from Roddy Martine:

Jimmy goes into a bar and asks for a single malt scotch.
The barman pours it and says ‘It’s an 18-year-old.’
Jimmy replies: ‘It’s awful wee for it’s age.’

And another inappropriate joke about some poor soul with a speech impediment courtesy of 19 year old entrepreneur Fraser Doherty:

Patient: Doctor, I can’t pronounce my F’s, T’s and H’s.
Doctor: Well you can’t say fairer than that then.

These and other jokes were compiled by and printed in The Scotsman last December as a way to forget the chill and the credit crunch under the headline Top Jokes to Cheer you Up.  Go and have a look. It’s worth a laugh.

Every day at more or less the same time I can hear rhythmic music from the park out at the front and I know that the local kids are practising capoeira out there under a large shady tree. Combining music and movement, tradition, rhythm, folklore, art and harmony into one overall philosophy, capoeira teaches not only self-defense but also respect for oneself and others, racial tolerance and the benefits of healthy diet and fitness. Listening to the music I know that the kids who are practising their moves out there are not the same ones that will be hanging out round the corner smoking and getting into trouble in the evening.

If you have an active child and are looking for something to occupy him or her then you might want to consider the Terra Firme Canarias capoeira lessons which are subsidised by the ayutamientos of San Miguel de Arona, Guia de Isora and Arona council.

The Terra Firme Canarias Association was established by César Barreto in 2007. As a young boy in Tenerife, César was captivated by the performance of a capoeiria master he saw in a movie. That was the start of a journey that would eventually take him to Brazil to learn the art of this Brazilian traditional fighting skill from internationally recognised Maestre Hulke and in time receive his own capoeira title, ‘Instructor Pescador’ from his teacher.

Capoira Classes are held:

Ayuntamiento San Miguel de Abona (Concejalia de Deportes)
Barrio de Guargacho – Colegio el Monte
Tues & Thurs:  18:15 to 19:45 hrs

Ayuntamiento Guia de Isora (Concejalia de Juventud)
Barrio del Fraile, Centro  Juvenil del Fraile
Wed & Fri: 18:00 to 19:45 hrs

Ayuntamiento de Adeje (Concejalia de Deportes)
Barrio de Los Olivos, Complejo de Deportivo Las Torres
Mon & Wed: 16:00 to 17:30 hrs

Academia de Arte Marciales ACAD
Los Cristianos, near the bus station
Tues & Thurs: 18:30 to 20:00 hrs

Academia de Danza
Barrio de Los Olivos, Adeje
Friday: 16:30 to 17:30 hrs

As far as I know these classes are free as they have been  subsidised by the various councils mentioned but you can contact the Terra Firme Canarias Association yourself to confirm that and class schedules. You might also want to ask about demonstrations as Instructor Pescador and his team can often be seen at festivals or shows.

Contact Details:

Website: Terra Firme Canarias
Email: terrafirmecanarias@hotmail.com
Tel: 696219518 or 638579432

Capoira – Martial Art or Dance?

Though I suspect I know the spot that the Bard of Ely is referring to in his post, ‘Strange Creatures Call From the Sea’, I couldn’t name or describe the sea creatures that live there.

Much better and far more interesting if you go  along with the Bard for a poke about in the rock pools along the Costa Del Silencio coast line and let him tell you all about the creatures and plants you find there including this colourful Sea Hare from the ‘Strange Creatures…’  hub.