Alejandro Sanz’ Paradise Tour is said by the promoters to be the most important of his career. Certainly his Looking for Paradise release with Alicia Keys is a cracker. Here are the two of them giving it laldie (Scottish for singing their hearts out) on tour last year.

Both artists are playing in Tenerife this summer. The lovely Alicia Keys will playing Quayside in Santa Cruz in June with tickets going for €35 or €60 while Alejandro Sanz is playing Tenerife on August 28 in the Adeje Soccer Stadium. Tickets for Sanz concert are €25 for the masses while the chosen few may opt for ‘Paraiso LG’ seats for €50 which allow them to enjoy ‘toda la fuerza’ of the experience plus have their own special entrance so they can avoid rubbing shoulders with the hoi polloi.

Tickets for both events are available from generaltickets.com

Everywhere you look in Tenerife you will see banana plantations – or you won’t see them -  but they are there, hidden behind that tatty looking grey net that festoons the island.

Now, for the very first time, Tenerife is hosting a banana festival complete with all sorts of wacky competitions and events – banana sculpting for example.

There will be prizes for the best banana inspired dish and plenty of banana booze as well as non-alcoholic banana drinks for the kids. It sounds like a lot of fun and I am promised more bananas than I can carry if I go along with the weans so I guess I’ll see you there.  I’ll be the one checking out the banana rum…
Festival Del Platano

April 24 & 25th 2010

Troya, Playa de las Americas.

The tsunami in the Indian Ocean in 2004 killed 230,000 people. The enormity of the loss of life is hard to digest.  It is hard to believe that that many people lost their lives in one cataclysmic event. But is it any easier to imagine the 260,000 men who will die in Western Europe this year from cancer? Or the 277,000 women in Central & Eastern Europe who will succumb to the same disease?

In fact, altogether across Europe over a million people will die this year from cancer. Worldwide, the figure is somewhere near 8 million.

According to the UK CancerStats site more than 1 in 3 people develop some form of cancer in their lifetime. The good news is that the average ten-year cancer survival rate has doubled over the last 30 years and more than seven out of ten children with cancer are now successfully treated compared with fewer than 3 in 10 in the 1960s.

Also according to the CancerStats site, cancer is the number one fear amongst Brits, topping that of heart disease or terrorism. How much scarier then must it be to contract the disease while living in a foreign country, with minimal medical insurance and perhaps not much in the way of family support?

The annual Walk For Life in Tenerife raises money in support of the Spanish cancer charities AECC and Amate. In a sea of pink solidarity, men, women and children walk the 3.5 km from the Mediterranean Palace to the Sal Y Tien plaza. As it says on the Carrera por la Vida website “Once a year, to walk is to support!”

As an expat in Tenerife, you might wonder if these charities are available to you should you fall ill with cancer. For the answer you should read the moving account of one British pensioner in Tenerife Magazine who received such support from AECC that she says they made a terrible time bearable.

Whether you are in town as an expat or a tourist, all you need to do is show up – in a pink t-shirt if you have one – at 10.30 on Sunday 13th December and join the walk.  Sponsorships and donations are passed on to the relevant charities under the guidance of a Notary and with full transparency so you know every penny is going to the aid of somebody who needs it.

You might also announce your participation on the Tenerife Magazine Walk for Life participants page on Facebook.

This could be YOU!

Have you seen the new Tenerife Magazine yet? It is FAB! Being 100% virtual, I can’t say it has hit the streets running but the very first issue comes with a brilliant competition giveaway – a holiday for up to four at the gorgeous Sands Beach in Lanzarote!

All you need to do to enter is become a fan of the Tenerife Magazine page on Facebook. The draw is to be held on November 30th and results will be announced via Facebook.

It is hard cheddar if you are not on Facebook, I am afraid but not to worry. I have it on good authority that the next competition will be run through a different medium – maybe Twitter.  Perhaps the next competition will even be for a Tenerife related prize?

If you are on holiday in Tenerife at the end of August  you will find lots of free beach-related activity and workshops centred round the Los Cristianos area. It’s all to do with the annual Aguaviva Canarias festival which is held to celebrate the sea and drive home the message that the wide blue oceans of the world are full of natural treasures that need to be tended, protected and loved. It is a collaborative effort with input from scientists, government bodies, musicians and entertainers, educators and the public.

There are free events and activites from August 22 and an open air concert on August 29th which requires payment but at only €15 should be worth the entrance fee.  The whole festival comes to a close on 30th of August with the release of turtles which has been co-ordinated by members of the Neotropico Foundation.  There are also volunteer educational projects like the cetacean research project run by Buena Proa.

Saturday 22 August

10:00 hrs – Beach Clean Up at Playa de Las Enojados, Las Galletas (free)

Sunday 23 August

18.30 hrs – Marine Life First Aid Workshop (seabirds, turtles and whales), Playa de las Vistas, Los Cristianos (free)

19.00 hrs – Marine Graffitti Workshop on the seafront of Los Cristianos, Memorial Plaza (free)

Friday 28 August

11.00 – 14.00 hrs and 15.00 – 17.00 horas, Aguaviva Baptisms – Make a spiritual connection with the ocean (free)

Dive into Aguaviva – Playa de Las Vistas. Playa de Las Vistas.

10.30 – 15.00 hrs – Workshops on the beach of Los Cristianos. (free)

18.00 – 20.00 hrs – Workshops on the beach of Los Cristianos. (free)

21:00 hrs Street Parade with CIRCUS JAM -Paseo Marítimo de Los Cristianos – Plaza de Los Caídos (free)

22.00 hrs – CONFABULADOS in concert. – Paseo Marítimo de Los Cristianos – Plaza de Los Caídos (free)

Saturday 29 August

11.00 – 14.00 hours and 15.00 – 17.00 am Aguaviva Baptisms – Get baptised in the ocean (free)
Dive into Aguaviva.- Playa de Las Vistas

10.00 hrs -  Cleaning the Deep Arona in Playa de Las Vistas. (free)
13.00 hrs -  Human Chain of Pollutionfrom the Playa de Las Vistas to the Centro Cultural de Los Cristianos. (free)
19.00 hrs Round Table in Arona in Playa de las Vistas (next to the breakwater of the port).
Panel discussion on the current state of conservation of the seafloor and the coast of the Canary Islands.Various interested groups are invited to attend including scuba divers, fishermen, scientists, researchers at the ULL and the Natural History Museum, conservationists, politicians and hoteliers.
10.30 – 15.00 hrs Workshops on the beach of Los Cristianos.
18.00 – 20.00 hrs Workshops on the beach of Los Cristianos.

21.00 hrs  AguavivaFest Concert

The Zaragoza pop rock band Amaral are the headliners with We Are Standard, Line, Ramon Dominguez and Adjacant and DT Project also in the line up. See clips of Amaral, We Are Standard and Ramon Domingues below for a wee taster of what the night will hold.

Estadio de Los Cristianos, Annex. Advance tickets 15 euros.

Sunday 30 August

11.00 – 14.00 hours and 15.00 – 17.00 am Baptisms Aguaviva. Make direct contact with the underwater world with a free ocean baptism.

Dive into Aguaviva. Playa de Las Vistas.
10.30 – 15.00 pm Workshops on the beach of Los Cristianos.

16:30 hrs - Turtle Release in  Playa de Las Vistas
21.00 hrs – Cinema on the Beach in Arona in Playa de Los Cristianos.

Among the many other wonders in store during the Tenerife Design Festival 19 to 22 October you can expect the magical flying grass carpet to make an appearance.

The flying grass carpet makes its way from city to city around the globe briefly touching down to let city dwellers play and stretch out on it as well as being a temporary base for a variety of public events.

What a lovely idea. The picture shown is from the carpet’s short trip to Budapest but you can find many more on the Flying Grass website.

The Tenerife Design Festival (TDF) is dedicated to fusing the ‘current trends of design with the main features of the Canarian identity’ and focusses on the three key concepts of local identity, landscape contrast and tourism.

Expect the unexpected during that week as designers from around the world get together to turn Tenerife into a ’seething mass of creativity and design’.

Oooo er. I’m not so sure about the seething mass bit. Whoever wrote the English blurb on the TDF website has done so in that annoyingly arty-farty nonsensical wittering beloved of those who think design concepts have to be drowned in a bucket of words before the rest of us plebs can get the point (or lack thereof).

Here slighty toned down are the descriptions of the TDF sections taken from the Tenerife Design Festival website.

TDFSigno – designers, industry and craftsmen collaborating on new products and ways of development which involve both fresh  ideas and traditional Canarian concepts.

TDFAtmósfera – ominously threatening to ‘involve the public’, TDFAtmósfera promises to bathe Santa Cruz in a wash of exhibitions and urban interventions. If you venture into large spaces within the city during this week in October such as the TEA, La Recova or the port itself expect to be pounced on by a creative installation or two.

TDFLab – three-day workshops for professionals, students and general participants to experiment with different ways to  generate new objects, graphics and interventions in different spaces with a focus on the interaction between design and the Canarian environment.

TDFAward cunningly sponsored by Turismo de Tenerife proposes Tenerife Design Paradise, an international prize, which encourages designers to work on elements that will make up a dream beach of the future.  Based on the idea “Design Paradise” the aim is the creation of products that may be further developed later by the sponsor to enhance the tourism experience.

TDFSolution brings together different professional approaches to spread and support advances in culture, innovation and design. The Symposium will consist of the presentation of works by businesses, local, national and international designers, stirred into action by a critic or analyst. The point of departure will be TDF’s three central concepts: nature, local identity and tourism.

See the Tenerife Design Festival website for more information including a Programme of Events and a Registration page which showing fabulous international creativity is only available in Spanish. According to the translation it seems registrations will not be open till September:

Inscriptions

To participate in various workshops and activities of TDF, you can simply register by filling out a form. In September the program will be more detailed for you to decide which section is more suited to your interests …

But you should be aware: the seats are limited!