RUTH LORENZO WILL REPRESENT SPAIN AT THE 2014 EUROVISION SONG CONTEST

In a national final consisting of five artists, the Spanish public and the jury elected to send Ruth Lorenzo to Copenhagen with the song “Dancing in the Rain”, a nice and dramatic ballad, sung both in Spanish and English.

Ruth Lorenzo Pascual, better known as Ruth Lorenzo, was born on November 10, 1982 in Murcia, a south-eastern region of Spain. At a very young age she became a fan of the musical Annie and although she had no idea of what the words meant she would sing along to the songs in English. When she was six years old she discovered music by Montserrat Caballé, a Catalan opera singer, and after her mother bought her an album by Caballé, Lorenzo began to sing opera, imitating Caballé's vocals until she was pitch perfect. 

At the age of 12, Lorenzo's family moved to America and this was the first time she had the opportunity to be involved in music at school. After much encouragement from her teachers, Lorenzo was entered into competitions and played lead roles in musical productions such as "The Phantom of the Opera" and "My Fair Lady".

When Lorenzo turned 16 the family returned to Spain and although having had singing lessons by this time, she had to cancel these lessons due to family financial difficulty and as a result Lorenzo gave up on her dream of becoming a recording artist.

When Lorenzo was 19 she joined a rock band, which was a challenge for her as she had only sung opera music. In 2002, she auditioned for the second series of Operación Triunfo, the Spanish version of  Star Academy, where she was rejected in the first rounds of auditions. She also made a big decision to quit her job in her family's business in order to pursue her dreams once again, but after three years of touring around Spain the group decided to split up. Ruth landed a contract at Polaris World where as well as performing, she worked as a PR consultant.

In 2008, Lorenzo auditioned for the fifth series of The X Factor in front of judges Simon Cowell, Cheryl Cole and Louis Walsh. There, she impressed the judges with her performing such as “A natural woman”, “True colors”, “Take my breath away”, “I just can’t stop loving you”, “Knockin’on Heavens Door”, “Purple rain” and “Always”.

Lorenzo performed at gigs across the UK and Ireland in December 2008 and January 2009, and at the Spirit of Northern Ireland Awards.

She has worked with Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler, Carlos Santana and Danii Minogue, for whom she had been writing several songs as “Because you are beautiful”. And also has written songs for the Spanish group Auryn.

And finally, last January she was selected as one of the five candidates to represent Spain at the 2014 Eurovision song contest on 10^th May, after rejecting the proposal to represent the United Kingdom. The song “Dancing in the rain” was released on February 18 and quickly it became number one on iTunes Spain. 

Now we will have to wait for the Eurovision contest to take place in Copenhaguen and to wish Ruth all the best luck for this young woman whose favourite Disney character is The little Seamaid, not because she is looking for love but because she is looking for freedom.

MONA LISA'S TWIN SISTER PAINTING DISCOVERED AT THE PRADO MUSEUM, 500 YEARS ON

painted by Francesco Melzi (supposedly)

Recently Spain's Prado Museum has revealed a replica of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, also known as "La Gioconda'', describing it as the most important known copy of the iconic painting. The discovery of the "twin sister" of "La Gioconda'' (came to light February 1st) was "a real revelation", said Gabriele Finaldi, a Prado deputy director responsible for restoration and investigation.

The replica had been at the Madrid museum for years, but it had been merely regarded as just another copy of the Mona Lisa, which da Vinci painted sometime between 1503 and 1506.

Experts began to restore it in order to lend it for an exhibition at the Louvre in Paris, which has the original Mona Lisa and it was then when they made the breathtaking discovery, hidden beneath black overpaint while in the Louvre’s original, Mona Lisa’s face is obscured by old, cracked varnish, making her appear almost middle aged, in the recently restored Prado's copy we see her as she would have looked at the time, as a ravishing young woman in her early 20s.

The Mona Lisa at the Prado in Madrid was thought to be just another fine copy, with added eyebrows and an odd black background. But curators at Spain's national art museum on Wednesday announced a startling discovery: the painting was actually executed by one of Leonardo da Vinci’s key pupils (probably Francesco Melzi), at his workshop at Florence, working alongside the master.

The artist who made the copy repeated all of da Vinci's original corrections, repainting the outlines of the Mona Lisa's waist and head, the position of her fingers, and making changes to her cheeks and neck.

The replica gives keys into how da Vinci created the Mona Lisa and into his working methods generally, restorer Ana Gonzalez Mozo said. She described the "twin" as "the most important version of La Gioconda known until now."

The Mona Lisa is widely believed to be a portrait of Lisa Gherardini, a Florentine merchant's wife, and the copy makes her look younger and more seductive. Miguel Falomir, chief conservator for renaissance painting, said, "When the X-ray revealed the landscape, it was in extraordinary condition. It was the most surprising thing in the 14 years I've been here." It has belonged to the museum at least since 1666, first as part of the royal collection and then as a state treasure. The black background behind the female figure had been added on top of a Tuscan landscape identical to that in da Vinci's original.

painted by Leonardo da Vinci

La Gioconda is definitely one of the most popular paintings worldwide and one of the works of art that has inspired the greatest number of artists over the centuries, from those who tried to copy its enigmatic smile to classic pop-art versions, to famous Salvador Dali's Self Portrait as the Mona Lisa. Here you are a handful of Mona Lisa versions:

Roy Lichtenstein

Picasso



Matt Groening

a guess?

another guess?

a ciber Mona Lisa

Mona Lisa's earliest copy will be lent to the Louvre at the end of March as an addition to the exhibition Leonardo’s Last Masterpiece: The Sainte Anne (29 March-25 June).

Last Saturday I could see the painting, after waiting for nearly an hour in a long queue and it was quite difficult to watch it properly, because there were so many people staring at it, but finally I was lucky enough to watch it and have the chance to compare it with a copy of the Gioconda painted by da Vinci, that was hanging nearby. And there were, at least, three big differences that catch my attention: the painting colour, the model's smile and the model's age. The colour of the painting is much stronger at the Prado's Gioconda (which I found more attractive than the dark colours on the Leonardo's Mona Lisa), the smile in the Louvre's Gioconda is more enigmatic and related to the age, the Prado's Gioconda seems to be younger. Anyway  you can see by yourself and tell the differences looking at both paintings below, do you want to try?

Really, is this painting ever going to stop surprising us?

Source:
The Independent
Stripes.com

MARIANO RAJOY, PRIME MINISTER AFTER A LONG AND HARD ROAD

Spain has voted today and Spaniards have punished the ruling Socialists and have decided to trust Mariano Rajoy Brey, the leader of the PP, who has been elected Prime Minister with a 16 percentage points over the Socialists (enough for an absolute majority in Parliament and a free hand to reform). The opposition leader was staging his third successive bid to head a national government, and this time, as all the opinion polls predicted, has got the Popular Party to win in a clear majority, after taking 186 of the 350 seats in the lower house. According to the official results, the PP has won the 45% of the votes and the Socialists 29% in Sundays’ General Elections.

Mariano Rajoy Brey was born 27 March 1955, in Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, and graduated from the University of Santiago de Compostela. Aged 24 he passed the competitive examination required in Spain to enter into the civil service becoming the youngest ever property registrar.

Nobody has ever accused him of being charismatic, but he has surprised many in his own party for his survival skills, playing a waiting game since the crisis hit in 2008. Spain is going through a crisis of confidence, and what the country needs is a man it can trust. "At times of difficulty, people want sensible, realistic and prudent leaders," say his party colleagues. They also have said about him: "He is not a manipulator or a plotter, which is why the grassroots support him" and "He is where he is because of his own merits, his clarity, and his analysis of Spain's problems".

Rajoy has come a long way since the Socialists' surprise win in the 2004 elections. Defeat four years later unleashed a war of succession in the Popular Party that he has finally managed to contain, his enemies in the party were sharpening the knives, and there was open hostility toward him, questioning his leadership, but according to him now, it was one of those unhappy occasions that you learn from and that make you stronger.

His recently published autobiography, “En confianza” (In confidence), skips over this period of internal division within the party, referring sensitively to "breaks with party colleagues" and summarizing the whole episode as "painful." One senior colleague of the PP leader admits that there was a plot to get rid of Rajoy. But Rajoy knew where his support lay: in the party's grassroots. Rajoy won 84 percent of the vote at the 2008 party convention.

Embraced by his wife after defeat in 2008 General Elections

He is very intelligent and intuitive. Basically he is a good person, and a very human one," says Rajoy's protégé Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, the PP's spokeswoman in Congress. "He has avoided having to elbow people out of the way, or to have to fight. His career has been marked by discretion, patience, determination and perseverance. He is pragmatic, very smart and suspicious. And behind a wall of silences and courtesies hides a funny and sly type.

The key to Rajoy's survival is his ability to get the timing right. He is a master at this, because he seems to achieve his goals without seeming to do anything. He is sensible, frank, although some see him as hesitant and slow to react; but the truth is that he thinks things through," says Xavier Pomés, a member of the rightwing CiU Catalan nationalist bloc, and an old friend of the PP leader. Others who have worked with Rajoy from other parties agree that he is a man of his word, and that he would always meet his obligations.

"He also likes to talk about other things than politics. At Christmas, he likes to spend a little time with us just having a drink and chatting things over." "He is a moderate conservative, with a vision of the world influenced by his origins in Galicia, a vision that looks out to the Atlantic as well as being provincial. He has been able to run the party because he has been able to hold on to his centralist vision.

“It's not the system that has failed, but our leaders for not having controlled spending or implemented the changes that the euro required. The private sector has been allowed to slide into debt and now that money has to be repaid. We have lived beyond our means thanks to easy money. We live in a world in which thought has been replaced by spectacle”, he says in the book.

On a personal level, he is married to Elvira Fernandez (“Viri”, as friends call her) since 1996 after four years dating her and they have two children aged 12 and 6 and his wife, aged 45, lost a girl when she was six months pregnant. Elvira is a beautiful and intelligent woman, economist, discreet and a very good support for his husband.

This man who is defined as very familiar, says that what makes him laugh out loud are the wisecracks of his children. He loves cycling and is a big fan of Real Madrid football team.  What he likes to do most at the end of the day is to read a good book in bed. He loves Police and The Beatles and the historical figure he most admires is Leonardo da Vinci.

In his book he talks about the need for structural reforms in the labor market, about education,... Rajoy is part of the moderate center right, distancing himself from the hard right that uses its position to stir up confrontation over issues such as abortion, same-sex marriages, or religious education. He identifies with entrepreneurs, even if it is a bar owner who only provides work for one other person. “We need big companies, but we also need small businesses. We need fewer rules, but ones that are respected”.

Related to his plans about the new government, when it comes to appoint a Minister, he has said age isn’t a problem for him. Rajoy has vowed to make cuts everywhere, except for pensions, so as to meet Spains’s target of cutting the public deficit to 4.4 per cent of gross domestic product in 2012 from 9.3 per cent last year and last Friday said that the country is going to comply with its deficit obligations.

Today, as the polls have talked today, this quietly spoken man, with his old-fashioned manners and politeness, will finally get the opportunity to show whether, as his supporters insist, it is true that "Mariano will make a better head of government than leader of the opposition." When he is called to ask for three wishes, he replies: employment, employment and employment.

Today the feeling of the 11 million people who have voted PP is a feeling of hope and illusion thinking that things are going to change for better.

It has been a long and hard road for this quiet politician to become Prime Minister, but now he has ahead a new and twisted road to cover. Congratulations and the best of luck to the new Prime Minister. For him but mainly for the sake of all Spaniards.

Fuente:

Telegraph.co.uk

Elpais.com

Wikipedia

EL HIERRO ISLAND HAS GOT THE SMALLEST HOTEL IN THE WORLD AND PERHAPS A NEW LITTLE SISTER ISLAND?

It all started last July 17th 2011, when the seismographs from the National Geographic Institute (IGN), responsible for volcanic surveillance in Spain, recorded unusual seismic activity on the island of El Hierro(one of the 7 Canary Islands) and after many theories and predictions of seismologists about what could happen eventually there was a rash last Friday in the sea next to the coastline in the south of El Hierro island.

The Canary Islands have more than 1,000 km of coastline. Most of the sand on the beach is white, although some in Tenerife is golden, brought from the Sahara desert. There are 140 nature reserves, 4 national parks and hundreds of volcanoes. The Canary Islands is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Spain during the whole year. Some people describe its weather as the "spring constant".

The Canary Islands are also known as the "Fortunate Isles", the "Garden of the Hesperides" and "Atlantis". In fact, some historians say the legendary continent of Atlantis was located here.

The largest of all the Canary Islands is Tenerife, a combination of tropical
paradise with volcanic landscape. Mount Teide at 3,718 m.,
is the third largest volcano on Earth from its base.

Gran Canaria has some amazing beaches and is a good place to go out,
the nightlife is excellent.

It is famous for its bananas and tomatoes.

Lanzarote is an island scorched by fire which has developed an unprecedented
and unique landscape, difficult to find elsewhere. The similarity to a lunatic
and cosmic landscape is only a matter of miles and dimensions.
It has 300 volcanoes now extinct.

Fuerteventura has the best beaches of all islands and
is very close to the Sahara desert.

La Gomera is a rugged and mountainous terrain, which gives it
a very exotic character. It is advisable to visit the forests of the island,
a natural paradise. It is also protected by the government.

La Palma is called "La Isla Bonita" (the pretty island),
because of its striking beauty.

And El Hierro island, the one most volcanic active in the last days.

The Canary Islands, like most volcanic islands, are buildings that rise from the seabed so that only a small portion protruding from the sea level. This means that we know directly less than 10% of island building. The training process began in the Miocene, 23 million years ago. The oldest islands are La Gomera, Gran Canaria, Fuerteventura and Lanzarote, while younger ones are El Hierro, La Palma and Tenerife. From the late fifteenth century there have been 14 eruptions, the last in 1971 on the island of La Palma (when Teneguia volcano erupted).

El Hierro is the smallest island, south and west of the Canary Islands and is the youngest island, it is only (!!!) 1.2 million years old and is in its first phase of creation (the rest of the islands are in the third). El Hierro is the island with the highest density of volcanoes in the Canary Islands, there are more than 500 opened craters and 300 covered by recent lava flows. Currently there are 70 volcanic caves.

On January 22, 2000 was declared by UNESCO as a Biosphere Reserve. Currently there is a plan promoted by the Ministry of Development to become the first island in the world in total renewable energy supplies.

Its geography stone and ash is the result of streams of lava that broke the seafloor and then cooled. A process that apparently has not stopped, because after more than 3,000 earthquakes occurred in the last month, has erupted one of the 800 volcanoes that are in this island. However, the rash can take days or years. It is a Stromboli type volcano and this means that there is first a viscous magma output, then the pyroclastic and explosive phases would come eventually, but not with virulence. Although there is a big stock of magma at the bottom of the island.

The current situation in Hierro island is relatively calm, since the system has discharged its energy, but there continues to further input from magma, experts can not say whether the eruption will last several days or several weeks, while the stain is increasingly larger and closer to the coast, the material which is going out is mainly molten basalt, touching the water cools and becomes rock while the turquoise blue of the stain is attributed to sulfur and remobilization of marine clay soil waters become turbulent. Experts are evaluating whether gases can be harmful to people. Nevertheless some species are already suffering the effects of underwater eruptions since they have appeared dead on the surface (this is a great diving area).

this is the stain seen from Deimos-1 satellite

(the stain is already bigger than the island)

The probability is low but it is possible that this huge stain of sulfur finishes in a volcanic island rising.

And there is something that I did not know myself until all this happened and a neighbour of mine told me something curious about this island: it has the smallest hotel in the world, according to the Guinness Book of Records. It is the Punta Grande Hotel and rises just above an old pier alone, amid the rough waters of the islands. All its facilities are summarized in just 600 m2 floor area and 9 feet high. It was a former customs office which handled the ships that made the route to America and is decorated with all sorts of references and adventurous sailor, ship scrapping fruit or wrecks, compasses, lanterns, portholes, charts and a wetsuit that introduces the history of this fascinating place.

It only has four bedrooms and they have no telephones, no televisions, and minibars. The perfect place to rest and be in contact with nature. Curiously, one of the rooms has a terrace where you can blown launch rod into the sea. To sleep in it must be something like sleeping on waves.

If you visit Tenerife surely you will be taken to Teide Mountain, formed by eruptions; if you go to Palma you will be taken to visit the Teneguia volcano and if you go to Lanzarote, you will be taken to visit Timanfaya volcano, a devil with flames where you will see to roast a chicken in the hole of a rock boiling. And perhaps in your next visit to Hierro island you will be taken by some tours guide to visit a new little island or a new volcano to be visited, who knows it?

By the way, I have to confess you something that I would not like to get out from this blog, and it is that despite having traveled to quite a few countries in Europe and around the world (I have traveled to China, the United States and Canada, for example) I haven’t been yet to the Canary Islands! but hopefully next year I will try to solve out this, without fail!

THE "SPANISH REVOLUTION", ANOTHER MAY 1968?

A few months ago, Stephane Hessel (aged 93), a French veteran of the Resistance and diplomat, wrote the book “Indignez vous!”, which with only 30 pages became a best-seller and the social conscience of France, encouraging people to abandon the indifference and protest against the politics caste, which is not up to current needs. And now it seems that this same social consciousness has come to Spain and made to react (at last!) people here, who seemed to be totally apathetic and behaving like sheep, despite the bad social, political and economical situation that this country is living currently.

The already called “May 15 Movement” has entered hard into the Local and Regional Electoral Campaign. The demonstrators are formed by a very heterogeneous group of people, mostly young people, though there are also many unemployed, housewifes, “mileuristas” (people whose salaries are up to 1000 euros), retired people, civil servants, mortgaged, anti systems, progressive, conservative,……. grouped together after marches were held on May 15 against the failure of Spain’s political leaders to provide solutions to unemployment and the low-wage economy. Over 20 percent of Spaniards are out of work and youth unemployment stands at around 40 percent.

They were convened by an organization called Democracia Real Ya, formed three months before and which informed of the first meeting through the social networks (Twitter and Facebook) and day after day the number of people has been increasing at everywhere.

Protests in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol and in more than 150 other countries across Spain have been running during this whole week, even yesterday, that was the “day of reflection” (today is Local and Regional Elections Day) and in spite of a ruling by the country’s electoral board prohibiting any types of demonstrations before Sunday’s local and regional elections races. And it seems these protests will continue for some more days.

They are mainly complaining about the widespread corruption among the political class, though they have a long list of requests: they also complain about the rivalry between the two great parties that has poisoned the political atmosphere preventing real action being taken to solve the country’s problems, they are contrary to bipartisanship, they are sick of politicians that don’t listen to them, they want to change the Election Law, .......... A priori, they don’t ask to vote for any party, but they don’t call for abstention either.

Perhaps and in the least, this movement will make politicians to think of what they are doing wrong and if they are smart enough they could change their ways in political life. Let us hope so!

26th, MAY

This is a live broadcast of Puerta del Sol in Madrid,

where protesters still remain

PIPPA MIDDLETON CAME TO MADRID FOR A WEEKEND TRIP

Pippa Middleton, the real sensation in William and Kate's wedding, flew to Madrid last weekend to enjoy Saint Isidro's celebration. She came with several female friends and an old flame of hers, George Percy (the son of the Duke of Northumberland, one of Britain’s richest me), and she really made the most of her time in Madrid. Firstly, on Friday night they went to an exclusive local nightlife ("Fortuna").

On Saturday morning Pippa went shopping with her friends, in the afternoon all the group went  to see a bullfighting to Las Ventas, though it was cancelled because of the rain. Later they went to have dinner, consisted of paella and tapas and enjoyed a flamenco show at "Villa Rosa", probably the oldest drinking bar in Madrid, where they sang Happy Birthday to Percy and afterwards they went nightclubbing to another exclusive local called "Penthouse", to have some drinks and finally, on Sunday morning they took a relaxing boat ride at Retiro's Park (one of Madrid's largest parks) with Percy as gondolieri. Certainly Princess Catalina's sister needed this short (though very well spent) break, after the stressful Royal wedding last month.