by Elaine Koerner Ceret Tourist Office Opens Its Doors at New Location The newly-relocated Ceret Tourist Office sports everything a traditional tourist office offers plus some impressive new high-tech bells and whistles. Opening day was…

Woman saved by cat

Somebody set fire to a mobile home in the garden of a house in the hamlet of Palol near Céret where the 21 year old daughter of the owner was asleep. The mother, asleep in the main house woke to the sound of shouting, helped her daughter douse the flames and then rang the police, who found an empty petrol can nearby and the traces of a 4×4 on the ground adjacent. The daughter had been woken by her cat who had jumped on her. She could not explain who might have wanted her dead.

False Black Widow spider found in Ria Sirach

A pest control company from Rivesaltes was in Ria Sirach to get rid of insects when the director, Patrick Salvat noticed an unusual spider’s web and went to investigate. Mr. Salvat is an arachnophile, but he’d never seen a spider like it. He took some photos and went home to look it up on the internet.

During unstable and financially difficult periods, culture and the arts often bear the brunt of cut-backs and belt-tightening. Ambre Perez, professional dancer and Treasurer of the Festival des Musiques dels Monts, is therefore launching a…

Stag steals vegetables A stag has taken to coming into the village of Dorres in Cerdagne and helping himself to the produce in the local vegetable gardens. He’s been coming in for 2 or 3 years and is getting bolder and bolder. At first he just raided plots on the outskirts, now he comes into the centre of the village in broad daylight and fences have been built to keep him out. He takes off whenever anyone tries to approach him.

Stag steals vegetables A stag has taken to coming into the village of Dorres in Cerdagne and helping himself to the produce in the local vegetable gardens. He’s been coming in for 2 or 3 years and is getting bolder and bolder. At first he just raided plots on the outskirts, now he comes into the centre of the village in broad daylight and fences have been built to keep him out. He takes off whenever anyone tries to approach him.

The Museum of Modern Art at Collioure and the Walter Benjamin Centre of Contemporary Art have announced that anyone who buys a ticket for either of these institutions will get in to the other one free. The tickets also entitle the holder to reduced rates for guided visits of the two communes organised by the tourist office and the little tourist trains of Perpignan and Collioure.

Céret town council has recently appointed a private firm to run parking patrols, and locals who live and work in town and rarely move their cars were unpleasantly surprised to find that they’d disappeared. Their first reaction was to report them stolen to the police, only afterwards realising that they’d been towed as they’d been parked in the same spot for over a week.

By Norman Longworth   The polling is over the decision is clear A triumph for ignorance, hatred and fear One in the eye for political nobs Another for intellectual snobs   A triumph for old…