The 'I Love Music Festival 2013' starts this year on the 29th March at the Siam Water Park in Costa Adeje, featuring 8 DJ's including, CHUCKIE, Laidback Luke, GLOWINTHEDARK, NVILLA, Alexei & Carlos Kinn and Leon Cormack.

Official website http://ilovemusicfestival.com/2013/

The trial of the man who beheaded a British woman in Tenerife is to start on Monday. Deyan Deyanov is alleged to have attacked and killed Jenifer Mills-Westley by beheading her in a Chinese supermarket in Los Cristianos.

The 28 year old Bulgaria man is said to have stabbed her before beheading her and then dropping her head outside. The suspect has a criminal record police said, and had been treated in a psychiatric hospital in Britain a few months earlier after committing other violent attacks. The attack appeared to be random.

The refusal by the defendant to admit responsibility for the crime has forces the authorities to hold a trial, even though he was apprehended and held down at the scene by security staff.

Deyanov is described as a paranoid schizophrenic and violently delusional who became obsessed with a film about aliens who stalk there victims before beheading them.

The police on Tenerife have issued a warning about counterfeited 100 euro notes circulating on the island during the carnival season. You are warning to check carefully any 100 euro notes you receive.

The notes have several security features including a hologram, watermark and hologram. Here is link showing how to check if the notes are genuine.

Indentifiying Genuine Banknotes

This years Santa Cruz carnival queen gala on Tenerife has ended in tragedy. One of the contestants for the title of carnival queen has been severely burnt when her elaborate costume caught fire as she was about to go on stage. The fire is alleged to have been started by another contestant’s costume that had fireworks attached to increase the dramatic effect on stage.

The victim is 25 year old Saida Maria Prieto who has been transferred to the burns unit in Seville on the Spanish mainland, with 42% second and third degree burns to her body and is reported to be on life support. Saida was trapped inside her costume due to belts around her waist to hold it in place.

The mayor of Santa Cruz has been criticized for playing down the seriousness of the incident by insisting on live TV that the show 'had gone wonderfully' except for a 'small problem with one of the girls’. Carnival organisers have admitted they knew a pyrotechnic device was to be used but did not carry out safety checks.

Two footballers from Tenerife, Pedro Rodríguez who plays for Barcelona and Vitolo for Panathinaikos FC, have offered to pay for Saida’s long stay for treatment in the burns unit.

Saida María Prieto Hernández

The live flight radar shows live flight data recieved from the aircrafts transponders as they are approching the Canary Islands in real time. You will notice the aircraft are actually moving.

You can zoom the map in and out to get a closer view or a broarder view, or drag the map and move its location. Hovering your mouse over the aircraft will show the flight number, if you click on the aircraft it will display more live flight information about that flight.

Also available are the Tenerife airport arrivals and Tenerife airport departures live information boards.

This years Santa Cruz carnival in Tenerife gets started this year on 6^th February and the festivities continue until February 17^th. This year’s theme is Bollywood as chosen by voters in Tenerife and will be the inspiration for costumes and songs and carnival acts.

Tenerife has had a large Hindu population from India for generations the mayor of Santa Cruz, José Manuel Bermúdez, has shown his support for the choice of theme.

The Bollywood theme was chosen by 42 per cent of the voters with the theme for cartoons coming second, followed by ‘Carnivals of the World, ‘Africa’, ‘The Sea’ and ‘The Olympics’.

A man from Wigan has claimed that he was forced into smuggling by Gangsters on Tenerife. The 20 year old man, who was caught smuggling 60 000 cigarettes into the UK, said that he was pressurised by the criminal underworld on Tenerife in to acting as a mule, after borrowing money he couldn’t repay.

Wigan magistrates were told that he was first caught with 15000 cigarettes in December 2010 at Newcastle airport. He was caught again two weeks later repeating the same offence with another 15000 cigarettes and then at Manchester airport with 17500 cigarettes in April 2011. On these three occasions he was issued with a caution.

He was caught again with 16 000 at Exeter airport in May 2011 and tried to convince officers that he was a heavy smoker, but eventually admitted to planning to sell them on. The cost in lost taxes for the 3 offence was in the order of £13000. The maximum cigarette allowance from Tenerife is 200.

The man moved to Tenerife in 2009 and worked in bars but lost his job due to bad health and ran into financial trouble, this led to him borrowing the money he couldn’t pay back.

He was given a 12 week jail sentence suspended for 12 months.

The Tenerife carnival gets started tonight with the opening ceremony and a show in the Plaza de Espania, Santa Cruz. The show will give a first glimpse of the contestants for the Carnival Queen competition and to decide the order of appearance in the contests. The competition starts with 14 hopeful contestants, from which the carnival Queen will be chosen and four bridesmaids.

Althought the main events are the Carnival Queen Parade and fancy dress parades the featival actually goes on for a month.

The Santa Cruz Canaval is the largest carnival on Tenerife, it is also regarded as the second largest carnival in the world second only to the Rio de Janeiro Canaval.

Tonight here will also be some of the singing and dance groups performing. The event begins at 8.30pm for which the organisers are expecting big crowds.

This year's theme is 'Bollywood'.

British airways are starting a new route from London Gatwick to Tenerife south (Reina Sophia) airport on 31st March 2013. The new route will be competing directly with the budget airlines, easyJet, Monarch, Thomas Cook and Thompson and will operate return flights 5 times a week.

The introduction of this flight brings a premier service to the island with full Business Class service available to those who want it and introduces an important niche product to the market. There will be 134 seats available on each flight and 25 of these will be Business Class.

The BA flights will reinforce flights to the island and also put Tenerife in the premium market.

BA flights include complimentary drinks and meal depending on the time of day of the flight, early morning flights include a breakfast. The hold baggage allowance is 23kgs each with unlimited hand luggage weight but the dimensions of hand luggage are limited.

BA previously flew to Tenerife from 2000 to 2008 although this was via the GB Airways franchise. For those longing for an upmarket alternative to the budget airlines this will be a welcome return.

The town of San Cristóbal de La Laguna on Tenerife in the Canary Islands was founded in 1497 by Alonso Fernández de Lugo, and gets its name from the shallow lake that was there and was subsequently drained in 1837.

The town has two historical centres, the original upper town (Villa de Arriba) of 1497, and the lower town (Villa de Abajo) of 1502. These areas were laid out according to philosophical principles of the time, having open spaces and wide streets. There are buildings dating back to the 16th century and it was the first non fortified colonial Spanish town, whose layout was copied by many colonial towns in the Americas.

The original inhabitants where nearly all soldiers and they did not get allocated plots of land to build on. Instead the area was considered to be public land on which any one could build. This resulted in haphazard construction around the church of La Concepción.

La Laguna Tenerife Villa de Arriba 1910

A town plan was created in 1502 based on Leonardo da Vinci's map of Imola. Wide streets were created linking open spaces for the public, forming a grid layout on which smaller streets were later superimposed. This resulted in the rapid expansion of the Lower Town that attracted the ruling classes and monastic communities and had more than 1000 inhabitants by 1515.

La Laguna was based on Leonardo da Vinci's map of Imola

In 1521 a piped water supply was installed by the town council and the first public buildings were built in 1525. The town was granted official urban status in 1531. By 1555 the town’s population had risen to 6000, the largest in Canary Islands at that time, and due to the risk of fire the town council ruled that any houses made of straw must be demolished.

La Laguna desde San Roque Tenerife 1902

San Cristóbal remained the main commercial, political and religious centre during the 17th and 18th centuries, and this prosperity is reflected by the building from the period that still remain. But over time the economic, political and religious centre was slowly transferred to Santa Cruz and San Cristóbal went into decline.

The town recovered some of its role during the 20th century mostly due to the prestige of its university.