(while we worry about the Brits elsewhere...)
Here's a quote from the comments accompanying a story in today's El Mundo about the Spanish gypsies called 'Gitanos españoles piden al Gobierno defensa frente a las políticas 'racistas', that's to say: Spanish gypsies ask the Government for help against 'racist' policies (it's to do with the situation in France where some 'Roma' are being evicted).
'Yo vivo cerca de un barrio de mayoría gitana; tras de observarlos en directo durante años, he concluido que son un pueblo inculto, vago y racista. Sí señores, racista, puesto que "payo" es un término despectivo, insultante, aunque a nosotros nos haga gracia. Se niegan a respetar las costumbres de su pais anfitrión, abusan de las leyes y de las ayudas que se les proporcionan en abundancia...'
I live near a gypsy barrio and after several years of watching them, I can say that they are an uncultured lazy and racist group. That's right 'racist' since 'payo' is a rude and insulting word (payo: the gypsy name for a ordinary Spaniard), although it makes us laugh. They don't respect the customs of their host country, they abuse the laws and they get lots of grants and public aid...
So, after 400 years, they are still living in a 'host country'... there's still room for us to integrate, then...

I dont think the Brits should aspire to be like the Gitanos, my word no!

They have given the world flamenco, full credit for that! But their refusal to integrate sees many of them living in slums, buying food from proceeds of petty theft and not sending their kids to school.

At least they all speak Spanish though

Only this? I could tell you many things, but I will give an example, so that you see how are the gipsies

Murcia government give new houses to gipsies. You should see how were the houses, I believe that were duplex, totally new. They only had to pay 100 € of rent, but the gipsies, already living in the new houses, they complained because they didn't want to pay that money; they didn't want to be there, they wanted to be in the population's center, because the houses were near a cemetery; and also, in case of any incidence inside the house they didn't want to fix anything or of their expenses, but the city council. And I no longer speak to you of the houses that have been given to this people, and have finished totally dismantled: they pull up the pipes, the lights, animals enter to the houses...

So that you understand, there are hard-working people that is wanting to catch a house of official protection, as those given to the gipsies (that have not given anything for this country), but the gipsies don't not only want to be made charge of the expenses of their new houses, but rather also, they demand

I am the only Brit of the five in the village who goes to the swimming pool so today I thought I would ask four Spaniards what they thought of the Spanish Gypsies. The first a man of 72 said he refused to generalise about any minority group but he had known several gypsies over the years and found them to be honest and hardworking. He added that recently his car stalled in the Alameda in Xativa and his wife had to get out to push. The bar terraces were full of people but only two young Gypsies came forward to help them. I asked another man in his fifties who lives in another village. He said there was one Gypsy family in their street who were very quiet and sold shoes in the market and no one had a problem with them. Next I asked a young woman in her twenties and she said she was indifferent to them as long as they didn't bother her. She only had dealings with them when they came to deposit money in the bank where she works and that they were always well dressed and polite. The last person was a woman in her thirties who is a laboratory technician and she said they were awful. When I asked her to explain her problem with them she said she had none but that one heard terrible stories about them and her father had always forbidden them to have any dealings with them. She said that she had only spoken to one gypsy woman whose child was in the same class as her son at school and that she had found her to be very nice but as the other mothers didn't speak to the woman she had felt obliged to do the same.

Don't have to ask anyone, easy to see their antics around the area of Dunnes stores in Fuengirola.

Weird, seriously weird.............

Even after reading different opinions to my own on an expats forum, I would not feel compelled to rush out and do a little survey of my fellow bathers around the swimming pool.............

You really are obsessed in your defence of gypsies.

Obviously if some nutter asks me a completely off the wall question in an inappropriate place, I would give them the answer I think the wanted to hear, because as it has been proved in the past, strange people are capable of doing strange things................

I supose you checked their nationality, reported them to the police and warned Dunnes about their suspicious behaviour. If they are so amateurish and obvious they'll be easy to arrest. Another case solved.

Actually two were my neighbours, one is a student of mine and the fourth is a fellow artist. They were fascinated by the British views on the subject of Spanish Gypsies as the Brits contribute a lot of money towards the flamenco shows put on in Spain for tourists. I personally never defended the Spanish Gypsies merely stated That I had lived amongst them without problems for eleven years. Is that a crime?

I merely stated my opinion of what the Spanish think of the gypsies based on my experience of being Spanish, is that a crime?

But you told me to do my homework before I opened my very big mouth, remember?

I was replying to your description of the gypsy quarter which you implied I was living in, in Oliva and you certainly had not researched that. Many years ago I stumbled by accident into the gypsy quarter in Vera, Almeria, while trying to find the bus station and it was certainly closer to your description and we felt quite threatened although it was broad daylight. I would be much more afraid in a British sink estate today. There are pleasant and unpleasant people in every part of the world.

Parasitic scum IMO.
Still I can only base my opinion on them in the UK, as I have not mixed with them here (and will avoid doing so)

In the UK a genuine Roma is rare & most are pikeys, but whenever an item is needed for the BBC they wheel out the Roma family they keep polished up in a warehouse somewhere complete with a chrome caravan & run through the same dialog about how they have been around since before Christ and are persecuted everywhere (roll archive film of horse & cart) for just being different.
All the fly tipping is done by the local people of course & they just have to sit back in fear and take the blame, and yet again are forced to move on when they have just enrolled the kids into the local school

The reality.
They are a lawless section of society who contribute nothing, never have done, never will. They will though demand/expect rights & any benefits that come with those rights that are afforded to those who make some attempt to follow society's rules.
They neither care or give a seconds thought about the tax payers rights that they trample over every day & from what I read on this thread the same thing happens here in Spain ?

Oh well

I think that's spot on the money.

If they want to be travellers, fine, then travel. Break the law, fail to pay the tax, then throw them out. The decent ones who do pay all their taxes, do contribute and never break the law, they can stay. I don't see them taking up much space tho.....

Spanish Gypsies are not travellers they mainly live in houses they own and without them very few oranges or grapes would be harvested in Spain. Whole families go off to the same vineyards in Spain and France every year for the duration of the harvest which luckily for them doesn't coincide with the orange picking season.

I was thinking more of the UK variety.

Funny story, absolutely true.

A while back They used to be called TGBs (thieving gypsy bastards), which they took exception to, and one of their leaders took the issue to court on racial grounds. I happened to be watching the news when this happened with a good friend who was a copper.

Out comes the TGB announcing that 'they oughtn't to call us that it's racial prejudice, etc etc etc.'

My mate looked at this and said 'I know him. I have arrested him many times, he has a massive charge sheet, every single offense theft. I'd say that makes him a TGB, wouldn't you??'

Gotta agree....

Odd...I mean how everyone feels so free to critisize the Gitanos; I ask if you would write the same things about say, Blacks in America. Prejudice and stereotypes usually comes from some basis in fact; One can not say all gypsies are (insert derraugatory comment here), neither can one say all blacks are. But if one said Many or Most are...that might be more close to the truth. I have met people from both races that were wonderful people, and others that were scum. Unfortunately it seems like many in each group are on the wrong side...and unfortunately, those good ones usually do not critisize the bad ones.