2,000 weeks

On 10 October 2003, the now retired editor of SUR in English, Liz Parry, wrote: "Time flies when you're enjoying yourself! It seems like only yesterday..."

She was writing in edition number 1001 of this newspaper, celebrating the start of a new one thousand weeks, what's more, with a brand new design.

"Over the past 1,000 weeks we have seen the English-speaking population in southern Spain grow to almost unbelievable proportions, we have gone online to reach readers all over the world and we have introduced Andalucía to new readers at tourism and real estate exhibitions all over the UK, in Miami, Dublin, Berlin..." Liz Parry wrote.

She went on to talk of the next 1,000 editions and highlighted the newspaper's new project of the time: the launch of a television news programme in English on the local channel, Canal Málaga.

So, here we are, 1,000 more weeks later. Edition 2000 of SUR in English: 2 December 2022.

Much of what our former editor said back then could well be repeated today.

If the English-speaking population back then had grown to "unbelievable proportions", now it's even bigger, despite events that could not have been imagined in 2003, let alone in 1984: one financial crisis, Brexit, Covid-19 and a new financial crisis.

We were proud back then of reaching the rest of the world online - in fact the SUR in English website dates back to 1996. Over the last 1,000 weeks we have seen how print and digital publishing have developed side by side.

The bumper 104 pages of edition number 1000, have now gone down, while the number of readers of www.surinenglish.com have multiplied to levels we would never have imagined. We may no longer have the weekly TV news in English we launched back in 2003, but the website has undergone several revamps since then, to include videos, photo galleries, interactive maps and much more.

And SUR in English still takes Andalucía to the rest of the world, with our supplements travelling around London inside the newspaper City A.M.

Now, having survived 2,000 weeks, through health and financial crises, it's time to start talking about the next 1,000.

Whoever writes this column on Friday 31 January 2042 will be celebrating edition number 3,000 of SUR in English: it may not be in this shape or form, but we're confident there will be one.

Meanwhile, just as Liz Parry finished her column in 2003: we will go on enjoying SUR in English and life here, and we hope you will, too.