Erika Ortiz, sister of Leticia Ortiz, future queen of Spain, has been found dead in the Madrid flat where she lived, the former home of Leticia. She was 31 years old. No one yet knows how this happened. More at elmundo.es, including thoughts on an unhappy past year (the Spanish media is going to go absolutely crazy over this tragic event, no matter what the cause of death.)

The first of two dead entries in our top ten, Carmen (or Carmina as her faithful followers like to call her) clearly was never going to make it as guest speaker at the PETA Christmas party, given that she was the daughter, wife, and mother of bullfighters. Married for a time to the legendary Paquirri (famous bullfighter who was gored to death in 1984) she had 2 sons in the 70′s – Francisco and Cayetano – followed by their not-quite-so-good-looking half brother, Julián (who was the result of a later marriage once the last of poor old Paquirri had been jet-washed away). Always a bit unpredictable, she never really had her mental affairs in order, and her general health was forever on the edge. Her final home visit from the doctor came in July 2004, when she died of a drugs overdose (often reported as a heart attack). As always in Spain though, death does nothing to erode popularity, and given that her sons Fran and Cayetano are not exactly the ugliest men in the world, along with the fact that she was a fully paid-up member of the Ordoñez clan (in itself, a passport to immortality), her appearance in the glossy mags looks set to continue for some time yet.

Dave Hall lives and works in Barcelona. Click here for the entire celeb top 10!

It’s been a bit of a rollercoaster ride for 45 year old Ana lately. She was of course the woman at the centre of another alleged Beckham affair (news of which fizzled out almost as quickly as it started, so it could’ve all been dreamt up by her own self-publicising imagination). This "hit and run” trend continued last year when she tried her hand at creating a Madrid-based version of Sex and the City called "Ellas y el sexo débil” which arrived in a blaze of publicity, only to sink faster than the Titanic (on account of the fact that it was crap!). Even the politest gossip mags had to stick the boot in a little bit on that one! Being branded a failure hasn’t stopped Ana though, and she’s now back with a vengeance with a new boyfriend 18 years younger than her – a Polish guy called Darek who was working as a stripper when she snapped him up. One thing you can’t accuse her of is shyness, and tales of her bedroom antics with her new man are now propping up news-kiosks all over Spain. Whoever first said "any publicity is good publicity” probably had Ana Obregón in mind! A short clip of the demise of her series can be seen here (Videos of Darek doing his day-job are also on the net, but I’ll let you find them yourselves! ☺):

Finally, a quick bonus clip of Ana speaking English to a certain ‘Victoria’:

Dave Hall lives and works in Barcelona. Click here for the entire celeb top 10!

Another great shot from Greg Gladman, of one of the towers of Granada’s Alhambra Palace, framed in the window of the Torre de la Vela, wins January’s pic of the month from the NFS Flickr Pool. Take a look at the rest of his photos from a recent trip around Spain – great photogrpahy!

No matter how hard you might try to avoid it, Spain is a country obsessed with celebrity. Every street corner has a newspaper stall, a large proportion of which is taken up by "revistas de la corazón”. Magazines like this sell in huge numbers and, on a weekly basis, they churn out the same brand of trashy gossip and photos, usually all about the same relatively small group of European Royalty, International megastars and, of course, home-grown Spanish "famosos”. Most are tame in what they say and very rarely outwardly criticise anyone. Photo captions are usually comments such as "guapa y muy feliz” or "deslumbrante y espectacular como siempre” etc. You get the drift. Although lately, some new mags have appeared that follow the British media trend of showing celebs in their less-attractive moments, but for the most part, Spain seems to prefer to see its stars shine brightly.

With all this in mind, I’ve set about coming up with a tongue-in-cheek look at what I think are the Top Ten celebs that you are likely to come across in Spain. Straight away, I’ve deliberately ignored any internationally known Spanish stars (let’s face it, what can I say about Penelope Cruz that you won’t already know?), along with any that, while big in Spain, don’t really have anything inherently Spanish about them (I’m thinking of course of… Los Beckham!). Basically, if you know the intimate goings-on of most of the people in this Top Ten, then you’re well on your way to being able to follow any of the many Celeb TV shows in Spain.

Award yourself a point for any you’ve heard of (there will be one a day for the next ten days) and let us know your thoughts in the comments….

10 – Maria Patiño

Despite not having true superstar status, Maria is an important face to know if you’re going to navigate your way through the murky waters of the Prensa Rosa. She makes it into our number 10 spot purely by being "famous by association” and no celeb-fest is complete without her. Every Friday night, Maria is the main panel member on trashy gossip show ¿Dónde estás corazón? and gets to air her opinions in a way that only she can. In a nutshell, the woman is insane. She shouts down anyone who dares speak while she’s in full-flow, and whoever the subject matter for the show is, Maria will have an opinion (and you can bet your bottom dollar, it’ll be a strong one). The show is live and drags on for around 4 hours, during which she just doesn’t let up. I assume she takes something to calm her down before the show, as she usually starts out relatively "normal”, but it doesn’t take much to bring on near cardiac arrest levels of stress!

Dave Hall lives and works in Barcelona. Click here for the entire celeb top 10!

“With Real Madrid things are never boring, as one “crisis” closes then you can almost be certain that the next one is just a few days away. “

Check out the full mid-season round up at South of Watford.

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Richard Morley comes to Spain on a regular basis to victimise Spaniards, as he and his fellow anglos subject them to 8 days of non-stop English conversation. In return he gets full 4 star bed and board in some of the nicest parts of Spain. In the podcast Richard explains how the whole thing works, and how it has changed his relationship with Spain. For more information check out his article on the whole experience, and head over to sign up at the Pueblo Ingles website.

Talk to Richard about his experiences in the NFS Forum…

It’s time to pick the NFS Flickr pick of the month again, and although there are a couple of clear winners for me, I thought I should let you lot decide for once, so, please, if you have a minute to spare have a look at the first 4 pages of the Notes from Spain Flickr Group and leave a link to your favourite picture in the comments below.

My friend Chris, who I met on my own crazy charity motorbike adventure in India last year, is planning to drive 3,500 miles around the entire British Isles coastline on a stepthrough Honda Cub90 moped – top speed: pretty slow! The ride is in aid of the charity Cardiac Risk in the Young. Check out his aptly named website ‘Mission Implausible‘ and do sponsor him if you can!

Great quotes from the site: “Each day will involve around 250 miles of riding, and I could be on the road for ten or eleven hours at a time, not allowing for any breakdowns I may suffer. Navigation will be difficult, as I have almost no sense of direction …. There is also considerable comedy value in a sixteen-stone, shaven-headed and bearded biker putting along on a stepthrough that simply can’t be ignored.” Help Chris out at www.mission-implausible.org.uk/

(Time to plan my route round Spain on the Vespa I think!)

One for those of us based in Spain, and a a great implementation of the wiki concept. The top-rate 902, 901 and 806 numbers in Spain are used mercilessly by customer service departments and really help ramp up the phone bill. Well, it turns out that for most of these numbers there is usually a cheap local rate alternative. nomasnumeros900.com collects these in their wiki and lets you search for them from their homepage. Worth bookmarking I think!