RunningWithBulls.com - The curse of Sanfermin

This is the first post of (hopefully!) a week of posts outlining and following the 2006 Festival of Sanfermin, the world famous “Running of the bulls” festival.
They are being posted (hopefully) via the email2blog feature of Wordpress. Let’s see if it works!
The e-mail is being sent from a Treo 650 using Versamail on GPRS. There are, however, a great deal of other events going on throughout the festival.
The city council this year made the point that there is a different event starting every 25 minutes. Twice as many as last year.
This years fiesta has other differences, some not so welcomed.
These include: 1. the banning of corner shops selling beer after 10PM. This comes as good news to the bar owner associations, who have been lobbying for this for a long time. (Some people remark this is because the Mayoress Yolanda Barcina doesn’t really like corner shop owners.)
2. The playing of loud music (!) after 12 midnight (I think) is also not allowed. I don’t really know how they are going to police this one, particularly in the Peñas, and on streets like Calle Jauruta (a particularly “borrakia” street, where all the lefties and crusties hang out). This is my favourite street of all the fiesta :), one word of warning tho’: be prepared for the unpreparable!
3. It is also not allowed to have alcohol on the streets. This one is just mad, and impossible to police also.
With regards the encierro (the actual running of the bulls) there have also been changes, particularly with regards how it is policed before it begins.
Up to now, the Forales (the local police, usually nice and friendly) have policed the pre-encierro build-up, ejecting drunks, underage (18) kids, and the just plain stupid (I remember one year in particular, the Forales chucking out some American idiot who wanted to run…..on rollerblades!).
>From this year on the Policia Nacional (harder, tougher) will be policing the build-up to the encierro. Expect plenty to be injured…..from a baton