GIBRALTAR 's interest is
essentially its novelty: the genuine
appeal of the strange, looming
physical presence of its rock, and
the dubious one of its preservation
as one of Britain's last remaining
colonies. For most of its history it
has existed in a limbo between two
worlds without being fully part of
either, which makes it a curious
place to visit, not least to witness
the bizarre process of its opening
to mass tourism from the Costa del
Sol. Ironically, this threatens both
to destroy Gibraltar's highly
individual hybrid society and at the
same time to make it much more
British, after the fashion of the
expatriate communities and huge
resorts of the Costa. In recent
years the economic boom Gibraltar
enjoyed throughout the 1980s,
following the reopening of the
border with Spain, has started to
wane, and the likely future of the
colony - whether its population
agrees to it or not - is almost
certain to involve closer ties with
Spain.
