Unlike in the UK, where money still drives Tory thinking and they won't take the necessary steps to enforce business closures because it'd cost the insurers too much*, Spain is in the first week of an Italian-style national close-down. There is no public transport, and you can be fined for leaving the house without good cause. You can go food shopping, get to the chemist or go to work if you can't work from home, but all the bars, restaurants and other shops are closed.
I know for some people, the idea of not being able to leave the house for 15 days represents some kind of hell. My missus is coping so far but will no doubt be climbing the walls with boredom before the quarantine is loosened. I however, already work from home (or anywhere with an internet connection) and being very, very far from an outdoorsman, am perfectly happy indoors. Don't get me wrong - the day before the doors were closed, it was warm and sunny here so we were out on the lake canoeing. (It snowed the following day - if the virus doesn't end us, nature will take its revenge some other way soon enough...) I enjoy getting out and doing that type of stuff as much as anybody. But I, and others like me, am going to make some excellent progress on some unfinished PS4 games in the next couple of weeks.
We've not yet been hit in the village with the sort of panic buying that has characterised the UK and the larger cities here. With so few people, there's been enough to go round so far. The shops had anticipated a run on the same stuff that's been selling out everywhere else, so the last time I went into one of the village's little shops, there were pallets of loo roll piled up in readiness. The toilet roll will become the short-hand image for this crisis when we later look back on it. I don't understand this at all - how often do most people shop for bog roll? I'd suggest it's the once-a-month big shop stock-up item at most. Why people feel the need to take 200 rolls home at a time is entirely beyond me. Are they expecting to be inside for six months? And why not toothpaste, for example? (Or has that sold out in the UK as well?)
I can sort of understand this on one level only. Some of the images here have been so close to the end-of-the-world, zombie apocalypse film shots that it's eerie. The roads out of Madrid were absolutely stationary last weekend, and the roads in entirely empty. The village filled up with people who are usually only here in August in the last few days, no doubt bringing the virus with them if it wasn't here already. (I was also guilty of this, travelling home from the UK on Feb 10th, but I was travelling to my only home and had little choice.)
The illness itself? I'm not worried for my personal well-being. The hysteria generated by some of the false 'facts', 'cures' and other shit that the internet generates is easy enough to ignore if you have an even vaguely incredulous mind. I am worried for my partner, who has asthma, and my mother, whose age and health could make it very grave for her if she gets it. But the sensible approach is to follow the (official) advice, stay indoors as much as possible and not deny people who really need them the essentials from the shops by buying as much of it as you can carry.
Speaking selfishly, the worst thing for me personally, other than the worries for my loved ones, has been the absence of sport. No scores to check, no discussion of what's happened, no relegation-panic at the latest defeat or joy at an unexpected victory. The escape that sport usually offers, which would be more welcome than ever at the moment, leaves a noticeable hole. Some people, understandably with time on their hands, have gone to some lengths to provide something for the hollow-eyed, sport-deprived addicts. I offer these as an example - I've seen these overdubbed into Spanish as well, showing that this has international appeal and stands as an outstanding piece of work, I think.
Ludicrous as it is, I'm finding these tense(!), an indication that even a small hit is hugely welcome to those of us suffering from withdrawal symptoms from the lack of sport. They've apparently put on 26,000 subscribers recently so it's not just me...
On a final, serious note, I hope that times like this will, when it's eventually over, leave a legacy of caring and thoughts for older and vulnerable people in everyone's minds, and a strong sense of guilt for those who needlessly emptied the shop shelves and left nothing for those who already have little.
I hope you and yours all stay well, and that our societies learn lessons from this.
(Edit - two ambulances have just rushed past the house with sirens blaring and lights flashing. I have never seen this before here. I didn't even know there was a second ambulance in the village. Possibly unrelated, of course, but alarming nonetheless...)
*This is exactly the sort of shit that people forgot about when they voted Tory in previously Labour heartlands during the General Election. They were so blinded by their desire to get out of the EU that they ignored, or forgot, that their livelihoods, even their lives, matter less to the monied elite than cash. This is an (entirely unforeseeable but depressingly unsurprising) example of the sort of consequences such decisions can have. *Steps down off soapbox*
Tuesday, 17 March 2020
Sunday, 1 March 2020
People called Romans, they go the house?
Just back from a weekend seeing friends in Lugo, a small Galician city a couple of hours' drive from us. Now Lugo is not particularly well known outside of Spain, I imagine, but it boasts some extremely good reasons to visit.
Firstly, the frankly ludicrous standards of tapas that you get if you're out having a drink. Pretty much everywhere you go it's the same, to the point that I don't really know how any actual restaurants survive in the city at all. To illustrate: for breakfast this morning, I ordered your pretty standard café con leche, at around €1.50. (It may have been less, I'm not certain because it was one of a group order with other stuff). Served with that coffee, free, were two churros (long, straight, dunkable pastries made out of a doughnut dough), a decent-sized piece of bica (a delicious, light, Galician sponge cake that for some reason you're not allowed to call a cake...) and a small glass of orange juice. Freshly squeezed. There was also tortilla on the bar top – help yourself.
Evenings are even better – or worse, depending on your point of view on gluttony. The purchase of a caña, the typical small beer, and you're offered one of anything up to 20 tapas from a changeable menu on a blackboard. In one case this was a rack of ribs, in another a dinner-sized portion of spaghetti carbonara. There are also sandwiches, empanada and tortilla on the bar for everybody to help themselves. Again. It makes you wonder, to be honest, how the bars make any money in this most generous of cities. And, as I said, why there are any restaurants at all.
Lugo is also blessed with the complete circle of the original Roman wall surrounding its centre. A satellite shot here shows you the extent of this rarest, and in Europe quite possibly unique, feature. Many cities have chunks of walls left. Lugo still has the whole thing, and an impressive sight it is too. It was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site at the turn of the millennium.
The locals jog around its circumference and are rightly proud of this intact reminder of the genius of the ancient Romans for building, taking care to preserve their most precious tourist asset. So proud, in fact, that they hold a gigantic Roman-themed celebration, of which more in a moment, every year. I was particularly pleased with this piece of graffiti on a building inside the walls, though. I wouldn't, of course, normally condone such actions. However, when the obvious fan of Life of Brian painted this on the wall, they took local sensibilities seriously and, assuming the figure drawn on the right is the 'I', nailed the grammar:
That celebration, then. The Arde Lucus. As many as half a million people come to this city of under 100,000 inhabitants, to give you some idea of how busy and important it is. To suggest everybody 'dresses up' would be to do the thing a huge injustice. Everybody goes to extraordinary lengths, and the locals all seem to own Roman style clothing that's as close to the real thing as you could ask for. My partner's cousin, a local, has a full legionary's uniform and weaponry on proud display in his flat. Real leather, real metal, real everything. Imagine tens of thousands of people descending on the city dressed like that, (or as the local Celts, the Romans' contemporary opponents) to get pissed, eat heartily and recreate a siege of the city.
Firstly, the frankly ludicrous standards of tapas that you get if you're out having a drink. Pretty much everywhere you go it's the same, to the point that I don't really know how any actual restaurants survive in the city at all. To illustrate: for breakfast this morning, I ordered your pretty standard café con leche, at around €1.50. (It may have been less, I'm not certain because it was one of a group order with other stuff). Served with that coffee, free, were two churros (long, straight, dunkable pastries made out of a doughnut dough), a decent-sized piece of bica (a delicious, light, Galician sponge cake that for some reason you're not allowed to call a cake...) and a small glass of orange juice. Freshly squeezed. There was also tortilla on the bar top – help yourself.
Evenings are even better – or worse, depending on your point of view on gluttony. The purchase of a caña, the typical small beer, and you're offered one of anything up to 20 tapas from a changeable menu on a blackboard. In one case this was a rack of ribs, in another a dinner-sized portion of spaghetti carbonara. There are also sandwiches, empanada and tortilla on the bar for everybody to help themselves. Again. It makes you wonder, to be honest, how the bars make any money in this most generous of cities. And, as I said, why there are any restaurants at all.
Lugo is also blessed with the complete circle of the original Roman wall surrounding its centre. A satellite shot here shows you the extent of this rarest, and in Europe quite possibly unique, feature. Many cities have chunks of walls left. Lugo still has the whole thing, and an impressive sight it is too. It was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site at the turn of the millennium.
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| Pic from 'Galicia Guide' website |
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| Write it out 100 times. If it's not done before sunrise, I'll cut your balls off... |
I have not yet attended this bacchanalian set-to because it often coincides with a time when we're not in Galicia for a few weeks but will certainly do so in future. Reports and photos from friends who attend regularly suggest that it's not to be missed. Terrific bunch of people, the Romans Lugoans. Terrific.
Edit: on reading this piece, my partner confirmed the coffee was €1. And that I'd forgotten the piece of ham on a slice of fresh bread that was also served with it...
Edit: on reading this piece, my partner confirmed the coffee was €1. And that I'd forgotten the piece of ham on a slice of fresh bread that was also served with it...
Friday, 13 December 2019
Lotteries
This entry, on what is a deeply depressing morning for many millions of Brits, myself included, is going to be a curious mixture of politics and Spanish Christmas habits.
I wake up this morning scarcely recognising the country I've left behind. An election in which former mining communities like Blyth can collectively forget what life is like under a large Tory majority, in which Dennis Skinner's seat can turn blue, in which the final nail is being busily polished for Scotland's membership of the Union, feels fundamentally at odds with how I've always pictured the British nature.
That's not to say this couldn't be seen coming, as shocking as some results like the ones I've mentioned above may be in isolation. My partner has retained a resolute optimism that minds had changed since 2016, that our departure from the EU would ultimately never happen. It's an optimism I've never shared. A right-wing dominated press, owned by an ever-smaller group of billionaire barons, has been busy sowing xenophobic seeds which have sprouted healthily in the north of the country. Genuine belief that getting out of the EU and the supposed drop in immigration that would entail would make for a better future gave us the referendum result in 2016, and those people want what they voted for. They still seem to believe the lies they were told.
It's come down to that, in my opinion. Brexit has so divided the country, that it alone would have been enough to hand this election to the Tories. This was another referendum in all but name, but if you also throw in the constant vitriol the likes of the Mail and the Sun - still comfortably the biggest-selling papers in Britain for all that circulation is down everywhere - have thrown at Corbyn in personal attacks, you've got a Labour leader that many people regarded as unelectable to add to the anti-EU sentiment. Hence the total clusterfuck we have to digest today.
The crumbs of comfort have to be looked for with a microscope. My home city Brighton remains a little island of red and green in a sea of southern blue. The good people of Liverpool have not forgotten their abandonment by the Thatcher administration, and kept the city red. (Chin up, Hels.) I'm oddly pleased for the Scots. Separatism is anathema to me, but the fact is that they will now absolutely hold another referendum on leaving, they will absolutely vote to leave after the promises made to them if they stayed were (of course) broken, and will then remain within or rejoin the EU. So this separatist movement at the same time stands for unity - just with Europe, not Britain. A pretty damning indictment and admirably respectable.
If I hadn't already left, I'd absolutely be looking for a way out now. An increasingly isolated, deep-blue Britain tied ever-closer to a United States possibly still led by Trump is a dystopian future I'd want no part of. Those people to whom getting out of the EU was more important than, for example, not selling off the NHS - does anybody, anybody, seriously believe the Tory promises on that score? - will be the ones who most surely reap what they've sewn. You can bet your arse that the patrician class will be able to afford the drugs, won't have to wait in corridors, won't die of neglect in an American-style health 'service'. Maybe then, when it's too late, people will realise what they've done.
How do I pick myself out of the slough of despond that's in danger of settling? Ham and hampers. Obviously.
When I head to Britain for Christmas on 19th December, the enormous difference between how it's done back home and how it's done here will again strike me. There are, of course, a few lights strung across roads here. But it's nothing like even a small village of Viana's size would do in Britain. Nor do you see lights twinkling in people's homes, suspiciously perfectly triangular 'trees' outlined in their windows. It looks, basically, a lot less Christmassy. There are signs, though.
The most obvious ones are in the bars, which sell lottery tickets for the big Christmas draw. For some reason, Spaniards go completely crazy for the lottery at Christmas. Tickets for the biggest one are given as gifts, with some bizarre superstitions about not giving one from a different area to somebody who's gifted you a ticket from their area. The tickets all have the numbers already printed on them, you see, and are different everywhere you go. So you have people buying them everywhere they stop in Spain to make sure they've got loads of different numbers. OK, fair enough. Except. Ex-cept. Each of these tickets costs €20, and is known as a 'décimo'. That's because holding the winning number entitles you to a tenth of any prize that ticket may win, as they're sold in perforated sheets of ten. So you'd have to buy all the tickets of a particular serial number, costing €200, to take home the whole prize. These tickets are sold in their millions, despite the fact that on any given weekend the Euromillions jackpot can be bigger than the Spanish Christmas prize, the tickets cost a tenth of the price and if you happen to have the only ticket with the winning numbers on it, you keep the lot.
There are cheaper ways to get involved. All the bars also raffle off hampers, or legs of ham similar to the one I won in the half-time raffle at the football. The hams are tempting enough, but the hampers are absolute monsters. Clipped on the left-hand side of the image of this one is a grown man's coat to give you some idea of scale:
The way this works, you usually pay between €3 and €6 for an entry, depending on the size of the prize, and take a two-digit number from 00 to 99. Your name goes on a poster against that number, and if the last two digits of the big Christmas lottery match your two, congratulations, you've won the chance to wrestle the bastard home.
I shudder to think what me and my partner, the two of us already overweight, would do with one of these if we win it. Confronted with so much chocolate, biscuits, alcohol and top-notch ham, and dealing with a new year that will see the dawn of the post-EU, Tories-doing-what-the-fuck-they-want Britain, I've got a horrible feeling it'd all be gone by Easter. And that's being conservative. With a small c. A very small c.
I wake up this morning scarcely recognising the country I've left behind. An election in which former mining communities like Blyth can collectively forget what life is like under a large Tory majority, in which Dennis Skinner's seat can turn blue, in which the final nail is being busily polished for Scotland's membership of the Union, feels fundamentally at odds with how I've always pictured the British nature.
That's not to say this couldn't be seen coming, as shocking as some results like the ones I've mentioned above may be in isolation. My partner has retained a resolute optimism that minds had changed since 2016, that our departure from the EU would ultimately never happen. It's an optimism I've never shared. A right-wing dominated press, owned by an ever-smaller group of billionaire barons, has been busy sowing xenophobic seeds which have sprouted healthily in the north of the country. Genuine belief that getting out of the EU and the supposed drop in immigration that would entail would make for a better future gave us the referendum result in 2016, and those people want what they voted for. They still seem to believe the lies they were told.
It's come down to that, in my opinion. Brexit has so divided the country, that it alone would have been enough to hand this election to the Tories. This was another referendum in all but name, but if you also throw in the constant vitriol the likes of the Mail and the Sun - still comfortably the biggest-selling papers in Britain for all that circulation is down everywhere - have thrown at Corbyn in personal attacks, you've got a Labour leader that many people regarded as unelectable to add to the anti-EU sentiment. Hence the total clusterfuck we have to digest today.
The crumbs of comfort have to be looked for with a microscope. My home city Brighton remains a little island of red and green in a sea of southern blue. The good people of Liverpool have not forgotten their abandonment by the Thatcher administration, and kept the city red. (Chin up, Hels.) I'm oddly pleased for the Scots. Separatism is anathema to me, but the fact is that they will now absolutely hold another referendum on leaving, they will absolutely vote to leave after the promises made to them if they stayed were (of course) broken, and will then remain within or rejoin the EU. So this separatist movement at the same time stands for unity - just with Europe, not Britain. A pretty damning indictment and admirably respectable.
If I hadn't already left, I'd absolutely be looking for a way out now. An increasingly isolated, deep-blue Britain tied ever-closer to a United States possibly still led by Trump is a dystopian future I'd want no part of. Those people to whom getting out of the EU was more important than, for example, not selling off the NHS - does anybody, anybody, seriously believe the Tory promises on that score? - will be the ones who most surely reap what they've sewn. You can bet your arse that the patrician class will be able to afford the drugs, won't have to wait in corridors, won't die of neglect in an American-style health 'service'. Maybe then, when it's too late, people will realise what they've done.
How do I pick myself out of the slough of despond that's in danger of settling? Ham and hampers. Obviously.
When I head to Britain for Christmas on 19th December, the enormous difference between how it's done back home and how it's done here will again strike me. There are, of course, a few lights strung across roads here. But it's nothing like even a small village of Viana's size would do in Britain. Nor do you see lights twinkling in people's homes, suspiciously perfectly triangular 'trees' outlined in their windows. It looks, basically, a lot less Christmassy. There are signs, though.
The most obvious ones are in the bars, which sell lottery tickets for the big Christmas draw. For some reason, Spaniards go completely crazy for the lottery at Christmas. Tickets for the biggest one are given as gifts, with some bizarre superstitions about not giving one from a different area to somebody who's gifted you a ticket from their area. The tickets all have the numbers already printed on them, you see, and are different everywhere you go. So you have people buying them everywhere they stop in Spain to make sure they've got loads of different numbers. OK, fair enough. Except. Ex-cept. Each of these tickets costs €20, and is known as a 'décimo'. That's because holding the winning number entitles you to a tenth of any prize that ticket may win, as they're sold in perforated sheets of ten. So you'd have to buy all the tickets of a particular serial number, costing €200, to take home the whole prize. These tickets are sold in their millions, despite the fact that on any given weekend the Euromillions jackpot can be bigger than the Spanish Christmas prize, the tickets cost a tenth of the price and if you happen to have the only ticket with the winning numbers on it, you keep the lot.
There are cheaper ways to get involved. All the bars also raffle off hampers, or legs of ham similar to the one I won in the half-time raffle at the football. The hams are tempting enough, but the hampers are absolute monsters. Clipped on the left-hand side of the image of this one is a grown man's coat to give you some idea of scale:
 |
| It has to be tied to the ceiling at the top, to stop it collapsing under its own weight. |
I shudder to think what me and my partner, the two of us already overweight, would do with one of these if we win it. Confronted with so much chocolate, biscuits, alcohol and top-notch ham, and dealing with a new year that will see the dawn of the post-EU, Tories-doing-what-the-fuck-they-want Britain, I've got a horrible feeling it'd all be gone by Easter. And that's being conservative. With a small c. A very small c.
Wednesday, 13 November 2019
"Pay the man and damn his impudence."
We've all been there. Chasing after the tradesperson as they leave your house, demanding they accept payment for work they've just done while they steadfastly refuse to do so.
No? Just here, then. As unlikely as this scenario sounds, it's just happened today, for the second time in not too long. The first time, a plumber who spent around an hour sorting a leaky sink described it as 'nothing' and wouldn't take any money. We had to buy his drinks for him for weeks afterwards to get the money to him somehow.
Now, we've just had a couple of window/roofing specialists round. We have three skylights on the top floor of the house, and with constant rain lately, just as I understand has been the case back home, we've been noticing very small puddles of water below each of them. Clearly they're leaking.
Not being able to tell if they just needed resealing or the whole things had to be replaced – as they've been there since the house was built and we've discovered several, shall we say 'eccentricities' in its construction over the years, it wouldn't be beyond the realms of possibility that they had to come out completely – we just asked these chaps to come over to have a look and offer us an opinion. They were due yesterday at 4pm, but didn't show. A quick phone call ascertained that they'd simply forgotten, so they came today at the same time instead. (This is something that also happens with great frequency here – somebody may forget at first but whoever it is, they show up later full of apologies and then do the work for next to nothing).
So they show up today and we ask them to have a look. Do they just need resealing or are we going to have to cough up for new skylights? A few minutes later we start hearing the noises of work going on upstairs. They've just started sealing them – all it'll need, they reckon. Half an hour later it's done and they're getting into the van, getting ready to go. Didn't have to do it right now, lads. Thanks so much. How much is it? They won't say. Nothing. It was less than an hour's work, not going to charge us for something so small.
Now we know these guys' faces of course, but they're not friends of ours. It's not a couple of good mates we've asked to do us a favour – this is their livelihood and, not for the first time, tradespeople here seem to be giving their time away for free. You have to wonder at what point the job does become large enough for them to actually contemplate taking money for it. A person of low morality and high window numbers may be tempted to test where that boundary is, see how far they could get without paying for it. In our case, it looks like it's two more people we'll have to look out for in the bar and try go pay for their drinks before they do – something which is increasingly becoming a habit.
No? Just here, then. As unlikely as this scenario sounds, it's just happened today, for the second time in not too long. The first time, a plumber who spent around an hour sorting a leaky sink described it as 'nothing' and wouldn't take any money. We had to buy his drinks for him for weeks afterwards to get the money to him somehow.
Now, we've just had a couple of window/roofing specialists round. We have three skylights on the top floor of the house, and with constant rain lately, just as I understand has been the case back home, we've been noticing very small puddles of water below each of them. Clearly they're leaking.
Not being able to tell if they just needed resealing or the whole things had to be replaced – as they've been there since the house was built and we've discovered several, shall we say 'eccentricities' in its construction over the years, it wouldn't be beyond the realms of possibility that they had to come out completely – we just asked these chaps to come over to have a look and offer us an opinion. They were due yesterday at 4pm, but didn't show. A quick phone call ascertained that they'd simply forgotten, so they came today at the same time instead. (This is something that also happens with great frequency here – somebody may forget at first but whoever it is, they show up later full of apologies and then do the work for next to nothing).
So they show up today and we ask them to have a look. Do they just need resealing or are we going to have to cough up for new skylights? A few minutes later we start hearing the noises of work going on upstairs. They've just started sealing them – all it'll need, they reckon. Half an hour later it's done and they're getting into the van, getting ready to go. Didn't have to do it right now, lads. Thanks so much. How much is it? They won't say. Nothing. It was less than an hour's work, not going to charge us for something so small.
Now we know these guys' faces of course, but they're not friends of ours. It's not a couple of good mates we've asked to do us a favour – this is their livelihood and, not for the first time, tradespeople here seem to be giving their time away for free. You have to wonder at what point the job does become large enough for them to actually contemplate taking money for it. A person of low morality and high window numbers may be tempted to test where that boundary is, see how far they could get without paying for it. In our case, it looks like it's two more people we'll have to look out for in the bar and try go pay for their drinks before they do – something which is increasingly becoming a habit.
Wednesday, 23 October 2019
Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Paperwork
Long gap between blog entries, I know. We were away in September and writing about sitting on the beach would be dull and braggardly. Another reason is that I've actually been working, so have, instead of wasting my time writing monologues or watching dog rescue videos on YouTube, been using the computer to work. (I say instead of, I mean as well as, of course. It's those sad doggy eyes, you see - they keep pulling me back in...)
Yes, working. The idea was to come to enjoy the Galician p&q with our feet up, having a servant fan us from a corner of the room while we waited for the valet to bring us the afternoon's first cocktail. I may be slightly overselling the likely lifestyle after leaving London behind but the general plan wasn't to work Monday to Friday any more, and we're certainly not doing that. But the extra beer money is extremely welcome, and it keeps my eye in should I ever find myself in the unthinkable position of having to let the valet go and get back to work properly.
Having an actual contract has meant I've been, finally, able to get the Spanish equivalent of an NI number. This required three trips to Ourense, about an hour's drive away, due to them twice refusing to issue me with this number because I hadn't presented the right paperwork. But I've got it now, so I've been able to register as autonomo - freelancer. More paperwork. That means I could get a social security number. Another bit of paper.
I've said to friends here that Spanish culture has a great deal to commend, but its bureaucracy is most certainly not one of them. So much is still done on paper, having to present things in person at offices of council, government, the medical centre, wherever. So much of the stuff that we take for granted as being doable on the internet in Britain just can't be done so here. You step into a bank, for example, and though you may just have checked your balance on their app, the branch is still heaving with paper files, floor to ceiling.
Some of the administration you have to get done is so time consuming, so labyrinthine, so inexplicable that even the most patient or time-rich person will give up. For anybody working full time there's little option but to place many of these routine tasks in the hands of a gestoria. These offices, literally 'management', can be found in every city, town or village of any size in Spain, and could exist only in a place where the bureaucracy is so overwhelming. They, and the asesoria, 'advisory', for higher and more complex issues, are paperwork professionals. Some functions have to go through them, but they also take on tasks that people could undertake themselves but simply don't have the time, energy or inclination, to do so, and they make a full-time living doing it.
So many of the processes remaining paper-based is exacerbated by the fact that all the agencies are separate and don't talk to each other. It's up to you to do all the legwork yourself, passing on information between them which in Britain would be shared automatically. So to get my partner's car registered in Spain, for example, was a six-month slog of paperwork. Repeated visits to various entirely separate agencies in Valladolid, some 2.5 hours' drive away, two different MOT tests after being given wrong information before the first one, and an inch-thick stack of paper which fills a ring binder of its own.
One moment in particular stands out from the odyssey that getting my personal paperwork done became. Confused by the conflicting stories we were getting about what was and wasn't necessary, we went to the police station, to the extrangeria, the bit where foreigners' affairs are dealt with. Valladoild being a large city - it was Madrid's capital early in the 17th Century - of some 400,000 people, this place was busy. Directed to do so by a police officer greeting and directing people as they arrived, we took a number from the machine and sat to wait our turn. After some time we get to our turn, take our seats at the desk, and on explaining what we want, are told we're at the wrong desk.
Which desk is it, then? Can't tell you. Ask the police officer. Right. So we go back to the police officer, tell him we just need information on the process of so-and-so, and he tells us which desk it should have been. Another number taken, another wait. We come to our turn at the desk - literally right next to the first one we'd sat at, I mean right next to it, the first agent could have just told us where we needed to be - and our next 'helper' promptly gets up and goes out for lunch as soon as we sit down.
Frustrated now, we're looking round for a bit of help. Do we have to just wait for the agent to come back? Have we wasted our time completely? Seeing our predicament, the meet-and-greet police officer sits down at our table and gives us the information we need, which we'd already told him was what we were there for, in less than thirty seconds. Leaving the building some 45 minutes after we'd entered it, we commented on how comical a circumstance it was, but neither of us were laughing.
This was some two years ago, and it's taken 'til now, with a contract of work, to be able to actually get all that stuff done. I'm very happy to have all this stuff in place now - it makes a post-Brexit future for me, as an immigrant, a much less uncertain prospect. But plan A (you know, fan bloke in corner, valet. Perhaps a butler for larger entertainment occasions, strictly on an ad hoc basis. That plan.) would have been a lot less trouble.
One moment in particular stands out from the odyssey that getting my personal paperwork done became. Confused by the conflicting stories we were getting about what was and wasn't necessary, we went to the police station, to the extrangeria, the bit where foreigners' affairs are dealt with. Valladoild being a large city - it was Madrid's capital early in the 17th Century - of some 400,000 people, this place was busy. Directed to do so by a police officer greeting and directing people as they arrived, we took a number from the machine and sat to wait our turn. After some time we get to our turn, take our seats at the desk, and on explaining what we want, are told we're at the wrong desk.
Which desk is it, then? Can't tell you. Ask the police officer. Right. So we go back to the police officer, tell him we just need information on the process of so-and-so, and he tells us which desk it should have been. Another number taken, another wait. We come to our turn at the desk - literally right next to the first one we'd sat at, I mean right next to it, the first agent could have just told us where we needed to be - and our next 'helper' promptly gets up and goes out for lunch as soon as we sit down.
Frustrated now, we're looking round for a bit of help. Do we have to just wait for the agent to come back? Have we wasted our time completely? Seeing our predicament, the meet-and-greet police officer sits down at our table and gives us the information we need, which we'd already told him was what we were there for, in less than thirty seconds. Leaving the building some 45 minutes after we'd entered it, we commented on how comical a circumstance it was, but neither of us were laughing.
This was some two years ago, and it's taken 'til now, with a contract of work, to be able to actually get all that stuff done. I'm very happy to have all this stuff in place now - it makes a post-Brexit future for me, as an immigrant, a much less uncertain prospect. But plan A (you know, fan bloke in corner, valet. Perhaps a butler for larger entertainment occasions, strictly on an ad hoc basis. That plan.) would have been a lot less trouble.
Friday, 9 August 2019
The C word
This next couple of days we have a lot of guests coming. One of the middle weekends of August brings the Fiestas, and with a lot of people back in Viana for holidays anyway at this time of year, even more will be coming for a few days around this weekend. Many locals' houses are full of visiting family members and ours will be no exception.
So this morning I was doing what everybody does when they have guests coming, right? The spare bedroom sheets need changing, hoover the room, dust - make sure it's in good order for your mates, basically. Now for most people this simple, mundane task would pass without incident. When I'm doing it, however, I manage to make an absolutely straightforward job look like a short Clouseau film. Or something Chaplin made. While pissed.
I am, dear reader, one clumsy bastard. I have, quite genuinely, almost knocked myself out by standing on a rake, the rising handle coming off the floor like a lever and smacking me just above the eye. This was years ago but honestly, the only other person who's ever done that in the world is Jerry the cat from Tom and Jerry, and he's a cartoon for fuck's sake.
So day to day I never know what new form of idiot way to do myself injury I'm going to discover. This morning, though, I did at least manage to get new bedsheets in place without incident. I say without incident, I'm of course discounting the standard stuff that goes on every time I move around the house. I caught my elbow on the door handle on the way in, stubbed my toe against the leg of the bed frame and smacked my shin on that same frame just coming into the room. But this stuff is so frequent that it barely deserves a mention - it doesn't really count. I was just warming up.
Just inside the door of the room in question there's one of those square, black shelving units from Ikea with four equal sections. On top of that is a small TV. Behind the TV, resting against the wall with its base against the back of the telly, as a cork board about the size of a sheet of A3 paper. Pinned to it are dozens of pairs of earrings, those owned by my partner's late mum Julie. Lots of her stuff has been given to friends of hers, and some to charity, but there's still a fair bit around the house and this is one such example. Above the whole thing, on the wall, is a set of shelves in an oval shape with a few knick-knacks on it.
Dusting behind the TV, I jolted the board slightly and two or three earrings fell out of the cork. Bugger. Carefully lifting out the cork board, I found the loose earrings, pushed them back into the cork, and replaced the board behind the TV. Onward. A couple of moments later, I'm running the long hoover pipe thingy up the wall to remove a cobweb when I catch the edge of the shelving unit a glancing blow and it immediately falls straight off the wall, spilling its contents - among them two glass paper weights and a ceramic tealight holder that's been around since before I met my missus.
It also, needless to say, landed on the cork board, this time bringing the lot down and knocking basically all of the earrings off. Alone (apart from the cats) in a quiet house, the crashing sound it made was only drowned out by my subsequent copious, vociferous swearing. I used two words beginning with C, dear reader, and only one of them was 'clumsy', as I castigated myself volubly. The cats barely stirred - they're clearly used to me. But I now had to find and replace all the earrings and put everything back in its place.
Some twenty minutes later, I'd finally got everything back in place. Only a small breakage to the tealight holder, mercifully - it could have been a lot worse. Before I put the corkboard back in place, however, I thought I'd better check on the floor behind the shelves to make sure no earrings had dropped down behind there. Leaning over the telly to look down the back, I headbutted the fucking shelves, and off the wall it came again.
Happily a lifetime of such ineptitude has also heightened my inner clumsy-alarm's sensitivity to my own uselessness, and it remains at DEFCON 1 more or less constantly. I was therefore able to react so quickly this time that I pinned the shelf to the wall with my hand before it even dropped appreciably, and saved any further calamity.
I was, frankly, relieved to finally exit the cleaned room. Now there's the weekend, including handling glasses, knives and crockery my partner's accumulated from all over the world, to negotiate. Should be a laugh. For everybody else.
So this morning I was doing what everybody does when they have guests coming, right? The spare bedroom sheets need changing, hoover the room, dust - make sure it's in good order for your mates, basically. Now for most people this simple, mundane task would pass without incident. When I'm doing it, however, I manage to make an absolutely straightforward job look like a short Clouseau film. Or something Chaplin made. While pissed.
I am, dear reader, one clumsy bastard. I have, quite genuinely, almost knocked myself out by standing on a rake, the rising handle coming off the floor like a lever and smacking me just above the eye. This was years ago but honestly, the only other person who's ever done that in the world is Jerry the cat from Tom and Jerry, and he's a cartoon for fuck's sake.
For some, Clouseau is old-fashioned, knockabout farce. For me it can
sometimes feel like a hard-hitting ('scuse the pun) fly-on-the-wall documentary.
sometimes feel like a hard-hitting ('scuse the pun) fly-on-the-wall documentary.
So day to day I never know what new form of idiot way to do myself injury I'm going to discover. This morning, though, I did at least manage to get new bedsheets in place without incident. I say without incident, I'm of course discounting the standard stuff that goes on every time I move around the house. I caught my elbow on the door handle on the way in, stubbed my toe against the leg of the bed frame and smacked my shin on that same frame just coming into the room. But this stuff is so frequent that it barely deserves a mention - it doesn't really count. I was just warming up.
Just inside the door of the room in question there's one of those square, black shelving units from Ikea with four equal sections. On top of that is a small TV. Behind the TV, resting against the wall with its base against the back of the telly, as a cork board about the size of a sheet of A3 paper. Pinned to it are dozens of pairs of earrings, those owned by my partner's late mum Julie. Lots of her stuff has been given to friends of hers, and some to charity, but there's still a fair bit around the house and this is one such example. Above the whole thing, on the wall, is a set of shelves in an oval shape with a few knick-knacks on it.
Dusting behind the TV, I jolted the board slightly and two or three earrings fell out of the cork. Bugger. Carefully lifting out the cork board, I found the loose earrings, pushed them back into the cork, and replaced the board behind the TV. Onward. A couple of moments later, I'm running the long hoover pipe thingy up the wall to remove a cobweb when I catch the edge of the shelving unit a glancing blow and it immediately falls straight off the wall, spilling its contents - among them two glass paper weights and a ceramic tealight holder that's been around since before I met my missus.
It also, needless to say, landed on the cork board, this time bringing the lot down and knocking basically all of the earrings off. Alone (apart from the cats) in a quiet house, the crashing sound it made was only drowned out by my subsequent copious, vociferous swearing. I used two words beginning with C, dear reader, and only one of them was 'clumsy', as I castigated myself volubly. The cats barely stirred - they're clearly used to me. But I now had to find and replace all the earrings and put everything back in its place.
Some twenty minutes later, I'd finally got everything back in place. Only a small breakage to the tealight holder, mercifully - it could have been a lot worse. Before I put the corkboard back in place, however, I thought I'd better check on the floor behind the shelves to make sure no earrings had dropped down behind there. Leaning over the telly to look down the back, I headbutted the fucking shelves, and off the wall it came again.
Happily a lifetime of such ineptitude has also heightened my inner clumsy-alarm's sensitivity to my own uselessness, and it remains at DEFCON 1 more or less constantly. I was therefore able to react so quickly this time that I pinned the shelf to the wall with my hand before it even dropped appreciably, and saved any further calamity.
I was, frankly, relieved to finally exit the cleaned room. Now there's the weekend, including handling glasses, knives and crockery my partner's accumulated from all over the world, to negotiate. Should be a laugh. For everybody else.
Friday, 5 July 2019
Playing away
The village of Mamoiada sits in the mountainous interior of Sardinia, a place of around 2,500 people that you're probably hearing about for the first time in this entry. I certainly knew nothing of it before being invited, with a group of over 20 others from Viana, to take part in what's a hugely important cultural event for them, which in recent years they've hash-tagged #mamumask.
Getting a crew of half a dozen boteiros, eight drummers and assorted aixada players from Galicia to Sardinia is not a cheap or simple affair - two enormous wooden containers were required for the drums and equipment. But their own Carnival is as important to our Sardinian hosts as our flour frenzy is to us, so with the help of a dedicated set of volunteers and partly funded by grants for cross-cultural initiatives, all the gear was safely packed and sent, and flights and accommodation provided.
The village features a renowned mask museum, and masks play a central role in the culture of the area. A guide took us round, showing us costumes and masks from carnivals and cultural events all over Europe. We were startled to find an entire boteiro costume from Vilariño de Conso, just 10km from Viana, standing to attention within. Other costumes from Greece, Germany, Russia and others displayed many similarities in terms of the materials used, their common features (carved wooden masks, animal horns, charcoal, long staffs etc), despite these costumes coming from very different cultures and being used in festivals with very different origins.
The big day (for us at least) was Sunday. We'd been wined and dined handsomely on Saturday, and we'd given the locals who were out on Saturday night a bit of a preview, without boteiros in full kit etc. On the Sunday we were taken up to a nearby vineyard and took our fill of local wines, cheeses, cold meats and chutneys, only to then be told that this was an 'aperitif' before a four-course lunch. There was time to enjoy that lunch and relax for a couple of hours before we had to get ready. The boteiros had to dress thus: a white shirt, black tie* under a thick sweatshirt onto which several thousand feet of ribbon has been sewn. This is not an exaggeration - just look at any of the photos. Long, red satin trousers under high black boots. A belt studded with bells. White gloves and a two-metre pole, called a monca, complete the set. Oh - almost forgot. A wooden mask and headgear, weighing anything up to 15 kilos, goes on the head, strapped on tightly.
Their task, to run up and down alongside the fulion, keeping the crowds back and entertaining them. In 32ªC. The start of the parade was delayed a couple of hours for the temperature to drop a bit, but I was carrying just an aixada - a shovel head - and hammer, and wearing a white cotton shirt and jeans, and I sweated like a Palace fan in a spelling test. The boteiros were all, of course, young'uns, but we were followed all the way by water-toting volunteers, hydrating the lads with straws poked through the mouth parts of the mask. Bottles for the rest of us, thanks.
We followed the locals' own traditional figures, themselves wearing thick furs with 30kg of bells on their backs. There's a long video here, which will show much better what I'm going on about. You can hear us long before you see us, but we come in around the fifteen minute mark. There is, as you'll see, a 'piccolo incidente' when one local got too close and was dragged to the ground when she got something caught on the boteiro's shirt. No serious harm done but if you don't heed the warning about why the boteiros are there, this can happen.
We were at this for about three hours. I've stripped the skin off my right little finger, index finger and thumb, with unpleasant looking blisters growing nicely. I have no feeling on the fingerprint bit of my left middle finger. My shoulder ligament keeps popping up and down uncomfortably. But bloody hell, it was great. I had no idea there were quite so many people watching because I was so intently concentrating on the lead drummer/aixada players, desperate not to be the one to fuck up any fulion beat.
We ended up drumming in the courtyard of our own hotel at the end of it all, before spending a night on the town during which it was all but impossible to pay for a drink. 'The Spaniards don't pay', we were told repeatedly. This led, as you can imagine, to long nights and sore heads among some of our number. I'm told the boteiros, stars of the show and already called upon to pose for countless photographs, did their bit for Italo-Spanish relations over the course of the evening. They certainly looked like they'd had a tough night when we were taken to a nearby beach for the following day.
Jorge, the man who sells the aixadas we were playing and who was the driving force behind organising things from our end, was presented with one of the Sardinians' masks as a mark of thanks, in what was an emotional send-off at the end of it. He said that Galicia is known widely as being hugely hospitable but, compared to the extraordinary generosity and kindness we were shown by the good people of Mamoiada, he held us only as high as his own shin in that respect. Even the apparently infinite pizza (again provided free, again with free beer) served at the farewell dinner was possibly the best pizza I've ever eaten. And it's not a small sample size, let me tell you.
An invitation to reciprocate at next year's Mascarada has already been extended to them. We hope to be as hospitable, friendly and generous as they were to us, but to be honest we've got our work cut out.
*The fact that the tie is entirely invisible when the boteiro is fully dressed is irrelevant. It must be so and that's that.
Getting a crew of half a dozen boteiros, eight drummers and assorted aixada players from Galicia to Sardinia is not a cheap or simple affair - two enormous wooden containers were required for the drums and equipment. But their own Carnival is as important to our Sardinian hosts as our flour frenzy is to us, so with the help of a dedicated set of volunteers and partly funded by grants for cross-cultural initiatives, all the gear was safely packed and sent, and flights and accommodation provided.
 |
| We happy few. This pic mainly notable for the extraordinarily rare occurrence of me posing willingly for a photo that is not being taken at a wedding. Pic: Canillo |
The big day (for us at least) was Sunday. We'd been wined and dined handsomely on Saturday, and we'd given the locals who were out on Saturday night a bit of a preview, without boteiros in full kit etc. On the Sunday we were taken up to a nearby vineyard and took our fill of local wines, cheeses, cold meats and chutneys, only to then be told that this was an 'aperitif' before a four-course lunch. There was time to enjoy that lunch and relax for a couple of hours before we had to get ready. The boteiros had to dress thus: a white shirt, black tie* under a thick sweatshirt onto which several thousand feet of ribbon has been sewn. This is not an exaggeration - just look at any of the photos. Long, red satin trousers under high black boots. A belt studded with bells. White gloves and a two-metre pole, called a monca, complete the set. Oh - almost forgot. A wooden mask and headgear, weighing anything up to 15 kilos, goes on the head, strapped on tightly.
Their task, to run up and down alongside the fulion, keeping the crowds back and entertaining them. In 32ªC. The start of the parade was delayed a couple of hours for the temperature to drop a bit, but I was carrying just an aixada - a shovel head - and hammer, and wearing a white cotton shirt and jeans, and I sweated like a Palace fan in a spelling test. The boteiros were all, of course, young'uns, but we were followed all the way by water-toting volunteers, hydrating the lads with straws poked through the mouth parts of the mask. Bottles for the rest of us, thanks.
 |
| If you don't bloody your hands and the drum skin, you're not playing hard enough. Pic: Pedro Garcia Losada |
 |
| Heavy, sweaty work. Pic: Pedro Garcia Losada |
We ended up drumming in the courtyard of our own hotel at the end of it all, before spending a night on the town during which it was all but impossible to pay for a drink. 'The Spaniards don't pay', we were told repeatedly. This led, as you can imagine, to long nights and sore heads among some of our number. I'm told the boteiros, stars of the show and already called upon to pose for countless photographs, did their bit for Italo-Spanish relations over the course of the evening. They certainly looked like they'd had a tough night when we were taken to a nearby beach for the following day.
Jorge, the man who sells the aixadas we were playing and who was the driving force behind organising things from our end, was presented with one of the Sardinians' masks as a mark of thanks, in what was an emotional send-off at the end of it. He said that Galicia is known widely as being hugely hospitable but, compared to the extraordinary generosity and kindness we were shown by the good people of Mamoiada, he held us only as high as his own shin in that respect. Even the apparently infinite pizza (again provided free, again with free beer) served at the farewell dinner was possibly the best pizza I've ever eaten. And it's not a small sample size, let me tell you.
An invitation to reciprocate at next year's Mascarada has already been extended to them. We hope to be as hospitable, friendly and generous as they were to us, but to be honest we've got our work cut out.
*The fact that the tie is entirely invisible when the boteiro is fully dressed is irrelevant. It must be so and that's that.
Monday, 27 May 2019
Cross no boxes
Unlike Britain, which went to the polls on Thursday, Spain's European and local elections were yesterday. This was my first chance to vote here - I'm ineligible in the General Elections - and we came back from O Grove, a couple of hours' drive away, to do so.
There are of course similarities with Britain - you see election posters all over the place, though not, I've noticed, displayed in people's house windows. Instead the council provides large wooden boards at strategic points around the village onto which all the parties post their campaign posters. What unspoken arrangement exists as to who gets to put theirs at the top, what stops them removing competitors' posters etc., is unclear to me, but they seem to be neatly arranged such that they appear alternately, as if all parties are trying to be polite. (Though I've been told that some naughty types do indeed sneakily remove other parties' posters in the dead of night. Tsk.) Since the local elections mean you're basically voting for somebody you know personally, most of them simply show a slightly awkward-looking local staring directly at the camera, and the party's name and colour. On a local level, at least, I don't hear people talking about the PSOE, the PP or the BNG so much as 'Pablo', 'Andres' and 'Secundino'.
The local school is the polling station, just as is often the case back home. You go and identify yourself, you're checked against the list, you go into the booth to vote. One vote for European election, one vote for local mayor. There's no crossing of boxes, though - you pick up a slip of paper branded with the party of your choice, insert it into an envelope provided, and drop the sealed envelope into the relevant box. This means that a lot of the election bumph you receive in the mail during the build-up includes envelopes with slips of paper already in them, so you can just take that and drop it in the box if you so wish. Very thoughtful of them!
The count, unlike back home, takes place in the same rooms in which the votes do. Five classrooms were given over to the task, being grouped both regionally and by surnames - so Viana do Bolo, A to F for example. The doors are closed for the count but people gather in the hallways of the school and peer in through open, slatted windows. The envelopes are opened, the name of the party called out, and the score kept on the whiteboards in groups of five. So you can see a running total as the votes are read out. Regular 'shushing' is required to stop chattering spectators making too much noise for the count. The votes are also, of course, counted by observers and checked against each others' scores at the end to make sure they all agree.
A few envelopes contained no slip at all - the local equivalent of writing 'none of the above' on the slip, and one of them contained only a photograph of one of the candidates. Draw your own conclusions - it didn't count. A proportional representation of the votes left the council, as in so many other places, with no overall control. PP - think of them as the Conservatives - came out with four seats, PSOE - Labour equivalent - with three, and BNG - a sort of Galician Plaid Cymru - with four. Negotiations will now have to take place as to who becomes mayor and whether any two - realistically BNG and PSOE - can coalesce. It was extremely interesting to see it done somewhere else, despite a local copper and council member good-naturedly threatening to sling me out of the building because of Brexit. I voted to remain, I reminded them, earning me the right to remain to watch the rest of the 'show'.
Results across Spain, as in much of Europe, served mainly to illustrate increasing polarisation of European politics. Nowhere more though than in Britain. Seeing the results, I can't seriously believe that even committed Leavers find that boorish tosser Farage an appealing politician, but his party served to underline just how much anti-EU sentiment there is in Britain. (Or perhaps it's just an expression of 'Just get it done, for fuck's sake...) The rise of the pro-EU Lib Dems and Greens and Labour's incoherence on their stance, added to huge punishment of the Tories' own inabilities, made Britain's results as divided as anywhere that voted.
I've watched what's been going on in Britain with increasing apprehension, particularly given May's recent resignation. It's not that I think she was capable of doing a decent job of the Brexit negotiations - I defy anybody to navigate the conflicting desires of both sides of that debate with any success - so much as the fear of who might follow her. May at least isn't Boris Johnson, for example. She's been praised by all sides for remaining polite and calm, and I've always had some residual goodwill for her over her stance and work on Hillsborough. People have said she was dealt a bad hand and played it badly. I think she was dealt an impossible hand and played it no less well or badly than anybody else could.
What we may now get is some bug-eyed, foaming-at-the-mouth anti-European determined to pull us out of the EU under any circumstances. (Bloody foreigners! Keep the pound! Close the Chunnel! Ahh, India... If only we hadn't lost you...) The possibility that it may next be Boris to whom this most difficult negotiation is tasked, a man who already has a trail of gaffes, insults, casual racism and rule-breaking behind him, doesn't really bear thinking about. It was fun to watch him dangle from a rope slide waving flags in 2012 and all that, but hasn't his disastrous term as Foreign Secretary already demonstrated that giving him a real job is taking the joke much, much too far?
That the more moderate wing of the Tory party are already warning sternly against leaving with no deal or they may help 'bring down the government', and that such a thing is possible that people like Gove or Hunt almost look preferable to Johnson as next leader, shows just what sort of a shit-storm we're in the middle of.
It's all made last night's election here, which to some is simply about whether the road outside their house is going to finally be repaired or money can be found to employ another doctor locally*, for example, seem like much more of an exercise in real politics, frankly. Being there, seeing the count unfold, knowing the candidates and their seconds and thirds - it was actually fun. Who'd have thought?
*This is of course an over-simplification but it's that sort of stuff that motivates people here and can decide a person's vote.
There are of course similarities with Britain - you see election posters all over the place, though not, I've noticed, displayed in people's house windows. Instead the council provides large wooden boards at strategic points around the village onto which all the parties post their campaign posters. What unspoken arrangement exists as to who gets to put theirs at the top, what stops them removing competitors' posters etc., is unclear to me, but they seem to be neatly arranged such that they appear alternately, as if all parties are trying to be polite. (Though I've been told that some naughty types do indeed sneakily remove other parties' posters in the dead of night. Tsk.) Since the local elections mean you're basically voting for somebody you know personally, most of them simply show a slightly awkward-looking local staring directly at the camera, and the party's name and colour. On a local level, at least, I don't hear people talking about the PSOE, the PP or the BNG so much as 'Pablo', 'Andres' and 'Secundino'.
The local school is the polling station, just as is often the case back home. You go and identify yourself, you're checked against the list, you go into the booth to vote. One vote for European election, one vote for local mayor. There's no crossing of boxes, though - you pick up a slip of paper branded with the party of your choice, insert it into an envelope provided, and drop the sealed envelope into the relevant box. This means that a lot of the election bumph you receive in the mail during the build-up includes envelopes with slips of paper already in them, so you can just take that and drop it in the box if you so wish. Very thoughtful of them!
The count, unlike back home, takes place in the same rooms in which the votes do. Five classrooms were given over to the task, being grouped both regionally and by surnames - so Viana do Bolo, A to F for example. The doors are closed for the count but people gather in the hallways of the school and peer in through open, slatted windows. The envelopes are opened, the name of the party called out, and the score kept on the whiteboards in groups of five. So you can see a running total as the votes are read out. Regular 'shushing' is required to stop chattering spectators making too much noise for the count. The votes are also, of course, counted by observers and checked against each others' scores at the end to make sure they all agree.
A few envelopes contained no slip at all - the local equivalent of writing 'none of the above' on the slip, and one of them contained only a photograph of one of the candidates. Draw your own conclusions - it didn't count. A proportional representation of the votes left the council, as in so many other places, with no overall control. PP - think of them as the Conservatives - came out with four seats, PSOE - Labour equivalent - with three, and BNG - a sort of Galician Plaid Cymru - with four. Negotiations will now have to take place as to who becomes mayor and whether any two - realistically BNG and PSOE - can coalesce. It was extremely interesting to see it done somewhere else, despite a local copper and council member good-naturedly threatening to sling me out of the building because of Brexit. I voted to remain, I reminded them, earning me the right to remain to watch the rest of the 'show'.
Results across Spain, as in much of Europe, served mainly to illustrate increasing polarisation of European politics. Nowhere more though than in Britain. Seeing the results, I can't seriously believe that even committed Leavers find that boorish tosser Farage an appealing politician, but his party served to underline just how much anti-EU sentiment there is in Britain. (Or perhaps it's just an expression of 'Just get it done, for fuck's sake...) The rise of the pro-EU Lib Dems and Greens and Labour's incoherence on their stance, added to huge punishment of the Tories' own inabilities, made Britain's results as divided as anywhere that voted.
I've watched what's been going on in Britain with increasing apprehension, particularly given May's recent resignation. It's not that I think she was capable of doing a decent job of the Brexit negotiations - I defy anybody to navigate the conflicting desires of both sides of that debate with any success - so much as the fear of who might follow her. May at least isn't Boris Johnson, for example. She's been praised by all sides for remaining polite and calm, and I've always had some residual goodwill for her over her stance and work on Hillsborough. People have said she was dealt a bad hand and played it badly. I think she was dealt an impossible hand and played it no less well or badly than anybody else could.
What we may now get is some bug-eyed, foaming-at-the-mouth anti-European determined to pull us out of the EU under any circumstances. (Bloody foreigners! Keep the pound! Close the Chunnel! Ahh, India... If only we hadn't lost you...) The possibility that it may next be Boris to whom this most difficult negotiation is tasked, a man who already has a trail of gaffes, insults, casual racism and rule-breaking behind him, doesn't really bear thinking about. It was fun to watch him dangle from a rope slide waving flags in 2012 and all that, but hasn't his disastrous term as Foreign Secretary already demonstrated that giving him a real job is taking the joke much, much too far?
That the more moderate wing of the Tory party are already warning sternly against leaving with no deal or they may help 'bring down the government', and that such a thing is possible that people like Gove or Hunt almost look preferable to Johnson as next leader, shows just what sort of a shit-storm we're in the middle of.
It's all made last night's election here, which to some is simply about whether the road outside their house is going to finally be repaired or money can be found to employ another doctor locally*, for example, seem like much more of an exercise in real politics, frankly. Being there, seeing the count unfold, knowing the candidates and their seconds and thirds - it was actually fun. Who'd have thought?
*This is of course an over-simplification but it's that sort of stuff that motivates people here and can decide a person's vote.
Monday, 22 April 2019
Where are all the chocolate eggs?
A few years back an acquaintance of mine, appalled at seeing Easter eggs on the shelves before January was out (yep, really...), posted a photo of same, with an eloquent comment, on his Facebook page. '"Fuck you, xxxx supermarket. Just fuck you." (I can't remember which supermarket chain it was. It doesn't matter really - the point is clear enough.)
Of course I agreed with the sentiment. About as egregious a piece of commercialisation as you'll ever see. But Easter is done rather differently here and I have to confess that the total absence of chocolate eggs on the shelves, be it January or the last few days of Lent, is itself something of a disappointment. Now I'm fully aware that even in a country as secular as Britain, Easter for many people remains an extremely important religious occasion. For me though, it's always represented a) waaaay too much chocolate*, b) four consecutive days without work and c) a double-fixture football weekend. I'm certainly not alone, I believe - most British people without a religious faith would be able to identify with at least one of those three things, I reckon.
Here, though, Easter remains as it's always been - an extremely important religious affair. If you don't attend church and don't happen upon the procession, you'd only notice the presence of more people in the village than usual as a sign that anything's happening at all. There are a few chocolate rabbits about in the shops, and I mean a few - but the creeping hand of Mammon has yet to really make its presence felt on Easter here. The bar owners will certainly see un uptick in takings for a few days because many of those who come here for Carnival, or during August for holidays, also make the trip home for Semana Santa.
The processions are, frankly, creepy to the irreligious. (Maybe to the faithful too - maybe that's the point. I can't speak for them.) I'm sure many of you have seen the images. The Virgin, or the image of Jesus nailed to the cross or dragging it to his crucifixion, will be taken from its place in the church, hoisted upon the shoulders of the faithful, and carried around the town. In Viana the local priest, a young and cheerful chap by nature, followed behind, a megaphone in hand, incanting mournfully. I did happen upon the procession on Friday, I think it was - emerging from a bar as part of a group of ten, the lively chatter and general noise gave way to a respectful silence as it passed us.
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| I'm talking Old Testament. Real 'wrath of God' type stuff... One for the Ghostbusters fans, there. Photo: Cristina Fernandez. |
They vary slightly from place to place. At some, sorrowful music will be played - possibly even a funeral march. By far the most unsettling part of it, though, is something that's common to all of them; the outfits worn by the attendants. Long robes topped by high, pointed headgear, eyes peeping out of holes, conjure up images of one thing and one thing only in my atheist mind. I don't have to spell it out here, do I? If you're not religious you're surely likely to think of the same thrice-repeated letter that I am. If you are religious, doesn't this instil the fear of God into you in an all-too-literal fashion?
I'm aware, of course, of what they're commemorating. But this is, for me, the very definition of preaching to the converted. If you're a believer, you're likely to have seen these icons in the church already. If you're not, you're either at home eating chocolate or you're watching out of curiosity, for the sake of the spectacle rather than the sentiment. Why are they showing them around town? The point of commemorating in exactly this manner is rather lost on me in my ignorance. One impression is left very clearly, though, even in my know-nothing bonce: just how much more everyday belief there remains in people in Spain compared to the UK, even among those who don't necessarily routinely attend church.
Anyway, I gather that back in the UK the long weekend has, in a coincidence seen about as frequently as Haley's Comet, been one long glorious stint of unbroken sunshine and unseasonable warmth. Hot enough to melt your chocolate eggs, even. Now that would elicit some mournful incantations from your correspondent, let me tell you. However you've passed it - in church, being sick from too much choccy, spring cleaning (booo!) or on the beach(!!!), I hope you've had a happy Easter.
*I don't know what it is about Easter eggs, but the chocolate absolutely tastes different, and better, than in any other form. Given the choice between a Yorkie bar or a Yorkie Easter egg made out of exactly the same stuff, I'll take the egg every time. Brains are weird, eh?
Sunday, 24 March 2019
For whom the bell tolls
On a warm and sunny Sunday such as today, with a billion tiny jewels of light winking in and out of infinitesimal existence on the lake's surface and the almond and cherry trees in bloom, this is a spectacularly beautiful place. It's a quiet beauty and Sundays are particularly still, even by Viana's standards. There will be a few people about having vermouth around what Brits would call lunchtime, enjoying the sun at a table outside one of the bars, but you could easily walk around the parts of the village away from the main square and see nobody.
That quiet, and the village's small size, is often reinforced by the one sound other than birdsong that you can reliably bet will intrude into the hush - the church's bell. In Britain we've all heard them chiming the hours, of course, whether it's the currently silent Big Ben or the local church bell, but here the bell has other jobs to do, and the fact that its sound can be clearly heard across the whole village enables it to do those jobs most effectively.
It of course marks the time on the hours and half-hours but at noon on Sundays it can also be heard calling the faithful to mass (at the same time, discordantly, that it chimes the noon dozen). It also serves a much more poignant purpose. If you hear the chime in the video below, you know a funeral has just started or somebody has died. The sound is appropriately mournful and, despite the large number of children in the village at the moment, it's an ageing population on average, so it's heard regrettably frequently.
I'm told that once upon a time the bell performed warning roles, letting people know if there was a fire, flood, plague of locusts or whatever. Nowadays we have a shiny new alarm, tested every few months, which will alert us if the dam upstream fails and we have to get to the high point of the village pronto, but how you were supposed to tell these warnings apart back then I can't tell you. Not knowing if we were about to be burned to a cinder, drowned in a muddy torrent or eaten by zombies (I'm assuming they'd have tolled it for the zombie apocalypse...) I'd probably just run around doing this:
until some professionals turned up to deal with it. So I'm more than happy with just the three jobs it does now, thanks.
That quiet, and the village's small size, is often reinforced by the one sound other than birdsong that you can reliably bet will intrude into the hush - the church's bell. In Britain we've all heard them chiming the hours, of course, whether it's the currently silent Big Ben or the local church bell, but here the bell has other jobs to do, and the fact that its sound can be clearly heard across the whole village enables it to do those jobs most effectively.
It of course marks the time on the hours and half-hours but at noon on Sundays it can also be heard calling the faithful to mass (at the same time, discordantly, that it chimes the noon dozen). It also serves a much more poignant purpose. If you hear the chime in the video below, you know a funeral has just started or somebody has died. The sound is appropriately mournful and, despite the large number of children in the village at the moment, it's an ageing population on average, so it's heard regrettably frequently.
(Excuse my fingers.)
Despite the sad use to which it has to be put, I find the bell to be a reassuring presence in general. In the absolute silence of night here, if you can't sleep, it sounds through the dark like a nightwatchman, marking your wakefulness in half-hour increments. Where some might find that disconcerting, I find it a comforting indication that all is well. It even has the common decency to ring the hour twice, the second time a minute after the first, so if you're only half aware of it ringing (was that five or six?) you know you've got another chance to listen properly in short order.
I'm told that once upon a time the bell performed warning roles, letting people know if there was a fire, flood, plague of locusts or whatever. Nowadays we have a shiny new alarm, tested every few months, which will alert us if the dam upstream fails and we have to get to the high point of the village pronto, but how you were supposed to tell these warnings apart back then I can't tell you. Not knowing if we were about to be burned to a cinder, drowned in a muddy torrent or eaten by zombies (I'm assuming they'd have tolled it for the zombie apocalypse...) I'd probably just run around doing this:
until some professionals turned up to deal with it. So I'm more than happy with just the three jobs it does now, thanks.
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