I have now seen the ultimate height of idiocy in Spanish driving.
While driving at night in Castelldefels coming up to a busy roundabout, I noticed a car stopped on the roundabout – not on the pavement side of the road, but next to the roundabout. Then the reverse lights went on and the woman (sorry!) driving the car reversed back to a turning that she had missed!
It is a little worrying that the principle of circularity inherent in a roundabout had been lost on a qualified driver on the roads of Castelldefels!
An incident like that puts the everyday criminality of driving on the roads of Spain into some sort of context.
You can see the reckless overtaking and undertaking (I am aware of irony in that word); the speeding and the moving from lane to lane like a jinxed horse; the assumptions of rights of way with imperial disregard for other road users – you can see all these as a sort of heightened form of driving. It’s like speed driving: no not the use of velocity, the use of the drug.
Spanish drivers are considerate – as long as you play by their rules. It’s like R D Laing’s descriptions of the insane in ‘The Divided Self’: if you enter the world of the disturbed person then you will find that there is a logic and even ‘sense’ in the way that their universe is ordered. It’s just not the one that the majority of the population find to be real. The only difference between the insane in ‘The Divided Self’ and Spanish drivers on the roads of Catalonia is that the Spanish drivers are the majority and a timid look/indicate/manoeuvre British driver seems to be from another world.
I do not want to give the impression that I am god’s gift to advanced driving. I loathe driving and regard it only as a convenient means to get to a necessary destination.
I like arriving not travelling.
I am by no means impeccable in my driving skills and I realise that I have a nasty tendency to drive too fast. But I do manage the basics like always wearing a safety belt; using my mirror; indicating and showing at least some degree of consideration towards other road users.
To survive on Spanish roads, at least those in the vicinity of the city of Barcelona, you have to enter the world of the Spanish driver. I suppose if I was to continue the analogy with the delusional patients in ‘The Divided Self’ you have to believe that you are surrounded by multiple mobile Napoleons, all with the imperial right to do as they please and you must be a Napoleon as well. And believe in it too!
On a more pleasant note Alison and Bryn have arrived. They emerged from the arrivals gate in Barcelona airport confident in the knowledge that the information that I had given them about the convenience of Castelldefels as a centre for their stay in the Barcelona area was based on up to the moment first hand experience.
Of course, when they arrived and before they got into my car I was able to disabuse them of these comfortable assertions. What they actually found was a situation where the rail link between Castelldefels and Barcelona was broken because of the seemingly criminal incompetence of RENFE; the road system in something approaching chaos because of the construction work for the new terminal for Barcelona Airport; traffic congestion on an epic scale because of ham fisted attempts to ‘ease the problems’ and last, but not least, the closure of roads in Castelldefels because of the Marathon of the Mediterranean on the day that they both wanted to go to Barcelona.
Very unreasonably, I thought, they blamed me!
Earlier in the day I had my delayed celebration of United Nations Day with Toni’s family and, very pleasingly, by Caroline. I had a more than satisfactory haul of gifts and it was especially good that the extended family were able to see the flat.
Once again I was astonished by the way in which Catalans drink. OK, there were a few drivers and they are discounted, but the ones that were left leave a normal British person bemused at the lack of involvement with the liquid intoxicants which lubricate the vast majority of festive occasions in the Old Country.
I had bought red wine, white wine, Cava, two types of beer, fruit juice and various forms of fizzy drink. Three people asked for water; two people drank fruit flavoured fizzy drinks; one person (she knows who she is!) drank Coke Zero; two people drank nothing; I poured the drinks. And two people, just two, drank canned beer. The two people with beer, eventually, after much persuasion managed a second can during the afternoon!
I had made a martyr-like renunciation of alcohol because I was picking up Alison and Bryn later in the evening. This gesture lost all its value by the almost complete lack of alcohol consumption by my guests. What, I ask you, is the point of grand gestures of abstinence if no one around you is indulging in animal like excess? You don’t gain many points if you are, daringly, acting just like everyone else!
The arrival of Alison and Bryn in the flat (with Toni hors de combat on his bed of illness in the bedroom and therefore neatly eliminating the only moderating influence) changed my drinking habit for the day.
The now traditional bottle of ‘Ne Plus Ultra’ Cava and a few bottles of El Corto went down very nicely thank you. We eventually remembered that I had prepared comestible refreshments which, once consumed, obviously allowed the consumption of a little more excellent Rioja. And then a little more. And then, probably, too much.
Ah how British it all was!
While driving at night in Castelldefels coming up to a busy roundabout, I noticed a car stopped on the roundabout – not on the pavement side of the road, but next to the roundabout. Then the reverse lights went on and the woman (sorry!) driving the car reversed back to a turning that she had missed!
It is a little worrying that the principle of circularity inherent in a roundabout had been lost on a qualified driver on the roads of Castelldefels!
An incident like that puts the everyday criminality of driving on the roads of Spain into some sort of context.
You can see the reckless overtaking and undertaking (I am aware of irony in that word); the speeding and the moving from lane to lane like a jinxed horse; the assumptions of rights of way with imperial disregard for other road users – you can see all these as a sort of heightened form of driving. It’s like speed driving: no not the use of velocity, the use of the drug.
Spanish drivers are considerate – as long as you play by their rules. It’s like R D Laing’s descriptions of the insane in ‘The Divided Self’: if you enter the world of the disturbed person then you will find that there is a logic and even ‘sense’ in the way that their universe is ordered. It’s just not the one that the majority of the population find to be real. The only difference between the insane in ‘The Divided Self’ and Spanish drivers on the roads of Catalonia is that the Spanish drivers are the majority and a timid look/indicate/manoeuvre British driver seems to be from another world.
I do not want to give the impression that I am god’s gift to advanced driving. I loathe driving and regard it only as a convenient means to get to a necessary destination.
I like arriving not travelling.
I am by no means impeccable in my driving skills and I realise that I have a nasty tendency to drive too fast. But I do manage the basics like always wearing a safety belt; using my mirror; indicating and showing at least some degree of consideration towards other road users.
To survive on Spanish roads, at least those in the vicinity of the city of Barcelona, you have to enter the world of the Spanish driver. I suppose if I was to continue the analogy with the delusional patients in ‘The Divided Self’ you have to believe that you are surrounded by multiple mobile Napoleons, all with the imperial right to do as they please and you must be a Napoleon as well. And believe in it too!
On a more pleasant note Alison and Bryn have arrived. They emerged from the arrivals gate in Barcelona airport confident in the knowledge that the information that I had given them about the convenience of Castelldefels as a centre for their stay in the Barcelona area was based on up to the moment first hand experience.
Of course, when they arrived and before they got into my car I was able to disabuse them of these comfortable assertions. What they actually found was a situation where the rail link between Castelldefels and Barcelona was broken because of the seemingly criminal incompetence of RENFE; the road system in something approaching chaos because of the construction work for the new terminal for Barcelona Airport; traffic congestion on an epic scale because of ham fisted attempts to ‘ease the problems’ and last, but not least, the closure of roads in Castelldefels because of the Marathon of the Mediterranean on the day that they both wanted to go to Barcelona.
Very unreasonably, I thought, they blamed me!
Earlier in the day I had my delayed celebration of United Nations Day with Toni’s family and, very pleasingly, by Caroline. I had a more than satisfactory haul of gifts and it was especially good that the extended family were able to see the flat.
Once again I was astonished by the way in which Catalans drink. OK, there were a few drivers and they are discounted, but the ones that were left leave a normal British person bemused at the lack of involvement with the liquid intoxicants which lubricate the vast majority of festive occasions in the Old Country.
I had bought red wine, white wine, Cava, two types of beer, fruit juice and various forms of fizzy drink. Three people asked for water; two people drank fruit flavoured fizzy drinks; one person (she knows who she is!) drank Coke Zero; two people drank nothing; I poured the drinks. And two people, just two, drank canned beer. The two people with beer, eventually, after much persuasion managed a second can during the afternoon!
I had made a martyr-like renunciation of alcohol because I was picking up Alison and Bryn later in the evening. This gesture lost all its value by the almost complete lack of alcohol consumption by my guests. What, I ask you, is the point of grand gestures of abstinence if no one around you is indulging in animal like excess? You don’t gain many points if you are, daringly, acting just like everyone else!
The arrival of Alison and Bryn in the flat (with Toni hors de combat on his bed of illness in the bedroom and therefore neatly eliminating the only moderating influence) changed my drinking habit for the day.
The now traditional bottle of ‘Ne Plus Ultra’ Cava and a few bottles of El Corto went down very nicely thank you. We eventually remembered that I had prepared comestible refreshments which, once consumed, obviously allowed the consumption of a little more excellent Rioja. And then a little more. And then, probably, too much.
Ah how British it all was!
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