The past few days have been like living in a tired war zone where desultory and lethargically sporadic explosions in a seemingly random pattern punctuate the normal noise of an ordinary day.
We are building up to a National Holiday for which small shops and stalls have sprung up offering petados or ‘bangers’. I understand that people are even able to buy these incendiary things on the internet! The logistical ramifications of that one leave me speechless!
The 24th or possibly the 23rd is the Catalan equivalent of Bonfire Night and the masked denizens of hell in hessian will be walking the streets with their flaming pitchforks.
Fireworks or fuegos artificales have a more nearly central place in the Spanish way of life than in Britain. In Britain the dead hand of Blame Culture has demonized fireworks to such an extent that it seems positively anti social as a private individual to admit to possessing any of them. They are more safely left in the capable hands (allegedly) of local councils than in the palsied grip of mere ordinary people.
The Spanish seem to rejoice in fireworks and deliberately put themselves in the way of showers of sparks, squeaking delightedly as parts of body and clothing start to smoulder! I suppose this is all of a piece with their letting bulls lose in the streets, constructing human castles of improbable height and encouraging a selection of other wild animals to frisk about in the vicinity of vulnerable human flesh.
This is the sort of thing that would be impossible to regulate in Britain and something that no vapid British insurance company would touch. Given the grossly inflated premiums that companies ask for even the most trivial and distant risks you would have thought that they would be licking their slavering corporate lips at the thought of the truly mind constricting amounts of money they might be tempted to charge for what passes for normality in Spain. But no! Even though their business is risk they seem to want to offload that troublesome concept on the customer!
Spain has a long way to go in the accountability stakes. Most Spanish pavements are fiendishly complex obstacle courses with many unpleasant surprises in store for the unwary. Parking is simply a joke. Conditions that would bankrupt a large metropolitan borough in Britain are accepted with a nonchalance bordering on the criminally vindictive here. ¡Viva la diferencia!
Today is the start of my efforts to Ostracize The Owner. I’m not sure that is exactly what I am trying to do, but I am far too indolent to think of a more appropriate alliterative verb.
To be realistic I am not sure what I can do to frustrate her knavish tricks, but on the basis that ‘anything is better than nothing’ I will put into sluggish action the strategy that I have been considering for some time. I am well aware that I am confronting moneyed ignorance and that my efforts may well be derided as a ‘Brave Little Belgium’ approach but I am determined not, to quote a fellow countryman, to ‘go gentle into that good night’
and, god knows, The Owner does give one something to ‘rage against.’
The Campaign begins!
We are building up to a National Holiday for which small shops and stalls have sprung up offering petados or ‘bangers’. I understand that people are even able to buy these incendiary things on the internet! The logistical ramifications of that one leave me speechless!
The 24th or possibly the 23rd is the Catalan equivalent of Bonfire Night and the masked denizens of hell in hessian will be walking the streets with their flaming pitchforks.
Fireworks or fuegos artificales have a more nearly central place in the Spanish way of life than in Britain. In Britain the dead hand of Blame Culture has demonized fireworks to such an extent that it seems positively anti social as a private individual to admit to possessing any of them. They are more safely left in the capable hands (allegedly) of local councils than in the palsied grip of mere ordinary people.
The Spanish seem to rejoice in fireworks and deliberately put themselves in the way of showers of sparks, squeaking delightedly as parts of body and clothing start to smoulder! I suppose this is all of a piece with their letting bulls lose in the streets, constructing human castles of improbable height and encouraging a selection of other wild animals to frisk about in the vicinity of vulnerable human flesh.
This is the sort of thing that would be impossible to regulate in Britain and something that no vapid British insurance company would touch. Given the grossly inflated premiums that companies ask for even the most trivial and distant risks you would have thought that they would be licking their slavering corporate lips at the thought of the truly mind constricting amounts of money they might be tempted to charge for what passes for normality in Spain. But no! Even though their business is risk they seem to want to offload that troublesome concept on the customer!
Spain has a long way to go in the accountability stakes. Most Spanish pavements are fiendishly complex obstacle courses with many unpleasant surprises in store for the unwary. Parking is simply a joke. Conditions that would bankrupt a large metropolitan borough in Britain are accepted with a nonchalance bordering on the criminally vindictive here. ¡Viva la diferencia!
Today is the start of my efforts to Ostracize The Owner. I’m not sure that is exactly what I am trying to do, but I am far too indolent to think of a more appropriate alliterative verb.
To be realistic I am not sure what I can do to frustrate her knavish tricks, but on the basis that ‘anything is better than nothing’ I will put into sluggish action the strategy that I have been considering for some time. I am well aware that I am confronting moneyed ignorance and that my efforts may well be derided as a ‘Brave Little Belgium’ approach but I am determined not, to quote a fellow countryman, to ‘go gentle into that good night’
and, god knows, The Owner does give one something to ‘rage against.’The Campaign begins!
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