Cutting the tape

    

 

 

Next month will see me going to Barcelona for an allegedly ‘free’ appointment that I had to pay 100€ to get, as all normal attempts to get one on line are next to impossible. 

     The appointment is to renew my NIA my Número de Identificación de Extranjero is a very important card with my unique identification number.  I show this card when I leave the country and, most importantly, when I return, as that means that my passport is not stamped, as I have a permanent right to reside in Spain.  The number, if not the actual physical card, is often asked for, for example when packages arrive.  And I haveofficaldome, padrón, tea,  used it so often in Spanish, that I consciously have to translate the numbers into English when I need to use them myself on forms.

     Spanish bureaucracy is notoriously photocopy-heavy: officials like you to have copies of everything and anything to give them, and they reciprocate by giving you a wodge of photocopies in return, usually on odd coloured recycled paper, which gives the impression that they are always thinking of the environment.  You never, of course, look at these photocopies ever again, and they have no function but to exist.

     So, as I was doing my morning write, after my well-deserved post-swim cup of tea, I mused to myself about what I should take to the appointment.  You are obviously told what to bring, documents like the old card and your passport, but they do not tell you that they might require lasting proof that they had seen them – you’ve guessed it, a photocopy of the documents.

     One time, with one official department I was dealing with, I was told that I needed to supply photocopies of the documents that I had bought, and I told them that I didn’t have photocopies, perhaps they could make them if they needed them.  “We are not a photocopy shop!”  I was told.  I had to leave the office and my appointment, for which I had queued for over half an hour.  Find a photocopy shop.  Get the photocopies done, return and queue again to continue the appointment.  The second wait was not as long as the first, but the seething rage that I barely controlled made it seem like an eternity.

     So, this time, you consider not only what they have asked for, but also what they might ask for.  There was a television sketch show here in Spain where one skit showed someone waiting in a queue to get some official business done:  He eventually reached the window and the official asked for identity card, passport, then asked for blood group, followed by favourite film – all of which needed documentation and, in the case of the film a VHS Cassette of it, and so it went one, with ever more bizarre demands, with the guy showing that he had anticipated all of these outré requests.  At the point where he appeared to have satisfied all demands, the official informed him that he was in the wrong queue and the window that he needed had closed.  I may have made up the ending to the skit, but the guy did not get what he wanted!

     To most Spaniards the skit is not comedy but documentary as everyone will have stories of bureaucracy gone mad – or normality as it is more generally known.

     I have decided to pay a visit to the local city hall and get an updated copy of my padrón, which is a certificate that shows my address is registered with the local authority.  It is not necessary, but it is official and officials like adding it to the bundle of papers that make their lives worth living.  And it costs nothing.

     The key concept is Be Prepared – or at least as prepared as you possibly can be.  And that two word phrase made me think of the organization with which is it most usually associated, The Scouts.

     I am a failed Scout.  I was a Wolf Cub and even carried the flag in our official processions through our local streets when we went to attend Church once a month, but in the move from Cathays to Rumney to a new area, I did not continue my participation in the Cubs, and therefore never became a Boy Scout.

     “Be prepared” was the motto of the scout organization, but we had an oath that we recited at the start of each of our meetings.  “I promise to do my best, to do my duty to God and the Queen, to keep the Law of the Wolf Cub Pack, and to do a good turn for somebody every day.”  My mind then wondered if that oath had changed over the years.  So, I looked it up.  The ‘Oath’ is now called ‘The Cub Promise’: “I promise that I will do my best, to do my duty to God and to The King, to help other people and to keep the Cub Scout Law.”  There are versions for Cubs who are Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Humanist, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh and for Atheist or of no faith background.

     Rather like the Anglican Creed, that I found myself not saying parts of as I grew older, feeling that the truth of what it contained needed to be rather more nuanced to accommodate my changing beliefs, so with the Oath or Promise. 

     When I was a Cub I was a Christian, so the ‘duty to God’ would not have been a problem, but as a life-long, and I mean for as long as I can remember, I have been a republican, so ‘my duty to the Queen’ would have been problematical even for the child that I was.  There again, both God and The Queen seemed to be somewhat above my paygrade, and as we had never been personally introduced, I knew about them only via intermediaries,  The immediacy was so slight that the actual ‘duty’ could be taken as read, if one kept to the rest of the oath.

     Then my drifting mind turned to the National Anthem.  Obviously, we in Wales have our own anthem, and we tend to regard God Save the King (how odd it feels to be typing that as someone who has grown up with the Queen as the central figure) as the English national anthem.  Just as the Union Flag has no part of it representing Wales, so we feel that God Save the King is, at best, ‘other’.

      And then I ran through the lyrics in my head.  You must understand that I never sing God Save the King.  Never.  And haven’t done for years.  I stand when the so-called National Anthem is played and I show respect, but frankly I feel none to the subject of the song.  But strangely, as I sang through the lyric in my head. I got stuck at line 4.  And the line would not come.  No matter how hard I tried. 

     I knew the words of the second verse (unlike so many members of that performative group of idiots in Reform) as a direct result of being in the Cubs, we had to learn the second verse as part of some badge or other.  But that line that I had heard, god knows how many times, remained hidden. 

     Although I am writing about it, and checking all the verses of the national anthem is but a click away, I prefer to remain in darkness.  After all, even if it does come back to me, I have zero intention of ever singing it!

     I thought that this piece of writing was going to be how different the Oath that I took and the Promise that modern Cubs take were.  But they are basically the same, and there is something rather splendid in the simple and direct injunction to “help other people”.

     Isn’t all human decency encapsulated in that phrase?

Schrodinger's Fiesta!

 

 

 

 

 

An odd day today. An in-between sort of day.

     Although it is a fiesta in Barcelona, it’s not here in Castelldefels, though there is always a knock-on effect as we get an influx of day-trippers from the city to swell the areas around the beaches.

     There were fewer in the pool this morning when it opened, but more of the ‘day-release’ people turned up, just as I was completing my lengths and exercise.  The bike ride along the paseo of the beaches of Gavà were fuller than a normal Monday, so I was able to exhibit a bonus grumpiness as the usual suspects invaded the bike lane, in spite of their being a bike (mine) in it, with the headlight on!

     I have taken to using the Gavà paseo because the Castelldefels paseo is now banned to bikes and electric scooters.  There are signs informing people of this ban at the entrances to the beaches and there are signs repeating the information attached to lampposts along the paseo, and they are generally ignored.

     There are good, health & safety, logical reasons for banning bikes on the Castelldefels paseo.  There is no dedicated bike lane and cyclists invariably ignore the very low speed limit that is set (or used to be set) to use the place.  Some cyclists seem to take a perverse delight in refusing to slow down as they make their way along the paseo and avoid people by a circus-act-like display of weaving and jigging.  This is obviously dangerous.

     At a certain point the beach paseo narrows, and the danger to cyclists and pedestrians becomes even more pronounced.

     As we move further into autumn and winter the number of people using the paseo, especially at the time that I used to use it after my swim, drops.  And if there is empty space then cyclists and electric scooter riders will ignore the rules even more than the general flouting that happens at the moment.

     We have parking tickets for spaces on the sea front and other areas of the city, but the machines that dole out these tickets are closed down for the winter months and you can park wherever you like (except for high days and holidays) for free.  Some spaces in the centre of town are always paying spaces except for the afternoons, so we have a fairly complex system in place.

     My point would be, given that we are able to adapt to complex parking rules, why shouldn’t there be more flexible rules for bikes?  If we can cope with those rules, then we should surely be able to cope with time limited rules for bikes.

     On the narrower parts of the paseo, I do think that bikes should be banned totally, but on the other parts I think it is only sensible to have more reasonable rules.  As the rules stand at present, there is an obvious and blatant rejection, and there doesn’t seem to be any move to police the rules and make them stick.

     Yes, I do feel resentment as I see all the paseo bike users as I make my way along the (legal) road, but, if people don’t like the rules and they can see little real justification for them, then those rules are going to be broken.

     It makes me think of the decorative, picturesque council laid footpaths that wind around a grassy area, and the unofficial footpaths that actual feet make as they plot the most direct route.  People will do what they think is more logical, and to hell with routes that looked pretty when drawn on plans.

     I remember working, before I went to College, in the Planning Department of Cardiff City Council and seeing a map of the city centre showing ‘customer routes’ showing the reality of how people moved from point A to point B.  These maps showed streets, but they also showed routes through shops, ways of access that I had previously thought were individual ‘secret’ ways but were obvious when you needed to imagine a straight line with shops in the way!

     So, people will do what they think is reasonable.  That is until they are either shown that they are wrong in their assumptions, or that they will be punished if they do not follow the council’s stated rules.

     I am following the rules.  I await to see how the council responds to the breaking of those rules.          I’m watching!

What guilty pleasure?

 

There are some things that you do that you know are questionable, but you do them all the same.  Because sometimes you simply want to fall, or should that be Fall?  We are, after all, only human.

     Perhaps I am making too much of my current weakness, but I do feel that it is a guilty pleasure.

     The source of my self-indulgent unease is a book.  Not a book that I have bought (for once) but I book that I have been loaned.  It is a substantial book, with a rather fine cover featuring an overview of the city of Barcelona with the instantly recognizable structure of La Sagrada Familia taking centre stage. though in my reading so far, the action has taken place in the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao.

 

 

 

The title of the book is Origin, and the author is Dan Brown, he of The Da Vinci Code, and it is Book 5 in the series featuring his academic enigma solving professor Robert Langdon.  And should I be reading it?

     The fact that I am even asking myself the question is significant.  Why shouldn’t I read something that has sold, with his other books, over 200 million copies?  Or is it because he has sold over 200 million copies that I should shun his work as being far too popular for my fastidious taste?

     There is a sort of snobbery over best-sellers that posits that if the appeal is so wide-ranging then it must perforce be somewhat infra dig to be seen paddling in such muddy overcrowded waters!

 

      

 

 

     One of my favourite quotations is taken from Len Deighton’s Billion Dollar Brain and concerns someone sneering at another character whom he accuses of talking in clichés, the response from the accused is, “I got nothing against clichés, son. It’s the quickest method of communication yet invented, but I get you.”  Which nicely puts the supposed superiority of the sneerer in place, and yet at the same time recognizes that while the efficiency of the communication via cliché might be unparalleled, there is an element of style that is lacking.

 

 

 

     I have only just started reading Origin and I am already hooked.  Yes, I can see that the structure of the novel is formulaic and yes Brown is serving up all the old tropes from religion, secrets, codes and mystery that has served him well, not well, most handsomely in his previous books, but if you are wheeling out Robert Langdon (again) then you just about know what to expect in terms of subject matter (just as you do with James Bond) but the delight is finding out how the old tune has been jazzed up to keep you reading.

     Brown is a safe pair of narrative hands, and the action fairly bounces along.  I am not expecting to find the equivalent of The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann in his pages, but I am expecting to be intrigued.  It also helps that the locations in Spain that he has chosen for the action so far are all ones that I have visited, and therefore feel a personal link with them.

     And, anyway, I should point out that I am a person who has read ALL the space adventure Lucky Starr novels written by Isaac Asimov under a different name (Paul French) purely for money.  They are awful, and I devoured them.  To be fair, these novels were written for a juvenile audience, and there was a hope that the series would be picked up by a television company and produced, but they never were.  To give a flavour of the book, I could cite just one of the snappy titles, Lucky Starr and the Pirates of the Asteroids, and the writing matches the banality of the title.  And remember, I’ve read it, and the rest of them.

     I justified to myself the reading of the Lucky Starr series because I was on a sort of project to read all the sci-fi stories and novels that Asimov had ever written, so I had to read the Lucky Starr novels to achieve completion.  Did they have the profundity of Nightfall or The Foundation Trilogy?  No, of course they didn’t, but they were not attempting to match those.  And I enjoyed them.  All of them.

     Brown was quoted as saying of The da Vinci Code that he hoped it would be “an entertaining story that promotes spiritual discussion and debate” and from what I have read in Origin so far, he could claim with some justification that same statement as a tag line for the novel.

     And what, after all, is wrong with “an entertaining story” at any time!

 

 

 

Lord! See how virtuous I am!

My Secondary School was a bus ride away from my home, and I can remember that the schoolboy cost of a ticket (one-way) was 1½d or 1.5 pennies or three ha’pence or just over half of one modern new penny.  The cost now seems derisory, and it wasn’t a great deal even then, but it was worth collecting by a real, live ticket conductor and there was always a chance (remote but real) of your ticket being demanded to be seen by a ticket inspector.

     As my bus travelling was at peak time, ticket conductors were not always keen to visit the seething zoos on the top deck and were sometimes somewhat cursory in their collecting of the three ha’pences for the fares.

 

     

 

  

     At the bottom of the stairs there was, attached to the metal structure of the bus, a little locked ‘honesty box’ where uncollected fares could be placed.

     I have to admit that I scorned to be called a thief for three ha’pence, and always put my penny ha’penny into the box.  Indeed, there were times that, unless I was asked for the fare directly, I kept the money in my hot little hand until I could place it in the honesty box.

     I now realize that my actions had little to do with honesty and more with what is now called ‘virtue signalling’ where the public act of honesty outweighs the quality of honesty.  I was doing the right thing, but I wanted to be seen to be doing the right thing, and therefore parading my honesty rather than merely (as I saw it) being honest.

     This juvenile act of selfish pride came back to me when considering the Pandemic.

      Last night I went to the Liceu for the ballet (of which more anon) and, as I was walking down the crowded Ramblas from the excruciatingly expensive car parking, crunching my exquisitely painful knees, I was forced to consider the disparity between older folk who were almost invariably wearing masks and those people aged about 25 and younger who weren’t.

     The rules (ha!) for what you can and can’t or what you are supposed to and not supposed to do have always been somewhat fluid (no matter how they were presented by the authorities), and I think (who knows?) that the wearing of masks outside is now permitted, but they should still be worn in crowded outdoor situations (I think).  I would consider the most famous street in Barcelona, Las Ramblas, packed as it always is with tourists and natives, to be a crowded public place under the meaning of the rules.  Well, they (the youngsters) weren’t masked, and they were not observing social distancing.

     I have had my flu jab and my Covid booster, so I can consider myself fairly well protected – but I always wear my mask, I am positively Pilateian (the word may not exist, but we need some sort of expressive adjective, though the adverb may be too clumsy to use) in my compulsive hand washing, and I keep my distance.  Why can’t others?

     But this zeal for protection extends itself to my locker in the pool.  In our pool you can hire a locker and have it as your personal storage space on a permanent basis.  Not only does it mean that you can store some of the essentials on site and not have to carry them to the pool each day, but also you can be assured of its not being used by anyone else and therefore you can be assured of its cleanliness as well.

     However, after I have changed, I clean the outside door and the interior of my locker with the disinfectant provided by the centre, using sheets from one of those giant rolls of absorbent paper also provided.  I have my own spray of disinfectant that I keep in my locker, and I spray and clean the pegs and the sitting area of bench that I have used.

     We are constantly told that Covid is transmitted through the air and that the chances of transmission via surfaces is limited.  Limited by not non-existent.  I am aware when I am cleaning that I am doing something that virtually everyone else ignores.  Most people regard the wearing of a mask (which the centre demands in all inside areas, except the showers) as sufficient.  And perhaps they are right, and I am just virtue signalling again, revisiting the childhood pride of ‘honest’ bus riding.

     Having said that, I do feel some degree safer after my cleaning and I enjoy that sort of selflessness that comes with knowing that at least the bits that I used are now clean for others.

     I think that the simple reality is that any amount of virtue signalling is to be encouraged when you are dealing with a pandemic that has killed millions and incapacitated millions more.  I will continue to clean!

 

 

The review of my Liceu evening can wait for another time!