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?

LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 29 – Easter Monday, 13th APRIL

In the best traditions of British Bank Holiday Mondays, it is pouring with rain here in Catalonia.  The one difference, I have always maintained, is the lack of spitefulness in holiday weather in Catalonia so that there is always a possibility of seeing some sunshine during the day – it may not be much, but it will be there.

     Today is the damp calm before the invisible storm as the majority of the working population in designated but non-essential jobs are urged to go back to work, taking what ever microbes they have with them into the crowded metros and buses and trains as they commute. 

     The fatal proof of this economic pudding will be in a couple of weeks time when the mortality figures for Covid-19 will be examined to see whether this ill-thought out initiative has been as deadly as feared.

     It is a salutary experience to discover that in purely economic terms, we citizens are merely collateral damage, acceptable wastage, the angels’ share, surplus to requirements or any other mealy mouthed form of words to cover up the judicial execution that such a policy is going to mean.

     ‘Mean’ is a key word for something linked to the crisis that I hope is fake news, but have been told is actual fact.  In Catalan history the year 1714 is a key one.  On the 11^th of September 1714 Catalonia surrendered to the Bourbon King Philip V after supporting the Hapsburg Charles in the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714): Catalonia lost its distinctive independence as it was subsumed into the Bourbon Crown; Catalan was demoted as the language of government; the walls of Barcelona were destroyed; Catalan territories over the Pyrenees were lost.  And all round disaster; but, in the typically Catalan way, 11^th September became the National Day of Catalonia and 1714 a date which is constantly seen, I have a hoodie with the year on the back and the Catalan flag on the front!

     It is therefore pushing coincidences a little that the National Government of Spain sent Catalonia exactly 1,714 thousand masks to be used in the present Crisis!

     There is no love lost between Madrid and Barcelona and the measures that are going to come into place tomorrow have met with stiff opposition from Catalonia and the Basque Country, with the Catalan President asking Sanchez, the Spanish Prime Minister, to send him the documentation of the scientific advice on which he based the decision to allow people to return to work.  Catalonia is in favour of a continuation of the strict lockdown, and I have to say that I think that is the more persuasive approach.

     Politicians should be increasingly nervous about the inevitable Public Inquiries that are going to take place when this crisis is over.  Their mismanagement is killing people and they should be held responsible.  And please, do not accuse me of pre-judging: hospitals without equipment are a simple fact; hospitals continuing to be poorly supplied with PPE are a simple fact; people dying are a simple fact.  The Conservatives have been in power for a decade: the fault lies with them – and they must pay.

The Poems In Holy Week (PIHW) period is now over and I have managed to write drafts of poems for each of the days, all of which can be found at smrnewpoems.blogspot.com  This year has been obviously different as we have been under strict lockdown and the ‘holiday’ aspect of the period has been a little ‘abstract’ to say the least.  It is a continuingly odd time as we are surrounded by literally deadly danger, yet continue to lead ordinary, safe, if isolated lives.  It is not like the Second World War where even my childhood home in Cathays in Cardiff was graced so I was told, with one (unexploded) German bomb: something tangible from the air raids.  But for us in Catalonia, at least where we are, it is like a continuing Phoney War; we go on with our restricted lives, and the medical horror is taking place elsewhere, out of sight, though vividly alive on television screens.  I think the unreality of it all is what is most obvious.  Yes, I know that the virus is real and the deaths and illness are actual, but our direct experience is limited to our own little inconveniences, not to a mortal struggle.  It’s odd and, as I’ve said, something where the actuality is difficult to take in.

     I have now printed out a draft booklet of the Poems in Holy Week and have done a few edits to get me going on the revision that they all have to undergo before publication.

     I have not yet decided on a title, but I’m working on it!  The most difficult part, I find, is writing an introduction for the collection – it forces me to look at the collection as an entity and write something that makes sense of the totality rather than individual poems.

     I also have to think about illustrations and that is always challenging.  Still, if nothing else, I do have time to consider these challenges!

The police in Spain have said that the ‘return to work’ for non-essential workers when off normally.  An interesting choice of word for anything but normal times where, surely, normality is not the way to respond to the extraordinary!

My faith in Catalonia took a knock today.  The poor weather lasted the entire day and I was not graced with even a moment of proper sunshine.  I am prepared to extend my faith to tomorrow – but anything after that and I will slip into heresy!

Lost!

Sometimes a harsh reality can break through the façade of domestic tranquillity.

 

It did tonight.

We had both just suffered through an evening meal of such unrelenting austerity that a cup of tea or coffee appeared to be an absolute luxury.  I was shuddering my way through the tales of terror that make up the stories in The Guardian nowadays, lurching in despair from the lunacy of 45, through the on-going self-harm of Brexit, via the laughable ideas of democracy and justice in Spain to various natural and man made disasters, when the front gate intercom buzzed into life.

We do not usually have unannounced visitors at night time so picking up the intercom to answer is usually tinged with concern.

It was our next-door neighbour who had found a small girl wandering the streets, lost and without a parent.  She wanted to know if anyone spoke Russian, as the little girl appeared not to speak anything else.  We could only offer Spanish, Catalan and English, with a smattering of French.  No use!

But after, regretfully putting down the phone, I thought of the large detached house opposite, which has, in the past been occupied by Russian speakers, so I slipped on my coat and went down to the street.

Our next-door neighbour was walking along with a very small child taking one hand and carrying a small scooter in the other.  She was accompanied by another neighbour from a few doors down with whom we had yet to speak.  The little girl was distressed and close to tears but she was comforted by my next-door neighbour with motherly hugs.

Obviously the police had to be informed, but my suggestion of trying to get someone from the big house on the corner to speak to the kid was taken up and, as I had seen lights there from our kitchen window which is at first floor level, I knew that there were people at home.

We buzzed through and we were greeted with an entire family exiting and our discovery that the kid did speak Russian and so did they, but they did not know who she was.  The son of the household was obviously asked if he recognized her and he replied in the negative.

Although the Russian family offered to take the girl in and contact the authorities, I felt that as the police had already been called, it was important to wait for them and a neighbour went to the outside of our houses and eventually brought the police back.

It then appeared that the police knew where the mother was and that the kid had wandered off and managed to put ten blocks between her mother and herself before she was taken into protective care by my neighbour.  Neighbour and girl were asked into the police car and with much happiness and thanking on all sides, they slipped away into the darkness.

Throughout this incident, I kept thinking how my own mother would have reacted.  And then stopped myself because it was too distressing to contemplate.  Even in its hypothetical state and allowing for the fact that my mother is no longer around to be concerned.

My parents told me that I had to be watched at all times when I was smaller as, given any opportunity, I would be away like (as my father used to say confusingly) “a long dog”! 

My crawling ability was legendary and my mother told me that I had to be “attached” to the sides of my crib to keep me in it.  This didn’t always work, as on one occasion I was found to be out of the crib, crawling along with a side still attached to me.

As soon as I could walk I was put in reins in a desperate attempt to keep me in the same locality as my parents, but again, my mother said that letting the reins slip from her hands or putting them down for a moment to pick up and examine some article she needed to buy in a shop was an opportunity for escape that I never rejected.

The only time that I can recall that I “escaped” by mistake was when I was too small to see over the counters in M&S.  As a six foot adult I find it difficult to think back to a time when I was so small, but I know I was because my early memories of M&S were of the wood veneer of the sides of the counters, of nothing interesting to see, and of light in the store that was far too bright.  On one occasion I was standing next to my father and when his trousers moved so did I.  I must have been in a mood of mildly sullen obedience as I traipsed around with nothing more than featureless material to keep my attention.  Eventually I got bored with this textured landscape and looked upwards towards my Dad’s face.  And it wasn’t him.  I had been following a strange man’s trousers!

I can still remember the bemusement I felt, but not how quickly the situation was remedied.  Knowing my mother, and her constant observation and monitoring of my potential fugitive propensities, it must only have been seconds.  But seconds are not what the event felt like.  I can remember no panic.  Which is interesting.

When I was a small child in the 1950s in Cathays in Cardiff, I was allowed to play out on the road with my friends - and this, remember, was with a mother who was close to paranoid (no, make that clearly paranoid) about my safety.  But I was allowed to play, and nothing much happened to me apart from the usually scratches and cuts.  There were also very few cars around then and the streets were generally empty.

I could be playing streets away from home, but I was trained to listen for my father’s distinctive whistle and reappear in double quick time.  Which I did, sometimes disappearing from a friend’s house in mid-sentence at the sound of the whistle!  

When we had a dog, the same whistle was used for her, but I have to say that I was much more responsive than she ever was.  Well, she was a pedigree Labrador!  And everyone knows what they are like!

So, the small girl is now reunited with her mother.  How will the kid think about this experience in the future?  As an interestingly confused experience with a group of people she saw once, with police and people speaking different languages, something to think back on and giggle?  Or something altogether more serious: something that threatened her worldview that showed her just how fragile what she thought she knew was?  Who knows?  Nothing happened, but what might have happened is too awful to contemplate.

And what of the mother?  As I’ve said, thinking of my mother sends shivers of horror down my spine.  I know that my mother would, instantly, have thought the worst and suffered indescribably until my return, and then she would have blamed herself and . . . well, you get the idea.  The delight of reunion would have been overshadowed by the dark imaginings of what might have been.

But let’s be positive.  The girl is safe and has been returned. 

And who knows what memory will make of what has been?

-->

If you have enjoyed reading this post, please feel free to click the 'Follow' button on the top right of this page or you might like leave a comment.
If you would like to read drafts of my recent poems please go to:                                                smrnewpoems.blogspot.com