Perhaps
my experience today can illuminate why I'm never optimistic when I go
shopping and why I believe businesses here are not very, well,
commercial . . . . Having mislaid my phone yesterday, I went to The
Phone Shop
to ask where the Yoigo
shop was in town. We can do whatever you need, said the young lady.
This would be giving me a new SIM card and cancelling the one in my
missing phone. Things started to go wrong when she noticed that my
Residence Card had expired. But I blagged my way around this and we
moved to purchase of the card and the signing of several documents,
after she had, of course, taken photocopies of both my Residence Card
and my driving licence. Then she asked me whether my old phone had
been configured by Yoigo
and when I said not, she told me there was nothing they could do for
me. So, off to the Yoigo
shop I went, where I went through the same palaver about my Residence
Card. And the signing of forms. And the handing over of a SIM card.
And payment. All done and dusted, I told her the phone wasn't working
and the message was 'Invalid SIM'. Don't worry, she said, it will
work after a while. Well, 6 hours later it still isn't working and
I've remembered the question about configuration of the phone. This
paragraph is already far too long so I'll end by saying I have no
doubt this would never have happened in the UK. Anyway, I now have to
return to the shop tomorrow morning, prior to driving to Santander
and the ferry to England and the family funeral.
If,
like many of us, you wonder just how accurate Spain's 26%
unemployment rate is, this article from Charles Butler of IBEX Salad
will be of interest to you.
And
talking of expert opinion, this is the blog of someone who really
knows his stuff about the EU. Here he is on EU legislation and its
(non)impact on member states. And here on Global Warming
The
King of Spain is going through a patch so bad that
the monarchy is said to be at risk. Here's a good overview of the
travails of Señor Bourbon-Bourbon.
Finally
. . . Here are a couple of Spanish words which have interesting
meanings apart from their main ones:-
Lata
– Tin/Can. Or Pain, Nuisance.
Hueco
– Hole. Or Spare moment
And
an 'unusual' phrase which has popped up about a hundred times in the
book I'm reading:- A la sazón – Then, At that time. Interestingly, each of my 5 Spanish friends at dinner on Saturday had a different view of how this should be
translated.
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