In
Mercadona tonight, I thought I'd achieved a major breakthrough when
the check out-machine accepted my card and I only had to put in the
PIN. No signature. But then it asked me if I wanted
the bill calculated in pounds or euros and I realised I'd used a UK
card. So, back to the Spanish card-with-chip and the usual hassle
with ID and signature. When on earth will they catch up?
My
mail backlog contained not one but two letters from the traffic
police telling me I'd committed two offences at the same time and at
the same place on my drive down to Malaga on Feb. 13th.
One was for entering ('invading') the lane of a priority vehicle and
the other was for having headlights on full and 'endangering the
vision of other drivers'. Both of them serious enough to merit the
same 200 euro fine as driving while using a mobile phone. The
'priority vehicle' was a police car which had been in my blind spot
when I started to move out. After it had made its presence known, I'd
moved smartly back into the inside lane. But here's the thing –
they didn't stop me to explain anything or to tell me my lights were
on full beam, If, indeed they were. So, serious enough to justify a
200 euro fine but not serious enough to stop and tell me I was
'endangering the vision of other drivers'. Go figure, as out American
cousins say. As I've said before, the Traffic Department is now an
arm of the Tax Office, far more interested in slapping on fines than
reducing risk. Or shooting fish in a barrel. I'll believe things have
changed when I see them at the roundabout at the bottom of the hill,
catching the dozens – if not hundreds – of drivers who negotiate
it with a maximum of one hand every day. Meanwhile, here's what I
wrote about driving in Spain 10 years ago. I doubt I'd change much.
Prostitution
is an open sore in Spain. Or it would be if anyone took any notice of
it. Not that you can miss it; there are salacious ads at the back of
most newspapers and the outskirts of all Spanish towns have at least
one garishly pink brothel ('Club') on its outskirts. Every year or so
a critical article appears in one or other paper and others then pick
up on the theme. Then nothing happens until a year or so later, when
the cycle begins again. As it happens, the EU has just fingered Spain
as the second worst country (after equally Catholic Italy) for human
trafficking. Frankly, I can't see things improving. Prostitution and
all its evils, along with corruption, are two features of society
which Spaniards have long seen as permanent examples of human frailty
born of Original Sin. And there's always Confession should your
transgress.
Someone,
at least, thinks that here in Poio we have possibly the best little
restaurant in Spain. Having eaten there, I wouldn't agree but here's
the review.
More
on the Spanish predilection for noise, and the harm this can do.
Finally
. . . A bit of vocab - Una habitación
abuhardillada is literally a sloping
room. Or an attic. My guess is it's Arabic in origin. Like so
much of Spain . . .
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