Save Me…… from the enduring predictability of pointless English optimism

 Living in Spain, it’s often interesting to see things in the UK from a different perspective. And often that perspective is quite eye-opening.

Take football for example. On Sunday, the 2012 European football championships come to a head when Spain meet Italy in the final. And it´s not hard to notice that neither of those teams are England.

The French – they’re not in the final either - have an expression for it. Deja vu. But when it comes to football, it´s a very English phenomenon.

As if England were ever was going to be in the final though. Really. Come on. This is England we´re talking about. A team forever lauded by the English press, a team which, every tournament, is the one that can finally do it, and a team which, every tournament, is the one that doesn´t.

It´s the same old story played out again and again and again. And the funniest part about it is the English press and public. After all these years, after countless attempts, dozens of false dawns and myriads of dejected autopsies and blame hurling, the message still doesn´t seem to have hit home.

England aren´t very good.

But here in Spain, we already know that. Everyone knows that. Here, the championships have been met with huge amounts of interest. Not least because Spain are the current World and European champions. When Spain have been playing these past couple of weeks, the streets have been empty as everyone gathers round the TV screens at home or in bars and cafes to watch, cheer, groan and clap.

It’s certainly been a strange experience to be outside here in Seville on those evenings. The streets may be deserted but the surrounding buildings almost seem to sway in some sort of harmonised echo chamber as near-misses, thumping goals, sliding tackles and final whistles are met with a synchronized audible roar escaping through open doorways and windows across the entire city.  

Spain have had their ups and downs since becoming world champions in 2010. But if you asked a Spaniard at the start of this tournament who they thought would win, England wouldn’t even have entered the conversation. No-one, apart from the English, thinks the England football team is any good.

Just because they invented the game, just because they have what is considered to be the biggest and most expensive club league in the world, doesn´t mean the international team is therefore going to be one of the best. And it hasn´t been for many years. Well, 46 to be exact.

When Spain play nowadays, people expect them to do well. And more often than not they do; they’re in the final for the second consecutive time. The Spanish players pass the ball between themselves like some giant pinball machine. When England play, they boot the ball up the field and rush after it, just like me and my mates used to do on the green behind our housing estate when we were 11. We didn’t win anything either.

But what amazes me is that when England play, the English press and public expect them to do well. And more often than not, they don´t. This time it was the Italians who undid them. And how? Through penalties, yet again. And the only reason England end a lot of their matches with penalties is because they are just not adventurous enough.  

Let me explain what I mean. I’ve never been much of a football fan. I was brought up with rugby. For me, football is 90 minutes of nothing much happening, of a white ball pinging back and forth, up and down the pitch, with the outcome often being 0-0. As if that’s bad enough, when you get a score like that, you are then subjected to another 30 minutes of exactly the same. I can’t ever remember a rugby match ending without a point being scored.

But my point isn’t that rugby is better than football. It is. But that’s not what’s important here. What’s important is this. Since coming to Spain, I’ve been more inclined to watch football matches, especially when Spain play. And it’s not just because Spain happen to be quite successful at the moment – after all, everyone likes to see a team win – but it’s more to do with the fact that the Spanish team play an exciting game. Spain hadn’t been very successful for years up to 2008 when they finally became European champions again after more than four decades. But they always played a more exciting game.

I hate to say it. But England are just boring. Unadventurous and boring. And maybe that’s why they are the perennial under-achievers. Maybe that’s why I found football boring. Because I grew up watching it in England.

The English press have been busy pointing the finger of blame at everyone since England were booted out in the quarter finals at the start of the week. But what good will it do them?

I mention rugby for a good reason. I have always supported Wales, as my dad is Welsh. But for years and years the team was rubbish. But then they started to change the way they played. They started to adopt the methods, tactics and strategies of more successful teams. Now, Wales aren’t the best team in the world yet, but with three Grand Slams under their belts in the last eight years – the rugby equivalent of the European Championships – and a semi-final placing in the World Cup last year, things are certainly on the up.

Maybe the England football team, the English press and the England supporters should consider a similar change in direction if they truly want to break out of their mediocrity.

You never know. I might even start to find watching England play football interesting again.

Save Me…… from “towing” the line when it comes to parking rules

I saw something very unusual this week. Unusual, that is, for the streets of Seville. It´s something I´ve only encountered once before around here and that time I was on the receiving end of it. In the streets of London it´s by no means an unusual sight at all. In fact, if you go through a day without seeing one in London then something is wrong.

I talk, of course, of a clamper and tow truck. The one that cheerfully takes your car away when it´s parked illegally. In London, there´s hardly enough room for cars any more because when the roads aren´t filled with buses and taxis, they´re filled with tow trucks, jamming yellow clamps on any vehicle so much as a millimeter outside its parking space.

But here in Seville it´s such an unusual sight that it actually drew a crowd of people.

We were sitting in a cafe having breakfast on Wednesday when, first, a police car turned up and then, minutes later, the tow truck. They were coming to remove two cars that had parked in a designated loading bay outside the supermarket just down the road from our flat.

I would have said the people who parked them did it mistakenly, having not seen the sign that said not to park there between such-and-such an hour each day, just as I did last year in Jerez (hence me being on the receiving end of it). It was a mistake and I paid the price.

But I would put money on the fact that their parking wasn´t a mistake this time. Why? Because the drivers were both Spanish. And when it comes to rules, by and large the Spanish ignore them. They feel they are a burden, an irritation, an unnecessary obstruction to their ability to do what they want, when they want and how they want.

In Spain, when it comes to rules, the general rule is that there aren´t any rules.

As if to prove my point, no sooner had the tow truck (two of them, in fact. It was a bonanza day as far as tow trucks go) had removed the offending vehicles and the police had finished walking around trying to look menacing in their dark glasses and holstered guns, then two more cars came along and promptly filled the empty spaces again. The drivers wandered off, oblivious to the impending doom that awaited their cars.

But here´s the thing. The reason why people ignore the rules, and why the next two drivers parked up seemingly unconcerned about the fate of their cars, was for a very good reason. It´s because the vast majority of the time nobody enforces the bloody rules.

That’s what I meant when I said I was so surprised to see a tow truck.

Seville is a vibrant, busy metropolis of activity. The shops are busy, the streets bustling with people and the cafes and bars are filled. Shops have little signs on their windows saying when they open and close. But you learn to ignore them because most of the time the shops will open when the staff feel like it.

The same concept goes for parking. There are signs saying where to park. But people park anywhere and everywhere. And each time they park, they have one objective in mind. How can I get to the place I want to get to and do what I want to do in the quickest possible time? Oh, and how can I do all that and cause the maximum amount of disruption to everybody else, while they´re all trying to do exactly the same thing at the same time?

I´ve seen people park on roundabouts in between exits. I´ve seen people park right across pedestrian crossings (presumably wheelchair users trying to use the dropped kerb are expected to get a good run-up and jump over the car instead). I´ve seen people park on pavements, not just half on and half off the pavement but right slap-bang in the middle of a pavement. I´ve seen people park at traffic lights. Really. You might be driving along, minding your own business, you pull up behind a car waiting at the traffic lights. Then just as the lights turn green, the driver in front of you opens the door, gets out and buggers off. You´re sitting there trapped right behind him while all the other cars behind are then all honking their horns like mad at you because you´re the one who´s not moving!

And why do people do these things? Because they know nobody is going to do anything about it. I´ve even seen bloody police cars park on pavements just so the policemen don´t have to walk an extra few yards to buy a bloody ice cream from the newsagents.

Then, of course, there is double parking. I´ve left this out of list above because it happens so often that it has become socially acceptable to do it now. If you come back to your car and find yourself blocked in, you just sit on the horn until the offender turns up ten minutes later shrugging his shoulders and saying “I was only gone for two minutes. What are you making a fuss for?”

It´s also quite normal for cars in Spain to have dents, scratches, bumps and scrapes. In fact, if you find one that hasn´t got a load of markings on it, you´d probably be inclined to instinctively give it one with your key or your boot.

You see, that´s the difference here. In the UK, especially in the big cities, if you park wrongly you can expect the clampers and tow trucks to descend on you like balaclava-wearing SAS soldiers crashing through your windows carrying stun grenades and machine guns. But here, people just shrug their shoulders.

Here, it´s socially acceptable to lean against a strangers´ car if you’re standing on the street talking to someone. In the UK, try it and you´ll get swift retribution from the car owner.

Here, cars have scratches and dents and nobody cares. In the UK, if you give another car so much as the lightest of pings you´ll leave the owner facing either a heart attack or a murder charge.

Sounds better here? Well, maybe. But the problem is the inconsistency. Most of the time nobody gives a damn about the rules.

But sometimes they do. You just never know when it´s going to happen. Makes it all quite exciting in a way.

Save Me…… from the lack of a comfy sofa

You may well have seen this week that Spain applied for, and got, a hundred billion euro bailout from the rest of the Europe, because its banks are up shit creek without a paddle, and frankly without a canoe as well.

The money comes from special European funds set up to keep the continent stable. Those funds come, ultimately, from taxpayers across Europe. The money will have to be repaid of course. And who does that? Yep, you guessed it, the Spanish taxpayer (in other words, me).

A hundred billion seems like an awful lot for the banks and the government to have lost down the back of the sofa with dodgy deals and risky investments.

But I figure if there´s that much sloshing about to fill in the hole they dug for us, then surely there´s got to be a bit extra floating around for the average taxpayer too, for things we need. After all, we´re the ones who are picking up the bill for the mess.

So, with that in mind, I´ve put together a shopping list of things I really need and I´m going to email it to Christine Lagarde. She´s the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and is the same woman who said a couple of weeks ago that Greeks should be paying their taxes if they wanted a bailout. How I laughed when it emerged 24 hours later that she doesn´t pay a penny of tax on her annual salary of $468,000. I laughed so much, it hurt.

Anyway, here´s my shopping list.

We need a new potato peeler. The one we bought from that shop along the street run by that nice Chinese family has fallen apart now. It only cost one euro but I think it was a false economy because it lasted just three weeks and was finally undone by a pretty sturdy spud which had been in the fridge for only 24 hours.

Next, we need a new fan. Again, the last one we had was bought from the same shop and it gasped its last on Monday. Maybe I shouldn´t be buying so much stuff from them, but they are cheap and they always smile at you when you walk in the door. Except the dad who prowls around the aisles after you, as if he expects you be stuffing merchandise down your trousers if he turns his back for more than a second.

Anyway, a new fan. A good one will cost no more than 35 euros so I think Christine could stretch to that, surely.

Socks. I need socks. I don’t know what it is, but I seem to go through socks like there’s no tomorrow. It’s the toes that go first. And it’s not like I keep my toenails long or anything. I’ve just got this thing with socks. So, yes, I need a lot of new socks please Christine.

We could also do with a little battery-operated alarm clock. That’s because we´re planning to walk the Camino de Santiago in August and it´s quite likely there won´t be many power points along the way to charge up my mobile phone which has a perfectly good alarm on it. So, needs must. And if Christine thinks that´s a bit of an unnecessary luxury, then I could point out that buying it will actually save the taxpayer in the long term. No alarm clock, no wake up in time, no wake up in time no room at the inn at the end of the next day, no room and we have to come home early. By doing the Camino, we lose weight, get fitter and therefore become less of a burden on the National Health later in life, thereby saving the taxpayer a shed load of cash. So I think forking out, say, five Euros for an alarm clock is well worth the investment.

There are quite a lot of other things we could really do with. But the last one is quite big so, in the spirit of thriftiness the banks seem to have temporarily forgotten, I´m willing to forego all of them for this last, admittedly, big one.

It´s a sofa.

We have a small flat and when we moved in there was a sofa in there already. But it was one of those really cheap, crap ones that cost about 99 Euros from IKEA and are about as comfortable as sitting on gravel for hours on end.

The upshot was that we got rid of it and replaced it with two rocking chairs. One was new, but the other was recycled from my mother-in-law who didn´t want it any more. It´s a bit knackered and needs a lick of paint but it works well enough. The problem is that sometimes I just want to come home from work and collapse into a nice, comfy, deep sofa with the wife and watch the TV. And we can´t do that in two rocking chairs.

A sofa - and I mean a comfy sofa. Not any of those crappy 99 euro ones from IKEA – would go along way to improving our home comforts and, as a result, directly reduce the stress after a long day and therefore the number of arguments we have. New sofa = more relaxation = less stress = less arguments = less likelihood of divorce = less need for counseling = less need to get free counseling on the National Health = less burden on the taxpayer.

So, what about it, Christine? Can you afford to let me have, say, a thousand Euros, even eight hundred, out of your tax-free half million dollar salary? I´ll pay you back, honest. And if I don´t, then we can just go back to the same fund that bailed out the bankers because money seems to grow on trees there apparently.

Save Me…… from medium mountains and even more medium guidebooks

The first mistake I made was reading the word “Medium” in the guide book. The second mistake was believing it.

As we stood at the foot of a very steep, boulder-strewn path next to a towering rocky outcrop in the middle of the Sierra de Grazalema last weekend, my walking companions turned to me and, in unison, said: “Are you sure it´s medium?”

“That´s what it says,” I replied, turning the page towards them to show the proof. Medium difficulty walk, it said. A bit of gentle climbing in places followed by flowing pastures and wide-open crests, it said.

Four hours later, back at the cabin, totally exhausted, sunburned, with strained ankles, twisted knees, parched mouths and frayed tempers, my walking companions turned to me and told me, again in unison, that my guide book was a load of bollocks.

The four of us – me, the wife and our two friends who are a couple – set out last weekend for a peaceful, relaxing saunter through the picturesque hills and valleys on the edge of the village of Grazalema, about 90 kms south east of Seville.

We had travelled down on the Friday evening after work and picked up the keys to a log cabin we had rented for the weekend at a campsite nestled in the rocky hillside overlooking the settlement, one of Andalucía’s famous White Villages.

That evening we ate well at a bar in a little square in the centre of the village and also bought provisions for the next day. We were happy and excited to be tackling the walk around the 4,294ft high bare rock pinnacle of Penon Grande the next morning, especially as it was only 10kms. Pleasant and relaxing in fantastic scenery.

Well, the last of those three adjectives was accurate. But as we clambered up the steep path the next morning, gasping for breath and stopping to recover every 200 yards, I started to imagine how I would colourfully express my disappointment to the authors of the guidebook which had cost me an arm and a leg to get in the first place.

Look, we´re a bit out of shape anyway. So I wasn´t necessarily expecting to sprint up the hill like a mountain goat. And it was hot, very hot. We had planned to start out quite early, before the sun climbed high in the sky, but as is always the way with relaxing weekends like this, we rolled out of bed about 9am, had a long breakfast and then thought about starting the walk about 11am.

So, ok, maybe those two things weren´t helping us. But our friends, who are lighter and fitter than both of us, were also gasping a bit and clutching random extremities from time to time too.

This wasn´t so much a walk as a scaling of boulders and rocks up a near vertical slope. Ok, I exaggerate a bit.  But not much. The first 40 minutes was hard work and I don´t mind admitting that on two occasions I was all for calling it a day and heading back down. But the wife, despite huffing and puffing herself, pushed me onwards.

Eventually we hit the crest of the first climb and looked down to see a bizarre sight. In amongst the rocks, the trees and the boulders was a perfect little shady meadow, enclosed by dry stone walls and populated by a family of very contented-looking cows. There was no clear road or pathway in or out of the meadow and on all sides there were mountainous peaks. So how had they got there? And why were they there?

I speculated that this was actually some sort of bovine sanctuary, a place where cows that had escaped the industry conveyer belt to Burger King could live out their lives in peace and tranquility. Never one for wispy notions of idyllic surrealism, my wife said I was talking out of my backside.

The shade and the green grass were a welcome relief from the jagged climb we had just endured, but in only a few minutes we were through it and out the other side on an even longer, more jagged climb. Not as steep this time, but much longer. And the route of the path only gave us fleeting shade, making the ascent even more difficult as the sun beat down.

But by this time we were made of sterner stuff and we knew that as long as we continued to put one foot in front of the other we would eventually get to the top of the 4,000ft crest and would be greeted with fantastic panoramic views across the Sierra.

But as if Lady Luck herself was cocking her leg and pissing on our parade, just as we reached the crest, the clouds came down and we could see literally nothing below. By this time though, with wheezing down to a minimum and calf muscles like Popeye´s, we didn´t care as much as we thought we might as we knew the last of the climbing was finally done.

While coming down is easier on the lungs than going up, it´s harder on the knees and the ankles. But we soon completed our circle of the peak and made our way back to Grazalema where we found a little Meson which served surprisingly good food. Surprising, because it was part of a “Menu Del Dia” which often as not is a combination of crap served up to gullible tourists who, captivated by their surroundings, are happy to drink gazpacho with the consistency and taste of dish water. But this place was not like that. I would give them a name-check but I can´t remember their name.

As we sat there at an outside table on a slight slope, eating gazpacho and chicken at an angle, our conversation turned to more spiritual matters, all of us clearly influenced by the rapturous experience we had managed to live through that morning.

We first talked about what we would like heaven to be like. I pointed out that I didn´t actually believe in that kind of thing but that I would suspend disbelief temporarily. Of our friends, she said each day was a little bit of heaven for her, while he said it was more a state of mind than an actual place. I suggested that my wife´s idea of heaven would be a bag shop.

We then talked about what we’d like to achieve in life before we die. The conversation reminded me of a letter I once sent to the Guardian newspaper.

I wrote in response to another letter I saw in the paper that week from a man who said: “I’ve been buying the Guardian for 30 years and have never yet finished the crossword. Is this a record?” The next day someone else wrote in saying: “I’ve been buying the Guardian for 30 years and have never yet bothered to do the crossword. Is this a record?” So I wrote in too. I said: “You think the first bloke has got problems. I’ve been buying the Guardian for 30 years and have never yet found the crossword. Is this a record?”

They actually printed my letter. I was so happy. And with the memory of that flooding back to me as I sat round a table with my friends tired and aching but happy, I realised that I wasn’t so bothered about that guidebook after all.

But I mean, really. Medium? Medium, my arse.

Save Me…… from going up to 11 all the time

There is a famous scene in the film This Is Spinal Tap where dimwitted rock guitarist Nigel Tufnel shows documentary maker Marty DiBergi his amplifier. He excitedly points out that all the volume control knobs don’t, in fact, go up to ten. They go up to 11. He adds: “It’s one louder, isn’t it?”, missing the obvious flaw in his argument.

The impact of that line has been so great that it has entered the English language as an idiom. “Up to 11” suggests taking things to their extreme.

And so it is the case at least with volume and personal space when it comes to Spain. Everything here is a little louder, a little closer, a little more in-your-face.

Go out in the street and the cars are louder, sit in a café and people next to you will be speaking louder so that you, in turn, have to speak louder yourself to be heard. Go on the metro or a train and someone there will be speaking loudly on a phone or to their companion even though they’re sitting right next to them. Turn on the TV and the adverts are always louder than the programmes (until a few years ago, also true in the UK, before the TV regulators banned the practice).

I’m not saying the UK isn’t ever loud and that personal space isn’t stomped all over. It is at times. Especially teenagers and young males full of alcohol. But I’m talking about general, everyday, routine activities. Compare the two and you’ll find nine times out of ten that Spain is just louder.

Maybe that’s why a lot of people go to church here, just so they can have a bit of peace and quiet for a while.

This got me thinking. Why is Spain generally louder?

Is it because they´re a bit closer to the equator and so a bit closer to the sun and therefore as it´s hotter everybody is a bit more tense, on edge and therefore louder out of frustration? No. Get the aforementioned 20-something British males fuelled up on alcohol on a Friday night and there´s plenty of tension, frustration and loudness.

Maybe it´s because Spain´s land mass is generally higher than Britain´s. In that respect, there´s less air and so people have to talk louder just to be heard? No. That´s just nonsense. And besides, I´ve been to the mountains in Scotland many times and I haven´t noticed people shouting about the weather or if you´d like another sugar in your tea.

So I thought about it a bit more to try and find an answer.

Last week on a train from Seville to Jerez there was a man in the carriage talking on his mobile phone the whole hour-long journey. The whole journey. To one person. He was sitting further down the carriage from us, but after about 20 minutes a woman sitting opposite him leaned over and asked him if he knew that everyone could hear his conversation in minute detail and would he mind just turning it down a bit because she was trying to read her book.

He put his hand over his mobile and for a second looked at her, inhaled deeply, smiled, then turned back to his telephone friend and explained as loud as before: “Where were we?”. The woman just rolled her eyes and went back to her book. I would have punched him.

Last night we went out for a walk and passing by a café full of busy outside tables, we saw an elderly man burst into song. Not good singing either. Bad singing. Very bad. I don’t think he was drunk either. But nobody said anything. Nobody said “Shut up”. They all just started talking louder themselves.

On the TV, there are a myriad of debate shows, discussing everything from the economy to the latest colour of handbags. But tune in to any of them and you won’t have to wait long for at least two people to start talking over each other, louder and louder. And it’s not as if the presenter steps in and says something like “Er, one at a time please so we can hear the different points being made.” They let it continue for ages. It’s just a wall of sound.

Which leads me on to the closely connected issue of personal space. In the UK, a person’s personal space is a big thing. Invade it and you’re liable for a confrontation, or at the very least an irritated scowl and a “Do you mind?”.

But here, everyone gets right up close to everyone else all the time. Up close and loud. You could go into an empty pub, as we did yesterday, and sit at the table right in the corner away from everything, and someone will still comes in five minutes later and sit down at the table right next to you and start talking really loudly. I contained my irritability by furiously sipping at my Vino Tinto and rolling my eyes.

Yes, I rolled my eyes. I didn’t cough, frown, and say “Do you mind?”. I didn’t even make a sarcastic comment, which if you ask anyone who knows me, is like getting a dog not to piss on a lamp post. It’s just not natural for me. But I did it.

What have I become, for God’s sake?

So does this phenomenon irritate me or have I got used to it now. I’m not acutely aware of being louder myself or more in people´s faces, but then I’m in a loud country so maybe it’s difficult to tell. However, when I’ve been back in the UK from time to time recently I’ve not had anyone ask me why I’m shouting all the time.

And I think therein lies the answer. It´s geography. Obviously.

Spain is a big place, quite a bit bigger than the UK. But it has a population of only 46 million, a massive 20 million less than the UK. You would have thought in such circumstances, we’d be climbing over each other in the UK and that personal space and peace and quiet would be an impossibility.

But it’s quite the opposite. I think it’s because of the fact that everyone is so jammed in there that space and peace and quiet have become so precious.

In Spain, we´re all rolling round like peas in an aircraft hangar. Masses of space, little to fill it, lots of people desperate for human interaction. So everyone shouts and gets in your face all the time.

See? Everything is so simple when you can sit down with a bit of peace and quiet and no distractions, and just think about it.