Save Me…… from shuttered shops on Sundays and public holidays

Look, I’ve been thinking. Over the past few weeks I’ve been grumbling about the banks and general strikes and unemployment and the state of the Spanish economy.

I’ve been a bit po-faced about it, I think, and to be honest, probably a bit of an armchair revolutionary. All talk and no do.

That’s not to say I’ve changed my mind. I haven’t. But while I’ve been suggesting all sorts of radical action to tackle the myriad of problems people here face, it was a news story I saw this week which got me thinking about what could perhaps be an even more radical plan. And one that could have almost immediate results too.

The news story I’m talking about is one in which the British think tank The Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) suggests that scrapping all public holidays would boost the UK economy by an extra £19 billion a year.

While they don’t explicitly suggest that they should all be scrapped, they do suggest that they should be “spread out” a bit more so that businesses aren’t hit all in one go. I guess having too many holidays all together is terrible for business as it means the poor people get to have a day off and the fat cats can’t earn another million as quickly as they’d like to.

Of course, their suggestions are idiotic. As a GMB union spokesman so aptly put it “We could send kids down the mines again too and go back to working six days a week again.”

So where does Spain fit into all this?

Well, let’s put this in perspective. In an average year, the UK has eight public holidays - two at Christmas, one at New Year (or two if you’re in Scotland), two at Easter, two in May and one in August. This year, because of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, everyone gets an extra one in June too.

Wow. Nine public holidays this year. That’s a lot.

Except if you live in Spain. If you live in Spain, right now you’re saying: “Nine? Is that it?” Only nine??!”

For in Spain, there are a minimum – yes, a minimum - of 13 public holidays. Let’s count the ones in the Seville area alone (as different parts of the country have different extra days).

There’s January 1, then there’s January 6, then we wait a little bit - but not much - for January 23 when there’s a local holiday. Then we have to wait a whole four weeks for another holiday on February 28. After that, we’ve got two days at Easter, which this year was April 5 and 6.

However, Easter Week in Seville is when all the processions take place and a lot of people take extra time off work then as well. Next there’s the big Feria week in Seville at the end of April – more about that next week – with most people in the city taking several days off. After that, we have to wait a massive four days until the May 1 holiday.

I haven’t finished yet.

While the next official holiday is August 15, during July and August many businesses cut down their hours or close up as the long, hot summer kicks in. After that, we have to wait until October for the next holiday, which comes on the 12^th. Then there’s another one on November 1, then when you get close to Christmas, you have one on December 6 and another on December 8.

This, in itself, is daft, because, as happened this year, those days fell on a Tuesday and a Thursday, which meant that lots of people actually took the Wednesday off as well. Why not? I would.

Then, of course, we come to Christmas, when perhaps surprisingly, only December 25 is a holiday, not December 26.

So what’s my point? Am I suggesting that those CEBR morons are right? That maybe there are too many holidays and the poor workers have far too much time to themselves.

No, it’s far simpler than that.

When there’s a holiday in the UK, most High Street shops are open (except on Christmas Day). It makes sense, doesn’t it. If you’re on holiday, you want to go out and spend your money on stuff. Even on Sundays, the vast majority of shops are open too. Sundays are pretty much as busy as Saturdays. And with the tills ringing, the shops do well and the economy picks up.

Except, that is, if you’re in Spain.

With the exception of Madrid and a few other places, when there’s a public holiday all the shops are shut. What’s the point of that?? You’ve got all these people on holiday with cash to spend and nowhere to spend it.

Even on Sundays virtually no shops are open in Seville. Now, I know what you’re thinking. Seville is a strongly Catholic city and Sunday is a special day.

No it’s not. While the majority of people might call themselves Catholic, the figures show that only a minority of people actually go to Church every week. The rest are all down the bars getting pissed and eating tapas, as they’re the only places that are open on a Sunday.

So, that’s it. Open the shops on public holidays and on Sundays, let the people in to spend their cash, the shops take more money, shop workers have the – voluntary – chance to earn extra wages, the businesses see their turnover go up and everyone’s happy.

Look, I know what I’m saying is all a bit new for some people. I get it. It’s a bit of a culture thing here. People have never really done it. It might be more difficult for smaller shops to do it. It would all be a bit strange and unnerving and you’d have old people saying things like: “It wasn’t like that in my day. Youngsters today, it’s all wrong, the country’s going to the dogs blah blah blah.” No doubt, some of the more religious lot would get their knickers in a twist over it too. They’d probably claim that shops opening on a Sunday or a public holiday would mark the onset of godlessness, devil worship and Satanic sacrifices across the country or something like that.

The irony is that the only time when shops do open on a Sunday in Seville is in the lead-up to Christmas! The very time when we’re supposed to be celebrating the birth of the bloke who said in the first place that Sunday was a day of rest.

Opening on a Sunday and a public holiday will not precipitate dark times. As we all know, that hasn’t happened in the UK. They’ve had Sunday trading for nearly 20 years and they’re not godless heathens worshipping at the foot of false idols (unless they’re credit cards of course). They’re doing ok, apart from the odd Summer riot here and there.

So, what about it? I know that in several parts of Spain the restrictions on Sunday shopping have been loosened in recent years. It’s just that a lot of people don’t take the opportunity offered.

If the boycott of the banks and the rolling general strikes don’t work, at least in the short term, then maybe this will.

It’s just an idea.

Save Me…… from being trapped in tiny, twisty streets by pointy-headed penitent people

Were a foreigner to stumble accidentally into Seville during this Easter Week, they might be forgiven for thinking that there was some city-wide White Power celebration going on.

Nearly everywhere they looked they might see processions made up of scores of people apparently wearing those very recognizable pointy Ku Klux Klan hoods. And if that was not confusing enough, the fact that many of the hoods were not white, but black, purple, red and other colours, might throw them even more.

But fear not, dear stranger, because you will find no cross-burning lynch mobs here in Seville or, in fact, any other part of Spain during Easter Week – or what is known here as Semana Santa.

For these people are not racists. Far from it. They are, in fact, penitent people, bound to wear the hoods to hide their identities as they parade through the streets in a traditional and very public show of penance for past misdeeds. They are often known as Nazarenos. The pointy hats they wear, which are called capirotes, have been part of Spanish Catholic tradition for hundreds of years, long before the idiots from the KKK borrowed them for their own ends. Truth be told, if brains were dynamite, the KKK wouldn’t have enough between them to blow one of these hats off their stupid, thick, inbred heads.

But back to Seville.

Semana Santa here has become somewhat of a global tourist attraction over the years with more than 70 processions going through the streets during the seven days up to Easter Sunday. With so many, the streets are filled to bursting with people and you can literally turn from one street to the next to find another procession in full swing. Each one is led by a Holy cross, followed by the Nazarenos, and then altar boys carrying incense. What they walk in front of is an amazing sight. It’s called a paso, a huge, ornately-decorated wooden float-type structure depicting lifelike characters and scenes from the Passion, including Jesus and the Virgin Mary. Incredibly, they can weigh up to five tones each and are carried, hidden underneath brightly-coloured fabrics and textiles, by groups of between 20 and 50 costaleros (literally meaning “sack men”). They, in turn, are followed by a drum and trumpet band playing hymns.

Irrelevant of your religious or non-religious beliefs, these processions are an incredible sight to see, each starting out from their own churches and making their way towards the Cathedral in the centre. They can take anywhere between four and 14 hours to make the journey and some processions start as late (or early!) as 3 o’clock in the morning. It’s these late ones which are often silent with only lone drummers keeping the march in time.

Rehearsals for these processions can begin months ahead and the schedules for each are tight because there are so many that take to the streets during the week. So tight, in fact, that when rain prevents a procession from marching, as it has done on several occasions this week, it has to be cancelled, leaving many who worked so hard on it during the year often in tears.

Such is the draw of these processions that Seville is literally swamped with tourists during the week, who fight for even the smallest spaces alongside the locals in the tiny, twisty streets, in a bid to catch the marchers close-up and even to reach out and touch the pasos as they pass.

But once you’ve seen a procession or two and you’re thinking of making your way out of the centre to escape the crush, think again. The growing number of pasos all going on at the same time results in blocked roads and massive crowds which are virtually impossible to navigate through. You can literally be trapped in the centre as the pasos slowly wind their way round and round in what feels like an ever decreasing circle.

Military strategists should pay close attention to Seville at Semana Santa. The way the pasos manage to trap several thousand people into the centre in a discrete and carefully stage-managed, yet scarily effective, fashion is a brilliant tactic. If only the Russians had done the same thing with the Nazis in Stalingrad in 1942, the Second World War would have been over a year earlier.

Such has been the popularity of Semana Santa in recent years in particular, that the areas around the Cathedral itself have been cordoned off, making the crush outside these VIP sections even tighter. High-sided boards are erected to block views and special seating behind them is only for those willing to pay the high fees for a ticket available from the burly security guards and police who patrol the entrances and exits. The poor people stay outside if they know what’s good for them.

My question is this. If Jesus were miraculously to turn up here in Seville one day and see all this elitist behaviour going on, stopping average people from getting a glimpse of the pasos as they descend on the Cathedral, I think he might have a few harsh words for those that block.

It is particularly ridiculous now as Spain is going through a tough recession and many people who don’t have jobs can ill afford the cost of getting a front row seat. The evidence for this is clear, with row upon row of empty seats inside the VIP areas, seen on the local TV stations and from special vantage points out in the areas marked for us peasants.

 But if the organizers are trying to make a bit of extra cash off the back of the processions, I have a better idea.

With so many processions going on at the same time, it is inevitable that some will occasionally cross paths. On Wednesday, two processions came into Plaza del Duque, in the centre, at the same time during the afternoon. One on the east of the square, one on the west. Both were heading south and wanted the same exit.

The bands from each procession tried to outdo each other by playing their different tunes louder and louder. For a few minutes it felt like it was all going to kick off as the two processions squared up. But then, like true Christians, they forgave each other went the separate ways out of the square. Nevertheless, I have to say that the combination of fervent worshipping zeal and the threat of simmering confrontation made for an electric atmosphere! It was like a scene out of “Gangs of New York”.

 There’s nothing like a bunch of Christians kicking ten shades of shit out of each other in a square, with capirotes, candles and crosses being hurled left, right and centre as fists fly. Throw in some tigers and chariots and you’ve got a 21^st century recreation of the Coliseum in Rome. If you get all the processions to meet up simultaneously in Plaza Nueva, the biggest square in the city centre, you could have one massive punch-up as each group vies for superiority and the sacred right to march on the Cathedral itself.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I’d definitely pay to see that.

Save Me…… from symbolic gestures which divert focus from effective action

Today the Spanish government is set to unveil a predicted 40 billion euros in public spending cuts as part of ongoing austerity measures aimed at tackling soaring unemployment, budget deficits and recession. It comes just a couple of months after the same government announced 15 billion euros in cuts aimed at doing exactly the same thing.

Apparently these cuts will create jobs, boost the economy and generally improve everyone’s well-being and happiness.

How did we get here? The irresponsible actions of the banks, the money markets, the big corporations and the insurance companies. How are they being affected by these cutbacks? By taking taxpayers’ money to bail themselves out and by only giving themselves millions in bonuses this year instead of tens of millions.

How is the average worker/taxpayer (the ones who had their pockets rifled for the bailouts) being affected by the cutbacks? Well, the majority of public sector workers have had to take a compulsory five per cent pay cut, changes to labour laws now make it easier for companies to fire people, severance pay is being cut by a third and both health and education are bearing the brunt of the cutbacks.

Not surprisingly, a great many people in Spain are somewhat angry at this. And that’s why yesterday hundreds of thousands of people across the country took part in a general strike. The second, in fact, to be held in Spain since September 2010.

Flights were severely hit, factories closed, public transport cut back to a bare minimum and thousands of businesses and many schools shut for the day.

Let’s be clear here. We are in this mess because of greed, deregulation and irresponsibility by the banks and the big institutions. The reforms being forced upon us will only serve to make the rich richer by taking more money out of the pockets of those who have already lost a lot. All that these reforms are doing is repairing the damage caused by bailing out these people so that we can be in a position to bail them out again next time.

But I’ll be honest. I’m not sure what the general strike will have achieved yesterday. A one-day general strike in September 2010 didn’t change much. A one-day general strike in March 2012 probably won’t change much either.

There is no doubt that striking is the working person’s strongest and, ultimately, only real weapon. Withdrawal of labour. But one-off strikes will not, I believe, achieve much apart from symbolic gestures of resistance.

When the banks want to go on strike they withdraw their money by denying credit to businesses and individuals and by repossessing houses after having put up mortgage rates to unaffordable levels. They do it all the time. With impunity and without care for anyone or anything except their balance sheets. If taxes go up, they go on strike by taking their money elsewhere or by finding ever more creative ways to avoid and evade tax. They are ruthless and they are consistent. This is the way it has been for so long.

And this exactly where the average working person, small and average sized business has been going wrong all this time. We should be learning a lesson from the banks. We should be following their lead. We should be acting in the same way they act. With ruthlessness and consistency.

There shouldn’t be one-off general strikes. General strikes on a more consistent basis should be seriously considered. The more who join them, the more effective they will be. But not only that. We should, through the people we elect to government, be passing tighter and more ruthless regulation of banking system, the financial markets and more ruthless with the regulation of tax laws and the closing of loopholes which allow big corporations to get out of paying the tax they should be paying. We should also crack down on the growing number of repossessions the banks carry out. After all, it’s our money they’ve got. So the houses belong to us. And if people in every country started doing the same, the big money would run out of places to go.

This is not about damaging the small and average sized businesses that treat their staff with respect and decency. And there are many of them out there. This is about redressing the balance of democracy so that everyone has fair and equal rights.

Now I know what you’re thinking. I’ve got my head in the clouds. I’m talking out of my backside. The average working person can’t afford to go on strike all the time. And even if they did, all that would happen is that the banks and the big corporations would just take their money back out on strike again and find somewhere else to put it.

Not so fast. Because we’ve already seen the seeds being sowed of just the kind of action which will make people sit up and think. It’s called the Occupy movement and what it does is mobilize one of the working people’s biggest untapped resources. The unemployed, the retired and the students. It’s already happening and it needs to continue. If we want fundamental change in our society, if we want to see a rebalance of power away from the big institutions and back to the people, back to true democracy, then this is what we need to keep doing.

The power of striking is more effective than you might think. And if you need specific examples, let me give you two from the UK.

The RMT union, which represents many transport workers and has over 80,000 members, has had long-running battles with London Underground bosses over pay and conditions. It’s because of their actions that London tube drivers and staff have decent pay, decent working conditions, decent holidays and job protection. It’s no secret that they may piss a lot of people off when they go on strike in the capital. But they get results.

Then there’s the Communication Workers’ Union (CWU) which represents more than 200,000 people in the UK. It’s through their coordinated action and unity over many years that many postal workers have very good pay and conditions.

“Union” and “strike” are not dirty words, as much as the establishment has worked hard to have us believe, particularly over the last 30 years. Let’s not forget that it was the unions who fought for people to have a decent working week, decent protection and decent conditions to work in. It’s union agreements in Spain that give working people decent rights and conditions but much of which is now being eroded by the very public spending cuts that are being forced on us directly and indirectly as a result of the bailouts.

You might think I’m some extremist lunatic spouting revolution. But if you do, you couldn’t be more wrong. All I’m doing is expressing what a growing number of normal, sane, reasonable people are saying and doing. The evidence is there to see. On the contrary, I’m not suggesting anything extreme or unreasonable. I’m simply suggesting a re-evaluation of our perspective and a realization that we do, in fact, have more power than we think we do. Change is long overdue. So stop feeling guilty and start getting your rights back.

Save Me…… from the fake fruitcakes who prey on the vulnerable on late-night TV

There was one thing that did surprise me a little about the Spanish when I moved here a few years ago. I was always under the impression that Spain, and Andalucia in particular, was strongly Catholic and that many people went to mass every Sunday and sometimes even several times throughout the week.

But the reality is quite different. While three quarters of the Spanish population identify themselves as Catholic, less than a fifth actually attend mass regularly. And among younger people, the figures are even smaller.

Now, where I live in Seville, it is the place to be in Spain if you want to see the Holy Week (Semana Santa) processions every April. They attract thousands of visitors and pilgrims from around the world. But it seems too that while for some people the processions have a deep, sincere and spiritual meaning, for the majority they are simply a tourist attraction.

The reason I mention all this is not because I want to sound off about religion – I’ll save that to another occasion - but because of the way Catholic imagery and iconography has been hijacked here by what is a completely different and ever-growing spiritual industry.

It can be found on a disturbingly high number of TV channels in Spain late at night and it amazes me that it attracts so many followers.

I speak, of course, of tarot card readers, mediums and spiritualists. While Catholicism appears to be on the wane in the Spain – you’ll pardon my alliteration there – it seems a disproportionately large minority of the population can’t get enough of the crap churned out by these charlatans who purport to be in touch with the dead, spirit guides, celestial beings and in some cases God himself (as if he isn’t busy enough answering calls from the Pope).

I’m not saying that you can’t find these nutcases in any other countries in Europe, but I know for a fact in the UK that they aren’t anywhere near as common, especially on the TV.

But here in Spain, if you flip to nearly any channel late at night you can find some idiot holding their hands up to form a cross, sprinkling powder on to an incense burner, lighting and blowing out candles, and gurning and eye-rolling as they tune into the “other side” for the myriad of even bigger idiots who actually call in to their premium rate hotlines because they believe all that shit. 

And as if they’re hoping to mop up the wandering, lost masses who no longer go to church, more often than not they surround themselves with pictures of Jesus, small statues of the Virgin Mary, crosses, pictures of planets and comets, and in at least one case, the Jewish candle holder known as the Menorah. I guess the bloke who has that is hedging his bets by trying to cash in on all the religions out there.

There’s another woman who stands in front of a picture of Leonardo da Vinci’s famous Vitruvian Man, the drawing of a male figure in two standing positions with his legs and arms apart. What’s the message? That if you ring for a reading you too could have the wisdom and talent of da Vinci?

There’s a bloke who wears scores of beads, necklaces and chains around his neck, making him look a little bit like some Indian holy man. Then there’s a woman who regularly burns leaves in a candle and hold her arms up in a V-shape while closing her eyes and sighing as the spirits, no doubt, are summoned to her presence. Yet another reader sports a long, black pony tail and waves his tarot cards in a fan-shape in front of him, as if he’s trying to hypnotise you with the power of the cards.

There’s even a woman who drips hot candle wax on to a paper with a five-pointed star on it which she then puts under a small, hollow, metal pyramid structure on the desk in front of her. I don’t know, maybe this somehow helps her to conjure up the spirits more. She also wears a red cape, which looks like it came out of a fancy dress shop and which makes her look like a crap druid. In the background she’s got a scrolling series of pictures of planets, stars, comets and other celestial images going on. 

But that’s not all.

If all the religious imagery, hocus pocus and general shite spoken by these people isn’t enough to reel you in, some of the mediums have non-celestial sidekicks who sit next to them and who chip in when the phones go quiet. The role of these people is to “big up” the star of the show and tell viewers how wonderful they are, how many people they’ve helped and how they could solve your problems, worries and fears. They say stuff like: “Call now. Change your life. Find out the secrets that have been waiting for you all this time. Discover the things you thought you knew but didn’t know because they were hidden from you. Just one call could change everything in your life, your love, your work and your money,” as they grin sincerely and point to the premium rate hotline number at the bottom of the screen.

It’s like having a bloke stop you in the street and go through your pockets looking for your wallet, credits cards and watch while his mate stands next to him telling you how lucky you are he’s doing it.

Some of the spiritualists also have a gaggle of sunglass-wearing, polo-neck-sweatered musicians sitting behind them playing guitars and keyboards that you can only just make out if you listen really intently. They must be so proud of themselves. Hey mum, look what I do. I play soulless muzak that no-one can hear behind a fake fortune teller on late night TV. I’ve made it. I’m in the big time!

It’s not even as if these mediums always give particularly insightful advice from the “other side”. One of them this week took a call from a woman who said she was always arguing with her husband. The medium, in all seriousness, asked “Are you tense when you have these arguments?” (No, I’m laughing in hysterics because I’m so happy) “Yes, I am,” came the sad reply from the caller. “Well then try to relax and things will be better,” said the medium. And that was it. That was it!!!

I could have told her that for a fraction of the price if she’d called me. In fact, come to think of it, the stupid cow could have told herself it for free!

And herein lies the secret to all this crap.

You see, the people who believe this stuff are often, not always, but often in quite desperate situations, and are as a result, already quite open and inclined to be sucked in by the vague rubbish they’re told. They are willing, even if unconsciously, to read much more into the general comments they’re given than actually exists. So they may often come away with a perception that the reading they were given was incredibly accurate when in fact it was total bollocks. People are more inclined to find meaning and fulfillment in certain statements if they are actively looking for or demanding that link in the first place.

This propensity of the human mind to play tricks on itself, to allow itself to be manipulated and to perceive altered realities is at the heart of the success of fortune telling. What it comes down to is unscrupulous people taking advantage of the vulnerable.

In the 1940s, American psychologist Bertram Forer carried out a famous experiment where he gave each of his students an individual personality analysis, asking them to give it a score out of 5 for accuracy. The average score was 4.26, but in fact, he gave every student exactly the same general, vague description. What he revealed was that people were inclined to accept vague or general descriptions of themselves and their personalities simply because they wanted to believe the results were true. It was particularly true if the subject thought the description only applied to them, if it provided generally positive points and if the person giving it was considered to be in a position of authority. You can read more about it online by typing “Barnum Statements” into Google.

No-one has the power to tell you your future, no matter how much eye-rolling they do, how many leaves they burn, how much wax they drip on to paper or how many spirit guides they claim to be in touch with. No-one has the ability to speak to the dead. Why? That’s because they’re dead. They can’t talk.

But the more that silly, vulnerable, desperate, willing, easily-manipulated people ring in to these crap shows and believe the rubbish they’re being told, the more these people will take advantage of them. Well, if it’s what people want, what’s the problem, you might say? Because it’s fake, it’s unreal, it’s screwing people out of money they can probably ill afford and it plays on the minds of the weakest.

If I encountered one of these fortune tellers face-to-face in the street I might be inclined to do something to them that I shouldn’t (and of course I wouldn’t do as it would be totally illegal). But let’s say, hypothetically, that I did. Then I could say to them “Didn’t see that coming did you, you bastard?! Some fortune teller you are!”

Save Me…… from a society that continues to feed the rich at the expense of the rest of us

Did you know that there’s this amazing casino where people line up every day to put ridiculous bets on ridiculous odds. Sometimes these bets pay off. But more often than not they don’t and the losses just keep stacking up. But it’s the few times when they do pay off that give the players that special buzz. The buzz that keeps them coming back for more, betting more money and risking higher odds each time. And the great thing about it is that when they run out of money, they just go to the cashiers, tell them that if they don’t give them more money the casino will shut down and, lo and behold, they’re given it!

Wow! What a brilliant place!

Except that the players are actually the global investment banks, financial institutions and insurance companies, the cashiers who give them more money are the world governments and the money they give them belongs to you and me.

Isn’t Capitalism wonderful?

Now, I don’t profess to have a detailed academic understanding of global economics and politics. But I do know that capitalism is based on the private ownership of the means of production and thrives on an unregulated free market which dictates whether businesses succeed or fail. If you’re not competitive or efficient enough, you don’t produce the goods that the market wants or you don’t produce them cheaply enough, you fail. So be it. That’s the system. If you want to survive, you’ve got to be ruthless and be better than everyone else.

But that’s where I get confused. If the system dictates that only the fittest survive then why are many of these banks still around? Why did we have to bail them out in the 2008 global financial crisis, a crisis that they created? Surely we should have let them go bankrupt, just as Capitalism dictates. After all, that’s the altar at which they worship every day, when they switch on their computer screens and continue spending other people’s money.

But what’s the big deal, you might ask? It’s just money. There’s always more of it to go round. The consequences of the years of toxic trading by these big banks isn’t hurting anyone, is it?

Well, this week it emerged that the Spanish government plans to slash €30 billion from budgets in 2012, affecting severance pay for workers, unemployment benefits, wage packets, and long-standing union agreements that protect people’s working rights. Unemployment is at 23 per cent, more than double the European average, with more than five million people out of work and 50 per cent of young people without a job. House prices have dropped 10 per cent while mortgages have gone up and home repossessions have risen more than 30 percent. The Spanish economy is expected to shrink by 1.5 per cent in the next 12 months. Spain is not, of course, alone in Europe in its plight. And all of this stems from the 2008 global financial crisis.

Who caused it? The global banks, the US banking system and the bursting of the US housing bubble.

Who loses out? Well, for a start, the average working man and woman in Spain, Greece, Portugal, Ireland, the UK, the US…well, let’s be clear about this. Most average people in most countries in the world, actually.

But let’s take a minute to think about those institutions who put us there in the first place. If we’re struggling, they must be virtually at death’s door, having to work so hard to recover all those losses. Just think of all the sleepless nights they must be having. God, it must be terrible to be a banker right now.

Take those poor souls at insurance giant AIG, who took $170 billion in taxpayer bailouts in 2008. They were only able to divvy up between $218 million and $450 million in bonuses for themselves the year after. And that was based on losses of $61 billion for the year.

Then there’s the fragile little troopers at Lloyds Banking Group who got £40 billion in taxpayer bailouts but have only just managed to survive by chucking 30,000 people out of a job in the last three years. And you have to give a pat on the back to their former chief executive Eric Daniels who courageously declined his own personal bonus of £2.3 million in 2010. God knows how he managed to make ends meet on his measly £1 million salary.

Then there’s the brave bosses at Royal Bank of Scotland Group who got billions in bailouts, but could only afford to give 100 of their senior bank executives about £1 million each in bonuses in 2010. Former chief executive Fred Goodwin, who presided over the massive losses the bank suffered which prompted the bailout, had to walk away with earnings of just £20 million and a pathetic pension pot of £16 million. Three cheers for them all!

Then there’s the heroic bankers at Goldman Sachs, who also received billions of dollars in bailouts from the taxpayer. They were one of the institutions at the heart of the controversial Credit Default Swaps (CDSs) collapse which prompted much of the 2008 global collapse, and who this very week, were described by a resigning executive director of the firm in London as “morally bankrupt”. That baseless, insensitive and totally unjustified accusation will no doubt have hit company chief executive Lloyd Blankfein hard, especially as he only took home $7 million dollars in bonuses last year, a massive 44 per cent cut on the $12.6 million the board managed to scrape together for him the year before. I bet they even had to look down the back of the sofa just to get all that together for him, poor chap.

You see? Ain’t Capitalism wonderful? It’s survival of the fittest. It makes us all better, stronger, more efficient, more prosperous and happier. That’s if you’re a banker, of course, in which case we’ll give you more of the poor people’s money when you’ve pissed yours up the wall again.

In August last year, there was understandable shock and anger at widespread rioting, looting and arson in some English cities. Everything from widescreen TVs to bottles of vodka and sofa cushions were looted from shops and businesses up and down the country in what some people claimed was a twisted response to the dire economic cuts forced on the public as a direct consequence of the 2008 global financial crisis.

But the irony is that the average person in the street has themselves been the victim of looting, arson, mugging and assault for years. The only difference is that the perpetrators have been wearing tailored suits, gold cufflinks, and have been driving million pound sports cars.

When the average man in the street goes to work on the factory assembly line, he produces a car or a computer or a TV for example. A product which is of use in society. When the doctor or the nurse goes to work at the hospital, they often care for the needy and vulnerable in society. When the policeman goes to work, he protects public property and safety. When the banker goes to work, he produces nothing except more money for himself.

The British philosopher and historian Bertrand Russell said: “Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim. The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate.”

Karl Marx said: “The rich will do anything for the poor but get off their backs.”

He also said: “The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them.”

Oh my god! Two quotes from Marx. That means I must be a Communist! No, I’m not. But I do believe unrestrained and unregulated Capitalism has failed us.

There will come a point where this abuse of power will not be allowed to continue. Society will not tolerate it. We’ve already seen the stirrings of rebellion in the Occupy movements around the globe. I hope it is simply a precursor of things to come. In fact, I am sure it is. The top one per cent of society might have more money and power than the rest of us put together. But then we outnumber them by a long shot. We have numbers, force, anger and justice at our disposal.

I believe it is time to redress the balance. I believe it is time we took our money back. And I personally don’t think any method of repossession, within reason, should be ruled out.

Save Me…… from the armour-plated warriors that love the sun and a good fight

It seems finally that the cold, winter weather is behind us as the temperatures begin to creep up each day. Thank God we no longer need the three blankets and 200 tog duvet on the bed any more.

But just as the door of wintery chills and chattering teeth closes, another door to a more deadly, scary, fear-filled world opens wide.

It is a world where the hours of darkness bring with them a tense nervousness, an anxiety that tightens across the chest, a fear that grips the very core of my being.

For I know that an army will soon be descending upon our tiny flat. They will have the ability to plague, torture and terrify us.  They love the hot weather (and we don’t have spring here, we just go straight from winter to summer) and they particularly love visiting in the dead of night. Just when your defences are at their lowest.

They will strike without warning . Every night you go the bed and close your eyes, you know that they may be close by, waiting to pounce. Once they’re in, they are virtually indestructible.

Ok, maybe I’m over-egging the pudding a bit.

But I’ll be honest with you. They scare the shit out of me. I’m talking, of course, of the six-legged freak that is the cockroach. The little fella that looks like a brown beetle and which can run faster than Usain Bolt with his trousers on fire.

They are not that common in the UK, especially in houses and flats. But here in Spain, when the summer comes, they invade faster than Nazi storm troopers blitzkreiging the Eastern Front. It’s something that as a Brit that I’ve just had to get used to since moving here.

They hide in the plumbing and come up the pipes at night. It’s quite common, particularly in older flats and houses, to find them having a party in your bath tub when you get up in the morning.

They are bomb-proof. They have body armour which can withstand a nuclear explosion. After the blast wave has disintegrated everything in its path, you can imagine them picking themselves up, dusting themselves down and saying “Well, that was a bit of a loud bang wasn’t it chaps? Gave me a bit of a fright, don’t you know!” (I also imagine them saying it in an upper-class English accent. I don’t know why, it just sounds like the type of accent they’d use. I’m strange like that).

Now, you think I’m blowing this out of all proportion don’t you? Well, let me recount a true story that happened to me and then you’ll understand. It was a titanic battle I had with one of them. And no matter what I threw at it, it kept coming back for more.

 Picture the scene. It was about two-and-a-half years ago. I was living in another flat at the time. It was dark outside, it was late evening, it was warm. The curtain was gently fluttering in the faint breeze of the open terrace window. The passing sound of a police siren came and went, a dove appeared momentarily on the wall and then was gone. A tramp huddled in a dark corner, swigging from a brown paper bag as a flash of lightning arched across the desolate, star-filled sky and a distant boom of thunder could be heard.

Hang on a minute. Where was I? Oh yes.  I was sitting watching TV. I forget the programme. As I sipped nonchalantly on a cold beer, I glanced down to see a cockroach scuttle across the floor about four feet in front of me. For a second, I could have sworn he flipped me the finger.

But instantaneously, like a coiled spring or a startled cat or a bloke who hates cockroaches because they give him the willies, I sprang into action, poised with the beer in one hand and a chocolate biscuit in the other, ready to strike.

The cockroach ignored me and kept going. It was only when I chucked a book at him that he started to notice. Then I grabbed my broom – which was handily in reaching distance - and whacked it down on him. I must have got him with the brushes only and not the wooden bit, because he scuttled in a different direction, but with more haste this time. I hit him again, twice. But he still kept going. By this time I’d got him cornered and was convinced I must have at least given him a headache. But he shot under the fridge so I jammed the end of the broom handle underneath it, thrusting it back and forwards trying to flush him out. As I did, I grabbed a glass bowl from the sink. Sure enough, he came scuttling out again and rushed back across the floor. But I was ready for him and slammed the bowl down over him, trapping him.

For a minute or two, we both sat there glaring at each other breathing heavily, wondering what to do. He was under the bowl so he wasn’t going anywhere. But then, what was I going to do next? Leave him there to starve to death?

Then I had a shot of inspiration and ran to the bathroom, returning fully armed with my spray-on underarm deodorant. That would do for him, surely. I’d accidentally blasted myself in the face with it the day before when I didn’t realise the nozzle was pointing the wrong way, and I got a mouthful that nearly made me vomit. If it could do that to a fully grown man, just think what it would do to a little cockroach.

So, as quick as a flash, I lifted the bowl and blasted him full force with the spray. Lynx Dark Temptation death! The burst knocked him backwards to the other side of the upturned bowl. But rather than flip over on his back and wave his legs in the air, he just appeared to get annoyed. So I slammed the bowl down again.

 Now I had an angry cockroach who smelled nice as well. I lifted the bowl and blasted him again, but he was too quick for me and he escaped back under the fridge.

For the next 40 minutes I was chasing him round the living room, into dark corners, under the sofa, back under the fridge, jamming that broom handle in and out trying to catch him. But eventually there was no sign of him and it only made me more edgy. Where was the little bastard? After that, I didn’t see or hear anything more of him that night, and eventually, exhausted from the battle, I reluctantly went to bed, but was careful to shut my bedroom door.

After a restless night of tossing and turning, I awoke the next morning. To my horror, just inside the bedroom door was the cockroach. But this time, he was on his back, lifeless, legs in the air. It seemed that the combined and sustained force of a book, a broom and half a canister of Lynx Dark Temptation body spray had finally done him in. But despite my elation, I admit I had a sneaking admiration for the little bugger who had clearly been determined to crawl all the way from the fridge in the kitchen to my room in a bid for a final showdown. I acknowledged a worthy adversary as I flushed him down the toilet.

So there you have it. They don’t go down without a real fight. And I hate them for it.

There is one defence you can employ to stop them getting in, in the first place. It can be quite simple. Just keep the bath plug in all the time. That, or let my wife deal with it. She has no fear of them whatsoever and has smashed many a cockroach into pieces by battering them with the underside of her slipper. She’s so effective that I wouldn’t be surprised if the cockroaches have a picture of her up in their HQ warning others not to mess with her.

But then, she’s Spanish. She’s used to them. I’m not.

Save Me…… from a pair of dodgy knees and a body that may not do what its told anymore

I used to go walking in the countryside a lot with friends when I lived in the UK. We would go everywhere from hills and mountains to moors and dales. And we would often camp out too.

Many times have I woken up to the early morning light coming through the tent as I’ve laid there in my sleeping bag. Many times have I made a cup of tea on a small stove fuelled by methylated spirits  while sitting half in and half out of the tent. And many times have I trudged across freezing fields in the middle of the night, in boots with untied laces flailing around, to visit the chemical toilet in the corner of the campsite, when all I’ve really wanted to do was to stay in my warm sleeping bag and wait until morning. But sometimes you’ve just got to go, even if it is three o’clock in the morning, there’s frost on the tent flaps and your torch doesn’t work very well.

There are some things you should never be without when you go walking. Good boots for one. A good map. And plasters. You’re almost always going to need plasters.

Now I still like to do walking here in Spain. But things are different now. We need more than just plasters.

As I mentioned back in January, we’ve set ourselves the fairly tough challenge of walking between 100 and 200km of the Camino de Santiago in northern Spain in August. It’ll take a week and a bit to complete.

Preparation is the key. But so is weight! Walking with as little as possible in your rucksack is vital. This means swapping a sleeping bag for a duvet cover. Yes, that’s right. A duvet cover. Infinitely lighter and perfectly good for the hot days we’ll almost certainly encounter, even though northern Spain is quite a bit cooler than the south. Clothes are another key area to cut back on. Three t-shirts, three pairs of socks and three pairs of underwear. That’s all. All you’ve got to do with give them a wash during the trip else they probably won’t even let you into Santiago because of the stink. Spray-on deodorant is also vital. It’s amazing what smells a good one can cover! And let’s be honest, despite the showers, the washed underwear and the clean teeth, you’re still going to pong at least a bit when you’re walking more than 20km day after day in hot weather.

I’ll be honest with you, I’m not nearly as fit as I used to be. So while walking 100 to 200km in a week might have been plain sailing for me 20 years ago, it isn’t quite as easy now.

For a start, I’m carrying a few extra pounds. I admit it. I’m cuddly. Secondly, my joints creak a bit more than they used to, especially the dodgy right ankle I’ve had since injuring it playing rugby more than 20 years ago. The older I get the more creaky it gets.  The knees too tend to get a bit stiff nowadays. Everything else seems to be in reasonable working order however, at least for the time being.

But to get back to my original point, what’s also different though is the things we need. While the plasters still come in handy, there’s another thing I’ve found absolutely indispensible. Vaseline! Before and after a long walk, it is amazing how useful it is for those hard-to-reach places that chafe and rub and get red and sore. I’m sure you can work out where I mean.

It came in very handy last weekend, for example.

We had planned, last Saturday, to walk about 15km on a route out of Seville along the river to a small town called La Algaba. Walking with friends, the idea was that we’d get there and then get a bus back. But as it turned out, we got a bit carried away and when we got there we thought we might as well walk all the way back too. So we did.

A walk that was estimated to take between four and five hours ended up talking nearly nine hours and instead of 15km we clocked up 28km.

Boy, did the Vaseline come in handy after that! And so did the cold compresses for the tendons on the backs on my knees that were strung tighter than piano wire.

But, despite the discomfort – which thankfully only lasted about 24 hours after the end of our marathon day – we were really pleased with ourselves.

You see, fearing that 20km a day for five days in a row might be the undoing of us in August, we had planned to slowly build up the distances we were doing in preparation. We figured 15km was a good objective this time, after we did a 10km gorge walk a few weeks back.

So to end up doing 28km, and walk away with little more than sore knees, chafed nether regions and aching feet, is in many ways a mental barrier that has been well and truly crushed.

Last time, our destination was in a loop around the outside of Seville, so that the unplanned walk back from La Algaba only turned out to be about 12km.

Next weekend, we’ve got a 22km walk lined up. But the destination will not be in a loop this time. It’s actually 22km north of Seville, so walking back will mean doing double that.

And despite the joy of knocking up 28km in one day – an achievement which I would have been able to do easily 20 years ago and which our friends, a decade or more younger than us, did with considerable more ease – I’m not sure I’m ready to do 44km in one day just yet. The mind is willing, but the body – and especially the knees - may decide to down tools and go on strike if I push them too hard.

Who knows though? There’s nothing like a dose of confidence, a surge of adrenalin and a pot of Vaseline to give you the drive to do almost anything, even if your body's not up to it! At this rate, come August, we’ll be doing all 800km of the Camino in one week instead.

Or maybe I’m still on a high from the achievements of last Saturday.