How Time Flies

 

I remember enjoying the children’s comic called Century 21, and how I would wriggle with pleasure at the thought of that far-off future that awaited me (aliens, teleportation, Life in Spain, and the USA run by an orange lunatic).

Now here we are, all those years later, a quarter of the way towards Century 22.

I’m not sure how to write this, but things aren’t looking too good: global warming, food shortages, Artificial Intelligence and end-time politics.

Even though none of us will make it that far, our grand-children will, poor blighters.

I used to go up to the square outside the church in Mojácar on New Year’s Eve, where the town hall had prepared fireworks, cava, pots of grapes and silly hats.

Someone had underwritten a new system for the church bells, which used to be tugged with a dull clank (when the urge took him) by the resident campanologist, a dim-witted fellow in a dirty smock known as Lumphead. The new system, connected by satellite to some place in Germany, allowed us the dubious treat of a regular carillon on the hour, and a paroxysm of jubilation on certain events, of which la misa del gallo on Christmas Eve, a hundred different occasions during Easter and the village fiestas and of course New Year’s Eve were the foremost.

Thus we find me, with a thousand others, outside the church (few people ever go inside while things are going on there), watching the clock as it winds its way to midnight, on New Year’s Eve 1999 and the turnover from the twentieth to the twenty-first century.

That publication from my childhood was wrong about some stuff, but spot-on about others. Wasn’t it where the notion of the Millennium Bug would first be brought forward, where all the computers in the world would go clunk as the simple programming failed?

Ours did.

The church clock shuddered to a confused halt at precisely 11.59pm. We stared upwards, holding our breath, as absolutely nothing happened.

Cartoon from the incomparable Gahan Wilson

Around about four minutes into the new century, somebody blew a squib, releasing our doubt.

Huzzahs, champagne corks and fireworks rent the air.

We kissed, embraced and hugged our neighbours, as Mojácar, the only town in Spain to do so, apparently decided by Divine Will to remain firmly in the Twentieth Century (much to the noisy relief of many of the celebrants).

Anyhow, and sorry to relate, Mojácar eventually caught up and even overtook its peers.

But enough of that. Welcome to the Year 2025!

Who’d a thought it?   

Doubling Down for Christmas

 Last summer, I developed an ambitious plan for 2025. I would buy a house near the beach. I’d get a fancy new SUV, maybe that new American one which does seven miles to the gallon. I thought long and hard about acquiring a kangaroo from my Australian cousin as a house-pet, but after consideration, I was worried that it might lose its cool and punch the butler.

One has to make small sacrifices when planning one’s life following a windfall.

Of course, I’d continue writing my weekly Business over Tapas, with all those useful items about Spain, even if I spent half the year staying in a vacation-home in Hawaii with last-year’s Miss Milwaukee.

However, and inexplicably, my Christmas lottery number didn’t come first past the post; in fact – as usual – the damn thing was something of an also-ran.

So, OK, the Sunday celebrations were tearfully cancelled and I stayed in bed gloomily reading a book about home-economics.

I think it’s a pretty-good investment, though. For anything up to six months, one can enjoy a flutter of hope in winning a massive prize which, even after paying back 20% to the Government in tax – the self-same folk who print up and call the lottery in the first place – is going to see you back on top.

Now, that’s not a bad bet for just twenty euros.

The mathematical probability of winning the jackpot is precisely zero. But, who cares about that? The chances of me finding five euros down the back of the sofa yesterday were about the same, but here I am today, enjoying café and una tostada up at the High Table.

If you want to double your investment, by buying two decimos and thus having twice as big a chance of winning el Gordo, well sad to say… the same odds apply: zero again.

The only prize that does come along – sometimes – is to get un reintegro: your money back if the winning number ends in the same as your ticket. One chance in ten.

And yes, I was lucky enough to win such a prize (it probably comes from me diligently not walking under any ladders since last August, from tossing a cupful of salt over my left shoulder every now and again and saying ‘white rabbits’ in a commanding voice at the onset of each calendar month).

So, back I go to the expendería and with the money won, I buy a new ticket for Los Reyes, the Three Kings. But perhaps I’ve been setting my sights too high and should be more reasonably aiming for a second prize.

Let me see: a second-hand car, a subscription to Netflix, maybe a weekend in Marbella…   

I Can't Complain. Not Really

 

I drove up to Granada this weekend: surely one of the most beautiful cities of them all. My passenger commented on the evident kindness of the people there (she’s from Germany, where, apparently, life is much more serious).

We ate well, and stayed in a converted palace just up from the ayuntamiento. From there, we walked up the hill to overlook the city from the lush comfort of a large private estate open to the public.

One bar we found in the Sacromonte district had developed the tapa theme into bringing out a plate of ‘Número Uno’ or perhaps ‘Número Dos’ with the understanding that whatever came, it would be fresh, delicious, and newly prepared.

Spain is so full of pleasant surprises, as readers will know well enough. It’s a good life.

At the same time, there are also some trivial disadvantages to living here as we are also aware. A post on Facebook from Expats in Spain highlights a few of these:

*The paperwork. Oh, goodness yes – the bureaucracy can be a pain. So complicated and often silly. We suppose that it’s because that vast army of public servants must find something to do to fill their days.

*The traffic police and their parking and speeding fines. I don’t notice this much in the south, but my friend Colin from Pontevedra appears to rarely enjoy a peaceful day without finding a multa lying malevolently in his letterbox.

*The number of Walter Mitty clones. This refers to a book by James Thurber about a man who claims a false history of his life before he moved over to Spain. We have all met plenty of these characters, and we know to always take anything they say with a pinch of salt.

*Then there was an answer I gave to the Expats post which reads: ‘To be wary of your fellow countrymen abroad’. Indeed, another well-visited page on Facebook called ‘Named and Shamed, Costa Blanca’, with over 41,000 members, deals with exactly this subject.  

My post above has received (so far) sixty one ‘likes’, showing that many of us have been taken by a glib ‘I speak the lingo’, or ‘let me help, I can get it for you cheaply’ and so on.

In my own case, I’ve been caught out innumerable times over the years, almost always by fellow-Brits. I’ve written a piece about it which I shall publish someday.

During my time, I’ve been ripped off by burglars, thieves, con-men, carpet-baggers, scoundrels, drunkards and dopers; and to keep a balance, also by cantamañanas (fantasizers) here and there and of course leguleyos (dodgy lawyers).  

I think there are three basic ways for a foreigner to survive in Spain: either by having an income from abroad, or from working here, or by living on his wits (at the inevitable expense of others).

But these are experiences – and each person will collect their own. I certainly don’t regret one moment of my life in this splendid country.  

A Brief Flirt with Bureaucracy

I’m just back from a month’s holiday in the USA, after staying with two of my kids (they live close to each other in Oklahoma). Very nice and I am now rather overweight.

They don’t skimp on their portions over there.

Among other matters claiming my attention on my return was an email from the provincial government asking me to pay something.

I’m running on empty at the moment, but what (and why) would they like me to cough up, and how would they like it – in cash, bank transfer, blood or promises?

Let me see. The letter is a long one, with an important looking title, and it's got the date and even the time (!) sent: 05/12/2024 at precisely 21:59:27 - half a minute to ten at night.

It’s a fascinating world where the bureaucrats dwell.

The missive comes with a ‘don’t answer’ address. See, I have to click on the underlined bit which will take me straight to the page to tell me how much and what for.

Simple.

OK, they want my NIF number. You would think, having sent me the email, they would know that it was me answering it – and if someone else wanted to pay, some confused hacker I suppose, then whatthehell, hey?

Anyway, now they want another number, the one on the top of my Residence Card, so I give them that.

Then, to another page, this time from Hacienda, the tax authority, which says I need ‘un clave’.

Fine, well give me a clave then, why don’t you.

You can’t pay without a clave. Like a password they give you.

I try again.

It sends me this time to a page which says that ‘it doesn’t exist, try again later’.

Do you want the money or not I ask my computer screen. I’m kind of guessing it’s for the annual car tax, but… who knows?

The original email – they sent it twice – says that if I don’t answer, they’ll send me a letter instead. Well, that sounds like a plan I think.

Then I remember, there are some webpages that don’t like Firefox, so I try everything again with Edge, or whatever the Microsoft web-browser is called – sometimes that works.

For some reason, it has switched to English by this stage – must have been something I said. It sent me this:

‘Goes him to him to send a letter by mail postcard to its domicile for tax purposes. When receives this letter again will be able to access to the Record Cl@ve and to register’.

Anyway, how was your day?