It has been a tough old day. One of those heavy-hearted ones that you think you won't get through. So it was a blessing when I found a twenty one year old diary amongst the rubble that inhabits the study at the moment. On reading it I am not sure whether I ought to burn the bloody thing or tear bits out and frame them. Maybe send them to the people I was writing about? Half of London seems to be in there. Quite a few people are written with a lot of affection while others don't come out in one piece. I hardly recognise myself when I write such nonsense as ....'I must maintain a low profile if I am to get through the Christmas period'..... 'My God, he really thinks he can still do that VOODOO SHIT on me?'..... L came to see me. We went to the Blue Posts. I had a stout she drank a Whiskey Mack. She had to pick up her DAT tape from a Guy Called Gerald'..........'Last night I couldn't sleep. H asked me why and I told him it was because I had a song going round in my head. He asked which one and I told him, 'We Built this City on Rock and Roll'. 

My late father never went to a gym. Instead he would read the Daily Mail to get his cardio vascular exercise. Likewise, I read the Telegraph headlines just to put a few revs in the old ticker. You can be delighted or sufficiently wound up when reading them depending how class conscious you are which if you are British will mean more than you would like to admit. You can all sleep well tonight or sit bolt upright knowing that Carrie Symonds, Boris Johnson's girlfriend is referred to as his consort which is a word usually reserved for the spouse of a monarch but then we all know Mr Johnson only ever wanted to be king of the world. Just below this screamer is a headline that says it is going to reveal how Carrie's sixty nine pound coat will reinforce Johnson's 'people's government' message. You have to pay to read the premium bits of the Telegraph online which is pretty much all of it. Regretfully the EU budget for Ministry of Keeping an Eye on the Brits has been cut so we will never know but I can tell you that Ms Symonds is referred to in the continental press as First Lady, Lady Brexit, and Boris Johnson's feminist girlfriend. Oh well, keep on trucking because there's going to be a lot more of this shite.

DON'T GET DONE BY BREXIT

Brexit is like the housework. It never f#cking ends!

It might be a long shot but maybe those Labour voters in Labour strongholds have taken a leaf out of Boris Johnson's book and are lying when they say they are going to vote Tory.

Politics today. I am reminded of the time I was having lunch somewhere on the Spanish border with France, with friends, and explaining about the day Hitler met Franco on the frontier at Hendaye. Hitler is said to have exclaimed later, 'I would rather have my teeth pulled out than meet that man again!' To which one friend at the table said, ( sarcastically I may add), 'Oh of course, because he was so much nicer than him!'

WARNING. SEXUAL CONTENT. DO NOT PROCEED IF YOU ARE EASILY SCANDALISED. (Everyone reads on thinking 'what's she gone and done now'.)

I've been busy of late, what with the doctor, the plumber the husband and my dinner. On paper I am the vice president of our community but we all know in reality I am the president because Mr van de Ven can't cope with Spanish bureaucracy let alone the Spanish mind so muggins here has to deal with it all. So I haven't had time to write about the latest gossip this side of the channel. Anyway, the bit I am getting at is the other evening I went out with some colleagues for a drink and a chinwag and we were having a grand old time, laughing our heads off, flirting with the waiter, threatening to dance. While this was all going on I had a plasma TV parked above my head and every three seconds I would clock it just to keep an eye on the state of the nation. The sound was turned down as is compulsory in Spain, and no one except me seemed to be watching it like a silent movie. There was a programme on and suddenly a woman started wanking some bloke off and it seemed to go on forever. ( There are too many prepositions going on in that last sentence bit I'm sure you get the picture) I looked at my colleagues and pointed at the screen trying to get them to witness the shenanigans at this hour but they were too high spirited to care and carried on clinking glasses and singing and so on. One friend looked up because I insisted she watched so I wouldn't be the only voyeur and she said casually 'oh yeh I think it's La Que Se Avecina', a Spanish sitcom about a group of neighbours who live in a block of flats in Madrid, which, and I insist you believe me, translates to Look Who's Coming. 

At what point do you learn the word for 'water diviner' or 'dowser' in your second language? I learnt that in Spanish it is 'zahori', which comes from Arabic 'zahuri', a person able to find hidden things, especially water.

In next week's episode of I'm the Prime Minister Get Me Out of Here, Boris 'the cock' Johnson is  spotted speeding through the universe after being ejected by a super massive black hole. He gets his arse kicked so hard by said black hole that he eventually leaves the Milky Way and is en voyage to intergalactic space. This region of spacetime is so strong that no amount of bullshit can escape it and yet we are also told they are not eternal prisons and a human can survive them leading to the theory that sadly there is no end to any of this nonsense. None of it is real. You just have to decide if you want to be part of the collective dream or nightmare. Yours, everybody's favourite idiot savant.

I tell you what, this Brexit lark will carry on till the mad cows come home....

Boris Johnson calling other people 'crusties' is a bit feckin' rich coming from someone who only knows it is time to change his underpants when he lobs them at the wall to see if they stick.

That old joke about having a dart board with someone's face on it at home. You go round someone else's house and sure enough they have got your face on a fucking dartboard. With hundreds of holes in it. The English version of voodoo.

I was in a shop and the sign outside fell over. The shop keeper stopped serving the boy in front of me and went outside to pick the sign up. Frutas y verduras, fruits and vegetables. The boy kept buying sweets, asking the owner what could he buy for eighty, forty centimes, until he had used up all his money. He went outside the shop to be with his friends and the owner said to me 'son malos', 'they are no good, bad boys'. I didn't know if it was true or if he was just saying it because they were gypsies. I dared not speak in case the owner detected an accent and told the next person that came in the shop something negative about me. I imagined that after me a succession of undesirables would come in spend their money and wind him up for the rest of the day. 

Feel free to comment......

When I was younger, oh so much younger than today, I used to lie about my age to get into nightclubs. I had to plaster my face with make up, put on a deep voice and swear I was twenty five when I was just a nipper of fourteen, or was it sixteen? Anyway, this lying about being older continued for years and people started saying how great I looked for a 50 year old nightclubber when I was 40 and so on. The only downside to this is the continuous adverts on my Facebook feed for stair lifts, funeral plans and hideous shoes!

One of my many responsibilities as President of our community is to change light bulbs when they have gone. There is a strip light in the garage which went quite a while ago and as I don't have a ladder high enough I have left this task hoping no one will mind but I do get the sense that it won't be long till one of the neighbours asks me, 'how many of you does it take to change that feckin thing?'

I'm so happy nobody is living next door to us at the moment. Why is that? You may ask. Well the last neighbours wouldn't reply when I said hello to them and the one before was a prostitute who was very nice to me but I didn't think much of some of her gentleman callers, and the one before that was a borracho de mierda, a shitty drunk who made everyone's life a misery. And I'm the anti social one!

I wish I had been sent to Eton. Then my parents could ask for their money back as no amount of private education could help the unruly gobshite that I am. Then we could put all the money on the Letwin Amendment and the ensuing bullshit that will follow. This time next year we will be billionaires!

Europe calling. Everyone's favourite Citizen Smith of Nowhere here. It's weird being disenfranchised. The only upside I can find is that I am not responsible for Brexit, the Tories, Labour, Vox or Catalan separatism to name a few. Who else? Have you got an hour to spare? The downside is being told 'you don't live here what's it got to do with you?' and 'you are not from here what's it got to do with you?'  For once I will take the advice and shut the fuck up. One day I might be forgiven for giving a shit. 

I wish I believed in the flat earthers. Then I would have Trump walk to the ends of the earth and watch him fall off.

MORE OF THE SAME BULLSHIT

It's a weird feeling, being disenfranchised. The only upside I can think of is I will never be held responsible in any way for Brexit or Vox.

BREXIT BULLSHIT

Spain calling. Everyone's favourite shock absorber here. Fancy hedging your bets? Go down the bookies? If I had gone to Eton I would be doing the former but no, its Ladbrokes for me. Britain is not leaving the EU. Again. Brace yourself for years and years and years of this bullshit. Feel free to comment. I cant be bothered. Besides, I've got the plumber coming round.

BROKEN BREXIT BRITAIN BREEDS BUFFOONS

Britain is not leaving the EU on the 31st of October without a deal. Not for the want of trying! Yet brace yourself for years and years of negotiations. This does not go away on the 1st of November and anyone who thinks it will simply doesn't understand how the world works.

Britain is in desperate need of having its collective head examined....

Spain is a dangerous place. I tried to get home from work safely but bumped into friends and, well, you might as well say that the weekend starts here, on a Tuesday......

...and as for Corbyn, all I can say is I am reminded of that time Bob Hope turned to me and said 'quick kid, go and make the sandwiches, Bing's gonna sing!'

MY COUNTRY DOESN'T NEED ME

Boris the old buffer Johnson delivered a weird speech at the United Nations about 'legless chickens', 'pink eyed flamingos' and something about a hangover cure. You've got to hand it to him, it did remind me of something we all might have done at school in class 4B and got a few laughs. Meanwhile, the image of Boris Johnson having his 'liver pecked by an eagle' has inspired me to hatch another plan to steal Franco's bones. Spain's Supreme Court has ruled unanimously that the caretaker government can go ahead with exhumation of the dictator's carcass and bury the remains in a cemetery on the outskirts of Madrid. Being a bit of an entrepreneur I feel I have a cunning plan, or un idea acojonante as you might say in Spanish. I can't go into details at this point as we know what happened the last time....but part of the plan is I shall feed them to a quebrantahuesos, a bearded vulture and put an end to one aspect of this never ending bullshit.

I had a dream where lots of things were happening at once. At one point I was participating in a programme about art. I think this programme exists in real life. In reality the presenter was in Morocco and he was buying up concrete slabs. He said they were old drain covers or were tiles in a sewer, something like that. He was buying them next to nothing, mounting them and selling them to some mug in England for a million. At one point he was beside himself when he bought an old tap. He said he could imagine it on a wall with the water gushing into the sink. In my dream the Barclay brothers who look like Gilbert and George, had bought Brexit and had covered it with a jelly mould. They said something to me on the lines of 'we've bought Brexit. It's ours now. You have no say in the matter.' Well, someone pass me down that opium pipe!

I live in the street that is named after the patron saint of the village, San Lorenzo, but sometimes I think it should just be called the street of madness. A bloke rang my door bell looking for the hairdresser's next door so I told him where to go but a few minutes later I could hear him shouting and swearing in the street, insulting the hairdresser and anyone else who would care to listen. As you may already know you don't need CCTV cameras in Spain. Not when you've got nosy people like me looking out the window. The man's shouting started to draw the attention of the priests in the charity in front and a crippled man using the centre tried to reason with him. The shouty man grabbed the other man's crutches and started to wave them around and the crippled man who had a speech impediment started fighting to get them back. The priests came out and chastised the madman who by now I could see was homeless as he had all his worldly possessions sitting in a wheelchair. He started shouting at the priests and asking them why they wouldn't help him but they were helping foreigners like the crippled man who he had decided was a foreigner on account of him having the speech impediment and they said something on the lines that they don't help rude and racist people. He kept on banging on about foreigners and someone in the melee asked him where he was from. 'Rioja', he replied. The other man said something on the lines of 'well blow me, I'm from Huesca what does that make you? A foreigner? You are not from here how do you feel now?' Finally the police rocked up, all four of them and tried to calm the situation. Meanwhile Racist Tramp was lambasting the Catholic church and saying Jesus was this that and the other and making it impossible for himself by saying he would cut everyone's throat and plant a bomb at the charity. The police have now gone and Mr van de Ven just told me a Muslim woman has just come out of the charity and has given the Racist Tramp two loaves of bread which he is now cutting up and making a sandwich outside sitting on the steps of the hairdresser's. Never a dull moment here, Happy Monday! To be continued......

The problem with living in a polyglot household is sometimes you don't know what things are called in your native tongue. Well, that is my excuse, it is probably something more serious like ageing. A fine example is I don't know what that thing that people use to clean their terrace is called in English. In Spanish it is called a limpiador de hidropresion, so I call it a power shower. Mr van de Ven has just corrected me. 'It is not a power shower', he says, 'it's a pressure cooker!'

In the next episode of Brexit the Soap, Doris 'the cock' Johnson has a nervous breakdown and commandeers an open top red double decker London bus and starts waving the flag of ISIS. He tells everyone it is because he is sick and needs help. He then does a runner via the Eurostar, his heaving, sweaty bulk dressed in a burka. Dominic Cummings' interpretation of his time in Russia is revealed as a lie. That he wasn't trying to get an airline up and flying but was being trained in some kind of psychological operations by the FSB as an unwitting assassin of the Tory Party. I go to the doctor because I believe I am suffering from El Sindrome Postvacacional, to which he says, 'you'll do anything to get attention'. Confused? You will be!!! 

CHARACTER BUILDING

The family next door are having a massive row. The father is being picked on by the matriarch and her many daughters and grandaughters. They are playing really loud music too, quite happy, upbeat music. Meanwhile my mother and I are listening to Charles Aznavour, La Boheme, and drinking a little red wine with water, talking about so many things. There are a pair of magpies on the make, jumping and chattering around the terrace. I feel at once so happy and yet so wistful at the same time and then I hear someone shout out the Spanish equivalent of 'go back to your own country!' I'm not sure who it was directed at but Mr van de Ven came out and told me not to rise to it but I am afraid that all I can think of is DO NOT GIVE ME CAUSE FOR REVENGE.

I have had enough. Just got buttonholed by a neighbour. I don't like him because he always strikes me as the intolerant, racist type. Apart from that I caught him taking a sneaky look at my breasts on more than one occasion but what do you do? I just keep shtum, you know, just to keep the peace because if not it could kick of with me headbutting him. Anyway, he is often going on about the 'foreigners' but when I pull him up on this he does that thing of saying he doesn't include me, as if that makes things better or if he thinks I am with him on this one. Prick. Well, I don't know what possessed me but he was going on about some Muslim neighbours who seem alright to me so I told him that contrary to what he thinks they are quite cool people and that I am helping them with the translation of a musical they are working on. I told him, God forgive me, that it's called Jihad The Musical and I am at the jazz stumps bit. It's times like this I wish I smoked a pipe....

Just been introduced to someone new who said something on the lines of 'encantada, delighted to meet you, I have heard so much about you.' To which I replied, 'oh, really, I hope it was all bad, because if it was it's probably true!' For the love of God, what's wrong with me!!!

Nobody knows what happens to you when you die. People say they do know but they don't. Some people say there's nothing. That you die and that's it. Sounds comforting. Yet what if they are wrong? What if there is something? What a nightmare! Or maybe it is just like a dream where you know your true self and are capable of extraordinary feats that seem to go on for ever till you get tired and say, you know what,  think I will get up now and start all over again.

SIESTA MOMENTS

It is dead outside. The whole country appears to have gone for a lie down. A lone football is being blown up the street as I look out the kitchen window for signs of life. A small boy appears and predictable kicks it, and immediately disappears into a doorway, leaving the ball to roll on by. I am not sure if the wind that is blowing is the Cierzo. It is eerie, mysterious as it knocks over watering cans and blows bits and pieces from other people's terraces onto mine. I can't see the wind but I know it has its own mind. The only sound to compete with the wind is the call of the bee-eater , a beautiful bird that flies up from tropical Africa and inhabits the space above my head. It's time to clear away the table where I sit and join my other half, my media naranja, and the rest of the Pais for some much needed shut eye.

Some people are saying that Priti Patel, the latest British Home Secretary is very attractive, sexy even. I'm trying, but all I'm getting is Norman Tebbit.

You think you know someone, part three hundred and fifty four. 

Husband just told me of another plan. To steal a decommissioned Russian submarine, paint it yellow and then attack that island where the Barclay brothers live, what's it called? Brecqhou? I'm still up for it but that art heist beckons. When they ask me why I did it I shall reply, 'I was bored'.

"That drinking session in Brussels with Dominic, AKA the Turnip, you know the one when after the third pint he started to smell of steroids. That time he stopped mid conversation and asked 'so, you mean that time I went to New York we flew over water?' That night he started showing off his martial art skills at four in the morning. Well, I didn't finish. When we were trying to hail a cab he turned to me and said 'I'm not sure what to say to the cab driver, I don't speak very good Belgium' (sic) . Guess what, he's been made Foreign Secretary".

In the future young people won't be on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or any other social media. That's because they will rebel and be too busy inhabiting what we would still call the 'real world'.

I think we should have a referendum on whether or not to have a death penalty. When the 'yes,let's go for it' people win everyone can sit around afterwards moaning about how to go about it. What kind? Hanging? Firing squad perhaps. Garrotte with piano wire. What about a nuclear bomb? Trident? Never mind the collateral damage it's what we voted for!

I have always been an observer, sometimes a chronicler. I try to be a participator but I will invariably  be the fly on the wall.

If you are wondering why Britain hasn't left the EU yet and probably never will at this rate it is because of a little known fact that Uri Geller and I are working on it telepathically to prevent it from ever happening. 

For the past seventeen years I have made do with a broom and bleach but I thought perhaps it was time to buy one of those power shower things. I have since been told it is called a pressure cleaner, one of those things that cleans the terrace, or patio in British English. ( Or is it the other way?) Anyway. It has only taken about a month to get various bits of hose to fit the shedload of taps we have in this house. I was quite looking forward to finally trying it out and getting things done around here for once but you can guess what has happened. Mr van de Ven has commandeered said item, sealed the perimeter, pulled up the mainframe,  and is out there now cleaning everything in his path, the terrace, small children, the garage roof, the anti social neighbours next door. I will give it five minutes to see if he heads up the road cleaning the street and the bits the council missed. 

I think it was someone like Billy Connolly who said you wouldn't have a drink with most, if any, politicians but imagine if you did with Dominic Raab. After his third pint he would start smelling of steroids. Then at some point in the conversation he would stop, look slightly perturbed and ask you 'you mean, that time I went to New York the plane actually flew over water?'

APOCRYPHAL

The following is apocryphal, you know, unsupported, so don't get upset.....You are probably thinking he is the best of a bad bunch but that isn't difficult is it? You know, who should take control of it all. What is it with Rory S? There's something urbane about him, something familiar, like you feel you have met him before. And then you do meet him. In a pub. Your friend introduces you. 'This is Rory'. You hit it off, you drink beers and have great conversations and then it gets late and he suggests something else. To keep the party going. It might be opium, perhaps heroin, it will never be cocaine or it might be an orgy of sorts. Something that makes you feel like you are selling your soul and all your suspicions are confirmed when you wake up naked in a skip the next day and overhear him on the blower saying something on the lines of, 'well do it Giles, whatever it takes, just do it'.

I am so lazy I couldn't be bothered to have a siesta today!

Am I the only one reading this as I sit and contemplate the dying light in the west.

If you come and visit us, be prepared. Once your are settled on the bus going back to wherever home is, you will look out the window as we cheerily wave you bye bye, and you will turn to your companion and say, 'you know what? I think I am a bit drunk'.

That horrible moment when you realise you are talking to a Vox supporter, the far right goon squad in Spain. I always take them to task by mentioning the fact that I am an immigrant and they always respond by saying 'oh, but we don't mean you...' and then they tend to shut up when they realise how that sounds, especially when they have already declared that they are not racist. The other day I found myself in this situation and did the old 'but I am an immigrant' number on him and the bullish bastard said 'have you got your papers in order?' and I replied, 'yes, of course' but not without a tremor of fear at his words and the way he delivered them, with a chilling, imperious air and a conclusion that told me, 'Well, you have nothing to worry about then have you?' 

Most of us have been there. That awful situation when you are the focus of attention and around you are people expecting you to explain stuff or worse, entertain them. For me, the most regrettable was a fine, sunny day when I was expected to read stories to small children that I imagined would be ushered into some small library or classroom. It was in a tiny village in the middle of nowhere but was unfortunately for me, equipped with a loudspeaker that announced the daily activities and recent passing of old folk over said PA system. I wasn't put off until the organiser told me that no, we wouldn't be doing the stories in the local library but in the 'cinema'. It was inconceivable to me that such a remote place could have a cinema but I was starting to get that sick feeling once we entered and I realised it could hold around a 1,000 people. And hold it did. It soon became obvious the whole village wanted to come and possibly the surrounding villages, and the villages that surrounded them. In they poured, a never ending herd of folk of all ages. There weren't enough seats so some people had to stand and people in wheelchairs were being positioned right in front of the stage. It was incredible. A screen was provided and someone ran off to get me a microphone. Don't ask me how I did it but somehow I bluffed my way through the escapades of Winnie the Witch and her cat Wilbur. I even turned part of it into a musical, getting kids to leap around and act the goat, anything to take the limelight off me. Nobody appeared to understand a word I was saying so I just started to make shit up as I went along, if only to humour myself. There was a gang of teenagers hurling abuse and bits of food. It was hilarious but I was hoping that over the village tannoy they were declaring I had died on stage. Once it had finished I was so relieved but then the organiser said there would be a second shift half an hour later. It was interminable but an excellent example of subterfuge not seen until yesterday when my nemesis Donald Trump upstaged me while talking shite again.

ACT NORMAL, THAT'S MAD ENOUGH

There is a saying in Dutch that roughly translates as 'act normal, that's mad enough'. The president of the USA Donald Trump should take note. Meanwhile this president, as in me, has more pressing concerns. What now? You might ask. Well, while Donald is getting through the D Day  commemorations and trading chickens hopefully without drawing more attention to himself or humiliating others I have to deal with fish head bones chucked on the terrace, cigarette butts tossed in the air without any plan as to where they will land, a neighbour's discordant washing machine banging against the wall that makes the other neighbours' amorous antics seem quite quaint, clandestine picnics on the stairwell and other anti social behavioural activities. Part of me really couldn't give a shit as I have other stuff to do but being a president comes with its responsibilities. You know, organisation, administration, leadership and so on. I thought about writing a letter to everyone and rubber stamping it with Donald's head on it just to test everyone's attention skills but have been advised that a simple request for standard comportment will be enough. Finally there is the little known fact that I have in common with Donald. We both suffer from basiphobia. A fear of falling down and breaking my brass neck.

Oh the joys of living with a polyglot. A couple have just appeared outside in a massive camper van. You know the type, so big that you hate whoever is in it before you've even met them. They appear to be lost and the van takes up the whole street. Of course Mr van de Ven is hanging out the window waiting to pounce. I can hear him muttering, 'they're Brits'. Now I hear 'they are fucking Dutch! No, wait.....Belgians!' I brace myself for the inevitable vilification. How dare they bring this delincuency and wrongdoing to his doorstep! What an eyesore! He's telling them, no, ordering them in French, Dutch, and English to get rid of it or else there will be consequences. Let's see how this pans out.....

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD JUST LEAVE ALREADY

So many people who voted Brexit think or would like to believe that the EU, the Europeans, those crafty foreigners over there on that continent don't want the Brits to leave the EU because they need the British people's money or that they are worried that the whole European project will start to crumble and collapse when all the other countries see sense and leave like the Brits ( they won't, there isn't any appetite for that I can assure you). What many people don't realise is that one of the reasons everyone would like the Brits to stay is that well, let's find an adjective that traditionally would describe the British. Practical, realistic, sensible, business like, rational, unsentimental, no nonsense, feet firmly on the ground types etc and so on. The kind of people you need in the European Union as they are the ones who can think differently to the others and offer great insight. Yet now it looks like the situation in Britain couldn't look more mental. Not mentioning any names as these people are getting far too much coverage as it is, but how fucking insane does it look that racist, anti-muslim, anti-semitic, immigrant bashing, foreigner loathing, sexist, homophobic, misogynistic fuckers seem to want to stay in the EU or become an MEP? Is it just the good salary they can get while standing up in the parliament and moaning about the EU and then fucking off back to the UK on the next Eurostar out of here? Or is it that contrary to the usual spouting and mouthing off that the EU is the Fourth Reich actually want it to be that by aligning themselves with all the other morally repugnant far right shitehawks around Europe? 

I went to some lecture which was supposed to be given by Susan Sontag. When we got there it was someone else. I'd brought presents for Susan Sontag in the shape of iced buns, (my favourite) and some other vaguely familiar cakes and I was hoping something would go wrong so I would get to eat them. I could hear people wandering around saying ersatz Sontag was being really difficult during the questions and answers. All I was worried about were the buns. Twice I got them out of my bag and then put them back and then started to eat them, they were delicious. I can still taste them now. As the lecture went on two men in the audience starting talking about something called Menstrual Marxism with a bit of Heidegger chucked in for good measure. I started to feel a bit crestfallen so I went and stood on a very high shelf above everyone. It was so high that I had to check that I hadn't grown into a giant. By now you can guess this was a dream, all in my head. The top billing was really miffed with me for some reason, and even went out of her way to ask if I was alright, 'up there'. This drew unwanted attention to me which pissed her off even further. I went to the bar and realised Top Billing as she was now known, was standing near me. Boy she moved fast, so I told her I thought she was a silly cow which is pretty tame for me as in real life I would have told her to fuck off. I remember I was wearing a green t-shirt and one of Top Billing's friends came over and put a flower pot on my head and tried to suggest that I looked like one of the Flower Pot Men on account of the green t-shirt. I thought this was a lame attempt at humiliation and kept looking in a fairground mirror saying to myself, 'well I think I look alright'. If anything it reminded me of Devo.  The pair of them followed me around and said they were going to report me for swearing. I felt worried so knowing this was just a dream I remembered that I could be anywhere I wanted and had no obligation to hang around in what was becoming suspiciously like someone else's nightmare. I chose Richmond Bridge in the late 19th century, dining in the middle of the bridge with a good looking younger man with the sunshine making everything seem heavenly and shimmering. I felt a pang of loss as I realised I wasn't with Mr van de Ven and desperately wanted to find him. There were no phones and the feeling of loss went to panic as I became aware I might find myself dead in another century.......

( A Love Story) I managed to get out of bed the other Sunday morning and attend a concert in the Salon Azul at the casino. A concert of German and Austrian romantic composers, Fanny Hensel, Clara Schumann and Alma Mahler. The concert started on time but, as was expected, lots of people thought it would be fun to turn up late. It was also free which sometimes means it will attract the bored and the curious. The organisers had put out loads of old wooden chairs to park people on but had somehow managed to squash them, the chairs, and hence, the people, next to one another so that the arms were overlapping and were designed so that even the most svelte of us had difficulty squeezing our arses into the seats. There were some heavy velveteen curtains to keep sounds and latecomers out but this didn't stop an assortment of old folk stumbling in, looking perplexed at the audience, the pianist and the soprano and then being guided into those bastard chairs. One by one they came in including the blind and the infirm, various sticks marking the floor, 'toc, toc, toc', with people trying to be polite, giving up their seats while the soprano quavered. A huge woman pushed her way along the row in front of me to a vacant chair and crammed her bulk into the seat, pushing it back and blocking my friend Annie's view. I uncharacteristically kicked the chair as hard as I could, as a show of protest and noticed another woman further along our row do the same to another late arrival. People started muttering expletives and there was an atmosphere of consternation. All the time I was looking out for Mr van de Ven who had decided, despite his staunch northern European time keeping, to be late just to wind up the locals. I had a feeling of delicious anticipation knowing I would see my beloved enter the salon at any moment but it was mixed with suspense knowing he might appear dressed as Tommy Cooper, get tangled up in the curtain and make a scene. He arrived, caught my eye, made my heart leap but then had to grapple his way, passing a fair number of older, formidable women who had conveniently forgotten their dreadful entrances and good manners and were now mumbling complaints, kicking his shins and scraping those awful chairs on the wooden floor drawing lots of unwanted attention. He sat next to me but dropped his sunglasses and we watched as they went whizzing across the floor which made heads turn, stare down and look up at one another as if to ask 'what are we looking at now?' I stared at him, and he at me, as the soprano warbled 'ich hab' in deinum Auge'. I once looked into your eyes. Or better still, I only have eyes for you.

I believe in God and I believe in eternal life and I know I shall go to heaven. How do I know that last bit? Because one of Mr van de Ven's good friends after a lively discussion between themselves, turned to me and said, 'Ann Marie, you're a f#cking saint'.

Hi fans, Dr Ruth here. Update on the goings on next door. I was reading the Dream of the Celt by Mario Vargas Llosa as recommended by the locum doctor and was at the bit when Roger Casement discovers the great lie of colonialism in the heart of the Congo, and with all the injustice and violence begins to feel Irish, when I heard the inevitable. The bed springs and the predestined sound of a headboard banging into a wall. Yes, they, the neighbours, were at it again. I was reminded of the cleaner where I used to work. Her name was Joyce and she used to confide in me about her concerns that there was too much sex on TV. 'Bonking they call it', she would say. Yes. Bonking. This was the same Joyce who told me on a hot day that I should be drinking a spoonful of salt to a kilometre of water but that's another story. Anyway, my mobile pinged and it was a message from my other neighbour Nadine up on the third floor. 'Your neighbours'.... 'They are at it again'......'I can hear them up here'. I wanted to write back, 'yes, I know, good for them, at it like hammer and tongs', but I wasn't sure how to say that in Spanish. Perhaps it would be vigorosamente? Con vigor? Con vehemencia? Con toda? Con ganas? A todo leche, o todo tren perhaps? I was half expecting Mr van de Ven to appear on the scene and shout the equivalent of 'put a sock in it!' but he was beaten to it by a neighbour round the back who roared 'os podeis callar de una puta vez, por favor!' which I think needs no translation.....

OLD HAMS

Someone will mention Seth Rogan or Prue Leith and I have a vague idea who they are. I'm not entirely out of touch with the wider world beyond, but from time to time someone will pop up and you think, 'who the f#ck are you?' Take John Rhys Davies for example. 'Who's he?' you ask. Exactly. Who is he? He pops up on Question Time and starts hamming it up the like I haven't seen since our drama teacher Miss Hugo made us dance to the strains of Holst's the Planets circa 1974. I watched a short clip of him, the old ham, yowling 'oh woman!' at Caroline Lucas, a Green party MP who seems to have just laughed it off. I felt I knew or remembered this bloke from somewhere and further research reveals he played a role in the 70s series Budgie as, wait for it, a character called the Laughing Spam Fritter!!

Happy day of the book! Happy Saint George, San Jorge! San Jordi! Day of Aragon! I left the house with a spring in my step, skipping down the cobble stones, when what was I forced to contend with as I turned the corner and bounded into the square? Barricades, lots of police, two police wagons, five cars and an ambulance if you please. Well now I know where my taxes go. I was expecting someone to be at least dressed up as Hernan Cortes, or some other conquistador, but it was mainly some fat bastards swanning around waving a ridiculously large flag that had seen better days, wearing bright yellow high visibility waistcoats in case nobody noticed them I suppose. Yes, it was the extreme right wing goon squad trying to drum up trade. The least I could do was give them the finger, the goons, not the police, I am not that far reaching, I will save that for another day. 

YOU REALLY DON'T KNOW ME DO YOU?

Yesterday I kept getting an advert popping up on my Facebook thread for a discounted Royal Ulster Constabulary rug. Today I am being groomed by something called Happy Socks. Yes, happy, not like the miserable ones I am wearing, ( You see I am already sold!), but ones that will parade my love for the Netherlands. Socks emblazoned with, wait for it, bikes, clogs and tulips for f#ck's sake!

SOHO STORIES

Paul the barman and I were standing outside the Coach and Horses, or the Coach as everyone called it. What we were doing there, standing around is anyone's guess. I think I might have had a bucket and mop in my hands having been told or probably ordered, to clean up the glass street tiles and sides of the pub of all the incontinence, excretions and other forms of insubordination from the night before. Paul was talking about going back to Dublin and opening up a hairdresser's, I continued mopping in a way that can only be described as fitful. Jeffrey Bernard appeared, stood next to us and when we asked if he was alright he replied if we wouldn't mind giving him a hand getting into the pub as he was feeling a bit liverish. Of course we helped and tried to get him settled inside and if I recall correctly it was the same day an American tourist was sitting chatting with a friend and Norman told her to 'get off that stool that's Jeff's'. She looked around but didn't look at him and asked 'who are you?', and he said 'I'm the landlord, and you're sitting in Jeff's seat'. She scoffed and made the mistake of saying, 'hah, if you're the landlord I'm the mayor'. 'I don't care what type of horse you are madam', he bellowed, 'now fuckin' get out, you're barred!'.

ALO PRESIDENTA

As president of our community I speculate on my demanding role in all this. Take the deluge upon us during the storm the other night. I ordered Mr van de Ven to do all the physical work, waking up neighbours to find the source of the overflow while I dealt with communications which didn't quite go to plan. One only needs to put a vowel or a consonant in the wrong place for disorder and misunderstanding. In my attempts to describe to the administrator on the phone what kind of water was raining down on the neighbourhood I replaced the letter p with the letter b, so instead of a tromba (a torrent) of water I told her it was a trompa, which can translate as an elephant's trunk or a French horn, take your pick. It got worse when I tried to explain that we thought the water was getting stuck in the guttering, not a word I often use in any language but the poor woman didn't know what to say when I told her this water was increasing in the canelones ( culinary dish from Italy) when I should have said canalones. The next day I got a phone call from the man who does the guttering asking me how he could climb onto the roof to sort it all out. As president I went all judicious on him telling him it was too dangerous to go climbing across roofs but five minutes later that is what he did, over my neighbour Nadine's balcony, no harness, hard hat, scaffolding, just him and the elements and me watching him heart in mouth as he leaned over three floors up fishing out a cloth that had somehow got trapped blocking all the water. I am sure he did it just to be all macho and swashbuckling and now expects me to give him a medal.

MY POOR OLD PLATES OF MEAT

My right foot has been hurting me for a while so I go to the doctor's but not before I check online what could be wrong with it of course. I was concerned it was gout owing to my gastronomic lifestyle or some kind of arthritic disease which would leave me no option but to wear some awful shoes, the kind that nuns wear, as a punishment for photographing them, the nuns, behind their backs in the name of research. Anyway, I get there and the waiting room is bedlam with patients complaining they have been waiting an hour to be seen, (it's usually only ten minutes), so I join in the mayhem and after another hour it is my turn. When I enter I see it isn't my usual GP but a locum doctor who pronounces my name correctly, which disarms me as I am more than ready for hostilities. He then asks me where I am from and I tell him I am not sure anymore what with all the upheaval in the world. We conclude that I am a mix of things and then he starts talking about the Easter Rising, Irish Republicanism, and a novel he enjoyed called the Dream of the Celt by Mario Vargas Llosa, a novelisation of the life of diplomat turned Irish nationalist Roger Casement. The doctor then goes on to explain the plot, and talks about the Belgians, the Congo, the British Foreign Office and that's only half the story and then he asks me why I am there. 'It's my foot doc', I say,' the right one'. He wants to know if I walk a lot. I tell him not too much but when he asks me how much exactly the conclusion is I walk excessively and would be better off getting a bike, less pressure on the old plates of meat. He has a butcher's at said foot and says something about 'bota', (boot) but I hear 'gota', (gout) and ask him if he thinks I have that. He tells me he doesn't think it is gout unless I drink a hell of a lot of beer. I say that I don't like beer and he tells me it is very good for you, in moderation of course, and wonders if I have tried it with some lemon. I tell him I prefer wine and we go on to talk about our preferred wines and which regions and so on and he recommends a few I haven't tried. We then start talking about Madrid versus Barcelona, politics, teaching, the 'cocido', the rustic hearty stew of Madrid, how consomme is a cure for most ills, more wines, and other things too numerous to mention and I am on the point of asking him if he would like to go for lunch but I hear raised voices outside indicating lawlessness and a hammering on the door so he rounds off with a prescription, or should I say recipe, for two types of painkiller I have yet to try, glucosamine and gel, and to 'put your foot up, read that book, and if you don't like it there are loads of others and have a nice glass of wine'. I love Spain. Happy Easter.

None of the neighbours want to deny anyone a sex life but the goings on at number 1D are starting to grate a bit. Nobody wants to complain, of course. Nobody wants to appear to be uptight, stingy and non industrial, or worse, impotent, but naturally no one has the guts to complain. Which leaves it, as might be expected, to Mr van de Ven. During bouts or appeals to 'shut the #uck up'  he then comes out with 'and the Oscar goes to......'

Don't worry fellas. In case you've forgotten. None of this is real. We are all part of the collective nightmare. Or dream. Whichever we decide to pursue.

Right Honorable Prick

Mark Francois. Never 'eard of 'im. Yes you have. Rife, inescapable. He seems to have taken over from all the other abominations. NF, Katy Hopkins, Rees Mogg, and in the interests of equality, Anjem Choudray, George Galloway and that tosspot from the Labour Party. As one mouth shuts another one opens. In his head he thinks he is Michael Madsen in Reservoir Dogs but he actually looks like Billy Bunter, always waiting for a postal order that never turns up to pay off his debts. The living embodiment of the seven deadly sins. Always on the scrounge. The Owl of the Remove. He looks like he could benefit from a swift kick in the right honourables. Right honourable prick. The end.

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There's a woman on the TV talking about hoarding food, Fray Bentos pies, gin, dog food, loo roll, and medicine in case of a national disaster, like a no deal Brexit. People are advertising what foods and medicines they have and where they are in their house. Now their neighbours will know where the grub is. Rees Mogg looks like he's either had his arm twisted or he's also just got back from the bookies. He seems quite sweaty. I always thought David Davis would be the fall guy but it looks like May. Andrew Bridgen who looks like an NF supporter, and I don't mean Nigel reckons Britain will still be asking itself in ten years why they are still in the EU. A man who needs vital medicines is saying he has three months supply. It is this man I feel sorry for. How dare they, the politicians put people through this uncertainty.

You know you have hit the height of madness when Uri Geller reminds you that Theresa May once touched Winston Churchill's spoon. The spoon that rests on Uri's Cadillac. If you are not sure who Uri is, let's just say I that once, as a child, out of that kind of boredom that can only be experienced by a child growing up in 1970's Britain, participated in some psychic experiment via Uri. I have never been quite right since, and if you like, I can tell you telepathically.. Uri is now planning on bending the keys to 10 Downing Street so that Jeremy Corbyn never enters. Never mind that there are no keys, the door can only be opened from the inside! Well, must dash. I have to catch the bookies before they close.....

THE DEATH OF THE QUESTION TAG

Well. As opposed to so. It had to happen didn't it? How the foreign press kept saying Spain was unique in Europe. The only country that didn't seem to have a far right party. 'That's because we already have the PP!' laughed some Spanish people. Lurking in the background was something else. It never goes away, does it? Oh come on, what is it? The party whose name we don't speak of in this house. The party who only seem to have come to light since the begrimed American who looks like he goes to bed in his clothes went to pay them visit. The tea party tea bagger type with a face that suggests he drinks to much and eats too many sausages type of fucker.The party who look like a bunch of homophobes who secretly wish they were gay but just haven't got the bottle. Yes, that one. They are coming to town next Tuesday, aren't they? In the conference hall nearby. Does the horror ever end? 'They' are already here but I am thinking of going to their event, their lecture, their party political broadcast, their circus of death just to see who their supporters might be. 'But then people will think you are a supporter if you go!' my friends say. Not if I am dressed in a burka. That way everyone will be pissed off and we might get somewhere. 'They won't let you in if you wear one'. So, it has to be something else. Throw eggs? Wear a raincoat, naked underneath and 'flash' at everyone as they pass by. Anything to cause a scene and get arrested? Anything, just so I can say that I did something, anything to inject some humour or spice into this mind numbing, soul destroying, political shift in the wrong direction.

Various headlines in the British press today say something on the lines that NF, you know, bad vibe Nige, is going to tear the Tory party from limb to limb' if Theresa may delays Brexit Where has he been for the last three years???

THIS WEEK ANDREW NEIL STEWART LEE

Watching BBC World talking about Ukrainian politics. It is as if the whole world wants to be Monty Python but the Brits are saying 'no you are doing it all wrong, let us show you how!'

NIGEL LAWSON CARTE DE SEJOUR

You may or may not know that Nigel Lawson, former Chancer, sorry, Chancellor, you know, Nigella's dad, is selling up in France and returning to the UK. It is known that he applied for his carte de sejour, around six months ago, the French residency card that would help him get medical coverage amongst other benefits. He claims that Brexit has nothing to do with him moving, although there is some gossip or speculation that French bureaucracy played a part in all this. I think I know what this all really means but I need the help of a PG Wodehouse quote. 'Into the face of the young man who sat on the terrace of the Hotel Magnifique at Cannes there had crept a look of furtive shame, the shifty hangdog look which announces that an Englishman is about to speak French.' 

Just go somewhere and pretend you are on Facebook.

WHY SPAIN?

On a Facebook forum recently, people were asked why they lived in Spain. Foreigners who live in Spain, not Spanish people. What keeps them here? I said that for me it was because I like living in a place that doesn't demonise young people, a place where children seemed loved and where parents don't freak out if I approach their kids or vice versa, where old people are not invisible. A place where people live outside whatever the weather. Then of course there is the diet and the sense that people don't want to create conflict between each other. A country where you can lean into someone, a stranger say, in a bar or cafe, as I have done on occasions, and the other person doesn't beat you up or give you a mouthful.

People with Facebook and Instagram often get requests from people who want to be their friends, followers or maybe more. It is often from young, good looking women from far away countries. I have had a couple of those but on the whole my potential admirers are bird fanciers and fishermen!

As well as his ideology, ambitions, outlook on life and so on what is it about Jacob Rees Mogg that puts the wind up me? Is it the feeling you are in the presence of someone wearing a dead man's suit? Someone who is breathing the cold breath of death against your neck? The vibe that everyone is being prodded by a cold limp dick? Is he just a statue representing bad sex and a bad death. Is that what Brexit is really about? Is there anyone on the planet who finds joy when they see him? That is it. There is no joie de vivre. 

Yesterday I saw a BBC clip about whether British people were stockpiling food in case there was a no deal Brexit or not. Food hoarding seems to have become a normal part of the culture for many. At first I thought it was a spoof or comedy show but it is for real, people are actually doing this. You can sometimes judge a person on what they are buying at the checkout. There was a man we knew that always bought some cat food when he went to buy his bottle of vodka to make it look like he was doing some normal shopping. He didn't have a cat. Young people, students on a Friday night with trolleys full of booze and fizzy drinks and pizzas. Yet what to make of a person with a conveyor belt full of tins of tuna and loo rolls? What to say to the great big fella who tells the interviewer that, 'My wife is trying to stockpile but I keep eating it'. We can laugh but there seems to be something tragic about the whole saga. 

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/business-4730

JACOB REES MOGG

ERG. The European Research Group. They shoe horned in the word European to give them a benign, approachable, credible vibe when in fact what it really stands for is the Extreme Right Goons. Feck off to UKIP, sorry EDL, sorry, what is it called? BNP where you belong.

What to keep and what to throw away? Will my belongings, my ramblings my ideas and thoughts one day end up in a charity shop, a flea market or a bonfire. Who cares? In the meantime they take over the flat, pieces of paper, notebooks, post it notes full of energy, creativity, not knowing where they are supposed to go or end up. Nothing is permanent. Written on the back of a little brochure I picked up at the Bosch exhibition at the Prado Museum in Madrid, April 2016......'Saint Wilgefortis, the bearded virgin venerated in the Low Countries, exempla contraria, example to be avoided.' Why did I write that? Why did she seem so important to me at the time? Virgo Fortis, courageous woman. She sprouted a beard so as to be unattractive to the man she didn't want to marry. 

ORDER!! ORDER!!!

It's difficult to get a word in edgeways in Spain. If you don't talk over other people, shout or heckle you will find yourself engulfed, powerless and desperate for everyone to just shut the f*ck up and listen to you. If you manage to browbeat everyone you know you have integrated. Small children are the arch manipulators of controlling the conversation and at the slightest provocation will start banging the table with their fists and a list of demands. 'What do we want? Water/sweets/ go home/dance/lie down/pour said water onto the floor...when do we want it? NOW!!!' The community meeting can descend into uproar with everyone clamouring for attention. So where to go to get heard? Well, the Congress of Deputies perhaps? The President of the Congress, Ana Pastor, a politician I wouldn't like to cross swords with asked the deputies if it wasn't too much too ask but could they be quiet, and respect the person speaking. She added that the Congress was not the British Parliament which when you think about it resembles more and more a class full of five year olds.

RATE MY PLATE EXTRAORDINARIO

There's a Facebook page called Rate My Plate where people post photos of the most disgusting meals. Horrible roast dinners, fry ups and loads of unrecognisable foods, mainly involving pork.. Someone posted a photo of four politicians on another page. Boris Johnson. Michael Gove. Jacob Rees Mogg and Nigel Farage. For a moment I thought I was still looking at Rate My Plate. Gove looked like one of those sausages that resemble stewed penises, Johnson like a Cornish pasty run over by his own bike. Rees Mogg. Well the less said about him the better. And NF. He just looked like he was sitting around waiting to get his head kicked in. Here they are.

My idea of a dull night out would be in a pub stuck between Jeremy Corbyn and Jacob Rees Mogg. Both know better than everybody else with Rees Mogg proving it by telling you all about every single treaty he has read up on just to catch you out and Corbyn saying what he thinks some people want to hear and coming across as a bit witless. What did someone once say? 'Communist with knife and fork seeks similar with steak and kidney pie?' Was that Benny Hill, circa 1976? This is kind of where we are at. Rees Mogg is just an Opus Dei Man in a tailor made charity shop suit pretending to be a Christian fundamentalist but whose God is money and Corbyn is one of those people who on finding out the artist he likes is Israeli suddenly dislikes them because he is worried about what other people might think of him. 

What are you thinking?

Nothing.

People like you never think about nothing.

The ERG. What does that stand for exactly? The Extreme Right Goons? Lead by a man who pretends to be a Christian fundamentalist? Be under no illusion. Money is his God.

There is a special place in hell. For disaster capitalists, people who knowingly harm the environment, people who hurt children, those who are cruel to animals, and so on. 

Theresa May formally seeks....reopening of the withdrawal agreement.....backstop.......so called......Brady Bunch........amendment...alternative arrangements.....contentious.....legally binding.......cross party......across the house.....trapped indefinitely.......Brexit? Going well is it?

Is there no end to the swearing! Some older students had to write a report on a job they had done. As most of them had never worked before they had to put some imagination into it. One boy whose handwriting leaves a lot to be desired had managed to make the word 'worker' (on account of the letter o appearing to be an a and a tendency to loop the letter r into an n ) read as 'wanker'. It got worse when I realised he was doing the same with the word' working', so there were sentences that read 'last year I was wanking in a restaurant with some other wankers', and 'if you want to wank, I would recommend you get a summer job wanking in a kitchen, you will learn lots of skills and meet other wankers who will become your friends.'

I have something in common with Donald Trump. I also suffer from Bathmophobia. A fear of stairs and slopes and falling down and breaking my brass neck.

A while ago some Spanish kids, about five years old were busy being creative, making some lovely craft for mother's day when suddenly one of them said 'what the fuck'. I decided I had imagined it, as I do with most things, when he said it again. Now I had to decide whether to say something or try not to draw attention when another kid said to me 'he's just said 'what the fuck' and what the fuck is a swear word in English and we are not supposed to saw swear words are we?' I told them that we mustn't say swear words as it is vulgar and uncouth and they all agreed and said they wouldn't say these words again. A few weeks ago one of the kids said 'Oh my God' to which another said 'you just said a swear word in English, Oh my God is a swear word and we are not allowed to say swear words'. Then another decided to chip in and said, 'Oh my God is not a swear word but what the fuck is'. I managed to get the situation under control, sealed the perimeter and all that but what the blue blazes? Where do they get these ideas?

Pablo Gargallo was a Spanish painter and sculptor and there is a museum in Zaragoza which is home to some of his great bronze sculptures. In one of the rooms you can watch a short video on the history of the building which is now the museum and there is a description of the removal of a beautiful tower which once stood next to the museum. It translates as, 'a gaping wound of emptiness and shame' which just made me think of Brexit and then Jacob Reese Mogg and then life and how to approach it. A few days later while having a book called the Autobiography of a Yogi read aloud to me I heard the words ' a cosmic empire of endless bliss', which helped to balance things out a bit. And so it was in that moment I felt the need to set up some kind of club or political group or gang called the Comic Empire of Endless Laughter. Watch this space.

Someone asked me recently what my spirit animal was and all I can come up with is Eric Cantona. 

The difference between me and James Delingpole is I can't make a living out of being a dickhead.

Unsent letters. 

Dearest,

I bought you flowers but they looked so lovely I kept them for me. I guess chocolates are out of the question, what with your fear of boxes. 

My other half just told me something weird. Something I found a bit hard to believe. So I typed in London, cocaine, River Thames and eels and you know what? He's right. 

To get home we took a taxi, then a coach, the tube, a train and a car. Then we had dinner, went to bed and got up again to complete the journey. Another car, train, bus, train and a plane and then another bus and as I waited to buy a coach ticket for the final leg of the journey I looked up at a timetable and it said Bilbao/Irun and there was something in the words that made me want to continue my journey even though I was now exhausted. My feet felt itchy and I said to husband 'let's keep going. I don't want to stop now. Let's go somewhere else'. We didn't. We went home, but something was calling me. The Basque country.