UNSUNG GENIUS

Joke of the year. Can only be understood if you understand Spanish and the culture of the regions here.....Mr van de Ven just asked me if if I could live in Galicia. I replied that probably not as it took me about twenty years to understand the Aragonese, so I didn't fancy spending the next twenty years trying to understand the Galicians. To which he replied ...'perhaps you will, perhaps you won't'.

Other half just asked me what I would like for my upcoming birthday. To quote a line from Withnail and I, I replied 'the finest wines known to humanity, and cake'. Then added, 'Oh, and a bargepole I won't be touching anyone with!'. 

Spain, like Italy, is a land where everyone kisses, embraces and stands and chats in close proximity on a daily basis. I get, or should I say got kissed every day. Colleagues, friends, friends of friends, new friends and so on. The vast majority of Spanish people like being together. If not, they are seen as a bit weird. They must be the most sociable people on the planet.You can sit next to a lake and if a northern European comes along they might nod if you are lucky, and then walk to the other side of the lake. A Spanish person will almost always sit next to you. They may even offer you some of their food and if things go really well you will end up being friends or at least acquaintances. I'm quite a tactile person but normally with people I know so it took a couple of years but in the end I gave into the fact that people would end up more or less sitting on my lap or have their nose sticking into my ear whenever I went out to socialise. I knew I had fully integrated the day I felt the presence of a body behind me, some other persons back was touching mine and so without an ounce of shame I leant into this back for about a minute, in the way you might with an old friend from your childhood, until I realised I had no idea who it was. I stopped, stood up straight and apologised to a huge fella who thought it was funny and said it was fine, don't worry about it. This will be one of the most difficult things to adjust to in the coming days, months, years, not being able to stand near people. Where you can walk into many banks and post offices and there is no plastic screen separating you from the clerk. Little children run up to you and their parents never glare at you when you say hello to their child and start ruffling their hair. Nobody ever complains if I or Mr van de Van start chatting with someone's kid. Spanish people can be loud, boisterous, bon vivants, gregarious, warm hearted, passionate and spontaneous. They love old people and children. Young people are not demonised. Everyone lives on the streets, the elderly sit on street benches in the summer watching the whole of society play out in front of their eyes. This is going to be an enormous challenge for at least another year to maintain what is essentially a warm, civilised society. The alternative is not worth contemplating. Spain has its share of dickheads and arseholes like elsewhere. There will be no time for power crazy people, politicians or other maniacs. People who once given the power will almost certainly be useless. Every day decisions will be made at a local level where common sense will prevail and help will come from anyone else who shares that sense of solidarity. No one will care which nationality or race or creed it comes from. I made my life here and I have no intention of leaving. 

How are you all? I was going to post another photo of me when I was young and gorgeous and didn't realise but decided you might rather laugh at my expense instead. So here you are. Word of warning. There are some words not for polite ears but I'm sure you can cope.
It's not difficult to learn a language, but there can be difficult moments while learning a language. The most common mistakes in Spanish are often because people think they just need to add an o or an a onto the end of a word but doing this changes everything. I think the usual error when learning Spanish is to confuse pollo ( chicken) with polla, ( cock, dick, penis, take your prick, sorry pick). Many butchers get fed up with foreigners like me confusing this word, thinking the person is doing it on purpose, slamming their machetes down and shouting the Spanish equivalent of 'what's up with the schlong already?' Then there was the evening when I ordered a steak and when asked how I would like it done I suffered a bout of Spoonerism and asked for it be to be 'hay mucho' ( is there a lot?) when I meant 'muy hecho' (well done). I still confuse my sleeves, ( mangas)  with my mangos, (mangos). Who can forget the day I told some friends I had hurt my rolling pins ( rodillos) and not my knees ( rodillas) the same day I announced, 'look at all that mind growing over there'. (mind=mente, mint=menta) One friend never quite recovered when I told her that I didn't mean to f~ck her ( follar) when I meant let her down ( fallar). Ha! just remembered the time I was upset with one of the doctor's receptionists because I felt she was being mean and unhelpful and all the other receptionists came rushing out and tried to calm me down by saying, 'oh please daughter of ours, don't be angry', to which I replied, in Spanish, that I wasn't angry, I was 'livido', thinking this would translate as livid. I found out later that the surprised faces and the following silence might have been because I said the equivalent of, 'I am not angry I am of a pale complexion', or worse that I had some libido left in me. Ordering a shot of  oruga, (caterpillar) instead of orujo, ( liquer) has since been framed. I once ordered a Crema Catalunya ( Creme Brulee) instead of a Crema Catalana and will never forget the waiter's face and exuberent laughter coming out of the restaurant kitchen. The only way to describe this mistake is to say something like, 'oh, you speak very good England'.  But the one they all remember is the day I was being wheeled through a hospital corridor on a stretcher still coming round from the anaesthetic when the doctor informed me I was being taken to another floor ( planta). Feeling the urge to broadcast this to anyone willing to listen I propped myself up on one elbow and cried out as we passed a waiting room, 'they are taking me to another planet! (planeta) which I think we can all agree, explains a lot.

INCURABLY STUPID

Spain calling. Everyone's favourite disenfranchised, tax paying, citizen of nowhere here. How am I ? Fine, apart from the scurvy, hemorrhoids and mild depression but thanks for asking. Anyway, you probably know by now that Whatsapp is imposing a limit on how many messages you can forward to slow the circulation of fake news. Some people especially conspiracy theorists and the far right think the government or governments are doing this to control us all. It's seen as some kind of censureship but you'd never know it as I can still hear them bleating on like there's no tomorrow with all the excitement of a 14 year old boy who has just discovered Hitler or worse, David Icke. People who really haven't stopped to think about how harmful and depressing they are because it's everyone else's fault and they don't have the soul to shut the fuck up and do something kind for once in their lives. Folk who believe the first thing they hear or see and accept it because otherwise it might mean having to educate themselves. I'm actually delighted the fruitcakes, including the far right in Spain are encouraging users to move over to Telegram, the messaging service used by ISIS, organisers of gun rallies, mass shootings and so on. The one run by two Russians who must be having a right old laugh at the abundance of bullshit merchants in the so called civilised world and profiting from it. Great, now I don't have to be the 200th in line to receive what was first sent out by some hard core lunatic, filtered its way through dozens of degrees of separation to land in my lap in the form of some half baked tin foil hat idea cooked up in the brain of someone who has never read a book and is happy to go through life without thinking, forget critically. Whatsapp has an encryption that ensures that only you and the person you are sending to can read the message, but you know I'm probably lying because encryption means secret code and you now want to believe I am part of that secret code. You probably think I vote Labour. So yes, I am relieved they have all moved over to Telegram where they can all talk shite together and leave me the fuck alone with my own devices. 

Did Pablo Casado grow that beard to blend in with the far right or to just appear to be an adult?

Dear Priti Patel. How long does it take for a man to walk a week in a fortnight?

IMMATERIAL

Never have the words 'none of that matters now' mattered more than now.

I haven't left the house for three weeks, four weeks? It feels like forever. I have no idea what day or month it is anymore and that's fine. I would be quite happy to never go out again except for my Sunday vermouth. Or dinner. Maybe lunch? To see my family. Friends. Nature! The sea! The mountains! What am I on about? I love being out.The only people I see at the moment apart from my love are my neighbours hanging off their balconies every evening. Or the police randomly stopping cars and asking for their permission to be out and about. Then there are the cats across the road and the redstarts, siskins, starlings, blackbirds, Monarch butterflies and so on. H suggested I go and get the essentials. Of course this involved about an hour of me planning the whole disinfectant rigmarole outside and on my return. There are no joggers here so at least I don't have to worry about getting embroiled and contaminated in their slipstream. Being outside for the first time in ages felt weird and agorophobic. Not a soul. That awful dread I sometimes get in open spaces. A need to leg it back home. I felt like I was the last person on earth but then I would be with my congenital self importance in such a situation. Unexpectedly, from a side street came the Spanish Armed Forces. Well, OK, about six of them. I had a flurry of nerves, thinking they might ask me for a receipt or proof of address, but this soon gave way to a stirring of the spirits when you see soldiers and they don't want to kill you, just to give you a wink. And yes, they really are as good looking as the photos that are doing the rounds. 

THE GREAT AND THE GROTESQUE

When I tell my British friends some of the goings on here they seem a bit shocked and ask where the hell am I living. Spain doesn't have an obvious class system. We live in the centre of the town so it is a rich mix of people from all walks of life yet sometimes it probably sounds like we are living on Skid Row. Take today for example. None of us are supposed to leave the house unless we need to buy food or medicines. It seems the vast majority of the 46 million occupants of the peninsular have done this but there are always arseholes. Out of boredom one neighbour serenades us all at a reasonable hour with his guitar and well chosen songs. Everyone happy, so far no complaints. Then it was suggested we all play bingo and again everyone thought this was a good thing until the anti social ones on the left rocked up as a threesome in the street just as we were about to start. Oh it's alright for you to make noise one of them said as he banged a can of San Miguel on the window of some unfortunate bastard's car. There was some injustice he said when we were all making a racket and he can't ever play his let's face it, shit music without someone complaining. Someone pointed out to the dickhead that there was a big difference between messing around for an hour at 4 o'clock in the afternoon playing decent music during what feels like a prison sentence at times and him playing shit music at seven in the morning all year round. You could see he was gunning for a fight but was a bit dense and was not sure how it was going to pan out seeing as we were all on our balconies and he was on street level with a raging virus lurking God knows where. One of his mates starting moaning to us all that they, the three clever dicks, had just been fined by the police for going out in a group and not for essentials. A woman two doors down told them that beer was not an essential item and why didn't they buy their booze the day before like the rest of us. Much more was argued and in the end one of the girlfriends came roaring out, pushing them inside saying that we would all call the police if they didn't get in like the rest of us. Bingo continued and about ten minutes later we heard a crash of broken glass. There was a pause and then bingo resumed. My other neighbour out the back texted me to ask what the hell was going on what with all the music, bingo, arguing and so on. I was just texting back to say that it was the usual shennanigans when two police cars arrived and an ambulance. The anti social one with the can of San Miguel, you know the type, one shandy and he's anyone's was led out with a slashed wrist. Just the one so don't think he wanted to end it all completely, and he needed one hand free to drink I guess. As the emergency services drove away there was a round of applause from all the residents. Who needs Valle Inclan when it is live and direct during a quarantine. All that was missing was the parrot.

YOU THINK YOU KNOW SOMEONE....PART TWO THOUSAND

You think you know someone ( husband) and then you find out they were once the stand in for a knife thrower's assistant, you know, a human target. On  the wheel of death if you please!

I slept better last night for a change and the dreams were less, well what exactly? Erratic? Whimsical? I dreamt I saw the Spanish army carrying guns and on seeing my worried, volatile expression one of the soldiers said that they weren't there to shoot us but were there to stop us shooting one another. There were some other soldiers, four of them and they were sitting in a Ford Capri. Even in the dream I was thinking 'of course they're sitting in a Capri, this is a dream they can do what the hell they want'. Next to the Capri was a girl, a familiar girl, someone I have met thousands of times, a person I have known over the years. A mix of everyone you have ever met and liked but weren't able to stay friends with cos your paths went different ways, a funny girl, the girl that turned every awful job or situation into a laugh. I got close to the girl and I realised it was me. I left her while I went off to take some photos of the past. I was sitting outside the Spanish cafe as it was known in Old Compton Street trying to take a photo of some people but I didn't want to ruin their moment. They were doing nothing special just laughing and being friends. One came over and asked why I was taking the photo and I told them that one day we all would be nothing but there would be at least one photo that someone would come across, in a box, in a junk shop or a gallery and other people would wonder about the story behind the photo.

Regarding the dream in the daytime and especially the Capri bit I suddenly recalled a moment that really happened while walking home with my friends Derek, John and Will. We had been to some kind of promotional a party I think near Highbury Fields and we were walking home when one of us noticed we were being kerb crawled by the police.  They drove by slowly and we looked at them expecting them to say something when we  saw that one of them had a police dog, a German Shepherd, sitting on his lap and the dog was wearing the policeman's hat. So don't wonder or worry about my dreams. People are weirder in so called real life.