MAKE 'EM LAUGH

It's starting to get hot here and that feeling of inertia is kicking in so I didn't feel too keen on doing the story telling for the kids at the book fair yesterday. On a deeper level I think it was more due to the idea that far from the confines and safety of a library, this particular reading was outside, in a park and would involve more people. I'm not one for audiences and suffer from something that Howard Hughes was supposed to have suffered from, a dread of people watching me. It would not bother me to be more like him and never cut my nails again. Anyway, it became apparnet ( ha! love this new word, almost as good as the parnets, the parents..) on arriving at the fair that I would be required to wear one of those awful headsets and stand up in front of what looked like loads of people and read the stories. Totally unrehearsed and last in a line of others doing stories I felt a bit like I did years ago when for some unfathomable reason I was entered into an athletic competition and found myself surrounded by fit, blond, Germanic types in a stadium somewhere in Middlesex. That's another story, this one got worse as I watched the others perform what looked like theatre or circus storytelling in Spanish and French. My turn came and I had to stop myself from reading it in another accent just to confound the adults who had truned up ( To Trune up= To arrive expecting more than you bargained for..) for the chance to hear a 'native'. The kids are always fine and enjoy the stories but the bemused looks from the parents pisses me off. It's like they are trying to catch you out for saying 'gonna or 'somting like dat'. Perhaps next time I'll do it with a Jamaican accent, or even better, move my lips and have it dubbed. It did feel weird having my voice echoing around the park for all to hear. It wasn't held in the bandstand in the end. That had some kind of tarpauling going on in its roof.


Later that evening the lack of sleep left me lying on the sofa in the idler position watching what looked like singing grannies, pogoing pensioners and dancing dogs. ' What is this?' I asked Henderson, who told me it was a talent contest to look for someone to perform in front of the queen. No wonder the country is on its knees. The BBC didn't come up with much better as it offered what basically is an ongoing conversation I have found myself listening to in the wee small hours of. The one were men battle out to the death whether Jimmy Hendrix or Jimmy Paige was the best ever guitarrist. My money would be on Jimmy, Hendrix of course, who was surely some kind of spiritual envoy.

Lastly, I need to work on my pronunciation of the name Virginia as a friend pointed out that I pronounce it Vaginia.

SOUND THE TRUMPET

If you haven't fallen asleep by five o'clock in the morning in Spain then you might as well get up as no way are you going to nod off again. I was asleep at this hour till a mosquito doing the rounds decided to give me a nip while I was having a nap. From then on it was a battle with the sofa and the ensuing sounds of life which seem to have a habit of ringing every half hour just as you are about to nod off again. I think I have said before that this is a country where people can manage to take the sound of fish frying to levels beyond those allowed by the European Union. If you are in any doubt that the Spanish are lazy I can assure you there are plenty who want to wake you up as they head off to work. If you suffer from insomnia the best thing is to get up regardless and try not to go back to sleep as you will be woken up by leaflet distributors ringing all the door bells, explosions of one kind or another and various diggers and jackhammers as men try to fix all the broken things.

We did go to one of my favourite restaurants, Tomate Jamon and had delicious tuna steaks and Enate wine. We had to leave a bit early and run to the terrace to have our coffee as the noise levels began to sound like experimental jazz. Henderson remarked that of the thirty or so people there he could count only five men and the noise sounded like a Miles Davis track. It might sound uncharitable but it may have to go on my avoidance list like the Granja Anita cafe which is unbearable at certain times of the day with all the grannies high on chocolate and churros.

Despite all the trials I am delighted that I now have Broadband and can write from my laptop. Telefonica seem to have improved as both Javier and Virginia, the young staff who helped me in the end are a lot nicer than the complete bitch who treated me with such contempt eight years ago.

On a lighter note, while throwing out old receipts and statements I couldn't help laughing when I found one from England. Most of my food shopping receipts in Spain are a long list of tasty morsels such as Rioja, quails and their eggs, fresh basil, fresh fish, olive oil etc and the one from England said What Car? magazine, crumpets, Heinz soup and a Ginster's pasty.

SIERRA HOTEL INDIA TANGO ECHO

We launched into setting up the broadband again and four hours and several tantrums later, that I thought might end up in fisticuffs or someone storming off, I rang Telefonica. I spoke with a nice man but he seemed to be losing his patience with me as I had to get him to repeat all the letters he was calling out for me to type into my computer. It reminded me of the IKEA experience, the one where you wonder why the hell you are fixing or doing stuff that you pay other people to do. He didn't know the aviation code that I know so I had to make do with T for Teruel and A for Albacete which don't have the same ring to them. My keyboard and all the words on the computer are in English so it was a real test for me plus the mobile kept cutting out, and things were going well I thought until he couldn't take it anymore and went off only to come back to tell me that a technician would call and help me. Rather miffed at this I pressed at random a button and Broadband was born.

So the bandstand is undergoing essential repairs and will be ready for Saturday's book fair. There will also be a lunch for all those who have participated throughout the last year with the 'cuentaluengas', or storytelling but it will cot 12 euros which I aint got mate so won't be going.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Well finally we got the router last week but have only managed to get the WI-FI up and running which means I am writing this on my laptop. Broadband seems to evade us and I still don't know what we are doing wrong. We'll try again tomorrow. Life is just a series of sorting out 'stuff' on a greater or lesser scale which leads onto the latest saga with Trafico. Trafico or The Departamento Of. wrote to Henderson with a bill of about 18 euros thanks to the incompetencia of the ITV or MOT as it is known in Britain. For the last seven years his chassis number included the letters SSS when it should have read ZZZ and due to this he has been asked to cough up the above amount. We went to trafico with a friend who happened to know someone else who works there and to cut a very big argument short Henderson decided to just pay up and forget it when said mate told him he should first complain to the MOT lot and try to avoid paying. This is quite unusual in a culture where people don't often like to fill out complaint forms etc so it should be interesting to see who will ultimately get the blame and if he will get reimbursed, Ha!

On the way to trafico we walked through the park and saw that the roof of the bandstand where I am supposed to read childrens' stories on Saturday had collapsed or maybe it's 'en obras', being repaired, as I noticed the stage which surrounds the sculptures which are the symbol of Huesca, Las Pajaritas, has been dug up. The last minute option is often put in place and, with a bit of creativity and elbow grease is executed in time for the celebrations. Said stories will form part of the Feria del libro/Book Fair. Let's hope so.

DON'T CALL US.

'Just think, we'll have WI-FI and you'll be able to write your blog on the balcony' said Henderson in an attempt to to boost my negative attitude towards Telefonica. That was over two weeks ago when we ordered it and since then we have opened an account especially for said cartel. Last Saturday they assured me that despite the other assurance that we would have the 'router' in four days we would have it by last Thursday. Yesterday I got a text from them saying it would be delivered and installed ( despite telling them I would install it as I don't want to pay someone else 90 euros to do it ) on the 15th of June. I went into one of their other shops today and asked them about the Broadband/WI-FI offer in the window and how long does one normally wait for it to be delivered and the girl eagerly told me that it wouldn't be more than four days. The words 'really?' and 'sort it out' were then uttered from me and she has since assured me that I will be sitting on my balcon, laptop and Campari writing away pronto.

Afterwards I went to renew my subscription at the Aragonese Institute and to take out a book entitled Orwell en las Tierras de Aragon by Manuel Benito. I know one of the girls who works there, Elba, and she lent me her pen to sign the required form and I started to put the pen in my bag when I'd finished. 'That's my pen' she said. 'Oh, sorry, well, we are in a recession I suppose'. This seemed to make all the staff within earshot laugh and I realised another glib, unfunny remark is taken as 'el Humor Ingles'. As we left I remarked to Henderson that whenever I am in the Institute, which is about four or five times a year I never see anyone else using the facilities. It is housed in a lovely old building next to the park and I wonder how it is going to continue with the state of the economy as it is.


Later, with class 4B on the verge I played a pub quiz with them but minus the beer which I needed once the class was over. This is the last week as next week it will be too hot for children to go to school in the afternoons here. As they leave the classroom I often hear other teachers telling them 'Don't run!' and I feel a maniacal urge to shout the opposite adding, '..for your lives children!!' what with all the pederasts popping up in all corners of the Catholic world.

YOU'RE GOING STRAIGHT TO HULL.

I think I may have the best translation for the word 'pijo' into English. It means a lot of things which could be loosely described as 'posh' or 'stuck up' but the best one would probably be 'poncey'. I realised this whilst giving an English class the other day when my pupil Raul didn't know what a kettle was. I described it and he said 'oh, you mean a tetera?' which is a teapot but could be translated as a baby's bottle, and when I said 'no, it is before the teapot, it is the thing to boil the water to make the tea', he replied 'que pijos sois', or 'what a bunch of ponces you English are'. I was quite flattered.

Later the same day I found myself in one of those bars that seems to be forever the rage in Spain, the dreaded 'retro' bar. This one was modelling itself on a sort of Irish-cum-Spanish bar with mock sepia photos of 'quite a while ago' but calls itself 'Friends International' or something like that, don't want to give them too much free publicity, not that they need it as it is always packed to the Sallies. It is a smoking bar like most in Spain and serves 'tostadas' which may or may not be 'tostados' as I am forever forgetting to memorise words by associating them into something feminine or masculine. I do this a lot with words such as cenicero which I called cenicera for a while until I made it a macho object by remembering it with an image of the Marlboro man. I have doubts whether this method works especially when most Spanish women smoke like bastards. While I was there I found out a friend is off to Hull to do a summer camp or assist on one of these trips the Spanish kids like to do by spending a fortuna and ending up with the family from the infierno. I didn't understand where she was going as she pronounced Hull as in Hooool to which I said 'never 'eard of it'. when I realised what she was saying I said 'ahh, Hull, Prescottlandia! Sorry, I am a ponce from the south'. Yet thinking about it later, even those from Hull wouldn't pronounce it Hooool.

Talking of Prescott, I wouldn't mind naming a doggie after him once I can afford to get one, a dog that is, not the pugnacious politician of the same name. The other names on my list being Hastings or Nelson. I am also impressed with just about every Formula One driver's name. Mr Kobayashi, Mr De La Rosa, Mr Sutil et al sound great names for a book or film.

VELVET UNDERGROUND STATION

I've just been watching Cameron and Clegg standing in the garden of Downing Street and wondering if they had plotted this marriage not on the playing fields of Eton or Westminster if they have them,but perhaps in a field somewhere in Norwich in the late eighties after taking some ecstacy. It all seems quite surreal at the moment and I wonder if people will get used to it. It all sounded too good to be true and I can't wait to see this week's Have I Got News For You.


Meanwhile back here it seems Obama has been on the blower to Zapatero to pull his finger out and start cutting and he has proposed to cut the salaries of civil servants including his own. The queues opposite where I live grow by the day as people come to get food and clothing from the charity run there. Most of the people are women and Muslim and quite a few disgruntled gypsies.


Last Saturday we tried to enter the 21st century by upgrading to Broadband or ASDL as it is probably known here. There is a good offer from Telefonica but neither Henderson or I trust them or any other telephone company and were flabbergasted that we would have to give them our bank details from now on instead of turning up at a bank and paying in cash. I feel I am turning into either one of my parents as I didn't understand the new mobile I bought either and ended up paying three euros a day just because I had clicked on a couple of applications to see what they were. The nice young man helped me three days later when I realised what had happened and hopefully has blocked them as it seems jolly expensive trying to keep up with what's going on in the world. The long and the short of it is that we ended opening up a seperate account just for Telefonica so hopefully this weekend I will get or at least start the process of getting WI-FI etc installed.