Losing the will to live

Simply writing these words brings back painful memories of a recent morning I'd much rather forget but can't.

I bungled

From time to time in Spain, whether you'd prefer to or not, the occasional brush with officialdom  is unavoidable and, by association, so too is the ordeal the experience quickly becomes. It was my turn the other day! Those awfully decent people at SERVEF, the Valencian employment agency, requested the pleasure of my company for a face to face conversation about a matter we'd been communicating over for weeks by mail. Because they're the kind of organisation it's best to keep onside, I readily agreed. My obsequious 'tactical' agreement was shortly to become the mother of all blunders.

A nice Moroccan man explained the system

The morning started off alright, like most of mine do, with coffee and toast in an agreeable cafeteria near to my house, thereafter it got steadily worse and my leisurely brekkie was quickly forgotten. Being somewhat new to Government agencies catering for the self employed and those with no work at all, I didn't think anything of the lengthy line of people all clutching various pieces of paper. Until I reached the SERVEF office that is, where, spookily the queue ended and a swarthy Moroccan bloke playfully suggested "I f*** off to the back of the line and wait like everyone else!"  "Sure thing" I meekly agreed., before retracing my steps for a good three furlongs.

Argos - a system that really caught on in Spain

When eventually I made it into the rather depressing surroundings, where, unknowingly I was about to spend the next four and a bit hours fighting the urge to top myself, I appeared to have been joined by most of the population of Elche. Spain being Spain, and it doesn't matter whether you're in a bank, the butchers, the Post Office or a mobile phone shop, the system is simple and it works a treat. You take a numbered ticket, park your arse and wait to be called or simply keep an eye on giant screens. A bit like Argos in the UK I suppose. Unfortunately, SERVEF seem to have a bit of an evil system featuring two different prefixes, 'A' and 'P', on the numbered tickets. I quickly established the sixteenth letter and not the first was what I needed and my speed on the uptake was rewarded with P042

Forty five minutes after I joined the heaving mass of unemployed Elche humanity, the green screen indicating which waiting client wouild be atttended to next had ticked along, at glacial speed, to P003. Meanwhile, the altogether more fortunate bearers of 'A' sequence tickets barely had time to spark up a conversation with the person next to them as their big red screen galloped up to number A044. With all that time on my hands, I'd long since given up on the game I play in the bank by trying to guess which cashier will serve me, in favour of sussing out the waiting punters. That proved to be altogether more interesting.

In an apparent act of defiant refusal to give in to his circumstances laced with a huge dollop of personal pride, one bloke seemed to have turned up in his best togs; matching Armani polo shirt and chino's combined with a pair of stylish brown loafers. His appearance was in stark contrast to the rest of the assembled customers.

The old girl tried to make friends

Posh boy clearly got lucky because within fifteen minutes he'd been and gone, unfortunately, the same couldn't be said for the talkative, big built lady that I initially thought worked there. It turned she was just a bit of a busybody with no life who absolutely loved the sound of her own voice! Sat next to the ticket machine, desperate to be somewhere else, I was a prime target for random strangers who couldn't figure out how to operate the thing, thankfully the old fish wife was soon on hand to put her ample nervous energy to one more good use. The problem with folk like her is that once you even offer a flicker of acknowledgement they're in like Flynn, behave like they've known you for years and really do persevere. In the end I scarpered for a coffee.

The moment my number came up

She was still there talking shit to anyone who would listen forty minutes later. On the upside, when I got back there were considerably fewer people, the 'P' screen had racked up 31 not out and every recipient of an 'A' ticket was being seen immediately. An hour or so earlier, cursing myself for not bringing my shaving kit, I was starting to worry I might even have to spend christmas, still five months away yet, in this godforesaken place. All of a sudden, with closing time rapidly approaching, (Spanish civil servants knock off at 1400), three additional staff miraculously became available and for the itinerants, me too, things began to look up. Then, about ten minutes before last orders, the unthinkable happened and P042 clicked into view, an event I witnessed with childlike excitement.

Less than ninety seconds later, the time it took an extremely helpful lady to photocopy my passport and green residency certificate, it was all over and, in something of a dazed state I emerged back into the daylight, blinking like a Chilean miner. I've still got that poxy ticket!!

A world of sport

The Spanish World Champion is still awaited

Way back in the mists of time, when I was a much younger and fitter man, at certain times of the year, one or two televised sporting events would kind of prick my conscience and inspire me to copy the paid professionals off the box. Mid to late April was always a favourite period because at this time of year Sheffield always hosted the World Snooker Championship and, yup, you've guessed it,I'd take my bat down to the snooker hall and try and emulate Steve Davis. The realisation I was a bit shite soon kicked in though and within about six weeks, quite often sooner, I'd turn my attentions to a different ball game, just in time for the Wimbledon fortnight.

English footy fans/Spanish cyclists, not a lot of difference really. in the beer gut stakes.

Tennis too was soon added to the list of sports I really enjoyed, had a bit of a bash at, and quickly discovered I'd never be much good at. Following a three hour and five set marathon, (that I lost), a badly sun burnt me retired gracefully on a gallant defeat. Nowadays, I've grown out of all that stuff and, aside from the very occasional game of golf in late spring, (just about when The Masters is televised), I've not hit a ball of any kind in anger for quite a while. Thinking about it, there's probably not a better phrase anywhere to describe my lack of sporting prowess than "hitting -  snooker, tennis or golf - balls in anger". In Spain there is a sizeable group of people, middle aged and slightly overweight men in the main, who should have done what I did but still haven't. For them, professional cyclists are the inspiration and they don't look like growing out of their adulation anytime soon either.

Aspe cycling club - 2011 team foto

As the weather warms up, more and more of these otherwise perfectly sensible blokes squeeze their portly frames into luridly coloured spandex clobber, climb aboard their expensive looking bikes and ride off into the sunrise. Unfortunately, they seem to do this every weekend in increasingly large numbers and in the process completely forget about, or more to the point ignore, other road users. July hereabouts is always something of a misery because for three weeks the Tour de France takes place and is beamed live and direct into households around the country, thereby provoking even more interest amongst the Spanish cycling fraternity. Not being weighed down by an over abundance of patience, you can probably imagine my state of mind when just last weekend I had the misfortune to chance across a latter day Miguel Indurain and about fifteen of his mates.

A recent view from behind my steering wheel

I have a regular Saturday morning appointment at nine o'clock in Aspe, the next small town west of Elche about twelve kilometres away. Getting there was fine, I didn't even have one of those heart stopping moments that catching sight of one of the many random Guardia Civil drink driving controls, (a feature of Spanish motoring), usually induces after a skinful the night before..The journey home though became something of an ordeal as Big Mig and his peloton of cronies, all dressed like fucking Power Rangers, bimbled along four abreast oblivious to the lengthy and increasingly frustrated queue of motorists behind headed by yours truly. So slowly were they moving I had time to steer with my knees, retrieve my mobile phone from my pocket and loose off three or four perfectly focussed photos of the inconsiderate group of two wheeled tossers.

You can trust the driver of this vehicle

In that situation, being first car back is quite a responsibility you know and the decisions come thick and fast. In actual fact, of these two adjectives, only the former couild be applied to the posse up front because they certainly weren't pedalling very quickly. Their leisurely speed therefore presented me with something of a dilemma; whether to patiently wait and continue to crawl along or attempt a risky overtake without knowing how long their train stretched out before me. Five minutes and less than a kilometre of contemplation later, the decision was made for me, when, on a reasonably straight bit of road, the black SEAT Leon directly behind me dropped it down to second and came blatting past. 'Sod it' I thought, and, trusting to luck, I slipstreamed the very young looking pilot. Thankfully, I had chosen to follow one of only nine Spanish car drivers in the entire country with his wits about him, who, not only passed the lycra clad pensioners but kept going at full chat so as to allow me to pull in too.

Imagine the "fun" I'm going to have when the Tour of Spain, (La Vuelta de España) starts in the last week of August. Perhaps that would be a good time to buy a bike!!

Gizza job

Everybody moans and groans about their job at some point don't they? it's human nature. Unless you're say, the Pope or Cristiano Ronaldo, both of whom only have to step outside their respective front doors to get mobbed by thousands, job satisfaction appears to be pretty hard to come by. Obviously, there's already a Holy Father and Real Madrid don't need any more diving cheats, so where does that leave the rest of us? Well, judging by some of the employment opportunities in Spain, on that one I'd have to say better off than most, truth be told.

Destination United Kingdom

Spain doesn't have as generous a welfare system as the United Kingdom so for this reason it isn't as popular with Somali's and sundry other bogus asylum claimants, the majority of whom know Article 8 of the Human Rights Act off pat before they even clamber down from the back of the trailer at Dover. Unemployment benefit does exist in Spain but to claim it you have to have paid into the system for at least a year beforehand. If you can't provide payslips, (nominas), to substantiate the claim and prove exactly what contributions have been made then you're going to be out of luck. With a safety net with that many holes in, it's hardly surprising therefore an underclass of citizen exists in Spanish towns and cities who scratch a meagre living any way they can. So tomorrow, when you head back to the office, shop or wherever else it is you do your complaining, spare a thought for a few of these poor buggers, or better still, a few of the even poorer buggers, (me for example), that same underclass of citizen regularly aggravates.

Except if they work near Elche hospital

I shouldn't really denigrate the efforts of others to earn a few quid for themselves, but to be perfectly honest, some people don't do much if anything to garner sympathy for their cause. Take for example, and I so wish somebody in authority would, the car parking "helpers" This group are invariably found close to large public and busy buildings or anywhere guaranteed a half decent crowd. Elche hospital is one such example where parking the car is notoriously difficult. Their modus operandi for want of a better phrase is to stand in the road and helpfully point out a parking space you've already seen and were going to use anyway. If it's quite a small gap, by means of dramatic hand signals, they'll enthusiastically assist as you back in inch by inch. Proud of yourself for getting it in there pretty straight, you emerge from your immaculately parked car to be met by an outstretched palm expecting at least a euro to be placed there. That filthy palm belongs to the hobo you almost ran over. I once had a massive row with one of these itinerants outside the Rico Perez football stadium in Alicante, refused to hand over anything and then proceeded not to enjoy Hercules versus Tenerife because I was shit scared the mush outside had damaged my car.

Splash and dash at the lights

Quite a few large Spanish towns have major thoroughfares, these are frequently two lane jobbies, with traffic lights to disrupt the flow of vehicles. The problem is when the smooth progress of motorists has been interrupted by, say, a red light which really can't be ignored, from nowhere comes a horde of bucket and sponge wielding carwashers. Whether you want them to or not, they then proceed to remove all the dead flies and crap of your windscreen, again in exchange for a handful of small coins or a couple of euros. In the approximately thirty seconds it takes for the lights to change, these extremely well practised folk can knock off four or five shampoos and sets, and, given the time available to them, they do a really good job. So too though can my windscreen wipers and washer bottle and these two are nowhere near as aggressive as the South Americans outside. Over time and because I know many of the likely ambush spots, some of which you just can't avoid, I've become pretty adept at second guessing the old red, amber and green. This invariably entails either absolutely blatting it past, a split second after the Spanish Highway Code demands I stop or hanging back in second gear two hundred metres from the junction before picking up the revs and cruising past with a cheery wave of my middle finger.

Slightly whiffy in the summer

Perhaps the most unfortunate of all the people who have fallen between the pretty wide cracks of the Spanish system are the late night bin scavengers, the hours are shitty, and, judging by the clothes they wear the work isn't that well paid either. Unike the United Kingdom, where household refuse is collected every three weeks if the weather isn't too bad, Spain has a daily trash collection, (usually in the early hours of the morning), with a weekly run for things like paper and glass. At this point it's worth mentioning, just for clarity, that our towns and cities have huge neighbourhood bins every couple or three blocks for the entire local community to make use of. This then represents a heaven sent opportunity for the less fussy to go rummaging through before the arrival of the nightly truck, (in the heat of summer the scent is sometimes altogether different and fucking horrible)!! The occasionally pungent aroma doesn't deter the intrepid scroungers though, who can often be seen, late into the evening, wielding long sticks, supermarket trolleys for their plunder and all manner of metal objects liberated from the piles of debris left at the side of colour coded skip thingy's. I've even seen tiny kids emerging empty handed from the receptacles after unsuccessful sortie's

Why not let Judy decide?

I'll finish up with a true story, or at least I think it is, about a couple who appeared on the Spanish equivalent of Judge Judy. The television show is called De Buena Ley, (A good law), and airs on Telecinco, the national channel five. A couple of weeks back it featured a bloke suing his wife because he objected to her job. Which was, wait for it, a sex line operator! So there you go, some people aren't simply content with bitching about their own work - this ungrateful sod saw fit to moan about his old lady's efforts for the family budget too.

Elche: City of..............

 ............a million palm trees and hardly any British people. Obviously there's loads of other stuff because more than 200,000 people live here, but I just used those two as my examples to grab your attention. A few blog entries ago, I can't recall which one otherwise I would have linked to it, I rather sarcastically suggested Elche only has two good things about it; a football club and the bypass on the edge of town. Some weeks after that rather stroppy event, I realise I was completely mistaken, should have chosen my words rather more carefully, and did my smashing adopted city a bit of a disservice. So here goes with my belated attempt to make amends.

A fabulous Moorish legacy

I've already done to death things that really bother me about the place, but what I would just add to that statement is check out this article a friend recommended, it's about a small Welsh town the author could easily have replaced with Elche. Anyway, I'll bash on now in an altogether more positive tone about the city. Over time it's been home to various invaders, many of whom have left their own legacies. A couple of thousand years ago the Romans arrived and promptly called the place "Illice" (pronounced ee-ye-they with the 'th' of they spoken very softly), to this day locals are still known as Ilicitano's or, for a single female, Ilicitana. Next up to try their luck were invading armies of North African Arabs, (Moors), who, upon finding very little sand and no dates, began to feel somewhat homesick. Their little leaving gift, just prior to being kicked out by some angry Christians, was hundreds of thousands of palm trees, which, these days are protected by law. The Greeks too also had a brief stay and nowadays one or two local organisations still bare the name Helike, although this Grecian handle is nowhere near as prevalent as the much better known Roman moniker.

Altamira Castle - in the heart of Elche city centre

Right bang up to date, estimates put the population of Elche, twinned with Toulouse in France and Oran in Algeria, at anywhere between 210,000 and 250,000 people; it's not at all scientific but taking the mean of these two puts it on a par with the city of Derby in the UK. I've never actually been to Derby, I'm sure it's really nice, given the choice though I'll stick with Elche, dog shit and graffiti notwithstanding, it's the kind of city that looks and feels old, I quite like that. Packed with historic buildings, and architectural gems, including Altamira Castle and the Basilica of Santa Maria, Elche combines the very best of ancient and modern, which are at ease with each other sitting side by side in comfort.

The Elche Alicante Santa Pola triangle, far safer than the one in Bermuda

Geographically, Elche is give or take twenty kilometres inland from one of my most favourite places, Santa Pola, the resort and fishing port that I once called home. Imagine, if you will, a triangle with these two places as the bottom corners, at the top about the same distance away and also on the coast is Alicante, the provincial capital. Rather curiously, folk from each of the three places aren't that fond of each other; so much so that I have it on reasonably good authority that not long back an Elche businessman was compelled to close his cafeteria/bar in Santa Pola because the locals refused to use it. Urban myth it may be but certainly one with a little credibility. (Is that not an oxymoron?).

A beauty spot within a beauty spot

I have to say, I first came to Elche for a day out years ago not long after arriving in Spain and, truth be told, I hated it. The city centre had a complicated one-way system, car parking was, (and still is bloody expensive), and on a stifling hot August day, I was scrabbling around for shade in a city I didn't know well. A very cleverly engineered chance encounter in April 2007 changed that biased opinion and since then I've grown to understand and love a very underrated small city. Elche doesn't have the cache of say, Granada or Salamanca, two of the more famous and historic Spanish cities, but it's no less nice. Visitor numbers are increasing year on year, and, thanks to a town council with an abundance of the handy pairing of civic pride and nous, so too are the amenities and attractions on offer. What doesn't half help to raise the Elche profile is the title, (in Spanish); Patrimonio de la Humanidad. Bestowed upon the city by UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, it's a World Heritage award given to the Elche Palmeral Park, a fabulous green oasis, one of many, in the heart of the city. For first time visitors, this ungrateful sod excepted, that is just the start of the surprises.

I wonder if they do mature students

Educational, Scientific and Cultural sum up Elche pretty well perfectly in just three words. A leisurely stroll through the city centre and beyond offers up a wall to wall cultural experience second to none, you can also add to that half decent culinary and shopping experiences too. Educational is taken care of in fine style by not just one but two seats of learning. The Miguel Hernandez University, (UMH), is a publicly funded facility that enjoys a burgeoning reputation with five campuses shared around the region, one of which is situated in Orihuela, birthplace of the Spanish poet after whom the University is named. The second, University Cardinal Herrera - CEU, is a private establishment and altogether smaller. It's the first of these two that does the business with the scientific in the shape of institutions specialising in neuroscience, bio-engineering and all matters biological, molecular and cellular amongst loads of other really complicated stuff.

The Basilica of Santa Maria

2011 is my fourth year living in Elche, and, having been so rude about the place a while back I hope these words have painted an altogether more flattering picture. I certainly intended them to. During the creation of this blog entry I've done quite a bit of walking around and it's only when you stop and stare that you can appreciate your surroundings. I live no more than five minutes away from the very best the city can offer and it's only recently I've started to realise how lucky I am. If you get the chance do pop by, Elche won't disappoint. As I began to say at the start, it's a city of so much.