Banks that like to say yes.

Banks: You can't do with them and you most definitely can't do without

One of the worst

If you were to walk into any United Kingdon bank and inadvertently forget to take of your crash helmet, it's a fairly safe bet a few seconds later you'll lose the tips of a couple or three fingers as a seventeen tonne steel security screen crashes down in a third of a nano-second to protect the nervous cashier. Assuming you've walked in wearing nothing more sinister than a baseball cap, or maybe taken off any potentially offensive headgear outside, then you'll probably be served but not otherwise. Even then though you'll be compelled to converse with the forty six year old virgin behind the four centimetre thick security glasss through three minute circular holes because, bless her, she's scared of catching diphtheria. All of these things pre-suppose that of the forty minutes you still have left of your lunch hour you will actually reach the front of the queue.

Probably no better than most

In Spain, visiting your bank is an altogether more pleasant experience, walk into any branch here, they're all the same, and it's like being shown around an office on your first day of a new job. The usually bright, airy and spacious open plan interiors actually make you feel welcome, and, mine even has a kind of cheery yellow logo to help things along a bit. The difference between the two is stark; if you're lucky, in a typical High Street bank you'll have a narrow and confined space in which to wait, where, you can overhear every word the bloke being served is saying because his back is never more than three feet from you, even if you are the last person in the line of hassled people muttering impatiently.

The differences don't stop there either because the Spanish system is fucking brilliant and simple. You walk in, press a button on a small machine that somehow knows you've arrived and politely asks you to take a ticket. Dotted around the room are big screens which indicate the ticket number for the next customer and the free desk you will be attended to at, most of them also have a sexy little sound effect like something out of 24 so you always have this feeling of making progress. Even the Japs would be impressed. My favourite pastime whilst waiting my turn is to try and guess which svelte cashier I'll go to as the numbers tick down to mine. That's another thing you see, most Iberian banks are just like British Airways and never, ever employ frigid heifers.

Smile, you're in the bank

While customer service is anathema to any HSBC employee in the United Kingdom, for the leggy sylph with an Ultra Brite smile in any Mediterranean Building Society it's second nature; for her, being face to face with a client, money is of minor importance. Apart from the BBVA, who can equal any miserable British high street banking experience, being treated like a valued customer takes some getting used to. Occasionally, you would get to meet an old style English bank manager in his office, guaranteed if you had a business account, nowadays branch managers are too busy meeting Head Office sales targets for pensions,  mortgages and insurance to be bothered with being civil to customers. Something else then that Spain does different. Here, the Director, or Directora if a lady is in charge, has an office for private one to ones as you'd expect, but is equally often to be found on the "shop floor" in plain sight and frequently meets and greets his/her adoring public with a handshake or a kiss on either cheek.

Open plan - all the rage in Spain

It's almost as though that security glass with a pepper pot to speak through entices people to be abusive or aggresive, for me, conversing civilly either side of a desk really is the way to go. Having said that, even out here the crafty sods will still try and sting you at every opportunity. My bank, Caja Mediterráneo, popularly shortened to just three initials is supposed to be a non-profit making organisation, created for charitable and social causes. Oops my mistake. Just a fortnight ago, in a very agreeable small pueblo I tried to use two cards in their cash machine, which clearly had run out of cash, so by rights should really have been called just a machine. Undeterred, three doors down and across the street I used their card in a competitors hole in the wall which did yield my twenty euros. At a price. Next day, I politely suggested to the very attractive cashier, seated behind her IKEA desk in an open plan office, she might like to cancel the 2.40€ charge from yesterday. Her response? A spanish version of "Shag off mate, you should have used our machine somewhere else" or words to that effect.

Apologies for the crap photos but the miserable sods in my local anti-social and uncharitable company refused to let me in with my camera.

Feast and then the famine

Perhaps I’m the only one with that psychosomatic clock which kicks into overdrive as the end of May approaches. Let me explain. You’ve bumbled along happy as Larry since Christmas, sure, at times it’s perhaps been a bit chilly or rainy and you might still need your coat, but generally speaking not much weather wise that a decent pullover and a pair of jeans can’t head off. Then, all of a sudden Easter looms, arrives and passes, at which point things become a tad more complicated because the uncomfortable months are just around the corner. The problem is, everyone knows the Spanish summer is coming; it’s going to be hot and humid and for those that live on the coast, manic and high impact too. This is the point at which that mental timepiece I mentioned earlier begins to mess with the mind. As May gently gives way to June, nothing whatsoever changes discernibly, but the invisible pessimist inside me starts worrying and just doesn’t relent until the sun sets on August and a few hours later rises on September. At this point, the transformation is even more bizarre, an uninvited wave of relief, heaven only knows why, envelopes me simply because I can write the date with a nine and not an eight.

Anyway, for the three months from June to August, quite a few places along the Costa Blanca seaboard resemble Margate, Skegness and Clacton, as the Spanish do what the Brits did years ago before Sir Freddie Laker and Stelios buggered everything up. They head for the seaside. For the old style Bognor Regis, Scarborough and Southend of the 1950’s read Torrevieja, Santa Pola and Guardamar, the only difference being the visitors arrive by car and not the hot, sticky and very full trains of yesteryear. I wish they’d stuck to RENFE; none of our local towns appear able to cope with the influx of cars from as far afield as Bilbao, Madrid and Zaragoza. Unfortunately, every vehicle has a minimum of four occupants, each of whom needs a bed for the duration, feeding for a fortnight, their own personal spot on the beach and the local health centre on standby just in case. Somehow, our popular coastal resorts have to cope and do so brilliantly. It’s not all gloom and doom though, whilst the local law enforcement operatives have to spend quite a bit more of their shifts actually enforcing the law and maintaining order, not simply supping coffee and browsing today’s Marca in a local café, loads of their colleagues fill their boots hoiking away badly parked cars. A bit of a money spinner for the town council then those gruas.

The point is, all good things come to an end, and for the towns of Torre, ‘Pola and Guardamar amongst others, that good thing sounds suspiciously like the “cha-ching, cha-ching” of a cash register rapidly filling up as visitors frantically race to get rid of all their cash before their fortnight on holiday finishes. By about the middle of August everywhere is just about full up; the streets, the restaurants, the beaches, the car parks and the leisure ferries to and from nearby islands, some of which resemble Indian trains with people and animals clinging onto the sides. For three weeks no-one in most kinds of service industry has time to breathe, the pace is relentless and then, suddenly, the last Sunday of the month arrives. Up and down the coast the sound of wheeled suitcases clacking over those pavement tiles you slip over on when it rains is quickly followed by the thump of car boots. Gentlemen, start your engines, it’s time to leave. And so begins the exodus as Madrileños and Basques retrieve the road maps and begin their long treks back to the Capital and San Sebastien, whilst trying not to think about work tomorrow. Meanwhile, tumbleweeds bounce aimlessly along the deserted streets of what were until a few hours ago bustling neighbourhoods, or do they?

Life still goes on though long after the tourists head home to start saving for next years visit, and the first job is cleaning up streets that resemble a football terrace an hour or so after the final whistle. In most of the eating establishments, stressed out, hard working and exhausted staff give themselves a thoroughly well deserved pat on the back and look on with envy as their bosses head off to the bank with suitcases stuffed with cash. The very few Chinese people who haven’t opened a cheap supermarket or a take-away melt away into the ether and take with them their counterfeit DVD’s, all wrapped up in a quilt cover, they’ll be back but not for a few months just yet. With considerably less restaurant customers, the friendly, respectful and not remotely aggressive coloured immigrants “manteros” moth ball their dodgy watches, Lacoste polo shirts and cheap imitation sunglasses to start training in earnest for one of the numerous spring time half marathons around the region, for each of which one of their number will emerge victorious. Permanent residents, not more than three or four in each apartment block, revel in the sound of silence as unruly kids and bickering parents take their temper tantrums and late night domestic quarrels back with them.

One by one, local people tentatively emerge blinking into the still bright sunlight and reclaim “their” spots in favourite cafeterias and slowly begin the onerous task of re-learning how to nurse a coffee for two hours whilst flicking though the provincial newspaper Información. At the bar, Policia Locales, often in threes but more likely in pairs, keep a low profile and chew the fat with a cigarette as life on the, by now, incident free streets outside carries on uninterrupted, the static hiss and chatter of hip mounted radios is ignored as far more important things are talked over. Just down the road, the constant flow of visitors to Tourist Information offices dries to a trickle and hitherto rushed staff members busy themselves looking for menial chores to fend off the onset of boredom, the opportunity to practise English, French, German and a whole host of other European languages now gone for another eight months. On the beach, the “Chiringuito” temporary bars, their work for the season done and dusted, stand boarded up, seemingly abandoned and look pretty sorry for themselves, a far cry from the recent days when the adjacent sands were packed with random strangers laying on towels just feet from one another, periodically wandering back and forth for beers, ices and cold drinks for the kids, the oily whiff of sunblock long gone.

Elsewhere, the flow of traffic on the N332, road which neatly bisects residents out in the campo from their coastal counterparts, is altogether more fluid. A few short weeks ago cars and coaches were crawling along nose to tail, a/c units flogging themselves half to death keeping the occupants oblivious to the sweltering temperatures outside. A little further north, Alicante airport also breathes a huge sigh of relief; a typical summer day at this crucial regional hub resembles twenty four hours shot with time lapse photography. This isn’t any kind of time lapse trickery though, it’s the speed at which flights come and go in real time intervals of two minutes, the arrivals disgorging yet more pasty faced visitors into an already creaking system. Eventually, the balance between incomers and leavers is weighted in favour of the latter and the terminal buildings, never not chaotic at the best of times, settle back into something nearer to normality, whatever that is. The queues at the car hire desks assume manageable proportions and harried staff everywhere have more “time on the ball” free from the interruptions of equally hot and irritable customers and airport users, many of whom have left their manners at home, just one small and often overlooked aspect of being a public servant during the high season.

As the days grow shorter, images of cloudless blue skies and golden beaches immortalised on a million postcards become harder to recall. It’s like the weather gods save the bad stuff for once the tourists have left and unleash bits of everything unpleasant on the unsuspecting citizens; howling gales, biblical rains and, once or twice, storms that leave whole streets submerged underwater. All of this is unseen by those whose contribution to the local economy is immeasurable, their abiding memories aren’t of scraping ice off the car in gloved hands or wrapping up well beneath a huge coat and a scarf. After a few too many weeks of this around the turn of the year, I yearn for the springtime when I can start to worry all over again about trying to survive another summer.

When good neighbours become good friends

In the UK there’s a better than even chance most folk live in a house not attached to another on one or both sides. Sure, they still have neighbours but not everyone owns a dwelling that sits shoulder to shoulder with the next one. In Elche, the city I call home, the residents of my building and the two adjoining it are detached too, from reality most of ‘em. I'll get to that presently though.

Balsa wood - perfect for models, less so for houses

Unfortunately, the same can’t be said of Spain, where, unless you’re mega wealthy with a massive pile out in the campo, apartment buildings are the order of the day. Only the floor of a typical Spanish building is constructed with any substance, the walls get knocked up in twenty minutes from some balsa wood, a dob of putty and a coat of paint. Granted they’re rarely as ramshackle as a similar edifice in say, Cairo, where if somebody farts the whole thing topples sideways, which is very much a good thing, but on the downside the feeble construction methods here never include any kind of sound proofing.

Unsurprisingly, apartments buildings do what it says on the tin, that being a building with apartments, which kind of brings me to the crux of these words, each apartment has an occupant. My block on a busy city centre street only has one flat on each floor which is great, less nice is the fact it’s squidged between other buildings to each side of us and the party walls appear to have been thrown up without any balsa wood, or the putty come to think of it. My girlfriend and I, with whom I co-habit, rarely get drunk, row, play music way too loud or have all night parties, the same can’t be said of my neighbours though who frequently do. Most times all four occur together.

Everybody needs good neighbours

To our left, the bloke next door is an unemployed television addict, just for a laugh I made a note one day of how long his telly was on. I did actually go out for a couple or three hours in the afternoon and can only assume it was still talking to itself, but his Liza Minnelli was in use from ten to seven in the morning until well gone one the following day. Imagine eighteen solid hours of all the bollocks you normally get on UK TV. Directly above we have a middle aged couple and their adult daughter, who, like quite a few grown up Spanish kids, shows no sign of leaving the family home to get her own place. Judging by the frequent arguments, this seems to rankle with her parents. Once a week, as regularly as clockwork, father comes home drunk, you can always tell because he lurches up the communal stairs singing. Badly. His good mood and happy demeanour last about fifteen minutes on average before the neurotic daughter, and occasionally his wife, kick off a huge argy. War is eventually followed by Peace. They also have a dog who I don’t think has ever been outside, certainly for the past three years at least. I think Rover, the agoraphobic mongrel, must be mute because I’ve never heard him bark, not once. In the absence of fresh air and a chance to exercise in the park, what he does is tear arse up and down their hall for ages on end. I wish they’d cut the little shih-tzu's toe nails because it sounds like the Grand National up there.

Bob only works nights

Then there's the bloke who thinks nothing of getting his hammer or Black & Decker out whenever the urge to put up a shelf, torture his cat or repair his motorcycle on the lounge floor becomes irresistable. That's the problem with urges, they kind of take over and not even someone with the willpower of Uri Geller can resist them. In the case of Bob the (selfish) Builder that may well be as late as eleven at night. Good neighbours becoming good friends? probably not likely anytime soon. As I suggested at the top of this entry, the people living near me populate their own little worlds where no-one else exists. This then, in their closed minds, makes it perfectly acceptable to behave like inconsiderate tossers.  

Spain's mean streets.

I believe that the man who introduced moped's to the Iberian Peninsula should be taken out the back to have his bollocks drilled off. Some more of that in a bit though. As an adopted home, Spain is truly fabulous and so are it's people. I just wish they'd kept the horse and cart and never evolved into motorists.

The scores on the door

Spain has and does, at a conservative estimate, about a thousand things better than the UK, way too many to mention individually so you're going to have to trust me on that. Quite often though the smallest things are the most irritating, especially on the roads, which is where the indigenous drivers excel themselves, not!!  The clues are there and you don't really need to go looking for them. Take for example the Spanish motorways, every fifteen kilometres or so you'll pass huge luminescent red display boards with useful information to assist people on their journey. On a slow news day, these same boards helpfully inform the pilots of passing cars and trucks how many people have been killed over the previous week-end on the roads. For me, reading that kind of shit is quite sobering, not so it seems for everyone. Shortly after Easter and during all of July and August that big red number can hit three figures as folk from inland head for the coast in their millions, frequently leaving their brains behind in Madrid or wherever.

Elche's new traffic concept - the truck lane

A green man only means  "I dare you" 

In town it isn't much safer either, I know this because I live in a small sized city, where, the only difference is cars and stuff are compelled to go slightly slower by the sheer volume of traffic. The reduced speed doesn't necessarily mean car drivers will obey annoying things like traffic lights or pedestrian crossings either, far from it. Only the lucky few avoid being a bonnet mascot on various SEAT models. In my large town, the fabulous Elche, we have bus lanes, the purpose of which is to encourage more use of public transport, and by association less car usage, because the designated routes are unimpeded, nope!!  For some it's an overtaking lane or convenient place to stop whilst dashing into and out of a shop, I know this too because I've done it! Zebra crossings also mean very little to the natives in my world, to many it's just an attractively painted piece of street on which to leave the car.

Terry Fuckwit's new moped

Now, back to those mopeds, which, in Spain appear to come with two optional extra's, stealth mode and no indicators. The indicator thing I can live with because cars here are the same and I've become an expert at guessing their intentions and jumping back onto the pavement when I get it wrong. The effort involved in deploying eight muscles and a third of a second to flick the stalk up or down is clearly far too onerous, but I digress. Assuming you manage to negotiate that left or right turn without being t-boned in the passenger door by a moped that wasn't in the bus lane the last four times you checked the wing mirror, you may well come across a stationary car in the street without an occupant. It seems it's perfectly okay to just abandon your vehicle anywhere you fancy with no thought for other road users who have to attempt to pass because you thoughtfully put the hazard lamps on. I kid you not, a few weeks back a bloke left his van double parked in a street with cars either side just to spend twenty minutes in a cafeteria with a large glass of wine and a small beer before work. If you get lucky and manage to park on the street within ten minutes of beginning the search, (my personal best is over thirty minutes of cruising round and round town whilst desperate for a pee), don't be too smug. The chances are very high that the space either end of your motor you allowed yourself in order to get out will have been used by a brain damaged moped owner, if you're really unlucky, and this happens, his or her equally dim witted brother or sister will have abandoned his or her hog in the gap at the other end too.

Safer in Calcutta

Periodically, the people in charge in the Town Hall change the side of the street on which you are permitted to park, no seriously, they do. Quite why no-one has adequately explained to me, but imagine trying to turn left into a one-way street and it just so happens this month cars can park on the left hand side of the road. You edge out and edge out and have to trust to luck you aren't going to get a moped rider airborne anytime soon. The chance would be a fine thing.

In fairness, it's way too easy to criticise my adopted country, sure, the lack of road manners is infuriating but I wouldn't want to live anywhere else in the world.

The Hurt Game comes to Benidorm

Sweat glisten under the floodlights

For most of the Brits present, this was the first time they had stepped foot inside a bullring, but oh what a bullring. Steeped in history, looking slightly scruffy, and decorated by the National colours of red and yellow, the perfect circle of its whitewashed stone steps was interrupted only by four mature spruce trees. Madison Square Gardens it isn’t but the Plaza de Toros in Benidorm was the venue for an evening of International boxing featuring one or two local favourites. On this occasion the viewing public could expect to see six somewhat fairer contests.

Double world champion Joe Calzaghe, looking unfeasibly handsome, was the guest of honour for the evening, greeted like an old mate by complete strangers, he patiently posed for photographs and signed autographs for his lengthening queue of admirers, just as well actually, because in traditional Spanish style proceedings began about ninety minutes late.

Lisbon bouncer Avalindo Vira

With the opening bouts out of the way, two uneventful five round affairs, featuring what looked like fourteen year olds, into the ring stepped 32 year old Briton Robert Lyndon from Daya Nueva for only his second fight. His opponent, a suspiciously tubby Avalindo Vira from Portugal, would have been better suited to the stage of Benidorm Palace just down the road, his efforts were more suited to a pantomime than any serious attempt at sport. After five lacklustre rounds, Lyndon emerged victorious with an easy points win. Somehow he managed to stay upright for the final three minutes despite being caught flush in the plums by a booming left hand, a punch which probably started the journey to his knackers from somewhere near La Villajoyosa, fifteen kilometres down the road. Thinking about it, Vira’s training regime is probably limited to a bit of sparring with aspiring locals outside a Lisbon nightclub at 3am on a Friday and Saturday where he minds the door.

Next up, “La Sensacion” local Spaniard Kiko Martinez, thirty seconds later, with his opponents record now reading 7 fights – 7 losses, the Alicante man went for a wander amongst his adoring public without even bothering to shower and change. I’d hardly describe his gold tasselled shorts as sensational but wouldn’t recommend saying so to his face.

The best fight of a highly entertaining evening was between Sento Martinez and Armando Candel; two Costa Blanca based Spaniards who clearly don’t see eye to eye. This old fashioned tear up was fantastic and worth the admission money by itself. Toe to toe, the action was relentless, each lighting fast hammer blow sending sprays of sweat, glistening under the powerful lights, four rows back from ringside. Scheduled to last eight rounds, the contest ended controversially with a badly cut Candel unable to continue. Everywhere else in the boxing world, the retiree is declared loser on a Technical Knockout, under Valencian regulations however, the fighter ahead on points at the time of the stoppage is declared the winner, in this case Candel. Bit of a shame that because judging by the insults hurled between the two corners afterwards, both men seemed very eager to continue.

Two adult returns to Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch please

With ample time on the journey home to reflect on what I’d just witnessed, my thoughts were dominated by how unfair it is that one man, Calzaghe, can be so good looking, wealthy and hard. Quite possibly the toughest thing to come out of Wales since the language!!!  

Living in sin, sorry, Elche.

I liked living by myself, I could take my laptop or newspaper to the bog when I wanted to park my dinner, I could fart whenever I wanted to, and I never used to bollock myself for leaving the loo seat up or shaving stubble in the bathroom sink. Life was simple and I could watch telly in bed and if I fell asleep with it still talking to itself, I’d save myself a job turning it back on again in the morning.

Elche - my new home town for the foreseeable future

Within the space of about three short Christmas weeks, yours truly went from being a porn surfing, beer swilling, pizza eating, loud music aficionado single man in a vast seafront apartment to domestic bliss in the centre of what is really a very agreeable small city. The thing is there’s so much more to that statement than is immediately obvious. When you move in with the girlyfriend, however hard you try it’s always a bit like losing some old, unhealthy habits and quickly trying to acquire some new, altogether better ones.

A baffling machine

Let me explain, simple things like I had no idea what a vegetable was two or three months or so ago and now I look forward to them, pizza once a week on a Friday night, instead of daily, is eagerly awaited and once I’d figured out where to buy the Daily Telegraph on a Saturday things began to look up. On the down side, kitchens and the notion of cooking food has always scared me; with a fairly compliant girlfriend, day one of the new living arrangements involved ground rules, which were, you cook and I’ll tidy up afterwards, no need to waste perfectly good grub trying to make me cook it heh? Having said that, our mutually agreed simple etiquette wasn’t without complications, like most organised ladies, she who must be obeyed also has a dishwasher. Given that I’m the sort of bloke that a washing machine strikes the fear of God into, I leave well alone the difficult process of pressing three buttons in the right order and limit my contribution to loading it and putting stuff away afterwards. For sure something I’ve put away in the wrong place which will have long since been replaced and she’ll end up with two because she stumbled across the first one I inadvertently hid.

Carrefour supermarket - not the cheapest

Overall, I can’t believe the huge upheaval in my life has gone so well, sure it’s still a bit strange seeing my books and CD’s on different shelves and my sea view has been replaced by a BBVA branch, but Elche is an amazing place and everywhere nice is within walking distance. At this point it would probably be courteous to extend a sincere apology to the lads at San Miguel and Marlboro whose plummeting share prices coincided with me no longer being a single man living alone. Things though could have been so much different; a week after I moved in the good lady asked me to take her “somewhere expensive” so I did. When we got to Carrefour she bloody moaned!!