I had been planning to go to the council offices today to pay the rates….best to get the pain over as quickly as possible. Last year they rose like a vertical take off jet out of control – there should have been a bottle of smelling salts on the counter – so I can’t say I was very optimistic about this year’s likely outcome.
However, I was spared the journey. Local news showed the gates to the offices firmly shut as the police are raiding the joint – and not before time!
There have long been rumours of dirty work at the crossroads – though given the neglect of any roads which do not lead to councillors’ properties perhaps another phrase should be sought – through a succession of mayors, but the current one takes the biscuit.
Her involvement with the loathsome meter parking scheme is, it is suggested, but the tip of an iceberg – and this would seem to be the case, given that the police are also raiding her joint, removing papers and computers. They appear to be raiding every unit associated with the council, including the works yard on the outskirts of the little town and, mysteriously, a heavy goods vehicle repair garage on the other side of the country. The staff in offices of an associated body tried to block the doors to prevent access -goodness only knows what that was in aid of – but the police prevailed.
The current mayor is – or was – standing as a member of the National Assembly in the forthcoming general election, but ‘in the interests of transparency’ is no longer associated with her party, whose view is that the whole thing is the result of an internal problem in the body of the council – move along, nothing to see there – but, to be on the safe side, to accept the situation as it relates to the forthcoming election.
Considering that the investigation is said to be founded on suspicion of money laundering, traffic of influence, award of contracts and dubious goings on using council heavy machinery that might have been a wise move.
Still, they may be right about internal problems giving rise to the investigation…..there has been a well publicised falling out which ended up in going to court …..and who better than an insider to know where the bodies are buried. But not, I hope, by the council’s heavy machinery.
Early local reaction has been varied….’Gotcha!’ being a popular choice, while others doubt whether she will be carted off in the dog van as her party has a stranglehold on the judicial system from which she will emerge like the phoenix.
My favourite response came from a lady who could not imagine why there was an investigation as the current mayor was only following in the footsteps of her predecessors –
Thank you for keeping me company through the past year…..your comments usually beat the original post!
May I wish you all a merry Christmas, in whatever way you like to celebrate it, and hope you enjoy this carol, from the pub carol tradition of the Sheffield area….
And just to improve the shining hour, the transport police, backed by the regular and municipal police – however did they dig that lot out of their cosy billets, one wonders- have been conducting a ‘drive safely for Christmas’ campaign in the little town and nearby surrounds.
By its effects, it should have been entitled ‘you won’t be driving anywhere for Christmas’, as they have been running a blitz from morning to night – even at lunchtime – and in the rain, to which they are normally as allergic as the gendarmerie in rural France, checking driving licences, insurance stickers and roadworthiness certificates with a zeal which has driven anyone forewarned to stay at home or seek the back roads. Thus a remarkable increase of traffic on the road in front of the house by which one can escape from one end of the town and emerge well down the main road on the other ….as long as you are on the radio network to make sure the rozzers are not lying in wait for you between the offices of the Tribunal Suprema de Elecciones and the Cabinas Escarlatas – ‘total discretion, hot water, television and make your own earthquakes’ as you try to take the next rat run via the old bull ring.
This does not bode well for local traders. As if the parking meters were not enough, we have just had the Feria de Chicharrones where miniscule gobbets of fried pork are hidden under mounds of yucca and cabbage and sold for eye watering prices to visitors maddened on beer and guaro. Centre of the town closed off for over a week, and now, just as things were recovering, the ‘safety’ campaign! Even if you have all the requisite bits of paper, you hesitate to venture into town in case you inadvertently park on what was once a yellow line which disappeared years ago, but still exists on the maps used by the polizei. The only safe places are the two supermarket car parks, and Don Julio’s private one, but none are convenient for lugging bags of Christmas tat from the shops in the centre.
So tomorrow I shall be heading into the maelstrom of San Jose to do the end of year essentials…..pay the rates, drop into the cheapo cheapo emporium to stock up on joints for the water system in case of problems during the holiday period, buy sacks of chicken carcasses, giblets and ox kidneys for the dogs and, if all goes well, drop into an upmarket supermarket on the way out in a search of proper – not vegan – shortbread and oatcakes…..this the limit of my Christmas shopping.
Long gone are the days when I would be expecting a number of people over the holidays…..long gone the days of making black bun and boning and stuffing a pig’s head to be cooked in the oven and served cold as a cut and come again, let alone a Yorkshire Pie. It will be a quiet Christmas and New Year……new reading laid up ready, tea and shortbread, and cricket on the radio!
Further to improve the shining hour I just turned from the laptop to check my bag for tomorrow’s excursion and, as my eye passed over the table, discovered that the pork I had put out to defrost in order to cook a goulash in the slow cooker tonight had disappeared. Just a damp mark left on the table – and every dog looking innocent and lying still……I shall have to up my game!
Herrick could have warned me…had I remembered his poems about Christmastide….
Come, guard this night the Christmas pie, That the thief, though ne’er so sly, With his flesh-hooks don’t come nigh To catch it.
From him who all alone sits there, Having his eyes still in his ear, And a deal of nightly fear, To watch it.
That is exactly what I have been for the past few months…..in and out of hospitals like a fart in a colander – ever had the impression that they would rather you did not take up residence? – in and out of – mostly in – wheelchairs, and decidedly fed up with life. If that was it, I thought, better to nip down to the motorway and propel myself out into the traffic.
This being Costa Rica, however, that was but a pipe dream.
The motorway in question, leading to the capital, consists of many gated toll stations, where those who wish to pay in cash are herded into the least advantageous of the starting stalls for the race to find a place in the two lane highway – which only opens up again to give access to yet another toll station. These two lanes have access from any number of secondary roads – for those not wishing to pay the tolls – supermarket access lanes and various commerces who seem to have built their own parallel roads, much used by drivers of bus services desperately trying to keep to their schedules.
Given that, and the fact that a slight accident brings the whole shebang to a halt until a traffic policeman can reach the site to take statements, pushing oneself into the path of moving traffic in the hope of anihilation is, as I say, but a pipe dream.
Accordingly, I have been reading…..revisiting old favourites, having a bash at books rashly bought after being recommended by ‘The Guardian’ and throwing them aside once more, upbraiding myself for wasting my money on navel gazing tripe and downloading books from Amazon. I don’t like Amazon’s business model, decidedly disapprove of my money going to keep Bezos in expensive tarts, but have found no other alternative. I used to order from ‘Better World Books’ – first from the U.S. and then from the U.K. as they had free postage, but the gilt wore off their gingerbread many moons ago. I would order from the U.S. ‘sale’ list…..and the order would not arrive. Call BWW, ‘oh it must be in customs’…..Customs my backside…it had never been sent. Tried the U.K. outlet, which was much better, and then came the Covid scare and the postal business collapsed. I have looked since, and the prices, even given the free international postage, are exorbitant.
Thus, then, the television.
The BBC.
Which seems to have got itself into something of a pickle.
Back in the 1990s it had a world beating scoop. Its leading news programme, ‘Panorama’ broadcast an interview with the then Princess of Wales in which she laid bare her version of her marriage, leading to subsequent separation and divorce.
Despite considerable doubt being expressed as to just how the interview had been obtained, the BBC stuck to its guns that all had been above board following an internal enquiry.
However, doubt remained, especially on the part of the princess’ brother, Earl Spencer, and in 2021 an enquiry led by a senior judge found that the journalist responsible, Martin Bashir, had shown her falsified documents, claiming that her closest members of staff were being paid to spy on her. Despite the BBC claiming to have a document from the princess absolving Mr. Bashir, the judge found that he had been guilty of deceit and in breach of BBC editorial guidlines, while the internal enquiry was found to be ‘woefully ineffective’.
Her sons maintain that the paranoia induced by the production of the false documents led to their mother’s refusal of proper protection which in turn contributed to her death.
The BBC were obliged to pay damages to a number of persons traduced in the interview, but despite a judge finding that their reaction to a freedom of information request into documentation surrounding the interview had been ‘inconsistent erroneous and unreliable’ the BBC continued to maintain that they had not acted in bad faith.
Well, water long under the bridge you might think…the royal family can huff and puff as much as it wishes…as far as the BBC in concerned it ‘was in another country and besides, the wench is dead’.
But now someone with much more huff and puff has come along with the BBC in his sights.
President Trump.
Who may be in another country, but is very much alive.
In the between election period of January 2021 in the United States, people apparently questioning the legitimacy of the result entered the buildings of the Capitol, with resulting violence.
President Trump was addressing crowds in the area on that day and in reportage prepared for the BBC by an independent production company – October Films Ltd. – and subsequently broadcast it appeared that two sections of film had been joined, the effect of which showed him advocating violence.
It now appears that the two sections dealt with differing periods in the day and that no such advocation of violence was made.
The matter had been drawn to the attention of the BBC by one of its own employees but decided that as there had been few complaints, it would do nothing.
Rash, for as the Chairman of the BBC Governers has stated, President Trump ‘is a litigious fellow’, and so it has proved.
He is suing them for one billion dollars.
Now, whatever one’s opinions of the then Princess of Wales or the current President of the United States, one thing is all too clear.
The BBC has failed in its duty to provide unbiased reporting of events. It has gone further….it has manufactured ‘news’
It is very important for public life in the U.K. that there is a news service which can be relied upon to be as accurate as possible and to give adequate representation to the manifest varying views of those who pay for it – the general public.
The BBC has failed in both respects.
Mistakes will always be made…..human nature is such……but a refusal to put things right is unacceptable in any institution whether private or public and this seems to be the attitude of the BBC.
It would be a disaster if all public broadcasting were to fall into private hands – just look at the state of the print media! – and the BBC has always benefited from the reluctance of the public to leave ahold of nurse for fear of finding something worse, but in this period of flux, where none of the institutions of the state command respect, the risk is not just that they will let go of her hand, but will use theirs to seize both baby and bathwater while they are at it.
When we were small, the BBC had a programme for children in the afternoons called ‘Listen With Mother’, which always always began with the phrase….’Are you sitting comfortably? Then we’ll begin.’
So make sure you are sitting comfortably and we shall begin the tale of the hero of Costa Rica’s own all too long running soap opera.. The Neighbour.
After several unsatisfactory experiences of letting our old house – everything from non-payment, to trashing the place – we had decided to sell, and found a buyer in the person of a retired Nicaraguan widow who wanted to settle in the countryside to keep poultry.
So far, so good.
In order to help her, her son, who worked with one of those organisations which find employment for less able people, found her a young man in his twenties who, while several sandwiches short of a picnic, was good with the poultry and generally helpful around the place.
The Neighbour, always keen to stick his nose in other people’s business, met the young man, and offered him supplementary work which the young man accepted.
So far, so good.
Then the young man came to his employer and asked her to pay his debt to The Neighbour.
What debt?
The equivalent of three hundred quid.
And what had he done with the three hundred quid?
He did not know, but he did not have it any more and The Neighbour wanted it back and he said the his employer had to pay it as she was responsible for her worker.
Our Nicaraguan lady is no fool. She went to see her old employer – a very wealthy lady and no fool either.
On her advice, she took that lady’s retired secretary and went to see The Neighbour.
He greeted them enthusiastically.
Hello Girls! What can I do for two lovely ladies?
They had heard, said the secretary, that he had money to lend.
Indeed he did. He had so much he did not know what to do with it, except to help his neighbours.
Ah…in that case, perhaos he could help them….
Of course he could, nothing too much trouble to help such lovely ladies. How much did they want?
About one thousand quid each.
Not a problem! He had the money here, in cash!
Yes, but how much interest do you charge?
No interest at all! Just, you understand, for my security, the deeds to your property.
So you give us the money and we give you the deeds?
Yes, that’s it. Nothing more simple! Except,senora – to the nicaraguan lady – I need your deeds for the money I lent to your boyfriend.
Boyfriend?
That young man who lives with you. You are responsonsible for his debt.
You have anything in writing?
No need for writing between neighbours……just give me the deeds!
The following exchanges were short and sharp……..The Neighbour very disappointed at the lack of trust shown by his neighbours….especially as the three hundred quid belonged to the lady then living with him…who took off into the void shortly afterwards. Without her money.
Shortly afterwards, he hurt himself while doing something or other round the water tank which supplies the entire neighbourhood. According to him he was about to clean it in the spirit of public duty which always marks his character. According to others he had gone up in a drunken rage to cut everybody off. With broken ribs, he was immured in his house…..no one would bring him anything.
But all was not lost. The pest who tried to take us for a ride when Danilo was ill has installed himself and girlfriend in The Neighbour’s house. While making sure everything is nailed down or locked up, the bets are on as to how long it will take The Neighbour to get them out again…..
And what, you might ask, has brought this on, from one reckoned to be a modern day Eeyore….an Eeyore currently enjoying the combined effects of sciatica brought on by a losing altercation with the front gate and a rather nasty bug.
I have been listening to the Proms, that’s what. The Promenade Concerts, first organised in 1895 with the idea of popularising classical music by performing it in an unstuffy atmosphere, and which have developed into an eight week extravaganza of music of all styles now held mainly at the Royal Albert Hall and organised and broadcast by the BBC.
From the title of this post, it will be clear that I had been listening to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony…the Choral….with its celebration of Joy, and, listening, I went back to the first time I heard it ‘in the flesh’ as opposed to gramophone records.
Schools in my day thought music important. From an early age we were singing hymns in the daily act of worship – though father told me to stay silent through ‘All things bright and beautiful’ as he disapproved of God ordering the differing classes – ‘the rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate’. Luckily, lost in the large classes assembled each morning, no one noticed.
We sang folk songs mostly when in junior school…..and I wonder if these days the repertoire would survive…it never occurred to us to wonder by what means the maiden so afraid of sitting in the shade had been reassured by her swain, nor what exactly had deterred the sailor from future roamings in Amsterdam, but the sharp elbowed fanatics who can ban ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’ would doubtless find both songs unsuitable for the impressionable young mind. Our minds were certainly impressionable, but not having been subjected to salacious media at a young age, as appears to be all too common currently, the lyrics were taken as read and roused no speculation. We were warned of the dangers of getting into cars with strangers, or accepting sweets from same, but accepted the warnings as being on the same level as crossing the road safely and cycling proficiency tests. What, after all, would anyone but our parents want to do with us?
Moving schools after the 11 Plus examinations, music took a larger role. We had hymn practice for the daily assembly, run by two fanatical welsh ladies, and were obliged to learn an instrument…violin or recorder. Father opted for the recorder, on the grounds of economy and a dislike of listening to a cat being tortured, but I cannot say I took to it, being clumsy by nature. Nor did I take to reading music….I think it is the same thing that afflicts me with illustrated instructions – I can make no sense of them, so luckily I could discard the recorder after the obligatory year of squeaks and honks which was all that I managed to obtain from it. My poor friend, who had opted for the violin and had had about as much success as I had had with the recorder, was forced to continue with it by her father on the grounds that he had bought the damned thing and she was damned well going to play it. It took about another year before home practice ensured the discontinuation….that man had been a prisoner of the Japanese and had nerves of steel.
Released from having to play an instrument, music became a real pleasure….we were given a sort of potted history of music….from ‘Sumer is Icumen In’, through a bit of Gregorian plain chant, Henry VIII’s songs and finally to what is loosely called classical music, both sung and instrumental. Those two fanatical welsh ladies opened worlds to us with their gramophone records and their explanations of the context of the music we were listening to.
On Saturday mornings were were taken to London to attend a series of concerts for young people at the Royal Festival Hall, and it was a revelation to listen to mostly classical music ‘live’ where the enthusiasm of the musicians, their involvement with the works which they were playing, made us feel like participants, not just spectators. We lived the music.
And thus to the Royal Albert Hall to hear a programme which ended with Beethoven’s Ninth. A coach had been organised, and duly unloaded us on a warm summer evening, to be herded to our seats high up above the stage. In that period, you could take your own refreshments, so no need to make the gadarene rush for a bar in the interval – not that our herders would have allowed us anywhere near a bar – and we settled for the Beethoven performance. We had been schooled in the lyrics by those who were in the German language stream, so no need for a crib sheet.
The orchestral movements were superb….but the moment the bass sang ‘Oh Freunde….’ the hairs rose on the back of my neck….and the enchantment began. We were, I suppose typical teenagers of our era…fairly reserved – it would be the next cohort who squealed and screamed at The Beatles – but we were borne away on the music as the voices soared. As we left, we were a quiet group, still borne up on the experience, and for my part I was running on emotion all the way back on the coach to Surrey.
And it was that which came back to me as I listened a few days ago….a communication, a celebration, of hope and joy which had this Eeyore smiling.
circa 1965: A horse drawn cart delivers Youngs beer in London (Photo by Evening Standard/Getty Images)
As moaned about in the last post about pubs, gradually the big breweries took over from the individual pot houses – though from what the Hungry Travellers imparted, another revolution is on its way by way of the mico breweries.
Centralisation meant transporting the beer…..and that meant horses. And horses needed people to tend them and people to load up the drays and deliver the barrels to the pubs.
A hard job, that of a drayman….loading and unloading full barrels, sending them down the chutes to the cellars via those large double trapdoors set into the pavements, taking up the empties and keeping a tally in all winds and weathers.
Needless to say, the motor took over from the horses eventually, the horse drawn drays being kept on purely for publicity purposes until modern motorists’ behaviour made it a rare sight to see a team on the road at all and the draymen dwindled into delivery drivers.
Those big breweries were part of the industrial transformation of Britain and one, the Anchor Brewery, once the property of Dr. Johnson’s benefactor, Mr. Thrale, grew from a one man band to a huge concern…..losing its buildings to fire in the 1830s, the rebuilt works in Southwark, London, were held to be a modern industrial model and attracted the interest of home and foreign dignitaries.
One such was General Haynau, late of the imperial Austrian army, who visited the site in 1850, fresh from his successes in quelling the rebellions against imperial rule following the year of revolutions in 1848 which had the crowned heads of Europe fearing for their thrones.
A bastard in fact – illegitimate son of the Elector of Hesse-Cassel – and a bastard by nature, his campaign of repression in Italy in 1848 involved reprisals against rebels who had murdered Austrian soldiers in a hospital which were felt, even by the standards of the time, to have been excessive….thus becoming known as ‘the hyena of Brescia’.
In 1849 he was sent to repress the independence movement in Hungary, where once again he excelled himself, his military success being tainted with accusations of brutality, in particular to women, and his execution of the rebel Hungarian generals, earning him his other sobriquet – ‘the hangman of Arad’.
His temperament unsuited to peacetime soldiering, he retired, and took up traveling.
After a warm reception in Brussels and in Paris – warm in the sense of those cities being made too hot for him to remain, he arrived in London and as part of his tour, wished to visit that industrial model the Anchor Brewery.
And so he did.
Unfortunately for him, he was recognised by the draymen…..who knew of him from the press coverage of his activities….and mayhem ensued.
“At first, they tossed a bundle of straw or a bale of hay down from the attic, and the crowd surged forward with great uproar, pelting it with barley, all manner of refuse, and debris, while they began to prod it with brooms, etc. From all sides, the crowd shouted, ‘Down with the Austrian butcher!’ In response to this, Haynau and his companions broke through the angry throng and fled the factory, but to their misfortune, they found themselves confronted by a waiting crowd of around 500 people outside, mostly workers, coal heavers, street children, and even women, who, cursing and shouting, beat him, tore his coat from his back, and dragged him by his long yellow mustache along Bankside, which runs by the Thames. The general ran for his life until he finally reached a tavern, the George public house, where he rushed through the open door, much to the astonishment of the landlady, Mrs. Benfield, and hid under a bed. Fortunately for him, the old structure had many doors, and as the crowd pressed in behind him, breaking down door after door, they could not find him. They might have killed him if the terrified landlady had not sent a swift messenger for the police to the nearby Southwark station, from where, shortly thereafter, Inspector Squires arrived with several officers, who rescued Haynau from his precarious situation.“
Now, here we have three factors….Haynau’s brutality being reported and bruited abroad by the press, the availability of that press to ordinary, mostly uneducated, working people, and the reaction of those people to a man whose inhumanity they found abhorrent.
Oh yes…and a fourth…he was accessible.
What do we have today?
A mainstream press which sings to the same tune…that of its mostly overseas owners and driven by the government’s – nomatter which government’s – ‘nudge units’, as opposed to the press of those days, mostly uncontrolled and multi-headed.
However, there does seem to be an alternative in terms of independent news blogs – once you can sift through to see where they are coming from. A turning away from the legacy media? Puny now…but from small acorns…?
So world events are filtered through the mainstream media…..
World leaders, and those whose brutality serves and feeds the interests of that media, would never dream of going out into the ordinary world…..they live in a bubble of bum brushers and security guards….today’s draymen would not stand a chance of showing them what they thought of them.
I remember P.C. Keith Palmer, killed by a fanatic at the gates of Parliament in 2017….killed because those gates had to kept open lest parliamentarians should have to wait a moment to be admitted. Behind closed gates he would have kept his life.
The people who take the decisions which affect lives of others should take the risks….they might then think twice before they go to war.
Charles de Gaulle – le Grand Charles – whatever one thinks of his policies, took the risks. Modern politicians? Forget it….
Where are the draymen of 1850 these days?
Out of a job, living on benefits or a poverty wage where governments subsidise businesses who would otherwise have to stand on their own two feet, as did the Anchor Brewery in the 1850s.
But poor, struggling to keep a family together, the mass of people still know right from wrong….and know that governments do not.
I was lucky to have come of age when the pub ceased to be the jealously guarded refuge of the male sex, with women admitted – if escorted by a man – only to the saloon bar. A woman on her own would be regarded as ‘no better than she ought to be’ – euphemism for promiscuous – otherwise why would she be there, after all, in that redoubt of men. Barmaids, on the other hand, had the status of cantinieres, suppliers of drink and stiffeners of morale and were, as such, beyond moral reproach.
Children were certainly not admitted. Should the parents visit the saloon bar their offspring would be left outside….on a bench in the beer garden if that existed, or in the car, appeased with a packet of crisps and a lemonade.
Dogs, however, were generally welcome, as long as they got along with the landlord’s dog.
By the time I was a student, things had changed…..
Sharing a flat in the wilderness of east London the corner pub, a fairly nondescript boozer, was open to all and had prices available on a student budget – halves of mild, and on high days and holidays a bottle of Worthington’s White Shield, poured with care to leave the lees in the bottle. The other customers were pleasant and chatty, even to students, and it was both a source of highly unreliable tips for the 3. 30 and a welcome halt on the trek between the station and the flat.
Distinctly less relaxing were the pubs frequented by the Kray twins and their henchmen – criminals who controlled east London. In later years I became friendly with a couple who had suffered the attentions of the Krays. They had been ‘approached’ to give use of their premises for unexplained purposes. Their reluctance was met with the response that the gang knew where their children went to school. They left their place in the hands of family to sell up and left for New Zealand.
Even had one been tempted, ‘The Grave Maurice’ and ‘The Blind Beggar’ were on the way from the flat into central London, and once having fought one’s way onto the rattletrap trains of the Central Line, one stayed put. Apart from that there was the uneasy feeling that on opening the pub door you might be the recipient of the contents of a sawn off shotgun or the target of an an axe throwing lunatic…..better off with a lousy tip for the 3.30.
More salubrious were the dockland pubs….not so much ‘The Grapes’, where Princess Margaret and Antony Armstrong Jones skulked in a flat nearby, but rather ‘The Gun’ and ‘The Prospect of Whitby’, with views of the river which had not, at that time been graced by the monstrosities of Canary Wharf or the Millenium Dome. Both went in for folk nights….young men in aran sweaters deploying squeezeboxes to acceompany sea chanties which grew fruitier as the evening wore on.
In later years, a country pub was the local. A public bar on one side, and a snug on the other which boasted a couple of dilapidated armchairs usually occupied by the landlord’s labrador. Open all hours, just for a cup of tea or coffee and a natter if that was what you wanted, otherwise a centre for the distribution of things that had fallen off lorries, game in season, and local gossip.
Eventually it changed hands. We inherited the labrador and the place was tarted up. Just one bar, lots of leather banquettes and what have you, but still a friendly place, though the distribution centre only concerned itself with gossip from that time on.
I have since read that it has been retarted for the Chelsea tractor crowd…..where by the look of the place the distribution these days is most likely to be Colombian marching powder and STDs.
Why now, after all these years abroad, do I think of the pub? The bars of rural France never appealed to me – gloomy haunts where men escaping from their wives hunched over glasses of petit blanc – and those of Costa Rica even less, so why now does the pub come to mind?
Because pubs are on their last legs. Drink driving legislation tore the guts out of them….smoking bans even more so….the growth of chains of pubs, where the landlord is bound to buy the overpriced product of the owners while the price of booze in the supermarkets is much cheaper and now the rise in the cost of employers’ National Insurance contributions for their employees.
But now the death knell.
The government intends to introduce legislation by which landlords will be obliged to bar customers should bar staff complain that said customers make them feel ‘uncomfortable’…..
Well, given the sensitive souls who now abound in British society one may just imagine the outcome….
One mention of Nigel Farage and you’re out on your ear.
Mark you, that probably goes for mention of Keir Starmer too….
The rainy season is with us, so anything you want to do outside the house needs to be done in the morning before the clouds roll in and the downpour commences.
A trip to the capital was on the cards…business and shopping….so an early start was required. It may be only about fifty kilometres to San Jose, but the traffic jams are immense and an accident on what is laughingly caused the motorway – two lanes in each direction – can block any progress for hours.
First you have to descend from the hills where we live….winding roads, sharp turns and endless buses, not to speak of the bottleneck at the one lane bridge crossing. Finally you arrive at the first toll booth where you have to try to check which booth accepts cash…needless to say it is the one which gives the least advantage on joining the road ahead, which is already blocked with traffic coming up from the port on the Pacific coast.
You wrestle yourself into a lane and hope for the best…crawling forward…..
With plenty of leisure to look around you, you enjoy – or not – music from neighbouring cars and observe an individualist with an umbrella strapped to his back cycling the wrong way on the hard shoulder….he may have a point.
Later, creeping forward, sirens alert you to make way for a convoy of motorcycle policemen, followed by vans from the prison service, the local police and the C.I.D……a voice from a neighbouring car suggests that they are eager to sell the drugs they have just confiscated…..he too may have a point.
Finally the last toll booth is reached, where the cash payers are exiled to the outside lane whence it will be impossible to extricate themselves unless they are headed for the city centre…luckily, we are. The idea seems to be that if you want access to the upmarket suburb just past the toll booth then you will pay by credit card – stuff the cash paying hoi polloi.
Business concluded….shopping. First in the immense Chinese owned supermarket alongside the town hall for rock bottom prices on rice and then in the decidedly smaller ordinary supermarket beside the Sabana park for more variety than that which is available in the local town. And at considerably better prices than the local offers.
Decide on a late breakfast at the said supermarket cafeteria…..by the time you have made your choice, wrestled with the coffee machine and paid, the meal is cold. A microwave is provided.
Seated alongside we are startled to see flashes and hear noises from said microwave……staff rushing to assist an elderly man who has managed to put his bank card in the oven together with his meal…..good luck with heating meals for later customers.
Return home, unpack, sort out disgruntled dogs and learn from the cleaner that her daughter’s college has been beseiged by youths armed with guns and knives.
It has a huge campus, impossible to secure, and the pupils have been locked into their classrooms, until some bright spark gives the order to evacuate them to be picked up by their parents before the police arrive to secure the site.
Security at that college has, to say the least, been lax. Stories abound of kids bringing in bottles of fizzy drinks adulterated with booze….marijauna passing freely and copulation in the loos, but an armed gang is new!
Her daughter arrives home safely, thank goodness, and the next day a communique is issued from the college blaming the parents of the gang members. No mention of the college’s responsibility for the safety of their pupils.
In the meantime the washing machine has blown a gasket – or whatever is the electronic version of same. The repair man comes out promptly and sorts it, and I close the gate behind him as he leaves – or attempt to do so. The gate is heavy, it sticks, I pull, and my back goes out.
Agony. Spend the night in the old wheelchair with pillow and blanket as cannot get into bed.
Off to A and E the next day…..a Chinese doctor prescribes injections for pain and inflammation. Neither work. Suspect it would have been better had he gone for Chinese traditional medicine but the health service does not go in for snakes and insects.
Further night in wheelchair with dogs determined to snaffle the blanket for themselves.
Find stash of codeine…..now drifting on a cloud of insensibility……until morning when will have to heft kilos of dog food on to the stove and serve same…..
Not to worry, the first Test match against India starts tomorrow.
The Venomous Bead 