february 27th
As you may or may not know the blog family household has been experiencing some transport related problems recently. My wife’s car has been in the garage since 1998, it seems, waiting on a part. Everytime we go down to ask them about it, the bloke says “I don’t know when it will be here. I’ll ring you as soon as it is.”
I suppose that’s fair enough, he hardly needs the car blocking up his garage, unless there’s a hidden €20 a night charge we don’t know anything about, in which case he’ll be retiring and I’ll be spending a lot of time in secluded areas of Sitges with an inudstrial sized tub of KY.
My scooter is also fucked and after a week of phone calls like this:
Me: “Hello, Alberto Correcto, when can you come up and take a look at the bike for me?”
Alberto Correcto: “Not today. Ring tomorrow.”
I rang today and he said “Today. I’ll pass you on to José here and he’ll get your address and all that.”
So José comes on the phone and I explain the problem to him, tell him what happened, what happens when I try to start the bike and all that. I give him the address. He asks for a couple of landmarks to help him find his way. I oblige, happy that somebody is going to finally come and I can get around speedily again. It’s a pain in the arse walking for 20 minutes to work when a 3.5 minute scoot usually does the trick.
“Alrighty,” says José, “I’ll be there in about half an hour.”
That was at 3.45pm yesterday afternoon. Seriously, this country is just fucking insane for getting anything done. You hear all the stories about “Mañana, mañana”, but they’re true. There’s an old saying “Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.” The Spanish motto is “Never put off till tomorrow what can do sometime in the next fucking century. If you can be arsed.”
Of course, there’s also the insistence on being as loud as possible, as early as possible. Long time readers will know that they’re building a house more or less opposite mine, but to the left a bit. ‘Still building that one house?!’, I hear you cry. I refer you to the previous paragraph for an explanation for that. So this morning they decide to angle-grind and randomly jack-hammer stuff from 7.40am. Now of course they’ve knocked off for their two hour breakfast which will consist mostly of beer. Good for them, you might say. I might say, ‘You fucking cunts couldn’t do some sanding or pollyfilla work early in the morning, could you? No, you couldn’t, because you’re fucking bastard cunts who only exist to make my already difficult life more trying.’
And a happy Friday to you too. If you want Arsenal news, look here. And check back in the next hour for a new column from Steve E which will appear here.