Compared to Spain, Britain's binmen wheelie are a load of rubbish

My dispute with the guys who collect the household refuse at my home in the UK is not so much a game of cat and mouse. It’s more like prat and house.

Bury Borough Council is not the only local authority that refuses to take bags which protrude above the lid of the grey wheelie bin provided for every household. But what a petty rule it is!

Believe me, when it comes to rubbish collection, the guys who empty the bins around my Costa Blanca villa are in a different league. I’ll tell you why in a minute.

The fact is some households generate more rubbish than others – particularly if hordes of children either live in the house or descend upon it almost incessantly. Such is my home in the Bury area of Lancashire – courtesy of the fact that my five grandkids all live within 200 yards of my pad.

And while I can accept the local council placing some limit on what they will collect, it takes a true jobsworth to remove and dump any bag that happens to protrude above lid level of the wheelie bin.

Bury Council’s official website requests householders to ‘‘make sure your bin lids are fully closed’’ on collection day. But why? Will the bin attack a neighbour or something if the lid is raised just a teeny bit above horizontal?

It beats me that the binmen bother to enforce the ‘empty closed wheelies only’ policy because moving a piled-high bin onto the ramp to be tipped automatically into the bowels of their wagon is surely quicker than having to remove the excess rubbish first.

You’d think the £178-per-month I pay in council tax would entitle me to have ALL my genuine household waste taken away each week. Instead, I often have to wait three weeks for my separate recycling and garden-waste wheelie bins to be emptied.

It’s all so inferior to the quiet, efficient way refuse is collected in the Costa Blanca, which has become my home of choice over the last few years.

To start with, the Spanish binmen come in the evening, when the roads are quiet – so there’s minimum disruption to traffic. It’s so much better than the chaos British bin lorries cause during the day as they back up into side streets and cul de sacs.

In Spain, household refuse is also collected EVERY DAY, not just once a week. In the winter, as well as summer. And rather than stopping at every house, the binmen remove the rubbish from large communal containers placed a couple of hundred yards apart.

Garden refuse is collected once a week from the same point, while recycling containers are dotted conveniently around the urbanisation for people to use at their convenience.

It’s anything but inconvenient for householders – even the laziest of individuals should be able to walk 100 yards to dispose of their household waste. Oh, and last year the council tax on my three-bedroom villa amounted to just 386.08 euros (equal to £333.78 as I write). That’s roughly 20 per cent of what I pay to Bury Council.

It’s one of my old chestnuts, but Britain is being held back by the old colonialist attitude that still lingers in decision-making areas. Namely that if we didn’t think it up, then it can’t be any good.

That sort of thinking is a massive load of rubbish! And no, Bury Council, I don’t want your bolshy binmen to come and dump it all on my drive in Prestwich.

Put the lid on it, boys. This jobsworth behaviour wheelie is too much.

How my artful lodger outwitted the computer repair sharks

If, like me, you know precious little about the internal workings of a computer, then I guess you’ll have been ripped off by a computer repair ‘expert’ at least once.

Unless, that is, you have a trusted friend who understands all the technical stuff and can bail you out when your laptop or desktop is sinking under a sea of problems.

I went back to see my family in Manchester over Christmas and the New Year and when my  desktop computer over there suddenly refused to connect to the internet, I tried everything I knew to solve the problem. Like swearing at it (''Bloody Dell, what's the matter with you?'') and of course rebooting. Well, that’s about all I can do when something goes wrong.

Someone once told me that rebooting solves everything. And he was a computer expert – or professed to be. Pillock!

Anyway, computer matters being all Geek to me, I decided to ask around at a couple of the local specialist shops in the Manchester suburb where my UK home is. There was no way I was going to lug the machine to their place, so I made a couple of notes and also armed myself with the message that kept appearing on the screen.

The proxy server is refusing connections.

Firefox is configured to use a proxy server that is refusing connections.

• Check the proxy settings to make sure that they are correct.

• Contact your network administrator to make sure the proxy server is working.

At the first computer shop I went to – a relatively new, well-fitted establishment – I showed the screen message to a smartly-dressed Asian gentleman and asked him if he knew what it meant and how much it would cost to get me back on line.

‘’Your computer has a virus,’’ he told me authoritatively. ‘’We will need to remove it, which will involve cleaning the files off your computer so it will be more or less as it was when you bought it. This will cost you £40.

‘’If you would like the files restoring as they are now, this will be an additional £15. We will need to have the computer for about 24 hours.’’

I mentally dubbed him Vikram Virus and told him I would return with the computer. Intending to obtain at least one more estimate before committing myself, I headed for another, smaller computer repair shop in a less salubrious area.

‘’There’s a problem with the settings. I can fix it for £20,’’ asserted the manager.

‘’No virus?’’ I queried.

‘’No, it’s the settings and I can sort it out in about half an hour if you bring me the computer tower.’’

No virus, no need to remove and replace files – and £20 compared to £55 to get me back on line. That will do for me, I thought – and headed home  to collect the computer tower vowing never to go near Vikram Virus’s place again.

When I arrived, my young lodger Anthony had just come home from work. Remembering that he worked in IT, I thought I’d sound him out in the hope he might know what was causing the problem.

Anthony, for some reason I can’t get on the internet,’’ I confided, producing the proxy message from my handbag and plonking it in front of his face.  ‘Do you have any idea what this means?’’

I expected a furrowed brow and a vacant  ‘’Sorry, I don’t know’’ but got the opposite.

‘’Don’t worry, it’s nothing major,’’ he insisted. I can sort it out – it’s a minor thing with the settings.’’

With that he sat down at the computer, called up something or other, tapped a few keys - and bingo, we were back online.

The whole job took little more than 60 seconds – and he refused point blank to take any payment.

From £55, to £20 to a freebie. And they used to say you couldn’t trust car-repair shops!

OK, so I should have asked Anthony in the first place – but he wasn’t around at the time I lost my internet connection and I am not the most patient of people. 

The big question the whole experience throws up for computer-illiterate people like me is, 'When something goes wrong and you consult one of these 'experts', how can you be sure you are given the correct diagnosis? And even more so, charged an amount in keeping with whatever has been done?

Anyway, I've now got Anthony earmarked to service my car, though I have no idea whether he knows anything about motor mechanics.

But he's honest and he's cheap - which is more than can be said for Vikram Virus.

I've got Parkinson's Disease - so why am I laughing?

Bob Monkhouse never lost his brilliant sense of humour right up to his dying day. And the late, great comedian’s legacy of laughter taught me a lesson I plan to utilise every waking hour from now on.

Because life is too short to be taken over-seriously. Even by a Grumpy Old Gran.

To most people under 40, the aches and pains of advancing years don’t exist. But take it from me, kids, old age is gonna getcha - and quicker than you think!

There’s a fair chance you’ll end up a stooped old wrinkly shuffling your way along the streets and causing irritating queues in the newsagents as you fumble for change. And then drop your purse on the floor for someone else to pick up.

I know all about it – because I’m heading towards the world of zimmer frames myself. And it’s not pleasant.

Two years ago, I was diagnosed with angina and had two stents inserted in an angioplasty procedure to widen my coronary arteries. Now I have been told by a neurologist that I also have the beginnings of Parkinson’s Disease.

Not very pleasant, but millions of people are in far worse health than I, and hopefully I will be around for a good few years yet. I have also found a true inspiration in the unique humour of Bob Monkhouse.

Like him, I believe that the best antidote to illness and the negativity of ageing is laughter. The Monkhouse School of Mirth may not cure major ailments, but a good giggle does make even the Grumpiest of Grans feel a lot better.

When Bob knew he was dying from prostate cancer, he not only kept smiling - he incorporated it into his act.

Back in the ‘70s, I was lucky enough to see him perform live at a major London hotel function. Until then, I had always regarded him as rather smarmy and insincere, but I realised that evening that I was watching a true genius strutting his stuff.

Not long before he died in December 2003, and still looking amazingly fit despite his advanced cancer, Monkhouse quipped on Michael Parkinson's chat show that he had asked his doctor: ‘’How long have I got to live?’’

 ‘’Ten,’’ said the doctor.

‘’Is that weeks, months…?’’

‘ ’Nine, eight, seven...’’

 That wisecrack reignited my belief that when old age and/or illness strike, the most effective way to fight it is to have a little giggle about life, however difficult that may be.

I half expected Monkhouse to throw in a line about his unique ‘’sense of tumour’’. He didn’t – but there's a fair bet he is up there in his celestial home right now haranguing St Peter with his one-liners.

In the meantime, I have told my kids and grandkids I want to hear them singing at my funeral, not being just plain miserable. Perhaps a couple of choruses of   'Always Look on the Bright Side of Death’ will help – not that I’ll be able to join in, of course.

Meanwhile, life goes on for me, my angina and my Parkinson’s, with semi-permanent backache and painful hip joints  thrown in as a bonus. But I’m happy because I spend most of my time in the Spanish sunshine.

I can also see a new career on the horizon. If the Parkinson’s gets any worse, they might yet give me my own chat show…

Learning at last: The language lesson Britain ignored 50 years ago

The Empire has long gone, so how come so many of us remain convinced that British ideas are the best? And that anything Johnny Foreigner thinks up can’t be any good?

The reality is that we can learn so much from the lead of other European nations. A simple and obvious one here in Spain is the central filter lane that allows traffic to turn left on to busy highways without blocking traffic on the main road.

But since the UK authorities didn’t think up the idea themselves, such filter lanes don’t seem to exist in Britain. Which is why you often see traffic clogged up by a lone vehicle trying vainly to get onto the opposite side of a main carriageway.

But nowhere is our rejection of superior European logic better demonstrated than in the pathetic attitude of British educationalists towards teaching children foreign languages.

The penny is finally beginning to drop, half a century after the rest of Europe showed us the way - and we chose to think we knew better.

While primary school kids in Holland, Scandinavia, Germany and France were being taught English from virtually the moment they started school, know-all British educationalists were fearful of causing confusion. Secondary school, they reasoned, was the time to begin – at a point when children have in fact passed the age when their sponge-like brains are able to become truly fluent in foreign languages.

In reality, young children do not become confused if introduced to an alien tongue. Indeed, they not only have the most amazing ability to absorb the complexities of language, but can learn a foreign one in a matter of months.

And so brilliant is their ability to mimic that even native speakers have no idea that they are in fact foreigners.

I was staggered when my six-year-old granddaughter suddenly started counting in Spanish – with a Mexican accent. At the time she’d never even been to Spain, let alone Mexico. She’d merely been watching Dora the Explorer on TV, and was mimicking what she heard.

To me, it was merely evidence of what I and many others have known for many years – that the BEST time to start teaching children another language is when they are toddlers. Or at least by the time they begin junior school.

Research by international linguistic experts has found that if children are introduced to a second language by the age of six or seven, they can achieve native-like proficiency. In other words, young children’s innate mimicry skills enables expat British five and six-year-olds to pick up Spanish to a level undistinguishable from the natives.

Many expat parents will vouch for that. Beautician Cath Munz moved to Orihuela Costa from Blackburn with her husband and family when children Bradley and Abigail were five and four respectively.

Jose Perez (centre) with some of my Belingua classmates

Both youngsters achieved fluency in Spanish within 12 to 18 months, without in any way compromising their English-language skills. Cath’s experience emphasises the folly of the traditional UK system which keeps foreign languages off most school timetables until secondary school.

For all the talk of educational advancement, until now little seems to have changed in Britain since my own schooldays half a century ago. I was taught French and Latin – but only from the age of 12. And that, according to the linguistic experts, is much too late for most children to achieve real fluency.

Instead, those of us who choose to leave our native country as mature adults face years of studying and frustration in order to master the local tongue to an acceptable level.

More often we end up being accused of laziness because we have neither the time nor inclination to spend hundreds of hours trying to soak up masses of alien gibberish when most of the natives speak English anyway.

Still, I can assure the tiny minority who do pursue the dream of speaking Spanish properly that the rewards are immense. Among the pupils in the three-hours-a-week class I attend at the Berlingua School of Languages in Quesada are five different nationalities – and that doesn’t include the lone Spaniard, our teacher Jose Perez.

The class includes two young women, a Russian and a Hungarian, who don’t speak English. Yet the mere fact we can chat together when we don’t speak each other’s language is something truly special.

But I’d happily have done without that special experience if only Spanish – or indeed any other foreign language - had been on the junior school curriculum in my hometown Cardiff way back in the 1960s.

FIrst published in Female Focus magazine, 2010

England’s hospital car-park scam is beyond a sick joke

Hospital stays: My granddaughter Daisy

Last summer I spent four days in Elche Hospital as a guest of the Spanish health service – and my only complaint was that the food was inedible. I bet you’d also cringe at the thought of a salad or bowl of clear soup devoid of a single grain of salt.

I’ve sucked tastier water from a dishcloth than the ultra-bland consommé the nurse plonked in front of me as an aperitif to my menial first meal as a patient.

There was method in that Friday afternoon madness, of course. Because I was in a coronary ward and I do have angina. But even my acutely health-conscious daughter has been unable to convince me that I’m shortening my life by going condimental before I tuck in. I do make one concession to the medical experts, mind you – I NEVER put salt on my dessert.

In the event, I was discharged from hospital the following Monday three kilos lighter after passing my medical tests with flying blood pressure (another abysmal Donna attempt at humour – my BP was actually normal, thanks to the medication I’ve been taking for the past five years). I couldn’t wait for my first taste of freedom and dreamt of ending my enforced diet with a portion of salt- and-pepper ribs and a salt-beef sandwich. Maybe with a packet of liquorice ‘all-salts’ for afters.

But I digress. This article is not meant to be a complaint about Spanish hospitals – or the heartless way they feed their cardiac patients. There was certainly precious little else I could moan about as a patient at Elche. A cosy two-bed ward, caring nurses, highly efficient doctors, caring nurses and four days of intensive Spanish lessons for free.

Last but not least, my friends were not charged a single centimo to come and visit me. And from what I can gather from friends on expatforum.com the same free-parking policy operates at Spanish hospitals  from Malaga to Lorca and from Denia to Villajoyosa.

How different to the money-grabbing English system of ripping off the motorist at every opportunity. Particularly at hospitals and, even more so, airports (which I’ll get to in a future article).

My 11-year-old granddaughter Daisy suffers from Crohn’s Disease and has spent quite a bit of time at Manchester’s ultra-modern Royal Children’s Hospital this past couple of years. The kindly local NHS Trust have a voucher system that allows close relatives to visit sick children to use the vast multi-storey car park at a special daily rate of £5.

That’s £35 a week to spend time with your own kids when they need you most. How generous!

And don’t tell me the money all goes to improve the NHS. In a country where every working person pays an ever-increasing National Insurance contribution, surely NO-ONE should have to pay to visit a suffering relative.

Scotland and Wales abolished hospital parking charges a couple of years ago – so what’s so different about England? The authorities are just greedier to make bigger profits, that’s all.

As my daughter Hayley Beckman (Daisy’s mother) says: ‘‘The new hospital is very modern but it’s difficult to get to compared to the two children’s hospitals it replaced, and much more expensive to park.

‘‘It’s absolutely disgraceful that parents have to pay to spend time with their sick children in hospital.’’

It’s not as if Manchester Children's University Hospital NHS Trust is in dire financial straits. Indeed, a Daily Mirror investigation established that in 2007, the Trust made a profit of £1,338,694. And 218 hospitals around the country made a staggering £24,993,855 the same year - just by charging their own staff to park their cars.

At the time, Juliet Dunmur, chair of the British Medical Association Patient Liaison Group, said: ‘‘The car-parking fees charged by some NHS trusts are unacceptable. It amounts to a tax on vulnerable patients and on NHS staff.’’

And hospital visiting is an increasingly-expensive experience. Recent research by the Action for Sick Children charity revealed that parking for families of children now costs £1.75 an hour on average.

It’s bad enough in Manchester, but at two London hospitals the parking tariff works out at an unbelievable £386.40 a week because there are no discounts for long-term stays.

At many hospitals, it’s not just visitors who get stung. Nurses working at Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital must pay £20 for a weekly car-park pass – or leave their cars a mile or more away.

Still, there is a consolation. With all that enforced walking, they can afford to pour oodles of salt on their food and never worry about getting a dicky heart.

TEN scrummy rugby tales to try anyone's sense of humour

DURING more than three decades in Fleet Street, I heard more off-beat tales about sports celebrities than I care to remember – many of them from players and press colleagues who witnessed the events first-hand. These 10 anecdotes are just a few of the funnies I picked up from rugby players and journalists  (both union and league). And whilst I suspect one or two of the anecdotes  may be apocryphal, does it really matter as long as they tickle the laughter buds?

Faulkner: Crossed line
 

DON’T CALL US: During their 1978 tour of Australia, the great Welsh team of that era tried all sorts of devious methods to get freebie phone calls through to their wives and loved ones back home. The players resorted to tricks like asking restaurant proprietors if they could use the phone – and then calling the other side of the world when the proprietor thought they were ringing a local number. Prop forward Charlie Faulkner – a not-so-bright member of the legendary Pontypool front row – opted for a different tactic at the reception that followed the first Test match in Brisbane. He picked up the house phone, got through to the hotel switchboard and barked out his home number in Newport. ‘’To whom do I charge the call?’’ asked the operator. ‘’Err…Mr Dawes. John Dawes,’’ mumbled Charlie, figuring he could get the tour coach to pick up the tab. ‘’Please remain by the phone for a moment, Mr Dawes, and I’ll call you back,’’ came the reply. Charlie replaced the receiver and got back to the business of drowning his sorrows after a rare defeat. By the time the call came through a few minutes later, he was in another world. ‘’Ullo,’’ said Charlie. ‘’I have a call to South Wales for Mr John Dawes,’’ confirmed the operator. Charlie took a quick look around. ‘’He’s not here,’’ he barked – and hung up.

GUM-ETH THE HOUR: Cliff Morgan, the rugby maestro who later became a commentator and eventually head of BBC TV sport, vividly recalls his first broadcasting experience. Wales had just beaten Ireland 14-3 in Dublin on their way to the Triple Crown and Grand Slam when BBC radio commentator Sammy Walker asked the great man what he remembered about the match. ‘’My father losing his teeth,’’ said Cliff. ‘’When Ken Jones scored our second try, dad was so excited that his dentures flew out of his mouth into the crowd and he hasn’t seen them since.’’ Some years later, Morgan was recounting the tale to Tony O’Reilly, who played 29 times for his country before becoming a mega-rich international businessman and head of the Heinz empire. O’Reilly, who was renowned for his great wit, feigned surprise at the news. ‘’Your father’s, were they?’’ he said. ‘’That’s amazing. I know the guy in Cork who’s still wearing them.’’ On another occasion, O’Reilly had to make a brief trip to a Dublin hospital after being involved in a minor traffic accident. With medical treatment in Ireland charged on a sliding scale according to income, the nurse who was filling in the details on his behalf asked: ‘’Mr O’Reilly, do you earn more than 10,000 punts (pounds)?’’ Quipped Tony: ‘’Now that depends on whether you are talking about the hour or the day.’’ 

HEADS WE WIN: Wales coach Clive Rowlands was giving his customary pre-match talk before an all-important international at Cardiff Arms Park. As usual, the players were locked into Room 338 at the nearby Angel Hotel – and the emotive Rowlands was pounding them with reasons why they had to grind the opposition into the dust. By the time he had finished working on their emotions, the wound-up stars were ready to die for their country – literally. ‘’What are you going to do?’’ Rowlands bellowed as the electric atmosphere reached fever pitch. ‘’WIN!’’ yelled the players. ‘’What are we going to do?’’ echoed Clive. ‘’Win, win …WIN!’’ It was all too much for second-row forward Geoff Wheel. The big man from Swansea worked himself into a frenzy and, screaming ‘’Kill, KILL!‘’, he charged at the door to Room 338 – and butted a hole clean through it. 

A FATE WORSE THAN BREATH: After four years in the England team, veteran prop Paul Rendall had seen it all. So it was only natural he should want to put new boy Paul Ackford’s mind at ease as they prepared to face Australia at Twickenham. ’’Don’t worry,’’ Rendall assured police inspector Ackford in the changing room before the match. ’’The game will fly by. You’ll find the first half seems like three minutes and the second half four minutes.’’ England went on to produce a dazzling performance and were within five minutes of a memorable victory when Ackford staggered up to Rendall during an injury stoppage. ‘’You’re a f***ing liar!’’ gasped the 6ft 6in second row. ‘’I’ve been out here for four-and-a-half hours and the game’s still not over.‘’

LATE MOMENTS IN SPORT: The British Lions were given a fearful runaround by the Orange Free State outside half during a particularly traumatic 1980 tour match. In the end, Lions centre Ray Gravell could stand no more. As the South African danger man made yet another break, the Welsh tough guy hit him with a fearful tackle long after he had parted with the ball. The referee angrily called the Llanelli star over and proceeded to dish out the severest of reprimands. ‘’That was the latest tackle I’ve ever seen!’’ he stormed. Replied wisecracking Gravell: ‘’Sorry ref, I got there as quickly as I could.’’

STICKY WAGER: It certainly wasn’t the weather that took York Rugby League coach Bill Reilly and Aussie scout Arthur Clues to Batley. The Mount Pleasant ground was anything but pleasant as the wind howled, the rain sheeted down – and the teams made a forlorn attempt to play rugby in a mudbath. With scarcely a minute left to play, neither side had scored a single point. Then Batley, playing up the hill and into the gale, won a penalty way out on the touchline. As their fullback lined up an ambitious pot at goal, Yorkshireman Reilly turned to Clues and wagered: ‘’I bet you a dollar he kicks it.’’ ‘’You’re on,’’ replied Clues. The kicker squelched through his run-up, only to slip in the quagmire at the moment of contact – and the ball trickled just a few inches forward as he plunged onto his back in the mud. ‘’I told you he’d kick it,’’ said Reilly, holding out his hand for his winnings.

ARMS AND THE MAN: There was no question of injured Tommy Martin making his own way off the field. The Leigh and Great Britain second row needed a stretcher after taking a bad knock on his ankle – but the one and only St John Ambulance stretcher was already occupied by another player. As Martin lay writhing on the ground and the fans bayed for the action to restart, desperate officials grabbed an office chair from the clubhouse and dashed on to the pitch with it. Martin was lifted gingerly into the seat, and with one embarrassed committee man either side, the chair was hoisted into the air by its arms. With the crowd roaring their approval, Martin was steered tentatively towards the dressing room . Five seconds later, there was a huge crack and the committee men were left holding a chair arm each as the seat and legs tipped Martin out – straight onto his damaged ankle.

GRIN AT THE DEEP END: To celebrate Leigh’s feat in avoiding relegation, coach Tom Grainey took his strugglers on holiday to Majorca. Some months later, his assistant Colin Clarke was reflecting on the break in the changing room at Hilton Park. ‘’Remember it, lads?’’ he mused. ‘’All that sun and San Miguel…and old Grainey up on the top diving board doing a double somersault with pike?’’ With that, prop forward Derek Pyke chirped up: ‘’Hey, it weren’t me. I were out on a training run.’’

WIGAN’S BIG ‘UN: The groupie girl outside Wigan’s Riverside Club eyed up the town’s new Rugby League hero – and liked what she saw. ‘’Hiya, big boy,’’ she said to burly South African Nick Du Toit, her eyes settling on the most personal part of the 6ft 3in forward’s anatomy. ‘’Tell me, are you built in proportion all over?’’ ‘’Listen, lady,’’ replied Du Toit in his clipped Afrikaans tones. ‘’If I was built in proportion, I’d be 12 foot ten!’’

AN ED FULL OF NOTHING: Tough-guy Eddie Szymala was in the wars again. And after the beefy but intellectually-challenged Barrow forward broke his jaw in a match against Oldham, coach Frank Foster was quick to pay tribute to the wounded hero. ‘’Eddie doesn’t know the meaning of the word fear,’’ Foster told the assembled press. ‘’Mind you, there are a million other words he doesn’t know the meaning of, either.’’

The locksmith's trump card - 100 euros for a four-second job!

It still counts as just about my most embarrassing moment in Spain. I'd been in my villa near Guardamar just a few months when I managed to lock myself out. OK, most of us have done it - but in light of what developed afterwards I am beginning to wonder if there was something a little, shall we say, unusual about the way I had to pay through the nose for the privilege of getting through my own front door.

My daughter, son in law and their three kids were staying with me at the time and everything seemed wonderful when we arrived home late on a balmy summer's night. Until I attempted to open the front door, that is.

Like most of the houses around me at El Raso, when one closes the door from the outside, the lock triggers and you need a key to get back in. Anyway, when this particular fool went out, surrounded by her babbling family entourage, she failed to realise that her house key was not in her handbag - but dangling on the inside of the front door.

One locked door and seemingly no way back in. And one stupid woman who, not realising that the key needed to be turned three times in the lock to fully operate the security mechanism, went out for the evening leaving her home wide open to burglars.

Thankfully, those flimsy defences were not penetrated while we were out but when my entourage and I returned in the early hours of the morning, mass panic quickly broke out in the deserted neighbourhood. I needed a locksmith - but where on earth would I find one at 1.30am? I knew there was one living on the urbanisation, but where on earth would I start looking for him among 500 or more houses?

I got into my car and - more in hope than expectation - began to drive panic-striken around the estate.Then, glory be, a glimmer of hope - I saw the lights of a Guardia Civil jeep heading towards me. I immediately stopped the car, got out and flagged down the Guillermo Viejo (well, how else do you say Old Bill in Spanish?!).

With my limited Spanish and some mega-talking with my hands, I managed to explain to the two Guardia officers in the jeep that I had locked myself out. They duly followed me back to my house, negotiated the entourage of family members hovering on the patio, and proceeded to twiddle with the front door lock.

r

''Necesita un cerrajero,'' they advised me, introducing me to a word I have never forgotten - the Spanish for locksmith. Cue more Anglo-Spanish pidgin talk and sign language and an offer to call out a locksmith for me.but it would not be cheap.

What could I do? Half an hour later, a locksmith arrived from Torrevieja, took one look at the door, pulled out what seemed to be a credit card, slid it down the frame of the door and CLICK, we were in.

Total time to get into the house - four seconds. Quicker than using a key. The cost? Precisely 100 euros.enough to make even John Terry consider changing his £175,000-a-week profession. (Not that I'd ever let him within 100 miles of my house, of course - and particularly my daughter!).

I made a costly mistake and I deservedly had to pay for it. Since then, I've learnt how to do the credit card trick myself and would strongly advise anyone with a self-locking front door to make sure they ALWAYS ensure the security mechanism is fully operative when they go out.

But I often ask myself one little question.. Were those two Guardia Civil officers so naive as not to know the 'credit card' trick themselves? And if they did, why was it necessary for them to call out a cerrajero at all? Anyway, Guillermo Viejo and his friends are welcome to give me a call if they'd like some basic lessons in housebreaking!
 
Check out Grumpy Old Gran's rants at http://www.eyeonspain.com/blogs/donnagee.aspx

Dogs v Cats (Part 2): It's a mog's life when your pets only speak Spanish

More humorous thoughts on the habits of our pets – including a plug for a special wee puss

At the risk of being dog-tagged for life as a mutt-hater, I’m sticking to my view that cats make better pets than their canine cousins. With one exception.

Dogs keep you fitter - and the bigger the better. In fact, if you can afford to buy and feed a Pyrenean mountain dog, he’ll be happy to drag you on a double marathon ‘walkies’ over the nearest 10,000-foot peak.

Before I came to Spain, my house in Manchester was at one time like a Home for Lost Pussies. So many waifs and strays came and went that I swear our friendly little dog Carrie thought she was a moggy herself.

She was certainly pretty adept at squeezing herself through the cat-flap as a quick means of exit, even if the poor mongrel never quite mastered the art of getting back in unassisted.

Because so much commitment is involved, I’ve not owned a dog since Carrie died aged 15 of a heart condition. However, my love affair with cats purrs along today at my villa near Guardamar, where I feed five ‘regular’ visitors. Two of them regard my lap as home. The others come for food, hang around for perhaps an hour, and then disappear into the night or day as the case may be.

The sad thing about our community of just 41 villas is that only mine has a regular feline presence. This means that when I go away – like my current visit to see my family in the UK – I face a ‘Cat 22’ situation. Do I ask neighbours to feed them and hope the moggies don’t miss me too much? Or do I send them to a cattery when the freedom of the campo is the only life they have ever known?

There was, of course, the option of taking them to England with me. But apart from the expense and inconvenience, not to mention the turmoil for the cats, all of them have a major communication problem. They can only miaow and purr in Spanish.

Last time I left a willing neighbour to feed them in my absence, the then community president and committee sanctioned a ridiculous resolution ordering residents NOT to feed animals outdoors.

Cat on the mat: My moggy Molly no habla ingles

As one might expect of non-pet people, they thought that leaving Brekkies out would encourage a plague of rats to scamper into their beds. I wish!

My neighbour, unwilling to go against community rules, promptly stopped feeding the moggies, and by the time I returned, at least one had had enough of waiting for the grub that didn’t arrive. I never saw her again.

The reality is that where there are cats, there are unlikely to be rats. In fact, any roaming rodent that wanders into the vicinity of Tiddles’ mouth is likely to become rat-atouille in an instant.

In my last article on dogs and cats, I gave readers chapter and verse on doggy poo and the filthy creatures who deposit and leave it as the staple diet for the soles of our shoes.

I just wish someone would invent incontinence pants for out-of-control growlers (that’s roughly 93 per cent of all dogs, by my reckoning) and with it redefine the expression ‘’doggy-bag’’.

I must emphasise here that a ‘’catty bag’’ is not the feline equivalent of a doggy bag, but a label one might put on a spiteful female of the human variety. I’m told that efforts were once made to breed a cross between a cat and a dog known as a ‘’catty bitch’’ but the animal was so venomous that scientists abandoned the project.

More seriously, cats are considerably less trouble than dogs. To start with, they never need a bath (just try giving them one and you may well get your head ripped off). They spend half their lives washing their body, legs and tail with their own saliva – and the other half trying to paw it all onto the top of their head – the one place their tongue can’t reach.

While Tiddles always washes herself, all Fido much prefers to wash YOUR face, hands, feet with a giant moist tongue that is as soft as a cat’s is rough.

Keeping Fido himself clean is a major operation. The best bet is probably to plonk him in the bath under a warm shower, though that is a bit of a gamble in itself. He’ll either love it or make a dash for safety, leaving the entire house three inches deep in water on his romp to the open front door – and then to the nearest garden wall for a mega-sniff of his pals’ doggy wee.

Unlike Fido and his mates, cats will also control their motions almost indefinitely. If there is ANY way Tiddles can avoid messing in the house, she will. I had one amazing female cat that, having sussed out the sewage system and knowing she’d fall off the seat if she tried to use the loo, always urinated in the bath. And right over the plughole, too.

That’s what I call a well-drained pet (God, the puns get even worse!)

Every moggy will head instinctively for the great outdoors when nature calls. Tiddles’ biggest failure here is that she tends not to look while she is burying her poo. She prefers to whirl round and round kicking soil, gravel and defecation into the air.

The end product is often a mound of soil topped by a modicum of No.2 – perfect for Fido to stick his nose in next time he comes back from soiling the neighbourhood streets.

Yet overall, and despite my own bias, it seems that animal lovers in general prefer dogs – but only just. A survey of 3,000 people in the UK found that 31% cent of households owned dogs and 26% cats.

All I can say is that if people are happy combining walkies with cleaning up their dogs’ runnies, that is their business. Personally, I’d rather settle down with my cats and watch our favourite film.

It’s called the Mog-nificent Seven.

Why you can't bank on your bank to bank your bankings

Whilst life sometimes seems to go into slow motion in Spanish banks, one does usually get the job done – whether it’s paying in money, sorting out bills or trying to prove you’ve been ripped off over service charges. Only in the latter situation you never win.

In the UK, service is invariably a lot quicker. So how on earth did I spend half an hour in my local Halifax branch last week making a vain attempt to pay two small cheques into my account – and leave with the money still in my handbag?

Never mind the snow and ice, the whole episode was a frozen waste, which ended with me making a protest walkout after all my efforts to gain just a little credit proved futile.

So how did I manage to spend 30 minutes standing on the spot and achieving precisely nothing?

Well, let’s take it chronologically. Since this particular Halifax branch has a designated automatic paying-in machine, I could avoid the inevitable long queue at the cash desk. Or so I thought. (I don’t do queues or traffic jams, as anyone who know this particular Mrs Stresshead will vouch).

www. freeimages.co.uk

The problem was that the paying-in machine decided it had a fault and could neither process my cheques nor return them. However, it did manage to gobble both drafts up before informing me.

‘’Your cheques have not been credited and we cannot return them,’’ read the subsequent message on the screen, or words to that effect. ‘’Consult a staff member.’’ Which I did.

Cue bank-raid security drill. A staff member built like Rambo said he would need to open up the machine – but for security reasons, a colleague had to lock the main entrance while he did it - with an office full of customers inside.

 This obligatory anti-robbery procedure took several minutes as Rambo made a one-man foray into the machinations of the state-of-the-art paying-in device, unlocking various boxes and eventually pulling out a metal tray which contained a couple of cheques.

As if that wasn’t delay enough, the whole procedure then had to be repeated as his first attempt produced only one of my two cheques – plus a rogue draft I had never seen before.

Bank Raid Precaution, exercise two duly achieved deliverance of my second cheque to Rambo-man. But only after several more minutes of customer lock-in.

By now I had been in the branch for 20 minutes just to pay in two cheques worth a total of £71. And they were no nearer reaching my account than they had been when I arrived.

The only way to get the money credited now was via the pay-in counter. Cue the problem for which the cheque machine had presumably been installed – a frustratingly long queue at the counter.

Have you ever seen all the tills in your bank or building society manned (or more often than not womanned) at the same time? I certainly haven’t. And isn’t it remarkable that at the times cashiers are most needed, at least one suddenly takes a coffee/ lunch/tea/cigarette break?

Equation – four tills and 20 people waiting. Chance of all four tills being manned – nil. Chances of one of the two cashiers actually working taking a break – even money.

On this occasion, I found myself adrift of six queuing customers, plus two who were already at the desk. The obligatory two out of four tills were unwomanned.

After five more minutes, the same two customers were still prevaricating with the two unflappable cashiers. That’s one thing I will give those girls – I’ve never seen one get angry or ‘hurry-up’ a customer. Maybe that’s why there are always queues, who knows?

I was becoming more and more frustrated, my two cheques still in my hand…and those six customers plus two prevaricators still ahead of me.

Enough is enough, I thought. I bundled my cheques back in my purse, turned on my heel, muttered a suppressed ''I’ll come back later’’ to the still-hovering Rambo-man, and went home.

Half an hour completely wasted – for precisely nothing. Well, I did get this Grumpy column out of it, I suppose. And another chance to demonstrate why 21st-century Britain is not for me.

Having said that, I could tell you some horror stories about Spanish banks, so watch this space.

Read more of my rants at www.grumpyoldgran.com and http://www.eyeonspain.com/blogs/donnagee.aspx

Life in the bus lane: The cruel cost of crossing a fine line

My autumn visit to the UK was anything but a road to happiness, thanks to the local council's road-traffic enforcers. Justice - or pure greed? You decide.

Dashing onto the runway at Manchester Airport in pouring rain and a furious early-morning gale was a sheer pleasure for me on my return to Spain – because I was swopping the cold and miserable British weather for the Costa Blanca sunshine I so adore.
 
Apart from the shivering, soggy climate, my four weeks back in the UK also brought home some of the reasons why living in England today is more of a penance than a joy. 

Yes, the beautiful countryside, unique historic buildings and ironic British sense of humour are still intact. But the breakdown of law and order and increasingly large sub-culture of yobbism, alcoholism and drug addiction is frightening.  

I won’t go into the most controversial subject of all – the massive over-immigration which is polarising rather than uniting the country. That would be politically incorrect, even if my personal viewpoint is considerably less extreme than that of many native Brits. 

However, one subject that really does make my blood boil is the unnecessary traffic chaos – and the incompetence of the faceless bureaucrats responsible for the massive disruption on motorways and trunk roads. 

Everywhere I drove, I seemed to be held up - from an enforced 30-mile motorway detour to accommodate a bridge-building exercise, to temporary traffic lights causing hold-ups on virtually every main road. The general philosophy of the transport bureaucrats seemed to be, ‘‘Cause maximum disruption to as many motorists as possible at the time the traffic is heaviest’’.

OK, I don’t tend to drive in busy areas in Spain, but I have never even seen a proper traffic jam in the Costa Blanca. I get the impression that the roads are kept as clear as possible in the daytime with most maintenance work done at night, when fewer vehicles are on the roads. Yet in England, I rarely go out without being stuck in a queue of crawling cars. 

I also had the dubious pleasure of clashing with the council jobsworth who monitors minor traffic offenders in Bury, Lancashire, where my UK home is. I lost the battle, of course, because being fair did not tally with his mission to fill the town coffers with as much cash as possible from the softest touches of all – law-abiding motorists. 

Pay up or else: But was this justice?

I was blissfully unaware that since the my previous visit to the UK last May, Bury Council had decided to prohibited one particular bus lane to other vehicles from 7am to 7pm on weekdays, rather than the normal 7-10am and 4-7pm double slot which operates for every other bus lane in Greater Manchester. 

My 'crime' was that I went on a lunchtime shopping trip on a quiet weekday and, at 12.38pm, moved my little Kia Picanto into the empty bus lane momentarily to allow the only other car on the road to pass me. It hadn’t crossed my mind to check the hours of prohibition first – I naturally assumed the rules were the same as everywhere else. 

Gotcha! The council spiders had set up a camera to trap heinous criminals like myself in their devious web. And three days later I received photographic evidence of my car tootling along in the bus lane at 25mph, plus a demand for £60 – reduced to £30 if I paid within 14 days. 

How kind of them to penalise an unknowing pensioner for merely being courteous to another driver and clearly having no intention of using the bus lane to jump a queue or for any dubious reason.  

I duly wrote to the council very sweetly explaining the situation and asking that they reconsider, enclosing a £30 debit-card payment to avoid the possibility of being stung for double that amount while I was awaiting a response. 

A few days later I received a written reply from Bury’s Parking Services Manager John Foudy in which good grammar and accuracy were given particularly low priority. 

(Sic) ‘’I have noted your comments, however, upon further investigation of your case it is apparent that full payment of the Notice has been made,’’ he wrote, as if that was a reason the fine could not be reversed. 

‘‘I can confirm that there is ample signage at the entrance to the bus lane specifying the relevant start and end times. The onus is on the motorist to check the information before making the judgement to enter a bus lane.  

‘’Thank you for your prompt payment, however, I would like to inform you that any further right to appeal is lost and the case is now closed.’’ 

That’s it, then. Guilty as charged, and no reference whatsoever to my explanation.  

I’m not the first person to suffer in this way at the hands of Bury Council, whose greediness for fleecing soft-touch motorists at every chance is regularly highlighted in the local press. 

So I’ve decided to repay Mr Dowdy, sorry Foudy, in my own way. I’m boycotting Bury on my future visits to the area and will do my shopping in Bolton, Rochdale and Oldham.  

My thinking is that if disgruntled local motorists hit local traders in the pocket by boycotting the town, the business community might press Bury Council to stop ostracising decent citizens with greedy forms of entrapment. 

Of course, my plan is unlikely to work – and in any case you may believe I did cross the line, both literally and metaphorically. But I bet you 30 quid that councils like Bury are persecuting motorists in order to maximise council funding.  

Make your losing cheques payable to John Foudy at Bury Parking Services signage department.

First published in Female Focus magazine, December 2010

Defiant smokers could face 100,000 euro fine

D-Day has come and gone – but how much better off is Spain now that bars and restaurants will no longer be polluted by smoke? Assuming that Spanish tobacco addicts choose to honour the new legislation, that is.  

I’m in the UK at present, but I gather from friends and Spanish internet forums that the general public seem to be accepting the changes reasonably amicably.  

Breaching the new law will initially cost smokers a 30-euro fine, but bar owners face a 600-euro penalty for a first offence, soaring to a potential 100,000 euros if they repeatedly ignore the legislation.

Smokers caught several times could also face a six-figure fine. But if my good friend Graham Lilley’s Day One experience counts for anything, few expats will risk the wrath of the enforcement boys.

Graham, who runs the popular Ricardo’s bar in El Raso, near Guardamar, told me: ''I didn’t need to remind my customers. They all came in telling me smoking is no longer legal and insisting they sit outside!”
 
Graham, an asthmatic, reluctantly decided against a smoking ban inside Ricardo’s last year because he feared he would lose more customers than they gained. Now he jokes: ''I’m happy the decision has been taken out of my hands but I hope it’s not the thin end of the wedge. No flambe dishes, no smoked salmon – and what about the mosquito candles!!”

Meanwhile, some Spanish bar proprietors seemed to be testing the water to see if the government really mean business. A friend in the Costa Del Sol reported hours after the new legislation took effect: ''I just went past our local bar in Benalmadena and only two men were sitting in there. One was smoking, as was the barman/owner with him!’’
 
That’s 630 euros the government missed out on for starters – unless the police walked in afterwards and chose not to join the fumadores.
 
A Javier-based member of one expat forum reported: ''Not an ashtray in sight in our local. Lots of smokers enjoying the sun outside, though. I guess the real test will come when it rains…’’
 

Graham Lilley - happy with the ban

Another revealed: ''Driving back from Torremolinos this morning my wife and I popped into a bar/cafe in Velez Malaga. Signs everywhere – Prohibido Fumar. A young guy came in and lit up. The staff told him to go outside!’’
 
And from the colder northern climes of Bilbao came this revelation: ''The major bars on the street where I live have put a table outside with an ashtray. People seem to be respecting the law up here, which I’m thankful for.
 
''There’s a LOT of anger – we were giving the smokers in the family a hard time yesterday at the family dinner and an uncle was saying he’ll no longer go to the bar. However, I doubt this because the daily coffee is a good excuse to leave the house.
 
''People will stay home more? This week, sure, people are going to be stubborn. Next week too. Week three? People will miss their coffee. Week four… we’ll see.’'

Personally, I’m beginning to wonder whether there will in fact be ANY real change. Unlike Britain, the winter weather in Spain does not freeze everyone virtually to death so it won’t involve any great hardship for smokers to indulge their unsociable habit outside on a partly-covered terrace.
 
And once the temperature warms up, it will be back to the old routine. Everyone will make for the terrace, the smokers will light up – and sanctimonious battle-axes like me, too hot to go inside and avoid the fumes, will carry on moaning.
 
PS. I’ve been pleasantly surprised at the cool reaction of smokers to the flak I’ve been flinging at them this past couple of days. I fully expected an angry backlash over all the mickey-taking, particularly my recommendation that they try the balcony option (click here). All I can think is that perhaps the new anti-smoking laws in Spain fitted in nicely with everyone’s New Year’s Resolution.

Banned in Spain - but smokers' paradise is oh so near!

IT’S JANUARY 2, 2011 AND FROM TODAY SMOKING IN PUBLIC PLACES WILL BE BANNED IN SPAIN VERY MUCH ON THE SAME LINES AS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.

PERHAPS THE MOST ACCEPTABLE (IF NOT THE SAFEST) PLACE FOR SPANISH-BASED SMOKERS TO GATHER IN FUTURE IS ON BALCONIES LIKE THIS ONE (click on the link). GRAB A CIGGY, POP OUTSIDE, TAKE IN THE VIEW, LIGHT UP – AND YOU’LL BECOME AN EX-SMOKER IN A MATTER OF SECONDS.

IN FACT, THE EXPRESSION ‘TO CRASH THE ASH’ WILL ADOPT A TOTALLY NEW MEANING.

AM I HAPPY THAT I’LL FINALLY BE ABLE TO ENJOY A MEAL AND A DRINK IN SPANISH BARS AND RESTAURANTS WITHOUT BEING SUBJECTED TO CLOUDS OF STINKING TOBACCO? YOU BET I AM!

AND WHILE I REMAIN CYNICAL AS TO WHETHER THE SPANISH PEOPLE WILL ABIDE BY THE NEW LAW,  I'M ALL FOR GIVING IT A GO. IF THE WORST COMES TO THE WORST, WE CAN ALWAYS USHER THEM OUT ONTO THE BALCONY...

Why Britain's expat bums are a real pain in Spain

How sad that most of the world equates Brits in Spain not with class and culture, but with Benidorm, beer and builder’s bums.

I doubt if 10 per cent of UK citizens who start new lives in Spanish territory learn the language to even a modest level, let alone fluently. Yet isn’t it bizarre that in Britain so many people resent the concept of immigrants who don’t or won’t speak OUR language?

It’s hypocrisy to the extreme, of course – but typical of a nation which rates as just about the least linguistically talented in the world (or perhaps just the laziest).

How many times have you heard Brits complain about the preponderance of Asian immigrants to the UK who have a smattering of English at best, and seemingly neither the ability nor desire to master our tongue?

Yet the reality is that we ourselves behave exactly the same way when we venture abroad to greener (or rather, sunnier) pastures.

Many of the expats I meet seem to think that learning Spanish equates to an unnecessary waste of time. After all, most of us live in communities which are either predominantly English-speaking or where most of the locals speak our language, anyway.

Of course, if you live in some tiny pueblo up in the mountains, you have no choice but to learn the lingo. That’s how it should be – but when it comes to the British mentality, it takes a very special sort of family to take on such a demanding challenge.

For most of us, it’s plonk ourselves into a British urbanisation (OK, we don’t mind a few Scandinavians too, as long as they speak good English), spend our social lives in the British bars playing bingo, on the beach and gawking at Corrie and East Enders.

Muy español!

 

A breath of unfresh air

I popped in to a local bar in El Raso for a coffee the other day – only the weather was so nice I decided to sit outside in the sunshine. I picked up the menu and was about to order some lunch when a middle-aged English couple plonked themselves down on the next table and promptly lit up a couple of Benson and Hedges.

Within seconds I was inhaling as much nicotine as they were – and these particular ciggies were just the first of four each that these two unfortunate drug addicts poisoned themselves with in the next hour or so.

Fortunately, I wasn’t there to share the joy of passively permeating my lungs and clothes with the fumes of their cancer sticks. I had long since upped myself and moved to another area of the bar where no one was polluting the air.

OK, 30 years after giving up my own 20-a-day habit, I accept that I’m a boring, sanctimonious old ex-smoker.

But where’s the justice when an innocuous woman having a quiet coffee has to move in order to accommodate people indulging in an unhealthy, unsocial, even life-threatening habit?

Surely it’s the smokers who should be banished. Preferably to a suitably-title Cancer Corner that might help them realise just how much damage they are doing to themselves and everyone else.

All I can say is thank God for the introduction of  UK-type smoking laws on January 2, 2011 - and the booting of the nicotine brigade up their proverbial dog-end.