Stop the bus in Spain - I want to get off where life is fine and fair

Dashing up the steps of  an Alicante-bound jet at  Manchester Airport in pouring rain and a furious early-morning gale is a favourite memory of my ever-dwindling trips home to the UK.

The race across the runway to the aircraft was invariably sheer pleasure because I was about to swap the cold, miserable British weather for the Costa Blanca life I so adore.

Apart from the shivering, soggy climate, my visits to the UK continue to highlight 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 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.

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’’.

I don’t tend to drive in busy areas in Spain, but in ten years of part-time residence in the 

southern Costa Blanca, I have never seen a  traffic jam, let alone the gridlock of vehicles that snarls up UK cities almost permanently.

The Spanish attitude to traffic accidents and road maintenance seems to be the exact opposite to that of the British authorities. The priority after a pile-up is to get the traffic moving again – and to carry out repairs only when they are essential. Hence the road surface can be very iffy. 

The consolation Is that you’ll never be caught in a 10-mile queue on the M6, with two lanes blocked by a cone army and an invisible work force. 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 jobsworths who monitor minor traffic offenders in Bury, Lancashire, where my UK home is. I lost the battle, of course, because being fair did not tally with their  mission to fill the town coffers with as much cash as possible from the softest touches of all – law-abiding motorists.

I was blissfully unaware that since the my previous visit to the UK, 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 operated 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 being courteous to another driver and clearly having no intention of using the bus lane to jump a queue or for any dubious reason.

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

In Spain, the Trafico has some weird regulations and if you are unlucky, you could find yourself forking out 100 euros for driving in flip-flops or carrying your shopping on the back seat.

If you are really unlucky, you might even be fined for speeding in Barcelona when you have never been within 300 kilometres of the place. Fortunately, the photo accompanying the ticket showed a different make of  car – albeit with what appeared to be the registration number of my Kia Picanto.

A quick call to the Trafico sorted that one out. They cancelled the ticket even more rapidly than Bury council’s greed machine scoffed my credit- card payment.

It's my birthday. Welcome to the zimmer season in Guardamar

I USED to love birthdays. Particularly those big ones with a zero on the end. The ones when your boss would send you home early to have a quiet family celebration…only for all hell to let loose when you opened the front door.
One moment, silence and slight concern that nobody was in. Then, as you peered into the deserted hall, an explosion of noise as doors flew open, laughing faces appeared from nowhere, the kids rushed into your arms  -  and 100 voices burst into a chorus of you know what.
The party would go on forever as you ate, drank (too much) and caught up with the lives of surprise visitors from out of town and friends you’d all but lost touch with. Your boss and the colleagues who had masterminded the show would turn up after work and the party would go on through the night.
Yes, life was fun at 40…and blowing the candles out was a piece of cake.
How times change. Birthdays used to take forever to come round, yet I swear I’ve had four of them this year.
And the only good thing about the damned things is that if they keep coming, you know you are still alive.
I’d better amend that, because I don’t want my friends and to think I'm not going to enjoy our little celebration this weekend. Around 15 of us are taking our zimmer frames, hearing aids and skin tucks for a bit of a bash in Guardamar. It isn’t going to be a night at the Hilton, but the Portico Mar is considerably more salubrious than one or two of my previous birthday bashes,
Like when I opted for the bustle and boom of Vicente Jaen’s chaotic restaurant, where plates of freebie food fly at you from all angles before you even give your order – and then you are submerged by enough food to fill a herd of starving elephants.
There’s no written bill and the only till is the wad of notes tucked away in Vicente’s pocket. It’s all a bit of a shambles, really…but as irresistible as the march of time. Not the Ritz, more of the Pits, really  - but the chaos is pure magic.

In the chaos at Vicente's, my plan for a table for 20 was redrawn as a 12 and an eight and I spent the evening  sitting with my back to most of my guests. The experience confirmed my mathematical theory that the volume of noise generated by a boozing Brit is directly proportional to the amount of alcohol consumed. The longer we celebrated, the louder some of us got (not me, of course)  - and the more disgusted looks headed like daggers in our direction.
It was all good fun and great to have so much support in the absence of my family, who are all in the UK.
One thing I did notice in the haze of alcohol (two gin and tonics - I can’t even get drunk these days) was that there were no candles on the cake.
Perhaps Restaurant Jaen is a no-blow zone, I thought. Because I could definitely have seen off all those little sticks of flaming wax. Well, three or four anyway. I can only eat a few in one sitting.

John Cena and WWE are proof that this grumpy old grappler is past it

John Cena...a hero to fat Americans

Maybe it’s just old age, but I get the impression that America has more brain-dead citizens than any other nation.
And Britain is not far behind, judging by the popularity of the grapple-and-grope circus the Yanks call World Wrestling Entertainment.
I’m talking about the moronic parade of extrovert fall guys which to me represents the World’s Worst Entertainment.
During the 60 seconds I allowed my intelligence to be insulted by WWE on Sky TV, I gathered that the general idea is for some flamboyant 30-stone freak of nature to bellow theatrical death threats at another fat b****** before the two bit-part actors fling their flab at each other in a contrived collision of greased blubber.
The winner is whichever blobby bit-part actor the promoters have decided will bring in the biggest profit from pin-headed punters who buy into the rubbish at inflated ticket prices. And there are millions of them ploughing 3D amounts of dinero, dollars and dosh into the pockets of the moneybags marketeers who peddle their technicolour tripe not only to kids, but also to adults with a mental age of eight and under.
Last year, my son-in-law paid £250 or so to take my two grandsons, aged 14 and eight, to watch one of these over-the-top gushings of Las Vegas glitz on tour in Manchester. That is approximately one per cent of the amount it would have cost WWE to lure my ancient butt into a front-row seat at the Arena. Top that up with danger money to cover decapitation by a mass of flying flab and my total attendance bill would have come to around £30,000. All subject to Fall-you Added Tax, of course. Or FAT as it is known in the States.
Having said that, the WWE scenario is a throwback (or should that be throw forward?) to the halcyon days of the ‘60s and ‘70s, when Kent Walton's mid-Atlantic twang marketed the theatrics of Big Daddy, Giant Haystacks, Jackie Pallo and Co to British TV viewers. The outcome of these contests was usually pre-arranged and the so-called world titles were of course a complete fabrication.
For all that, Walton’s waffle was good fun to listen to and a celebrity cult developed with the names of the heaviest contestants becoming almost as big as their elephantine waistlines.

Giant Haystacks....6ft 11in and weighed 48 stone

I had the dubious privilege of living a couple of streets away from 48-stone Haystacks and his family in north Manchester. On the one occasion I saw him out and about, old straw belly was wedged into the driver's seat of his parked car, which he had outgrown by at least 25 sizes. The 6ft 11in monster was also sitting in the passenger seat, the back seats, and for all I know under the bonnet as well. How he had levered himself into the vehicle, I have no idea. For all I know he could still be trapped inside, 17 years after his death.
One thing I’ll concede to ITV’s Walton package, which ran until 1988, is that Haystacks and Co. were good entertainment. You knew the results were of the much-publicised Pallo v Mick McManus showdowns were meaningless, but it was fun to watch the showmen goading each in the build-up to their imaginary ‘world title’ showdowns.
A kind of 1970s WWE, I suppose. The sort of thing I used to enjoy in my long-lost youth.
What am I saying? That I was once no better than the fat, brain-dead American whose ultimate hero is WWE’s so-called world heavyweight champion John Cena?
You win, WWE - by a submission. I’m a Grumpy Old Gran who is forgetting that she was once young and full of fight like any Cena fan.
But at least I'm not a fat American.

A question of bottle: How Funda-mentalism cured my fear of flying

I used to be so petrified of flying that I'd lock myself away in the airport loo half an hour before boarding and demolish a quarter bottle of  neat Fundador.
Then I'd happily jet off to my destination full of carefree spirit, knowing that if the bottom fell out of the plane at 38,000 feet, I could ferry passengers and crew across the sky to safety using my own 40 per cent proof alcohol tank. 
Even in those days, I was aware that flying was much safer than driving. So, indeed, are the masses of nervous people today who are so scared of air travel that they think a Ryanair loo and a hot flush are the same thing.
So why did I ever get into a flap over what is statistically the safest form of travel on earth (or a few thousand feet above it to be accurate)?  
Global airline safety reports confirm there were a total of 90 commercial aeroplane accidents in 2013, just nine of which involved fatalities .

The 173 people killed on those doomed trips may seem a lot but when you look at the figures in the context of 32 million flights worldwide, the overall statistic of one accident per 300,000 flights and one fatality every three million trips proves conclusively that there is no safer form of transport.
If you are set on meeting St Peter at the Pearly Gates ASAP, then I can reveal that making the trip on two wheels is by far the best bet.  
Yes, the riskiest way to travel anywhere is on a motorbike. Mile-for-mile, motorcycling is statistically  3,000 times more deadly than flying – and you are 100 times more likely to die travelling to Spain on four wheels than on a UK charter flight to or from the Costas.  
Feel free to double the car-death figure if you include the loony Spanish fly boys who have brought a new skill to the art of driving. It's called airborne overtaking and it's soaring in popularity on my local autoroute.
I was approaching my fifties (in age, that is, not maximum driving speed) when I finally came to terms with the fear-of-flying nonsense. During a rare moment of airborne sobriety, my pickled brain came realised that Fundador-mentalism at ground level was much more likely to kill me than an extinct bird trying to board Ryanair ‘s smallest aircraft.
So when I now squeeze myself into one of Michael O’Leary’s tiny 3,000-seaters, I am reasonably relaxed, albeit still with the ability to panic whenever turbulence is around. Admit it, you laid-back veterans of sky travel  - don't you cast a quick look at the cabin crew's faces whenever the engine sound changes or if the fasten seat-belt signs suddenly lights up? 
I'm sure the aircraft staff are trained to remain calm at all times. But I defy them to keep a straight face if and when a desperate dodo sticks its beak into the starboard wing and the engine catches fire.
For all that, it's great to be smugly dismissive of the occasional flyers who break into a round of applause when their holiday flight touches down. What's coming next - a windbound for the driver?
For me, the most sobering thought is that my daughter and her other half run  a major training centre for motorcycle riders in Manchester. 
I need a drink. Anyone seen my hip flask?
PS. A thought on the new menace of terrorism in the air. In the wake of the 9/11 horror, airline passenger miles in the United States fell between 12% and 20% while road travel rocketed. By the time the panic ended and sky travel returned to normal, academics estimated that 1,595 extra lives had been lost. I never could figure out the Americans.

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…