Life in Culebrón

We're going to take a stroll through a typical Spanish Archaeological Museum. First though some figures to show just how much of our history is really prehistory. Take my figures with a pinch of salt. The information is generally European and, because there was some variation in the detail, I rounded and massaged the figures. They are fine for a conversation down the pub but not detailed enough to form the basis of your specialist subject on Mastermind. About 4,500,000,000 years ago the Earth was formed About 3,700,000,000 years ago microbes pop up About 500,000,000 years ago jellyfish are doing just fine About 2,500,000 years ago and there are eight (and probably more to be unearthed) human species like the Neanderthals and Denisovans kicking about About 300,000 years ago we appear - Homo Sapiens. Time will prove that sapiens was a bad choice of name. Total human population about 30,000 About 73,000 years ago the Toba catastrophe (a volcanic eruption in Indonesia) reduces the huma...

We were up in Valencia a little while ago. One of the places we went was a museum called L'Etno. I'd heard on the radio that it had won the 2023 European Museum of the Year Award so, while we were in town, it made sense to go and have a nosey. My 'two and two' skills being what they are, I'd failed to realise that it was an ethnology museum. Ethnology isn't a word I use every day but, in essence, it's a museum about society and its artefacts; old cars, 8 tracks, telephone boxes, rolling pins and fridges. Like everyone else, as we gawped at the exhibits, we reminisced. "We had one of those in our kitchen" or "My mum used to swear by Oxydol." One of the many things that drew my attention was a photo with the title "El baile de los solteros." The museum people had interpreted that caption into English as "No dance for the single men." It's a black and white photo. The background music is a chotis, a Madrileño folk dan...

The tyres on my car were getting towards the dodgy end of the spectrum. There are two obvious tyre retailers in Pinoso - places with pictures of tyres on their signs. I asked them, in person, for prices. I got quotes for tyres made by Aplus, Kummo, Minerva, Roadstone, Firestone and Hankook. I was born in a simpler world. A world where Cadbury was British, not American and Volvo was Swedish, not Chinese. When a Mini had a BMC engine and not a Peugeot one. When tyres were made by Pirelli, Goodyear, Dunlop and Michelin. I'd never heard of most of the brands. The only decision I could make about quality was price. If Firestone cost more than Insa I supposed they were better but then again we all know that sometimes we're paying for a name. The Internet reviews were useless. The tyres were still legal. I decided the choice could wait. At a routine, prepaid, service on the car SEAT disagreed with me. They said the tyres didn't have enough tread left. They gave me a price to repla...

Try telling a Spanish insurance company's price calculator that you've been driving since you were 17. They won't have it. Spaniards can't get a driving licence till they're 18 so the Spaniards believe that everywhere in the world starts driving at 18. The insurance company's database is built around the Spanish way of doing things. It's a good job I'm not from South Dakota. It used to be the same for foreign names. I'd want to register on a Spanish webpage. I was asked for both my surnames. As I don't have two surnames, and as it was often a required field, I'd try with an X or a dash. Sometimes that didn't work; I'm still Chris Thompson Nil on a fair few databases. It's a problem that has almost gone away nowadays. There's still space for two surnames but only the first will be compulsory. This is because, as I'm sure you know, most Spaniards have two surnames; one from the mother and the other from the father. The usual...

If you've ever seen people in Alicante or Murcia dressed in traditional clothes, you may have noticed that they are wearing rope-soled shoes. Before I moved to Spain, I'd have called them espadrilles. Here, they are called alpargatas. They are made from esparto grass which, like hemp or sisal, can be woven and sewn to make numerous everyday items. Once upon a time ordinary people wore alpargatas all the time for everything form climbing palm trees and working the earth to dancing at fiesta time. I have a friend who, often, when we go somewhere new, asks me how people who live or lived in that place make or made a living. Usually I guess that it's web design or selling insurance or running a bar, just like everywhere else but even if I have a better answer it can seem unlikely. We're in some forgotten village in Teruel in front of a gigantic old house, palace-sized and the answer is that all that money came from sheep. Hmm, a likely story. It's true, though; wool gen...

In 2004 Spanish bookshops were intimidating places. Berlin Wall like there was nearly always a counter and the books were behind it. They were protected by someone, invariably older, invariably stern, Dickensian even - villainous Dickensian. There were shelves too, sometimes in the Allied Zone, but without apparent order. Lots of the shops were dark and dusty with piles of books. The organisation of the books was a secret known only to that formidable bookshop employee. As well as looking sinister the person behind the counter spoke Spanish. Another big hurdle. But I'd decided early on in my Spanish adventure that reading in Spanish was a good way to tackle the language so these obstacles had to be overcome. After a couple of bad buys, panicked into buying some Spanish classic with impenetrable prose, I decided to try something I'd already read in English. I'd been told that translated books were often easier to read. Hemingway, and his short sentences seemed like a good p...

I don't know the names of all my cousins. It's not that there are hordes of them nor are we are sworn enemies. I've just never bothered much with them and they've never bothered with me. I'm sure we'd get on fine if we met. To make one of those sweeping, and sometimes inaccurate, generalisations Spaniards aren't like that. Here families are super important. Many Spanish people talk to, and visit, their families all the time. Families do things as families and the idea of family stretches the length of even the most diluted bloodline.  If Spanish families, nuclear families, are going somewhere to do something then it's very normal for the whole family to go. None of this parking the kids with a babysitter while the adults don their glad rags. I was reminded of this a couple of times during this month. I went to Aspe to see four bands in a long evening, a mini festival, that the organisers call Aspesuena. I'd gone, particularly, to see a band called Sh...

I just got a scary looking email. It was full of number codes and it came from the Government of Spain. My first thought was that it was a fine, the second that it was a scam. In fact it was from SUMA, the local tax collection agency, to tell me that a couple of new household bills were waiting for me on their website. Official Spanish is laced with over complicated and little used words. They really do need to start using plain, everyday language. Britons living in Spain often complain about Spanish tax. I can't actually find anything on the internet that directly compares the average tax burden between countries. I suppose, in the end, there are so many variables, from obvious taxes like income tax and VAT/IVA through to the sugar tax on soft drinks, that it's almost impossible to calculate. What there are are official figures, at country level, about how much tax revenues represent, as a percentage of the total budget. For instance in the UK taxes represent 35.5% of the tota...

We all know about spam phone calls. We all have our methods for getting shut. At the end of the call we block the number but the baddies seem to have a limitless supply. Here in Spain we Brits have a ready made get out with the old "Me no speaky foreign strategy". If that doesn't work then rudeness, anger or simply putting the phone down will - at least till the next call.  Since 2009 it's supposed to have been possible to stop these people pestering you by signing up to the Lista Robinson , the Robinson list. I did and it seems reasonably effective but I've heard that, for some call centres, the Robinson list is just another database to plunder. At the end of June 2023 new legislation came into force which is supposed to make it more difficult for these cold callers to keep on pestering us. The general consensus is that the legislation is so full of holes that it won't change anything. Oh, and by the way if you're registered as a business or as self emplo...

It's been sunny and hot for a few days now. Everyone, everywhere is complaining. I'm surprised too. Imagine, hot in Spain, and in August. I was just bringing in some washing. Five or six pegs crumbled in my hands. The plastic just gives up the ghost when faced with day after day of bright sunlight and heat. That's why Spaniards park their cars in the shade. If not expect the paint to peel off the bodywork and the headlight lenses to go cloudy in time. Oh, and expect singed skin and lots of oohing! and aahing! getting into the car. Garden furniture doesn't have a chance. The chairs that have the nylon seats and metal frames have proved to outlast the nice rattan designs, the good looking wooden furniture and even the very basic, very cheap, plastic, stacking chairs. Even then, eventually, the thread fails. You realise it's happening when you hear a faint ripping sound and your bottom begins to sink earthward though, usually, fortunately, there is time to save your dr...