Spanish web sites

Web sites in Spain are very frustrating. I like to think of myself as a very average sort of person. I've always been able to buy a suit off the peg without having to worry that the sleeves will be too long or the trousers too short. So I presume that my use of the web to find things out, buy things etc. is pretty typical. I've become used to being able to sort things out from home sitting at the keyboard.

Apparently in a survey of the top 35 Spanish firms (the local equivalent of the FTSE 100) only 25 had websites. Of those some ridiculously small number (just one I think) managed to keep it's website fully functional for 30 days on the trot. Antena 3, a TV station, was dead on the average by keeping its site up for just 8 out of the 30 day test period. That's my experience too that often the sites are simply not running. But, when they are.

You can't rely on the address being www. I read an article the other day about being able to watch legitimate movies from various websites. There were seven on the list, only two worked and only one was www. This was a typical address http://videoteca.cvc.cervantes.es As you can see they like to keep them simple.

Or, for instance, I want to transfer 175€ from the CAM bank account to the CajaMurcia. If I go into the bank and do it I will pay nothing but to do it over the internet costs 2.70€ in commission.

I want to put a classified ad in Información, one of the local newspapers. Every time I try to pay the site rejects the payment but it also wipes out the information that I've typed into the various boxes so I have to start again with my ID number, name, address etc. When I eventually give up and phone the paper to place the ad they tell me that the website hasn't worked properly for a couple of months and won't take any sort of bank card payments. Ah! except it sometimes works with BBVA cards.

My ID number is called an NIE (Foreigner's number.) Spaniards all have a DNI (ID number.) When I manage to get my hands on a DNI it will be the same number as my current NIE. Every Spanish website that asks for any personal information asks for an ID number. On the official form my NIE number is X-5693545-X but if I try to put that into most sites it cuts off the last X. This is because the websites will only accept the number in a particular format and that format doesn't like hyphens. When I cut both hyphens to give X5693545X the websites often just sit there waiting for me to add the ten characters they require so I have to add a zero to get X05693545X. Then again some like to miss out the initial letter but stick with 9 characters 05693545X. It can be very frustrating especially as they seldom give an example of the format they are using.

Not all the websites offer the option to put an NIE instead of a DNI. They ask for a passport number instead. The trouble is that the next time I go back to this site it asks me for my DNI, NIE, CIF (tax identity) or passport number plus my password. When I typed in the information the first time I wasn't aware that the site was going to do this so I kept no record of which number I finally managed to use. Consequently, I have to go through the whole lot, complete with all the hyphen and zero variations, to get back into the site. Often though, and the websites don't tell you this, you only get three chances to get the number right before it stops taking any notice. I often use all the variations only to have them all rejected unless I remember to log in anew after every third failed attempt.

Or the required fields - Christopher for forename - Thompson for first surname - I leave the box for second surname blank as I don't have a second surname. This means the website rejects my name, tells me that I've forgotten my second surname and usually wipes out any information I've typed in to that point. I have tried inserting a space as my second surname, or a hyphen but the websites generally reject that and the only foolproof way is to put John as my first surname and Thompson as my second surname. It does mean that I get addressed as Señor John but it's better than the other options.

Addresses can be fun too. The majority are built up as street name, number, descriptors for flats (first floor, left hand door) etc. So the sophisticated websites have a drop down menu for each of those elements: street, avenue, drive, passage, place etc. They often do not have one for PO box (which is what we use) nor do they have one which says none of these. Our village is so small that the house identifier is just village name plus a number. It's a bit like number 5 Cambridge. We're not allowed by many of the websites not to choose street, avenue etc. and our postcode is based on the local, more important, town. So instead of being able to put our address as number 5 Culebron we end up with something that says Culebron street number 5, Pinoso which is a very plausible adress. It just isn't ours.

I used to use SMS messaging from the computer quite a bit. Telefonica, the phone company, offer the facility to send SMS messages, via the computer, charged to our fixed line phone. It works OK except that the box for the phone number will only takes nine numbers (a Spanish mobile phone number) which means it is impossible to send an international SMS message via this route.

And if I want to recharge my mobile phone via the internet I can, of course. But first I have to go to a Telefonica shop and sign a contract before they will give me a password to use on the website.

I can pay my Council Tax and water rates on the Internet but, again, I have to go to the office first to get a digital ID certificate and Iberdrola (the power company) took three weeks to send me the email with my password to access their "virtual office".

For anyone used to the majority of UK and US based websites Spanish websites are a real frustration.

Not for any particular reason

I just thought this was an interesting poster site. The one on the left is an advert for Easter week and the one on the right says "Shield (or coat of arms) Festival - the Invasion". I presume that it's some sort of battle re-enactment.

Putting out the rubbish

All over Spain there are containers, like the rectangular green one (far right) in the photo, for rubbish. If they're in a town then you're supposed to take the stuff from your house to the street bins between 9 and 11 in the evening. The bin lorries come around every evening from around midnight and take the lot away. The collections in rural areas are less frequent. Our container, for instance, which is about 40 metres from or front door, is emptied on just Monday and Friday.

This picture, taken in a street in Cieza in Murcia, also shows a couple of recycling bins. Usually it's light green for glass, blue for paper and card and yellow for containers such as tins, cans, tetrapaks and the like. Even in the countryside there are quite a lot of the recycling bins and they seem to get emptied pretty regularly.

What a varied and interesting life we lead

"I fancy going to Cartagena, what do you think?" "Good idea", said Maggie, "unless there's something better locally."

It was my fault, I took too long borrowing the drill and buying a phone card up in Pinoso. "Let's go to the Mediaeval Fayre in Novelda now it's so late", said Maggie. We went with Trish and John our next door but one neighbours.

There were jugglers and acrobats and bands and stalls at the fayre.

Every day another advance

Incredible. We now have power in the garage. I borrowed a drill and some 45cm long drill bits from Charlie. I drilled a hole through the kitchen wall, behind the cooker hood, through into the garage. More accurately I drilled a 45cm hole and then borrowed a 60cm bit from John to actually get through to the other side. Pushed a bit of cable through, connected it to the input for the cooker hood at one end and 2.95€ worth of plug socket at the other end. Bingo! power outside the house ready for summer music and fairy lights. No bodge up this time.

And then we had it fitted

After a few phone calls to Carrefour to sort out whether we could have the aircon fitted or not suddenly it all happened. Someone phoned me yesterday morning and made an appointment to fit the thing at 4.30. Two Argentinian lads turned up at 5.10 in a beaten up old van (see earlier post about white vans) and spent the next two and a half h0urs lashing the units to the wall. They said that our pre instaltion was all wrong (though they didn't suck on their teeth) but they got it up anyway. They took their 190€ fitting fee and cleared off. True it's a bit skewiff but it sems to work. Now to find out which of the competing stories is true. The owners of Firstline aircon units say they're fine, people who own more expensive units say that that Carrefour own brand stuff is unreliable.

We finally bought an air conditioner

When we were getting ready to move into our new house we had three big items on the shopping list. A sofa to sit on, satellite TV so Maggie could watch East Enders and air conditioning so we could sip our G&Ts in comfort. Somehow the simplicity of that original list escaped us and we found other things to buy before we finally got around to that sofa. However, this last weekend we went ahead and bought item number two on the list - a cheap air conditioner from Carrefour.

We weren't sure; an unknown brand from a supermarket not famed for the longevity of it's electrical products. The aircon unit itself is underpowered and it's not an inverter type we'd intended to buy but it was pretty cheap and we had decided that as we hardly needed aircon last year cheap would do. We still have to get it fitted and the man at Carrefour seemed to be a bit cagey about that suggesting that their tame fitters don't like coming this far out into the country. More to come on aircon I'm sure.

Spanish newspapers

When I say Spanish newspapers I really mean El Pais.

Apart from the local rag, El Canfali, published every Friday and obviously written by a journalist who believes there's always a longer and worse word I can only comment on El Pais because it's the only paper I buy.

It's compact, not a broadsheet, and the headlines never dominate the front page. The rather blurred picture of the front page reproduced here is pretty typical. By UK standards it lacks photos and there are several pages of editorial comment and featured writers with no photos at all though they usually put in a political cartoon to break up close spaced text. The standard of photos is high especially on the Sports pages which take up quite a lot of space. The only sport that competes with football (i.e. with Barcelona and Real Madrid) for top billing is Formula 1. Alonso seems to be a bit of a hero.

Articles have a bold first paragraph to encapsualte the main point of the story as they do in the UK but the paragraphs are not quite so punchy and it doesn't seem to be a rule that the verbs have to be active as they nearly always are in the UK. Although my language skills are obviously a bit weak to comment on the literary style the articles seem to be generally well written. Strangely though Spanish newspapers seem to have a tendency to use words that may not be so common in everyday speech. I seem to remember that UK newspapers were good at using common everyday words whereas the Spanish equivalents is to use words that are "only" used by newspapers. Difficult again to translate but in loose translation people fail rather than die and accidents become disasters.

Quite a strange thing by UK standards is that, as a national newspaper, El Pais has a section dedicated to Valencian news. Spain is divided into Autonomies, or Regions, which in turn are generally subdivided into provinces. So we are in the Valencian region in the province of Alicante. We get the Valencian edition of the paper. I presume there's an Andalucian one, a Catalan one, a Basque one etc. This means it acts as a local paper so I can use it to check what's on the local TV or at the nearby cinemas.

The only reason I thought to comment was that one of today's articles roughly translates as "Blair's swansong" and it's about selling peerages, sleaze and Gordon. I find it quite odd how much UK news there is in the Spanish media in general. They must be interested in us as a nation.

Baños de Fortuna

About 30 kilometres from us, in the province of Murcia there is a hot spring resort called the Baños de Fortuna.

Hot, saline water bubbles out of the ground heated to 52ºC. The water is supposed to have therapeutic properties and a tourist trade built up around the hot springs at the beginning of the 20th Century.

The hot water is mixed with cold before it flows into a pool that looks just like any other outdoors swimming pool. The place is a bit down at heel now with a sort of gently fading elegance but it's still an interesting place to stop for a coffee. I suppose you could even have a dip if you were that way inclined.

Embracing nature

The ground between trees in Spain is supposed to look like earth. Apparently the idea is to avoid fires by keeping the ground clear. It is considered very bad form by the locals to let the weeds grow even if they look pretty.





The space between our trees looks like this. So I spent a fair bit of the weekend clearing back weeds and generally sorting out the more boring bits of or garden.







As you can see I have truly embraced nature.

Lirios

My mum tells me that the crocuses and daffs are out in the UK. Maggie tells me these are irises. They're by the side of our drive.