Surreal enough for Dalí?

Where to start?

Surreal conversation number one

‘Hello, police.’

‘Hello, officer, there is a car illegally blocking us in. It’s parked on a yellow line in a tow away zone. We can’t get out.’

‘Give me the number, I’ll try and contact them and ask them to move it.’

Wouldn’t want to be in a rush, would we?

‘It’s not a Gibraltarian car. It’s Spanish.’

‘Can’t do anything about that. Ring the tow truck.’

‘The tow truck?’

‘Yes, I’ll give you the number, although I don’t think they open until eight. You can always try though.’

‘Why can’t you ring them?’

‘It’s not our truck. We don’t have one.’

That will no doubt explain why I have seen tow trucks with staff wearing ‘police’ jackets getting out of them.

‘It’s the car parks. Not our department. They will probably tell you they don’t have a tow truck.’

‘So what do I say then?’

‘You have to talk it out.’

I rang the car park tow truck number. They didn’t answer.

Have Land Rover, will carefully shunt back offending vehicle causing no problem.

I’d only wasted twenty minutes on phone calls. I guess police don’t deal with illegally parked vehicles any more. Unless they want to of course.

Fast forward to later in the week.

Surreal conversation number two

In the heat of the day we were sitting in our cool shady kitchen, looking out onto the terrace, and, beyond that, the sea.

The sun is so high it doesn’t enter the kitchen, so at 11 am or before, we all, us and the dogs, move inside. We’ve been outside since seven so we’ve had our outside fix.

Next doors were outside though. Sitting or standing under their hideous chapas. These are basically corrugated tin roofs. Vile. Tasteless. Cold in winter, hot in summer.

The conversation next door went as follows. Translated from the Spanish.

Cast: José (89), Adelina (86), daughter Marcie (52), husband Antonio (55), older son (24), younger son (22).

M: ‘You can’t have a ham sandwich for breakfast. I can’t afford to pay for you to eat jamón serrano.’

(Spanish cured ham, about five euros for a pack of thin slices.)

J: ‘But I’ve always had it, that’s what I like.’

M: ‘I can’t manage the budget with you eating jamón serrano for breakfast. Eat an orange instead.’

But clearly he didn’t want, because the next day I was given two bags of fruit and veg which included five oranges.

I’d eaten one

To put this into perspective, they have six people living under one roof. For many years, the only income was José’s pension. It funded all six of them, plus a couple of fiddle jobs earned by Marcie and Antonio. His daughter and her family live in a house on the back, built by José and the daughter’s husband. No mortgage. Nada.

The two sons have finally got jobs (unlike half of the young people in Spain), so more money is coming in. So why can José not have a ham sandwich for breakfast? It’s hardly done him any harm over the years if he’s got to 89. Nor do Adelina and José drink or smoke or drive. Whereas the younger family between them have one motorbike and three cars to tax and insure.

And killing him off would lose the pension.

Meanwhile, on starving Spaniards …

Surreal food scenario

Here is an article about gleaners in Catalunya.

People are harvesting the unwanted crops for food banks.

I can’t comment on Catalunya but in my part of Andalucía, the crops aren’t so much unwanted, the growers can’t make enough money out of harvesting them. So they all go to waste.

Contributing to apparently 88m tonnes of wasted food in Europe each year at an estimated cost of £113bn. This is the EU famed for butter mountains and milk lakes and now we have wasted vegetables and food banks. But still, Spain’s bankers continue to meander around these minor austerity problems faced by the working classes.

Beans. Hopefully not too many wasted :(

Surreal bullish life

Next, we have a report about Pamplona and their despicable running of the bulls. Apparently all these testosterone fuelled men can’t limit themselves to bulls. They need to victimise women too:

Police in Pamplona have arrested 16 men over the last few days as they investigate reports of five violent sexual attacks – including a rape and an attempted rape – and 11 allegations of sexual assault.

To be fair, city councillor Aritz Romeo isn’t stupid.

“I think the reasons are basically cultural; they’re rooted in the false belief that men are superior to women and that women are there to satisfy them. It’s a sexist and patriarchal culture.”

Very good. And when you join the dots, Romeo, you will realise that bullfighting is merely the same thing. Just using and abusing animals rather than women. But difficult to say that when it’s rather a large income stream for Pamplona.

Still, at least one bull had his fifteen minutes of fame in Teruel.

Sometimes Facebook does turn up some gems:

Let’s hear it for the culturally victimised bulls

Full link to newsthump.