They're Coming To Take Me Away, Ha Ha.

Thursday April 1st is the first day when a number of Britons living in Spain will become illegal aliens. How many this might be, no one knows. How many might be rounded up and sent packing by the Spaniards is also in doubt. Those who are, or do, will have fallen foul of the Schengen area rules, which state that foreigners can only be in the region for ninety days in any one hundred and eighty.

And yes, they have ways of knowing if you drove up to France for a visit or you live off the grid and only use cash. The rule has been in place for foreigners ever since the treaty was signed; the only difference is that the British, through their own ingenuity, have now joined the ranks of ‘foreigners’. Well played.

There has been plenty of warning – between the British ambassador, his consulate, the English-language media and two or three champions emerging from between the British residents like Anne Hernandez (Find her at this Olive Press story here) and Sue Wilson, both enemies of the result of the 2016 UK referendum to leave the European Union. The item, understandably, is of less interest to the Spanish, and appears in few places.

It’s strange how far-off unrest can affect us locally: a bit like the Ever Given container ship clogging up the Suez Canal, the fall of the Siege of Mafeking or that peculiar flu-like sickness in Wuhan. 

Britain’s answer to terrible journalism The Express has now sunk to quoting the peculiar Global247News (here) with one Anthony Cook saying “The Spanish dream is over for me, it’s time to go back to Cardiff. It’s been a blast but the new regulations have made it impossible to stay. The freedom of movement has gone and I don’t want to end up getting deported and fined”. In answer to this egregious provocation by the Spanish authorities, “Diddy”, from The Express Editor’s Pick, answers with: “I hope those from the EU living in the UK are awarded the same treatment”. Other British, Irish and even Swiss (here) news-sites followed with similar quotes; although The Guardian, at least, smelled a rat.

Global247News ran an even-more eccentric follow-up, two days later: ‘Brits delighted to be back in UK after Spanish deadline departure looms’ ending with this quote, “I’m back! – it’s fantastic, British real ale, proper fish and chips and the TV doesn’t freeze and no power cuts, it’s bloody marvellous – oh and you still see the sun on occasions”.

The Spanish news has been relatively silent on this tender subject, although Almeria Hoy says that ‘Thousands of Brits living in Almería will become ‘illegals’ at the end of March’. We wonder (briefly?) how many more will be branded ‘illegal’ in the much larger provinces of Málaga, Alicante and the archipelagos?

If true – the question arises, where will the British authorities house the hundreds of thousands of irate Brits from the EU-27 who will be unceremoniously dumped on the Southampton quay by various European navies in the days to come?

Will they be building little wooden homes for them/us on Salisbury Plain?

 

Who Needs a Car (Who, Who)?

Thinking of buying a new car? Probably not. For one thing, as you may have read, it spends most of its life parked. Not being used.

Then there’s the garage or parking space to pay off. Maybe we should stick to a bicycle, which one can always leave in the kitchen, or the spare bedroom.

The average number of people in a car, when it is moving about, is just 1.6 persons, which, when you think about it, is a lot less economic than a tandem.

Expensive things, cars. They cost a fortune new, are heavily taxed, and then there’s the depreciation – starting from the moment the new owner drives one off the forecourt.

Even at the end of its life, many years later (or when the ITV people have thrown up their hands), it’s still a bother. All those brand new bits, for some reason known as ‘spares’, inside the Old Girl from various repairs, are evidently now worthless. The desguace people gave me fifty euros to sign off my old banger as being en baja. Fifty euros? That was the price I paid for the novelty screw-on gear-knob last year in Benidorm.

Maybe we should share transport in some fashion, or simply take the bus.

If there is one.

The buses in the countryside, or the small villages, are few and far between – and the ones that go to the house of George and Eunice across the valley for evening drinks are even less so. An electric scooter might be the answer, but after a couple of gin and tonics, I’d likely lose my balance and fall off.

The vehicle inspection, the painful ITV, is slightly on hiatus these days (45% of cars that should have had their latest inspection, er, haven’t. We’ll put it down to the Covid, shall we?). It’s the case that the parque automovilístico – the cars on the road in Spain (or near it) are getting older. The average private vehicle is now over thirteen years old.

Unsurprisingly, the sale of new cars has fallen sharply (by 40% it says here) – since we drive around even less these days, what with the pandemic sprawled in the back seat picking its teeth. Added to that, the taxes have risen steeply on buying a new car.  Sales in second-hand  cars are also down, by over 16%. 

We should be moving towards electric cars, but who will want to buy your old sparkycar with 200 kilometres of autonomy five years from now, when the new ones will be much lighter and offering 20,000ks? They’ll probably be doing the driving by then, as you sit in the back and munch on a sandwich.

There are those people who own two cars. Since they no doubt drive as much as someone with only one car, then their average vehicle-usage halves. And as we have seen, it wasn’t good to begin with. Maybe we should stick to art – at least it goes up in value unless the item in question is terrible, in which case – with luck – you can probably sell it for what you paid for it (or give it to your mother-in-law for Christmas).

Then there’s the status of having a new car – which is a bit like having a gold tooth – there’s not much point unless you smile a lot.

 

Bye Citizens! It's Been Good to Know You

Murcia is a mess. First of all, as reported by BoT, some 400 party apparatchiks got their vaccines out of turn – as the PSOE complained to the prosecutor – back in January. Meanwhile, the vice-president of Murcia (as was), Mario Gómez (C’s) has denounced the PP to the police for massive fraud for sundry reasons.

In the opinion of the PSOE Murcia spokesperson, ‘the PP think of the region as their farm, where they can do as they like’. The PP has controlled the Murcia Region (it’s – confusingly – made up of just one province, Murcia) since 1995.

Back in Madrid, the Ciudadanos leader Inés Arrimadas wants to show her independence and underline the importance of a centrist party.

That, or go down with the ship.

The PP is under stress, it needs to stem the loss of support rightwards (imagine writing that a couple of years ago) as well as scooping up any ‘Riveristas’ unhappy with Inés from Ciudadanos. Not that Murcia was under much threat – as a C’s councillor there was all along in direct communication with the PP General Secretary Teodoro García Egea in Madrid!

Thus the Spanish public were treated to the farce of the revolution that never was, as, best foot forward – the PP bought (or ‘persuaded through their comely rhetoric’ if you prefer) the three Ciudadanos councillors necessary to reverse the motion of censure (plus one extra for luck) and gave them all juicy posts in the new Murcia regional government.

While this was afoot, the other regions with PP/C’s alliances were shaking. The Madrid Region, under Isabel Díaz Ayuso, has called for a snap election for May 4th to avoid any rebellion; Castilla y León have a motion of censure to deal with, although Ciudadanos is apparently getting cold feet; and the fourth region with the alliance, Andalucía, says they are happy to continue as is.

But, it gets worse for Inés, as two other senior party-members have now left C’s – one joins the PP – Fran Hervías (here), and the other, Toni Cantó, says he is returning to his day job (here). The question is – was the right-leaning Ciudadanos founder Albert Rivera fanning the flames as La Razón jubilantly claims - bringing his old party into the arms of the PP?

Result: Pablo Casado gets a few laughs from his ‘We honest’ comments, but comes out of this stronger; while Ciudadanos are, to all tense and purpose, nearing their best-before date.