Andalucia Steve

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I'm Steve — tech tinkerer, guitar modder, writer, and unlicensed philosopher living in the olive-covered hills of Andalucía. This site is where I store my musings, rants, projects, and passion projects. Grab a coffee and have a scroll.

If you enjoy this blog perhaps consider buying my a coffee via Paypal at paypal.me/andalusiasteve

What I’m Up To Now

Rebuilding this site after my host had a siesta
Spray-painting guitars under the Andalusian sun
Running AI models locally and muttering about privacy

Don't Get Me Started..

Are You Ready For WW3?

A Candid Journey Through Stockpiling, Strategy, and Survival in a Precarious World

In a fun year that seems to keep getting more fun every week (#ironyalert!) the EU (via the European Commission) has just launched a new “Preparedness Union Strategy” aimed at boosting Europe’s resilience to emerging threats. Among the 30 actions covering everything from early-warning systems to civil-military crisis exercises, it calls for “promoting population preparedness” by encouraging the public “to maintain essential supplies for a minimum of 72 hours in emergencies”. This follows on from early civil defence pamphlets or apps published by France, Germany and the Nordic countries. As I will explain, this push coincides with my own thinking and steps I have recently taken to bunker down.

Among the things that make me a very dull man is that I'm very risk averse. I'm a safety guy, in fact some who know me might say ‘excessively so’. (Some of the other things that make me dull, which are legion, include a fondness for prog-rock, an obsession with vintage television shows like “The Prisoner” and a self-belief in my potential as a musician that after five decades that has yet to be realised)

Anyway, back to risk. I've never ridden a motorcycle. Well I went on the back a few times, but the feeling of exhilaration and freedom that I'm told makes the experience desirable never manifested in me strongly enough to overcome the warning my brain signals to me of the dangers. I saw a dead guy covered in newspapers lying in the road after a bike crash when I was single-digit old and I remember thinking – 'note-to-self, do not end up like that'.

There were many things that led to me quitting the UK and moving to Spain in 2003, but one was certainly 9/11. The old risk-calculator in the noggin kicked in and I decided that the increase in terrorism renders cities as targets. However slight it may be, if you live in London, New York or Paris, you do so under the possibility that you may at some point be attacked. The larger the population, the greater the risk. Moving to an ‘out of the way’ country like Spain and to a small village rather than a big city seemed to me to be a logical move.

Even when choosing a property, my risk aversion kicked in. I was looking for a house with an elevated aspect that would be resistant to flooding (and couldn't be overlooked by snipers - OK I'm teasing about that one, I'm not completely paranoid!)

Given my lifelong focus on minimizing risks, Trump’s election marked a turning point where, in my mind, the threat of World War III escalated to DEFCON 1. This isn't because I see Trump as some maniacal tyrant with a wargasm fetish. The problem with Trump as I see it is his hair-trigger. He's easily upset and his responses unpredictable. He could take the actions or words of another world leader the wrong way and press the big red button out of spite before anyone sane has the opportunity to talk him out of it.

The flag-shagging right-wing press in the UK, which I monitor to see what lies they're trying to brainwash folk with each day, seems equally expectant, having carried numerous WW3 scenario stories, some so painstakingly researched and presented that I strongly suspect military involvement behind the scenes. Some of these helpfully point towards websites where the likelihood of nuclear attack and the possible damage inflicted can be accessed for any geographical location, simply by entering one's address.

With this as my starting point I decided to assess my own risk, should 'the reds decide to push the button down' (apologies to Donald Fagan). It turns out moving to Spain was a very smart move on my part. Spain managed to stay largely neutral in two world wars, so is more than likely to keep its distance from any bust-ups once again. There are possible targets near me - the US military bases at Moron and Rota, though to destroy runways and ports there are better conventional weapons to do this rather than use nukes. So far, so good - I'm not a direct or indirect target.

The problem though is fallout. Nuclear conflict in Europe would inevitably lead to clouds of Strontium 90 and other dangerous sources of radioactive material that could blow my way causing all sorts of problems. Google is my friend, and I consulted so you don't have to.

The scenario for me in my little village is that following an incident, the best thing to do is to stay inside for at least two to four weeks, while the fallout settles. Ideally during this time I'd have the house completely sealed off with a separate air supply, but this is obviously impractical. Instead I found advice that in a house like mine on three floors, the best thing is to stay downstairs, taping up the doors and windows with duct tape. Then tape up some sheets on the doors in the upper levels. Air would still circulate through the upper levels of the house, with some of the dirtier air captured in the sheets.

I would not be able to leave the house for a month at least, so I have to ensure there is enough food and bottled water to last that time. Since November I've been over-shopping, buying a few items for the cupboard each time I go shopping for myself. I consulted with ChatGTP to get advice about the best foods to get to provide a reasonably balanced diet which would not subject me to nutritional shortfalls, so lots of tinned fish, tinned fruit and so on. The water supply can no longer be relied upon during this time, so not only have I stocked up on ‘potable’ bottled water but I have saved hundreds of litres of grey water for flushing the toilet etc.

Electricity cannot be guaranteed either so in order to make sure I can cook the food in the store cupboard, I've invested in a small portable alcohol stove. These are supposed to be used outside, but I've done some tests in the stairwell and for short usage there is not enough carbon monoxide to be problematic as the heat carries it up the stairs. Yes, I also bought a carbon monoxide detector! For light I've also bulk-bought some candles and I have a wind-up radio/mp3 player for news and entertainment!

Finally, in order to know when it is safe to venture out again I need to be able to know the level of residual radiation in the outside world, so I've bought a cheap and nasty Geiger counter - twenty euros from Ali-Express, but hopefully this will give me a rough idea of what is happening to the current ambient levels. I've also stocked up on facemasks and disposable gloves, to be worn when first going outside to minimise my personal exposure. Like I said, I'm a safety guy!

It may sound like a lot, but apart from the food for the store-cupboard, the hardware spend has only been about 70 euros – hardly breaking the bank for a little peace of mind.

So how about you, are you worried about a conflict? Do you think ahead? Are you a ‘prepper’? Do you have any tips, or have you spotted any flaws in my own preparations? Let me know!

Posted by Steve Gould Thursday, March 27, 2025 1:57:00 PM Categories: America Andalusia Dystopia Electricity Food Geopolitics Spain WW3

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The demise of supermarket baskets.

I'm not a number, I'm a free man, and I don't want to use a trolley

1st world problem I know, but I'm really cheesed off that my favourite supermarket here in Spain, Mercadona has phased out hand baskets - we're trolley only in my branch now, and while I've been suffering in silence about this for nine months or so, now is the time for the worm to turn.

So I wrote them a letter of complaint about it yesterday in both Spanish and English, so let's see what happens. (My money is on nothing, as corporations always value profit over customer convenience). Here it is:

El inglés es mi lengua materna, por lo que primero escribí mi queja en mi lengua materna, luego hay una traducción a continuación creada por ChatGTP, a la que le falta un poco de matiz:

I find myself spending less money in Mercadona and more in supermarkets that actually have convenient handbaskets for light shopping.

I wasn’t happy when the baskets disappeared from my local branch in Olvera, Cádiz some nine months ago, but I thought rather than complain right away, I’d give it a fair amount of time to try and get used to the ‘new normal’ but here I am complaining because I remain a very unhappy shopper.

This letter is prompted by my most recent visit, where I bought 23 euros worth of groceries. On my arrival there were no small trolleys which makes me angry, so instead I took control of a large trolley, knowing this was an unnecessary encumbrance for the small list of shopping it was my ambition to purchase. I tried to store my groceries in the child seat, since that was all the space I needed, but I still had to negotiate the aisles with a trolley that was far too large, that it struck me it was like driving a car around my living room.

The checkout queues were enormous but a new one was opened up by a chap called Valle, whom I know from previous encounters is one of your best employees in the branch. His checkout was near the door, furthest from the trolley bay. As has been my practice in the past, knowing this would be perfectly OK with Valle, I put my shopping on the conveyor and parked the oversized trolley behind the counter inline with the impulse purchase items, knowing it wouldn’t be in anyone else’s way. As I reached for my bag for life, some old codger behind me prodded me and pushed the abandoned trolley towards me, I protested saying I don’t need it. To calm the situation, Valle motioned for me to move it to the far wall near the entrance.

I was flustered. Since Spanish is my second language I tend to avoid arguments because I may not be able to finish what I started. I wanted to say “I don’t get paid to work here, so I don’t walk around parking trolleys that I didn’t want in the first place”. I wanted to say “I only had a few items so I just needed a basket, and if I had a basket I could just leave it at the end of the checkout without being accused of being a bad citizen by failing to maintain my environmentally friendly FMCG collection device”.

This is the latest in a plethora of mini-disasters that have come to shape my Mercadona shopping experience. I’ve lost count of the number of times I have arrived to find there are no trolleys at all on the shop floor, and so I have delved into the limited timebank God gives me in a day to venture down to the car park in search of a trolley, having to get the elevator to return to the store – an experience I hate because I have mild claustrophobia when it comes to elevators thanks to movies like Speed and Die Hard.

The fundamental problem here is that motorists use trolleys while pedestrians use baskets (or used to before you took them away). Now that all the FMCG collection devices are trolleys, they all end up in the car park, in a way baskets never did.

I’ve also lost count of the number of times I’ve seen shoppers walk in, ‘tut’ because there are no trolleys (or baskets) but venture in to the store to do their shopping carrying what they can in their arms.

Look I’m not a muppet, I know how it works. You’ve probably hired some management consultant straight out of university whose promised to increase you profits by doing away with baskets because then shoppers aren’t limited by the volume of stuff we can carry. He was probably the same genius behind the pineapple PR campaign to get folk to warm to the new trolleys and distract them from the theft of the baskets.

Well this person hasn’t accounted for the positives of using a basket. Being a pedestrian who doesn’t own a car, I deliberately carried my basket by hand so as I shopped, I could gauge the weight of what I was buying – I need to know because I can’t be walking home with too much stuff. With a trolley I have to do that visually so I tend to be cautious and most times buy less than I would have done before. Also baskets promote quick shopping – this is the goal isn’t it? They’re called Fast Moving Consumer Goods for a reason! I’m sure between folk carrying shopping in their arms and folk like me, increasingly using Dia and Albeyco because they do have baskets, any increase to your bottom line is offset by such losses, meanwhile you’re making Mercadona a far less popular place to shop.

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Me encuentro gastando menos dinero en Mercadona y más en supermercados que en realidad tienen canastas de mano convenientes para compras ligeras.

No estuve contento cuando las canastas desaparecieron de mi sucursal local en Olvera, Cádiz, hace unos nueve meses, pero pensé que en lugar de quejarme de inmediato, les daría un tiempo razonable para acostumbrarme a la “nueva normalidad”. Sin embargo, aquí estoy quejándome porque sigo siendo un comprador muy descontento.

Esta carta surge tras mi visita más reciente, en la que compré 23 euros en comestibles. A mi llegada no había carritos pequeños, lo que me enfureció, así que en su lugar tomé el control de un carrito grande, sabiendo que era una carga innecesaria para la pequeña lista de compras que tenía la intención de adquirir. Traté de guardar mis comestibles en el asiento para niños, ya que era todo el espacio que necesitaba, pero aún así tuve que sortear los pasillos con un carrito demasiado grande, que me pareció como conducir un coche por mi sala de estar.

Las colas en las cajas eran enormes, pero se abrió una nueva atendida por un tal Valle, a quien conozco de encuentros anteriores y que es uno de sus mejores empleados en la sucursal. Su caja estaba situada cerca de la puerta, la más alejada de la zona de carritos. Como he hecho habitualmente en el pasado, sabiendo que a Valle le parecería perfectamente aceptable, coloqué mis compras en la cinta transportadora y aparqué el carrito sobredimensionado detrás del mostrador, alineado con los productos de compra impulsiva, convencido de que no estorbaría a nadie. Al alcanzar mi bolsa para la compra, un viejo cascarrabias que estaba detrás de mí empujó el carrito abandonado hacia mí, a lo que protesté diciendo que no lo necesitaba. Para calmar la situación, Valle me indicó que lo trasladara a la pared lejana, cerca de la entrada.

Me sentí alterado. Dado que el español es mi segundo idioma, tiendo a evitar discusiones porque puede que no sea capaz de terminar lo que empiezo. Quería decir “no me pagan para trabajar aquí, así que no ando estacionando carritos que no quise en primer lugar”. Quería decir “solo tenía unos pocos artículos, así que solo necesitaba una canasta, y si hubiera tenido una canasta, podría dejarla al final de la caja sin ser acusado de ser un mal ciudadano por no mantener mi dispositivo ecológico para la recogida de productos de consumo masivo”.

Este es el último de una plétora de mini-desastres que han venido a definir mi experiencia de compra en Mercadona. He perdido la cuenta de las veces que he llegado y me he encontrado con que no hay carritos en absoluto en la tienda, y así he recurrido al limitado tiempo que Dios me da en un día para aventurarme al aparcamiento en busca de un carrito, teniendo que usar el ascensor para volver a la tienda, una experiencia que odio porque tengo una leve claustrofobia con respecto a los ascensores, gracias a películas como Speed y Die Hard.

El problema fundamental aquí es que los automovilistas usan carritos mientras que los peatones usan canastas (o lo hacían antes de que se las quitaran). Ahora que todos los dispositivos para la recogida de FMCG son carritos, todos terminan en el aparcamiento, de la misma manera que las canastas nunca lo hicieron.

También he perdido la cuenta de las veces que he visto a compradores entrar, murmurar “tut” porque no hay carritos (o canastas) y aventurarse a la tienda para hacer sus compras llevando lo que pueden en sus brazos.

Mira, no soy un tonto, sé cómo funciona. Probablemente hayan contratado a algún consultor de gestión recién salido de la universidad, quien prometió aumentar sus ganancias eliminando las canastas, porque así los compradores no están limitados por el volumen de cosas que pueden llevar. Probablemente fue el mismo genio detrás de la campaña de relaciones públicas de la piña para que la gente se familiarizara con los nuevos carritos y se distrajera del robo de las canastas.

Bueno, esa persona no ha tenido en cuenta los aspectos positivos de usar una canasta. Siendo un peatón que no posee coche, llevaba deliberadamente mi canasta a mano para, al hacer las compras, poder medir el peso de lo que adquiría —lo necesito saber porque no puedo llegar a casa cargado con demasiadas cosas. Con un carrito tengo que hacer esa estimación visualmente, por lo que tiendo a ser cauteloso y, la mayoría de las veces, compro menos de lo que habría comprado antes. Además, las canastas fomentan una compra rápida —¿no es ese el objetivo? ¡Se llaman Productos de Consumo de Rápido Movimiento por una razón! Estoy seguro de que, entre la gente que lleva las compras en brazos y aquellos como yo, que cada vez utilizan más Dia y Albeyco porque sí tienen canastas, cualquier aumento en sus beneficios se ve compensado por tales pérdidas, mientras que, al mismo tiempo, están haciendo de Mercadona un lugar mucho menos popular para ir de compras.

Saludos

Image attribution: Er nun wieder, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mercadona_Cadiz_2012.jpg)

Posted by Steve Gould Thursday, March 20, 2025 12:11:00 PM Categories: Andalusia Dystopia Shopping Spain Spanish culture Tourism

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In Defence of Donald Trump

Are things quite as they seem?

Sorry for the click-bait title, but hey, this is the age of new media and you've gotta work the system, right?

I loathe Trump, and pretty much anyone else who thinks dripping themselves in gold is a good look. However, I saw the recent meeting where he and Vance ambushed Zelenskyy, and my 'take' on what went down seems very different from most commentators on the left. I thought I'd share my opinion and take the brickbats as they come.

Trump is a performative president. What you see isn't a logical person behaving in a predictable manner. It's arguable that all people in power, to some degree or another, have to do this because politics can be like poker—you’ve gotta hide your cards. Trump takes this to the nth degree. His modus operandi was exposed to me in the book Hate Inc. by Matt Taibbi, which is an excellent read explaining in detail the dynamics of digital media.

Matt followed Trump around on the first campaign trail and describes how he and other journalists were dumbfounded by the things that came out of Trump's mouth. He goes on to explain how he came to realise that Trump was taking his cues from sports—particularly professional wrestling—and the way that really basic human emotion is leveraged to co-opt and polarise opinion.

Trump knows that in order to get things done, hate works. He knows that to get a crowd to unite behind a cause, you get more reaction from being Captain Hook than Peter Pan. When I saw Trump and Vance gang up on Zelenskyy, my hackles went up, and I thought back to Hate Inc..

Pro wrestling pivots on the relationship between two polar opposites: the bad guy or "heel," and the good guy or "face." The heel comes out jeering at the crowd, getting as big a rise out of them as possible. As the heel’s jeers rile up the crowd, their support for the face erupts like a volcano. In our meeting, Zelenskyy played the face while Trump and his tag partner Vance were the heels. By the end, the global hatred of Trump and Vance was visceral, but look at how advantageous that has since been for Zelenskyy and US interests.

Hours after the meeting ended, social media was filled with posts from European leaders pledging their united support for Ukraine. They waved their cheque books, vowing to increase their own defence spending and to extend more military assistance. Also, I think this is more than a knee-jerk reaction. My guess is that this will inform European policymaking for a generation. It’ll be a cold day in hell before we see the election of another politician like Merkel, who argued there was more peace to be gained by trading with Russia, buying their oil and resources. US interests are being served by the likely further severing of EU/Russian commerce. This is probably why we've heard so few words of protest from the Bush/Clinton/Obama/Biden axis.

While Trump obviously took a lot of flak, what does he care? He’s not running for re-election. So am I saying he's a good guy? No, of course not. What I am saying is that while Trump's primary driver is his own wealth and power, he does this while maintaining an alignment with 'US interests' far closer than his rogue persona suggests.

If we accept this tenet, what do we make of Trump's relationship with Israel? We've seen in British politics that anyone who aligns with Palestine and criticises Israel gets cancelled. The most high-profile example is how Jeremy Corbyn was tried and convicted of anti-Semitism by the British press, demolishing his chances of winning an election. Trump knows the fallout of criticising Israel is far too dangerous, so he would never pull a trick on Netanyahu like he did on Zelenskyy. However, perhaps his over-the-top claims about building a Gaza Riviera and the reposting of that stomach-churning AI video with the gold Trump statue were deliberately meant to have the polarising effect that they did.

Now that the demolition of Gaza has been achieved, perhaps US interests are best served by deposing the Netanyahu government and returning the country to a more human-friendly, liberal administration. Maybe by embracing Netanyahu—making him and Trump the heels—we're anticipating the appearance of a new face who will rise phoenix-like from the ashes of Zionist destruction, enabling the smooth passage of US corporations into Gaza to realise the long-term plan: the exploitation of the offshore Gaza Marine gas fields and the execution of the Ben Gurion canal project. Call me cynical, but I don't think anything happens by accident, even an apparent car crash like the Trump administration!

Posted by Steve Gould Friday, March 7, 2025 6:16:00 AM Categories: America Economics Economy Far-Right Israel Politics Thought

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Bitcoin Is Doomed And So Are We

I recently had an epiphany. It doesn't end well.

I had an epiphany last week. Do you get those? Suddenly the clouds part and you see the way forward in a moment of clarity. Only rather than being a positive experience, this one was dark. Very dark. End of days dark.

gold and silver round coins — Photo by Kanchanara on Unsplash

This is going to be a tough one to explain as it is a bit technical. I'll try to simplify as best I can.

I had a similar epiphany the first time I used the World Wide Web. I was already an Internet user as I'd been working in the field since the late 80s. I'd been sent a CD with the first Mosaic web browser on it. When I fired it up and clicked on a link, this buzzed the modem, dialled up the Internet and pulled down an external web page from a server in California. I knew in an instant this was transformative. I could see this was going to make the Internet available to the man in the street. I instinctively knew we would all soon be shopping online and that one day, delivery would be as important, if not more, than retail premises. Soon after, I quit my comfy Civil Service job and embarked on a career in the private sector doing all things Web related.

My most recent epiphany wasn't quite so instant. It came about through watching a couple of unrelated Youtube videos, coupled with a little insight into digital money, a subject that has interested me for sometime.

I first grappled with the notion of digital money when I read an article about the invention of Bitcoin. I recall I was sufficiently intrigued to print out the article and put it to one side with the intention of downloading the software and investigating the brave new world of Bitcoin mining. In the manner of 'boat-missing' that characterises my life however, this was 2009 and I was in the process of moving from one side of Spain to another having met a new lady on Facebook. I never returned to the article. Had I done so I may well have mined enough Bitcoin to be a multi-millionaire by now. Call me Captain Hindsight!

Now I won't get into a protracted explanation about how Bitcoin works or we'll be here all day. For the purposes of explaining my epiphany it's sufficient just to know that Bitcoin enables a financial transaction to take place between two individuals anywhere in the world, without the need for any intermediary. There is no need for a bank or any other kind of money manager taking a cut for providing the infrastructure in between. All you need is the Internet and the right software at each end (remember that bit - it becomes important later!) This means you have personal sovereignty over your own money. You are your own bank. Now I think 'the powers that be' don't like this notion. My epiphany is that events are conspiring to prevent us enjoying our own financial independence.

The first video that kicked off this train of thought was by a savvy Australian called Naomi Brockwell

whose YouTube channel is a watchable way to keep up with the latest news in crypto, privacy etc. In the video she alerted me to the new EU law which is planning to ban people from running their own crypto wallets, instead forcing them to use regulated exchanges ( https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_21_3690 ).

So going back to what I said earlier, it is currently possible for you to download software like Bitcoin Core on to your personal computer and be your own bank. Over the years, Bitcoin exchanges have sprung up that can run crypto wallets for you. However they're the weak link in the chain. If you've ever read any horror stories about Bitcoin fraud or hacking in the press, chances are it was an online exchange that is the victim (or culprit). E.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mt._Gox

I was initially quite sanguine on hearing this news as it would be almost impossible for the EU to block or adequately police Bitcoin given that I can run whatever the hell software I like on my own PC. Then I watched the second video. This is by a veteran PC repair guy called Jody Bruchon who is new to me, as it was a video YouTube's algorithm suggested as one I might find interesting. They weren't wrong!

I won't go into all the gory details but long story short, you may be aware if you are a PC user that Windows 11, the latest incarnation of the operating system imposed on us by Microsoft, has some very specific hardware/firmware requirements. As the video explains, there are some potentially sinister issues with this, as it means Microsoft is taking control of the software you are able to run on your own computer.

[BTW, Jody contacted me to request I also include his follow-up video which addresses some comments in the original video Here it is…]

Like me, you may have been slightly affronted when you got your first smartphone and discovered that you could only run apps on it that you downloaded from the app store. Jody is suggesting that this is the way Microsoft may be headed. Even alternative operating systems like Linux can only be installed now on a Windows 11 compatible PC because they are issued with digital keys by Microsoft. If those keys are denied at some point in the future, Microsoft could force all PC owners to use only Windows and software it has vetted through it's own app store. And, by extension, that app store could potentially deny users from downloading software that allowed them to run their own crypto wallets.

I don't want you to think of me as a conspiracy theorist, but do you see where I'm going here? My guess is the EU didn't think to introduce such draconian, freedom-busting legislation all by itself . Occam's Razor suggests to me it was probably arm-twisted by 'the powers that be'. I doubt Microsoft is really going to all this trouble to lock down personal computers for commercial reasons. There is a lot of resistance to Windows 11 and many people are already jumping ship, deciding to run Linux on their PCs instead, so they are potentially risking the loss of many customers. Occam's Razor leads me to think it is more likely that 'the powers that be' are arm-twisting Microsoft to lock down software with the express intention of ambushing the very notion of personal financial sovereignty. This is because there is a lot at stake. In fact, everything is at stake.

Governments and central banks around the world are currently engaged in the development and testing of digital currencies - (CBDC - standing for Central Bank Digital Currencies). The aim is to do away with cash altogether, then the government will have complete control over the money supply. They will literally be able to track where every penny goes.

Now you may be one of those flag waving 'God Save the Queen' types who trust the government and thinks it should be doing everything in its power to protect us from those dastardly criminals and funders of terrorism. To that I'd say absolute power corrupts absolutely. We're entering a new era beyond Big Brother, where the government could, for example, attempt to control inflation with negative interest rates - literally taking money out of your account to limit your ability to spend, and there will be nothing you can do about it because you have no cash or crypto to move your money into. They could seek to make you healthier by restricting your expenditure on certain types of foods - 'no sausages for you this week citizen Smith, you're going on a diet. We're banning you from spending your money on certain foodstuffs - only lettuce leaves for you'.

You may think this is science fiction but China has already for some years had a system of social credit scoring where offenders are punished by being denied travel tickets etc https://www.businessinsider.com/china-social-credit-system-punishments-and-rewards-explained-2018-4 China is further down the road to the development of a CBDC than any other nation, already having trialled it in some states and it will be interesting to see how that pans out. We tend to think that the difference between China and the West is of state control. China isn't a democracy they say, China has the communist party and central planning, while the West has the freedom to choose its leaders via the ballot box. Do we though? Or are our two party systems really as independent as they may seem?

I don't think it an accident, fashion or fad that all countries are moving towards CBDCs, I think it is arm-twisting by ‘the powers that be' It is a global system that we won't be able to vote out. Real power isn't with the jackboot, the gun or the ballot box, it is in the control of money. The race to eliminate personal sovereign money i.e. cash and crypto will be the end of liberty and personal freedom. For thousands of years we've enjoyed that freedom but I fear in the next five to ten years it will be taken away from us and we will never get it back. 'The powers that be' that control the money will have achieved absolute power. And will they be corrupt? Absolutely!

Note this a backup of the most I originally made on Substack

Posted by Steve Gould Tuesday, June 7, 2022 12:32:00 AM Categories: Bitcoin Crypto Economics Microsoft Politics Tech Technology Thought

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Adios

This is the last of my regular weekly postings

It's four in the morning. I've been binge-watching 'Mindhunter' and I just went to the kitchen to check on the sink, which has had problems draining. I boiled another five litres of water and poured it down with a litre of 6% wine vinegar which had been languishing at the back of the cupboard for years but it doesn't seem to make any difference. I'm at that stage in a non-practical man's life where I'm counting the times I buy the namby-pamby drain-cleaner solutions from the supermarket, comparing the cost with biting the bullet and getting Eduardo the plumber in to give a more lasting solution to the blockage. First world problems I know, but if the sink doesn't empty, the dishwasher might overflow and flood the kitchen, and if I can't use the dishwasher then I'll have to wash the plates by hand in the bath, which is a fate too tedious to consider.

Anyway that's my morning so far. Today however is a milestone, as it is the last day of my self-enforced blog publishing time-table. A year ago I made the New Year's resolution that I would draw up a weekly publishing schedule for my blog and spew out an original piece of content each Sunday. Much to my surprise, I've managed to stick to it. This is issue 53. I aimed for each post to be about 1000 words which I stuck to more of less, so that is 53,000 words. That's a lot of words, nearly a book in fact!

The exercise has taught me a lot. Sticking to a time-table has brought me a loyal if small regular reader-ship of about 60 people who take the trouble to read what I write. Some even comment and get involved with discussions which have at times become a little heated, even though I've mostly steered away from politics and religion. I've only marketed the articles on Facebook and Twitter, a single post for each article on each platform. On both, the topics that have had the most traction are Spain and Brexit, probably a reflection of the folk I interact with most on each of these.

I had no idea when I started these regular postings that 2020 would be the year of Covid-19. I had no idea people would be trapped in their homes and that I too would have a vastly different pattern to my daily activities. Looking back on it, the creation of a timetable with deadlines was probably the single best thing I could have done, as it helped me give form to a week where days could otherwise have been indistinguishable from one another, save for the occasional trip to the shops. If you're fortunate to live with other human beings, I can tell you first-hand, that being on your own during the pandemic has been far more trying than in regular times when one can come and go at will. At times it has felt like being in solitary confinement and I for one will be glad to see a return to normality in 2021, even though I'm not personally a very gregarious person. Even now my sleep patterns remain largely divorced from the clock as I'm so used to the feeling that there are no appointments to keep and nobody is going to be knocking on the door. (Hence writing this at four in the morning!)

I suppose, on reflection things could have been worse in 2020. Yellowstone could have erupted. No civilisation-killer asteroids crashed into the earth. Aliens haven't invaded and started shooting up the place. Apart from the pandemic and Brexit I think we've got off quite lightly really!

For those of you who are disappointed that my regular postings end today, I will continue to post sporadically as the mood takes me, however I plan to take the timetable principle and the allotted time to devote to another potentially more lucrative activity. I have not made a final decision as to what that might be. Someone suggested I should weave the Spain related anecdotes into a book which had not occurred to me. I had in mind a couple of other writing-related ideas, so I want to spend some time teasing these out and look at the best one to pursue.

In the mean time, here's a poem wot I wrote. I haven't written a poem since I was at school so don't laugh, but it's just a stream of consciousness thing about the things my nose encounters here on a daily basis, so don't go looking too hard for rhyme!

Of sun-born olive-branch bonfires

Of over-revved two-stroke engines

Of early morning bleached pavements

Of just-baked loaves off the bread-man's van

Of coiffured old women pebble-dashed in talc

Of elderly men dripping in Tabac

Of expresso and tostadas

Of the secret smell of budding ganja

Of churros and chocolate

Of workman's sweat and builder's dust

Of puros scenting up the street

Of frying squid and boiling octopus

Of brandy, ponche and anis

Of sun-scorched earth and tar then rain, reminding us of life again

These are the things I smell in Spain, of life, of love, of being sane.

Posted by Steve Gould Sunday, December 27, 2020 5:02:00 AM Categories: Andalusia Blogging Christmas Coronavirus Covid-19 Dystopia Poetry Spain Spanish Spanish culture

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Crappy Christmas

Is this the worst one ever?

Well thanks to Covid it looks like a crappy Christmas for all with most countries having some sort of restrictions against seasonal revelling. No office Christmas parties, no wassailing and no door to door carolling (every cloud on that last one I suppose)!

I do miss office Christmas parties. One that sticks in the mind was back in the late 80's when a few dozen of us civil servants booked a Christmas dinner in the Novotel in Hammersmith, West London. Being the Civil Service, we'd already had a few drinks on the way there and were in true party mode by the time we pitched up and took our places at the table. It all looked festive enough and we were looking forward to getting stuffed with Turkey and trimmings.

Then something weird and unsettling happened. The first course came out, and, horror of horrors, it was Nouvelle cuisine. We looked down on basically empty plates, save for a few leaves and a squirt of sauce. Suddenly the air turned sacred blue as a bunch of hard-done-by office workers feared their main course would be a sparrow with a grape in its mouth. Words were had with the management, all the starters were returned and the hotel, sensing the bad publicity that a violent riot of incensed pen-pushers would bring, relented and cooked for us instead a traditional Christmas dinner (with all the trimmings).

If like me you're not a particularly religious person, maybe a bit spiritual, perhaps in awe of the real wonders of the universe like singularities but you're just not comfortable with the idea of an old man with a beard watching you while you're taking a shower, you may feel a bit of a fraud celebrating Crimbo. I've found a comfortable alternative that justifies partaking in as much Christmas cheer as you like. Also, you can observe all the good socialist teachings of Jesus and the new testament without having to buy into anything supernatural, divine or weird. It's called Christian atheism. Basically you just follow the moral and ethical teachings without acknowledging the existence of an overarching, omniscient, supernatural creator. It's really good as you can stuff yourself with as much Christmas pud and mince pies as you like without a pang of guilt (well until you get on the scales in January)

This also means you can enjoy Christmas carols and services without feeling like too much of an outsider. I came across a cracking version of Silent Night recently made by the American soul singer Michael Macdonald. If you know of a better version of a traditional carol, let me know!

Merry Christmas everybody!

Posted by Steve Gould Sunday, December 20, 2020 12:36:00 AM Categories: Christmas Covid-19 Family

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Brexit: What's Next for Britain?

A few thoughts on where things are headed in coming decades.

I've been keeping this blog fairly free of politics but this weekend I seem unable to be thinking about anything other than Brexit. In a way, today is the most significant day since the referendum, if, as we are told, it is the last day by which a deal can be made. Though the last day of the withdrawal agreement is the 31st December, the thinking is there wouldn't be enough time to author and ratify an agreement beyond today.

So the question that is on my mind is what is next for Brexit. I'm not thinking short term here. Whichever way you slice it, 2021 will start out as a humiliating fiasco. Whether a deal is achieved or not there will still be months of disruption as new ways of doing things are explored and new, unintended consequences of Brexit arise to surprise us. The only question here is how long it will take things to settle down to some sort of normality.

No, I'm thinking more of what will happen to Britain in the decades ahead. Geopolitics is a little trickier than it used to be. Immediately following Bretton Woods, the end of WW2 and the exploding of two nuclear weapons in Japan, American might and money was the only game in town. The USSR grew and was, probably for the purposes of political expediency, demonised by America to be a greater threat to its dominance as a world power than it ever really was. Then the USSR fell and for a brief period of time it seemed the world was for the first time truly mono-polar.

More recently though the US has become increasingly indebted and less innovative and industrious. Meanwhile the EU has expanded, its currency becoming increasingly important on the world stage, and China has undergone massive economic growth. Despite Trump's efforts to stop China eating America's lunch, she remains a massive industrial power and the growth of her domestic market with a new and enriched middle class means China is here to stay, even with her exports reduced. It is now looking as though the future will consist of a tri-polar world in which the major players will be America, the EU and China, with other BRICS countries emerging and aligning themselves with one of these three main players. I see this as the new world stage into which Britain as an 'Independent Sovereign Nation' has to fit.

Old world, old money thinking sees Britain as a nation of traders who straddle the globe buying and selling stuff. We're the nation who started the East India Company after all. The trouble with this 'old skool' thinking is that the world is moving from physical to virtual. If I wanted to order a ton of spice in 1600 when the EIC company was formed, the only way to do it was to travel to India or wherever the spice was grown and to do a face-to-face deal. These days all you need to do is go to alibaba.com and you can find dozens of spice suppliers all competing with each other to deliver to you your ton of spice at the lowest price. By way of experiment I requested quotes for a particular chemical I was thinking of importing into Spain last year, and I was still receiving emails months afterwards from prospective suppliers. Global trade is so fluid these days, the only thing in the way of a deal is the lack of a free-trade agreement, which is why Brexit seems so absolutely nonsensical to me. I was looking into exporting olive oil a few years back and I was struck by how the trade agreements the EU already has with various third-party countries make the process to arrange an export to most parts of the world very simple. The idea that Britain is opting out of these in order to make its own bespoke arrangements seems to me to be a recipe for disaster. The EU has at its disposal an army of around 800 trained and very experienced trade-negotiators who are bashing out new global deals all the time. Britain has Liz Truss! As Britain does not manufacture anything of note, I just don't see a future for Britain as either an exporter or some kind of trading intermediary buying from one country and selling to another, as in an increasingly virtual world there doesn't seem a way to add value. We can add markup but in a world where sales are increasingly made directly, who wants intermediaries taking a slice?

Speaking of intermediaries, another area that is about to change dramatically on the world stage is money. China has for several years been developing and trialling the world's first Central Bank backed Digital Currency (CBDC). They are already leading the field and more recently America, Europe and other countries have started researching the idea and publishing policy papers and so forth, making noises that they are about to do the same. The lure of a cashless society is too good for the banking community to pass up and clearly there is a fear that if China's CBDC gets a head start, it could ask its trading partners to use it, suddenly threatening the place of the dollar as the world's leading currency. Obviously this is all very new and it is quite difficult to foresee how things will pan out, but again, the odds are that there will be three main CBDCs, the Digital Yuan, Dollar and Euro. As with crypto-currencies one of the main characteristics of CBDCs will be transparent accountability. It will become much more difficult to launder dirty money through currencies that have an online ledger. Given the chequered history of UK banking institutions and London's existing reputation among anyone from Mexican drug lords to Russian oligarchs as the go-to place to launder money already, my guess is Britain will resist the race towards introducing a CDBC for the Bank of England and instead, the fiat pound will become the central clearing house for the world's black money.

As I see it, that's a Britain Johnson & Co are quite happy about. It seems to me that this government is more mendacious than any other in British history. I sense they have no vision for the British people, nor do they care what happens to them, as long as they keep making money. It's clear they have a desire for small government and I fear without the stabilising hand of the EU, centuries of hard-won social and employment protections are about to be thrown out of the window. The welfare state and the NHS will be gone, quite soon I should imagine. Health & Safety and pesky employment regulations will be thrown on the bonfire. I should imagine Scotland will fight for and probably win independence. As the realisation of what is being done to Britain starts to sink in, the will in Scotland to escape the Tories and rejoin Europe will become compelling. The situation with Ireland may take longer to fester but the north of Ireland will become a gateway for smugglers to bring contraband into Europe and measures introduced to counter this will increase tensions and will bring pressure on Britain from the EU and America to reunite Ireland. Again, though publicly affronted, the Tories will be privately delighted to lose Scotland and Northern Ireland, as in their view there will be less money going out and more for them to secure fortress London, which will, as the decades roll by, start to resemble some 18th century Bahamian island beloved by buccaneers and cut-throats.

I don't think it is accidental that many of the current crop of Tory nationalists did their degrees in history or classics. It came as no surprise to me yesterday to see Johnson's government boasting it will have gunboats ready to defend British fish. Their thinking is aligned with the glory days of Agincourt and Waterloo. They think in terms of Empires and battles, a mindset that is out of step with the modern world. The days of the opium wars and gunboat diplomacy are long gone. France is a nuclear power (the only one in the EU post Brexit) and China, Russia and America dwarf Britain in military might. I can't help thinking that if the British government continues on it's current selfish, belligerent path, there will come a time, given the way the world is shaping up, that it will end up being put in its place by being on the receiving end of a bloody good kicking!

Posted by Steve Gould Saturday, December 12, 2020 11:34:00 PM Categories: Black money Brexit Economics Geopolitics Politics

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Creepy crawlies & other critters.

..and things that go bump, bump bump in the night.

This week I've been caught up in cobwebs a couple of times in my house. It's as though really tiny spiders have been on manoeuvres, abseiling down from the ceiling in random places, setting traps for me to catch the almost invisible threads in my face. In fairness I don't get many bugs here in Olvera, just the occasional cockroach on reconnaissance from the drain in the street, and earwigs, which for some unknown reason are keen to hang out in my bathroom, keeping me company on towels and face-clothes etc.

It was a different story when I first came to Spain, probably because the place I lived was more rural. The agent who sold us the house told us a big lie. She assured us there were no spiders here, well, only the sort of 'gangly' ones that looked like crane flies. Several months later a spider the size of my hand appeared on the ceiling. We had a guest around to witness it. It crossed my mind that the best way to handle the situation was to calmly evacuate, take shelter in a neighbouring province and then implore NATO to make a tactical nuclear strike on my house. Fortunately my guest was less terrified of spiders than I was, and managed to wrangle the beast with a chair and a whip, ushering him in a bucket from whence he was dispatched to the chicken coup. Chickens are your best friend if you dislike creepy crawlies. They relish spiders and I've even seen them eat a baby snake (another critter I'm not keen to share living space with). For the record, a chicken's gullet is capable of grinding glass, so they make swift work of all kinds of bugs.

We had plenty of bugs there for the chickens to get to work on. Being an old property, the house had various nests of long standing. There was a thicket of ivy surrounding the tool shed from which beetles the size of rats would emerge every now and again. These would be redirected to the chicken run for sonderbehandlung. Indoors there was a huge fireplace, the insides of which was fitted with protective sheets of iron. From the gap between the iron and the wall, during the night when nobody was around, a predator would crawl out and prowl the living room. I first noticed this when I came down for a wee one night and, as it was a bright, moonlit night, I didn't bother turning the lights on. Out of the corner of my eye I saw something darting across the floor. It had the length and width of a six inch school ruler, and was galloping at the speed of a race horse. I reached for the light, but as I switched it on I was only able to catch a brief glimpse of the critter as it disappeared into it's lair. It was a giant centipede, or as I later found out when I looked it up, 'Scolopendra cingulata' or Mediterranean banded centipede which is a nasty piece of work. It is an opportunistic carnivore which can eat insects and small lizards, and if suitably provoked, endow you with a painful, toxic bite as well as a lifetime of nightmares. I figured I wasn't brave enough to tackle the nest by removing the iron plates, so instead I invested in an insecticide spray sold here called Zum (which smells truly awful and is probably banned in the rest of the civilized world). This is employed by spraying the floor and walls where it creates a barrier that is toxic to walking insects. I sprayed this all over the room and sure enough, in subsequent mornings I would come down to discover dead centipedes, some even larger than the first specimen I caught a glimpse of.

Wasps were of course a problem. A Spanish chap give me a good tip. Keep away from them during the day time. If you're planning to disable a wasps nest, do it at night when they are home and asleep. He demonstrated this in an out-building of his country house one evening on a nest about the size of a fist. He gave it a quick spray of lighter fluid and set it on fire. In seconds it burned to a cinder, wasps and all, without a single angry escapee, though to be fair, I may have missed some of the action as I had, as is my nature, turned and run as far away as was as humanly possible.

Probably the largest insect to have accosted me in those early days was some sort of locust. I was stood admiring a friends garden when I noticed something flying towards me. I didn't have a clue what it was. As is the case at such moments, time seemed to slow to a standstill. As my mind was saying "w h a t t h e a b s o l u t e f u c k" in slow-motion, the insect coming towards me just kept getting bigger and bigger. Then suddenly there was a thud and it landed on my chest. It must have been four inches long. There it sat, looking up it me as though it was trying to figure out whether I was edible or not. I made the decision for him and flicked it off with the back of my hand. Fortunately these things are tourists from Africa. We don't see them very often, and when we do they are generally on their own, not in crop-stripping plagues. Still it gave me the willies I can tell you.

Bigger still were the eagles, and trust me, these things are big. I was driving in the country one day and an eagle flew across the road, having emerged from a driveway. It flew right across the bonnet of my car, giving me about the best possible view one can get of an eagle in flight without actually riding one! In particular I noticed the talons were not much smaller than my hands. Some months later I saw another one in action. I was pottering about in the garden when an eagle swooped into the vegetable patch, presumably on the hunt for some unfortunate mouse or vole or whatever. The thing that struck me was deadly combination of speed and silence. I was lucky enough to be looking in the right direction at the right time to see the thing dive-bombing, but I could easily imagine that from the position of the prey, there would be no warning, just instant death from a blue sky. I had a pool in a private and secluded walled-garden at the time and was in the habit of doing the odd spot of sun-bathing in the nuddy. Subsequently I always kept my shorts on while catching a few rays in case a more myopic eagle than most mistook my member for a mouse! Imagine having to explain that one in A&E.

I don't get to see so much wildlife now I live in Olvera. There are always big birds flying around, vultures and so forth, though I rarely see them up close. Turtles in the river are about the height of entertainment locally, though further afield I've seen badgers in Ronda. The most puzzling thing I've seen was whilst driving to Ronda early one morning. Something strange was crossing the road near Montecorto. I had to do a double-take because it looked like a self-propelled coffee table. There were, what seemed to be eight legs hanging off a fringed table-top just a few inches off the ground, with a head and a tale that matched like those found on a Viking Longship, and the whole thing had the same hue as a red squirrel. You can tell from my inept description I'm no wildlife expert! I mused for a long while on this and did a fair amount of Googling. My final conclusion was that it was a pair of mongooses (is that mongeese?). They would have been running pretty much one behind the other, hence the eight legs. Given my eyesight though it may well have been a coffee table!

Incidentally, for those who know me or have read the blog post http://andaluciasteve.com/a-tale-of-two-wasted-ronda-hospital-visits.aspx I'm pleased to say I finally got to see the ophthalmologist in Ronda last week (one year and two months after my accident - thanks Covid) and she confirmed there is no permanent damage to my eye.

Posted by Steve Gould Sunday, December 6, 2020 12:21:00 AM Categories: Andalusia Bugs Murcia Spain Wildlife

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Units in Spain

How some old units of measure endure to this day.

100 Pesetas

My first souvenir from Spain was a banknote. Back in 1972, my sister's boyfriend at the time had a fortnight in Torremolinos and gifted a One Hundred peseta note to me on his return, knowing that collecting foreign banknotes and coins was my childhood hobby. I remember I was quite taken by the images of the people on each side of the note. They looked so dignified and interesting in a foreign sort of way. Spain abandoned the peseta in 2002 when it joined the Euro (and achieved world-record sales of BMWs and Mercedes as bundles of black money which would otherwise soon be rendered worthless, were quietly withdrawn from under mattresses nationwide and laundered through car dealerships who had never had it so good).

So it came as quite a surprise when I first moved here and started to parlez with the locals, that the value of most assets, houses, cars and so on were still valued in pesetas.

This became a bit of a nuisance when I started working with a Spanish estate agent. Typically I'd be in the middle of a conversation between him and some English speaking clients, translating with my crude command of Spanish.

"How much would it cost to build a pool in this property?" They would ask, and I would translate to the agent.

"Two million pesates" would come the reply.

As a rule of thumb, a million pesetas is 6,000 euros, so I'd translate, calculate and tell the client 12,000 euros for the pool. A similar process would be required when folk asked me for quotes for kitchens, bathrooms, outbuildings etc. At times it became quite a challenge!

It was interesting though, travelling around the country while working with the estate agent. He had lots of property all over the place, mainly in Murcia but also from Valencia down to Almeria. One thing I'd often see in old houses were mains transformers. Spain used to use a 110V electricity supply, and apparently still does in some places. Although all electrical equipment sold today is designed to run on 220V, there are still houses out there which I have seen that have a mixture of 110V and 220V appliances used in the same house thanks to crude transformers that are often unboxed and look like rusty relics from a bygone age.

It wasn't just the volts and pesetas that gave me a jolt back to the past. Another thing I noticed was that although Spain adopted the metric system in the 1850s, it was still common to hear other units used to described land length and area. The first one of these I came across was the fanega, which the estate agent would use mainly when talking to farmers about the size of a plot in the country. My Spanish wasn't really up to diving into the conversation between two old guys rabbiting on at ten to the dozen in their thick regional, country accents, so I used to enlist the help of a young girl who worked in the office to figure this stuff out. She told me that a fanega was a unit of land area that was used in Spain in antiquity and that the funny thing about it was there was no consistent standard across the country. So a fanega in Murcia could be a different size altogether to a fanega in Andalucia. The web didn't help me much at the time (this was about 2005) but while researching this article, I came across a conversion chart that confirms this to be the case https://www.sizes.com/units/fanega.htm#land_area Just look at the Square Metre column and the wide range of different values across Spain. It's a wonder they managed to do any deals at all!

And the fanega wasn't the only one. Another measure I came across while working there was the tahúlla which was used more in the north east of Murcia up towards Valencia way. Again, at the time I couldn't find much out about this online but I've just checked and the tahúlla possibly dates back to Islamic times, but is still being used today by some folk in Spain who can't get their heads around hectares. For the record, a tahúlla is equivalent to 1118 metres squared.

I thought I'd write about the units used in Spain as many of them would be unfamiliar to lot of my readers. However one unit used here will be familiar to everyone, even if the word used is different. Like most countries in the world, Spain measures TV screens and monitors in 'pulgadas' which means inches. You can't keep a good unit down!

Posted by Steve Gould Sunday, November 29, 2020 2:25:00 AM Categories: Andalusia Electricity Math Murcia Spain Spanish Spanish culture Spanish utilities

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Sunday Blackout

How my electricity went down and didn't come back up

Last Sunday was a funny old day. As occasionally happens at this time of year, work was scheduled to upgrade the electricity supply, so it was announced that the power would be off between 8am and 10 or 12 depending on which part of the town you live.

Midday came and went but my electricity remained off. I had some chores to do and visits to make to recycle some bottles and plastics, so I just got on with it, expecting the problem would sort itself out. By the time I finished it was 14:30 and still no electricity. I visited my neighbour across the street and found her electricity had been restored some time previously. Perhaps it was just me.

I tried phoning the number of the electricity company but I butted up against an automated system and none of the available options resulted in a connecting me with human being. Then, for the first time in the two years it has been in my possession, my phone froze. The touch screen wouldn't respond. Phones these days don't have removable batteries and I didn't know how else to turn it off and on again. [I've since learned holding the power button for 20 seconds restarts the thing. Who knew?] All of a sudden with no phone, no computer and my neighbour now apparently repaired for comida, I felt completely out of touch with the world. I felt marooned.

At this point I started to be concerned. Everything in my house is electric except the hot-water boiler. I worried that I'd be eating fruit for dinner by candle-light, unable to heat through any of the meals I had in the freezer.

I thought perhaps the first thing to do is ask the police for help. This is very nearly an emergency, surely they must know what to do? I couldn't phone them, so I trotted off to the police station. It was closed. So then I thought I'd knock on the door of a few friends in the area, hoping they would be able to phone the police mobile number for me. Problem was, it was such a warm, pleasant, sunny day, that nobody was home.

On about the third door I knocked on I finally got a response. It was my old neighbour up in 'La Cilla' in the old town. I explained my plight and she found the mobile number of the police and gave them a call. They told us that if the problem was in the street it was the electricity board's problem but that they wouldn't come out if it was a problem within the property. They recommended getting an electrician first, to determine whether the problem was local or not, then if it was a problem with the supply outside the house, we should get in touch with them again and they would get hold of the electricity company.

So now the problem was how to find a domestic electrician on a sunny Sunday afternoon when Olvera was like a ghost town because so many people had gone off with their families to enjoy their houses in the country. My friend thought for a moment and rang her cousin, who knew an electrician. He was out of town, but her cousin asked if she had thought to try another distant family member, 'Cristobel'. She gave us his number and Cristobel was called. Thankfully he was in town and agreed to come right away.

I hot-footed it back to the house as fast as my over-weight frame would carry me, as I was walking whereas Cristobel would undoubtedly be in a car. As it happened I got back with about five minutes to spare, so was able to get my breath back. Cristobel arrived with another gentleman and started flicking the switches in my circuit-board. Everything in the house was absolutely dead.

Outside the house there was a fuse box. Cristobel requested a chair and he climbed up to test the fuses. I jokingly assured him I'd paid my bills. (When they cut your electricity off here, these fuses are removed by the electricity board!) He tested the supply with his meter but there was no juice. He took the fuses out and tested them but they hadn't blown. He explained they now had to test the next junction box on my neighbour's house to see if current was reaching there. However this box was much higher up on the wall, and since both Cristobel and his mate were quite short, something more than a chair was required. He knocked on my neighbour's door to see if he had some steps but to no avail. Then he had the bright idea of parking his car underneath the junction box and standing on the bonnet. It is a bit of a squeeze to get a big SUV down my road but soon he was on tiptoe peering into view the state of the fuses. He gave one a tap with the handle of his screwdriver as it appeared loose, and banged it back into its housing. Then he tested the supply voltage with his test meter. There was a loud 'bang' and a flash as he had forgotten to change the meter range from continuity testing to volts! Fortunately he didn't fall off the bonnet or otherwise injure himself, but he knew from the shock that current was reaching this junction box so he asked his colleague to check the supply inside the house. He flicked the switch and the lights came on! Yay! Tapping the fuse home had done the job. It was now 16:30 but at least I knew I would have hot food that night!

I asked Cristobel how much I owed him and he said twenty euros. I was more than happy to pay, and as I did so, wondered how many years ago it would have been England to get a pair of electricians out on a Sunday afternoon for the same money!

Posted by Steve Gould Sunday, November 22, 2020 1:05:00 AM Categories: Andalusia Electricity Spain Spanish utilities Tech Technology

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