Travelling...

After a fine long weekend in Spain with the family I am now heading to Greenland for 10 days of playing with helicopters, laser scanners and the Jurassic, whilst trying to avoid being eaten by a bear.
Pretty pictures will be posted when I get back, in the meantime, no jokes or movies unless we have internet connection and its raining a lot

How to pay a Catalonian (Catalunyian) Speeding Ticket

I recently received a speeding ticket while in Catalunya (NE Spain). The ticket was in Spanish and it took a while to resolve, so here is a summary of what to do if this happens to you. 

I initially did some google research and found a couple of useful links of which this was the best. You need to scroll down because the first part of his instructions pre-date the option to pay over the internet. The correct procedure is outlined in the postscript and in the comments. 

I followed these instructions and got to all the right pages but it would not except the ID number. I kept trying until I gave up and called the Travel Department (DGT) on 00 34 902 508 686. I gave the women the number and she said the ticket was not from DGT but from the local Catalan Government (the clue was that is said Servei Catala de Transit on the summons). 

So I found their site and after a lot of looking around I figured how to pay online.  The site is www.gencat.cat/ovt but rather than repeat all the steps I went through to find the right page there is a link here that will take you straight to the payment page. 

1. Follow the  link 

2. Once you get on to that page enter the Numero de Expediente from the top right of the summons. Enter this number without dashes or slashes

3. Then for ID select Altres (others)

4. Then put in the ID number from the bottom centre of the summons (it will probably include some version of your name)
5. Click cerca
6. The next page shows the details of your fine. At the bottom right is a button "pagament amb targeta" pay with card, click this. 
7. A new window pops up, fill in the card number and expiry date then press continuar
8.  Next window fill in the short code on the back of the card, click continuar again 
9.  The final window should show that you have made a successful payment. Look for the big green tick. 
10. To print a receipt click on imprimir
The fine was very reasonable. Because I paid quickly I got a 50% reduction and only paid 50 euro for doing 150 kmh in a 120 kmh zone. That's half what it would be in the UK and if I was caught doing 150 kmh in Norway they would have sent me to jail - no really they would. So all in all don't mind paying it. Firstly the law is very clear, you know the limits and if you chose to ignore them you should not moan about the consequences. Think of it as an extra tax, you want to drive quickly then you have to pay the speed tax from time to time (like all taxes its higher in Norway!). Also the Spanish economy is buggered so any help we can give them is useful and should not be resented. 

POSTSCRIPT Jan 2013
It seems that the link doesn't work anymore but someone has posted in the comments that you can call 0034 902 400 012, select option 2 and then get a person who speaks English and will take your card details. I have not tried this. If anyone finds the new link and sends it to me I will also update the directions above.

Wednesday Movie - Shattered

"Our darkest fears are like dragons, guarding our deepest treasures"
Awesome ice climbing short here - pure poetry

Things that made me laugh this week

Everyone should get this one 

One for Les

You probably need to speak a bit of Welsh to appreciate this 

You need to know what a pole dancer is to appreciate this 

You need to work with Oliver to appreciate this 

The Daily (Hate) Mail and Cancer

The Daily Mail is the pits of British journalism. Unlike the red-top tabloids which at least have no pretensions about being anything other then low-brow sports and entertainment comics for the masses, the Daily Hate pretends to be a serious newspaper whilst feeding a constant stream of raciest, homophobic, bigoted, right wing scaremongering. Best of all is the hypocrisy - they will show endless of photos lauding skinny celebrities whilst talking about the tragedy of anorexia in teenage girls on the next page. Or repeatedly run articles on the threat of Polish pedophiles to your children and then publish a story lamenting the fact that kids don't go outside anymore.  

If you have ever had the misfortune to read the rag, or even worse its online version then you will know that everything gives you cancer. Fortunately the nice people at Kill or Cure have done an excellent job of cataloguing a definitive list of the Mail's view on what gives you cancer and when you get it, what will cure you. This means that you can be saved without having to wade through all the other crap. The list is here and if that is a bit to boring to read then Chris has put it into a song here,   which is reminisant of Dan and Dan's Daily Mail song which we featured on here before.

The taxi driver's story

I heard this from a taxi driver who took me home the other day. It was so good I felt I needed to share it. This is told from his perspective.

_____________ 

Several year ago ah picked up a couple a young lassies and dropped um off in Dyce (NW Aberdeen) and went aboot ma  business. Ma next costumer pointed out that there was a handbeg left  behind on the back seat like. So I thanked um an put the beg in the front with the intention of drupping it off at the police station at the end of ma shift.

Twenty minutes later the phone in the beg starts ringing, so I answered, thinking I ma be able to find the owner

“Hello”

“Have you got my bag?”

“Ey, I have”

“What the fuck are ya duin wit ma bag, ya thieving bastard…”

“Hmm, well ya lift it in ma taxi”

“Oh”

She then hangs up

Five minutes later the phone rings again

“I want ma bag back”

“Ey, na problem, you have two choices, you cun either wait until I am in Dyce next, which ull be in un hoor or so, or you can pay the fare for me to come up there now”

“I want ma bag back you bastard”

“Yes you can have your bag back”

“I want it now”

“That fine but I am working so you’ll need to pay”

“Fuck ya! Ya bastard!

She hangs up again

Calls back ten minutes later

“I need my bag, its got my keys, and passport un money in it”

“That’s fine you can have it back when I am in Dyce”

“but I need it now, bring it to me now!”

“OK but you’ll have to pay the fare, am busy”

“Ya fuckin crook, you thieving bastard, I went my bag”

“OK, I am no gonna talk to you anymore, I will drop your beg at the polis station. That’s all I need to do”

“You fuckin bastard” etc etc

 Phone rings again. This time it’s a guy

“See you pal,  when you bring that beg roond, I am gonna kick ur fuckin heed in”

As if this was going to encourage me to drive to Dyce and drop the thing off.

At this point I stopped trying to be nice

“OK listen up and listen very good”

“Who the fuck da ya think ya talkin to pal”

“Just listen, because the next thing  you’re gonna hear is this stupid bag going into the Dee” (local river)

And sure enough

Rustle, Whooosh, Splash…..

Yea I stopped ma cab on the bridge put the phone back in, still on mind and just threw the bag, purse, keys, passport, whole  feckin loot into the river. Never even took the money out…

______________

Classic story, I laughed my head off! 

Unwanted fame in Spain

The band is playing "Smoke on the water", badly. I don’t care I am jumping up and down like an idiot and laughing. The sound echoes of the stones walls of the houses around the cobbled square, I notice Phil appear from the brightly lit bar in the corner carrying another round of ridiculously over sized and under priced gin-y-tonica’s. This is another fiesta in another mountain village in the Spanish Pyrenees where we are celebrating the life of some obscure saint by dancing to bad cover versions of 70’s rock music. As always we are having a blast. We have been around the region long enough that some of the locals recognise us and smile when we show up. This is the summer of 1986 and we are working in the area making geological maps. This is in a time before fast, EU funded motorways will bring these rural communities within 3 hours of Barcelona, making them perfect for holiday homes, superficially tidying them up but ripping away a thousand years of tradition and spirit. For the time being, these villages are truly rural, water and electric are not ubiquitous, people work the land with their hands and there is a real sense of community. The annual fiesta is a big event in the village. For three days everyone parties, the very old dance with the very young, obscure games are played and the people celebrate being a community it which everyone knows and respects each other. That makes our welcome even more of a privilege that we appreciate.

For the last six weeks we have been hanging out with the local police. Four young guys, at least two of whom, Martin and Carey, signed up to avoid conscription in to the army. They are our age and always up for a party. Their jobs mean that they have an encyclopedic knowledge of all the villages and towns within a 100 km radius, including, most importantly where and when the fiestas are happening. So every evening we sit in the local bar, exhausted from a long day and they appear

"Hola, que tal?" (Hi, how are you doing?)
"Bien, que pasa?" (Good, whats happening?)
“Fiesta esta noche en Bialo?” (Fiesta tonight in Bialo?)

Where the fuck is Bailo – “Donde Bailo?”

Not that it really matters because we will cram four or five people into a Fiat 126 bubble car and go anyway and we will pretend we want to come home at 2am and then crawl back into our tents at 5 or 6, only to be woken by a baking sun at 9; get up and then go to work, because we have a ridiculous protestant work ethic. And then the next evening the process will start all over again.

Only tonight, in Bailo there is a minor annoyance. A small mean-looking guy, about 50, who is very drunk keeps barging into Carey, from time to time punching and pushing him. Carey is a small, hyperactive and utterly lovable guy. Totally unsuited to being a policeman. Nobody should ever be mean to Carey.  I have no idea who this guy is but he is really starting to piss me off and I am probably a bit too drunk to ask why Carey is not trying to stop this really obnoxious behaviour. I try to ignore it as well and go back to dancing.

A short while later the guy reappears and grabs Carey around the neck in an arm lock and starts to drag him around the square.He seems to thing this is funny but nobody else does. I have had enough, so I step forward and grab him by the throat. He looks extremely surprised and releases my friend immediately. I am a lot bigger than him and its fairly easy to pick him up by the scruff of the neck and toss him backwards

“vete a la mierda, maricon!”

He stumbles and falls on his arse, I turn to Carey to ask him if he is ok and he looks genuinely terrified. That is my firsy incline that maybe that was not such a good thing to do.

The mean guy is straight back, purple with rage and screaming at me. I stand my ground.

I realise that things are probably not so great when the bands stops playing and people gather around. The arsehole takes a swing and I step back and avoid it, he flails wildly and almost ends on his arse again. I look around and there are a lot of people just watching us and I wander what the hell is going on. The entire atmosphere has changed and I am sobering up very quickly. I try to reason with the guy…

Los siento pero Carey es me amigo y…

(I am sorry but Carey is my friend and..)

He is too angry to listen and just screams in my face

Carey is talking to him in very fast Spanish, I can only follow about half of it, but the gist is "he is English he doesn’t understand…"

This annoys me, I do understand. I understand that is guy is a cunt and he is rapidly heading for a my fist in his ugly fuckin face. I am starting to get very angry and figure the quickest way to end this is to lamp the bastard very hard and be done with it.

Carey skilfully maneuverers himself between the two of us and keeps talking, everyone else looks on and there is a real air of fear and menace. How did it change so fast and why do so many people care if two drunk people swing hand bags?

Then almost as quickly as things flared up, they dissipate. The angry man steps back, points to me and says something that I take to be a warning to watch my back and he stomps off out of the square. Before there is time for anything else to kick off the band start up again and people go back to dancing.

Carey takes me by the arm and leads me into the bar at the side of the square. There he hands me a drink and in a very over excited and clearly freaked out way explains that Snr Angry is the local police chief and a real nasty bastard. A hang up from the Franco era who has never had anyone stand up to him since he was the school bully, 40 years earlier. He is genuinely concerned for my well being and things start to fall in to place but I am still drunk enough to be brave so I shrug my shoulders and in my poor Spanish I try to explain to Carey that he is my friend and friends don't let friends get pushed around, but he is too worried to take it in, so I down my beer and we go back to dancing.

Nothing happens that night, although I stop drinking and like the man suggested, I watch my back.

The next day, news of the nights events has spread rapidly. My friends who own the local bar next to our unofficial campsite think this is the greatest thing they have ever heard. It seems that Angry man is well known and not very popular in the region. At subsequent fiestas, people I do not know pat me on the back and buy my drinks. I never see the guy again but I am never fully relaxed and my new found fame sits uncomfortably, its only a couple of weeks until I leave but all I wanted to do was drink and dance badly until the small hours.