Settling in. And the ups and downs of public services

So far, our Brexit exit to Valencia seems to have worked well. On the human side, Danielle and I both like the city and the way of life there. On the canine side, enthusiasm seems unbounded.

The local park has been well received, particularly the bit of a lake at the top end. The beauty of the lake is that it contains slow-moving water – it doesn’t do nasty things like suddenly rise up in waves and attack you, like the Atlantic kept doing in France. The lake just lies there quiet and inviting and lets you swim around in it without any sense that it might suddenly take it into its mind to sweep you away.

The latest development is that Toffee and Luci have taken to the local habit among dogs of getting out on the balcony and barking at passers-by. That’s mostly dogs, of course, but hey, if there aren’t any dogs, nothing stops you having a bark at humans instead. As Danielle puts it, ‘oh, yes. Everyone knows we have two assault poodles’.

Assault poodles keeping the street in order

The place generally just appeals to us all. It’s an easy-going city, with a party spirit (which is great most of the time, though I have to admit, less so at 2:00 am) and plenty to do, from park walks to sea bathing, and from excellent restaurants to jazz concerts (note to myself: you really don’t like jazz; don’t go again).

I like the commitment to public service, too. It reminds of earlier times in Britain, when so much more was provided as a public service than today. For instance, the local public transport service is still provided by city council. We haven’t mastered the bus network yet, though it seems pretty comprehensive. And the underground service, the Metro, is a pure pleasure to use – airy, comfortable, quick, affordable.

In fact, it’s even better than that. There’s a special arrangement for people over 65 – and I hope that includes people who actually are 65, though I confess that’s only for personal motives – whereby you can get a month’s pass, for Metro and bus, for only eight euros or so.

Sadly, all these wonderful aspects of a public service come with some of the less attractive aspects too. Nothing’s ever all one thing or all the other, is it? The less appealing bits are just as reminiscent of the British past. They simply excite rather less nostalgia.

There are only certain offices on the Metro that can sell you one of those senior-citizen passes. So we went to one. Turns out there was only one counter and about 15 people waiting for service. Valencia – or possibly Spain – has a special way of handling these situations. Each person on arriving calls out, ‘who’s last?’. That person holds up a hand. The new arrival knows who to follow. So there’s no formal queue but people get served in turn all the same.

We waited for ours to come around. It felt like about an hour though it was probably less than half that. But, you know, with nowhere to sit, even 25 minutes feels like a lot too long.

Eventually, we got to the desk. We told the friendly looking man behind it what we were after.

‘Have you brought photocopies of an identity document with you?’

‘We’ve brought our passports,’ we told him.

‘But no photocopies?’

‘No,’ we said, ‘can we make photocopies here?’

‘No,’ he told us, clearly with regret, but equally obviously with absolutely no intention of doing anything whatever about it.

‘So you can’t do us the tickets?’

‘With all these people waiting? I could hardly stop to make photocopies, could I?’

He didn’t actually say, ‘it’s more than my job’s worth’ but you could feel the sentiment was there, behind the words pronounced.

‘It would have been nice,’ I told him, ‘if there’d been some information displayed here to say that we couldn’t get the tickets without the photocopies.’

‘Yes,’ he said. And turned to deal with the next customer.

We left without the tickets. We have to get photocopies and go back another time. There are rules about how you buy the tickets. And no way around them.

Which reminds me of the long-lost days of British Rail. Though when its jobsworths declined to serve you or gave you inaccurate information, they were mostly surly as well as unhelpful. At least the Valencian was nice as he stonewalled us.

But stonewalled we nonetheless were. A great object lesson in the fact that public services can be just as inadequate as private ones. Which is a lesson worth remembering at a time when people keep telling me that the solution to all our woes is re-nationalisation.

It actually doesn’t matter who the services are run by. What matters is who they’re run for. Clearly, on this occasion at least, the Valencia Metro wasn’t being run for us.

Still. It remains a wonderful city. And the dogs love it, which says a lot.