The cat who travelled to Spain

I thought it would be hell.

Back in March, when we moved from England to Spain, we took our dogs but not our cat Misty. We were moving into a flat and, the poor chap, he’d never lived in a place he couldn’t get in and out of easily – and boy he’s lived in a lot of places: as of today, eleven addresses in four countries, not the kind of existence a cat generally finds congenial.

Misty in Luton
where, sadly, we left him behind for far too long

Fortunately, we sold our house to friends and they agreed to look after him until we had a more suitable place for him. A great arrangement: he was with people he liked, in a house he knew, with the same easy garden access as ever.

But then the months rolled on. We began to feel guilty towards our friends – they said they were enjoying having Misty with them, but how long can you really demand that other people look after your cat? – and we began to feel guilty towards Misty himself, after losing contact with him so completely for such a time.

Finally, a couple of weeks ago, all the circumstances aligned. We’d moved out of the flat and into a house, with a garden at the back and a bit of parkland beyond that – just the kind of place likely to appeal to Misty. We’d opened a gap in the fence at the front so he could get out easily and visit the neighbouring cats if he wanted. And I had a business trip to England which I could combine with fetching him.

That’s when I began to dread what I foresaw to be a likely trip from hell.

First, I had to get from London to Luton, where we used to live. That wasn’t a big deal and I completed that stage without much difficulty.

In the BA Lounge at Heathrow
Misty hates the carrier...

Second, I had to get Misty into a zippable pet carrier, which he loathes. The vet had given me something to calm him, which I had to scatter over some of his food, but he’s too savvy for that: he took one smell of the meat, realised it had been adulterated, and wouldn’t touch it. I also had some sprayable happy-cat pheromones with which I liberally anointed the inside of the carrier, and that may have worked: he didn’t complain too much once inside it.

Stage 3 was getting from Luton to the airport. That was OK because we went by cab, which cost a fortune but at least was comfortable and relatively quick. The good thing is that the driver asked whether I had his passport. He thought he was joking, but there really are pet passports, and other documents he needed to fly, and I had indeed forgotten them. The driver’s irony rather saved the day for me, or more to the point, saved the trip.

On the way to Heathrow, Misty peed on me, but I couldn’t hold that against him. He was, after all, badly pissed off so it was probably entirely appropriate. A little emergency washing in an airport toilet dealt with the worst of the problem.

Stage 4 started at check in. Carrier and pet together had to weigh under 8 kilos, but Iberia, one of the only airlines that allows pets in the cabin, has a beautifully Spanish view of that kind of regulation: “8.2 kg,” the man said, “that’s close enough,” and through I went.

Then came security which was where I was terrified that things would fall apart. Fortunately, thanks to the cab driver, I had all the papers. They checked them carefully. They had me take Misty out of the carrier while they searched it – he wasn’t pleased, because I held him firmly and he wanted to wander off – but at any rate, everything turned out to be in order. So I got to the other side of security, breathing a sigh of relief. The most worrying part of the trip was behind me.

I took him out in the plane, briefly
He wanted to go wandering, so had to go back in the carrier...

All that was left was stage 4, the two and a quarter hour flight to Madrid, followed by stage 5, the three and a half hour drive to Valencia. Which turned into something more like five hours because of the storm that lashed us nearly the whole way.

Taking a look around the new place and taking possession

But finally we were home. Misty explored the place with great enthusiasm and slept on our bed that night, since he had us to himself. The next day, we picked up the dogs from where they’d been looked after, and at last all the animals could get together again. There was some slight awkwardness as they got used to each other once more, but they knew each other at once and realised that they were going to be sharing a house again.

Reunited with Toffee and Luci

So the household was complete after a long gap. Misty has settled in straight away and seems to enjoy the place, just as we do. Cat, dogs, humans: we’re set for a life together in Valencia which I hope we’ll all enjoy.

Misty fully settled in

Getting him here hadn’t been anything like the hell I’d feared.

A lightning strike in the same place. For the fourth time

The lightning bolt of redundancy has struck me again.

Whoever said that lightning never strikes the same place twice?
Me, it’s struck four times. 
Though on the first three occasions, I may have been a bit to blame

For the fourth time. But this is the last, as now I’m going to head into retirement. At nearly 67, it’s late enough, I’m unlikely to find another job and I’m not especially keen on the idea of undergoing all that stuff again.

Ironically, on this occasion I feel entirely blameless. On the others, I may well have contributed a little to my own discomfiture.

The first time, I probably made it too obvious that I had nothing but contempt for an incompetent at the top of the company, not weighing enough the fact that he was an old friend of the owner and the godfather of at least one of his children. Being more polite might not have saved me, but not being polite enough certainly made sure I was buried.

The second time, I was altogether too keen on transforming our rather lousy main product into something we could be proud of. But it really was terribly bad and the cost of improving it much too high. The owners’ aim was to show a profit, sell the company, make a lot of money, and forget about the quality of the product. They were probably right, because after a wave of redundancies they did just that. The product remained lousy and has now disappeared into well-deserved obscurity – I don’t think anyone’s using it any more – but the money’s real and in the shareholders’ bank accounts.

The third time, my division’s chief was one of those glad-handing incompetents, always ready with a smile, a cheerful word and an encouraging thought, but who presided over an organisation that set itself ridiculous targets that it systematically failed to meet. I should have gone several months earlier, but instead I just coasted, doing far less work than I would have had I been able to work up any enthusiasm, until I hit the buffers of redundancy.

This time, though, it was the reverse. I worked hard, and the work went well. I built a little team, seven strong, with representatives in seven countries on three continents, though most of them in Europe. They were great people, an awe-inspiring mix of clinicians and sales people and customer support specialists, who bounced ideas off each other to produce still better notions and then, and this is quite unusual, put them into practice.

Every single one of them spoke at least two languages, some more.

They were – are – talented, intelligent, enthusiastic. Not by accident. My boss, certainly the best I’ve worked for in my long career, spent time with me making sure we had the right people, and freed ourselves of others who were just as bright and talented but showed that our type of work ultimately didn’t suit them.

The team never stood still either, by which I don’t just mean they were always working, but that they were always looking for the next way to work better. Right at the end, we were beginning to explore a completely different way of selling the product which, I believe, would have been far more successful. It’s a tribute to the team’s approach that the various sales teams with which we were working reacted with great enthusiasm to these ideas for change.

This time, I’d done nothing to attract the baleful god of lightning to strike me down. This time, it was merely cold accounting: we were expensive and that looked bad in a profit and loss statement. So the axe fell on seven of the eight of us, including me.

I won’t pretend that there’s no pain in suffering this fate. Redundancy feels like rejection, of being regarded as of little worth, and that hurts. It would also have been satisfying to work on a few more years as I planned. On the other hand, my soon to be ex-colleagues have been uniformly supportive in their comments to me, which certainly mitigates any pain. Above all, I’m happy to retire, especially when leaving on a high. And a high it’s certainly been.

The last nearly three years have been the best of my working life. I’ve had the best boss, and the best colleagues, working on the best product. I have absolutely no complaints about any of that, and I’m simply grateful to have had the chance to work in that environment.

That’s another of the reasons I don’t even want to look for another job. Even if I found one, it would be a let-down.

Indeed, I’m even going out on a high within the high. My last presentation to a customer was exactly the kind I’ve always longed to give. It was well-received, but I gave it on content I’d known little about the day before, until one of my team members briefed me on it. She explained what I needed to present, how I should present it, and the medical rationale behind it.

It was another powerful example of the value of teamwork. I was covering her while she was at another meeting. And she gave me the material I needed to do it well.

I have a great launchpad from which to head into retirement. I look forward to it as there are so many things I’ve always wanted to do and couldn’t. Now I can.

Watch this space.

Sunset in our local woods: not a bad place to spend time
And not a bad metaphor for where I want to head next

Boris Coup: Day 30

It’s facing a crisis that most truly brings out the character of a politician. For better in some cases. For far worse in others.

Lincoln became a man for the ages in the American Civil War, and spoke of the battle he was leading to ensure that “government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth”.

Churchill won his stature in the world, and his place in history, by the way he faced the threat of Nazi invasion. My mother, who lived through the period, told me how, at a time when voices were being raised to talk peace terms with the Germans, it built the morale of the nation, and personally sent a tingle down her spine, to hear him declare, “we shall never surrender”.

Then there’s Boris Johnson, following his defeat by the Supreme Court, and facing hostile MPs. In particular, he faced criticism from women MPs worried about the threats to their safety that flow from just the kind of inflammatory language Johnson uses, and just the kind of far-right fanatics he encourages. He gave us, “I have never heard so much humbug in my life”.

BoJo lashing out in parliament
Not a pretty sight

Yes. Perhaps not quite so impressive as the other two. Not his finest hour. Hardly a display of self-control and nobility of character. But that’s Boris, on day 30 of his coup attempt, now painfully unravelling before his eyes. He’s starting to sound ever nastier, more willing than ever to lash out at anyone who stands in his way.

A lot of that is calculation. He knows that there are voters out there who value just that kind of brutality. They like to convince themselves that this is strength, not understanding that real strength wins its arguments by winning supporters, and doesn’t need to humiliate or crush its opponents.

Playing to that audience, however, has its dangers too. Trump’s playing that game in the US. It may not work there: although his antics strengthen his standing with his most convinced supporters, they’re not attracting voters from the centre. With an intelligent campaign, and the right kind of candidate, the Democrats can win those votes, leaving Trump with only his core, and defeated.

Unfortunately, things are not that straightforward in Britain. If Johnson can hold a core vote similar to Trump’s, of around 40%, that will probably be enough under the UK system to win him a parliamentary majority. If the election is delayed, he may have enough time to discredit himself, as the consequences of Brexit sink in. But for now, both the weak leadership of the Labour Party, and its apparent readiness to allow an election early, are setting up the conditions for a BoJo win.

So he remains unrepentant, refusing to apologise for his intemperate outbursts, partly no doubt because he’s angry at what happened to him in the Supreme Court, partly because he thinks it prepares the ground for him to win an election.

Another principle attributed to Lincoln, probably incorrectly, is that you can fool all the people some of the time, you can fool some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.

Words that could have been written for BoJo. Who does, indeed, seem to be intent on fooling just enough of the people, just enough time to get himself into Downing Street with a majority to back him.

However unpleasant he reveals himself to be on the way.

Boris Coup: Day 28

Isn’t it great? 

Today, on day 28 of his coup, we have official confirmation, from the highest court in the land, that Boris Johnson broke the law. Which means trying to avoid scrutiny by proroguing parliament wasn’t just a naked power grab, it was illegal.

The UK Supreme Court on its way to the ruling that
outlaws Boris and his coup

To those who’ve claimed that my use of the word ‘coup’ is over the top for what Boris has done, let me just say that an illegal power grab seems to be the textbook definition of a coup. No tanks on the streets, sure, but a coup all the same.

For the moment, the UK remains, however, a state ruled by law. This decision ought therefore to be obeyed. Johnson says he will respect it, but who knows? He broke the law with the prorogation itself, so no one can say with any certainty that he won’t try to break it again. One can only hope, but watch him carefully.

If Parliament holds its nerve, it can even bring him down now. If enough Tories, or more to the point ex-Tories kicked out by Boris, join with enough Opposition MPs, they can pass a no-confidence vote.

Then things would get really interesting. There would be an opportunity to form what many are calling for, a government of national unity. That’s when we’d come up against another hitch. Jeremy Corbyn, leader in name of the Labour Party, has said he would not support anyone other than himself to lead such a government. Few MPs – indeed few voters – would have any more confidence in him than in BoJo.

After all, why should they? Who led the fight back against BoJo’s coup, the one that led to today’s Supreme Court Decision against him? The Scottish and Welsh governments, and a series of individuals, most notably Gina Miller who has now won two major decisions against the government (the other one was to force a parliamentary vote on Brexit at all).

But where was Corbyn?

Why, he was plotting against his Deputy Tom Watson. He confirmed as much to Andrew Marr on BBC TV on Sunday, when he said that, while he knew there were conversations “about the role of deputy leader”, he “did not know that that particular motion was going to be put at that time.”

A non-denial denial. In other words, he knew about the plot. And to all those who say that Owen Smith mounted a coup against Corbyn when he ran for leader, I would reply that it was a legitimate political action, respecting the Labour Party Constitution, open, transparent, followed by debate, and with a result accepted by the loser.

What happened in the move against Watson was that a motion to abolish his position was brought in, without notice, at the end of a meeting, to try to nod it through with minimal debate. Now that’s a coup attempt.

So Corbyn played a minimal role in the fight against the Boris coup. And he showed himself capable of being as nasty and underhand as any machine politician. Indeed, rather like Boris himself.

So why would anyone want him to take over?

If a unity government is to be formed, therefore, there will be a lot of obstacles to overcome. We’d need both Labour and Tory MPs to rebel. In short, we’d need MPs to stand up to the deplorable leaders both main parties have inflicted on themselves.

Of course, we shouldn’t write off BoJo yet. There’s a chance he may just brave his opponents, even in defiance of the law. Or then again he may play on Corbyn’s obsessive ambition to get to Downing Street: Jeremy may not be able to resist the temptation of an election, even though he’s fifteen points behind in the polls.

Then Boris might get back with a Parliamentary majority. Which would mean he could exercise personal rule even within the law. Giving us hard Brexit, subservience to the US and an assault on basic rights.

Then we’ll really know what “taking back control” means.

Unbelievable’s unbelievably good. Believe me.

Imagine an eighteen-year old woman, in foster care since she was three, at last able to move into a half-way house, semi-independent but with staff on-site to protect and support her. And then she’s raped. In her room. By a masked intruder, who comes in through the window from the balcony, binds her, assaults her, takes pictures and goes a few minutes after first appearing.

Kaitlyn Dever as Marie Adler

An appalling, devastating experience. But it gets far worse. After showering sympathy on the victim, Marie Sadler, played with great empathy by Kaitlyn Dever, individuals start to doubt her story. Worse still, the doubts eventually reach the (male) detectives investigating the case. Ultimately, far from having the police on her side, hunting down a criminal, she finds herself facing charges herself, of having made a false report.

It’s a powerful and immediately gripping start to a remarkable Netflix original mini-series, of just eight episodes, called Unbelievable.

All the better for being based on a real case.

Or rather, real cases. Because in episode 2, we’re taken forward three years to 2011, and from the state of Washington into Colorado. There Karen Duvall, a detective excellently portrayed by Merritt Wever, has been called in to investigate an appalling rape. The masked rapist came in through a window, bound and assaulted his victim, took photos and left. There are some key differences: he took four hours with this victim, and he made her shower for twenty minutes, to wash away all trace of DNA. But these are enhancements in his technique. The basic crime is the same.

A stroke of luck reveals to the detective that a similar offence took place in another nearby police district. In fact, when she contacts the detective investigating that case, Grace Rasmussen, played in another fine performance by Toni Colette, the two women quickly realise that this rapist knows something of police procedure, and never commits a crime in the same district twice, relying on lack of communication between separate stations.

Merritt Wever as Karen Duvall and Toni Colette as Grace Rasmussen

So they combine their investigations and discover that there are several other crimes to add to the two they already know about. These were, in reality, what came to be known as the Washington and Colorado serial rape cases.

From this point on, the series is following two stories: that of Marie Sadler in Washington, and that of the two detectives in Colorado. Both story lines are gripping from the outset, intense in their impact on the viewer, powerful in their suspense. We suspect that the lines must eventually intersect, but we can’t be sure and we don’t know how or when. The best kind of crime TV.

The basis in fact gives the series poignancy and impact. The writers have changed names and naturally to some extent fictionalised the account, but the key events are as they were in history. Add to that excellent writing and superlative performances, above all by the three main actors, and you have in Unbelievable an outstanding series it would be a pity to miss.

The magic words of Spain's bureaucracy

“Sin cita”: the magic words of Spanish bureaucracy. 

They mean “without an appointment”.

The words are music to the ears because, as I’ve pointed out before, it never takes less than two visits to a Spanish administrative office to get any one job done. And frequently that means making one appointment after another, usually online with systems that creak at best and breakdown as often as not. Usually for a week or two ahead, when you know you’ll only be told to make another appointment and be forced to wait again, to see someone else in another department.

In our case, our most recent experience involved the payment of some tax. We rent out a flat in Valencia and, as non-residents, a special rate of tax applies to us.

‘Special’, as with any kind of charge, naturally means higher.

You may have spotted the first minor discrepancy with this matter. We aren’t non-residents. But it’s true that we once were, so it’s not unreasonable that we should pay the extra tax. However, we really don’t want to go on paying it, if at all possible.

The tax authorities’ first trick was to write to us at our old address in Luton. In England, in other words. From there the letter made its way to the flat in Valencia, the one we’re renting out. We collected it there and took it to the house where we now live, further out in the suburbs.

There were five pages of closely typed Spanish. I have to admit that I couldn’t fully make out what it wanted, but I saw a monetary figure: €54.83 plus 41 cents of interest, making €55.24.

That reference to interest got me worried. It suggested lateness. And lateness with taxes tends to be frowned upon in most jurisdictions. 41 cents now but what might happen later, when they started applying penalties? A lawyer we consulted told us that, yes, the penalty might be several times the original debt.

My problem? However carefully I read and re-read the document, I couldn’t find any means to pay the sum outstanding. There were even some bank account details, so I tried to transfer the sum there.

“That’s our account,” Danielle told me, after the payment had been refused by the bank. Yep. Banks don’t like payments from an account into the same account.

I phoned the office that had written to us. It was in Madrid. Of course. Why should it be anywhere convenient? Dealing with non-residents is a capital matter, it seems.

“Ah, yes,” the friendly and helpful man dealing with my call told me, “you must make the payment.”

He gave me an address I should visit, and I carefully wrote it down. But then the postcode rang a bell with me.

“That’s in Madrid, isn’t it?”

“Of course,” he said, “that’s where we’re based.”

“But I live in Valencia.”

“Ah, OK,” he said, “That does indeed make a difference. But I hadn’t realised. Erase that address. Look up tax offices and go to your local one.”

Danielle kindly made an appointment for us. Well, two appointments, one for her and one for me. This is something we’ve frequently had to do: two separate appointments, but when we get to the office we go in together and they say, “of course, we’ll deal with both of you at the same time”. But the on-line system obliges us to make two appointments.

It was the same today. We arrived. We got lost in the labyrinth of the offices. We turned up at the desk of the woman we needed to see. She greeted us with a smile and remarked, in a friendly tone, “really difficult to find us, isn’t it?”

She looked through the papers.

“This was sent to you in England?”

“Yes,” I said.

“But you live here?”

“Indeed.”

“So when did you get the letter?”

“Last week.”

She laughed.

“Incidentally,” I went on, “we are now resident here.”

I showed her a payslip from the Spanish company that now employs me.

“OK,” she said, “this is just silly. Let me make a couple of calls.”

Ten minutes later she was back.

“That’s all sorted. You just have to pay the amount shown here and everything will be cleared up.”

Danielle and I both breathed a sigh of relief. It’s always like that out here. Get past the ghastly online services, get past the painful telephone conversations, and actually see a person face-to-face, and generally things go well and satisfactorily – and, above all, sensibly. Not always: we’ve met some awful jobsworths of civil servants, but generally you can find someone else to talk to, and in almost every case they’re not just efficient but fun to deal with.

But I said nothing can be done in just one visit, and this was no exception.

“I still have to pay this amount,” I said, “and I can’t see any way to do it.”

“They can do that at the other office, can’t they?” she called to her boss.

“Yes,” he replied. “Sin cita.”

Without an appointment! The magic words. We could just turn up and do it.

“Yes,” he went on, addressing us directly, “when it comes to paying us money, you don’t need to make an appointment in advance.”

It still wasn’t quite as simple as it sounded. We visited another office. We were seen at once by a friendly, pleasant and polite man who immediately agreed to see us together though we’d both had to take a ticket. He issued each of us with a little slip with which to make the payment (yes, we each had to pay the €55.24).

“It has to be paid today,” he warned us, “this slip won’t be valid tomorrow.”

“We’re going straight to the bank,” I assured him.

The bar code was read, the print was overtype
above all the whole thing was stamped. We're in the clear!

We did. We paid the money. And the matter is now closed.

With no penalty. With no further interest charged. And all because we took the trouble to visit real human beings in their offices.

That’s what it takes in Spain. And if you do it, you can sometimes hear those magic words, “sin cita”. And feel the iron leave your soul.

Boris Coup: Day 19

Nineteen days into the Boris coup. It struck me that this was the time for a tribute to that seminal experience that made BoJo the man he is today. Him and one of his successor, David Cameron.

Boris ‘The Law's for You’ Johnson and 
David ‘It's not my fault’ Cameron

I speak, of course, of the Bullingdon Club in Oxford. This, for anyone not familiar with that fine institution, is a club for the wealthiest students of the university. They engage in activities as charming as they are entertaining, such as trashing the rooms of new members, booking whole restaurants where they get uproariously drunk over an expensive meal and then wreck everything, or throwing potted plants through the windows of an Indian restaurant on their way home.

Ah, boys will be boys, won’t they? Of course, if their parents didn’t rally round and settle all the damages, if indeed they were from deprived backgrounds, respectable Tory voters would be up in arms. 

“To jail with them, and throw away the key,” they’d say.

But when it’s the sons of the wealthy causing criminal damage, Tories don’t want them chucked in jail, they want them to lead their Party. And, indeed, become Prime Minister. Which both Cameron and Johnson have done.

You have to have some sympathy with the poor lads. Well, poor rich lads. With that kind of background, how could they possibly be anything other than what they are? Taught from the earliest age that they are entitled to anything they want, and then having it proved to them by being given it, how can they possibly think themselves subject to the same standards as the rest of us?

David Cameron has been giving interviews to try to boost the sales of his newly published memoirs, which by all accounts they badly need. He’s happy to denounce Boris and his sidekick Michael Gove for the lying campaign they ran for the referendum, and the way they’re trashing the UK Constitution and undermining its democracy today.

But what is beyond him is to admit that he was in any way responsible for this mess. And yet there was no need to call the referendum. Once called, an intelligent cross-party campaign could have been run to prevent a vote for Brexit. He, instead, called it to try to mollify his far right (and look how that’s worked out for him) and then ran a dismal campaign, which was defeated.

According to him, none of that is his fault. How could it be? He lives in a world in which you can trash a restaurant and not be held to account for it. Taking responsibility for things that go wrong just isn’t something he’s been trained to do.

BoJo’s gone still further. He knows that the law simply doesn’t apply to him.

He started his coup by flouting convention and suspending Parliament for an inordinately long time, so that he wouldn’t be subject to any kind of scrutiny or opposition as he prepared for a hard Brexit. We’re now into that period of suspension when he’s working in the shadows where we can’t see him.

Anyone who’s been a parent will remember calling to kids they couldn’t see, “whatever you’re up to, stop it”.

That would be the thing to say to BoJo right now. Except that he’d ignore us. We’re in the extraordinary position of having to ask whether the Prime Minister will obey the law. This may seem odd, since he’s promising us a new law and order initiative in the near future. It seems that’s law and order for us, but not for him.

Look at where we stand these days. Just before it was suspended, Parliament passed legislation obliging the Prime Minister to extend the Brexit process if he didn’t have a deal in place by 19 October, and couldn’t get Parliamentary support for a hard Brexit.

He’s repeatedly said he won’t ask for an extension.

So is he going to break the law?

No one knows. All that we know is that, as another unfortunate whose life was blighted by the Bullingdon Club, all his training tells him that he’s above all that kind of thing. Breaking the law? He makes it, he doesn’t have to follow it. He knows what’s best, and if that means acting illegally, so be it. That makes him a champion of the people, not a common criminal.

After all, at Oxford no one held him to account for failing to respect the law. Why should he now?

So sad. Poor Cameron and Johnson. Ruined by their upbringing. Although, it won’t be them that pays the price, it’ll be us.

Just as in the Bullingdon Club, someone else always pays.