Day 89 - "Fag End"

Spanish Practices - Real Life in Spain

Full Transcript:

Day 89 Fag End

Friday and we are off to the Administrator to sell our old car to Carmen, what could possibly go wrong, find out later in this episode.

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Today I have been thinking about Satan’s smoke. A great many people in Spain seem to smoke, I remember we had to pick up a parcel from a UPS pick up point that turned out to be a rather sad looking Travel Agents, I guess even sadder now we are in the Covid19 world.

It was a pain to get to, Chris had to negotiate the one-way system of Motril and park the car in a tiny space in an equally tiny square. We got out the car and looked around, finally seeing the little shop and a sad and very tiny sticker saying UPS pick up.

We went inside, a very disinterested lady was sat, chuffing on a ciggy above her was a large sign “No Fumar” to her right were some rusty carousels with actual travel brochures - Viaje inglés with your usual pictures of a pleased with himself beefeater, Stone Henge and William Shakespeare.

Behind her a shabby shelf filled with a disorganised pile of parcels, one of which would be ours.

I said in Spanish ‘I have to collect my parcel’. I placed the UPS note on the counter. She took one last drag of her cigarette, blew the smoke out in both our directions and stubbed it out on the counter.

She picked the delivery note up with a great deal of disinterest. Turned to the bulging shelves let out a “mmmm” then “Dinee” The DNI is the Spanish Identity card, I don’t have that I have a Knee an NIE card, I gave her that, she replied “No good, ..passporte!”

Well I don’t actually carry my British passport around, it stays in the safe, so I said “No passporte” she replied “No paquette”

Then I had an idea, I wonder if she would accept my, then, British Driving Licence. I got that out and pointed to the EU flag thing on the pink plastic card.

Another “mmm” she turned around and started to poke at the parcels on the back shelf, one fell off with a slight tinkly smash sound, eventually she found our parcel.

“Sin, sin aqui” I signed my name and she pushed the parcel across the counter. “Gracias,” I cheerily said, she gave us a withering look and reached over for her cigarette packet and drew out another smoke, lighting it with one of the Chinese shop lighters that threw an enormous flame up, momentarily lighting up the dingy shop for a moment. We left.

As Chris tried to reverse out of the impossibly small square, she came to the door to watch us suffer, scowling and flicking cigarette ash up in the air in a theatrical way.

So, smoking in Spain, wherever you are seems to be a thing, I can almost imagine a Hospital Operating Theatre with a surgeon he is in the depths of some complicated surgery, the patient laying on the table. He stops, pulls out a cigarette packet and lights up, then carrying on with the operation fag ash falling gently into the patients open body.

It was Rodrigo de Jerez who in 1492 first saw ‘natives’ smoking and brought the dried leaves back to Spain.

This did not go down well with the Church, The Spanish Inquisition stated that ‘only Satan can give to a man the ability to expel smoke through his mouth.’

So they locked up poor old Rodrigo for ten years, he was released after seven and the habit got picked up in Seville, but still the Church was having none of it.

In 1624 the Inquisition posted a tile that said you blow smoke out of any of your orifices and we will severely punish you, and that stayed the Church’s outlook until the 18th century.

By then the state had started to take an interest and saw an opportunity for tax and of course control.

The first tobacco factory in the world was in Seville which started production in 1758 they made snuff and cigars, but the quality was a bit shite, mainly due to the men working in the factory not turning up to work and when they were at work having a half arse attitude to the manufacture of the cigars. The solution was to hire female workers to do the job, by 1829 all cigar making was done by women, there were more than six thousand women working in the factory by 1868 with their good wages made them ladies independent economically and a really important part of the economy of Seville.

Thursday and our trip to the Administrator his hit a little bump in the road, the DGT, the Government office she must visit has shut down the internet appointment system as “too many people are using it,” so she will have to doorstep the office in Granada to get the paperwork done.. sigh!

It is enough to make you want to take up smoking! All over Spain you see Estancos, little Tobacconist shops are where you buy you ciggies from, stamps and since 2014 a few other bits and bobs like crisps and the like. Estancos are Government controlled and have been for over 400 years ago they were traditionally awarded to War Widows, if you want to sell cigarettes you have to buy them from the Estanco, it is no good looking in the supermarket, along with paracetamol, cigarettes are also not sold there.

The weekend comes, it has already arrived for you, and as usual the wind will accompany our Saturday howling and whistling along the coast of Spain.