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I was having a coffee (actually tea) with a couple of friends and noticed her smart smart-watch. "Thats´ nice" I commented, only to be told it was a gift from her other half. What surprised me most was not that he was still buying her presents after all these years, more that it had connectivity to her iPhone for SMS and whatsapp messages. Intrigued, I went online to see what functionality and prices were the current norm - and immediately was offered a special (-50% if you buy now) price on a sports band with a host of functions. That was 60€, so I had a price bar. A quick bit of research revealed the sort of functionality one might expect, so I made a note and forgot about it. But only for 24 hours, as Amazon sent me an email with their late-summer specials - and one of them was a smart watch. It seemed to have a reasonable amount of functions, and said it paired with an iphone, (and was priced at 28€ - yes really) so I ordered it with a view to trying it out when I was on the bike. Well, it arrived in less than 24 hours and I had it up and running (no pun intended) and paired with the App in minutes - but about an hour later I started to discover all the functionality that could be found by moving the screen around. Amazing amount of things you can do - even down to monitoring the weather forecast and taking remote photos (weird or what?). So impressed was I - and so many times did I spring in to show Gill yet another feature I had found - that she actually agreed to have one herself (especially when I said there was a rose gold one with a pink strap). Just for fun, I went online to the Apple store and checked what the going rate was. They seem to start at 350€, but this little jobbie which looked similar was 750€. Now I am sure (well, I am not that sure) that the Apple one will have a host of additional Apple-related functionality, but in my book a sub-30€ smart watch is a damn sight smarter that a 750€ smart watch (well, at least the purchaser is). Trouble is I am having to get off the settee and actually do some moving about to get the thing to move off "lazy-git" mode. * An Amazon user asked me whether it would be good for an elderly relative who didn´t have a smartwatch, but needed their "Vital signs" monitoring. Answer - it would work, but I sure as hell wouldn´t bet my life on the data it shows. Watch ok;, steps, bike vaguely ok; medical bits very dodgy; waterproof not. Maybe Apple would be better?

Well, after all the deaths, sickness and general hassle, we finally find out what it was all about. Or so I thought when I saw an article about a formal conference review of it it in the spanish press. Ah, but no! Turns out that the primary conference of all concerned parties have come up with the conclusions that they don´t really know where it came from, how it was spread or what the key preventitive measures should be. Vaccination seems to have saved a lot of people, but this bunch of experts say they are not convinced about transmission by touch of objects (so all the gloves and wiping was in vain), that the efficacy of masks is very dubious# (and tests showed a minimal improvement by wearing them), but that people eating and drinking together seem to be at higher risk. Another article used the word "miasma" and implied that it was only airborne, but with very fine but short(ish) lived particles (which rendered standard face-masks useless). No one mentioned the "viral-load", whereby people working in regular contact with patients seemed to contact a bad dose - or that certain ethnic groups were more at risk - or, for that matter, that age and pre-existing medical conditions were a key factor in the death rate. Holy cow - these are experts (who have gone missing!). My layman´s findings are that if you are of pensionable age, you at far greater risk; that it is spread by coughs and sneezes; that hospitals and medical facilities are danger hot-spots; singing and shouting in crowded areas is very dangerous and bars and restaurants (for some reason*) are very dodgy - basically crowds (let´s just say people) are to be avoided - oh and children are likely to be super-spreaders; Funnily enough, that is pretty much what you would expect from ´flu too. Here in Malaga, the press contradict themselves on a daily basis - and sometimes on the same page. Yesterday I read that Andalucia was in level zero, but then that Malaga province was staying in level one. Then I read that 4500 cruise ship passengers docking in Malaga would be able to enjoy themselves without having to stay in bubbles. Something is not right there, but no-one seems to know exactly what is going on. This morning my pal (due to go on a cruise from Malaga tomorrow) had received a message saying Andalucia (hence he assumed Malaga) was now in level zero. But anyway - we should maintain social distancing and wear masks in shops, crowded places and restaurants etc. If the whole thing gets the spanish to use handkerchieves and stop coughing and sneezing into other people´s space, it might help us all. * and then I realised that locally people treat a bar / restaurant like a "safe space" and despite the staff all wearing masks and the rule being that you take off your mask only while imbibing (yes, really), people just take off their masks as they walk in and act like it was 2018! # and regarding mask wearing, the spanish media reckon that the UK´s problems are worse than spain´s principally as the use of masks has dropped off there (but the requirement is going to be in force here until spring 2022)

We have been working through the garbage that is the current spanish customs charge for goods, without ever finding anything that explains exactly what is being applied, at what rate and against what sort of thresholds. We believe that the base threshold is £10 as a declared value for free passage, and last week G received something valued at £20 for which the post office counter charged 10€ customs duty, so the thinking that values up to £25 get through and are charged seems more or less accurate. Unfortunately last week someone sent G a birthday card with a small present inside and thus didn´t do the C12 customs sticker. Accordingly we got the official letter to say sort it out and pay. G knew it would be a small thing and it turrned out to be some make-up masks valued at less than £10. I went through all the rigmarole of downloading and completeing the form, then uploading it to the website, (with the same details already entered there too), then uploading another copy of the NIE etc. Pain in the a***, but what can you do? It was listed as a gift with low value. Today I received their proposed bill for the processing (see attached) At first I thought they must have misread the value, but there it is - £10 converted to 11.63€, accompanied by a 226€ charge for customs and handling. There is no real method of questioning it, so the only solution is "retun to sender". I did file a complaint contact form, but don´t expect anyone to give a toss. The Northern Ireland customs issue pales into insignificance compared with these charges - get to it Lord Frost!

A couple of noteworthy things today on the jab front. No, there is absolutely zero sign of anything happening to improve their target of 100 people per day (see target) - well there is actually no sign of them actually doing anything at all. There is a report in the paper stating that Spain has now completed nearly 4 million vaccinations. God only knows where and who for. Andalucia has about 12% of the population, therefore we should expect nearly half a million jabs to have been done on a pro-rata basis. That should definitely cover all the over 80s and move into the over 70s on a normalised basis, but hey-ho, in this country nothing is normal. Don´t get me wrong, I don´t actually give a s**t about how they roll it out. I will take it when offered, but quite enjoy semi-lockdown, and particularly enjoy seeing the EU make such a total shambles of everything compared to the UK. It makes Brexit totally worthwhile. I also read that the "unity" of the EU has started to break up and various countries have started ordering doses on the side from China and Russia. The local drug-dealer will no doubt be offering jabs before the medical centre does. Should that happen, there will be a ready market amongst the privately insured people, as today it was revealed that the government has decided that people with private medical insurance should (quote) "go home to get the jab". That despite / in spite of being fully fledged residents and paying taxes - just for not using their NHS-parallel scheme. We actually know of someone in this position who was born and educated in, but never worked in, the UK - so has no pension allowance / medical records there - so here he pays privately as he doesn´t have the transferrable S1 statement. The embassy implied in an article that all pensioners had the right to such a form, but then the embassy also said that all brits in spain would get vaccinated irrespective of their status. The one thing that binds all countries together - whatever the bureaucrats promise is probably a lie. + today Sat (6th) there was an article in El Pais (the national newspaper which has an english language version) in which they reflected on the vaccine roll-out. There still seems to be some contenion about the AZ jab for over 50s, so they use it for anyone they choose rather than the elderly. So far, they reported, Andalucia has given jabs to most front-line and secondary(?) health workers, teachers, firemen, police, care-home workers and home-care workers - and were about to move on to security forces. Oh, and all these groups include ancillary staff and associated helpers such as cleaners and canteen staff! Apparently the hunt for the over-90s goes on in order to administer their "100 jabs per day" (and I had not appreciated that this 100 only applied to actual citizens), also they have not started on the "junior" age groups (under 80s) yet. Not too sure about the 80-to 90 year olds, but as suggested before, think they may be waiting for them to have their 90th birthdays first. Basically. nothing has happened / improved since my previous post nearly two weeks ago and it seems that the government has actually started to use the roll-out ideas I mentioned in early February!. ++ as was reported widely, many EU countries, including spain, went into spasm mode and blocked the use of the AZ virus for a couple of weeks. Rest assured it has absolutely nothing to do with the safety of the virus, rather it is yet another way of confusing the roll-out programme (still on the over 90s here) and will allow them to add yet another excuse relating to "hold-ups caused by the EU regulator revisiting AZ safety". What I don´t understand is how they think they can have a country with a very, very small amount of the population vaccinated, but expect to be able to allow in tourists. They may wave their vaccination passports, but there will be no bars for them to go in - and no staff to serve them at this rate. Megashambles doesn´t even start to cover it.

I have held forth before about the Lime Bearss trees and my love for them (ok, the fruit and the smell) and they are still getting primary care in the garden. Daily watering and leaf-checks to remove any "nasties" that may have alighted during the night. Current status is good with quite a lot of fruit on each tree. "Junior" has more, but still pretty small, with only a couple reaching egg-size. Bear2 has had different attention, as the garden centre had been a bit brutal with it and cut branches in a few places - and in one area broke and split a branch. Having seen an ant (ok, two) on the trunk, I thought they might be making an ant-line for the damaged bit, so went out and bought some pruning wax. Duly applied, and surrounding stones checked for ants´ nests, I will just keep a wary eye on it. Our gardener is more of an entymologist than worker - he busies himself with finding beasts on almost anything. I pointed out to him that in summer in spain the garden, indeed the whole of spain, is usually covered in lots of "bichos"- to which he replied that most of them were politicians! Another plant under close attention is a little chilli that G picked up witha view to spicing up my menu (even more). Today I pulled the first "fruit" from it - and as you can see it is absolutely beautiful. About 1 1/2 inches long and slightly grooved. The question is, what is it? The plant was just labelled as a "chilli" when G bought it. I have a horrible (actually delighted) feeling it might be a habañero. Homegrown fire! I will report once tasted (if I survive at 325k scovilles!). Actually a strange one to sell in Spain, as the spanish are notorious for their dislike of anything too picante. Currently I am dieting during the week, with my main daily meal being a bowl of gazpacho with chopped tomatoes, cucumber, peppers and chillis. Adding this tonight could be a delight or a disaster. * cut the finest sliver from the bottom and touched it to my tongu. WOW! deffo a hot one. (but added 2 slices to my gazpacho without major incident)

I managed to get to my dentists yesterday. I had asked him to let me know when he had been vaccinated and he called me to say he had been "done", so I went down for a clean and check-up. I actually got a lot more than I bargained for. He is originally from the middle east, and in keeping with that regional attitude, is totally convinced that the whole of the covid issue is a conspiracy by the "world order". Now I class this as a regional thing, as the most western of all the syrians I knew was a guy who had a brit passport and a flat in London - but he was convinced that 9/11 was a CIA plot with huge falsification of eveidence - all to discredit the arab world. Hmmm. Anyway, we had a long discussion about it all, with me giving him a line I was taught in Shell in the early days "Whenever you think there might be a conspiracy, it is actually always a cock-up". (Thanks Malcolm). I love this "cock-up trumps conspiracy" thing and always use it in these sort of situations. The problem is, of course, that the logic of what has been going on in the world for the last year is very difficult to comprehend. When governments have to be reactive, they are just toooooo slow (think EU vaccine roll-out). I know they are not too good at being proactive either, but when the mierde hits the fan, you want a decison maker, not a fence-sitter. The problems with making these decisions under pressure are that, inevitably, quite a few will be wrong and you have to back-track. I am prepared to cut most of the world goverments some slack, as they were facing a unique challenge. Get the drift. Governments are cocking things up in a crisis - therefore to think that they could actually plan all this is just beyond belief - or beyond my belief. One of the problems that I can see is that there are still a hell of a lot of "unknowns". Efficacy, duration and side-effects of the vaccines; requirement for modified vaccines to treat variants; actual hard figures for deaths by covid where there were no associated illnesses; Age, gender, race, genealogy of the worst hit; etc., etc., etc. The trouble is that you don´t write the history of the war while you are in the middle of fighting the battle, so all that stuff will have to come out in time. Where I do detect a conspiracy however, is where the "holiday destination" countries are rushing to abandon their controls in order to try to get money from tourism. Spain is about to end its state of alarm, which is the legal vehicle which as kept us all locked-down and safe-ish, and the regions are supposed to put in their own controls. With two days to go, they are starting to realise the problems they have created for themselves, as they just don´t have any procedures in place. Basically they are acting as if nothing ever happened relating to the pandemic and hoping that everything will be ok as they relax all the current restrictions and prepare to let thousands of tourists flock in. This is in a country where vaccination levels are so haphazard that a dentist only got vaccinated a few days ago and the main pharmacist in Mijas is still waiting (as is my wife). And, it is not as if the statistics justify it - I record the raw data and know that the infection rates in Andalucia are twice as bad now as they were 8 weeks ago - and they haven´t changed much in the last 4 weeks. - but you read the press and you would believe it is like the UK where thing do seem to be improving at a great rate. The only thing we can hope for is that the regional authorities give themselves the power to control the relaxation - but with the alternative being possible financial benefits, I jus don´t see them being sensible. I reckon it could all a conspiracy. (well, I did spend a lot of time in the middle east). Actually I reckon it is all una locura (madness). Realistically, it is just a cock-up (but of major proportions)

A beautiful sunny day and I was looking down from the kitchen patio to check the clarity of G´s pool (what a cleaner I am!), when I noticed some fluttery action on the mini-bouganvillea which is in a pot at the pool-side. Wow! a beautiful swallowtail butterfly that was going daft over the number of flowers it had discovered in one place. Unusually, it hadn´t been battered by the elements or predators and was in perfect condition. He (she / it) stayed around long enough for me to get some video of him "making hay while the sun shone". A beautiful little (actually quite big) thing. (and sorry if the video is a bit slow loading, but I think it is worth it)

The weather was cranked up to the max last weekend when we finally hit 100º and the pool water to 86º. Those figures finally got me into the pool, but not for swimming - it turned into a "check the tiles" session, with a bit of light pan-scrubbing, and a plan for more drastic action later in the week. First activity to was to remove baby skink which had taken up residence near the water line and seemed very happy there, waving his tail in the light wavelettes. "Can they swim?" was the question - and the answer was "like a bloody fish (ok, newt) as it slalomed across the water to avoid being caught. But I got it and put it somewhere safe ready for phase 2 which was the drastic bit of using acid to remove the calcium build-up on the above-water tiles, using a bent-handled brush and a washing-up bowl half-filled with the acid. Care is called for - and not just for skinks. All done and hosed and prettified, but then I noticed that there was a bit of a "cal-bloom" on the below-water tiled sides of the pool, so out with very long-handled pool brush and scrub the sides. In the course of part of that (with me actually in the pool), a bee was following me - and it duly fell in. So I fished it out, turned it on its feet and it then walked half the pool alongside me - mainly with me trying to ensure it didn´t fall back in. Glad to say that G is making full use of the bee / aquatic facilities, so it is all worthwhile. Another visitor earlier in the week was spotted in an unusual place - and hung around long enough for me to go and get the "good" camera and get this shot. Unfortunately he turned his head away at the crucial moment, but he had a strong yellow beak and is our resident Kestrel - usually only to be seen on the top of the pylon or scudding about looking for prey. I am impressed by the photographic qualities of my most recent iPhone, but nothing really compares to a good zoom lens! Our neighbour has had a family of visitors for the last 4 weeks, but they have now flown too. How the hell a single bloke puts up with a 3-generational family of six (plus odd visitors) I will never understand. We are just counting down the days to September the first when most of the tourists naff-off back to France and Madrid and we can find the odd parking space in the village again (and get into the village at the "other end" without the 15minute traffic queue) - what pandemic??

No, not Woolfie Smith, but the spanish energy suppliers who are getting to me (actually all of us) at the moment. Quick backtrack. I saw an article in the local press stating that there were going to be new ranges of tariffs for electricity use, but it also mentioned that you had to change to a certain type of meter for it to be applied. So I ignored it, but then rekindled my interest when my German neighbour stopped me and mentioned the change and how it had been applied to him without any changes to his meter. I thought I might as well check if there was any warning of changes on my recent electricity bills - but then found that the latest (supposedly monthly) bill I had was from April and I hadn´t received anything since then. (They had just taken the money as you might expect) Once again I was forced to register with a website to try to find out what was going on - and managed to get to the point of downloading my most recent (and already paid) bill. Well, that wasn´t too difficult. The annoying part was to find that the new pricing system had already been implemented without them bothering to tell me. But what can you expect? Anyway, I tried to register to just receive online bills in future, but the system told me that I had already requested that. Oh no I bloody hadn´t. I can only guess they pretended to send me a letter telling me what was going to happen and telling me that if I did nothing it would happen and I would not get any more paper bills A bit of a stretch for a supply company to pull a stunt like that? No - these are the same people who cut out my electricity meter and disconnected my supply when they stopped receiving payments from someone they had transferred my account to. I had to get my lawyer down to the electricity offices, whereupon they had the gall to say that it was probably someone I had rented the house to. Absolutely unbelievable (unless you live in Spain). Bottom line is that they had implemented a new system with a peak period charge (3x regular) between 1000 and 1400 then between 1800 and 2200. "Regular" is from 0800 to 1000 and 1400 and 1800 , plus 2200 to 2400. "Cheap" is from midnight to o0800 plus weekends and holidays (but is actually cheap at about 12% of "regular". A shame our washing machine doesn´t have a timer (and double shame for people living in apartments who are banned from using stuff in those cheap overnight periods). I put the washing machine on just to be a bitch. Then I thought I would see just how it might impact us. Hmm - not as much as you might think, as the actual power charges only amount to about 25% of the total bill. 75% of the bill is overrheads and special charges - so their bullshit about spreading the load to save the planet is just that - and just another way of hitting the customer with an additional charge. ... and don´t start about generating your own solar power - the b*****ds will not let you have a mixed personal and provider supply. Got you all ends up. What´s the usual expression when you are being "gypped", "just pay up and look pleasant"!

Further to the scenario of the specs (not) being delivered from the UK, I decided to play them at their own game. They had obviously decided that the paper copies of the documents they requested, and which I had sent by their own registered post, were not to their liking, so they started sending me e-mails requesting the same s**t again, only online. So I started going online and attaching anything, and everything, and forwarding it to them. I fiendishly decided I might as well get (more than) the value of the goods from their efforts to chase documents. I reckon I sent them about 10 items - which were the things they requested, only upside down, unreadable, duplicated etc., etc. I was actually starting to enjoy myself. Today I sent off the third or fourth copy of the original invoice - and suddenly they cracked and the system showed they finally had everything - to the extent they sent me the bill for the customs which was to be paid. Actually not bad, as they only wanted 10% IVA / VAT oh, - plus management charges, plus handling charges, plus distribution charges and plus more IVA. In all, they managed to get to a total of 62€ against an item that was valued at 93€. 66% mark-up is some buggeration. Unfortunately for them there is a final box on their form, which is the nuclear option. Stuff all this, just return to sender. Ticked and done. Now to hassle the vendor about his faux lack of knowledge about the systems being operated over here. He can either refund my money - and swallow a pair of prescription glasses, or forward them to Anne. Who know, they might just turn up in our post-box here in a Jiffy bag marked "low value gift"! as

We have ordered one or two things from the UK since Brexit - with varied rates of success. Basically if things come from the family (thanks Anne), then they are in a jiffy bag with a customs declaration sticker stating that it is of zero value (ok, maybe a tenner). That seems to get through without any hassle. Unfortunately, online shopping is something else and it seems to be pretty random. G bought 2 pairs of shoes at £60 each - and she was hit with a 20€ customs charge at the Post Office (Correos) whence goes our regular mail. I bought some bar towels (don´t ask) and they slipped through the net as the far-sighted vendor had listed them as "commercial samples" (the options on the CN22 docket being gift / document / sale of goods(?) / commercial sample / returned goods / other). We picked them up as I had received a text from the Correos to tell me there was something waiting for me (the lazy b*****s sometimes do this rather than actually delivering it to me to the house address) and alongside the packet of bar towels were two letters - which later appeared to be what the text was actually about. The duplicated letters (duplicates in all but registration number) were letters in spanish telling me that they (seemingly Correos) had some spectacles I had ordered for G and which they had impounded awaiting payment of customs duty. I translated the whole letter and it gave me websites to visit and a threat of "destruction of goods" were I not to progress the issue. Accordingly I went online to the website - having to register first (always p´s me off) only to find that the 24 digit barcode led me to a chart which showed me the letters had been delivered to me! Sod all about the specs, just these stupid letters. Brilliant. Just a black hole. Well, I checked with the vendors (Glasses2You) and they told me they just put the value on a CN22 and sent them, but "different european countries applied different customs import taxes at the border". Thanks for that - no mention of it on their website. There seems to be a 150€ value threshold mentioned by correos, but G´s shoes which she had to pay for were less than that (as are the specs), which implies the import tax is about 15%, so maybe that is an upper threshold (beyond which you probably pay shedloads) and below which you just pay. So now I am in a quandary. Do I wait for the tossers to send me a text telling me the specs are in the office - and go and pay up and look pleasant, or do I go in and tell them what a useless bunch of a****s they are? Note that the website implies that you can tell correos to deliver the item and agree to pay the duty, but seeing as I don´t have a delivery number for the package (just the bloody letters, remember), it is all a bit of a nonsense. ...and the website is all in Catalan spanish, or Portuguese, or (wait for it) bloody Chinese. You really couldn´t make it up. ..... but then, this is the nationalised rubbish heap from which the delivery driver (begrudgingly bring me a packet) told me that the road name was "wrong now" as the Correos were using something different as there were too many similar ones and it was confusing them). This is the road name actually "owned" by the Junta de Andalucia and accompanied by its Axxx number and kilometre marker - what´s difficult about that? Remember how bad it was when the GPO ran mail and telephones in the UK?. Well, we are sixty years behind here in many things (and getting rid of the Movistar / Telefonica communications accounts was the best move I ever made) - guess I should only buy stuff from UK companies that use decent couriers in future. + Well - I went into the post office and asked (faux naively) whether they had the parcel relating to this letter they had sent me. New girl scans barcode and tells me it is not a parcel, it is a letter. Patiently I explain that she is holding the letter and where is the parcel it mentions. Desultory search of cupboard. Nothing. Another search of page. "It only mentions a letter". "No, it is about a parcel as it says at the top". Call for more experience old dragon. Perfunctory look in cupboard. There is no parcel. "Why do I have this letter then?". Don´t know. "But it was sent by you". "Maybe it is in the post". Jesus, Joseph, Mary and the wee donkey. ++ But then two(!) more letters, but this time with a reference number. I go online with the system to which I had registered and it throws me into a nightmare of forms and options. Eventually I print a form which appears to be the one required to get the goods, then pin to that a copy of my NIE, TIE and the receipt for payment. I then take all this into the Post Office and ask what they can do now. Nothing. But the bloody form is yours - look "Correos" at the head. Nothing. Luckily I know these tossers of old, so have a an envelope with me and thus post the whole shebang off to ---- Correos. The website claims to be in English (it isn´t) and claims you can attach the papers (God knows how). It is my idea of a nightmare - questionable forms and foreign language couched in terms even the spaniards would struggle with. It is called buggeration I think. Anyway, I sent an email to the vendor giving him the status and will now await the goods - or not. If they don´t materialise next week, I will just get back to him claim lack of delivery and let them sort it out (he did tell me that he wasn´t experiencing any major problems, but he will be soon I think)

I am starting to believe that (anti) social media might be the (anti) Christ as predicted in most religious tracts - just not in the way it was expected. When you see the problems it can cause, especially for the unfortunates who believe that it is actually important, then its invention really was the work of the devil. Of course, things are not helped by the businesses / media companies that allow people to post under pseudoynms and use fake names and addresses (says JS-Mijas) - and the tosswits who rant and rave about (eg) insignificant stuff like sports really do need sectioning. Another aspect which I find very irritating is the way the "legacy media" (ie newspapers and TV news), are so lazy that they just regurgitate c**p that they have found on social media! I am always amazed when I find an original story from a proper reporter - but also notice that they too quickly become a regurgitation of themselves. Who would ever have thought that "influencer" would be considered a career? Putting ´ photos of celebrities out there used to be the job of the paparazzi - ah, but they were only interested in people who were actually famous - not those "taken by yourself" to try to get commission from who / whatever you are wearing. Same with Twitter. There was a time when reporters would follow celebrities around just trying to get an original quote. Now you can´t stop drivel being spouted by all and sundry (hmmm), with others "less" significant beings repeating or commenting on it just to get a name-check alongside their heroes (or, more likely, their bêtes noires) When I (engineered a) move from the far East to the Hague back in the mid-nineties, I did so because I realised what an incredible game-changer (ok, paradigm shift as we said then) the web was going to be. I still think the web is an amazing tool (although I read today that one of the originators of Wikipedia thinks its content is too-biased these days) - but with the web as the starting point, the problem is that when you give everyone a voice, you really can´t hear the words any more. Especially any words of wisdom. Now I do not regard this private blog as social media, and I regard it as the same as a private´phone call, but with a few people able to listen in. (Actually, very few, but there you go / have gone). On that ´phone front, last week one of my oldest buddies called me from the UK and we were able to have a few minutes rant at the inanities of the world. In particular we discussed the football european championships - and how neither of us had bothered watching them - also reminiscing about how (despite some prat getting a tv installed in the office dining room) we had succeeded in ignoring the "legendary" world cup of 1966 and actually managed to be out in the garage working on a friend´s car when the final was on. A bit like the attitude of the members of the team that played in it, it wasn´t that "big a thing" back then, but has somehow become more important with the passing of time. That, of course, and the impact of the devil´s anti-social media on everything.