PENSIÓN LAGUNA or: WHAT I LEARNT FROM WATCHING MY NAME IS EARL

PENSIÓN  LAGUNA

or:

WHAT I LEARNT FROM WATCHING MY NAME IS EARL

In a previous post, I mentioned how I was now commuting a total of 200km to work and back every day.  Now, this might not seem much in a country with a good public transport network, but in my part of the world, the nearest bus stop is 10 miles away, just as near as the motorway.

In normal circumstances, this would be no problem either – if I had a normal working schedule but unfortunately this year and next year I will be combining work with an evening Master’s course, making public transport a non-starter. 

As for my own vehicles, why not use them for the commute?

I have found a better solution, Pensión Laguna.

Pensión Laguna is a cheap flophouse, yet it has air-con, phone and laptop charging facilities and, in some places, free Wi-Fi. You can even leave your possessions in the free, secure, storage round the back. It is not the most comfortable sleep, but it will do and it is near the local Metro stop. It does not offer breakfast, but it is located near some good cafés and shower facilities are available nearby.

Let me now talk a little about Earl. In his previous incarnation, ever-opportunistic Earl is in the club bar of a golf course when a golfer comes in and orders drinks all round. He has just hit a hole in one! In order to secure a regular supply of free beer and snacks Earl and his associates then spend all of their time and not-inconsiderable ingenuity and inventiveness making sure that the golfer hits a hole in one every outing.

What he doesn’t realise is that he’s ruining the golfer’s life, and if even if he did, he wouldn’t care. The poor golfer becomes so obsessed with golf that he loses his job, his girlfriend, even his dog and ends up sleeping in his car.

Has the penny dropped?

I’ve started to sleep in my car. Please do not think that I am complaining, looking for pity. This is a temporary expedient and not because I’m homeless – I’ve already written about my house and how special it is. The car is paid for, as is the BMW motorbike I use around town and to get to and from the village a couple of times a week.

The problem is that here in Spain we are, to quote Mrs. Thatcher “being squeezed until the pips squeak”. As a public employee, I have seen my salary drop by 15% in the last two years[1], I have seen my income tax rise, petrol prices soar and VAT skyrocket. The daily commute is just not an option.   

I am keeping my head above water- just. Many aren’t. A lot of families have lost their jobs and their homes. Nowadays it is not uncommon to find three generations living crammed hugger-mugger into the grandparents’ flat with no other income than the grandparents’ pension, meagre or otherwise.

This, along with the black economy, is why Spain doesn’t seem to be doing too badly, yet the situation is so bad that soup kitchens can no longer provide enough hot meals for those who need them.

Official figures project that by 2014 there will be 6m unemployed in Spain (the country’s total population is less than 48m). To qualify for unemployment benefit, applicants must have worked at least 18 months and as time passes the benefit diminishes until after two years, I think, it simply disappears. The black economy might put bread – and little else – on many tables, but those who work in it are exploited. Even many workers in the official economy are exploited, finding themselves doing unpaid overtime and in constant fear of losing their jobs if they don’t.

Can you imagine, dear reader, a situation in the UK or USA where one in eight of the total population were unemployed? Would society be able to cope?

Still, things could be worse. We in Spain could be in a situation like Greece[2] where families are taking their children to orphanages so that at least they will be properly fed[3]. Can you imagine voluntarily giving up your children because you are no longer able to feed them? Can you imagine the crushing shame? Can you imagine how soul-destroying it must be for you, an adult, to admit that you are as helpless; indeed, more helpless than the child you are tearing from your side?

This is inhuman. But let’s return to Earl. Earl and his friends used their not inconsiderable skills to deceive a golfer; they presented him with a false image of himself, an image that exaggerated his greatness, his skills, his abilities. He paid for this in two ways. He paid his deceivers and those around him in beer, euphorically squandering his money on those leading him to his undoing. Even worse, he paid with his own future as he unquestioningly accepted this improbable illusion of freedom and power. For a while everyone was happy, but then the bubble burst. The borrowed time had to be repaid. The free-beer drinkers moved on, leaving behind a resigned husk of a man, convinced of his own helplessness, unwilling and unable to fend for himself – an unloved down-and-out.

Could we regard this particular episode as a completely unintended allusion to the EU and its destructive relationship with the PIGS[4] countries? Or perhaps we are just talking about an amusing, inventive American TV series. Karma is indeed a funny thing

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[1] But I am one of the lucky ones. I still get – a reduced – Christmas bonus and, more importantly, I still have a job

[2] Indeed, things still might get that bad.

[3] Not something the Spanish EU-centric media really likes to mention.

[4] Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain – a rather endearing acronym invented in Germany.

RAIN

In his song, “Rain”, John Lennon celebrates a meteorological phenomenon that most just see as an inconvenience to a greater or a lesser degree.

As in most things, I am with John.

It has just been raining here in the Sierra. Autumn has arrived. The parched earth will now start to come back to life. The smell of damp earth drifts in through my open windows, bringing back too-far-off memories of living in England.

Damp and mouldering decay are the two smells that transport me straight back to my home city, Liverpool. Paradoxically, decay and rot celebrate life and regeneration. That which decays must first grow and that which rots feeds new life. In the midst of death we are in life.

All over Britain we can see examples of mouldering buildings and blighted land being given new life. Victorian Britain is undergoing a resurgence, yet I am not quite sure if this is aesthetically and spiritually a good thing.

The abandoned Albert Dock, Liverpool. 
Photo from Liverpoolshop.com

I would contend that the best way to experience Victorian gothic is when it is in a state of decay. I spent a lot of my youth exploring abandoned buildings, large family houses with rambling overgrown gardens, deserted railway stations, still factories, cavernous, empty warehouses… Such places let your imagination run free, I would even suggest that given the Victorian penchant for Gothic, the Victorians themselves would have appreciated the romanticism of their run-down glories.

Birkenhead East Float Sept. 2007. Image: 

http://www.dipity.com/tickr/Flickr_birkenhead/ 

Now as I think of it, the state of Victorian architecture over its lifespan reflects the British zeitgeist. As the British Empire and pride in it crumbled and mouldered, so did our 19th-century architectural heritage.

As the irreverence and satire of the 60s and 70s poked fun at the 19^th-century stuffed shirts of Victorian Britain, Victoriana became ugly. I remember my mother having bonfires in the garden, throwing onto the pyre mountains of mahogany furniture that no-one wanted or loved. All of us over a certain age will remember the wholesale demolition of Victorian buildings, ranging from back-to-back hovels to exquisitely-decorated public buldings

The restored Albert Dock today

 As Britain regained its confidence in the 1990s and 2000s, we suddenly rediscovered our heritage and began to appreciate its beauty. This has led to restoration projects throughout the country. Let’s hope they expand and continue, bringing more truly wonderful buildings back to their former splendour, even if this does mean that people like me will lose the physical spaces where imagination runs riot. At least the buildings, well quite a few at least,  will survive.