Homage to Murcia: A Season of Football Anarchy

In 1999, British spy Austin Powers discovers that he has lost his mojo. It transpires that his mojo has not been lost but has in fact been stolen in a time-travelling heist by the morbidly obese Fat Bastard on the order of Austin's nemesis Dr Evil. The MOD sends Austin back to 1969 where he teams up with CIA Agent Felicity Shagwell and between them they end up saving the world but not before the phial containing Austin's stolen mojo is destroyed and lost forever. Austin and Felicity return to 1999 where she points out all the things he has done in saving the world which proved that he had never really lost his mojo in the first place. 

For Austin Powers now read Anthony (Tony) Higgins, the author of Homage to Murcia: A Season of Football Anarchy. For Dr Evil read Sky Sports; for Fat Bastard read Mike Ashley and for Felicity Shagwell read CAP Ciudad de Murcia (Murcia City FC). 

Tony is a football nut. But like so many football fans - certainly amongst my baby-boomer generation - he found himself losing his football mojo. Vast amounts of TV money from Sky Sports and others were changing the football landscape. The people's game was rapidly becoming the rich people's game with the loyalties and sensitivities of time-served fans a minor consideration only behind commercial interests. Tony had moved to the Murcia region of Spain by the time Mike Ashley became owner of his beloved Newcastle United in 2007 and it was at some time between then and 2013 that Tony discovered he had lost his football mojo. Then along came Felicity Shagwell.

Spanish football is complicated. The fourth tier of Spanish football consists 18 Grupos of 20  teams, a total of 360 teams. For the 2013/14 season CAP Ciudad de Murcia (Felicity Shagwell - hereinafter referred to simply as City) were competing in one of the even more numerous fifth tier Grupos. The club is the re-born reserve team of CF Ciudad de Murcia who were purchased in 2007 then moved 145 miles to Granada, re-named Granada 74 and went out of existence two seasons later. Their reserve team CF Atletico Ciudad stayed put in Murcia although lived a nomadic existence until they too went out of existence but were resurrected in 2010 a la AFC Wimbledon and FC United in the UK and re-named CAP Ciudad de Murcia. It is a fan-owned, fan-run club. In fact the CAP in the title roughly translates to "club of shareholders". There are literally dozens and dozens of similarly labyrinthine back-stories to various football clubs across Spain although few have ended up being fan-owned. 

There is also an awful lot of politics surrounding Spanish football, much of which can be traced back to historical allegiances from the Spanish civil war (see my blog Ghosts of Spain posted 23 June 2020). The City club and fans are vehemently anti-fascist and against the greed and excess of modern football. Indeed the team's shirts bear the slogan "Against Modern Football" embroidered across the back of their shirts. 

The book ostensibly follows City's 2013/14 season during which Tony missed only a handful of games, either home or away. But it is much more than that. Tony lives in the town of Caravaca de la Cruz which has it's own football club so he often goes to see them play and he also managed to watch football in the Basque country and Gibraltar during the course of the season. Interspersed with all the football-related comment is background on the various towns and cities visited, most of which are within the region of Murcia which enjoys a rich history dating back to the Romans.

If you like your football then this is an excellent read. If you also happen to like Spain in general and Murcia in particular then even more so. Football in Spain is very different to football in the UK in terms of its structure and history but the passions invoked by the people's game - the real people's game - are the same in both countries. Tony is a football nut. As with Austin Powers, he never really did lose his football mojo, he just needed a Felicity in his life to make him see it.

Adventures From Our Front Door

Of the two of us, I was always more the glass-half-full one. Mark and I have been mates for over forty years and our differing outlooks on life's prospects have always been evident. I recall posing the question of him once as to why he had a tendency towards pessimism. His response to my question was that by fearing the worst, he was mitigating the extent of any future disappointment if the worst was indeed to occur. Whilst I could understand that rationale, I much preferred the risks associated with blind optimism. Forty years on and our respective outlooks have done neither of us any harm. Mark is no longer the pessimist he once was and I'm probably not quite so gung ho as I might like to kid myself although I'm not up for admitting it just yet. 

Regardless of how one might personally describe that partially filled glass, the current Covid-related restrictions on individual liberties and activities, aided and abetted by the winter weather, make it difficult for some - nigh on impossible for many - to indulge in any type of adventure. Now, that might be okay for some but Mrs C and I didn't depart the world of work last year so that we could sit at home doing jigsaws. And to be fair we've been luckier than most in spending much of last year in Spain. But, right here, right now we're (still luckier than most but) stuck in cold, wintery Burnley unable to meet friends, see family, go for a pint, worship (my footie team of course), undertake a non-essential journey or (apparently) enjoy a takeaway coffee whilst having a walk. Jeez! It ain't always easy being an optimist.

One of the reasons that we're lucky is because we live in Burnley. The town nestles in a natural valley, surrounded by open fields with wild moorland at higher altitudes. From our front door is but a ten minute walk to the town centre and a similar hop, in the opposite direction, to the first of those open fields and beyond to the moorland. We literally have potential for adventure on our doorstep.

Today is cold with snow on the ground but not for long as the fine drizzle does its bit. But yesterday was beautiful, cold and sunny and with not much wind. Perfect! Armed only with an Ordnance Survey map and a small rucksack containing a flask of tea and some shortbread biscuits (yes, I know, it's an arrestable offence) Mrs C and I set off from our front door at 10.40 a.m., returning home almost five hours later. I will not bore you with the full route detail but it was a genuine adventure, undoubtedly assisted by an optimistic outlook on the viability of the passage through Hameldon Woods and the icy path to Hameldon Hill and its part-frozen moorland. Oh how we laughed as Mrs C went both feet ankle-deep in the slushy mud of the woodland path having traversed the fallen tree blocking our exit from the woods. And I always draw blood when I'm out anyway so the outcome of my tangle with a barbed wire restriction en route was really no surprise. But it was all worthwhile as we made it to the top of the hill, past the weather radar station and looked down towards Clowbridge reservoir. What a view. Mark would certainly have loved it.

There is something king-of-the-world about being up high, able to survey all around you, particularly when the landscape is so stunning. It's just a great feeling. And so of course is that celebratory pint in the pub afterwards but obviously that's much too dangerous in current times as none of us can be trusted. So in the short term Mrs C and I will continue with our no-pub adventures from the front door. But we'll be noting all suitable pub locations en route for future reference. Because this will all be over soon. I'm just not wired for fearing the worst.

The view from Hameldon Hill down to Clowbridge reservoir.

Covid-19 - Reasons to be Cheerful

Now is the winter of our Covid-19 discontent. But with Spring just a 
few weeks away, dare we look forward with a little more optimism in
terms of regaining our rights and freedoms? I would like to think so,
even if it does mean that slimy politicians will reap undeserved credit

Back in early November I wrote (Politicians - A Special kind of Stupid?), about the virus, that it was a new and unwelcome respiratory illness acting in the way that respiratory illnesses do in tending to unleash its greatest damage on the old and medically vulnerable, particularly during the winter season so congratulations to all politicians in suppressing the spread of the illness over the summer and into the winter..... followed by......they know that they have got it wrong. The politicians will continue with the undemocratic imposition of restrictions into the Spring and then, with seasonality playing its part in reducing these numbers, they will announce the measures to have been a success, thus justifying all that has gone before.

As a lockdown sceptic, I have to now accept that we sceptics have lost the argument. The great majority of the UK population has been won over by a government propaganda machine convincing us that a) they are following the science and b) the trampling of our rights and freedoms is a price worth paying for our safety. Whilst I still firmly believe that they are wrong on both counts I am in a small minority, defeated, ridiculed and even worse accused of irresponsibly exercising (what was previously my right to) free speech. So it might seem unlikely that I should be cautiously optimistic as to the likelihood of our getting back to a semblance of normality in the relatively near future. But I am. And that means getting back to Spain sooner rather than later, being able to travel freely throughout that wonderful country as El Real Thing in pursuit of our original objectives being the discovery of real Spain, real beer in Spain and real football in Spain. Blimey, I'm warming up just thinking about it. Reasons to be cheerful?

Reasons to be Cheerful - Part 1. I am a born optimist. Simple as. The glass is always half full etc. Blind optimism is a healthier option than clinical pessimism. A bit like the saying about smiling using fewer muscles than frowning so it's good for you (probably untrue but it's a nice sentiment). Being optimistic helps you get through life and lockdowns and Sheffield Wednesday so it's a good start.

Reasons to be Cheerful - Part 2. Whilst the prime minister Boris Johnson is also famously (infamously?) known for his optimism, the mood music coming out of government is now very much geared towards a stepped return to normality from Spring onwards. Boris' optimism aside, having now had us under metaphoric lock and key for ten months, why would the whole of government now be pushing this line if they weren't confident that such pronouncements won't prove to be the proverbial rod? Well, obviously the vaccine rollout is now underway but, as I railed back in November (see above), the onset of Spring etc etc. Of course they're bloody confident. And worse, the slimy buggers will hail their actions as having been successful and the majority of the UK population will believe them. But at least the restrictions will be loosened and rather than harking back on all that has gone before we will be too busy getting out there and making up for lost time. Which will suit the policiticians.

Reasons to be Cheerful- Part 3. Pandemics don't last for ever and the fantasy policy objective of "zero-Covid" is now acknowledged as being just that. Fantasy. Covid-19 is now endemic which means that we have to learn to live with it but the arrival of the various supplier vaccines should make a positive difference, at the very least encouraging those less optimistic than me that there is good reason to believe that we can soon begin the resumption of normal social activity, hug a few friends and family members and even enjoy the occasional peck on the cheek. I'm not one for wishing my life away but oh to revisit such pleasantries again.

If I am right and my optimism proves not to be misplaced, then perhaps we can indeed now start tentatively planning for the "great summer" that health secretary Matt Hancock has told us we're all going to have. If I am wrong, then at least the hope will carry me through the next few weeks until it becomes clear that I'm wrong. That, you see, is one of the benefits of being an optimist.

And finally if I was Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, then I would be supremely optimistic about the future. The new EU-China Investment deal will drive his country's further manufacturing and production growth, ensuring that even more EU member countries find their high streets filling up with Chinese Bazar shops - as is already the case in Spain - selling cheap junk into local markets impoverished by lockdown policies promoted by China to counter a virus promoted by.....errr.... China. Hmmm.  

Ven Vill Vee See You Again?

Spain - Ven vill vee see you again?
 

Regular readers of the El Real Thing blog (okay, that really just means you Mrs C) will have noticed lots of "F"s featuring in our recent posts. Not wishing to visit undue wear and tear on the laptop F key, we have decided to switch allegiance to the letter V for this latest post. With this blog supposed to be all about Spain, real beer in Spain and real football in Spain then you could be excused for thinking that Viva (Espana), Valencia, Voll Damm and Valladolid might all be candidates for inclusion but you would be wrong, and you would be wrong because we haven't been able to undertake any of our planned activities - in fact we're not even in Spain at the moment - because of the freedom-curtailing, liberty-restricting actions of politicians in thrall to the so-called experts in dealing with the CoVid19 virus. 

Consider this.....................the Secretary of Defence launched a bioweapons programme which resulted in the creation of a virus. The virus killed more than 100,000 people and was blamed on a terrorist organisation. The ruling party used the fear and chaos to win an overwhelming majority in Parliament and profit from the cure for the virus. Vaguely familiar? It is of course part of the plot line for the cult 2005 dystopian political action film V for Vendetta which ironically(?) is set in 2020. Any similarities between the film's St Mary's virus to any actual coronaviruses living or dead is purely coincidental although, to be fair, would probably still be picked up by the not-fit-for-purpose PCR tests which drive the "case" numbers the politicians are using to scare us. The vigilante hero "V" is possessed of superhuman capabilities, not least of which his articulateness, eloquence and poetic verbosity. For example his salutatory address includes 47 words beginning with the letter V whilst also, mid-address, finding time to carve the letter "V" into a poster on the wall with his knife. V impressive!

The film is based on the comic book of the same title by Alan Moore, originally published in the early 1980's although it is the film which has brought the V for Vendetta storyline to the consciousness of the wider public and, most recently, prompted comparisons between the dystopian UK of 2020 in the film to the, errr, dystopian UK of 2020 under CoVid19 restrictions. Some of the quotes from V for Vendetta are remarkably thought provoking, particularly at a time when the denial of our rights and freedoms is apparently the price we have to pay in order to "protect" a health service which we previously and naively thought was actually there to protect us. 

"Authority, when first detecting chaos at its heels, will entertain the vilest schemes to save its orderly fascade". 

"You wear a mask for so long, you forget who you were beneath it".

"Equality and freedom are not luxuries to lightly cast aside. Without them, order cannot long endure before approaching depths beyond imagining".

"People shouldn't be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of the people".

Three weeks to flatten the curve. Protect the NHS. Lockdown. Fire-breaks. Wind breaks. Tiers. Teenage mutant ninja virus. Cases. Suit cases. Nut cases. It would almost be funny if the UK government strategy on CoVid19 wasn't destroying lives and livelihoods but that is exactly what it is doing. And they know it. "Words and figures differ" as the bankers used to write on the unpaid cheques where the amount of the cheque written in long-hand did not tally with the amount written, in figures, in the amount box. Government officials tell us one thing whilst the official data, should you choose to analyse it, tells us something quite different. In reality, here in the UK we are months past pandemic stage. What we find ourselves in now is a plandemic, a cynical government plan to cover its disproportionate actions throughout 2020 and to drag matters through to late Spring 2021 by when millions will have been vaccinated and the combination of seasonality and move away from the PCR testing will bring about reduced "case" numbers allowing the government to claim vindication. In the meantime we can all look forward to continued denial of our rights and freedoms whilst thousands more businesses and their employees are consigned to the scrapheap. But at least we can console ourselves with the knowledge that various chums of goverment ministers have made millions reacting quickly to meet government requirements for often un-used and/or not-fit-for-purpose items of PPE, Track and Trace Apps and CoVid-related propaganda.

Don't get us wrong. We are not CoVid deniers. We don't particularly want to catch it but, just like other respiratory illnesses including the seasonal flu, we choose not to have our actions dictated and freedoms removed by government for an illness which data proves is not life threatening for the vast, vast majority of healthy people. 

So instead of V for Vendetta we now have V for Vaccination, set in a dystopian 2020 UK where a bioweapons programme in China resulted in the creation of a virus and................ 

.............and you know the rest, although in this version the vigilante hero (for that is, in all modesty, El Real Thing) is no more than a vigilante zero, possessing of no particular superhero powers other than that of verbosity, railing against the withdrawal of basic democratic rights and freedoms whilst noting, regrettably, that most people still appear willing to mask-up, lock themselves away from human interaction - including that with loved ones - and trusting of a government, indeed a complete parliamentary system, whose members instinctively believe that they know what is best for you. That is not how we roll at El Real Thing. 

We don't blame the "expert" advisers, we blame the politicians. The vapid duo of Whitty and Vallance ventilate a venal vision of a new virus variant which verdict verily visits upon us visage visors for visiting venues thus violating the view that voluntary vigilance is a valid vantage. Instead variously we vegitate avaiting the vernal vanguard of vindication ven vee avake from ze vor against CoVid and........................ Okay, we've cheated a bit there and bizarrely gone a bit German as well but the politicians are supposed to be answerable to the people, not the other way round. If you want your freedom back, then bloody well make sure that the politicians are left in no doubt that is what you demand, otherwise they will keep on knowing best because that is what they do.   

On reflection we think we prefer the letter F to the letter V because there certainly ain't no (coherent) "F" in Government CoVid strategy. And now that we've giving up on the letter V, the politicians can have this one on us. 

The Flamboyance of Murcia

Following on from our previous post where we focused in on the letter "F";

Q. What do the words Flamboyant, Flamenco and Flamingo all have in common? 

A. Obviousy they all begin with the letter F (followed by l, a and m of course). They appear consecutively in the Collins Pocket English Dictionary (except for the fact that the word Flame separates Flamboyant and Flamenco but close enough). And talking of close, they can all be found within a few minutes walk from the El Real Thing front door in Murcia.

In the pre-apocalyptic days of 12 months ago when the word corona was associated with either that ring of light around the moon or sun, or cigars, or (if you're old enough) bottles of pop and certainly nothing at all to do with the Wu-Flu, Mrs C and I were contemplating a cheeky few days back in Spain. Escaping the cold and wet of East Lancashire in November for the Spring-like warmth of the Murcian sun should qualify as an accepted definition of the word "sensible". Okay, you're not going to be sat outside of an evening sipping on cocktails at this time of the year but during the day, with temperatures typically ranging between 18 and 22 degrees, the outdoor world is your lobster. And once the sun has set and the temperature starts to suggest long trousers and a jumper to be in order, there are plenty of bars and restaurants to tempt you away from a night in front of the TV should you be so inclined. And so it was, a few days later, that Mrs C and I treated ourselves to an evening of Flamenco at El Secreto Lounge in Mar de Cristal, just a ten minute stroll from our front door. Now, you've all heard of flamenco and will know it to be a flamboyant expression of Spanish-ness. You might not know that an evening of flamenco is intensely enjoyable, intensely atmospheric and intensely knackering. If you get the opportunity to experience flamenco first hand then you should absolutely do so but take at least two paracetamols before you leave the house and treat yourself to a lie-in the next morning.

Showing my ignorance now but I always previously associated flamingos with the TV programme Miami Vice and David Attenborough documentaries. Thirty years ago when I was working in Gibraltar, I couldn't quite get over the fact that I shared my locale with real live monkeys and it was a not dissimilar revelation when I first drove past a flock (or herd or pack?) of real live, pink flamingos at the salt flats - las salinas - Playa Honda just down the road from Mar de Cristal on the southern shores of the Mar Menor. To be fair the flamingos are better known for congregating in and around San Pedro del Pinatar on the northern shores but wherever on the Mar Menor shoreline they choose to practice their standing-on-one-leg routine, it still blows my mind a little bit that I have real live, pink flamingos as neighbours. Okay, they're not all pink because that demands a certain maturity and suitable diet but the nature reserve environment that fosters these lanky, unelegant but spectacular creatures gives them every chance of an eventual existence in the pink. And despite your misgivings, I do actually know the collective noun for a group of flamingos and it is, quite fittingly, a flamboyance. In fact, such a flamboyance of flamingos was witnessed by myself whilst playing* tennis in nearby Los Urrutias this last summer. "I say chaps, look at that flamboyance of flamingos on the beach" I shouted. Probably.

* The word "playing" is something of an overstatement in describing my involvement on the tennis court and should more accurately be described as "attending". 

So then, who would have thought it possible to find three (almost) consecutive words in the dictionary and link them so seamlessly to Murcia? Not to be sneezed at eh? And just thank your lucky stars that I didn't get down the page as far as the word Flange. Trust me, having spent the last 15 years hiring out flange spreading and tightening tools it wouldn't have been beyond me.

Top Five Best Things About Lockdown In Spain

This may surprise a lot of you but when it comes to the Covid-19 virus pandemic, I am a bit of a lockdown sceptic. I know, I've kept it well hidden to date but there you go, I'm entitled to my views and, to quote Harry Enfield's Yorkshireman "I say what I like and I like what I bloody well say". In an Essex accent of course. But, lockdown can't have been all bad can it? Just to prove how open-minded we are here at El Real Thing, we've put together the top five best things about lockdown in Spain. And, if you (can be arsed to) make it through to the end of this blog, then we will scientifically test how open minded you actually are. Ha ha! You can only judge our open-mindedness once you have demonstrated your own open-mindedness. Cunning. Here we go then, in no particular order, the top five best things about lockdown in Spain were;

BEST THING No. 1 - SHOPPING

Mahou IPA. The girl done good!

Yes, shopping. Hard to believe eh? Shopping was materially enhanced by the initial lockdown because only one person was allowed to leave the house for essential reasons such as actually needing to feed yourself. Fortunately for El Real Thing Mrs C can drive so it was Mrs C that ventured to the supermarket for essentials of food and beer. Having only just, at that time, started out on the El Real Thing quest for #RealBeerInSpain Mrs C excelled herself in her beer purchases and as a resut of which cans of Mahou IPA first made their way into our Spanish kitchen. Good beer and no chance of my getting press-ganged into a supermarket visit. Result! But we were the lucky ones. With many ladies of a "certain age" in Spain being unable to drive, and only one member per household allowed to leave the house for shopping, reports filtered back of scores of bewildered looking men roaming the supermarket aisles, sometimes for days on end, in a dystopian existence where life and death might hinge on the fortuitous discovery of chicken stock cubes or the courage and linguistic capability to ask where one might find theTena Lady Maxi pads. 

BEST THING No. 2 - RUBBISH

In Spain, there is no fortnightly visit of the dustbinmen to one's abode to whisk away the detritus of everyday life. Instead, it gets whisked away pretty much every day but the price one has to pay for this vastly superior exercise in hygiene is that you have to take your own rubbish, typically on a daily basis, to the big wheely bins at the end of the street from where the whisking takes place. This would never catch on in the UK because we'd always get wet but of course this isn't an issue in Spain where it's always sunny. And because it's always sunny, the daily trip to the big wheely bins at the end of the street is usually a precursor to a nice stroll anyway. Lovely. But, as above, during Spanish lockdown you could only leave the house for essential purposes such as shopping and..........going to the bins! 

The problem was that only one of us could go. Mrs C was already having to undertake the onerous duty of essential shopping so it would have been inappropriate to deny her the legitimate licence of escape afforded by the daily rubbish run. However, adversity breeds innovation and I determined to fill a second daily bag full of (apparent) rubbish by consuming greater quantities of the Mahou IPA and NOT crushing the empty cans. Conscious of regular patrols being undertaken by the Guardia Civil to stop and fine people without legitimate and essential reason to be outside (carrying half-empty bags of rubbish?) I made up the remaining bin bag capacity with various bulky items from around the apartment. The Spanish rubbish collection arrangements helped keep me sane throughout lockdown although I do miss the coffee table and unfortunately the plants all died after I disposed of the watering can.    

BEST THING No. 3 - DO-IT-YOURSELF

Yes, it's another surprise inclusion with DIY being one of the top five best things about lockdown in Spain. On the evening of Friday 13th March (unlucky for some) having learnt of the impending lockdown in Spain due to commence the following day, Mrs C and I hot-footed it to Leroy Merlin's to purchase a great big tin of interior white emulsion and a variety of paint brushes. In the ensuing seven weeks, we painted the interior of the whole apartment, we painted the outside front wall (we already had that particular paint), we painted the rear patio wall, we repaired the sunken rear patio tiles, we varnished the decorative woodwork out front and back, we varnished the shutter doors, we painted this, we repaired that, we painted everything again, we produced a bit of exterior artwork out of old pallets spirited away from a nearby building site, we threw the exterior artwork away having determined it was better employed as an opportunity for a visit to the bins, and we cleaned and we painted and we .............................................well, bugger me it was sooooooooo boring. 

Friday 13th was unlucky not just for some but for bloody everyone in Spain. The day they announced they were taking our civil liberties away. Whoa, I'm beginning to feel my open-mindedness ever so slowly closing shut.

BEST THING No. 4 - NOT MUCH

Deprived of all this because going for a stroll was not
considered an "essential reason" for leaving the house.

To be fair. Not much at all. Sitting out on the front balcony, in the sunshine, with a beer every afternoon was nice. As was going for a swim every day from mid-April onwards. And comparing notes, coffees and beers with immediate neighbours similarly confined to life under this new dictatorship government. But being consigned to effective house arrest, under threat of large fines for non-compliance just does not equate to anything that can be described as "best". So you can forget about a BEST THING No. 5 because there ain't one.  

THERE AIN'T NO "F" IN LOCKDOWN

There is no "F" in Lockdown but there is an "F" in Fear and the governments of Spain, the UK and beyond are guilty of having employed the fear factor in seeking to ensure a compliant population as they impose the type of restrictions on our freedoms and liberties that might make a dominatrix blush. And as for our open-mindedness here at El Real Thing - has this blog merely served to disprove our assertion above? Well, before you make your mind up on our open-mindedness, how about you test out your own. There may be no "F"'s in Lockdown but try reading the four lines of words below and count the total number of F's.

THE FEAR FACTOR IS THE RE-

SULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIF-

IC STUDY COMBINED WITH THE

EXPERIENCE OF MANY YEARS

Be honest now. How many did you count? If you counted three (as most people do) then read again. The correct answer is six. In fact we're told that as many as 85% of people initially give the answer as three. So, did you count three or six? If you counted three then this bona fide scientific survey suggests that you're not as open-minded as you might care to think so you must buck your ideas up! If you counted six then you are indeed an open-minded individual and having read this blog you will be sufficiently open-minded to give us the benefit of the doubt irrespective of whether you're a lockdown sceptic or not. Let us know how you get on and we'll conduct an entirely scientific survey into the result. Probably.

Politicians - A Special Kind of Stupid?

This particular chiringuito unimpressed with the Covid-19 threat.

On 15 March 2020, a lockdown was imposed on El Real Thing (and lots of others to be fair) by the Spanish authorities and since then - 240 days and counting - we have existed in various stages of restricted liberty between Spain and the UK whilst politicians in both countries (and across the globe to be fair) bid to out-do each other in The "How-Much-Can-We-Get-Away-With-Restricting-Personal-Freedoms" Stakes. In Murcia, the Regional Government very recently determined that customers in bars and restaurants had to wear masks at all times, removing them only to take mouthfuls of food and/or sips of drinks and replacing the masks immediately after each mouthful/sip. I mean, you've got to be a special kind of stupid to think that is a sensible idea. Remember, it's all for your own good. Yeah, well the East German authorities said similar when they built the Berlin Wall didn't they. Needless to say, all bars and restaurants in Murcia closed a few days later. 

It doesn't matter what your views may be on the potency or otherwise of this Covid-19 pandemic, the respective current lockdowns in Spain and the UK are undemocratic, imposed without proper debate and justified by fantasy interpretations and projections. Throughout the last 240 days the lockdown restrictions in Spain are generally recognised to have been far stricter and infinitely better adhered to than those in the UK - yet neither have worked. Whilst in Sweden they didn't lock down the people and trash the economy, instead they asked everyone to observe some common sense rules on cleanliness and distancing and ten months down the line they are certainly no worse off than Spain or the UK or indeed the rest of Europe. No one here is doubting the potential for severe consequence of anyone unlucky enough to go down with Covid-19, but we know enough about it now to know that it isn't going to wipe out the human race and it is, in fact, a new and unwelcome respiratory illness acting in the way that respiratory illnesses do in tending to unleash its greatest damage on the old and medically vulnerable, particularly during the winter season so congratulations to all politicians in suppressing the spread of the illness over the summer and into the winter.

So, if the restrictions aren't working, why the continued fixation with "locking down" (imprisoning?) the population? At the outset of all this, nobody really knew what we were up against (with the possible exception of the Chinese - Mind the Fridge Door and all that) so we accepted that extraordinary times demanded extraordinary measures. But now, nine months down the line and with nine months worth of data, we need the politicians to do what they are supposed to do and that is to make sensible decisions. "Follow the science" was fair enough when we only had the one set of scientists and their advice to rely on. But now, with nine months of data and plenty of other scientists saying different (see Great Barrington Declaration ) it is the politicians who need to make the judgment calls weighing up the risks presented by Covid-19 versus the risks and costs of the proposed "cure". That is why we elect politicians and not doctors in the first place. Ask the doctors how to reduce the numbers of road traffic accidents and they would probably recommend banning cars. 

Prediction: The politicians (certainly in the UK) know that they have got it wrong. As with all respiratory illnesses, Covid-19 will wreak more havoc in the winter months so we can expect numbers of cases and deaths to rise. The politicians will continue with the undemocratic imposition of restrictions into the Spring and then, with seasonality playing its part in reducing these numbers, they will announce the measures to have been a success, thus justifying all that has gone before. But; 

The more people begin to look at, study and assess the data now available the more they will realise that the politicians have not been honest with us. Civil liberties, the basic rights and freedoms granted to peoples fortunate enough to live in democracies have been trashed. Freedom of speech, freedom of movement, freedom from arbitary arrest, freedom of assembly, freedom of association and freedom of religious worship. These rights and freedoms form the basis of a democratic society yet every single one of the freedoms listed have been denied us, to varying extents and at various stages, during the last 240 days. But what the hell has any of this to do with a blog ostensibly about enjoying life as an expat in Spain? Well, Mrs C and I are unanimous on this. If you are not prepared to stand up for and defend your basic rights and freedoms then don't be surprised when the "new normal" (we really hate that phrase) means that you can't simply set off to Spain (or anywhere else for that matter) without wearing a mask, without having taken a Covid test, without having downloaded the government's Covid App and without having a certificate of innoculation. Don't be surprised if you can't even afford to set off to Spain (or anywhere else) because your job/ business/ livelihood is lost amongst the myriad casualties of the Covid-inspired destruction of the economy. Don't be surprised if you can't book a flight, budget-price or otherwise, to Spain (or anywhere else) because the airlines have gone out of business. Don't be surprised that the "cure" turned out to be much more expensive, much more damaging and completely disproportionate to the problem.

Last week in the UK, 32 government backbench MP's voted against the lockdown and another 21 abstained. Even Theresa May (Mrs C has always quite liked her but she goes down in my book as the worst Prime Minister ever) accused Boris Johnson of choosing data to fit his Covid-19 policies when it should be the other way round. Boris has (perhaps unconsciously deliberately) backed himself into a 2nd December corner, this being the date that the current UK lockdown expires and when further restrictions will require more Parliamentary debate and division. Between now and then, increasing numbers of MP's are demanding greater rigour in the data, to include impact assessment and cost to the economy of further lockdown - and so should we. If we the people are expected, however temporarily, to waive our basic rights and freedoms then the very least we should expect is that we do so in the knowledge that government policy is based on robust data, reliable testing and proportionality. If we here at El Real Thing want to get back to enjoying Spain as before and travel bloggers around the world want to get back to travel blogging around the world as before, then standing meekly by whilst politicians do what they want without challenge is not an option. Wanderlust will become Wonderlust as in "I wonder what it was like before Covid". Long Haul will be the description for the time it takes to fill in all the paperwork required just to leave your front door and Half Board/ Full Board will become Half Bored/ Full Bored being likely descriptions of your state of mind whilst stuck at home when you might otherwise have been travelling. Okay, I may be prone to exaggeration but do not let yourself be kettled into a "new normal" if you were quite happy with the previous one. Our rights and freedoms are being stress tested courtesy of the trojan horse that is Covid-19, a respiratory illness which data shows has already passed from pandemic stage to endemic. We don't want to catch it, but we won't lock ourselves away from the world in an effort to avoid it. And we don't need or want politicians locking us away "for our own good", not without very good, properly argued reason and debate. 

Politicians are there to represent and serve the people, not the other way round. Demand something better than stupid.