Oh Arturo!

We're all a bit confused at the moment.

Chile's star player Rey Arturo Vidal (King Arthur) went to a casino, had a few drinks, crashed his Ferrari into another car and then with all the air of the Lord of the manor threatened a policeman who refused to let him off.

It seems that most people are dealing with this in the way that we deal with most issues that, though wrong, would be inconvenient for us to take a stand against. Better to say no more about it and carry on as we were. Principals are often the loser when they have to fight with personal interests.

Apart from the media, perhaps the most obviously guilty of such behviour is Chile's head coach Jorge Sampaoli. The tiny man has taken a big brush and swept everything under a now very lumpy carpet. It's hard to imagine his predecessor Marcelo Bielsa, a man he is often compared favourably to, doing the same. Bielsa is all about principles, so much so that he once refused to speak to President Piñera at an official reception for the team.

So on Friday we settled down to watch Chile, with Vidal, play Bolivia and it all seemed a bit different to me. Then Chile won 5-0 and everyone drove around the streets celebrating until the early hours beeping horns and dancing on statues.

Maybe it's just me that's a bit confused.

Happy Father's day.

Five weeks and nine days to go - Ringworm and Finnish

Here in Chile everybody has football fever. What time is it? It's football o'clock, Who's your favourite player? Pele, etc etc. Yes. It's the Copa America.

The main difference this makes, apart from the increasingly annoying Chile chant (above), is that the streets are full of Chinese-made football tat and you can just about make out the occasional vuvuzela above the noise of the traffic. Apart from the amazing tension tangible throughout the city when the national team are playing, my favourite thing is the random cheers erupting as various immigrant groups celebrate their team's goals. I live in the centre surrounded tower blocks filled with Colombians, Peruvians, Bolivians and, as I discovered today when their cheers almost shook the cat off the balcony, Venezuelans. So, go red wine!*

Apart from football, it's cold. Today the temperature dipped down to zero for the first time this year (in Santiago). I took Dog for a long walk in the park around 8am and I don't think either of us particularly enjoyed it. My hands hurt and her ball chasing was particularly lacklustre. I had a quick check on temperatures in Finland and discovered that most years there are between 60-80 days when the average (AVERAGE!) temperature is below zero. Dog and I are going to have to get our act together quicksmart. 

Finally, Cat has tiña, ringworm in English. Strangely this is neither a worm nor a ring but a fungus. It also means that I have to shampoo his ears three times a week. How has it come to this? I found him on the bloody street!

Right, time for the final espisode of Game of Thrones. Speak soon. 

*The Venezuelan national team is nicknamed the Vinotinto, red wine, because they play in burgundy shirts. 

Six weeks and four days to go - Smog, More Strikes and Incan Gods.

So. Lots to report on.

Firstly, winter has arrived; however, this doesn't mean snowy streets and snowmen with inappropriately placed carrots but instead disgusting levels of air-contamination trapped in the city by the cooler air which, as any science teacher will tell you, is less disposed to rising and taking the filth with it. Normally this is assuaged (big-word high-five!) somewhat by winter-rains washing the air clean but this year Kon* is angry (or not paying attention) and it hasn't rained since Kon knows when.

Kon-man

Pre-emergency level has been declared for the last couple of weeks which means that children aren't allowed to do Physical Education at school because breathing too heavily might turn them into Dickens style urchins coughing up black lumps into a dirty tissue.

A very long snorkel please

Talking of school, there hasn't been much of it lately, nor University neither because everyone's on strike. I've mentioned the strikes before, they're kind of a tradition. That said, normally they'd have resolved themselves by now and we'd be back in class making up for lost time. This year the strikes have become quite hardcore: sporadic and passionate. Not quite at the level of the impressive 2011 protests which saw running battles day and night between students and police and eventually caused the academic year to be cancelled completely, but serious all the same.

Video recorded from my balcony. 2011.

The main problem is that Chile is The Neo-Liberal paradise. State control has long been sold off to the highest bidder and schools are now independently run much as any other business is. As we all know, businesses exist first and foremost to make money; that means reducing costs (low salaries, little investment) and increasing profits (high tuition fees). Teachers are pissed off with the low salaries, students are pissed off with the high tuition fees and everyone is pissed off with the lack of investment. You don't need much of an education to see that A+B+C = Strike!

Let the lesson be that education is not a good to be bought and sold (Who voted 'Cameron?').

OK. That'll do for now. I'll be back soon with details of my cat's scabby ears.

*Godchecker.com. YOUR GUIDE TO THE GODS
Discover almost 4,000 gods, goddesses and spirits from around the world - Genius.

Seven weeks and three days to go - Getting old.

Well, birthday week has been safely navigated and my liver still seems to be working. I'm not a big fan of birthdays. Every year it seems to me that having to organise a party seems to be more of a punishment than a present. Having to stress about where and when and who and then buy all the bloody food/beer and then having to clean up after. I'm a bit of a humbug I guess. I think the birthdayee should get a day off in which he or she should stay at home watching telly until after tea and then go down to the pub. If you want to see him then you go and visit him at home and have a nice cup of tea or you can meet him later at the pub and have a pint. Easy. No announcements, invitations, RSVPs, obligation nor cleaning up. That said. I had a lovely time.

Dog on birthday walk on San Cristobal Hill, Santiago

They say that with age comes experience. My experience in the last few years has often been at the hands of physiotherapists, doctors and even surgeons. The paces I've care-freely put my body through ever since I learned to walk/fall are beginning to show and I now have a collection of scans showing healed breaks and wonky joints and curvy bones. When archaeologists dig up my bones in a thousand years they'll presume that I was either a terrible driver or a human canon-ball. So, with a couple of new aches and pains I've been checked in for some more physiotherapy, this time with the rather exciting prospect of a paraffin bath. I'm also trying to improve core-strength every morning with the help of the lovely Adriene. 

As for the move, all is good. I've sold a few more pieces of furniture and Girlf. is trying to find us an apartment on an island. I hope it's craggy island. 

9 weeks and one day to go - Pensions

Ever since I came to Chile I've been paying into a pension scheme. Yesterday I thought I'd pop into one of the pension company's offices to see if there was any chance of getting this money back.

Now, anyone with any experience of Chilean bureaucracy will know just how wishful this thinking is. Any official procedure is a bastard mix of colonial style requisites involving elongated pieces of paper, rubber stamps, finger prints and giant signatures, normally complicated even moreso by some half-brained attempt to modernize the system made ten years ago with floppy disks and scanners.

If my words don't do the complexity of this process justice, perhaps think of trying to get a crystal from Richard O'Brien and you'll get the general idea.

Keep in mind that on top of this, what I am essentially trying to do is take money away from an insurance company. I think I'd be more confident if someone asked me to go and get that salmon from the hungry Grizzly Bear.

However, in Chile they say, En pedir no hay engaño* so I thought I'd ask. The friendly woman with a wry smile and a shrill voice patiently explained the process to me.

The first requisite required me to travel back in time and include a clause into any contract I've had that stipulates that I would one day be withdrawing my pension fund from Chile. An inauspicious start indeed.

In the case that the work was freelence, i.e., without a contract, then a receipt is required for each payment, obtainable from the tax office (Ha!). I've been freelance for about 5 years now so that's probably only 500 receipts to be checked over.

Finally, all professional certificates and documents must be verified by my country of origin. A costly process that takes about 6 months. You might as well ask the Queen to turn up and vouch for you and then they'd still probably want to see photocopies of all her titles.

I AM the Queen you know.

So. Now I have a pension fund accumulating interest in Chile and when I'm 65 I'l be able to go to the Chilean Consulate in the UK and collect my pesos. Ah well, at least it'll get me out of the house.


*Literally 'In asking there is no deceit'. The English traslation would be, there's no harm in asking.

Ten weeks to go.

On the weekend I had my big Buddhist sale and freed myself of all the stress-bringing possessions I could get a fair price for. The truth is that it was almost a giveaway; I hate mixing business and friendships but I did make enough money to cover the costs of the kennels and to buy myself a new laptop.

 Old laptop, a kind donation by V & A

Now I just have to do my usual three weeks of indecision and reading up on computer spec. before I commit to the model I want to buy.

Mostly the garage sale was just a great excuse to get lots of friends over, gossip and drink tea and mate (South American tea).

Delicious mate, mixed with water and drunk through a straw with a filter at the end

Twice my poor San Franciscan neighbour was dragged from his flat so people could see how much we look like each other; apparently the neighbours have been confused as to who they're speaking to.

The vet came by again yesterday and gave the penultimate jabs to Dog and Cat and check they still beep when neared to the requisite machine. They do.

And today there is a strike. You can set your watch by the student strikes and consequent marches. Each semester starts quietly until about two months in when strike is suddenly called, classes are cancelled and re-cancelled until finally encroaching holiday-times force both sides into breaking bread and making peace.

Marches are usually good fun to see, half carnival followed by half-Beirut (Christ, showing my age with that reference. Hang on! -Checks Guardian front page-) or half-Burundi (nice save), and with the added bonus that the main roads are all closed to cars so today I could whizz along on my bike to the doctor's appointment to be told I need physiotherapy on my knee because I keep whizzing around on my bike.

Me, bike, whizzing

Oh, and for the last time for me, and for anyone in Chile (neo-liberal reform), I got my tax-rebate last night so I treated myself to a nice bottle of malty beer. Will this rationing never end?

Happy days.

Dog

A younger Dog in the mountains

Dog's real name is Marlene. Actually, I'm not sure what her original name was. She was already one and a half years old when I saw her one night dodging between three lanes of cars with her great udders swinging away beneath. I never discovered what happened to her pups nor anything more about her previous life; the only clues I have are that she was perfectly house trained, loves riding in cars, has two great big scars on her back and is terrified of men and bulky things and especially of bulky men.

Mistaking my come-here-away-from-the-cars gesture for a come-to-my-house-and-live-with-me-forever gesture she followed me home and then puppy-eyed her way into my apartment. Being a cat person I wasn't sure what to do with her so we spent the first couple of days just looking at each other. I got her a cardboard box which she hid in immediately and didn't eat anything for two days. That's the longest, by about one and a half days, that I've ever known her not to eat.

Standard/begging face. Do not look into her eyes. 

Though she's not keen on men, she adores women and children. And food. Though she's definitely improved, I still have to keep a constant eye on her as life on the streets has left her with a taste for some of the more undesirable morsels to be found in the gutter.

Though she never shows the same amount of joy with me as she does with any random woman or child, we get on pretty well. I think she sees me as the safe-haven and will put up with long walks in the hills and occasional attempts to teach her tricks as long as she gets food and a warm place to sleep.

Now we've been together for about eight years. It's been quite a journey. Looking back, finding her was probably one of the most formative experiences in my life and now, almost 8 years layer, we're preparing to move to Finland together. All that for a person who wasn't very keen on dogs. But I guess that's just the way life works; these things happen for a reason. Let them all be positive experiences. 

Cat and Dog on the balcony.