Can Pay, Won´t Pay
I just got a call from the police. No, my violent political past (one No Blood for Oil demonstration last century) hasn´t caught up with me. It´s my occasional inability to understand what´s going on in a Spanish phone call that had me talking to somebody from ARSA (Spanish for “arse”? Actually, it´s the Asociación de Radioaficionados Santo Angel del Cuerpo Nacional de Policía, an association of policemen who are ham radio enthusiasts).
It seems I´m in debt with ARSA to a bottom line of some €242 for an advert in their magazine.
How did that happen?
Go on, you all know already.
A chapuza, that´s what. A botch, a mess, a piece of crap. Hardly a candidate for the Word of the Week, since you can´t be in Spain for five minutes without learning it, but …
No Gato por Liebre (No Pig in a Poke)
About a month ago, someone from the police called me about our little translation service, Alba Language Services. It was all very bleeding heart and I nearly wept into my wine glass: ”We´ve heard great things about your work and we want to help you grow, so we´re going to advertise you in our magazine …”.
Fast forward to una nada, hardly anything, of €200 plus VAT and somebody would call me for payment. ¡Clic!
What? At some point in the conversation I did agree that they could send me a copy of the magazine, just to check it out. I didn´t want it, having no intention of placing an advert in it, but I was Being Nice to the Big Policeman and anxious to get off the phone. (It was after seven o´clock in the evening and I was trying to wind up my working day).
We have always put an advert in another publication. I meet yearly with the person responsible and she updates it, make sure it´s correctly spelled and tells me exactly how much it´s going to cost. This delightful woman buys me coffee, gives me free pens and explains about the interactive online version and only then does she issue me an invoice, payable after I receive a copy of the publication and make sure it´s all shipshape.
None of this happened with shitshape ARSA. So when a large envelope marked Policía arrived, complete with a bill for the aforementioned amount, I ignored it and didn´t even look at the magazine.
No Dosh for Dross
Well, I should have, as it would have helped me fend off the policeman who called this morning for his two hundred and forty two smackaroonies.
“There is no way out of this, Náuren”, he told me. (¿Náuren?). ”The advert has been published and you´ll have to pay, even if there´s an error - we´ll fix it for free.”
So I finally checked out the full-colour advert with its British and American flags. It´s for:
ALBA LENGUAGE SERVICES
¡No pasarán!
¡Me cago en la leche! Thankfully, I told my policeman caller this morning that I had absolutely no intention whatsoever of paying this bill, fraccionado (in instalments) or otherwise.
What I should do is call him up and demand redress for the harm this piece of shit will do to our translation business. Would you trust a language professional who can´t even spell “language”? (Or even lenguaje). Would you trust a police force that can´t copy correctly the name of a business from one of the leading directories in Madrid?
My next post might well be from Alcala´s spanking new jail because I´m adamant I´m not coughing up. (Surely they won´t send me to the maximum-security Alcalá-Meco penitentiary alongside the likes of the sinister, thieving, Mario Conde? Oh no, I forgot, he´s out and going into politics. He´ll surely do well).
And by the way, there´s nothing wrong with my phone Spanish – when the person on the other end of the line, law enforcer or not, isn´t trying to estafarme. (Cheat me).
About Mo
I had a similar issue a few years back. Following that episode I have always answered the phone in English : never been plagued by them since.
Great idea! I suppose I could do that too since my close friends speak English. It is useful to play the “dumb foreigner” once in a while.
I once got the same call here Mo. Told them about 467 times “No me interesa” “La empresa no existe” I even tried “¿Cómo? No hablo bien el castellano” even though it was obvious I did. Finished up by saying “Tengo que irme ya” Never heard anything from them again
That´s great news Graham because I don´t feel like getting into an argument. The woman who does my (small amount of) publicity told me just to ignore them since she said they´re not even really from the police. (Or the Jam, Sex Pistols …). I had done all that no me interesa stuff on previous occasions but this time they tried such a softly, softly approach I got fooled. I hope they never call back.
Poor Mo! Still, the good thing about these situations (we were reminded of the police in Torrox who tried to ‘estafarme’ over an alleged scraping of a seasoned conman’s car whom they aided and abetted is that you can reveal to them that they have no ‘honor’. It’s hard to remain polite and keep one’s temper with them but in the end whatever happens – you know that they are liars and have no honour and you do. (How would you say that in Spanish? No tienen honor/ son deshonorables?) There’s a prompt for a disquisition on the whole concept of ‘honor’, it’s positive and negative connotations.. Does such a thing still exist today?
Keep the faith honourable Mo and all the best from
the Honourable Treez.
I know, poor me! I haven´t plucked up the courage to ring them yet in the hope they just fade away or something. Anyway I think the word is honra, like “El médico de su honra” by Calderón (big boiler, caldera, calderón, get it?). While I do like the idea of having honra, even if they don´t, I would also like to hang on to my €240 euros and not be called down to the police station because I tend to lose my cool very quickly. I think too that honour might be a bit passé now that we´re supposed to have ethics. Or maybe because of their lack of ethics I might have to hang onto my last scrap of honra. Thanks for reading the post about this bunch of arsas and lending me support! x
You are quite right, Mo, to refer to our contemporary preference (albeit theoretical) for ethics and Calderon (sorry no accents available online) but in fact, both words are used (though “honra” is possibly archaic and refers to the whole confining and destructive concept of honour in Calderon’s time. So I decided to check in the Real Academia’s dictionary and they have this to say:
honra:
(De honrar).
1. f. Estima y respeto de la dignidad propia.
2. f. Buena opinión y fama, adquirida por la virtud y el mérito.
honor:
(Del lat. honor, -ōris).
1. m. Cualidad moral que lleva al cumplimiento de los propios deberes respecto del prójimo y de uno mismo.
2. m. Gloria o buena reputación que sigue a la virtud, al mérito o a las acciones heroicas, la cual trasciende a las familias, personas y acciones mismas de quien se la granjea.
Personally, I am none the wiser as I think either is applicable so let’s just say that ethical behaviour seems to be sadly lacking in the Spanish police force (and many other areas of public life – and not just in Spain of course!).
I find it quite useful to refer (obliquely) to ethics and sometimes they are embarrassed into better behaviour!
Good luck!
I think you´re right that honra is an old term and does refer to a man´s honour being depositied in the virginity of his wife/daughter/sister etc. Will ask a Spaniard if there´s any difference between the two words however (the Spaniard in question will be Ramón). What about honestidad? And honrado …? The plot thickens ….
or..honradez..? Good idea …ask the Oracle.
That’s horrible Mo! Good for you for standing up to them, please keep us updated as to how it all works out – it would be very easy to cave in to this bullying and coercion as the simplest thing to do but it is utterly corrupt and evil. Sending you strength!
Thanks Maya. fortunately I have no respect for authority … ´twill be my downfall …. so I made it clear I wasn´t paying for this crap. And on the invoice there´s a phrase about having entered into the contract “de manera libre y espontánea” so I don´t think they have a leg to stand on. Thanks for the strength, God knows I need it!