The Olive Press January 2009 | Page 4

opinion
6 the olive press- Eastern Edition- Issue 62 the olive press- Eastern Edition- Issue 62 opinion

opinion

6 the olive press- Eastern Edition- Issue 62 the olive press- Eastern Edition- Issue 62 opinion

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letters to the editor

Helping hands
Dear Editor, My name is Jackie and I volunteer with the animal charity FAMA( Foundation for Abandoned and Mistreated Animals). I was hoping it would be possible to be allocated a regular spot where we can feature a different dog each edition for adoption?
Sadly we have many, many dogs that need homing and getting them noticed through your newspaper would be a great step towards placing them in a new home.
I understand that a regular spot may not be possible, therefore I would greatly appreciate it if I could send you photos and descriptions of some of our homeless dogs which could be used as fillers as and when possible. If you prefer, I could design and supply you with print-ready artwork, ready to be dropped into any space allocated.
I hope this is possible and I look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience. Yours, Jackie, FAMA, Mijas
Thank you for your letter, Jackie. The Olive Press already runs a regular‘ adopt-a-dog’ section( see page 2), but I wish we did not have to! Anyway, if any reader is Mijas way and wants to help out, you can obtain more information on the charity’ s website: www. f-a-m-a. net – Editor
Revisionism
Dear Editor, Regarding your story about the Archbishop of Granada’ s comments(‘ Devastational’ comments lead to holy row, issue 61), I thought the Muslims did a pretty good job of running Spain. I think it is the Christian religion, rather than Islam, that causes major slow downs in human development. I am sure that if the witch hunters, inquisitions etc had not murdered and tortured so many‘ herbalists’ and intelligent thinkers, we would have had a cancer cure years ago.
Anyway, let us hope that the latest religious war started by Hamas does not develop. Good job that Obama takes over shortly. Maybe an intelligent US leadership will make a difference, just a shame he is not an atheist. Adios, Paul Bateson, Alhama
Maybe you are right, Paul, about those cancer cures. Just think when we Christians were living in mud huts, the Muslims had the largest library in the world in Cordoba and were building the Alhambra in Granada. If the Archbishop thinks that those years were“ devastational,” what are his opinions on today’ s versions of the Islamic splendours of Spain: Algarrobico, golf courses, concreted coasts?- Editor
Dear Editor, What a fool the Archbishop of Granada is if he thinks eight centuries of Moorish rule were“ devastational”( see last issue). Without the Islamic influence, this part of Spain would not have the rich history, architecture and indeed language that it has now.
When we were running around like savages they had art, mathematics and language. What a blinkered view of history! Yours,“ Fred,” comment left on website, www. theolivepress. es

Shameful Sevillana

Pensioner TERRY FLOWER describes the Kafka-esque nightmare he endured when an electricity bill for more than 2,000 euros landed on his doorstep
YOU remember Maurice Chevalier singing‘ Ah yes, I Remember it Well!’ from My Fair Miserable Gigi, or whatever it was, don’ t you? Well, I remember what I am going to tell you about very well indeed.
Mary I, lamenting the loss of Calais, said:“ When I am dead and opened, they shall find Calais lying in my heart.” Well, when I am opened up on a slab in the path lab, they will find the single word SEVILLANA engraved into my dessicated coronary tissues.
The shock to which I shall refer was hardly of the same magnitude as the loss of Calais, but once the initial incredulity had worn off, I must have felt the identical sinking sensation to that of the Burgomaster on his way earthwards from the Defenestration of Prague. To an elderly couple in straitened circumstances, it was quite a blow. Which is why I have to resort to writing stuff like this for the Olive Press to make a few bob.
I even recall what time of day it occurred for, breakfast over, I had just been subjected to a thorough bitch-slapping with wet wash cloths by a brace of hefty mujeres attired in nurses’ uniforms. Experts in the art of levitation, those girls sort of float you off the bed and do a sheet change before gravity can pull you back down.
Post baño de cama, I was lying there all clean and beautiful.
My wife then came in to eat my grapes and gratify that universal female urge to“ Just tidy things up a bit.” Women. Oh, and she also brought in the missive in question: our electricity bill.
Unread meter
Since we came to live in Spain in 2000, we had been amazed and delighted at how low our electricity bills had been – typically 22 euros for a two-month period. And, we imagined, these were genuine bills too, because on several of them it said, right there at the top:“ Our guy’ s read your meter, and this is how much you have gotta divvy up, amigo.”
And now, out of the blue, came this bill for 2,085.76 euros! My old minces a bit bleary at the time, I said:“ Twenty euros. Uh huh, same as usual, eh?”
“ Er, no, darling. Actually it is two thousand and eighty five euros. Oh, and seventy-six centimos, of course.”
Cue cheeks draining of what little blood remains in the body, and heart trip-trapping like Billy Goat Gruff crossing the bridge. An electricity bill for more than 2,000 euros for a one bedroomed house?
See, it seems that contrary to what was stated on the bills, there had been a little slip up, and nobody had actually read our meter after all. I guess Se-
SHOCKED: Terry Flower eyes the bill in question at his Axarquia home
villana’ s accountancy department must have slipped over to Britain for some lessons in creative accountancy from Grendel Brown.
Now, I have to tell you that Diana – the wife – is one formidable lady; the sort of indomitable female who once marched through searing deserts and
followed and, within days, we were told that Sevillana agreed to Diana’ s proposal, the alacrity of which instantly aroused my suspicions. In fact, I began to wonder if such a slap-happy way of running a business is even legal; to actually lie in print for more than four years, then demand a whopping great sum
snake-
and
insect-infested
to cover up the lie does seem a
swamps alongside their empirebuilding husbands. And in ankle length skirts too! So, while I was having some Dyno-Rod treatment on the old arteries in the hospital, she was on the phone giving some earache to Sevillana. No excuses or apologies were proffered for this appalling
trifle off, doesn’ t it?
Admittedly more rarely seen than the Halley’ s comet or Beast of Bodmin Moor, surely Sevillana have men in vans reading meters in the campo, don’ t they? Well, if they were not reading our meter, what were they doing? Sitting in a
blunder, and the conversa-
bar
somewhere?
Moonlight-
tions went something like this: S:“ Oh, that is all right. You can pay the bill over two years.”
D:“ Uh, uh! No way! Listen, we are on low pensions, and we can’ t possibly afford 90 euros per month! Anyway, it is not our fault but yours! We have been lied to for almost five years, so we want to pay this bill over five years.”
S:“ Blah, blah, blah. I will get on to someone higher up the food chain.”
An exchange of letters then
ing as Guardia Civil? Or, has someone at Sevillana done a bit of the old payroll-packing, with a couple of hundred spectral drivers in ghostly vans wafting about? Questions! Questions! It is a bit like the mediæval metaphysical question of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin – one which is more likely to receive an answer than any of those asked about Sevillana.
Our suspicions sharpened to a razor edge, we discovered that almost every couple that
we knew had had the same experience; months and years of ludicrously low bills, and then a whopping great bill coming out of the blue. And I have no doubt that dozens, probably hundreds, of people reading this will have been treated in the same shoddy manner.
Legal or not, this is completely unacceptable; especially now that the disastrous pound to euro exchange rate is eroding the value of our sterling savings and pensions so seriously. One suspects that if some wealthy individual – some pensioners’ organisation, or some crusading newspaper such as the Olive Press took up the cudgels on behalf of Sevillana’ s victims – then some redress might be obtained.
It could even be taken to Yurp; but I would not hold your breath for a result. It would probably come through about a year after the engraver had finished with my ticker.
And you? Have you fallen foul to shoddy treatment at the hands of Spain’ s utilities companies? Contact the Olive Press: mark @ theolivepress. es
Warm payments
Dear Editor, I am interested in contacting any group that might be pursuing the case of pensioners living here in Spain who are not eligible for cold weather payments, despite being well-over retirement age. Is there anyone who might or who is willing to stand up for us? Yours, Keith A Ward, Frailes
If I were you, Keith, I would contact Age Concern España. I reckon they would be a good bet. You can contact them on 951 318 234 – Editor