I bought a Spanish SIM card for my phone. You have to provide ID when buying even a pre-pay SIM in lots of countries on the continent, did you know that? I gave her my driving licence. She frowned at the unfamiliar-looking card. "¿Que problema? ¡Es un carné de conducir del Reino Unido!" I said as if I couldn't believe anyone would even dare to question a document issued by Her Britannic Majesty's government's DVLA. In Swansea. Goddamit.
She mumbled something and went to check with her manager. No good, it didn't have an ID number on it. "No tenemos numeros en Inglaterra..." I said indignantly.
O todavía no... Hello, England, say no to the goddamn ID cards! Riot, riot if you have to!
But wonderful as all the bizarre legal idiosyncracies, opportunities for bureaucratic and financial obfuscation and manipulation, and ability to avoid governmental interference in the UK there are, they still don't make the average lifestyle that much better...
Still, God save the Queen. I got drunk on gin and tonic (the Empire's drink: quinine for the malaria, lemon for the scurvy, alcohol for the violence) but still couldn't sleep til six, even with the help of Morocco's finest and a few mild sedatives, my right leg twitching and tapping away all by itself. And I wake a couple hours later shivering and covered in cold sweat.
It's such an old story, you've heard it all before...
