Heads we charge, tails you pay us

IMAGINE for a moment. On enquiry you decide a restaurant’s decor, price or menu isn’t to your taste.

With a nod you retrace your steps: ‘Just a moment, sir. That will be €10 please.

Why not; the banks do it. An expat visiting Elche put his plastic into a Caja Rural ATM.

On dabbing the keyboard he learns that €10 will be deducted from his account if he proceeds with the transaction.

Wisely he decided not to do so. He later checked his account; he had still been charged €10. The question is; why are some banks allowed by governments to get away with blatant thieving?

No wonder Europe is in a mess WHERE will it all end; the Spanish City of Jerez is bankrupt as are many other towns and villages if subject to the same rules as a business.

The 2,400 strong public sector workforce hasn’t been paid for weeks.

Suppliers and service suppliers have not been paid either. There isn’t a single euro in the town safe. So where has the incoming money gone?

Spain’s Prince Felipe, when turning up at Sierra Nevada skiing slopes, caused something of a stir.

So did I?

I still cringe at my first experience of those snowy heights.

Dressed for Fuengirola I offered to drive a skiing enthusiast there.

‘Meet me at the top,’ he called as taking the ski lift he indicated the funicular cabs on a track.

Stupidly I took his advice. I leave it to your own amusement as to the sight I made in my light clothing on a freezing plateau that resembled a Falklands penguin colony of expensively clad skiers.

Thanks, Lyndon. I owe you one.