If I don't make it out alive, I'm probably dead.

I'm scared. Well, I'm always scared. But today, I'm more scared. Today I have an eye test. In Ibiza. 

For those fortunate enough to have perfect vision, I envy you. You'll never have had to endure the terror that is the eye test. An eye test is bad enough in english. There's 2 ways an eye test can go in England:

• Some reeking old giffer will drag you into a broom closet, where he'll stick needles in your eyes and affront you physically and nasally. He'll deluge you with a million pictures, and then bring one single image to crystal clarity... and beyond. Usually, the perverted old fart will try and take advantage of the fact that you can't see anything, and are bewildered and confused in a darkened room by asking you to identify objects from across the room: 
  "Can you see what this is?"
  "No."
  "HAHAHAHAHAHA! And what's this?"
  "An.... egg?"
  "I'll give you a clue, it's either a spoon, or the Gobi Desert."
  "A spoon?"
  "FOOL! I tricked you! It's a double-decker bus! Ok, this next one is either my penis, or a Cornish Pasty, which is it?"
  
  You get the idea. This guy will end up suggesting a pair of gold-rimmed specs twice the size of your head look great on you. 
• On the other hand, you'll get some mega-hot-and-knows-it optomotrist. She'll lead you into a room that's hotter than the Sun, and sit you in a bondage chair. You have two choices: Leave your jacket on, and burn to death, or take it off and risk exposing the massive boner you're carrying around. She dims the lights to something more romantic. The conditions are perfect...
  
  Just so you know, from my experience, these things never work out like porn, which is a shame, cos I could think of some great positions with that freaky chair. You leave with blue balls and the means to see them clearly.

Either way, you're going to end up pretty scarred for life. On top of this, the optometrist literally holds the keys to your life in their hand: On their whim, they can make you a social outcast for the next year by suggesting a pair of glasses that will make you look like Salman Rushdie having an allergic reaction to getting stung in the eye by a jellyfish. Or they can suggest something nicer, that pushes you to the outskirts of social acceptability. "But it's your choice, surely??" I hear you say. Oh no, these guys are totally skilled in mind manipulation techniques. They'll use phrases like "These ones make your nose look smaller" and "Have you ever thought about plastic surgery?" to make you choose the glasses they want you to wear. Trust me, don't get on the bad side of an optemetrist. You'll be broke and looking like an aged hooker going for the pity vote within a week. As you can see, somehow, I've managed to get on the bad side of several optometrists in my lifetime. 

So as if that wasn't bad enough, I'll be having my eye test here in Spain. I booked an appointment at one of the Dr. Mari opticians in Ibiza town. There's over a billion Dr. Mari's in Ibiza town, and I'm not sure which one it is I booked myself in at now. All the glasses in there look a bit mental, and it looks like I'm going to have to revive my Dame Edna Everedge look in order to make it through the next year alive. But the biggest kick in the balls is going to be that the eye test is going to be in Spanish. I can see this being a bit hard, so I've swatted up on some key questions they might ask me, just so I can try and get through this ordeal in one piece:

• ¿Qué es más clara, un presente, un presente o?
  
• ¿Que es un astigmatismo en el bolsillo, o se acaba el placer de verme?
  
• Esta es una de Pasty de Cornualles, o mi pene, lo que es?
  

Spain: Your (Electronic) Money Not Welcome Here

Bills are an evil that we've all got to deal with, so when you get one, you'd think it would be in the issuing company's interests to make it as easy to pay them as possible.

In Spain, though, if they had their way, we'd be paying for bills using bushels of corn, with an enforced dress code. Not one company here (Water, Electric, Telephone, whatever...) seems to want to join the information age and let you pay your bills using a bank card. What the Fuck??! Every time I get a bill, they expect me to take time off work, walk into town, and pay with cash at the Post Office. I've just had another huge rant at Telephonica over a bill I'm disputing, in the end (because they're threatening to cut me off) I just said "look, can I just pay this now and we'll sort it out later"
"Oh no, you have to take the bill to the post office."
"So what you're saying is that instead of making it easier for both me and you, and letting me give you my money right here, right now, you want me to take this bill to the post office, and take a whole day off work in order to get this sorted out?"
"yes."
"You, the telephone company, the company that connects each and every bank in Spain, probably one of the biggest companies in Spain, is not able to take a bank card number from me and take the money out of my account"
"No sir." <puts phone down>

I couldn't believe it. Well, actually, I wouldn't believe it if it hadn't happened before, but this isn't even the first time this has happened. This is now the third time that Telefonica have put the phone down on me whilst trying to deal with a problem like this. It's like they don't want my business! If telefonica wasn't the only company that allowed me to connect my computer to the internet, I'd have switched long ago. I can't even ring a number and complain, because they don't have a complaints line. They literally don't care. And, I suppose, they don't have to. If you don't like their way of doing things, that's cool, but don't expect to get internet any time soon.

So Telefonica... here it is: I hate you. I think you're all a bunch of wankers. I'm using your line right now to tell you this. Wankers.

I broke my camera. Vive Espana.

- It's a long way down and Spain hasn't invented grass yet.

Like many Britains under the age of 700, I've never been in a country when that country has won the World Cup. 4 hours later, and there's still cars going past my window, beeping their horns, everyone on the street, fireworks going off, and (randomly) a trombone playing.

What this means in real terms to me is that (being the sure-footed mountain goat that I am), I managed to trip over 2 flights of stairs filled with people cheering, nearly crush a 6 year-old (he'll live), and throw my camera (which I'd only gone up the stairs in the first place to collect) onto the hard, unrelenting ground. I rushed to pick it up, and it's poor LCD screen managed to show me it's dying mid-air moments before spluttering, and dying.

RIP Sony the Camera, you will be missed (at least until I get a new Casio).