Day 78 - "Brucie Bonus"

Monday and the day Bruce Forsyth didn't play his cards right, community swimming pools and dirty rain.  The daily Podcast diary of a British couple in Lockdown Spain, phase 2.

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Day 78 Brucie Bonus

Monday oh how I loathe you, but only because it rained last night for 10 minutes, but it was that dirty calima rain, the brown sand from the Sahara fell and covered everywhere in a sticky glaze. So we spent an hour this morning clearing it up from the outside terraces.

 

If you don’t it finds its way into you home and gets trodden onto the tiles like Man Friday footprints.

 

Phase 2 here in Granada Province, more restaurants are now opening, the beaches are opening, you can get married and go to a funeral. I think that’s about it, I am confused.  We have kinda got into a pattern now, so are quite happy to make minimal journey’s and eat at home, for the moment.

 

We are lucky we have outdoor space and a pool, for many Spanish living in small flats with large families – it must have been purgatory, at least now they can socialise.  Even our friend Carmen was out with her friends yesterday, finally celebrating her birthday.

 

I have never been that good in confined spaces, I think years of working in radio studios haven’t helped.  When LBC was run by the TV news people ITN our studios were tiny, they were in the lower basement, although you were forbidden to call it that.  The Management liked you to say lower atrium.  But in reality the basement, next to the big pump that pumped the poo out of the building up to the London sewer.

 

The building looks quite swish on the TV, if you have ever watched Channel Four news, all that glass and lit offices is real.  Sadly, their studio is where the original canteen was.  The canteen was amazing, there was a roast of the day, at least two mains and a veggie dish and desserts to die for. Infact where Jon Snow reads the news is where the dessert cart used to sit, I can’t watch the news without remembering the delicious spotted dick that they served in that canteen.

 

The toilets in the building were another matter, the Architect Norman Foster built the ITN studios and had a love of Italian sanitaryware, so he designed these Italianesque bogs, complete with Italian plumbing and highly polished marble floors.

 

Now Italian plumbing and British plumbing are a marriage made in hell, our pipes are 1mm larger than the Italians, so the loos leaked.  Worse was if you were hoping for any kind of privacy whilst you were on the throne, there was no chance as the marble floors reflected you and your business to anyone standing by the sinks or urinals.

 

Also, less glamorous was that ITN only had one dressing room, usually reserved for the female newsreader.  So, the male newsreader would make-up in the toilet.  Nothing is odder than seeing Dermot Murnaghan putting eye shadow on and turning to you as you are washing your hands to ask you if he had put too much on!

 

So, I like to avoid working in small places, even though I am recording this in a cupboard right now.  I also think the trauma of once getting stuck in the ITN lift with Julia Somerville.  We had a stilted conversation about films for twenty long minutes of my life.

 

The famous lifts of ITN appear on Channel Four news, they were fast and glass, anybody with a nervous disposition would be better off using the stairs that were oddly hidden behind a false door, - another Norman Foster idea, I guess.

 

Chris remembers once Bruce Forsyth jumping into the ITN lift, Bruce stood beside him asking if the lift was going up to the ITV programme centre? Unfortunately, it was going down to the basement.  Chris couldn’t help himself and turned to Bruce and did a Brucie “No Bruce you want to go higher, higher!”  

 

Bruce laughed, sadly it wasn’t his day, because they had summoned him to the ITV office to sack him on the grounds, he was too old for Play Your Cards Right.  So, he went back to the BBC and Presented Strictly Come Dancing and took his audience with him.

 

Monday and a Skype with a client, and a discussion about the community swimming pool. The complex measures to keep the pool social distance safe, hiring a member of staff and the fact that the pool pump needs maintenance, means our Estate will not open the swimming pool this year.

 

I think a lot of communities are going to struggle to adequately fulfil the rules that the local and national Government have laid down, the local main town beaches open tomorrow, I hope people do a better job at social distancing than Southend-on-Sea has managed these last few days.

 

This year the summer is going to look a much different place to that of a normal Spanish summer.  I don’t think we will see the usual numbers of tourists coming this year.

 

Flying will be far more complex, it was miserable enough before passing through airport security, add the extra sanitary measures, temperature taking and the like, not the best or most glamorous way to start your holiday.

 

We shall see, but if you do make it to Spain, you will receive a warm welcome, enjoy good food, beautiful coastline and countryside, that much has not changed in the new normal.