"Thats a lot of Bull......!"

“That’s a lot of Bull…...!”

The Festival of San Fermin is well underway in Pamplona, (the annual “Running of the Bulls”) with 1 million visitors expected to attend this year.

The streets are bursting with thousands of ANZACS and American adventurers (a la Ernest Hemmingway), with every man and his dog wanting to stand in the way of 6 charging Bulls just for the fun of it! You have to ask yourself “is this is some kind of mass Death wish?”, until you realise they have (for the most part) had a little more “Dutch Courage” than this Blogger would advise.

I have to admit they do look quite resplendent in their Red Kerchiefs and white running tracksuits all listening intently for the blast of the horn which signals that the Bulls have been released from their pens.
A friend of mine recounts this tale of high dudgeon at the “Running of the Bulls” last year…


As the horn intones the opening of the pens, a way – too – close – for - comfort sound of pounding bovine hooves can be distinctly heard on the cobbled streets – seemingly heading my way?

Adrenalin begins to course through my body as half a ton of charging Bull – with VERY sharp horns – seems to have taken a particular dislike to me, and, as the effects of too much (excellent) Cider wears of in an instant, it occurs that, just maybe, this was not the best decision I ever made, in what could be, a painfully foreshortened life….

Looking at the narrow streets about me, every exit was crowded with equally recovered alcoholics. The entire assembly then lurched forwards in a parody of a “Mexican Wave” and I got carried along with it.

Now, it is true that some people will train all year to make the 825 metre sprint from Bull – pen to Bull – Ring: lean, fit, super – athletic, running machines. Unfortunately, I was not amongst their number.

As the bulls neared there was a great “parting of the waves” to let them get through the centre of the now panicking masses and I saw my opportunity. There was an unoccupied lamppost just within arms reach and I made a desperate lunge for it.

I shinnied up it like a rat up a drainpipe just as the nearest Bull had decided I was the target of his anger and horn met iron causing the post to shake alarmingly. It held though, and the gouges from the impact were just centimetres from where my out of shape buttocks had been a scant second ago.
                                                                             
I survived without a scratch – a young runner (27yrs), Daniel Jimeno Romero, was not so fortunate and was killed that same year…..

Photo credit: http://www.heralddeparis.com/running-with-the-bulls-in-pamplona/44253

"Trans - Dimesional Envoy?"

With the holiday season upon us in 2010 I am minded to recall an episode in this Blogger’s life that occurred during May 2008….

It’s official.... I AM a genius, read on....


I had a wonderful drive into work this morning, the roads were empty, the sun was shining, the birds were singing, no smog over Madrid – one of those Halcyon days when nothing could go wrong.


As I entered the car park where I work, I couldnt believe my eyes!!! Hundreds of empty parking spaces!! I am normally forced to park “A la Madrileño” (ie anywhere on or off the road (roundabouts are my personal favourite) – but not today. Curiosity was beginning to get the better of me…


I wondered if the clocks had gone back a couple of hours and I had forgotten to change the time on my watch, so I checked the time on the clock in the car (it’s one of those snazzy clocks linked directly to the atomic-caesium clock in Berlin which automatically updates for all world time zones and accurate to a squillionth of a second) but no – the time was right on my watch.

Had I slipped through some extra-dimensional portal to a world where I was the only person still alive? Possibly.....As the Twilight Zone started playing in my mind

I was struck firmly between the eyes by the crushing reality of my situation, if indeed I had passed through some portal to a parallel there would be no more parties, no more cocido, and possibly, no more Gin and Tonic!!! (you never know what privations await you in a parallel world….

Disaster loomed.

I hesitantly swiped my card through the security lock, and submitted to the retinal scan, at least in this extra-dimensional world my security clearance was still valid.

I mounted the staircase to go through the final security check to be greeted by

the sounds of laughter – oh joy!! I was not alone and possibly Gin and Tonic had been invented by these terribly intelligent parallel beings.

I estimated there were at least 3 beings in this dimension (including myself). With a spring in my step I approached the sound of laughter to be confronted by two extra-dimensional beings, who miraculously resembled the Securitas Security Guards that I knew back in my own, so – far- away, world.

They were laughing at the security camera screens and muttering such words as “Tonto” and “idiota” ie “dumb” and “stupid”, then the word “Guiri” – “Tourist”!

I realised then that they had been monitoring MY progress into the Secure Facility.

“How rude” I thought, after all it isnt every day that you get to meet a trans-dimensional traveller.

I approached the desk in readiness to take them to task, after all I was an envoy for my own world, when one of them, sporting a grin expansive enough to suck all the oxygen out of a football stadium, held up a sign that read “Hoy es Mayo 1” (“Today is May 1st”).

I felt myself going weak at the knees, blackness was rushing into my field of view, confusion reigned supreme, and finally, this GENIUS realised that he had just driven 40 kilometres to work, had NOT crossed dimensions, was not a World Envoy, but WAS an “idiota”.


May 1st is a Bank Holiday in Spain!!!!