OT

ITYF that's Iran. Next door.

 

ITYF that's Iran. Next door.[/QUOTE]

Iranians still regard themselves as more Persian than anything else and
not Arabs, fwiw.

 

Three countries for the Kurds and both flavours of Arab, not too hard is
it? sharing the oil wealth could also have been achieved. Had they done
this however they would still have fucked it up in the same way as
Ireland or India because for partitions to work out long term *everyone*
of a particular group has to move to the right area. That's a huge
amount of work and money (and compensation) and the BE didn't care
sufficiently.

India was the worst example, hundreds of thousands of people must have
died since Pakistan was created, up to a million died in the movement of
population during partition. Pakistan was too small and they left
<thinks> what? maybe 10 million Muslims behind (now 150 million).
With hindsight India was too big to partition, the more you read of it
the worse it gets. It really needed a secular governmental system (like
our Parliament!) and regionalisation, Federation in fact, on a USA
model. Matters would have been undertaken gradually thereafter.
Mountbatten was happy to sacrifice a million natives to get back to his
life in England, an utter **** IMHO but he got his eventually.
A lot of the trouble within India pre partition had been created by the
British administration, following policies of divide and rule and the
creation of racial and religous tensions. Reap><Sow

Ireland OTOH: well the 1916 debacle should never been allowed, the
Irish Parliamentarians should have been supported and assisted in
peacefully creating one or two devolved states (as is Scotland now), the
RC church (as it was then) should have been substantially demolished,
the government and educational systems secularised.
In the situation that did actually develop however proper partition
could easily have been managed and paid for. NI should be a bit smaller
but probably no more than 100,000 hard line Republicans need have been
moved into the Free State. It might have looked expensive at the time
but it's cost about a billion a year for 30 years to mop up the
troubles.

Incidentally I would argue that Scottish Devolution is an economic and
social disaster, a big reason I don't live there. For a start there was
no imposition of secular education and as elections are not weighted
Rural Vs Urban the central belt repeatedly throws up very left wing
socialist government who impose high taxation and a business unfriendly
environment. Amusingly this is in part the work of the Irish catholic
diaspora, utterly incapable of recreating the success of the Free State
over the past 20 years.

 

I just don't get this: The BE made a few/several/many mistakes on
colonising and de-colonialising large parts of the world - fair
enough - but I don't imagine any independence/partition legislation
included a clause for any newly independent peoples to behave like
utter cunts to each other for the next 50/60/70/80 years, just to show
what a catastrophe British rule was.

It is not a requirement of a newly independent nation state for its
minorities to be subjected to wholesale slaughter, in the name of
freedom.

Or is it? c.f. USA, France, Yugoslavia, inter alia.

 

I don't think it does have to be that way but my point was the Empire
Administration and the East India Company before actively encouraged the
fuckers to in-fighting. I admit world history does not tell us the
process is likely to be easy though.

 

Lurking mode = OFF

Ah bugger, just saw this thread so I guess it is best I fill you in on what
happened from the start. (This is going to be long!) Feel free to skip to
the last couple of paragraphs if you get bored.

The idea was to lug myself and Christel plus assorted camping gear on the
Uberbeast through France, Andorra, Spain, Gibralter, maybe in to Morocco
then Portugal, back into Spain,through the Picos and Basque regions and
finally France and home, nicely do-able in 2 weeks.

France was a mix of D roads and Motorways with a stop at a Municipal
Campsite, day 2 put us at the base of the Pyranees with Andorra in the
distance, bang on plan.

Day 3 took us over the top into Andorra, I did see 2394 metres on the GPS at
one point so well over 7000 feet, it was a bit colder but the bike ran very
well, I did chat to some guys on carb Kawas and they were having problems
with stalling at that altitude but my fuel injection combined with a
tractor engine seemed to work well, note for others, take ALL corners one
gear down, they are deceptive...

We then did a few hundreded more miles of very twisty roads that were fun
but a bit bleak and were mostly at the 4000' mark, weird to travel in what
seems like a barren lunar landscape for hours and not see another person
let alone car or bike, not a place to run out of petrol and despite a 32
litre capacity and spare cans for the cooker I was a bit twitchy on
occasion.

Day 4 was another big day, we had aimed at riding for 10+ hours each day as
it is cooler to be moving than lying in a tent, I did stop at one point and
noticed my cheap plastic thermometer on the key ring had maxed at 50C so I
guess it was hot that day in the sun, and stopping for fuel in the shade it
only dropped to 45C

Anyways, we fueled up near Jaen in Andalucia around 6ish and headed off to
find somewhere to sleep, unfortunately I ended up on the Jaen ring road so
pulled off at a slip to get back to our goal, this invloved a nightmare 180
right in first going up hill, no worries, I had done this all before at
Andorra, over a crest, down a steep right that joined a another road on the
curve, this meant quite a camber, the car in front dithered, I slowed, he
stopped, I slowed a bit more, he did a stop start and I decided to stop and
compose myself and the 300+ kgs of bike and passenger, the plan was to
effectively lean out of the corner at the moment of stopping but I failed
and tilted right to a camber that left the road 4 inches plus below my
right foot.

Bugger - exit stage right very gracefully, I got clear, but the somewhat
robust OE alloy pannier trapped Christels right leg and broke her fibia and
tibia just above the right ankle, it saved the pannier though!

Feck I am waffling here, so in brief loads of feds and paramedics and
ambulance types plus local interest and she was taken to the local A&E
whilst I tried to explain what had happened, they were all very good about
at and shook heads and shrugged and basically said bad luck pal, one BM
riding trafpol even told me he had done the same, he still took my
passport, V5 license and Insurance though, within my papers was a Danish
medical certificate, this fascinated them and was passed around several
times and photographed. Then clutching my papers they said follow us, lit
up lights and sirens and howled off into the distance at what was flat out
for me to the hospital.

The hospital staff were in someways superb and in someways strange at best I
got my papers back and a friendly claps on the back with much shaking of
heads, they seemed really sorry about the affair. I was a bit freaked and
probably suffering a little from shock at this point so such an attitude
did help somewhat.

Anyway they operated next day and pinned her leg up with a bunch of screws
and plates and there we were stuck in the wilds of nowhere in a non English
speaking hospital with people who did not speak the same Spanish as me.

Did I say I had left my mobile at home? Luckily I had a certain Mr
Carmichaels number on a bit of paper so I rang him and this helped
considerably, he was only a couple of hours or s away and if push came to
shove I could dump my (unscathed) bike at his place, this was good news so
I legged it back to Christel to give her the good news and went back to
call him again only to discover I had now lost the piece of paper with his
number, so all I had now was my parents number and that of one mate in the
UK that would not be a great deal of help.

Stress level was prolly around 9.9 at this point

Hmm, still waffling here, Friday they gave me two syringes and a piece of
paper and pointed to the door, Saturday we left for a hotel and managed to
track down a hire wheelchair on the Tuesday, after much discussions with my
travel insurance people they agreed to take us by ferry from Santander to
Plymouth and at 01:30 on the Thursday morning a taxi appeared with two
drivers who transported Christel whilst I followed.

Have you ever ridden at night for 500+ miles with crap lights on twisty
battered roads with a black visor that keeps falling down over a pair of
goggles, whilst following a Spanish taxi piloted by rally drivers that
would stop every 90 minutes so they could swap drivers? Not fun, they did
agree to a coffee stop at 300 miles when I fueled up, then it was off
again, really not fun.

We hit Santander at about 10:30 and the crisis was over. After another UK
hopspital visit to get a frame (her left leg is still weak from the last
epic event involving the dog from hell) we got home at midnight Friday.

So really all I wanted to say was thanks everyone concerned, knowing now
that you were looking out for me helps a great deal, next year we will
return to complete the trip, we had some great highs and some serious lows
but got out in one piece and I know we can now do 12 hour days quite
comfortably and I still have a goal of stringing 1000 mile days on the bike
together.

High point for me? Stopping at Santander and stepping off the bike very
sweaty and dirty covered in flies and dust and being surrounded by HD
riders discussing how many miles they had ridden the last two weeks,
eventually they spotted me and asked how far I had ridden, I guess they
meant for the holiday but I could not resist saying:

"Today? About a 1000kms I guess"

Looking back now it was not quite that far but they sure left me alone after
that.

Heh!

Cheers all and again warmest thanks.

Lurking mode = ON

 

I need to know which hospital it was. Curiosity.

And you don't speak andaluz?

Silly sod. I suspect that your parents know your brother, and he has my
number. Oh, he was in IOM. Couldn't you find a cybercaf and ask here?

See you next year maybe.

--

Paul.
CBR1100XX SuperBlackbird
BOTAFOT #4
BOTAFOF #30
MRO #24
OMF #15
UKRMMA #30
Buy this house: http://personales.ya.com/wibbleypants/main.htm
This will be ready soon:
http://personales.ya.com/wibbleypants/bb_in_andalucia_spain.htm

 

Jaen Neurological Hospital - AKA as the local A&E

Apparently no - it was a strange local dialect and they blanked my schoolboy
Spanish, I will make sure I have a better grasp of the language when we
return.

I did not want to involve my parents for a variety of reasons, and TBH
didn't even think of Andrew and Adie - my primary concern was some very
bitter and protracted discussions with the travel insurance company and an
unwell wife.

I hate imposing on people in times of crisis, and will hate doing so even
more now this has happened.

 

That's what I told him when we went visiting today. The trouble is
that I know most of the things to try when in the shit overseas
because of working abroad so many times but he's not got that
experience.

 

It won't help much in Andalucía. My grasp of castellano isn't bad (crap
for 3 years of "learning") but here it's all but useless. They're dead
proud of it - some bars have a sign saying "Aquí se habla andaluz". But
it's shit. It's not a dialect nor an accent, just butchered castellano.

But people *want* to help. It's human nature. I hate the fact that I
wasn't able to help. We weren't really worried that much - hell you're a
grown man. But it was just frustrating that even a bit of moral support
would have helped and I wasn't able to give it.

Next time you come, and fall off on the same bend, I'll come and help.
Whether you want me to or not.

--

Paul.
CBR1100XX SuperBlackbird
BOTAFOT #4
BOTAFOF #30
MRO #24
OMF #15
UKRMMA #30
Buy this house: http://personales.ya.com/wibbleypants/main.htm
This will be ready soon:
http://personales.ya.com/wibbleypants/bb_in_andalucia_spain.htm

 

Hehe - tosser lets agree to meet for a vino/beer start of June 2007 - so
much easier and I have a feeling we will be passing your way on the way to
somewhere hotter.

 

Hmm, was that in Jaen? My BiL had contacted a few of his colleagues in
the area and had told me that nothing had been reported.

 

Ovenpaa wrote:

SNIP woe

It does sound like a bit of a nightmare indeed. The language thing
always worries me. Years ago I had a lovely English partner who taught
EFL and spoke French and German as a native with Italian and Spanish at
good conversational level plus a bit of Japanese. It was ever so helpful
when biking around Europe.

Bit I don't understand about you off is the pannier/leg bit. Usually
hard luggage saves the pillion leg as the knee, calf and foot sit in
front of the box.
All of this proves once again the great wisdom of a BMW flat twin and OE
luggage stuffed to the brim.