I don`t know if you grew up with those illustrated books featuring Victorian images of historical events – you know the sort of thing, the two princes looking angelic in black velvet before being bumped off in the Tower, Richard Coeur de Lion languishing in his prison while Blondel sings beyond the walls, Boadicea and her daughters being whipped by a Roman tax collector – but if you did then you might be able to help me.
What was the name of the man who walked through London stark naked with a dish of flaming coals on his head and was he foretelling the Great Plague or the Great Fire? Or could it have been the Popish Plot?
The illustration is as clear to me now as when I first turned the page as a child…..but my memory has failed to dredge up either his name or the event he was foretelling, which is infuriating for one who has always rejoiced in having the memory of an elephant when it comes to trivia while admitting to haziness on more immediately relevent phenomena.
I would like to be reminded because I was thinking of following his example when visiting my bank in London…apart from the naked bit.
There are limits.
The bank, it appears, wishes to know its customers, or so it says.
Having been a customer of said bank for twenty seven years I feel that if it doesn`t know me by now then it has missed the boat.
It knows that it gets regular payments; it knows I don`t take up its offers of loans to go on holiday, to buy a car or to undertake plastic surgery, let alone buy a house; it knows it is a waste of time to try to sell me insurance; it knows that it has never had the pleasure of charging me for an overdraft and it knows that I am displeased when it makes a mess of a simple transaction because its systems are designed by overpaid cretins who probably do borrow money for holidays, cars and plastic surgery and pay for everything on a credit card so do not understand that I would like to make a transfer without having to find and turn on a mobile `phone in order to receive a code which will be outdated by the time that I have found the right glasses to read it, pressed the wrong button which promptly effaces it, try it again and finally change glasses to read the computer screen.
That is if the whole process hasn`t alerted some Dr. Strangelove security system at the bank which promptly freezes my account.
It is not alone in its lunacy, I know. Leo`s broker in South Africa refuses to deal with his bank as it claims that said bank is money laundering on the basis of regular payments of twenty to thirty quid to Better World Books UK.
What could be more suspect than buying books, after all?
Same broker rashly forwarded internal e mails about the problem which were written in Afrikaans. As Leo has an old fashioned form of Flemish he found the e mails totally clear – if unflattering – and expressed himself accordingly. In Flemish.
So, as Leo`s specialist decided that an op would not be necessary on his broken leg and as mother`s birthday was looming, I took a bolt to the metropolis to allow my bank to renew its acquaintance with me, leaving him in the charge of Danilo and Maria, a Nicaraguan lady we have known for years, to give twenty four hour cover in my absence.
Breaking the habits of a lifetime, I coughed up for a direct flight with British Airways which spared me the hassle of changing `planes in odd corners of the world and suffering the current whims of the bored people manning the security lines.
None of them seem to like the packets of coffee in my carry on bag. Madrid doesn`t like them because they are all regularly square….Toronto thinks that as coffee is organic matter, it could be used in a terrorist attempt….while Amsterdam wants to know why I don`t just buy my coffee in Holland.
All went swimmingly, as I had two empty seats next to me and could thus avoid the nuisance of the man in front of my original seat who, not content with reclining it to its fullest extent imediately after take off, jumped about in it excitedly while watching cartoons on the IFE. He did not even return the seat to its upright position in order to eat…had I been forced to suffer his antics for ten hours he might have received the contents of a container of chicken curry on his cranium. Hot.
Needless to say, an evening spent in the company of an old friend over several tissue restorers removed all wish to emulate he of the flaming coals…just as well, as London was suffering from a deluge which would have doused the fires of hell on the day I set out for the bank.
My regular bus had changed its route as the Mayor of London – whose name and portrait seem to appear all over the place like Big Brother – had decided that too many bus routes served Oxford Street and had had some of them shifted. Thus instead of a two minute stroll I had to leg it for some distance, arriving like the proverbial drowned rat.
It might not have improved my temper, but it is impossible to be angry with the recepionist who does the triage of clients, or with the girls of the counter staff.
They know their bank is not universally beloved of its customers thus it is unfair to ask them to keep smiling while you foam at the mouth and gnaw the carpets….so I asked what more the bank wanted to know about me.
It appeared that it wanted a photocopy of my current passport.
But I could have sent you a certified copy!
No, I could not. That would not do.
It used to do when I lived in France.
Probably trained to observe when a customer was about to brake frith and cracke heads I was directed to a supervisor in an office out of earshot.
Ah! They had noted that my old passport had expired.
And?
They needed my new one, for their records.
Why?
Because they had to know their customers.
It was then that I realised that knowing your customer had nothing whatsoever to do with my banking habits but everything to do with ticking a box. The system could not give two penn`orth of cold gin whether I was likely to run amok with a credit card and blow the entire assets of the bank on botox….it just needed a photocopy.
So why could I not send you a certified copy?
You could…from the U.K. They do it at the Post Office.
Why not from Costa Rica?
Oh, that`s regarded as a dodgy country…a lawyer could be pretending to be you and siphoning off your pension.
Thinking that the average Costa Rican lawyer would regard my state pension as not worth bothering to pick up if dropped in the street I produced my passport. The photograph of a wild eyed woman with her hair on end would be enough to convince any bank official that this was not a customer to be encouraged but the box ticker showed no reaction and made her photocopy.
That was it. The bank now, once again, knew its customer.
The rest of the trip passed peacefully: I took Mother to see the film `Dunkirk` to celebrate her birthday. Made a change from cake and flowers, though her friends had organised that too.
The cinema boasted all round sound and it lived up to its promise. Mines exploded under your seat, bombs unleashed themselves at your head while waves lapped incessantly around you. Mother said that while all the actors were remarkably clean for men who had been retreating for days the film was accurate in reproducing the distinctive sounds of the different aircraft. She had been straffed by a Heinkel when walking home from the sanatorium in Belmont and she remembered it well.
Of course, I had news from the home front in the daily telephone call:
Maria has brought her daughter, Stephanie, with her. (Aged about seven) She has used up all your printing paper for drawing. (Give her all those old envelopes you hoard…)
Stephanie is using at least one loo roll per day. Is this normal? What does she do with it? (No idea, but stand by to unblock the septic tank…)
She is playing on my computer. I`ve had to use yours. (Aargh!)
I was fed up with rice and beans so I asked Maria to cook me a spaghetti carbonara. (And?) She garnished it with red peppers and coriander…
I don`t need help any more. I`ve sacked Maria. (I know she called me and told me. What you don`t know is that she has arranged for Luzmilla (cleaning woman) to deputise…)
Luz is here and she refuses to go away! (Good luck with that!)
My return trip was uneventful except for the ritual disembowelling of my suitcase at San Jose airport as, once again, I drew the elderly customs officer who regards it as his mission to preserve Costa Rica from outside influences.
Whats`s this?
Chorizo. Spanish.
But you came off the `plane from London.
They sell it in London. Look at the label.
Oh yes…it`s in Spanish. What are these?
Kippers.
Spanish?
No.
Could you open the bag?
On your own head be it.
Jesus Maria, close it up!
So home, to find the house sparkling clean, the dogs pleased to see me and Leo able to walk a short distance with a walking frame that Danilo had made him.
All is well…though I am still looking for either of my two rolling pins……
Where would you put a rolling pin….? Any ideas?
The man with live coals on his head….I remember now…he was called Solomon Eagle and it was the Plague.
The Venomous Bead 