On Registering a Car
I bought the car in Wales and, after driving it the two and a half thousand kilometres here, plus an extra five hundred when I was lost, I have to register it in order to insure it. For this I have to have local number-plates to replace its British plates. No local plates, no insurance.
Thus starts my adventure with local bureaucracy, as perhaps in most of our benighted countries.
There are two cities involved here. Let us call them Vigor and Moroso, which is not too inaccurate. They are about a hundred kilometres or sixty-odd miles apart by geography and a century or so in disposition.
If this following procedure grips your vitals, imagine having to live it, at seventy three, with 'health issues', and with irascibility increasing year by year as you find that humanity has been miseducated to be too stupid to understand the simple fact that they are being eradicated from the planet by just a few criminals wielding the tool of totally fictitious finance.
Having previously intended to import motorcycles, I have a sheaf of application forms from the traffic office, so, no fuss and no hurry. The car has existing insurance cover until the 18th. All I have to do is fill in one of the forms with the car's details, and present myself at the traffic office, pay some tax or other and bob's your uncle - right? Let's see.
I have a full ten days before the existing insurance cover runs out, but to be on the safe side, I go to the local Vigor traffic office on the 7th., wait in line for more than an hour, present myself cheerfully to the assistant, and ask how much I have to pay, so that I can pay it. She gravely tells me that I cannot simply pay and be done with it: there are steps to be fulfilled, and I am directed to 'information'.
I wait another half hour and at 'information' am told of three or four simple steps I must take. Good; simple is always best. The first is to present the car to the ITV, the local version of MoT.
Next day I go to ITV at 7.30 a.m. There it is clearly explained to me that 'Information' has not the slightest idea: first I have to have a 'certificate of conformity' from the car's manufacturers.
I phone the local concessionaires, who refer me to the manufacturers, who refer me back to the concessionnaires. I am told I have to submit the vehicle's details, which I do. After three or four days they say they want photographs of the car's data-plate. I take twenty or so, and email them the best two. They say they are not clear enough, due to reflection, and that I have to take the car to the concessionnaires, where they take forty or so more photographs, also unclear due to reflection, and also take written details.
After a further two or three days, the 'certificate of conformity', a piece of paper, arrives. 180 Euros. Thank you. Total time involved, eight days.
I deliver the 'certificate of conformity' to ITV, and am told to submit the car to lane no 5 for inspection. The inspector writes in 82,000 kilometres, instead of miles, bless him, but the tyres, new in England and acceptable there, are said to be unacceptable here and have to be replaced. - Done in 24 hours - 240 Euros. A seat-catch also has to be repaired to allow the driver's seat to incline forward to allow access to the rear seats. This will have to be done by the concessionnaires. The test procedure costs me another 78 Euros.
ITV then discover that there is an error in the car's logbook, a bureaucratic mistake of a '3' in the book in place of an 'E' in the car chassis number, and it has to be corrected. Very well, this request is sent immediately to Wales by email, followed by a fax - a day later due to finger-trouble in my local bank. I am told during telephone follow-up, that this correction will be done within five days. When I call after six days, they say it has not been done yet as they are waiting for a micro-film, and I also have to reapply via a form which they email me and I complete and return after an hour of waiting for a local photo-copy shop to open.
Meanwhile, on the 19th. the ex-owner of the car kindly agrees to extend the insurance cover to the end of the month. Without this it would be illegal for me to take the car anywhere, and, remember, I cannot have local insurance here until the car has local plates.
The concessionnaires now tell me that one of the three pieces that make up the broken seat-catch is no longer made, that they will have to improvise, but this cannot be done for at least two and a half weeks. I report this to the ITV, who say that I should have the car re-inspected, and that if it passes everything else, then it will be allowed through. This is done, and the car is passed, subject to receiving the amended logbook from Wales.
For courtesy I visit ITV before the insurance runs out, to explain the situation, and though I see the ITV document, of course I cannot have it until the corrected logbook is received. Alright.
Not knowing that the car should be used only to clear the ITV work, I travel to - let's call it Sueliás - where I have a cottage, to collect a 'Certificate of Empadronamiento', to conform with the insurance quotation of the previous autumn.
When I call Wales again for progress on the corrected logbook, they say they are still waiting for the micro-film - necessary for them to be able to change their error of a '3' to an 'E' - and I should call the following week. This I do, and am told they 'will be looking at it' on Wednesday. They then say they are sending the corrected document on Thursday. The following Monday they say they sent it the previous Friday, but when it arrives at the end of that next week, the postmark clearly shows it has been posted only on that Tuesday, already the 2nd. of the next month. And they have sent an 'Export Certificate' rather than the amended logbook. However -
On Friday I return to ITV by bus, and the Export Certificate document is accepted without comment from them or from me. Then can I have the ITV paper? Oh no, it will not be ready until next Tuesday.
They phone me that evening to say that the ITV document is ready. It was ready when I was there this morning, and when I saw it almost two weeks ago, I suggest. Oh no, they have done it as a matter of urgency, they say. When I collect it - by bus - on the freezing Saturday morning, the date on the document is Jan 27th., days previously, but the overweight girl was too lazy to bother to look for it when I was there the previous day.
So now I have the ITV I can now register the car? I have little idea. Bureaucracy is about to change gear.
The car now being uninsured until it has local registration and number plates, I walk the mile to the bus station and travel the sixty miles by bus over the high hills to Moroso to register the car at the Moroso Council. I lightly walk the mile and a half from the bus station and am directed to the correct office in the Council House. But, Oh no, it has to be registered at Sueliás, twenty miles further on, to which the bus has already gone. And the traffic office I visit also confirms that it first has to be registered at Sueliás, and then tax has to be paid at any tax-office, so I have to return by bus to Vigor empty-handed.
I visit the local Vigor tax-office to pay whatever tax has to be paid, but they say, Oh no, I have to have a Form 576. In which department do I obtain this? - Oh, no, I have to download it, either myself - "It's easy" - or from a registry office. This I try to do at home, but my computer refuses to handle such trash. However, the computer of a friend, which has an older program, obtains a code-number by which - in theory - I can obtain . . . well, what?
On Friday the 20th. I walk the mile to the Vigor bus station, travel to Moroso again, walk a mile and a half from the bus station and visit the traffic office. First I have to pay the tax at Sueliás and register the car there. In passing, I walk the extra mile to the Moroso tax-office.
Moroso has been somewhat isolated until recently from the rest of the country by the inconvenience of travel. It is affected still by the hangover of victors and vanquished of civil war, thus has the inbred characteristics of an old city and its inhabitants have few natural virtues. Some of them - presumably 'the victors' - still flaunt an exaggerated arrogance, and this style has been aped by some of its civil servants, who adopt the supercilious arrogance of protected minions.
The Tax Office girl notes that the book price of my car was at one time 19,800 €, and says that it is therefore twelve percent of ten percent - wow! - which she works out on a calculator rather than doing it in her head, as would we. She tells me that I have to pay 23.76 €. Well, she can't do simple arithmentic, but who am I to argue with a bureaucrat? She writes the amount on a scrap of paper, which I still have. I have the money here. No, I have to pay at a bank.
There is a bank across the street. I go to the bank with the scrap of paper. "Where are the tickets?" the woman asks. Tickets? What tickets? "Then go to another bank," she tells me. So I go to another bank, and they also demand tickets. What tickets? - From the tax office. I return to the tax-office, where they supply me identity tickets. I return to the first bank and pay. Then I return to Tax office. Right? Right. So now to Sueliás.
The bus to Sueliás arrives there at 11.19. The bus back to Moroso leaves at 11.15. Ah. The next bus leaves at 2.15 and arrives at Morosa at 3.00, by which time the relevant Moroso offices have all closed, as these spoiled bureaucrats work only from 9.00 to - in theory - 2.00. So I pay the tax at Sueliás and receive the five copies of a document, then walk the two miles to my cottage. The house is freezing and, despite three days of open doors and windows, remains freezing. The mere memory of it numbs me with cold. Moroso is at 400 feet altitude, and when it is not very cold it is very hot. My cottage, being at more that 2,000 feet, is much much more so.
I will mention in passing that on the Saturday, in connecting to ADSL in my cottage, I stupidly forget to instal the 'splitter'. But the telephone company's technical department diagnose that the router is not working, and that I should return it. Within an hour an independent technician arrives uninvited, looks and sees the fault immediately, connects it in twenty seconds, repeats my configuration in two minutes, takes another minute in the dusk to write the bill, and leaves. Next day I see he has charged my telephone account 50 Euros for his five-minute presence.
So on the Monday I return to the traffic office - to complete the matter? Oh no, I still have to have the form 576 from the tax-office. I return to the tax-office. No, the form is for me to download and print from the computer, or from an agency. I leave and ask two policemen. They indicate an agency further down the street. I enter and wait for the office to open. After ten minutes I knock louder at the door and they open it. Oh no, they refer me to another agency, who refer me to the Castro Agency. I find it and ask them. They say they will sell me the form for 50 Euros. Thanks. I leave and go to another agency directly behind the still-chatting policemen, and this Casal Agency provides the form 576 and all the work done on three copies for 3 (three) Euros.
I return to the Traffic Office, pay their tax, and go to the vehicle registry department and hand in the forms. "Where is the code?" the girl demands. "There should be a code here to prescribe the licence number plate, but look at it - blank. You will just have to return to the agency." I return the mile to Casal Agency, where they pore over the paper. They think that the tax-office has charged me too little, a computer somewhere has noticed and has caused the blank space where there should be a code. I should return to the tax office and ask them.
There the same now distinctly unappetising lump of a girl denies responsibility and tells me haughtily that I should be doing all this in the Vigor tax office anyway. These public servants really are getting above themselves.
I sometimes tell people here that the English have no feelings, which amuses them vastly. However, this episode is revealing in me an unsuspected sentiment - a deep and burning RAGE! I tell her and her colleagues what an impartial foreigner of mature, balanced judgement thinks of their efficiency, which quite surprises them. Perhaps I should mention that this particular Englishman, when annoyed, audibly growls.
Back in Vigor, I have photocopies made of the tax-office girl's written tax-figure of 23.76, then go to a registry office to ask for another form 576. The man, deep in disappointment, gives me a partly-completed certificate and tells me I have to complete it. I have no idea what for.
I go to the local tax office. The woman at information tells me she knows nothing about this and sends me to the computer section. They look at the documents from the Casal Agency and, after consulting with two other departments, tell me that this 16-digit number down here is the required code, and that I should return with it to the Moroso traffic office.
Forewarned is forearmed and, to be on the safe side, from home I telephone the Moroso traffic office and the woman tells me that the 16-digit humber is not the code. The required code in only of eight digits, but that I should bring it for them to see. I tell her that it is a hundred kilometres each way by bus. Oh, she says, but you will have to bring it anyway.
On Friday I visit the Vigor Treasury and Social Security for advice, to be told it is not their affair, and I should refer it to the Traffic Office across town. The Traffic Office Information man refers the matter to his chief, but she shows me that the eight digit code is completely separate from the sixteen digit code, and that it is a matter for the tax office.
The tax office information desk refers me to the computer section again. Mystified, he takes me first to one department, then to the Chief of the Section, who tells me that he will call me next Monday morning.
He doesn't call, so I catch him just as he is about to finish work. Will I call tomorrow, with an invoice for the car, please? At my urgent request the ex-owner of the car kindly sends me an image by email. Thanks God for Internet.
To avoid boring you further, but imagine having to live this tedious ordeal and knowing full well - while all these 'professional experts' don't - that all these taxes and all these complications and frustrations are deliberately caused by one lousy grasping family that wants the rest of us off the planet : - on March 3rd. 9.00 Vigor Tax Office. Wait half an hour to speak to the section chief. Taken to minion. Half an hour of paperwork shows the value of my 480 to have been twelve thousand-odd, not 19. It should be twelve percent of ten percent of twelve thousand. I give him the figure payable before he can reach for his calculator, but he uses it to confirm my figure. So, right, I have to go to the bank and pay them the balance of 120.24 Yewros and remember that I need a receipt. Right.
I go to a bank across the square. Can they accept payment today? They debate the matter and decide they can. But can they accept this? They can. But they need a form to allow it. No form. Then no can do. I go to the next bank where there is too long a queue. I cross the road to Barclays. Need form. Back to tax office. "What did you do in Moroso?" - Just a figure, at CaixaNova - a wrong figure - on a bit of paper. "Then go to CaixaNova in Gran Via and tell them there is no form."
At the CaixaNova bank - "You need a form." "In Moroso two weeks ago they did it without a form." "Here, a form." I go to the other counter and wait for two women to finish shouting at each other. Over what? Here they do not need an excuse. Finally, my turn. I explain the situation. A senior colleague is called. "It can be done." A form is written to explain a receipt, I pay, and receive the receipt.
Back at the tax office an hour more of cooking the figures and a code is produced, not on the required form 576, but as part of a written letter of explanation. Whether or not it will be acceptable to the picky Moroso Traffic Office remains to be seen. I tell him I will check.
At home at 1.50 p.m. I telephone the Moroso Traffic Office for prior confirmation that the code that I have been given is the code they want. There is no reply. I try several numbers without reply. Finally an irritable man tells me to ring 060, where a recorded voice runs through all the various possibilities, but only that I have to go physically to Moroso with my identity . . . The two o'clock bell booms across Vigor. Now officially there is no way of checking before I go.
On March 4th., up at 5.00 a.m., 7.30 bus to Moroso, arrive at 8.45, walk the mile and a half to the traffic office and present the documentation to the girl. "At what time do you close?" I ask. "At two," she says. But they were not answering the phone from 1.50 the day before. No reply now, either.
I could point out an error or two in the documentation from the Vigor tax-office, but that would carry honesty into the realms of masochism, and - despite the carefully-engineered trends of modern education and entertainment - vice and perversion should be discouraged wherever possible. She takes the documents to another girl, returns, and asks me to wait while she attends others now entering.
I sit for ten minutes, writing this. She returns with my completed registration form, a piece of paper. "Is this all?" "Yes, that is all." "With this paper I can now obtain the number plates and insurance here?" "That's right."
Later that afternoon the insurance company tells me that my previous application and offer of 347 € has now lapsed, and that the new quote is for 576 €, and - as the previous insurance has also expired - that the car will have to be assessed by a professional assessor. Next day I try again, and ask to speak to the person I spoke to three months previously. He tells me that the new figure will be 376 €, and that an assessor will not be necessary.
"Do it," I tell him. I am still waiting for the policy to arrive, under the threat that if I don't reply within two weeks, my cover will be cancelled. "It sometimes takes a week or two to arrive," my ally in the insurance office tells me when I report its non-arrival. They say they sent it to my Sueliás address, but will send it again to my Vigor address. Two weeks later they tell me they sent it again to the Sueliás address, but will re-send it here. I am still waiting.
But count the steps I made, said to be essential to pay for a car to be registered. - Forty-odd? And physical steps? On foot, about fifty miles.
If this sad and irritating tales of official muddle has been tedious to read, it has not been my intention to bore you. But just imagine having to live it, over a period of two whole months, watching all these grown people shifting bits of trivial paper back and forth simply to help feed the rapacious maw of a family of international gangster perverts. - Yes I am talking about the Rothschilds again. It is difficult to talk about any aspect of what is wrong with the world without the trail leading directly back to them. But if you don't know about them and their activities, then for all your vaunted 'economics' expertise you can know nothing about finance or about its use in their malignant manipulation of our world.
Not one of these experts or any of the economists who advise the governments, nor of those who impose the laws nor of those who collect the taxes, knows that all such taxes are simply to repay the Rothschilds and their tribe who traditionally have first established and then bribed 'our leaders' to accept loans which must be repaid with interest by which all our efforts are milked for the lenders' benefit. All that we pay for anything, and the taxes we pay, are to enable these rogues to transfer the things of the planet from our use to their pockets. Even after five thousand years of the infliction of finance, none of these experts has been able to see this sickness for what it is and, as the race is increasingly stupefied via 'the media' and education deliberately distorted by those same vermin who dominate publishing, the likelihood of their being able to see and understand it diminishes year by year.
But another question is this: with the Rothschild gangsters and their accomplices in the process of dismembering the race, can we afford the dead wood of these bureaucrats burdening all our societies in the Rothschilds' interest? Have all our younger people been taught nothing other than to fail as defective cogs and not care?
Now, I am rich. However, I am not nouveau riche with 'new money'. In fact I am not moneyed at all. That is not rich. I am old riche, rich because I am alive on a beautiful planet in a marvellous Universe and because I appreciate this, and because of the people I am privileged to know and the place where I live, its crops and its climate. I am rich despite the fact that a few devious villains have gripped the race of human animals and impoverished most of it to try to extort their fiction of finance to satisfy their avarice and their urge to dominate and eliminate the rest. I am even rich because I know of their perversion and that something must be done to abolish it and how easily that can be done.
Then, folks, what say we do just that.