I had been told Bob is writing a day-by-day account of his and his wife Viv's stay in Buenos Aires, where they have an apartment. They returned there earlier this month. I had heard about Bob before but I hadn't realised he writes mostly when in Buenos Aires.
The other night his tales absorbed me in their days, mindless of the dates. When I came up suddenly and unexpectedly against the halt of the present it took me a moment to realise this was, temporally the end of the line. I would have to wait til the next day for a new instalment.
When I was about ten or eleven my parents bought a small, unfussy apartment in Catalonia which they had for many years. No washing machine, no microwave, no phone, no TV. Bob's account of the practicalities of a second home reminds me of those days - the painting, the plumbing, the cleaning. I laughed when I read his analogy with the fictional character Jack Reacher in the books he is reading: [Jack] does not want a house or any ties, you spend too much time on maintenance and bills. I am starting to get very sympathetic to his attitude. Bob is funny. His blog is fun to read. Over lunch I told my mother about some of his trials. For a flavour try his experiences at the airport when leaving after his last trip. He incurs levels of stress surely only imitable by John Cleese. This happened months ago and still I breathed with relief for them as they get on the plane. Nothing more can possibly go wrong. They get to Charles de Gaulle and when he writes: So we sat ourselves down at gate 32K as directed, but the sign said “Moscow” you just know the story isn't over and that it isn't going to be simple.
Back home, they return to sequence dancing. After dancing tango for months in Buenos Aires? How that is possible is a mystery to me.
Bob's writes about the milongas and about life outside them but I like him best for the insight on the practicalities of real life in Buenos Aires, his obvious love for the place and his equal disbelief that it continues to function. He worries about the currency, the immediate necessity and difficulty of cleaning the windows, the You would think that as they are so security mad here I would be able to get a lock here, but no, so [the patio door] had to wait for me to get one at home. There is a lovely post No hay luz about what happens when the electricity goes out as apparently it frequently does. I remember this from thirty five years ago in Nigeria. There, it seemed to happen almost nightly so our neighbours, all British military, each had a generator in their garage. I remember the torches, the candles, then the deafening sound and the smell of the generator, how hard my father had to yank the cord to start its roar. Bob laments the plumbing, so mundane, so necessary and I understand. I remember too from childhood that in Africa it would take an hour to run a bath. Bob worries about the X-ray machines at the exit to the airport and the paint nervously, illegally stowed in his luggage: You just cannot get Finnigan’s paint here so bringing that was a must. He left the Hammerite thinner - with evident reluctance. Who, who wants to take paint and thinner with such urgency halfway around the world? And why? The answer is in an unapologetic post Lentejas and Nuevo Chique about a previous visit in December 2014
The Argentines have a problem. Well that is whenever they have a problem, instead of dealing with it they try to pass the blame. We noticed the garage doors in our block were starting to rot I just looked at them and thought “why have the owners not painted them?”. Now it seems that they are trying to sue the builders. Meanwhile my balcony is rusting, so I have brought Smoothrite to paint it with. So I will have pristine metalwork, while the rest of the building owners will have rust and the lawyers will have another bonus. It is no wonder this country is in a mess.
"Mad dogs and Englishmen", as he says in another post. It is not an anti-Argentine tirade. He just wants to paint his metalwork when nobody else does - they happen to be Argentine because that's just how it is - and he will go to extraordinary lengths to do it, no matter what anybody thinks just because it's the right thing to do. I think my father would like this man. How can you not admire a man like that?
Practical, down to earth, unpretentious and forthright, I warmed to him: The best thing about having your own place; toast before bed and cool aircon. Sometimes there are mistakes in spelling and grammar but I get the feeling Bob might shrug and say, So what? What's a comma when I can tell you you can get two steaks and half a kilo of piacada for a fiver? "The point is" he does say, about his DJing, which I haven't heard but that is irrelevant "....if you have DJ Bob, then you know what you are getting. " Similarly: His useful glossary is biased to the real and practical side of life. I enjoy guessing a lot of the references in his pieces not listed in that glossary: Easy, Jumbo, Chino, Coto, coreo, locotorio. I thought almacen must be the butcher where they buy their meat until I read in the next post: carnicería. I like learning this way: guessing, not being sure but knowing I'll find out sometime, someone will tell me or it will just in some context become clear. That is part of the pleasure. That is independent learning.
It is not unusual in languages or in life to believe you know what something means, or how things are, but you don't know for sure.
I was reading to my children at tea the other day:
"Trust nothing but believe everything". We put the not-so-interesting book aside waylaid into enquiry of that interesting statement and on to the difference between knowledge and belief. Is there anything you believe but you don't know? I asked. "I believe I can be quiet but I don't know" said the chatty little one, six, earnestly and with heartbreaking insight. He can never quite contain his desire to share something with us.
In The life of a frustrated Milonguero there is the unexpected as here, about food: I love the food here [restaurant 1810], for a country that loves luke warm and bland it is a complete change. This is useful. I also like food either properly hot or cold and not bland. Or about safety; having been reassured on my fears about safety I was then alarmed to read about the street mugging Bob and Viv witnessed from their apartment. It was a reminder not to be complacent. I too felt a little shaken.
Bob's experiences in Banco Santander are reminiscent of a line from another post Just when you think you have it sussed, they change the rules or you find there is a rule you missed. I admire his doggedness. There is a gem-like tale about the shop Easy which shows the real side to the vague tales you hear about red tape, rules, queues and general cultural differences in Buenos Aires: Total two and a half hours to buy a garden table and chairs, is it any wonder that the country is bankrupt? Lo me vuelva loco. He does it with a Brit's despair and frustration (I think there's meant to be a pun in the blog title) yet I can't help but feel that for him surmounting these obstacles is part of the pleasure. Hearing these stories of the daily challenges there, how he addresses them and also looks to his wife's happiness is what I like most.
His accounts show two distinct sides of their life in Argentina: the quotidian hassles and the pleasures (mostly) of the milonga and of the friends they meet outside these. His stories of the milongas surprise me: it is not unknown for people to pinch the seats allocated to you by the host. I would be mortified with British embarrassment. What on earth do you do? I can hardly see you go cliping to the host. Impossible to take someone else's seat. Stand? Leave? I know though just as you wonder what happens when two men cross the floor aiming to collect the same woman they both think has accepted them, that you find these things out on the ground. Some milonga stories are useful:
I wonder sometimes about the wisdom of these milonga organisers. They cancel at short notice, then wonder where all their customers have gone. Then you get [Confiteria] Ideal, who ripped off everyone until they deserted in droves now the only way to get them back is to let them in free [but overcharge for drinks].
The milonga stories also remind me usefully, that what is true there is also what I already know to be true here: that you can go to the same place, even on the same night and have entirely different experiences. The mystery is, nobody, not here and not there really seems to know why.
I started to read his earlier pieces about their trip in 2014. He tells you the price of the taxi from the airport. He tell you he doesn't sleep on the flight and how handy his noise-cancelling headphones were. Bob doesn't preach. He tells you interesting, useful things and he tells you honestly, straightforwardly how he feels.
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