Identity Crisis

Thanks to a Fascist Military Dictatorship we are proof of identity crazy in Spain. It is almost impossible to buy as much as 20 Rothmans without an official card with your photo, thumbprint, name, address, details of next of kin, shoe size, and favourite footballer all lasered in a 3D hologram and laminated in plastic which fits nicely in your wallet.

To this end, all EC residents who had bothered to spend one third of their lives in a pointless queue outside the national police's crumbling headquarters waiting to be treated like shit by the uncaring funtionaries inside, eventually earned one of these cards for the next 5 years. Useful if you'd forgotten who you were (Do you know who I am?) if you'd run out of fags but useless if say David Beckham was to leave Los Galacticos for a new life as a Hollywood personality.

Another Spanish trait I have noted is that if something is functioning perfectly well, then every effort is made to change it to something that doesn't function at all. And so it came to pass that the Residents Card became the Residents Certificate. A flimsy and unwieldy piece of A4 paper lacking any other information apart from your name and number and as much use as an ashtray on a motorbike.

The problem was that with the card, life was as easy for us Europeans as it was for the Spanish. Now thanks to the certificate we're laiden down with yet more paper and there appears to be no clear system of what we need.

Last week we travelled from Ibiza to Mallorca with Trasmediterranea using only our Certificate. Returning, Balearia refused to let us board the ship without our passports despite my protest that travelling between two Spanish islands involves crossing not a single international frontier - you know, the frontiers that we have passports for!

Come on Spain, get your act together - bring back the card!