No hay "manana" aqui

Today was not a good day. It started horribly as I was forced to wake up at 7:30 so that I could get to the Barclays at Knightsbridge the moment it opened. Of course, as I expected, they said that they couldn’t see me today as they were too busy and the soonest they could make an appointment was for Friday. Fortunately, I was with two Americans who weren’t willing to swallow shit with a smile and started wailing on the manager in front of all of the customers. I was both elated and embarrassed but they managed to get me an appointment for tomorrow morning. And this is where I begin my diatribe about British banks. And Britain in general. Oh how they LOVE their rules and regulations and protocol. Everything must be done in such-and- such way and to raise any questions or make any comments to the contrary would just be impolite and way out of the bounds of common courtesy. And heaven forbid one should raise her voice – that would be a manifestation of emotion, a downright scene, a tantrum of epic proportions! Ok, ok, the rules are fine. A bit constricting and anal-retentive but I accept it as a tenet of a well-functioning orderly western society. If only the fuckers knew what the rules were. And therein lays the problem. Because no one knows what the regulations are, yet they just go ahead and make up whatever they please, conveying it in a self-assured tone to get the person away from them as quickly as possible. It’s like a pathological need to appear knowledgeable combined with a genetic imbalance towards rules, laws and structure.

There were a few other things that actually warranted my immensely futile, vein-bulging frustration but it all dissipates as I sit in my room, the broken darkness in front of me, the wind rumbling against the windows, Mandalay in the background…