New number plates

This is todays alternative entry for those with an aversion to sludge.

The Sunday Herald

London, Sunday, November 14, 2004

The new number plates

   The roads of Madrid are not the way they used to be. They still fuck up in less time than it takes a mayfly to fart. The hacking consumption of Renaults and Volvos, taxis and buses, delivery trucks and two-wheeled gnats is ever more beyond a workable cure. Madrid is obese with bumper-to-bumper parking.   It is overdosing on multi-coloured scrap and jigsaw jams. And with every new flat commission sale, the latest cure takes a backward step, or it seeks temporary refuge in another underground tunnel. But all that is a different story. It is almost agreeable when compared with the true malaise of the roads in Madrid.

   The cars on the roads of Madrid are strangers. They come from nowhere. They are cars without a name, trucks without a home. They are like vagabonds. Who knows where they come from and thus who knows where they are bound. They ambulate from one end of the city to another. They could be four-wheeled objects deposited by some car company from outer space, or three-door illegal immigrants seeking a new life in a strange land. The roads are not the same. The vehicles flash by leaving sadness and solitude in their monoxide wake.

   Driving in Madrid used to offer the opportunity to know Spain and to make new friends. Driving was a socialising experience. One could crawl up the Castellana at any time of the day and ‘Oh, look! There’s…’ and ‘You’ve come a long way!’ or ‘Missed the turn-off did you?’ It used to be a fulfilling experience – to see a car or a truck and be able to empathise with the occupants. Very often, it was as uplifting as meeting an old school friend with whom you had once shared a spray can of paint…

   The new number plates are at the root of this new lifelessness. They are meaningless codes recognisable only to a computer. They reduce the flow of cars and trucks to same level of excitement as a trail of ants.

   Do you remember? The number plates used to identify the place where the vehicle was registered and therefore where the occupants lived or worked (not always, but enough of the time). A citröen from Madrid sported a solitary M. It was not very original but it worked. A fiat truck from Soria came with a more flamboyant SO. And one was always wary of a B plate – it announced the approach of a snappy Catalan trying to break the land speed record. A Z plate announced the proximity of an industrious Aragones. So where did that ZA plate come from then? And did a Valenciano come with a VA plate? Or just V? The logic of the letter arrangement, once understood, was almost awesome. For example, since Alicante was AL, Albacete had to be something else. And since Albacete is a less relevant place than Alicante, one had to skip a letter and Albacete became AB. Then there was TF, S and SA, CA and CO and the alarming BI. MA referred to Malaga since not even in the remotest corner of one’s imagination could it take precedence over Madrid. The SE plate was an odd one, denoting a community renowned for eschewing their S’s. MU seemed to sum up everything that was Murciano, while GR was very close to the essence of the Alhambra…

   In the length of time it took to get from Atocha to Plaza Castilla, one could identify with the diversity of the Iberian Peninsula or, at least, that bit of it belonging to Spain. If you add in a brief assortment of plates from other countries you had a veritable window box of number plates in bloom.

   Not any more…

   The demise of the user-friendly number plate came when all possible combinations of four numbers and two letters were used up. Little did they realise so many years ago when the system was inaugurated that 9999ZZ could one day raise its ugly head. Who could have imagined that it would take a short generation to exhaust 40 million unique combinations? Even the most forward forward-thinkers can’t see much beyond the current generation. And a good idea is only good for as long as nobody else has a better idea.

   Then the Eurobirks got in on the act. Some bright cabbage leaf discovered the word ‘homologation’ and decided it was just right for Europe, whatever it meant. And given the difficulties associated with turning the British and Germans into homogenous Europeans, opted to homologate car number plates instead. Car number plates are not nearly so culturally entrenched as people. People would have to wait to be homologated. And it was a wonderfully happy event when 9999ZZ was finally combined in Spain. The perplexities of prolonging the pleasing union of origin and numeric order were obviated, as if goals were wholly unnecessary to resolve a game of football.

   The result was the neutered appeal of the actual number plate. A eunoch of scrambled letters and numbers, completely lacking in sex appeal and despairingly mute. The new number plate acts like a latex dummy on a baby. It shuts out all dialogue and conjecture. It leaves drivers and pedestrians alike with nothing to capture their attention. The oft repeated speculation ‘What’s he doing in Madrid? Huelva is a long way from here. Him and his wife. Probably getting away from the children. Or maybe she’s his lover, and they’re getting away from his wife and the children…’ is now beyond the imagination of all road users. The car with the man and woman could have come from Vigo or Leon or the house next door or Venus for all the help the number plate offers. The wimpish explanation that the numbering system helps to maintain anonymity contradicts the whole point of a number plate. One needs to know where the bugger comes from – it is vital to determine if one should overtake him, ram him, sue him or merely manifest who is number one. A proud madrileño wants others to know he is from the capital city. Anonymity is for buyers of stolen art and alcoholics – not for number plates!

   So the roads of Madrid are not the same. They are sad, lifeless dollops of tarmac. The lively hypotheses that accompanied the old number plate are dead. It is no longer possible to remember the number of the car seen fleeing the scene of the crime – it is too complicated. They didn’t think of that, did they? And each time a Chrysler mini-bus sneaks up on your inside it is difficult to know if it is the same one each time. It might look the same, but the number isn’t the same. Or is it? And that sod of an Alpha Romeo who is always taking my parking space – is it the same one every time? It looks the same.

   Still, one has to look on the bright side. Now we have a blue rectangle on the number plate that was not there before with a cute circle of stars. How many stars are there?

From Mike Coleman in Madrid