The Wrong Way "hits" of 2022

@wwaycorrigan

[Listen to an audio version of this blog, together with the videos mentioned below, here.]

As an online content creator — no sniggering — seeing what kind of material attracts more clicks than others is both interesting and puzzling.

Room for growth: The numbers don't lie. 

And no, after over eleven years of blogging, I haven't discerned any real trend — not that I've been looking intently, I just like to write and record. An addiction, of sorts.

Faecal force

Nonetheless, what becomes (relatively) hot never ceases to perplex me. For example, a rather nondescript YouTube Shorts video — a shit show, quite literally — has garnered the most views (watch it at https://www.youtube.com/shorts/IaWB8pbrTNo) on my channel in 2022.

I started experimenting with YouTube Shorts this year — one has to react to the market and people's declining attention spans. I am, though, refusing to, um, kowtow to the Chinese by getting involved in TikTok.

As for my bread and butter of blogging, it could be said that this format reached its peak over a decade ago. My conservative/stubborn nature ensures I persevere with it, probably for worse, all things considered.

'The Bavaria beer employee deserves a bigger stage to showcase his silky skills.'

What's more, commenting on and writing about current affairs is even more of a challenge. People tend to prefer and trust — go figure — the established media on such matters. A relatively unknown blogger is usually dismissed: 'Who are you to make such a statement?'

Yet, and I would say this, this blog has most likely been closer to the truth on many contentious issues than some of the mainstream media groups.

Reach for the sewer

On that front, my most-read — or most-viewed, in any case — Google Blogger story published in 2022 is Lest we forget. On El Tiempo, Gachetá if you can tops the list for this year.

In terms of YouTube audio blog videos uploaded this year, the most viewed is Making ends meet in Colombia.

On The Corrigan Cast podcast, Covid-19, anti-vaxxers & immunity: My chat with Noel D. Walsh on Shannonside Northern Sound has had the most engagement.

Coming back to YouTube Shorts, while the faecal video has got the most views, there are two others that I think deserve even more exposure.

There's Police parking par excellence in Bogotá, (the police officers are actually sitting in the jeep in this video), while my favourite is Colombia's Got Talent (and some people dismiss this as "unskilled" labour!), which you can watch at https://www.youtube.com/shorts/cGmyECU4jK4. Give that man a bigger stage to showcase such silky skills!

Indeed, isn't that what many of us are looking for, a way to get greater reach and greater returns? The (shit) show goes on! Here's to a wonderful 2023!
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Listen to Wrong Way's Colombia Cast podcast here.

Facebook: Wrong Way Corrigan — The Blog & IQuiz "The Bogotá Pub Quiz".

Lending Migración Colombia a helping hand

@wwaycorrigan
[Listen to an audio version of this blog entry here.]

Having more efficient, simpler processes is something the majority of us no doubt desire.

Migración Colombia's Bogotá office: The employees are generally friendly and efficient, once you get into the building, that is.

In the ten years plus I've been using the services of Migración Colombia, its processes have become more streamlined. When online application systems work well, they certainly can be great timesavers. When they work well, that is.

Smooth operators

For the most part, in my experience, the online systems at both La Cancillería (for visa applications) and Migración Colombia (for registering visas and getting a cédula extranjería [foreign ID card]) are straightforward and largely hassle-free. (Meeting the actual requirements is another matter, and there have been numerous changes in this regard over the last couple of years.)

Lest I be accused of suffering from the 'curse of knowledge' following years of practice with these application processes, novice applicants might initially come undone with the maximum megabyte limit for the various PDF documents required. Making use of the website I Love PDF or the like is essential.

For the visa application with La Cancillería, making sure your photo meets the right specifications can be another snag. Again, however, there are plenty of online "fixes" for this.

I have heard of people having problems with uploading documents, even when they meet all the parameters, or being unable to pass a certain online stage because the system becomes stuck. These things have never happened to me, thankfully, but I have had unfathomable, enraging experiences on other websites.

Such inexplicable occurrences convert the digital utopia into a dystopia of sorts. Spending time in Orwell's Room 101 would be more enjoyable than trying to make contact with an actual human being when facing an online conundrum.

Email omission

It wasn't quite a technological problem, however, that had me rather miffed with Migración Colombia in my latest visa registration. It was more to do with a communications blind spot.

A rather detailed email that leaves out the most important detail i.e. the next step!

After being granted a two-year M visa as an independent worker — a small bit of palanca (preferential treatment) from La Cancillería may have helped me in this (I deserved a break, it was my turn!) — the next step was to register this at Migración, a prerequisite in order to get an updated Colombian ID reflecting my new status. One has 15 working days from the issuance of the visa to do this.

The initial registration is made, unsurprisingly, online via Migración's Formula Único de Trámites (FUT), effectively a digital form for all procedures, you just select the appropriate one at the top of the page.

Once done successfully, a confirmation email is sent to the applicant containing the Código Único de Trámites (a registration number, basically) and a password to enter the system to check the progress of the application.

I emphasise the word check here because this is the case with the visa application, one which is fully online. With that, when you submit your documents and pay the study fee, it's a case of playing the waiting game for La Cancillería to reply. You can easily check your application's progress by entering the system; it tells you if it's been reviewed or not.

'I did try to explain to him that it would be quite helpful if this information was included in the confirmation email; my telepathy skills aren't what they once were.'

Thus, this can frame the mind when dealing with Migración, especially so when in the confirmation email for the online registration no other useful information is given other than the registration number and password. 

That is, it doesn't say that the applicant has to make the next move. (I showed the email to native Spanish speakers just in case I'd missed something, but no, I hadn't.)

You see, I had been expecting an additional email saying that my online application was reviewed or something to that effect.

After a couple of weeks of hearing nothing, I started to get a little anxious, bearing in mind the 15-working-day time limit.

As luck, of sorts, has it, I happen to have the email for a relatively high-up employee at Migración Colombia. So I messaged her about my concerns. She told me that I had to go to the Bogotá Migración office in person to complete the process.

While that wasn't/isn't a major inconvenience in its own right, previous experience since the pandemic has taught me that just rolling up to Migración without a prior appointment is a no-no.

And so it was. I went there and in the queue outside — there's always a queue outside — an official told me bluntly that I had to book an appointment online first.

I did try to explain to the man that it would be quite helpful if this information was included in the confirmation email; my telepathy skills aren't what they once were. He was having none of it. It would appear he suffers from the curse of knowledge — in this regard only. It's unlikely he's knowledgeable in much else.

Overcoming the oversight

Back home after that rather tetchy encounter with the official, I went to Migración's homepage. I couldn't make out where exactly I was meant to make the appointment, I just kept on being brought to the FUT page.

So, I did a Google search for 'agendar una cita Migración Colombia' ('book a Migración Colombia appointment') and the appropriate page came up.

Wrong Way's helpful suggestion has been officially registered. Will it be acted upon?

From there, booking was pretty easy. I got an appointment for the following morning. Do note, the confirmation email for this never arrived — and yes, I checked my spam folder. Luckily, I'd taken a screenshot of the appointment number. Had I failed to do so, I'm not sure how I would have got around that.

By my calculations, that morning I got into Migración to physically complete the registration was the 15th working day since my visa was issued, right on the deadline.

I informed the Migración official who registered my visa of this blind spot in their communications (she had asked why it had taken me so long to do it!).

To avoid unnecessary angst and potential heated exchanges with the Migración officials "guarding" the office entrance, all that's required is a simple line in that confirmation email: 'You now must book an appointment online via the following link in order to complete the process in person at a Migración office.' Something like that.

The Migración woman told me, amicably, to put such an observation in writing for the suggestion box. I did.

And just to give it further airing, I'm putting it here.

It might be a small thing, but it can lead to a far smoother process with fewer misunderstandings. We could all do with that in our lives.
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Listen to Wrong Way's Colombia Cast podcast here.

Facebook: Wrong Way Corrigan — The Blog & IQuiz "The Bogotá Pub Quiz".

Unattended bags on buses? Not a problem in Colombia

@wwaycorrigan

[Listen to an audio version of this blog entry here.]

A bus makes a ten-minute stop at a station. Passengers are allowed to alight to stretch their legs and get a refreshment if they so wish. One of those who does get off leaves his bag on his seat. He doesn't return. Cue security chaos.

Expreso Gómez Villa: All aboard the anything-goes bus! (Photo from horariodebuses.)

Well, in most countries, especially those with a history of terrorist attacks, a security incident would indeed be declared. Bomb disposal experts would most likely be called in and a controlled explosion carried out. Or at least something to that effect. It wouldn't be a case of 'carry on regardless'.

A costly coffee

Now, I know the Colombian state signed a peace agreement with one of its biggest internal threats, the Farc, back in 2016, but it would be stretching it somewhat to say the country today is a land of tranquillity.

So, that a bus could set off or resume its journey with an unclaimed bag on it seems rather lax.

This is what happened, at my expense, on a recent trip back to Bogotá from La Palma, Cundinamarca. The operator in question, the only one that runs this route from the capital, is Expreso Gómez Villa (aka Flota Rionegro). The temporary stop was in the town of Pacho.

The exact details are as follows:

The bus driver told me that we would be stopping for at least ten minutes. As Pacho was the final destination for some passengers on board and others were just getting on there, I left my bag on my seat to show it was taken. (This was a ticket-less journey for me, I'd simply paid the driver's assistant in cash when I got on in La Palma, a normal practice for such pick-up places. With that, there were no assigned seats as you tend to get on longer journeys.)

Knowing Pacho, right outside the terminal there's a panadería that actually makes — wait for it — fairly decent coffee! So I headed there, relaxed in the knowledge that ten minutes was more than enough time to get my brew (and also guesstimating, based on previous experiences at this very place, that it would most likely be a longer stop.)

'I didn't exactly blend in with the other, largely ruana-wearing, wrinkly-faced, dark-haired passengers.'

Returning to the terminal about eight minutes later — certainly no more than ten in any case — I got back on my bus. Only, as I quickly realised due to the lack of passengers and a puzzled-looking driver, it wasn't my bus. No. The one I'd arrived on had already left, so Conductor Gordo (think The Fat Controller from Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends), the driver of the bus I was now standing on in shock, informed me.

'What?! But I was gone for no more than ten minutes! My bag's on the other bus!'

Nonchalantly, Conductor Gordo reached for his mobile phone, called the driver of my bus and told him that he'd left a passenger behind.

He then whistled to a taxi driver and asked him to bring me to the now waiting bus a few kilometres outside Pacho, no more than a five-minute drive.

A blast of a time

Being left behind was one thing, but what added to my ire was that I had to pay the taxi driver 6,000 pesos — he was actually looking for 10,000 but we settled on six. That 6,000 pesos was one-fifth of the La Palma-Bogotá fare in total. I was less than pleased, to say the least.

Moreover, when I got on my bus, the driver and his assistant were like, 'Oh yeah, that's the guy.' So it seemed that they at least had an inkling that they'd left somebody behind.

And why shouldn't they have?! I was the only foreigner — gringo, if you dare — on the bus. What's more, I was wearing a luminous green Irish cricket top. Thus, I didn't exactly blend in with the other, largely ruana-wearing, wrinkly-faced, dark-haired passengers.

Of course, as is my wont, I did file a complaint with the company. With no actual ticket, I took a sneaky photo of the bus driver's assistant as well as the number plate. Unsurprisingly, I've got nowhere with that, "even" after elevating it to the government body responsible for transport regulation, Supertransporte.

It's true, I wasn't expecting to get any sort of positive result from my formal complaint. I did it out of principle more than anything else. And considering the convoluted process — I've seen this flick before — it didn't help to put my mind at ease.

My own frustrations aside, this episode doesn't fill one with much confidence in Colombia's ability to have the most basic of counter-terrorism measures in place, on buses in any case.

In mitigation, I am but an unthreatening foreigner. The Gómez Villa employees obviously knew that.
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Listen to Wrong Way's Colombia Cast podcast here.

Facebook: Wrong Way Corrigan — The Blog & IQuiz "The Bogotá Pub Quiz".

The Hypocrite World Cup: Everyone's a winner

@wwaycorrigan

[Listen to an audio version of this blog entry here.]

'Before you criticise somebody, walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you do criticise them, you'll be a mile away and you'll have their shoes.'

'We're all part of the same hypocrisy, but let's keep up the charade.' (Image from Behaviorist.)

Faultfinders

Yeah, it's an old one but many of today's holier-than-thou types could do with hearing it. Not that it would lead to any self-reflection, never mind a change in their ways. Such people, mostly found in the comfortable, influential classes of high-income nations, are quite convinced of their righteousness.

Rather than 'walk in one's shoes', what they often do is irately pursue — at a safe distance — those they criticise, making their targets' lives as difficult as possible whilst enjoying pleasures they wish to deny others.

Philanthropy is, however, at the heart of all this. Others simply don't know and are incapable of knowing what's good for them. So it's these superhumans to the rescue. We are forever in their debt.

Most of these say-rather-than-do-gooders are, as you may have guessed, nothing more than hypocrites. They publicly proclaim to be virtuous yet their private actions and way of life generally betray this. What they do have on their side, though, as a buffer to the many contradictions, are influence and power.

'Chinese suppression of protesters: an outrage. Canadian quashing of protesters: it's for the good of national security.'

When they defend freedom and liberty, it's on their terms only. Should they call for greater social control — vide pandemic lockdowns — it's for everyone else, not them.

They are experts at seeing the faults and flaws in foreign lands but are generally blind to them closer to home. See, for example, the likes of Jacinda Ardern and Justin Trudeau. 'Chinese suppression of protesters: an outrage. Canadian quashing of protesters: it's for the good of national security.'

Corrigible

So while Fifa President Gianni Infantino came in for much criticism and ridicule when he spoke about the double standards of many in the "democratic" West on the eve of the Qatar World Cup, he wasn't far wrong.

Getting lectures from Fifa on morals may seem a bit of a wild shot, so to put it, but the association is well-steeped in immorality, so it does have, in a way, detailed knowledge of the subject area.

Now, this isn't to say that we should all just ignore evil acts and immoral practices. No. It's a case of at least acknowledging our own knowledge gaps and shortcomings in the first instance. Finding the right tone is also important when speaking out.

It's very difficult to listen to, let alone actually act on, the words of those who try to come across as incorruptible, know-it-alls. The only incorruptible, faultless humans are those yet to be born.

So whether it be action on climate change, tackling a global pandemic, the Brexit fallout, Petro versus Uribe, left versus right — what have you — be wary of those pontificating that their way is the right way.

Popular support for somebody or something doesn't automatically confer infallibility. Safety in numbers and the madness — and badness — of crowds are but two sides of the same coin. Today's unquestionable truth is tomorrow's big lie.

Thus, we should all aim to be a little more corrigible (cautiously and questioningly, that is) and less incorrigible, if I do say so myself. In doing so, we might just find the other's shoes are a nice fit.
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Listen to Wrong Way's Colombia Cast podcast here.

Facebook: Wrong Way Corrigan — The Blog & IQuiz "The Bogotá Pub Quiz".

IQuiz "The Bogotá Pub Quiz", edition LIX: Give it a go!

@wwaycorrigan

Our latest IQuiz "The Bogotá Pub Quiz", edition LIX (59, in case Roman numerals aren't your thing!) is now available to play at your own leisure on YouTube. Check it out at https://youtu.be/ik53imrAocg. 

IQuiz LIX.

The live event took place on 01 December, important to note for the on-this-day questions. By the way, the winning team on the night, the appropriately named We Drink, Therefore We Are, got an impressive 43 points out of the 50 available. Well done, guys!

Give it a go and let us know how you get on!

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Listen to Wrong Way's Colombia Cast podcast here.

Facebook: Wrong Way Corrigan — The Blog & IQuiz "The Bogotá Pub Quiz".