Double Pleasure and More!

Thursday 7th of June

There is nothing as invigorating as when making significant telephone calls.

You can be anywhere; be wearing anything (or nothing); look bored or fascinated; can be eating, drinking or fantasising; be reading impressive files or consulting the back of an envelope; be moving vast sums of money or ensuring your philatelic bureau first day covers get to Spain – whoops! Bit too much detail on that last one; verisimilitude always has a habit of creeping up on you and, as it was, biting you in the arse.

Today was the sort of day when, to be perfect, you should have a little list of easily ticked off tasks to complete. There is something altogether satisfying in obliterating, relentlessly, one easily fulfilled objective after another. It is especially satisfying when a disinterested observer suggests other easily completed struggles that can be dismissed with a minimum of effort. In a time period of less than an hour I managed (what an achievement!) to inform the Cardiff City Council, Amnesty International, the NUT, Tesco, Sainsbury, SWALEC, Welsh Water, the Co-Operative Bank and Uncle Tom Cobley and, indeed, all.

Thank God that Paul Squared was there to provide the disciplined incentive through directed invective that a naturally indolent sybarite needs in order to do those things that are inimical to his character. I suppose that the ‘Virtual Parent’ approach to recalcitrant sluggards is the only thing that I understand!

The mail has been redirected and the interim period between the activation of the period of redirection has been covered by the sorting office keeping my mail until I call for it. The necessity of having some strategy which excludes the present recipients of my erstwhile communications should have been obvious from the preceding posts. I would be more relaxed if I could be certain that any stray letters were destined for certain destruction, but, in this vale of tears, we can be certain of nothing!

With a funeral looming, my lack of clothing is becoming something of a liability. My hurried packing of my case meant that I now have certain items of clothing, but not enough items to make, as it were, a full assemblage which will convince a congregation. Though there is a certain style to turning up to a funeral dressed in shorts and a seersucker shirt with white socks and Velcro fastened, distressed sports shoes – I choose not to do so. I have to admit that Tuesday (the day of funeral) is looming ever closer and all I have acquired are two leather belts and a nondescript pair of trousers; I still have to find a convincing alternative to the seersucker shirt!

I refuse to be sad at this funeral: Ray was not a person who would have wanted anyone to be sad, unless of course he could have worked some sort of carnal satisfaction from the vulnerability of sorrow! What a man he was: overblown, oversexed, and overall a Good Thing. For him I am prepared even to undergo the Rags of Popery ritual of a Requiem Mass! A good man, a phrase often in his mouth, as indeed were various other things of which we must needs be silent! For Ray the injunction to rest in peace doesn’t seem to have been in his repertoire while alive, so I can only wish him enjoyable unrest in the afterlife and a virile stream of ‘gentleman callers’ – and never were inverted commas more necessary!

Tomorrow, the search for clothes continues – otherwise questions about how I dress will not be answered with a simple direction.

A suite, a suite, my money for a suite!Ignore the actual date - go by the date on the page!

TUESDAY 5TH JUNE

Two days for the price of one!

'The Prince' is a book much cited but rarely read. Those who emulate the eponymous ‘hero’ and imagine themselves to be the personification of the popularly recognised Machiavellian tendencies of the heir apparent to the seat of power rarely have the requisite qualities to justify their fond belief that they, and they alone have the power to dissimulate with panache and easy superiority.

I am careful not to link my opening comments to any actual persons, but I have experienced a woeful example of the shallow mendacity that some lewd fellows take for cleverness. Playing both ends against the middle asks the putative manipulator to show guile and cunning, and, above all to ensure that the ‘ends’ don’t meet and have a cosy conference, whose compelling topic is the manipulator himself.

God knows I count myself as (when the occasion demands) a mean hand at hypocrisy, but I am but an amateur when I compare myself with someone who can profess unending bonhomie to your face and then rant a forceful diatribe of vitriolic condemnation down the safe end of a telephone to a third party.

A meeting of the alpha and the omega of house purchase and selling, with a furious mediator vouchsafing extra shocking information produced a remarkably unanimous group whose ringing condemnation of the hapless perpetrator of mendacity would have penetrated even his brazen carapace of effrontery.

Clearing a house preparatory to selling is a mind crampingly stress exacerbatingly horrendous experience. What to keep? What to sell? What the hell? All normal approaches to material things become problematic. The cost of an article is in direct inverse proportion to its portability; its utility is of minor importance.

In all house clearances there is a ‘tipping point’ where a rational approach to the value of things suddenly is replaced by a complete exasperation with everything that you can handle and the only reasonable solution is found within the commodiously accepting maw of a skip. “Put in everything!” you scream, ignoring the effort and expense you went to in order to acquire the objects under consideration. There is something invigoratingly clean about throwing something away. Through to a dedicated shopper like me ‘discard’ is only a step away from ‘acquire.’

The best thing about today (ignoring the physical discomfort, the intermittent mendacity and simple gnawing hunger) was . . . well, thinking about it, there were a few good points.

Pickfords were, as usual, professional and excellent, showing once and for all that packing is a true art. The wrapping of the television in international quality smooth sided bubble wrap demonstrated a mastery of technique which was breathtaking.

Paul Squared was a tower of help and was directed and workmanlike when I was pacing about in an agony of something rapidly approaching panic and despair.

We have moved into a flat in Altolusso which has severely limited view from the mighty heights of the third floor, giving detailed views of various railway lines. The iconic building, on the site of New College, now serves a useful purpose (who knows what the teaching was like) as train drivers know that as soon as they draw parallel with the pile of overpriced dwellings they need to apply the brakes; brakes which screech with the fury of frustrated incarcerated commuters expressed courtesy of a class conscious class war warrior.

Another highlight was going to Porto’s restaurant for a gargantuan sea food platter. I preceded it with dressed crab on the grounds that it was not included in the platter! A bottle of oddly tasty rosé wine complemented the meal perfectly. Although Toni would have preferred the fish grilled rather than served in a sauce, I think we can count the meal a success.

So, all in all, a more than satisfactory day which takes me a major step nearer to a life in Catalonia. I speak as a homeless orphan looking for security or at least the sun.

The internet connection is proving to be something less than satisfactory so tomorrow will see me wending my (pedestrian) way as a dedicated city centre resident to Vodafone for elucidation of my internet denial.

I hope the assistant speak down to me - I might understand the technological double speak then!

Pity me.

WEDNESDAY 6TH JUNE

It is gratifying to see that a notorious money launderer like Toni finds it so difficult to take his hard earned money back to Spain!

We spent over three quarters of an hour arranging for Toni’s pounds to be sent to his mother’s account so he can open a bank account in Spain when he returns.

The bank account that he did have was summarily terminated when he did not use the account for six months. There was, apparently money in the account, but that did not stop it being closed with no reference to Toni!

Banking is such a caring system!

Talking of caring, our exit from the bank was enlivened by yet another phone call from a bemused estate agent who was acting on behalf of my estate agent. The details of the call are not the important aspect: the illustration it provided of the shameless nature of some people who are prepared to rewrite history to their own advantage was, however, startling.

In spite of my ostensible carapace of cynicism, I realise that (at heart) I am an eternal optimist. I always believe that people are (at heart) reasonable. I clutch at shards of decency in otherwise contemptible folk, devoutly believing that these fragments show the hidden character. Alas, too often the shards merely cut rather than indicating something of worth.

Today another mask fell from a pleasantly engaging face and the hard lines of conceited self interest glinted in the sunlight indicating, yet again, that my positive take on humankind is more self delusion than sympathy.

It is one of the great wonders of Wales that a pint of SA and a mediocre lasagne can restore good humour and a more genial outlook on our sadly corrupt world.

I realise that the comments above make it seem as if I had undergone a life shatteringly negative experience – and that is not strictly (or laxly) true, but it does knock misplaced faith in ones fellow creatures. But, as the old saying goes, the money is in the bank! And, although money cannot buy happiness, in sufficient quantities it certainly lays the foundations for uneasy content – and that is as much as we should expect!

Living in a flat (though I’m sure that the builders of Altolusso would want us to call them apartments) has brought back some of the advantages and irritations of single storey living.

There is nothing more limiting on any tendency to overspend than the realisation that all the bags have to be taken from the car to the flat – across the parking area; using the electronic fob to opening the access door; calling the lift; entering the lift; pressing the floor button; exiting the lift; opening the corridor door which opens outward; getting through; opening the flat door; putting the stuff away. You’ll only want to make one trip. And your hand and fingers return to normal after a few hours: the ridges of compressed flesh gouged into your hands by the cruel knife of compressed plastic handles of carrier bags are not, I’m told, permanent.

The proximity to the railway line is an important factor in living in these benighted rooms. The railway noise is a relentlessly omnipresent irritation, though I think I would probably get used to finding that parts of radio programmes etc are simply lost by the noise of the passing traffic. Perhaps it’s all good training for the omnipresent plane noise in Castelldefels!

See, it’s me being optimistic again.

Bless!