Hell is other people.
How true Sartre's words are when you live in a flat.
We have been spoilt by our rich neighbours who are able to own a highly expensive residence by the sea and only use it for a few weeks during high days and holidays. The end result is that our neighbours to the right and left are generally absent. Below is generally quiet and above, apart from some forays in high heels on tile floors is generally quiet too.
It was something approaching total horror that I realised by various grinding sounds that our neighbours on the right had turned up. With family and dogs. In spite of the inclement weather they have packed the balcony which is at right angles to our own with their cigarette smoke and conversation.
That last word has a different meaning in Catalonia than it does in Britain. Discussion programmes on what is laughingly called Spanish Television consist of a group of people all speaking at once at gradually increasing volumes to capture the conversation. This technique is transferred to the home and balcony in what I take to be a gesture of general inclusion – because you sure as hell cannot escape the continuous noise of a family happily shouting together and pretending it is conversation. When you add yappy little rat dogs to the mix the sonic melange is something which makes you wish for a soothing flame thrower.
In an effort to combat the campaign of intrusive conversation from my garrulous neighbours I have started to paint a landscape, put the ipod player on loud and even lowered the metal shutters on the French windows – and still their piercing voices intrude through what W H Auden called ‘the frontier to my person.’
Ah for my dear departed neighbour in Rumney the only sound of whose existence was the rumble of Heavy Metal Music briefly once every two or three years! How different from the home life of flat dwellers in sea side Catalonia.
Having had my little rant, they have now retreated into their flat and left me in relative silence. I will even raise the shutters and snatch the last few minutes of the evening sunset and watch the eerie effect of low flying aircrafts’ searchlights catch the underside of the clouds. And have a cup of tea to settle my chatter torn nerves.
After living in a house, even if it is a semi, it is difficult to get readjusted to the flexibility that has to exist when you live in a flat. In objective terms I know that I am relatively lucky in that some of the flats are so rarely used. But we only children must be allowed our personal space selfishness – and anyway the view of the sea more than compensates for the human bustle of fellow dwellers.
The Daisy Ashford book of ‘The Young Visiters’ having been chuckled through courtesy of http://manybooks.net/authors.php a site I recommend for similarly mean e-book readers as containing a positive cornucopia of books for free download. There are lots of them there, but not always the ones you want.
For example, I had decided that I would like to re-read two books by Ruskin: ‘The Seven Lamps of Architecture’ and ‘Unto This Last’ – both are well out of copyright and I would have thought readily available for free download. Wrong. Although there is an impressive selection of Ruskin’s works available on the site, it only scratches the surface of the quantity of books and monographs that Ruskin churned out in his extremely productive career. So it turns out that while free site will offer you seeming riches, the actual nuggets of gold are often frustratingly out of reach. I am sure that a more confident and competent user of the internet than I will aver that the books I need are out there, and for nothing, it’s just that I haven’t framed my enquiry in the most effective way.
I shall take that as a challenge and I hereby vow to find the two elusive Ruskin volumes somewhere in the computers of the English speaking world. And for nothing.
Meanwhile, what I am actually reading at the moment is some distance away from the social and artistic philosophy of Ruskin. I am reading (with pleasure I might add) ‘The Chessmen of Mars’ by Edgar Rice Burroughs – the author better known for his ‘Tarzan’ books.
These books are either camp and irresistible or gauche and contemptible – or, more likely, all of those at the same time! It has incomparable passages like,
“Yes, Tara of Helium, the come,” replied the slave. “I have seen Kantos Kan, Overlord of the Navy, and Prince Soran of Ptarth, and Djor Kantos, son of Kantos Kan,” she shot a roguish glance at her mistress as she mentioned Djor Kantos’ name.
The inhabitants of Mars are indeed red skinned (apart from the baddies who are green) and their muscular and beautiful bodies “otherwise naked trapped with a jewel-encrusted harness’ seem to cater to a popular need for low level porn!
The language is faux archaic littered with phrases like, “while thus profitably employed’ and ‘thus always is royalty announced’ and ‘thus it is’ and so on. Personally I find it delightful and am totally enchanted by obtrusive narrative devices which give exotic information like, “Your ancient history has doubtless told that that Gathol was built upon an island in Throxeus, mightiest of the five oceans of old Barsoom.” This is pulp fiction at its best!
But not quite enthralling enough to drive into silence other people’s noise!
Tomorrow a time to reassess the financial implications of the fall of the pound and an essential trip to the most hated bank in Europe: BBVA.
Needs must when the Devil drives!
How true Sartre's words are when you live in a flat.
We have been spoilt by our rich neighbours who are able to own a highly expensive residence by the sea and only use it for a few weeks during high days and holidays. The end result is that our neighbours to the right and left are generally absent. Below is generally quiet and above, apart from some forays in high heels on tile floors is generally quiet too.
It was something approaching total horror that I realised by various grinding sounds that our neighbours on the right had turned up. With family and dogs. In spite of the inclement weather they have packed the balcony which is at right angles to our own with their cigarette smoke and conversation.
That last word has a different meaning in Catalonia than it does in Britain. Discussion programmes on what is laughingly called Spanish Television consist of a group of people all speaking at once at gradually increasing volumes to capture the conversation. This technique is transferred to the home and balcony in what I take to be a gesture of general inclusion – because you sure as hell cannot escape the continuous noise of a family happily shouting together and pretending it is conversation. When you add yappy little rat dogs to the mix the sonic melange is something which makes you wish for a soothing flame thrower.
In an effort to combat the campaign of intrusive conversation from my garrulous neighbours I have started to paint a landscape, put the ipod player on loud and even lowered the metal shutters on the French windows – and still their piercing voices intrude through what W H Auden called ‘the frontier to my person.’
Ah for my dear departed neighbour in Rumney the only sound of whose existence was the rumble of Heavy Metal Music briefly once every two or three years! How different from the home life of flat dwellers in sea side Catalonia.
Having had my little rant, they have now retreated into their flat and left me in relative silence. I will even raise the shutters and snatch the last few minutes of the evening sunset and watch the eerie effect of low flying aircrafts’ searchlights catch the underside of the clouds. And have a cup of tea to settle my chatter torn nerves.
After living in a house, even if it is a semi, it is difficult to get readjusted to the flexibility that has to exist when you live in a flat. In objective terms I know that I am relatively lucky in that some of the flats are so rarely used. But we only children must be allowed our personal space selfishness – and anyway the view of the sea more than compensates for the human bustle of fellow dwellers.
The Daisy Ashford book of ‘The Young Visiters’ having been chuckled through courtesy of http://manybooks.net/authors.php a site I recommend for similarly mean e-book readers as containing a positive cornucopia of books for free download. There are lots of them there, but not always the ones you want.
For example, I had decided that I would like to re-read two books by Ruskin: ‘The Seven Lamps of Architecture’ and ‘Unto This Last’ – both are well out of copyright and I would have thought readily available for free download. Wrong. Although there is an impressive selection of Ruskin’s works available on the site, it only scratches the surface of the quantity of books and monographs that Ruskin churned out in his extremely productive career. So it turns out that while free site will offer you seeming riches, the actual nuggets of gold are often frustratingly out of reach. I am sure that a more confident and competent user of the internet than I will aver that the books I need are out there, and for nothing, it’s just that I haven’t framed my enquiry in the most effective way.
I shall take that as a challenge and I hereby vow to find the two elusive Ruskin volumes somewhere in the computers of the English speaking world. And for nothing.
Meanwhile, what I am actually reading at the moment is some distance away from the social and artistic philosophy of Ruskin. I am reading (with pleasure I might add) ‘The Chessmen of Mars’ by Edgar Rice Burroughs – the author better known for his ‘Tarzan’ books.
These books are either camp and irresistible or gauche and contemptible – or, more likely, all of those at the same time! It has incomparable passages like,
“Yes, Tara of Helium, the come,” replied the slave. “I have seen Kantos Kan, Overlord of the Navy, and Prince Soran of Ptarth, and Djor Kantos, son of Kantos Kan,” she shot a roguish glance at her mistress as she mentioned Djor Kantos’ name.
The inhabitants of Mars are indeed red skinned (apart from the baddies who are green) and their muscular and beautiful bodies “otherwise naked trapped with a jewel-encrusted harness’ seem to cater to a popular need for low level porn!
The language is faux archaic littered with phrases like, “while thus profitably employed’ and ‘thus always is royalty announced’ and ‘thus it is’ and so on. Personally I find it delightful and am totally enchanted by obtrusive narrative devices which give exotic information like, “Your ancient history has doubtless told that that Gathol was built upon an island in Throxeus, mightiest of the five oceans of old Barsoom.” This is pulp fiction at its best!
But not quite enthralling enough to drive into silence other people’s noise!
Tomorrow a time to reassess the financial implications of the fall of the pound and an essential trip to the most hated bank in Europe: BBVA.
Needs must when the Devil drives!
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