Christmas is a time for counting the cost.
I don’t mean in purely mercenary terms in the sort of ‘double entry’ accounting that some people adopt at this time of Christian cheer, as presents are weighed in the balance with what you have given and found wanting. Either way is an embarrassment. No, what I am talking about is the appropriateness of the gifts.
A disturbing number of people gave me booze – though let me assure all of my generous givers that every precious drop is dear to me and will be savoured with absolute relish. I suppose that it is easier to give a bottle of something than double guess what my voracious reading will have left for the unwary buyer to choose.
I would like to concentrate on two. The first is a pair of wi-fi headphones which allow me to wander through the flat and out onto the balcony cosily protected from the foreign environment by the domestic comfort of Radio 4 where ere I go. It gives me pleasure and allows me to forget doctor’s appointments as a sink deeper and deeper into the afternoon play. The headphones also allow me to peregrinate with the appropriate volume of a Bruckner symphony playing inside my head. To those who opine that this could also be done with an ipod I would reply that there is a distinct difference in the quality of sound and for meaty orchestral works the expansiveness of ear covering phones and somehow more appropriate than a small insert in the ear!
The second present was not one that I was given for Christmas but one on my Name Day, the Day of my Saint which is, of course, today! Catalonia takes such things with a great deal more seriousness than we do in the protestant north.
Some presents have that ‘I wouldn’t have thought of it for myself but now that you’ve given it to me it is just right’ quality. This was one of those.
The festively wrapped box that I was handed was too flat to contain a 75cl bottle of anything and when I held it I found it to be too heavy to contain a book. There were ‘bits’ I could feel bumping around, but they did not have the quality of miniature bottles of anything and they certainly were not chocolates.
It was therefore with a certain amount of interested trepidation (as I was unwrapping this in the face of the whole family) that I started ripping the paper away.
It was a chess set.
Not on the face of it something to raise more than a polite 'thank you.' Bear in mind that in the fairly recent past I have been humiliated at this game by eight year olds. It wasn’t the game that provoked my unstinted expressions of gratitude it was rather the figures themselves.
They were all modelled on The Simpsons™
It only seems fair to include the ™ mark as sign of my breathless admiration for the ruthless marketing campaign which has seen this yellow family appear on everything that has a space large enough for the logo and the reproduction of a member of the family. The figures are lovingly crafted from machine moulded plastic but the set is worth it for seeing Marge and Homer and Queen and King. Bart as the Bishop and Lisa as the Castle provoke metaphorical speculation which is as satisfying as it is futile. The whole set is a delight and I even won my first game!
For the first time in three years I was well enough to eat my Christmas meal. The last two years have been sorry stories of wasted culinary opportunities while I lay languishing on a figurative bed of pain. It was actually a bed of oblivion as I waited for the obnoxious bugs to begone. It is now obvious that I have met and assimilated the germs that are native to the region and they now accept me as one of their own.
The restaurant meal was, needless to say, delicious – though it did pass through my mind that the thirty five quid that I would have paid for the meal in the old days when one euro was worth 70p had now risen to a more substantial fifty quid. The parity of euro and pound sterling is a financial disaster for those of us who have all their savings locked in a worthless currency in the Old Country! I know that what I should be doing is taking a deep breath and be telling myself to think of the long term.
Unfortunately the short term is here and now and the juggernaut of expense goes on rolling. The only thing that I resent is that the grease for the wheels of that massive cart are not being oiled by the crushed bodies of the wastrel bankers who precipitated the crisis!
There is one more opera left before the end of the year and so I am going to take every opportunity to listen again to the work so that I can take a more appreciative approach when I sit in my expensive seat working out just how much each minute of my entertainment is costing with the currency parity.
It will give extra spice to my critique!
I don’t mean in purely mercenary terms in the sort of ‘double entry’ accounting that some people adopt at this time of Christian cheer, as presents are weighed in the balance with what you have given and found wanting. Either way is an embarrassment. No, what I am talking about is the appropriateness of the gifts.
A disturbing number of people gave me booze – though let me assure all of my generous givers that every precious drop is dear to me and will be savoured with absolute relish. I suppose that it is easier to give a bottle of something than double guess what my voracious reading will have left for the unwary buyer to choose.
I would like to concentrate on two. The first is a pair of wi-fi headphones which allow me to wander through the flat and out onto the balcony cosily protected from the foreign environment by the domestic comfort of Radio 4 where ere I go. It gives me pleasure and allows me to forget doctor’s appointments as a sink deeper and deeper into the afternoon play. The headphones also allow me to peregrinate with the appropriate volume of a Bruckner symphony playing inside my head. To those who opine that this could also be done with an ipod I would reply that there is a distinct difference in the quality of sound and for meaty orchestral works the expansiveness of ear covering phones and somehow more appropriate than a small insert in the ear!
The second present was not one that I was given for Christmas but one on my Name Day, the Day of my Saint which is, of course, today! Catalonia takes such things with a great deal more seriousness than we do in the protestant north.
Some presents have that ‘I wouldn’t have thought of it for myself but now that you’ve given it to me it is just right’ quality. This was one of those.
The festively wrapped box that I was handed was too flat to contain a 75cl bottle of anything and when I held it I found it to be too heavy to contain a book. There were ‘bits’ I could feel bumping around, but they did not have the quality of miniature bottles of anything and they certainly were not chocolates.
It was therefore with a certain amount of interested trepidation (as I was unwrapping this in the face of the whole family) that I started ripping the paper away.
It was a chess set.
Not on the face of it something to raise more than a polite 'thank you.' Bear in mind that in the fairly recent past I have been humiliated at this game by eight year olds. It wasn’t the game that provoked my unstinted expressions of gratitude it was rather the figures themselves.
They were all modelled on The Simpsons™
It only seems fair to include the ™ mark as sign of my breathless admiration for the ruthless marketing campaign which has seen this yellow family appear on everything that has a space large enough for the logo and the reproduction of a member of the family. The figures are lovingly crafted from machine moulded plastic but the set is worth it for seeing Marge and Homer and Queen and King. Bart as the Bishop and Lisa as the Castle provoke metaphorical speculation which is as satisfying as it is futile. The whole set is a delight and I even won my first game!For the first time in three years I was well enough to eat my Christmas meal. The last two years have been sorry stories of wasted culinary opportunities while I lay languishing on a figurative bed of pain. It was actually a bed of oblivion as I waited for the obnoxious bugs to begone. It is now obvious that I have met and assimilated the germs that are native to the region and they now accept me as one of their own.
The restaurant meal was, needless to say, delicious – though it did pass through my mind that the thirty five quid that I would have paid for the meal in the old days when one euro was worth 70p had now risen to a more substantial fifty quid. The parity of euro and pound sterling is a financial disaster for those of us who have all their savings locked in a worthless currency in the Old Country! I know that what I should be doing is taking a deep breath and be telling myself to think of the long term.
Unfortunately the short term is here and now and the juggernaut of expense goes on rolling. The only thing that I resent is that the grease for the wheels of that massive cart are not being oiled by the crushed bodies of the wastrel bankers who precipitated the crisis!
There is one more opera left before the end of the year and so I am going to take every opportunity to listen again to the work so that I can take a more appreciative approach when I sit in my expensive seat working out just how much each minute of my entertainment is costing with the currency parity.
It will give extra spice to my critique!
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