Fiat lux!
At long last, having exhausted all likely shops in Castelldefels, Stiges came up semi trumps and has provided me with a replacement bulb so the top part of the Christmas tree can shine out like the rest of the of the synthetic vegetation.
Ironically, while the replacement bulb brought life to the rest of the links, it didn’t actually light itself. I can’t help feeling that there is a meaningful metaphor lurking around somewhere, but it is far too near to Christmas to be worrying about things like that.
Talking of the Yule I managed to be too tardy to get a ticket for El Gordo – the Fat One, the largest lottery in the world. Ironically again, many winners came from Barcelona. I must not think about such things or that winning anything in euros would now be equivalent to a 30% increase in the money compared with the pound!
To compensate for missing El Gordo I have bought a ticket for El Niño (The Child) another whopping lottery to be drawn in January during Los Reyes (The Kings). In a gesture which even I regard as cynically blasphemous I have placed the ticket under the crib in my Belen or Nativity Scene. I like to feel that I thereby combine a pagan belief in luck with a positively Roman belief in the intercessionary quality of iconic artefacts!
I have had my Silhouette™ (frameless and light as a feather!) glasses returned with a new arm put in and over fifty quid taken out of my account. Getting a replacement bulb in a shop nearby is not really compensation enough for paying so much for something which is virtually not there! I content myself with being able to retire the clunky replacements that I have been wearing and allow my soft weeping to have a soothing effect. That and a cup of tea. You can take the man out of Britain but you cannot take the tea out of the man – as Bertrand Russell might have said.
Castelldefels still remains sunk in unnatural gloom in the evenings as no further festive lights have appeared in our part. The centre of town has at least some attempt at illumination but our bit by the sea is only lit up by the lights from restaurants, shops and the enthusiasm of an occasional hotel owner. I assume that all available funds are being expended on the new promenade which is being constructed piecemeal on the beach. The municipality has adopted the same technique which built the Great Wall of China and has laid down odd stretches of the slab pathway which will eventually be joined up to form a continuous promenade from Castelldefels to Gava.
As the project continues it is interesting to speculate on what the finished result is going to be. At the moment it is only possible to make guesses about the finishing touches like edging and lighting. Every so often, rather like the interruption caused by the towers you get on the great wall, we have intersection points on the promenade which lead to the road parallel to the beach. These areas have been marked out by the sudden planting of half a dozen severely repressed palm trees set in a lake or concrete.
Whatever obstacles are placed in their way, pedestrians have claimed the quarter build promenade for their own and, as is the way with Mediterranean people, have begun to promenade as if their national identity depended upon it. People watching is a characteristic compulsion in this part of the world and it is therefore only fair that if you are not watching you should be providing the raw material for the watchers – and walk to be seen.
I assume (though on what evidence ask me not!) that the promenade will be ready for the influx of tourists in the spring and summer. It will be fascinating to sit out on the balcony with the ever present glass of Rioja and consider the changes to the dynamic of the beach which will be caused by this new source of access. Already the beach hawkers are using this new super highway to facilitate their saturation selling – and I imagine that it will also give them a quicker way of getting to another part of the beach away from the prying eyes of our two (count them) police persons who emerge from the bars of winter to take the sun in the season!
At long last, having exhausted all likely shops in Castelldefels, Stiges came up semi trumps and has provided me with a replacement bulb so the top part of the Christmas tree can shine out like the rest of the of the synthetic vegetation.
Ironically, while the replacement bulb brought life to the rest of the links, it didn’t actually light itself. I can’t help feeling that there is a meaningful metaphor lurking around somewhere, but it is far too near to Christmas to be worrying about things like that.
Talking of the Yule I managed to be too tardy to get a ticket for El Gordo – the Fat One, the largest lottery in the world. Ironically again, many winners came from Barcelona. I must not think about such things or that winning anything in euros would now be equivalent to a 30% increase in the money compared with the pound!
To compensate for missing El Gordo I have bought a ticket for El Niño (The Child) another whopping lottery to be drawn in January during Los Reyes (The Kings). In a gesture which even I regard as cynically blasphemous I have placed the ticket under the crib in my Belen or Nativity Scene. I like to feel that I thereby combine a pagan belief in luck with a positively Roman belief in the intercessionary quality of iconic artefacts!
I have had my Silhouette™ (frameless and light as a feather!) glasses returned with a new arm put in and over fifty quid taken out of my account. Getting a replacement bulb in a shop nearby is not really compensation enough for paying so much for something which is virtually not there! I content myself with being able to retire the clunky replacements that I have been wearing and allow my soft weeping to have a soothing effect. That and a cup of tea. You can take the man out of Britain but you cannot take the tea out of the man – as Bertrand Russell might have said.
Castelldefels still remains sunk in unnatural gloom in the evenings as no further festive lights have appeared in our part. The centre of town has at least some attempt at illumination but our bit by the sea is only lit up by the lights from restaurants, shops and the enthusiasm of an occasional hotel owner. I assume that all available funds are being expended on the new promenade which is being constructed piecemeal on the beach. The municipality has adopted the same technique which built the Great Wall of China and has laid down odd stretches of the slab pathway which will eventually be joined up to form a continuous promenade from Castelldefels to Gava.
As the project continues it is interesting to speculate on what the finished result is going to be. At the moment it is only possible to make guesses about the finishing touches like edging and lighting. Every so often, rather like the interruption caused by the towers you get on the great wall, we have intersection points on the promenade which lead to the road parallel to the beach. These areas have been marked out by the sudden planting of half a dozen severely repressed palm trees set in a lake or concrete.
Whatever obstacles are placed in their way, pedestrians have claimed the quarter build promenade for their own and, as is the way with Mediterranean people, have begun to promenade as if their national identity depended upon it. People watching is a characteristic compulsion in this part of the world and it is therefore only fair that if you are not watching you should be providing the raw material for the watchers – and walk to be seen.
I assume (though on what evidence ask me not!) that the promenade will be ready for the influx of tourists in the spring and summer. It will be fascinating to sit out on the balcony with the ever present glass of Rioja and consider the changes to the dynamic of the beach which will be caused by this new source of access. Already the beach hawkers are using this new super highway to facilitate their saturation selling – and I imagine that it will also give them a quicker way of getting to another part of the beach away from the prying eyes of our two (count them) police persons who emerge from the bars of winter to take the sun in the season!
I will perhaps hire out part of my balcony to desperate sociologists eager to amass new material for a thesis on ‘Promenade Production and Social Dispersion on the Littoral’ which, having thought about it for a few seconds, I would indeed read!
Apart from Faulkner, what wouldn’t I read?
Apart from Faulkner, what wouldn’t I read?
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