Wednesday 12th May 2010
There are few things more depressing than to get into your car just before the start of another day of toil and not to be able to see out of the passenger side window because of the gastric effusions of various forms of winged open sewers.
Not only was the window plastered, but also the side of the car. This was unpleasant enough but I don’t know what precisely it is, but something in the diet of these foul fowls ensures that their dense droppings combine the qualities of quick drying cement and instant glue.
The monstrous amount of effluent was not touched by the effete wet-wipe with which I tried to clear the daylight stopping mess from the window. I had to resort to a heavy duty abrasive wheel cleaning ‘glove’ to try and get rid of it. Even a ‘glove’ guaranteed to get rid of ingrained dirt and grease from filthy wheels was inadequate in coping with the chunky filth. I had to use neat window cleaner and even then it resisted.
This is no way to start a day – though as if to compensate the usual Monza ride along the freaked out motorways was a little more sedate today and it was only at the last underpass that the usual traffic jams claimed my patience!
Admittedly the confluence of traffic at the roundabout was even more extraordinary than usual but these are the minor horrors that we have as part of our normal existence in getting to this place.
Thursday 13th May 2010
The trip up to Terrassa for Toni’s mum’s birthday celebrations was on clear motorways. Their very clarity emphasized just how horrific they could have been with the slightest disruption. I think that when you are an experienced driver you become depressingly fatalistic and see every road as a possible route to heart failure brought on by galloping frustration. It is sometimes just as stressful to go along a clear road as it is to be caught in a traffic jam: the active mind creates scenarios as you go and you shudder with a sense of prescience as you imagine what could (and is) going to be!
As soon as I reached the flat it started raining which soon developed into healthily sized hail. And I had left my umbrella in the car.
The birthday was the “and this is my bus pass” sort of occasion and the said pass was duly looked at and commented on. The photograph showed a somewhat startled mother as the information that a photograph was necessary for the production of the pass was almost immediately followed by a flash for the said image!
Toni has now returned and brought with him his birthday present of a Wii console. My greatest score in the basketball game (in which two year olds score comfortably towards double figures) was 1. This was an infinite improvement on my first attempt! I was told that the flick of my wrist was not expressive enough! I foresee hours of misery ahead as I try to emulate the gaming achievement of people a fraction of my age!
Kerem, my Turkish friend from my first visit to Turkey a considerable number of years ago, is about to visit Barcelona and I am looking forward to seeing him again. The last time we met was when he brought his wife (now history) to see me in Cardiff! A long time ago indeed!
I have recently undergone a Saint Anthony type temptation. I don’t think that we are told the exact type or form of temptation that the Saint had to undergo but painters through the ages have taken it to be an excuse for the painting of scantily clad ladies frolicking in the near vicinity of the stoical Saint who in most paintings is studiously ignoring their lascivious looks. Being made of much sterner stuff than your average lion loving desert haunting saint, I might, in similar circumstances, be able to turn aside from glistening bodies of writhing flesh, but might be unable to resist glistening bodies cast in the guise of gadgets!
Amazon, which keeps sending me e-mails in the manner of a modern day tempter spreading the riches of the world at my feet, has caught on to the fact that I have “a bit of a thing” with watches and cameras (not to mention computers) and it regularly deluges me with blandishments which include suggestive photographs of various type of machines all presented in alluring colour and with “one click ordering” only one convulsive movement away from being mine!
The latest sinful offering was a Canon camera with a large optical zoom and a more domestic price. I cannot, under any circumstances that I can reasonably bring to mind, justify buying another camera. I already have one or two (and possibly more) which quite adequately almost fill my needs. A bigger zoom would be indulgence of the purest form.
In a desperate attempt to limit my pointless expenditure I searched on the internet for information about the camera. The more information I acquired the more delightfully necessary it seemed to have it in my possession.
Then, suddenly, I noted a small discrepancy. I had been looking at the Canon SX200 but the reviews I was looking at were of the SX200SI. Further exploration showed that what Amazon was offering was an older model and that it had been superseded by the SX2010 which offered a greater zoom and more pixels. There was also the fact of a cashback offer from Canon of £30 which would bring it to within . . .
And the crisis passed.
Why is it that a desirable object with “must have” written all over it suddenly becomes tawdry and offensive when another and better product at only a little more suddenly hoves into view? And why do you not buy the better product? Because, suddenly, I want neither. Calm and financial sanity has been restored.
I have to admit that I thoroughly enjoyed not buying a new camera – probably got more pleasure (in the short term) than I would have managed to obtain from owning the actual object. Possibly.
The hail of yesterday in Terrassa has progressed today into sunny intervals with light rain and occasional cloud. The showers appear to be localized and if we have rain, it is warm rain at least!
There are few things more depressing than to get into your car just before the start of another day of toil and not to be able to see out of the passenger side window because of the gastric effusions of various forms of winged open sewers.
Not only was the window plastered, but also the side of the car. This was unpleasant enough but I don’t know what precisely it is, but something in the diet of these foul fowls ensures that their dense droppings combine the qualities of quick drying cement and instant glue.
The monstrous amount of effluent was not touched by the effete wet-wipe with which I tried to clear the daylight stopping mess from the window. I had to resort to a heavy duty abrasive wheel cleaning ‘glove’ to try and get rid of it. Even a ‘glove’ guaranteed to get rid of ingrained dirt and grease from filthy wheels was inadequate in coping with the chunky filth. I had to use neat window cleaner and even then it resisted.
This is no way to start a day – though as if to compensate the usual Monza ride along the freaked out motorways was a little more sedate today and it was only at the last underpass that the usual traffic jams claimed my patience!
Admittedly the confluence of traffic at the roundabout was even more extraordinary than usual but these are the minor horrors that we have as part of our normal existence in getting to this place.
Thursday 13th May 2010
The trip up to Terrassa for Toni’s mum’s birthday celebrations was on clear motorways. Their very clarity emphasized just how horrific they could have been with the slightest disruption. I think that when you are an experienced driver you become depressingly fatalistic and see every road as a possible route to heart failure brought on by galloping frustration. It is sometimes just as stressful to go along a clear road as it is to be caught in a traffic jam: the active mind creates scenarios as you go and you shudder with a sense of prescience as you imagine what could (and is) going to be!
As soon as I reached the flat it started raining which soon developed into healthily sized hail. And I had left my umbrella in the car.
The birthday was the “and this is my bus pass” sort of occasion and the said pass was duly looked at and commented on. The photograph showed a somewhat startled mother as the information that a photograph was necessary for the production of the pass was almost immediately followed by a flash for the said image!
Toni has now returned and brought with him his birthday present of a Wii console. My greatest score in the basketball game (in which two year olds score comfortably towards double figures) was 1. This was an infinite improvement on my first attempt! I was told that the flick of my wrist was not expressive enough! I foresee hours of misery ahead as I try to emulate the gaming achievement of people a fraction of my age!
Kerem, my Turkish friend from my first visit to Turkey a considerable number of years ago, is about to visit Barcelona and I am looking forward to seeing him again. The last time we met was when he brought his wife (now history) to see me in Cardiff! A long time ago indeed!
I have recently undergone a Saint Anthony type temptation. I don’t think that we are told the exact type or form of temptation that the Saint had to undergo but painters through the ages have taken it to be an excuse for the painting of scantily clad ladies frolicking in the near vicinity of the stoical Saint who in most paintings is studiously ignoring their lascivious looks. Being made of much sterner stuff than your average lion loving desert haunting saint, I might, in similar circumstances, be able to turn aside from glistening bodies of writhing flesh, but might be unable to resist glistening bodies cast in the guise of gadgets!
Amazon, which keeps sending me e-mails in the manner of a modern day tempter spreading the riches of the world at my feet, has caught on to the fact that I have “a bit of a thing” with watches and cameras (not to mention computers) and it regularly deluges me with blandishments which include suggestive photographs of various type of machines all presented in alluring colour and with “one click ordering” only one convulsive movement away from being mine!
The latest sinful offering was a Canon camera with a large optical zoom and a more domestic price. I cannot, under any circumstances that I can reasonably bring to mind, justify buying another camera. I already have one or two (and possibly more) which quite adequately almost fill my needs. A bigger zoom would be indulgence of the purest form.
In a desperate attempt to limit my pointless expenditure I searched on the internet for information about the camera. The more information I acquired the more delightfully necessary it seemed to have it in my possession.
Then, suddenly, I noted a small discrepancy. I had been looking at the Canon SX200 but the reviews I was looking at were of the SX200SI. Further exploration showed that what Amazon was offering was an older model and that it had been superseded by the SX2010 which offered a greater zoom and more pixels. There was also the fact of a cashback offer from Canon of £30 which would bring it to within . . .
And the crisis passed.
Why is it that a desirable object with “must have” written all over it suddenly becomes tawdry and offensive when another and better product at only a little more suddenly hoves into view? And why do you not buy the better product? Because, suddenly, I want neither. Calm and financial sanity has been restored.
I have to admit that I thoroughly enjoyed not buying a new camera – probably got more pleasure (in the short term) than I would have managed to obtain from owning the actual object. Possibly.
The hail of yesterday in Terrassa has progressed today into sunny intervals with light rain and occasional cloud. The showers appear to be localized and if we have rain, it is warm rain at least!
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