I know that, by now I should have grown out
of such things but one just goes into overdrive when the cultural status of
one’s country is called into question.
It all started with the Electric Submarine
– not, as you might think some late sixties early seventies pop group but the
actual thing itself. It turns out, and I
am compelled to accept it as some sort of truth, that it might be that the
first fully electric submarine might possibly have some degree of Catalan involvement
in its production. I have had this
thrown in my face for so long that I was finally goaded to look up a list of
Great British Inventions and so began the long trading of one national
invention against another.
In what was a remarkable piece of
information for me I actually exacerbated the discussion by finding a web site
which actually suggested that one of the most famous inventions of the Spanish
was Coca-Cola!
You will have to look at the “right” web
sites for confirmation, but the one that I looked at (About.com) also included the
beret, table football, fish and chips, the mop, sherry, the acoustic guitar and
chess!
After this onslaught I was forced to bring
in the Big Guns of British inventions where the invention of the postage stamp
was one of the more trivial brainwaves when taking radar, the jet engine and
the locomotive into consideration – not counting what one site claimed at the
greatest British invention, namely The United States of America!
Toni, thereupon changed tack and started to
claim Catalan inventions and demanded to know what Wales had given the world.
It turns out that our greatest single
invention was the equals sign.
Although I could (and did) point out to
Toni that, without the invention of that particular mathematical point the
computer on which he was typing would not exist – he seemed particularly
unimpressed!
Greater research is needed!
No packing has been done, but Toni’s zest
for organization has reached new heights in the reordering of what used to be
the chaos of the Third Floor.
My loose CDs are now securely packed into
more professional looking cases with even room for expansion!
A structure has been created for my laptop
to act as a sort of screen for my studies and I have been forced (forced!) to
buy a new wireless keyboard (with integrated touch pad) to make the new
sophisticated set up work. God alone
knows what new excesses of reorganization will have been put into effect by the
time I get back to Castelldefels after my time in the UK!
After the last few days it is just as well
that I am ahead of the official schedule as the variety of trips that we have
made to the various shops selling things like door handles, wood, drawers, CD
holders and things of that sort have been almost without number. And have certainly taken up time.
On the positive side the house is getting
back into some sort of state of reasonable repair as all the niggling jobs are
steadily getting done – though at what cost!
Not necessarily in terms of cash but certain when the amount of time
spent on the most trivial of tasks is counted up.
I look on all of it as displacement
activity to stop my packing.
Which must be done by Thursday evening
because the flight to Bristol is at a reasonably early hour.
The grey suit will have to be packed yet
again! It is truly having something of
an outing this year!
No comments:
Post a Comment