Here we are again!

Just as there was no real reason why I stopped, so there is no real reason why I am starting again.  Whim is as good a reason as any.

            So much has happened in the blank gaps of my writing that there is no obvious point to survey and explain.  Nothing dramatic has occurred, no life changing events, but life continues and my part within it bumbles along on its appointed course.

            Perhaps the single most pleasant event was receiving an email floating the idea that perhaps I would like to do a couple of week paternity leave in the School on the Hill.

            Instant and complete rejection was the first (and indeed the last) reaction but it did give me pause for thought, and there was a tug of interest before the rationality of self intervened with the knife of logic and cut the whole idea from my mind.  The simple logistics of doing a couple of weeks work would necessitate various visits to governmental offices that I have no desire to make.  Easier by far to stick to my stated aim of following Uncle Eric (who, by the way is hale and hearty, albeit with a Zimmer) and remaining retired for more years than the years of work which fund it.  In an absolute sense, taking extinction as part of the retirement process, we all have more time after than before – but Eric continues to draw his pension as he marches (well, shuffles) towards triple figures.  He has now been drawing his governmental money for more than ten times longer than I have – but at least I have started the long trek towards parity!

            The poems for TMA 03 have been written, though not revised and edited.  I have left them for a few days to attempt to get some sort of distance so that I can look at them with a critical gaze to se if there is anything more that I can do to try and improve my lamentable performance for the last TMA.  It was by no manner of means a disaster, but when you are living with the personification of an A Grade then anything less than the top mark is seen as something of a failure.

           

The arrangements have been made for the State Visit to Cardiff at the end of June.  The flight is to Cardiff by Vueling and so we will fly from the fabled Terminal 1 – whose existence is a tribute to conspicuous expenditure rather than need.  Oh, and corruption of course.

            As you can imagine I am having a field day in Spain at the moment as the sorry sight of a chiselling member of the so-called Royal Family is forced into court to answer questions about her knowledge of the criminal activities of her greedy husband.  The evidence against the pair of them is overwhelming and their protestations of innocence are pathetic.  Revealingly La Razon (a nasty little right wing rag) published a very clever piece of research that they did.  They asked a carefully worded question of the public: “Do you think that the Infanta (the daughter of the elephant and brother shooting king of Spain) [La Razon did not add that clarification to their question] will be found innocent?”  Notice that they did not ask if people thought she was innocent, but if she would be found innocent.  No one in his right mind thinks that Justice (!) will prevail in this sorry country.  Though it is clear that her husband is being set up to take most of the blame together with his partner in crime, a lecturer or professor.

            Significantly, at the start of this long drawn out investigation, the wife of the professor was also implicated and part of the proceedings.  Belatedly the powers that be have realized that if they charge the professor’s wife then they will have to charge the Infanta as well, so they have dropped the wife from the investigation in the hope that the Infanta can be protected as well.

            All of this is so glaringly obvious that it takes the breath away.  The evidence against the pair in the public domain is so clear, with her bloody signature on various incriminating documents that they would appear to be no escape – but that is to ignore the way that Justice works in this country.  It doesn’t.  And there you have it.  With a wave of logic that would leave the author of Alice in Wonderland struggling to catch his breath everything will be sorted out so that nothing is sorted out and all the corrupt movers and shakers will carry on exactly as they have been doing since the Dictator died.

            It is a sad state of affairs with cases involving virtually anyone with money and a pulse waiting to be carefully unresolved so that the rich can go on exactly as they want.  If the situation in Spain doesn’t make you a rabid socialist then nothing will!

            The only real problem in Spain is knowing where to start in the cleaning of stables because wherever you look filth is piled high and is stinking to high heaven.

            In such a situation it is a relief to be able to go upstairs and immerse oneself in the arcane niceties of apposite assonance!

            As if.  Today has been one in which I have made various desultory attempts to improve on my poems and all I have achieved is thorough disenchantment with the lot of them.  This will pass and I am sure that what I have done, with minor alterations will suffice.  Probably.