Now you listen here!

Unsettling violence and raw sexuality mark Shostakovich’s opera “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk”, it certainly resonated with the contemporary audience, as it was a popular and critical success.  After two years and hundreds of performances the fame of the piece reached the attention of the most powerful man in the country and he decided to go to a performance.  He was appalled by what he saw and heard and left before the end of the piece.  The next day, what had been an overwhelming success was denounced in the newspaper, and the authorities began monitoring Shostakovich’s activities.

The man who had come to see the opera was Josef Stalin, and his dislikes had a way of being fatal.  Shostakovich had to do something, so he started writing his 5^th Symphony and when it was completed he subtitled it, “A Soviet Artist’s Response to Justified Criticism.”

Whatever the moral and artistic justifications for the subtitling, you have to admit that the 5^th is a fantastic piece of music.  What was it?  Cowardice?  Self-preservation?  Subtle defiance?  Capitulation?  Irony?  Who knows – but it kept Shostakovich alive and he continued writing.  He was, after all, dealing with one of the greatest mass murderers in the sad history of mankind’s inhumanity.

I thought of this piece of history from the 1930s when I was watching the television news and they played a part of Felipe VI of Spain’s speech at Davos, that comfortable gathering of the rich and privileged in a little Swiss ski resort.

The part of the king’s speech that grabbed me was:

“With all this in mind, I don’t wish to conclude this part of my speech without addressing the recent crisis in a truly fundamental part of Spain’s soul and diverse identity: Catalonia; where we have seen an attempt to undermine the basic rules of our democratic system.” [My emphasis]

Let us forget about the location of this speech for a moment, though the people there certainly forget about democracy on a regular basis, but concentrate firstly on the person speaking.

Filipe VI is the son of Juan Carlos I, the man personally selected and groomed for kingship by the Spanish Dictator Franco.  Juan Carlos eventually abdicated after a number of scandals including going on an all expenses paid hunting trip after a television performance where he sympathized with the economic lot of the struggling mass of the population; his various paternity cases; Royal spending and the usual corruption of the very rich.  His abdication to become “King Emeritus” and the coronation of his son Filipe was a political solution via a stitched-together deal between PP and PSOE.

So this hereditary monarch, Bourbon de Bourbon, whose house was reinstated by a Fascist dictator, has the temerity to talk about democracy!  There was a referendum in Catalonia about Independence; there was an election in Catalonia to form a new Parliament – I can’t remember any referendum or election regarding the slipping on an eldest son onto the throne of Spain!

Bourbon de Bourbon talking about Democracy is like Rees-Mogg campaigning for a statue of Marie Stopes to be erected in Parliament Square.

After what Bourbon de Bourbon’s family has taken from and done to Spain over the years, it is difficult to take his mouthing of platitudes as anything more than calculated insult.

Meanwhile the “undermining of the rules of our basic democratic system” continues apace with the farcical scattering of the police around any entry point, though not all, to Spain just in case the dangerously elected politician, and our President, Puigdemont might make it to Parliament where he is the only candidate slated for the investiture of the office.  The ever-absurd Zoido (sic.) the burly cartoon character who has been inflated to be Minister of the Interior bustles about the place trying (and signally failing) to look ministerial, or at least competent, or even credible. 

We have had television pictures at the border crossings with France where the police are searching cars for our exiled President and also searching handbags!  I don’t know whether these boys in blue (or whatever) think that canny Catalan scientists have mastered the techniques shown in The Incredible Shrinking Man and that Puigdemont is truly being smuggled in via a pencil case so that he can be dramatically returned to full size inside the Parliament.  Or perhaps they are just stupid.  To be fair, I think it is more reasonable to suppose that, given a stupid job they are trying to make it appear at least halfway sensible, by searching properly.  Making the best of futility!

Meanwhile my enforced exile inside my house continues.  I am counting the days to when I might actually be allowed to take a short walk!

This morning I actually managed to re-arrange the flowers that I have been given.  Toni brought them to my chair and I snipped and pruned and arranged.  This is something that I have always enjoyed doing.  Flowers add life to a room and well arranged blooms become more than their individual plants.  I cannot pretend that I have my mother’s skill, but I try my best and I am constantly amazed by just how much pleasure flowers can give – especially if you are spending hour after hour in the same chair!

I have also received a get-well card that also has flowers on it with the stamens touched with gold!  It all works for me!

Toni is cleaning the kitchen.  Although a comparison with the Augean Stables would be unfair (though Toni reports far too many surfaces are too sticky for comfort!) in terms of sheer clutter rather than filth it is an accurate image.  

We suffer from the Impenetrable Cupboard Syndrome, where a wall of kitchen thingerie meets the baffled gaze when a door is opened.  We know that somewhere there lurk Useful Things, but to find them everything has to be taken out and then put back again.  When that is the modus operandi it is amazing how much and how often one can ‘make do’ with what one can see.

For example, I know that I possess a melon baller, as who doesn’t?  I have used it, and I know that it works.  It does make a fairly mundane fruit look interesting, but how far is one prepared to exert oneself in the effort of looking?  I think there is a time limit of a couple of minutes and a quick glance in The Drawer Where Things Are – you know, that drawer that contains things that you could not work out where else to put: The Drawer of Last Resort.

What truly frightens me is that Toni is now making executive decisions based on the fact that I am supposed to sit down quietly and rest.  And I am resting in the living room and not the kitchen – where I can hear things being moved around and placed, who knows where, maybe even in the bin!  And breathe, and relax!

This is now Day 6 (by my reckoning) and I have to get to Day 14 before I can do anything as exciting as, for example, going for a walk.  On Day 32 I might be able to go for a short, slow swim.  Something to work towards.

Meanwhile, there is editing, writing and reading.  And I enjoy all three.

To work!