And the next thing?

 

 

 

  

It says something for my state of underwhelmed-ness about the new Amazon Prime Series The Rings of Power, that I have not bothered to watch the latest episode, which was released last Friday.  The idea of my ignoring something that plays to all my sci-fi fantasy weaknesses, does not say a lot for its impact!

     I am more even more disappointed because I read previews by trusted critics like Bradshaw in The Guardian which were so enthusiastic that I watched the pedestrian opening episode with an avidity that was soon rapidly dwindling to disinterest, bordering on boredom.  I’ve now reached episode three and I am still not engaged, in the way that the books or films of The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit captured my reading and watching dedication.

     The Silmarillion on which the new series is loosely based, I found unreadable in its book form, and regarded it as a piece of donnish self-indulgence – as indeed is the series, if you think about it in terms of the commercial hopes of Amazon who made it!

     Yes, of course the look of the series is spectacular, the landscapes are staggeringly beautiful, and the set piece grandeur of fantastic civilizations amazing, but then it should look good given how much cash has been expended on it.

     I find little ‘new’ in the series, and the clunking reveal of ‘random human who turns out to be an unrecognized king” etc tedious, and a weak re-run (pre-run?) of Aragorn/Strider.  I do recognize that the series is a prequel and that there is a sort of satisfaction in seeing the ancient pre-history of the more interestingly critical moments in Tolkien’s created world that far better known, but it does take the sting out of what might happen as we do know how things eventually turn out, and this series does not have the ‘wow’ factor that the films had.  We have assimilated director Peter Jackson’s epic visual conception of Tolkien’s world and we now take for granted visual effects that would once have blown us away.

     I will, of course, watch the whole of the series.  And I will maintain my hope that there will be moments that justify the time I spend watching and the money burnt to make it!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have completed my open-air-early-morning-swims.  The fortnight of local pool closure for maintenance is over today, and I have already checked that the pool will open at the normal times for normal use from Monday.  I have been relatively lucky with the weather so that I have not had to swim in challenging circumstances – or cold water, but I still do feel a sense of Mission Accomplished that I have swum all fourteen days in our community pool.

     One of my lecturers used to swim, every day of the year, in Swansea Bay.  I am not made of such stern stuff, though I can say that I swam on Christmas Eve off a beach in Sitges.  When I say swam, that is something of an exaggeration: I immersed myself in the water and immediately exited the sea.  The sunshine that was streaming down, did not, as I vividly recall seem to have any part in heating the icy wavelets.  There is a fine line between resolution and stupidity and staying in the water for any longer than I did would clearly have been an illustration of the latter!

     The pool-absence period has jinxed my writing by changing my routine, and I have only scribbled ‘thoughts’ in my notebook on a couple of occasions, whereas I always write in it when I am taking my cup of tea and baguette in the pool café.  Have jotted down a few phrases and ideas, but it remains to be seen if they are actually worth working up into something real.  There again, even ‘failures’ are interesting, and it is rare that I can’t salvage something from the wreckage of a poem ‘gone wrong’!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Opera Season is almost upon us, and I still haven’t decided if I should take out a ‘Saturday Afternoon Subscription’ to a series of orchestral concerts in Barcelona.  This is an odd hesitation on my part because I am essentially an orchestral music sort of person, with my going to Opera being something of an indulgence for me.

     As is usual with any subscription series, there are some concerts that don’t really appeal, though from past experience, the concerts with low expectations very often surprise with unexpected delights.  At least that is what I keep telling myself.  And afternoon concerts mean a Barcelona exit at a reasonable time!  Worth considering.  And going.  Perhaps I will buy a subscription.  There you are a decision made in under one hundred keystrokes!  If only the other things in life were so easy!

The New World

After much debate with myself, I finally forced myself from my seductive bed and started the preparations for my early morning swim.  These preparations take the form of preparing for very little: a quick rinse and a brushing of my teeth and then off to the pool where a later shower and shave can be done after the swim.

     As this was the weekend (the day after my non-examination for Catalan) the pool opens an hour later, so I do have what amounts to a technical lie-in.  Bike to pool and the gates still locked.  This is nothing new, as the gates are opened on the dot of the hour rather than before.  What was more disturbing was that the lights in the café were not on.  And there were no other early swimmers waiting.  Ominous.

     Suspecting the reason for this situation, I decided to continue my bike ride down the road for a little jaunt and then see what was happening on my return when the appointed hour for the opening would have passed.

     Nothing!  Obviously the place was not opening.  Nothing daunted I decided to make a virtue of necessity and go home via one of my ‘bike rides’ to Gavá.  Not only does this ride have the advantage of a bike lane virtually all the way, but it is also next to the sea.

     On my return home I texted Toni (who is in Terrassa for the weekend) telling him the news that the pool was closed.

     Last night Toni had texted me saying that we needed to stock up on food and essential supplies, but as he had the car the re-provision was up to him.  What we both did not fully comprehend was that the situation here in Catalonia had taken a more serious turn.

     This morning after checking various news outlets and seeing an explanation of the Generalitat’s new orders, I realized that Catalonia has taken Draconian measures to combat Covid-19.

     Shops (apart from food shops and medical supplies shops) are now closed, as are gyms, pools, theatres, museums, clubs, day centres, bars restaurants, libraries, schools, colleges, universities, cinemas, sporting events.  Travel is not recommended.  Basically we are confined to our homes except for essential purchases.  For the next two weeks (at least) life in Catalonia is going to be very different and the Internet is awash with lists of films, books, and TV series to read and watch to keep some form of sanity during our incarceration!

     On the other hand, yesterday saw the arrival of another of my ‘presents’ from Kickstarter.  The wonderful thing about these start-up sites is that if you support them you have paid for what you are going to receive so far in advance that when the object of your purchase finally arrives it seems to be sort-of ‘free’!  Don’t know it, this is the sort of logic that has kept me level(ish) for most of my life!

     My latest acquisition is going to drive Toni up the wall.  It is a combined robot cleaner that can do the normal Hoovering, but this little beauty can also mop!  To enable this it has a sort of home station that looks like a clinical waste bin and contains the charging station and the reservoir of water and the ‘dirty water’ tank.  And it works!  The only thing that doesn’t seem to be operational is the app that stubbornly refuses to open for me.

     Why, you may well ask, do you need an app. to hoover and mop?  But, there again, to ask such a question indicates that the last ten years have passed you by.  What doesn’t need an app these days?  And, I understand that the machine is able to map the rooms to facilitate optimum cleaning, and I further understand that the app will allow me to order the machine to do all sorts of things that I will probably never be competent enough to understand let alone operate!  But if it exists, then I want it.

     The only thing about the machine that I do not like is the fact that I have to change the brushes to the mops manually.  This is not a difficult operation, it takes seconds, but the fact that I have to do it somehow lessens the robotic delight in the whole enterprise!  But only a bit.

     It strikes me, as I sit here in the living room typing this, that I am delighting in yet another Kickstarter purchase as I write.

     As I was having my post bike ride cup of tea and while checking through my emails and deleting those of no interest, I noted that Amazon has sent me a message the aim of which was to make me feel better about being a paid up member of Amazon Prime, by reminding me that umpteen pieces of music were mine for the hearing at no extra cost to that which I had already paid.

     Whenever I go on a music website or music streaming site or whatever, my test of its worth is to check how many pieces by Carl Nielsen it has.  So, having duly put in Nielsen’s name I looked at the selection it produced – and was reasonably impressed.  I think it is more than likely that in Castelldefels I have the most extensive collection of Nielsen’s music – I fear there would not be that many competitors – so I can look at offerings from sites with an informed eye!

     I could not of course resist listening to a selection and rapidly became irritated with the excellent, but limited reception offered by my phone so I decided to get a loudspeaker.  But not just any old wi-fi loudspeaker (and I have a mini Bose, amongst others) but the most recent purchase from Kickstarter (at least in audio, my mop is the most recent) and that is a pair of headphones.  Wi-fi of course, but the USP of these is that the earpieces of the headphones can be twisted outwards and they transform into speakers!  Turn them back inwards, into their more conventional configuration and they become headphones – and are thus able to counteract the noise from the noisy transformation of the house next door!

     Ah excessive technology, what would I do without you!