When education is not enough

Today I rose in the dark, had a hurried shower and gulped down my essential cup of tea and then marched upstairs to my ‘study’ on the third floor.  I have to admit that this is not normal behaviour on my part.  My enthusiastic study dedication was a direct result of fear: a test. 

You would have thought that a life spent in education, lurching from exam to exam (either sitting or marking) would have meant that these, uninspiring experiences would have lost any ability to inspire anything other than boredom in me.  But this test was different – though only because it was part of my Spanish class in town, and for some reason I feel more, how shall I put it, exposed somehow.

It is true that I am struggling as each new tense fails to ‘take’ in my mind.  I have been wandering around chanting verb endings to myself like some demented cult monk and then, as soon as I am confronted by an actual piece of original writing in Spanish all verbs leak away and I am left with nouns and the odd adjective linked with inaccurate badly spelled illiteracy.  Or is that last part tautological?  Anyway, there are others there (we are all learning Spanish as a foreign language) who are much, much better than I am.  They find things easy that I find very difficult; they see simplicity in exercises where I only see fiendish evil.  I am, in other words, suffering what the more work shy pupils in the school on the hill used to go through when I took them through similar exercises in English!

The one good thing about my approach, however, to differentiate it from the attitude of so many of those I taught in Barcelona, is that I don’t cheat.  I find frustration, ignorance and inability all working against me, but I don’t cheat!  It remains to be seen if such an approach actually gets me sufficient credit to scrape through.  And I have to say that I will be quite satisfied with a bare pass.  However, humiliating that might be in comparison with a certain other gentleman who is taking examinations at the same time as I!

The actual horror of the test was slightly mitigated because there were a few 50/50 questions which at least allowed me the luxury of hoping that the informed monkey vote would work out to my advantage.  There were also a few ‘odd word out’ questions which were also a sure thing, but I am not sure that there was enough there to give me the marks that I need.

And ‘need’ is a key concept here.  The reason for learning Spanish is surely a no brainer!  Who would not want to be able to speak the language of the country in which he lives?  It is common courtesy and common sense.  And essential.

Given the lunacy of my fellow countrymen in their support of Brexit, I have had to rethink my position in Spain.  At the moment as a citizen of the EU my position is unassailable, but what happens when the trigger is finally pulled and the Brexit bullet goes careering into the British brain?

So far, the fall in the value of the pound has lowered by pension income by 20% at least, and that is likely to be much more when the dreaded Article 50 is finally invoked and we start the two years’ hard labour to break ourselves away actually begins – which I am sure will be a surprise to some die-hard Brexiteers who think we have actually left already and aren’t we doing well financially!  Then the real problems begin for me when I have to start thinking about my ‘rights’ in Spain when the real rights that I have at the moment will be taken away by the hard ‘right’ and ignorance.

Then there is the question of health care.  As a retired person, I am conscious that I am not getting any younger and that there is a likelihood that my medical needs will only grow with time and at the moment my needs are well met by the Spanish National Health Service of which I am a card-carrying member.  The fact that we Brits living in Spain are being used as a bargaining chip is not an encouraging element in my future planning!

So, the Master Plan is for me to apply for dual citizenship so that when the final break occurs I will be able to stay in Spain because I will have the rights of a native.

There are problems there however.  Two to be precise.  The first is that you have to have a level of proficiency in Spanish equivalent to A2 (a level where a working knowledge of the dreaded verbs is obligatory) and the second is you have to pass an examination to demonstrate your knowledge of Spanish culture, geography, politics and institutions.  A further problem is that I am not sure that Spain actually allows join Spanish/British citizenship, but stories are confused on this issue and I will go with the confusion until I am told it is impossible.

So, my efforts to learn the language have an added urgency.  It’s just a pity that this does not translate into information staying in my brain!  I will keep on keeping on and hope for the best – and use any other clichés that come to mind.

Meanwhile, I have bought and read (thank you Amazon) “The making of Donald Trump” by David Day Johnson (2016), First Melvin House, Brooklyn & London.  A thoroughly depressing read for lots of reasons.  It is obvious from what Johnson writes that there have been numerous occasions in the past when the murky behaviour of Trump should have landed him up in far more trouble that he appears to have got into.  The number of times when, if various legislative bodies and law enforcement agencies had done their job, it would have been highly unlikely that the present President of the United States would have made it to the White House.  Trumps unsavoury background and the appalling people with whom he has associated; his unscrupulous chiselling; his duplicity, where the truth does not seem to have any purchase on any part of what he might laughingly refer to as his system of morals and on and on. 

“The making of Donald Trump” is a compulsive read, though you have to keep reminding yourself that this is documentary and not grotesque fantasy.  The reality is emphasised in the last section of the book where there are detailed references, where the horrified reader can find documentary references to follow up any of the unlikely incidents, occurrences and statements made.

As a way of dealing with the awful reality of the political situation on both sides of the pond, I have discovered (and am desperately trying to lose) Nestles Strawberry Cheesecake Chocolate.  In an oversize bar.  I bought it because I could and then made the disastrous mistake of trying a bloated square of it.

By way of digression: have you ever seen a half-eaten dish of dry roast peanuts?  To which the usual answer is, no you haven’t.  My explanation was that, as part of the production process, the peanuts were lightly dusted with heroin.  I was always astonished by people’s reactions, which were mildly surprised, but not dismissive!  People actually believed that a commercial company would really do something like add a Grade A drug to nuts!  In fact, the easy acceptance of the drug addiction as an explanation for the taste and consumption, has made me wonder about it too!  I suppose this is the nearest that I get to experience what it must be like to be Trump: someone who believes his own alternative truth!

Anyway, back to Nestle.  One piece of that delectable sweet was enough to convince me that I would never buy another bar as long as I lived.  Something that delicious is dangerous!  I limited myself to one square a day, a restriction that (after the first day of splurge) I managed to keep to.  In a desperate attempt, yesterday, to make the thing last longer I sucked it instead of crunched it. That was a mistake, it is the immediate masticated combination that makes it what it is. I would only recommend this addictive chocolate to those of a stern and forbidding constitution who able to say no in spite of overwhelming compulsion!

And now to get ready to join my fellow poets for an evening in Barcelona to which a certain orangely self-regarding bigot is not invited!

Here & There

Weather

The glorious sunshine that I seem to remember that we were promised for the Easter holidays does not seem to be much in evidence at the moment.  OK, I was able to do a tad of light sunbathing yesterday, but the weather today is as near to rain as it can get without actual precipitation.

            And with a true sense of irony, just as I finished typing the word ‘precipitation’ the sun came out.  I swear that the irony of real life leaves the contrived irony of literature standing!  And with that the sun has disappeared again!

            As long as it is dry for my trip to the pool (to get wet, yes, irony again) I will be happy.

Family

Yesterday saw the Family descend and our routine was jolted out of place by two young children.  Being a retired teacher (ah, savour those words in the mouth like a fine wine!) children have become something of a novelty for me and I find myself observing them like some exotic species of insect.

            This time I particularly noticed their attitudes.  Not, I hasten to add, their ethical standpoints and moral positions, but rather the physical ones that they adopt naturally.

            Milton wrote of Samson that he was ‘carelessly diffused’ (if I remember rightly) encapsulating a sort of casual sprawl in a wonderful phrase.  I watched the younger brother, Marc, as he sat at the table and I fail to see how his half crouch lunged squat could have been in any way comfortable – but he seemed ridiculously at ease in what would have been excruciatingly uncomfortable for me.

            Still, I remember years ago when in secondary school, in an idle moment of speculation, I wondered if I was still able to do the ‘crab’ and move around with my arms on the floor behind my head and my body arched.  The answer was a resounding ‘No!’ and I am glad that I tried to assume the position slowly and not snap into it, as the only snapping would have been my spine if I had managed to do it!  A certain pliability is lost with age!

            I can now feel joints in a way that is entirely different from my youth when joints did not intrude upon my concern.  Those happy days when the body is just one lithe totality rather than, extremely obviously nowadays for me, composed of jointed parts.

Poems in Holy Week

This writing is obviously displacement activity as a form of writing exercise to get me into the mood to try and find a topic for the next poem in the sequence.  I am trying a mixture of casual thought and oblique contemplation to bring the subject matter to the fore.

            I have to admit that there is no easy way to write and I find the harder I work the more ‘inspiration’ I find.  At least my faithful notebook is always near to catch a fleeting perception.  Though I also have to admit that my notebook is fuller of the blindingly obvious rather than the intriguingly provocative.  But, as I pointedly observed in a previous blog about ‘Family Wisdom’, ‘anything is better than nothing’ – and I am constantly surprised by what I am able to mine from extremely unprepossessing obviousness!

            I trust that the next poem in the sequence will find its way onto http://smrnewpoems.blogspot.com.es/ before the end of the day.  With any luck the material produced in my Poetry Group this evening may even be useful for this project.  I live, as always, in hope!

United Nations Day 2015

The travel arrangements and preparations for this event are assuming a complexity which makes the actual UNO meetings in New York look simple in comparison.  I have decided to take a loft and distant approach to these things and concentrate on the ‘looking forward’ aspect of it all.

            My most pressing concern is to ensure that Flesh Can Be Bright is ready for its publication day.  At least I know that my Catalan translator has started on the task of producing a version of Autumn Trees, which is more than I can say for my Spanish translator.

            It is now April and I set a deadline for completion of the writing by the end of May.  I have written the poems and, although I still have to do the editing and the indexes, the introduction and design, I know that the really hard bits that I have to do are done.  How far my grandiose plan for the realisation of this project survives to publication will be interesting to see.  I am fairly determined, but I do have fallback plans.  Lots of them.

Body Art

I have been methodical in my note making for the next essay (and last) in the OU course.  As soon as this is completed I can concentrate on the End of Module Assessment which is a mini thesis.

            The art I am studying at the moment is what I think most people would call ‘challenging’ – and the theoretical justifications even more so!

            As befits a module on modern art, we are now at the ‘cutting edge’ of what can be considered art and while sometimes I think that it has not progressed much beyond Duchamp, there are other aspects which demand an intellectual commitment that I am sometimes not prepared to make.

            Still, it is something which is beyond my comfort zone and therefore it makes me question my perceptions and who can ask for more than that from a learning experience.

            I will soon have to start putting finger to key and actually write something about what I understand rather than wondering what the hell to make of it all.

Hard slog works

Poems in Holy Week

With the third poem written, I think that I can claim that there is a sequence growing along this particular theme.  I like the discipline of having to produce a poem a day I further like the self-imposed necessity of trying to develop a sense of questioning that I think the Week itself demands.

            The latest poem called Life (there’s a title as a hostage to fortune!) can be found at http://smrnewpoems.blogspot.com.es and I welcome comments on the poem itself and on the developing theme – if there is one!

            Thanks to Ceri for his comments via email: I found them challenging, encouraging and stimulating.  Who can ask for more?  Me.

            I both dread and welcome tomorrow, as I am duty bound to write another poem.  At this moment I have no idea about what I might write – which is exactly the state of worried anticipation that I like!

Sun

I was able to lie out in the sun for a few short minutes.  It was probably longer than that, but the greed with which I view the sun also means that I worry about each ‘wasted’ minute that I am not out in it.  I am always trying to gain minutes to hold in reserve against those ‘brightly dull’ days that I find so antagonizing.

            It cannot be gainsaid that we are moving towards summer.  This is an article of faith for me and I echo the fatal words at the end of Ibsen’s Ghosts, ‘Mother, give me the sun!’ though I hasten to add that I say them in an altogether happier state of mind than the unfortunate young man in Scandinavia!

            I am, at present, a sickly pale colour (for me) and I look forward with glee to increasing my supply of vitamin D!

Logic

This is a week of holiday.  I know that not everyone, or even the majority of the population is able to down tools and enjoy, but it is an official holiday period.  People, as it were, go on holiday.  They visit cities, world famous cities, like, for example Barcelona.

            Then, why is it that the rate for a room just off the Ramblas in the centre of the city of Barcelona costs less than it has done for the last six months?  Where, pray, is the logic in that price?

            When, as far as I could tell, little or nothing was going on to bring people to the city, the price of the room that I usually have for the opera suddenly shot up to over sixty euros!  Now, it is twenty-five – including breakfast!

            In a similar way, when I cycled back from my swim (see Poems in Holy Week above) I had to thread my way through a system of cones which blocked roads to the beach because today, during a week of holidays when people might thing about coming to the beach, the powers that be decided to refresh the paint on the road markings.  Today?  Why today and not last week, when there were no, for example, holidays to complicate traffic flow?

            And finally and most crushingly, why do people vote for PP in Spain when it has been shown that they are demonstrably corrupt and criminal and inept?

            Perhaps the answers to these conundrums are to be found in the fact that mere logic is not enough and that we need poets to explain the world to the world!

Food, reasonably priced food!

At long last we have tried the menu del dia in my local swimming pool restaurant.  I am not sure that Toni has added it to his blog yet, but it will be there in the next few days.  Visit http://catalunyaplacetoeat.blogspot.com.es as Toni is constantly updating his blog and making it more and more exhaustive.  We still have a long, long was to go before we eat our way through the restaurants of Castelldefels, but we are enjoying doing the fieldwork.

            We are also looking forward to the ruta de tapa, when 40 or more restaurants compete to produce the best tapa in the city.  For a cost of about €3 you get the tapa and a drink of your choice.  We will have to plan this eatathon with military precision if we are to visit all the establishments.

Barcelona

Tomorrow another horrible bus ride to the city to make the meeting with my fellow members of the Barcelona Poetry Group all the more pleasant.  I must remember to take my computer with me if I am to keep up my poem-a-day approach to this week.

For this relief, much thanks!

It’s off

Well, I have taken my ‘Anything is better than nothing’ philosophy seriously and the pro forma is off for consideration by my tutor.  This is one time when I really need my tutor’s advice.  I will be interested to see how she deals with the well meaning gibberish that I sent off, I only hope that she can make more sense of what I have written than I can!

            Which is not quite true, but I am hoping for substantial help here, if only to point me in manageable direction because I think that I have set myself far too wide ranging a topic for consideration.  Still, ambition is good thing, yes?

            Now, for a shot while, I will be able to concentrate on the next essay which is another substantial piece of work!  And on the outer reaches of modern art!  Should be interesting and should also give me enough information to irritated people for years when I pretend to more advanced tastes than I actually have.

            It is going to be a considerable shock when I travel back in time to the Renaissance for the next course, which come to think of it is nearer than I like to think about.  This course will finish in May, then there is the summer and the production of Flesh Can Be Bright and then holidays followed by the traditional laughing at teachers when they are ready to go back to school in September and then it’s October, the start of my next course and time for the United Nations Day repast.  That little paragraph is one way of travelling through time!  Which does indeed seem to be speeding up!

Where have all the poems gone?

The notes are building up and the pro forma has meant that I have not spent so much time writing my poetry.  But it does mean that I have a stockpile of ideas to work from now that the pro forma has been sent off.

            My attendance at the Barcelona Poetry Workshop usually means that I have something to use at the end of the session – and it also gives me an opportunity to see if two of my collaborators are still up for their contributions to the book.  You can always see what I have written at: http://smrnewpoems.blogspot.com.es/

            My generous deadline of the end of May for all contributions to be in and ready, now seems terribly close and what seemed generous now seems tight.  Still, I seem to thrive on tension and I hope that I put it to good use!

Page turning

Reading through Chris Richard’s blog: http://www.chris-richards.co.uk/blog/

about the books that he has read in 2015 made me realise that the number of novels that I have read this year is limited, and the number of novels that I am prepared to admit that I have read is even fewer!

            It comes to something when the books that I can recommend most easily are art books and a readable guide to philosophy.  The four Skira books on Modern Art are pricy but worth it.  They are hardbacks and they cover and illustrate in a thoroughly academically intelligent way a convincing history of the modern movements in art.  At round twenty quid each I think they are a bargain and if you look around you can get them for less!

            I have just looked them up in Amazon and found that you can get them for a damn sight more as well!  Amazon is now offering them for one hundred and thirty-five quid!  And still worth getting!  The full title is Art of the Twentieth Century in four hardcover volumes (with a 3D slipcase) by Valerio Terraroli and Heinz Althöfer and others.  There are some excellent essays in these volumes as well as some simple to digest information.  Published by Skira, I cannot recommend them enough.

            The philosophy book that I suppose you could say that I bought in self defence as I was struggling to understand some of the basic philosophers that we were being asked to consider was by the ever-readable and student friendly Nigel Warburton.  The volume, A Little History of Philosophy, is a book that I have recommended before and I am more than happy to take another opportunity to recommend it once more.  Of all the books I have read on philosophy (!) this one is the least intimidating and most readable.  And it has little drawings!  Who could ask for more!  If you have no other book on philosophy in your library then this is one that you will read and (more importantly) go back to when you really want to understand!

Be prepared!

I now have to be thinking seriously of my visit to the UK because there are some things that I have to plan for as I cannot expect hem to happen when I get there.  For example, I will have to visit the vaults of the Tate and to do that you need to apply at least six weeks in advance!

            I have visited the vaults before and it was a remarkable experience and I am eager to repeat it.  Not one of the paintings by Alvaro Guevara is on show at the moment and so I will have to look at them in the vaults.

            I also have to future plan my reader’s ticket for the National Library as my book choices will have to be applied for long before I go to Britain.  I have visited the National Library, but not as a Reader (with a capital R) and I will have to use my time wisely if I am to get the benefit from a couple of days set aside to study there.

            I m looking forward to my visit because it is gradually getting filled up with more and more things being squeezed into a shrinking pint glass!