A working lunch
The Puritan Work Ethic, which is supposed to buried deeply
in such northern Protestant (atheist) capitalist people like my good self,
means that something you have worked for must have that added extra that
easy-come never gives you. Which is my
way of saying that lunch should have tasted better because I cycled all the way
to the take away after having
completed my swim (to which I also cycled) without once getting off the bike
and walking it!
The result
of such exercise is that my knees feel as if someone has packed them full of
slightly blunted tacks. So much for
exercise!
To my
continuing concern, the workmen who slaughtered the twenty trees have done
nothing further to the sandy waste that they have created. Where are the preparations for the laying of
the cement – and, more importantly, the re-opening of the car park? Where indeed!
If the
Fates think that they are changing my way of life by extending the cycling
duties that I am grudgingly undertaking until they become second nature and I
cycle through my own free will – then I warm them never to let it rain
again. The first sign of atmospheric
moisture and I will be back behind the wheel and roaming though the residential
areas like an Urban Flying Dutchman looking for a parking space. And it if ain’t there I ain’t swimming! Perhaps it’s the atheist bit of me that
denies the full working potential of the old ethic!
I have to
admit that I do feel a sense of achievement about the effort that I am now
making and my appearance on a sit up and beg, ‘S’ frame, basket carrying cycle
has not gone unremarked – and I have not even written a poem about it!
Private faces in
public places
The reality of having to make something of my whimsical
choice of swimming pool paintings by Alvaro Guevara and David Hockney is
becoming a little more problematic now that I am having to turn my whim into
something academic.
I have
thoroughly enjoyed hunting around the Internet to try and discover the
whereabouts of Guevara paintings and am thoroughly satisfied that I have found
a location (that I will visit in a couple of months time) where someone has
very kindly allowed me to book a visit to photograph and study the paintings he
has!
My tutor
has suggested that I try and contact Hockney, as he is still very much with us,
unlike Alvaro who died in the 50s. But I
am not sure that Mr Hockney actually talks to mere mortals any more. It may well be worth making the effort to find
out though as honourable failure is also an achievement!
The details
on the pro-forma that we have to submit giving an outline of what we intend to
write about are coming together and my bibliography looks very impressive. And that, after all, is the main thing!
It is very
difficult at the level of the course that we are studying, to add anything new
and indeed, ‘real’ research is not a requirement of the enterprise. As this piece of work is taking the place of
an examination, there is a requirement that we use the scope of the course in the
written work that we produce. So, as the
basis of what we are currently studying is Modernism, its development, critical
basis and reactions to it, as well as the ‘rejection’ of it as a way of
thinking about the more modern manifestations of art, our choices should allow
some discussion of this. That is the
difficult bit, on which I am still working!
Politics and Big
Brother
It is difficult for me to work out which I have more
contempt for: the politics of our present Spanish government which has just
promoted a hit-and-run hag as their preferred candidate for the leadership of
the government of Madrid, or the Spanish version of VIP Big Brother. The characters in both ‘drama’ are, to my
mind, equally contemptible – though at least the ‘who the hell are they’
celebrities are at least openly doing it for the money!
I am
convinced that Toni only watches the interminable broadcasts of this awful
programme in the same way that Wittgenstein used to sit in the front row in
cinemas and watch Westerns – it was one way to stop him thinking about what he
was doing. Toni is so immersed in the
complexities of installing and working virtual computers inside his computer
(don’t ask!) and then making them work and speak to each other, that he
sometimes, wild-eyed, needs some relief from the computer screen!
I always
feel a bit of a fraud when I think about my own use of computers. I am, after all, an early personal computer
adopter, but I have rarely used it as anything more than a glorified
typewriter!
This is not
stopping me from exploring the possibility of turning away from Apple and
embracing the Dark Side and reverting to Windows and PCs. Even I, a dyed in the wool Mac user, have
become disgusted at the single minded, dedicated pursuit of money at the expense
of their customers. The cost of the new
version of the iPhone is little short of criminal extortion and has finally
opened my eyes to just how callous Apple are/is – for they are legion!
You can get
so much more for your money for a PC rather than a beautiful looking Mac. I am thinking. And taking photographs of alluring machines
with 1TB or even 1.5TBs of storage. I
know that everything should be in the cloud nowadays but I trust that thing as
I would a rabid dog. In the same way I
still buy CDs – which I know appears to be absurdly quaint to those technophiles
amongst whom I used to count myself.
But, I know what I know and there are machines that are tempting and yet
do not have a logo that lights up on the cover!
Who would have thought it!
Now a little more on my Art course and then bed. Deserved, I think.
