3 days in 1

 

SUNDAY 1^st October

 

Five years ago, to the day, we were in our local medical centre.  Not for any treatment, but rather for Toni to be able to cast his vote in the referendum about Catalan independence.  On that day, we made our way through crowds of people flocking around the doors of the medical centre and spilling onto the closed road in front.  We walked past police who were there, but not doing anything positive or negative, merely being there.

     The mood inside the centre was fairly febrile with the volunteers staffing the voting stations constantly looking around to see if the police were going to do anything more proactive.  The plastic, translucent, ballot boxes were guarded like precious jewels and were able to be whisked away at a moment’s notice if it seemed like they were in danger of being impounded by agents of the Spanish government.

     News about other polling stations filtered in throughout the day, where the peacefulness of our experience was not matched by the police violence and thuggery that took place in the name of Spanish democracy!

     The scenes of police aggression against people peacefully trying to cast a vote was shocking, and as more stories began to be told about the day, the anger was palpable.  The gleefully heavy-handed ‘policing’ ordered by the conservative PP (the most corrupt political party in western Europe) government in Spain, did irreparable harm to the reputation of the government and the country.  And the extended victimization of the leaders who took part by use of a highly questionable judicial procedure and blatantly partisan judges did nothing to repair the damage.

     North of the Pyrenees the ‘legal’ ‘justification’ for the prosecution and later condemnation of the leaders of the referendum and their consequent imprisonment was treated with astonished contempt, and all other European countries rejected the shaming demands by the Spanish Government for extradition of the self-exiled leaders of the referendum movement, political and social.

     In the five years since the referendum was held, where an overwhelming majority voted in favour of independence, most people would say that the political situation has worsened, and not just as far as the question of independence for Catalonia is concerned.

     The influence of Vox, the far-right party, has grown and there are areas of Spain where the far-right is in government, working with PP to ensure a right-wing majority, or with Vox forming the largest party in its own right.

     Of course, in Catalonia, PP and Vox are treated with the disgusted contempt that they so richly deserve, with their parliamentary representation being so small that they do not even have the numbers to form their own grouping within the Catalan parliament – but nationally, it does look as though the PP with the help of fascist scum like Vox and an equally contemptible right-wing party, the C’s, could have a majority in the next general election for the national parliament and oust the so-called “Socialists” that are in power at the moment.

     Although Catalonia does have a majority of independence representatives in the Catalan Parliament, the politicos have not declared independence and have worked with the national government to get the referendum leaders out of jail and have decided to proceed via negotiation rather than via confrontation.  Which sounds reasonable enough, until you start looking at the history of the conflicts between central government in Madrid and the government and people of Catalonia.

     The question of whether there is a majority in favour of independence in Catalonia is moot.  In Catalan parliamentary terms, the majority is clear; in terms of the general population of Catalonia, the figures are ambiguous.  To which the response might well be, “Then put the question to a vote!”  A vote that would be accepted by all sides in the argument.

     You have to understand that the “Unity of Spain” is a concept that is written into the Constitution, and some have suggested that any vote for independence by Catalonia would have to be open to the whole of the population of Spain!

     When I was seven or eight years old, my parents brought me to Spain from Cardiff, for my first foreign holiday, to Tossa de Mar on the Costa Brava in Catalonia.  Dad took me to the building site that was the Sagrada Familia and explained to me what the church represented and said, “Catalonia is not Spain!” 

     It is perhaps significant that behind the Civic Buildings in the centre of Cardiff there is a memorial to the Welshmen who fought and died in The Spanish Civil War https://historypoints.org/index.php?page=spanish-civil-war-memorial-cardiff and some of those names are from the area where my father grew up, he would have known the families and, although too young to have fought in the Spanish Civil War, he was of an age to be a member of the armed forces in the Second World War.  The modern story of Spain and its fight against fascism, and especially the heroic struggle of the Republican forces centred in Barcelona against Franco was a story with personal links.  The miners of South Wales were stalwart supporters of the Republic, as were many other workers and intellectuals.  There is a residual affection for the national ambitions of Catalonia and a rejection of the subterfuge that has been used to belittle the valid arguments for statehood.

     But, as always, politics is the art of the possible, and in the complex games that politicians play, the simple questions become enmeshed in the rococo frills of self-interested definitions, so that impetus is lost.

     Catalan politicians make clear statements calling for independence, but their actions are more nuanced and ambiguous – but the rancour of unfinished business is likely to sour Catalan politics for some time to come.

 

 

MONDAY 2^nd October

 

There seems to be a direct correlation between my buying an uninteresting piece of domestic hardware via the Internet and then finding a cheaper version on sale in Aldi or Lidl almost immediately afterwards.  This has happened too often for it to be a mere coincidence, and I begin to suspect a major conspiracy.

     Everyone 'knows' that one’s computer and mobile phone listen to us via voice and keystrokes.  How many times have we volubly prevaricated about cutting the grass or painting the bathroom ceiling with proper anti-mould paint, to find adverts for mowers, strimmers, paint brushes, paint, and those little trays for use with rollers suddenly making their way into the feeds for computer and phone?  And bafflingly, if you do succumb to the purchase of a lawn mower or strimmer, you are assailed by further adverts urging you to buy another one!  What sort of palatial establishments do Amazon, and their devilish associates think we live in, where a single mower is wildly inadequate for our vast lawns?  Why waste computing power on repeat adverts when the product has already been bought?  Such things are beyond the imagining of we mere consumers – perhaps Amazon has a computer-generated list of the things and the number of those things that we are supposed to possess according to their relentlessly capitalistic algorithms, and we are kicking against the weight of untold exabytes of computing power that tell the company what we should have, irrespective of how we mere flesh-carriers think our possessions should be ordered!

     I am sure that there is a sci-fi short story there somewhere - if it hasn’t already been written.

 

TUESDAY  3^rd October

 

Today is the opening performance in the new Opera Season in the Liceu – at least it is the opening concert in Torn A – the subscription series that I have – though I don’t think that this is the First Night.

     The walk from the car park on the Ramblas to the Liceu is getting more and more onerous for me, as I hobble along with my baston and pausing to look into the windows of shops full of tourist crap, as a way of spacing out the effort to get me there.

     I always dress down for the Opera, which is to say that I wear what I always wear, shorts and a t-shirt, unless the weather is really cool, in which case I make the concession to dressiness and sport a pair of jeans.  The weather at this stage of October is still fairly warm, and I type this with the doors to the balcony open to give a cooling breeze!

     The opera is Don Pasquale by Donizetti and, as usual, I have had recourse to my Amanda Holden edited copy of The Penguin Opera Guide to give me an edge as the absurdities of the piece, but it is a masterpiece of opera buffa, and a convincingly realistic narrative is not something that we should expect!

     And, at the end of the week, another (the second) of my Saturday afternoon (early evening) concerts in La Palau. 

     Culture reigns!

Happy Christmas?

 

 

Today marks the real institutionalisation of the pandemic.  I had to show my Covid Certificate or Passport to get into the swimming pool.

     There was the usual failure of the technology when it turned out that the image of my scrambled digital thingy on my mobile phone (you can tell that I have forgotten what they are called) was too small to be read by the mobile phone app that was being used to check entry.  For some reason the phone did not allow me to expand the image to make things easier for the desk staff, but eventually I was allowed in.

     Last night on the television there was a piece on the long lines of people in the centre of Barcelona who had just realized that their access to bars, restaurants and gyms was going to be ended if they could not produce a valid covid certificate, and so they were desperately queuing to get their jabs.  I suppose that one should think, “Better late than never”, but one can’t quite rid oneself of the bone deep irritation that one feels when thinking about the sheer inconsideration of people who can’t give a hoot for the general good until it impacts on them directly.

     In the armed forces, I remember reading from years ago (and had it confirmed by my Dad) if you suffered from sun burn, it was considered an offence as the ‘injury’ was ‘self-inflicted’.  I feel very much the same from those people now clogging up precious hospital beds, where the vast majority of Covid patients in ICUs are unvaccinated!

     I don’t remember the same degree of vaccine avoidance about other fatal diseases and feel that the political edge given to Covid vaccine reluctance is one left over from the disastrous ‘presidency’ of Trump. 

     His macho idiocy and cavalier attitude towards disease prevention is directly responsible for deaths.  For anyone else you would ask yourself how the hell he manages to sleep at night knowing the damage he has done to families and to institutions – but with such a sociopathic narcissist like himself, where he is the centre of his own sick universe, he is able to redefine responsibility and ignore so-called collateral damage.

     In Catalonia, I take the requirement to show that you are vaccinated to be a clear sign that our government is taking things seriously. 

     Yes, there are contradictions contained in what we understand to be the new rules for socialising and, as things stand at the moment, I will be able to go to my next opera in the Liceu with almost full capacity.  I assume that we will be asked to show a Covid certificate for entry there too, but I have yet to be informed by the House, and the performance is only a week or so away.

     I do understand that, as a retired person, I can afford to take a fairly purist attitude towards restrictions: I do not have to commute, my financial wellbeing is not connected (directly) to the health of any one firm or place of work in the UK, I can afford to be complacent, in so far as my pension is from the government and not from any public company.  Yes, the ability of governments to pay their pensioners is directly dependent on the wealth of the country providing them, and the restrictions on people being able to work has lessened the tax money that the government can spend, but we are still protected in a more direct way than a self-employed actor, or waiter, or salesperson.

     Christmas is the time when some industries make a chunk of their earnings: the Panto season in theatres is essential to the health of the theatre for the coming year; restaurants look to party bookings during this period as a guaranteed source of income to see them through the leaner times in the year.  All computation about what will and will not happen financially has been thrown into disarray by the pandemic.  Nothing is certain.  Rules change on a weekly basis.  Long term confidence is something of a dream.

     Those lucky enough to be on a combination of full, state, and professional pensions are assured of a fixed payment each month.  For the majority of the working population the pandemic has shown how privileged this financial state is as what previously had been thought to be guaranteed proved itself to be not as firmly grounded as hoped.

     I do understand that keeping the economy going is of essential importance, pensions are, after all, paid by the contributions of those still working – but there is also the question of the health and safety of the nation to be taken into consideration too.

     In the UK at the moment, there are wildly differing approaches depending on who you listen to in Government about what you can consider doing this Christmas.  John Crace (the Guardian Political Sketch Writer, and well worth reading) is fond of using the image of Schrodinger’s Cat to illustrate some of the contradictory attitude of government.  Johnson seems to have abdicated responsibility for giving clear advice about what to do this Christmas apart from saying that Christmas Parties should not be cancelled, but he still harps on about personal responsibility where what he is doing is off-loading the burden of accountability on to some sort of mythical inner logician that we all have inside us, that will allow him to claim that any increase in deaths because of faulty precautions taken will be the responsibility of those who die and not the person who has the title of Prime Minister and who should be leading us.

     The corruption, lies, deaths, incompetence, bullying, hypocrisy, and cowardice of this twelve-year-old government makes the “Thirteen years of Tory misrule” proclaimed by Wilson in 1964 look positively prim by comparison!

     Here in Catalonia, we have a government where the equivalent of the Conservatives has little power, but there is a limit to what can be done when the parties we do have are squabbling amongst themselves and hardly living up to the names of the political sections they are supposed to represent.

     Politics seems to be becoming murkier by the month and adds nothing to the confidence with which we can look forward to Christmas and the next year.

     I fear that the imposition of Covid passports is just a step in the process of softening us up to accept far more stringent restrictions when the full import of the growth of the Omicron variant is clear.

     “Happy Christmas” is a fond hope, not a greeting.

Knees Up Mother Brown!

sticks,          

 

Well, I suppose it is something to be told that the x-rays of your knees are “the worst that I have seen” by your doctor, as the opening gambit in a conversation that stopped before the Pandemic made seeing actually speaking face to face with your doctor a thing of the past.  Welcome to the new future.

      

 

My knees have never really been my strong point and a few tumbles while dismounting from my bike, have made them a damn sight worse.

     I can walk unaided, but it is so much better with a stick – and my walking is strictly limited to that which is strictly necessary.  Which sometimes means that I don’t even reach the unambitious target (set by my smartwatch) of 3,000 steps a day.

     The process of my future care is now slotted into The System and that will grind its inexorable way forward, although given the pandemic, the number of untreated cases of wonky knees is probably in the tens of thousands, and the medical mills grind slow.

     My prescriptions have changed, but only to give me better pain killers, which the doctor has suggested I use with caution – which makes you wonder just what drug they are derived from!  I have done without pain killers up until now and I can stumble my way onwards without them.  Hopefully.

     A blood test has been set up for me and another appointment with the doctor to see exactly what is happening and then, who knows?

     There was a horror story of a guy in the UK who needed to have a back tooth taken out and who searched for an NHS dentist to do the job.  He couldn’t find one locally, and after some fifty phone calls to increasingly distant practitioners, he eventually found one who suggested that the earliest appointment he could have would be THREE YEARS DISTANT! 

     Perhaps this is one of those instant urban myths that flourish in straitened times, but I am sure that I read about it in the Guardian, and since I put all of my faith into the probity of that newspaper, it gives you a mighty pause for thought.

     I have to say that the medical treatment that I have had in Catalonia has been exemplary and my doctor has been essential to my well-being.  But there is only so much that a local health centre can do.  Operations on the knee are well outside their remit.

     It is at this point that I remember my father.  He too had problems with his knees, but his problems came after a career as a PE teacher and playing professional Rugby League.  I really have to hunt around to find reasons for my knee problems, and I don’t think that a few nasty tumbles from the bike explains everything.

     Dad was told that he would have to have an operation but, even in those days, there were waiting lists and he would have to go on being in pain, waiting for a bed to become available.

     In spite of his socialist beliefs, he eventually listened to his surgeon who told him, “If you have a private consultation with me, I will be able to recommend you to one of ‘my’ beds in the hospital and then the operation will be done on the National Health.”  My father paid the fifteen guineas for the consultation, with the surgeon, which was obviously just a form of words, he was given a bed and was operated on, basically by jumping the queue.  Dad was in pain, and he couldn’t walk.  The NHS should have been able to deal with his condition but, we do not live in an ideal world, and the fifteen guineas was money well spent.

     When I find out exactly what is wrong with my ‘disaster area’ knees and what the specialist suggests needs to be done about them, then I will have to look at the possibilities and what is going to work for me.

     So far, the Catalan health service has been brilliant and has fully justified my faith in it.  My knees might pose a problem that will need a little more than faith to sort them out.    We will see.