Christmas? No problem!

 

 

 

 

 A plastic bag that has been lying around the third-floor slum that I call my study turned out to have the midget Christmas Tree in it.   

     Midget it may well be, but it fits almost comically perfectly on the shelf that Toni constructed to take the fan to blow away the noxious ciggie smoke from the “departed” neighbour who used to sit in her open window and waft her filth towards us.

     Now the little shelf looks purpose built to take the tree.  And with its raising we have Christmasified ourselves completely.  With the single Christmas card from Andrew and the plugging in of the annual (well, we don’t ever take it down) Christmas star in the kitchen window, there is little more that we can do to become completed festivified.  And we have spent virtually no time whatsoever in getting to this stage of entering into the spirt of the season!  A win-win situation.

     My mother had a habit (that I have enthusiastically adopted) of declaring certain of her purchases (especially those of questionable value) as officially “Best Buys”. 

     This designation sought to imbue the purchase with the sort of cachet which made it “good value for money” and therefore justifiable, and (further therefore) well beyond the carping criticism of a confirmed anti-shopper like my father.  She was also well aware that she could always call on my unbiased, enthusiastic support for the mere act of purchasing, let alone giving her approbation for the actual object itself.

     My mother was the inventor of the clothing doctrine: “If it fits and is comfortable, buy it in all available colours.” 

     I remember being with her once when she put this into operation.  My mother and I share what may be described as “fussy” feet, where the cheap, cheerful, and totally acceptable ordinary shoe does nothing for our feet.  Indeed, mere expense is no guide to comfort and finding the right shoe for us made Prince Charming’s quest look slipshod!

     My mother found a court shoe that fitted, was comfortable and utilitarian.  She bought a single pair to try and pronounced them fine and, with me in toe, she went back to the shop and did as she believed, and literally bought a pair in every colour they made.  My mother, being my mother, explained what she was doing to a completely indifferent salesperson, and we both returned home triumphant and slightly hysterical.

     As the numerous pairs of shoes were laid out for inspection, my father merely sighed a little and lit his pipe.

     A similar process obtains with cutlery and crockery.  As a boy who was made aware of the differences between different grades of china at an early age and was taught to weigh and balance cutlery in hand to evaluation its worth, plates, spoons, glasses, and suchlike have an important place in my life.

     I like things to match and so the purchase of a ‘life’ canteen of china is something not lightly entered into.

     I had no way of knowing that life, the universe, and everything would bring about the downfall of a potter like Wedgewood.  For goodness’ sake, William Blake did drawings for the early publicity of the firm! 

 

 

 

 

 

It was a business founded in righteousness and destined to see us all out.  The choosing of a pattern in Wedgewood was therefore something that would last, if not forever, at least for a reasonable lifetime.

     The transience of things thought to be permanent, would have been more of a problem if I had not followed my mother’s other dictum related to china, “Buy at least 12 of everything” so even with inevitable breakages, I am still able to set a decent table.

     When I bought the Wedgewood Aztec patterned service from Debenhams 

 

 

(a store also gone the way of all flesh) I bought so much (see my mother’s advice above) that it came with a “free breakages replacement” guarantee for a year!  During the first year only one plate was broken (by Helen who stood on it) and the pieces were carefully kept because, if you did not claim on the insurance, you were given a whole single place setting free at the end of the year.  At the end of the year, my not having claimed, I was sent not one, but two place settings free.  And that insurance offer was terminated soon after they arrived!  What sensible advice my mother gave!

     On the basis of direct descendance, I now claim the right to designate things “Best Buys” and the few years old tree and the more than a few years old star qualify for that title.  And their reuse gives green credentials to the activity and the carbon footprint is low because the lights on the tree and the star are low power led.

     Christmas done and dusted!

LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 18 – 2nd APRIL

Today saw the delivery of a packet of 10 disposable facemasks from China.  I ordered them at the beginning of the crisis and I was concerned about the projected late delivery date.  How innocent that concern now seems!  I felt that the crisis would probably be over before we got a chance to wear them.  How naïve!  Even the Tangerine Tale-Teller seems to be frantically re-writing his own political history and explaining to the American people that the virus that he downplayed as little more than mild flu is now a merciless silent killer and, far from magically disappearing, will be with us for the foreseeable future: Terminator Trump – how many ‘corporate manslaughter’ deaths does he have on his bloody hands?

     The same question could be asked of the politicians in the UK and here in Spain.  One virus expert stated that the key to controlling and understanding the virus was to “Test! Test! Test!”  And we are told that two thousand out of five hundred thousand health workers have been tested in the UK.  How can this be?  And who is to blame?  Every day’s delay means fewer workers in essential services and a greater threat of infection.

It is with something approaching relief that I turn to the crappy weather we are having in Castelldefels.  I have often said that weather in this country lacks the spitefulness of British weather, in other words, the climate in Catalonia usually means that even on a rainy day we have a portion (sometimes tiny) of sunshine.  Not over the last few days: overcast, miserable and wet.

     My circuits around the pool have now taken on a more drunken appearance as I have decided to ‘weave’ my way around the perimeter to add difference to the monotony of a single direction.  To an observer I must look like a robot cleaner with a faulty coverage pattern as I veer one way and then another.  I think that part of my reasoning for variety is based on half remembered memoirs of prisoners who walked around their cells for exercise, but always remembered to vary their direction in their confined spaces because, because . . . I cannot quite remember why, but there was a good reason I’m sure; dizziness, or unequal development or something.  Anyway, it gives a different perspective and that is essential as I go round and round and round.

     The placid surface of the pool acts as a weather indicator: if there is any rain in the breeze then the expanding ripples let me make a decision about whether I continue my walk or call it a day and have another cup of tea.

     I marched around the pool this morning listening to the panel of In Our Time on Radio 4 talking about the gin craze in late C17th England.  Only on Radio 4!  There truly cannot be another radio station like it anywhere in the world.

We have had yet another period of 24 hours here in Spain where the death toll is a new 'record' of 963, and the total figures of deaths has passed 10,000.  The figures of those infected have passed those in China.  We are in a continuing nightmare – even if that nightmare does not really touch us in our parochial confines in Castelldefels.

     We are reliant on news of the ‘outside’ world from the Internet and continue to feel the anger of the frustrated as we watch inefficiency, duplicity and greed define the parameters of the crisis.

     Respirators seem to be the crystalizing concept of futility in the battle against the virus.  Numbers of machines necessary to cope with the projected number of patients are thrown around with politicians manufacturing plenitude with airy words while the hard reality of machines linked to patients seems to be woefully inadequate.  

   We hear of uplifting stories of companies using their resources to design, prototype and get to manufacture machines in an amazingly short period of time; we hear of major engineering works retooling to meet respirator demand – but then we hear of a depressingly high figure of hospitals saying that resources have not got to them, and that a disaster is developing as they watch and wait.

     In World War II, American shipyards managed to launch three Liberty Ships for the cargo conveys for Britain every two days; have we lost the ability to mass produce what is essential to meet the threats of crises in the last seventy years or so?  

   Given the greater interconnectedness of our world are we incapable of working together in a meaningful way to ensure the equitable spread of equipment and facilities?  It certainly appears that we have learned little from each new viral threat to our planet.

     Without full testing we cannot know what the virus is really doing.  The lack of testing in Spain, Britain and the US is the real 'killer' story.  We obviously need to work to get mass testing in place; but the reasons for its delay must be a key questions to be asked when this pandemic is over. 

     Or perhaps it cannot be left until them.  They are questions that need answers now and it needs those people who have obstructed and obfuscated to be removed to save lives.       

     Every time a selfish, inefficient, mendacious politician speaks, people die.   

     Let’s get rid of them now!

How much have I spent!

 

 

If people took as much time to research their partners as they do to buy a smartwatch then the world will be, um, a different place. I suppose that I will now have to hurriedly bring in a whole series of disclaimers that this is not about me and mine, it is just a casual thought.  A casual thought, brought on however, by my own experience.  And I will stop there as I appear to be adding to the depth of the hole!

I have been researching watches for some time.  I need little impetus to do so as watches and their purchase are a ‘thing’ of mine.  Ever since my first Ingersoll (8 jewels, or was it even more?) that was my first real timepiece – discounting the red plastic with yellow moveable arms thing on which I learned to tell the time – and the start of a life-long casual (but serious) affair with watches.

I have never been a fan of the upper range of absurdly expensive watches for much the same reason that I shun expensive fountain pens: I am drawn to both, but know that my less than serious approach to things material will mean that they will go the way of all flesh before I have had my money’s worth out of them.

I have always maintained that my favourite Madge song is “I am a material girl”.  I adore things, philosophically and materially, but I do not look after them in the way that I should.  I was brought up with grandparents and parents who were firmly in the ‘make do and mend’ generations, but they produced someone who, even though he had a cub badge which represented the fact that he had proved himself not to be a spendthrift (for a stipulated period of time) has yet to learn the true value of money and via that the value of things.

Far from the ‘make do and mend’ approach to life, I have always veered (quite directly) towards the ‘buy new’ approach to the capitalist society.  The evil fiends behind the planned obsolescence that drives our society must regard me as some sort of patron saint.  Cameras, computers, mobile phones and, above all, watches litter my life as I eagerly embrace each new fad, app and gadget.

As far as the watches are concerned, I had thought that I had found the smartwatch of my dreams in the Pebble.  This excellent watch was funded on Kickstarter or similar and produced a smartwatch with an always-on display, waterproof for swimming, a large face with digits easy enough for me to read, metal construction with metal band and all at a reasonable cost!  Job done!  And it was, until the firm produced a further watch, a development from the original (that I backed) and I waited for another great watch.

And it didn’t happen.  Because the firm was bought by the larger watch maker Fitbit and that was the last that we heard of the Pebble.  Except, of course, thousands of customers actually own them and have continued to use them.  But the apps that we use to make the most of the smart capabilities are gradually being un-supported and if anything goes wrong with the watch there is no real system to repair it.  The Pebble community does what it can, but our watches are gallopingly obsolescent.  One of the buttons on my watch is not now working.  It still tells the time, but that is a far cry from what it should be able to do.  So, I decided to search for a replacement.

The internet is awash with ‘reduced’ cost smartwatches costing between 20 and 100 euros, with the median price being just under 50.  What these watches offer is astonishing: they play music, take photos, locate you, tell you the weather, height above sea level – and tell the time.  Just as with modern phones, their primary function, the fact that they allow people to speak to each other seems to be the least of their capabilities!

But these ‘bargains’ were rarely waterproof, or if they were, they were not equipped with an always-on screen.  As soon as I had found a watch that seemed like a reasonable replacement for my Pebble, a more searching examination of the attributes of the watch would reveal that it actually had “everyday waterproof” status which mean that you could wash dishes carefully in it, or it would take a few drops of rain.  Or, more revealingly, it would say nothing about its waterproof status and so you would buy at your own risk.

I must have looked at scores of watches and rejected the lot.  Well, that is not strictly true.  I have ‘fallen’ for one or two too-good-to-be-true offers that have turned out to be exactly that.  I now own one watch that actually plays stored music on its tiny loudspeakers!  This was supposed to be waterproof, but the back of that particular watch is very easy to dislodge and is anything but waterproof.  There is another watch that I helped fund on Kickstarter that is powered by body heat and will never need a battery, and it is also waterproof.  But the most important aspect of this wonder watch is that it doesn’t yet exist!  Or at least its production seems impossibly delayed.

So, I have taken commercial action and bought a watch: the Amazfit Stratos.  It seems to tick most of my ‘must have’ attributes: easily readable watch face, good battery life, waterproof for swimming.  The proof of course will become clear in the next few weeks through use – but I live in hope.  And it will, after all, be the end result of many hours of pleasurable imaginary spending.

Later.

I have now been struck by the ‘waiting for a bus syndrome’ – in the sense that you wait and wait for the one you want and then two come along at the same time.  As with buses so with watches.  No sooner had a bought the Amazfit than the watch that I supported on Kickstarter, indeed the one I referred to above, suddenly became a reality and, after a hefty import duty paid to the delivery driver, I now have a Matrix that I could put on my wrist!

This too is waterproof and never needs a battery (in theory) because of its ability to extract energy from the difference between body temperature and ambient temperature.  I shall put the technology for this in the same category as the oscillating crystals that tell the time in watches!

Apart from the difficulty of pairing the Matrix with my phone – and that was solved by reference to the Matrix website and the FAQs – I now have two working watches, two NEW working watches, to replace my fading Pebble!

As it happens, I am wearing the Amazfit today.  Having made an executive decision last night after weighing up the attributes of both.  I can’t pretend that I have been scientific or even fair with the products, but a decision has been made.

The reasons: the Amazfit has a dedicated ‘swimming’ app that gives lots of information that I am sure will come in useful some time or other; it is easy to use; it has the bigger number size when telling the time; it looks better than the Matrix and it is lighter.  I think that they are roughly comparable in price and both have an always-on display on which I insist.  I could probably recommend either, but at the moment the Amazfit has taken pride of place with the Matrix being a reserve watch.

I don’t think that I have ordered any more watches in the deep past that are suddenly going to pop over the fence into my time reality – but I really am a sucker for a well designed face, so to speak and I cannot positively rule out the fact that I backslid some time ago and there is a timepiece with my name on it making its way to Castelldefels from China!

I await the next post.