Old habits die hard.
Or at least they have a way of rising zombie-like from time lost in
laziness or indifference.
This writing is a case in
point. I am using, not my newish laptop
bought after extensive trawling through reviews and at least one expensive
mistake, but my old trusted MacBook Air.
Although I have abjured the buying of new Apple machines after the shameless
pricing of the latest iteration of the Apple Watch, I am ever drawn to my
MacBook Air. It is the only piece of
computer technology which, even after the decade (or ‘century’ in computer age
years) of use that it has given, it still looks the business and its svelte
metallic appearance still makes it a little object of desire.
I understand (horror of
horrors!) that the Apple logo does not light up on the latest versions of the
machine – that surely is a travesty! I
speak as someone who bought an entire music system (there are three words that
you don’t often see together nowadays) because it met two of my basic
requirements: it had to have lots of flashing lights and the cassette eject
system had to open in slow motion. The
user may not see the illuminated logo, but other people do and they either feel
a fellowship with the user that they can see, or they know themselves cast into
the other darkness of lost souls with dead logos. It may not add to the operating system but
the light from the logo paradoxically puts others in the shadow.
Little things are
important. And they are not ‘little’
either. The last time that an Apple
Dealer saw my MacBook Air when I was trying to update the system, he described
it as ‘Vintage’, as all machines over five years old are described! That lustrum is the age of a Secondary School
generation as it progresses from Year 7 to Year 11, and I suppose that kids in
Year 11 looking back to their younger selves in Year 7 would wholeheartedly
agree that anything that they liked and admired when fresh-faced first formers
(forgive my own regression to out-dated nomenclature there) playing ancient
games on their outmoded mobile phones in those far-off times!
But the look and the feel of
the MacBook Air from 2010 still looks good, still makes other machines look
clunky and somehow stodgy. So, in spite
of the fact that my (expensive, compact and powerful) Dell is within a hand’s
reach, I am typing on the Mac.
And typing a blog
entry. I have been very remiss over
keeping up my blog and it has become very much an Occasional Feast for me
instead of the Daily Duty that it was at one time. My self-protestations that I will produce a
piece of writing every day, have been empty, and each day without writing makes
it easier to add a further day to the dilatory approach. But today, today I feel inspired to put
finger to key and get back into the habit.
Why, you might ask. The sad reason is that I have left my mobile
phone upstairs and I am too lazy to go up and get it. My morning schedule includes going the quick
crossword in the Guardian and I usually complete that on my phone. I can do the crossword on my iPad, but I have
allowed the battery to run down and I have had to put it on charge. I could, of course, use the very computer
that I am typing on now to do the crossword, but doing the crossword on the
computer smacks of slight perversity – so, it was either sitting down sipping
tea and trying to look demure; going up stairs to get the phone, or setting-to
and writing.
Today I had a lie-in and
didn’t go for my usual early morning swim, so the opportunity to write in my
notebook after my swim had been taken away.
Yes, I know that I can write in my notebook at any time, but I do it
after my swim, so I hope that you begin to see that ‘circumstances’ have
conspired to get me writing another entry for my long ignored blog, because
‘historically’ most of the entries for my blog have been written on the machine
that I am using now, my Mac.
So, from the dark days of
wordlessness, I lurch towards the light of articulacy and prose.
As someone who find the
style of ‘Tristram Shandy’ eminently natural in its predilection for
digression, I do not find it at all surprising that I have taken the best part
of a couple of typed pages to say, “I’m writing a blog entry.” And I now feel that I can get on with what
might be appreciated as actual subject matter.
Since Christmas, indeed
since a little before Christmas, we have been beset by noise. Now, Catalonia is not a quiet place
(although, paradoxically it is only the lingering sounds of the tail end of
Toni’s cough that echo through the house at the moment) but we have had the
cacophonous horror of the house next door being completely renovated. As far as we can appreciate, this involves
hitting all wall, floor and ceiling surfaces an infinite number of times with
hammers. As we live in a group of five
conjoined houses, structural sound in one is seamlessly transferred to the
others – and even more so if you live next door. As far as I can tell, the workmen must have
hit every square inch of the surface and each of those blows we feel.
One Sunday (sic) the noise
was so intense that I couldn’t hear the radio in our living room. I complained, but if the work needs to be
done, what can I reasonably expect? This
is what you get when the skeleton of our houses is concrete; hit one part of
the frame and it is shared with all!
This evening, Opera,
Mozart’s last, La Clemenza di Tito – and not one that I know
particularly well, but I am open to being enthused by the production, and of
course the music!
When I go to the opera I
take the opportunity in the interval to go to the Café de l’Opera in the
Ramblas and scribble a few notes about the production with a view to writing a
review in the blog. I have again been rather
remiss here too and my notes have remained notes. Today, however, I will assume that tomorrow I
write and post the review!
Talking of writing. The production of my latest book, The
eloquence of broken things[1],
has been beset by problems. The pdf of
the book was used for the print but, for reasons that have not been discovered,
a double series of printing errors made their way to the finished books. The printer has not been able to explain how
a good pdf copy produced faulty final product.
A reprint was necessary and I am more than pleased with the
results. But. In reading through and admiring my and the
printer’s handiwork, I noticed a typo in one of the first poems! This could not be put down to the faulty
printing; this was a proof reading error.
By the time I noticed it, it was too late to change anything.
I decided to make the best
of a bad job and therefore wrote an insert ‘celebrating’ and explaining the
error in a poetic mea culpa, tucked
inside the front cover – each copy individually initialled to make it more
official!
The poem is included here as
part of the lead up to the publication of the collection.
Erratum
p.14, l.2, w.6
for hr read her
for hr read her
Within a Turkish rug’s
expensive symmetry
is woven an intentional false note –
because perfection’s the preserve of god,
and not of stumbling, imperfect Man.
But, isn’t there an arrogance
in saying, “Yes, of course there’s that –
but all the rest . . . !” As if
parading of a self-made fault
limits additional faux pas?
It’s Baldrick’s bullet[2].
Logic?
False!
Yet it’s a way of life we all adopt
because we live inelegant reality,
not textbook-sharp, black-outlined clarity.
Mistakes and errors? That’s who we are!
Come with the territory.
Flaws are the marbling of life.
We have to say.
Because it’s inescapable.
I’d read and read again
the poem that contains the fault,
and yet not seen the missing ‘e’
until the final print was done
and it was then too late to change.
The sticking-plaster-sized
erratum slip is grudgingly applied
accepting and bewailing
my falling short.
But, what are vowels in the scheme of
things?
Thngs tht cn b thghtlssly gnrd –
and still the consonantal frame
allows a certain fluency.
If there had only been a gap
the reader could have,
would have, filled it
in
without a thought.
But these are cavils
trying hard to justify
imperfect sight.
I should regard the ‘humbling by slip’
as something more akin to public sacrifice:
(expiation, celebration,
for inexact humanity)
than hoping that,
in spite of all the odds,
the misprint, all alone,
is by itslf.
[1] Rees,
SM. (2020) The eloquence of broken things, Barcelona, Praetorius Books.
[2] Private S. Baldrick, Captain Blackadder’s idiot batman is caught
inscribing his name on a bullet when in the trenches in 1917, his explanation
is, “I thought if I owned the bullet with my name on it, I’d never get hit by
it.” Blackadder Goes Forth Series
4, Episode 1. First broadcast 28th
September 1989, 9.30 pm on BBC1, written by Richard Curtis and Ben Elton.
