Now you listen here!

Unsettling violence and raw sexuality mark Shostakovich’s opera “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk”, it certainly resonated with the contemporary audience, as it was a popular and critical success.  After two years and hundreds of performances the fame of the piece reached the attention of the most powerful man in the country and he decided to go to a performance.  He was appalled by what he saw and heard and left before the end of the piece.  The next day, what had been an overwhelming success was denounced in the newspaper, and the authorities began monitoring Shostakovich’s activities.

The man who had come to see the opera was Josef Stalin, and his dislikes had a way of being fatal.  Shostakovich had to do something, so he started writing his 5^th Symphony and when it was completed he subtitled it, “A Soviet Artist’s Response to Justified Criticism.”

Whatever the moral and artistic justifications for the subtitling, you have to admit that the 5^th is a fantastic piece of music.  What was it?  Cowardice?  Self-preservation?  Subtle defiance?  Capitulation?  Irony?  Who knows – but it kept Shostakovich alive and he continued writing.  He was, after all, dealing with one of the greatest mass murderers in the sad history of mankind’s inhumanity.

I thought of this piece of history from the 1930s when I was watching the television news and they played a part of Felipe VI of Spain’s speech at Davos, that comfortable gathering of the rich and privileged in a little Swiss ski resort.

The part of the king’s speech that grabbed me was:

“With all this in mind, I don’t wish to conclude this part of my speech without addressing the recent crisis in a truly fundamental part of Spain’s soul and diverse identity: Catalonia; where we have seen an attempt to undermine the basic rules of our democratic system.” [My emphasis]

Let us forget about the location of this speech for a moment, though the people there certainly forget about democracy on a regular basis, but concentrate firstly on the person speaking.

Filipe VI is the son of Juan Carlos I, the man personally selected and groomed for kingship by the Spanish Dictator Franco.  Juan Carlos eventually abdicated after a number of scandals including going on an all expenses paid hunting trip after a television performance where he sympathized with the economic lot of the struggling mass of the population; his various paternity cases; Royal spending and the usual corruption of the very rich.  His abdication to become “King Emeritus” and the coronation of his son Filipe was a political solution via a stitched-together deal between PP and PSOE.

So this hereditary monarch, Bourbon de Bourbon, whose house was reinstated by a Fascist dictator, has the temerity to talk about democracy!  There was a referendum in Catalonia about Independence; there was an election in Catalonia to form a new Parliament – I can’t remember any referendum or election regarding the slipping on an eldest son onto the throne of Spain!

Bourbon de Bourbon talking about Democracy is like Rees-Mogg campaigning for a statue of Marie Stopes to be erected in Parliament Square.

After what Bourbon de Bourbon’s family has taken from and done to Spain over the years, it is difficult to take his mouthing of platitudes as anything more than calculated insult.

Meanwhile the “undermining of the rules of our basic democratic system” continues apace with the farcical scattering of the police around any entry point, though not all, to Spain just in case the dangerously elected politician, and our President, Puigdemont might make it to Parliament where he is the only candidate slated for the investiture of the office.  The ever-absurd Zoido (sic.) the burly cartoon character who has been inflated to be Minister of the Interior bustles about the place trying (and signally failing) to look ministerial, or at least competent, or even credible. 

We have had television pictures at the border crossings with France where the police are searching cars for our exiled President and also searching handbags!  I don’t know whether these boys in blue (or whatever) think that canny Catalan scientists have mastered the techniques shown in The Incredible Shrinking Man and that Puigdemont is truly being smuggled in via a pencil case so that he can be dramatically returned to full size inside the Parliament.  Or perhaps they are just stupid.  To be fair, I think it is more reasonable to suppose that, given a stupid job they are trying to make it appear at least halfway sensible, by searching properly.  Making the best of futility!

Meanwhile my enforced exile inside my house continues.  I am counting the days to when I might actually be allowed to take a short walk!

This morning I actually managed to re-arrange the flowers that I have been given.  Toni brought them to my chair and I snipped and pruned and arranged.  This is something that I have always enjoyed doing.  Flowers add life to a room and well arranged blooms become more than their individual plants.  I cannot pretend that I have my mother’s skill, but I try my best and I am constantly amazed by just how much pleasure flowers can give – especially if you are spending hour after hour in the same chair!

I have also received a get-well card that also has flowers on it with the stamens touched with gold!  It all works for me!

Toni is cleaning the kitchen.  Although a comparison with the Augean Stables would be unfair (though Toni reports far too many surfaces are too sticky for comfort!) in terms of sheer clutter rather than filth it is an accurate image.  

We suffer from the Impenetrable Cupboard Syndrome, where a wall of kitchen thingerie meets the baffled gaze when a door is opened.  We know that somewhere there lurk Useful Things, but to find them everything has to be taken out and then put back again.  When that is the modus operandi it is amazing how much and how often one can ‘make do’ with what one can see.

For example, I know that I possess a melon baller, as who doesn’t?  I have used it, and I know that it works.  It does make a fairly mundane fruit look interesting, but how far is one prepared to exert oneself in the effort of looking?  I think there is a time limit of a couple of minutes and a quick glance in The Drawer Where Things Are – you know, that drawer that contains things that you could not work out where else to put: The Drawer of Last Resort.

What truly frightens me is that Toni is now making executive decisions based on the fact that I am supposed to sit down quietly and rest.  And I am resting in the living room and not the kitchen – where I can hear things being moved around and placed, who knows where, maybe even in the bin!  And breathe, and relax!

This is now Day 6 (by my reckoning) and I have to get to Day 14 before I can do anything as exciting as, for example, going for a walk.  On Day 32 I might be able to go for a short, slow swim.  Something to work towards.

Meanwhile, there is editing, writing and reading.  And I enjoy all three.

To work!

Four Days Later

It has now been four days since I returned from hospital to a more domestic setting.  And four days in which I have had to supress all my natural impulses, and try and learn to relax and rest and take it easy.

You might think that would be easy.  Just think of it as a ‘holiday at home’ with ‘butler’ service provided by my partner, I told myself.  Sit down in a comfortable (reclining) armchair, write, eat, watch television and allow the sun to warm the back of one's neck through the closed window.

It has been much, much harder than I thought it would be.  The basic problem is that my medical problem (thrombosis, pulmonic embolism etc.) while serious has no outward indication and, apart from a slight tightness across the chest, I actually feel fine.  But I’m not.  And I have to keep telling myself the same.

Walking up stairs is a problem.  Not because I can’t, but rather because I can too easily!  I have to tell myself to climb three steps and pause and the next three and pause and so on.  When I need something, it is an automatic response to get up and get it.  And if I do get up quickly, there is no stabbing pain or twinge to remind me I’m ill.  Presumably the only indication that I will get is when I drop dead!  However, let us not dramatize this too much.  I am feeling well, indeed very well, when you take the ‘waiting on’ that Toni is doing into account!

I keep telling myself that this enforced, unnatural tranquillity is only for a fortnight and then I can start taking little walks.  And I’m already 4/14ths of the way through!

Given what has happened to me over the past week or two, my view of life has (in the short term) changed somewhat – priorities change when a doctor explains the significance of my condition with horror stories in which some foolish patient ignored medical advice and went for a walk smoking a cigarette AND DIED!  Well, I don’t and have never smoked, but the import of the story is not lost on me!  Therefore, in the reworked version of my ‘way of life’ the two ‘luxury’ basic needs that I have are to drive the car and go for a swim.

I have been told that driving a car may be possible in ‘a couple of months’ – and there is nothing which defines captivity for a driver than lack of access to wheels.  The going for a swim is even more tenuous.  My usual daily total for my swim is 1,500m. crawl.  I have been told that in a month or so I might be able to complete four lengths in a slow breaststroke!  Now that is going to be difficult, the temptation to do more will be almost overwhelming – but the possible outcome of ignoring advice is, after all, terminal!  So I may well stay in line!

Although the last two weeks have been somewhat focussed on me and what is happening to me (at least to me and mine) the outside world has, allegedly been carrying on as if there were nothing wrong with me!

The travails of the Conservative (“Lower than vermin”) Party in Britain over Brexit would be laughable if it were not so important.  May is a disaster, but I am not sure what sort of leader would be able to take the terminally divided party forward.  And certainly looking at the dearth of talent on the ‘government’ side there is no one who immediately springs to mind as intellectually, politically or morally eminent enough to take the party out of the morass into which it has sunk.  I suppose that we, the people, are looking for a politician of the calibre of Sir Robert Peel who was prepared to split the Conservative (“Lower than vermin”) Party in the repeal of the Corn Laws because it was the right thing to do for the country above the needs of the party.

I think that even Peel (1788-1850) would be uncomfortable with the grotesque anachronism of Rees-Mogg, and the fact that this reactionary throwback is the most favoured candidate for the leadership of the Conservative (“Lower than vermin”) Party in the eyes of activists, is a crushing condemnation of the present positioning of a right-wing minority government that doesn’t seem to have any idea about what specifically it wants from one of the most significant episodes in the history of our country since the Second World War!

Meanwhile in Spain there seems to be a descent into the world of the comic, given the news that fills our television screens.  This infantile approach to government is not helped by the fact that the minister who is mostly in the news at the moment has both the name and the look of a cartoon character himself.  Señor Zoido (sic.) is the Minister for the Interior and is responsible for the present hysteria in Spain as the investiture of the next President of Catalonia approaches.

So far, in their frantic response to the independence issue in Catalonia, the Spanish government has dismissed the Catalan government; instituted direct rule from Madrid and imprisoned Catalan political leaders. 

The past President of Catalonia, Puigdemont went into exile in Belgium and in an embarrassing series of inept actions by the minority right-wing Spanish government they attempted to use Interpol and an International Arrest Warrant to get him extradited to Spain where he would have been arrested.  It was clear that the Belgian authorities regarded the warrant as baseless and the Spanish withdrew it before it was ignominiously rejected.  They are now paranoid that Puigdemont (the only candidate for the presidency) will somehow or other make it back to Barcelona for the investiture.

Zoido (sic.) has been poncing his rotund, porcine way across our TV screens preening himself on the risible (but expensive) and futile ways in which he has ordered the security of the frontiers.  To illustrate the security of our borders, on TV this morning one reporter drove from Spain to France and back again with no police or security at the border, illustrating the expensive waste this political propaganda continues to be.

Our glorious walking joke of a national president keeps himself out of the limelight – as he always does when anything difficult raises its head, pushing others into the firing line in order to save his own non-existent prestige.

To some extent, it is necessary for the minority right-wing national government to concentrate on Catalonia because, otherwise, it would have to focus on the number of PP corruption cases that are coming to judgement.  Bear in mind that literally hundreds of PP officials, ex ministers, workers, etc. are involved in billions of euros of corruption presently in the courts and you can see that any distraction from the systemic corruption of the party is a positive for them. 

I also fail to see why they worry.  No member of the government ever resigns, no matter how overwhelming the evidence of wrongdoing is.  Documents, film, tape recordings – no matter the evidence they ignore it all and hope that it all goes away.  And with the politicization of the judicial system in their favour, they have little really to worry about.  At the moment, however, some of the accused in the most notorious of the corruption cases are ‘singing’ and implicating all of our favourite villains in government.  

Even so, I do not hold out much hope for those thieving criminals to be behind bars any time soon.  After all, look at the thief that is the husband of the sister of the King.  He has been tried and found guilty; he has been given a seven-year prison sentence.  Is he in prison?  No, of course not, he is living in Switzerland and recently went on holiday to Rome.  As his philandering father-in-law once remarked on a television broadcast, “Justice is the same for everyone!”  Except of course for when it isn’t!

So, in spite of the fact that I am stuck in the house, my irritation and disgust reach out through this country and the United Kingdom.  It keeps me occupied!

Tomorrow is the Catalan investiture, so I expect Spanish hysteria to reach a point of melodramatic queenliness unparalleled in recent political history.  Each action they take against Catalonia merely serves to make them appear more ludicrous and less democratic.  

Bring it on!

Watching choices being fudged

 

I am starting to type this before Puigdemont, the Catalan President, has made his eagerly awaited (or feared) speech to parliament about the results of the referendum.  As I look at the television I see the man himself walking past a bank of flashing camera, or perhaps it wasn’t him, but that confusion matches the sense of chaos which is ‘situation normal’ for us over the past few months.

What good can come of today?  Well, if nothing else we should be a little clearer about the future of the relationship between Catalonia and Spain.

As far as I can understand the situation today, we are in a no-win position as far as Catalonia is concerned. 

 

Think about it. 

 

If Puigdemont does declare UDI, he will have made a statement, but its reality and practicality will be questionable.  Spain and the central government have vowed to stop independence by any and all legal means possible.  No country has said that it will recognize the new Republic of Catalonia.  The EU has refused to play any part in the crisis other than saying that this is an internal problem for Spain.  45 mouthed some sort of support for Bromo and a united Spain when he grovelled his way to the White House – coincidentally a visit to the other side of the Atlantic when his own country was going through a fair amount of chaos, but let it pass!  The EU has said that if UDI is declared then the new Republic will be outside the EU and will have to reapply for membership.  Some of the big banks have said that they will move their registered offices from Catalonia to elsewhere in Spain because of the ‘uncertainty’.  There have been large demonstrations in Spain and in Barcelona by those who are opposed to independence and who want to stay with Spain.  The country is deeply divided.

Now the parliamentarians are entering the chamber and taking their seats, and the first faces to be shown on the benches are not friendly to the idea of independence.

The President of Spain has thousands of Spanish national police still stationed in Catalonia after the debacle of the referendum and he refuses to withdraw them until the situation has become normalized, i.e. Puigdemont stops talking about independence and a future binding referendum.  He has also not ruled out using Section 155 (ruling directly from Madrid) to deal with the situation in Catalonia.

Puigdemont is now in place and we are waiting for the president of the parliament to take her seat and start the session.

In a worst-case scenario: Puigdemont declares UDI; Rajoy brings Section 155 into operation; massive civil disobedience spills out on the streets of Barcelona and all the big cities.  Violence will allow Rajoy to send in troops.  Disaster.

A better case scenario: there have been talks between the two presidents and some sort of dialogue has been established.  No declaration of UDI is made, but Puigdemont is able to give real incentives for people to accept a delay and a later referendum.  There is still civil unrest as people thing that they have been cheated and the result of the referendum denied.

The session has started.  Fingers crossed.

First item is about violence against women and now the president is talking about the referendum.  The Guardian tells me that the delay was because the CUP party (the most enthusiastic about independence) were unhappy about his statement – which suggests that he is not going to declare UDI.  The Guardian also says that there have been talks between the governments, that might be something to be positive about.

He is walking a very fine tightrope.  As he speaks the television screen is showing crowds listening to him outside parliament.  They are expecting something real.  He better not disappoint them.

Well he’s said it.  He has a mandate for independence and forming an Independent Republic of Catalonia, but he is also demanding that the Spanish government accepts some form of mediation.  And he has agreed to delay the formal announcement of UDI to allow negotiations.

Now it’s the turn of a member of the party that I always refer to as a party of sluts, the Cs, who to gain a taste of power have not found it difficult to align themselves with the conservatives (PP) and at another time with the left (PSOE).  Alliances that reflect no credit on any of the parties.

Other leaders of political sections in the parliament are still talking, but international reaction is coming in and political response.

One writer has stated that Rajoy can still invoke Section 155 of the Constitution, because Puigdemont has not withdrawn the threat of UDI and indeed is stating that he has a mandate to call for UDI from the result of the referendum.

A rather more real threat points towards the reason for the delay in Puigdemont making his speech – the position of CUP.  If these passionate independentistas are unhappy about the delay, then they could break their alliance with Puigdemont’s party and that would take his majority away.

My view, for what it is worth, is based on watching Spanish politicians at work - and especially the politicians of the ruling party PP. 

 

As I have said before elsewhere, PP as a party does not seem to be bound to the normal parliamentary and ethical considerations that I have noted through the years with British politics.  In Spain politicians do not seem to resign when the evidence against them for their wrongdoings is shocking.  They dig in and wait for it to pass.  No matter how blatant, how damning the evidence is against them, they rely on the fact that they are the ruling party and they have their grubby mitts on the levers of power. 

 

So, although Puigdemont’s delay is a worthwhile political offer to avert possible chaos, I very much doubt that Rajoy will sense anything much more than a suggestion of possible victory for him.  He has put his ‘reputation’ on the line and since that and his party are a damn sight more important to him than any abstract concept of ‘the people’ he could well just tough it out.

Everything is still to play for.  And could, and probably will be spread out against the next few weeks.   

And we all know what and who benefits from uncertainty.