LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 8

To absolutely no one’s surprise the government is going to ask parliament to extend the period of lockdown, or the extension of the state of the emergency until the 11^th of April, so we have at least another weeks of restriction.   

     I wonder if this piecemeal approach to the lockdown is because the government is not prepared to let us know how long they really think it is going to be – especially for people of my age and generation as we slip neatly into the most at risk category, and therefore we can double or triple the ‘safe’ period for us to be at home?

     As someone who is restricted to a house and a quick circuit of the communal swimming pool, and television in a foreign language it is difficult to get a sense of proportion about the wider implications of an extension to the period of confinement.  But, of course, that is not going to stop me!

     The front of the house looks onto a important road that runs virtually the whole length of the beach part of Castelldefels; the back of the house looks onto the pool and the other houses of our type, together with houses on the first line of the sea and to our left, a block of flats along the main road. 

     So, based on that vastly exhaustive sample of Castelldefels and Catalonia I am now ready to extrapolate from my observed experience from the three floors of our house and pontificate about the future direction of the country.

     The number of people breaking the rules: walking in pairs; using the dog as an excuse to go further from the house than has been suggested; families with kids pushing the boundaries of where they can ‘exercise’; people walking without purpose; people rapidly reaching their tethers’ ends cooped up with kids – the afternoon especially are punctuated with childish howls.  All this is leading to a pressure point where people will rebel against restriction.  We are not supposed to leave our homes except for essential outings and that basically means buying food or seeking medical care and attention.  That is not how people are living their enclosed lives, and it will get worse over time.

    In Spain the number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 is now 28,572 and the official death toll is 1,720, which, according to my calculations gives a mortality rate of 6%!  Of course this does not take into account the number of undiagnosed cases of Covid-19 there are in Spain, so the real percentage must be (surely) much lower than 6%? 

     This is the sort of disaster than strains the resources of any health service, even one as good as the Spanish.  We are going into uncharted territory and something will have to give.

On the personal front we are doing well, we have plenty of food, the baker is not far away, Toni is well into his on-line course and I have sighed up for two MOOC courses on Modernism and European Painting. 

     The painting course will be a delight with easy appreciation, while the second is rather more challenging with the readings for the first week of the course including Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Kant!  In translation, thank god!

Yesterday was Sunday, but you would have been hard pressed to have discerned any palpable difference from any other during our samey days ‘inside’.

It has been raining heavily this morning, and Toni ventured out to get the supplies that had been running low.  In spite of the adverse weather, Toni tells me that there were more people in the supermarket and that the experience was made worse because of some people’s inability to obey the restrictions about personal space and distancing.  It must make these social occasions dangerous.  Toni has returned in what I would describe as a disgruntled mood, failing to understand lack of adhesion to simple rules designed for personal safety against death!  But that’s people for you!  In all senses!

Much to my horror, our Catalan teacher from school has contacted me with a proposal to set up an on-line system where we can continue our studies.  I must admit that I was fully prepared to let my school time fade into the general chaos of a society in meltdown, but this (admittedly positive) offer is something that I will not, in all conscience, be able to ignore and consequently the Catalan lessons will be up and running again in some form, and “lo, my fit is come again!”

     As far as I understand the proposal, this will be based on a written form of social messaging system rather than a live face-to-screen experience, but who knows how this will develop?  I will have to knuckle down and get our merry band together and see where we go!

On another cultural tack: I have just finished reading an on-line essay called “The Fabric of History.  Power and Piety in the Pellegrinaio of Santa Maria della Scala” on the Academia website that offers a wide range of papers to read free, gratis and for nothing – though, as ever, there is a premium service that you can access by paying a fee.  I have downloaded two of my own papers on Art History to the site and have read numerous interesting (and sometimes impenetrable) papers in return.  I recommend it without reservation.

     This particular paper refers to a Renaissance hospital building in Sienna that is decorated with a series of murals that reward further study.  This paper takes an historical approach and there is something delightful in having your memory jogged, as one of the essays on a previous OU course that I took concerned one of the panels of this very fresco.  The rivalry between Florence and Sienna; popes and anti-popes; humanism and religion; piety and profit; charity and war; status and death – all are there in the backstory to the frescos.

     It was interesting that I read the paper with an eye that was constantly looking for ideas and quotations that I could use in my own essay.  This would have been very, very useful when I was doing my own work on the frescos and would have made my final mark higher I think!  As it is, I can read through with remembered scholarship and relax.  The paper is worth reading and the frescos are readily available to view on line. 

     And if you have never heard of the place and don’t know the frescos, then I would humbly suggest that given our home-bound existence at the moment, you could profitably spend some time reading and looking!

Don't forget to visit my 'new' poetry blog at smrnewpoetry.blogspot.com 

A necessary draft!

As is so often the case, I open by bemoaning the fact that my writing is not going well. Not that I do not have much to say, that is not the problem, it is matching what I have to say with the dictates of the essay title we have been given. As is also the case, I am heartened by the cries of despair that emanate from the forums which are there, ostensibly, to keep some sense of calm cohesion among the disparate student body of a distance learning community. It doesn't work of course. The forums are much more efficient of whipping up hysteria than allaying it. Still, I gain a perverse sense of well-being from the heartfelt cries of academic desolation, as they tend to show up the triviality of my own sense of mild frustration!

Come hell and/or high weather I will have a rough draft of the first of the three essays that I have to write by the end of the night. Or not. One mustn't set one's expectations too high! It is a sure sign of my exasperation that I have been driven to write notes for the essay! Clearly following (at last) the strict advice that I have given to generations of schoolchildren. Following your own advice! How bizarre is that?

The first essay is a sort of compare-and-contrast – which should, of course, be academic bread and butter to me. And it is, to a certain extent, but it is the little bit 'extra' in the title that is causing all the problems.

We have to account for the differences in the artworks that we are comparing by relating our observations to the way in which they were made. As the artworks are respectively a gilded bronze plaque and a group of three statues, you could well ask what the hell I know about casting and gilding bronze and producing sculpture!

Well, I have to admit, I know a little more about the lost-wax method of casting than is probably natural for someone who is never going to get even remotely near to anyone adopting it (I have, after all, watched the sections of the CDs that we have been given as part of our course) and, as for statues, I always remember reading Michelangelo's supremely unhelpful observation that sculpture was quite easy, all you have to do is chip away the bits of stone that you don't need to allow the figure to emerge. That reminds me of one of my frighteningly intelligent tutors in university who helpfully told us that he always started with the bits of a work of art that he didn't understand. - the exact opposite to what I taught the kids!

But, there again, I didn't have the sort of first at Oxford where the faculty had to stand up and applaud when he went for his viva for his degree! Or was that just a story told us to make us in awe of him? What I do know is that he once slept on the floor of my room in Hall for political reasons that now escape me. And it was because of him that I made my first and only nervous telephone call to The Daily Worker (does that Communist rag still exist?) and delivered a report written by him, down the line, to a journalist! God, I haven't thought about that for umpteen years! And he must now be a professor somewhere or other, or professor emeritus now given the passing of time! I must look him up.

I have and he is. And, what is more I think that I will order some of his books. His High Anglican faith comes as something of a shock, but I am sure that it just as valid as my Anglican Atheism!

All this typing is displacement activity (again) when I should be writing pellucid prose studded with coruscating insights into Renaissance Art. With a capital 'A'!

Allons-y!

Music and other concerns!

To say that the Liceu's production of Benvenuto Cellini was 'busy' is an understatement along the lines of saying that PP in Spain is 'dishonest'. With stilt-walkers, drum beaters, giant swinging skulls, an enormous golden head, back projection, front projection, acrobats, flag wavers, moving sets, fire, dramatic lighting and a camp pope, there is enough going on to keep even the most reluctant opera goer amused.

Whether it all works, of course is something else.

This production is designed and directed by Terry Gilliam, with co-direction and choreography by Leah Hausman, and Aaron Marsden also credited with design, so a certain amount of scenic Surrealism is to be expected. It may have been the lacklustre audience that the production I saw had, but the participants seemed to be working too hard for too little response. The circus troupe parading through the auditorium with a coloured paper ticker-tape shower was perhaps giving too much too soon and added to that much of the 'acting' was hammy in the extreme.

And that is one of the problems with the piece: what exactly is it? The opera exists in various versions and experts have said that it is difficult to know exactly what Berlioz had in mind for it. Originally it was conceived as an opéra comique with spoken dialogue and musical numbers, but this was not the opera that was performed in 1838 when the piece had become a through-sung performance. The opera was then cut and revised so that there are now at least three 'versions' of the show to choose when contemplating a (rare) performance.

Perhaps this lack of clarity is reflected in the sense of discomfort that I had in watching parts of the opera. There are elements of pure farce (in the best Brian Rix - there's a name from the past! - tradition) with lovers hiding when the father of the object of their attention comes home; there is the 'tables' approach to the action which could be funny; individual characters are presented as absurdly pompous or as outrageously camp, the latter most blatantly in the character of Pope Clement VII (well sung by Eric Halfvarson) who arrived on stage processing through a pair of massive swing doors, atop a wheeled set of stairs and encased in a sort of armour of over-the-top ecclesiastical garments which opened to allow him to descend the stairs in a mincing fashion to join the action. His appearance was like a cross between the ancient emperor from Turandot and Bella Lugosi, except, of course, I cannot remember either of those wearing an ostentatious gold cross and false glittering metallic finger stalls! And there's a murder, a real death in all this visual melange.

And the fact that I haven't mentioned the music yet speaks volumes for this production.

It is not music that I know, apart that is form the snatch of melody from the fiesta which later was used by Berlioz as the basis for the Roman Carnival Overture. So I came fresh to this opera and was open to be impressed.

The title role was taken by John Osborn, who sang it competently, but not in a way to take me with him through the production. I felt that he was straining in the upper register – but then, what tenor would not given the music written for him by Berlioz – and I found his acting a little wooden.

Teresa (the love interest) was played by Kathryn Lewek and she was more than a match for challenge of the role, though she was sometimes drowned by the excellent orchestra, the Orquestra Simfònica del Gran Teatre del Liceu conducted by Josep Pons, a fault I am prepared to forgive because of the magnificent performance the orchestra gave.

For me the stand-out performance was given by Annalisa Stroppa as Ascanio a replacement for Lidia Vinyes-Curtis who was scheduled to sing the role in the performance I saw. This is a 'breeches' role and it is always a delight to see what characteristics are adopted by the singer to emphasise the masculinity of the character: Stroppa was a delight to watch as, legs akimbo, chest out, hands on hips she made the man! Her singing was exceptional and she was always a commanding presence on stage.

I was surprised not to see on the cast list credits to the troupe of jugglers, acrobats and dancers who added so much to the feel of this piece. The sinisterly androgynous Master of Ceremonies with his painted skin and cracking whip added a touch (perhaps more than a touch) of depravity to an opera that always seemed on the cusp of descending into total mayhem and incoherence.

Did I enjoy this opera? On balance, yes I did. Not only is it an opera that I can now tick that I have seen and heard, but its Piranesi influenced scenery and sheer vitality will stay with me for a long time.

And, of course, the sound, the sheer sound of the chorus (Cor del Gran Teatre del Liceu) which in many ways was the true star of the production.

The first of the OU essays is slowly getting written. I have decided that today will (WILL) see a draft of the first of the three pieces that I have to write – anything less will make the timetable for completion impossible. Though, there again, I always hear David's, “Don't worry Stephen, it will get done!” echoing in my head. And I suppose that's true, but I am aiming to do more than simply get the essays done.

I am enjoying this course on the Renaissance much more than I did the Modern Art course just completed. I suppose that artists or 'artists' had not yet got into their pseudo-intellectual stride and so much of what the practitioners wrote was more practically orientated than wallowing in theory. And it is a bloody sight easier to read and understand!

I take it as a good sign that the opera was about Benvenuto Cellini who was, after all, himself a Renaissance man, or at least goldsmith (or godsmith as I first typed it! Given what he managed to create, perhaps the typo is not too far from the truth!) and I am going to take his easy way with evidence as my inspiration for the sort of writing that I am going to produce for my essays. Cellini's 'Autobiography' which I read when I was in college in the Penguin Classics (black & serious) edition was an absolute delight to read. It was recommended by the English and the history departments- though, to be fair I think that it was regarded as 'informed literature' by both!

I have a great deal to do to find out details of the art works that I am supposed to be writing about, and I will give you some of the questions that I need answers to: Who commissioned each work of art? Was there a contract? Does that contract exist? Who designed the font? Who decided on the artists? Where exactly was the font positioned? Who the hell is the sculptor, of whom I have never heard? Were the statues supposed to be where they now are? What is the cross of St John made of – surely not marble? What is the significance of the bird (eagle?) on the base of the half column behind the three statues? Were the blind windows (and is that what they are called) intended to be the background for the statues? And so on. In a way I am delighted that I am in a position to have to answer, or bluff my way through, these questions. And I am paying (heftily) to do so!

I have discovered that one other person (as well as an appalled Toni) listened to my infamous but-he-doesn't-speak-the-language radio interview – Ramon, the owner of the take-away (how little that description tells you about the foodie delights that he provides) who merely said that he was listening to the radio and heard a voice which he told himself could only be me!

This is not the first time that this has happened. A very early broadcast (!) of mine was for WNO when I had to enthuse about an opera that I had neither seen nor heard. This was broadcast live on a Sunday evening when no-one was listening. But, come Monday morning, I was greeted by one of my pupils who asked if I had been on the radio the previous day! In a similar way one friend recalled driving in North Wales along narrow and difficult roads while listening to the radio and almost swerving to oblivion as my dulcet tones emanated from the loudspeaker! It is nice to have an effect or affect – or possibly both depending on how you read the sentence!

And now writing. A simple draft before bedtime will suffice.

Aftermath

corruption

Still reeling from the onslaught against the Spanish language that my interview yesterday represented, Toni has decided to produce an English translation of what exactly I said. He is dressing up this enterprise in the guise of an exercise in IT which aids his course, but I know it is part of his attempt to expose my astonishing lack of linguistic ability in any language other than English to the wider world! Luckily my self confidence (bordering, some would say, on downright arrogance) was enough, not only to provide me with sufficient reserves of energy to get through the interview, but also was sufficient to encourage my positive enjoyment of the whole experience!

          People will soon be able to judge for themselves as the whole débâcle will be readily available to enjoy and digest!

The interesting times in which we live have now extended to the immediate political situation here in Catalonia. The local government has taken the first steps in declaring Independence from Spain. The whole situation is complicated by the fact that the acting president of Catalonia is tainted by his close association with Puyol (the ex president of Catalonia) who is fighting against the avalanche of overwhelmingly damming evidence which demonstrates that he and his clan have been little more than a “criminal organisation” (as they have already been termed in the press and by some legal authorities) and their criminality is being used by the terminally corrupt national government of PP to deflect attention from their own nefarious doings so that the population at large fears that an Independent Catalonia will be corruption writ large.

          The FACT that there are numerous criminal cases pending which demonstrate with shocking clarity the bare faced rapacity of the ruling PP party has now been shunted into the background of the general population's consciousness and they are concentrated instead on the very real threat of Catalonia breaking away (totally and utterly illegally according to the hands-wet-with-blood government of Spain) and the breathtakingly audacious corruption of notable Catalans. Thus showing clearly and indisputably that Catalonia must be kept securely in the safe hands of irremediably rapacious ignoramuses which form the so-called legal government of Spain. The fact that this group of kleptomaniacs and compulsive liars can even think about presenting themselves as some sort of legitimate force for good just goes to show that any old group of mendacious curs can get away with anything as long as they keep their nerve and keep on lying as proficiently as they have been doing for the whole time that they have been in what they like to term 'government.'

          When I say that I have more respect for the Evil Old Bitch (you know who I mean) than for Bromo, my name for the so-called President of Spain, it just goes to show how much contempt I have for the be-suited cretins who occupy positions of power in the present sad joke that is Spanish government.

          I tend to think that I do more work trying to attribute Machiavellian intelligence to the way that events are presented by the dead heads in PP than they actually deserve. With the build up to the General Election on the 20th December, they are either being deucedly clever or astonishingly stupid in the way that their strategy is developing.

           Having listened to some of the half-brains who seem to speak for this apology for a government with some sort of assumed authority, I can hardly believe that they have a coherent political brain cell to spark to action, yet it is possible to work out a terminally cynical approach to the electorate which speaks of some sort of primal intelligence.

           As an intelligent member of PP is an obvious oxymoron, I have to admit (and indeed we know because of the way that their finances have been laid out to an unbelieving public) that they have enough cash from various crooked sources to buy in the intelligence that they do not possess themselves. And shame on those with Neanderthal Plus brains who have sold themselves to the amoeba-like slime that sits on the PP benches in parliament to further their despicable causes, i.e. themselves.

           So, at the moment, we here in Catalonia are waiting for the political parties that make up the majority in our local parliament for independence to come to some sort of agreement about who is going to be president. The last vote for Artur Mas to be president was defeated – and rightly so. But what the immediate future holds is difficult to say. Bromo has stated that he, himself, personally will not allow the break up of Spain – which is a bit like saying that the magma refuses to allow the volcano to blow. He and his party seem to have gone out of their way to antagonise Catalans and then they act with shocked surprise when Catalans respond as if they are ungrateful for their abuse.

          When I first arrived in Catalonia I was all in favour of a united Spain, feeling that the country would be much more powerful and coherent if all the constituent parts of the country were linked together. I still feel that is true, but the present PP government with the dictatorial use of their absolute majority have changed my mind markedly. PP have gone out of their way to make it clear that they despise Catalonia, only valuing the money they can suck from the country. Well, enough is enough.

          PP and PSOE (the equivalent of Conservative and Labour in British terms) have colluded in the creation of a completely unconstitutional so-called king, they are colluding in the suppression of Catalan independence, they are colluding in the suppression of a multi-party democracy and, above all, they are colluding in maintaining the status quo to ensure their own position in the troughs that they have fed from for far too long. A plague, as the Bard rightly said, on both their houses.

           Spain has a democratic system whereby you vote for a 'list' of candidates for each political party. The number of votes given to each party determines the number of candidates 'elected' on each list. Thus, if you are candidate 1 on PP's list you are guaranteed a place in parliament, and so on down the list according to the number of votes cast. In other words the scheming, conniving, corrupt members of a party do not need to worry about a particular constituency to get elected; as long as they are near the top of the 'list' they will succeed. It also follows that individual members of the party owe more allegiance to the party rather than to any constituency made up of voters in a particular location.

          It also means that utterly disgraceful party hacks like Rita from Valencia, who ripped off the people of that region to satisfy her own inflated opinion of what she felt she deserved, are not cast into the otter darkness (with wailing and gnashing of teeth) after her party (PP!) is justly thrown out, but is instead promoted to the Senate, where the overblown apology for honesty can continue to milk the state!

          Whatever you think of Cameron and his exclusive brethren of upper class take-it-all opportunists, they look like honesty personified when compared with their openly rapacious parallels in Spain!

Peregrinating Kate of the Barcelona Poetry Group is going back to California for the winter, but her crown as leader of our group has been gifted to another member who is going to take over the task of ensuring that the meetings continue until the middle of December when we will have a Christmas recess until the middle of January.

           Last night's meeting was on the theme of 'Returning' and I read out the opening page of Rebecca as my contribution to the initial responses. Sandy read a stunning poem which referenced her post traumatic shock syndrome from her time as a military doctor. It's poems like that which make me even more eager to read through her latest book which has accompanying poems by her sister. The publication date is December 1st and that is something to look forward to as I have demanded that her sister in the states send copies to Spain as soon as it is published!

           Kate brought up the idea of producing a book which could be a co-operative effort from members past and present of the poetry group. I have thought about this and so was able to share my ideas about how to make it a practical reality. This is something which can see a publication by the Spring (or more likely early summer) of next year. I hope that I will be allowed to edit the publication and see it through its various stages of production.

          The OU course continues and I am finding out just how little I know about the Renaissance – which I have said before, but each new day merely shows how superficial my previous knowledge was!

          This week sees me making a tentative start on the long three-part essay-like assignment that we have to complete. Other events and meetings are stacking up in the time left for its completion so I will have to exercise a certain amount of discipline about how I spend my time if it is to be done to my satisfaction.

          Another factor claiming time is the work (now delayed by still sitting in a folder on my desk) about the early history of swimming in public pools, which should, in time, link up with the previous work that I have done on Guevara and his paintings. It is getting to the stage where I will need to produce one of those 'fantastic' timetables that I am only forced into drawing up when there is already too little time left to do what I want to do. The notorious one that I drew up for my finals actually proved to me that I didn't have anything like enough time left to revise with anything like the thoroughness that I had intended to use. Still, lots to do – including filling out the absurdly long form for my pension. Though, thinking about it, I was able to use it as part of a poem for my next book!

Now, enough writing indulgence, time to start work.

Brought to book

Mac the Knife’s observation that the most difficult element in politics was, “Events, dear boy, events!” came back to me with a bump when I visited the printer that was to be entrusted with the sacred task of publishing The Book.

            The place was barred, empty, with ‘To Let’ signs on the window and the phone number of the letting agent prominently displayed!

            Not one to be dismayed by such an occurrence, though I obviously was, I reverted to my mother-fostered shopping persona and stood a while in uffish thought and then made a bee-line for a place that would help with production or at worst a suggestion of where to go.

            In the event, they have suggested that they could publish the book and I am now anxiously awaiting their price.  The hardback version that I hoped to produce seems to have died the death, and perhaps (making the best of a bad job) that was one refinement too far in reality.  So, the book will be a paperback, but at least with a full-colour cover!

            The translations of Autumn Trees have been completed and I am now waiting for my other collaborators to do their stuff.  When those elements are placed in the book final pagination will allow me to complete the indexes and we are good to go.

            It has been a long journey but, as we get nearer (interesting use of the royal plural there!) to publication the more excited I get.

            Enough on the book!  I do not want to tempt fate by saying too much in a semi-triumphlist way this close to completion!

The weather has been almost unbearably hot over the last few weeks and we are now in a cooler overcast mode.  It has tried to rain on a couple of occasions, but apart from a few drops squeezed out of humid air innundation has remained threat rather than reality.

            One practical consequence of the hot weather is that the roof of the local swimming pool has been fully retracted with the, to me, illogical result that swimmers do not have to wear the supremely irritating (and in my case surpurfluous) swimming cap.  Why they are compulory when the roof is closed and not when it’s not, is one of those little mysteries that I do not want to find an explanation for.  Quirks should be enocuraged!

I continue to use my bike to go swimming and for other limited perigrinations.  But I never go very far.  I have now become expert in finding my way around Castelldefels by limiting the number of ‘hills’ (road bridges) that I have to slog up.  The main road linking the beach part of Castelldefels to the town passes along the side of the Olympic Canal and there is a dedicated cycle lane which is completely separated from the road.  Unfortunately it follows its own undulating and eccentric path and has rather more lack of horizontality that I like and so have I found a longer, but more level, way to get to where I want to go.

            When I am on my bike I become fiercly bikocentric and regard all pedestrians and car and motorbike drivers as self-evidently The Enemy.  I am particularly intolerant of walkers who invade my stipulated bicycle space and have become a querrulous cycle bell tinger.  I have also become, less poetically, a post-pedestrian mutterer, as I grumble sotto voce after passing each miscreant who has had the termerity to venture onto My Ground!

Reading about the Renaissance as preparation for the final course in my OU degree seems to have died the death at the moment, but work on the possible collaboration with Guevara’s great-grand-nephew about a modern photographic response to Guevara’s 1916/17 series of swimming pool paintings has taken its place.

            I did do some slight research on public bathing in the early twentieth century, but that will need to be developed further if I am to produce something written with even a glaze of academe about it!

            My problem is that the books I need are not, unsurprisingly, exactly to hand in Catalonia and the ‘research’ hardly justifies a trip to London and the British Library.  I have compensated by sending out a few enquiries via email, though I am not sure how far those are going to get me.  Especially in the holiday period in which we are now sweltering.  Still, ever optimistic, I am clearly working under the ‘Anything is better than nothing’ philosophy cherished by the male line of the Family Rees!

Lazy lacuna

For a person who enjoys writing as much as I do, there is not really any convincing excuse for not having produced more entries in this blog than the inescapable accusation of laziness.

            Admittedly I have been completing the last assignment for the Open University course on Modern Art of the Twentieth Century – but that was handed in (or at least sent off via the internet) on the 26^th of May, and while that might have explained the lack of other written work leading up to this date, it does not really explain the lack of words after it.

            I propose to ignore everything and write as if there was an unbroken daily chain stretching back to when there really was an unbroken daily chain of blog entries.

Come September I will be plunging back in Art History and doing my last course for my degree (I think, you never really know with the Open University, as you need much more than a mere degree to work out the fiendish complexity of how a degree is actually worked out given the courses, modules, exemptions and the phases of the moon than have to be taken into consideration.  And don’t get me started on the impenetrable calculations which go into deciding the class of degree that you get!) in Renaissance Art.

            I am fondly hoping that this course will have less pretentious theory and more taking about the actual paintings.  It says something about the works of art that we will be considering that I have had to search out my old copy of The Penguin Dictionary of Saints so that I can work out why the various slaughtered fanatics with the shining heads are carrying miscellaneous hardware, botanic specimens, weapons, models, keys, books or body parts.  Decoding paintings is hard work at the best of times, even in the modern era when we have plentiful primary documentation to work with, it is even more taxing when we are dealing with paintings whose moral, religious, social and artistic purpose is more distant.            

          But it is stimulating to find out that even the smallest and seemingly most insignificant details might have a truly significant importance.  And this is not just like finding a bee in an Italian painting and being told that the name for the insect in Italian is a pun on the name of the family that commissioned the painting; or that the material used in a tomb is actually an elegant comment on the antiquity and power and wealth of the person who caused the tomb to be built well before his own death. 

            You will notice that there are no specifics in those examples because I am too hot and sticky and lazy to go downstairs and find the books that I would need to fill in the names.  I can, at least, remember that the material was porphyry – a word that I knew and I have used, though it is only recently that I actually looked it up and discovered its unlikely source.  I am sure that I will not be able to stop myself ‘sharing’ my discoveries as soon as the next course gets under way.

            Assuming, of course, that I have passed this one.  Although the work was given in at the end of May the results are not due to be posted until, possibly, the end of this week.

The ‘proper’ restaurant in MNAC, Barcelona’s main and most prestigious art museum on Montjuic came into its own again last week when I met Suzanne on Tuesday and had lunch and catch-up.  Both the conversation and also the food were excellent.

            I have always recommended the restaurant as having the most breath-taking non-view from the large windows.  The restaurant is in the front of the museum and, as the whole edifice is on a hill it commands a sweeping vista of the city up to the surrounding hills.  But, and this is the point, not of the most interesting parts of the city.  Admittedly the large fountain was, for the very first time in all my visits to the museum, working!  That made up for the lack of detail in the expansive panorama which you always assume will be more impressive than it actually is.

            If the restaurant had been on the side of the building then you would have been able to eat looking out towards the sea and would have had an excellent view of all the more famous monuments in the city.  But it isn’t.  Still worth going there and having a meal.  Never let me down, and the lamb shank I had this time was outstanding.

            I did also go and visit a possible candidate painting for the final essay that I have to do on the Renaissance Course.  You have to write about a work or works that you have actually seen, so one of the vast collection in the museum is a given.

            The one that I glanced at was actually commissioned by the city of Barcelona almost 500 years ago, or possibly more (again, I am not prepared to go downstairs to determine exactly when) and there seems to be an interesting divergence in the appreciation of the painting: some critics claim it as one of the first works to bring the Northern Renaissance and the techniques of oil painting and a particular approach to perspective to this area.  They also laud the particularisation of the characterisation of the five donors which appear in the painting and say that this is a dramatic moment in the history of portraiture.  One other critic that I noted while browsing through expensive books that I have no intention of buying dismissed the painting as a mediocre copy of a Van Eyck and complained robustly about its lack of originality.  At least there is a controversy, I am sure that I could make something of that!

            I may work on the painting through the summer and see what information I can get together without too much ‘research effort’ to see whether it is a viable candidate.  I am greatly encouraged by the fact that the contract for the painting figures in one of my set texts and is conveniently translated into English as well.  That is a very good start.

Toni is now back home after an eleven-day stay with his mother, looking after her as she recovered from her recent and successful operation.  To celebrate his return, any excuse, we went out for lunch to the restaurant of the hotel where most of Cardiff will be staying for the publishing event of the year in October.

Talking of which.  My bits are done and edited.  As the days follow each other I am starting to worry, a little, about whether my original plan is going to become a reality.  I still have faith, though each day when nothing happens lessens my optimism.

Still, the sun is shining and even at night there is a more than pleasing warmth.  Admittedly, sleep is impossible without the gentle wafting air of an electric fan, but that is a small price to pay for the sun.  Though not at night.  Obviously.

I am trying to get back to putting my poems on line and have added one, Fatal Flaw, which can be found at http://smrnewpoems.blogspot.com.es  Though, come to think of it, I am not sure now that the second word should start with a capital, no, I think that Fatal flaw is better.

Wednesday we are back up in Terrassa for a birthday.  Never a dull moment.