OK,
I admit it. It only took me until Day 2
of the Lockdown to binge watch episodes of The
Good Place on Netflix. So much for
strength of character and finding more culturally respectable resources to keep
me occupied. I have, however, given
myself a little cultural leeway in my watching by asserting that the whole
series is predicated on John Paul Sartre’s observation that “Hell is other
people” and therefore I feel morally justified in watching.
For those of you who don’t know about this
series (even though I am now on Season 4!), it stars Ted Hanson and its central
idea is that four people die and go to what they assumed is Heaven, but in fact
it is a truly devilish new torment where they have actually been chosen to
inflict torment on each other in what they think are perfect surroundings,
their own discomfort at not being entirely satisfied in what they believe is
heaven is another part of their torture.
It is a comedy and it ranges from slapstick to fairly sophisticated
verbal humour, and I am slightly addicted.
Ever so slightly. I wonder what
other well established series I will ‘discover’ during this immolation!
I
very much appreciate the messages from friends and relatives who have responded
to the international news of the Catalan lockdown by sending us their
concern. I think that it will not be
long before we in Catalonia are sending similar messages of support to those
countries that are just starting the process that will inevitably lead to their
own particular lockdowns.
Who really knows how effective the measure
put in place are actually going to be?
We really are in a situation where we in the so-called developed world
have not been since the Spanish Flu of just over a century ago. That pandemic was characterised by lies and
disinformation – how unlike our present times, and yes, I am being ironic, and
yes, I am looking at you Trump! Spain
was one of the few countries to be open about the infection and consequently
got the country labelled with the virus, though it is certain that Spain was
not the country in which the virus originated.
Well, it is still relatively early days; we wait to see how the
situation will develop.
I
wrote another poem yesterday and I must start putting my new poems on my other
blog [smrnewpoems.blogspot.com] together with a
commentary about their genesis – I do, after all, have time to do it!
After a moment of brief panic this
morning, I found the notes that I had made for the poem on memory that has
taken so much time. There have been a
few false starts with this one and one major re-think, but I am still convinced
that there is a central idea worth working on and so I will continue to
scribble my way through a few more sheets before I let the concept go. When I have a draft approaching
reasonableness, I will put it on the smrnewpoems
site as well. If nothing else, I intend
to make this enforced isolation an opportunity for as much writing as possible!
With other chapbooks that I have produced,
I have always tried to add illustrations to them. Sometimes this has been via the kind
collaboration of friends and sometimes alone.
I enjoy photography and I have sometimes added photos to the poetic
mix. Being confined to a single house
poses its own challenges when considering illustration, but it is one that I
hope I can rise to. I think this is a
time to find those telling details to be the subject matter of my lens – there
isn’t another option, so again it will be interesting to see how that idea
develops through the weeks.
I’ve
now watched the whole of The Good Place,
some 40 episodes, but without advertising intervals and the introductions you
get through then fairly quickly. I have
to say that I thoroughly enjoyed them, though the concept was getting a little thin
by the end and the eventual conclusion was welcome.
SM
el Rey was making a speech to the nation in response to the allegations of
financial corruption by his father and himself regarding illegal kickbacks and
the foundation of offshore accounts. At
9 pm when the Bourbon was making his statement people around Spain, and
certainly here in Catalonia opened their windows and banged wooden spoons
against saucepans as a (traditional) noisy sign of their disgust at the grubby
machinations of the royal family. It
will be interesting to the see the response of our attenuated government and
the usually slavishly loyal press in Spain.
Viva
la Republica!
