3 days in 1

 

SUNDAY 1^st October

 

Five years ago, to the day, we were in our local medical centre.  Not for any treatment, but rather for Toni to be able to cast his vote in the referendum about Catalan independence.  On that day, we made our way through crowds of people flocking around the doors of the medical centre and spilling onto the closed road in front.  We walked past police who were there, but not doing anything positive or negative, merely being there.

     The mood inside the centre was fairly febrile with the volunteers staffing the voting stations constantly looking around to see if the police were going to do anything more proactive.  The plastic, translucent, ballot boxes were guarded like precious jewels and were able to be whisked away at a moment’s notice if it seemed like they were in danger of being impounded by agents of the Spanish government.

     News about other polling stations filtered in throughout the day, where the peacefulness of our experience was not matched by the police violence and thuggery that took place in the name of Spanish democracy!

     The scenes of police aggression against people peacefully trying to cast a vote was shocking, and as more stories began to be told about the day, the anger was palpable.  The gleefully heavy-handed ‘policing’ ordered by the conservative PP (the most corrupt political party in western Europe) government in Spain, did irreparable harm to the reputation of the government and the country.  And the extended victimization of the leaders who took part by use of a highly questionable judicial procedure and blatantly partisan judges did nothing to repair the damage.

     North of the Pyrenees the ‘legal’ ‘justification’ for the prosecution and later condemnation of the leaders of the referendum and their consequent imprisonment was treated with astonished contempt, and all other European countries rejected the shaming demands by the Spanish Government for extradition of the self-exiled leaders of the referendum movement, political and social.

     In the five years since the referendum was held, where an overwhelming majority voted in favour of independence, most people would say that the political situation has worsened, and not just as far as the question of independence for Catalonia is concerned.

     The influence of Vox, the far-right party, has grown and there are areas of Spain where the far-right is in government, working with PP to ensure a right-wing majority, or with Vox forming the largest party in its own right.

     Of course, in Catalonia, PP and Vox are treated with the disgusted contempt that they so richly deserve, with their parliamentary representation being so small that they do not even have the numbers to form their own grouping within the Catalan parliament – but nationally, it does look as though the PP with the help of fascist scum like Vox and an equally contemptible right-wing party, the C’s, could have a majority in the next general election for the national parliament and oust the so-called “Socialists” that are in power at the moment.

     Although Catalonia does have a majority of independence representatives in the Catalan Parliament, the politicos have not declared independence and have worked with the national government to get the referendum leaders out of jail and have decided to proceed via negotiation rather than via confrontation.  Which sounds reasonable enough, until you start looking at the history of the conflicts between central government in Madrid and the government and people of Catalonia.

     The question of whether there is a majority in favour of independence in Catalonia is moot.  In Catalan parliamentary terms, the majority is clear; in terms of the general population of Catalonia, the figures are ambiguous.  To which the response might well be, “Then put the question to a vote!”  A vote that would be accepted by all sides in the argument.

     You have to understand that the “Unity of Spain” is a concept that is written into the Constitution, and some have suggested that any vote for independence by Catalonia would have to be open to the whole of the population of Spain!

     When I was seven or eight years old, my parents brought me to Spain from Cardiff, for my first foreign holiday, to Tossa de Mar on the Costa Brava in Catalonia.  Dad took me to the building site that was the Sagrada Familia and explained to me what the church represented and said, “Catalonia is not Spain!” 

     It is perhaps significant that behind the Civic Buildings in the centre of Cardiff there is a memorial to the Welshmen who fought and died in The Spanish Civil War https://historypoints.org/index.php?page=spanish-civil-war-memorial-cardiff and some of those names are from the area where my father grew up, he would have known the families and, although too young to have fought in the Spanish Civil War, he was of an age to be a member of the armed forces in the Second World War.  The modern story of Spain and its fight against fascism, and especially the heroic struggle of the Republican forces centred in Barcelona against Franco was a story with personal links.  The miners of South Wales were stalwart supporters of the Republic, as were many other workers and intellectuals.  There is a residual affection for the national ambitions of Catalonia and a rejection of the subterfuge that has been used to belittle the valid arguments for statehood.

     But, as always, politics is the art of the possible, and in the complex games that politicians play, the simple questions become enmeshed in the rococo frills of self-interested definitions, so that impetus is lost.

     Catalan politicians make clear statements calling for independence, but their actions are more nuanced and ambiguous – but the rancour of unfinished business is likely to sour Catalan politics for some time to come.

 

 

MONDAY 2^nd October

 

There seems to be a direct correlation between my buying an uninteresting piece of domestic hardware via the Internet and then finding a cheaper version on sale in Aldi or Lidl almost immediately afterwards.  This has happened too often for it to be a mere coincidence, and I begin to suspect a major conspiracy.

     Everyone 'knows' that one’s computer and mobile phone listen to us via voice and keystrokes.  How many times have we volubly prevaricated about cutting the grass or painting the bathroom ceiling with proper anti-mould paint, to find adverts for mowers, strimmers, paint brushes, paint, and those little trays for use with rollers suddenly making their way into the feeds for computer and phone?  And bafflingly, if you do succumb to the purchase of a lawn mower or strimmer, you are assailed by further adverts urging you to buy another one!  What sort of palatial establishments do Amazon, and their devilish associates think we live in, where a single mower is wildly inadequate for our vast lawns?  Why waste computing power on repeat adverts when the product has already been bought?  Such things are beyond the imagining of we mere consumers – perhaps Amazon has a computer-generated list of the things and the number of those things that we are supposed to possess according to their relentlessly capitalistic algorithms, and we are kicking against the weight of untold exabytes of computing power that tell the company what we should have, irrespective of how we mere flesh-carriers think our possessions should be ordered!

     I am sure that there is a sci-fi short story there somewhere - if it hasn’t already been written.

 

TUESDAY  3^rd October

 

Today is the opening performance in the new Opera Season in the Liceu – at least it is the opening concert in Torn A – the subscription series that I have – though I don’t think that this is the First Night.

     The walk from the car park on the Ramblas to the Liceu is getting more and more onerous for me, as I hobble along with my baston and pausing to look into the windows of shops full of tourist crap, as a way of spacing out the effort to get me there.

     I always dress down for the Opera, which is to say that I wear what I always wear, shorts and a t-shirt, unless the weather is really cool, in which case I make the concession to dressiness and sport a pair of jeans.  The weather at this stage of October is still fairly warm, and I type this with the doors to the balcony open to give a cooling breeze!

     The opera is Don Pasquale by Donizetti and, as usual, I have had recourse to my Amanda Holden edited copy of The Penguin Opera Guide to give me an edge as the absurdities of the piece, but it is a masterpiece of opera buffa, and a convincingly realistic narrative is not something that we should expect!

     And, at the end of the week, another (the second) of my Saturday afternoon (early evening) concerts in La Palau. 

     Culture reigns!

Buildings take time

 

 

 

Another tortuous milestone in the construction of the Sagrada Família has been reached with the placing of the star light on the top of the Virgin Mary Tower and, this evening, blessing and lighting it.  This is the first of the two filial lights to be achieved, the second will top the central and largest tower in the basilica – the one which will mark the completion of the project and the one on which building has been delayed because of Covid.

     There was an ambitious plan to have the building complete for the centenary of Gaudí’s death in 2026, but this is looking more and more unlikely.

     In spite of living in Barcelona (the province and metropolitan district) I have visited the Basilica only once, in the summer of 1958 when my father dragged me off the bus tour of the city that we were on and took me to what I understood to be a series of ruins but was informed that I was standing in the unfinished part of an on-going masterpiece by the Catalan architect Gaudi.  I was, generally, unimpressed – though that attitude changed as I found out more about the architect and his buildings.

     Why, you might ask, have I not visited the building again, especially as it now has a roof, and the interior is complete?

     Gaudi is constantly associated with natural forms and the Basilica looks like a growing thing, something more vegetable than stone. 

     Gaudi ‘lived’ his buildings, he was intimately involved in their evolution from design to structure and he was capable of making on-site adjustments to his plans, so that the word ‘evolution’ associated with his buildings is something which is real – that is what happened.  The plans were a starting point and Gaudi was the guide to their development.

     The great cathedrals of the past were always works in progress, and sometimes that progress was glacially slow, as buildings emerged over decades and sometimes centuries.  Gaudi lived on site towards the end of his life, and he was dedicated to seeing his concept of the building rise.  And that’s the point: a Gaudi building needs Gaudi to see it through to completion.  Without Gaudi, the building is something else.  Not worthless and not necessarily inferior, but definitely something else.

     Gaudi was killed in a traffic accident, but his plans survived.  Well, they survived until the Spanish Civil War when they were burnt, but enough survived for projections to be made about what the final form of the building should take.

     Every great building is, of necessity, a collaboration – it is how far that the collaboration should ‘develop’ from the original idea that is in question about the ‘finishing’ of Gaudi’s masterpiece.

     I used to say that I would have preferred to have had some sort of encompassing structure placed around the parts of the Basilica that Gaudi had completed and say, this is what we have, we can imagine the rest.  A building without Gaudi throughout is not a Gaudi building.

     Perhaps that is a little too purist and I have vowed that if and when the building is finished (in my lifetime) I will visit.

     Those visitors from the UK who have visited the Basilica have come away singing its praises.  I have been content to view it from a distance and enjoy the silhouette rather than look too closely at the detail!

     The quick-sketch outline drawing of the Sagrada Família shares a place with similar sketches of the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben and The Sydney Opera House as being something that is instantly recognized from a few quick lines.

     As I visit Barcelona on a fairly regular basis, I have of course, seen the Sagrada Família close-up from the car and I have to admit that it is an imposing pile, I hope that things come together, and I will be able to visit!

Johnson is a liar.  He is liar who is found out in his lies on a regular basis.  He treats the truth with the same contempt that he reserves for his past wives.  And yet, he preserves his popularity with the voting public.

     Perhaps, the Christmas Party of Christmas Past will be the ghost that drags him down.  With scandal piling onto scandal in the traditional way of Conservative rule over any period of time, it seemed as if each new disgrace was something that could be wafted away with an airy phrase or some cod Latin.

     The joking contempt that his personal spokesperson displayed in laughing about how to deflect difficult questions about a Christmas party held during the height of Covid restrictions might be the thing that finally (finally!) cuts through to the general population and brings about, if not his downfall, then at least some sort of change in the way that we are governed.

     Johnson has tired his usual tactic of smooth sincerity and the sacrifice of an underling to turn away the rightful wrath that should be meted out on his head.  His lies have finally caught up with him and there is a growing groundswell of opinion that he should resign.

     Although I personally think that he should have been sacked rather than given the chance to resign a long time ago, I am still not convinced that the Tory Faithful will give up what they see as an electoral advantage (i.e., Johnson’s skills (!) in campaigning) for any airy concept of honesty or probity.

     This evening, Covid Plan B has been announced by Johnson (in a press conference NOT in The House of Commons) as a necessary part of the regulations to try and keep the Omicron variant in check – but also, and far more importantly from Johnson’s point of view as a “dead cat on the table” distraction to keep prying noses out of the detail of exactly what when on in the Christmas Party Fiasco of last year.

     Why should anyone do anything Johnson says, when he so signally doesn’t feel himself to be bound by the rules that he stipulates for others?

     It will be interesting to see what the media say about all of this, especially as there were pointed questions about the hypocrisy of Johnson and his misfits in the press conference announcing the measures.

     The best Christmas present that we could all have, is that Johnson resigns instantly.  God knows I loathe the deadbeat candidates that are likely to take over, but they (with the possible exception of Goblin Gove) are almost bound to be better and to have at least a shred of something approaching an ethic.   

Please!