What people say can live after them. From the self-consciously orotund phrases (with a cynical ear to history) of the odious Churchill to the simple quotidian statement of General Patton, there are words that sum up a personality and proclaim that character to the ages.
I hadn’t realised that my own deathless claim to verbal immortality had already been established. This was made clear to me by the giving of two cellophane wrapped assemblages given to me yesterday as part of my birthday presents from The Family.
The first illustrated my response to being asked what I would like to drink when we go out for a meal, “Una cerveza sin alcohol, gaseosa, y un vaso grande para mezclar, por favor.” (“A non-alcoholic beer with Gaseosa and a large glass to mix them in, please.”) Gaseosa is a sugar-free, sweetish, fizzy drink used by itself and as a mixer. So, the first assemblage had a chunky ‘real’ looking beer glass, a can of 0% beer and a plastic bottle of Gaseosa.
The second assemblage illustrated my end of meal instructions: “Un té negro, con dos bolsitas, y un poco de leche fría aparte, por favor. (“A black tea, with two teabags and a little cold milk apart, please.”) Beneath the cellophane I could see an impressive mug (with lid) at the side of which two teabag ends could be seen and a small jar of milk (with instruction not to drink it because it had not been in the fridge for some time!). So, that is me, summed up in two phrases. I should have expected something like this because Toni’s two nephews look forward to my opening my mouth and then chorus my requests with me. And so, my birthday (a ‘significant’ one, if you care about such things) with only a visit to the Opera in the Liceu in Barcelona to see a lack-lustre production of Don Giovanni with Christopher Maltman in the evening to make the day even remotely significant. The experience was out of the ordinary of course, because of all the precautions that the theatre had taken to make our visit ‘safe’. The number of audience members was restricted to 50% of the possible seats available and we were seated in a little island of isolation with adjacent seats vacant. We had to wear masks for the duration of the performance; there were no refreshments, no paper programmes – and scene changes were done with the safety curtain not brought down, partly to encourage us not to leave our seats during the interval! I wish that I could say that the music transcended all the safety distractions – but it didn’t. The production failed to engage with me, it seemed static and under sung. I really wanted to enjoy it because it is all too likely that the increasing stringency of the measures to limit the spread of Covid will impact on the rest of the season – a season I might add with a late start. We are now under curfew (10pm to 6am) and there is talk of limiting people to their municipalities. Although I live in the province of Barcelona, I do not live in the city and so restrictions will make it impossible to travel to the Opera House. Still, it hasn’t happened yet and given the contradictory confusion of the stream of instructions that we have had so far, it might well be that oddities like opera-going will survive and I will have a ‘safe corridor’ to culture. Spain has now had its ‘Callous Cummings’ moment where a dinner party for 150 people was held in Madrid hosted by the rich for the politicians and the corruptible. Given that we mere mortals cannot go to closed restaurants and bars; cannot gather in groups of more than 6; have to be home by 10pm, you can take your choice of hypocrisies that the Great and The Good have illustrated by their ostentatious cavalier behaviour which, of course, spits in our collective faces. The reactions have been predictable: the government supporting press (right and left) failed to carry any information about this disgraceful event. It was left to social media to spread the news and force the criminals to respond. Will we get any more than platitudes? Doubtful. Justice in Spain is politicised and mere innocence will fail to get you freedom if you are perceived by the governing elite to be threatening their positions; glaring guilt will fail to get you convicted if you are part of that elite. To my knowledge none of the trough-swillers at that event has attempted a variation on the “I was testing my eyesight” by trying to read the menu card in the artificial light of the crystal chandeliers! But give them time and they will come up with something equally blatant and insulting. Meanwhile, of course, our errant ex-king is still skulking in the shadows hoping that paternity and corruption cases will fade into the background – much like his son-in-law who is allegedly in a women’s prison (sic.) for his thieving. Every other high and mighty fallen on hard times dweller in pokey also has to deal with photographic evidence of the degradation showing them in prison fatigues playing cards or something equally banal, but not with this particular prisoner. Not even a hint of evidence that he actually is in prison. Makes you think.
The latest piece of idiocy in Catalonia concerns the Guardia Civil (the police guys with funny hats and guns) where there have been 20 arrests connected with the demonstrations and the financial organization thereof in support of our president Puigdemont who is at present in exile in Belgium. This is a serious matter, but the general appearance of this operation (given the name “Volhov” by the Guardia Civil, referring to a battle during the Second World War by the División Azul which comprised Spanish soldiers fighting for the Nazis! Such sensitivity!) has descended into farce by the claims of involvement of Putin and the threat of Russian soldiers being made available to Puigdemont and so on, into the realms of fantasy, QAnon and the delusions of dedicated conspiracy theorists. Twitter and the social media are awash with spoofs and derisive comments on the latest putsch against Catalonia.
Spain is not averse to looking ridiculous in the international court of public opinion, as witness their hapless defence of police brutality over the referendum of the 1st October 2017 and the imprisonment of the organizers, some of whom are STILL IN PRISON. For organizing a referendum. In which millions of Catalans participated.
Such is the fluidity of the situation at the moment that the restrictions that I alluded to above are no longer a full description of what we are expected to observe. It seems as if the government is trying to get as near as possible to a full lockdown without actually having one.
This is the sort of thing that the mendacious Conservative government tried with the situation in Northern Ireland and the attempts to convince us that there was a way to have some sort of Brexit and not to have a land border or a border somewhere: trying to convince people about something that was an impossibility, but faffing around to try and find the right linguistic display to make a contradiction appear smooth and joined-up.
It is yet another variation of the “Delete all and insert” approach to debate that I remember from my days in General Body Student Meetings in University. Even when agreement on some weasel formulation was found, it invariably came to pieces when confronted with practical reality. It was a valuable Life Lesson to see specious agreement in action and to watch it later fail. In ordinary life, instead of saying “Delete all and insert” the ‘compromise’ is usually preceded by, “What about if we” – but the end results (agreement/failure) are the same.
We are still not sure about the exact details but, we are now expected to say within our municipalities during the weekends, so if the coastal resort of Castelldefels is packed on Saturday and Sunday with people from god knows where – what precisely are we supposed to do? Our 10pm to 6am curfew continues. Large stores are to be closed, and so on tinkering around the edges of what is actually necessary.
While encourage not to make ‘unnecessary’ journeys, we are not banned from going where we like, within our province and within our municipality. Mostly. My swimming pool appears to be open for the foreseeable future (about three days in Covid terms!) and I can continue to take my bike rides, though the end part of my usual route, which is technically in Sitges, may be out of bounds during the weekends.
As usual we are presented with yet more new rules about which we have a sketchy understanding at best – at a time when mistakes can and will be deadly!
Still, I have a new art book, and I have an active imagination, so no lockdown is going to contain me!
