Lord! See how virtuous I am!

My Secondary School was a bus ride away from my home, and I can remember that the schoolboy cost of a ticket (one-way) was 1½d or 1.5 pennies or three ha’pence or just over half of one modern new penny.  The cost now seems derisory, and it wasn’t a great deal even then, but it was worth collecting by a real, live ticket conductor and there was always a chance (remote but real) of your ticket being demanded to be seen by a ticket inspector.

     As my bus travelling was at peak time, ticket conductors were not always keen to visit the seething zoos on the top deck and were sometimes somewhat cursory in their collecting of the three ha’pences for the fares.

 

     

 

  

     At the bottom of the stairs there was, attached to the metal structure of the bus, a little locked ‘honesty box’ where uncollected fares could be placed.

     I have to admit that I scorned to be called a thief for three ha’pence, and always put my penny ha’penny into the box.  Indeed, there were times that, unless I was asked for the fare directly, I kept the money in my hot little hand until I could place it in the honesty box.

     I now realize that my actions had little to do with honesty and more with what is now called ‘virtue signalling’ where the public act of honesty outweighs the quality of honesty.  I was doing the right thing, but I wanted to be seen to be doing the right thing, and therefore parading my honesty rather than merely (as I saw it) being honest.

     This juvenile act of selfish pride came back to me when considering the Pandemic.

      Last night I went to the Liceu for the ballet (of which more anon) and, as I was walking down the crowded Ramblas from the excruciatingly expensive car parking, crunching my exquisitely painful knees, I was forced to consider the disparity between older folk who were almost invariably wearing masks and those people aged about 25 and younger who weren’t.

     The rules (ha!) for what you can and can’t or what you are supposed to and not supposed to do have always been somewhat fluid (no matter how they were presented by the authorities), and I think (who knows?) that the wearing of masks outside is now permitted, but they should still be worn in crowded outdoor situations (I think).  I would consider the most famous street in Barcelona, Las Ramblas, packed as it always is with tourists and natives, to be a crowded public place under the meaning of the rules.  Well, they (the youngsters) weren’t masked, and they were not observing social distancing.

     I have had my flu jab and my Covid booster, so I can consider myself fairly well protected – but I always wear my mask, I am positively Pilateian (the word may not exist, but we need some sort of expressive adjective, though the adverb may be too clumsy to use) in my compulsive hand washing, and I keep my distance.  Why can’t others?

     But this zeal for protection extends itself to my locker in the pool.  In our pool you can hire a locker and have it as your personal storage space on a permanent basis.  Not only does it mean that you can store some of the essentials on site and not have to carry them to the pool each day, but also you can be assured of its not being used by anyone else and therefore you can be assured of its cleanliness as well.

     However, after I have changed, I clean the outside door and the interior of my locker with the disinfectant provided by the centre, using sheets from one of those giant rolls of absorbent paper also provided.  I have my own spray of disinfectant that I keep in my locker, and I spray and clean the pegs and the sitting area of bench that I have used.

     We are constantly told that Covid is transmitted through the air and that the chances of transmission via surfaces is limited.  Limited by not non-existent.  I am aware when I am cleaning that I am doing something that virtually everyone else ignores.  Most people regard the wearing of a mask (which the centre demands in all inside areas, except the showers) as sufficient.  And perhaps they are right, and I am just virtue signalling again, revisiting the childhood pride of ‘honest’ bus riding.

     Having said that, I do feel some degree safer after my cleaning and I enjoy that sort of selflessness that comes with knowing that at least the bits that I used are now clean for others.

     I think that the simple reality is that any amount of virtue signalling is to be encouraged when you are dealing with a pandemic that has killed millions and incapacitated millions more.  I will continue to clean!

 

 

The review of my Liceu evening can wait for another time!

    

Just when you think . . .

 

 

 

 

 

You really don’t know whether to laugh or cry or start sharpening the knives for a major bloodletting! 

     Is it the swift volte-face or the fact that this discredited Conservative “government” even tried (with a three-line whip) to force through a sordid piece of legislation designed to defend poor little Owen Paterson MP?  One has to feel something akin to sympathy (or is it utter contempt?) for an MP struggling along on his MP’s salary in addition to more than £100,000 a year from the two companies that he lobbied on behalf of (against the rules) so assiduously. 

     And what has he done today?  Resigned, after his mate Johnson withdrew his support – as Johnson always does.  Johnson, the man who is liked by everybody except those who know him! 

     Well, I hope that poor little Paterson has managed to save something from the more than three hundred thousand a year that he “earned” to cushion his retirement.  Perhaps Johnson will make him a lord, after all our so-called Prime Minister has ennobled characters even less salubrious than Paterson. 

     Then, at least poor little Owen will have the lord’s per diem to try and encourage him forget the “cruel world of politics” (thank you poor little Paterson) that has been so unfair to him, by revealing (thank you The Guardian) his “egregious . . . paid advocacy” (thank you The Commons Standards Committee).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

      

 

 

Meanwhile the farce of this episode is still playing itself out.  Johnson has completed yet another, not U-Turn, more screeching handbrake reversal.  He forced his MPs to support the unsupportable, and to go on the record defending it and then, when the heat was raised by people accusing him of sleaze and blatant corruption, abruptly cancelling what was deemed so important it needed a three-line whip!

     There must be “decent” (they must exist) Tory MPs who reluctantly supported the government against overwhelming evidence, who will now have to explain not only their own questionable judgement in voting to support the government, but also the complete about turn by the same government within less than 24hrs!  I wish them no luck, and I urge their constituents to question them closely.

     This is yet another example of poor leadership.  This whole episode has been so catastrophically managed that heads should roll, with the first aristo into the tumbril being the person who ordered his MPs to vote: Johnson.

 

G

 

     

 

 

 

 Johnson won’t, of course, resign.  Why?  Because Paterson has.   

     I wonder exactly what incentives he was offered by Johnson to do the "decent "thing?  (See: peerage above!)

 

Enough of the tawdry Conservatives.  I can’t help feeling that some sort of adapted version of my favourite quote from Christopher Marlowe, “Get you away, and strangle the Cardinal” fits this situation!

 

On an altogether more satisfactory note, I am now double vaccinated.  Not for Covid, I had the Johnson & Johnson, Jenssen Jab (so only one needle for me), but double vaccinated in that I had my seasonal flu jab (right arm) and my Covid booster of Pfizer (left arm) in a purpose build portacabin attached to my local health centre.  My booster was given six months to the day from the first Covid injection.  Thank you, health system of Catalonia!

     The only problem I now face is tackling the Byzantine security systems that protect my medical details so that I can download a copy of the vaccination certificate for use, and I have already been informed that proof of vaccination will be needed to participate in a small poetry group in Barcelona.  A sign of things to come perhaps.

 

This evening to Terrassa to celebrate a joint Name Day, with Amazon being an integral part of the way that presents have been sent in situ as another sign of things already conventional!

 

 

 

 

You can't force imagination

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yesterday was a public holiday in Catalonia and today isn’t.  The difference in the café after my swim was marked.  I was virtually alone and, as I sit at a table next to the plate glass windows looking out onto the car park, I had nothing to distract me from adding to the writing in my notebook.  Except, I didn’t much.

     I have found, in the past, that even the most quotidian of reflections about the weather or the strength of a cup of tea can sometimes give rise to more profitable thoughts.  Today, that was not the case, “Overcast, cold, with some hazy sun” remained a description of the state of the day and didn’t progress to profundity.  Still, I had a decent cup of tea at the end of my swim and I had had a lane to myself, so to quote Lewis Carroll, I felt fully justified in marking the day “with a white stone” – which, if my memory serves me right is an old Roman custom, and which I claimed as my own as soon as I read about it in one of the footnotes of Gardner’s Annotated Alice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tomorrow is my flu jab, and I think it says something about the way that I fill my days that this has become An Event in my week.  It is a step in the process of defending myself from the vicissitudes of various viruses and, as I have mentioned before, in my age group if you don’t look after yourself you can expect little from the authorities to help you.  Though having said that I did get a message on my mobile phone yesterday telling me that I should be thinking about my flu jab and, if I hadn’t already made arrangements, I should get an appointment via the helpfully supplied link.

     This will be an added layer of protection, especially as many of the Covid restrictions are being lifted. 

     For example, next week is my next visit to the Liceu, not for an opera this time, but rather for a ballet.  If you have a season ticket then a couple of ballets and the odd recital are part of the package, and the package is worth getting because its purchase comes with a discount of 25%.  And 25% off a lot of money is well worth getting!

     During the course of the pandemic, we have had performances cancelled, and sometimes entire productions.  When the Opera House opened up again, it was to a severely reduced seating capacity with various safety aspects enhanced.  Our specified seats were no longer ours, and we season ticket holders were distributed around our chosen price area, to ensure that we could be islanded by empty seats.  The staged production of The War Requiem was the last of the adjusted performances and for the next we should be back in our accustomed places.

     But the pandemic is not over.  Although many young people act as if the Covid Pandemic is an historical event and nothing to do with their immediate lives, this is simply self-delusion, a self-delusion that could be fatal for those that fit into the most vulnerable age and chronic illness categories.  Double vaccinated people can get Covid and be capable of spreading the infection, even if they do not demonstrate symptoms of the illness itself.  The largest age category of new infections is in children.  We are not, in any way, shape or form safe from Covid.

     In Catalonia we longer are required to wear masks in the open air, though it is suggested that in more crowded places like paseos it is advisable to wear a mask and to keep to the social distancing rules.  But no one is entirely sure what, precisely, the rules are – and the mixed messages we get from our so-called political leaders do nothing to make the situation clearer.

     I will continue to wear my mask throughout the winter and well into the spring, and indeed until well after politicians have stopped trying to convince us that everything is back to normal, and we all please spend more money!

     It will be interesting to see exactly how the patrons of the Liceu behave in the new-normal dispensation.  As the vast majority of patrons in the stalls of the opera are people past the first flush of youth, I think it is more than likely that precautions will still be fairly firmly in place as the lights go down!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dinner this evening, at least for me, was the doggie bag remains of the paella that we had yesterday in the swimming pool restaurant.  I have to admit that the flavour had intensified after the dish had rested for a day and there is still some left for lunch tomorrow.  Though I will perhaps add a dash of curry to make the stuff taste a little different.  Please don’t tell any Catalan cuisine purists what I am doing, as they are easily shocked by the unconventional (or blasphemous, as they would term it) approach to native cooking.

     I am reminded of the time when I was charged with buying a melon for a ham and melon starter for a meal, and I returned from the shops with a sandia (a red watermelon) and there was chaos when the assembled company realized what I had done.  We did have sandia and jamon, but it has been a memory which always raises a shocked smile as the misstep is remembered and discussed. 

     Personally, I found the combination excellent and would readily eat it again.  

      I am alone in that determination in this part of the world!

Jabs and jinks

 NEW LOCKDOWN Day 13? 14? Thursday

 

 

 

 

I am now fully flu-jabbed.

     After a little confusion about where to get into the place, I was ushered to one of two nurses who in a matter of seconds ticked off my name and gave me my injection.  By the time I got home, I was still within a minute of my original appointment time, having been seen to as soon as I arrived.

     Although this date is a little later than usual for my jab, I am glad that it is now out of the way and presumably my body will be in the right state to accept the Covid vaccine when it is available.  And I would like to make one thing abundantly clear, whenever it is available I am ready and willing to have it pumped into my arm.  All those conspiracy theorist idiots merely make it earlier in its availability for me!

     Though, I am acutely aware that the idea of raising up some sort of metaphorical inoculation drawbridge is false because, we are all in this together and until we are all inoculated none of us is safe.  Still, I will feel much more secure when I have some antibodies coursing around my veins!

 

As my appointment was for 6.16pm (yes, I too wondered if we were all separated by minute intervals to be done) and as parking in the centre of town is problematic at the best of times, I decided to go on my bike.

      I set off fairly early because I needed to call in to the pharmacist to get restocked with the pills that I take each day.  I was also acutely aware that the last time that I went to the pharmacist I overbalanced dismounting from my bike and I still have the pale new skin on my left knee, together with what I can only describe as a stubborn scab on the fleshy front part of the knee, so I was a damn sight more circumspect getting off the bike this time around.  And no accidents.

     At around 5.15pm when I set off we were just about in the period of our quick twilight.  The lingering gradations of encroaching darkness, much beloved of poets, in Britain is much more transient in Catalonia.  And as bikes seem to be generally invisible to pedestrians and to motorists it is always advisable to use lights whenever you suspect that they might be necessary.

     Now that I (finally) have my replacement front light for the bike it is easy to get a bright forward-facing light to warn people of my immanent arrival.  I also get to the centre of town using the safest, bike-friendly route via the paseo, then a cycle lane, through the university (which is generally sparsely populated), via another cycle lane and finally a main road.  As I was cycling during the rush hour as well, it added a sense of impending threat as the darkness grew.

     I know, as a motorist, I hate cyclists.  Generally speaking, they are inconsiderate, don’t indicate, ignore traffic flow and signs, and court death.  They do not attempt to endear themselves to other road users, and other road users know it.

     I am different.  I indicate – I even have a little light attached to the rear basket holder which acts as a flashing indicator.  The back light lights up when I apply the brakes.  I use hand signals; I respect other traffic users.  But motorists rarely make exceptions for riders who do not fulfil their lowest expectations, and merely assume that we are using some sort of low cunning to frustrate them.

     The one (low) life form that unites drivers and cyclists in a sacred bond of hatred is, of course, the scooter driver – both in the electric scooter type vehicle and the Vesponic versions.  These drivers are the true homicidal-suicidal-expletives based on body parts maniacs, who weave, jink, brake, speed and do just what the hell they like, and are the true spawn of Satan.

     However, even though there were one- or two-characters tempting fate on crowded, traffic light stopped road, they were not the objects of my loathing during my journey back.

     The worst (by a long chalk) road users are, and always have been, pedestrians: walking, jogging, running or simply standing, they are the ones who always leave me breathless – usually literally as I have had to execute some desperate manoeuvre to extricate myself from incipient pedestrionic disaster.

     I cycle, as far as I am able, in cycle lanes.  Cycle lanes are for cycles, there are even painted stencils of bicycles on the cycle lanes for those who find the concept difficult to understand.

     On the paseo I never ‘beep’ walkers out of my way.  We are equal users and I try and keep to the right (it’s foreign remember) and if there are groups of people I slowly make my way through, often helped by people who recognize a bike and make way when they see one.  If not, not.  I am not in a rush; I have better things to get upset about.

     Like pedestrians who walk or run in a bike lane.  Evil personified!  My horn is a piercing electronic sort of thing and has a peremptory sort of sound and usually does the trick.  Cycle lanes are for my kind, not the two footed.

     There is a supremely irritating sort of pedestrian who walks the border line, literally, between bike lane and pedestrian space: I make no effort to move away and usually am able to intimidate such impertinent walkers back to their domain.

     At night it is worse.

     I truly and sincerely fail to understand why cycle riders do not have lights on their bikes at night.  Let us be fair, some do, but the majority seem to think that lights are unnecessary.  This evening, for example, I passed one cyclist who was in darkness and he had a light on his handlebar.  He simply did not turn it on. 

     I suppose that we have now become inured to the appropriation of aspects of male life from the lifesaving to the superficially political.  One thinks (though one would like not to) of Trump and his absurd macho dismissal of mask wearing as not being his thing.  In the same way the majority of bike riders seem to think that having a light is some form of absurd frippery.

     On my way back from my flu jab (perhaps having that jab just shows how effeminate I am, rather than bullishly scorning flu as something that will 'just go away') I had to contend, in my bike lane, with dog walkers who allowed their animals to wander onto the lane on those absurdly long leads on plastic ratchets; runners appropriating the on-coming lane; pedestrians wandering about; cyclists without lights on the wrong side of the lanes; people not getting out of the way and ignoring repeated beeps, and so on.

     I had a strong front light and people still appeared to be surprised that a bike was using a lane specifically constructed for bikes.  Eventually I put on a second light (my trust in the quality of equipment sold by MATE is not so high that I do not have a backup) and still a runner almost ran into me!  Two lights!  At least the brightness allowed me to savour the look of panic on his face as a collision was narrowly averted!

     As the first MATE light on my bike lasted just over a week before it gave up the ghost, I was waiting for a reasonable period to elapse before I took off the extra light from my overcrowded handlebars.  I now have no intention whatsoever of relying on one light to keep me safe.

     The one good thing about the eventful ride home is that the excitement and raised adrenaline levels and heart beats, the quick intakes of breath and the exasperated exhalations will have caused the antibodies in the vaccine to go around my blood stream all the more quickly.

     There is always something positive, if you look hard enough!