Justice? What justice!

You know when you try and remember one of those words that you used (teacher or pupil) to describe a ‘literary effect’ (or is it affect?  I’m a teacher and I can never really remember which one is correct and I am always too lazy to look it up.)  The word I am trying to remember is one that is used in Romeo and Juliet when the phrase ‘hot ice’ is used.  The teacher (or me in a previous incarnation) would reveal that the correct word to use was oxymoron.  Well, living in Spain I now have a different phrase to exemplify this concept: Spanish justice.

Today was the last day when my heart-feeling that the unity of Spain was worth fighting for finally died.

The politicised justice that parades as disinterested in the courts in Spain has shown itself to be as grotesquely politically inept as that shown by their PP masters in parliament.  Any remaining belief that the separation of powers exists to any real extent in Spain is now, officially, dead.

Some of the political leaders of the Republic of Catalonia have been to court to testify in Madrid and they have all (with one significant and reprehensible exception) been jailed without bail.

The minority right-wing repressive government of Spain, whose PP representation in Catalonia is a measly 8%, has assumed the government of Catalonia, imposed a motely scum of PP politicians as the leaders of our political society and has now jailed our leaders.

Political ineptitude seems to be the go-to default position of PP.  It would appear that their judicial spaniels slavishly follow their political masters and have behaved in a way guaranteed to bolster support for independence.

What of the elections called by the ever more contemptible president of Spain?  This government has jailed the leaders of our government: are they supposed to electioneer from behind bars?  With every step that the bunch of deadbeats in Madrid take, they further the break-up of Spain.  And please, do not pretend for one solitary moment that justice is separate from the political party that put most of them in place: PP.

PP is the most systemically corrupt political party in western Europe.  While it is super sensitive to any group or individual that speaks against its power base, it is strangely indifferent to the proven corruption of its own members as hundreds (yes, literally, hundreds) are going through the ‘justice’ system a damn sight more slowly than the leaders of our government!

For me, these jailings constitute a sort of turning point.  I have always been a vocal opponent of nationalism, and I am more concerned with unity in Europe than the petty national divisions that have fermented so many deaths over the last centuries.  But how can you go on thinking that linking to a corrupt and corrupting central government is anything other than, well, corrupting!

The Spanish government, under its bad-joke president Rajoy has shown its contempt for liberty, democracy, decency and unity.  Rajoy, personally and vindictively has engineered the present situation and has constantly shown himself to be opposed to any reasonable solution based on significant dialogue. 

Over the last decade and more Rajoy and his PP party has worked towards this impasse. 

 La Republica Catalunya

He now deserves to suffer the breakup of the country that he has so signally failed to represent in its totality.

¡Visca la República Catalunya!

Here & There

Weather

The glorious sunshine that I seem to remember that we were promised for the Easter holidays does not seem to be much in evidence at the moment.  OK, I was able to do a tad of light sunbathing yesterday, but the weather today is as near to rain as it can get without actual precipitation.

            And with a true sense of irony, just as I finished typing the word ‘precipitation’ the sun came out.  I swear that the irony of real life leaves the contrived irony of literature standing!  And with that the sun has disappeared again!

            As long as it is dry for my trip to the pool (to get wet, yes, irony again) I will be happy.

Family

Yesterday saw the Family descend and our routine was jolted out of place by two young children.  Being a retired teacher (ah, savour those words in the mouth like a fine wine!) children have become something of a novelty for me and I find myself observing them like some exotic species of insect.

            This time I particularly noticed their attitudes.  Not, I hasten to add, their ethical standpoints and moral positions, but rather the physical ones that they adopt naturally.

            Milton wrote of Samson that he was ‘carelessly diffused’ (if I remember rightly) encapsulating a sort of casual sprawl in a wonderful phrase.  I watched the younger brother, Marc, as he sat at the table and I fail to see how his half crouch lunged squat could have been in any way comfortable – but he seemed ridiculously at ease in what would have been excruciatingly uncomfortable for me.

            Still, I remember years ago when in secondary school, in an idle moment of speculation, I wondered if I was still able to do the ‘crab’ and move around with my arms on the floor behind my head and my body arched.  The answer was a resounding ‘No!’ and I am glad that I tried to assume the position slowly and not snap into it, as the only snapping would have been my spine if I had managed to do it!  A certain pliability is lost with age!

            I can now feel joints in a way that is entirely different from my youth when joints did not intrude upon my concern.  Those happy days when the body is just one lithe totality rather than, extremely obviously nowadays for me, composed of jointed parts.

Poems in Holy Week

This writing is obviously displacement activity as a form of writing exercise to get me into the mood to try and find a topic for the next poem in the sequence.  I am trying a mixture of casual thought and oblique contemplation to bring the subject matter to the fore.

            I have to admit that there is no easy way to write and I find the harder I work the more ‘inspiration’ I find.  At least my faithful notebook is always near to catch a fleeting perception.  Though I also have to admit that my notebook is fuller of the blindingly obvious rather than the intriguingly provocative.  But, as I pointedly observed in a previous blog about ‘Family Wisdom’, ‘anything is better than nothing’ – and I am constantly surprised by what I am able to mine from extremely unprepossessing obviousness!

            I trust that the next poem in the sequence will find its way onto http://smrnewpoems.blogspot.com.es/ before the end of the day.  With any luck the material produced in my Poetry Group this evening may even be useful for this project.  I live, as always, in hope!

United Nations Day 2015

The travel arrangements and preparations for this event are assuming a complexity which makes the actual UNO meetings in New York look simple in comparison.  I have decided to take a loft and distant approach to these things and concentrate on the ‘looking forward’ aspect of it all.

            My most pressing concern is to ensure that Flesh Can Be Bright is ready for its publication day.  At least I know that my Catalan translator has started on the task of producing a version of Autumn Trees, which is more than I can say for my Spanish translator.

            It is now April and I set a deadline for completion of the writing by the end of May.  I have written the poems and, although I still have to do the editing and the indexes, the introduction and design, I know that the really hard bits that I have to do are done.  How far my grandiose plan for the realisation of this project survives to publication will be interesting to see.  I am fairly determined, but I do have fallback plans.  Lots of them.

Body Art

I have been methodical in my note making for the next essay (and last) in the OU course.  As soon as this is completed I can concentrate on the End of Module Assessment which is a mini thesis.

            The art I am studying at the moment is what I think most people would call ‘challenging’ – and the theoretical justifications even more so!

            As befits a module on modern art, we are now at the ‘cutting edge’ of what can be considered art and while sometimes I think that it has not progressed much beyond Duchamp, there are other aspects which demand an intellectual commitment that I am sometimes not prepared to make.

            Still, it is something which is beyond my comfort zone and therefore it makes me question my perceptions and who can ask for more than that from a learning experience.

            I will soon have to start putting finger to key and actually write something about what I understand rather than wondering what the hell to make of it all.