Listening & reading & worrying!

Well, the years of living in Spain must have counted for something: the guided tour around the houses of Los Indianos in Sitges in Spanish was basically understood by me as long as I concentrated.  And therein lies the rub.  Art, poetry, gastronomy, swimming, music, literature and so on and so on - they are all more interesting than studying Spanish for me.

As a past language teacher I should find the acquisition of a new mode of communication an exciting challenge.  The trouble is, I don’t.  And don’t think that I haven’t rehearsed all the possible arguments in favour of knuckling down and getting stuck in and putting various parts of my anatomy to gyrating rough surfaces, I have.  And I have yet to be convinced.

You would think, would you not, that someone with my proven inability to keep silent on any subject completely irrespective of how much, or indeed if any, knowledge informed my contributions, would embrace the chance of finding another mode of expression.  But no.  I do my homework with sullen resentment and little sticks.  I have gone over verb endings (-í, -iste, -ió) in various modes (-ía, -ías, -ía) and at various times (-é, -ás, -á) and I still look at such constructions with unalloyed, clear, blank, incomprehension.

And Spanish has two verbs for the English verb ‘to be’ so ‘I am’ can be ‘yo soy’ or ‘yo estoy’!  So, the English sentence ‘I am ill’ can be written in Spanish as either ‘Yo soy infermo’ or ‘Yo estoy infermo’ - but they mean different things.  And you probably wouldn’t use the ‘Yo’ in Spanish either, because the verb form tells you the person.  So, ‘Estoy infermo’ would indicate that you have something like a cough that you hope will clear up soon, while ‘Soy infermo’ means that you are permanently ill.  That’s quite a useful differentiation, but not useful enough to merit having to use two different verbs, when the use of an explanatory phrase might clear things up!  But one has the learn the language as it is and not as one would like it to be.  And English has phrasal verbs that are revenge enough for Spanish learners of our tongue!

 

Anyway, I was quite pleased with myself for following a fairly detailed social, historical and architectural wander through the narrow streets of Sitges and there were always English speaking friends to fall back on in the group when the sheer concentration on sequences of foreign words just got too much!

I got more pleasure from finding out that the name Sitges is derived from the word for silo!  There was, in times past, a small natural harbour near what is now the church and a brisk trade in the commodities that were stored on the shore in silos.  These silos were used for twenty years or so and then demolished and new ones built.  For archaeologists the delight is finding one of these disused silos because they are always filled in with rubbish, but historic rubbish, the bits and discarded pieces of what our ancestors thought worthless, broken and lost.  They were described by the guide in enthusiastic terms because of the ‘treasures’ they reveal to modern eyes.

We went to Sitges by train and I cycled up to the station, as there are racks and bicibox to store bikes.  As my bike is a fairly flash electric number I am very much disinclined to leave it on public display - even with the sturdy steel jointed lock that looks the business.  Far better to have my tastefully blue bike hidden from questing eyes.  The bicibox is a sort of Nissan hut looking construction that has a series of slotted covers that can be raised by the resting of a special credit card sized ‘key’ on the operating pad of the ‘hut’.  A screen will inform you of the available spaces for your bike and you can select a ‘box’ open it and place the bike securely inside.  That, at least is the theory.  For the first time in my experience I found that all the spaces in the bicibox outside the station had been taken.

There was a Plan B.  Behind the station in a large car park for the commuters who go to Barcelona every day there is another bicibox.  I confidently cycled a couple of minutes to that box and took the last available space.  Never before have I experienced such demand - even by the station.  I fear that what was a good idea used only by the few has now become an accepted way of bici life!  This is disturbing because if I cannot put my bike in one of these bici boxes I will not leave it out in the open air when using the train.  And for two full bici boxes there is no Plan C.  I will have to give this some thought.

Which I have now done and I have reminded myself that there is a third bici box a hundred yards away form the front of the station in the car park by the church.  So that is Plan B, but what do I do if all three of the bici boxes are filled?  There really is no Plan C - apart from returning home and taking the car!  Which rather defeats the whole idea.

I am typing this with the Diana Newall book, ‘Art and its global histories: A Reader’ lurking tauntingly or teasingly on my left.  The ideas from yesterday’s read are still fresh in my mind and I yearn for more information.  I have just opened the book at random in the section for ‘Art, commerce and colonialism 1600-1800’ and have seen a primary source text entitled:

‘Iohn Huighen van Linschoten. his discours of voyages into ye Easte & West Indies Deuided into foure books (London: John Wolfe, 1598) 

that the Reader informs me is, “one of the great travel narratives of the early modern period” - as any fule kno!  Well, I didn’t.  But do now, and I love that sort of thing!  And the spelling has been modernised for ease of reading - who can ask for more!

I have replayed the interview of Alfonso Dastis, the foreign minister of the minority right wing National Government of Spain and Tim Sebastian (see yesterday’s blog) for the unadulterated pleasure of seeing an over-confident Conservative apologist discomforted.

Learning is reading is seeing!

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It is gradually dawning on me that we are already in the month of July.  Which means that there is only one full month between today and the start of September.  So much, so obvious.  The reason why this is a disconcerting fact is that in September I start a new course in Spanish III.

Although I have lived in Spain for almost a decade, I am shamefully, and woefully inadequate when it comes to expressing myself in Spanish.  I mean, I get by.  No matter what the situation, be it garage, government, restaurant, optician, library, art gallery, theatre, opera house, museum, bus, train, bike shop, etc etc etc - I get by.  But I am always conscious that when I compare what I am able to say in English with how I express myself in Spanish, the different is, to put it mildly, glaring. I have Taken Steps to rectify my inarticulacy and this year I have taken an OU course in Spanish Beginners and a course in Castelldefels in Spanish 2.  This sort of overkill approach has had mixed results.

On the positive side I have passed my Spanish 2 course and am now officially certified as having a proficiency of A2 - I have documentary proof of this, and that is something which I look at from time to time as I am not entirely convinced that my ability matches the printed description.  Still, I have done the exams and got the paper. 

The OU course has been interesting, but my approach to it has been less than wholeheartedly enthusiastic.  My marks for the OU course have been among the highest that I have managed to get, with my lowest mark being 94%!  But perhaps those marks have more to do with the fact that I now know how the OU works and I am able to push them exactly what they want.  And this is not false modesty on my part, I know what I do not know, and I do know that the marks do not reflect my proficiency and ability.  Bumbling by in a confident ungrammatical style is not competence.

 

So, the start of Spanish III in September is a truly daunting prospect.  There is no way that I can get through this year by relying on quick wits and a smattering of half remembered vocabulary.  Spanish III is serious - that’s why I have written the number in Roman numerals rather than the more prosaic Arabic alternative.  [And just as a casual thought, how might I have translated that last sentence?  Pause.  Although I have no intention of showing you my version, I did put my Spanish attempt in Google translate and something vaguely similar came out the other end in English!]  I will have to take a more serious and studious approach if I am not to be humiliated by the experience.

I have determined an approach that might help, but it does need constant effort and a seriousness that I have not shown heretofore.  With the OU course I left out great chunks of the material, decided that other bits were stuff I knew, and concentrated on the tutor marked assignments and the computer marked multiple-choice questions.  I worked to the final result and the final result will therefore reflect my ability to understand the mechanism of the institution rather than show exactly how much I have learned and I know.

But I know that if my approach had been slightly different and I had been more methodical towards all the course and not just to those bits that had a final mark attached to them, I would have benefitted immeasurably.  The material is well thought out and leads you gently (generally) to proficiency.  It is a sign of the realism of the Open University that access to the studenthome website for the course is available to students for three years after the course has finished.  I think that I will need that to go over just what it is that I am supposed to have learned.

And then there is the course that I have just completed in Castelldefels.  We have a course book for this, complete with CD.  The lessons are generally more conversational than overly didactic so much of the hard graft learning is left to the students.  I cannot, in conscience say that I kept up my end of the bargain and too often the next time that I opened the books after the previous lesson was in the next lesson.  This does not work.  And it will not work in Spanish III.  So things will have to change.  I live in hope.

-oO0Oo-

As part of our “Summer is the Time to Explore” approach to life, we have been to a new/old restaurant in Castelldefels.  OK, it’s not exactly sailing up the Zambezi in a canoe made of matchsticks, but it is adventurous according to our lights.

We chose to go to an old haunt further down the beach road, where previously we had got a fairly basic menu del dia for about €10.  The food was not spectacular but it was good value for money. 

It must be over a year or so since we last went there.  At this point you have to understand that time in a seaside resort is not the same as in the rest of the world.  A single year in resort is equivalent to at least five in the normal time frame.  In our world shops come and go; restaurants rise and fall; banks close; hotels rise up like Lego constructions; car parks become flats - nothing stays the same for long.  So, you could say that we were somewhat naive in expecting to get the same experience from something so far back in resort time.

And things had certainly changed.  Rough and ready had now become canvas backed chic; tables and chairs had been redone, and there was air conditioning inside.  And the price was now €16, a 60% increase.  And that was without drink!

Service was poor and slow.  The starters were OK, but the main course was far too salty.  The piss-poor wine was €12 and the bottle of gaseosa was €2.50.  We had to pay €2 for parking because the service was so slow.  The final bill (after the beer that we didn’t have had been deducted!) was over €50.  We could have had better for €20 elsewhere.

You could say that I should name and shame - and the fact that I didn’t leave a tip shows how dissatisfied I was - but, how many of my readers are going to turn up looking for a cheap lunch any time in the next decade?  As a one off experience it was not good, but thinking about what I was prepared to accept when I first came to Spain, I would have been quite happy with the meal.  In those days I would have been impressed by the ‘free’ olives and even more by the thimble full of cheap vermouth with a speared olive in it.  But that was then and this is now and my standards are a little higher than they were.

This is a seaside town and summer is the traditional time to rip off those tourists who are so green that they look to have a meal with a sea view.  I should have known better, so I will let the restaurant hide behind my gifted anonymity and let them rack up the Euros while the sun shines!

-oO0Oo-

My eyes have never been the strongest part of my anatomy, and recently they have been more irritating than usual.

I can usually cope with the sheer frustration of short sightedness, and even the addition in later life of longsighted-ness to go with that: varifocal glasses are worth their weight in gold - just as soon as you have worked out how to walk down stairs in them!  I have been wearing contact lenses since I was seventeen and I have attempted to get used to a multitude of different forms of plastic pressed against my eyeballs.

Only those who have had hard contact lenses and then got a spec of grit behind one can truly understand the meaning of the oxymoronic “exquisite pain”!  The development of soft contact lenses and the further development of ‘daily’ soft contact lenses where, at last, you could throw them away at the end of the day, rather than pretending that you cleaned them properly and put them in fresh solution for the night rather than popping them in your mouth and sucking them to get them clean.  I pause here for opticians to have their fit of the vapours - which emphatically occurred when I first admitted to my optician that was my usual treatment.  From there I (like all other hard contact lens users) I lied.

Anyway.  Even with soft, daily contact lenses there will come a time when your eyeballs have had enough of plastic already, and demand that you dig out your old specs and wear those for a while.  My eyes have been getting ‘tired’ recently and my eyesight has become somewhat blurred, so I have gone back to glasses,

My glasses are lightweight, thinned, photochromatic, varifocal and laser and computer fabricated.  They have lightweight frameless frames made of matt platinum (going by the price) and are altogether things of loveliness - if you like that sort of thing.  I hate them, and only use them when my eyes scream for relief.

This time the respite that glasses is supposed to give to contact lens-abused eyes, has not worked out.  I am still getting blurred vision, and it is as if a tiny piece of translucent gauze has been stuck on my left eyeball.  And I am worried.

Worried in two ways.  I have an optician appointment at 6 this evening (this is Spain and not Britain you understand) and my first worry is trying to translate a phrase like “tiny piece of translucent gauze” into Spanish.  My second and more real worry is that what I am experiencing is related to diabetes.  I have been borderline diabetes 2 for some time and, although my last blood test was triumphantly negative for diabetes, I fear that I may have backslid.  So to speak.

Although it is the summer I have a lot of bookwork to do.  Not only re-reading the Spanish course that I didn’t read the first time around, but also working on my latest book of poems.  Although the poems are written, the introduction, the editing and the proof reading are all to come.  I need my glasses or lens assisted sight for some fairly intense work over the next few months.

Although I try and make light of it, I am worried.  There are too many nasty things that the “tiny piece of translucent gauze” might suggest.

However there is a whole hour before my appointment and I am not going to spend it in fruitless, frightened speculation.  I will write a poem instead.  Or at least draft one out.

My drafts of poems can be seen at http://smrnewpoems.blogspot.com.es/ that you are welcome to visit or ignore as your pleasure dictates.

58 more minutes to the appointment.  Not that I am counting or anything, you understand.  No indeed.  Indeed not.

When education is not enough

Today I rose in the dark, had a hurried shower and gulped down my essential cup of tea and then marched upstairs to my ‘study’ on the third floor.  I have to admit that this is not normal behaviour on my part.  My enthusiastic study dedication was a direct result of fear: a test. 

You would have thought that a life spent in education, lurching from exam to exam (either sitting or marking) would have meant that these, uninspiring experiences would have lost any ability to inspire anything other than boredom in me.  But this test was different – though only because it was part of my Spanish class in town, and for some reason I feel more, how shall I put it, exposed somehow.

It is true that I am struggling as each new tense fails to ‘take’ in my mind.  I have been wandering around chanting verb endings to myself like some demented cult monk and then, as soon as I am confronted by an actual piece of original writing in Spanish all verbs leak away and I am left with nouns and the odd adjective linked with inaccurate badly spelled illiteracy.  Or is that last part tautological?  Anyway, there are others there (we are all learning Spanish as a foreign language) who are much, much better than I am.  They find things easy that I find very difficult; they see simplicity in exercises where I only see fiendish evil.  I am, in other words, suffering what the more work shy pupils in the school on the hill used to go through when I took them through similar exercises in English!

The one good thing about my approach, however, to differentiate it from the attitude of so many of those I taught in Barcelona, is that I don’t cheat.  I find frustration, ignorance and inability all working against me, but I don’t cheat!  It remains to be seen if such an approach actually gets me sufficient credit to scrape through.  And I have to say that I will be quite satisfied with a bare pass.  However, humiliating that might be in comparison with a certain other gentleman who is taking examinations at the same time as I!

The actual horror of the test was slightly mitigated because there were a few 50/50 questions which at least allowed me the luxury of hoping that the informed monkey vote would work out to my advantage.  There were also a few ‘odd word out’ questions which were also a sure thing, but I am not sure that there was enough there to give me the marks that I need.

And ‘need’ is a key concept here.  The reason for learning Spanish is surely a no brainer!  Who would not want to be able to speak the language of the country in which he lives?  It is common courtesy and common sense.  And essential.

Given the lunacy of my fellow countrymen in their support of Brexit, I have had to rethink my position in Spain.  At the moment as a citizen of the EU my position is unassailable, but what happens when the trigger is finally pulled and the Brexit bullet goes careering into the British brain?

So far, the fall in the value of the pound has lowered by pension income by 20% at least, and that is likely to be much more when the dreaded Article 50 is finally invoked and we start the two years’ hard labour to break ourselves away actually begins – which I am sure will be a surprise to some die-hard Brexiteers who think we have actually left already and aren’t we doing well financially!  Then the real problems begin for me when I have to start thinking about my ‘rights’ in Spain when the real rights that I have at the moment will be taken away by the hard ‘right’ and ignorance.

Then there is the question of health care.  As a retired person, I am conscious that I am not getting any younger and that there is a likelihood that my medical needs will only grow with time and at the moment my needs are well met by the Spanish National Health Service of which I am a card-carrying member.  The fact that we Brits living in Spain are being used as a bargaining chip is not an encouraging element in my future planning!

So, the Master Plan is for me to apply for dual citizenship so that when the final break occurs I will be able to stay in Spain because I will have the rights of a native.

There are problems there however.  Two to be precise.  The first is that you have to have a level of proficiency in Spanish equivalent to A2 (a level where a working knowledge of the dreaded verbs is obligatory) and the second is you have to pass an examination to demonstrate your knowledge of Spanish culture, geography, politics and institutions.  A further problem is that I am not sure that Spain actually allows join Spanish/British citizenship, but stories are confused on this issue and I will go with the confusion until I am told it is impossible.

So, my efforts to learn the language have an added urgency.  It’s just a pity that this does not translate into information staying in my brain!  I will keep on keeping on and hope for the best – and use any other clichés that come to mind.

Meanwhile, I have bought and read (thank you Amazon) “The making of Donald Trump” by David Day Johnson (2016), First Melvin House, Brooklyn & London.  A thoroughly depressing read for lots of reasons.  It is obvious from what Johnson writes that there have been numerous occasions in the past when the murky behaviour of Trump should have landed him up in far more trouble that he appears to have got into.  The number of times when, if various legislative bodies and law enforcement agencies had done their job, it would have been highly unlikely that the present President of the United States would have made it to the White House.  Trumps unsavoury background and the appalling people with whom he has associated; his unscrupulous chiselling; his duplicity, where the truth does not seem to have any purchase on any part of what he might laughingly refer to as his system of morals and on and on. 

“The making of Donald Trump” is a compulsive read, though you have to keep reminding yourself that this is documentary and not grotesque fantasy.  The reality is emphasised in the last section of the book where there are detailed references, where the horrified reader can find documentary references to follow up any of the unlikely incidents, occurrences and statements made.

As a way of dealing with the awful reality of the political situation on both sides of the pond, I have discovered (and am desperately trying to lose) Nestles Strawberry Cheesecake Chocolate.  In an oversize bar.  I bought it because I could and then made the disastrous mistake of trying a bloated square of it.

By way of digression: have you ever seen a half-eaten dish of dry roast peanuts?  To which the usual answer is, no you haven’t.  My explanation was that, as part of the production process, the peanuts were lightly dusted with heroin.  I was always astonished by people’s reactions, which were mildly surprised, but not dismissive!  People actually believed that a commercial company would really do something like add a Grade A drug to nuts!  In fact, the easy acceptance of the drug addiction as an explanation for the taste and consumption, has made me wonder about it too!  I suppose this is the nearest that I get to experience what it must be like to be Trump: someone who believes his own alternative truth!

Anyway, back to Nestle.  One piece of that delectable sweet was enough to convince me that I would never buy another bar as long as I lived.  Something that delicious is dangerous!  I limited myself to one square a day, a restriction that (after the first day of splurge) I managed to keep to.  In a desperate attempt, yesterday, to make the thing last longer I sucked it instead of crunched it. That was a mistake, it is the immediate masticated combination that makes it what it is. I would only recommend this addictive chocolate to those of a stern and forbidding constitution who able to say no in spite of overwhelming compulsion!

And now to get ready to join my fellow poets for an evening in Barcelona to which a certain orangely self-regarding bigot is not invited!

Too many new words!

This is my last weekend of freedom before my various courses start in earnest.  To be strictly accurate on has sort-of started and the other is lurking in the near future.  I have received all the books for one course and half the books of another.  Usually, of course, the receipt of printed material would encourage me to break out into my “Libros! Libros! Libros!” song (believe me the lyrics do not get much more sophisticated) which greets any package with pages, but my jolifications have been somewhat more muted for these offerings.

            The reason is that the two (count them) courses that I will be taking this academic year are both a belated attempt to improve my woeful Spanish.  This means hard work, rather than the usual voluptuous sinking into the printed word.  It means rote learning and forcing my memory to accept a whole new vocabulary.  Given that each new word in English (let alone Spanish) only lodges in my mind after the mental equivalent of using high explosives to make a space for the new information, I shudder to think about what my calcifying brain will have to do to accommodate and entire language!

            Still, the effort must be made, especially as my convincing display of verb-less fluency in the tongue of my adopted country makes most people who don’t speak Spanish think that complete proficiency is a mere nuance more in my efforts to become a consulting member of the Spanish Academy.  It would be somewhat satisfying to construct a sentence with all the grammatical parts in place rather than slurred in the Impressionistic approach to communication in a foreign tongue that I affect.

            The faux-fluency (see above) means that I am in the second level of classes for my course in Castelldefels, rather than where I deserve to be in the class of rank beginners.  This is all fin and dandy, but we had to complete an exercise on (gasp!) verbs, today, in the second lesson – and my woeful inadequacy was shown up in a series of tentative, rubbed out, unconvincingly rewritten, rubbed out again and then copied answers!

            My plea to the teacher to be instantly demoted to the class of the more comfortingly inarticulate was greeted with a blank refusal and an encouraging smile.  The way, seemingly, is now set for a true linguistic via dolorosa for my bleeding pilgrim feet to follow from now to next May.

            On the other hand this course is as cheap as chips, with the local council subsidising the cost of materials and tuition.  I cannot believe that the €50 that I have paid is for anything more than the first term, though even €150 for a year’s classes of two two-hour classes a week seems something of a bargain.

            Especially when you compare it with the other course that I am taking which is with the Open University – and which is well over ten times as much.  I am hoping that these two courses will run in something like tandem and get me to the level of A2 in Spanish by the summer of next year.

            The designation I am aiming for is not an arbitrary one.  A2 is the minimum standard necessary to apply for citizenship in Spain.

            Given the implications of Brexit and my determination, short of expulsion, not to give up my access to Mediterranean sunshine and free health care, I feel that I have to be pro-active about what might happen in just over two years time.

            I might add that I have absolutely no intention of giving up my British citizenship.  Whatsoever.  No matter what bunch of self-seeking, idiotic, self-serving, selfish bigots are actually governing (ha!) the country, it is mine own.  Like Prospero with Caliban, we are indissolubly linked.  But, on the practical side, once the UK is out of the EU (and I certainly do not trust any of the Conservatives past, present or future to look out for me and mine) I will have to shift for myself.  And one of those movements might be to apply for joint citizenship.

            The language is only half the challenge.  Another part of the examinations to become a Spanish citizen involves a test of knowledge of Spain, the Spanish People and Its Institutions.  Having just come back from an exhibition in the Museum Nacional d’Art de Catalunya of the work of Lluïsa Vidal – Pintora del Modernismo I do feel that that box is ticked.  It turns out, however, that the test will not only be on High Art, but also the so-called popular arts of pop singing, and probably even bull fighting!  I have to admit that, apart from the excellent group Mecano, I am not exactly ‘up’ with yoof culture in Spain.  I look forward to the “All You Need To Know About Spain” book for budding citizens!  I can’t wait to see what they say about Government and Justice, especially as both concepts are little more than farcical jokes at the moment in this politically benighted country!

            Just as with a range of Catalan artists that I have come to know and now can recognize and enjoy their art, so too I hope to find a whole new way of looking at this country as I make a determined effort to become au fait with its geography, history, religion (ugh!), politics (ha!), bull running (ugh!), architecture, film stars etc etc etc.

            I did take a look at some of the questions that applicants for British citizenship were asked and, if the Spanish equivalent is anything like those, then there is no way that I can feel jocose about my present knowledge being deep and wide enough to get me through!

            Last night I went again, after a lengthy absence, to the Barcelona Poetry Workshop.  It was, as it always is, a delight to be with people who do not sneer when you try and write poetry, and are respectful (or at least quiet!) when you recite it!

            The theme for the evening was poetry and paintings and I was encouraged enough to draft out some ideas based on my experience of the Rothko Room in the Tate Modern.  The poem and some ‘explanation’ is available at smrnewpoems.blogspot.com and is called, imaginatively enough, The Rothko Room, Tate Modern.

After I discovered that swimming with your mobile phone in the pocket of your bathing trunks was not a good idea and looked around for a replacement, I settled for something which was not (under any circumstances) an iPhone and would keep me quiet until I found something which would truly replace my Yota phone which, uniquely in my phone experience had two ‘faces’ with the back one being the equivalent of a Kindle!  Ideal for me.  Well, after one Yota phone stolen and the other drowned it seemed like the communicative gods of commerce were telling me to look elsewhere.  And look I did, until I fell under the spell of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7.

            This phone is, I imagine, a thing of beauty: big, blue, with screen to the edges, a pen to write with, waterproof (see above) and with a decent camera.  It was of course (I am after all Marion Rees’s son) eye-wateringly expensive – but, I thought to myself, soon the untold wealth of my State Pension is going to come tumbling into my grasping hands and, anyway, I do not smoke and therefore it is OK to splash (unfortunate word in the case of my phone) out.

            Unfortunately, although paid for, I do not have this exclusive piece of ostentatious materiality in my hot little hands.  Hands that could be hot because the one thing that people know about this phone is that the battery has a habit of bursting into flames when it is being recharged.

            That, of course, is a gross simplification.  There have been just under (?) 30 cases out of a million or so units manufactured that have malfunctioned, but that number is more than enough to create absolute chaos.

            The Note 7 was the flagship phone for Samsung; its release date was days before the new iPhone and it was backed by an intense advertising campaign.  Utter, complete disaster.

            I should imagine that the release of the Note 7 will be a key element in business schools around the world as part of the How-Not-To-Do-It class in the course.  It will be there with “New Coke” and “The Edsel” as horror stories to frighten neophyte businesspeople.

            The financial repercussions for Samsung were catastrophic with an unbelievable sum of money being wiped from the shares.

            As far as I can understand one battery manufacturer is at fault.  Perhaps.  The units sold in China are fine, the ones elsewhere might explode!  As part of the general hysteria I have read of a newspaper in Samsung’s home country suggesting that part of the problem has been used by the Americans to further their own company’s fortunes!

            My attempts to find out what exactly was going on after the release was abruptly cancelled and units started to be exchanged was frustrating.  Helplines were anything but, and I only got some sort of reasoned response by phoning a sister company in the UK and speaking to a very helpful young man who shared my exasperation as he had purchased the same phone for his parents and even he, working for the company, had been unable to get his hands on any.

            You might ask why I am still allowing people to hold my cash when they haven’t delivered the goods.  Well, that is difficult to answer, but the phone does look good (in pictures) and it does do what I want it to do and it is waterproof.  So I can wait a little longer rather than compromise.  Again.

            We in Spain have been given a date of the 7^th of October for the phones to appear.  I will wait and see.  And decide what to do on the 7^th.  But, it is very pretty, so . . .