Wither irony?

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, Johnson is flying back to London after COP26 in Glasgow by private plane.  With anyone else of even minimal political credibility this would be a crushing piece of destructive irony – after weeks spent mouthing platitudes about the need to reduce carbon footprints.  But with the charlatan Johnson, it is no more than par for the course for someone who can see no further than himself.

     Add to that the news that the disgraced Conservative MP who sexually harassed a member of his staff is to be allowed back into the Conservative party, and it all fits with the assumption that most Conservatives can do what the hell they like and will be subject to few lasting restraints or consequences. 

     Be grossly incompetent?  Bully your staff?  Lie to the House?  Lobby illegally?  Give your donors preferential public money deals?  Kill people through mismanagement?  No worries with the Conservative equivalent of a perpetual Get out of Jail card ever at the ready to smooth a path for those who have demonstrably done wrong.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

     A few days ago, I read a piece about Spike Milligan making the point that if anyone deserved the accolade of King of Satire, it must be him – but the piece also brought up the idea that the last few years have been so bizarre that so-called real life has produced actual event and characters that in their destructive absurdity defy satire.

     Donald Trump and his troupe of grotesques, you would think would be idea fodder for the sort of treatment that was meted out by the latex puppets in Spitting Image – but, when you look at the orange artificiality of Trump’s face and the wispy monstrosity of his hair, and how and what he says, how can any puppet do justice to the abomination that he exemplifies?  

 

 

 

 

 

     Watching Trump at one of his rallies forced you think that you were in a world where Dada, Surrealism and the Black Paintings of Goya were the motivating forces, rather than anything that could be recognized as “normality”.

     In a similar way the continuing car crash of Johnson’s so-called government of Britain would seem to demand that the cries for his instant dismissal and prosecution for wilful dissimulation and corporate manslaughter should by now have reached a crescendo – but still his corrupt and corrupting party had a healthy lead in the polls, and Johnson’s laughable “leadership” is still seen by a remarkable proportion of the population to be something in which they believe.

     And there, I think lies the crux of his popularity.  Facts and figures now mean nothing, or at least very little, to those who think that Brexit was a good idea and that the Conservatives have the interests of the whole of the country at heart.  The Conservative party is now a cult, and belief in Johnson is a core tenet of belief, something beyond mere reality.

     Every time I see Johnson in the newspaper or on the TV, I find that I am now experiencing the same feelings of revulsion that I had for a character like Saville.  Even at the height of his fame, when he was lauded by young and old, rich, and poor, the great and the lowly, I felt a repellence towards Saville.  He was not a person you would want to be near.  I am not, of course, suggesting that there is any similarity in the crimes that Johnson and Saville have committed, but the feeling that they are both wrong ‘uns is compelling.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The day after tomorrow I get my flu jab, and I hope a specific date for my booster Covid shot.  Although mask wearing is still happening in Spain, young people are more obviously not following the older population where mask wearing in crowded public space is usually the norm.

     I keep remembering the statements from health officials that “until everyone is vaccinated, we are all at risk”, and then I look at the statistics of how many children have been vaccinated and then hear of statistics from Africa and other parts of the world where a tiny proportion has had any sort of protection, and I think that the attitude of “we call all start travelling again in 2022” is blind optimism.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today was the last day of my extended birthday.  I like to keep in a birthday mood for at least a week.  So, the excellent paella in the restaurant connected to my swimming pool was a fitting end to the jollifications.  Roll on my Name Day!

Life must go on!

 

My second day of unaccustomed lie-ins, and frankly, I’ve had enough.  The idea of getting up early is so engrained in me that any lingering in bed is effort not easement.  So, I will be up and about by 6.15 am tomorrow and be getting ready for my swim.

     Assuming that it is not raining, I will be using my bike to get to the pool.  Apart from immediately after the spill, the only bike ride I have had was this morning when I went out in bright sunshine to have an exploratory jaunt – not geographically (my route is set) but to see how my legs held out.

     I have already sort-of forgotten the pain of the original accident and I am more concentrated on the sharp reminders that come every time I get up and start walking, when the scab-mending skin on my knees stretches.

     It is easy to imagine while cycling that the tugging irritation of the scabs is going to result in cracks and on your return, you will have to mop up the rivulets of blood from opened wounds.  There was nothing like that, and so I am going to assume that the repairs to my epidermis are progressing well, and certainly well enough to take a little light swimming tomorrow morning.

     We shall see.

     Our Sunday lunch usually comes from the local pollo a last and today was no exception.  The only difference was that I went to get the food at midday because we reasoned, with the lack of food outlets open thanks to the new lockdown regulations, other people would be thinking of the quality take-away that is normally popular in less trying times.

     In the PC (Pre-Covid) days, you had to take a printed number and wait your turn.  That process has been dispensed with and now we have to queue, in masks with social distancing.  When I got there, very early for lunch, there were only three people ahead of me.  By the time I left the queue was considerably longer.  I had arrived at the tipping point of the queue and just made it before the masses descended!

     Given the fact that we have been in some sort of lockdown for eight or nine months we have to think about what used to be ‘normal’ when we go about our daily lives.  We do not expect to go out as much, to meet as many people to do the ordinary things that used to be part of a way of life.

     It is easy to live near the sea in what is a seaside town and see people doing what they have always done.  People walk and cycle and take the dog out.  Over the weekends, in spite of forceful recommendations, we know that we have many more than the locals walking along the paseo by the side of the beach and the sea.  We have the runners and the walkers and the families.  Many of them are local, I recognize them daily as I go on my bike ride along the paseo the length of Castelldefels, but many are strangers who have come (as they have always come) to one of the visitor friendly beach resorts near Barcelona.

     I am still shocked at the number of people who, walking along the paseo, don’t wear masks or wear them under their noses.  Some wear them on their elbows on hold them in a hand and some show no evidence of any mask at all.  It is at this point that I wonder about what these people think is happening around them, what do they think the word ‘pandemic’ means?  What do they think that their individual place in society demands?  As it is all I do is mutter “Covidiota!” under my breath and cycle on.

     Tomorrow, Monday, is the first day that the new restrictions will hit home, with parts of Castelldefels being fairly desolate places without the people and movement that come with thriving (even at 30% - 50% occupancy) of bars and restaurants.

     Tomorrow is the Name Day of Toni’s sister.  We would normally make the trip up to Terrassa for an evening meal and the distribution of presents.  Now everything has to be put on hold as I have no intention of moving outside my little Castelldefels bubble, and that disinclination has state approval.

     It does make me wonder about the sense of going to the opera.  On the one hand I do want to support the arts and t has been a long time since I was last in the Opera House in Barcelona – the last season was delayed and then cancelled.  My birthday is the date of the first opera of the new season.  But how can such a gathering be justified when bars and restaurants are closed?  How can the Liceu do better than small, more easily managed venues?  I have to admit that I am still in two minds about the safety of the forthcoming experience.

     We have been told that tickets for the performance will be sent to us via email; it is now six days away and I have had nothing.  I assume that Monday will be the day that we get final information about where we are sitting and our allotted seats have been changed in the interests of safety.  This is one experience that I am still debating taking.

 

Although my birthday celebrations have shrunk somewhat, I am already looking forward to greeting guests to the celebrations for the Completion of My Seventieth Year in October 2021.  DV.

Know me and die!

Mao Zedong, he of the rotting teeth, lice infested body, venereal diseases and mass murders, had a succession of young women for sex and he regarded their infection as a sort of honour bestowed by his sick wonton largesse. 

I thought back to that disgusting dictator when Covid-riddled Trump appeared on the veranda of The White House and took off his mask so that he could infect those in his immediate vicinity who had not already fallen prey to his super spreader tendencies and who, alas, would not have access to the experimental, rare and expensive medical treatment that his 750 dollars of annual tax would come nowhere near to covering.

It is astonishing, humbling and terrifying, to watch a dedicated narcissist doing what he does best: thinking solely of himself in the glorious exclusion of everyone around him.  There is a sort of Neronic magnificence to his almost complete lack of empathy, humanity and consideration.

As I watched him gibbering away in his debased form of English, he also made me think of Samuel Butler’s strange anti-Utopian novel Erewhon (1872) where illness is considered a crime and where crime is treated as an illness.  This, almost perfectly, fits the world view of Trump where for him illness is just for ‘losers’ and crime (as illustrated by so many characters in the harlequinade of depravity that constitute his entourage) is regarded as something that should be treated with leniency and understanding and is easily excused and even pardoned.

Trump’s brush (as he would like us to consider it) with Covid merely shows that all you need is strength of character to defeat the virus.  The 210,000 (and growing) dead Americans were weaklings.  And didn’t have helicopter access to the 24/7 state-of-the-art medical attention that Trump had.  But that is a minor point compared to the element of confidence that is so much more effective against viral infections than any mere medication.

After four years of not believing the degradation and mendacity that have been keynotes in the dystopian presidency of Trump I am exhausted by disgust.  I find it hard to keep up the level of contempt that Trump so richly deserves as yet another parody of leadership is beamed into our homes. 

The lies, the contradictions, the weasel words, the insults, the corruption, the vulgarity, the sheer worthlessness of the whole Trump enterprise with the loathsome Republican reptilian political power junkies that acquiesce in his continuing pollution of his role are all draining.  I know that four more years of this buffoon will be insupportable and I sincerely hope that Biden and Harris manage the landslide that they, that anyone other than Trump and his discredited troop of filth, deserve.

The trouble with the Dumping of Trump (please god) will be that all the attention, at least from my point of view, will then be focused on the end of the year and Brexit and our own home-grown liar and narcissist trying to spin it as anything other than a disaster.

Trump and Johnson are united by their lust for power and attention and by their complete lack of something coherent to do with it.  Neither has an ideology, apart from the glorification of themselves, they don’t really know what to do.  This is why Cummings is so important to Johnson because he can supply a mirage of possibilities that Johnson assumes (he is far too lazy to question and understand) will give enough direction to focus his pitifully short attention span and make him look as though he has vision.

Johnson’s linking of the present dangerous times to the post war Labour government’s belief in making a New Jerusalem is an insult to the cross-party endeavour that looked beyond the end of the war as the time to put brave plans into operation. 

Johnson has read a speech.  He hasn’t thought about what society he wants at the end of this pandemic.  He hasn’t worked on ideas, sat down with experts, felt the enthusiasm that something better must emerge from a time of struggle and danger.  Johnson uses words like thin glue on a fragile house of cards: he knows nothing and believes nothing to make plans realities.

Trump and Johnson were presented with a disaster.  Their job as leaders was to keep people safe.  They have both failed.  Failed spectacularly.  Hundreds of thousands of people have died because two empty chancers have not cared enough to give time, thought and determination to do the basic parts of their jobs.

Mao killed millions.  The only thing stopping Trump and Johnson from doing the same is opportunity.  Unchecked, shoddy populists like them will whittle away at our freedoms, will act with growing autocratic assumption and will destroy.  They have already been devastating in their negativity.  At least with Trump there is the opportunity to dump him and to start the process of normalization, with Johnson he has years and an 80 majority and Brexit. 

I weep for my country and pray that our institutions are hardy enough to withstand the onslaught that the political griffon of Johnsummings is likely to wreak on everything that I thought was secure and good.

 

I really can write myself into an apocalyptic frame of mind, typing fingers dance to depression.  So, let me lurch out from the darkness and find something lighter on which to end – whoops, there is a negative word if ever there was one.

I was phoned today by a very pleasant lady from the Liceu who gave me some details of how the new opera season is going to happen.  We have previously been told that there will not be as many people in the theatre and that we will not have to sit next to anyone and we cannot be guaranteed ‘our’ normal seats. 

It will be like joining the audience for a little-known ‘difficult’ modern opera where most people vote with their feet and reject any attempt to experience anything about the more esoteric and atonal music of the present day. 

There is always an audience when I go to the opera because I have a season ticket and therefore all the other holders of Torn A are in their seats whatever the opera actually is.  The first opera (actually on my birthday) is not obscure at all, it is Don Giovani and therefore it would normally have a full house.  It will be odd sitting in a performance of so famous an opera with Christopher Maltman as the Don with a sparse audience, it will be interesting to see if the ‘spaciousness’ affects the experience.

I cannot say that I am entirely jocose about going to the theatre at all.  The cases of Covid in Spain and Catalonia are, frankly, terrifying and I find it difficult to imagine how the Liceu is going to organize things so that they are even marginally ‘safe’.

To take a single example: the average age of opera goers is high and that puts us in the ‘at risk’ category and, most importantly, we also need to pee.  The toilets for our particular section of the Liceu are small and are usually crowded during the period before the performance and during the intervals.  Quite how this is going to be regulated without increasing the risk of infection (and middle-class violence) is going to be fascinating to observe!

As we will have to wear our masks during the performance, it will be important to chose a mask that is comfortable to wear for long periods of time and one that doesn’t steam up my glasses too much!

But these are problems that have a gloriously musical ending, so I don’t care too much, and look forward with what positivity I can muster to enjoy myself.