Troubles in store

 NEW LOCKDOWN: Day 10, Sunday

 

 

 

The counting goes on.  And on.  And on.  But Biden has won and so we can put that worry to rest.

     And speculate about what old One-Term is going to do in the almost two months of lingering shame that he is going to have to suffer as, every single day, he is reminded that he has been voted out of office and from the 2^nd of January he will no longer be the President.

     We do have some evidence with which to speculate.  As Trump has shown himself to be ruthlessly concerned with money and his own status before everything else, we can expect him to continue placing his wealth and his public face in the forefront of his concerns.

     Prison is not a good look for anyone other than a Nelson Mandela and, with the best will in the world, even his most dedicated Swamp Base would not equate The Orange Monster with a South African Freedom Fighter.  If Trump is prosecuted for a fraction of the crimes that he is alleged to have committed during his time in the White House then he will be put away for a long, long time.  Misuse of public funds, nepotism, cronyism, bribery, simple corruption, tax avoidance, tax evasion, lying about virtually everything, justice – where to start with his trashing of the justice system? -  and so on ad infinitum. To say nothing of various dodgy financial pigeons coming home to roost to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.

     So, one of Trump’s first concerns is going to be how to stay out of prison.  Because as soon as he is no longer the president and protected by the office various court cases are going to be reactivated.  

      The great question is, “Can Trump pardon himself”?  As far as I know, no president (even Tricky Dickie) didn’t stoop to self-pardon.  But just because something hasn’t been done before, it doesn’t mean that No Shame Trump won’t try it.   

     A more likely scenario is one that I have mapped out before which is, Trump resigns, Pence becomes president, pardons Trump, Trump becomes president again and hands over his trashed office a free man.   

     Though, to have a pardon is actually to admit that there is a wrong, so by pardoning himself, Trump will be admitting that he is a criminal.  But that won’t worry him, not with what is already on his grubby, grubby little hands!

     What scope does Trump have to Sharpie-sign yet more Executive Orders, because whatever mischief he can get up to like the spoilt child that he is, he will.  Bolstered by 70 million of his fellow citizens who voted for him, he will feel that he has a popular authority to do as he likes to make Biden’s accession as difficult and as messy as possible.

     Can anyone seriously imagine Trump graciously hosting Biden in the White House?   

     It is equally difficult to imagine Trump attending the inauguration, and one commentator has suggested that it is more likely that Trump holds a rally at the same time, so there will be a split screen of Biden and Trump and their various crowds.  Though that might mean that Trump will not do it because he will be terrified that his crowd could be smaller than Biden’s.  Though, even if it was, that would merely be an “alternative fact” which could be brushed away by the Mendacious Monster.

     This is surely one time when the “oxygen of publicity” should be denied to Trump (and yes, I am well aware of the source of that phrase and the poisoned outcome of its practical use) but if Trump continues to peddle lies he should not be given a worldwide media platform to repeat them.  But I also recognize the freedom of speech and freedom of information elements that have to be considered.   But  . . .

     I am sure that we are going to have a damn sight more than two months of pathetic interference in the political situation by Trump and his minions, but with any luck they can be swept into the dustbin of history.  Fond hope!

 

I am missing my swims.  I check the booking app that we were encouraged to download to book ourselves in for our activities to see if they are accepting reservations and the first day that there appears to be bookings waiting is for the end of this week – but they are not yet open to be made real, so I will wait a while to see if reality matches appearance.

     To compensate for my missed swim I am extending my daily (electric)bike ride and so now I cycle the entire length of Castelldefels and Gava Mar and while it is an impressively  long distance for me, my fitness app tells me that my journey is almost entirely on the level which, as it is beside the sea is logical.

 

We have started talking about Christmas and I am determined to put up my Belen (Christmas stable scene, with added people) this year as well as having a small Christmas tree.  The tree will be decorated with baubles made by SQB – just as soon as the parcel containing them gets here!

     The Christmas meal is altogether more problematical.  Toni will be devastated if he can’t see his family over the festive period and I think that we will have to make a trip up to Terrassa even if it is only a fleeting visit to bump elbows and then back again.  But time will tell just what we allowed to do.

     Amazon is going to make a fortune, sorry, an even bigger fortune this Christmas as everybody in the world decides (especially if they have Amazon Prime) that it is worth getting the presents from Amazon if only for the fact that postage will be free!  But we will worry about that much, much later.

     In a bout of what might be described as Gourmet Porn, I slathered my way through pictures of M&S hampers and noted with something approaching wistful regret that many of the high price items in some of the more expensive hampers are alcohol related.  As I now do not drink alcohol (I say for medical reasons, but what my doctor actually said was, “You can allow yourself one small glass of red wine a day” – as if that was possible! Better to recognize weakness in self-control and give it up entirely!) bottles of Champagne and Vintage Port do not attract.  Well, they do, but as I am not going to drink them, it would be fairly pointless to buy them and just look at them, or even worse, sniff them and retexture what they taste could be like from past experience of drinking.  And if that sounds like something I have indeed done, then you would be right in so thinking.

 

My new watch continues to please, though I have adjusted the always-on element of the watch face to turn off for the hours of deepest darkness.  My watch also startled me, by suddenly playing music, not a ring tone, real music.  It took me a while to work out where the sound was coming from.  If you had been watching me then you would have seen me taking out my mobile and being confused by the fact the more I tried to hear the music from it the more it wasn’t coming from it, and yet the music was tantalizingly near.  I am sure that my confusion only lasted a couple of seconds but it was deeply disturbing.  And frankly even more so when I found it emanated from my watch as I had done absolutely nothing to encourage it.  Honestly.

     It turns out I have one tune on my phone and I have little idea about how to put more there.  I will leave downloading the full manual for a sunnier day when I am feeling gadget strong.

 

I have downloaded an app or something called The Fussy Librarian which is supposed to provide a series of free or bargain downloads of books that you can read on Kindle.  My first choice of a Sci-Fi novel turned out to be short story length and to be part 1 of 7, and I can’t find the other six.  I fear that yet again, what appears too good to be true, is too good to be true.  Though I will continue to investigate and report back later.

 

Meanwhile the writing, apart from this blog, is not going well.  And the fact that some of the letters on the keyboard are misbehaving is irritating.  And the fact that one of the worst behaving letters is the ‘e’ is even more unbearable.

     Cotton buds and wet wipes must be called into play, because the cost of a replacement Apple keyboard is not to be thought about this close to Christmas.

LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 17th – 1st APRIL

A third day of indifferent weather – something that should be of supreme indifference given what is happening in the world today, but in the confined ‘world’ that one inhabits at present, something that is of irritating importance.

     The daily morning tasks being completed (up to and including the Guardian ‘quick’ crossword) it was a pleasant surprise to have a phone call from a Cardiff friend, Hadyn, informing me that he had purchased one of Ceri Auckland Davies’s[1] paintings in a recent auction.  This hawthorn is one from a series Ceri painted of trees in bloom, and a good choice!  The tree fills the picture space and is set against a moody sky-filled background rising from a low horizon – a dramatic and lively painting.

     From where I sit typing I can see two more examples of Ceri’s work: an atmospheric print of a night view of a lamp lit façade of a Venetian palazzo[2] painted in a freer style than the meticulous detailed manner that he usually adopts, and a large charcoal drawing of a rock cleft in which the quasi-abstract depiction of the faceted rock face encourages pareidolia in a busy surface that always engages my attention as it is directly opposite where I usually sit. 

     As a striking contrast to the ‘face-filled’ rocks, the focus of attention is nothing.  Literally nothing, whiteness, blankness.  The far opening of the rock cleft is onto sea or sky and that is a patch of vibrant white, unworked and blank whereas all around it is the detail of charcoal sketching. 

     I am endlessly fascinated by this work and, like the best Giles cartoons (and that is a signal honour of comparison from me!) there is always something new to find in the detail of the draftmanship and the juxtaposition of light and shade.  Each time I look at it, I highlight different sections and let my eye slide through the confined landscape in alternative ways.

     What has all of that to do with the current crisis?  Everything. 

     Our lives have been thrown into total confusion; the economy of the world is in free-fall; our individual freedoms are being compromised; millions are being forced into greater poverty; domestic violence is on the rise; we are being turned into ourselves, a forced introspection; and survival, for most of us in the wealthy west, usually a concept rather than an ever present threat, has now become visible, palpable struggle.  It is exactly at times like these that one needs to consider the worth of a painted tree!

     It used to be said that a society could be judged by how it treats the poorest and least advantaged in a community: the disabled, the imprisoned, the dispossessed, the mentally ill, the criminal, the refugee, the old, the homeless etc.  The point being made is that it is easy to look after those who are already able and keen to look after themselves, but what about the others?  In the same way, bare survival is obviously essential, but we must, we have to be concerned with the quality of survival as well.  It is to the everlasting credit of the wartime government in Britain that, at the same time that it was struggling to keep the effort to free the world of the threat of fascism, it was also working to ensure that there were clear plans for the betterment of society after the conflict was ended.  The 1944 Education Act was a gesture, no, much more than a gesture, of defiance and belief that something positive must come from something so negative.

     The Arts in all their forms are the way that quality of life can be guaranteed, in a way they encourage us to believe that there is something beyond mere survival.

     I am not so idealistic that I believe that a painting, or piece of music, or a good book; a well composed photograph or a well directed film are protection against the vicissitudes of this world, especially when they come in microscopic form, but I do think that the creative arts are there to make the struggle to survive worth it and they do, sometimes, provide the solace to make it bearable.

     That all sounds much more apocalyptic than I meant it to sound: I am warm, comfortable and well fed; I am protected from the elements and media to amuse myself surrounds me; I can write and I can speak.  My ‘prison’ is well appointed and I can take exercise outside the walls (just); I can contact friends and read about others; I am freely confined! 

     And yet, especially in a country when the death rate is rising day on day I do appreciate that I am of an age group where my continued life is dependent on my adhering strictly to governmental guidelines and the following of those guidelines by others around me.  For almost the first time in my life, I am directly threatened by a very present moral enemy.

     But, having talked myself into a state of sombre seriousness and existential angst, I can get out of it by merely (and that word is surely justified here because of the ease with which I can do it) looking at a painting, reading a book, listening to a piece of music.

     And, as far as looking at paintings are concerned, my emails have been filled with various institutions urging me to take a virtual tour or plunge into the catalogues and explore the holdings.  Galleries around the world are offering lectures and guides; things to do; things to make; ways to get involved.  Opera companies are offering performances streamed on their sites; books are being electronically offered – to say nothing of the television shows and films that are freely available on line.

     Now is the time to explore, to take a whim and see how far you go and where you end up.  So much is available and only for the cost of the electricity that drives your Internet access.

     When arid introspection threatens; the digital world is available!

    

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[1] welshart.net; lionstreetgallery.co.uk; www.albanygallery.com

[2] https://www.redraggallery.co.uk/print-ceri-auckland-davies.asp