Schadenfreude.
That is one of those complicated
looking German words that one really ought to know, apparently, like Aufklärung
and Verfremdungseffekt – and be prepared to use them in context.
I can remember using Aufklärung
in my history essays for ‘A’ level (after painstakingly learning the spelling)
more for the effect of throwing in an unaccustomed umlaut and making my rather
mundane understanding of European history and the Enlightenment seem just a
little more sophisticated.
Although I read a lot about
Verfremdungseffekt in my extensive reading of Brecht, having decided that he
was one of the easier alternatives as a ‘banker’ question in my Drama Paper in
my finals – though I have to be truthful, I have looked up the spelling of the
word and in my critical writing I always used the easier term of ‘alienation’ –
which was also easier to spell.
Incidentally, I always consider my
greatest two achievements in my finals papers was spelling Houyhnhnms (the intelligent
and logical horses in Gulliver’s bitter, misanthropic IVth Voyage) correctly,
and quoting four lines of C17th French poetry in my response to Sir Thomas
Browne. I also quoted freely from one of
Brecht’s more obscure plays, which my tutor said summed up my response!
Anyway, Schadenfreude came to
mind as I left my Catalan lesson in the centre of Castelldefels to unlock my
bike and make my way home. In the
pouring rain.
I have never wilfully ignored an
opportunity to remind my British friends that I like by the side of the Mediterranean,
constantly bathed in sunlight, with good food and cheap wine.
Now the cheap wine is forbidden;
my food should be low fat and salt free – and it bloody rained. How more Schadenfreude could it be?
Well, yesterday I got a
registered letter, for which I had to sign, that informed me that I had been ‘imaged’
speeding along the road that runs alongside the Olympic Canal and that I had
been fined €300 and two points!
Is this injustice? My speed was not excessive (in my mind) for
this road and (you can hear the whine in my voice) everybody else in the entire
world that uses the road goes at the same speed. So, does this mean that virtually the entire population
of Castelldefels has also been signing for a letter that informs that they have
been excessive and please to pay the money into the city coffers?
I do think that the totally
unrealistic speed limits are there to ensure that the cash cow can be milked at
any moment that the city needs a cash injection.
It is also significant that the
date of the infringement was a month ago, and on a Saturday. Since that date the city has installed or
constructed or imposed two zebra crossing ramps (that I am convinced are higher
than the legal regulations allow – but let it pass, let it pass) that make
going at even a snail’s pace difficult.
Add to that the existence of those thoroughly irritating rubber strips at
regular intervals along the same road, then it seems as if the municipality is
waging an active war against the suspension systems of all motor cars within
the city.
And then there is paying the
extortion. The single sheet of the
demand came with a bar code that should mean it is possible to pay at a cash
machine because they have a little window that reads bar codes.
And while we are angry (as we are) those cash
machines only exist because the banks are viciously mean and hate their
customers so much that they reduce all opportunities to interact with them in
person. And then they dress up this glaring
lack of concern by telling us that these machines exist for our convenience! Huh!
As if. When was the last time
that a bank, any bank, did anything altruistic that was not directly linked to
their own essential well-being! And the
machine did not read the code and gave a brusque message that basically nothing
could be done, so find another way to pay, not specified by the machine.
So, for me at the moment, the old
feelings of Schadenfreude are in the ascendant.
This too will pass, but, even though it is negative, it should be
possible to find a sort of twisted enjoyment in the negative. Perhaps the momentary nature of misery should
be appreciated as well as that of pleasure – which, after all, is just as
fleeting.
And, owning a tumble drier, it is
hardly a problem to strip off wet clothes and throw them all in the drier for a
few minutes to get them warmly dry again.
Which I did, down to and including my underpants. And then the door buzzer sounded and it was
the post-lady with a package for us. So,
dressed fetchingly in a hastily grabbed pair of summer swimming trunks and a
hooded rain jacket, I wetly opened the front gate to get the stuff and returned
even more wetly thinking to myself that Schadenfreude really doesn’t give up!
And (again), the book that I
ordered on Amazon with what I understood would be a one-day delivery promise,
will actually arrive at the end of the month.
Underlining the point, I think!
Looking forward to the end of the
week when we are scheduled to go to Name Day celebrations, a lunch in Terrassa,
and Friday is a half day for Toni and so we can have lunch together to
celebrate the start of the weekend properly!
