Prevarication?

 

 

 

 

The weather cools further: this time I may have the French door open, but I do not have the small fan on.  By such things one measure the descent to the depths of autumn and on to winter!  I am also doing up my coat when I go for my second bike ride, rather than leaving it unzipped.

     On my bike ride to Gavà on the beach side paseo, I see more evidence of the removal of the last of the temporary chiringuitos, a true commercial indication of the changing of the seasons.  But, in spite of all these portents, the weather remains generally fine, and I have not had to take the car to my early morning swim, so far!

     Although my timing for my swim is exact, the time that I leave for my bike ride to Gavà differs, depending on whether I have written anything of consequence in my notebook, or if I am engaged in conversation with people in the café, but seemingly at whatever time I leave, there are the Unknown Regulars that I pass or am passed by.

     The start of Autumn sees the re-emergence of all the retired folk who have been nudged off their parts of the paseo by the summer visitors and the kids.  Now that the kids are (mostly) back in school there is a sort of spaciousness to the beach area which is being reclaimed by those of a certain age.  Some of them (us?) are defiant in their appearance and their actions, relentlessly throwing themselves into the cooling waters of the Med or parading along the paseo in temperature-ignoring wispy coverings and pretending that the summer is still with us.

     There are plenty of cyclists, many of whom are in Lycra and, at first glance, look to be common or garden wearers of that revealing material, but a more searching look shows that the costumes are holding the riders together rather than making them more aerodynamic!  But that is to be commended.  Just as TV series are now ‘colour blind’ when it comes to casting, so clothing is ‘body-blind’ – you wear what you want and the fit is what you decide it is, rather than having to make reference to some sort of unobtainable body-ideal that can only be achieved by self-inflicted starvation or torture in the gym!

     You can see where this is going.  It will end up with my justifying anything in a reductio ad absurdam that (in spite of the poor Latin) will allow me to feel smug!

     Enough!

 

 

 

 

 

 

I find that I am oppressed not by the number of books that I have, but rather their weight.  I have lived with ‘too many books’ since I was a kid, so that in my smallish bedroom I had to be careful when I awoke as the shelves on my bedside wall, actually stretched over the bed itself, so that I slid out of bed rather than rose from it!    

     There was never enough space and gradually every room in the house became, as my mother would phrase it, “infested” with books.

     The move from Cardiff to Catalonia was beset with problems because of the number of books that had to be housed (or flatted) and not all of my prized possessions made it onto new shelves in my new country, but an inordinate number of IKEA Billy Bookcases later and a substantial number of the books found a space.  Not that the space was coherent, as the moves from Cardiff, to storage, to flat, to releasing more storage, to house meant that an overall system was never really imposed on my books and in the various rooms of the house there are now what you could describe as “colonies” of like-minded books forming interesting islands of partial coherence but separate from an over-arching empire of classification.

     I must admit that I have got used to the disparate nature of my literary holdings and quite enjoy the serendipitous discovery of a long-lost volume tucked somewhere where it has not logical reason to be.  Some of the juxtapositioning of some of my books simply looks far too contrived to be aleatory, but I assure you that however pretentious the shelf might look to the outside eye, it is what it is by luck rather than intention!

     The problem that I am presently wrestling with is to do with the placement of new books.  In spite of the lack of available space, that has in no way hindered my purchase of new volumes that I “need”.  And sometimes “need” is augmented by “bargain” – in the sense of value for money.

      I try and tell myself that I have no problem in paying an inordinate amount of money for a decent seat in the Opera, but I would hesitate to pay the same amount of money for a book.  Even though books, I have to admit, have given me more (if different) pleasure than Opera.  I can pay a triple figure sum for a seat for a momentary experience, but not pay the same amount for something that can give lasting tangible pleasure.

     I am not the sort of person to pay vast sums of money for a first edition.  The first editions I have were bought because I bought the books when they came out first.  I do have a 1702 edition of Swift, but that was an unexpected gift and not something that I bought for myself.

     My problem was that Taschen Books had a sale.

     Taschen Books is an imprint that produces spectacularly impressive volumes as well as what you might call domestic books, but their key, or one of their USP is in producing books that are large, opulent, and very heavy.

     In the on-line sale I bought a number of these books which, when they were delivered, it was impossible to carry them all upstairs at the same time.  It is also difficult to hold them and if you rest them on your knees, they crush them.  They are ‘table’ books and, when they are opened up, they need a big table to accommodate them.

     At the moment they form an arty looking pile by the side of my chair, looking almost like a stage prop of a pile of large books.  The trouble is that I have nowhere to put them.

     A set of my large art books are in an extra open section that I have attached to the top of a whole series of Billy Bookcases.  But these books are too big to fit into those oversized shelves and anyway, the idea of reaching up and bringing one of them down to reader level without doing irreparable harm to yourself, or at least breaking an arm or a hand is not to be considered.

     Their weight is too great when they are put on any domestic normal shelf for it to survive.  They have to be put at the base of the bookcase, but it means taking out two shelves to fit them in – and I simply do not have the room to rearrange without (perish the thought) actually getting rid of some of my books.

     So, they sit there at the moment, like a monument, waiting for life to rearrange itself so that they can be enjoyed.

     I have spent my life, giving preference to books, and I am girding my literary loins to Find A Solution.

     The books will win.  They always win!

 

Unclean! Unclean!

 

 

 

 

In the unfolding sleaze of Johnson’s incumbency at Number 10 (and the flat in Number 11) the suggestion that he tried to get a donor to pay for his childcare costs comes as nothing of a surprise. 

     I assume that he floated the idea of having some sort of By Prime Ministerial Appointment coat of arms that would be affixed to all those aspects of his sordid life that he could get someone else to pay for.  I imagine a coat of arms of Pig rampant on a Mount Or with motto Quod corruption vitae est; supporters: dexter, Tory Donor Lord with flowing cash; sinister, Red Wall Voter with vacant expression, beneath ribbon with motto Semper impune tuli!

     Much though I loathed and will continue to loathe Thatcher and all her god forsaken works, I would never accuse her of the moral vacuum that is the present Prime Minister natural milieu.  And to think that we have years of his corrupt and corrupting “rule” before we even get a chance to vote him to the oblivion that he richly deserves – though he won’t get it, because the Tory “faithful” will keep him in speaking engagements so that he will continue to make money out of his shamelessness.

     Talking of “faithful” brings to mind the description of Lancelot in Idylls of the King by Tennyson, “His honour rooted in dishonour stood, and faith unfaithful kept him falsely true.”  The fact that illicit love was behind the phrase means that we get an almost perfect description of Johnson, a man whose basic character is so debased that any positive aspect he demonstrates merely means that we haven’t focussed properly on the real low and disreputable reasons for his actions.    

 

Meanwhile the weather is less than wonderful and I have heard no more about a real physical appointment for the vaccine.  But, in spite of our unvaccinated status (and of course, the unvaccinated status of most of the country) we are working towards a loosening of the restrictions.

     This loosening will first show itself in the fact that we can now celebrate birthdays and name days.   The rules governing the number of households and people in bubbles and the total numbers are so complex that it makes finding out the date of Easter each year look like childsplay (and should that word be two words, or be hyphenated and should it have an apostrophe?  I only ask in passing) and no one really knows the exact details.

     It does mean that we will go to Terrassa for a celebration meal during the week and perhaps Terrassa will come to us at the end of it to celebrate another anniversary.  That will be the first out of region event that we will have experienced for the last umpteen months.

     In circumstances where the numbers of vaccinations were high and the number of infections were low, this would be something to celebrate indeed – but as the situation does not seem to be substantially better than it has been for months, it does cause a little concern.  Still, I now walk around with a container of alcohol handwash and I am punctilious about my use of the mask, so, as long as I demand the same degree of protection demonstrated from those whom I am likely to come into contact with, I should be able to consider myself reasonably secure.

     I will feel a damn sight more secure when I have my first jab and Monday will see me taking a rather more pro-active approach to my injection than I have previously.  We will see how receptive the powers that be, will be to my importunities!

 

Meanwhile I continue my daily swim and daily bike ride.

     Last weekend I was stopped by the police on the paseo who informed me that it was illegal to cycle and to prove it showed me the screen of a police mobile phone with a bike symbol with a red line through it.

     I have seen no diminution in bike riding and have therefore made enquiries about the exact regulations for cycle riding.  As you would expect (at least, if you have lived in the country for any time you would expect) exact information about the regulations is opaque.  The Tourist Information Office (situated ON the paseo) knew nothing about any regulations and indeed there is a cycle rack to park your bike just outside the office itself.  Exploration of the council website gave no up to date information, though I did discover a few dated and worrying regulations which stated that no bike should be ridden at more than 10 kph.  As my bike is fitting with a (full colour) digital display, I was able to see just how slow 10 kph actually is, and I can report that not even very small kids travel at that speed!

     I did find references to other regulations that stated that the wide part of the paseo has different regulations from the narrower newer part, and the only place where cyclist could consider themselves totally fitted was in a special bike lane which was removed a few years ago.

     As I was stopped at the weekend, I have reasoned that regulations, if they actually exist, are only going to be enforced during peak visitor times on a sunny weekend and so I will use the road for those two days.  Even though today was somewhat dull, I still took the precaution of going to Gava rather than Port Ginester because there is a clear, marked bike lane for virtually the whole of the route.

     What is going to happened during the real part of the summer is something that I will have to play by ear – or call into the Tourist Information Office in the Centre of Town to find out a definitive answer.

     One does have to careful because the police are prone to high profile fining for infractions, and ignorance of the law is absolutely no excuse in this country, even if you can point to notices at entrances to the paseo which give specifically different sets of regulations to the ones that you have been accused of breaking.

     And breathe, and exhale!

 

LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - Day 91 - Sunday, 14th June

Cloudy, sun, breeze: not the perfect sun drenched Sunday that our visitors were hoping for, but still good enough to come out for.  Castelldefels was crowded today.

     Not as crowded as it could be, but certainly fuller than it has been for a while.  People are determined to have sunny fun by the sea.

     From the perspective of my bike rides, I am able to note the increase in traffic and the numbers of people doing what they do best in our long beach town: walk along the paseo to see and to be seen.

     Rules?  Well, most people are somewhat sketchy about what part of which set of rules is applying at any particular time, and the fragmentation of Spain into the regions and countries with their own system of lockdown and their own notation of phases and you have something purpose made for confusion.

     Catalonia has hot-spots of viral infection and those were kept back from the general loosening of restrictions.  We in Castelldefels are part of the Barcelona region, which is itself sub-divided into further parts each of which has its own set of rules and its own level of phasing.

     As far as we know we are now in Phase 2, but tomorrow, Monday, we will be in Phase 3.  The cafes and restaurants that have survived so far are desperate to open as much as they can and start making up for the disastrous season that they have had so far this year.  The loss of the Easter holiday period is going to be difficult to make up for and the fact that they will not be back to full occupancy is going to make future survival difficult.

     It will be interesting to go into town tomorrow and see exactly what is open and what is likely to open.  I have a need to get my mobile phone repaired as it is a complete, but working, shattered mess.  The phone is far too expensive to junk, and I am prepared to pay up to 20% of its cost new to get it back into something like its original condition.  I live, as always, on hope!

I have been told that I have ‘passed’ my Catalan course and I am entitled to a certificate to show my ‘ability’.  All I have to do is collect it from my ‘school’ when that institution opens its doors again.  Unfortunately, in collecting my certificate, I will have to speak the language in which I have obtained an alleged proficiency, and that is a daunting barrier.  Which tells you something about the worth of the piece of paper that I am debating whether to humiliate myself and get!  Choices, choices!

As we had chicken from the pollo a last yesterday, we did not have our traditional lunch today.  Instead we had the albondigas that I bought in case somebody didn’t want the chicken.  They are very good, and they come with a ‘home made’ sauce from the pollo a last place.  One portion is not quite sufficient to form a meal for two, so I augmented the sauce provided and cooked some pasta.  Toni was very impressed with the final result and demanded that I repeat the repast at some future date.  As the selection of ingredients for the augmentation was based more on inspiration than recipe I think that a repeat performance is going to be the other side of difficult, but I remember most of the ingredients (at least two of which Toni would demand excluded if he realized they were there) and it is likely to be edible even if it will have serious differences from the food that had his accolades.  I can’t help feeling that there is a wider metaphor lurking somewhere in those last sentences, together with life advice!

Next week sees the second ‘lesson’ with my friend in the pool and I am having fun thinking of topics to extend his vocabulary.  I have been unable to get an 8 am start for Monday or Tuesday, but I will probably meet him at the changeover tomorrow as one hour ends and the next starts and so I can find out if he is prepared to wait for me to have my swim and join me for a later breakfast chat, or other arrangements will have to be made.

Toni is determined to ‘sort out’ the garden and this needs some thought and preparation.  We should go to a garden centre and get some plants and compost.  Now that the pine trees have been cut back, our front garden actually gets some sunshine and for the first time in many years, weeds are actually able to push their heads above the pine needle carpet which, this year is not there!  We might think of a few garden boxes and get some instant colour.  If the plant places are open.

     This week will see a more determined approach to getting back to something approaching what used to be normal.  It remains to be seen if we have the determination to do so.

LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 29 – Easter Monday, 13th APRIL

In the best traditions of British Bank Holiday Mondays, it is pouring with rain here in Catalonia.  The one difference, I have always maintained, is the lack of spitefulness in holiday weather in Catalonia so that there is always a possibility of seeing some sunshine during the day – it may not be much, but it will be there.

     Today is the damp calm before the invisible storm as the majority of the working population in designated but non-essential jobs are urged to go back to work, taking what ever microbes they have with them into the crowded metros and buses and trains as they commute. 

     The fatal proof of this economic pudding will be in a couple of weeks time when the mortality figures for Covid-19 will be examined to see whether this ill-thought out initiative has been as deadly as feared.

     It is a salutary experience to discover that in purely economic terms, we citizens are merely collateral damage, acceptable wastage, the angels’ share, surplus to requirements or any other mealy mouthed form of words to cover up the judicial execution that such a policy is going to mean.

     ‘Mean’ is a key word for something linked to the crisis that I hope is fake news, but have been told is actual fact.  In Catalan history the year 1714 is a key one.  On the 11^th of September 1714 Catalonia surrendered to the Bourbon King Philip V after supporting the Hapsburg Charles in the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714): Catalonia lost its distinctive independence as it was subsumed into the Bourbon Crown; Catalan was demoted as the language of government; the walls of Barcelona were destroyed; Catalan territories over the Pyrenees were lost.  And all round disaster; but, in the typically Catalan way, 11^th September became the National Day of Catalonia and 1714 a date which is constantly seen, I have a hoodie with the year on the back and the Catalan flag on the front!

     It is therefore pushing coincidences a little that the National Government of Spain sent Catalonia exactly 1,714 thousand masks to be used in the present Crisis!

     There is no love lost between Madrid and Barcelona and the measures that are going to come into place tomorrow have met with stiff opposition from Catalonia and the Basque Country, with the Catalan President asking Sanchez, the Spanish Prime Minister, to send him the documentation of the scientific advice on which he based the decision to allow people to return to work.  Catalonia is in favour of a continuation of the strict lockdown, and I have to say that I think that is the more persuasive approach.

     Politicians should be increasingly nervous about the inevitable Public Inquiries that are going to take place when this crisis is over.  Their mismanagement is killing people and they should be held responsible.  And please, do not accuse me of pre-judging: hospitals without equipment are a simple fact; hospitals continuing to be poorly supplied with PPE are a simple fact; people dying are a simple fact.  The Conservatives have been in power for a decade: the fault lies with them – and they must pay.

The Poems In Holy Week (PIHW) period is now over and I have managed to write drafts of poems for each of the days, all of which can be found at smrnewpoems.blogspot.com  This year has been obviously different as we have been under strict lockdown and the ‘holiday’ aspect of the period has been a little ‘abstract’ to say the least.  It is a continuingly odd time as we are surrounded by literally deadly danger, yet continue to lead ordinary, safe, if isolated lives.  It is not like the Second World War where even my childhood home in Cathays in Cardiff was graced so I was told, with one (unexploded) German bomb: something tangible from the air raids.  But for us in Catalonia, at least where we are, it is like a continuing Phoney War; we go on with our restricted lives, and the medical horror is taking place elsewhere, out of sight, though vividly alive on television screens.  I think the unreality of it all is what is most obvious.  Yes, I know that the virus is real and the deaths and illness are actual, but our direct experience is limited to our own little inconveniences, not to a mortal struggle.  It’s odd and, as I’ve said, something where the actuality is difficult to take in.

     I have now printed out a draft booklet of the Poems in Holy Week and have done a few edits to get me going on the revision that they all have to undergo before publication.

     I have not yet decided on a title, but I’m working on it!  The most difficult part, I find, is writing an introduction for the collection – it forces me to look at the collection as an entity and write something that makes sense of the totality rather than individual poems.

     I also have to think about illustrations and that is always challenging.  Still, if nothing else, I do have time to consider these challenges!

The police in Spain have said that the ‘return to work’ for non-essential workers when off normally.  An interesting choice of word for anything but normal times where, surely, normality is not the way to respond to the extraordinary!

My faith in Catalonia took a knock today.  The poor weather lasted the entire day and I was not graced with even a moment of proper sunshine.  I am prepared to extend my faith to tomorrow – but anything after that and I will slip into heresy!

LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 18 – 2nd APRIL

Today saw the delivery of a packet of 10 disposable facemasks from China.  I ordered them at the beginning of the crisis and I was concerned about the projected late delivery date.  How innocent that concern now seems!  I felt that the crisis would probably be over before we got a chance to wear them.  How naïve!  Even the Tangerine Tale-Teller seems to be frantically re-writing his own political history and explaining to the American people that the virus that he downplayed as little more than mild flu is now a merciless silent killer and, far from magically disappearing, will be with us for the foreseeable future: Terminator Trump – how many ‘corporate manslaughter’ deaths does he have on his bloody hands?

     The same question could be asked of the politicians in the UK and here in Spain.  One virus expert stated that the key to controlling and understanding the virus was to “Test! Test! Test!”  And we are told that two thousand out of five hundred thousand health workers have been tested in the UK.  How can this be?  And who is to blame?  Every day’s delay means fewer workers in essential services and a greater threat of infection.

It is with something approaching relief that I turn to the crappy weather we are having in Castelldefels.  I have often said that weather in this country lacks the spitefulness of British weather, in other words, the climate in Catalonia usually means that even on a rainy day we have a portion (sometimes tiny) of sunshine.  Not over the last few days: overcast, miserable and wet.

     My circuits around the pool have now taken on a more drunken appearance as I have decided to ‘weave’ my way around the perimeter to add difference to the monotony of a single direction.  To an observer I must look like a robot cleaner with a faulty coverage pattern as I veer one way and then another.  I think that part of my reasoning for variety is based on half remembered memoirs of prisoners who walked around their cells for exercise, but always remembered to vary their direction in their confined spaces because, because . . . I cannot quite remember why, but there was a good reason I’m sure; dizziness, or unequal development or something.  Anyway, it gives a different perspective and that is essential as I go round and round and round.

     The placid surface of the pool acts as a weather indicator: if there is any rain in the breeze then the expanding ripples let me make a decision about whether I continue my walk or call it a day and have another cup of tea.

     I marched around the pool this morning listening to the panel of In Our Time on Radio 4 talking about the gin craze in late C17th England.  Only on Radio 4!  There truly cannot be another radio station like it anywhere in the world.

We have had yet another period of 24 hours here in Spain where the death toll is a new 'record' of 963, and the total figures of deaths has passed 10,000.  The figures of those infected have passed those in China.  We are in a continuing nightmare – even if that nightmare does not really touch us in our parochial confines in Castelldefels.

     We are reliant on news of the ‘outside’ world from the Internet and continue to feel the anger of the frustrated as we watch inefficiency, duplicity and greed define the parameters of the crisis.

     Respirators seem to be the crystalizing concept of futility in the battle against the virus.  Numbers of machines necessary to cope with the projected number of patients are thrown around with politicians manufacturing plenitude with airy words while the hard reality of machines linked to patients seems to be woefully inadequate.  

   We hear of uplifting stories of companies using their resources to design, prototype and get to manufacture machines in an amazingly short period of time; we hear of major engineering works retooling to meet respirator demand – but then we hear of a depressingly high figure of hospitals saying that resources have not got to them, and that a disaster is developing as they watch and wait.

     In World War II, American shipyards managed to launch three Liberty Ships for the cargo conveys for Britain every two days; have we lost the ability to mass produce what is essential to meet the threats of crises in the last seventy years or so?  

   Given the greater interconnectedness of our world are we incapable of working together in a meaningful way to ensure the equitable spread of equipment and facilities?  It certainly appears that we have learned little from each new viral threat to our planet.

     Without full testing we cannot know what the virus is really doing.  The lack of testing in Spain, Britain and the US is the real 'killer' story.  We obviously need to work to get mass testing in place; but the reasons for its delay must be a key questions to be asked when this pandemic is over. 

     Or perhaps it cannot be left until them.  They are questions that need answers now and it needs those people who have obstructed and obfuscated to be removed to save lives.       

     Every time a selfish, inefficient, mendacious politician speaks, people die.   

     Let’s get rid of them now!

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!

    

---

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

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

LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 11

I am, as I never tire of telling people, a Labrador person: yellow, bitch to be precise.  It therefore comes as something of a personal insult that people (even flat dwellers with limited space) can contemplate providing living area for the various species of rat dogs (goggle-eyed, spindly-legged, yappily-voiced) that abound in this area.  One such grotesquery lives near us, and its emasculated barks cut through the air with the irritation of a domesticated buzz saw.  It is the sort of sound that is intolerable at its first utterance; continuation is torture.

     When I started my solitary walk this morning on the first of many circuits of our communal pool, I was accompanied by the cringe-making sound of the damned dog-insult-creature.  And then I saw why it was making the sound.  Sitting in the lane that runs behind the creature’s house was an entirely unconcerned cat, studiously ignoring the high-pitched hysteria of the so-called dog.

     I am no lover of cats.  While I can admire the liquid beauty of the larger beasts of the category, I find the domestic variety repellent.  I think it’s the tiny teeth and the lazy contempt that I find so uncongenial.  To say the least.  
      I am not entirely negative: some cats are sleek and refined, but that is the sort of thing that you can admire in pictures, not in reality.  Anyway, this cat was obviously glorying in the commotion that it was causing and by unconcernedly licking itself and showing its undying contempt (which I share) for the noisy scrap of canine vulgarity.  However, that same attitude was extended to me when the cat noticed that I was walking about.  I changed my direction at once and made towards it.  Lazily, with that elegant lassitude that only cats can show, it moved away to its ‘home’ and the dog-scrap immediately shut up.  Mission accomplished!

     That was the only point of interest, as I wandered around and around with only the sound of BBC Radio 4’s In Our Time programme on George and Robert Stephenson and the birth of the railways filling my ears.  As usual one comes away from programmes like that with snippets of knowledge to keep one sane: did I really know that it was Robert who did the work designing The Rocket and not George? 

     I also picked up on the panel’s championing of the Stephensons as opposed to the showier grandstanding of Isambard Kingdom Brunel (surely one of the few engineers who most people know by his full name) with some withering comments on Brunel’s engineering skills being somewhat partial as opposed to the comprehensive nature of the Stephensons’ skills taking in both the civil and mechanical aspects. 

     Radio 4 and The Guardian are the mainstays of my sanity in a time of confinement. 

     God bless them both!

We have been informed that this week that the number of cases of Covid-19 may peak.  The numbers certainly give no cause for complacency as Spain has now surged past China in the number of people with the virus.   
     One town in Catalonia has been put on total lockdown with people banned from coming in and out of the place.  This is because of a spike in the numbers infected.  Catalonia seems to be taking things extremely seriously and there appears to be growing animosity between Madrid and Barcelona, as Madrid appears to be much more lax than Barcelona – with a consequent surge in numbers of infected.

     We are also hearing of incidents of absolute stupidity.  The police stopped one car with five people in it (including one person in the boot!) who were going to visit a family!  Another couple of guys were found in a bar having a drink, claiming that it was a business meeting: that did not impress the police who promptly arrested them!

     The renovations in the house next door have ramped up again.  There are now two vans on the road outside and a variety of people working inside.  The people seem to be taking no precautions at all: no masks, no separation – and nothing happens.

     Toni is very cynical about what is going on and says that the stories that we actually get to hear of people not taking the virus seriously are just the tip of the iceberg and that things are going to get much worse as our period of lockdown continues for the next couple of months.

     As I have not been outside the front gate for ten days now, it is difficult for me to gain any real perspective from a first hand point of view; everything is via the television and the Internet.

     People are becoming lazy in assuming that the only fatalities are going to be the old or those with underlying conditions, but the death of a 21 year-old with no underlying conditions should be a wake up call to those who think that they are not vulnerable.

     We are all at risk, and I am more than prepared to put up with these restrictions if it is a matter of life and death – and it is a matter of life and death!

Last night I was ‘doing’ part of my new course on paintings and watched a series of videoed lectures on Van Eyck and Van de Weyden and, as I watched I could not help feeling a certain sense of dislocation between what was happening in the wider world and my attempting to rationalise my position of normality by studying Art History: when in doubt look at a painting! 

     That hardly seems to be practical advice – but that isn’t the point is it?  At times of instability and upheaval you find whatever ‘still point’ works for you to give the equilibrium you need, and if that is found in daubs of oil on canvas, then so be it.

     It is easy to rationalize turning to Art (capital A) in any of its forms to find placidity.  You are tapping in to a version of western culture, something that has lasted, stood the test of time, something that is generally regarded as important, something which seems to stand for the achievement of humanity that is larger than a single work or a single person, it links to into a continuum, into a story of progressive achievement that welcomes your passive contemplation and encourages your active participation.  Or something.

Toni has resurrected his electric guitar from the chaos that is the third floor and with notepad, Internet and a badly tuned instrument is attempting to drive me upstairs to get away from the more than slightly-off cacophony that learners engender.  This adds a new dimension of horror to our containment!

We have had a talk about how long we really think this form of confinement is going to last and we have come to the conclusion that things are not likely to get back to anything resembling normality until June or July.  God help the US if the man-child governing the country decides that “everyone back to work by Easter and with full churches” is the way forward.  I only hope that our political leaders have a tad more responsibility than that ignorant person (and that last word was my fifth choice!) when it comes to recognizing that a situation has returned to normal. 

     I am sure that there is someone somewhere who is calculating just how many people died to fit in with a political rather than a national methodology when it came to dealing with the virus. 

     CEOs and other executives of businesses can now be accused of Corporate Manslaughter if it can be shown that people have died because of the actions of individual firms. 

     It is not enough that our political leaders can be ‘voted out’ at the next general election; they should be held judicially culpable for the mortality of their political choices.  And I look towards the Civil Service to ensure that the paper proof of decisions by the politicians survive to be considered by the inevitable commission of enquiry that will take place when we are finally out of this crisis.

The weather has been cold and blustery with some periods of sunshine – not really the weather to laze out on the third floor terrace, but each day brings us nearer to the period of unrelenting sunshine that will make the time go more pleasantly.  Please.

Meanwhile, we try and not get too upset at the seemingly deliberate idiocy on the part of those charged with our safety.  Time after time, it seems that the only real safety is in our own hands and the intelligence and patience with which we approach the demands of this situation.

And I miss ice cream!  I really do!