Through the drugs darkly

The trip to the UK in early July is now arranged and with the car hire is quite a chunk of money but what the hell!

Clarrie phoned yesterday from Waterstone’s telling me she saw the title of a book and immediately thought of me. 

The title was something that should appeal immediately to anyone who has an iota of historical knowledge and an ounce of national esteem. 

I shall delay giving away this excellent book’s name until it is safely in my hot little hands.  Clarrie has promised to wrap and post it and I am eager to rip away the packaging and feast my eyes on such a valuable addition to the jolly xenophobia that is such a gratifying aspect of our national character!

I have made an executive decision to drug myself even further to the eyeballs to get rid of the niggling lack of health that has dogged me this week.  Spain is not a country given to drugs of a few milligrams set in tablets of petite proportions, so I have taken a few torpedoes of medication and am washing them down with industrial strength concoctions of lemon and honey where the proportions are such that it takes two hands to stir the spoon!

I have completed my exercise for the day: removing the washing instructions label on the Polarvide (?) 130x170 blanket from IKEA with which I sometimes sit, like a hi-tec hag in the living room, with the Polarvide draped around my shoulders typing on The Machine.

As I have had occasion to mention before, our house is designed for the summer with open staircases that funnel warm air to the top of the house and away from where we might be spending the bulk of our time indoors so, in spite of heating, it is sometimes necessary to provide adjuncts to the inadequate heat sources that mock warmth when it comes to the winter.

But the sun has come out; it isn’t exactly warm but it is bright.  There is hazy cloud cover but the sun is indisputably in control of the heavens.

Lunch was taken (defiantly) in a part of a restaurant that had previously been off limits because it was devoted to smokers.  Now all public areas are available to those who loathe cigarettes.  The meal itself was light and expensive.  It consisted of a series of tapas ranging from jamon to carpaccio of prawns washed down with a pricy bottle of Italian sparkling wine (I can’t bring myself actually to name it!) and tiramisu and coffee to complete it.  Pleasant, but essentially unsatisfying.

And it’s started raining again.

I cannot say that this weekend has seen me at my bouncing with health best, with the only vigorous element in my makeup being my cough!  Toni, however has been laid even lower than myself and will probably go to the doctor on Monday.  I might well follow his example if the cough is not a part of the past by then.

The forthcoming week is one of edge-to-edge examinations with every aspect of school that is not tied down being subject to kids writing reasonably meaningless snatches of half literate gibberish about it.  I am convinced that global warming can be directly linked to our consumption of photocopied sheets of paper for the various examinations without which our school would falter and fold!

Of course all of this processed wood chip has to be looked at and a steady stream of stains added to it so that the kids can have their magic mark out of ten.

Our papers seem to be fairly late in the examination period and their marking will leach its way into the fiasco week which is soon to be upon us.

I would like to use the long weekends that we are going to have to get away to some of the other great and historic cities in Spain which I shamefully have not yet visited: ideally a Friday evening to Monday evening trip – but I am not sure how far this is a realistic possibility.  Certainly worth looking in to.

Anticipation is the way through a week of work!

This too will pass!

There comes a time in every teacher’s life when you have to think of entirely and absolutely of yourself.  Bugger professional responsibility and dedication to education.  Yourself.

All this week I have not been well and although I rallied after Monday (which was just as well as I couldn’t have continued) I have not been entirely well for any one of the days.  The evenings are the worst as the usual teacher approach of holding off incapacity for home time comes into play and you can be miserable in your own time rather than that of your employer!

The evening cough has been sometimes spectacular and entirely debilitating, but never severe enough to allow me to decide that going to school was out of the question.

But: there is teaching and teaching.  “Bend it like Beckham” has been a positive godsend and I have been able to sink, metaphorically, into the darkness and indulge in perfectly harmless self-pity while the kids have been absorbed in the filmic action.  One lesson down.  This lesson is for the other part of the class that has been shown “Bend it like Beckham” already but as is always the case in this school there are examinations looming and out of the magnanimity of debilitated exhaustion I have graciously granted them time to study.

In our school this means time to memorize.  All knowledge is discrete and committed to memory.  It is duly disgorged during the examination and thus is it disposed of.  Our kids make numerous sheets of information of various sizes ranging from the large pages which are for clutching in the playground so that it looks as though you are studying to those miniscule sheets of tiny print words, phrases and fact that I will charitably assume are meant to be carried inconspicuously and easily placed in a pocket.  To aid learning of course, having nothing to do with giving yourself the unfair advantage of being able to refresh your memory by judicious use of sidelong glances.

Our kids are masters of memorizing and would (if they could act) be at home in provincial rep. with three different plays in performance every week; rehearsing one new one and learning another.  They have been doing the equivalent of this throughout their school careers.  And bear in mind that in this school their careers start at the age of three.

One of my colleagues, in a totally positive gesture that is repeated by each at some point during the year, has deposited a box of chocolate biscuits on the table in the staff room to commemorate the fact that it is her birthday.  To celebrate her anniversary I pointedly did not kiss her like all the rest of my colleagues so that I could keep the germs with which I am crawling unselfishly to myself!

The pathetic weather which has characterized much of this week, and especially the last couple of days has given way to glorious sunshine.  Listening to the Today programme on Radio 4 just before I set off for work that usually gives me the temperature in Cardiff constantly encourages me.  Usually this is one of the highest temperatures in the country and it was again today with a high (high!) of 9°!  Jaded and exhausted at the end of a long day (but not as long as it should be as this is my early departure!) it is a delight to look at the car temperature gauge and realize immediately part of the reason why I am here!

In the self-delusional way that teachers have, we are adept at finding positive elements in the mundane to keep us sane.  Wednesday, for example has been renamed “The Tipping Day” when the balance of the week has been done and we are on the homeward path to the weekend.  In a similar way I am willing myself to notice the slight difference in the early morning darkness which would indicate that the days are (as I know that they are) lengthening and that I will soon be going to work in daylight!  Such things are important and keep one on the path of sanity.

We are building up to Carnival: a day of dressing up and desultory jollifications.  We in the English Department add to the general mirth of the school by devising various word games to delight the youth, as they break free of their classes and parade around the school.

No sooner is Carnival over than Fiasco Week will be upon us.  This was the week invented on the spur of the moment by a lunatic minister of education who decreed that all schools should have a week when the pupils could go skiing.  As this was not given more than a gnat’s whisker of consideration before it was announced the practical problems of its implementation were ignored.

Not by the schools which had to make the week work.

Our school decided not to take the holiday and to work through so that the school year would still end at the end of the month of June, giving two clear months of holiday in the summer.

What was exactly was going to happen during this week was not made immediately clear and there have been various plans put forward; the most disturbing one suggesting that I would find myself helping in the foetal section of the school!  I didn’t even lose my temper, as I knew that the plans would inevitably change – which they have.  More than once.

In Britain it is half term week and you only have to work in the educational system of a country where they do not have half terms to see how essential they are for the well being of staff and pupils alike!  The Fiasco Week is still a couple of weeks away and the two long weekends that we gain are like a Nirvana of hope in the far distance.

Before we get to these havens we have not only an obsessive/ compulsive examination week but also marking and our interminable staff meetings to get through.  The staff meetings will be a treat to greet us on our return to what passes for normality.

These ridiculous meetings are going to be held on Friday evenings!  This may seem like an absurdity until you realize that they were originally scheduled for Saturday mornings!  No comment of mine can possibly do justice to the sheer pointlessness and emptiness of these experiences. 

I have, I am ashamed to admit, been to a Saturday morning meeting.  I spent the whole time stony faced and in a mood of barely supressed fury and looked with disgust at those colleagues who made light hearted comments or even produced fawning smiles from time to time. 

The second the meeting was declared closed I hared to my car, jumped in, slammed the door and drove home in thin lipped horror at what I had done.

It was not the combination of school and a Saturday, you understand.  I have been to other events on the weekend connected with school – but a bloody meeting!  The perverse managerial thinking behind that leaves me (almost) speechless!

Still, the weekend is at last here and, after a little nap I feel ready to face the world.

Please let the sun shine tomorrow!

Bad health and black books

I felt bloody awful in the morning yesterday.  I felt bloody awful when I got to school.  I felt bloody awful about the mistake I made when I decided to teach my first lesson.

No matter what I feel like, especially if I am feeling less than 100%; I invariably feel better after I have done some teaching.

At the end of my first period I felt, if not better, then at least passable in the health stakes.  I made the fatal mistake of saying that I would soldier on, when, and only when no less than everybody on the staff knew that I was being foolishly selfless.

It in the afternoon and I even had the energy to force some food between my staunchly gritted teeth for lunch.  It was pig’s cheek for the meat course of the meal and, while it may sound unappetizing, it is actually tender and delicious and not something which I would reject unless upon the point of death.

So having fought the good fight in the first part of the day I was left with the distinctly daunting prospect of a double period with the equivalent of Year 9.  For Media Studies.

They are the sort of lessons where, were I to succumb to the discomfiture which I have been struggling with throughout the day, my colleagues would undoubtedly kill me rather than take my class!

I have a great and almost mystical belief in the restorative power of a good night’s sleep – even if it is uneasy!

I was all set to purchase my very first book electronically, “The Fall of the House of Wentworth” which I came across somewhere and seemed to be the sort of book in which I might be interested.  I powered up my Kindle and tried to make my purchase and discovered that the book was “not found”.  My grandiose plans to start downloading the whole panoply of modern literature has foundered at the first obstacle!

Back to Amazon!

Today I feel if not completely well, then at least better than ill.  And, while my cough is flamboyant, it is not causing me enough discomfort to bleat for sympathy – though I will take all the sympathy that I can get, because, as is always true in teaching you get bugger all thanks for what you do.

It has rained spasmodically for the past few days and today dawned glumly but has now improved so that we can look down in glorious sunshine on the festering pollution that shrouds Barcelona.

 

I have a naive belief in the health giving possibilities of living by the side of the sea fostered, I think by memories of that insanely bouncy, if somewhat camp fisherman leaping along the sands with the legend “Skegness is so bracing!” on the poster advertising the resort.

 

In spite of the obvious damp that characterises littoral living kids of my generation and before have been stamped with the idea that that seaside ozone is invigorating rather than poisonous.  We now know that ozone in the lower atmosphere is a pollutant (though how anything with three oxygen molecules could be anything other than good is beyond me) and it appears that only in the upper atmosphere is it beneficial.  So, like butter, cheese, eggs, full-fat milk and nuts, it joins the list of “things that we were told as children were good for us and now we find are harmful”.

However, like Ben Gunn I cannot envisage life without cheese.  My favourite quotation from Treasure Island is “Many's the long night I've dreamed of cheese - toasted, mostly.”  Personally, I wouldn’t add the last part about “toasted” but life without cheese would be unthinkable.  And the idea of living only with the lower fat varieties such as the rubbery and largely tasteless Edam is not worth considering.  Though I did once taste a mature Edam with a black rather than red rind and it was surprisingly flavoursome.

Though I can talk about cheese, at this present moment in time I wouldn’t particularly like to eat any.  I am at that stage of “unwellness” where eating does not seem to be a priority and I could well imagine a world in which eating was not necessary.  This feeling will last until lunch time when the fanatical approach to eating together in this school will determine my dietary approach.

 

Meanwhile I am re-reading “Catch-22” and am finding it much les enjoyable than my last re-reading of a novel that I recommend to anyone who listens.

This time I am finding Heller’s style ornate, self-congratulatory and irritating.  I still laugh out loud, because I happen to think that you would have to be dead not to respond to some of the humour.  Which stand up comedian has not at some point or other in their act adopted some of the techniques of insane dialogue that is Heller’s stock in trade?  Who has not used his insane logic for ludicrous effect?  Where would Douglas Adams have been without “Catch-22” to show him the way?

And yet.  Some of his chapters seem formulaic after a time and some of his descriptions are elaborately overworked.  His characters have all the mechanics of Dickensian grotesques without their depth.  And yes, I am being ironic.

It is simply not getting at me in the same way as it did.  Admittedly I know what is going to happen, but I always found delight in re-reading the text and being shocked anew at the freshness and quality of daring that made it worth reading in the first place.

This reading is more of a compulsion: I’ve started and so I’ll finish.  It has lost its edge somewhat: perhaps hardly surprising for something over fifty years old.  Perhaps it’s going through that “difficult” phase while it becomes an historic classic rather than a contemporary classic.  I will not stop reading it, but the next reading may be a long way in the future!

I’ve now finished reading the book and perhaps the most unsatisfying thing about this reading is the “happy” ending. 

The penultimate chapter entitled “Snowden” finally gives the details of the young man’s death and Yossarian finally discovers that “Man was matter, that was Snowden’s secret.”  The “glum irony” which informs so much of the book gives way at the end, in spite of the unending corruption of the corruptible, to an affirmation of faith and a renewal of belief.  It may be unrealistic and fanciful but it is upbeat and “Yossarian jumped” and escapes death yet again as “he took off.” 

And who knows, he might actually have joined Orr in Sweden.  But it is the mere act of defiance and determination that gives the lie to Snowden’s “secret” where, in spite of the carnal nature of Man he is capable of something more, as Yossarian says, “I’m not running away from my responsibilities.  I’m running to them.” We even have the soppily romantic statement of Yossarian when he talks of Nately’s whore’s younger sister, “There’s a young kid in Rome whose life I’d like to save if I can find her,” which sounds like a line from a B movie Western voiced by a rough diamond played by John Wayne!

One cannot pretend that there is a guaranteed future for Yossarian, but in a novel of such ground breakingly black humour then even such a muted assertion “But at least I’ll be trying” has to be seen as something of an affirmation of human possibility.

I know that I will read the book again.  But next time in a decent hard backed edition with white pages!

Barça has just lost 2-1 to the Arsenal.  All is not lost, that away goal may yet prove to be of vital importance in the next leg.

Who knows?  Who cares?  I have to get up at 6.30 am tomorrow!

Culture above all

It is not everyday that you relive one of the great fairy stories in your local supermarket, but I managed to do just that.

Doing a little late night (relatively, this is Spain after all) shopping I decided to go to the slightly more select of the two supermarkets that lie side by side as there is always parking space and, because of the higher prices fewer people.

The reason I was there was to buy some bread and something else which I have already forgotten.  Needless to say by the time I had gone around the shelves my trolley (why had I taken one in the first place) was filled with a whole variety of things that I had seen en passant and couldn’t bear to leave lying there.

I had even remembered to buy some sugar: an act of selflessness as I never use the stuff myself.  I plopped it into the car and continued on my way, pausing only to pick up interesting things for purchase.

I became aware that I was being followed by a wall-eyed ginger who eventually approached me and in a suitably diffident way intimated that my sugar bag was broken.  Sure enough as I looked down the aisle I realized that there was small, but significant piles of sugar indicating each of my stops for pondering with scattered granules indicating my on-going progress.

He took away the offending bag while I spluttered out my apologies and shambled away to get me another.  Then, just as in the fairy story, he swept up the trail that I had been leaving to find my way out!

Luckily the store is not big so one is always in sight of the exit!

I did find my way out, but not before, in a further fairy tale like ending I obtained what might be the end to a questl

For some time I have been trying to find a decent kitchen knife.  The best one I have has been almost ruined by person, or person unknown who have obviously used it for sawing through something which is not a vegetable or fruit. 

This little Kitchen Devil knife is now, of course, unobtainable in their range – it was probably too perfect and therefore deleted!  I have found nothing even remotely as effective as this little saw toothed knife.  And god knows I have looked.

That section of one’s kitchen drawer that is reserved for all those long, thin things that don’t really fit anywhere else in my case if filled with failed knives in my Great Search for the Right One.

As is my want I had a cursory look through the tiny cutlery section and found yet another knife that looked as though it might suit.  So for less than two euros I bought one.

It’s fantastic!  It cut through the Edam like a dream; I even managed to chop it to put on my fresh spaghetti!  That, in my book is passing a stiff test.

I have bought two more because I know that they will immediately stop making them now that I have found The One.

I know, I know that there are kitchen knives that are probably French and cost a small fortune which do the job as they have been doing for generations.  I know this.  I also know that my cooking does not justify such an enormous outlay on a humble knife.  Even if it does last a lifetime!

The 60^th birthday party went well and was a raucously emotional event enjoyed by all.  It is always comforting to welcome new members to the club!  Though there is always the nagging worry about who is left to make the money to pay us all!

Saturday in Barcelona (after an interminable wait for the bloody bus) was exhausting as I think that I must have picked up something from the nephews.  The spreading of disease is second nature to those two children; Plague Annie herself could learn a thing or two from them!

 

My prupose in Barcelona was to go to the latest exhibition in La Caixa Forum called “Construir la Revolución” which concerns art and architecture in Russia from 1915 to 1935.

This small but powerful exhibition is laid out in an open hall with the walls displaying the architectural photographs with models, paintings and drawings occupying the space in the hall.

Iconic buildings are illustrated by contemporary photographs and magazines while modern colour photographs graphically illustrate the fate of the buildings in the present day.

 

The exhibits are interesting rather than startling, but a substantial model of Tatlin’s Tower commands attention together with a film which shows what it would have looked like in situ if it had been built.

 

For me the star exhibits were the paintings especially a fairly large painting by Solomon Nikritin called “La conexión de la pintura con la arquitectura”  1751 x 1311 mm though the actual picture is in the centre of the canvas.  It is clearly a Constructivist painting but to me it seems to be closer to Orphic Cubism and Futurism than anything else.  The reproduction in the catalogue does it no justice and I think it is one of those paintings that simply have to be seen in real life.

It has a colourful complexity and a subtlety in construction that is deeply satisfying.  I liked it a lot.

The relics of Modernism in fading buildings are everywhere on the walls, but some of the buildings seem to be remarkably well preserved and still to look modern in spite of their age.

This is an exhibition to revisit after trying to get my way through the catalogue (35€ and no reduction for teachers of the history of art) which is in Spanish and then coming back with a little more knowledge.  And, after all, this exhibition is free.

This is an exhibition that is not exclusive and the way it is laid out encourages wandering without looking aimless.  There were a surprising number of visitors there so it must be breaking down barriers to visiting.  Well worth seeing and going to see.

I felt really rough this morning and was hoping that it might continue to Monday and give me a day off but, staying in bed until lunchtime seems to have done the trick yet again and I feel fine!  Is there no justice in the world.

And tomorrow is an early start.

Out of the darkness?

Yet another murky day – though the sun has come out now and all looks much better (in terms of pollution) that it probably is in reality.  Our school is at the top of a hill and so we can look down on the blanket of pollution settled over the city and kid ourselves that the air is sweeter where we are!

Driving to work takes on the appearance of travelling through the Valley of the Shadow of Death as the Dark Clouds, augmented by the pre-dawn gloom, give an end-of-times look to the motorway.

One of the consequences of the smog is that the abolition of the old speed limits of 80 kph in and around the city that was one of the bright new ideas of the incoming president of Catalonia has been put on hold. 

Unfortunately the new signs are all over the place so that at ground level you have a sign limiting the speed to 100 kph while the overhead gantry with the (high expensive) warning system tells us that the limit is still 80 kph.  In one section of road there are actually three different speed limits indicated for the same stretch of road depending on where you look!

The court cases and judgements about any prosecutions brought for speeding brought during this flexible time are going to be interesting.

The logic of the present action i.e. limiting the speed of traffic to limit the extent of pollution would seem to indicate that the idea of limitation to the previous level would be good for the atmosphere in Barcelona.  If it is right now at a time of increasing pollution why take it away?  I am probably using the wrong sort of logic!  At least for this part of the world.

My usual Thursday morning is now something of a nightmare as I have three classes one after the other with no break.  This horror starts at 8.15 am and finishes at 10.45 am: this is not my idea of fun!  And this is going to continue until the end of June!  And I still have two other teaching periods and a Departmental Meeting to go!  I truly am not being paid enough!

I am soon going to have to traipse my way up to the other building to take a classes of the younger students: by the end of the day there will only be one year in the secondary system I have not taken!  Perhaps I shouldn’t say that, as the Powers That Be might want to make my day all-inclusive and add another class simply for fun!

There is a new exhibition of Modern Russian art in Barcelona and I am going to make every effort to go and see it this weekend.  I also feel the need to buy some sort of art book, and there is much more choice in the city than in our small town.  I could look in and see if there are any further bargains in the classical music department of my favourite store as well!  When in doubt or vicissitude spend money!  Always works for me!

Today has been one of those days where you truthfully ask yourself what the hell you are doing still teaching.  Some of our kids are supremely unrewarding to teach.  All kids are essentially selfish, but some of ours have made unjustified self-importance into a sort of religious faith!

Because my day was so full I fear that my attitude has become a little less than positive and the idea of working like this until the end of June is daunting to say the least!

We are working our way towards another bout of examinations at the end of the month and, as usual, there was an outbreak of something little short of hysteria from my colleagues when the examination timetable was published.  The outcry that greets the timetable is a ritual part of the gleeful acceptance of self inflicted stress that characterizes the school’s dynamic!

I have to keep telling myself that the paltry sum at the end of the month is some sort of justification for my continuing participation in the education of the spoilt darlings of our little nation.

I really do need to buy myself a new art book! 

I do not see the wearing of a blue coloured shirt to be a radical fashion move – but the reaction from the kids that I have had over the past few days to sporting a coloured shirt has been remarkable.

It is yet another example of how closely we are observed by the kids.  It should make we teachers incredibly self-conscious; but our natural arrogance (why else would we have become educators in the first place?) soothes away any self-doubt.

If you think about it, then it is a perfectly natural phenomenon: the kids have to sit for hour after hour staring at us as we explain the Wonders of the Universe – or in my case the idiocies of English Grammar.  If I was listening to a shaky explanation of the intricacies of Mixed Conditionals with their interesting blend of Second and Third (usually) Conditionals to explain how to talk about what might have happened in the unreal past, I think that I too might begin to notice anything else rather than what was actually the ostensible function of the group at that moment!

I really do shudder to think (when I confront the thought) about what else the kids might have noticed and having noticed simply take in their stride.  Thank god for oblivion.

I am, once again, stuck in an empty library doing what is surely a complete pointless duty.  It does, however, allow me to sit in the sun for a time before propriety drives me indoors to listen to The Machine and at least look as though I am working.  At the moment I am listening to the joyously anarchic cacophony of the second movement of Carl Nielsen’s 5^th Symphony with the ad lib kittle drum trying its best to follow the composer’s instructions to destroy the music!

 

All good things come to an end and I was called into lunch that was excellent: a somewhat sparse salad but followed by fresh salmon with green vegetables and a selection of sweets afterwards.  The only thing missing was the café solo to finish off the meal.  But I had a cup of tea.  Of course.

As today was my “early” departure from school I actually managed to get a lane to myself in the swimming pool.

I am always amazed (though I suppose I shouldn’t be) by the way that my swim varies from day to day.  Today, for instance, I managed to get into a rhythm very quickly and felt more than satisfied with my progress up and down the pool.  It seemed relatively (let us, at all times, stick to some sort of reality) effortless; the water appeared to aid progress rather than be the medium that inhibited speed.

Having said that another on either side flanked my lane.  These lanes were occupied.  On my left were “dabblers” whose erratic progress up and sometimes down (after a long pause) could hardly be counted as swimming: more like semi-intentional disorganized floating.

Two swimmers who had half of the lane each occupied the lane on my left.  One of the swimmers was (to my myopic sight) a young, svelte, swimmer-like swimmer and he and I sped up our respective lanes together until I began to pull away!  I was congratulating myself on my superior skills and fitness when I noticed that the swimmer in the other part of his lane, who was much older and fatter, was forging ahead of me with a totally unjustifiable speed!

I was not, of course discommoded by this arrogant display of professional swimming; I merely turned my attention back to my right and outpaced the moribund and thus regained my self-respect.

 

Now that I have finally remembered my code number I can get into the Sauna and Steam Room that are attached to the changing rooms.  I enjoy sweating out whatever it is that one is supposed to sweat out when one goes into these sweat rooms, but I am not totally convinced that they do any good at all.  I am probably one with Saki who in one of his short stories debunked the idea of any benefit from Turkish Baths and the like apart from the obvious element of enjoyment!

 

The great problem of loaning books to anyone (apart from the danger of never getting them back again, in spite of the fact that one has “Ex Libris” stickers in the books I possess) is that when/if they are returned they seem almost irresistible reads.  Such has been the case with “Catch 22” which has recently been returned.  I made the fatal mistake of reminding myself of the opening sentences: “It was love at first sight.  The first time Yossarian saw the chaplain he fell madly in love with him.”

 

I am now on page 126.  One hundred and twenty six yellowing pages of closely packed print in a book which is now (horrifically and unbelievably) over forty years old, and I therefore would have read this when I was in the second year sixth.  Sigh.

The rather lurid cover has finally become detached from the rest of the book and the rest of the volume is looking decidedly dog-eared.

I sometimes wonder which of the books that I presently have in my library I would actually bother to replace should they all be burnt.  I also think about which paperbacks I should replace with hardback versions.  With either scenario “Catch 22” would figure as one of the volumes.  Although the book seems much more mannered and self-consciously clever this time around, it still makes me laugh out loud – and any book that does that has got my vote!

Just musing quietly to myself while Spain are attempting to get their first goal against Columbia, the books that would have to be replaced would include;

            Macbeth

            Catch 22

            Stalky and Co

            Old Saint Pauls (because it would!)

            Lord of the Rings

            Heart of Darkness

            Paradise Lost (especially Book IV)

            Great Expectations

Mapp and Lucia (all)

The House at Pooh Corner

And I had better not go on because I will be driven to go and search them out and re-read them!

Early start tomorrow with five teaching periods and a Departmental Meeting!

It’s good to be alive!

New Faith!

Yesterday was, in many ways, something of a non-day.

I had to work of course and, given the absurd level of contact time with students that this place seems to regard as normal for the pitiful salary that they pay, it was a more than normal teaching day if you compare it with the UK.

But enough.  What I wrote yesterday was nothing more than self-pitying mawkish appeals for sympathy given the early start and the tiredness that seemed to encapsulate my feelings after the weekend!  That post has been consigned to the electronic bin where it deserves to disintegrate into harmless electrons or whatever happens to discarded electronic messages!

I would like to say that the day dawned brightly and cheerfully; but it didn’t.  For the last two days Barcelona and surroundings have been enveloped in a hazy layer of what appears to be pollution.  It gave the buildings that I pass on my way to work a cold harsh appearance of almost Communistic soullessness: the high-priced, high-rise, high-sited abodes of the rich were drained of colour with the background of a sky of truly British greyness.

On my way to school I get some panoramic views of Barcelona and its attendant smog.  It is a disturbing thought that we are breathing this rubbish in: I am reminded of a cartoon in Punch which showed a motorist driving along a city road and just about to pas sunder a gantry saying “Warning! Central London – middle tar.”  The irony is now that the centre of Barcelona is more polluted than the centre of London – which seems almost unbelievable.

I talked to one of my colleagues who suggested that the prevalence of smog (which has now all but disappeared) is due in large part to the lack of on-shore (or possibly off-shore) winds from the Atlantic which keep giving the north western coast of Spain and the whole of our northern islands a quick “brush-up” in atmospheric terms.

Even Castelldefels, which is usually lazing in its own little micro-climate and quite distinct from that of Barcelona, was a little dowdy yesterday.  Driving into the west at the end of the day was something of an apocalyptic experience as the clouds took on disturbingly livid colours and Ragnarök seemed only as far as the end of the motorway!

Courtesy has landed me with a lost free period.  Attempting to go to lunch one of my companions was accosted and informed that he should be with another class whose teacher for some reason was not there.

His perfectly justified concern at taking on another class (given our ridiculous workload) was reasonable but he was distrait because he had another class waiting for him at the end of the one he had been asked to take and he would therefore have to forego lunch.  Unthinkable.

Though what I thought, immediately, was that I was next in line to do the class instead of him.  And after a great deal of phoning and palaver that is what happened.  Of course.

So, five taught periods and a lost period later I get to have my swim, and all things are well.  People even gave me precedence and let me go in front of them!  Wonders will never cease.

Tomorrow is my “early” finish so at least I get to the swimming pool before the determined old men who swim as if the pool belonged to them!

One must count one’s blessings.

Invasion!

One of the advantages of having tile floors is that it is easier to clean up after calçots.

Eating calçots is a very un-British activity.  There is no clean and tidy way to eat them.  These are burnt over an open fire and are charred and it is necessary to strip away the burnt outside and get at the moist stem and heart of the vegetable.  Your hands get absolutely filthy and everything you touch (glass, cutlery, bread, bottles etc) gets equally filthy.

For me the dirtiness of the method of eating is an essential part of the experience and there is much to be said for the mutual wallowing in ashes and producing hands that would have had one sent away from the table at once in one’s youth!

The Cava, a superior brand, was well chilled and virtually everyone drank some of it: I must be having more of an effect on The Family than I thought possible.

Everything that could be disposable in the meal was and I have, long ago, given up my prejudice against plastic plates and cutlery when they have to be dealt with by me and mine!  Everything went into a large plastic bag at the end of the meal and we were still exhausted when we had finally cleared up!

Today has been great fun, but not relaxing and hardly the way to start a week in which two extra periods have to be coped with.  I now have five teaching period for four days of the week and on the only day on which I have “only” four I have an hour-long duty in the library.

I am getting progressively more unhappy with the way in which my teaching is being exploited.  I feel that I am being forced into a less and less professional stance given what is happening in education and the poor remuneration that it seems to merit.

If I am realistic then I know that I will moan but probably put up with whatever the powers that be decide to give to we teachers.  I don’t like it, but I fear that I will have to lump it.

I am equally sure that I will get progressively more optimistic as the days lengthen and the sun becomes more of a feature of the day.   Two visitors remarked on my “brownness” and I had only been sitting in the sun for about twenty minutes – this bodes well for the build up to the Great Release of July!

I should be doing some marking or preparation.  But I’m not going to do it.  So there.  Let the morrow bring what I will.  I will cope.

Tidy and ye shall find!

“Tidying” – a word guaranteed to strike terror and despair into the staunchest soul!

Today the garden has been weeded and some of the overhanding branches from the garden of the Scumbags have been ruthlessly cut – give me a ladder and I’d cut more!  Out hope is that the Scumbags will not return to their house until Easter or even later when the cut marks on the branches will not look quite so raw!

What weeds were amenable to being pulled up were pulled up; those that were anchored to the ground with more than stubborn tenacity were scornfully ignored after a few futile scrabblings to dislodge them.

The front garden has been largely cleared of pine needles and the back garden fence has been stripped of its incrustations of ivy.  All the extraneous vegetation comes to us courtesy of our neighbours whose pine trees overshadow the front garden and in the back the tree and one side and the ivy on the other makes their stealthy way into our demesne.

Other peoples’ organic rubbish!

The chaos of the Third Floor has now been reduced to the level of “unacceptable untidiness” which may mean that with a little light reorganization tomorrow I could get to see the surface of my working area for the first time in months!

I have discovered various “lost” items including a set of reproductions of works of art for an art history lesson; a photograph that is perfect for a friend’s 50^th birthday; a cache of ties; a few watches; a lost stapler; a new leather belt and various papers that I had actually forgotten that I had lost.

But the really disturbing element was discovering just how many pairs of earphones I possess.  I have no intention of revealing the actual number because it defies any rational explanation.  I have five pairs of earphones in a particularly unattractive blue colour, which I can only put down to air travel and buying the cheap and awful sets that they used to sell to passengers who were desperate to try and forget just how uncomfortable the seats were by watching edited films that one didn’t want to see.

I am sure that I should have thrown most of them away as I am equally sure that some of them date back to my first transistors and must harbour generations of germs!

Instead of throwing them away they are now in little compartments in a special box where they will be ignored for the next ten years.

Various leads and power adaptors have now been carefully put in compartments to be similarly ignored.  But they are at least tidy.

We are now, more or less prepared for the invasion tomorrow and by careful purchasing for their arrival I have gained a small bottle of olive oil (free with two packets of crisps) and three small boxes of Lindt chocolates (free with superior Cava).  There was also a tiny plastic bottle of decent red wine with the mature cheese I bought, but I rather think I paid for that!

I shall go to bed early and hope for refreshing sleep so that I am able to cope with the onslaught.  On the positive side the weather promises to be fine and there is a real possibility that we will be able to eat outside.

The logistics of putting umpteen people around a plastic table for six is something that I haven’t yet worked out but I am sure that we will cope.

Bring on the onions!

Age old swimming

In years gone by when I wanted to have a swim I seem to remember that I went to the swimming pool and swam.  It really wasn’t complicated!

In Cardiff in days of old there was the wonderful Empire Pool; built for the Empire Games when we still believed that we actually had an Empire.  This 50 m pool was in the centre of the city just opposite the train and bus station.  It was, therefore, simplicity itself to get to it.

You arrived, paid your entrance and were given a ticket that you later exchanged for a metal structure with a container at the bottom and a shirt hanger rising out of it with a rod for the trousers.  It came with a tag that you placed around your wrist and then, with clothes assembled around the structure you gave the article to the man in the window and it was hung on a rail to be claimed later.

You splashed your way through an antiseptic footbath, braved the shower and there, in all its glory was the pool.

And you swam.

In those days eyes stinging from chlorine and hairs floating in the pool was all part of the experience.  Later, skin wrinkled and soul exalted by having touched the bottom in the deep end you reclaimed your clothes dressed and took the trolley back home.

It was all so simple.

 

Nowadays I am still trying to come to terms with the most efficient way to have a swim in Castelldefels.

The wearing of flip-flops of some such shoe is mandatory as is the wearing of a bathing hat.  I add to these the wearing of goggles and earplugs.

Leaving aside the problems of which lane to swim in I am still trying to work out how to get undressed in the changing room.

There are two and a half, or possibly two and three-quarter changing rooms in the swimming pool I use in Castelldefels.  There is a room with benches and hooks on the wall when you get in; there is another room with benches and hooks just before the showers; there is a space like a corridor where the lockers are situated, and there are a series of odd cubicles with doors on two sides giving a sort of through passage.  There is also a small space at the end of the locker corridor that had a couple of benches and some hooks.

There is no clear wet sports/dry sports area as, as far as I can tell there are only pools (two I think) and a gym.  Changing in the corridor is clumsy and too tactile as people brush past.  Changing in the small area seems reserved for muscled triangular people and in the other areas there seems no rhyme or reason to what people should be using them.  The cubicles are virtually untouched and anyway the locks are broken.

The lockers are usually just rectangular spaces, some of which have a chandelier like quartet of hooks in the centre of the ceiling of the box: this is useless.

Before you get in to this questionable area you have to flash your membership card at an electronic reader to pass through the turnstile.  So by the time I get to the selection of areas for changing I am clutching my wallet and trying to get the card back into its designated space.

Whatever method I have used in the past of getting changed it always seems to end up with me forcing an armful of clothing and an overstuffed swim bag into a space which is far too small and totally unfitted to be a receptacle for clothing and bag.

It has taken me until now to realize that the order in which things is done is of ultimate importance if the swim is to be achieve without stress levels above and beyond the acceptable.

First you put your wallet into the zipped pocket of your coat.  You also take the mobile phone and two pens from the shirt pocket and place those in the coat pocket as well.

Next you choose a locker.  These are in two rows one above the other.  The lower lockers are simply too undignified to use so it is essential to be eagle eyed and find a higher-level locker.  Once found (and the closing handle checked to see that it will take your lock) you lock the thing and then proceed to the chosen changing area.

The Spanish (just like the French) are totally paranoid about the dangers of letting your naked foot touch the polluted floor of a swimming pool.  I have observed manoeuvres of balletic brilliance executed by swimmers dressing and undressing while keeping feet firmly in or on plastic slippers.  I am still something of a neophyte in the art of divesting myself of clothing while perched stork like on a piece of plastic footwear.  I am also conscious that for the last half century of my life I seem to have walked barefoot on the floors of swimming pools and changing rooms without my feet rotting away at the ankles!  Still when in Spain etc.

Taking a collection of clothing to a locker invariably (invariably!) means that at least one, and more likely two or more pieces of clothing will fall to the floor –and always on a patch of damp dirt.

Shoes, therefore have to be placed in the swim bag; tie in trouser pocket; underpants ditto; vest in bag; shirt in bag.  Coat weighed down with anything that could fall out of pockets and I am ready to move towards my already reserved locker.

Which of course does not have a hook in it.  My swim bag with its multitude of pockets opens like an undersea anemone and fills all available space as I try and feed my coat and trousers into its maw.

Having pushed the clothes in and eventually locked the door I march confidently off to the pool.

And return because I am still wearing my glasses.

My glasses placed in their case I march confidently off to the pool.

And return because I have not put the ear plugs in.

By the time I get to the water I am almost too tired to raise one arm out of the pool to propel myself forwards.

But I do.

And I’m still working on the most time and space efficient way to get changed.

An on-going project.