Always time for culture!

If there had been another real swimmer in the pool this morning I am not sure where he or she would have been able to go.  I occupied the overly narrow lane which allows just one swimmer to swim crawl up and down.  The whole of the rest of the pool was occupied by summer school “classes” of varying ages but constant energy and splashiness.

As it happened there was only me so I swam my usual way up and down in a lane which, as I swam became funnel shaped so that by the time I got to one end I was bumping my arms on the line of floats.  However, I struggled on and paused only to throw tennis balls and other flotsam out of my way as I surged my way along.

Barcelona, when I finally got there after an interminable journey where we stopped at every stop and traffic light, was packed and full of foreigners.

We had lunch in an old hospital for the poor which was refreshingly empty and encouragingly atmospheric with painted decoration and Romantic arches and balconies.  I had a very unromantic burger but it did have a dramatic appearance with a transfixed cherry tomato held in place by an industrial length wooden skewer.  The burger actually tasted of meat – which places it in a category with few companions.

As I was lunching with Suzanne we couldn’t let the occasion pass without indulging in some form of culture and so we visited FAD which is a temporary exhibition near MCBA giving examples of the best of design.  The single element of print design that stood out for me was a printed bottle label of Libalis that I bought from the expensive wine store in town – the one with the pretentious tapa for the ruta de tapa this year.  It is good to see that even in my indulgences I obviously have a winning stylishness!

One day to go before the Olympic Opening Ceremony and in a way calculated to increase the dread the news and BBC Sport have given a few “glimpses” of what we are in for.  I dutifully hid my eyes, but Toni took gleeful pleasure in looking askance at the offerings and has added another layer of horror to my expectations.  The fear of not winning a single gold almost pales into insignificance when I think about the extended awfulness which could well be the “show”.  Time will undoubtedly tell.

I used the new camera to take a couple of pictures and was told, unexpectedly that there was a metro station near by a symbol appearing on the screen.  I’m not quite sure what I pressed to get that information (which was indeed correct) but it shows that something of the “smart” quality of the camera is working.

Work in progress, I think.

What is next!

Life has lost some of its savour now that I am expecting no further packages from Amazon as my Retirement Lucky Bag is now complete and the contents are in my hot little hands. 

The camera stubbornly refuses to do what it should be doing – apart from taking rather good pictures that is.  But the extras that it should be doing; connected to GPS and Internet are not forthcoming.  Yet.

I have not yet succumbed to asking Toni for his help, as that is one admission of technological failure too far.  Yet.

In a Great Change from previous years the scumbag de nos jours are no longer the obnoxious neighbours but Dutch people: loud, inconsiderate and dirty, they have become the new hate figures in our local society.

A society which has just become more expensive to join as our landlords have decided, in the face of universally falling prices as a result of the chaos of the economic situation in Spain, to increase our rent.  An incentive, if ever there was one, to look around at alternatives to where we are living at present.

If any move is even contemplated then there has to be a “rationalization” of what we own and have in the house.  Basically the logistics come down to books and how many I am determined I am to take with me to the next stage of our life here in Catalonia.

A first swift look around at what is on offer to rent in this area seems to indicate that prices are not reflecting the fact that the vast majority of people in work are taking hit after hit to their salaries so that after a period of stasis as far as payment for work is concerned we are now well into a series of pay cuts.  And our landlord raises the rent!  As Toni said, this is how the rich become richer!

I have, at long last, had the courage to unpack the bags in the boot of the car which contain the detritus of my clearing out my cupboards in school.  My two mugs have been placed in the dishwasher and I have thrown away those things which I know will not stand the test of time.

There is yet another collection of books which have been disgorged from the bags which have absolutely no chance of being put away with the degree of respect that their content demands.  My books are double and sometimes triple stacked as it is and I cannot.

Something has to give.

Reality hits!

It had to happen sooner or later: I didn’t get a lane to myself during my (second) swim of the day this afternoon.  The pool was packed and in the emptiest lane there was a determined lady relentlessly swimming up and down in the middle.

Now I am no slouch when it comes to staking my claim to clear water and I know that the etiquette in pools like this is that if two swimmers want the same space then they swim anti-clockwise keeping to the left part of the lane.

I watched the woman’s style for a few moments and then launched myself into my swim.  By the time I had done two lengths she had left the lane.  Result.

As you can clearly tell, I have turned into one of those repulsive, selfish up-and-down swimmers that I loathed so much when I was younger.  When I was younger, swimming pools were places in which to frolic; they were places that had passion and play whose vitality and joie de vivre were only threatened by the soulless straight-line swimmers, one of whom I have become.

I did have a moment’s guilt that my purposeful (an odd word to use in the endlessly futile lane swimming in an enclosed pool) strokes might have driven her away – but my “guilt” was soon replaced with fury as some other women took her place and started to swim a slow breast-stroke.

My irritation was modified by the fact that one other swimmer in the lane is no problem at all.  If you swim faster than they do then all you have to do is go back on yourself when you catch up with them and then resume your normal progress.  This lady (note the change of tone) had the good grace to stop and let me pass her every three of my lengths.  This was kind but it did necessitate a fairly brisk pace to ensure that she was not waiting too long, so at the end of my twenty minutes I was fairly exhausted and the last two lengths of breast-stroke were a true cooling down process.

My swim-tea-read the paper approach to the day is becoming a delightful part of my routine.  It remains to be seen how far this continues into the winter months!

The opening ceremony for the Olympic Games has now had its public rehearsal and the response seems quite positive – as well it might be given the extraordinary cost of the event.  I’m not sure what happened when the Empire Games (ah the Empire Pool of happy memory) came to Cardiff – but I think that our pigeon problem was started when the release of the birds was a central part of the ceremony – a big mistake!  I only hope that Boyle is not planning on releasing the sheep from the first part of his opening sequence – though the idea of the new Olympic Park being terrorized by feral woolly beasts after the Games are over is a pleasing one.

I have two major fears: the Opening Ceremony being an embarrassing fiasco and our not winning a single gold.  I don’t think that I have watched an Opening Ceremony all the way through, but I think that I am going to make an exception this year even taking into account the inevitably jaundiced observations of Toni.

Obviously there is going to be traffic chaos (the rehearsal of transport was a disaster yesterday) and that is going to make headlines around the world.  I also understand that foreign correspondents have taken the proudly sardonic attitude of the British to large institutionalized celebrations as being representative of the traditional moaning of Brits.  I blame the Australians for this as they are the ones who have popularized the concept of The Whingeing Pom and that mythical creature has now become world-wide newspaper reality!  

Still doesn’t mean it’s true though.

I still haven’t taken enough pictures with my new camera to evaluate it properly and I am having trouble finding and downloading the right aps so that the camera can speak to the computer and also speak to my phone.  Why I need this to happen I am not quite sure, but if it can happen then I want it to.  I will think about its usefulness after I have got it all working!

I have started listening to the first of the two CDs which were part of my Retirement Lucky Bag and I realize that I do not know Grieg’s Quartet.  This one has been arranged for String Orchestra and it sounds very jolly and I should get to know it without the pain that accompanied trying to become familiar with something like Le Grande Macabre (of evil memory).  The other disc is by Holst and since it does not have either The Planets or the Saint Paul Suite there is more learning for me!

The programme for Operas for next season has arrived and there is some learning to do there too.  I am determined this year that I am going to be better prepared for my Operatic Experiences than I was last year.  I did (most) of my homework and it was only for the Catalan contemporary of Mozart that I did nothing.  Luckily it was tuneful and histrionic so it made up for my lack of effort.

For one opera I went by train and stayed in Barcelona in a basic hotel just off the Ramblas after the performance so that I was able to amble back to Castelldefels by train the next morning – much more civilized and not costing much more than bloody parking in the centre of the city!  Something to think about and plan.

We are within a week of the end of July and I have yet to read a single book this holiday.  For someone like myself this is tantamount to spitting on the True Cross or deciding to go and eat in the restaurant of the golden arches.  My Kindle is full of unreadable free “Classics” and I have said to myself that it is probably about time that I actually bought a book digitally, as I should have done for the “Fall of Giants” rubbish that I bought in hardback and have been trying to get rid of ever since.

I think that it is time for sheer self-indulgence and therefore I think that the first book that I will buy will be by Terry Pratchett.  I wonder, he thought evilly to himself, if you can get them free anywhere?

Tomorrow the doctor for a periodic check and my periodic scolding and Thursday a trip to Barcelona and a meeting with Suzanne – lunch and culture. 

That’s the way to live!

Snap!

Today had a “school day” feeling as I woke early and felt I ought to get up.  This is rather counter to the ideology of a Sunday, but I went with the urge and made myself a cup of tea.

The weather is still cloudy but with increasingly bright intervals.  Daunting enough weather to discourage anyone other than myself from using the pool.  Fir the whole of my swim I had the pool to myself.

There is something deeply pleasurable in breaking the mirror surface of a swimming pool and then churning the water up.  A pleasurable, yet worrying experience.  Surely a swimming pool in a seaside resort should be bustling with swimmers on a reasonable Sunday morning in the summer?  I want to have a lane to myself but I don’t want the place to go bankrupt.  Perhaps I ought to enjoy the place while I have the opportunity!

The newspaper reading via the Kindle after a swim while accompanied by a cut of tea is going well and I have to remind myself that there is life outside the swimming pool and café as it is tempting to while away the time reading and listening to the clack of dominos being snapped down or the cries of the petanque players decrying or applauding a shot.  The average age was well above that of statutory education and I should imagine that in the next few months I am going to be more in the company of the jubilados when the kids are finally forced back to where they belong – off the streets and in the schools!

The lunchtime drink with Frank was good and, as he paid it did mean that a further meeting is demanded so that I can return the favour.  We talked for a couple of hours and I only wish that there was something real that I could do to make his situation better – but I fear it will take an upturn in the Spanish economy before that happens.

And from my reading of what is going on in the country at the moment that “upturn” look very unlikely.  It would appear that our politicians are playing around with nomenclature so that the desperate situation of Spanish banks does not look Greek-like.  But it is, and I think that we are not far off a full-scale bale out.

The Euro drifts (on a good day) steadily downwards and is now trading at 77p, getting nearer and nearer to what it was when I first came to the country.  As I will, in future be dependant on my UK pension this is goodish news for the time being as I will be able to buy more for my money than I could.  What is more worrying is what might happen to the money that I have in Spain if the situation gets so bad that the government decides the time has come to revert to the peseta. 

God help.

Monday saw the rest of my Retirement Lucky Bag (eventually) arrive.  The camera (for who is so devoid of finer feeling that they do not need another camera) demands a considerable amount of time to get to know.  I have used the new printer to produce a version of the entire manual.  It not only explains how to use the camera, it also gives an idiots’ guide to basic camera work.  No harm in starting from the beginning!  As this is supposedly a “smart” camera there is far more set up work to be done than is normal with a camera and I have only scratched at the surface of that work – and of course, failed miserably to get the bloody thing to do anything more than take pictures.

Which is not enough for a camera nowadays!

I have to admit that the limited use that I have made of the camera does encourage me to believe that this machine comes ever nearer to what I am looking for in a camera.  But this is only day one.  If nothing more comes of the “smart” elements then I may well become a little more disillusioned!

The other elements in the Lucky Bag are not as complex or demanding as the camera and will be enjoyed in the coming days.

And you never know, I might actually start of some of my remaining tasks for the summer.

New Life?

Yesterday a whole slew of people I know escaped from the leaden fetters of education: good luck to them all and god knows they deserve their retirement.  I suggest that their Patron Saint should be My Uncle Eric who, at 93 has now been retired for longer than he worked and has, O Magic Thought, got back everything that he paid into his fund and more!  An inspiration for us all!

And for those like Frank who once breathed, “I’ve got another 20 years!” when I announced my own plans to retire – there is a faint gleam of light at the end of a very rickety tunnel.  Possibly.

According to the Internet the rest of my Retirement Lucky Bag should be with me on Monday.  This, of course, does not take into account the reluctance of the delivery company to deliver – but I have a number and I shall merely go in to the office in town, give them the number and collect my parcel which should be waiting for me.

The camera I have ordered is a “smart” one and I think that there will be hours of frustrated misery as I attempt to set it up.  But sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.  I have barely recovered from the fuss that was attached to making the new printer work – and that is still only partially set up!  The fax element can wait for a later day.  A much later day!

The “Summer Sales” which are usually something of a joke in this country compared with those in the UK are a little more convincing this year around – though it has taken a world wide economic crisis to get them to give real reductions.

I now have a whole range of new swimming costumes – and all at reasonable prices.  This means that I can have the unutterable luxury of a dry bathing costume each time I swim – as long as I remember to hang our each of the costumes as I use them.  And remember to take a costume with me when I swim.  I do have memories of . . . well, the swimming pool was always relatively near me so the journey home to get something essential was never that irritating.

Why is it that putting on a dry bathing costume is such a luxury – one is, after all going to wet it immediately.  I suppose it is the localized clamminess which is uncomfortable, isolated as it is from the all-over wetness that immersion brings.  It’s the little luxuries in life that make it worth living!

A duty trip to Terrassa to distribute Santo and birthday presents.  Toni’s sister had just come back from holiday.  With her two children.  And her husband.  And had to prepare a birthday meal for The Family.  I have never, ever seen her look so tired.  And yes I did say thank you.  Though only after making a series of very cruel jokes.  It is truly amazing how effectively the concept (and reality) of retirement can be used as a positively surgical weapon!

Today has been depressingly cloudy – but it hasn’t rained and it has been hot.  I can take virtually anything rather than rain.  Within reason.

The Kindle is so good I am thinking of getting another one.  Firstly because that is the sort of thing that I do when I like something and secondly because I think it would be a Good Idea to have one in the car.  Why, precisely I am not quite sure – but that is not going to stop me.

Tomorrow a possible drink with Frank – and a long delayed conversation.

Bitter and Sweet

There comes a time in every thinking adult’s life when he looks around at the sources of public pleasure that he has and debates one of the pressing questions of life: how much would you be prepared to pay to keep kids out of where you are.

I am still being blessed in the local pool by my continuing to have an empty lane to swim in but, even with ear plugs and one’s head underwater the piercing screams of the under age cut through placidity and contentment and spoil the experience.

I have come to the conclusion that I would be prepared to pay double the membership cost of any club that strictly enforces any ban against children being found anywhere on the site of any organization of which I am a member.  Especially the swimming pool.

Even though I was in a separate lane a few children drifted from their watery enclosures like deadly jellyfish, their legs trailing like the poisonous filaments of that irritating sea creature, towards my solitary route – almost as if any disruption in the surface of the pool dragged them unerringly towards my scything progress from end to end.

In the end it was not the children who slowed me down but rather their besotted father who, to amuse his ADS kids lurked underwater like some grotesque octopus, limbs akimbo rising slowly to the surface and straddling the area between separated lanes, including the one I was in.  To such depths are adults driven to keep their offspring amused, ignoring the justified and necessary space which is a sacred right of those who actually swim in swimming pools!

And the torture is not confined to the pool itself.  Outside the leisure centre is a café with a delightful outdoor, tree shaded sitting area.  I sat there with my two-bag cup of tea and settled down to read my new Lucky Bag Kindle with the Kindle version of the Independent on it.  This laudable determination was almost frustrated by a small, but disproportionately loud child who refused to shut up.  Her female guardian did try and shush her a few times but her guardian’s general level of speaking was at a shout so it was perhaps easy to see why the smaller version was no objectionable.

During my cup of tea I thought that paying three times the membership fees to exclude the young would be a bargain.

However I am not stupid.  I know perfectly well that the place which has provided me with a free lane for my 20 minute intense swim is only there because of families, which are the mainstay of this organization, pay their fees and keep the place alive.  The links with schools and the number of groups of kids paying their money for summer activities actually allow me to enjoy the facilities without paying a fortune for them!  So reality informs prejudice!

My new watch (another part of the Retirement Lucky Bag) arrived this morning and became the first thing actually delivered by Amazon’s choice of Castelldefels delivery agent!

The watch is almost perfect having all the major attributes of an acceptable timepiece that I demand: numbers, day/date, sweep second hand, luminous, waterproof.  As an added advantage this Seiko watch is solar and therefore powered by the sun.  How I don’t know as there is no obvious “cell” but it means that the battery never need be changed.  The only cavilling objections are that the clear white face is a little small and the metal strap a little thin – but I am pleased and will see how it manages tonight and during the hours of darkness.  It certainly hasn’t stopped yet!

Tomorrow Toni’s mum’s respite comes to an end and we will be going to Terrassa for the celebration of a birthday in a particularly family-fiesta heavy period of the year.

Over the next few days the rest of my Lucky Bag should arrive – the last elements of which I am much looking forward to!

Something for me!

At last something from my Retirement Lucky Bag.  The delivery people in Castelldefels have kept up their unenviable record of never having actually managed to deliver anything they were supposed to actually to the house.  So, yet another visit to the town headquarters and the first part of my Lucky Bag: a Kindle.

Now, of course I do already have a Kindle, I had one almost as soon as they were announced – but that one is old and heavy, not like the svelte new version which is small and compact and light as a feather.

As soon as it was taken out of its elegant and economic container and powered up it recognized that I already had a Kindle and offered to download the content I already had in the other – which it did in double quick time.

It is a simple delight and Kindle deserve the success it has had, but a nagging doubt about the ethics of the whole affair does disturb.  Kindle has access to the whole of my library and can do what they like with it.  As they have shown in the past when it turned out that they did not actually have the right to sell one of Orwell’s novels and deleted it from Kindles around the world!  But I am too impressed by the sheer wonder of the thing to think too deeply about the wider implications – at the moment.

I have downloaded free extracts from two other books by Peter Watson whose work has mind-bendingly wide ranges of reference and he seems to write books for which the book he is writing is necessary to write the book itself.  If you see what I mean!  I think that I will delay the downloads until the colder and less sunny months of the year when I will be able to concentrate more.

My swim in the larger pool was just that bit harder because of my couple of days slippage from the daily effort but as if to encourage me, yet again I had a wide lane free to do my exercise!  This is getting weird as I am pushing what sort of swimming luck there is for this luxury of uninterrupted swimming space.  Long may it continue.

Today has been gloriously sunny, one of the hottest days of the year so far.  I only hope that this weather keeps up.

I have completed another summer task, but I haven’t started on the big ones yet.  When the weather breaks perhaps.

Worth it?

Don’t get me wrong, I like electrical stores: gleaming screens; metallic finishes; flashing blue lights; gadgets of all sorts – the uses of many of them beyond human understanding – lots and lots of stuff.  My idea of paradise.  But it all seems different when you are watching two guys working for two hours on a very expensive printer than stubbornly refused to do double-sided printing.  Which was the reason that it was bought.

Things were not helped by one of the men dropping a fairly important part of the machinery before we started, but nevertheless they ploughed on buoyed up by a stubborn belief that if the machine had a double-sided capability for one thing that I didn’t want then it would also have that capability for the thing that I did.

And they were right, eventually, though things were complicated because they were using Windows and I have a Mac.  The menu pages were and are different and I kept asking them to take me through from the beginning of the process to the end.  I left when they successfully (eventually) managed to produce a double-sided page – actually, as they had no documents to hand they printed out one of mine from my memory stick, my description of what happened in Hamlyn from the point of view of the Pied Piper!

Back home one of the first things that I did was to drop the part that was dropped in the store – luckily it still worked, as I found out when I experimented with clicking wildly at anything that showed its head in the menu page which bore no resemblance to anything that I had seen in store!

But it is now working – as it bloody well should giving how much it cost!

So today has been a little unbalanced with my ignoring the splendid weather and spending my time in an air-conditioned shop.

The afternoon was the beach.  There is a sea breeze which makes the heat tolerable, but we have been told that tomorrow the heat is going to be dangerously high so we will probably go to the beach at about four or five in the afternoon.

My swimming is getting steadily better, but I haven’t been to the “big” pool for a few days and swimming lengths in a smaller pool flatters one’s stamina and power – I need to come down to reality and make sure that I go for a good long swim tomorrow without the little boost of a push-off every 20 metres or so!

Nothing from my Amazon Retirement Lucky Bag has yet arrived.

Music al fresco

A whole Sibelius symphony was not something that I expected from the Southampton University Student Orchestra – but it was what we got, sitting in the evening sunshine and surrounded by skaters, cyclists and casual passers-by.  We also got Valse Triste, Masquarade, Nimrod, some odd Russians and finishing with a typical Catalan Sardana – which got the loudest and most enthusiastic response of the evening.

I thoroughly enjoyed the evening and it was a real treat to hear such music in the open air and virtually at the bottom of our street!

Evaluation of the performances must take into account that the performers were students, it was in the open air and there were many distractions ranging from explosions to one small irritating girl bounding a ball not quite in the same rhythm as the orchestra!

The strings were the weakest part of the ensemble with the first violins sounding less than convincing in some of the more exposed passages.  Though the rendition of Valse Triste was given a commanding performance where the quiet parts of the piece enforced attention in spite of the many distractions. The brass was unconfined and a little rangy in their approach while the woodwind were, in my view the most successful part of the orchestra.

Talking to the conductor at the end of the concert during which I managed to get the number of the Sibelius symphony wrong (unforgivable in a confirmed Sibelian like myself) he seemed genuinely grateful that a Briton had listened and taken time to express thanks.  Their appearance seemed to be almost whimsical as the orchestra travels abroad every year and decides sometimes on a vote where they will go.  The programme is then arranged with performances being fitted in where they could be.  It seems it was just luck that they figured in our local celebrations.  Lucky us.

Today, as if to complement the cultural feast last night, my tickets for the operas in the Liceu for next season have arrived.  I think.  I am still not convinced that I have bought anything as the Catalan for the experience ha been impenetrable.  Somewhere else I will have to phone up and discover what, if anything, I have got confirmed for next season.

Having gone out to get replacements cartridges for my printer I came back with a new one which seemed to offer exactly what I wanted in a printer.

Perhaps inevitably I think I am disappointed.  One of the essential features for me was the ability of the machine to do double sided printing automatically.  This is doesn’t seem to do in spite of the assistant in the shop having hunted through the Internet to find out if it could.  The only double-sided printing that I can find is double sided copying from two originals which is not what I had in mind when I bought it.  Tomorrow I will go back to the shop with the instructions booklet and ask him to show me where double-sided printing of documents can be done.  Then I will take the whole machine back.  Sigh!

Today has been a blazingly hot day with only the brisk wind making it bearable.  I can live with that.

This evening I met Irene and we discussed the future and have given each other a series of research projects to get started on.  Our plans, as always, are far-reaching and enthusiastic – how realistic they are we will have to wait for our conclusions to be drawn from what we find out.  I remain optimistic.  As ever.

I retire to my bed eager for the contents of my Retirement Lucky Bag to start arriving!

Swim for life!

A Proustain moment has been reached in my swimming.

Today, Sunday, I swam for the whole of my allotted time using a vigorous overarm movement and was not totally exhausted at the end of it.  When was the last time that I did that?  Remembrance of times past indeed!

I put part of this new/old approach to exercise down to my new sandals.  My old ones have been worn down to the soles so that it is now like walking on marble, a hard joint-jolting experience.  The cheap shop in Castelldefels provided nothing of any use for a replacement, so we went to El Corte Ingles for a more expensive solution.

The ones I ended up with are indeed reassuringly expensive and are the next best thing to a gadget I could find.  These are Skechers “Shape-ups” which are designed with a sole which deliberately unbalances you forcing you, in theory, to adopt the correct heel-to-toe approach to walking. 

There are all sorts of other claims for these sandals all of which have the all-important word “may” inserted carefully before any assertion of positive results!  But they do feel better and, after an extended walk yesterday evening to see the fireworks I have to say that my knees do not feel as if the regulation amount of powdered glass has been forced into the joints this morning!  You never know, it “may” be that they do exactly what they tentatively claim on the box!

Needless to say I did not take what I consider to be an adequate photograph yesterday and will have to see what one part of my Retirement Lucky Bag can offer to help my technique when it arrives!

So far three weeks of the summer holiday have gone and I have completed precisely one of the summer tasks that I set myself.  At this rate I will be well into next year before they are all complete.  Just as well that I do not have to go back to school in September!  Always a reassuring thought!

As part of the celebrations of the “Festes del Mar” in Castelldefels, Toni’s Mum and I went to a concert in the Església del Carme, Can Bou this evening.  We cut it very fine and arrived late but luckily Spanish tardiness worked in our favour and we were just in time for the start.

The church is a modern affair with three spike protuberances poking out of the roof.  The interior space is in the form of a truncated triangle with the statue of the Virgin occupying the cut off bit.

This particular Mary is voluminously dressed and is sitting on a golden chair and looking a bit like Catherine the Great sitting on one of her “special” thrones and adopting a haughty look to cover what is going on down below!  Her face betrays not a hint of the Semitic and I have to say that if the Mother of Christ looked anything like the self satisfied over dressed WASP bourgeois in that church she must have created a great deal of gossip in a few BC Israel well before Joseph was tempted “privilly to put her away.”

Anyway, idols apart, the space was not very welcoming and the acoustic was unsympathetic to put it mildly.

The first part of the concert was taken by the Agrupament Musical Sant Josep Obrer de Sant Boi and the programme comprised a variety of pieces arranged for wind band.  The playing was enthusiastic rather than subtle and was certainly not helped by the acoustic.  It was like listening to the music through industrial cavity insulation.  But enjoyable nevertheless.

The second part of the concert was taken by the Assocìació Musical de Castelldefels and was of altogether a higher quality.  For the first time in my life I heard the Intermezzo from the second L’Arlésienne Suite scored for wind band and accordion!  A remarkably effective sound was produced and the enthusiasm of the home audience for the piece was markedly louder than for the Sant Boi opposition!

The concert ended with the combination of forces and the playing of Sardanas – the music for the national dance of Catalonia.  The evening ended with a spirited rendition of the “Himne de Castelldefels” – something I did not know existed.  Toni’s mum was not pleased as Terrassa does not have a hymn of its own.  Hah!

This is the final verse of this incomparable song:

Castelldefels, el meu poble,

On tothom conviu en pau.

La gent som diversa,

Some germans a l’Univers

Castelldefels, terra meva,

Sempre vas dins del meu cor.

De Catalunya som

I del poble de la flor del margalló

CASTELLDEFELS!

I am not going to translate it.

We both felt that Toni had missed out in not attending such a jolly gathering and hearing such an enthusiastic affirmation of the reasons for living where we do!

Today, Monday, is the Santa of Carmen so we have just returned from Our restaurant after eating a mariscada giving us sufficient energy to try and get to the orchestral concert this evening played by the world famous Southampton University Student Symphony Orchestra.  If it is half as good as the rollicking concert we went to on Sunday evening it will be well worth the effort of attending!

I wait to be wowed!

How little times change!

It is clearly unfair to use experience in a single firm dating back some forty years to start pontificating about a present situation.  That, however, will not stop me.

I am relieved that the build up to the opening of the Olympic Games has taken a more traditional form with disaster looming in the shape of the breath-taking incompetence of G4S with regards to the provision of security personnel for the Games.

I do not take the exponentially increasing cost of the Games as anything other than totally normal but at this point, with a couple of weeks to go we are usually being regaled with stories of half-built venues; inadequate competitor accommodation and traffic chaos.  I have been denied most of these traditional horror stories as venues have been built with an indecent amount of time left for them to be tried out.  But that was then and this is now.

A bridge over the M4 dating back to the sixties has developed cracks and is being repaired with “no guarantee” that the closure of lanes between Heathrow and London will be over by Monday when the bulk of athletes arrive.  At an airport where the queues to pass immigration are things of legend.  But the G4S scandal is the cherry on the top of the cake of institutional corruption.

When I was still in school I worked for a firm which demanded that I sign a document which made the official secrets act look like a model of liberality.  I was to reveal nothing about anything while I was working for them and especially after I left. 

So all I can say is that the firm was to do with Security and they were then regarded as part of the core of the industry.  And after seeing how they approached security (I would not have trusted them to deliver a dead slug safely to its destination) I was not surprised that they demanded workers sign a non-disclosure agreement.

However the chances of such an organization still having the paper that I signed is so remote as to be inconceivable, given the slapdash attitude towards security that I witnessed there.

It is therefore not even with a smidgen of surprise that I learned of the crass incompetence of G4S.  Could this be a descendant of the Group 4 organization which was treated with contempt even by the bunch of chancers that I worked for?  God help!  It seems that not much has changed in the decades since I worked for such a bunch of money seeking, tight-fisted, incompetent wasters.

I hope, but do not expect, the government to claim swingeing compensation for this woeful lack of ability to deliver what they have been paid two hundred and thirty million quid to do!

But I do wish the Games well – even though I am shuddering at the thought of the Opening Ceremony and starting to worry now about our winning the single gold that would ensure that we don’t join a Canadian city as being the only host nation not to win a single gold.  And there is the question of the First Day Covers.

The Post Office has stated that each gold won by Britain will be marked by the issue of a special stamp the day after.  I have already authorized the Philatelic Bureau to send me a cover for each gold won.  In the last Olympics I understand we won 19.  That is a lot of first day covers!  I hope!  You see, no matter how sad you think I am, I am indeed sadder!

Toni’s mother continues to cook and we had a delightful Vichyssoise today with Toni sticking to augmented potato salad instead – I think it was the cheese in the mix that he objected to; he missed out on a delicious hot soup.

Tonight as part of the celebrations of Santa Carmen del Mar there are fireworks so yet another attempt on my part to try and capture one decent photo of an exploding structured piece of gunpowder!  I never give up.

Monday is Carmen’s Santo and we are planning to have a mariscada; timing is the problem as there is a concert by Southampton University Student Orchestra which includes Finlandia, Vltava, The Sabre Dance and Land of Hope and Glory – or perhaps I am being unduly snobbish in assuming a popularist programme just from reading the list of composers.  We shall see.

I have now sent off to Amazon (Spain and UK) for the contents of my Retirement Lucky Bag.  Which I surely deserve to enjoy before the austerity days of September hit!

Although, there again, September is the date when we are going to the restaurant in Girona which is one of the best in the world, so it is austerity with a twist!

Everyone has to adjust to poverty in his own way.