Write at it!

The one good thing about my note making is that I am still at it.  Even when, like this morning, my official notebook was left at home, I still wrote something as I was savouring my weak tea at the leisure centre.  The quality of the tea is lower because there is a new person behind the counter and she has not been fully Rees-trained yet to produce the sort of brew that can dissolve a spoon – or at least stain it convincingly.  That will come in time.

            Instead of the notebook I used the back of two receipts and, although the notes are sketchy, I think that there is something that I can use, especially the sub-Dylan Thomas scrawl of “the strength of a little cough” – I think that has legs, so to speak.

            This comment, if it even merits that appellation, was all a result of a mistimed swallow.  You know the sort of thing, when someone says after a bout of coughing that something ‘went down the wrong way’.  Well, this was a sort of half swallow and I gave a sort of subdued cough.  And felt the effects of that discomfort for hours.  I am now used to sneezing under water, indeed I am really rather good at it – though I have sometimes thought about what might happen if I follow through after the sneeze and take a deep breath of water.  This has never happened and I always consider an underwater sneeze is positively therapeutic in ways that I do not fully understand.

            It didn’t stop with the sneezing however.  My eyes started stinging.  Nothing to do with the quality of the water, which is catalytically salted or something like that, and not, surely in early February some form of pollen?  Over recent years I have become a little more sensitive to spawning trees and plants, but surely not this early in the year!  
          The eye stinging has lasted into the evening but I am determined that my eyes will be fully operational for the double length offering of ‘The Strain’ which starts at ten thirty this evening.  This is directed by del Toro and presumably is another one of his ‘for money’ enterprises that eventually will fund another ‘Faun’s Labyrinth’ for art.  I have to say I rather like his trashy films as well.  And we are looking forward to some honest to goodness hokum this evening!

Tomorrow to Barcelona for the next meeting of my Poetry Group.  This has become an important part of my literary life and my going there usually stimulates me to work on what the writing focus for the evening has been and to work it into something that can go into ‘Flesh Can Be Bright’ when it is published at the end of the summer ready for The Meal in October.

            My bits of the book are almost done.  The cover is designed; the rough format is determined; typefaces and layout settled; indexes in the course of completion and the introduction waiting to be written – but, to be fair that can only be done when everything else is completed.  
          The other aspects of the book are well outside my frantic fingers.  The translations are out there waiting to be completed, though the Catalan translation is in safe hands and I hope to hear that the Spanish translation has been accepted by the person I asked; the drawings are still in my head; one set I can relax about, the others are far more problematical.  I still have to pick my time to ask about one set, and the last set . . . well, if the worst comes to the worst I will simply have to doctor photos of mine in an artistic and pretentious sort of way!  Though I obviously hope that it doesn’t come to that.  I have ideas of whom I can ask.  I think.

            Anyway it’s early February and I have set the end of May for all the stuff to be in and to be ready for me to set up.  That gives me four months to deal with the inevitable problems that will make spacious amounts of time as nothing!  But that is part of the fun of self-publishing anyway!

Lunch was designed to take Toni’s mind off the fact that not only have his books not arrived, but also there has been no response to emails which he has fired off asking where the bloody hell they are.  Or Spanish words to that effect.

            We ate in what we call the ‘Bucket Place’.  This unflattering name is given to a café which is conveniently situated next to a large car park almost in the centre of town.  You have to understand that virtually everywhere where you can park demands payment – except for the lunch hours.  We were therefore able to park opposite the café and then have our usual.

            The USP of this place is that you can order an ice filled bucket of five small bottles of beer and a substantial tapa for €7.  We splashed out and had another tapa of spiced pieces of meat with tomato bread, more bread and coffee with ice all for the cost of €12!  A full meal, delicious, for two and, as Toni only had a single bottle of beer, more than satisfactory!

And there was an email on our return telling Toni that his books would probably be with him by the end of the week.  I will not be holding my breath, in spite of the fact that these books only have to travel about 20 km.

            If and when they do arrive then it will be all systems go to find a fortnight’s holiday in Grand Canaria.  Wherever we go there has to be Wi-Fi, as we will both be doing our courses.  Toni with his new books!

            My own course has an odd sort of momentum to it.  Some parts simply swim along while others are gloopily theoretical.  I think that most of the artists that we are studying would be amazed if they knew (or indeed if they could understand) the pretentious nonsense written about what they might think that they were doing.  I suppose that is a little unfair because I have gained immense insights into the development of twentieth century art during this course and the more I read the more little bits seem to be fitting into place.  Strange that, isn’t it!

            The next TMA will be a real test as it calls for textual analysis as well as a theoretical overview.  It will stretch my ability and capabilities to do it well but I do think that I see a way through.

            The End Of Module Assessment (EMA) is the extended essay or thesis part of the course and this is the part for which I have selected two artists David Hockney (easy) and Alvaro Guevara (difficult) to compare and contrast.  The ease and complexity is not about their art but simple accessibility.  Reproductions of Hockney’s work abound and I can find any number of critics and art historians to use in my analysis.  Guevara is very different.  Although well known at one time, that time was almost 100 years ago and, as the end of his life was nothing like as successful as his early promise, um, promised, his work has sunk, almost without trace.

            There are very few examples of Guevara’s work in public galleries.  He may have been Chilean, but he had his real training and fame in England and more specifically in London on the fringes of and sometimes in the thick of the Bloomsbury Group.  There are paintings of his in the Tate, but I am not sure that they are on display.  I can get to see them in the storerooms of the Tate, but that needs an official application and at least six weeks notice.

            I am trying to track one particular painting of his from his series of paintings of swimmers and swimming pools called, ‘Little Splash’.  I know this exists and it was on exhibition in 1974 in London but as yet I have not discovered where it has gone or who owns it, or even if it still exists!

            My last contact was with the daughter in Norfolk of a man who dealt with Guevara’s estate and who was/is the owner of an art gallery.  This lead might result in my seeing a black and white reproduction of the painting ‘Little Splash’ or perhaps information about its present location.  Sometimes with the sort of research that I am doing the academic journey is the real satisfaction – which will have to compensate for not actually finding out anything of use!

            The great-grand-nephew of the artist, now doing a PhD in Leeds is keen to keep me up to date with a project that he is working on concerning his relative and has even offered to work in my research in some way to the exhibition on Guevara that he is planning!  A nice (in the appropriate sense of the word) linkage I think.

            My file is growing and I can say with a certain degree of confidence that it is likely that I am the foremost expert on Alvaro Guevara (1894-1951) in the whole of Castelldefels!  An expert, I might add, who has yet to see a single artistic work of the artist in the flesh!  My claim of paramount knowledge is unlikely to be disputed – though I would be delighted to find out that there is someone out there with a wealth of information that I would willingly plunder!

            The one bastion of knowledge that I have not yet breached is the Rothschild Collection.  I don’t really know where to start.  But it will be fun trying!

The New Scourge of the Innocents

Still no books! 

Toni is getting more jumpy by the moment and is working himself up into a fit of justified pique at the way the universe continually stymies his attempts to better himself!  I am simply enjoying his frustration expressed over the non-appearance of mere books, items which do not usually occupy much emotional space in his universe! 

Who would have thought it!  At least he now appreciates some of the stresses in my world where a momentary pause between the instruction to Amazon to get me a book and its delivery is barely tolerable. 

It follows that Kindle was made for me: it is the Polaroid camera of book buying; the antithesis of delayed gratification and a more than dangerous and money consuming drug.  Kindles should come with a mandatory warning on the cover: Warning – Book Buying Can Empty Your Account!

            I have adopted the Science Fiction Book Buying Approach to my Kindle purchases.  I find it very hard to resist sci-fi and if a book, irrespective of any form of quality, is put in front of me, I will read it.  This predisposition to lose chunks of my life, engrossed as I so often was, in badly written fantasy was one with which I had to deal. 

My solution was to concentrate on one sci-fi author at a time; buy the books second hand; pay no more than 50p per book.  This series of restrictions meant that I could look at lots of second hand sci-fi books and reject the majority because they did not conform to the rules for purchase that I had put in place.

This policy does mean that I have read everything, and I mean everything, by authors like Isaac Azimov and Robert Heinlein – and I feel a better person for having done so!  So there!

How the SFBBA relates to Kindle is that I will only buy bargain books; special offer books; bundles of cut rate books; free books or books which would cost too much to order in the normal way and which I do not want to have taking up shelf space – which of course does not exist in my book crowded life.

I have resisted Toni’s suggestion that I buy a few Kindles and but the whole of my library on them for a variety of reasons.  One it is impracticable (or do I mean impractical) because not all the books are out of copyright and available for nothing.  The ones that one has to pay for mean that replacements would cost a fortune. 

There are far too many of my books which do not have a digital version.  The art books would be largely impossible to digitize.  Academic books which one needs for reference are strangely unwieldy in a digital form – I need the ability to flip from section to section.  And so the list goes on.  I imagine that part of the reason that I don’t want to change in this way is a sort of Luddite, Captain Swing approach that is only imperfectly hidden by a superficial technological infatuation when it comes to books.  I am obviously a purist and need the physicality of paper to make the reading experience complete!

The one thing that has just arrived, well, the two or three things actually, is/are the memory upgrades that Toni needs for the next stage of his IT course and I need because he is having one.  Nothing petty about my approach to life!

            And I have been told to shut down things as Toni has, already, installed the upgrade in his laptop, and now it is time for my MacBook Air to have its treatment.  Needless to say Toni has been able to upgrade his non-Mac machine with a greater memory than I am able to do with my machine.

I have left a gap to signify the difference between upgrading the memory in Toni’s Asus computer and in my upmarket, gleaming, metallic MacBook Air.

Perhaps I should preface this little section by saying that I have decided that I will NEVER buy another Apple Mac product for the rest of my life.  Shoot me if I go back on that statement!

Toni manage to upgrade his RAM within minutes.  Mine, however, was (is) a real problem.

Firstly, the screws are unique to Mac and Toni broke two trying to get them out.  The design of the screws are malicious details added by Apple to discourage any attempt by an owner to do anything to his machine.  I went from shop to shop to shop trying to find a five thingied head screwdriver of the minute proportions needed to get the bloody screws out.  Nothing.  And in our registered official Mac dealer I was told that he, the owner had a screwdriver and screws, they were not for sale and he didn’t know anywhere where they could be bought.  Apple – the friendly company!

I have now ended up buying a specific Mac necessary micro screwdriver and a set of screwdrivers for what Toni might find inside if and when he ever gets inside the bloody machine.

But am I bitter?  Well, yes I am.

Lunch did manage to lessen my angst – a brilliant meal in one of our regular restaurants, the restaurant, indeed, where we are going to have our United Nations Day meal in October.  Each time I go there I convince myself a little more that the choice is the right one.  And the hardware that Toni needs to complete the job on my machine should be here, at the latest by the beginning of next week.  And it’s not as if the computer isn’t working or anything, so I am quite prepared to wait. 

And at least I have got my books!

Anticipated action

As I hurriedly switched off my kitchen Internet radio as soon as a certain Sunday morning regular was threatened, I reflected that this is the longest period in my life (apart from my very early years) that I have resisted the allure of The Archers.  I have heard and read scraps of tantalizing information about the radical and sensationalist nature of the present story lines.  I have half listened to horrified commentators discussing the possible move from Ambridge of part of the Archer family – but I have resisted the urge to leave the radio running when the seven o’clock news (8 pm for us) has ended.

            But, in the same way as I always describe myself as an Anglican Atheist, always recognizing the powerful temptation of that vacillating organization, perhaps I should describe myself as a lapsed Archers listener rather than a person who does not listen?  Even writing about them I sense a tingling in the forefinger of my right hand which just needs to snake its way behind my head and press the internet radio button in the living room for familiar (or now, I fear, complete strangers) will talk their way into my life.

            From past experience, when I have un-lapsed, I know that it will be days before I am back in the swim of rural, agricultural life and hooked once more.  So, I’ll carry on typing until the urge subsides.

            Yesterday evening was so cold (for us) that we went round rolling down the shutters on some of the windows.  Our windows are thinly glazed and much of the heat that we generate (from the most expensive energy providers in Europe!) is dissipated.  It does give our living space the appearance of an underground cavern, but it does make it warmer.

            At the moment the sun is on the back of my head and the skies are a peerless blue – but it’s still cold for we seashore dwellers.

            I have now reached 450,000 page views in this blog.  Which is frankly astonishing.  I am not sure that I can bring myself to believe that the number refers to actual fingers on keys and eyes on computer screens.  I feel that many of those hits must be electronic website crawlers snuffling their intrusive way into all aspects of our computerised lives.  Or perhaps I’m wrong and this diary of a relative nobody has had a real audience that I would describe as damned healthy!

            To whoever (and whatever) is reading this: my thanks.  You, the unseen audience, have encouraged me to keep writing and give me a conduit to the past.

            A few days ago I delved back into the early years of this blog and re-read the end of my time in The Worst School in the World in Sitges.  I was gripped, amused, depressed and relieved – and anything which can generate those emotions deserves to be read!

            I also realized the number of spelling mistakes, infelicities in expression, things left unsaid, lacunae, self-indulgence, incoherence, rabid meanderings, neologisms, simple mistakes, and so on.  But all of those gave the writing an immediacy and freshness that would disappear in a more polished format.

            I really do feel that I am now back in the flow of writing this blog and feel a new enthusiasm for its production.  There is also regret for the omission over the past year and a bit.  That perception of my life is now gone for that period and will never return with the immediacy that these pages give to my lived wonderings!

At the moment one of our neighbours has got an engine, a motorcycle engine I think it is, running in his back garden giving the effect of a medium sized plane stationary next to the swimming pool.  There is just enough variety in the monotony of the intrusive sound to capture attention but not enough to satisfy it.  It is the sort of sound that makes half past eleven on a Sunday morning just perfect!  What better time to irritate the maximum number of people relaxing after a week in work?  Why is it that flame throwers are never to hand when you need them most?

Toni is now reaching a high point of frustration about the non-appearance of the book for his course.  He has already expressed himself with exemplary volubility about the sudden imposition of charges for these essential pieces of equipment for his next two courses and, having paid for them, he is now equally fluent in his vituperation concerning the university and the delivery organization.  It will be ironic indeed if the books that I have ordered (for my course, of course, naturally) arrive before his!  I only hope that I am in the swimming pool when that happens and that Toni will have the self-control not to consign my reading matter there!

Time to sip the dregs, depart and make up for my lack of lengths yesterday!

see also: smrnewpoems.blogspot.com.es 

Making up for a missed day

The sun is shining directly on the computer screen making it difficult to see the words.  That isn’t strictly true of course, I merely have to increase the light with the touch of a button and my screen is quite easy to read, but I simply like to spread the feeling of envy around a little especially to stir up my friends in Britain!  Though to be fair our television screens here in Spain have been filled with pictures of vast (for us) snow drifts and dire prognostications about the fearful diminution of liveable temperatures during this weekend.  Living by the sea we are generally insulated from the worst excesses of poor weather.  So, while it is cold, it is also bright and the temperature finds it difficult to get below about five degrees.  Which is cold, but it is minus 14 in other parts of the peninsular, or so we are told.  We here in Castelldefels tend to regard these as horror stories told to make us feel smug in our relative warmth.

            Which does not stop it feeling cold and I type this wrapped in my black, furry blanket.  While still wearing sandals of course.  Some things cannot be changed merely because it is not the season!

For the first time ever I have returned from my swim without having swum.  In spite of circling the leisure centre like some sort of predatory shark, there were no parking spaces to be hand, not even for ready money!  There are of course always parking opportunities for those with no consideration and total belief that no policeman or warden will ever venture out over the weekend.  And indeed I did see one Pedralbes tractor (our equivalent of the Chelsea variety) bark over a whole grid of motorcycle spaces; another park at an almost perfect tangent to a rounded corner; another park on a zebra crossing, and numerous others double park.  But I am made of more law abiding stuff and spurn to descend to the parking contempt of Johnny Foreigner.  One has one’s standards.  Low they might be, but there are limits.

            I have told myself that there will be time for my swim after lunch.  We are expecting Irene to descend from the hills wherein she lives and join us for the repast.  She has had snow!  We sea-shore dwellers are hardly surprised by this as we tend to regard people who live above the third floor as having alpine tendencies and therefore prey to the white stuff.

            It all fairness it has to be admitted that the approaches to Irene’s home are vertiginous, and when we visit (in the days of warmth and sunshine) we often speculate on the chaos which a touch of frost must bring.  The idea of the white stuff on the roads is too awful to contemplate with any equanimity.  And Irene was duly trapped in her habitation by the fall that we had a few days ago.

            I was able to appreciate the aesthetic appeal of snow by gazing at the surrounding hills when I left the leisure centre.  Distant views of the stuff are more than sufficient for me.  I still have nightmares about my horror drive from the school on the hill during one storm.  By homeward journey took me nine times longer than normal, to say nothing of the psychological damage done to my nervous system by having to invent ever more colourful forms of abuse to lighten my progress and the structural damage done to the metallic integrity of the car by the sheer bombarding volume of that abuse.  Those who live and work in the hills must suffer the consequences!

Toni is still bleating on about the non-arrival of his books.  I am delighting in such moaning, relishing our moment of fellow feeling about shared deprivation.  Half jokingly Toni asserted that he would need one of the bookcases in the living room to accommodate his growing library.  Unfortunately I do not have space to spare and Toni’s suggestions about how to make space have been treated with the contempt that they richly deserve.  As Monty Python said, “Every book is sacred” or something like it, and I see no reason to change one of the guiding tenets of my life, discarding tomes merely because I may not have looked at a particular volume for a decade or so!  Heresy indeed!  What I say is, if you start to throw away books then you are on the vicious downward spiral ending up in voting Conservative.  And we all know where that will lead us.  Again.

Booking a room for Irene for the festivities in October was just a trifle bizarre.  Given that the Meal is in the restaurant near where we used to live, the little hostal behind the Most Expensive Supermarket in the World (the same supermarket away from which Toni’s horrified mum dragged me when I expressed the intention of buying tomatoes there) would obviously be the best bet for a cheap and convenient one night stop for Irene.  Some hope!

            When I parked, suspiciously easily, on the main road I should have realized that things were not going to be that simple.  The door to the hostal was closed but pushed open when I tried it and there was the Old Man hunched against the counter with his signature half-smoked cigar in his mouth.  He watched and listened as I outlined my needs and then, with a broad and totally uncharacteristic smile told me the hostal was closed; would be closed and would not have had been opened.  At all.  Ever.  Even for a room booked so far ahead as October.  Never. 

OK, I get the idea of the open hotel which is closed.  But why was he waiting behind the counter in the tiny reception area?  Waiting for what, for whom?  Perhaps it was to give the totally unhelpful suggestions of pricy alternatives to his non available accommodation.  Perhaps he is working on becoming a well-known eccentric – the only person in a hotel, walking through the empty rooms and looking for a hatchet to get into the bathroom.  Who knows?  Who cares?

            It did give me the opportunity to wander about and ask about spending other people’s money.  Ceri and Dianne’s flats were a little pricey.  The Playafels was equally expensive.  Paul Squared’s putative dwelling was reasonable however at around €40 around thirty quid.  That is not for an apartment, just a room and without sea view, but affordable – and with parking.  Though, thinking about it, there is not likely to be that much of a problem in the autumn.  Still, nice to make assurance double sure.

We will probably have lunch in Isla de Cuba in the centre – though I am not sure that that is the correct spelling.  This is one of the few restaurants that keeps the price of the weekend menu del dia at the same price.

            That restaurant was exactly where we went.  The place was crowded and we were eventually given a place not noted for its salubriousness – directly in front of the entrance to the toilets!  In spite of that the meal was good, though Toni had to have his meal taken away and the correct form of lomo given to him.  A small price to pay for a more than decent meal and at a weekend cost which is virtually unbeatable.

            I am still conscious that I haven’t gone for my swim and that time is slipping away and there could, oh the horror of it all, be a day when I had not immersed myself in the lightly salted waters of my local pool.

Thanks to Irene we have been struggling with the addition of a new program to our computer systems: Picasa – which is a photo program to add to the others which we have. 

I am prepared to go with this one as it offers the possibility of my making something of the photographs that I have taken for my ‘Trees’ poem sequence.  My way of thinking is that if I can make it look arty enough then I might be able to get away with using my own work rather than that of other people.  I will see.  There can be no harm in trying something new in the hope that I can get something productive out of it.

I am missing my swim.  If that is the most appropriate tense to use.  Who knows.

Don’t forget the new poems at smrnewpoems.blogspot.com.es