What price sight!

It all depends on choice.

            When you are not only short sighted, but also long sighted, you are presented with a number of way of responding to your blurred needs:

1               Do nothing and enjoy the blurred world that only really comes into focus when you are up close and personal with what you are looking at.  This approach makes driving, um, challenging and deeply illegal.  It also forces you to be clear about identifying people from shaky outlines, otherwise you are soon tagged as arrogant as you ignore people, or as I prefer to say ‘cut’ them – not through choice but because you have not worked out that they are there in front of you!

2               Use glasses.  This option gives you further levels of choice:

a.     Two pairs of glasses, one for shortsightedness and the other for long distances.

b.     Bi focal glasses that; with a tilt of the head give you (in theory) the best of both worlds in one pair of glasses.

Neither gets away from the fact that you have to wear glasses to achieve some semblance of sighted normality.  Which I hate, have hated and will always hate.

3               Use contact lenses – which also give you a couple of options:

a.     Bi focal contact lenses.  I put these in the same mythical category as Conservatives for Social Justice and Equality and Trumpist Feminism – they exist but they have no absolute reality.  I have tried these lenses and they did not work in a spectacular way.

b.     Lenses for each eye doing a different thing.  In this use of contact lenses you have one lens for reading and the lens in the other eye for distance.  Apparently ‘the brain sorts it out’.  Or not in my case.  In my case I had poor sight in both forms.

c.      Have lenses for short sight or lenses for long sight and use glasses for the one which is not catered for.

I have decided to go with the last option.  I now have lenses to give me good distance vision and I use glasses to read and for close work.

From my consumerist perspective I have been able to indulge my love of spending by buying various forms of reading glasses.  The ones provided by my optician are of the broken-magnetic type which snap together when needed and otherwise life in their dependant parts around my neck.  This is a good gimmick but they are still glasses and I dislike wearing them, but on balance they are some sort of solution.

And as for laser treatment?  I would have to have my eyes sculpted for distance and always have to wear glasses for reading, whereas now, if I choose not to wear lenses or glasses I can always read close up!

And, as I have said before, one set of my reading glasses has little lights built in on both lens frames!  

When the fury about Brexit and the current political situation in Spain gets too much, I can think about the gadgets attached to the next pair of reading glasses to keep me calm.  Or something.

Still don't believe they've allowed it!

Toni is now suffering his own version of Brexigret, as the horrible realization of the action of the so-called ‘socialist’ (sic.) party of PSOE has, by abstaining, facilitated another four years of the systemically corrupt PP (Conservative) party in Spain.

            Neither Toni nor I believe (for a single, solitary second) that either the Cs or PSOE are going to ‘hold PP to account’ because of their own selfish self-interest.  PP may be a minority government, but they can always threaten another General Election which would almost certainly see a reduction in the seats of both Cs and also PSOE.  And since neither Cs nor PSOE have been noted for their dedication to anything other than the continued existence of their respective parties and their illusions of power, it is hardly likely after their prostitution to PP that they will suddenly find a new belief that they might actually have been elected to consider the wellbeing of the country rather than their worthless selves.

            Cs – the sluts of Spanish politics – have shown themselves equally ready to accept the attentions of the ‘socialists’ in the form of PSOE and to vote with the repressive conservatives of PP.  As long as they have a whiff of power Cs will be rubbing themselves around you!  They have mouthed their support for greater transparency and dealing with corruption; it will be interesting to see how far they press their ‘tricks’ in PP to follow their stated policy which apparently makes them a viable and more wholesome alternative to the

            PSOE have wound themselves in logistical circles to justify their support for a government to which they had previously said, “No is NO!”  If another member of that traitorous party uses some unconvincing variant on the, “it is for the benefit of the Spanish people” mantra one more time, I really will throw up.

            PSOE is also terrified of another election, when the “benefit of the Spanish people” might actually result in even more of those so-called ‘socialists’ being turfed out.  So PP can do whatever the hell they like because all they have to do is threaten another election and the Cs and PSOE will scuttle into line.

I have taken my depression with the political situations in Spain and the UK to justify my drinking a bottle of Cava with my meal: a brut nature by Heretat El Padruell.  As any fule kno, Cava is a product of Catalonia, a region of Spain that I confidently expect to see much further down the road to independence as the prospect of four more years of the odious PP in charge sinks in and the reality of an astonishingly corrupt central government calling the odds hits home!

The sun has been shining.  I have swum my metric mile.  The Cava has gone down a treat.  Tomorrow is another day.

People behaving badly

Even though I knew that it was going to happen, I am still sick to my stomach that the leader of a systemically corrupt party that blatantly parades its criminality has been re-elected to continue its grasping misgovernment of Spain for another four years. 

It is in place, not because it won a majority of the votes in the country, but rather because of an unholy alliance between its worthless self and the New Right in form of the laughingly termed Citizens’ Party, the Cs.  Even this combination of the right was insufficient to give it a majority and so it has relied on the Socialists to implode and give it a numerical majority in the parliamentary vote by abstaining.

I should point out that there were 15 members of the ‘socialist’ party of PSOE who had enough self-respect to ignore the questionable shenanigans which led to the resignation of the leader and his replacement with some sort of committee which then negotiated some sort of shameful submission via strategic abstention which has created this worthless minority government.

This is a holiday period when the eating of horsechestnuts, the drinking of sweet white wine and the consumption of pine nut encrusted cakes is obligatory.  The happiness of a convivial family occasion was soured by the shameful spectacle of a group of ‘left-wing’ elected representatives signally failing to do their duty or even to be true to the basic tenets of their political affiliation.

 There is nothing worse than listening to a group of politicians who are clearly far more interested in their own political survival than anything to do with the well being of the country that they have been elected to serve. 

It is painfully clear, and has become even more so as the months have passed and the left failed to make the alliances that would have secured a progressive government, that the ‘socialists’ are far more worried about a government that might reveal the depths of their own incompetence and corruption, or even worse, might force an election in which even more of their number might find themselves without a cosy place in parliament, than any concern they might have about the quality of government they were allowing to form itself after their abnegation of responsibility.  (You have to say that last sentence all in one breath and through gritted teeth!)

PSOE cannot afford to have an election before the four years of this government’s allotted span has been passed and they might have had time to lick their wounds and present a more wholesome picture of themselves towards a doubting electorate.  If they ‘try and hold the government to account’ all PP have to do is threaten an election, and PSOE will scuttle back into supine acquiescence to the Conservative government’s will, terrified of the consequences of their past actions being put to a frankly cynical electorate.

I have absolutely no confidence that PSOE will push forward a reforming parliament and every confidence that they will continue to show the moral cowardice that has resulted in a minority PP regime, again.

As far as I am concerned, the real and moral opposition to the sick triple alliance of PP, Cs and PSOE (with 15 honourable exceptions) is Podemos.  And I further hope that they will take the initiative and show up the paucity of political will that characterises PSOE.  It will also be an opportunity for Cs to put up or shut up after all their talk of transparency and fighting corruption.

I have set the bar so low with the present government that they will have to do very little indeed to gain some grudging approbation from me: allow all the court cases which have seen swathes of PP in court to answer charges; allow the court case against the Infanta and her grasping husband; let all the other PP corruption cases work their way unfettered through the courts; expel corrupt PP politicians and allow past PP politicians to be charged with the crimes with which they have been accused; remove the totally unfair exemptions for certain people from the rigour of the justice system; bring in new transparency laws – that will do for starters.  I might add that getting rid of a seditious minister should be something of a priority, but this government doesn’t think so.  Which, of course, doesn’t really bode well for what they are going to do now and in the future.

Writing about anything else on an evening when so sad an act of political and moral cowardice has been slowly acted out on our television would be inappropriate.  But, as there is every likelihood that we will have to live with the consequences for four long years, there will plenty of time to dredge what positive I can from what looks like a truly depressing political situation and to find solace in other more positive aspects of Spanish and Catalan life.

Bits of paper!

The Open University





It’s thinner, but more colourful; my name printed rather than hand lettered; it has an impressed stamp like the other, but as a sign of the times, also has a holographic stamp too; it’s A4 portrait on paper rather than landscape and card – it’s my degree certificate.

            A repetition of my first degree (right down to the class) though via rather different subjects.  It is difficult not to look at the piece of A4 paper and not think about the money that such a degree now costs to students studying in many UK universities.  Even without taking living expenses and the cost of textbooks, you are looking at twenty-seven thousand pounds.  I wonder what 27K would have got me when I did my first BA in 1970s – certainly more than Room 816 in Neuadd Lewis Jones in Swansea University, and all my textbooks rebound in leather with my personal monogram embossed in 24k gold on the front!

            OU degrees do not cost as much, but the cost of the courses has increased exponentially since I took my first course over thirty years ago: what was a couple of hundred pounds or less is now a couple of thousand.  Such costs are a reflection of political insistence, especially on behalf of the Conservative party which was a vociferous opponent of the whole concept of the OU.  It has forced the OU to become more financially commercial with the result that its courses have become further and further out of reach to the very people they were designed and intended to serve.  It is still a wonderful institution and I am very proud to be a graduate.  At last.  Only taken thirty years!

I have been reading “Great Lengths” by Dr. Ian Gordon and Simon Inglis, which is a pictorial survey of the historic indoor swimming pools of Britain.  This was an inspired Emma birthday present to me as it fits well with the work that I did on the comparison of Hockney and Guevara’s paintings of swimming pools which was the subject matter for my extended essay in the OU course on Modern Art.

            There is still some discussion about the exact location of the swimming pool in Guevara’s paintings and I am hoping that some of the information in the book will allow a more precise identification.  There is a bibliography as well, so there is the opportunity for further research.

            The history of indoor swimming pools in Britain is not such an arcane area of knowledge as you might think.  The impetus to build such pools in the nineteenth century reflected the growing concern with public health and municipal pride.  Pools were divided into classes and the structure of entrances to the pools reflected the need for division of the classes so that they didn’t mix.  When you add concerns about lady swimmers and what costumes both sexes should use you have a complex history of social manners that delights!

            I have only just started reading the book seriously, but it looks like something to which I will return for future research.

            It was also poignant to see pictures of the Empire Pool in the centre of Cardiff opposite the bus station.  It is now demolished; an act of barbarism which I am not inclined to forgive.  I used the pool (only a trolley bus ride from my home in Cathays) when I was a kid and I used it until adulthood and only stopped when Cardiff built a series of new leisure centres which gave access to decent facilities in neighbourhoods outside the centre.

            I ended up using the David Lloyd Centre situated on what is laughingly called Rumney Common (you have to look very closely to find any vegetation finding a way through asphalt and concrete there now) and it had the advantage of being on my way to and from work.  I would sometimes debate, after a long and tiring day, whether I actually wanted my second swim, but I usually found that the car made the decision for me and while the debate was still going on in my head, the wheels of the car had followed the well worn metaphorical ruts and I was in the car park of the centre!

            It is much the same in Castelldefels.  I was a member (I still am, ah the stickiness of a standing order!) of a municipal pool on the other side of the town, but to get to it I had to go out of my way.  The nearest pool was only open air and, while that is more than acceptable in summer, it is a completely different form of masochism in winter!  When the local pool was reformed with a retractable roof I joined the centre and it is the one that I have used ever since.  My only desertions have been during the times the pool is closed for maintenance- and what happens then is a completely different story for another time.

Meanwhile, I am about to meet an ex-colleague from Cardiff who has come to visit Barcelona and we are going out to lunch to give her the opportunity to explain (as if an explanation were necessary) why I made the right decision to retire from public education!  The stories I am hearing about the administration of my last British school are heart-breaking, not only because of the misery of my colleagues but also because of the way that maladministration will make a difference to the way that the kids are taught.  It is at times like this that I remember that I am being paid money simply for being alive.  Even with a streaming cold that is something to warm the cockles of my heart!

And I’ll drink to that!