Rain means write

True to my word: the heavens have opened (momentarily) and I have taken to the keyboard, making electronically concrete my pledge to write more when the weather broke. It is still hot, but there is a fresher feeling to the heat than there was yesterday.

This will be another opportunity for this country to display its usual ability to vouchsafe a little sunshine even in the most unpromising of days. The weather in Catalonia lacks the spitefulness of the customary British weather where the sun can disappear for days on end. Here, it is rare indeed for a single day to pass without at least a moment’s sunshine. The clock is set and I am waiting!

Yesterday was a day of waiting. Well, at least part of it. I was scheduled for a hospital appointment at the unnatural hour of 1.40 pm to get the results of my “sleep-over” in hospital to check on my level of sleep apnoea. The threat was that I would be forced to wear some sort of mask during the hours of darkness to encourage me to have a more sleepfully sleepy sleep. From experience derived from my stay in hospital in January I knew that, as far as I am concerned, a mask (however slight) would result in steely wakefulness.

My appointed time came and went and, disturbingly, not a single person came out or went in to Room 12 where my meeting was to take place.

In Catalan hospitals there is a card reader for patients. You take your medical card and let the machine read it, and a few seconds later it recognizes your existence and shows you your name, appointment time and room location. So, as soon as you use the machine, the doctor knows that you are in the hospital and waiting.

And wait I did. Thanks to my mobile phone I was able to while away the time by a combination of intelligent reading and mindless (almost!) game playing so that I never reached that fingernail-down-the-blackboard furious irritation that comes with endless inaction. However, even electronically fuelled activity cannot keep patience even and I flounced off to an “information” section of the hospital to find out what was going on.

And they didn’t seem to know either. Unanswered phone calls and a group discussion produced nothing, but I was told to go back to where I had come from and something would happen.

I returned to the waiting room and nothing happened.

For a while.

And then, through an unnoticed staff door, the person to whom I had been speaking suddenly appeared, motioned me to change my seat and then disappeared.

And nothing happened.

And then it did. Hearing some mangled combination of my names I leapt to my feet and was eventually seen. You have to understand that, in Catalonia, they assume that my middle name (unused expect as an initial in Britain) is my family name and that my last name (my family name in Britain) is my mother’s surname (as in Catalonia). How my dad would have coped in this country, not having a middle name is something to think about.

Anyway I was seen by two tired medicos who were obviously reading my notes for the first time as I sat across from them.

I had all my notes. In Catalonia you can register with your medical centre and download all the notes that your doctor has. I am now building up an impressive book called, “Stephen’s Health” that contains everything about my condition that I have ever been given or I have been able to download. The results from my hospital sleep over had been missing, but they have now found their electronic way into my records and have consequently been transferred to hard copy and extra pages in the book.

The unfortunate thing is that they are largely meaningless to me as they are couched in medical terminology that is beyond me. This is where the website on which my records live shows its versatility as there is also an opportunity to contact your doctor via email to ask for clarification. And that I have done.

We have just had another sharp shower that means that I will continue to type as the lack of sun means that the lure of the sunbed has no present power.

Showers also limit my bike riding. Although I have a cycling rain jacket, a flimsy thing with slashes whose function seems to let the rain in, I distain to use the bike when the weather is inclement. To be fair I can only think of a few occasions in the past six months or so when I have had to use the car rather than the bike, so I cannot complain – and I might add that I have yet to use the rain jacket as I have not been caught in a storm.

But the non-use of the bike at the moment is because of a flat tyre. I have zero intention of either repairing the thing or changing it, so I am looking for a cycle shop to do the dirty work. But, it is August. And no one wants to be in their shops during this traditional shut down time, so I will have to hunt around for some character who is prepared to work during the non-working time of the year. And that is going to be something of a problem.

Although Castelldefels is a seaside town where you would think that everything would be open to take full advantage of holidaymakers, you would be wrong. There are restaurants here that are now closed for the holiday season! 

We have long ago given up about trying to understand just how the commercial mind of this place works, we simply have to go with the illogical flow!

When in doubt, read about it and write!

If anyone cared, which of course they do not, I could list the excuses that would justify my lack of written blog-stuff over the last weeks and months.  That indolence is in the past (he says again) and today, today is the first of the Writing Days that will see me not only complete my daily thoughts, but also see me complete the work on two outstanding books.  I have to admit that I prefer the adjective before the noun in that last part of the previous sentence because it gives me the personal boost that I need to put finger to key and actually get stuff done.

As is so often the case, my return to writing is as a result of reading, and that reading is a result of my hatred of airports.

I am one of the multitude of people for whom travelling is a chore: I like arriving, not going through the process of getting there.  I am well aware that great travel writers (and my late, lamented, and much missed Aunt Betty) are able to make all aspects of their journeys seem fascinating.  Aunt Betty never went on a boring holiday: yes, there were disasters, including one memorable occasion when the family did not have enough money left at the tail end of the holiday to be able to afford a family meal and so my redoubtable Aunt made the executive decision and went out for a meal for one – her!  But for we ordinary folk, the actually process of getting somewhere is almost always tedious and (for all six-foot people) cramped.

The nadir of the travelling experience is everything to do with aircraft.  At least it is if you are travelling low-cost and the person in front of you thinks that the aircraft seats recline and refuses to give up the idea of travelling prone!

It is not all irredeemably bad: one piece of cabin luggage and pre-check-in at least take some of the horror away and, I have discovered, if you are wearing a blue (one has still to be fashion conscious) pressure stocking and are walking with the aid of a Foldystick (god bless them!) and have thrombosis, embolisms and an over working heart, the lady at the check in will look kindly upon you and give you early boarding!  On the return trip from Edinburgh to Barcelona, for the first time in my life, I was the first person on board the plane – having been escorted to the bottom of the steps (where is an air-bridge when you want one?) by not one, but two (count them!) members of staff.  But, for that moment of isolated triumph you have to endure the seemingly endless waiting.

Now, I am not good at waiting.  I would prefer to be doing.  My definition of doing is flexible and doesn’t actually need to be too physically demanding.  Doing, for me, may well be reading.

So, as our little travelling party making the journey from Edinburgh to Barcelona was overwhelmingly composed of people who believed slavish in the necessity for the full (and more) two hours purgatory in the airport before the flight I had steeled myself to an extended period of teeth gnashing frustration – but I had omitted to realize that I would be waiting not in some foreign airport but in a British one.  A British airport where W H Smiths was open for business and had the buy one and get the cheapest half price offer on books.

Toni’s attitude towards my purchasing yet more reading matter that will not fit into a house pleasingly overloaded with books usually means that I limit my impulse buying in the airport, but this time I was positively encouraged to spend because we were in Scotland.

I can still remember my profound disbelief when I first saw a Scottish bank note – soon followed by my plaintive whine about why we in Cardiff did not have our own versions too.  I was very young, still in the days of the large white fivers, when my dad explained that Scotland had its own version of the currency and it was also explained to me that this Scottish money was legal tender in the rest of Britain.  And that was a fact.

In an early example of ‘facts’ not necessarily being generally accepted, I suggest you try and use a Scottish banknote in Cardiff.  On the, admittedly few, occasions that I have been slipped a Scottish note in my change, I have NEVER had the recipient (outside Scotland) accept the ‘foreign’ note with anything other than healthy scepticism or downright rejection.  I was able to play on this attitude to such an extent that Toni was positively urging me to ‘get rid’ of the notes that I still had in any way possible – including the purchase of books!

In what must be a first, Toni actually accompanied me into W H Smiths (!) to aid and abet me in the purchase!

Nowadays, like my Dad, I find myself drifting towards the non-fiction section of the bookshop to get my impulse buys.  I ended up with two books: the first, “Humans” by Tom Philips which had a graphic of an inky left handprint and a subtitle of “A Brief History of How We F*cked It All Up” and the second was “Prisoners of Geography” by Tim Marshall with a graphic of half of the world filled with words, and a subtitle of “The maps that tell you everything you need to know about global politics”.

I have to admit that I bought “Humans” on the strength of thinking I knew the writer, Tom Phillips.  I thought that he was the writer who had produced another Mapp and Lucia novel to add to the all-too-brief sequence written by E F Benson.  He wasn’t.  And I really should have known that someone who could publish a subtitle of such vulgarity could not possible have been comfortable with the style of E F Benson!  I am, however, glad that I made the mistake as I thoroughly enjoyed the book.

For years I looked forward to owning a book with the wonderful title of “Great Planning Disasters” in which the site of the British Library; B.A.R.T.; Concorde and of course The Sydney Opera House were all discussed in loving detail.  The fact that, for example, The British Library and The Sydney Opera House are both excellent entities, the first being an excitingly magical place in which to work and the second being an instantly recognizable, iconic masterpiece do not detract from the absurdly farcical way in which they were created.  In the same way, I look forward to the Olympics, not for the sporting excellence that sometimes appears, but rather for the political, social and financial disasters that so frequently follow the awarding of the questionable honour of staging them and their reality.  For me, the games themselves are something of an anti-climax after the unreal shenanigans leading up to the opening ceremony!

So, my mind set is predetermined to wallow in human cupidity and ineptitude, and “Humans” provides dollops of Man’s (and let’s face it, in the history of global incompetence, the use of the masculine is terribly, and I mean that word literally, appropriate!

For those who might find the language used in this book informal to the point of vulgarity, then I would suggest that the sub-title would have given a fairly clear indication of the attitude of the author and they have only themselves to blame.

I think the book reads like an informed comic novel – the text bounces along and ranges freely through history to find the most glaring examples of what can only be described as f*ukupedness!  For me, the whole book was justified by giving much more information about Thomas Midgley Jr. the “genius engineer, chemist and inventor . . . whose discoveries helped shape the modern world to a remarkable degree” – to find out just how catastrophic his “genius” was.  As the author points out, “He’s in this book because, incredibly, being killed in his bed by his own invention doesn’t even make it into the top two biggest mistakes of his life.”!  And if that little extract doesn’t make you want to find out why and read more then you are a person so far removed from my own way of thinking that I wonder why you are reading this blog in the first place.  Read, and enjoy!

The second book “Prisoners of Geography” (which now I come to think about it sounds like the title of a second musical review at the end of the truly excellent film, “The Producers”) is a more conventionally written book, though it is filled with the personal opinions which, refreshingly, make it into the main historical, social and geographical descriptions in the book.  It is packed with information which is compelling by its sheer obviousness – as soon as you have been told about it!

Reading it reminded me of what turned out to be the first mentioned book in the Bibliography under the General references section: Jared Diamond’s “Guns, Germs and Steel” published in 2005.  I read Diamond’s book in a state of continual revelation and “Prisoners of Geography” has a real debt to it – but that does not make “Prisoners of Geography” derivative, it ploughs its own furrow and a compelling one it is too.  Well worth reading.

For those academics among you the most pressing differences are: “Humans” has a brief, chatty section of further reading at the end, while “Prisoners of Geography” has a sectioned bibliography and a full index.  But I must emphasise that both books read themselves and I will be returning to them in the sure and certain knowledge that I will be shocked anew!

My other purchases in Edinburgh comprised some short stories by Ian Rankin (two quid reduced, I couldn’t resist, and the book has been read and already given away as a ‘reader’ for English with an Edinburgh background to Toni’s sister for her edification; catalogues to the Nolde exhibition in the Museum of Modern Art, the Rembrandt exhibition in the National Gallery, and the gallery guide to the National Portrait Gallery.  I also bought an old catalogue of watercolours of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, because yes, and gallery guides that I purchased second hand on Amazon together with a Masterpieces from the National Galleries of Scotland volume which, as the contents went on tour in the US of A must have depleted the galleries to an astonishing extent, but must also have made a truly startling exhibition.

Books are heavy, and with only one cabin case I had to be especially winsome and “walking wounded” during my early boarding attempt, to deflect anyone from actually weighing my case.  I had to manfully reject any offers of help just in case they realised by the sheer gravitational pull that I might have been just a smidgeon over the approved weight limit.

All the books are safely home and make a truly satisfying ziggurat of colourful information on the coffee table next to my armchair – and because so many of them are catalogues of paintings I have actually “read” them all as well.  Though, I think that I would aver that actually “reading” a painting takes up a great deal more time that a similar allowance made for text.

One painting stands out, for reasons that I am still working on: Adam Elsheimer (1578-1610) The Stoning of Saint Stephen.  Not the beggared version of the painting in Cologne, but rather the “magnificent Edinburgh version, far richer in detail and more complicated in composition” and in particular the extraordinary young man in tip toes in the right hand foreground whose upstretched arms are about to bring a rock on the hapless Stephen’s head.  I also find the dramatically up lit dark haired angel (looking more like a disturbing figure from Degas or Sickett) worthy of note.  To say the least.

I am fascinated by the painting and I am trying to find out more about painter and painting and I think I might write a short monograph on the subject, Watson!

So, plenty to do, plenty to read – as long as the enervating heat keeps off.  Which it doesn’t, so my monograph will be in the realms of fantasy until the weather breaks and I return to my desk rather than the sun lounger!

Give him the bloody tape, for God's sake!

It is not just the uncanny physical resemblance that makes the Trump Baby Blimp so compelling, not even the tiny hand clutching a mobile phone, no, it is the nappy.

Nappies are needed when you are incontinent and, by the lord, Trump is nothing if not that.  Admittedly we need to take the incontinence as a metaphor as we are also assured that Trump is a germophobe - though considering the walking, breathing louses with which he surrounds himself that designation should be taken with a pinch of salt - or insecticide.

His form of incontinence is as though he has recently read Macbeth (fond hope!) and taken to heart one of the eponymous hero’s thoughts (I use the word ‘hero’ because Trump likes dictatorial murderers)

            “The very firstlings of my heart shall be

            The firstlings of my hand.” (IV.i.153)

No sooner does the Orange Monster think of something than his twitching fingers seek out those fatally attractive buttons and the world is made privy to his inchoate meanderings.

I do not wish to labour the link to a deluded, misanthropic, paranoid, unfeeling psychopath as I feel that Macbeth would be insulted by the comparison and would further state that when he betrayed his best friend he did have the good grace to give a very public display of guilt and continue to suffer from that betrayal until his death.  Trump, on the other hand, has such a towering ego that he even out-knives that ruthless political practitioner from my youth: Mac the Knife aka Harold Macmillan, Conservative prime minister from 1957-1963, characterised by one of the better  Private Eye front covers:

Trump in his relatively short time in power has been indiscriminate in his scattergun attempts to blast his many, many enemies.  At least Macmillan’s targets were ‘reputable’ figures of some social and political standing (well, they were Conservatives so. . . ) whereas Trump is so much more of a bully than he is ruthless and is prepared to take on all comers be they great or small or very, very small.

Anyway, ‘incontinent’ is the key word for Trump and it certainly describes how he procedes, and his ‘approach’ to his high office has come to some sort of crunch point with his fawning, lickspittle visit to Helsinki.

Actually, I am not 100% convinced that the generally accepted view that the Kremlin has kompromat on Trump is totally correct.  Trump knows that if there is a tape somewhere of him pissing on prostitutes or watching them pissing on each other, it’s not going to do him any real harm.  Well, as long as he doesnt care about his reputation, which is now so deflated that even all the hot air bluster from one of his acutely embarrassing rallies will not reinflate it.  As a proven liar, racist, homophobe, sexist, mob-friendly, unfeeling, family-buster etc etc etc monster, a little episode of Golden Showers will only add to the mystique of convention-bending horror that has characterised his presidency.

But say there is a tape or some form of clear evidence that he has behaved in a (for previous presidents at least) disgraceful way, and say further that that evidence is held in the bloody assassin’s hands of Dictator Putin, surely, even the repressive Murderer by Nerve Agent must be getting just a little embarrassed by Trump’s belly-up please scratch me approach.

Consider the unfolding disaster that was Trump’s visit to Europe.  By the time he arrived in Helsinki he had questioned the existence of NATO and roundly insulted virtually all the members of that organization; he treated the EU with contempt and actually called it a ‘foe’ of the United States; he insulted his host country of Britain, undermining the Prime Minister while actively talking-up the reputation of the Blond Buffoon; he insulted the Mayor of London with slurs and lies and stated that there were many demonstrations in his favour.

How much does Trump have to do before his Russian Masters are satisfied.  They are not quite as childish as he and they must be choking on the embarras de richesses that the so-called president is giving them: it’s rapidly becoming something out of the mind of Marx - and I don’t mean the one buried in Highgate.

I suppose that Fox and Friends could spin it so that the clear absurdity of the craven position of what used to be the office of the most powerful person in the world towards the 11th or 12th ranked country in terms of GDP, could be seen as a clever and ironic joke, the patent ridiculousness of Trump’s position inviting laughter at the way that the Russians simply lapped it all up!  Unfortunately Trump has no sense of irony as that would indicate a subtelty of which his wrecking ball metality is clearly incapable.

So, with NATO, the EU, the UK, traditional alliances - all in chaos, what else does Putin want his lumbering poodle to do?  What else can he do?  Unless Trump starts bombing Europe - but Putin would not want that as the radioactive clouds would blow towards the homeland.

It is at times like these that I think back to the doomsday scenario that accompanied the 1964 Republican election campaign of Barry Goldwater for President - you see, I can put a capital letter there on the title of the office because, compared with Trump, Goldwater was a thoughtful statesman - that we in Britain shuddered about as we contemplated such a political wrecker getting anywhere near the nuclear triggers.   

The ghost of Goldwater must be howling in whatever section of hell is reserved for unregenerate Republicans as he sees a Republican president lauding a Russian murderer above the security and intelligence services of the United States!

Some people on both sides of the political divide are using the term ‘traitor’ to describe what Trump is doing and has already done.  I am tempted to bring the term to Britain as well and suggest that what is going on as far as Brexit is concerned has much more to do with personal and political power and its retention than anything to do with the state of the nation.

God help us all!

I shall now, in an updated version of Candide’s actions, go and cultivate my sun tan!

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Sport?

With only the sound of passing jets to break the tranquillity of a sleepy Sunday morning, it took more than good intentions to get me on my (electric) bike to make the arduous journey to the swimming pool – you have to understand that I count the bridge over the motorway as an actual hill.  But it is amazing what sheer peer pressure will do to get you moving.  One comment from Toni and I was out of my all-too-comfortable chair and finding a fresh towel.

As it is a Sunday I eschewed my normal route to the pool via the longer way, allowing me to cycle along the paseo next to the sea and beach, as the bright sunshine would have brought out an overwhelming crop of dominguerros (Sunday visitors to our seaside resort) and cycling with oblivious pedestrians is far too hard work in the mornings, and anyway it encourages negative homicidal approaches to progress.  Even along the clearly delineated cycles paths it took relentless dinging of my less than authoritative bell to get the more resentfully recalcitrant walkers to get over on to their bit of the pavement.

My Herculean efforts to get to my daily lengths were surprisingly rewarded by a totally empty pool.  There is little (at least to a swimmer) more satisfying than breaking the pristine surface of a tranquil pool: an example, if ever there was one, of the sort of hidden pleasures of a peculiar life.

I know that everyone has quirks and, while some may be socially disadvantageous there are others that are particular, do not harm and give great pleasure.  I know someone whose choice of beach is purely dictated by the fact that it is next to the airport and lying in the sun had the added advantage of low flying, noisy aircraft enlivening the tedium of tanning.  Another friend has an eye for vegetation and always has her phone camera at the ready to capture the bounce of a bough or the lilt of a leaf; yet another regards a trip to Matalan as justification for a visit to Britain; another regards the Crunchie Bar as the highest achievements of the confectionary trade, while yet another relishes Marmite.  You will note that I have not ventured into the realm of sexual proclivities because, well, because as soon as you go there then all the other little innocuous kinks can be seen as sexual as well.  Take, for example, the diving into a pool.  It doesn’t take a doctor from Vienna to make something suggestive about that!

It's all in the noticing, taking note of something and seeing it in a way that is personal to you.  This line of thought was brought on my sunbathing.

Sunbathing is a tedious occupation, and the sometimes-blotchy results make you wonder if it is all worthwhile.  You tell yourself that the ‘modern’ preoccupation with a tan can really be traced back all the way to the middle of the last century, as, previously (at least in Europe) white skin was more highly valued than tanned skin.  Tanned skin was the normal preserve of the working agricultural classes and was therefore seen as rather infra dig.  In the same way that Chinese Mandarins’ long fingernails was a visible indication that everything (and I mean everything) would have to be done for them rather than their having to do things themselves, therefore showing their high class and their ability to afford the servants necessary to live a long-fingernailed life style.

Nowadays tanning is seen as a sign of health, and to hell with scare stories of skin cancer.  People like my good self, prefer to think that the acquisition of Vitamin D from sunlight is enough of an excuse to indulge.

Anyway, getting away from why I was sunbathing and getting towards how I was sunbathing.  For the purpose of extending my periods lying prone on the beach or on the third-floor terrace I had resurrected my iPod – that now, by the way, appears quaintly dated: so heavy, such a little screen!  But it worked and that was all I wanted.

Being by nature an incurable dilettante I always set the thing to ‘shuffle’ play.  This means that my musical experience is very much like the organization of my library: serendipitously chaotic, where juxtapositions of tomes is so random that it looks contrived!  I put an exclamation mark at the end of that sentence to stop those who know me from shaking their heads sagely and remarking, “Exactly!”

So, my ‘listening pleasure’ via my iPod might feature a movement from one of the less fashionable early symphonies by Tchaikovsky, followed by a Spanish conversation from a previous on-line course, succeeded by a piece of obscure German table music, followed by some random pop.

With earphone stuffed firmly into my ears (see ‘passing jets’ above) I actually listened to the lyrics of ‘Lola’ by the Kinks that were remarkably clear and easily decipherable.  Perhaps everyone else in the world (well, given the sales of the thing it must be a sizeable chunk) knew that Lola was a transvestite or trans-sexual, but I didn’t.  I listened again to check my perceptions and finally thought what a remarkable record that must have been for its time.  It was of course banned by the BBC – not for any sexual priggishness, but rather because the Kinks used the word ‘Coca-Cola’ and the Beeb did not go in for any sort of in song advertising, so the Kinks re-recorded it substituting a more generic ‘cherry-cola’ for the obnoxious ubiquitous liquid.  I am still at a loss to understand how that disgusting concoction has spread like a carbonated plague across the face of the earth.  It can’t all be down to advertising.  Can it?

So Lola, “she walks like a woman, but she talks like a man” or was it “moves”, I can’t remember, and I am typing this on the terrace so that the sun can get at my back, and there is no internet – lying again: there is internet and I have re-read the lyrics and they are worth looking at, you can find them here: https://www.google.com/search?q=lola+the+kinks&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b

The narrative of the song is fairly simple, a guy goes to a club in ‘North Soho’ drinks suspect champagne meets an ambiguous girl and declines to take things further.  Probably.  The interest lies in the detail of the lyrics where we discover that the protagonist is inexperienced “I’ve never ever kissed a girl before” he only left home “a week before”.  He admits that he is “not the world’s most physical guy” or “passionate” or “masculine” not really a traditional build up for the profile of a lover, but then, this is no conventional love song.  In spite of the fact that he is confused “Why she walk like a woman and talk like a man” he “drank champagne and danced all night” with her and it was only when she asked him home that he realized that in spite of living in a “mixed-up, muddled-up, shook-up world” where “Girls will be boys, and boys will be girls” he is able to assert that “I know what I am and I’m glad I’m a man” and, in my favourite line before the final extended chorus, “And so is Lola.”!  I love the general ambiguity in the quality of the attraction between the ‘hero’ and Lola, seen at its most sexually poignant when he gets down to his knees and “that`s the way that I want it to stay” – is that a rejection or an invitation!  He admits that he “almost fell for my Lola” and I think that the use of the possessive is revealing!

This is a rhythmic, musically exciting and lyrically engaging song, it’s a pity that I did not notice the ironic complexity when I first heard it in 1971 when it first came out!  Better late than never.  And who knows what other linguistic delights there will be as I listen more attentively to the occasional erratic pop tracks that pass the time as I bake on the third floor.

The World Cup

I must admit that I have been less than stringent in my not looking at the FIFA (corrupt) World Cup (corrupt) in Russia (corrupt), in spite of my best intentions I have constantly been beguiled into giving this ‘competition’ some attention.  Not, obviously, to the ridiculous extent of actually watching England play, but I have watched some part of some of the games.

At the moment Spain (corrupt) is playing Russia (corrupt) and while I have little interest in the outcome, I did break my typing to go downstairs and get myself a cup of tea where I saw that the so-called King of Spain (corrupt) had ‘graced’ the game with his presence.  May I be the first to extend my congratulations to a Head of State from a fellow European nation giving credence to a state that ordered a murder, using their own noxious nerve agents, in Great Britain.  Thank you, your majesty, and you wonder why you are cordially loathed by your rightfully rebellious ‘subjects’ in Catalonia!  The sooner that a republic is declared in this country the better.  Independence for Catalonia might be a vexed question, but the case for a republic is surely a simple one!  And made simpler every day by the actions of a high handed, autocratic Borbón de Borbón!

And Spain have lost on penalties to Russia.  I am sure that there must be some sort of point that I can make, but the ‘bread and circuses’ simply depresses me too much!

What now!

One definition of ‘hardship’ is having to use the outdoor community pool rather than my rather more congenial local swimming centre.  I realize that this definition is not one that will be enthusiastically shared by those, for example in the UK, where the number of outdoor community pools for private citizens is somewhat restricted.  And even if they were in greater supply than they are, when would an ‘outdoor’ pool ever be used?

And that brings me to the serial untruthfulness of my friends in Britain.  It is a ‘given’ that any telephone conversation between Catalonia and the UK will touch on the weather.  Even though we have had an indifferent early and late spring with weather that all of us grumbled about, I refuse to believe that the weather in my country of birth is markedly better.  Yet, in every telephone conversation I have to listen to my British friends say (yet again) that “Today” (or more tellingly “yesterday”) has/had been glorious!”  [I know that the quotation marks in that sentence are not exactly correct, but merely thinking about them brings back memories of fiendishly difficult exercises on punctuation in Form 4 or 5 that took sick minds to devise - and certainly created nausea in the stomachs of hapless pupils who were called on to ‘solve’ them]  At first we took such statements on trust, but then the suspicious nature of the consistency of response encouraged us to be a little more circumspect and we started to check up on these statements of nationalistic climate one-upmanship.  And behold! the facts would invariably cast (at the very least) doubt on the assertions of flawless skies and tropical temperatures.

It was refreshingly direct, when my cousin Margaret came to Castelldefels, she sent a selfie by the pool or on the beach to the folk back in Maesteg and, at the same time she checked the weather.  Rain, rain, and more rain.  Or, as one of her correspondents put it, “It’s pissing down here!”

It’s odd, isn’t it - the weather is a topic of national conversation, whose awfulness is bewailed at every opportunity.  We hark back to the ‘Great Summer of 1976’ and somehow seem to ignore the fact that it is a warm experience of over forty years ago!  But let foreign weather attempt to better our (for want of a better word) climate and suddenly we become all protective and start rationalizing ‘light rain’ as something that can be ignored, or ‘a patch of blue’ as a sunny day.  Trump’s alternative facts have a lot to answer for.

I have a simple way of showing the difference between the weather in Cardiff and Catalonia.  Every day I use my bike (admittedly an electric one, but I still have to pedal) to go on an epic journey to my local swimming pool.  I do not use my bike if it is raining.  So far this year, I have had to use the car on four occasions.  I ask you, members of the jury, how many days would the bike have been kept at home in Britain?

Of course, you could say that my continuing concern with the weather is a form of displacement activity to encourage my thinking of something other than my health.

Six months ago I was diagnosed with thrombosis, embolism and strained heart.  Eight days in hospital; two weeks total rest; weeks of gradual exercise; hospital appointments; blood tests; health centre visits, a doctor’s visit to the house (!) {sic.}; twice daily injections etc etc etc.  The six-month period is a time for more evaluative tests to see exactly how I am doing.

The last visit to the hospital doctor (as opposed to my local doctor) was generally positive: blood, pee and heart all passed muster.  Now on to leg and lungs!  And it’s the lungs that are the worry as the damage that the embolisms did might well be permanent and if that is so, Other Things Will Need to be Done.  What these things are, I know not of.  But they will be the thorough irritation of my world.  There are Dark Mutterings about some sort of ‘mask’ that might have to be worn during the nights, but I was told not to worry because the newer ones are almost silent.  If that was meant to comfort me, it did not.  My ever-active imagination has already sketched out some form of modern/medieval form of nocturnal torture instrument!

So, while I get browner, as an actual and real sign that our weather is really quite good, and stride about looking the soul of health, I still have nagging worries that I will have to take my local doctor’s injunction that I will have to “remake my world” and live with the consequences of what happened six months ago.

The visible signs of this remade life are that I now walk with a stick (when I remember to take it) and I wear a pressure stocking (when I am shamed into putting it on) and my pathological hatred of the act of walking is now a sort of medical imperative.  I do not look ill.  I do not feel ill.  My swimming times are the same or better than those before January.  But it is difficult to feel totally at ease when you consider that my basic medication is rat poison.  Admittedly it is packaged in little white tablets that can be easily broken into quarters to match the ever-changing daily dose, but the fact remains that I am ingesting rat poison.  On a daily basis.  You might be interested to know that Warfarin killed the rats by causing internal bleeding, and it is that ability to thin the blood that is supposed to help those with thrombosis etc.  And I hope that it is.  This month will demonstrate exactly how effective the drug has been.

I have also had to change my diet.  I am on a low fat and no salt regime and I haven’t had a drink of alcohol since January.  Admittedly I was told that I could have an occasional small glass of red wine - but I would rather do without than be so glaringly abstemious!  No salt is just about impossible unless you cook all your own food and I have less than no intention of doing that, so I tell the waiters that I need to have a ‘no salt’ dish and believe in their veracity.  Well, don’t knock it, I’m not dead yet!

It is ironic that in the The Guardian today (the on-line version that I read) there is a report that suggests that the NHS could save billions by encouraging doctors not to over prescribe and not to encourage patients to have series of tests and examinations that may not be strictly necessary.  I think that the succession of tests that I have had in Catalonia and the level of medical care that I have received are in marked contrast to the service that I would have had if I had still been living in Cardiff.

As a Baby Boomer (Leading Edge) I am of the generation that is now entering into the age when the availability of medical services are going to be called on with greater regularity.  On the 70^th Anniversary of the NHS now is the time to start funding the service as it should be funded and, incidentally, to be taken out of the hands of a Conservative Party (“lower than vermin”) that did everything in its power to try and halt its foundation.

You see the way my mind works.  I start talking about the weather and end up with the NHS.  But thinking about it, they are both linked, and the more I think about it, the more one appears to be a metaphor for the other!  But such literary niceties are for another post!