A Whole Fortnight?

It is a piquant part of the opening celebrations of the Olympic Games that one of the people who had a hand in the designing of ‘The Bird’s Nest Stadium’ one of the signature buildings of the Games has chosen not to attend.

If I have missed one thing during the build up to the Games it is the presence (at a reasonable price) of The Guardian. This is not because I need the reassurance of the ‘Opinion is free but facts are sacred’ motto of Randolph Scott, the lanky, laconic cowboy and one time owner of the paper, but because I have missed the doom laden opinion of the whole concept of the Olympic Games for which The Guardian is famous.

I think that the Tokyo Olympics was the final Games that I watched on the level of Baron Courbetin’s English-public-school-cricket-loving-it’s-the-taking-part ethos; every Games since I have enjoyed for the naked political cockpit of ruthless ambition that they clearly are. And the BBC music for the Tokyo Olympics was the best tune until Barcelona in 1992.

From the political corruption for the ‘election’ of the city for the Games; through the bitter recriminations about where to site them; the more mercenary corruption of the escalating costs; unfinished buildings with the usual strikes and panic; unfair distribution of tickets; hypodermics glinting in the sunlight as ‘athletes’ pump themselves full of substances; to few hotel rooms and at too high prices; a catastrophic transport system and so on.

Those are the aspects of the Games that I like most: the action of the Olympics is often a rather ordinary series of running, jumping and kicking. Oh yes, and the Brave British Boys (and Girls but they didn’t alliterate) as they fail to live up to the absurd hype. Thanks to our participation in the early Olympics of the Modern Era when plucky Englishmen joined in a race when they were on holiday and they happened to find out that the Olympics were taking part, took their top hats off and bally well ran for the old country, and got a gold by gad! Our position in the medal tables still reflects our medal tally from long ago when only a few countries actually took part. Now, of course, when we regularly find ourselves behind a country like The Galapagos Islands, the Games have become a time of national humiliation rather than celebration and they are greeted with dread rather than excited anticipation.

One newspaper prediction stated that we are in the best position to amass a reasonable haul of medals which could see us in the top ten. I can only assume that this particular journo was on the same drugs that fuel the endeavours of the athletes when it was written. God knows we are a pessimistic people, but past experience has shows that it is a good default position to take when it comes to British sporting prowess.

The example to justify all of this depression is of course the Lawn Tennis Association. The genteel corruption of the LTA makes the Mafia look like a charitable institution. The LTA founded the sport, they have led the world in setting the rules of the sport, they have had umpteen millions pass through their hands and we have not had a male Wimbledon Champion since Fred Perry in the last millennium. We are the fourth largest economy in the world and Sweden has more indoor tennis courts than we do.

Talking of corruption I do hope that all event winners and all medal winners will be drug tested – and not by scientists connected to the autocratic, corrupt, totalitarian, censorship loving regime of, yes, you’ve guessed it, the International Olympic Committee. The pious platitudes which drop from the mouth of Blatter (or whoever that corrupt organization has established as a mouthpiece) as he urges the brutish, repressive, secretive, oligarchic apology for a government of the Chinese to be more open and liberal is too sad even to be ironic.

So, the opening ceremony is now over.

The best thing was the size of the Olympic flame. I do like a flaming flame, something which represents the passion of the event, not the sedate, tasteful lapping flames that we have had in past Olympics.

The Spanish upped the ante by having the flame lit by an archer firing a lit arrow into the bowl of the Olympic flame. I have to admit that the Chinese produced something more astonishing with the torch bearer hoisted on high to mime running around the top of the stadium and lighting the flame. Majestic!

There were moments in this overlong ceremony which were, if I may quote myself from my shameful broadcast on The Cunning Little Vixen, “visually stunning.” The giant speckled light Olympic rings; the globe rising from the stage with runners impossibly running at different latitudes; the light suits; the Olympic flame.

But.

I thought that the final raising of the Olympic flag by a squad of goose stepping soldiers was grotesquely out of kilter with what the Olympic ethos should be. Just as the opening sequence and other throughout reminded me of those repellent Spartakiáda, or mass gymnastic displays http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartakiad beloved of Communist countries http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_gymnastics I find them fascinating if disgusting. For me the subordination of the individual to the whole, the degredation of the single human to a mere piece of a jigsaw puzzle to make a moving pattern is the antithesis of what I believe is an acceptable image for a nation. And certainly for the Olympic Games.

Oh yes, and if you can still think back that far, I do know the difference between Randolph and CP Scott – but both ‘availing to good’ I think!

I am not alone!

A kindred spirit!

One of the people I have been writing to actually lives in Sitges and has been following the history of the School That Sacked Me from a parent’s point of view. I feel that at last I am pushing on an open door and that here is an official voice that will welcome more information to the detriment of that dreadful institution. It is a very pleasing period when I actually think that people are listening. Action, however, is the key to my efforts and that will take until the end of the month to show any indication of its presence. I do hope that Spanish bureaucracy is like the mills of god: the slowness is something which is endemic to all governmental departments – it is the ‘grinding exceeding fine’ that I am hoping for!

(And, by the way, who knew that the saying,
“Der gelbe Kern der Erde, das Gold, hat alle Macht,Daß alles sonst für ihme wie Schalen wird geacht.”
The famous part of which can be translated as something like “The mills of god grind slow, but they grind exceeding fine” or some such variation was by (Baron) Friedrich von Logau?

And should I have heard of him? Or indeed of his pseudonym Salomon von Golaw? Have you ever hear of him? Truthfully?)

Toni has now succumbed to the suspected virus from the menu del dia and has taken to his bed, not, I might add without having devoured chicken and chips for lunch bleating, “If I don’t eat I will fall over!” My body is much more organized: at the first signs of gastric trouble my brain instructs the body to go to bed when it then closes down all unnecessary functions and goes about phighting phagocytes or whatever corpuscles are supposed to do. When I wake up, usually after a rough day, I am better. Thus it has been and long may it continue!

Sometimes it is just as satisfactory to find that you have discovered nothing new in undergoing an experience but rather have substantiated your prejudices. A man without prejudices is not someone I would like to have a drink with. Prejudice is surely a natural part of life; as natural as lying. If you are capable of forming an opinion or expressing a point of view then you must be acquainted with prejudice.
After all it is perfectly possible to enumerate a convincing list of reasons why it is better to support Barça than Español, but the Barça supporters who I know do not bother to try and convince those who do not share the faith, they merely state what they believe to be true: that support for Barça is a natural state of being - it needs no justification; it merely is.

So the party for the three year old fulfilled all my direst expectations. I was not; it has to be said, at my fittest having spent the entire day lounging in torpor on the bed. This was not merely indolence but an enforced inactivity due to the previous day's menu del dia: the meat balls and cuttlefish in a tomato sauce in particular. We have come to this conclusion as this is the only food which we both ate yesterday and both of us have had gastric consequences.

So it was with the pale strained face of the martyr (Stephen by name, Stephen by nature) that I set off on the trip to Terrassa.

We were the first to arrive and so I was able to claim my corner with no trouble at all and so was partially able to contemplate the future horror with something approaching equanimity.

Presents are a major problem in the modern middle class household with a young child. The concept of 'spoiled' has moved on somewhat since I was the age of Toni's nephew.

The way that I was trained to accept presents from adults no matter what the quality – of adults or presents – is vastly different from that which can be adopted by the modern child. Indifference, boredom or outright rejection are all accepted by adults with an almost apologetic, self depreciatory grin. I would have been whipped until the blood flowed if I had dared express any emotion other than ecstasy on receipt of a gift.

That, I have to say, is not strictly true. My parents were not followers of the Jeroboam school of parenting the, “My father has chastised you with sticks, but I shall chastise you with scorpions” approach. What I got after each and every social interaction was my mother turning to me in the car as we departed and prefacing her comments about my behaviour with, “I was ashamed when you . . .” Now you have to understand that my public behaviour was such that parents today would go down on their bended knees and thank god for such a well mannered child. My politeness frightened people.

When I was still a schoolchild walking down the street in our area a man in a car stopped and asked me for directions. I gave him the necessary directions and he went on his way. The rest of the story I know because he ended up in the house of a friend of my parents where he gibbered out some account of stopping a kid on the road only to be met by an attitude and voice which convinced him he was a clodhopping peasant from another world. In tones of wonder (or using four letter words) he pondered who this paragon of good breeding could be. His description convinced my father’s friend that he knew the child and so they all came to our house where the directed gentleman complimented me on my behaviour but in a way which managed to express his disturbance at the same time!

So I would never have brushed aside a proffered present as Carles did. But, there again, he did have some justification because he was presented with a mountain of presents.

Virtually all of them requiring batteries. He had Mickey Mouse’s House (it’s a modern cartoon thing, nothing to do with the traditional series); Mickey Mouse’s Hand Balloon (see above) and Minnie Mouse from us. He had a dishwasher with lights, sounds and little plates and cups etc. He had a boom box for his mp3s and DVDs. And he is three. I rest my case.

What the hell are they going to give him when he is six? Let alone when he is eighteen!

Time to be rich!

Toni is busily using a program that he has downloaded from the internet to design his perfect house. He has to get his skates on because it will need to be ready for the 17th of August.

On this date my ticket will be drawn and I will win 20,000,000€. We will then waste no time in setting about our new lives.

10,000,000€ each is a sizable chunk of money. I have, in spite of Toni’s vehement protestations to the contrary, decided to give 10% to Oxfam and thus, with my conscience provided for I can indulge myself thoroughly.

Of course, with my taste in Art (with a capital ‘A’) 9,000,000€ does not even get me into the auction room with any real chance of success. Think about it: ‘The Marriage of Don Arnolfini’ is firmly in the National Gallery and even a fairly ordinary portrait by Van Eyck (should there be any left in private hands) would be a bit of a snip at the money that I could afford. I would probably have to settle for some sort of lesser pupil of a Master who once had a cup of tea with a nephew of Van Eyck or something.

Strange isn’t it that having vast wealth will only take you into the next level of deprivation when you realise that though the next Ferrari is not a problem buying even a fairly small Van Gogh is.

I am sure that there are some among you who will say, “But how many tickets for the summer draw in Spain do you have?” I would answer you do not need quantity when you have the winning ticket! By such self deception do I lead my life!

All things, as they say, are relative.

And talking of relatives we have to go to Terrassa for the Third Birthday of The Chosen One. Now in many ways (or more probably all ways) I am dreading this event. It is very difficult to see any positive aspects to the occasion. It is going to be full of small, hyperactive, selfish, screaming, developing human beings; the predominant language is not going to be English; too many of the drinks are going to be fizzy sugar based rather than fizzy grape based; The Chosen One is going to have more presents and at far greater cost than I had when I was three.

I will never forget a Christmas in Gilfach when one grandchild simply got bored with opening the mountain of Christmas presents she had! Every Puritan nerve in my body twanged as I observed a level of being spoiled which made my fairly generous upbringing look like the equivalent of being incarcerated in the Château d'If on bread and water with thin gruel as a treat for Christmas!

In The Chosen One’s house there is a small corner by a window which is an ideal hiding place. Obviously the flat is too small to hide in reality, but this corner is perfect for apparently making you part of the festivities, yet, at the same time putting you on the periphery. The window also allows a stream of fresh air to oxygenate the brain cells so that my characteristic form of Fractured Spanish can be called into action and facilitate what passes for conversation with my language skills!

Nicola, Nigel and the girls are off back to Britain today. They have taken the usual ghoulish delight in phoning home to listen to the fall of rain and they have been fortunate in the amount of sunshine they have been able to focus onto Pale Parts. I am sure that Nicola’s legs will turn a very fetching shade of brown as soon as the flaming red has been quenched!

Nigel bewailed the lack of a balcony in the hotel in which they are staying and it is a major minus. There is something slightly sordid sitting on the edge of the bed in a room sipping ice cold laager from a can, whereas there is something altogether civilized and suave in doing exactly the same thing on a balcony watching the setting sun fizzle its way into the sea. I think that they have already selected an hotel which can fulfil this function for their next visit.

Meanwhile Emma, the two Pauls and my cousin Judith have all confirmed their flights and their arrival dates have been added to the calendar. I don’t have much time to polish my language skills before the arrival of Emma, but by the time the others arrive I should have started my lessons in Castelldefels.

I am hoping, with no real evidence, that this time round I will ‘take’ to the lessons and all the new parts of the language that the lessons outline will magically be hard wired into my spoken conversation in Spanish. I also promise to take ‘501 Spanish Verbs’ out of the bookcase and begin to use it properly.

Verbs are pretty important in all languages, but they are the key to Spanish. This is unfortunate as my chosen form of foreign communication is via nouns linked with slurred verb memories. This makes me sound like some form of articulate drunk where listeners have to take the nouns which are pronounced as well as I can make them and guess the context and tense from the mumbled connectives. At least it is a start and when linked to my professional use of the word ‘si’ almost passes for conversation!

Almost.

Always ask

There are many ways in which a non native in Catalonia is at a disadvantage. Take, for example, trying to get a repeat prescription.

In Catalonia, or in our medical centre anyway, when you have a long term medication on prescription then you are given two months’ worth of prescriptions. In Britain this would be two scraps of paper to show for this. Not so in Spain.

In this country owing to their inordinate desire for pieces of paper for every transaction (and what would appear to be a deeply ingrained belief that everyone is on the make) there is a full A4 sheet of paper for each and every medication. Times two of course. It is only when you go to the pharmacist you see why the separate sheets are necessary. For every medicine you are given the bar code is cut off the box and then sellotaped onto the A4 sheet of the same medication!

Before you get to the stage of actually having pills in your hot little hand you do have to get the prescriptions.

As long as you have a medical card and a number all things are possible. It merely takes a swipe of the card and the medicine that you need comes up on the computer and the printer then starts churning out the paper work.

In our bright and modern medical centre the prescription person is in a room at the end of the consulting rooms in the section of the centre designated the ‘infirmary.’

There are groups of linked bent wood chairs linked in a sort of bench affair and set out in facing lines at right angles to the windows which run the length of the corridor. I am explaining all this so you can appreciate the problem that faces a non native when entering this area.

You walk down the corridor past sets of seats and take your place in the seats nearest the door for the prescriptions. Not unreasonable you might think considering the other doors were consulting rooms for patients to see their doctors.

Wrong!

I took a seat and waited for the next person to go into the room. The person who did was not from the people amongst whom I was sitting.

A woman who joined our happy crew asked who was the ‘ultimo’ and I realized that my assumption of proximity was completely wrong. I moved my place to be near the woman so that I at least had a guide to when I could enter. The next person to arrive merely stood near the door. His arrival caused suspicious glances and suppressed irritation.

Sure enough as the next person came out he attempted to go in. General indignation! High powered conversation with an edge of real animosity took place. At one point I was dragged into this discussion and my only contribution was to mutter something about ‘machines with numbers’ to my neighbour who later used this solution in a more general conversation later!

It turned out that everybody in the area was waiting for prescriptions, but the impetuous man completely changed the dynamic of the place and everyone became a little more paranoid. A few people from further down the corridor started queuing with a defiantly propriatorial air.

Eventually the situation reached the point of farce as each new person in waiting had to find his place in the order of being seen and a complex dumb show took place as each in a series of jerking hand movements to show the sequence.

I was eventually seen and given the multitudinous pieces of paper. This achieved I was ready to go on to my next queuing experience.

I have written previously about the horror which is the post office in Castelldefels. This particular circle of hell has a ticket machine which gives you a number. From previous experience I knew which of the five buttons to press – which was just as well as only two of the buttons had a description next to them, but it you didn’t get the right ticket to go with the right postal activity you had to start again with a new tickets. Firm but just!

There is a sort of coma which I can now induce at will to cope with the stasis which is the post office. So, although the wait was verging on the intolerable, it didn’t actually get there.

Then there was the wait at the pharmacists to get the medicine. The lady (I use the term with a degree of flexibility) before me was one of those people with a ‘little list’ and who had a discussion about each item on it with everyone in the store – except the tall man waiting behind her with the fixed smile on his lips.

This too passed.

And as I finally escaped to regain my home and sanity, I realised that I had left my medical card in the pharmacist.

If it doesn’t kill you it makes you stronger!

They say.

Holiday Times are Hard Work

Our block of flats is now a living hell!

August = Holiday = Family = Togetherness.

As the smallest of these flats (i.e. ours) is three bedrooms you can imagine that three or four generations of noisy, baby producing, dog owning, smoking and pool using people are now comfortably infesting our previously sedate immediate neighbourhood.

The only way to counter this influx of foreign (in all senses of the word) bodies is to attack. I now officially consider virtually everyone I know as family and cordially invite them to stay with us in the flat and to speak loudly on the balcony in the King of Tongues so that the parvenu usurpers to proprietorship can be put in their place.

When the best that Spanish Literature can do to boost the status of their language to counter the massive kudos of Shakespeare is to roll out Lope de Vega as Big Bill’s opponent then you know that you are onto a winner. Take it from one who has read Lope de Vega that he is a playwright you only read if you have to. Various modern productions have tried to make his plays relevant and trendy, but they are giving better directorial ideas than he deserves!

I am typing this on the balcony crouching in a sliver of shadow from the fierce heat of the sun. The beach is as packed as a very long beach (which could probably take the entire population of Catalonia if it had to) can be. Professional beach goers have virtually created small towns out of connected beach umbrellas, tables, loungers and collapsible chairs and tables. They have boats and floats and god knows what else and you half expect them to start building palisades and mount forays against near beach denizens to take over their space!

Talking of space have you noticed (if you do not have a baby) just how much the ‘essential’ impedimenta space for an inchoate, incontinent and incoherent human being actually takes up?

At lunch yesterday there was a family party of mother, father, doting aunt and grandmother centred on a nappy wearing child whose greatest achievement (met of course with whoops of delight) was thrusting a bread crust in the general direction of the mouth of her father. This was accompanied, of course, by disgusting gurgles and shrieks which would have had anyone else shown the door immediately. When they finally did leave, each one of the adults was burdened with an enormous bag which contained ‘things for the baby.’ And they had a pram packed above and below with yet more ‘stuff’!

It used to be that going to the sea side was in itself an adventure and something which of itself was exciting enough to keep any life form interested for the visit. Now unless the hapless family travels with the equivalent of a cinema, restaurant and clothes factory as well as a small construction company to allow the child to ‘build’ a sandcastle there will be tantrums and guaranteed misery for all.

In a revealing piece in The Week (which I recommend unreservedly etc etc) extracted from The Weekly Standard, Joseph Epstein writes that “America has become a ‘kindergarchy,’ children have moved, “from background to foreground figures in domestic life, with more and more attention centred on them, their upbringing, their small accomplishments.” He continues that he once told his mother that he was bored, she suggested that he bang his head against a wall to take his mind off it. “I never mentioned boredom again. My generation was just left to get on with. Visit friends today, however, and you find children’s toys strew everywhere, their drawings on the fridge, TV sets tuned to their shows. Parents seem little more than indentured servants.”

I wonder if that strikes a chord with anyone!

Of course this could just be the resentment of an only child thinking back and working out just how much he didn’t have when the opportunity was there. Where was my towel with ‘Muffin the Mule’ on it? Where was my mini backpack with ‘Captain Pugwash’ emblazoned on the back? When didn’t my parents allow me to watch DVDs in the car on my personal player?

The answer to the last one was that they weren’t invented for another swathe of years that, in the interests of delicacy I will not enumerate!

Time for tea! Well, dinner.

Sizzle!

Today a sea breeze made joining the human joints cooking on the beach just a little more enjoyable. The sea is of a temperature where not even the most sensitive need gasp as they venture in. There was a space next to the sea in an almost direct line from the little gate onto the beach from the flat so we didn’t have to wander about on ‘our’ beach before we settled.

In defiance of the universal lethargy which surrounded me I actually made use of my time on the beach and read The Week. This invaluable publication (which I recommend without reservation to all and sundry) gives you a fascinating digest of what has been happening in all the most obvious areas of life as seen from the British perspective. It is, of necessity, highly selective but seductive at the same time: so many titbits of politics, the arts, sport and business etc. that you end up wanting more, yet perversely glad that there isn’t any. If you see what I mean!

Lunch was, eventually – given Toni’s fastidiousness – in a restaurant a little further down the road than we usually go and I thought was excellent.

A tropical salad with fruit, sea food and a caviar sauce followed by a leg of turkey with half roast potatoes in their skins with a rosemary and cheese stuffed tomato. The dessert was my favourite of Tarta Santiago dressed with cream, chocolate sauce and kiwi fruit. A café con hielo to finish a truly satisfying meal.

Toni was unimpressed (he had to be his going to this restaurant was a grudging compromise) and grumbled about his lamb. This was a large lump of succulent meat with bones sticking out at artistic angles. I know it was succulent because he offloaded some of it on to me. Toni likes slivers of pork or beef or lamb so chunky excess leaves him cold. I think that I have had my full intake of meat for the next week or two as my turkey leg was not one from a bird that had ever considered flight!

My continuing education into the Catalan arts has now reached the musician Ferran Sor. This disk comes in the series of book/CD presentations linked to the centenary of the Palau Musica Catalana and courtesy of La Vangardia (at a price!)

Ferran Sor (1778-1839) was a composer and guitarist who is described as one of the most important composers and musicians in the formation of Catalan culture in terms of music. I have never heard of him- though I am attempting to force my memory into a belief that I have heard of a French composer with a name something like that. But then I would, wouldn’t I!

I have not found anything in the music of Catalonia (in my view) to match the wealth of talent in painting. Some of the music has been interesting, especially one piece which to my ears sounded like something that Vaughan Williams might have written, but nothing so arresting as the visual arts offer in Catalonia.

I wonder if, in five or six years time when I might look back on that last paragraph I will twitch with embarrassment at my lack of perception, or simply smile wryly at my pretension. I am prepared to wait and see.

I have had a frightening letter which begins:

“Dear Customer,
You already enjoy the services provided to you by your BBVA branch in Spain, but did you know that BBVA also have branches in the U.K?”

Quite part from the fact that I object to BBVA referring to me a ‘Dear’ anything, I found the first part of the sentence in the letter a downright lie and the second part a terrifying threat. Talk about the enemy within; it is hardly surprising that the exchange rate between the pound and the euro is at an all time low with that bunch of blundering incompetents actually having insinuated their way into the British banking system.

As soon as it is possible I will escape from the parasitic, thieving clutches of BBVA and the chilling thought of putting a single British penny near their grasping money grubbing fingers is enough to drive one to drink – which, as the sun must now be over whatever mast one has to consider before imbibing, seems like a damn good idea. Such thrillingly sinister thoughts about the creeping evil which is my bank deserve a chilled glass of Rioja on the balcony while I regain my equilibrium!

Cheers!

The wind strings

Pendine in West Wales in the middle to late ‘50’s of the last century. (God that makes me feel old!)

That resort of early motor car speed records and record attempts came to mind as we determinedly lay in the sun while being gradually sand blasted by the sand laden wind which whipped along the beach. Usually we are gifted with a fresh breeze from the sea which makes lying on the beach a pleasure. A slight deviation in direction and you are in the position where you can actually feel your nostrils begin to fill with small hard particles.

When a child we sometimes took holidays in Pendine. We stayed in a caravan with gas lights with very fragile mantles. This I discovered when I touched one and found that it was more friable than a butterfly’s wing. I told no one and hoped that it would be put down to natural forces. I had a great belief in ‘natural forces’ in those days. I believed, fondly as it usually turned out, that any deleterious actions occasioned by my innocent frolicking or by my ‘questing’ mind might simply be dismissed as ‘one of those things.’

I always found the difference between the ‘trivial’ assessment by a child and the ‘serious’ assessment by an adult a thing of constant surprise. ‘Not important’ almost inevitably became redefined as ‘essential to the continuance of Western Civilization.’

So the eating of rice pudding; not biting one’s nails; brushing one’s shoes; walking on the outside of the pavement when with a lady; pronouncing ‘trait’ in its correct manner; using the butter knife and always referring to ‘an hotel’ without pronouncing the ‘h’ became the basis of the way of life that would get you where you should be. Don’t knock it – that list seems to me to be going in the right direction!

The ‘natural forces’ that I experience in Pendine were mostly those of nature. I can remember walking back up the beach to the caravan and almost being on the verge of tears because the force of the wind driven sand against my young legs was like a million tiny knives being sunk into my flesh.

I can also remember the virtual impossibility of removing the patina of sand which had, particle by particle, wedged itself into every tiny pore in my body and made the lower part of my body look as though I had made it up to look like some sort of Medieval Golem!

Castelldefels did not have the cutting vindictiveness of Pendine but it did make lying in the sun an effort of will rather than the denial of will to do anything else. The other sturdy sunbathers had a look of rugged determination rather than sybaritic enjoyment of sun worshipers.

Luckily we were stopped in our masochistic ‘pleasures’ by the telephoned arrival of Toni’s family. We were then able to retire from the beach with some sort of dignity and retire to the sedate pleasures of the pool.

We are now officially in the Month of the Holiday of Everyone and the proof of that is that virtually all the flats are occupied. We (Toni and I) are used to most of these expensive residences being owned by the sort of rich people who do not have to rent out their flats to proles like us and keep them empty (but periodically cleaned) except for the few weeks in the summer that they deign to use them.

We like these rich people to stay away because when they arrive they act as if they own the place. Which in fact they do. But we do not like to be reminded of this odious fact. They also bring other life forms with them to share their flats.

These life forms may be young grandchildren who are extra dutiful to grandparents who just happen to have a flat on the beach at Castelldefels. They also include various forms of rat dogs.

Rat dogs are, in many respects, worse than cats. At least cats go out from time to time whereas rat dogs simply whimper or yap their way from seat to sun to shade to food. They are also propriatorial and assume that the entire block of flats is their territory and bark at all movement real and imaginary. God rot them all!

Roll on the colder and neighbourless days of the end of the summer!

Fight the good fight

The RACC has now taken over the management of my speeding charge. On the advice of Toni’s sister I phoned my motoring organization (the last C is for Catalonia, in the rest of Spain it has a final E for España) and they said that they would check all the documentation and see if there was any way out.

For once an official organization did not ask for a photocopy of my passport (which is now distinctly faded because of its constant exposure to bright light) but instead asked for my NIE. This is my official paper which shows that I exist and have a numerical existence in Spain. The number is preceded by an ‘X’ which indicates that I am ‘extranjero’ – foreign! As I keep explaining to the indigenous inhabitants of the Peninsular I am never foreign, I am always British. For some reason this always produces a sort of semi incoherent fury and then a torrent of language of abuse. Strange are the ways of Johnny Foreigner! But you can’t help liking their quaint ways!

So the RACC is going to pursue the cads who dared give me a ticket and try and discover anomalies in their documentation. God knows, given the sheer weight of documentation that the simplest activity generates in this country there is enough scope for some sort of error to get me off.

It had seemed to me that the offence having been committed on the 3rd of March and the letter of accusation not having reached me until late July that some sort of statue of limitations ought to operate making the ticket null and void.

This voice of reason has been ignored. I suspect that, in a nation so given to the comfort of producing sheet after sheet of printing to accompany day to day life there must be extra time allowed to the authorities to amass all the necessary documentation sufficient for bureaucratic satisfaction.

I live in hope of faulty typing! We shall see.

Today I have booked the tickets to ensure that I will be in the UK for Aunt Bet’s birthday in November. It will be interesting to see if my body has adapted to a more gentle climate than that of Britain – I wonder if I will feel the cold! Come to think of it I’m not sure that I actually have a warm jacket anymore!

As I am only taking hand luggage I have to be careful about what I buy when I am back in Britain: EasyJet is notorious for the punitive burden they place on hapless travellers who indulge in shopping too much and have brought back things a few kilos over their limit. Another reason to stick with hand luggage is that the whole of Terrassa will ask me to return with the bulk of the merchandise on sale in Matalan if I even suggest that I have a case with a sliver of room in it!

Toni is looking into the possibility of going to Andorra for a couple of nights. It all seems suspiciously cheap, even if the high season for this mountainous country is the winter for the skiing. I particularly like the possibility of indulging myself (that will be a first!) in the much vaunted spa which has a very inviting web site.

But, before then lunch with Irene, another survivor of The Owner. No doubt the talk will hinge on our never ceasing quest to find an interesting job with excellent emoluments. Far chance in this area!

After splurging out on a whole raft of expensive opera seats I had a comforting talk with Phil about the health of my finances. To my horror he said that he was thinking of retiring next year. Next year only takes us into 2009 and not to the magic year of 2010 and October of that year when all things will be well and my pension and lump sum will be paid.

Phil’s shocked reaction to my money plans before I came to Catalonia will remain in my memory. He had been adopting a meticulously Platonic Dialogue approach to finance, seemingly allowing me to make the decisions while his quiet questioning led me further down the paths of financial rectitude.

His reaction to my gleeful anticipation of Breaking Into Capital and Spending It had to be seen to be believed. I think that it was only with a great effort of will that he stopped himself from reacting like Ananias after Paul had likened him to a whitened wall and smiting me on the mouth! Such monetary blasphemy!

I will instead have to go delving into my British bank account and untimely rip some money to Catalonia. This is not as easy as it seems because I have to do this via the internet and that means remembering my password. I foresee hours of innocent and frustrating fun while I try and relive my thought processes when I decided on the form of the word.

Wish me luck!

Who knows?

A day without a denunciation is a day lost.

Well, my communication from my Union today gave me details of what I will have to do in the future to ensure the destruction of The Owner – or at least cause her minor discomfort.

At present, it being the last day of July, our efforts are being frustrated by the looming month of stasis. August is not a good month to try and do anything in Britain; it Spain it is futile as trying to get a donation to Amnesty International from Radovan Karadzic.

The next date for official action is later in this dead month when allegedly an advisor will be available to make suggestions for my next step. Steve, my exceptional CCOO Union representative has given me suggestions for future action and the names and addresses that I need to make things happen. If things go according to plan The Owner is going to have a start of term that she will not forget!

Culturally, I have now finished my official gloat over the little pile of Liceu tickets for the next season and I have taken a more extensive look into the two (expensive) Catalan art books purchased yesterday. When I say “look” that is exactly what I mean. One is in Spanish, the other in Catalan and while I can make general sense (generally) of what is being said, some important details and sentences pass me by. Looking at the many illustrations is less linguistically taxing!

At the moment I am trying to discover more about an intriguing sculptural piece called ‘Degenerates’ which depicts two roughly shaped figures with distorted limbs and heads slumped in dejection. I have read a little about this piece which only whets my appetite to know more.

This may sound a little precious, but there is a wealth of Catalan talent in terms of art which, as far as I know, is little known outside Catalonia and Spain. From my ‘reading’ and visiting a few galleries this seems to be a sad ignoring of major artists who, for all I know, may lie ignored in the vaults of The Tate and other British galleries. It may also be that I have wilfully ignored the paintings of Casas,

Rusiñol, Fortuny, Guinovart, Amat, Meifrèn, Urgell, Mir, Anglada-Camarasa, Gimeno, Nonell and Vayreda in non Spanish art galleries – but I don’t think so.

I have now read ‘History of Catalonia’ by Jaume Sobrequés i Callicó and I feel that the translator, Neil Charlton, deserves a mention for the sheer ineptitude of his work.

There are various infelicities of expression as well as words like ‘habilitated’ used in “Franco habilitated numerous prisons to accommodate a large prison population” – what does that mean?

One of my favourite sentences in ‘History of Catalonia’ is: “Despite CiU being a markedly nationalist coalition, its policy of integrating into the new project of the country the board human sectors from Spanish immigration consolidated the idea that Catalonia, respecting diversity, is a single people advancing as such, within its ideological plurality, towards a modern society and fully integrated into Europe.” Really makes you want to read on, doesn’t it?

Professor Jaume Sobrequés i Callicó has an impressive CV and I suspect that his style in Catalan and Spanish is a little more lucid than this brief history suggests.

The narrative of Catalonia’s history is completed in just over 130 pages of big writing and it only conveys a flavour of the fascinating sequence of events which led to the country in which I live today. A short history obviously gives rise to more questions that it answers, but this one does stimulate the intention to find out more. And that surely is valuable.

From this highly partisan view of Catalan history you come away with the impression that Catalonia has been badly treated since the Catalans chose the wrong side in the War of the Spanish Succession in the eighteenth century!

I think that Wales can claim a much longer period of bad treatment! But the sun has been shining today and I am not one to hold grudges with a glass of Rioja in my hand!
Cheers!

The finger points!

‘Denunciation’ is so much more evocative than ‘accusation’ don’t you think?

Whatever. The official process has now taken a step forward and I (with the Union’s invaluable help) have written out our case against The Owner and her nefarious practices and submitted it to the government for their consideration in organizing an inspection of the school. With any reasonable luck the officers should arrive just at the time when the remaining senior staff arrive for the start of term in August!

And there are other agencies which can trigger their own inspections. They will be informed!

The letter writing has also only just started. What after all is a poor teacher recently sacked from his job supposed to do if not to spread the good news around to those who might have a passing interest in education?

Today also saw another considerable achievement: I finally managed to purchase my tickets for the Liceu for the next season. This has not been a simple as one might have thought. OK, I am prepared to admit that the prime problem lies squarely at my door. The complexity of the subscription book that I was sent together with the fact that no package as far as I could see offered all the operas I wanted to see, did defeat me. I had to purchase my tickets singly.

Then there is a rule that one could purchase no more than six individual tickets via a telephone line with a credit card (?) True I’m afraid, a rule of the Liceu. And the tickets are not sent to you – they have to be collected by you in person and . . . the box office opened at odd hours. Then not at all. And never on a Sunday. All these things conspired to frustrate my increasingly desperate attempts to spend money. And to spend money a year or more in advance for performances stretching well into next year.

The box office was open today, but not until the afternoon. Even though the Liceu was open for business.

What this did do was to afford me the luxury of wandering around the Gothic Quarter of Barcelona and go into book shops. My perennial quest for a general book on modern Catalan art was, as usual, a failure. This time, however, the girl in the bookshop on the Ramblas described a larger more specialized art bookshop in another street off the Ramblas. I dutifully trotted off in the direction indicated and promptly got lost. A rather nice History, Philosophy and Design bookshop later I had been redirected to the correct location and a very fine shop it was too.

One distinctive feature in this shop (La Central situated in Elisabets, 6) was that near one of the information desks was a glass square set into the floor allowing you to see a disquietingly vertiginous view of the floor beneath!

The assistant found the books I required in a few seconds. Two volumes of Catalan Art from the 1890’s to almost the present day. Fantastic! I told myself that I would willingly pay €20 for a meal so I should be prepared to pay at least that amount for a durable volume whose content was exactly what I was looking for.

The cost of the two volumes was €180!

I did not buy them. But I still wanted them.

The ever helpful sequence of assistants continued with the young lady from the expensive bookshop telling me about a second hand book shop in Carrer Canuda where I might expect to find an excellent selection of art books.

And I did and bought one of the volumes I was looking for (though in Catalan and not Castilliano) and another book (in Castilliano) which I wasn’t. The prices were quite steep for second hand books, but cheap when compared to the actual prices. I keep telling myself. I hope.

All in all a good day!

It's all wrong!

One thing about having to go into Barcelona for an opera which starts at 5.00 pm on a Sunday is that you don’t have to cope with what I thought were inevitable traffic jams getting to the Ramblas.

I left less time than I usually allow getting to the Liceu and still had enough time to get my tickets for the next season.

In theory.

In practice of course BBVA (surely the undisputed holder of the title ‘Worst Bank in the Universe’) ensured that things were not simple. I have a new bank book. This useful (hollow laugh!) item allows you to get a hardcopy update of any movements in your account by inserting it into a slot in the hole in the wall machines: it automatically updates. Except, of course, naturally, it doesn’t. Not mine. Nothing.

So I couldn’t check what tickets had been paid for by the woefully inadequate agency which I used to try and build up my visits to the Liceu. But, as luck would have it, the Liceu added their own little piece of unhelpfulness and wouldn’t allow me to buy any tickets for the next season anyway. Well, it was a Sunday so it would have been unreasonable to expect to buy any ticket except for the performance on that day.

A thoroughly unsatisfactory start to what turned out to be a thoroughly satisfactory performance.

This production of ‘Don Giovanni’ was one I saw on its first night some time ago London when it was roundly booed on its conclusion!

This experience was rather different.

The opening sequences demonstrate just how dark an opera ‘Don Giovanni’ is. The presentation of the morality of the piece in this production delights in ambiguity. Trying to work out the location of the moral centre of the opera is difficult. The set, a series of angled posts with a cluster of lights at the top and the thrusting in of a long bar suggested a modern setting and the dissolute action of the characters suggested the drunken culture of the pleasure seekers Mediterranean resort!

The Don (Simon Keenlyside) and Leporello (Kyle Ketelsen) gave very physical performances with Ketelsen being a typical English yob complete with trackkies, shaven head and holdall full of cans. The English connection was emphasised by the Union Flag being used by Leporello in one scene to mask his amorous activities! The performances of the pair were excellent to the extent that I was sometimes surprised that they could sing as well! Both singers were strong but not outstanding; the fact that they could actually sing anything after the amount of leaping around they had to do was amazing.

The Don is at the centre of a vortex of gleeful amorality where, in his philosophy, anything goes and responsibility is a series of evasions or redefinitions. The tawdry showiness of much of the action and the props emphasise the empty moral values of not only the Don but also everyone else in the opera. As the action progressed I began to wonder if this opera was the musical equivalent of ‘Madame Bovery’ where the entire cast had lost any sympathy from the observer.

The sudden appearance of a pair of headlights towards the end of the overture and the slow appearance of the rest of the car was a coup de theatre and the boot of the vehicle was a suitable place to put the body of the Commendatore (well sung by Günther Groissböck) but also a point of controversy when his ‘corpse’ emerges from the same boot before being unceremoniously being re-deposited there leaving a pair of legs hanging over the side! This body was a detail that had not been thought out in sufficient detail for it to be a convincing part of the narrative. The speaking statue of the Commendatore being a bottle of whisky I could take, but his rising from the dead was one step too far.

The ‘Murder on the Orient Express’ ending of the opera where everyone took a stab (quite literally) at the Don as he was strapped and gagged in a chair down stage was more effective this time because the joint murder summed up the corrupted morality which informed the action of the whole of the opera from the viewpoint of the director Calixto Bieito.

The floor of the stage was a cluttered mess at the end of the production and the curtain call was conducted with a certain fastidiousness as soloists had to ensure that they did not go flying in the mixture of balloons, streamers, orange juice, cereal and other bits and pieces which were strewn around.

The reception of the piece was enthusiastic and it was a production which thoroughly deserved it.

Only connect!

Our telephone is suffering from Weekend Failure Syndrome.

For two weeks running the advent of Friday evening produced only fuzzy interference from the phone; that mist of sound that used to accompany the inadvertent switching on of a TV set back in the Bad Old Days when broadcasts were only made in the hours that Aunty Beeb decided were suitable for well regulated families. Bring back ‘The Potter’s Wheel’ say I!

This time however we decided to take action. Toni’s preferred form of attack is via the Internet.

This is an institution in which Toni has much faith. I think it is on the basis that any organization which can create a mystique of infinite sagacity linked to ubiquity yet retain aspects of inscrutability and callous indifference is as near as damn it to a religion.

The Internet also has the playful ‘wanton boys’ approach of a callous god to its adherents. Sometimes a prayer (or information request) will be answered with exactly what the initiate is looking for, yet at other times the ‘answers’ offered rival the Delphic Oracle in their incoherent impenetrability.

There are also different sects on the Internet where the disciple’s simple plea for information will be answered in a number of pleasing formats where all look convincing and yet their answers are widely different in detail and fact.

Beware! For your adversary the teenage computer nerd prowls around creating convincing looking websites seeking whom he may devour!

Good and Evil constantly battle on the Internet. The Archangels McAfee and Norton are in an eternal battle with Demon Hackers and we all know that the wages of Internet sin, gazing upon lurid pornography, is retribution in the form of computer death by virus.

In spite of this Toni perseveres in his belief in the Internet, though he often echoes the cry of Saint Augustine, “O God I believe; help thou my unbelief!” His initial attempts to inform our telephone supplier that their supply wasn’t were via the Internet. The information needed was detailed and fiddly and eventually ineffectual. We had to phone the land line supplier using a mobile phone. This is nicely ironic but also vastly expensive as you go through the, “Please choose from one of the following twenty five options” etc before you actually get to a human being.

When Toni finally got to a human (”He was a South American,” he said darkly) he was told to “Wait a moment.” And was promptly cut off. The second human threatened vast fees if any technician had to do anything and gave vague assurances that something might be done. The simple checking of the line via a computer seemed to be far beyond the technical ability of the person (wherever he physically was) to do. I seem to remember in my Trimphone™ phoning the operator and she was able to check the line in a few seconds.

Such is the march of progress!

Today I have to compile the List of Shame: an enumeration of the sins of omission and commission committed by The School That Sacked Me. Toni also has a part to play in this denunciation as it has to be translated into Catalan. It will be sent to the Union for comment and then on Tuesday I will go into Barcelona and meet my union representative and have the list discussed and edited. Then it will be transferred to the official form and sent to the Inspectorate as an inducement for them to inspect the school. This is one of the ways that the various unprofessional ways in which the school conducts its business may be made more public.

The letter I have had from COBIS is an odd one informing me that no inspection is planned for the school until 2011! This is not what we were told: what has happened to the October inspection of 2008 not 2011? I think that I will check to see if there is some sort of code of conduct for those schools linked to the COBIS marque. If there is, whatever it is, the school must have offended against it!

I also think that it is time for a follow up letter to The British Council who should, by this time, have at least acknowledged the receipt of my missive.

The wheels turn – but slowly.

All of my ‘action’ is turning into an exercise in patience!

Revelation!

Cerepol.

Never let it be said that all blogs were merely self indulgent opportunities for self opinionated persons to air their prejudices. (Though I for one don’t really see why they shouldn’t be.)

However, in the spirit of selfless devotion to the good of others I am determined to use this opportunity to fulfil one of the vain wishes of my father that I would justify my education and ‘do something useful.’ You have to understand that both my parents were teachers and so they naturally thought that entering that noble profession on my part was something of a dereliction of duty on theirs!

I have tried throughout my working life to encourage people to do things which were, in Ruskin’s heart-in-the-right-place-but-really-meaningless words “availing to good.” This has usually consisted in reading the right books and following a few simple rules viz.
1. The only dog one should ever contemplate owning is a yellow Labrador bitch.
2. Never own a dog.
3. Abominate Margaret Thatcher and all Her Works.

Actually rule number three was a very difficult (and totally unprofessional) one to inculcate into the young.

Indeed, I once asked a class which party they thought I voted for. There was no clear majority for any party but there were sizable minorities for Conservative, Labour and Lib Dem.

As each group put up their hands to show their understanding of my political tendencies the rest of the class howled their disbelief that they could be so simplistic as to think that I could possibly support the party that they thought was my political home.

They began to discuss me as if I were not there and, as they were a good class of pupils they began to speculate about the wider seas of political affiliation. One of two of the more adventurous had me voting Communist and a few others for Plaid Cymru. One pupil said that I didn’t even vote at all!

At the time I took this confusion to be an indication that my ‘political’ comments were sufficiently well balanced that I did not give a clear party political bias to my teaching.

Now, I’m not so sure: should a teacher be satisfied with confusion?

Anyway. The useful part of this blog is the word right at the top. Cerepol.

Saucepans which are suitable for gas, electric and induction usually have fairly thick bases and seem to be coated with some sort of ceramic material which makes them look good when you buy them and that sight has to last because as soon as you use them the bases become progressively grubbier. And, as Brillo pads seem to be a thing of the past and their New Man namby-pamby scourer replacements couldn’t take the veneer of New Labour you are condemned to see your once gleaming pans reduced to shoddy second hand shame.

But no! Now things are different! Thanks to Ceri I am able to tick off two things that I thought I would never be able to do:
1. Clean electric hobs
2. Clean the bottom of heavy base frying pans.

Cerepol. It sounds like a proprietary medication for one of the less salubrious areas of human activity; or perhaps a new international police organization or even an organic cereal. But it is none of these things.

It is actually a cleaner that works. Made by Hallmark, it is Australian, and it works. Nothing has worked before and this does. It is a revelation. It does what it says on the plastic bottle.

The fact that I am so amazed that it does so surely indicates the woeful lack of veracity of the usual run of products that I buy.

It’s a metaphor for life!

The injustice of it all!

I have been done for speeding.

I was sent a peremptory demand today for vast sums of money for an infringement in March! I am sure that it cannot be legal to wait this long before making me traipse down to the post office to get a registered letter containing the extortion note.

If the transport authorities take over four months to let a poor driver know that he has broken one of the universally ignored limits (I know that is no justification) I can’t help running through my mind how many times I might have done the same thing in the same place at the same time. Perhaps I can expect a series of increasingly jubilant denunciations eventually catching up with the present day. I sincerely hope not!

The Owner’s lawyer remains difficult to contact and, in spite of assurances that there would be some contact, it has proved very difficult to get a clear message. It is fairly obvious that they are playing for time because we have almost reached the magic date of the 1st of August when, as far as I can tell, Spain closes and then it will be September before ‘anything can be done.’ I anticipate frustration and futile anger.

At the moment everything is ‘in progress’ but nothing of any substance is happening.

I suppose that one of the problems is that I live ‘in’ a holiday and so don’t have to go ‘on’ a holiday, and therefore have little sympathy for those who have to go to different places to establish their vacation credentials!

We have been threatened with African weather with temperatures into the 40s. Being this near the coast we do have a fairly constant breeze which disguises the flesh stripping capabilities of hot weather. On the beach today were two Pale Persons who sat huddled together smiling with delight at the weather and vainly trying to protect all Pale Places from the sunlight. Alas! The tell tale pinkness on their smiling faces and virgin shoulders told me that their shower that evening would be a painful experience!

Although we have Tetley tea bags in the localish supermarket and there must be a significant British contingent living in Castelldefels we spread ourselves fairly thinly so that an English accent is a fairly rare exception. The most common accent is Spanish. Just before you express ironic surprise I should point out that this is, after all, Castelldefels in Catalonia and therefore one would expect the lingua franca to be Catalan. But it isn’t. This area is one which has a great concentration of immigrants from other parts of Spain, especially the south, and therefore Toni gets a limited number of opportunities to use his first language.

Meanwhile I find every opportunity to use my first language as my Spanish often prompts a reply in English. I do not look Catalan and I am assumed to be German by the indigenous population hence their attempts at English.

I shall keep trying!

Vaulting ambition again!

Tragedy!

Behold! See how the mighty are undone. Those that seek dominion over all shall be brought down. Yea! Even the most powerful shall be laid low!

Not, I’m afraid a paean of praise for the discomfiture of The Owner, but rather a lament on the untimely overthrow of the ambitions of one of my cacti.

The one made out of oval (or more ellipsoid probably) plates of spikes has overreached itself and was discovered this morning leaning at a truly humiliating angle and is now leaning against the wall like some unruly drunk propped up any-old-how to try and preserve some sort of vertical dignity.

Perhaps (because I am not wise in the way of cactus care) I should have nipped of the new buds to give strength to the base. Who knows, I think I will allow Nature and the wall to do as they will.

I remember with shame an episode of plant abuse perpetrated by me some years ago. I bought a tiny sensitive plant – the one where, when you touch the frond like leaves they all close up. To someone with my degree of horticultural impatience this seemed like a sensible plant. It was small though and I thought that I would give it a helping hand.

It was instantly transplanted into a vast pot and placed in a sunny position in the hallway so that sun could stream on it through the glass panel at the side of the door and it was watered carefully. So far, so Alan Tichmarsh.

Then, alas, the combined effect of having read ‘Against Nature’, ‘A Modern Prometheus’ and ‘Noddy Goes to Toytown’ took over I decided to give the plant a helping hand. This took the form of substance abuse.

There were then (and as far as I know there still are) innocuous looking lozenges known as ‘Plantoids’ which could be pressed into the earth around d a plant and would give it added vigour. I reasoned that if one ‘Plantoid’ would give vigour, then two (or more) would give the plant an Olympic spurt. Eventually the area around the base of the sensitive plant was composed more of decomposing ‘Plantoids’ than earth.

I should imagine that what I did was the equivalent of giving a genteel maiden aunt crystal meth. The plant shot up on a measurable daily basis, but eschewed the production of interesting leaves and instead reached for the heavens that its drug saturated roots indicated was within reach. It died as vigorously as it had lived: one day almost touching the ceiling, the next a withered stump in the pot. As I realize I am over fond of saying: there is a lesson there if we look for it!

My Aunt Bet often ends her letters with an invitation for me to let her know if there is anything that she can ‘send over’ for me. Two ex-colleagues (from real schools and not The One That Sacked Me) who are arriving in Catalonia soon also asked me if there was anything they could bring, “e.g. tea bags, newspapers, teaching syllabuses etc.”

The offer of tea bags would be irresistible were it not for the fact that our local supermarket stocks Tetley tea bags. On the price ticket next to the price is a little Union Flag to indicate that it is safe for Britons to eat. The other items which have a flag are Heinz baked beans. And that’s it. British tastes catered for!

It is true that Spanish/British tea bags are insipid to the point of insult, and the fact that they are Horniman’s tea bags (who drinks those in the UK, I don’t know anyone who does) puts me in mind of Watney’s Draft Red Barrel which had a zombie like existence on the Spanish Costas long after it had been (rightfully) killed in its country of birth!

It is depressing, in a way, that I miss so few of the commodities of everyday British life. I was no fan of Marmite in the UK and I am certainly not going to develop a taste for it in the land of paella and Cava! I have almost forgotten the taste of butter (I jest!) and I have managed to swap a decent pint of bitter for Rioja.

The lager-like confection that masquerades as ‘beer’ in this country is perhaps better suited to the climate than the heavier beverage from more dour northern climes, but I don’t think that it will ever win me round. And I take every opportunity to sneer at the literally pale imitation of a noble drink that arrives in tiny glasses with illegal amounts of foam to insult the discriminating palette.

Unsurprisingly it is people I miss: people and conversation. The Pauls not coming over this summer is a blow, but they will come in October with any luck. The internet allows links which are more immediate and ‘live’ and I keep telling myself that the UK is only a few hours away if I need to go back for anything or anyone. I do after all live only a few minutes away from one of Europe’s busiest airports! The world is my expensive oyster!

My efforts to pick up Spanish have been shamefully lax and I have occasionally been forced into a diffident reticence in company which those who knew me in the UK could only have imagined in their fondest dreams!

You must not think that my lack of knowledge of the Spanish language stops me entirely from putting in my occasional apercus in an ongoing conversation.

I am beginning to recognize again those expressions comprising thin lipped smiles, frightened eyes and small beads of perspiration which characterized the faces of various French people when I attempted to communicate with the natives in my forays into la belle France. Now, Spanish and Catalan faces take on the frozen expression of incomprehension as they vainly try and re-order my excited, enthusiastic and fundamentally faulty Spanish into some sort of coherent expression.

I pity them of course, but as I Am Making An Effort they have to suffer in the name of education and whatever the Spanish equivalent of the entente cordiale is.

3 under 3

We all know that cold, tight knot of terror which forms in the pit of the stomach when confronted by the fear of the 'other', the 'different', the 'inexplicable.'

I am writing this as displacement activity to try and escape from the parentally encouraged chaos which comes from untrammeled youth under the age of three armed with foam 'safety' swords and unlimited amounts of energy.

The sound of the resounding thwacks that children whose height does not put their heads above the waist of a normal human being can make with a 'safety' sword makes me more than grateful that I have found myself a little corner of security outside the normal ambit of creatures who, I am ashamed to admit, already have a more convincing grasp of Catalan and Spanish than I. At the mome4nt my spoken and written English is still more than they can manage! But the clock is ticking; we all know that the first two languages are the hardest after that it is easy to add more. I'm working on it!

I have now cast off the insurance company which I acquired courtesy of the company that (eventually - don't make me re-live the tortured paper work that got me the vehicle) sold me the car.

My entire no-claims bonus vanished when I came to Spain and had to start all over again. I have since heard that it is possible to choose a company which is British based which will allow some sort of transfer, but the car seller’s choice of company told me that this was impossible when I was trying to get everything organized.

Perhaps it might be worth while asking my present insurance company if anything can be done. As the company is the RACC (the extra C being for Catalonia) one feels that there ought to be some sort of a chance. I shudder to think where they have their call centre: I cannot reasonably expect them to have it in Catalonia, but there again if the language is important then they are going to be very fortunate to find a whole group of Indians who speak fluent Catalan!

Nothing from the Union today, but two unanswered phone calls with no message and no return numbers are interesting. I expect a least some news about the response (or more likely the non response) of The Owner's lawyers in the next day or so.

There have been no responses to my 'official' letters to the accreditation bodies, so I think that a follow up letter will be in order - if only to confirm that they have at least reached their proper destinations.

It seems more likely that I will have to formulate a list of 'abuses' to give substance to the official suggestion that there be an inspection of the school in the very near future.

I will have to curb my natural impatience and match my anger to Spanish time!

It will be good Zen training for me!

Expectation tickling skiting spirits

Next week opens with the return salvo of The Owner’s lawyer to my union official’s assault last week.

It could be that The Owner’s lawyer thinks that a payout now will forestall a lengthy dispute with final judgement going against her. But I don’t believe it. I think that she sees my dispute as a trial of strength which she cannot afford to lose. She can of course, but her mind set is a sort of prison which ignores open doors and instead looks for crevices to begin using the teaspoon to dig her way to victory. I suppose that forcing her to expend stupid amounts of energy would be a victory of sorts. But I would like to have the money as well!

If The Owner remains recalcitrant then, with the Union’s help, I will begin the process to urge an inspection of the school by the Catalan authorities.

I am quite sure that there are more than enough irregularities in the way that The Owner tires to run that institution to cause her considerable trouble if any impartial authority begins to dig into the way that she has demanded how things be done.

Having seen what the threat of an inspection does to conscientious, hard working educationalists in well run schools, I can only imagine (with malicious delight) what effect it will have in an institution which openly espouses fraudulent practices. My mouth waters with sheer pleasure as I wonder what surrealistic logic she will have to produce to justify the way that she thinks she runs that school.

Meanwhile there is the question of what I am going to be doing when the summer finally ends and the harsh reality of September enters my consciousness.

There is no limit to the amount of sardonic speculation about the future that one can manage when confronted only by serried rows of plastic keys on ones lap; but reality has a way of upsetting mere literary effusions.

A noisy beach

¡Fiesta!

Today is the culmination of a few days of celebration for the major festival of Castelldefels’ year.

We were woken by an inordinately loud amplified voice from the beach which has accompanied a massive beach volley ball competition which is taking place a couple of hundred yards along the beach from us.

Flags flutter from the top of elegant pavilions flanked by giant bottles of a chocolate drink which presumably is sponsoring the whole event. The twenty or so courts? rinks? spaces? Are alive with leaping bodies their glistening musculature slightly dulled by the airborne sand stinging its way inland.

The wind has, however, encouraged a whole flock of windsurfers who are reaching speeds close to suicidal. A local by law prohibits the wind surfer kite jumpers from performing their astonishing acrobatics until later in the evening.

The evening is going to be rowdy as Castelldefels is fuller today than it has been for any day in the summer and we have fuegos artificiales this evening. I have put both my cameras on charge to try and get a decent picture of these pyrotechnic explosions. So far, in the photographic line, all I have managed to achieve in respect of fireworks are vague trails of light which when treated in Microsoft Photoshop Version 10 have allowed me to present something deceptively flamboyant. I am looking towards this evening in presenting me with an opportunity to capture something which, even without Photoshop, will look convincing!

Now, in the latish evening peace reigns on the beach and the loudest sound is that of the waves breaking it is obviously time to try out my new teapot and tea cup bought in a sale in Zara Home. I can’t say that the pot and cup ‘go’ together in quite the harmonious way in which I would have liked (and of which my mother would have approved) but it makes a refreshing change from the rather camp glass teapot which I affect from time to time.

Never let it be said that civilization ever evaded me!

Glory be to God for spiked things!

I sing of the cactus!

There is a clear winner in the IKEA ‘three in a plastic tube, all different’ cactus purchase. Having spent most of their existence in the cramped pots in which they were bought, they have lived a stunted life forlornly retarded by little earth and unyielding plastic. Their liberation came in the form of two large circular pots which allowed transplantation and growth.

The seven cacti (where did the other one come from?) and the dead cactus from school now reside in spacious accommodation with fetching white stones on the surface to highlight their colour (green.)

In reverse order the cactus with the least vitality is a vaguely brain-like growth covered with a lattice-like display of spikes which cover the hummocky blobs like a spider’s web. There are a few unobtrusive and unexpected small white flowers to fail to catch the attention of a casual viewer.

Then there is a coral-like creature of apparently random excrescences which give it a sort of unsymmetrical Baroque feel. My specimen is only eight or nine centimetres high and I have seen examples metres high looking like organ pipes designed by a person living in more dimensions than four!

There then come two fleshy leaved, unspiked, bush like plants which look like shrubs, but provide valuable background for other more interesting examples.

The finger cactus with, gosh, five fingers is more typical of a child’s version of the plant: long rounded growths with close packed lines of spikes in neat rows, so fine that the tops of the plants appear to have a light green halo. These are also the most vicious. The spikes appear to be downy, but a brushed finder accumulates a host of tiny but very painful daggers which seem to work their way into the flesh and are very competent in evading extraction!


The aloe vera plant with its elegant extended triangular leaves with serrated edges spiralling out from the centre is a common choice in this area as it is unaffected by sand, salt and arid conditions. Mine is being harassed by one of the fleshy shrubs, but looking at the vicious spikes in which the triangular leaves of the aloe vera end, I know which one I am going to put money on!

And so to the clear winner. This is the cartoonists’ choice of cactus. One which looks as though it is constructed of thin plates of plant material one stuck on the edge of the other and building up into a random structure where you begin to wonder how the cantilevered plates sticking out at unlikely angles actually stay in place. The structural strength of the plant should be studied by architects and translated into buildings whose child-like sense of unexpected playfulness would be a refreshing change from the staid constructions which usually add to the visual boredom of our cities.

This cactus, as soon as it was transplanted (well, soon in plant terms) pushed out five substantial new plates. From where I am sitting I can see at least two more budding plates emerging from the new growth. This is a plant set on pot domination!

The dead cactus from school has definite life.

At this stage it is impossible to say whether the fuzziness at the tip of two of the stalks is actual cactus growth or developing mould from my assiduous and hopeful watering of the desiccated corpse.

As I have taken this dead cactus from the school that sacked me as an organic metaphor for my time there and my future career, I am prepared to give it more time to see what develops. This will also give me more scope to apply my skills in literary analysis to give intellectual substance to the casual death into life of this discarded and unremarkable plant.

It is also worth mentioning that the mini rose plant bought to celebrate Sant Jordi (Saint George – April 23rd) is still alive even though it is on the balcony where sand and salt air make the conditions less than idea for such a notoriously difficult plant. True there are no flowers, but the dusty leafs continue to grow and they have supported an etiolated sort of bud which looks to have achieved its full life cycle in this nascent form and appears far too vitiated actually to flower. But full marks for surviving say I!

There’s a lesson there were I to seek it!