A weak week!

Yet again, as is so often the case in this place, I am stuck in front of a class watching the little heads of the pupils bent over yet another examination paper.  The only good thing about this is that I have completed my marking so I will have to keep out of the way of my colleagues who, from today are going to be involved in all the other papers.  I only hope that they do not expect any disinterested help from me because I will give them exactly the same amount of aid that I have been given on my lonely vigil ploughing through hundreds of scripts – none!

Admittedly my marking has not been much of an intellectual endeavour as I have been checking optical mark sheets so small pencil filled brackets are swimming cross my line of sight and I am sure that they will haunt nightmares for some time.  But my work is done.

Well, not quite.  I have all the results and they now have to be entered on mark sheets so that the overall mark for the mock examinations can be calculated.  That, in itself is not difficult, what is more taxing is trying to fill in the last few marks for which the examination papers will, inexplicably have gone missing.  Or it might be that some of the pupils had the poor form to be absent on the day the examination was set.  This means that over the next week or so I will be suddenly given odd examination papers for which I will have to find the mark scheme.

But I am too old a hand at this to let such concerns phase me.  Safe inside a specific folder are all three of the marking stencils (of my own design) which will ensure that any extraneous papers can be dealt with in a swift and satisfactory manner.

I am desperately trying to get everything tidied up and done before the original folders of my marked work are swamped in a deluge of folders for the other papers.  Getting the entire school through a mock examination at three different levels is a logistical exercise of frightening proportions and there will be administrative and examinational mishaps that will induce the fearful anarchy that sometimes seems to power this place!

My normal class marking can now be dealt with and I should be able to gasp a partial sigh of relief before the next internal examinations start – next week!  You couldn’t make it up!

At least we are over half way through the month and getting nearer to the “Trip Week” in early February.  I do not “do” trips so I will remaining firmly in Catalonia while my colleagues roam far and wide visiting places as far apart as The Isle of Wight and Cantabria.  Good luck to them.  At least in our school teachers who accompany trips are paid extra.  Not enough, but extra.

There are teachers other than myself who are left in school and we will be expected to come to school and do “work”.  As far as I can remember we are allowed to leave at lunchtime and we can all look forward to a “puente” as we have the Friday of that week as an Occasional Day so have a three-day weekend.  Thank god for small mercies!

After this small break, with only one day as a real holiday, we only have one other day off until the Easter holidays.  That is going to be a hard slog.

Day by day.

What weekend?

Another lie-in!  Such criminal indulgence.  But not for long.

Up and doing gave me time to read “The Week.” 

Usually this inestimable publication arrives well after the week that it is supposed to be about, this in spite of the “Time Sensitive” inscription emblazoned on the front of the postal package.

Today, however, I read it on my iPad and so was able to enjoy something electronically that was more closely related to the actual date.  I think it makes sense to continue my subscription to the electronic version rather than the wayward print version.

It is a sign of age or something that, for the last week I have been wearing a jumper.  A jumper!  A man renowned for wearing shorts through the hardest winters in Catalonia, reduced to espousing the apparel of the elderly!  I now wear a scarf.  I put my coat on when I move from building to building.  It is a sad development in the story of my erstwhile hardiness that I have descended to such namby-pamby coverings in my day-to-day existence!

At long last Sales have hit Catalonia and the shops in our local centre were packed with spenders (apparently untouched by any concept of Crisis) and so I was able to boost my collection of jumpers at purchases at half price.

I would imagine that, having bought (pure wool) jumpers there will now be a heat wave in Spain.  I look forward to it.

In the way that one does, I have done nothing in the way of school work that I should have done, and there is no health in me (as the Prayer Book has it) and I am sure that I will regret my indolence during the rest of the week, but there again, who cares.  Next week is going to be a continuing horror of marking so I may as well throw in the stuff that I haven’t done with the rest of it so that I “get in the groove” and won’t really notice at all.  That sort of logic has made my life difficulty in so many ways in the past!

I have had various conflicting dates from Amazon about when my various purchases should arrive, but the consensus that I have gleaned from the series of emails that I have received is that next Thursday will see everything that I have ordered arrive in god knows how many parcels.

In the way that these things happen, the dogs next door have been suspiciously muted in their barking almost as if they know that their electronic nemesis is about to arrive and make their miserable lives just that little bit more eventful.

I must admit that my faith in the efficacy of the dog repellent/bark stopper machine that I have purchased is limited but, in the immortal words of that centre of philosophical enlightenment, Tesco would have it, “Every little helps”.  As long as the ultrasonic whine is enough to unsettle the dogs as they bark in their untrammelled way and give them at least some sort of pause for thought then I will be satisfied.

At the moment when the noise of their moronically insistent barking finally frays my nerves past breaking point I open a window and hiss a sharp “shush!” by emphasising the “sh” part in the same way that I have heard Catalan teachers quieten pupils.  Though I have to admit that as the teachers who do this are almost inevitably women, the “sh!” tends to be a more sibilant “sssss!” so that it sounds like the kids are being threatened by a rather insistent snake.  My sound to subdue the dogs is a quite subtle combination of the two sounds.

When I have the machine I will open the window, hiss my hatred at the malevolent beasts and then follow it up with a blast from the machine.  Eventually, I hope that the mere act of opening the window will cause the curs to slink away into obscurity and terrified silence.  Time and good batteries will tell!

But enough, I am determined to do at least one thing for my “book” before the end of the weekend.  Then at least I can go to bed with what I am pleased to call my conscience placated!

Sweet dreams!

A guilty day

A disgracefully long lie-in this morning (just morning, but only just) started the day and then I had to balance my fear that I had wasted precious free time with my conviction that after a first week back at school such indulgence was more than justified.

After a cup of tea I leapt back into my weighty tomes of art history and soon lost myself in a thoroughly delightful meander through those areas that I am supposed to be studying and also other areas that just appeal.  For me a well illustrated book on art has the same disruptive effect on as the Guinness Book of Records – how can a normal person be methodical when confronted by a book which is packed full of equally tempting distractions.

I am determined to do “something” for my “book” this weekend (mainly because I have marking to do which I probably will not do because it is boring) and writing something is good and productive displacement activity!

Tempted away from my books by the concept of lunch we decided to go to somewhere where we had excellent value a couple of months ago but today, a Saturday the prices of the menu del dia were about 50% more than for a weekday!  We left in disgust.

We ended up in a restaurant near the Castelldefels railway station on the beach.  This is at the other end of the town from where we live and the restaurant we went into was allegedly Galician but the waiters appeared to be of Indian extraction, though the food turned out to be impeccably Spanish.  The price was good at €11-50 and I was able, after my extended period of nursing and upset tummy, to enjoy, at long last arroz al la cubana!  In something of a rice fest I also had paella and rounded things off with tarta Santiago.  Excellent value and a place to go back to.

One idea that I will take on board is the way in which they served the wine.  I was given a petite carafe of wine which was 25 cl.  Given that a bottle of wine contains six glasses (albeit mean glasses) then such a carafe should contain two glasses – which was just the right amount for a lunch. 

I do not want to give the impression that my incipient alcoholism has to be kept in check, merely that the 25 cl was an appropriate amount, the carafe looked cute and, if you think about it, it means a bottle of red will last for three meals at that rate!

This evening (at last) the Christmas tree was packed away for another year.  God knows what sort of bad luck comes with taking decorations down well after Twelfth Night, but I am prepared to take my chances!

Tomorrow I might consider packing up the Nativity Scene which is at present gracing the shelf along the side of the stairs.

Tomorrow.

Marooned!

Today has been a day of continuous horror.

Deprivation, sudden, total deprivation is something which shakes even the stoutest heart.  When your fix is taken away what can be the response but anxiety and complete disorientation.

I left my computer at home.

It was with sick recognition that I opened my briefcase and the more I looked for the computer the more it wasn’t there.  I felt bereft.  I am used to typing a few paragraphs before I start teaching and not being able to do so was, ah, unsettling.

On the other hand it did force me to get on with the mountain of marking which has now piled up.  Today two other years sat their mock examinations today, adding to the already daunting pile which is waiting for me.

In spite of my teaching load today, my lack of computer and pure dedication added together encouraged me to get on with the completely unpalatable task and I managed to get two folders of marking completed.  Admittedly they were very small folders of work, but the files that they were placed in were substantial and so it looked as though I had made a real effort and achieved something very significant!

I am now left, I think, with six sets of papers to correct and then the task of matching marks to names on class sheets and then I am done.  Until the week after next when the next round of examinations start!  Insane!

What isn’t mad is the fact that this is being typed on a Friday evening at the start of a glorious weekend.  An easy adjective to apply when referring to time spent outside school!

I am gradually getting together the books that I will need to write my little reference book about “Making Sense of Modern Art From Fauvism to Pop Art” which is clearly going to be a vanity publishing scam as far as I am concerned – as long as the school pays for it all!  It is the only thing about the rest of this school year which really gives me any enthusiasm – it’s a pity that mere teaching of actual children so often gets in the way of lofty cultural aspirations.

I have looked around at the “books” that some of my colleagues have produced for their courses and I think that I can aim to write something reasonably substantial.  And of course what worth has an art book without full colour illustrations! 

Choosing pictures (and presumably breaking copyright right, left and centre) is going to be fun.  How far is a teacher allowed to reproduce something like a painting if it is solely for teaching purposes within an academic institution?  I think that I will allow that to remain a purely academic question and not seek too closely to find what will probably turn out to be a thoroughly unacceptable and restricting answer.

I’d love to produce something full of clever graphic solutions but I should stay this side of possibility and aim for something which is achievable within the restraints of how our school operates and within the limited expectations of the school – but I have nothing to lose by pushing those limits a little.

I am eating almost normally and look forward to a weekend when I can partake of our traditional Menu del dia without worrying about the gastric consequences.  It is a very sad thing to report that a week in school has been more efficient at restoring a satisfactory state of health that weeks under the ministrations of various doctors!

Suzanne is trying to get me to go to her pet herbalist and have a whole assessment so that I can start taking natural remedies and cut down on the nasty medically approved drugs that I take.  I am, understandably I think, rather reserved in my enthusiasm for this project as one always suspects quackery.  I have to say though that my experiences over the last few months or so have not increased my respect for conventional medicine much – perhaps it’s time to be tempted by wandering a little closer to the Dark Side of alternative health approaches.  Or not.  I am ambivalent.  And likely to remain so as I continue to take my prescribed medication.

As next week is likely to be dominated by fevered marking and equally febrile preparations for the next sets of examinations, I shall begin roughing out the form and possible style for my art book and begin collating ideas for inclusion.  What all this is, is a perfect excuse to luxuriate in sensual page turning, treating my art books as if they were sumptuous catalogues from which I can make my selection of desirable art works, pretending that I am ordering them for inclusion in my own personal imaginary gallery.

I am aiming to get a rough version of the book ready for the end of this term and have it printed by the end of the academic year.  We shall see.

I also have to get going on the production of work on the anti-hero.  My happy wandering in the ways of the Internet a few days ago was not terribly productive and, at the same time as the next round of examinations, we have another meeting to “finalize” the ideas which, as far as I can see so far, we have signally failed to come up with yet!

Something else to think about.  As indeed in the next opera in my season which is an obscure Catalan thing for which I have done no “homework” whatsoever.  Perhaps it will astonish with its sheer musicality and originality.  No not.

Early night tonight and lie in tomorrow.

Bliss!

Culture Cures!

There is nothing worse than finding out, via late planning, that there is not enough time to do something.

I vividly remember devising my “revision” timetable for my final examinations in college and discovering that I had to “do” Jane Austen in the morning of one day and Charlotte Bronte in the afternoon of the same day if everything was to be covered!  It made for some fairly hairy, adrenalin boosted learning – and to this day Austen’s novels tend to merge into one great, exquisitely written marriage fest.

The latest late planning revelation is that the presentations of my Making Sense of Modern Art have to be telescoped into a fairly short period of time.  A very short period of time.

Let me explain.

A normal school timetable is usually built around the concept of three terms.  Given the idiotic way that we have of finding the date of Easter, these three terms are not of equal length but, for general purposes, the year is divided into three.

I teach a course which is taught three times during the year and I therefore assumed (fatal!) that I would be teaching each of the three groups for a term.

Wrong.

For example: the present term ends with the start of the Easter holidays on the 2^nd of April, but my second term course actually end on the 13^th of February.  That is officially, because there is a week of trips before then starting on the 5^th of February (which is a Sunday) so the period of teaching actually ends on Friday the 4^th of February, or in my case on the 3^rd of February because I do not have a lesson on Friday.  So, from a comfortable view taking in April to illustrate all the finer details of the course I now find myself trying to cram everything in before the start of February!

This is my own fault of course because there was a single line on one of the many documents I have which told me the essential information about the length of the second term as far as taught groups was concerned, but I relied instead on a vague idea of it being some time in early March to keep me going.

I should follow the lead of Suzanne and make sure that I have all my lessons dated and planned from the start of the year!  Shame on me!

Next term (oh, how often have I heard all this before) will be different and I will fill in one of the many forms that Suzanne has given me so that I will know exactly where I am going in terms of the term time!

Meanwhile (and this is to be kept as a close secret) I have completed the two years Mock Examinations papers that I am supposed to mark and I am merely waiting for the class lists so that I can enter the marks on the sheets.

Very dangerously I find that all of my papers will have been sat before the end of this week and, if I keep up my furious (in all senses of the word) marking rate I should be finished before the rest of the Department start on their appointed tasks – thereby making me available to “assist” my colleagues in getting the mountain of marking done.  This, with all due respect to outmoded concepts of Christian Charity, is a bad thing.  I am going to keep most mousy quiet about it all and find other places in school to lurk so that my efficiency (in this single regard) does not become generally known!

After school to Montjuic and the Fundació Joan Miró for a visit to the exhibition which I declined to pay vast sums of money to go and see when I was in London last.  This was a good decision as my teacher’s identification card meant that I got in free in Barcelona!

The exhibition of an artist who is far from being one my favourites, even in terms of Catalan art, was actually quite stimulating.  This was not only because they had a reasonable selection from Miró’s early paintings, but also because there were some startlingly large and effective canvases from his late work too.

Although Miró is best known for his Surrealist paintings and the later Abstract Expressionist productions I was most impressed by the series of paintings centred around his parents’ home in Mont-roig.  These are highly detailed and colourful canvasses which are representational while the components of the landscapes are simplified into a series of stylized decorative elements which make the finished work more closely related to an exercise in graphic design than a startlingly modern exercise in contemporary art.

It is a tribute to this exhibition that it becomes startlingly clear that although the canvasses became larger and the painted symbols became more abstract and rough that Miró never lost sight of his fascination with the small details which make his paintings almost lapidary in their effect.

Perhaps this attention to detail can be seen best in the three very large paintings (267cm x 350cm) called “Painting on White Background for the Cell of a Recluse I, II, III.”  The white painted surface on each painting is only disturbed by a thin, black meandering line.  On two of the paintings the lines roughly descends from right to left while on the “central” panel the line descends in a just-off vertical way to a vague hook like curve at the end.  To sit on a bench and look at these three walls is a remarkable experience almost equivalent in power to the Rothko room in the Tate.

Well worth visiting and a considerable achievement on Suzanne and my part considering this is a Thursday of a week which seems to have been ploughing its painfully slow way along for at least the last twenty or so days.  And we have to go in to school tomorrow for an early start.  What dedication to culture we both show.

Tomorrow will see the rest of the classes take the papers that I will have to mark, but I will have no time during the day to get them started so they are going to hang over me during the weekend – because I have no intention whatsoever of bringing the papers home to do.

On another point I have been informed by Suzanne that the new date for the end of my second term class on Modern Art is wrong and that I was right in the first place about when the bloody thing is supposed to come to a conclusion.  Back to the drawing board and see what can be salvaged from my re-jigged plans.  Can plans be re-re-jigged?  And can I pretend that all this chaos is exactly what I had planned in the first place?

One can but try.

At least the weekend is nearer!

Another sunny start to a day when I don’t start teaching until 10 am.  This does not mean that I can delay my entry as the traffic situation necessitates an early departure from my home otherwise I would inevitably be monstrously delayed by the pressure of traffic.  Leaving home is a matter of fine-tuning and minutes make substantial differences by the time an intrepid traveller has traversed the desolate abyss between Castelldefels and Barcelona!

Our attitude towards the barking, howling, screaming dogs which surround us has now reached tipping point.  As a basically “dog” person (yellow Labrador bitch to be precise) I have to keep telling myself that hatred of the dogs is illogical.  Dogs bark.  Fact.  The proper recipients of any loathing, despite and abomination are the inconsiderate semi-evolved owners who think nothing of allowing their curmudgeonly curs to give full range to their vocal abilities at any time of the day and night with no regard to the sensibilities of their neighbours.

My own reaction to the moronic barking of one (just one of the many that the mad bitch owns) dog next door has prompted us to investigate the proprietary anti-barking products which are available on the Internet.

My first suggestion was a crossbow, but that was rejected as impractical because the line of sight to get at the bloody animals is not conducive to accurate aiming.  This also made my second suggestion of a taser unrealistic as well.

There are a number of versions of an ultrasonic repellent/anti-barking device on Amazon, but the customer reviews give little or no comfort as to an evaluation of their effectiveness.  One particular brand that I looked at had both five star reviews and also one star reviews with comments ranging from “incredibly effective” to “absolutely useless” – and with this particular brand not getting any reviews in between the extremes.  These things range in price from €11 to €70 but what you actually get for your money is a fairly simple ultrasonic gun.  On the principle of “anything is better than nothing”, I am going to invest in one of the cheaper versions and start zapping!  I only hope that the dogs have the capacity to learn that the vague (or even sharp) sense of unease that they feel is related to the sound that they are making – and that I am making it!

We have tried complaining to the local council, but nothing really seems to have been done – or, more likely, the brazen canineophile next door has openly disregarded the justified complaints of those seeking a quiet, dog bark free life because she obviously has more regard for our dumb (!) friends than for her human, tax paying neighbours!

I have found it impossible merely to order a bloody dog disturber and have therefore leavened the order with a few, just a few, art books.  Now that I have embarked on a “book” to accompany my “Making Sense of Modern Art” course, I feel that I have EVERY justification in buying any printed matter than I feel might have even the most tangentially positive element to help me on my way.  I wonder if I can get the school to subsidize my expenditure in any way. 

Pause for thought . . .

Meanwhile school is characterised by yet another bout of examinations, this time Mock Examinations (how apt is that word!) which seem to involve the whole of the school.  Classes have been disrupted and rearranged, teachers drafted in from other sections of the school to help the English department bring misery and despair to the maximum number of pupils and, most disturbingly of all – I mark all the Paper 1s that all the pupils sit.

This is not quite as depressing as it might sound, as the marking is almost wholly mechanical.  Indeed in a more perfect world all the papers would be marked by an optical scanner marker – which in our case we do not have.  The optical scanner marker is me.

To save my sanity I have devised a template which makes life a little easier.  I have attempted to break the back of the burden of marking by trying to get out of the way at least one year of papers from the numbers which have been sat today.  I have managed to do a little more than that by getting the second year kids out of the way and getting a section of the third done too.  I have to be careful about the speed with which I get these papers done because last year, having completed my apportioned lot I was pointed in the direction of a struggling colleague and asked to help with his papers as well!  I shall try and keep a low profile!

Tomorrow: marking and culture.  I am staying in Barcelona after school and going in to the city to visit an art exhibition in the company of Suzanne with, hopefully, dinner as part of the package! 

It's never quite as bad - is it?

Just when you think that things are established in your routine, the school issues you with another timetable and asks you to check that everything is the same because there might be some changes!

Luckily (!) in my case there were no movements of classes, so I am stuck with the same bloody awful timetable that I have had since the start of the year.  But this morning, I hobbled my way to the upper staff room only to be met by a colleague bemoaning the fact that her timetable had been changed so that she now has two very early starts and no time at the end of the day for her to have some compensatory time off for the extra time worked!  Ah joy!

In a vicious sort of way I find that this timetabling injustice sets me up nicely for the rigors of a more than full day, much on the basis that it is not enough that I feel good, someone else has demonstrably to feel bad.  At least my early starts allow me to leave before the official end of school on a Friday when I have a free period.  Friday: a day which seems lost in the mists of futurity at this stage of the first week back!

My email account has now been unblocked after my failed attempts to get Microsoft to respond were augmented by Toni’s efforts on my behalf.  Microsoft refused to send the unlock codes to me, but ten minutes on the computer for Toni and my account was magically restored.  I have had to change my password which now at least registers as “strong” on the Microsoft scale for these affairs and which consequently means that I have an odds-on chance of entirely forgetting the thing.

The teaching day is now over and the heaviest day that I have during the week has at last ended.  One feels that the weekend should be upon one, and not three unforgiving days away!

On the health front, at the risk of tempting fate, I have been feeling steadily better.  It is almost as if the school has been acting as a sort of tonic.  As if!

I had a panicky conversation with one of my colleagues in the English Department as we discussed with high pitched giggles work that we have agreed to do for a series of project based ideas to be unleashed on some unsuspecting pupils in the fairly near future.

Our topic, thanks to my big mouth and impromptu thinking, has to be centred on the concept of the anti-hero and we are supposed to be preparing worksheets or project ideas.  I am usually pretty good at this but I have not really got down to any real work on the subject yet.  Though now, having typed something I actually feel like making a tentative step towards beginning to think about making a start.

So, I’ll get on with it while I still have an hour or so of enthusiasm to waste on meandering through the Internet.

The day arrives!

The horrible reality of actually being in school for yet another calendar year is almost overwhelming.  Were it totally overwhelming then one could hide in the collapse that “totally” would ensure but, alas, there is enough of conscious thought to make the experience truly awful!

Given my health status during the vacation, I feel that I am now entitled to a holiday.  Alas, that is not possible and this term is packed with tedious pseudo-teaching which will make the moments pass like eons.

However, that is enough whingeing.  At least for today.  Unless anything untoward happens.  As it bloody well will.

Today, as a welcome back into the swing of things, I only have five periods to teach, including a lunchtime duty.  Tomorrow I have six periods to teach including a double period with Year 9 last thing in the afternoon.  These first two days are not designed to make me feel relaxed or in any way jocose about the way the week wags. 

This is one of the disasters that starting on a Monday means.  I have discussed this with a colleague and we have agreed that it would have been “better” to have come back on Thursday and done an extra two days in a broken week rather than have started “cold” with a bleak Monday and with an infinite week ahead without respite.  That sort of reasoning is why no Minister of Education really understands what makes teachers tick.

Our combined wisdom has come no nearer to understanding the bureaucratic mind that thought that six separate payments for two amounts of money would be a good idea.  After the Grand Statement that we would have 80% of our “extra” payment at Christmas withheld and that we would be taxed on 100% of the payment the Generalitat backed down and paid everything in dribs and drabs with the last payments being banked on the 28^th of December.  Merry Christmas!

No one is any clearer about what might happen and very few appear to have checked to have seen what actually did happen to the money that they were supposed to be paid.  I am prepared to bet that only a tiny percentage of my colleagues has any real perception of the total amount that they are paid.  This again is a characteristic of teachers: they don’t know their salaries!  But at least in Britain they fight like hell to make sure they get more of what they don’t know they have!

I had a heartfelt conversation with a Primary colleague just before I had to do my lunchtime duty and we agreed about the signal evil of doing anything other than augmenting pensions (god bless them!) and paying them with smiles and thanks.  The situation here in Spain is going to get much, much worse when people finally start taking the present economic situation seriously.

As we are in the Euro Zone what happens to Greece is of paramount importance to the financial situation in Catalonia and more and more of the opinion that I trust seems to be coming round to the acceptance that Greece is a lost cause and it should be forced out of the Zone.  God alone knows what that will do to the situation here and it is not something which I contemplate with any degree of equanimity.

There is, however, just one more lesson today and then home and the possibility of my book waiting for me.  Given the awful past record of the carrier that Amazon entrusts packages to in this part of the world I think I can safely say that there is no possibility whatsoever of it being there.

Added to that is the trouble stemming from Robert’s infected email which blighted my contacts list and sent them all annoying scams.  My account has been blocked and the powers that be in the Microsoft world do not seem eager to send me the code which will unlock my frozen account.  Just one thing after another!

Never let it be said that I am not man enough to admit it when I am wrong.

The Modern Art books were waiting for me when I got home.  They arrived at eight o’clock in the morning – and I therefore take back much of the nasty insinuations of rampant inefficiency that I was throwing around!

The books themselves are excellent with some brilliant full-page illustrations of the paintings and some fascinating photographs of the artists in situ.  They are two very hefty volumes and are characterised by the typically superb value that the publisher Taschen offers.  It is a little too early to evaluate the text, but from cursory reading it does not seem to have the same strength of the pictorial aspect but I have already gained a few insights concerning the artists and the movements – and there are hundreds more pages to explore!

It beats teaching!

'Tis almost time!

My imperfect health, encouraging feelings of justified resentment that this is all happening (and indeed has all happened) during a very important holiday before the long, long slog to the next period of escape, has now engendered in me a feeling of such overwhelming irritation that I am disinclined to continue this absurd state of affairs for a day longer!

I therefore let it me known that tomorrow, Sunday, has to be the last day of snuffles or any associated discomfort so that I can live the true irony of being perfectly well when I start the new term!

Having completed my reading of that perennial favourite beloved of so many, “Varney the Vampyre” I have turned to something a little different. 

“Fallen Angels” by Michael Flynn (and others) is a tale of the future in which the use of “inappropriate” technology is banned and the Greens have virtually destroyed the planet by terminal conservation, halting the natural greenhouse effect and thereby encouraging the advance of the glaciers of the next Ice Age.  The only centre of technology is found in the augmented space stations which now sent out spacecraft to scoop nitrogen from the atmosphere of earth to keep themselves going.

The action heats up (pun intended) when two pilots of an atmosphere skimming craft are shot down and land on a glacier.  The only people who can help them are those who still believe in science – old sci-fi fans.

There are some interesting takes on the disastrous effect of right thinking political attitudes, but the novel has settled down into a fairly run of the mill adventure story with the suspension of disbelief aspect of the story being an attempt to find and fire up a rocket to get the two Angels back to their station in space.

I really will have to read something of literary value next or I will soon have completely lost the hard won critical faculties that I thought I possessed that should be telling me to read something else! Though the simple, unalloyed delight one gets when reading trash is something difficulty to resist.  And, as it is the tail end of the holiday I think I have a right, if not a positive duty to indulge myself to the full.

Especially as the two-volume Modern Art book should arrive on Monday and I will take that as the start of my attempt to write a reference book for the course that I am teaching in art.  If nothing else it will give me the opportunity to justify looking at art books and buying more!

As if to add injury to illness I have now developed muscular pain in my right leg.  This is now bordering on absurdity!

I have done my best, but on a Sunday evening, half watching Barça play Español with a computer facilitated balanced English commentary and a highly biased in-house commentary, I find it impossible to ignore the fact that tomorrow is a Monday and one on which I will have to get up at some ungodly hour in the profound darkness and set off on an overcrowded main road full of disgruntled workers including teachers who will have faces full of woe as they finally go to their places of inadequate remuneration.

In short, tomorrow is the start of the next term and one which stretches on and on into the distant future of lighter mornings.

Day by day.

May I have my time back, please!

As holidays go (and this one has gone) I have to rate this one as something of a disaster.  I can truthfully say there has not been a single day on which I felt fully well.  Some days were better than others, but cough, cold, sneeze, headache, running eyes and gastric eventfulness have been my lot during the fag end of the year and the promise of the new.

As illnesses go mine have been generally low irritation but debilitating all the same.  I do not feel refreshed in any way, shape or form for the start of the new term which I am approaching with a lack of enthusiasm compared with which Toni is an avid supporter of Real Madrid!

The one achievement of this vacation is that “Varney the Vampyre” (over a thousand pages in my electronic version) is now read.  I think this is an achievement on a par with my reading of “Melmoth the Wanderer” about whose completion I am still wondering if that was the best outlay of academic time in University!  There was also “The Mysteries of Udolpho” which, on page eight hundred and odd says something like, “Reader, if I have been able to beguile a moment or two . . “ which certainly is understatement of a grand order!

“Varney” does not pretend to be anything more than an extended penny-dreadful with Gothic horror pilled on unlikely circumstance.  It doesn’t all fit together in a neat package and some characters die (or don’t) and their futures are not exactly clear.  Even the ending of the novel is somewhat equivocal and I suppose that we are meant to think that Varney has found another guise to continue his blasted existence.

There is nothing original in the story, which concerns a family which seems to be persecuted by a Vampyre (much more interesting spelling) – or is he?  The daughter of the family appears to have been bitten and the action of the novel (if it can be called one) is taken up with the efforts of the family to save her, get her happily married and confound the forces of evil.

The Vampyre of the title is a re-vivified criminal who has been hanged for his misdemeanours and is given an extended life span by the experimental ministrations of an eager doctor.  The Vampyre is most concerned to regain possession of a fortune lost, and then taken back by murder most foul, and then lost again by a confederate inconsiderately killing himself just before revealing where the money has been stashed for safety.  As the whole of the narrative is on this level it is hardly worth reciting the details.

The characters are cardboard and even take in a la Smollett an amusing deus ex machina retired Admiral and a drunken ex-seafarer companion.

The Gothic elements are interestingly handled with the reader being given enough information to believe in the supernatural while consequent events seem to suggest that there is a more realistic explanation for the action.  This does not, however cover all the action of the novel and the author seems to want his cake and eat it as far as realism is concerned.

The credulity of the common people is constantly ridiculed yet the form and content of this piece constantly draws on the popular fascination that the living dead has.  The Mob is constantly shown as deluded, fickle and very dangerous and the book is not without episodes of gruesome death and almost casual slaughter.

Historically this book is interesting for bringing together all the aspects which would appeal of popular prejudice and giving them an overlay of reason.  It panders to an audience who like to see virtue and steadfastness triumph, but with the triumph being achieved only at considerable cost.

For me one of the most interesting aspects of the novel is how money is treated.  A decent family brought low by the gambling debts of a wastrel father find nothing wrong in digging up the hidden corpse of the successful gambler killed by the father to take the deeds to a “modest” property that they thought that they had lost but which, by great good luck, were still on the person of the murdered player.  Having got the deeds they then carefully rebury the victim and presumably sleep easy in their beds.  Their discussion about the lost winnings taken back by murder are also interesting in that they are very easily convinced that there is no real crime involved in their using the money should they find it.

In the even the money goes back to the Vampyre probably which allows him (if he is a him and not some supernatural being) to start yet another new life.

The very end of the novel contrasts the skulduggery of the fabulous creature of the title with the honest virtue of the daughter of the oppressed family.  So that’s all right then.

Whatever I actually think about the literary value of the story, I did enjoy the (lengthy) read and it has encouraged me to look at other examples of the genre with perhaps a little more merit.  Or I could do some real work.  Perhaps.

Or indeed not.  I am finding that the various forms of non-healthy inconvenience, the low grade not wellness that has characterised the holiday is actually pretty much a full time occupation.  Even reading is difficult as my eyes are watering from the strain of something or other.

But begone self-pity: the Easter holidays will be here almost before we know it!

Strange Days Go On

Never let it be said that god (aka God) does not have a sense of humour.  During the celebrations of his (His) birth on a day on which he almost certainly was not born I came into contact with my Catalan "family".

And as certainly as Catalans do not drink enough alcohol, so I just as certainly contracted an illness from Toni’s family.  It is traditional for at least one of the family to be ill for Christmas Day and this year is was Toni’s brother-in-law’s turn.  I seemed to have escaped the lurgi during the actual festivities but a visit in the New Year, with the illness now having transferred itself to Toni’s brother-in-law’s wife (aka his sister) and obviously having gone up a notch in virulence – the very next day I succumbed.

Although I got up at the crack of dawn to take Toni for his blood test, on my return I adopted my patented approach to all types of illness and took to my bed for a day.  Don’t knock it, it worked.  Apart from a few alarms and excursions (over which I will draw the discreet mist of air freshener) I spent about 15 hours in bed.  And felt better.

I suspect that the illness was lurking biding its time towards victory during my time in the opera – but, thankfully, apart from a certain tightness around the tum I was able to get through the three hours of the music.


The opera was “Linda di Chamounix” by Gaetano Donizetti – what a glorious load of rubbish it all was!

As the last opera I went to in the Liceu was La Grande Macabre the sheer tunefulness was like balm on an abused ear!

To my mind this was the most satisfactory ensemble piece that I have seen in the theatre.  There was not a duff voice among the cast with the possible exception of  Carlo (Juan Diego Flórez) who I felt lacked the power and authority necessary for the role.  I might add that I was obviously in a very small minority as was made obvious by the storm of appreciation that greeted his star arias.  Decent tenors are as rare as a musical opera by Ligetti and perhaps I was just annoyed that Flórez was no Domingo (which I readily admit is unfair) and I was able to enjoy his voice as well!

Melodramatic rubbish Linda di Chamounix might be but the director (Emilio Sagi) has made the most of the scenic opportunities that the story offers.  The set (Daniel Blanco) is basically a box with curved sides with three entrances on each side with a di Chirico perspective effect. 

Up-stage is raked to provide a hill/slope which provides a startling background to the action and provides the basis for some breath-taking backlit, silhouette set pieces.  I particularly like the use of the chorus to “plant” the slope with flowers and also the use of cyclists to give a certain dynamism to the space.

The set ends downstage at the proscenium in a black glittering and reflective thrust.  I spent most of the opera wondering if this shining surface was there intentionally and if so what function it was supposed to have.  My ideas became so involved and pretentious that they imploded and I simply gave myself to the music.

Although simple the set was an excellent backdrop and Act II saw the introduction of a grand staircase which was stunning.

Act III used the simple expedient of linked tables lit like a great white way for the dramatic entrance of Linda for her finale.

The cast are clad mostly in khaki, light browns and deep creams and look terminally tasteful with the comic villain, the Marqués de Boisfleury, in black.  His snail-like entrance in the slowest electrically driven black limousine that I have seen in opera was almost a coup de theatre, but not quite.

But the music.  The music was wonderful, sometimes with the comforting predictability which keeps you warm and cosy and sometimes with shock as the orchestra attempted (very successfully) to mimic the sound of a hurdy-gurdy.

But enough already, the title of the opera has the character Linda in it and on her performance makes or breaks this piece and this Linda (Diana Damrau) was a triumph.  She made the sometimes-absurd coloratura (is that a tautology?) seem dramatically convincing.  Her mad scene was not as flamboyant as that in Lucia, but she made the most of it and received the extended applause that she deserved.

The orchestra under Marco Armillato was excellent though there were places where the singers were drowned out and there were the usual problems with wayward horns!  But a fantastic sound ably augmented with the chorus directed by José Luis Basso.

I liked the modern implications of migrant workers; patronising hypocrisy on the part of the rich; knowing acceptance on the part of the poor.  Perhaps if you worked hard you could update this rickety narrative and make it politically appropriate.

The story of the opera is weak, very weak – but I did take note of certain aspects of the opera which were though provoking.  The chorus are going to Paris to get money to send back to families at home, while the lord of the manor goes to the same city for frolics – and all the workers know exactly what he is up to.  

The end of the opera was also interesting.  The inevitable and totally unconvincing re-establishment of sanity and the uniting of the lovers was not as facile as I expected it to be.  Linda’s response to Carlo’s fervid assertion that he loved her was, “If you loved me you would not have made me unhappy.”  Fair point!  The eventual breakthrough in Linda’s journey from melodramatic madness to loving sanity was actually made to seem reasonable!  Quite an achievement!

Overall a wonderful evening’s entertainment – enlivened by the two ladies who spoke to me in the interval as we swapped stories of opera visits!

And time to get on and start preparations for the next opera whose title and composer I had never heard of before the start of my opera subscription.  Such is education!

About which, of course my mind is increasingly brooding about as the date gets nearer to the dreaded 9^th of January.

It would be absurd to allow dwelling on the awful future to infect the pleasant present – so just tell me how you do that without using Grade A drugs!

This afternoon we went to Sitges and, because our tried and tested restaurant was closed we tried a new place.  This was a little further away but gave the sort of poncey food that I like.  Pasta with Rochefort cheese sauce and woodland fruit topped with Parmesan; rice with prawns, cod and egg; biscotti with chocolate sauce and washed down with sangria.  Excellent value at €12·50.  A place to go back to.

I took the usual pictures with my newish camera in Sitges and I will have to see if I have produced anything which is in any way a little different from the many pictures of the church in Sitges, the solitary palm tree or the sculpture on the roundabout that have been my traditional subjects.  I live in hope!