Here we are again!

Just as there was no real reason why I stopped, so there is no real reason why I am starting again.  Whim is as good a reason as any.

            So much has happened in the blank gaps of my writing that there is no obvious point to survey and explain.  Nothing dramatic has occurred, no life changing events, but life continues and my part within it bumbles along on its appointed course.

            Perhaps the single most pleasant event was receiving an email floating the idea that perhaps I would like to do a couple of week paternity leave in the School on the Hill.

            Instant and complete rejection was the first (and indeed the last) reaction but it did give me pause for thought, and there was a tug of interest before the rationality of self intervened with the knife of logic and cut the whole idea from my mind.  The simple logistics of doing a couple of weeks work would necessitate various visits to governmental offices that I have no desire to make.  Easier by far to stick to my stated aim of following Uncle Eric (who, by the way is hale and hearty, albeit with a Zimmer) and remaining retired for more years than the years of work which fund it.  In an absolute sense, taking extinction as part of the retirement process, we all have more time after than before – but Eric continues to draw his pension as he marches (well, shuffles) towards triple figures.  He has now been drawing his governmental money for more than ten times longer than I have – but at least I have started the long trek towards parity!

            The poems for TMA 03 have been written, though not revised and edited.  I have left them for a few days to attempt to get some sort of distance so that I can look at them with a critical gaze to se if there is anything more that I can do to try and improve my lamentable performance for the last TMA.  It was by no manner of means a disaster, but when you are living with the personification of an A Grade then anything less than the top mark is seen as something of a failure.

           

The arrangements have been made for the State Visit to Cardiff at the end of June.  The flight is to Cardiff by Vueling and so we will fly from the fabled Terminal 1 – whose existence is a tribute to conspicuous expenditure rather than need.  Oh, and corruption of course.

            As you can imagine I am having a field day in Spain at the moment as the sorry sight of a chiselling member of the so-called Royal Family is forced into court to answer questions about her knowledge of the criminal activities of her greedy husband.  The evidence against the pair of them is overwhelming and their protestations of innocence are pathetic.  Revealingly La Razon (a nasty little right wing rag) published a very clever piece of research that they did.  They asked a carefully worded question of the public: “Do you think that the Infanta (the daughter of the elephant and brother shooting king of Spain) [La Razon did not add that clarification to their question] will be found innocent?”  Notice that they did not ask if people thought she was innocent, but if she would be found innocent.  No one in his right mind thinks that Justice (!) will prevail in this sorry country.  Though it is clear that her husband is being set up to take most of the blame together with his partner in crime, a lecturer or professor.

            Significantly, at the start of this long drawn out investigation, the wife of the professor was also implicated and part of the proceedings.  Belatedly the powers that be have realized that if they charge the professor’s wife then they will have to charge the Infanta as well, so they have dropped the wife from the investigation in the hope that the Infanta can be protected as well.

            All of this is so glaringly obvious that it takes the breath away.  The evidence against the pair in the public domain is so clear, with her bloody signature on various incriminating documents that they would appear to be no escape – but that is to ignore the way that Justice works in this country.  It doesn’t.  And there you have it.  With a wave of logic that would leave the author of Alice in Wonderland struggling to catch his breath everything will be sorted out so that nothing is sorted out and all the corrupt movers and shakers will carry on exactly as they have been doing since the Dictator died.

            It is a sad state of affairs with cases involving virtually anyone with money and a pulse waiting to be carefully unresolved so that the rich can go on exactly as they want.  If the situation in Spain doesn’t make you a rabid socialist then nothing will!

            The only real problem in Spain is knowing where to start in the cleaning of stables because wherever you look filth is piled high and is stinking to high heaven.

            In such a situation it is a relief to be able to go upstairs and immerse oneself in the arcane niceties of apposite assonance!

            As if.  Today has been one in which I have made various desultory attempts to improve on my poems and all I have achieved is thorough disenchantment with the lot of them.  This will pass and I am sure that what I have done, with minor alterations will suffice.  Probably.

            

The things I do for Knowledge

Amazingly I have already packed my case.  The more cynical among you might say that for a trip that is going to last some 48 hours spread over three days the ‘packing’ element might be, one might say, light.  But this is not to take account of my almost pathological hatred of the whole enterprise.  Packing that is, not necessarily the whole travel thing. 

I keep telling myself that the experience makes it all worthwhile.  Even in that centre of corruption in the quintessential country of corruption.  Home to the disgraced husband of the Infanta and her brood, getting out of Spain because whenever they walk abroad in their home country the general population calls, ‘Chorizo!’ which is the Spanish slang term for ‘Thief’ because, of course there is a large amount of circumstantial evidence (!) which would point to certain irregularities in the financial way that they have lived their high-style lives.  I must stop that sentences otherwise I will get into trouble – both political and grammatical!

So Geneva, home of tarnished Spanish royalty and FIFA.  Funny how disgraceful selfishness and a complete disregard for the finer feelings seem to gravitate towards places like Geneva!

With the exception of the OU, of course, naturally!

I have been frustrated in my attempt to buy another watch.  I know, I know – but this one was something of a bit of bling.  The modern fashion in watch design is to add ceramic to the mix.  The one on which I had my eye was in white ceramic with a mix of steel and around the watch case, sparkling almost diamonds!  Believe me it looked better than it sounds!

I actually saw someone else buying this watch and was immediately taken with it.  But he took the only model that the shop had and so they very kindly offered to get me one.  Today I had a message telling me it was in, and waiting.  With the patience and reserve for which I am justly famous I actually waited until after my swim before I rushed to the shop to claim what I was more than prepared to pay far too much money for.

Seen, liked and bought.  It was as the lady was about to remove a link to make it fit for my slim wrist that I innocently asked the question, “It is waterproof, isn’t it?”  To which the harsh response was in the affirmative with the horrific qualification, “But not for swimming.”  Collapse of stout party. 

I have vowed that I will not go back on the features that I have gained in my last watch purchase and so, with great reluctance, I had to forgo the pleasure of (as Toni might phrase it) ‘wasting’ money.  I have been sulking throughout the day.

We went out to have tapas at our favourite haunt in Castelldefels of La Fusta.  Bitterly disappointing, only the patatas bravas were up to standard, everything else was not what we expected.  If forced us to have an extended conversation about how we would design our new house after winning 57 million euros in one of the many lotteries than Toni, with a faith which ought to move mountains and bring the Spanish political system back from the dysfunctional Swiftian horror fantasy that is our everyday experience, should ensure that the next draw will be the big One for him.  But, alas, it never is.  However, speculation about how my library would look and where to put the second Jacuzzi is always comforting when faced with eating second-rate tapas.

Whatever I think of mildly unacceptable Spanish snacks in one particular restaurant, I can’t but think that the next few days are going to see me think very fondly of that half-baked experience as I sample the delights of Swiss cuisine.

I shall retain an open mind and hope for the best.

It's all in the stroke

The swimming pool this morning was a mass of humanity (in it’s widest sense) swarming with kids and a bizarre class of more aged water leisure practitioners who were standing in the pool in lines while waving those tubular flotation thingies presumably for the benefit of their health, or possibly merely to frighten the unwary.  Even though the pool looked full a swimming lane was clear and so I was able to plough my furrow with impunity.

            My fairly newly developed extended stroke is coming into its own and I am fairly powering my way down the pool.  My new technique is to break my traditional rhythm of breathing on my left arm stroke by adding three extra strokes before the breath.  This means that my head is down for longer and the speed is increased with very little extra effort.  The breathing, retaining the breath until after the second left arm stroke and then exhaling the breath over the next three strokes until the next breath, is still something for which I am counting.  Eventually it will become second nature and I can begin to think about whether I really ought to find someone to teach me the tumble turn.

            The fluency of my swimming is obviously interrupted by the fact that I touch the end of the lane and turn myself round and then set off again.  This is hardly efficient, but I have made little effort to develop anything more sophisticated.  There is a gentleman of, shall we say, late middle age who does the most inefficiently cumbersomely magnificent tumble turns that my clumsy turns seem polished professionalism by contrast!  However, he is at least making an effort and I still hesitate to humiliate myself by turning and finding my feet are nowhere near the wall of the pool.  This I have already done on various occasions when the spirit moves me to assume a higher professional profile and got a mouthful of water as an added bonus for my effort as well.  Perhaps I could leave that as a task for the summer.  And for a teacher.

            Perhaps I could ask one of the lifeguards to give me a few hints, though trying to understand Spanish or Catalan for such a technical effort might be effort that I am not prepared to make.

            I am prepared to put the effort in for the Magnum Opus Poeticus.  More work was done on this today, though most of it, nay all of it was more in the way of preparation than anything else.  I am getting nearer to what the poems (I have decided on a sequence of seven) should contain, but that need polishing and then the real hard work of getting the content starts.

            At the moment I am beset by cliché and all my original ideas seem more tired the more I think about them.  The process of refinement should produce something of more interest and I am keeping my powder dry to get me through the Day School which looms.

            Diane, who has been with me through three OU courses, now, seems prepared to make arrangements of our evening meals for the two nights that we are likely to be in Geneva.  God bless her!

            It will be illuminating to meet my fellow students.  The last time I met students on OU courses was in the eighties, and in Britain.  I wonder how the present crop of students will be different.  Or indeed be the same.  Instructive is the word that comes to mind.

            I will have to pack tomorrow, as I have to be at the airport by 10 in the morning for a half past twelve flight.  I will also have to print out some maps and information about Geneva.  Not that I will have much time for sightseeing.