Let's all cough together!

Despite the most advanced medical knowledge being but a click away, Toni is still convinced that the reason we are both wracked with coughing and with sore throats which give new meaning to course sandpaper is that we had lunch a few days ago sitting in the outside seating of a restaurant watching the Med.  Admittedly it was a trifle windy, but it was gloriously sunny and himself was in the shade.  Almost.  Today I went to our local medical centre and was seen almost at once, though not by my doctor, and after a more thorough examination than I have had for a long time, I was pronounced to be suffering from a virus.  This was after a cursory look at my throat had elicited the single word ‘Red!’

            So I am now back to my normal number of pills to be taken daily – though at least the last two additions are for a week only.  I sincerely hope that the ‘week or so’ description of this nasty visitor will prove to be true and that next week I will be free to watch my last opera without the attendant misery of suppressed coughing.

            It will be instructive to see what Toni is given for his symptoms, which are exactly the same as mine, as he goes to our regular doctor tomorrow.  I await the reading of his prescription with some interest.

            My reading of the History of Art books which have been recently delivered has calmed down a bit.  There is only so much reading of dated artistic manifestos one can read at a single sitting.  I am waiting for my ‘pop shit’ book of modern art to reignite my enthusiasm.  Such drastic simplifications of art history are interesting as much for the specious generalizations and half-truths in the name of education as they are for the poorly chosen illustrations.  But, perhaps I am prejudging and I am always prepared to revise my opinion given the actual appearance of the book in my hand!

            I am however writing poetry.  I have decided to keep on working until the official end of the course – or until I get my results, though the basic idea is to go on writing poetry for ever.  My chapbook ‘Poems – off course’ is now almost ready for production and merely awaits the final poems before publication.  That all sounds rather grand as if Faber and Faber were waiting eagerly for my final poetic effusions before rushing it out into print.  Alas, that is not so and the only printer involved in the double sided wonder in our living room.  Still, it’s a start and I will print a reasonable number of copies so that friends and relations can read and, with any luck respond to what I have written.  If things go as I want them to, then I will produce a chapbook each year.  That should not be beyond the bounds of possibility and will be a fitting response to the course that is ending.

            Although I did not go to my poetry group this week (preferring to cough in my own comfortable bed rather than a strange one) the poem that I have most recently completed, ‘Away’ is a response to a freewrite in a previous meeting.  As always for me, the response is a little oblique, but there are one or two parts of the poem that I think work well and I am pleased with what I have written.  The course has changed my approach and I think that I am more confident than I was before and I am more assured in my choice and manipulation of experience.  I can say things like that to my heart’s content, but it is the response of readers that is the key, and that I am looking forward to.  Good, bad or indifferent I think that I have shown over the last ten months or so that the Creative Writing Course has lasted that I can respond to analysis and I think that my poetry is the stronger for it.  Roll on the readers!

            We are getting nearer to Toni’s exams on Saturday.  His illness comes at exactly the wrong time and can only add to the stress that he already feels.  It has not helped either that for the first time since he started this course he got a mere ‘B’ for one of his assignments to spoil his run of unblemished ‘A’s’ that he had previously.  This has exponentially increased his pessimism about what the exams will hold.  Especially as one of the exams will be using a computer – and the students have not been told what type or sort of computer it will be or what sort of software will be loaded into it.  I think that the amount of preparation for the exam that the students have is woefully inadequate, but I say nothing in case my concerns merely add to the gigantic concerns that Toni has already.  I will be glad when Saturday has come and gone and the summer can start!  At least in this university the results are out in a week – quite unlike the more leisurely and academic time that the OU takes.

            So, tomorrow Toni and the doctor and then up to Irene to get her car back from the garage and, of course, work on the next poem for the ever-growing book.

            

Times ahead!

A generally glum day in which the only bright spark was that certain persons have left the area – even if only temporarily.  Toni and I both continue to cough and resent the dull to sharp ache we have in our respective throats.  Didn’t stop me swimming, I only hope that the salt water electrolysis system that they have in the pool was able to cope ruthlessly with whatever germs or viruses I have coursing around my system.  And the chicken we had for lunch was overcooked.  So, all in all, not a good day – but, the Briton in me rises to the surface and says, ‘Well, at least it didn’t rain.’

            As you may well be able to imagine, I am having various panicked thoughts about the end of module work that I have sent off so many days early.  I am having to steel myself not to revisit my work and tinker.  I cannot pretend that any changes I now make can be graced with a word like ‘drafts’, such nervous taking away of a comma and putting it back again is the literary equivalent of thinking about changing a tie and not doing it.  Or something even less real.  I will leave be what I have written and trust in the OU gods to do their stuff.

            And to this end I have started on another poem.  I have done my freewrite and, with trust pencil in hand I have written a couple of pages of more directed free association – if that isn’t a contradiction in words.  Well, it’s what I do to get started and that bit has now been done.  I will leave what I have written until tomorrow when I will ruthlessly cut virtually everything and (at least in theory) find something worth preserving which will be my guide to an altogether more productive slew of writing filled pages.  That, at least is the theory.  Doesn’t always work, but I can see one or two ideas that might be worth taking further already so I am prepared to leave things in lively expectation of better phrases tomorrow.

            I also have to think more closely about my involvement with the poetry group in Barcelona.  I am having serious doubts about its actual and financial value – but that is also something which will need to be thought about tomorrow when, with any luck, the nagging cough will have subsided into irritation and therefore can be safely ignored.

            I have ordered another book for the Art History Course that starts in October that looks to be something of an idiot’s guide to the movements of the last century.  I know that I have seen cheap versions of the book remaindered in Book Shops in Barcelona, but I really need it in English and so have sent off for it.  I think that I will have to do a trawl of my bookcases and get all the pop-shit stuff together and immerse myself in popularist generalizations before I get to the more rarefied stuff which is the basis for my course.  I have bought quite a few books on the ‘I need them for school’ basis which will form a painless way of getting up to speed on a whole range of schools, styles and artists before I delve into the nitty-gritty of the competing ideologies dressed up in the sometimes-impenetrable vocabulary of artists and critics.  I seem to recall a ‘Bluff Your Way in Art’ book which was an essential reference work when I was last teaching the History of Art!

            My books are still not in order, though the chaos is less pronounced than it used to be.  I at least know where what I call ‘concentrations’ of books on various subjects are to be found and, anyway I have always enjoyed browsing my way through my library.  I look forward to discovering ‘lost’ volumes as I attempt to bring even further order to my library before the start of the new course.

            Tomorrow I finish a draft of my new poem and find out if Irene needs me to take her to a garage to get a replacement for her faulty car.  And the debate continues about my presence in the Poetry Group this Wednesday.  Should I go or not.  Decisions.

What next indeed.

Today is the first clear day of the CO (Course Over) era.  This part of my OU course is done.  All the TMAs have been written, marked and returned.  The EMA has been drafted, written, revised and further revised.  I have completed the Commentary incorporating every aspect of OU demanded features and I have sent the thing off.  Two weeks early.  As recommended by the OU to ensure that any problems with computers and the Internet and Random Acts of God are all taken into account.  It is done.  And presumably some time in June I will be informed of the result.  And another part of this long, long degree will have been completed.

            So far it has taken me over thirty years!  To be fair, I had thought that the handful of courses that I had taken in the 80s were now ‘out of date’ and would not be counted and had started anew, taking a couple of level 1 courses to get myself back into the swing of things.  I had entered into negotiations to try and get myself excused from having to do AA101 (the Foundation Arts Course) and was prepared to do a higher-level course to compensate.  Then everything changed when out of the blue I had a phone call which told me that everything I had done would be ‘counted’ as long as I completed my degree before 2019.  I even discovered that I had some bonus points which I could use instead of doing a couple of courses.  This means that I have another two years of study (Modern Art and then the Renaissance) and I will be able to call myself BA² – I am aware that, in the scheme of things this is a dubious distinction, especially as I have completed my career.  But it does keep me off the streets and has allowed me to produce a slim volume of verse.

            So, the sun shines and the wind blows and I am keeping out of Toni’s way as he counts down the last week to his next exams.  I have been assured by him that when this selection of examinations has been completed he will return to his fully human personality.  At least for the duration of the summer period until he starts his next course of studies in September.

            I will have an extra period of grace until early October before my own studies start, but I have already bought the books necessary for the course - and since one of them is over fifteen hundred pages long (and without pictures!) I think that my time will be fully occupied in getting ahead of the deluge of reading that will be an essential aspect of the module.  I have made a start on the smaller and altogether more reader friendly book that has been written specifically to accompany the course.  I fail to understand why this book has not been provided with the four volumes that cover the course as part of the supplied course materials – but that might be someone speaking from the perspective of the 1980s when the courses were over twenty times cheaper.  Even allowing for inflation it means that the OU is no longer a gloriously inexpensive way to get a university education.

            So, next October I will be struggling to follow the artistic manifestos of various writers, artists and critics whose first duty seems not to be to clarity of expression in the simplest possible language.  To put it mildly.  I fear that I might be near to being out-pretentiousnessed.  Which could be something worth watching.

Still here!

Sitting in yet another hotel in Barcelona: basic, utilitarian – but en suite (I have my limits.)  This time it is in preparation for a performance of Tosca.  Now that my time is my own, I have adopted the luxury of getting myself a room in the city so that I do not have to traipse off into the midnight traffic at the end of the opera.  This room could hardly be better situated: it is within yards of the Liceu, hence its name Hostal Operaramblas.  It may only be two stars and there is no TV in my room, but location, location, location!  I might even book for the next one while I am here.

            And that is another thing.  As The Rough from Reading will be descending on the exact date of my next opera performance I have had to change my ticket.  Pre-crisis this would have meant a payment of some sort, but not today.  Today the Liceu is pathetically grateful for any and all opera patrons, especially ones like myself who have paid for the most inclusive ticket at the start of the season.  For we ‘royalty’ of the opera world, nothing is too much.  So my ticket was changed with no charge.  Some things are better during a crisis.  But not many.

            I am relaxed about getting to the opera even though it is quarter past seven and I have not had a shower.  I need a shower because of the bus journey.  I had to stand most of the way and the seats (when I finally got one) seem to be designed to destroy the bones in your spine.  Even as I type I am aware of a sharp ache courtesy of Barcelona transport.  And that is before I get to my seat and have an overlay of further pain from the design of the sitting device that seems to be common in most places of public entertainment.  At least I will not have to stumble far to get to a bed and relax.

            I could, of course go to the appalling Indian restaurant which is opposite the Liceu at the end of the performance, but I have been there before and to say that the food is disappointing is to be too generous.  Anyway I had an excellent lunch which put me in mind of the sorts of bargains in the food line that I used to get when I first arrived in Spain.  The meal of appetiser, salad, paella, round fishy things (the word for which has temporarily escaped my mind, but will return), a sort of cheese dessert, bread, wine and Casera – all for €8.50!  Astonishing.  And it was Toni’s turn to pay for the tea and coffee in the shopping centre so, all in all an excellent meal.  I am sure that it will last for Tosca and a bit beyond.

            Now a shower and to get ready, or put a shirt and tie on and onwards and upwards to melodrama and music which can reduce me to tears.