John Uzzell Edwards

Going back to May 1974, the English Department of Swansea University published the first issue of a literary magazine called Prospect.  In that first issue, on the front cover and on a few pages inside there were illustrations of drawings and paintings generously contributed by John Uzzell Edwards. 

            I like to think that the most satisfying aspect of my membership of the editorial board of that magazine was pressing for the inclusion of ‘pictures’ as well as the written word and especially of being able to view and select work from John Uzzell Edwards’ home studio.  It was an utter delight to be allowed to trawl through a whole body of work and have John’s enthusiastic encouragement to take what I liked for inclusion.

            The work that I liked the most was a drawing of a stone gate in Merthyr and the reproduction was placed on page 7 of the magazine just after a new poem by Duncan Bush called Gothic Cathedral where, although the gate is no Cathedral, yet the power of the bamboo ink drawing does echo some of the sentiments in Duncan’s lines,

                                   The round-shouldered stone

                                   cuniforms

                                   that held the arc

                                   bowed down by

                                   weight, unhooped and lifted

                                   to acuteness;

                                   growing tall, they earthed mass.

                                   The load

                                   passed into the ground

                                   like electricity

The whole poem is worth reading, as indeed are Duncan’s many other poems and novels that he has written since the 70s.

            I loved John’s drawing of Gate and after we had had it photographed and published I raised with John the idea that I might actually like to purchase it.  I was, you can tell, a student with pretentions!

            It took months for John to agree to take my money.  He told me that he had rather forgotten about the drawing until I unearthed it again and that he thought it was rather good.  But agree to sell it he eventually did and it now hangs on the staircase on the third floor and I see it every day.  

            It is a picture which divides people and they end up with very decided opinions about it.  Some, like me, regard it as a remarkable piece of work fluent, assured showing a sure line and being a striking image.  Some regard it with distaste telling me that they find it sinister.  True the ground through the gate and leading to buildings in the background is a mass of swirling lines which some have seen as resembling a weeping woman, but I tend to see it as satisfyingly calligraphic making the rounded rectangular empty distance have as much vitality as the drawing itself.  Remarkable and deeply satisfying.  I love it.

            The reason that I am writing about this masterly drawing is that I read in the Guardian today that John has died at the age of 79.

            The mild mannered, accommodating, understated and absurdly talented man is gone.  I remember him with affection and I think with sympathy of his wife and family.  

            He was a good man with a real gift and I am privileged to have a wonderful example of his art as part of his living memorial.

           

¡Viva La República!

So, the elephant-killing-justice-is-for-all-except-my-thieving-daughter-and-her-husband-king has abdicated.  About time!  The real pity is that the whole of his brood have not renounced the throne as well.

            Timing is everything.  The noose is tightening around the necks of his greedy progeny as the court case about the wholesale swindling of public money is getting nearer to some sort of resolution.  I know of nobody in Spain who truly believes that the Infanta and her husband will get the harsh justice that they deserve, or that we the people who they have ripped off will get any justice at all.  But whatever the outcome there is a lot of bad, bad publicity on the horizon for this discredited branch (sic.) of the debased family of Bourbon.

            The European elections have shown a diminution in the proportion of the vote that has gone to the recognized, establishment parties on the right and left and it has also led to the astonishing rise of the left wing party Podemos.  As the king becomes more and more doddery and as he is still haunted (as he bloody well should be) by his taking of an extravagantly expensive hunting trip during the height of the financial crisis and shooting anything that moved, including an elephant, the prestige (sic.) of the so-called Royal Family (as established by Franco) has sunk to a new low.

            So, with the rise of a new and popular left wing party which is calling for a referendum on the monarchy, the king has decided to cut and run and hope that the throne will go to his eldest son who has a vastly higher popularity rating than he does.  With the odious PP party in power in Spain, and with an absolute majority in parliament, they will be able to rubber stamp the accession and cite the Constitution to justify it.  PP will have a coronation and the equivalent of bread and circuses for the population with the distraction of the World Cup to keep the minds of the population from the important things in life and accept what PP says should happen.

            Here in Catalonia with the rise of the separatist movement and the desire to break away from Spain there is already an anti-monarchist feeling with which, as a life-long hater of royalty, I heartily concur.  Although, thanks to what my father called my ‘belligerent pacifism’ I cannot actually want the excesses of The French Revolution to be enacted in Spain in the twenty-first century, yet there is also part of me that wants to yell to the passing tumbril, ‘À la lantern!’

            I fear that I will have to content myself with signing a petition asking for a vote to express a preference for a meritocracy or an outmoded, class dominated, archaic, vicious, corrupt system.  I trust that I have remained scrupulously impartial there in the way that I would phrase the question.

            Isn’t there some sort of saying about a dog returning to its own vomit?  It came to mind when, thanks to the persuasively digressive qualities of the Internet I found myself perusing the latest examination drafts from my old board, the WJEC (The Welsh Joint Examination Committee) which has rebranded itself, for England, as Eduqas or possibly eduqas - for that extra degree of trendiness - breaking away from the normal codes of appropriate expression. 

            As I read, with growing depression this Grove-dictated linear exam-heavy verbiage, I was depressed, though not unduly surprised to read in the FAQs for this new qualification, in response to the apposite question, ‘Why is WJEC introducing this new brand?’ that the board’s answer contained not one but three split infinitives!  So much for Assessment Objective A06 and goodbye to the marks for accuracy!  Ah, thank god I am outside all of this nonsense nowadays!

            More importantly than the horror that every new examination draft must inflict on hard working and harder pressed teachers of English, I have to report that the weather in Catalonia was most un-English in its heat and sunshine.  I was therefore able to stretch out and attempt to restore my Vitamin D levels.  Unfortunately the weather forecast is not encouraging and I am praying that Castelldefels will live up to its microclimate expectations from the people who live here.  I am also well aware that the rays can get through haze and clouds!

            The re-signing of the contract for the renting of the house was disturbingly straightforward.  The only negative aspect was the continued refusal of the owners of the place to accept their responsibilities and ‘do something’ about the faulty water heating system.  When I maintained that this would clearly be the landlord’s responsibility in the UK, I was immediately informed that it was the same in Spain, but in the case of our property because it was owned by some sort of private firm or society they could, apparently, ignore law and fairness and sit back and just take the money while doing bugger all for it.

            This might be something which it is worth looking in to, but that would require a resort to what is laughingly called ‘the law’ in this country and, as justice is well and truly dead here, I think that would be a futile effort.

            My art books are going to arrive on Friday.  That is something to keep me calm.  Apart from the gnawing expectation – because, I want it all and I want it now.

Oh dear!

It’s the screams of children that really let you know that summer has arrived.  With their insistent assumptions that everyone in the world finds listening to their monotonous yelling charming and attractive they are the worst sorts of companions.  And of course, you have no option but to hear their childish noise.  I suppose it’s our own fault really, we should never have chosen a place which didn’t have triple glazing and air conditioning – both absolutely essential if small persons are to infect ones space.

            There.  That’s out of the way now: my first rant about living with other people in the summer.  There will be more.  I can assure you of that.  It is so nice to make a promise that one knows that one can keep!

            Tomorrow we go to the Estate Agents and re-sign our contract for the house.  Our agents have been astonishingly unhelpful about every aspect of living here, ever since we signed.  They have done nothing about anything.  Any request that we have made, which would have been a normal part of a rental agreement made in the UK has been treated as if we had asked for our taps to be replaced with ones of hammered gold.  The radiators don’t work properly.  Tough!  The water heater is not heating the water.  Tough!  The kitchen units do not have shelves.  Tough!  And so on.  They have done nothing except take the rent and respond to any necessary repairs with a standard response of “the owner will not do that.”  It might be interesting to find out what the so-called legal obligation of the mythical ‘owners’ are, apart that is from scooping in vast amounts of my money.  I am spiritually prepared for almost anything happening tomorrow.  The one thing that I will not be prepared for is a simple matter of signing.  I am just speculating about what surprises they will have in store for us.  Or perhaps (in spite of experience) I am just being overly pessimistic.  Tough!

            After torrential rain yesterday, today was sunny and bright, and I made full use of the Third Floor to rid myself of the unnatural pallor of my skin.  Now that I do not have to get up at unearthly hours and work indoors for money I feel that I should spend as much time as possible gaining the advantages from moving to this country in the first place.

            It might also be the time when I should consider buying a place of my own.  The housing situation in this country is one of a continuing disaster as the fallout from the chaotic housing boom continues to be felt.  Prices have dropped, but one wonders just how much further they can go down.  The laughable government that we have which is composed entirely of thieves and poltroons of the very worst sort mouth increasingly ludicrous lies about how things are getting better while they assiduously work their little arses off to shower favours on the rich and mighty so that they will have comfortable jobs when they are finally booted out of office.

           

There are, unfortunately sufficient numbers of the rich and selfish and the poor and stupid to keep these grasping cretins in power, although the rise of a party called Podemos (We Can!) is giving the established parties (PP- Conservatives and PSOE - Labour) cause for thought.

            PSOE have been lamentably weak in their attacks on the government, in spite of the fact that the television churns out damming revelation after crushing condemnation about the criminal activities of the political elite.  They have made no capital from the scandals that rock the government day by day, I suspect because they are terrified that their own skeletons will come tumbling out of the various closets in the seats of power.  Though that is a terrible mixed metaphor.  Podemos could be the party which will gain popular support (they already have 4 seats in the European parliament after the last election, after only having been formed for a few months!) and break the tyranny of corruption that comes with the concentration of power in lazily avaricious hands.  One can only hope.

            In this country the judicial system is too close to the political system and justice (an interesting concept in this country) is swift if you are small and powerless and strangely tardy if you are a corrupt politician having stolen public money.  God knows Podemos has made a good start, but whether they will have enough steam to forge ahead in the general election remains to be seen.  At the moment it is being publically vilified by the two established parties as they can see their future wealth being denied them by a party which has stated aims of removing corruption from the political scene.  One keeps ones fingers crossed.

            Meanwhile Toni does the lottery, which is the other way in which many of our present problems can be solved!

And, breathe!

Humanity can breathe a sigh of relief – life, as we know it can continue.  Toni has passed the present set examinations and is now free to breathe again for what is now officially The Summer.  God knows it makes my life easier as well, as the thought of coping with re-sits is something I cannot contemplate with any degree of anything approaching equanimity.  But he passed and passed well.  Thank god there was only a week between the examinations and the results!

            My course has also ended, but I have to wait until ‘mid to late July’ for my results.  At present the forums are filling up with students writing their ‘Dear All’ posts, thanking everybody they have ever written to and looking forward with increasing trepidation to the rest of the courses they have to do.  As the Creative Writing Course that I have just completed was a Level 2 course, most of my fellow students will be going on to Level 3 courses – the equivalent of third year university studies and doing a couple of courses to complete their degrees.  I have arranged it so that my last two years will be filled with the history of art.  The first year (starting next October) Art in the Twentieth Century and then in October 2015 – when, incidentally I will start drawing my State Pension – I will complete my degree with a course in Renaissance Art.  I think.  But computations in how you Build Up Your Credits are way beyond my simplistic approach to mathematics and so I may be wrong about how much longer it is going to take me, but when all is said and done, who cares?  It can take as long as it likes as far as I am concerned as I am doing it for my own satisfaction and not for some work related necessity.

            To celebrate Toni’s success we went to La Rincon de Lola and had an excellent four course Menu del Dia with wine and a glass of Cava at a price I will not write down so as not to irritate readers who are not from Spain.  The weather however has been awful, even allowing for some brief glimpses of the sun, it has been quite unlike it should be at this time of the year and totally unacceptable.

            I am determined in the next course that I will make use of the Facebook page which is devoted to the subject I have chosen.  To this end I have revived my presence on Facebook and am trying my best to come to terms with how it works.  Unenthusiastically, at the moment – but I am sure that I will be filled with the excitement of new social media before long.

            Meanwhile, I will content myself with waiting for a more conventional media to come my way.  On a casual basis I decided to take a book list that came my way a few hours ago seriously and have ordered all the art books on it, plus a few extras.  I really must sort my books out this summer.  At last.  Or not.  At this rate the months from now until October are going to be too few to pack in the reading I will have to do even before the course starts!