Bits of paper!

The Open University





It’s thinner, but more colourful; my name printed rather than hand lettered; it has an impressed stamp like the other, but as a sign of the times, also has a holographic stamp too; it’s A4 portrait on paper rather than landscape and card – it’s my degree certificate.

            A repetition of my first degree (right down to the class) though via rather different subjects.  It is difficult not to look at the piece of A4 paper and not think about the money that such a degree now costs to students studying in many UK universities.  Even without taking living expenses and the cost of textbooks, you are looking at twenty-seven thousand pounds.  I wonder what 27K would have got me when I did my first BA in 1970s – certainly more than Room 816 in Neuadd Lewis Jones in Swansea University, and all my textbooks rebound in leather with my personal monogram embossed in 24k gold on the front!

            OU degrees do not cost as much, but the cost of the courses has increased exponentially since I took my first course over thirty years ago: what was a couple of hundred pounds or less is now a couple of thousand.  Such costs are a reflection of political insistence, especially on behalf of the Conservative party which was a vociferous opponent of the whole concept of the OU.  It has forced the OU to become more financially commercial with the result that its courses have become further and further out of reach to the very people they were designed and intended to serve.  It is still a wonderful institution and I am very proud to be a graduate.  At last.  Only taken thirty years!

I have been reading “Great Lengths” by Dr. Ian Gordon and Simon Inglis, which is a pictorial survey of the historic indoor swimming pools of Britain.  This was an inspired Emma birthday present to me as it fits well with the work that I did on the comparison of Hockney and Guevara’s paintings of swimming pools which was the subject matter for my extended essay in the OU course on Modern Art.

            There is still some discussion about the exact location of the swimming pool in Guevara’s paintings and I am hoping that some of the information in the book will allow a more precise identification.  There is a bibliography as well, so there is the opportunity for further research.

            The history of indoor swimming pools in Britain is not such an arcane area of knowledge as you might think.  The impetus to build such pools in the nineteenth century reflected the growing concern with public health and municipal pride.  Pools were divided into classes and the structure of entrances to the pools reflected the need for division of the classes so that they didn’t mix.  When you add concerns about lady swimmers and what costumes both sexes should use you have a complex history of social manners that delights!

            I have only just started reading the book seriously, but it looks like something to which I will return for future research.

            It was also poignant to see pictures of the Empire Pool in the centre of Cardiff opposite the bus station.  It is now demolished; an act of barbarism which I am not inclined to forgive.  I used the pool (only a trolley bus ride from my home in Cathays) when I was a kid and I used it until adulthood and only stopped when Cardiff built a series of new leisure centres which gave access to decent facilities in neighbourhoods outside the centre.

            I ended up using the David Lloyd Centre situated on what is laughingly called Rumney Common (you have to look very closely to find any vegetation finding a way through asphalt and concrete there now) and it had the advantage of being on my way to and from work.  I would sometimes debate, after a long and tiring day, whether I actually wanted my second swim, but I usually found that the car made the decision for me and while the debate was still going on in my head, the wheels of the car had followed the well worn metaphorical ruts and I was in the car park of the centre!

            It is much the same in Castelldefels.  I was a member (I still am, ah the stickiness of a standing order!) of a municipal pool on the other side of the town, but to get to it I had to go out of my way.  The nearest pool was only open air and, while that is more than acceptable in summer, it is a completely different form of masochism in winter!  When the local pool was reformed with a retractable roof I joined the centre and it is the one that I have used ever since.  My only desertions have been during the times the pool is closed for maintenance- and what happens then is a completely different story for another time.

Meanwhile, I am about to meet an ex-colleague from Cardiff who has come to visit Barcelona and we are going out to lunch to give her the opportunity to explain (as if an explanation were necessary) why I made the right decision to retire from public education!  The stories I am hearing about the administration of my last British school are heart-breaking, not only because of the misery of my colleagues but also because of the way that maladministration will make a difference to the way that the kids are taught.  It is at times like this that I remember that I am being paid money simply for being alive.  Even with a streaming cold that is something to warm the cockles of my heart!

And I’ll drink to that!

Complications of imaginary friends

Just when you think that the Roman Catholic church couldn’t be even more irrelevant that it has made itself in the way that it has institutionalised religion and ignored the concerns of what might be termed the real world, its current response to a world racked with discord, disunity, disenfranchisement, disgust with existing political structures and grotesque inequality is to prohibit the scattering of ashes to the winds, seas and anywhere other than in an approved sacred site.  And in fact not scattering them at all.  Certainly not keeping them at home.  And anyway good Roman Catholics should be buried.

            Never mind injustice, poverty, hunger and war, the richest religious organization in the world makes a big announcement about ashes of the dead.  If it weren’t so gloriously irrelevant to what is happening in the world and how people behave it would be funny. 

But it isn’t.  Funny, that is. 

It is a calculated insult to what is actually happening and is an ecclesiastical two fingers to modern life.  Why worry about inequality and the declining position of the poor and disadvantaged in the world when you can make up a questionable piece of religious ‘law’ from a “make it up on the spur of the moment” committee of corrupt over-privileged out-of-touch cardinals?  Why not make a sensitive area of personal life dealing with the death of loved ones something subject to the prying attention of the princes of the Church?  Contemptible is not the word for it.

And talking of priest-ridden countries, Spain continues along its path to destruction with the restoration to full government of the bunch of corrupt thieves which form the government, and let us not forget that one minister of this same rogue group actually awarded the police medal to . . . wait for it . . . The Virgin Mary!  You couldn’t make it up!  And don’t get me started on the tax situation of the Roman Church in this country.  But let it pass, let it pass.  Which I certainly won’t!

However, let me get on to something more immediate and more uplifting.

            What patient does not want to hear his doctor (I’m talking about mine so the masculine personal pronoun is accurate and not sexist) tell him that he doesn’t want to see him for another year?  And shakes his hand after reading through the results of a blood test!  I had to wonder when he told me that the next scheduled time for an appointment to see me will be when I need another flu jab in a year’s time, was more to do with the fact that I nag him about his smoking rather than concern about my health.  We did have a bet: I would lose weight and he would give up smoking if I hit my target.  I hit my target, and he prevaricated!  So, there is always a possibility that he is putting me on hold while he continues his bad habits.  I have to say that I don’t really believe that, his delight at my results was unfeigned!

            Meanwhile my cold and sore throat is ranging a little further than my own body.  Toni’s family has now succumbed and he himself is not feeling well.  I hope it isn’t so, but I fear that Emma has the starting of the symptoms as well.  That makes a total hit so far of ten, including myself.  I have yet to hear how Irene is – but double figures is some achievement.  I think I am getting better (though that may be self delusion) so the illness could be a four or five day thing.  I hope.

My new phone, the Mi Max continues to please.  The size makes reading my Guardian app much easier and I find it easy to hold and use.  My only problem is finding the right wallpaper app which I insist has to change its picture each time I turn the phone on.  I don’t really care that much about what sort of picture it is, but I do want a different one.  And that is something I am working on. 

And it takes my mind off phlegm!

No more sniffles!

Enough with the natural approach to getting rid of my various aliments: it’s time to drug up!

            A short (and expensive) trip to our local pharmacy and I am now armed with Vic Vapour Rub (one of those treatments from childhood which, even if it doesn’t work, gives comfort); throat pastilles from Pranarom which taste nasty enough to be doing something and, finally, Gelocatil which is another name for Paracetamol.  I have also taken a Lemsip powder (donated by Emma before she left) I therefore consider myself to have done everything that a concerned (and snuffling) person could possibly do to get something like better.

            But, how can I possibly improve my general situation with what is going on in political terms in Spain!

            The Central Committee of PSOE (the so-called Socialist party of Spain) has decided to abstain in the next vote for the investiture of the walking joke who terms himself the president of Spain.  We have been without a government for months and two successive General Elections have not resolved the problem of any of the parties gaining an overall majority.  PP (the systemically corrupt Conservative party of Spain) has been continuing the process of government as a ‘Government in functions’ and with the support of C’s and the abstentions of the ‘Socialists’ they will gain the majority of those voting to continue their corrupt way through the financial life of Spain.

            The Socialists have said that their cowardly, selfish and traitorous abstentions are, of course, of course, naturally, for the benefit of Spain.  They do not want a third General Election (especially as they would almost certainly lose even more seats after their disgustingly vacillating attitudes) and, incidentally after the ‘ruling’ party of PP suggested that the date of the third election if it was forced to be held would be set for the 25^th of December!  And no, that is not a joke.

            The Socialists have also pointed out that the new PP government would be a minority one and that the socialists (they do not deserve a capital letter) would be able to hold them to strict account.

            For me, PSOE has been parochial.  They have cared much more about the future of their party than they have of the people they are supposed to represent.  The Catalan Socialists have said that they are going to vote against Rajoy.  The leader of the Catalan Socialists has pointed out that his party, PSC, is not the enemy of PSOE, Rajoy is and he does not look to split from PSOE.  The discussions within the party should be of the vicious internecine nature that characterises most left wing discussions!

            Having got rid of one leader, the socialists seem to be veering towards the deeply unpleasant leader of the socialists in Andalucía – one of the ruthless Barons of the socialist party who has many questions of her own to answer about the way in which she has behaved in public office.

            In all, the situation in Spain is politically, socially and financially dire.  There is no real reason for optimism.  The only positive point that I can see about the present position of Spain is that it has not descended to the level of idiocy of indulging in its own version of Spexit!

            Four more years of the appalling PP under the walking Joke of Rajoy will, almost certainly, boost the move for independence within Catalonia and, although I am in theory in favour of a united Spain, the idea that a corrupt and corrupting government, supported by cynical abstentions by sections of a cowardly socialist party, continues its version of ‘government’ for further four years is unthinkable.  If a Rajoy government is something that PP, Cs and sections of PSOE and the Spanish people generally can accept as democratic and suitable for a suffering country, then it is time for Catalonia to consider its position and work to break away from the corrupt shackles of Spanish politics and the Spanish state.

What a sorry state of affairs in both my countries: Britain with the Conservatives under May trying to make the best of the self inflicted wound of Brexit (which they also facilitated) and the horrific group of seditious thieves that make up the Conservative ‘government’ of Spain.  God help us all!

I eat therefore I am

Another gourmet meal, this time in the restaurant of MNAC.  The restaurant has crafted two art themed meals and I have now eaten both of them.  At different times I hasten to add, and both were delicious.

            The food is augmented by sitting (as we were) with the best positions to appreciate the best non-view in the world.  This is the vista from the vast windows of the museum restaurant.  It is a view that has all visitors reaching for their selfie sticks, but it is one that is woefully inadequate in my view.  So to speak.

            As you eat your meal you can look down the pavilion studded way towards Plaza España and beyond to . . . not very much.  When you take out the bullring and the brick edifice of La Caixa’s gallery you are left with the sprawling effusion of uninspired modern architecture oozing its way up into the unimpressive hills that surround the city.  The landmark of the ugly church of Tibidabo reaches its squat Gothic towers into the sky and that’s it.  If the building of MNAC had been rotated a further 90 degrees, then the restaurant would have had a view of the much more interesting Sagrada Familla and the sea.  Alas, it was not so rotated and we have to make do with the best non-view in the world.

            It spite of my slighting comments, it is impressive – if only because so many other people spend all their time photographing it.  At least in the restaurant one is above the clicking masses and one’s view is uninterrupted!

           

For the third time, visitor(s) have been dragooned into viewing ‘my painting’ by Lluis Dalmau and, as I expound on its virtues to a cowed audience, I must admit that the thing is growing on me.  I now firmly find myself in the camp that celebrates this painting as one of the stars of the Catalan collection and not as some sort of pastiche of half-remembered Van Eyck – though I do know that there is a case to be made for the latter view!

            We went through three parts of the museum and perhaps did too much, as was made clear when the ‘reviving’ cup of coffee that we had on the outside terrace did not have quite the stimulating effect that we were expecting.

Although it is only one day after my birthday, I am eagerly awaiting the significant letter from Newcastle that will give me the option to rake in my past pension.  This foison cannot come soon enough as it is spent and more than spent – at least in my imagination.  Time is ploughing on and the longer we wait to book a decent hotel in Gran Canaria for Christmas the more difficult it will be.  However, the weather at present is a factor that will give a certain impetus to our cogitations.  The ground is damp from past rain and the sun struggles to get through cloud.  This is not Britain, so we do actually get some sun.  It is an odd day indeed when the sun refuses to show itself in Catalonia – if only for a brief moment in the twenty-four hours!  Brief it might well be, but it does happen and it restores one’s faith.  In something.

After a woefully short visit, Emma is returning to Cardiff.  We seems to have done little more than eat, though to be fair to the both of us we have varied the location of our gustation: Castelldefels, Barcelona and Sitges – and we have not neglected culture.  The only thing missing was uninterrupted sunshine, though Emma made a spirited defence for seeing the City of Barcelona in cloud covered gloom as giving a different perspective from the blight, glinting sunshine defined outlines that one is used to.  I’m not convinced.

This afternoon a scheduled doctor’s appointment to hear the results of the latest blood tests.  As the last one was so satisfactory, I hope that this one is in the same area of success.