They're royally at it again!

The British Royal Family seems hell bent on killing me.

Why, I ask myself, do the future nuptials of the second grandson of an ageing Germanic dwarf squatting tenaciously on the British throne merit even a mention on Spanish television, let alone a fairly extended puff.  On Radio 4 yesterday when I listened to the news, it was the lead item!

I am just waiting for some lickspittle apology for a journalist to suggest that the wedding (sorry, The Wedding) of these two young people (to whom as human beings I bear no ill will and wish all the luck in the world for their successful future) will bring a moment of happiness and delight, will lift the spirits of the nation when so much of what happens in the world today, and especially in Britain is so dull and dour!  Surely, they will state, only the most dyed in the wool sourpuss could fail to allow the spirits to be lifted by such a fairy tale narrative of true love!  Well, well, well, no sooner speculated about than it happened on Radio 4, the “little patch of brightness” justification for a totally unjustifiable institution.

The Coronation of Elizabeth II has been described as a bright splash of colour in the drab days of the early 1950s.  The Festival of Britain of 1951 (which had been strenuously opposed by the Conservatives throughout its development) had offered a picture of progress dangled seductively (though impossibly for most) in front of a population hungry for something more than they had been enduring in the days and years of austerity after the end of the Second World War in 1945.   

In the year of the Coronation in 1953 food rationing still had a year to run.  Rationing meant that when buying certain food items, coupons torn from an officially distributed book had to be presented to the shopkeeper so that only the government imposed limited allowance could be purchased by an individual.  Meat was the final item to come ‘off ration’ in 1954.

In a post-nuclear age in which an atomic and a hydrogen bomb had been dropped, in a time in which an entire continent (and indeed continents) was being redrawn and rethought, the British press and a young BBC television system colluded in the celebration of an anarchic, anti-democratic hereditary power grab completely at odds with the meritocracy that people thought they were voting for in the election at the end of the war.  
‘Bread and circuses’ to deflect the attention of the population from what is important, worked for the Romans and has worked for unscrupulous governments ever since when they needs to hide harsh reality from a population which should be rising and smiting the rulers who continue to take advantage of them.

I feel sorry for Charlie-Boy as he ages into a crusty old fuddy-duddy, seemingly and bizarrely older than his ancient mother.  When speaking of the succession people always think of the grandchildren’s generation and not that of the heir apparent.  Who, let’s be fair, wants to see an ageing nonentity decked out in fancy dressed clothes trying to eradicate the memory of his mother who always did things so much better than he?  He is going to look and sound absurd when he finally gets to mount the throne and he, like so many members of a ‘royal family’ which only exists because a supine government allows it to exist, actually believes that he some something unique and god-given to bring to political debate.

Via the ’spider’ letters to governmental departments we know that Charles has been trying to influence policy, trying to act as if a king-in-waiting actually mattered in the day to day running of the state.  Mostly, of course, these superannuated ‘royals’ are knobheads more attuned to going on holidays than having an understanding of affairs of state.  They have carnal affairs, are filmed frolicking about naked, keep their mouths open when they should be shut, make the most of their ability to have a comfortable life and then drone on and on about concepts like ‘duty’ to keep us grateful.

The fact that a royal family exists anywhere in Europe today, is a condemnation of the people of the counties that allow them to parade their ‘birth right’ advantages.  Our queen is queen because her playboy uncle had an unsuitable affair with a divorced woman and her father smoked himself to death.  Et voila! A ‘royal’ princess is encouraged to mount the Confessor’s seat and be crowned with an absurd bauble whose vulgarity is only mitigated by the sheer cost of the thing.

Here in Spain we have an arrogant and tall monarch who has taken to the television to lecture Catalonia about their naughtiness.  The historical irony of having a member of the House of Bourbon lecturing anyone is too sad to even be amusing! 

Our King is King of PP and PSOE – they after all did the stich up to ensure that he succeeded his father, there being no process in the Constitution to facilitate abdication. 

His father, the elephant killing, philandering, failure ‘abdicated’ rather than take the continuing poor publicity which was centring more and more on the institution of the monarchy itself.  In an astonishing broadcast (or rather one of his astonishing broadcasts) that he made, I think to demonstrate the fellow feeling with his subjects that were reeling from the financial collapse of western capitalism (just before he went on an all expenses paid luxury safari to kill elephants) he emphasised that we are basically all in this together and he uttered the deathless words that, “Justice is the same for everybody!”

Except of course it isn’t.  Not here in Spain.  We are not all equal before the law, that is to say The Law is there for everyone, but certain people can only be tried by higher courts e.g. Senators and Members of the Congress of Deputies.  Justice is not the same for everyone, that is a lie or at least a bending of the truth to such an extent that you are basically saying “the thing that is not”.  In Britain and Germany the number of people who are in a privileged position as far as the law is concerned is precisely zero.  In Spain there are hundreds, if not thousands.

The playing around with concepts of freedom and liberty are going to be particularly obvious as we move into the election campaign leading up to the crucial vote on December 21^st which is universally seen as a referendum on independence for Catalonia.

Our President and key members of government are in exile in Belgium; members of the government have been imprisoned by the National Government here in Spain and two members of independentist organizations have also been imprisoned.  A western European country with political prisoners!

The fountains in the centre of Barcelona have been illuminated with yellow light, a tribute to the yellow ribbon worn by those who are demanding the release of the political prisoners.  This illumination has been banned by the electoral commission – I wonder if they are going to ban colours which match the political parties of the opposition to independence?  I think not.

The judges were supposed to have delivered a ruling today about the continued detention of the political prisoners.  Finance has been organized, as well as a party to greet the freed prisoners.  The judge, without explanation, has delayed his pronouncement until Monday, we suspect because of the preparations laid to make the most of the release of the prisoners.  Petty spitefulness well worthy of their paymasters in PP.

So, if you can remember that far back in this screed, just why did I accuse the Spanish ‘royal family’ of trying to kill me?  Well, I have high blood pressure (controlled) and the royals and their lickspittle backers in PP, PSOE and Cs seem to be going out of their way to see just how much aggravation I can take until I break or burst!

To which the answer is: having lived through the Evil Reign of Thatcher and the lower than vermin Conservatives and come out the other side, having to deal with nasty make-weights like Rajoy, The King, Spanish Justice, Cs and PP are more like limbering up exercises than anything truly hurtful.

Bring it on!  And let’s see what happens on the 21^st of December!

Never satisfied!

I can fully understand why previous generations, before the advent of real science (as opposed to the mumbo jumbo that POTUS 45 believes in), thought that it was the rotting meat that gave birth to the carrion flies feeding on it.  It made sense: there were no flies; meat rots; covered in flies – QED.

This thought came to me as I was driving Toni to his hospital appointment for another test.  In Barcelona.  During the rush hour.

It is easy to forget just how awful driving in a large city is when you are surrounded by sullen drivers, hating your very existence and hoping that the earth would open and devour you whole.  At least that is what I was thinking.

The traffic jams I can take.  I have learned to count the minutes that each stoppage lasts and I have also learned that, in spite of the fury that I feel when I am delayed, the actual, real time that I am hindered is actually quite derisory.   It is a truth universally acknowledged etc etc that time is relative, and time is never so relative as when you are spending it looking at the backside of the car in front and wishing death on the driver in front and the driver in front of that driver and so on until the way is clear for you to progress.

Though the this-too-will-pass philosophy lets me cope with car-forced delays, it does not seem to have such a mitigating effect on my attitude towards motor cycle or motor scooter drivers.

I scowl (inwardly at least, and usually outwardly as well) at all youngsters (i.e. anyone under the age of 35) on two wheels.  If those wheels are motorized then the inward smile often becomes articulate as they seemingly swarm from nowhere (hence the image of the carrion flies and the rotting meat) and encircle your motorcar.  They come at you from all directions because, as far a motorcyclist is concerned, any three-lane motorway into a major city actually has at least seven (7) lanes for motorcycles.  They regard the three lanes for cars as merely the starting point for their depredations, as they see cycle lanes on each side of the conventional car lanes.

All that would not, in itself, necessarily be a bad thing, but the real problem comes when you consider the physiological make up of the drivers themselves.  Like flies they consider themselves faster with their reflexes than mere car chained humans and so they flit from ‘lane’ to ‘lane’ through a real lane (without the quotation marks) space as if these lanes were entirely empty rather than filled with large, four wheeled, heavy, dangerous vehicles.  No, these buzzing insects swerve, cut, under-take, over-take and ignore all the rules of the road right up until the realities of the legitimate road come into play and smash them from their fragile, relatively unstable two-wheeled mortality machines.

They (that amorphous crux of undifferentiated otherness) sometimes say that your ethical standard may be judged by how well your treat those who you think are beneath your regard e.g. Conservatives.

Well, though Conservatives are “lower than vermin” (Nye Bevan) they are not as challenging to me as motor scooter riders.  As someone who has actively, persistently and vocally bewailed the lack of a directional flame thrower operated from the driver’s steering wheel column to deal with the infestation of these two wheeled insects and who has (shame be told) urged that any scooter driver involved in a RTA be swept to the side of the road and left, I feel that my left wing, humanitarian and human decency level are clearly pretty low.

In my defence, in the comfort of my home and well away from a rush hour road, I look askance at the outrageous things mentioned in the paragraph above (apart, of course, from the comment about the Conservatives) and tell myself that my hot thoughts fail to take in social, historical, political, economic and indeed every other -ical and –ic that comes to mind and that I should be ashamed of myself!  And of course I am.  I do not, in my saner moments, wish harm on anyone – misery though recognition of their own evil, yes, but not physical harm.  What I do wish for is simple consideration.

The equality of suffering is something that unites us all which is why we all hate those people who push in or take a space or display their selfishness for all to see – like motor scooter drivers who use bus lanes and cycle lanes and pavements to STOP!  You are not in a traffic jam in the centre of a large city; you have a cup of tea at your side and a good book to read.  Relax.  Let it go!

If I am like this after one short exposure to rush hour traffic, imagine what I would be like if I was still working in Barcelona!  Thank god for retirement!

I have a further admission to make: this is not being typed on my new Lenovo Yoga 910, top of the range, 2-in-1, touch screen and back lit, no, I have reverted to my MacBook Air.  Part of the reason for my backsliding is that the Air is smaller and more portable, but the major reason is the keyboard layout.  My Lenovo has an odd, and entirely unsatisfactory arrangement of the shift and return keys on the right hand side of the keyboard and I simply cannot get used to them.  What the arrangement means in reality is that my wayward little finger finds a page up key and before I know where I am I am typing in the middle of another paragraph rather than simply capitalizing a proper noun!

Since I am a touch typist, anything which actually makes me think about the mechanics of what I am typing simply gets in the way of the thought processes and makes writing a chore rather than a joy.

The whole point about buying the Lenovo was to get me free of the stranglehold of Apple products that has defined much of my computer buying over the years.  As an earlyish adopter of an Apple computer I found myself with a computer system that was user friendly, but as a teacher I also discovered that most of the computer programs used in schools were designed for PC and not Mac and I ploughed a lonely furrow in the educational world!

It was the pricing of the iPhone before last that was the tipping point for me as I felt that Apple was simply taking financial advantage of a loyal customer base and doing so with total cynicism.  Enough of my money for them I thought.  Enough was enough!

I mean, I am not a fanatic, I’ve thrown nothing away and my major computer is still a Mac, but I am on a path to find another way.  And if that means buying new gadgets up to and including a new laptop, then so be it!

I will have to draw up a list of my requirements and then, with Toni’s help, start the hunt. 

Though the more I use my MacBook Air the more I remember how much I enjoy using it, so it may be that I am actually looking for the MacBook Air that I already possess!  

Beggar him!

Close

Miss Havisham going up in flames in grainy blank and white in a BBC adaptation of Great Expectations was something I had to wait for as the novel unfolded week by week in its allotted TV spot in the schedules.  There were no short cuts, you had to wait.

     How different the present!  Having recently discovered that I had access to series and films via one of my subscriptions I have binge watched the first series of The Man in the High Castle – the story of what might have happened if German and Japan had been the victors in World War Two. 

In this version of reality, America has been divided between the Germans on the East Coast and the Japanese on the West, with a lawless Neutral Zone in between.

     The production values of the series are high and the detailing of each scene is replete with intelligent and satisfyingly visual suggestions as to how the reality might have worked out.

     The mixture of plots and sub plots using politics, espionage, deception and brutality to further the story line; the Resistance and its struggle against totalitarian governments; a love story; the clash of cultures – all of these elements can be found in any number of dramas, the ESP of this series is the injection of a disturbing element of Science Fiction.

     A key plot device in the action of the series is played by a series of films.  These films seem to show a different reality, one in which the Axis powers did not win the war and our version of the Allied Powers being triumphant is the subject of the films.  These films are being collected by the eponymous Man in the High Castle who may, or may not be an ageing Hitler.

     There are hints in the episodes that suggest that there might be parallel universes and that somehow or other elements from these parallel universes are leaking into the reality of the series: either that, or the whole 10 episodes of Series 1 was an elaborate dream in the Japanese Trade Minister’s mind!  As there is a Series 2 and 3(?) I don’t think that device can be used to justify another 20 episodes!

     As the series is set in the 1960s there are technological elements that jar, including the appearance of a German supersonic ‘rocket’ plane which has the delta wing formation of the late lamented Concorde.  The aircraft set looks very impressive on the ground, but I found it singularly unconvincing in flight, an odd glitch in otherwise excellent CGI.  There are also trains that use a magnetic drive – these things are anachronistic for the 1960s and might therefore strengthen the supposition that someone is able to travel between the parallel universes and take technology from a ‘future’ world or a parallel but more advance one and use knowledge to boost technology in the reality of the series.

     I have just discovered that I have access to the ten episodes of Series 2 – so that’s another day of my life given over to being hooked to the screen of my computer!

     The acting in the series is, for the most part, convincing and enjoyable to watch.  The basic premise of the plot it interesting and the production professional.  The script is sometimes indulgent and philosophical profundity can be signalled a little too obviously, but the action is engaging and such attention is given to the appearance of things that I am convinced and satisfied.

     Obviously, there are a number of questions that have been posed in this first series that might be addressed in the second.  I can’t wait to find out.  And I don’t have to, all the episodes are waiting for me just to click the mouse and enjoy!

In the same way that my typing for this blog is often displacement activity from doing my Spanish homework, so too is my choice of topic.  Much though I enjoyed watching the series above, there are more pressing things to talk about than an old TV series.  Like, for example, the present political situation in Castelldefels and Catalonia.

     The election in Catalonia is less than a month away and the political parties are gearing up for the fray.  One television station has taken to referring to the ‘Constitutional’ parties i.e. PP (Hard, corrupt right); C’s so-called ‘centre right’ but in reality, hard right as well, subsidised by business and sluttish in their approach to power; PSC (the Catalan version of PSOE, the so-called ‘socialist’ (sic.) party that has aligned itself with the right and is opposed to Catalan independence.)  Then all the other parties are lumped together under the Independent label as if it is opposed to the concept of constitutional, rather than the reading of constitutional that has been made by the other parties.

     According to the latest poll, the veracity of which I cannot vouch for, the figures show that the two ‘sides’ are fairly equally matched with neither side able to gain an overall majority.  The balance of power, according to this poll, will be held by the Catalan version of the left wing Podemos, which has declared itself opposed to independence, but in favour of a binding referendum about independence.

     The ruling (corrupt and corrupting) party of PP stands little chance of gaining more than 8 or 9 seats in Catalonia as they are cordially despised as crypto-fascist and anti-Catalan.  PP put their hopes in the sluttish C’s party which is headed by a photogenic power-hungry Catalan (allegedly) whose party was formed specifically to stop Catalan separation and was funded by big business and who once posed nude for an election poster to show that he had nothing to hide!  This apology for a party stands to gain the most in the elections.  I hope that this is not true, and Toni assures me that it won’t happen, though I am not as sanguine as he.  The traditional party of left wing opposition is PSC, the Catalan part of PSOE, unfortunately their position has been totally compromised by their national dalliance with PP to get a taste of power.  The fact that the word ‘Socialist’ forms part of their party’s title should be a standing condemnation of their actions: PSC is a party without a soul and without an ethic.  They have shared a platform with PP and C’s: they have marched with PP and C’s; they have voted with PP and C’s.  In some ways it would be fairer to call PSOE/PSC power sluts rather than the traditional political sex workers of C’s.  Whatever, they have forfeited their right to my vote.

     Which leaves my choice on the, presumably, ‘unconstitutional’ side of the political debate!  But my thoughts about the parties which comprise this element of Catalan politics can wait for next week.

    

Lunch was from our usual takeaway restaurant in Castelldefels and was well up to standard, though the owner of the restaurant urged me to look at the rotisserie where an entire suckling pig was being roasted.  It looked delicious and only cost 100 euros!  How do they do it for the money?  I think that the test of something cooked like this is that you should be able to cut the meat up with the side of a plate!  As this beast was supposed to feed eight it means that the individual portion would only cost 12 euros per person – which, thinking about it seems like good value, or at least worth it!

     The chicken that we actually had, while perfectly acceptable, was not really as spectacular as that which I left turning in the heat. 

      At least I can live with expectation!