The thought was there!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yesterday evening, I hung out the flag of the Spanish Republic from the kitchen window fronting the street and felt that I was prepared for the events of the morrow.

     Today, I watched it.  The Funeral I mean.  In spite of all my protestations about totally ignoring it. I watched it.

     I tried to tell myself that I was watching it for the music – not an unreasonable excuse – but, alas, not the right one.  Yes, the music was glorious; the hymns rousing, the older musical items satisfying and the newer ones stimulating, especially the last choir contribution.  But I watched more than would have been justified by an interest in music.

     Yes, I could tell myself that I did do my Duolingo Spanish lessons on my mobile phone during the longueurs (the archbishop’s mini sermon), and I was (I’m ashamed to admit it) mildly surprised that the new Prime Minister With No Popular Mandate, did not make a complete pig’s ear of her contribution.  I may be hopelessly prejudiced (no, wait a minute, ‘prejudice’ is for an attitude not based on reason and evidence) against her, but she always looks as though she is sporting a permanent sneer on her ashy face, and nothing she said in the scriptures appeared to have any bearing on her actual politics or ‘morality’ as well – but, even I had to admit that she got through her words – and then was seen no more.

     It was well done.  God knows they have had enough time to prepare for virtually any eventuality, but it still went almost like clockwork. 

     There is a sort of internal logic for ceremonial that seems to take away rational thought by the observers, and it becomes an end in itself, and the more you watch the less you think about the reasons for doing something in the absurdly elaborate way in which it is realized.

 

     I loved the way that the coffin was handled.  The Bearers Party, looking like Chocolate Soldiers, doing those little steps and shuffles to ensure that the coffin was safely transported and placed.  It its own way it was exquisite – something so mechanically complex for something so basically simple.  It was Baroque (no, Rococo!) rather than De Stijl!

     Like the 142 naval ratings drawing Queen Victoria’s gun carriage: so many questions!  Why 142?  Why were they there?  Why were they dressed in the way they were?  And their little turns and sidesteps, perfectly co-ordinated and choreographed a military Busby Berkeley!

     And ‘choreography’ is the key word, it all becomes like a sort of dance, with some participants, like the fitter members of the armed forces able to do the niftier, complex,  numbers, but it also about trying to make allowances for the whole ensemble that included the old, the older, the infirm, the foreign, the young, the younger, and many precious (in all senses of the word) individuals, many of whom were not wearing clothing suitable for easy movement!

     It went well, and I am glad that I used the music as an excuse to allow my ‘precious’ self to enjoy a performance well executed.

     Of course, that ‘enjoyment’ has nothing to do with my attitude to the monarchy and my belief that it has no place in a modern democracy where the key word should be ‘meritocracy’, not ‘hereditary’ and ‘privilege’.

     Tomorrow, so called normal life resumes and politics rears its very ugly Conservative head spewing ill-begotten policies that will have little immediate effect on the real problems of the majority of the population in the short term, but given another two years of the Tory poison, is likely to damage our reputation and standard of living for generations to come.

 

Today was the first day back to the local pool and to celebrate I swam 2K.  I must admit this was not entirely my celebratory intention.  I take my cue from a lady who swims in lane 1 on the opposite side of the pool from me.  When she does her spaghetti-float exercise, I know that she is getting to the end of her pool activity and, when she leaves, I swim an extra six lengths and that usually brings me up to my accustomed 1.5K – which is enough.

     I’m not sure if she was making up for lost time over the last fortnight, but she swam on for longer than usual and hence I did a third more than usual.  It just made the cup of tea and baguette in the café afterwards feel all the more merited.

     As I get up at 6.15 am, it means that I set off in the darkness and dawn comes up nowadays round about 800m or so and, as it is getting cooler by the day, it also means that the extendible roof remains closed and therefore we have to wear swimming caps.

     I am not totally convinced about the need for caps, apart from the obvious advantage of keeping hair (from those that have any) from floating free – and there is little more disturbingly disgusting than having a loose strand from someone else’s head wrap itself around hand, face, or most disgustingly mouth!  I did once ask why they were mandatory and was given some sort of explanation about the concentration of chemicals in an enclosed pool reacting with hair in some way – a reaction apparently not to be feared in a pool open to the elements.

 

After much internal debate, and writing little notes to myself in my notebook, I have taken the plunge and bought a season ticket for 14 Saturday afternoon concerts in the Palau de la Musica in Barcelona.  The building is a Modernista masterpiece, and the central glass bulge is remarkable – but the thing is, I miss purely orchestral concerts.

     Years ago, I was a season ticket holder, but then I migrated to the Liceu, and opera and the clashes of dates (and the money) meant that I had to make a decision and I opted for Opera.

     I have rather less money than I had years ago, but my thinking was more along the lines of “why the hell not” rather than financial rectitude, and I also told myself that a Saturday (6.30 pm) series of concerts would never coincide with Opera, which is never, ever on a Saturday for my season ticket there.

     And the first of the concerts is an all-Dvorak programme that I can mentally hum along with.  What’s not to like?

And the next thing?

 

 

 

  

It says something for my state of underwhelmed-ness about the new Amazon Prime Series The Rings of Power, that I have not bothered to watch the latest episode, which was released last Friday.  The idea of my ignoring something that plays to all my sci-fi fantasy weaknesses, does not say a lot for its impact!

     I am more even more disappointed because I read previews by trusted critics like Bradshaw in The Guardian which were so enthusiastic that I watched the pedestrian opening episode with an avidity that was soon rapidly dwindling to disinterest, bordering on boredom.  I’ve now reached episode three and I am still not engaged, in the way that the books or films of The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit captured my reading and watching dedication.

     The Silmarillion on which the new series is loosely based, I found unreadable in its book form, and regarded it as a piece of donnish self-indulgence – as indeed is the series, if you think about it in terms of the commercial hopes of Amazon who made it!

     Yes, of course the look of the series is spectacular, the landscapes are staggeringly beautiful, and the set piece grandeur of fantastic civilizations amazing, but then it should look good given how much cash has been expended on it.

     I find little ‘new’ in the series, and the clunking reveal of ‘random human who turns out to be an unrecognized king” etc tedious, and a weak re-run (pre-run?) of Aragorn/Strider.  I do recognize that the series is a prequel and that there is a sort of satisfaction in seeing the ancient pre-history of the more interestingly critical moments in Tolkien’s created world that far better known, but it does take the sting out of what might happen as we do know how things eventually turn out, and this series does not have the ‘wow’ factor that the films had.  We have assimilated director Peter Jackson’s epic visual conception of Tolkien’s world and we now take for granted visual effects that would once have blown us away.

     I will, of course, watch the whole of the series.  And I will maintain my hope that there will be moments that justify the time I spend watching and the money burnt to make it!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have completed my open-air-early-morning-swims.  The fortnight of local pool closure for maintenance is over today, and I have already checked that the pool will open at the normal times for normal use from Monday.  I have been relatively lucky with the weather so that I have not had to swim in challenging circumstances – or cold water, but I still do feel a sense of Mission Accomplished that I have swum all fourteen days in our community pool.

     One of my lecturers used to swim, every day of the year, in Swansea Bay.  I am not made of such stern stuff, though I can say that I swam on Christmas Eve off a beach in Sitges.  When I say swam, that is something of an exaggeration: I immersed myself in the water and immediately exited the sea.  The sunshine that was streaming down, did not, as I vividly recall seem to have any part in heating the icy wavelets.  There is a fine line between resolution and stupidity and staying in the water for any longer than I did would clearly have been an illustration of the latter!

     The pool-absence period has jinxed my writing by changing my routine, and I have only scribbled ‘thoughts’ in my notebook on a couple of occasions, whereas I always write in it when I am taking my cup of tea and baguette in the pool café.  Have jotted down a few phrases and ideas, but it remains to be seen if they are actually worth working up into something real.  There again, even ‘failures’ are interesting, and it is rare that I can’t salvage something from the wreckage of a poem ‘gone wrong’!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Opera Season is almost upon us, and I still haven’t decided if I should take out a ‘Saturday Afternoon Subscription’ to a series of orchestral concerts in Barcelona.  This is an odd hesitation on my part because I am essentially an orchestral music sort of person, with my going to Opera being something of an indulgence for me.

     As is usual with any subscription series, there are some concerts that don’t really appeal, though from past experience, the concerts with low expectations very often surprise with unexpected delights.  At least that is what I keep telling myself.  And afternoon concerts mean a Barcelona exit at a reasonable time!  Worth considering.  And going.  Perhaps I will buy a subscription.  There you are a decision made in under one hundred keystrokes!  If only the other things in life were so easy!

Is there any normality left around?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gradually, but only gradually News is creeping up the screen on my Guardian mobile app, so that my initial shudder as I am forced to consider (and relish) the length of the queue to see the coffin of the late Queen is gradually being superseded by things of somewhat more immediate import, like how we are going to survive the winter without shedloads of debt.

     I realise that Monday will however be a day swamped by full and exhausting coverage of the Funeral, and I am sure that I will not be exempt from a full-scale broadcast here in Catalonia.  When I fled the UK in the summer of 1981 to escape the supine coverage of The (first) Marriage of the present King Charles III, I made the mistake of going to the US of A where, believe it or not, there was greater coverage of The Marriage in NY than there was in London!  I spent my time telling those gushing Americans who congratulated (!) me on being British and therefore having a special relationship of with that doomed relationship that I was a Republican – thought not, I hastened to add a Republican in the American sense!

     I sincerely hope that after Monday, things will get back to some sort of normality where the destructive and vicious policies (if they are worthy of that epithet) of the Conservative government can be considered and shown to be the worthless pieces of selfishness that they so clearly are, to anyone outside the Cult of Neoliberalism!

     If the astonishing dedication of certain parts of the British population in standing in line for umpteen hours can be defined as in any way positive, then I suppose I would have to hope that something of the same dedication is given to the more pressing problems facing the population that the death of the unelected head of state.

     Talking of American Republicans, one commentator pointed out that the fixation with trying to ban abortion shown by many on the right demonstrates a concern for the unborn baby right up until it is actually born, then the anti-abortionists demonstrate not a jot of concern for the health of mother or baby.  Pro-life seems to be concerned with the unborn, as soon as there is a live and kicking human being in the world, the concern of those fanatics seems to fade away.

     I only hope that the dedication and respect that people have clearly shown to a corpse, can be extended to the living after the Queen has been laid to rest in Windsor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

     The number of food banks that a wealthy and developed country like Great Britain has is a disgrace.  Charities that run these food banks have pointed out that with rising prices they are not going to be able to cope with rising demand.  The Tory government has systematically de-funded social services, so that the winter of 2022-2023 is going to be one of deprivation and distress.  I hope that the spirit that drove so many people to give up their time to wait in a queue will recognize that there is another pressing reason for them to devote themselves to a higher and living cause.

 

     Support your local food bank or volunteer if you can! 

     If everyone gave the time that they spent queueing or gave the equivalent amount that their time was worth in a donation to the food banks, then I would commend their concern.