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Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Thought, response and determination


Rain?  No obstacle!

Although I am now dedicated to the concept of the bike as a personal mode of transport – that doesn’t cover times when it is raining.  One doesn’t want to be labelled a fanatic by being seen cycling like some sort of water baby splashing along in inclement weather!  Sense and reason in all things!  It was raining.  I went for my swim by taking the car.
            And lo and behold!  There was a parking space, just outside the door of the café of the centre.  If that is not an example of the universe bending itself to personal desire, I do not know what is.  I always like it when things actually work out to my advantage.
            And I am prepared to show my gratitude by going back to my bike, just as long as the sun shines.
            Probably.

Competition!

Toni’s blog (http://catalunyaplacetoeat.blogspot.com.es/ ) goes from strength to strength and is now incorporating ‘the best of’ lists, and featuring ‘forthcoming attractions’ to whet the appetite.
            He has now passed the 500 page views stage and is rapidly approaching the once respectable number of page views for my poetry blog at http://smrnewpoems.blogspot.com.es/
            I maintain, of course I would wouldn’t I, that getting people to visit a poetry blog is ranked at the same level of difficulty as trying to play a Beethoven piano sonata while juggling Conservatives’ promises – and we all know which is the easier part of that act.
            I am grateful for those who have visited and more especially for those brave souls who have ventured opinions!  Though it is significant that those people who have given me the results of their analysis have done so via the more private method of the email rather than putting their opinions for all to see in the comment box.  Reaction is the lifeblood of public poetry, or at least of the stuff which is put on-line for consumption.  As far as I am concerned, the more comments the merrier – whatever they are like, good, bad or indifferent.  Well, probably not indifferent.  That is hard to take.

Sympathy and disgust

Firstly, my thoughts and sympathy go out to those who have lost someone in the flight crash in the French Alps.  I hope that the efforts of the search and rescue authorities bring some sort of closure for those who have suffered and will continue to suffer from this disaster.
            The families deserve our sympathy and respect.  They have to mourn and come to terms with their loss.
            It was, therefore, with something very close to disgust that I saw the Spanish Prime Minister, Rajoy, rush to the television cameras and voice some platitudes about his concern.  This is a man who runs away from the media on every occasion when questions need to be answered about the criminality of his party and his government and he has even, shamefully, given a press conference via a television screen so he could be shielded from any difficult and embarrassing questions.  This ‘politician’ has lost all credibility, has the lowest ratings of any leader, and to see him with grown up politicians from France and Germany, looking around gormlessly because he obviously understands nothing of what is being said is shaming for the Spanish people and insulting to the memory of those who died.
            His unseemly eagerness to be seen with politicians with real clout is little short of sickening and he hopes that some of their paper-thin gravitas rubs off on him.
            As I have said, my sympathy is for the friends and families of those who have lost loved ones and I only hope that they can look beyond the public posturing of politicians looking to hide their glaring imperfections and realise that there is authentic feeling among the voters who now regret putting such empty vessels into power.

What is a novel?

Apart from some thoroughly enjoyable trash in my iPad when, I ask myself, was the last time that I read a novel of note.
            There is only so long that I can justify this literary laziness because of the need to immerse myself in, at the moment, Conceptual Art and Volume 4 of my course books!
            The theoretical justification and explanation of Video, Installation and Conceptual Art are, to put it mildly, taxing.
            There are three more chapters to read note and digest and they are hard, though interesting, going.
            Wish me luck!

Monday, March 23, 2015

Mucus misery!


Digital waves

I refuse to believe, point blank, that I can possibly have a cold.  I neither want one nor, I believe, am I scheduled for one as I took my anti-flu jab like a good little boy and that should give me protection until the next one.
            I prefer to believe that I am suffering from hay fever.  This is a fairly recent development in my approach to health and an obvious reaction to some sort of pollen found only in Castelldefels.  A few pills take the pain away.  Well, at least the runny eyes and nose and the fairly cataclysmic sneezes – at least when I buy the pills it might!  Tomorrow.
            I also put down to hay fever my forgetfulness at leaving my watch at home as I set out on my epic bike ride to my equally impressive swim.  This was particularly ironic, as I had made a Herculean effort and remembered to consult the web site of my smart watch app to find out which of the four buttons I should press and in what order to get the most out of my swim!
            In theory, each of my swims should be beamed to the web site where it will be ranked and various statistics (which of course I will ignore, but it’s nice to have them to ignore) will be automatically produced for my delectation.
            All of this is rather like another app I have called, oddly, ‘misfit’, which tells me how many steps I have taken and how much sleep I have had.  Also, disturbingly, it tells me how much ‘deep’ sleep I had.  How the hell does my watch know that?  And why, over the last two days has it only told me of the sleep that I had, completely ignoring its depth?  I truly am not in control of my apps.  But I live to learn, so it is only a matter of time before I finally crack them.

Credit and gain

I know that I should be considering the culture that I saw on Saturday when, with Suzanne I went to the Museu del Disseny de Barcelona in Pl de les Glóries Catalanes in Barcelona to see Design for life: 99 Projects for the real world and to find out what was going on at the Open Day for the Poblenou Urban District.  But I’m not.  I’m thinking instead of the rather wonderful glass that Kate and Steve gave me when I left after an evening of talk and drink!
            My mother’s training runs deep in me.  Her fascination with glass, crockery and cutlery means that now I find it difficult to pass by a well-designed piece of any of these when I see them.  It is this ingrained attitude which explains my delight when my wine was served in a very stylish glass and my enthusiasm must have been very (indeed embarrassingly) obvious.  Again, going back to my mother, I shudder to think of her opinion of my behaviour!
            However, it is a fine glass: a cup-like bowl on a chunky long stem with a circular foot.  The glass bowl has a lop sided, bubble filled slew of glass which gives it a slightly retro Swedish ‘80s look.  I do hope that Steve remembers where he bought the others (he originally had eight) because I would be interested in buying others to make up a set. 
My mother is always round about!

Eventually

After a wearingly long period of failure, I have finally managed to make some sort of poetic sense of some of my past notes in the notebook.  I am depressingly aware of how much material is waiting for me to make something out of it, but I fear that the OU is taking precedence at the moment.  And rightly so!
            The last poem, the draft of which is available for view and comment at http://smrnewpoems.blogspot.com.es/ the title of the poem is Lessons? And it uses some of the ideas which have informed a few of my other recent poems.  I wonder if I have given enough information in the poem as it is written.  Something to think about.

Defining purchases!

One of my more inspired purchases was of an illuminated toilet seat.  It was bought from Lidls and had a seaside theme with real shells and one starfish set in the clear plastic lid.  When the lid was raised light appeared in the seat!  It didn’t cost that much and it was a thing of wonder.
            That ‘it didn’t cost that much’ should have alerted me to the fleeting life of the thing.  First the light failed to work and then it broke.  I repaired it and it broke again.
            My latest purchase replacement is more expensive and is plain white and somewhat sturdier.  But boring.  But wait – what happens if you go into the bathroom in the dark?  A sensor immediately illuminates two small blue lights on each side of the seat!  And it works because I have tested it, stumbling into the bathroom to be greeted by an oddly azure glow!  Never a dull moment.


Friday, March 20, 2015

Swim, work and eat

Success by stealth

My watch told me that I had swum 1,625 m, a suspiciously round figure given that when I left the pool with my watch still going I did a partial diagonal which was less than a length.  Still, I did check the accuracy of the thing for the first few lengths and it did seem to be counting properly.
            How I got the watch to do my bidding I do not know.  I do know that it notched up a few ‘rest periods’ as I pressed each of the four buttons available to me with increasing desperation.  However, it worked.  I suppose and that is a Good Thing and it shows that I swam more than the metric mile, which is also a Good Thing.
            If I am truthful (and it never hurts once in a while) I did not feel demonstrably better after my efforts and my achievements did not make me any less grumpy after having to swim next to a bloke who was clearly stronger, younger and quicker than I.  God rot him.  And no, the idea of swimming faster myself to match his speed was rejected at the unconscious level in my brain!
            Still, I will write now that I fully intend (somehow) to find out (definitively) how to use this app – and isn’t it a sign of the times in which we live that the word app does not merit an underlining or a full stop automatically inserted nowadays when you type.  App is a fully recognized word.  And in such a short time.  Anyway, I am promising myself that I will make the effort and find out how to use the thing before my next swim.  Which is tomorrow morning.  That was written so that the character doing this typing and the human being doing the swimming tomorrow get together and their combined consciousness does something about it!

Spring is sprung

I have written the first of what I hope will be a small series of poems on Spring Trees.  Not the best title and I trust in my imagination to change it to something altogether more impressive before it finds its way into a book.
            I was caught out by the Spring as I was still well into my Winter Trees cycle, and so the tell-tale tufts of green were both a shock and somewhat irritating – after all I haven’t really finished that cycle yet!  I shall look on my Encounters with Trees as a lifelong effort and therefore I can wait years, adding bits as the seasons change to the four piles of manuscripts waiting for publication!
            The latest effort can be read at http://smrnewpoems.blogspot.com.es together with all my other recent poems.  If you are interested do click on the ‘follower’ button and you will be informed of all new posts.  Some day or other, somebody is going to have the courage to leave a comment, to which I promise to respond!  Good or bad!
            I am sure that I should be able to create a link between this blog and the one with my poems, but that is beyond me at the moment.
            Indeed the only reason that there is now a ‘search this blog’ feature (top right) is because Toni responded to my suggestion that he incorporate one in his blog http://catalunyaplacetoeat.blogspot.com.es and therefore has prompted me to do the same!
            I think I should suggest to him all the things I want to do and then copy slavishly.  Though I would point out that the ‘search’ feature was put in with no help from himself.  All my own work.  Though I only did it when I knew it could be done.  If you see what I mean.

Selfless research

Yet another piece of fieldwork to provide material for Toni’s blog (see above) this time in a restaurant that we always forget about.  It is called La finca (I think.  You will have to check Toni’s blog to see if I am right) and we usually find ourselves driving around in every decreasing spirals trying to find it.  In the area in which we live there are two types of road: the first is like the one on which we live which stretches virtually the whole length of Castelldefels parallel to the beach. The other type is a road which is one way or a dead end.  This means that you can sometimes see where you want to go, but if you are driving a car you have to take a conceptual view of a straight line and try and get to your destination by keeping it in the corner of your eye as you try and approach it through a paradoxical road system.
            We eventually parked and walked.  It was simpler.
            Our positive memories of this place are based on a remarkable tapa that the place did for one of the Ruta de Tapa that is an annual event in Castelldefels.  It was when Andrew and Stewart were visiting and the culinary soul of Castelldefels seemed to embrace their presence and everywhere we went was outstanding, not only in terms of taste but also in terms of value.
            This time round the meal was above average, but nothing startling: it gains a 3 Drac (dragon) score out of five.  Harsh but fair.
            Bring on the next – and the time when Toni will be recognized as the fearsome author of a restaurant blog whose word can make or break reputations!

Pointed research

The pro-forma for the end of module assessment has been returned and my tutor seems generally enthusiastic, while giving me a few clear pointers towards where the majority of the marks lie!  I shall go through what she has said and use my trusty highlighter and tell my wayward pen to watch its step!
            I think that my basic problem is self-made.  I have chosen two artists who interest me rather than two artists whose work is exemplary for the course.  I have to be careful that I remember the title of the course that I am doing and throw in theoretical works like confetti!
            I am not doing any further work on that part of the course yet, until the last essay is out of the way.  I hope to get a few chapters ‘done’ (i.e. read and highlighted and the bits typed out) and get the rest of it ‘done’ as well by the end of next week so that I can on with the essay the week after, and get it sent off before I come to the UK for the Day School.
            There is a lot to do, as well as a lot to prepare if the visit to Britain is to gain the results for which I hope.

Plots

I have hatched yet another plot to try and get exactly what I want for my book, Flesh Can Be Bright, to be published October 2015.  Not everything is working out in the way that I thought it wouldn’t.  And I now think that I am on Plan F (having originally only planned for disasters up to and including Plan D) but I am still smiling and, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, I am still confident that I will get something along the lines of my original expectations.

            As any cynic will tell you, the best delusion is self-delusion – and, just like Swift’s explanation for the easy acceptance of irony, I can write things like that because, of course, self-delusion is the concern of other foolish people and not, of course, myself.

Thursday, March 19, 2015

Water wondering wariness

Technology always wins

I spoke too soon about the prowess of my smartwatch and its ability to track my swimming.  It probably does do exactly that, but it doesn’t vouchsafe the information to me, the mere user.  The last time I used the thing for a swim it told me how long I had been swimming, but kept the length of my swim secret.  I am convinced that there must be a way of finding out this information, but it eludes me.
            And that goes for most of the electronic equipment that I use.  It does its job and I am sort-of satisfied with it – but I know that there is much more that I could be getting out of it.
            Take, for example, the example of the smartphone.  I use mine for reading books.  Occasionally, just occasionally I actually use it to phone someone.  And that is it.  Other people, like Caroline for example, use their phones like an extension of their bodies.  There is seamless movement and the phone bends (metaphorically) to her will and information spills out, photos are sent, videos made, voices recorded – well, you get what I am saying.  Her phone does so much more than my small library assistant.  And I have an iPhone!  Cutting edge and all that.
            But, the same thing with the computer: I use mine as a glorified typewriter.  A very expensive typewriter, and one which needs a bulky, expensive to feed machine to produce the end result of the typing.  Which perhaps points up the problem.  For people like Caroline, there is not the same necessity for a hard copy of something.  Her poems are written electronically, retrieved electronically, read electronically and shown electronically.  Me?  I have to have the A4 100 mgs sheets before I believe in the reality of my writing!  Perhaps that attitude is something of my generation and not something that I will ever get rid of.
            My watch, having started well by letting me know that I had swum 1,300 m a few days ago has stubbornly resisted all my best efforts to tell me know how far I have swum since on any occasion.  Press what buttons I please; I can’t get what happened naturally to happen again. 
I could, I hear you say, try reading the instructions and stop trying to prove that I am of a later generation which doesn’t need to read the things.  I do.  And I should give in gracefully.  And who knows?  I might actually have a constant stream of irrelevant information about my swimming technique that I can ignore. 
             I will have to search for instructions on line because there is nothing in what I have at the moment on watch or phone which gives me any idea at all about what I should be doing.  My fear, of course, is that even with the instructions (written in god knows what language) I will still be confused about how to make the damn thing work.

Prejudice justified!

Prejudice has to have an element of unthinking assertion not backed up by evidence.  If there is evidence for what you are saying that it becomes a reasoned point of view.
            So, to those of my fellow citizens who hail from North Wales.
            It turns out, according to recent research and publicised by the BBC that people in North Wales are genetically different from those in South Wales!  It also points out that there is no genetic evidence to show that the Celts are a linked distinct genetic group!  This interesting stuff is to be found at http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-31905764 and give at least some genetic justification to the animosity which sometimes exists between the North and South in Wales!  As the report puts it, “it also finds that people in North and South Wales are more different from each other than the English are from the Scots” – which will come as no surprise to neither North nor South.
            I must admit that I can see more compelling reasons for the perceived differences between North and South based on inequality, politics, history, the Industrial Revolution, the Welsh language, religion, communications, road building, railways, tourism and politics again rather than genetic evidence – but it is interesting none the less.  And worth reading!

Thank goodness there was nothing wrong

A trip to the dentist.  Never one of my favorite appointments, but necessary!
            I will never understand why people, sometimes educated and intelligent people with some understanding of the world, assume that my stuttering attempts at Spanish mean that I will understand fluently what I can’t say.  My dentist was a case in point.
            She spoke with a speed and a passion that did her credit and, to be fair, I did follow a fair amount (I think, but what can I possibly know!) of what she said, she certainly didn’t have that mystified and pitying look that my responses to swift conversations used to have!
            After what I thought was an inordinate amount of socializing, and considering the wear and tear on my nerves having to keep up my end of the conversation (about being warm in cold countries, if you must know) I was almost relieved to sink back into the depths of the dentist’s chair and think calming thoughts about the person who had sharp spiked instruments in my mouth.
            All she did was scrape and clean, but you know how it is when a dentist pokes around in your mouth, it sounds as if they are casually, yet determinedly destroying every scrap of enamel you have left.
            When I unclenched my hands (a typical dentist technique for me) I scrambled to an upright position preparatory to running away and was held back only my the dentist’s laughter as she watched my frantic attempts to escape and as she urged me to calmness.
            €44 that little clean up cost – as I said at the start, thank goodness there wasn’t anything ‘real’ to do!

What’s going on!

A disturbing email from the tutor in the OU urging those people who had not sent in their completed pro-forma giving details of the proposed end of module subject to contact her.  This is disturbing because it was an open email to everyone and this is a week after the deadline for handing it in.  Extensions are easily available in the OU, all you have to do is ask – but this email suggested that people had not handed in their work and not asked for an extension.
            You can imagine that the years of guilt-laden upbringing immediately sprang into play and I assumed that I was one of the people being castigated.  Why I should have thought this I do not know as I know (surely I didn’t dream it) that I sent off my work early!
            That belief meant nothing of course.  I immediately went back to the OU web site, I checked that my list of assignments had registered that I had sent something in.  I checked my past emails and found the notification from the OU that something had been received.  I noted down the reference number of the receipt (we have such things in the OU) and went back to check the reference number on the . . .  You get the idea.  Full out panic.
            The only thing that I have stopped myself doing is downloading a copy of what I have sent.  Which I did when I first sent it just to check that it was what I thought it was.  So, something, which I have checked and for which I have an official OU receipt has been sent.  I am safe.  I think.
            I am still unsettled by the fact that it was an open email.  How many pieces of work has she not had?  Although the pro-forma is unmarked and used mainly as a way of the tutor responding and advising about the work that you propose to do, you fail the course if you do not submit!  What are people doing?
            The great thing, the one technique that you have to learn about distance learning is not to let everyone else panic you.  It is very easily done, and the fact that we students in the North of England Group (Europe) are scattered all over the continent and we, or only a section of us, are only going to come together for the Study Day in May at which point we should all be working on the material, the outline for which we should already have sent in!
            You can see, just as I type the words, they are getting just that little bit frazzled, I am responding to worry and letting my imagination work overtime!
            Be calm, unruly student soul!
            Wait for the tutor’s words, which cannot be far away.  Some people have had the comments on their pro-forma back already.  Which in itself is disturbing but . . . calm!  Get on with the reading of the textbook, do a little light writing and all will be well with the world.  Probably.
            I am sure that I can find more disturbing things to worry about.  Easily!