Swim, write, read!

A rough, windy night and a lazy morning: at least up until my swim – which always seems like a defining moment in my day. 

            The pool was ‘full’ (that is, the designated swimming lanes were full) and I had to hug the floats in the ‘other ranks and children’ section.  As this was empty that was not such a bad thing, indeed it is sometimes more spacious as the swimming lanes are sometimes filled by two people and I invariable bash watch or hand or arm against the floats.  This is not a hardship, but I swim with the sort of determined resolve that means even the slightest touch of flailing arm against float is painful.

Lunch was from our usual take away with the excitement of the meal usually being the increasingly desperate search for a parking space within walking distance of the place.  Only once have I given up and got the meal from somewhere else, but on a few other occasions it has come close to the break-off point where another restaurant beckons.

            To understand quite what I go through you also have to understand the Spanish, well Catalan approach to parking.  Any portion of road no occupied by a car is fair game.  It doesn’t matter if the length of road is also the start of a zebra crossing or has zigzag yellow lines on it or ‘no parking’ signs: if there is nothing there, so the thinking goes, your car could be.  However bad you think British parking is – Spanish is worse.  Much worse.

            My first three choices of ‘easy’ parking spaces were singularly full and as I was making for my ‘last chance’ area I came across that rarest of the rare: an empty legal parking space.

            I hate reverse parking with a gut wrenching loathing, but that was the only way that I was going to get in.  I don’t know what it is about the car that I am driving at the moment but I have not really come to terms with the length and turning circle of whatever you call it which makes reverse parking possible.  Earlier in my driving life I was spoilt by owning a Triumph Herald Estate which would park, as it were, on a sixpence – and I have suffered from a continuing resentment that other cars have not been made with the same versatility with each new vehicle that I have owned.

            And this space was on a busy road which means that your inept attempts to park will have an irate driver watching your lack of skill and radiating hatred at your delaying him.

            In the perverse way in which these things happen, my parking worked out perfectly and it made it appear as if I had been reverse parking as a dedicated hobby for most of my life!  I celebrate my competence wherever I can find it!  And the food was good too!

            Another positive step forward in my so-called research for my Open University course.  A London interior designer who has at least four of the paintings by the artist I am interested in has agreed to let me visit him in his Chelsea flat and view the works!  This is a major step forward, as I have yet to see a single example of Alvaro Guevara’s work in the flesh.  The other artist in my writing is David Hockney, so there is no paucity of paintings and, from my point of view more importantly, no shortage of critical works to use.  I think things are coming together pretty well.  And, as my tutor has an especial interest in the work of the Bloomsbury Group I think that I am on to a winner here!  As usual the only problem is getting the damn thing written!

            A more pressing problem is the fact that I have to get another tutor marked assignment done before I can give full attention to the final project.  The danger is that I allow myself to become complacent about the fact that I am at least a fortnight ahead of myself as far as the reading for the course is concerned.  That way lies disaster!  There is also the more interesting problem of our much-delayed holiday which will (if it takes place) eat into the study time available for me.  I must admit that I get a most satisfactory frisson of academic panic when I consider how things might work out!

The ‘book’ progresses.  I am now working on a poem with the title, ‘What dog was Rodney?’ which took its genesis from a waking memory of a tune as I marched resolutely towards the bathroom on waking.  Toni gets nearer and nearer to desperation each time I explain about a poem on which I am working!

            I am hoping that the usual inverse law does not apply to this poem.  Usually I find that the more notes that I have the harder the final poem becomes to produce.  Some of the most fluid work that I have written has come from the skimpiest of starting points.  I am putting my trust in the fact that the fluency of my note making for this piece will be reflected in the smooth ease with which I produce a draft.

            I can now see why some poets have used publication as a way of concentrating their minds on the definitive versions of poems.  As I read through what I have written in the draft book form I constantly see the need for sometimes major, but often minor edits.  I tell myself that this is part of the delight of production.

            I have made a list of what I want the next book to look like and each time I add to the list I am conscious that I am adding cost.  Still, I also keep telling myself that this is my birthday present to myself and so a little indulgence will not be out of place.  I also think that I would be well advised to get other quotations for the publication as the little extras that I am thinking of will eventually add up to something momentous as far as the price is concerned!

           

Enough of this escapist writing; time to get down to the pencil work that comes with the production of a poem!

Sadness and Hope

A cold and windy day, but bright enough for me to (defiantly, I admit) take my coat off when I sat outside to have my cup of tea.  As the last two people from Britain to whom I have talked have mentioned scatterings of the White Stuff I feel that my move to the sunnier shores of the Med was more than justified.

            Today was the rally in the centre of Madrid in support of Podemos, the new, year-old party that aims to break the stranglehold of the old political parties.  Those moribund entities obviously still have institutional teeth which they are gnashing with the fury that comes with the growing realization that their particular gravy train may be coming to the end of the line.  What they are doing at the moment is, with breath-taking hypocrisy, character assassination of one of the leaders of Podemos.  The whole weight of the corrupt press and media are trying their damndest to throw dirt in the hope that some of it will stick.  They find no difficulty in ignoring the overwhelming weight of evidence which clearly shows that they are in no position to say anything about corruption they hope (and know) that if you throw enough smear some of it will stick.

            I am, daily, sickened by the frantic attempts of politicians, who can see their easy livelihoods disappearing in a wave of popular disgust, and who try and talk their way to cleanliness as if new words are going to wipe away old stinking deeds!

            Spain is a country where change is eagerly awaited.  The success of the reform party in Greece has given added momentum to the movement in this country and I wish them every success.

            Now the reality check.  I have already been proved wrong in my pessimistic forecast about the percentage that this new party could possibly hope to achieve.  In some polls Podemos is the highest scoring party ahead of the two main established parties of the left and right.  The old parties still have an overall majority and they are going to do everything they possibly can to keep the old, corrupt situation in place.

            The real battle is between PP (the irremediably corrupt and shamelessly mendacious party of the right) and Podemos.  The Spanish equivalent of the Labour party, PSOE, have made themselves more and more irrelevant by conniving with the government over things like the unconstitutional establishment of the reign of the present King and through their total inability to bring the kleptocracy of PP to account.

            But the established parties will retain their diehard supporters and the right frightens more easily than the left and they will close ranks around any bunch of disreputable thieves as long as they sport the PP name.  The left will, as the left always does, tear itself apart.  PP will be delighted to see battles between PSOE and Podemos – though the leadership of Podemos has been careful to resist the labels of right or left and maintains that it is a part which appeals to the whole of Spain and is a party, the only party, for real change.

            I hope that people will respond.  If I had a vote in the national elections this year then I would put my X next to Podemos.  I only hope enough people are as eager for change as I am and that they ignore their previous party affiliations and do the right thing.  I live in hope.

            My next book progresses.  I have one person thinking about translating the Tree poems into Spanish and another friend has agreed to translate them into Catalan.  I have plans for the drawings/illustrations and am looking forward to getting the volume organised.  My last two chapbooks have been produced with the emphasis on serendipity rather than a reasoned thematic approach – my next one will be, I hope, different.

            The wind is blowing gently in the background.  I do not mind this at night; it is during the day that I object!

Food and sand

The view through the window of the restaurant on the beach was light sepia tinted as the wind had whipped up enough sand to make watching the view better than actually being in it.  And when you have a meal as delightful as the one that I consumed to distract your attention from the lack of sun, one can be philosophical about the little lacks in life!

            To be fair, I think that I was still feeling some of the after effects of the liquid evening in the poetry group: I was stationed far to near the table with all the bottles on it and pushed a little outside the immediate circle into a little area of self indulgence all of my own.  Still, I did manage to make it back to the hotel and in far less time that I usually take.

            The last journey I made after the poetry was positively epic in the manner of one lost in some Surrealistic labyrinth.  I put it down to all those little cramped streets which lead away from the Cathedral in Barcelona.  At the back of my mind is the panic which almost took me away in Mykonos when, having secured a room, I scurried away to explore my surroundings and then couldn’t find the ‘hotel’ among all the other white blocks that Mykonos old town comprises.  I had to keep making my way back to the sea and then going into the exit which I remembered to be the right one and hoping against hope that I would simply come across the place and all would be well.  It took quite a few attempts but, as is the way with me, it worked out exactly as I expected it to and I was reunited with my passport, money, clothes, camera and everything.

            Well, old Barcelona is the same for me.  But this time when I hit the sea, as I have done on more than one occasion, I know that I have really and truly gone out of my way.

            And I hate wearing shoes.  Even if they are sports shoes.  Today after bowing to city prejudice I am suffering the consequences of not wearing my accustomed sandals.  I have to admit that the wearing of sandals in January is regarded as the most flamboyant form of eccentricity in a country that believes the month rather than the temperature and consequently expects everyone to be dressed for winter, even if, as I constantly maintain, the temperature is positively balmy for one of my country’s sons!

            Never mind, my feet are starting to recover and my late morning swim was more than usually welcome and refreshing.

            And I have finished a finalish draft of the poem that I started last night.  All my new poems, well, some of them, can be found at:

http://smrnewpoems.blogspot.com.es

            The Open University continues to take pride of place in my academic concerns especially as I have decided to use a Chilean painter Alvaro Guevara (1894-1951) as part of my research.  Although from Chile, he was sent to England to study the cloth trade in Bradford where his artistic ability was fostered, he won a scholarship to study in London and eventually became associate with the Bloomsbury Group and produced paintings around 1916/17 of swimmers and swimming.  I am trying (and failing) to find the present whereabouts of a painting called ‘Little Splash’ which I was hoping to compare with David Hockney’s larger and more famous version of the idea.

            As part of my research I have managed to get in contact with a great grand nephew of Guevara (now a candidate for a PhD in Leeds) and various other people and institutions in an attempt to get to know more about him.  At the moment I am stuck in one of those in-between times when things have been set in motion and could reveal excellent results, except they aren’t.  I live, however, in hope and, anyway I am enjoying myself trying to piece together enough information to make my research project work.  I have Plan B and indeed Plan C, should nothing more make it to this part of Spain, but I do hope that I can do something which will genuinely add to knowledge about someone who is perhaps unjustly neglected today.

           

            Meanwhile the wind continues to blow, but I confidently expect sun tomorrow.

Goodwill to all?

Christmas Day

Well, the log was truly thwacked last night and it duly shat its presents to the waiting masses.  And you have to be Catalan to understand that sentence, but take it from me I now am.

            Not, I hasten to add, that I am any more proficient in the language and history and culture of this excellent region, but rather that I am now the proud owner of a hoodie with the numbers 1714 emblazoned on the front and an artistically sketchy conglomeration of yellow and red with a star set in blue.  In other words I am now a fully functioning Catalan Independentista.  Though I have some considerable reservations around that designation.

            It is true that given the present government which is composed entirely of self-seeking, corrupt liars and which is led by a man whom I have designated, ‘Bromo’ (an incorrect, but masculine, perversion of the Spanish word ‘broma’ which means ‘joke’) who takes every opportunity to denigrate Catalonia and the Catalans, independence seems like a wholly acceptable idea.  But I think that the future is, to put it mildly, uncertain.

            The political situation is interesting.   Podemos is the new political party which promises to change the old corrupt Spain into something new.  Their policies are interesting and they seem to be determined to promote ideas of transparency (Spain is the ONLY developed European country not to have a transparency law) and legal equality (Spain has an extraordinary number of citizens who are above the ordinary dictates of the law – Britain and Germany have, for example none.)  The real problem comes with the election next year.

            According to the opinion polls both the major political parties PP (the sort of Conservative party which makes the British version look positively wholesome and guilt free) and PSOE (the sort of Labour party which would welcome Tony Blair as a socialist radical) have suffered quite deserved losses in their possible share of the vote.  The largest political party is now Podemos which was formed less than a year ago as a direct response to the woeful lack of decency that the two main parties displayed.

            If the opinion polls are correct and the population votes in the way that they indicate then Podemos would be the largest party in parliament.  It would not, however, have an overall majority and would need to be in coalition with another party or a series of smaller parties.  PP and PSOE would, between them, be able to stymie any truly progressive policies that Podemos brought forward.  The purity of Podemos would begin to be tarnished as they coped with the very grubby reality of the art of the possible in the murky political atmosphere of this country.

            With Podemos denied a working majority, with the other parties working against it to preserve their own shoddy self-seeking goals, Podemos would soon sink under the weight of disappointed expectations.  If they managed to form a minority government, there would be a vote of no confidence forced by the other parties, a new general election would be called, Podemos would be decimated and the old hegemony of two Old Party Rule would be re-established.  The People, yet again, would be the losers and the old guard fingers in the till politicos would be comfortably back at the trough.

            These are interesting times for Spain – but don’t hold your breath for anything approaching Justice to prevail.  So, at the moment, as I type this, alone in a sleeping flat in Terrassa, I wear my independence hoodie with something like desperation, in the hope that every gesture of possible separation will focus the governments’ eyes and bring them to a realization that the policies which have worked for them since the fall of Franco (god rot him) will not work in the future if they want to secure the unity of the country.

            It will be interesting (not that I am going to listen to him) to hear what the so-called King of Spain has to say in his Christmas Message.  Just think about it.  He is on the throne because his elephant killing, philandering, financially corrupt father made one mistake too many and to save the tarnished concept of monarchy in this country he abdicated in favour of his tall son.

            There is no provision for abdication in the Constitution of this country so PP and PSOE in an unwholesome and indicative clandestine alliance made up some pseudo-constitutional form of words and gave the throne to the crown prince.  No reference was made to the people of Spain and ignoring an on-line petition which demanded that the whole concept of the monarchy be put to the people in whose name this lanky scion of the discredited Bourbons purports to reign.

            So, thanks to PP and PSOE, the previous king, financially and morally corrupt as he was and is, gets indemnity so the paternity cases against him continue not to be heard in the Spanish courts; his financial machinations continue to be impenetrable because of the complete lack of transparency in dealings with the Royal Family and he has faded into almost complete invisibility so that the untarnished bloom of the new long King is allowed to blind people to the obvious inequality and injustice that the whole system flaunts.

            The previous king, in a notorious and mendacious broadcast which has been much replayed, stated that ‘justice is the same for all’ – a laudable, if laughable statement as the king and the people who promote him are clearly above the law.  The most glaring example of injustice was the position of the Infanta.

            The Infanta (the old king’s daughter and the present king’s sister) together with her ex-sportsman husband have been accused of theft.  The presumption of innocence is difficult when the evidence that has been made public is overwhelming, but the Public Prosecutor has been a staunch ally to this beleaguered royal (! sic!) and while saying she has to pay money back (i.e. guilty) she was blinded by love and trusted her husband (i.e. innocent).  When she was (amazingly) forced to go to a closed hearing in court, her responses to questions were a few hundred variations on the ‘I don’t know’.  Anyone other than a member of the royal family would have been accused of contempt of court, but her admission of what amounts to idiocy was seen by the Public Prosecutor (i.e. the person who works on our behalf to prosecute those guilty of crimes, like the Infanta) saw only charming naivety and glowing innocence.

            Basically she got away with it.  The country fumed but could do nothing.  The judge had been overruled and the concept of ‘justice is the same for everyone’ was clearly seen as the lie that it is.

            But, and this is why the king’s broadcast will be interesting, the judge refused to be overruled and has demanded that the Infanta return to court and answer to charges that, were she to be found guilty, would carry a sentence of four years in jail.  So the king has a choice: either ignore what is happening to his family and you show your regal arrogance or make a reference and reignite the obvious lie of universal justice.  It is a no-win situation for him and his type and I am glad that he has an impossible choice to make.  Although, to be truthful, the most obvious lies and sleight of hand in this country seem to work.  Look at the number of proven thieves who still operate at the highest levels of political society in spite of the glaring light of publicity showing exactly why they are where they are!

            This is hardly the stuff to be writing on Christmas Day, but given the state of Spain, what else is there to write about?

            Well, loads if I care to think about it.  Like what we are going to have for lunch.  This is going to be a family affair with something like 16 people sitting down to the meal.  All in Toni’s sister’s house.  All participants are supposed to bring something to eat.  I have bought the booze.  Which, considering the number of people would normally be woefully inadequate.  I have bought two bottles of Cava, two bottles of red, two bottles or white and a bottle of liqueur.  I have bought no beer, or Fanta or any soft drink.  And those, I hope will be what most of the people there will be drinking.  I have bought decent bottles (i.e. about three times as much as I would normally spend) and I intend to savour it!

            So far I have done quite well on the present front.  The hoodie previously mentioned combined with quite acceptable aftershave, including the one advertised by the impossibly sculpted ex-Australian football player hefting a trophy on his naked shoulder.  I am sure that I could have made something of advert and the bottle in the shape of a silver handled cup as essential part of my Media Studies lessons in the School on the Hill.  But those days are well and truly and thankfully past and now I can merely speculate and squirt.  Which sounds a bloody sight worse than I intended when I wrote it!

            I have my art books with me and I should be drafting my TMA, but it is already the afternoon and we have to start thinking about getting ready for the Christmas Meal.  Which is in someone else’s house, which is another Christmas gift as there is not the putting away and clearing up that comes with a personal involvement of house provision!

            I have also bought a rather pesky poem with me which refuses to resolve itself into something that I can regard as acceptable.  Perhaps a different environment will give my poetic muse a kick up her refined backside and get the words working!

            Worth a try – and that goes for everything else as well.