All Brexit Eve

Loping towards the burning fires fuelled with the broken hopes of gullible voters, the knuckle dragging denizens of comfortable wealth look towards their warm future with undisguised relish as they realize that, once again, the people who could have made a difference have, once again, voted against their own interests and allowed the arrogant, the privileged, the entitled and the callous to do what they do best: gloat.

As with virtually all aspects of Brexit, the idea that today is the eve of something tangible is actually as diaphanous as the reality that the Liars’ Liar paraded during the election campaign.  There will be no real Brexit tomorrow.  Things will go on going on and little will actually be settled.  The only actualite will be the issuing of a “celebratory” 50p piece (without the Oxford comma) which at least gives we Remainers something concrete to spurn!

Meanwhile, whatever the tousled-haired tosser says, the interminably sad saga of Brexit goes on.  And on.  And on.  He might be able to ban the word itself from the discourse of government, but Brexit is yet to be achieved.

Amazingly (or not, if you have been following the tortuous and torturing progress of the Conservative Party throwing the country under the bus [the one with 350m quid on its side] to persevere its existence) we still do not actually know what has really been decided and we still have no confidence that we will depart with a comprehensive deal.

At least in Spain we Brits think that we have some sort of deal which allows us to sleep at night, with pension and healthcare taken care of – unless things fall apart, and we do eventually crash out finally and catastrophically.  For we people, Brits living in Europe (or rather The Rest of Europe as Britain has decided that it is not part of the continent on whose shelf it is perched) we have another eleven months of uncertainty as we see our futures in the hands of the third-rate chancers that now govern us, being used as bargaining chips in what will surely turn out to be a depressingly one sided negotiation.

I don’t want this to turn into yet another Moan from somebody who has still not come to terms with the result – though it is difficult (if not impossible) to get the sense of unreality out of one’s mind.  The British electorate have done what they have done, for whatever reasons and we have to accept that the system by which we are governed allows this travesty to happen.

It would be easy to roam around Cassandra-like bemoaning the horrible reality, but one has to try and fine something positive to take from the debacle.

I once asked my mother whether she had considered that Britain could have lost when she was living through World War Two and she replied that she never, for one moment, ever considered the prospect of defeat.  I pointed out that there were times when the situation of Britain looked dire and the German military machine looked unstoppable.  She accepted that there had been bad times, but, as she put it, “I always knew that we would muddle through!  Eventually.”

You could, of course look at that sort of attitude as one of self-delusion – but she was right.

I have often thought about my mother’s attitude during the bleaker times of the on-going process of Brexit and thought that the British do seem to have a sort of ability to “muddle through” and “make the best of it” no matter how negative things look.

I do not wish my country ill.  I want the country to prosper.  I want a decent NHS and education and transport.  I want full employment and so on.  I have absolutely no desire to see my country come to harm just so that I can point towards the architects of the chaos and say, “I told you so!”  That petty triumph will mean the defeat of so many who are less able to defend themselves than the comfortable hypocrites of the Conservative Party as they carefully move their wealth off-shore or to EU states so that they can buttress themselves against the storm that the self-inflicted harm of Brexit could bring.

We might have made things more difficult for ourselves, but those are the obstacles that we have to surmount.  And I am sure that we will.  We will find a way to play our part in the continent of which we are, self-evidently, a crucial part.  But, just like Universal Credit, a reasonable idea badly administered will have casualties.  People will die, as they have done as a result of IDS’s botched fiasco.  But the casualties need to be limited.

I feel resentment and anger about what is going to be done in my name.  But resentment and anger are negative and the division that has and will rip the country apart must, somehow be overcome if we all are to prosper.

I will be nauseated by any celebration of the dark day that Brexit signifies, but more important than my disgust is my willingness to work to mitigate the effects of the policy and to remember that a country is composed of more than Guardian readers. And listeners to Radio 4. 

And that is something that I will have to accept.  All societies are plural and diverse.  Let us hope that the obvious talent and enterprise of our country can show a way to bring us together.

I wait to be convinced.

Unshaven and un-swum

 

It takes time to realize that some things that you usually do, do not necessarily have to be done.

I won’t list the little things that we do that only have the power of frequency or habit to recommend them, but if you think about your day there will be all sorts of actions and ‘rituals’ that you do that could be scrapped at a moment’s notice and your life would be better.  Or at least different.

These thoughts (if they can be dignified with that appellation) have been prompted by the fact that we came back from Terrassa after a family celebration quite late.  As we get up at 6 am (sic) any lateness to bed is penalized by the rapidly approaching morning!  So we were both tired today and the ride to work was more than usually taciturn.  But, we got there in time, indeed with enough time to spare for Toni to have an early morning coffee to give him the necessary caffeine fix to get through to the breakfast break.

As I stuttered by way past the series of red lights in Cornella on my way home, a thought struck me.  I didn’t have to go to work.  And (traitorous thought) I didn’t have to have my swim.  Now, not swimming (in spite of the fact that I enjoy the activity) is something that I constantly had to deal with on my way back from school at the end of the day when I was working.  I had an (expensive) membership of the David Lloyd Centre and that august institution had not only a fair sized indoor pool, but also a far more bracing outdoor one. 

But, at the end of the day I was tired and disinclined to swim.  I would spend the distance from school to home debating with myself about whether I really wanted to go for a swim, because, after all, I had had a swim in the morning, or would I rather have a proper cup of tea at home.  This debate would go on until I found myself (somehow) in the car park of the David Lloyd Centre.  And I would go and have a swim.

Now that I am retired, I find that I am made of sterner stuff.  The dictum, “You are tired, go to bed” seemed to me to have the authority of sacred law.  So, in spite of the fact that the swimming pool is directly on my return route, I veered away from the entrance and came home and went back to bed.  And I feel better for it!

I will not laze around too much, after all I have the liquid accusation of a communal swimming pool just outside the back garden gate to urge me to take my accustomed exercise, even if it is a little later than usual.

And then there is the indulgence of being unshaven.  In the (early) morning I just have a cursory wash and brush my teeth (not so cursorily) because I have a shower and a shave after my swim.  Which in my case I have not had.  So it is now a question of which comes first?  The cup of tea, the swim, or ablutions.

What obviously came first was this piece of writing which is something that characterises my approach to life: if in doubt, write.  So having written, I think I will have a swim, then a shower and shave and then a lingering cup of tea on the terrace on the third floor - and an introduction to the rest of the day!

Music as balm?

For the first time, asking Alexa to “Play Classical Music!” I have been provided with something other than blatantly recognizable Bach.  Though I have to admit that what I am listening to, although being played on a modern piano, would benefit by being plucked on a harpsichord.  The more I listen to it, the more it sounds like a modern pastiche of the style of something much older.  The great thing, of course, is that I will not find out what the actual piece of music is and so I am safe in what I have written.

As an experiment, I have just asked Alexa what piece of music had just been played.  She answered in a single gnomic word that I didn’t understand, so I asked, “Alexa explain more.”  And I got a neat little explanation of the grammatical uses of the word and a little historical note about Sir Thomas Moore.  Perhaps I should just allow ignorance to lie low!

As the Alexa terminal is hidden behind the computer I usually forget that she is lurking there, unless someone demands something from one of the other terminals scattered around the house and my Alexa jumps to vocalization.  And incidentally, while I have been typing this we have gone from Carmine Burana to Beethoven - it puts me in mind of the worst excesses of Classic FM!

I once listened to whole a day’s worth of Classic FM when I was in a friend’s caravan in Devon where I had sequestered myself because I had to get a piece of written work finished and I needed to be far away from domestic distractions.

The great thing about Classic FM is that it makes all the music it plays sound like sonic wallpaper.  No matter how great the actual music is, the smooth and slightly condescending delivery of the announcers and the sometimes-shocking juxtapositioning of the individual snatches of music means that it all flows together in an unbroken stream of comforting soundliness!

If that sounds dismissive, it isn’t meant to be, as I got the work done and the music obviously did what I wanted it to!

I must admit that I do not listen to as much music as I once did.  Yes, I play (religiously) through the box sets of CDs that I (still) buy for use in the car.  Though my purchases are obviously atavistic: our local computer and electrical store no longer holds CD book-holders, which just emphasises how out of touch I am in still continuing to buy CDs rather than give in and subscribe to Spotify!

I only listen to Radio 3 once in a blue moon, I even forgot to listen to the first night of the Proms and that had a performance of The Glagolitic Mass, I first heard that on an old Supraphon recording that I had in college.  And no, that is not going to be an opportunity taken to vaunt the superiority of the audio on disc rather than the rather more cramped CD.

I find that I am reading more than I am listening to music.  And the reading I am doing is mostly connected to current events, especially in the UK, and specifically political events.  You see how far I am prepared to go before I have to mention the dreaded “B” word.

And I have made an executive decision that I will never refer to the congenital liar who appears to be making his inexorable way to Number 10 Downing Street by his first name (which is of course Alex, and not the one that he has chosen to be referred to as) as I feel not an iota of familiarity or fellow feeling for the odious person that he obviously is.

Next week, I will start the process of applying for Spanish citizenship, as I have no desire to be associated with a country that can allow a character, described by the Guardian’s John Crace as “Priapic Mr Blobby”, to be its Prime Minister. 

Though, there again, will The Country actually allow this lying chancer to take the post?  The Conservatives have a working majority of 3, with the August by-election in Brecon that might well be down to 2 - so all it would take is one principled Conservative (sic!) to change sides for the majority to be wiped out, to say nothing of the machinations of the Neanderthals in the DUP whose bought loyalty to the Conservatives is problematic.

So, can May (you remember, she used to be that vicious Home Secretary and useless Prime Minister) in all conscience (I used the word lightly in terms of the ethics of the present day Conservatives) recommend the kipper-waving liar to Brenda, the unelected (so they will have something in common) nonagenarian Germanic dwarf?

I can hardly wait for the next exciting episode of the tediously unimaginative soap opera that political life has become nowadays.

Meanwhile I continue with my writing and preparing books for publication, which in the circumstances has more in common with Madame Defarge’s knitting than any cultural activity!  

Though, alas, without the end result of execution!

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'Tidy!' - the visual accusation!

“No reason at all!” is the best reason in the world to take up the keys and start typing out a continuation of this blog.  It has been far too long since I have availed myself of the therapeutic exercise of indulging my proclivity to prolixity!

The real reason for my writing today is because of tidying.

I am not, it has to be admitted, a congenitally tidy person.  I know (as every messy liver will aver) where things are in ‘a general sort of way’ even if I find it difficult to be anything more than vague about absolute location.

But there comes a point in any Clutter-Man’s life when simple entrance and egress is made difficult by the sheer weight and substantiality of stuff.  To put it simply, I was finding the way to my desk on the third floor more and more of an obstacle course.  And painful too.  The third floor interior area is the equivalent of the attic and, while it is open to the stairs (and has its own terrace) it does have a sharply sloping roof/ceiling on one side and, if you are trying to navigate your way through a selection of boxes, furniture and other sundry impedimenta one is apt to forget headroom and until the head in question makes its presence felt by a sharp blow by the ceiling.

In self-defence, therefore, tidying had to be done.  But it is very difficult to tidy when there is no spare space for those things that need tidying to be tidied into.   

The whole process then becomes like a three dimensional slide-a-slate puzzle where you have to push the bits next to the space in an increasingly frustrating sequence before you get what you want where you want it.

So I emptied things out on to the terrace.  This gives the illusion of space, or its reality if you have the strength of will to ignore the rubble just the other side of the glass doors.  There is also the nagging horror of what to do with the stuff that you have merely displaced rather than dealt with.

My solution, as is so often the case, was to go shopping.

Lidl have, this week, a special offer of rather fetching plastic storage boxes.  I also possess a library book trolley that is far too large for the ‘library’ that it was bought for.  So, in a masterly utilization of uselessness I have bedecked the trolley with the new boxes and have attempted to winnow the floor based confusion of papers and cables and things into opaque boxed order.  Since the trolley has wheels, I am also able to move the loaded machine to gain access to bookcases that have long been denied me.  And it has only taken me all week.

And that time has not only been spent on the third floor, but also in the library itself where one part is actually my wardrobe.  Because of the difficult of access (cf. large trolley above) clean clothes tended to amass rather than be put away.  So, before I could get to the trolley I had to tidy away all the flotsam clothes that formed a barrier to exploration of the inner recesses of the bibliophile sanctum wherein the trolley resided.

So, given the amount of stuff that had to be ‘tidied’ (I have put the term in inverted commas because I know that my version of that word gets nowhere near Toni’s definition where he tidies in detail and in depth; my approach is superficial to say the least) I feel proud that it has only taken the best part of a working week to get from chaos to mere unruly clutter.

All of which allows, nay, encourages me to type and write. 

Cui bono?  I leave for you to judge!

Abnormal normality

“The curious incident of the dog in the night time” came to mind as we made our way to work, or rather I drove Toni to his work at our regular ungodly time in the morning so that he could start his travails at 7.00 am promptly.  Except in this case it was the traffic that was notable by its absence rather than the bark of a dog.

Part of Toni’s way to work is along the C-something or other, one of the main motorways into Barcelona from the west of the city.  Even at 6.30am the traffic is heavy and, at St. Boi we take a slip road off the main motorway which winds its circuitous way around the road works for a new section of motorway that have been going on for as long as I have been in Catalonia - and still no new road.  We branch out at the notorious St Boi roundabout to a link road that takes us into Cornella and then a few side streets (along which major busses go!) to his place of work.

As with all attempts to use urban motorways to get places in the morning, timing is everything.  If we leave at 6.30 am promptly, although the traffic is heavy and marginally suicidal, we get there with enough time to spare for Toni to have a quick coffee in the café at the end of the street a few steps away from his work, should he chose to do so.

The traffic this morning was eerily sparse and by way of equilibrium for the spaciousness of the roads we were stuck behind two large slow moving lorries on the slip road that slowed us down.  But, lo! As we passed the usual bottleneck where the slip road has its own slip road to join another motorway - there was nothing.  Not a single car. 

To give you an idea of normality, I sometimes count the number of seconds that it takes to get to the end of the queue I observe on the opposite side of the road as I return to Castelldefels on the largely empty side of the road that it not going in to Barcelona or other major cities: my longest count has been twenty-seven seconds of tail back, counted while travelling at 80 kph!  Nothing.  Not a single angry driver keeping as close as possible to the driver in front to ensure that no chancer tries to cut in to save a few seconds.

In the couple of minutes that it takes to deposit Toni and make my way back onto the major road system and pass the link road, a small queue had built up and was visibly growing by the second.  You see what I mean about timing!

We realized that the paucity was due to (or is it “owing to”?  I can never remember the rule that I learned imperfectly back in form 4 of Cardiff High) the fact that most people have not yet returned to work.  Schools are back on the 7^th of the month, I think, and our Catalan class recommences on the 8^th.  So, next Monday we will find the entire motorway fuming with resentful workers still half asleep, dreading the day ahead and spoiling for a traffic jam to make their return to work complete in its awfulness.

Today, however it meant that I got back to Castelldefels in good time and turned into the Swimming Pool car park just as the gate was being unlocked.  Timing again!

It further meant that I was one of the first to get changed, but no matter how precisely I make it for the opening time of 7.00 am I am never the first in the pool, there must be people who have secret ways into the complex to allow them to bag a lane!

But when I got to the pool, some of the usual suspects were not in place.  I am there early because I have to be, but there are a couple of obviously retired ladies who do slow mysterious strokes who seem to monopolise the outside lanes.  Why are they there so early? 

There are ‘serious’ swimmers who move through the water as if they are being chased by piranha and you can almost hear them clucking with annoyance if anyone dares to join their lane when there isn’t another option. 

 

These are the swimmers who will do butterfly in a crowded lane which, “as any fule kno” is the height of bad swimming manners.  It is wrong for a variety of reasons; first and foremost, because I can’t do the stroke for more than a few seconds, so I take it as a personal affront; secondly, because it takes up the entire lane; thirdly because it is very splashy, and for reasons that I do not fully understand I abhor being splashed when I swim.  In water!  Fourthly because it is a vulgar display of offensive physicality and small-minded showing off. 

Mind you, I have to say that I feel the same for any stroke other than crawl.  In a crowded lane, crawl is the only stroke where your efforts stay (roughly) within the width of your body and you do not encroach on another swimmer’s space.

I managed to complete my swim in a lane that I had largely to myself, so I have little to complain about.  And the cup of tea in the café afterwards was not accompanied by the Camino of parents-with-children using the car park to leave the car and then march the kids through the café to the school.  It was oddly tranquil, and far too early for even the most resolute of parents (who in this part of the world seem to spend - and I mean spend - a lot of time, effort and money to getting someone/anyone else to look after the kids when they are on holiday) looking to take their charges for a quick or even a long swim.

Our pool/sports centre usually has a sort of sports camp where parents deposit their kids in the morning and pick them up in the evening, the centre will have amused and fed them during the day.  This must be a very profitable part of their activity and they have ‘camps’ for all the major holidays.

So this week will be one of non-normality with routine being re-established on Monday of next week.  When the city will be back in the safe hands of the retired.  Again.

Woe! Woe! And thrice woe!

We didn’t have a turkey so there was no possibility of inspecting the entrails to use an augury for the new year, so I looked around for something more metaphorical and discovered that my smartwatch had run out of power.  So New Years Eve on the lead up to the strokes of midnight and the eating of the twelve grapes of luck were accompanied by a woefully blank watch face attached to my wrist as I had omitted to bring the charger with me to Terrassa.

As with all electronic equipment with a visual display, there is nothing quite so dead as a blank screen.  So as everyone else checked their watches with the time displayed on the television, I merely saw the gleam of darkness on the black glass covered screen with occasional bright spots from the ambient light reflected from the useless decoration on my wrist.

My Pebble (O happy memory!) is now long gone, replaced by the Amazfit, but not quite compensating for the loss.  Pebble used to send cheerful and positive messages like, “Your Pebble is powered until this evening!” encouraging you to recharge – and a single Pebble recharge would last well over a week for me.  Then the firm sold themselves and their product and the Pebble ceased to be and for me, all the replacements have been pale reflections of the excellence of the product now gone.

Anyway, there might have been some sort of message, but it is easy to overlook that in the hectic build up to and recovery from Christmas.  What was indubitable was the blank face of timelessness that I stubbornly kept on my wrist in spite of the fact that it didn’t even look mildly attractive as a bracelet!  I found it interesting that I preferred to have the dead thing on my wrist rather than nothing.  Even though my phone tells the time, I need a watch, I feel strangely bereft and naked without one – but then I am also the person who has continued to buy CDs to play in the car even though it shows up my Luddite tendencies as far as real gadget freaks are concerned.  It is the technological equivalent of using a hand loom – the next thing I will do is dress up as a woman and start burning down toll gates!

When I did think about my powerless watch, and I did that often during the evening in the compulsive way that people have in looking at their watches in spite of not needing to know the time, I thought it was anything but a positive omen to go into the new year with my tekke credentials in tatters.

By way of compensation, we have started to Alexa-ify our home, starting with an Echo Spot and a selection of smart plugs.  It is now possible to turn on the television, lights (domestic and tree) and kettle with words of command.

Or at least it would be if the words of command were in English.  In a further effort to make me use what little Spanish I have, Toni has set up Alexa to respond in Spanish.  And it/she does to him, but it/she takes grave exception to my pronunciation of the language and goes into length diatribes about how she has not been programmed to respond to my outlandish version of the language that she finds perfectly easy to understand when voiced by Toni.  If nothing else it will force me to improve my pronunciation of certain key words in Spanish, or I will be forced (o misery!) to switch things on by hand!  To demonstrate that I am getting better, I have just switched the television on and off and opened a classical music radio station from where I am sitting and typing – and adjusted the volume!

When I explained to a friend in the UK on the telephone that we had just installed the first gadgets of Alexa he was astonished that I had done it earlier.  And he has a point.  As an ‘early adopter’ of any flashy gadget-type innovations it is certainly something that should have been up and running long before 2019!

Which brings me back to my dead watch.  Apart from the fact that I obviously misread the tiny power indicator on the watch face before I left and, as we were only staying overnight, I assumed that there was enough power to see me through and therefore I was fully justified in not taking the small unique charger, what did that black empty face indicate?

Perhaps I read too much into trivial, unrelated items and give them a significance that I know (really) they do not deserve.  But the dysfunctionality is suggestive of so many aspects of what is likely to occur in 2019 both domestically and also internationally that it is tempting to see the blank face of stopped time as Fate trying her best to blank out what is in the future!

For my watch, it only took a return home and the placement (with a firm click) into its charger for power to be returned.  Though, as a further illustration of how metaphor can extend into the real problems of the future, the watch did not start working without a ‘re-start’ a force loading of the app to get it going again.  After what has happened in 2018, many aspects of life that we took for granted will be forced into a ‘re-start’ in 2019.  And those ‘re-starts’ are not going to be quite as easy as the two side buttons press that was all it took to get my watch operational.

Still, I remain absurdly optimistic, even though blatantly, outwardly pessimistic, and look forward to the year ahead.   

If nothing else, it should see a couple of my books published, and seeing those through the press (what a quaintly outmoded expression for what actually goes on) and that will keep me occupied, and more importantly, give me something else to concentrate on when the idiocies of the world around me become too much to bear!