This and that.

Weather extremes are getting closer to home. 

There was a knock on our door yesterday. The tenant of the basement flat next door was just checking we weren’t having problems with our basement kitchen. She had woken up to several inches of water in her bathroom. Our houses are built in such a way that you go in through the front door and then go downstairs to what should be a cellar but opens onto the back garden. When we moved in we made the basement area into the kitchen/dining room. When the old lady who lived next door moved out a few years ago the basement was converted into a separate flat. However, the damp proof course they put in appears to have been defective or at least unable to withstand the downpours of recent months and the current tenant has had to move out while things are sorted out. We are keeping our fingers crossed that we don’t suffer a similar fate. 

I talked about downpours but in fact over the last few days we have had some brilliant sunny days in between the grey and wet. It has meant some very cold weather so that on Saturday morning my run almost turned into a skating session. It’s quite disturbing to turn a corner and find yourself running on black ice! Not my idea of fun! 

Then on Sunday we went out with a friend of ours for what was meant to be a shortish walk. Three hours later we got back home, having picked our way over frozen paths and trying hard not to fall over. 


The views were magnificent as usual on such a clear day. And we came across some very odd “standing stones”: rather like a mini version of Carnac in Brittany. 

On Monday the rain returned but we were not bothered. We were off to Manchester for lunch with an old friend. He works for one of the TV news programmes and as we got to the end of our meal he received a phone call asking him to go and present a breaking-news story which he had to decline, having helped us consume a couple of bottles of wine. Besides, I suspect he probably should have been in London to do it. 

The story turned out to be the pregnancy of the Duchess of Cambridge, a story that I’m already heartily fed up of. The prospect of almost eight months of up-dates on her condition, speculation about the gender of the baby and what s/he will look like and numerous articles about the whole business is more than daunting. We’ve already had a lot of hoo-ha about where this tadpole will be in the queue for the throne: so much talk about the fact that a girl could inherit even if she were to have a little brother later that it will almost be a disappointment if we discover that the child is male after all. 

And today came the news that an Australian radio show managed to telephone the hospital where poor Kate is busy being sick and managed to convince someone that the person phone was Her Majesty. (Have they not heard all the reports and discussion of press intrusion down there in the antipodes?) Someone is going to be in trouble on the switchboard of that hospital!! 

That’ll do for now. Time to get back to making those lists of stuff I need to do before the man in the red suits is due to come ho-ho-ho-ing down the chimney.

Border Matters

So Catalonia might be getting a step closer to leaving Spain, or at least a step closer to a referendum on leaving Spain. I continue to be amazed at this obsession with separatism. Why do places like Catalonia and Scotland want to go it alone? Will life really be better for them if they are a small stand-alone unit instead of part of a bigger, possibly supportive, entity? Oh, I understand the identity issue. Almost everyone wants to feel part of a group of some kind. But surely it’s possible to be Scots AND British, Catalan AND Spanish. I personally feel quite Mancunian even though I wasn’t born in this area. Our son, born in Saddleworth (Oldham, Greater Manchester) got very distressed during the riots of summer 2011 because of what they were doing to HIS city: London! Nationality, like city-loyalty, is a relative thing. And as a matter of fact I usually feel more European than anything else. 

And then there is the question of who gets to vote. Do Scots (i.e. born in Scotland to longstanding Scots families) who live in other parts of the UK or Catalans (same criteria) who live in other parts of Spain have the right to vote in a referendum about separation from the rest of their “country”? What about all those Andalusians who have emigrated to Catalonia in search of work (Catalonia has been referred to as the ninth province of Andalucía) and stayed there? Do they get to take part in the decision-making? I’ve not even begun to get my head round the question of whether the rest of us should have some say in a bit of our country splitting off. Just working out who votes is going to be hard enough. 

 Borders seem to be cropping up in news stories in other forms as well. There is Saudi Arabia where apparently they send text messages to husbands when women leave the country – or probably before they actually leave. Surely the husbands know already as they have to give permission for their women to travel! I like the way they make use of the trappings of modern life to maintain attitudes which are positively medieval. 

I read today about someone who was questioned about her relationship with the child travelling with her (her one-year-old daughter) because they had different surnames. This was the UK Border Agency being over zealous in checking passengers on the Eurostar. She was asked to prove that this was her daughter and was advised to carry her marriage certificate or the child’s birth certificate with her in future. I wonder how the UK Border Agency has coped all these years with Spanish mothers whose surnames are different form those of their children. 

While we are on the subject of travelling, it seems that some UK universities are now offering free classes in foreign languages – European and non-European – to students on other courses. The take-up has surprised them and they have had to increase the number of classes available. It might be the fact that these classes cost nothing and students feel that as they have paid such extortionate fees to go to university they might as well get something extra back. Or maybe it’s bit of maturity; UK students are finally realising that having the ability to speak another language is an asset. Whatever the reason, it’s good to see people learning languages. 

I even have personal evidence of this trend towards language learning. I am Facebook friends with a number of ex-students. The majority of these are students who took a foreign language for A-Level but some are ex-members of tutor groups. Now, among the latter group an increasing number have decided, often having completed degree courses in something scientific, to go and spend a year as an au pair in order to convert their GCSE French/German/Spanish into something more fluent. Most of them at sixth form college would have run a mile rather than continue with their language studies. (Is it something wrong with the GCSE courses that puts them off?) 

Of course, it may be simply that they are putting off the eventual search for a “proper job” but I like to think it’s the desire to get to know another culture through learning its language properly.

Sunshine.

For the last few days we have been playing “chase the sun”. This involves choosing the moment between torrential rainstorms to go out for a walk and catch whatever sunshine there is around before it sets behind a hill. One of the disadvantages of living where we do is that the sun disappears very quickly once it decides to go down. Too many hills! 

 One of the advantages is that we are far enough up one of the hills to avoid any possible flooding, thank goodness! We are very much aware that other parts of the country have had much worse weather than we have. It does not, of course, stop us moaning. 

But yes, we have come off lightly. A fair few mud puddles around but otherwise this is the worst flooding we seem to have around here. 

However, we are not too successful in the game of “chase the sun” as it usually shines on the hill some distance away from where we happen to be walking. 

Today, though, we doubled back, going past the rather pretty church at Dobcross – church which always looks as though it belongs in some other country – and got to the top road in time to catch some rays. 

It’s that time of year, you see, when Phil wants to catch the rays instead of dodging them which is what he tries to do for most of the summer months. 

All this sun chasing reminded me of the article I read about San Francisco where they have had to introduce a new by-law to prevent people from walking around naked. One chap pictured in the paper likes to make his way to a local square with his folding chair, take his clothes off and sit in the sunshine to read. Others just like to stroll around in their birthday suits, getting all the healthy vitamin D from the sunshine. That’s all very nice but why can’t they do it in their own gardens? Or go to a nudist beach? And what’s wrong with a pair of shorts, for goodness sake? And is it only the men who indulge in this habit? Or do the ladies of San Francisco insist on equality and show off their golden bodies to all and sundry? I wonder!!! 

This led me on to reflecting about the naked rambler, a gentleman who likes to roam the highways and by-ways, bridle paths and hiking trails of the UK with nothing but his boots and a sunhat. Why would you? It just sounds silly to me. I notice that we don’t hear much of him at this time of year. Sensible chap 

 Maybe he winters in California.

Falls.

When my alarm rang this morning I got out of bed, opened the curtains, saw the rain coming down, closed the window and got back into bed to watch the rain. Yesterday I got up and did my usual run along the Donkey Line, one of our local bridle paths, and came back rather mud-splattered. And that was before yesterday’s rain got going properly. The prospect of even more mud, and rain still falling, put me off this morning. 

On Monday mornings, as I have explained before now, I get up at the crack of dawn to drive to my daughter’s house. Every time, almost without fail, I see early morning joggers. Usually they are running on the road. Now, I have seen the pavements that they don’t run on and they are in an appalling state. So I can quite understand that running in the road is a less dangerous option than running on the pavement with the risk of falling into the road after turning your ankle on the bad pavement surface. 

All the same, running in the dark in the rain at 6.00 in the morning smacks of obsession. I have lots of admiration for them but this jogger/blogger is not joining in that game. Besides, I am in the privileged position of being able to run later in the day if I so choose. 

 So, anyway, I stayed in bed a little longer, got up and did some indoor exercises and then had a leisurely breakfast, starting to read a new book as I did so. This is “Transition” by Iain Banks. In his prologue he describes a period of time as “that golden age which nobody noticed at the time, I mean the long decade between the fall of the Wall and the fall of the Towers”. He goes on to clarify a little: “One event symbolised the lifted threat of worldwide nuclear holocaust, something which had been hanging over humanity for nearly forty years, and so ended an age of idiocy. The other ushered in a new one.” 

Sometimes writers manage to express what you feel with some accuracy. I suppose that’s why they are successful writers. 

Mr Banks also talks about “the third Fall, the fall of Wall Street and the City, the fall of the banks, the fall of the Markets, beginning on September 15th, 2008”. We are still feeling the effects of the last two “falls” he talks about. 

Whenever I go into our local town centre and see Muslim women covered head to toe, I know it’s one of the effects of the fall of the Two Towers. As is the fact that I have to go through the rigmarole of putting liquids in a little plastic bag to show in the airport whenever I travel. 

And then the effects of the fall of the banks are all around us, both here and in our other home in Spain: closed shops – many replaced by loan shops or the suddenly ubiquitous “We Buy Your Gold”/ “Compro Oro” shops – rising unemployment and in Spain demonstrators on the streets. 

Which brings me to an Asturian actor by the name of Arturo Fernández. He featured in La Voz de Galica because of his comments in a TV chat show called “El Gato al Agua”. Talking about demonstrators he said, “Cuando se sale a la calle, se sale con gente guapa. En las manifestaciones... yo en mi vida he visto gente tan fea, ..., ¡pero cómo es posible! A estos no los veo por la calle, deben de tenerlos en campos de concentración, porque no lo puedo entender.” Loosely translated: “When you go out on the street, you go out with good looking people. In demonstrations ... I have never seen such ugly people in my life, ..., how can that be possible! I don’t see those people on the street, they must keep them in concentration camps, because I don’t understand it.” 

He claimed to be concerned about the image of Spain given to foreigners who see the demonstrators on TV reports. His concern was not about violence or about the rights and wrongs of their politics but, quite simply, the appearance of the demonstrators. All demonstrators should be young and beautiful perhaps? Apparently the audience were open-mouthed (with surprise? horror? who knows) and his fellow guests falling about laughing. 

Not very politically correct Mr Fernández!

Buildings and things.

According to an article in El País online, the architect Gaudí’s famous Casa Milá (aka La Pedrera) in Barcelona is unfinished – it should have a huge bronze statue of the Madonna on top apparently – and very nearly had to be demolished as it is really too tall to meet building regulations. In 1909 the local authority imposed a fine of 100 000 pesetas (however much that is in Euros) before letting construction continue. Somehow that sounds so very Spanish! 

Well, it’s been standing for 100 years now but if anyone wants more facts about it here’s the article. 

While we’re on the subject of building I’ve been reading about a suggested solution to the number of houses standing empty and simply not selling in Spain. The Spanish government proposes offering “residencia”, the right to live and work in Spain, to foreigners who purchase houses to the value of €160 000 or more. The measure is said to be targeting potential Chinese and Russian buyers. Sceptics regard it as a patch and not a complete solution but the government claims it has been introduced in Ireland and Portugal already. 

I wonder what kind of resentment it might spark in those who are being thrown out of their homes as the banks reclaim them when they fail to make their mortgage payments. People are protesting about that. 

Meanwhile here in the UK there are increasingly common stories about families who have had to sell up when their mortgage payments have gone up and who still simply can’t manage to feed their families. Careful budgeting goes only so far, especially when food prices keep on rising. 

However, according to something I read in the Metro, the free paper, one thing that remains cheap is alcohol. The headline annoyed me somewhat: “Children say cut-price booze has put Britain top of the drinking league”. I have no argument with the statistics that say that too many people in the UK drink simply to get drunk or that a litre bottle of cider is cheaper than a couple of cinema tickets. These are long-standing problems in the UK. 

I do, however, take issue with the term “children”, especially when closer reading reveals that they mean the 16 to 24 year olds who were surveyed. I know that legally 16 year olds are still children and, yes, I know that legally they can’t be served in pubs I also know that many 13 year olds have already been drunk. But when I see a headline like that, it sounds as though they’ve been talking to a bunch of 8 to 10 year olds. 

It’s misleading and I don’t like the emotional blackmail so often used by headline writers or by news reporters in general.

Great Expectations

Waiting for a tram in Manchester the other day I snapped this strange building in progress. 

Now, at every bus/tram stop or railway station platform there is bound to be a know-it-all and this was true on that occasion. A gentleman, who had already informed me that my tram would certainly be along in a moment (as if I had some doubt about this), told me that this was going to be another multi-story office block or possibly residential block – clearly he didn’t really know everything after all. What we could see was the central lift shafts. And once he said that you could see that this was so. They were working from the inner core to the outside skin. But in the meantime it looked rather like some strange fortified tower. 

 It was a beautiful day when I admired the lift-shafts-in-progress and I hoped the same would be true of the following day. We had planned a walk over the hill with my brother in law. We do this several times a year, walking, as I said, over a local hill and paying a ritual visit to Diggle chippie. This could possibly be the best fish and chip shop in the world or maybe it’s just that whenever you eat fish and chips in the open air they always taste good. Anyway, the day started fine and bright and rapidly grew greyer and greyer. 

By the time my brother in law arrived, almost lunchtime, it was very dull indeed. Nothing daunted, we set off, in rather a hurry as we only just had time to get there before the chippie closed. As it was, they had run out of fish by the time we got there and we had to make do with pies. Not quite what we had planned but the chips were as good as ever. So we ate al fresco, beside the duck pond, and then headed for home along the canal. And the rain kept off until later in the day so we avoided a wetting. All’s well that ends well!! 
 
I’ve been reading about a chap who believes he is the illegitimate son of Princess Margaret. Apparently he always felt that his parents were much more affectionate towards his younger siblings and so convinced himself that he was adopted. Finding no evidence of adoption certificates around he convinced himself that his mother, who worked in some capacity for Princess Margaret’s household, had been persuaded to register him as her own child, thus saving royal face. As might be expected, the royal family is not very forthcoming with DNA samples to allow him to prove (or not) that he is somewhere inline for the throne. Lots of people persuade themselves that they are adopted but most usually grow out of it. This sounds like delusions of grandeur to me. 

And we’ve just started watching the third and final series of the Scandinavian police drama “The Killing”. Ten minutes in and we were already on tenterhooks. The tension mounts with every new scene. I’m surprised we can sit still while we watch. Anyway, at one point a local bigwig industrialist’s child is kidnapped and the head honcho policeman warns our heroine, Sarah Lund (wearing this season’s must-have fluffy sweater), not to mess up because this family is on a par with royalty. Uh oh! I could feel my hackles rising. Does this mean that the child of some less wealthy family, from some family of lower social standing, would not be such a priority case? 

Maybe that’s why the other chappie wants to be part of the royal family: extra special treatment!

Putting things in perspective

From time to time I have a little whinge about the weather. It’s normal. Most of us prefer to be able to get out and about without having to be completely waterproofed first. But at least where I live we don’t suffer from the kind of flooding which has hit many parts of Italy over the weekend. 

Pictures of people walking down streets turned into shallow canals in Venice ... 

 or sitting in the water drinking coffee in Saint Mark’s Square ... 






or even swimming in Saint Mark’s Square (is it really warm enough to do that even in mid-November?) don’t give any idea of the misery of being flooded. 

At least in Venice, where water levels rose by 1.5 metres on Sunday, they are used to high water. I’ve been there with “acqua alta”, although not so high that I had to wade through waist deep water carrying my suitcase. The sirens sound, the walkways are erected and people get on with life. Apparently all the art galleries and museums make sure that their exhibits are all on the first floor, well above even the highest water. 

In other parts of Italy they have suffered as people always do with water pouring into homes and causing havoc, just as it has done in New York State and other parts of America. The power of uncontrolled water is quite astounding and very frightening. 

We’ve just finished watching the second series of “Treme”, an American TV series by the team who gave us “The Wire”, telling the story of a New Orleans community trying desperately to pick up the threads of their lives after Katrina. Years on from the flooding, they are still fighting bureaucracy and the prevarications of those who hope to profit from the disaster. 

Many of the characters are involved one way or another with music. It’s worth watching the series for the music alone but the whole thing is wonderfully put together.

Go and watch it as soon as possible.