. . . remorselessly cheerful

Must be getting old. Although I DO like optimism and find pessimist piss me off, I also get a little irritated by remorseless British cheerfulness. Got them through the Blitz? Well, all I can say is more's the pity. Don't get me wrong, please, and don´t think me snobbish. I don´t look down on anyone for any reason except their appalling behaviour towards other (and I wish more Brits would follow suit on that score). What´s so bad about condemning vandalism, a baffling, but widespread British practice? But one of our freedoms is to choose what company we keep. That is surely not snobbish?

Message to Kate

Kate, less hope of a shag than you might think, and I must admit I am rather whistling in the wind. It was raining yesterday so texted, hopefully, suggesting a drink (I was on the ball enough to get a mobile - cell - number) but have had nothing in reply. By the way, can´t seem to find your email address. I was going to email you to congratulate you on your engagement. Could you send it to me, assuming you still have mine?
Who is the guy? I was following the progress of your dates on a new blog you started, but that has since disappeared. Get in touch.

Well, they said 'till Thursday'

Wednesday, and a new day starts with an overcast sky, the promise of more rain and that remorseless cheerfulness and resignation which the Brits have sickeningly made their own. All this in the 'Sunshine Capital Of The Universe' as Ibiza rather boastfully calls itself in advertising material circulating in Greenland and all points north. What to do? Well, I could do what I did yesterday and carry on reading the very excellent and revealing (to this reader, at least) PHUS. Or I could catch a bus either to St Eulalia or Evissa (better known to British druggies as Ibiza Town.) Evissa is said to have an old town which is one of the original island forts and is very similar to Dubrovnik. St Eulalia is closer, just about three miles, and I could do with the excercise. I bought an umbrella yesterday, so that should not be a problem.
I word about my fellow guests. It occurred to me yesterday that being among them is rather like vacationing in Asda. That might sound unkind. It is not intended to be. For balance, I should also say that I would also be a little uncomfortable surrounded by Times, Guardian, Telegraph and Independent folk, many of home have unacceptable pretensions. The only papers available here are the Mail, the Express, the Sun, the Star and the Mirror. But to put this hotel in perspective, the food, although of necessity partly geared towards the unadventurous British palate - almost all guests settle for meat and two veg - is otherwise rather good. Last night, as one of many dishes, gravilax and squid were available, neither usually to be found on your average British supper table. There is also a wide selection of local cheeses, cold meat, very nice salads and bread. These are, perhaps, regarded more as hors d'oeuvres but, there is sufficient variety for one to be able to make a good meal of it. The house wines are better than any of the shite served as house wines in Blighty, so eating is better than this scrum is entitled to expect. Not that most of them would know the difference were they served up horse shit and chips.
Calm down, Patrick. Is it the rain? Am I despite my protestations, a little miffed that I might as well be sitting in Fore St., Bodmin? Hmm.
Did a bit of googling yesterday and found that Lipitor, the statin I have been taking, can also be responsible for tiredness and muscle ache. So I have decided to stop taking it. I was on 40mg which is apparently a high dose, 10/20mg being more usual. Why the bloody hell should I still be on 40mg? I am one of those who thinks the Western world is drugged up to the eyeballs, and possibly for no better reason than it spells great profits for the pharma industry. I know that sound like standard paranoia, but I was shocked, while researching Lipitor dosages, to discover that 'standard does for 10 to 17-years-olds . . .' What! Dear soul, a healthy diet is what they need, not to be junked up with pharmaceuticals. Why on earth are we prescribing Lipitor to or young people?
I have also stopped the Ramipril, and will give not taking either a week. If this bloody tiredness disappears, I shall re-introduce the Ramipril, no hard-ons or not, because they lower blood pressure and my plan is, if possible, to stay alive at least until Elsie and Wesley are leading independent lives. Wes is now 10, so that should be for anther 15/16 years and I shall be 76/77 (undoubtedly with reactionary opinions to suit). And speaking of Elsie and Wesley, I miss them like fuck. If only Celie weren´t such a pain, we could all come on holiday together. I know that makes me sound selfish and self-centred, but . . . Wesley starred in part of my dream yesterday. He was the age he is now, and we were in some kind of china shop with loads of expensive big and small porcelain, glass and copper vases and other ornaments. Wes being Wes, he was fooling around and knocked over a three-foot china vase. I caught it, so no damage was done. Then he almost knocked over three copper vases, and in stopping them fall over, I knocked over a glass vase which smashed to smithereens. It was on sale for $87 (no pound sign on this keyboard, though it might well have been in dollars), but I was told I would only have to pay $27. In the event, with VAT, I had to pay $35. Then we went off looking for the car. I had previously sent Wes off to park it, and he couldn´t remember where. So there we were trailing around the streets looking for a car I knew I wouldn´t recognise because I couldn´t remember what it looked like. Wes was cheerful about it all and didn´t seem to care, and but I was getting more and more alarmed because if I tried to get official help with trying to find the car, I would have to admit that I had let my 10-year-old son drive off to park it. Catch 22.
Later, because of all that (and we never actually found the car) I was VERY late for work, about five hourse, and had Wes in two because there was no time to take him home. Being late didn´t help my peace of mind and, bizarrely, our desks (although this was not my usual office) had been reduced to the size of trays. Odd dream.
But I´ll say it again: I miss Elsie and Wesley. I really don´t like being away from them.
Just turned 11am, and I must soon decide whether to walk to St Eulalia or stay here and make further progress with PHUS.
Not much luck with the shagging project. Texted yesterday suggesting we three meet up for a drink, but there has been no reply. Oh, well.
Decision time. I need some fresh air, I have an umbrella, so I think I shall bugger off to St Eulalia.

Rain, rain, go to Spain - well, it did and is here to stay until Thursday

Breezy, mild and slightly overcast yesterday with the possibility of rain. After carrying on with the very excellent A People´s History Of The United States (from now on PHUS), I took myself off to the centre of Cala Llonga to find The Tobacconist to buy some cigars and then to find a bar with Sky to watch Man U v Man City. (Man U did the business, winning 3-2 in the 97th minute. The extra time was odd because there were no hold-ups to speak of. In a minute I shall log into the papers to see what the pundits make of the matter.)
It was spitting rain when I left the hotel and I bought an umbrella as soon as I hit town. Ten minutes later is was raining properly, five minutes after that is was simply tipping down and did so for what seemed like 30 more minutes. It did stop, but we had a hell of a thunder storm in the night and Cala Llonga this morning now looks more like Dudley, West Midlands, than sunny Ibiza. But who cares? I have Howard Zinn to keep me company and absolutely fuck all obligations, duties, tasks or deadlines. Not feeling particularly relaxed yet and I hopelessly tires all the time, but . . .
At the bar met Jo (36) and Claire (35). It might well be Clare or, this being a modern age, Klare - these things are now fully permissible and anyone who objects to the progress and the personal right of any and everyone to spell their name exactly as they damn please should be prosecuted in Her Majesty´s courts and thoroughly ashamed of themselves to boot.
Jo was the football enthusiast and sat and chatted to them for several hours. She is months out of an eight-year relationship, is originally from Wolverhampton, but now live in Leeds and works as a recruitment officer. Clare (Klare? See above) works in online advertising and is originally from Leeds but lives in Birmingham. They were at college together. They asked my why I was on holiday on my own, and I told them the truth: to get a bit of peace and quiet and away from my wife. My candour, I hope, achieved two things: 1) it is the truth and so the explanation didn´t involve lots of euphemistic guff, and 2) I Am Available should Jo feel in the mood for a holiday fling and be able to see past the rather ragged looks, receding hairline and unforunately spreading figure of this virtual 60-year-old. I go to the gym every day at work, but all that achieves is that I don´t look even worse. To be fair, I don´t look a day older the 59, but no younger either. For the record, Clare is not my type.
Found my cigars and bought five good ones for 6.25 euros. Had one, but, heart attack and all that, woke up during the night and felt guilty. My nose is blocked, my breathing seems more laboured, and my heart rate seems higher. This might all just be my imagination, but all other things being equal, I now rather wish I hadn´t given into the temptation to smoke a cigar. I did, however, enjoy it a lot.

PS to the guff about my hotel in Ibiza

On reflection (about three minutes worth) it strikes me that my readers, both of you, might conclude that I am being a little snobbish about my fellow guests. Well, I don´t mean to be. It´s just that we are drawn to the company of those who think as we do etc, and not so drawn to the company of those who don´t. To put it in perspective I am even less drawn to the company of that old snobbish biddy who edits the Salisbury Review.
The other important thing to emphasise is that I am SO in need of a break that I am consciously keeping myself to myself these first few days. I have also decided to take two weeks off because experience has taught me that one week is simply not enough, that by the end of the first week you are slowly beginning to unwind and need a second week to relax properly. Also the chance to relax properly was the main reason why I haven´t gone on holiday with my wife. She is a woman who could start an argument in an empty house, and I simply don´t have the stomach for that. I would love to go on holiday with my two children but that would not be possible without my wife. But I am planning for the four of us to go away next April during the Easter holiday.

A PS to an earlier entry

The magazine republishing Michael Wharton´s autobiography, or at least the first volume, is not called Slightly Soiled but Slightly Foxed.

At that do I said hello to Susan, Michael´s widow, and was then introduced to some old bint who edits the Salisbury Review. She asked me where I lived. I said North Cornwall. Oh, she said, did I know Lady Penny Wilson (or something like that). No, I said, I didn´t. Her wish for any further conversation with me died there and then. I was, she decided instantly, of no consquence whatsoever. Stupid cow. But there are, unfortunately, many like her in Britain.

Ibiza - an early account

It might only be my third day (and my second full day), but an overcast sky, no sun and a wind which promises a storm of some kind later today persuade me to make an entry here. Also I now know that although only one follower is officially registered, I do, in fact, have two (take a bow, Barry, and thanks for the email and the link to Mark Sparrow’s blog).

After drinking rather too much at the Michael Wharton book launch, I reined myself in for the reception which followed Keith Waterhouse’s funeral and was rather modest in my intake, which meant I was able to have a good night’s rest before getting up at 3.10 on Friday morning, to be driven to Victoria station by my very obliging brother (hardly any public transport at that time of the morning and I’m buggered if I’m going to pay £12 for a taxi ride of less than two miles.

Got to Gatwick for 4.45, just in time to witness the utter dismay of an American family who arrived at the airport, only to realise they should have gone to Heathrow instead. The plane left on time at 6.25 and just over two hours later we touched down in Ibiza, two hours being the ideal flying time and a damn sight better than the 13 hours I spent flying to Hong Kong several years ago.

The one principle I have on this holiday is: don’t rush anything and make no plans whatsoever. Yesterday, my first full day here was spent lying next to the pool reading a very good book I found in the hotel ‘library’. It is A People’s History Of The United States by Howard Zinn. The rest of the books, about 70 of them, are garbage, or at least nothing which would interest me: Danielle Steele, Maeve Binchy, Maeve Steele and Danielle Binchy. How on earth Zinn’s substantial work found its way here I really do not know, but I'm glad it did.

I also stripped to my swimming trunks for a spot of sunbathing, reminding myself not to overdo it, and, of course as these things always go, overdid it. The sun anywhere south of Bournemouth is very deceptive, so I am now burnt all over my torso and from halfway down my thighs to my feet, although only on the front as I didn’t turn over. So today’s overcast conditions are rather welcome. Went to bed early at about 8pm, fell asleep, only to be woken by a call on my mobile from my brother asking ‘what I was doing now’. Sleeping, I told him, and then couldn’t get off for another four hours.
Today I have spent the past few hours reading outside, but it is getting extraordinarily windy. This afternoon it is into Cala Llonga to find one of the bars which show Sky Sports to watch Manchester United beat the crap out of Manchester City.
 
The hotel is very nice and although the food is inclined to satisfy the unadventurous tastes of the mainly lower middle-class guests (that’s gratuitously snobbish. So what are you? Ed) there are sufficient Spanish and other Continental dishes to satisfy me. The average age is 60, so I fit in well, although I am having trouble reconciling myself to no longer even being middle-aged.

Generally, the ethos is determinedly the 2000s version of Kiss Me Quick as far as the Brits are concerned. There has so far been no nobbly knees contest, but yesterday there was a ‘quiz by the pool’ which I didn’t take part in because, as I suspected, the questions were all about TV programmes and characters from the various soaps, of which I, to me eternal credit, know absolutely nothing.

But it is just what I was looking for: somewhere, very clean, quiet with mild weather, where I can bloody chill out, sleep and read. I do not yet feel relaxed - I wouldn’t be blogging her if I were in that state - but it is early days yet.

PS Michael Wharton

For the record, I knew Michael in the last 20-odd years of his life (he was a friend of my father's) and he was most definitely not a racist or anti-semitic. What he most definitely was was a guy who disliked cant and bullshit and that, unsurprisingly, did not win him many friends. It is often fashionable to describe him as 'right-wing', but that, too, is rather far off the mark.

Oddly enough, his life-long dislike and suspicion of television now makes rather more sense to rather more people than it ever did before. He was extremely well-read and very good company. It is true that many readers of his column were hang 'em and flog 'em types, but Michael didn't share their views. He once told me that he was forever getting letters from readers who had obviously read far more into his writings than was there and thanking him for expressing a view he had not once expressed.

His was distinguished in his intellectual rigour, which was the basis of his dislike of cant and hypocrisy. He dislike modish, fashionable thought which had no basis and value except that it was what smart people were thinking this year. His dislike of phrases such as 'the international community', which he thought was meaningless, partly came down to a man growing older and being less able and prepared to accept change (from which I, who is 60 in November, am also increasingly suffering). But as far as I am concerned he was - is - spot on in highlighting the double-think of much modern life.

I am expanding this entry because I feel what I wrote above did not really do Michael justice. And I must also record that his column was always very, very funny. Ironically, in person, although he could be funny, he was, when I knew him in the last 20 years of his life, more reserved and forthcoming, and would add a comment only when he felt a comment was necessary. In this, which is a characteristic I value and enjoy in others, he was very different from many hacks who insist, at your peril, of being the life and soul of the party. Another phrase for such types is 'pain in the arse'.

Coming up: TWO weeks in Ibiza PLUS a piss-up and a funeral (and then another piss-up

Well, it's almost here: my holiday.

This Friday, after today's double shift, tomorrow's double shift and Wednesday's single shift, I fly out from Gatwick bound for Ibiza. And no, not one of the fleshpots of San Antonio and Ibiza Town where young folk blast their brains out on ecastasy, coke and booze, but the rather more genteel Cala Llonga in a hotel which apparently doesn't accept any guest under the age of 80 and where I have been accepted (not being under 80) on the strict understanding that I will keep very quiet indeed. Two weeks of what I hope is quiet bliss in the sunshine. My one problem is whether, after my heart attack of three years ago I can allow myself a cigar of five. Remains to be seen.

The run-up to my departure is also quite interesting. On Wednesday night it is off to the Savile Club in Mayfair where a magazine called Slightly Soiled is holding a reception to celebrate re-publishing Michael 'Peter Simple' Wharton (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Wharton) two volumes of autobiography. Ends at 8.30 so I won't be a piss-up, but it should nevertheless be interesting. Then at noon the following day it is off to Mortlake Crematorium for Keith Waterhouse's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Waterhouse) funeral to which I have been invited.

The only way I can explain that is that of all the subs her at the features desk of the Mail, I was the only one who regularly used to liaise with Stella, his ex-wife, who has been caring for him in the last four years of his life.

After the funeral there is a wake at 'The White Hart' (don't know which one of the several thousand White Harts there are in Britain - one in London, probably) at which several of the great and good will be lifting their arms and, according to John Mcentee, several more of the great and good, folk with whom Keith or Stella didn't get on, will not be lifting their arms. If there is anything to report, I shall duly record it here, but I think being an unknown among all those who get bylines (we subs don't) I shall keep a low profile.

As for the holiday, roll it on! I stress that I shall be off for two weeks because these past 15 years I have only taken a week off abroad and it is never enough. Just when you are beginning to relax, it's time to come home.

A short series of films which might amuse the discerning idiot. (Do they exist?)

Last February, I was in Plymouth with my daughter and two of her friends. They - 12 and 13-year-olds - were on a shopping trip and tentatively assaying the whacky world of cosmetics and fashion, so I made myself scarce.
Wandering around, I was struck by the number of shops which were closing so on my mobile phone I took a number of photos. Later I strung them together, dug out a relevant cliche (one buried in the FDR quote towards the end of the film) and set it to an appropriate piece of music, Easy St Louis Toodle-oo by Duke Ellington and performed by Steely Dan.
Unfortunately, their version is still in copyright and YouTube (to which I had uploaded it) wouldn't let me use it. So I choose another piece of music instead, but the film lost all impact.
Then I realised I also had the original Duke Ellington version on iTunes, so I have reworked the film with that version (if anything better than the Steely Dan, which incidentally rather disappoints me in that Fagen and Becker copy the original almost note for note in that rather anal way they have made their own).
Here it is.

By comparison the compromise, the version with Debussy, is tame and anondyne.
I find it quite interesting how the sound can utterly change the character of the piece. The first (although I might be wrong of course, and we all love the smell of our own farts) is cynical, resigned, almost aggressive, wherease the second, anodyne version, is sentimental and conventional. Yet the images are identical.
If you like it, you might also like Thelonius Watches Paint Dry


and Significance (Or An Evening With Rob)
which is, however, nine minutes long so have a little patience.
Finally, one of my favourites (which speaks for itself):