What is now more than 20 years ago, and it shocks me a little to say so as in some ways it seems far more recent, I lived and worked in Cardiff. I was working as a sub-editor on the South Wales Echo, which I had joined in February 1986. I was 36 years old. It was my first journalistic job since leaving the CEGB's staff newspaper, Power News, in September 1984, and my first job back on a real newspaper since leaving the Birmingham Evening Mail for Power News in November 2002.
I say that the Evening Mail was a 'real' newspaper because Power News was much more of a company mouthpiece in which everything was hunky-dory, the future was always bright and, I shouldn't wonder, the staff all went to work with boundless joy in their hearts, able as they were to devote another day to the glorious CEGB (Central Electricity Generating Board). As the electricity generating industry was so vital to the country and because any government of whatever hue wanted to avoid trouble at all costs, CEGB staff were treated with kid gloves and were exceptionally well-paid to keep the unions happy. So, for example, my wage jumped overnight from the £8,500 the Evening Mail was paying me to £11,300. In addition we got marvellous travel expenses, so all four of us subs, each of whom was responsible for two regional editions, organised trips away from the office for whatever reason, just to clock up the mileage. In addition, Power News was published monthly, so twice a month all four of us, plus the chief sub, travelled from our homes in various parts of the West Midlands to the printers in Bicester to proof-read. Naturally we could easily have organised sharing a car, but we all drove there separately to get the mileage, claim the exceptionally generous mileage allowance and boost our bank balances.
The pertinent point was that everyone higher up the ladder knew that such unnecessary trips were being made, but did not at all object, for three reasons. It kept the workforce sweet, they were doing the same themselves, and, anyway, as the CEGB (often wittily referred to by me as the KEGB, a regular quip which went down like a lead balloon) was a public body, it was public money that was being spent so what did they care.
This is a long way from Cardiff, but bear with me, if necessary to How The Left Works parts II and III.
Working on Power News was deadly, deadly dull, despite the comparatively large amounts of moolah I was earning. And despite the large amounts of moolah I was earning, I still got into debt.
At the beginning of the 1980s, I had become interested in photography. I ditched the silly 35mm holiday snap camera I was using with which I couldn't get the pictures I thought I was taking, and bought myself an SLR, first a Pentax something or other, then a Pentax K1000, which was not half as sophisticated, but which was the one I ended up using almost all the time. The next step was to teach myself developing and printing, and to print I borrowed all the necessary kit from a colleague of my then girlfriend (the one woman so far in my life I should have married, though at the time I was pretty immature, so I shan't claim it would necessarily have worked.)
By this time I was working for the CEGB and was being paid loads, so I started buying photographic equipment as though there were no tomorrow, my own enlarger - a very good one - lenses, flashes, slave units, trays, all sorts. And, of course, I got into debt, although at the time that didn't much bother me.
On holiday down here in Cornwall visiting my father at Easter 1984, I was out taking pictures along the north coast and fell into conversation with some guy. I can't remember anything about him except that he suggested that if I wanted to do photography properly, I should consider going to college and studying photography.
So I got myself a place on a very good course in the Wednesbury college of West Bromwich College, left my job and on the strength of £1,500 which, by chance, my father had given all his children, and the promise of four shifts a week working as a casual sub on the Birmingham Post, I left Power News, to my delight as well as that of the editor and chief sub, and began the life of a student. It worked well for a term.
Except for Wednesdays when we had a long session in the studio which didn't end until around 7pm, I would jump into my 2cv at just after 5pm, drive down the M5 from Wednesbury to Colmore Circus, Birmingham, and work a four-hour shift. Then it was back to my house in the Maypole (the area was so-named after a pub of the same name, which was one of those massive Brummie drinking halls and which has since been demolished) and often some kind of college work (always with a spliff in my hand) until 2am when I went to bed. I enjoyed that term a lot. Then it all fell apart.
Just after Christmas, the Post went for 100 redundancies and all casuals were axed. That was the end of that source of income. By Easter 1985, at the end of my second term, I realised did not have any money to pay my fees and support myself, so I had to leave the course and sign on unemployed.
Being jobless is no fun at all. I can't claim that what I felt was and is what others feel, but my sense of self-worth took a nosedive and I lived from 8am until the following 8am when the postman arrived with possible replies to the job applications I had made.
I was unemployed for the following ten months, first applying for jobs as a newspaper photographer which was, in retrospect, utterly unrealistic - who was going to take on a 35-year-old with no relevant experience and whose portfolio of photographs had almost no human subjects? I was offered one job, on a small weekly in Loughborough at something like £5,000 a year, but I just couldn't afford to go. Then I widen my job search to include reporters jobs, but again had no luck. The one possibility was on a news agency in Buckinghamshire run by an ex-Sun hack. It was a very successful agency, but it became apparent that his interest in me was more personal than professional (even though he was married) and it also became apparent that I didn't want to cross to the pink side, so that came to nothing either.
Finally, I also began applying for jobs as a sub-editor, and here my luck change, mainly because then, and possibly now, subs are always in short supply. The trouble was that at the time I found sub-editing deadly dull and really didn't want to work as a sub any more. But because of interest payments my debts were growing and so, very reluctantly, I accepted the job on the South Wales Echo in Cardiff.
Well, we've arrived in Cardiff, but no sniff of the Left yet. Wait till part II. Or not.
Saturday 17 October 2009
Sounds like a problem to me
Some words for you: please read them and reflect. Their meanings have nothing to do with the point I shall make:
row, object, tear, produce, refuse, wound, lead, bass, invalid, present, close, subject, intimate.
What do they all have in common? Hint: is it any wonder 'foreigners' have more trouble learning British English than they should. It won't be for a want of trying.
row, object, tear, produce, refuse, wound, lead, bass, invalid, present, close, subject, intimate.
What do they all have in common? Hint: is it any wonder 'foreigners' have more trouble learning British English than they should. It won't be for a want of trying.
Cars, men's men, boys' talk, more cars and the desirability of not gettting into debt
Posting on this blog virtually every five minutes while I was on holiday has rather given me a taste for it, so in the spirit of the great British pastime to Establish A Tradition (And Any Tradition Will Do, The More Pointless The Better), I shall tell you all - both - about my new car. That should be 'new' car, because it is, in fact, more than nine years old and has had two previous owners. The major feature in its favour is that it is not the pile of shit I have been driving these past two years and which was due for its MoT on October 3. To be fair, it wasn't a pile of shit when I bought it (from the garage which services my cars and from whom I bought this new ('new') one and the one before the one before the car I got rid of yesterday.
This one is also a Rover, V registration and has only don 77,000 odd miles, so it should be good. The body is also in quite good nick, but for me its unique selling point was that Rob Gibbons, the Cornish garage owner with whom I swap both jokes and cars, only wanted £800 for it. The previous on, an R registration Rover, which had already done 131,000 when I bought it and was not much of a looker. It looked a tad shabby and, for example, Princess Di or any of her circle would never have been seen dead in it. But it was safe, warm and took me to London and back at least 60 over these past two years. However, the power steering had been making also sorts of noises first thing in the morning and especially in the colder months, two tyres were barely legal and the exhaust was shot to pieces. All in all I calculated that it would take at least £600 to correct everything, buy the tyres and get it through the MoT, so the £800 I paid for this one, which comes with six months tax and a full 12-month MoT seems worth it. It's like getting a better car for £200. (Or is that Irish logic?) I had only bought the one this one replaced as an emergency vehicle because the one before another Rover, though N registration (keep up at the back, you are wasting no one's time but your own) was damaged beyond any reasonable hope after I had several too many sherries while visiting my stepmother on a cold December day in 2007 crashed into a county council white van while tearing around our narrow Cornish lanes far to fast.
I should also point out that as far as cars are concerned, I am not a 'man's man'. In fact, as far as I can tell I am not a man's man in any other respect except when talking football, rugby and snooker and 'totty' (lovely word that, which will mean bugger all to our American friend). Cars, leave me cold except when it comes to attempting small repairs. All that twin-carb, supercharged talk leaves me cold. I went to West End Motors in Bodmin to see what might be available to me under the £2,000 scrappage scheme and it seems I could have been able to drive away in a brand new Nissan Micra for £4,999 all in. But why get into debt? I tried to persuade myself finally to join the human race and buy a brand new car for a change, but I failed.
Amen, or as we men's men say 'she's got a lovely pair of headlamps'. Boom, boom.
This one is also a Rover, V registration and has only don 77,000 odd miles, so it should be good. The body is also in quite good nick, but for me its unique selling point was that Rob Gibbons, the Cornish garage owner with whom I swap both jokes and cars, only wanted £800 for it. The previous on, an R registration Rover, which had already done 131,000 when I bought it and was not much of a looker. It looked a tad shabby and, for example, Princess Di or any of her circle would never have been seen dead in it. But it was safe, warm and took me to London and back at least 60 over these past two years. However, the power steering had been making also sorts of noises first thing in the morning and especially in the colder months, two tyres were barely legal and the exhaust was shot to pieces. All in all I calculated that it would take at least £600 to correct everything, buy the tyres and get it through the MoT, so the £800 I paid for this one, which comes with six months tax and a full 12-month MoT seems worth it. It's like getting a better car for £200. (Or is that Irish logic?) I had only bought the one this one replaced as an emergency vehicle because the one before another Rover, though N registration (keep up at the back, you are wasting no one's time but your own) was damaged beyond any reasonable hope after I had several too many sherries while visiting my stepmother on a cold December day in 2007 crashed into a county council white van while tearing around our narrow Cornish lanes far to fast.
I should also point out that as far as cars are concerned, I am not a 'man's man'. In fact, as far as I can tell I am not a man's man in any other respect except when talking football, rugby and snooker and 'totty' (lovely word that, which will mean bugger all to our American friend). Cars, leave me cold except when it comes to attempting small repairs. All that twin-carb, supercharged talk leaves me cold. I went to West End Motors in Bodmin to see what might be available to me under the £2,000 scrappage scheme and it seems I could have been able to drive away in a brand new Nissan Micra for £4,999 all in. But why get into debt? I tried to persuade myself finally to join the human race and buy a brand new car for a change, but I failed.
Amen, or as we men's men say 'she's got a lovely pair of headlamps'. Boom, boom.
Friday 16 October 2009
Experts: are some of them born losers?
On another topic entirely. I have been a keen backgammon player ever since I learnt to play more than 20 years ago, and when I bought a secondhand PC for my children to use (I have always used Macs, but because of schoolwork, they often need a PC for exchanging files etc.) , I was very pleased to discover that included in the XP operating system was a facility for playing other people around the world at backgammon. So ever since we have owned the PC and whenever I am at home, I have very regulaly played several games of backgammon.
The system invites you to gauge your playing ability. You can choose from beginner, intermediate and expert. I have chosen intermediate, which I think is about right. The system also tries to match you up with other players of the same skill level, but occasionally you are matched with a beginner or an expert.
Playing a beginner is usually quite boring and it is usually very obvious from the moves the other player makes that he or she is a beginner. What is amusing is when you play an 'expert', and remember the grading is always done by the player him or herself. The strange thing about the 'experts' is that all to often, and certainly more often than might be down to chance, they are extremely bad losers. If it is obvious that they are not going to win the match, they simply quit. That tells me an awful lot about a certain aspect of human nature.
The system invites you to gauge your playing ability. You can choose from beginner, intermediate and expert. I have chosen intermediate, which I think is about right. The system also tries to match you up with other players of the same skill level, but occasionally you are matched with a beginner or an expert.
Playing a beginner is usually quite boring and it is usually very obvious from the moves the other player makes that he or she is a beginner. What is amusing is when you play an 'expert', and remember the grading is always done by the player him or herself. The strange thing about the 'experts' is that all to often, and certainly more often than might be down to chance, they are extremely bad losers. If it is obvious that they are not going to win the match, they simply quit. That tells me an awful lot about a certain aspect of human nature.
A rather more personal entry than usual
A joke-free, far more personal entry this morning, and I should add that I am rather glad that this blog is occasionally read by at least two people. One of them knows that my marriage was not made in Heaven, and each morning that sad fact is underlined yet again by my wife. To put it bluntly, she hardly ever speaks to me and hasn't done so for quite a few years. In a strange way I am a kind of non-person, a semi-detached member of this family and in odd, subtle ways - which might just be me being paranoid - she even seems to exclude me. It doesn't help that, more or less by necessity, I work in London and am away for four days a week, but it would be simple thing for my wife to include me in things . However, she chooses not to. Last night was an example: my young son will be leaving primary school next July and starting secondary school in September, so yesterday was an open evening at the school we hope he will be able to attend. This has been arranged for several weeks, yet the first I knew about it was when my wife and my children disappeared out of the door. There is absolutely none of that chit-chat which I am accustomed to elsewhere, she is silent, grim presence who only speaks to tell me not to do this or not to do that or to inquire whether this or that bill has been paid yet.
I grin and bear it and try to keep things normal, but - and here's the very personal bit - each morning when I yet again I am virtually invisible to her and am ignored as a non-person, my heart breaks quietly. I don't want to sound pathetic, but that is a good way of describing it. And I don't know what to do about it.
I have spoken to my sister-in-law several times and after my heart attack I was finally in touch with a counsellor. But there is only so much talking you can do, and if my wife doesn't show any willingness to want to change things, there isn't a lot I can do.
I won't pretend that I love her any more, and the circumstances of how we eventually ended up getting married are not the most romantic possible, but I do know that two civilised adults who two children together should be able to rub along together for the greater good. The trouble is that in several quiet ways my wife is odd. Often she doesn't respond like a 48-year-old woman, but like a 7-year-old on a primary school playground. Several years ago, when there was a very stupid feud in her family and it was split down the middle, she took sides (her two sisters didn't) and just cut her father out of her life. He more or less became a non-person. She has done something similar with my stepmother, who has now returned from her nursing home and lives barely four minutes walk away. She has not visited her in more than two years, but no one knows why. It is very odd behaviour. In the early days when it was apparent that we were quite different people and weren't getting one very well, I would try to persuade her to talk things through. But as I think I have recorded here before (possibly in this blog's first incarnation) her family are emotionally illiterate, and my wife seems to be the worst sufferer. She finds it impossible to talk about herself or her feelings, not just with me but as far as I know with anyone else.
There is much, much more I could write, but there is, in fact, little point. I as moved to make this entry after yet again coming downstairs in the morning to find her one communication with me being a short shopping list. But it is good to have the chance to let of a little steam and I also know that both the readers I know of have experienced the downside of marriage, so I am grateful that they indulge me and that I know this entry will, sooner or later, be read by someone else.
I grin and bear it and try to keep things normal, but - and here's the very personal bit - each morning when I yet again I am virtually invisible to her and am ignored as a non-person, my heart breaks quietly. I don't want to sound pathetic, but that is a good way of describing it. And I don't know what to do about it.
I have spoken to my sister-in-law several times and after my heart attack I was finally in touch with a counsellor. But there is only so much talking you can do, and if my wife doesn't show any willingness to want to change things, there isn't a lot I can do.
I won't pretend that I love her any more, and the circumstances of how we eventually ended up getting married are not the most romantic possible, but I do know that two civilised adults who two children together should be able to rub along together for the greater good. The trouble is that in several quiet ways my wife is odd. Often she doesn't respond like a 48-year-old woman, but like a 7-year-old on a primary school playground. Several years ago, when there was a very stupid feud in her family and it was split down the middle, she took sides (her two sisters didn't) and just cut her father out of her life. He more or less became a non-person. She has done something similar with my stepmother, who has now returned from her nursing home and lives barely four minutes walk away. She has not visited her in more than two years, but no one knows why. It is very odd behaviour. In the early days when it was apparent that we were quite different people and weren't getting one very well, I would try to persuade her to talk things through. But as I think I have recorded here before (possibly in this blog's first incarnation) her family are emotionally illiterate, and my wife seems to be the worst sufferer. She finds it impossible to talk about herself or her feelings, not just with me but as far as I know with anyone else.
There is much, much more I could write, but there is, in fact, little point. I as moved to make this entry after yet again coming downstairs in the morning to find her one communication with me being a short shopping list. But it is good to have the chance to let of a little steam and I also know that both the readers I know of have experienced the downside of marriage, so I am grateful that they indulge me and that I know this entry will, sooner or later, be read by someone else.
Sunday 11 October 2009
The Nobel Peace Prize, and my reaction were I informed I had won it
This has nothing to do with me personally, but I thought I might record how baffled I am that Barack Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. What on earth for, for God's sake? I know I'm not along in being puzzled and tonight I heard on the radio that when first informed of the award by phone, the White House thought it was a hoax.
The whole Nobel Prize thing is anyway rather strange and utterly arbitrary. Several years ago, Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin shared the Peace Prize, and look what good that has done anyone. The whole thing is a joke.
If I were awarded the Peace Prize, or, for that matter, any of the Nobel Prizes, I would haughtily inform the Swedes that they could take one guess as to what to do with the award. This is one Englishman (with German blood - never forget that) who cannot be bought. No sir! Damned foreigners!
The whole Nobel Prize thing is anyway rather strange and utterly arbitrary. Several years ago, Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin shared the Peace Prize, and look what good that has done anyone. The whole thing is a joke.
If I were awarded the Peace Prize, or, for that matter, any of the Nobel Prizes, I would haughtily inform the Swedes that they could take one guess as to what to do with the award. This is one Englishman (with German blood - never forget that) who cannot be bought. No sir! Damned foreigners!
Wednesday 7 October 2009
The curse of The Nerds, whether left-liberal, Yankee smug or any other kind. But never underestimate them - ever
What is it with nerds? We've all met them - passionate committee members, rule sticklers when playing any sort of game, often humourless and, as I know to my cost, inveterate and self-important Wikipedia editors. I have made one or two contributions to Wikipedia over the years, although not very many. Initially, they were additions to the entry on my old school, the Oratory School, which had an interesting section on school slang. I added to it, informing the world, for example, of a small tuck shop we used to visit outside Checkendon called Blossom's and run by a Mrs Cox (ring a bell, Barry?). This entry marked my first run-in with a Wikipedia nerd, this one based, as it turned out, in deepest Arizona. Did I mean 'Blossom's', 'Blossoms' or Blossoms' ' he demanded to know (I assume he was a he, as curiously nerds are invariably male) because if you can't get it exactly right, the entry would have to be deleted. I asked him when he had attended the OS and which house he had been in, and that was the last I heard from him.
Later, I had a run-in over my additions - qualifications, really - to a hostile Wikepedia entry on St Paul Dacre. Now, I cannot claim to 'know' him, but I see him almost every day I come to work, I have spoken to him quite a few times and, despite his ferocious reputation and a tendency which Private Eye refers to as a 'vagina monologue' (very true, I must admit), in my small way rather like him. He is, however, a bete noir of the British left-liberal - make that the self-regarding, smug British left-liberal - and my edit was very unwelcome.
I said, broadly, that Dacre was a tall man and that like many tall men was, in fact, quite shy, and that like many shy men in positions of power, his man-management skills were pitiful and that he often overcompensated for his shyness and social discomfort with a rather forced laddish bonhomie. I didn't actually say it in those ways, but you get the drift. I wanted to redress the balance a little from the general tone of the entry which more or less suggestion Dacre was a rapid right-winger for whom burning alive would be too charitable.
(Sounds, exaggerated, I know, and in this instance it is, rather, but just a perusal of any left-of-centre forum - the Guardian, for example, will furnish proof in abundance that your average caring left-liberal is not about a bit of thuggery, all in the interests of progress, of course). I also added to my edit that Dacre's recreation was gardening (and in my experience, gardeners are never wholly bad. Could you see J. Stalin or A. Hitler with a trowel? No, not can I. QED.)
Anyway, my Wikepedia entry on Dacre was along those lines, suggesting that quite possibly he didn't necessarily eat three young children for breakfast every day. Well, left-liberal Brit was having none of it: Dacre not a complete and utter bastard? No way, the man must burn in hell. So my edit was removed on - annoyingly - technical grounds, and despite my reinstating it and trying to satisfy 'the rules' - nerds just adore 'rules' - several times, I finally admitted defeat. Most recently, my addition to the Wikepedia entry on the Spanish-American War is annoying the nerds, tho' now it is not the left-liberal nerds, but those who feel that we who were not born on a white picket fence with an appe pie stuck up our arse and whistling the Stars And Stripes are somehow sub-human.
My edit, well-sourced this time, to comply with 'the rules' pointed out that several respected US historians do not agree with the party line that the Spanish-American War was started to help the Cuban independence fighters throw of the Spanish yoke but was fully intended to find new markets for American goods.
(Incidentally, just as civilian casualties in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan have been extremely high while the US fights the good fight - to introduce or preserve democracy, apparently - more than a quarter of a million Filipinos met their maker because of American action.) Well, several Yankee nerds were having none of this and removed my edit wholesale. Last night I re-instated it and shall now see how long it remains as part of the entry. I am not holding my breath. For reference you can find it here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish-American_War) and as of 10.05am on October 7, 2009, it was still there.
Beware nerds. And never underestimate them.
Later, I had a run-in over my additions - qualifications, really - to a hostile Wikepedia entry on St Paul Dacre. Now, I cannot claim to 'know' him, but I see him almost every day I come to work, I have spoken to him quite a few times and, despite his ferocious reputation and a tendency which Private Eye refers to as a 'vagina monologue' (very true, I must admit), in my small way rather like him. He is, however, a bete noir of the British left-liberal - make that the self-regarding, smug British left-liberal - and my edit was very unwelcome.
I said, broadly, that Dacre was a tall man and that like many tall men was, in fact, quite shy, and that like many shy men in positions of power, his man-management skills were pitiful and that he often overcompensated for his shyness and social discomfort with a rather forced laddish bonhomie. I didn't actually say it in those ways, but you get the drift. I wanted to redress the balance a little from the general tone of the entry which more or less suggestion Dacre was a rapid right-winger for whom burning alive would be too charitable.
(Sounds, exaggerated, I know, and in this instance it is, rather, but just a perusal of any left-of-centre forum - the Guardian, for example, will furnish proof in abundance that your average caring left-liberal is not about a bit of thuggery, all in the interests of progress, of course). I also added to my edit that Dacre's recreation was gardening (and in my experience, gardeners are never wholly bad. Could you see J. Stalin or A. Hitler with a trowel? No, not can I. QED.)
Anyway, my Wikepedia entry on Dacre was along those lines, suggesting that quite possibly he didn't necessarily eat three young children for breakfast every day. Well, left-liberal Brit was having none of it: Dacre not a complete and utter bastard? No way, the man must burn in hell. So my edit was removed on - annoyingly - technical grounds, and despite my reinstating it and trying to satisfy 'the rules' - nerds just adore 'rules' - several times, I finally admitted defeat. Most recently, my addition to the Wikepedia entry on the Spanish-American War is annoying the nerds, tho' now it is not the left-liberal nerds, but those who feel that we who were not born on a white picket fence with an appe pie stuck up our arse and whistling the Stars And Stripes are somehow sub-human.
My edit, well-sourced this time, to comply with 'the rules' pointed out that several respected US historians do not agree with the party line that the Spanish-American War was started to help the Cuban independence fighters throw of the Spanish yoke but was fully intended to find new markets for American goods.
(Incidentally, just as civilian casualties in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan have been extremely high while the US fights the good fight - to introduce or preserve democracy, apparently - more than a quarter of a million Filipinos met their maker because of American action.) Well, several Yankee nerds were having none of this and removed my edit wholesale. Last night I re-instated it and shall now see how long it remains as part of the entry. I am not holding my breath. For reference you can find it here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish-American_War) and as of 10.05am on October 7, 2009, it was still there.
Beware nerds. And never underestimate them.
Thursday 1 October 2009
One last throw of the dice to see if I can't yet filch one of those Arts Council sinecures
As title. I feel that the name Sir Patrick Powell, knighted for services to the arts and crafts and what bloody else is a damn sight more evocative than plain old Pat Powell, remember him? He was OK, bit of a nutter, tho' don't get me wrong, I don't mean mad or anything like that, you know, just a bit wacky, a bit unpredictable, bit of a loose cannon, know what I mean?
Er, no. As far as I am concerned it is the world which is a bit 'wacky'.
Blathering on while I wait for YouTube to work its magic so I can embed the film here. Hurry up, for God's sake.
What does it all mean? Er, nothing.
Er, no. As far as I am concerned it is the world which is a bit 'wacky'.
Blathering on while I wait for YouTube to work its magic so I can embed the film here. Hurry up, for God's sake.
What does it all mean? Er, nothing.
Wednesday 30 September 2009
One more day to go...
Well, there is one more day to go, I'm doing fuck all else, so I thought I might dribble on a bit more. It is a bit sobering to know that only two other people are reading this, but what is the cliche everyone trots out when talking of a huge task (in my case getting the whole world to read my pointless meanderings)? A journey of a 1,000 miles starts with just one step. Quite. And you wonder why I am employed in the cliche industry and have so far not seen any reason to attempt more honourable employment.
The hotel is fine for food and accommodation and spotlessly clean. I am, at heart, a simple chap, so that is basically all I want. What I haven't really liked is the lack of ineresting company. True I have made several slight acquaintances - the couple from Bradford on Avon, Patrick and Jean from Basingstoke, a Brummie couple (well, Black Country, actually) and the three from Canary Wharf for which read Isle of Dogs. But there is such a thing as conversation and of that there has been none. My book, which I have only one day left to finish the last 100 pages or I shall be obliged to steal it, has been a bonus, and in more ways than one. When, for about 14 months, I was a paid up member of the Conservative Party (only because I decided I didn´t want to be just another pub bore sounding off, should get politically active and felt the Tories were the party I least disagreed with), I never felt 'a Tory', mainly because I am not 'a Tory'. But it also has to be said that however well I got on with individual members, I was still regarded as something of a pinko by almost all of them. But here is not the place to outline my views, still confused as they are, but I shall briefly say that, generally, I cannot rid myself of the conviction that things are stacked against a lot of people and in favour of a few. The few would have us believe that it has to be that way in order for everyone to prosper. And persuading most countries that is the case has been their salvation. A useful, effective and tried and tested technique for keep the status quo - and keeping those who do live in misery down - is gradual reform, reform which blunts the main thrust of discontent but which otherwise does very little except stabilise the status quo. We all might like to think that merely because a lot more people can apparently afford a lot more things, everything is hunky-dory. Not quite. We might no longer have an out-and-out 'working class' but we most definitely have an underclass which we keep in line with copious welfare payments and a large amount of antidepressants. Let´s not kid ourselves. Ian Duncan Smith is a chap on the right lines on that score, despite being 'a Tory' for which no one will forgive him.
I shall do some more reading, with the proviso that I am not in the slightest bit interested in any kind of propaganda. I want intelligent analysis, and PHUS was that in spades.
I have been joking about how enormously fat a great many Brits are, but in truth they a great many are enormously fat. That is not an exaggeration, and I should like my two readers to accept that I, who invariably exaggerates for effect, am here being deadly serious. It is a problem. A further problem might be that not only have we Brits become flabby physically, but, I suspect, we are also flabby morally and intellectually. This is perhaps the gripe and criticism of sixtysomethings through the ages, but it is nonethe less valid for that. I like to think that, as a rule, I don't jump on the nearest reactionary bandwagon and slag of everything and everyone more than ten years younger than my age group. But it is a real cause for worry.
What I have enjoyed these past 13 days have been my walk to Eularia, my short walk alone up the mountainside and my trip today to the old town of Evissa. It is being alone I like. At first it is difficult, but as the days more on it becomes easier. The trouble with going on holiday is finding somewhere where one can be alone. My next holiday, or rather my holiday after that because I should dearly like to take Elsie and Wesley on holiday which means Celie and her continual griping must come, too, will be somewhere quite remote. Organising it will take a lot of reasearch but that is what I should like to do. In the meantime, I think I should make more use of the fact that I live in a very pleasant part of Britain where a little solitude is also available.
A week tomorrow I am due to go out for a drink with Denis, my brother-in-law, an Irishman from Cork who I like a lot. I know I sound crass talking about my wife, but believe me whatever my faults, a change in attitude, a more positive view of life, a more embracing view, less of a parochial view and stopping her eternal criticism of me would go a hell of a long way. Jesus, I get on with 99 percent of people I meet, so why can't I get on with her? Answers, please, on a postcard.
The trouble with entries such as this is that being a talker and finding it not too difficult to write, I can talk - write - the hind legs off a donkey (cliche alert). It is the activity of writing I enjoy and, if the truth be told, I am still half in love with now being able to touch-type which makes typing so much easier.
Getting my last drink of the evening - I am writing this in the bar which has free wireless internet access - I have just been - talking to Isabel, a 14-month-0ld girl, and she, and all the other children in the world make that world go round for me. Yet what do they get? In Britain they run the risk of being shortchange on education, if they live in a town or the wrong end of town they run the risk of knife crime, Britain has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe. What has young Isabel to look forward to. I know this all sounds rather dramatic, but these problems do exist.
Shit, the drink is showing. Blathering on. Perhaps I have been working for the Daily Mail for too long. Anyway, I'd better stop as I am running out of laptop battery.
The hotel is fine for food and accommodation and spotlessly clean. I am, at heart, a simple chap, so that is basically all I want. What I haven't really liked is the lack of ineresting company. True I have made several slight acquaintances - the couple from Bradford on Avon, Patrick and Jean from Basingstoke, a Brummie couple (well, Black Country, actually) and the three from Canary Wharf for which read Isle of Dogs. But there is such a thing as conversation and of that there has been none. My book, which I have only one day left to finish the last 100 pages or I shall be obliged to steal it, has been a bonus, and in more ways than one. When, for about 14 months, I was a paid up member of the Conservative Party (only because I decided I didn´t want to be just another pub bore sounding off, should get politically active and felt the Tories were the party I least disagreed with), I never felt 'a Tory', mainly because I am not 'a Tory'. But it also has to be said that however well I got on with individual members, I was still regarded as something of a pinko by almost all of them. But here is not the place to outline my views, still confused as they are, but I shall briefly say that, generally, I cannot rid myself of the conviction that things are stacked against a lot of people and in favour of a few. The few would have us believe that it has to be that way in order for everyone to prosper. And persuading most countries that is the case has been their salvation. A useful, effective and tried and tested technique for keep the status quo - and keeping those who do live in misery down - is gradual reform, reform which blunts the main thrust of discontent but which otherwise does very little except stabilise the status quo. We all might like to think that merely because a lot more people can apparently afford a lot more things, everything is hunky-dory. Not quite. We might no longer have an out-and-out 'working class' but we most definitely have an underclass which we keep in line with copious welfare payments and a large amount of antidepressants. Let´s not kid ourselves. Ian Duncan Smith is a chap on the right lines on that score, despite being 'a Tory' for which no one will forgive him.
I shall do some more reading, with the proviso that I am not in the slightest bit interested in any kind of propaganda. I want intelligent analysis, and PHUS was that in spades.
I have been joking about how enormously fat a great many Brits are, but in truth they a great many are enormously fat. That is not an exaggeration, and I should like my two readers to accept that I, who invariably exaggerates for effect, am here being deadly serious. It is a problem. A further problem might be that not only have we Brits become flabby physically, but, I suspect, we are also flabby morally and intellectually. This is perhaps the gripe and criticism of sixtysomethings through the ages, but it is nonethe less valid for that. I like to think that, as a rule, I don't jump on the nearest reactionary bandwagon and slag of everything and everyone more than ten years younger than my age group. But it is a real cause for worry.
What I have enjoyed these past 13 days have been my walk to Eularia, my short walk alone up the mountainside and my trip today to the old town of Evissa. It is being alone I like. At first it is difficult, but as the days more on it becomes easier. The trouble with going on holiday is finding somewhere where one can be alone. My next holiday, or rather my holiday after that because I should dearly like to take Elsie and Wesley on holiday which means Celie and her continual griping must come, too, will be somewhere quite remote. Organising it will take a lot of reasearch but that is what I should like to do. In the meantime, I think I should make more use of the fact that I live in a very pleasant part of Britain where a little solitude is also available.
A week tomorrow I am due to go out for a drink with Denis, my brother-in-law, an Irishman from Cork who I like a lot. I know I sound crass talking about my wife, but believe me whatever my faults, a change in attitude, a more positive view of life, a more embracing view, less of a parochial view and stopping her eternal criticism of me would go a hell of a long way. Jesus, I get on with 99 percent of people I meet, so why can't I get on with her? Answers, please, on a postcard.
The trouble with entries such as this is that being a talker and finding it not too difficult to write, I can talk - write - the hind legs off a donkey (cliche alert). It is the activity of writing I enjoy and, if the truth be told, I am still half in love with now being able to touch-type which makes typing so much easier.
Getting my last drink of the evening - I am writing this in the bar which has free wireless internet access - I have just been - talking to Isabel, a 14-month-0ld girl, and she, and all the other children in the world make that world go round for me. Yet what do they get? In Britain they run the risk of being shortchange on education, if they live in a town or the wrong end of town they run the risk of knife crime, Britain has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe. What has young Isabel to look forward to. I know this all sounds rather dramatic, but these problems do exist.
Shit, the drink is showing. Blathering on. Perhaps I have been working for the Daily Mail for too long. Anyway, I'd better stop as I am running out of laptop battery.
Anywheresville, the Med, Spain
Granted that these images could be, as I said the last time, Anywheresville, Med, you must take my word that they were all taken from the fortified old town of Evissa. The picture of the cannon should be enough to persuade you it wasn't Piccadilly (which, admittedly, is not on the Med, but you get my drift.My trip was well worth it, although I got directions wrong and instead of taking the scenice rout up a gently set of steps, I walked up some road in the blazing sun (yes, it's back) and ended up at the back of the whole town. But eventually I found be way in.
Why the picture of the door, I hear you ask. Well, I don´t know. As with steps and stairs I find them somehow evocative, here - they did seem to be the entrance to someone's house - they seemed especially interesting. In fact, the piccy of set of steps here could well have been take in Cornwall. The long shot of the harbour was only taken and included here because I find the sail on the obviously very expensive yacht interesting. It looks medieval but it obviously is not.
The fort is quite spectacular and very well preserved. It must have been pretty impregnable in its day (qv my joke about drones, napalm and other more humane means of slaughter. The old town proper is made up, as are most of these medieval town's, of narrow alleyways and tall houses. But the houses still seem to be inhabited. Then a little further down, you get the newer old town which is just as pleasant and picturesque. I should imagine this was where most people lived until the end of the nineteenth century.Then there is the older new town, which is pretty much your standard Med town, laid out on a grid system and, to my eyes, indistinguishable from many others I've seen. Finally one the outskirts a huge amount of building is going on, many, rather smart, apartment blocks. And I don't mean holiday apartments, but homes for ordinary folk, and by 'rather smart' I don't mean that they strike me as necessarily where only rich or well-off folk could afford to buy. In fact lying as it does on the coast, the are is rather flat and featureless and if you had the dosh - if I had the dosh - it is not where I would choose to live. So there.
The others? Well, bog standard tourists shots. If you don't have access to a camera to take your own, try going to the local newsagents to buy a few postcards. Talking of shops, aspirin and paracetamol are not available as in Britain more or less everywhere, but you have to go to a chemist's. In Italy, when I lived there in 1972 the only place you could buy salt was at a tobacconists. Why I don´t know. Also, because the then lira was in a bit of a mess, there was no small change, so if you were owed a few pence, you always got it in the form of a handfull of sweets. I once tried paying with sweets, but they weren't having it.
The others? Well, bog standard tourists shots. If you don't have access to a camera to take your own, try going to the local newsagents to buy a few postcards. Talking of shops, aspirin and paracetamol are not available as in Britain more or less everywhere, but you have to go to a chemist's. In Italy, when I lived there in 1972 the only place you could buy salt was at a tobacconists. Why I don´t know. Also, because the then lira was in a bit of a mess, there was no small change, so if you were owed a few pence, you always got it in the form of a handfull of sweets. I once tried paying with sweets, but they weren't having it.
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