A Grand Day Out!

          This week, we were pleased to have a visit from a couple of London-based friends that we don’t see as often as we used to. We had only one day and a couple of evenings together so, wanting to make the most of the time, I put some forethought into arranging a schedule. It’s a pleasurable thing to do but tricky to get right: if you’re heavy on micromanagement, you end up with a rigid timetable that leaves little room for spontaneous enjoyment; but if you adopt a take-us-as-you-find-us approach, your casual attitude could be construed as unwelcoming or, worse, insulting. Of course, the better you know your visitors, the easier it is to make a satisfactory plan.

          A similar predicament confronts me this week. We’ll be meeting up in Italy next month with a couple of American friends who are coming to Europe and I have been tasked with booking a three-night stay for all of us in an hotel in Florence. (It’s been more than thirty years since I was last there and I look forward to returning, but I prefer to call it by its Italian moniker, Firenze. I think it’s because my paternal grandmother was called Florence – “Florrie” or “Flo” to friends and family – that the name feels consequently drained of exotic associations.)

          Anyway, as you would expect from one of the world’s foremost cultural destinations, Firenze is awash with hotels – especially in our modest price range – so choosing one can be a protracted exercise in itself, never mind with the added complication of taking into account the preferences of parties absent from the decision-making. For myself, I would happily take a risk on a “characterful” establishment, an old building with no lift and shower cubicles so small you have to stand to attention in them. Perhaps our American friends would find such accommodation amusing, in so far as it lives up to a quaint European stereotype, but I suspect delight in the novelty might all too soon be outweighed by their habituation to the generous proportions of the American lifestyle.

          We’ll be travelling to Firenze by train from Barcelona, a journey that will take longer than our friends’ transatlantic flight, but one that we shall enjoy as it progresses languidly through three countries. Far from being complicated, all the tickets can be purchased in advance on the Trainline app, where they are conveniently stored ready for each leg.

          Train travel may have been eclipsed by the likes of EasyJet, but there are encouraging signs of its resurgence as travellers compare and consider the comforts, conveniences and carbon emissions of the respective modes of transport. And just this morning, there was news of the possible “re-nationalisation” of Britain’s fragmented rail system, a move that has popular support because of the evident failures of the free-market model when it comes to providing a reliable and affordable railway for the 67 million people who live on this small island. There are many who remember the failures of our post-war nationalised railway and the reasons why it was broken up, but we don’t have to return to that flawed model. We should consider the possibility of establishing the newly proposed Great British Railway Company as a not-for-profit organisation, a giant Community Interest Company, with its infrastructure listed as a valuable national asset to be cherished, invested in and locked into public ownership. Talk of “levelling up” remains just talk until the fundamentals of public transport are sorted.

          And if all this sounds like an argument in favour of train travel, it is. We took our London friends on the local train up the picturesque Tamar valley to Calstock and thence a walk to the medieval manor house and estate of Cothele, returning in time for tea. I’m sure they weren’t just being polite when they pronounced it a grand day out.

Public Service?

          What’s the definition of a bloke? Someone who can lend you an angle-grinder. In the corner of the waterside car park visible from our window, stood three rusting posts, about a metre high, cemented into the ground and joined together by a length of chain. Their purpose I could only guess at, since they just seemed to get in everyone’s way. Over time, two of them became dislodged and were thrown over the sea wall, where they dangled, attached by the chain to the last post standing. It was an eyesore – to me, at least. I kept promising myself that I would do something about it and each time I did so my intention edged a little closer to execution. The first thing I needed was a bloke.

          Of course, you could argue that the rusting posts were not mine to interfere with. Assuming that the council erected them in the first place – and possibly for good reason – my duty was to report their demise to the authorities. But we all know where that would likely lead: protracted correspondence with understaffed, under-resourced departments whose remit does not cover anything as inconsequential as the removal of obscure infrastructural enhancements the origin and purpose of which have been lost in the melee of re-shuffles brought about by budget cut-backs. I did look at the council’s online reporting facility, but no category matched the criteria for my request. So, there seemed to be just one way forward. Unilateral action.

          But still I hesitated. This is public property and I could be putting myself at risk of approbation or, worse, prosecution if I were to tamper with it. I considered the somewhat cowardly option of covert action, but in a public car park, on a pedestrian thoroughfare that is lit during darkness, there is no cover. A better plan might be to brazen it out during working hours, wearing a hard hat and fluorescent gilet – just as, apparently, ‘workmen’ have in the past pulled off some audacious thefts of valuable public property. Then I began to reason that nobody was likely to notice the absence of the posts – apart from the motorists who had inadvertently backed into them and the kids who had subsequently heaved them over the wall. And if they did, would anyone object to my removing unsightly junk? After all, passers-by often make a point of thanking me when I’m picking up litter around the parks and pathways.

          On that subject, I’m getting a little jaded by their complacent compliments and have reached the point of having to hold my tongue from saying, “If you’re so pleased to see a tidy environment, why don’t you help?” Or “Have you ever thought about doing it yourself while you’re walking your dog(s)?” The latter especially, as they are obliged to pick up their own dog’s deposits and could make better use of their time by doing a little public service while they’re at it. I found it especially difficult to respond politely to the woman who stopped me (interrupting the podcast I was listening to) to say that she had just seen someone else picking litter nearby and was it a “thing” and were we all in a group? “Yes” and “No”, I said. It is a thing, but anyone can do it and it’s not necessarily a group activity. Why don’t you have a go yourself? She hurried off, looking uncomfortable and I sensed I had mishandled an opportunity for a conversion.

          But back to the rusty posts: I requested at last the loan of an angle grinder from a bloke friend, who duly delivered it to my door when he was passing one day. I hadn’t told him the purpose but, when I showed him the job, he had no second thoughts about being an accomplice and happily helped hack away the retaining link. Nobody challenged us.

          The scrap metal is languishing temporarily in my garage, awaiting a trip to the tip. Meanwhile I gaze out upon the last remaining post/eyesore and realise: the job is only half done.

 

Always Look On The Bright Side?

          There’s been a lot of wind and rain lately and it’s been going on for so long it seems now to be the norm. Everyone I meet is looking forward to brighter skies. In the meanwhile, I’ve adopted a coping strategy, which is to time my outings with breaks in the cloud, put on my weatherproofs and sally forth.

          As the rain lashed against the windows one day last week, I was reading through Rory Stewart’s account of his time as an MP and Minister in government (Politics on the Edge). The memoir is entertaining to read, but his descriptions of the incompetence and waste of public funds he encountered are enough to boil the blood of any even marginally engaged citizen. His account of the politically cynical appointment of Ministers, their ignorance of the affairs they are entrusted with, the tenuous terms of their office, their lamentable failures to get to grips with issues of critical importance to the wellbeing of the nation and the resulting waste of billions of taxpayers’ pounds is frightening. As soon as the rain eased, I went out for a stomp to work off my outrage.

          I walked to the park opposite, a grassy hill with the remains of a heavy gun emplacement on its summit. There, against the circular stone wall built to protect the gunners, I found a seemingly abandoned camp. The tent had collapsed and its contents – sleeping bag, mattress, camping stove etc. – were tucked into an alcove built as an ammunition store. I assumed the discarded gear belonged to a homeless person and let it be. Many desperate people pitch their tents in overtly public places so that they stand a better chance of being noticed by the authorities and taken into shelters, but some prefer to pitch wherever they can find a degree of privacy. I waited a few days to satisfy myself that the gear had been abandoned, before collecting it for recycling to an agency that provides tents in place of the proper shelter that is sorely lacking. In the process, I ruminated on how successive governments haplessly attempt to address with sticking plasters what is fundamentally a problem rooted in social inequalities. Could things get worse?

          Well, yes – at least if, like me, you happen also to be reading Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments. This fictional account of Gilead, a brutal theonomy established after the disintegration of the USA, may have seemed far-fetched in 1985, its year of publication, but with the subsequent rise of Donald Trump, her prescience is apparent and her premise all too credible. Trump’s fundamentalist Christian backers work to subvert democracy and establish their version of their god’s laws in place of those that have been constitutionally established. Gilead-like states already exist – Afghanistan, for one; could another be in the making closer to home? I know, gloom-and-doom so easily snowballs out of control. I really ought to lighten-up my reading list.

          By way of a diversion, I went with a group from the University of the 3^rd Age to absorb some of the local history of Saltash, specifically H. Elliott’s family-owned grocery shop, which they closed in 1971 rather than have to deal with decimalisation. They subsequently established the shop as a museum and the unsold non-comestible stock remains on the shelves, along with the packages, now empty, of what they could consume. Given the age of our group, much brand-nostalgia and poring over the museum exhibits upstairs (the Elliotts were hoarders) was only to be expected, but I was surprised not to hear anyone mention “the good old days”. Had anyone made a plea for their return, I might at that point have agreed, given my reading-induced pessimistic view of the state of things. But as we left the shop, the chatter was about the rain easing and the tea and cake on offer at our next stop, Mary Newman’s Tudor cottage.

 

To Google or Not To Google?

          Just the other day, Microsoft asked me, ever so politely, whether I would answer “just one question” about advertising. Since I was at a loose end and feeling relaxed and magnanimous, I tapped the “yes” option, which opened a list of tick-boxes aimed at determining whether P&O is my preferred cruise line. Now, I wouldn’t go on a cruise unless I were paid to do so as part of a research project, so the omission of a box labelled N/A was a bit of an error on their part. Fair enough, I did once book a P&O ferry, but they surely know the difference between a practical, point-to-point sailing and an extended point-less jaunt around the oceans.

          During my brief career in Monmouth Street, the one-time epicentre of London’s advertising industry, I learned a few things about the business. Apart from absorbing the adage that only half of all advertising pays off and nobody knows which half that is, I also learned to appreciate the power of subtlety and humour in ads and, more crucially, the importance of placing them where they would have the best chance of reaching their intended audience. (This has come in handy later in life, as in deciding how best to promote the jazz evenings, for example. My campaign includes posters in nearby leisure venues and a carefully cultivated WhatsApp group.) Microsoft may have screwed up, but I can’t really blame them for making assumptions about me, since I provide only the bare minimum personal information when creating accounts with internet service providers (ISPs). Google and Microsoft may know my name and date of birth but, because I don’t use their browsers (if I can avoid doing so), they can’t define my social demographic accurately. So, I don’t feel justified in complaining when they target me inappropriately.

          And the ISPs, have another problem coming. AI is eating their lunch. I and others have taken to using AI for internet searches, a method of enquiry that bypasses the list of websites you might otherwise have to visit to obtain your answers, thereby diminishing their source of advertising revenue. I heard on the news that Google, recognising that it has shot itself in the foot, is considering charging for internet searches. This may make commercial sense, but it would surely lead to a lexical adjustment regarding the verb ‘to google’. Will we see the advent of pay-per-use Google? Perhaps they should ask AI what the best way forward is for their business model.

          Instagram is another platform that culls personal data, but that doesn’t dissuade me from using it to stay in touch – even with the dead! I’ve recently been following Frank Zappa and the Furry Freak Brothers (well, the FFBs would be dead by now if they weren’t comic characters). As for Frank, there are many video clips of him, not only performing, but also being interviewed and it is in these exchanges that I’ve come to realise just how politically and socially clued-up he was. Although this was always evident in his lyrics, I was too preoccupied with the guitar licks to pay much attention. In fact, you could say I was laid-back, FFB style.

          I also use a free online diary to manage my busy, eventful life. Of all the apps there are, you would expect this one to be best placed to collect personal data with laser-like accuracy. Yet, despite occasionally displaying ads that are almost on target – and never having touted sea cruises, by the way – I’m at a loss to work out why it has lately been showing me a photo of a WC and urging, “Transform your toilet”. I mean, I hadn’t given it a thought, never mind a diary entry.

Philosophy On The Cheap

 

          I had only gone to the outdoor adventure superstore to buy some toilet fluid for the campervan but I could not resist a bit of fantasy shopping while I was there. I was almost tempted to buy some plastic plates that were cleverly shaped to be held in one hand rather than laid on a level surface. The design seemed obvious for table-free dining, so why had it taken so long for someone to come up with it? Considering I haven’t slept in a tent for years, I have an inexplicably lingering obsession with camping utensils.

          Yes, at last, the campervan season is upon us. I spent a couple of nights last week in mid-Wales, just outside the former market town of Llanidloes and, so as not to alienate the locals, I asked the owner of the campsite for its correct pronunciation. “We call it Lanny”’ she said. When I went to have a poke around the town on Saturday morning I found it has that alternative vibe associated with an influx of incomers looking for a haven. The medieval butter market still stands in the middle of the road – awkwardly at odds with modern traffic flow – and the characterful buildings from its prosperous Victorian heyday are intact, if a little run down. Many have been re-purposed and there are quite a few independent retail outlets, interspersed with second-hand shops. I sense that its rural economy is nowadays supplemented with tourist income. There is still a functioning library-cum-museum, but it was deserted when I went in and the librarian looked surprised to see me. On one of the tables was a stack of copies of The Light, a free publication associated with the far right and conspiracy theorists. As I flicked through, I was taken aback by a strapline that stated, “no illness has ever been caused by a virus” and would have read on in the hope of enlightenment if the librarian had not stirred to remind me it was closing time. Following that unexpected encounter with unreason, Lanny took on a slightly sinister aura as I left it in the rear-view mirror.

          I was happy to return to the city and the company of my fully vaccinated social circle, in particular the philosophy discussion group under the auspices of the University of the Third Age (U3A). We number, at most, half a dozen and are currently learning a bit about the ancient Greeks. But our other preoccupation is finding a meeting space that is suitable, by which I mean free of charge, quiet and available around lunchtime – but mainly free of charge. We used to be happily accommodated in the lounge of the Theatre Royal, but its open-plan arrangement can be too noisy. All the cafes we contemplated as alternatives were similarly afflicted. In fact, it’s a mystery to me how the distinguished intellectuals who famously traded ideas in the cafes of Paris and Vienna managed to make themselves heard above the din. Could it be explained by the fact of their relative youth and soundness of hearing? As for the Greeks, it is easy to imagine that they could just have met outdoors.

          So, we went across the road to the Travelodge, where there is a lounge-cum-breakfast area that is deserted between the hours of 10.00 and 15.00. The receptionist, Lilly, was pleased to make us tea and even agreed to turn off the TV and the muzak while we held our meetings. But, alas, those days are no more. This week, Lilly’s manager was on site, enforcing the regulations concerning corporate branding, especially those relating to the TV and muzak playing constantly in empty spaces. Before leaving we agreed reluctantly to meet at the Theatre Royal next time. I’d swear that even Lilly, sensing we would not return, looked dispirited as we abandoned her to her corporate fate.