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.

 

 

Home Alone

          In the late 70’s, there was a fad for the pseudoscientific theory of biorhythms. It came to mind this week when I experienced a day of extraordinary listlessness, brain-fog and clumsiness. Since this is not how I normally feel, I sought an explanation for the condition but, lacking the energy to dig deeply, fell back upon the familiar, half-boiled theory. I might as well have consulted my horoscope – another unsubstantiated system that purports to explain the vagaries of life. On reflection, it’s more likely that my bio-system was fully engaged in fighting off a viral attack, therefore short on reserves for anything but the essentials – getting up, getting dressed, getting lunch, etc.

          It may be unrelated, but I think the fact that I had been on my own for a few days imposed a layer of introspection on what would otherwise have been an unremarkable event. With no-one around to chivvy me along, perhaps I was just wallowing a bit – which is one reason why I wouldn’t choose to live alone. On the other hand, the temporary absence of my Other Half is something I savour as an opportunity to break out of habitual behaviours, free myself of compromises and revert to solitary indulgences, such as uninterrupted reading for hours on end – which has enabled me to finish several books – and watching a tv series for which she has shown no enthusiasm but which has captured my full attention (Better Call Saul). And there have been podcasts to fill the silences, among them a discourse on the history of the waltz (I find myself tapping the keyboard in 3/4 time as I write this).

          A lot of cultural ground can be covered when your time is your own, but the downside is not having anyone to share your harvest with. Perhaps, when she gets back, I can interest my OH in the following. Having read an account* of the prosecution in 1960 of the publisher of Lady Chatterley’s Lover (unexpurgated), I was struck not only by the contortions that the law has to perform in order to impose a moral code on its citizenry, but also the way in which that same code is applied differently to social classes. The now infamous line uttered by the prosecutor, “Is it a book that you would even want your wife or servants to read?” would be laughed out of court today (I hope). Then there is the waltz, which originated in Germany. It eventually gained acceptance as a civilised form of social recreation in England, but here it evolved a certain form of etiquette: ladies and gentlemen held themselves with a formal reserve, taking care to avoid intimacy, even in the form of eye-contact, unlike the lower classes, whose heartier embraces they considered vulgar and prurient. And, lest you should believe the USA is a classless society, check out Better Call Saul, with its revealing sub-plot of snobbery within the American legal profession. (I notice that Saul lives alone, by the way.)

          One day, while out cycling for exercise, I stopped to consult my phone and was approached by a man in his thirties who asked me a series of questions about cycling. At first, I assumed he was someone considering buying a bike and wanting some tips. But it turned out he was already an habitual cyclist and he just wanted to moan about how dangerous it is on the roads, what with motorists seeming to have a vendetta against him. “I ride every day and I get cut up almost as soon as I leave home!” I didn’t quite know what to make of the conversation, but it did occur to me afterwards that he might live on his own and need to express himself to someone – anyone. Either that, or his biorhythm had hit one of those low days when paranoia finds an easy way in. Perhaps what he really needed was a hug.

*Alison MacLeod Tenderness

Baked-in Heritage

          ‘Tis the season of hot cross buns, which reminds me that, as a student, I once had a holiday job in a bakery, where one of my tasks was to put the crosses on top of the doughy blobs before they were slid into the ovens. These seasonal treats were baked originally to mark the beginning or end (I don’t remember which) of a Christian fasting ritual. I could check online – if I could be bothered. But I take the view that if we were to get too picky about the origins of our numerous traditions, casual conversations based on commonly accepted heritage would be impossible. Pedantry is an acquired taste. Nevertheless, I think it behoves bakers to make some reference to the origins of the bun, lest another generation grows up in ignorance of its religious conception. The story could be printed on the packaging, in between the list of ingredients and the table of calorific and energy values, where those who are habitually investigative might find enlightenment.

          But do the details of religious history really matter in today’s more secular society? Perhaps not so much for their own sake as for the fact that they are the foundations of traditions we can share, thereby binding us socially and anchoring us to a place and a past. In a way, this argument applies to the village of Buckland Monachorum and its over-sized church. The unusual placename is a Latin reference to the monks who lived at the nearby Abbey and who were probably responsible for the jumbo church. On Sunday, when we visited a friend who lives in the village, a very small congregation was visible through the open door of the church, suggesting to me that things will end badly for the almost-redundant building – unless it gets rescued by a heritage preservation fund and turned into a tourist attraction, whereupon its back-story will be revealed in detail for those who are interested. And as a concomitant, the village will become even more quaintly attractive and further distanced from its original reason for being.

          Of course, there is a view that neither the past nor the future is of much consequence in people’s everyday lives; it’s the here-and-now that counts. Given the unpredictability of events, it’s a reasonable stance, though it smacks of selfishness and, actuarily, it might not stack up. While there is nothing to be done about the past, the future could be rosy and, with a bit of planning, rosier still. Studies of available statistics* show that, on the whole, humanity has more reason to be optimistic for the future than is generally acknowledged. And if you have won the postcode lottery of life and live in a peaceful, prosperous part of the world, there is a good chance that forward planning will pay off eventually. However, if your part of the world happens to be Britain, then you will find yourself swimming against a tide of short-termism, as embodied in our political and economic systems. What with our politicians preoccupied with winning votes from a mostly ill-informed and disillusioned electorate and our businesses dedicated to maximising shareholder returns in the shortest possible timeframe, investment in the future, both socially and industrially, is not on the agenda.

          Like most of my generation, I used to enjoy a mass-produced hot cross bun, toasted and slathered in butter. They gave me indigestion, so I laid off them for many years. Nowadays, I get the sourdough ones from the artisan baker and scoff them un-toasted and un-buttered. It’s a heritage product that has been through a rough patch of industrial processing but is coming good with a return to wholesome ingredients and craft baking skill. Past, present and future all in a bun.

 *Hans Rosling Factfulness (2018)

and Hannah Ritchie Not the End of the World (2024) 

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah...

          The weather lately has suited me well: wet and windy days interspersed with dry and often sunny ones. For me, this translates into a healthy balance of indoor and outdoor pursuits. One afternoon, I sat solidly on the sofa and finished reading Polly Toynbee’s memoir*. The next morning, I cycled through the rejuvenating sunlight along the seafront to the old fishing harbour, where I indulged my craving for coffee, a croissant and a mooch around an up-market charity shop. I returned two hours later feeling refreshed and in possession of an elegant, mid-sixties glass carafe and set of tumblers that we definitely don’t need.

          Looking back on the week, the sixties have been much on my mind (an explanation, if one were needed, for the superfluous purchase). Polly Toynbee is the same age as me and much of her story is set in the sixties and studded with characters from the political and social scene of the time. There are also photos of her, fashionably attired á la Carnaby Street, which are guaranteed to make a veteran of those days wax nostalgic. In the evenings, I binged on The Beatles: Get Back, a seven-hour-long fly-on-the-wall documentary filmed while they were assembling their songs for the Let It Be album. I imagine all that footage might be too much for those with only a passing interest in the music, but for anyone intrigued by the creative process, its very duration is a merit. To lighten things up, there are fascinating glimpses of Linda, Yoko and Maureen. And, for those who appreciate the technicalities, the characters responsible for the recording, equipment and general back-up are all highly visible. The prodigious musical output is the most striking aspect of the film, but the unspoken social commentary is interesting too. It’s there in the fashions, manners and habits of the time: for instance, there was very little swearing and an awful lot of ciggie-smoking, the opposite of what you might expect in a studio today.

          I don’t know whether Polly Toynbee was a Beatles fan – or whether the Beatles were even aware of Polly - but whereas she continued in her family’s tradition of political writing and activism, the Beatles (collectively) kept shtum publicly on such matters – with the notable exception of Taxman, their 1966 rail against the tax rates for high earners. At that time, I was far less interested in politics than I was in popular music and, if I had been asked, I probably would have said that the two were unconnected. This, I now believe, was a view born of ignorance. Ask me now and I would say that everything is political.

          At our last University of the Third Age (U3A) discussion group, the topic was ‘trust’ and how it impinges on our social interactions. We concluded that society can only work as long as a degree of trust – or at least the expectation of it – is embedded in our transactions with other individuals, our institutions and the state. This led to a round of votes on which politicians (including from the sixties, Heath and Wilson, both of whom are named and blamed in Taxman) we considered to be trustworthy. Perhaps because our group tends towards left-wing liberalism, there was mostly consensus. But the problem with attributing trustworthiness to individuals is that it does not necessarily carry over into politics. John Steinbeck** put it nicely, thus:

“The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first, they love the produce of the second.”

All you need is love, eh? I wish it were so.

 

*Polly Toynbee An Uneasy Inheritance

**Novelist and Nobel laureate

 

 

Eyes Right?

           Reading specs, driving specs, computer specs, varifocals (for general use); even the simplest of tasks is now complicated by having first to choose, then locate the appropriate eyewear. My optician is unsympathetic. In fact, he told me that he had recently read a professional paper arguing the case for even more specs. Its author had concluded that the visually challenged should, ideally, have a separate pair for every one of life’s tasks, which would add up to eleven, different prescriptions. How would you even manage the logistics? But perhaps it would be possible, one day, to have just one pair of digital lenses, adjustable by scrolling, to match every prescription.

          Anyway, having found my computer specs (not in the obvious place), I hurriedly finished the online ‘artwork’ for the poster advertising the latest jazz-themed social evening. I needed some actual paper copies to reach out to the social-media-challenged, so I primed the printer and pressed enter. When the prints came out a different colour from the on-screen version, I thought for a moment that I might need another trip to the opticians to check for colour-blindness. But the diagnosis was obviously non-medical: the cheap substitute cartridges I’ve been using are incompatible with the hardware. (Or, more likely, the hardware is programmed to play up when it detects subs.) Either way, I would have to buy the branded ones. I found them at the local computer shop, but the exorbitant price reminded me why I had shunned them in the first place. “Don’t worry,” said the man, “we can print them for you. Just email me the image”. Five minutes later and £2 lighter of credit, I walked out with ten, perfectly colour-balanced copies and a growing conviction that some things are best left to professionals.

          On the other hand, when the old campervan needed a replacement rear window wiper motor and the mechanics declared it obsolete, I sourced a pre-owned part on eBay and, out of pique, fitted it myself. The bill was cheaper, but it cost me a stiff neck and considerable time removing and replacing plastic panels, exploring the wiring etc… not to mention the hassle of having both reading and varifocal specs to hand. In the end, I recalled the wisdom of the old rhyme:

M'lord tried to fix the electric light

It struck him dead

And served him right

T’is the duty of the nobleman

To provide employment to the artisan.

But I had been keen to get the job done prior to our drive to Lyme Regis, where we were going to join some old friends for a couple of days in a rented sea-side cottage.

          Lyme Regis is a little place, but it punches above its weight in the arena of international fame. It was noted in the Domesday Book and granted the “Regis” (Latin for “of the King”) tag in 1284, because of its status as a port. It was renowned then for its unique harbour wall, known as the Cobb which, though it has since been rebuilt to a different design, remains famous. Jane Austen visited it as a tourist and it features in her novel Persuasion and in John Fowles’ The French Lieutenant’s Woman. But, above all, Lyme Regis is known for being a centre of palaeontology, ever since Mary Anning (1799-1847), an uneducated local woman, began to excavate and categorise the fossils embedded in the Jurassic era cliffs. Although in her day she received scant professional recognition, in 2010 she was recognised by the Royal Society as one of the ten most influential women scientists in British history.

          The cliffs at Lyme Bay are prone to slippage, making it easy to access the famous fossil beds. We visited on a grey, rainy day – just the sort that causes the slippage – and there were people on the beach, chipping away with little stone-hammers. How much easier it would be, I thought, if they had X-Ray specs.

   

What Goes Around...

          Spike Milligan once mimed a sketch in which, standing straight with his arms at his side, he rotated on the spot while chewing. When he stopped, he said, “Post Office Tower Restaurant,” and this is what sprang to mind when I heard that London’s landmark telecoms tower is being sold to an American hotel chain.

          This reminiscence turned out to be the first link in another kind of chain, that of nostalgic memories. The sixties washed over me and, before long, I was asking Alexa to play Catch the Wind, by Donovan. It was a big hit in 1965, the year the PO Tower was declared functioning by the Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, though I didn’t consciously connect the two at the time. It was to be another six years before I came into the actual presence of the Tower. And though I never went inside, I became familiar with it because I lived and worked in its shadow for a few years – which explains my subconscious refusal to accept the subsequent change of name to the BT Tower. On reflection, however, its original name was patently ridiculous: all the other post offices in the country were housed in conventional buildings that were open for business to the public. This one charged an admission fee, didn’t sell stamps and had a revolving restaurant at the top that was accessible to only the well-off. The reason I didn’t question the name at the time, was that I had been brought up in the era of the General Post Office, an official body that controlled all forms of communication and was a direct descendant of the original Royal Mail – so called because it was answerable to the monarchy for the purposes of surveillance and censorship. The Tower, therefore, symbolised established authority and its continuance into the future, as embodied in its modernist architecture.

          However, when the delivery of post and the provision of telecoms became separate enterprises, adjustments were made to both business models, the disposal of redundant buildings being the most visible. The microwave dishes for which the Tower was built were discarded long ago, but this building is much more than a left-over mast and deserves a better fate than demolition. The same can be said of thousands of similarly empty buildings all over the country, one such being the Palace Theatre, a half mile from where I live. This seriously ornate entertainment facility was built around 1898, in the heyday of variety shows but, like so many of its kind, it has outlived its commercial viability. Even its last incarnation as a nightclub came to an end and it now stands waiting for either salvation or oblivion. In the absence of a viable plan of my own, I wait in hope that someone with deep pockets will come to the rescue. My preferred saviour would be the Wetherspoons pub chain, not simply because it would bring cheap beer and warm interiors to a local population that has had more than its fair share of hard times, but also because it has a commendable record of rescuing and restoring so many other historic buildings in towns and cities nationwide.

          Meanwhile, back in the capital, where buildings of any description have more commercial value, competition is fierce for the acquisition and re-purposing of obsolete property. For example, the old War Office in Whitehall has recently become The OWO, home to Raffles, London. The name chosen raises the question of whether the new owners of the Tower will similarly honour the history of the building by incorporating it into the branding of their new hotel. Might they, for instance, call it the GPO Pillar? If I were to be consulted (which is unlikely), my suggestion would be The Spike, with Milligan’s Revolving Restaurant, its crowning glory.

 

Learning the Ropes

          “Time for a haircut”, I was told. The last one had been in Athens, where the young barber had given me a subtle style that was subsequently commented upon favourably by as many as three people. (Usually, I get just the one, dutiful observation.) Perhaps he had slightly misunderstood my instructions, despite the admirably fluent English he had acquired during his seven years in London. Or it may just be that they cut hair differently in Athens. Back at home, my ‘regular’ barber is so familiar with the style he and I both think I want, that the resulting rendition is run-of-the-mill in comparison. When I sat in his chair last Wednesday and mentioned my Athenian haircut, his only reaction was “How much do they charge there?”

          He is from Iraq but has been around quite a bit and, like the Greek, speaks English fluently. Nevertheless, he is making an effort to up his game by mastering a range of idioms – you know, ‘It’s raining cats and dogs’, that sort of thing. He quoted me a few but admitted that he had got stuck on ‘bearing a garage’ and asked me to interpret. Before too long, he had not only grasped the meaning of the word ‘grudge’ but also countered with the equivalent Farsi idiom – it involves camels because they are reputed to have long, unforgiving memories. Our conversation then meandered around the topic of the various languages spoken in the Middle East and the random nature of some of the national boundaries that were drawn up by the European colonial powers. We both know that their meddling is the cause of so much war in the region, yet he is too diplomatic to pin the blame squarely on his current home nation, so we let it drop. I asked him who his English teacher is. “YouTube”, he answered. I should have guessed. I’ve taken to consulting its resources myself, most recently in connection with how to use the free graphic software I’m grappling with to create digital posters for our jazz events. There is plenty of free advice in the form of instructive videos, but it requires patience to find one that is succinct and not voiced by somebody irritating.

          Later that day, I decided to polish off a book I’ve been reading, The Web of Meaning, by Jeremy Lent. His proposition is that we might better approach our quest for the meaning of life by adopting a holistic approach, one that factors in the science of evolutionary biology, indigenous wisdom and philosophies such as Taoism and Buddhism, rather than looking to each one of these disciplines, separately, to provide all the answers. In short, he postulates that everything is connected, if only we care to join the dots. A quick look at the substantial bibliography, which occupies a quarter of the book’s pages, is enough to demonstrate that the author had read a lot of other books to get to where he is. He must be, I thought, a tireless processor of information – like a human version of an AI programme. Then it struck me that the Middle East – indeed, the world – might benefit from being governed by a form of AI-powered decision-making programme. Far from posing an existential threat to humanity as the doomsayers postulate, AI could turn out to be its saviour. In geopolitics, it seems, everything is connected, in which case it is evidently well beyond the capacity of humans to get a grip on events. Take humans out of the decision-making process and put an end to wars, the root cause of which is irrational behaviour driven by nationalistic self-interest. I shall run it past my barber and, while I’m at it, I can introduce him to the meaning of the expression “It’s a right dog’s breakfast”.

New Laptop, Old Ways

          One of my favourite non-jazz acts appears to be following me around. I first went to see This Is the Kit when I lived in Manchester, since when they have twice travelled to perform near our newly adopted home in the Southwest. Last year, they played at the Minack theatre, a spectacular outdoor venue carved into a Cornish clifftop by an eccentric old lady armed with a pickaxe and wheelbarrow. Last week, they played Falmouth’s Princess Pavilions, the epitome of an elegant Edwardian leisure complex. Lovely venues and heartwarming performances. But the latter was a ‘standing’ gig, which is a bit of a challenge for us older people. Next time I’ll make sure there is seating – comfortable or otherwise – before buying tickets.

          I have come to accept the inevitability of ageing and I don’t feel too hard done by but have noticed lately that various of my gadgets seem to be approaching a similar state of decrepitude. My six-year-old smartphone one day ceased recharging, thereby causing me a moment of panic. Fortunately, I recovered my composure and remembered a quick fix: spraying electrical contact cleaner into the connector port to shift whatever muck has accumulated there. It worked, but my confidence in the phone has been shaken and I’m gearing up for a newer model.

          The cannister of cleaner is expensive, but it can be used on other gadgets. However, it wasn’t effective when, later that week, I tried it on the power port of my seven-year-old laptop. Its battery having died ages ago, it requires permanent connection to the mains, so I have had to splash some cash on a replacement. I bought a pre-owned model that is similar to but more powerful than the deceased one and have had only minor frustrations setting it up to my liking. (New laptop, old ways.) While I was at it, I bought a big monitor so that I could make sense of the spreadsheets that have become part of my voluntary work. So, feeling renewed, invigorated and even chuffed, I sat at my desk all fired-up for a super-productive morning. That was when an arm fell off my twelve-year-old spectacles.

          The specs were unrepairable, so I had to get new ones – after being tested for a new prescription, that is. There followed the tedious process of choosing frames, complicated by the temptation of the buy-one-get-one-free offer, a scheme guaranteed to wind up costing you more than you could imagine before you are presented with the bill. I gritted my teeth and consoled myself by doing a rough calculation to prove that I might never need to buy new stuff again – apart from one of those phones with really big buttons.

          On the way home, I popped into an art gallery situated in an unlikely location a few streets from ours, behind Lidl and sandwiched between a tyre centre and an accommodation facility for temporarily homeless people. I always have the place to myself – not surprising, considering the catchment area and the nature of the work shown, which could be described as radical-contemporary. It’s an outpost of the Arts University, probably funded by some well-meaning foundation to promote diversity and inclusion, which would explain why they always ask me to fill in the survey concerning my socio-economic background. The latest show comprises stacks of framed photographs on the floor and a robot that spends all day picking them up and rearranging them on the walls. Unfortunately, when I called in yesterday, the robot was out of order. “Awfully sorry about that,” said the girl at reception. “Can I ask you to complete our survey?” “Not again,” I said, ungraciously, “But I do have a cannister of electrical contact cleaner you might find useful.”

 

    

Coffee With a Cynic

          Tucked into the corner of the square by the old fishing harbour, there’s a recently opened indie coffee place called The Cynic. When I went there early this morning, the proprietor was strumming on a guitar as he waited for customers to appear, so when I asked him about the name over the door, he was not too busy to fill me in. Among other things, he gave me a detailed history of cynicism, from the contempt for social conventions espoused by the ancient Greek philosopher, Diogenes, through to its subsequently corrupted modern-day meaning of skepticism. I was impressed (though afterwards, when I checked with Microsoft co-pilot, it credited Antisthenes, not Diogenes, with kicking the whole thing off).

          Whatever. The Greek philosophers had the privilege of sitting around defining the meaning of life, which is a luxury most of us cannot afford until retirement, by which time most of it is already spent. Maybe that explains why this last week, like so many others, has felt to me like a desperate attempt to cram in as much ‘meaningful’ stuff as possible before time runs out. Consequently, most of my Saturday was taken up with providing logistical support for a public demonstration, by NHS medical professionals, of the fatal effects of pollution and climate extremes. It involved a choir, recorded music, pretend corpses and a staged medical enquiry. I could have been a corpse but, because I have a van, I was allocated the roadie job – which, being non-public-facing, also served to side-step potential awkward situations caused by my inclination to rise to, rather than absorb or deflect, abusive or ill-informed comments. Corrective training is available, I’m told, but the truth is, I don’t feel like being nice to detractors.

          Then there’s my interest in Citizens’ Assemblies, the movement to get more people involved in politics outside of the traditional party system. The idea is that the populace should have more direct influence on government policymaking. I agree with the principle and I attended an inaugural meeting, but I have shunned the subsequent call for leafleteers. Similarly, in the movement to persuade the denizens of Plymouth to adopt a Directly Elected Mayor, I have attended the initial meeting but shied away from any active involvement thus far. Am I apportioning my time according to my skill set, spreading myself too thinly or just being lazy? There is so much to do when you have options.

          High on my (non-political) agenda last week was the second meeting of the neighbourhood jazz appreciation group that I’m trying to get off the ground. If success is quantified by numbers, then I can claim some progress - twice the attendance figures recorded at the inaugural session. And if success is quantified by diversity, then I can claim a one hundred percent increase in the number of females turning up as another coup. The fact that the group has migrated from my living room to a popular public venue and, by so doing, has become a more social event, accounts for the rise – that and the leaflets, for which I alone take credit! Mind you, they were not actual pieces of paper that I posted through letterboxes – they were digital – but I did have go online to learn how to make them and, admittedly, I do need to master the art of distributing them more effectively via social media.

          It’s a far cry from when I ran the folk club at university, where we went to the pub with crayons and filched A4 sheets to make posters that we then pinned up in busy places. Life was so much simpler then, before it was complicated by the accretion of experience - and its accompanying tinge of cynisism.

Homecoming

          Travelling – or being elsewhere, as I prefer to think of it – can be an eye-opener. Ten days ago, I was standing on the Pnyx, the hillside in Athens that was the meeting place of one of the world’s earliest known democratic legislatures, a platform where citizens gathered to hear and express opinions. Now I’m back at home, reading that the U.N. special rapporteur has just condemned Britain’s recent legislation to stifle peaceful protest as “draconian” – after the eponymous Draco, the ancient Greek lawmaker whose unduly harsh penal code led to his being overthrown by outraged citizens. Similarly outraged, I propose that it’s time for some of the sitting members of the ‘Mother of Parliaments” to travel to Athens for a refresher course in democracy.

          Of course, ‘being elsewhere doesn’t necessarily guarantee a constant stream of enlightening moments or delightfully different experiences (the four-hour hold-up on the train from Bari to Milan was as humdrum as it gets), but there’s more scope for serendipity if we step outside our cocoons. Admitted, there are risks, but that’s what travel insurance is for (though trauma caused by exposure to the ways of foreigners is not covered). And, with just a little boldness, we can have meaningful conversations with people we would otherwise never meet, like Pierre from Brittany, for example. Although he has very little money, he had gone to Athens to take care of a troubled friend. He was making his way home via the ferry to Bari, sleeping on the banquettes in the lounge and carrying his life-support system in an enormous backpack. In bygone days, he might have been labelled a hippie, but he seemed to me a man of conviction, doing his best to fight inequality, injustice and the excesses of our capitalist economy. We also met a Korean woman, Su, a special needs teacher on a solo cultural tour and I asked her whether she would rather have a companion with whom to share the experience. She said that, while she enjoyed our fleeting company, she was generally content to be alone. We all conversed in English, though Su had to resort on occasion to the Google Translate app. (If you have it, translate the word “Pnyx” into Greek and listen to the pronunciation. You will get an idea of how perplexing the Greek language is.)

          The weather both here and in Athens has been unseasonably warm of late, but we got home during a winter-affirming cold snap. I like cold snaps, but the battery in the campervan does not. Despite being connected to a solar-powered trickle-charger for six weeks, it did not respond to a turn of the key, so I called out the rescue service. The man who turned up, Paul, was a bit grumpy, so I tried to engage with him personally, sympathising when he told me that that it was so cold on the previous job that he’d lost the feeling in his fingers and skinned his knuckles on an engine block while trying to loosen a corroded nut. What’s more, his arthritis had flared up. My approach worked and he warmed to conversation, even sharing details of his marriage, imminent retirement and plan to buy a holiday home in Greece. As for my battery, it had died, peacefully, in its sleep, of old age. No amount of trickle-charging could have prevented it, so I had no option but to replace it. Now, it so happened that Paul had a new one in his van and, though we both knew I could buy it cheaper if I were to shop around, I was without transport and disinclined to spend all day in pursuit of saving a few quid.

          By the time he had finished, Paul had cheered up considerably. He even reached out his arthritic, knuckle-skinned hand for me to shake before we parted. I suppose he gets a commission on the sale.  

Traces of Antiquity

          As we all know, Greek civilisation goes back a very long way and here, in Athens, the physical remains of it are impressive. But a lesser appreciated connection with antiquity is ‘barrel wine’, everyday plonk sold by variety rather than brand. There are two shops near us that sell it (they also have shelves of bottled wines). One shop is rough and ready, run by a friendly chap whose English is as rudimentary as my Greek. It’s here that I learned to blend agiorhittiko with cabernet/merlot to make a quaffable two-litre bottle for 6 euros. The other shop is more upmarket and run by a smartly presented young man who appears to have learned his trade at some posh wine merchant in London. It was here that I paid 23 euros for a bottle of unremarkable xinomavro.

          Wine has always been a part of the culture. Around 220 BCE, a Greek engineer produced a robotic servant, a full-sized replica that could pour wine into a cup placed into its hand – and then add a measure of water (which was customary at that time). Reconstructed from original diagrams, a modern copy of this automaton is the headline exhibit at the Kotsanos Museum of Ancient Greek Technology – despite being perhaps the least useful of all the inventions displayed there. Alarm clocks, burglar alarms, auto-repeat arrow-shooters, the windlass, Archimedes screw, the pantograph, medical instruments still in use today, digital signalling systems and the Antikythera portable calculating machine – described by some as the antecedent of the laptop – all were triumphs of ancient Greek technology. Moreover, they were powered by hydraulics, pneumatics and muscles. With the exception of the odd steam-powered gadget, the energy they used was renewable. These inventions might have given birth to a green industrial revolution – except that there was no industrialisation. From what I gleaned, mass-production, marketing, corporations and export-drives were all non-existent. The inventors appear to have operated ‘lifestyle’ businesses, hiring out their services as and when they got a call. Industrialisation came about in the 18^th century.

          The reason for this delay is complex: there are so many factors to take into consideration that it might be beyond even the latest iteration of AI to make sense of them. However, it is evident that tyrants and dictators played their part, destroying libraries, committing genocide, wiping out competing cultures, rewriting histories to suit their own ends and generally suppressing intellectual and cultural freedoms. (Putin and Xi Xinping, by the way, are just two of the present-day rulers continuing in this mode.) Otherwise, it may have been possible to have had a green industrial revolution 2,500 years ago. As it stands, we’re still trying to get one going now – against the tide of a neo-capitalist economy controlled by extractive industries.

          The true depth of antiquity can be even harder to grasp when you’re afflicted, as I and my Other Half both are, with century confusion – by which I mean, for example, that we have to think twice about the year 1453 having occurred in the 15^th century. (It gets worse BCE, when counting down, not up). So, it was a good exercise for us to go round the chronologically ordered sculpture galleries at the National Archaeological Museum yesterday, testing each other as we went. However, by room 15 of 28, we agreed that there were only so many selfies in stone we could bear to gaze upon in one morning and, by common consent, retired for lunch at a cellar taverna renowned for its simplicity. The interior is undecorated, the furniture is rudimentary, the cook is also the maître de, the menu comprises four plain but tasty dishes, the wine is either red or white and payment is by cash only. In fact, if I had to imagine a restaurant from two and a half thousand years ago, this one would come close. 

 

Flash, Bang, Wallop!

          I hadn’t planned to stay up for the fireworks, but I was reading a real page-turner of a novel* and, before I knew it, midnight was almost upon me. So, I woke my Other Half and we stepped out onto the terrace of the apartment we’re renting here in Athens. From its elevated position we must have seen every firework discharged to the east and south of the city centre. Then we went to bed – only to be awoken at 03.00 by another burst of explosions, seemingly outside our window. Now, I can take or leave firework displays – I can certainly leave them at 03.00 – because they are so ephemeral. They may be intended as an expression of joy but, in party terms, they are like those ‘show-and-go’ guests: they don’t sustain the proceedings. And anyway, when it comes to December 31^st, I question whether they’re signalling the end of the old or the start of the new year. Either way depends on your outlook, I suppose. But the older I get, the clearer it becomes.

          Nowadays, my past is far more extensive than my future and I’m inclined to wax nostalgic rather than to look forward with excitement at the prospect of my imminent and inevitable demise. Not that I’m constantly on the lookout out for symptoms or checking the obituaries for updates on my contemporaries. It’s just that there have been one or two incidents this week that have raised questions. Like when I put some root vegetables to roast in the oven and, half an hour later, discovered that the dish I had put them in had melted to become a flat piece of silicone, studded with colourful slices of heritage carrots etc.. But to be fair to me and my ageing faculties, this is not my kitchen and these are not my familiar pots.

          The same cannot be said of the other incident – the mystery of the noise in the bathroom. It sounded like someone was using a drill in the adjacent apartment, so I thought nothing of it at first. But, three hours later, I thought it odd they hadn’t taken a break. A little afterwards, I discovered that the noise emanated from a ceramic pot beside the basin, in which my nifty electric travelling toothbrush was thrashing away at imaginary gnashers. I laughed, but had I really forgotten to turn it off? Technically at least, the answer is no. That morning, as I recalled, it had failed to operate when I pushed its button so, assuming the battery to be exhausted, I made a mental note to get a new one and popped it back in the toothbrush pot. Later, what turns out to be a dodgy switch re-connected to the not-at-all exhausted battery. (It’s still going strong, four days later.)

          Then there was the afternoon at the Christian and Byzantine Museum, where I tried but failed to get a grip on the chronology, gazing intently at maps showing the extents of the various empires at successive periods in history, yet remained confused as to the chain of events. “Don’t worry,” I said to myself at last, “nothing was ever black and white. The characters, their beliefs and the political circumstances evolved over centuries. It never was clear-cut – hence the adjectival use of ‘byzantine’”.

          So, now I’m feeling more chipper about my prospects, 2024 isn’t looking so bad – as long as I put to one side geopolitics, the threats to democracy and the too-little-too-late approach to averting ecocide. Here, in my temporary microcosm, there is much to look forward to: thick black coffee in the mornings and ouzo at the cocktail hour, both served impeccably at wonky tables on the busy streets; museums and galleries galore, each competing for the ‘most charming café’ award; continuing fine weather and robust health. And, of course, my ever-present, indispensable Other Half.

*Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr.