Them and Us

          There was no corkscrew at the opening event I attended last week, so I took it upon myself to procure one from a shop nearby. Knowing they stock everything a household needs (and loads of junk food that it really doesn’t), I went straight to the kitchen department, but I searched in vain! I asked the young man at the till who, though he had heard of corkscrews, wasn’t sure what they were and asked me to describe their purpose and appearance. As it turned out, he was not only young but Muslim as well, so the expectation that he should know anything about the (ridiculously outdated) method of sealing wine bottles was presumptuous on my part.

          Of course, with this anecdote, I attempt to illustrate how easy it is to assume everyone else shares your experiences and lifestyle. Just as easy, in fact, as it is to do the opposite and conclude, even on fleeting observation, that other tribes, with their funny ways, obviously have it all wrong. From here, it’s an easy step towards demonisation and one so thoughtlessly taken that I fear it is endemic to human behaviour.

          I had to watch my own step this week during a planned visit to Totnes, a town which, by reputation, is a hub of new-age thinking, sustainability, creativity and alternative lifestyles. When news reaches us of odd behaviour there, we say, “Yeah, well, it’s Totnes, isn’t it?” Even though I actually approve of the values that have come to define the place, I had to remind myself not to look at everyone as if they were weird: but for the accidents of fate, I might have ended up living there myself. As it is, I live in the less funky city of Plymouth, where I scatter hopefully the seeds of inclusivity. Polarisation is not the way forward for civilised nations. (There are warning signs from the USA, where recent data shows that many intellectuals are currently migrating from red to blue states.)

          As it happens, I had a dream this week about a life-changing move. My partner and I, during a party at our house, had a brief conversation that concluded in our deciding to walk out, there and then, informing no one, taking nothing with us and intending never to return. That was the exhilarating part of the story: the remainder, in which the consequences of our action unravelled, was misery personified. Antithetically, we would do no such thing and, since we are fortunate enough to have a degree of choice, decided to live where it suits us best (within the parameters of our circumstances). Even so, we should be on guard against adopting local prejudices, real or imagined. Rivalry such as Devon vs. Cornwall, say, or Yorkshire vs. Lancashire may provide a rich (if clichéd) seam of ice-breaking banter, but only for as long as there is a tolerably fair distribution of power and resources between the contestants. When scarcity and injustice come calling, there will arise populist leaders to pick out our resentments and degrade them to the status of hatred.

          But we’re not there yet, especially in relation to Plymouth vs. Totnes, where we spent a pleasant evening. The occasion was a lantern parade, an annual event, held on a seemingly random Tuesday in December (well, this is Totnes) and my Other Half was involved as part of the drumming ensemble recruited to drive things along. The lanterns were all very pretty, thanks to the renowned creativity of the locals (and the ubiquitous availability of cheap LEDs), and the drummers were… enthusiastic. Predictably, I tired of it all before long and found alternative diversion in the many charity shops along the high street, where I found what I had been searching for since last winter: a good pair of woollen trousers, in the right colour, style and size! Whenever I wear them, I shall feel a new sort of affinity with the good folks of Totnes.

Anything But...

           The completion of our household’s tax returns has been on my to-do list since April, but HMRC’s increasingly frequent reminders of the looming deadline finally injected a degree of urgency into the chore and, yesterday, I ticked it off at last. But not before dispatching a good many minor tasks masquerading as essential missions. These included: fixing a doorknob and sorting out my shaving mirror; then shopping for loose-leaf Darjeeling tea, tamarind paste and fairy-lights.

          The knob in question is a wooden one from a kitchen cabinet which, having fallen off, had been lying for two weeks in a bowl on the counter, where it passed itself off as a small brown onion among a crowd of larger ones. It took five minutes to replace it with an identical one that had been attached, for aesthetic reasons, to a dummy drawer front. I have now taken the faulty knob to the garage, where it joins a queue of items slated for refurbishment.

          Regarding the shaving mirror, its position has been an irritant for at least four years. It’s an elegant and effective product of German engineering, but it’s too tall for the shelf on which, ideally, it should stand. So, it squats down by the taps, where I have to crouch in order to use it, which means I never get a good view of that tricky spot under the chin and, consequently, too often cut myself with my so-called safety razor. The solution, when it finally occurred to me, was simple: I lowered the shelf. It took twenty minutes.

          As for the Darjeeling, I am at a loss to understand why so many people prefer to dunk a teabag in a mug and imbibe an inferior beverage from a clunky vessel, when they can as easily infuse the loose leaves in a pot, pour the strained liquid into porcelain and release the full, aromatic flavour of our national drink. Nor am I convinced by the convenience argument: I’m willing to wager that scientific study would reveal marginal savings in time and effort that are easily outweighed by a superior cuppa and – a bonus – enhanced self-esteem arising from having done the job properly.

          And the tamarind paste? It was readily procured in a multi-national ‘Asian Supermarket’, though it has been on the shopping list for so long, neither of us can remember for which recipe it is intended.

          We come then to the fairy lights. They would not normally be required at this time of year, since our habitual way of dealing with the festive season is to go abroad and return when it’s all over. This year, however, the extent of our recent travels has left us with neither appetite nor budget for further excursion, so we’re hunkering down at home, prepared to accept that a degree of engagement with the proceedings is our best option. To this end we have invited two groups of guests to gather socially at Wonderman Towers to acknowledge any or all three of the following: the Christian myth of Jesus’ birth; the Pagan tradition of the Winter Solstice; and the secular celebration of the New Year. A string of gaily coloured lights will, I trust, suit all occasions. It took me fifteen minutes to hang them.

          I also found time this week to test whether my recently rekindled interest in yoga was more than just a passing fancy. But, yet again, I found myself the only male – and an old one, at that – in a class full of middle-aged women, led by a younger woman, which made me feel… out of place. I won’t be going back, but I am on the lookout for a class for old geezers with attitude.

          Anyway, after all that, the tax returns were a doddle, more daunting in the contemplation than the execution. Next year, I’ll knock them out first and rid myself of months of lurking anxiety.

 

With A Little Help From My Tech

          The other evening, while walking home alone from a meeting, I inadvertently activated the voice recorder on the phone in my pocket. During the journey of about fifteen minutes, I had started to sing, loudly and heartily, as if to an imagined audience, an old favourite from my folk-club days, Cyril Tawney’s Sally Free and Easy. Mind you, I wasn’t just indulging in the joy of unrestrained vocal expression (fortified by the two pints of porter consumed in the pub after the meeting); I was consciously practising, or rehearsing so that, in the admittedly unlikely event of my being called upon to perform a party piece (the festive season approaches), I should have something acceptable to offer. I thought, at the time, that I had pretty much nailed it but when, the next day, I discovered and listened to the soundtrack, my bubble was burst. Even the muffled, distorted background, could not disguise the fact that I have work to do on hitting the notes (in the coda, particularly) and on mastering the lyrical phrasing (which came across as a bit ragged). Technology sometimes sneaks up behind us.

          I deleted the file, but not before skimming through the latter hour-and-a-half, which comprised sounds of my arriving home, helping myself to supper and watching Car Rescue until my Other Half enters the room and ‘suggests’ a change of channel – all of which was also disappointing, in so far as it highlighted just how many hours of our lives slip away in the mundanity of routine existence. Surely this is what Alfred Hitchcock was referring to when he defined “drama” as “life, with the boring bits left out.”

         There are some mornings – yesterday, for example – when I wake up feeling less than on the ball. “Groggy” would be an apt description. There are ways to haul oneself out of this state of mental sluggishness – cold water in the face is one – but why they occur in the first place and so randomly is a mystery to me. Yesterday’s grogginess lasted most of the day, despite my applying fresh air, physical exercise, caffeine, a shave and even a haircut.

          When, at last, I did feel sufficiently alert, I tackled some of my administrative backlog and followed up a few of my miscellaneous notes, one of which was to look up the word, ‘lachanaphobia’. (I know, some of you may be thinking there are more productive ways to spend five minutes, but bear with me.) According to my AI app, it means “an irrational fear of vegetables”, so while I was at it, I asked whether there is such a thing as an irrational fear of salads (having been lately in several Airbnb flats where there is every imaginable piece of culinary equipment except for salad bowls and servers) and it answered, “Yes. The word is deipnophobia”. Whilst I would never dispute the irrationality of these or any other phobia, I do question why there is a vocabulary dedicated to their description; I mean, you could just use “irrational fear of (whatever)” and not have to remember all the Greek prefixes. Still, if you’re a clinical psychologist, I guess the use of ‘scientific’ terminology to explain human irrationality lends a degree of credibility and gravitas to your diagnoses.

          AI assistants are useful, but they do have a sinister side to them. Today, when I opened mine up to ask it something, it was already displaying the answer to a question I had not put, but which was relevant nonetheless: “How do you shake off morning grogginess?” By way of answer, it listed all the remedies already known to me (except the haircut). Can it somehow sense when I’m being slow-witted?

          And can you blame me for feeling somewhat monitored this week? If I wasn’t feeling paranoid, I would be tempted to have another go at rendering Sally Free and Easy, loudly, heartily and publicly.

 

Barcelona Vs. Paris

          We were sitting at a café table in a leafy square just off the Ramblas, with the morning sun falling in patches between the buildings and the day’s business slowly gaining momentum around us. As we sipped coffee, we watched a short, stout woman at the café across the way singlehandedly set up her big parasols, drag the chairs and tables outside and arrange them neatly. We’d had only two days in Barcelona and were feeling reluctant to leave, even though Paris was our next destination.

       Having ‘done’ the main tourist attractions on previous visits, we were inclined only to explore the streets and enjoy the vibe, though we did swing by La Sagrada Familia, Gaudi’s eccentric cathedral, just to see how the work is progressing. They’ve done a lot since last I saw it, though the result, to my eyes, has spoilt the weirdly imposing structure that I remember. From every aspect, the new facades present a complicated mix of richly detailed but incoherent ornamentation. Are the builders working to a plan, or making it up as they go along? It looks to me like the latter.

          The excessive number of us tourists presents the city with certain difficulties, as is well known, but it’s problematic for us as well. When we look for the ‘authentic’ Barcelona – in so far as such a thing exists – we find ourselves searching through the wreckage wrought by our very presence. But all is not yet lost, at least when it comes to eating and drinking, both of which pastimes are abundantly and publicly indulged on almost every street (although, strangely, obesity is not evident). And, if you are brave enough to explore the neighbourhoods behind the main drags, your antennae soon become attuned to the places that are not devoted to the tourist dollar but owe their living to the locals who live in the apartments above them. It was in such establishments that we ate the best food, reasonably priced and served with friendly yet business-like service, such as would encourage regular patronage.

          We looked for the same sort of experiences in Paris and, I’m happy to report, with some success. The cold, wet weather did not put us off venturing out on foot, though it may have caused us to spend more time in cafés than we might usually. Then again, any excuse would have done. A memorable plat de jour lunch was had in a bistro that, apart from contemporary-style cuisine, had the style and feel of a bygone era, including tiny tables for two that were so close together it was necessary to move them to get seated. This also presented difficulty in removing one’s coat without sweeping the adjacent tables clean. Then, when settled, there was the question of to what extent you should acknowledge the other diners, strangers just a few centimetres from your face. Fortunately, we had each other to talk to, but those on either side were dining alone and determinedly minding their own business. On the one hand was a woman who was consulting a guidebook in Japanese, Chinese or Korean script and, on the other, the French-speaking spit of Barrack Obama.

          Politely, each table respected the others’ privacy, up to the moment when Barrack inadvertently knocked his water carafe over. He caught it deftly and elegantly – as you would expect him to – but water splashed onto my coat, causing consternation on his part and the swift appearance of the waitress to smooth things over. He apologised profusely (in English, with no hint of an American accent) and I joked that it was of no consequence, as it was a raincoat anyway.  He finished his meal before us and, as he left, said sorry once more and flashed me his big Obama smile. Paris, of course,  was no disappointment at all.

Coping In The Campo

          Ten days in the campo (as they call the countryside here in north-east Spain) have done nothing to persuade me to adopt the rural lifestyle. Not that it’s been uninteresting or in any way unpleasant; just so unrelentingly, well, rural. There has been many an occasion when, outnumbered in company by agriculturalists, I’ve had nothing to contribute to the conversation; though, on reflection, I have now, through osmosis, acquired sufficient knowledge of olive harvesting and pressing to hold my own in a lightweight exchange on those subjects.

          True, most things you can do in a city, you can also do here: it’s just more convoluted and involves driving. For example, I went to a yoga class one day (I know, one scratches around for something to do) though it was only with the aid of Google maps that we were able to locate it, set as it was in a yurt, on yet another finca amid acres of identical-looking olive trees.

           Actually, I have had yoga lessons a couple of times before, once in the 1980s, then again, a decade later. On the first occasion the classes, funded by the local council, were abruptly discontinued after a budget review. And in the second instance, I found the teacher so disagreeably arrogant and impatient I could not bear to go back for more. This last experience, however, has revived my interest. The yurt was comfortable and the fee reasonable. More importantly, the teacher was charmingly considerate of my age-related inflexibility. I couldn’t bring myself to join in the “ommmm” but otherwise followed instruction as best I could.

          The campo is between the mountains and the Mediterranean, so, since the weather was conducive, we went one day for a swim down at Miami Beach (the original, I assume), at a cove designated for nudists. Not that we had intentions to skinny dip, it just happens to be the best place for swimming. Fortunately, it is out of season and the few diehards there made no objection to our clinging to our modesty. Then, on another, fresher, day, we took a hike in the mountains and got a panoramic view of the region, including the river Ebro and its delta.

          But, for everyday exercise, I’ve been stretching my legs for an hour or so along the access road that serves the tracks leading off to the individual fincas. It is here that I noticed a striking resemblance to the UK, not in the flora but in the amount of litter scattered amongst it. Yes, even on this land dedicated to agriculture, the drive-by tossing of beer cans and fag packets is commonplace and a walk along the lanes without a collection bag is a wasted opportunity to clean up and feel indignant.

          Otherwise, I have taken every opportunity of a lift into town, most frequently to Tortosa (population 33,000), where there is a museum of local history housed in a surprisingly handsome and ornate collection of buildings that once had been the region’s main slaughterhouse. There I discovered more about this seemingly sleepy region, particularly what happened during the civil war. In 1938 the German Luftwaffe did General Franco the favour of dropping 54 tons of bombs on Tortosa, intending to destroy its three bridges over the Ebro and thwart the Republican forces. The fascists prevailed and subsequently erected a monstrous victory-commemorating structure on a pier in the river. It looms over the city even now, a subject of controversy.

          The next day, in our local village, we bumped into the yoga teacher. I immediately straightened my posture and tried to look loose-limbed. She probably was not fooled, but she smiled and greeted us warmly. We’ll be leaving for home soon, but we have an opportunity to go to one more yoga lesson. I’ve put my name down. This time, I might even brave a discreet “ommmm”.