Beaucoup d'emplois

Intéressent. J’ai finalement dessaoulé, plus ou moins, j’ai commencé à chercher un nouvel emploi, et dans une semaine de la première demande j’ai eu une proposition. Mais j’ai trouvé qu’il était trop difficile d’atteindre l’endroit – et je buvais un peu plus de nouveau – bref, ça n’a pas marché.

Alors, j’ai dessaoulé une nouvelle fois (relativement vite), j’ai recommencé à chercher un emploi, et même plus tôt qu’avant j’ai reçu une nouvelle proposition. Il faut qu’il y a beaucoup d’emplois dans cette ville.

Cependant, j’espère que celle-ci va marché.

 

(à l'origine posté sur WordPress)

 

Two Unions

This post is of course long overdue; by this time hardly anybody argues about Brexit anymore, ordinary people just yell “Bring it on now!” and “Cancel it altogether!”, while politicians are unabashedly using any methods they can find for their own particular goals.

But while we still had a argument, as opposed to a shouting match, I found out that, while myself favouring Scotland out of the EU and out of the UK, I could understand better those who wanted Scotland in the UK and the UK in the EU than those who wanted it to stay in (whichever) one of these Unions but leave the other.

Because it seemed to me that the vast majority of people in these latter two groups were always waxing lyrical about the advantages of local government, when talking about the Union they didn’t like, and presaging economical doom and glory if leaving the Union they liked.

Many years ago I was present at a business meeting when at one point one negotiator accused his opponent, “But half an hour ago you were using the very opposite argument!” Upon which the latter, quite cooly and with just the ghost of a smile, retorted, “Sure, because it was convenient for me.” Immediately the atmosphere changed from tense to relaxed.

Trouble is, back then we weren’t discussing anything that would have any direct personal impact on any of us, so he could admit this use of double standards. After all, we were not presenting ourselves as paragons of wisdom and virtue either.

 

 (originally posted on Tumblr)

Faodaidh mi fònadh

'S lugha orm fònadh. Ach dar a fhuair mi litir o chompanaidh lìbhrigidh gun robh am pasgan thugam o Phoppy Scotland aca ach nach robh iad cinnteach às a' sheòladh agam, dh'fhòn mi ann, seach sgrìobhadh post-d – rud a chuir iongnadh orm fhìn. Ach shoirbhich mi, agus tha baidse is bann-dùirn ùra agam a-nis; agus dhearbh sin dhomsa gum faod mi fònadh fhathast – rud glè chudromach an-dràsta, 's mi an tòir air cosnadh eile.

 

(originally posted on WordPress)

James Robertson: To Be Continued

There’s a saying, ‘blood is thicker than water’. […] It’s like that other idiocy, ‘my country, right or wrong’. Blood is an excuse. It’s a reason not to face up to things and it is never a good reason.

(Rosalind Munlochy, p 256)

People sometimes find it hard to accept that several guys I met later in my life are much more important to me than my parents, although I hadn’t had an unhappy childhood. But I believe that how much you have in common with somebody (mentally), and how much (good and/or bad) intensely experienced stuff you’ve been through together, is much more important than mere genetical relation.



(originally posted probably on WordPress)

Ken Loach: Kes

I saw it two years ago; tonight I watched it again. This time I wasn’t disturbed so much by all the quarrels the characters were having, but I still found it most of all depressing. Masterly executed, very moving – but in the way which makes one despondent.

Had to watch a Burnistoun sketch a little later to get over it.

 

(originally published probably on Wordpress)

William Boyd: Any Human Heart

All these quotations are by the narrator, Logan Mountstuart.

--------

Every life is both ordinary and extraordinary – it is the respective proportions of those two categories that make life appear interesting or humdrum.

(p 5) 

I’ve had a quite dull, boring life full of routine. I’ve had a quite variable, unpredictable life full of change. Depends on what parts of it you look on.

--------

It’s true: lives do drift apart for no obvious reason. We’re all busy people, we can’t spend our time simply trying to stay in touch. The test of a friendship is if it can weather these inevitable gaps..

( p 140) 

 

I find it amazing that I still keep in touch, however irregular, with my old college friends, and with Tommy whom I haven’t seen for four years.

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The confirmation of the worst news does, paradoxically, clear the mind: at least the way ahead is obvious and people know what they have to do.

(p 206) 

It felt like that when I was diagnosed with cancer: no more false hopes, just concentrating on what could be done about it.

--------

Only sporadic bouts of masturbation testify to the fact that the libidinous side of my brain has not shut down entirely. What sick Victorian cleric dubbed the practice self-abuse? Self-help, more like, self-support, self-solace. Auto-eroticism keeps you sane.

( p 284)

In fact, the first OED quotations of the expression in this sense date to the beginning of the 18th century, but Mountstuart’s sentiment is correct. Masturbation does keep you sane (or, at least, saner) when you can’t have the real Mackay.

--------

Those were the years when I was truly happy. Knowing that is both a blessing and a curse. It’s good to acknowledge that you found true happiness in your life – in that sense your life has not been wasted. But to admit that you will never be happy like that again is hard.

(David, p 395) 

 

Ay, reminiscing about my college days and my years in Scotland can sometimes be bittersweet in the extreme.

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I don’t feel old, although I must confess the signs of ageing are everywhere.

(p 404) 

 

It’s odd how one feels closer to people who are much younger than to one’s coevals, although one has inevitably much more common with the latter . . ..

 

 

 

(originally posted probably on WordPress, or maybe on Tumblr)

 

 

Anki

Unemployment has its advantages. For several months I’ve been trying to cut down my Anki flashcards backlog, only managing to get (in a sort of two-steps-forward-one-step-back way) from 1,ooo+ cards in April to 600+ in mid-September. On 26th I got under 600, pushed on every day, and today I’ve eliminated it completely.

Time to start dealing determinedly with my other backlogs.

 

(originally posted probably on WordPress)

Beagan lag

Neònach. Cha do dh’òl mi cus o DhiMàirt, ach bidh mi a’ cur fallas dhìom nam chadal uaireannan fhathast, bidh fradharc ceòthach orm sa mhadainn uaireannan fhathast – agus as dèidh dhomh dìreach trì pinntean san taigh-seinnse is biadh aig an taigh a ghabhail feasgar an-diugh, bha agam ri dùsal a ghabhail mar an ceudna; rinn mi a’ mhòrchuid dhe na bha agam air fhàgail ri dhèanamh as a dhèidh, ach gun dìorras. ’S mathaid gu bheil mi beagan tinn, leis an teothachd air tuiteam cho luath …

 

(originally posted probably on WordPress or maybe on Tumblr)

Nederlands

Not so long ago I wondered whether I shouldn’t discontinue learning Swedish, beginning to suspect I just didn’t have the time to keep my Gaelic and French on the level already achieved while adding another language.

Today I began learning Dutch, basically just because I like how it sounds. I must be crazy.


(originally posted on WordPress)

Third time unlucky

When I was 35 and giving my notice to my then employer, I had three reasons, the second most important of which was no longer being able to stand the commercial radio blaring there.

A few jobs later, when I was 43 and giving my notice to my then employer, I had two equally important reasons, one of which was no longer being able to stand the commercial radio blaring there.

Several more jobs later, now I’m 51, I gave the other day my notice to my employer, primarily because I was no longer able to stand the commercial radio blaring there.

Of course, there were other reasons. I couldn’t properly get to grips with the machine they’d moved me to from my initial one; the jobs at the new one meant being all the time either frustrated by glitches or bored when there were none; I had to be on my feet all the time in the factory’s uncomfortable shoes; there was even a nascent guilt from half the time producing plastic products; . . .

. . . but at the end of the day it was the radio which one day turned into the last straw. Maybe the next time I should ask whether radio’s permitted on the premises before I even accept a job.


(originally posted probably on WordPress)

Malachy Tallack: The Valley at the Centre of the World

Then, the loneliness had been offset by busyness, by pride and by hope. Now, it was offset only by routine.

(about Mary, p 41) 

I was fairly lonely in my homeland but at least I was interested in what was going on around me. Here in my self-imposed exile, I just keep going on, thanks to inertia and defiance.

--------

After all, the point at which one becomes old is surely the point at which anticipation is overwhelmed by hindsight.

(Alice, p 188) 

Related to the above. Back then I was aging; now I’m aged.

--------

There was also the strange, simple fact that her life was no longer a shared event. Anticipation, it turned out, was more difficult to sustain alone. A sense of purpose, of direction, was more difficult to sustain alone. She had lost, almost entirely, that sense of moving forward, of progress. She had lost her own sense of narrative.

(Alice, p 188) 

That’s one of the hardest aspects: you can’t talk about the things, good or bad, which are important to you, because you don’t believe the people you would like to tell them to would care, and you’re still not in the stage where you’ll bore any stranger just to get them out of your system.

 

So you just blog, even if nobody reads it.

--------

It wasn’t up to him, he said. Nothing was ever up to him.

 

[….] He seemed so passive; not just today but always, as though his whole movement through life had been guided by decisions that were not his own. He was pushed this way and that, like a fictional character controlled by a malicious author.

(about Terry, p 322)

Story of my life. After all, I was brought up to be like that.

--------

So much of his life was dictated by habit, he sometimes thought. Habit, punctuated by the uncontrollable and the unpredictable.

(David, p 326) 

In fact my attempt at emigrating to my homeland was the only major attempt in my life to do more than just protect the status quo against unfavourable changes in circumstances making it even worse.

(originally posted probably on WordPress)

 

Hermiting again

I’ll savour the softness of summer
I’ll wrap up when winter blows

(The Waterboys: In Search of a Rose)

Since the 18 May I was in a pub daily (with the single exception of 5 Sep, when I finished work at 10pm and knew I’d have to be there again at 8am the following morning). Indeed, since the 10 Sep I visited what has become my favourite howf twice a day. But I’ve stopped that on Monday, managed to persevere, and today I finally haven’t gone there at all. In a sense a salutary effect of having quit my job I suppose.

And it actually wasn’t as hard as I’d thought it would be, although admittedly I was helped by the fact that after Tuesday’s pleasant, serene night there there were two when I had to sit down next to the door, with the consequent draught each time it opened.

Nevertheless I think that before I go to sleep I’ll reward myself with a dram of Glenlivet. 


(originally posted probably on WordPress)

Zen and multitasking

In his The Way of Zen, Alan Watts mentions several comparisons between the Western and Eastern attitudes towards life, philosophy, society and so on. It occurred to me there was one thing he hadn’t mentioned, maybe because it wasn’t so pronounced at that time: While the ‘Western’ corporate society perceives the ability to multitask as a prerequisite for a successful life, Zen claims that the way is the exact opposite: being able to fully concentrate on the one thing a person is doing at the particular moment.


(originally posted probably on WordPress)

Richard Morgan: The Steel Remains

It probably wasn’t a good idea, but he hadn’t been having many of those since he got back anyway.

(about Ringil Eskiath) 

Ever since I went into self-imposed exile where I’d once lived I seem to be simply carried on by inertia, old habits and past experience. Hardly having any goals I’ve hardly any ideas about achieving them, let alone good ones.

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She missed her home, with an abrupt, almost painful pang, now that she thought she might never see it again.

(about Archeth Indamaninarmal)

I love to see pictures of Scotland on the internet, in particular those of places I know first-hand, but occasionally upon seeing one I need to make an effort to prevent tears flowing from my eyes.



(originally posted probably on WordPress)