2019

In retrospect it looks as a somewhat languid year; as if I was already training for retirement.

Inevitably, it had its ups and downs. There were taxing and frustrating moments: teeth reconstruction, noisy neighbours, collapse of my old laptop, change of employment, being diagnosed with hypothyroidism, ...

… but mostly I kept going: the cancer didn’t reappear, I kept up with Tommy (getting a mail from whom always made my day), my old college friends (including a real drinking session again), and Rob; went on learning languages (and adding another one), … even the weather was comparatively mild.

Strangely though, on most days I visited a pub, an yet rarely got really drunk. Thus, I read dozens of books, several of them new to me (most notably The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time).

(Similarly in the outside world: Brexit dragged on and on, but Duncan Scott had some spectacular successes, and so on and so forth.)

So I guess it wasn’t a bad year, all things considered. Still, I do hope that I’ll achieve a bit more, and have a bit more fun, during the next one. Never say die.


(originally posted on WordPress)

James Robertson: And the Land Lay Still

Sometimes he’d walk for a mile or two out of town before catching the next bus, for the pleasure of being alone and in silence.

(about Don Lennie, p 206) 

As an adolescent I would do this when escaping from my parents’ back to college; later it became one of the reasons why I preferred, when possible, walking to work to using public transport.

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It would be good to have someone to talk to.

(Peter Bond, p 231) 

One of my most frequent complaints, in fact I wrote about it yesterday.

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[….] and then a pang of jealousy would come as he saw that once again he was in a state of limbo, inside and yet still an outsider. He was part of it and yet alienated.

(about Peter Bond, p 316)

For most of my life I felt like I didn’t really belong. Like the others were a group and I a mere guest of the group; often a well-liked one, but still just a guest none the less.

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Neither of them thought of a telephone as anything other than an instrument for communicating necessary information or for use in an emergency. The idea that you might phone somebody just to talk to them seemed absurd, extravagant.

(about Don & Liz Lennie, p 425) 

I like face-to-face conversation (with some people anyway) because of the physical proximity it involves, I like reading and writing letters and emails because of the possibility to think out properly what one wants to say and how to say it; phones provide neither. As far as I’m concerned, phones are there to arrange a later chat, rather than have one at the moment.

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If Mike liked someone enough to want to make sex, then he probably wanted more than sex with him.

(about Mike Pendreich, p 541)

One of the reasons I only got laid a few times was I never cared to have sex with anybody I wasn’t in love it, with anybody I was merely infatuated with.

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When had he last had a decent night’s sleep?

(about David Eddelstane, p 548)

  

Another of my ‘favourite’ complaints: I exaggerate a bit, but sometimes it does seem like I never get a chance to sleep until fully refreshed, seem that if the alarm clock doesn’t wake me up, then some noisy neighbour will.

(originally posted on WordPress)

 

 

'It's okay to be white'

John Swinney has reportedly said that stickers with this slogan, which appeared in Perth, were "atrocious" and had "no place in Perth or any other part of our country".

The way I see it, this is an atrocious and racist approach. Unless of course he would say the same thing if they read "It's okay to be black" or the like.

Oh, it's quite possible that the slogan has been appropriated by neo-Nazis. And? Would you say that praising socialism is "atrocious" because the term was appropriated by both the КПСС and the NSDAP?


(originally posted on WordPress)

Fraser

In my early forties, I was in an occasional Twitter-and-mail contact with a guy who, like me, was a Scottish Gaelic learner and an out gay. I enjoyed it, but not enough to really care when it eventually petered out: I didn’t know his age, but his words had a sort of teenage vibe.

This year I came across his Twitter account again, and to my surprise noticed he was actually only four years my junior.

Then again, when I come across something that I wrote in those days, it often feels rather adolescent as well. For all I know, he may have thought me a teenager and tried to humour me. 


(originally published on WordPress)

A. A. Milne: Winnie-the-Pooh

After all, one can’t complain. I have my friends. Somebody spoke to me only yesterday.

(Eeyore) 

I have around half a dozen friends so close we’re still friends years, even decades after the time we used to meet on a daily or at least weekly basis. The problem is we no longer do, and I have nobody to really talk to more often than every several months or so.

 

 

 

 

(originally posted probably on WordPress)

 

Xmas '19

As usual spent with my parents in their town. Like last year I went on Christmas Eve (not impressed by the new railway company: they only do seat reservation tickets, the PA system was far too loud, with English announcements in Americanese which moreover sounded a pretended, exaggerated one by some local to me), spent there Christmas Day and returned the day after.

The conversations were relaxed, even though we were probably sitting in silence with nobody knowing what to say next more often than the year before. My father seems to be losing it, but only very slightly so far; his cheeks were a bit sunken, but he still looked fairly healthy for a guy in his late seventies. Still, it was a wee bit disconcerting when during our goodbyes he mentioned no longer making any plans further than a year in advance.

Anyway, I survived and on Boxing Day afternoon my end-of-year time off finally began in earnest. (The pub proved to be closed, but maybe that was for the better.)

 

(originally posted on WordPress)

 

"Ok boomer"

I haven’t found a source that would stretch the definition of "baby boomer" far enough to cover my own birthday, and yet the "ok boomer" catchphrase somehow irritates me. Maybe because I perceive the 1960s (when baby boomers themselves were young) as the last time in the Western civilisation when young people, as a group, still believed they could change humankind for the better. All I can see in the following generations (ay, including mine) is punkers, yuppies, hipsters, and those desperate ones like Thunberg who can do no more than try to at least prevent a complete catastrophe.

Or maybe it annoys me simply because all my life I’ve been trying to be condescending neither to those older nor to those younger than me, while being patronised by my elders when young … and now that I’m old feeling patronised by the younger ones.


(originally posted on WordPress)

Coffee with sister

Like the year before, a few days before Christmas I met my sister in a café for a couple of hours of chatting. Pleasant and relaxed as usual; the only minor difference was that we talked a bit more about languages and a bit less about literature. (There were other topics too of course.) I wouldn’t mind if these meetings turned into a tradition, they sort of help me brace myself for the following visits to my parents.


(originally posted on WordPress)

Robert Louis Stevenson: New Arabian Nights

For all active and industrious pursuits, Harry was unfitted alike by nature and training.

(about Harry Hartley in "Story of the Bandbox") 

A really good job has three characteristics: it provides you with a reasonable living; it’s interesting enough for you to enjoy it; and you can be quite good at it. So far, I haven’t heard of one in which I could get two out of three.

(originally posted on WordPress)

The year’s last commute

My last shift ended on Saturday morning, and with the trams running sparsely I decided to try and find a pedestrian route.

It proved to be somewhat meandering and longish, a waste of time as an everyday exercise, but not bad for an occasional ramble like that early morning’s one: meeting hardly any people, quietly soliloquising, and while walking past the central cemetery smelling, after months, the beautiful fragrance of conifers. (For some reason it also reminded me nostalgically of returns from some bummels of my younger days.)

 

(originally published on WordPress)

Christmas party

I never liked company parties, but this wasn’t one. This was just a bunch of us oldish guys who’d once studied together using Christmas as an excuse to meet in a pub. And it was fine, although I could only stay for two coffees before leaving for a night shift.

What surprised me most* was that MM, whom I hadn’t seen since mid-90s, changed so little I recognised him immediately. To him the old joke “we’re no longer young and handsome, we’re simply handsome now” actually applies. He’s a year older but looks ten younger than me I guess.

It also seemed to me that, oddly, the guys who, unlike Falcon and me, never needed specs in our college days, were getting presbyopic much faster than the two of us. And that Black and maybe Köln were as hard of hearing as I am these days. (Or maybe I just speak lower than is customary in this country, who knows. The pub was as clamorous as the factory I work in, so we had to resort to shouting as well, and that’s not exactly my forte.)

My leaving was a wee bit frantic, as it would be in a teeming pub I’d never been to before, but never mind. I just hope the next time we meet I’ll be able to spend more time with them.

   

* There was a minor surprise along the way there: the central railway station is fully open again, after just a year or so under reconstruction. I had expected it would last several.

(originally published on WordPress)

GE '19

So it seems that after all I will live long enough to see Brexit actually happen. The unpleasant side effect is, of course, that we’re burdened with Tory rule for at least another five years. Well, rien n’est parfait, as the French say. Apparently the English electorate saw finishing the EU business as the primary topic of the election.

As for Labour, I guess that Corbyn’s problem wasn’t his stance on Brexit, but his seeming inability to decide what his stance really was. As for the SNP, their success showed yet again that the kingdom remains divided, whatever its name; just look at the maps. And as for the Lib Dems, including their leader herself, they probably fell victim to their own arrogance.

(originally posted on WordPress)

Un autre travail

Alors, j’étais dans mon nouveau travail pendant presque un mois, et il n’est pas mauvais. Pas trop facile, pas trop difficile. Il y avait une délusion quand la docteure m’a interdit de travailler en trois-huit (à cause de mon âge, le cancer et l’addiction), mais au moins elle m’a permit travailler les nuits. (Je n’avait pas eu d’équipe de nuit depuis trois ans, mais elles sont toujours plus confortable que les équipes de matin.)

Mais bien sûr, la chose la plus importante, c’est qu’il n’y a pas de radio pour m’énerver

 

(originally posted on WordPress)

Tobias Smollett: The Expedition of Humphry Clinker

I find my spirits and my health affect each other reciprocally that is to say, every thing that discomposes my mind, produces a correspondent disorder in my body; and my bodily complaints are remarkably mitigated by those considerations that dissipate the clouds of mental chagrin.

(Matthew Bramble) 

 

Some time ago I had concluded myself that a large majority of my own 'physical' medical problems are actually to a greater or smaller degree psychosomatic, their intensity or even mere appearance affected by my current levels of anxiety, depression, impatience and other usual feelings.



(originally posted on WordPress)

 

Insignificance

What’s hard to accept, especially for an avid reader like me, is that in my own book of life I may be the main character, but in the books of other people’s lives I’m at best only a very minor one. It’s not that my life is so uninteresting, it’s that I don’t belong to any community, that I have no one to share my joys and sorrows with …

 

(originally posted on WordPress)

Hypothyroidism

Early October blood tests having showed raised TSH (thyroid-stimulating hormone) level, I was referred for endocrinology. At the hospital whose ORL I visit they didn’t accept me at all, but recommended another place, which scheduled my appointment for early December.

After the 2-month wait, a 15-minute walk to a bus stop and a half-hour ride, it was a bit of a surprise when the visit itself turned out as a mere 10-minute interview including a quick ultrasound scan of the neck and a prescription of 50μg levothyroxine pills to be taken daily for 3 months.

But even though I had to go there between two night shifts, I don’t complain. I more or less enjoyed the bus rides on a nice, overcast day between autumn and winter (think John Atkinson Grimshaw), mostly through village-like suburbs and even woods, and the subsequent three pints in my howf (and then going on sleeping until the next shift).

The only trouble is that one’s expected to take the pill at the same time each day. With the irregularity of my waking hours possibly an unresolvable logistical problem.


(originally posted on WordPress)