Gilbert Keith Chesterton: Tremendous Trifles

The perplexity of life arises from there being too many interesting things in it for us to be interested properly in any of them.

(The Secret of a Train)

 

The everyday problem of finding out the right balance between having deep enough knowledge of a few things and a broad enough general knowledge of things only known superficially. Because this world is so immense one always has to make sacrifices in one direction or the other - or, indeed, in both.

 

 

 

49 kilos

Quand je suis arrivé à l'hôpital il y a deux semaines, j'ai pesé 50kg. Lundi dernier ça a été 49.5kg ; et pendant les quatre jours là j'ai probablement perdu davantage.

Mais depuis que je suis rentré chez moi, je mange un peu plus chaque jour, et je me sens un peux meilleur chaque jour. Par conséquent, je fais aussi bien un peu plus de « travail » chaque jour.

Et ce n'est que le lundi prochain quand je devrais retourner pour la troisième séance de chimiothérapie.

Sick leave

So tomorrow I'll check in the hospital and on Wednesday get my first dose of chemotherapy (some different agent than four years ago). Given that last Wednesday meant my last shift, since which I've been on sick leave, and as far as I can tell my body recovered only infinitesimally during those few days, I wonder whether any possible future progress won't be put on hold, even reversed, by the chemo.

Ah well. Nothing for it but to wait and see.

White shrouds

The day began well, with the night's falling of snow continuing. The first snow of the season, and there was enough of it to settle where not driven on by cars. The city looked definitely better for it.

But I travelled through it to my oncology appointment where they confirmed I had cancer again - the same type as the last time round, only now it had attacked the oesophagus rather than the hypopharynx. And the tumour is already larger. So I'm in for chemotherapy, starting the next week.

The silver lining is that I don't have to go to work any longer, so at least I can eventually begin to fight my emaciation. (Not sure how the therapy'd affect that struggle though.)

Later in the day I found out that it was the anniversary of the death of Robert Louis Stevenson, who died eight years younger than I am now; that the Covid-related deaths in the UK had surpassed 60,000, and those in Sweden 7,000.

So the uplifting of mood that the snow brought didn't last long. But I still haven't succumbed to despair. While there's life there's hope.

St Andrew's Day '20

Winter's here. Admittedly, I've seen no snow so far except on pictures, but the temperatures are sub-zero every night, and that certainly isn't my idea of autumn.

I wonder what this winter'll be like. I've some tumour again, this time in my belly, which may mean a long sick leave, something I wouldn't mind at all, as long as I could spend most of it on my own, rather than in a hospital. It may also mean the last winter ever for me. Let's hope not.

Kurt Vonnegut: A Man Without a Country

We are killing this planet as a life-support system with the poisons from all the thermodynamic whoopee we’re making with atomic energy and fossil fuels, and everybody knows it, and practically nobody cares. [....] I think the planet’s immune system is trying to get rid of us with AIDS and new strains of flu and tuberculosis, and so on.

(p 79) 

Of course, it's a metaphor, but that doesn't make it any less true. Acting, as most of us do (although most of us live in denial about it), in the après moi le déluge style, is the surest way of making certain the deluge will come. Sooner rather than later, as they say.

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His principal complaint about other human beings was that they so seldom noticed it when they were happy. So when we were drinking lemonade under an apple tree in the summer, say, and talking lazily about this and that, almost buzzing like honeybees, Uncle Alex would suddenly interrupt the agreeable blather to exclaim, "If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is."

(p 85) 

I've read this story of his elsewhere, but it's good enough to bear repeating. Given the short time we have on this earth, and how much of it is bad times, we really should take care to notice, to realise it when the good times happen. (In fact I occasionally do notice, recollect the phrase and actually say or mouth it.)

Patrick Gale: A Place Called Winter

Most outcasts banish themselves.

(Dr Gideon Ormshaw as quoted by Little Bear / Ursula, p 187)

Much as I'd like to deny it, and whether true or not about 'most', this does apply to me. I could have remained a closet gay; I could have become a part of the gay 'community'; I could have remained primarily interested in the country of my birth; I could have done more effort to stay in the country of my heart; and so forth and so on.

Then again, I only regret about half the cases. I do regret those that were a result of my wimpiness; I don't regret those that were a result of my individualism. It's obviously best to really belong; it's a lesser evil not to belong at all, than to belong outwardly where one doesn't belong inwardly.

 

 

 

Mark Haddon: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

ALL THE OTHER children at my school are stupid. Except I’m not meant to call them stupid, even though this is what they are. I’m meant to say that they have learning difficulties or that they have special needs. But this is stupid because everyone has learning difficulties because learning to speak French or understanding Relativity is difficult, and also everyone has special needs, like Father who has to carry a little packet of artificial sweetening tablets around with him to put in his coffee to stop him getting fat, or Mrs Peters who wears a beige-coloured hearing aid, or Siobhan who has glasses so thick that they give you a headache if you borrow them, and none of these people are Special Needs, even if they have special needs.

But Siobhan said we have to use those words because people used to call children like the children at school spaz and crip and mong which were nasty words. But that is stupid too because sometimes the children from the school down the road see us in the street when we’re getting off the bus and they shout, ‘Special Needs! Special Needs!’ But I don’t take any notice because I don’t listen to what other people say and only sticks and stones can break my bones.

(Christopher John Francis Boone (narrator), p 43)

 

This is exactly why I tend to mentally wince when I hear people (who often don't even belong to the particular targeted minority) claim that such-and-such word should never be said, because it's offensive, as it were, by definition. I have friends who use words like faggot or poofter and it's all right because they don't mean it nastily; there are many more people who would never dream of using these expressions, yet are latent homophobes for all that. (Some of them are not even latent, except perhaps to themselves.)

I remember a real-life example similar to the one in the quote: years ago, where I lived the word 'Gipsy' was a perfectly neutral expression; if one wanted to be offensive, there were many other words to choose from. But as the majority population on the whole hated the Gipsies and only talked about them disparagingly, some activists (many of them 'white') decided that 'Gipsy' was an offensive word in itself and decent folk must use 'Roma' instead. The result? Ten years later most people said 'Roma' ... and most said it with a sneer and as much, if not more, hate.

 

 

Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway

"And what is there to do?"
"Continue, slowly, and wait for luck to change."

(Mr Frazer & Cayetano Ruiz inThe Gambler, the Nun, and the Radio) 

Recently I've begun pacing myself, because there's really nothing to really strive for unless and until my luck changes. If it doesn't, all that remains is to have a wee bit fun now and then while waiting for the final curtain to fall.

 

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The end of the day had always belonged to Nick alone and he never felt right unless he was alone at it.

(Nick Adams in Fathers and Sons) 

I'm not a loner by nature, it's more a case of having been most of my life unhappily lonely because of circumstances, but to properly unwind before turning in I do need to be for a while on my own.

 

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Then there were times when you had to write. Not conscience. Just peristaltic action.

(from On Writing (published subsequently to The First Forty-Nine Stories)) 

 

Usually I don't have enough time to blog nearly as much or often as I would like to, and I miss it. It doesn't matter that nobody reads this blog, it's about the pleasure of putting one's ideas down on paper or making them appear on a laptop screen, which pleasure comes regardless of whether or not anybody else will see them.

 

Alasdair Gray: Lanark

I like advice from anyone, but advice which can't be rejected doesn't deserve the name.

(Duncan Thaw to his painting teacher, Mr. Watt, p 281) 

This is why I never actually did like advice from my parents. They'd gladly advise me on anything ... and then be ostentatiously offended if I in the least diverged from what I was advised to do. It was as if advice, even unsolicited advice, wasn't something to consider, but something to unquestioningly obey, or else be guilty of gross ungratefullness.

 

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Q This spate of information about the fiction you enjoyed suggests a terrible lack of interest in the life around you.
A Not lack of interest but lack of anticipation.

(the author in a sort of FAQ attached to the Kindle version, p 568) 

 

This is why I've always been an avid reader: for most of my life, reading a book promised interesting and/or pleasant time in front of me, while 'real life' didn't.

L'automne propre

Apparemment, l'été est finalement passé : quand je me suis réveillé ce matin, la température dans ma chambre était enfin de nouveau sous 24 degrés Celsius même avant que j'ai ouvert la fenêtre. Et il a plu pour la plupart de la journée, comme avant-hier. La vie paraît encore un peu meilleure.

Patrick Gale: The Aerodynamics of Pork

[....], never treating children as children. He laughed at, not with.

(about Huw Peake)

Obviously, I'm prejudiced about this one. It wasn't the first gay prose I've ever read, but it was the first gay 'full novel' I did, and after having read dozens of novels which in the vast majority pretended homosexuality didn't exist at all, or at best showed it as a minor character's 'quirk', it was beyond refreshing to read a novel in which most of the main characters were gays and lesbians, despite its being set in 'ordinary' surroundings (there are just a few pages happening at something you could call 'gay scene').

And yet the book reflects the fact that even as a young gay you don't spend all your time thinking about gay-related issues, however important these are for you, you have myriads of other things to think about, myriads of other aspects forming your personality and your life. The book is full of observations which could work as well in a 'straight' novel.

An example is the quotation above about one of the main character's father. This is so like my own parents, and one of the reasons why since about mid-adolescence I never again thought of them as of my 'nearest and dearest'. They were like my favourite high school teachers: people you like, but people  who seem unable to treat you without condescension, and with whom you can therefore be on polite, but not on really friendly terms.

Julian Barnes: The Sense of an Ending

My memory has increasingly become a mechanism which reiterates apparently truthful data with little variation.

(Tony Webster (narrator), p 64)

 

One would think that growing older, and having been through more, you would have more to recollect, and in one sense you do; at the same time it seems that the older I am, the more I'm actually returning, again and again, to a number of the same memories. (Not just memories: the same is true about topics / opinions, songs, to a certain degree even books, and so on ...)

 

Autumn's approaching

Seems like I've got through another summer. Somewhat strangely, it was even more tiresome than usual, despite not being as torrid as several of the most recent ones, and despite my not boozing as much as a consequence. Maybe I'm ageing faster than I'm willing to admit to myself. (Incidentally, yesterday it was 30 years since I first crossed the English-Scottish border. Thirty fucking years. As were allegedly the last words of David Cassidy, "so much wasted time". Then again, it wasn't all wasted. There were a lot of good times I wouldn't have dreamed of happening in my wildest dreams those three decades ago.) Anyway, time to do more again than just keep going.

 

 

The Dutch

I've mentioned here already my soft spot for the Dutch, which even made me try to learn the language - an attempt I had to temporarily give up on due to lack of time. After having read Ben Coates's Why the Dutch Are Different I scrapped the idea altogether. I still think the language sounds beautiful, still admire the Dutch for their tolerant attitudes towards gays and drugs, like their Golden Age landscapes and so on. But I can't really love a country that flat, a country that overcrowded, and a nation that indifferent to the concepts of privacy and solitude. Of course, the book must exaggerate a bit, otherwise the Netherlands would have no autistic adults - they would all commit suicide well before adulthood - but still ....

Ben Coates: Why the Dutch Are Different

The problem was, in my opinion, exacerbated by the tone-deafness of a political class who lived in areas with few ethnic minorities, with immigrants more likely to give them a good price for retiling the bathroom than to take their job.

This is indeed a major part of the problem. The Western middle classes are so much more 'enlightened' about immigration not because they are more ethical than the Western working classes, but simply because they perceive immigrants as a personal convenience, rather than as a personal threat.

James Robertson: The Fanatic

He felt a growing need to sum up, to explain, to record his thoughts and his memories. He was - even in his thirties - entering his middle age.

(John Lauder, p 286)

I have been keeping various diaries since high school, but as early as after college I would every now and then attempt to whittle down these records of particular periods of my life into mere summaries that would simply give the general outline and only briefly mention the most notable details.

English cringe

Much was written about the Scottish cringe, the inferiority complex of some Scots, feeling that they should 'better themselves' by becoming 'more English'. The English cringe is something different. It is the reversal of the centuries-old habit of most of the world (except the Scots and the Welsh) to say 'English'' when meaning 'British'. Today some Englishmen, afraid of being politically incorrect, do the opposite: they say 'British' instead of 'English'. Which is just as ridiculous.

A case in point is Ben Coates' book Why the Dutch are Different. At one moment he states, "In Britain, patriotism is sadly rather tainted by association with a kind of small-mindedness and xenophobia. Symbols such as flags have been appropriated by far-right groups, so someone wearing a T-shirt with the flag of St George on it is likely to be sneered at and dismissed as a racist or a hooligan. Anyone who declares their love of their country too vigorously runs the risk of being branded a narrow-minded Little Englander, or worse."

He says "in Britain", but then actually talks about England. The flag of St George is the English, not the British flag, and the Scottish Saltire, far from having been appropriated by the far right, is ubiquitous throughout the country. Similarly, a Scot overdoing his love for his country may be called a lot of things, but certainly not a Little Englander.

Similarly, I've read a book called Medieval Britain: A Very Short Introduction, which was well-written enough, but actually dealt with medieval England. Scotland and Wales were only mentioned in the context of English efforts to colonise them; in fact, more space was given to Ireland and France.

I could go on with examples like these ad nauseam. What is it that makes some people unable to simply express themselves truthfully, and instead of saying something wrong say something just as wrong, but wrong in the opposite way?

Cracking sternocostal joints

Not cracking as in 'excellent'. Cracking as in 'cracking fingers'. Until a few weeks ago it hadn't even occurred to me that the joints between the ribs and the sternum might crack at all*, but unless my sternum (which is where the cracks actually sound/feel to come from) can crack by itself, it must be them.


* in fact until I've just looked it up now I thought there were no joints, that the ribcage including the breastbone was just one solid bone, like a red deer's antler - so much for what I still remember from biology lessons  ...

Alan Partridge

I first came across the character when working in an Amazon warehouse; before the Christmas of 2011, I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan seemed to sell rather well. But I only learned who he was from a documentary about British TV comedy a few years later, and apart from some excerpt there, I only saw him the other day in Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa. Not bad at all; the humour might occasionally get a bit cheap, but mostly it was to my liking, so if I come across more Partridge on iPlayer I probably won't hesitate to watch him again.

A kind of long weekend

The longest weekend one can get without taking a day off: ending a night-shift week on Friday morning, and only returning to work for a back-shift week on Monday afternoon. Meaning one can make the Saturday a real rest day, sandwiched between two days off.

I deserved it too. The preceding day-shift week was even harder than these usually are, what with some overtime every day except the last one. In fact on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday it wasn't even worth it switching on the laptop; on Tommy's birthday I only remembered about it late in the day; and towards the end I apparently pulled my right calf (still a bit stiff even now).

While during the last, night-shift week I was training a workmate; this entailed sharing the place and often the tools, notwithstanding which we were supposed to do almost twice as much as I do on my own. Moreover on two of the nights some barbarian played there loud music for a few hours, making it almost unbearable. A rather exhausting fortnight.

But as I've mentioned, today I'm having a rest day, the rain drums on my windowsill and I'm at peace with the world ...

Tactile deprivation

In Paul Greer's novel Less the main character sadly ponders that while two gays can't walk hand in hand on a street in Morocco, two straights can't do it in Chicago. I suspect that he's right: that in general, the easier it is somewhere for two gays to openly show their love, the harder it is for two straights to show their friendship and not be perceived as latently gay. Homophobia, instead of vanishing, simply taking on a different form.

And between gays and straights ... Even my best friends, who are in every other way perfectly relaxed about my sexuality, would be wary of touching me as freely as they would another straight. For my part, the more attractive I find somebody, the more studiously I avoid touching him. And the less you can touch people you love, the more unpleasant are touches of those you don't, so you avoid that as well.

Consequently, reading about all those people who are so distressed at suddenly being unable, because of the lockdown, to hug their nearest and dearest, it's actually hard to be compassionate and not just grin and think "for fuck's sake, you only have to endure for a few weeks or months something I've been suffering from almost all my life, and in all probability will go on suffering from until I die".

Paul Greer: Less

Name a day, name an hour, in which Arthur Less was not afraid. Of ordering a cocktail, taking a taxi, teaching a class, writing a book. Afraid of these and almost everything else in the world.

(p 44) 

One of the primary problems of most of my life. Too fearful not only to be achieving things, too fearful even to have leisure and fun.

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And yet he is somehow deflated. To travel to the other side of the world - only to be offered a brand he could so easily buy at home.

(about Less, p 201) 

One of my disappointments after arriving in Glasgow was the number of Poles. Not for some ethnic reason, but because I'd grown up near enough to Poland's border to watch its TV - if I wanted to hear more Polish, I hadn't had to move a thousand miles.

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He is remembering (falsely) something Robert once told him: Boredom is the only real tragedy for a writer; everything else is material. Robert never said anything of the sort. Boredom is essential for writers; it is the only time they get to write.

(about Less, p 203) 

I'm just a blogger, but this applies to me as well: either there's nothing much to blog about, or there's so much happening I don't have the time to blog about it while it's still fresh in my mind.

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Your way of going through the world, unaware of danger.  Clumsy and naive. Of course I envied you. Because I could never be that; I'd stopped being that when I was a kid.

(Carlos Pelu to Arthur Less, p 224)

What I said above, and it really was like that from my early childhood. Either my parents warned me too much against various dangers; or I took their warnings too literally and/or seriously; or indeed, both.

Sneezing into one's elbow

In mid-January I read an article which mentioned sneezing into one's elbow. I couldn't understand why anybody would do that - into a handkerchief, if you don't have one or can't pull it out quickly enough into the palm of your hand, if you're don't want to soil your hand then into your forearm ... but why do the gymnastics of pulling to your nose that part of your arm which takes the most effort to get there?

Then coronavirus came and I began noticing people being actually advised to do this. So I accept people probably really do it, and think it quite a normal thing to do. But it still seems strange to me.

H. G. Wells: Kipps: The Story of a Simple Soul

They neither visited nor received visitors. They were always very suspicious about their neighbours and other people generally; they feared the "low" and they hated and despised the "stuck-up", and so they "kept themselves to themselves"..

(about Arthur Kipps's uncle and aunt) 

These two are bringing Kipps up instead of his parents, so it's no surprise that, despite his inclinations, these attitudes of theirs adversely affect his social skills. As the identical attitudes of my parents adversely affected mine.

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Here there was a homeliness, a familiarity. He had noted as he passed that old Mr. Cliffordown's gate had been mended with a fresh piece of string. In Folkestone he didn't take notice and he didn't care if they built three hundred houses.

(about Kipps) 

I was never much observant of my surroundings, tending rather to be lost in my own inner world, which wasn't nearly as bland, as vapid, as insipid. This always changed when I came to Britain, which for some reason feels more like home than the places where I was born, growing up or living for the longest time. But it always changed back again after returning from the Isles.

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He was an outcast, he had no place in the world. He had had his chance in the world and turned his back on it. [...] This was the end of his great fortune! What a chance he had had! If he had really carried out his first intentions and stuck to things, how much better everything might have been!

(about Kipps)

Sadly, having had my only chance to stay in Britain forever, I became complacent and lost it, sentencing myself into a self-imposed exile for the rest of my days. 'Self-imposed', because I can't blame anybody else other than myself for what happened. For 'exile' see above.

Different language studies approach

Not only have I postponed my Dutch studies altogether; I've changed my way of treating my other languages as well. Previously I'd have one day in a week dedicated to Gaelic, one to French and one or two to Swedish. Which over the long term meant I was making hardly any progress in either, in fact quite possibly losing ground in some. One can only code-switch so often.

Now I'm doing (at least four-week-long) periods of doing* just one of them, with the other two on hold until their respective periods come. Time will tell whether my theory that this will enable my brain to recollect what it knew in a time not much longer than previously, but then focus more intensely, and thus learn more and/or faster, proves right.


* Not just really studying - up to a point it's also about mere exposure, like during a 'Gaelic' period sometimes turning on RnanG but never P1, playing Runrig often but Brel hardly ever, and so on.

J. M. Barrie: Peter Pan (Peter and Wendy)

"Children are gay and innocent and heartless."

People often have the tendency to talk about little children as 'innocent', meaning 'not as yet  corrupted by adult vices'. That's a misunderstanding. The average adult is miles less selfish, inconsiderate, even cruel, than a little child. The 'innocence' consists in the child's not having as yet learned not only the vices, but neither the virtues of adulthood.

On the impossibility to edit tweets

As a stickler for spelling I every now and then get annoyed when I post a tweet, then notice I've committed a typo, and have to delete and repost it corrected. Which would be impolite when somebody has already reacted, in which case I can only leave it, gnashing my teeth, as it is.

But the other day it occurred to me that this is actually a good feature of the software. If tweets were editable, how could one be sure that after 'liking' or retweeting something the author doesn't change it altogether?

Theoretically you might, say, like a tweet praising XY as a paragon, and some time later somebody else coming across your account would see your 'like' attached to a tweet callling XY a scumbag (or vice versa).

Theoretically somebody might, say, post a tweet praising NHS workers, get loads of likes, than rewrite it into one praising some obscure politician (or worse), and all the likes would still be proudly glowing there ...

Nederlands II

Last autumn I began learning Dutch. A couple of weeks I had to give it up. Being first of all an English speaker, working where another language is spoken, trying to lose neither my Gaelic nor my French, and learning Swedish is time-consuming enough even without dabbling in yet another tongue.

But I have a soft spot for the Dutch ever since back in the summer of 1990, hitch-hiking in England, those giving me a lift would sometimes ask me whether I was Dutch myself*. So several years from now, once I'm satisfied with the level I'll have (hopefully) achieved in Swedish, I intend to start again.



* The reason for which is as mysterious to me today as it was then. I can see why my tall blond friends would usually be mistaken for Swedes and the swarthy dark-haired one of average height for a Frenchman, but why should a spindly post-adolescent in corduroy trousers and corduroy jacket be repeatedly taken for a Dutchman beats me.

Tim Armstrong: Am Feur Buidhe an t-Samhraidh

Chòrd e rium gun tàinig sinn uile air ais dhan Ghàidhlig. Bha a' Ghàidhlig fhathast na bu dorra dhomh ach bha rudeigin blàth ma deidhinn cuideachd.

(Colman, am fear-aithris)

Tha mi a' tuigsinn na fhaireachdainn sin: dhomhsa 's e Beurla, ged nach eil i agam bho thùs. Tha Gàidhlig agus Fraingis 's dòcha a cheart cho brèagha, ach chan eil mi eòlach orra cho math. 'S mathaid gu bheil mi beagan nas fhileanta sa' chànan mhàthaireil agam, ach tha fhuaim is a choltas grànnda air mo shon-sa dheth. Dar a bhios mi ag iarraidh òran no leabhar tlachdmhor a mhealadh gu cofhurtail, feumaidh mi tionndadh gu Beurla.

Bob Servant

Quite a disappointment, to be honest. Maybe after Burnistoun and Still Game (and the occasional tweet by 'Bob Servant's account') I had expected too much. Maybe I need at least one character to relate to even in a sitcom, and the protagonists in this one could be roughly divided into the unpleasant and the revolting. Maybe it was simply unfunny for somebody with my sense of humour. Whatever the reason, I basically stopped paying proper attention midway through the second episode.

Nothing truly Scandinavian?

The problem with the recently pulled SAS advert was ... that there were too many problems with it.

It pretended to challenge some myths, but did so by buttressing others (like the 'democracy' of classical Greece, which was only economically viable thanks to slave labour).

It implied that a nation can claim something as truly 'its' only if it wasn't a development of something else from elsewhere (as if baseball couldn't be 'truly American' if it developed from English rounders).

It implied that something can't originate in more than one place independently (there is no evidence that vertical European windmills developed from horizontal Iranian ones).

But the main problem was that it didn't really say "for many things we think of as Scandinavian we are, partially at least, indebted to other nations". It said "some nations are inventive, but all we can do is steal ideas and then pretend they were ours".

James Robertson: The Testament of Gideon Mack

This task of ordering my thoughts and writing them down is doing me good. It brings me ever closer to a conclusion.

(Gideon Mack, p 35) 

One of the great things about writing is that by turning one's thoughts into written words one is forced to phrase them carefully, maybe even reconsider them. That's why I was writing short 'texts', afterwards buried in my desk's drawer, even in those bygone days when a pen and paper were the usual tools; that's why I'm blogging now even though I don't expect anybody else to read my posts.

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I dissembled, as ever.

(Gideon Mack, p 94) 

A gay growing up in a 70s/80s small town, I developed dissembling into such a second nature that I couldn't (still can't) shed it when it became unnecessary, even unhelpful.

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I have no objection to ferries or newspapers or play-park swings or television on the Sabbath, but I understand where the impulse to ban such things comes from. Sundays for too many people have become noisy, unrestful days. I like quiet Sundays, Sundays of thought and reflection, churchgoing, family lunches for those who have families, long walks, long naps in front of old movies on the box; Sundays without supermarkets and traffic, loud neighbours and trouble in the streets.

(Gideon Mack, p 95)

I would list slightly different sets of activities, but heartily agree with the general drift. Unfortunately where I live even DIY is considered a perfect Sunday pursuit, and half the population seems to think that making a lot of noise is imperative for feeling good.

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On 1st March 1979, a referendum had been held, asking the Scots whether they wanted a devolved Assembly in Edinburgh. The result was a resounding maybe.

(Gideon Mack, p 122)

The best summary of that particular public vote I've ever read.

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Everything in my life seemed to be in the past.

(Gideon Mack, p 159)

Since I went into self-imposed exile almost five years ago it feels like however long I may yet be here, nothing really important can happen, because it already has.

What lockdown?

I can understand that for most people something quite out of the ordinary is happening, but as for myself ...

Yes, where I live now I have to wear a face mask in public; to wait for my vernal haircut; to hope clothes shops will reopen before I run out of something through wear and tear; and I can't take my Kindle and go for a few pints in a pub. But otherwise ...

I go to work as usual - we factory menials can't work from home. I keep my distance from my workmates - as I had before. Save for food shops I go basically nowhere else - but then I hardly had for a few years. With the exception of the pub - but there isn't that much difference between reading a book in a cosy pub and doing it in a cosy bedsit. (The pub can be more pleasant, but it isn't always so; and the bedsit is always cheaper.)

In a sense I pity the others, because I know too well how unfulfilling this way of living is. In a sense I just shrug their frustration off thinking "welcome to my life" ...

Italo Calvino: The Baron in the Trees (Il barone rampamte)

I recognized his usual manner of rejecting anything that forced him to emerge from his world.

(p 239)

One might say that the more determined he was to stay hidden up in his branches, the greater the need he felt to create new relations with the human race.

(p 267)

(both by the narrator, Biagio, about his brother, Cosimo Piovasco di Rondò)

I suspect I'm a lot like that. Where I live is neither attractive nor interesting to me, so I have little to talk about with the locals. I live in my own world of books, music, websites and so on, and if anybody tries to drag me out of my shell I instinctively recoil. On the other hand I'm constantly looking for ways of meeting people with similar interests via the internet. I do enjoy communicating with people ... but only with some people, in some languages, and preferably in writing (which for me is an easier way of expressing myself than speech is, but that's a topic for another post).

My fifteen minutes of Twitter fame

I basically never tag anybody on Twitter, even if I talk about them. But the other day a wisecrack alluding to the lyrics of Dreamers occurred to me; when I later tweeted it, on a whim I did tag Neon Waltz, the band responsible. Somehow I felt it might amuse them. And lo and behold, they retweeted it, which resulted in its accumulating 30 likes by midnight.

I know, I know. But I've probably not received so many likes for all my other tweets put together, and during the year I've been on Twitter I must have posted a few dozen.

Stuama

'S ann neònach a tha seo. Dh'òl mi balgam vodka glè bheag madainn DiLuain, agus as dèidh sin, gun a bhith a' rùnachadh sin, cha do dh'òl mi balgam alcoil eile gus oidhche Ardaoin - agus cha do dh'ionndrainn mi e. Gu dearbh, cha tàinig e a-steach orm gus an oidhche Ardaoin gun robh seo air tachairt ...

Earrach a' tighinn

Cha robh an geamhradh garbh, ach cha robh e snog a bharrachd, le cion an t-sneachda. A thuilleadh air sin, bha sreath de sheachd seachdainean ann dar a bhiodh mi ag obair dìreach nan sioftaichen maidne, rud a dh'fhàgadh mi claoidhte gu dearbh. Agus 's mathaid gu robh mi a' cosg cus ama san taigh-sheinnse, mus do dhùisg iad uile.

Air an làimh eile, lean mi orm le mo ionnsachadh chànanan, leugh mi (no, na bu trice, ath-leugh mi) iomadh leabhar math, agus ged nach do lùghdaich mi  gu mòr càrn-obrach nan cùisean a tha mi airson a dhèanamh fhathast, 's dòcha nach do mheudaich mi e.

Co-dhiù no co-dheth, bidh co-là Glaodhach Obar Bhrothaig ann a-màireach: tha làithean nas fhaide na oidhcheannan mar tha, tha an teothachd a' sìor èirigh, tha duilleagan a' nochdadh air na craobhan ... Chì sinn am bi an t-earrach nas fhearr na an geamhradh a dh'aindeoin a' bhìoras.

Fadalach san obair

Chanainn nach robh mi fadalach ann an àite obrach airson nam bliadhnaichean, ach thachair e DiLuain; cha do dhùisg an t-uairedair-dùsgaidh mi ri tìde agus cha d' fhuair mi ann ach aig seachd uairean. Gu fortanach, bha seach-thìm gu leòr agam bho thoiseach a' mhìos, ach 's lugha orm sioftaichean maidne, 's lugha orm àbhaist na dùthcha gòraich seo gan tòiseachadh cho tràth 's sia uairean, agus 's lugha orm ùine samhraidh dar a bhios agam ri èirigh fiù 's uair nas tràithe.

Free EU movement

I don't gloat, after all I was only a very mild supporter of Brexit. But I find it ironic that after all the warnings about British economy's collapsing without free movement with the EU, European economies in general are now in danger of collapsing thanks partly to the very free movement across the member states' borders.

Back shifts again

After seven weeks of hated day shifts the second March week saw me, for the first time in my current job, doing back shifts. This pleased me no end: previously I'd been alternating days with nights, and alternating days with backs is even better. (The best thing would of course be alternating backs with nights, but that's one of those things too good to ever happen.) Sure, at the moment there's no saying when they'll close the factory because of the virus and there'll be no shifts at all, but I've learned years ago that, whether for better or for worse, things always turn out quite differently from what I expect, so I just try to enjoy the good things while they last, and try not to worry much about the bad ones to come.

St Patrick's Day / Jockie's 50th birthday

Jockie, my last bedmate, was born on St Patrick's Day 50 years ago. Unless he's changed very much during the two and a half decades since I last saw him, he must have been as disappointed by being unable to celebrate his half-century properly, in a pub with lots of friends, as any booze-loving Irish patriot must have been last week.

Endocrinology

On a morning at the beginning of the month I had my second appointment: it wasn't just overcast like the first time round, it was actually raining every now and then, but I was told my blood results were back to normal. Sure, the doc prescribed me levothyroxine again, but then I'd been warned by the NHS website that once I was prescribed it once I'd have to take it for the rest of my life (except I guess if my blood results showed a change in the opposite direction, which seems quite unlikely), and at least the next appointment was scheduled for after six, rather than three, months. So I had a lunch in my digs, four pints reading Salinger's Zooey in the Carpenter, which was quite serene that afternoon, and slept well into the wee small hours.

Listening to an album

Insomniac on Sunday night three weeks ago, I opened a beer can, put earbuds in my ears and listened to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band the way music (other than ambient music) should be listened to: sometimes mouthing the words, sometimes just listening, sometimes taking a gulp, sometimes puffing on an e-cig, sometimes reclining, sometimes in ardha padmasana, but always concentrating on the music. I hadn't done that for months, if not years, and it elated me accordingly.

J. D. Salinger: Zooey

After all those years I can't be certain, but I suspect that the scene in which Salinger describes the board on the door of Buddy's and Seymour's room with its welter of unrelated quotations was what made me, aged about 20, start putting down in an A5 book quotations from books that I was reading. A habit I keep to this day, although after starting a fourth book I transferred them to the text-file format, and put them in some order, so that the authors are arranged alphabetically, and quotes from the same book are kept together, even if they were added years apart.

Anyway, reading it again after years I added to those quotations I'd already written down from this book the following:

Scratch an incompetent schoolteacher - or, for that matter, college professor - and half the time you find a displaced first-class automobile mechanic or a goddam stonemason.

(Zooey)

This speaks to me because despite my degree in civil engineering the jobs I think I was best at were of the 'manual' sort, whether it was mixing mortar on a building site, stacking shelves in  a supermarket, or cutting and printing paper in a printing house.

"Don't you want to join us?" I was recently asked by an acquaintance when he ran across me alone after midnight in a coffeehouse that was already almost deserted. "No, I don't," I said. - Kafka

From the above-mentioned board; strictly speaking this is a quote from Kafka's diaries, but I haven't read those, so I prefer to keep it under my source.

Blood samples

A welcome break in the day-shift run was the morning of Monday, 24 February: I went to give blood samples so the doctor could see what effect the levothyroxine was having on me. It was quite quick; before going to work I had enough time to go to Tesco, and would in fact have time for a breakfast, if only I knew about some suitable nearby cafeteria. I've been out of the place for too long and it has changed so much that I no longer know much even about the city centre ...

Hoarse

Whether I want it to or not, my life always seems to move in ways different from those of the general public. So at the end of January and the beginning of February, while the coronavirus was still only creeping into Europe, my voice became rather hoarse. No cough, no high temperature, let alone fever, no pain; I just couldn't speak up. Above my lowest register it sounded more like whispering than speaking. It took - and this is also typical for me - a decision to visit the ORL (out of fear of the cancer's recurrence) earlier than my next appointment for my voice to become fairly quickly normal again.

February 2020 weather

While my homeland was being battered by weekend storm after weekend storm, the part of the Continent where I stay resembled more a mediocre beginning of spring than the cusp of winter. The temperature would drop below zero at night and rise above it again during the day; the wind would often be biting, especially late in the morning; but while there was luckily nothing dramatic about those days, there was unfortunately nothing picturesque about them either. 'Drab' , 'dreary' and 'dismal' are the adjectives which probably describe them best.

Pubs closed

The coronavirus panic has finally become rampant even here, and on Friday evening all pubs were forced to close and stay closed until further notice.

But maybe it's a blessing in disguise for me. As an extreme night owl, all I can do after a day shift is have a night cap and go to sleep. Trouble is, for several weeks now the night cap used to be three or four pints in my favourite pub. And I would go there even at the weekend, out of pure force of habit. Unable to go there now though, maybe I'll be able to do with a beer can in my digs, and consequently spend more time awake after.

Diminishing, maybe nearly eliminating the various backlogs that I have in the meantime barely managed to keep from overwhelming me, like reading the articles I've bookmarked, processing the books I've read (in the pub), and catching up with what I wanted to write in this very blog.

In fact, on Saturday night I found myself even enjoying not having gone to the pub and sitting at my laptop instead.

Celery

The other week I opted for a celery soup at lunch, mistaking its local name for the one for leek. So I've finally found out which plant it is whose slightly unpleasant taste usually suppresses that of carrots, peas and other vegetables, even when it's present in a comparatively much smaller amount.

Derek Mackay

The more I read about the case of the recent Scottish finance secretary, the more bemused I was. I can understand that these days, a minister can't show an unrequited infatuation and get away with it. But many talked of Mr Mackay almost as of a child molester, while the worst that was reported was that he kept sending a 16-year-old frequent social media messages, including one in which he called him 'cute'.

I mean, come on. An ordinary teenager unable to block on social media somebody whose messages he doesn't like receiving is a bit hard to imagine. Not to mention that we're talking about somebody who according to (not only) the SNP is old and mature enough to take part in a general election.

And then, presumably the youngster was indeed cute in the older man's eyes. So what? Next you'll be telling me that my not daring to even offer a handshake to somebody introduced to me if he's the least bit attractive isn't a result of having been growing up in a puritanical environment, but a desirable grown-up behaviour.

Mr Mackay is obviously no philosopher and nobody will order him to drink hemlock, but the accusations that he was 'grooming' the young guy do sound like a faint echo of the accusation that Socrates had been 'corrupting the youth'.

True listening

"A person cannot give full attention to what is being said to them at the same time as assessing it and framing a reply. I cannot do this, and neither can anyone else I have ever met. Therefore, true listening rarely occurs."

(Rachel Pinney: Creative Listening, as quoted in Jim Pym: Listening to the Light)

I think this is true about any conversation in which one is supposed to react immediately after the previous speaker has finished talking. But it reminded me most of two features of my rehab stay.

One, of how rarely I spoke during the speech-therapy-based sessions, because before I properly pondered what had been said and what could be said in response, somebody else would already be replying; in fact, often the very topic would have changed to another by the time I had a reply phrased well enough to consider it worth uttering.

And two, how during those sessions at which it was compulsory to give a short summary of one's views formed on what had been said, I would often stop paying proper attention as early as mid-session, trying to inwardly formulate (and not forget) said summary in time for when it was my turn to give it.

Day shifts going on

It was bad enough news when the company doc didn't allow me doing three shifts. Now there are so few orders for the work I'm meant to do 'primarily' that I'm helping elsewhere, which isn't too bad, but it also means only doing day shifts. I've just finished a fourth week, but I just can't get used to it.

True, I can get through the working week by getting up in the wee small hours, sitting at the laptop until it's time to go to work, then having a few pints and going to bed. The last time I even managed to do things I meant to do on the day I meant to do them before going to work, as opposed to on the following night. But being up mid-morning is so unnatural to me that I can't stick to the pattern over the weekend. I can just about manage Saturday, but on Sunday I have to return to bed after sunrise, and on Monday I have to start getting used to the day-shift rhythm all over again.

Even the day shifts' only advantage, lunches which are varied and prepared by somebody else, don't make up for the resulting tiredness and increasing backlog of things I'd like to do in my spare time. And the end of this day-shift run is nowehere in sight.

Brexit is here

For some time it looked as though the extensions might go on until the whole idea was scuppered, but in the end we got there. As a mild supporter*, who thought that on balance it would probably be better for the UK to get out, but who didn't lose any sleep over it, I'm glad the day has come, but I was actually asleep, rather than celebrating, at the moment it happened. (And anyway, we are still only into the transitory period.)


* if I later turned into a somewhat stronger one, it was just a reaction to the condescension and fearmongering on the other side of the debate; basically they were saying "this would be a complete catastrophe, but we the sages will save you nincompoops from your own folly"

Voiceless

This is strange. I don't cough, have a sore throat, high temperature or show any other symptom of something being wrong - yet for some five days now I have only been able to speak at the lowest pitch and very quietly. Quietly to the point of being inaudible in the factory din, so to communicate I have to try and raise both pitch and volume; and little as I can manage that anyway, it makes my voice rasp so much that it resembles more a loud whisper than normal speech.

Où sont les neiges d'antan ?

Sure, even in my childhood a white Christmas was something rare, only talked of as commonplace by the old ones (whose own memories may moreover have been distorted). But proper snow, one which would not only settle, but last for several days even in towns and cities, at some time during the winter, was something we took for granted. During my four winters in Glasgow I hadn't experienced snow that would outlast twenty-four hours once, which I put down to the place's climate, but I'm not sure I've seen it ever since in the two cities on the Continent where I'd spent the following five winters (including this one) either. I miss it. What kind of winter is it without snow? Like spring without blossoms, summer without sun or autumn without turning and falling leaves ...

Off key

I lost the ability to sing in falsetto so long ago that I've learned to accept it as an unalterable fact. I've grudgingly accepted it too when later I noticed that my vocal range was progressively getting narrower. But when I decided the other day to learn the lyrics of A Guid New Year to Ane an' A', and discovered that despite having heard it umpteen times I couldn't sing it in tune, it was a rather nasty surprise. I'm exercising it and getting there, but heck, it should come quite natural ...


(originally posted on WordPress)

Less pub time

It’s odd, but so far I’ve only been to a pub six times this year, each time for three pints on my way back from work. On the one hand I’ve only managed not to go after work once; on the other hand I’ve always managed not to go on a day off. What’s possibly even odder is I don’t really miss it. (Admittedly the winter cold and the uncertainty about whether there’d be an unoccupied table help.) And from tomorrow it’s my night shift week: as likely as not I’ll no go once …


(originally posted on WordPress)

Variable sleep duration

It seems that recently I have been very rarely able to manage the 'prescribed' seven or eight hours of sleep. Either I wake up after six or less (sometimes as little as one or two) and can't fall asleep again, or I sleep and doze for nine or more before I can force myself to at least start reading in bed before actually getting up. For a while the short sleep - long sleep days even seemed to simply alternate.


Edited to add the next day: Not untypically, having written the above I did sleep for about seven and a half hours last night. But pondering that reminded me of one point I hadn't made clear: In the long term I was getting the 'prescribed' sleep duration on average, only usually not in particular cases.


(originally posted on WordPress)

New Year stroll

I did some laptop work on the first day of the year, but as the sky was clear all day I decided, about an hour before the sunset, to go out and see if I could have a few pints with a book somewhere.

The Carpenter was closed, so was (as I expected) the Union; the place inside the Marriot, which I’d never been to before and which looked invitingly pleasant from the outside, was open, but inside looked too posh, ‘too comfy’ for my liking, so I just turned around and headed back. It wasn’t a disappointment, though: I had a pleasant placid stroll in the sun, and then a pleasant placid time reading The Coral Island in my room’s armchair with a beer can at hand.

Somehow all this made me so sleepy that after a fag outdoors I finished a chapter in bed and after 6pm fell asleep – and only got up again the next morning, goaded by the alarms telling me the working year has begun as well.

 
(originally posted on WordPress)

Diligent Christmastime

Usually I have great plans about all the things I would do during my holidays. Usually I end up doing very little, getting distracted by this and that. Not so this time. It only lasted six days, but during these I managed to do basically everything I had really wanted to do, even a bit more, and yet without hurry. (Maybe what helped was not having unrealistically big plans in the first place. And its being too cold for visiting a pub.)


 
(originally posted on WordPress)