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.