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.

--------

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.