Percy Moo as Einstein

Percy Moo as Einstein
Dog=Einstein2

Monday 31 December 2012

Vespa & Sidecar

 It's been years since I've ridden a Lambretta, let alone seen one here in Seville. Vespas, however abound - but there aren't many like this blue one about. Just the suitcase on the luggage rack is worth a picture.

 From the age of the owner, it looks like he's had the combo from new. If you can zoom in on the number plate of the granddaddy, you'll see that it begins SE (province of Seville) followed by 6 digits. Looking at the "great grandson" Vespa next to it, we can see that it has four digits and 3 letters - in 2000 Spain started to register vehicles with 4 numbers and 3 letters, starting with 1111 AAA and progressing numerically and alphabetically. This was because by then the big provinces were running out of combinations and also because identifying the province of origin encouraged thefts from cars from other provinces or just bloody-minded vandalism. When I bought my last car from Barcelona with a "B" registration, I immediately re-registered it to avoid such annoyances.

In this second photo, it looks like its rider doesn't seem to be very happy! I can't imagine why not, riding such an impressive, pretty machine - a machine which was drawing admiring glances from all who saw it (look at the rider of the modern Vespa). Perhaps he'd rather have a Lambretta!

When Art Comes to Town

What is the difference between art and draughtsmanship? Easy. The feeling that you get when confronted by an image. Draughtsmanship impresses by its efficacy. Art calls to us by its essence.

How many times have we been to an exhibition of amateur - or professional - artists and have been left cold? I do not want to get enmired in the merits or otherwise of abstract or piles-of-bricks "art" where what the aritst's intention is more important than the actual sheep in formaldehyde / unmade bed that we see before us.

Art, of whatever type, exudes humanity, wit, emotion. It calls to our inner being.

Imagine, then, my immense delight when one of my favourite artists (see Starcat 1) gave me four works - four self-portraits - for Christmas. I have decided to share them with you, even though my photography is not exactly the best.

I hope you enjoy them and that they serve as a gateway to the happiness of your own New Year.

Abroad
The journey starts

Almost there
Home again




    

Sunday 30 December 2012

Little Boy Quique - a repeat

Please watch and enjoy. Is there any better way to pass a few idle moments? I think not.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WKNYXZvTBo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tl6sp6Bz44s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Q_XboC66g0

Saturday 22 December 2012

Tony's Inn

Or La Posada de Antonio.


Early morning in La Posada
 de Antonio.
Occasionally we are fortunate enough to find a true jewel among the daily dross we all have to wade through. And La Posada de Antonio is a true gem. This recently-opened bar near where I live is a return to proper Spanish hostelry. It purveys reasonably-priced high-quality food that hearkens back to how all bars where until about 10 years ago. Also, like the traditional barrio, or neighbourhood bar, it is a long, narrow affair where clients soon become rather familiar with each other at peak times.


In recent years the food in many Spanish bars has become bland and predictable - the freezer, microwave and cheese-paring (literal and figurative) have begun to rule supreme. Furthermore, there has been a certain loss of pride in the product among the owners and  employees. Quite a few bars have MacDonaldised - they have become mere sellers of food and drink; they have turned into what I could only term as single-outlet franchises where those behind the counter sell in a rather soulless manner and those in front consume undemandingly in time to the rhythmic ping of the microwave and the backbeat beep of the touch-screen cash register.
Looking towards the kitchen ('scuse
fingers -mine, bottom left!)

La Posada de Antonio bucks this trend; its chips are home-made and the food fresh and freshly prepared by a cook who takes pride in his work. The only ping is the cook's bell informing the waiter that there's a fresh tapa ready for serving. This means that not only is the hot food fresh, but it also arrives hot at the table or counter - something not to be relied on in all bars, especially if the waiter is busy chatting to his mate about football.

On Sundays the special of the day alternates between paella and a bean stew that surpasses description. On weekdays the long list of tapas offers a bewildering choice. I will try to give you an idea of my favourite - the superserranito. This is a large roll with a grilled pork fillet on a fresh, fluffy omelette and topped with a generous slice of cured ham, tomato slices and a fried green pepper - all of this served with the aforementioned chips and with a portion of ali-oli sauce. The price?  €3.00!

Today I enjoyed toast with olive oil and cured ham - real cured ham, not the vacuum packed plastic stuff peddled by so many bars in Seville today - and two cafés cortados. A café cortado is a small strong coffee with a mere splash of hot milk. When I ask for it in GB, I ask for an espresso and then I dobble the merest hint of milk into it. Such coffee, if well-made, has body and strength but is not nasty and bitter. Needless to say the coffee was perfect. I left the bar with my inner man sighing contentedly.

"The smokers' tent"
All of this can be enjoyed in the bar itself or outside in what I term the smokers' tent. Make a rule and someone will bend it. Publicans Europe-wide have cottoned onto these shelters where smokers can smoke "outside" while still being sheltered from the elements. In this picture you might just be able to make out a gas heater lurking in the depths of the tent. It is also a blessing for their fellow non-smoking mates as the smoke does not hang heavy in the air.


The first week that it opened there was nobody in there. Now there's nobody in the other nearby bars.

¡¡¡Olé La Posada de Antonio!!!

Monday 17 December 2012

Carpet Slippers

My present (foam rubber soled) slippers with designer
fraying & natty PJs.
Whilst talking bollocks with M on the boat, we had a serious in-depth conversation on the merits of different carpet slippers (preferably tartan with foam soles - better grip & insulation)  & dressing gowns (stripey & with a cowl). Is middle age creeping up on me? Is Ole Rockin' Chair gonna get me sometime soon? Will I start farting involuntarily every time I cough??? PANIC!!!

Sunday 16 December 2012

Turn off Your Mind, Relax and Float Downstream II


Handbag, iceberg detector or little doggie?
A valued crewmember whatever her function.
For Wikpedia's history of the canal and a map of the route we took, click here

The first day saw us chug out of Nantwich Basin Chester-bound on a crisp morning, with Islay, the ship's dog, keeping a lookout for icebergs. She was taking no chances, hence the life-jacket! On some parts, of the canal that morning we actually did do some ice-breaking. A fascinating experience, watching 1/4-in ice break under the bow. Down below it really did sound impressive as the sheets ground past the sides and under the bottom. Up top, the sight was magnificent as we watched quite large sheets of the stuff being pushed aside and being broken with a pinging noise, not unlike that of thick fencing wire being cut. 


Horse and water power  initially drove the
Industrial Revolution


Not long after, we saw another animal - this powerful wooden statue of a horse by John Merrill. An impressive piece of sculpture, it is a tribute to the stalwart horses that towed the original narrow boats on their journeys across the English countryside,  supplying raw materials for England's nascent Industrial Revolution. In fact, the horse is also a tribute to the quality of the canal building itself as it is built of wood salvaged from old lock gates.
The work demands your full attention and is even more dramatic as it surprises you, encountering it shortly after passing under a bridge if you are travelling from Nantwich. Although narrow boating is not exactly high-speed bow-wave-riding stuff (in fact such things are illegal: were such speeds possible, the resulting wake would erode the banks.), it is hard work and demands constant concentration by the tillerman. 

The bridge had been there for 2 centuries. Luckily, it was
still there after my passing!

 My only contact with water and boats up to this point had been that of enjoying the bracing experience of an infinite number of rides on the Mersey Ferry Boats, but never had I been asked to steer one. I was therefore surprised to find out how lumpy water really is. This is the turbulence set up by the propeller and you know when you've hit the sweet spot, in steering terms, when the water ceases to be lumpy. This only lasts for seconds, however, before another correction is called for and the whole "change, return, correct"  (OK, the song says success, but you get the idea) business begins again, frightening ducks and shipmates alike.


This constant work means that there is always one person on the footplate(?) and usually another to keep him/her company and to enjoy the sights. Others, however, may decide to stay below snuggled up next to a coal-burning stove, reading and watching the world slide by the window.

Hot tea, bacon butties, friendship and the English
countryside. The stuff of dreams. 
But what, I ask you, could possibly be better than drinking scalding tea, eating fragrant bacon butties and talking bollocks with your mate as the beautiful English countryside drifts almost silently by?

So onwards we sailed towards our mooring for the night at the towpath next to the rather originally named  Cheshire Cat pub in Christleton


All images (c) He Who Talks Bollocks




Wednesday 12 December 2012

Starving in Portugal

Some of you might have read my post Pensión Laguna in which I mention the effects of the economic crisis in Spain.

If I thought things were bad here in Spain, a recent trip to GB via Portugal (see the post below) opened my eyes to just how bad it is in Portugal.

While waiting for the check-in desks to open in Faro airport, my daughter and I spent quite a lot of time observing the comings and goings of our fellow passengers and noted that there was a relatively well-dressed man doing the rounds of the cafés on the concourse, approaching a table after the customers had left it. Quickly it became obvious that he was looking for food.

Fortunately, we had some sandwiches to give him before we went to the departure lounge.

When we returned after a glorious week of boating in England, we had a lot of time to kill before getting the bus back to Spain. During our wait we managed to give away all six of the Cornish pasties I had brought from GB to stick-thin people asking for food. I do not know whether these people had a drug problem, but past experience has taught me that addicts ask for money "for food" not food itself. They get somewhat disgruntled if they receive food.

These people, however, were genuinely hungry.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg of the suffering that is all too common in the EU. In Greece families are giving their children up for adoption in the hope that they will be fed and clothed adequately.

Where is this all going to end?


Monday 10 December 2012

Turn off Your Mind, Relax and Float Downstream

Having been gently chided for being too ranty on recent posts - something with which I wholeheartedly agree, what better way to start the de-rantification with a week on the Shropshire Union Canal?

No doubt Beatlemaniacs will have seen the allusion to Tomorrow Never Knows, probably the most technically revolutionary song of the 60's and the farewell remark of one of my most gifted students at the end of the last class before my holiday.

But first, the context: as readers of my musings will have detected, work at the moment is rather stressful, so last week I took a week off and made the above trip at the invitation of my cousin (A) and her husband (M).

Luckily, my timetable and the fact that there were two national bank holidays in Spain (BTW, one of the bank holidays is Dec. 8th - the date of Lennon's murder) made it possible for me to go without too much disruption to students and my colleague who graciously subbed for me on one of the working days.

A rather dramatic view of Nantwich Marina with café, 
chandler's and  junk shop (junk as in tat, not the 
Chinese boat!)
So, off we flew from Faro to Bristol, where we overnighted at A&M's house before some early motoring up to Natwich Marina where their narrow boat is moored.

I had often seen adverts for canal holidays and thought that they must be fun. And, of course, who hasn't fantasised about living on a houseboat?

Well, the good boat W. was to be our home for the next seven days and after loading her up with supplies, we chugged out of the marina at a stately 2mph on our 60ft. narrowboat, bound for rollicking adventures? No. Bound for a relaxing week on a form of transport that dog walkers on the towpath can overtake without breaking into a sweat. What a joy to do something that is excitement-lite and where time and the scenery slide by so slowly that you have plenty of time to take it all in. An example: 20th-century transport gives the observer time to say to their companion "Look at that badger over there?" but the companion hardly ever has time to look before it is past, replying "What badger?"

The Bollock-Talker's theory of relativity:
 "The time gained by fast transport is equally proportional to the sensations and observations lost thereby, due to the velocity at which the vehicle is travelling".

On this journey, for example, I even had time to call my daughter, J., up from below to observe squirrels etc. on the banks as we glided past.

To end this first instalment a relatively unknown song,  by Pink Floyd, which I feel captures the lazy contentment of life on slow moving water, even if it does describe a summer's day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tisjsgsgtZU
The next instalment will, I feel, be a bit on the technical side. But not overly so.

Wednesday 21 November 2012

It Falls Itself to Me the Face of Shame

A literal translation of the Spanish expression that I used today in my classes. In other words, I wish the ground had opened up and swallowed me.

Today was the final day of presenting the semi-presential "course" that the powers that be have imposed upon us. Today was (thank heavens!) the last time that I had to tell my ill-informed, to say the least, students that not only did they have to shell out on expensive course books, do the work and then correct it themselves, but that they also had to find, by hook or by crook, the teacher's CDs in order to do the listening exercises that should be done in class.

All fine and dandy you might argue - until you find out that these CDs are not on sale to the general public, just to teachers. Indeed, if they are available, they are from overseas websites at over €100 a set. This is not exactly emblazoned in the large print of their enrolment form, nor indeed is it in the small print.

Some of my colleagues have lent out the CDs to be copied illegally. Others have uploaded them onto various P2P sites. I have done neither and I definitely do not intend to do so.

This practice is not only to be found in my department, but in most of the other languages taught too. I am not going to risk my house to pay copyright infringement fines and my freedom to supplement a half-cock course for a half-cock university. Others can do it if they wish. My face will keep on falling itself to me of shame. Better that than ending up homeless and in jail because my employer will not listen to reason and is prepared to abuse its staff and clients so scandalously.

Friday 16 November 2012

Pigs, Pokes, Lambs and Slaughter

I have just finished my first week of teaching the new, improved, one-hour per week English course and have been surprised by my students' reaction. It was...

Nothing.

Even though they knew nothing about how the course was organised, what was to be done at home and what was to be done in class, they had duly signed up and were then sitting in my class waiting to be told what they had paid for.

When I presented them the online component, fundamentally nothing more than a tarted-up (to the best of our ability) list of answers to the exercises in the class book, what was their reaction?

Nothing

When I told them that to do the listening exercises they needed to buy the teacher's class CDs at 80GBP a set - if they could get hold of them because they weren't commercially available - what was their reaction?

Nothing.

After years of working in this particular establishment I am now accustomed to the fact that a large proportion of the students are incapable of independent creative thought when they leave their own particular field of expertise. Indeed, it is not uncommon to have university students bring their mum along to exam revisions etc. in the hope that she can persuade the nasty teacher to pass their little boy or girl. However, I do not understand how people can shell out money on a course about which they knew nothing beforehand and then sit quietly taking notes while they are given the details. Details that reveal an  embarrassingly evident lack of quality and depth. Let us not forget that this is a course which, in their infinite wisdom, the powers that be have imposed upon both the students and upon us, the teachers .

Where does this supineness come from? Is it desperation due to the economic situation? Is it the fact that as I mentioned in a previous post all undergraduate students now need a B1 level of a foreign language to get their degree? I honestly do not know. To give a different example, I would not phone an electrical goods shop and say "I want a fridge" and tell them to deliver it to my home without asking any questions about it. Neither, when it arrived, would I accept this article when the delivery team's patter could hardly avoid pointing out the paucity of its performance and its lack of basic features, such as the optional door that can only be bought from a foreign website at a prohibitive price.

My own and my colleagues' students have done just that.

I do not understand. At all.

Wednesday 14 November 2012

STRIKE ONE!!!!

I am now too old to be an idealist, but today I am on strike, even though I know it will change nothing.

As I explain in the post below, I will definitely not be supporting the unions in this strike, I will just be making my own personal point. 

Let me explain.

The Spanish government, in its infinite wisdom (I hasten to add that my political sympathies tend to lean more towards this particular bunch than their predecessors, but not by much - perhaps it is better to say that I hold them in marginally less contempt) has decided to squeeze public employees, of which I am one.

When the first round of civil service paycuts bit, I did not strike. I thought it quite fair and logical that we all shared the burden on the road to recovery. Now however, all that has changed.

I have had a 15% wage cut (my taxes have been lowered to hide the extent of the cut). I have had my holiday pay slashed, as well as all other bonuses. "Ok", you might say, "at least you have a job". I agree wholeheartedly but... Where does this money go? To subsidise the profligate banks, that's where.

As a result of this overall pay cut of about 25% I am finding it increasingly difficult to pay my mortgage and pay for my children's studies - as indeed is my ex-wife who is also a civil servant. 

Recently I went to my bank to express these concerns and to renegotiate my mortgage. The result? they offered to refinance my mortgage at 9% + Euribor! Therefore, I have been forced to give 25% of my salary to the banks so that I can then go begging to them for a loan at an interest rate that would have seemed excessive to Shylock. Shame on the banks! Shame on the government!

This is why I am striking. Yet I insist, I am one of the lucky ones. 

STRIKE TWO!!!!!

Today there is a general strike in Spain and I am striking.
This is the first time that I have ever been on strike because up to now I have never really agreed with the motives (ususally political here in Spain) behind them.
First, let's examine the unions and why I disagree with them so strongly:
When Franco csme to power, obviously all left-wing organisations were banned, to put it mildly. This included UGT, the Socialist trades union, CCOO, the Communist one, CGT, the Anarchist one and a plethora of other workers' organisations.
In post-civil-war Spain the Left had no place, but to throw a sop to the idea of democracy, "representative" organisations of all types were invented that ran on what was known as vertical democracy. In essence, what this meant was that the shop floor voted for the candidate(s) that the regime provided them with. These in turn voted for the next layer of representation etc. etc - a sort of 20th-century feudalism. By the way, this still exists. In the "democratic" university where I work, the Rector is not voted for directly by the students, teaching and services staff but by the abovementioned system.
In 1978 Spain voted for its democratic constitution and the left avidly took over the selfsame organisations that Franco had established. Now, however, it was indeed  "democratic", even though in some cases the patronage and favours system merely got handed down from one generation of the ruling bourgeoisie to the next. The political parties changed, but, in some cases, the families did not.
Suddenly, the old trades unions were back in business, their patrimony restored and their status of guardians of the people unquestioned.
But.
In Spain Trades Unions are subsidised by the State. Obviously their members pay dues but the State (ie the tax payer) picks up the greatest part of the tab. Therefore, we all have to pay for the Communist. Socialist Anarchist, etc. unions, whether we want to or not, through our taxes.
Furthermore, instead of being organised by economic activity, they are organised by political party. The closed shop was bad enough, but this???
This can also lead to conflicts of interest between sectors within the same union. Imagine company X decides  to close its plant in Spain and move to Belgium, transporting its finished goods to Spain by rail. How can the same union represent the losers in the manufacturing industry and the winners in the railways at the same time?
How can such organisations represent all of its members simultaneously?
The answer is that they don't. They represent themselves, posturing and strutting in front of the cameras, spouting demagogical nonsense that appeals to the least-formed intellect and basest emotions while picking up their rather large pay packets. Obviously, when the unions call a strike, we can't expect the union officials to lose their pay. No way. They still get paid on strike days while the people they claim to represent lose money they can ill-afford to do without. The unions are just as corrupt, at least in ideals, as the rest of the political classes here in Spain.
That is why although I am on strike, I will not be on any of the marches. I want to make a personal protest. I do not want to be represented by the unions, even though they will claim to have represented me. I've got better things to do such as listen to Radio 4 and drink tea in my cosy bottom-of-the-garden shed

Sunday 4 November 2012

OUR BEAUTIFUL LAUNDERETTES


Reading Silver Tiger’s post with the alluringly alliterative title of Drips on a Drab day took me back to the working summers I spent in Northampton during the early 2000s, where I used to stay with my father in his small pensioner’s flat. As he didn’t have his own washing machine I used to take the week’s laundry to the local launderette where I would ask for a “service wash” meaning that the ladies who ran it would also load the machines and driers and then iron the clean clothes while I was at work.

When commenting on this to acquaintances in Spain they almost invariably assume that the British must be grindingly poor if they can’t afford their own washing machines. In fact, I cannot, offhand, say that I’ve ever seen a coin-operated launderette in Seville.  I don’t deny that in some cases poverty might be the reason for their existence in GB, but I feel that practicality also plays a part. Small flats and houses mean that space is at a premium and so a large washing machine and the almost obligatory tumble dryer might be too bulky for some homes. Most people probably use the space more satisfyingly with a dog or cat basket and its corresponding furry occupant.

Although I used to ask for a service wash on weekdays, if I did the wash at a weekend I would invariably do it myself to let the whole sensorial experience – er – wash over me.

I love the smell of clothes being laundered. This might be a throwback to Monday washdays with my mother which were a very exciting event for a small child. These were the days before automatic washing machines and what we had was an enamelled tub filled with hot water from the geyser with an agitator at the bottom.

As the clothes swirled around the tub they could be pulled out with a large pair of wooden tongs and then passed through the mangle before being hung out on the line[1] Later the mangle was made obsolete by a primitive manic spin-dryer that hopped across the floor, water spewing out of a chute arrangement at its base, water that the overturned bowl in the opposite corner of the kitchen would have collected had the spin-dryer not decided to go hopabout.

For me, going to a launderette therefore brings back the smells[2] of those days, as well as providing me with an ever-changing array of conversational companions – indeed, at “Bubbles” in Northampton freshly-brewed tea and coffee was on offer for a few pence.

Perhaps the launderette is to some extent replacing the disappearing pubs as the hub of an area’s social life and information exchange. Perhaps it always has been. 




[1] There’s a beautiful anecdote about Yorkshire-born artist David Hockney and his mother. Being shown around Beverly Hills for the first time, and admiring all of those beautifully manicured lawns, she turned to her son and asked why, if it was such a nice sunny day, they hadn’t hung out the washing to make the most of the good weather.

[2] Proust had his madeleines, I have boiled sheets!

Roald Dahl and I

This week I suddenly realised that I share quite a lot with Roald Dahl. Being crotchety old men and possessing infinite depths of grumpiness apart, we also share certain tastes in the accommodation department.

Apparently Roald Dahl would breakfast in his house and then retire to a shed at the bottom of the garden to do his writing.

I now live in a shed at the bottom of the patio of a Maltese Countess' rather palatial house here in Seville. Perhaps this needs a bit of clarification. I am renting a granny flat (perhaps that should be potential grandpappy flat!) from a very good friend of mine. 

And a jolly good flat it is too. I have WiFi, a bathroom and bed-sitting room. It is all very snug and has met with the full approval of my youngest daughter who is dying to stay over one weekend.

I have always had a soft spot for sheds at the bottom of the garden. My mother bought me one for my 21st birthday and I loved sitting down there on rainy nights drinking tea, reading and listening to Radio 4. Now, over 30 years later I am able to repeat the experience. I am extremely fortunate. 

Thursday 1 November 2012

Guys and Dolls - a Quick Gripe

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, bulls and cows, boars and sows, and a long etcetera.

As is probably quite obvious, I am an avid listener of BBC Radio 4. When I was younger - a lot younger - I imagined that R4 was a station for crusty old colonels, probably listening in from Cheltenham or Tunbridge Wells who, when not listening to the radio, were snapping off letters to the Times or Telegraph bemoaning the inevitable decline of our nation's standards since the loss of Empire and the disappearance of its culture under a tidal wave of American products, idioms, ideas etc.

Habitual listening to R4, however, soon disabused me of the above image but now it turns out that it is I who is becoming crusty and scandalised by some of R4's content. Not a lot of content, I admit, but the following grates:

Why oh why do so many people insist on talking about males and females?

What is wrong with those completely acceptable words man and woman?

Obviously I have no complaints if we are using the words male and female as adjectives. "Female bank robber" or "male model" for example are fine, but sentences such as "two males were seen running away from the scene" or "if you are a female, then..." are, in my opinion, plain ridiculous.

Man and woman can only be used to refer to humans. Have you ever heard of a "man toad", for instance? Or a "woman fish"? No. Obviously not. Animals are male or female. People are men and women. Is this political correctness gone mad? Would we rather compare ourselves to animals, fish or plants than to other members of our own species?

Please in your own writings and speech, try to avoid the use of male and female and use the proper nouns man and woman. There is absolutely nothing wrong with these two words.

Wednesday 31 October 2012

The Hairy Bikers

mumsnet
The Hairy Bikers
This is probably one of my favourite TV programmes. The BBC's Hairy Bikers is one in a long line of cooking duos, but for me the Bikers have something special.


Firstly there is the chemistry Between David Meyers and Simon King that turns the programmes into documentaries not about food but about their own relationship. For me, the recipes, which, incidentally work first time, somehow occupy a secondary place in the whole development of the programme. It is the action and the interaction of the Bikers which really fascinates me.

Indeed, each programme is a buddy movie and a road movie rolled into one - with the particularly British twist of attention to small, quirky details and larger-than-life  quirky individuals interviewed in their kitchens, shops or farms. It is completely absorbing.

Perhaps the Hairy Bikers is an illustration of what the BBC does best - present a somewhat idealised view of Britain to the British.

For me, an ex-pat yearning to return to GB, idealised Britain is a mixture of quirkiness, friendship, interesting individuals and neighbourliness. Please note I say idealised because obviously this picture is not 100% true. But hey, who has ever let the truth stand in the way of a good story? Caricatures are always based on an underlying truth and for me the Hairy Bikers present us with a vision of this truth.

The same can also be said, I feel, of Michael Portillo's Great British Railway Journeys. And long may such programmes grace the airwaves. We learn more about our own country. We learn more about ourselves.

Monday 29 October 2012

Dubbed Films

Having lived in Spain for over 20 years, I have become used to seeing films that have been dubbed into Spanish. In many other countries they are merely subtitled which is cheaper and arguably better in artistic and language-learning terms.

However, nothing can detract from the fact that the dubbing is excellent; the lip-synch is perfect, not like when it is done from another language into English. Given the fact that English is a far more concentrated language which can communicate more in far less syllables, this is no mean feat. Very often in Spanish-dubbed films  the voices are also almost identical.[1]

Yet I do have some gripes. The first is that a lot of background noise is lost so that voices do not change according to location. An exaggeration, but a fairly good illustration, would be that actors sound the same in an echoing tunnel as in a small bedroom with lots of soft furnishings.

Gripe number two is that if a character sings a song or a nursery rhyme, it is translated literally and the poor dubbing actor has to sing non-rhyming blank verse with more syllables than in the original and shoehorn it into the original music. Why not simply use a Spanish song or nursery rhyme with the same subject matter? Now, it seems, many dubbing studios are beginning to realise that they have to do something and so they leave the original actor's voice singing on the sound track or the dubbing actor sings the original song.  

Gripe three is a lack of quality control in the translation. Usually the translation is quite good, but occasionally an idiom escapes the translator. In Spanish to have cold feet simply means that your feet have a lower temperature than the rest of your body. A rather silly question for one bank robber in LA to ask another just before entering the First National, I feel.

I am a great fan of TDT and DVDs. All I have to do is press the corresponding button or make the correct choice and I can enjoy the film in English. At last.




[1] In most cases. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Clint Eastwood and, other tough guys all have the same deep voice in Spanish – the same voice that advertises latex mattresses on TV. It can be rather unsettling listening to hear the Terminator falling irretrievably in love with Merryl Streep in the Bridges of Madison County and then during the break hear him trying to sell you a mattress!

Friday 26 October 2012

AUNTIE KNOWS BEST

I have always opined that if souls and heaven existed and if countries could have souls, Britain's soul would have no problem entering the kingdom of heaven on the strength of the BBC.

Now, however, with all the scandal surrounding Jimmy Savile many have begun to doubt the BBC's integrity. How could the organisation allow such depravity to continue for so long, especially since anyone with half a brain could have seen that there was something not quite kosher about Jimmy Savile? Isn't it just the tineist bit suspicious that he didn't have a steady partner, male,  female or even animal?

I must admit, that when I listen to Radio 4's 'Feedback' the self-importance and sanctimonious attitude of some programme-makers is breathtaking and I would not be in the least surprised to discover that these blinkered people who only see what they want to see and hear what they want to hear (plaudits) could explain away the depravities of this yodelling clown., mentioning his good works etc.

I have always regarded public demonstrations of lavish charity to be somewhat suspicious. For example, if I were in a position to set up charitable trusts, I would never endow them with my name. Surely the satisfaction to be gained from charitable acts is not to see one's name in the paper, but to see the name of those helped there.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but Savile was such a creep that he should have been rumbled decades ago. Unfortunately he wasn't.

However, child abuse and paedophilia - indeed all sexual perversions -  have been with us since the beginning of time so, in historical terms, it is really no surprise when such a scandal erupts. At least now the scandal does indeed erupt and is not smothered. At this very moment there will be others across the globe in positions of power practising equally despicable acts. With any luck they will be caught and punished a bit sooner than the unfortunately late Jimmy Savile.

Now of course we have to wait to find out exactly who else was involved, and how such abominable acts could continue for so long.

However, we must also acknowledge the fact that finally the truth came out and that the BBC is facing up to its responsibilities. Neither must we forget that although one BBC programme pulled its report on Savile's evil deeds, another, Panorama, has aired its investigations - this in itself is a tribute to the organisation's ability to preserve independence between different producers and programmes and to its Board's non-inteference in editorial decisions.

How many other broadcasting organisations would be able to publicise their own disastrous failings in so much detail and without seeking to justify itself or gloss over the issue? Not many, I would venture.

Auntie Beeb may not always know best; neither may she always act correctly but in the end, she always lives up to her own high standards even if she is rocked by unsavoury and, by any standards, despicably unacceptable behaviour on the part of some of her shadier "celebrities".


Tuesday 23 October 2012

GOOD FRIENDSHIP AND A PLATE OF BEANS AND RICE



Ever since I heard on BBC Radio 4’s book of the week and subsequently read Paul Richardson’s Cornucopia: A Gastronomic Tour of Britain I have been fascinated by the differences in regional cooking throughout Britain. This incidentally has also made me a great fan of the Hairy Bikers about whom I want to blog on a not too-distant date.

One of the most fascinating recipes in Cornucopia is the recipe for baked beans, a dish that is not as humble as the tinned beans we all love and enjoy may lead us to think. They have a fascinating history and I would recommend you read the book and make them yourself, but be warned – it is a long process but well worth the effort

Tinned baked beans are, I think, the ultimate comfort food and a cheap, filling fast snack.

This morning, a good friend invited me to his home for lunch –  beans and rice. Is there anything more enjoyable than an unexpected invitation to a home-cooked lunch with a friend? This is probably one of life’s greatest small pleasures.

So, after work, I took the train up to his home where a fragrant pan of beans was simmering slowly on the hob. They were delicious and simple. The recipe?
1lb of black Tolosa beans, an onion, a roughly-chopped carrot and a dash of olive oil cooked in the pressure cooker and served with Basmati rice.

Usually a Spanish bean stew includes a large piece of chorizo, a slab of belly pork and perhaps a black pudding and is a filling, delicious dish. You can find an example of such a full-bodied meaty recipe here. However, my friend’s beans were completely meat-free. I am a dyed-in-the-wool carnivore, but they were exquisite.

The warmth of friendship, intelligent conversation and a good, filling hot autumnal meal. Can anything really better that?

Monday 22 October 2012

SELF-CENSORSHIP


Is self-censorship a good thing or a bad thing? Or both, depending on the context?

Probably in our relativistic world, the last option is the best course. We might censor ourselves so as not to upset people we love with opinions that might be hurtful. We have all received from proud children crayon-drawn houses with a chimney jutting out from the roof at an angle instead of rearing perpendicularly as it should. What good would it do to point out to the drawing’s creator that chimneys are not like that, and next time, please remember to draw it properly? Would we be adding to the sum of human knowledge and achievement? Are there any adults who you know (conceptual artists and challenging architects apart) who continue in this error?

So, what would this truth achieve? An upset child who will think twice next time before offering you the fruit of its considerable labours. You lose.

We might self-censor when faced with authority in the form of our boss, royalty or an overbearing policeman.

We might self-censor in order to avoid friction with friends, neighbours, colleagues etc.

We might self-censor and make a short-term concession for a long-term gain.

Or simply we might self-censor for our own existential good. Usually I spend part of my weekend writing the posts that I will later put on my blog. These posts are inspired by what has happened to me during the week.  This week has been particularly nasty at work. I wrote 3 posts and I am surprised that the computer screen did not melt due to the vitriol with which the posts dripped.

Vituperation was not my aim when starting this blog and so they were deleted forthwith. This, therefore, is my short meditation on self-censorship. Perhaps it is not always a good thing. On the other hand, when all that a non-censored barrage will do is engender non-productive negativity amongst both writer and reader, the best thing to do is go out and garden – which is exactly what I did.

Friday 19 October 2012

CHACUN DOIT CULTIVER SON JARDIN




If memory serves me right, thus ends Voltaire’s ‘Candide’. In general terms, I tend to avoid philosophical thinkers like the Peste[1], or plague. Here, however, Voltaire has hit the nail on the head if your aim in life is to live as happily as possible – and perhaps with only one buttock – both on an individual level and with those who surround you

I take Voltaire’s garden to mean all that surrounds the central core of your life. If that core is your home and you and yours, then the garden is everyone and everything else that revolve around this precious nucleus.

In terms of real estate, maybe your physical garden is nothing more than a window box; perhaps it is 300 acres or more of parkland. No matter. Everything contained therein is your concern and responsibility. If properly maintained, your garden will bring beauty and happiness to you and those who see it and who know how to appreciate it.

As in your garden, it is in life. Once the decision has been taken, weeds and infestations must be ruthelessly dealt with – even if it means sacrificing a once-favourite plant to save the rest. Such a sacrifice may be a wrench as we pull it from the earth, but long-term, both its surroundings and your own peace of mind will be the better for it.

Obviously, I am not advocating the wholesale permanent eradication of annoying neighbours, night-barking dogs, workmates etc., although some gun-owning lunatics, mainly American, do indeed regard this as a feasible, indeed logical, option. Before acting we should be careful. We all fall into someone else’s ‘needs-to-be eradicated’ category. As Donne said, ‘no man is an island’. What I am advocating is that we should not hesitate to grasp the literal and figurative nettle when it starts to sting. At least we should try as much as possible to distance ourselves from sources of frustration and anger. For our good and for that of the source.

Quite soon I hope to start my yearly tidy-up of the land[2] behind my house. This year I plan to plant some espalier fruit trees along the wall. Quinces are quite thorny and prevent neighbour’s dogs (and even neighbours!) from entering.

I will also be lopping off of some branches from my beloved almond trees. Perhaps I might also chop down an olive tree prior to planting a cherry in its place. These decisions are not taken lightly. No such decision should be. Trees are living beings and should be respected. It is, however, great fun when the cutting and chopping is over and feeding the waste into the shredder for composting begins.

Obviously the larger logs are cut into 2-foot lengths and dried for the fire. Olive wood burns beautifully due to the fact that the whole tree is full of oil. Sometimes beautiful patterns in the grain emerge and can be quite captivating. I often wonder if I could put this wood to better use. Ironically, I sarcasticaly suggested in an earlier post , that maybe all degree courses should include a carpentry course. Now, as I think of it, it does not seem such a silly idea. Hoist by my own petard!

When the rains finally fall consistently and the brown earth begins to turn green - even as the trees shed their leaves, I will upload some photos of my efforts.




[1] A-Level French; where would we be without it?
[2] It sounds grand, but is in fact about the same size as a good back garden in an English semi. Garden, however, does not describe the steep, wild, rocky piece of mountain that is my – literal – lot.

Monday 15 October 2012

A Dedicated Follower of Fashion


or Fashion Victims


… and I am not talking about clothes. Would that I were.

Where I work, our glorious leaders have suddenly discovered the Internet. And with devastating results. Obviously, we have been sending emails, using Word documents and Powerpoint presentations for years – some of us have even ventured into the blogosphere!

But first let us go back in time. Anyone who has had the pleasure of discovering Silvertiger’s blog and has taken the time to browse his blogroll would have found this blog on Victoriana and the quack remedies using the miraculous power of electricity and/or radiation.

We might laugh complacently at the inventiveness of the charlatans and the ignorance of their victims now - how could they have been so dumb to believe such arrant nonsense? But take pause. We are not that far away from our credulous ancestors; today any e- or i- thing[1] is the solution to all of our problems – at the very least.

In the Higher Educational Establishment where I work, the section to which I belong has had e-learning suddenly thrust upon us by a Technofascist and a Technofashionista. Obviously, this does not affect their particular sections, but hey, what does that matter? The whole organisation is suddenly technologically cutting-edge. Indeed in a rather inaccurate newspaper interview on the changes in our Section – an interview in which the Section did not participate and did not even know about until it was published – we learnt that the reduction of face time with our lower-level students (from 3h. per week to 1h. – this also obviously means that the number of groups we “teach” has been multiplied by 3) would actually result in a closer relationship with them! 

So how did this happen?

It was decided for us by other Sections which have a fraction of our students and a relatively easy time of it. One Section, for example, has one teacher and 18 students divided over 4 academic years with 18 hours’ teaching time divided among 4 groups. Our Section has 23 teachers and over 7,000 students. As our American cousins say, do the Math and imagine what that particular teacher does during the 3-month exam period. Seville, by the way is only a short drive away from the beaches of Cádiz, Huelva and Málaga.

To prepare for this shift (or should I have omitted the “f” in the last word?), we have had a single 15-hour course given to the whole section (with wildly varying IT skills amongst us) over 2.5 days. This supposedly taught us the basics of how to lay out  documents and upload an online course. We have now got 3 weeks to design online courses for two different levels.

Not one of us is a course designer.

We are teachers.

And our students?

How did our ancestors learn languages before the Internet? 
One of the great enigmas of pre-history. Image courtesy of
ALAMY 
Thanks to the political machinations of our Department’s Technofascist and Technofashionista, and to the Higher Powers that Be, our students will be deprived of valuable class time and will supposedly have to make up for it with personal study.

It is amazing how many lives egocentricity, blind ambition and blind faith in the latest panacea can blight – even in a supposedly democratic educational institution.

I truly feel for our Section’s students who need to pass one of our level exams[2] in order to get their degree, whatever subject they are taking. There are already thousands – yes, thousands – of graduates in Seville who cannot get their degree certificate because they need to pass our (largely irrelevant) exam[3]. This is no doubt true for the rest of Spain as well. For our own students the task of passing our exams has just got harder, even though this particular Higher Educational Establishment can now boast of 3 "cutting-edge" online language courses[4].

On the subject of cutting edges, our students are soon going to find that their own Higher Educational Establishment’s administration has taken a hatchet to their future in order to satisfy its own short-term aims.    





[1] Perhaps we should pause a moment to consider this: for centuries Sevillian businesses and organisations have named themselves after different Saints, statues of Christ or of his mother, probably trying to invoke their divine intervention and protection.
Then came the 1992 Expo in Seville. The result? During the late 80s all new businesses were Expo- this or Expo- that. In the first decade of the new century, they plumped for  Euro-prefixed names. Now, given the fact that neither divinities, the Expo or even the EU (don’t make me laugh!) can drag this backward city out of its wilfully egocentric mire, it seems they are futtocking around with half-baked ideas, invoking the i- or e- shibboleths for protection instead of actually facing up to the painful truths and doing something to solve the problem.

[2] A condition imposed by the Bologna Process on all of those countries foolish enough to sign up to it. Thankfully this is one mess that Britain kept well away from, while still remaining within the EHEA, or European Higher Education Area. The EU has a lot to answer for.

[3] Learning foreign languages is all fine and dandy, but I think that to demand a certain level (B1, whatever that means) of a foreign language to pass a degree in an unrelated subject is completely ridiculous; why not demand a certain level in carpentry, for example? Are the signatories to this ridiculous treaty really going to deprive their countries and the rest of the world of skilled lawyers, engineers, Maths teachers, doctors etc., just because they can’t speak a foreign language??? Would you suddenly start to question your dentist’s ability to give you a filling if you discovered he had failed his German GCSE? How many official foreign language certifications did Einstein, Alexander Fleming or Steve Jobs have? Indeed, to shape the present and the future of our Society how many did they need?

[4] One of which (not from our Section I hasten to add! And in spite of a much longer gestation period) is plagued with conceptual incongruities, grammatical errors and spelling mistakes from the initial page onwards. It is downright embarrassing, though a good laugh for those outside this particular Establishment.

Wednesday 10 October 2012

Yesterday I saw a Viking




Yesterday I saw a Viking in the last place you would reasonably expect to find one.

But first let me set the scene. For the last five years, my old motorbike has been languishing in a garage. Every now and then we have started it up and driven it up and down the road to give it some exercise – blow away the cobwebs I believe is the technical terms. Apart from that, it has been hibernating the uneasy sleep of motorbikes that are too valuable to scrap, too old to sell and too slow to excite.

In a crisis however, things change so my old bike is now, funnily enough, more desirable on the second-hand market. The time came to invest some cash in getting it reasonably ready for market. The bike however decided otherwise, wanting to continue its hibernation and dreams of yesteryear by refusing to start – even after installing a new, fully charged battery.

The solution lay in phoning the insurance recovery service and getting a tow truck around to take it to El Pirata, my local, 100% trustworthy, motorbike repair shop, despite the bucaneering name.

So along came the tow truck and out jumped a muscular blond mechanic with Celtic tattos on his arms. Blond Spaniards are not as rare as you might think – both the Norsemen and the blond Berbers came to Andalusia in quite large numbers about 1,000 years ago.

After the customary greetings, comments on the good and bad points of my model of motorbike etc. the mechanic wheeled the 150-kg bike up the steep incline out of the underground garage as if wheeling a pushbike along a level road. He then pushed it onto the extended bed of the tow truck and holding it unsecured with one hand pushed the remote control he held in the other. The extended bed began to rise none too smoothly back onto the chassis of the tow truck and it was then that I saw the Viking.

He stood holding the bike unconcernedly in one hand and the remote control in the other while looking forward, a mechanic transformed magically into an imperturbable Norseman. Standing at the bucking prow and holding one of his longboat’s shrouds in one hand and his battleaxe in the other, the Viking gazed unconcernedly forward as his ship breasted the waves, bound for conquests new.

Eventually, the tow truck bed crested the zenith and began its descent. The prow of the longboat slowly settled and the dragon ship started to wallow on a completely flat sea. The Norseman left his lonely post in the prow and the mechanic took shape again. Suddenly I was back in 2012, the waves and spindrift replaced by the heat and humidity of an autumnal Sevillian afternoon

The motorbike safely secured, the mechanic jumped down (once again the ghost of the Viking accompanied him, doing the same but jumping from the longboat onto the unsuspecting sands of a new conquest), asked me to sign all the necessary documentation and set course for El Pirata.

Never would I have imagined that something so mundane as an old, recalcitrant motorbike could transport me to the heaving waves of the North Sea 1000 AD and enable me to witness an actual Viking land from his dragon boat, tie down a prisoner and then carry her off to a Pirate’s lair.

Where will it the take its rider when it works?