Saturday, January 29, 2011

Papel

Today I went in search of very special paper goods: a Frida Kahlo paper doll book, and some Charley Harper stationery.

First stop, El Papel Protagonista. The what? Well papel can mean role, as well as paper, and protagonista, well, you know...

papel sustantivo masculino
1 paper
papel de aluminio, aluminium foil
papel de fumar, cigarette paper
papel de lija, sandpaper
papel higiénico, toilet paper
Fin papel moneda, paper money, banknotes pl; papel pintado,wallpaper
2 (trozo, hoja) piece o sheet of paper
3 (documento) document
4 Cine Teat role, part *
5 (función, cometido) role
6 papeles, (documentación) documents, identification papers
♦ Locuciones: perder los papeles, to lose one's self-control, ser algo papel mojado, to be useless

OK?

So, a friend invited us to a dinner party last weekend, inspired by The Frida Kahlo Cookbook. No, I didn't know that she could cook either, and in fact, it turns out that she couldn't, until her husband's ex-wife taught her... Imagine the publisher's dilemma - The Lupe Who(?) Cookbook or... Anyway, mine hostess cooked a delicious meal, which included chicken in a piquant mole sauce (as in guaca-, not Badger, Ratty, Toad & -), chicken in chocolate sauce (uhuh), savoury rice, and a black bean and tofu salad suffused with coriander and swirled in a deep glass bowl.

Delicious. One chicken would have been enough, but everyone wanted some of both! So if you're a fan of Mexican food or Frida Kahlo, and you see Frida's Fiestas: Recipes and Reminiscences of Life with Frida Kahlo in the bookshop, go right ahead.

And - another guest brought the perfect gift for mine hostess. This,

from El Papel Protagonista, in Plaza Santa María Soledad Torres Acosta, 2 (yes, all one address) opposite Callao. It is also the perfect gift for another friend, so off I went. The tiniest shop, with the most delectable selection of gift wrap - both paper and fabric - and stationery that you could imagine. And the owner really looks after his customers. Love it! (And the Chinese shop next door is worth a visit too - wood carvings as well as kitsch, and friendly, helpful staff.)

If you like paperdolls, here be treasure.

Next stop, Panta Rhei, an excellent graphic arts bookshop with, unfortunately a half-broken website. On c/ Hernán Cortés, between c/ Hortaleza and c/ Fuencarral. This shop is fantastic, with a basement level too. Lots of good stuff, and, again, helpful staff.

I didn't get my Charley Harper, though they had a very good selection, because it came to a choice between these,

and this!

Woof!

Friday, January 28, 2011

Rain on the Paseo de la Castellana 08.01.11

También la lluvia

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Sleep

I'm tired this week. Good, relaxing, tuned out weekend - dinner with friends, a couple of small special exhibitions, sleeping in til 11 Saturday and Sunday. Woke refreshed on Monday morning. 8pm Monday, dead person impression. What?

Tuesday. Non-stop. Good, satisfying non-stop. Colleague became absolute favourite colleague of all time by putting a counter-coma cup of tea in front of me at 7pm so I could go celebrate my husband's sensational pie-making. Very very nice evening chatting with interesting people I rarely get to talk to.Bed just after 11.

So tonight - Wednesday - long, tricky day, complicated stuff ending in work emails from home, prepping tomorrow's 8am class. Staggered off to bed towards 11. Goodnight.

1am - awake.
One important omission remembered - go brain, contingency plan, details.
One brainwave - go brain, big picture, details.
And it's 1.45....... 1.55...... alarm set for 6.45.
Dog tired. Why am I awake?!
Sheesh!
And it's 2.04.....5.....

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Broke-Ass Grouch Tells It Like It Is

A friend posted this link on Facebook:

Memo to ecovores: It’s cheaper being green

Listen up, locavores, opportunivores, dumpster-diving fermentation fetishists, and Dave Matthews Band fans: A great many of us live by the same ecologically sound principles that you do. We, however, are not doing so because we nurture an abiding desire to "create choices" for ourselves or to "live intentionally." We don't have any more than a passing interest in "sustaining biodiversity." We are known as poor people. (Follow link to the rest of this article.)

I'll have to go and look up the people this middle-aged, educated, professional, unemployed divorced mother of three addresses in her first sentence, but I do get her point. Not to mention admiring her hard won, take-no-prisoners, attitude.

This was my comment:

Ouch. There was a feature on Gente (Spanish state TV vox pop programme) last week on "ángeles de los sin techo" an outreach team from a religious order that goes out nights, offering hot drinks to homeless people to give them some defence againt the night temperatures.

One of the brothers said that some of the people they see are architects and engineers. A lot of my (ESL) students are architects and engineers, from undergraduates to people with 20 years' experience. They are unemployed, but forking out for intensive English courses to enhance their prospects of working in the US, the Middle East - wherever the opportunity might arise. This was us and a lot of our friends in the 90s recession. All things pass. BUT!!!

Mind you, my grandparents met in the US, where he (English) and she (French) had moved for new opportunities, and my parents and my mother- and father-in-law all moved to other parts of Britain because that was where the work was. And my generation and the one reaching adulthood now have grown up that we have choices - that we can be flexible and respond to change, reach for opportunities. But it's one thing to jump, quite another to be pushed. And to feel yourself pushed into a corner.

Still, all things do pass. And although (%(&$·%/(())!!!) it appears that they can bloody well come back again, I've discovered that it's true what they say: what doesn't kill you makes you strong. I'd add that what doesn't quite crush you teaches you about yourself and other people, and expands your understanding of life's possibilities, as well its pitfalls and your potential pratfalls. But by God it hurts at the time.

So my heart goes out to Susan Gregory Thomas, a.k.a. Broke-Ass Grouch, and her children; and to all the other people in a similar position, who thought they had done it right, and were secure, and could provide for themselves and their children, and are finding out how wrong they were. Or at least, that they need a whole new game plan, and another for back-up, dammit.

(Poem #1969)

The Word

 Down near the bottom

 of the crossed-out list
 of things you have to do today,
  between "green thread"
and "broccoli" you find
that you have penciled "sunlight."
   Resting on the page, the word
is as beautiful, it touches you
as if you had a friend
  and sunlight were a present
he had sent you from some place distant
as this morning -- to cheer you up,
   and to remind you that,
among your duties, pleasure
is a thing,
that also needs accomplishing
..........

 from The Word,

by Tony Hoagland

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Happy New Year

Not a wish, but a fact. ¡Qué bien!

Now then, Fate, God & Mammon, though not necessarily in that order.

Part the First

Last year was... interesting... For me, pivotal, I think. I'm a slow study, but I usually get there eventually. And now, I'd say I'm there. First year of rest of life. This year should be... interesting... !

Last year? Seven or eight months of sorrow, worry, frustration, anger and loss inextricably entwined with new certainties, closer relationships and budding contentment, lived in an atmosphere of deepening economic gloom and W.T.F?!?!?! social uncertainty. And it was a good year for the air industry too...

By the end of August, I'd quietly reached the point where I wouldn't touch a newspaper, period; or read any novel unless I'd read it before (ideally at least three times) and could therefore trust it to soothe - or unless it came in a reassuringly ChickLit candy-coloured jacket with an improbably thin and perky cartoon Twenty-Something nipping across the front with Betty Boo eyelashes, Cherry Lips lips and a designer carrier bag, blithely confident that her cut-out-perfect Jackie O bouffant hairdo would protect her if the huge, embossed alphabet-soup-style title and author's name dangling above her should tumble and fall - as if it possibly could!!

But October brought good things, fresh hopes, new energy. November did not disappoint. And December: December was wonderful. Perfect. Perfect! And now we've got a shiny new year to play with, and I feel so good about it. I would say, 'Bring it on!', but let's not tempt that stuff that goes around, just in case it decides to come around again.

Part Deux

I mean. 2010. How many grim events and developments can you actually fit into one year? Boom-time for examining entrails and planetary alignments, given that neither Jehovah nor Mammon have quite the cred they used to.

I'm leaning towards Zen by now, though this may be a symptom of advancing years. History presents several got-it-alls who arrived in their middle years, looked around and chucked it in (a variation on 'Turn on, tune in, drop out.', I reckon) for something less-is-more; or at least discovered a hole in their lives that wealth and power could not fill. (I don't think I've reached this stage yet!)

Even so, there's

Siddhārtha Gautama, the prince who founded Buddhism.

And Chandragupta Maurya and grandson Ashoka the Great, first emperors of a united India

with gratuitous photo of Shah Rukh Khan in the 2001 film. (Any excuse!)

Ooh! And Spain's own Felipe II. Only known in Britain as Mary Tudor's husband Philip,

this is the man who had El Escorial built - palace and monastery.

Somewhere to get away from it all.

I'd love to believe in God and an afterlife, especially now that people I love have started popping their clogs like there's no tomorrow - which unfortunately, I believe... sigh...

However, I've always liked this poem by Arthur Hugh Clough,

"THERE is no God," the wicked saith,

"And truly it's a blessing, For what He might have done with us

It's better only guessing."

"There is no God," a youngster thinks,

"or really, if there may be, He surely did not mean a man

Always to be a baby."

"There is no God, or if there is,"

The tradesman thinks, "'twere funny If He should take it ill in me

To make a little money."

"Whether there be," the rich man says,

"It matters very little, For I and mine, thank somebody,

Are not in want of victual."

Some others, also, to themselves,

Who scarce so much as doubt it, Think there is none, when they are well,

And do not think about it.

But country folks who live beneath

The shadow of the steeple; The parson and the parson's wife,

And mostly married people;

Youths green and happy in first love,

So thankful for illusion; And men caught out in what the world

Calls guilt, in first confusion;

And almost everyone when age,

Disease, or sorrows strike him, Inclines to think there is a God,

Or something very like Him.

Ah well. Just have to wait and see, I suppose.

Of course, the likes of Ashoka and the Buddha are probably outnumbered by The Men Who Would Be King, Emperor or President for Life. And women who want shoes! shoes! shoes! (or ingots) and are prepared to take the rough:

Mr Philippines 1965-86 and Mr Tunisia 1987-2011

for the smooth:

Anyway, although I like shoes almost as much as the next girl, and wouldn't object to having a couple of ingots in the bank, 2010 was a year made for stocktaking, and I did. And 2011 shows signs of being a year for building, and possibly a little light tree-shaking. At least in our small corner of the multiverse.

P.S.

In his (1966) speech Leary stated:

“

Like every great religion of the past we seek to find the divinity within and to express this revelation in a life of glorification and the worship of God. These ancient goals we define in the metaphor of the present — turn on, tune in, drop out.

”

Leary later explained in his 1983 autobiography Flashbacks,

“

'Turn on' meant go within to activate your neural and genetic equipment. Become sensitive to the many and various levels of consciousness and the specific triggers that engage them. Drugs were one way to accomplish this end. 'Tune in' meant interact harmoniously with the world around you - externalize, materialize, express your new internal perspectives. 'Drop out' suggested an elective, selective, graceful process of detachment from involuntary or unconscious commitments. 'Drop Out' meant self-reliance, a discovery of one's singularity, a commitment to mobility, choice, and change. Unhappily my explanations of this sequence of personal development were often misinterpreted to mean 'Get stoned and abandon all constructive activity'.

So now we know!

P.S. I just came across an old blog post, from September 2008. What a difference a couple of years make.

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Going, going, go-

I came across this on Facebook.

And I decided to share it, and leave a comment. Which stretched to 422 words. Which is a little over what FB comment fields can accommodate.

So here I go again. Grr.

Sixth-formers trying to hold on to the possibility of a university education. These people are smart enough to recognise that they're being lined up to be Britain's Lost Generation. Let's see, now...

So your parents have brought you up, made sure you got an education, forked out for school uniforms and school trips, been to the parents' meetings after work, nagged you about homework, and paid all their contributions to the national purse.

Or they haven't, or your school's in special measures, or something else, and it's all down to you - perhaps it's always been down to you.

And you've done all the studying, coursework, homework and revision to get the right grades at GCSE, in order to spend two years slogging at A Level or IB coursework, shifting inhuman levels of homework, and trying to fit in community service and creative or sporting activities because university admissions personnel are looking for 'rounded' character. Oh, and have a life.

Or you've gone the long way round, and worked damn hard to catch up on lost opportunity through evening classes; which meant fitting most of the above around the day job, or the family.

And you've always known that there are no student grants anymore, so going to university will mean overdrafts, credit card debt, part-time jobs and summer jobs, and having that debt hanging over you until, finally, just when you're earning enough to be able to afford decent accommodation, have a family of your own and start saving for your own children's future, or get on a pension scheme for your retirement, like the responsible, self-reliant citizen you will one day be, and which Conservatives so admire - you become liable for the repayment of your university debt. Maybe you hadn't realised all of that, but it's coming to you now...

You almost wonder if it's worth it.

And NOW they put the fees up.

Your parents would love to help, but they're already fully stretched. Oh, and the company's cutting back, and the public sector's shedding surplus staff, so we're very sorry but.....

And jobs for schoolkids with no qualifications or experience...?

And they're 'rationalising' benefits to help you build moral fibre and a Big Society.

These poor kids. When the slog pays off, first they've got the great British press declaring that A Levels aren't worth the paper they're written on (Well they have to find something to write about in August.).

Then they've got the great British government gleefully (.... ok, as a nod towards objective analysis, I'm prepared to moderate that to ...... complacently... smugly... Sod it! I remember the front benchers' response to the October Budget - MAKE THAT "GLEEFULLY"!!!!!) yanking up the fees and dangling a university education out of reach of anyone who hasn't got a foursquare stack of banknotes to stand on.

We know that Oxford and Cambridge, centres of excellence and prestige, and longtime bastions of the elite, are working to meet the previous government's targets regarding the percentage of admissions from state schools. Working, in fact, to identify and encourage candidates who have overcome disadvantage and deprivation to get as far as the Oxbridge admissions process.

BUT.

How many people from average-income families, boys and girls who have the talent and character to benefit from higher education, and later pour their knowledge and skills back into the national exchequer, will now look at a university place - anywhere - the way many of my parents' generation did: It's a wonderful idea, but not for the likes of us.

Hilaire Belloc (a century ago):

The accursed power which stands on Privilege

(And goes with Women, and Champagne and Bridge)

Broke and Democracy resumed her reign:

(Which goes with Bridge, and Women and Champagne)

So the students are angry? And sixth-formers are getting the bus down to London?

Well, DUH!!

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Español y yo

LO QUE ME GUSTA

lino lana hilo seda
mas o menos sea que sea
de tal palo tal astilla
albericoque almohadilla
sacapuntas maravillas
golondrina lavavajillas
amapola albahaca
azucena waka waka
sol y sombra, peral hoz
alcachofa albornoz
nuez moscado mariposa
guapa mono mas hermosa
ruiseñor frambuesa cardo
¡madre! ¡tio! dar un bledo
oropelo gorrión
terciopelo algodón
poco fresquito algo chiquitito pastorcito muy bonito
¡oye! ¡mira! ¡ole! ¡toma!
¡mas que nunca!
¡no es una broma!
echar de menos echar un vistazo
marido cariño besito abrazo

LO QUE NECESITO

Presente de indicativo
Estudio estudias estudia estudiamos estudiáis estudian
Aprendo aprendes aprende aprendemos aprendéis aprenden
Hago deberes haces deberes hacemos deberes hacéis deberes hacen deberes

Imperfecto de indicativo
Escuchaba escuchabas escuchaba escuchábamos escuchabais escuchaban
Leía leías leía leíamos leíais leían
Escribía escribías escribíamos escribíais escribían

Pretérito de indicativo
Lloré lloraste lloró lloramos llorasteis lloraron
Entendí entendiste entendió entendimos entendisteis entendieron
Sufrí sufriste sufrió sufrimos sufristeis sufrieron

Presente perfecto de indicativo
Me he preocupado te has preocupado se ha preocupado nos hemos preocupado os habéis preocupado se han preocupado
He tenido éxito has tenido éxito ha tenido éxito hemos tenido éxito habéis tenido éxito han tenido éxito
He persistido has persistido ha persistido hemos persistido habéis persistido han persistido

Futuro de indicativo
Sudaré sudarás sudará sudaremos sudaréis sudarán
Seguiré seguirás seguirá seguiremos seguiréis seguirán
Me divertiré te divertirás se divertirá nos divertiremos os divertiréis se divertirán

Futuro perfecto de indicativo
Habré llegado a ser bilingüe habrás llegado a ser bilingüe habrá llegado a ser bilingüe habremos llegado a ser bilingüe habréis llegado a ser bilingüe habrán llegado a ser bilingüe
Habré solido ir a intercambios habrás solido ir a intercambios habrá solido ir a intercambios habremos salido ir a intercambios habréis salido ir a intercambios habrán solido ir a intercambios

Pluscuamperfecto de indicativo
Había practicado habías practicado había practicado habíamos practicado habíais practicado habían practicado
Había sabido habías sabido había sabido habíamos sabido habíais sabido habían sabido
Me había sentido como en casa te habías sentido como en casa se había como en casa nos habíamos como en casa os habíais como en casa se habían como en casa

Condicional
Escucharía la radio escucharías la radio escucharía la radio escucharíamos la radio escucharíais la radio escucharían la radio
Vería películas verías películas vería películas veríamos películas veríais películas verían películas

Condicional perfecto
Habría aprovechado museos habrías aprovechado museos habría aprovechado museos habríamos aprovechado museos habríais aprovechado museos habrían aprovechado museos

Presente de subjuntivo
Me encuentre con mucha gente te encuentres con mucha gente se encuentre con mucha gente nos encontremos con mucha gente os encontréis con mucha gente se encuentren con mucha gente
Conozca nuevos amigos conozcas nuevos amigos conozca nuevos amigos conozcamos nuevos amigos conozcáis nuevos amigos conozcan nuevos amigos
Viva feliz para siempre vivas feliz para siempre viva feliz para siempre vivamos felices para siempre viváis felices para siempre vivan felices para siempre

¡Basta ya!

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Chris Wood - One in a Million. Shrewsbury Folk Festival 2009

One for my little brother.

Find Chris Wood's site and album here.

And he's playing Bristol.

27 Nov 2010

Chris Wood

Colston Hall

13 Colston Street, BRISTOL, BS1 5AR.

0117 9223686

www.colstonhall.org

'nuff sed.

Oh, alright then:

Flawless.

Joel Burns tells gay teens "it gets better"

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

They are not dead,
Who leave us this great heritage of remembering joy.
They still live in our hearts,
In the happiness we knew, in the dreams we shared.
They still breathe,
In the lingering fragrance, windblown, from their favourite flowers.
They still smile in the moonlight’s silver,
And laugh in the sunlight’s sparking gold.
They still speak in the echoes of the words we’ve heard them say again and again.
They still move,
In the rhythm of waving grasses, in the dance of the tossing branches.
They are not dead;
Their memory is warm in our hearts, comfort in our sorrow.
They are not apart from us, but part of us,
For love is eternal,
And those we love shall be with us throughout all eternity.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Not making a complete hash of it.

Been there. Done that. Not dead. Who'dathunkit?

Hard going at times, I probably ran a third of the route, and walked the rest, I've got a sore bit where my keys rubbed in my pocket, and my thigh muscles now only work going up stairs, not down, but I had such a good time!

Sir Sir James had emailed me directions for meeting up, round the corner from La Latina Metro at 12.30. There were 23 of us today, including four complete newbies (me, an American girl, a Belgian and a Finn) and Black Box, an airline pilot on a 22 hour lay-over, whose solution to jetlag is to outrun it - in company!

We all stood around for a while, introducing ourselves, chatting, and paying for the pre-arranged beer stops. Ever Ready and S----F--- (I'm not writing that down!), the two hares, had already laid a flour trail and organised water bottles, the beer stops, and coolboxes of ice-packed refreshments for the final rendezvous.

Chatting with Kingfisher, El Sordo and Black Box, it became clear this really was what it said on the box: a group of Drinkers With a Running Problem; so even if I wasn't much of a drinker, the fact that I wasn't much of a runner either wasn't anything to worry about.

Not Half Bad called for a circle, explained the basics, drew floury hieroglyphs on the ground for the edification of the newbies, and mentioned the sweepers, who would make encouraging noises for stragglers, or at least point them in the right direction if all the other hounds disappeared around a corner.

And we were off! To the amusement and bemusement of all the normal people who have more sense than to run.

on a Sunday.

through the streets.

of Madrid.

(What's the español for duh....?)

We went from La Latina Metro, along Plaza La Cebada (First beer stop? Already?! Don't like beer. Had a coke. With ICE.), across c/ Bailen, through the Daliada (Dahlia Garden), over a fence (!) and down a slope before heading south towards the Vicente Caldéron Stadium (O.K. next beer stop? Yes? No. Fneeargh...), then doubling back along the new river boulevard (If only those trees were a little taller and leafier........), crossing a footbridge near the Puente de Segovia to reach - yes! the Second Beer Stop! (Water. With ICE.).

Then across the Glorieta del Puente de Segovia, where we ignored a shady street, milled around looking for flour spots near the treeless river walkway, decided to cross the main bridge, got to the far side, kept going, realised our mistake, and doubled back to re-cross the Manzanares by another footbridge.

In the meantime, however, the original FRBs* had disappeared into Parque de Atenas on a false trail.

(*Front Running B=%?"/*s - Occasional over-zealous displays of motivation and seriousness are to be expected, but repeated lapses may result in down-downs)

The disappearance of the FRBs had put us BRBs (Back Running B=%?"/*s) (the aged / infirm / slackers) in the lead. Suddenly, I was an FRB! Wow! The feel of the wind in my sweat, the gravel in my lungs, the seams in my jeans......... Thank goodness Black Box and co overtook us in under five minutes, and restored the natural order as we continued north, and into Casa de Campo.

And then we ran through Casa de Campo (actually, some of us just walked, on account of the lovely surroundings and being knackered) and up under the Teleférico to the next BEER STOP.

Yay!!

O.K. So I had another Coke, but I swear two of those could kill you: you'd surely inflate as you got hotter, until you floated off like a weather balloon or just popped.

And thus it was, one hash did what years of encouragement couldn't: I had a sip of Slippery When Wet's clara and decided it wasn't... that... bad...

Don't anybody mention shandy: clara is not the same thing at all! (Lord, next thing you know, I'll be singing ribald doggerel and knocking back penalty down-downs in public parks. Er, actually.... now you come to mention it...) Anyway - not the same thing at all!

Next, across an iron footbridge - that bounced under foot - over the M30, through La Rosaleda, (probably the last bit of running I did) up Parque de la Montaña, past Principe Pío, past Campo del Moro, into the Jardines de las Vistillas, and.........

to the rendezvous. I can't figure out where we were - though I could maybe backtrack from c/ de La Cebada, especially if that whopping great church (yeah, I know, Madrid, whopping great church...) but if it turns out to be the Basilica de San Francisco...

Wherever it was, having left Point A at about 12.45, I got to Point B at about 3. (Heeeeeyyyy...... I did it......!) And there were the rest of the gang - the Grimms, Bandylegs, Two Jugs, Bugs Bunny - chatting in the shade beside a clutch of coolboxes, supping isotonic drinks, beers and softies, and not disposed to be snippy at the last ones home, by which I mean three hounds, and two sweepers.

I'd had a brilliant time. Gorgeous route. Not much power or stamina, but good company, friendly conversations on the flat bits, convivial gasping on the steep bits, and matching red faces grinning over condensation-misted glasses on the beer stops. And I did the whole thing. Coo. I'm going back next week (all four of us newbies, in fact) and this time we'll be heading out of Madrid. If Black Box could get another lay over...

As for the names, well, you have to wait for your name, which is usually accorded you by the other hounds in celebration of something reeeeeeeeeeeeeallly silly or embarrassing that you've done, and even if you never do anything that - erm - impressive, it's remarkable how creative these can guys get. So, everyone ends up with something off the moderately dire to toe-curlingly scatological scale. I really wouldn't mind Lady Muck. Maybe if I invest in a couple of 2 euro tiaras and a diamante water bottle?

There now followed a Secret Ritual.

I could tell you, but then I'd have to sing you something politically incorrect until your ears fall off, and drown you in Mahou.

On! On!