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.

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.

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

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. 

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[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. 

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.

The Hairy Bikers

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.

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.

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[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!

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".

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?

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.