Why I'm in profit

No, it's not mine; I have a much
better developed hippocampus

That familiar noun – the brain – has at least two meanings: 1. The squishy entity that resembles baking dough based on suet. 2. A location in the human body where unparalleled feats of inter-communication occur even among the most inert of Trump voters. But did you know that the brain also underwent its own evolution just as far-reaching as the process whereby our ancestors crawled laboriously up the beach and shed their flippers for pairs of arms and legs? But not exactly in the blink of an eye.

In a two-part series which started yesterday on BBC2 Professor Jim Al-Khalil summarised the 600m years during which the cerebral equipment of an average mud-hopper eventually manifested itself, much improved,  in 2025 in the person of, let us say, J. D. Vance. Not only that but there were show-and-tells.

We saw a tiny living worm blessed with the most primitive brain presently extant. This Model T brain not only existed way back but actually worked; lab experiments demonstrated it could differentiate between left and right, making it superior to a large percentage of the folk in the county where I currently live.

It only took another 100m years – give or take – for another milestone to be reached: the faculty of imagination, notably to envisage possible future events. Allowing the user to plan to his/her own advantage.

And it’s here that I leave the prof. and become personal. BTW those Brits who have a smart TV may watch both episodes on I-Player, one of the rare advantages of living in these embattled islands.

Imagination! (And yes, the screamer is justified.) It’s presently active in the shreds of tissue I call my mind. After a hiatus lasting several years I’ve managed to resume writing my novel Rictangular Lenses (Misspelling intentional.) The word count, an auto-feature of Microsoft Word for those who asked if I used my fingers to help me arrive at this total, has risen from 65,000 to 70,000.

And I'm presently working on this bit: X (a woman) has put information in front of Y (a guy) wondering if he’ll arrive at what would be a desirable conclusion; Y (a typical guy) is struggling but won’t admit it. For me it’s not just a question of laying out the facts and the deliberations, I have to make them entertaining. It’s a hard ask but I love it. 

It’s what I was put on earth to do.

Yeah, The Man With The Scythe may be just round the corner but XXXX him (count the letters); I’m happy imagining. And I'm thinking thank goodness the worm, the mud-hopper, various lizards plus one which learnt to climb trees, a whole slew of gibbons plus a figure in the fog that may be The Missing Link all took up the options they did. Retrospectively they deserve my gratitude and my hope is that they - like me – also experienced the sheer joy of creation. In the words of William Faulkner: bringing to light that which never previously existed.

Oh ye millions I embrace you (Quote: LvB)

Something to hide behind?

A stream of personable, competent and energetic women known as carers help me look after VR, my wife. At least half of them carry tattoos. "Is it mandatory for carers?" I ask. They shake their heads. I'd like to ask "Why?" but I fear pursuing a true answer might be thought intrusive. The halfway-house answer would be tattoos  are presently popular  (among men and women) and tattoo parlours have sprung up in the High Streets; fashion is being followed.

Tattoos are, I suppose, decorative but I'm not similarly inclined to discover the rationale behind, say, necklaces. The difference being that tattoos are more or less permanent, True, they can be removed, but the process is said to be far more painful than the original needlework. 

Are they meant to be seen? Given that some tattoos are imprinted on faces, I'd say yes. Only the need for a broader canvas had led to their appearance on arms and chests, thereby spending most of their existence covered up by clothing. Yesterday, my regular hair-dresser, S - source of many interesting revelations - obligingly pulled down the back of her blouse collar to reveal a religious symbol between her shoulder blades, to which an unexplained mandela had been  recently added. In blue. Obviously for private viewing.

But I return to the permanence of tattoos. Might one justification be that the wearer was dissatisfied with mere bare skin? 

And there's the the risk about tattoos being invalidated by the passage of time. During one's impulsive youth one might wish to celebrate falling in love with X, then later marrying Y. And being forced to wear pyjamas even on very hot nights.

Tastes change. In my teens I admired the pop singer Guy Mitchell; remember him? But  I'm glad my admiration didn't run to submitting my flesh to the needle.

Once, under the influence of my High Tory Dad, I thought Conservatism was the way to go. Had I recorded this on my right arm amputation wouldn't have been too high a price to pay in 2025.

And yet I am no nearer to finding a plausible answer: Why tattoo? Please help.

The corpse speaks

Our recent celebrations were muted, what mattered were the family groupings. I found myself taking a back seat, reflecting rather than yapping. Thinking about the way things had turned out over the years, when bad times had evolved into good times and then into unexpectedly even better times. With flaws of course.

A slow process which cannot be caught in the brevity of a celebration. Worse still is how the language of celebration undermines the good that is being celebrated. Ah, that tired vocabulary, unimaginative syntax and vain attempts to emphasise phrases that have long since lost their ability to connect with people. The pathetically dried-out husk known as cliché, in short: dead language.

Theoretically dead language is no threat. “But we knew what he was trying to say,” is the cry of those who see no harm in the cliché. Arguing that the speaker had tried to articulate no doubt genuine feelings, had failed and was simply “making do”. But if those feelings were truly genuine shouldn’t we be ashamed of under-selling them? After all this might be the only occasion we will have to express an important sentiment. And yet we’ve sent our listener away with the echoes of a fifty-year-old ad slogan.

No doubt the first person to say he was “over the moon” got a laugh. These days not an eyebrow rises. Unsurprising since the phrase dates back to the 1700s. Unlike cheese and decent Bordeaux jokes don’t mature with age.

But clichés may hide another grievous shortcoming: laziness. People who believe themselves to be reasonably literate often resort to their equivalent of the bovine lunar leap. It is, of course, difficult to put words to feelings of sorrow or joy. Fact is, many don’t try. Or only as far as coming up with a single word, usually an adjective, less desirably an adverb, most abominably the catch-all “very”. Take heed: all the single-word solutions were used up at about the time we went from BC to AD.

Significant happenings deserve effort, especially when addressing, say, a recently bereaved widow or a five-year-old who has come last in the sack race. Internally we may want to gush but gushing doesn’t parse well. You could always try the initially unexpected:

To the widow: Jack was hopelessly wrong saying no one would mourn. I, for one, am completely gutted.

To the five-year-old: I’m not at all surprised. Billy may have won but I overheard his parents say he has a third leg. Hides it up his bum.

At my post-mortem piss-up: That should shut him up.  

Cleanliness is next to godliness, I'm told

Extreme old age, post-triple-surgery and a blindspot regarding domestic skills have conspired to prove I cannot - alone - attend to VR, my unwell wife of 65 years. Carers are filling in the gaps.

Virtually all are women, working long long hours for (I suspect) low pay. They are uniformed, brisk, adaptable to the peculiarities of our house and -  despite regulations to prevent coercion - expert at getting VR to do what she believes she cannot do. And won't do for me.

Did I say "brisk"?

Carer: You going out?
RR: Just to pick up The Guardian.
Carer: In that shirt?
RR: Wha...?
Carer: It's not clean.

Meekly I changed the shirt I'd worn for no more than a week. And laughed delightedly all the way to the filling station. VR's the patient and is treated with sympathy. I'm the inefficient dogsbody with impossibly low standards of personal hygiene. But I believe  commitment to a cause outweighs politeness.

Ou sont les neiges d'antan?

The photo was taken by daughter Occasional Speeder. She captioned it: "What a place."

I seem at peace with the world, ignorant of the ill-health that lay ahead for V and me. There are hints I am in France; the village of Montypeyroux to be exact, sitting outside a restaurant which we reserved for occasions when we felt deserved a treat. 

At the time the prospect of a last visit to France was far from my mind. It has now occcurred (actually, a year ago) and I am left to ponder. What was it that took me back year after year?

I'd like to say it was the language but that's not strictly true. Rather it was the use of language and to that end I took weekly lessons continuously from mid-1973 to late 2017. Read about fifty French novels. Followed radio transmissions from France Inter. Wrestled with the ultra-demanding slangy prose of L'Equipe, a daily newspaper devoted to sport. Some people say they loved French but I'm not among them. It's a real bastard of a language and there were great holes in my knowledge of everyday conversation.

But what I did know endowed me with the enormous gift of confidence. I relished all opportunities to wade in and grab French attention. The point being I overcame my lack of idiom by planning what I had to say and coming up with the unexpected. The punchline reserved for the final sentence. My rewards consisted of watching facial  reactions change: at first alarm, then attention, then the suppression of laughter. For to have laughed out loud would have been to admit that I had shown dominion over them. A Brit? Jamais.

One other thing: the huge middle of France is high level, under-populated and known as the Massif Central. It tickles my fancy turning an adjective into a noun. Also, the two words call out to you

Tears out of step?

I cried early this afternoon; did so four or five days ago and for the same reason. A powerful reason but I don't intend to explain.

The crying had a strange leathery quality and was unnatural in that it didn't flow; there were times when I seemed to be forcing myself to cry. But the need was there, no doubt about that. And tears.

The sound seemed alien, quite unlike the crying I did as a child and in early adolescence. Might the noise I made today be affected by eight years of singing lessons? I simply don't know. But the mind-state was the same despite the passage of time; crying being the only way of expressing a very real sadness.

My next birthday will be my ninetieth; are nonagenarians prone to crying? I have to confess to a certain degree of self-awareness as I cried but in the end it may have worked A psychosomatic diminuendo, perhaps. 

Can one cry to order? An interesting question.

Infuriating verse

Skype’s dying fall

Hail distant friends! Ta-ra di-bum; I hope
These words ring out a Hallmark note for you,
Not too egregious, that five-dollar term;
Not claiming amity which wasn’t there;
But if I fail then pardon me toute suite
 
Why distant? Simply because your bookshelves,
Cars, faces, house facades, offspring, pet dogs,
And how you manicure your nails, must be
Forever blurred to me. Distorted
As they are through long electric links
 
But let’s disdain the intervening miles
And mobilise the power of thought. Let’s say
We’ve met on Chichester, that urban route
I walk each day to buy the fruity stuff
That spills its juice and keeps my love alive
 
We stand. We talk. Oh, how we did. Discussed
The horrors of the presidential cloud.
Our wit. The whys and wherefores of bad health,
The songs we sung so plangently. And how
Our histories do inform on us. (Good quote)
 
Yet, as I watched, you weren’t quite there. Instead
Seemed haunted by a vague-ish entity
Coming and going, only partly seen.
Raising questions you did not dare to put.
A matter of suburban delicacy.
 
But asked yourself: who’s that vestigial wraith,
Ten feet behind him and his shopping bag?
Comprising mist yet reeking with overt.
Significance. A threat? A prophet with
A view of what the future might portend?
 
Talk ended blankly thus you turned to leave.
I bid goodbye, devoid of friendliness.
I’d recognised your faint distress, but felt
It better that your doubts should rest
As now, in unresolv-ed ignorance.
 
The wraith went too but – sure as eggs
Are eggs – he will return. He must return.
 
He is my lately born and helpful twin.
 
He did not share my birth but has a past,
Once was a babe, arms waved in protest
In his pram. Went soccer-mad in youth,
Then Grand Theft Auto brought insanity.
Shrugged off with an improving adult tome
 
Did well in uni with the harder stuff, then
Took a job because it promised empathy.
Sought those in need in other quadrispheres.
Succeeded, after which he travelled west
To take up station at my ageing side.
 
I say “my twin” but that was then - the day
We met; since then, in time, he’s passed me by
But I’m OK with that, it is his job
To surf the future’s waves on my behalf
And stay erect where I’d be lost in foam
 
That’s why the wraith you saw on Chichester
Was/is a fraction older than I am;
The same but saner, more experience.
Less angered by surrounding politics,
More able to engage with life to come
 
Older, faster, yet on my trajec’try.
If asked, he could convey new news to me.
When will it rain? The hell with that. Horse wins,
Who cares? Yet there’s a knot’s to be untied.
The biggest question anyone may ask.
 
He’ll get there first; and see with clarity
My ailments coalesce within my frame;
See cleverness dissolve, arch words turn dust,
The urge to write be deadened by the dark;
Wisdom – if it exists - be foul and crass.
 
And music, ah, the cruellest change of all,
Losing its song and beat, becomes mere noise,
I’ll be alone, mute, deaf and unsustained,
I’ll sense the nothingness as tangible,
Departure finalised with no return.
 
An awful preview which – ironically -
Will shine light on my former, wordy trade.
A scoop of answers gifted by my twin,
Brings understanding at the price of pain.
It’s why I named him: Curiosity

Awfulness, by the back door

Have you ever been betrayed? Let down; expecting something – a mundane matter, even a regular routine – and it not happening? Being left confused and self-pitying.

No?

Here’s “betray”: to be a traitor to; to deliver (somebody or something) by treachery; to deceive or be disloyal to…

Still no? It is, after all (and thankfully), a fairly rare experience. This morning, I was betrayed and it was horrible.

An hour ago the world changed. From a deep sleep I woke up, rolled over to inspect the digital clock: 08.34. And I knew! Immediately! Hair frowzled, still in my PJs, I stumbled out of bed, crossed the landing into my study, turned on the PC, and there was V – my singing teacher – telling me it was no big deal, the hour had “gone on” the previous day, to go back to bed and, and we’d re-schedule for Wednesday.

Comforting words but it was a big deal. I’d been betrayed by my body and this shouldn’t have been a surprise. In five months’ time I’ll be ninety. No felicitations, please. In extreme old age the unexpected changes are the killers.

On Monday, January 4 2016 I had my first private singing lesson and halfway through I burst into tears at the sense of revelation. Subsequently I’ve bored the pants off Tone Deaf followers detailing this ongoing process that – I suppose – was, and is, ultimately incommunicable. As with this present post.

Back then weekly lessons were at the piano in V’s living room. The pandemic forced us to use the indirect system of Skype, V moved house, and the lessons have continued, always on Mondays, always at 8.30 AM.

But always I was awake well before, two hours in fact. Time enough to shave, get dressed, raise the blinds, comfort the other V, my wife, in the aftermath of her illness, ease myself into the world of classical music via performances on YouTube, and afterwards off to the supermarket, preparation of meals and the etceteras.

There’s a further irony. My previous trade – journalism – was framed by deadlines. Never previously have I overslept, either professionally or socially. Ever!

Will I wake up in time next Wednesday? Now there’s apprehension...

YEAH: The obvious solution: an alarm clock. That's worked in the past - I've spent the whole night awake, waiting for the thing to go off. Infallible.

 

Not always hoity-toity

Blogging a musical score is a sure way of discouraging all forms of comment. But thisone's special. My present repertoire of 106 "learned" songs is mostly Schubert, Schumann and all those old fellas. But Roberta Flack just died and I've her to thank for this inclusion. It's harder than it looks.

Trumpism: A diagnosis

The following text was intended as a response to MikeM's comment to the previous post. It may be of wider interest, hence I'm offering it as a separate post

MikeM: I've been reflecting on what, for want of a more elegant label, I call Lack of Application. It lies at the heart of a newish form of ignorance manifest in the result of your recent presidential election and is even more overt in Trump's progressively insane pronouncements. But it isn't at all confined to the USA; Brits too suffer from this ailment.

At its lowest stratum (ie, those who failed to profit in any way from mandatory formal education) it is represented by a total lack of useful data. Such that when these bottom-feeders utter observations they do no more than repeat sentences (more often slogans) previously uttered by celebrities, and often repeated. These nuggets are complete in themselves, they are not related to each other in any way. The sequence of words is never altered.

The next stratum concerns those who passed comfortably through school education and may even have gone on to college, albeit to take subjects where rigour of proof is unnecessary (Media studies is a good example). They have - willy nilly - accumulated data but these facts lie like pebbles on a beach, separate and incapable of manipulation. Their owners have, to some extent, been educated by rote. I can't ever remember any quantification of this group but I suspect - gloomily - that it is larger than most would imagine and may even be the majority.

The final crust is very thin. Data is accumulated via controlled selection and is used to arrive at home-baked conclusions. From this, certain skills - often not always recognised as skills - emerge. Such as an ability to recognise national or even global contradictions or to make allowance for bias in the sources of data suppliers.

That's the thesis. Obviously it needs examining, preferably via dialogue with like minds. If I can recoup the energy - very much in short supply these days - I used in creating this once-over-lightly categorisation I may resume. Otherwise I shall continue to study discs in my boxed set of The West Wing, a TV series that amazingly ran for seven years and was based on a very close examination of governmental and political processes.

And yes I am aware that "data" is a plural noun and that associated verbs should conform. I have written about this and in my view I think the pedants got their arses kicked. the battle for "datum" is lost.

Irreconcilable?

Last night, rather reluctantly (of which I am now ashamed), I started to watch a 90-minute TV programme about life at Auschwitz, the wartime murder camp for Jews. More specifically, the unexpected role music played at this hellhole. Quite quickly I was gripped.

Inevitably the music tended to be by German composers and the lyrics of the songs were rendered in German. The parallels between this and the singing instruction I've been receiving over eight years were inescapable. To the point where I find I'm just as familiar - and moved - by singing in German as in English.

Yes; moved. These lines are are from the eleventh song (Fruhlingstraum - Spring dream) in Schubert's song-cycle Winterreise (Winter journey)

Ich träumte von Lieb um Liebe, 
von einer schönen Maid
von Herzen und von Küssen
von Wonne und Seligkeit

(I dreamt of mutual love

Of a lovely maiden
Of embracing and kissing
Of joy and rapture)*

Reminding me of recent visits to German Christmas markets, of the warmth I'd experienced and the puzzled affection shown when I asked about German reaction to Britain's decision to go Brexit. Of the decision, taken post-war between Germany and France that laying the foundations of the EU might well act as a bulwark against future warfare in Europe. Of the present-day disturbing signs of the re-emergence of an extreme right.

One encouraging if possibly minor change in labelling: in the programme I watched and elsewhere in news bulletins, the BBC is careful to make appropriate distinctions between German and Nazi

*Translation copyright Bärenreiter, Kassel