Books - Cat

Can’t wait for the last page

March 4, 2025 plutomanby 0 Comments

For a while there Kitty seemed positively hostile and I’d got to the point where I’d make jokes with her. I’d get back from lessons and say to her, “I’m back! You must be so glad to see me. I can just tell how happy you are!” But things have improved. Less biting, for a start. Three nights ago I got up at 4:30, went for a pee, then checked up on Kitty. As always at that time she was wide awake. She nuzzled up to me and licked my face and that was rather nice. At the weekend my brother said to me, “Cats don’t care about people. Get that into your head.” He was tired and prone to making sweeping statements. That just isn’t true though, is it? Some cats are clingy to the point of being annoying. On Sunday I met Mark who told me more about Kitty’s start to life. She was born on the street and went nine months before having anything to do with humans. So I’ve got a semi-feral cat who was never going to become my best friend overnight. I must say though that she’s very comfortable here in my flat. In the first few days she’d try and get out but it seems she’s forgotten there even is an out.

It was Mark’s idea to play squash on Sunday, but she cancelled at short notice – he thought his ankle wouldn’t be up to it. Squash is not a common sport in Romania, but it looks like there’s a court somewhere in Dumbrăvița. We were going to rock up there and see. Maybe you had to book or be a member or who knows what. He sent me a message saying that we could go “down the river” instead. I didn’t twig that he meant ride along the bike track to Livada in Sânmihaiu Român, a fair old trek. I had a cheesy pizza, he had bulz. He said that I’d made a good decision to turn down that potential job offer at his school. Yeah, I’m pretty sure it would have been terrible for me. I made it back just in time to see Dorothy at Scârț.

I’m two-thirds of the way through American Psycho. The book, not the film. The film, which I haven’t seen, is a source of endless jokes and memes among people half my age. The book though – jeez. It’s well written, but it’s so appallingly horrific that I can’t wait to get to the end of it so I can read something else. It was written in 1991 and set in late-eighties New York, at the height of the Wall Street boom. It’s supposed to be a dark comedy, I think, but moments of levity are thin on the ground. I can only really think of one so far – when he brings a woman home (whom he then mutilates and murders) and she notices he’d hung his oh-so-expensive piece of modern art upside down. On every page Patrick Bateman (the protagonist; it’s written in first person) goes into mind-numbing detail about designer clothes – who each item is by. The very idea of clothes being by somebody is preposterous to me. The book has only got gorier as it’s progressed, and I can’t wait for it to be over. Notably, the story is peppered with numerous mentions of Donald Trump whom Bateman idolises. Half a lifetime later he’s leading the most powerful country in the world. Again. It’s made me think that so many aspects of American capitalism like credit ratings and platinum cards (I don’t even have a credit card; why would I need one?) are really shitty.

Last Wednesday I had a bad morning of severe sinus pain. I was just glad I didn’t have any lessons until the afternoon.

Cat - Maths teaching - Other sports - Photos - Politics

Can’t ignore Kitty and terrifying developments

March 1, 2025 plutomanby 0 Comments

If Kitty was an antidepressant, I’d probably ask my doctor if I could taper off her. She’s not doing me any harm as such (apart from the biting, though she doesn’t draw blood or anything), but after living by myself for so long I was really hoping for a loving companion and she hasn’t exactly been that. From the start I could see she was very curious, and she’s a cat after all, so I never thought I’d be her top priority all the time, but I kind of thought I might occasionally make her top twenty. The ignore experiment didn’t quite work, because it’s hard to ignore her and I don’t want to anyway. Young Kitty is an incredible athlete (that’s been mindblowing, honestly) and I want to play and engage with her. On Wednesday when she bit me over and over, I gave her gentle (I hope) slaps around the head every time. I was hesitant to do that. I mean, imagine as a human a 50-foot monster slaps you on the head and you don’t know why. Will Kitty understand why? Will she even remember the next day? Yesterday she only bit me once. I gave her the customary slap and she was bite-free from then on, so maybe it’s working. I’m amazed by how little sleep she gets. I read that the average cat gets 13 to 16 hours sleep. If she could get half of that, it would be bloody amazing. I hope that over time she’ll warm to me. I’ve just got to be patient.

I saw these six kitties in Recaș on Wednesday (my latest trip there)

Volodymyr Zelensky’s meeting with Trump and Vance at the Oval Office was sickening. And terrifying. How the hell did we get here? I spent a half-hour talking about it with my parents last night, just after it had happened. Zelensky was at a disadvantage from the start: it was two against one and not in his native language, but he couldn’t have expected Trump to be quite that appalling and for Vance to be just as bad. “You’re gambling with World War Three,” Trump said. Well, sorry mate, you’ll be the one starting WW3 at this rate. As for Putin, he would have cheered on Trump’s win in November, but even he couldn’t have imagined things would go so well for him (and so quickly) in the few weeks since Trump took over. More than a dozen European nations have come out in support of Ukraine since last night’s horror show, but Viktor Orbán inevitably did the opposite, and I haven’t heard a peep out of Romania yet. I was worried that Mum’s health might mean I won’t see her and Dad in May. That is still a concern. But that might not be the only reason.

I had several maths lessons last week. I’m always fighting the same battle. Getting them to actually think what they’re doing and not just blindly applying procedures. Crank the handle, out it comes at the other end. Yesterday I had one fairly bright girl add a half and a quarter to get six-eighths. Well, technically it is 6/8, but if you get that answer you clearly don’t have a clue what a fraction even is. “You see, I timesed the top and bottom of the first fraction by four, then I timesed the top and bottom of the second fraction by two, then I added the top numbers to get six over eight.” Maddening stuff, and of course not her fault, but the fault of the education system. (Cue my pizza diagrams.) In another of yesterday’s sessions, the kid was faced with this problem: “The first term in an arithmetic sequence is 30. The first 16 terms add up to 960. What is the difference between each pair of successive terms?” An arithmetic sequence, by the way, is simply an ordered list of numbers that go up by the same amount each time. He got out his formula booklet and busily cranked the handle. The formula had letters like S and u and subscripts. I took him a while. It would have taken me a while too. I told him my method. Think of the numbers in pairs. First and last, second and second-last, and so on. Each of these pairs must add up to the same thing. There are 16 numbers, so 8 pairs. If all the numbers add up to 960, then each pair must add up to 960 divided by 8, which is 120. If the first number is 30, then the last number (which pairs up with the first) must be 90, which is 60 more. Since there are 16 numbers, there are 15 jumps, and since all the jumps add up to 60, each jump must be 4. That’s your answer. He said, “That’s cheating.” He was joking, but in fact that’s exactly how people need to be thinking about problems like this instead of applying some magic formula.

Football. Blues beat Leyton Orient 2-0 on Tuesday. It was a match spoilt by an Orient player receiving an undeserved red card in just the 12th minute. Blues are now on course for promotion as league champions and with a massive points total. The other match that piqued my interest was Hollywood-backed Wrexham at home to Peterborough in the semi-finals of the EFL Trophy. Blues would play the winner in the final at Wembley. Wrexham were 2-0 up late in the game, but Peterborough (who go by the rather cool nickname Posh) clawed back those two goals and then won on penalties. Blues against Posh will be a fun match-up in the final. The two sets of fans actually like each other, from what I can tell. They have a connection through Barry Fry who managed Blues in the mid-nineties and, after getting the sack, took over at Posh. Barry Fry was a crazy guy and something of a cult hero. I remember when he suffered multiple heart attacks. But three decades on, he’s still chugging along. In fact he’s now Director of Football at Posh. He’ll turn 80 a week before the final.

Some better news on the book front. It looks like we might be meeting next week.

Politics - Writing a book

Latest book news and a spot of politics

February 25, 2025 plutomanby 0 Comments

This morning I thought, jeez, everything is turning to shit, isn’t it? I’ve got a cat that might never like me, two books that might never get off my hard drive, and parents who might never make it out of New Zealand. I plucked up the courage to call the woman from the publishers-in-name-only on WhatsApp. She was in a car, on the way to Peciu Nou she said, as if her destination was of vital importance. (I’ve been there. It’s a half-hour drive from here.) Call back this afternoon, she said. She couldn’t hear me at all. At half-four, between lessons, I called her back. Our seven-minute call, which she ended rather impolitely, was at least somewhat encouraging. I was more insistent this time. Yes, we’ll meet up again at some time yet to be determined. Yes, your book will actually happen. Now bugger off. She didn’t say the last bit but she implied it.

The German elections took place yesterday. It looks like they’ll have a Chancellor Merz. The extreme-right AfD did well. But at this point, all talk of left or right is by the by. There’s a dangerous piece of shit in the White House who is taking a sledgehammer to democracy in the US and elsewhere. It’s a real shame he wasn’t taken out last summer. If only the golf guy could have done it. The piece of orange crap, aided by the giga-turd who owns Tesla, will further empower Putin and tear Europe apart, unless we in Europe stand up to him. If Europe’s biggest economy elects someone who can do that, I couldn’t give a damn where on the political spectrum he comes from. European solidarity will be absolutely vital and we need to act fast. My fear is that Europeans won’t accept being materially poorer, which is probably what it will take. I certainly would, but I can be content with very little. (That’s one thing I loved about Covid, especially the early days of the pandemic. Consumption, and expectations, went way way down.) Oh, and of course, I’m pretty damn close to the front line where I am.

Everyone needs to stop theorising and philosophising about the orange turd. There’s nothing there. No master plan. No depth. Basically no thought. He’s just an egomaniac who enjoys hurting other people. That’s all there is. Sure, write books to your heart’s content about how modern society has enabled him to get to where he has, because that’s actually worth exploring, but don’t bother writing about him.

No more news from Mum. She’s got a scan on 11th March.

Cat - Other sports - Writing a book

Putting her on ignore

February 24, 2025 plutomanby 0 Comments

I’ve just come back from having lunch with Dorothy at the brewery which is a five-minute walk for me. (When people ask where in town I live, I say “near the brewery”.) I had a large chicken salad; she had chicken and chips. We were talking (briefly, thankfully) about politics, when I said “She’d done her dash.” Dorothy said, she’d done what? Turns out I used an antipodean expression without even realising it. I’ve done that before with “spit the dummy” and I’m sure others besides.

After days of scratching and biting, and weeks of very limited affection, I’m trying out a new strategy with Kitty. Leave her alone. Let her do her thing – climbing and jumping and sticking her head down the loo and zooming around at 20-odd miles an hour – while I do mine. She’s got plenty of toys to keep her occupied. Just watching her is fascinating in a way; cats are incredible animals. So far this experiment is working out because I’m not getting scratched or bitten. After putting her on ignore for a week (which isn’t easy; her coat is so lovely and soft) I’ll go back to gentle stroking and tickling, and kicking a tennis ball around. No picking her up. If that doesn’t work, I’ll revert to ignore. On Friday I took Kitty up to meet Elena, the lady who lives above me. After a few minutes, Elena said, “I don’t think she likes me.” I wouldn’t worry about that, I said, I don’t think she likes me either. I should be glad that on a practical level, Kitty is fine. She seems happy enough in my flat. She isn’t wrecking my furniture and she’s peeing and pooing where she’s supposed to. She also provides entertainment value. Emotionally though, she’s not really there, I’m sorry to say. I suppose I just have to be patient.

Ice hockey isn’t a sport I follow closely. You can tell, because I call it ice hockey. But when Canada beat the US in overtime in Boston last week, that was bloody brilliant. In this new world order, America is enemy territory. I’ve generally been anti-American when it comes to team sports (apart from football, where the US team was more likeable because they were less successful), but that’s just because of their competitive brashness rather than any dislike of America itself. Suddenly my feelings are far more visceral, however, and I’m sure millions of people feel similarly. About ice hockey, I regret that I never persuaded my parents to take me to see the Peterborough Pirates when I was a kid. The game seemed a lot of fun, if you could get past the brawls. Seeing live sport, or live anything, wasn’t a thing we did though. Just like eating at restaurants. The idea of eating at an actual restaurant would have been laughable, but now kids grow up eating at restaurants every other week.

Birmingham drew 0-0 at Reading yesterday, on a crappy pitch against decent opposition. That’s Blues’ seventh draw in the league in 30 games this season. They’ve lost just two and won all the rest. Reading play at Select Car Leasing Stadium, in the middle of a retail park just off the M4. A bloody awful place to have to go (at least) 23 times a season to watch your team play.

An important day tomorrow. I’m going to call Ana, the woman from the publishing house. If she isn’t prepared to arrange a meeting, this could very well be the end of the line. That would be an enormous shame.

Books - Cat - Driving - Maths teaching - Other sports

Good car news but still none the wiser about Mum

February 21, 2025 plutomanby 0 Comments

On Monday Mum saw a new doctor who she seemed to like, but she still doesn’t know “what it is” yet. She has major ups and downs, from severe pain to basically being fine. It’s eleven weeks until they’re due to land in Timișoara, but last night on the phone I heard the dreaded words “if we don’t make it over”.

Good news about the car. I got the new thermostat put in, and yesterday I drove to Recaș (25 minutes) and back without any problems. Fingers crossed it stays like that. They’ve given me a three-month guarantee which I don’t remember ever getting in New Zealand. After that sporadic juddering on the way back from Serbia I’d braced myself for something expensive.

I should take my car out during the week more often. On Sundays, my usual day, all the towns and villages that are otherwise bustling are pretty much dead. I went to Recaș yesterday because they have the barbecue stall on Wednesday. It was certaintly bustling. I got two mici, a pork chop, chips and several slices of bread – I saved half of that for dinner.

When I spoke to my brother on Tuesday, I mentioned my cat’s penchant for biting. He jokingly wished that his cat would give his son a good nip. My nephew has been rather heavy-handed with their cat, as well as with his baby sister.

I had my first session with new maths student yesterday. An hour and a half, not the half-hour her mum said she wanted. It seems nobody in Romania understands fractions. In fact, that’s what we spent our initial session on. This 11-year-old girl showed me she could add a quarter and a fifth, which is nothing to be sniffed at, but didn’t fully understand what a quarter or a fifth actually were.

She didn’t know whether or not the shaded area above represented a quarter.

I bought Diary of a Wombat online, thinking it would be fun for the kids, and it is a fun book, but it’s not that non-native-speaker-friendly:

I got a bunch of other animal-related books, including this one:

On Tuesday night I watched Blues’ EFL Trophy semi-final at home to Bradford. A tinpot trophy, or so they say, but the final is played at Wembley. Blues won 2-1 to give their fans a big day out in April against either Wrexham or Peterborough. (The other semi takes place next week.) A good game, I thought. Bradford, from the league below, gave it a damn good go. Jay Stansfield, the talismanic striker, gave Blues the lead on the stroke of half-time. The main flashpoint came early in the second half. Stansfield was bundled over and Blues surely should have had a penalty, but instead Bradford went straight down the other end and equalised. Stansfield was down for eight minutes before being stretchered off. Apparently he’s OK. Finally it was Lyndon Dykes who scored the winner. There was obviously loads of injury time and the game even kicked off late, so it wasn’t exactly an early finish.

Books - Cat - Family - Life :)

Bad memories

February 18, 2025 plutomanby 0 Comments

Kitty is currently perched in her favourite spot, atop the cupboard at the end of the living room, looking out the window at a wintry scene – we had light snow yesterday. I’m sure that young, active Kitty would prefer to be out there running and chasing than stuck inside with me. I still don’t know what she thinks of me, if anything. I get contradictory signals. Yesterday she was just lovely, purring away, licking and snuggling up to me, until the evening when she got the sudden urge to bite my hand over and over.

I’m just getting over a cold which I’ve had for five days. Dad had the lump taken out of his leg on Friday. As for Mum, she’s just had the results of her blood tests – they’re all fine. They had an ordeal at A&E in Timaru last week – they waited five hours for Mum not to be seen, then went home. She was due to see the doctor today; she still isn’t right.

In the middle of a maths lesson yesterday I got a message from Dad. But it’s four in the morning there. What’s going on? He couldn’t sleep, he said, because we was worrying about his digital devices that he didn’t understand, as well as one of their flats in St Ives whose annual management fee was due and they might face a fine for late payment. It’s well past time they sold those blasted flats.

I’ve just finished reading The Rules of Attraction by Bret Easton Ellis. It’s a sort of prequel to American Psycho which was made into a film that lots of young people seem to go on about. (I’ve got that book too.) The Rules of Attraction is set at Camden College, a made-up university somewhere in the north-east of the US, and is story of mostly well-heeled students drinking, taking drugs, and shagging. (Only it wasn’t called shagging. The term used was screwing or simply fucking.) The story is told in the first person, from the perspective of the various students: Paul would write from his point of view, then Lauren, then Sean, then back to Paul again, and so on. My main problem was all the characters were distinctly unlikeable, so I didn’t care what happened to any of them, and because the story was all about the characters (rather than some outside events), I found it hard to maintain interest. However, the book was written and set in the eighties and I enjoyed the constant references to the music of that time. Music was good back then, wasn’t it? It also gave me flashbacks to my first year of uni; I was like a fish out of water. I remember all the clubbing, which did less than nothing for me, and how everyone else except me instinctively knew what to do. Getting changed to go clubbing was serious business. If I remember rightly, all the guys got changed in the same double room. Fifteen minutes before the taxi was due to arrive, someone would put on dance music. This is it, this is game time. It happened like clockwork, always with 15 minutes to go, and it was instinctive. How did they know to do that?

In my recent session with the twins, the boy dragged out that Pelmanism game that I bought them in Geraldine. This’ll be fun! Um, yeah. It’s nice to look at all the Kiwi pictures, but that’s about it. That’s because, compared to them, I’m terrible at the game. It starts off with 72 cards in a non-grid-like arrangement. While I struggle even to remember what cards have come out when there are that many, both the twins can remember where they saw a particular card, even if it came out ten minutes earlier. To me, that’s a superpower. There’s so system or mnemonic, they can just remember. And how would a mnemonic even help? Say I turn over the pohutukawa card, sort of in the fourth row and seventh column. Position D7, if you will. Maybe I could remember that as December 7th, the day the pohutukawas come out. But that would be a heck of a stretch – there aren’t really rows and columns, and cards are disappearing all the time as people (not me!) form pairs. I just have to accept that I lack that superpower and that’s OK.

It looks like I’ve got a new maths pupil coming tomorrow – an 11-year-old girl. Her mum wants just half-hour sessions but three times a week, and that’s something my schedule can’t accommodate.

A couple more additions to the “brand names containing V and ending in A” list. There’s a great big modern apartment block not far from me called Vivalia. Then there’s Nivea, though I’ll let them off because the name has been around since 1906.

I took the car in yesterday. The guy told me it just needed a new thermostat, but I wasn’t entirely convinced. An older guy took my business card – he said his wife was interested in having English lessons. The car should be ready later today, but I’ll have a few questions. Hopefully they’ll guarantee it for three months like they did when I got the brakes sorted last summer.

The nearby park this morning

Cat - Family - Other sports - Tennis - Travel: Europe

Mum is better, plus pictures of Novi Sad and Kitty

February 13, 2025 plutomanby 0 Comments

When I went for a walk around the block today, two of the houses had traditional music coming from them. The second of the songs was beautiful and I tried to Shazam it but (just as expected) I didn’t get a reading.

The best thing I did today was say no to the head of maths at British school. My mental health is always fragile and such a massive change might well tip me over the edge. It wouldn’t be worth it at all. The fact that I know people who work there would only make it worse.

I spoke to Mum last night. She was miles better. Not perfect – she hasn’t been properly well since my brother and his family visited six months ago – but good enough to play golf tomorrow. She still needs to get her upset stomach thoroughly investigated, but as this is Mum I’m talking about, I doubt she will. Dad was out; it made a nice change to speak to Mum by herself. Dad gets his lump taken out on Friday; let’s hope the biopsy gives him the all clear. It sounds similar to the lump Mum had a year ago.

I could only watch the second half of Blues’ FA Cup match with Newcastle. What a half I missed. Blues scored in the first minute, Newcastle equalised midway through the half (controversially – did it cross the line?) and went ahead a few minutes later, then Tomoki Iwata’s spectacular strike made it 2-2 just before half-time. The half I saw was far more stop-start from all the fouls and injuries. Newcastle’s spell of pressure eventually told, and they wound up 3-2 winners. No shame in that from a Blues perspective. Last night they battered Cambridge (one of my local teams I suppose; I was born there after all) 4-0 and they now sit firmly atop the league table. Blues have also made the last four of the EFL Trophy, a competition for teams in the third and fourth tiers. A lot of supporters treat that as a joke, but if you make the final you get a day out at Wembley. Blues will achieve that if they beat Bradford next week. They would then face either Peterborough (another local team of mine) or Wrexham (with all the Hollywood connections) in the final in April.

Simona Halep. After losing her first-round match at the Transylvania Open, she hung up her racket for good at the age of 33. I very much enjoyed following a top Romanian player when I knew I’d be coming to Romania and after I arrived. The disappointments, the victories from the jaws of defeat (and vice-versa), the near misses, and the triumphs. She played four grand slam finals after I arrived here. To see her finally get over the line against Sloane Stephens was quite special. Then there was the Serena final at Wimbledon, which Simona won 6-2 6-2 in 56 minutes. She was practically flawless that day. Her doping ban was a massive shame and though it was (basically) overturned, she’d tumbled way down the rankings having hardly played. But while it lasted, having a Romanian (and a throughly good person, from what I could tell) doing so well in my favourite sport while living in Romania was pretty damn cool.

A few pictures from my trip to Novi Sad (and a couple of Kitty):

House for sale (NOT beware of the dog)
Abandoned 80s Yugo
Guild of Craftsmen: five languages including Romanian

Name of Mary Church

Remembering those who died in the railway station roof collapse

The name of this restaurant means Old Song

Danube Park, close to the river

The river and fortress

Cat - Driving - Family - Maths teaching - Travel: Europe

Not this again

February 11, 2025 plutomanby 0 Comments

Mum isn’t well. She’s got stomach trouble and has been in pain for more than a week. She’s been given something for constipation, even though that isn’t the problem as far as I can see. She’s appallingly evasive though, so really I’m just guessing. Her next port of call might be A&E. She didn’t even tell my brother so I let him know last night. That wasn’t fun when he’d just had a tough day with the kids. He’ll probably now pretend that he doesn’t know.

I have no respect for her desire to keep her health problems secret. None whatsoever. All it does is cause unnecessary worry. And what, she’s coming 76. She’s an old lady. It would be weird if she didn’t have something wrong with her at that age. At this rate, they might not even make it to my part of the world in May. Dad, for his part, has a cancerous lump on his leg which isn’t the sort that spreads, and he’ll have that removed on Friday.

This is why you don’t embark on building renovations in your 70s. Actuarially, a couple at that age can only expect to have a handful of healthy years together. (It’s basic probability. If you’re both equally healthy, the chance that either one of you comes a cropper in the next x years is nearly twice the chance that just you do, as long as x is fairly small.) So it’s best not to blow half of those precious years on some pointless exercise which makes it much harder to see your family.

I started this year filled with optimism, at least at a personal level. Now with Mum being ill and the possibility of them cancelling their trip (again!), and the books maybe going up in smoke, the feeling that I was entering a new phase now seems a cruel mirage.

I drove to Novi Sad on Sunday. Fifty minutes to the border, then an hour and a half on the Serbian side. The border crossing at Foeni was very quiet. When I parked in Novi Sad I didn’t know where I was. I walked in what I guessed was towards the city centre. I had no Google maps – my phone had become a brick with a camera. I asked an oldish man. Centar? Stari grad? He pointed and rattled off a whole load of Serbian that included “take the bus” (the rest I didn’t understand) so I went back to the car where at least I had GPS. I parked roughly in the centre. Parking was free on a Sunday. The temperature hovered around zero and the wind whistled. I explored the main streets and squares. There was a makeshift shrine to the 15 people and one dog who lost their lives when the roof of the railway station collapsed in November. I had some dinars left over from my last trip to Serbia (pre-Covid) which came in handy. I ate at a Serbian restaurant which had traditional bits and bobs on the walls and played local music. I had a beef goulash and bread. Absolutely delicious bread and lots of it. You don’t imagine that something as simple as bread could be so tasty, but on this occasion it was. Novi Sad sits on the Danube, which is one of its big selling points. I crossed one of the three bridges and wandered around the fortress on the other side. It was all very nicely preserved. I didn’t do much else after that apart from grab a burek from a bakery near my car.

The drive back. Not fun. I went back a different way, to make things more interesting I suppose. Many miles from anywhere but a long way from the Romanian border, my engine overheaded. I had coolant, thankfully, otherwise I’d have been in a right mess. In it went, and I was back in business. Or so I thought. I’d got the temperature down, but the car started to judder at random intervals that became more and more frequent. I got home OK, if a bit later than planned, but it was far from the pleasant drive I’d hoped for. My brother, who knows more about cars than I do (that’s not saying much) gave me some ideas for why the car could stutter after overheating, but in all likelihood I’ll need to take it in, probably to the same people who sorted out my brakes last summer. I should also mention that my car got a full-on inspection at the border. It was the first time I’d endured that.

Matei’s dad got talking with the head of maths at British school. They’re interested in taking me on, either full-time or part-time. I’ve thought about it, and no. It would be a terrible move for me. The lifestyle that I now have suits me down to the ground. Throwing all of that away for a bit of extra money wouldn’t be worth it in the least. I can picture my first lesson now. Bogdan, would you mind getting off your phone. … Seriously mate, who do you think you are? Get off your fucking phone and listen to me. By all accounts, the environment at that school right now is chaotic, even toxic, and I certainly don’t want that. Also, because the fees are sky high, a lot of the kids who go there are spoilt and can’t be arsed with schoolwork – because their parents are so wealthy they don’t feel they have to be.

Kitty is almost back to normal now. She was easier to look after when she was hampered and she just lay in her bed in the small bathroom. Wonderfully hassle-free. Why can’t she have an operation every week? It’s been fascinating in a way to have a creature that’s so robust and lithe and can bounce back from anything. Nobody needed to tell her to do stretching exercises after surgery; she just knew.

Some pictures of Novi Sad next time. And maybe something about Birmingham’s heroic defeat at the hands of Newcastle.

Cat - Family - Other sports - Tennis - Writing a book

Kitty and some pretty shitty publishers

February 8, 2025 plutomanby 0 Comments

Kitty is recovering from Wednesday’s ordeal. She vomited twice at the vet’s; anaesthetic even does that to humans. When I picked her up that evening, the vet said she’d been “talkative” (no surprises there), then gave me a list of dos and don’ts. Don’t remove her collar for 12 to 14 days was the big one. Fine, I won’t. I got her home, then locked her in the small bathroom while I gave an online lesson. For the first few minutes I could hear her yowling, then she stopped. When I went back in there, she’d ripped her collar right off. She must have been pretty determined. I tried to put it back on, but she got so angry that I gave up. I’ll have to risk it. Since then she’s been very subdued and has hardly eaten anything. She hasn’t licked or bitten the wound, thankfully. This morning I had a scary moment when, after locking her in the bathroom, she seemed to have disappeared when I went back in there. She was nowhere to be seen. How? I heard a squeak but couldn’t tell where it was coming from. Then I saw her little head poking out of a hole in the tiling in the side of the bath. I didn’t even realise there was a cat-sized hole there. Are you stuck? Will I have to smash the tiles? She came out, eventually. Phew.

Monday was a crappy day. What’s going on with the book? I contacted the older woman from the so-called publishers – the only person from there I can contact. We had a three-minute phone call. No, we can’t arrange a meeting, she said, because of X, Y and Z. It’s all about you, isn’t it? I’m not sure she’d even looked at the text of the book that I’d sent her. In fact I’m pretty sure she hadn’t. At the end of the call she said how nice it would be to meet up with Dorothy and have a glass of wine. You can take your glass of wine and shove it, was what I wanted to say. Everything about the publishers (and they’re really just printers, if that) stinks of unprofessionalism. At this stage I’d say it’s 70-30 that the book will see the light of day. In other words there’s a fair chance that it won’t. And of that 70%, a large chunk involves shitty production quality and next to no distribution. I’ve got a long list of things to do with the second book, but I’m not touching that again until I’m sure that the first one will actually happen.

I spoke to my parents yesterday. They talked a lot about my brother. It’s easy to forget that he was just about incommunicado with my parents for years. He had no time for them, honestly. They mentioned how upset they felt in 2007 when they watched TV and saw the British troops reunited with their families after being in Afghanistan, and they didn’t even know he’d got back. My brother felt, and still feels, a certain bitterness about them emigrating to New Zealand in 2003. That wasn’t helped by them spending the year 2000 in Australia as well. (I never felt that way. We’re grown men. If they want to move to where Mum was born, that’s up to them. In fact I was glad they moved because Mum would have been particularly unhappy if she’d stayed in the UK and carried on teaching. Of course I made the move myself.) Mum and Dad could easily have broken all ties with my brother, but they didn’t, and now they’re in contact with him about twice a week. There’s a lesson there.

This week I’ve watched a Romanian film called The Death of Domnul Lăzărescu, which came out in 2005. It’s an excellent film, both funny and very sad, which highlights the problems in Romanian healthcare (and wider society) that existed back then and haven’t exactly gone away. Look at Colectiv, or the two fires that took place during Covid. Domnul Lăzărescu, the patient who was dragged from pillar to post through various Bucharest hospitals, died in real life only two years later. Mioara, the paramedic, died three years ago. I really wanted to punch the doctors who verbally abused Mioara in one of the hospitals towards the end of the film. Annoyingly, the film had un-turn-off-able English subtitles – I covered them up with a piece of paper.

Birmingham play Newcastle at home in the FA Cup tomorrow. The two teams have had some real FA Cup battles in the not so distant past. In 2007, they drew 2-2 in Birmingham before Blues pulled off a shock 5-1 away win in the replay. That won’t happen this time – replays have been axed – and I fully expect Newcastle to win comfortably. They’re in the upper echelons of the Premier League, and the gulf between that and even the top of the third tier is immense. I doubt I’ll see much of the game because I’ve got a big day of lessons scheduled – eight to nine hours. Then on Sunday I’m planning a trip over the border into Serbia to take a look at Novi Sad, the country’s second city. It’s been in the news lately. Three months ago a roof collapsed at the train station, killing 15 people, and protests have since erupted.

Before I go, I should mention something about Simona Halep’s retirement. A great ambassador for Romanian tennis who, it seems, is calling it a day. I’ll write more about that next time.

Cat - Family - Language learning - Language teaching - Other sports - Photos - The UK

Keeping it real

February 3, 2025 plutomanby 0 Comments

When I spoke to Dad on Friday he said he’d had headaches (or maybe just one long headache) for two weeks straight. I couldn’t tell from our Skype calls – he’s had 60-plus years of practice at hiding just how bad it is. It must take a terrible toll on him.

Also on Friday I took Kitty to the vet for a pre-spay check-up. She was fine. They swabbed her ears to see if she had mites but she was clear. I marvelled once again at how much vets enjoy their jobs. I never saw a fraction of that level of passion from an actuary. As long as I prevent Kitty from eating or drinking overnight, she’ll have her bits taken out on Wednesday morning. Then she’ll need to wear one of those plastic cone thingies over her head for twelve days so she doesn’t lick or bite the wound. Kitty has been great of late. Three weeks ago I despaired as she darted all over the place when I’d had almost no sleep; I wanted to take her batteries out. Now it seems she’s got used to me. She shows more affection and no longer attempts to escape. Maybe she’s lulling me into a false sense of security, though somehow I doubt cats think on that level.

A recurring theme of my last few posts has been a dislike of fakeness. I’m fine with things being rough around the edges as long as they’re real. I’m clearly not alone in this, and I think my manual teaching style with all my handmade cards appeals to certain people. I even like my experiences to be “real”; getting my car stuck last Sunday wasn’t exactly in the plan, but meeting those helpful locals almost made it worth it. In 2025 there’s more fakeness in our lives than ever before. I hear Keir Starmer and the UK Labour government banging on about AI and I get their concerns about GDP growth and not wanting to be left behind, but I’m not convinced that any of this stuff will make many people feel an improvement in their lives.

Seven months on from their UK election win, Labour have been a massive disappointment. After the pure callousless of the last lot (the Covid inquiry made me upset and angry), I really thought Labour would be much better. Yes, they’ve been dealt a rotten economic hand, but they’ve shown no will to damn well use the thumping majority afforded to them by the electoral system and build a society and an environment that works for British people. Reform the council tax system that is (wholly unfairly) based on 1991 property prices. Nationalise the railways. Stuff that’s eminently doable and would be popular. There’s still time, but if they don’t get their act together pretty sharpish we could be looking at Reform grabbing power next time – a terrifying prospect.

When I spoke to Dad, I suggested that I lack ambition. He said, oh no, quite the opposite. That was very nice of him, but I do sometimes feel I should be trying to achieve more. When I met Dorothy for lunch on Friday, I mentioned my master’s degree idea. She thought it was a good one in spite of the cost. People blow much more than that on a car which quickly depreciates, she said. Talking of degrees, my Wellington-based cousin’s eldest son has finished his degree at Canterbury and is now embarking on a PhD in Sydney. It’ll all be paid for. Not fair, honestly. My cousin is loaded and could pay for his PhD many times over, but she did a PhD herself and knows what buttons to press and what strings to pull.

Book news. There’s no news, which is a concern. I’ll get on to the publisher in the morning.

The highlight of my busy work day yesterday was my two-hour online lesson with the English teacher in Slobozia. I asked her to write an essay, which she agreed to do, but only if I also wrote one in Romanian. So I wrote 460 words about my grandmother. A useful exercise. I’ve still got big gaps which, try as I might, I’ve never been able to fill. Sentence structure, mainly. Though my nouns and verbs and adjectives are mostly perfectly fine, I often fail to make my sentences sound properly Romanian.

Conveniently, a break in yesterday’s schedule allowed me to watch some football. Birmingham overcame a slow start to beat Rotherham 2-1 at home. Blues are in a very strong position at the top of the table now. At the same time (following what I said a couple of posts ago) I followed Portsmouth’s home game against Burnley. The atmosphere was just like it was all those years ago. Absolutely mental. The game finished goalless, but it was packed with incident all the same.

Below is a picture from Karlsruhe Park, which is close to the guest house I stayed at when I arrived here in 2016. The German city of Karlsruhe is twinned with Timișoara. This city has many other “twins” including Nottingham in England, but not all of those twins are twinned with each other. That makes me think of equivalence relations that I studied in my first year of uni. Our lecturer called the tilde symbol, which represents an equivalence relation, “twiddles”. This amused me.

A back view of the old abattoir