Author: plutoman

plutoman

I'm an English teacher in mad-as-a-box of-frogs Romania. Hope you like my blog! ✌️

Language teaching - Politics - Writing a book

Democratic drama begins in 53 hours

July 3, 2024 plutomanby 0 Comments

Democracy in Britain can be dramatic, high-octane stuff. I recently watched a clip of the results from Sunderland in the 2016 Brexit referendum. This was only the second local authority to declare; Leave got 82,000 votes against just 52,000 for Remain. The woman who announced the results – to wild cheers – was sitting on market-shattering, tectonic-plate-shifting dynamite. In the general election of 1997, Michael Portillo, a high-profile Tory thought to be a potential leader, lost his seat to a Labour guy named Twigg that no-one had heard of. The declaration came after three in the morning. The announcer (a man that time) stumbled over Portillo’s middle name Xavier, coming out with the four-syllable ex-ay-vi-er. His shock loss became a symbol of the Tories’ crushing defeat, and people still call it the “Portillo moment” now. Credit to him though for slipping away in a dignified manner; afterwards he made some very good documentary series on railway journeys.

We could get this level of drama on Thursday. Let’s hope there are a whole raft of Portillo moments. The Conservatives bear little resemblance to the party I remember when John Major was prime minister. (He was our local MP.) They’re not interested in conserving a damn thing and have made people’s lives measurably worse in their 14 years in power. A dream result, though unlikely, would be the Tories’ relegation to third place behind the Liberal Democrats. My prediction is for the Tories to do catastrophically badly, but not (unfortunately) the extinction-level stuff seen in some of the polls. Unusually many seats are too close to call this time around; Reform have risen and there has been a notable decline in the overall vote share of the two big parties, so just 30% will sometimes be enough to snag a seat. I’d love to see some momentum build for electoral reform – the current system is unfair and isn’t fit for purpose. The exit poll is always a huge moment on election night; it comes at 10pm, or midnight my time, and in recent elections has been deadly accurate.

The big question is what will happen after the election. Look at the surge of the far right in France (their final round is this weekend). Look at America where the most likely outcome this November could have frightening repercussions. I expect Labour and Keir Starmer to be miles better than the Tories and their numerous leaders of late, but they’re being far too timid in their plans. (Yeah I know, they’re way ahead in the polls so want to play it safe.)

This afternoon I had a quick demo session with the lady this firm have given me. I’d completely forgotten that I was being observed in incognito mode by a woman from the firm itself. That was a good thing – I’d have been panicking like mad otherwise. We’ll have our first real session tomorrow evening.

Dad has sent me some more illustrations to go in the book. He’s less busy with painting these days, so he has more time than usual. The illustrations are mostly great, but I need scanned (not photographed) versions.

Edit: The Netherlands have just opened the scoring in the 20th minute of their Euro 2024 match with Romania. (I first wrote that Belgium had scored. I’m not following it all that closely.)
Update: Romania were basically thrashed in the end, 3-0.

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Prigor and thereabouts — Part 2 of 2 (with photos)

July 2, 2024 plutomanby 0 Comments

According to the radio, Saturday was the feast of St Peter and St Paul. I had a simple coffee at Prigor, then went to Șopotu Nou to start a hike that would go to Lacul Dracului – the Lake of Hell. Just before Șopotu Nou there was a flimsy suspension bridge over a river. I’d be hot and tired after the trek, and if I crossed the bridge there’d be a nice place to sunbathe after a paddle in the water. The bridge did look very dodgy though; it made me think of old cartoons where the thing gives way slat by slat, domino-like.

It was a hike of 7 or 8 km from Șopotu Nou to the lake. The track was signposted surprisingly well for Romania, there wasn’t another soul around and the sun beat down on me. At 11am it was already 30 degrees in the shade. I thought about Michael Mosley, the journalist who died in the blistering heat of a Greek island while hiking alone in early June. Is this wise? I crossed a sturdier suspension bridge, passed another disused mill, and descended a steep slope to arrive at a spellbinding turquoise abyss surrounded by gnarly rocks. There marked the start of Cheile Nerei – the gorge of the Nera river. I met some actual people there. They were surprised that I did the trip alone – dangerous and boring, surely. After eating my lunch by the river, I headed back. Thankfully it had clouded over. Climbing the slope was easier than coming down; the return trip was speedier than the trek to the lake.

I did cross the flimsy bridge, very gingerly. I went for a dip, finding an eddy in the surprisingly fast-running river, but didn’t exactly sunbathe for long as there was no sun and thunder rumbled in the distance. A bit later, the thunder having passed, I stopped in the village of Dalboșeț for a coffee and an ice cream. (Villages often have one or more of what you’d call a dairy in New Zealand.) This piqued the interest of certain older locals (there aren’t many young ones) who asked me in their palatalised way whether I liked the village. I entered some other villages with the intention of taking photos, but there were eyes on me, often from several directions all at once, from the moment I stepped out of the car.

I had a shaorma at Prigor – this was much better than the pizza I’d had the night before – then went back to the guest house. By this time a troupe of ten-year-olds had arrived for their camp; they were staying in huts outside the main building where I was staying. I’d have liked to watch the football but the TV in my room (the only facility it had) didn’t seem to have the channel. Germany’s win over Denmark, in which a torrential storm stopped play for 25 minutes, would have been worth watching. Last night England came back from the brink to defeat Slovakia in extra time; I missed that match too.

In the morning it was time to check out. I was glad to after certain guests (or were they the owners – I couldn’t tell) were being far too loud far too early for a Sunday morning. I had my second coffee of the day at one of the betting shop cafés in Bozovici, just so I could use the loo there. Where it comes to loo availability, Romania is at the other end of the pipeline from where New Zealand sits.

On the way home I stopped at Cascada Bigăr, no longer the same after its collapse of three years ago, and then (by a happy accident) took a different route through Anina and the large town of Reșița. I’m already thinking about my next trip, which will likely be to Maramureș in a couple of weeks, and how I should prepare for my next solo hike.

It looks like I’ll have some work over the summer, through a firm that is struggling with demand for English speakers. I was apprehensive about this at first, but a phone conversation today has put me more at ease. More work is nearly always a good thing.

The flimsy bridge

Lacul Dracului

The place where I stayed

Cascada Bigăr, post-collapse, on the 45th parallel opposite the one near Oamaru
Travel: Romania

Prigor and thereabouts — Part 1 of 2 (with photos)

June 30, 2024 plutomanby 0 Comments

I’m writing this from a guest house in the village of Prigor, but I won’t post it for a couple of days because I can’t get a signal here. (I could do it on my phone in the nearby town of Bozovici where I can get a signal, but that’s too much hassle.)

On Wednesday night Romania played Slovakia in their last group game. I had a lesson with someone who couldn’t have cared less about the football, so I didn’t see Romania scrape through with a 1-1 draw, thanks to a dodgy penalty. They’ve got the Netherlands in the next round. (We used to call that country Holland, didn’t we? Romanians still call it Olanda.) All the teams with a positive or level goal difference made it through, while the eight teams with negative goal differences all went home. I’m not a fan of the format, but that worked out neatly.

Yesterday morning I had just one lesson before getting on my way. It was a pleasant three-hour drive that (towards the end) retraced part of the route I did with Mum and Dad in 2017. I crossed the 45th parallel at Cascada Bigăr which I saw with them; the structure collapsed three years ago. This guest house is big on views but low on facilities. I could murder a cup of tea right now but there’s no way to boil water. Hordes of kids are arriving tomorrow so they’re getting the swimming pool ready for them. Last night I checked out a disused mill, built in 1858, that stands opposite this place. (It’s next to the River Prigor, but the mill race – I think that’s what you call it – no longer flows.) I then met Ilie, the man who lives in the house near the mill. He invited me to guess his age. I hate that, even though I sometimes ask kids to guess mine. He said he was born in Prigor 86 years ago; his first wife died in 1988 and his second in 2012. Ilie gave me a tour of his fruit trees and bushes and large vegetable patch, then a sneak peek of the inside, including his spanking new kitchen. (He lives with some of his children and grandchildren.) I had a beer outside, then nearly finished Christopher Robin’s book in bed.

This morning I had muesli and fruit (including some of Ilie’s strawberries) for breakfast, then headed to Eftimie Murgu, a small town that sits on the Rudăria River and is home to 22 mills, all still in working order. (The town is named after Eftimie Murgu who was born there. He was a radical 19th-century politician.) I grabbed a coffee before taking a look at the mills which are manned on a rota system. The lady at the Firiz mill twigged that I wasn’t from these parts and started communicating with me using hand signals only. I then asked her to speak Romanian. (The accent here is different. In particular, the d and t sounds palatalise into the equivalent of English j and ch respectively, before the vowels e and i. I think something similar happens in standard Brazilian Portuguese. Before e and i, the n sound also turns into the sound represented by ñ in Spanish mañana.) She poured in some grain and showed how the millstone could be adjusted to give coarser or finer flour. Later the old woman at the “Îndărătnica Dintre Râuri” mill insisted that I buy something bottled or jarred or knitted. When I reached the Tunnel Mill at the end, I came back and bought some syrup and jam from the Îndărătnica lady and some wholemeal flour from the Firiz lady.

After my mill tour I sat in the park in larger town of Bozovici (pronounced Bozovitch, the name sounds like a highly strung tennis player). It being Dad’s 74th birthday I gave my parents a call. They told me about Biden’s embarrassing first debate against Trump. I would be on board with replacing Biden at this point. Better late than never. I had a packed lunch and from there I drove around without really getting anywhere. The driving wasn’t easy. Roads were shingle, or riddled with potholes, or frighteningly narrow, or corkscrew-like, or on a one-in-five gradient, or some combination. The temperature climbed throughout the afternoon and I thought about a swim in the river, but nothing I saw looked very swimmable. All the while I saw people tending their tiny pieces of farmland, bare-chested men with beer barrels sitting on benches, old ladies hunched over, and dogs that were drawn magnetically to the centre of the road. So back to Bozovici where I got a quattro stagioni pizza and ate it in the car as it pelted with rain.

The disused mill and part of the old man’s seven hectares

His stock of firewood, homemade butter pats, and chickens

The tunnel at the end of the line

The tourist information centre near where I stayed in Prigor. Has it ever been used? The sign telling you how much EU money went into it has long since crumbled away.
Life :) - Music - Other sports - Tennis - Travel: Romania

Dunken disorderly

June 26, 2024 plutomanby 0 Comments

On Sunday I went to Dorothy’s Baptist church to see, well, a baptism. Just like the other times I went there, I felt out of place. Before the service I stood in a queue for the loo, staring at a boiler which showed warning messages in 16 European languages, none of which was English. I thought how exotic the Polish word for “warning” – uwaga – looked compared to the others. I could be Swahili or something. I did manage to relieve myself and then it all started. Two Baptist churches combined for the two-hour service which took place outside. (It was a few degrees cooler than on previous days. I would have stayed at home otherwise.) In the middle of the service a four-month-old boy named Abel was “dedicated”. This involved words only – no water. Then at the end, after the long sermon, came the main event. A tall woman of twentyish in a white dress was about to be properly baptised. She stood in an inflatable swimming pool. This also had warning messages on it – “no diving” – in several languages. My favourite was the Dutch – niet dunken. The young woman gave a short speech standing in the pool, then got fully dunken. (I took three pictures at various stages of dunkenness, but won’t put them on here.) When that was over we had a kind of smorgasbord for lunch, including a quiche that I’d made the previous day. I got talking to a young chap who had recently arrived from Benin. He knew neither English nor Romanian, so we spoke in French. My French is very rusty and I’m liable to mix French words with Romanian ones. I was glad to get home after all of that – more than enough crowds for one day.

On Saturday I played tennis with Florin. It was pretty warm, even at 8pm. Because the grip on my usual racket was in such poor shape, I brought an older one. Leading 5-2 but with game point to Florin, I popped a string. This can happen on a racket that has been unused for a while. Luckily Florin had a spare – a Donnay that was made in Belgium in (he guessed) the late eighties. Romania would be playing Belgium shortly after we finished. I actually played better with his racket, and was up 6-3, 4-1 at the end.

I didn’t watch Romania’s 2-0 loss to Belgium. Tomorrow they play Slovakia in their final group game. A draw would guarantee both teams a place in the next round. The odds reflect this; you can only get 11/10 on a stalemate, where you normally see more than 2/1 on a draw between two evenly matched teams. If I had to pick a score, I’d go with 0-0.

At the weekend Touch of Grey by the Grateful Dead came on my car radio. I know shamefully little about the Grateful Dead, but I really like this song that was released in 1987, two decades after most of their stuff. I did the fill-in-the-gaps exercise with Hozier’s Too Sweet this morning; it went down well, I thought.

I’m now reading Christopher Robin Milne’s autobiography Enchanted Places. A fascinating read. I discussed it with my parents when I spoke to them yesterday. Mum started our chat by complaining about all the people who pronounce “route” as “rout”; that made me think she must be feeling OK.

On Thursday I’m going on my trip. I’m staying three nights in Prigor, close to the Nera River. There should be plenty to see there: a water mill, a monastery, multiple tracks for hiking and places in the river to swim afterwards. And not a lot of tourists. Sounds great.


Family - Life :)

More about Mum, and a famous family

June 23, 2024 plutomanby 0 Comments

There was much more I could have said about Mum two posts ago, but at 1100-plus words, that “essay” was already getting up there. So I’ll add a couple more things right now.

First, obligations. Fulfilling obligations is very important to her and always has been. If she says she’ll be at x place at y time, she’ll damn well be there. Sometimes she’ll take this to extremes by turning non-obligations, where nobody is going to care if she turns up or not, into musts. When I was a kid this got particularly bad when Mum and Dad had signed up for some event or other, and then Dad got one of his crippling migraines as he so often did in the eighties and nineties. Mum would seethe and sigh and huff and puff. Why are you being so awkward? She treated him like a disobedient child. Not an ounce of sympathy. Watching from the sidelines, it was painful. Apart from that, which I find unforgivable, I see a strong sense of obligation as a good thing, and I like to think it has rubbed off on me. (I do fulfil the vast majority of my obligations, partly because I try not to have too many of them outside work. I know my limits.) Some of my students in Romania don’t have this sense, and I’ll admit that does frustrate me.

Second, church. Mum has attended the Catholic church since she was tiny. (I did too until I was 16 or so.) But really it comes into the category of obligations. She goes because she always has done. I’ve never seen her read the Bible or express any profound religious thoughts; I don’t even know if she believes. What church does do for Mum is promote a certain way of living. She looks after herself. She gets plenty of exercise, doesn’t gamble, doesn’t smoke, drinks very little (that’s just as well; two glasses of wine and she’s gone), and has an impressive level of self-control over her eating. Growing up I remember the big platefuls she’d dish out to the three men in the house, while she’d give herself half the amount. Church also gives her a social benefit; after the service she has coffee with other women who attend, which probably means a whole load of inane gossip.

I thought about the church thing because Dorothy has invited me to attend tomorrow, including the baptism afterwards. Under normal circumstances I’d have said no, but because I’m going through a lighter period of lessons I should be able to cope with this extra human contact. I just hope it doesn’t last too long.

The most interesting lesson of last week was the Romanian one. Our teacher asked, Have you ever met a famous person? Like actually interacted with someone famous? I said no. I’ve seen plenty of famous people – members of the royal family, top tennis players, and so on, but I’ve never had a conversation with any of them. Dorothy said yes because she happens to be a member of the vast, and vastly successful, Freud family. Good grief. Sigmund Freud is her great-grandfather. Clement Freud (who had his fingers in numerous pies) and the artist Lucian Freud are both uncles of hers. The fashion designer Bella Freud is her cousin. I’d always wondered about Dorothy’s background because she has quite a clipped upper-class accent and uses elevated words and expressions that my parents wouldn’t use despite being a few years older. When she said that it was easy for her to get into Cambridge, that set off alarm bells. I wonder what her upbringing was like. She did say that she was happy to rid herself of the Freud name when she got married; I can imagine. In New Zealand I knew one of the daughters of Keith Holyoake, whom I think was the country’s longest-serving prime minister. She also felt burdened by the name.

This morning I drove to Mark’s place to pick up a tent. I’m thinking of going camping later this summer. The tent is a breeze to put up, but putting it away is another matter. I’m likely to have all kinds of fun and games there; I’ll have to practise before I use it for real. I met his wife who was in a moon boot; she managed to break her toe last week. She was complimentary of the level of care she’d received, saying it was much better and faster than it would have been in the UK. The NHS is a hot-button issue (as it should be) in the upcoming election.

Tennis coming up tonight. After that will be Romania’s next match at Euro 2024. They play Belgium. A draw should see them through to the next round with a game to spare.

As we pass the longest day, the temperature is forecast to drop tomorrow after four scorching days in a row. That should mean I’ll have a more comfortable time when I go away.

Music - Other sports - Tennis - Travel: Romania - Writing a book

Three and easy

June 19, 2024 plutomanby 0 Comments

It’s getting hot and uncomfortable and soporific; we’re forecast to reach the mid-30s on each of the next four days.

Yesterday Romania’s match against neighbours Ukraine kicked off at four, just as my lesson did with the twins in their dark ground-floor flat near Piața Verde, one of the city’s many markets. We agreed to do English stuff with the game on mute in the background. We were discussing building materials when Nicolae Stanciu’s 29th-minute screamer went in. Romania scored twice more in double-quick time after the break. They were seriously impressive, surpassing all expectations. Most of the fans in Munich were decked out in the yellow of Romania. The match was still going on as I went past the bar at the market; old men sat there agog, probably reliving the golden age of Gheorghe Hagi. When I got home I met a young chap on the stairs. “Did you see the match? Trei-zero!” That was the final score. With 16 of the 24 teams qualifying for the next round (I’m not a fan of this format), Romania are already in prime position to do so. Then it’s a straight knockout and who knows.

I played tennis with Florin again on Saturday. I was up 7-6 (7-4), 4-0 when we finished. Once again I escaped after a frustratingly high unforced-error rate in the first set. In the middle of the set I felt I couldn’t execute anything.

Dad is knocking out some pictures to go in one of the potential books. (Doesn’t that sound weird?) Sometimes I have to nudge him in a different direction when, despite the artwork, it doesn’t quite get the language point across. One difficulty is getting the pictures to me without a loss of quality. So far he’s been sending me photos, but the lighting creates a grey background, sometimes verging on brown, that infiltrates the main colour of the picture too. I’m hoping he can scan them.

A song I’ve heard a lot over the last two months is Too Sweet by Hozier. It’s a rare modern mainstream hit that I actually like. I plan to use it for one of my fill-in-the-gaps-in-the-lyrics exercises. I usually resort to older songs for these, so it’s nice to have something contemporary for a change. A far less mainstream song that came on the radio yesterday was Lume, Lume by Vunk, one of my favourite Romanian bands. I was its 2014th Shazammer. I should also mention that today is Paul McCartney’s 82nd birthday.

Next Thursday I’m off to Prigor in Țara Almăjului, where I’ll spend three nights. The whole area is in an isolated valley of the River Nera; from the photos it looks beautiful. I’m looking forward to getting away. My shortish break will serve as a bit of a dry run for something more ambitious later.

Family

Let’s talk about Mum

June 14, 2024 plutomanby 0 Comments

Today is Mum’s 75th birthday. A genuine milestone. When I called her last night (it was already her birthday in New Zealand) she was unbothered by the whole thing. She’s had tummy troubles this week which haven’t put her in a celebratory mood.

Mum is five foot two and a half. Or at least she was; I’m sure the half has gone now. She grew up on a farm in South Canterbury with five brothers (three older, two younger) and an older sister. Growing up with all those boys might be why she punches above her weight. She went to teacher training college in Dunedin and began her teaching career at Portobello, just down the road. In 1972 she got engaged but that all fell through – I have no idea of the ins and outs of that; Mum never even mentioned it to me. She made the six-week boat trip to Southampton the following year and would spend the next three decades in the UK.

In those 30 years New Zealand never stopped being home; at no point did Britain hold an emotional attachment to her. I think in the early days she was at least content with being there. She and Dad lived on a street where many other residents were born outside the UK; it had a strong sense of community. Mum had hobbies and interests which she continued to pursue when I was little. She was a keen runner and spent a lot of time spinning and knitting. My brother’s and my health and education were always top priorities for her; she showed incredible perseverance when it came to teaching my brother to read. I always marvel at the energy she had. In 1981 they bought a derelict house that was frankly wrong when you have two tiny kids (when they moved in I was 18 months old and my brother just three months), then a couple of months later she flew to New Zealand with us two tots, leaving Dad to contend with the notably harsh British winter of 1981-82.

My memories of home as a little boy involve cement mixers and insulating foam and two builders named Jack and Jim. They extended the house and transformed it beyond recognition into an asset of great value. Mum had done supply teaching when we were small, but in 1988 she went full-time and that was the beginning of the end. Her interests dried up; I suppose she no longer had the time and energy for them. While she was excellent in the classroom and very conscientious outside it, from the early nineties teaching became a means to an end. Save up enough money to get me out of here. By about ’95 school had become a chore. Dad realised that Mum would be unhappy if she carried on living and teaching in the UK. In 2000 they had a dummy run when Mum did a teaching exchange in Cairns, then in 2003 they upped sticks permanently to New Zealand.

In the meantime Mum made what I regard as a weird decision about our education. Dad would have sent us both to the big secondary school in town, but Mum had other ideas. My brother ended up at a comprehensive church school in Cambridge (a pretty good school, truth be told) while she thought I could benefit from something more academic and competitive. At eleven I sat an extrance exam for a private school on the off-chance that I won a scholarship. Though I was accepted along with about a third of those who sat the exam, I didn’t win one of the handful of scholarships. I wasn’t too disappointed. Normal school for me. Then Mum decided that the expense – vast, it seemed to me – would be worth it. It wasn’t. I stuck it out for five years in a 400-year-old school that had classes on Saturday mornings in exchange for longer holidays. My brother often took the mick: “He goes to snob school.” Now I don’t feel I ever went to private school; it didn’t make much of an impact on me apart from to dent my confidence.

Dad hoped that emigrating to NZ might make Mum eternally happy. No stress, no hassle, no enemies. Though I’m sure she has been happier than if she’d in the UK, it hasn’t quite worked out that way. She has enemies at the golf club; she would have them if she beached on an uninhabited island. When I went out to NZ last year, Mum’s stress levels often shot off the scale. I’d hear that sigh and that was it. Category 4 hurricane. Batten down the hatches, you’re in for a rough ride. Apart from Dad (poor thing) and I, nobody ever gets caught up in the storm. My brother and sister-in-law certainly won’t when they go over in August.

Over time Mum and I have drifted apart in some ways. I’ve suffered from anxiety and depression since my early twenties, and Mum hasn’t known what (if anything) to do about that. She wanted her son to have a wife and kids and earn plenty of money and play rugby with his mates and for everything to be simple. Mental health was (and mostly still is) a foreign language to her. Eventually she acknowledged the existence of my problems, but her “solutions” for me were way off base. I took that job in Wellington largely because of her, and that damn near killed me. I was 31 by then, but she still didn’t “get” me. It took my move to Romania for the penny to drop.

Much of the “drift” has been a case of her inhabiting the world of money in a way that I just don’t. Not anymore, at least. If anything, her wealth has only helped to increase her stress levels. It has also made her more shallow – it saddens me that her success, as she sees it, is defined by her wealth (I was born at the right time; aren’t I clever?) rather than shaping thousands of children’s lives over 40 years. One time I stayed at my parents’ in 2015, I found her behaviour embarrassing.

When I spent time with Mum last year, I realised she’s a more complex (and knowledgeable) person than I gave her credit for. Her views on subjects aren’t as black and white as I thought. She’s happiest being outside in nature, many miles from her biggest financial asset. (Last year she particularly enjoyed visiting her old stomping grounds in Otago.) She’s genuinely happy for me despite my meagre earnings and lack of a family. Since I moved to Romania, we’ve got on pretty well most of the time. She’s always just wanted the best for me; she hasn’t always known what the best is, but I can hardly blame her for that.

Dreams - Life :) - Photos - Politics

Make politics boring again (and some photos)

June 11, 2024 plutomanby 0 Comments

Life is really just a case of lurching from one mini problem to another, hoping all the while to dodge the big ones. The plumber fixed the leaking pipe in the bathroom but now it reeks of sewage in there, just like in the guest houses I stayed at when I arrived in Romania. And now my bank app has stopped working so there are bills I physically can’t pay. (I booked some accommodation for a couple of weeks’ time but had to cancel the booking because I couldn’t make the payment.) I made two trips to the bank yesterday but they couldn’t sort it out. I’ll go back there later today. All stupidly time-consuming.
Update: On my third visit to the bank, a younger cashier got involved and it looks like it’s now working. However I’ve just had a no-show from one of my younger students. She only has lessons with me at all because her mother has the money to pay for them; she really couldn’t give a damn. One of my goals for the coming months (before the schools go back in September) is to get rid of all these time-wasters.

I’ve mentioned dreams before on here. Last night I had a dream in which I was hopelessly physically weak. Then a week or two ago I got the results of some general knowledge test that had vital implications – exactly what I don’t know. I went with some friends to receive the news. While they mostly got scores well into the 30s (the max was unclear), I got 25 which was bang on the pass mark. I was relieved but embarrassed and tried to hide my score from my friends. Yep, I passed, no worries. My paper was returned to me covered in red ink. I was branded as “incurious” and in one instance a “dumbass”, then at the end the examiner scrawled “I can’t prove it, but you know and I know that you cheated.” Do other people have to endure dreams like this? Inadequacy and embarrassment are running themes. Is my self-esteem that bad? The only positive from this dream was that I seemed to have a few friends.

Tests, exams, education. On Thursday my student in Slobozia – an English teacher – was rather upset with me when I criticised the Romanian education system and its knock-on effects. I explained that I certainly wasn’t critical of her. (Why a teacher should be so keen to defend the system is beyond me.) I felt bad, but right on cue the next day a viral video emerged from Ineu, a town around two hours’ drive to the north of me. A girl by the name of Iulia who had just finished her final year with the best grades in her school (in New Zealand she’d be the dux) gave a damning acceptance speech. The system has stripped me of my personality and taught me how to lie. It has taught me how to be a shallow hypocrite rather than to develop ethically and morally. Ouch!

Last week Nigel Farage entered the fray in the UK election campaign. He talks some sense on immigration but I wish he would stop there. When he criticised Rishi Sunak’s D-day desertion, he said “he doesn’t care about our culture,” implying that Sunak (who is of Indian descent) is from a different culture. Something other. In fact Sunak, who was born in Southampton, is about as British as they come. Then there’s Farage overt support for Donald Trump. His Reform party may well pick up 15% or so, though under the ridiculous first-past-the-post system they may only get one or two seats. The party I’m most impressed with right now are the Liberal Democrats. Their leader Ed Davey doesn’t take himself too seriously (so far in the campaign he’s been falling off paddleboards) and he has a compelling life story that shows him to be greatly empathetic. Yesterday they talked about pumping money into the care sector, and so far they’re the only party who are even daring to mention Brexit – the elephant in the room.

When I spoke to my brother he said he wished to go back to politics being boring again. Apart from maybe in the days just before or after an election, the subject never came up around the kitchen table when we were growing up. He mentioned the Monica Lewinsky scandal and what a big deal that was at the time. Now something twice as big happens every week it seems. Back to boring would be nice. After what happened in the European elections at the weekend, we might be waiting a while. Here in Timișoara the current mayor Dominic Fritz has been re-elected – he beat Nicolae Robu who was mayor from 2012 to 2020.

On Sunday I met Dorothy at Scârț, the place where they have the theatre and the museum of communism. I ordered a lemonade in Romanian, then the young lady asked me if I was from Birmingham or somewhere in that area. Well, I studied there, I said. Nobody had ever “accused” me of having a Brummie accent before, and as far as I’m aware I definitely don’t have one. (I think I have a hard-to-pin-down standard British accent that has been “contaminated” a little by all that time in New Zealand.) When you move around as I’ve done, bits and pieces are bound to rub off on you, so who knows?

My trip into the wilderness on Sunday: I was pleased to get a shot of the bounding deer

Lugoj last Thursday. An abandoned swimming pool and restaurant.

The cemetery at Toager near the Serbian border on Saturday 1st June

Life :) - Politics - Tennis

Tennis sensation and a sticky end for Rishi (I hope)

June 10, 2024 plutomanby 0 Comments

I’ve just been up to see Elena, the lady who lives above me. She’ll be off to Canada in mid-July for another six-month stint and is already packing Romanian stuff you can’t get over there, like games of rummy and Rom biscuits.

Before that I watched the men’s Roland Garros final. Carlos Alcaraz won his third grand slam (already!), coming from 2-1 down in sets to beat Alexander Zverev in five. I couldn’t quite get into the match until mid-way, maybe because I have the TV in the kitchen. Two extraordinary points, both in the fifth set, told the story. On the first, Zverev needed half a dozen overheads to put Alcaraz away. You won the point Sasha, but look how hard he’s making it for you. Then in the penultimate game Alcaraz came up with a frankly stupid half-volley that clipped the tape and whizzed past Zverev. It was all the more ridiculous because they’d been playing for 4¼ hours by then. At this rate, the sky’s the limit for him. I didn’t see the women’s final where Iga Świątek beat Jasmine Paolini in roughly an hour. Świątek is certainly regina zgurii as they’d say in Romania –⁠ queen of clay.

Last night I played tennis with Florin. These days it’s just us two, we play once a week if we’re lucky, and only for an hour. Not like the good old days. We played just one set which I won on a tie-break, 7-3, in 47 minutes. I led 4-2 in games but then lost a 16-pointer on my serve on the way to going 5-4 down. He pinned my forehand corner for a winner on the first point of the tenth game, then I made a bad error to go down 30-0, but he seemed to lose focus a bit as I won the next four points. I struggled with my depth of shot; too many short balls allowed him to take charge. There were four deuce games in the set and I lost the lot. After the game we picked cherries from the two huge trees on the edge of the court; I’ve already eaten my small bagful with ice cream.

Earlier today I went to Satchinez, a village 30-something kilometres from here. (Satchinez, which means Chinese village, is a puzzling name.) It was a tricky trip because I got lost on the way. There was supposedly a nature reserve nearby. It turned out it was alongside the nearby village of Bărăteaz. I didn’t have my GPS device switched on –⁠ I find it distracting –⁠ but used Google Maps on my phone, relying entirely on Romanian voice directions. Left here? Here? Seriously? The GPS took me across a track in a field for almost two kilometres. It looks dry at least. I hope I don’t get stuck. When I got there (if there really was a there), I hung around just long enough to see a deer bound in front of me before turning back. This afternoon I met Dorothy at Scârț. Yesterday I saw Mark and his wife (yes, they’re now married) in Dumbrăvița. I didn’t expect her to be there. During our chat I could see she had all the hallmarks of an excellent teacher. We sat in the garden of a restaurant; I didn’t order any food.

Last night I spoke to my brother and my sister-in-law. As always we discussed the prospect of Mum and Dad coming out this way next spring. The three of us had a good laugh about their “can’t afford it” excuse. Then my brother mentioned Rishi Sunak’s bizarre decision to leave the D-Day commemorations in Normandy early. As well as being totally disrespectful (there are still D-Day veterans alive), it’s one hell of a way to piss off your base. The Tories are massively underwater with every age group except the over-65s who will be the most angry of all at his crazy decision to come home and record a campaign interview. Most bafflingly, what were his advisors playing at? Three and a half weeks until election day; I really hope the Tories get the damn good kicking they deserve. (Today in Romania both the local and European elections took place.)

Books - Life :) - Music - Writing a book

Getting into print (but counting no chickens)

June 3, 2024 plutomanby 0 Comments

An interesting day yesterday. At 12:30 I turned up at Porto Arte for lunch to celebrate Florin’s wife’s birthday. There weren’t many of us there – that was fine by me. I had a traditional Romanian lunch: pork, sausages, a fried egg and some vegetables. We sat outside where the music wasn’t bad. Dragostea din Tei by O-Zone came on; this was a massive hit throughout Europe in 2004, but by that point I’d moved to New Zealand so it passed me by. (The tei referenced in the song is that lime tree which provides an olfactory backdrop to this time of year.) Later Gordon Lightfoot’s Sundown played. Lightfoot died last year aged 84. His haunting Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald often came on when I listened to the Sound in Wellington. I said I’d have to leave at two to attend a meeting about the book, and that provoked some interest. When 2pm rolled around I got out some cash to pay, but Florin told me it was an invitation and that I should put my money away. If only it ended there. But once again he gave me a lecture on how we do things in Romania and you need to learn. All unnecessary. What was I supposed to do? Just assume I didn’t have to pay? Seriously man, piss off.

So on to the book meeting. Dorothy came too. We stood outside the offices of Editura de Vest where there were aging signs that were partly in Serbian, and tried to read the Cyrillic. Then the lady in her sixties showed up and opened the door. It was a large old building which I’d been in several times before – it used to house a branch of Banca Transilvania before that closed around the start of the pandemic. She spent half an hour (!) showing us around the offices of the publishing house – high-ceilinged caverns (the ceilings leaked in a storm) piled high with musty books. The outfit was founded in 1972 and showed little sign of change since then. I was getting pretty antsy. Are we going to move on the actual book here or what?

Mercifully she switched on a PC with a large screen – the only piece of tech I could see – and brought up the eighth and final part of my book. Yes, we can publish this. Really? Sure, 500-odd pages in B5 format, no problem. (B5 is around ten inches by seven, I found out.) I didn’t expect that at all. I explained that it wasn’t quite finalised and no, there are no page numbers because what I have in my document won’t match up with what appears on paper. I still need to include a pronunciation key and a “legend” describing all the symbols I’ve used. She gave me free rein over what fonts to use. (Romanians just love Arial and Times New Roman. I really can’t abide Arial, and though I don’t mind Times in itself, to me it smacks of “boring” and “you haven’t thought about this”. I plan to use a mixture of Cambria and Franklin Demi.)

Next I showed her a picture Dad had done, illustrating perfectly the difference between “exercise” and “practice”. I suggested a second, smaller book in a landscape format with 30 or so of Dad’s illustrations. Sounds good. She then said that they have a link with the Minister of Culture and there will be some event next May, so main book would need to go to press before then. As for the illustrated one, that could be published sooner. Gosh. Dorothy often chipped in; in fact she spoke at least as much as I did. At 4:15 the lady’s daughter arrived. Unlike her mother, she could speak English, but we continued in Romanian. Dorothy had to leave at that point. It’s all extremely positive and it would be incredible if the book(s) made their way into print, but I’m not counting any chickens. Far from it. I think back to the time in 2016 when a language school offered me a job, then later un-offered it. This is Romania; take nothing for granted.

I went for another drive on Saturday, skirting the border with Serbia. I got stopped by the border police. It’s kind of weird living close to land borders. The two policemen took down my details and I was free to go.

I’ve just started reading Franz Kafka’s The Trial. I had no idea it was the centenary of his death. Everything is Kafkaesque these days; it’s about time I saw what the fuss was about.

Last night we had a thunderstorm. We had a good downpour this morning too.