The night before last I had a weird dream in which I was forced to leave Timișoara and move to Cluj. I don’t know why the prospect was so frightening given some of the other moves I’ve made in my life. Cluj is a fine city; maybe I’ll go there with Mum and Dad if they come this way again.
It’s officially the end of summer. I don’t mind that one bit. (It got to 33 today all the same; I had to have a cold shower in the middle of the day after a bike ride.) This summer wasn’t in the same league as the infernal three months we had last year that just about did for me. A combination of the heat and the news made me feel that we were heading for hell in a handcart. A year later I’ve just about checked out of the news entirely; it’s got too much for me.
Moving to New Zealand in 2003 meant I missed out on a lot of potential travel opportunities in Europe. Now, with ever more globalisation and saminess and theme-park-isation, I wonder if it’s even worth it. It’s the differences that make travel interesting. Why not just look at the pictures while staying here? Here is more interesting to me than many popular destinations anyway, with all the funny little shops and bars and cafés. I’m reminded of an episode of Miranda where everyone thinks she’s gone on some exotic trip when in fact she’s booked into the motel down the road to avoid all the hassle. Then there’s the expense. On Sunday I played squash with Mark in Dumbrăvița, then we had pizza and beer at a place around the corner. He’d just got back from a seven-week trip (with his wife and their two dogs) around western Europe, all at unavoidably high cost.
I forgot to mention that I got a speeding ticket coming back from Slovakia. I was still in Slovakia when I was pulled over for doing 132 km/h when the limit was 110. (This was in the middle a short section when the limit dropped from 130. For the police it was like shooting fish in a barrel.) I expected the worst. When I got a fine of only €20, which I paid in cash on the spot, I was immensely relieved. I also think I might have got flashed by a camera in the Czech Republic at the start of my trip.
Here’s a selection of the pictures I took on my trip:
Firstly, Olomouc (which was lovely really) in the Czech Republic:
Kroměříž, not that far from Olomouc:
Příbor, still in the Czech Republic, birthplace of Sigmund Freud:
Bydgoszcz, Poland, where I spent most of my time:
The beautiful port city of Gdańsk in northern Poland:
Saturday the 28th was when Dad brought up three-quarters of a century. In the morning us four men, including the little man, went to the car boot sale. (The previous time I was down there it didn’t run because the field was flooded.) Then it was off on a steam train as a birthday treat of sorts for Dad, though it was really more of a treat for my nephew. He was clearly enjoying himself. The train ran from Norden to Swanage, which is by the sea, and made three other stops along the way. They run old diesel trains on that line too, but you know in advance when you book which type of train you’ll get. Our steam train didn’t have open carriages like the narrow-gauge mocăniță I took in Maramureș in 2021, and though it topped out at just 25 mph, that was very speedy compared to the one in Romania which also had a much longer line.
We got off at Swanage and headed to the beach where my nephew built sandcastles (tap it!) and we ate chips. A typical British seaside town, not down at heel like so many these days, not full of ghastly posh shops either, but simple and really quite lovely. It was a cloudy day, so it wasn’t busy. It brought back memories of the wonderful simplicity of the seaside when I was little. I can see the sea! Rock pools, shells, sea anemones, the cycle of tides, so much time. When my brother and I were small we sometimes camped at Sheringham in Norfolk. My brother would like to take his kids back there, or anywhere by the sea really, when they get a bit bigger, but his wife never went camping as a child so it might be a hard sell. On the train back we stopped at Corfe Castle for cream teas. Jam and cream oozing out of our scones. A delight. There were some wonderful family photos from that day: the ones on the train and of all seven of us at the beach. (I had actually been to Swanage once before, at the time of the Easter floods in 1998.)
Sunday was another “hot” day. My nephew had a meltdown and got stung by a bee. We had coffee at Wetherspoons. I had a depressing discussion of the Ukraine situation with my brother who understands it all much better than me. Then on Monday, after a fifth night on an airbed in the study, another episode of Nick Cope’s Popcast and my nephew’s latest tantrum (my brother is a brillant dad really, dealing with it all), I went back to St Ives with Mum and Dad. This was a tiring trip that involved being stuck at Cambridge North station for half an hour (one of the doors broke) and being in rush-hour traffic in Cambridge on the bus.
The next day I had my day trip to Birmingham. I left at 6:30 am and got back at nearly 10:30 pm. Given the extra time I spent at my brother’s, it was really one trip too many, no matter how much I like Brum and wanted to see my uni friend. What were the highlights? Well, one was having coffee on the top floor of the Cube building and the view from up there. Edgbaston, the Old Joe clock tower. So much green around where I went to uni, but the centre suffers from a lack of it. Another highlight was lunch my friend’s girlfriend had made for us and all her positive words about her recovery from cancer. I suppose the Jewellery Quarter was a highlight too, though I’d seen it before. Judging by the cars, there’s an awful lot of money in jewellery.
I was in St Ives for my last day. No obligations. I had coffee and a muffin with Mum and Dad at a newish place called the Ivo Lounge, then I met up with some family friends (the ones who came to Romania in 2017) and that was very enjoyable as always. We even talked about meeting up in Budapest which would be wonderful if it could ever happen. Later we ate at Wetherspoons (yes, Wetherspoons featured extensively) and watched bits of Wimbledon. The match between Taylor Fritz and Gabriel Diallo was of high quality and a pleasure to watch. Fritz won in five sets and barely three hours, reminding me of the good old days when games and sets flew by at Wimbledon.
I was up early the next morning for what would be a long day. I’d picked up a cold, ultimately from my nephew I think. As I just about had one foot out the door, I had another quite major run-in with Mum. It was all because of how horrible and unreasonable she was being to Dad who had only asked her a simple question. I just couldn’t let it go. She talked about wanting to die. Why does she do that? She had stomach pain which didn’t help, but bloody hell. See you whenever, she said. Whenever is likely a year away, maybe more. Dad walked with me to the bus stop.
I took the bus to Cambridge, then a train to Bishop’s Stortford because a broken rail had put paid to the one to Stansted, then I got a replacement bus (I was lucky to get that) to Stansted. A good job I’d given myself some time. After my flight to Budapest I took a bus and then the underground to the main bus station called Népliget. I had loads of time, and because it was so hot and I had a cold, I was glad to just mooch around the underground part of the station which was full of funny places to eat and drink, all designed for locals. A seven-finger signal from the barlady meant that a beer cost 700 forint. I didn’t really want a beer, but I did want the loo which would otherwise be a minimum of 300. The bus to the Normandia bus station (a 15-minute walk from my flat) took 4½ hours. I got back at nearly two in the morning. Kitty was happy to see me.
It’s good to be back, or at least it will be once I’ve stopped coughing up green gunge. I’ve talked to Mum. It’s as if the business just before I left never happened. We get on fine at a safe distance. I’m having to seriously think about what to do next year though, because things can become very unpleasant whenever I get within a mile of her.
They’re into the fourth round at Wimbledon. I haven’t seen much of it, though I did see the end of Cam Norrie’s admirable five-set win yesterday over Nicolas Jarry. Norrie had had a match point in the third-set tie-break and faced a barrage of huge serves from the other end. His own wide lefty serve was extremely effective though – it got him out of trouble in the final set.
We’ve had very hot weather. No surprises there. But we’ve just had one of those ear-splitting mass alerts informing us of a storm about to rip through, and one of my students has postponed a lesson to tomorrow.
Here are some non-family photos:
The river and meadow in St Ives, plus the, um, world peashooting competitionMy brother’s catA stag beetle in my brother’s gardenHappy BottomThe car boot saleThe Swanage steam trainThe beach at SwanageWhere we stopped for our cream teas
This time next week I’ll be meeting Mum and Dad somewhere in London, hoping that my phone works over there. You can never be 100% sure. Blame Brexit for that.
My hours are now dropping like a stone. The end of the school year has that effect when kids make up a higher proportion of my students than ever before. As always, this time of year means more trips to the market. The strawberries will be done in a few days. Stone fruit is now in abundance. Before I go away I’ll buy a few kilos of sour cherries to preserve in jars for the winter. (In Romanian, sweet and sour cherries are completely different words: cireșe and vișine, respectively.) Yesterday I met up for lunch with Dorothy at one of those basic but good Romanian places in her neck of the woods. I had quite a substantial meal: bean soup with bread, chicken schnitzel, rice, and mashed potato mixed in with spinach. The temperature had climbed to 30 by then. As always, she was unfazed by the heat while I was constantly looking around for shade.
On Sunday I went to Jimbolia (a fun name to say), a town of 10,000 people which sits close to the Serbian border. It was a typically Romanian town, mostly unmodernised, its wide main street lined with trees painted (as always here) white on the bottom. They do that, as far as I know, to stop the trunks from absorbing too much heat when the temperature quickly rises in the spring. The main street ends in the railway station, a border crossing between the EU and the wild exterior. The station was practically deserted, but to my pleasant surprise there was a toilet inside. In Romania this is a big deal. Those in Loo Zealand don’t know how good they’ve got it. (That’s just reminded me that there was a Lew Zealand in the Muppets.) Mostly I sat in the shade and read Wessex Tales, a collection of short stories by Thomas Hardy that Dad gave me. It took me a while to “dial in” to the late-Victorian English and obsession with marriage, which was the norm back then. (In Romania, it’s still kind of the norm now. I’ve got used to brushing off the “Why aren’t you married?” question.) The tales take place in towns and villages near where my brother lives, though the names are changed in the book. I’d hoped the stories would be more focused on the places themselves, akin to Wild Wales, but they’ve been worth reading all the same.
My lower workload will give me a chance to work on my other book, the one based on the bloke I played tennis with in Auckland. I hope to make some serious headway with that over the summer.
Last week I read this comment on AI:
AI is the latest con in a long line of charlatanism from the IT industry. Almost every promise made for how it would improve our lives has been a sham. The speed increase of communication has imposed insane pressures on people in the workplace. Social media has mentally damaged a whole generation. Society has become pornografied and every deranged whack job who previously would have had to stand shouting on a street corner has been given a seemingly respectable platform for their nonsensical hate filled tosh. No-one can read a map anymore – or spell – or write music – without pushing a button.
And now we have vast amounts of money being poured into a concept which is going to steal people’s jobs and just make us even more gullible and stupid. The worst part is being told that AI will solve climate change when in reality it is contributing massively to it! We don’t need a billion dollar computer to point out that we are consuming too much – we are just hoping that it will tell us how we can carry on doing it!
Think I’ll put my foot through the telly and go live up a mountain somewhere (if I can find one not swarming with bloody “influencers”).
I don’t think pornografied is really a word, but this commenter manages to be very funny and absolutely right (as I see it) at the same time. Social media has been profoundly damaging for people’s mental wellbeing. It has also catastrophically accelerated the hyperconsumption and each-man-for-himself “un-society” that started in about 1980. And as my student Matei (a big user of AI) said recently, we’ve now got AI on top of all of this, making us super dumb. (As for me, it’s instant messaging that’s the real killer. I turned off all alerts more than a year ago; it was the only way I could handle it. I couldn’t cope with being part of active WhatsApp groups.)
Here are some pictures of Jimbolia:
The railway station
I was met by goats outside the station
A compulsory charge of zero lei to use the loo doesn’t sound too bad. (It was once 2000 old lei.) But the loo had disappeared. Luckily there was one inside the station.
The main street, with the Catholic church on the left
The very centre. The statue on the left is of St Florian, who was venerated in Austro-Hungary, of which Jimbolia was a part at that time. (Jimbolia didn’t become Romanian until 1924.)
A monument marking 150 years since the 1848 revolution, also known as the Hungarian War of Independence, in which tens of thousands died. The plaque on the right uses the word “Pașoptiști”. That comes from the Romanian for forty-eight: patruzeci și opt, or patrușopt in quick speech. The suffix -ist (plural -iști) is used a lot in Romanian: IT workers are known as ITiști, for instance.
A WW2 memorial. The defaced plaque at the bottom is in German.
The Catholic church
Quite a handsome council building, I thought, even if it needs some TLC.
After spending a week at my brother’s, my parents have now made their way to St Ives.
It’s officially the first day of summer, meaning infernal temperatures are just around the corner. This coming Saturday we’re forecast to nudge the mid-30s. That’s still some time away so it could be several degrees out. In either direction. The air con on my car stopped working properly during the trip with Mum and Dad. No big deal at that point, but if I don’t get it sorted (maybe it just needs a top-up of freon) my car will rapidly become unusable.
Today we hit 28 degrees, the warmest day of the year so far. It was supposed to be my first relaxing day since my parents left, but I had sinus pain – not that absolutely crippling pain but bad enough all the same – that didn’t go away until five, after which I felt washed out and weary. I did manage to get through a lot of Brave New World, though.
Yesterday was the deadline for the book “project” submission. There were so many hoops to jump through, understandable in a way, but it made the whole thing (as Dad put it) a slog. I wish I could have gone through a conventional publisher. While I was having lunch in the park in Dumbrăvița between lessons, a 77-year-old man sat on the bench next to me. Unusually, it took him a while to determine that I wasn’t Romanian. He wanted to know what the British reaction to the Romanian election was. I said I bet it passed most Brits by entirely. (Not totally accurate, come to think of it. The re-run definitely garnered more attention than usual over there.) He said he was a retired Romanian and French teacher who had published 15 books. His “publishers” sounded rather like mine: glorified printers and not much more.
I had an earlier finish than usual yesterday so I met up with Dorothy at Berăria 700 for a light dinner. The weather was perfect for sitting outside. Among other things, we talked about Dot Cotton from EastEnders and forms of address for tennis players. She talked a bit about woke stuff, a subject that energises her much more than it does me. It’s funny – a couple of weeks ago I had a lesson with the 35-year-old guy who lives in London. He wanted to know why on earth all this trans rights (and related) stuff mattered so much. How is it even news, when so few people are affected? Yeah mate, you’re preaching to the choir here. I don’t get it either. It’s like deciding on what colour to paint the spare bedroom when your house is on fire. And that goes for both sides of the argument. Mark, who’s 54, said something similar last weekend, though he drew the line at calling individual known people “they”. So do I, honestly. The kind of singular they in “Always give the customer what they want” or “What did they say when you spoke to Barclays?” is perfectly normal to me because the person is unknown. “They wrote their first novel at 24” is something I can’t bring myself to say, however, and it takes me aback when I read it. That’s not for anti-woke reasons, but because the grammar of using “they” for an individual known person is just too jarring for me.
Another thing I forgot about our trip was the Romanian film Război în Bucătărie (War in the Kitchen) which we saw on TV in Sibiu. A really weird film, and one I wouldn’t mind seeing again.
Here are some pictures from the trip, as I promised last time. I’ve also included some of the unrenovated buildings near me. Mum said that give it ten years and they’ll all look pristine. That may well be true. But if that also means getting a KFC and bubble tea cafés and overpriced trendy ambient bars with everything in bloody English, I’d rather things stay as they are. Gentrification and saminess make everything deeply dull. I’m glad I arrived in Timișoara when I did, before all of that began to set in.
Outside the Catholic church in RecașPorumbacu de Jos, on the way to BrașovCodlea, just outside BrașovThe immediate vicinity of where we stayed in BrașovI hope you agree that Brașov is beautifulThe Black Church with its rugs and pewageMore from BrașovThe museum in BrașovA pleasant village at the start of our journey from Brașov to Râmnicu VâlceaRâșnovThe centre of Sibiu in the rainThe Catholic cathedral in SibiuCiacovaSome of the buildings near me
Just been checking all my payments for lessons. A horrible job because of all the different methods – pre-Covid when almost everyone paid cash was way easier – and I only get round to it every two months or so. But I’ve done it, so I can cross that off. Phew.
Yesterday I went back to the immigration office. It seemed I had everything in order – or pus la punct as they say here – and the guy (with a star on his epaulettes rather than a stripe this time) told me to come back at the end of May to pick up my new residence card which will be valid for ten years (not five, like my current one). I might then need to get a new ID card for my car so that its address matches what’s on the ID card for me; as always I’ll need to ask a Romanian who’s used to all this bureaucracy.
On a side street near me
It’s a shame Mum and Dad couldn’t have come over Easter. I did suggest that before they booked, but as always, Mum had made up her mind (something to do with the garden, probably) and that was that. I had a lot less work over Easter; now I’m having days jam-packed with lessons again. So while they’re here I’ll have to cancel a load of work, or else have my lessons and see less of them. When we go away for a few days, I’ll clearly have no choice and that’s fine. Obviously I’m very thankful that I’ll be seeing them at all, but, y’know, it would have been way more convenient if they’d come just two weeks earlier. I did put this to them when I spoke to them on Sunday. “We can spend more time with you next time we come over.” My brother and I think we’ll be lucky if there’s a next time. There nearly wasn’t a this time. (I’m still not counting any chickens until I see them in the arrivals lounge.)
Mark Carney’s Liberals have won the Canadian election. It looks like being a narrow win involving a confidence-and-supply type deal that often occurs in New Zealand, but it was a heck of a comeback when it looked like Pierre Polievre (the Conservative) would win. Trump changed all of that. He put the very existence of Canada in jeopardy. I really liked Carney’s victory speech. All that talk of humility and unity and being a leader also of those who voted against his party. What a contrast from Trump who basically says, to the half of voters who didn’t back me, fuck you. They said this morning that Trump had been in power for 100 days. Is that all?! Less time than I’ve had Kitty. It already feels like an age.
Round one of Romania’s presidential election takes place this Sunday. The second round is two weeks later, when my parents will be here. The president’s power is limited in Romania but the stakes are high all the same. What sort of country does Romania want to be? Electing George Simion (or somebody like him – there could be someone practically unheard of like last time) will make that very obvious.
At the end of last night’s online session, my student said “S-a mărit ziua” which means “the days are getting longer”. I took me a while to figure out what she’d said because she talks so fast. That simple phrase which is not so simple made me realise what a devil of a language Romanian is gramatically. I’m not improving; if anything I’m getting worse. Chances to speak Romanian for any length of time are getting fewer and farther between. For a short time, when Dorothy dropped out, my Romanian lessons were useful, but now that Dorothy is back (she’s much better than me) I’m not able to learn much.
Snooker. The quarter-finals are about to start. Six real contenders, I’d say, plus a couple of surprises. I’d put Luca Brecel clearly in the “contender” category after his ludicrous performance against Si Jiahui. It was just mental. The two matches I’m most excited about are Williams versus Higgins (the old guys; a century between them) and Brecel against Judd Trump. Yes, another Trump. Ronnie O’Sullivan I suppose is the favourite because, well, it’s him, and he’s playing Si Jiahui who didn’t look that great in his last match. The other match is Zhao Xintong (a huge talent) against Chris Wakelin who has already produced two upsets. The matches take place on two tables still. It’ll be a fun two days – this round tends to produce more mayhem than any other.
Football. Birmingham totally dominated Mansfield 4-0 on Sunday. If they win their final two matches (both away, so it won’t be easy) they’ll finish on a whopping 111 points, which will be a very memorable number and will blow all other professional teams’ totals out of the water. The record is 106 which Reading achieved 20-odd years ago. But mostly I was interested in the presentation of the league trophy after the match. A big delay, then finally the champagne. Yes, a few hundred fans got onto the pitch. Some people think they should be hung, drawn and quartered. For me it’s no big deal.
Finally, it looks like Spain and Portugal are back in business after their massive outage; 60% of Spain was plunged into darkness in five seconds. You wonder how something that could even happen, but our systems are now hyperconnected like never before.
I tried calling Dad last night. I hoped to get him in the short interval between Mum going to church and him going to Pleasant Point to fly his plane. With the time changes, this meant calling at midnight. I didn’t get a reply; he’d probably already gone to Pleasant Point, meaning that an interval when I can get him on his own simply doesn’t exist, unless it’s too windy for him to fly. (Normally I’d get a chance on a Tuesday when Mum plays golf, but since she got ill she hasn’t been playing.) I wanted to get Dad on his own because the only time I get the proper unspun news on Mum is when she isn’t there.
I called again this morning my time. Mum was clearly much better. Colour had returned to her cheeks. She looked better, in fact, than any time in the last two weeks. This could easily be a false dawn; we’ve had them before. She’s refusing to visit the doctor. I’d now put the chances of seeing them next month at 60%. (God, it’s gone up and down a bit, hasn’t it?) Encouraging, but still far too low to plan road trips or book accommodation or anything crazy like that.
Yesterday was a beautiful day. Unusually, I had a long gap between lessons, so I sat in the park in Dumbrăvița – the nice part of Dumbrăvița – and read Nevil Shute’s A Town Like Alice. A brilliant read. I’d managed to get half-way, then found I couldn’t concentrate, probably because of all the Mum stuff. I’m nearing the end of it now.
On Thursday I had a good lesson with the “I’m bored” girl. I made the whole thing about animals. Unfortunately I can’t do that every time, and anyway after a few sessions of animals she’d get bored again.
Word of the year so far: tariff. A lot of people still don’t know how many Rs and Fs it’s got. Trump’s tariffs (essentially half of the US’s trade deficit with each country, with a minimum of 10%) don’t make any sense and they may well have been whacked out on ChatGPT. But if we didn’t already know, we know now that the old world, the hyper-globalised world of the eighties onwards, is history. By the way, I’d dread to think how much my KiwiSaver has dropped in the last few days.
I’ve been watching the Tour Championship snooker which is being played in Manchester. The final is between John Higgins and Mark Selby. Higgins leads 5-3 in a first-to-ten, though Selby won the last two frames of the afternoon session. Lots of big breaks surrounding one out-of-character safety-heavy frame which Higgins won in 57 minutes. It’s unlikely I’ll see the finish because I have to make an early start in the morning.
Football. Birmingham hammered Barnsley 6-2 yesterday. Shame I didn’t see it. Barnsley had someone sent off in only the third minute, but at half-time it was one apiece. Then in the second half Blues went mad. With seven league games left, Blues now have a quite ludicrous 92 points.
Tulips in the park near the tennis courts on Friday.A lovely day to be in town. Big spreads, especially in the US dollar rates.I used to live in the building on the right. A fifth-floor apartment is for sale.One of many lizards in the botanic park on Friday.Dumbrăvița yesterday. My brother assures me that these are African geese.I took this picture, which is on my street, because of the typically Romanian signage.
No more news from the publishers. I can’t even get through to them. I don’t think they’re malicious in any way (though I might be wrong); I just think they’re hopelessly disorganised, even by Romanian standards.
Mum and Dad just Skyped me from the hotspot in Hampden. (There will be no more Skyping after 5th May when Microsoft are pulling the plug on what has been an extremely handy – and simple – communication tool.) They seemed mostly fine, though Mum had low-level stomach pain. She had her colonography scan on Tuesday. It involved her taking a barium meal and being inflated via a tube stuck up her bum. She should get the results soon after they get home on Saturday. (They’re in Moeraki at the moment. They’re always more relaxed down there.)
On Tuesday I helped Dorothy take a bunch of old electronic bits and pieces to the tip. Her husband was something of a hoarder. One of the contraptions emitted UV rays, she said. The man at the tip was very helpful, as these sorts of people usually are. After visiting the tip, she came back to my place for a coffee and to meet Kitty. We talked about spring. I miss being in my old flat and seeing everything come alive outside my window at this time of year. The green and then the blossom. I could take in three parks and the river on a short walk. A slightly longer walk would take me over to Iosefin – where Dorothy lives – with its beautiful old buildings (albeit unrenovated) and tree-lined streets. I think back to the early days of Covid, this time five years ago. Weirdly it improved my mental health. The quiet, the total lack of expectations, the simplicity of it all. The Monday morning shopping. Mask, gloves, job done as fast as possible. No queues, unlike in the UK. I felt strangely calm then. Mum still talks positively of that time. Nobody cared what I looked like. I could just hide behind my mask.
When I talk to my parents now, 60% of our conversation is about politics and world events. How did we get here? One thing I don’t understand is why we haven’t heard a peep from the Obamas or the Clintons about this utterly destructive shitshow. Is their silence on the matter part of some grand scheme? It doesn’t make sense to me. It’s a rather different story north of the border. The Canadians have decided it’s gloves off, and rightly so. I’ve become quite a fan of Canada in the last few weeks. In fact I’ve always liked Canada, ever since I was lucky enough to visit in 1998. Yesterday I read this comment about Trump’s economic “strategy”, which sounded pretty accurate. It takes some talent to even write this: I don’t see Trump as having even the remotest concept of economic and/or foreign policies. He rules by diktat tweeting out his edicts while taking a dump on his gold toilet with all the forethought, consistency and strategising of a squirrel cranked up on crystal meth. That’s what happens when big money buys the seat of power when it should be left to sober administrators who have a genuine sense of duty for the public good. This week I’ve realised how little I know about tanks and fighter planes and aircraft carriers and warships and Britain’s (or anyone else’s) defence capabilities. They just aren’t things I think about on a daily (or even yearly) basis. Luckily I have a brother whose job is to know about this stuff, so I can always ask him.
Kitty. She’s changed in the last ten days or so. She’s become more comfortable with me around. I honestly think she was fearful of me. She’s now sleeping noticeably more too. The best thing is that she’s stopped biting me, unless I rub her tummy when biting is a reflex action for her. Due to the warmer weather (I presume), she’s now shedding a lot more hair than she did at the beginning.
Here are some pictures of Arad, where I went on Sunday. In some ways I like Arad more than Timișoara. It sits on a proper river, the Mureș, unlike the piddly Bega we have. Although they have a boat club, I didn’t see a single boat out on the river. Just imagine a river of this size in the UK on a lazy Sunday morning. Boats just aren’t part of the culture here, with the exception of canoes and rowing boats that are used for serious sport.
A plaque on the wall of the boat club showing where the River Mureș got to in 1970
The mishmash of languages in these places is always fascinating. Romanian became the dominant language in these parts pretty recently in the scheme of things. This inscription in Hungarian, from the gospel of Matthew, is hard to read. So the double letters in the first word are zeds, right? No, they can’t be, because that must be a double zed in the second word and these look different. So what are they? Gees? Jays? Does double J exist in Hungarian? Sure enough it does. This says Jöjjetek énhozzám which means “Come to me”. Yeah, I don’t think I’ll be learning Hungarian anytime soon.
Sunset over the Bega on SundayKitty sleeping next to the giant mirror in my teaching room
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.
Edit 24/3/25. There’s an easier way of solving the problem above. If you’ve got 16 numbers and they add up to 960, their average is 960 divided by 16, which is 60. Since the first number is 30 and they increase by the same amount every time, the last number has to be 90. To get from 30 to 90, you go up 60, and because there are 15 jumps, each jump has to be 60 divided by 15, which is 4.
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.
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.
Kitty. Yeah, she’s pretty good. Especially when she’s asleep, which isn’t very often. The last few days she’s shown plenty of affection, so I think she’s getting used to me. Tomorrow I’m taking her to the vet to her screened, or whatever they do, in preparation for next week when hopefully she’ll have her bits removed. I feel slightly sad about that. I mean, how much does the process hurt?
I had five lessons today instead of my usual seven on a Thursday. My mother-and-son combo got shunted forward a day. When I saw Filip in Mehala, I got the usual. His mum gave me a pair of size-seven slippers to put on as well as a perfectly good cup of coffee. Then I went up to his room where his thermostat was jacked up to 28 degrees. Even when the conditions for teaching aren’t ideal, I remind myself. Life insurance? Open-plan hell? This is orders of magnitude better than that.
DeepSeek. The new Chinese AI app. Even the name scares the crap out of me – X-ray eyes, watching your every move. It managed to knock a trillion dollars off the Nasdaq in a single day. A trillion dollars! I can’t make sense of 2025 at all. $600 billion of that was a single company called Nvidia who apparently make chips. So they must be in the fast-food trade or else they’re some casino outfit. Nvidia joins a long list of bland made-up modern company or product names containing a V and ending in A. Off the top of my head there’s Aviva, Arriva, Aveda, Veolia and, um, Viagra. Nvidia goes one step further though in breaking the rules of English phonotactics – it starts with N followed by another consonant – for increased fakeness.
Maybe that’s why so many people have tattoos now. In a world of artificiality, at least they’re real. You can see them, touch them, and for a time, feel them. (I imagine you can smell them for a time too.) I’m not tempted, because there’s nothing I identify with strongly enough to get it permanently stamped on me. And frankly, being a native English speaker in Timișoara, teaching English and maths, with a beard and a fair old mop of hair, is plenty. Getting inked would be overkill. But the real thing is something that is very important to me. My job feels very real. So does this city, even if certain parts (like bloody Dumbrăvița) are so depressingly fake as to be unlivable for me.
I read something yesterday about how unhappy Generation Z are in the UK. They defined Gen Z as (currently) between 13 and 27. There were comments that said “I remember 1977 and the Sex Pistols. Nothing new here.” Even though I wasn’t born in ’77 I’ve read plenty about that time, and I disagree. Back then, at least young people were united through music, how they dressed, and even their football teams. (Though it could be unpleasant and even dangerous to see live football then, at least it was affordable.) Now society is too fractured for that sort of unity to be possible. Blame smartphones and social media.
Lately I’ve been reading a post-apocalyptic sci-fi book called A Canticle for Leibowitz. It was written in the 1950s by Walter M. Miller Jr and has strong religious themes. I’m two-thirds of the way through it. Having got this far I’ll stick with it, but in my fairly simple brain I’m filing it under the “too clever for me” category. Some of the themes resonate today, in particular the anti-intellectualism, called the Simplification in the novel. (Right on cue, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has moved their “Doomsday Clock” forward to just 89 seconds to midnight.)
I had a strange dream last night which involved a game of cricket in a park in Timișoara. Several games, in fact, and I had great difficulty walking through the park without being hit by a ball. (Nobody plays cricket in Romania, as far as I’m aware.) Games come up a lot in my dreams. A few nights ago I had a dream involving my aunt (the one who passed away last April) and the card game bridge. I know next to nothing about bridge. I only know that it’s a trick-taking game that involves bidding, compass points and 13-card hands. This dream probably came about from something my aunt once said about endless parties and games of bridge in the RAF officers’ mess. She tried to make it sound glamorous, but I thought it sounded awful.
Earlier this week I wrote my first proper letter since 2009. When my friend from St Ives surprised and delighted me by sending me one, I decided to reply in kind. It would be wonderful if she and her husband could make a trip to Romania (they came in 2017), but they’ve got so much stuff going on and he narrowly escaped death in 2022. I don’t know how feasible it would be.
A football score from the Cypriot league that caught my eye earlier this month:
“Have you heard about Jim?” What’s happened? “He’s only just got over his omonia, and now he’s come down with a terrible case of anorthosis.” Poor Jim. I hope he pulls through.
I’m pretty sure the name Anorthosis has the same ortho- root as in orthopedic, orthography and orthogonal: it means straight ahead or correct. But at first glance it looks like something I’d want to steer clear of.
Some pictures from Sunday:
I had a bit of time on Monday before my lesson. I hadn’t noticed this chimney before:
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