Writing a book

Life :) - Music - Other sports - Writing a book

Searching for inspiration

January 3, 2024 plutomanby 0 Comments

Today I’ve been working on the book. The book about him. A second crack, after my aborted effort a year ago. (I did do one chunky chapter then, plus I made a load of notes that are extremely useful.) None of this is easy. A novel isn’t a task you can just plough your way through. It relies on inspiration, and sometimes you just don’t have it. And then you write a few hundred words, and think, are you sure this isn’t boring crap that nobody would ever read? Page upon page of self-doubt. One of the fun bits is thinking up names of characters. I’m proud of Felicity Lee, the club vice-president who’s always everywhere all at once. Her name sounds like a butterfly.

Yesterday I did two important things. First I booked flights to the UK around Easter. Leaving on 28th March, coming back a week later. Top priority is seeing my brother, sister-in-law and nephew. It’s a pain that the only flights back are in the early morning, so I’ll have no choice but to stay overnight in Luton on 3rd April. The other biggish thing I did was order a record player. I hope to have a lot of fun with that when it arrives. Buy up a load of old albums, basically go mad with them. I can see why vinyl has come back – the whole experience beats Youtube and Spotify hands down. A more minor thing I did was order a new laptop charger after one of mine got so hot it started smouldering. I still have one, but I rely so heavily on my laptop for work that having a backup is a necessity.

So a new year is upon us. I didn’t stay long in a very packed centre of town on New Year’s Eve. Enough to see the fireworks, and that was it. I’m so glad I avoided the stress of an event. I’ve been thinking back to previous years where a 3 turned into a 4. I saw in 2014 with some friends at Owhiro Bay in Wellington – we lit a fire, saw the stars, and felt rather small. I was going through a rough time with withdrawal symptoms, having recently tapered off my antidepressant. Ten years before that I’d only just arrived in New Zealand. We spent the evening with some family friends, played some volleyball which I was spectacularly bad at, and saw the Caroline Bay fireworks. As for 1993-94, that one involved my grandfather, suffering badly from Alzheimer’s, being all at sea during a game of Skip-Bo. Going back even further, I rather doubt I stayed up to see in 1984, and wouldn’t have known what the fuss was about if I had.

Darts. A couple of barnburners yesterday, as the Americans would say. Chris Dobey stormed into a 4-0 lead against Rob Cross in a race to five sets. He’d been great all tournament and once again he was dominant here. Until he wasn’t. Surely he’ll fall over the line. But he never did. Watching it slip from his grasp was slow torture. Even in the ninth and final set he could have won as he came from 2-0 down in legs to force the win-by-two tie-break, but it wasn’t to be. Professional sport – even darts – can be cruel. In the evening Michael van Gerwen, who had been unplayably good, had an inexplicable shocker against Scott Williams. He was expected to steamroller his opponent, but the juggernaut never got going. Williams was plenty good enough to capitalise, winning 5-3. Luke Humphries, who plays Williams in the second semi-final tonight, had no such problems, and neither did Luke Littler who plays Cross in the first match. Littler, still a child, is now the favourite. The semis are first to six, and I’ll be watching one of them at most. I need to sleep.
Update: Littler produced a frankly ludicrous performance, averaging 106, to beat Cross 6-2.
Update 2 (next morning): There’s no way I could stay up to watch Humphries smash a 109 average in his 6-0 whitewash of Williams. Those numbers from both Lukes are ridiculous. The final (first to seven) is tonight.

Family - Language teaching - Maths teaching - New Zealand - Other sports - Writing a book

Grounds for optimism

January 1, 2024 plutomanby 0 Comments

It’s already 2024 in New Zealand. The last embers of the old year were still flickering when I called Mum and Dad. I thought I wouldn’t get them – they’d probably be at Caroline Bay for the fireworks and a spin or two of the chocolate wheel – but they’d had thunder and hailstorms and didn’t fancy it. The last time I visited Caroline Bay for New Year was with my brother eleven years ago. He was very subdued, having been through a nightmare few days. The next day we went to Methven – appropriately, it was completely dead – and saw a terrible Australian film at the cinema in Geraldine. Just like now, the darts was on TV. My parents had Mum’s old colleagues from Cairns staying with them; they really could have done without that. This morning Mum talked her elder brother’s daughter, who thinks the world revolves around her, and didn’t want anything to do with her elderly parents over Christmas. Having loving, caring parents hasn’t stopped her becoming a selfish arsehole.

This morning I went to the market in Mehala on the off-chance that there might be a cheap second-hand record player, but no such luck. There were quite a few records, though I didn’t buy any. It was nice to browse all the same, and take in the sights and smells on a sunny morning. The beer, the mici, the vehicles, the signage, the haggling. I had a particularly greasy langoș and then went home.

“You’ll find us on the street, between the langoși and the police station.”

A new footbridge being built over the Bega in the west of the city

No lessons today. Yesterday I had my 945th to 948th sessions of 2023, including my usual battle to get Matei to understand fractions. If you don’t know fractions, you’re screwed when it comes to calculating probability, and much else besides. Next weekend I’m going to spend the whole session on fractions. It’s what he needs. (His cluelessness about fractions is hardly his fault, as I’ve mentioned before here. He missed out under the Romanian system, and now he’s at the British school where they just assume he has all that knowledge.) After him I had the brother-and-sister combination. I normally spend two hours with him and one hour with her, but the boy said he had to meet some friends in town, so could they do 90 minutes each? She’s six. That’s an eternity with someone so young. Luckily I had a secret weapon: a rather tricky dinosaur maze (see below). I printed it off before our session, not realising how T-rex-like it actually was. Impressively to me, she persevered. (At her age, I think I’d have given up.) I tackled the start, she worked backwards from the end, and eventually we met in the middle. That ate up a good chunk of time. I had an online session with the guy in England when I got home.

The darts. There were three matches last night. First up was Brendan Dolan, the Northern Irishman who started as an underdog against Gary Anderson, winner of two world titles. Dolan, who uses Dropkick Murphys’ I’m Shipping Up to Boston as his walk-on song, raced into a big lead against Anderson who was misfiring at the start. Anderson then kicked into gear and went 3-2 up in the first-to-four-sets match. Dolan then made it 3-3 before hitting double three to pull off a dramatic and fully deserved victory, his third knife-edge win in a row. His wife’s face at various points throughout the deciding set was a picture. Next up was Raymond van Barneveld, an old hand who has been a top player since the nineties, against Luke Littler who is at the other end of the scale (though you wouldn’t think it by looking at him). Littler, who turns 17 next month, has been a sensation. The Dutchman played very well but Littler was unstoppable. The youngster won 4-1. I couldn’t stay up to watch the last match. Snooker, yes, but I draw the line at darts. A pity in a way, because it was one heck of a finish, with Luke Humphries beating Joe Cullen in a sudden-death leg, hitting the winning double at his tenth attempt. (Those outer slivers are pretty skinny, and even the best players miss them more often than they hit. All those misses ratchet up the tension.)

I managed to get the adminstrator to recalculate my catch-up water bill at the old rate, so this month’s bill ended up being a monster 983 lei instead of a gargantuan 1470.

I plan to see in the new year in town, where there will be fireworks and music. I’ve found 2023 to be quite stressful, with the exception of the period around Easter and (in grounds for optimism) the last couple of months. The early part of the year was bloody terrible. Simply put, I couldn’t cope. My “big thing” this year was spending a whole month in New Zealand. Stunning beauty around every corner. The stress my parents have been under became apparent when I was over there, and I’ve found it upsetting. I hope things become less fraught when their building work is done.

The word of the year for me is a depressing one: billionaire. I remember when billionaires were few and far enough between to be ignorable with the exception of Bill Gates and his Mr Clippy. Not any more. Every other article I read is about the antics of some mega-rich egomaniac fucking up the world for the rest of us just because he can. He, of course. Next year, with massively consequential elections taking place all over the world, their influence is unlikely to wane.

A couple of new year’s resolutions, both about writing. Firstly, this blog. I’d like to get back to more free-flowing writing such as I produced right at the beginning eight years ago. Hopefully being more relaxed will allow me to do that. Second, the book about my tennis-playing friend. I made progress last January, then things stalled badly. It needs to be a top priority again.

Coronavirus - Family - Films - Language teaching - Writing a book

Saying no

December 15, 2023 plutomanby 0 Comments

I went over pronouns and possessive adjectives with my extroverted beginner student this evening (see below). When I asked him what should replace the question marks, he said “shim”, which I thought was funny because (a) it has a certain logic to it, and (b) who knows, maybe “shim” is actually a pronoun now. Edit: “shim” is already a word: it’s a thin sliver of material (wood, usually) that you wedge into a gap to ensure a nice tight fit.

In my previous session with him we talked about his extroversion. He has to be around people all the time, and the more the merrier. At 33 he’s never spent a whole day alone; the very idea filled him with dread. We’re at opposites ends of the spectrum, I said, and be thankful you’re at your end – life will treat you better.

I called up my tennis friend yesterday and told him that no, I wouldn’t be going to the New Year’s do because I had “other plans”. I said I felt bad for not going (which was true – they’re all lovely people) and I’d like to meet up for a drink at the usual place by the river (also true) in the near future. Saying no was really hard, but after doing it I realised it was still eight times easier than going to the bloody party would have been.

Next week things will start to wind down a bit. I’m going over to Dorothy’s for Christmas; there should be four of us there. Other than that, I’m looking forward to the time to myself – reading, watching the darts (I know), and working on the book I started a year ago but soon put to one side. I’ve got to finish it.

Last night I watched a film called The Whale, which Dad had recommended to me. The title is a reference to the main character, a morbidly obese online university professor, as well as to the novel Moby-Dick. I found the story gripping, even if it was harrowing a lot of the time. I certainly recommend it.

I’m about to call my parents. Last time we spoke, there was a chink of light at the end of the Covid tunnel, so let’s hope it wasn’t a false dawn. If I really wanted to wind Dad up, I could ask him what “shim” means.
Update: I gave them a call. They’re on the mend, but it’s been a really rough time for them. With all their ridiculous building work which will continue into the new year, their living quarters would be dangerously impractical even if they were in rude health.

Life :) - Maths teaching - Photos - Writing a book

Trying not to get sucked under

February 26, 2023 plutomanby 0 Comments

Unusually for a Saturday, I only had one lesson today – maths with Matei. He and his family got back from their trip to beautiful Valencia on Thursday, then yesterday their five-year-old dog died suddenly. At his parents’ request I’d given him a hard test to complete for homework. He got 6 out of 23 but thankfully was unfazed by that. On my way home from the lesson, the rain pelted down and I got soaked to the skin.

Yesterday wasn’t a great day to put it mildly. I didn’t have any lessons until 3pm, but I had plenty to be getting on with. Preparation for Matei’s lesson, the dictionary, cleaning my flat, going to the notary to get yet another authorised copy of my passport so I can maybe retrieve my tens of thousands of quid from Barclays. The only problem was that I was low on both mental and physical energy. I was slow to get going. I decided to work for a while on the S and T sections of the dictionary, then see the notary in Piața Unirii. When I got to the notary’s office, I was met by a sign: “Closed. Back on 6th March.” I thought, this is just like one of those dreams, only there weren’t any tangled weeds, nor was there a year – something like 2098 – appended to the end of the notice. No problem, there are other notaries in the vicinity. I visited another office, but doamna – the notary lady – had popped out. Then I tried a third office, which the sign strongly suggested was upstairs. I climbed the rickety stairs to a courtyard, but there was no notary up there, but then there was an archway and some even shakier wooden stairs leading to the second floor – this was quite beautiful in its way. No, this definitely isn’t it. It was on the ground floor all along, but once again doamna wasn’t there. At the fourth place I tried, doamna was there, but “you need a translator, not us, those are the rules” and with that I went home. On the way back I must have shouted, hit a road sign, and nearly hit several pedestrians. Once again, I was out of control. I stopped off via the market, and that helped calm me down a bit. I bought a loaf of bread, some goat’s cheese, some mandarins and some onions, then went to get some spicy sausage from one of the meat stalls. The youngish woman thought I was pointing to the pork scratchings, and I thought, what the hell, I’ll get them instead. Three hundred grams.

Last week was a bad week for cancellations. It was half-term, or the Romanian equivalent of that, so some people were away skiing as Romanians with money like to do at this time of year, then others got sick, and a few cancelled at the last minute for some unknown reason. Not much fun for me, because it’s really my work that’s keeping me from going under right now. I thought going back to my old antidepressants might have steadied the ship, but yesterday was another shocker.

Though I now have a diagnosis of sorts for my “sinus” problem, my nose runs like a tap and I have a lot of low-level pain, so even when I don’t have one of those debilitating migraines, my quality of life takes a hammering. Monday’s diagnosis didn’t do much to solve that.

I don’t mind if this dreadful weather continues tomorrow, because after my early lesson I really have to tidy this place up. On Tuesday I bumped into Bogdan – the guy who lives in my old apartment block. He asked why I moved out of there. I sometimes wonder the same thing. He was heading home – via yet another pub – to watch the snooker on TV. I said we should try and meet up for a drink this weekend. It might be nice to spend time with someone who isn’t coping with life either but doesn’t care. I called him this morning but got no reply.

New Zealand - Other sports - Writing a book

The magic of the Cup

January 30, 2023 plutomanby 0 Comments

Near-biblical rainfall, landslides, homes falling into the sea. That’s what Aucklanders have been dealing with in the last few days. Mum said last night that four months’ worth of rain fell in three hours in places. At least four people have died. I had the usual hell-in-a-handcart stuff from my parents, though I keep agreeing with them more and more; we’ve entered what I’ve already called on this blog a post-optimism world.

It’s weird how I sporadically get interested in various sports. Now it’s FA Cup football. I watched bits of Birmingham’s entertaining 2-2 draw at Blackburn on Saturday – Blues opened the scoring in just the third minute, were 2-1 down immediately after half-time, but 18-year-old Jordan James equalised in the 91st minute, just after he came on as a substitute. What a moment for him and for the supporters who are going through an ugly spell right now – they’re struggling in the league and everybody hates the current owners. The end of the match was marred by racial abuse towards Neil Etheridge, Blues’ Filipino goalkeeper. The replay is tomorrow night at St Andrew’s, Birmingham’s home ground which I visited a few times more than 20 years ago. Yesterday I dipped into Brighton’s 2-1 win over Liverpool, which featured a stunning late winner, then saw a marvellous match between Wrexham (currently outside the league) and Sheffield United (in the second tier), which finished 3-3. The Welsh club were recently taken over by a pair of Hollywood actors. Their kit sponsors are TikTok. I remember Wrexham’s run to the quarter-finals in 1996-97; back then they were sponsored by Wrexham Lager. Alcohol sponsorship has now been banned, so instead we’ve now got endless betting firms, big banks, and the likes of TikTok – collectively they’re doing at least as much harm as booze.

When I watched those games yesterday, my attention wasn’t squarely focused on them – I was working on my dictionary, adding entries and tweaking them here and there. It’s a big effort that I know might be for very little. I’ve had no choice but to my other book – the novel – on the back burner for now.

Language teaching - Life :) - Maths teaching - Poker - Writing a book

A major upset

January 13, 2023 plutomanby 0 Comments

Yesterday was a ridiculous day really. For the first time I ever, I made someone cry. I told the 12-year-old boy at the end of our online lesson that he was being a pain in the butt (do you understand that?), and look, I really don’t care about what you’re saying because it’s irrevelant and disruptive, then he burst into tears. His mother then came on the line and she was fine with me, but I might never see him again and if I do, the next few sessions are bound to be frosty. After that I had to dash off to see the ENT specialist. She was very nice and had a look a the results of my CT scan in 2019, then recommended me for an MRI scan (known as RMN in Romanian) which I’ll have on Monday in Giroc, a place that used to be a village to the south of Timișoara but has now been subsumed by it, just like Dumbrăvița to the north. The scan will use a contrasting dye, so I’ll first have to get an allergy test.

Later yesterday evening I had my first maths lesson with the 16-year-old girl who started English lessons with me in November. She’s been getting low maths grades, so wanted help there too. That was a tough session for me because I don’t know to talk about maths in Romanian. I was unsure how to say even simple stuff like “root two” or “a over b” or “x to the y“. I had great trouble articulating the “hundredth triangular number”. Even the alphabet posed a problem, because when spelling a word (say vatră), Romanians say the letters differently to how they pronounce them in an abbreviation (say TVR). The T, V, and R are pronounced differently in each case. So what do they do in maths? Buggered if I knew. I resorted to writing expressions and pointing to them. What does this mean? What does that equal? She showed me her intimidating textbook which was older than her. I only skimmed it, but found no shape or space or anything else to give relief from the unremitting algebra, and certainly nothing handy for everyday life such as compound interest. She showed me a test she’d had to do, all handwritten by the teacher. It all seemed very backward.

I’ve been working on my book. Forget about the 28th February deadline I gave for myself; this project will take a while. The important thing is to work on it daily, or almost, so I don’t lose momentum. I remember when my grandmother wrote her memoirs. In 2001 she began with great gusto, but then her enthusiasm drained away and then she started losing her mental sharpness. In 2008, when she was really losing it mentally – probably as a result of a stroke she’d had – she verbally attacked the publisher when he visited her house. In the end it only just got published at all, although it did, which was certainly something. I feel a bit more optimistic about my first book now – “the handy English hints for Romanians” book – after the elderly English lady showed interest. I asked her if she’d like to collaborate more fully.

There’s another book that seems to have captured Britain’s – and the world’s – imagination this week. My brother somehow managed to get hold of a free PDF version of it. If I read any of it, it will be to look at Harry’s (or whoever’s) writing style and see if I should incorporate or avoid it in my own writing. Apparently it’s staccato. Short sentences. Like this. The content itself doesn’t interest me at all.

Now that it’s 2023, Timișoara is officially the European Capital of Culture. Or one of them – three cities got the honour. My home town, as it now is, was supposed to be the capital in 2021, but Covid put that back two years. In the centre of town on New Year’s Eve there was a celebration of Timișoara’s status, with live bands. I wish I’d gone and seen that instead of what I ended up doing.

Last Saturday I made $96 in my online poker session. A surprising second place in triple draw, followed by a win in single draw. It’s a shame double draw isn’t also a thing. I won’t be playing much for the foreseeable future – I’m getting more than enough screen time as it is.

Family - Language teaching - Life :) - Music - Other sports - Writing a book

The boon of the book (so far)

January 8, 2023 plutomanby 0 Comments

The book based on my time with the guy in Auckland has been uppermost in my mind this week. Many hours spent on it. For my mental health it’s been a real boon. Let’s hope I can keep the momentum going.

Fifty years ago my mother was on the ship from New Zealand to England; it left port on 1st January 1973: a six-week voyage (probably not an inaccurate term) via the Panama Canal. She paid $666 for a return ticket – a fraction of the cost of an airfare back then. When the return leg didn’t happen, she was able to recover half of what she’d paid.

My bathroom is done, or just about. I just need to get the bath painted. The work and materials cost about 12,000 lei (a bit over £2000, or around NZ$4000). My parents said you can just about pay that for a set of taps in New Zealand. As for them, they’re about to get the builders in for an altogether more ambitious renovation. They’ll probably need to vacate their house for a period. They’d been stressed because of delays in getting the builders to come. Soon they’ll take delivery of a new electric car. I often wish Mum and Dad could be content with cooking, eating, watching the flowers grow, and playing euchre with their friends, like my mother’s own parents did.

On Thursday my brother had keyhole surgery to repair his knee ligament which had been shot to pieces from overuse in the army. He said he was under general anaesthetic for an hour, and described the experience as like something out of Red Dwarf – that hour was mysteriously deleted. He talked about the artificial intelligence revolution, embracing the concept much more than me. He said, “It’s all fast-evolving mathematics.” Fast-evolving mathematics, you say? (He got an F grade in his GCSE maths.) Are you just making shit up, I asked him. I said that fast-evolving mathematics has been responsible for a lot of misery, like the 2008 crash. To demonstrate I turned my camera around and scrawled a random formula on my whiteboard (making shit up), then added a fudge factor to it. He then said I looked like one of those Open University professors in the eighties, complete with beard. This was, I suppose, what you call banter.

This morning I gave my first maths lesson of 2023. Matei, who started at British School when it opened in 2019, said he now thinks in English, even when he’s alone in his thoughts. For me, a foreign language becoming dominant in my life like that is hard to imagine. He said he uses Romanian at home with his parents and his dog, but that’s about it. His Romanian lessons at school are relegated to minor importance. That verged on sad for me. On the way to our lesson I cycled on the cobblestones of Piața Traian, then had to negotiate a wobbly old yellow tricycle; the man sitting on it reminded me of Omar Sharif, though it must have been watching Doctor Zhivago recently that made me think that. That all lasted seconds and seemed perfectly normal, but before coming to Romania it would have been bizarre.

The darts. What a match the final was between the two Michaels, van Gerwen and Smith. In the second set, van Gerwen left 144 after six darts, but missed double 12 for a nine-darter. Nothing too crazy there, but Smith himself was on 141 after six darts and proceeded to check out on double 12 for a perfect leg. That had never happened before and the commentators couldn’t cope. Van Gerwen, the clear favourite, was just a notch below his best; Smith took advantage. I had a lesson in the morning and I couldn’t watch the end of it. When I went to bed, Smith was 5-3 up. Either there would be a big shock or a big comeback, and it was the former, Smith winning 7-4 after a tense finish.

Song of the last few days: Aimee Mann’s Save Me. It’s a masterpiece. It’s part of the soundtrack to Magnolia, a three-hour film that I saw once but can’t remember anything about except the boy who peed his pants on a quiz show.

The weather. It’s like April, with sunshine and temperatures rising into the teens. The mild conditions mean I can get to my lessons easily, but it does all feel weird. This time six years ago I was waking up to temperatures in the negative teens.

Language teaching - Other sports - Poker - Tennis - Writing a book

Fuq the World Qup

November 21, 2022 plutomanby 0 Comments

One of the benefits of teaching kids is that they sometimes teach you stuff. It was a cliché in the 80s and 90s that teachers would often ask one of their ten-year-old pupils how to operate a VCR. Last week one of my 15-year-old students (who wants to be an airline pilot) told me about an upcoming Istanbul–Timișoara route run by Turkish Airlines, which could be handy in getting me to and from New Zealand. I asked Turkish Airlines for some idea of a date; they told me it was “up their sleeves”. On Friday a 13-year-old boy told me all about the groups and teams and players in the World Cup which is about to start. “You’ll be my go-to man, then,” I told him, “because I won’t be watching any of it.”

Qatar. Even the word looks ridiculous. If a U-less Q was a criterion for hosting the event, they should have held it in Greenland. No end of possibilities there. I’d have been all over the games in Qaqortoq, Uummannaq and Ittoqqortoormiit. They could have kept it in summer; no air-conditioned stadiums required. I’d say they’ve missed a triq. (I remember Chelsea’s Cup Winners’ Cup match in the blizzard of Tromsø in northern Norway, back in 1997. It was a thing of beauty.) Seriously though, this World Cup stinks. Everything about it is jarringly wrong, right down to an anatomical-looking stadium, one of eight soon-to-be white elephants they’ve built in an area not much bigger than Wellington, at a cost of probably thousands of lives.

Earlier today I spoke to my friend’s girlfriend in Birmingham. She gave me some pointers on getting my work translated; the dictionary might be a bridge too far because of the sheer cost. She also put me in touch with a woman in Romania who knows something on the matter. The translation business is much bigger than I ever imagined; there are vast numbers of people online touting their services, even in relatively uncommon languages like Romanian.

After our chat, I played some online poker. Specifically, it was a triple draw tournament. I don’t particularly like triple draw, but I gave it a whirl and ended up finishing fifth for a modest profit of around $9. Once that was over, I read an article about a woman who had developed a tennis gambling addiction during the pandemic. Poor her. Her wagers included betting on the winner of the next point, which is asinine, but if you need the rush… She lost £40,000. I count myself lucky that I don’t have an addictive personality, or at least I don’t think I do. Also, it helps that I’m not well blessed in the ego department. In poker, if I think my opponents are better than me or the stakes make me feel uncomfortable (mainly because my opponents are likely to be better at higher stakes), I simply won’t play.

The incessant rain put paid to tennis today. Yesterday I got out there though, straight after finishing my three lessons. I enjoyed the session more than usual because we just rallied instead of playing a game.

Now I’ll do my usual Sunday night thing of rallying the troops (contacting my newer or less reliable students) before the week’s lessons start.

Family - The UK - Writing a book

The book, and a lack of pommy pride

November 19, 2022 plutomanby 0 Comments

I made some progress today. First, I got my passport notarised and sent of a load of bumph to Barclays which might mean I can get my money back. Second, the chance that the plumber comes over to look at my bathroom went up. Third, I had a video call with my friend from Birmingham. At the end of a long chat, I mentioned my book idea and my need of a English–Romanian translator. His girlfriend works as a translator, and although she certainly can’t translate anything into or out of Romanian, she might know someone who can, so I’m going to have a video call with her on Sunday morning.

Yesterday I spoke to Dad who for various reasons was on his own at my brother’s place. “It’s bloody cold,” he said. Meaning inside. My brother and sister-in-law are very sparing with the heating because it’s got so expensive. Two people with decent incomes. And a baby. Crazy shit. My parents had gone down on the train. Return tickets were over £100 each. What are you even paying for? Dad used the word “grim”, just like Mum had done, to describe the current state of the UK. He said that if I were to leave Romania, moving back to New Zealand (rather than the UK) would be a no-brainer. I look back to my early days of working in NZ, around 2004-2006. I’d get all the jokes about “you poms”, but I could tell there was really a grudging respect for Brits and all our rich history and culture and music and comedy and pragmatism. I was proud to be a pom. But not now. It’s going to take a long time to turn the oil tanker around. Turfing out the current lot at the next election would be a good start.

I watched the Artemis I launch on Wednesday morning (weirdly, it took off in the middle of the night in Florida). The will-it-or-won’t-it-actually-go added to the drama. I missed out on the thrill of the space race that my parents lived through, so to see a new space age dawn in real time was an exciting moment. The first human moon landing since 1972 is planned for 2025.

Family - Photos - Politics - Tennis - Writing a book

A flappy board and some grounds for optimism

November 15, 2022 plutomanby 0 Comments

Above is the popular split-flap departure board at Timișoara Airport (5/11/22) showing that my parents’ flight had landed. These clicky clacky things used to be ubiquitous, but they’re now few and far between. Even this bad boy won’t be long for this world, sadly.

I don’t often get emails from Mum, but she sent me a newsy one on Saturday, perhaps from the local library as they don’t have internet access in their flat in St Ives. Yesterday they were going to the Remembrance Day parade. As Mum pointed out, all those years ago when there was still a small band of First World War veterans (!) we all had to wrap up warm. Not so now. They’re going down to my brother’s place on Wednesday, for four days. They’re taking the train which will be expensive. She talked about New Zealand’s dramatic win over England in the women’s rugby World Cup final, and how some New Zealanders are finding the women’s game a better spectacle than the more stop-start men’s version. I’d like emails to and from Mum to become a more regular thing. (I then got a message from Dad saying he really wasn’t feeling well.)

Another Mum thing. When they were here I played tennis; when I got back I saw Mum was following the Paris Masters final between Djokovic and the Danish 19-year-old Holger Rune on her phone. Djokovic had won the first set but was losing in the second. I found a stream for her, and the three of us watched the remainder of the match. What a finish it was, as Rune staved off six break points in a marathon last game (18 minutes?) to pull off a logic-defying 3-6 6-3 7-5 win. Mum was disappointed but I was happy the plucky teenager got the win in the biggest moment of his short career to date.

The newly renovated buildings, including the Lloyd “Palace”, in Piața Victoriei this sunny afternoon

The US midterms. Two years ago the gradual drip-feed of results added to the drama. What’s happening in Washoe or Clark or Pima or Maricopa? When will we get the latest dump? All these obscure-sounding counties that are actually not that obscure because they’re heavily populated. It’s been much the same this time around. The phenomenon of Trump has focused more international eyes on the minutiae of American politics than ever before. And rightly so – it’s all very consequential. I always go back to the 2000 election and the Florida recounts. A little over two years later, my brother was in sodding Basra and we were scared shitless. What if Gore, who (don’t forget) won more votes than Bush overall, had become president instead? The 9/11 attacks may still have happened, but I imagine the world in general would have gone down a less destructive path. Now there’s a chink of light with the Democrats holding the Senate (it would be nice if they could gain a 51st seat in next month’s Georgia run-off) and the Republicans probably gaining just a bare majority in the House. With what happened in war-ravaged Kherson on Friday as well, there is something to be cheerful about at last.

The impulsive and slightly repulsive Elon Musk recently bought Twitter for a barely imaginable sum of $44 billion, and it’s now it’s in some kind of malaise, freefall, meltdown, I don’t know what. A few years ago I joined Mastodon because I liked the name, but never really posted anything, so in the last few days I’ve been on there, trying to understand how it works, in the hope that I can find a social media platform that doesn’t totally creep me out.

My early new year’s resolution for 2023 is to get two books published. One on common mistakes that Romanians make in English (most of the donkey work for that is done) and another about a guy I used to play tennis with. How to make this all happen I’m as yet unsure about, but writing my resolution here won’t do the chances of it any harm.