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

Mum is better, plus pictures of Novi Sad and Kitty

February 13, 2025 plutomanby 0 Comments

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Name of Mary Church

Remembering those who died in the railway station roof collapse

The name of this restaurant means Old Song

Danube Park, close to the river

The river and fortress

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

Not this again

February 11, 2025 plutomanby 0 Comments

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kitty and some pretty shitty publishers

February 8, 2025 plutomanby 0 Comments

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Keeping it real

February 3, 2025 plutomanby 0 Comments

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A back view of the old abattoir

Books - Cat - Dreams - Language teaching - Life :) - Other sports - Photos

We’re in Deep S***

January 31, 2025 plutomanby 0 Comments

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:

Cat - Family - Language teaching - Other sports - Photos

Phase five (plus Kitty pics)

January 13, 2025 plutomanby 0 Comments

We’re all waiting for my brother’s second child to arrive. It can only be a few days away now. If my niece is born on Thursday, all three of the numbers in her date of birth (day, month and year) will be square. (That’s with the year as 2025, not just 25 which of course is also square.) That’s obviously the last thing that matters. Her name doesn’t even matter all that much. All that really matters is that she’s healthy.

Kitty. Yikes. She’s so damn active now. After four days of relative calm when she’d happily jump on cupboards and just sit there, she’s now darting through my flat at breakneck speed, often dragging something noisy. Especially at night. I just know she wants to be outside, running around chasing stuff. I hadn’t been sleeping well even pre-Kitty, and my doctor prescribed me Optisomn which has magnesium plus a concoction of other ingredients: melatonin, hops, vitamin B6, and passionflower. But hyperactive one-year-old Kitty isn’t helping me. Last night was pretty much a write-off, sleep-wise. Today I went (for the first time) to Jumbo, a Greek-owned hypermarket near the airport which sells cheap kids’ toys, cheap household stuff, cheap decorations, cheap stationery, and yes, cheap pets’ toys. I don’t know if I’ll go back there in a hurry because the floor was lethally slippery and it has a horrible layout where there’s only one way of getting from any point to any other point and you end up walking miles. I must have spent an hour there, all the time in a complete daze. I did however get Kitty a bed and a bunch of things that go rattle and ding, to go with the scratching post and few toys she already had. With a bit of luck (!) she might stop thinking that plants or flash drives or grout around the bath are toys.

Kitty pics, including the trip to the vet

I’ve had a good week of lessons, including (unusually on a Sunday) one today. No sessions with those “AI bot” young women, that’s probably why. I won’t be so lucky in the coming week. And in between I’ve had some brilliant customer service. The vet was simply a lovely person, the little lady at the pharmacy was extremely pleasant as always, and even at the mall (which I tend to avoid) I got service with a smile. I often lament Romania’s poor customer service, so when it’s the opposite it deserves to be mentioned too.

There was an interesting moment in my lesson with the 14-year-old twins on Thursday. They played Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? in a joint effort. For the £8000 question, I asked them what Concorde was. A very fast what? Plane, train, car or boat. They used their 50/50 lifeline which gave them just plane and train as options. They went for train and it was game over. While I was in the middle of explaining what Concorde actually was, the boy said “who cares”. Seeing my face, he then said “only joking”. Ah, but you’re not really joking, are you? You actually don’t care. And that isn’t your fault. It shows that when you move 20 years forward and 1000 miles east, something culturally pretty damn important (there was the crash in 2000 too which was a massive news story at the time) becomes a total nothing.

Football. Birmingham beat Lincoln 2-1 in the FA Cup. They took the lead after just 30 seconds, then with 15-odd minutes to go, Lyndon Dykes rifled home the sort of volley they use the word “exquisite” for. It was a brilliant strike. Lincoln got a late penalty that probably shouldn’t have been a penalty, but Blues held on for the win. They’ll be at home to Newcastle in the fourth round. Quite a fun draw. Another game that caught my eye was Tamworth against Spurs. It was 0-0 after 90 minutes. Up until last season, that would have meant a replay at one of the best grounds in the country, a heck of a day out and a nice big windfall for plucky little Tamworth. But no, replays have been scrapped. The game proceeded to extra time, and Tottenham won 3-0. In a few years, they’ll probably ditch extra time too. Everything just gets that tiny bit more crap, doesn’t it?

In my head I can split my time in Romania so far into four stages. The fourth stage has been the longest, starting at around the time Russia invaded Ukraine. But I’ve just had the feeling in the last few days that phase five has begun. The books, the cat, tuning out of the news, thinking about what the hell I’ll do if and when I leave Romania, and even maybe studying again.

Cat - Family - Life :) - Other sports

Kitty update

January 9, 2025 plutomanby 0 Comments

This morning I took Kitty to the vet to be jabbed. She had a thermometer stuck up her bum (What is normal body temperature for a cat? It’s not something I’d ever thought about. Turns out it’s a couple of degrees higher than for humans), then she got the rabies vaccine. The vet – a middle-aged lady who was lovely – said we were on the verge of being rabies-free after 15 years of no cases, then a case popped up in Timiș two years ago which reset the clock to zero. The vet said that three-coloured cats like Kitty are almost always female, for some genetic reason. I can see there’s a long Wikipedia page all about the genetics of cat fur.

She’s been a pleasure to look after so far. I was amazed this morning how easily she slipped into a pink zipped bag I’d bought for her. Having a pet means you have conversations and interactions that you otherwise wouldn’t have. For instance, my brother called me on WhatsApp so his wife and son could see her. He told me not to put the food and water near each other, and gave me the evolutionary reason why: a cat (whose sense of smell is much stronger than a human’s) may think that its water is contaminated if its food source is too close by. There’s a lot I’m finding out.

Last night I spoke to Mum and Dad. They’d clearly been speaking to my brother who must have knocked some sense into them about the cat. I really didn’t understand it – my brother has had a cat for years. It’s maybe something to do with me living in an apartment, whereas my brother lives in a house. Dad thinks you can’t do anything if you live in a flat. But the way they were talking on Sunday, it was like I’d have to pay to put Kitty through university.

On that note, I’ve been thinking about doing a master’s degree in linguistics. Probably applied linguistics – the practical implications of it – though I wouldn’t mind knowing more of the theory too. I still get confused when it comes to velar fricatives and the like, and I doubt I could accurately diagram a sentence. If I did it, I’d probably do it over two years (I have too much work to do it in one) as a distance learning course from a UK university. The biggest benefit would simply be the knowledge, though having the piece of paper at the end wouldn’t do me any harm if, say, I wanted to go back to New Zealand and work there. There’s one major snag in all this: the cost. It would set me back £10,900. Eleven grand. It’s a fair old chunk of change, especially when I live in Romania and everything is at a much lower level. I might not even get accepted. I’ll ask my brother what he thinks – he seems to be the go-to guy for just about everything right now.

I see that Blues play Lincoln in the FA Cup on Saturday. It’s an early kick-off, so I’ll be busy teaching. Lincoln are known as the Imps – their club crest is a funny imp mascot thingy. All these cool little traditions of English football. Lincoln, by the way, is where my brother did his degree through. His graduation ceremony took place in the picturesque Lincoln Cathedral. The whole city is extremely picturesque if Google Maps is anything to go by. (I don’t think I’ve ever been there.)

One last thing. This morning I saw an article in the Guardian on the unremitting beigeness of people’s homes, a few days after I’d (sort of) written about the subject myself. Dressing your kids in beige is bordering on cruelty to me. One sentence that stood out to me was: “It is difficult to resist being a leaf in the wind of trend and fashion.” I dunno, I seem to find that quite easy.

We’ve had lovely spring-like weather the last three or four days, with temperatures climbing into the mid-teens. We’ll be back down to earth with a wintry bump very shortly, though.

Books - Cat - Films - Other sports - Writing a book

Stress-free so far

January 8, 2025 plutomanby 0 Comments

Kitty has spent most of today sleeping. So far she’s been pretty stress-free. My student was quite taken with her last night as she wandered into our maths lesson. He’s 18 and lives with his parents. I’d definitely want to have a pet if I lived on my own, he said. Yes, the companionship is rather nice. (I’ve lived on my own for almost as long as he’s been alive.) I really was taken aback by that barrage of negativity I received from Mum and Dad. As my brother said, I’m in my mid-forties (!) so surely I can do what I like at this point.

I watched all two hours of that Michael Moore film called Sicko from 2007 (still the Bush era) which was recently released for free on YouTube. It was hard to watch it and not get angry and upset. And to think that the American people have voted to make things even worse. I had to laugh though when the US healthcare system was rated 37th in the world, “just ahead of Slovenia”, as if that was really terrible. I went to Slovenia last summer; I bet their health system is way ahead of America’s now. It isn’t the only aspect in which the film hasn’t aged well. “Look how wonderful the British NHS is.” Well, it kind of was back then. It’s sad to see how much Britain has regressed since. My aunt might still be alive now if it was in its former state. (Covid is partly to blame, but only partly.) Another thing: for three years (2011 to 2014) I worked for an American insurance company that featured (damningly) in the film. If I’d seen the film beforehand, who knows, I may never have applied for the job and my life might have taken a different turn.

Luke Littler. World darts champion and a phenomenon. Still not 18, though he looks more like 28. The final didn’t go that long, so I stayed up and watched the whole thing. Scoring-wise, there wasn’t a whole lot in it between Littler and Michael van Gerwen, but by the time the Dutchman figured out how to finish, he was 4-0 down. Littler was too good (also too confident in his ability and unbothered by the occasion) to let that lead slip. He was especially strong when he threw first in a leg, not giving van Gerwen a chance to break his throw. He could rack up a dozen or more world titles, he’s that good, but you never know – van Gerwen himself was practically unbeatable for a while, but he’s “only” won three world titles so far. Darts players can have such long careers that Littler could still be competing when I’m a very old man.

After my three two-hour lessons on Saturday, I tuned in to watch the second half of Birmingham City’s game at Wigan. Blues were already two goals up at half-time. A player called Ethan Laird ran riot and they scored again, running out comprehensive 3-0 winners. Blues are now top of the league with 53 points at the exact half-way stage. Last season (in the league above) they managed 50 points in total and still nearly survived. I noticed Wigan had someone called Aasgaard. To go with your shin guards and mouth guard. By the end of the game, the home stands were deserted, while the away fans applauded the winning team and cheered and chanted and all the rest of it. When I see something like that, I’m reminded of how incredible English football can be, especially outside the top echelons. Those away fans. Birmingham to Wigan isn’t that far, but you get fans of clubs like Plymouth or Carlisle trekking up and down the country to follow their hometown team. I always think it must be a whole load of fun. The trips at least as much as the games. Part of me wishes I’d grown up in a football supporting family with strong ties to my home town, instead of being the sort of person who can up sticks and move somewhere where they don’t even speak my language. (I doubt the travelling is as much fun as it used to be. It’s got so damn expensive now. And cup competitions – which can take you to some surprise locations – used to be massively exciting, but the Champions League and the ridiculous sums of money in football have sucked the life out of them.)

Writing about away football supporters has also jogged my memory of a book I read in 2002: A Season with Verona by Tim Parks. The author was a Brit who lived in Italy and was mad about Hellas Verona. He’d cover vast distances on overnight buses to away games. I remember his trip to Bari for the first game of the season; Bari in the deep south is practically a different planet from Verona in the north. His tales made for good reading, but he revelled in the racism and insults and tribalism a bit too much for my liking.

As for my first book, it’s pretty much done now. Dorothy pointed out one or two errors and omissions, which I have now corrected. Only one typo, surprisingly. I still have to write an introduction, and then (in theory at least) it should be ready to go.

Cat - Family

This one wasn’t on my bingo card

January 7, 2025 plutomanby 0 Comments

Get cat. Not on my “goals for the new year” list. But on day five of 2025, I took possession of Kitty. My British friends in Dumbrăvița somehow acquired it – her – but because they have two large dogs, they were desperate to have it rehomed so she didn’t get killed. She’s been vaccinated and dewormed and defleaed, but not spayed. I really hope she isn’t pregnant. I hope to keep her within the confines of my flat. She’s little – just under three kilos – and a mixture of black, white, and a kind of caramel brown colour. So for now at least, I’ve joined the 48% (accordingly to a survey) of households in Romania with at least one cat. That’s a really high number, but when I look at the sheer number of cats skulking around any street or apartment block, it passes my sniff test. Yes, Kitty is her actual name. I’ve got a cat that’s basically called Cat. My friends called her that, and it’s even written on her little booklet. Though they said I could change the name, I won’t, because I can’t think of anything better (it’s harder somehow when she’s multicoloured), and I live in Romania where Kitty isn’t a generic cat name.

When I told my parents that I’d acquired a cat, they were apoplectic. Really angry, both of them. As if I’d destroyed my life. Why would you do this to yourself? You’ll have to clean out the stinky litter tray, it’ll make a mess of your furniture, you’ll have to make trips to the vet, and how will you ever be able to go away? You live in a flat, for crying out loud. You damn well get rid of it before we come over. They were also angry with my friends for foisting the cat on me, as they saw it. And yes, I get it. Having a pet is a complication, and fewer complications is nearly always a good thing. Before Kitty arrived I was up half the night thinking of all those complications. But jeez, they spent nearly a million dollars on one massive complication that utterly dwarfs having a mostly independent animal in your home; because of it they couldn’t go away for years, and it ended up making my brother pretty upset. Me too, honestly. When I showed Mum the cat on our Skype call, she perked up a bit – “It is actually quite a nice-looking cat.” When I was little, we had a female cat called Pep. In 1989, prior to our six-month stay in New Zealand, Mum gave Pep to one of the other teachers to look after. After a couple of months in Temuka we got a letter from her: Pep had gone missing. We never saw her again. Since then, my parents have become pretty anti-pet. A few years later my older cousin dumped her fat cat on us; I’m sure it had a name but for us it was just The Cat.

It’s quite possible I won’t have Kitty for all that long. Dorothy said she’d really like to have a cat, whereas I’m basically cat-agnostic. Fine with one, fine without one. If she really wants Kitty, she can have her.

I stumbled upon something online today that said that 48% of Birmingham residents have at least one tattoo. I wasn’t looking for anything related to Birmingham, and certainly not tattoos, so I’m not exactly sure how it came up. Anyway, that’s a staggeringly high figure, and the same as the cats-in-Romania number. Maybe I should get a tattoo as well. Mum and Dad would really love that.

Update: I’ve just spoken to my brother. I showed him the cat and told him about Mum and Dad’s reaction. They’re being bloody ridiculous, he said. Without prompting, he mentioned their insane house business.

My niece is likely to arrive any day now.