The best news I had today was when one of the members of the “AI bot” generation said she didn’t want to carry on having lessons with me. I can’t face those teeth-pulling sessions right now.
The last few days I’ve felt a great sadness and a sickness in the pit of my stomach. Plus I’ve felt shattered after consecutive nights of shocking sleep, which of course is related to the previous sentence. Kitty has been a non-factor in all of this; she really just does her own thing.
Yesterday morning I met Dorothy for coffee. I’m realising now what an invaluable friend she is. When I met her at the fish fountain, it was minus five or thereabouts, but sunny and with ice crystals sparkling in the air. It was beautiful. We chatted for nearly two hours and could have managed another two but for our various obligations (five lessons, in my case). She made me aware of two brilliant poems about trains – one by Robert Louis Stevenson, the other by W H Auden. The Stevenson one, from the Victorian era of rail travel, captures the essence of travelling by train quite beautifully. We talked about some of her family members, then we discussed the book – in particular a couple of quizzes I’d put in there that she said I needed to make easier – and then we talked about how the glue that holds society together is now coming apart pretty rapidly. Finally I decided I’d briefly mention this thing that I’d never talked about with anybody before – how certain letters of the alphabet and combinations of letters elicit some pretty strong emotions in me that I manage to keep in check because I know they’re not normal. In one or two cases I can even smell them – for instance Gs and Hs make me think of the smell of horses. The Romanian word for a herd of horses is herghelie which just seems perfect to me. I’ll have to write a series of posts about this because it’s just a big part of my life.
This morning I went to the local produce market for the first time since the autumn. With the temperature well into the negatives, it was pretty low on stalls. I ended up buying a load of prunes which I didn’t expect to see there.
Elena, the lady who lives above me, is finally coming back to Romania tomorrow after six months in Canada.
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.
It was like a war zone here either side of midnight on New Year’s Eve as people let off bangers all around me. And now we’re in the second half of the twenties. The world took a leap backwards in the first half, and I can’t see where even a baby step forwards is coming from. Why I think we’re screwed is pretty simple. We absolutely aren’t going to innovate our way, or “tech” our way, out of this hole. (Tech is a lot of the problem.) Our only way out is to accept being poorer in the short term, maybe even the medium term, to benefit society and the environment in the long term. (The long-term economy would benefit too.) But most people won’t give an inch. Just look at Covid. It’s my right to travel abroad every summer, come hell or high water. I deserve it. No you bloody well don’t.
Yesterday I had my first lesson of 2025, a two-hour session with an English teacher in her late forties. I got her to do the same exercises I’d given a 15-year-old boy. Despite being a teacher, she was nowhere near as good as him. Then I saw Mark in town. We wandered around the Christmas market which is still running for another few days. I noticed stalls were selling things like “Dubai cakes” and “Dubai chocolate”. People here are so obsessed with the otherworldly glitz and opulence of Dubai that the word has taken on a meaning of fancy. Wouldn’t Dubai chocolate melt, though, given that the place is practically an oven? Mark then asked me if I wanted a cat to look after. In theory it would lovely to have the company of a cat, but it’s extra work, and what if I go away? That’s the real killer. Who would I have to look after him or her? I think it’s a her.
Later I spoke to Dad. He talked a lot about the appallingly cruel US healthcare system, having watched a YouTube video starring Michael Moore. He sent me the video with a note: “This will make you angry.” I suppose I’ll force myself to watch it tomorrow, when my self-ban of YouTube is lifted.
This morning I saw I’d missed a message about a lesson. I was still able to go to it in Mehala. It was tipping it down so I drove. On the radio I heard a new song by the Romanian band Vunk, as well as Dust in the Wind by Kansas. A beautiful song.
The darts. The final between Luke Littler and Michael van Gerwen (MVG) is an hour away. I don’t know if I’ll be able to stay awake for all of it; I have lessons in the morning. Littler, still not 18, is a phenomenal talent who has hit international headlines. He must go into the final as a warm favourite. On New Year’s Day there were two fantastic quarter-finals back-to-back. First was Chris Dobey against Gerwyn Price. When I got back from seeing Dorothy, Dobey was two sets down, but he worked his way into a 4-2 lead in a race to five. He then missed five darts for the match before finally, mercifully, getting over the line in a 5-3 win, hitting two double 19s to seal the victory. Then came MVG against Callan Rydz. Super high quality throughout, and honestly Rydz was marginally the better player, but MVG’s timing and the vagaries of darts’ scoring allowed the Dutchman to run out a 5-3 winner.
One of the matches I watched thanks to a stream I picked up from New Zealand. It was weird seeing all the ads featuring rugby and barbecues and Wattyl paints. I see they’re still doing the thing with jillions of overpriced shades of paint that nobody needs or, let’s be honest, even wants. Ask a four-year-old boy what colour he’d like his bedroom wall to be and he might say blue. What shade of blue, Tommy? Horizon blue? (Just looking on the Wattyl website now.) Londonderry blue? (Makes me think of the IRA.) Hamilton blue? (The blue of the future.) Out of the blue? (Now that’s a good name.) Whaaat? Noooo!Blue blue! Thomas the Tank Engine blue! We’ve even got the same name! I’m convinced that adults’ colour preferences are really just the same as kids’ ones. When was the last time you heard anyone of any age say their favourite colour was sodding magnolia? But millions of people paint their walls various hues of beige or taupe because they’ve convinced themselves that they like them. It’s what they should like and should have. And of course a real colour might make the value of their house go down. It always comes down to that, at the end of the day. If I was in charge of this stuff in NZ, I’d enact a law that only permitted ten shades of paint. That’s your lot. If you want some pastelly crap, mix white with one of the other permitted colours. That’s what a pastel shade is anyway. There’d be border police and special dogs trained to sniff out contraband paint. Beige beagles. You’d still face a $400 fine for a rogue apple left in your bag, but a $4000 fine for a pot of beige. It would be fantastic.
I’ve just been to pick up my prescription, and now Mark has sent me a message asking if I’m “doing anything this New Year’s Eve”. But that’s, like, now. Sorry mate, normally I would go into town, but this time I’m staying in. Maybe we can catch up in a day or two.
Last night I had a WhatsApp call with Elena who is nearing the end of her stint in Canada. She’d had a traditional Romanian Christmas in Burlington, Ontario, by all accounts. She’s always easy to talk to. No pressure whatsoever.
The book is taking centre stage at the moment. There’s an awful lot of faffing around with fonts and margins and what have you, which wouldn’t normally be my job.
The UK is in the midst of what the Sun is calling a “quad-demic” of Covid, the flu, a respiratory virus, and norovirus which tends to make you pretty active at both ends. I’m glad I’m over here.
I’m just reading the Wikipedia article on the plane crash in South Korea that killed 179 people. I’m wondering if the article was written by a Kiwi, because it uses the word “berm” for the bank that the plane crashed into. Why on earth that berm was even there utterly beats me, but what do I know?
Three hours of the old year left. I had two trying spells to contend with, one in April and May, and the other in the summer which I really think was caused by the infernal weather. Then I’ve had this general feeling that world is falling to pieces. But lately I’ve been following the news less, have almost completely quit watching pointless YouTube videos, and this book business has given me a new lease of life as we head into 2025 (which for the vast majority of us will be the only time we live in a square-number year). For that I’m grateful.
This afternoon, by the Bega. The temperature didn’t get above freezing today and the fog never fully lifted.
It’s Boxing Day here. The day after my un-Christmas and the 20th anniversary of the tsunami that killed nearly 230,000 people.
Last Thursday, the 19th, I had a video call with my friend who came to visit in September. He was about to travel to Normandy to spend Christmas with his girlfriend’s family. I told him that seeing him in Timișoara was a real highlight of my year, which was the truth. He surprised me slightly when he said that it was a major highlight for him too. I suppose I’m just not used to people saying that seeing me is a highlight.
On Sunday, straight after I wrote my last post, I went to Dorothy’s church. Unlike a lot of churches, this one seems harmless. The service lasted 1¾ hours and included a few carols, including one with a verse in French. I quite enjoyed the mini-detour into French. But gosh, that sermon. When will this thing ever end? He was tireless, not even taking a sip of water. Mercifully, at last he said (in Romanian), “As I come to the end…”. He spoke for 45 minutes. I was subjected to some pretty bad sermons as a kid – the priest mumbled so much that you couldn’t make out what he was saying – but at least none of them lasted 45 minutes. Afterwards there was food – good food and plenty of it – and chat, which I wasn’t really in the mood for, though I did talk for a while with the Aussie lady. Before I left, Dorothy gave me an old map of Timișoara, printed in 1983, as a sort of Christmas present. The cathedral, which was completed during the Second World War, was conspicuous in its absence. The government thought it could deny the existence of a major religious landmark by simply leaving it off maps. How bizarre.
The following day I had three lessons, all of them with boys, then later I had dinner with Mark and his wife in Dumbrăvița. It had started to rain just before I got on my bike, and I very nearly wimped out and took the car instead. I took my salată de boeuf and other bits and pieces. Whenever I go to their place at the far end of Dumbrăvița I think that I could not live there. No little bars, no market stalls, no ornate cast-iron doorways, in fact nothing at all more than a few years old. It would do my head in. When I got there, I was immediately greeted by the less placid of their two big dogs. (The one nice thing about where they live is the wood nearby, which is great for the dogs.) We sat down and shared a meal. Ambient music, the sort that I never choose to listen to in any circumstances, emanated from their smart TV. They were mostly very good songs, but annoyingly “ambientised”. We talked a lot about teaching, which makes sense – we all have that in common. We also talked about religion. It isn’t taught at all at their school, when really it should be. We all wondered how a very high IQ doesn’t stop a person having very staunch – and sometimes dangerous – religious beliefs. I only drank one glass of wine, because I knew I’d need to be alert the next day. After we ate, they taught me how to play the card game Shithead. I do remember playing it in France in 2000, but couldn’t remember a thing about it. Mark’s wife gave me a whole load of information without ever telling me that suits didn’t matter. Finally I twigged. So suits don’t matter?! That was the first thing you needed to say! I mastered the rules eventually, but as the game relies pretty heavily on short-term memory and mine is pretty bad, I can’t imagine I’d ever be any good at it. The rain had stopped by the time I left, though I still got pretty muddy. When I got home the darts was still on – this was the last session before Christmas, and the best of the tournament so far, but I couldn’t watch much of it because I needed to be up the next morning. I did however see Florian Hempel lose out in a close match; I’d really wanted him to get through.
The next day was Christmas Eve. A work day. Ten hours on the book, in five two-hour chunks. No interruptions. At one point my doorbell went. Almost certainly carol singers who had tailgated through the front entrance. I ignored it. This reminded me of when I studied for my final university exams. I spent the day writing explanations for the 25 pictures that Dad drew. Some were simple, others much more complicated. There’s probably still some tweaking to do, and then there’s the business of getting the layout right. Neither the pictures nor the explanations are a uniform size.
Christmas Day. I felt a cold coming on. In the morning I spoke to my brother who was up early sorting out his son and about to sort out the turkey too. Then I called Mum and Dad who were already done with Christmas dinner which they had at their place. Mum’s brother and sister-in-law had been, along with Mum’s niece with her (I think) third husband. We talked about a potential name for my little niece. My nephew has a five-letter, one-syllable first name, which follows all the rules of the English language, right down to a magic E to prevent it from being the plural of something sticky. My brother chose that, as far as I’m aware. But we have a feeling that my sister-in-law is less conservative than him (or me, for that matter) when it comes to names of humans, and it’s probably her turn this time. We’ll see what they come up with.
After the video calls, I read the whole of Nevil Shute’s On the Beach yesterday, with the exception of the first chunky chapter which I’d already read. Imagine if that could be a regular thing. No work, no having to see anybody or deal with any ghastly instant messages, just sitting down and reading almost a whole novel. On the Beach, written in 1957 and set in Melbourne following a nuclear war in the Northern Hemisphere, really was a compelling read. I read it with a map of eastern Australia open; at times he would refer to places as they were gradually “taken out” by radiation as it spread southward. I read the final chapter in bed, still not knowing what would happen. As always with an older book, there were a lot of interesting language aspects. One, he uses ‘ld as the contraction for would, instead of the now standard ‘d. Two, he uses directly as an adverb of time, to mean “as soon as”, as in “I went home directly I finished work”. That threw me the first time I saw it. Three, he calls a fridge a frig, which means something very different to me. Frig is also one of the two Romanian words for cold, the other being rece. I suppose fridges were still pretty new in 1957, and the spelling hadn’t been standardised. I’m glad we settled on fridge rather than frig. On the same theme, I remember when mike was used as the short form of microphone. Then mic took over, which is nowhere near as good in my book. Mic goes against English spelling rules, and the c ending makes the verb forms mic’d and mic’ing clumsy; miked and miking worked just perfectly. Imagine if we called a bike a bic. Ugh. Four, he uses the ligatures æ and œ in words like anæsthetic and manœuvre, which you rarely see these days. As for manoeuvre, that’s such a messy word. Yes I know it’s from French. The Americans spell it maneuver, which I prefer, but ideally I wish we’d all just go with manoover and have done with it. And five, he calls babies it. Yes, we still do that sometimes today, but not usually when we know the gender, which is the case when he says it.
Wow, this has been a long one. I went for a brisk walk this sunny morning after taking a Lemsip. Here are some pictures:
Big Ceaușescu-era apartment blocks on the other side of a large vacant section
This bar was once open from 8am to 11pm, but has been closed a while. The patio area next door now looks to be a car wash. This is on Strada Mătăsarilor, or Silk Merchants Street. The Mătăsarilor cemetery is nearby.
I don’t know what the story is of this writer who is seemingly still alive (yes, they erect gravestones in advance here).A rather nice gravestone and poem; this young woman died during WW2.
I must have been past this large building several times without really noticing the designs on the top.
I’m feeling reasonably good at the moment, maybe because I have two things to look forward to. One, the books getting published, fingers crossed. And two, Mum and Dad coming over in May. When you live by yourself without a family, it’s quite easy to be staring at miles and miles of barrenness. An endless desert, with not even a tree in sight. This is especially true when it seems that everything in the wider world is going to the dogs; you can be totally bereft of anything on the horizon to latch onto, whether personal or collective. So I’m grateful for these two things.
Recently Dad sent my brother and I a pair of tape recordings of us when we were little. They were dated 1984 and 1985. The ’85 one was mostly me, making up a story as I went along. I was surprisingly eloquent for just five years old. I had a habit of repeating myself, but some of that was because I was big into rhyme, which is to an extent repetitious. Dad would read me Edward Lear or something in that line, which I really enjoyed. In fact, by five I was perfectly able to read it myself. Sometimes I think I peaked then, and my life since has been four decades of managed decline.
Yesterday I only had one lesson – maths with Matei – and since then I’ve been cooking. Salată de boeuf, salam de biscuiți, and a crumble which I made with quince and four enormous apples, a variety of cooking apple I’ve never seen before. (On the market they were just called mere acre, or sour apples; in fact they’re not that sour.)
I’m going to beat last year’s number of teaching hours by a small margin. According to my records, I’ve so far done half an hour more this year than in all of 2023, and I’ve still got some sessions tomorrow and a few between Christmas and New Year. I’m glad I’m coming to the end of my Christmas-themed worksheets and spot-the-difference pictures. I’m reindeered out now, I’m telling you.
A few days ago somebody sent me this video of Michael McIntyre’s “Silent Letter Day” skit which he performed at the London Palladium. I know I’m biased because I’m a word-obsessed English teacher, but I thoroughly recommend it for McIntyre’s extraordinary timing and delivery. I’ve had all kinds of fun and games with silent letters in my lessons. A student will read psychology and say “p-see-hhho-lo-jee”, with a pronounced p and a guttural h, just like how the equivalent word (psihologie) is pronounced in Romanian. I then ask my student to have another go, interrupting him or her as soon as I hear the p-s. “P-see…” No. “P-sigh…” No. “P-s…” No. Then I tell them that the p isn’t pronounced at all, much to their surprise.
The darts. It’s been a mixed bag so far. Often I’ve seen either both players performing well together, or both struggling (by their standards, of course). Darts is a funny game in that it has an objective measure of one’s performance (your average score per throw) but it’s perfectly possible to have a better average than your opponent and still lose the game. The best example of this was Jim Williams, the Welshman who was visibly better than Paolo Nebrida, his Filipino opponent. He averaged 7½ points better than Nebrida – that’s a lot – but missed five darts for the match, losing in a deciding leg. He also spurned a bunch of chances earlier on, otherwise the match wouldn’t have been so close in the first place. Another match I thought might go the same way was Matt Campbell’s against Mensur Suljovic. They’re both likeable characters and I didn’t mind who won. Campbell was clearly the better player, and eventually he did win, 3-2 in sets. Last night I saw Luke Littler’s first match. It took him a while to kick into gear but when he did so he produced a record-breaking 32-dart fourth set, coming millimetres from a nine-darter. Such ridiculous talent. Ryan Meikle, whom he beat 3-1, played very well too but couldn’t do anything at the end there. Yesterday’s final match saw Aussie madman Damon Heta win. Heta was lethal on the doubles and also came very close to a nine-darter.
Dorothy has invited me to church; I’ll be leaving any minute. Tomorrow she goes to England for Christmas. After the church service there will be food. I’ll be taking some of my salată de boeuf along.
On Monday I found out that Petrică, one of the guys I used to play tennis with, had died at the age of just 57. He died a month ago of a heart attack. When I first played with him he leapt around the court. I remember partnering him in a set of doubles which we lost 6-1. If you’d just let me take my shot occasionally, maybe we wouldn’t have got thrashed. The next thing I knew, he’d developed kidney problems and was on dialysis. He still played tennis, but was limited to half an hour at a time. I’ve been in touch with a female friend of his; she said she’s in no mood for anything Christmassy. Petrică is the second of the tennis group to pass away: Domnul Ionescu, who was 70 or so, died of cancer at the beginning of 2022.
In other sad news, yesterday I had a lesson with my London-based student. I asked him if he had any news. Looks like I’m getting a divorce. He’s 35, with two boys aged five and two. I get the impression they got married nine years ago (in Romania, before moving to the UK) because it was just what you did, and now they’re facing a divorce which is just about always stressful and traumatic. With divorce rates hovering close to 50%, I often wonder whether getting married is ever really worth it. I mean, getting married is pretty damn stressful in itself, not to mention expensive.
This morning I opened a letter from my family friend in St Ives whom I spent considerable time with in August when I visited. Getting a letter these days is really quite something.
On Sunday I met both Mark and Dorothy in town, one after another with a longish break in between. I met them both at Berăria 700 which has reasonably priced food and drinks. Mark is almost ten years older than me, and I like to ask him about his memories of the seventies, growing up as he did in Tamworth, which isn’t far from Birmingham. This time he talked about people driving bubble cars. Being born right at the start of the Thatcher–Reagan era and growing up in Cambridgeshire rather than say the north of England, I sadly have no memories of a time before money was everything, except perhaps when I was really little and rampant capitalism hadn’t fully kicked in. I’m thinking of the funny little shops that still existed in St Ives back then, or the local auction in which Dad would scout around for antique furniture. (There’s still an auction in St Ives now, but the bottom has really dropped out of the antique market in the last 40 years.) Being born in 1980 means I can remember nothing that came before, but everything that came after.
I could really see the stark difference between the beginning and the end of the eighties when I read two of Garrison Keillor’s books, one published in 1981, the other in 1988. In the space of a few years, money had morphed from being a tool for buying useful goods and services and providing security, to being a thing in itself that fairly ordinary people wanted to acquire. Share prices were suddenly read out on radio bulletins as if they were things that mums and dads ought to know about, rather than being hidden away in tiny font in some obscure section of the paper.
Music. Lately I’ve been listening to Joan Armatrading. She was born in St Kitts and Nevis, as it is now called, but moved to Birmingham at a young age. She came out with a number of hits in the seventies and eighties. Love and Affection (1976) is wonderful; Drop the Pilot (1983) isn’t bad either.
Here are some pictures of town on Sunday evening:
Then and now. We might be going back to “then”.The third old-style cinema to have opened in the city
Last night I had two strange dreams. In the first, I was piloting a small plane and was in trouble (though I was surprisingly calm) until my brother got me out of it. I communicated with him via text or something. Soon after I had another near accident, which made me nervous about flying in small planes again. (In that dream, flying in small planes was a normal part of everyday life.) In the second dream I was in trouble at work for playing some kind of ball game (that I’d invented) during office hours. My boss seemed to quite like the game though, and thought I should market it. In fact he talked enthusiastically about a business opportunity. I was embarrassed about the whole thing and began to skulk around the office.
The “invented game” dream might have come from the board game I played with some of my students last week. This is the one Dad came up with back in 1993 or ’94 – racing cars around a three-lane track, where the fast lane gets you round faster, obviously, but requires more fuel. I refined his idea and a quarter of a century later started using it in my lessons. My 13-year-old student wanted a copy of the game that he could print out and play at home, so I sent him soft copies of the game board, the dashboards (showing fuel and completed laps), and the cards that you have to draw if you land on certain spaces.
On Monday night I started getting pain in my sinuses that continued through Tuesday and Wednesday. I also seemed to pick up a bug of sorts. I was devoid of energy for two days. On Thursday I was back to some sort of normal which was just as well – I had seven lessons that day. The pain hasn’t entirely gone away and I’ve had no choice but to take painkillers. Fatigue has been a major issue for a while; it isn’t helped by my waking up multiple times virtually every night.
On Monday morning I had my weekly Romanian lesson. Inevitably we talked about the election, or un-election. I suggested that Georgescu was similar to Viktor Orbán. Oh no, my teacher replied. Far worse. Cancelling the election so close to the final round was very clumsy and looks antidemocratic on the face of it. Oh shit, it looks like we might elect an anti-establishment figure that we don’t like, let’s cancel the election. But the truth is the election had been manipulated in a big way on social media. Georgescu’s assertion that he spent “zero lei” on his campaign was quite clearly a lie. And his credentials that I mentioned before – that’s he’s a scientist with a PhD – are probably made up too. Invalidating the election may have been cack-handed, but in the short term at least, Romania has dodged a major bullet here. Since I arrived here, the country has been moving, albeit slowly and unevenly, in the right direction. It is less poor than it was eight years ago. It came very close to throwing that progress away. By the way, Romania and Bulgaria have now been fully admitted to the Schengen area. That will mean that I won’t have to queue at the border to get into Hungary, whether in a car or on a bus or train, and more importantly, trucks won’t be held up for hours. There might still be checks until June; I saw contradictory information on that.
I had six maths lessons last week. In one of them I estimated pi using a round bowl, a tape measure and a piece of string. I got a value of 3.129, which was a lot closer than I expected.
The darts World Championship starts in London tonight. There’s a lot to like about the format, the colourful characters, and the fact that it takes place over the festive season. Last year I got fairly into it. This year I expect I’ll watch rather less: I really have to get the picture book finalised.
Today I made another trip to Peciu Nou and Ciacova. (Pictures below.) The biggest benefit of having a car, after seven-plus years of not having one, is being able to easily see these beautifully rustic towns and villages. I rarely use my car to get around the city; when I’m in a rush (to get to a lesson, for instance) I find that massively stressful, and my bike is just as fast anyway.
In recent months I’ve been reminded of Ernest Hemingway’s famous quote, when he said that he went bankrupt “two ways: gradually, then suddenly”. I’ve felt a gradual societal decline over the last decade or so, but lately the process has kicked into an entirely different gear. Perhaps I’m in a better place to feel it than most, because unlike most people, I’m not busy playing the game. I walked off the pitch a long time ago, and now I can sort of sit back and observe. From my vantage point, things now look very ugly indeed.
On a similar theme, a couple of months ago I discussed childlessness with Dorothy, who never had children herself. It was a hot topic in the US presidential campaign: vice president-elect JD Vance basically said that if you don’t have children, you don’t have a stake in the future of the country, or I suppose the world. I imagine that’s quite a popular viewpoint: if you have kids, you care more about future generations. But if you think about it for five seconds, you’ll realise that it’s actually bollocks. Most parents aren’t really that bothered about the success of future generations; rather, they’re extremely bothered about the success of their own specimens of future generations, which isn’t the same thing at all. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that; it’s simple human nature to want your own kids to succeed. But maybe that means that if you don’t have kids, you’re able to invest in future success in a more dispassionate way.
This weekend I watched a two-part BBC documentary on autism. Presented by the British naturalist Chris Packham (who revealed his autism diagnosis a few years back), Inside Our Autistic Minds showcases four autistic people, all under 30, though all very different. One of them is the son of Ken Bruce, the radio DJ, who is highly intelligent but non-verbal. Chris Packham teams up with animators and other creative people to produce short films to help illustrate their autistic lives better. Very well done (Britain tends to be really good at this stuff), though I’d have liked one or two of the participants to have been older. Naturally I compare myself to these people. On more than one occasion I thought, I’m more extreme than you. When it comes to avoiding social situations and generally keeping out of people’s way, I’m pretty damn extreme.
Yesterday many parts of the UK were buffeted by storms. When I got back from my lessons in Dumbrăvița I tuned into the match between Barnsley and Birmingham, thinking it might have succumbed to the elements. But no, it was on. At times the corner flags were near-horizontal, such was the wind. The first half was mostly uneventful. Barnsley dominated the early stages of the second half and took a deserved lead, only for Blues to hit back immediately with a screamer from Jay Stansfield. Later Barnsley had a player sent off for a second yellow card, and then Stansfield scored what proved to be the winner for the away side. Barnsley were a bit unlucky not to at least get a draw. Thanks to the copious added time, the game was still going on when my online lesson started. I make it the fifth time already this season that Blues have come from behind to win a league game. That’s a lot.
Two weeks ago, or was it three, I decided to self-block YouTube, thinking all those videos are a huge time-waster. I only applied the block to weekdays, but I’m finding I have no desire to watch it at weekends either.
I hope that in the coming days I’ll take delivery of the batch of books I’ve ordered. I’ve missed having a good book to read.
Here are today’s pictures from Ciacova. I’m not sure how that Cadillac ended up there. The guineafowl (bibilică in Romanian, plural bibilici) were all tightly bunched in a corner before I disturbed them.
Yesterday some candles suddenly appeared in the stairwell. When Elena (the lady who owns the flat above me) called me from Canada, I found out what they were for. The woman on the ground floor had just died. She was only 68. Her husband died at the beginning of this year.
It’s been looking pretty grim for a while, but 2024 has taken enshittification (Macquarie Dictionary’s word of the year) to another level. (How did the en- prefix get there?) At every turn we’re sinking deeper into the mire and I don’t see a way out. We’re now systemically prevented from finding an escape. Most of us aren’t even trying anyway. We’re all ordering up pointless crap on Amazon and sharing memes on TikTok that last about five minutes before the next one comes along. At least I think that’s what people do on TikTok; I honestly don’t know.
On Sunday we had the first round of the Romanian presidential elections. Călin Georgescu, pro-Putin, pro-dictatorship, anti-NATO and a conspiracy theorist on every matter imaginable, came from nowhere to top the poll with just under 23% of the vote. He didn’t run a traditional campaign, but he was all over TikTok and Facebook. Since I use neither of them, his popularity passed me by. Also, in Timișoara where I live, Georgescu didn’t do very well. But now I know. He’s 62 so he’s been around the block a bit. He got a PhD in soil science 25 years ago and has since been involved in sustainable development and held positions within the UN where he investigated the adverse effects of dumping toxic waste. So it seems he’s got a brain on him and he did some good stuff before rapidly morphing into, well, toxic waste.
Second place was also a shock. Elena Lasconi, a centrist pro-European, edged out Marcel Ciolacu of the PSD (one of Romania’s big traditional parties) by the tiniest of margins, 19.18% to 19.15%. Ciolacu had a big lead over Lasconi on Sunday evening but his advantage narrowed throughout the night. I watched the results from the last few polling places (out of about 20,000) come through on Monday morning. Lasconi finally poked her nose in front with just 18 of them left to declare. Surprisingly there was no recount. I was glad Lasconi made it to the final two. She’s inexperienced, but the PSD are mired in corruption.
Dominoes are falling all around. Lasconi must beat Georgescu in the run-off on 8th December, or else Romania will be the next to tumble. A lot of Romanians don’t even care. Does anyone care about anything that actually matters anymore? On the radio yesterday there was open discussion of Romania being under attack. Hypothetical, but still.
Today I had four sessions between 3:30 and 9pm. A boy of eight, a girl about to turn 18, then a boy of nine, and finally a woman in her late forties. Last night I had a nightmarish session with a woman of 23. We discussed success and failure. She said that success to her means having a family and a good career. Fine. A shallow definition, but not an unusual one. But then I put it to her that I have neither a family nor a traditional career. Does that mean I’m a failure, then? Yes. I burst out laughing at that point. The rest of the 90-minute session was like talking to an AI bot. Last week I asked her to name one thing she thought could improve Romania. More cars, she said. Hmm, there seem to be enough cars here already. In fact when I’m getting around the city, I’d really like there to be fewer cars. Are you saying that if Romanians became richer then people would have more cars? Or that if Romania’s road infrastructure improved, more cars could be accommodated? Her responses are one word, no words at all, or just utterly bizarre. It’s the same story with almost all women I see that were born between about 1998 and 2008. When I saw the older woman this evening, I told her how great it felt to finally talk to someone like a normal human being.
I recently saw some photos my brother had taken of the little one in the snow, with a mini snowman behind him. They’ve had a real cold snap over there; snow in November is highly unusual. We had a few flurries ourselves last Friday.
When I finished work at 9:30 last night I spoke to Elena and then watched the rest of Birmingham’s match at Exeter. A pretty nice football ground, I thought. It’s called St James Park, and often comes up in British pub quizzes. (Newcastle’s ground is, famously, St James’ Park. Which other team’s stadium is called St James Park?) Exeter sounds like a pretty nice city too; I’ve never done more than pass through it on the train. I’ve sometimes thought that maybe Exeter should vote to leave the UK. What would that be called? Blues were already 1-0 up when I turned on the game. They were dominant but couldn’t put Exeter away until they got (and scored) a penalty ten minutes from the end. Two-nil was how it finished.
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