by 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.
