Well, further to my post a day or so ago, F won’t be joining me at Mantova, after all.
The reason I won’t give but it’s all very sad and, although I still plan on going, it will put a bit of a dampner on things, even for me. He leaves tonight and I’m not sure (nor is he) when, exactly, he will be back, since he’s off to Spain next week for work.
Sometimes life is a bit of a bitch, really, isn’t it’
So, according to the DailyHateMail, there has been O U T R A G E about some “private” photographs that have been “stolen”. People are comparing it to rape, stalking and the rest.
Well, in my opinion, don’t put anything anywhere on the Internet that you wouldn’t be happy to leave lying around on your coffee table when you’re giving a dinner party with complete strangers. And, by that, I mean any device that can access or be accessed by the WWW. This includes telephones, pads and computers.
Worse still is to entrust the safe-keeping of those personal affects to a storage place that is not, physically, in your house. That’s like leaving something important and personal in a secret hiding place somewhere down the road.
In the “old days” this was easier. After all, we were not “connected” and if you took a photograph on your camera and you developed the photograph yourself, you had complete control. If it was anything other than that, you were not in control. I’m not sure how we got to a place where we thought, even for a moment, that the Internet was safe? After all the stories in the recent years, too!
And, so, do I “feel sorry” for these celebrities that have had some nude pictures stolen and banded wound the Internet for all to see? Well, no, not really.
First: Why are you taking nude photographs of yourself? Or, why are you allowing someone else to take nude photographs of you? If it was for your personal pleasure, then they should be kept (safely) on your computer or camera.
Secondly: Why did you think that it was OK to put them on some central storage place or send them via email or message? Haven’t you heard about the revelations by Snowden about people screening all these places? Did you not stop to think that, if the NSA/GCHQ can do it, so can other (?less scrupulous?) people? If not, are you some kind of stupid?
Thirdly; You’re a celebrity. You can expect the rags like the DailyHateMail to try and get these private pics. And, if they can’t get them first, then they can be “outraged” that someone else got them first! Did you not hear about the News of the World hacking scandal? Have you been living on some distant planet?
So, the upshot is that it’s entirely your own fault.
But, I really want to know: Have all these celebrities really been busy taking nude pics of themselves? Am I now so old that I find it really quite strange? Have we developed into a civilisation the likes to create its own porn?
And, tell me why it is that (apparently) so many people are interested in seeing certain parts of celebrity bodies?
Let me go and have a look for some to find out ……….
Here it is, starting tomorrow, the sign that the warmer weather (what there was of it this year) is about to go away in a final flourish of summer.
Mantova’s (Mantua) literary festival is the signal for me that the holiday period is almost over and it’s a soft, gentle way to slip into Autumn.
But, the BIG news this year, is that F is coming! I am so happy about that. I am hopeful that we can get to stay 2 days because that would be nice. But even if it’s one single day, it will be good. I get to show him off. He’s coming even though he has to fly out early on Monday morning, so this is a bit of a sacrifice for him. Or, maybe a peace offering following an “incident” during the holiday?
In any event, I want to make the most of it.
Afraid.
No. That isn’t the right word.
Insecure.
No, nor that either.
Lonely? Alone? Well, yes, kind of, to the second.
Lost.
Only in as much as the place is HUGE. No, not really. I’ve lived in places that are much, much bigger. Yet it’s almost as if I could be lost here at any moment. As if it is possible for me to become disconnected from the real world. From reality.
It echoes. And, yet, there is no background sound. Even the sound of the trams passing along the street at the end of the road don’t make an impact to the silence of the place. Some people talking in the street – and yet it seems separate from the place. It’s still, for some reason, NOT background noise. There IS no background noise. There’s the feeling of utter, utter silence.
I contemplate putting some music on to play in the background but don’t as if it would, by doing that, emphasise the fear, insecurity, loneliness, sense of being alone and lost that I already feel. And yet none of these things adequately sum up what it is that I feel.
The dogs are no help, even if they are in the room with me. Right there, at my feet. Yet we seem small in this one room, not least the whole flat.
Later I try to explain this a bit. “We’re not using the flat,” I say. “We haven’t got a kitchen we can use. We can’t even make a cup of coffee.”
That’s only partly true, of course. We could do it, if we want. But the kitchen is still half-finished, so is not a “complete” room. It’s a room that I pass through. That isn’t “lived in”. Therefore it feels little more than an unfinished corridor.
In addition, there are few pictures up. We don’t have the rugs back yet. We don’t have curtains up. These things deaden the silence. Make the absence of sound more manageable. F, of course, would prefer no curtains; no rugs; few pictures. But I can’t have windows without frames, walls which are completely bare, floors which are just too hard. I need some soft touches. Things that blur the edges; make things rounder rather than so square and angular.
This will take time. Not only do we have to get the things but I have some convincing to do. The rugs are easy. These are for the dogs. The pictures too, not too difficult. The curtains, more so. But, still, he hasn’t said “no”.
After we got back from the bar, he tried putting the television on. We connected everything but we get no signal. As if the aerial is not connected to the aerial socket.
We both agree that we’ve never had these problems living somewhere before. The buzzer from the front door doesn’t work; the bell at our door doesn’t work; there was no gas connected; the aerial; the boiler; the kitchen; etc., etc. Such little things but they just make it “not quite comfortable” – it all seems like so much work.
But until all these things are done or fixed, the flat remains a kind of large, echoing void. In need of some human touch to make it real. To make it our home.
23/8
Well, The Weekend is finished. A day! It was OK and much lighter than A Girl Is A Half-formed Thing but just not brilliant. Like most “gay” themed books, it seemed so shallow. No real depth to it. The characters weren’t rounded or full enough for me although, for a change, there wasn’t lots of sex which was nice, if you see what I mean.
So now on to The Haunting Of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. A different type of book again.
24/8
More than half way through Haunting. I was awake half the night. First it was cold and secondly, I had another one of my revelations (but more of that in another posts, maybe.)
Later: Haunting finished. Have to try and find the films now. It was quite good. It’s an old book (published the year after I was born) but stands the test of time quite well. I can imagine it could be quite scary as a film, hence the reason why I want to see the films. On the other hand, they could be dreadful.
Now for The Secret History by Donna Tartt.
Obviously, like The Goldfinch, this will take a few days and I don’t have a few days. But, I’ve made a start. Again, the descriptive prose and fullness of the character development and scene-setting are wonderful. I’m going to enjoy it. Maybe I’ll get chance to finish it next weekend when we’re back down?
Well, that was hard – although I did finish it in less than 2 days.
Whenever I read books now, I think about Lola reading them in Italian. And, in the case of A Girl Is A Half-formed Thing by Eimear McBride, all I could think is that this book couldn’t be translated.
And then I wondered at how difficult it must have been to write! They are English words but not really English sentences. Sentences half. That are are. Half. Formed. If you see what I mean.
But also the subject. The usual Irish/Catholic angsts and problems but written in oh-so a different way.
Towards the end of the book, I had to keep putting it down every paragraph – the subject matter was too dark; too difficult – and do something else for a few moments.
But a really good book. I can see why it won prizes.
And now, I hope, something a bit lighter, maybe. The Weekend by Peter Cameron. We shall shall we. We see. Surely.
I just read Lola’s blog and it reminded me about last night.
“There’s something wrong with Piero’s paw. Lift him on the table and look.”
I do so.
“He’s been licking it,” I am informed.
I don’t say it’s nothing to worry about or dogs are always licking something or let’s see if he continues to lick it, for these would be a waste of breath and time. No, the easiest and quickest thing is to look.
So I do. I carefully take the paw, examine and feel it all over, checking between the toes and underneath.
F spots a small tuft of matted hair and, not bothering to correct his assumptions (because he wouldn’t listen anyway) I let him cut it off with scissors.
“I’m sorry,” he says, meaning for bothering me or worrying me or something.
Which he didn’t but never mind.
What’s important is that he is satisfied there’s nothing there and nothing to worry about.
My “appropriate” reaction was all that was required to “fix” the situation.
G? Take note!
It seems travel (sort of) books were next. First up, Road to Rouen by Ben Hatch, an amusing book about taking his family around France. Amusing, yes but one of those books I won’t read again. Sorry, Ben. Maybe it’s because I don’t have kids? The stories are mildly funny but I think you have to have kids to really get them.
It was well written and, as I say, amusing but not really “great”. It can’t, for example, compare with The Goldfinch, nor anything by Margaret Atwood. Maybe it should have been the first book that I read?
And then I started an ebook. To be fair, although this IS available on Amazon, it’s a book written by the brother of a friend and ex-colleague and also the son of another ex-colleague, sadly no longer with us. As I don’t have a Kindle, he sent it to me in PDF format.
It’s called: New Zealand Calling by Alex Richards.
He’s not a professional author but he tries to be descriptive. However, it reads much as I assume my blog reads; interesting enough if you know the people involved; a collection of experiences and stories that don’t really hang together with a “plot”. There’s no “conclusion”.
However, some of the stories were interesting and some, amusing.
But I found that just reading an ebook was neither comfortable nor enough and so, at the same time, I started God’s Traitors by Jessie Childs.
I finished it today, so it’s taken about 3 days. This is a history book, about the Roman Catholic persecutions during Elisabeth I’s reign and afterwards, told through the experiences and lives of several generations of one (noble) family.
But it’s history and so full of dates and factual things. Not really a novel, as such but still a bloody good read.
And, for my next book (which I will start in a moment) I’ve chosen A Girl Is A Half-formed Thing by Eimear McBride. I think this won the Women’s Prize for Fiction but I’ll need to check.
In any event, I’ve read it’s difficult to read, so I have another, just in case.
Well, it took me about 3 days (and a bit) but The Goldfinch was, possibly the book of the summer for me.
Stunningly great book. So descriptive, so intriguing, so well written. Loved it. The “official” next book is at the beach. We’re not there because a) it’s raining and b) we’ve both got a little sunburned (and F has some spots he doesn’t like). So, we’re having a “day off”.
Now I have to pick something else. Maybe the ereader would be a good choice? Yes, I think that’s right.
It’s always the hands, isn’t it? They’re the give-away. You can always do something with other parts but there’s little you can do with your hands except, maybe, wear gloves. Except that I don’t do anything. My idea has always been to grow old gracefully or, rather, just grow old.
So, the lines on my face multiply and grow deeper and longer; my belly hides more of what’s beneath it; my bones click and creak, stiffen and have pain for no reason (and although many Italians and older Brits would blame the weather or the change of weather, I don’t for I know it’s not that, it’s just a time thing – and, by that, I mean the passage of time); my throat has developed what I can only liken to the wattle of a chicken and, finally, I have small areas on the backs of each hand that are slightly darker, like freckles but are, of course, liver spots.
They, like when the skin on the backs of your hands becomes thin and almost translucent, are signs of extreme old age. Or, at least, that’s what I’ve always thought.
And, I’ve noticed here, on the beach, that they seem to be multiplying at an extraordinary rate – even in the last few days.
I guess it could be the sun. Or the smoking. Or both. Or, just old age although I had always thought that liver spots were something reserved for those who had passed retirement time – some time before their appearance.
It seems not. Or, at least, not for me!
It’s not that they look so bad – just that they exist at all! And, instead of fading against the tan I am getting, they seem to look worse!
Anyway, I’ve finished The Bat. It was OK. I suspect that Lola quite fancies the author, whose picture was on the cover. Today, I’ve started The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. This is a thick book. Let’s see how long this keeps me going!