Life in the slow lane

And so this is Christmas...

2008-12-24T13:29:00.002+01:00

...and your intrepid reporter has been at the front line of the consumer wars. In a shopping centre and the supermarket. Neither of which were as intimidating as other years - proof of the crisis? Still, it did seem as though were a lot of people buying things they couldn't really afford for people who didn't really want them.

That air of frantic shopping seemed to be missing, no doubt it will be a different story in a couple of hours.

And meanwhile, back here at downshift central, I listen to the Smiths and clear out old emails and try, as far as possible, to have a sustainable Christmas. Whatever that means - and it'll become clearer to all of us over the next 365 days.

Despite the storm clouds and the news and, well, everything, I'm optimistic about 2009. As a politics junkie, it's marvellous to have faith in a politician again, and I do have, like many people around me, faith in Obama, that he'll turn into the once-in-a-generation politician who'll actually leave the world a better place than he found it.

Faith also in the end of this all-consuming greed we seem prey to, the end of a certain economic and social model that meant more money for those that had money, "trickle-down economics" would seem to be dead and buried now. Faith that we will, actually, get through this ok, and that whatever comes from the ashes will be more just than what went before it.

Which would be something.

Water (part 2)

2008-12-19T12:57:00.002+01:00

...that apparently is 12,000 litres of water saved. Which staggers me to be honest, and is about the amount that seemed to fall on me the day I waded through a torrent during the floods in England last year.

It works out at around 130 litres a day. Saved. Which makes me think that (i) the water metre was wrong, (ii) we must have been swimming in the stuff or (iii) we have no idea how much we misuse resources.

If these figures are right, that's enough to give some 60 people water each day.

And all this with some buckets and watering cans.

Which is pause for thought.

12m3

2008-12-19T11:35:00.003+01:00

Between September and December last year we used 19 cubic metres of water here in the flat. In the same period this year it's gone down to 7. So, we've saved 12 - whatever that looks like or means or could be used for.

I don't think we're dirtier than last year, people don't move away from us on the bus. We've just used our heads, 2 buckets and 2 watering cans.

The buckets are in the bathroom; one gets filled with the water from the shower that runs before getting hot, the second (smaller) with the water from the tap when washing or shaving. It then gets used for flushing the toilet.

The watering cans sit on the terrace and take the water from the air-conditioning units, which then waters the (few) living plants we have outside.

Simple, isn't it? And the first "solution" to appear on this blog.

The bill, needless to say, hasn't come down proportionally.

La millor botiga del mon

2008-12-18T15:39:00.008+01:00

And today it took me down into the centre and a wander through the Raval, an area of Barcelona that's been "gentrified" over the last 15 or so years. Still largely an area of immigrants, with Halal butchers and internet cafés, there are also pricey clothes' shops, a product-stretching Camper hotel, and a wide range of people wandering around the place.

I doubt the "Anarchist Pizzería" still exists.

Collectively the locals look as if I'd dressed them, randomly with anything lurking in the wardrobe: some in suits, some in baggy hippy trousers, some in t-shirts proclaiming long-past and, perhaps, long-lost causes. From Boho to Hobo via the office and Islamabad.

Barcelona's bars have suffered a chalk-board revolution over these past years. Most now have their offers chalked up on green boards cluttering the entrance. A far cry from "the old days", when the height of advertising modernity was windows full of shakily painted pictures of octopuses, croquettes and nameless (tasteless?) tapas. Sadly, precious few of these bars still remain as Barcelona turns itself into "the best shop in the world".

This is the mind-numbingly absurd tag that the city council and their MadMen (and women) have hung on the poor place recently in an attempt to attract the foreign shopper.

Of course, it's not. And even deciding which is the best shop in the world is a task that only true hard-boiled died in the wool PhD slow-laners would ever have the time for. What would yours be? Yup, can't say, can you? Is it that deli you stumbled across in SoHo, that bookshop in London, that gift-shop in Paris?

No such thing exists. No such thing can exist.

But it's tagged onto a city (remember that, it's a city we're whittering on about here), a city of more than 1,500,000 people and around 2,000 years of history. A city with quiet squares and wide avenues, schools and churches and mosques and synagogues and football clubs and cinemas and theatres and people doing their best to get through the day, week, month. Oh, and the million other things that make living in a city such fun, such a buzz, such a headache, such a strain.

And all that our "Socialist" council can come up with is: "the best shop in the world". Right.

If I wanted to live in a shop I'd camp out in a department store.

The Portofino

2008-12-16T17:59:00.003+01:00

The slow lane took me down memory lane this morning.

In between the kind of errands that can best be done by a slow-lane down-shifter, I made time to sit in a café over a coffee and El País (my supposedly "progressive" newspaper of choice). The kind of errands that involve walking a fair few blocks, and then queuing, and which seem to be a poor use of free time. But when most of your time is free time, it doesn't seem so much of an imposition.

Why memory lane? Because it was wet, and cold enough outside to see your breath. So, it was a trip back to London at the Thatcherite back-end of the 80s. And, above all, to the Portofino, on Soho's Noel Street. A pretty average café, with pretty average coffee, but great tea and toast (this is England we're talking about) and a pretty decent guy-who-ran-the-place. Who plied me with the above-mentioned tea and toast after my narrow escape from truncheons and police horses at the poll tax riot.

Anyway, it always seemed wet and cold back then, and there was always a paper to pore over, if I wasn't working on art-work for the band - fliers, posters, even a couple of single-sleeves. And we were always on the point of making it: 1988 was going to be "our year", then 1989, then 1990, and then I came to Spain and it never was our year (their year?). And two of them are still hacking away at the music business, with not a whiff of fame or fortune, some 20-odd (and sometimes very odd) years later. Which I really can't decide about: is it tragic or wonderful?

And, you're right, not a lot of this has much to do with anything that's gone before. Except that the time I made this morning was slow time. Those moments you find to do exactly what you want to do, what, at that exact instant, makes you pretty happy with your lot.

The truth is, I've not been so sure about where the whole thing's heading recently. Hence the long pause between entries. But feedback from loyal readers and fans has kept me on track, and made me realise that this thing can, in fact, contain just about anything.

The bit about feedback is a total lie, by the way.

I just made my mind up.

And, to finish, yes, one real s l o w moment.

Going slow in Millau.

We are fortunate enough to have very good friends, some of whom have access to houses in beautiful parts of Spain and, one couple, in the south of France. Not Cannes or Monte Carlo (which has to be one of the most depressing places on earth. What is the point of so much flash?), but inland.

Anyway, we were there for a long weekend of total calm and good food and company and great nights' sleep. On the Monday morning we went into Millau, and most of the shops were shut. Yes, shut.

Which was wonderful.

Cheap shots

2008-12-05T09:09:00.009+01:00

A few hours later, and I'm deleting much of the previous post. Cheap shots, really. And not adding much to the debate, if anything. Bill O'Reilly's never done anything to me. For me either.

I think it's the absolutism of the "Patriot or pinhead" approach. Surely there's a middle ground there. And I'm sure that many of his kind will become less patriotic as Obama's presidency unfolds. Does that automatically convert them into pinheads?

So, having expounded a view of what I'm doing over lunch with a friend, I realise that much of what has been posted here is the result of working on too many fronts.

And to use the absolutist phrase "if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem", let's focus on the solutions, rather than cheap cracks.

What remains of the post is below...

Good news: Catalonia's autonomous government agreed last week to make shops charge for plastic bags from January 1st.

Bad news: after pressure from smaller shops, the move has been pushed back 6 months.

Good news: I now belong to a group with an acronym. Or not.

And finally finally, getting back into the slow lane, some friends asked us what we wanted for Christmas, last year they sent us a wonderful box of fruit straight from the field. We said that would be just fine again. Natural, healthy, (relatively) local and not produced by a multi-national.

The Bedford

2008-12-04T18:15:00.007+01:00

For a wild couple of years I lived in Balham, South London.

Lemmy once said "we're the kind of band who, if we moved in next door to you, your lawn would die". We weren't quite in his league, but you get the picture. Rock and rollers, most of us, with more mouth than talent, and an innate ability to sell the music press stories (some of which were even true), and a carefully-honed inability to sell a single record. We were subsidised by the welfare state and various cash-in-hand jobs, and there was an endless stream of parties and music and general rowdiness. Great times.

Wouldn't want to repeat them though. And I'd be the first to knock on our door now and say "Turn it down!"

Anyway, the point of all this is that we had a local. The Bedford wasn't the trendiest pub back then, full of old guys staring into their pints. The welcome wasn't particularly warm, either. But it was our pub, our local; our company was great, the beer was good and we felt comfortable there.

Which is what I would like this place to become. The "comfortable" bit, I mean.

It would be perfect if, over time, people could meet here and know they're going to listen to and, hopefully, take part in some interesting conversations. About things that interest them, which could be

ecology & technology & fair trade & working out where our money goes & how to make it go further than the pocket of some fat cat exec & books we've read that have inspired us or even accompanied us on flights or the beach & sustainability & and becoming aware of how we can change things & being irate and despairing at times, positive and happy at others & the music we listen to & websites we've found that can help us make our choices & high-brow, low-brow, no-brow culture & marketing & politics & taking life slowly & not becoming collateral damage of the consumer society &, well, all of the above and whatever else comes to mind.

And that kind of sets some parameters, though a list of what's excluded would probably be shorter.

And now I feel this thing's off the ground.

Welcome (again, to all four of my readers). Mine's a half, no, make that a pint.

Cheers.

To cut a long story short

2008-12-04T17:50:00.003+01:00

Getting sidetracked has always been a feature of my conversation, reading, teaching etc. But I think there's a logic to talking about Neil Young and Iraq in this context.

Anyway, we need to get back on track, and then work out what, precisely, all this typing and opining is for.

So, just to wrap up the pre-history, the decision to downshift was, in part, forced upon me by circumstances. Perhaps it was also an excuse, it's much easier to say "I'm downshifting" than "I really can't hack this job any more and am going to do something else".

But, for a while, we'd been moving there, sometimes consciously, sometimes not. I remember painting the flat one boiling August week, the radio echoing about the empty spaces.

Empty spaces that first got filled with necessities: somewhere to sleep and sit, something to cook on and keep food in, something to wear and something to read.

And then those almost-necessities: the television, stereo, computer.

And then, these were years of plenty, the satellite-dish and the upgrades. But labels never meant much to either of us. We really couldn't care less about Lacoste and Dolce and Gabanna (Dolce et Gabanna es, pro moda mori) and Armani and Levi Strauss or any of that gang.

So, pretty soon the place didn't echo any more. And, we kind of hopped off that train. Christmas presents had to be useful, and for the past few years we've mostly given money at Christmas to charities of our choice. We began to buy organic eggs and meat. Nothing ground-breaking here. The usual stuff by the usual suspects. All very right-on and progressive and leftist and liberal (and, going back to the "appropriation" post: when did the right think they owned the word "liberal"?).

And the pieces seemed to fall into place. And downshifting gave a set of parameters and ideas, a philosophy, perhaps.

As I surf and read and research all this more, it makes more and more sense; at the same time, more and more issues come up.

But we're kind of up to speed here and can deal with all that later.

Let's get down the pub.

Stop, hey, what's that sound?

2008-12-03T09:35:00.011+01:00

A simple thing in life: stretching out on the sofa with the cats, watching a dvd in the afternoon.

I spent 90 minutes yesterday watching "Déjà Vu" the documentary (or, if you will, rockumentary) of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young's 2006 US trip touring many songs from Neil Young's "Living with war".

This may contain spoilers, by the way.

It has to be said that time has not been good (physically) to Stephen Stills and David Crosby. They're bloated and ungainly, Crosby looking more than ever like a walrus, and Stills, a turtle when he trips over a stage light and takes an age to get back on his feet. In short, they look like just the kind of guys that give old hippies a bad name. Just as likely to say "take a hit on this, man" as talk about "back in Haight-Ashbury in 66".

But that's just the look.

Once they open their mouths to speak or sing, it's a different story. They still burn with indignation about how the world's going, and hope as to how it could go. Stills particularly impresses. I'd always had the image of him being the most uncomfortable with the songs, something about a military background? But he gets off the bus and meets anti-war candidates in the 2006 mid-term elections. Two of the candidates focused on are Iraq war veterans. One lost both her legs there.

Nash and Young, on the other hand, have kept it together on the looks front. As far as is possible after 40 years. Was it an offering to the great demon of rock? You take the first half of the band, we'll keep the second.

The film has two threads, the music and the reaction it provokes, and the larger, human story of a disaster that's unfolding in the US.

The human stories are almost unbearably sad: the mother whose son was killed by his own army (sorry, "friendly fire"). The vet who went proudly and has come home a shell. Another who won a musical talent show in Kuwait before the invasion and now sings anti-war songs in bars (his prize was a 3-minute satellite call home. Postponed until after the invasion.).

One vet, particularly, confuses. At first, shaven-headed and riding a huge bike, all muscle (him, not the bike), he scared the life out of me. You wouldn't want to end up playing pool with him in a dusty mid-west bar. And then he too opens his mouth. And what comes out is heartbreaking, he's a ruined man. But he's trying to pull it together, has joined a vets' support group and watches one of the gigs stage left with a face full of confusion. Another, a young woman, recently out of the army is there to enjoy the gig. "We weren't allowed to have opinions in the army" she says, but now she wants to watch the band.

Audience reaction varies from peace signs to the finger, the latter being the general tonic of a show in Atlanta. There's a generalised walk-out and disgust on their faces and a lot of anger in their words. Shock but no awe.

Southern disc-jockeys spout their views (and, while we're on the subject, as part of my trawl through coverage of the recent US elections, I came across a feature on Bill O'Really's show called "Pinhead or Patriot?" Right.) and the Dixie Chicks are, naturally, the incarnation of Beelzebub himself.

Footage of the war in Iraq, of bodies coming home in the belly of planes, all adds visual and audio proof of the obscenity and insanity of this war, that yet another generation of men and women are being killed in the name of a cause, and that those who make it home in one piece are, in fact, in pieces. A war run from Washington by two men whose military service was minimal. If not zero.

It would be nice to see the ring-leaders of this gargantuan folly in the dock.

If that happens, one can only hope that, as part of their sensory deprivation, the whole of "Living with war" is blasted into their cells at ear-splitting volume 24 hours a day.

Where were we?

2008-12-02T10:25:00.004+01:00

If the internet is a way of measuring the zeitgeist, then we're in trouble.

One of the keys to downshifting is the realisation that, simply put, less can be more. Googling "there's more to life than this" throws up some 27,000 entries. If, on the other hand, you try "there's less to life than this", you get 4, of which 2 are distinctly odd.

But this is the realisation I came to, that there is less to life than this. This hurry and hassle, this tearing about after new things and sensations, this spending and consuming.

At school we were forced to read Dickens and Shakespeare and Hardy - which is like spreading DDT on a fertile field, it turns it barren for decades. It's only recently, 30 years on, that I can get any pleasure from the first two, the third is still a closed book.

What I do remember is that in many such novels, "consumption" was always bad news, something to be feared, whispered by the doctor, a disease that would take away the sickly child or hard-working farm labourer. And while what was then known as "consumption" is not the killer it was (but it's making a comeback), today's "consumption" is an even greater reaper.

The child is sickly because she's working 12 hours a day stitching footballs or shoes for less than a pittance, which we then have to work 12 hours, on our salaries, to be able to afford. The farm labourer is exposed to chemicals and sees the fruits of his labour shipped overseas and, in extreme cases, will set himself on fire outside 5-star hotels where World Bank delegates are meeting.

"Consumption" has always been a killer.

Read on though, it does get optimistic.

It may be time for some personal history - that should fill in a handful of dots. Then we get round to colouring it in, which was always my favourite part lying on the floor when a child.

Some ten years ago, a friend and I decided to set up a company here. The competition was fierce, but we were young and arrogant (and, it has to be said, talented and lucky). We believed in ourselves, our philosophy and project and that it would work. And it did. The company got bigger, opened another branch in another country, took on more staff, made more money some years, less others. But was a success. A real-life success.

Which is a treacherous, highly subjective word, as I've come to learn.

"Poacher turned gamekeeper" as someone put it not long ago. The view is very different depending which side of the desk you sit on. As we took on more staff, it was harder to reconcile firmly-held beliefs with "business reality". One spectacularly mis-managed sacking was the final straw.

Wanting more wasn't the issue here; it was about wanting less. Less stress, less dealing with lawyers and accountants and Health&Safety issues with their endless reams of red tape: is everyone in the office sitting correctly? If they're not, it's your fault. You pay the fine and the medical expenses. Less paperwork.

Less of everything, really. The easy option would have been to go in, do as little as humanly possible, go home and pick up a more than decent pay-cheque at the end of the month. But there was too much time invested, too much respect for colleagues to turn into the typical "pasota" boss - a wonderful Spanish word that is hard to translate. Just think of a boss sat on their backside (which, in itself, is a strange expression: where else would one, could one, sit?), doing sweet F.A.

And, so, it stopped being fun.

What can one do here? Most of the world can't do a whole lot. Mortgages to pay off, children to feed and school. But that wasn't our case.

Thus, I left. On an ever-expanding period of "leave".

In a textbook case of karma, a simple favour I'd done a few years previously to a new arrival here came back to me in the form of a handful of lucrative teaching hours. The favour was as basic as taking and making time, to have a coffee with this guy and give advice.

Other contacts and favours have provided the rest of my (reduced) income.

And that takes us up to a few months ago. As the Spanish say, "continuará"...

Ah, the "it does get optimistic" didn't refer to the above. I'm not (quite) so self-centred to believe this to be a panacea.

It refers to Paul Hawken. Only 40 pages into his "Blessed Unrest", horizons are being expanded and some degree of optimism and hope are filling the doom-saying part of my brain.

The sub-title is: "How the largest social movement in history is restoring grace, justice and beauty to the world".

Who wouldn't open the book?

Slow lane masters

2008-11-28T11:33:00.009+01:00

They really are. Cats, that is.

As I sit here, with the winter sun coming in through the study window, they're both asleep. One on our bed, having wormed his way under the blanket, the other on one of the spare beds. Both curled up. Both exhausted from a busy morning of...well...nothing much.

I came late in life to love cats. Was always a "dog person", when younger we had one, a lovely Labrador, who had a mind of her own and never graduated from obedience classes.

Then the wilderness years - no dogs, cats, hamsters. Nothing. And then, on getting married, cats came to form part of my life. In my wife's family first and then, six years ago the two-staged arrival of two very common kittens from the shelter.

And cats have a bad press. Maybe it's justified in some cases, but not in cats who come from the shelter. They seem aware of the luck they've had and, ours certainly, are among the most affectionate companions one could wish to have.

My wife is a volunteer in a shelter. Her work there, while hard and sad at times, helps her de-stress from her work. And cats are great at teaching you to take it slowly. They get there in the end. And know where the warmest and coolest places are in the flat. Which is useful information. So, if you live in or near Barcelona, and want a cat in your life, let me know. The shelter is, naturally & sadly & hopelessly, full.

Now I'm going to watch them, and learn from the masters.

Buy the ticket, take the ride

2008-11-28T08:35:00.007+01:00

Just a letter further along the bookshelf from the meeting of Andrew Smith and Susan Sontag stands a group of three men. They might be waiting at the bus-stop, or in line in the Post Office. They might even be standing next to each other at the bar.

On the left is E P Thompson, and "The Making of the English Working Class", on the right is David Thomson and his cinema book "The Whole Equation". In the middle is Doctor Hunter S Thompson, the Doc, HST, Raoul Duke. Represented by "The Great Shark Hunt" - read so many times, the cover's all but fallen off; "Fear and Loathing in America"- er, unfinished - and "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72" - often read, but with a cover made of sterner stuff, it's never going to come adrift.

OK, so it's a bar. And he's wearing shades, and with a cigarette-holder in his mouth. And a shirt that looks like a curtain from the Eisenhower era.

Never having been a great fan of guns, Hunter S Thompson’s fascination with them was not what fascinated me about him. Nor, perhaps, his superhuman narcotic intake. “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” never really did it for me. In fact, there was a lot of his work that didn’t really do it for me.

However, he remains one of my favourite authors, perhaps more for the style than the content. He's one of the few writers I consciously lift tics and riffs from (even if not so far on this blog). Which, I’m sure will be making his day, wherever he is.

The style blew (bullet?) holes through anything and everything I had read before, and the content, when firing from both barrels and at certain targets, was shocking, in an electric sense.

From what I know of him, I share even less with William F Buckley than with HST. Described on Wikipedia as a “conservative commentator”, he almost miraculously hit on the nearest definition of the effects of the doc’s work: “(he) elicits the same kind of admiration one would feel for a streaker at Queen Victoria’s funeral”. Just about perfect.

His long-running battle with Richard Nixon is among the finest political writing ever, just staying the right side of vitriol. Or not. And that's why the cover's falling off. Despite the strong competition, no politician can ever been as savaged as he was. And rightly so:

"For years I've regarded his existence as a monument to all the rancid genes and broken chromosomes that corrupt the possibilities of the American Dream". (1)

"Nixon...represents that dark, venal and incurably violent side of the American character that almost every country in the world has learned to fear and despise." (2)

How must Nixon have felt? All those demonstrations, all those people out to kick him around, all those students and lefties and commies; all of that summed up in so few words.

But he had many other registers and, in the end, if I love HST, it’s for something as simple as a sentence, oddly enough from "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", talking about the "wave" of 60s counter-culture - it would "simply prevail". He finishes: "you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look west, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark - that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back".

It all happened a mere blink ago. And can happen again.

Selah

(1) Pageant, 1968
(2) Rolling Stone, date unknown

Pásalo

2008-11-27T09:56:00.008+01:00

On a roll here. Twice in the same morning.

How many things irritate me? Let me count the ways.

Too many, most of which are completely banal, and only gain importance through my irritation. Queue-jumpers for example.

But one of them is the use of "Pásalo". Some history: as we may remember, on March 11th 2004, a series of bombs exploded on commuter trains in Madrid, killing nearly 200 people. If in the US they talk about 9/11, and in the UK 7/7, here it's 11-M.

When I moved to Barcelona at the tail end of 1990, mere days before my bete-noir, Margaret Thatcher, resigned, I was puzzled to see graffiti referring to 23-F. It sounded like some element that had fallen off the periodic table. But referred to the upcoming 10th anniversary of the attempted coup of 23rd February 1981. So, 11-M, 23-F, 20-N (the death of Franco), are all days that are shorthanded thus into the collective memory.

As we may also remember, the sitting government blamed the attacks on ETA, and there was widespread suspicion that they were using the massacre for electoral reasons. Elections were due on 14-M. Things got very tense in those terrible, heart-breaking days, Spanish electoral law was, perhaps, broken, insinuation and counter-insinuation were bandied about.

But, most importantly, the People got involved. Using mobile phones, text messages flew around the country arranging demonstrations against both the terrorists and the sitting PP government. I still have the message on my phone. The message ended "Pásalo" - "Pass it on" - and, thus, the chain took shape. The PP lost the elections, and we saw that, for one shining moment, people, voting with their hearts, rejected what they knew was wrong. For one shining moment, people did have the power, and used it.

And due, in large part to one word: "Pásalo".

Which came to symbolise in part those 4 dreadful days and their political outcome. To symbolise that mobilisation of the people, when it really happens, can make a difference. It has come to symbolise a certain moment in left of centre Spanish politics. And would be in the same book as Korda's photo of Che.

And like the photo, it has become corrupted. There was a fascinating exhibition here a couple of years ago about the history of the photo and the various ends it has been put to. Not all of which are in tune with Che. I can't remember if the image had been used to sell cherryade or not, but we're on the right lines here.

And now, again, a symbol has been appropriated by the very people it was used against, and against the very people it was used by. A former minister in the PP government was in court this week to defend himself against charges of having sunk shares in one of Spain's largest construction companies, by sending a message from his mobile that linked the current PSOE government with take-overs. The details confuse a bit, it's true. But the message ended "Pásalo". No, it's "our" symbol. You're wearing "our" clothes. You're trying to use our argot.

OK, there's no innate "right" for any group to wear certain clothes, to use certain words, certain symbols. But a symbol of resistance has become common-place. And becomes corrupt, over-used, mundane.

And, in so doing, the shining moment becomes tarnished.

Rebecca Solnit (and pasta makers)

2008-11-27T08:44:00.012+01:00

And what, one wonders, does the previous post have to do with all this? Well, one of the summer's inspiring reads was Barbara Kingsolver's "Animal, vegetable, miracle"; and one of the things it inspired me to do was get into cooking. Simple things. Because simplicity is one of the threads that I want to make up this downshifted life.

And so it turns out that Solnit and Kingsolver are the first two writers namechecked on this blog. Which I wouldn't have bet on even a couple of days ago. The honours were much more likely to have gone to Kerouac (read at just the right time) or Hunter S Thompson (who I can come back to time and time again - but more of that later). Odd, in any case.

So, to Rebecca Solnit. I have had just one of her books "Hope in the dark: Untold histories, Wild possibilities", and can't even remember if I finished it. Anyway, it's no longer on my shelves. It would be between Andrew Smith's "Moondust" (having been born when I was, the Apollo programme lit all the adventurous fires it could in a young boy's mind, and still, despite the cost and being useless and a fake and empire-building and all that, does) and Susan Sontag's "Regarding the pain of others". Fairly strange neighbours. But there must be stranger ones. Must have given it away or flogged it for next to nothing in the 2nd-hand English bookshop here.

What I have read of hers recently comes from TomDispatch, and she's one of two writers who I read everything by - Mike Davis being the second. To cut a short story long, was trying to link her in to "My back pages" here, but couldn't find a homepage. Did, however, stumble across this, from Orion magazine.

..and it makes thought-provoking reading, and is worth commenting on. To start at the end, one would have to surf a lot to come across a better rationale for slowness: "Ultimately, I believe that slowness is an act of resistance, not because slowness is a good in itself but because of all that it makes room for, the things that don’t get measured and can’t be bought".

And that's just about perfect.

However, there seems to be a connection made between technophilia and the loss of higher, greater, more noble things. To whit, her belief that the making of ensemble music by people who've never met and may live in different cities or countries or continents sounds "scary". Yes, it's no longer music round the campfire, and it may sound flat and emotionless. But it may not. It could just be the coming together of like minds, just as the internet can serve as a political tool for good, as Obama's campaign has shown us. Or the use of internet to motivate and inform people of the current move to ban bullfighting in Catalonia.

There can be few more pleasurable ways to spend time than by sitting round a table, or over a glass of wine, and chatting with family and friends. In a perfect world, it would be the kitchen table (a lot of Kingsolver's book seems to take place there) with family, and a table in a bar with friends. But that's not always possible. I would like to chat with my mother over a cuppa. In fact, we do. But she lives there and I live here. A webcam and Skype connect us. And we talk, and get up to date. As do my wife and a friend who's working in El Salvador. As do many, many people. It lacks the warmth of the fire, but it's warmer than nothing.

So, even if we're not technophiles, we should be careful about assuming the role of technophobes. Here, the middle ground is, perhaps, the one to take. We can have our individual phobias: the Blackberry in my case. Almost everyone I know who has one curses it. Loud and often. A client phones during dinner. An email comes in on a Sunday that ruins the rest of the weekend. Most of us are not doctors, we do not need to be on call 24/7/52. I only know of one person who gave his back to the company. He'd been bugging the IT department for months, "I need one" (or is that "I want one as it will show how useful/committed I am"?). They gave it to him, and he, instantly, lost time with his family and friends. Sales figures came through when he was on a walk in the country. A foreign trip when he was reading bedtime stories to his kids.

It does have an "off" button.

Just as we can turn off that noise that the computer makes when we get an email. Let's think about this: we're working away, the computer makes a noise, and as quickly as any of Pavlov's dogs, react and respond. To the machine. Shouldn't it be the other way round? Master and servant. The roles can get switched so easily.

And that is worrying.

Never having managed to buy anything through Amazon.com (they don't like my Visa number for some reason), I can't really comment on its usefulness. And can only agree with Solnit when she says that it denies us the chance to browse and stumble on a book we weren't looking for. We lose the randomness of purchases, the "subtle encounters that suffuse a life with meaning", it's true. However, it can be used as a reference: price, publisher, general opinion; and then you go to the local bookshop and buy it. Or not.

It is odd, though, that, on the same page, you can buy her book at Amazon. Or an independent bookstore.

So, with my computer and MP4 and dvd player and Walkman and Palm and mobile phone and all the other stuff that needs so many leads they fill a drawer, I aim to be neither -phile nor -phobe.

Just a "user", and not a "used".

Shaping up

2008-11-25T08:34:00.015+01:00

It begins to take shape. Following advice from a good & faithful friend and fellow-blogger, the default language is now English, and there's a short list of recommended readings - places I visit to catch up with world-views that are often un(der)represented in the mainstream.

The tweaking and shaping and design will continue until it all takes the form (and fondo) that it needs. The "fondo"? Well, the substance, but it's a kind of alliteration that doesn't exist in English, so the Spanish will do here.

One of the main inspirations for all this is the word. It's fascinated me for as long as I can remember, words in books have always surrounded me. As a child, my parents' house was full of books and now, looking round this Barcelona study, there are rows and rows of the things. And untidy piles, and a further row on the bedside table, and probably one in my bag. So, books, reading will also form part of however this child of ours grows up.

And now I make a living from them - words, that is. Through teaching them and translating them. The use of words and their mis- ab- and non-use fascinates, inspires, tires and concerns me. How messages come across, how they're designed to come across, how they're designed to lead and mislead; again, all fertile areas to be dug over (and dug) here.

But, it really should start somewhere concrete. We could go on talking about what's going to happen so much that it never actually happens. Don't just do something, think! So, one of the main reasons for this whole thing is to spur me on and into action.

An example: towards the end of the summer, I made three food promises. By Christmas I was going to have (i) made gazpacho (ii) made a loaf of bread and (iii) dusted off the pasta-maker, bought in a moment of hugely optimistic self-sufficiency too long ago, and made pasta. Christmas, then, was sufficiently far away for me not to have to worry about actually having to do anything. But now it's coming, the goose is getting fat, and none of the three have happened. And it's too cold now for gazpacho. So, by declaring that the 2nd and 3rd of these will have happened by this time next month, and letting the whole internet have access to it, should actually spur me into doing it. Or not.

And that's probably more than enough for the moment.

About a title

2008-11-21T09:39:00.002+01:00

And so it happens.

I finally get around to starting The Blog. Just what the world and internet need: a-nother blog and a-nother voice muttering off into cyberspace in a mono(dia?)logue.

The "why?" is simple, really: because it's there and because I have the time. The "what?" will become clearer as the days and weeks and months pass.

When setting up a blog here, some creativity is suggested as names and ideas might already be in use. The title of the blog says a lot, hopefully: it's all about taking time and making time, moving through life slowly (the scenery is much nicer from the slow lane, you see the details as opposed to the blur), but getting there. Which is something I'm striving for in these times where we seem to move too fast, want too much. Now! Bigger! Better! Moremoremore!! The URL was harder to pin down: variants on "downshifting", "slow lane" all seem to be taken. So, it's "slow-barcelona": the "slow" was obvious, and the "barcelona" too, this wonderful and maddening city is where I've lived very happily for the last 18 years.

Right, we have a title, a brief philosophy and one (count it) entry. All we have to do from now on is join the dots. It should be fun.