Whales and Sea Eagles and Skuas

The whales pass by here every year at around this time and they are circling in front of the house (maybe 200 yards away) and there is a sea eagle on the beach and the skuas are diving like arrows and skimming the breaking waves. Unfortunately, the sea air has corroded the camera and the mobile 'phone just isn't up to the job. I should really get disposable cameras for such times. I am patiently waiting the tail flip, which is spectacular.

In Praise of a Certain Kind of Idleness

I have to admit that, whatever my choices have been, the blood of the puritan runs deep in my veins and his work ethic is etched on my soul, so I find it very hard to do absolutely nothing or just to relax; wholly failing to understand Ava Gardner's statement that doing nothing was as agreeable as floating in warm water. However, I have lost the chains and shackles of modern corporate serfdom (which represent irresistible pay packets to most people who wear them) and now that I am nearing the top of the escalator (so to speak), I remain as convinced when I first read it thirty years ago, that Bertrand Russell's In Praise of Idleness should win a place on every youngster's bookshelves (or in their Kindles).

It is not a book commending mere idleness for its own sake, as the characteristically provocative title might suggest but commending more leisure and recreation in our increasingly mechanized (and now digitalized) age, in place of being at work or, more precisely just being seen to be at work, as this should be discouraged, when it is not productive.

The world seems to be moving in this direction with more and more people allowed to spend significant work time at home. I know of one fellow, who seems to be well thought  of by his Quango employer, who works at home a lot: he gets the job done but also seems to spend significant periods in leisure pursuits, such as tending to his pipe collection, and Skyping friends, over coffee. "Bully for him!" say I.  Mind you, with all the government cuts going on, I hope, for his sake, that no one ever notices that they are paying a part-timer a full-time salary.

The Sound of The Sea

Well, Le Coin Perdu was not meant to be: sold to another, just as inquiries were being made! However, it may well be possible to find a garden plot over on the lagoon and travel there by boat. I have to say that I should miss sleeping and waking to the sound of the sea forty yards away and so it is at least a blessing not to have had to make the choice.

However, a friend is one of those who is busily trying to satisfy himself that his life, significantly spent in buildings with walls for a view and in underground trains, is The Good Life. Of course, he is able to spice up his accounts with tales of the Travellers' Club; Annabel's, old cherry brandy and shooting parties, involving small talk with some rather thick-sounding old buffers - and then I wonder about it all and consider that there is just no way in which I could possibly be persuaded to return to all that, after having been here for five years. It seems rather curious too because I know just how such people, knowing that there must be some advantage in living close to nature in a tropical place, forever fantasize about making a break for the border but can never quite bring themselves to give up what they think they have, in return for bliss in their own Coin Perdu.

One thing is for sure, nightingales or no nightingales, there is no sound of the sea in Berkeley Square.

Robert Cummings

Here is Robert Cummings (1908-1990), Grace Kelly's 'other man' in the gripping 1954 Hitchcock thriller Dial M For Murder. Long before the Harrison Fords and Sean Conneries, Cummings was noted for his perpetual youthfulness. He was also reckoned to be Cary Grant before Archie Leach started playing Cary Grant to perfection.

Real Traps in a Virtual World

Having been deprived on the internet at home, I have had to make use of an internet shop for the last couple of weeks. Here they are called 'WAN House', and comprise a darkened, air conditioned room to which holidaying Carioca children flock, apparently preferring rap muzak, Grand Theft Auto XII and internet interactiom with their absent friends than beach volleyball, swimming or even the gym.

It occurred to me that, in a sense, I should be grateful for time out because it has meant that I have rediscovered the mid-day sun, formerly such a magnet for mad dogs and Englishmen; although, maybe, it is ironic that I rediscovered it on walks to the local WAN House. Moreover, it is mentioned in Peter Fleming's Brazilian Adventure (if you have not read it, imagine P G Wodehouse in the jungle), that the Brazilian sun does not cause sunstroke and, whatever the reason, this does seem to be true.

It also occurred to me that computers and the internet have ensnared us in real traps, voluntary enetered, in a virtual world, from which we dare not escape, in case we are missing out on something. One of my father's friends, an elderly and well qualified atomic physicist, once said to my father that if he went offline he felt as though he had lost a limb. Yet he is someone who got through the first fifty or sixty years of his life satisfactorily enough with books, paper, pens, telephones and the post office and here we are clustered around the screen, desperate to research and to express ourselves in this virtual space. Just how virtual it is can be appreciated when all the date on your computer just sudenly disappears (don't worry all unpublished material has been saved by e-mail attachement). Overall, it seems to me that it is high time  to review and revise my own approach to all this and to ensure that, in the future, the computer and the internet serve my needs, rather than take possession of so much of my time in contrived idleness, masquerading as industry.

Reverting to Nature

I walked to the town along the seafront two days ago to retrieve the computer. I wore shoes for the first time in several months: sound London shoes that fit. Normally, I have been wearing 'Jesus sandals', in varying degrees of disintegration and, even though I am English (well seven eighths Cornish, with some smattering of Anglo-Irish and English blood), no socks. I have to say that, after a round trip of four miles, I felt crippled and, more specifically, my poor feet told me, in no uncertain terms, that they felt as though they had been smothered and then given a hammering with a sculptor's mallet. Accordingly, it appears that, all joking aside, we really are returning to a State of Nature and, after discarding our clothes, we will be giving up the house and looking for a des res in the Mata Atlantica any day now.

Back on-line

The computer has been completely cleaned and repaired and we are back on-line. However, I am now so behind with Book IV that I shall have to knuckle-down to it; which means less blogging! Still I shall try to do some.