AIDED EARS

Coming out of SpecSavers yesterday afternoon wearing my new NHS hearing aids, the paper bag which holds the case and batteries for the ear thingies bumps against my coat as I walk. The sound the crinkled paper makes is Maria Callas struck by lightning on the top of Mount Athos. People pass by talking to each other or to their phones and morsels of their words hit my ears like hailstones. I sit down at a table outside a café...you can do that now.. and chewing a soft slice of lemon cake is like jackboots tramping down an old wooden staircase. Never mind what the coffee sounds like as I swallow it.

Back home typing this, the keyboard keys are Fred Astaire tap dancing on a steel drum without rhythm or music. I talk to myself and it’s like a dentist living inside the patient's mouth.

Partial hearing loss began several years ago and I've had hearing aids before but never followed audiologists' advice to wear them daily so the brain can gradually get used to the sudden blah blah etcetera. Since I could hear fairly well I didn’t need to put up with the stuffed-ears-feeling of wearing them all the time. But now, well, you know, time passes and reality is reality. I’ve got these brand new, free, technically much improved hearing aids and I will obey advice and wear them daily. Let the sounds do whatever sounds want to do. After two weeks I can go back and have adjustments made if necessary.

At the table next to mine outside the café, a woman sat very still, her back to me, no food or drink before her. On a leash strapped to her hand was a curly yellow-white dog, its tail wagging non-stop in unbridled happiness. So happy and alert to everything around that it was contagious. Talk about mindfulness! This mutt was in the Now, absolutely totally. I asked the silent masked woman if I could take a photo of her happy dog. She said yes. The dog jumped on her lap, sitting to attention, exuding happiness.

I felt happy like the dog and walked around for a while taking photos. Camden Town today was almost back to normal.

READY FOR CLOSE-UP?

Collected my prescription close-up glasses yesterday. Here they are. The frame is a shiny sort of cobalt blue but the photo doesn't show it. I couldn't find any frames that were....what was that word?...sprankzy? I didn't like any of them and don't like this one much. I can read with them but if I look in any direction other than reading distance everything is blurred and dizzy. Are reading glasses always like this? Going back to SpecSavers tomorrow to complain and collect my NHS hearing aids. I can't get used to this "elderly" category. Nobody asked my permission to put me in it.

THE DUKE IN PARAGUAY

Yesterday my recent (almost a year already!) online Paraguayan friend, journalist José Luis De Tone posted on his Facebook page a photo of Philip, Duke of Edinburgh with eminent entourage, taken on 9th March 1962 during the Duke's four-day visit to Paraguay.

I don't remember a thing about this event though I was in Asunción then and an old news item I've just read describes the streets bedecked with UK-Paraguay flags. What I do remember clearly is that I completed my mural for the Hotel Guarani just before this time and when I saw the photo, I recognised the Hotel's distinctive structure in the background. José Luis then told me that Prince Philip (and entourage) did indeed spend four days at the Hotel Guarani. Therefore he would inevitably have walked past my mural which was on a terrace above a circular staircase overlooking the swimming pool.

That's my only connection to Philip, Duke of Edinburgh,RIP. But I like to imagine that he was standing in front of my mural when he pronounced one of his famous gaffes (in this case totally accurate) looking directly into the eyes of President/Dictator Stroessner: "It's a pleasure to be in a country that isn't ruled by its people."

OCCASIONAL EXPLOSIONS

Is it possible to have a genuinely close, honest relationship with another human being, whether family, friend, spouse, lover or colleague without occasionally exploding? By exploding I mean saying things - possibly in a loud voice or perhaps in a tight-lipped sarcastic voice, depending on your personality and upbringing - things which are harsh, hurtful, maybe true, maybe false, things which you will regret saying?

I don't think it's possible nor desirable. We are, after all, beings constructed out of zillions of unimaginably small particles dancing on something tinier than the head of a pin, bumping into each other unpredictably. So it's understandable that when in close proximity with another human, emotionally and perhaps physically, there will be friction and explosions too, now and then. More now than then.

After explosions, apologies help to cool overheated air and soothe bruised feelings but do they guarantee an explosion-free future? No. Because some humans (not all) keep an internal dossier of past explosions, with notes of what he said/she said and this dossier gets heavier as time goes by, never losing its power to spark more and more destructive explosions.

My remedy? Allow yourself and anyone you really truly care about to explode whenever necessary. Say what you want to say, let them say what they want to say. If tears are shed let them flow. Then laugh, and burn the dossier if you've been keeping one. It's vital to burn the dossier. To be free of the dossier.

REBIRTH

Happy Easter or whatever name you prefer to give to a day of renewal, rebirth, rising from ashes, whatever ashes you wish to rise from. May we all find the persistence to rise again and again and again, effortlessly, joyfully, as if it is the most natural thing to do. Like the trees in flower.

GOOD FRIDAY

Good Friday

every day

every minute

everywhere on earth

an innocent human being

a sacred soul

is being crucified

in more ways than one.

Praying is not enough

mourning is not enough

remembering is not enough.

The cry of the crucified

>must pierce your heart.

We are the crucified.

We are the crucifiers.

DOUBLE PFIZERED

Had my second Pfizer jab yesterday morning, twelve weeks after the first one. So I'm all jabbed up now, waiting for the world's unlocking and the eyes' unblocking.

OVERDONE OBEDIENCE CHART

This is not art but it deserves a place in the Museum Of Overdone Things (MOOT). It is the chart I made four weeks ago after the second cataract operation to remind myself of when and which eyedrops I was supposed to insert daily and for how long. Without it I might have remembered the routine but can memory be trusted? No. Tomorrow, Monday, will be the last day of Maxidex but Monopost continues indefinitely. Those are my orders and I am obedient, within reason. If reason plays no part whatsoever in orders of any kind then I do not obey.

In order to see letters on screen and keyboard as I type this I am still using a large magnifying glass because close-up vision is more or less (expletive that rhymes with lucked). It was explained to me by the ophthalmic surgeon that near-vision will be restored when I get prescription glasses. I will go to high street opticians to have glasses prescribed in another week or so. Mustn't be too soon after the de-cataracting. I sort of miss my cataracts.

Et voilà. This explains why I haven't been posting lately. If I'd typed this without magnification and loads of corrections it would be nothing but typos.

Royal Mythology

The particular aspect which baffles me (not for the first time) about the whole Royal myth is the degree to which so many people, both inside and outside the establishment, all over the world, participate in the myth whilst knowing perfectly well that it is a myth and with evidence clearly in view to anyone who cares to look, that Royals (throughout history) can and often do behave as badly as 'ordinary' people, sometimes worse, because they can get away with it. Yet the veil of mythology which coats eyes more effectively than cataracts makes it seem that really bad human behaviour, even criminal behaviour, simply does not ever happen within Royal circles because these are superior beings living in a superior world where such things simply don't happen. So when Opra Winfrey's mouth along with the world's collective mouth drops open when Meghan or Harry mention that an anonymous Royal asked a racist question, the collective assumption is: OMG! You mean that a Royal can actually be racist? As well as all the other awful things that any Royal might be? Impossible!!

The mythology will no doubt persist but if the veil can be lifted even a little, then I give Meghan and Harry credit for this cataract operation.

ROYAL KERFUFFLE

Maybe it’s because I wasn’t brought up in the UK but I absolutely do not understand the whole THING, the whole kerfuffle palaver sound and fury and earth-shattering repercussions of a TV interview conducted by celebrity Oprah Winfrey with celebrity couple Meghan and Harry, a nice couple in love, happy with their adorable little boy and the no doubt adorable baby daughter inside Meghan’s bump. They’re sitting in the garden of their beautful house in California telling Oprah why they left home - or rather Harry’s home, a palace inside an institution they call The Firm which is actually The Monarchy and that’s why the Media, the Tabloids, the Royals, the Courtiers, the Pundits, the influencers, the Presenters and The Public - zillions of them all over the planet - have been watching and listening open-mouthed, entranced and/or outraged by every word dropping from the celebrity lips.

WTF??????

Now all those entranced and/or outraged people here in the Disunited Queendom are feverishly outdoing each other in analysing, predicting, condemning or praising every word that was pronounced by that celebrity couple having trouble with their family. The only difference being that, in this case, the family are The Monarchy and, in the eyes of zillions of people, the Monarchy and Monarchs themselves are not like other people. They can do no wrong and if they accidentally happen to do wrong it must never be called “wrong” and certainly not admitted. Ever. The Institution of Monarchy must survive. That’s just how it is, they say. The Firm’s problem is: the rebel couple in California want to tell everybody how it really is.