Public Transport

  • 28 February 2005

As I write this, I see a train passing by, through my window. I can not see the whole of the train, because between my garden and the railway there are some buildings and a tree. So I can only see a fraction of each train as it goes along. Not too much of their noise reaches me. More than the noise, what annoys me is the amount of bridges under which I need to walk in the night, to get from the bus stop to my house. They are not lightened and there are gaps besides the wall of the bridges, big enough for a person or two. So it is not very nice to go through those rail bridges and I analyse my route from different bus stops to try to avoid them.

Very near my house, there is a street called “Station Road”. There is no station nowadays, but this name tells me that there must have been some station right there. They call it rationalisation, when they eliminate stations to make the trains “run” faster. Yes, the long-distance traveller now travels faster, because three minutes are saved on each journey by eliminating my nearest train station. The small price of that is to eliminate this public service to the local neighbours, who, not having a train service, still have the inconvenience of living near a busy and noisy rail lane. Very rational.

Latin wrap-up

  • 27 February 2005

We dedicated the morning to publishing the many pictures that my friend the photographer had taken, of course together with the text drafted by Eleuterio and others. It is my task to translate it! Well, for now you can enjoy the pictures here. I took some pictures myself, but they look so crap compared to Guy’s, it would be shameful to publish them together.

From there, I went to rampart. Some one was giving a workshop on how to write articles and ended up teaching us how to manipulate pictures. That is what I call professionalism…

After that, there were films and documentaries downstairs. I really wanted to see the documentary about this hip-hop group from Colombia, Zona Marginal, because I had seen them singing once and they really are worth it. But the documentary itself was not that great. In any case, the night ended with live music, and it was the best live music I can remember. We were all asking for more, until we realised that they really did not have any more pieces to play. Apparently it was the first time they played together. Radio Revolución. What a name, eh? One guy didn’t fit in the stage so he just sang down, next to us. The girl playing the bass was simply beautiful, and for some reason she had her blonde hair covered. It is possibly the first band I see that does not use the only female component as a sexual attraction, or even as the voice! The singer had so little ego he spent most of the gig with his face covered with his hair. And then there were the guys playing maracas, drums, trumpets, the flout… the lot.

Latin wrap-up

  • 26 February 2005

We dedicated the morning to publish the many pictures that my friend the photographer had taken, of course together with the text drafted by Eleuterio and others. It is my task to translate it! Well, for now you can enjoy the pictures here. I took some pictures myself, but they look so crap compared to Guy’s, it would be shameful to publish them together.

CIPO in London

  • 25 February 2005

Last day /evening of talks for Ana as translator, for now. I tried to take some pictures, and also asked a friend to take some for me, but well… it is a bit difficult when you are intending to take a picture with lots of people but you don’t want to show any face in particular. And, in any case, I had to be alert for my turn to go out and speak, rather than study the best position for a picture.

CIPO in Brighton

  • 23 February 2005

Another day travelling, but this time it was Brighton. Elizabeth has already returned to Mexico, which was quite disappointing because I thought she would return today. But, her visa has run out, and travelling with a scale in Madrid was cheaper so she had to leave today. So we did the chat with Eleuterio only, with me translating as it is (or feels) the custom already.

The co-op where I live

  • 22 February 2005

Today I did some of the work I am supposed to do for my housing co-op. A housing co-op is a legal association that owns and/or manages houses or flats in order to provide its members with decent housing. So the members are tenants of the Association, and the Association owns the houses, so in effect the members are owners or at least manage their own housing.

Argentinan Films

  • 21 February 2005

I stayed in London today, first I went to class and then to RampART. In principle the intention was only to watch a film of which I liked the title, "The eye of the storm".

CIPO in Nottingham

  • 20 February 2005

Today we went to Nottingham to give a similar talk to the one yesterday. Again, it was unexpected that I would join them, this time the translator they had booked felt unwell and I was at hand.

We spent 3 hours in a car, under the snow, wondering if we would get more than five people tonight, because this event was only confirmed a week before.

Cipo

  • 19 February 2005

I’ve been thinking a lot before begining this because – I have enough problems with my fingers to start suffering more with no need. But today, something happened that took me here.