When I finally managed to get inside the Sagrada Familia Basilica in Barcelona, 46 years after I had first visited it, this is the miracle that I found.
For earlier blogs in this series, click on “MEDITERRANEAN REFLECTIONS” in the TAG CLOUD. This next group of slides illustrate the interior which completely blew me away. It’s nothing like I have ever seen before and must make this Basilica one of the best buildings I have ever seen. The interior is like an enchanted forest.
The first port of call on our Mediterranean cruise was Barcelona. For earlier blogs in this series click on the TAG CLOUD on “MEDITERRANEAN REFLECTIONS”. I decided to take a step back to 46 years earlier in my life ——— the days of England winning the World Cup.
I went to Sheffield University in 1966 to study architecture. I was immediately enchanted by the Art Nouveau movement, mainly as a result of some excellent history of architecture lectures by Professor John Tarn. That fascination has lasted with me to this day. One architect in particular stood out in my mind – Antonio Gaudi.
A year later on only my second big adventure abroad, I travelled down through France to Spain in my Dad’s car, with my friend Alan Dodd driving. We ended up by chance in Barcelona to be greeted by the remarkable Holey Holy Spires of the Sagrada Familia Basilica. You could spot it from miles away singing “come and see me, I am different”. And it was certainly was.
Still under construction after nearly 100 years, it was covered in scaffolding. The floorscape was littered with chunks of stone waiting to be carved. It was no hive of activity, there were only a few workers around, because money was running out to complete the building. Gaudi died in 1926 but they were still working faithfully to his designs. No straight lines anywhere, holes piercing the structure at every opportunity, soaring parabolic arches – nothing like the formal rigid structures of the gothic cathedrals I had seen before. A masterpiece of engineering that takes your breath away.
Now 45 years later on my Mediterranean cruise, I am returning for the first time.
As you drive through Barcelona, you can see signs of Gaudi’s influence almost everywhere you go. Even on some of the main streets crowds of admirers draw attention to his buildings.
But it is not until you approach the Basilica of Sagrada Familia that you really appreciate the full magnificence of the Gaudi’s genius.
Nothing and everything has changed. It is still under construction with many years to go. Much has been added but my memory cannot recall what exactly is new or old. The wonderment is still there and the progress immeasurably increases the experience.
What a tour de force from just one man! Gaudi had a unique vision but it took and will still take a team of workers and supporters to help him realise it.
What you can see on this blog is just the outside of the building which is all I could see forty odd years ago because visitors weren’t allowed inside the building which was still under construction. My next blog will talk about my experience 46 years later.
This is the start of a series of blogs about a summer cruise through the Mediterranean – somewhere I have visited quite a lot during my life. This is not a travel log, there are better sites for that, nor is it a diary. It is just what seemed to me to be different as the years have passed.
In the embarkation lounge what struck me first was the average age of the passengers. It must have been 75 judging by the walking sticks, Zimmer frames, wheelchairs and mobility scooters. Good for them – I always said “age is no barrier to achievement”.
Setting out from Southampton, nothing much to report just four days at sea before we reach land. No relatives waving goodbye from the pier. No Falkland Island brass band farewells. Just a photographer who will smile for us as we board and charge us 25 dollars for the photo in a paper frame.
Goodbye to two weeks watching the Olympics — the antiquarian Olympics start here!
When I was very young, that was the question you were asked before you could enter our den. If you didn’t give the right answer you were not allowed in and you could be pelted with four bombs.
Now, in this more advanced technological age, passwords are the key to everything. Whoa betide you if you forget them – you can be locked out of your office, your car, your suitcases, your computer and even your house. In these security conscious days when we are almost always on “amber alert”, you need to keep in your head loads of codes, a plethora of passwords and a concoction of combinations.
The technology gap, far from making life simpler, is making things more complicated. (See earlier post on this theme by clicking on “Technology Gap” in the TAG CLOUD).
My first experience of combination locks was when I was about 12 and I got a new bike. I bought a Bass Four Digit Lock and used 1234 as the code. Nobody ever broke the code, but then again I didn’t use the lock very often and eventually I lost the lock somewhere. Nobody ever stole my bike, even though it didn’t have a lock anymore. I think that experience coloured my view of security and locks ever since.
Now about to go on holiday there is security every step of the way. All our suitcases have combination locks and I am no longer allowed to use an easy to remember code like 1234. Finding a clean shirt can take hours :-(.
Leaving the house is a challenge, setting the burglar alarm with a different code is simple enough as long as you don’t accidentally press a wrong number. If you do, you have a panicky 30 seconds to remember how to cancel it or all your neighbours are looking out their windows. If you are really unlucky, a police car will eventually arrive, give you a crime number and tell you that you have been burgled. No further investigation required.
Now, if you want some foreign currency on your holiday, you need to ring up your bank and arrange it, but first of all you have to answer twenty questions to identify yourself. Where were you born? What’s your mother’s maiden name? What’s our favourite flower? Who is your favourite football manager? What is the fourth letter of your middle name? —- get any of these wrong and you do not pass go and collect £200, you go to jail! All this, in spite of the fact that once you give them your postcode, they know all about you.
Now, if you need any information about your trip, you are into the cyber code world of computers. No such thing as a simple code here. Computers are permanently on red alert. You need a password to get a password. Four digits went out years ago, now you need six or even eight digits, although some of them must be letters and some of the letters need to be capitals. And by the way, it is best to change your password every month.
No wonder older people, like me, are getting left behind. We can’t switch on our computer, we can’t get money from our bank, we are unable to unlock our suitcases. We are locked out of our own houses.
All we can do is get on our bike.
In the golden days when I still understood technology, I could always tune my radio into Hilversham just by turning the dial and moving the little line up to the word “Hilversham” and there it was. Of course I never did, I assumed it was some foreign station, but at least I knew how to avoid it. What I could do was tune to Radio 1 or 2 for music, Radio 4 for the news and Radio Luxembourg or Radio Caroline for pop records.
In my continuing theme of the widening technology gap leaving the elderly behind, I now turn my blogging attention to digital radios. (For earlier blogs on this subject, click on “TECHNOLOGY GAP” in the TAG CLOUD).
The radio in my car is one of the very latest digital thing-a-me-jigs. When I bought the car, the garage had pre-set it for me to the few simple stations I had asked for. You know how it goes – button 1 for Radio 1 for music; button 2 for Radio 2 for talk; button 4 for Radio 4 for news and OOPS – Radio Luxembourg must have joined the European Union and Radio Caroline sank years ago. So buttons 3, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 I don’t need. The good news continues. Along with the volume control dial I also have balance, treble and bass adjustments for the four surround sound speakers. I am driving around in my own mobile ghetto blaster. On a good day they can hear me in Edinburgh and my neighbours won’t even need to buy a radio :-). Of course I have to leave the car windows down otherwise everyone won’t get the full benefit of surround sound, they will just hear the thump, thump, thump of the 40 watt bass speakers as I drive by.
All was going well until one day I was driving along concentrating on the road, when I remembered there was a test match on. So not taking my eyes off the road, I reached down and turned the radio on and pressed button 4 for Test Match Special. Sadly nothing is that simple anymore :-(. That institution of cricket fans the world over has been moved by the BBC from Radio 4 to Five Live or Talk Sport or somewhere lost in the ether. Why didn’t they switch it to “Hilversham”? I could always find that!
In the middle of winter when there was no cricket, it somehow slipped my mind to tell the garage to tune the radio to Test Match Special. So it must be my fault :-(.
I pull into a service station, park up and look for the manual. This radio is so special I have a 200-page user guide all of its own. None of it is particularly helpful or even comprehensible – there is not even a mention of Test Match Special in the fifteen page index. I make a note to do an evening class in radio engineering when I get home so that I can tune in my radio all by myself.
Meanwhile I resort to the usual male answer to instruction manuals. I put it back in the glove compartment and start fiddling with the radio buttons and dials. Eventually after only half an hour of scanning 50 local radio stations and listening to 50 Mrs Smith’s ringing in for advice about her bunions, I miraculously catch the instantly recognisable voice of Geoffrey Boycott 😦 Unfortunately by this time England are already three wickets down :-(.
Successfully tuned in I am able to restart my journey. Everything is going fine. The talk of cricket and cake has a calming influence even if England are off to a bad start. Then five overs later the station switches automatically to the shipping forecast :-(. I am puzzled because I am nowhere near the sea. Five minutes later this truculent radio switches back to TMS only for me to learn that England have lost another wicket. Maybe the fog on Dogger Bank obscured the batsman’s vision.
10 miles further up the road and England have steadied the ship and the opening batsman is approaching a century. The fielders are closing in around the bat, the crowd are hushed, the fast bowler runs up and ——my radio switches to “traffic information”. I certainly need to know there is an accident on the M4 at this critical moment. By the time it switches back, the applause has died down from which I deduce either the batsman has scored his hundred or he is out to a spectacular catch.
And they say technology is moving into the information age.
What happened to Radio Hilversham?
I started a blog about how technology, instead of assisting elderly people and opening up their lives, is in many cases only serving to isolate them even further. (To see the blog click on “TECHNOLOGY GAP” in the TAG CLOUD).
The Kindle is a classic example of the blind spot the young 20/20 vision techie savi have about older people. Yet the grey market is huge and the older generation are avid readers of books.
I bought my wife a kindle for Christmas and ever since she has been glued to it. It goes with her everywhere. Indeed, she sees more of it than she does of me :-). The good news is that I no longer have to build shelves I am not tripping up over piles of books everywhere I go. No cables either; the battery lasts forever. When we go on holiday, we can take one less suitcase – only 3 or 4 now :-(. The Kindle’s small size means it can be taken anywhere – and there is the grumble.
Small may be beautiful and it’s one of the key selling points of the Kindle but need it be quite so small? The Kindle makes small print look like the bottom line of an optician’s eye chart. I know you can enlarge the print size, but who wants to read a book half a line at a time?
If you overcome these obstacles and finish your first book, you come to the next big hurdle – ordering your next book. Apart from a degree in computer literacy, you also need a microscope to see the keyboard on your kindle as well as baby sized fingers to type on it. If you are lucky enough to succeed you can save yourself a fortune in the cost of buying new books as well as the convenience of sitting in bed to do it.
The Kindle has been a great commercial success from Amazon and there is no question it is a fantastic innovation in the book market. It’s lightness and portability and the cheap access to a world of books would be of colossal benefit to housebound older people. The barrier is the age unfriendly technology. We need a bigger grannie size Kindle.
A Grindle!
In this wettest of summers, the garden has kept growing at a furious pace, weeds and all. Everywhere is endlessly green. Perhaps this is the real green party :-).
The trouble is that the rain and the green get relentlessly boring after three months when the sun should have been shining at least for some of the time. Constant clouds depress the spirit and in the garden they depress the flowers. My lovely roses refuse to open and rot on the bud in the rain. Nature’s two fingers to heaven.
A few brave souls have battled on and broken through. The blue and the lilac lobelia tumble over the walls and window boxes, unaccompanied by their floriferous friends. Honeysuckle still sends its scent all through the garden, especially after a rain shower, as if to say “I’m still here”.
The foxgloves have revelled in the rain saying “we are wild flowers, rain doesn’t bother us”. The white foxgloves – a gift from Jenny – pleased that they stand out in the lush green.
Then near the end of July the sun finally breaks through and in only a few days the flowers are out and about. The roses first – saying “look what you have missed”. A red rose for my wife – a Valentine every year. A pink rose for Zara, a little girl who blessed our lives for too short a moment. A peace rose, big blossomed, bold and scented – full of my Grandfather’s gardening confidence.
The geraniums are at long last lifting their heads, battered but ultimately unbowed. A lesson for everyone. The sweet peas too, having weathered the storm, are quickly into bloom and delicately dancing on the raindrops.
Elderly people now surrounded by the green shoots of youth, can still show the colours of their childhood and earlier lives. They just need a little sunshine to allow them to bloom.
For the last two weeks I have been lying in bed, lounging on a sofa or sitting in a pub glued to the London 2012 Olympics on TV. This retirement lark has real advantages.
The joy of the Olympics is in the winning. Gold is in the eyes of all the competitors in the four years of effort before the games begin. It’s still there on finals day, at the starting line, when you are a champion for even getting there. Even though there is only one gold, everyone – competitors, coaches and spectators all stand proud in the reflected glory of the achievement. The disappointment of the losers on the day, is quickly lost in the lasting glow of taking part and being there on the day.
That Olympic flame still shines in the eyes of the elderly. Some who have won their Olympic medal years ago and some who are still waiting for the moment of glory. That is why prize-winning is such a strong motivator and why just taking part is a valuable end in itself.
The challenge in the ExtraCare Charitable Trust was to keep that flame shining and to give everyone the opportunity of taking part and becoming winners again. As age catches up with you, there are fewer opportunities for sporting achievements, but talent and desire for recognition don’t fade with age. So we tried to create as many chances as we could for the value of older people to be recognised.
I probably started with the Buzzwords Suggestion Scheme, which symbolically said we were interested in the ideas people had and prepared to act on what they had to say. This began in a small way with token prizes for each suggestion and eventually led to over 3,500 suggestions being made every year. The prizes for the best suggestions were “David Winter Ceramic Cottages” mounted on wooden pedestals forever labeled with the name of the suggester. This sent out a powerful message that residents’ views counted.
The prizes idea later extended to gardening, where awards were given out annually at a “Garden in Bloom” ceremony. This became so popular that medals, cups and certificates were and still are avidly competed for, but it is the taking part that gives so much joy to so many people.
The narrow focus of the gardening idea was later broadened out to include many more talents in “Residents in Bloom”. Crafts and skills of every description – painting, photography, crochet, knitting, writing, poetry, baking, flower arranging, pottery, woodwork. The medals and gongs abounded to Olympian levels.
The years make the elderly all champions in their own way. All their talents should be recognised and rewarded. They all take part in life and they can all be winners at something.
My medals were won for me by other people and just like the Olympics, we can all share in the reflected glory of medal winners.
This blog is the beginning of a grumble, but it should be a smile. It is about the elderly market, and the number of new products that arrive almost every day that should make our lives easier and therefore make us smile. Sadly too many new products leave people behind. Amazed by what new gadgets can do but bewildered about how to make them do it. That is the grumble.
New technology should make our lives easier, safer, faster and fun. Too often for many people, but particularly the elderly, it can be more complicated, incomprehensible and frustrating.
I am driving around in my car at the moment with the digital clock set on the winter time even though it’s July, because I can’t figure out how to set it to British summer time. That’s not the end of the world but it is a daily reminder of how stupid I am and I could do without that.
Yesterday my computer ‘broke’ or at least the screen went blank and I couldn’t reboot it. After several tries, I was thinking about really BOOTING it. When I switched it off and on again it kept coming up with a message about “autosave” and then some more instructions which disappeared before I could read them. I would have used “help” to see what “autosave” meant but of course my computer wasn’t working. I thought about finding the user guide which is gathering dust somewhere. But no doubt if I could find the 5,000 page book and my magnifying glass, I would have to learn one of the many foreign languages it is written in. Eventually my wife unplugged the computer at the mains and when it was plugged back in, it worked!
As someone who likes to understand things, I am none the wiser, and now my wife is better at mending things than I am. Is that frustrating or what?
Grrrrrrrrr
The Trust was launched in February and at the time of writing we have received 20 applications for funds. The purpose of this blog is to give some general feedback to the people who have applied to us, although they have all been written to individually.
Most of the applications were unsolicited and made no doubt as a result of the GrumbleSmiles Trust Charity being registered on the Charity Commission website. The sharpest of fundraisers will have picked up this information and made a prompt application in the hope of attracting our early attention. The disappointing thing is that so many of these early bird applicants haven’t even taken the time to read the information on the website. Hence at least half of the initial applications were for projects which had no relation to our aims. This scattergun approach to fundraising is time-wasting, not only for the Trustees, but also for the applicants. I’m sure they are all doing very good work and it must be disappointing to receive rejection of their applications and therefore in a positive spirit I would like to suggest they would get better results by tailoring their applications to donors with the same aims as themselves.
A number of the other applications were related to elderly people so they do fit in to our broad area of interest. However our limited resources mean that we are not in a position to provide core funding for projects. We are also looking for evidence of innovatory approaches and ideas which can be repeated on a larger scale.
We don’t wish to discourage any applications which fit our criteria. You can find these by clicking on “GRUMBLESMILES TRUST” in the TOPICS list.
GrumbleSmiles 