Vagueness and the Aftermath - A sporadic diary

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When I'm far from home, I always make a point of getting to know at least one of the locals. A bit of insider knowledge is worth it's weight in gold.

Carlos, our janitor, was at least 125 years old. He spoke a fantastic mixture of Spanish and English which included at least one profanity in every sentence. He had an opinion about everything. He wouldn't allow me to take his picture, but he looked like a toothless, sun dried version of Ernest Borgnine. Who better to be my mentor?

When we first met, I bade him a cheery "Hola" and he bade me "Freega off". 

I knew we were destined to become friends.

 

[barhell]

I know a Malaysian guy who is like that speaks English but only in profanities and the word Chelsea. Somehow i still manage to converse quite easily with him.

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I know a Malaysian guy who is like that speaks English but only in profanities and the word Chelsea. Somehow i still manage to converse quite easily with him.

It's amazing isn't it? I think it only works if you have something in common.

Of course, there are those who don't understand you no matter how loud you shout.

[barhell]

I know a Malaysian guy who is like that speaks English but only in profanities and the word Chelsea. Somehow i still manage to converse quite easily with him.

It's amazing isn't it? I think it only works if you have something in common.

Of course, there are those who don't understand you no matter how loud you shout.

Even those who speak the same language.

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Meet our other friend, Enzo. He looks after the horses and works as an extra in a mock wild west town further up the coast. He looked as hard as iron with his rawhide skin and voice like hobnail boots on broken glass. He pretended to be a real Malo hombre,   but he was so gentle with the livestock, we saw right through him.

[77dave]

Yesterday is in the past
Tomorrow is in the future
Today is right here
And called the Present for a reason


Good to have you back Tom

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After I got to know Carlos a little better, we had the following conversation.

Him: (pointing at Mrs Red on sunbed by pool) Theesa one, she is shagged out, no?

Me: Pardon?

Him: She is a no good for a you, she is roto underneath her bottom, I have seen it.

Me: Really?

Him: Of course I have seen it. Top of leg, beeg a crack, mucho peligroso.

Me: Er, quite.

Him: OK, momento.

With that, he held out a knarled hand to Mrs Red and helped her up from the sunbed. He then turned it over and showed us a huge stress-fracture in the plastic.

I laughed and gave him a nod of understanding, and he exchanged the faulty sunbed for a new one. I'm bound to say though, for a moment or two, Mrs Red looked far too guilty for my liking.

[Claw75]

Once inside though, the views were amazing.

fantastic!

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We're not really much into lounging by the pool, going to English bars etc, so we decided to hire a bike and explore the island. The south is very mountainous and some parts are extremely remote. We managed to scare out selves shitless on several occasions. (More of which later)

In this pic we found a shop that sold ice cream in a village 2000ft above sea level. I put my helmet on the floor and a column of ants about 100 yards long marched into it. I didn't notice and I put it on and drove away, with hilarious results. (Well Mrs Red thought it was hilarious)

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Now don't get me wrong here, I love the UK dearly it is the best country in the world and I wouldn't want to live anywhere else, but it does make a refreshing change not to be mollycoddled all the time by a nanny state and to be allowed to take responsibility for your own safety.

You wouldn't see stuff like this in old Blighty.


Footpaths on very steep hills paved with tiles so slippery that they rival Teflon in the traction stakes. While trying to negotiate these death traps, I did several excellent impressions of Michael Flatley, and one spectacular one of Tony Benshoof.

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Miles and miles of beautiful chrome railings, each with a razor sharp support bracket tucked carefully out of sight at 6ft intervals.

The inhabitants of Gran Canaria never forget about this hidden danger, because they, (and here I include myself so make that we) have a rather nasty 2in scar on our index fingers to remind us.

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Can you imagine the highways agency in Britain discovering a spot where dozens of people are climbing over a crash barrier to cross a busy dual carriageway? They would spend an absolute fortune trying to stop it.

In Gran Canaria they provide a couple of steps to help you over the barrier, and cut a swath through the concrete meridian to speed the journey of those with pushchairs.


   

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Try stepping off one of these kerbs when you're a bit elephants.

Mind you, it's swings and roundabouts. You don't see many cars parked on the pavement.

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I loved these fantastic sack trolleys. They had sled runners in addition to wheels. When the operator comes to a flight of stairs, he just lays the whole thing down and it slides nicely to the bottom and waits there for him to catch up.

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Edmund Burke politician, philosopher and polemicist, was MP for Bristol for just six years: from 1774 to 1780. During that time he visited his constituency infrequently, and, by the time he moved on to the pocket borough of Malton, he had alienated the mercantile interest to a point where he had no hope of re-election.

Perhaps this explains why Bristol has just one memorial to Burke, a statue in Colston Avenue erected in 1894. But if Burke's connection to Bristol was fairly short-lived, it is one that will endure in the collective memory, not least because of his Speech to the Electors of Bristol of 1774. On the day of his election Burke famously argued against the idea that an MP is just the delegate of his electorate:

    Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests; which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates; but parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where, not local purposes, not local prejudices ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole. You choose a member indeed; but when you have chosen him, he is not a member of Bristol, but he is a member of parliament.

The speech is cited in constitutional and political argument to this day. That it was made in Bristol makes it part of the city's history and heritage. Burke is by far the most distinguished political figure ever to have represented the city, and he is certainly the one with the most enduring international reputation.

His fame today rests principally on two works, his A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful and his Reflections on the Revolution in France. The latter, in particular, with its rejection of philosophical rationalism in politics in favour of tradition and experience, has marked Burke as a reactionary figure. But despite his importance to conservative thinking, Burke was a complex thinker. An associate of Adam Smith, he irritated the Bristol merchants by favouring the lifting of trade restrictions with Ireland. A friend of the anti-slavery campaigner Hannah More, his Sketch of the Negro Code argued for the initial reform and eventual abolition of both the slave trade and slavery. (Hannah More made the cockade of "myrtle, bay and laurel, trimmed with silver tassels" which Burke wore on his election.)Though an Irish Protestant himself, he argued for toleration of both Catholics and dissenters at a time when fanatical intolerance was taking the form of the Gordon Riots. And at a time when debtors were treated with extreme severity, he argued for humane reform of the law.

Burke came to represent Bristol when he was in search of a seat (as his patron, Lord Verney could no longer support him) and the radicals of Bristol were seeking to break up the cosy arrangement by which the two Bristol seats were divided between a safe Whig and safe Tory. At a time when speeches from hustings were rare, Burke used his oratorical skills to appeal to the 5,000 Bristolians who were entitled to vote. He commended himself to them especially for his advocacy of peace and compromise with the North American colonists, on whose trade the merchants of the city depended. But though a pro-American policy was popular in 1774, two years later, with the country at war, it looked decidedly unpatriotic. The American conflict wasn't the only issue where Burke ended up upsetting his electors. The city's traders may have applauded his eloquent defence of the right of an MP to think for himself, but over the course of a Parliament they wanted someone who would protect their interests as they saw them: which meant keeping out competing Irish merchants. Burke seemed more concerned with politicking at Westminster. He hardly helped himself by being on difficult terms with his fellow-Bristol MP, the New Yorker Henry Cruger, whose local connections were better than Burke's own. So it was no great surprise when the Irishman had to withdraw from the Bristol election of 1780 once it was clear that he had no prospect of victory.

After Burke's defeat, he maintained only a tenuous link to the city, though his brother, Richard Burke, was Recorder for Bristol from 1783-1794. Though Bristol's link with Burke was fleeting, it is one that the city should do more to celebrate. We have, as part of our history a connection to one of the great figures in the history of political thought, an important contributor to aesthetics, and one of the most controversial politicians of the eighteenth century. If our neighbours in Bath can make so much of their relationship to Jane Austen - despite the novelist's oft-repeated disdain for the place . Bristol should be doing more to make visitors aware of Edmund Burke. One replica statue that no-one notices certainly isn't enough. There's no Burke Avenue, Street or Square to compare to the endless memorials to Edward Colston. Over two centuries later, no-one outside of Bristol has heard of Colston, and Bristolians feels pretty ambivalent about him. Edmund Burke, by contrast, has a reputation that has grown over the centuries and he is known of and read from Arkansas to Zambia. If Bristol wants to be thought of as a city of culture, Burke's is a name we should lay claim to.

BTW- While I think of it, I meant to comment properly on this absolutely fascinating post by Tighty. What a stunning piece.

Do you have a special interest in Burke Rich? and (Time permitting) can we please have more from you in this vein? (preferably gracing the pages of my diary)