w/e 2024-12-08

I was in Essex all week until today; I should have come home yesterday but strong winds stopped the west-bound trains. Today I could get most of the way back, needing to be picked up at Newport by Mary. Very, very good to be home.

That’s two sets of plans spoiled by extreme weather in two weeks – flooded roads last time. It’s only going to get worse isn’t it. Such a shame that nobody could have foreseen decades ago that the climate might get worse! Those with power would definitely have done something about it if only they’d known.

§ I’ve always found the idea of cremation ashes a bit strange. In the way you might read about the funeral rites in a very different culture and think, “huh, weird, not like here in our totally normal culture”. But having a container of the ashes of your loved one in your home, or scattering them somewhere, has always seemed macabre and odd to me. What a weird culture.

This week I picked up Dad’s ashes from the funeral director. I tried not to think about the specifics of it all. I couldn’t decide whether, in my head, to refer to them as “him” (my Dad), or “it” (the box), or “them” (the ashes).

I’m not really superstitious but, rather than walk directly back to the house, I stopped with him/it/them for a coffee at a favourite spot, then toured some other familiar locations on the way home, pausing for the final time with him – “him” – on a habitual bench.

It was very hard. I think it’s only then, and today, returning home and relaxing a little, that the huge loss is finally hitting me.

More admin this week. We’ve now notified nearly 40 places about Dad’s death. Some – clubs, societies, magazines – have only required a brief email. Others, such as utilities, were a phone call (some had an online form but they’re often a bit ambiguous about what the result would be). Sometimes those places needed to speak to my mum to confirm it she approved changing the account to her name. It seems like a very limited kind of security but OK. And then others – some financial institutions – require forms, letters, death certificate, etc.

Mostly the people I’ve spoken to have been helpful, sympathetic, easy to understand, and – BT aside – have hopefully done everything correctly. Having braced myself for the usual awful call centre experience, the bereavement teams and the general call handlers, have been lovely.

§ I had a day in London this week, and walked from Brick Lane to Tate Modern to Covent Garden to Soho and back to Liverpool Street station, with many stops along the way. A good journey.

At Tate Modern I went to see Electric Dreams: Art and Technology Before the Internet. It was fine. Maybe I wasn’t in the mood. Maybe I was a bit annoyed by them automatically adding a “donation” onto the already steep price and requiring you to have the spur-of-the-moment balls to decline it. Maybe I was a bit grumpy at what used to be a straightforward café with chairs and tables having been transformed into a slightly confusing bar/coffee-shop in which only a lucky few are allowed the luxury of leaning back on a chair, the rest of us having to perch on a high stool, or squat on a hard, too-low stool, or sit on a padded bench that suggests, “don’t relax, please move on”.

There were some interesting things, but after half-an-hour I was already in the gift shop. If I was to rate experiences as pounds-per-hour (lower is better), this was £44/hour, or £50/hour with the “optional” donation.

But, wandering the free galleries, I liked the room of Joel Meyerowitz photographs, especially the ‘A Question of Color’ series (also a book) and the handful of New York street photographs, the descriptive panel really helping explain what he was doing with them. £0/hour

§ Later I saw The French Connection (William Friedkin, 1971), which I hadn’t seen before, at the Prince Charles. An almost full cinema – except for the seats either side of me, perfect! – very few trailers etc, well-behaved audience, good screen, good film (despite its lack of ending): top marks all round. £7.76/hour

§ I watched the first season of Everyone Else Burns on Channel 4 this week, out of curiosity. It was OK, had some good moments, and plenty of funny lines that were all the better for being down-played more than another show would have done. £0/hour (but about 8 minutes of adverts per hour)