A Week in the Life
11th -17th Feb | If Maximus Decimus Meridius was from Trujillo, why doesn't he speak Spanish?
A Week in the Life is where I share what life in London is like on any given week both from a personal perspective but also from a professional point of view promoting London’s creative ecosystem. Expect AI, visits to bookshops, cultural differences I can’t still get my head around, London tidbits and reflections on everything under the sun. All strictly between us.
Sunday 11th February
I’m feeling very tired this week but since I haven’t had much time to exercise either, when I wake up I make up my mind about going to my Pilates class even though I’m not really in the mood for any physical activity beyond dragging myself from bed to the kitchen.
As an experienced procrastinator I’ve learned that when lacking motivation to do something, it is key to do it regardless. Motivation will follow (or should) and you’ll feel glad you did what you were so intently avoiding.
So here I am at my local yoga and pilates studio panting and grunting and asking for mercy 20 minutes into the class while Clarisse, our teacher, is as fresh as a rose as she does the exercises with us. Her classes are always fun and challenging but I am not 100% sure she is aware none of us here has any intention to audition for Le Cirque du Soleil and maybe we can dial it down a bit.
40 minutes in she calls for a brief pause to adjust her clothes and after fitting in her leggings and t-shirt she palms her stomach, which sounds like a wooden plank.
“Ok, let’s go for a final round of abs, and then squats and then plank and then we’re stretching, you guys”, which is announced with the same excitement you’d expect from someone telling you you’ve just won the lottery, except there’s hardly any reward for us in her words. Only sweat and suffering
After pilates I go for my usual Sunday walk and I consider whether to get something from the bakery. The words “no amount of exercise can’t override a bad diet” resonate in my head as I stand outside in front of the door, thinking whether I should go inside. The problem with having a conscience is not so much that we’re aware of our own mortality, but of our food choices.
Luckily enough hours of scrolling through instagram bring to mind all the posts about the biggest regrets people have when facing death. I don’t remember seeing “not having abs that sound like a wooden plank when you pat them” on any of them, but “not eating those chouquettes” surely came on top a few times.
I’m seeing Dune Part I in the afternoon as there is a special screening at several cinemas this weekend ahead of the release of Dune Part II in early March.
I’m seeing it at Curzon Mayfair, a historic arthouse cinema dating from 1934 where I’ve never been to before. In fact, this may be the first and last time I get to enjoy it as it is at the cinema is at risk of disappearing and being transformed into a weird mix of cinema/club/ restaurant when the lease of the building expires in March this year.
I remember signing the petition to preserve the venue as it is -even if I had never been to it. It’d be a terrible loss in an area where there’s little in terms of accessible entertainment. For this part of Mayfair is indeed the home turf of the super-rich and hedge fund managers, two sides of the same coin that eventually collide at one of the private members’ clubs that populate the area. Although Mayfair has always been an affluent area, this cinema and the nearby Heywood Hill bookshop (where Nancy Mitford worked), may be one of the last remaining signs of a past where the rich also valued culture, not only money.
Thoughts on Dune post movie: I absolutely adored it and was completely blown away by the cinematography and visual effects. They are so seamless and the film aesthetic is crazy, as it’s the score that transports you throughout.
This is how you tell an epic and make people care about a story set in a place and time that have nothing to do with their present or reality. The Iliad comes to mind, although I don’t see Paul Atreides as a sci-fi version of Achilles. He’s much more similar to Hector of Troy as they are both tragic heroes who have been trained since birth to succeed their fathers as rulers of their territory, only to be dragged by the circumstances towards an unknown destiny they can’t escape and which will ultimately be the cause of their undoing.
Can’t wait for Dune Part II. I’m glad I already have a copy of the novel at home.
Monday 12th February
I’m doing a presentation on AI for one of our business partners.
The lady in charge of HR and training from one of the partners we work closely with contacted me a couple of weeks ago as she reads another newsletter I write on tech and found my latest post on AI very interesting, so she wanted to know if I’d be happy to present on this for her team.
“I’m happy to do it, but I’m not an AI expert” I said as we talk about what points she’d like me to cover.
“I’m sure you know more than we do, that’ll be fine” is her response.
Following this request I asked a colleague who also covers AI if he was happy to join me as his input would be great. His response: “I’m glad to do it, but we’re not AI experts, hope they know that”.
We’ve done the presentation today. It’s gone well. We’ve answered lots of questions without hesitating, providing examples, nuance on the fine line between innovation and regulation, opportunities and risks of AI, and what the next 12 months could look like in a rapidly changing field where predictions seem almost impossible.
We’re still no experts on AI, but maybe we do know more than we give credit for.
On more exciting news, I’m expecting a delivery that Royal Mail is telling will arrive today between the very specific times of 11:40 am and 3:40 pm.
However the day is almost over and I haven’t receive anything.
A new message from Royal Mail arrives in the evening. There was no one home so they’ll attempt delivery tomorrow. This is how fake news are created: I haven’t left the house all day as the weather was total shit.
Tuesday 13th February
After their failed attempt at gaslighting me, I wake up to another message from Royal Mail. They will deliver my parcel today between 10:38 am and 2:38 pm. I want to know why they pick these time slots with such precision when they never deliver anything on time anyway.
Determined not to let this potential delivery condition my life I leave the house. I am in need of extra virgin olive oil and my last visits to Lidl (the only place where the price doesn’t prompt me to consider whether I can have a good quality of life with just one kidney) have been unsuccessful as they’ve been out of stock for almost about two weeks now.
I’m aware the production is down due to weather conditions but this is not the service I expect or deserve.
When I get to my local Lidl I’m distraught: It’s closed. Not as in right now at this time, but more as in never opening again, everything’s gone inside, there are workers removing the few remaining shelves left. When did this happen?
Apparently this Sunday, as per a notice on the door informing that would be the last day the supermarket would be operating. I was here on Sunday, how is it possible I didn’t notice? I was probably too pissed by the lack of extra virgin olive oil. But now I remember seeing flyers along the high street urging neighbours to sign a petition to keep Lidl open. Clearly that hasn’t worked.
I can’t say I’m surprised thought. I’ve lived in this area for only 6 years and the scruffiness of the early days has slowly been smoothed over by the proliferation of expensive coffee shops and bakeries, where a croissant is no less than £3. Pre-pandemic the only bakery making proper French croissants sold them for £1.30/unit.
And yet these places are always buzzing with people for whom, I presume, spending a minimum of £6.50 for a coffee and a pastry -maybe a few times a week- is not a big deal. Meanwhile I wonder how anyone can sleep at night with a clear conscience selling a pack of toilet roll for more £3 and less than 4 pliers. A XXI century tale of two cities.
This will certainly be a great loss to recover from. Lidl was the only place I could buy home essentials without restructuring my budget, but also fruit and vegetables that tasted of fruit and vegetables. Has gentrification just claimed its latest victim in my area? Will another fancy bakery pop up in this space in a few weeks?
I cross the street as I ponder over this and head for the Oxfam bookshop, the only place left on this street where I can still afford to buy anything without looking at the price. Luck is on my side and I find a brand new copy - judging by the uncreased spine- of The Franz Lebowitz Reader for £2.99. Unlike dating apps, second-hand bookshops are often quite rewarding: if you stick around long enough, there are great findings, sometimes with very little damage.
I open the book at random on a page to decide if to buy it or not and my eyes land on this quote:
“A foodless world would have the disastrous effect of robbing one’s initiative”.
My heart skips a bit at the serendipity of this moment.
While Lidl was open, I had a purpose and a reason to leave the house. I would go there and check if they had restocked the bloody extra virgin olive oil yet. What am I supposed to do now with my life?
Back home I find a parcel at the entrance. Royal Mail has kept its promise. Encouraged by how well I was doing with my War and Peace read along (I’m now behind) I’ve bought a second-hand copy of Tolstoy’s biography by A.N. Wilson.
Don’t know when I’m going to find the time to read it, or War and Peace for that matter.
Wednesday 14th February
Saint Valentine’s Day. Finally a valid excuse to buy something sweet.
Although the reality is that I probably should reduce my sugar intake as I feel more tired lately and I’m sure the root is to be found in those yummy cardamom buns from one of my local bakeries. Or the chouquettes. Or the pistachio croissants from the Italian deli. Or maybe it’s just age. I’m keeping all lines of investigation open.
In the afternoon I join a call with someone from the London Stock Exchange, who is presenting on the resources and support they offer to entrepreneurs to encourage companies to IPO in London as opposed to New York, where some UK-based companies have decided to go public lately.
In a previous job I got to attend a couple of openings at the London Stock Exchange, which started promptly at 8am, and therefore meant a very early start of my day. It was however a good opportunity to observe the magnitude of St Paul’s Cathedral from Paternoster square without crowds.
Off to the cinema for Bob Marley: One Love in the evening. It takes me a bit to understand what people are saying because the only time I’ve been come across Patois was when reading White Teeth by Zadie Smith. In my head it sounded a bit different. Ah, the endless ways non-native English speakers are tested!
Towards the end of the movie I can make out some full sentences and I’m glad there are lots of songs as that gives my brain a break from processing phonemes and trying to match them with their equivalent graphemes without having much of a reference. I’m sure this is how Champollion must have felt deciphering the Rosetta stone.
Linguistic observations aside, I have enjoyed the movie and as someone ignorant of the political context of Jamaica at the time, it’s doubled up as a useful history lesson that has helped me understand better the relevance of Marley’s figure in his lifetime.
As I leave the cinema I put my headphones on and the first notes of Could you be loved? start playing. I was listening to it on my way to the movie. As I hum to the lyrics and upbeat rhythm, I wonder whether Bob Marley could have become such a symbol of unity in today’s fragmented world. Perhaps, I reflect, the real question is whether we can be Bob in the era of information overload and desensitisation.
Immersed in these happy thoughts I head to the supermarket to get a box of chocolates.
Thursday 15th February
I’m in the office today.
I work mostly from home so being in the office once a week is nice because I get to wear something else besides yoga clothes, my uniform during the week, and talk to other people. According to my Chinese horoscope is good for me because I’m a Water Dog, which apparently means I’m sensitive and introverted, typically needing lots of time for self-reflection but I should push myself to socialise because I’m fueled by being around others. Astrology gets away with making up the craziest shit.
The problem is that being in the office is like trying to cross a sensory overload minefield: You can’t make it unscathed.
Everyone is talking all the time, some of them quite loud and definitely for way too long and since it’s an open space there are really no quiet areas. I’m extremely sensitive to noise and in particular to some voices, so when I’m in the office I try to find a place where I can be at some distance from colleagues to muffle a bit the noise of conversation.
On top of that it’s always too hot or too cold but never just the right temperature, and it’s impossible to regulate it as the heating and air con are centrally managed; we don’t have much natural daylight or ventilation as we can’t open the windows so the air gets quite stuffy; and of course as we now work mostly from home the day people are in the office chitchat and interruptions are constant.
To make matters even worse today someone is at my usual desk and my favourite mug is not in the cupboard. If that wasn’t enough, around 12 pm the flavours of the world cooking show kick off as people head for the microwave. This means chicken tikka masala-flavoured chocolate biscuits and coffee for me. Try to complain about it in a country where it is legal to make chicken katsu curry crisps.
And here I need to make a very serious point: No matter how long I’ve lived in this city, I’d never understand why people in London refuse to eat lunch at normal times. That is never before 2 pm on a weekday, 3 pm on a weekend. This would solve so many unnecessary problems, such as scheduling meetings over my lunchtime.
Every Spanish person knows that between 1 pm and 3 pm you need to respect the “I’m about to eat, I’m preparing lunch and eating it, I need to rest a bit after having my lunch” cycle. That’s not a time for work talk. That’s a time for thinking about food, eating food and digesting food. Your brain functions are off. This should be universal knowledge by now in the UK, especially as Brits have colonised parts of my country. You can’t blame them: We are pretty awesome at enjoying life. And that includes eating at the right times. Hope that eventually sticks.
And let’s not talk about sandwiches for lunch or worse yet: lunch meetings with sandwiches as the only option. There’s a special place in hell for people who think this is acceptable.
On the bright side, today my team manager has brought praline chocolates, which she opens during our one to one meeting while revealing she bought them for Christmas but never got round to eating them.
“Did you forget about them or did you have a very strong willpower and have kept the box unopened until now?” I ask her as the smell of chocolate fills up the booth we’re in as she tears the plastic wrapping protecting the tray the chocolates are in.
“I have a very strong willpower, plus I like dark chocolate better so it wasn’t hard” she confesses as she moves the box over to me to pick a chocolate. I decide to keep for myself the fact that I bought a box of chocolates yesterday and there are only three left.
I don’t have anything booked for this evening which is rare as most of my evenings are filled up with either yoga, pilates, cinema, theatre or opera. This lack of planning results in me still being in the office at 7 pm, which is probably why I always try to have something to do after work: To make sure I put a promptly end to it.
I go for a walk to move a bit and get some fresh air although the weather is actually quite warm and pleasant for February.
I walk past BFI IMAX, that monstrous luminous cilinder that doubles up as a roundabout, and I remember that today there was a special screening of Tenet with a talk with Christopher Nolan, who received yesterday a fellowship to the BFI. I’ve recently seen him and Denis Villeneuve in conversation discussing their respecitve films and why they shoot in IMAX and I’m wondering whether to see Dune Part II here.
As I cross Embankment bridge I come across several people that I mistake for art students as they are carrying what seem art projects judging by the size but then are revealed to be gigantic Dune posters. I spot another person in Soho with a smaller Dune poster and then another one on the bus. Something must be going on but I don’t know what.
Bedtime procrastination leads me to yet another interview of Denis Villeneuve.
He’s asked what he’d say to those who question the validity and popularity of the concept of cinema. His answer is that the theatrical experience and big screen are part of the language of cinema and as human beings we’re not meant to be isolated, there’s something unmatchable about the communal emotional experience of an audience, and feeling emotions together.
I’m definitely seeing Dune Part II also in IMAX.
The way this man talks about cinema is the reason I’m so obsessed with Dune and have watched it in first place. I couldn’t care less about Arrakis, spice, freemen, Bene Gesserits or comparing Paul Atreides with tragic Greek heroes until I watched this interview of Thimotée Chalamet and Denis Villeneuve promoting Dune Part I.
I’m also catching up with the latest episode of one of my favourite podcasts about series and cinema, La Script.
Director Pablo Berger is discussing his latest movie Robot Dreams (an adaptation of Sara Varon’s comic book of the same name) which has won the Goya for Best Animation Film and it’s nominated for the Oscars in the same category.
Note to self: watch it.
Friday 16th February
I start the day solving the mystery of the Dune posters: it was the London premiere of Dune Part II yesterday. Zendaya looks stunning but you can tell her outfit isn’t the most comfortable to walk in. Let alone sit down or go to the bathroom.
In any case, she looks spectacular and makes me rethink my fashion choices of late. I could try to be a bit more playful but my only social occasions are either going to the yoga studio or the office, so it’s either yoga clothes or jeans and jumper (for the office), there’s no much room for fantasy.
This week is my turn to clean the house.
If I could pick a task that someone else could do for me for the rest of my life it’d be cleaning. The only thing that gets in the way is that I hate other people touching my things and being in my personal space in such an intimate way, so I’m stuck with clearing my own mess for life.
All in all it probably takes me an hour as I live in a tiny flat and I only have to clean every two weeks as my flatmate and I take turns. I still hate it when it’s my time to do it. That’s an hour I could spend doing other things. For instance not cleaning.
I wonder if my attitude towards cleaning -which I regard as a necessary evil- is simply based on laziness and a strong personal dislike or if there’s also a cultural foundation for it. I’ve realised that my flatmate loves cleaning and so did my ex-boyfriend and both are from Southern Italy.
While pondering about the unfairness life has put me through since birth and how many more thankless tasks I’ll be forced to perform until the day I finally expire, I’m done cleaning. It’s come at the cost of ruined nail polish and it isn’t lost on me that the colour I am (or was) wearing is called Eternal Optimist, long-lasting. The irony - as if life wasn’t going to prove both the optimist and the polish wrong.
I don’t have time for cynicism now. I’m in the middle of the corridor, hands on my waist, open stance, looking left at the bathroom and right at the kitchen and like a proud land owner admires his domains from atop a hill, I’m admiring my clean flat. Everything is spotless and I’m proud for a job well done quickly.
However, as my spiritual guru Hugh Grant said when asked about his role as an Oompa Loompa in the new Willy Wonka movie, I’ve hated every minute of it.
Saturday 17th February
Finally a bit of time to catch up with my reading.
I finish the last pages of Poor Things by Alasdair Gray, which I have really enjoyed. I now need to resume War and Peace (I’m almost 200 pages in, but very behind in my slow read along) and I want to make a dent into Dune, which I’ve started reading and want to finish before going to see Dune Part II in March.
For many years my premium reading time was at night in bed but now I can’t barely read more than two pages without falling asleep. I wish I were a morning person, but never been and never will so I’m always trying to find a few minutes to read in between all the things that prevent me from doing so. In addition to work and yoga and pilates classes, having more cultural engagements means having less time for reading.
It’s great to have lots of things to look forward to, but I wonder if I may be overdoing it. Maybe it’s not the sugar intake that’s dragging me down but the constant busyness of the past year and a half, which started around the time I began questioning more seriously what kept me still in London.
That’s when I decided that if buying a property was out of the question, meeting new people and making new friends was virtually impossible and finding love just another broken promise of capitalism (I’m sure there are ways to support this argument), then I had to make my time here worthy in other ways. Cue to immersing myself in culture until exhaustion. If a man tired of London is a man tired of life, what about a woman tired because of too much Londoning?
Maybe it’s just the sugar and I’m just coming up with excuses to avoid cutting down on it. Or maybe I should honour my Spanish blood and take a good siesta.
Wait, I can’t, I have pilates in 10 minutes. See? Not a minute for myself.
This afternoon I’m watching Gladiator. Let me rephrase that: I’m watching more than 10 minutes straight of Gladiator as I kept falling asleep whenever I put it on at night during the week. As I get older I understand more and more my aunt, who also kept falling asleep on the sofa shortly after we put a movie on whenever I stayed over with her as a teenager. Generational tiredness has finally caught up with me.
But right now here I am wide awake hearing for the first time in English the famous “My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions and loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next.”
I can’t get my head around the fact that this isn’t in Spanish. It just feels off as I watched this film in Spain when it came out. It was dubbed, like all films are, and for me that’s the language I associate with Gladiator, which makes more sense given that Russell Crowe’s character is, of all places under the vast Roman Empire rule, from Trujillo in Extremadura. Last time I checked they didn’t speak English. That’s only in Gibraltar.
But I guess this is the magic of cinema: an English filmmaker can convince me that everyone spoke his language back in 180 AD instead of Latin (or Spanish for that matter), that an American was a Roman Emperor and a man born in New Zealand and raised in Australia -our antipodes-, a Spaniard from Trujillo with perfect English.
To this date probably the only one.
Abroad is an independent publication about identity and belonging, living in between cultures and languages, the love of books, music, films, creativity, life in London, and being human in the age of artificial intelligence.