Bligh permitted me two days off. I should have been more productive, but I am a little under the weather. Love-sick, actually. I miss Sue so much it hurts. I shouldn't. It's ridiculous, crazy, stupid, daft, yet I sit or lie and stare at the wall for hours, or cuddle little Ronulus for comfort (he's a good boy, best dog in the world). I have gotten nothing done except watch House of Cards and the 1975 movie Jaws (yet again). It's not even the fact that I am extremely poor (that is perfectly normal: being hard working and well educated means enduring extreme poverty in this country: this is not Elizabethan England or the Italian Renaissance, evidently. It's Dark Age Britain). I'm from England, therefore I am accustomed to always being poor.
I have the best laid plans, several books, translations, but find myself driven to distraction. I should do more with my day off. I could learn some more ancient Greek, translate some more Latin, do some editing work, write a book, compose some poetry, play a little guitar, but I do not. I sit and postpone, and procrastinate, because I am depressed - if I am honest.
On a lighter note, the Lilliputian has been granted a week's shore leave from the Bounty recently. This is because she turns 18 soon. We were all so proud of her when she reached double figures, and now she'll be a proper adult, so can stay for closing the shop (previously for insurance purposes she could not stay late). This is my boss. This is England. Age. Experience. Talent. Education. These things mean nothing here.
Yesterday, for example, a customer complained that their meal was a mess. It was already a mess even before it had been put in the boxes. This is because, as Adam Smith said in his Enquiry into the Wealth of Nations, if a bar is bent, bending it back too far the other way does not make it straight again. One customer, about a year ago, said there was not enough sauce on their meal. As a result, Bligh and the crew of the Bounty (my 'superiors': the cast of William Golding's Lord of the Flies) always put too much sauce on this particular meal, ruining it, each time. There is no listening to the well educated, the intelligent, the learned, the wise, the experienced, the older man (yours truly). They do not have the ability to reason, these uneducated brutes, these... people. Therefore, every meal of this type is always smothered in too much sauce. Likewise, the air con' still makes half the food go out cold. I have tried explaining this to Bligh, but all I get in return is his usual self, "You want a slap?".
ζηλοῦσ᾽ ἄταν διὰ παν-
τὸς δυσδαίμον᾽: ἐν γὰρ ἀνάγ-
καις οὐ κάμνεις σύντροφος ὤν.
μεταβάλλει δυσδαιμονία:
τὸ δὲ μετ᾽ εὐτυχίας κακοῦ-
σθαι θνατοῖς βαρὺς αἰών.
Happy are those who never knew
gladness, whose birth embraced misfortune,
steeling their souls to endure adversity -
my still-remembering heart envies stubborn will!
From joy to tears - this cruel exchange
weighs down the mortal spirit with long despair.
Euripides, Iphigenia in Tauris 1117-1123 (trans. Philip Vellacott).
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