Closing the books

While out shopping this morning, I went to Riverside Clinic for some supplies, and had a brief chat about the trouble I've been experiencing over the past few days with one of the nurses who knows me well. Thankfully, I've been in somewhat better form today, and needed to be, as I had an appointment with a HSBC bank business adviser in town after lunch.

This was to sort out the problem caused by the bank's unilateral closure of Cardiff Crime Limited account before CBS could produce the 2018 Annual Financial Statement to submit to Companies' House. This is the final reckoning for the not-for-profit body set up to manage funds for the work of Cardiff Business Crime Reduction Partnership which ceased to function after the resignation of the Business Crime Manager it employed at the end of 2017. It will be a relief to me as the sole account signatory to obtain formal closure of this ill-fated undertaking. Everything is accounted for. No money is owed to anyone or owing to this account. It was set up as a not-for-profit undertaking, and has fulfilled its purpose, albeit causing a lot of grief, due to administrative errors on the part of the bank from the outset. Never again, I say to myself. Never again!

I finished the second Pablo Poveda novel 'El Aprendiz', which morphs from political thriller into an odd kind of sci-fi extrapolation of a world in which lies spun by the powers that be through virtual reality and fake news have entirely taken over and control society. The romantic intellectual hero of the first novel becomes the figurehead of a militant resistance movement at war against Big Brother state. He's not a particularly appealing character, and the characterisation of people portrayed isn't well developed. The story seems to be what matters. It's complex and full of surprises. I could see it being made into a TV movie series. The books have used a wide range of Spanish vocabulary which I have had to look up to get the full flavour of the narrative, but It's been pleasing to find how much I have been able to grasp the narrative thread, at my present intermediate language level.

Now I must hunt for the third part of the trilogy. First, a visit to Waterstone's, and if unsuccessful, I'll have to buy on-line. I'm reluctant to do this unless I have to. Bookshops are important cultural places, and like libraries, we're losing them at a lamentable rate.