Sunday 20 September 2009

PS to the guff about my hotel in Ibiza

On reflection (about three minutes worth) it strikes me that my readers, both of you, might conclude that I am being a little snobbish about my fellow guests. Well, I don´t mean to be. It´s just that we are drawn to the company of those who think as we do etc, and not so drawn to the company of those who don´t. To put it in perspective I am even less drawn to the company of that old snobbish biddy who edits the Salisbury Review.
The other important thing to emphasise is that I am SO in need of a break that I am consciously keeping myself to myself these first few days. I have also decided to take two weeks off because experience has taught me that one week is simply not enough, that by the end of the first week you are slowly beginning to unwind and need a second week to relax properly. Also the chance to relax properly was the main reason why I haven´t gone on holiday with my wife. She is a woman who could start an argument in an empty house, and I simply don´t have the stomach for that. I would love to go on holiday with my two children but that would not be possible without my wife. But I am planning for the four of us to go away next April during the Easter holiday.

A PS to an earlier entry

The magazine republishing Michael Wharton´s autobiography, or at least the first volume, is not called Slightly Soiled but Slightly Foxed.

At that do I said hello to Susan, Michael´s widow, and was then introduced to some old bint who edits the Salisbury Review. She asked me where I lived. I said North Cornwall. Oh, she said, did I know Lady Penny Wilson (or something like that). No, I said, I didn´t. Her wish for any further conversation with me died there and then. I was, she decided instantly, of no consquence whatsoever. Stupid cow. But there are, unfortunately, many like her in Britain.

Ibiza - an early account

It might only be my third day (and my second full day), but an overcast sky, no sun and a wind which promises a storm of some kind later today persuade me to make an entry here. Also I now know that although only one follower is officially registered, I do, in fact, have two (take a bow, Barry, and thanks for the email and the link to Mark Sparrow’s blog).

After drinking rather too much at the Michael Wharton book launch, I reined myself in for the reception which followed Keith Waterhouse’s funeral and was rather modest in my intake, which meant I was able to have a good night’s rest before getting up at 3.10 on Friday morning, to be driven to Victoria station by my very obliging brother (hardly any public transport at that time of the morning and I’m buggered if I’m going to pay £12 for a taxi ride of less than two miles.

Got to Gatwick for 4.45, just in time to witness the utter dismay of an American family who arrived at the airport, only to realise they should have gone to Heathrow instead. The plane left on time at 6.25 and just over two hours later we touched down in Ibiza, two hours being the ideal flying time and a damn sight better than the 13 hours I spent flying to Hong Kong several years ago.

The one principle I have on this holiday is: don’t rush anything and make no plans whatsoever. Yesterday, my first full day here was spent lying next to the pool reading a very good book I found in the hotel ‘library’. It is A People’s History Of The United States by Howard Zinn. The rest of the books, about 70 of them, are garbage, or at least nothing which would interest me: Danielle Steele, Maeve Binchy, Maeve Steele and Danielle Binchy. How on earth Zinn’s substantial work found its way here I really do not know, but I'm glad it did.

I also stripped to my swimming trunks for a spot of sunbathing, reminding myself not to overdo it, and, of course as these things always go, overdid it. The sun anywhere south of Bournemouth is very deceptive, so I am now burnt all over my torso and from halfway down my thighs to my feet, although only on the front as I didn’t turn over. So today’s overcast conditions are rather welcome. Went to bed early at about 8pm, fell asleep, only to be woken by a call on my mobile from my brother asking ‘what I was doing now’. Sleeping, I told him, and then couldn’t get off for another four hours.
Today I have spent the past few hours reading outside, but it is getting extraordinarily windy. This afternoon it is into Cala Llonga to find one of the bars which show Sky Sports to watch Manchester United beat the crap out of Manchester City.
 
The hotel is very nice and although the food is inclined to satisfy the unadventurous tastes of the mainly lower middle-class guests (that’s gratuitously snobbish. So what are you? Ed) there are sufficient Spanish and other Continental dishes to satisfy me. The average age is 60, so I fit in well, although I am having trouble reconciling myself to no longer even being middle-aged.

Generally, the ethos is determinedly the 2000s version of Kiss Me Quick as far as the Brits are concerned. There has so far been no nobbly knees contest, but yesterday there was a ‘quiz by the pool’ which I didn’t take part in because, as I suspected, the questions were all about TV programmes and characters from the various soaps, of which I, to me eternal credit, know absolutely nothing.

But it is just what I was looking for: somewhere, very clean, quiet with mild weather, where I can bloody chill out, sleep and read. I do not yet feel relaxed - I wouldn’t be blogging her if I were in that state - but it is early days yet.

Monday 14 September 2009

PS Michael Wharton

For the record, I knew Michael in the last 20-odd years of his life (he was a friend of my father's) and he was most definitely not a racist or anti-semitic. What he most definitely was was a guy who disliked cant and bullshit and that, unsurprisingly, did not win him many friends. It is often fashionable to describe him as 'right-wing', but that, too, is rather far off the mark.

Oddly enough, his life-long dislike and suspicion of television now makes rather more sense to rather more people than it ever did before. He was extremely well-read and very good company. It is true that many readers of his column were hang 'em and flog 'em types, but Michael didn't share their views. He once told me that he was forever getting letters from readers who had obviously read far more into his writings than was there and thanking him for expressing a view he had not once expressed.

His was distinguished in his intellectual rigour, which was the basis of his dislike of cant and hypocrisy. He dislike modish, fashionable thought which had no basis and value except that it was what smart people were thinking this year. His dislike of phrases such as 'the international community', which he thought was meaningless, partly came down to a man growing older and being less able and prepared to accept change (from which I, who is 60 in November, am also increasingly suffering). But as far as I am concerned he was - is - spot on in highlighting the double-think of much modern life.

I am expanding this entry because I feel what I wrote above did not really do Michael justice. And I must also record that his column was always very, very funny. Ironically, in person, although he could be funny, he was, when I knew him in the last 20 years of his life, more reserved and forthcoming, and would add a comment only when he felt a comment was necessary. In this, which is a characteristic I value and enjoy in others, he was very different from many hacks who insist, at your peril, of being the life and soul of the party. Another phrase for such types is 'pain in the arse'.

Coming up: TWO weeks in Ibiza PLUS a piss-up and a funeral (and then another piss-up

Well, it's almost here: my holiday.

This Friday, after today's double shift, tomorrow's double shift and Wednesday's single shift, I fly out from Gatwick bound for Ibiza. And no, not one of the fleshpots of San Antonio and Ibiza Town where young folk blast their brains out on ecastasy, coke and booze, but the rather more genteel Cala Llonga in a hotel which apparently doesn't accept any guest under the age of 80 and where I have been accepted (not being under 80) on the strict understanding that I will keep very quiet indeed. Two weeks of what I hope is quiet bliss in the sunshine. My one problem is whether, after my heart attack of three years ago I can allow myself a cigar of five. Remains to be seen.

The run-up to my departure is also quite interesting. On Wednesday night it is off to the Savile Club in Mayfair where a magazine called Slightly Soiled is holding a reception to celebrate re-publishing Michael 'Peter Simple' Wharton (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Wharton) two volumes of autobiography. Ends at 8.30 so I won't be a piss-up, but it should nevertheless be interesting. Then at noon the following day it is off to Mortlake Crematorium for Keith Waterhouse's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Waterhouse) funeral to which I have been invited.

The only way I can explain that is that of all the subs her at the features desk of the Mail, I was the only one who regularly used to liaise with Stella, his ex-wife, who has been caring for him in the last four years of his life.

After the funeral there is a wake at 'The White Hart' (don't know which one of the several thousand White Harts there are in Britain - one in London, probably) at which several of the great and good will be lifting their arms and, according to John Mcentee, several more of the great and good, folk with whom Keith or Stella didn't get on, will not be lifting their arms. If there is anything to report, I shall duly record it here, but I think being an unknown among all those who get bylines (we subs don't) I shall keep a low profile.

As for the holiday, roll it on! I stress that I shall be off for two weeks because these past 15 years I have only taken a week off abroad and it is never enough. Just when you are beginning to relax, it's time to come home.