Don’t panic, Mr Mainwaring, don’t panic. And please, please, please lay off the Germans

I thought I might start this entry with a cartoon (UPDATE: picture - couldn't find a useful cartoon) which strikes me as wholly apposite given the latest news on the euro crisis. Years ago when I still used to lie (I came to realise that in the long run lying is actually pretty pointless and self-defeating). I would find myself, as others did and those who are foolish enough to carry on the practive, always will, in an ever more complex, ever more unmanageable tissue of untruths. It was all very easy at first: the first lie would get you out of a fix, and the second lie would tidy up matters. Then came a third lie which became necessary because of an inconsistency between the first and second lies. This was usually swiftly followed by a fourth and fifth to iron out further problems, while the second lie was recalled to base because of a design fault. In no time at all, lies six, seven and eight were launched to give the whole fabrication some kind of cohesion, but they, of course, also brought further confusion as at this point exactly what was said became wholly unclear and the reason for telling that first lie was completely forgotten. You can see why I gave up lying.

I am not suggesting that Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy, David Cameron, Enda Kenny, the two chaps from somewhere or other who have been parachuted in to run Italy and Greece and the rest of the stalwarts intent on saving the world (no, sorry, that’s global warming, on saving Europe) are lying. But what they are doing is fire-firefighting on a grand scale, scurrying here, there and everywhere from one small blaze to another to keep each under control, but don’t seem to see that each measure is simply adding to the overall conflagration and that the overall conflagration is way beyond control. And, yes, I do realise that as a simile ‘fire-fighting’ sits rather uncomfortably with the simile in the cartoon with which I started this entry, but if it really does bother you, you can bugger off and read someone else’s blog.

There is a relevant piece of bad news every morning, and today’s bad news is that those investors and banks in Asia have decided that enough is enough and are selling any bonds they hold issued by European countries. (Incidentally, ‘selling’ would imply that someone is ‘buying’, but in view of the almost total fuck-up this has now become, I should imagine that no one in their right mind is ‘buying’. How someone is able to ‘sell’ when no one wants to ‘buy’ has always baffled me, although I realise it is perfectly possible, and I can only blame my confusion on this particular aspect of ‘the markets’ on the fact that my ‘knowledge’ of economics was gleaned over the years from breakfast cereal packets and suchlike, and what I don’t actually ‘know’, I make up. In my defence, however, I must stress that it doesn’t necessarily make me at all unrelieable: one of the better definitions of ‘an economist’ I’ve come across is that he is someone who can convincingly explain today why what he predicted yesterday didn’t happen.)

There are several entertaining sideshows to the Asian shrugging of shoulders and getting the hell out of it: Germany now sees salvation in speeding up plans for ‘full political and fiscal integration’ of the eurozone area. And, on paper, they have a point. But I stress ‘on paper’. Given that Germany is now pre-eminent in the EU - and given the geography of Europe, that was pretty unavoidable - it is pretty certain that if ‘political and fiscal integration’ did come about, Germany would once again be the loudest voice. And here I must come clean: granted that I think the question is wholly hypothetical, I really don’t think that would be a bad thing. Many might see the Germans as ponderous and unimaginative, and broadly they might have a point. But there’s no denying that they are at heart far better at organising themselves than many other countries and if there is a secret to their prosperity, that is it. If anyone were to run the show, I would be far happier if it were the Germans than, say, the Italians or Greeks. But, of course, that is pure fantasy. It well never get to that point and all talk about it is pie in the sky. Trying to establish ‘political and fiscal integration’ in Europe - or rather the eurozone - would be as futile as trying to herd cats.

Sadly, despite all the original hullabaloo of peace on Earth and goodwill to all men, every European country is reverting to the role ordained for it by history and geography. And that is especially true of what might crassly be seen as The Big Three: Britain, France and Germany. I know we Brits make jokes in poor taste about The Teutons, but when push comes to shove we get on rather better with them than with The Frogs. They in turn have been cosying up for these past 30 years with Les Boches, but that was always only a summer romance and the tiffs are now getting ever more spiteful. And The Frogs, in turn, still can’t - Lord knows why not! - drum up much trust in the treacherous Rostbifs. Time for a cliché? Of course, never one better: Plus ca change, plus la meme chose.

. . .

It might be that although I sprang from the loins of a stout Worcestershire man, I was nurtured in and emerged from the womb of a stout German woman, but I must come clean: in this whole very sorry saga, my sympathies are with the Germans. As far as I am concerned, a sober, not to say cold-blooded analysis of who has done what would be forced to conclude that they haven’t done much wrong. And the worst charge that can be levelled against them is that they are sticking to their guns and insisting on not doing the stupid thing.

From the dust and rubble of World War I and the hyperinflation of the Weimar Republic, they emerged to resume a reasonable existence, although one in time blighted by the jumped-up little corporal from Linz (where, bizarrely, he went to the same school at the same time as one Ludwig Wittgenstein), only for it all to got to pot again. Yet once again, they pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, re-established themselves and now once again live in peace, comfort and prosperity. And they are utterly paranoid about inflation.

They are also very put out that - well, the only appropriate word here is ‘feckless’ - Med types should threaten it all and all and sundry are now demanding that they should now do what they sincerely regard as utterly, utterly stupid to rescue nations not half as neat and tidy as themselves. What exactly have they done wrong? How exactly is the vilification which is now coming their way justified? Answers, please, on a postcard or even in an email. I should like to be enlightened.

Entschuldigen Sie mir bitte, Frau Riedel. Das habe ich nicht so gemeint

When we lived in Berlin in the early Sixties, my older brother Ian and I had piano lessons with Frau Riedel. I was just 12 and she seemed ancient to me, but could nor really have been more than 60 or 65. She was employed by the ‘British Military Government of Berlin’ as it was known - this was, remember, just 17 years after the end of the war and Berlin, divided into its four sectors, was at the centre of the Cold War - to give free piano lessons to service children or those somehow associated with the Brits in Berlin. My father worked as the BBC’s representative, not the Army, but somehow we got quite a few of the service benefits. For example, we lived in one of the houses especially built for service families (as did those working at the embassy - I think they had simply built too many houses).
Frau Riedel had been a concert pianist when she was younger, and whether she took the job giving piano lessons because she needed the money or whether she just liked to keep her hand in and enjoyed the work, I don’t know. My brother Ian was, as in so many things he turned his hand to, a rather gifted player. He seemed to master it, it seemed to me, effortlessly. I wasn’t. I was then and am now something of a plodder. (It used to bother me for years, but no longer does. In fact, I now think there is a certain virtue in taking your time and getting it right. That, at least, is my take on ‘plodding’, and if you feel I am being too easy on myself, I’m sure you can find it in your hearts to forgive me.) Ian learnt to sight-read, I didn’t. I simply memorised the pieces I was learning, which Frau Riedel didn’t like. I finally gave up my lessons, I think because I wasn’t very good, but I do remember the occasion when I told Frau Riedel, and it embarrasses me to this day. I told her that I ‘wanted to play jazz’. The point is that I had hardly heard any jazz and barely knew what jazz was. I was also rather fed up with upping sticks in the afternoon, getting the tram from where we lived in the Heerstraße down to what was then still known as the Reichskanzlerplatz, where the Brits had the NAAFI and all the other facilities, having an hour-long piano lesson and then coming home. All that took the best part of  two and a half hours, much of which would have been taken up with waiting for a tram.
But telling Frau Riedel that I didn’t want to carry on with lessons also embarrasses me because I recall inadvertently insulting and upsetting her. I wanted to tell her that ‘my piano lessons are a pain’ and meant to say ‘Sie [die Klavierstunde where Stunde = lesson in this case, not hour] ist mir eine Plage.’ But what I recall saying is ‘Sie sind mir eine Plage’ which is not quite the same thing at all. And saying ‘Sie sind’ rather than ‘sie ist’ had me saying ‘you are a pain’/I find you a pain’.
I can’t actually recall whether that is what happened or not. But Frau Riedel was very, very upset, and I can’t think why I would subconsciously invent such an incident. And she was a really nice woman, too. Sorry, Frau Riedel.

. . .

I have since grown to like jazz more and more. In fact, when talk is of ‘modern music’, I always think ‘yes, jazz’ rather than much of the - to me ears - oh-so-contrived ‘modern classical music’ which would-be great composers are churning out. It’s as though these men and women feel obliged to create music which is ever more arcane in order to qualify to be called ‘classical music’. But what the hell.
As for jazz, I am sadly - or not even sadly - not one of those who can reel of names about this pianist, that trumpeter, this drummer, that bassist as though from a list. I just like listening to it. I can understand the enthusiasm of those who do know the name of every man jack who played on this or that recording, but, well, I don’t. And as with ‘classical music’, I am also like Thomas Beecham’s Englishman: I don’t understand it, but I like the noise it makes. (It is quite untrue that British people don't appreciate music. They may not understand it but they absolutely love the noise it makes.) I have just been listening to the latest edition of Kenneth Clarke’ Jazz Greats - this one was about the trumpeter Lee Morgan (who I had never heard of until now, yes, I’m that much of a fan), and at one point his playing was described as ‘accessible first, intellectual second’. Fair enough. But for the life of me I have cloth ears as far as any ‘intellectual’ dimension to either jazz or ‘classical music’ is concerned. I simply haven’t a clue what they are talking about. Sorry. I don’t deny it isn’t there, it’s just that I’ll just settle for the, often quite sublime, noise it makes.

Of mice and men: how Robbie Burns predicted the demise of the EU. Oh, and two silly jokes, just for the craic

I have never read a poem by Robbie Burns and quoting him here might give the impression that I am quite well-read when all along I have been perfectly honest by admitting that given a book, I would need written instructions on what to do with it (and those instructions would, in any case, have to be read out aloud to me slowly). But given the most recent development on the combined euro-crisis/EU endgame/end of the world situation, a line from Burns came to mind. (Incidentally, I was reading up about the latest fuck-up - the Germans are demanding an imminent British surrender or else they will shoot us out of the skies - in the Guardian rather than the Telegraph or the Mail because I was keen to read a sober account of what is going on, whereas the Telegraph and the Mail are so apt to overegg the eurosceptic pudding.)
When I say ‘a line from Burns came to mind’, what I mean is that a saying came to mind, which I then googled and discovered is from Burns’s poem To a Mouse, on Turning Her Up in Her Nest with the Plough. It begins Wee, sleekit, cow’rin, tim’rous beastie / O, what a panic's in thy breastie! and in it are the familiar lines The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft agley. That sums up very neatly indeed the situation the European Union finds itself in. And when considering what looks increasingly like the EU’s undignified slow disintegration, the phrase ‘overreached itself’ comes to mind.

At the heart of it all is the eternal truth that you cannot legislate sentiment. You can’t by law oblige the common man to love his king. Well, you can try but you have as much chance of succeeding as you would have of nailing jelly to the wall (US: gello to the wall). It’s all very well for assorted bien pensant social democrats to wax lyrical about an end to war in Europe and a common purpose through the pan-European institution, but unless you carry the people with you, you’re pissing in the wind. Most certainly the EU was popular in the days of milk and honey, but even at the first squall of trouble - and that was long ago, we now have gales blowing about our heads - national self-interest rules supreme. Funny that.

The EU overreached itself by trying to evolve from what almost everyone was happy with - a common economic community - into a political union, with which rather fewer agreed. In those fabled days of milk and honey, those who were caught dragging their feet were roundly castigated for their lack of enthusiasm and the charge of ‘not being a European’ was sufficiently serious to dragoon most politicians into line. No more. It is only a matter of weeks, if not days, that there is quite open talk of the EU as we know it coming to an end, whereas even two months ago any such suggestion would have been regarded as the raving of a mad man.

I always thought the starry-eyed wouldn’t-it-be-wonderful if we all got together and really, really, really tried awfully hard to find a universal cure for cancer and brought about peace on Earth was a load of cack - and, dear reader, I am only slightly exaggerating - but on the other hand I am

always wholeheartedly for co-operation, pulling together and seeking out the common good. And as I touched upon the central difficulty of the EU - that allegiance must come from the heart - I should add that my inclination to work together with others for the common good does, in my case, come from the heart. But as I have got older, I have also realised that in any decision the head should - must - also be consulted. And that is where the EU went wrong. Too many blind eyes were turned to too many problems.

Not least of these, of course, was that although everyone knew the Italians and Greeks had cooked the books in order to qualify for membership of the precious euro, they chose to ignore it. All for the common good. I mean, we were about to enter Heaven on Earth, so why let an inconvenient detail or two spoil the party?
We’re not there yet, of course. The EU hasn’t collapsed and it will trudge on for a while yet. But I’m certain that the EU those who supported the project knew and loved for these past few years will be a completely different animal in, say, five years time.

. . .

Apropos nothing at all, no not even the euro shambles, Germany’s alleged attempt to take over the universe or the origins of World War III as they are now taking shape in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Saudi Arabia – pray the Lord I’m wrong – here are two jokes I’ve remembered from way back. They're not original, you might well be familiar with both or either, but what the hell:

An Englishman, a real Major Thompson type, is sitting in a bistro in Paris when he spots a fly in his soup. Appalled, he calls the waiter.
‘Garcon, garcon, ici. Guardez, le mouche dans le soupe,’ he declares in his heavily accented French.
‘Non, monsieur,’ the waiter replies, ‘la mouche.’
‘Good God, man,’ says the Englishman, ‘you’ve got good eyesight!’

Or how about:
Q. Why does President Sarkozy eat only one egg for breakfast?
A. Because one egg is un oef!

Awful, I know, but it’s 6pm on a Wednesday night and I am about to hit the road for my four-hour drive back home.

A sign that I am, indeed, getting older. Oh, and a perfect cliche finds its sneaky way into this blog

I assume I was weaned on vinegar because I don’t think there is a sentimental bone in my body and I loathe anything which is twee (which might account for the fact that as far as I am concerned in inordinate number of Hollywood films are total bollocks).

But it has to be said that a certain sentimentality and tweeness is one of the stocks in trade of my industry and most certainly accounts for a substantial number of sales for the newspaper for which I have given the best minutes of my life. It is, for example, for the umpteenth time selling a collection of DVDs which extol Britain’s performance in World War II, and the bravery and courage not only of its enlisted men (mainly, it seems cheerful Cockneys, stoic Scotsman, lovable Scousers, dour Ulstermen and cheeky chappies from Lancashire) but of the ‘Home Front’, the women and children who stayed at home and kept alive by whistling Vera Lynn and George Formby numbers.

Or, at least, that is the picture we are asked to accept (while whoever produces these DVDs makes a pile by cashing in on nostalgia).

In fact, as I have grown older, I appreciate ever more the sacrifice of several million servicemen and women who marched into battle in the certain knowledge that they might well be among those who would never come back. And as I have grown older, I get increasingly irritated by those who attack servicemen and women, often physically, as warmongers. No, dear hearts, it is the politicians back home who take the decision to go to war who we should be attacking, creatures such as Tony Blair and George W. Bush, not the poor saps who had enlisted and who had no choice but to to their bidding. But I have lost my thread.

As I say, I do rather loathe all things twee, and that would include four out of the five cartoon strips which appear daily in the paper for whom I work. And one of them is Garfield. But, it would seem, there is an exception to most things, and the cartoon below, which appeared last Monday, did make me laugh, especially the expression on the dog’s face. It is suitably very silly indeed.

© 2011 Paws Inc. All rights reserved

. . .

Years ago, the BBC screened The Great War, an in-depth, not to say interminable, documentary of the origins, causes, course and conclusion of the Great War. I am, perhaps, being a little unfair in calling ‘interminable’, but that was how is seemed to me, a lad of about 13. Oddly, the bit I remember most was footage from, I think Brighton beach (that’s Brighton in Sussex, England, not the Russian mafia hangout in Brooklyn, New York) taken in the late summer of 1914.

Folk were out and about enjoying the sun and their free time and the mood was markedly lighthearted. Despite all the sabre-rattling around Europe, they obviously had no idea what they were in for. Well, how could they? And even when the war started, the public in Britain were assured that it ‘would all be over by Christmas’.

I have been thinking of that footage many times over these past few months and if our British summer in 2012 is in any way ‘glorious’, I shall fear the worst. I dislike clichés – I am obliged to deal with too many in my professional life – but were I told to use one under threat of death, I think I would resort to a ‘perfect storm’. Because it all seems to be stacking up to one hell of a ‘perfect storm’.

The news overnight was that Iran ‘could’ be working towards developing a nuclear bomb. But don’t feel heartened by that ‘could’ which optimists will interpret as ‘could’ or ‘could not’. It is only there because when we are close to leaving the frying pan in the direction of the fire, those responsible for the kind of report which makes the warning like to be as circumspect as possible. Yes, it’s very serious indeed when the threat is consciously played down. And if Iran does produce it’s nuclear bomb, then, the fear is, everyone else in the Middle East with more than two pennies to rub together will decided to get some of its own.

That would be great news for no one were it to happen. In the same neighbourhood is Syria which has not only fallen foul of the ‘international community’, but has now fallen foul of its nominal friends in the Arab League, who are not at all happy with what has been going on. Many of them might be a pretty unsavoury bunch, as it happens, but any pressure which can be exerted to stop Syria killing its own people can never be a bad thing.

Then there is, of course, the ongoing farce which is the Eurozone crisis. More bad news overnight is that bond yields on Italian bonds have breached 7 per cent which conventional wisdom claims is the limit beyond which the whole sorry house of cards will slowly implode. And when that happens – not ‘when’ not ‘if’ it will be bad news not only for countries in the Eurozone or for countries in the EU or for countries in Europe, but for any country which does business with Europe. And that is most of the world. Given all that, it would seem to me that one of the best places to live in right now is in one of the South American countries. So I’m off to learn a little Spanish.

Oh, what a piece of work are snobs

One film I am looking forward to seeing is Anonymous. It suggests that Shakespeare did not write the plays which were published under his name but that they were, in fact, written by a member of the English nobility, Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford. I must immediately stress that not only do I not subscribe to any theory that Shakespeare did not write the plays, I don’t give a tinker’s cuss whether or not he did. At the end of the day it is the plays that matter (not that I have read them all, which is perhaps the impression I am giving, or that I am in any way ‘passionate’ about the plays. I am merely pointing out the obvious: that who wrote them, why, when, where and what he - or, I suppose, she - was drinking at the time are not necessarily relevant). The director of Anonymous is Roland Emmerich, whose film The Day After Tomorrow, was as close to total bollocks as on can get on a rainy afternoon in mid-week with nothing on the telly. So on that score Anonymous is not particularly recommended. It has also been criticised for its thesis - that Oxford was Shakespeare - and for its preposterous ‘plot’, in which Shakespeare is something of a buffoon who is hired by the bashful Earl to masquerade as the plays’ author because he, a noble, can’t be seen indulging in theatrical productions. But all that rather seems to miss the point, so I was pleased to come across a review of the film a few minutes ago in the Daily Telegraph which simply describes the film as hugely enjoyable. It has Rhys Ifans as Oxford and Rafe Spall as Shakespeare, and both are always very good value. It is also said to be very good on using computer generated graphics to recreate Elizabethan London, and I do go for that kind of thing. (In fact, for me the one redeeming feature of The Day After Tomorrow was its special effects, although even those weren’t enough to stop me stopping watching the film halfway through at the point where Dennis Quaid, the ‘scientist’ drops all and is about to set out on a 200-mile journey through winter hell on earth in order to find his son.) Purists have also been getting very angry about the portrayal in the film of the young Good Queen Bess as a right old slapper who is incapable of keeping her legs together. Me? I’m just looking forward to watching an outrageous piece of old-fashioned entertainment.

. . .

For the record, I can’t see what all the fuss is about. Given that it is the existence of the plays that matters, I feel it is irrelevant whether or not they were written by Mr William Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon. What I do find rather irritating is some of the evidence put forward for suggesting that he is not the author (as opposed to evidence put forward for others being the author). So, for example, we are asked to scoff at the notion that the son of a mere glovemaker and wool trader who didn’t ‘go to Oxford’ could have been capable of such learning as the plays’ author seems to possess. Some even describe the historical Shakespeare as ‘illiterate’, but that seems particularly wide of the mark. We know that the Stratford in which Shakespeare grew up had a grammar school at which Greek and Latin were taught, and we know that his father, the mere glovemaker and wool trader, was comparatively prosperous and that it is likely he would have wanted the best education for his son, so although there is no direct evidence that Shakespeare attended the grammar school,

it is more likely than not that he did. But what most gets up my nose about the claims that the historical Shakespeare did not write the plays is the snobbery which surrounds them. This could be caricatured as it being impossible that such great works of art could have been produced by a lower to middle middle-class oik such as Shakespeare. The author of the plays has a good knowledge of military matters and would seem to have travelled a great deal in Italy. We don’t know (the critics say carefully) that Shakespeare ever fought in the army or went to Italy. The critics are, however, careful on this matter, because we know little about Shakespeare’s early life and it is not impossible that did acquire military experience and down a pint or ten of wine in Ravioli or wherever it was the young blades of the time used to go to squire the local talent and get their rocks off. The ‘it certainly could not have been that oik Shakespeare wot rote the plays’ gang are also rather put out that the man we know as William Shakespeare was something of a hard-headed businessman who co-owned a theatre and was rather keen to get whatever money he felt he was owed. Such a grubby money-making nature does not square, in their minds and hearts, with the kind of lofty, high-minded, sensitive and exquisitely sensitive type who wrote Hamlet, Coriolanus, The Tempest and the rest. So, dear chaps, sorry, but it could not have been Will Shakespeare from Stratford. To which I simply respond: why not?