I can’t claim to to be particularly well-versed in the magic of economics but I do know one thing: much of what seems difficult is just economists using shorthand and jargon to do nothing more sinister than save time. But when City wideboys do the same thing, it is, of course, sinister: they would rather we didn’t understand what is going on. So, for example, a firm might be described as ‘highly geared’ or ‘highly leveraged’, and that can sound rather impressive, can’t it? In ordinary language, though, the kind you and I might use when bumping into each other in the supermarket, that means simply that the firm is deeply in debt (of ‘deeply in debt’, to give it a modicum of dignity).
That is not necessarily a bad thing, but knowing that the company you work for or, perhaps, in which you own shares, is ‘deeply in debt’ rather than ‘highly geared’ would certainly concentrate your mind a little more.
Something similar, a similar wilful obfuscation, is going on with the eurozone crisis (of rather, as it’s a Sunday morning and I’m feeling a little more charitable ‘eurozone crisis’). To many the ‘crisis in the eurozone’ might sound rather complicated and many might feel happier to leave it all to their leaders and politicians to sort out - they understand that kind of things better than I do, such honest citizens tell themselve.
Actually, there’s nothing whatsoever complicated about the eurozone crisis. And leaving it to our leaders and politicians to sort out is simply making matters worse. There is an even more banal aspect to the whole matter: the crisis is not even essentially economic. The crisis is rooted in the fact that the leaders of the eurozone countries, who would have us believe they are desperately working day and night, seven days a week, to solve the crisis, know full well that there the crisis could be brought to an end rather smartly, that there are two solutions, two very obvious solutions. The real crisis is that they simply haven’t got the guts to resort to either solution. The real crisis is political.
It would be unkind, and dishonest, of me to play down the difficulty facing our leaders and politicans, those esteemed and intelligent lads and lassess who most recently met Wroclaw, Poland, to procrastinate a little but more, and where they told one Timothy Geithner more or less to fuck off when he urged them to stop dithering and get on with it. Geithner, the head of the US Treasury Secretary, had gatecrashed the party because although the US is in the economic shit, a eurozone crash would - well, let’s be honest, will - drop it in even further in the shit. But European politicos, especially French politicos, don’t like being told home truths by what they still regard as Yank upstarts. Hence the advice to Timmy: fuck off, Geithner. I’m absolutely certain no one used those to very useful words, but that’s what they said. And that rather coarse response takes me right back to the essence of the crisis.
The essence of the crisis is exactly what Geithner was complaining about: our leaders are dithering as few leaders have dithered before recent history. They know exactly what they could do: either form a fiscal union of the ten EU members in the eurozone; or kick Greece out of the eurozone. What they should not be doing, because it only makes an extremely serious situation even worse, is prolong the agony. But that is exactly what they are doing. They simply haven’t got the gumption.
I really should repeat that both solutions are difficult and nasty, and the first - to form a fiscal union - is more or less impossible to adopt politically, let alone economically. So they know, and we know, and they know that we know, and we know they know we know, and crucially a very, very worried Timmy Geithner knows that the only way to draw a line under the ‘crisis’ is what is tactfully referred to in the press as a ‘disorderly default’. In the language we use in supermarket chit-chat that is to tell Greece the time is up, get out of the euro, re-adopt the drachma and stop ruining it all for the rest of us. (Naturally, the time has long gone to repeat the wise observation that ‘Greece should never have been let into the eurozone in the first place’, but that hasn’t stopped a great many ‘commentators’ every so wisely repeating that very observation. In it’s futility, it’s rather along the lines as Abraham Lincoln wisely observing: ‘I really shouldn’t have gone to the theatre that night, I really should have had an early night.’)
Once again, I really must be fair: adopting that solution and doing the only sensible thing under the circumstances is also dangerous. A lot of banks would lose a lot of money, and it might spark the kind of paralysis we had in 2008 after the Lehman collapse when the banks had idea whatsoever which of them was solvent and which wasn’t worth a bent ha’penny and simply shut up shop to save their own skins (ironically those not worth a bent ha’penny doing so, as well, so that we never really found out which was which). On the other hand, it might not be as bad as we fear. But crucially, however bad it is, it would most certainly not be half as bad as what is going to happen when events become impatient with the eurozone leaders’ dithering and impose their own solution. The unkonw element in all this is, of course, the voters and citizens of each eurozone state, two of which have been dictatorships 22 years, three within the past 45 years, and two of which were dictatorships within the past 70 years. That is not to say that the voters are all looking for a strong man, but then dictators don’t always consult the voter when they grab power, usually ‘in the interest of the country’.
Actually, I really don’t think anything like that is going to happen. But really rather nasty civil unrest is already taking place in Greece, and there have been demonstrations in Spain. If things get worse, if we do, as some gleeful alarmists warn, get a ‘Thirties-style depression’, I rather think all bets are off as far as the brotherhood of man and universal goodwill saving the day. I rather think it will once again be every man for himself.
. . .
Anyone remember the celebrations and fireworks in January 1999 when existing currencies were dropped and the euro finally became the currency of eurozone members? Great fireworks. Lovely speeches. Marvellous sentiment. Oh, and the music! Lovely, lovely music, though not lovely enough, I’m afraid, to soften the heart of a grizzled old cynic like me. And it was those ceremonies around Europe which, in a way, highlight the corrupt core of the EU. Its leaders and bureaucrats are like an army in peacetime: sparkling bright uniforms, impressive weaponry, such a sense of occasion when they parade up and down the street in glorious sunshine. Oh, those parades! Makes you feel so safe! And don’t our officers look so smart in their heroic uniforms! Bliss was it in that day to be alive, but to be European was very heaven! It made one almost look forward to the next war.
To put it another way, the test of leadership is what leaders do in a crisis. And in this crisis each one has shown him or herself to be as useful as a chocolate teapot. Given what we already know about the EU - the corruption at the heart of the system which turns a blind eye to millions of euros going missing, the fact that I don’t think ever its accounts have been signed off because of irregularities - can anyone really take the notion of ‘a United States of Europe’ seriously any more? I rather think not.
Sunday 18 September 2011
Saturday 17 September 2011
Essert-Romand. Day seven - raining which, as true Brits, has rather cheered us up
Essert-Romand, Haute-Savoie, France.
Raining today, but I guess we’ll do what we’ve been doing every day: getting up late (Mark gets up late, I get up later, though at the time of writing we are now both up - Lord, this blog is interesting.) Then knocking about doing nothing till, probably, we’ll drive down to the local Carrefour to buy whatever. It won’t be booze, because we seem to have booze coming out of your ears. Before we came over and liking my tea, I went out and bought 80 PG Tips teabags, more than enough, I reckoned for at least two mugs of tea a day for both of us. However, this apartment, it seems, is almost exclusively rented by Brits. And what have all those Brits been doing before coming out? That’s right, buying bloody teabags, so at a rough reckoning there must be at least 400 teabags knocking about the place, everything ranging from bog standard builders’ tea, to Earl Grey, peppermint tea and even green tea. What I find a little difficult to understand is that one group of former tenants brought with them a huge bag of salt. Where on earth did they think they were going?
Started by holiday book yesterday, Young Stalin by Simon Sebag Montefiore, which is rather a good read. I’m still reading about
his early life when as a lad he witnessed his drunken father beating up his mother and was himself beaten. He was, apparently, a sensitive lad (pictured on the right, a private joke that) and deeply affected by it, and notwithstanding the murderous monster he later became, your heart has to go out to any unhappy child. Sorry to be soppy, but that really is the way I feel. If you want a better world, take care of the children, love them, respect them, care for them and then have a sporting chance of building a happier future for us all. Though I have to say, some hope.
Raining today, but I guess we’ll do what we’ve been doing every day: getting up late (Mark gets up late, I get up later, though at the time of writing we are now both up - Lord, this blog is interesting.) Then knocking about doing nothing till, probably, we’ll drive down to the local Carrefour to buy whatever. It won’t be booze, because we seem to have booze coming out of your ears. Before we came over and liking my tea, I went out and bought 80 PG Tips teabags, more than enough, I reckoned for at least two mugs of tea a day for both of us. However, this apartment, it seems, is almost exclusively rented by Brits. And what have all those Brits been doing before coming out? That’s right, buying bloody teabags, so at a rough reckoning there must be at least 400 teabags knocking about the place, everything ranging from bog standard builders’ tea, to Earl Grey, peppermint tea and even green tea. What I find a little difficult to understand is that one group of former tenants brought with them a huge bag of salt. Where on earth did they think they were going?
Started by holiday book yesterday, Young Stalin by Simon Sebag Montefiore, which is rather a good read. I’m still reading about
Friday 16 September 2011
The left, the right and right and wrong: that’s my opinion and to hell with your opinion. Basta! Oh, and three pics from South-East France
It would seem axiomatic that if you hold an opinion, or have a conviction, you assume you are completely right and that those who disagree with you are completely wrong. Leaving apart those of us - many, many people - who adopt an opinion after less than a second’s thought or come across an opinion in their newspaper of choice which they feel like adopting, I suggest that to have an opinion, or even to be convinced of something, should mean that you are always prepared to amend or even discard that view if facts, an argument or evidence is presented to you which shows you are, after all, wrong. That is, you have an open mind. Now, I could, ironically, be quite wrong, of course, and I am - surprise, surprise - by sticking to that view obliged to accept that subsequently facts, and argument of evidence will show conclusively that my view is complete bloody nonsense. It is crucial here to distinguish between a fact and an opinion. Unfortunately, too many people are unwilling to accept that disctinction. And equally unfortunately, too many people are unwilling to take part in a any discourse the outcome of which might be that what they have held to be true is simply not the case. So far, so boring and, probably, so far so first year philosophy tutorial.
Because so few people are prepared to take part in any discourse the upshot of which might be that they are talking complete cobblers means that when they do engage in a ‘political
conversation, what occurs is never a conversation. If they hold opposing views, what they think is ‘a conversation’ is nothing more, and nothing more interesting, than both sides parading their prejudices. One does occasionally come across someone who is, or does seem, prepared, to discuss matters in a way that they listen to your views and you listen to theirs, and both parties are prepared to amend their opinion in the light of what is said. Very occasionally. And usually when it become obvious, and it usually very soon becomes obvious, that the other side merely wants to tell you what they think and everything else be damned, I bow out as soon as possible. It’s not the kind of ‘conversation’ I am interested in being a part of. (It try exit stage left, as it where, diplomatically, but sometimes my refusal to engage in a transaction of prejudice is noticed and I am accused of arrogance. Oh well.)
Unsurprisingly, the kind of closed mind I dislike engaging with is found on both the right and the left, and were they only self-aware enough to realise it, both are as bad as each other. You only have to scroll their the ‘comments’ of those who leave ‘comments’ on the Guardian, Mail and Telegraph websites to gather quite how distressingly widespread closed minds are. I have not lived in Germany for some years, but I get the impression that the Germans are a little more nuanced in their political discourse, and it will be no suprise that consensus and its cousin compromise, of which we Brits make such a song and dance, is far more part of the fabric of German society. (It wasn’t always the case - just look at the street fighting which went on in the run-up to the Third Reich. Ironically, if the German right at the time wasn’t so closely allied to the more powerful sections of society, it might well have been a communist Germany with which the Brits and Americans would eventually find themselves at war.) But in Britain (I can’t at this point write ‘here in Britain, because I am writing this on a balcony overlooking sunny Essert-Romand) we simply resort to the Tweedledum-Tweedledee school of political discourse which gets none of us bloody anywhere.
It must be said, however, that the left has, apparently, made more progress than the right. Partly, that is the fault of the right, and especially the far right, who are less inclined to address and adopt change. A further disadvantage of the right in Britain is that it has successfully been identified with The Haves, The Rich and The Uncaring, whereas the left is now almost universally identified with The Have Nots, The Poor and The Caring. It doesn’t matter that both identification are rubbish, that is the current mood, and one continually and successfully exploited by the left. Any suspicion of ‘imposing authority’, as the right’s insistence that those guilty of theft and arson during the recent riots, is portrayed as being more or less akin to the reaction of various fascist dictatorships in the past who were all to ready to lock people up and throw away the key. The left, on the other hand, insists that we should examine the causes of the riots and try to understand what brought so many to steal without compunction. But for many who regard themselves on the left it is but a sigh away from virtually forgiving the theft and arson because ‘it is their backgrounds, they are disadvantaged, they are unemployed without the prospect of a job’.
To that I always retort: And what about the very many more from the same background who are equally disadvantaged and also unemployed with no prospect of a job who didn’t resort to theft and arson? The reaction to what I say is always the same: that I am just another bastard from the right, one of The Haves, one of The Rich and one of The Uncaring. There is no attempt to consider my opinion. In fact, even considering my opinion would be viewed as weakness. (For the record, it has now become apparent that as many as a quarter of those hauled before the courts for theft and arson and at least ten previous convictions for similar offences. My view is that most certainly we should try to understand why an awful lot of people felt it acceptable to loot their communities, but we should make very clear that theft and arson are not acceptable.)
The advance of ‘progressive’ thought - I have put it in quotes not because I want to be snide, but because I believe the thinking is anything but progressive - has led to an almost terminal corruption of the notion of responsibility. And I suggest that just how corrupted our thinking has become is demonstrated by the fact that any emphasis on the citizen’s responsibilities and duties to others is regarded as a sign of some kind of crypto-fascism. That, too, is as a result of the almost infantile obssession that my views are right, so yours must be wrong.
It has taken Britain a very long time to reach this state of affairs and it will take Britain a very long time to heal itself. It is not a result of immigration or an over-generous welfare state, and it is not the result of agents of the left permeating society. It is simply that we have had a cushy life for a long time now and and we are now taking far too much for granted. Including our freedoms. Not a good thing. We must value more again.
This last thought might seem a leap to far but I don’t believe it is: in my experience those who have little are far more generous than those who have a lot. Why? Because those who have little at least value the little they have and helping another out is closer to their souls.
. . .
The lake at Montriond
The Mairie at Morzine
The lake at Montriond again
Because so few people are prepared to take part in any discourse the upshot of which might be that they are talking complete cobblers means that when they do engage in a ‘political
Unsurprisingly, the kind of closed mind I dislike engaging with is found on both the right and the left, and were they only self-aware enough to realise it, both are as bad as each other. You only have to scroll their the ‘comments’ of those who leave ‘comments’ on the Guardian, Mail and Telegraph websites to gather quite how distressingly widespread closed minds are. I have not lived in Germany for some years, but I get the impression that the Germans are a little more nuanced in their political discourse, and it will be no suprise that consensus and its cousin compromise, of which we Brits make such a song and dance, is far more part of the fabric of German society. (It wasn’t always the case - just look at the street fighting which went on in the run-up to the Third Reich. Ironically, if the German right at the time wasn’t so closely allied to the more powerful sections of society, it might well have been a communist Germany with which the Brits and Americans would eventually find themselves at war.) But in Britain (I can’t at this point write ‘here in Britain, because I am writing this on a balcony overlooking sunny Essert-Romand) we simply resort to the Tweedledum-Tweedledee school of political discourse which gets none of us bloody anywhere.
It must be said, however, that the left has, apparently, made more progress than the right. Partly, that is the fault of the right, and especially the far right, who are less inclined to address and adopt change. A further disadvantage of the right in Britain is that it has successfully been identified with The Haves, The Rich and The Uncaring, whereas the left is now almost universally identified with The Have Nots, The Poor and The Caring. It doesn’t matter that both identification are rubbish, that is the current mood, and one continually and successfully exploited by the left. Any suspicion of ‘imposing authority’, as the right’s insistence that those guilty of theft and arson during the recent riots, is portrayed as being more or less akin to the reaction of various fascist dictatorships in the past who were all to ready to lock people up and throw away the key. The left, on the other hand, insists that we should examine the causes of the riots and try to understand what brought so many to steal without compunction. But for many who regard themselves on the left it is but a sigh away from virtually forgiving the theft and arson because ‘it is their backgrounds, they are disadvantaged, they are unemployed without the prospect of a job’.
To that I always retort: And what about the very many more from the same background who are equally disadvantaged and also unemployed with no prospect of a job who didn’t resort to theft and arson? The reaction to what I say is always the same: that I am just another bastard from the right, one of The Haves, one of The Rich and one of The Uncaring. There is no attempt to consider my opinion. In fact, even considering my opinion would be viewed as weakness. (For the record, it has now become apparent that as many as a quarter of those hauled before the courts for theft and arson and at least ten previous convictions for similar offences. My view is that most certainly we should try to understand why an awful lot of people felt it acceptable to loot their communities, but we should make very clear that theft and arson are not acceptable.)
The advance of ‘progressive’ thought - I have put it in quotes not because I want to be snide, but because I believe the thinking is anything but progressive - has led to an almost terminal corruption of the notion of responsibility. And I suggest that just how corrupted our thinking has become is demonstrated by the fact that any emphasis on the citizen’s responsibilities and duties to others is regarded as a sign of some kind of crypto-fascism. That, too, is as a result of the almost infantile obssession that my views are right, so yours must be wrong.
It has taken Britain a very long time to reach this state of affairs and it will take Britain a very long time to heal itself. It is not a result of immigration or an over-generous welfare state, and it is not the result of agents of the left permeating society. It is simply that we have had a cushy life for a long time now and and we are now taking far too much for granted. Including our freedoms. Not a good thing. We must value more again.
This last thought might seem a leap to far but I don’t believe it is: in my experience those who have little are far more generous than those who have a lot. Why? Because those who have little at least value the little they have and helping another out is closer to their souls.
. . .
Thursday 15 September 2011
Young Johan guilty: now's the time to forgive and forget. And the euro farce - part 656
Forget the euro, forget the trader at the Swiss bank UBS who seems to have decided he can go one better than Baring's Nick Leeson, and forget even that Manchester United scored a crucial away goal last night in their Champions League tie with Benfica. The really big news is that Johan Hari, up until now a darling of the intelligent left-liberal British elite who had all the right attitudes and was gay to boot - always a good sign in a chap for many - has finally been held bang to right. I have mentioned him before. His 'crime' was to embellish his interviews with other great and good folk around the world with quotes from their work. He is also said to have been guilty of plagiarism, but as I have no further details on that score, I shall leave that on the table.
He has published an apology on his website, and his employers have suspended him while he undergoes - it is stressed 'at his own expense' though that really is a weasel detail - four months of 'journalistic retraining'. Sorry, but that is all cobblers. And in an odd sort of way my heart rather goes out to young Johan, as we must still call him, because although he is now 32, he first made his mark as an eight-year-old, calling in print for the public execution of the then Margaret Thatcher and still carries with him the aura of a Wunderkind.
Johan - young Johan - did only one thing wrong: he broke the Eleventh Commandment which states quite unequivocally Thou
Should Not Be Found Out. I am certain that there is a legion of hacks out there, good honest and true men and women, who have never done what young Johan did and either would never consider doing it or, if tempted, stalwartly refused and refuse to give into the temptation. I am equally certain that there is an equal number of hacks out there who, but for the grace of God, are just as guilty of gilding the lily. And I am one.
In all my time as a reporter (not long, actually, six years, after that I tool refuge is the more tranquil waters of sub-editing) and an age ago I never, but never, quoted anyone verbatim. For one thing most people are inarticulate and never, but never, speak in the way we hacks would like them to speak. For another, and more seriously, all too often they would simply not say what we wanted them to say, however often we tried to wheedle it out of them. Young Johan's crime is simple: he didn't cover his arse. He didn't muddy the waters. For one thing, he filched his quotes from the published works of his interviewees, which was simply stupid. What he should have done, what we all did and do, is 'clean up' what we are told. Unless a tape or digital recording is made of an interview, no one ever remembers what they said exactly. The trick, when 'cleaning up', is to keep it truthful. For example, anyone apparently quoting Arthur Scargill as saying 'the Queen, eh, you've just got to love her, isn't she marvellous' would be riding for a fall. But if you quote someone as saying what they are more than likely to have said, and make them sound twice as intelligent and articulate into the bargain, well, everyone is happy and trebles all round. But young Johan didn't do that.
The Schadenfreude on the right will be based on the fact the young Johan has shown himself up to be something of a hypocrite, a man - boy? someone put me straight - who thought nothing of damning to hell all sorts of people for their hypocrisy and attacking all out those whose thought deviated just a centimetre from his own pure ideology. Serves you right, you little cunt, they are all now saying, and young Johan's website apology commits the unforgivable error of trying to reclaim so of his erstwhile purity. He should have said: Look, chaps, I fucked up, I was wrong and I'll never do it again.
This four-month period of 'journalistic re-training' is just so much hooey. Johan should be marched into the editor's office, given a comprehensive bollocking, then sent back to his desk to carry on with his job with the admonition never to do it again and now put the matter behind you. A reconciliation over lunch would not be amiss as the Independent needs him.
What will, of course, be unbearable for the poor chap - and I am not being snide when I write that - is the Schadenfreude of the left, for they will never let him forget what he has done. Ever. Every time he is embraced when arriving at a Camden dinner party of North London's thinkers and carers, that embrace will be more barbed than any nastiness the right might aim at him. For among the left young Hari is now a marked man. He might, in time, regain his credibility generally, but among his peers, among those who respect and admiration he craves, among his friends - for which read deadly rivals - his card is marked from now until kingdom come.
I wish Johan Hari well, for we need a variety of voices, outspoken voices, from both right and the left. Just as we need Peter Hitchens, we need Johan. Just as we need that awful harridan Polly Toynbee, we need Johan. Just as we need such dinosaurs as Simon Heffer, we need Johan. And because we need him, my advice to Johan is: watch your back. But stop being so pious.
. . .
The euro: part 665 - and on it goes. There are continual dire warnings that if Greece defaults, it is curtains for all of us. There are dire warnings that if Greece defaults, the eurozone will break up and it will be curtains for all of us. There are dire warnings that if the eurozone breaks up, that will spell the beginning of the end of the European Union (which would be manna from heaven for various anti-EU dinosaurs around the continent, including Britain's UKIP who are mainly middle-class BNP supporters), and that would be curtains for all of us. Well, as one comments in such situations, up to a point Lord Copp er.
In fact, no one knows what would happen if Greece defaulted. Yes, things would be tough for a while, but quite how tough and for how long is a complete unknown. Certainly, many have much to lose if the euro goes phutt - a great many bankers, a great many politicians and a great many eurocrats. But it seems to me that the time has long come to bite the bullet. Let Greece default. Let it get back on its feet. All that is achieved by buggering on is that come euro armageddon it will be even worse.
He has published an apology on his website, and his employers have suspended him while he undergoes - it is stressed 'at his own expense' though that really is a weasel detail - four months of 'journalistic retraining'. Sorry, but that is all cobblers. And in an odd sort of way my heart rather goes out to young Johan, as we must still call him, because although he is now 32, he first made his mark as an eight-year-old, calling in print for the public execution of the then Margaret Thatcher and still carries with him the aura of a Wunderkind.
Johan - young Johan - did only one thing wrong: he broke the Eleventh Commandment which states quite unequivocally Thou
In all my time as a reporter (not long, actually, six years, after that I tool refuge is the more tranquil waters of sub-editing) and an age ago I never, but never, quoted anyone verbatim. For one thing most people are inarticulate and never, but never, speak in the way we hacks would like them to speak. For another, and more seriously, all too often they would simply not say what we wanted them to say, however often we tried to wheedle it out of them. Young Johan's crime is simple: he didn't cover his arse. He didn't muddy the waters. For one thing, he filched his quotes from the published works of his interviewees, which was simply stupid. What he should have done, what we all did and do, is 'clean up' what we are told. Unless a tape or digital recording is made of an interview, no one ever remembers what they said exactly. The trick, when 'cleaning up', is to keep it truthful. For example, anyone apparently quoting Arthur Scargill as saying 'the Queen, eh, you've just got to love her, isn't she marvellous' would be riding for a fall. But if you quote someone as saying what they are more than likely to have said, and make them sound twice as intelligent and articulate into the bargain, well, everyone is happy and trebles all round. But young Johan didn't do that.
The Schadenfreude on the right will be based on the fact the young Johan has shown himself up to be something of a hypocrite, a man - boy? someone put me straight - who thought nothing of damning to hell all sorts of people for their hypocrisy and attacking all out those whose thought deviated just a centimetre from his own pure ideology. Serves you right, you little cunt, they are all now saying, and young Johan's website apology commits the unforgivable error of trying to reclaim so of his erstwhile purity. He should have said: Look, chaps, I fucked up, I was wrong and I'll never do it again.
This four-month period of 'journalistic re-training' is just so much hooey. Johan should be marched into the editor's office, given a comprehensive bollocking, then sent back to his desk to carry on with his job with the admonition never to do it again and now put the matter behind you. A reconciliation over lunch would not be amiss as the Independent needs him.
What will, of course, be unbearable for the poor chap - and I am not being snide when I write that - is the Schadenfreude of the left, for they will never let him forget what he has done. Ever. Every time he is embraced when arriving at a Camden dinner party of North London's thinkers and carers, that embrace will be more barbed than any nastiness the right might aim at him. For among the left young Hari is now a marked man. He might, in time, regain his credibility generally, but among his peers, among those who respect and admiration he craves, among his friends - for which read deadly rivals - his card is marked from now until kingdom come.
I wish Johan Hari well, for we need a variety of voices, outspoken voices, from both right and the left. Just as we need Peter Hitchens, we need Johan. Just as we need that awful harridan Polly Toynbee, we need Johan. Just as we need such dinosaurs as Simon Heffer, we need Johan. And because we need him, my advice to Johan is: watch your back. But stop being so pious.
. . .
The euro: part 665 - and on it goes. There are continual dire warnings that if Greece defaults, it is curtains for all of us. There are dire warnings that if Greece defaults, the eurozone will break up and it will be curtains for all of us. There are dire warnings that if the eurozone breaks up, that will spell the beginning of the end of the European Union (which would be manna from heaven for various anti-EU dinosaurs around the continent, including Britain's UKIP who are mainly middle-class BNP supporters), and that would be curtains for all of us. Well, as one comments in such situations, up to a point Lord Copp er.
In fact, no one knows what would happen if Greece defaulted. Yes, things would be tough for a while, but quite how tough and for how long is a complete unknown. Certainly, many have much to lose if the euro goes phutt - a great many bankers, a great many politicians and a great many eurocrats. But it seems to me that the time has long come to bite the bullet. Let Greece default. Let it get back on its feet. All that is achieved by buggering on is that come euro armageddon it will be even worse.
Wednesday 14 September 2011
Essert-Romand. Day five: in which, at great length, I have absoutely nothing to say
Essert-Romand, Haute-Savoie, France.
I must come clean and admit that I have an itch to write as alcoholics have an itch to drink and kleptomaniacs have an itch to steal. The problem is, and it’s a very big problem indeed, is that I have absolutely nothing ‘to say’. Nothing whatsoever. And I am really not joking.
All right, then, you might ask, why not simply write to entertain? But that brings another huge problem: I am not a natural storyteller. Certainly I can make things up - can’t we all, especially those suffering from jealousy when they can invent without even trying. But there are those who are referred to as ‘natural storytellers’ and I am most certainly not one of those. And at the grand old age of 61 years, ten months and 24 days I have just one real principle: never, ever, bullshit yourself. Doesn’t really matter who else you bullshit, but leave yourself out. Even you do the most outrageously nasty thing, at least admit to yourself that you are doing something outrageously nasty. You don’t have to tell anyone else - in fact, it’s advisedly best not to, especially if what you have done is very unpleasant - but at least be straight with yourself.
This illusion I have had for the past 44 years, albeit ‘a writer’ who has written virtually fuck all, is ridiculous. I once explained in these pages how it came about. At school I had written a poem, which as I recall was very conventional, although that’s all I can recall. I showed it to Mr Hinds, an English teacher at the Oratory (known as C.T.S. Hinds for his enthusiasm for distributing tracts from the Catholis Truth Society) who diplomatically advised me to carry one. I now know, and have known for many years that he was merely doing what so many good teachers do: he was encouraging me. But in a stupid, though understandably teenaged way, I interpreted his encouragement rather severely. I imagined that he was telling me: you’re good, Powell. And so the illusion was born. It both helps and irritates me supremely that I share my illusion with, quite probably, one million other men and women the world over. It helps because I am not alone it being such a complete fool. But it irritates me because each of us, every last man jack of use, like to think we are unique. The liberals among you will no doubt cry: but you are unique. True, but then in that sense so is fly, worm, traffic bollard and grain of sand. As I said: don’t bullshit yourself.
So what of the plus side? Well, I have no difficulty with words, I feel at ease with them because of my long association with them as a hack, and when I read some of the abortions presented as prose, I thank God that, at least, I have that. But I don’t have a mind. And as I pointed out yesterday, there is far more to ‘writing’ than just getting words down on paper.
My brother Mark claimed earlier today that he had read somewhere that more women read novels than men. Who knows? And does it matter? Then there is the question of what kind of novel do they read. Off the top of my head I can list chick lit, macho lit (Zero Minus One, or something, and all that hard-drinking I’m a man bollocks SAS/memoirs of a SEAL crap), thrillers, sci-fi, ‘literature’ (you know, the kind of stuff which wins prizes), children’s fiction, ‘adult fiction’, pornography and ‘the classics’. The list can go on, but I have run out. Some of its is good, despite the critics, and some of it is crap, again despite the critics. When I first moved to London, suffering from depression, which wasn’t as deep as afflicts some but deep enough for me, I made an effort, conscious that I was pretty badly read for a chap who wanted to be ‘a writer’ to read, read, read. And I did. I read haphazardly, and even if a novel didn’t grab me, with only one exception - which I can’t now remember - I would finish it.
Some of what I read stood out: Lolita, which was better written by a Russian and many a book written by a Brit or a Yank was a special favourite. At the other extreme I read a novel by Jonathan Coe, who was a big noise then, though it wasn’t one of his famous ones. And I thought it was crap. I read Der Untertan by Heinrich Mann in German, which I thought was excellent, and I read, again in German Der Steppenwolf (which made a great deal more sense in its original language). I had previously - that is not as part of my somewhat pathetic period of auto-didactism - attempted Martin Amis and Will Self and thought both bollocks. But who was I to judge? They had a body of work behind them. I hadn’t. I read an utterly bizarre late-Victorian novel called Lilith and I read some Trollope. I read Darkness At Noon, which was OK, and I read A Streetcar Name Desire (which taught me that plays are meant to be performed, not read). I read several other novels whose titles and authors I can’t now recall. Two of those I can’t recall were by two other contemporary big noises, and I was not impressed but either.
I read Oscar Wilde. He could write, and write well, but what stayed with me was how little attention so many ‘good writers’ paid to language. I read, again in German Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum by Heinrich Böll and Ungeduld Des Herzens by Stefan Zweig (whose title in English translation is Beware Of Pity, not a very good title but I must admit I would be hard-pushed to come up with anything better. I enjoyed and admired the latter a great deal.
I was the archetypical Tube commute, novel in hand on my journey to and from wherever I was working a shift. Then, in December 1995, I moved to Cornwall, married two months later and my period of autodidacticism ended. (I have just looked up ‘autodidacticism’ in a dictionary, and apparently it doesn’t exist. Well, it does now.)
Finally - finally - in late 1994 I started writing and eventually completed ‘a novel’. It wasn’t the first, but the third, but it was the first which I felt, while writing it, I knew what I was doing and which I had control over. That is Love: A fiction (which yesterday I urged you to buy). The previous two efforts for which I have no title - well, I can’t judge them, although with the first I was simply happy to complete it and I was quite happy with the second, although, being a little short, it would be classed as a novella.
Not much to crow about, eh?
But still I have this itch to write. And still I have nothing ‘to say’. What is there ‘to say’? That the world can, at turns, be a shitty place and a glorious place? That people can, at turns, be evil and altruistic? What? All of us at 61 know that. Perhaps you don’t at 16 or 26 or 36 - although, unfortunately, far too many do, but by the time your limbs creak in the morning, when getting a hard-on is something of a fond memory, when rudely you end sooner rather than later a conversation you know full well is going to be very dull and chock-a-block with platitude there are rather fewer insights. Or so it would seem. The liberal in me - he does still clamour a little, dear reader, despite my best efforts to get him to shut the fuck up - warns that I might still be surprised, that a chance encounter might bring a fresh insight. The problem is that the insight will not in the slightest be original and that by articulating it as though it were fresh I shall do nothing but make a complete tit of myself. Groucho Marx once remarked that he would never want to belong to a club which would have him as a member. Similarly, I would never crave the respect and admiration of anyone who felt respect and admiration for me.
. . .
My working solution is this: try to write engagingly and try, by writing engagingly, try to entertain and put the reader off the scent: that this joe knows fuck all. And that what he does know is about as original as that revealing that pain hurts. So what am I talking about? Well, nothing. But if I have managed to get you to read as far as this, it can’t be all bad. And by the way, in case you missed it the first time, here’s the link. Buy it and make me happy. Your pleasure is my pleasure.
. . .
For the more prosaic among you who can’t be doing with all this angst, I shall record that it is six minutes past midnight on September 15, I am sitting on the balcony of the apartment Mark and I are staying at drinking - in moderation remarkable - yet more pastis, smoking yet another cigar, which I sholdn’t but what the hell. I spend the evening in Le Petit Auberge in Essert-Romand watching Manchester United hold Benfica to a 1-1 draw in a Champions League fixture in the first round, group, round of the championships.
United were playing away from home so a score draw is no bad thing. The bar was almost empty except for a slightly drunk local who had come for a drink and his supper, and a family of Americans - elderly couple, their daughter and son-in-law. The man was 68 and from Texas and had spent his life working ‘in retail’ for, I think he said, J H Pinney. Four months ago, he and his wife had taken a 15-day cruise from the Texas coast to Lisbon and then stayed at a place his son-in-law owns in the Provence. They were spending a week or two down the road here in Essert-Romand at, I gather, another place his son-in-law owns before, in the next few weeks, embarking on their cruise back home. His son-in-law is based in London and works as a consultant in the ‘supply industry’.
Having just finished reading a spy novel and finished watching two spy films, I like to think that he is, in fact, employed by the CIA station in London. But, actually, I’m pretty bloody certain he is a consultant in the ‘supply industry’. I mean someone has to be, although he must be pretty well paid if he and his wife can afford a property in the Provence where, according to his father-in-law, they spend ‘most weekends’. I chatted briefly in my dog French and he in his dog English to the local who bought me a drink and was engaged in taking part in Maitre de Jeu, a lottery in which a draw takes places every five minutes apparently. He did win - which is probably why he bought be a drink - but he spent a great deal more on the tickets he bought than the measly 62 euros he won overall. And there was me, who has nothing ‘to say’, glad that Manchester United scored a crucial away goal and will undoubtedly win in the return match when Benfica visit Old Trafford.
. . .
I am rambling on now because I still have a little pastis left in my glass and started another cigar a while ago which I am loth to waste. I chatted to my daughter Elsie on Skype, a video call, and yet again was struck by had pretty she is. Unfortunately, she takes after me rather than her mother physiologically and puts weight on easily. But as she is only 15 she is by no means fat and I should imagine that she has a good few years ahead of her before she marries, has children and then gets rather broad in the beam.
Wes was there, too, but at 12 he still hasn’t really started puberty and is still, again rather like me - who has not only started but also completed puberty - was more inclined to play the fool. Mark went to bed when I went across to the bar to watch a film on the internet. I would give you the link to the very useful site on which one can watch full-length, recent, films completely free-of-charge, but as I am certain it is completely illegal I shan’. Oh, and one last thing before I end and post this on my blog: one of the very best things I have done in these past few years was to teach myself to touch-type. It is great to think, compose and type almost simultaneously. Good night, and God bless.
I must come clean and admit that I have an itch to write as alcoholics have an itch to drink and kleptomaniacs have an itch to steal. The problem is, and it’s a very big problem indeed, is that I have absolutely nothing ‘to say’. Nothing whatsoever. And I am really not joking.
All right, then, you might ask, why not simply write to entertain? But that brings another huge problem: I am not a natural storyteller. Certainly I can make things up - can’t we all, especially those suffering from jealousy when they can invent without even trying. But there are those who are referred to as ‘natural storytellers’ and I am most certainly not one of those. And at the grand old age of 61 years, ten months and 24 days I have just one real principle: never, ever, bullshit yourself. Doesn’t really matter who else you bullshit, but leave yourself out. Even you do the most outrageously nasty thing, at least admit to yourself that you are doing something outrageously nasty. You don’t have to tell anyone else - in fact, it’s advisedly best not to, especially if what you have done is very unpleasant - but at least be straight with yourself.
This illusion I have had for the past 44 years, albeit ‘a writer’ who has written virtually fuck all, is ridiculous. I once explained in these pages how it came about. At school I had written a poem, which as I recall was very conventional, although that’s all I can recall. I showed it to Mr Hinds, an English teacher at the Oratory (known as C.T.S. Hinds for his enthusiasm for distributing tracts from the Catholis Truth Society) who diplomatically advised me to carry one. I now know, and have known for many years that he was merely doing what so many good teachers do: he was encouraging me. But in a stupid, though understandably teenaged way, I interpreted his encouragement rather severely. I imagined that he was telling me: you’re good, Powell. And so the illusion was born. It both helps and irritates me supremely that I share my illusion with, quite probably, one million other men and women the world over. It helps because I am not alone it being such a complete fool. But it irritates me because each of us, every last man jack of use, like to think we are unique. The liberals among you will no doubt cry: but you are unique. True, but then in that sense so is fly, worm, traffic bollard and grain of sand. As I said: don’t bullshit yourself.
So what of the plus side? Well, I have no difficulty with words, I feel at ease with them because of my long association with them as a hack, and when I read some of the abortions presented as prose, I thank God that, at least, I have that. But I don’t have a mind. And as I pointed out yesterday, there is far more to ‘writing’ than just getting words down on paper.
My brother Mark claimed earlier today that he had read somewhere that more women read novels than men. Who knows? And does it matter? Then there is the question of what kind of novel do they read. Off the top of my head I can list chick lit, macho lit (Zero Minus One, or something, and all that hard-drinking I’m a man bollocks SAS/memoirs of a SEAL crap), thrillers, sci-fi, ‘literature’ (you know, the kind of stuff which wins prizes), children’s fiction, ‘adult fiction’, pornography and ‘the classics’. The list can go on, but I have run out. Some of its is good, despite the critics, and some of it is crap, again despite the critics. When I first moved to London, suffering from depression, which wasn’t as deep as afflicts some but deep enough for me, I made an effort, conscious that I was pretty badly read for a chap who wanted to be ‘a writer’ to read, read, read. And I did. I read haphazardly, and even if a novel didn’t grab me, with only one exception - which I can’t now remember - I would finish it.
Some of what I read stood out: Lolita, which was better written by a Russian and many a book written by a Brit or a Yank was a special favourite. At the other extreme I read a novel by Jonathan Coe, who was a big noise then, though it wasn’t one of his famous ones. And I thought it was crap. I read Der Untertan by Heinrich Mann in German, which I thought was excellent, and I read, again in German Der Steppenwolf (which made a great deal more sense in its original language). I had previously - that is not as part of my somewhat pathetic period of auto-didactism - attempted Martin Amis and Will Self and thought both bollocks. But who was I to judge? They had a body of work behind them. I hadn’t. I read an utterly bizarre late-Victorian novel called Lilith and I read some Trollope. I read Darkness At Noon, which was OK, and I read A Streetcar Name Desire (which taught me that plays are meant to be performed, not read). I read several other novels whose titles and authors I can’t now recall. Two of those I can’t recall were by two other contemporary big noises, and I was not impressed but either.
I read Oscar Wilde. He could write, and write well, but what stayed with me was how little attention so many ‘good writers’ paid to language. I read, again in German Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum by Heinrich Böll and Ungeduld Des Herzens by Stefan Zweig (whose title in English translation is Beware Of Pity, not a very good title but I must admit I would be hard-pushed to come up with anything better. I enjoyed and admired the latter a great deal.
I was the archetypical Tube commute, novel in hand on my journey to and from wherever I was working a shift. Then, in December 1995, I moved to Cornwall, married two months later and my period of autodidacticism ended. (I have just looked up ‘autodidacticism’ in a dictionary, and apparently it doesn’t exist. Well, it does now.)
Finally - finally - in late 1994 I started writing and eventually completed ‘a novel’. It wasn’t the first, but the third, but it was the first which I felt, while writing it, I knew what I was doing and which I had control over. That is Love: A fiction (which yesterday I urged you to buy). The previous two efforts for which I have no title - well, I can’t judge them, although with the first I was simply happy to complete it and I was quite happy with the second, although, being a little short, it would be classed as a novella.
Not much to crow about, eh?
But still I have this itch to write. And still I have nothing ‘to say’. What is there ‘to say’? That the world can, at turns, be a shitty place and a glorious place? That people can, at turns, be evil and altruistic? What? All of us at 61 know that. Perhaps you don’t at 16 or 26 or 36 - although, unfortunately, far too many do, but by the time your limbs creak in the morning, when getting a hard-on is something of a fond memory, when rudely you end sooner rather than later a conversation you know full well is going to be very dull and chock-a-block with platitude there are rather fewer insights. Or so it would seem. The liberal in me - he does still clamour a little, dear reader, despite my best efforts to get him to shut the fuck up - warns that I might still be surprised, that a chance encounter might bring a fresh insight. The problem is that the insight will not in the slightest be original and that by articulating it as though it were fresh I shall do nothing but make a complete tit of myself. Groucho Marx once remarked that he would never want to belong to a club which would have him as a member. Similarly, I would never crave the respect and admiration of anyone who felt respect and admiration for me.
. . .
My working solution is this: try to write engagingly and try, by writing engagingly, try to entertain and put the reader off the scent: that this joe knows fuck all. And that what he does know is about as original as that revealing that pain hurts. So what am I talking about? Well, nothing. But if I have managed to get you to read as far as this, it can’t be all bad. And by the way, in case you missed it the first time, here’s the link. Buy it and make me happy. Your pleasure is my pleasure.
. . .
For the more prosaic among you who can’t be doing with all this angst, I shall record that it is six minutes past midnight on September 15, I am sitting on the balcony of the apartment Mark and I are staying at drinking - in moderation remarkable - yet more pastis, smoking yet another cigar, which I sholdn’t but what the hell. I spend the evening in Le Petit Auberge in Essert-Romand watching Manchester United hold Benfica to a 1-1 draw in a Champions League fixture in the first round, group, round of the championships.
United were playing away from home so a score draw is no bad thing. The bar was almost empty except for a slightly drunk local who had come for a drink and his supper, and a family of Americans - elderly couple, their daughter and son-in-law. The man was 68 and from Texas and had spent his life working ‘in retail’ for, I think he said, J H Pinney. Four months ago, he and his wife had taken a 15-day cruise from the Texas coast to Lisbon and then stayed at a place his son-in-law owns in the Provence. They were spending a week or two down the road here in Essert-Romand at, I gather, another place his son-in-law owns before, in the next few weeks, embarking on their cruise back home. His son-in-law is based in London and works as a consultant in the ‘supply industry’.
Having just finished reading a spy novel and finished watching two spy films, I like to think that he is, in fact, employed by the CIA station in London. But, actually, I’m pretty bloody certain he is a consultant in the ‘supply industry’. I mean someone has to be, although he must be pretty well paid if he and his wife can afford a property in the Provence where, according to his father-in-law, they spend ‘most weekends’. I chatted briefly in my dog French and he in his dog English to the local who bought me a drink and was engaged in taking part in Maitre de Jeu, a lottery in which a draw takes places every five minutes apparently. He did win - which is probably why he bought be a drink - but he spent a great deal more on the tickets he bought than the measly 62 euros he won overall. And there was me, who has nothing ‘to say’, glad that Manchester United scored a crucial away goal and will undoubtedly win in the return match when Benfica visit Old Trafford.
. . .
I am rambling on now because I still have a little pastis left in my glass and started another cigar a while ago which I am loth to waste. I chatted to my daughter Elsie on Skype, a video call, and yet again was struck by had pretty she is. Unfortunately, she takes after me rather than her mother physiologically and puts weight on easily. But as she is only 15 she is by no means fat and I should imagine that she has a good few years ahead of her before she marries, has children and then gets rather broad in the beam.
Wes was there, too, but at 12 he still hasn’t really started puberty and is still, again rather like me - who has not only started but also completed puberty - was more inclined to play the fool. Mark went to bed when I went across to the bar to watch a film on the internet. I would give you the link to the very useful site on which one can watch full-length, recent, films completely free-of-charge, but as I am certain it is completely illegal I shan’. Oh, and one last thing before I end and post this on my blog: one of the very best things I have done in these past few years was to teach myself to touch-type. It is great to think, compose and type almost simultaneously. Good night, and God bless.
Essert-Romand. Day four - surrounded by clouds so I use the opportunity to plug my novel (which ain't half bad, even though I say so myself)
Essert-Romand, Haute-Savoie, France.
Our fourth day here in the Haute-Savoie and the clouds have arrived. That sounds worse than it really is, in that it’s not some kind of cloud-covered gloomy day you get all-too-often in Frinton or Chapel St Leonards, simply that as we are more or less up in the mountains - thought they do get higher - the clouds have simply come lower and as I write are drifting past my bedroom window. But there is also plenty of autumnal sunshine, which make it all very pleasant. But I wouldn’t care if it were raining. I finished John le Carre’s The Russia House on Monday and have now started a biography of Stalin when he was just a young shaver playing practical jokes on local chaps in Tblisi involving Mausers, bombs, and general violence. It reads very well but, I’m glad to say, is not a potboiler.
The le Carre was a good read, too, although I was puzzled by its structure: it is sort of kind of kind of sort of (and in-joke that, which only I share) written in the first person, yet there are very detailed descriptions of situations where the ‘first person’ could not have been present. A solution to this conundrum is given in the final page where the ‘hero’ tells his story to the ‘first-person narrator’ or, rather, fills in details the narrator could not have know, but I have to say it is all rather unconvincing.
Another problem (well, a problem for me as I still have my literary pretensions and think about these matters) is that I feel any first-person narration should have a justification i.e. exactly why is this man or this woman telling his or her story? And his or her justification for doing so should be an intricate element of that story. I realise that many might feel I am not seeing the wood for the trees, but it does bother me. The example I always give is this: Consider a man who decides to go for a Chinese meal at his local Chinese restaurant. He arrives, sits at a table and orders, when suddenly a cook appears from the kitchen carrying one of those very large and sharp knives one finds in Chinese kitchens, attacks the front of staff and manages to decapitate one of the.
Now if our customer were to give a first-person account to a friend later that night, surely he would say: Bloody hell, you won’t believe what I’ve witnessed tonight. A cook in the chinkie I went to went berserk and chopped of the manager’s head, or something like that. What he wouldn’t do, at that first encounter, is begin: Well, it was a peaceful, barlmy night, and after I had looked in the fridge and discovered there was nothing in it which grabbed my fancy, I decided to visit my local Chinese restaurant. I didn’t use a coat because . . . Well, he wouldn’t would he? Yet that is what happens all-too-often in first-person narrations, and usually the narrator has no reason to write down (in novel form) what he is recounting.
Yes, I know I’m getting a little bit anal about it. But at least in my novel (more or less my first and only novel so far, if you ignore one or two earlier and not very good efforts - details of how to get a copy below) at least the first-person narrations (there are two) and the third-person narration are ‘built into’ the structure of the novel and I like to think they make logical sense. I mean that is the problem: I don’t find writing, as in getting words down on paper, at all difficult. But there’s obviously far more to ‘writing’ than simply getting the words down on paper: there is though, internal coherence and cohesion, ensuring that characters speak and behave in character. If a first-person narrator simply tells his story and there is no apparent reason just why he should tell his story, well, I find that rather unconvincing. Precious? Moi?
. . .
Here are details as to where you can get my novel, neatly bound and printed courtesy of Lulu.com. If you visit this address, you might see two novels on offer. Don’t be fooled: they are one and the same except that I changed the title and the blurb on the back to make it more attractive to anyone considering buying it, which, to date, seems to be exactly no one. But I boy can dream. I have also been through it once or twice and added or removed a comma here and there, and the most recent is Love: A fiction.
Dig those gorgeous roses - aren't they just so romantic! Granted that this is an unashamed plug, but my view is that a cook doesn’t cook a meal and then throw it away - if he has no guests, he will invite strangers to eat it. His pleasure comes from the cooking and then the pleasure of feeding other in the hope that they enjoy what they are eating. If you get my drift. If you do consider buying it, do remember the old saw of never judging a book by its cover. All is not what it appears to be, although (and several people have read it) absolutely no one so far has cottoned on to what I attempted and, I like to feel, more or less succeeded in doing. Try here to visit Lulu and buy a copy if you have a few spare shekels.
Now I’m off to read all about young Stalin.
. . .
Incidentally, I know I joke about commas, but they are important. The add to the clarity of a piece by indication where in a sentence we should pause. Often they can even change the meaning of a sentence entirely. For example: these two sentences are not the same and what happens varies in both.
1) The police rounded up the doctors who had been dealing drugs and jailed them.
2) The police rounded up the doctors, who had been dealing drugs, and jailed them.
In example number one, the police round up only those doctors who had been dealing drugs. In example number two, the police round up all doctors, because they had all been dealing drugs. So this talk of adding and removing commas is not at all precious (although I’ll stick with my joke). There an anecdote about Oscar Wilde once being asked what he had done all day. He replied that he had spent all the morning considering whether to add a comma to a certain sentence to make it read better. After lunch he had spent all afternoon considering whether to remove it again, and had finally decided to do so. And talking of Oscar Wilde, I once came across a quote from him which no one else seems to have heard. Many know his dictum (which I believe, in fact, he cribbed from someone else - naughty, Oscar): A cynic know the price of everything and the value of nothing. But he also said about cynics (and this explains one aspect of the Nazis): Sentimentality is a bank holiday from cynicism, which in my view hits the nail on the head.
Talking about Oscar cribbing dictums and saying, there is also the story of the American painter James Whistler who settled in England and made it his home. He had a rather sharp tongue and was very witty, but was annoyed that Oscar Wilde would often steal his witticisms and pass them off as his own. One day when Oscar was still up at Oxford, he was sitting at Whistler’s feet at some soiree or other and Whistler made a witty comment.
Oh, I wish I had said that, said Oscar.
You will, Oscar, you will, Whistler replied.
. . .
For years I had it in my head that the plural of comma was commata. It’s not, it’s commas. Well!
Our fourth day here in the Haute-Savoie and the clouds have arrived. That sounds worse than it really is, in that it’s not some kind of cloud-covered gloomy day you get all-too-often in Frinton or Chapel St Leonards, simply that as we are more or less up in the mountains - thought they do get higher - the clouds have simply come lower and as I write are drifting past my bedroom window. But there is also plenty of autumnal sunshine, which make it all very pleasant. But I wouldn’t care if it were raining. I finished John le Carre’s The Russia House on Monday and have now started a biography of Stalin when he was just a young shaver playing practical jokes on local chaps in Tblisi involving Mausers, bombs, and general violence. It reads very well but, I’m glad to say, is not a potboiler.
The le Carre was a good read, too, although I was puzzled by its structure: it is sort of kind of kind of sort of (and in-joke that, which only I share) written in the first person, yet there are very detailed descriptions of situations where the ‘first person’ could not have been present. A solution to this conundrum is given in the final page where the ‘hero’ tells his story to the ‘first-person narrator’ or, rather, fills in details the narrator could not have know, but I have to say it is all rather unconvincing.
Another problem (well, a problem for me as I still have my literary pretensions and think about these matters) is that I feel any first-person narration should have a justification i.e. exactly why is this man or this woman telling his or her story? And his or her justification for doing so should be an intricate element of that story. I realise that many might feel I am not seeing the wood for the trees, but it does bother me. The example I always give is this: Consider a man who decides to go for a Chinese meal at his local Chinese restaurant. He arrives, sits at a table and orders, when suddenly a cook appears from the kitchen carrying one of those very large and sharp knives one finds in Chinese kitchens, attacks the front of staff and manages to decapitate one of the.
Now if our customer were to give a first-person account to a friend later that night, surely he would say: Bloody hell, you won’t believe what I’ve witnessed tonight. A cook in the chinkie I went to went berserk and chopped of the manager’s head, or something like that. What he wouldn’t do, at that first encounter, is begin: Well, it was a peaceful, barlmy night, and after I had looked in the fridge and discovered there was nothing in it which grabbed my fancy, I decided to visit my local Chinese restaurant. I didn’t use a coat because . . . Well, he wouldn’t would he? Yet that is what happens all-too-often in first-person narrations, and usually the narrator has no reason to write down (in novel form) what he is recounting.
Yes, I know I’m getting a little bit anal about it. But at least in my novel (more or less my first and only novel so far, if you ignore one or two earlier and not very good efforts - details of how to get a copy below) at least the first-person narrations (there are two) and the third-person narration are ‘built into’ the structure of the novel and I like to think they make logical sense. I mean that is the problem: I don’t find writing, as in getting words down on paper, at all difficult. But there’s obviously far more to ‘writing’ than simply getting the words down on paper: there is though, internal coherence and cohesion, ensuring that characters speak and behave in character. If a first-person narrator simply tells his story and there is no apparent reason just why he should tell his story, well, I find that rather unconvincing. Precious? Moi?
. . .
Here are details as to where you can get my novel, neatly bound and printed courtesy of Lulu.com. If you visit this address, you might see two novels on offer. Don’t be fooled: they are one and the same except that I changed the title and the blurb on the back to make it more attractive to anyone considering buying it, which, to date, seems to be exactly no one. But I boy can dream. I have also been through it once or twice and added or removed a comma here and there, and the most recent is Love: A fiction.
Now I’m off to read all about young Stalin.
. . .
Incidentally, I know I joke about commas, but they are important. The add to the clarity of a piece by indication where in a sentence we should pause. Often they can even change the meaning of a sentence entirely. For example: these two sentences are not the same and what happens varies in both.
1) The police rounded up the doctors who had been dealing drugs and jailed them.
2) The police rounded up the doctors, who had been dealing drugs, and jailed them.
In example number one, the police round up only those doctors who had been dealing drugs. In example number two, the police round up all doctors, because they had all been dealing drugs. So this talk of adding and removing commas is not at all precious (although I’ll stick with my joke). There an anecdote about Oscar Wilde once being asked what he had done all day. He replied that he had spent all the morning considering whether to add a comma to a certain sentence to make it read better. After lunch he had spent all afternoon considering whether to remove it again, and had finally decided to do so. And talking of Oscar Wilde, I once came across a quote from him which no one else seems to have heard. Many know his dictum (which I believe, in fact, he cribbed from someone else - naughty, Oscar): A cynic know the price of everything and the value of nothing. But he also said about cynics (and this explains one aspect of the Nazis): Sentimentality is a bank holiday from cynicism, which in my view hits the nail on the head.
Talking about Oscar cribbing dictums and saying, there is also the story of the American painter James Whistler who settled in England and made it his home. He had a rather sharp tongue and was very witty, but was annoyed that Oscar Wilde would often steal his witticisms and pass them off as his own. One day when Oscar was still up at Oxford, he was sitting at Whistler’s feet at some soiree or other and Whistler made a witty comment.
Oh, I wish I had said that, said Oscar.
You will, Oscar, you will, Whistler replied.
. . .
For years I had it in my head that the plural of comma was commata. It’s not, it’s commas. Well!
Tuesday 13 September 2011
Essert-Romand. Day three - an insight
Essert-Romand, Haute-Savoie, France.
Those who might be craving an additional insight into brother Mark's character (brother Mark, my favourite of two brothers, is the one who lost his passport within seconds of arriving at Geneva airport but refused categorically to return to chase up the loss when, just ten minutes drive away he discovered what had happened) might be interested in this, an exchange which took place less than three minutes ago.
The scene: we are just three days into our holiday with another 11 days of blissless nothing to do - no obligations, no work to go to, nothing - settled into a very comfortable ski apartment in Essert-Romand, sitting on the balcony overlooking a very pleasant valley, a large glass of pastis at our elbows, the temperature falling a little but still comfortable. I am feeling contented and ask:
Are you enjoying yourself, Mark?
He:
Why do you ask?
Why indeed? Just thought I would pass the time of day. Why on earth did I bother?
Supper is Piedmont tomatoes (Delia's recipe) prepard by me, and chicory salad, prepared by Mark. Why did I ask? I do wonder.
Those who might be craving an additional insight into brother Mark's character (brother Mark, my favourite of two brothers, is the one who lost his passport within seconds of arriving at Geneva airport but refused categorically to return to chase up the loss when, just ten minutes drive away he discovered what had happened) might be interested in this, an exchange which took place less than three minutes ago.
The scene: we are just three days into our holiday with another 11 days of blissless nothing to do - no obligations, no work to go to, nothing - settled into a very comfortable ski apartment in Essert-Romand, sitting on the balcony overlooking a very pleasant valley, a large glass of pastis at our elbows, the temperature falling a little but still comfortable. I am feeling contented and ask:
Are you enjoying yourself, Mark?
He:
Why do you ask?
Why indeed? Just thought I would pass the time of day. Why on earth did I bother?
Supper is Piedmont tomatoes (Delia's recipe) prepard by me, and chicory salad, prepared by Mark. Why did I ask? I do wonder.
Monday 12 September 2011
Essert-Romand. Day two. And to use a cliche: Greek default and the euro - the endgame
Essert-Romand, Haute-Savoie, France.
Second day here in the Rhone Alps, so I thought I might dribble on a bit and keep whoever is bloody interested up to speed (Sid and Doris Bonkers for anyone who cares to pick up on the allusion, not that it is in any way significant. But I am keen to get underway a literary tradition of ‘insignificant significance’ - see further dribblings, as yet unpublished, for greater insight, although I should warn you that an essential element in the new literary philosophy of ‘insignificant singificance’ is the notion of ‘pointless insight’)
After a train ride to Gatwick Airport, the highlight of which was being buttonholed by a divorced Russian journalist (her claim) who was on her way to Sicily for alone for a 20-day sojourn and who didn’t stop talking about herself from Clapham Junction to Gatwick, Mark and I flew to Geneva Airport where we encountered our first hiccup.
I am vacationing with my younger brother Mark who I have finally managed to winkle out of his hole for what I believe is a much-needed holiday. For two months earlier this year, he was bedridden with an awful case of shingles and, I think, that persuaded him to give in and come with me. I get on well with Mark, and although I am now almost 62 and he turned 53 in June, I still regard him as ‘my little brother’. Older siblings might know what I am talking about.
But Mark can be quiet particular, and that first hiccup - for him at least, I didn’t give a flying fuck - was that instead of the VW Polo hire car he reckons we were promised by Budget, we ended up with a Skoda Fabia. He was rather put out and suggested, whether seriously or not, that we should complain and insist on a Polo. As, as far as I am concerned, I’ll put up with more or less any car as long as it has four wheels, a working engine and keeps me dry, I didn’t encourage him. So the Skoda it was, and is, and, as you will gather I have no complaints.
A slightly bigger hiccup occurred when we approached the Swiss/French border and Mark went to take out his passport in case the border police of either stripe demanded to see it. He could find it. We pulled in and he searched is jacket high and low, then his bag, then the car, but he still couldn’t find it. He last had it, as must be pretty obvious, when we went through immigration at the airport just 30 minutes earlier but between then and now it had mysteriously gone missing. I offered to turn around and drive back to the airport as we were no more than 10 minutes away, but in that stubborn way he was, he would hear none of it (which for me is a subsidiary mystery - returning to the airport and trying to track it down seemed to me the obvious thing to do).
Then is was the winding schlepp through sunny Alpine road to this little hamlet. It is just on the outskirts of Morzine, but we took a wrong turning somewhere and drove right into the town, arriving after dark when everything was lit up and made it all look like a Hollywood Alpine film set designed by someone with more money than taste. After I had finally persuaded him to ask directions to Essert-Romand (he was brought up in France and is bilingual in English and French but is oddly pathologically averse to bothering people by way of asking directions) we reached the little hamlet. There was one last diversion when instead of taking a turning just 30m up a steep hill off the main road, we carried on for anther few kilometres deep into the mountains. We then came across a gang of young men from whom, again at my urging, Mark solicited directions and finally arrived at our apartment.
It is very nice and comfortable. The first day, yesterday, we spent doing absolutely nothing - which is as it should be - and today we visited the local Carrefour to stock up on gin and tonic and all the things that go with gin and tonic (moussaka, kitchen towels, red peppers, crisps etc.)
. . .
What is quite noticeable is how expensive ordinary goods are here in France. Given that the pound is trading 1 to 1.13 euros, prices seem to have gone up quite remarkable in these past few years. I was in France last July, but I didn’t do very much shopping. But my brother and I went out today for a general shop-up and for pretty much very few goods I parted with 46.40 euros. That’s more than £41. Ironcially, the most expensive item - a 75cl - was still cheaper than I could have bought it in England, so the other goods - red peppers, jar of anchovies, milk, break, garlic, nuts and crisps (and one or two other things I can’t be arsed to record at this point) were up in price. This on the day when the shares in French banks are plummeting, given that far too many of them hold Greek bonds. I wonder whether all the futures bods in the City have now laid their bets as to how soon the Greece will default?
The panic started when spokesmen for both coalition parties in Germany talked of ‘an orderly default by Greece’ no longer being out of the question. And bearing in mind the old saw that one should never believe anything until it’s officially denied, a default be Greece in now a racing certainty. About the only game in town is which one of the German government’s tame banks and cronies should be shielded from the fallout. That’s what will be getting hearts racing in Berlin and Frankfurt. Oddly enough, I was also on holiday in September when Britain was turfed out of the ERM (which, in hindsight, was a blessing in disguise).
Second day here in the Rhone Alps, so I thought I might dribble on a bit and keep whoever is bloody interested up to speed (Sid and Doris Bonkers for anyone who cares to pick up on the allusion, not that it is in any way significant. But I am keen to get underway a literary tradition of ‘insignificant significance’ - see further dribblings, as yet unpublished, for greater insight, although I should warn you that an essential element in the new literary philosophy of ‘insignificant singificance’ is the notion of ‘pointless insight’)
After a train ride to Gatwick Airport, the highlight of which was being buttonholed by a divorced Russian journalist (her claim) who was on her way to Sicily for alone for a 20-day sojourn and who didn’t stop talking about herself from Clapham Junction to Gatwick, Mark and I flew to Geneva Airport where we encountered our first hiccup.
I am vacationing with my younger brother Mark who I have finally managed to winkle out of his hole for what I believe is a much-needed holiday. For two months earlier this year, he was bedridden with an awful case of shingles and, I think, that persuaded him to give in and come with me. I get on well with Mark, and although I am now almost 62 and he turned 53 in June, I still regard him as ‘my little brother’. Older siblings might know what I am talking about.
But Mark can be quiet particular, and that first hiccup - for him at least, I didn’t give a flying fuck - was that instead of the VW Polo hire car he reckons we were promised by Budget, we ended up with a Skoda Fabia. He was rather put out and suggested, whether seriously or not, that we should complain and insist on a Polo. As, as far as I am concerned, I’ll put up with more or less any car as long as it has four wheels, a working engine and keeps me dry, I didn’t encourage him. So the Skoda it was, and is, and, as you will gather I have no complaints.
A slightly bigger hiccup occurred when we approached the Swiss/French border and Mark went to take out his passport in case the border police of either stripe demanded to see it. He could find it. We pulled in and he searched is jacket high and low, then his bag, then the car, but he still couldn’t find it. He last had it, as must be pretty obvious, when we went through immigration at the airport just 30 minutes earlier but between then and now it had mysteriously gone missing. I offered to turn around and drive back to the airport as we were no more than 10 minutes away, but in that stubborn way he was, he would hear none of it (which for me is a subsidiary mystery - returning to the airport and trying to track it down seemed to me the obvious thing to do).
Then is was the winding schlepp through sunny Alpine road to this little hamlet. It is just on the outskirts of Morzine, but we took a wrong turning somewhere and drove right into the town, arriving after dark when everything was lit up and made it all look like a Hollywood Alpine film set designed by someone with more money than taste. After I had finally persuaded him to ask directions to Essert-Romand (he was brought up in France and is bilingual in English and French but is oddly pathologically averse to bothering people by way of asking directions) we reached the little hamlet. There was one last diversion when instead of taking a turning just 30m up a steep hill off the main road, we carried on for anther few kilometres deep into the mountains. We then came across a gang of young men from whom, again at my urging, Mark solicited directions and finally arrived at our apartment.
It is very nice and comfortable. The first day, yesterday, we spent doing absolutely nothing - which is as it should be - and today we visited the local Carrefour to stock up on gin and tonic and all the things that go with gin and tonic (moussaka, kitchen towels, red peppers, crisps etc.)
. . .
What is quite noticeable is how expensive ordinary goods are here in France. Given that the pound is trading 1 to 1.13 euros, prices seem to have gone up quite remarkable in these past few years. I was in France last July, but I didn’t do very much shopping. But my brother and I went out today for a general shop-up and for pretty much very few goods I parted with 46.40 euros. That’s more than £41. Ironcially, the most expensive item - a 75cl - was still cheaper than I could have bought it in England, so the other goods - red peppers, jar of anchovies, milk, break, garlic, nuts and crisps (and one or two other things I can’t be arsed to record at this point) were up in price. This on the day when the shares in French banks are plummeting, given that far too many of them hold Greek bonds. I wonder whether all the futures bods in the City have now laid their bets as to how soon the Greece will default?
The panic started when spokesmen for both coalition parties in Germany talked of ‘an orderly default by Greece’ no longer being out of the question. And bearing in mind the old saw that one should never believe anything until it’s officially denied, a default be Greece in now a racing certainty. About the only game in town is which one of the German government’s tame banks and cronies should be shielded from the fallout. That’s what will be getting hearts racing in Berlin and Frankfurt. Oddly enough, I was also on holiday in September when Britain was turfed out of the ERM (which, in hindsight, was a blessing in disguise).
Saturday 3 September 2011
CIA and MI6 not above doing business with whoever if the results are right
A while ago, I trawled the net for whatever pictures I could find of various world leaders schmoozing the Gaddafi. I came across several and published them. In view of today’s lead news on the BBC News website, I thought it might be worth publishing them again. What was that news? Well, despite our ostensible distaste for the various cutthroats around the world we choose to label as dictators, we are not above getting into bed with them when and if. And it seems that’s just what America’s CIA and Britain’s MI6 were doing for several years before Gaddafi’s recent difficulties. You can read more here.
In the meantime, here again are thoses piccies:
Blair greets his old mucker Muammar - God, I've missed you - no, I don’t have a gun in my pocket
Anything Tony can do - well, so can Barak. He manages to look sincere - go team Obama
... and don't forget good ol' Nicolas - can't let those bloody roast beefs steal all the glory
When it comes to reformed characters guys like Putin will yield to no one. How's it going, my old mate Muammar?
Finally, of course, Brown might have come late to the office of Prime Minister - or later than he demanded - but he was just as willing to kiss arse as his predecessor
. . .
Off to France in seven days for a well-earned break, in the Haut Savoie just south of the Swiss border, where loads and load and loads of folk go skiing, but as in the middle two weeks of September there should be no snow whatsoever, I hope to God I don’t bump into any Brits. I don’t know what it is – perhaps it is my German blood – but I do find a great many Brits I meet abroad a complete embarrassment. The middle-class ones get very pretentious as the food and wine, and treat almost everything French as though it were manna from Heaven. ‘Lord, the French know how to live, could teach us a thing or two’. Er, no, actually, if we Brits regarded food as one of life’s pleasures rather than as mere sustenance and if, consequently, we gave a little more care and attention to its preparation, we, too, could eat like the French. As for the wine, there is as much bad wine around in France as in England. The main difference as far as wine is concerned between the French (and Italians and Spanish) and we Brits is that they will drink a glass or two and leave it at that, but we feel obliged to drink the whole bottle, start a second and see just how fast and far we can get off our faces with – the usual Brit touch – for the minimum outlay.
As for – well, I am too delicate to lay myself open to a charge of snobbery beyond the call of duty so I shall restrict myself to referring to this next group as the ‘not middle-class’, all they seem to want to do is to get as pissed as possible as fast as possible. ‘But didn’t you just say that about the middle-classes’ I hear you ask? No, not quite. The crucial difference is that the ‘not middle-class’ don’t get all hoity-toity about drinking wine whereas the middle-class like to imbue it with some kind of spurious cultural significance. ‘Lord, isn’t it great to live a little, I mean really live properly, you know the French could teach us a thing or two.’
I shall carry on doing my puzzles work while on holiday which means I had to dig out a chalet with wireless internet access. So, if I take any nice piccies, I shall post them here on this blog. Oh, and I am going with my younger brother who attended French schools for five years as a lad and speaks French. I , on the other hand, don’t.
. . .
And just for the craic, a picture of my son taken nine years ago which I have been dicking around with.
In the meantime, here again are thoses piccies:
. . .
Off to France in seven days for a well-earned break, in the Haut Savoie just south of the Swiss border, where loads and load and loads of folk go skiing, but as in the middle two weeks of September there should be no snow whatsoever, I hope to God I don’t bump into any Brits. I don’t know what it is – perhaps it is my German blood – but I do find a great many Brits I meet abroad a complete embarrassment. The middle-class ones get very pretentious as the food and wine, and treat almost everything French as though it were manna from Heaven. ‘Lord, the French know how to live, could teach us a thing or two’. Er, no, actually, if we Brits regarded food as one of life’s pleasures rather than as mere sustenance and if, consequently, we gave a little more care and attention to its preparation, we, too, could eat like the French. As for the wine, there is as much bad wine around in France as in England. The main difference as far as wine is concerned between the French (and Italians and Spanish) and we Brits is that they will drink a glass or two and leave it at that, but we feel obliged to drink the whole bottle, start a second and see just how fast and far we can get off our faces with – the usual Brit touch – for the minimum outlay.
As for – well, I am too delicate to lay myself open to a charge of snobbery beyond the call of duty so I shall restrict myself to referring to this next group as the ‘not middle-class’, all they seem to want to do is to get as pissed as possible as fast as possible. ‘But didn’t you just say that about the middle-classes’ I hear you ask? No, not quite. The crucial difference is that the ‘not middle-class’ don’t get all hoity-toity about drinking wine whereas the middle-class like to imbue it with some kind of spurious cultural significance. ‘Lord, isn’t it great to live a little, I mean really live properly, you know the French could teach us a thing or two.’
I shall carry on doing my puzzles work while on holiday which means I had to dig out a chalet with wireless internet access. So, if I take any nice piccies, I shall post them here on this blog. Oh, and I am going with my younger brother who attended French schools for five years as a lad and speaks French. I , on the other hand, don’t.
. . .
And just for the craic, a picture of my son taken nine years ago which I have been dicking around with.
Thursday 1 September 2011
A silly season? Anything but, my sweethearts. And God rot these aches and pains
Whatever happened to the silly season. Traditionally, hacks and the media obliged to employ them are so hard up for hard news stories in August that they resort to all sorts of crap to fill their newslists. It’s where we get the phrase ‘skateboarding ducks’ from, although I have no doubt at all that somewhere in Tarahoma, Iowa, some idiot is as I write (or you read) fine-tuning his programme to get a troupe of ducks to dance the 
Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairies from The Nutcracker Suite. He, or in these post-feminist days even she, was probably spurred on by happening upon this blog and resolving to outdo in wackiness the moron I described a few entries ago who intends to die the fattest person alive. Incidentally, by describing that particular idiot as a moron, I am, make no mistake, skating on thin ice. Here in the Western World in which we lay great stress on ‘individuality’ and ‘expressing yourself’ and the outright insistence that whatever bollocks I write is in no way more important than the bollocks you write, however much it is 24-carat bollocks, it is not just in poor taste publicly to question someone’s intelligence, we are in very real danger of contravening human rights legislation. While many in Libya and Syria are giving their lives in order that their fellow man and woman might in future live in freedom, all we in the West can think of doing with the freedom we take for granted is to see how much more stupid we can be than the next man.
But, as usual, I have digressed. I began by asking whatever had happened to the silly season, and I did so because August has been anything but news-free: there is the ongoing trouble in Libya and Syria, the discomfort of America’s East Coast who were forcefully taught that not being poor and black doesn’t save you from the ravages of a hurricane, the tragedy become farce but now again become tragedy of the imminent collapse of Europe’s economy what with all the tippy-toeing around the problems of the euro, the widespread looting here in Britain, the shock to the U.S. that as far as the ‘credit ratings agencies’ are concerned, that country’s government and how it runs the economy is no more trustworthy than your average Mid-West snake oil salesman. And finally, as it were to add insult to injury, there’s the fact that for the fourth year running summer here in Britain has been a complete washout. So take your talk of silly seasons and shoved it where the sun don’t shine. We should, of course, look on the bright side: after Channel 4 finally canned Big Brother, reasoning that the programme has run its course, served its purpose and that the station was in danger of flogging a dead horse, up popped Five to buy up the rights and carry on regardless. And, I’m happy to report (though I must admit when I tested the waters, I could stand no more then seven minutes of it) it is even worse than it ever was.
. . .
OK, so as I’m not even 62 and shan’t even reach that oh-so-glorious milestone for more than two months, I am being a bit previous as we say here in England (though my father will be turning in his grave to hear me adopt the phrase, once the slang of uneducated ruffians, then a knowing number adopted by educated ruffians, and now not far off what you might well hear in a BBC Radio 4 commentary, still every-so-slightly jokey, but with overtones that the speaker might be a tad dull but he’s most definitely also a tad street. Christ, the petty nuances of modern life. But I was going to rattle on a little about began ‘old age’ and so I’d better get to the point sharpish for fear of being prematurely diagnosed with the onset of dementia. Now why would I consider pontificating about old age. Well, for one, the increasing number of vague and not so vague aches and pains my body suffers daily. And what’s all that about? Lord, there was a time, it seems no many years ago, but was most surely at least 20 when, if needs be, I could shag all night and still go to work after just two hours sleep. I was - this is, I think important - still unmarried and would, admittedly, spend the rest of the day feeling like a rag doll, but that isn’t the point. But now? Now the first steps downstairs for my morning cup of tea are tentative, to say the least, with my heels feeling as though I had spent the previous ten hours running non-stop. Then there is my growing stoop. What’s all that about then? It has got to the point where my son, still only 12 but sadly just as facetious and heartless as I was at that age, feels the way I get up from a chair and walk is worth at least five minutes of remorseless ribbing. And what makes it all the less bearable is that no amount of loving advice along the lines of ‘don’t laugh to much, my lad, you’ll get there, too, one day, mark my words’ makes the not a blind bit of difference. He is just a young lad enjoying the last few months of life pre-puberty when everything is a hoot, and I can’t see him paying any attention at all to my wise advice for at least an other 30 years, by which time I shall be dead, or if not dead, in no state do do much except slobber over my soup and repeat myself till even the most charitable of my nurses loses patients.
So what is it all about? I go to the gym three times a week
and have done for many years, and I don’t just go through the motions but make sure I really do get a sweat up, but still I have been unable to avoid any of that pissy set of aches and pains which will afflict us all. Laugh if you will, but a few years ago I really thought that if I did, as I now do, go to the gym conscientiously, I might somehow avoid them. Some bloody hope. I would like to end this entry on something positive, but, you know, I really can’t off-hand think of anything. Good night and God bless.
But, as usual, I have digressed. I began by asking whatever had happened to the silly season, and I did so because August has been anything but news-free: there is the ongoing trouble in Libya and Syria, the discomfort of America’s East Coast who were forcefully taught that not being poor and black doesn’t save you from the ravages of a hurricane, the tragedy become farce but now again become tragedy of the imminent collapse of Europe’s economy what with all the tippy-toeing around the problems of the euro, the widespread looting here in Britain, the shock to the U.S. that as far as the ‘credit ratings agencies’ are concerned, that country’s government and how it runs the economy is no more trustworthy than your average Mid-West snake oil salesman. And finally, as it were to add insult to injury, there’s the fact that for the fourth year running summer here in Britain has been a complete washout. So take your talk of silly seasons and shoved it where the sun don’t shine. We should, of course, look on the bright side: after Channel 4 finally canned Big Brother, reasoning that the programme has run its course, served its purpose and that the station was in danger of flogging a dead horse, up popped Five to buy up the rights and carry on regardless. And, I’m happy to report (though I must admit when I tested the waters, I could stand no more then seven minutes of it) it is even worse than it ever was.
. . .
OK, so as I’m not even 62 and shan’t even reach that oh-so-glorious milestone for more than two months, I am being a bit previous as we say here in England (though my father will be turning in his grave to hear me adopt the phrase, once the slang of uneducated ruffians, then a knowing number adopted by educated ruffians, and now not far off what you might well hear in a BBC Radio 4 commentary, still every-so-slightly jokey, but with overtones that the speaker might be a tad dull but he’s most definitely also a tad street. Christ, the petty nuances of modern life. But I was going to rattle on a little about began ‘old age’ and so I’d better get to the point sharpish for fear of being prematurely diagnosed with the onset of dementia. Now why would I consider pontificating about old age. Well, for one, the increasing number of vague and not so vague aches and pains my body suffers daily. And what’s all that about? Lord, there was a time, it seems no many years ago, but was most surely at least 20 when, if needs be, I could shag all night and still go to work after just two hours sleep. I was - this is, I think important - still unmarried and would, admittedly, spend the rest of the day feeling like a rag doll, but that isn’t the point. But now? Now the first steps downstairs for my morning cup of tea are tentative, to say the least, with my heels feeling as though I had spent the previous ten hours running non-stop. Then there is my growing stoop. What’s all that about then? It has got to the point where my son, still only 12 but sadly just as facetious and heartless as I was at that age, feels the way I get up from a chair and walk is worth at least five minutes of remorseless ribbing. And what makes it all the less bearable is that no amount of loving advice along the lines of ‘don’t laugh to much, my lad, you’ll get there, too, one day, mark my words’ makes the not a blind bit of difference. He is just a young lad enjoying the last few months of life pre-puberty when everything is a hoot, and I can’t see him paying any attention at all to my wise advice for at least an other 30 years, by which time I shall be dead, or if not dead, in no state do do much except slobber over my soup and repeat myself till even the most charitable of my nurses loses patients.
So what is it all about? I go to the gym three times a week
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