Well actually, I rather think that irony is very dead. And that is in itself an irony. Because these days everyone seems to take a ‘yeah, right’ attitude to life, they’ve seen it all before, are impressed by nothing and no one. If only they knew it, the joke is well and truly on them and, at best, the vast majority of us are utterly oblivious to the ironies which permeate all our lives.
Take, for example, Apple’s celebrated ‘Think different’ slogan with which it began it’s celebrated march to becoming one of the world’s biggest and richest companies. (By December 2011, its stock has risen 9,000pc since Steve Jobs returned to lead the company in 1997. Not bad for a company which likes to portray itself as the ‘outsider’). Yet to this day there are hundreds of thousands of bright young things worldwide who think they are somehow striking a blow for the counter-culture, the left-field, the individual when they buy an Apple laptop or desktop. (I specify those two because it is only in recent years that Apple has, for many, become more synonymous with other products.) They are, of course, doing nothing of the kind. They are, of course, just one more insignificant member of a particular herd. That their particular herd is smaller than the Microsoft herd is neither here nor there. They honestly believe that buying and using an Apple ‘says’ something about them, that it ‘makes a statement’. Well, actually it does ‘make a statement’, but not one I thik they would very much like to hear.
Then there’s the injunction, beloved by many a disaffected youth, to ‘challenge everything’ (you’ll find many people urged the world to do that, from Karl Marx to George Bernard Shaw). Well, that’s all fine and dandy, but the difficulties start for the bien pensant of this world when we decide to do exactly that and challenge what could be called the new orthodoxies. So I do wonder just how welcome I would be in liberal and freethinking circles if I did decide to challenge everything and challenged the new orthodoxies that ‘man-made carbon dioxide is causing global warming’, that ‘women and men are equal’ or that ‘homosexuals do not deserve equal rights with heterosexuals’ because ‘homosexuality is a mental aberration’. I suspect - no, I don’t suspect at all, I know full well - that I would be seen off pretty sharpish with a flea in my ear. Or what if I challenged the notion that we ‘all have human rights’, that the very idea of ‘human rights’ is just so much bollocks? That, too, would do down like a lead balloon at a Guardian drinks party. But why? All I would be doing was to be following the exhortation to ‘accept nothing, challenge everything’.
At this point a liberal might choose to argue - though he or she would most certainly be ill-advised to do so - that I have missed the point, that, for example, the ‘human rights’ we all possess are in some way unalienable, that they are something very close to a fixed point in the world. And because of their more sanctified status, they are an exception to the rule that ‘everything should be challenged’. They might argue along those lines in defence of the ‘rights of homosexuals’, the ‘equality between men and women’ and even ‘that man-made carbon dioxide is causing global warming’. Really? But didn’t the best thinkers of the 20th century in all kinds of disciplines establish, apparently beyond all doubt, that ‘everything is relative’? That there are no fixed points? And that because there are no ‘fixed points’, there can be no such certainties. Or am I missing something?
It could, I think, be successfully argued that from Soren Kierkegaard, who came up with the notion of ‘subjective truth’, to Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity that the 20th century was the age of relativity. In art this notion that everything is relative and nothing is fixed was given graphic expression by Picasso, in music it led to the abandonment of form, in ethics it led the concept of ‘personal morality’ and the downgrading of ‘social norms’. Well actually, it didn’t: even though the 20th century’s modern mind disliked being bound by convention, it knew that rules, norms, laws, call them what you like kept society intact, that without them society would implode into anarchy. So what we did was talk about it all rather than live it, and - ironically - the one social experiment - the Soviet Union - which purported to be doing most to ‘free mankind’ very, very soon developed into a very nasty totalitarian dictatorship. So what does this all have to do with irony? Well, where do I start?
I once argued - and it became a pretty futile argument, something which I should have realised a lot sooner and thus saved myself a great deal of time - that every age is ‘modern’. The chap (or chappess, I don’t remember who it was any more) disagreed vehemently and even suggested that folk in, say, the Dark Ages knew that they were still in some kind of ‘dark age’ and that better was to come and that the ‘better that was to come’ had now arrived. He or she (or quite possibly it) refused to accept my point that every age regards itself as ‘modern’. Granted, perhaps, that the very notion of ‘modernity’ is reasonably ‘modern’, but that would still have no bearing on how each society, whether in Europe, Asia, Africa or the Americas, saw itself. I don’t even accept that we, here and now in the dying days of 2011, are in any way more ‘self-conscious’. Yet we do seem to believe - I would suggest against all evidence - that the Western world is somehow more enlightened than it was ten, twenty, thirty or 100 years ago. And as part of that new ‘self-awareness’ is the rise of a kind of pseudo irony: these days, it seems, we in the Western world greet a great deal in our lives with a pseudo cynical ‘yeah, right’. We regard ourselves these days as far to clued up, far to sassy, far too ‘aware’ to fall for any of the old hooey which so blighted society in the past.
I would suggest that we are, in fact, anything but clued up, sassy and aware. I shall not suggest that our age is in any way more stupid than all previous ages, but I shall suggest that I firmly believe it is just as bloody stupid as we always were.
We in the West pride ourselves, for example, on being more caring, on ‘valuing community’, in ‘worrying about the environment’, ‘preserving endangered species’. But are we really more caring when almost by the week we are shocked by revelations on the scale of child pornography? Are we really more caring when all we can think of doing with our old folk is stuffing them away in homes and if they show signs of protesting drugging them up to keep them quiet? Do we really ‘value community’ if, as a recent survey highlighted ever fewer of us actually know our neighbours?
Are we really taking to heart the interests of wildlife when we are highly selective in which species we choose to preserve? Ugly species, it would seem, have a far lesser chance of preservation than fucking photogenic snow leopards and cutie pandas. Are we really more enlightened when we fulminate against the dangers to health of smoking and castigate all those who still smoke, but refuse to outlaw smoking completely because we realised we can’t do without the tax we raise on the sale of tobacco and, anyway, the premature deaths of smokers has the benefit of keeping in check what we have to pay in state pensions? Yeah, right.
A few years ago a very entertaining cartoon hit the screens. It was called The Incredibles. In it, a mother consoles her child, who is a bit down in the dumps, by telling him: Everyone is special. To which the lad replies, rather pertinently: That means no one is. Exactly. We can’t have it both ways, but that won’t stop us trying. I am continually amazed at mankind’s ability to bullshit itself.
Monday 26 December 2011
Saturday 24 December 2011
Who’s going to win: Vlad or the people? Or will it be neither? And don’t bother making plans beyond December 21, 2012 - the Mayans tell us it’s just not worth it
From where I am now sitting in deepest, most peaceful North Cornwall, Lord knows how the problems in Russia are going to be resolved. According to the authorities, 28,000 people turned up for a rally to protest against Vladimir Putin and demanding that he doesn’t stand for election for president next year.
According to the protesters themselves, over 100,000 turned out. According to the BBC, there were also protest rallies in other cities, including as far east as Vladivostok. Some have pointed out that, as in Egypt, the number protesting rather dwindles into insignificance when seen as a proportion of Russia’s total population. Quite possibly, but it can also be pointed with that we don’t know how many of Russia’s total population support the protesters. If each protester on the street represented, say, 20 who stayed at home but support what is going on, the proportion of those opposed to Putin is rather larger. But note the ‘if’. The truth is that we simply don’t know.
What we can be reasonably certain about is that it is not necessarily going to end in peace and harmony: not only are the protesteres demanding a re-run of the parliamentary elections held at the beginning of the month, but they are also demanding that Putin doesn’t stand. The problem is that for all his prominence, Putin is not quite as secure as many would believe. He is there because it is useful to have him there. And if the powers behind the throne believe their cause - which is quite simply making sure it is their fingers in the till rather than anyone else’s - would be better served by offering Putin up as a sacrificial lamb and coming up with a new ‘face’, well it’s bye, bye Vladimir. This is, of course, all speculation.
It will not surprise anyone that the hotline running from Lanke Cottage, Higher Lank, St Breward, North Cornwall to the Kremlin, Moscow, Russia has yet to be installed. But what, it seems, is quite beyond doubt is that a great many people in Russia are getting thoroughly fed up with the corruption which, I understand, permeates every strata of Russian society from the Polish border to the Chinese border. Pertinently, the number protesting is approaching a critical mass and no amount of replacing Tweedledum with Tweedledee will be of any use if the corruption doesn’t end. But who is there who will end the corruption? It will most certainly not be those who are benefiting from it. And given the imprisonment of the former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky and - more seriously, the death in custody of the lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who was active in fighting corruption, it would seem pretty obvious that whoever is in power is more prepared to play hardball than hold up his hands and say: ‘OK, chaps, you win, we’ll go quietly.’
. . .
Well, who’d have thought it! There’s me worrying that I might not make it to 95 - another heart attack, cancer, diabetes, that kind of thing - when in fact there is definite proof that I shall only make it to 63 years and one month exactly! Why? Well, apparently every 25,800 years, all the planets in our solar system align in one straight line to the Sun and a resulting massive solar flare will incinerate everything man, I mean totally! Like the end of everything as we know it. And if that weren’t enough, the planet Niburu, which has a huge ellipitical cycle, comes close to the Earth every 3,600 years and that is also going to cause shit, man, I mean totally! It’s all there in Sumerian and Mayan history, dude, and these ancient people knew what they were about!
Actually, we don’t have to look to ever so wise ancient folk to know that, if not about to end, the world is going to go through something of a sticky patch and that things might very well look just a tad iffy on December 21, 2012. Well, I say ‘world’, but let’s leave South America and rather large parts of the Far East out of this, because it would seem all the crap that’s going down has more to do with the Middle East, Europe and the U.S. Of all the worrying trends, it would seem that what is developing in the Middle East has the greatest potential for nonsense we could well do without.
After all the whistling and cheering which heralded the ‘Arab Spring’ in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, it isn’t quite going to plan. It was long known that the Egyptian army had substantial business interests and it should have come as no surprise that they weren’t going to relinquish them without a fight. It was far easier to throw President Mubarak to the wolves, promise elections and then carry on with business usual. And the several thousands demonstrating in Tahrir Square shouldn’t, apparently, cheer up us liberally minded folk too much. In a country of more than 80 million, many of whom are devout muslims, they are an insignificant number, and the vast majority of Egyptians, I read, are by nature quite conservative and simply want peace and a stable life. And that is something many believe the Muslim Brotherhood will bring them.
So until the elections, the Brothers are wisely keeping their heads down, associating themselves with neither the army strongmen nor the libertarian Tahrir Square rabble, and when the time is ripe, they can portray themselves as ‘the alternative to it all’. Further south is all the pushing and pulling which is going on in Syria and now Iraq. Actually, I feel rather ashamed of myself for adopting such a flippant tone - it isn’t quite as silly if you actually live there. I’m not expert on Middle Eastern affairs (to put it mildly) but I do wonder whether at heart there won’t eventually be a stand-off between Sunni and Shiite muslims.
Most certainly the major rivalry in the Middle East is between Shiite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia, and both have their client states, not least Iraq whose Nouri Al Maliki many believe is Iran’s placeman. He denies it. But then he would, wouldn’t he. Iraq’s fugitive vice President Tareq Al-Hashimi claims that a recent car bombing in Iraq were, in fact, the work of the country’s own security forces and designed to discredit Iraq’s Sunnis. A similar claim is made by the opposition in Syria about two recent car bombings in Damascus.
So what with young Vlad’s problems in Russia - or is that Russia’s problems with young Vlad? - it should be a fascinating New Year. As the old Chinese curse runs: May you live in interesting times.
According to the protesters themselves, over 100,000 turned out. According to the BBC, there were also protest rallies in other cities, including as far east as Vladivostok. Some have pointed out that, as in Egypt, the number protesting rather dwindles into insignificance when seen as a proportion of Russia’s total population. Quite possibly, but it can also be pointed with that we don’t know how many of Russia’s total population support the protesters. If each protester on the street represented, say, 20 who stayed at home but support what is going on, the proportion of those opposed to Putin is rather larger. But note the ‘if’. The truth is that we simply don’t know.
What we can be reasonably certain about is that it is not necessarily going to end in peace and harmony: not only are the protesteres demanding a re-run of the parliamentary elections held at the beginning of the month, but they are also demanding that Putin doesn’t stand. The problem is that for all his prominence, Putin is not quite as secure as many would believe. He is there because it is useful to have him there. And if the powers behind the throne believe their cause - which is quite simply making sure it is their fingers in the till rather than anyone else’s - would be better served by offering Putin up as a sacrificial lamb and coming up with a new ‘face’, well it’s bye, bye Vladimir. This is, of course, all speculation.
It will not surprise anyone that the hotline running from Lanke Cottage, Higher Lank, St Breward, North Cornwall to the Kremlin, Moscow, Russia has yet to be installed. But what, it seems, is quite beyond doubt is that a great many people in Russia are getting thoroughly fed up with the corruption which, I understand, permeates every strata of Russian society from the Polish border to the Chinese border. Pertinently, the number protesting is approaching a critical mass and no amount of replacing Tweedledum with Tweedledee will be of any use if the corruption doesn’t end. But who is there who will end the corruption? It will most certainly not be those who are benefiting from it. And given the imprisonment of the former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky and - more seriously, the death in custody of the lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who was active in fighting corruption, it would seem pretty obvious that whoever is in power is more prepared to play hardball than hold up his hands and say: ‘OK, chaps, you win, we’ll go quietly.’
. . .
Well, who’d have thought it! There’s me worrying that I might not make it to 95 - another heart attack, cancer, diabetes, that kind of thing - when in fact there is definite proof that I shall only make it to 63 years and one month exactly! Why? Well, apparently every 25,800 years, all the planets in our solar system align in one straight line to the Sun and a resulting massive solar flare will incinerate everything man, I mean totally! Like the end of everything as we know it. And if that weren’t enough, the planet Niburu, which has a huge ellipitical cycle, comes close to the Earth every 3,600 years and that is also going to cause shit, man, I mean totally! It’s all there in Sumerian and Mayan history, dude, and these ancient people knew what they were about!
Actually, we don’t have to look to ever so wise ancient folk to know that, if not about to end, the world is going to go through something of a sticky patch and that things might very well look just a tad iffy on December 21, 2012. Well, I say ‘world’, but let’s leave South America and rather large parts of the Far East out of this, because it would seem all the crap that’s going down has more to do with the Middle East, Europe and the U.S. Of all the worrying trends, it would seem that what is developing in the Middle East has the greatest potential for nonsense we could well do without.
After all the whistling and cheering which heralded the ‘Arab Spring’ in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, it isn’t quite going to plan. It was long known that the Egyptian army had substantial business interests and it should have come as no surprise that they weren’t going to relinquish them without a fight. It was far easier to throw President Mubarak to the wolves, promise elections and then carry on with business usual. And the several thousands demonstrating in Tahrir Square shouldn’t, apparently, cheer up us liberally minded folk too much. In a country of more than 80 million, many of whom are devout muslims, they are an insignificant number, and the vast majority of Egyptians, I read, are by nature quite conservative and simply want peace and a stable life. And that is something many believe the Muslim Brotherhood will bring them.
So until the elections, the Brothers are wisely keeping their heads down, associating themselves with neither the army strongmen nor the libertarian Tahrir Square rabble, and when the time is ripe, they can portray themselves as ‘the alternative to it all’. Further south is all the pushing and pulling which is going on in Syria and now Iraq. Actually, I feel rather ashamed of myself for adopting such a flippant tone - it isn’t quite as silly if you actually live there. I’m not expert on Middle Eastern affairs (to put it mildly) but I do wonder whether at heart there won’t eventually be a stand-off between Sunni and Shiite muslims.
Most certainly the major rivalry in the Middle East is between Shiite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia, and both have their client states, not least Iraq whose Nouri Al Maliki many believe is Iran’s placeman. He denies it. But then he would, wouldn’t he. Iraq’s fugitive vice President Tareq Al-Hashimi claims that a recent car bombing in Iraq were, in fact, the work of the country’s own security forces and designed to discredit Iraq’s Sunnis. A similar claim is made by the opposition in Syria about two recent car bombings in Damascus.
So what with young Vlad’s problems in Russia - or is that Russia’s problems with young Vlad? - it should be a fascinating New Year. As the old Chinese curse runs: May you live in interesting times.
Wednesday 21 December 2011
Things already looking up? Don’t count your chickens. And let’s not go overboard over the death of one Christopher Hitchens
Here is a short film a made a two and a half years ago when the credit crisis, or as it was referred to at the time ‘the current period of economic readjustment’ started. Within months things seemed to get better, and I thought that I had been rather too pessimistic. Well, apparently I wasn’t. In the true spirit of Christmas I should like to share it with the world. Enjoy (as they say in trendy bars).
NB The first version of this film used Steely Dan's version of East St. Louis Toodle-Oo, but the You Tube software wouldn’t let me use it and the film with the original soundtrack was deleted within a few days. But I then managed to find Duke Ellington’s original version and that is the one used here. That explains the otherwise pointless reference to Walter Becker and Donald Fagen.
There are more films by the incredibly, unbelievably, superlatively, breathtakingly and magnificently talented filmmaker Jacques Pernod available here. I suggest you view Thelonius Watches Paint Dry and Indolence as a way into appreciating his unique vision. Once you have accustomed yourself to his dystopian yet life-affirming style, you could attempt Significance (Or An Evening With Rob).
. . .
Oscar Wilde once wrote that ‘sentimentality is a bank holiday from cynicism’. Better known is the dictum attributed to Wilde that ‘a cynic knows the price of everything and the value of nothing’, but it was not what Wilde wrote, in fact. It is a paraphrase from a line in his play Lady Windermere’s Fan, and it was not original. Someone else said it first, but I can’t remember who and I can’t be bothered at this point to try to find out. Anyway, I prefer the first because for me it sums up so much in the world. It helps explain how at Christmas the Nazis were able to hold carol services for the staff at their concentration camps and get dewy-eyed about it all while all around them the killing and other horrors continued. It also explains one facet of the character of many journalists. Thet can, as a rule, cynically treat ‘civilians’ - that is everyone who is not, like them, lucky enough to be a journalist - appallingly, all in the spurious interests of ‘the public’s right to know’. But they reserve their sentimental molly-coddling for their own and will weep in public profusely at the death of a colleague. Thus, the ‘serious’ papers in the UK and the US have been printing fulsome tributes to one Christopher Hitchens and not stinting themselves in their praise. I doubt that the ordinary chap in the street had ever heard of him, but they have now and with his death a few days ago, Hitchens has already been lined up as one of the ‘greats’ in the pantheon of hacks and associated rogues.
Hitchens could most certainly write well and was also master of an entertaining and acerbic turn of phrase, and although I have not read a lot by him, I must concede that and acknowledge his gift for having himself marked out as the man who will not flinch from saying the unsayable. One of his better known achievements is to put the boot into Mother Theresa, which will not have gone down well with those who regard the woman as third in command after Jesus Christ and his mum. But as far as I am concerned whatever those achievements, they are all overshadowed by two things about his life: he was one of that curious kind who starts his or her political life on the extreme left - Hitchens traded as a Trotskyite for many years - but at some point doesn’t just drift as rush to the right. Then there is the fact, which should disconcert those now canonising the man but doesn’t seem to in the slightest, that not only did Hitchens support the invasion of Iraq by Britain and America, he became something of an apologist for those fuckwits who surrounded and manipulated George Dubya and who gloried in the name Neo-Cons.
I find it very hard indeed to take seriously anyone who can make such an intellectual journey without apparently batting an eyelid. John Maynard Keynes once said that ‘when the facts change, I change my mind’, but it is simply inconceivable that the facts changed so radically that Hitchens decided that his radical Trotskyism was a crock of shit and that those nasty chaps on the right might not be quite as nasty after all. His brother Peter (who now writes for the Mail on Sunday) and the writer and historian Paul Johnson (who once edited the New Statesman) did the same. I simply cannot take them seriously. I once read a bizzare piece (in the Guardian - where else?) but Martin Amis in which he almost had orgasms over Hitchens’ ‘wit’. I can’t give you a link to it because the Guardian’s copyright on the aritcle has lapsed, but it was headlined ‘Amis on Hitchens: ‘He’s one of the most terrifying rhetoricians the world has seen’. The use of ‘terrifying’ to describe what kind of rhetorician Hitchens apparently was should give you a clue as to the kind of self-regarding cack Amis’s piece was. And indication of just how incestuous the world of literary luvviedom is can be found here http://www.martinamisweb.com/affinities.shtml (Amis on Saul Bellow, Hitchens on Amis, McEwan on Amis, Amis on Hitchens, God on Amis - that kind of thing).
It is not that Hitchens changed his views as he grew older. Many do that, and although the usual drift is to the right of centre
I don’t doubt that his friends and family loved Hitchens and will miss him, but that doesn’t oblige me to join in the hooraying. I don’t deny that, as many have testified, he was very good company, could be relied upon professionally and could hold his booze. For me Hitchens is just another ‘left’ radical who threw it all up and became a ‘right’ radical. And as someone commented at the end of Francis Wheen’s memoir in the Daily Telegraph: ‘For someone who didn’t believe in RIPs, why the RIPs?’
NB The first version of this film used Steely Dan's version of East St. Louis Toodle-Oo, but the You Tube software wouldn’t let me use it and the film with the original soundtrack was deleted within a few days. But I then managed to find Duke Ellington’s original version and that is the one used here. That explains the otherwise pointless reference to Walter Becker and Donald Fagen.
There are more films by the incredibly, unbelievably, superlatively, breathtakingly and magnificently talented filmmaker Jacques Pernod available here. I suggest you view Thelonius Watches Paint Dry and Indolence as a way into appreciating his unique vision. Once you have accustomed yourself to his dystopian yet life-affirming style, you could attempt Significance (Or An Evening With Rob).
. . .
Oscar Wilde once wrote that ‘sentimentality is a bank holiday from cynicism’. Better known is the dictum attributed to Wilde that ‘a cynic knows the price of everything and the value of nothing’, but it was not what Wilde wrote, in fact. It is a paraphrase from a line in his play Lady Windermere’s Fan, and it was not original. Someone else said it first, but I can’t remember who and I can’t be bothered at this point to try to find out. Anyway, I prefer the first because for me it sums up so much in the world. It helps explain how at Christmas the Nazis were able to hold carol services for the staff at their concentration camps and get dewy-eyed about it all while all around them the killing and other horrors continued. It also explains one facet of the character of many journalists. Thet can, as a rule, cynically treat ‘civilians’ - that is everyone who is not, like them, lucky enough to be a journalist - appallingly, all in the spurious interests of ‘the public’s right to know’. But they reserve their sentimental molly-coddling for their own and will weep in public profusely at the death of a colleague. Thus, the ‘serious’ papers in the UK and the US have been printing fulsome tributes to one Christopher Hitchens and not stinting themselves in their praise. I doubt that the ordinary chap in the street had ever heard of him, but they have now and with his death a few days ago, Hitchens has already been lined up as one of the ‘greats’ in the pantheon of hacks and associated rogues.
Hitchens could most certainly write well and was also master of an entertaining and acerbic turn of phrase, and although I have not read a lot by him, I must concede that and acknowledge his gift for having himself marked out as the man who will not flinch from saying the unsayable. One of his better known achievements is to put the boot into Mother Theresa, which will not have gone down well with those who regard the woman as third in command after Jesus Christ and his mum. But as far as I am concerned whatever those achievements, they are all overshadowed by two things about his life: he was one of that curious kind who starts his or her political life on the extreme left - Hitchens traded as a Trotskyite for many years - but at some point doesn’t just drift as rush to the right. Then there is the fact, which should disconcert those now canonising the man but doesn’t seem to in the slightest, that not only did Hitchens support the invasion of Iraq by Britain and America, he became something of an apologist for those fuckwits who surrounded and manipulated George Dubya and who gloried in the name Neo-Cons.
I find it very hard indeed to take seriously anyone who can make such an intellectual journey without apparently batting an eyelid. John Maynard Keynes once said that ‘when the facts change, I change my mind’, but it is simply inconceivable that the facts changed so radically that Hitchens decided that his radical Trotskyism was a crock of shit and that those nasty chaps on the right might not be quite as nasty after all. His brother Peter (who now writes for the Mail on Sunday) and the writer and historian Paul Johnson (who once edited the New Statesman) did the same. I simply cannot take them seriously. I once read a bizzare piece (in the Guardian - where else?) but Martin Amis in which he almost had orgasms over Hitchens’ ‘wit’. I can’t give you a link to it because the Guardian’s copyright on the aritcle has lapsed, but it was headlined ‘Amis on Hitchens: ‘He’s one of the most terrifying rhetoricians the world has seen’. The use of ‘terrifying’ to describe what kind of rhetorician Hitchens apparently was should give you a clue as to the kind of self-regarding cack Amis’s piece was. And indication of just how incestuous the world of literary luvviedom is can be found here http://www.martinamisweb.com/affinities.shtml (Amis on Saul Bellow, Hitchens on Amis, McEwan on Amis, Amis on Hitchens, God on Amis - that kind of thing).
It is not that Hitchens changed his views as he grew older. Many do that, and although the usual drift is to the right of centre
I don’t doubt that his friends and family loved Hitchens and will miss him, but that doesn’t oblige me to join in the hooraying. I don’t deny that, as many have testified, he was very good company, could be relied upon professionally and could hold his booze. For me Hitchens is just another ‘left’ radical who threw it all up and became a ‘right’ radical. And as someone commented at the end of Francis Wheen’s memoir in the Daily Telegraph: ‘For someone who didn’t believe in RIPs, why the RIPs?’
Friday 16 December 2011
Putin rejects the Blair approach and goes for blood, while Merkel, Sarkozy, Van Rompuy, Barroso and the rest of the EUwits make a special plea to Santa
A few days ago after reading the news that an estimated 50,000 had turned out in Moscow to protest against the latest election results and to call Vladimir Putin names, I sagely turned to a colleague at work and predicted that Putin’s strategy would be this: he would adopt that tried and tested standby of beating his breast publicly and asking for the public’s forgiveness. In essence he would say: ‘I am your man and I am the man to lead Mother Russia, but I have been guilty of not listening to you and for that I am truly sorry. From now on I shall listen to you and consult you when I take decisions on your behalf.’ That line - sincere contrition - has worked a treat for many in the past and Tony Blair often resorted to it and when he still had that boyish grin he got away with murder, and in rather less grand circumstances, I have used it myself although I like to think I am not half as smarmy as Blair. It works so well because the person or group addressed feels flattered by the apology and is also somewhat disarmed: it is harder to be angry with a contrite man than one who insists on outright confrontation. That is what this wise old owl told his colleague.
As it turns out, I was completely wrong (which only goes to show the Vlad the Lad is a rather cannier politico than I could ever hope to be). Vlad obviously calculated that the best form of defence was attack and in a four and a half hour programme of responding to the public’s phone-on questions let rip on all fronts. The protesters, he assured a grateful Russian public, were put up to it by the U.S. That is pretty unlikely, of course, but most certainly what a great number of Russians wanted to hear.
He also suggested that web cameras should be set up in polling stations - I hope he meant polling stations, not polling booths - but I’m not too sure what he meant. The white ribbon worn by many protesters he compared to a condom. Perhaps his remark on that score was a joke and something got lost in translation, because I don’t understand that one at all.
What is certain is that Putin is dying to be president again and ain’t nothing going to stop him.
. . .
As for the euro crisis, it seems to be getting sillier by the hour. Yesterday some chappie at France’s central bank claimed that of France’s credit status is downgraded by the credit ratings agencies, then so, too, should Britain’s. His suggestion doesn’t make much sense in as far as France’s status would be downgraded not because of the state of its economy but because of its memebership of the - very - troubled eurozone. Britain's economy is also bumping along the bottom but one advantage it has at the moment - no thanks to one Tony Blair - is that it is outside the eurozone. But that wasn’t the point. The point is that the French are rattled, and when the French are rattled they do what we do (only the other way round): attack the opposition. That was odd enough, but at least it came from a stare functionary, the head of the central bank. What is rather odder was that his attack was repeated today by France’s finance minister, which really is extraordinary.
This whole euro shambles is at the centre of a Twitter spat I have been having with my sister (and as she tells me she reads this, I can assure you I am not talking out of school or being in any other way underhand). Her ‘Continental credentials’ (to coin a daft phrase which I must admit would no be out of pace in the Guardian but will have to do for now) are rather stronger than mine, in that although we were both born of a German mother and went to German schools when we were younger, she actually live in France and went to French schools when our father was posted to Paris, and then went on to marry a German. Furthermore, she has lived in Germany for the past 30 years and, in her own words, is ‘a European’.
Now that is all very well, but I can’t quite see why being ‘a European’ should in some mystical way persuade one that all the effort to establish, and now keep afloat, the euro is a good thing rather than believe, as I do and have done from the outset, that it will all end in tears. Wishing something were the case does not, and never will, actually make it the case. And I am quite prepared to argue that I am as much ‘a European’ as she is in as far as I am thoroughly persuaded that the single market has been a good thing all round. But I just wish the EU had left it at that rather than fallen into the hands of a bunch of superannuated Sixties ex-hippies with all their la-la ideas of brotherhood and sisterhood (‘all them cornfields and ballet in the evening’) from the Volga to the Shannon (forgive me if that is poor geography, but you get my point).
Removing trade barriers and making commerce easier and more efficient is one thing. Treating everyone and everything in Europe as ‘equal’ when, as is now abundantly clear, they are nothing of the kind, is quite another. I’ll say it again: wishing that something were the case doesn’t, and never will, actually make it so. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if in their heart of hearts Merkel, Sarkozy, Van Rompuy and the rest of that sorry crowd haven’t all offered a private prayer to Santa to ‘bring a solution, please. Please, please, please, please, please. And I’ll never be naughty again. Promise’. I’ll tell you what this ‘European’ want for Christmas: a bunch of men and women running the bloody EU who aren’t all away with the fairies.
. . .
There is always the chance that the new ‘fiscal union’ rules are so subtle, I am far too thick to understand them, but I tell me if I have got this right or not: if a country borrows to much to finance it’s spending, it will be fined. That is, because it didn’t have enough moolah to pay its bills, it borrowed money, but borrowed more than it should have done. So where exactly is the money going to come from to pay the ‘fine’?
Then there’s the question of how exactly a country which has been obliged to impost austerity measures on every last man, woman, cat and dog in the country is going to go about ‘growing its economy’? Oh, and while I’m at it, it is acknowledge that part of the problems faced by both Greece and Italy is their cultures of chronic tax evasion. Once, as the plan visualises, tax matters are taken over by Brussels, how exactly is the EU going to go about tackling any tax evaders? Will guns and other armaments be allowed or will it restrict itself to sending strong letters of complaint?
As it turns out, I was completely wrong (which only goes to show the Vlad the Lad is a rather cannier politico than I could ever hope to be). Vlad obviously calculated that the best form of defence was attack and in a four and a half hour programme of responding to the public’s phone-on questions let rip on all fronts. The protesters, he assured a grateful Russian public, were put up to it by the U.S. That is pretty unlikely, of course, but most certainly what a great number of Russians wanted to hear.
He also suggested that web cameras should be set up in polling stations - I hope he meant polling stations, not polling booths - but I’m not too sure what he meant. The white ribbon worn by many protesters he compared to a condom. Perhaps his remark on that score was a joke and something got lost in translation, because I don’t understand that one at all.
What is certain is that Putin is dying to be president again and ain’t nothing going to stop him.
. . .
As for the euro crisis, it seems to be getting sillier by the hour. Yesterday some chappie at France’s central bank claimed that of France’s credit status is downgraded by the credit ratings agencies, then so, too, should Britain’s. His suggestion doesn’t make much sense in as far as France’s status would be downgraded not because of the state of its economy but because of its memebership of the - very - troubled eurozone. Britain's economy is also bumping along the bottom but one advantage it has at the moment - no thanks to one Tony Blair - is that it is outside the eurozone. But that wasn’t the point. The point is that the French are rattled, and when the French are rattled they do what we do (only the other way round): attack the opposition. That was odd enough, but at least it came from a stare functionary, the head of the central bank. What is rather odder was that his attack was repeated today by France’s finance minister, which really is extraordinary.
This whole euro shambles is at the centre of a Twitter spat I have been having with my sister (and as she tells me she reads this, I can assure you I am not talking out of school or being in any other way underhand). Her ‘Continental credentials’ (to coin a daft phrase which I must admit would no be out of pace in the Guardian but will have to do for now) are rather stronger than mine, in that although we were both born of a German mother and went to German schools when we were younger, she actually live in France and went to French schools when our father was posted to Paris, and then went on to marry a German. Furthermore, she has lived in Germany for the past 30 years and, in her own words, is ‘a European’.
Now that is all very well, but I can’t quite see why being ‘a European’ should in some mystical way persuade one that all the effort to establish, and now keep afloat, the euro is a good thing rather than believe, as I do and have done from the outset, that it will all end in tears. Wishing something were the case does not, and never will, actually make it the case. And I am quite prepared to argue that I am as much ‘a European’ as she is in as far as I am thoroughly persuaded that the single market has been a good thing all round. But I just wish the EU had left it at that rather than fallen into the hands of a bunch of superannuated Sixties ex-hippies with all their la-la ideas of brotherhood and sisterhood (‘all them cornfields and ballet in the evening’) from the Volga to the Shannon (forgive me if that is poor geography, but you get my point).
Removing trade barriers and making commerce easier and more efficient is one thing. Treating everyone and everything in Europe as ‘equal’ when, as is now abundantly clear, they are nothing of the kind, is quite another. I’ll say it again: wishing that something were the case doesn’t, and never will, actually make it so. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if in their heart of hearts Merkel, Sarkozy, Van Rompuy and the rest of that sorry crowd haven’t all offered a private prayer to Santa to ‘bring a solution, please. Please, please, please, please, please. And I’ll never be naughty again. Promise’. I’ll tell you what this ‘European’ want for Christmas: a bunch of men and women running the bloody EU who aren’t all away with the fairies.
. . .
There is always the chance that the new ‘fiscal union’ rules are so subtle, I am far too thick to understand them, but I tell me if I have got this right or not: if a country borrows to much to finance it’s spending, it will be fined. That is, because it didn’t have enough moolah to pay its bills, it borrowed money, but borrowed more than it should have done. So where exactly is the money going to come from to pay the ‘fine’?
Then there’s the question of how exactly a country which has been obliged to impost austerity measures on every last man, woman, cat and dog in the country is going to go about ‘growing its economy’? Oh, and while I’m at it, it is acknowledge that part of the problems faced by both Greece and Italy is their cultures of chronic tax evasion. Once, as the plan visualises, tax matters are taken over by Brussels, how exactly is the EU going to go about tackling any tax evaders? Will guns and other armaments be allowed or will it restrict itself to sending strong letters of complaint?
Tuesday 13 December 2011
Time for a sigh of relief? At least that chap Hollande can keep his dick in his pants. And good news from The Front: we have a solution. (Well, it might work, and if it doesn’t we’re in the clear because it will all be the fault of the rotter Cameron)
‘Spectacular’ doesn’t even begin to describe the collapse of Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s political career. Where once he was considered by some as a shoo-in for the French Presidency and at least five years, if not ten, of snubbing assorted British Prime Ministers, he is now reduced for writing sex advice for sleazy EU publications.
I’m sure the French Socialists must be breathing a sigh of relief, although that sigh will be bitter-sweet. DSK, as we bloggers like to call him to give the impression we know what we are talking about, was one of the better chances they had for getting their man or woman into the Elysee Palace (and sorry to write so inelegantly, but ‘getting their person into the Elysee Palace’ sounds vaguely daft), so that is an opportunity missed. On the other hand it would have been a racing certainty the DSK would have carried on living his raucous sex life once elected and it would have looked very bad for the Left. Although Mitterrand got away with murder, even to the extent of having two parallel families, there is no record that he organised orgies and was regularly picked up by the police trawling for whores in the rougher corners of Paris. For whatever reason, the Daily Telegraph has gathered a round-up of stories detailing DSK’s shenanigans, and you can find it here.
As it is, they are reduced to fielding as their candidate one Francois Hollande, who (I am assured by my brother, who
grew up in France and can set me straight on all things French) has been nicknamed after a popular pudding in France, the obvious implication being that he resembles one. I understand that he is also regarded as something of an unexciting chap, but that would be rather a good thing for France over the next few years if ‘unexciting’ is synonymous with ‘a steady hand’. My brother assures me that if Nicolas Sarkozy is re-elected - and he hasn’t yet even said he will stand again, although that is assumed - it will be because Hollande lost rather than Sakozy won.
The French presidential election next April and May, which can be regarded as ‘imminent’ in political terms, will be largely why Sarkozy was so fucked off with David Cameron’s ‘heroic stand at the recent EU summit/laughably naive tactics at the recent EU summit’ (delete as applicably and according your prejudices). I assume that although the new, but still very silly, plan he and Angela Merkel proposed for ‘saving the euro’ (everyone in all 27 member states is to be urged to look down the back of their sofas to see what small change they can find and, who knows, it might all yet add up to build a trillion-euro escape tunnel) would have done rather less about solving the crisis than sacrificing a goat in the Hebrides it would, at least, have given the impression of resolute action.
As it stands our very own Eton toff has screwed all that and Sarkozy now faces pleading his case for re-election facing the charge that not only did he fail to solve the euro crisis, but he failed to solve the euro crisis while holding hands with the Boche bitch Angela Merkel. And that might well cook his goose. That is probably the only reason David Cameron is off Sarkozy’s Christmas card list, but it is a very good one. Whether or not it is still Sarkozy bossing everyone about at the palace or whether the minions there get Hollande, who can at least be expected to say ‘please’ when he bosses them about remains to be seen.
Either way it is still my view that the euro is totally fucked and the sooner the assortment of politicians which run the eurozone countries acknowledged the fact and set about salvaging what they might, the better. On one of the newspaper messages boards I recently read the proud boast from some British expat living in Germany that it was all stuff and nonsense about the euro being on its last legs as ‘business here is booming’. I don’t doubt it, but one does wonder just how much it cheers up the old and poor in Greece, Ireland and Portugal who are seeing their benefits and pensions cut as part of the Brussels-ordered austerity measures that German business is ‘booming’.
. . .
The whole euro cock-up saga rumbles on and gets less convincing by the day. It’s rather like listening to a down-at-heel semi-alcoholic uncle explaining how he could have been a kingpin in the city if it hadn’t been for a few strokes of bad luck which is why he is now selling investment advice to anyone stupid enough to pay attention to his worn-out schtick. David Cameron’s ill-considered flounce out of last week’s summit / heroic stand for the principles which made Britain great (delete as applicable according to your prejudices) is nothing but a transient sideshow, but one which both sides of this tedious argument are grateful for.
It allows both sides to distract attention from the issue which is most dangerous: Merkel, Sarkozy and assorted political has-beens who now earn their daily crust parading as EU/EC bigwigs can concentrate on how Britain is destroying the EU and, in time, once the euro has gone the way of the groat, insist that all would have been saved had Cameron not walked out and sabotaged the currency.
Cameron is happier because he is now flavour of the month with the kind of British idiots who wear Union Jack underpants and whistle Land Of Hope And Glory while shagging the wife and is politically more secure. He also knows that however much the Lib Dems hate him – actually they already hate him so much, they couldn’t possibly hate him any more – they know that Coalition with the Tories is for them now the only game in town and without it they are as relevant to the voter as last week’s Radio Times, so there is little chance they will leave the Coalition. Meanwhile, of course, the euro continues its ever-so-slow slide into abject oblivion. At best the rumpus at the summit has bought time for those hoping to arrange their affairs in such a way that when the collapse comes, they can salvage at least some of their furniture.
The grand solution, the solution to end all solutions, the mother of all solutions was this: a fiscal union of all euro countries or, even better, all 27 EU countries at some point in the future. But put aside, for a moment, the sheer idiocy of what is being proposed. The people who need to be convinced that ‘a solution has been found’ – the money people – remain stubbornly unconvinced. Try here and here.
And what of the Mekozy solution, the plan to solve it all and go fishing. Well, it boils down to this: once everyone has agreed, all countries in the euro (or even all EU countries) would be obliged to submit their budget plans to the EU for approval. And if they spent more than they were allowed to spend (i.e. borrowed more), they would be automatically fined. This arrangement, if all goes well, would be in place by next March. Simple, really. That it has as much chance of succeeding as making ice cream in Hell depends on your prejudices. Mine will, by now, be well known to you, and you will not be surprised that I regard the ‘plan’ as possibly the the worst idea ever considered by mankind. Supporters of ‘the project’, on the other hand, now believe the Promised Land is finally in sight.
It does not seem to have occurred to Merkel and Sarkozy that as the EU’s own accounts have not once been signed off by its own accountants and that several billions of EU money have long since disappeard into the pockets of any number of Euro crims, the idea that they should scrutinise the budgets of others and give it a yea or nay is faintly ludicrous. Then there is the small matter of how they would deal with complaints from some countries that other countries are getting an easier ride. Then there is the danger that if – if - all euro countries agree to the arrangement, a future government might well decide it no longer wants to play ball. What would the EU then do? As for agreeing to the arrangement, at least Ireland must, by law, put any the matter to its people in a referendum. And for those Irish, whose pips are being squeezed as never before on the orders of the EU, feel rather less goodwill to Brussels than your average Orange Order in Northern Ireland does for the Pope.
But even that is a long way down the line. First of course, there is the slight problem that however clever the fiscal union wheeze is, any fiscal wheeze, it is still only a wheeze and does absolutely nothing to solve the crisis now. It was supposed to do so by ‘inspiring confidence’ in the money markets. Well, has it? See above.
Never mind. When it all does go tits up, at least they will have someone to blame: Cameron. Economic lesson No 1: never trust an Old Etonian, however charming he might be.
David flounces out of the EU summit as envious euro supporters look in disbelief
I’m sure the French Socialists must be breathing a sigh of relief, although that sigh will be bitter-sweet. DSK, as we bloggers like to call him to give the impression we know what we are talking about, was one of the better chances they had for getting their man or woman into the Elysee Palace (and sorry to write so inelegantly, but ‘getting their person into the Elysee Palace’ sounds vaguely daft), so that is an opportunity missed. On the other hand it would have been a racing certainty the DSK would have carried on living his raucous sex life once elected and it would have looked very bad for the Left. Although Mitterrand got away with murder, even to the extent of having two parallel families, there is no record that he organised orgies and was regularly picked up by the police trawling for whores in the rougher corners of Paris. For whatever reason, the Daily Telegraph has gathered a round-up of stories detailing DSK’s shenanigans, and you can find it here.
As it is, they are reduced to fielding as their candidate one Francois Hollande, who (I am assured by my brother, who
The French presidential election next April and May, which can be regarded as ‘imminent’ in political terms, will be largely why Sarkozy was so fucked off with David Cameron’s ‘heroic stand at the recent EU summit/laughably naive tactics at the recent EU summit’ (delete as applicably and according your prejudices). I assume that although the new, but still very silly, plan he and Angela Merkel proposed for ‘saving the euro’ (everyone in all 27 member states is to be urged to look down the back of their sofas to see what small change they can find and, who knows, it might all yet add up to build a trillion-euro escape tunnel) would have done rather less about solving the crisis than sacrificing a goat in the Hebrides it would, at least, have given the impression of resolute action.
As it stands our very own Eton toff has screwed all that and Sarkozy now faces pleading his case for re-election facing the charge that not only did he fail to solve the euro crisis, but he failed to solve the euro crisis while holding hands with the Boche bitch Angela Merkel. And that might well cook his goose. That is probably the only reason David Cameron is off Sarkozy’s Christmas card list, but it is a very good one. Whether or not it is still Sarkozy bossing everyone about at the palace or whether the minions there get Hollande, who can at least be expected to say ‘please’ when he bosses them about remains to be seen.
Either way it is still my view that the euro is totally fucked and the sooner the assortment of politicians which run the eurozone countries acknowledged the fact and set about salvaging what they might, the better. On one of the newspaper messages boards I recently read the proud boast from some British expat living in Germany that it was all stuff and nonsense about the euro being on its last legs as ‘business here is booming’. I don’t doubt it, but one does wonder just how much it cheers up the old and poor in Greece, Ireland and Portugal who are seeing their benefits and pensions cut as part of the Brussels-ordered austerity measures that German business is ‘booming’.
. . .
The whole euro cock-up saga rumbles on and gets less convincing by the day. It’s rather like listening to a down-at-heel semi-alcoholic uncle explaining how he could have been a kingpin in the city if it hadn’t been for a few strokes of bad luck which is why he is now selling investment advice to anyone stupid enough to pay attention to his worn-out schtick. David Cameron’s ill-considered flounce out of last week’s summit / heroic stand for the principles which made Britain great (delete as applicable according to your prejudices) is nothing but a transient sideshow, but one which both sides of this tedious argument are grateful for.
It allows both sides to distract attention from the issue which is most dangerous: Merkel, Sarkozy and assorted political has-beens who now earn their daily crust parading as EU/EC bigwigs can concentrate on how Britain is destroying the EU and, in time, once the euro has gone the way of the groat, insist that all would have been saved had Cameron not walked out and sabotaged the currency.
Cameron is happier because he is now flavour of the month with the kind of British idiots who wear Union Jack underpants and whistle Land Of Hope And Glory while shagging the wife and is politically more secure. He also knows that however much the Lib Dems hate him – actually they already hate him so much, they couldn’t possibly hate him any more – they know that Coalition with the Tories is for them now the only game in town and without it they are as relevant to the voter as last week’s Radio Times, so there is little chance they will leave the Coalition. Meanwhile, of course, the euro continues its ever-so-slow slide into abject oblivion. At best the rumpus at the summit has bought time for those hoping to arrange their affairs in such a way that when the collapse comes, they can salvage at least some of their furniture.
The grand solution, the solution to end all solutions, the mother of all solutions was this: a fiscal union of all euro countries or, even better, all 27 EU countries at some point in the future. But put aside, for a moment, the sheer idiocy of what is being proposed. The people who need to be convinced that ‘a solution has been found’ – the money people – remain stubbornly unconvinced. Try here and here.
And what of the Mekozy solution, the plan to solve it all and go fishing. Well, it boils down to this: once everyone has agreed, all countries in the euro (or even all EU countries) would be obliged to submit their budget plans to the EU for approval. And if they spent more than they were allowed to spend (i.e. borrowed more), they would be automatically fined. This arrangement, if all goes well, would be in place by next March. Simple, really. That it has as much chance of succeeding as making ice cream in Hell depends on your prejudices. Mine will, by now, be well known to you, and you will not be surprised that I regard the ‘plan’ as possibly the the worst idea ever considered by mankind. Supporters of ‘the project’, on the other hand, now believe the Promised Land is finally in sight.
It does not seem to have occurred to Merkel and Sarkozy that as the EU’s own accounts have not once been signed off by its own accountants and that several billions of EU money have long since disappeard into the pockets of any number of Euro crims, the idea that they should scrutinise the budgets of others and give it a yea or nay is faintly ludicrous. Then there is the small matter of how they would deal with complaints from some countries that other countries are getting an easier ride. Then there is the danger that if – if - all euro countries agree to the arrangement, a future government might well decide it no longer wants to play ball. What would the EU then do? As for agreeing to the arrangement, at least Ireland must, by law, put any the matter to its people in a referendum. And for those Irish, whose pips are being squeezed as never before on the orders of the EU, feel rather less goodwill to Brussels than your average Orange Order in Northern Ireland does for the Pope.
But even that is a long way down the line. First of course, there is the slight problem that however clever the fiscal union wheeze is, any fiscal wheeze, it is still only a wheeze and does absolutely nothing to solve the crisis now. It was supposed to do so by ‘inspiring confidence’ in the money markets. Well, has it? See above.
Never mind. When it all does go tits up, at least they will have someone to blame: Cameron. Economic lesson No 1: never trust an Old Etonian, however charming he might be.
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