In the beginning there were no greater Euro fans than the Germans, for reasons which have been well-rehearsed. They were also a, if not the, driving force behind the creation of the euro. They are one of the hardest and one of the best-managed nations in Europe and have a tendency to keep things tidy. For some reason it is a joke to many that the Germans value Ordnung, but the joke falls very flat indeed when you find yourself in deep in a situation where there is no Ordnung, as the unfortunate Greeks now do. But as one of the great Euro fans it is only right that they should shoulder some of the responsibility of how things have gone wrong. So why am I feeling very, very sorry indeed for all the abuse now being hurled at the Germans?
I have just read an interesting piece by Gideon Rachman in the FT in which he says Germans are slowly beginning to admit that the concept of the eurozone was fatally flawed: that in the long run a single currency would not and could not succeed unless all those in the eurozone belonged to a single state with all that entailed. Many people made that very point 12 years ago when the euro was established and were decried as little nationalists and killjoys. But here is not the place to shout, like kids in the schoolyard, ‘we told you so’. It would not only be impolite, but also utterly pointless: we’re in the shit and the priority is to get back out of the shit. Deciding who and what to blame can be done in many years’ time when the crisis is a matter of history. But it is interesting that influential Germans are now admitting that the whole euro project was flawed from the outset (and leave aside for now the important point that although a successful eurozone needed to be created in the context of a single state, creating that single Euro state would then, as now, have proved politically impossible to achieve.) In Rachman’s FT piece, he also quotes the head of Bosch as advocating that Greece should leave the eurozone. That, too, is a new development: until Christmas the very idea would not have been countenanced.
Solutions to the crisis - that is solving the crisis with the minimum damage - rest on Germany coughing up even more money and Germany agreeing to underwrite the debts of other eurozone members. Germany is adamant that it will not do the latter by agreeing to the creation of eurobonds and feels that not only would it be unfair to ask its taxpayers to pay up more, it is also politically impossible. I agree with them because I think the German position is the only sensible position. Unfortunately, many disagree, and when - not ‘when’ not if - the euro crisis explodes in sheer misery for millions throughout Europe, it is a very safe bet that Germany will come top of the list when appointing the scapegoats. And that is very, very unfair.
Predictably, images from Germany’s Nazi past are being hauled out of cold storage with Greek and Italian newspapers usually regarded as ‘serious’ and ‘respectable’ indulging in some of the worst behaviour. This, too, is wholly unfair. From where I sit, the very worst the Germans can be found guilty of is calling a spade a spade: they are inclined to speak their minds and that often comes over as tactlessnees. So when someone or other in Germany suggested that an EU-appointed commissar should oversee the Greek budget, this was immediately portrayed as a ‘renewed attempt by Germany to dominate Europe’. It would be funny if it were not so insulting. It is not a point one can prove, but of all the nations least interested in ‘dominating Europe’ it is the Germans. I think my German cousins would agree with me that the pervading sentiment in Germany is to lead as comfortable a life as possible, and ‘dominating Europe’ would not enable the Germans to lead a very comfortable life. Ah, I hear some of you cry, what about the Nazis. That’s a fair point. But perhaps you would allow me to ask: what about the Italian fascisti? What about Spain’s long dictatorship under Franco? What about Portugal’s long dictatorship under Salazar? What about the dictatorships, which lasted longer than the modest 12 years of Nazi rule in Germany, by the Communists in the then Czechoslovakia, Poland, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania? What about the Croatian fascists?
Are we all really so certain that every single last German in the country from 1933 to 1945 was wholeheartedly behind the Nazis? What happened to those on the Left, the communists and the socialist, all very active and who often engaged in street-fighting with the Nazis? Did they all, almost overnight, become convinced National Socialists? Do you know, I rather think not. Dredging up Nazi imagery and metaphors sells papers, most certainly - the British Daily Mail’s Simon Heffer has come out with some of the same crap, except that he is able to express himself in a more genteel fashion - but it is wholly unfair.
. . .
Just seen a trail for a programme on tonight: ‘Britain’s favourite supermarket food’ (ITV1 at 8pm). No doubt several tens of million viewers with rather more time than sense will be tuning in and congratulating themselves when a product is featured which they, too, ‘enjoy buying’. For God’s sake, get a fucking life. I won’t claim that the population is being dumbed-down because I think mankind, for the pas 300,000 years, has always had a dumb streak. So nothing really to worry about.. . .
A family visit to London tomorrow by the Powell family. They are coming up by train, and we shall spend the next two days visiting the Science Museum in South Kensington, Hamley’s in Regent St followed by Selfridges in Oxford St, and then go to a matinee performance of Billy Elliot in the afternoon before driving back home to Cornwall. I’m rather looking forward to it. It is all also costing me an arm and a leg.
Tuesday 14 February 2012
Saturday 11 February 2012
Beware of Greeks bearing gilts, something about socialists, heads and hearts, and I’ve realised why country and western music pisses me off
The coalition government has been engaged in more than pointless negotiations about even how even more money can be saved in order to qualify for another bailout. The Greek parliament will vote on that austerity package in the next few
The whole issue is one of those curious matters which, when individual elements are considered, they make a certain sense. It’s just that when you look at the big picture you start to realise the total lunacy at play. I’m not yet again going to go through the litany of reasons why the euro was an ill-conceived notion in the first place, only because it
would be pointless to do so. When Greece has left, the commentators tell us Portugal is next and then it might well be Ireland. After that the currency will have lost so much credibility that surely to goodness it will somehow or other have to be revamped. But don’t bet on the idiots in Frankfurt, Berlin, Brussels and Paris who got the EU into this mess doing the right thing. If there’s some way to fucking things up even more, it’s a sure thing they will find it.
. . .
Several hundred years ago when I was at college, a number of my friends belonged either to International Socialists or Solidarity. Both were on the Left - bet you didn’t see that coming - and, if I remember rightly, were at daggers drawn. I am pleased to say, although they will perhaps not be too pleased to hear me say it, that all those of my friends who were members are now doing very well, holding down well-paid jobs, many have their own business (I am thinking of one in particular) and generally have become what their younger selves agitated against so zealously. C’est la vie. That was in the late Sixties/early Seventies, and since then or students seem to have become less politically engaged. In fact, there was a time in the Eighties in Britain well all they seemed to want to do was to own both a collection of ties and a Volva and have a weekend cottage in Dorset. But I knew that somewhere or other lurked the spiritual descendants of Arthur McDonald, Ian Renwick and the rest (I can’t remember any more names off-hand), and now I think I have found them.
Tracking down images to go with the entry above, I came across a website for an organisation which calls itself ROAR (Reflections on a Revolution) - our young left-wingers are always rather good at coming up with heroic names for their groups. I read through several off the pieces and, us usual, they are of varied quality and depth of thought, but it is an interesting site nevertheless. You can find it here. I don’t mean to sound patronising, but it is reassuring that at least some of our young are still going through a left-wing phase. It is so disheartening to meet anyone under 25 who is a convinced conservative, yet they do exist.
. . .
There is a quote by someone along the lines of ‘If a man is not a socialist by the time he is 20, he has no heart. If he is not a conservative by the time he is 40, he has no brain’ I thought it was by Churchill and tried to track it down. And it is, in fact, by
Any man who is not a socialist at age 20 has no heart. Any man who is still a socialist at age 40 has no head — Georges Clemenceau
On response to being told that, someone called Bennet Cerf is quoted as saying:
If he had not become a Communist at 22, I would have disowned him. If he is still a Communist at 30, I will do it then.
A young man who isn’t a socialist hasn’t got a heart; an old man who is a socialist hasn’t got a head — Lloyd George.
The earliest known version of this observation is attributed to mid-nineteenth century historian and statesman François Guizot who is quoted as:
Not to be a republican at 20 is proof of want of heart; to be one at 30 is proof of want of head.
If you want more Churchill quotes, you can find some here.
There are some great ones, of which my favourites are:
Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all
and
He has all of the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire
which could well have been by Wilde. Incidentally, I have chosen to picture of Churchill as a young man, because we invariably only get to see those of him when he was more or less in his dotage, and it is good to remember that he, too, was once young.
NB I had never heard of Bennett Cerf and have just looked him up. It seems he will not be that unknown to American readers.
. . .
I’ve often wondered why I loathe country and western music, and now I think I know why. Musically, it is very, very attractive, especially to a guitar player. A country and western (hereafter referred to as country and western) tune will rarely consist of more than three chords. If it does, the additional chords will be related e.g. if G, C and D feature prominently - which they are likely to do - Em, Am and F might also show up. But anyone searching for the added sophistication of a sixth, major seventh, diminished or 9th and 11th chord would be best advised not to waste their time. Yet musicians who play country and western professionally are usually very, very good, and it’s not just because of the the three-chord trick.
What I have realised is that however much I might like the music, it’s the mawkish sentimentality of country and western music lyrics which pisses me off terminally and the truths which undoubtedly truths, but which are no more than skin-deep and trite truisms, the kind of truths which strike you was ineffably profound when you are pissed and a lot less so the following day as you search for those elusive paracetamol.
Ironically, there are several country and western lyrics which do hit the nail on the head, or, at least, do so up to a point. This particular entry was brought on by me turning on BBC2 to watch the France v Ireland Six Nations match and finding that it had been called off because of a frozen pitch and that instead a series of excerpts from country and western concerts were being screened. One was Kris Kristofferson and his then wife singing Me And Bobby McGee, a song which contains the splendid and very true line ‘Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose’. Well, yes and no. Yes, it’s catchy and true. But no, there is far more to the concept of freedom and, anyway, the line is not intended to covey a truth but a sentiment. Unfortunately, at heart country and western is merely music to feel sorry for yourself too, and although I, like everyone else, have often felt sorry for myself, I don’t feel it is an admirable emotion or one to be encouraged.
Saturday 4 February 2012
I break my 11th commandment and visit a folk club. And given the guest spot, I’m rather glad I did, though I’m otherwise still no convert
A first for me last night: I went to a folk club evening and didn’t run out within the first ten minutes. You might gather that I am not a folkie, in fact, I am probably in the same relationship with folk music as matter is with anti-matter. But my brother-in-law was going with his teenage son and I decided to join them, if only for a rare night out down here in Cornwall (and up in London, for that matter, seeing I don’t leave work until 10pm on Mondays and Tuesdays, and spend Wednesday evenings travelling back home to here in Cornwall, whether by car or on the train).
But I wouldn’t have missed the guest act for the world: accordion player Kate Tweed and fiddle-player and singer Jackie Oates. They are proof, if proof were ever needed, that there comes a point where music ceases merely to be classical, jazz, Country & Western, pop, rock, folk or what have you, but is simply music.
Kate Tweed was especially enjoyable, hitting chords which would not have been out of place in jazz or classical music, and although Jackie had the kind of virginal, pure folk voice which usually sends me screaming to the loo (I prefer deep, gutsy women’s voices), oddly I didn’t object at all. Then there were the songs: they utterly avoided an - to my ears - insufferable worthiness which spoils it all for me, and instead at times created a kind of quiet beauty.
OK, so I am laying on the ‘isn’t folk awful’ with a trowel rather, and to be more specific I rather like much of the music. What does rub me up the wrong way is the ‘revival’ element in much ‘modern’ folk, which creates a kind of second-hand emotion. In days done by, when a great many people found themselves at the bottom of the pile, could be evicted without warning and for whom crushing poverty was a daily reality, one of the few ways they could express their misery was by singing about it. The songs really did come from the heart and soul. These days, what with a welfare state here in Britain, which might even be said now to parody ‘the welfare state’, when we are able, more or less to insure ourselves against anything except, as the saying goes, death and taxes, when healthcare and education are free (well, make the primary and secondary education) and when a panoply of human rights legislation goes some way to ensuring the kind of high-handed and merciless behaviour of an alleged toff class is more or less impossible, it strikes me as all rather phoney.
I must, however, distinguish between modern ‘folk singing’ and the music played. And much of the music played my Ms Tweed and Ms Oates was, to my ears at least, sublime. The sound of the accordion and fiddle (I’m told by my daughter I can’t and mustn’t call it a violin) are made for each other and are a marriage made in heaven. So all-in-all I’m rather glad I overcame my prejudice and went along to Bodmin Folk Club last night. In fact, there’s some American called Jeff Davis performing in a fortnight’s time, and I might just go along again. You can check out Karen Tweed here and Jackie Oates here.
But I wouldn’t have missed the guest act for the world: accordion player Kate Tweed and fiddle-player and singer Jackie Oates. They are proof, if proof were ever needed, that there comes a point where music ceases merely to be classical, jazz, Country & Western, pop, rock, folk or what have you, but is simply music.
Kate Tweed was especially enjoyable, hitting chords which would not have been out of place in jazz or classical music, and although Jackie had the kind of virginal, pure folk voice which usually sends me screaming to the loo (I prefer deep, gutsy women’s voices), oddly I didn’t object at all. Then there were the songs: they utterly avoided an - to my ears - insufferable worthiness which spoils it all for me, and instead at times created a kind of quiet beauty.
OK, so I am laying on the ‘isn’t folk awful’ with a trowel rather, and to be more specific I rather like much of the music. What does rub me up the wrong way is the ‘revival’ element in much ‘modern’ folk, which creates a kind of second-hand emotion. In days done by, when a great many people found themselves at the bottom of the pile, could be evicted without warning and for whom crushing poverty was a daily reality, one of the few ways they could express their misery was by singing about it. The songs really did come from the heart and soul. These days, what with a welfare state here in Britain, which might even be said now to parody ‘the welfare state’, when we are able, more or less to insure ourselves against anything except, as the saying goes, death and taxes, when healthcare and education are free (well, make the primary and secondary education) and when a panoply of human rights legislation goes some way to ensuring the kind of high-handed and merciless behaviour of an alleged toff class is more or less impossible, it strikes me as all rather phoney.
I must, however, distinguish between modern ‘folk singing’ and the music played. And much of the music played my Ms Tweed and Ms Oates was, to my ears at least, sublime. The sound of the accordion and fiddle (I’m told by my daughter I can’t and mustn’t call it a violin) are made for each other and are a marriage made in heaven. So all-in-all I’m rather glad I overcame my prejudice and went along to Bodmin Folk Club last night. In fact, there’s some American called Jeff Davis performing in a fortnight’s time, and I might just go along again. You can check out Karen Tweed here and Jackie Oates here.
Tuesday 31 January 2012
Today’s dare: patronise a Scotsman, then run for your life. As for the Union: keep it – better the devil you know. And it’s official: winter can sometimes be a bit chilly and we might even get a bit of snow (but probably only on high ground)
I am an Englishman who spent four happy years at Dundee University in the late Sixties and early Seventies and who came to like, admire and respect much about Scotland and the Scottish. More to the point, I came to understand how completely bloody irritating it is for Scots when they are patronised by the English, and, as Canadians, Americans, Indians, Pakistanis, Australians and New Zealanders know only too well, no one can patronise quite as well as the English. It is almost an art form. So the rise and rise of the Scottish National Party does not surprise me and that popular support for the party has managed to get Scotland within a referendum’s vote of independence.
As for Scottish independence, I am neither for nor against ‘preserving the Union’ ‘on principle’. (In fact, I am a man of few principles and find that one or two of them go a long way. Broadly speaking, be doubly wary of anyone or everyone who loudly proclaims his or her principles. Principles are essentially a private matter and when they are noticed, it is best in how someone does or does not behave. Someone who thinks the rest of the world is just dying to hear all about his or her principles is usually very boring and most certainly bad news.)
One the question of the Union (the British one not the American one), one can take the view that all things must pass, that the time of the Union has gone and that, all things being equal, if a nation would prefer independence over the status quo, they are fully entitled to it. To clarify my view a little more: I regard it as a certain kind of nonsense to speak of any nation ‘asking’ for independence. As far as I am concerned true independence is declared and that’s the end of the matter. But, sadly, I don’t think all things are equal, and, purely on pragmatic grounds, I feel the two countries should stick together.
My reservation is that I feel Scotland as well as England would be a loser if the union between the two countries came to an end. An end to the Union would, I suspect, diminish and impoverish both. Furthermore, I rather fear that gaining independence would not leave Scotland as a promised land it might seem to some at present.
For one thing, the SNP, until now united in its common objective of gaining independence, would slowly, but surely, split into left, right and centre factions with all the petty politicking that would entail – a multitude of largely pointless skirmishes between rabid lefties, rapacious righties and treacherous centrists would still be the order of the day.
Any Scot craving independence shouldn’t imagine it will all
be sweetness and light once the nation is shot of perfidious Albion and has reached the promised land. As one famous Scot once observed, to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive.
I should also point out that from where I sit south of the border the SNP’s leader Alex Salmond stands head and shoulders above the rest in his party and I doubt the Nationalists will benefit from the same decisive and dynamic leadership once he decides to spend more time with his slippers. If I remember, he had previously retired, but had to come back to head the party again because those who took over made such a dog’s dinner of everything. Can Scotland really be sure that might not happen again?
There is also the small, though embarrassing, point that not all Scots have have each others' interests at heart. We shouldn’t forget that Sir William Wallace was finally brought
down by other Scots who felt their own interests were best served by sucking up to Edward I of England, and that at Culloden more Scots fought under the Duke of Cumberland’s colours than fought under the Jacobite banner of Charles Edward Stuart.
These are, admittedly, two examples from the past and not necessarily representative of modern Scottish manners, but the treachery of some Scots at their fellow countrymen’s expense cannot be ignored.
I suspect that if only the English could be relied upon not to be so patronising, Alex Salmond would be on shakier ground, and his suggestion of ‘devo max’ as a fall-back position persuades me that he is already several moves ahead of the pack. Out-and-out nationalists must, of course, pray that the English continue to lord it over everyone else until it’s too late. Me, I’ll repeat: united we stand, divided we fall, even though union with those sassenach ejits does try the patience of even the most patient of Scots.
. . .
Now there’s a funny thing: it’s winter, so it gets cold and it snows. Well, bugger me! Who’d have thought it? Yet every year the Brits greet the news (December and January were mild this year, but that was exceptional. Usually temperatures are average for this time of year - low) with the kind of surprise and dismay a 12-year-old might show when it dawns on him that Santa doesn’t exist. The headlines scream (even in the ‘broadsheets’ these days, which are also known by some as the ‘serious papers’ although I really don’t know why) ‘Winter wipeout!’ ‘Country blanketed by 3in of snow!’ ‘Santa just a myth: official!’ ‘Temperatures plummet to -5c!’ Well, Lordy me. And there was me hoping that it would be so mild this weekend that I could strip off, lie on the grass in the garden and get a tan. Better shelve that idea, pronto - the might be a flurry of snow!
As for Scottish independence, I am neither for nor against ‘preserving the Union’ ‘on principle’. (In fact, I am a man of few principles and find that one or two of them go a long way. Broadly speaking, be doubly wary of anyone or everyone who loudly proclaims his or her principles. Principles are essentially a private matter and when they are noticed, it is best in how someone does or does not behave. Someone who thinks the rest of the world is just dying to hear all about his or her principles is usually very boring and most certainly bad news.)
One the question of the Union (the British one not the American one), one can take the view that all things must pass, that the time of the Union has gone and that, all things being equal, if a nation would prefer independence over the status quo, they are fully entitled to it. To clarify my view a little more: I regard it as a certain kind of nonsense to speak of any nation ‘asking’ for independence. As far as I am concerned true independence is declared and that’s the end of the matter. But, sadly, I don’t think all things are equal, and, purely on pragmatic grounds, I feel the two countries should stick together.
My reservation is that I feel Scotland as well as England would be a loser if the union between the two countries came to an end. An end to the Union would, I suspect, diminish and impoverish both. Furthermore, I rather fear that gaining independence would not leave Scotland as a promised land it might seem to some at present.
For one thing, the SNP, until now united in its common objective of gaining independence, would slowly, but surely, split into left, right and centre factions with all the petty politicking that would entail – a multitude of largely pointless skirmishes between rabid lefties, rapacious righties and treacherous centrists would still be the order of the day.
Any Scot craving independence shouldn’t imagine it will all
I should also point out that from where I sit south of the border the SNP’s leader Alex Salmond stands head and shoulders above the rest in his party and I doubt the Nationalists will benefit from the same decisive and dynamic leadership once he decides to spend more time with his slippers. If I remember, he had previously retired, but had to come back to head the party again because those who took over made such a dog’s dinner of everything. Can Scotland really be sure that might not happen again?
There is also the small, though embarrassing, point that not all Scots have have each others' interests at heart. We shouldn’t forget that Sir William Wallace was finally brought
These are, admittedly, two examples from the past and not necessarily representative of modern Scottish manners, but the treachery of some Scots at their fellow countrymen’s expense cannot be ignored.
I suspect that if only the English could be relied upon not to be so patronising, Alex Salmond would be on shakier ground, and his suggestion of ‘devo max’ as a fall-back position persuades me that he is already several moves ahead of the pack. Out-and-out nationalists must, of course, pray that the English continue to lord it over everyone else until it’s too late. Me, I’ll repeat: united we stand, divided we fall, even though union with those sassenach ejits does try the patience of even the most patient of Scots.
. . .
Now there’s a funny thing: it’s winter, so it gets cold and it snows. Well, bugger me! Who’d have thought it? Yet every year the Brits greet the news (December and January were mild this year, but that was exceptional. Usually temperatures are average for this time of year - low) with the kind of surprise and dismay a 12-year-old might show when it dawns on him that Santa doesn’t exist. The headlines scream (even in the ‘broadsheets’ these days, which are also known by some as the ‘serious papers’ although I really don’t know why) ‘Winter wipeout!’ ‘Country blanketed by 3in of snow!’ ‘Santa just a myth: official!’ ‘Temperatures plummet to -5c!’ Well, Lordy me. And there was me hoping that it would be so mild this weekend that I could strip off, lie on the grass in the garden and get a tan. Better shelve that idea, pronto - the might be a flurry of snow!
Saturday 28 January 2012
Amazing! Or not. And the latest wheeze ‘to save the euro’ is launched to universal derision
Two weeks ago tomorrow (and try translating that into Italian. I could never get the hang of the future past, or whatever boring grammarians call it, when I spent five months teaching English in Milan in the early Seventies and was slowly learning to get by in Italian - ‘non sono tedesco ma inglese, mia madre est tedesca et mio padre est inglese’ I kept having to tell people because apparently I spoke Italian with a pronounced German accent. Which is all by the by) and on a whim - that sentence while make a lot more sense if you start again at the beginning and ignore what I have written in parentheses (OK, brackets) i.e. go straight from ‘tomorrow’ to ‘and on a whim’ and cut out the crap in the middle which is pretty bloody irrelevant at the best of times and - don’t we know it - these are not the best of times. Still with me? Probably not, because if the truth be told, I’ve even lost myself.
Start again: two weeks ago tomorrow and on a whim I decided to stop eating all wheat products - bread, cakes and biscuits. I really can’t remember why, but I am already noticing a marked difference. I feel more energetic and less tired, my body feels ‘tighter’ and generally I feel a tad brighter all round. I am not gluten allergic or anything like that, it’s just that I decided to give up wheat and feel all the better for it. Admittedly, I am now eating more fruit and salads, which has got to be a good thing, but I’m not stinting myself in any way and haven’t, for example, given up other carbohydrates, alcohol and sugar.
I should stress that I am no faddist - in fact, faddists piss me off big-time (‘You know when you have that first pee of the day, you know, first thing in the morning, out of bed and into the loo and just let it all out, well apparently, according to researchers in Brazil, there are an unbelievable number of nutrients in that first batch which we are all getting rid of because, you know, overnight your body does some sort of housekeeping operation but very often overdoes it, so, according to these Brazilian researchers, we are actually not just getting rid of waste matter but proteins and vitamins and stuff which our bodies actually need, you know, we’re literally just pissing it all away which can’t be a good thing, can it? Mind it’s that very first piss of the day, not the rest that follow them, that’s just waste matter. Anyway, they say that we should catch it all, after what you piss in the first few seconds, your don’t bother with that, you know, like you do when you have to give the doctor a sample, you don’t bother with what comes out first, but then you catch it all in a cup and drink it. Yes, I know it sounds awful and the Brazilians say it’s quite OK to flavour it a little with a small measure of tequila or rum or something just to get rid of the piss taste, but anyway I’ve been doing it for a few weeks now and I feel totally different, I mean totally, it’s as though I’ve been reborn. Yes, it sounds daft but, you know, loads of things sound daft at first but they’re not, I mean if you told someone about nanotubes even five years ago they would have called out the men in the white coats pronto, but, you know, it’s the future, and we would be silly to turn our backs on stuff just because it sounds totally off the wall. So give it a go, there’s only one way to persuade yourself and that’s by trying it yourself. As I say, the researchers recommend a slug of something or other to tone it down a bit, although wasn’t there that Indian prime minister or president or something who used to drink his piss every day and he lived to a ripe old age, so - well, it can’t be that stupid, and now the Brazilians have done some science on it and it seems it’s all pretty kosher. I know I feel totally different, and I’ve only been doing it for a few weeks.’
But let me reassure you, dear, dear bloggees, I have only gone down the wheat-free road. I shall leave the ‘drink your own piss’ salvation to hardier souls. I'll keep you posted on the wheat-free thing.
. . .
The other thing I wanted to mention was how totally - and I mean totally - fucked off I get with the use of superlatives on TV these days. Everything is amazing, and you and I all know that hardly anything is amazing, so why do they keep using that attitude. I used to enjoy TV documentaries about more or less anything, from Anglo-Saxon to dolphins mating to new solar system being born to how the Mesopotamians first invented surgery to how medieval kings used to use shorthand to pass on cookery tips - anything - and in the olden days they just got on with it. They told you what was what, it all lasted half and hour, then it was on to something else. Now? Now everything is bloody ‘amazing, with the presenter claiming he or she feels ‘humbled’ just to be able to open a 700-year-old book. Why ‘humbled’?
I used to think that there was something wrong with me, that a small part of me had some kind of sociopathic tendency because I didn’t faint when I saw an original da Vinci, that I wasn’t moved to tears when I was fed some concoction cooked the way the Aztecs used to cook it. Now I know I need not worry: it’s just the latest fashion in documentary-making. Roll on the next, although going by past developments it will probably be even more insufferable, although at this point I can’t quite imagine how.
. . .
How anyone can hope that the eurozone crisis will end in peace and harmony and rueful smiles and promises that ‘we mustn’t let that happen again’ is beyond. I have no idea exactly when the shit will hit the fan - no one does - but hit the fan it most certainly will, and it will be ugly, ugly, ugly for everyone the world over. But there still are many benighted souls (my sister is one, sorry M.) who think ‘it can all be sorted out, if only we pull together’. Yet the latest ‘proposal’ to sort out the mess should tell any one that the whole exercise is doomed to fail. And you don’t need to know anything about finance: you just need to have a passing acquaintance with European history and human psychology.
According to the Financial Times, the latest EU wheeze to pull the bacon out of the fire is for a Brussels-appointed commissioner to take control of Greek’s budget. It is a measure of how deep we have already ventured into la-la-land that not quite as many jaws are dropping as should. To make matters worse, the wheeze was dreamed up by the Germans. Need anyone be reminded that the Germans are best advised to make discretion their watchword in view of, er, their not so distant past? I yield to no one in my admiration of the country and its people, but they do have a tendency to precede with a total lack of nuance. Put it this way: if the idea was going to be mooted, was it not beyond the wit of someone in the candy store known as the EU HQ in Brussels at least to ensure it came from the French, the Dutch - anyone but the Germans? Well, yes it was. Oh, well.
Start again: two weeks ago tomorrow and on a whim I decided to stop eating all wheat products - bread, cakes and biscuits. I really can’t remember why, but I am already noticing a marked difference. I feel more energetic and less tired, my body feels ‘tighter’ and generally I feel a tad brighter all round. I am not gluten allergic or anything like that, it’s just that I decided to give up wheat and feel all the better for it. Admittedly, I am now eating more fruit and salads, which has got to be a good thing, but I’m not stinting myself in any way and haven’t, for example, given up other carbohydrates, alcohol and sugar.
I should stress that I am no faddist - in fact, faddists piss me off big-time (‘You know when you have that first pee of the day, you know, first thing in the morning, out of bed and into the loo and just let it all out, well apparently, according to researchers in Brazil, there are an unbelievable number of nutrients in that first batch which we are all getting rid of because, you know, overnight your body does some sort of housekeeping operation but very often overdoes it, so, according to these Brazilian researchers, we are actually not just getting rid of waste matter but proteins and vitamins and stuff which our bodies actually need, you know, we’re literally just pissing it all away which can’t be a good thing, can it? Mind it’s that very first piss of the day, not the rest that follow them, that’s just waste matter. Anyway, they say that we should catch it all, after what you piss in the first few seconds, your don’t bother with that, you know, like you do when you have to give the doctor a sample, you don’t bother with what comes out first, but then you catch it all in a cup and drink it. Yes, I know it sounds awful and the Brazilians say it’s quite OK to flavour it a little with a small measure of tequila or rum or something just to get rid of the piss taste, but anyway I’ve been doing it for a few weeks now and I feel totally different, I mean totally, it’s as though I’ve been reborn. Yes, it sounds daft but, you know, loads of things sound daft at first but they’re not, I mean if you told someone about nanotubes even five years ago they would have called out the men in the white coats pronto, but, you know, it’s the future, and we would be silly to turn our backs on stuff just because it sounds totally off the wall. So give it a go, there’s only one way to persuade yourself and that’s by trying it yourself. As I say, the researchers recommend a slug of something or other to tone it down a bit, although wasn’t there that Indian prime minister or president or something who used to drink his piss every day and he lived to a ripe old age, so - well, it can’t be that stupid, and now the Brazilians have done some science on it and it seems it’s all pretty kosher. I know I feel totally different, and I’ve only been doing it for a few weeks.’
But let me reassure you, dear, dear bloggees, I have only gone down the wheat-free road. I shall leave the ‘drink your own piss’ salvation to hardier souls. I'll keep you posted on the wheat-free thing.
. . .
The other thing I wanted to mention was how totally - and I mean totally - fucked off I get with the use of superlatives on TV these days. Everything is amazing, and you and I all know that hardly anything is amazing, so why do they keep using that attitude. I used to enjoy TV documentaries about more or less anything, from Anglo-Saxon to dolphins mating to new solar system being born to how the Mesopotamians first invented surgery to how medieval kings used to use shorthand to pass on cookery tips - anything - and in the olden days they just got on with it. They told you what was what, it all lasted half and hour, then it was on to something else. Now? Now everything is bloody ‘amazing, with the presenter claiming he or she feels ‘humbled’ just to be able to open a 700-year-old book. Why ‘humbled’?
I used to think that there was something wrong with me, that a small part of me had some kind of sociopathic tendency because I didn’t faint when I saw an original da Vinci, that I wasn’t moved to tears when I was fed some concoction cooked the way the Aztecs used to cook it. Now I know I need not worry: it’s just the latest fashion in documentary-making. Roll on the next, although going by past developments it will probably be even more insufferable, although at this point I can’t quite imagine how.
. . .
How anyone can hope that the eurozone crisis will end in peace and harmony and rueful smiles and promises that ‘we mustn’t let that happen again’ is beyond. I have no idea exactly when the shit will hit the fan - no one does - but hit the fan it most certainly will, and it will be ugly, ugly, ugly for everyone the world over. But there still are many benighted souls (my sister is one, sorry M.) who think ‘it can all be sorted out, if only we pull together’. Yet the latest ‘proposal’ to sort out the mess should tell any one that the whole exercise is doomed to fail. And you don’t need to know anything about finance: you just need to have a passing acquaintance with European history and human psychology.
According to the Financial Times, the latest EU wheeze to pull the bacon out of the fire is for a Brussels-appointed commissioner to take control of Greek’s budget. It is a measure of how deep we have already ventured into la-la-land that not quite as many jaws are dropping as should. To make matters worse, the wheeze was dreamed up by the Germans. Need anyone be reminded that the Germans are best advised to make discretion their watchword in view of, er, their not so distant past? I yield to no one in my admiration of the country and its people, but they do have a tendency to precede with a total lack of nuance. Put it this way: if the idea was going to be mooted, was it not beyond the wit of someone in the candy store known as the EU HQ in Brussels at least to ensure it came from the French, the Dutch - anyone but the Germans? Well, yes it was. Oh, well.
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