The usual: I'm driving up to London on a Sunday morning, with nothing else to do but keep my eye on the road, and I think of all kinds of things I should like to write about (which - crucially - don't involve the bloody euro: you're fed up with reading about it here? Not half as much as I am about writing about it here. For one thing, I have nothing original to say and merely repeat what has been said 1,000 by everyone else who think it's a dog's dinner, and for another, like the weather, there is bugger all I can do about it, bugger all you can do about it, and bugger all he/she/it can do about it.)
One of the things I could do is to use this space as a kind of note pad and sounding board. I have found, curiously, that I sharpen my ideas far more when I am debating something with someone rather than just mulling something over on my own, and I often find that I sharpen my ideas more if I try to set it and related matters down on paper. Which brings me to the first thing I might record: a few truths about writing I have garnered over the years, either from reading or hearing someone else's view or from personal experience. So, in no particular order:
1 It doesn't have to be perfect from the off. It is quite crucial to realise that. The trick is to get started, then to carry on and then to finish. Revising can come later, once it is all down on paper. And what you initially put down on paper - writing this on a laptop word processor means obviously that 'putting it down on paper' is meant metaphorically - doesn't even have to be 'good'. It just has to 'be', it has to exist. It might sound like an outrageous truism, but a flawed, quite awful completed novel, short story, script or play is 1,000 times better than an incompleted piece of work. And far, far better than one 'you have in your head'. That is worth nothing, but once it is down on paper, it can be improved, then improved again, then again, until you get it to the point where you think it is reasonably worthwhile.
2 No one, but no one, is in the slightest bit interested in 'your work'. Years ago, I came across a piece of wisdom whose provenance (i.e. where I heard it and how I came to hear it) is so banal, I would hate to tell you and so I shan't. But that piece of wisdom, obvious once you have understood it, is all-important. It is this: just as you are the centre of your world, everyone else, without exception is the centre of theirs. Crucially, that means you are not the centre of their world, you never were and you never will be. So your work is of know interest to them whatsoever, especially when you are still completing it. They just don't want to know. They might be too polite to tell you, but they aren't in the slightest bit interested. Not one jot. Once you have completed it, they might, just might, be interested if it amuses them or entertains them in some way (and I mean 'entertain' in a far, far broader sense than you might at first think. More of that, perhaps, later).
3 This might well be summed up in a coarse, but highly truthful observation: we all love the smell of our own farts. The corollary is, of course, that others don't, and however much you point out the positive points of that fart, how others have rather missed the point of it, they still won't. Think about it: when were you utterly disgusted by the smell when you have farted? The answer is: never. That's the odd thing about our own farts: we don't mind them and so we lose all proportion about them. To expand that thought, when you produce anything, and I'm sure this goes for piece of music of any kind, a painting or a sculpture just as much as a piece of writing, you might think it is a piece of genius or, at worst, rather good. It is, of course, nothing of the kind. What is even more dangerous is that you probably think it is excellent or reasonably good for one reason: you produced it. But it's not.
4 Another observation I came across years ago and which strikes me as being eminently true is that 'sloppy writing betrays sloppy thought'. If you sit down to write anything and find the task rather difficult, it is only because you haven't thought about it. I would even suggest that all writing takes place and is often completed in the mind long before any words are set down on paper (OK, clever dick, tapped out on a computer keyboard). The more you think about what you want to write and how you want to write it, the greater chance you have of producing less than awful work.
5 Having made those four points, I should stress that they are merely points I have made for others, perhaps you, to consider. They are not rules, because and, this is both the easiest and hardest point to get over: there are no rules. Whether you are writing something, painting something, composing something or doing whatever you are trying to do - there are no rules. You can do what the hell you like. You can do anything you like. Now here's the catch: whether anyone is in the slightest bit interested in what you have produced is quite another matter. Your 'novel', for example, might consist of writing the word 'love' 60,000 times.
Fair enough, but I would bet my bottom dollar that anyone would ever bother to carry on reading it after 20 seconds, and no amount of explaining 'what you were trying to do' will spark any further interest whatsoever. When I was still doing a lot of photography, I would often visit photographic exhibitions and see some great pictures. But what always put me off in some exhibutions would be an A4 sheet of paper next to a quite ordinary photo 'explaining' explaining what it is all about. As far as I am concerned those photos should stand on their own. If they need some kind of longwinded exposition about why they are good and worthwhile, they are simply nothing of the kind.
There's is, what is, if I have got this right, something called The Intentional Fallacy. The debate centres on whether a work of art should stand alone without us knowing the first thing about the author, composer or painter. Some argue that knowing some details can - and I do hope I have got this right and am prepared to be corrected - somehow 'add' to that work. I'm sure there's far more to it than that, but I am firmly in the camp that each and every 'work of art' (and Lord how I loathe that phrase for being woolly and vacuous) should stand and fall on its own intrinsic merits, that everything needed to 'understand' what it was intended to be conveyed is given, that no more should be needed. Certainly, I must admit, that subsequently coming across certain biographical details can somehow enhance our experience. But my point is that such an enhancement is a bonus.
6 There are 1,001 different kinds of novel, painting, pieces of music or whatever it is you are producing and there will be 1,001 different kinds of people who will appreciate some but not others. So, my warning about farts and self-love notwithstanding (and unless, of course, you are simply writing like a journeyman and being hired to produce a certain something), it would seem obvious to me that you should first and foremost write for yourself. If others are also interested, all well and good. But don't go about trying to please others. Not only will you most probably produce pretty mediocre work, but the chances are you won't even impress those you are hoping to impress.
I've run out of steam on this one and if I carry on, I shall merely be wasting your time as well as mine. But there is one last thing I should like to advocate:
7 Learn to touch-type. First of all it is not half as difficult as you might think and you don't have to reach a particular level. PAs and secretaries might be expected to reach a touch-typing speed of whatever is the norm - 100 words a minute - but you don't. Forty words a minute or even slower is perfectly adequate. But what you will gain is the ability to write as you think. If, like me for years and years (and like almost all the hacks I know) you use the two, three or four-finger system, you are interrrupting your train of thought several times every few seconds and suffering because of it. The chances are that you will type in such manner, make quite a few mistakes and go back and correct them before you carry on. Or, like me, you will carry on regardless and then go back once you feel you have finished to correct all those mistakes. That is not only excessively boring, but the chances are that you will start re-writing what you have written and ensure that what was more or less a coherent train of thought becomes anything but. That's what happened to me, but a few years ago I bought the Mavis Beacon touch typing program and taught myself and the benefit is enormous.
8 Perhaps I should restate my first point and expand on it a little: quite apart from what you write not having to be perfect from the off, don't take on too much in one session. It only gets worse. Set yourself a target, reach it, then get up and do something entirely different for at least a few hours, but preferably a day. You will then come back to what you have written and see it with a far clearer, far more objective eye. So you revise it and try to improve it, discarding, more often than not, those bits you first thought were quite magnificent because in a rather colder light they are nothing of the kind.
Oh, and I have only written a few short stories over the years, two short novels and one what would be called a novella. Of those I will only stand by the second novel as - perhaps - getting there. Everything I wrote before then was, I'm sure, shite, because I had no idea what I was doing or even wanted to do.
Sunday 22 July 2012
Saturday 21 July 2012
Lesson for today: Never Trust A Grown-up, especially if you elected him or her or they deal in money. The chances are he and she find it impossible to distinguish between their arse and their elbow
Let me take you back to your childhood, to the days when there were still ‘grown-ups’. These ‘grown-ups’ were initially like gods: when you were 3 or 4 they were simply always right because the were ‘grown-ups’. Later, at 7 or 8, you might well have become a little more rebellious, or not, but you usually felt rather overawed by these ‘grown-ups’. In those days, too, people of 17 and 18 were quite simply ancient and could quite easily be put in the same category as the ‘grown-ups’. (These days, I find I can’t even treat men and women in their late teens and early twenties as though they have much of a clue of what’s going on, and even feel ever-so-slightly guilty if I find a woman of 19 or 20 sexually attractive, knowing just how emotionally vulnerable she still is. But, ssh, don’t tell anyone, especially not anyone in their late teens and early twenties, who do so like to think they have reached the winning line.)
The point about ‘grown-ups’ were, among other things, was that if something went wrong, a ‘grown-up’ could sort it out and there was an end to the matter. ‘Grown-ups’ were seemingly all-powerful. Naturally, as we get over, we wise up. As I have told my two children over and over again since they were quite young, in many ways ‘grown-ups’ are just older children: they, too, squabble and bicker and lie to each other in just the same way as children do, but unfortunately they are not amenable to the same kind of sanctions. (As recently as three years ago, when my daughter was, 13, she misbehaved and I ordered her to ‘go to your room, now!’ And off she went, admittedly protesting, and meekly stayed there for the next ten minutes until I came upstairs to tell her ‘not to do it again’ and ‘you can go downstairs now, if you like’. I could not believe I got away with it.)
I also tell them that when ‘grown-ups’ squabble, bicker and lie to each other in it far more serious than when children do it, because they know better. But although we wise up, aspects of that attitude still remain with us. So, for example, we have what can only be described as a naive belief that those engaged in the law and medicine know what they are talking about, and crucially, more than we do. To a certain extent that’s true, but at the end of the day a lawyer and doctor can only give you his or her informed opinion, one based on extra training and experience. But it can still be a bloody awful opinion, and of you get more than three or four lawyers or doctors together and present them with the same problem, you will get at least three or four opinions and, unhelpfully, at least two will contradict each other totally.
Then there are the ‘money men’, the big businessmen, our politicians and others of that ilk. Most certainly we all wise up in time and realise that not only do a great many of them have feet of clay but their brains are also exceptionally suspect, but such realisation does come rather later in life than would be sensible. And that brings me to my favourite topic: the euro crisis. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, lads and lasses: we all assume that at the end of the day our politicians and their advisers know what they are doing, however obscure and daft it might seem to us. We tell ourselves that if we can’t quite follow the logic of it all, it is our fault for not being bright enough or lacking a sufficiently knowledge about certain matters.
But have none of it: they haven’t a bloody clue. And those who DO have a clue, simply haven’t the backbone to do what they know to be the right thing. It’s politically impossible, they say, so instead they almost willingly lead not just Europe but the rest of the world into an economic depression the like of which none of us has seen in his or her lifetime.
The point about ‘grown-ups’ were, among other things, was that if something went wrong, a ‘grown-up’ could sort it out and there was an end to the matter. ‘Grown-ups’ were seemingly all-powerful. Naturally, as we get over, we wise up. As I have told my two children over and over again since they were quite young, in many ways ‘grown-ups’ are just older children: they, too, squabble and bicker and lie to each other in just the same way as children do, but unfortunately they are not amenable to the same kind of sanctions. (As recently as three years ago, when my daughter was, 13, she misbehaved and I ordered her to ‘go to your room, now!’ And off she went, admittedly protesting, and meekly stayed there for the next ten minutes until I came upstairs to tell her ‘not to do it again’ and ‘you can go downstairs now, if you like’. I could not believe I got away with it.)
I also tell them that when ‘grown-ups’ squabble, bicker and lie to each other in it far more serious than when children do it, because they know better. But although we wise up, aspects of that attitude still remain with us. So, for example, we have what can only be described as a naive belief that those engaged in the law and medicine know what they are talking about, and crucially, more than we do. To a certain extent that’s true, but at the end of the day a lawyer and doctor can only give you his or her informed opinion, one based on extra training and experience. But it can still be a bloody awful opinion, and of you get more than three or four lawyers or doctors together and present them with the same problem, you will get at least three or four opinions and, unhelpfully, at least two will contradict each other totally.
Then there are the ‘money men’, the big businessmen, our politicians and others of that ilk. Most certainly we all wise up in time and realise that not only do a great many of them have feet of clay but their brains are also exceptionally suspect, but such realisation does come rather later in life than would be sensible. And that brings me to my favourite topic: the euro crisis. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, lads and lasses: we all assume that at the end of the day our politicians and their advisers know what they are doing, however obscure and daft it might seem to us. We tell ourselves that if we can’t quite follow the logic of it all, it is our fault for not being bright enough or lacking a sufficiently knowledge about certain matters.
But have none of it: they haven’t a bloody clue. And those who DO have a clue, simply haven’t the backbone to do what they know to be the right thing. It’s politically impossible, they say, so instead they almost willingly lead not just Europe but the rest of the world into an economic depression the like of which none of us has seen in his or her lifetime.
Thursday 19 July 2012
The joy of stripping to the altogether in a French provincial airport just to convince whoever needs to know you are not Muslim, Jewish, Syrian, Christian, Irish or otherwise using a handy stick of Semtex to separate your arse from the rest of your body with the intent on destabilising everything for everyone for ever. And have you heard about Romania and Hungary? So have I
Merignac airport, Bordeaux.
Well, after queuing most of the morning just to join another queue for another queue, surviving the security checks, buying the whisky and chocolate for the dear ones back home, I can sit down and get my irritation down on paper while I am still in full rant mode. Posting from an airport cafe is something of a first, but I have one of those 3 dongles which is costing me £8 a month and which I never use, so bugger the roaming charges and whatever other charges they add, I’m going to use up what I have paid for.
While I was on holiday, and with the irritation of flying here fresh in my mind, I looked up trains and ticket prices from Calais to Paris, then from Paris to Bordeaux with a view to next time possibly taking the train instead of flying. It’s all very well taking just one hour ten minutes flying from one airport to another once you’re on the plane, but the bloody pfaffing around just to get on and then off the plane really is no one’s business.
The aspect which I find most irritating are the security checks, which have become ever more stringent ever since that Muslim convert go it into his head to try to set his pants on fire on a flight to the U.S. Why do the security authorities always assume we all want to go up in flames on a plane dressed in nothing more substantial than our underpants? Yes, I exaggerate a little, but not much. The experience here in Bordeaux airport was particularly galling today: it really gets beyond a joke when some
Me earlier on today, particularly galled
guy wearing too much aftershave who dyes his hair insists he take you into a backroom for a strip search. I was livid, especially as he suddenly seemed to think the whole matter was unimportant after all and turfed me out almost before I was dressed. Caused something of a consternation in duty-free, I can tell you.
Speaking of which: duty-free? Really? Then why are so many of the goods supposedly duty-free almost always that much more expensive than in your local Super U and Intermarché? I use these trips abroad to stock up on all sorts of goodies, including aftershaves since I shaved my beard off (to almost universal approval, I should add - it’s very gratifying when your 13-year-old son being picked up from the school bus walks over to the car and the first thing he says is: ‘You look really young now’ - not once but twice). Well, I have brought back from La belle France a 50ml bottle of Pierre Cardin something-or-other and a 50ml bottle of Daniel Hechter. Both are very nice and not, in terms of quality, cheap. Yet both cost me just under €15 - the equivalent in Bordeaux duty-free were around €33, and I checked: they were still only 50ml bottles.
Later
Didn’t actually get around to posting this entry at Bordeaux airport because we were summoned to board the Gatwick flight around 50 minutes before we were due to depart. Knowing that it usually means queuing up for 10/15 minutes to get through passport control, just to queue somewhere else for another 10/15 minutes, I was inclined to cut it fine, but was urged to make a move by a Scottish couple I was talking to when there was an announcement that Gatwick-bound passengers should get a bloody move on or else. So after a nifty bit of queue-jumping (‘sorry, can I just get past, yes, I know but, sorry, can I just get past, my flights been called’), I passed passport control and was virtually whisked onto the plane by 2.15pm even though we were not due to fly off until 2.50pm.
In the event, we left 10 minutes early and arrived at Gatwick 20 minutes early - where on earth is the sense in all that? The important thing to remember is that it doesn’t really matter how late you are once you have checked in your bag and once it has been loaded onto the plane, because they prefer to leave late with all passengers accounted for rather than leave even later after having to search the luggage hold for the luggage of the missing passenger in order to take it off again (which they have to do, you see - Muslim converts, semtex, underpants and all that).
The M25 was the usual nightmare of stop-start traffic, so I took off cross-country heading for I don't know where - Dorking then Guildford, I think - and only went the wrong way twice after ignoring the sage advice of my satnav. But I am now sitting in The Brewers Arms in South Petherton (a very pleasant pub, by the way, if you are ever in these parts), enjoying a pint or two of cider (have only started my first) and a cigar (La Paz cigarros, which is equally oft-putting like all the rest by prominently insisting on the box that I shall probably drop dead within minutes of stubbing out the latest. But I am only 105 miles from home and shall see my little ones at around 9.30pm.
As for the flying, I am seriously considering whether it might not be equally as comfortable to next time to get a train from Calais to Paris, the on to Bordeaux and then on to Cerons, which is a small station just 10 minutes drive from my aunt’s house. At least you’re not obliged to do the journey dressed in nothing but your underwear.
As the Germans say Mahlzeit!
. . .
As far as I know, the latest thinking on why - inexplicably - the Russians (who we once called the Soviets) and the Chinese (who we once called the Red Chinese) refuse to back sanctions on Syria to put pressure on Assad to leave power: it isn’t that they are turning a pretty penny selling ever more lethal weapons to his regime or even that the Russians want to keep hold of the port they use in the Med. It seems what really worries them is that if all these popular efforts to rid the world of unsound regimes gets any stronger, their folk might see an opportunity. That is the latest thinking.
However, I think its crap. From what I have read, your average Russian isn’t doing too badly and the majority of them, like the majority of what we are not obliged to call the ‘middle-class’ Chinese prefer the baubles of affluence to whether or not they have a say in how their country is run. So there might not yet be much of a danger that the populace will turn around to raucous cries of ‘Freedom! Freedom!’
Two further points: it is utterly simplistic to imagine that with Assad out of the way, everything will be sweetness and light in Syria. We ain’t seen nothing yet, as the man said. Furthermore, it seems the U.S. State Department is in the process of doing a substantial U-turn and planning to make friends with the Muslim Brotherhood on the useful, though cynical, principle that all other things being equal it makes more sense to stay on the winning side. As always oil (which I learn today for the first time is sometimes referred to as ‘Texas tea’) dictates the agenda.
The second point is to imagine that holding free and fair elections every five years or so means you have a democracy. Oh no it doesn’t. What is crucial is the rule of law (which is so important, I might even resort to my limited stock of capital letters and call it the Rule of Law). And as for that crucial rule of law, things are now looking more than a tad dicey in Romania and Hungary. I have in the past here wondered what exactly the EU - make that the ‘EU’ - would do if one or more of its member states were to become de facto dictatorships, which is not at all that far-fetched. No doubt Brussels would ‘condemn the most recent developments in the strongest terms’ and urge apostate states ‘to consider the consequences and return to the rule of law’. I wouldn’t care so much if I didn’t have a 13-year-old son and a 15-year-old daughter for whom I want a safe, prosperous and as far as possible hassle-free future. And it really isn’t looking that way, is it.
Once again, Mahlzeit!
. . .
Does anyone honestly believe this whole euro mess can still be sorted out? Honestly? That’s it’s all just teething troubles, that it just needs one more push and, you know, with a bit of luck, God willing, fingers crossed, if we all hold together - look just leave it to us, the experts, and we’ll make sure everything comes good . . . After the riots in Greece, we now have riots in Madrid and people don’t riot just because there’s nothing particular good on the telly. Now the Italian government in Rome is considering taking over the running of a bankrupt Sicily.
I am most certainly not an economist or a banker, but even for Pee Wee Powell here nothing, but absolutely nothing stacks up. A dog’s dinner doesn’t even start to describe it. Even the IMF has more or less given up on hope of ever finding a solution. UPDATE: According to the Spiegel, the IMF has told Brussels that it is no longer interested in bailing out Greece. Greece is on its own. That is good news for Greece, which can leave the euro, re-introduced the drachma, devalue and start living again. Meanwhile, the rest of us can look forward to a few years of dirt-cheap hols in the Aegean.
In Romania and Hungary two rather unsavoury prime ministers are riding a coach and four through their constitutional laws as they try to ensure they get an ever tighter grip on power. Now why would they being doing that, I wonder? Could it be that they rather enjoy being in charge and would rather do away with whatever democratic restraints could get in the way? Neither country has a track record of being a thriving democracy. The irony in all this is that one, unspoken, principle of the EU and its remorseless development into an ever more integrated political unit was to try to ensure that by binding Germany and France closer together, Europe would never again see war on the scale of the conflict which ran between 1939 and 1945. Some hope of that, it would seem.
And one more time, Mahlzeit!
Well, after queuing most of the morning just to join another queue for another queue, surviving the security checks, buying the whisky and chocolate for the dear ones back home, I can sit down and get my irritation down on paper while I am still in full rant mode. Posting from an airport cafe is something of a first, but I have one of those 3 dongles which is costing me £8 a month and which I never use, so bugger the roaming charges and whatever other charges they add, I’m going to use up what I have paid for.
While I was on holiday, and with the irritation of flying here fresh in my mind, I looked up trains and ticket prices from Calais to Paris, then from Paris to Bordeaux with a view to next time possibly taking the train instead of flying. It’s all very well taking just one hour ten minutes flying from one airport to another once you’re on the plane, but the bloody pfaffing around just to get on and then off the plane really is no one’s business.
The aspect which I find most irritating are the security checks, which have become ever more stringent ever since that Muslim convert go it into his head to try to set his pants on fire on a flight to the U.S. Why do the security authorities always assume we all want to go up in flames on a plane dressed in nothing more substantial than our underpants? Yes, I exaggerate a little, but not much. The experience here in Bordeaux airport was particularly galling today: it really gets beyond a joke when some
guy wearing too much aftershave who dyes his hair insists he take you into a backroom for a strip search. I was livid, especially as he suddenly seemed to think the whole matter was unimportant after all and turfed me out almost before I was dressed. Caused something of a consternation in duty-free, I can tell you.
Speaking of which: duty-free? Really? Then why are so many of the goods supposedly duty-free almost always that much more expensive than in your local Super U and Intermarché? I use these trips abroad to stock up on all sorts of goodies, including aftershaves since I shaved my beard off (to almost universal approval, I should add - it’s very gratifying when your 13-year-old son being picked up from the school bus walks over to the car and the first thing he says is: ‘You look really young now’ - not once but twice). Well, I have brought back from La belle France a 50ml bottle of Pierre Cardin something-or-other and a 50ml bottle of Daniel Hechter. Both are very nice and not, in terms of quality, cheap. Yet both cost me just under €15 - the equivalent in Bordeaux duty-free were around €33, and I checked: they were still only 50ml bottles.
Later
Didn’t actually get around to posting this entry at Bordeaux airport because we were summoned to board the Gatwick flight around 50 minutes before we were due to depart. Knowing that it usually means queuing up for 10/15 minutes to get through passport control, just to queue somewhere else for another 10/15 minutes, I was inclined to cut it fine, but was urged to make a move by a Scottish couple I was talking to when there was an announcement that Gatwick-bound passengers should get a bloody move on or else. So after a nifty bit of queue-jumping (‘sorry, can I just get past, yes, I know but, sorry, can I just get past, my flights been called’), I passed passport control and was virtually whisked onto the plane by 2.15pm even though we were not due to fly off until 2.50pm.
In the event, we left 10 minutes early and arrived at Gatwick 20 minutes early - where on earth is the sense in all that? The important thing to remember is that it doesn’t really matter how late you are once you have checked in your bag and once it has been loaded onto the plane, because they prefer to leave late with all passengers accounted for rather than leave even later after having to search the luggage hold for the luggage of the missing passenger in order to take it off again (which they have to do, you see - Muslim converts, semtex, underpants and all that).
The M25 was the usual nightmare of stop-start traffic, so I took off cross-country heading for I don't know where - Dorking then Guildford, I think - and only went the wrong way twice after ignoring the sage advice of my satnav. But I am now sitting in The Brewers Arms in South Petherton (a very pleasant pub, by the way, if you are ever in these parts), enjoying a pint or two of cider (have only started my first) and a cigar (La Paz cigarros, which is equally oft-putting like all the rest by prominently insisting on the box that I shall probably drop dead within minutes of stubbing out the latest. But I am only 105 miles from home and shall see my little ones at around 9.30pm.
As for the flying, I am seriously considering whether it might not be equally as comfortable to next time to get a train from Calais to Paris, the on to Bordeaux and then on to Cerons, which is a small station just 10 minutes drive from my aunt’s house. At least you’re not obliged to do the journey dressed in nothing but your underwear.
As the Germans say Mahlzeit!
. . .
As far as I know, the latest thinking on why - inexplicably - the Russians (who we once called the Soviets) and the Chinese (who we once called the Red Chinese) refuse to back sanctions on Syria to put pressure on Assad to leave power: it isn’t that they are turning a pretty penny selling ever more lethal weapons to his regime or even that the Russians want to keep hold of the port they use in the Med. It seems what really worries them is that if all these popular efforts to rid the world of unsound regimes gets any stronger, their folk might see an opportunity. That is the latest thinking.
However, I think its crap. From what I have read, your average Russian isn’t doing too badly and the majority of them, like the majority of what we are not obliged to call the ‘middle-class’ Chinese prefer the baubles of affluence to whether or not they have a say in how their country is run. So there might not yet be much of a danger that the populace will turn around to raucous cries of ‘Freedom! Freedom!’
Two further points: it is utterly simplistic to imagine that with Assad out of the way, everything will be sweetness and light in Syria. We ain’t seen nothing yet, as the man said. Furthermore, it seems the U.S. State Department is in the process of doing a substantial U-turn and planning to make friends with the Muslim Brotherhood on the useful, though cynical, principle that all other things being equal it makes more sense to stay on the winning side. As always oil (which I learn today for the first time is sometimes referred to as ‘Texas tea’) dictates the agenda.
The second point is to imagine that holding free and fair elections every five years or so means you have a democracy. Oh no it doesn’t. What is crucial is the rule of law (which is so important, I might even resort to my limited stock of capital letters and call it the Rule of Law). And as for that crucial rule of law, things are now looking more than a tad dicey in Romania and Hungary. I have in the past here wondered what exactly the EU - make that the ‘EU’ - would do if one or more of its member states were to become de facto dictatorships, which is not at all that far-fetched. No doubt Brussels would ‘condemn the most recent developments in the strongest terms’ and urge apostate states ‘to consider the consequences and return to the rule of law’. I wouldn’t care so much if I didn’t have a 13-year-old son and a 15-year-old daughter for whom I want a safe, prosperous and as far as possible hassle-free future. And it really isn’t looking that way, is it.
Once again, Mahlzeit!
. . .
Does anyone honestly believe this whole euro mess can still be sorted out? Honestly? That’s it’s all just teething troubles, that it just needs one more push and, you know, with a bit of luck, God willing, fingers crossed, if we all hold together - look just leave it to us, the experts, and we’ll make sure everything comes good . . . After the riots in Greece, we now have riots in Madrid and people don’t riot just because there’s nothing particular good on the telly. Now the Italian government in Rome is considering taking over the running of a bankrupt Sicily.
I am most certainly not an economist or a banker, but even for Pee Wee Powell here nothing, but absolutely nothing stacks up. A dog’s dinner doesn’t even start to describe it. Even the IMF has more or less given up on hope of ever finding a solution. UPDATE: According to the Spiegel, the IMF has told Brussels that it is no longer interested in bailing out Greece. Greece is on its own. That is good news for Greece, which can leave the euro, re-introduced the drachma, devalue and start living again. Meanwhile, the rest of us can look forward to a few years of dirt-cheap hols in the Aegean.
In Romania and Hungary two rather unsavoury prime ministers are riding a coach and four through their constitutional laws as they try to ensure they get an ever tighter grip on power. Now why would they being doing that, I wonder? Could it be that they rather enjoy being in charge and would rather do away with whatever democratic restraints could get in the way? Neither country has a track record of being a thriving democracy. The irony in all this is that one, unspoken, principle of the EU and its remorseless development into an ever more integrated political unit was to try to ensure that by binding Germany and France closer together, Europe would never again see war on the scale of the conflict which ran between 1939 and 1945. Some hope of that, it would seem.
And one more time, Mahlzeit!
Wednesday 18 July 2012
More music, guitars, saints who don't get burnt, free wine and an artist who (in my very uninformed view) is something of a nine-bob note
Illats, SW France
It was off to St Emilion on Monday to inspect the world’s largest underground cathedral, in fact, probably the world’s only underground cathedral. The trip was as much to avoid lunch though that’s not as bad as it sounds. I took my aunt out for a meal the night before and started with a salad of which foie gras played a prominent part, and then had magret du canard. It was all very rich, so much so, in fact, that waking up the following morning, I didn’t feel like eating anything more for 24 hours. (Incidenally, my aunt isn't really my aunt, but my stepmother's sister, but I stick closely to the First Rule of Blogging: Keep it simple, and make allowances for the slower ships in the convoy. For all I know people from the UK also read this blog.)
So the problem was: what to do about lunch? Explaining to a Frenchman or woman (although my aunt is not French) that you fancy skipping lunch for a change, you know, just to clear your system (pour clearer la systeme is what they call it) will be met by the same incredulity as if you were to announce that you fancy a quick dip in a vat of boiling oil. So rather than get involved in some long-running explanation and most probably settling for some kind of compromise (‘OK, I’ll just have a bit’ when, in fact, I didn’t want to eat anything), I thought the simplest solution would be to take myself off somewhere and would ‘look after my own lunch’. Scoured the net for nearby, or reasonably nearby, places which might prove to be interesting. One, a ‘bastide town’, was too far, but then I came across the ‘underground cathedral’ at St Emilion which is only about 25 miles away, so off I went.
In typical pagan-catholic fashion, St Emilion (who might well have been demoted in the recent and long-overdue clearout of saints as being far too implausible for words - founding the world's first underground car park indeed, and all that in the 8th century), is revered because of two miracles. He was a chap born of humble origins - like the rest of us, then - and living in Brittany in the household of a nobleman where he was responsible for providing bread for the castle. Being a soft-hearted kind of guy, he also used to slip a loaf or two to the peasants outside the castle, but someone snitched on him to the noblemen, who one night lay in wait to catch Emilion red-handed. On his way out with his stock of bread for the peasants, Emilion was challenged by the nobleman: ‘What, sir, do you have under your coat?’ he demanded. Upon which Emilion opened his coat - to reveal that the loaves had all turned into wood.
That was the first miracle and Emilion’s fame grew far and wide in Britanny. In fact, it grew so far and wide that he began to dislike it and left the nobleman’s employ and headed south and eventually arrived at a monastery where he was ordained. At the monastery his job was once again to keep the establishment supplied with bread and one day he couldn’t find whatever implement was used to remove the bread from the oven. So he simply climbed in to retrieve the bread by hand - and emerged utterly unscathed, with not one burn. Another miracle!
Again he became the toast of the town and being a modest chap, took himself off again, arriving at the spot we now call St Emilion. There he found a cave with springs inside and settled into a life of sainthood.
First a chapel was built next to the cave a couple of centuries later (it wasn’t called ‘marketing’ in medieval times but the RC church knew every trick in the book when it came to attracting pilgrims, who could be regarded as medieval tourists and who also spent their money locally). Then the local bigwig, a chap called Peter of Somewhere or Other who had fought in one of the Crusades, got it into his head to copy several of the churches he had seen in the Middle East and had the underground cathedral carved out of the limestone.
. . .
Later, it was off to the Chateau Gravas in Barsac, which produces Sauternes wine, for a concert given by an Argentinian guitarist and a Spanish saxophonist who played a programme of different South American music. Guitar and saxophone - in fact three different saxes, ranging from a huge bass sax to one which resembled a clarinet - might seem and odd combination, but it worked very well. I liked it a great deal, my aunt not quite as much. They call themselves Le Duo Corrientes and here is their Myspace page. The drink afterwards, in which very generous glasses of Sauternes were served, was where the chateau’s barrels of Sauternes are stored and which also housed an exhibition of work by someone called Flickinger which I found hugely unimpressive.
There was a similar exhibition by the same chap last year, and then my aunt and I fell out after I called it ‘corporate art’, and when she asked me what I meant, I explained that as far as I was concerned it was pretty much the kind of stuff you find in the reception and corridors of multinational companies which any halfway decent graphic designer can turn out on a wet afternoon. Flickinger (if that is his name - I can’t find a reference to him anywhere)
. . .
Last night it was off to a concert by a classical guitarist called Emmanuel Rossfelder who played a medley of various pieces, although, as my aunt said, could have been a little more adventurous in his choice of pieces. And I have to admit that I far preferred the previous night’s guitarist and saxophonist.
The concert last night was at the Chateau Pape Clement on the outskirts of Bordeaux. Tonight it’s a programme of music ‘with a Spanish flavour’ on violin, clarinet and accordion, which sounds promising. That's at the local Maison du Vin at Podensac, who if I remember correctly from two years ago are very generous with their wine. The least generous were the Chateau Smith Haut Laffite who barely wetted the bottom of the glass with red wine, but as my aunt’s husband pointed out, it was probably a wine which sells at more then £100 a bottle, so it’s really not much of a suprise.
It was off to St Emilion on Monday to inspect the world’s largest underground cathedral, in fact, probably the world’s only underground cathedral. The trip was as much to avoid lunch though that’s not as bad as it sounds. I took my aunt out for a meal the night before and started with a salad of which foie gras played a prominent part, and then had magret du canard. It was all very rich, so much so, in fact, that waking up the following morning, I didn’t feel like eating anything more for 24 hours. (Incidenally, my aunt isn't really my aunt, but my stepmother's sister, but I stick closely to the First Rule of Blogging: Keep it simple, and make allowances for the slower ships in the convoy. For all I know people from the UK also read this blog.)
So the problem was: what to do about lunch? Explaining to a Frenchman or woman (although my aunt is not French) that you fancy skipping lunch for a change, you know, just to clear your system (pour clearer la systeme is what they call it) will be met by the same incredulity as if you were to announce that you fancy a quick dip in a vat of boiling oil. So rather than get involved in some long-running explanation and most probably settling for some kind of compromise (‘OK, I’ll just have a bit’ when, in fact, I didn’t want to eat anything), I thought the simplest solution would be to take myself off somewhere and would ‘look after my own lunch’. Scoured the net for nearby, or reasonably nearby, places which might prove to be interesting. One, a ‘bastide town’, was too far, but then I came across the ‘underground cathedral’ at St Emilion which is only about 25 miles away, so off I went.
In typical pagan-catholic fashion, St Emilion (who might well have been demoted in the recent and long-overdue clearout of saints as being far too implausible for words - founding the world's first underground car park indeed, and all that in the 8th century), is revered because of two miracles. He was a chap born of humble origins - like the rest of us, then - and living in Brittany in the household of a nobleman where he was responsible for providing bread for the castle. Being a soft-hearted kind of guy, he also used to slip a loaf or two to the peasants outside the castle, but someone snitched on him to the noblemen, who one night lay in wait to catch Emilion red-handed. On his way out with his stock of bread for the peasants, Emilion was challenged by the nobleman: ‘What, sir, do you have under your coat?’ he demanded. Upon which Emilion opened his coat - to reveal that the loaves had all turned into wood.
That was the first miracle and Emilion’s fame grew far and wide in Britanny. In fact, it grew so far and wide that he began to dislike it and left the nobleman’s employ and headed south and eventually arrived at a monastery where he was ordained. At the monastery his job was once again to keep the establishment supplied with bread and one day he couldn’t find whatever implement was used to remove the bread from the oven. So he simply climbed in to retrieve the bread by hand - and emerged utterly unscathed, with not one burn. Another miracle!
Again he became the toast of the town and being a modest chap, took himself off again, arriving at the spot we now call St Emilion. There he found a cave with springs inside and settled into a life of sainthood.
First a chapel was built next to the cave a couple of centuries later (it wasn’t called ‘marketing’ in medieval times but the RC church knew every trick in the book when it came to attracting pilgrims, who could be regarded as medieval tourists and who also spent their money locally). Then the local bigwig, a chap called Peter of Somewhere or Other who had fought in one of the Crusades, got it into his head to copy several of the churches he had seen in the Middle East and had the underground cathedral carved out of the limestone.
. . .
Later, it was off to the Chateau Gravas in Barsac, which produces Sauternes wine, for a concert given by an Argentinian guitarist and a Spanish saxophonist who played a programme of different South American music. Guitar and saxophone - in fact three different saxes, ranging from a huge bass sax to one which resembled a clarinet - might seem and odd combination, but it worked very well. I liked it a great deal, my aunt not quite as much. They call themselves Le Duo Corrientes and here is their Myspace page. The drink afterwards, in which very generous glasses of Sauternes were served, was where the chateau’s barrels of Sauternes are stored and which also housed an exhibition of work by someone called Flickinger which I found hugely unimpressive.
There was a similar exhibition by the same chap last year, and then my aunt and I fell out after I called it ‘corporate art’, and when she asked me what I meant, I explained that as far as I was concerned it was pretty much the kind of stuff you find in the reception and corridors of multinational companies which any halfway decent graphic designer can turn out on a wet afternoon. Flickinger (if that is his name - I can’t find a reference to him anywhere)
. . .
Last night it was off to a concert by a classical guitarist called Emmanuel Rossfelder who played a medley of various pieces, although, as my aunt said, could have been a little more adventurous in his choice of pieces. And I have to admit that I far preferred the previous night’s guitarist and saxophonist.
The concert last night was at the Chateau Pape Clement on the outskirts of Bordeaux. Tonight it’s a programme of music ‘with a Spanish flavour’ on violin, clarinet and accordion, which sounds promising. That's at the local Maison du Vin at Podensac, who if I remember correctly from two years ago are very generous with their wine. The least generous were the Chateau Smith Haut Laffite who barely wetted the bottom of the glass with red wine, but as my aunt’s husband pointed out, it was probably a wine which sells at more then £100 a bottle, so it’s really not much of a suprise.
Sunday 15 July 2012
Forget your soaps, try Mad Men
Many years ago, I was once drawn into watching Emmerdale and from personal experience I know the addiction of soaps. I got out of that one and apart from a flirtation with The Bill, I have never become hooked again. I can’t quite tell you why, but I regard soaps as Karl Marx regarded religion, but hold them in even less esteem than he held religion. Despite the fact that my wife and my daughter - 51 and 16 in August - both avidly follow Emmerdale and EastEnders, I regard soaps as pap for morons (at which point I must repeat that I, too, have been there, and fully understand how - I would say perniciously - they can get under your skin.
A while ago, I wrote here that however good a series such as The Sopranos is, it is merely the first, wealthier, better behaved and classier cousin to soaps. Well, I have changed my mind, if only because show such as The Sopranos are most definitely not pap for morons. And, it has to be said, irrespective of what they are - pap for morons - a great deal of creativity, talent and professionalism is put to use in producing soaps. In just such a shame that at the end of the day the are nothing more but the cultural equivalent of Ready Brek or Cupasoups.
What got me thinking along these lines again is Mad Men, of which you might or might not have heard. It’s about advertising agencies and those people who work in them. The first series was set in the late-Fifties and the current, fifth, series takes us to the mid-Sixties, which gives the show ample scope to investigate the changing attitudes of that era - the growing civil rights movement, growing female emancipation, the evolution of youth culture and other changing attitudes. Putting it like that makes it sound all very worthy, and it is most certainly not that.
What sets it aside from others of its ilk is just how high its standards are: the script, the acting and the direction. Mad Men has the uncanny knack of conveying wordlessly merely by the pause an actor makes or a significant look. But it does so not in any ‘look at us, look at just how good we are’. It is immensely understated.
I believe the guy who came up with the idea, a Matthew Weiner, had previously worked on The Sopranos, so it is no surprise that he is keen to make a show which just shouts - or in the case of Mad Men - casually hints at quality. It has been criticised for ‘being slow’ and ‘not having a story’. Well, take it from me that that is bollocks. There is plenty of ‘story’ if ‘story’ is your bag and as for being slow, there is more going on beneath the surface than in any number of bloody soaps. OK, have it your way: if you want ‘fast-moving’ and spurious ‘drama’, stick to your average soap. If you want something a great deal more satisfying, give Mad Men a whirl. I like to think you won’t be disappointed.
A while ago, I wrote here that however good a series such as The Sopranos is, it is merely the first, wealthier, better behaved and classier cousin to soaps. Well, I have changed my mind, if only because show such as The Sopranos are most definitely not pap for morons. And, it has to be said, irrespective of what they are - pap for morons - a great deal of creativity, talent and professionalism is put to use in producing soaps. In just such a shame that at the end of the day the are nothing more but the cultural equivalent of Ready Brek or Cupasoups.
What got me thinking along these lines again is Mad Men, of which you might or might not have heard. It’s about advertising agencies and those people who work in them. The first series was set in the late-Fifties and the current, fifth, series takes us to the mid-Sixties, which gives the show ample scope to investigate the changing attitudes of that era - the growing civil rights movement, growing female emancipation, the evolution of youth culture and other changing attitudes. Putting it like that makes it sound all very worthy, and it is most certainly not that.
What sets it aside from others of its ilk is just how high its standards are: the script, the acting and the direction. Mad Men has the uncanny knack of conveying wordlessly merely by the pause an actor makes or a significant look. But it does so not in any ‘look at us, look at just how good we are’. It is immensely understated.
I believe the guy who came up with the idea, a Matthew Weiner, had previously worked on The Sopranos, so it is no surprise that he is keen to make a show which just shouts - or in the case of Mad Men - casually hints at quality. It has been criticised for ‘being slow’ and ‘not having a story’. Well, take it from me that that is bollocks. There is plenty of ‘story’ if ‘story’ is your bag and as for being slow, there is more going on beneath the surface than in any number of bloody soaps. OK, have it your way: if you want ‘fast-moving’ and spurious ‘drama’, stick to your average soap. If you want something a great deal more satisfying, give Mad Men a whirl. I like to think you won’t be disappointed.
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