A dull day!

There ought to be a system whereby, if one has to deal with illness during a Bank Holiday, there is a voucher issued which one can cash in for an equivalent experience at a later date.

Poor old Toni Took To His Bed to sleep off the effects of a lingering bout of cough/cold/sore throatitis.

I took the opportunity to read the Ryszard Kapuściński book in the Great Journeys series. As usual his writing was engaging and eminently readable even though (as usual) his subject matter was less than easy. His writing on Africa spanned a long period and seemed to be an unending sequence of discomfort, malaria and dictators! But witty and piquantly amusing.

It was with real shock and disbelief that I then read in the Indy on Sunday that Kapuściński had been denounced (posthumously) as an informer for the Polish communist regime. This is something which his widow vehemently denied and, I have to admit, after years of reading (and teaching!) his writing I want to agree with her. His writing shows such a sympathy and intelligent critique of the human condition that it is difficult to believe that the liberal attitude that personified his writing was all an act.

I shall reserve judgement and hope that clarification of his involvement with the Secret Police will reveal that his involvement was limited to the bureaucratic necessity for a foreign correspondent to visit the Secret Police before a visa was granted.

I hope.

There is a Victorian painting which my grandmother had called “Fallen Idol.” I remember it as a rather dull painting of a couple who didn’t seem to be very happy. It was a painting which fell far short of what one could expect from the title. My ideas of idols were real rather than metaphorical, built on the more lurid stories in the bible (the Old Testament of course) where idols were connected with considerable naughtiness and even more considerable retribution by the good old vengeful god of the best stories. The painting (I think) showed a distraught man and a contrite or guilty woman; though thinking about it, I suppose it could have been the other way around, but now Kapuściński is part of that sad narrative. Thinking about it, I think that there was a companion piece to that picture so that they formed a short of very short story, but I can’t remember it. Another case of having to ask Aunt Betty if she can remember.

I don’t think either of them had the quality of Awakening Conscience by William Holman Hunt, and I wonder if the two paintings were later than Victorian: I must have a little hunt on Google to see if I recognize anything! If nothing else I can meander happily through what Google thinks are moralistic paintings: you always get a few unexpected treats from a computer’s idea of culture!

Tomorrow I go to Monmouth and a glimpse of Ceri’s paintings in a very elegant setting.

And a decent meal with Dianne I trust!