Where are they now and what have they done?

As Noel Coward never wrote, “It’s extraordinary how potent cheap cardboard is!”

This seemingly nonsensical perversion of the original quotation was in my mind because Toni is clearing out boxes of things that he has not looked at for years.  As I was typing on the third floor I could hear little squeaks of pleasure from a floor below as each old-new item was brought into the light.

Lots of them were tickets: a ticket to a Wales v Italy game in Cardiff; a ticket to “We Will Rock You; another to The Tower of London; an entry to an ‘adventure’ park in Mexico; a ground plan of the Prado in Madrid; a year book showing me with 11D, my last form; a stand ticket to Cardiff City; a ticket for the Mecano musical in Madrid – these ageing pieces of card, some from almost twenty years ago were not just reminders of places visited, but also with whom, and the development of a relationship.

The speed with which plan, followed ticket, followed photograph was a breathless cavort through a couple of decades of life past and a consequent focus on life present.

This ripping open of memories actually chimed in with a piece of writing that I was attempting to start that centered on somebody musing about where his schoolfriends were now.  As I wanted to portray a retired person (like myself) I was thinking about how many of my schoolfriends I knew about.  They are now all of retirement age, so how many have I kept track of?

And the answer is very few.  

With confidence I can only claim to know one friend form my schools and he I have now known for fifty-six years.  

Of my class from Primary school I now know no one.  The lives of the two classmates that came with me to the same high school are closed books now.  One classmate from my area of the city I know about because he is a national figure.  Just two people out of thirteen years of education!

My secondary school produced professionals, so the probability is that the majority of my fellow students became doctors, teachers, researchers, engineers, academics, managers, businessmen, media sorts, thriving in their chosen professions, becoming well known within their own circles, but not achieving break out international fame.

I wonder if, like those pieces of card unearthed from an ignored plastic case, there would be a similar breathlessness, if all the grown up kids that I have been educated with could be brought together and what we have (or haven't) achieved through the years would amount to.

Speculation, but interesting speculation.  What difference have we made.  Though talking about a 'we' when it is merely a concept as there is nothing 'real' to link us all, apart from the happenstance that we shared teachers at some times in our lives and well before we had started out on our chosen professions.

My father always said that he never went to reunions because, "You send the first five minutes saying what you are doing now and then you get down to the real purpose of these affairs, drinking!"  And my father was no great drinker!

Perhaps speculation is best safely left to subject matter in literature - or even what I might write!

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Lean times?

 

 

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I do admire a country where it has the good grace to rain during the night.  This morning, bright sunlight and a brisk 14C to stimulate the circulation of the blood.

Although wittering on about the weather is enticing, it is not really apropos to what I should be talking about.  Viz. The Great Diet.  Again.

Although it feels as if we have been under the Self-Denying Ordinance for most of our lives, it is in fact, merely five days that we have been watching what we have been eating.  Five bloody days!  And this is supposed to go on months!

While the horror of that last statement has time to settle, snake-like, on the tenderer parts of my brain, the other parts of my brain which are not dedicated to thinking of food and drink wondered about my use of the phrase Self-Denying Ordinance and where I first heard it and what it meant, rather than what I have made it mean in my little universe.  When I use the phrase I take it indicate a signal piece of self restraint: like buying a stalls seat for the Opera rather than the front of the Dress Circle or buying the paperback version of an Art Exhibition catalogue rather than the hardback.  You know, pulling back from excess until it hurts!

I remember that the phrase is somehow connected to the Civil War and must surely be something that the Roundheads invented, as it lacks the self-indulgence of the Cavaliers, as they were not noted for the self-denying aspects of life.  I assumed that it was to do with Religion (with a capital ‘R’) and therefore Oliver Cromwell and one or all of the Puritans, Levellers, Ranters, Anabaptists, Quakers and my favourite of the sects, the Muggletonians.  I’m sure that I have missed some of the groups out that contributed to The World Turned Upside Down, but I am impressed with what I can dredge (albeit without much further detail) from my memory when I really try!

So, as a sort of knowledge is ever but a few brief clicks away, I Googled the phrase and found out (reminded myself?) that the Self-Denying Ordinance of 1645 was originally a bill which stated that no Member of Parliament (The House of Commons or The House of Lords) could hold any command in the army or navy.  Thus, neatly stopping inept (and King supporting) nobles from continuing command of any military force.  Unsurprisingly the House of Lords, composed as it was entirely of nobles, rejected the bill and a compromise bill was written which stated that parliamentarians from both houses who were military commanders would resign from their commissions, but could be reappointed.  This winnowing of the command of the military facilitated the eventual formation of the New Model Army.

Which is all very interesting (at least to me) but apart from the few minutes Googling, did not take my mind off what else there was to eat.

Don’t get me wrong, it is not as if we have done without lunch.  We went to our local restaurant, the one with the un-paralleled views of the Med and had a three-course meal!

My starter was a salad (good!) of quinoia (good?) green leaves, carrot and cherry tomato  (very good!) with feta cheese (baddish!)  I restrained myself from adding oil and ate no bread.  My second course was prawn and spinach stuffed sea bass (good! good! good!) and the drink that accompanied it was cold water (superb!)  No wine, no bread, no extra oil!  A positively saintly meal, at least in calorie terms.

And yet, I hear a faint clearing of the throat, as if the unasked question about the desert were hanging in the air.  Ah, yes, the desert.

OK, to be absolutely truthful I happened to catch a glimpse of the tart of the day that was based on Ferrero Rocher (extraordinarily bad!), and I was hooked.  And I did eat.  But, as a sort of culinary justification I did also eat half a slice of melon and, surely that must count for something in my over-weight defence?

I accompanied the meal with a 1.5L bottle of water and I drank the lot.  I am sure that this is excellent, but perhaps we should not have gone straight from the meal to the shops as Toni wanted to buy an auger.  And I am prepared to bet that that is the first time that I have used that word in an ordinary piece of writing.  I think that the only other time that I have found a use for such a word was in a distant crossword, where I can remember (with the skeleton of two letters already in place) thinking to myself that I knew what the word was and then feeling very smug with myself for so doing!  Anyway, the search for the auger was also matched by my more urgent search for a toilet.  There is a lesson to be learned there, I think.

As the daylight fades and twilight steals up on the dieter, the temptations of the night approach.  I don’t know why it is that darkness encourages hunger, but it does, and sometimes, no often, no always, a piece of raw cauliflower or carrot does not send the demons of hi-carb desires back into the shadows.

I am sure that Toni is not going to let me forget my desert backsliding, and it is right that he does so.  I am hitching my lack of sliming motivation to the more Puritan regimen that Toni has adopted.

Here’s a drink (of water) to the world turned upside down and self-denying ordinance!

Cheers!

-o0O0o-

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When does a good read become a bad life?

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I resisted for as long as possible, and then I gave in and bought it.

And what’s more I didn’t go for my daily swim so that I could read it.  I haven’t finished it yet, but I have decided to limit my indulgence so that it can be spread over a longer period than my usual reading speed will allow.  It also gives me time to take it in.

I am talking, of course, about “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House” by Michael Wolff.  I bought it legitimately via one-click for my Kindle, though I note that there are various ways of downloading it illegally on the Internet too.  I take the view that a workman is worthy of his hire and therefore, even though I do not have the physical book in front of me, I have the words and therefore I suppose that I have paid a fair wack of money to the author.  That last sentence stands as a sort of accusation to the subject of Fire and Fury who would regard me as SAD for not taking advantage of someone when the opportunity arose!  I spurn him as I would a rabid dog!

The only volume to which I can compare Fire and Fury is another book that I read with equal incredulity, “Imperial Caddy: The Rise of Dan Quayle in America and the Decline and Fall of Practically Everything Else” by Joe Queenan.   But the difference between Dan Quayle and 45, was that Quayle was only the vice president, not the incumbent sitting at the desk in the Oval Office.   

For those of you unacquainted with the idiocy and ineptitude of Quayle then allow your fingers to take you on a magical journey where the Internet preserves some of his finest pronouncements for posterity.  I would urge you to start your visit with https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dan_Quayle

and if that whets your appetite, you could do worse that purchasing Joe Queenan’s book.  The worthless Quayle stayed a heartbeat away from the Presidency, but now we have Grade A garbage as President and a frightening bigot fawning in the background ready to take his place!

Back to Fire and Fury.  It is difficult to read this book as political analysis, not only because sources are not acknowledged and there is a certain amount of literary leeway in describing meetings in which Wolff did not participate in the manner of fly-on-the-wall reportage, but also because I simply do not want to believe that what I am reading is a remotely accurate description of how the most powerful nation in the world is functioning - or rather not even remotely functioning.

In some ways the petty infighting, scheming, rivalry, lies, corruption, deceit, mendacity, incompetence, arrogance, contempt and narcissism could be seen as an eloquent critique of capitalism and democracy.  They don’t work.  But, on the other hand, the book could also be seen as an even more eloquent testimony to the strength of institutions in the United State as they are still surviving in spite of the complete odium with which the President of that country regards them.

In my history classes in college I was taught that the Great Man or Woman of History approach to the past was outmoded, far more important were the social and political movements that produced those people or allowed them to flourish. 

It may be perversely comforting to think that a monster like Hitler was somehow uniquely ‘evil’ and that the abstract malevolence contained inside his damned soul corrupted all around him, but how did the figure-of-fun Hitler hawking his writing round the Bierkellers of Berlin get to be the dictator of Germany?  How did his pernicious doctrines find acceptance?  For an answer you have to look at the past history of German, the social conditions pertaining and the way that the political situation opened the way for the Brownshirts and Nazism.

In the same way Wollf’s book shows a completely dysfunctional White House with virtually no one with any idea of how to run the country.  The ultimate authority is a child-like narcissist with the attention span of a Homer Simpson (but without Homer’s endearing features) and he is clearly more interested in playing golf and being nasty about Clinton and Obama than getting to grips with the useful operation of power.

Since Wolff’s interest centres on eighteen months in the life of 45’s campaign and tenure in the White House, Wolff does not (so far as I’ve read so far) go into the reasons for his being there - just how did he do and she fail it?

I must admit that I am convinced by the description of the whole Trump Election Campaign, the whole shebang, being a play for what happened after he lost the election.  In his wildest dreams he never expected to win, but was looking forward to the billions of dollars of free publicity in giving him greater leverage in the media so that he could become an ‘even greater’ star.  All his ‘people’ worked with him so that they could find good jobs when the campaign failed.  This would explain why they didn’t bother to divest themselves of questionable financial links - after all, these would only pose embarrassing questions if 45 was successful and, as that couldn’t possibly happen, all the skeletons would stay safely in the cupboard.

Let’s take another view of the election.  Forget running for president, imagine this instead.  Suppose that Michelangelo died before completing the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and that a crazed Pope announced a competition for its completion with a prize of absurd importance and a guarantee of worldwide fame for the successful artist.

Some artists would be cowed by the immensity of the undertaking, some would feel that they were unworthy of the commission, some would think about it and then think again, and some of the best artists would also put themselves forward citing past work as evidence that they could do it.

And then imagine that I decide to throw my paintbrush onto the palette, so to speak.  Although I am fascinated by the history of art, I am, alas, no painter.  My greatest artistic achievement in the plastic arts is a series of drawings in a small sketchbook that I did as my mother’s birthday present from a holiday I took in Turkey.  And those drawings are only acceptable when viewed through the accommodating critical maternal eye!

However, let me take a leaf out of Trump’s approach and apply it to my application.

 

Hi everyone!  What a fantastic crowd, this is the largest crowd ever assembled to hear an artist speak.  True!

Everyone knows that the Arts in Rome are fixed.  There is a swamp of artists in the city who manage (what a surprise!) to get all the best commissions.  They are wealthy and out of touch and don’t care about you.  It’s got nothing to do with skill, but with who you know.  If you have a Cardinal in your family, or better still a Pope then you are part of that charmed circle which deliberately excludes new, exciting and popular talent from showing itself.

And what if I don’t know the techniques of fresco?  Is that really so important?  Is that the only way?  What are we not being told about this commission?  We need to know the truth about this and many other things!  A truth that has been kept away from the ordinary people, the people who matter!  There was a time when Rome was respected throughout the world, when the word Rome meant something.  Rome is more than a few daubs on the ceiling.  Rome is you, the people; you are the shining glory of what we once were and what we can be again.

I do not paint for myself, indeed if I give myself over to this commission I will suffer financially, but I do not count the cost.  I think only of you and of how we, together can Make Rome Great Again!  Run Raphael Out of Town!  Give Veronese the V sign!  My art is your art, and your art is our art: together we will Make Rome Great Again!

Thank you!  Thank you very much!  Thank you!

As I read through Wolff’s destruction of Trump’s White House, I think about what might happen next.

It is very dangerous to assume that just because Trump is uniquely unqualified socially, politically, educationally, morally, sartorially and every other -lly that you can think of, that he will actually resign or be impeached or be otherwise removed, but say for a moment the tenure of the 45^th president was ended.   

This is the succession:

1         The Vice President                                        Mike Pence

2         The Speaker of the House of 

           Representatives                                             Paul Ryan

3         President pro tempore of the Senate      Orrin Hatch

4         Secretary of State                                          Rex Tillerson

5         Secretary of the Treasury                           Steven Mnuchin

6         Secretary of Defense                                     Jim Mattis

7         Attorney General                                           Jeff Sessions

Hardly a glittering list. 

Mike Pence terrifies me; Paul Ryan is spineless; Orrin Hatch is very old and on the point of retirement, and that someone like Jeff Sessions is on any list for any post of responsibility is depressing to put it mildly.

Right I’ve depressed myself sufficiently to go back to Fire and Fury and switch on my ‘fiction’ button in the brain and have a good read!


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Nothing is easy

“Computers make things easier!”

There was a time when that little mantra might have been a source of fond hope.  There was, who knows how long ago, a sort of tipping point where the manifest failures of new technology were offset by the promise that after a few tweaks everything would be button pushing easy!

I remember as a smallish child I was given a Maths Computer to try out by a friend of the family, no, bugger that designation, he was my uncle in all but name.  He was a maths lecturer and was able to get his hands onto all the newest technology and I was privileged to try it out.  And it was, indeed exciting to feel that one was in the vanguard of modern education – well, more playing around with a gadget, even if that gadget was to do with maths!

As this ‘computer’ was in the late 1950s you might wonder what it looked like.  It was basically a long metal box with a little Perspex window in the centre with a coin-shaped cut out on the bottom right edge, and with a large button to be pushed along a notched groove parallel with the right hand side.  To work the machine, it had to be pre-loaded with a series of cards on which there were maths questions.  You used the button to load up a card which then presented the viewer with a maths question that you read through the little Perspex window and there was a space underneath the window for you to write in your answer.  After the answer was written, you pushed the button up a notch; your answer was now behind the window and the official answer was revealed and you could put a tick or a cross in the little coin cut out and push the button on to get a new question and a new space for your answer!

How cute that now seems!  And there were design flaws as the mechanism rucked up the paper and the whole thing had to be disassembled to get it going again.  But the excitement of being a pioneer never left me and unfortunately dictated my technology buying infatuation for the future.

As soon as they became available for general consumption I bought calculators, digital watches, handheld computers, personal assistants, computers, radios, cameras – you name it and I bought it, as long as it had electronic thingies making it function.

And most of them failed or crashed or simply let you down.  One computer, my Sinclair QL, actually reduced me to tears after the keyboard froze and, in spite of my plaintive pleadings with it to work, it steadfastly did not.  I retired to my bedroom and sobbed into the pillow knowing that I would have to work all night to get the work done that I had to do by the morrow.  Those were the days when ‘saving’ a document could take a couple of minutes and the computer would be inoperative during this time.  I hadn’t saved and I had to redo.  I went to bed at 6.30 am and got up at 7.30 am for a full day in school!

And that was not the only time that faith in computers was misplaced.  How many program failures, software failures and messages like “FATAL SYSTEM ERROR!” with a digital bomb fizzing on the screen have seared themselves into my technological memory.  I can remember buying programs where the developers encouraged users to report failures so that the inevitable bugs could be ironed out.  Bug free was the impossible dream; bug ridden was the everyday reality.

But when things worked it was like magic!  And that remembered ecstasy was enough to get one through the difficult times when nothing appeared to be working, nothing would print, nothing would load up properly and the screen was blank.  But we were encouraged to think that all the machines (all the expensive machines when you compare them with what you get for your money now) that we used were John the Baptist Computers, all of them preparing the Way for The Computer that would truly be The One!  I’m still waiting!

Where, you might ask, does all this come from?  What has prompted this remembrance of technological pain past?  The simple answer is, buying a ticket on line.

For the first time in a long time I am not going to the opera alone.  I have a fellow enthusiast accompanying me!  As I am a season ticket holder I can get a small discount on extra tickets and I offered to purchase a ticket in the hope that the discount would be able to buy us a cup of coffee at the interval at least.  As it turns out the discount may stretch to a couple of small beers, if we are lucky.  But that is not the point; the point is that simply purchasing the thing was a bind.

Buying a ticket has to be thought of in terms of how easy using the computer is to purchase it compared with picking up the phone and doing it via a real person at the other end of the line.

It took me two attempts and to complete the operation (in spite of the fact that I am a registered season ticket holder) and necessitated re-setting my pass word for the boking site; using the details on my credit card; using details on my season ticket; taking a code from my mobile phone; taking a further code from my email account; filling in part of a form; deciding just which of the many reductions I was entitled to; other bits and pieces and, finally, printing out the ticket myself on my own machine – and for all this I was charged a €1.50 fee for -  what exactly?

Would it have been easier on the phone?  I think the answer is probably yes, it would have been easier, but my ticket might have been waiting for me in the theatre, rather than being in my hot little hands. 

And, as usual, I will know what to do the next time round.  This is the ‘Billy Bookcase Syndrome’ based on the famous bookcase of the same name in IKEA.

The Billy bookcase is one of the basic pieces of furniture that is sold in the millions.  Countless people have unpacked the bits, looked at the illustrated page of instructions and thought to themselves, “Well, this can’t be that difficult!”  Then they try and make it and find that, yes, the basic principles are fine and easy to understand, but then the ‘why didn’t they mention’ element creeps into the creation: the unstated assumptions of the obvious that neophytes need to know, nay, need to be told.  And as you make the first Billy bookcase you know that the second and succeeding ones are going to be so much easier.  In reality, of course, that attitude is one of the ‘saving lies’ by which we live our lives.  However, the general principle holds true: the second time is easier than the first.

The real tragedy of this shared experience is that the results of that experience are not shared and therefore do not appear to inform a reworking of the instructions to include the things that you thought you didn’t need to point out.

Remember, we live in a world where someone bought a mobile home and when the owner went on a drive they put the home into ‘automatic’ and then went to make a cup of tea, as they assumed that ‘automatic’ meant that the thing would drive itself.  After the inevitable crash, the owner of the van sued the manufacturer for not making it clear what ‘automatic’ would and wouldn’t do!  And won. 

If that story is any reflection on the standard of public understanding then it is difficult to imagine any set of rules for anything like building a pre-fabricated bookcase being smaller than War and Peace!

But in my specific case I say, bring on the next person who wants me to buy a ticket for the Opera, I’m prepared!  I think.


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