Julius Caesar

A Saturday night out in Lincoln usually means sitting around in Wetherspoon’s watching youngsters getting tanked up on cheap ale before hitting the clubs, and each other.

But last night was a bit special. An am-dram production of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Now, for all my oft-repeated love of Shakespeare, I don’t think I would fancy sitting with insufficient leg-room watching, say, Cymbeline for three or four hours, especially when performed by amateurs. But Julius Caesar is a lot more accessible, a rattling good yarn in fact and bristles with modern parallels. It’s from the time when Shakespeare was still writing poetic dramas, rather than the dramatic poems of his later years.

I know the play pretty well, having studied it for ‘O’ level and been set several of the speeches to learn. At the same time Keith Michel was playing Antony on TV’s cycle of the Roman plays and a few years later I saw John Neville and Patrick Stewart’s Brutus and Cassius at Stratford. I prepared to watch this performance by revisiting the film of the play starring Brando, Gielgud and Mason. Perhaps that wasn’t particularly fair on the actors due to strut and fret their hour upon last night’s stage.

It’s truism to point out that the scenario of Julius Caesar has been repeated countless times in history. Men with good intentions overthrow a tyranny, only to create not liberty but chaos, from which a greater oppression emerges. Witness the French Revolution, the overthrow of the Tsar, 99% of African states, and – well, let’s reserve judgment on Iraq. Even the arrogant and high-minded Brutus might be right one day.

For me the stand-out performance was Marc Antony, played with bullying authority by a Mussolini lookalike. Cassius, rather wooden, but nicely petulant and scheming, but ultimately weak. Brutus (always a struggle to make him interesting), similar to Caesar himself in his automatic assumption of leadership, but lacking the appropriate ruthlessness and ultimately wrong.

Most of the actors, as so often, had trouble with the verse. I’ve never understood why this should be. After all, it’s not that difficult to grasp and it’s an essential element of the drama. It’s a mistake, with Shakespeare to be too naturalistic. Don’t be frightened of the verse, and don’t speak it too fast.

One last criticism – the last act was rushed through in 10 minutes, with the battle of Philippi described in a half-baked telecast of a news broadcast. I think someone's been watching Baz Luhrman’s Romeo and Juliet recently.

But no more carping. To see a live performance of one of Shakespeare’s best dramas, brimming with characters and conflicting political ideas, was thoroughly enjoyable.

And the curtailed finale meant there was plenty of time for a couple of pints in the pub next door and to listen to a live band. The Hogs, they were called, and bashed out a selection of favourite R&B numbers. Great bass and a mean harmonica. I shall look out for them again.

Shakespeare's Sonnet 29

Many years ago I watched a re-run of an old BBC programme, an episode of Face to Face, in which famous people of the time - this is late 50s - were interviewed by John Freeman.

This was real interviewing, not the cosy stuff of chat shows or the confrontations which pass for political questioning. It was intelligent, politely probing, confessional conversation. The camera would close in on the sometimes sweating, twitching faces of the interviewees. I remember Tony Hancock chain-smoking, Martin Luther King, like a brick wall, answering each question with a prepared statement, John Huston's easy, anecdotal charm, Edith Sitwell's regal haughtiness, and Bertrand Russell's terrifying intelligence.

Listening to Henry Moore helped me appreciate his sculpture. And Adam Faith, a young Adam Faith, who all but said, 'I know I'm singing a load of crap at the moment, mate, but it's just part of the plan.'

But my most enduring memory - and I'm not even sure this was in the series - was an interview with Ella Fitzgerald. She talked of her deprived, abused childhood and said that it was then that she had discovered Shakespeare. God knows how. She quoted one sonnet in particular and said that when she read it she decided that Shakespeare must have been black, because the words he wrote seemed to describe her condition so exactly.

She was talking about Sonnet 29 and it has to be my own personal favourite, for there have been times in my life when it has articulated my thoughts and given me comfort.

I think I can still quote it from memory:

When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,

I all alone beweep my outcast state,

And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,

And look upon myself and curse my fate,

Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,

Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,

Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,

With what I most enjoy contented least.

Yet in these thoughts, myself almost despising,

Haply I think on thee, and then my state,

Like to the lark at break of day arising

From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate.

For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings

That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

The Sonnet Project

Congratulations to Sonnet Boy who has completed his self-appointed task of writing a sonnet every day for a year.

He's wrritten Shakespearian sonnets, Petrarchian, and composed a few according to a form of his own. All pretty strict in form, but nonetheless natural and flowing

He tackles all subjects - sex, drink, horror - often with humour, always with skill.

He's an inspiration to all would-be sonneteers, and a rebuke to the idle ones.

Try this selection.

Flags of Our Fathers (2006)

Before I share my thoughts on this film, which I finally managed to see yesterday, I will republish something I wrote last year elsewhere:

Locations.

I was surprised to read that Flags of Our Fathers used Iceland to represent the Japanese island of Iwo Jimo. The same country was used, I discovered, for Asia in parts of Batman Begins.

I suppose producers are always looking for new places to film, bearing in mind cost, logistics, weather as well as appearance and novelty. A James Bond film would hardly qualify for the name if it didn't used exotic and glamorous locales. It's part of the recipe, even in the grittier Casino Royale.

In The Russia House, Liverpool was discovered grim enough to be used for Moscow. Dundee played the same role in the TV play, An Englishman Abroad. In these cases it was budget and politics that precluded using the real place, but there are times when the real place is available but unacceptable. TV's Maigret had to be shot in Prague because Paris didn't look like itself any longer.

From the sixties onwards Mexico was increasingly popular as a Western location. Labour was cheap, the unions were weak and you get away more easily with being nasty to horses. In any case, as Tector Gorch says in The Wild Bunch, 'Just looks more of Texas to me.'

There would be a case for claiming that the use of Mexico as a Western location actually altered the themes and style of the genre itself. That theory is complicated, unfortunately, by the rise of the Spaghetti Western, where Spain doubled for Mexico and the US. Incidentally, Billy Two Hats was filmed in the Negev desert, Israel.

Filmgoers generally will accept this because one desert looks like any other, but even the casual viewer will know that Tombstone, Arizona, is nowhere near Monument Valley, as My Darling Clementine would have us believe. Director John Ford, of course, was above such considerations, although he made the concession of importing one or two Arizona cacti. Even that, I suspect, was to help him frame the composition of his shots.

In the old days of Hollywood, California could pass for anywhere: Merrie England in Robin Hood, Wales in How Green Was My Valley?, Africa in the Tarzan films. Just stick in a few library shots of elephants or London buses and you're there.

Ireland has been England in Henry V and Excalibur, and Omaha Beach in Saving Private Ryan. On the other hand Ireland was represented by the Isle of Man in Walking Ned.

England has had its moments. The most recent blockbuster I can bring to mind is Gladiator, where the opening battle in the German forest was staged near Farnham, Surrey. Probably top of the English locations is Black Park country Park in Buckinghamshire, home to Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolfman, the Mummy and the Gorgon.

My personal favourites: The Isle of Dogs as Hue in Full Metal Jacket. And Snowdonia as the Northwest Frontier in Carry on up the Khyber.

* * * * *

Back to Flags Of Our Fathers.

Directed by Clint Eastwood. Starring Ryan Philippe, Adam Beach, Jesse Bradford.

Clint Eastwood has been directing pictures for nigh on 40 years now and has produced an impressive body of work. It’s varied, usually successful commercially and increasingly acclaimed critically. Actors like his laid back authority on set, and producers like his efficiency. But would you watch a Clint film and recognise it as such if you didn’t know it? I tend to think of him as a modern Raoul Walsh.

I’m not trying to damn him with faint praise, because I have great admiration for both men, and sometimes I get fed up with a director like Kubrick sometimes, constantly trotting out his ‘themes’.

Flags of Our Fathers, for example, is a magnificent, powerful film, but could it not be a Spielberg film? It was originally his project and he remains co-producer. I’m thinking of the staging and photography of the battle scenes, the parallel questioning of the morality of war, the flash-forwards to the characters in old age.

The opening scene sets out the theme and the tone. A retired photographer muses on the power of a single snap that can win or lose a war. Soldiers climb up a rocky incline in darkness. You think that the hill does not look very realistic and then you realise that it’s a mock-up in a football stadium, filled with cheering crowds who wildly applaud as Old Glory is raised for the umpteenth time. We will return to this scene when we are able to gauge the feelings of the three men involved.

We move back to the landing on Iwo Jima, a tour-de-force of film-making. The incredible size of the fleet, steaming relentlessly on, leaving a man overboard to drown; the murderous bombardment, watched like a firework display by exuberant marines; our first sight of the hill which will figure so large later; the gut-wrenching violence when the men engage with the hidden enemy; the routine heroism.

The sour note sets in when the photo of the raising of the flag becomes such an iconic image, and a cash-strapped government sees an opportunity. So what had been a casual event is turned into a media circus. There is grim comedy in the confusion over who raised which of two flags. If I’m still confused, that can only be appropriate.

Frankly I cannot be outraged, as I think I’m intended to be, by this selling of heroism to the American people. If we can accept that the war is necessary, even with atomic weapons, why get hot under the collar about the cynicism exploiting the two marines and the sailor sent on the bond-raising tour? And it doesn’t ring true that it is all the cause of Ira Hayes’ decline into alcoholism. The man is already on the brink of breakdown, suffering from daily casual racism and fear of death. On the other hand, perhaps only fighting with men who just might come to accept him as just another comrade might have been his redemption.

The film is of epic length, but I doubt its theme can carry it. The taking of the island was the epic story. The flag-raising was just one of many shameful, but necessary incidents in that story. Moreover, it wouldn’t be so long if Eastwood had known where to end it.

I feel I’m being over-critical. So let me say that I think it’s a wonderful piece of work. The acting of Adam Beach and Ryan Philippe is outstanding; the photography excellent – note the near monochrome of battle with the garish colour of the tour at home; Clint’s own music wistfully unobtrusive; editing efficient and exciting; the special effects outstanding.

I just feel it’s less than the sum of its parts and misses out on greatness.

St George's Day

The late Duke of Devonshire, lord of Chatsworth House, looked very grand when clad in ermine and scarlet he attended the House of Lords for the State Opening of Parliament, but was usually to be seen shuffling about his estate in a comfortable of old cardigan and baggy-kneed corduroy trousers.

He wore his aristocracy likewise, easily, modestly and unmistakeably.

So it is with being English. And therefore, you will see few demonstrations of patriotism on the streets and in the pubs of England today. We leave that to little, nervous nations and conquered countries, like those from South America or Africa, where national days are celebrated in a desperate attempt to forget that imperialist dominion was overthrown in favour of local despotism. They are the modern equivalent of the Romans' 'bread and circuses'. Keep the mob happy and distracted.

In any case, who needs a patron 'saint'. It's a quaint (and heretical) Roman Catholic idea that some dead individual (who probably never existed) is constantly on hand in Heaven to stand up for our interests, like some kind of celestial ambassador.

England has always been a protestant country. Even when the papacy was ruling Western Europe with fire and sword, England was semi-detached and unruly. Even when the Pope excommunicated Elizabeth I and called for her to be assassinated, English Catholics generally ignored him. They were English and she was Queen of England, their Queen.

England is still protestant, if not in the religious sense, and still distrusts any continental calls for unification 'in everyone's interests', be they Pope or Hitler, Napoleon, Stalin or that little man in Brussels, whatever his name is.

By the way, Happy Birthday, William.

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Observations in the pub

Bruno looked up from his glass and said, ‘What do you get for the man who has everything?’

‘Go on, tell me.’

‘Penicillin.’

It was worthy of a guffaw, I thought, and obliged.

Some commentators might like to contend that a pub is a microcosm of society. If that’s true of my pub, then God help society. It is a Wetherspoon’s outlet, of course, and would hardly bear comparison with the Woolpack. As a source for scriptwriters it might have its uses, though.

Eddie comes in regularly and has a natural humour that might at first be misunderstood. One day he lumbered in and slapped a friend on the back.

‘You were ******* drunk last night, you old ******.’

‘I wasn’t in last night.’

‘Oh, it must have been me then.’

There is plenty to laugh at if you feel superior to the follies and foibles of the human race. Ah, drink. It puzzles me that the government plans to ban smoking from pubs, but will continue to allow them to sell alcohol. Not to mention allowing them to open windows and doors wide on summer days so that customers can breathe in clouds of carbon monoxide

Not so long ago I watched a man sitting with a tin can in front of him. As I recall, it contained sausages and baked beans. He picked it up, held it to his lips and tried to drink from it. He tipped his head back as if draining the last drops of some precious liquid and replaced it on the table with a disappointed look on his face. He repeated this procedure several times until he leaned back so far he fell off his chair. Rather belatedly, but much to the disappointment of the spectators, he was asked to leave.

I remember a similar incident when someone’s sixth whiskey led him to believe that a pencil was a cigarette. Not surprisingly it proved somewhat difficult to light, but the man had to be admired for his perseverance. Mediaeval scholars often kept a skull on their desk, as a memento mori. That pencil is my memento ebriorum. (I’m not sure whether I’ve got that right, it being a long time since my lessons in Latin, although what I’ve just written has the smack of an ablative absolute.) I’ve got it - memento crapulae.

It’s not always funny of course. There are the helpless and hopeless cases that have to be supported to the door and poured onto the pavement; the irritating men bellowing with laughter and the hysterically shrieking women; the middle-aged men weeping with grief and calling for their lover to return – and can anyone lend them the price of another pint? The opinionated, the aggressive, the maudlin, the clumsy, the argumentative, the downright boring.

And then there’s me.

Hot Chocolate

My reaction to the recent research into the relative ‘buzz’-inducing qualities of chocolate and kissing was at first dismissive. On reflection, though, I came to feel that such research could add to the stock of human knowledge, only if conducted more rigorously and supervised more closely. Probably by me.

Perhaps I shall return with a statement of methodology. I do have some very interesting ideas for experimentation. The fundamental flaw in the research was that the buzz-seeking scientists overlooked one basic fact, namely that a bar of chocolate is an end in itself, but a kiss is the first step on the road to a much more important destination. Put another way, a kiss is merely an hors d’oeuvre, the prelude to the entrée.

Bearing that in mind, it seems odd that anyone should waste time counting serotonins released by the brain and putting a stop-watch on the duration of raised heartbeat. It’s a clear case of comparing chalk and cheese. Who would choose a bar of chocolate in preference to a kiss and what – on a good day – it leads to.

However, being a man who suffers the liberal curse of seeing the other point of view, I’ve been pondering how an obsession with chocolate can be preferable to a sexual relationship.

The first thought that comes to mind is that there is no need to install chocolate in your home in order to enjoy it frequently. And even if you do, will you ever hear a Mars Bar complain of being neglected when you go out to the pub; or call you a pig when you come home drunk and feeling peckish? No, chocolate is readily available, and furthermore it’s cheap. Since when does a Snickers bar expect half a lager and a packet of crisps before allowing you to nibble it?

And there is such a variety of brands. Chocolate can be very dark, coffee-coloured or milky white. It may be sweet or bitter, soft-centred, crunchy or creamy. It may be flavoured with peppermint or rum or liqueurs. You can eat it ice-cold or drink it piping hot.

And I’ve noticed that no kind of chocolate ever complains when you sample another. Have you ever been nagged by a Bounty bar because you wanted a Turkish delight for a change, or a Crème Egg once a year? A Kit-Kat is not going to make you feel guilty because you couldn’t resist a Cadbury’s Caramel when you saw that sexy rabbit advertising it.

A Crunchie bar doesn’t moan if it lies there untasted because you don’t fancy it, having wolfed down a bag of Chocolate Brazils on the way home from work, or a Galaxy look at you reproachfully when you leave it half-finished. A Toblerone doesn’t demand to be eaten twice or a Malteser complain that you ate it too quickly and thought only of your own pleasure.

Oh yes. I could be persuaded. Just imagine.

All the way home he has been conscious of the hard, neat package, surprisingly heavy in his jacket pocket, bumping against his hip. He goes up the stairs quickly, two at a time, and is panting slightly as he closes the door behind him.

He’s had to steel himself against the temptation to touch it, to hold it, afraid it might melt with the heat of his hand. But now the moment has come. His heart beats faster and appetite throbs urgently in the pit of his stomach.

He longs to tear off the flimsy wrapping, drop the shreds to the floor and fall upon the chocolate with greedy, voracious teeth. But no – wait. It will be better to wait. To delay the moment of satisfaction. He tenderly places the blue-clad object of his desire in the fridge.

He pours a drink and tries to think of other things, but his mind is constantly drawn back to the waiting chocolate. Cold and hard now, but how quickly it will soften for him.

Cadbury’s Dairy Milk. He always comes back to Cadbury’s Dairy Milk. The others offer novelty, variety, the excitement of discovery, but Cadbury’s Dairy Milk is his one true love

The room is dark. The single lamp throws his shadow falls across the waiting, expectant bar. It seems so tiny, so helpless, so yielding.

He fetches the peppermints. Peppermints will enhance the taste, heighten his pleasure. The hot, white disc burns against the inside of his cheek, the roof of his mouth. He picks up the chocolate.

He gently eases the sleeve of paper the length of the bar and gazes at the shiny underwrapping. The foil is crisp and tight, stretched over the ridges of the individual chunks. He carefully eases the silver apart and slowly the slim, dark body is exposed. Saliva wells up under his tongue and its tip tingles with an exquisite sensation that is near to pain.

He touches it; he senses a slight stickiness on his moist fingertips. He grips firmly and the bar breaks. Again, then again. And at last he inserts the first square into his mouth and his eyes closed as it dissolves, spreads round his mouth and oozes down his throat.

He takes another chunk, he takes two. He can’t resist biting into them. He pushes another one in, chewing, chomping. He picks up another – wait, wait, no, to hell with it – he’s chewing faster now, his mouth is full, he’s drooling. But he can’t stop. He’s gulping, he’s groaning, he’s gasping.

Oh God, it’s all gone. He slumps back, exhausted, full, empty, sick with himself. Appetite sated, appetite for appetite lost. He could cry with frustration. A flood of despair and disgust rushes over him. He lights a cigarette.

He thinks. He remembers there’s a packet of Coco Pops in the cupboard. He’ll be able to eat them in a while.

Tom Lehrer

When I was talking about Spring the other day I found that I was quoting this to myself:

‘Spring is here, oh, Spring is here.
Life is skittles and life is beer.
I think the loveliest time of the year
Is the Spring, I do.
Don’t you?
Course you do.'

Do you know it? It’s a song which, despite its cheerful lyrics and happily waltzing tune, is called Poisoning Pigeons in the Park, written, performed and asked to be taken into consideration by Tom Lehrer.

Tom Lehrer, Professor Lehrer to give him his full title, because his day job was lecturing in mathematics, was one of those sixties liberal faculty types, who took pleasure in mocking the pleasures and the politics of the less intellectually gifted. He was – is – one of those brainy types who would knock off a song setting the table of the elements to the tune of I am the very model of a modern major-general, so that he was never stuck for a party-piece. All I can do is recite Albert and the Lion.

He’s like those old Oxford dons who argued about philosophy by means of limericks. Here are a couple discussing the relationship between perception and reality.

He can be, and often has been, criticised for sneering at easy targets like sentimental songs, racism, patriotism, the military-industrial complex, etc.

I discovered him when passing through my adolescent flirtation with cynicism and satire and was cultivating an air of world-weariness, something which stuck, I’m afraid. It was great fun, living with the cold war going on, to whistle in the dark to the tune of We will all go together when we go, consoling ourselves with lines like ‘There will be no more misery/When the earth’s one big rotisserie.’ So, despite all possible criticism of the great Tom, I still like him.

Surely it must be more than nostalgia for self-indulgent student revue days.

First of all, you’ve got to like someone who attacks, with what is after all gentle mockery, the complacencies and hypocrisies of people and their politicians. And the man is witty, with a nice touch of Jewish self-deprecation. His song mocking America’s National Brotherhood Week contains these lines:

All the Protestants hate the Catholics
All the Catholics hate the Protestants
All the Hindus hate the Moslems
- and everybody hates the Jews.

He likes to have fun with the English language, with inventive rhymes, such as these:

When you attend a funeral
It’s sad to think that sooner or’l
Later those you love will do the same for you
‘I have often thought it tragic
not to mention other adjec-
tives to think of all the weeping they will do

Or his piling up of rhymes in When You are Old and Grey.

Add to that his exuberant, even witty, piano-playing of his cleverly memorable tunes, often quite Berlinesque in that he provides two or three in the same song.

Add to that his natural wit. His introductory patter could be just as funny as the songs.

I was reminded of him the other day when Werner von Braun was the subject of a Times correspondence. Tom wrote an unusually angry song about this former Nazi, director of the V2 programme, and later ‘founding father’ of America’s space programme. Around 1960 a film was made about von Braun’s life. Predictably, posters around the country advertising the film, I aim for the Stars soon bore the added sub-title: ‘But sometimes I miss and hit London.’

Tom Lehrer gave up performing about forty years ago, probably bored and disenchanted and realising the truth of his admirer Peter Cook’s comments when he opened his Establishment Club. The Club, he said, was ‘modelled on those wonderful Berlin cabarets which did so much to stop the rise of Hitler and prevent the outbreak of the Second World War.’

Adding Joan Ddion to my notebook

It’s a source of great amusement to my drinking companions that, when I arrive in the pub, I go through a ritual of placing on the table, next to my pint, my tobacco tin, my tobacco pouch and my lighter, a pen and a notebook.

For a while some were a little self-conscious when I would suddenly pick up my pen and scribble something, thinking that they were due to be lampooned in this blog for some remark carelessly made. More likely that my mind is rudely elsewhere.

Looking back over the last few days’ notes, I see I have a list of potential winners for The BBC Sports Personality of the Year in December. Good odds should be available, which is why I do not plan to reveal my thoughts more fully. What happened to my vow about premium bonds?

Update: I knew it would happen. I'm too late now

I have a reminder to lend someone my video of Dr Strangelove and check what ‘emo’ music is. There are attempts at solving anagrams from The Times crossword, and words like ‘tenace’ which seem to be the correct solution, but which need to be confirmed. Tenace, by the way, is a kind of card game, I find.

There are opening lines for poems that will probably never be written, such as

‘An empty glass is like a sleeping woman/ Satisfied but empty, smeared, still warm/ and tingling from my thirsty lips’ . . . .I know, don’t say it!

There are observations on people, like the young girl listening while the man with her talks and talks. She is continuously twitching her left foot. Is she nervous? Bored? Is she wondering how to get rid of him? An older couple are sitting in silence. She is drinking coffee; he is nursing half a pint. He is surrounded by shopping bags.

I agree with Joan Didion, who writes in her article ‘On Keeping a Notebook’ that such observations are more about me than those I am observing. I didn’t like the look of that talkative young man and I felt sorry for that shopping-bag bearing old man.

And I’ve made a note of an anecdote Didion tells in her article ‘On Morality’. A boy tells a rabbi, ‘I don’t believe in God.’ To which the rabbi replies, ‘Do you think God cares?’ And I’ve added another piece of Jewish religious wisdom I recall from elsewhere, which sums up the Book of Job.

Job: ‘Why me, Lord?’

The Lord: ‘Why not?’

Joan Didion is a recent discovery, for which I have to thank a friend who loaned me her Slouching Towards Bethlehem. I like her style, conversational, personal, intelligent and self-aware. The way blogs should be.

War poetry

Here are three war poems worth linking to. What I particularly notice about Wilfred Owen's effort is that the technique - and it is quite a disciplined poem - is unnoticeable until you look for it.

The Grand National

In preparation for my annual trip to the bookies, I've sidling up to Irishmen in the pub and asking conspiratorially for inside information on the National. It's a bit disappointing the be advised to back the favourite, Joe's Edge, when I was expecting to be tipped the wink that a 100/1 outsider, secretly trained and cloaked in disinformation, was bound to romp home.

So I think a fiver each way on these three: Dun Doire, McKelvey, Bothar Na.

Later

Well, McKelvey saved it from being a complete disaster. I'm so pleased the favourites all lost. I would have felt so bad about the bookies paying out all that money.

In future I'll stick to premium bonds.

Don't let your daughter write a blog

They say that blogger are sad, lonely people who sit all day in front of a computer in their underpants.

Well, I can't speak for others, but fully clothed, I shall copy something from The Independent. Without permission, I should say, but they're a liberal newspaper, so I guess they won't mind.

(after Noel Coward)

Don't let your daughter write blog, Mrs Worthington,

Don't let your daughter write a blog!

The web is overcrowded and no-one gives a toss

About her views on the latest news

Or how she plays lacrosse.

Her holiday snaps of her with chaps are charming, I suppose,

But honestly, scrolling down the screen won't leave the world agog.

I repeat, Mrs Worthington, sweet Mrs Worthington,

Don't let your daughter write a blog.

Don't let your daughter write a blog, Mrs Worthington,

Don't let your daughter write a blog.

I know that she's getting a lot of hits, and it would be unkind

To say that a kick or a blow from a stick

Is more what I had in mind.

And though the whole world is doing it, it's surely rather de trop -

I've got all I need every time that I read when I'm sitting on the bog.

So please, Mrs Worthington - Jeez, Mrs Worthington!

Don't let your daughter write a blog!

Don't let your daughter write a blog, Mrs Worthington!

Don't let your daughter write a blog.

They say it's the future of literature,but it won't make her wealthy,

And this solitary vice is simply not nice

And also rather unhealthy.

Her opinions stink, so why should we link to her solipsistic rants?

The Web, perforce, is now a dead horse that everyone wants to flog.

So nice Mrs Worthington - Christ, Mrs Worthington!

Don't let your daughter write a blog!

By the way, I don't read The Independent, or The Guardian for that matter. Honestly. Someone gave me it.

Spring is here

Walk lightly in the Spring; Mother Earth is pregnant. So runs a Kiowa proverb.

I read that in The Independent last week when it published a selection of poems last week on the theme of ‘Spring’. All the old favourites are there: Wordsworth’s daffodils, Housman’s cherry trees and, of course, Tennyson:

In the spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.

Not just the young man, Alfred! And isn’t that an octameter? And what’s the difference between an octameter and a pair of tetrameters? Sometimes, when it comes to poetry I fear I can’t see the woods for the trees.

Philip Larkin’s The Trees is typical of him:

The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.

I tell people that there’s always one day at this time of year when I wake and know that it is Spring. There is a new something in the air – texture, tone, tang; I’m not sure – but something more than just a little extra warmth. Perhaps the analogy is that I sense that we have moved from a minor to a major key.

I always say that the coming of Spring is like a birthday gift from a rich old aunt, who is generous but forgetful. The gift may be early, it may be late, but it will arrive, and it’s always worth waiting for.

For some reason it reminds me of a Randolph Scott Western – most things seem to – in which he tends a sick horse. His companions recommend shooting it, but Randy maintains that there is nothing physically wrong with the animal, it has just given up. He proposes sitting up with it all night so that it knows it is not alone and then, when it feels the sun on its back in the morning, it will find the will to live.

So I’m feeling pretty cheerful and beg to differ with Mr Larkin. As for T S Eliot’s remarks about April being the cruellest month, all I can say is that he had the soul of a bank clerk. My only complaint about the Spring is that my laundry is taking longer to try, now that the heating is off. I never hang it outside. Since I spend so much time sniggering at the neighbour’s washing-line, with its ranks of bras looking like so many sailor’s hammocks and knickers like Ali Baba’s trousers, I fear to expose my underpants to ridicule.

I had a stroll around a nature reserve the other day. It was a sunny day; the birds were singing and the company delightful. All it needed was clouds scudding across the sky and boats bobbing on the ocean to give it all the qualities of an idyllic scene.

‘Look,’ said my companion, ‘Do you see that bird?’

‘Where?’

‘There.’

‘Oh, yes. What is it?’

‘It’s a wren.’

‘Oh, troglodytes troglodytes.’

I have a feeling that just about sums me up. My apologies, Mr Eliot.

By the way, I don't read The Independent. Somebody thought I might be interested in that particular page. I wouldn't lie about a thing like that.

Curry and toffees

Sitting in Wetherspoon’s yesterday afternoon I was surprised to see members of the evening shift arrive wearing cowboy hats and check shirts. The sight of one displaying a more than usual amount of cleavage induced jokes of a sort which proved that while my companions may have bad taste they certainly have good memories.

‘What’s it all in aid of?’ I asked one of the cowgirls.

‘Curry night.’

‘Curry night?’

‘Yes, the Indians provide the curry. We are the cowboys.’

I’m not making that up.

* * * * *

The murder of four more soldiers in Iraq came on the day when the 15 sailors and Marines were flown back to Britain by the Iranians.

The press, true to form, cannot see a crisis without trivialising it. The past fortnight has seen them concentrate on the one female ‘hostage’, interviewing her family, feeding them clichés and trying to capture tears on camera. Now, after talk of ‘dreams come true, answers to prayer, emotional reunions,’ etc they are about to turn and ask ‘serious’ questions.

Was the Royal Navy at fault? Was their release a victory for Britain or a propaganda triumph for Iran? What do the sailors think of their new suits?

Much as I despise the British press, I would like to hear them ask this question: should the Iran 15 be court-martialled and dishonourably discharged? I know it’s easy for me, sitting safely in front of a cosy computer, to ask that. But when Royal Marines are dying daily and every completed patrol is a dream come true and emotional reunions are months away, I feel sick when I see their comrades parroting Iranian lies in exchange for cigarettes and bags of sweets.

Words are cheap, I know, and discretion may be the better part of valour, but a little pride, a little resistance and some sheer bloody-mindedness would not have gone amiss. As for the officers, I don’t necessarily expect a performance like that of Colonel Nicholson in Bridge Over the River Kwai but to surrender first and then apologise is a poor example of leadership.

The Ritz, Lincoln

On Monday morning customers entered ‘The Forum’, a Wetherspoon’s pub in Lincoln, to find that smoking had been outlawed from the place. Obviously, they left and sought refreshment elsewhere. I understand it was quiet all day.

A rumour circulated around the city that the manager had woken up that morning and panicked on half-hearing about the smoking ban in Wales, believing that it applied to England. Nothing would surprise me about managers of Wetherspoon’s pubs.

Apparently not. It’s official policy. I should have known, because Wetherspoon’s employees are not encouraged to show initiative.

But ‘The Ritz’ still allows us lepers in, although I have heard that we are to be concentrated more tightly in the coming weeks. It’s going to be a bit of a squeeze because the smoking area is already crowded. If you like the solitary life, give up the fags.

With a name like ‘The Ritz’ it‘s probably easy to guess that this pub used to be a cinema. It still has the gaudy pink and blue neon lights outside. In days gone by I used to visit it, although offhand I can only remember a live show I once saw there. Boxcar Willie was performing and I recall feeling out of place because I wasn’t wearing a cowboy hat. But Boxcar wasn’t a ‘cowboy’ singer, was he? Why was no-one wearing battered trilbys and overalls?

The old circle or balcony is not used by the pub except as storeroom and today I had the opportunity to go up there. I was helping to remove some unwanted wood and suchlike – all quite official.

It was a pretty sad experience. I remember it as red and plush, gaudy and comfortable. Now it’s derelict, the seats and carpets all ripped out, the stairs covered with leaves, the toilets – well, never mind them.

If only I had half a million pounds. I’d rent it and show my kind of film. Members only, doors locked no staff, bring your own beer, smoke to your lungs’ content and watch a Humphrey Bogart double-bill. Forget the rubbish at the local multiplex and the arty stuff at the film society. Saturday night, the complete works of Budd Boetticher. The stuff that dreams are made on.

I met an old library colleague on the bus home, who confirmed my worst fears. You wouldn’t think it of Lincolnshire, but our library service is in the vanguard of the workers’ revolution. The library manager is on record as viewing his own service as a repressive middle class organisation and longs to see a Castro bring his revolution to this country. He also thinks that Pol Pot is much misunderstood.

You heard it here first.

Points from the news

Home births

The government is to give pregnant women the 'right' to choose to give birth at home. This will increase the dangers of childbirth and add to costs. Instead of one midwife keeping an eye on half a dozen women while nature takes its course, she (or he) will be sitting with her feet up drinking tea in someone's front room.

If people want this choice, let them hire a private midwife and pay for it themselves.

I see the midwive's union is in favour. I'm not surprised. More midwives will be needed, more subscriptions.

The Chancellor and pensions

OK, Gordon Brown was wrong to remove tax relief from pension funds (or whatever it was he did), but what about the other issues?

He's criticised for not taking advice. Well, it's a daft person who takes every piece of advice he's offered. If I'd done that I'd have lost at least £1,000 at the races this year already.

And I'm not sure I fully agree with 'freedom of information'. Freedom of the Press, yes. 'The public's right to know' is often, I think, sanctimonious self-justification by irresponsible newspapers. People, even those in government, have a right to privacy, to argue and disagree before making a decision, without fear of mockery.

The servicemen captured by Iran

I've just deleted what I wrote. I'll make my criticisms when they are all safely back

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

You'll find a synopsis of this novel

here. (I still can't get the hang of this linking business).

Setterfield's novel aims to be 'gothic'. It has all the elements - crumbling mansions, violence, incest, ghosts and a cast of characters who are feral, sick, psychologically damaged and plain mad.

Its time-setting is vaguely contemporary and the story takes place mainly on the Yorhire moors (where else?) and some sort of Mummerset around Banbury.

It tries very hard, but it doesn't work. Perhaps it's just too difficult to take this sort of tale out of its natural location in the early nineteenth century.

To her credit, Setterfield makes clear her debt to Jane Eyre in particular, and here is her main problem. Jane Eyre is not a gothic novel, mad wife in the attic notwithstanding. Its characters, for all their melodramatic characteristics, are real and we care about them. Setterfield's gallery of grotesques are as two-dimensional as the characters on a Cluedo board.

Mystery. There's plenty of mystery in this book. And if you like convolutions for their own sake, then you'll enjoy it. For my own part, the final revelations produced a sigh of 'So what?'