Devonshire

I decided that I wanted to read Brian Sewell's autobiography when it occurred to me that he must be one of the last among those who started life as a "queer"  (Oh, dear) and became eventually "gay" (Hooray).  Besides I enjoy his columns.  As I was seated at my laptop I checked with Amazon and found that they were selling at £15 as opposed to the published price of £25.  These are hard times so I wrote in our password ("Bollocks") clicked the mouse three times and behold the book is now winging its way towards me.
 I really wanted to buy it from my local bookshop to help it keep going, but laziness and cupidity won me over.  I note also that Heywood, Hill are selling it at £25 and this set me to thinking about the current Duke of Devonshire who owns the shop and where his aunt, Nancy Mitford, worked during the war.  It used to be run by a most charming and erudite man called John Samurez Smith who made browsing a priviliged pleasure and who suddenly left after many years of service to the top people who all received hand written bills which were only paid after long delays.
This raises the question, "Is Devonshire a shit?" He certainly has odd ideas about the House of Lords and has spoken of renouncing his title as the days of the aristocracy are over.  Does anyone on the list know him?  Dropping in on the bookshop in Curzon Street used to be a delight.  It was an oasis of calm away from the bustle of the rest of London. It is still selling books there but it is not the same without John. 

Right Again

For some reason one is not supposed to say "I told you so."  I don't know why but I don't mind it a bit. So here we go:
I told you that the Euro would be bound to break up and everybody else really knew this as well, because monetary union really has to be supported by political union.  The pushers of this narcotic idea really wanted political union all along and even now they are pressing for fiscal union on the way to the dustbin of history.  Anything is better than being part of the United States of Europe governed from Brussels by technocrats.
I told you that the press were getting hysterical with enthusiasm about 'The Arab Spring' as it was really just another revolution which would all end in tears.  Now the press are talking about 'The Arab Winter' as the rebels start fighting among themselves.  Teach more history in schools especially for those who just read PPE at Oxford. That will do for the moment.

I feel really sorry for those young people who are unemployed.  Perhaps one of the reasons is that they have not been taught to do any thing useful that they can offer an employer while immegration has allowed another 250,000 people to be added to the population.  'Education, education, education', said Tony Blair but he did not say what it was for.

What a good letter that burglar wrote refusing to apologise to his victims.  Neat handwriting, commas and full stops.  He must be an educated thief or is it a hoax?  Watch this space.

How strange that the  showbiz people giving evidence of press harassment to Lord Leveson haven't appeared in anything recently.  

Strawberries

Another piece of tinkering from Dave and the Schoolboys.  This time they are going to make the taxpayer cough up for money owing on mortgages which should never have been granted in the first place.  We are asked to believe that this will kick start the economy.  They're all getting sillier and sillier so lets talk about strawberries which I really did think about last night.

What happened to allthose lovely wild stawberries which used to be so plentiful in the bistros on the Left  Bank in Paris shortly after the war when a huge helping of these small slightly bitter fruits could be afforded by even the poor English tourist trying to eke out his allowance of fifty pounds in sterling to spend abroad.  But that was in another country.  Now that France has more or less recovered from  the war (which war?  Some say she never recovered from Napoleon) they have become harder and harder to find.  And more expensive.  Those who picked them are probably picking grapes in Burgundy where the pickers arrive in expensive cars. The wild strawberies are left like damsons in England to "wither on the bough."  That doesn't sound right.  Oh yes, I remember it is nothing to do with fruit; it should go "The garlands wither on thy brow."
 But that was an altogether different quote about the evanescent fruits of victory.  "So boast no more thy mighty deeds/ Upon death's purple altar now/ See how the victim - victor bleeds...."  and so on. And so to sleep.

Sclerosis

Politics keep intruding in the wee small hours of the morning.
What a sclerotic nation we are.  Nothing really changes as we tinker with existing institutions, then congratulate ourselves for doing sometning radical.  But we nee radical changes now as Boy George finds his plan for reducing the deficit in tatters.  He wanted 'cuts' followed by 'growth' only we have not got growth.  |So here is a radical plane for growth.  Pay attention, Chancellor.
1.  Abolish the fifty per cent top rate of income tax.
2.  Abolish the rules about minimum earnings levels.
3.  Raise the income tax threshold to £10,000
4.  Introduce a flat rate of tax of 25%.
There.  That should get things moving by doing away with the poverty trap, half the personnel of the Inland Revenue and many many accountants.  (Actually the Chancellor was very enthusiastic about the flat tax but that was before he was nobbled by treasury officials.)
It will not happen because nothing much ever does happen.  Sclerosis sets in again.  How sad.

I only heard half of it but what was the Today programme doing to play Billie Holiday singing "Strange Fruit" yesterday?  "Southern trees bear a strange fruit; Blood on the leaves and blood on the root". It is difficult  to believe that there was once a fuss about it being disparaging of the Deep South of America.  There at least is something that has changed. Bravo!

Changes for the Worse

"How are you?" I said.  "I'm good," he answered.  "I did not ask about your morals. I asked about your health.  People used to say that they were well and then get on with the conversation. "  "Not any more," he replied.  "That's all changed now. I'm good and that's that. "
So I was left behind again tho I don't much mind not swimming with the tide.  But most changes of this sort are not for the better and often smell of political correctness.  For instance "actresses" suddenly have become "actors".  Why?  Actresses used to look like women and actors like men (more or less.)  Perhaps they thought that it gives them more status.  And another thing; "mistresses"  have suddenly become "lovers".  What on earth for?  With "mistress" one knew who was who but now a lover can be of any sex.  Besides there was a nice ambiguity about the word "mistress", implying submission and domination at the same time.  Now we don't know where we are. 

I don't know about you but that Mrs Merkel scares the pants off me. She keeps on talking about war though unless she is well over sixty five she can't know much about it.  She seems to think that anything would be better than that Europe should revert to its natural position in the world - a polyglot collection of nation states who will live in peace unless they are forced into a union which their people don't want.  Perhaps Mrs Merkel will be struck by lightning and we can breath again.   
 

Armistice Day

Someone - I think it was Arthur Koestler - once remarked that homo sapiens was the only species that gathered together and then fought other members of the same species.  Recent observations have proved him wrong but all the same we are pretty odd.  What a truly insane thing it is to do to leave your home, put on a uniform, obey orders and try to kill complete strangers with whom you have no personal quarrel.  And yet when ordered thousands upon thousands of human beings do just that. 
Reading about the two world wars of the last cezntury, I find I can only take in small doses the tales of death and destruction before I have had enough for the day.  And how soon we forget.  At Passchandale in 1917 the British suffered 300,000 casualities.  Never mind because the Germans lost 400,000 men.  Victory does not come cheap. There is obviously something wrong with our make-up.  Perhaps it is nature's way of population control.  If so we are due for another big one soon.

In lighter vein I see that the horrible Huhn, who loves wind farms and pooh-poohs shale gas, is still being investigagted by the Essex police about his ex-wife's allegations of perverting the course of justice.  I also discover, thanks to google, that he is worth £3.5 million and got a first at Oxford in PPE.  Does everybody get a first in this subject?  Oh well, he cheated on his wife so he may be cheating on us too.     

Downhill Abbey

What?  Bates in handcuffs escorted to prison by a couple of bowler hatted officials!  You should have not done it, Julian.  Well we must have another series just to see him reprieved from the gallows when Carson confesses to being the real culprit.  The nation holds its breath and does not believe in capital punishment any way.
And that brings me on to memories of school when I had in my study a scum called Blakely.  I never liked him.  He had a pasty round face and floppy black hair.  All the same he was admired by some of the older boys who called on him from time to time for sexual services.  Some years later I met him in the Eight Bells in Chelsea.  He was full of himself.  "I'm in terrible trouble," he said with glee. "Women!"  I expressed my surprise.   A  few weeks later he was shot dead by his ex-mistress, Ruth Ellis.  She was the last woman to be hanged in England and has become famous for this rather negative act. 
But Bates' crime was committed when people were frequently left dangling from the end of a rope as an example to others. It did not make much difference to the murderers but it  took much of the excitement  out of murder trials and worthy of less newsprint.

 And wretches hang that jurymen must dine.... Not any more, Pope.  

Mann-Booker gets it right

Jukian Barnes' 'A Sense of an Ending' is at last a worthy winner.  Brief and well written it tells of an old man suddenly recalling events that happened when he was young decades ago. It has of course a denoument which surprises the reader as much as the narrator who tells the story.  Most of the prizewinners are forgotten in spite of the fulsome comments at the presentation.  As John Wain put it, "Where does that leave Tolstoy?"  The book started my own reminisences of coming to London with various Oxbridge contemporaries and our first stumbling steps in the real world.  It was the time when "La Ronde" was playing at the Curzon Cinema and I must have seen it at least twice. Anton  Wallbrook plays the master of the merry-go-round as the various characters - all beautiful go from one partner to another until the last man meets the first woman.  French film stars of the time were all fascinating and none more so than Danielle Darrieux when the merry-go-round breaks down to the dismay of the young man who performed so well with his previous conquest - the luscious maid Simone Simon.  He talks at the time of Stendhal's treaty on love.  That brings me to the most entertaining of all the great nineteenth century novelists.  For those who are interested the NY Review has just republished "The Life of Henry Brulard"  - one of the author's many pseudonyms.  It contains the account of an infortunate experience in a plush London brothel wnth a dissertation on fiascos.  I shall buy the book as well as the DVD of "La Ronde" for an orgy of escapist pleasure. 

Coming down to earth we can see Dave having his very first experience of negotiating with unions.  He will of course be backed up by inexhaustable supplies of taxpayers money so he is bound to give in.  It will end with a triumph for UNISON with beer and sandwiches at  No. 10.  As the other John Wain might have put it, "Don't send a boy to do a man's job."