The Christmas continues

We had our annual family Christmas gathering at my father's house.  There were 15 of us, plus my father's friend Richard Bolt who has an infallible sense of when a family feast is going to occur - and turns up on the offchance.  I don't mind feeding him - God knows we have more than enough food - but I mind the fact that he takes up lots of room when we are already a bit cramped... he also sat in on the present giving - and then left silently without thanking anyone.   He also whinged about pudding "I thought I was getting a chocolate pudding" - when they were being cooked to order.   My father says he suffers because he has a vegetarian wife.  That is my father's idea of suffering folks!

We were lavished with lovely presents, fab wine, a crocus voucher, and a Kindle!  Now I will do a Bolt-like whinge... I thought Kindles had a light so you could read them in bed at night, but it doesn't... apparently.  I have downloaded a couple of books and discovered that because I am an Amazon Prime customer I can borrow some books for free...

On Monday we went to London and had dim sum with Tom and Anne - our favourite restaurant, CCK - Cheung Chen Ku - has closed down,.  I am gutted.  The Wong Kei goes undeservedly on - cheap and cheerful I suppose.  We went to the New Loon Fung - which was OK, next time we must try to go to the New World - the last one with trolleys apparently.

I have a head cold and this is slightly blighting my days - but tonight we have two parties to go to - so I must brace up!

A Good Christmas

The secret to a good Christmas is probably fierce planning and a rigorous timetable enforced with charm....

This Christmas seems to have come upon us fast - largely because of all the money stuff - meaning that we could really only spend money with confidence after 15th December.  We had a good day in Canterbury on 22nd, getting larger than usual pressies for everyone.  I am not used to spending so much money, it was a shock, but for once.   Still, if our income increases, then this could become a bit regular.

The food was a bit different - ham and tongue, but beef, rather than Turkey...a really nice pudding - and lots of veg, the Irish christmas cake - although we had to use Scotch rather than Irish whiskey... I sadly burned it, but the icing and homemade marzipan make up for it I think...

The snowman slipped on the Icing

Well, I thought it was quite funny...

The boys and Mark and I were all pleased with our pressies.  I went to a lovely mass at St. Augustine's - and found Ned on the way back - when we parked the car, we heard the Christmas bells and the street decorated with lights (our tree is fab!) it seemed perfect.  I had a chat with Ned about his bombshell - and it seems things are not quite as cut and dried as he had led us to believe... On the Day we woke up at a sensible time and had our stockings - and tea - then breakfast and tidying, cooking and chores, then present opening - then a flying visit by our neighbour, and then a dash for the beach - where we only spent about 40 minutes, because we were expecting visitors about 1.00 - one sent a text saying she'd be there at 1.30 - the other was a complete no show.  I could have coped with that, but a text apologising might have been nice... but I made allowances for that, until I saw that at the time he was due to come to us he had been posting on FB - so what happened?  Perhaps he was abducted by aliens on the way over.   Anyway, we had a lovely meal and nice pressies and a good old slump and idle chat with S - and took a break between the main course and the pudding to enjoy some tv - then back to pudding etc. and then more slump, drifting off during Dr Who...

Slowly bits of washing up and tidying got done - and now we've spent most of the day with the telly and dressing gowns, doing a bit of social media... making charity donations and discovering that we seem to have had two enormous payments from Tax Credits - totalling £7,100.  If it's not a mistake, that will be a great Christmas present!

At last the cavalry

What I like about good news is the way it arrives when you are not pacing up and down expecting it - so I was in the last throes of the freelance lunch and was chatting with someone who was drunker than me.... (not the only one either, have I finally learned moderation?), when my brother in law rang and announced that the money had landed!

Joy was unconfined ish - actually, I was restrained, no need to open a bottle of wine - I had already had sufficient... I texted Ned and asked my sis-in-law for her bank details.  This morning I repaid some debts.  I will do a few more tomorrow.  I would have liked to savour the sight of a £50K bank statement a little bit longer, but hey, it will go up again in a few days...

I was pleased to discover that the habits of frugality were undimmed.  Going around Sainsbury's with M & F we were modest in our purchases (considering it was Christmas...).  I decided to go to Aldi for certain products (parma ham, olive oil and red wines) rather than splash out at Sainsbury.  We did buy some inexpensive champagne - I was briefly tempted by Piper Heidsieck, but then I considered that if you were making champagne cocktails it was much less important what you used, in fact prosecco would be sufficient.

What else?  Nothing really, it's not really frugality - just learning what is essential and what is not.  "Nothing but the best" is all very well as a slogan, but one doesn't need the most expensive ingredients to make the best food.

We came home to slow cooked lamb and roast veg, and a lot of unpacking...  .I also finally chipped the charred surfaces off the cake (oh, the tragedy!) and finished mixing the pudding... I poured more whisky into the cake, and thought the flavour was pretty good, once one got beneath the carboniferous!  Tomorrow, the pudding...finally.  It has been standing about for days (without apparent harm).

When not carrying out my fiscal and domestic duties, I contacted the Guardian about the far right's obnoxious behaviour towards my friend B... death threats etc.  But that's another story, and can wait to see how it develops

The onset of Christmas

Helas!  Each year there are different challenges - really, it should all be as easy as pie, we should have plenty of dosh and be scampering about buying a telly to replace the hand-me-down and second hand ones we own - and then we should be showering each other with careful, thoughtful pressies, sending donations to all our favourite charities, sensibly ordering a moderate feast for Christmas day - and sending out invitations to the Epiphany party.

Last year everything was on hold until we got a payment - this year everything is on hold until my mother in law sends us the money she generously promised us when her house was sold.  Today Ned offered me £150 on condition I used it to buy Christmas pressies online TODAY, because he realised that by the time we got any money, it would be too late to order them in time for Christmas... so I did.

It is beginning to get there, we have had cards printed, because, damn it, three years of e-cards, designed by me, is getting tiresome... and we have written some of them.    I have put all the dried fruit for the pudding and cake to soak over night in brandy and whisky respectively.  I have ordered a tree, bought two lumps of ham and some salmon to put in the freezer...   I have also bought M's birthday pressies - and this year it will just be the 4 of us at the feast, since his sister in law is tied down with carer responsibilities, while his mother is hardly going to return from Cardiff for the event.  So no pressure to get everything just so for the day - which is utterly wonderful!

What has not been done:  any presents for anyone not directly descended from me...the calendar is marked " shopping frenzy" for 22nd December - I am guessing we will have dosh by then.  And as we are not seeing anyone else before 29th December - that gives us 3 shopping days after Christmas (God forbid we should shop on Boxing Day, but I can imagine someone will want to).   Decorating has not got very far - I thought we'd do a bit a day - maybe tomorrow.  The main thing is to have enough bottles of decent wine and chocolates to distribute to those who have invited us to parties (5) before Christmas... the other problem is going to be pacing ourselves so that we are fit to get up the next day and go to the next party!

I am feeling disenfranchised - no turkey, by popular request, so all my usual planning - prepping the bread sauce and the sausagemeat stuffing and cranberry sauce and stuffing them in the freezer has not been necessary.  I do still have to find a tongue though.  Must ring Rook's.  I am currently allowing myself to believe it MAY work smoothly this year.  For the first time since the kids were born we are having 2 friends to lunch - and this is a real departure.  I am finding it very odd.  I am feeling under interested in the food - need to get inspiration, I think Elizabeth David's Christmas Food should provide a prod.  At least she won't have dried cranberries and pomegranate seeds in everything!

It begins: The Malice of Fairies

This post is borrowed from the Only Writing blog - the one no one reads.  

Well - I have been researching, and reading and getting involved in someone else's project, and generally being dissipated in the last two weeks - no submissions, no writing, no "progress" and I have felt thoroughly at a lose end... I know I am happiest when I'm writing... and so, although I didn't intend to think about writing "The Malice of Fairies" for a while, I was at a thoroughly loose end this afternoon - and as a result, thought I might just try a scene - so now I have 2,500 words - which might be the beginning of the book.  Writing is an excellent cure for boredom, although it has the negative effect of sometimes making other things seem boring.

I like the words  I am pleased,  starting GATD was a slow business, and no reason why this shouldn't take a while to get going either...Actually, damn it - I am really excited and happy and feel like proclaiming it to the
world....

I am also pleased that I am not repeating the mistakes of other books (writers):if at first you don't succeed, try again with something similar... I suppose my heroine Deidre is like Anastasia a bit - not as nasty though - differently neurotic!

Very happy making - and I don't HAVE to do it, since I have the other prospect to console me - but I am not discussing that here until I know for sure.

Northern Soul: the movie

Having seen and enjoyed Pride enormously, I was really looking forward to something of the same warm glow from Northern Soul.  Although far from being a hardcore fan, there are some fantastic tracks that are among my favourites (few of which featured in the film).   However, I once had a Lancastrian boyfriend who used to go to all-nighters at the Wigan Pavilion.  He was an object of some curiosity at Oxford - where he was seen as a stand-out from the other guys, who were mostly afficionados of "Public School Rock" (Yes, Genesis, Pink Floyd et al).   We used to sing soul songs to each other during our brief relationship.

I'd guess Northern Soul was a slightly less well funded film than Pride although costumes and hairdos made me almost nostalgic, while the factories and domestic interiors were every bit as dull and grubby as I remember them being.  The story was very different - it had all the "coming of age" elements, betrayal by friends, (both features of Pride) plus a bit of violence, estrangement from parents, lots of drugs, and massive amounts of dancing.  I would have enjoyed it more if (a) the hand held camera shots hadn't made me sick, (b) the female lead had been a better dancer  (c) they had paid a little more attention to correct language - "soz" was not in use during the 70s (unless it's a Lancashire thing), and there were other phrases which grated.   But I'm old, this film was not made for me.

The dancing, on the whole was great - and that strange male look - the skinny torsos above the wide kecks was extraordinarily evocative of the aforementioned boyfriend...

Wonder if the ex-boyf ever danced like this?

On the whole, pretty good - very gritty and realistic and a great way to enjoy Northern Soul music.  It doesn't end quite as sentimentally as Pride - but then again, it was the story of individuals rather than a movement - and set in Lancashire (which I have little connection with) rather than S. Wales - which is heaving with distant cousins. And I wasn't involved with it, whereas I was with the miners.  So my feelings about it are very much more stunted.  

Romance, uber Babes and other Sunday afternoon thoughts

While prepping the dinner, I was listening to an ancient cassette, called "party tape".  I don't know exactly when it was made - some time between 1988 and 1993 I guess.  I was listening to is and suffering the usual waves of nostalgia for things I shouldn't be nostalgic for at all...notably a bad friend of my ex-husband's who made a pass at me over the washing up.  I don't really like him, haven't seen him for 20 years and don't in any way yearn for him, so perhaps that wasn't nostalgia - just an ambiguous memory.

The playlist included

Katrina & The Waves: Walking on Sunshine
Isley Brothers: This Old Heart of Mine
Supremes::  No matter what sign you are
Gaye & Terrell ?  - I'm going to make you love me
Wet,wet, wet  Temptation
Simply Red:  Infidelity
Hall & Oates:  Camellia
Grace Jones Warm Leatherette  etc. etc.

Not my usual romantic sludge... but oh so bloody 80s...

It is mostly fairly danceable to - but my sudden overwhelming thought was "Who was I in love with then?"  It was sort of pre-Mark, post James - the inter-war period of my superb singledom.  I was "in love" with about 3 or 4 people during that period - and there were people I was in relationships of a sort with...I don't remember dancing with any of them to any of these (except the bad friend, and that was earlier). I just couldn't imagine who this music was for, who was I yearning for, who was I going to force to love me, who would I go back to 1000 times...

It was a rather regrettable thought - I know I've always had a habit of being "in love with" someone - but why?  In theory this period of my life was my "searching for suitable husband material" phase - yet I spent it mooching after completely unsuitable unhusbandly material - I suppose the Toad was wealthy - so he might have passed, but the others, well, I dunno... too short, too unstable, too drunk, too gay, take your pick.  Certainly weren't being chosen for their superior genetic material.  What does this say?   That Romance is not about the search for a mate?  Perhaps. I know when I discouraged K's marriage thoughts that was a very considered decision, based on his genetic material...longevity, etc. yet I was amazingly in love with him.  This is a mystery I cannot resolve,.  After all, surely the function of romance is to sugar the pill of the permanence of a relationship - so that several kids and rows later at least you can look back and remember when you did feel romantic about them.

Shirley Conran quoted a friend of hers the other day, saying "After 50 it's not about getting the man you want, it's wanting the man you've got."  This is only tenuous linked to the foregoing - but it's true!

The next thought about it all was that a lot of that 80s music was about the uber Babes - as Mark persists in calling them... and that neither Ned nor Finn, in their trawls through the musical past has landed on the 80s as offering any music worth while!

The Rich: Kampfner & Deller

We went to hear a discussion at Turner Contemporary between John Kampfner and the artist Jeremy Deller - who is not an artist in the conventional sense, so his exhibition is really an installation of various artefacts and a couple of paintings which he has conceived.  The topic "English Magic" might have been subtitled "Only Connect" since that is what visual art is all about now - pointing at something and making the audience do the work.  So he has taken a number of diverse items: painting by ex-soldiers in prison, Russian share certificates, paintings by Turner and Ruskin to make a point.... about?   Well, wealth - the coruscating effect of it on UK society?  Except I don't think it did -  there are attacks on the rich - perhaps they are thought-provoking for people... but I guess if you've been thinking about if for nearly 40 years...

Deller in front of one of his conceptions - a hen harried clutching a red Range Rover

Frankly I think one would get a better idea about this in a well-argued article of say, 3,000 words maximum.  But then...

Kampfner is an ex-editor of the New Statesman - he has written a sort of history of the rich which does sound very interesting.  My only complaint against him is that he isn't particularly left-wing.   The discussion on wealth was well-structured but disappointing - reportage rather than critique.  I suppose unless I hear an analysis of the problem and some idea of how to start a solution I don't really see the point.  K did have some ideas that were interesting - "reputation laundering" and of course the fact that when money is concentrated in so few hands, they cannot actually spend it, therefore it ceases to be of use in the economy.  Perhaps we should start a fashion for the rich to invest in small UK manufacturing industries - they can all boast about it "My gasket manufacturer turned over £137m last year"  "Really - you're in gaskets - I've got a printed circuit board manufacturing start-up..." "Well, I'm heavily into renewables myself"  and so on.

Jeremy Deller was pleasant and mildly amusing - but not especially radical or exciting in his thinking - given that this exhibition "represented Britain" at the Venice Biennale, he presumably wouldn't bite the hand that feeds him.

I have just discovered - thanks to the wonderful Wikipedia - that JD actually trained as an art historian at the Courtauld - so he is the perfect conceptual artist.  I should applaud him for applying his skills so successfully.   We were there with two friends, who both asked questions of a political nature - but they were not satisfactorily answered - I was left with a mild sense that they did not want to upset UKIP... but perhaps I am being unfair.

It was interesting, but curiously unsatisfactory and at one point I stopped listening - apparently during this point Kampfner said "there is not going to be any state funding of art - so live with that!."   He is heading up a thing called the Creative Industries (dread word!) Confederation which is about to go public. As Mark says, this is a sort of Thatcherite thing - where miserable funding decisions made by the government are spun as interesting new opportunities... what does he mean, there will be no state funding?  Have they disbanded the Arts Council?  Or have they announced that its budget is reduced to zero?  Well, no doubt there will be future revelations.  But is it worse to artists to depend on the whim of some Russian Maecenas?  Or some civil servant with an art history degree?

It was unsatisfactory because there was nothing that made me catch fire - inspired me to research, thought or further interest.  I will probably be reading the book and seeing the exhibition, but it all has an air of "same old, same old" to me.  I suppose it's interest lies in that K has created a bit of public/media (which is what it really means) discussion about the rich, but this is as old as Croesus - didn't someone say "the rich you shall always have with you"?   (I know, I know.)

Full Moon again - Astrology not always wrong....

Well, no - like a stopped clock, it will be right twice a day.   However, this month I had been promised that a Full Moon (tomorrow) in my 7th house would bring some news about a partnership - either emotional or business.  I was rather excited - thinking that perhaps one of the US agents would finally say "Yes" - on the other hand, Full Moons often bring a swathe of rejection emails (I had one on Tuesday).  Whether that happens remains to be seen.

I always think of Full Moons as a time of culmination, when matters come to a head, Often astrologers say that something will go out of one's life - I haven't found that to be true myself, and what has happened here is more in the nature of a "follow up" to something that happened near a previous FM six months ago (May 10th). The astrological convention is that something that begins in a New Moon will culminate when the Full Moon is next in the same house... again, that doesn't always follow, nor does it follow that the whole thing (whatever it is) will only last 6 months.

Six months ago, just before the Full Moon in Scorpio (these things are often said to be linked) - I met - well, met isn't the word, encountered, at a scriptwriting session, a real scriptwriter! Woo.  I do actually know a couple of other script writers - so no big deal.  Anyway, apart from getting a good, if distant, vibe, off him.  I was amused to discover later that one of the group was getting rather excited by him.  Anyway, I never met him again, but I discovered my policeman chum was working/writing with him on a tv series.  I thought very little of this, although I hoped for PC K---'s sake it would come to something.  Today this man got in touch with me, said he'd liked what he'd heard of my writing and wondered if I would be interested in joining a script team he was forming, since he had had two series accepted and needed to write more episodes.

Wow and double wow.   This is certainly about a partnership - not a 1:1 but a one to several.  How exciting and how unbelievably astrologically correct.  It is of course, pretty rare for such an accurate prediction to occur.  Most predictions that come true usually have some elements that are possible but a certain amount of tugging is necessary to get them to fit.

Needless to say, I am not completely sanguine about this - many, many things may prevent this being the beginning of a fabulous period of success and income, but it would be wonderful if there was some income from it.

The Folkestone Triennial 2014

I cannot believe it is 3 years since we went to the last one... that was the day we took the boys and they discovered the joys of a cafe which sold Nutella flavoured milkshakes - and other delights.... next time we went it had stopped doing them - and this time it had closed down, replace by a very basic looking tapas bar.

There is something wrong with Folkestone - a writer I met last week at a party was agreeing on this - she was largely brought up and educated there - it hasn't had the big wash of DFL's that Thanet has had.  It is also very large and spread out - full of enormous Edwardian houses - not a lot of the sort of comfortable domestic buildings that appeal to retired groovy people, in the case of the Regency ones, or growing families in the case of the Victorian ones, in Ramsgate.

There is also the topography - somehow the lower town and the harbour seem very separate from the upper area with the Leas etc.   Of course they are not, but they still feel like two different places.

We arrived about 11.30 and got a map and went to see the sights, and very underwhelming they were too...the map is a rather confusing one - some of the things were simply marking places where various things were happening - or had happened, since this was the penultimate day.  We saw the exterior of an Andy Goldsworthy installation - cracked mud on a shop window - delightful. I love his work - but this was a disappointing example.  Not sufficiently transient!  We spent time looking at statuettes of people made with a 3-D printer... interestingish... which had attached wishes on them - all virtually identical, which I suppose should tell  me something about human life, but it seemed a rather banal project.  Since when did every art project have to have wishes attached - I've seen 3 or 4 of these all over the place - and we've even had a thing like this in Ramsgate.  Why wishes?  Is this the only way we can get people to engage...

There were various series of things - Yoko Ono ladders - which we couldn't find easily, so didn't bother, a nice little shelter called Steve, another site marking the River Pent (5 of these, we saw 1),another site where there was nothing.   And the Ian Hamilton Finlay words on the lighthouse

We couldn't see the lighthouse up close - because it is not accessible - but it looked quite nice.  We could see it as we had lunch at the bar in Rocksalt.  IHF is a household god - although I think he was probably a bit of a bugger - any one who can apparently idolise Saint- Just the way he did must be slightly deranged. However his work is aesthetically pleasing and there is no nonsense about "narrative".  He also wrote books - he knew where narrative properly belonged!

I rather object to the way that visual culture is trying to muscle in on literary culture - it wishes to claim "narrative" for entirely unmoving and unchanging objects.  I suppose objects "tell a story" - but it is not enough to plonk an object down and expect it to do so.  The "narrative" is in they eye of the beholder... the artist isn't really doing much except pointing.  Blimey - I am in the wrong job - I spend all this time and energy writing a blog that "points" at things - when really I ought to be a conceptual artist.  I say a dozen amusing and thought provoking things a week to various friends and family members, and no one pays me a penny for this.  If I could learn to create a visual equivalent I could be quids in!   Maybe it is time I became a conceptual artist!

One thing I loved was a shop devoted to the Stuckists - I don't think it was part of the triennial... someone had plonked an old "safe" (geddit?) outside the shop - safe art!  Well, hardly.  

The final part of the venture was an installation called Vigil. You can read about it here http://www.folkestonetriennial.org.uk/artist/alex-hartley/ because I can't be arsed to describe it.    What is amusing is our slightly literal take on it.   Mark assumed that since the thing was situated high up, part of the experience was a wonderful view... we both supposed that one could go and visit it.   This was extremely difficult and challenging.   First we had to enter the hotel - I was going to ask how to reach the site at the reception desk but it was full of rather poor looking pensioners.  Also Mark urged me into a lift.   I was subsumed with a sort of scent-memory of cheap hotels I'd stayed in.  The glorious red carpet with its gold braid pattern was also familiar.  I was back in the now demolished Hotel Esplanade in Bournemouth in 1963...The smells were institutional - not dissimilar to a care home... i.e. stale mass catering and a sort of musty, mouldy human smell.  It appeared that a lot of people could actually be living there.  The entrance hall was filled with slot machines, and building works.  There were signs to different "wings" giving it a prison like feel.

The lift went to the 6th floor - we got out and walked to the 7th floor.  I went on strike while Mark explored - he found a different lift that went to the 12th floor - from there we walked up to the 13th floor - saw the tiny cramped lobby with four doors - each labelled "Premier Suite" - one had a notice about the Vigil installation and said "No admission to unauthorised personnel"... we knocked on the door a few times, but there was no payoff for our persistence.  M had really only wanted to see the view.  There was a good view from a window on the next landing.  We enjoyed that for a while, until I was distracted by two young girls wading around the harbour - despite the incoming tide.  The water was below their knees when they left the edge of the harbour, and headed out to the area beyond the viaduct - it was harder for them getting back, they were doubtful about getting around the buttress which marks the spot where the River Pent goes into the sea.   This time the water was up to their waists as they tide had come in a great deal in the ten minutes or so since we'd been watching them from the hotel tower.  This was quite a dramatic incident - another middle aged couple were watching them with anxiety too.  They were clearly local girls - no parents around - but not very aware of the tide - or perhaps they were and that was part of the adventure.    Neither our visit to knock the door, or the girls jeopardy around the harbour got a mention in the Vigil blog.  Unimpressed!

Then we went home - lay on the sofa, drank tea and read the Guardian... a pleasure!

Saint-Just - quite a looker really.  

I want the Natural History Museum back!

Yes, it's still there - and it's cleaner than it was, and you can see the terracotta creatures much better but inside...

An uncharacteristically deserted view of the ichthysaurs

I told Finn it would be hell on earth - full of kids, crowds, no natural light and very very claustrophobic.   Once upon a time the NHM had large spacious galleries that proceeded across the building from the centre, each with a different theme.  There were dinosaurs, but they were not there as an attraction to be queued for, and the blue whale was in a quiet place - probably the place it still is approximately, but now the interior has been buggered about.  There are fragments of old corridors and displays - but elsewhere partitions and false ceilings and vinyl floor coverings abound.  I sigh for the huge mahogony doors that a child found it hard to push open, and the long, wooden floors, which creaked slightly.   We used to play behind the heavy curtains that shielded the dioramas from the light - and stand on the brass gratings where the hot air circulated.

The place is now unbearably hot - but the brass gratings have been covered up in many places... the gentle creak of the floor is gone - and so of course is the peace and quiet.  I imagine there was a quiet area yesterday - but we didn't find it.  It is poorly signposted - and the whole zone thing is annoying (although probably useful).   The map shows that whole galleries on the first floor have simply disappeared from use.  I wish now that we had gone to look and see if the geology room with all the crystal specimens was still there - I set a scene in The Ash Grove there - which may be the last record of it.   I have been to the NHM several times since the rearrangements of the 80s - in the vain hope of recapturing some sense of how it was - a place where you could go and marvel and learn - in peace.

Of course museums have to be popular and accessible but must they do so at the expense of their architectural beauty, of their educational function?  There is only time to gawp at things - no time to stand and contemplate and discuss - because one is endlessly battered by other people, and kids and pointing and buggies and yes, of course, museums are a great place to take children - and I was very privileged to be able to go there as a small child and enjoy it in relative peace.  What I wish is that NMH would set up a "Dinosaur Theme Park" somewhere - where everyone could have the "Oooh-ah!" experience and thrill seekers could be thrilled - they could put the volcanoes and the earthquakes there too... and then may be we could quietly enjoy the opthalmosaur and the giant sloth in relative peace.  And perhaps they could restore the dioramas...                                                            

Diet Bore: A new experience

I would never say I had tried "everything" - but I have been through many of the major diet fads of our times.  If in the last few years I have tended to be more conservative - erring towards the Atkins end of the spectrum - this has been chiefly out of consideration for my pancreas...a description of "insulin resistance" began to ring bells for me, and I fear my fate has come upon me - however, my GP has given me 3 months to attempt to get the blood sugar down, or else he will make the diagnosis.

Obviously there are all sorts of psychological reasons for dieting - I discovered years ago that I would diet if I thought I was in with a chance of going to bed with someone new.... but this is an incentive I lack at present.  I also know I eat when I am angry, stressed or sad.  This covers a large percentage of my time it sometimes seems - which also makes things tricky.  I find it hard to develop "mindful" eating - considering every mouthful seems utterly tedious.    What I have discovered is that because I have so much weight to lose, being "good" for more than a few weeks, becomes unbearable - I get so bored, I hate restrictions [the subject no doubt for another excoriating entry some other time] and being told I can't brings out the worst (or best?) in me.

So, having arrived at a critical point in health terms (it was always in the dim and distant future before) I have embarked on a new thing.... the dreaded 5:2 diet seems, at this early stage, to be a possibility.  It harnesses my determination for very short periods (24 hours) and I am less worried about the restrictions since I know that if I wish, I may pig out the following day... also, since the objective is lower blood sugar, not weight loss, I am less fixated on fluctuating weight - but I think over all I have lost 5-6lbs in the last 10 days - which isn't bad.

The low calorie day is a test of ingenuiity - a search for very low calorie foods presents me with pollack, tofu and quorn sausages - or a very small bit of chicken breast.... but quorn sausages aren't as bad as all that (although rather bad in carb terms).  Today I managed to include figs and dark chocolate - so it isn't all bad.  I've often found it easy not to eat breakfast - and skipping lunch isn't impossible - if you don't mind being wobbly while you try and cook supper without consuming the fridge...

The following day one's stomach capacity has decreased - and one eats less. I could eat carbs, but I'm trying to cut that down too.  We shall see - in February - whether I have succeeded, and whether I can keep it up over Christmas and New Year.

In other diet news:

I may be becoming allergic to wine.  I've noticed since summer that wine consumption has frequently prompted a runny nose, or a blocked nose the following morning.  A pharmacist who was staying with us said "a runny nose is usually a sign of allergy" - so, that's my alcoholism knocked on the head.  Of course I can probably stick to gin - but I suspect the new low drinking regime could be attractive too - on Saturday - for the first time in some years, I went to a party without drinking (well, I had 1.5 glasses of wine - because I was eating cheese) and drove home.  I cannot help wondering if I was less fun than I might have been.  But I guess I had better get used to it.  One can't demand spirits at other people's parties - have to start taking a bottle of voddie with me everywhere - like a teenager!

Attracting a following....

I never started this blog with the idea of attracting a following - and in this I have had a riotous success... there are steady numbers in the US and UK - the largely ignored Russian and Ukrainian "readership"... something to do with international internet crime I suspect - and then suddenly a spike in the French viewing figures - or a sighting from Indonesia - or Venezuela... but really, this is not that sort of blog.   I could make it more followed if I wrote more about popular culture or news items or put recipies in or treated this as a serious professional effort, rather than as a sort of glorified diary (from which I have edited all the more "interesting" personal revelations!).

A selection of my devoted followers (actually, these are elephants on their way to a "funeral" - so it may be appropriate)

Anyway, the fact is that as soon as I write about a film or an event or even a book, there is a sudden spike in activity.  Presumably everyone is seeking out Effie Gray - and they get all the way down the list and find my review.  I still find this a little weird.  A pity I did not review Pride  - or perhaps I did.  Do I want a following?  If I ever get published my publishers will want me to have one - on the other hand, if they read this they might want me to have a different blog with different followers - but that's another subject. 

Effie Gray

This was a very nice little film - like many British films it took a familiar story - stuck in some very recognisable actors (Jacobi, Suchet, Walters, Coltrane, Thompson & Wise) flung in some attractive newcomers, paid vast attention  to production values - and  voila!  

Effie Gray-Ruskin - Millais - by Millais

 It was very enjoyable...it's a well known story of course, so no surprises. Part of me wonders, why?  I suppose the drama is in "can she stay in the marriage? how will she leave him?" (and was Lady Eastlake really so dramatic in her gestures and expressions as Emma T performs her?) However, the sense of drama is severely mitigated by a respectably straight telling of the tale.  There is a slight sense of jeopardy at the end... but you know it's false.
I enjoyed it - it made me think about Ruskin again - whether he had a personality defect, was aspergic or what?  (The amateur Freudian in me always enjoys these things)  It also made me think - are these films being made in the same "educational spirit" as 1940s biopics - i.e. if no one makes a film about this sad marriage, no one will know about it.

I suppose the Ruskin marriage is a basic part of the culture - I heard about it as a child - and we must pass it on,.  Is there anything edifying about it?  No, it's just a scandal - I don't suppose Ruskin enjoyed the way he was - probably, given the choice, he would have liked to have a normal marriage... I am sure all the awful things he said in the film about women were probably direct quotes trawled from his letters etc.  Does this story tell us anything heartening about the human condition...well, yes, that Millais was a jolly decent chap... and Effie was a Victorian woman who actually wanted to have sex (there is some sort of received opinion that no one enjoyed sex until WW2), is that enough?  Actually, given the paucity of knowledge amongst schoolchildren and young people, it is probably an excellent thing - and the film should be put on the National Curriculum - along with the study of Millais' paintings, and Ruskin's writings - especially the socialist ones!

News from UKIPIA

Today's bulletin: well, actually this is slightly old news.  Of course we are all reeling with shock and surprise that UKIP has allowed a holocaust denying neo-fascist Polish party to form party of their coalition in the European parliament.... who could imagine that they would do such a thing!

But while I am in now way wishing to diminish that horror, the thing that gives us a really good taste of things to come in UKIPIA is a bit more subtle and domestic.

Once upon a time there was a concept called "the head of the household" - perhaps it is still used in some contexts.  Just as when a child answers the door, the electricity supply salesman will ask "Is your mummy home?" in the past, if a woman answered the phone to an official caller she might be asked "may I speak to the head of the house?".

It has an evocative historic ring to it...the head of the long house, ruling his extended family in some New Guinea clearing - or the Irish chieftain, presiding at his table, rod of office by his side.   But on the whole the question nowadays is "who pays the bills?" "Whose name is on the card?"   In our house that's effectively me.  I wouldn't say for a moment I was the head of the house though...or indeed that Mark was.   This usage died out at least 20 years ago.   So it was fascinating that when we received an electoral communication from UKIP it was addressed to M only.  I didn't get one - nor have any of my female friends - the men did though.  Presumably because they were "head of the household".   So us women needn't worry our pretty little heads about politics... our hubbies will consider the issues carefully - see that UKIP offers a "common sense" alternative and tell us how to vote.   I expect once they are in power they will take the vote away from us.  I think I ought to try to write to the Gazette about this...    Or maybe a special pink girly letter is coming out to us separately. I am keenly awaiting its arrival - perhaps it will have recipies on it?  or cleaning tips?

And once we've finished the hoovering - we can mow the lawn - we don't have time to go out and vote!

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Ebola in Thanet 2

Due to the fact that half the kids in Finn's school seem to be related to personnel at the QEQM Hospital, it has now been revealed that the Liberian man did not have Ebola - but some other virus.   While the nurse involved had quick on the spot training, in fact other nurses have been trained up to deal with Ebola during the last few months.  Interesting.   Our visitor Filip, a pharmacist, thinks people are getting over-anxious about it.  Perhaps he is right, but the statement by Margaret Chan about the extent of the disease is not especially reassuring.  However, it appears that Thanet is safe for the time-being.

I must confess, that I am a tiny bit disturbed about having a pharmacist in the house - it puts us that bit closer to the path of transmission.  If someone comes into the chemist to talk to him about feeling ill and what can they get for it... transmission is difficult - but apparently it has spread through sweat in Africa - people jammed into minibuses - rubbing up against each other.  I didn't think things passed through skin...but perhaps there's more to it than that.  I can see that the English are going to stop kissing their chums soon!  We will return to our buttoned-up hysterical selves.

Ebola in Thanet

Having made hubrisitic comments about the low likelihood of Ebola in Thanet - I heard something a little alarming last night.  Apparently a Liberian man turned up in A&E and the local hospital a couple of days ago.  He had a fever and said he was worried about Ebola - presumably this will be happening throughout Europe now - but I rather thought the lack of racial diversity in this area meant it was very unlikely that anyone would be coming here directly from Sierra Leone, Liberia or Guinea.... wrong!

When this guy had been "isolated" the staff were called together and given a rapid training session on Ebola - the training took 10 minutes.  We do not know whether Ebola was diagnosed - I'm hoping it was one of those viruses you get on planes.


I had tweeted sarcastically a few days ago that if all the Thanetians in Spain started flooding back here because they were worried about Ebola, then we were in trouble... but fortunately we didn't have an airport.   I have now heard that St Pancras railway station, "our" London Terminal now, is one of the hotspots for Ebola testing because it's where the Eurostar trains arrive - I wonder will they be doing the same at Ashford.

Armageddon

There have been many times in my life when I have heard people say "We are living in the Last Days" - this is because I have hung about with a lot of Biblical fundamentalists who were endlessly checking through the prophecies to see if they had been fulfilled yet.

Certainly conditions now seem ripe for Armageddon - Isis are approaching fast - will the Western forces engage them at Megiddo, in Israel?    There have already been 3 great battles there, one against the Turks in 1918 interestingly.   Isis are the nastiest thing we have come across for years - but as someone said tonight, in the last month Saudi Arabia has beheaded 19 people - judicially - but we don't invade them do we?  Still, Isis are lot worse than that.

Tel Megiddo - south of the Sea of Galilee - an ancient town with generations of piled up habitations - like Troy

I understand that we have fulfilled all the international "rules" about intervention.  And we are hardly doing anything, anyway, but what shocks me is that although much is being made of the involvement of 8 islamic states in the attacks on Isis, well, it's only 8 - and they aren't doing much.  Turkey is contenting itself with putting tanks on its borders.   So much for its endlessly vaunted NATO membership. The poor bloody Kurds are bearing the brunt of it.   It's not that I want to have a war, I just want them to somehow destroy Isis without civilian casualties and for everyone to wake up and love each other.  I am squeamish in other words   I am happy on this occasion for us to use drones and go in and pick them off individually.

Isis is bad enough - War is one horseman of the Apocalypse, as for the others: Famine (wait till the bees die), Conquest?  how is that distinguished from War, and Death - well, we have Ebola which has reached the US and Europe.  It may be a while before it gets to Thanet, but it is very frightening. It is a disgusting disease to die from, but curiously difficult to catch, and easily defeated by bleach - I dare say we shall find bleachwipes selling out in the shops (actually, do such things exist? - disinfectant wipes are not the same) and perhaps all those domestic disinfectants will now proudly splash "Protects against Ebola" on the label.   Bleach is evil stuff - but I can see it becoming very popular in coming months - to the detriment of the environment.

It is at times like these when I can understand why Pentecostal Christians rather looked forward to the excitement of the Last Days - yes, times would be tough - but after the Tribulation there would be the rule of Christ - and Heaven on Earth - so if you could just sit tight for 7 years all would be well.

This brings me to the question of when I would say my own tribulations began - probably in 2008 - so we must be nearing the end of that time.  It'll be 7 years next year... things have shifted a lot this year - the new book, the prospect (still tantalisingly retreating) of money, and the final defeat of the LO.  Not that I really think these things go in 7 year cycles - although astrologers seem to, it's a quarter of a Saturn cycle, approx.  This could lead me onto the topic of Saturn returns - but I think Armageddon is a sufficient topic for tonight.

Welcom to UKIPIA - The UKIP Caliphate

I am coming to a gradual understanding of what the much discussed "caliphate" is.  It is roughly speaking a Utopian idea - the Golden Age returned to earth - when everything will be organised according to God's law and justice and peace will "return" (surely some mistake?) to the world.

This is of course, like all utopias, a marvellous idea (unless you examine some of the tenets of sharia law).  However, there have already been a number of caliphates, ruled by various caliphs, from the earliest days.  The first one lasted 30 years and ended in civil war.   Subsequent ones were the Ummayad one - which seems to have been reasonable - but also coincided with massive territorial expansion - to allow the infidel to share the delights of the caliphate!    More recently that horrendous breed of men, the Ottoman sultans, claimed the caliphate.  I doubt whether anyone could dispassionately judge Ottoman Turkey to be a society overflowing with peace and justice - the royal family itself was riven with hideous cruelty - how could they be the perfect divinely ordained rulers?

A caliph... perhaps the first one, Abu Bakr Siddique?

When ISIS proclaimed a caliphate, it was very far from the ideal.  The Koran has some harsh verses in it (as does virtually any religious text) but nothing that advocates the sort of behaviour they are indulging in.

So - perhaps a caliphate is better seen as an idealised version of a sharia state that will never come to pass. This is where UKIP comes in.   When I hear their nostalgic chat about what the UK should be like, I wonder if they too have a sort of utopian ideal of the UK, where everyone is English and happy, smiling and cheerful (this would make a change from the UKIP supporters, who tend towards the snarling, grumbling end of the spectrum - but perhaps that would all change in UKIPIA).    As well as there being no, or very few foreigners (wives and concubines of leading party members would be permitted to remain - as long as they continued to please these potentates) we would be living on English produce from our own fields, and having our own nuclear energy (instead of having to buy it from the detestable French), and we would be able to enslave people, and remove any of their human rights we chose to.  There wouldn't be much tax, but there wouldn't be any services any way - everything would have to be paid for.  Women wouldn't work, unless they were very old and unlikely to require maternity leave.   Education would be optional after 12 and useful apprenticeships in mining and the chimney sweeping sector would become widely available.  The sea would gradually become disgustingly polluted, because we would have opted out of oppressive EU water purity standards, there would be a great deal of other pollution, as smoking in public places would be encouraged again.

Homesexuals would be "discouraged" - and would find themselves spending more time indoors, if not actually in the closet, since there would be few penalties for those who harmed them. Economically UKIPIA would be a bit of a mess as we would be losing a great many of our export markets.  We would not have the income to import foreign goods - especially foodstuffs, which would gradually become more expensive.  Luxury goods have become more expensive, due to the taxes on them - which doesn't worry ordinary people at first - until the definition of "luxury" is extended to include cat litter, deodorant and lavatory paper. The sales of skin whiteners that had gone through the roof as people attempted to diminish their ethnicity, now floundering as they too are taxed at luxury rates.

It becomes more apparent that the senior party members are living a rather more luxurious lifestyle than ordinary people - and although most of them are not career politicians, but also run small businesses of their own, still there is talk of UKIP MPs cheating on expenses.   Nevertheless, election publicity shows happy smiling faces, and even fat people (most of whom have disappeared since biscuits, cakes, fish and chips and Diet Coke were declared a "luxury good" and attracted the top rate of tax.

This is just off the top of my head of course, further research in the UKIP manifesto will no doubt reveal more.   Meanwhile - remember, only 13% of the population are immigrants (it's probably only 5% in Thanet)... .  The fact is, their fantasy British caliphate, will emerge just as unjust and cruel as any other similar regime... I just hope that UKIPIA will remain a fantasy for a very long time.

The important thing to remember about the word Utopia is that it is concocted from the Greek ou topos - No Place!  

Karma

I just heard a really interesting Radio 4 programme about Karma - an episode of the "Beyond Belief" series, which will no doubt be available on BBC iplayer for a week.

One of the thousand myriads of things that annoy me about life is the sort of casual "buddhism" that people go in for - and repeated references to karma are part of this.  I know it's just shorthand - but thinking about it a little more it appears that the doctrine of karma is quite an easy-going one: when something bad happens, you can say "it's just bad karma" and write it off.  Superficially it sounds great, because if it's "karma" it isn't your fault - not your responsibility.  Of course, karma is precisely that - if bad stuff happens to you, you must have been doing bad stuff to others.  So think before you blame karma: you're actually saying "I am a bad person!"   Cheap karma does not take this into account.

Unsubtle - but sums up the argument nicely.

Unfashionable Christianity has a lot of emphasis on personal responsibility - we are (as in other religions) abjured to "do unto others as ye would be done unto" and when we don't, then it's our fault.   Judaism was pretty realistic about the cause and effect of life... although the general idea is that if you walk along righteously with God he will reward you with prosperity - there are also plenty of laments about the wicked man flourishing "like a green bay tree" - and the generally unfairness that the ungodly often get off scot-free. The idea that our virtue will be rewarded has been carried over into Christianity - but it's a really ancient principle - do ut des (I give so that you will give) that has ruled religious practice since foreever...  A more sophisticated, karma free response to what happens in one's life, is to understand that there are random elements, shit happens, and however virtuous you are maybe your life won't be totally fully of "good luck", prosperity and everything else.

So cheap karma, is rather like evolution - an idea for the non-religious, who want an easy belief that absolves them from blame... "can't help rape and war - that's just how humanity evolved".  It is a form of moral laziness - and as I write these words I fear I may be repeating myself - I've written this before somewhere.

Wiping the karmic slate clean

One rather appealing idea was that when you suffer tremendously over a long period, this is to pay off various evil deeds you may have committed in the past.  You are then enabled to start afresh.  This can be adapted on a national level: when Mongolia finally became independent from the USSR there was a lot of moaning and grumbling about their years of servitude under Russia.  The Minister of Enlightenment - in conjunction with the religious establishment - said that they had had to go through it all to expiate the bad karma of having slaughtered and overrun so much of the population of Central Asia - twice.   Perhaps Britain's travails are the result of a karmic response to the Empire! (I jest).

So of course, I could take the view that my trials and tribulations of the last few years are a working out of some terrible karma (all the people I hurt when younger?) and that now I am able to start anew.... this view would no doubt be supported by Vedic astrology - yes, chums, Rahu and Ketu are out to destroy you!

Rahu and Ketu - the nodes of the Moon - Cosmic snakes - which need not concern us unduly

However, there is one problem with all this.  I don't actually, when I examine it, believe in karma... it would be nice to think that all wicked people get their comeuppances - and indeed the last few years have been a glorious time for comeuppances - but plenty of them go to their graves swathed in honour and hypocrisy, despite having done some fearfully wicked things, e.g. Mrs Thatcher  (arguably dementia was her comeupance).   There doesn't seem any real evidence for karma - rather the reverse really.  The number of thoroughly decent good people who are still suffering from undeserved crises is legion, the number of wicked flourishing like green bay trees is countless too.   You might argue that it actually offered more evidence that the devil was alive and well and favouring his own about the world.    To believe in karma properly one also has to be convinced about reincarnation. This is obviously an attractive idea, at least the bit about future returns to life is but in all honestly, it's just another sort of wish fulfilment.. 

New Moon

This month's New Moon - in Libra!

So yesterday was a New Moon and today I have sent out submissions of my new novel, The Gospel According to Darren to agents - and so I am excited, and anxious.  I have already had a one line email from an agent thanking me and saying "It looks interesting" - which is encouraging, although I know she is a very polite sort of agent and we already have a rather tenuous relationship.

Sometimes I feel totally alien from the world of publishing etc., but today, since I also did 3 submissions to US agents of The Ash Grove, I feel rather immersed in it.

One of the US agents I submitted to had a one hour "how to succeed video" on their "Thank you for your submission page... an interview with one of their authors... who tells you all about monetising yourself.  The link to it is here http://www.foliolit.com/thankyouforquery/   There is a whole new world out there, and I'd better start building a platform to join it I guess. 

And breathe! The Scottish Referendum

I can't really say why this mattered to me so much - except that I have always felt the importance of solidarity, and that separation from Scotland would not be in our interests, or theirs, and that the plans for their economy outside the EU were uncosted, and really messy.  It was, as 1066 and All That says  "Wrong but Romantic"   and definitely not the best way to respond to globalisation.  But a lot of what I feel is emotional too - and it is best summed up in this fantastic speech by Gordon Brown!

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/09/silent-no-more-watch-gordon-browns-patriotic-and-passionate-scotland-speech

He looks great in motion - this picture doesn't do full justice to him.   Surely it's a crime crying to heaven for vengeance that he isn't Prime Minister or something....

All together now  Will ye no come back again, will ye no come back again, Better loved ye canna be, will ye no come back again?

Back to Versailles

Belatedly, the Letters from Liselotte, arrived in the post.  These are the letters written by Elisabeth Charlotte Princess of the Palatine, and wife of the loathesome Monsieur, Louis XIV's brother.  I am enjoying them, although all the "best bits" have been recylced into various biographies and histories of the period so are a bit familiar.   They are fascinating because they are about a woman who wanted to be herself in the most restrictive circumstances.   Her bloody husband - one  of the wealthiest men in France - never gave her any money - well, only a tiny allowance, and used her property to spend on his favourites.  She could be herself to a great extent because she was Louis's friend - until Mme de Maintenon came between them.  

I don't mean to suggest that she was a charming, liberal person - "one of us" - she certainly wasn't - her views on royal bastards were far from liberal... "mouse droppings in the pepper" was her description of Louis's attempts to marry his offspring (especially those of his 'double adultery' with Montespan) into the legitimate royal line (her son inter alia). These views may have widened the rift with Louis perhaps?  However, she was quite a character making a brave stab at life in difficult circs.  Her correspondence was incredibly important to her.  She had few friends at court - especially once she was out of favour.  She was always suspect because she had converted to Catholicism for the marriage - people suspected Hugenot sympathies.

She kept a lot of little dogs and parrots "parrots do not smell" (this is true) and adored hunting.  She was conventionally attractive according to her early portraits - but broadened and coarsened with age  (partly because she forebore to wear a mask to protect her complexion while hunting)- I thus feel a kinship with her...she would now have to be my fancy dress costume of choice - the likeness is uncanny.  She also had a strong lavatorial humour that for some reason one associates with the Germans.  But why?  Do they really make more jokes on the topic than the rest of us?  Much as I deplore generalisations, one has to ask where these stereotypes come from.  After all, it's not as if the English never ate Rosbif, is it?

Holiday Reading

There is something lovely about being able to read for long stretches - and I took a huge box of books with me and I have read 3-4 of them - Antonia Fraser's "Love and Louis XIV" which was not especially illuminating.... but an agreeable reminder of all the old jokes and anecdotes.  Too much is known and written about these people (the Versaille court) to make writing any kind of novel about them really illuminating.  Then I hurled myself into JK Rowling's "The Casual Vacancy" which was both better and worse than I had expected - generally fairly enjoyable... but....it's an interesting topic - the way people at the bottom of the heap are disregarded in society...and the results.  A rather depressing take on matters... Then I read a rather enjoyable Zola - "The Ladies Paradise"  (Au Bonheur des Dames) which is didactic on the topic of the development of department stores.  He is broadly sympathetic to "progress" and those who stand in its way are chewed up.  The rise of Denise the heroine is a bit mystifying really - but it's a Cinderella story basically.

Finally I read a book which I found on the bookshelf at the Hotel Atlantique in Mimizan - there were a mix of English and French novels.   I read the book with disbelief - it was a sort of Enid Blyton for grown ups.  It lacked the youthful energy and enthusiasm of a Blyton work - but had roughly similar restricted vocabulary and plot ideas.  There was one surprise in the plot - yet true to form that had been flagged up earlier on.  I described the plot to Finn and Mark at dinner at the hotel - and they agreed it was completely pathetic - "Why would anyone publish that?"  Finn asked.    Then I was able to triumphantly flourish the answer - "Because it's by Richard Madeley [a famous UK tv presenter and co-host of a "Book Club" on tv].   I was shocked because I've always found him a reasonably engaging and intelligent character - but this book was so flat and lifeless I am amazed at it.  Didn't he wonder himself whether it was "good enough"?  This man recommended books like David Mitchell's "Cloud Atlas" - how did he think it was worth hainding this in without adding to it: more characters more ooomph, more complexity.  Or has research revealed that there is a market for adult Enid Blyton?  Mind is boggling....Going to bed now - doubt if I'll finish the book about the Templars tonight somehow!

I blame the parents....

I heard recently about two young persons, both expensively educated at the finest commercial establishments, who had been knocking seven bells out of each other.  They are in their teens yet biting was involved.  I was gobsmacked - as I have probably commented elsewhere, the point of private education - apart from endowing you with useful contacts for top jobs, giving you greater social confidence and readier access to our finest universities, is of course, to ensure that you are bullied by a better class of oaf altogether.

The outcome of the Caucus-race....how different from our system!

I fear this may have happened to these young persons, and that their relatively mild-mannered and almost (but not quite) herbivorous parents, could not have set them such a foul example.   However, it occurs to me that from their earliest youth these children (a girl and a boy) would have been exposed socially to a great many children whose parents were far more carnivorous, go-getting and aspirational than their own parents.  This "Come on Crispin, make sure you get the tambourine" sort of pushiness is observable at any toddler group is the beginning of children seeing that lunging and grabbing for what you want is acceptable, and even encouraged by parents.   Obviously in such a family, the behaviour continues, intensifies until the children have started working for a hedge fund and can pass on these valuable life lessons to their own children.

If on the other hand you encourage your children to share and take turns you are clearly setting them on the path of a life of failure... do they not know that sitting back, carefully concealing their light beneath any handy bushel will be a disaster?  Still, if there were not polite, genteel, traditional bourgeois people like me, who were busy disadvantaging their children with modesty and humility, there would be no social mobility at all.  We must sink so that others may rise.

So perhaps I should rejoice that this pair have overcome their relatively polite parents, and absorbed the glorious examples of the children they have grown up amongst - it is a long time since they had pirate parties, now they may be going to develop into pirates - with the necessary ruthlessness they have had to acquire while they mixed with the children of wealthier, less circumspect adults.   "Blessed are the assertive, for they shall acquire the goods of the world!"   I despair that there seems to be an eternal disconnect between the amassing of wealth and good behaviour.  "The wicked man flourishes like a green bay tree"  "The race is to the swift" etc.

Some one said the other day on the radio "Life's all about winning."  Oh, it is not, it is so much more.  Where did she get that idea?  She was a professional athlete - she must have imbibed it with her mother's milk and had it endlessly reinforced by family and trainers.  I don't think I am obsessed with winning because I fear losing - and there is reason for this fear.  If only, as in Alice in Wonderland everyone must win and all shall have prizes.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodo_bird_verdict explains how encouraging children to believe they can win helps... but there is a line to be drawn between encouraging and insisting!

Suffering fools gladly!

Many people are proud of the fact that they don't suffer fools gladly. It used to amuse me when I saw it in obituaries - he did not suffer fools gladly.  What a vast expanse of possible unpleasantness that euphemism covered.  Was the deceased a typewriter thrower?  A serial sacker of minions?  A man who made secretaries cry?  An all-out psychopath with the moral sense of a komoro dragon?

Personally, I've probably suffered plenty of fools gladly, because most of us can't help being fools some of the time - and when we are, we need people to cut us a little slack.  So over the years I've cut plenty of slack to dozens of people, and usually had some slack cut for me.  I was rather touched at Strat's funeral, that the reading from the epistle was the piece about being a "fool for Christ" - something which a man of his tremendous intellect must often have felt he was and probably was often criticised by others for his faith, or "credulity". (I can think of at least one person I know who rather dissed him for that).   I always like this verse:  But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.1 Corinthians 1:27  

Assorted fools and martyrs!

Suffering people being rude or unkind is another matter.  The complexity of this position is that it could be quite rude or unkind to give up on those being unkind/rude. It's like the old argument -  should one leave the Party because one disagrees with its policies, or stay and fight to change them? Sometimes there comes a time when it's clear with people that change isn't going to be an option.  Just recently there have been a couple of instances of people I care about having decided to throw their lot in with the unkind party.

The LO's behaviour last week shows that his wife's missionary work on behalf of unkindness & rudeness has borne tremendous fruit.  At first, I thought his behaviour was cowardice on his part - not impressive, but understandable, not wishing to upset an insecure and slightly unstable wife who is presumably his major emotional support in a difficult time when he has lost 2 close friends and a brother. However,. choosing the path of least resistance, has resulted in unkindness and hurtful behaviour.  In the past I've ended friendships with people who are actively unkind.to others, so why should I persist with other relationships where someone is only being unkind to me  (because actually I do matter a bit!)?  It's so out of character it's horrifying.  What would his parents have said? Or his brother?  But perhaps I am being unfair - perhaps grief unhinged him, sidetracked him from his normal politesse - or there were just people he wanted to talk to more - or whatever.  I don't really want to speculate or excuse, because whatever his reason for his behaviour, it hurt.

But just as people can change for the worse, they can also change for the better - be better, redeem themselves endlessly through small acts of kindness, a momentary putting aside of the ego, a rest from the endless search for drama and excitement.  However, in the present circumstances, I am reluctantly going to adopt the policy recommended (rather shockingly I used to feel) by Jesus..... and if they will not hear you, shake the dust from your feet.   What they are not hearing, incidentally, is the command to "Love one another".  This process doesn't mean you cease to love them, or adopt an unforgiving attitude towards them, simply that you don't waste your time and energy on them.

One use of prayer

At the moment whenever I go onto FB half my news feed is things about Gaza which people have shared.  Given my complex feelings about the situation, I am beginning to feel things have been over-shared.  As predicted, the anti-Israeli feeling has tipped into anti-semitism - and I have stopped following a couple of people for the duration.

It is horrible and tragic - but there is nothing I can do about it.  Posting on FB does nothing - except show how angry you are - we can sign petitions, sure, and of course I have. But really:  Dear UN, please stop it!  The bien-pensants of the West are seriously upset by this.    There, sorted!

I understand the frustration at the injustice and inhumanity of it, I find it almost impossible to understand why the Israeli military is so fixated on this objective.   And I seriously wonder whether some people are becoming unhinged by this.  It occurs to me that something like the serenity prayer should be posted on a regular basis - with a tag referring to the relevant political issue.   For those of you who do not know, the serenity prayer is  below - it is a little bland - but it is also very helpful.

It occurs to me that prayer itself can provide serenity - when you have really prayed about an issue, thought about it, talked to God about it - and told him you simply cannot do anything about it and could he take over - then you often get closure on a matter.  You stop suffering from outrage and fury and impotence.  Acknowledging one's own impotence (see below) is a very important thing to do.  So it is a shame more people do not or cannot pray.  The "imaginary friend" up there is always there to listen to you - and occasionally in the course of praying, you have an insight (aka the working of the Holy Spirit) which helps you go on with a matter - to take action even, to say the right thing to someone.  Prayer can stop you becoming obsessive about issues.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

The courage to change the things I can,

And the wisdom to know the difference.

The Gaza strip divides a Ramsgate dinner party!

For the second time in two years there's been a flounce-out at a dinner party here.  It is very difficult, as the flouncer was feeling hurt and angry and the person flounced against had done nothing wrong.

To think that such a select affair could be so readily disrupted by one person.

There was a discussion about Gaza - no one was ranting (except the flouncer who has a history of taking up topics with passion and energy for a short period until the next one grabs her interest).   This passion, coupled with a distressing event in her family life 2 days ago, had created great agitation.  I noticed the way she was eating stuff indicated a great deal of anger and I felt she might have had a drink or two before she arrived.  It was lovely to see her though, and I hoped that the presence of a person she hadn't met, and whom she'd wanted to ask a favour of (on behalf of her son) might have calmed her down a little and focussed her mind.

The flouncee is a very well-meaning and lovely, but not very well-informed person.  Politically she's on the left but hasn't read much about politics so she was asking a lot of questions - to better understand the situation.  I understand this, because I learn better from conversation too.  However, the flouncer had no patience with it, or perhaps didn't understand the nuances: no one was supporting Israel - no one was actually, as far as I could tell, arguing about the issues.   If we had been it might have been understandable.

When the flouncer then moaned about this event in a Facebook post later that evening I felt slightly absolved of "blame" - but why should I feel blame?  All I did was spend a considerable amount of money and time to create a nice meal and to promote a nice evening, part of the object of which was to introduce the flouncer and flouncee to each other.  The fact is, there is sweet FA any of us can do about Gaza, about the intransigence of Hamas and the Israelis, and all we were really doing was more hand-wringing.  Since I managed to develop ataraxia by accident (probably as a result of anti-depressants) I no longer feel unduly perturbed by man's inhumanity to man - knowing it to be an inevitable part of the human condition - and that whatever group we belong to, we will always be able to identify The Other - against whom all our self-hatred, anger and misery can be focussed.  All I ask from life is that we do not repeat this behaviour in microcosm in our social interactions.

And yet, despite these pious sentiments I can be a good hater... there are not many people I really despise, unfortunately I will be seeing one on Thursday (probably).  I would prefer to avoid conflict - I don't know if this is cowardice.  A good confrontation can clear the air - but there was no historic air to clear between these two.

As for political conflict - yes of course I have an opinion on the matter.  And, for what it's worth, it's this.  The Israeli government and security forces are wrong, so is Hamas - the superior forces of the Israelis make them behave like bullies.   The Israelis who complain about bombardment are still very priviledged compared with the Gazans; there is unquestioning support for the Palestinians on the left - and this support can sometimes slip into anti-Semitism; some Jews do not talk about this issue because there is shame and embarassment about how the Israelis are behaving, therefore they appear complicit.  It is difficult to know what the "right" answer is, and we will certainly not settle it at a Ramsgate dinner party - where none of us is an expert on the topic.  Big sigh.  I wish I had successfully steered us off the topic before it happened.  I suppose not screaming and shouting and running about over the issue means I appear not to care.