July

Shall we have another Sky at Night picture which I can then ignore for the rest of the month.

No, I can't see it without magnification either.   But I am sure it will be helpful - it even has the phases of the moon.

So, La Moore's predictions for July:  our financial problems should be over by the middle of the month (New Moon).  The agent will get back to me around then too - I would like her to say yes, but she probably won't.   I will probably have had a niggling convo with at least one of my siblings about my father's house sale.   I will book the rest of the holiday in France.  Regrettably S will probably die - although he may maintain his tenacity and hang on until August...I am very worried about Marion.  I am quite worried about my father.   Finn will be bored and smoke a lot of dope - Ned and he will eventually do a bit of music together.  There will be a joyful dinner in a restaurant to celebrate - and for once Finn will not get annoyed about the cost.

There are alternative scenarios - Stella's buyer really will pull out at the last moment, leaving us with a financial black hole of horror!  And we will have to borrow money from a family member (see niggling convo. above).  What else?   I dunno, half our students walk out or fail to materialise, intensifying the black hole, and the agent will email me and say she couldn't get beyond Chapter 3 and forget it.    I will finally decide to give up writing once and for all and devote myself to politics and housework. 

Sexual Harassment - an error in translation

A friend of mine who worked for a trades unions (yes, do Google it - you may not know what these are if you live in the US or UK) once had to give a talk in Paris to some French TUs about Sexual Harassment in the workplace.   She had A-level French and wrote the talk herself.   The talk was delivered - and she discovered she had inadvertently given a talk on  "L'harassmente sexuelle au lieu de travail" (rather than "au place du travail") - or "sexual harassment instead of work"!   I suppose it would depend on one's job, but there are cases in which it might have been preferable.

Rolf Harris

Well, here we are again - a beloved children's entertainer, disgraced in old age, blah-blah....

No, of course I never liked him.  Jake the Peg gave me a creepy sexual feeling when I was 8 or 9 that I knew wasn't quite right.  But who can tell, a lot of stuff must have given me the creeps in those days...not just Jimmy Saville and Rolf Harris.   I liked the giant koala bear he had on his early shows - mercifully there are no records of young women being molested by men in koala costumes - I thought Two Little Boys was the most mawkish, cynical song I had ever heard and I have steadfastly hated it for my entire life.

I don't think there's anything to say about this.  I have already discussed the fact that young women in the 70s were subject to inordinate amounts of sexual harassment from all and sundry (even from woman occasionally - if we count my 1st husband's godmother putting her hand on my thigh under the dining table and pinging my suspender belt).

I am quite interested in the case of his daughter's friend whom he allegedly groomed from her early teens. The interest lies in the fact that part of the problem is that the victim has often felt sexual and emotional gratification from the interest of the perpetrator - and of course feels guilty about this. But if I were writing this as an op-ed piece in a newspaper I would probably not be allowed to say that and be potentially guilty of defamation - so I am not saying this about her of course, but about the situation in general.   I often notice a slightly whiney note in the complaints of victims: obviously they are entitled to be whiney...but occasionally it has a sort of tinny ring to it - as though they are protesting too much.  It is in that that I sometimes guess that there is some sort of guilt which they are trying to erase.   I do feel really sorry for them, and grateful that nothing on these scales happened to me - I cannot imagine how disturbing one's first real kiss would be, if you had previously had Rolf H or Jimmy S lunging for your tonsils in some very unwelcome context.  At least Rolf H has not apparently subjected any one with a recently broken limb to his lurid attentions.   

Not the Book of the Month - alternatives to reading.

I hit the ground running with my reading list this year, since I am not a professional literary critic I can generally enjoy things in a simple unaffected way - apart from the annoyance I feel with the way other people write better (or sometimes worse) than me.  However, I now seem to have slowed to a crawl - this is partly because I am on full writing mode... so reading is a bit obtrusive, and partly due to my addition to banal games on the computer.

What is it about the human brain that it would rather run through endless games of sudoku on its android phone, rather than read a good book?   I find it distressing, I think I am getting brain wilt.  But those little numbers, slotting them into position, or playing various forms of computer patience are terribly absorbing.   In truth, in the past, I have enjoyed repetitive games of real patience with cards, when I was in a low mood. And activities such as making tapestry cushion covers are another thing I've done.   All these are things that can be done while listening to Radio 4 (other stations are available).   So one's hands, ears, eyes and brain are fully occupied - no nasty thoughts can leach in (unless there's  a particularly harrowing episode of You and Yours) and you are safe from the accusation of idleness.

And yet, what I truly long to do many mornings, is lie in bed with a book - and read for an hour or so. It was in this manner that I passed many of the better years of my youth - including the dreadful months of 1977 when I lived in an unheated squat in Islington and was too inert (depressed?) to go to my lectures.  That was a tremendous year for reading - which continued in 1978 when we moved to an equally basic house in Walthamstow (with the luxury of electricity, but no hot water).  Sometimes my inertia would seize me during the long walk down Selborne Road to the Tube station, and I would return to bed and books for the rest of the day, and again miss a lecture or a tutorial.

However, lying in bed with a book is a manifestation of Pure Idleness - I am 50 something years old, I do not have a full time job, yet I am expected to get up and minister to assorted persons who are perfectly capable of administering their own breakfast, rather than stay in bed and finish a novel..  If it wasn't for those pesky kids I might have finished reading The Brothers Karamazov by now. Quite how someone raised a Catholic is so afflicted by the Protestant work ethic is a mystery to me.  I blame my Irish grandmother's Welsh upbringing - in the kind of village where you weren't seen as decent if you weren't out scrubbing your front step at cock-crow.

People still marvel at the house - its beauty and its slightly grimy air... I marvel that anyone would think I could spend all the day cleaning it.   My alternatives to reading also include some housework, and a lot of cooking and washing.   These can be done while listening to Radio 4 - so are not completely wasted time!  What housework do I do?  Periodically I wipe down surfaces in the kitchen, some of the vitreous enamel in the bathrooms, about once a year I hoover - I do quite a lot of pruning and weeding in the garden, I dust the sitting room, I tidy the bedroom in a futile effort to maintain mastery over the ocean of textiles that swirls around the floor and sofa in a cycle of unending washing and drying.  I am tempted by the thought of having a full on house cleaning team to come in while we are in France and do the house so that we can start anew.

When not sitting at the desk, I am frequently wiping things, and rescuing things from the fridge for re-use.  When I am depressed I just stare at stuff, when I am not, I clean it.  Life is too short for housework, it is a repetitive strain that injures my mind.   Many writers I know find themselves washing their kitchen floors to avoid writing.  I write to avoid washing the kitchen floor.  I am seen as working - but in truth I would probably rather be reading.

Garden vandals

I am fed up with horticultural vandals moving next door to me, first the occasional weekend visitor at 13 tore up all the best shrubs, including a gorgeous scented choisya, leaving a  blighted mass of weeds, which seed themselves in my garden, and causing a mass exodus of birds.  Now the other side, property development I think?, has destroyed a fantastic white rose, which used to sprawl over the roof of the shed, a beautiful purple climber, that complemented my yellow "Lady Hillingdon" rose, and worst of all, the most fabulous mirabelle plum tree, as well as virtually every other living thing.  Birds?  Bio-diversity?  These people know nothing.  Someone should drop them a hint about climate change, carbon footprint etc and the necessity for trees and shrubs.  They've made their gardens lovely and sunny - but I expect a time will come when they will crave shade.... still, they always have their smart garden umbrellas!  At least I have plenty of choice of sites to throw my snails!


I almost want to cry. I think we will plant a tree on our side of the wall where the mirabelle was.
Mark says they are like the Orcs... too true.  All they want to do is make their skin leathery - and they are free to do so.    It makes me weep to think what would happen to our garden if we moved.  Time was when "mature garden" was a selling feature of houses.  I think no. 17 is going to go for planks and pots and thus the most environmentally unsustainable form of gardening.

Jimmy Savile - further revelations

Today's reports about Jimmy Saville's exploits with people aged between 5 and 75 and a number who couldn't consent to his fumblings even if they'd wanted to, because they were already dead, somewhat beggars belief.

The situation at Broadmoor, where he influence staff appointments and had keys to access various parts of the hospital just are gob-smacking.  The extent of his criminality suggests that rather than being a "hospital visitor" supreme at Broadmoor, he was in fact a dangerous lunatic who ought to have been incarcerated there.

I suppose this is not a correct psychiatric diagnosis - they would probably simply have found he had a "personality disorder" and had no reason to detain him.

More bad Victorians: Dickens

Victorian solipsists - a series.   This week we examine, with no originality whatsoever, the career of Dickens.

Dickens has never been a hero of mine.  Our history is erratic: when I was a child there were often Sunday teatime dramas based on his works (D. Copperfield, N. Nickleby, Dombey & Son, Tale of Two Cities spring to mind).  These usually starred Martin Jarvis - but I digress.  At school I was forced to read David Copperfield as a Boy when I was 11.  It was all right - already I had images of Little Emily and Barkis from the TV programme.  At some point I read A Christmas Carol - and an abridged version of Oliver Twist.  When I met Jeremy at the National Theatre (fresh from doing English at Cambridge) we had a lot of discussions about Dickens and I felt prejudiced and ignorant and began to read him.  I enjoyed Little Dorrit, Bleak House, Dombey, Nickleby, Gt. Expectations, Copperfield... with reservations.  The chief reservation being his depiction of women.  Claire Tomalin describes his heroines as "vapid" - the perfect word.   But it is the attitude of his heroes to the women that is so distressing - horribly paternalistic and patronising - what C21st woman would love any of them.   And of course half the women are not really women at all - they are effectively children...  The adult women are usually grotesque caricatures and while remarkable in their descriptions and memorable in their phraseology are not quite human beings.  He performs a terrible trick of letting us know his heroes as cruelly-treated children and making us sympathise with them, so that we are on their side and thus lulled into accepting their rather priggish and chauvinistic behaviour without further comment.

Gradually I worked my way through the canon - and have now read just about all of them except Edwin Drood - my opinion hasn't improved, but I thought, "Oh well, he's just another of these good-hearted, jovial Victorian types, doing good works, performing theatricals, campaigning journalism etc. etc."   This was because I had failed to ever read a biography of him.  At present I am reading Clair Tomalin's The Invisible Woman.   To say that one sees Dickens at his worst is the least of it.   In many ways it is only when you see someone at their worst that you really know them - and you see the truth about them.   All Dickens' morality turns out to be humbug - Tomalin says he had some Regency rake in him

... which is true - but the idea that the Regency rake was a different character from the Victorian hypocrite is perhaps untrue.  The difference was that allowances were made for people's weaknesses in the earlier period to some extent - while they could not be acknowledged later on - except perhaps at one's club (if one hadn't resigned from it again after a row with Thackeray).   Actually D had all the weaknesses, and the social and media influence to silence his critics.  He was unbelievably rich and powerful - I don't think any modern writer could command that sort of stature - although Jeffrey Archer has clearly always aspired to it.  So, in short, the story of how he sent his long-suffering wife away, in favour of a young actress, is not a new one.  However it is the lies and deceit he practised in the process that make him so despicable.  

I know for some writers there is a thin line between creativity and reality - CD may very well have come to believe the lies he told about his wife and about his relationship with Nelly Ternan, but on the whole it looks like another lamentable case of Victorian Great Man solipsism - "this is what I believe - I shall ignore all evidence to the contrary" which allowed him to be utterly cruel, while feeling apparently completely satisfied with himself.    That said, I have not finished the book - he may well die in a penitential mood.deeply regretting his wickedness.

Pugin, catholic hypocrisy and other minor irritations

On Saturday we went to a book launch: it's a new book about Pugin - a catalogue of his buildings.   I go to these things not because I like Pugin (he had some good qualities of course) but in the hope that I will come to like or understand him better, and because various chums organise these events and are present.

The talk was being given by a guy called Gerrard Hyland; I realised as the talk progressed that he was a Catholic - no problem there - but I began to discern little "ideological" points here and there.    Due to my frequently lamented intellectual laziness I have not investigated why Pugin was obsessed with what he called the True Principles of Christian Architecture - basically he believed the Gothic arch was a true, Christian invention - not based on pagan antecedents (i.e. Greek or Roman architecture).  Er, well, perhaps I am wrong, perhaps I have misunderstood - but surely the pointed arch was brought to Europe from the Crusaders - who were unwillingly impressed by Islamic architecture - and of course it could also be seen in Sicily -  which was under Norman rule from the 11th to 13thC - if we consider Frederick II Stupor Mundi as a Norman - which we should.  So I feel that Pugin's claim that the pointed arch represented an indigenous Christian development is either ignorant or disingenuous.

The second point is that Pugin railed against the deceit of Neo-classical architecture against the robust hearty good nature of the flying buttress...this is because Baroque employed the buttress but concealed it - ars est celare artem - how wicked and immoral!    What Pugin conveniently ignores, many of those sturdy, good-hearted pillars in Gothic churches were basically small pieces of stone fitted around a rubble centre - not solid stone, blazing with integrity!

There were a few slides of P's various early churches - some of which resembled no Gothic church ever built - and owed a good deal more to the Gothick style he so despised.

The point about Pugin is that he was, like many Victorians, a terrible solipsist - who had a theory, and ignored all uncomfortable evidence to push it forward.  He published early, with an astonishing lack of self-criticism.  I was interested to discover that he had worked as a theatrical set designer for a couple of years.  Mark Negin (a retired theatrical designer) said afterwards that some of his work was "pure set design", and I was considering while we heard the talk, how very nightmarish some of Pugin's work was - the houses of Parliament for example: it's that combination of size and rather OTT decor - which owes little to its roots.  The Palacio Real in Madrid has a similarly nightmarish quality.

Nice Priest
After the talk drinks, nibbles and chats with chums.  I finally met the parish priest, who is very young and very nice.  He knows Strat and we talked about him a little.  I made him laugh - he doesn't have the slightly saintly quality of the old Benedictine monk I met a while back which seems to freeze one's uncharitable thoughts in one's throat.  He was in Rome for 6 years at the English College - which sounds interesting - so obviously speaks Italian - etc.  He's quite a Pugin fan - and we had a chat about various things.  I told him that I'd been brought up in a very liberal Catholic church - and nowadays things seemed to be rather more conservative.  He said he thought this was a response to the greater secularisation of the world... a need to be more sure about what you believed.   I guess this is true - we weren't able to get onto another question, i.e. whether this closing ranks is the right response.  Be not conformed to the world....

Spanish Catholics!
As in the EU, I get the impression that English Catholics obey the rules rather more seriously than some of the Euro-Catholics do.  I later met a lady who was quite devout and Spanish - I told her I wasn't a Catholic any longer because I was divoced and re-married and she said very cheerfully "Oh - we all do that!" so I rather warmed to her.  She told me that her priest had said to her, that Jesus did not withold his body from anyone, so what right had he to do so?  I thought that was also very good - so I said "Don't you love Pope Francis?"  At which point it became apparent that she did not. share this enthusiasm and she explained how horrified she was that he had canonised Pope John XXIII - "because he destroyed the church - he is the anti-christ in my book!".  I see no particular sign of the destruction of the church (and if it is diminished you might perhaps blame the sexual and abusive antics of some religious rather than the introduction of Mass in the vernacular).   I sadly concluded to myself that she was presumably delighted with JP2's canonisation, and thew canonisation by JP2 of her slightly repulsive countryman, the founder of Opus Dei, Mgr Escriva de Balaguer (spelling???).

 Mgr. Escriva di Balaguer - after his controversial (miraculous?) sex-change operation

In some ways she answered my unspoken question to Marcus: people widely dislike Opus Dei (those who know of it) and the man's closeness to Franco - canonising someone like that, whatever his spiritual virtues, is sending an odd message to the world.  Frankly I am beginning to think that the whole canonisation thing should be stopped because it is so political.  I doubt whether I'd get much support from Catholics for that.  And they would point to the spiritual, and I would point to the evil some of these people had done, and they would say "Well nobody's perfect" and I would mutter something about "role models" and we would drift apart.  Of course, I am actually the political one here... but some sins cry to heaven for vengeance and ought to be taken into consideration....I have just discovered that these 4 sins are murder, sodomy, oppression of the poor and depriving workers of their just wages.  I am not sure about consensual acts of sodomy - perhaps the Church should review that one, but I'm happy that E d B was, in his support of the Franco government, clearly complicit in the other 3 and for this he gets canonised?   Even the spiritual can be the political sometimes.

Disorganised crime

Well, we have come to a stop in our investigations - it seems to me we need to find some keen stringer out in Thailand to go and investigate this children's charity out there - and then see what's what. It might have to end up as an "I made my excuses and left...." piece.

I discussed the fact that they have a FB page etc - but two or three people have seen this as rather like Jimmy Saville - hiding in plain sight.  Everyone I have spoken to - including a couple of journalists from national publications think it sounds deeply dubious.

This story has sweet FA to do with my book of course, but is providing an interesting diversion  As my informant said "If there's a whiff of connection with the Brinks Mat story - then I'm off."  He claims about 11 people have been killed in the course of the Brinks Mat aftermath... and the party we are interested in has a large collection of guns - also prominent on his FB page - to warn people off?  Or as an illustration to a forthcoming tome The Joy of Guns.

I am seeing a journo who works on the Guardian tomorrow... maybe I can find something out, or set some hares running.

Life imitating Art

Well - an interesting evening, discussing things I am sworn to secrecy about.   One of these matters is acutely personal, the other is criminal.   How very frustrating.

What was amusing is that the criminal issues touch on some ideas I am using in the novel I am writing at the moment.  It often happens that life imitates "Art" - if my unpublished novels can be so-designated. It makes me wonder whether, if the book is published, I will need to hire protection.  Suffice it to say I discovered that there is some sort of protection racket going on in the bars along the harbour - and that it is probably connected with the large, extensive family who are connected with the drug/prostitution/people trafficking rumours I have been hearing for the last 4-5 years.

When I outlined the plot of the novel to my interlocutor he said "Have you been doing a lot of research?"
I said  "No, just listening to what people say."   He seemed amazed, although he is one of my chief sources.  He did correct me on the brothel location... he should know!!  He said perhaps I should do some research.  I said, "that might not be a good idea - better if I keep things vague... anyway, it's a feel-good redemption novel - not a true crime story."   He then told me that the Mr Big locally had disappeared, presumed dead.  I suggested he might just have returned to the island of his origin.... but death seems more likely.  I wish I could write about it, it involves someone taking photos of a group in a bar being beaten up by the manager and two bouncers... then being arrested by the police... all very sinister.  Suggestions of police collusion etc. etc.... licensing issues (this is an aide memoire to myself!).

I have checked out the security business - it's interesting - what links the Krays, a Tory Cabinet Minister and a charity for Thai orphans?  Perhaps it's in the category of being "rough but legitimate" since a lot of this stuff can readily be seen on Facebook - a whole world of sub-culture...  I would like to include an illustrative photo - but anything I've found would be way too incriminating.

FacebooK and the sleeping Ukippers

It's been an interesting few weeks on Facebook.

Recently a couple of men I know, one with a thriving local business, one who is active in politics, have sent me quite genuine friend requests, and I've said yes.  Both have large numbers of  FB friends compared with me, because they are using FB for publicity purposes  Since then I have gradually been in receipt of a great many posts - a lot on political issues I do not care about, or actually disagree with (Manston), and a number of verging on sleazy posts - what a friend calls "boys posts".  What they have in common (apart from never having been to my house) is that they seem to have a lot of racists, UKippers and Manston supporters amongst their vast number of chums.  So my questions to myself are "do I want to see their posts and the comments" or "should I block their posts"?. Neither of them ever comment on my posts, and if I stopped seeing theirs life would be more restful.  I have somewhat undertaken to challenge racism or other Ukippery where I see it, so that these people don't think they can start strutting around and getting themselves measured for their ceremonial uniforms just yet....Some of them apparently think they will win the general election next year.

Nevertheless, all these arguments,  "I'm not going to argue with  you.  You're wrong." is about the level of it,. are a bit wearing.  I don't have to argue, I could ignore it - but I don't want to let them get away with thinking they are in a majority and that the rest of us agree with them. I want to tell them that immigration and the EU are not the cause of all our economic woes, I want to give them an alternative view to think about.

So I'm wondering - shall I stay on and fight the good fight - and confront the realities (effectively Ukippers won about 20% of the whole electorate here - not quite a majority!)?  Or shall I block these posts - and fall back gratefully into the arms of my liberal do-gooding chums, where we can all roughly agree in friendly harmony.

I've always said quality not quantity and don't want to be friends with people I wouldn't happily have round to my house (most of them have been here already!) but I'm wondering if that's a comfortable elitist position, and whether it's time to try to organise a little more.