It being five o'clock on a Sunday afternoon, and only a few minutes after the obligatory walk after lunch, I've been musing about wine and its whole class/classification. The bottles are still on the table so I can tell you that today's lunch was, in vinous terms, worth remembering - a bottle of Clos Blanc de Vougeot, Domaine de la Vougeraie 1999 followed by a bottle of Hermitage (Cheron) 2004 - both in peak condition.
So the table was well set but what of the aperitif? Champagne, of course, (actually I had a rather obscure gin - Broker's - 47%) but in brand terms an inconsequential one: Antoine de Clevency - one of those not unusually on discount at Sainsbury's.
Actually AdeC is a perfectly acceptable Champagne, at least I think it is, but I in common with many other wine enthusiasts don't know. I do know that I shy away from Cava, Prosecco or the recently touted South African fizzes but I don't know whether this is pride or prejudice. And I don't know what a really great Champagne tastes like - vintage Krug to take a name out of the air - because I have never drunk one nor, indeed, been offered one.
Please understand, in no sense am I criticizing those who offer Champagne, either privately or corporately, for not handing out the good stuff, but I am beginning to wonder - and this is a British thought - whether the word 'Champagne' (if used accurately) is enough when pouring out a glass and that anything extra in terms either of commentary or quality, would be considered, at least in my bibulous circles, de trop.
Do the British, at least in my experience of 'us', cancel critical faculties when the 'C' word is uttered (despite the fact that per capita we are among the world's largest consumers)? Or, with certain extreme exceptions - occasioned either by poor manufacture or poor storage - can we not make a sensible judgement, one glass to another, when the wine offered is fizzy. OR - and this is my surmise - does no one serve the major (vintage) Champagne names even if one is serving great whites or reds? And if not, why not?
For a moment I thought this might be a reaction against branding - and arguably Champagne is the most branded wine until perhaps one reaches stellar price levels. Veuve Cliquot's orange label is as quickly recognizable in alcoholic circles as Coke's crimson script is among soft or soda drinkers. But this can't be true; Veuve C, Moet & C, Pol R, Taitt + Boll are all well known and, importantly in this context, frequently offered/imbibed.
Is it about the price of the boutique producers? Not really: a look through one of the lists of same finds a series of interesting growers from the wonderfully named towns of Ay, Dizy and Bouzy (to name but three) whose prices march with the more familiar names.
Is it about the price, full stop? Ah ha. Yes, sadly I think it is. Sad to say that while one can snob it up with a great Rhone or Burgundy (let alone a Claret), it's harder to do with a Champagne. And why? Because, at least in the British convention, Champagne is served first - the opening salvo in the war between sobriety and, well, stupor. And at that point in the proceedings (as at the very end), more or less any drink will do provide it sounds right and, as we say, 'hits the spot'.
Sunday, 23 February 2014
Tuesday, 16 July 2013
WHAT ARE MEMORIES MADE OF?
How much do we remember of childhood, how much is embroidered, how many memories are either false or inherited?
These questions often arise in my mind when reading memoires of early life particularly when the detail in such narratives is intense and when the author reaches back to so early a period of his or her youth where, equivalently, I would have little to say.
One vivid set of such early memories is contained in the first volume of Serge Aksakov's autobiography - 'Years of Childhood'. Aksakov (or Aksakoff) was born in Russia, in 1791 and his book is almost a quarter through - and filled with detail after detail - even before he remembers the events surrounding the death of Catherine the Great, Empress of all the Russias, in 1796.
Born eighty years later in France, Marcel Proust covers much of the same ground - the amiable or belligerent and always eccentric behaviour of his relatives and their servants, the changing landscape witnessed - in his case - through railway carriage windows, in Aksakov's through the windows of horse-drawn carriages or the frost-rimed windows of sleighs.
For me, perhaps, the most striking story is that written by Priscilla Napier of whom, like Aksakov (less so Proust), I know nothing bar that written by her own hand. Napier spent her childhood in Egypt before the First World War (she was born, apparently, in 1908) and her description in, 'A Later Beginner', of the lives of the ruling, or at least powerful, English elite in that part of the Middle East is extraordinary. The heat glows off the pages, the childish feuds and friendships exactly drawn, the dust, the sea, the Nile, the Arabs - and again the servants: cooks, nannies, housemaids, stable boys, (as well as early teachers), are near perfectly preserved.
But to repeat the opening question. How much of this is true? As we grow older, all of us preserve memories for some reason important to us but, as others pass, impossible to verify. And when verification is attempted some, perhaps many, of the 'facts' begin to be undermined.
Studies have been done on the elderly and their remembrances (to quote Proust) of 'times past'. In many cases the circumstances of the recollection (date or location) have been proved to be impossible. For me such analysis is interesting but I am not sure it is consequential. Does an error of detail reduce the value or indeed the credibility of a memory? Of course a formal historian would say that it does but I am not quite so sure.
I remember (!) my only visit to Jerusalem some 20 years ago. My first impressions of the organization of the monuments, in particular the Christian sites, turned quickly to annoyance as my Western mind revolted at the notion that everyone of consequence in the earlier part of the New Testament seemed to have lived in the Via Dolorosa - Joseph at one house, Mary at another and so on. Unlikely.
I was profoundly disconcerted by the Church of the Holy Sepulchre under the altar of which are, notionally, three holes where the crosses of Christ and the two robbers had originally stood - far too close together for likelihood and inside the city wall. In fact this location came to Constantine's mother the Empress Helena in a dream in the early part of the fourth century.
None of the details were accurate but this does not mean, I see now, that none of the stories is true. I make no comment about the divine but I am sure that much of the history related in the New Testament is right and the fact that events took place a few hundred yards from where they are commemorated rather than on the exact spot, seems irrelevant over the space of two thousand years. Memory has turned to symbolism.
And yet, and yet. The area of Jerusalem which moved me most was the Garden of Gethsemane in the same place it has always been and populated, in many cases, by the same olive trees - the very ones - that were alive when Christ walked the garden. The impact when memory - legend if you will - and fact come together is profound.
That profound impact is to be felt in the three books I've mentioned which leads me to think that their recollections are also true in fact and in detail, as well. It is just my memory that plays me up from time to time.
These questions often arise in my mind when reading memoires of early life particularly when the detail in such narratives is intense and when the author reaches back to so early a period of his or her youth where, equivalently, I would have little to say.
One vivid set of such early memories is contained in the first volume of Serge Aksakov's autobiography - 'Years of Childhood'. Aksakov (or Aksakoff) was born in Russia, in 1791 and his book is almost a quarter through - and filled with detail after detail - even before he remembers the events surrounding the death of Catherine the Great, Empress of all the Russias, in 1796.
Born eighty years later in France, Marcel Proust covers much of the same ground - the amiable or belligerent and always eccentric behaviour of his relatives and their servants, the changing landscape witnessed - in his case - through railway carriage windows, in Aksakov's through the windows of horse-drawn carriages or the frost-rimed windows of sleighs.
For me, perhaps, the most striking story is that written by Priscilla Napier of whom, like Aksakov (less so Proust), I know nothing bar that written by her own hand. Napier spent her childhood in Egypt before the First World War (she was born, apparently, in 1908) and her description in, 'A Later Beginner', of the lives of the ruling, or at least powerful, English elite in that part of the Middle East is extraordinary. The heat glows off the pages, the childish feuds and friendships exactly drawn, the dust, the sea, the Nile, the Arabs - and again the servants: cooks, nannies, housemaids, stable boys, (as well as early teachers), are near perfectly preserved.
But to repeat the opening question. How much of this is true? As we grow older, all of us preserve memories for some reason important to us but, as others pass, impossible to verify. And when verification is attempted some, perhaps many, of the 'facts' begin to be undermined.
Studies have been done on the elderly and their remembrances (to quote Proust) of 'times past'. In many cases the circumstances of the recollection (date or location) have been proved to be impossible. For me such analysis is interesting but I am not sure it is consequential. Does an error of detail reduce the value or indeed the credibility of a memory? Of course a formal historian would say that it does but I am not quite so sure.
I remember (!) my only visit to Jerusalem some 20 years ago. My first impressions of the organization of the monuments, in particular the Christian sites, turned quickly to annoyance as my Western mind revolted at the notion that everyone of consequence in the earlier part of the New Testament seemed to have lived in the Via Dolorosa - Joseph at one house, Mary at another and so on. Unlikely.
I was profoundly disconcerted by the Church of the Holy Sepulchre under the altar of which are, notionally, three holes where the crosses of Christ and the two robbers had originally stood - far too close together for likelihood and inside the city wall. In fact this location came to Constantine's mother the Empress Helena in a dream in the early part of the fourth century.
None of the details were accurate but this does not mean, I see now, that none of the stories is true. I make no comment about the divine but I am sure that much of the history related in the New Testament is right and the fact that events took place a few hundred yards from where they are commemorated rather than on the exact spot, seems irrelevant over the space of two thousand years. Memory has turned to symbolism.
And yet, and yet. The area of Jerusalem which moved me most was the Garden of Gethsemane in the same place it has always been and populated, in many cases, by the same olive trees - the very ones - that were alive when Christ walked the garden. The impact when memory - legend if you will - and fact come together is profound.
That profound impact is to be felt in the three books I've mentioned which leads me to think that their recollections are also true in fact and in detail, as well. It is just my memory that plays me up from time to time.
Monday, 29 April 2013
DEGREES OF MONEY
I was musing this morning about the demands of the Norrington Table - the measure of the relative success of Oxford colleges calculated by the (First class) degrees achieved by their undergraduates and balanced by the number of students reading for degrees.
Just as in the football premiership, there seem to be three broad bands of colleges (excluding the small institutions usually focused on religious orders): the top ones always challenging for the top spot, the middle order which always do fairly well and seem not to need the tension of pushing higher and the bottom segment who have at least the consolation, unlike in football, that they cannot be relegated.
[My former college, Pembroke, is at the bottom and there is a move there to create a motto (in Latin) along the lines of: "At least we can row."]
My musings arose from a conversation last night with a young woman currently reading Biology at Christchurch, one of the grand colleges but one whose sense of its own importance has not, in recent years, been reflected by its position in the Norrington Table (currently seventh). The authorities at Christchurch have decided, in my view surprisingly, that financial inducement is the way forward and first year undergraduates (for example) are being offered discounts on next year's fees, better rooms and all sorts of other goodies if they achieve Firsts in their first set of (qualifying) exams.
This, so the young woman said, is leading to interesting conversations regarding plans for the Long Vacation along the lines of, "Well if I get a first then I'm planning to go to Thailand but if not, I suppose I'll spend the summer at home."
The implication of these monetary carrots is interesting. It suggests that the admissions tutors at Christchurch (and, by the way, I am not saying this college is unique in going down the financial route) are sure that the quality of students admitted to study there is as good as it can be and it is only the Oxford life, with its manifold diversions, that has shifted them from the strait and narrow path to academic glory - a shift that can be corrected by the application of a few pounds sterling.
Is this true? Is a grade B undergraduate likely to be turned into a grade A by the prospects of lucre or is it the case that those with the exceptional minds required to achieve an Oxford First class degree are already so driven and that no further investment, perhaps we might call it 'pressure', is either helpful or desirable?
For me, there's another consideration in play here which is the strenuous efforts being made by many colleges to encourage the application and admission of students from what we might euphemistically call 'poorer backgrounds'. I gather that some of these non-traditional undergraduates blossom in Oxford's highly demanding atmosphere but many do not. In either case, the goal of the admitting college here is to be a broader, all-embracing centre of learning and not, therefore, a hothouse forcing Firsts.
It is arguable, although in these liberal days the argument runs the risk of being labelled as socially divisive, that if financial inducements are brought into play, they should be aimed at this non-traditional group encouraging them to try for good Seconds. Ah but sadly, Second class degrees don't help when it comes to a college's ranking in the table which, despite its name, was not invented by Sir Arthur Norrington.
Just as in the football premiership, there seem to be three broad bands of colleges (excluding the small institutions usually focused on religious orders): the top ones always challenging for the top spot, the middle order which always do fairly well and seem not to need the tension of pushing higher and the bottom segment who have at least the consolation, unlike in football, that they cannot be relegated.
[My former college, Pembroke, is at the bottom and there is a move there to create a motto (in Latin) along the lines of: "At least we can row."]
My musings arose from a conversation last night with a young woman currently reading Biology at Christchurch, one of the grand colleges but one whose sense of its own importance has not, in recent years, been reflected by its position in the Norrington Table (currently seventh). The authorities at Christchurch have decided, in my view surprisingly, that financial inducement is the way forward and first year undergraduates (for example) are being offered discounts on next year's fees, better rooms and all sorts of other goodies if they achieve Firsts in their first set of (qualifying) exams.
This, so the young woman said, is leading to interesting conversations regarding plans for the Long Vacation along the lines of, "Well if I get a first then I'm planning to go to Thailand but if not, I suppose I'll spend the summer at home."
The implication of these monetary carrots is interesting. It suggests that the admissions tutors at Christchurch (and, by the way, I am not saying this college is unique in going down the financial route) are sure that the quality of students admitted to study there is as good as it can be and it is only the Oxford life, with its manifold diversions, that has shifted them from the strait and narrow path to academic glory - a shift that can be corrected by the application of a few pounds sterling.
Is this true? Is a grade B undergraduate likely to be turned into a grade A by the prospects of lucre or is it the case that those with the exceptional minds required to achieve an Oxford First class degree are already so driven and that no further investment, perhaps we might call it 'pressure', is either helpful or desirable?
For me, there's another consideration in play here which is the strenuous efforts being made by many colleges to encourage the application and admission of students from what we might euphemistically call 'poorer backgrounds'. I gather that some of these non-traditional undergraduates blossom in Oxford's highly demanding atmosphere but many do not. In either case, the goal of the admitting college here is to be a broader, all-embracing centre of learning and not, therefore, a hothouse forcing Firsts.
It is arguable, although in these liberal days the argument runs the risk of being labelled as socially divisive, that if financial inducements are brought into play, they should be aimed at this non-traditional group encouraging them to try for good Seconds. Ah but sadly, Second class degrees don't help when it comes to a college's ranking in the table which, despite its name, was not invented by Sir Arthur Norrington.
Sunday, 14 April 2013
MAD, BAD BUT NEW?
I've just read a book review in the Sunday Times, specifically of a book called 'Dear Lupin: Letters to a Wayward Son." At one point the reviewer says the author (Roger Mortimer), "had excellent material to work with. The delightful Mortimer family all seem to have been as mad as balloons."
"As mad as balloons." Has anyone else ever heard or used this expression before? Of course we all know, "As mad as a March hare" and equally, but less usually, "As mad as a cut snake" (for some reason often used to describe, not necessarily unkindly, an Irishman or woman). But, "As mad as balloons?"
What sort of balloons, I wonder? Are we talking of those massed bunches of fairground balloons, made of foil, filled with helium and shaped as fish, dogs or characters from Disney or manga? Or are we talking about the common or garden balloon-shaped balloons, the staple of birthday parties long gone - filled with gasping breaths (resorted to inevitably when the balloon pump, always bought new for the special occasion, turned out in current political phraseology to be 'unfit for purpose')?
Certainly these old-fashioned inflatables could engender a sort of madness (and I am not talking about the budgerigar voice resulting from inhaling helium). I remember long ago a birthday party (mine) in my rooms at Oxford when I and other strong-lunged rowers, blew up a gross or two balloons in the hope that, under cover of the shifting, squeaking latex we could get our hands, albeit briefly, on the shifting, squeaking girls invited to enliven the occasion.
Actually, the plan worked well but not for long. As often happens at such student events, the booze ran freely and ran out quickly, requiring me - both as host and pretty much the only man in funds at the time - to pop out for more supplies.
The word 'pop' was apposite. As I returned, the noise through the windows of balloon after balloon being intentionally burst brought to mind descriptions of the guns of the First World War when heard from Kent if the wind was in the east. Suffice it to say that the guests were having a 'blast', one long-remembered but I have to say that, for a moment at least, I failed to see the funny side.
I was, in James Hawes's newly-minted phrase in 'A White Merc with Fins', MAF (As 'Mad as Fuck').
"As mad as balloons." Has anyone else ever heard or used this expression before? Of course we all know, "As mad as a March hare" and equally, but less usually, "As mad as a cut snake" (for some reason often used to describe, not necessarily unkindly, an Irishman or woman). But, "As mad as balloons?"
What sort of balloons, I wonder? Are we talking of those massed bunches of fairground balloons, made of foil, filled with helium and shaped as fish, dogs or characters from Disney or manga? Or are we talking about the common or garden balloon-shaped balloons, the staple of birthday parties long gone - filled with gasping breaths (resorted to inevitably when the balloon pump, always bought new for the special occasion, turned out in current political phraseology to be 'unfit for purpose')?
Certainly these old-fashioned inflatables could engender a sort of madness (and I am not talking about the budgerigar voice resulting from inhaling helium). I remember long ago a birthday party (mine) in my rooms at Oxford when I and other strong-lunged rowers, blew up a gross or two balloons in the hope that, under cover of the shifting, squeaking latex we could get our hands, albeit briefly, on the shifting, squeaking girls invited to enliven the occasion.
Actually, the plan worked well but not for long. As often happens at such student events, the booze ran freely and ran out quickly, requiring me - both as host and pretty much the only man in funds at the time - to pop out for more supplies.
The word 'pop' was apposite. As I returned, the noise through the windows of balloon after balloon being intentionally burst brought to mind descriptions of the guns of the First World War when heard from Kent if the wind was in the east. Suffice it to say that the guests were having a 'blast', one long-remembered but I have to say that, for a moment at least, I failed to see the funny side.
I was, in James Hawes's newly-minted phrase in 'A White Merc with Fins', MAF (As 'Mad as Fuck').
Thursday, 10 January 2013
FOOD WASTAGE
Today there was a report out, perhaps unexpectedly, from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, talking about the amount of food wasted around the world. Their horrific, key statistic is that as much as 50% of the food grown remains unconsumed and therefore, the report says, that it's not that the world needs more farmers and farmland to feed the hungry, so much as more efficient storage and usage and less picky consumers.
One element of food wastage, the report adds - and this applies really only to the developed west - is that 'Use by' dates are too tight causing supermarkets (for example) to throw away vast quantities of perfectly edible produce. The obvious suggestion, therefore, is that such dates should be lengthened. But I wonder whether there's counter-intuitive path?
At the moment, I understand that charitable food banks and their equivalents, depend to a considerable degree on this out-of-date food to feed their 'customers'. The process is not efficient, the food banks are no way as full as they could or, in a caring society, should be. I assume, with some justification I trust, that part of the problem here is speed of distribution and also a perfectly reasonable concern about feeding the poor with potentially bad food. Some shades of the adulterated flour that was one of the staples of the British Victorian poor, leading to many cases of rickets.
So how about this? What about shortening the sell-by dates, say by a day or two? This would mean that we would be certainly that discarded food would be perfectly edible - certainly so - and could be used for any charitable purpose without fear that one was penalizing the poorest. My suggestion is in some ways akin to a charitable tithe where, for example, the price of an item is supplemented by a few pence (or pounds on something expensive) with the excess earmarked for charitable causes.
I agree that such a move would cost retailers money, a hard ask in these straitened times, but somehow I doubt that it would cost as much, anything like as much, as a simple calculation of the percentage reduction of sell-time would suggest.
Cameron's 'Big Society' concept, despite some strong values, seems to have fallen from conversation these days, except when used by critics in a snide way. Such a move as the one I suggest, might help with its renaissance and thus gain real support from the powers that be.
One element of food wastage, the report adds - and this applies really only to the developed west - is that 'Use by' dates are too tight causing supermarkets (for example) to throw away vast quantities of perfectly edible produce. The obvious suggestion, therefore, is that such dates should be lengthened. But I wonder whether there's counter-intuitive path?
At the moment, I understand that charitable food banks and their equivalents, depend to a considerable degree on this out-of-date food to feed their 'customers'. The process is not efficient, the food banks are no way as full as they could or, in a caring society, should be. I assume, with some justification I trust, that part of the problem here is speed of distribution and also a perfectly reasonable concern about feeding the poor with potentially bad food. Some shades of the adulterated flour that was one of the staples of the British Victorian poor, leading to many cases of rickets.
So how about this? What about shortening the sell-by dates, say by a day or two? This would mean that we would be certainly that discarded food would be perfectly edible - certainly so - and could be used for any charitable purpose without fear that one was penalizing the poorest. My suggestion is in some ways akin to a charitable tithe where, for example, the price of an item is supplemented by a few pence (or pounds on something expensive) with the excess earmarked for charitable causes.
I agree that such a move would cost retailers money, a hard ask in these straitened times, but somehow I doubt that it would cost as much, anything like as much, as a simple calculation of the percentage reduction of sell-time would suggest.
Cameron's 'Big Society' concept, despite some strong values, seems to have fallen from conversation these days, except when used by critics in a snide way. Such a move as the one I suggest, might help with its renaissance and thus gain real support from the powers that be.
Thursday, 11 October 2012
MEMORIES OF WAR
The radio today was talking about possible plans to commemorate the outbreak of WW1, 100 years on. Flags flying at half-mast, shops closed. A nation remembers.
I wonder how this will be achieved in practise?
There's a dislocation in this country as in many multinational communities between the ruling or government classes who maintain a sort of collective memory of major events and the mass who know little, remember less and probably think all such ceremonial - if that's what it's to be - is nothing to do with them.
And perhaps I do agree with accusations of militarism glorified even though we'll be attempting to remember the dead.
A few years ago, I visited Cambrai, the scene of the first major tank offensive of WW1 and there met a Frenchman who had found, after many years of research (and digging)a Mark V (?) tank - Matilda, I believe it was called. Having discovered it, he had then spent a lot of time looking for descendants of the crew of whom, at the time when the tank got hit by a shell, three survived (I think from a total of eight). I believed he'd found relatives for six of the eight but, as luck would have it, as we were talking he took a call on his mobile from Florida where, someone had unearthed (inappropriate word, I know) a cousin of the seventh crew member.
Philip Korzynski (the Frenchman) was exceptionally pleased and in his enthusiasm said something that resonated with me then and now which was that the dead were easy to find but the living kept moving around and therefore became harder to trace. ... The dead are easy to find.
And that's the thing about WW1. Who commemorated or commemorates the survivors? True they all got campaign medals but their names are not inscribed, with those of their comrades in arms, on the great or small monuments that dot northern France, Gallipoli, Belgium and many other locations. How did the survivors feel about surviving?
I have read accounts of many soldiers never truly recovering from survival - guilt that they hadn't many the ultimate sacrifice that so many others had. And I am not talking here about the wounded but of those who through some statistical chance, made it through with few external marks.
There are, in England a clutch of so-called 'fortunate villages', places noted for the fact they have no war memorials because none from that locale died in either the First or Second World Wars. How do those inhabitants feel on Remembrance Day, I wonder? How did they feel, say, in 1930?
I have often mused, and may well have reported these musings before in this blog, about how it must be to be a child growing up in one of the major areas of conflict - Ypres, for example. Ypres despite the fact that Pope John Paul II designated it a 'City of Peace', is entirely a city of war and death. You can't move around without coming across a memorial, a graveyard (and to my recollection there are some 600 cemeteries that surround the city) or indeed a shop selling memorabilia, 'trench art' and so on. Equally you can't move without meeting soldiers of all nationalities come to pay homage at the Menin Gate. And that ceremony, since the late 20s, and with an obvious gap for the second war, has been going on, daily, these past 80 plus years.
"At the setting of the sun and the rising of the moon, we will remember them".
I have been to the Menin Gate Last Post event on three or four occasions, and there's always a crowd, several hundred in fact. Even on Christmas Day? I wonder - perhaps there are more then.
But, to return to the point, how must it feel to be brought up in such circumstances where one has to be reverential at all turns to avoid offending someone? No sneaky fags behind an arch, no first kisses or quick fumbles in the park. There are no parks, really. All the green sward is occupied by headstones.
I wonder how this will be achieved in practise?
There's a dislocation in this country as in many multinational communities between the ruling or government classes who maintain a sort of collective memory of major events and the mass who know little, remember less and probably think all such ceremonial - if that's what it's to be - is nothing to do with them.
And perhaps I do agree with accusations of militarism glorified even though we'll be attempting to remember the dead.
A few years ago, I visited Cambrai, the scene of the first major tank offensive of WW1 and there met a Frenchman who had found, after many years of research (and digging)a Mark V (?) tank - Matilda, I believe it was called. Having discovered it, he had then spent a lot of time looking for descendants of the crew of whom, at the time when the tank got hit by a shell, three survived (I think from a total of eight). I believed he'd found relatives for six of the eight but, as luck would have it, as we were talking he took a call on his mobile from Florida where, someone had unearthed (inappropriate word, I know) a cousin of the seventh crew member.
Philip Korzynski (the Frenchman) was exceptionally pleased and in his enthusiasm said something that resonated with me then and now which was that the dead were easy to find but the living kept moving around and therefore became harder to trace. ... The dead are easy to find.
And that's the thing about WW1. Who commemorated or commemorates the survivors? True they all got campaign medals but their names are not inscribed, with those of their comrades in arms, on the great or small monuments that dot northern France, Gallipoli, Belgium and many other locations. How did the survivors feel about surviving?
I have read accounts of many soldiers never truly recovering from survival - guilt that they hadn't many the ultimate sacrifice that so many others had. And I am not talking here about the wounded but of those who through some statistical chance, made it through with few external marks.
There are, in England a clutch of so-called 'fortunate villages', places noted for the fact they have no war memorials because none from that locale died in either the First or Second World Wars. How do those inhabitants feel on Remembrance Day, I wonder? How did they feel, say, in 1930?
I have often mused, and may well have reported these musings before in this blog, about how it must be to be a child growing up in one of the major areas of conflict - Ypres, for example. Ypres despite the fact that Pope John Paul II designated it a 'City of Peace', is entirely a city of war and death. You can't move around without coming across a memorial, a graveyard (and to my recollection there are some 600 cemeteries that surround the city) or indeed a shop selling memorabilia, 'trench art' and so on. Equally you can't move without meeting soldiers of all nationalities come to pay homage at the Menin Gate. And that ceremony, since the late 20s, and with an obvious gap for the second war, has been going on, daily, these past 80 plus years.
"At the setting of the sun and the rising of the moon, we will remember them".
I have been to the Menin Gate Last Post event on three or four occasions, and there's always a crowd, several hundred in fact. Even on Christmas Day? I wonder - perhaps there are more then.
But, to return to the point, how must it feel to be brought up in such circumstances where one has to be reverential at all turns to avoid offending someone? No sneaky fags behind an arch, no first kisses or quick fumbles in the park. There are no parks, really. All the green sward is occupied by headstones.
Tuesday, 5 June 2012
DRESS UP JUBILEE
No we didn't get wet on 3rd June, Jubilee Pageant Day. Courtesy of Bob and Cathy Ray who have a wonderful flat overlooking the Thames just east of Tower Bridge, we didn't get wet. But we did get excellently fed (and we drank a lot as well).
The theme of the party was dress-up-as-a-royal but it wasn't clear whether said Royal was to be current or indeed even British. So my costume - the kilt and accoutrements - could have been Prince Charles or could have been, 'The Monarch of the Glen'. The photographs below, tell some of the story.
Saturday, 26 May 2012
SWEET VICTORY AT EIGHTS
Last year I became enthusiastic about Oxford college rowing. Specifically the Summer Eights Tournament where, in recent years, my former college has done well. Last year and I think I blogged this, was to put it mildly a disappointment. This year, the college women returned to their (rightful) position as Head of the River and the men held onto second place and, I believe, scared the head crew Oriel on a couple of occasions.
A pagan tradition has it that the head crew burns a boat (and then jumps through the flames). Here is a photo of the beginning of that tradition which took place earlier this evening.
Monday, 14 May 2012
IMAGES FROM WW1 - Flanders and The Somme
From time to time, I go to visit the Flanders and northern French WW1 battlefields, graveyards and memorials. To be candid, I am never sure of my emotions on these occasions but I do feel these visits are in some way important - in terms of showing respect as much as anything else.
A recent visit took place at the end of (a very wet April). Here are a few photographs:
The grave of Noel Chavasse at Brandhoek New Military Cemetery in Belgium. Chavasse was the only winner of two VCs in WW1 (the second killed him). He was in the Medical Corps.
The second and third are images of Tyne Cot, just outside Ypres and, I believe, the largest Allied Cemetery in the world.
The fourth photograph is of the trenches which still criss-cross the landscape of Beaumont Hammel where the Essexes and the Newfoundlanders attacked well entreched German positions on the first day of the Battle of the Somme (1st July 1916). Beyond the trenches is the still remaining 'Danger Tree', only a hundred yards or so from the forward allied trenches. Few men, if any, who got past the Danger Tree that day, lived to tell the tale.
At the end of the attack, the Canadian general in command was apparently criticized for his failure to gain ground. his reply was, "Dead men can't advance".
The final photograph is of the largest German cemetery - Neuville St Vaast - not far from Vimy Ridge in The Some. It contains 44,833 burials.
DEGREE CEREMONY
As many will already know, I went to the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford on 4th May, all togged up in sub fusc, to receive my MA from the hands (more or less) of the Vice Chancellor of Oxford University. The photos below provide something of the flavour of the day.
Thursday, 10 May 2012
CLUNY 2
And the second series including at the end an image of, I assume, a virgin praying for larger breasts.
STAINED GLASS - MUSEE DE CLUNY
In April 2012, I went for the umpteenth time, to the Paris museum of the middle ages, the Musée de Cluny, not far from the Sorbonne. Here is the first series of photos I took of the stained glass exhibits (many of which are English). There's a particularly jolly one of Sampson having his (first) eye removed.
Tuesday, 1 May 2012
CLERKENWELL TALES
May I have a word about another bookshop (hot on the heels of my comments on Shakespeare and Company). The emporium in question is Clerkenwell Tales, located in Exmouth Market and presided over by the omniscient Peter Ho.
I've been there to buy, I've been there to listen to poetry, I've been there to chat. But mostly to buy.
Last year, around Christmas, my little company invited a gaggle of clients, journalists and other ne'er-do-wells to lunch more or less directly opposite Clerkenwell Tales; accepting our invitation required the guest to buy at least one book in the shop (not that Peter knew anything of this plan until later). More recently, I find myself wandering in the direction of Exmouth Market claiming to myself that I'm looking for the diversified range of restaurants on show there but in reality wanting to spend a little time among the hard and softbacks.
Clerkenwell Tales is like a dictionary with all the boring or known words taken out. I consider myself pretty well read but I doubt I've come across more than 10% of the titles and 20% of the authors. Today, for example, I bought a book on 'Venetian Navigators', the Periodic Table, 'Manhood for Amateurs' (by Chabon) and on Europe - a reprinted classic from Robert Byron.
I suspect Clerkenwell Tales is named after the Peter Ackroyd book of the same name. If so, that's a pity. I have no great liking for Ackroyd or his works which I believe are detailed when they should be general and vice versa.
Of the two Peters I'll take Ho over Ackroyd any day.
INKY FOOL'S BISCUIT
Some friends of mine have just given me a copy of The Etymologicon by Mark Forsyth, aka, The Inky fool. And I have to say they were pretty quick off the mark (if you'll pardon the pun) given I received the book into my hot hand on 6th November to discover, only a few moments ago, that it had come out but three days earlier.
So I haven't read it yet (actually am currently reading a fascinating book about typefaces and fonts called Just My Type but that's a different story). Not that reading it, as all critics know, should be any block to making comments. So with that in mind, I will allow myself to comment on the one bit of the book I have just read - The Preface.
Mr Forsyth introduces us to his fascinating world of word derivations and the derivatives of those derivations via the humble biscuit explaining, as my English teacher explained to me at prep school, that the word arose from the French meaning 'twice cooked'.
And so it does but that derivation is not, I think, the interesting one because it causes people to nod with either real or feigned comprehension and then move on to other things.
But hold hard you dunkers of the twice-cooked. Have you ever baked cooked a biscuit? Actually, you only do it once. I've looked through recipe after recipe and have never found a double-cooked item even if we stretch a point and talk about a sort of yeast-based biscuit. After all you could hardly argue that allowing the yeast to prove is akin to cooking.
Now of course Mr Forsyth is right, my English teacher was right and so, I am glad to tell you, was clarifier of this conundrum Kate Colquhoun who, a few years ago wrote a fascinating book called Taste which is a well-researched and thoroughly readable account of the British table from the days of the Celts and Romans through to the wartime powdered egg.
Ms Colquhoun does explain - but en passant in the way of one to whom it's obvious - that twice cooking was the fate of the early biscuit.
I won't go into the detail because the point I am trying to make is broader. This is that we should not accept scholarship blindly as attractive as it is(and I count elucidating the derivations of words as 'scholarship'). After all I wonder whether Mr Forsyth knows how to make a medieval cookie?
Which reminds me of one of my younger daughter's jokes: There are two biscuits baking in an oven and one says to the other, "It's getting very hot in here." To which the second replies, "Good heavens, a talking biscuit!"
So I haven't read it yet (actually am currently reading a fascinating book about typefaces and fonts called Just My Type but that's a different story). Not that reading it, as all critics know, should be any block to making comments. So with that in mind, I will allow myself to comment on the one bit of the book I have just read - The Preface.
Mr Forsyth introduces us to his fascinating world of word derivations and the derivatives of those derivations via the humble biscuit explaining, as my English teacher explained to me at prep school, that the word arose from the French meaning 'twice cooked'.
And so it does but that derivation is not, I think, the interesting one because it causes people to nod with either real or feigned comprehension and then move on to other things.
But hold hard you dunkers of the twice-cooked. Have you ever baked cooked a biscuit? Actually, you only do it once. I've looked through recipe after recipe and have never found a double-cooked item even if we stretch a point and talk about a sort of yeast-based biscuit. After all you could hardly argue that allowing the yeast to prove is akin to cooking.
Now of course Mr Forsyth is right, my English teacher was right and so, I am glad to tell you, was clarifier of this conundrum Kate Colquhoun who, a few years ago wrote a fascinating book called Taste which is a well-researched and thoroughly readable account of the British table from the days of the Celts and Romans through to the wartime powdered egg.
Ms Colquhoun does explain - but en passant in the way of one to whom it's obvious - that twice cooking was the fate of the early biscuit.
I won't go into the detail because the point I am trying to make is broader. This is that we should not accept scholarship blindly as attractive as it is(and I count elucidating the derivations of words as 'scholarship'). After all I wonder whether Mr Forsyth knows how to make a medieval cookie?
Which reminds me of one of my younger daughter's jokes: There are two biscuits baking in an oven and one says to the other, "It's getting very hot in here." To which the second replies, "Good heavens, a talking biscuit!"
L'HERRISSON OF SHAKESPEARE
A little while ago, I fulfilled a long-held ambition by visiting Shakespeare and Company on the Left Bank of the Seine in Paris. I first came across this bookshop which, in its day, was a meeting point for expat writers such as Pound, Joyce and even Fitzgerald, in the pages of Hemingway's 'A Moveable Feast' and that was more than 35 years ago. But despite numerous visits to Paris in the intervening years, I never made the pilgrimage until, that is, last Thursday, 26th April. And I have to confess that, at least at first, I was a little disappointed.
Shakespeare and Company is a rather patched together secondhand bookshop. True, there's a room upstairs for readers (rather than purchasers) but I was unable to penetrate those intellectual heights because they are prohibited to those carrying books they intend to buy and I am one of those who cannot leave a bookshop without a buying a book. Nor did I see the bedrooms that I understand are still extant, that are reserved to erudite penpushers who have (temporarily) fallen on hard times while striving in the French capital.
But I did have an active conversation with the charming salesgirl when I attempted to buy her copy of a detective novel by Jan Willem van der Wetering (and I must remember to send her my copy of de Wetering's book about becoming a Zen disciple, 'The Empty Mirror'). I was also pleased by the simple act of stamping the books sold with the S&Co Shakespeare's head logo.
So, as I said, disappointed at first .. but only at first.
Despite the higgledy-piggledy shelving, there is a wealth of books, well displayed and easily searchable. And in among these I found Muriel Barbery's second novel, 'The Elegance of the Hedgehog'. This is the sort of book I want to find but rarely do; a book I hadn't heard of making me feel the poorer for that (former) omission.
I bought the Hedgehog because of the strangeness of the title, the fact it had sold over five million copies, according to the blurb (although that sort of information can cut both ways) and the fact it is set in Paris and was thus for me, for that brief time, local.
I haven't finished reading the story yet but I can already say that the underlying theme of hidden intelligence longing for yet fearful of exposure is seductive. So too is the setting in a grand apartment block inhabited (one might say infested) by disparate members of la grande bourgeoisie bringing to mind Georges Perec's fine novel, 'Life a User's Manual'.
The Hedgehog (L'Hérrisson) of the title, is the concierge, Madame Michel, a closet intellectual from whom I have already learned the words 'conatus' and 'pithiatic'. More to come I'm sure.
Good for Shakespeare and Company so let's give their namesake the last word (from 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'), "thorny hedge-hogs, be not seen".
Shakespeare and Company is a rather patched together secondhand bookshop. True, there's a room upstairs for readers (rather than purchasers) but I was unable to penetrate those intellectual heights because they are prohibited to those carrying books they intend to buy and I am one of those who cannot leave a bookshop without a buying a book. Nor did I see the bedrooms that I understand are still extant, that are reserved to erudite penpushers who have (temporarily) fallen on hard times while striving in the French capital.
But I did have an active conversation with the charming salesgirl when I attempted to buy her copy of a detective novel by Jan Willem van der Wetering (and I must remember to send her my copy of de Wetering's book about becoming a Zen disciple, 'The Empty Mirror'). I was also pleased by the simple act of stamping the books sold with the S&Co Shakespeare's head logo.
So, as I said, disappointed at first .. but only at first.
Despite the higgledy-piggledy shelving, there is a wealth of books, well displayed and easily searchable. And in among these I found Muriel Barbery's second novel, 'The Elegance of the Hedgehog'. This is the sort of book I want to find but rarely do; a book I hadn't heard of making me feel the poorer for that (former) omission.
I bought the Hedgehog because of the strangeness of the title, the fact it had sold over five million copies, according to the blurb (although that sort of information can cut both ways) and the fact it is set in Paris and was thus for me, for that brief time, local.
I haven't finished reading the story yet but I can already say that the underlying theme of hidden intelligence longing for yet fearful of exposure is seductive. So too is the setting in a grand apartment block inhabited (one might say infested) by disparate members of la grande bourgeoisie bringing to mind Georges Perec's fine novel, 'Life a User's Manual'.
The Hedgehog (L'Hérrisson) of the title, is the concierge, Madame Michel, a closet intellectual from whom I have already learned the words 'conatus' and 'pithiatic'. More to come I'm sure.
Good for Shakespeare and Company so let's give their namesake the last word (from 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'), "thorny hedge-hogs, be not seen".
Thursday, 23 February 2012
POODLE
Yesterday I heard the sad news that my children’s poodle, Rolo, had been killed when hit by a train after he had scurried down an embankment presumably after a rabbit. Rolo was great enthusiast for food although in recent months, on a strictly controlled diet, had managed to lose several pounds and to shed the epithet, ‘Porky Poodle’ perhaps unkindly bestowed on him by my wife.
But whether porky or not, Rolo always maintained a sailor’s gait (although his name derived not from that but from his colouring which resembled the well-known sweet). And this gentle sway when walking, belied the fact that he was – when food in the form of game: rabbits or pigeons, was in the offing – as a quick as a Welsh wing three quarter when the try line was in sight.
Rolo’s speed from a standing start was matched only by his speed (and enthusiasm) for getting whichever creature he had just dispatched down his mouth before someone could – at some peril to themselves – attempt to take it away from him. Indeed there had been a couple of occasions when the first thing anyone knew that he caught something was the sound of small bones be enthusiastically crunched.
Poodles are intelligent dogs and Rolo was no exception. But he wasn’t the first intelligent one I’ve known. My first doggy memories are of my father’s black poodle, Jasper (a name which led me until no more than three days ago to think that the stone ‘jasper ‘ was black rather than shades of russet). And Jasper, whose portrait hangs in Oxford (as does Rolo’s – but in a different house) led me to be fond of ‘Nigger’, Guy Gibson’s dog and of the standard poodle, Coco so wonderfully described by Dilys Powell in her book of the same name.
Jasper, I assume but don’t remember, died or was put down at in old-age and Coco was still alive at the time of writing and so fades into literary eternity. Rolo, however, has been cut off in his prime and will be much missed. Unlike my dog, Scuffle, Rolo was the head of his household which manifested itself, for example, in his constant effort to be higher – physically higher – than anyone else and to ensure that his favourite chair was his alone.
His favourite chair is now be empty.
But whether porky or not, Rolo always maintained a sailor’s gait (although his name derived not from that but from his colouring which resembled the well-known sweet). And this gentle sway when walking, belied the fact that he was – when food in the form of game: rabbits or pigeons, was in the offing – as a quick as a Welsh wing three quarter when the try line was in sight.
Rolo’s speed from a standing start was matched only by his speed (and enthusiasm) for getting whichever creature he had just dispatched down his mouth before someone could – at some peril to themselves – attempt to take it away from him. Indeed there had been a couple of occasions when the first thing anyone knew that he caught something was the sound of small bones be enthusiastically crunched.
Poodles are intelligent dogs and Rolo was no exception. But he wasn’t the first intelligent one I’ve known. My first doggy memories are of my father’s black poodle, Jasper (a name which led me until no more than three days ago to think that the stone ‘jasper ‘ was black rather than shades of russet). And Jasper, whose portrait hangs in Oxford (as does Rolo’s – but in a different house) led me to be fond of ‘Nigger’, Guy Gibson’s dog and of the standard poodle, Coco so wonderfully described by Dilys Powell in her book of the same name.
Jasper, I assume but don’t remember, died or was put down at in old-age and Coco was still alive at the time of writing and so fades into literary eternity. Rolo, however, has been cut off in his prime and will be much missed. Unlike my dog, Scuffle, Rolo was the head of his household which manifested itself, for example, in his constant effort to be higher – physically higher – than anyone else and to ensure that his favourite chair was his alone.
His favourite chair is now be empty.
Friday, 30 September 2011
STICKING FINGERS INTO THE LANGUAGE
Have you heard about 'finger fluting' a neologism seemingly coined by American anthropologists at Cambridge University and released to the waiting world via segments on Radio 4 this morning?
Finger fluting is not, as one might expect - or hope - a new method of teaching the recorder; nor is it a decorative style arising from dragging the fingers through soft material such as clay.
In fact finger fluting is prehistoric painting: swirls, lines and zig zags smeared by stone age children onto the cave walls (inevitably in the Dordogne) where their parents were depicting antelope, an occasional mammoth and the inevitable crowds of bison.
I am glad children of those far-off times were allowed such artistic licence. Certainly my two have never had a great deal of parental support for their efforts in recolouring the wallpaper. Clearly times have changed in the past 10 or 12 millennia.
Leaving the visual arts aside, I am much more concerned with the words that have come to describe this speliological endeavour. Why 'fluting'?
I've just been through the full Oxford English Dictionary (yes we do own one in the office) to find nothing that would bring us close to the concept. Indeed fluting implies a more complex series of manual processes that simple markings in paint.
I suspect alliteration is to blame. Something that goes with fingers ('nails' not starting with an 'f').
But with that in mind, should anthropologists not have come up with 'digital daubs'?
Finger fluting is not, as one might expect - or hope - a new method of teaching the recorder; nor is it a decorative style arising from dragging the fingers through soft material such as clay.
In fact finger fluting is prehistoric painting: swirls, lines and zig zags smeared by stone age children onto the cave walls (inevitably in the Dordogne) where their parents were depicting antelope, an occasional mammoth and the inevitable crowds of bison.
I am glad children of those far-off times were allowed such artistic licence. Certainly my two have never had a great deal of parental support for their efforts in recolouring the wallpaper. Clearly times have changed in the past 10 or 12 millennia.
Leaving the visual arts aside, I am much more concerned with the words that have come to describe this speliological endeavour. Why 'fluting'?
I've just been through the full Oxford English Dictionary (yes we do own one in the office) to find nothing that would bring us close to the concept. Indeed fluting implies a more complex series of manual processes that simple markings in paint.
I suspect alliteration is to blame. Something that goes with fingers ('nails' not starting with an 'f').
But with that in mind, should anthropologists not have come up with 'digital daubs'?
Monday, 26 September 2011
SKIN DEEP
I am not really blogging - not just at the moment. It's more that I'm taking a break from ironing.
Yes, I iron. Actually I rather enjoy it and I also enjoy the faux military neatness that I can achieve (only to destroy the impression with a lost button or, worse, an ironed-in stain). And I suppose it gives one time to think, or to listen to the radio or to think about amusing lines.
Did you hear about the diner at the café who asked if there was any alternative to the Quiche Lorraine. "No," replied the waitress, "there's no Flan B."
Leaving this aside, I have to tell you that I am slightly worried about my face - one of those parts where the iron must not reach. I was seduced into buying face products the other day. Well accurately a couple of parties I've been to recently were giving patent unguents away and so I felt I should buy some as well.
I have Facial Fuel and something from Cetuem which has 'Active Ceramides' and also I have something from Kiehls that comes with a glass eye dropper although I rather suspect the eyes are the last place this smoking liquid should be dropped.
But the thing is that the treatments aren't working and it looks as though I am never going to achieve my ambition of rejuvenating in the same way that Captain James T Kirk of the Starship Enterprise easily does in the later Startrek movies. In fact, I seem to be going the other way.
Not only does unguent a (or b or c) hurt but the facial results, the morning after, put me in mind of one who has spent the hours of darkness wrestling with the undead only to become one himself.
Lines? There are more lines than Hamlet and deeply engrained (not only in the skin but increasingly in the psyche).
Bags? Ditto the conveyor belts at Heathrow.
Eyes? Not really visibly to my eye (if you see what I mean).
Whatever happened to Wright's Coaltar Soap with its distinctive smell of failed chemical experiments (a far superior product to Lifebuoy if you ask me)? I mean that was a real cleaning agent. I left some on my flannel one night long ago at boarding school and the next day it have gone right through. It became much more popular after that but not perhaps in the way the manufacturers intended - after all boys will be boys.
Yes, I iron. Actually I rather enjoy it and I also enjoy the faux military neatness that I can achieve (only to destroy the impression with a lost button or, worse, an ironed-in stain). And I suppose it gives one time to think, or to listen to the radio or to think about amusing lines.
Did you hear about the diner at the café who asked if there was any alternative to the Quiche Lorraine. "No," replied the waitress, "there's no Flan B."
Leaving this aside, I have to tell you that I am slightly worried about my face - one of those parts where the iron must not reach. I was seduced into buying face products the other day. Well accurately a couple of parties I've been to recently were giving patent unguents away and so I felt I should buy some as well.
I have Facial Fuel and something from Cetuem which has 'Active Ceramides' and also I have something from Kiehls that comes with a glass eye dropper although I rather suspect the eyes are the last place this smoking liquid should be dropped.
But the thing is that the treatments aren't working and it looks as though I am never going to achieve my ambition of rejuvenating in the same way that Captain James T Kirk of the Starship Enterprise easily does in the later Startrek movies. In fact, I seem to be going the other way.
Not only does unguent a (or b or c) hurt but the facial results, the morning after, put me in mind of one who has spent the hours of darkness wrestling with the undead only to become one himself.
Lines? There are more lines than Hamlet and deeply engrained (not only in the skin but increasingly in the psyche).
Bags? Ditto the conveyor belts at Heathrow.
Eyes? Not really visibly to my eye (if you see what I mean).
Whatever happened to Wright's Coaltar Soap with its distinctive smell of failed chemical experiments (a far superior product to Lifebuoy if you ask me)? I mean that was a real cleaning agent. I left some on my flannel one night long ago at boarding school and the next day it have gone right through. It became much more popular after that but not perhaps in the way the manufacturers intended - after all boys will be boys.
Monday, 15 August 2011
THE BIGGEST RUSH
I suppose I should write about the riots although there has undoubtedly been too much 'ink' (to use an old-fashioned phrase) spilled on this subject already and we haven't seen the half of it yet.
You know, the politicos and the chattering classes seem, generally, to agree that this outbreak of lawlessness that affected quite a number of English cities, was a key indicator of some sort of breakdown in society.
Maybe, but I am less inclined to think in such dramatic terms.
The line I find most telling about this whole affair was the comment made by one of the defendants in court when asked by the judge why she went on the rampage, as it were. She answered that it was the "biggest rush" she'd had felt in her life.
And that's the point. Think about it. Suddenly you have the opportunity to run around the streets, being chased as if in a video game (only this time for real!) by the boys in blue and you're more or less free to break windows, torch cars, steal those things you've always wanted to own and - at the same time - you have a very good chance of not being caught. Being caught means you lost the game.
For me, this explains the rapid spread of the disturbances. There was, just briefly, a sort of riot tourism. People came into the cities to smash and grab and the very time that the frightened masses - the workers, you and me in other words - were hurrying in the other direction. It was indeed a rush - nothing like it had ever occurred, ever been available, during the (thus far short) lifetimes of the rioters.
Does this explain arson and the deaths - were these a mere function of over-exuberance getting out of hand? No of course not, it neither explains nor condones. These darker issues almost certainly arose from long-time criminals working under cover of the confusion for their own ghastly purposes or, alternatively, from racists seeking to settle scores (or to open wounds).
None of this makes things right but I think it's as good an explanation of any other. Society is, if you're young (and whether dispossessed or not) boring. Yes of course there are role-models we wish all the young folks would follow, but no everyone can be an Olympian or, indeed, an Eagle Scout but almost everyone, at the age of the majority of the rioters, was energetic and somewhat hormonal and, no doubt, keen not to be told what to do (at least for a while).
You know, the politicos and the chattering classes seem, generally, to agree that this outbreak of lawlessness that affected quite a number of English cities, was a key indicator of some sort of breakdown in society.
Maybe, but I am less inclined to think in such dramatic terms.
The line I find most telling about this whole affair was the comment made by one of the defendants in court when asked by the judge why she went on the rampage, as it were. She answered that it was the "biggest rush" she'd had felt in her life.
And that's the point. Think about it. Suddenly you have the opportunity to run around the streets, being chased as if in a video game (only this time for real!) by the boys in blue and you're more or less free to break windows, torch cars, steal those things you've always wanted to own and - at the same time - you have a very good chance of not being caught. Being caught means you lost the game.
For me, this explains the rapid spread of the disturbances. There was, just briefly, a sort of riot tourism. People came into the cities to smash and grab and the very time that the frightened masses - the workers, you and me in other words - were hurrying in the other direction. It was indeed a rush - nothing like it had ever occurred, ever been available, during the (thus far short) lifetimes of the rioters.
Does this explain arson and the deaths - were these a mere function of over-exuberance getting out of hand? No of course not, it neither explains nor condones. These darker issues almost certainly arose from long-time criminals working under cover of the confusion for their own ghastly purposes or, alternatively, from racists seeking to settle scores (or to open wounds).
None of this makes things right but I think it's as good an explanation of any other. Society is, if you're young (and whether dispossessed or not) boring. Yes of course there are role-models we wish all the young folks would follow, but no everyone can be an Olympian or, indeed, an Eagle Scout but almost everyone, at the age of the majority of the rioters, was energetic and somewhat hormonal and, no doubt, keen not to be told what to do (at least for a while).
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