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It is reported that Harold Macmillan, heir to a successful publishing company, claimed that one of the pleasures of becoming British Prime Minister was that he had more time to read novels.  That was almost sixty-five years ago, and it is not a statement one could imagine a contemporary Western political leader making.  For one reason, modern politicians like to present themselves as ordinary people, just like the voters whom they represent, and since they assume that most voters do not read books they likewise pretend not to.  Instead, they allow themselves to be filmed playing golf, watching football, and taking their kids to the cinema, to celebrate their normality, to reaffirm their averageness.  The second reason is that they think they are much too busy, rushing from one meeting to another, speed-reading briefing documents and policy papers, talking with special advisors and party operatives, worrying about the daily news cycle, and the changing trends in the polling data that they collect incessantly.  The closest they might come to admitting to opening a real book, as opposed to a policy file, is when they publicise their annual summer holiday reading list, which will tend to be a small number of fashionable non-fiction titles, thereby trying to connect themselves to certain popular concerns of the day. 

Reading for pleasure is considered a luxury, or worse an indulgence that the modern politician can and should do without.  This is especially true of the reading of fiction – or “story books” – which is assumed to be appropriate only for children and those adults with surplus time on their hands, such as pensioners or academics.  By contrast, those who carry the burden of responsibility of government – in “the real world” – consider themselves too busy to be bothered with make believe.

Continue reading “The spectre of good literature”

I’m on a retreat right now.  I’m taking the train from Los Angeles to Washington, DC, with a change in Chicago.  It’ll take four days.  The boy is with his grandparents, and the dog is with a trainer who hopefully will get her to stop jumping on people.  I have a two-person “roomette” to myself for the entirety of the journey.  After fifteen months of full time single parenting with just two six day breaks when the ex-wife flew out to have in-person time, I’m savouring every moment of being solitary, just the gentle sway of the train, and no more human contact than the occasional trips to the cafe car for mixers and ice. I miss the boy and the dog, but my guess is, on some level, they’re both enjoying a break from me, too.

Continue reading “Down by the tracks”

A good friend told me this story, knowing I would find it funny. 

Some time ago, his family had guests staying with them for the weekend.  On the Saturday evening, my friend prepared a meal with a variety of dishes, mostly drawn from the Chinese cookery tradition.  They all ate and drank well, and they talked until the early hours of Sunday morning before going to bed.  When my friend woke up the next day and headed down to the kitchen to make coffee, he discovered one of the guests busy at work cleaning up the kitchen.  All the plates, the cutlery, and the glasses had been washed and dried, and were stacked neatly on the table.   On the draining board were clean pans and lids.  The guest was standing at the sink, working away with a wire scouring brush, on my friend’s oldest and most prized wok. 

“Nearly finished,” said the guest with a smile, “it takes a lot of work to get these really clean.”  He lifted the steel wok out of the water to reveal that the near spotless metal was as smooth and bright as when it had first been bought.  My friend forced a smile, nodded, and then retreated upstairs to his bed, speechless.  Ten years of cooking – ten years of sizzling hot oil, infused with ginger, garlic, chilli, black beans, spices, sauces, and marinades – ten years of working at the stove, carefully building up the patina on the surface of the wok, ten years of culinary labour, all obliterated by ten minutes of over-zealous uneducated cleaning.  Disaster!  

Continue reading “Seasoned and sharpened”

Last weekend, I visited several commercial galleries in London, enjoying the opportunity to look at art works, which is possible once again after several months of enforced closures.  However good the quality of online images and virtual tours of exhibitions, the intermediating presence of a digital screen changes the nature of the perceptual experience: there is no substitute for being in the physical presence of the art object.  (Compare, watching a cookery programme online and eating a meal in a restaurant.)

One drawing in a room of recent work by Luc Tuymans attracted my attention.  It showed a view across a square or courtyard towards the façade of a large three-story building opposite, with two other buildings, one to the side of the square and another slightly behind the first, also visible.  All the buildings were shaded grey as was the paving of the courtyard and the road that led out of the square.  The scene was drab: a deserted space on a cold, sunless day in winter, with no people, no colour, no objects of interest.  In the centre of the drawing, as if superimposed on this dismal vista, was a white equilateral triangle, with one side rising vertically and the two other sides leading to a point to the right.  It is a familiar sign in the contemporary world, visible on every phone, laptop screen or video monitor: it is the sign that means “click here to proceed” or “start”.  It is the sign that means the opposite of two parallel white vertical lines, which means “click here to pause” or “stop”.

Continue reading “Pause”

Just over a week ago, twelve of Europe’s leading football clubs announced the formation of a new European Super League (ESL).  Their aim was to create an annual tournament, that would run alongside the various national league competitions and would rival the existing pan-European tournaments, namely the Champions League and the Europa League.  The two main differences between the new ESL and the existing competitions, were that the ESL would be smaller, with twenty clubs rather than thirty-two or forty-eight, and that fifteen teams would be guaranteed participation in the ESL each year with only five places to be secured through competitive qualification.  The twelve clubs’ goal was to create a competition with greater quality and focus, to showcase the “biggest” teams playing against each other regularly, the “best” players competing against each other all season. 

Three days later the plan appeared to be dead and buried as all six English teams that had signed up as founder members of the ESL withdrew from the initiative, in the face of a storm of protest from other clubs, former players, and groups claiming to representing the “real fans”.  But, if the proposal for a new tournament is off the table for now, it has not gone away for ever.  Just like at Easter, a form of resurrection is possible.  There are two sorts of people who really like the idea, the owners of the top European Clubs – many of whom are from America, the Middle East, and Asia – and the millions of football fans who do not live in Europe.  This alliance – between the super-rich and the mass consumer – is likely to triumph in the long run against the protectionist instincts of those in the middle, predominantly Western European commentators and fans, who care about the preservation of the traditions of the game for their own sake.

Continue reading “Own Goal”