Where we've been: 1

Note the sense of escape. The barely trafficked autoroute leading to somewhere distant, satnav prominent, bottle-spray of disinfectant securely mounted, relaxed hands on the steering wheel.

Look again and the car seats are occupied by two women. It’s my blog so where am I? In the back, reflecting that it’s now happening. The country I’ve come to loathe, temporarily I hope, is a Channel Tunnel crossing behind and I’m free from its incompetence and gerrymandering for a while.

The French villa where we’ve stayed before was booked almost a year ago. Ann, the generous and sympathetic proprietor, is willing to waive her rights to the four-figure deposit. But I’m not the only one with a strong urge to escape. As octogenarians VR and I are the most vulnerable to The Plague and it’s up to us to make the decision; VR was in no doubt from the start.

There’ve been major convulsions and we four in the car are the lucky ones, unaffected by travel uncertainties. Flights for the other four were cancelled and son-in-law Darren has worked prodigies, stitching together a sequence of train and TGV hops, broken by an Uber taxi ride across Paris linking the Gare du Nord with the Gare de Lyon. Large extra sums of money have been needed and VR and I have provided them. An initial online order of food and drink from a French supermarket has been contrived by computer whiz, Daniel, granddaughter Ysabelle’s partner. It will cost over £800.

In the sense that there are laws, we are not breaking them.

So why am I not driving? I’ve done it many times before. Because I have complete faith in daughter Occasional Speeder and Ysabelle. I loll and construct imaginary conversations with French citizens.

Next post: Did the French cope?

Incorrigibly inanimate

Was I the most unpromising schoolboy that ever wearied the arms of cane-wielding masters? Not quite.

I lolled comfortably as Shakespeare was enacted mainly because I wasn't "being taught". Later in life I developed an interest in physics, mathematics and that orphan of the schoolroom, chemistry. But these enthusiasms owed nothing to those grindingly dull and badly expressed classes in which I cowered and sought to make myself invisible. History? A random series of dim events. Divinity (These days, comparative religion)? As risible as Grimm's Fairy Tales. Geography? Coal is mined here; don't forget it.

My problem was I didn't know what school was for. Whatever I did with my life I doubted the Don Pacifico Incident would enhance it. Nor would I be hailed by the halogens?

Why now, after all these years? Because certain schools have been opened and children, well-scrubbed, with earnest faces, ice clean tee-shirts and cumbersome shoulder bags are running eagerly towards gates that are unpleasantly reminiscent of open prisons. Questioned, they say they are glad to be back. I'm happy for them; they will make their mark in occupations that don't depend on the racketiness that is at the heart of journalism, my trade.

Most of all I recall the cruelty of the summer holidays. That an irresponsible existence should ever come to an end. That a dark tunnel was re-opening on punishment, coercion and a profound conspiracy that adults know best. That I would - yet again - be seen as unworkable material.

And again, that smell which I associate with gym shoes, then called plimsolls. Rubber is not a neutral smell, it’s sharp, even acrid. In contrast horse manure is more welcoming.  And there’s a poetic juxtaposition, if you like. Unlearned in school.

Kneel here

I'm trying hard to describe the contours of my backside. Legs becoming wider - calves to thighs - like a pair of adjacent ice-cream cones. Ending in two hemispheres of gluteus maximus like blobs of vanilla. Just the shapes, forget the flavours.

Now focus on that abrupt change of gradient where the straight line of the thigh becomes the outward bulge of the backside, a horizontal groove if you like. Not to be confused with the vertical groove which is for another day.

Are you clear? Have you located that horizontal groove? Please say yes. It was an important part of my anatomy up to age 15.

Boys were punished at my school by being caned on the backside. The aim was to inflict pain. With some skill the degree of pain could be increased. Lay the first slash of the cane along that horizontal groove. Lay the second slash on top of the first and the pain becomes cumulative. All the way up to six slashes. It took a careful eye and a steady hand to keep on hitting that 5 mm wide groove; most teachers were poor at teaching but all were great caners.

Did they practice? Did older teachers pass on their skills? Was caning a teacher's perquisite?

"Caning" suggests a stinging pain but that undersells the experience. The slash includes a heavier component as if the intention was also to bruise and eventually to wound. I have always been a physical coward and I'm astonished I didn't cry out while being caned. Perhaps for fear of additional strokes.

Was caning character-forming? My character is far from perfect so I’d say no. Nick, my late brother, attended a harder school and was caned until he bled.

Variations on an old theme

The News Reader
or
Does this make things clearer?

Some day when Kim Jong-Un acts childishly,
And purple clouds obscure the Golden Gate,
As heat and death flow down Ol’ Sixty-Six,
And Napa grapes show strange maturity.
When mutants shag high flies at Candlestick,
And bats out-number folk at San Berdoo,
As I routinely turn on News at Ten
And note apocalypse proclaimed by you.

Oh you, all textiles to your neckless chin,
Poached-egg eyes to lend a false solemnity,
Left arm outstretched to prop your gravitas,
Decay delayed with thickened maquillage.
A stuffy herald for our piping times,
World’s end described in awe-free, wearied words,
“We’ll analyse,” you say, but dust is dust,
And Bridgend lilt can only bring more dust.

As Californians curl up and fry,
We’ll need a Milton or a Stratford Will,
Instead there’s you and “What’s your sense of this?”
Dulling the edge of death with Gelusil.
This end, our end, should be both dark and grand,
An austere welcome to oblivion,
More than a kiosk and a rubber stamp,
More than the forming of an ordered queue.

And when your chalk-stripe suit is touched with flame
Will light obliterate more of the same?

Too tired to read it yourself? Click HERE and I'll do it for you.

Going in harm's way

It's unfashionable (and dangerous!) to admit to hatred. Yet, it seems, I - alone in the developed world - was born with this capacity. Should I suppress it? Freud would say no. I may examine it.

Cucumber. Neural reaction between the vegetable's juices and my fungiform papillae which sickens me. No further explanation needed.

Orff's Carmina Burana. Similar to cucumber. Music seeks to stir emotions; this work's insistent rhythms, plus the sentiments of its libretto, does so admirably. Hatred is an emotion.

Austin Cambridge (an inadequate car). As an owner I endured its shortcomings. In retrospect I hate the fact that it was possible to sell it as adequate.

Margaret Thatcher. Not her, as such, but her willingness to reduce complex human relationships to gross over-simplification in order to support a harsh ideology.

A nameless living comedian. Unexceptional humour underlaid by an obvious, perhaps pathological desire to be loved. Better jokes might help.

Those who hate "pure evil". Their target is non-existent and an intellectual affront. Time spent in refining this claim might remove its supporters from this list.

Unthinking nostalgia. Frequently an enemy of rational thought.

Trump. Not him, as such, but those who support him merely to stay in power. Watch DT closely and you may detect pathos. Lear brought up to date. All we need is another WS.

The mis-selling of Brexit. Through gritted teeth I can – just about – admit Brexit offers certain attractions. But even now its risks and, especially, its costs remain undefined. The lying (which I truly hate) was predominantly by omission; by the time these omissions have been filled in it will be too late.

Long-distance flying. Resembles an extra period of National Service - a subtraction from the life I prefer to lead.

Fool's paradise

The Guardian colour supplement (a dubious Saturday blessing) always carries a Q&A-format piece about some celebrity or other. Based on the same set of questions, such as: When were you happiest?

This is shrewder than it looks. Since The Guardian is aimed at smarty-boot readers (RR included) this requires a smarty-boot answer, neither glutinous nor obvious. Thus incipient bores who reply "Now, as of this moment." are marked down as missing the point, even if it happens to be true. Lying is allowed as is heartlessness.

The question also tests the nature of happiness and its duration. I might say I was happiest when calm-faced M, resident in Bingley, the Aire Valley, Yorkshire, agreed to come out with me on what in those days was called "a date" - my first ever. That the outing was a waste of time for all concerned just shows that happiness is - and must be - evanescent. As a mendacious, smarty-boots Guardian reader I draw back from pretending I was happiest on this 1955 occasion.

Guardian readers love to promote their own intellect. So I might well say I'm never happier than when responding to the challenge of writing plausible sentences. An utter nonsense, of course, since no one but a fool writes for pleasure.

Drinking one of my father's bottles of Big Five claret? Nah, there was always the predictable aftermath.

Listening to a late LvB quartet? I can never avoid a poncy feeling of self-consciousness.

Emerging from the southern end of the Chunnel in early June? Not on your life; France is not a happy country.

Finishing Proust? Who’m I going to tell? Another Guardianista?

Happy to discover I have never been happy? Now that's more The Guardian style. More please.

Humility anyone?

I’ve been reflecting on self-deception. A common fault but, to avoid offence, let me be the guilty party.

This morning it was raining hard and a strong wind scoured my cheek. Yet I could have said I was enjoying myself.

Getting wet? Because I didn't care, this made me superior (less vulnerable) to those who fear getting wet. As to rain pain I bore it, didn't complain, thus emerging as a stoic; sort of brave. By combining these reactions I might have admitted to exhilaration, a sub-set of enjoyment. Yet I was wet (no merit there) and feeling raw.

There are logical flaws here although unpicking them takes a few seconds. The fact is we do not always analyse what we say. Frequently we opt for shorthand: "The weather was foul but - do you know? - I enjoyed it." If challenged and if we’re honest, we detect self-deception.

This is a simple case but the defect can crop up in complex sequences of thoughts and feelings. We need to cut the guff and in doing so we cut corners. Under examination we may appear ridiculous, as part of a cliché - not the wordy sort but the behavioural cliché. Think of Cassius in Julius Caesar: "The torrent (of the River Tiber) roar'd, and we did buffet it with lusty sinews (and) with hearts of controversy." Was it really that much fun?

What medicine do I prescribe? None. Talk is vague and inexactness  a fact of life; who would be a pedant? Mostly it doesn't matter. To say that confession shrives the soul is surely a cliché. But it’s as well to know it lurks.

WALK 4. Greek island

Laying aside exercise, the calming of an over-fevered brain and an unlimited supply of fresh air should “walks” (the plural noun) be essentially pointless? Where there’s a goal is it still a walk or simply a means of getting there?

I’m not expecting coherent answers. On the Greek island of Karpathos, in the Dodecanese, my walk from Diafani to Olympos and back (about 12 miles) was not only pointless but also punitive. Why? I ask myself. Why?

There were options but I stuck to the tarmac road. The route rises to a low col then descends, the weather was culinary, the surroundings were unexceptional (scrub and hills of the humpy sort). I walked quickly, as if to be shut of the work. Nearing Olympos I was faced with a depression devoted, it seemed, to allotments. Unable to see a non-trespassing way through I followed the road loop which added 1½ miles before I entered the village. As I walked the streets, my no-doubt purple, certainly sweat-glittering, face encouraged shopkeepers to suggest I slowed down, even stop. I ignored them.

Olympos occupies the steep backside of a cliff and housing is terraced. From the heights I saw a route through the depression. My descent, via tiny promenades and short staircases, was diverting but took less than 15 minutes. To tempt excitement I ran all the way. Soon I was back on the road, head down. Then beer at Gabriella’s in Diafani.

Why? I was glad it was over but I wasn’t exhausted. I’d previously travelled the route by car so there were no discoveries. The exercise was as nothing compared with my daily two-mile swims off the coast. The only non-pointless aspect is that it provided material for this grudging post. A walk, then.

No picture for this one

You are going to misunderstand me. My subject is antipathy - ie, lack of enthusiasm for.

Not because I wish to rain on everyone's parade (I go for novels by John Lodwick, songs by The Carpenters, paintings by Robert Motherwell - all disliked in their own way.). But because antipathy deserves greater consideration.

And because a well-argued antipathy (distinct from an unsupported knee-jerk opinion like "Messiaen is rubbish.") can say more than a preference.

Antipathy often requires courage since it draws fire. Enthusiasm is easier to ignore and tends to conform. There's a good reason for this. Having established a dislike, few people care to go further and answer the question - why? It's thought to be a waste of time. But to answer why to anything  is evidence of reasoning.

Enthusiasm is frequently ill-reasoned. The espouser thinks it's enough to be "for" something - that it's proof of his or her good-heartedness. But contrast these two reactions: For Mozart (Oh, wow! And life rather than death, I suppose?). Against Mozart (What!! This guy's lost his marbles.)

Please note: I am not against Mozart.

BBC Radio 3 is a well-regarded channel devoted predominantly to posh music. By inference it only broadcasts masterpieces. So are masterpieces that prevalent? Did Beethoven's iron grip on genius never falter? Listen to his Scottish songs and make up your own mind. And about Rossini.

Many people fear being publicly antipathetic. They include those who direct BBC Radio 3.

(1) I reduced the argument to music because I needed focus. It works for books, painting, politics, sport, etc.

(2) Antipathy is misunderstood. Possibly because of its associated adjective (anti-pathetic) and its near-homonym (apathy).

Advice - a delicate child

Once a week VR takes the bus (free of course) to Hereford, usually to change library books, occasionally to buy an edible luxury. I tend to stay at home but I'm presently between novels and time is dragging. Magnanimously I volunteer. Magnanimity turns sour when the twice hourly bus fails to arrive and leaves me playing mental solitaire.
             
VR is looking for shoes. Her choice is limited: her feet are 3½ and you could roll a golf ball under either of her high arches. "I'm looking for something pretty," she explains. "Would you like to help?"
             
In fifty-three years of marriage this is a first. I take my duties seriously. I dismiss one pair for being hugger-mugger, another for looking like sandals, yet another for lack of integrated design. "These are the ones," I say, pointing.
             
VR says nothing, gathers up three other styles and we go to the sitting-down place. I feel a sulk coming on.
             
The three others are tried, discussion ensues and I am invited to rate them. I do so, grumpily. Finally my choice is tried. "They're the best," I say, and VR nods to the sales assistant. Full whack price, too.
             
The moral? In a marriage as long as ours, one may accept the other's advice. But only after demonstrating one hasn't been steam-rollered. I was quietly pleased but said nothing. An English couple, behaving typically 
             
TA FOR THAT In Hereford, everyone leaving the bus thanks the driver. It doesn't weary me and I've joined in. My bonhomie doesn't, however, extend to ATMs.
             
UNCHRISTMAS I've cut my Christmas card list savagely; a book of a dozen postage stamps covers it easily. It's May and I'm still sending letters decorated with images of Santa Claus. Will people guess why?

PS: VR's feet are 3, not 3½.

Bad music, good fun

One doesn’t expect immediacy from music criticism a hundred years old but how about this:

“I have long since learnt to leave my commonsense at the door when I go to the opera.” Faced with Hamlet by Frenchman Ambroise Thomas the writer continues: “Mlle Richard never faces the other dramatis personae but tacks around them, looking at them out of the corners of her eyes and agitating her bosom with a tireless persistence that must be the result of long practice.”

Adding: “(Ophelia) goes to the water and drowns herself, in token whereof  her ‘double’ presently appears supine on a sort of toboggan car, and shoots along feet foremost through the bulrushes to the prompt side.”

Given that Mrs LdP and I decided not to retain our seats for the second act of the following opera I was pleased to read: “In vain the weeping staff  (of the newspaper the writer worked for) held out stall tickets for Her Majesty’s Theatre to me with imploring gestures. I folded my arms and said that if the name of Lucia di Lammermoor were mentioned in my presence again my resignation would follow instantaneously.”

On the working class and oratorios. “There are working men who delight in piety – who join the Salvation Army, or drag their unfortunate children evening after evening to dismal chapels, where their poor little imaginations are filled with eternal torment, vengeance, sin and the devil. Others there be who go to secular halls and revel in demonstrations that Moses thought the earth flat, and if any of the four evangelists told the truth the other three necessarily told lies.”

GBS of course.

Blessed Redeemer - 73,773 words. Now it’s going too quickly.

Luckily I've found one real joke

Music of the classical (straight, formal, posh, Mozart) variety is not a terribly fruitful field for humour. Often, only musicians understand the jokes.

In historical re-enactments of Haydn’s Symphony 45 each musician in turn stops playing during the final adagio, snuffs out the candle on his music stand and departs the stage, leaving just two muted violins at the end. You can Wiki it if you want to find out why. I have never seen such a performance but a musical friend has and was mildly diverted. The audience usually laughs and those listening on the radio are baffled if they are not in on the joke.

In a much more cruel – but comic – musical event I played a central role. During a very boozy pre-Christmas dinner for the editorial staff of the newspaper I worked on I foolishly elected to play several carols on my trumpet. Afterwards I went into the next room for a pint and found a sub-editor I greatly admired propping up the bar. “Who was that awful bastard in there playing carols?” he asked, his atheism offended.

G. B. Shaw used to write musical criticism under the name Corno di Bassetto. He was halfway through a recital by a rather miniaturised Scandinavian women pianist “when the coughing started”. From then on he heard nothing. His recommendation: that the coughers be taken out into adjacent Trafalgar Square, laid in the roadway, “where a warm steam-roller should be passed over their chests”.

Finally the link below – which is genuinely funny – arrived from HHB and was sent to her by her Dad, Avus. What makes this so good (sustained throughout) is the way board movement reflects the music. CLICK