Can do, might do, do do

Over the decades two people close to me have died of motor neurone disease – horrible deaths. Last night I watched a TV programme about a British scientist suffering from MND and alleviating things with advanced technology. It threw up an important observation.

The scientist spoke to another sufferer, the theoretical physicist, Stephen Hawking (Liza Simpson: “The world’s smartest man” – but it’s not that quote.). Hawking advised: “Think about the things you can do, not the things you can’t.”

In infinitely more mundane circumstances I did just that. We’ve had a birthday in the family, whose doesn’t matter. The Plague prevented physical assembly so we Skyped. Nothing new about that, we’ve family-Skyped – three times a week – for several months now.

But you can’t just say we’ll have a good chat and expect it to happen. Fatigue, grumpiness, anxiety to watch qualifying for the Hungarian GP may all undermine that aim. But more often than not someone starts a hare (A metaphorical hare, that is. I’m anti-bloodsports.) and the rest join the chase. Ysabelle and Daniel had just bought a car; they detailed their negotiations and the whole thing became hilarious.

Who’d have thought it? In fact everyone should have done. We’re a family, a group of individuals each with stories to tell. That’s a huge information base for a start. But members of families interact and that multiplies the possibilities n-fold – where n is a large number. Yes we could have got raucous on drink at some watering hole but the hell with that. Instead we created a successful social occasion with what we had.

A trivial achievement compared with the heroic scientist (Peter: The Human Cyborg. Channel 4). But we must all lead our own lives. Consider what you can do. In short, don’t be defeated  

Nose doesn't blow it

Although I've never seen Shostakovich's opera The Nose before it's difficult to imagine better direction than yesterday's live NY Met transmission in a Hereford cinema. This bitter, uproarious Gogol satire has a simple theme: man wakes up, his nose lost, pursues it through a Russian city as it  follows its own aspirations - to become a flaneur, a member of high society, praying in a cathedral. "Not a likely story" self-mocks the chorus but by then  I found myself thinking: "I'm not so sure..."

Mostly the nose is a silhouetted larger-than-life shape attached to a dancer's body projected on to a screen. Its movements are persuasive, eloquent and touching. Initially the music is hard to take (I nodded off frequently) but then it matches the pell-mell action and could easily be Mozart, Well, almost. Better than Tosca or, God forbid, Downton Abbey.

SILENT JAWS The Montalban Sicilian cop series, available in a two-hour chunk on Saturday evenings, has never reached the popularity of its Scandinavian predecessors like The Killing but has its moments. Commissario Montalban prefers not to talk during his lavish fish lunches, drives a Fiat Punto, and many Sicilians, it seems, live in palazzi. The sun shines a lot. Escapist.

GASTRONOMIC TIP Scatter dried onion flakes on tuna paté, preferably smeared on Polish bread.

WIP Second Hand (43,277 words)
FROM THE fourteenth floor the south-western suburbs were a worn carpet. At first glance an impressive expanse but in the end just an area, lacking any natural or architectural identity. The city twelve miles away was a hazy blur on the horizon.

He noticed her staring and said, amused, “Monarch of all I survey. But not much of a kingdom, not much of a king. More a district manager.”

He was young but then they were all young.

It sounds so persuasive

Professional Bleeder, the ex-phlebotomist, is staying with us. As an act of kindness she volunteered to re-register VR with the National Lottery, a niggling task that took years off the life of her sister, Occasional Speeder, when she tried.

PB often acts as the Family Ferret, sent into dark places to roust recalcitrant people at the end of phone lines. The registration was proceeding slowly when PB was asked for our post code, HR2. Then asked to spell it. "Hello - Roger - Two," she said. The recalcitrant one pounced: "No, Hotel - Romeo - two."

Later PB and I decided to teach ourselves the official Phonetic Alphabet to avoid future clashes. It took less than five minutes since we already seemed to know a lot of the terms. Then we tested each other and I became Romeo-Oscar-Delta-Echo-Romeo-India-Charlie-Kilo. Doing Symonds Yat I briefly forgot Y (Yankee) but I'm fluent now.

Most people don't bother. But it can be a source of techno-superiority while others struggle. If you like that kind of thing.

WIP Second Hand (28,965 words)
Working days (at the supermarket) reminded her of a holiday spent at Brighton as a six-year-old. It had rained continuously and her parents, desperate to find indoor entertainment, had entered an amusement arcade. The distorting mirrors, the quoits and the worthless soft-toy prizes were seen as trashy but Francine had been drawn to a bagatelle played with a ball-bearing so heavy her childish fingers could hardly set it in motion. The fascination lay in the ball’s path, worn away over the years on the game’s vertical playing surface. For two-thirds of its trajectory, before it reached diverters, the ball lacked freedom, was compelled to follow the same route...  Francine’s young mind grappled with the fact that the early part of the route was pre-ordained.

Titled classes' vade mecum

For various self-serving reasons I haven’t read a serious book for ages. Or does Eyeless in Gaza count? Might there be a case for re-editing the longer Huxley novels and transferring the lengthy essays that bulk out the chapters to the back of the book? I only arsked.

More typically I’ve infuriated myself by re-reading a couple of Wimseys: The Nine Tailors and Busman’s Honeymoon. I’m always reminded of a nurse who worked at the same hospital as VR and who had just discovered Lord Peter; couldn’t get enough him. Then she came across a para where Bunter (Lord Peter’s “man”) is required to shave his boss and that was the end of that.

Dorothy Sayers mines a very rich vein of snobbism which curdles my left-wing blood and yet fascinates me as a matter of public record. In Nine Tailors Wimsey crashes his car and is invited to stay the night with the local vicar; Bunter is shipped off to the kitchen with the housemaids. The same Bunter who saved Wimsey’s life during WWI.

Even more astonishing is the way country folk (Chimney sweeps, farm labourers, shopkeepers, sextons) all slip quite easily into addressing Wimsey as My Lord or referring to him as Lord Peter. Without tuition.

Perhaps the most unbearable passage occurs when Wimsey takes an ugly, downtrodden woman back to his flat (119A Piccadilly, in London’s West End), plays her Bach (perhaps Scarlatti) on the piano and says it would be better on a harpsichord. Exposes her to this heavenly environment, then drops her back into the plot.

So, why do I re-read Sayers? One reason is I’ve now caught up with all the quotations (in French) and the musical references that were beyond me in my youth. It takes a snob to recognise a snob.