Wednesday, 8 August 2012
Expanding the Frontiers of Ignorance
The television obituary for the astronomer Sir Bernard Lovell, who died yesterday, included a wonderful, too brief, clip from a late interview with his fellow astronomer and Sir, Patrick Moore. Lovell said something like this: Twenty years ago, we thought we had a virtually complete picture of the Universe and how it works, but 'now we know almost nothing'. This, we should always remember, is what true science does - not establish certainty but constantly expand the frontiers of ignorance. Perhaps the final achievement of science will be to discover that, after all, we know nothing. But how would we know?
Tuesday, 7 August 2012
And Another Thing...
Suddenly, it seems, everyone - or at least far too many people - have started saying 'ath-a-lete' instead of athlete. I hear it on the radio all the time, from reporters and competitors alike. Could this be the Olympics that ushered in the age of the trisyllabic athlete? Is this what they mean by Legacy?
The Great British Nay
In his comment below my last post, Madfolly asks, reasonably enough, for an explanation of the strong and persistent strand of negativity and 'can't do' in what might pompously be called our national discourse.
Well, the first thing to say is that it shouldn't be taken too seriously: we indulge in a lot of 'can't do' moaning because we know that really, when it comes to it, we probably can do - as these Olympics prove. It was the perpetually grumbling, negative Poor Bloody Infantry that won us two world wars against overwhelming odds. Perhaps nations with less confidence - and competence - cannot indulge nay-saying on a British scale (though clearly America doesn't fit this picture).
Another strand feeding into our great national grumble is a deep-seated distrust of airy idealism - of Big Ideas, especially those of a progressive kind that promise a Better World. We rarely fall for it: the short period after the Last Spot of Bother when we accepted New Jerusalem thinking and got the NHS and the Welfare State (talking of mad folly) was an aberration, as was the Things Can Only Get Better madness that swept Blair to power. Most of the time we empirical Brits love to debunk big ideas, because we know that they are not rooted in human reality - just as we like to bring down the mighty and pretentious, who have similarly lost touch with what they are. This is deep in our cultural bloodstream, at the core of our sense of humour and of the comic imagination that suffuses all our greatest literature, from Chaucer on.
However, having said all this, I can't help but feel that the Great British Nay is not what it was. Ever since the London Olympics were announced - to whoops and air punches all round - the nay-sayers have been in a minority, and now that minority is dwindling to a rump. There's an awful lot of positive energy around, a lot of affirmation, and it all feels a bit odd and unEnglish - but then there probably always has been. It's just that we Brits like to balance it with healthy doses of scepticism, moaning and debunking humour, grumbling as we get on with it. Long may it be so.
Well, the first thing to say is that it shouldn't be taken too seriously: we indulge in a lot of 'can't do' moaning because we know that really, when it comes to it, we probably can do - as these Olympics prove. It was the perpetually grumbling, negative Poor Bloody Infantry that won us two world wars against overwhelming odds. Perhaps nations with less confidence - and competence - cannot indulge nay-saying on a British scale (though clearly America doesn't fit this picture).
Another strand feeding into our great national grumble is a deep-seated distrust of airy idealism - of Big Ideas, especially those of a progressive kind that promise a Better World. We rarely fall for it: the short period after the Last Spot of Bother when we accepted New Jerusalem thinking and got the NHS and the Welfare State (talking of mad folly) was an aberration, as was the Things Can Only Get Better madness that swept Blair to power. Most of the time we empirical Brits love to debunk big ideas, because we know that they are not rooted in human reality - just as we like to bring down the mighty and pretentious, who have similarly lost touch with what they are. This is deep in our cultural bloodstream, at the core of our sense of humour and of the comic imagination that suffuses all our greatest literature, from Chaucer on.
However, having said all this, I can't help but feel that the Great British Nay is not what it was. Ever since the London Olympics were announced - to whoops and air punches all round - the nay-sayers have been in a minority, and now that minority is dwindling to a rump. There's an awful lot of positive energy around, a lot of affirmation, and it all feels a bit odd and unEnglish - but then there probably always has been. It's just that we Brits like to balance it with healthy doses of scepticism, moaning and debunking humour, grumbling as we get on with it. Long may it be so.
Monday, 6 August 2012
Failing to Fail
I must confess I'm feeling badly let down by the home nation's efforts in these Olympic Games. Those us who practise the national sport (grumbling) at the highest level, have been in training for years for this one, honing our Jeremiads, fine-tuning our dehortations, polishing our polemics. This was going to be the Big One, when the whole shebang fell apart, London ground to a halt, everything that could go wrong did go wrong, Team GB slid ignominiously down the medals table, and we became at last what we have so long yearned to be - the laughing stock of the world. But it was not to be - instead we Jeremiahs have been left looking on in disbelief as everything has gone like clockwork, London has been working rather better than usual, there have been no foul-ups, the world looks on in admiration - and, to cap it all, Team GB has been hoovering up the medals in unprecedented quantities. Why I've even found myself watching the damned thing from time to time. At this rate London 2012 is going to end up being hailed as a triumph. Surely we can do better than this - come on Team GB, pull your socks up (or rather, let them fall around your ankles) - we'll be expecting you to put all this behind you in good time for Rio de Janeiro. Fail again, fail better!
Friday, 3 August 2012
Dolores, Fred, Ginger, Rio...
Thursday, 2 August 2012
'a token for a pound of best steak'
One morning in the early Seventies, the distinguished biographer Michael Holroyd was startled to receive in the post a copy of a novel, accompanied by a token for a pound of best steak from George Ellerbeck, butcher of Kettering. These, the accompanying letter explained, represented the Ellerbeck Literary Award:
'The Prize is awarded at infrequent intervals, and you are only its third recipient. The circumstances are that Mr Carr, who makes a living by writing, is one of my customers and pays me in part with unsold works, known I understand as Remainders. These I give to better customers in lieu of my customary picture calendars. Mrs Ellerbeck, who goes to the WEA and is not averse to a bit of literature, suggested some years ago that I award one of these copies as an encouragement to another member of the literary world, this to be known as the Ellerbeck Prize. We decide who it is to be from the most graphic and telling picture of the outside world outside Kettering that we read the month after Mr Carr delivers his books and we settle with him. Sometimes it is a complete book, and sometimes it is only a few lines. In your case it is only a few lines. I came upon them in some newspaper that Mr Timpson saves for us for outer wrappings. It describes you wrestling in the dark beside a wheelbarrow of sodden volumes and cleverly inserting your signature in a book a dissatisfied customer was attempting to return to you. As a tradesman this has happened to me, and I can appreciate your courage and skill. I have removed the dust-jacket for two reasons. As I store these with my carcasses they have a slight taint, and also I am told that without the jacket it will be harder to sell.'
Yes, it was J.L. Carr, the Card of Kettering, up to his tricks. Needless to say, there was no such butcher in Kettering. The 'Prize' was one of Carr's devices for getting rid of the remaindered copies of his novel The Harpole Report that he had bought from his publisher (he always bought his remainders, and at the first opportunity bought back all his rights). Other copies had been delivered by hand as Christmas cards - cheaper, the author calculated, than buying cards - but there were still hundreds of remainders in Carr's garden shed. Until, that is, the humorist Frank Muir (who, like Carr, had served in the RAF Photographic Unit during the war) appeared on Desert Island Discs and chose The Harpole Report as the book he would take with him to the mythical island. Carr's flagging literary career was suddenly revived - and his shed emptied, as the canny author sold off all his Harpoles at full trade price.
But that's enough J.L. Carr. I've now finished Byron Rogers' The Last Englishman, and it did not disappoint - a quite extraordinary biography, and a real page-turner. And now I've bought his biography of R.S. Thomas, which promises to be at least as much fun...
'The Prize is awarded at infrequent intervals, and you are only its third recipient. The circumstances are that Mr Carr, who makes a living by writing, is one of my customers and pays me in part with unsold works, known I understand as Remainders. These I give to better customers in lieu of my customary picture calendars. Mrs Ellerbeck, who goes to the WEA and is not averse to a bit of literature, suggested some years ago that I award one of these copies as an encouragement to another member of the literary world, this to be known as the Ellerbeck Prize. We decide who it is to be from the most graphic and telling picture of the outside world outside Kettering that we read the month after Mr Carr delivers his books and we settle with him. Sometimes it is a complete book, and sometimes it is only a few lines. In your case it is only a few lines. I came upon them in some newspaper that Mr Timpson saves for us for outer wrappings. It describes you wrestling in the dark beside a wheelbarrow of sodden volumes and cleverly inserting your signature in a book a dissatisfied customer was attempting to return to you. As a tradesman this has happened to me, and I can appreciate your courage and skill. I have removed the dust-jacket for two reasons. As I store these with my carcasses they have a slight taint, and also I am told that without the jacket it will be harder to sell.'
Yes, it was J.L. Carr, the Card of Kettering, up to his tricks. Needless to say, there was no such butcher in Kettering. The 'Prize' was one of Carr's devices for getting rid of the remaindered copies of his novel The Harpole Report that he had bought from his publisher (he always bought his remainders, and at the first opportunity bought back all his rights). Other copies had been delivered by hand as Christmas cards - cheaper, the author calculated, than buying cards - but there were still hundreds of remainders in Carr's garden shed. Until, that is, the humorist Frank Muir (who, like Carr, had served in the RAF Photographic Unit during the war) appeared on Desert Island Discs and chose The Harpole Report as the book he would take with him to the mythical island. Carr's flagging literary career was suddenly revived - and his shed emptied, as the canny author sold off all his Harpoles at full trade price.
But that's enough J.L. Carr. I've now finished Byron Rogers' The Last Englishman, and it did not disappoint - a quite extraordinary biography, and a real page-turner. And now I've bought his biography of R.S. Thomas, which promises to be at least as much fun...
Wednesday, 1 August 2012
London: All Quiet
The Olympics are in full swing (I understand), and the effect on London has been very strange. Most of the city, away from the obvious Olympic 'hotspots', is eerily quiet - quieter than I've ever known it in recent years. It seems the first impact of this Olympiad has been to drive people away from our capital city and spark a mini-recession in the one part of the country that makes any money. Shops, theatres, museums and tourist attractions stand empty, tumbleweed bowls down a deserted Regent Street, coyotes howl in the distance... Personally of course I blame myself. The persistent warnings of gridlock, chaos, riots, famine and pestilence on Nigeness - the blog the world reads - have had their effect. Sorry about that - but it does make things surprisingly agreeable for those of us obliged to carry on commuting in Olympic London.
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