All this stuff about long walks and theatre: just self delusion?
A few of them put “sexy lady” in the printed pages of the broadsheet where – unlike the web version there are no photos- what does sexy mean? Do they share Nigella Lawson’s view that you should never overestimate man’s desires: it’s just food and sex, stupid. Tempt you in with the weasly words about sex then it’s Twelve Night, cocoa and
Dartmoor into life’s far distance.
What exactly defines a break point Tom wondered? When is the moment of conclusion that the nadir of unbearable relationships has been attained? Is it something about the decibel level or conversely the days of silence? Is it something of an intellectual analysis that no shared values in fact exist? Or the minutiae of annoyance: the ill-chosen top, the untidy room?
Possibly you should read the psycho-babble stuff about the inception of contempt, the sulphuric acid in your partner’s armoury. Disdain, lack of respect: if you can describe it, categorise it, does that sanitise it? What makes the most complete break point- the mundane or the cataclysmic?
When Philip a founder chum, invited us to
Windsor
Castle
a few years ago to hear him play second fiddle with the Windsor and Maidenhead Orchestra in front of the Queen, my abiding memory of that evening was of her Majesty taking her seat a few rows in front of us. It came over me to wander up afterwards and thank her for her role in keeping
Britain
a stable democracy for fifty years. This is no light claim to fame: our fellow EU members of
Greece
,
Spain
,
Portugal
,
Cyprus
,
Croatia
and the
Baltic states
had no such fortune. Even
France
maintained a conscript army to avoid too much power in the hands of the generals.
Two authors have substantially affected the way I look at life: those masters of observation, Anthony Powell and Anne Tyler.
The world observed by these authors is quite different:
Tyler
takes a closed community – the family – which obliges the characters to interact intensely over periods of time until the strain is so unbearable that painful rupture is considered or enacted.
Powell, by contrast, describes people who embrace and discard their relationships. There is less continuity: sex and sometimes passion are prevalent but divorce often follows. Family in the Dance is for the most part benign and reinforcing.
‘ONLY BE SURE ALWAYS TO CALL IT PLEASE RESEARCH’ (Tom Lehrer, Lobachevsky)
At one time access to the British Library was not simple, as Admissions Clerks, determined to protect the extensive pornographic collections, but also limited by insufficient reading places, delighted in finding alternative destinations for those requesting admission tickets.
