Laughter Is Permissible, But Not At The Expense Of Vigilance

In my world-weary way these things make me laugh even as I remember their significance. First some looky-likeys.

Trump

 

 

Mussolini

Silly I know (and not original) but it casts some light in the shade. Consider this, taken from the Afterword to Frank Dikotter's catalogue of twentieth century infamy, Dictators: the Cult of Personality in the Twentieth Century:

Vigilance, however, is not the same as gloom. Even a modicum of historical perspective indicates that today dictatorship is on the decline when compared to the twentieth century. Most of all, dictators who surround themselves with a cult of personality tend to drift into a world of their own, confirmed in their delusions by the followers who surround them. They end up making all major decisions on their own. They see enemies everywhere, at home and abroad. As hubris and paranoia take over, they seek more power to protect the power they already have. But since so much hinges on the judgements they make, even a minor miscalculation can cause the regime to falter, with devastating consequences. In the end, the biggest threat to dictators comes not just from the people, but from themselves.

I buy books new and old and cannot resist a browse along even the dingiest charity shop shelves. In an Alnwick back-street I unearthed a fiftieth anniversay edition of Robert Penn Warren's novel of American politics, All the King's Men. Warren was a wise man and his novel is thick with insight, but I doubt that even a man so sagacious could have conjured up a character to match Trump - he would have found the whole thing too fanciful. We are cursed to live in interesting times. So laugh to scorn but remember that what you laugh at is real. 

More cheery stuff to finish. Almost eight years after it debuted I have finally got around to watching the twenty pacy episodes of Dickensian. Pacy and clever, bloody clever. Derivative, of course, almost by definition, but bloody clever. I really enjoyed it. It is on iPlayer. Just when I'm going all free-market I find something that makes me fall in love with the licence fee all over again. How gleefully annoying.

 

Le Retour Du Chien Blanc

It sounds so much more melodramatic when I say it in French. Forgive me but yesterday I felt like an extra in one of those sullen art-house movies they used to show on BBC2 on a Saturday night. That plague-dog depression had made one of its (thankfully infrequent these days) returns. All of which makes my last blog entry seem ludicrously optimistic. Hey Ho. Anyway I feel much better today which rather serves to confirm that one of the key ingredients to my condition is stupidity. Keep taking the pills.

So having got that self-indulgent paragraph out of my system, now we can turn to the serious business of the palette of film noir. I saw something on Sky Arts recently that ventured the opinion that Billy Wilder invented the colour palette for film noir in his brilliant Double Indemnity. I beg to disagree. The palette predates the genre. I was reminded of this when re-watching Fritz Lang's silent masterpiece Metropolis. The threatening deployment of light and shade and the dagger-like intrusion of shadow are there. The tale itself is a dystopian melodrama with an incongruous happy ending. It is rightly lauded and makes an important companion piece to another Lang masterpiece, the indisputably noir The Big Heat - this my second favourite film noir (ranking only behind the supreme Touch of Evil). As for Metropolis, 89/90. Mind you, there is a more modern restoaration of the film than the one I have and the mark might go up if I ever encounter this purportedly definitive version. Another good reason to look forward and not be depressed. 

 

A Temporary Attack Of Reason

Not, I suspect, that any of you are overly concerned, I do apologise for not subjecting you to much of my mind-dump (what an inelegant but apposite term) of late. As the world spins more and more crazily on its ethical axis, The Overgraduate (aka Big Fat Pig) finds himself moved counter-intuitively towards a sane acceptance of the terms of his existence. This may disappoint a majority of the audience (such as it is) but I must say it is a comforting position in which to find oneself.

But why this hitherto uncharacteristic ease of mind, whose major symptom is to neglect the bile-filled pages of this blog? Well, that's what is strange. The things that really get the Pig's goat are still out there, bold and brazen as ever. A Conservative government stocked high with mediocrities. An Opposition led by a second-rate lawyer who saw no shame in riding shotgun on the Corbyn express. Donald Trump still holding court. The menace of inflation still stalking us, most people seemingly too young to remember just how destructive it can be. Crap weather (no, that was a joke). The filthy rich (and I mean by this, the genuinely filthy). Virtue-signalling as a substitute for public policy. All of these are still extant. And yet the Pig is content.

I have come to an acceptance that I cannot put these things right. I reserve the the right to rail against them again in the future but just for now I am sustained by a conviction that it is time to tend my own garden. I am hopefully approaching a watershed in my life - finally putting academic study aside in favour of a less burdensome (to this second-rate mind) but useful curiosity. That junction in my time-line is part of it, but more salient is a a quasi-beatific mood that has settled on me. My family are healthy and happy. I am proud of them. I am flattered by a long and happy marriage. The Precious Jag is running smoothly. The Precious Petrol-Mower cuts satisfyingly (tending my garden - see what I did there with my earlier metaphor?). I have been firmly stoic about a hamstring/glute injury which has kept me from running and have rediscovered the joys of riding the Precious Bike. My golf is stuck in a manageable decline that is more than compensated for by the company I keep on the golf course. 

So nothing very earth-shattering but, in sum, health-giving. All of this passed through my mind last week as we said earthly farewells to my brother-in-law. We were not close, indeed he had long-since escaped Birmningham to a new life in the unglamorous environs of Weston-Super- Mare. He was brought home for his funeral, organised with typical care and attention by the Groupie. He was only fifty-nine when he passed. Yet his funeral (and all its catholic fripperies) turned itself into a respectful but joyous celebration of his cheery life. He had, by quirk and misadventure (something to which he was prone) attached himself to a new family in Weston. They clearly loved him and the mystery of faith helped to salve the grief of all at a young death. I struggle on a daily basis with my religion but you do have to grant that a good funeral goes a long way.

As I wrote that last paragraph, the sun came out. So that is enough. I cannot always promise to be so cheerful but for now it is a nice feeling.