Changing One's Mind

Sometimes one does. Change one's mind that is. But not so very often. However I will confess to a particular youthful indiscretion. Many political ages ago I was engaged in a rugby club conversation about exchange rate policy. This says rather a lot about the rugby club of which I am a member - we will talk about anything and everything and just because it is coarse to say that the single currency is a bag of toss does not of course make it wrong. I digress. The conversation to which I refer predated the euro's creation and was about its precursor the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM or the 'money snake' as I seem to recall it being called). The question was whether Britain should join the snake. My reponse was one of youthful ignorance - yes we should. Poor deluded child I had no idea that when the day came for a right regal pissing contest George Soros could not only urinate further up the wall than our sovereign state but right over the top of the whole bloody building. Nice work George - now see that camel over there, well get it through this needle for me will you.

So here's the thing. I was wrong then. Monetary union, no matter how loose, can only work with political and fiscal union. And the people who tell you otherwise are often mendacious technocrats who think you're stupid and that their intended end justifies this means.

On the subject of people who change their minds, another tale from my youth, this one a piece of the landscape of my teens. Being a somewhat obnoxious youth I was talking politics with a rather stupid adult who admiringly commented that the only contemporary politician who never changed his mind was Enoch Powell. It was at this stage that the penny dropped that maybe a change of mind was other than a sign of weakness, especially when wrong.

Mention of Powell does put me in mind of the rather splendid joke in Jonathan Coe's The Rotters' Club wherein a character posits Powell and Tolkien as two major racist thinkers. The nice in-joke is that Powell and Tolkien both attended King Edward's School Birmingham, as did the extravagantly gifted Coe. I'm firmly of the school that approves of in-jokes so long as I get them. Anything else is self-indulgent.

Egeus. Father of Hermia. A man who believes that his daughter should be put to death if she will not marry the suitor of his choice. Maybe I haven't mentioned this but I will shortly be giving my Egeus in open air Shakespeare. You didn't know? Apologies if I haven't mentioned this. Playbill attached. Anyway the point I'm building up to is this: under some directorial encouragement I am adopting Enoch Powell as my model for Egeus because nothing will make my Egeus change his mind. That is unless the director tells me otherwise of course. I'm not stupid.