Regulation 6

I have been doing something that is open to anyone with an internet connection - I have read the Coronavirus Regulations that have, in the context of Dominic Cummings, got the commentariat and various legislators so exercised. If more of the fuckwit journos and politicos had bothered to do this then we might be enjoying (probably the wrong verb but sod it I'm on a roll) a rather better debate about that drive to Durham that the Boy Cummings saw fit to take. The only issue on which we have clarity is that there are a lot of people in our political and journalistic elite who utterly detest Cummings. Plain and simple they loathe the man, blame him for Brexit and Boris' mini-landslide. By the way we haven't heard the end of Brexit just yet - there are still people (take the sanctimonious windbag Ed Davey) getting themselves in trim for one last attempt to confound the will of the people. We can safely leave that for another day.

Anyway back to those Regulations. Here are the relevant facts and pertinent questions - trust me, I'm a lawyer:

• The Regulation states baldly, 'During the emergency period, no person may leave the place where they are living without reasonable excuse.'
• The Regulation then has thirteen sub-clauses which list examples of what will constitute a reasonable excuse.
• Those thirteen sub-clauses are not intended as an exhaustive list - there can clearly be other unspecified examples of reasonable behaviour. It is into this unspecified category that Cummings asserts his behaviours fit. That assertion is his right. It is the right of anyone else caught up in this wretched pandemic (so that means all of us) to attempt to exploit what lazy journalese calls this 'loophole'.
• So the two proper questions it seems to me are these: (i) was that initial 260 mile jaunt to Durham reasonable in the context of Cumming's precise situation vis-a-vis childcare? (ii) (and this I think is the more difficult one for Cummings) was that shorter excursion to Barnard Castle also reasonable in all the circumstances?

That's it - simple. If you think that these questions merit the public expense of judicial determination then you differ from me. That is your right. As to the crap about public opinion well, I'm sorry, that's irrelevant garbage as is the call for some sort of government enquiry - what a waste of resource. As to whether Cummings should resign (or be sacked) because he has breached some invisible 'spirit' (more lazy journalese) of the law, well that is a purely political question which we can safely leave to the political class as they roll around the whole bloody mess of them in the gutter.

One final biblical thought - those who live by the sword, die by the sword.    

One Last Bit Of Quotable Stuff

Now you know well enough that this a misleading title, because there will always be stuff that I feel I have to share with you, for my own good, even if not for yours. But I shall relent for a few days in case I am risking overload - only after first sharing with you another bit of C.H. Sisson (I know, I know, my admiration for this Bagehotphobe is perhaps bad for my academic soul) culled from The Case of Walter Bagehot:

Economics used to be called Political Econmy, and has lost the adjective in the search for scientific status. But political it remains, like the behavioural sciences at large, which are sciences only in a large, old fashioned sense, whatever may be the claims of their academic exponenents, scrambling for the most profitable description in order to get a full share of the money flowing into universities.

Now that was written in 1972 but if I'd said that now I'd be pretty chuffed with myself. Provocative yes, but illuminated by more than a glimmer of truth. 

Quotable Stuff

In my eclectic reading over the past week there has been a surfeit of stuff that had me thinking, yes he's got a point there, possibly wrong but there's an arguable point to it.

First up is my favourite member of the commentariat, Rod Liddle, Milwall fan and provocateur. In this week's Spectator on the topic of the lockdown (of which he is broadly a supporter):

The notion that we might end up kindlier, greener, gentler as a consequence of our brush with this ineffectual Armageddon was always horribly misplaced. The only lasting impact will be that reform of the cumbersome and often fantastically inept National Health Service will be off the cards in perpetuity and instead we will probably still be forced to kneel down before it every Thursday evening to give praise, clutching a used face mask in lieu of a rosary.

Next, my favourite denigrator of all things Bagehot whose lucid vitriol when it comes to my old mate Walter has even me thinking again. This, from his one hundred and forty page rant against Bagehot The Case of Walter Bagehot, is C.H. Sisson:

The central object of Bagehot's writing - and it is a destructive one - was to give exclusive respectability to the pursuit of lucre, and to remove whatever social and intellectual impediments stood in the way of it. Intellectual pursuits, and whatever strives in the direction of permanence and stillness, have to give way to the provisional and divisive incitements of gain. In the end one is left contemplating numbers over a great void. 

Finally from Waugh's Officers and Gentlemen, the arrestingly crafted summary of Guy Crouchback's private desolation occasioned by the entry of Russia into the war:

It was just such a sunny, breezy Mediterranean day two years before when he read of the Russo-German alliance, when a decade of shame seemed to be ending in light and reason, when the Enemy was plain in view, huge and hateful, all disguise cast off; the modern age in arms. Now that hallucination was dissolved.

I am not, of course, at all sure where I am going with all of this but I take mild comfort in the fact I am in my inefficient way still trying to get somewhere.  

The Land Of My Fathers

Bits and pieces of Under Milk Wood are still eddying through my mind.

At the sea-end of town, Mr and Mrs Floyd- the cocklers, are sleeping as quiet as death, side by wrinkled side, toothless, salt and brown, like two old kippers in a box.

My battered old edition includes a brief preface by Daniel Jones which ends with an interesting point:

In case Under Milk Wood falls into the hands of a Welsh philologist, it must be made clear that the langusage used is Anglo-Welsh. Dylan Thomas spoke no Welsh, and the reader must imitate his inconsistency if he wishes to hear the words as they were pronounced by the poet himself.

This is then the land of my (father's) father, proudly Welsh but non Welsh-speaking. This has been this Englishman's gain.

And Before You Let The Sun In, Mind It Wipes Its Shoes

Under Milk Wood, a dazzling piece of, well actually that begs the question - what is it? Written as a radio play, it should of course be listened to but it also reads beautifully as an affectionate and amusing prose poem. It is a masterwork.

The book as appreciating asset? I picked up my copy of Under Milk Wood for 50p in a second hand bookshop and I have only just noticed that its cover price in 1972 was a mere 40p. Mind you the intervening inflation rather ruins this tale and explains why I am not an economist.  

Some Do Not

Some Do Not ... is the first of the tetralogy known by the collective title Parade's End. It is an arresting though difficult read, at times brutally modernist. In my current reading blitz I enjoyed it but you really have to concentrate as you read this one. Maybe it's just me but there are some books to which you can get away with not giving your full commitment - this is not one of them.

The author is the magnificently named English novelist Ford Madox Ford - though even that nomenclature conceals a story - he changed his surname from the germanic Hueffer in the wake of the Great War. The shadow of that conflict leers over the text even though the trenches are not described. Instead we have an obliquely described and poignant love story woven in and around a world undergoing seismic change. A beautifully crafted novel.

Bloody Hell That Was Hard Work

Dave's go-faster shoes

I have taken the exercise allowance in lockdown as less permission and more mandate. I do two shorter runs (thirty minutes) each week and one long (by the Pig's standards) which I attempt to lengthen by five minutes each week. I got up to sixty-five minutes this week. I also get out on the Precious Bike once a week and I am adding time on each occasion. Today was bike day and you know how it is, sometimes it is just bloody hard work. I can't attribute today's difficulty to any particular reason but by the time I had come up Hill Village Road for the second time (at the culmination of my Little Hay/Shenstone/Four Oaks loop) I was totally knackered and (could it be a defect in my posture on the machine?) my arms and shoulders were begging for mercy. One hour forty-six minutes. I know it's not that impressive but it is making me feel better in mind and body. I've even invested in some new running shoes - Asics GT2000/8 again - I'm a creature of habit. My magic insoles (all the way from California at ruinous expense) have been transferred from the old pair.

I've just re-read that paragraph and realised that it is bald confession of breaching the one hour exercise dictum. In my defence I stress I am scrpulous in my social distancing and I never spit! As I type, Boris is on the television telling us all how the lockdown will continue. I think he will cut me a bit of slack. Blow me, he just did. 

Now for a word about a film we enjoyed. Well a couple of words - silly and enjoyable - that's three words I know but you will forgive me the conjunctive. The Bourne Ultimatum continues the Bourne saga into its third iteration. There is immorality at the top of the CIA (when is there not?) and it is down to Jason Bourne to stop it. But who is Jason Bourne? The film rockets along in its silliness but it is beautifully realised. 73/100.  

Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise Of Skywalker

I have been trawling internet reviews of the final part of the ultimate Star Wars trilogy and my views seem to be at variance with most reviewers - as was also the case with The Last Jedi, although it took two viewings for me to appreciate fully that film.

The high-water mark of the nine films is generally held to have been back in Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. I would not disagree with that, but I do thnk that The Rise of Skywalker comes closer than any other offering to matching that movie. Yes, there are a lot of loose ends to be tied up and there is something a bit Voldemort about the resurrection of Papatine but those loose ends do not get in the way of the picture. All in all to be recommended. 85/100.

The Brummie Paris-Roubaix

My admiration is boundless for the riders who thunder over the setts of the Paris-Roubaix. This morning Big Fat Pig did his own down-scaled version of the classic. This involves steering the Precious Bike over the pock-marked roads of Shenstone and Four Oaks for an hour and forty-one minutes. I can tell you, you feel every one of the bumps. The roads are in a shocking state. And the run from Shenstone back to Mere Green is an unexpected killer - a succcession of false flats lulling our overweight hero into a misplaced sense of comfort. I did that stretch twice today and by the end of the second I was out on my legs. Mind you the Pig would have to admit to feeling a tad self-righteous after his ordeal. He also ran for an hour (yes without stoppping) on Thursday. Wonder Pig.

Pig and the Groupie enjoyed (without being bowled over) Tolkien last night. It is a biopic of the young author's formative years at King Edward's School in Birmingham and during the Great War. It carries no imprimatur from the Tolkien estate so perhaps needs to be accomapanied by a liberal dose of salt but I thought it considered and mildy affecting. 69/100.

The Groupie has tolerated my watching of all four parts of Jesus of Nazareth downloaded over Easter. I'm a sucker for the scriptures and there are good performances from Robert Powell and Ian McShane in particular. Spoiler alert - he dies in the end you know.

The good thing about getting quite a lot of exercise is that you can fool yourself (the Pig does) that over-eating is not merely permissible but compulsory. This is of course self-deluding bollocks. Tonight it will be chicken and chorizo jambalaya. The Groupie is far too good to the Pig.

The Church Of Stripeology

Alright I know 'stripeology' isn't a real word but it does nicely get at my affection for the results I can achieve with my precious petrol mower.

I'm no gardener but we had the garden designed and built a few years ago and the brief was that it should be very much low maintenance. Suzanne at Malkin Design did us proud. Some effort is of course needed to keep it presentable but I have to admit that we're pleased with the results. And of course my favourite bit is mowing the lawn. Photographic evidence attached.

Bloody hell I've only just turned sixty and here I am blogging about my sodding garden. In the background I am listening to Barbra Streisand. Time to man up and put on some Guns N' Roses. Welcome to my jungle.