The Second Law Of Marchant: Writers Read

I read this yesterday evening and its pearlescent beauty struck me. If I could write like this I would never leave the house, except to go to the public library to read my own books. That's not true of course but you get my drift.

Tietjens had walked in the sunlight down the lines, past the hut with the evergreen climbing rose, in the sunlight, thinking in an interval, good-humouredly about his official religion: about an Almighty as, on a colossal scale, a great English Landowner, benevolently awful, a colossal duke who never left his study and was thus invisible, but knowing all about the estate down to the last hind at the home farm and the last oak; Christ, an almost too benevolent Land-Steward, son of the Owner, knowing all about the estate down to the last child at the porter's lodge, apt to be got round by the more detrimental tenants; the Third Person of the Trinity, the spirit of the estate, the Game as it were, as distinct from the players of the game; the atmosphere of the estate, that of the interior of Winchester Cathedral just after a Handel anthem has been finished, a perpetual Sunday, with probably, a little cricket for the young men. Like Yorkshire of a Saturday afternoon; if you looked down on the whole broad county you would not see a ingle village green without its whie flannels. That was why Yorkshire alwayd leads the averages ... Probably by the time you got to heaven you would be so worn out by the work on this planet that you would accept the English Sunday, for ever, with extreme relief!      (Ford Madox Ford, No More Parades)

And So Begins The Task

Don't worry - I've got over moaning about how 2021 pissed me off. There's still room for joy and optimism in my world.

An interesting film to kick-off the year. Don't Look Up wants to be a Dr. Strangelove for the age of global warming. It is slick and passingly funny (though not nearly as amausing as it thinks it is - there's only so many obvious targets you can take potshots at in one piece) but will not attract the same critical reverence that Strangelove still (and I have to say I have never been a fan of that movie either, but have to accept I am almost alone) garners. Sorry that was a bloated and unstylish sentence. I'll try to do better in future.

So, having made it clear that this is not a great film, I don't find it quite as poor as the majority of reviews would have it. It's just that there's only so much being hit over the head with a smug liberal club that your average citizen can take. Oh and by the way, big admirer of Mark Rylance but his performance in this film is derivative (Paul Whitehouse - suits you sir) and distracting. No doubt he'll win some awards. The film - 65/100. 

But here's something to be impressed by - a politician resigning on a point of principle and doing it with some style. Are you watching Boris, you sleazebag? Agnew Resignation Watch and learn.

2021: 11 - 12

And so the year came to its sorry end. And OG's capitulation in the face of facts finally came to pass. In November Boris Johnson vainly tried to orchestrate the forgiving of a back-bench MP who had behaved execrably. He was found to be shedding support like an ageing stripper but with rather less dignity. The impression was of a man totally out of touch with common decency. Just like the abject Cameron before him we had the demeaning spectacle of a clever man just too bloody lazy to do the job properly. Events would soon reveal the revolting, shabby thruth - Boris had even fewer redeeming features than the Boy Cameron. Eton College must be so proud of itself.

In December we had the start of partygate. Proof positive that Boris and his cronies, the braying sub-culture who inhabit Downing Street, simply don't believe that the laws they have made should apply to them. The stench of entitlement is rank. Still the wretched man hangs on, now embarked on a scorched-earth policy that seems to involve the ditching of everybody who was in the vicinity bar the leader himself. As George Washington didn't quite say - I cannot tell a lie Father, it was the cat. 

I care not a jot that the laws Downing Street were ignoring were assinine  - they were laws and it ill behoves our governing class to stick two fingers up at them. In the name of God man, go. Now. 

But there is worse. By the end of December and with barely a whimper of defiance our cricketers had lost to Australia. Pitiful. Ill-prepared, the nation's cricketing pride sacrificed at the altar of the Hundred - a competition invented for those who cannot even be arsed to sit through a full game of Twenty20 pub cricket. I don't give a shit about the commerciality of the 'product' - some things are too precious to be messed with and test cricket is one such. But what do I know.

My new year resolution? Not to be so grumpy. It's going to be difficult.

2021: 9 - 10

And now for a happy and highly surprising story. Emma Raducanu became the first qualifier in the open era to win a Grand Slam tennis singles title. She did so through three qualifying rounds and seven matches in the tournament proper. She did not lose a set in the process. Since this unreal triumph she has hardly won a set, much less a match. I hope she goes on to a stellar career but even should she not, she will shine as a reminder that even in today's pre-packaged professional sport, not all is predictable. The amazing can happen. Sport, bloody hell.

Also in September the European team got its arse handed to it by the United States in the ridiculously over-hyped Ryder Cup. Notwithstanding the impressive golf on display the lasting image of the tournament for me was Brooks Koepka and partner Daniel Berger trying their petulant best to intimidate a rules official. The official stood his ground. Good for him. 

October: MP of libertarian instincts and Catholic faith, Sir David Amess, was stabbed to death at his constituency surgery. Democracy dies in darkness.

2021: 7 - 8

We suffer from a lack of Faith? The capital F is deliberate, as is the question mark. Speaking for myself I find my own faith intellectually vexing but, at base, comforting. I wish that comfort on others but I know of people far more decent and happy than I who manage perfectly well without it.

I mention this because in July the NHS was awarded the George Cross - rather akin to the historical awards of that honour to the island of Malta and to the Royal Ulster Constabulary. All leave a rather icky feeling that the donor of the award is virtue-signalling. This may sound ungenerous but let me explain.

My first exposure to paid employment was as a student porter in the NHS. This was back in the good old, bad old, days before Thatcher had even become Prime Minister. The hospital was laughably over-staffed and was a hot-bed of job demarcation. Nonetheless there was an underlying feeling of comfort that the Service was there for all of us. In a (much) later business life I had to deal with the Service on a regular basis. Its administration was sclerotic and badly thought-out. But just as you reached the point of despair you would encounter someone who genuinely believed in the provision of services free at the point of delivery. To my shame I cannot remember his name but I negotiated a complex contract with a Procurement Officer at BEN NHS Trust. The two of us pushed it through, sometimes paying lip-service to the blocked but proper channels, more often making it up as we went along. I count it one of the handful of my best legal accomplishments.

All of which in a round-about way brings me to my point. The NHS is the closest thing we have to an established religion in modern Britain - and that state of affairs is to a large degree because so many of us lack any better faith. This veneration of the Health Service is not in fact good for us or for the Service itself. 

In August Panorama alleged that David Cameron had made (perfectly legally it would seem) £7 million for advising the bankrupt Greensill company. Now never mind that old shitbag Tiny Rowland, that really is the unacceptable face of capitalism and a good reason why it is so difficult to be an apologist for the modern Conservative Party - and God knows, I've tried.

2021:5 - 6

I am not averse to taking some vicarious glory when fellow King's alumni distinguish themselves. So for every Desmond Tutu I suppose I have to acknowledge that we have had our share of wrong-uns. In May 2021 Martin Bashir was (to no one's surprise) officially confirmed as one such. He had deceived that flawed but (to many minds, though not this one) saintly personage, Diana, Princess of Wales. I have often wondered about what sort of social death-wish I have incubated. My first serious ambition was to be a journalist and only after I had failed in that sphere did I decide instead to be a lawyer. No one likes us - we don't care. Is this not, in a small but important way, the best explanation of what it is like to be English?

As I trawl through last year for this thread, I am perhaps hoping to account for how, by year's end, I had become a different person. Changed, not massively, but changed nonetheless. I have become happily resigned to  the certainty that even minor eminence has eluded me - only as this desire has ebbed to nothing do I understand how it fed my insecurity for all those years. How silly. Do you think Bashir may have been the same? 

June. John Bercow joined the Labour Party. John, son, nobody gives a shit any more. You were a preening pillock as Speaker. May you grow to be as big an embarrassment to your fellow travellers as you were to your erstwhile Tory bedfellows. Your recession into the background of public consciousness has been a delight.

2021:2 - 4

I am an unqualified admirer of our armed forces and I am grateful for the service they render us even when it is in the theatre of unworthy and politically misguided conflicts. By that score I am preared to cut Prince Andrew some slack for being a boorish mediocrity. I am not willing to grant him any credit against any sexual misfeasance. But it is not the ninth in line to the throne who concerns me when I look back at February. No it is his similarly courageous nephew and sixth in line, Prince Harry.

By February this near incumbent of the seat of Defender of the Faith had absconded to America with his winsome bride. They issued a sick-making statement that they had not retired from public service but that 'We can all live a life of service'. This may, taken at its most literal (and thereby meaningless), be true but it is drivel when scripted for the mouths of two participants in the great reality television show that is California. Harry's great-great-uncle married an American divorcee. He surrendered his right to be King. It will take a remarkable and sad turn of events for Harry to have to reign but if he does he (or those who advise him) might consider the spiritual vacuity of his 'Christmas' card which wished his viewers 'Happy Holidays'. 

I know that this sounds like the whining of an old lady at the bus-stop, but, really, the Queen deserves better. 

After which whining let's turn to meatier matters in March. The Cheltenham Festival (that's horse-racing not its poor relation the Literary Festival) went ahead without me, indeed without any spectators due to the continuing Covid pandemic. I watched on television but, and I hate to say this, it was a relatively joyless affair. The procession of Irish winners, the dominance of the mega-stables, and the smaller fields are the main reasons why I fear for this most special of sporting events. The corporates and the lads in shiny suits have already taken some of the lustre off things. As it happens other commitments will mean I can't go this year either. Hopefully another absence will make this heart grow fonder.  

In April the Duke of Edinburgh died. There was a moving but somehow apt symbolism to pictures of the Queen sitting solitary at the Covid-regulated funeral ceremony. Her dignity served to remind those of us who, despite all logic, believe in a constitutional monarchy that what we really believe in is this Queen in all her absurd magnificence.   

Twelve Films At Christmas - 13, 14 & 15

I know that fifteen is more than twelve but we have been busy on the film front this festive season and I promise to stop the thread at fifteen.

First up comes The Wife, a smooth blend of melodrama and comedy with Glenn Close in commanding form as the sinned-against wife of the title. Able support from Jonathan Pryce and Christain Slater. There are laughs and the not-so-hidden surprise is unwrapped gently without affecting the rhythm of the movie. Nor does the film outstay its welcome, so often a fault in pieces that want us to take them seriously. In the hands of lesser players this might have been of only passing interest but Close in particular boosts it close to the rank of first-class product. 70/100.

This next film took me scurrying to the historical reviews to check that my reaction to it was not over the top. I am pleased to report that I found affirmation in the hands of no less an authority than Roger Ebert. I've let thirty-six hours pass since watching Wonder Boys and, all things considered, I still think it is a brilliant piece of cinema. It may even be the best film I have seen in the last month - please bear in mind that The Third Man is included in those films. Michael Douglas is excellent as the perma-stoned writer/professor around whom the film revolves; Frances McDormand is, as usual, telling in support; Tobey Maguire is a convincing and amusing weirdo; Robert Downey Jr. is superb as a disaster-prone literary agent. Can I give it more marks than I gave The Third Man? Probbaly not but it's close. 93/100.

We finish with what I found to be something of a damp squib. The 2011 adaptation of Jane Eyre seems to have attracted good reviews, most particularly for Michael Fassbender's portrayal of Mr. Rochester. I must admit I found him uncharismatic. Could just be me. Not by any means a bad film, just, for me, an uninvolving one. For something supposedly Gothic, I found it curiously anaemic. Sorry. Could be my inner philistine coming out again. 59/100. 

That's all for this Christmas. Happy New Year. May the road rise with you.