Down on the sea front,
seated on the narrow restaurants frontage which last winter had seen
high seas flooding onto where we sat, it couldn't have looked nicer. The
broad swath of firm sand was the scene of children scampering about in
their own world of sea and sand, of dogs, all breeds, shapes and sizes
fetching the stick their owners resolutely threw as if taking part in
some sort of ritual which for why neither the dog or the master knew.
Coffee
or tea sir, are you having a sausage with your bacon ? The sea side
usually brings the best out of people. There is that open aspect to the
sea that land across the water unseen. An adventure in the offing. The
boat out in the bay seems idyllic, cast off-shore sufficient to be
independent and yet close enough to engage, it offers the romance of
travel without a crowd.
The
houses clinging to the shoreline or perched, up out of harms way have
the glazed look of having seen it all before, nothing out of the
ordinary for them, the scene is their stock in trade, it keeps their
value up and the riff raff at bay.
The
air is fresh off the water, full of ozone and other goodies it drys the
skin and makes middle age seem old as the small group of ascetics take
daily plunge irrespective of water temperature, and remember we are mid
winter, is a routine never missed. "Isn't it cold I ask, no not a bit"
as he towels down to plod off down the beach and home for a lunch of
lettuce and the finest welsh water this side of the black rock.
Out
to sea the coast guard have launched following a practised save and
rescue routine and we see them heading back in calm tranquil seas. Never
ones to sing their own praises we don't come out when in 20 ft waves
with a force 8 blowing we are safe in our houses and they crashing to
rescue someone who should have known better.
All
around the lilt of the Welsh ascent greeting and sharing their
experiences. Not boastful, but mater of fact, not wishing to draw
attention but confident in their birth right.
Language is the
handmaiden of thought, it is the 'minds' only route out to communicate,
other than writing what thoughts have been formed and need to be
expressed.
Different nationalities each have their own language and in many ways the languages speaks volumes about the people who use it.
French
has always appeared to me as a language which propels the speaker into a
statement but midway through enunciating the statement there is always a
pause as if at the last moment the speaker wishes to have one final
look at what he is saying before committing himself. The pause is mid
sentence and then there's a rush to get the rest of the words out, it's
as if they have become superfluous to the point made at the juncture of
the pause.
Italian
is combative, its fiery and emotional a torrent of words to match the
Latin temperament, there seems to be an argument but it's no more than a
rhetorical flourish.
German
is definitive and efficient it has a job to do, each word is precise
only the specific gender test causes the beginner a problem.
English
is rich in double meaning it is a diplomats language useful when he
wants to disguise what he is really saying, subtle in its blend of
locality, weighty when in the hands of Shakespeare where a few words
ring out a deep and subtle truth, each word or phrase rings around
inside the head like the resonance of a bell.
I'm
in Dylan Thomas country again, Swansea and the house where he lived and
wrote in Laugharne, jutting out looking to the sea, a scene of
occasional wild external torment to match his inner raging. He was a man
of genius built on deep flaws, emotionally unstable, loving someone who
couldn't reciprocate, being loved by another to destruction but who he
would not acknowledge, he fell to the bottle to bolster the iniquity.
His
language has the clarity of someone who has been into everyone's head,
read all their secrets and as he staggers down the cobbled, pitch black,
bible black street he hears their gossip, their oaths, their revenge
plotted.
For
young people to be exposed to the poetic cadence, an unfurling story
about real people, living real lives and pitched to their young ears by a
master of delivery, Richard Burton. I would hasten a guess that it
would awaken in the young mind some sort of understanding about the
depths of language and it's communicative ability.
Munificence
is as close to it as I can get. A word, like so many which was lodged
in my mind at some stage down the years virtually unknown and yet it
came peeping out like a naughty child as I wrote the sentence. Not
through dint of trying but through dint of reading. Words are like
diamonds in the alluvial sediment waiting their turn to be plucked out
and used to define a thought which, if you remember is where we came in
!!
It's at times like
this,Christmas that we think of others, family and friends across the
sea who live a life so very different but in many ways so very similar.
In
November we look for Christmas cards. Charity ones, smaller ones for
overseas and possibly a more ostentatious one for people we hope to
impress. The writing of a sentence or two is soon discounted as the
scale of the task draws one to a mumble of Happy and I Hope as the pile
is slowly dealt with.
It's
funny looking back how different the scene and the circumstance but one
thing was paramount, our belief in the postal service to do its job and
land our card or letter on the correct doorstep. When one considers the
many hands that each piece of mail has to pass through on its journey
around the world it's an amazing service. We quibble and complain when
things are delayed or go astray often because we have not clearly
written an address or mis-copied a post code.
From
the moment you release your grip on the envelope and the sound of it
hitting the bottom of the post box the adventure begins but somehow,
like the way we used to sentimentally extend our connection with a
friend leaving on a ship by holding a long ribbon of material which
stretched from the person standing on the quay to the other on the ship
it maintained a connection like holding hands. The frisson as the letter
left your fingertips was palpable especially if the letter contained
some deep endearment.
From
the postman emptying the postbox to the local sorting table where it's
destination was sealed, out to a rain sodden ships berth and into the
security of the hold. Off loaded in blinding sunshine on the other side
of the world after a five week voyage the reverse procedure began, town,
superb, street and letter box for your precious letter with its even
more precious endearments to be read and hopefully enjoyed.
Being at the receiving end of a letter was equally exciting,depending on who it was from of course.
The
major cities across the globe had their Central Post Office. Often an
impressive building, an oasis from the heat and the bustle of the city
outside its doors. Travelling around the world the section that drew
your focus was Poste Restante (French for Post Remaining) where you
collected letters sent to you.
The
queue zigzagging across the marble floor led to a marble counter behind
which stood marble figures. Sorry I'm being unfair to those unhurried
staff who had a very responsible job to do and which seemed to cover a
vast array of quasi legal and administrative business. It was cool in
here, why fret, soon you would have the cherished letters in your hand
the words of endearment the words of hope and of the future together.
Mr
John Wood, off they would go to search under W. How many this time,
would there be any, it was a lottery. Sometimes there were stacks and
you backed away like Charlie in the Chocolate Factory, sated, unable to
decide which to open first. The special ones you kept, like a cast-a-way
hoarding water, each word each syllable to savour slowly as you tried
to digest there meaning !!
Other
times there were none and the world crumbled as you read the worst into
this absence of reading. Maybe tomorrow, there was always tomorrow and
with the optimism of youth you merged into the pedestrians outside who
oblivious of your dilemma soon delivered you into today and the
importance of the next few hours.
One of the difficulties
we encounter as we grow old is being content with the things we set
ourselves to do. At an earlier period in ones life the pace of life
dictated what you were doing, with most of your time taken up by work,
making leisure time a competitive period, trying to fit in the hobbies
the sports the girlfriends any number of things you felt important. The
energy and the urgency were the characteristics of enjoyment and one
fluttered about like a butterfly sampling this and that with little
comprehension as to the whole of ones life and how these events fitted,
if at all, into the greater patten of things.
As
you grow older and the time taken by work is released for you to spend
there is a surfeit of the stuff and one can be overwhelmed by an
opportunity which is almost impossible to fill.
If
you are lucky and can travel freely, there are thousands of places to
visit. You can join the queue and have explained the significance of
this or that monument. You can join a bus load of similar minded people
to spend a fortnight travelling across Europe or enjoy the chaotic
experience of India with its never ending bustle and the pitiable
experience of the unconcerned plight of millions within a system of
unimaginable disparity. For many an oasis is sufficient with the hotel
parameter the boarder you cross only twice, on arrival and on departure.
Irrespective of where you are in the world, the things you consider
home delights including the food and drink have been shipped in to
provide you with your Blackpool experience but with guaranteed sun.
There are campers and cyclists, hikers and climbers each today offering a
package, over the internet to suite anyone.
Having
cast the net one must also know that the final arbiter in whether the
expedition, event, day out is a success rests with you and here all the
planning in the world will fall short if you are not in the right frame
of mind. You see its that pesky "mind" again. A sharp word, a mistaken
assumption, a feeling that someone has put one over on you, the fine
print, even the ever so highly protected personal space which we
surround ourselves, the need to tune out every so often can all bring a
well intentioned Safari to a crumbling halt which no amount of sunrise
and sunset can repair.
I
have a solution. If as I believe, the nigger in the woodpile (I'm sure
that expression has been banned and the thought police in where ever
they are monitoring me will have plotted the co-ordinates as I write) is
the mind why don't we travel with the mind and only the mind.
If the baggage gets lost then its mental baggage which even Ryanair can't find a way to charge extra.
You
can settle down preferably in bed at night and go to any destination
you can think of, faster than the speed of light, and if part way there,
the thought is lost, at least the ticket is refundable. You can choose
the people you you want to meet and any assignation is kept very secret.
It
leaves the bank balance unaffected, in fact with a factious account you
can spent to your minds content and be more than generous !!
The landing is always smooth as you drift off to sleep, content in having wandered far and wide the smile tells it all.
Good night and sweet dreams.
How sad that we stop believing in Father Christmas and grow up believing in little at all.
Commercialism
has taken over and the mad scramble to buy presents as a way of
announcing to ourselves that we amount to something because we can, is a
sad reflection of what we have become. We value most things in how,
what we do, esteems our persona and adds a point or two to our overall
standing.
Watching
a TV program depicting the struggle young children were facing as they
fought cancer, the terrifying effect of the drugs they were given, the
crazed helplessness of the parents listening hopelessly to the latest
prognosis.
Just two worlds in this complex exposure we call life, so many twists and turns, so many back-ally's.
Christmas
is a time of reflection. Another year has flown, full of both good and
bad things, virtually all of them outside our ability to make any
difference other than to take stock and in beginning a new year,
understand that 'resolutions' will make little difference to the course
of events and if we get shaken by the rapids we will also enjoy the tranquillity of the deep slow moving stream as it carries us along.
Perhaps
we should be more in awe of the passing scenery and pay less attention
to our involvement. Perhaps we are but flotsam in the gigantic river of
time as the universe evolves in a way we have no hand in other than to
make puny observations.
The
intimacy we afford ourselves in all things observable brings us to the
conclusion that we count for more than we are worth and that everything
revolves around us.
What
if we formed a view that we were no more special than the twig in the
water buffeted this way and that by the currents, no more in charge of
events, no special relevance, no prophetic insight.
That
the creation of a special place within the events as they unfurl is
based on 'chance' and that the forces around us which control the
universal destiny is equally based of a mathematical slight of hand as
if, through the equations, we have a hope in hell of making what we call
sense of it all.
It's the season of good will or at least it is supposed to be !
The question I want to pose is. Is a society made up of individuals or is it a collective term to describe everyone.
When
having posed that question one has to ask, is it right to punish
particular sections of society with laws which dictate for instance :-
"That people out of work are scrounges".
The
demonisation of societies 'underbelly' has been going on for years and
as with any oft repeated slogan, it has been accepted by most people as
fact !!
In a market economy the fittest survive and the rest are thrust mentally out of sight.
The
argument that society can not afford to carry the weak is a mantra
which Milton Friedman and his oft quoted belief that "the only purpose
of a company is to make money for its shareholders" would subscribe to.
There are some of you reading this blog who would agree and argue that
it's not the business of business to concern its self with the society
at large, their job is to maximise the return to shareholders.
Of
course if we were marauding wild dogs this might be the case (although I
seem to remember the wild dog packs protected all members of their pack
recognising that their strength lay in the protection of their own) but
we have been blessed with the mentality to construct a way of
surviving, not by laying waste to others but in husbanding not only the
talents of society but concerning ourselves with the weak and the frail.
Listening
to a young, recently graduated university economists base his economic
argument on mathematical certitude that the successful are valued and
the unsuccessful are a drain on resources, makes the statement
blindingly obvious but crass in its simplicity. Of course there are
scrounges unwilling to find work and pay their way just like there are
accountants who spend their time discovering new ways for their rich
clients to avoid paying their tax !! Is one more guilty than the other
?
I
was astounded to learn that whilst we often think of"benefit payments",
much like we used to think of the dole, a payment to the out of work or
the disabled . By far the bulk of 'benefits' are paid to people 'in
work'. In this case the taxpayer simply adds a "benefit payment" to prop
up the minimum wage. A ever increasing section of society on minimum
wages ( wages the employer deem they can just afford and still make a
profit ) have to receive extra money from the state (taxpayer)in an
attempt to ensure they receive a "liveable wage".
And
so, often unrecognised the ordinary man in the street has become a
capitalist he contributes to the success of many small /medium to large
firms in their drive to cut costs but he will hold his breath a long
time if he expects a dividend !!
There are a number of
program's that are put out on Radio 4 which highlight the quality of the
BBC. Listening to a new App, Tunein Radio which displays the
remarkable opportunity offered by the Internet to tune in around the
world and listen to stations broadcasting from all corners of the
world."
I
remember when" I would sit with my Nordmende Globetrotter radio tuning
across the dial trying to find something of interest. The sound of the
BBCs signature tune from their World Service Station was cathartic. It
lent a connection to a civilised spot on the g.lobe, a BBC studio with a
clear well enunciated presenter reading the news. I could picture the
wet streets and the red buses the bustle of shoppers the relatively
dignified business of conducting the transactional aspect of every day
life. A far cry from Bombay or the mosquito laden air of Papua.
It
triggered the same nostalgia as when I sat in the Reference Library in
Cape Town and heard the rain falling in the street outside and was moved
close to tears as I was transmuted to the Library in Bradford and
imagined walking out to catch the bus home.
The
radio connects us, through the ether to a society very different from
the one we know. Chinese music, African music the babble of the
discussion program's centred on Alice Springs the heated politics of
South America all now at the touch of a key but then sort through
laborious tuning and re-tuning, in and out of signal strength,
negotiating the surrounding static like a small boat finding safety in a
harbour out of the storm. One could nearly smell the tropics of the
Congo or sense the controlled ideologically contrived output of Mao's
China. The isolation of the Aussie in the Outback or the vibrancy and
the torrent of words hurled at the microphone in Columbia. The world
flowed through the speaker and kept one from becoming parochial.
I
remember I was living in Amsterdam when the American Navy were standing
off the Cuban Coast thwarting the might of Russia as Kennedy stared,
eyeball to eyeball with Nikita Khrushchev and we all trembled at the
consequence. The people sharing my run-down lodgings were from all over
the world and we waited our turn to tune in to the station we knew and
the language we understood to listen as events played themselves out.
In
some ways the static and the tricky signal were part of the experience,
they added to the mystique and made the distance seem palpable. The
world became richer, more defined as, with language and song, national
identity was crystallised and day and night became of little consequence
as we roamed the airwaves from our spot somewhere on the same globe. We
were joined, for a moment or two, the broadcaster projecting his
culture the listener absorbing, building his knowledge, learning first
hand that whilst different, we had much in common.
Perspective. How do we
put into perspective the horrendous story emerging out of Pakistan this
morning. 140 people murdered by the Taliban, 130 of them children in an
attack on a school in Peshawar.
How do we analyse this story, what
sort of people enter a school to savagely mow down the children, how do
we understand an outburst of revenge by the men who strapped explosives
onto themselves and shot the kids indiscriminately.
This
attack is in response to the brutality of the Pakistani Army over the
proceeding months against villages in the area where the Taliban were
operating. Brutality, whereby the Army would wipe out a whole village,
men, women and children, a violent example of undiluted power where
there is no sense of, even limited moral perspective.
Man,
from Genghis Khan through to Stalin and Hitler have perpetrated
massacre on an industrial scale. Today we report on anything and
everything but in those years, it took 'defeat' for the story to come
out for the general public to read about, in fact, in the Russian case
the leaders of the West sat on stories coming out of Russia because
Russia was an ally !
This
doesn't make the horror we should feel any the less but listening to
the Aussies building their own limited death toll into a national
disaster one has to say, get a grip !
We
do it here, we raise the gate of grief (some of it manufactured) like a
tidal water barrier to wash away our immediate concerns and focus on
the tragedy of others to obscure the actual causes of general
discontent.
Death
in some countries is a handshake away, death is something they expect
throughout their lives. Infant mortality in places like The Sudan, death
by violence in the suburbs of Bogotá, suicide bombings in Iraq.
It's
all in the general grist of life and death which we, living a cosy
secure existence can have no comprehension and yet we write and read
about it as if we knew or even partially understood what life is really
like for the vast majority of human beings on this planet.
Martin Place has become
the focus of worldwide attention through the siege of the cafe and the
tragic killing of two hostages by a Muslim man who carried deep
bitterness towards the Australian authorities particularly the armed
forces. Recent Australian engagement in Iraq seems to have been a
tipping point in his internal rage spilling out in taking over the cafe
and holding the patrons hostage. It is of course a chilling reminder of
the power of religious brotherhood where what would normally be simply a
cause of discontent about foreign policy becomes "personal" because of
the linking and bondage gained through the boarder free, nationality
blind over arching relationship which a shared faith can, in extreme
cases bring.
The
name Martin Place brought back memories of the early 60s when I
remember the place as an outpost of Colonial architecture, an outpost I
had seen all over the world, a remnant of Empire.
London,
Cape Town, Bombay, Singapore, Hong Kong, Sydney, Auckland, all had this
signature of past glory, buildings of a style and a construction meant
to last. Whilst the Empire crumbled the buildings remain a memorial to a
period much, like the remnants of the Roman Empire, to remind us of a
period when man's vision was of a different set of values, one of them,
the permanence of the buildings to house the administration of
government from a distant island. They reflected the strength and the
assumed perpetuity of their guidance in the quality and the strength of
these buildings.
Another
feature of Empire and Colonialism was the symbolic dockside cranes
standing like awkward pelicans, beckons awaiting the arrival of the next
ship. They were built to a set design and standard even down to the
grey paint and constructed in a factory in Birkenhead or somewhere on
the Clyde. Powered by reliable Compton Parkinson electric motors they
lined the London docks much as they did across the world, a symbol of
mechanised continuity.
We
have travelled a long road since those days and it's been largely a
sorry story of ineptitude and would have made our leaders and our
industrialists of yesteryear wince !
How do we reconcile the
events in our lives, the successes and the missed opportunities. Still
more, how do we reconcile the opportunity of what we could have been and
what we actually achieved in our mental appreciation of all we have
seen and yet not seen, soon enough !
Given
we are all born equal, take a chromosome here or there and the heavy
influence that environment plays, throw in some national temperament and
gender issues, then born the same has a somewhat hollow ring. But
having accepted all that, did we in any way get close to reaching our
potential, a potential seen through yet another prism !
To
question, what if I had done this or that, can lead to a great deal of
disillusionment since the question is loaded with the contra option, I
did something else, something which one is able to judge and analyse
unlike the "what if" scenario.
One never knows the outcome of any
action and even the actions that led you to be where you are today were
taken at the time with ones best interests at heart, it was what you
wanted to do at the time.
So is reflection bad and should we count our blessings and terminate the debate. I think not.
Rather
it should be a continuous debate, one we carry with us throughout our
lives since if we are to evolve and hopefully better ourselves then we
have to practice some sort of ongoing modification, based on self
analysis.
We
mustn't shirk from hard truths since our strength lies in understanding
how we became what we became and having acknowledged the journey we
should celebrate the diversity.
The
diversity of all our journeys, of all our complications, of all the
outcomes, since there are so many rich pickings to mull over in our
dotage.
It has always seemed to
me a problem with democracy that the 'peoples representatives' are
chosen from individuals who feel themselves apart, superior to the
ordinary man or women and see themselves best able to dictate their own
needs through the medium of politics.
The
ability to thrust oneself forward into the limelight and once there,
keep oneself in the limelight by what ever means comes to hand are part
of the tools of the trade.
Inflated egos are normally not what
people find attractive in friends or colleagues but somehow we seem to
accept it in the political class.
Feeding
this aura we create a monster someone who believes their own hype and
brooks no opposition. The inflated sense that I am right and everyone
else is wrong is bad enough when supported by ones own opinion but if
this opinion is artificially bolstered by an electorate. An electorate
who listen and believe the rhetoric to the exclusion of their own common
sense, simply because the rhetoric deals them a dream like the advert
for the Lottery, then the mix is toxic.
The
politician or the councillor, having been elected have an epiphany,
their ideas re entrenched by the support they have had at the election
so that any opposition to them becomes heresy. This unconditional
"electoral support" is overpowering, and prone to megalomania.
"Other
people" are discounted and one sees the fear in people who's job could
be at risk if they were to get on the wrong side of elected official.
It
has been my observation that they are often rude and dismissive, often
dictatorial and feared. They have an overblown relationship in the
forming of 'policy' but also crucially in commissioning the policy
which should be the realm of the employed council official.
Once
again faced with the maxim, "power corrupts, absolute power corrupts
absolutely", one can only feel sad that power in the wrong hands
destroys much of what it comes into contact with and is damaging since
it destroys the potential for creativity, replacing innovation with fear for stepping out of line.
A panacea for all ills. Is a good description of religious belief.
Are
the more ground based solutions just too difficult. Do the twists and
turns of the human mind with its sense of individual survival, which by
definition substantially excludes others, expressly exclude what we feel
right.
Without
suppressive drugs, be they of the chemical kind or the artificial
thrill of sustained spending, can mankind find happiness
Happiness
a difficult concept. One man's happiness is another man's sorrow and
yet we proclaim it universal, something recognisable to all, something
definable and therefore attainable, just follow the instructions.
Those
bloody instructions written, as are all instructions,by person who,
from 'their perspective' have a clear idea of where they have been and
wish to pass on to us the directions.
Any
journey must have an 'objective' even if the objective is only to have
tried ! But what if the objective is not where you want to be. What if
all the self help books are moving us all in the wrong direction, a
direction of self gratification, of self indulgence, what if we were to
go in a different direction and try simply to empty ourselves of this
obsession with self, empty ourselves of our overwhelming engagement with
possessions as a means to an end.
I
was driving down the motorway into London this morning, the traffic at a
standstill, I gazed across the landscape made bleak by Winter, a
landscape which expressed nature in the raw, a scene repeated each year
at this time. And as I looked out from my warm comfortable car, from my
artificial environment onto fields and hedgerows each a habitat for some
creature trying to survive the cold, I thought maybe this year maybe
who knows when, I won't be passing and reflecting on this scene, I will
be gone but the scene will remain much as it is. My materiality,my self
absorption will count for nothing.
If
the world is made up of things that can not be identified until seen,at
which point they become something else (quantum theory) doesn't the
unfathomable make a mockery of our unending questioning of our lives and
the practices therein.
Is being Gay a more
natural position to take if the 'contest' between the sexes is becoming
so focused and potentially disruptive, destroying the inherent potential
for good within the individual.
Taking out the issue of procreation
and the sexual urges typical between men and women (but no less
apparent between people of the same sex it appears) can it be argued
that ones own sex male or female, has the attraction of 'sharing'
through gender common ground.
The commonality, the shared agenda of
women and men seems to be based within their gender and although there
is plenty of cross-over one often is reminded of the term "a fish out of
water" when one sees the girlfriend attending a rugby match on a cold
day, or the man lining up with his partner at a day in the shops.
These differences blur into everything we share with our partners and to
a greater or lesser degree we hide our frustration at having to attend,
or subjugate our wish to be somewhere else.
All
this would be swept aside if we were Gay. The hormones and the gender
statistics would be a thing of the past as we grew accustomed to being
with like minded people.
Of
course it's not so simple s The Gay couple seem to suffer the same
sorts of interpersonal conflicts that Straight couples do.
The
jealousies and misunderstandings deliver the same anguish and seem to
override the assumed conviviality of sharing so much from an emotional
environment, which has much more in common than being of the opposite
sex.
The
reason there is still tension between people, irrespective of their sex
is that even though the common interests and beliefs predominate we
elevate the things which still concern us and begin to focus, to the
exclusion of much else, what we think we have discovered.
Like the
wart on the face, you cannot take your eye off it, it subsumes every
effort to concentrate on the person as a whole and we mess up !!
Perhaps we need the yin
and the yang, perhaps we need a door to push against, perhaps its
unhealthy to have so little opposition.
One
of the injuries which constant conflict can bring is the assumption
that disagreement is normal and harmony unusual. In such a situation the
mind has a natural inclination to protect its self. To search out
sanity through isolation, to limit noise, to minimise confrontation.
This can be attained by separating oneself from most of the external
conflict then, one is only left with the internal conflict, normal with
any human being.
Remember
though that word 'harmony', harmony which evokes a connection with
something or someone, a connection that somehow links the mind with that
part of what is happening outside the mind, the outside world which
with all its warts is all we have to provide us with some sort of
reality to our self absorbed persona.
Holding
on to rational, reflective thought is difficult since the enormity of
the silence we feel when not in communication makes us fear our own
fragility. Silence can be just as oppressive as the noise of conflict
but at least conflict is human it arises in many forms throughout our
lives and we learn to deal with it but silence is alien unless born
deaf.
The weight of silence is oppressive when compared to its
antithesis.
I
don't mean surrounding yourself with artificiality such as music I mean
'human discourse, which has the expectancy of being meaningful in the
way you try to explain the confusion which might bother you, or the
happiness of finding a solution.
This
is where religion has an important place to bolster and support. The
conjecture that God is listening. But of course it takes a special kind
of person to believe in God and many people are not given the
'sustenance' of belief.
And
so we are left alone to contemplate what we have become and what the
future holds, just at the time when our bodies slowly begin to remind us
of our impermanence, and begin to let us down.
Yet another issue to consider, in silence !
What
is Justice? Is it a philosophical concept that gets squashed in the
human mastication of self interest and duplicity. How often we have been
amazed at the Byzantine rules that inflict decisions by the courts
based on technicalities that would make a blind man weep.
The
South African Court has just handed a decision freeing the British
Indian man who's wife was murdered in one of the shanty towns on the
Cape Flats.
From
the newspaper reports and the confessions of the taxi driver and the
man who killed her, both convicted, the husband was guilty of organising
her death. In the UK he feigned mental illness and tried to avoid being
extradited to SA for the trial.
Surely it was an open and shut case ?
Where
did it go wrong as the Judge set him free, having decided the
prosecutions case was full of holes. Was it a lack of proper forensic
evidence, of inadequate or inconclusive piecing together of the known
facts to present an believable trail of events. With the driver and the
killer in jail convicted of the act of killing, one would be hard
pressed to believe that either of the convicted men had had the gall to
try and rope the husband in if he wasn't in some way guilty of some sort
of collusion. The husband had a secret, that he was 'gay' and it was
thought that his infidelity was the reason for the marriage to be under
pressure.
An
open and shut case but due to the intricacies of law, common sense had
to be tested and even though a man is guilty he can be released on
technical details which are asinine to all but the legal mind.
The
Judge seems to have called an end to the trial because she thought the
prosecution witnesses where unreliable and that what they had to say was
filled with inconsistencies. But given the limited number of witnesses,
three, the driver, the murderer and the husband why wasn't the third
witness at least forced to testify. A court is supposed to test the
reliability of all the participants including the Police and any experts
called to collaborate technical details. To close the case in such a
high handed way is difficult to explain. In the movies, "someone got
to her" !!!
The
Judge I felt didn't convey the gravitas one expects and stumbled
through her written findings, making mistakes and having to correct what
she had said (perhaps the weight of her decision was already weighing
heavily on her shoulders). She made the Judge in the Pistorius case,
who at the time I criticised for seeming to be timid and not in control,
she made her seem measured and composed.
Where do they find these JPs in sunny South Africa or, is it a measure of standards across the board ?
Parliament can be so
disappointing. It is theatre yes but it is Jane Austen theatre with its
emphasis on formalised language, and whilst attractive in Miss Austen's
hands it is completely inappropriate when dealing with the bread and
butter issues such as investment in the East Anglian Rail Line.
The
debate, to a virtually empty house, (remarkably no one appeared on the
opposition benches), after an impassioned speech from the member for
Saffron Walden it seemed to me little more an exercise in flummery from
the Minister.
I
suppose its one of the disadvantages of the Parliamentary system that
Parliamentarians are not actually close enough nor "directly
responsible" to the specific interests of their constituents, and the
Civil Servants are even more remote.
The whole structure of government leads to the MPs participation lacking a sense of actual responsibility.
In
"Business" one holds responsibility directly and ones continued
employment is effected by how well we perform. The MP, not having a
job description, his performance is not actually linked to the success
of the issues he is chasing on behalf of his constituents.
In
a previous blog, I discuss the Governments attempt to water down the
ability of an MPs constituency party to recall a non performing MP.
In the democratic system, there is a gap between the things which the
voter needs to have done and the actual day to day activities of the
parliamentary representative.
The
scope and effectiveness of an MP is not in keeping with leisurely
debate in an antiquated chamber which harks back to distant era. In this
modern world, generalisations suitable only in the non liturgical world
are useless when the action requires a brief to deal in the particular.
Once having collected sufficient opinion we should expect the
Government representative,the Minister to deal properly with what ever
matter is raised. Too often, one sees the Front Bench engaged in other
administrative work as the debate is unfolding. Not appearing to
listen, they rise to verbally demolish the case which apparently they
hadn't bothered to listen to.
It
seems the lowest sort of patronisation. It also seems to me that we
should elevate the reports handed down by the cross party Parliamentary
Committee, reports which involve the interrogation of the main players
who appear in front of the committee. Unfortunately their reports, often
only paid lip service and are often dismissed by Government who have
their own agenda.
It's
this question of agenda, often clothed in ideology, which contorts the
effectiveness of Parliament. A parliament which is, first and foremost
there to represent the populous at large.
It's hard to know what's the better, going out or staying in ?
There
was a time when there was no question, we had to be out investigating
the runners and riders. Often it was a fruitless search trying to find
some sort of stimulation, some relief from the mundane but staying in
was never on the agenda since we always felt we were missing something,
that indefinable something which like the pot of gold is never
discovered.
Out
we would go defying the weather to tramp the streets, a visit to the
local or, on a Friday a trip to the Mecca and a night of dancing. It was
all based on the expectancy of meeting someone who would be
significantly special for you to spend a bob or two and take her to the
pictures. Or very special and you would pull out the stops and take them
to a restaurant but, so much was riding on the last bus home or a wet
thoughtful walk home.
Today
with so many years experience and often disappointment it's easy to see
why staying indoors has its attraction. Not only do you stay dry, not
only do you keep the cash in your pocket but above all you avoid the
disappointment.
The
opportunistic person will take the chance of a convivial night out with
strangers, they will continue to keep in the game like a Lottery player
ignoring the odds and chancing to luck just one more time.
Of
course the home bird would increase his chances of a satisfactory
evening simply by playing red eleven, statistically proven to come up
more than any other he plays it safe by gathering the familiar around
him and risking nothing more than an early night in bed with his
favourite book. Boring I hear you cry but if you have accepted that life
has its moments, old age is not one of them and invisibility, whilst
attractive to the sniper is crushing to a sensitive soul.
I
hear the sound of a jet plane overhead "fasten your safety belts we are
about to take off", a portent of adventure and discovery but also a
portent of isolation and bewilderment. The trip to who knows where
carries the same bag of bones from here to there, at least here you have
the doctors telephone number.
As
you board the Cruse Ship for a three week trip to sunnier climes
perhaps that's enough. Perhaps a change of climate is all one needs, to
revel in the warmth to throw off the gloom and revisit the half full
glass of optimism that we all need.
But
genuinely, there can be few more satisfying places to be than in your
own home, with an iPad writing a blog to an expectant audience !!! :)
We are all creatures of our own generation.
Understandably
we learnt our way at the knee of our mother and the environment our
parents occupied. They in their part were brought up in a different era
and learnt from that experience, passing to us the lessons learned in a
world far different from ours.
There
was a greater sense of continuity between the generations in those
days. Much of the skill and experience was transferable, tradition had
remained in tact and individual histories were valued. The communication
was face to face with parents and children prepared to play their role
as, in time immemorial fashion, the older generation had the last say.
Change
was something that ordinary people could cope with since there was a
continuity between old and new and, as with a faulty washing machine
which you repaired it rather than throwing it out, it was valued, there
was almost a sentimental affinity, it had a place and should be given a
second chance. The instincts were of preservation and respect of
continuity.
The
speed of change has destroyed much of that, driven by market forces we
have become a throw away society, an instinct artificially fostered by
the need for growth in spending.
The
Japanese economy is in the doldrums because the individual Japanese
person, shaped by its semi feudal society, insulated from the American
model of consumerism, preferring to save rather than spend, their
economy has plateaued but even with an enormous balance of payment
surplus (normally a respected economic position), it is lampooned by the
Market for not having sufficient domestic growth. In the England I grew
up in we also placed a high value on saving for a rainy day and people
would find respect amongst their peers in resisting falling into debt.
How far we have travelled from that position with an economy mired in debt,(our personal debt).
We,
the collective "we" are in deep trouble. The hypothesise that debt is
good and can be spread like so much manure was blown in the 2007 banking
crash. The instinct that you didn't want to be left holding the baby,
brought a freeze to the banking system when the confidence of each bank
to another bank was questioned and the first of the American big banks
went to the wall in default. Trillions of dollars of taxpayers money has
been hurled at the system to immunise the banks but the disease is
still with us in untold overpriced assets held on their books.
It's
now a sort of Ponzi scheme where, so long as no one blinks,
(particularly the Chinese with their holding of American dollars), the
system creaks on. Heaven help us when the interest rates are forced to
rise and the banks are saddled with "interest" on their bad debts.
Value
is measured only in monetary terms not the philosophical term it used
to have when it also encompassed the human condition.
The
inequality gap grows ever wider as the need for a global identity
steamrollers us all into one size fits all, and the cost (not the value)
of labour across the globe is arbitraged.
Why would we want it any
different and doesn't it acknowledge the fact that markets work ? I'm
talking about the phenomena that in Britain we have a slowly recovering
economy based largely on ultra low interest rates and a bagful of tax
payer money pump priming the banks, not only getting them off the hook
of their bad practice, but to theoretically lend the business.
The
politicians proudly declare that unemployment is coming down and is now
the lowest in a decade. The problem is that pay, for the majority has
flat-lined or decreased since the banking crash of 2007 and the real
value of the pay packet today is 7 percent lower in value than 2007.
Through the diminution of labour rights and the demonising of the
position of Unions in their role of collective bargaining, there is
little the ordinary worker can do except look yearningly at the boss the
his golden handshake contract, ensuring double digit salary increases
and a bonus if he does his job properly
I
know there are some of you feel this moan is purely based on envy and I
should enthuse that the movers and shakers are happy in their
penthouses so they won't leave us to go off elsewhere for greater
gratification but it's not so. Humanity can only work harmoniously if
there is a feeling of fairness. Take away the sense of belonging to a
society and discontent leads eventually to trouble.
The
squeeze on living standards, already depressed by shortages, lack of
affordable housing overcrowded schools and a health service having to
peel away the services it used to offer is further effected by the rise
in prices which not accompanied by an increase in earnings means one
simply has to do without.
The
economic scenario much loved by the mighty Goldman Sachs sitting in their
global deal making boardroom has come true. The unit cost although
irritatingly higher than the Chinese model is coming down and in some areas of business where interns are persuaded to work for nothing, just
to sit close to god and, hopefully some day be taken on as an employee
then the unit cost is nil. Over the last decade since the crisis within
the finance industry many structures to protect the workers rights have
been demolished and the employer now has a flexibility un-dreamt of
since the end of the war (a war, defeating Fascism to secure their
rights of democratic involvement) to fit his business plan with
virtually no thought to the security of his workforce. Productivity is
now the crucial term in deciding the yard stick to measure the workforce
by. In many countries this goes hand in hand with an investment in
labour enhancing devices so that productivity is a partnership between
labour, up to date equipment and the investment needed to ensure it can
happen.
Of
course in this country investment is a dirty word. If they had invested
in affordable housing we wouldn't have a housing shortage if we had
invested in machinery we would still have an industrial base, if we had
invested in education we wouldn't have had such an illiterate workforce.
It all comes down to money you either invest profits in the future or
you salt them away in your private bank in the Bahamas. The insulated,
privileged, public school educated boards of directors across the land
were ill equipped to be sufficiently visionary as their German and
Scandinavian cousins were and we are as we are because of it.
The
commonly heard and off repeated claim that it was all down to the
Unions and a poor work force is held glaringly unworthy when we see the
success of Nissan in Sunderland, one of the most efficient work
environments in the West, manned by the self same union members (bloody
minded northerners no less) but treated properly and trained properly
they hold their productive own with anyone.
Their
only danger is, once again from the Etonian ranks as members of the
backbench Conservative party via with each other to "he haw" the loudest
in their desire to exit the EU.
It's
a terrible dilemma for them to be told by Johnny Foreigner what they
should do or not do in this British plaything of theirs. Their ancestors
conquered or stole it and now someone wants to tell them how to run it.
"I say Jeeves pour me a scotch".
Throughout one’s life, windows open and close. Sometimes
they don't close fully and remain tantalisingly apparent, a stillborn
opportunity to re-examine, perhaps in the future.
Dancing was always something I enjoyed when I was young. In those days we never
considered lessons, there was always someone to take you onto the floor and
slowly we got the hang of it. Perhaps it marks the amateurish way
we approached everything in those days, we learnt by doing,
Today there is much more emphasis on being taught. You don't any more just buy
a coil of rope and some gadgets to help secure you to the rock face having read
in a book what the greats used to do. You don't set off, with no tutoring,
into the Lake District up the rock face as best you could learning all the way.
Today, everything is tutored from the first step. There is of course a great
deal of common sense in this approach but it seems to me to take away much of
the spontaneity.
Anyway dancing was something I thought I could do and even thought I was good
at. Perhaps again it’s a case of how memory plays tricks on us.
I had been in the pub on Saturday night after the rugby. The place had gone
quiet as the afternoon drinkers went home and the evening crowd were still to
arrive. The young woman behind the bar is a really nice person and a good
conversationalist. We started talking about dancing since I knew she taught
dance and had a particular interest the Argentinian Samba. "We are giving
dance lessons at the Rhodes centre on Monday night why don't you come"?
So there I was last night lining up in the beginners class being taught the
jive.
What can they teach me about the jive! I've
rock n rolled down the years through many a happy hour.
Well almost immediately my world came crashing down as the moves I knew,
or thought I knew were broken down into segments. The left foot and the right
arm were asked to be in places which seemed to me to be unnatural and
unproductive.
I have often said I suffer from dyslexia. When I approach a tee junction in a
car and the passenger says go right I instinctively want to turn left and have
to reconcile what my brain wants to do and what I am being told to do.
And so,it was on the dance floor, I was making a right Muppet of myself as the
feet and the legs wanted to go the wrong way. Talk about two left feet, I
couldn't decide if I had a left foot !!
My confusion pronounced on my gift for dancing, I couldn't do it, I need to be
spontaneous, the memory would see me through but I was in the grip of
conformity, "build the basic moves and then you can experiment"
whilst I had taught myself to experiment to gain the moves !!
Music is a great motivator. The first bars of a tune can set the toes tapping
and the urge to get up and dance in infectious. Unfortunately the music they
played was, to my ears, mass produced which didn't stimulate me one little bit.
So there I was feeling like a fish out of water having one of my dreams
trashed. The young women who had suggested I try it was busy involved in
running the sessions so I sat there like the proverbial wall flower wondering
what had induced me to come.
Eventually I did have one dance with her and was able to free up and improvise
a bit, earning the compliment that I had good rhythm, the basis for
any sort of dancing. A crumb of sorts to heal my bruised ego.
I keep on forgetting I'm 74. A sedentary
74, who keeps chastising himself for not exercising at all but not doing
anything about it. The
moment of truth comes when in full flow the chest tightens and the muscles
refuse to perform. It's now a case of ‘how long to the end of the dance’,
in the past you wanted to go on for ever !!
Lastly to really bring everything up to date and into perspective I've started
to lose my balance.
In my jive days I would make the up moves on the hop, this taught one to
improvise along the lines that you had seen the professionals do, a spin,
a change of emphasise or direction melded by the beat and the expressiveness
you read into the music. It all relied on the dexterity of ones feet and above
all, balance.
You had to have the confidence of a high wire exponent to pull off the moves
but when the wind goes, along with the balance, perhaps it's time to bow out.
The evening was not altogether without its highlight. Watching the young
women from the pub dancing the tango was superb.
The dance from the hot blooded South Americas is a piece of theatre between a
man and a woman. Sultry is the best description. An acknowledgement of the
immemorial display between man and
woman, between the yin and yang, between seduction and potency. The man is the
rock around which the woman works her wiles.
From the moment they lightly embrace their bodies, each fitting the other in an
embrace, the dance is a slow exposition of coltish suspended passion which the
women weaves around him as she places her leg first this way and then that
against his partially extended leg.
The slow, subterfuge unfurls, giving and withholding, temping yet denying,
gently kicking aside the foot then stepping over the leg to stop, with a
seductive lifting of the lower leg, the knee bending, the kick but, in the
feline interplay not to go far, brought back yet again to the outstretched
leg of the male, another step over and another kick as if to say, I'm free I'm
still free.
It was fascinating and highly charged. One could guess, that, back home in Argentina after this display;
they would have no problem with their birth rate!!
What do we make of someone who withdraws from society and becomes a hermit.
The
radio had tracked down a Priest who had committed himself to living
completely alone in a remote part of Wales. His motivation is to become
close to God and I suppose in a way it is like committing ones self to a
monastic life which, although they are in a brotherhood they are
confined to silence which sharpens their commitment.
Going
solitary is therapeutic in some ways since it removes the clutter of
integration and one can focus wholly on the tasks you have set yourself.
The mind is made even more powerful when one secludes it from
distraction of what ever kind.
The
Indian Hindu ascetic is revered for his single mindedness and his
ability to hone down his life to an extremely simple set of
requirements. His bodily needs are minimised to such an extent that his
condition becomes self serving in that he turns inward for nearly all
sustenance. His mind is so focused that he can moderate and do without
much of what we would call life sustaining things, like an animal going
into hibernation, he slows down the body mechanism, his breathing and
food intake. Unless it is done for penitence (some sort of atonement) it
serves the purpose of bringing "the moment" into total focus. His life
is suspended and in the moment of suspension he sees more clearly what
his life is for.
Sadly the nearest I can get to it all is to turn the telly off !
As you can guess I love
to hear well enunciated argument and, by chance I had tuned into the
Parliamentary Channel and had the opportunity to hear Zac Goldsmith the
young Conservative MP call his fellow members of parliament, on both
sides of the House, scoundrels.
Of
course he used parliamentary language but the aim was clear, he held
the members of the House, with a few exceptions in such a poor light
that he was scathing in his criticism.
The Bill which was being discussed was the opportunity to recall a member of parliament by the members constituents.
MPs,
having been elected are beyond the law in many respects (whilst in the
House) and, in so far as their day to day responsibilities, retain their
position as the parliamentary representative of their specific
electorate, irrespective of how they do the job. With all the
shenanigans by MPs over the last few years, including fiddling their
expenses, dishonest submission of their financial position and
disregarding their responsibilities in the work of being an MP,
Parliament is being asked to offer the public the opportunity to
question their MP and if found at fault to ask the MP to stand down.
The
Government have sought to water down the initial weight of the penalty
and to take away from the public the right to demand his or her
suspension but rather place the decision, as to whether an MP had failed
to maintain a specific standard, back with his fellow MPs. (One of the difficulties here is that there is no job description for an MP)This
is clearly much the same as we see in many professional bodies where
the professional is tried and tested by his own and is open therefore to
special pleading by his peers.
Most
of you will think, so what, especially if you live overseas yet I was
captivated by the measured display, particularly by Zac Goldsmith, and
the slow evolution of the conditions we place on Parliament,a place
which is supposed to be a gathering (along with a court of law) of the
highest in the land.
Parliament has been found to repeatedly fail
its citizens and the recall proposal is one brick in the wall to shore
up the important foundation of democracy.
Language and the clarity of the presentment of a view I find fascinating.
Having
sat in the public gallery of the Old Bailey listening to the Appeal
Court judges question and often deride barristers as the barristers
appeal a legal argument. it is great verbal theatre. The twisting and
turning the rephrasing and the use or misuse of context. One can
virtually hear the razor sharp minds at play.
Debate
as Plato and Socrates would have us believe is one of the finest tools
in our civilised armour. It clarifies and illuminates everything of
importance and acts as an antidote to the force to arms, no bad thing I
would say.
How can a child of 12 be
shot dead whilst playing in a children's playground by armed police.
It's almost impossible to imagine happening in the Western World with
its proclaimed pride in the rule of law and it's built in constraint on
the powers of the law enforcement establishment.
The Americans are
all over the place in their domestic affairs. A young black man was shot
two months ago in a place called Ferguson by police. The shooting
caused heavy rioting in the streets and any censorship of the police was
passed inexplicably to something called the 'Grand Jury'.
The
call to a Grand Jury to determine whether a person can be brought to
trial is only practised in America. It has the advantage of widening the
deliberation on whether a crime has been committed to a jury of
citizens who's interest and knowledge is pertinent to the crime. Of
course therein lies the problem since in racial crimes, and many are,
the jury reflect the demographic of the area.
The demographics of
Ferguson are predominantly white and it was predicted that ruling would
come down, as it did, not to charge the police officer.
In
this country we are extremely cautious of arming our police and the
hoops they have to jump through to justify firing their weapons is
sometimes difficult to justify. But justify we do and the concept that a
life, anyone's life is precious is maintained.
In
the States awash with guns, untold tragedies, school kids shot my
unhinged pupils, is contrasted by the willingness, some one say, the
necessity, of the police to fire first and ask questions afterwards.
Like
the Wild West the Constitutional right to bear arms comes first, its
part of their Bill of Rights, and, irrespective of the corrosive damage
the death rate brings,especially to vulnerable parts of the society, the
'gun lobby' seems implacable with their financial clout and influence
with the Senators.
Come re-election time, the law on the possession of a gun is unlikely to change.
People think its strange
that I devote so much time to writing my blog. How do I find the time
?They haven't even got time to read it ?
It's
funny the way time goes, how we use it, how we waste it, how we lose it
on spending time following the well worn track of predictable
repetition. Time is what we never have enough of when we tie ourselves
to the functions which others expect of us which includes the effort we
put into pleasing everyone else.
The
format we fit ourselves up with is contrived by our peers. The tidy
lawn and the neat hedge, the swanky car, the holiday abroad these are
the things we devote so much of our precious time to accumulate, often
to pay lip service to those around us.
The
expense of living to someone else's timetable is a shame when we have
it in our grasp to construct our own timetable, to schedule our own
lifestyle, to feel the freedom of being in charge.
So
when people ask me how do I spare the time to write and respond to what
is going around me, I have to say that I am blessed to spend the time
in a way that leaves a trail of reflective thought and consideration. Of
being able to prove I am alive, at least above the shoulders, of have
been given the opportunity to ask the question, why ?
If
friend or foe can be bothered to pick over the scraps then it's been
worth it, if ever they can find a moment, then I am doubly blessed,since
it's enough simply to do the telling !!
I
don't think I inflate the importance to suggest that as a painter
touches a canvas with paint to produce an image so a writer no mater how
skilled puts down words and sentences to also create an image. Given
the vast amount of stimulation the brain receives throughout the day
certain things stick in the mind. If they seem worth telling, they
usually form part of, face to face communication with a friend or
colleague but it's a condition that not everyone has. A situation which
many older people face, not having someone to talk to.
The
internet with all its faults opens up innumerable opportunities to
speak, to friends and even strangers as we seek to break the silence.
There are many things going on that can frustrate a person, not in so
far as they can have any direct effect but in using one of the facets
which sets us apart in the animal kingdom, we add "our" thoughts to the
collective thought on matters that interest us in an effort to share and
develop this powerful collective view. Like Darwinism the evolution of an idea or a set of convictions has its route in discussion.
Oh,
by the way, this blog started when my alarm went off at 4.00am, its now
5.30am, I would hazard a guess that not many of you are "busy" doing
those things you feel, keep you away from writing or even reading.
Why
not add an hour to your day, set the alarm a little earlier and you too
will leave a trail of thought to show, not only are you alive and
functioning (the fall back condition) but that you care about being
alive by attesting what that condition really means.
When I was young I have
mentioned before how we were centred around the gramophone much as today
families are centred around the TV. The records we played are with me
still, religiously kept by a friend, through all the years I was away
living overseas. They sit like soldiers side by side waiting to be taken
down and played again, custodians of the magic of music, ready to serve
to the human ear a mystical series of notes and harmonics which the
'ancients' had identified as a mathematical sequence for the brain to
interpret in all kinds of ways and the human psyche to construed as
pleasure.
These
old brittle records have the ability to cast a spell. Arturo Toscanini,
Herbert von Karajan, Enrico Caruso, Beniamino Gigli, Maria Calas, Fritz
Kreisler, Arthur Rubinstein the list goes on and on.
We
had our favourites, who sang better than who, who played better than
who, which was the greatest orchestra who was the best conductor.
It was all very subjective but the Berlin Symphony and Herbert von Karajan were in our modest household the tops.
I
have been watching a program this evening in which a film made recently
of von Karajan was shown and a warts and all presentation of his long
career was made. Von Karajan was a maestro a perfectionist, an egotist,
driven, self centred self absorbed, not in any way an easy man.
Yet
gifted people who had been members of the Orchestra and who had had to
bear the brunt of what today we would call tyrannical behaviour, they
adored his genius. His precision and insight into converting, through
the orchestra the beauty, the fury, the melancholy and the excitement of
the score which identifies that unfathomable world of a great composer.
The
interpretation or the music is vital and the detail that is in von
Karajan's interpretation marks him out from his peers. The crystal
clarity, like a bubbling stream skipping and tantalising the listener.
His
discipline, bordering megalomania drew the best out of his sometimes
adoring, sometimes fearful orchestral players but as is often the case,
mysticism mixed with fear often brings out the best, even when it leaves
a scar.
Some
people are born with a self belief which allows nothing to get in the
way of their talent von Karajan was one of those people. He held himself
aloof from everyone, part showman part egotist he defined his talent to
be precious and it needed the rarefied air of isolation so as not to
become contaminated.
Sitting
in our living room we were unaware of the tangled demons that drove him
only the music which to this day seemed to have a clarity and a meaning
that has not been repeated.
