how to avoid a royal wedding

1. In the days coming up to the Big Day, avoid watching the news on television and reading any newspaper, except perhaps "Black Flag".

2. On the day itself, get out of the house and into a place beyond the reach of any media. For our part, we journeyed once again to the Forest of Dean, where in stark contrast to our last attempt, (see my blog of 12.2.11) when thousands of petrol heads thronged the trails to watch lots of very fast cars screaming around at frightening speed and ear-splitting noise, the forest, at least in the morning, was almost completely devoid of human life, save for a handful of determined mountain-bikers. The bluebells were in full bloom, though looking a little sorry for themselves, having been totally deprived of rain for nearly a month. Indeed, if it doesn't rain today we shall have witnessed an April with no rainfall at all, a feat unprecedented in my lifetime.

3. Find yourself an anti-royalist party, where the chat will be less about the dress and that kiss, and more about how the state feels it necessary from time to time to remind us of our place, namely that we live in a wholly undemocratic society where we are not "citizens", but "subjects of her Majesty the Queen and her hangers-on"
Interestingly, one of the attendees has a satellite system which picks up 79 channels from Europe and Asia. He flipped through the whole lot for fun just before leaving his house, and found all but 3 of them were providing continuous coverage of, you've guessed it...

4. In the evening, stock up on your favourite booze and settle down to watching some familiar and well-loved movies, which in our case included John Frankenheimer's excellent "Ronin", which despite its impenetrable plot ("what's in the case?")features some of the most exciting action sequences ever put on film, as well as a candidate for best car chase ever. Certainly it is real, as opposed to the computer-generated chases in more recent films like "The Matrix".

5. On the day after, try not to be too nauseated by the creeping coverage in the newspapers, like a little piece in the Times, which described the royal couple as "ordinary people really, just like us". Oh yeah? So we all live a life of immense wealth and privilege, without ever having to do a day's proper work for it, by the simple virtue of an accident of birth? What an absolute load of crap.

6. Beware the Sunday papers. They won't be any better either...

when is it right to intervene?

COMMENT

If it were discovered that a country had built gas chambers and was systematically exterminating its own people by the thousand or tens of thousands, would anyone object to the rest of the world rearing up in outrage? There wouldn't just be a no-fly zone, there would be a full scale ground invasion, anything in fact to prevent the mass slaughter. Unfortunately the world community is rarely faced with such clear-cut scenarios for its consideration.

When Gaddafi threatened to enter Benghazi and drag people out of their homes and shoot them, the whole world reacted with horror. Even the usually reticent Russia and China did not stand in the way of setting up a no-fly zone to prevent this terrible act taking place. Now, of course, "the West" has got itself in a bit of a pickle, as it has become clear that this tactic will not in itself remove the crazy one from power. At best it is preventing the Libyan "loyalists" from completely crushing the "opposition". But what to do next?

Without an invasion (and I for one do not believe that would be wise) Gaddafi will stay where he is. And what of other countries where the cry for freedom is currently being crushed? Here I am thinking particularly of Syria, though there are many other places where citizens live under a brutal and repressive regime: North Korea, Saudi Arabia (the women at least) and of course China, where Ai Wei Wei is still in prison for criticising the government. Then there's Sri Lanka, where the government, and also the Tamil Tigers to a lesser extent, participated in mass murder to further their aims. At one point in the conflict apparently, the Tamils forced huge numbers of people to act as human shields, only for the government forces to shell them anyway. What do we do about that, and more importantly, shouldn't we have done something a long time ago?

One of these days we will see a truly effective "World Police Force" which will nip these problems in the bud before mass murder gets under way. Until then we will continue to live in a very dangerous and unjust world.

the case of the lost spectacles.

This morning I awoke to find my glasses not where I thought I had left them. Granted I was a bit drunk an had taken a temazepam shortly before, but I have been in this sort of condition many times before and never lost them. We stripped the bed and minutely searched the bedroom, to no avail. Now I am wearing a spare pair, but the prescription is well out of date and it appears my only option is to order a new pair- not that that will help me that much. At my last eye test I was told lens correction can now go only so far to normalise my vision. I have a developing cataract in the left eye and it is only a matter of time before I need corrective surgery. But until I get a replacement pair I am not even truly safe to drive.

Perhaps they will turn up. I hope so; they cost £400...

One positive note: in my youth I would have lost my temper by now, throwing things around, panting and shouting. At least now I am mature enough to give in gracefully and give up the search with a sigh, rather than a complete loss of self control.

UPDATE
Let joy be unconfined- they are found! Turns out the last thing I did last night was to switch off the central heating so it wouldn't wake us early in the morning- close work for which I need to remove my specs- and there they were, in the little cupboard where the controls are housed. Now I can begin to enjoy my Easter hangover properly.

April splendour

April, after July, is the driest month in Britain. And thus it has proved this year, with the bluebells in our garden (stolen from the Forest of Dean more than 30 years ago by my second wife), coming into flower a full 3 weeks early in the almost summer-like conditions we have now enjoyed for several weeks.

This morning, with the temperature hitting 21 degrees by 10 am, I took an hour-long walk through our local park, collecting recyclables along the way. I filled nearly 2/3 of a green sack with little difficulty, though I should report that the richest pickings were to be had on my own street and the one adjacent.

This afternoon, while I wait for the gas people to come to service our central heating, I shall edit one of my short stories and get on with my reading of Robert Tressell's classic "The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists", bible for the pioneering socialists of the early 20th century, and still popular today, coming in at number 62 in a poll of "Britain's 100 best loved books". Socialism itself isn't very popular in Britain these days. We're too well off, with our smart phones and wide screen TVs, to bother about the fact that a tiny minority of people still control most of the wealth and own most of the land. The conditions for revolution do exist in Syria, however, where the people are beginning to organise seriously to bring down a regime where free speech has been banned for over 50 years, and arrest and detention without charge or trial is commonplace.

POWER TO THE ORDINARY CITIZENS OF SYRIA!
THROW OFF THE YOLKS OF OPPRESSION!

marathon performance

This morning I am writing whilst getting as close to running a marathon as I am ever going to get: watching it on TV. Yes, it is the London Marathon, that celebrated event when thousands of Brits chase a few black men all over London, but fail to catch them.
On Friday night we went to the launch of Richard Gwyn's new book, "The Vagabond's Breakfast", his "non-fiction novel", or autobiography if you will. It charts his travels in the eastern Med in the 80s, which saw his descent into life crippling alcoholism, and on into the 90s, where, a reformed character, but now carrying a shot liver, he seeks the replacement which will save his life. It is an astonishingly honest and revealing portrait of a richly talented, but fractured individual. After his readings, we repaired to his home to enjoy some tapas laid on by his wonderful, long-suffering, wife. Gathered there were the "fairly great" and "quite good" of this city's literary scene. Oh, how I long to be one of them one day!

Yesterday we travelled to Bristol to touch base with some old friends and to see a matinee performance of "The Comedy of Errors" at the Tobacco Factory Theatre. Shakespeare's tribute to the farces of Plautus, the play also seems to presage the likes of Beny Hill or "Are You Being Served?", packed as it is with puns and double-entendres. A solid production with credit to all those involved- great fun.

I contemplate work again tomorrow, with another opportunity to come to terms with my new reduced status as a mere salaried partner, being told what to do rather than calling all the shots myself. I am beginning to get used to it, and also relishing the much-reduced stress level that is the upside of my new situation. Now work feels more like a hobby than the never-ending drudge it was slowly transforming into in the last couple of years of full-time work. The key to all this is letting go, one of the hardest things humans are ever asked to do, but one of the most important in terms of developing any degree of peace of mind. And, albeit with agonising slowness, it is coming.

mcilroy: noun

Out early this morning for my second writing lesson. Richard has looked at my re-draft of "A Killer Holiday" with more corrections for me to make. It is beginning to become a little annoying as I seem doomed never to arrive at a version he is totally satisfied with, but I should remember Joyce: he would spend hours on a sentence, weeks on a paragraph and months on a chapter of "Ulysses", so what am I whingeing about? One thing I do know: it is gradually being honed into a fine story.

This afternoon I accompanied my mum to her appointment at the local memory clinic where she was interviewed by an Indian psychiatrist with such a thick accent I could scarcely understand her, let alone my mum. Even so, she scored 27 out of a possible 30 on her mini-mental test, failing only to correctly identify the month and to spell "world" backwards, though she did get it right second time round. This is remarkable, because she only scored 23 last time, therefore on that basis she is actually improving, even though that it is supposed to be impossible. I think last time her morale was lower, however, and this may have affected her score on that occasion.

Watching Rory Mcilroy falling apart in his final round at the Masters was one of the most heartbreaking events I have ever witnessed at a sporting event. 4 strokes clear of the field as he teed off, he only needed to shoot 70 or thereabouts to be assured of victory, but straight away he dropped a shot at the first. His confidence thus dented, things went from bad to worse as he choked on shot after shot until at the 12th he 4 putted from barely 25 feet, an unpardonable sin even for a lowly club player. The poor bastard! I hope he can recover from this savage blow to his competitive ego, but sometimes these things can blight an entire career.
Meanwhile I suspect a new word may have entered our language:
"A Mcilroy: to fall at the last hurdle; to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory"

weekend at the savoy

As a "retirement treat", we went up to the smoke for 2 nights in one of London's most famous hotels. It must be admitted that its location is second to none, and its river view rooms do indeed (at a further premium) deliver what it says on the label, affording superb vistas over Old Father Thames. Despite the frighteningly large fee extracted for this service, one nevertheless had to fork out a further £9.50 a day to have wifi connection- a little churlish, my wife felt. Always the harsh, though fair, critic, she felt the whole place lacked atmosphere, relying too much, as many "great name" hotels do, on its reputation.

And I agree. But I will say the slippers were excellent.

On Friday night we went to QEH (Queen Elizabeth Hall), directly opposite our room on the South Bank, to see a fantastic performance of Steve Reich's "Drumming", a superbly exciting experience, bringing about an almost trance like state at times (which I believe was his intention) Terrific.

Yesterday we wondered the leafy byways of Belgravia, vaguely trying to identify Roman Abramovich's place in Belgrave Square. Word has it he spent £25 million on it and a further £25 million in it, most of it on a range sophisticated security measures. I couldn't in the event be sure which one it was, but instead we bumped into a pro-Assad demonstration outside the Syrian embassy. We had a good natured chat, in which they insisted that the "troublemakers" on the streets of a number of Syrian cities are imported foreign agitators. Why do they always say that? Why is it never the people rising up to voice their disapproval of a tyrannical regime? Same reason terrorists only get to be called Freedom Fighters by one side, or of course until they win. But we thought it better to remain courteous, so after a brief exchange of views we agreed to disagree and went on our way under glorious skies and a perfect ambient temperature of some 23 degrees.

We then proceeded on foot to Harrods, an outlet I have never visited before, and now I know why. It seemed crammed with tat only people with very little taste and far too much money would be interested in. The last straw for us both was to be found at the top of the "Egyptian Elevators" where there was a huge, golden sphinx-like statue with the likeness of, guess who... Yes, that's right.
Just below this, leaning from an alcove, a singer of sub-Sarah Brightman proficiency was warbling the theme from "Titanic", at which point my wife said that never before had she experienced such a strong urge to run amok with an AK 47.

Last night we travelled the few blocks north to Covent Garden to see Werner Herzog's 3D film "The Cave of Forgotten Dreams" about the Chauvet cave paintings, only discovered in 1994 and considered so vulnerable Herzog was given just 4 days to film in there before the place was sealed off to all but a select few guardians and scientists. The film is his usual unique take on life; an intimately detailed, slowly beautiful unfolding of a mysterious phenomenon. Hundreds of depictions of animals, bears, rhinoceros, and horses especially adorn the walls of a remote cave deep inside a limestone river gorge in France's Ardeche. It isn't suggested in the film, but I wondered if it was possible it could all have been the work of one genius, one Picasso-like Cro Magnon man.

coming home

On Sunday night I watched Hal Ashby's 1976 film "Coming Home", which examines the poor treatment Vietnam War vets received on their return home. Yesterday in surgery I witnessed a strange alignment with the present day. A young black man comes to see me, just discharged from the army after lengthy tours of duty in Iraq and "Afghan" as they refer to it. He had seen terrible things: mates blown to pieces by IEDs, and especially a close friend who, unable to cope with the stress and continual danger, blew his brains out with his own rifle.

He reports all the symptoms and signs of what we now call post traumatic stress disorder, what was called battle fatigue, and before that shell shock. I have a long chat before prescribing anti depressants. If I don't see an improvement soon I will refer him to a psychiatrist renowned for his treatment of that disorder. But our man's main complaint: that there was no "after care", from his former employers, no follow up of any kind by the army he had given 5 years of his life to, and at a great cost to his mental health and stability.

"Coming Home" was made 35 years ago. It's almost incredible to report that not much appears to have changed since...

sergio RIP

Setting off early this morning for one of my longer hill walks, it being a few days since my last jaunt, I noticed one of my cats, Sergio, laying down under the laurel tree at the bottom of the garden. He was in a totally relaxed position, in much the same way as he would stretch out in front of our fire. There was no sign of blood or any injury, but he was definitely dead. With a very heavy heart I dug a grave in our garden and laid him to rest, taking a small sample of black and white fur as a keepsake. There were no tears (not yet at least); just a sudden and total draining of energy and an overpowering feeling of sadness. Added to which was the horrible sinking feeling of knowing I would have to give the news to my wife, who is away in the West Bank at the present time, due back home tomorrow night.
Sergio was just over 3 years old- not much of an age for a cat- our last cat lived to the magnificent age of 21. But I think he had a good life, much pampered in our home. We are down to one cat now. Will he pine for his brother? I have already noticed him staring out of the French windows into the garden, so I think it's possible he will.

After burying Sergio, I got my car out of the garage that opens on to the back lane. There, for the second time in a fortnight, someone had left a huge pile of garden refuse and old mattresses in the lane, completely blocking it. I did not have the energy or motivation to move it there and then; fortunately there are 2 routes of access out onto the street so I took the other route. Later I shall call the "101" line to report the crime, but I am not optimistic about it being removed quickly: the last lot of rubbish is still piled up along the walls, waiting for collection 2 weeks after a neighbour had called the "fly-tipping" line.