DEATH TO DISASTER PANIC ATTACK ON HELPLESS

No, this isn’t a satirical piece about hysterical-fake-news or data-devouring-media – that comes next. It’s an observation that compressed expression whether through tweeting or  newspaper headlines has led to a very short litany of power-words and cogent thoughts.

So if this is the death of anything it’s death to the end of nuance. It’s why we love actors more than politicians. Actors agonise in their silence, anguish and economy of words. I saw a review of “McMafia”  which observed the series lacked sex, drama and violence. Sorry love, that’s life. What made it so good was it alluded to rather than was overt and it understated… like academics conversing with gangsters which is why I loved it.

Saturday’s Times headline was “crackdown on rip-off airline fees” …”rip-off” and “crackdown” are mindless, knockout words. May the airlines quake, protest and rebut – for them it’s game-over as it is in the face-off with Facebook.  Death of, end of,  collapse of, doom and murky worlds (yes, that one;’ about Cambridge Analytica).

Whilst battling through this and the icy winds it’s been hard not to think about those sleeping rough. Ambulances prowl the streets of Brighton in the morning struggling to revive frozen sleepers and today I saw an ultimate misery: a sleeping body breathing shallowly with  poor, bare feet sticking out from under a grubby blanket. There is a word to describe this and our failure to deal with it.

Abject.

Recently I started reading “Utopia for Realists” by Rutger Bregman who’s described as “the Dutch wunderkind of new ideas” . Well actually they’re so new because many of his ideas go back to Plato.

He quotes economist Charles Kenny:

“The big reason poor people are poor is they don’t have enough money, and it shouldn’t come as a huge surprise that giving them money is a great way to reduce that problem”

That sounds so simplistic as to be stupid yet when you unravel it, it becomes more subtle.

In various experiments in London with the homeless, in Africa with the starving and in Canada with everyone in the town of Dauphin research shows when cash is given to the poor without condition and enough of it to be meaningful some strange things happen.

(And not this!)

They buy what they need not what someone thinks they need. They buy practical aids like spectacles, hearing aids and education. They even, in Africa, create entrepreneurial little businesses…if you have money you can buy vegetable seeds and food so you are strong enough to plant, water and tend them. The principal beneficiaries of reducing poverty by giving out money are always education and practicality, not alcohol, tobacco or drugs.

In general the left wing dislike the idea of giving out no-strings-attached cash as it’s deemed patronising and reduces their control over poverty as a political argument. And the right wing are fixated on the “don’t work don’t eat” mantra.

Both arguments are as abject as the other.

Have a great week.

PRUDERY, RUDERY AND GETTING THINGS RIGHT

I was somewhat surprised to be given a copy of the best writings of Henry Miller by a neighbour. Why me? Miller was the literary infant terrible of the 1950s and ‘60s. His description of sex makes “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” sound like Enid Blyton (‘Five Off for a Jolly Bonk’.) They are very rude indeed but rather sad too. His ability to have relationships as opposed to frequent and impulsive shags seems limited. Yet when he writes about Greece (especially Mycenae) or flying or food or having his car serviced (prosaic but riveting) this man is literary giant. When he gets obsessed with parts of the body his sense of humanity and humour goes. 

                   
June (his second wife) and Henry Miller

And that’s because there’s not much joy in his sex. Sophocles said it first and was then quoted by Plato, Socrates and others ending with Russell Brand…“The male libido is like being chained to a maniac”… yeah, that’s Horrid Henry. Not just horrid but a bit boring too.

It was peculiar reading this high-class porn whilst MPs were being denounced for playing ‘handsy’ or
worse. I hope none of them gets caught with a copy. That would not be funny.

Unlike Caitlin Moran who’s very funny but also rather rude. Her recent book is called “Moranifesto” which “sets the world to rights”. The substance isn’t rude at all but the fucking language often is. She uses the “f” word not so much for effect as for emphatic punctuation and to show she’s one of us.

Caitlin is a genius. I use the word circumspectly. She understands manners and why they matter so much (there aren’t many good manners in politics) and despite her rebelliousness she belongs in kinder, more literary times than these. Unsurprisingly her style in influenced by writers like Dorothy
Parker and H.L. Mencken. She’s an almost Dickensian figure in her exuberance and in being larger-than-life when she says things like: “Why do people keep on talking about the sweet fragrance of women? We smell. Me? I smell of soup … onion soup.”

Things that need sorting out she says are as diverse as include cystitis, bacon (ugh?) and social media. How about this for a bullseye of observation?  “The internet is like a drunken toddler.” 

She thinks many things are wrong but that there are some things blindingly right. Like having joy in life, being kind to ourselves and to others and in not taking ourselves too seriously. How lucky we are, she says, to have friends, family, to be going out together, drinking wine (lots of it) and laughing. Never get angry. Being angry shows you’re scared. Try being polite instead.

I wish she’d met Henry. She’d have soon been put that gloomy old libertine in his place. And she’d have made him laugh too. And they might have focused on improving joy, good humour and manners in the world, Henry in his tsunami style, Caitlin by wit and insight. What a team.