HOW DO I HATE THEE? LET ME COUNT THE WAYS

This is a misquotation of one of the greatest love poems ever by Elizabeth Barrett Browning:-

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.”

I’ve used it because the level of hatred that’s invaded our lives is peculiarly visceral not just here but in America too. There seems no middle position to be taken between Trump and Biden or Johnson and almost anyone. But where did well-mannered debate go? Down the plughole, I guess, with De Bono and his book “I am Right and You are Wrong,” which in the current climate should be retitled: “I am totally right and you are an utter scumbag.”

I had some hope restored to me when I saw that Save the Children had conducted a decent sized survey (with some 5,000 8-14 year old children) and that 78% had declared a desire to help the disadvantaged and do good. (Well of course they did.) The Junior Week Magazine turned this into a crusading slogan “It’s Cool to be Kind.”

Why can’t we think about and listen to what others say? Why can’t we be kind? Because, here’s rage: “there’s no point in listening; I know what you’re going to say and it’s garbage.” I once said that to an utter scumbag (sorry, to someone with whom I had a slight difference of opinion) but I’ve matured since then. I even listened carefully to Piers Morgan’s interview with Donald Trump on the recently launched Talk TV. Trump was not unimpressive but there was something missing. No empathy; to him no-one else matters; he knew he was right and anyone who disagreed with him was stupid. He was a grumpy know-all yet still  admired by a lot of Americans. 

He described saying to Putin that if Vladimir put a foot wrong he, Trump, had a very big button which he wouldn’t think twice about pressing . Allegedly Putin said “really?” and Trump said “Yes. Really”. It was just a strongman show.

I wanted to pursue briefly this strange world of disillusion, repulsion and hatred and how it influences behaviour. 

Social media has, of course, made it worse. There’s a new vocabulary of hatred spawned from that. We have trolling, ghosting, cancelling, gaslighting and hate-speech. We live in a tumultuous world of hyperbole. Agreement is “Hund p” (or 100%) never any reflective nuance. It’s hate or love. Yes or No. Never a hint of “maybe.”

This trend grew stronger with cantankerous interviewers on the BBC Today programme. I now listen to Asmir Mir and Stig Abell on Times Radio who are pleasant but somehow still seem to extract the truth. With a smile not a snarl. 

Here’s that Browning poem in full. I hope it proves an antidote to what, chances are, will be another bad-tempered week.

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace

I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.

I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.” 

 

FOLLOW MY LEADER

Leadership’s been a hot topic recently. From Boris Johnson to Joe Root. The Ukrainian leader, Zelensky, from being ignored by EU leaders has become a global hero. Mr Bean to Superman in under a month. In contrast Putin has seemed remote and callous.  But I’m not sure that’s how most Russians would see him. To many of them, I suspect he's a strong, ruthless, very Russian leader – as leaders should be as opposed to that “decadent Zelensky.”

We’re short of leadership skills here in the West. How bad? This bad. 

Donald Trump on Talk TV, the new Piers Morgan channel, seemed more in touch with the nasty world we really live in. But remembering the clever advertisement the Kennedy’s ran to discredit Nixon, we can apply the same question to Trump (and to Boris) “would you buy a used car from this man?”  It’s a brilliantly pointed question about trustworthiness.

Rather than looking at today’s leaders I’ve reflected on leaders whom I’ve known in my working life. Some of them memorable for their sadistic or otherwise character flawed eccentricities. There was one who had a glove puppet who did his dirty work. “I’m terribly sorry but Sooty says you’re fired”. He was an insomniac who phoned his executives at midnight saying: “get over here now we need to talk”. Did it end badly for this fellow? No, I’m afraid he made tons of money and was hugely successful. Being nice isn’t always the answer then.

Another had a very short fuse. Following yet another row he left in such a rage that in a futile exit from the car-park he battered his car from wall to wall until it slumped clanking to the ground.

Another had obviously read a book that said be aggressive and always interrupt and keep on prodding people until they give in. He liked holding court in ten hour meetings. Finally there was a genius who was also a megalomaniac who loved and loathed his people depending on whim. He ended up years later in prison having squandered his riches on addictions.

Many so-called leaders were in it just for themselves and let the idea of leadership go their heads enjoying the terror their presence struck in their employees.

But there were also great guys who said – when appropriate – “thank you.” People who cared about you and your family. People you liked.

Salute the guys who founded Britain’s most successful advertising agency Abbott Mead Vickers. Peter Mead wrote a book “When in doubt be Nice” – it worked for him and his partners. It was their creative head, Abbott, though, who crafted the culture based on being nice and being kind.  But it was also demanding and did excellent work. They were winners.

The idea of Level Five Leaders was created by Jim Collins in his seminal book “From Good to Great”. He described them as leaders who displayed  a powerful mixture of personal humility and indomitable will. Good stuff…. but leaders must be winners to survive. Winning comes first. Doing so with courtesy and thoughtfulness is a wonderful bonus.   

Perhaps the era of strong, autocratic leaders like Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt have come to an end. But “Mr/Ms Nice Guy” can’t simply replace them. We still need tough decision makers, leaders who demand excellence and set strong examples about succeeding and growing too. We need civilized winners and better role models.

So, what if pragmatic, credible leaders like Andy Burnham and Ruth Davidson were running the two main parties in the UK?

Ultimately, we deserve better people like them as well as better leaders.

RELAX. HERE COMES THE SUN.

 Relax. Here comes the sun.

Last week having talked about age I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised to receive, out of the blue, a letter from “Pure Cremation…the fuss-free alternative to the traditional funeral.” That’s probably preferable to and cheaper than the black-horse-drawn hearse that I saw recently.

But enough about death (as Vladimir Putin certainly didn’t say.) It’s hard to remain in good spirits given those horrors in the Ukraine, the drip of mendacity and unpleasantness in the House of Commons and the rise in inflation leaving crumbling wrecks of businesses in its wake.

2022 isn’t looking like being a vintage year. But there must be some good news.

1. Gardens. 

The balmy spring weather has brought wonderful colours and smells. For smells try to beat Wallflowers.

For colours the blaze and abundance of Ranunculi (I hadn’t realised it’s called Persian Buttercup) and for sheer cockiness wildflowers like Mallow and Campion. 

We have a wren building a discreet nest in an ivy hedge and the bad-boy magpies are cruising around – four of them together like a team of bikers – glaring and snarling “who you looking at loser? Back off.”  An avian orchestra of sound, an ice cold glass of Pinot Grigio, summer and sunshine to come. Bliss.

 2. Sounds to snooze to.

.

The author Philip Pullman is suffering from the extended after-effects of Covid, needing to fall asleep, suffering arthritic pains all over.  That’s me without the Covid so far. And I’ve discovered a radio station called “Smooth Chill” that claims to play the world's most chilled, relaxing, trip-hop music. I turn it on and doze off to its rippling sound.

3. Cricket. (Not for everyone but think of sunshine and a picturesque ground). 

There’s something about the smell of freshly mown, curated grass, the lazy elegance of a cover drive and the scorecards that capture the summer-to-be that I’ve always known. 

It has a timelessness and serenity that nothing else has. It’s a world of cucumber sandwiches, Pimm’s, Victoria sponge and beautiful equipment – the best Dukes cricket ball costs over £40; cricket bats over £500 like the Kookaburra Beast Pro that will, they claim, “strike terror into your opponents”. Modern cricketers, if they wear and use the best, are fully-clad spending well over £1000 for starters but no-one has just one bat or just one pair of gloves. Cricket has become more expensive than golf but it’s more graceful and more unpredictable.

4. Economising. 

We all need to do this in the current economy. I’m going through my monthly bank statements cancelling all those items I once thought were nice to have but either don’t use or need . Magazines, Apps, variants of Netflix I never watch, storage of items I’d forgotten I owned, hundreds of books I didn’t know I had and had I known wished I’d never bought. The sheer sense of virtue in clearing up and cleaning out is refreshing. 

5.  Fresh vegetables.

I used to believe a roast haunch of meat was what  I needed most – a haunch for lunch – heaven! Now I’m beginning to appreciate a melange of fresh vegetables but a word of caution about organic vegetables which need extensive washing and peeling according to research in Spain which showed 52 types of bacteria in samples tested over the past two years caused possibly by their using (presumably organic) sewage slurry. Cauliflower Cheese for lunch nonetheless.

So cheer up. We’re on the brink of Summer. Smell the flowers, snooze in the sun, listen to the sound of cricket and, for a while forget about parties, Covid, lies, overdrafts and bombs. 

THE POWER OF AGE

Recently there’s been a lot written about old age and what older people should be called.

Crinklies, Saga Louts, Oldies, Seniors, Golden-Agers, Boomers and so on.

The world seems to be turning against the elderly. Against their assumed wealth, their old fashioned views, their belief that they are right, their increasing longevity, their bed blocking in hospitals, their politics - more likely to be Tory or if Russian, pro-Putin. 

To some they seem somehow tarnished by having lived in an age of capital and corporal punishment, of misogyny, of racism and every other -ism you can think of, of casting couches and magazines like Playboy, of comedians like Les Dawson and Frankie Howard. 

So the charge sheet against crinklies is long and concerning. But, hold on, is this in any sense fair?

The period 1960 to the current day has seen us crinklies oversee and inspire the biggest changes to any society in so short a period of history ever. Quietly and radically our world has been transformed. The changes in the UK have been particularly startling.

As I watch my contemporaries I see an increasing ability to change minds, modify behaviour and be good role models to children and grandchildren. I’ll go with Golden-Ager rather than more derogatory descriptions as being the more apt because we’ve accelerated the pace of good change.

Society today is fairer, kinder, healthier and wealthier than it was in 1960. In 1960 life expectancy was on average 71. Today it’s 81 although the increase has slowed down. 

 In America research suggests that people start to feel “old” when they’re 47. That seems depressingly young. For me it started last Wednesday when I ricked my back and have ever since been pathetic. But the trouble is, as someone once said about age,  getting old is like being young but not feeling very well and that describes the difference between young and old quite neatly.

How can we conquer “ageism” and be of greatest use to the world in our remaining years? How can we stop being embarrassed that house prices have risen thereby inflating our notional wealth? How can we find a voice?

Well let’s stop saying sorry.

And let’s start being stronger in calling out bad behaviour.

Boris has done us a huge favour. He’s exposed the shortcomings of our current politicians in vivid technicolour. Many of them are shameless. And it’s the responsibility of the elder citizens to sit them down and tell them it won’t do with one stern, concerted voice. 

It’s time to stop pretending we’ve retired and don’t want to get involved anymore. We’ve stopped working but that doesn’t mean we haven’t got a job to do  because there’s a lot still to be done. Not least in trying to cheer people up.

Byron Wien the 89 year old Vice Chair of the Investment company Blackstone was vocal about what older citizens should do.

1. Find a “big idea” and focus on that.

2. Network. Meet new people.

3. Look for the best in people.

4. Read avidly.

5.Sleep more. 9 hours a day including a one hour nap.

6. Be willing to change. 

7. Travel. (Covid scuppered that.)

8. Underplay your achievements.

9. Thank people for doing well. There isn’t enough gratitude in the world.

10. A handwritten note has much more impact than an e-mail.

I’m trying to do most of those. But I need to appreciate even more the best sides of the many friends I have. It’s our best sides that we need to develop and help others to develop theirs.

That’s enough.

WELCOME TO HANGDOG HALL

Last week I became rather melancholic. I don’t like it. I can normally find a bright side to almost anything. Some say it’s infuriating and inappropriate to keep on smiling. But my Mr Loud and Mr Laughter became Mr Lugubrious (and what a glorious word that is – a cross between lubricating and moody.) That was me last week, full of moody glue. I felt stuck.

There were a series of reasons. The Ukraine horror show overwhelmingly so. But blanket Russophobia whereby if it’s Russian it’s bad upsets me. 

Vodka, Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, Potatoes (Russians like potatoes a lot), Beetroot (Ditto), Ballet, Tolstoy, Pasternak, Chekov, Dostoevsky, Stravinsky, Beef Stroganov, Garry Kasparov, Boris Spassky, Yul Brynner (he’s dead – yes but he was Russian), Fabergé, White Russian Cocktail and Tea (tea? Yes they love it hence their samovars.)

All the above are Russian so we must hate them and avoid them – including tea? Yes, especially tea.

Already Russian Oligarchs are rightly being sanctioned with their bank accounts frozen and their yachts impounded. We’re hitting Putin and his friends in their wallets. But I’m not sure where it stops. Valery Gergiev, rated the world’s greatest conductor has been removed from the Presidency of the Edinburgh Festival and any further involvement musically in Britain. Russian driver Nikita Mazepin's F1 contract has been terminated by the Haas team and the Bolshoi Ballet have been cancelled by the Royal Opera House.

Being Russian now is evidently  a very bad thing to be. Being “Poo Tin” as Matt Chorley  in the Times now calls him is obviously much worse but if you have any Russian blood in you, you’re (by definition) a wrong ‘un.

All this has made me increasingly maudlin. It’s racist and silly. So I’ll scoop up my caviar, have a shot of Jewel of Russia Ultra Black Label and reflect on the distinction between leaders and people. Between, for instance,  Putin and those nice Russians I’ve met. Between Johnson and the rest of us whose image he has imbedded in all our reputations. Is that fair?   

But hang on. It appears Alexander Boris may have Russian blood himself. An ancient ethnic group (the Circassian community) from the region around Sochi has claimed Boris Johnson as one of their own. People there are famous for their blond hair and blue eyes. So that explains everything. Boris the Impaler. Boris the Bad. At this moment of discovery my mood slightly lightened.

We live in strange times when the big things are too big; it’s little things that cheer us up. How about this?  Scientists are concerned about the lack of testing for Covid and therefore it being impossible to actually know what infection levels really are now. So they came up with a way of getting a 100% sample to test with this novel idea. Everyone goes to the lavatory so measure the Covid levels detected in sewage at various sewage plants. The results are interesting with much higher levels of infection than previously expected. 

We are living in the midst of tragedy and probably prolonged horror. But we owe it to ourselves and especially those around us to stay level headed and kind. We need more cartoons and jokes. We need to read more books and less papers and social media. Scratching the scab only makes things worse. I doubt if Vladimir Putin laughs much - just look at the misery.

There are lots of nice people around and some of them will be Russian. Humanity prevails when we embrace rather than fight or hate each other  

So, no more Hangdog Hall.

 A Ukranian Spring

Thank you, Justin Webb, for reminding me in Friday’s Times of what Trotsky said:

“You may not be interested in war but war is interested in you.”

Friday was chilly but with a brightly blazing sun in Brighton. The stridently yellow daffodils fluttered in the breeze muttering: 

“all’s well, Spring is coming, relax …. all is well.” 

The daffodils were wrong.

In Kyiv it was raining, cold and about to get much colder. War was being declared. No, not “declared” so much as “visited upon us” and the world was waiting aghast as the missiles flew. We were living in a world gone mad. After 77 years Europe was once again a warzone.

I recalled Shelley’s Mask of Anarchy written after the Peterloo Massacre in 1819.  The second stanza stuck in my head, now slightly re-written (sorry Percy):

I met Murder wildly shooting 

He had a mask just like Putin

Very smooth he looked, yet grim;

Seven blood-hounds followed him.

The most unlikely people have suddenly become militaristic. Quentin Letts, political sketch writer, observed with astonishment that the Liberal Democrats, of all people, were in the Commons with a bellicose “Come on Vladimir let’s be having you” attitude.

How did we let this Russian thug and our own greed get us to this ultimately predictable point? Chelsea football fans lament your ownership. Estate Agents in Knightsbridge be very ashamed. But despite my initial horror and anger something else has replaced it. The courage and the spirit of the Ukrainian people in slowing down and in places thwarting the Russian advance made me feel just a bit better. There was something epic about the tragedy of Snake Island in the Black Sea where 13 Ukrainian Soldiers and their families were slaughtered after refusing to surrender to a Russian Warship … “Go f*** yourself Russian Warship” were their last words. Courage and resilience are an enviable epitaph. And it’s their resilience that heralds the Ukrainian Spring because it is Springtime that characterises resilience.

Keats didn’t manage an Ode to Spring. Pity. The best we can find is, nonetheless, terrific.  Either the beginning of the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales – “sweet showers” - or Gerard Manley Hopkins will do – just these glimpses from him:

    “Nothing is so beautiful as Spring –         

    When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush” 

  

And “the racing lambs too have fair their fling….”

     

   

 And then     

“What is all this juice and all this joy?         

     A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning

     In Eden garden…..”

“Long, lovely and lush …all this juice and joy” – yes that does it for me …that’s my kind of Spring. And this year’s Spring is delivering already – primulas and violets vigorously doing their thing and tiny tête ά tête daffodils laughing in the chill.

Spring is about innovation, new beginnings and a simple celebration of growth. A blitz of Russian missiles can’t change that. Spring cleaning is one of the most useful of occupations discarding the unused and unusable, simplifying our possessions and cleaning our shelves, our cupboards and our minds. 

I for one have spent too many seasons worrying about newspaper headlines about which I can do nothing. My mind is full of “stuff” -  much of it negative. Time for a good Spring-Clean. Time to think positively. Time to walk through woods where buds are bursting and birds are finding their voices.

It's too late to stop the stupidity. But never too late for hope. Nature always helps our perspective. Flowers grow out of rubble. Juice and joy cannot be blown away by a bomb.

I AM RIGHT AND YOU ARE WRONG

Written in 2009 Edward De Bono’s book is based on the idea that most of our everyday decision-making tends to be confrontational. Whether in large meetings, one-to-one or even in our own heads, opposite viewpoints are angrily pitted against each other.

 

Ultimately contestants seem to think there must be a winner and a loser. The title of the book has always appealed to me in describing our adversarial world. Better still, though, is Groucho Marx in Horse Feathers when he sang:

“Your proposition may be good

But let’s have one thing understood

Whatever it is I’m against it.”

In America we currently see the rancorous opposition of Republican and Democrat so livid that some talk about the possibility of Civil War. Or in the Ukraine where Putin is in in a stand-off that could lead to war between Russia and NATO. Or in Taiwan, a smouldering touch paper with China. Or the vaccine passport supporters versus the anti-vaxxers.  Sheer naked rage is demonstrated there as Novak Djokovic (serial winner of the Australian Open Tennis Tournament) is held in detention in an apparently decrepit, immigrant hotel in Melbourne because the Australian Government believe he’s breached entry rules into their heavily locked-down country. His father in Serbia said what was happening to Novak resembles, no less, the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

When it comes to Premier Football, fans believe blood is thicker than water and vaccination is less important than football skill. One in six of Premier League footballers aren’t vaccinated apparently. As one fan might have put it:

“He’s an anti-vaxxer…but he’s our anti-vaxxer”

So, what the hell’s gone wrong?                                                                                                                   

Well, nothing much that hasn’t existed before. The problem is us. Human beings. Abrasive, combative and ambitious. But one thing has changed. Technology. This enables us to be more of everything and faster. And “more of” includes being nastier to others.

Historically when the going gets tough we hunker down and become protective of what we have. And so, we’re all becoming more nationalistic and tribal. We are building walls not opening doors.

But the absence of hope is right at the centre of many problems. Last year there were an estimated 70 million refugees fleeing from hopeless war-torn homes heading towards wealthy countries and hope. 

     

In Chicago where there are high levels of poverty, fatalities from gunfights in 2021 were nearly 800. Where there’s no credible prospect of things getting better people fight.

 

It would be nice to think we were all kind and reasonable. But we aren’t. Not only that but the ability to see things from all points of view is disappearing. If I don’t like what you say I can cancel or ghost you. In the last century and further back if we couldn’t agree with each other, we debated or fought a war or a duel. 

It’s 2022. We thought that diplomacy would work. We thought the age of the gun or knife was past. We were deluded. 

Given this why on earth should I remain hopeful?

Because humanity can be smart.  We can change, we can be leaders, we can listen better. It might be difficult listening to extreme Republican Americans, anti- vaxxers, people who are racist, misogynistic or whatever “-ism” they may have. But we shall never understand why so many people support what they say and believe unless we listen. 

None of us is wholly right or wholly wrong. But so long as we think that we are right, and they are wrong we are doomed to a future where rapprochement is impossible, and violence becomes inevitable.