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.

                             

BORING OR ENTHRALLING?

First thoughts.

Is it just me showing my age but when did elections get as boring as this one? As I recall When Wilson won in 1964 it was an exciting shock.

And his cabinet was full of intellectual superstars - Healey, Jenkins (above) and Crosland. People like Ian McLeod were in opposition. One sensed these were very clever people. One didn’t necessarily agree with them but they were heavyweights. I watched Roy Jenkins and Ian McLeod debating the finance bill in the commons in the early 70s - riveting, rigorous and courteous.

I just don’t think the calibre of people, thinking or debate currently matches that of these Titans.

Politicians now are not, as some would have it, inept. They are however a bit timorous, cautious and lacking in flair. I have been constantly surprised that so many seem to think being nasty (even if they feel it justified) is a good tactic. Voters mostly hate “rude”.

Try this tactic instead:-
“Ed (or David)  is a nice and I believe well-meaning man. Most politicians are but I believe he just has this policy wrong and it would harm the country if he were to win this election”

If our grandchildren behaved like many politicians do they’d be made to sit out. I love the idea of hearing someone say: “Teresa May I’m appalled. See me afterwards”

Second thoughts.

2015 has been different because the two of the most popular voices have been on the side lines but thrust centre stage by the media. Nicola Sturgeon and Russell Brand.

Nicola has grown in stature and 4% of the UK (that’s Scotland) seems to adore her and Russell is rather like an extreme left version of Boris. Both Boris and Russell are fluent, addicted to long sentences and are ever so slightly crackers (slightly?) That he and Nicola are the ones turning on so many is significant.

Don’t you think they really ought to get together and have babies - what fun that would be.

What both do is reflect our times, reach and inspire a few people - in Russell’s case a generation of non-voters, the millions of youth who can’t be bovvered. They are both of them articulate and fearless. They aren’t looking over their shoulders; they’re punching away and looking like they’re enjoying themselves.

In Nicola’s case the prospect of wiping out lazy Labour in Scotland may mean she’ll have every right to be a bit smug. But the Scottish brand is thriving.  Brand? Think Irn bru, Innocent and Pepperami all mixed together. Inspiration has conquered economic caution and it’s exciting. As is Russell’s brand of rebellion.

The old political brands look like Tesco or Sainsbury’s or Asda in a world of Waitrose, Pound Land. Zara and Aldi.

So I was wrong. This election isn’t boring at all; it’s enthralling and we’re lucky to have ringside seats. It’s the other fight of the century.

IT SHOULDN'T BE THAT COMPLICATED

But of course it is complicated because people, who are the mystery ingredient, manage to screw it up. That’s why Jack Welch at General Electric was so keen on trying to computerise the customer interface….complete madness as nearly everyone I know would rather deal with a real idiot than a perfect computer.

Recently Russell Brand was doing a gig and reportedly, as the saying goes went “off on one”,  as he does. No one knew where his lament about modern life was going, least of all one suspects Russell, but he concluded that in the midst of modern life his cat still didn’t realise the internet existed.

Which is a shaft of brilliance.

In the techno-muddled-see-you-on-the-cloud life of today our clever pets are immune to the fibre optic stress the human race is struggling with.  And then I was struck down with a nasty dose of humility as I watched Welsh sheep farmer Kate Humble (and “humble” was an appropriate name) visiting the Wakhi people of North East Afghanistan. Hard lives, tough farming, life expectancy 35, 20% of babies die before the age of one, diet mostly rough bread and milk or a cheesy ball unappetisingly called “krut”.

Asked whether he saw this hard lifestyle would continue, the reply from a local farmer was splendidly candid and articulate:

“What else can we do? We are illiterate and we need to earn money to survive. This is hard but it works”.

And it did, with a brilliant welfare system of looking after each other and with work being described as “having something to do”.

Who are we to judge pets or humans when they make their own way with such resilience and independence of spirit? And what struck me strongly was, no, not a yearning for krut but a desire for simplification. All the news is about complexity, vested interests and what the Wakhi farmer called “bad stuff”.

Ron Ashkenas of the management consultants Schaffer preaches the need to simplify and does so with passion. But it isn’t easy because the more sophisticated people get the more Byzantinely complex are their solutions. I sometimes think HT and IT combined are the architects for long cuts in life and spiders’ web thinking leading to great debate and greater inaction.   It takes crisis and simple objectives, like survival, to force issues like simplicity and I heard it on a charity appeal on Radio 4. The idea was send a cow to the poor of Africa. The idea of a cow =a trade-able asset generating regular milk and therefore cash flow is simple.

And as they applauded “simple solutions to tough problems.”

Solutions that, say, cats would understand.

And as it’s put on my website “I like cats because they know where they are going”.

Which is more than you can say for most of the rest of us.

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