THE TRUTH MUST WIN

When I was small if you were caught “telling stories” you were for it. 

Yet today the story, not the truth, is what matters. That’s why the Times (once known as “The Thunderer”) is now more aptly “The Chuckler” full of stories rather than news and truth.

Last Saturday a succession of stories and articles convinced me either I (or they) had lost it. 

Does this warrant most of page 3?  ‘The original All Creatures Great and Small has becomes a hit in the USA.’ 

Maybe after Trump it’s this that resonates and maybe should have been the real insight:  “If having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans.” 

- The QAnon conspiracy group, one of whose luminaries claimed his real mother was a 9 feet tall, green alien, has over 650 ,000 followers on You Tube. I’m told it’s taking hold in USA and UK.  My poor head. Tell me why this is so important because it is. Lies squashing truth.

- Liz Hurley has taken up Kung Fu and is good enough now to solicit live opponents. Liz don’t be so silly. And the Times – give this stuff to Hello Magazine.

- Breaking News: King Herod in between slaughtering babies proved his obsession with small things by also being a Bonsai enthusiast. Is this a joke? It’s for WhatsApp not the Times.

- Simon Bowes-Lyon, the great, great nephew of the late Queen Mother got drunk and for 20 minutes groped and tried to kiss a guest after a dinner party when everyone including his victim had toddled off to bed. He faces up to 5 years in prison. He’s obviously a bad sort as he also has 23 penalty points through speeding convictions. This story creaks with unasked questions.

- A Norwegian Philosopher has claimed human beings suffer a blood alcohol level that’s the equivalent of two glasses of wine too low. At last something sensible. True or not? It’s a joke, I think, but with a grain of truth. In vino veritas.

This potpourri of stories represent something that’s been concerning me for a while  and which lie behind the extraordinary stories of Trump and to a lesser extent Brexit. We have become seduced by lies, distortions and drama. When you  hear someone talking about “the narrative” (which increasingly we do, by politicians and their advisors) be very, very scared.  By definition “narratives” are stories told in an engaging and interesting way, They create what Samuel Taylor Coleridge called a suspension of disbelief. In other words a story – a work of fiction (maybe even a lie) becomes accepted as being a new truth. ‘That election was rigged’ is a better story than ‘it was a proper election’. If what the world wants and gets are just better stories we are in trouble because then we are living in what can be described as a post-truth era.

Post-truth is the petri-dish in which conspiracy theories and stories that excite and convince people flourish. The calm reiteration and reiteration of truth must become our mission. Calm and repetitive can deconstruct the big, lazy lie, as my friends in America tell me hopefully.

We might start with getting our  journalists to be circumspect and to get their boots on faster. Just because the story with the punchline wins more applause than unvarnished truth is no excuse to play to the audience.

We’ve has enough of that phrase “fake news” and even worse “alternative truth.”

It’s time to unravel those lies.

DEJECTION, HOPE, TENTERHOOKS, DISBELIEF, ELATION

So we won a cricket match we’d seemed to be doomed to lose.

What on earth’s going on?  The recent Test Match was transformed from abject to spectacular and I can’t take such nail-biting drama.

Incidentally the real hero is the last man, the redoubtable Jack Leach whose 1 not out was the bravest feat of survival ever.

Me? I’m off to bed. Exhausted.

Do you think Brexit will be like this with the EU caving in and agreeing on no back-stop, no leaving fee and giving us a free trade deal and saying sorry for being so mean? It wouldn’t be more surprising than what happened in Yorkshire on Sunday.

WE ARE BECOMING MORE DEJECTED

It was hard to be cheerful as England’s batting collapsed on Friday after the euphoria of Jofra Archer’s bowling the day before. Somehow Brexit,  Brazilian rain forests and prospective recession were put in perspective. I recalled the Teresa May’s role model was Geoffrey Boycott, the model test cricketer, whose own derisory comments eviscerated England’s pitiful performance. It was more like primary school cricket than Test Cricket. All I wanted to do was go to bed.

Yet outside the sun was shining, the “fishing-boat-bobbing” sea was twinkling blue and seagulls were shrieking “mine, mine” as they swooped on fish and chip gobbling tourists. Real summer. Real laughter. Yet I was miserable.

I’ve often been told “it’s only a game” but “only” isn’t good enough. It’s set the tone for my summers ever since I was an avid player myself long, long ago. Cricket has for me, and many others,  been a metaphor for life. It normally has a slow rhythm to it not the frantic hysteria we saw. The point of it for spectators always seemed to be that gentle unfolding of drama , one of the reasons that the Compton stand at Lords seems so full of actors relaxing before their evening performance. Yet the game has been reduced to pantomime “behind you Wade” (that’s a very esoteric joke reserved just for cricket buffs.)

The reason for this may be partly because of the dominance of short form cricket indicating our unquenchable need for speed. Speed dating, speed interviewing and so on. The operatic grandeur of the grand old game has gone. Slow and graceful has been replaced by Tarantino dramatics.

I wonder why our moods are so fickle and frail and why that frailty has become more pronounced. Perhaps because we are exposed to an increasing quantity of headlines on social media, in the papers and by commentators. John Arlott  was more mellow than Jonathan Agnew, more poetic more descriptive and less brittle.

Our lives are dominated by BBC Radio 4 Today-style interviewers and Daily Mail  headlines. I recall an old Private Eye cartoon in which a cheerful fellow walks downstairs and picks up the paper. Its headline is “It’s a disgrace” and his face creases in a dark frown “It’s a disgrace!!” he mutters, the tenor of his day defined and ruined.

Things got worse when I discovered that BA pilots are going on strike on the day we are going on a late holiday to Spain. The aeronautical equivalent of “rain stopped play”.

But my dejection improved when I itemised what was good in my life. My blessings far outweigh a batting collapse or a travel hitch.

The sheer delight of seeing five young people growing up all with different talents, the joy of writing and reading the abundance of great books that are being published. And most of all the huge number of incredible people I know, like and love.

It’s a curiously wonderful life…but better still if we batted properly.