WHY I LIKE SPRING AND EASTER SO MUCH

I have spent the past week feeling refreshed.

Originally the word “Easter” comes from the Saxon ‘Eostre’, the pagan Goddess of Spring which in turn came from the Germanic ‘Austro’ - the Goddess of Dawn. From its outset Easter was always magical. The Christian story of the risen Christ made it much more so.

Something magical still happens every year. Welcome to spring flowers; to plucky battalions of daffodils; to some experimental bursts of sunshine and lambs gambolling.  In April we put on walking shoes to go on pilgrimage like Chaucer.

Change is in the air and, of course, more sunlight makes life easier. This and a degree of gastronomic restraint as opposed to the mandatory, bloated excess of Christmas means this season of celebration leaves us feeling ready to get going.

So, yes, I feel terrific and my good humour even extends to the bunch of jokers who’d been making me rather grumpy recently.

What do this lot have in common? Trump; Putin; Farage; Johnson.

And of course you’re right.

Extravagant egos; wrong people to run anything; irresolute yet dictatorial; will do/say anything to get their own way. They make Kevin Spacey acting the part of Frank Underwood in “House of Cards” look very electable.  They have all pandered or are currently pandering to a vision of the present and future forged entirely out of a nostalgic image of former glory. But to be fair they have the capacity to entertain us as well as baffle.

Hence my good humour. I suddenly realised I was taking what they said much too seriously. The best way to debunk is to deflate with laughter. And anyway the premise of an argument solely based on rationality will inevitably fail. As that supple brained Ad Man Rory Sutherland recently noted, on issues like the EU or the America Presidency or which house to buy or whom to marry, emotion rightly plays a large part.

When I turn on the news or I read the paper I often find I’m reduced to frothing rage.
But then when I see a front cover of Private Eye like this one….

….or I see the cartoon of Paul Daniels’ funeral at which someone is sawing his coffin in half saying “it was how he’d have wanted it” , I feel much better.

So a diet of roast lamb, minted potatoes and Cote de Beaune plus walking in bluebell woods (soon) plus a lot of good old fashioned, squirm provoking and sharp satire plus a resolution to be much nicer to people will do me well enough.

We live in uncertain times said billionaire Warren Buffett. Well yes, but what fun that uncertainty creates. Every day is a cliff-hanger. And the great thing about spring is it signifies the end of a winter of discontent

So I’ve resolved to start listening more and laughing a lot more.

Join me - a very happy spring and Easter to everyone.

WHAT AN AMAZING STORY THIS IS

From Eastleigh to Beppe Grillo in Italy to the Vatican shenanigans the script has twisted with turns and oddities. Life is increasingly a comedy.

A friend of mine described joining a group of singers to go and perform in at old people’s homes. They bounded in singing the Sondheim lyrics:
“Something familiar,
Something peculiar,
Something for everyone:
A comedy tonight!”

An old man in a wheel chair shouted “why don’t you just shut up and go home – I hate this!”

Bet he was a UKIP Member, talking of which have you looked at their manifesto?
Now I’m going to be unfairly selective but in essence it’s 75 parts anti-immigration and anti-Europe – the “they-come-over-here-and-take-our-jobs” party – and 25 parts ant:i

• Global warming warnings, 
• Employers National Insurance Contributions, 
• the ban on smoking and hunting.

And it’s pro-defence, wanting a 40% increase.

But Nigel Farage is hugely entertaining (for as long as he lasts because UKIP has had, in the past 20 years, no fewer than eight leaders.)

We British love whingeing and saying “and another thing”.

We were really pissed off that the Olympics was a success. We hate bankers but hate the EU limiting their bonuses even more. We blame the Romanians, Turks, French and any Johnny foreigners for horse meat contamination and anything else we dislike.

The influx of foreign wealth is driving UKIP and their followers insane. One Hyde Park – the Candy brothers London development (with apartments selling on average at around £20 million (although you can top £150 million if you really go for it) has been snapped up by a cocktail party of Ukranian, Nigerian, Russian, Taiwanese and Malaysian plutocrats.

But I love influxes of wealth. It feels like the Renaissance. Anyway would you want to live here?

The ranters are currently having a field day with the NHS, our schools, young people…..bah humbug – to hell in a handcart…

Our divine scriptwriter is on a roll. Private Eye can’t keep up. But there’s one issue that I predict will gain momentum (and enrage UKIP) the increasing campaign against alcohol. The banning of smoking slipped in and was, despite forebodings, immediately embraced – it’s time was right. And doesn’t smoking look old fashioned now?

Next stop booze. We’ll be like California. “Two glasses of wine? Are you some crazy, out-of-control alcoholic?”  You read it here first.

I’d be in favour just to tease Jeremy Clarkson.

And a 20mph speed limit – that’s already here in Brighton as of the end of March.

Life really is a comedy and I love it.


www.colourfulthinkers.com

HAVE YOU HEARD THE ONE ABOUT?

For some time I’ve been worrying about the absence of comic anger in the midst of a shaken world. Where, I lamented, was a Swift or Hogarth or a That Was the Week that Was? Thank heaven, to be sure, for Private Eye and Have I got News for you? But where’s the rage? Where’s the kind of filleting that Christopher Hitchens gave Tony Blair in their debate on religion?

This week that all changed.

I became aware of Beppe Grillo and his Five Star Movement in Italy.This comedian and political activist won just under 20% of the vote in local contests in Parma, and several smaller towns. Have a look at the story of his journey and his beliefs.  Like Alexis Tsipras in Greece he seems uncorrupted, focused and damn mad.

I confess (shamefacedly) not to have realised Beppe had been voted a European of the year by Time Magazine in 2005 on the back of his fantastic blog.

And then I saw Griff Rhys Jones on Question Time demolishing the other contributors including the, for once, tongue tied Caroline Lucas trying to defend wind power. He was angry and eloquent. I wanted to vote for him. Sitting opposite Lord (good Lord, how did that happen?) Prescott and two brains Willetts, he was so much more passionate and smart. And no, he doesn’t look funny in this clip does he?

And then there was the film “the Dictator”, Sacha Baron Cohen’s satire on despotism and the ludicrous postures of the Gadaffi’s of this world. Would that he were to do something similar about the Euro and the absurd politics of Brussels.

Version three: “I’m sane and I’m not going to take it anymore.”


What we need is more comic rage. More people like Bill Maher in the States and more like Ian Hislop over here. We need more contrarians everywhere. It’s the ability to undermine the person with whom you’re debating and use teasing humour to remind them of their frail arguments that is so telling. Hence the popularity and success of Boris.

Where we are today is so serious it calls for a deluge of laughter and ridicule. And one final example of that: the Eurovision song contest. Me? I’m putting my money on Saturday afternoon, as I write this, on “Aphrodisiac” – the Greek entry. 

That would be fun.




“Aphrodisiac? What’s that?”