Clive James, Richard Dawkins and W.H. Auden
Thursday, February 25th, 2010

(Dawkins and Auden: Truly great minds never think alike…)
Okay, so, today, I almost decided not to write my daily post - for the first time in nearly two years…
… because, yesterday, I had to leave both Prague and my lady, to return to boring, rain-soaked Holland…
… but I quickly came to the conclusion that that would, even for me, take grandiose, self-indulgent solipsism to unacceptably toxic levels.
Not that I feel like writing much, mind you – let alone reading newspapers – but I do have something else for you. I arrived back here in Utrecht early in the evening, yesterday, which gave me time to wallow in self-pity and, when that became too boring to sustain for another pitiful minute, I sought and found some solace listening to a few pod-casts.
I ended up spending more than two hours listening to interviews – or rather: conversations – Clive James held with a number of writers, actors and philosophers.
So, since I’ve been boring everyone here with my personal Country & Western stories, the last few days, I thought it would only be fair to give you the chance to recover from those self-centred laments by listening to two of these interviews yourself. (Not that you have to restrict yourselves to those two: You can read and watch and listen to tonnes of stuff on his web site, HERE.)
You could start with these two, though.
In the first one James is talking with Richard Dawkins, about evolution, and how our creative capabilities might simply be a function of that process. They talk about language, monsters and Gods – it’s all good stuff
The second one is a discussion Clive James held with John Clarke about the poet W.H. Auden, which is really much fun, with lots of artistic quarrels and gossip, some good poems being read aloud and how the first world war changed the way a new generation of poets could actually write poetry (and the way the horrific crimes of the Nazi regime led Auden to the conclusion that poetry ‘makes nothing happen’.)
Enough from me, though. See you tomorrow

(If you haven’t read this yet: Go and buy a copy now…!)


















