Glob-a-log

(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

and you can find it HERE.

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’.)

You find that interview HERE.

Enough from me, though. See you tomorrow

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

Some days are just not good. This is one of them. I’ve got five days left here, in Prague and my lady has just left for work and won’t be back till tomorrow afternoon.

Ah well, when in existential doubt, there’s always Jacques Brel:

(Or Leonard, of course…)

Remember Dick Cheney, or Charlie Manson, or Jeffrey Dahmer? Or, let’s say, that guy who blew up the FBI building, or the ones shooting abortion doctors? Or the good little demagogues of FOX news (and all their disciples)? Or the millions of children and grown-ups, whose fast food eating habits make them look like drowning victims, whose grotesquely bloated bodies have been fished out of the water after a week? Pretty, no?

No.

Anyway, I remember once making a joke about someone being so stupid he would drown in the shallow end of the gene pool.

That was before I realized how shallow people really can get?

“Americans are the most attractive looking people in the world, according to a new survey.The United States, home to George Clooney and Jessica Simpson, came top in a poll of more than 5,000 globe-trotting Britons. In second place was Brazil while Spain, which boasts Hollywood actress Penelope Cruz as one of its natives, was third.”

I’d say that if a few film stars can raise a whole nation to most-attractiveness, then these opinions held by 5000 tourists make either Britain or the whole tourist species the most moronic on earth – but why spend more time and thought on these imbeciles?

It’s time to make lunch for my lady. See you tomorrow.

Now, this may be the best love song ever written:

“Moi je t’offrirai
Des perles de pluie
Venues de pays
Où il ne pleut pas
Je creuserai la terre
Jusqu’après ma mort
Pour couvrir ton corps
D’or et de lumière
Je ferai un domaine
Où l’amour sera roi
Où l’amour sera loi
Où tu seras reine
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas”

Though I’d say THIS ONE could also be a contender…

… and yet I’d still claim that Leonard Cohen is an even better song writer than Jacques Brel was.

On a personal note: I’ve got seven day left here in Prague, before I have to return to Holland and start working again.

More to the point: Just one week left to spend with the love of my life du jour (et je pense pour toujours) – which is so not good I can’t even think of that, right now…

… but if I still feel more blessed for loving her than crushed that I have to leave her – again – it’s probably because something that Leonard Cohen understands so well. As he wrote in that strange and wonderfully bleak song ‘The Future’:

“Love’s the only engine of survival.”

Amen, mister Leonard – and thank you for all those wonderful songs.

Again, I’m not in the mood to read any newspapers. It’s almost 17.30 when I write this. I spent the last three-and-a-half hours shopping for food, cutting up innocent vegetables and doing quite cruel things to a bit of lamb. In about an hour it will be time to heat up the oven, so that yet another dinner for six can be served around 19.30.

Which leaves me an hour to shower, dress up and write my daily column.Which is doable - just about.

Anyway, yesterday I went to the pub, to watch the speed skating in Vancouver. ‘Rychlobrusleni’, they call that here in the Czech republic. Not a word you will use a lot here but still a rather nice & strange mouthful of a word.

During the breaks I read a little book, called Fup, by Jim Dodge, which was weird and wonderful – and it also gave me something I can use as a Quote Of The Day:

“I ain’t got an ounce of pimp in me.”

I wonder how many people can truly claim that.

Ah yes, before I go to take that shower, there’s this. There are many disturbing and also disgusting things in the world.

Like egg cream, for instance…

… but there are even worse things than that, out there.

Like the Hug E Gram.

DON’T LINK TO THIS, if you have a weak stomach.

Okay, that was all for today, folks. See you tomorrow.

(John Le Carré)

No time to write today but yesterday I came upon a BBC site, where you can download various radio plays.

I love audio books and I’m also a big fan of the Bookotron Agony website, where you can listen to hundreds of audio interviews with writers.

Anyway, back to that BBC website, where they are doing radio plays of three of John Le Carré’s novels. Or, as they call the project on the Beeb: ‘The Complete Smiley - The Karla Trilogy.’

Wonderful stuff.

So, that will give all of you enough to do, while I toddle off to the kitchen to cook yet another meal for a handful of visitors.

Till tomorrow. Same place, God knows what time.

Yesterday, I read this in the Guardian:

“The future of crime fiction lies not in inventing ever more colourful crimes but in focusing on real-life wrongdoing, according to novelist David Peace, author of the bestselling Red Riding quartet and The Damned United. “I’m drawn to when writers take on history, take on real crimes. To me there’s just so much that happens in real life that we don’t understand and we can’t even fathom. I don’t really see the point of making up crimes,” the novelist told US publishing website GalleyCat.”

Now, let me start by saying that I think David Peace is a very good writer. I haven’t read his latest book (about a football club) but I loved the Red Riding books.

I also share his deep admiration for James Ellroy.

I have to say though that I find his comments about crime writing amazingly stupid. It is entirely possible, of course, that he’s been misquoted here but if not, yea Gods.

“I don’t really see the point of making up crimes.”

Right, why-ever make anything up. What’s the use of ‘Once upon a time’, when we can look out the window and watch the real world? Why write Romeo and Juliette when we can see real romance & lust blossoming in the Big Brother house? Why write The love song of J. Alfred Prufrock when we can buy a Hallmark card for Valentine’s Day? Why write War & Peace when we can watch the news?

Idiot.

You remember Aesop?

Yup, the guy who wrote Watership Down, which was later made into a movie in which John Wayne played the alcoholic naval captain on a boat that was chased by Nazi submarines.

What? Oh, alright. Aesop was that old Greek story teller who wrote all those fables. Stories about animals that served to teach the reader stuff about the human condition – so, in a way, Aesop is the great-great-grandfather-squared of Richard Adams. (Yes, the guy who did write Watership Down.)

Anyway, I was reminded of old Aesop when I read the following story in today’s Telegraph:

“The Scottish SPCA has put 10 hedgehogs in its care on strict calorie-controlled diets to help them shed fat they put on during the recent cold snap. The hedgehogs started piling on the pounds because they spent longer than usual in the care of the Wildlife Rescue Centre in Fife. They were kept in their warm enclosures during the severe weather conditions which hit the country in December and January, because the cold could have killed them.”

Now, isn’t that just like one of Aesop’s tales (with a touch of Orwell’s Animal Farm.)

I mean, replace hedgehogs with politicians and you have a perfect tale about Members of Parliament who wouldn’t be able to survive outside their Westminster shelter and who grow fat and lazy.

‘Piling on the pounds’, indeed.

(Is it a kind of MP, bloated on expenses…?)

Have you seen the SuperBowl, last weekend?

No?

Well, neither did I. Life’s too short to waste half a day watching commercials, interspersed with the antics of weirdly dressed men, doing incomprehensible things with something not even shaped like a proper football.

Still, even those of us who did not watch cannot have failed to hear and/or read about the controversial choice of geriatric pop band The Who as the Half-Time musical act.

In 2003 the band’s guitarist Pete Townshend had been arrested for ‘accessing child pornography online’, so the Child Abuse Watch Group tried (and failed) to stop The Who from performing at the SuperBowl.

Why am I rehashing this tired old stuff?

Well, because I’m afraid that we may expect far worse in the time leading up to (and no doubt during) the upcoming Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

I mean, if you can create a screaming row in most of the world’s newspapers when an aged guitarist who once watched child porn appears live on TV for a few minutes…

… then it’s not hard to imagine the media melt-down when the Net’s most infamous paedophile will have a starring role during the whole of those two-and-a-half snow-draped weeks in Vancouver.

As the following newspaper shows, this one is even bigger than the Michael Jackson trial:

“A Polish newspaper mistakenly identified “Pedobear”, a notorious internet meme, as one of the mascots of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. The Gazeta Olsztynska published an image showing the bear alongside genuine Olympic mascots Quatchi, Sumi, Miga and Mukmuk to illustrate a feature about the Games. It appears that the newspaper lifted the picture from Google Images, unaware that it had been created as a prank by Michael Barrick, a Canadian artist and graphic designer.”

I’m not quite sure why this irritates me so much – but it does, a lot.

It’s a BBC programme that I never even watched.

It’s called ‘One man and his dog’.

Every time I see that title I want to foam round the mouth and scream to the television I don’t have:

ONE MAN AND HIS DOG…?!

WHY NOT ONE ALCOHOLIC AND HIS CAT

ONE AGNOSTIC AND HIS PYTHON

ONE PHILANDERER AND HIS PARAKEET

ONE POLITICIAN AND ITS MAGGOT…???!!!