Sunday, May 20, 2007

I Am Back

Poor old Henry James used to say the most terrible words a man could hear were, 'I don't know if you know, sir, but...' There then followed a story from the maid or whatever about how the Victorian cast iron bath had crashed through to the living room. That is how I feel, a maid has entered the room and announced, 'I don't know if you know, sir, but a babbling bunch of deranged party animals has taken over your blog, spilled red wine on the off-white shag pile, stubbed out fags on the flock, gouged the fake Chippendale and left a disgusting pool of something or other behind the DFS sofa.' Well, the boss is back and there's some urgent tidying up to do. You people are going to have to shape up. Okay, to be fair, Nige seems to have kept you entertained and babbling and will, I hope, continue to do so whenever he feels overcome by the need to emit. His knowledge is more far-reaching than mine and his prejudices more entertaining. For the moment, here are a few thoughts I have been saving.
To lose a Prime Minister in my absence may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose Stuart 'Psycho' Pearce looks like carelessness.
Did Brown get in merely because you were convulsed with laughter at Nige's latest apercu? It is the only respectable explanation.
Why are all the buildings in Cornwall so ugly? There are very old churches in that county - or country as it so often styles itself - that induce nausea.
We were right about Cornish pasties, they are disgusting except when made by Rick Stein.
I am horrified that ostrich have taken to falling out of trees at commuter stations.
Jim Lovelock's scheme to save the planet DOES include humans; I merely observed to Nige by text that it also had the additional benefit of proving the Gaia hypothesis. But, for the moment, I can say no more.
The great redeeming feature of the Eden Project is that it makes a large number of sweet old ladies incredibly happy.
And, while I am on the subject of Great Jim, you can listen to him on Radio Three's Private Passions. It is a joy listening to Michael Berkeley struggling to cope with Lovelock's amiable insistence that there is nothing whatsoever we can do about global warming and, by the end of the century, what few of us remain will be living a violent, tribal existence at the mercy of warlords, who, Jim and I agree, will be the descendants of the hedge funders of today.
Anyway, I'm back.

6 comments:

  1. Uhoh - looks like the beak's back, chums. I'm off to start my own blog, hehe...

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  2. At first glance it seemed that Nige had absorbed the mystic art of link creation. But no, only some changeling with issues towards Cornwall. A place which may turn out handy for the fund managers, given that the east coast is fast being washed across to Holland.

    Boss is it ?, really.
    Anyhoos, good holiday ?, and welcome back.

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  3. Yes, there's nothing like coming home from the party only to find the children getting along a little too well with the babysitter - or is that the babysitter getting along too well with the children?

    The church in St Ives is lovely, with lots of 14th-century carving, and gold-painted saints all round the roof.

    Do you think all those little square houses painted in pastel colours are sweet? I was admiring homey-looking, unpretentious villages we sped past in the train recently, only to find that my daughter was thinking: "how UGLY" and "how suburban."

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  4. Do you think all those little square houses painted in pastel colours are sweet?

    I do.

    I agree that they're "homey-looking, unpretentious". The young haven't yet learned to appreciate the banal, that's for middle-aged people who have been around the block a time or two, and found out that "exciting" is fun to visit, but often not so fun to live in.

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  5. the War is indeed on its way. The frail patina of civilization will crumble in an instant and mankind will cheerfully return to savagery and cannibalism, see Cormac McCarthy's The Road for details.

    As a fellow temp once said to me, the only reason to survive in a post-apocalyptic radioactive wasteland will be to kill people. You'd only hang on to take some small pleasure in tracking down & murdering old enemies.

    In many ways, it will not be a pleasant time: no more Earl Gray, no more blogs, no more innocence. But on the bright side there will be many opportunities for homicide, probably at close range with melee weapons, because people with guns will quickly use up all their ammunition.

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  6. you have to be working class to appreciate the pasty - rick stein went to harrow, don't you know? but his version might be nice, if not authentic.

    yersh, we were going to Eden but diverted to Heligan instead... it wasn't lost at all!

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