England's Martyr, England's King

Apologies for general silence on this. It's been a busy month, with holidays, Ofcom's report and Digital Britain all out. But, rested by taking yesterday off to commemorate the martyr king, I'm ready to crack on.

I thought I would start with Charles himself. It being the cause of some discussion by various people I have seen since. It is - clearly - a bit silly to spend a day of leave commemorating a long dead monarch, who was far from exemplary in his life, though there's a good little interview in the Guardian today about how dreadful Cromwell was, which is a timely reminder that maybe monarchy wasn't the worst of the options at hand then. But none of this means he isn't a Saint.

Sainthood is one of those tricky issues that we, especially in Britain tend to get wrong. There is a deep distrust of the sanctification of individuals and tend to put impossibly high standards on those who might be considered saints. I think it stems in part from our experience of the reformation and is a reaction against our perception of the state of Catholicism (such as it was) here. Sometimes, we then take refuge in the technical procedures of the Catholic church and state that these conditions are needed; or even that Anglicanism cannot create saints.

Let's just unpack these objections:

1. Anglicanism cannot create saints. This shouldn't be confused with the perfectly consistent belief that saints are all out, which is doubtless held by many in the church. Therefore sainthood is impossible, for Charles or anyone. However, as we do accept the the status for others, it is entirely illogical to adopt a chronological cut-off for eligibility. Those made saints before 1558 are OK; those after not. The fact none (save Charles) have been considered is an Anglican fudge, not a doctrinal position.

2. The current Roman methods are needed. Again, clearly this isn't true. Firstly, they're not that old (I fail to locate how long), but more importantly it's a false legalism - catholic church, who would have thought it. Early sainthood was very much built up from acclamation and belief. Sometimes this went wrong - the fictitious Andrew the fool should be a cautionary tale - but it's a good corrective to the idea that some miracles make a saint. They have always been nested right in the heart of the community of the faithful, not imposed from above.

3. Being a bit rubbish makes him ineligible. This is of course easy - the Peter principle (not this one, but the apostle). The boundaries of eligibility for sainthood are blurred: martyrdom is not enough, nor is success in defending or propagating the church. But no-one has ever suggested that falling short is a barrier. In fact, to my mind, it is the fallibility of Charles up to his execution that makes him such a good saint. Only at the last did he stand to defend the church to death.

There is much more that can be said on this, but that will do for now. All together now. 'Royal Charles who chose to die...'

Bibliography, Jan 2009

Books bought (2)R.Musil, the Man without QualitiesA. Burgess, 99 books
So far delivering on the commitment to only buy 10 books a month

Books read (10)
BOTM: R.Musil, the Man without Qualities

A. Burroughs, Sellevision
A. Christie, Curtain*
D. Lessing, The fifth child
N. Mailer, The Castle in the Forest
P. O'Brien, Master and Commander
J. Reumann, Stewardship and the economy of God
D. Sevilla, Zita
I. Szerb, Journey by Moonlight
G. Tindall, City of Gold

I almost gave BOTM to Szerb, though the protagonist was annoying, and it has striking similarities to the Musil's epic. But in the end, the sustained quality of the latter won. It could do with being pruned from its 1,130 pages to perhaps 800, given that not a lot happens, but some of it is just perfect. That said, it does require a working knowledge of the basics of Austro-Hungarian history. The early chapter on kakania is very funny, but does require a bit of k.u.k. background. Incidentally, part of it is here). Others need no knowledge, but hovering over the entire book is the sense of total pointlessness of the whole enterprise - planning for a jubilee that never happens and discussing a peace that is about to shattered by the First World War. It evokes brilliantly the world that vanishes and contains echoes of much of the tragedy of the twentieth century to come.

NB. I'm using asterisks now to indicate the rereading of books

(Weights and) Measures

From my younger days, I seem to remember that this call would come out at key moments in drinking games, though I forget the details. However, the value of units of measurement and particularly their pricing was brought home to me in Austria last week, when A & I spent a week in the old archduchy and spent most of it drinking wine Anna did have some beer, but I was keen to visit Heuringen having failed to notice these on previous visits; I liked this one not least because it has family tree of the Esterhazys in one of the rooms.

I digress, the most interesting thing about all drinking establishments over there is that wine is priced strictly by volume, i.e. a glass (a 125ml glass is standard) is precisely a sixth of the price of a bottle. As a result we drank far less (we would have spent less but for the exchange rate - thanks Gordon) than we do normally. This makes perfect economic sense of course: deprived of the price incentive to buy bottles, it is better to retain flexibility (assuming you expect to get served frequently enough) so rationally one orders by the glass. As a result you are less likely to overorder and end up with wine unwanted, but drunk.

So, in support of the new paternalism, I think this is exactly the kind of idea that would make a difference to drinking habits (which we're officially worried about, not that you'd be able to tell) without much effort. The government seems to be thinking about making the right measures available, but it's really the pricing that is key to this. As ever, they've never really understood that.

Fundamental liberties

Yesterday, we had the now familiar attack on the government for eroding liberties - someone's written a book apparently.

You would be forgiven, for wondering what the assault on liberty looks like. Here are some examples from of our fundamental freedoms:

• Detention without charge
• ID cards
• Surveillance at council level to monitor littering dog fouling
• and checking children's catchment areas

Obviously, there was me thinking of the right to vote and freedom of speech (which is of course restricted). Of these, only the first is a real erosion of freedom, the last two to enforce laws and the middle one just an expensive fuss over nothing.

I generally wonder if the people who complain about this actually have done any reading / thinking on liberty at all. Here's Mill's starting point: 'Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.' Mill was concerned over the erosion of liberty and the restrictions on the individual, but his concern was around what it prevented him doing - good negative liberty; I'm a fan. We can point to these - the smoking ban is a classic example, hunting also, any of the frankly silly attempts to prosecute people for not using metric measurements etc - and this government should be asked to account for them. We should be thankful that no dreadful holocaust denial law has been brought in,* though not for the gutless refusal of the government to protect offensive material when it comes under attack. I would have had the army in.

Now, I'm more of a Rousseau man myself, in that I have a profoundly pessimistic view of humanity, the bulk of whom I largely see as incapable of making rational and informed decisions for their own good, let alone anyone else's. Rousseau's concept of the general will (warning: this is a very bad wikipedia article) goes too far in this direction, but is at least an attempt to articulate what people would want if they were not restricted by lack of education, circumstances etc. It's a better attempt than old fashioned paternalism, though the latter is more emotionally compelling. In either case, the bans can be covered, though I do not approve of them all - far from it.

In any case, these are never mentioned. On the other hand, lots of people who have never lived in an ID card-carrying country tell me (who has) how much my movements will be restricted (when they won't). Then they rant on about a police state, and how terrible it will be to have everything on a database, oblivious to the fact that central records are pretty useful: national insurance numbers & tax, driving licences, the land registry etc. Curtailment of liberty means restriction, not the (doubtless irritating and in many cases unnecessary and wasteful) requirement to fill in a form, carry a piece of paper, or have your statement checked for fact.

So, next time we say fundamental liberties, can we actually talk about them.

* For the avoidance of doubt, I am not a holocaust denier, I simply don't believe people's beliefs should be restricted in any way by law. Incitement can be covered separately if that is the state's concern. If not, they have nothing to worry about.

Some resolutions

Best to do these early, though it's doubtless dull, as it's useful to have them on record. I was also far too hungover to contemplate thoughts on the political situation - and as I reckon my friends number sizable coteries of militant pro-Arab and pro-Israeli camps among them, so I really cannot face picking precisely through the rights of the situation in the Holy Land.


So for the record, this year I'm going to aim to do:

• more cooking, with pastry and fish priorities for this year. I still have unused implements from our wedding list, including a fish poacher I am determined in break in.


• less book - buying; more rereading. DH Lawrence wrote a generation ago (I think in his surprisingly impressive Apocalypse, which is well worth a read anyway) that people were increasingly given to reading more books badly rather than fewer books well. I suspect that I have been guilty of this also, so less new material and more reconsumption of the old is in order. Given I bought over 250 books in 2008, this is a relatively low bar, but I am limiting myself to 10 new purchases a month this year, i.e., 120 + gifts for the year


• more language work on old friends. I've been seduced by Italian and Syriac in recent years, and I'll keep them up, but Greek (texts - Sozomen beckons at present) and French (novels - Anna's bought me some great ones for Christmas) will be my focus this year. I'm getting too old to remember languages, and those two are my most precious.


• the final phases of house decoration, specifically on the long overdue painting of the outside (OK, clearly I'm get someone else to do the work)


• a family tree. Hatty's wedding should be the impetus to trace some of the Garroods by May, but there is more to do, and I should have more done by the end of the year, and maybe even trace that pesky Christ Church canon


• technology. Even though it terrifies me, I need to get some things working this year for the doctorate and for work. It's slightly embarrassing that I used the iPlayer for TV for the first time on Tuesday, and then only because Sky+ had failed to record the last ten minutes of Gavin & Stacey


• exercise. I've done well since May; I'll keep this gym thing up

And I might even actually do some work, rather than blogging during the work day.

Happy new year

This has gone rather well I think this year, since I really got cracking in April. I'll be continuing it in 2009, though I might try to cut out some of the more boring excesses, like my long digression on book reorganisation and add more flights of whimsy like the ranking of French kings. There may even be an election - and that would be great fun to blog on.

And I may even proofread things before I post, but I think that's unlikely.