The Red Hand

I toyed with calling this No Surrender, but that might have been provocative; not that the Red Hand is immune from criticism, but its origins are older.


I've held back from saying much on Northern Ireland, not least because I'm not entirely temperate when I think about it - I broke lent within seconds of the second murder this week - and in reality I don't actually have much to say: I still can't stand Adams, never have; never will, who has not come out of this well, but I was surprised at McGuinness' use of traitor to describe the murderers.


What is more interesting - to me at least - is how atavistic the whole thing remains for those of us who aren't actually involved. Instinctively, and before reflection, I come out as a massive Tory (etymological note: not in the sense of the Irish, catholic origins of the word), Protestant leaning, Unionist (that's 1800, not 1707). In reality of course, I probably am protestant, just, but episcopal; I'm so disassociated with the Union, that I want to give Yorkshire independence, let alone Ulster. And, while I believe that the IRA are and always have been, in all and any of their incarnations, murderers, rebels and criminals, so are lots of groups, I get much less agitated about them.



I think it's to do with the party: the republicans hate Tories, and instinctively that means we hate them. There aren't actually that many good reasons for them to hate Conservatives (as opposed to the English more generally) on this issue: the partition of Ireland was a Lloyd George policy, Labour sent the army in in 1969, the criminalisation of the IRA prisoners a Labour decision in 1976 (even SF admit that), Tebbit gets some flak, but quite frankly, if any organisation paralysed my wife I would take their province apart and shoot anyone who harboured or supported the men who did it (note: this is not what we did). In reality, we - as a party - have a good record on the peace: Thatcher involved the Republic in 1985, and Major did the hard groundwork on the ceasefire. There are decisions where we look less good, but this is far from a disastrous story - it really means, Tories were in power for a long time.


Our position is more tricky, but then we've never liked rebels or the Irish more generally, and they did let down the loyalists down at the Boyne.

Bibliography, February 2009

Bought (2)
M. Bannfy, They were found wanting
N. Gordimer, The Conservationist

Read (9)
BOTM: J. Heller, Catch 22

A. Burgess, 99 Novels
F.M. Ford, The Good Soldier
R. Kapuscinski, Shah of Shahs
V.S. Naipaul, India: A wounded civilization
R.K. Narayan, The Man-Eater of Malgudi
A. Powell, The Valley of Bones
A. Powell, The soldier's Art
A. Powell, The military philosophers

In Changing Places David Lodge has his protagonists play a game called humiliation, the object being to own up to a material work of literature that one hasn't read. The most impressive failure wins the game. It's flaw as a game is that the proliferation of literary work and the lack of a recognised canon in modern teaching means that few outside English faculties can play it without it becoming a slightly pointless game of bickering over whose massive omissions are worst - i.e. the value of the works in question. The fact I have never got round to reading King Lear would doubtless go into the mix against A's stubborn insistence that all the characters in War & Peace are called Nikolai Nikolaevitch, when - as this note makes clear - they aren't. The discussion is of course hampered by the fact that, by definition, only one of us will have read the book in question. A tighter defined canon is probably necessary, or making clear that it's really about fame, not quality.

One of my major omissions on that ground was rectified this month by knocking off Catch 22, which while clearly not of the same quality as either of the examples above, is a great and vry influentual book (for example, it comes in number 7 on this list). And it is beloved of the anti-war lot, and students who think its like Kafka, but with more sex in. It's not quite that profound, but it is funny, narratively innovative, explosively written and packs a material, and quite moving, punch. Sometimes I think it errs on the wrong side of farce - which undermine the more serious elements, but this is a minor critique. It is, of course, like many other things, a bit too long and drags a little about two thirds of the way in, before picking for the final sequences.

Penitent

Lent starts today - I was at 8 am ashing service (attended by 5 people, it really speeds the service up). I am giving up ranting and swearing. I've tried the former before and it ended up being very expensive - I think I racked up 40 rants at a pound a pop, including at least two for ranting about how others were not rants, but there were definitely times when I ranted safe in the knowledge that the money would be paid. This time, penalties are harsher to stop me doing that. So, here formal definitions and terms of my lent:

• No ranting. Defined a continuous verbal argument involving high emotion and probably shouting. I am allowed to express hostile opinions - Buddhism is still nonsense - but not in a violent manner. £5 penalty
• No Swearing. I stress, the ban is on obscenity, not blasphemy or offense. I've found this brilliant report about swearing but it does confuse things. Broadly, I'll follow that list though without 12, 23, 25 and 28 in context, while 11 isn't remotely offensive. £1 a word
• Monies to a charity nominated by Anna after Easter
• And I'm also going to read all the epistles. Three a week gets me there I think.

As an aside, I do increasingly find the Ash Wednesday service bizarre. Ashes are imposed on one's forehead as a mark of penitence, which all seems fine, but then we are enjoined to go forth with this black splodge on our faces, having just heard a reading Matthew 6.1-6, 16-21, where we are told Jesus says:

Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them...
So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you...
Whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret...
And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites.

So I wipe it off. I think it's probably best.

Corrupt or incompetent?

Tessa Jowell used to be our MP, when we lived in Peckham. Now we have Kate Hoey who fights for the right to take booze into the cricket (it's the most I have ever been tempted to vote Labour), who's much better.

Jowell was - and presumably still is - a shambolic incompetent who should never be allowed near policy and certainly not any financial decision. Today, her ex-husband, now officially a crook, was sentenced to four and half years in prison. Good.

Jowell's defense was always that she didn't really know about any of this income and how it worked. Given that the sums in question were $600,000 you would expect her to have paid some attention, not just sign whatever was put in front of her. Of couse, terrifyingly, it is entirely possible that she didn't know or, more likely, understand: no mystery why the Olympics budget has overrun. She did write to us once to argue that Labour had slashed inflation, when anyone who was alive knows this was a Major, Clarke and Eddie George success. And George got into serious trouble for it. She is clearly a financial illiterate (Note a more literate Gordon supporting Eddie George's position).

As a defence, the 'I am useless' justification is a poor one in politics, though they doesn't appear to have stopped Gordon (best parodied here) trying the same trick when he claimed that he had known there was a looming debt bubble so, er, ran up loads of debt and didn't change regulation. With Gordon, you know it was incomeptence. With Jowell, it could be either, but I'm betting on incompetence again. It's never a bad bet with this lot.

Historia Lausiaca

Sometimes, it's hard to beat the early church. I've just found the following throwaway line in a description of Palladius' writings on Holy orders (R.T. Meyer, 'Holy Orders in the Eastern Church in the Early fifth century', SP 16 (1985), 46):

'A certain lector was falsely accused of fornication by a pregnant woman, who claimed he was the father. All too hastily the lector was deposed by his bishop. The lector then said: "Well, since I have fallen, give her to me in marriage, for I am no longer a cleric and she is no longer a virgin" (HL 70.2)

The account then goes on to show how the guilty woman was in pain and then confessed whence the pain miraculously stopped. And this proves the power of prayer. But I'd rather have clergy like the above without the ending.

****ing Keith Vaz

Much freedom of speech fun tonight. Keith Vaz, who really is a pointless adornment in the political firmament (I can see why Bozza swore violently at him) was on Newsnight arguing that Geert Wilders should have been banned from entering the country. He did it very badly. In essence he seems to have advanced three arguments, all rubbish

1. The Home Secretary had the legal powers to do so. This is true, but no-one claimed otherwise. There was a vacuous subargument whereby he tried to say that as each case should be considered on its own merits so no precedents could be drawn from previous decisions - suggesting the government just makes its decisions up with no clear principles. This may be true, but I wouldn't draw attention to it
2. Then he claimed that the man incited hatred. He initially based this on the film, which he has not seen (I thought we'd trained them out of this). However, he did also highlight that the man was under prosecution in the Netherlands. This is more serious, though would have been more compelling if he had been convicted.
3. (possibly the worst). When a nice Muslim, whose name escapes me - it wasn't a high quality panel - said that he wanted to debate the film with the filmaker, Keith said that he could, provided he flew to Holland. Which I think misses the point.
   

Of course, the arguments are useless because the case is atrocious. If freedom of speech is to mean anything, then it does mean than unpleasant things get said, people get offended, sometimes seriously and hurtfully. But it is better than curtailing that freedom along arbitrary lines - lines that do allow mass murdering communists to visit (and get state receptions), but not Dutch MPs. A freedom limited to saying nice things about each other or to discuss matters in a structured and logical way doesn't really amount to much. Deal with it.

As an aside, incitement to religious hatred has never really stood up in my book. I generally oppose the elevating of particular kinds of crime (direct or incitement) above others. If a man has incited an assualt on me for my wealth rather than my race, I fail to see why there is a different punishment.

The film itself, by the way, is crap: it's like a party political broadcast on behalf of the 'we hate fundies' party, which - come to think of it, it is.

The end of an era

Mine and my father's house are in mourning today: John Nettles is to leave Midsomer murders. No more will we be able to sample the absurd and fantastical plots - a ranking of episodes may follow this post - and his ability to reduce the range of human emotion to approximately three expression: bewilderment, irritation, and benign neutrality. The producers say they will continue without him, but this seems unlikely to be successful.

And, he looks bit like my dad. who was mistaken for him in the bazaar in Marrakesh.