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| Salisbury Cathedral - see below Photograph copyright Stephanie Welch |
October 9th, 2022
“I saw a lone rower carving across
the Arno. The foothills were darkening,
and the cypress trees around San Miniato were topped by a ghostly mist. Ochre walls appeared more golden as the sun
softened. Lights appeared throughout the
city and took their place on the surface of the river. The rower slipped through this spectacle of
light. Water dripped off the blades of
his oars, and momentarily I was in that drip.
Falling into the green twilight depths of history.”
“Pistol is embedded in a high
moor, snug and warm, for all its eminence. The moor itself is girt with waving
woods that stretch and toss for miles, making a deep sloping sash of foliage
which Autumn will dye with such grave glory that the late loss of Summer and
her pretty ways seems easier to bear. Orange and purple, copper and gold,
russet and crimson—these in a hundred tones tremble and glow in one giant
harmony, out of which, at the release of sun, come swelling chords so deep and
rich and vivid that the sweet air is quick with stifled music and every passing
breeze charged to the full with silent melody.”
Two passages of purple prose,
separated by 100 years, 1921 and 2021.
Can you guess which is which?
I’m interested in purple prose –
in some cases evidence of a certain pretentiousness in writing, in others, perhaps
evocative of a scene or visual picture that lingers in the memory.
The first of the above is taken
from Sarah Winman’s novel, Still Life, published in 2021, and the second is
from the deeply unfashionable Dornford Yates’ ‘Berry & Co’, published in
1921. As an avid reader, when I was a
child, apart from visiting the library, I read all the books my parents had on
their bookshelves, including most of the Dornford Yates oeuvre. I loved them.
Yates, John Buchan, and ‘Sapper’ (H.C. McNeile), early 20th century
writers with much in common, were all covered in a biography called ‘Clubland
Heroes’ by Richard Usborne. The best
description I can give of Dornford Yates’ output comes from Alan Bennett, in
his play ‘Forty Years On’: “Sapper,
Buchan, Dornford Yates, practitioners in that school of Snobbery with Violence
that runs like a thread of good-class tweed through twentieth-century
literature.”
Brilliantly, Bennett captures the
genre. I love that phrase ‘Snobbery with
Violence’. A later critic points out that
James Bond, Ian Fleming’s creation, is perhaps the last in the sequence.
But Dylan Thomas once said that
one should not be ashamed of our influences, when young. He said in a lecture: ‘I read (past tense) everything
I could get my little trotters on.’
It is hard to distinguish
pretentious writing from good writing.
Ernest Hemingway is a master of vivid description, but rarely descends
to the level of purple prose. His gift
of simplicity led William Faulkner to write: ‘He has never been known to use a
word that might send a reader to the dictionary.’ The opening page of Steinbeck’s ‘Grapes of
Wrath’ is a magnificent, almost biblical scene setting of the drought that
created the American dust bowl. By
contrast, the opening lines of ‘The Bridges of Madison County’ are by an author
striving for effect and wanting to be remembered as a master in the style of
Steinbeck:
‘There are songs that come free from the blue-eyed grass, from the
dust of a thousand country roads, this is one of them.’
(1992; Robert James Waller).
‘Pretentious, moi?’ (vide: Fawlty Towers)
If you haven’t read ‘The Bridges
of Madison County’, you are in a substantial minority. If you have not seen the film, starring Clint
Eastwood and Meryl Streep, you might enjoy this 1995 review from the Washington
Post about it, ‘A Bridge’s over Troubled Water’ by Ed Schneider:
About Meryl Streep in the film, a
friend of Schneider’s stated; ‘The first hour was really boring; there were
only so many times I could watch her peel carrots.’
Critics remain divided about the
novella. The plot motif has striking
similarities to Noel Coward’s 1936 play, Still Life (Still Life again!), which
became the famous film ‘Brief Encounter’.
Poole Harbour, near Evening Hill, 30th September
The above is a needful
parenthesis, to sandwich between the late Queen’s obsequies and the very real
issues facing our country and the world in general in the late summer and
Autumn of 2022.
With regard to the Queen, the
suddenness of her demise indicates some major event such as a stroke, haemorrhage,
overwhelming sepsis, or a cardiac event.
Her medical attendants have delivered a classic ‘cop out’ by signing the
cause of death as ‘old age’. It is only
relatively recently that it has become acceptable to write ‘old age’ on a death
certificate. When I qualified it was
drummed into us that this was a ‘no-no’.
The need to put down an exact cause of death was probably partly
responsible for the complete inaccuracy of most death certificates. In many studies, where post-mortem
examinations had been performed, it was shown that the true cause of death was
different to that stated on a certificate in at least 50% of cases. There are rumours that Queen Elizabeth was
suffering from myeloma, but the hugger-mugger nature of ‘The Firm’ means that
we may never know. A subsequent article
by a journalist doctor in the Telegraph condemns the practice of signing ‘Old
Age’ on a certificate.
A classic case of inaccurate
diagnosis for example, was of a General Practitioner, who had recently been
discovered to have stenoses (narrowings) in both carotid arteries (the major
vessels which supply blood to the brain), who dropped dead during his evening
surgery. His medical partners signed a
certificate to the effect that he had suffered a stroke, despite the fact that
stroke death is not instantaneous. We
know from studies in Framingham, Massachusetts that the commonest mode of death
in people found to have carotid artery disease is a heart attack, which of
course through cardiac arrhythmia may lead to instantaneous death.
‘The End is Nigh’. This trope, proclaimed by many, often
carrying placards, was, I thought, emblazoned on a board carried by an
eccentric character who used to walk down Oxford Street on most days during the
time when I was a medical student in London.
It is not mentioned in the obituaries of this man, Stanley Green, and
certainly it is true that the obverse side of his plaque drew attention to his
belief that violence and lust was due to excessive protein intake. ‘Less lust, Less protein’ was the main message
of his banner. But ‘The End is Nigh’
comes to mind when we consider what is happening in the world today.
To return to the War Diary theme
of my blog, the Ukrainian Army, plentifully supplied with weapons primarily by
the USA (despite rhetoric from the U.K. and Europe) have inflicted major
defeats on Putin’s invading force. The
Russian Army has been in retreat, and it now looks possible that Ukraine may
recapture lands in Crimea that Putin annexed in 2014. In the last day or so, there has been an
explosion on both the road and rail bridges which link Russia with Crimea, a
Putin vanity project. There are rumours
that Putin may consider the use of nuclear weapons in the Ukraine, indeed he
has hinted as much.
Other awful happenings include
huge floods in Southern Pakistan, killing thousands; major hurricanes and
typhoons in Florida and the Philippines; multiple deaths due to a stampede at a
football match in Indonesia; mass shootings in the USA, and a mass murder of
children in Thailand by a disaffected police officer. What Putin may fail to achieve, perhaps the
sequelae of climate change will.
The disadvantage of leaving a
diary for a long time is that events such as the sacking of a Prime Minister
and the election (if one can call it that) of a successor have not been
recorded. Boris Johnson made one error
of judgment too many, and had to go. The
appointment of a new leader is decided first of all by votes among Conservative
MPs and subsequently by official paid-up Conservative party members. Liz Truss is the appointee. As in Catch-22, the fact that anyone wants to
grasp the poisoned chalice of Tory leadership is surely an automatic
disqualification of their validity to hold the office. Already, Trussonomics has had to U-turn on
tax reductions, there are widespread strikes, and our energy policy – or lack
of it – may lead to power blackouts this winter. The last such blackouts took place when I was
a student – in 1971 as I recall.
‘A week is a long time in
politics’. A remark usually attributed
to Harold Wilson circa 1964. One is
tempted to observe ‘A day is a long time in politics’. The coming and going of various ministers,
some discredited, some being forced to resign, and now Prime Ministers (Liz
Truss is no more – Rishi Sunak has grabbed the chalice, narrowly avoiding a
Boris Johnson resurgence as the tubby ex-PM made a dash back from a holiday
no-one knew he had taken in the Dominican Republic, only to find that no-one
wanted him any more). Before this, Kwasi
Kwarteng, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, had to resign after the catastrophic
budget he and Truss created with slashed taxes and an economic black hole. Kwarteng had been overseas, in New York,
before being summoned back. A joke doing
the rounds stated that he had found difficulty getting on the BA flight back to
London because no-one wanted him anywhere near Business or Economy. Kwarteng’s resignation did not save Liz
Truss, who was forced to resign in short order thereafter. Jeremy Hunt, a previous relatively
undistinguished incumbent of the health ministry, is the new Chancellor.
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| Matt Cartoon, Daily Telegraph |
Politics always delivers, at
least if you are a political commentator or analyst. And they have been overwhelmingly busy. Gavin Williamson, an inexplicably knighted
Tory MP, who had been an extremely poor minister for education, was given a
Cabinet post by Rishi Sunak – Minister without Portfolio. In post for 14 days, he has resigned after
unpleasantly hectoring and bullying texts sent to the Chief Whip. It seems that he threw his toys out of the
pram after not being invited to the Queen’s funeral.
Another figure of fun from the
past, Matt Hancock MP, has signed up for ‘I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here’,
in the Australian jungle. Far from
celebrating the fact that he at least cannot do any harm in politics from a
remote spot in Queensland, his constituency in West Suffolk are upset and have
suggested he consider resigning from parliament. Many are looking forward to the trials Hancock
is likely to suffer on the programme, such as having to eat kangaroo
testicles. It is unclear whether his
wife or his mistress is pleased/displeased that Hancock has left the UK.
Branksome Chine, 3rd October
Poole Harbour, 18th October
Our summer weather came to an
abrupt close, but October was still an unusually record breaking warm
month. Storms and rain have supervened.
And the war in Ukraine
continues. The Ukrainian forces have
achieved remarkable victories over the Russians – but they are critically
dependant on hardware and expertise from the West. The USA have been doing a good job in supplying
them, infuriating Putin, who sees this as a proxy war by the West against
Russia. Today’s paper suggests that the
EU is lagging behind in financial support.
Putin’s latest tactic is missile strikes to destroy infrastructure –
knocking out power stations and electricity supplies. He is also buying weapons from Iran…
The circus which is the major
climate change conference – now COP 27 – is taking place in Egypt. Rishi Sunak initially announced that he was
too busy at home, but vacillated, and did attend. He made vague noises about reparations by
rich nations for the adverse effects of climate change in small nations –
seemingly the most popular issue in this talking shop which generates much hot
air (and CO2). Even Greta
Thunberg is not attending this one.
Neither are Russia, China, and India – three of the world’s worst
offenders in pollution and generation of climate change.
An interesting fact has emerged about
the increase in global atmospheric CO2. A study by Ohio State University has shown
that many trees have responded to the increased concentration of the gas (which
is a substrate for the building blocks of plant life) by enlarging, and
‘fixing’ more CO2 than before.
Can there be some positive effects of carbon dioxide increase one wonders?
Another fascinating little fact –
unrelated to climate change, but relevant nonetheless to our current economic
disasters, has been uncovered by the US Department of Homeland Security. An unusual pattern in the export and import
of medical supplies – particularly those related to Personal Protection
Equipment (PPE) – by China was detected in the months before the world became
aware of Covid 19. A reduction in
exports, and amassing of materials useful to the creation of protective
clothing, without any obvious reason, suggests that China was aware of the
virus and its pandemic potential. Yet
again, this fuels the speculation that the virus may have had a laboratory
origin.
There is nothing like a touch of
cancer to make one philosophical. I have
friends who are going through the unpleasantness of treatment for metastatic
cancer. I freely admit that I am in no
way comparable – despite the complications suffered after radical resection for
carcinoma of the prostate, and an involved lymph node, the worst I can look
forward to at the moment is the possibility of some pelvic radiotherapy. And a regular subscription to Tena
incontinence products. The gloomiest
thing about this is that the first delivery of the pads comes with some elastic
net supports (one might call them netty-knickers). Inside, printed on each one is ‘Name’ and
‘Room’. In other words, an institution
cannot be too far away. All of the above
does make one begin to think of oneself as a very insignificant conglomeration
of molecules sub specie aeternitatis. In other words, we are on the downward spiral
of entropy, and our importance in the world is greatly exaggerated – not least
by ourselves. The birth of my grandson
(now called Arlo), at least gives some feeling of permanence. The mixing, and copying of some strands of
DNA, allows one to dream of immortality.
Wordsworth probably summed up the poignancy of man’s situation (sorry
about the “man’s” but it is easier to write and at least you know what I mean –
all genders included) in his poem ‘Intimations of Immortality’. He would probably have been fascinated to
learn about DNA.
And my daughter, when I said, ‘Arlo. Great name.
As in Arlo Guthrie’, said ‘Who?’
Consider sub specie aeternitatis again.
A phrase coined by the philosopher Spinoza. For a detailed discussion of the topic see:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10790-021-09839-5
More simply, Amor Towles, author,
writes this in ‘The Lincoln Highway’, towards the end of the novel, in a
chapter entitled ‘Abacus’:
“Many years before, Abacus had
come to the conclusion that the greatest of heroic stories have the shape of
diamond on its side. Beginning at a fine
point, the life of the hero expands outward through youth as he begins to
establish his strengths and fallibilities, his friendships and enmities. Proceeding into the world, he pursues
exploits in grand company, accumulating honors and accolades. But at some untold moment, the rays that define
the outer limits of this widening world of hale companions and worthy
adventures simultaneously turn a corner and begin to converge. The terrain our hero travels, the cast of
characters he meets, the sense of purpose that has long propelled him forward
all begin to narrow – to narrow toward that fixed and inexorable point that
defines his fate.” Abacus now realises
that it isn’t simply the lives of the renowned that conform to this
geometry. It is “All lives.”
We have had a five-day trip to
Yorkshire, to watch Bournemouth play Leeds in the Premier League. Apart from the excitement of the game, which
Bournemouth lost 4-3 after leading 3-1, the best day was Friday, when in bright
sunshine we explored the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, near Wakefield. Modern sculpture often leaves me poised
midway between laughter and admiration.
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| Yorkshire Sculpture Park, work by Tom Price. November 4th |
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| 'Love' by Robert Indiana |
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| Another statue - paying homage to the late great Don Revie |
And last month we had a long
planned five-day visit to Istanbul.
Exciting, but thronged with tourists in a way that surely can only be
matched by Venice in season.
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| Agia Sophia Mosque at night |
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| An elegant mosque beside the Bosphorus |
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| The Topkapi Palace dagger - the emeralds are the size of a quail's egg |
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| The Blue Mosque (Sultanahmet) |
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| The colours of Turkish Delight, Spice Market, Istanbul |
And at the end of this week
(November 20th), the World Cup of football starts in Qatar.
November 24th, 2022
We have had seemingly endless
rain. One bright windless Saturday, we
ventured into the sea for a swim. It was
brief. The water temperature has dropped
to 14 degrees. On my walks along the
promenade I often see swimmers changing after braving the water. Uncharitably I note that they often have
better insulation than I do.
There is a virtually
uninterrupted diet of football. There is
much discussion about the absurdities of holding the tournament in Qatar, not
least because of their human rights record and the fact that homosexuality is a
crime, let alone their treatment of women in Qatari society. Other anomalies, not to say shocks, are the
loss of Germany to Japan and Argentina to KSA (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia).
We are approaching the depths of
winter and of course, Christmas. There
has been no real frost and almost all the leaves remain on our oak tree. A friend posts beautiful pictures of the
light show at Salisbury Cathedral.
An article, of which more next
time, by Louise Willder, is a plug for her book, ‘Blurb Your Enthusiasm’. She is a professional blurb writer, and has
created those pithy little additions to the covers of thousands of books which
make you buy them. As she says, it is
rare that one could just describe the plot in bald statements such as this TV
listing: ‘Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first
person she meets and then teams up with three strangers to kill again.’ (The Wizard of Oz).
She admits that other such
writers can make her buy books as well.
She once bought ‘A Gathering Light’ by Jennifer Donnelly because the
quote on the front said, “If George Clooney had walked into the room I would have
told him to come back later when I’d finished.”
And she was glad she did.
Sunday November 27th,
2022.
I finish this update on a grey,
rainy day. Walking along the promenade
towards Canford Cliffs, the Class 1 racing yachts are limply progressing
towards a racing mark on a much calmer morning than we have seen recently. Passing the small Tesco store near Shore
Road, Paul McCartney and Wings are simply having a wonderful Christmas
time. Oh dear. I leave you with some more images from work colleague Stephanie Welch:
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| The seasonal light show, Salisbury Cathedral Copyright Stephanie Welch |
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| The seasonal light show, interior, Salisbury Cathedral Copyright Stephanie Welch |
Au revoir.
