Solace, of a Sort

          At last, I have resolved the niggling issue of having different types of valve on the front and rear tyres of my bike. Ostensibly, this was not problematic because I had bought a pump that connects to either, but when I needed it most, midway through a longish ride, it broke. My choice of a replacement was limited to whatever was available at the first shop to which I could push my stricken machine, so I came out of there with a very nifty (and quite expensive) lightweight ‘racing’ pump, which I soon discovered to be annoyingly impractical. Yes, it worked, but its adaptor for the differing valves was a plastic fitting so tiny that my fingers found it awkward to extract from its hidey-hole and re-position appropriately. Worse, the whole thing was about six inches long and impossible to grasp firmly and effectively.  Since Monday, however, when I acquired matching valves and a man-sized pump, I have felt happier about being back on the saddle.

          I know, I’ve been called pernickety before. But, in a world in which we are at the mercy of overwhelming forces, both natural and political, there’s comfort in controlling whatever we can to make life more enjoyable – or less annoying, depending on your point of view. And it’s not that I’m a complete control freak. Take, for example, the community choir. (There is a hierarchy of choirs, by the way, according to their degree of expertise. In this context, the word “community” is a euphemism for “entry-level”.) I’ve attended twice now and, as a participating singer, accept that I have no authority over the repertoire or how it is arranged, nor may I criticise the efforts of other members. This is challenging for someone who wants everything to be ‘just so’, yet I accept that teamwork is inherent to the enterprise, so I do what is expected of me. A good dose of working as a team is a useful antidote to selfishness, a reminder to stay rooted in society and a distraction from fretting about that over which I have no control, like geopolitics.

          Most of us are insufficiently rich to be in a position to influence the outcome of political power-struggles (yes, in case you hadn’t noticed, democracy is bought and sold). The very rich are in charge and act constantly to consolidate their stranglehold on power. Those who perpetrate war may legitimise their motives on religious or nationalistic grounds, but the real goal is invariably the acquisition of wealth. If this is true, it makes sense that Donald Trump should propose ending at least two wars, simply by putting forward commercial propositions. We shall see. Meanwhile, those who suffer are the cannon fodder and the civilians caught in crossfire.

          As interested as I am in geopolitics, there are mornings when I open the papers and skip over the headlines about this, that, or the other autocrat’s latest outrages on humanity. With a sad resignation, I search instead for some good news or, at least, a story that is not about destruction of the planet and its inhabitants. I suppose editors include such items purposely to leaven the burden of gloom and doom and avoid reader burn-out. This morning, I did the skip and landed on the story about archaeologists uncovering a pharaoh’s tomb, the first to have been discovered since that of Tutankhamun in 1922. Fascinated by archaeology’s forensic potential to tell us what happened in the ancient past, I’m always drawn to news of its findings, as I prefer evidence-based speculation to mythologies.

          But the uplifting effect of this particular story wore off pretty quickly when I realised that it’s really about yet another autocratic dictator who nabbed all the wealth for themself and – a particularly selfish move, this – took it all to the grave, presumably to avoid inheritance tax. In the three-and-a-half millennia since then, not much has changed. It’s enough to drive a chap to tinkering with his bike. 

Promises, Promises...

          The feeling that I really ought to make good on a few of the unfulfilled promises I’ve made to myself over the years has come to the fore. It gnaws at my consciousness from time to time anyway, but that recurring measure of urgency, my birthday, is here again to prompt me to action. Of course, advancing age renders some of those ambitions no longer feasible or, at least, less attractive than they once were: fast-tracking to rock stardom or wild-camping for two weeks in the Cairngorms are among the dreams from which I have awoken to face the reality of diminishing appetites and physicality. So, I have to refine the list and get on with ticking off the items that still qualify as achievable yet languish in limbo.

          A good place to start is the diary. A solid session of forward planning is an effective way to weed out unrealistic schemes. The very process of pinning down a date affords the opportunity to question the value of that to which you are about to commit. Whether or not you take that opportunity is up to you, with the proviso that your choice may be constrained by obligations to family and friends. Diarising (conversion of nouns to verbs is all the rage these days: I have it from Australia that a great-nephew “farewelled” his lifelong friend before he went off to study abroad) goes against my grain somewhat, as I like to think of the future as an open book. But my Other Half argues against this notion of que sera, sera by evidencing some of the lost opportunities that litter my past. I can’t argue with that, so I compromise by diarising key events and leaving blocks of time vacant and available for spontaneity – on my part, at least.

          As an extra refinement to this system, I have allocated a new colour code to the diary: graphite grey, which is to say, ‘pencilled in’. This category usefully covers the various events – gigs, meetings, exhibitions etc. – which are of interest, within walking distance, do not require advance booking, yet which I habitually miss. Now, with the ‘pencilled in’ category, I win/win. My options are left open, thus relieving my fear of constraint, while there is no chance of feeling regretful at having forgotten to attend.

          I tested this last Friday evening, foregoing a warm and cosy evening at home to brave a walk to the pub through a bitter easterly to see a “Barcelona street folk-rock” group whose percussion section comprised two tap-dancers. Interesting – for a while. But they did get an enthusiastic response from people inclined to dance. And there was a decent pint of cider on tap.

          But perhaps the more momentous event of the week – and something I have been dancing around myself – was my actual attendance, for the first time, at a choir session. Signs that I will keep it up are encouraging. First, they didn’t tell me not to come back (though this is likely to be because male voices are notoriously scarce in community choirs). Second, I did enjoy singing, even though it was difficult to make out whether I was hitting the notes, what with all those other people attempting the same. I suppose one becomes accustomed to that after a while, otherwise it wouldn’t work.

          The choir has been working for a couple of weeks on Leonard Cohen’s Dance Me to The End of Love, an unlikely choice, I thought. Not that I wish to disrespect Leonard’s legacy, but I never much liked that old klezmer-tinged dirge, though I do like the jazz-swing version recorded by Madeleine Peyroux. But our leader has come up with a complicated four-part arrangement that, if it ever comes together, will vindicate her endeavour and, to a lesser extent, mine.

Contemplate the Hole

          About seventeen years ago, I managed to escape from the hole I had dug for myself – a manufacturing business that I had established, nurtured and eventually grown weary of. The subsequent euphoric feeling of freedom from responsibilities took me back to the prelapsarian era prior to my taking hold of the metaphorical shovel, when my horizons seemed to expand daily, and mortgaging was something other people did. Once out of the hole, I relished once more the luxury of being able to plan a day out according to the weather forecast, spend a morning at the cinema, or enjoy a night out without a looming ‘school day’ to inhibit the occasional excess to which I’m inclined.

          But I have been aware lately of being stalked by a low-level form of anxiety. It creeps up and questions whether I’m making best use of my time. Whence this spectre of my shovel-wielding past? Well, after giving it some thought, I’ve concluded that it’s because I have gradually accrued responsibilities – again! To be clear, I’m not talking about anything really burdensome – just, for example, volunteering to help a local charity. Still, such work involves meetings, deadlines, preparation, engagement with professionals and various other activities that demand entries in my otherwise ‘pencilled-in’ diary. Looking over my shoulder, I’ve had to remind myself that anxiety, in itself, is not a bad thing: though it can be overwhelming, it’s best utilised as a driving force, an antidote to complacency and lethargy – or so goes the therapeutic argument.

          When, in a recent surge of outrage, I signed up to join last week’s protest outside the Royal Courts of Justice*, I didn’t think about how the action might cause me to become anxious, but that was before I arrived and saw that the side streets were crammed with vans full of police officers ready to be deployed. “Don’t worry”, said the organisers, as a thousand of us sat down deliberately to block a road for an hour-and-a-half, “You have a legal right to protest peacefully”. What followed was akin to a performance imbued with an air of menace.

          The police adopted a tactic of polite, individual engagement, aimed at encouraging us to move to the designated protest area nearby (where our message to the world would have shrivelled and died of media under-exposure) and backing this up with the prospect of arrest, should a Section 14 order be imposed in the next hour, which was “very likely to happen”. We all knew it was unlikely, but I admit, nevertheless, to having been tempted to move on quietly. But my fortitude prevailed – largely because behind me was someone I knew to have been arrested more than once, to my left a stranger who told me she had been arrested four times and, to my right, another who had actually served time in prison for animal rights activism. What was I? A wimp?

          Well, not exactly. I may not have form, but I do have nice, middle-class manners and, when asked politely by the police to move on, I find myself inclined to oblige. But I gained strength from our number and my anxiety was laid to rest. A touch of humour also helped leaven the situation, when a very young policeman explained to me, seriously, that, were I to be arrested, I would acquire a criminal record, which could adversely affect my future career prospects.

          That evening, I celebrated my freedom (though not, I fear, that of those on whose behalf we had protested) with a friend, in Soho, where we ate and drank lavishly before descending to a cellar to jive it up to an excellent jazz band. It was well after midnight before I got home but, who cares? School days are most definitely a thing of the past.

*Bringing attention to the appeal for a reduction in the custodial sentences previously imposed on sixteen citizens currently serving time for non violent acts of protest.

Vegans Beware!

          The set of friends we’ve acquired since uprooting four years ago includes quite a few vegans and, having heard their arguments in favour of a plant-based diet, I have found myself taking tentative steps down that particular road to Damascus. Although the ethical case for not eating other sentient beings is debatable, the scientific case relating to better health for us and the environment is not. And, as for best use of resources, it makes no sense to devote an estimated 36% of the world’s grain production to feeding animals who, while being bred and raised for slaughter, emit an awful lot of atmosphere-warming methane.

          Our philosophy discussion group began its new year on Tuesday with Socrates, whose principles might have aligned him with ethical veganism, had it been proposed to him, but that being the day after the presidential inauguration of the wannabe dictator, Trump, our focus was on the decline of political ethics since the golden age of Greece. When, in 380 AD, Emperor Theodosius mandated that Christianity must be adopted throughout the Roman Empire, he effectively buried philosophical discussion until the Renaissance. Now, faced with Trump’s triumphant onslaught against the reasonable exchange of ideas, could we be in for a second Dark Age?

          Trump’s vilification and stifling of opposition, along with his blatant attempts to capture the institutions of state, are classic fascist tactics. His success (as defined by winning the election) can be attributed, in part, to the paucity of public education, insofar as it has kept enough of the voting population sufficiently ignorant as to be easily manipulated.

          But the week hasn’t been all doom and gloom. Professional Donald Trump impersonators are delighted to be looking forward to four years of solid bookings. And, more widely, there are the veteran Bob Dylan fans, like me, who bought tickets to a time-travelling treat, A Complete Unknown, the biopic covering Dylan’s emergence in the early sixties. The accuracy of some details in the film is questioned by experts but, for me, it was enough that the overall re-creation of time, place and events had sufficient credibility and more than enough atmosphere to elicit a sometimes tearfully nostalgic response. As for Timothy Chalamet, his impersonation/impression of Bob’ singing and playing was astonishingly convincing – so unlike my amateur attempts in the heyday of my hopeful musical ambition. So absorbing was the film that my Other Half, whose interest in Bob has always been lukewarm and whom I suspect of having come along simply to see Timothy Chalamet, afterwards admitted to having had something of a damascene experience herself.

          I was at one of Dylan’s Royal Albert Hall concerts in 1966, ten days or so after the more famous Manchester gig at which a ‘folk purist’ and erstwhile fan expressed his sense of betrayal by shouting “Judas!” when Bob came onstage with his electric guitar and backing band. The London audience was also divided but I sat on the fence, more intrigued than outraged. In my view, Bob certainly had the last laugh.

          As it turned out, the week’s highlights were overshadowed by the constant stream of bad news from the good old US of A, land of opportunity and centre of the free world, which has seemingly acquired a king – anointed by God when he diverted the assassin’s bullet. Trump’s latest edicts include removing from official documentation the option for citizens to register their sex as any other than either male or female and denying the validity of those parts of the constitution that do not serve his purpose, such as the 14^th amendment, which grants US citizenship to all those born in the USA. More ominous is the implementation of a Soviet style ‘snitch’ culture, whereby Federal employees are now obliged to inform on colleagues they suspect of not whole-heartedly complying with Trump’s orders. At this rate, it won’t be long before, at the behest of the agro-industry lobbyists, Americans will be obliged to report anyone suspected of the unpatriotic crime of veganism.

Wassail Away

          In an old Steinbeck story, set in California around 1930, the protagonist adds a pinch of celery salt to the glass of beer he is served in a bar. Intrigued by this, I dug around t’internet and discovered that it has long been known that adding salt to poor quality beer makes it more palatable. Further intrigued, I went to the trouble of buying some celery salt and adding it to bottle of supermarket lager left over from a party. The result of my test was inconclusive – but that’s probably because I don’t much care for lager anyway, salted or otherwise. So, I am rid of the lager, but the salt remains, a useful addition to the cruet, as it goes especially well with boiled eggs (hard or soft).

          Actually, I prefer cider to beer and have become quite the afficionado when it comes to the apple varieties used, the style of the drink and the provenance of the producers. You could say I’m picky, but that would be an understatement. For me, it has to be dry, still, without additives and made in England with native apples. The thing is, when I taste cider, I taste also the history of England. It’s a visceral thing, hard to explain. I’ll have a go anyway.

          Last Sunday, I went wassailing around a small orchard that has recently been established on the Hoe (Plymouth’s elevated park that overlooks the city to the north and the sea to the south and from which sir Francis Drake calmly observed the approaching Spanish Armada while he finished a game of bowls with his mates). I joined a motley crew of traditionalists in the act of dispensing goodwill to the trees in the hope that they will respond with an abundant harvest. There is a special song to kick off proceedings but, after that, the ceremony loosens up and we traipse around the trees, banging pots and pans or playing folk instruments and offering libations of cider lees to the roots. It’s pagan, ancient, light-hearted and uniquely silly: the essence of old England as popularly portrayed. I don’t believe wassailing has any effect on harvests, but I do believe that the perpetuation of the joyfully expressive tradition makes the cider taste better in the bar afterwards.

          And so it did. The after-party took place in the bowling club pavilion (which is said to stand roughly where Sir Francis would have been playing in 1588), where we were treated to sea shanties, morris dancing and refreshments, including, of course, cider most pure (and some which was adulterated with spices and heated up – mulled, they calls it. I suspect it’s just another way of making a poor beverage palatable, like the trick with salt). Sea shanties are a bit like the blues in that, when sung with gusto, they can be moving but, musically the format is limited, so one’s attention wanders after about fifteen minutes. However, a couple of pints of cider soon has you singing along.

           Morris dancing, likewise, can arouse more curiosity than excitement, but this particular side* had a narrator who explained the stories behind the dance moves, clarifying the interpretive choreography. It became a bit fuzzy after the second pint but, by then, it was all just jolly japes anyway and I was feeling inclined to join in, regardless of the fact that the dancers were wielding heavy sticks. Sensibly, I refrained and gave thanks, instead, to those who actively perpetuate the folk traditions. Progress may be the inevitable fate of us humans, but the past is the start of our story.

          Two days later, I was driving along an old road that wound through the Devon countryside, skirting ancient landholdings and passing within inches of the thatched buildings of Norman hamlets. There were moments when old England surged through me, like the remains of a dream.

*Morris dance troupes are called ‘sides’.