My Sporting Heritage

Whenever I have attended a live sporting event, I have left the ground disappointed – if not early. Apart from one cricket match at Lords back in 1996, when a full-figured lady streaker ran across the pitch in my direction, nothing exciting has ever happened. Admittedly, I have attended very few events (not being a sports fan) and I may have been unlucky that they were all dull. Nevertheless, I am not prepared to kiss any more frogs – especially after last week’s rugby match between the Sharks and the Saracens, teams with names so misleadingly scintillating that they probably contravene the Trades Description Act.

Despite all this, I am partial to watching the occasional game of rugby on TV, thereby eliminating the inconveniences of driving and queuing, the inferior quality of refreshments, the high cost of tickets and – not least – the poor view of the action (supposing there is any). Perhaps the faint but lingering interest I have in the game is a legacy of my education at a boarding school in Plymouth, where participation was mandatory for all boys in possession of four functioning limbs. I was neither an accomplished nor enthusiastic player but I did have an uncle who played for Plymouth Albion. Let’s just put my attachment down to nostalgia, a feeling that has dominated the last few days especially, since I have been on a trip, with my partner, to Plymouth, the city I left in 1966 and have visited only rarely since.

A lot has changed there – as one might expect. For one thing, the old school is gone, its land sold to developers long ago. This saved my partner from the ritual of having to go and see it although, in fairness, she was indulgent when listening to my commentary on other landmarks. These included places such as the outdoor pools where I swam as a child, the shelter on the prom where I first kissed a girl, the hall where I danced to Gene Vincent and the Blue Caps and the pub where I bought my first (illegal) pint. Her tolerance of my nostalgia was exemplary, though it may have been enhanced by the fact that the sun was shining and the feel-good factor was high. The city’s extensive and varied seafront, from the Mayflower Steps at the Barbican, westwards around the Hoe, to the former Royal Naval stronghold at Mount Wise, looked at its best. And there was decent espresso where once there had been only Nescafé; sourdough where once there was only Wonderloaf.

Since Elizabethan times, the local economy has been dominated by the Royal Navy but, now that the “Senior Service” is shrunk to a fraction of the size it used to be, some fundamental changes are manifest. Admiralty land and buildings have been sold off, enabling the development of housing where once the industrial/military complex hogged all the best sea-facing locations. Not that sea-facing locations mattered to me as a schoolboy: I was more impressed by the futuristic architecture of the city’s central area, re-fashioned in the 1950s after the war-time bombings. The wide boulevards, lined with the clean contemporary temples of retail, intersected by the broad Armada Way running south to the war monument on the Hoe, all seemed perfect to me. Nowadays the shops, having to adapt to new ways of doing business, are under strain and some of them are looking less than glamorous. Nevertheless, the original street-plan remains harmoniously intact and, as such, lives up to the confident, optimistic vision of the future that inspired it and that appealed so much to my youthful idealism.

Overall, with encouraging signs of a revival of economic fortune based on tourism and higher education, the old place certainly has a lot more to interest me than just nostalgia.

Hazlet?

One evening last week I was reading David Foster Wallace’s Brief Interviews with Hideous Men when, realising eventually that my power of concentration was no longer equal to the complexities of his imaginative and inventive prose, I gave up. I closed the book and picked up instead one that I had previously read and knew to be less taxing – Bill Bryson’s Notes from a Small Island. It’s an especially easy read for me because I have an affinity with the notion of travelling around Britain savouring the peculiarities of its varied parts. In fact, as it happened, I was due to set off the next morning on just such an expedition.

The destination was Barnard Castle, a classic market town on the upper reaches of the River Tees. I say classic because, like Appleby 30 miles to the west, its core is recognisably intact: it straddles a river, has a castle, a broad main street for the market stalls and numerous pubs, all of which are still trading. My visit did not coincide with market day but the shops compensated for that: many are owner-managed and are stocked therefore with local produce and specialities offered by friendly – sometimes eccentric – characters. Consequently, I am now the happy possessor of a hand-brush made of wood and bristle and a bag of small, brown, dried peas known as carlins which, although normally used as animal feed, are eaten by locals on a particular day in the ritual run-up to Easter. The brush will certainly find a purpose in the campervan but the carlins will probably remain in the back of a cupboard long after Easter has been and gone.

Dried peas apart, the food available in Castle Barnard is mouthwatering, especially for those who, like me, have a fondness for old-fashioned delicacies such as hazlet, pressed tongue, black pudding, pease pudding, faggots, pork pies, farmhouse cheese and artisan bread. With two butchers’ shops, three bakers and four grocers all on the same street, the ratio of outlets for fresh, locally sourced produce to density of population exceeds the wildest dreams of a foodie resident in central Manchester. I embarked on an orgy of stocking-up before we left the area, afraid that, if I did not support them, the shopkeepers would go out of business. I was mindful of the recent news headline that half of all the food now bought in Britain has been “processed” – which is to say that someone has added to it that which would be better left out i.e. sugar, palm oil, various chemicals and excessive quantities of salt and fat. This morning’s headlines were no surprise to me, therefore: the consumption of processed food contributes not only to obesity, but also the likelihood of contracting cancer. I hate to say “I told you so” but we hippies ( I was loosely associated) knew back in the day that ingesting food additives was unlikely to be good for one’s health, hence the popularity of our ‘fads’ such as brown rice, wholemeal bread, vegetarianism, macrobiotics etc. Not so much notice was taken of the medical advice concerning the ingestion of mind-bending chemicals, but no one is perfect. Nor did we hippies diet in vain: we sowed the seeds so that, alongside the rise of processed food, there is now a growing band of vegans determined to save the planet from excess, animals from harm and their digestive systems from contamination.

But the excursion was not all about food. One day was devoted to a walk up and down Teesdale, following the fast-flowing river that attracts daring canoeists in helmets and rubber onesies. Another was spent following the river Wear through nearby Durham, where the water is slow and wide and competitive rowing is the preferred sport. Durham is rightly famous for its history, its cathedral, its castle and its university, the library of which is named for one of its ex-chancellors - Bill Bryson.

How Very Civilised

In 1969 the BBC aired its “landmark” 13-part series Civilisation. There was – and still is – controversy over the title, given that the scope of the programme was confined to an appreciation of a limited range of western art, though in fairness to the producers, its remit was qualified by the subtitle A Personal View by Kenneth Clarke. This week the BBC announced the imminent broadcast of a similar “landmark” series, the nine-part Civilisations (note the plural.) The stated focus of the series is on art and creativity, though I suspect that the underlying question of what constitutes the civilised will be in play throughout. If, however, we believe that civilisation started with cave paintings 40,000 years ago, then perhaps it makes sense to see art as an index of its development.

Wiser men than me have baulked at the prospect of trying to come up with a definitive description of what civilisation is, as their frequent recourse to humour on the subject seems to indicate. Oscar Wilde once quipped, “America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilisation between” – though we should bear in mind that he died in 1900 and much has happened since. Others have come up with definitions that, notably, do not mention art. They include: Arnold Toynbee, “Civilisation is a movement and not a condition”; Samuel Johnson, “A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilisation”; H.G. Wells, “Civilisation is a race between disaster and education”; and Emile Zola, “Civilisation will not attain to its perfection until the last stone of the last church falls on the last priest”. And let us not forget Ghandi’s withering riposte when asked what he thought of western civilisation: “I think it would be a good idea.”

The elusiveness of the essence of civilisation seemed to permeate two films that I saw this week. The first, Makala, a documentary about the life of a Congolese charcoal maker, was tough to watch. His precarious, hand-to-mouth existence – trying to earn a living by making and selling charcoal in a war-ravaged country that has no infrastructure and with no support outside of family – seemed unimaginable, though true. The very absence of civilisation was palpable. The second, Phantom Threads, portrays an opposite extreme – the life of a fashionable London couturier circa 1955. It’s a love story, ultimately, but the pampering environment in which it is set – all frocks, flounces and tantrums – led me to question whether this facet of civilisation is, in fact, civilised at all. Decadent seems more apt.

However we might choose to define it, civilisation is always in the process of development, absorbing and incorporating diverse elements along the way – the more the better, for diversity builds resilience. Civilisations built on monocultures have all peaked and declined– Egyptian, Greek, Roman, to name a few. They were ousted by more powerful rivals, which suggests that more of the same would be futile in the long term. The sooner we get used to the idea of a global – but inclusive – civilisation, the better. That is why I was encouraged by other news this week. The village of Cheddar, which already punches above its weight in the fame stakes, has now come up with another knock-out. Eponymous Cheddar Man, a 10,000-year-old skeleton, has provided scientists with DNA that reveals his skin was black – or dark brown – and that he had blue eyes. People of white British ancestry alive today are his descendents, which means that the connection between Britishness and whiteness is a relatively recent phenomenon. There are probably some of us who may not like the idea, but to them I have to say “hard cheese.”

Come Rain, Come Shine

It was a gruesome start to the day. I had checked my phone for new messages and found attached to the first one an unappealing photo of a friend’s sore foot. The next, from my sister, was worse: a photo of a gory wound on her leg. I really should take heed of the latest advice – to limit screen time – at least until after breakfast. However, I recovered my equanimity and, the weather forecast being fine, set off for a walk. (Lately we have had daily variations in our weather: cold and bright; cold and overcast; or cold and wet. I prefer the first but don’t mind the other types because I have a strategy for making the best of them: indoor activities.)

This fine day, I took a walk around the northern fringe of the city centre, dodging the homeless people on the pavements, to check progress on the housing developments that might, one day, give them shelter. The good news is that there are plenty of units being built. Less good, however, is the prospect that they will not be cheap. Moreover, in the inevitable compromise between density and quality, density appears to have gained the upper hand. In the euphemistically named neighbourhood of Angel Meadows, for example, identikit blocks of flats crowd each other out as they loom over narrow Victorian streets. And, despite our acquired wisdom of the social value of creating inter-active neighbourhoods, there seems to be no provision for communal facilities or open spaces. But my walk was not completely soured by disappointment: further along, in the quarter called New Islington, the buildings are more varied and set to make the most of the old canal basins and the small but thoughtfully created park. There is hope.

Turning to indoor activities – apart from an excellent lunch hosted by a friend, which drifted boozily into the early evening – good chunks of my time were spent at the cinema. I went to see Nick Parks’ Early Man, despite it being a ‘family entertainment,’ because it is set “near Manchester, around lunchtime” in the Pleistocene era. Sure enough, there were actual children in the audience, though I doubt they got the metaphor about sustainable economic growth that the storyline conveyed (a primitive tribe is ousted from its habitat by the forces of profiteering capitalism). Actually, toward the end of the film, in spite of the gripping football match, small children started to wander the aisles in search of something more interesting, while adults sat rapt.

Again, despite misgivings, I then went to see The Post. I am reluctant to pay money to encourage Stephen Spielberg because, although his films are undeniably well made, they are invariably tainted with his trademark insertion of at least one unnecessary and extremely schmaltzy scene. However, the cinema beckoned, offering shelter from the elements, and the story of The Post – the fight for the freedom of the press – is a noble one and, worryingly, of recurring topicality. Everything was as expected – the film was well made, the actors were terrific and the schmaltzy scene came in on cue – but there was one thing about the story I had not previously realised: that the owner of the newspaper and, as such, the person who defied the President’s injunction, was a woman. In the light of this and other facts, it seems to me that now is a particularly good time to celebrate her principled stance.

100 years after women fought for and gained suffrage, 50 years since women at Ford’s Dagenham plant made a stand for equal pay, and amidst current revelations that gender pay inequality remains rife (lent force by the high-profile publicity afforded it by the BBC cases) it appears that there is a convergence of forces, like some rare astronomical event. Perhaps last night’s Blue Moon was an auspicious omen for gender equality; it’s a pity the sky was overcast and we all stayed indoors.