The beautiful Castle Howard, where Brideshead Revisited was filmed
It’s now Tuesday August 22nd, 2023. Kia ora!
Actually, it’s still Monday afternoon. I posted my previous blog because I felt I had said all I had to say, at that point.
But I’ve turned to a more intellectual bent, this afternoon. The Rest is History released a podcast about the Library of Alexandria, that was destroyed; I have also discovered the text of Orwell’s essay “The Lion and the Unicorn”, written in 1941, which the London Review of Books has a podcast about. For some reason I can listen to these podcasts, but the reviewer reviews great essays, at great length which, of course, makes you want to read them. Anyway, it’s a joy to read Orwell, he was such a great writer, although research is emerging now about his perhaps unemancipated attitude towards his long-suffering wife. A book has been published, and was reviewed in the latest Economist.
Nevertheless, things and attitudes were different, then, whatever we think nowadays, and he wrote beautifully. I enjoy reading his work. As Michael Che said on a Saturday Night Live show, something to the effect of in future I’ll apologise for something I’m doing now, being presently unaware of how it will be regarded in future, and necessary to be apologised for.
Here’s a link to the review:
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/past-present-future/id1682047968
I was talking to JD about this podcast, and about this essay written during the Blitz, in 1941, when the future was unknown, and Great Britain (with the help of Australia and New Zealand, not mentioned) was fighting the Nazi menace almost alone; it must have been a terrifying time; JD of course had plenty to say about everything, not having read Orwell’s essay or listened to the podcast. But I have to admit I do disagree with Orwell about some things: English gentleness? I think not. Look at how suffragettes were treated. Look at how so-called criminals were hanged, or sent to Australia, for perhaps stealing a loaf of bread. We toured Lancaster Castle in 2016, which had been used for a prison until five years earlier. There was nothing gentle about being locked in a very basic holding cell in total darkness for several seconds. And English not celebrating military victories? What about the great Battle of Trafalgar? Still, it’s fun to be a little critical. And Orwell does write very perceptively about what it meant to be English, and indeed what it meant as represented to me until I went there in the early 1970’s. I had read much, but was still shocked at the seemingly endless landscape of Coronation Street(s) as our plane was stacked over Heathrow in 1973; compared to them, the state houses of the Hutt Valley looked palatial to me, after we returned to New Zealand.
I find Orwell’s writing about British patriotism is very interesting. The ideal of patriotism has been corrupted, when right-wing movements have taken it over to mean some dominant master race should be in charge; xenophobia rules, and women have to be kept under control; these so-called “freedoms” must be protected with gun violence, if necessary. But in the recent Brexit move, one could see British patriotism displayed at large, although many people were against leaving the European Union. That was, and remains, a scary time, as stupidity overrode basic self-interest. In my view. Well it’s done now, Boris Johnson has resigned, the waterways are a mess, mortgage payment and heating bills have skyrocketed, things have changed forever, and who, exactly, has benefited? Who indeed. I guess Putin regards that, and Trump’s 2016 election, as successes worthy of his cynical investment.
Back to the essay. It’s extremely interesting, but one has to remind oneself that the treachery of the Cambridge Five, including Kim Philby, and the likes of George Blake, were unknown at that time, though surely the ground was ripe for socialist thinking. It’s ironic that Orwell, so sympathetic to people with less money, and so aware of England’s class and caste system, was able to write Animal Farm, exposing the ghastly inequities of Stalin’s communism. A plague on both your houses, then!
Orwell also claims that apart from Shakespeare, the British aren’t really artistic. I know many great singers and conductors would disagree, but surely the British were masters (and sometimes mistresses) of the novel! To say nothing of great poetry. As one who completed a Masters Degree in English Literature in the 1970’s, and mastered in literature of the Renaissance I strongly beg to differ. You may despise many of Dickens’ novels, but he was a great writer, as was Thackeray, George Eliot, Jane Austen et al. I don’t want to offend anyone here, and the longer ones do take some reading. I should mention Geoffrey Chaucer, Shakespeare, Ben Jonson and John Milton here too. But The English are very good at drama, of all kinds, and at comedy, with their wry sense of humour, and readiness to offend. At the time of the Brexit referendum, I joked they were very good at Royal Weddings (well, the pageantry thereof) and at comedy. This was demonstrated again recently with Queen Elisabeth II’s platinum jubilee, her funeral, which followed soon afterwards, and the coronation of King Charles III and Queen Camilla. Since Brexit, sadly, there hasn’t been much to laugh about.
Here’s a link to Orwell’s essay:
https://www.telelib.com/authors/O/OrwellGeorge/essay/lionunicorn.html
It is now actually Tuesday.
This morning, alas, I don’t feel great; I’m still coughing and have a lot of catarrh. I have engagements next weekend, and I’m wondering which of them I’ll have to cancel. Perhaps I should go to the doctor again? This is frustrating. It feels like it did when I had Covid, and wondered if I would ever get better enough to do the things I used to do.
Oh, and Trump has confirmed he won’t attend the republican debate. Nor will he sign a pledge to support the Republican candidate. That’s not surprising. Ali Velshi chaired a discussion on MSNBC in which he interviewed Ruth Ben-Ghiat, and discussed Trump’s authoritarian tendencies, like skipping the debate.
In the Georgia indictment, Trump and his co-defendants have to surrender to the Fulton County jail by August 25; bail has been set for each. Now, that will be a moment (or few)!
But yesterday a group of republicans claimed to believe Trump more than their own pastor (I think many of us outside the US would not always agree with a minister, but one would expect him/her to speak the truth as they saw it), or their friends or family. That is truly shocking. In another statement, Trump, interviewed on Fox News, claimed that “I was the apple of Putin’s eye”, and that Putin would not have invaded Ukraine if Trump had been president, implying that Trump would have influenced him not to mount this Special Military Operation in Ukraine0. That’s interesting, because at the time Trump claimed that Putin’s move was genius. I guess one should be used to the fact by now that opposing facts can both be claimed as true. Of course, Trump may have claimed that Ukraine was the apple of Putin’s eye, in which case, one might wonder why he’s doing so much to destroy the place and render Russians extremely unpopular there, for the most part.
In response to a question about Ukraine giving up Crimea to appease Russia, as a means to end the fighting, Zelensky asked if Russia would be willing to give up Belgorod, which is close to the Ukrainian border but presently within Russia. Evidently Belgorod was once part of Ukraine, under the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, in March 1918. At the end of World War II, Belgorod became part of Russia again, after the Russians recaptured it from German troops. Ah, that treaty has a lot to answer for.
I listened to Ukraine The Latest, the Telegraph’s weekday podcast, in which they interviewed an American cosmonaut. This was with particular reference to a Russian unmanned spacecraft which recently crash-landed on the moon. He was intelligent and well-spoken. At the end, it emerged that Telegraph journalists have joined the growing list of people banned from entering Russia. There was some joking about Orwell’s Animal Farm, in which Francis Dearnley joked that he would henceforth call Dominic Nicholls Snowball, if Dom would call him Napoleon. In regard to the alerts Francis received about his travel ban, he joked that perhaps Dom had taken off his shirt in the Telegraph newsroom. It’s nice to see that these guys have a sense of humour.
With regard to Orwell, I have to admit that I tired of reading the essay’s latter part, where he writes about the coming English revolution. I admit that I’m far more interested in history than in economics, although of course they’re so closely bound together. The revolution did come, of course, in the form of the election of the Labour Party to government with a resounding majority, after World War II, and the creation of the NHS. But it was muted, of course; it didn’t get rid of the (unelected) House of Lords, but it did preserve a kind of democracy. And the British people do, for the most part, love the Royal Family. In fact since the shenanigans that have continued since Prine Harry’s wedding to Sparkle (Meghan Markle), the Royal Family has continued to be in the news and be a focus of attention, both in the UK and to some extent, in the US too. So much for that. The pageantry and regalia and beautiful behaviour of the Prince and Princess of Wales continue to provide a lovely distraction from the ghastly political scenes in both nations.
Getting back to US politics. Apparently Trump will have to put up USD200.00 in bail, 20% of it being in cash. But given Trump’s hold over republicans, Judge Michael J. Luttig and Professor Laurence Tribe must be so frustrated, after their major effort, and wide publicity, of their contention that Trump is not eligible to stand for public office again.
It’s now Wednesday August 23rd.
There was no hymn singing this morning; the organist is to have major surgery today. I don’t think I would have gone, anyway, although I won’t try to see the doctor again today. I think my cold is slightly better, although I still have a sore chest. I shower and wash my hair, and put the washing on. I also load and start he dishwasher. I tidy up a little.
Back in US politics, some of Trump’s co-defendants have surrendered to the Fulton County jail; Trump has said he will surrender too. MSNBC’s Ken Dilanian pointed out on Morning Joe that it’s a surrender, not an arraignment, that will be taking place. Meanwhile, instead of attending the Republican presidential candidate debate, an interview between Tucker Carlson (“I hate him passionately”), and Trump, pre-recorded will be screened on Twitter (?), sic. Well, it’s not Twitter spaces, where Ron De Santis (failed to) launched his presidential campaign, or on X, so who knows. It will be mildly interesting to hear what Christie, Pence, et al have to say, apart from the fact that democrats are terrible and Joe Biden is a terrible president. Oh, and climate change is not a thing to be concerned about, despite ongoing evidence to the contrary. It’s difficult to see how someone old and doddery can be such a mastermind of politically-motivated indictments, while being such an amazingly good president.
There’s a new Randy Rainbow song about the Georgia indictment: here’s a link.
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=596N4aPnjrs
Oh, and one of the witnesses (employee number 4?) has retracted his false testimony in the Mar-a-Lago documents case. Evidently Giuliani can’t get a lawyer in Georgia. And Georgia has passed a law to enable the governor to get rid of an elected official, someone like Fulton County D.A. Fani Willis, should he wish to do so. While it is totally undemocratic to get rid of elected officials, I think any move to get rid of Willis would be a bit like sacking Mueller. The wide-ranging fourth indictment is arguable the most serious yet, and has already had a great deal of public attention, and no doubt will continue to attract attention.
Back here in Aotearoa, last night I wondered if we could find the Granada Television 1981 series of Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited. Well, we could get in on Youtube, and what a wonderful series it is, and how beautifully filmed, given that it’s not a current or recent Netflix series, and it’s a bit blurry at times. (Perhaps we can get I Claudius too).
I had quite forgotten the beginning of the series, which depicts Ryder’s part in the army during World War II. JD was reticent about watching this, but we both found it quite entrancing to go back there, and see, amongst other things, the clash between the Catholicism of the Marchmains (which features so prominently in the book) and Agnosticism or Atheism (as with Charles Ryder and his father). I am reminded of the novel The Masters by C. P. Snow, about a college in Cambridge University, which forms the setting for many of his novel sequence Strangers and Brothers, where one of the dons is firmly sceptical about any faith, although the election of a new master of the college is held in the college chapel. There’s also a great study of Jewishness too. And again, of Herman Wouk’s Winds of War, where the Jewish Professor Jastrow takes issue with Byron Henry, who finds the art of the Italian Renaissance a tad boring – that’s Protestantism, says Jastrow. Again, the novel sequence by Olivia Manning, Fortunes of War, features Guy Pringle, a university teacher and an avowed communist and atheist. In 1930’s Britain it was not unfashionable to be agnostic, or even atheistic. At least they’re honest about their misconceptions; although communism is founded on the Christian principle of sharing so that everyone can participate in the general good. Sadly, this has been perverted everywhere it has been tried, I believe. I find it so strange that in America many people profess to believe in God and go to church, while doing some very ungodly things and holding some very ungodly beliefs. Even Christ’s Sermon on the Mount was recently treated with scepticism by an evangelical! Some American commentators speak about the kinds of Christian values they were brought up with, that are ignored nowadays in the age of Trump.
Well, that’s enough for now. Slava Ukraini! Ngā mihi nui.
Classic Barbarian 