Howard Jacobson's Blog, page 10

Here’s a thought: what if we Ordinary Joes don’t get over-perturbed when we discover we are being spied on – not as perturbed as civil-rights activists and other professional protectors of our privacy get, anyway – not because we are indolent, unimaginative, too engrossed in the cricket, too busy reading about the Tudors, too busy writing about the Tudors, or just too feeble to stand up for ourselves, but because we actually want to be spied on?

Pleased to see the new Children’s Laureate, Malorie Blackman, coming out of the blocks fighting. Let’s get children reading, she says, and let’s ensure that black and other minority ethnic children don’t turn against history because of too great an emphasis on Nelson and the Tudors. Let’s have a few heroes who are culturally easier to identify with. We are in favour, in this column, of getting young people to read, even if we don’t think they have to read books especially written for them. Remember, we say, the example of John Stuart Mill who knew his way through the classics when he was three. Yes, he went on to have a nervous breakdown, but at least he had the classics to help him out of it. Never mind the Prozac, try Plotinus. And we are in favour of a little more Henryless history (and Tudorless television) as well. Too much Tudor and you end up on temazepam. So we are disposed to listen when the new Children’s Laureate speaks.

Time we talked about our culpability in the matter of terror? I put that interrogatively for fear readers might rather we talked about something else. I share the reluctance, but, as the blamers tell us, we cannot understand the motives of those we call terrorist unless we acknowledge our contribution to their state of mind, and the last thing we ever want to turn our backs on in this column, reader, is understanding.

Why all this mollycoddling of swivel-eyed loons? I take the point that Mr Cameron can’t be seen to endorse such a view of those who toil in sleepy villages and hamlets to keep the country sleepily Conservative, and might prefer his senior colleagues to speak more respectfully of them, at least in the hearing of the wazzcock rubbernecks of the press. Discretion, lads. But I don’t doubt that in the carpeted hush of home, enjoying conversation with his Eton chums – Eton is not, by the by, a term of disparagement in this column, though we were not fortunate enough to go there ourselves – he will from time to time invoke the swivel-eyed loony wing of the party he must sometimes wonder why he bothers to attempt to lead. That swivel-eyed will be among the least offensive descriptions to be banded about over brandy – particularly when discussion turns riotously to the Social Democrats – I also have not the slightest doubt.

Gather round, everybody. I bear important news. Anti-Semitism no longer exists! Ring out, ye bells, the longest hatred has ceased to be. It’s kaput, kicked the bucket, shuffled off its mortal coil, joined the bleedin’ choir invisible. It’s a stiff, ladies and gentlemen. An EX-PREJUDICE!

Out of the country for 10 days, looking at desert, showering in the open air and not watching television. Bliss. Not watching television has much to recommend it anywhere, but when warm winds are winnowing the hairs on your chest and making little floral pinwheels of those between your thighs – let’s not be prudish, that’s what happens when you walk out of an open-air shower into desert – not watching television feels like a reason to be alive.

Addictions are for addicts. There’s no explaining the allure of them to someone who can take anything up and put anything down. I’m not an alcoholic – by which I mean I can go many days without a drink and don’t sit drooling in a shop doorway when I can’t – but I love red wine and am addicted to drinking it on the days I do.

Addictions are for addicts. There’s no explaining the allure of them to someone who can take anything up and put anything down. I’m not an alcoholic – by which I mean I can go many days without a drink and don’t sit drooling in a shop doorway when I can’t – but I love red wine and am addicted to drinking it on the days I do.

So what did Mrs Thatcher ever do for us?

I’m trying to decide if I give a damn.