Howard Jacobson's Blog, page 2

Let us, for the fun of it, yoke some heterogeneous ideas by violence together. Tennis and terrorism. Andy Murray and Isis. Militancy, you see, is my subject. Militancy being a quality the incendiaries of Isis have in abundance, and Andy Murray, at least when he comes up against Novak Djokovic in Australia, doesn’t.

We take the good times with the bad in this column. Life isn’t all Twitter and terror and porn. In proof whereof I am pleased to share with readers the news that I have been made an honorary Australian. In my heart I’ve been an honorary Australian a long time, but now it’s official.

I’ve a proposal to make: what if, instead of employing the Chomsky “but” whenever something terrible is visited on us, we tried saying “and” instead? Not just for the fun of it but to make the world a better, bigger, more inclusive space. “But” shrinks and grudges; “and” amplifies and allows.

So how fare our investigations into what makes someone want to kill cartoonists? (I’m assuming we know why they want to kill Jews.) Maybe, before pondering the education of a jihadist, we should ask a prior question: what makes a fanatic?

Of arrows and the man I sing. It is expected of me. Just as no year can be considered over for Australians until the fireworks have illuminated Sydney Harbour, and no year can be said to have begun for Austrians until the Vienna Philharmonic has played the “Radetzky March”, so must my new year column be a paean to darts and those who throw them.

There should have been snow on the ground and the Salvation Army playing “Silent Night” outside Waterstones. But you’ll have to use your imagination if you want all that. As it was, the evening was mild and the only distinct sound to be heard was that of pedestrians’ bones breaking under the wheels of cyclists running lights and riding pavements. I say the “only” sound, but in fact I’d just learnt Joe Cocker had died, so “With A Little Help from My Friends” was playing in my head. No singer ever sang a song better. Now it was his obituary. And I was just off to the doctor.

I reckon I was about 18 when I discovered despondent hedonism. It was listening to Peggy Lee singing “Is That All There Is?” that did it. If that’s all there is, my friends, then let’s bring out the booze and keep dancing.

So how loud does your voice have to be before someone thinks you’re shouting? How sharp your reprimand before it will be described as threatening? And how close do you have to be to someone before you can be accused of being in his face? These and similar questions will be addressed below. But I can tell you the answer to all of them now. And it’s the same in every case. Not very.

Question: What makes great art? Answer: No idea, but we know it when we see it. We knew it when we saw it at Tate Modern’s Matisse: The Cut-Outs earlier this year and we know it again at the National Gallery’s equally overwhelming Rembrandt: The Late Works. What the two exhibitions have in common, other than genius, is the old age of the artists. Forgive my preference, but age beats youth in most instances when it comes to art, which is why I was never much sold on the Young British Artists phenomenon. Maybe later, I thought. Maybe when they’ve lived a little and find themselves less interesting. You will tell me that the age of the eyes of the beholder has something to do with this. So be it. We that have lived so long know better how to look than those whose eyes have still to open. And better how to think as well. But I’m not looking for a fight. Fighting being the only thing the old don’t do as well as the young. That, and optimism.

To the offences which daily proliferate in our thin-skinned society – offences of vocabulary and attitude: tonal, postcode, de haut en bas offences – can now be added showing insufficient respect to people who park white vans in their drives and drape their houses with the Cross of St George.