tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29327654641281036402024-03-21T11:18:34.608+01:00Jane Is The One"You talk a load of crap, carrot top" (Anonymous)
"consistently good and sometimes bonkers!" (Tony Jones)
"You obviously pi$$ people off a lot"
"One Dangerous Lady" (Anonymous)
"Clearly a very unpleasant person" (Grace Nicholas, Cornwall)janestheonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17617250693471034197noreply@blogger.comBlogger1405125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2932765464128103640.post-27582217595551235872018-03-22T13:37:00.001+01:002018-03-22T13:40:38.565+01:00W.G. Sebald, 'Austerlitz'<p dir="ltr">I picked up The Rings of Saturn more than 10 years ago, having never heard of Sebald, and now I come to this. A work of genius. A meditation on memory, and especially as it concerns the German people. A tale of great sadness, and of great beauty. Also, as another reviewer put it, the kind of thing you might read at 3 am in a foreign city, jet-lagged, and not be sure the next day what you had read. The narrator is called Jacques Austerlitz, and his parents, from whom he was separated at the age of four and sent to the UK on the Kindertransport, are .part of the memory he seeks to open up. Everything is imbued with detachment, and actual or imminent loss. A woman he clearly loves seems to become unclear at the edges, after a while, and disappear like ripples in a pool. There are themes: of railway stations (Austerlitz is of course the name of one of the great railway stations of Paris, and is named thus for the same reasons as Waterloo in London was named), of moths, of walled spaces, and of narration. Most of the story is told in the form of narration, and is heavily punctuated with "said Austerlitz", as if trying to secure a story by emphasising the quoted nature of the speech.</p>
<p dir="ltr">I can't read German. The translation is by Anthea Bell, and is of luminous clarity. I was sad to learn quite recently that we will hear no more from Anthea Bell, who is still alive, because dementia has removed her from her work. We are all the losers for that. Did you know that it was she who translated Asterix into English? Asterix is much funnier in English than in French.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Sebald died in a car crash. What a pity the body of work he left is not larger. I don't say this about many books, but I was sorry Austerlitz was not longer ,and I wish Sebald had been able to write more.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Respect.</p>
janestheonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17617250693471034197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2932765464128103640.post-91641655837621247432018-03-18T09:22:00.000+01:002018-03-18T09:22:45.745+01:00Steven Pinker, 'The Language Instinct'My Goodreads review:<br />
<br />
Comrades, this book made me a Chomskyite. No, no, no, not politically, OBVS, but linguistically. I read Chomsky many years ago, and wasn't quite convinced, somewhat under the influence of eg George Steiner.<br />
<br />
New readers start here: Chomsky said, essentially, that language was innate, and had what he called a deep structure, common to all human languages. Children have a universal grammar, which is hardwired into their brains before birth, so they do not learn language from others but develop it themselves. This is why children who have just started talking say things like "I goed" instead of "I went" - words they have never heard, but have extrapolated from their pre-verbal grammar. My daughter, aged two, when urged "Quickly!", often replied "I <i>am</i> quickling". Anyway, I wasn't totally convinced, back then, and was in any case prejudiced against Chomsky because, like too many USian academics, he is a monoglot - but Pinker has done it now. It's certainly clear that children are not language tabulae rasae.<br />
<br />
Along the way, Pinker points out the Great Eskimo Language Hoax (that there are many words for snow) - in fact the languages of that region typically have fewer words for snow than English does - which hoax is still widely believed; largely I think because people want it to be true.<br />
<br />
Pinker is also educational and clear. He tells us straight, for instance, that a creole is the language that results when children make a pidgin their native language. All languages are created by children, and they do it by creating a grammar for the words they use. This would invalidate Orwell's Newspeak, as children would creolise it within a generation.<br />
<br />
Thoughts are not words, Pinker informs us. If they were, how could more than one thought be expressed by a single word? Or vice versa?<br />
<br />
This book treats of cognitive psychology, and is often complex. I confess to reading the complex accounts of experiments and studies in speech and thought quite quickly, not stopping to study and consider them as I would have to do if I were reading this book in an academic setting.<br />
<br />
Pinker points out that what he calls "language mavens", but which he means prescriptive pedants (people who write to newspapers saying that a preposition is something with which a sentence should never be ended) choose their examples of abominable English from sources like welfare applications, insurance claims, and student papers; in all of these the writers are trying to convince, and to make a good impression, and are only rarely using language that is natural to them. And yes, I know how long that sentence just was.<br />
<br />
This is not a crowd-pleaser, or a particularly easy read. Pinker's own passions do show through, at times entertainingly: he hates relativism, he says "more than I hate anything, excepting, maybe, fiberglass powerboats", and it is a quirkily amusing read in many places without ever being arch or droll.<br />
<br />
This is a book for anyone interested in language - and we all, in our own ways, are.<br />
<br />
<br />
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/23596724-jane-griffiths">View all my reviews<br />
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janestheonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17617250693471034197noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2932765464128103640.post-71331057257182749182018-02-21T17:58:00.001+01:002018-02-21T18:08:58.144+01:00Phantom ThreadAllegedly based on the fashion designer Cristobal Balenciaga, this is the story of a fashion designer in 1950s London (Daniel Day-Lewis, in what he says is his last film), his sister and business partner, the splendidly named Cyril (Lesley Manville) the woman who comes into his life and disrupts it (no spoilers here) (Vicky Krieps), and the ghost of his mother. Paul Thomas Anderson is a genius, There Will Be Blood is one of the greatest films ever made, and this is pretty damn brilliant too. London doesn't look like it did in the 1950s, I am very glad to say (I can just about remember what it did look like), so they are reduced to repeatedly showing a single Georgian terrace, probably empty now and probably owned by a Russian oligarch. There's a lot of rather annoying sub-West Wing walking in through doors. There's a lot of <i>breakfast</i> going on. I like films with breakfast in them. A lot of people walk up staircases a lot. There's a rather creepy soundtrack by Jonny Greenwood, who is apparently a former member of a popular beat combo called Radiohead. Oh and did I mention, all the characters are MONSTERS. With the probable exception of two of the seamstresses. Actually, I thought all those monstrous fashion designer chappies were gayers, but seemingly not. More than this I cannot say without spoilers. Go and see it immediately.janestheonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17617250693471034197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2932765464128103640.post-63478523265141857712018-02-20T13:59:00.001+01:002018-02-20T13:59:07.390+01:00Jane Is The One: Seven people or things that changed my life (3) Sandra Tooman<a href="http://jane-griffiths-my-book.blogspot.com/2010/08/seven-people-or-things-that-changed-my_02.html?m=1">Jane Is The One: Seven people or things that changed my life (3) Sandra Tooman</a>janestheonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17617250693471034197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2932765464128103640.post-5206382181556607952018-02-20T13:17:00.000+01:002018-02-20T13:18:20.110+01:00woman for the WestReading West will need to select a Labour candidate soon. It will have to be a woman, to the chagrin of the Central Committee. In recent years there have been apparently good and able female Labour parliamentary candidates in that constituency, but they have naturally been respectively undermined, briefed against and outflanked. So it goes. And the Reading West constituency retains a Member in the Conservative interest. Now the minds of the Central Committee core have been focused by the disastrous (to them) election of a Labour MP in Reading East, despite their best efforts. Something Must Be Done, they cry. Fear not. Step forward Cllr Sarah Hacker, erstwhile Mayor of the Borough of Reading, whose dad bought her a council seat for her birthday. Oh yes. She has thrown her hat into this particular ring, she tells us, and in these words: she has been considering this move for "a few of years" (Google Translate from Albanian, or Howarth speak?) and wants to "deliver on our city's potential as well as representing the town" - make your mind up girl, is Reading a town or a city? There's more! She continues "Being Mayor means I have an exp<span style="color: red;">a</span>nsive network" - wtf does that mean? Something to do with exercise bands for the Zumba classes she keeps going on about? They aren't doing her much good, by the look of her. If I were her I'd ask for my money back. Where was I? Ah yes. This network is so "expansive", she says, it has "given me the chance to improves". Oh yesss. What has it got in its pocketses? It has gots lovely Reading Borough Council cashes, yess, it has. She wants to be "the first woman to represent Reading West in Parliament". Maybe she does. There is at least one Reading Labour woman other than this creature who is (a) possessed of an intellect and political nous (b) not corrupt (c) has some idea of what the world is all about. So there is still hope for Labour in Reading West.<br />
<br />
Sue me.janestheonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17617250693471034197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2932765464128103640.post-49161125988385561772018-01-04T10:49:00.000+01:002018-01-04T10:49:11.886+01:00Maggie O'Farrell, 'I Am, I Am, I Am'
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIyTf6dCXZBjMeNKIAJunKoVyBEPphLEghEc8zJocHPJKA9P18uCpfV2q0Xs9FW1pZsM-E7M4FZEpzIATMTVlOWmJLVwKgoySltmxtnzF1uxS3PfihjUWjEnFumpqHIjs7SJP-A8nv4f6O/s1600/O%2527Farrell.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="297" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIyTf6dCXZBjMeNKIAJunKoVyBEPphLEghEc8zJocHPJKA9P18uCpfV2q0Xs9FW1pZsM-E7M4FZEpzIATMTVlOWmJLVwKgoySltmxtnzF1uxS3PfihjUWjEnFumpqHIjs7SJP-A8nv4f6O/s320/O%2527Farrell.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">This is an
account of Maggie O’Farrell’s 17 brushes with death, her own and those of her
children.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Some of them would be seen
that way by anyone – her own serious illness as a child, her own child’s severe
anaphylactic shock – and some brought her close to death perhaps only in her
own mind – a frightening encounter with a man who might have murdered someone
else, being caught in a riptide, her mother almost, but not, slamming a car
boot on her head – but all of them caused her to meditate on the closeness of
death, mainly without fear. She suggests that once you have confronted the
immediate possibility of dying, which she did aged eight when she contracted
encephalitis, there is never again any cause to fear death. I think this is
right. I had my own encounter with the Grim Reaper much later in life, in the
form of an ectopic pregnancy when I was 38. Undiagnosed it would have killed me
within hours (thank you my GP at the time, Dr Asghar), and in the two or three
hours from first symptoms to emergency surgery I knew perfectly well what I was
facing. There was no fear, and there has been none since, including when I was
suspected of having oesophageal cancer two years ago (I haven’t).</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">She writes
it interestingly, setting the scene for each encounter and then veering to
another time and place in her life, and then back to the history that led to
the encounter itself. In the process she tells what seems to be the whole of
her life. I liked the way she describes the men in her life, briefly and
obliquely, but tellingly and vividly. There is a lot of love in these stories.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Maybe this
work will set a new trend, for an episodic picture of a life, on a theme,
rather than straight autobiography.</span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I hope so.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span>
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janestheonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17617250693471034197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2932765464128103640.post-63545829047311517842018-01-02T10:36:00.001+01:002018-01-02T10:36:14.754+01:00Maggie O'Farrell, 'This Must Be The Place': a gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQL9Ar-EEiXALdUfc2kmpdPs1oXOW7eqEZhogudFsAWziRQuZ7xwHyphcLL3AcF8uSf_J0CY66CJVOgqjz3d8HVjCtFyTzznwE2wb07nc5HG4blqmzmKBw9-QbRlbuiplZayKBZKRF_WMW/s1600/this+must+be.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="327" data-original-width="327" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQL9Ar-EEiXALdUfc2kmpdPs1oXOW7eqEZhogudFsAWziRQuZ7xwHyphcLL3AcF8uSf_J0CY66CJVOgqjz3d8HVjCtFyTzznwE2wb07nc5HG4blqmzmKBw9-QbRlbuiplZayKBZKRF_WMW/s320/this+must+be.jpg" width="320" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQL9Ar-EEiXALdUfc2kmpdPs1oXOW7eqEZhogudFsAWziRQuZ7xwHyphcLL3AcF8uSf_J0CY66CJVOgqjz3d8HVjCtFyTzznwE2wb07nc5HG4blqmzmKBw9-QbRlbuiplZayKBZKRF_WMW/s1600/this+must+be.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a>This is an accomplished work, and is the story of a man, Daniel Sullivan, a New Yorker who is a linguistics professor living in the wilds of Ireland, and his relationship, mainly, with his second wife Claudette. There is a shifting cast of other characters, and notably of children and adolescents. It is stupendously atmospheric in places, although a bit annoying as it jumps around in time and place, and, particularly if you put it down for a day or so, you have to remind yourself what time and place you are currently in. Two of the female characters, Teresa and Rosalind, are under-used, so that I wonder<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQL9Ar-EEiXALdUfc2kmpdPs1oXOW7eqEZhogudFsAWziRQuZ7xwHyphcLL3AcF8uSf_J0CY66CJVOgqjz3d8HVjCtFyTzznwE2wb07nc5HG4blqmzmKBw9-QbRlbuiplZayKBZKRF_WMW/s1600/this+must+be.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; clear: right; color: #0066cc; float: right; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 16px; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: underline; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQL9Ar-EEiXALdUfc2kmpdPs1oXOW7eqEZhogudFsAWziRQuZ7xwHyphcLL3AcF8uSf_J0CY66CJVOgqjz3d8HVjCtFyTzznwE2wb07nc5HG4blqmzmKBw9-QbRlbuiplZayKBZKRF_WMW/s1600/this+must+be.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-right: 16px;"></a>ed why they were even there. Some are dismissed too glibly "Maeve always did as she was told", and the second wife, reclusive ex-actor Claudette, becomes more and more perfect as the story goes on, so that I wanted to mess up her perfect face, or for her to actually do something WRONG for once. Also, the total recluse business - Claudette lives in a remote place and no one knows where she is; she also has a demonic Max von Sydow-like Swedish ex-lover who is her nemesis - would never have worked. Those people always have People, who Know Their Secrets. A tour de force, this, but I'm not sure I actually liked it all that much. And there are gaps in the story, but I can't even be bothered to go through it and identify them. I can though forgive a writer a lot if they quote, and use as a conceit, F. Scott Fitzgerald's "gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover".<br />
<br />janestheonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17617250693471034197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2932765464128103640.post-88559951411636198592017-12-31T09:11:00.001+01:002017-12-31T09:11:37.505+01:00My 2017
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">January
came in on the beach on Rabbit Island (so called for its shape not its animal
population) on the Gulf of Thailand, a short boat ride from the southern coast
at Kep, where Cambodian families go at holiday times to dance in the water,
fully clothed.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">We’d slept
in a tent on the sand, as there were no beach chalets left – as with most
things in Cambodia, you can’t easily book in advance – and I woke at first
light as I usually do, about 6 am here. Straight into the water (I still had my
swimsuit on under my clothes from the night before, and modesty is a thing
here) with a pink light on the ripples, and a boat rocking. Two little boys
swimming and jumping around the boat. Plastic bottles in the water. The first
time for me.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">There is no
winter here, only a time in December and January of breezy blue mornings and no
rain, with a light coating of dust and dead insects on the faces of the tuktuk
drivers on Monivong Boulevard. I think sometimes about the four years in the
1970s when Phnom Penh was empty. No people at all. They were driven out, and
some were even pushed along the roads in hospital beds, with drip stands rattling at
their sides. Money was burned in the streets. The people would have no need of
it now. It was April, when the heat is like a punishment. The 17<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span></sup>
of April, which is my birthday. I cannot tell Khmer people when my birthday is,
though they sometimes ask. The date is one of infamy and the deepest of bad
fortune. It is also the date of the battle of Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam in 1954,
the day I was born in fact, when the French lost their empire in Indochina. I
am quite sure that Brother No. 1, Pol Pot, and his henchpeople chose this date
for the boy soldiers in black pyjamas to go in and take the capital, as a deliberate reminder of the end of war and colonial bombing. Of course the Khmer
Rouge were welcomed at first, which is how they were able to fan out and take
over the city. The people were told at the beginning that they were being
evacuated to protect them against American bombing. Some of them even believed
it, at first, but none of them had a choice. Four years later people began
coming back to the city, though a civil war of sorts dragged on until the
1990s. The people just moved into houses. Not necessarily their houses, any
houses. They and their children and grandchildren still live in them today.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I have
lived the expat life here this year, teaching English to Cambodian teenagers
whose parents can afford to pay for lessons. The students have a fair knowledge
of English grammar and vocabulary, but they cannot pronounce or speak in any
way that someone who is not Khmer or resident in Cambodia can understand. This is not a problem for most, as very few have any intention of ever leaving Cambodia. As far as I can tell they mostly want to be web designers and YouTube billionaires. They
also cannot get information from what they hear or read, as they are used to
being told what to think by their teachers. They do not willingly ask
questions, and given the opportunity they copy each other’s work and cheat in
exams. But there are many compensations and rewards in this work despite all
this. We have talked about Cambodian ghost stories, of which there are many, and
some of the students have written wonderful (and very scary) ghost stories in
English. We have learned songs, and even written some. And I can teach past
modals like a BASTARD.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The expat
life here is a good one. I define an expat as someone who goes to live in a
country where the cost of living is lower than their income presupposes, and
they are not obliged to learn the language. By contrast, a migrant worker is someone who is
poorer than their income presupposes, and who is obliged to learn the language
to survive. The latter was the situation of my companion in France, which is
where we lived for nine and ten years respectively before coming to Cambodia. I
have of course been trying to learn the language in Cambodia, with so far
limited success. One difficulty is that Khmer people assume that if a foreigner
is speaking to them it must be in English, and so they patiently try and decode
what they hear. If the foreigner is actually speaking in Khmer, they fail, and
so does communication.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">This has
been 2017. I left Cambodia in June, taking a term out to go to the UK and see
family, especially Third Granddaughter, who was born in early July. I spent
five weeks on the campus of Brunel University, Uxbridge, outer west London (a
mile or two from where I was born and spent my first seven years), teaching
multinational teenagers at summer school, and topped this off with a week in
Bloomsbury for the same organisation. It was surprisingly good fun, and I made
some new friends too. One of them is even coming to work in Cambodia next
month! I hope to be back next year. The rest of the chilly English summer was
spent travelling around the UK seeing various friends and spending time with
family, all good. I like the peripatetic life, only wish I could afford to lead
it permanently. I made a short visit to France with First Granddaughter. She is
now my travelling companion of choice.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A general
election in the UK came and went in June. I didn’t vote. I had a proxy
arranged, but seeing my (Labour) MP posing with Nigel Farage, and seeing the racist
Jew-hatred at the heart of the Labour Party, made me draw the line. Anyway, I
have been out of the UK over ten years now, and as an overseas voter you have
to vote in the last constituency you were registered in, an area I no longer
feel any connection with. Well, the time difference meant I saw the exit poll, ‘Hung
Parliament’, at 3.45 am, and was able to follow the results through the
morning, overnight UK time. Ultimately the only two I connected with
emotionally were ‘Con Hold Reading West’ – cue much glee at the confirmed
political ineptitude of the corrupt group of men (still) running Reading Labour
Party – and, even better, ‘Lab Gain Reading East’. I hope Matt Rodda has as
good a time representing Reading East for Labour as I did, and I say so without
irony. I also hope he is better at circumventing the corrupt bullies at the
heart of Reading Labour than I was.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Well, it doesn’t
much matter what I think or feel about UK politics in 2017. I do hope though
that something good can come out of all the crap, even Brexit. But it’s hard to
be optimistic. I would say too that Theresa May is doing an almost impossible
job not badly. I did know her when in politics – we represented neighbouring
constituencies and went to some of the same functions.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I started
learning Khmer (pronounced K’my), the language spoken by the overwhelming
majority of Cambodia’s 13-million population, in January. I unashamedly plug
the school, Gateway to Khmer, who do not know I am writing this. They use the
CELTA method (those who know, know) and the teachers, all native speakers of
Khmer, are not allowed to speak English to the students, even absolute
beginners as I was in January. There is a strong emphasis on phonics and
phonetics, a Very Good Thing in my view. It means I can PRONOUNCE yay! Well,
trying to speak Khmer when all Khmer people seem to assume that if a foreigner
is speaking to them it must be in English, and patiently try to decode your
Khmer into the English they don’t know, has its moments of misery and frustration.
But I am keeping on. It has been striking that ALL my fellow students so far,
almost all USians, with the occasional Australian and Brit, have been Christian
missionaries. Because all those people have it as a rule that you have to learn
the language before you can do the missioning, so that is where the market is. I’ve
learned a lot from them. My failings as a language learner so far are however all my responsibility.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">September
to December, back teaching in Phnom Penh. Also going to the gym and having
adventures in sobriety, all part of my preparation for being old, which some
would say I am already. Some days in Penang, Malaysia (go there! it's fab!), when term ended in
December, followed by a lovely laid-back Australian Christmas with Andrew’s
family. Thanks to them all for their kind and generous hospitality, and for the
opportunity for Andrew to get to know his niece and nephew. Now we’re back, and
I’m still here, still negotiating the Phnom Penh traffic on my bike with what I
hope is aplomb.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">See you in
2018.</span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
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<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
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<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span>janestheonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17617250693471034197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2932765464128103640.post-83982620686479422892017-12-23T05:23:00.001+01:002017-12-23T05:25:49.878+01:00J.G. Ballard, 'The Drowned World'<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjICp_tunQlNGkyKoT95jr5f2dl09cm0aEcJc2BaYt8HZQ9RcHrnAOFez8E37qI3kc25rYxyZ2dDlLUaLR2WHjAOqprZfYISeSJ7t1jnofS-CLmO6JDj65KysWpTytraSu0QnBKS4w0hhRp/s1600/drownedworld.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="304" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjICp_tunQlNGkyKoT95jr5f2dl09cm0aEcJc2BaYt8HZQ9RcHrnAOFez8E37qI3kc25rYxyZ2dDlLUaLR2WHjAOqprZfYISeSJ7t1jnofS-CLmO6JDj65KysWpTytraSu0QnBKS4w0hhRp/s320/drownedworld.jpg" width="204" /></a></div>
The word "dystopian" has been over-used I think, and is not really the right one here - the world has lethally heated up because of massive instability of the sun, and most humans are living on bases in the Arctic Circle. It's a fable set in the future, and its debt to 'Heart of Darkness', to the seafarers' Neptune myths, and, probably, to the 'The Golden Bough' are clear. J.G. Ballard had an imagination like no other, and descriptive powers not often rivalled. The world of albino lizards, shrieking iguanas, and a booming, elliptical sun turning the fetid lagoons of England into stinking fire, is one that will stay with me. Although it is a bit 1970s album cover in places. Published in 1962, it has the sexism of that time. The Girl Love Interest, whose only point is to be decorative and look the heroine in a B-movie of the time, covered in jewels in a pagan ceremony as society disintegrates into savagery, is plain silly. And the "curly-pated mulattoes" who are the evil Strangman's voodoo hit squad are pure sub-Conrad. If anything, better than Conrad was though, because of Ballard's utter lack of pretension. Yes, really. He hardly ever lapses that way, and "real" science-fiction writers do it all the time. That's why Ballard left "true SF" behind, and began to write - something else. And I just LOVED that (not a spoiler in the unlikely event you haven't already read this) instead of rejoining the brisk uniformed squadron that arrives to mop up after the action and heading back to the Arctic Circle, where the only habitable places are, our hero turns and heads south, to madness and certain rapid death.janestheonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17617250693471034197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2932765464128103640.post-69898000155396459062017-11-28T06:39:00.001+01:002017-11-28T06:39:59.705+01:00Sex-Pest WestminsterRoyal weddings, Budgets, they come and they go, but the sex-pest culture never goes away, or so it seems. Here is my take on it, as one who is rather distant from Westminster these days but who knew it well at one time. Depressingly, very little seems to have changed. It may be that behaviour which was viewed as normal 20 years ago is less tolerated now, and if so that is a good thing, but no parsnips are currently being buttered by any of the fine words being spoken (and careers ended, often with spiteful glee) on this matter at present.<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">«It’s about
power». Someone said this to me once, when I was fairly new to Labour activism.
And of course, it’s true. I had come into active politics in the 1980s, late in
the period when the Trots, aka Militant, were being driven out of positions,
and membership too, of the party. Something of a Stalinist and tankie in my
youth, when I studied Soviet history (“you can’t make an omelette without
breaking eggs” was my take on Uncle Joe’s excesses in my student days), I would
have worn those near-mythical ice-pick earrings if I could.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">I’ve been a
Blairite, and a keen disciple of the Chicago Doctrine (liberal interventionism,
since you ask), since the late 1990s, Euston Manifesto and a Gerasite, since. But
that is another story. I was a Labour MP
for eight years, from 1997 to 2005, and that is part of this story.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">As I write
this at least two male Labour MPs are under investigation for alleged
inappropriate behaviour towards younger women. Another, a member of the Welsh
Assembly, is dead by his own hand, following similar, but non-specified,
allegations. At least two male Tory MPs are similarly under investigation, and
at least one of them has claimed he has no idea what the allegations against
him are all about. Michael Fallon has resigned as Defence Secretary because of
instances of alleged inappropriate behaviour towards women in the past.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">That’s just
in politics. I say nothing of the men with high-flying and celebrity status in
other walks of life (not of course the late Jimmy Saville, who was a special
case in more ways than one) who have been variously dumped from their careers,
driven out of public life, and in some cases are doing or have done prison
time, for behaviour that was normal and unexceptionable, if deplorable, at the
time they engaged in it, although not usually popular with the mainly young
women at whom it was directed. The late John Peel got away with the same
behaviour, self-confessed, and it is not clear why; perhaps he died before the
mood changed, when only women and children were victims. He remains a secular
saint. His widow is called Sheila, and that is how he referred to her in his
later years; earlier in his career (though after he was famous) he always
called her “The Pig”. That’s how it was, and that’s how it remains, despite
fine words to the contrary.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">It’s about
power. Not about sex. If men with power truly acknowledged the women they
associate with in professional life, they would not behave in these
“inappropriate” ways – the hand on the knee under the table, the hand up the
skirt where no one can see. We’ve all been there, girls. And most of us didn’t
complain, because we knew exactly how seriously we’d be taken – and we also
knew that it wasn’t about sex. Those men weren’t besotted with us. They didn’t
want to have affairs with us. We were objects, to them. Young flesh, to be
squeezed and then discarded. A clear message, in case we ever got the idea,
once we were working in junior roles as researchers and assistants and so on,
that we might one day play an equal part in professional life with the men. <i>Oh</i> no. Not <i>you</i>, girl. And we were the ones who persisted, who insisted that we
too could be journalists and technicians and business executives, and, yes,
MPs. How many more went away forever discouraged?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">It’s about
power. And so it is in today’s Westminster. I saw a government minister fall
off a bar stool, having just made a grab for the rear of a passing female
colleague. Who got into trouble with the Whips? You guessed it: the female
colleague. In the 21<sup>st</sup> century.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">I notice
that former Labour Government Chief Whip Hilary Armstrong, a person who got her
parliamentary seat through nepotism and who has no discernible personal,
political or intellectual acumen or merit,
said recently that the appointment of female senior Whips by Labour in
government was intended to protect female colleagues from the kind of behaviour
mentioned above. Was it, Hilary? Was it really? Didn’t work then, did it? Tell
it to the family of the late Fiona Jones MP, hounded into oblivion and early
death by her own Labour Party. For goodness’ sake, I was subjected to sexual assault
by a fellow Labour MP myself. I knew better than to complain. It was done, not
because said MP was bowled over by my charms, but because I wouldn’t be under
his thumb. That’s how it is. Not about sex, but about power.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">So don’t
give me your pious bleating about inappropriate behaviour, girls and boys.
Women in politics are routinely subjected to savage bullying and psychological
torture, at least as much by women in power (yes, you, Hilary Armstrong) as by
men. Read Harriet Harman’s excellent memoir, ‘A Woman’s Work’, if you don’t
believe me. It’s not about sex, but about power.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">An
illustration: several MPs attended a lunch hosted by a defence minister in the
then Labour Government. That minister let slip that he believed there “was no
such thing as Gulf War syndrome” (post-traumatic stress disorder, as it would
now be called, suffered by military personnel who had served in the Gulf – this
was before the 2003 action in Iraq). This statement by the defence minister
reached the attention of the media. Before it had become public, the other
(female, Labour) MP present on the occasion, and I, had received letters from
the Chief Whip instructing us to inform the media that the minister had said no
such thing. Lie for us, girls. Lie down.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">When I was the unwilling witness to sexual shenanigans involving a
(female, Labour) MP and a military officer while on a parliamentary visit, my
recounting of which tale on my return prompted a story in the News of the World
headlined ‘Woman On Top’, I was contacted by a party apparatchik and instructed
to tell the media the story was untrue. I declined. Because it was true. This
was and is normal.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">It’s not
about sex. It’s about power. Why do victorious troops in war rape their victims,
men as well as women?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Men are
being made victims now, too. I take no pleasure in that. I thought, decades ago
when I was a young feminist, that these battles would have been fought and won
by the time I was the age I am now. I was wrong about that. But power can be
fought for, and won, while treating opponents with decency and respect – can’t
it? I’m not seeking a Milly-Molly-Mandy world of impossible saccharine
niceness. I know that a measure of ruthlessness is necessary in politics. If I
have a criticism of Tony Blair it is that he lacked it, rather.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Decency and
respect. It would be nice to see it tried.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
janestheonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17617250693471034197noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2932765464128103640.post-13975639720857816772017-11-23T11:25:00.001+01:002017-11-23T11:25:05.691+01:00Sarah Gainham, 'Night Falls On The City'<p dir="ltr">A long read, and a powerful and intelligent one. Of course, we know the story, and we know the ending "this man Hitler, they say he is dangerous". But the milieu (an actors' troupe in Vienna in WWII) is interesting, and the characters subtly and compellingly drawn. I found it quite mesmerising, and am not sure why Gainham is not read any more. (She lived most of her life in Austria, and died there in 1999. This book was published in 1967, to great acclaim at the time, and is a love song to Vienna as perhaps a native Viennese could never write it). She is wonderful on place and atmosphere - the claustrophobic Vienna apartment; a village church in the Tyrol as war is declared and the sound of the boots of the "young men at the back of the church ... it was for them the prayers were meant, the young who would be sacrificed". One character says, in what could be the book's slogan, "There is nothing we can do, except survive."</p>
janestheonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17617250693471034197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2932765464128103640.post-7961606445217256532017-11-12T16:33:00.001+01:002017-11-12T22:50:32.614+01:00Ken Clarke, 'Kind of Blue'
<br>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">An
accomplished, and at times very interesting, political memoir from a politician
who said he would never write a memoir. No surprises here, but why would there
be, from one of the few politicians of any party who is instantly recognisable
by the public, and whose views are well known by everyone – or so we the public
think. There is a bit too much I Was Right All Along, but you always get that
with political memoirs. Ken Clarke seems, it emerges from this book, to have
been oddly distant from most of his family for most of his life. His marriage,
he says, was a long and happy one. He mentions outings with his son during the
latter’s boyhood, and says family holidays were always enjoyed, but nothing
more. This is contrary to the public image Ken Clarke has always had, but then
this is true for almost all politicians.</span></span></div>
<br>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">He is not
perhaps a very complex political thinker, but complexity is not a virtue in a
politician. He is not dull, and dullness is most certainly a vice in one. He is
an admirer of Iain Macleod, who was Foreign Secretary at the end of Empire, and
who was criticised, Clarke says, for giving the British Empire away, which he
says had to be done “if we were to avoid the post-colonial wars in which the
French had been immersed”. Well, I guess. But we did have them, in Malaya and
Cyprus, and Burma wasn’t exactly a bed of roses, and there was that little
matter of Partition in India, and – oh, please yourselves.</span></span></div>
<br>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">On Europe,
of course, Ken’s position is clear and well known, and he has never wavered from
it. (Not always a good sign in a potential political leader: ladies and
gentlemen, I give you Jeremy Corbyn). Ken Clarke is the go-to pro-European Tory,
and that being so it is perhaps surprising that he has been in Tory governments
as much as he has. Here at least he has the benefit of clarity, and it is
welcome: “People had been told that the Community was intended to be a
free-trade area only, without any political commitments. This is wholly without
foundation; a total fiction.” Thanks, Ken. That’s how I remember it too.</span></span></div>
<br>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">He can be patronising,
especially to women: the In Place of Strife debate “did succeed in bringing the
best out of Mrs Castle as a parliamentary performer”, which seems at best
unfair to Barbara.</span></span></div>
<br>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The title,
‘Kind of Blue’, is a splendid one for the memoir of a jazz-loving Tory who has
often seemed semi-detached from the party. But of course he never was so. He
was, and remains, a true Tory. Another reviewer has remarked that his memoir
shows Clarke, surprisingly to the reviewer, to “lack empathy for the poor”.
Well, of course he does. He’s a Tory, innit.</span></span></div>
<br>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“The
Thatcher government never cut public spending on any mainstream public service
such as health, education or welfare”, he proudly asserts. If he says so, and
in monetary terms I am quite sure that this is true. But it is not how it felt
at the time.</span></span></div>
<br>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">He can be
waspish. He appears to have got on rather well personally with Margaret
Thatcher, despite their sometime differences and their avowed occasional
stand-up rows. He says his losses of temper on those occasions were acting, as
his temperament is too equable for them to have been real. And also that “Margaret
Thatcher was always very lucky in her political opponents.”</span></span></div>
<br>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">On the NHS
(after all he was Health Secretary for quite a long time), he says “there would
be riots if we were plunged back now into an NHS that looked as it did in the
1980s”. Probably true. But that would also arguably be true of a lot of other aspects
of society in the 1980s – when there <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">were
</i>quite a lot of actual riots. But for myself, having lived outside the UK
now for over 10 years and experienced a health service which is probably the
best in the world (the French), I’m quite surprised nobody riots <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">now </i>at the abominable care they receive.</span></span></div>
<br>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">He points
out, perhaps rather irritatedly, that his shoes are not Hush Puppies, but are
hand made by Crockett<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>and Jones in
Northamptonshire. Shoes are often an issue in politics (leaving aside the
current prime minister) – I had some yellow Clarks suede desert boots I was rather
fond of at one time when I was an MP, and used to wear them when out knocking
doors as they were comfortable and took me many miles with never an itch or a
rub or a blister, and was roundly castigated by the local LibDems for wearing
them. I was never quite sure why. I always liked them. I wish I still had them
now.</span></span></div>
<br>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A word on
Ken Clarke the politician – we were colleagues in the House, and although we never
had anything much to do with each other he always knew my name when we passed
in the corridor – and why should he know the name of a humble and obscure
Labour (then in government) back-bencher? Well, because politics. Fibromyalgia
is a health issue which is a very severe and debilitating one for those who
suffer, and there are many local support groups for sufferers, usually membered
by the sufferers themselves and their immediate families. I was often surprised
by the energy and fortitude displayed by the fibromyalgia lobby, this being the
case. The two strongest local fibromyalgia support groups in England were in
Reading (which I represented) and in Nottingham (which Ken did). I therefore
found myself chairing the group, and most of its meetings. True to form, the
other Reading MP, Martin Salter, trumpeted in the Reading media that he was
“spearheading” the lobby for fibromyalgia sufferers. However, Salter was so
rarely in the House, choosing to spend most of his time in the Reading
constituency that I and not he represented (the reasons for that are a matter
for mental health practitioners rather than for politicians I fancy) that he
did not actually attend any of the meetings. Ken Clarke also rarely attended,
but he had better excuses, with front-bench and other responsibilities Mr
Salter has never had. Whenever he could not attend he would put “on the board”
(an actual pinboard at the time that MPs could use to send each other direct
written communications) for me any communications from his constituents he
thought relevant for the meeting, always with a handwritten compliment slip
from Ken. Good politics, man. The other Nottingham MPs were similarly
assiduous, but it was only from Ken that I got the “on-the-board” letters – and
these are delivered personally to the Member addressed, by the House badge
messengers, rather than going through the internal mail system office to
office.</span></span></div>
<br>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Of his time
at the Ministry of Justice, which seems not to have been a very happy one, he
notes that all three of his challengers on law and order matters, namely David
Cameron’s erstwhile director of communications Andy Coulson, Michael Howard’s
former special adviser at the Home Office Patrick Rock, and former News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks, have faced criminal charges: Of the three, only
Brooks was acquitted: Coulson did time and Rock has been convicted on child
pornography charges. I suspect a very sweet moment or moments for Ken.</span></span></div>
<br>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">He doesn’t
have that much to say about the Brexit referendum, perhaps wisely. His position
is well known, and has always been clear. Always an advantage for a politician.
He does describe David Cameron’s decision to hold the referendum, which he says
he discovered by reading about it in the newspapers in January 2013, as
“reckless and irresponsible”. Which, of course, it was.</span></span></div>
<br>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Ken Clarke
doesn’t have much to say about the illness and death from cancer (lymphoma) of
his wife Gillian. Perhaps rightly. He does say that when she died, in July
2015, a few hours after a bedside gathering of himself, his son and daughter,
and his granddaughter, “We were devastated by the loss but I think that I was
made closer to my children and grandchild by our bereavement.” Not much of a
loving tribute to Gillian, I churlishly surmise. And is it my nasty suspicious
mind, but WHAT does he mean by this: “I had lost my lifelong companion and beloved
wife who had been so important to me in her more active days.” Is there more to
come? Does Ken suspect there is?</span></span></div>
<br>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">He ends,
self-importantly, with the Hansard of his speech in the Brexit debate. But then
again, why shouldn’t he?</span></span></div>
<br>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Ken Clarke
is a kind of National Treasure. He knows this, and has built himself up to it
over the decades. I’m not sure if he meant to shore up that image with this memoir.
Perhaps he doesn’t care. It’s an interesting read, and sometimes a very
entertaining one. I am sure it will be cited, in years to come. I am not sure
it will ever be a political science text or a sourcebook. But then, why should
it?</span></span></div>
<br>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<br></div>
<br>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<br></div>
<br>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<br></div>
<br>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
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<br>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<br></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span>janestheonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17617250693471034197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2932765464128103640.post-23801755149880774132017-08-21T21:22:00.000+02:002017-08-20T22:49:55.634+02:00Stanley Karnow, 'Vietnam, A History'<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFTuZmbz5FLsFGwGr-GfzXDdAxet2X_gXA-OekGXOjI8u452IzRvc0sISo4twZl_uNQp_ES3TSkxlB8q_W6Qe_HDCWcBcikgTWUr1qo_urdVTCIz2NrYRamQGzzC0m8fctKAYoIe-MyVnw/s1600/Karnow+Vietnam.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="327" data-original-width="327" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFTuZmbz5FLsFGwGr-GfzXDdAxet2X_gXA-OekGXOjI8u452IzRvc0sISo4twZl_uNQp_ES3TSkxlB8q_W6Qe_HDCWcBcikgTWUr1qo_urdVTCIz2NrYRamQGzzC0m8fctKAYoIe-MyVnw/s320/Karnow+Vietnam.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Here is my review of this commanding history of Vietnam by Stanley Karnow .Read on.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">This is a
comprehensive history of Vietnam by Stanley Karnow, a historian (died 2013) who
is viewed as somewhat to the left of others such as Michael Lind (my reviews </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">passim</span></i><span style="font-family: "calibri";">). This means fairly simply that
he is not very pro-US, whatever the US might do.</span></span></div>
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Although the book
takes us through Vietnam’s history from prehistoric times (the heroic Trung
sisters, anyone?) <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzhR9JjKqoOPOFIICoBtOFcfEPreqIN7wScPROKNpLpA3TsoB3ewdU3EhPAAaxKNaro5OOYglHVd752fvN5s4LvoQd3UlIisb1N8BBDZR5J30b_GB7c3Q1rfCoeeNRVH5g6CYOJ50ow4Wf/s1600/Trung+sisters.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="468" data-original-width="653" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzhR9JjKqoOPOFIICoBtOFcfEPreqIN7wScPROKNpLpA3TsoB3ewdU3EhPAAaxKNaro5OOYglHVd752fvN5s4LvoQd3UlIisb1N8BBDZR5J30b_GB7c3Q1rfCoeeNRVH5g6CYOJ50ow4Wf/s320/Trung+sisters.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">the Trung sisters, heroines of the Vietnamese revolution c 940 AD. Note the elephant.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
it is perhaps most interesting on the lesser-known aspects of
that country’s 20</span><sup><span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: x-small;">th</span></sup><span style="font-family: "calibri";">-century history. Such as the fact that the OSS,
the forerunner of the CIA, was in close touch with Ho Chi Minh, as were various
American generals, as early as 1946. And that between 1945 and 1954 France got
more finance for its military efforts to retain its Indochina possessions than
it did in Marshall Aid for its shattered postwar economy. But at the same time
the OSS was supplying the Vietminh (Vietnamese Communists) with weapons for
their battles to drive out the French colonialists. So, US covert forces were
colluding with Vietnamese communists to drive out the French, while its overt
forces were helping France battle to hold on in Indochina. Or so it would seem.
None of this worked, of course, and the Americans legged it out of Vietnam, not
for the last time. And then – WHAT a story this is – the BRITISH were brought
in to restore order, under a certain General Douglas Gracey. Predictably,
things got worse.</span></span><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> </span></span><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Also, like many
Americans of all political stances, Karnow did not view Great Britain as heroic
in World War II, as I was brought up to believe we were, fighting on alone (but
for the mighty USSR) after France collapsed and the smaller European nations
either were overrun or changed sides. On LBJ’s formative experiences which led
him to oppose withdrawal from Vietnam, Karnow cites “the Munich pact, Britain’s
capitulation to the Nazis”. This is not how Munich was seen in Britain at the
time, nor, mostly, since, including by its opponents. But it appears here to be
an uncontroversial statement. Karnow does not say whether LBJ actually held or
expressed that view. Perhaps though if he did it was utterly unremarkable.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Karnow does not take issue with the assessment by Michael Lind that the 1960s escalation of US involvement
in Vietnam was about US prestige and position in the world. Not one bit. So
right and left are united on this point.</span></span></div>
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">The advice given to
LBJ in preparation for the debate on the South-East Asia Resolution, which,
only arguably, rendered US actions in Vietnam constitutional, included this
answer to a FAQ: “Does South-East Asia matter all that much? Yes – because of
the rights of the people there…”. This would not be said now, and certainly not
on the left. Brown-skin people in far-off countries are not judged as deserving
of rights as white westerners, these days. Ernest Gruening of Alaska, a
“veteran liberal” said in the debate “All Vietnam is not worth the life of a
single American boy”. No change on the left there, then. Although, as indicated
above, Karnow does not try to say the war was about anything other than
American prestige, he does use emotive language on the subject: “dutifully
recited the dogma of the domino theory”.</span></span><br />
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";"><br /></span></span>
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">It’s interesting how utterly chaotic and corrupt the various governments
installed in Saigon were, and not all of them were installed by the US. South
Vietnam at this time was rapidly becoming a failed state, and while this wasn’t
the fault of the US, they weren’t helping either.</span></span><br />
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";"><br /></span></span>
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Karnow is clear that “the Vietcong” (a South Vietnamese nickname
intended to be derogatory) were not, as many in the West believed they were, an
indigenous insurgent population. In fact they were a trained militia funded and
directed from Hanoi, and via them from the USSR and China. But, Karnow notes,
North Vietnam, after the start of the Rolling Thunder operation, did not have
its cities carpet-bombed as Dresden and Tokyo were in World War II. You only
have to visit Hanoi, as I did in April this year, to see that Hanoi still looks
very much like the French colonial city it once was.</span></span><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> </span></span><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">“And the marines, as one of their commanders put it, will henceforth
‘start killing the Vietcong instead of just sitting on their ditty box’”,
quoted without comment. This remark by the marine commander is of course
absolutely correct. If you are going to go there, go there and get the job
properly done. Otherwise those who die there will have died senselessly and in
vain.</span></span></div>
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Karnow continues with the emotive language throughout: “the hopelessness
of the American cause”. Well, we know how it turned out, of course. We also
know, or think we do, that the domino theory was incorrect. Indonesia and
Malaya did not go communist, despite various attempts and uprisings. And this
was not just because the Chinese hordes did not pour across the border
(figuratively speaking) – when they did pour across the actual border, in Korea
in 1950, the end result was not a communist Korean peninsula, but a stalemate
and an uneasy partition.</span></span><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> </span></span><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Karnow ends the book in a curiously sentimental fashion, with Bui Tin,
former Vietnamese army colonel and the man who took the surrender of the last
South Vietnamese leader, Duong Van Minh, in 1975. Tin has been a dissident
since the mid-1980s, and is an old man now, latterly living in France. Karnow,
who knew Tin quite well personally, has him flinging himself elatedly on to the
ground and gazing into the sunlit sky as North Vietnamese forces take Saigon.
But this, as the coda, is the only real moment of weakness in this magisterial
work: Karnow was too rigorous a historian to allow whatever personal and
emotional fealty he might have had to the North Vietnamese cause to subvert the
history. </span></span></div>
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<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>janestheonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17617250693471034197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2932765464128103640.post-57340617699206167172017-07-30T14:08:00.000+02:002017-08-20T21:04:47.492+02:00Michael Lind, 'Vietnam, The Necessary War': A Neocon Writes<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpT4CeSPh_iIZ1_Q2uvVGJ5QI1gT6k0IhHkMOU83e3oho9ilS6CMgTuSMnxCgIAs0s2C3yzr4w7QMYcAyg2yr6Rjn3AVQrA91qeiI2k1C_9veEP_TbcVEgYTUdKKjPbqecq1RUcF39wLBt/s1600/223180.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="309" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpT4CeSPh_iIZ1_Q2uvVGJ5QI1gT6k0IhHkMOU83e3oho9ilS6CMgTuSMnxCgIAs0s2C3yzr4w7QMYcAyg2yr6Rjn3AVQrA91qeiI2k1C_9veEP_TbcVEgYTUdKKjPbqecq1RUcF39wLBt/s320/223180.jpg" width="208" /></a></div>
This is a very interesting historical analysis of the Vietnam war from what might be called a neocon perspective - if you think not opposing all America's wars because they are America's makes you a neocon. To Lind the US adventures in Vietnam were not, or not especially, about anti-communism, but were especially about US credibility, not just in the region but in the wider world. He seems to say that, in terms of a military campaign, the job should have been done properly: "Kennedy and Johnson should not have allowed an unrealistic fear of Chinese intervention to prevent them from invading North Vietnam, or at least cutting it off from its Chinese and Soviet sponsors by measures such as mining North Vietnamese ports." After all, he says, the threat of Chinese invasion was real at the time. It had happened in Korea not that long before. A Chinese Party Central Committee document of 1965 declared that the top priority for the Chinese government was supporting North Vietnam against the United States." Therefore, Lind concludes, "the argument that Johnson could have brought the war to a quick end by invading North Vietnam has been completely discredited". Slightly contradictory, no?<br />
Lind even tries to rehabilitate the reputation of LBJ by saying he was undermined by RFK and his associates, who went as far as to meet the KGB (this apparently was revealed in Soviet archives) to indicate to them that RFK was at one with JFK, unlike LBJ, and would be the USSR's friend if he became President.<br />
Lind explains the change in the Democratic Party (away from interventionism and towards isolationism) by the core constituencies of the party ceasing to be much Southern or Catholic and becoming Greater New England Protestant, Jewish, and black. He makes comparisons, again and again, for example to the assassination of President Park of South Korea in 1979, which he says would have put a stop to then-active attempts at Korean reunification if it had happened in 1972. But it didn't, so it didn't. He especially compares, again and again, the situation facing LBJ in 1965-6 with that facing President Clinton in Yugoslavia in 1999. It's fair, but as a device gets a bit tedious after a while.<br />
Far from stating that the US bombing of Cambodia, always intended to disrupt the passage of materiel through Cambodia from Sihanoukville, and the effective occupation of the ports of eastern Cambodia by the North Vietnamese, Lind says "the banning by the US Congress of further US air support for the Lon Nol regime ensured victory for Pol Pot and his followers." That, and Sihanouk immediately declaring for the Khmer Rouge and urging all Cambodians to join them. Also, "the Khmer Rouge owed their victory to the North Vietnamese military." He rejects the position of Cambodia scholars such as Ben Kiernan, namely that the US bombing of Cambodia somehow drove the Cambodian peasantry collectively insane and spawned the Khmer Rouge. He goes as far as to argue that Sihanouk, by allowing the passage of weapons and materiel through Cambodia to the North Vietnamese from the port of Sihanoukville "became a co-combatant" in the Vietnam War in the mid-60s.<br />
"The only two presidents to have waged major wars in defiance of the US Constitution have been Harry S. Truman (in Korea) and Bill Clinton (Kosovo).<br />
On the Clinton presidency's foreign policy and adventures, not a glorious episode in anyone's estimation, he goes further too. President Clinton's publicly ruling out the use of ground troops in Serbia to prevent ethnic cleansing in Kosovo was "the single greatest act of incompetence ever committed by an American commander-in-chief." He's probably right about that, though it all came right in the end (sort of). As he says: "fortunately; the capitulation of Serbia averted what might have been a disaster for the United States."<br />
For some reason he quotes Churchill on Dunkirk "We must be careful not to assign to this deliverance the attributes of a victory." He uses this quote to introduce a section on history's verdict on Vietnam. Whatever, the old boy's quotes certainly have stood the test of time.<br />
"The Vietnam War was neither a mistake nor a betrayal nor a crime. It was a military defeat." I now agree with him that it was not a mistake. But disastrous mistakes were made in the execution of it, and also of course in its presentation.<br />
A non-conventional perspective on the war, and a highly commendable contribution to the history of that conflict, still very much in living memory.janestheonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17617250693471034197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2932765464128103640.post-21345737469185734112017-07-23T20:46:00.002+02:002017-07-23T20:51:28.843+02:00ah yes, I remember it wellsqwawkbox (never quite sure how to spell that thing) has been banging on about deselection of Labour MPs for being insufficiently loyal to JC. Some of this will of course happen. First they will come for the Jews and for the women, preferably both at once. And then - well, you know how it goes. But may I point out that it is perfectly possible to deselect a sitting Labour MP now, with no rule change, and that this has been done a number of times in fairly recent years. But it is seriously hard work, and in my case took seven years' campaigning and briefing. Most Labour members, even today, do not want to see their MP deselected, and it takes a long time to fill their ears with so much poison that they are prepared to vote against the MP, or not to vote for her, which usually amounts to much the same thing, because they have started to think "no smoke without fire". In the case of Reading East, after a failed deselection attempt in 2000 which resulted in the ouster of one party chair and the flight of another to Australia in fear of his kneecaps, the renewed efforts were still not working as well as the small group of "criminally insane" (says a very senior party organiser) party members had hoped, following my re-election in 2001 with an increased majority. So they enlisted the help of the now disgraced former Chief Whip Hilary Armstrong, a crabbed virago who acquired the parliamentary seat she held for many years by sheer nepotism, with no discernible merit or hard work on her part. She has recently been compared (by one who knows) with Nurse Ratched in 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest' - but I fear the former was cleverer. Hills however was well schooled in psychological torture, and you don't have to be clever for that. Anyway, she surfaces in the revisiting of earlier deselection schemes, as well she might. The <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1455783/Show-trials-to-axe-MPs-disloyal-to-Blair.html">Telegraph</a> piece from 2004 however mentions my name, and strongly implies that I was deselected for being some kind of Corbynite lefty, which I consider a slur and a calumny, and urge all concerned to withdraw the remarks. Sqwawkbox, it wasn't quite like that.<br />
<br />
In other news, it was nice to get a mention in the House this week when the Labour MP for Reading<br />
East, Matt Rodda, made his maiden speech. It was very sensible and mentioned Reading and housing a lot. Jolly good for him.<br />
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<br />janestheonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17617250693471034197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2932765464128103640.post-86744288205749366102017-06-13T16:25:00.000+02:002017-06-13T16:25:00.925+02:00Donald Ray Pollock, 'The Heavenly Table'<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Southern American hillbilly outlaw gothic. What's not to like? Some, actually. Too much fecal matter for my squeamish soul. And the death of Pearl's wife will stay with me for - well, too long. Set in 1917, but could have been set 50 years earlier or even 50 years later for its take on poverty in America. A new voice to me, and one that is likely to stay with me for probably too long. Anyway, very funny in places, which I did not expect. It's crying out for a film to be made; quite possibly with Daniel Day-Lewis.janestheonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17617250693471034197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2932765464128103640.post-22852964926223279732017-06-11T14:40:00.000+02:002017-06-11T14:40:55.943+02:00 Who is being undermined here?<span style="font-size: large;">On Thursday the Reading East constituency was retaken for Labour after being represented for 12 years by Rob Wilson in the Conservative interest. I was quick to congratulate Matt Rodda, the new Labour MP for Reading East, as I am the only person in the world who has ever previously known what it is to represent the Reading East constituency in the Labour interest, and to send him an <a href="http://jane-griffiths-my-book.blogspot.com/2017/06/open-letter-to-matt-rodda-labour-mp-for.html">open letter</a>. That's more than Reading Labour Party did. Their tweets were all about Olivia Bailey, the defeated Labour candidate in Reading West "you should have won"; "all hands to Reading West next time" (hah! I bet!) and from the party only "What can we say? Matt Rodda MP!" clearly signalling the subtext "THAT wasn't supposed to happen". Well, matey boys, it has. Contrast Plymouth, where they also elected a Labour MP for one of the city's constituencies, and party officers and councillors were tweeting in delight and excitement about their new MP (Luke Pollard since you ask, a fine fellow in my limited acquaintance). I am sure they are doing the same in Ipswich and Canterbury, among other places. But in Reading, no.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">So, Tony Page, a councillor for approximately 103 years, currently deputy leader of the council, was chosen to issue the customary counterblast to Labour victory in Reading East. He did this by attacking Rob Wilson. Well, I am not going to join him in that. If you get re-elected, twice in Wilson's case, when you just scrape in the first time because the voters are not sure about you, it means you have earned those votes by gaining the trust and confidence of the voters. Hey, Tony? Well, you wouldn't know. You were the Labour candidate in 2005, the compromise candidate who could get support from party members to deselect that pesky Jane Griffiths who keeps winning elections and NOT DOING AS SHE IS TOLD and NOT BEING THE CREATURE OF READING BOROUGH COUNCIL. Well, the Reading East electorate disagreed that year, and chose Rob Wilson. Who is, of course (says Tony Page), a bad person, because he too refused to be the creature of Reading Borough Council. You can read the "story" <a href="http://www.readingchronicle.co.uk/news/15339001._He_undermined_the_local_council____Tony_Page_blasts_Rob_Wilson_and_hails_Matt_Rodda_s_victory/">here</a>. It is in the Reading Chronicle, so it must be true. See this:</span><br />
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<span style="color: #292b2c;">T</span><i><span style="color: #292b2c;">HE DEPUTY leader of the borough council hailed last night's election result as a big leap forward for local government. </span><span style="color: red;">(you what? this was a parliamentary not a borough council election Tone)</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="color: #292b2c;">Councillor Tony Page, labour </span><span style="color: red;">(sic - is John Howarth moonlighting as a sub?)</span><span style="color: #292b2c;">, was elated after candidate Matt Rodda pipped former MP Rob Wilson to the Reading East seat with </span>an <span style="color: red;">(sic)</span> 3,749<span style="color: #292b2c;"> majority.</span></i></div>
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<span style="color: #292b2c;"><span style="font-size: large;">Note the "pipped", as if 3,749 was not a respectable majority, especially in a seat which will always be marginal if held by Labour, and especially in a seat which had a candidate who was not the favourite of Tony Page, Jan Gavin, and their various henchpeople. Imagine the briefings. Here is Cllr Jan Gavin (Lab, Redlands, Reading East, former teacher, played a murky role in ousting the head teacher of the school she taught at, which happens to be the one my children attended) hearing the Reading East result: </span></span></div>
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Pic Reading Evening Post <span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #292b2c; font-family: "Fira Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17px;"> </span><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #292b2c; font-family: "Fira Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17px;">(so it must be true). Cllr Page continued: </span><br />
<span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #292b2c; font-family: "Fira Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #292b2c; font-family: "Fira Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17px;"><i>I have every confidence that Mr Rodda will work closely with the council and he has already made that clear."</i></span><br />
<i style="color: #292b2c; font-family: "Fira Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17px;"> "Having an MP in Reading who will work with the council as opposed to </i><i style="font-family: "Fira Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17px;"><span style="color: red;">undermining </span></i><i style="color: #292b2c; font-family: "Fira Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17px;">them is very important."</i><br />
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<span style="color: #292b2c; font-family: Fira Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 17px;">Is that a threat, Tony? It reads very much like one.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Fira Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 17px;"><span style="color: #292b2c;">And where, in all this, is the delight and excitement at the election of a Labour MP - because after </span>all<span style="color: #292b2c;"> it was the election of Labour MPs that denied Theresa May the mandate she hoped for in her snap election? You may well ask. The Observer does, in a big piece today, where they quote </span>Cllrs<span style="color: #292b2c;"> Tony Jones (whom I </span>do not<span style="color: #292b2c;"> wish to </span><span style="color: red;">undermine</span><span style="color: #292b2c;"> at this stage) and, you guessed it, Jan Gavin - both of whom fail to enthuse about the election of Matt Rodda. You can read the piece <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jun/10/labour-sweeps-middle-england-reading-east-something-remarkable-happening">here</a></span></span></span><span style="color: #292b2c; font-family: "Fira Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17px;">.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #292b2c; font-family: "Fira Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17px;">Well, Matt, you do not need them. Great news that you have been elected. A fresh new voice for "Reading, Woodley and Caversham". I wish you all the best, in every way. Step over the tired, corrupt clique of old people on Reading Borough Council and go forward to the future. The scores and scores of mostly young people who campaigned for you want you to do that, and I know you will. </span><br />
<i style="color: #292b2c; font-family: "Fira Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17px;"><br /></i>janestheonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17617250693471034197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2932765464128103640.post-25933361241438908272017-06-09T12:51:00.000+02:002017-06-09T12:51:24.740+02:00Open letter to Matt Rodda, Labour MP for Reading East<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Open Letter to Matt Rodda, elected Labour MP for Reading East on 8<sup>th</sup> June 2017<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">We don’t really know each other at all, but I wanted to write and say how delighted I am that you have been elected to represent Reading East for Labour. Until your election yesterday I was the only Labour MP the constituency had ever had, and I was very proud to hold that office from 1997 to 2005. I’m so glad that the people of Reading East again have a Labour voice to speak for them in Parliament.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I was once told “The House of Commons is a great megaphone: use it so your constituents can be heard.” Good advice, that was. Your place is on the green benches, speaking, petitioning, debating, giving the government a hard time if need be – at the time of writing we don’t know who is going to form a government, nor what its party composition will be. Your place is in the constituency too, and it isn’t either/or – being an MP is two jobs. Your constituents will expect to see you in person and hear from you regularly, and they will also want you to contribute to debates and speak in the House, and not just on the high-profile causes.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">You are Labour, but you are no one’s creature. You will need to work cross-party from time to time, especially now that Reading’s two MPs are of different parties. Don’t tell anyone I told you, but sometimes it’s easier that way. You need good relations with both the councils whose areas you represent parts of, but you are the tool of neither, nor can you (as your constituents sometimes believe you can) overturn the decisions of either.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">You are your constituents’ representative, and not their delegate. How else can you represent constituents who hold diametrically opposed views – and I promise you they do. You represent a relatively highly educated, fairly diverse, urban and suburban area, with quite large disparity of income and wealth. But all your constituents, whatever their situation, share the general human needs and concerns we all have. I was once remonstrated with by a former government minister for not tabling Agriculture questions (as it then was). When I said that was because I didn’t represent any farmers, she said quietly “Your constituents eat food, don’t they?”<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Table questions. All the time. Get involved with causes which are precious to you, to your constituents, or both, through All-Party Groups and committees. If there isn’t an All-Party Group on something that matters to you, start one. It’s one of the ways a back-bencher can have some real influence over policy.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The House of Commons Library is better than Google, for almost everything.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Travel, on your own account and on parliamentary visits. Keep it to the recess, but don’t be hair-shirt about it. You will learn from it, and you will learn from the colleagues you travel with, and maybe they will learn from you. Be discreet (you know this) – a backbencher of another party (unnamed here) once passed out from unwary drinking of toasts next to me at a dinner on a parliamentary visit to (country name redacted). No media (this was before Twitter et al) found out about it through me. Make time to read, in the recess and in the evenings. This is advice I was given and should have followed but didn’t. You probably have a special skill or talent your colleagues don’t. Perhaps you are fluent in Basque, or play a mean harmonica, or win prizes for growing tomatoes. Whatever it is, use it. Show off a bit.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Woodley is one quarter of the constituency by population. Spend more than a quarter of your constituency time there. I promise you you won’t regret it. A little piece of my heart will always be there.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">If you ever want a chat, pm me and I’ll be happy to. Best wishes and give my love to Reading East.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Jane Griffiths<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">9 June 2017<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Phnom Penh, Cambodia<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
janestheonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17617250693471034197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2932765464128103640.post-51848421667842854592017-06-07T06:59:00.002+02:002017-06-07T07:00:46.585+02:00Helen Small, 'The Long Life'<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14px;">A fascinating literary and philosophical meditation on ageing and the end of life. I came to it through the bibliography of Margaret Drabble's latest novel 'The Dark Flood Rises', which itself deals, not with ageing exactly, but with late life. Helen Small parallels 'The Old Curiosity Shop' with 'King Lear', and Aristotle with Samuel Beckett. She notes that ageing and the old person are not much dealt with in literature, but that it is often through literature that we come to our view of the world and our place in it and in our lives, especially as those lives lengthen. She discusses most interestingly the notion of life as a narrative, and wonders therefore which parts of that narrative are the most important and valuable, and thus worth giving the most attention and resources to. In short, do we live our lives preparing for a good old age? Answer, no, or not perhaps until the generation (mine) that is now preparing to be old. And should we? And if we develop dementia and can no longer grasp the concept of our lives as narrative, are those lives thereby worth less, for example in terms of whether life-extending medical treatment should be extended to us?</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14px;">Small, Helen. The Long Life (p. 115). OUP Oxford. Édition du Kindle.</span>janestheonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17617250693471034197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2932765464128103640.post-2081284856134891202017-05-28T07:53:00.001+02:002017-05-28T07:53:48.654+02:00The Syrian<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I read this because she lives/has lived in Lebanon for many years and has written on the Middle East, so I thought a political thriller by someone like that might be interesting. How wrong I was. Clunky cliched writing, no sense of atmosphere or place, a love story that was embarrassingly unreconstructed (Boring Good Girl v. Sultry Man-Eater Bad Girl), and no disguise at all for the anti-Israel tract it actually is. Apparently Israel killed the Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri, she says, despite there being no evidence of or motive for this. Oh and Hezbollah, despite their Nazi salutes and gay-killing, are Not So Bad Really. Disgraceful.<br />
<br />janestheonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17617250693471034197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2932765464128103640.post-21099424635720065902017-05-21T09:30:00.000+02:002017-05-21T09:30:56.653+02:00Margaret Drabble, 'The Dark Flood Rises'<br />
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I love Margaret Drabble anyway, and this was no exception, and also a new development. It is a novel, and it is also a meditation on ageing. It is about three women (all her books are, pretty much) and, by the end of it, two of them are dead - not a spoiler. Other ageing people are there, and some younger ones too, who contemplate the ageing and approaching deaths of those around them with varying degrees of equanimity and fear. There is Sir Bennett Carpenter, the terrifyingly selfish old scholar, who doesn't seem to have much wrong with him but who is cared for in the Canary Islands by his long-term partner Ivor - of whom I hope we hear more, as he is very interesting. Francesca Stubbs, the "main" character, is still working in her seventies, and travelling around England as much as she can, staying in Premier Inns and striking up unlikely friendships.There are the indigenous people of the Canaries (or if they were not, how did they get there?), there is an Edwardian lady novelist, there are Jose Saramago and Yves Bonnefoy, and human selfishness and greed and kindness, and Midlands girlhood memories, and - oh, it's all fascinating, go and read it.janestheonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17617250693471034197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2932765464128103640.post-91118092593807585362017-05-14T14:10:00.001+02:002017-05-14T14:10:37.500+02:00Anthony Doerr, 'All The Light We Cannot See'Here is my Goodreads review of this book, historical fiction which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2015. No spoilers.<br />
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<tr><td colspan="2" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span class="readable reviewText" style="font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; line-height: 21px;"><span id="freeTextreview1999688397">Very beautiful writing. I like historical fiction, and I liked the characters, but the character tropes - the blind girl, the good German, the precious jewel, are a bit of a cliche, are they not? It made me cry a lot because it was so beautiful, but all the time I felt manipulated, and was actually relieved when it was over. But I still recommend it, because it is compelling, and others may not respond as I did. I loved some of the themes - the voice going out on the radio explaining light, the model houses, the women. The little snails.The key, the bakery, and the smell of the sea. And how can a chapter even be called The Blade And The Whelk? Ah well, there it is.</span> You can read my notes and highlights from Goodreads here too, I think - this is a new feature.</span><div id="reviewMessage18143977_23596724">
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janestheonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17617250693471034197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2932765464128103640.post-74832191401651614662017-05-14T03:47:00.000+02:002017-05-14T03:47:46.787+02:00the only Jew in the village<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: large;">Ben Coleman is Labour councillor for Fulham Broadway in the constituency of Chelsea and Fulham. A fellow ward councillor is Alan De'Ath, who is Labour parliamentary candidate for the Chelsea and Fulham constituency. More than 20 years ago Ben Coleman was shortlisted for selection as Labour candidate in Reading East. The shortlist was four. Three were men, and Ben was the only non-local. He made quite a good impression on party members, and picked up some nominations, and plenty of votes, among the more affluent wards and branches - the northern fringe of the constituency is on the edge of the Berkshire celebrity belt and contains several prestigious private schools, while in the south there are many low-income families in present and former council housing - but ultimately he was unsuccessful. They selected me, and I won the seat for Labour in 1997 and held it with an increased majority in 2001, standing down in 2005 when a group within Reading Labour Party decided they would prefer a Tory MP to a Labour MP who would do the bidding neither of then Reading West MP Martin Salter nor of Reading Borough Council's Labour group. The seat has remained Tory, and MP Rob Wilson is likely to be re-elected with an increased majority on 8 June.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">But back in 1995 Ben was sent on his way with good wishes and the belief that he would soon find a parliamentary seat which would suit his talent and ambitions. It hasn't happened, and I have no idea why. I have not followed Ben's career in recent years, though I had heard that he was a councillor in London. Quite a long time ago then Swindon Labour MP Julia Drown, who described herself as a friend of Ben Coleman's, said to me she had not thought, although she liked Ben, that he was the right candidate for Reading East. I got the impression that she thought he didn't have the common touch in sufficient measure, but I could have misunderstood. Whatever.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I am indebted to the eagle-eyed <a href="http://conservativehome.blogs.com/centreright/harry-phibbs.html">Harry Phibbs</a> for his recent alert to a speech made by Ben Coleman in October 2016, apparently following an account by a fellow councillor of harassment that councillor had experienced outside a synagogue. In that speech Ben Coleman was highly critical of the anti-extremism Prevent strategy, introduced by the last Labour government (how long ago it seems!) and still in place today. He followed criticism by fellow councillor and now parliamentary candidate Alan De'Ath of Prevent as "Islamophobic", and also used the following words:</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "open sans" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "open sans" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">“Sometimes people in the Jewish community think they are the only Jew in the village.</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">"</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "open sans" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">For good measure he then said that concerns about anti-semitism in the Labour Party were </span><span style="font-family: "open sans" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">“overblown”.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Well, I don't know. This stuff undoubtedly goes down well with those around JC. But with the electorate?</span></span>janestheonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17617250693471034197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2932765464128103640.post-28767036789943068202017-04-11T09:11:00.001+02:002017-04-11T09:13:00.103+02:00War, what is it good for?<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1968211698">Here</a> is my Goodreads review of 'War, What Is It Good For?' by Ian Morris.<br />
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It is an interesting and counter-intuitive piece of historical writing. Morris indicates that casual violence has reduced over history, and that this is because societies become more stable as they become more prosperous, and that they only become more prosperous once they have been subdued - by war. And that this has always happened, and probably always will. A fascinating read. He is not afraid of big ideas, or of uncomfortable ones; and that is always a good thing.<br />
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<br />janestheonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17617250693471034197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2932765464128103640.post-20544750426944205172017-04-09T08:46:00.000+02:002017-04-09T08:46:18.751+02:00Robert Harris, 'Imperium'This is a cracker of a read, as Robert Harris always is. A political thriller, and a courtroom drama, and while there are crucifixions and other kinds of torture aplenty, Cicero (for it is he the hero) does not perpetrate or get involved in any of them. Ancient Rome was bloody, but Cicero changed the world with words, and wit, and the lowest of cunning. This book, the first of a trilogy I am eager to finish reading, has been called "Labour in togas" and it's easy to see why. For anyone who was around the Palace of Westminster during the Blair years the parallels are unmistakable, and perhaps reveal more about Harris than he would like to have revealed. "If you find yourself stuck in politics, the thing to do is start a fight - start a fight, even if you do not know how you are going to win it, because it is only when a fight is on, and everything is in motion, that you can hope to see your way through."<br />
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Rather fun on political hatreds, too. There have always been politicians who simply hate each other. Of whichever politician it was said "He is his own worst enemy" and of whichever politician it was said that he replied "Not while I'm alive, he isn't" - well, that has been around down the ages, and still is today. In this he gives the lie to the Stoics, of whom Cicero, it seems, was a fan. I certainly am. Epictetus, my hero.janestheonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17617250693471034197noreply@blogger.com0