I'm Going on a --

 Summer Holiday

All this talk about summer holiday -- the journalists are nagging away for it, the businesses are demanding it, and I wonder, can the British people be that foolish?? Forget the virus doing its evil dance all over the world and fly happily into its net?

   Growing up in India as I did, the idea of a holiday was not even a remote dream in my Keralam days. When anyone got leave from work they got on a train and went to their parental homes. Indeed, if we travelled anywhere, it was to visit family or friends. It was only when I came to live in England that I realized that going on holiday was an annual ritual here, which most families -- if they could afford it -- looked forward to. There was a whole corporate sector devoted to it, families saved up for it through the year. And, when they came back from these annual pilgrimages, they came with snapshots, tan and enough table-talk for a whole year.

   I couldn't see the point of going away to live for a week or two in a hotel room or a 'home-stay.' To go a long way, to sleep in an unfamiliar bed, in a strange town, spend a great deal of money in the process, and then return home with, if you are lucky, a tan (for me, the joke of the year, probably, as I am not white) to show for it, which may last a month at most. It took me a while to realize that this is a carefully cultivated 'legend' as Hariri calls it in his 'Sapiens,' where he lists quite a few of these legends -- Gods, religions, banks... some like banks quite useful. This holiday legend benefits airlines, hotels, B and Bs, and restaurants. I can understand, to a degree, why people wish to run away from a British winter, but why go anywhere when the gardens are ablaze with colour, the sun is shining and one can pack away the winter regalia of caps, coats and cardigans. 

   I went on holiday twice in my life with my daughter and granddaughter. The little one was full of exciting stories about all the wondrous places her friends had been to over summer. Some even ended up in Kerala, where I started from! So we rented a holiday flat in Salubrenia, in Spain, for a week. I think I spent most of it on the little balcony of the flat. I read, which I could have done at home, I cooked in the little kitchenette, which I could do much better at home. Told myself I was unadventurous and boring.

   We repeated that in Ilfracombe in Devon another time. Again, lovely place, but I preferred home. I counted the days, slept badly and thought, 'never again.' In my working days I had to travel to, and live in, many interesting countries. I consoled myself that I was just fed up of travelling again, can't be my lack of initiative.

   I am really respectful of the pandemic out there. I don't want anyone to travel anywhere until it is safe to do so. And we must close our borders tight so that the invisible monsters cannot sneak in in their various mutations.When the business sector and the Press and T V do their committed daily clamour to remove all restrictions on travel, I hope that Johnson and Hancock will continue to resist the noise and do the one thing that they have got nearly right in the course of the pandemic, while the vaccinations cover the entire population of the U K. I wish they'd close down our borders properly. Maybe they are waiting out that repeated three-week lag they allow for the virus to get ahead of us.

   One year without a holiday will not kill us, but this year, a holiday just might.

What the F--k is going on with Liverpool?

 What the F--k is going on with Liverpool?

Lost to Burnley! Not even Burnley loses to Burnley, and you can't go too far down the table from Burnley. And Brighton -- I grant Brighton can surprise most people on the odd occasion. Manchester - smug - City of course, is rampant at the moment, and we fully expected, given the form at the Kop, to lose. But 4 - 1?

Poor Allison, I feel a bit sorry for him. He has not been his normal self for a while. Did Covid debilitate his nervous responses in some manner? He did not have Covid, we are told. Asymptomatic Covid?

How do we dust off and pick ourselves up? This is the point at which most managers get an expected phone call from the owners of the club. This is unlikely to happen to Klopp. However, I'd like to know what next?  My worry is Klopp will up and go without being told.

I look at the line-up and see the ball flying through the gaps in the defense. Van Dijk, Gomes, Matip, who next? I thought the stalwarts were a little less stalwart, with flashes of inspiration occasionally. Trent -Alexander sent some accurate long balls and then dithered when Sterling shook his hip near him. Mane sent a shot, a sitter, over the post -- he has been doing that a lot recently. Salah is coming back to form, but not quite there yet. Firmino, much criticised, is showing his strengths, but Henderson and Fabinho in defense? We lost them in the mid-field, where they were entirely reliable, and put them in unfamiliar roles. And I could see the vast open spaces in midfield.

I hope Jota is back soon. Van Dijk too. And Klopp has to dissect the last few games and show the players where they were falling short. Invincible Robertson included.

Hang in there, Klopp. You are good at this. Throw a tantrum in the dressing room and sort this mess out -- please. 

It is a sad state of affairs when an 86 year old grandma decides she no longer enjoys watching Li-Ver-Pool. 

Confused.Anand

 Confused.anand

I live in a state of confusion, which I happily ascribe to old age, senility and such like. 

   When I attempt to cook, I have to consider my son who is diabetic and cannot eat sugar, starch and all things delicious. Manju is dieting and doesn't like fried foods. Asha does not eat Indian food and will run a mile if curry is mentioned. Her favourite foods are those that get delivered at the door, and need hand-washing after opening parcels. I am tempted to leave the cooking to the picky denizens of my home. And retire with a book. Retire with a book, anyway. I am especially confounded as I grew up in war-time and you ate what was put in front of you, and emptied your plate -- or your banana leaf.

   There is non-stop footies on the screen and Manju, my daughter, can live off a diet of football most days. When football is off for a while, she shows withdrawal symptoms. I like watching Liverpool because that's my team. I also watch matches that might immediately upset Liverpool. But, in general, it is just a backdrop to my reading. And I must add -- love Klopp's enormously toothy smile. 

   However, football also confuses me:

How come you can push people harder, knock them down, injure them for many months ( eg. Van Djike) , and the refs don't miss a beat? Fouling is now an art -- clearly each club employs a special fouling coach. How to fall down, how to stay down, how to show pain by grimacing, how to lift your head ever so slightly to make sure the opposition has been punished before bouncing up and running amok.

   And then there is spitting. Today one footballer started as he walked out on to the pitch. I am concerned it will soon spread to the benches and side-lines. When did spitting become so commonplace? Keralam has just passed a law making spitting in public places punishable. We have a long tradition of hawking and spitting excellence. Walking out from our houses us girls lift our sari hems up and look down for the bobs and globs. We are finely attuned to the tenets of female modesty as well as the state of the lane we are walking on.

   There are many more things. Such as -- the booker shortlist, which never includes the best books about in the year. I read four from the list in the last week -- I shall remember only one next month -- WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING by Delia Owens. The others are all well-written, but don't go anywhere. Forgettable characters, lean plots and self-indulgence. I am at a loss to understand.

I think I must start:

        a book-blog on what not to read;

        elementary manners in public places...

Just so I can confuse others beside myself.

WELCOME new POTUS

WELCOME new POTUS

Writing posts daily -- not normal for me at all. I am fundamentally a lazy geek. But, I watched that pile of slate-coloured, files with the U S Government seal on them, going swiftly from right to left of Biden, as he signed them, and I wanted to hug him. So much of that Washington sump, which tRump was going to clear, but which he churned up instead, into a gross pulchritude, is being sluiced out.

Thank you, Biden, on behalf of the immigrants who have been given breathing space; on behalf of all the Americans who are living in fear of Covid; on behalf of the world, the WHO, the Paris Accord... from which Rump had peremptorily dragged America away; on behalf of all my American friends who cringe every time POTUS passed destructive burger-flatulence again. 

And now, if Biden can get the police to treat black people with grace and goodwill,  if he can create an America in which all men are treated equal, even if they are not so born, I will have to go all the way to Washington to hug him

Now, also, if we could just get rid of our dithering P M, always three weeks too late to any decision, incompetent and careless, I could really celebrate. 

B---er off Donald Rump

 B---er off Donald Rump

I watched the cartons being wheeled out of the White house two days ago and I had a Eureka moment. Someone in my house called out -- I wonder what is being taken out that does not belong to Trump. I didn't care, so long as the horror departed. America must be breathing a huge sigh of relief. A powerful gust of fresh, unpolluted air is going to blow across America, even into the lairs of the toxic Proud Boys.

Finders, keepers, my daughter added, when she saw a bust among the spoils. Probably that of his mother-in-law, I suggested.

America was going to be GREAT AGAIN, the demented man said. But how can it be great given what it does as a matter of course to its black citizens.  Because of this it was never great. Not in my eyes, anyway.

And , we in the U K , let's not pretend it's that different here. It is just a matter of degree. The discrimination in jobs, in education, in overall attitude to non-whites is fundamentally skewed. And let's not even go near the horrors of Stop-and Search, or the way black youngsters are treated in police cells. Lots to change here too.

I am reading Brandon Taylor's REAL LIFE at the moment; what it says about the colour handicap in the US is painful to read. 

Old, Older, Oldest

 OLD, OLDER, OLDEST

If I remember right, Atul Gawande's 'Being Mortal,' was about age, and also about dealing with the old. It is one of the best books I have read about the condition of OLD, but also about how to manage being old with dignity and compassion.

Twenty years ago, old-age homes were rare things in India. We look after our old at home, I used to say proudly, when yet another retirement institution sprang up around the corner from where I live in Croydon. Now there is one within calling distance and a few more within walking distance.Now, in India, they proliferate even in small towns, the new normal for that ageing uncle or recalcitrant father-in-law. I look into the lighted rooms of the 'homes' as I pass the institutions ( because that is what they are) and wonder whether that lady sitting at the window, or that other one with a uniformed nurse in front of her, are there because they want to be there. Or are they like that old jalopy you see discarded in the parking lots where cars go to die?

There are other options, I keep telling myself. In Kochi a group of us decided we were going to live in a communal oldies' house, just a few close friends. In Kochi you could get help to live like that, but in England it is a lot harder and more expensive. But, surely, packing them away out of sight in care-homes is a form of abandonment, I think.

I have dealt with the humiliations, the loss of control in two other blogs. (Older by the Day , 2016; and Being Old, 2015,) That was another age (no pun intended) ago and the frustrations have multiplied.  Little ailments linger, joints get stiffer, the senses -- hearing, sight, smell -- become inefficient, suspect. I would like to go for a long walk sometimes, to get my thinking gear oiled, but even a short walk requires a stick, and uphill is an effort.

I would love to get into a plane on impulse as I often did, and travel to South Africa, Norway,  India or Germany to see the friends who make me laugh, and in whose companionship I am secure. Not a hope. My last trip was a disaster and I took a week to recover from the stress and strain. Every escalator was a challenge and every wheelchair nurse an abomination.

I constantly wonder how I am curtailing the life of my children, with whom I live. Gawande's solutions are worth considering.

I would want to spend two days in a fortnight away from my family to give them a break, or even consider living with a group of friends of about similar age some of the time. I am still considering the options.

     

     

My Favourite Writer -- John Le Carre'

 My Favourite Writer -- John Le Carre'

I always wait for Le Carre' to write another book. I buy the hard copy as soon as they come out -- Kindle won't do. I have to hoard them for my granddaughter to read when she is old enough to know the difference between trash and quality writing. Now, le Carre's mellow, confident, honest, analytical, caring voice will not be heard anymore. What a loss! Irreplaceable as John Snow said.

Le Carre's voice had that rare quality of being 'just right' from the first sentence. The first page captures you and never disappoints. Spy-writing? Yes. But not entirely. There was social comment, unforgettable characters, an informed look at institutions, social as well as domestic, and above all a benign look at people, their frailties and strengths, their loyalties and loves. I think I would read Le Carre' if he wrote about the Stock Exchange.

Smiley, for instance. That part made for Gary Oldman. Cleaning his 'specs with the thin end of his necktie, the self-effacing cocoon inside which his crystal-clear intelligence operated, the soundless withdrawing from the wife's infidelities... The Smiley books are his best, if there can be a best.

The CONSTANT GARDENER was not a spy story, for instance. The spy element varied from book to book. The British embassies and outposts run by the aspiring, but not quite there, henchmen of the Foreign Office did not take kindly to Le Carre's take on them. For heaven's sake, they were the elite, weren't they? and he was taking their life-structures to pieces. 

When Le Carre' arrived in Kenya to research for the 'Constant Gardener' the local High commission quietly passed him on to their lesser brethren -- the British Council. He had been excoriating about the career diplomats and their lifestyles in many countries. The British Council asked my daughter, Radha, who was then an Assistant Director in Nairobi to 'look after him.' That translates to: take him around, introduce him to the local colour, buy him lunch at the five stars, entertain him ...

So, one afternoon, when she came home from work, she told me about John Le Carre'. She had just had lunch with him. When she mentioned that her mother ( I was at the time on holiday in Nairobi) was a fan, he offered to sign some books for me. And he did, a few weeks later.

When he did a 'talk' in the Barbican a few years ago, I went with Radha and her daughter. He spoke without notes, about his books, his people and places. 'When Communism is finished, there is Capitalism to fight,' he always argued. That is now.

When THE CONSTANT GARDENER came out, some in Nairobi argued that the character, Ghita Pearson, was modelled on Radha; this she firmly disputed. However, the general bubble in which the Foreign Office functioned was cruelly clear. The internal jealousies and promotion tactics, the off-hand liaisons of bored middle-aged Lotharios promoted beyond their competence, the abrogation of long-learned moral structures because your family is not looking over your shoulder, the deliberate distance from all things local... I am reminded of what one very bright Ugandan said to me about a project I was managing in Kampala. Even I knew there was nothing I could teach them. 'Just give us the money and go, Anand,' he said, not unkindly. And he was a friend. Our behaviour in foreign places can be excruciating.

Today I looked at the phalanx of hardbacks on my bookshelf, all written by Le Carre' and thought, I'll just have to read them again. And again, and possibly again.