Saturday, December 17, 2011

A SALUTE TO WOMANKIND


In this season of goodwill, it behoves Men to pay a full and generous tribute to Women and I wish to make my own modest (and prudent) contribution. Men and Women are so unlike, yet are so bound together. One writer has said Men are from Mars and Women from Venus, but I do not go quite that far. I know little of Linnaean taxonomy defining kingdom, class, order, family, genus and species and I concede that both Men and Women are mammals but I like the familiar analogy with cats and dogs – feline Women, subtle, graceful, light-footed, contrasting with canine Men, brave, loyal and, alas, often stupid. They are too different for me easily to accept they even belong to the same species, but in all events, Vive la Difference!

A wonderful animal magnetism draws us together, mad carnal passion strengthens that intimacy and we are bound together by habit with hoops of steel. Unlike Men who can be stolid and boring, Women are always on the go, always dynamic, always inventive. Many Men are academically clever, but Women have instinctive knowledge and a brilliant ear for the nuances of relationships, even leading to the unworthy suspicion of witchcraft. Women are simply irresistible, with their natural elegance, tinkling laughter, enchanting smiles and seductive aroma – what fabulous creatures! In short, Women bring radiant beams of warm sunshine into Men’s prosaic and chilly lives.

And yet…..It would be untruthful to say that every Woman is perfection. Even Women have their little foibles. Maybe it is a touch of vanity – that insistence on acquiring that little black Chanel number, that wildly overpriced Hermes Birkin bag or those tight but chic Jimmy Choo boots. But these are tiny faults in the great scheme of things. Sometimes Men simply misunderstand the workings of Women’s logic – whatever she acquires is a wonderful bargain, irrespective of cost – and Men can only stand by in speechless, if baffled, confusion. Moreover, whatever happens Women are always in the right and it is one of Men’s functions to apologise at the end of any little disagreement. Always to be wrong is Man’s inescapable fate and privilege.

The tremendous accomplishments of Women resound down the ages; few of them are shrinking violets. Thus Eve outsmarted Adam, Jezebel ran rings around King Ahab, Delilah seduced and destroyed mighty Samson, Cleopatra scored a double whammy over Julius Caesar and Mark Anthony, Boadicea made short shrift of Colchester, London and St Albans, low-born yet imperious Theodora led Justinian by the nose and stunning blonde Lucretia Borgia allegedly dispensed deadly poisons from her hollow ring to the Italian aristocracy during a glittering career. History also tells us of Britain’s choice Women, wildly indiscreet Mary, Queen of Scots, formidable if enigmatic Queen Bess and opinionated but passionate Queen Victoria. What a gallery of talent, perhaps lending some little weight to Kipling’s phrase that “the female of the species is more deadly than the male!”

Women’s power over Men, exercised with such ease and insouciance, has always been their trump card. Indeed for some, exercising this power became a profession. They were of course the grandes horizontales those hard-headed Women like Madame de Pompadour, Madame du Barry, Lillie Langtry, Mata Hari or La Belle Otero who bathed in jewels provided by their many admirers, kings, rich moguls and well-born idiots. The later worship of media celebrities like Grace Kelly, Jackie Kennedy and Princess Diana was the 20th century version of a similarly glamorous cafĂ©-society.

But you do not need to be a queen of beauty or a Botox-pumped celebrity to be an enormously successful Woman – Golda Meir, Maggie Thatcher and Angela Merkel prove that point instantly. Most Women, at least in the West, live their fascinating lives in circumstances of comfortable domesticity. They captivate their husbands, organise their households, pursue their careers, control and manipulate their children with total aplomb. Their inner lives are often private and mysteriously impenetrable to mere Men. Only their soul-mates, often female friends, understand their real ambitions and motivations. Their self assurance is very evident; gone for ever are the bad old days of the “innocent” bottom-pinch, the sure-fire male chat-up line, the patronising phrase like “the little dears”: even old fashioned good manners are now deplored – not long ago I chivalrously offered my seat on the Underground to a young Woman, who spat back “Sit down, Grandpa!” her lip curling menacingly. It is all in the great good cause of female emancipation, the smashing of glass ceilings and wholly deserved equality.

Very rarely, discordant alarm calls emanate from Women. The first is a low moaning noise, known as a “whinge”, usually set off by being denied some desired object: the other is, to return to the feline analogy, the shrill “caterwaul” often used in an emotional emergency and, in a common ploy, accompanied by tears before which Men are helpless. These little stratagems simply add spice to all our lives together, usually conducted amid harmonious celestial music. I do however recall many years ago drinking with a friend one Christmas Night and politely asking him if his family Christmas lunch had gone well. He answered “It was rather a mixed occasion – my sister tried to kill my father – she threw her knife at him!” This alarming event had been set off by some heavy seasonal banter at the sister’s expense from the rumbustuous father. Women’s emotions can easily spill over.

Apart from tiny contretemps of this kind, Men exist at peace with Women. My own dear father, taking the line of least resistance in the thrall of my gloriously assertive mother, lived the life of the happily hen-pecked. I have the great good fortune to have a beautiful Greek wife, and if she sometimes leaps to the wilder shores of female logic, I am thrilled to be bamboozled and toyed over by her in her dynamic and shimmering elegance. The battle of the sexes can only have one winner and I ask you all to lift a glass to toast all-conquering Womankind!


SMD
17.12.11


Copyright Sidney Donald 2011







Monday, December 5, 2011

CHRISTMAS CHEER


The great spending beano of Christmas is almost upon us and we will check our wallets with more than usual dismay this 2011 “Festive Season”. Before we dive into the conventional materialistic splurge and gorge ourselves sick on shiny and overpriced novelties and on numerous items we certainly do not really need, we are always urgently encouraged to think about the “real meaning of Christmas”.

The conventional supposition is that we should think about that little child in a manger in Bethlehem, surrounded by shepherds, multitudes of the heavenly host and adored by the Magi. He grew up, it is said, to redeem our sins and suffer and die for us and rise again to sit on the right hand of God to judge the quick and the dead. Well, I guess thoughts of this depressing kind are very far from most peoples’ minds at Christmas and anyhow the facts are at variance with the above narrative.

Was Christ born at the start of the Christian era? Er..no, even biblical scholars reckon he was born in about 6-4 BC. Born in December in Bethlehem? Er..no, Bethlehem would be too far a journey from Nazareth (there was no census to attend) and nobody travelled in winter. Witnessed by shepherds, tending their flocks by night? Er..no, the fields would be dormant and empty in December. Multitudes of the heavenly host and gift-bearing Magi present? Er…yes, if you believe credulously any tall tale peddled by 2nd century religious fanatics. The whole Nativity narrative is a myth, set out by Matthew as a realisation of the Jewish prophecies, and embroidered by imaginative Luke – there is no Nativity narrative in Mark and John.

The gospels are a-historical documents, grinding theological axes and are no guide to what actually happened. Personally I am not even convinced Christ ever existed, so I am not impressed by the alleged merits of his subsequent career. I cannot connect with any historical personage unless someone can tell us what he looked like, how tall he was, what his favourite tipple was or whether his boots squeaked, all absent in the case of young Christ J. Before a heavenly thunderbolt shrivels me up, I declare I will observe 21st century European Christmas with every enthusiasm; I am deficient in religious belief, not impervious to religious sentiment.

Christmas is emphatically a secular, not a religious festival in the modern world and the “traditions” of Christmas are relatively recent. The date of 25 December was chosen as it was near enough to the winter solstice – Sol Invicta (the Unconquered Sun) was a popular Roman deity and Yule a powerful Norse god linked to the rebirth of the sun – and it also coincided with the Roman Saturnalia, a popular festival giving some licence to slaves and associated with gift-bearing. In short the Church hi-jacked a long-established mid-winter time of celebration.

Christmas was fitfully observed and relegated well below Easter and Epiphany for about 1,500 years. Slowly it flickered into life with a few carols appearing in the 16th century, including carol singing round the houses, but this was confused in England with cider apple-tree fertility “wassailing” often sung on 12th Night. The move from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar in most countries confused matters further.  Christmas music flourished in the 18th century, but it was a sophisticated, metropolitan taste – Bach’s Christmas Oratorio runs for about 3 hours unedited and Handel’s Messiah, (only partly Christmas music), much longer. Although “Adeste Fideles” appeared in the 18th century, “Silent Night” only came in 1820, “Hark the Herald Angels sing” in its current form in 1833 and “Good King Wenceslas” in 1853. The Anglican Church was long sniffy about carols, seeing them as coarse folk songs and not permitting them to be sung in church until the late 19th century. The iconic Festival of the 9 Lessons and Carols was first performed in Kings College Chapel, Cambridge as late as 1918, and was only invented 30 years earlier in remote Truro.

The secular side soon gained strength. New York shop-keepers in 1820, wishing to avoid aping the genial English Father Christmas (Papa Noel etc in Europe) dreamt up Santa Claus from the supposed Dutch saint Sinterklaas. The American poem “The Night before Christmas” appeared anonymously in 1823 but after Dickens published his Scrooge tale in 1843, there was no stopping the commercialisation of Christmas. Dickens popularised the idea of a convivial family Christmas, with hearty helpings of goose for the plebs and turkey for the gentry. The Christmas tree had long been popular in Germanic Europe and Prince Albert delighted Victoria by having a tree in every room in Windsor. An 1848 woodcut showing the royal couple beside a decorated tree sparked off its wide adoption throughout the English-speaking world.

As usual, Christmas had its detractors among the party-pooping Puritans. They said it was all unbiblical and miserable old Cromwell managed to ban Christmas in England during the Commonwealth, earning him well-deserved unpopularity. The blue-nosed Pilgrim Fathers took an equally dim view of Christmas in the American colonies and the dour Scots Presbyterians were not much better, only acknowledging Christmas as a public holiday as late as 1957.

Happily the tide of materialism and conspicuous consumption could not be held back. Today we enjoy an unbridled retail feeding frenzy, with Harvey Nicks, Bloomingdales, Harrods and all global emporia besieged by gift buyers, doing great things for their local economies, and moving a huge stock of goods of debatable intrinsic value. Eateries will thrive mightily with expensive special menus and millions of home kitchens will be producing delicious turkeys, stuffings, trimmings, plum puddings, brandy butter washed down by gallons of stimulating beverages. Enjoy it shamelessly! Dismiss from your mind all hocus-pocus about the Word made Flesh – the main religious news will be the traditional punch-up between the monks of 3 sects at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Forget all that, let the plastic rip, have a great time and then look forward to the January Sales!


SMD
5.12.11


Copyright Sidney Donald 2011