LITERARY REFLECTIONS

 

Even for a sedentary and inactive old cove like me, it has not been possible to escape the furore surrounding Spare, the memoir of Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, whose romantic wooing of Meghan Markle, the US TV actress, initially entranced the nation. Sadly, the public love affair with the couple sprung a leak when news emerged of trouble upstairs between the Sussexes and the rest of the family but notably with The Queen, Prince Charles (now the King), Queen Consort Camilla, Prince William (now Prince of Wales) and his wife Catherine (popularly known as Kate). This was blamed by some on the petulant nature of Harry and the imperious ways of Meghan. Spare presents Harry’s version of events and his gingery visage has frequented front pages or TV interview studios for perhaps rather too long a time.

                                       All-too-familiar dim Harry with “victim” Meghan

Spare is a strong defence of Harry, notably well-written by his ghost-writer, J R Moehringer, who had already won a Pulitzer Prize. A seductive picture is painted of young sensitive Harry, naturally traumatized by the sudden death of his beloved mother, Diana, struggling to maintain his equilibrium but hounded by a feral mob of paparazzi. He is unacademic and under-schooled but father Charles (“Pa”) and brother William (“Willy”) are generally kind and supportive. He goes through a Hooray Henry phase as a wayward youth until at last taking to the Army and actually seeing active service in Afghanistan. His self-confidence rockets and he starts his royal representative duties, not all of which he enjoys. He meets and falls head over heels for Meghan Markle, the attractive US mixed race actress, and after some family doubts are expressed, they marry at Windsor in princely pomp on 20 May 2018.

I have no doubt that being a member of the royal family comes with many problems and confusions. There are special etiquettes surrounding most events, a certain tradition in carrying them through properly and some awkward and edgy characters with whom to deal. Harry was immersed from childhood in this world and ought to have made sure Meghan was brought up to speed. Both clashed with family members and Court officials and Spare wearily chronicles many an argument, supposed insult and tiff. Like most readers, I am only reminded of how privileged, how luxurious and how extravagant their lives are, compared to that of ordinary citizens. Their whining tone of complaint and childish resentment are tone-deaf and jarring. They decide to flee to Montecito, California, to abandon their UK duties and disloyally to damage the monarchy as much as they can in the process of their money-making. Harry deigns to consider attending his father’s Coronation, provided Meghan is given a complete set of apologies from the family. Don’t hold your breath for that, Sussexes!

Of course, Meghan herself has been largely silent. Harry says he has material for at least another memoir and Meghan has plenty fluency, so we will have to live with the Sussexes for some time, rather like we live with Covid microbes, until they fade into the empty world of forgotten café-celebrities, once pathetically inhabited by their forebears, the Duke of Windsor and Wallis Simpson.

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Friday 13 January was a red-letter day for me, as I finally finished reading Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall Trilogy by turning page 875 of the final third part, The Mirror & The Light, following the decline in the fortunes of Thomas Cromwell, loyal henchman of Henry VIII, particularly over the Dissolution of the Monasteries, culminating in his execution in 1540. Mantel describes the Tudor Court in all its vibrancy, brutality and colour, at this turning-point in its relations with Continental Europe.

                                                            Hilary Mantel (1952-2022)

  

 

                                                      Thomas Cromwell (1485-1540)

 

Plus ca change, they may say, but Cromwell struggled with great issues (not bridesmaid’s dresses) yet even the Windsors were more civilized than the Tudors as they produced no figure as monstrous as Henry VIII, despite our Harry’s best efforts!

While the Wolf Hall Trilogy was long, lengthy novels are not really my thing. Over 50 years ago, I tried to read Marcel Proust’s epic novel Remembrance of Things Past in the Scott-Moncrieff translation. It ran to 11 paper-back volumes and I admitted defeat after volume 9. I am a painfully slow reader these days and will survive on the short and pithy from now on. Suggestions welcome!

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The final literary landmark this month was the passing of Paul Johnson, erstwhile editor of the New Statesman and popular historian, at the age of 94. In my Leftie youth I avidly read his magazine, supporting Wilson’s ministries in the 1960’s. Johnson was an observant Catholic all his life and his radicalism began to turn in the 1970s as he became a freelance writer. The trades unions’ ruthlessness during the Grunwick closed-shop dispute of 1977 was the final straw for Johnson and he moved steadily to the Right, to be honoured by Mrs. Thatcher and President G W Bush. His well-researched popular histories were notable and I particularly enjoyed his History of Christianity.   

 

               Polemicist Paul Johnson

The contribution of Catholic writers to English letters is quite striking. The roll of honour would include Charles Moore of The Daily Telegraph, Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene, G K Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc, John Newman and even demonised journalist Piers Morgan. All write in a distinctive and entertaining fashion.

 

SMD

18.01.23

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2023

AMERICAN MEANDERINGS

I guess it is generation thing, resistant to rational argument, that we now see the urge to emote overwhelm so many in the public eye. Brits of 1940/50s vintage and beyond were inculcated with the merits of the “stiff upper lip”, a certain sang-froid in the face of serious adversity or disappointment – e.g. the death of Nelson, disaster at Dunkirk, test cricket defeat in Australia. We now have the “wobbly lower lip” par excellence – everyone tears up, shoulder-shakes, blubs and sobs at the slightest provocation. I enjoy the Nate and Jeremiah show on HGTV, as the two gay-married presenters work their interior design magic to transform some lucky candidate’s home. Very often there is a hard-luck story attached - a premature death, a messy divorce or a dire misfortune – which sharpens the narrative. Jeremiah is always first to go, his face ashen, his tear-ducts in overdrive as he acknowledges the tribulations of the back-story. Pass the sick-bag, Alice, as Private Eye used to say! 

 

Nate and Jeremiah, House transformers

Worse, this emotive impulse has strayed into the sacred arena of newscasting, not just in the US but also in the BBC. Frankly, the world news has been bad enough, without being augmented by contributions from the messenger. Recently various anchormen/women have creased up at the sorrow of the news they were imparting, and have been reduced to gibbering wrecks – not much use to the viewers. I believe past newscasters – say, Alvar Lidell, Geoffrey Sumner, Moira Stuart or Robert Dougall – would consider emotive distractions of any kind, decidedly unprofessional. So, we advise – get a grip on yourselves, blow your noses and simply give us the news in your usual reassuringly educated tones!

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The US invented the word “woke” and the US is the home of BLM, so expect the worst. Yet, principled opposition from conservative electors is much in evidence, even if the American Right harbours some decidedly unattractive characters. On the US media we have much the same woke claptrap as we suffer in the UK – every advert or plot involves a black or Indian character often supplemented by a token gay, handicapped or mentally challenged supporter. But the American public would surely not tolerate the abject spinelessness of Police Scotland who, under SNP pressure, recently refused to use the term “paedophile” in a report but instead talked neutrally about MAP (“Minority attracted people”). God help us!

Returning to the world of Woke, I recently sat through a TV showing of Matilda the Musical. The 1996 US original film of Roald Dahl’s Matilda was great fun with Danny DeVito in good form supporting Mara Wilson and Pam Ferris as Miss Trunchbull. Matilda the Musical was made in the UK and was released in October 2022. I thought it was dire, with a tedious new story-line involving Miss Honey (black here, of course) and her acrobatic parents. The school-children were unappealing, the music banal, the lyrics preachy, and the key role of Miss Trunchbull was stridently unfunny as played by woke Emma Thompson, who should have known better. All the comedy had been squeezed out of the original – it felt somehow dourly Stalinist to me. One to avoid!

……………………………………

Much, much better to revel in the goings-on in The White Lotus, a US HBOTV serial about a fictitious hotel chain. The story has had 2 series of 6-7 one-hour-episodes. The first was based in Hawaii (intrigue, betrayal and passion down among the sheltering palms) with high production values. The second series was set in gorgeously sinister Sicily following the fortunes of mainly American visitors, all rich, sex-mad and given to all manner of weird behaviour and nameless vices. We have had infidelity, drug abuse, lesbianism, prostitution, explicit male homosexuality, drunkenness, swindling, theft and murder – all in a rich, spicy, macho American cocktail – compulsive viewing! Names involved in this confection include Jennifer Coolidge (the blowsy manicurist in Legally Blonde), F. Murray Abraham (obsessed Salieri in Amadeus) and Tom Hollander (simpering Reverend Mr. Collins in 2005 Pride and Prejudice). Don’t miss it!

The scandalously lurid White Lotus

As you will have gathered, in my decrepitude I watch far too much TV. By Christmas I had seen lots of World Cup football and I am delighted that Arsenal tops the Premiership, Norrie beat Nadal and England thrashed Pakistan. I played Handel, Bach and Pergolesi, dutifully devout, but the cultural level took a wee dip as an American friend’s father in retirement is a DJ on a DooWop (sic) radio station and I jived happily, if creakily, with her to Sh-Boom and At the Hop. . Keep Rocking!

SMD 

5.01.23

Text copyright © Sidney Donald 2023

STAR-SPANGLED SENTIMENTS

My piece today will be heavily influenced by my presence for some weeks in Charlotte, North Carolina, a booming transport, banking, technology and healthcare hub in South East USA. This is a prosperous city with a population of about 880,000, ignoring its large, well-settled suburban hinterland. The population is 40% White, 32% Black, 16% Latino, 5% Asian and 7% Other. A typical melting-pot.

One of the first things to catch the eye here are the trees. This is my second visit and in summer the area looks densely wooded, the dominant species being the long-leaf pine. The long leaf is a very tall, thin tree creating its green canopy at about 30 feet. It is to a degree wild-fire-resistant, thanks to its thick bark. It is less commercially useful than say, the iconic and massive Californian Sequoia or Redwood as the wood cannot be easily fashioned and is more suitable for wood-pulp. But in the sub-tropical summer the shade it provides is blissfull

        The Long-Leaf Pine                            The Sequoia/Redwood

        

Every nation has its distinctive tree. My Scotland boasts the modest, craggy Rowan tree or Mountain Ash, once worshipped by the Druids (and of course celebrated by scurvy socialists to the tune O Tannenbaum as they wail The Red Flag.) My adoptive England is justly proud of the Oak - long-living (at least 250 years), solid and dependable – the English ships at Trafalgar (1805) were all built of oak (6,000 tress to make a ship-of-the-line). The British Navy’s ceremonial anthem is still Hearts of Oak.

 Do landscapes heavily influence their inhabitants? You bet they do!

            The Scottish Rowan Tree

The English Oak

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Sometimes I feel that we in the West are swimming through a pool of glutinous liquid, occasionally sweetened with a coating of caramel, but certainly bearing a huge burden. We are assailed by Wokery, we fight culture wars but also hot shooting wars, and our hands are tied behind our back. We need to break free, tell our people the straight truth and scatter our enemies to outer darkness.

Wokery comes in all shapes and sizes. Suddenly, it is deemed insulting to ask someone about their ethnic origins. 83-year-old Lady Susan Hussey and an unpaid former lady-in-waiting to the late Queen was vilified for asking, at a charity reception hosted by Queen Camilla, Ngozi Fulani, leader of charity Sistah Space, where she came from? When she said “from Hackney”, Lady Hussey persisted and unwisely asked “where are you really from?” A media storm broke, Fulani claimed to be insulted, the race relations industry got into top gear, Lady Hussey was criticized by the Palace and she resigned her honorary position. Hussey and Fulani have since made up, but the whole incident reeks of wokery. Née Marlene Headley, Ngozi Fulani is an adopted name – she is British-born of Barbadian parents – with a strong interest in West African history. Frankly Lady Hussey’s “interrogation” was very mild – for a stranger operating under a false name, I would have required a mug-shot and finger-prints too if she were entering my palace! Lady Hussey has been treated abominably.

            Ngozi Fulani and Queen Camilla

I will not expatiate upon Wokery in the Civil service or in business – compulsory attendance at “workshops” on Inclusion and Diversity, refusal to use the word “Christmas” when exchanging seasonal greetings, TV adverts giving a totally false view of normal life in the UK and its racial balance, history being rewritten always to emphasise the evils of slavery and fine authors “cancelled”. Our intellectual elite is terrified of the woke gang.

The monarchy is not much help. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are doing all they can to pose as victims of institutional racism and neglect. Both whining complainants have breath-taking arrogance and an overdeveloped sense of entitlement. Meghan is a consummate actress and can “emote” convincingly if her masters at Netflix so require. The couple are being invited to the Coronation but are said to be demanding an apology first. I do hope the King and Prince William tell them where to stick it, and this greedy duo disappear from all our lives.

                                                                Washed-up Royals

Our admirably inclusive government including Rishi Sunak, James Cleverly, Dominic Raab and Suella Braverman are well equipped to break the spell of inaction and assert our independence.

                                ………………………….

Let us turn away from the difficult present and remember happier times this Christmas. Hollywood produced excellent shows in the 1940s and 1950s and I celebrate with two examples. The first features Bob Hope (as Eddy Foy) dancing with James Cagney (as George M Cohan) in The Seven Little Foys of 1955. Bob Hope’s tap-dancing was a revelation, while Cagney was a famous hoofer since his hit film Yankee Doodle Dandy. What fun, what exuberant talent!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZP0KD82t8WA&ab_channel=Dr.LanceBoyle

 

A little earlier in 1948, we were treated to the film of Irving Berlin’s Easter Parade. It featured Fred Astaire and Judy Garland and its most memorable song, to a 7-year-old me at least, was A Couple of Swells. What memories, what a nostalgic wallow!

https://www.tcm.com/video/307925/easter-parade-1948-movie-clip-a-couple-of-swells

How I hope we can recover some of the colour, the laughter and the optimism of those joyous days!

 

SMD

18.12.22

Text copyright © Sidney Donald 2022

SOME RANDOM THOUGHTS

 

It is probably a feature common to the older generation, but recently some lively melodic phrases came fleetingly through my mind, which I could not quite place:

And the jocund rebecks sound, and the jocund rebecks sound

To many a youth and many a maid

Dancing in the chequer’d shade!

In time, the penny dropped; I was remembering a song I had to sing aged 10 at a schools’ choir competition in Edinburgh in 1952. I recall our choirmaster snorting dismissively at the “jocund rebecks” – obscure words indeed (a rebeck is a 3-stringed, pear-shaped medieval bowed instrument)! To my surprise, the lines come from Milton’s L’Allegro (1645).

Singing this kind of stuff in 1952, though I was unaware at the time, was a reflection of the Folksong Revival which had gripped the UK in several waves of varying intensity from the early 20^th century. The early enthusiasts included Cecil Sharp, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Delius and Holst. “Traditional” airs were hunted down and collected (quite a few bogus, I would guess) while Scotland was a folksong factory, creating songs with decidedly tenuous connections with Rabbie Burns and Walter Scott. The world of academic music was all fiddlers, peasant ditties and Morris dancing, satirised uproariously by Kingsley Amis in his 1954 novel Lucky Jim in the role of Professor Welch played by Hugh Griffith in the 1957 Boulting Brothers comedy film version starring Ian Carmichael.

                         Ralph Vaughan Williams

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Some of our most treasured institutions are being undermined by our enemies, who well know just how treasured they are. There is a daily roll-call of idiocy. I think of the QAA (Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education) which is urging all universities to “decolonise” the mathematics (sic!) curriculum. According to the QAA, maths is biased towards Western world-views, excluding the rest of mankind. Since mathematics originated in Chinese, Indian and Mesopotamian civilisation and developed greatly under the Arabs and Moors, this argument is hard to credit. But why even discuss it? The QAA is just another woke quango, with too much power, infiltrated by the enemy.

At Oxford, Oriel College’s dons readily agreed to topple their statue of Cecil Rhodes, their generous benefactor but Woke’s bogeyman, to appease a noisy mob. Happily, more senior bodies have blocked this absurd demand. In Cambridge, the vice chancellor Stephen Toope, a super-woke Canadian, had from 2017-22, led this great University into what many see as a surrender to Chinese “soft “power by accepting large donations for research in return for offices promoting “dialogue” with China. This dialogue often involved supporting the suppression of Western values in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Jesus College, Cambridge, with its China Forum, has been a particularly egregious supporter of China. Mind you, Cambridge gave us the 5-man nest of traitors comprising Burgess, Maclean, Philby, Blunt and Cairncross who betrayed secrets to Russia last century, so expectations are low there! Our enemies are not just fanatical Muslims or murderous Commies but also “the enemy within”, the 5^th column deeply embedded in our Establishment and State.

                        

                       Stephen Toope

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I was much struck by a recent article in The Spectator about the sophisticated classical musical tastes of our new King written by Damian Thompson. Charles learnt the cello in his youth, for which he was probably bullied at philistine Gordonstoun, and has been patron of several orchestras and choirs. His favourite music includes the, to me, utterly obscure piano concerto of Julius Benedict (1804-85) and the only opera of French violin concerto composer Jean-Marie Leclair, Scylla et Glaucus (1746).

   

                                    King Charles III

 The Windsors have not been notably musical – the late Queen much enjoyed George Formby’s cheeky songs on the ukulele (so do I!) - so King Charles will be untypical. As a prince, he had oddball passions and he may have been unwise as both a husband and a father, but he can consign most of that baggage to history. I suggest his role-model might best be Edward VII, Victoria’s notorious Bertie, who had a taste for gambling and an eye for the ladies, who became a diplomatically astute monarch performing his duties with exemplary dignity. Whatever, may the King prosper!

                                    ……………………………….

SMD

17.11.22

Text copyright © Sidney Donald 2022

REDEEMING FEATURES

 

With the rain teeming down outside and the temperatures falling with British persistence, it is easy to feel a trifle gloomy. My esteemed Greek friends are clever but also prone to strike a plangent note, and I note that the so-called Seven Wise Men of the ancient Greek world, who gave us some brief words of rather banal wisdom, include a certain Bias of Priene (he doesn’t sound neutral to me!), who declared Most People are Evil…(Pleistoi anthropoi kakoi).

This is a scandalous slander of course but, as is usual, it contains a grain of truth. The saying is often loosely translated as “most men are evil” and that is a trigger for certain types of woke “wimmen” to launch into a furious denunciation of historic and contemporary macho deeds and attitudes. But Bias did not distinguish between the sexes and our delightful sisters are tarred by the same brush as we males. The grain of truth in the slogan revolves around the fact that all people have a dark side, a concealed mental sub-world, skeletons in the cupboard we would prefer not to resurrect.

Just how dark that “dark side” is naturally varies a great deal from person to person. The spectrum of evil is a broad one. At one end, there are the monsters so familiar to us from history and, alas, the present. Then the darkness lightens from those with criminal propensities, chips on the shoulder, family schemers, compulsive liars down to those who bear grudges, harbour inappropriate erotic thoughts or are simply a regular pain-in-the-neck.

If you had to create a League Table of evil, contenders for the top spot would alternate between Stalin, Mao Tse-tung, Hitler and Putin, followed by Pol Pot and Nero. To include the ladies, there is always Lucretia Borgia. History also gives us Vlad the Impaler (aka Dracula) from 15^th century Romania, with allegedly 80,000 victims dying messily – our Charles III confesses he is a cousin, 16 times removed, of Vlad, through his great-grandmother May of Teck, Queen of George V. We can only hope 16 times removed is far enough!

                        

                                                                 Lethal Vlad the Impaler

Many political figures have an ambivalent reputation, demonised by some and admired by others, like Napoleon Bonaparte of France, Franco of Spain, Ataturk of Turkey, Peron of Argentina or Mussolini of Italy. Then there are lesser very controversial figures like Donald Trump and even Boris Johnson, who hardly feature on the evil-meter, and, (OMG!) both could easily return to office, just like Benjamin Netanyahu. Yet each country has her plaster saints and I suppose Churchill, de Gaulle and Franklin D Roosevelt are our contemporary icons – for the time being at least!

But ranking evil deeds is not a healthy nor an uplifting occupation. A riposte to Bias’ ancient dictum comes from a rather OTT Shakespeare:

What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god!

 Humanity has demonstrated these qualities through profound thinkers like wide-ranging Aristotle in Athens, the father of logic, enlightened David Hume in Edinburgh, founder of empiricism, or idealist Immanuel Kant in Königsberg, who fortified ethics with his “categorical imperative.” 

  

 

The philosophic trio, Aristotle, Hume and Kant

More accessible in the search for beauty and poetry are Shakespeare, Goethe, Hugo, Tolstoy and Keats – all men of genius. But the goodness of man is maybe best expressed in music. What could be more uplifting than a Bach cantata?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBfHemeJTfg&ab_channel=Bachstiftung

How lovely shines the morning-star.

As Remembrance Day looms, we will be inspired too by Elgar’s Nimrod

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUgoBb8m1eE&ab_channel=medpiano

The ancient Greeks rather favoured short philosophic slogans, like Know Thyself, inscribed on the portal to the Oracle of Delphi. But gateway slogans uneasily remind me of Arbeit macht frei at the entrance of Auschwitz. So, forget about slogans and luxuriate in profound literature and contemplation.

Whatever the temporary setbacks, our benevolent human spirit will overcome all evils and the sunlit uplands beckon!

 

SMD

6.11.22

Text copyright © Sidney Donald 2022

FAINT HEART NEVER WON FAIR LADY

As a firm believer in the music of the spheres, in the curative powers of cheerful dance and song, and as an enemy of dissonance and discord everywhere, I wish to celebrate the Savoy Operas of Gilbert and Sullivan, which gave late Victorian England and the whole world a wonderful abundance of melodic music, rib-tickling comedy and innocent pleasure.

Gilbert

Sullivan

W. S. Gilbert (1836-1911) was a formidable dramatist and poet noted for his Bab Ballads anthology of comic verse. Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900) was more self-effacing but he was a musical child prodigy, who had already written incidental music for 2 Shakespeare plays, a ballet, a cello concerto and much church music. They were brought together by the dynamic impresario Richard D’Oyly Carte (1844-1901) who believed the London theatre would be receptive to English operetta rather than the risqué French fare then familiar to the West End.

Gilbert and Sullivan (“G&S”) collaborated, with some interruptions, from 1871 to 1896, They produced 14 Savoy Operas, named after the Savoy Theatre which D’Oyly Carte built and opened to house them in 1880. The Savoy Operas were immensely successful, most notably HMS Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance, Patience, Iolanthe, The Mikado and The Gondoliers. Indeed, so substantial were the profits they generated that D’Oyly Carte was able to acquire the land adjoining his theatre and erect the palatial Savoy Hotel which opened in 1889, for long London’s best luxury hotel.

                                       Richard D’Oyly Carte

Sullivan was often berated by the snooty music establishment for “wasting” his talent on the popular genre of operetta, when he might have rivalled Brahms in composing concertos and symphonies. Yet he had a great lyric talent as can be seen in his Overture to the Yeomen of the Guard.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vv7plNo0j18&ab_channel=AcademyofSt.MartinintheFields-Topic

Gilbert was renowned for his “topsy-turvy” plots, the more far-fetched the better, involving fairies, peers, pirates, long-lost children, executioners and emperors. Typical is Faint Heart from Iolanthe where the Lord Chancellor is steeled by fellow-peers to propose to a pretty ward of court.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQqgoHklUs4&ab_channel=FriendsofthePeccadilloPlayers

From the same opera is the mock-patriotic song, When Britain really ruled the waves parodying the House of Lords:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyimj8CEypU&ab_channel=D%27OyleCarteOperaCompany-Topic.

Gilbert gloried in alliteration and word-play – this from The Mikado:

To sit in Solemn silence in a dull, dark dock

In a pestilential prison with a life-long lock

Awaiting the sensation of a short, sharp shock

From a cheap and chippy chopper on a big, black block!

Gilbert’s speciality was the patter-song, a satirical song with an ever-rising tempo. Now I am the ruler of the Queen’s Navee from HMS Pinafore is a typical example. WH Smith, bookseller and Tory MP, became known as “Pinafore” Smith when he was appointed to run the Admiralty.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kfao1s3Tiek&ab_channel=StratfordFestival.

Sometimes Gilbert contented himself with a comic song attacking contemporary targets, constantly updated by new generations of singer – famously, I’ve got a little list from The Mikado

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NLV24qTnlg&ab_channel=OperaAustralia

G&S have a wry look at equality with the delightful There was a king from The Gondoliers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ie4OwwmFj8o&ab_channel=Gilbert%26SullivanAustin

One could go on forever selecting one’s favourites, so let me sign off with two lovely songs from The Gondoliers and The Mikado. - Take a pair of sparkling eyes and He’s going to marry Yum Yum!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FMldbPNZzg&ab_channel=stevethetenor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnaHqL4bkX8&ab_channel=jlf180

Both Gilbert and Sullivan were deservedly knighted. Sullivan produced an opera Ivanhoe which was a moderate success but the Savoy Operas were their apogee.  D’Oyly Carte retained the copyrights and their touring companies delighted audiences in the UK, USA, Australia and elsewhere for generations. Schoolmasters and many “Savoyards” could recite the operas backwards but fashions change and expensive touring ended when the UK Arts Council withdrew their grant in 1982.

 G&S’s Savoy Operas were for many a highly agreeable stepping stone weaning them to Grand Opera and opening up the world of music to much larger audiences. Their influence on the American musical was considerable with patter-songs from Rodgers and Hart (Zip) or Cole Porter (Anything Goes) widely enjoyed.

Let’s lift our glasses in gratitude to Gilbert and Sullivan!

 

 

SMD

1.11.22

Text copyright © Sidney Donald 2022

RISHI'S ROAD TO REDEMPTION

 

Whoever said that British politics were dull and boring is surely eating his words today after 6 months or so of lurid melodrama. Remember the decline and fall of “Neronian” Boris Johnson, when scandal followed scandal and heedless Boris uttered porkie after porkie pie until the supply ran out? Perhaps Nero is not an apt analogy, we might prefer Heliogabalus, a rather later Roman Emperor, (218-222), who passed his time among the rose petals, feasting with his glamorous ladies and neglecting his urgent duties, ignoring both the plague and the people (cf. Bojo).

                     The Roses of Heliogabalus (1888) by Lawrence Alma-Tadema

Anyhow Boris was deposed and then an excruciating Tory leadership election ruined our summer. There were at the start 11 candidates and they were whittled down at an agonizingly slow pace to two, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak. Broadly speaking, Rishi was a favourite among the well-heeled and cautious but Liz was favoured by the poorer but more adventurous Tory Party members. They both toured the country, exhausting their audiences with their well-crafted, but naturally self-serving pitches. Liz won. She made a complete Horlicks of the job. Although her direction of travel was quite sound in the medium term, her Dash for Growth took place in the midst of an inflationary cost-of-living crisis and spooked the all-important gilts market, which had been inadequately buttered-up prior to launch. Rishi, an erstwhile Goldman Sachs and hedge-fund professional, had warned that disaster would derail her programme and, alas, he was right.

                   

Kwazi Kwarteng and Liz Truss got it all wrong

Events then moved quickly. Kwazi was fired and experienced Jeremy Hunt drafted in. Liz Truss was soon handed her red card and resigned and, to universal groans, another Tory leadership election was called. A high bar was set of 100 sponsoring MPs to get on the ballot. Quite inappropriately, given his record, Boris rushed back from a lavish holiday in the Dominican Republic, to throw his hat into the electoral ring to join Rishi Sunak and Penny Mordaunt. Mercifully Boris took the hint he was not wanted after a few days and dropped out and on 24 October underpowered Penny realized she could not muster her 100 sponsors and, at the very last minute, withdrew. Rishi was the last man standing and was rapturously crowned by hordes of sweaty flatterers as Leader of the Conservative Party.

Rishi was asked to form a government the next day by the King, with all due dignity and protocol, and spoke as Prime Minister in front of No. 10, vowing to rectify Liz’s mistakes and get the nation’s finances on an even keel

He spoke well, but he knows it is action not words, that will butter his parsnips and he had better get on the buttering job pronto. He is believed to be clever and energetic but the wider public does not know him well and needs to be convinced. His in-tray is overflowing with difficult decisions:

-          Are there significant economies possible in departmental budgets like Transport or overseas Aid?

-          Can hitherto sacrosanct Defence or NHS budgets be cut sharply?

-          Can the triple lock on pensions be dropped again and only rise with average earnings?

-          Is the welfare budget affordable?

-          Should a windfall tax on energy companies be imposed?

-          Can a deal be done with the EU on the Northern Ireland Protocol?

-          Should the net zero pledge be delayed to ease the energy crisis?

-          How far can we go in defending brave Ukraine?

Rishi will need top-notch advice on these matters and dozens of other less urgent ones. But the buck stops with him. There may be some cheery tune he can whistle, but perhaps he should try instead the solemn Victorian song The Lost Chord by Sir Arthur Sullivan!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToBxsZKrUQU&ab_channel=BigTezza12

No, enough gloom! We are behind you, dishy Rishi!

                                            Rishi, your big chance is now

 

SMD

25.10.22

Text copyright © Sidney Donald 2022