It’s a nasty story. As a psychologist, lapsed since graduating in 1976, Maxwell’s character seems to have been scarred by his early years.
There’s a bit of schadenfreude in Maxwell’s fall but it’s not a book I’d care to read. Instead I heard Henry Goodman reading an abridged version of John Preston’s book on Radio 4 this week. Goodman is an excellent actor and plays all the roles in the Fall of the House of Maxwell. If Shakespeare was living in our times, licking his quill (don’t do this at home), he would have found in Captain Robert Maxwell a fecund source for a grand tragedy. Although he strutted the world stage what his life comes down to is that he was a shoddy, bullying swindler. He bullied his family, his employees and manipulated everyone else. Five, fifteen minute episodes were enough for me.
Something much more enjoyable, the poached eggs on toast of the airwaves, are Rumpole short stories read by Leo McKern on Radio 4 Extra; again it comes in fifteen minute episodes and is comfort fare. Of course I am reading as well as listening: October, The Story of the Russian Revolution (hard going so far) and The Thirteen-Gun Salute (appropriately the 13th in Patrick O’Brian’s series).
Election Observation Missions may resume as soon as April. Bulgaria and Albania have parliamentary elections and the UK may send Long Term Observers. I will not apply as it entails being away for about six weeks. You might fancy legally leaving the UK and, unlike STOs, LTOs are paid.
Sorry TSE, April is not the cruellest month – it’s February. Eliot was not a very nice person and he got away with (literary) murder foisting his enigmatic verse on an unsuspecting public too timid to call him a charlatan. OK, there are some good bits and I’m not much of a cat lover.
The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep. (An extract from The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock, TS Eliot)
But sometimes a good actor can make sense of a load of bollocks – well done Alec Guinness.