Star Wars
A Galactic Empire stormtrooper stands guard on the balcony of a house in Barnes overlooking the towpath. He has a festive crown this year. (George Lucas specified that there are no women in the Stormtrooper Corps.) Star Wars was released more the forty years ago – 1977 – and has shaped our lives. Cinematically it spawned Raiders et al but has it emboldened people to rebel against autocracy? Was it a harbinger of democracy? Was it crude anti-Communist propaganda? Or is it just a brilliant film? That’s something to ponder while you watch the trailer.
Sunday 29th December
Mild, a southerly wind and a cloudy sky, good scenting weather, Bertie and I go out to take advantage. Crossing Hammersmith Bridge a woman cooes “ you are soo loverly”. I thank her and say “you are talking to me?” Her husband guffaws. Took almost three hours to walk up the towpath to Richmond where we rested at The White Cross. Robert doesn’t like Bertie to be subjected to the indignity of travelling on the tube so came to pick us up; unfortunately at The White Swan.
Monday 30th December
Wake up at 6.30; listen to the Today programme and toy with a brace of soluble Solpadeine. Why do interviewees always preface their first answer by saying “so … “? I suppose it gives them a moment to formulate their reply. Retire to study to write letters and e mails. That was my intention but instead turn to The Ultimate Christmas Cracker. It is by turns funny and fascinating; the latter entries lead to investigative digressions. There are three chairs in the study; this is the view from one.
This is a solipsism; let me elucidate.
noun: the view or theory that the self is all that can be known to exist; the quality of being self-centred or selfish. Beagles are solipsistic. A stranger greeted Bertie affectionately and told me, “beagles take a command as a suggestion”.
It is a delicate balance to review, report and comment on events while allowing a little intrusion into my day-to-day life. Anyway, at noon, I had a huge mug of Bovril, liberally laced with vodka, and gorged on JJN’s crackers. I think this may be a paraprosdokianism. If you were unsure about solipsism you will be out of your depth with a paraprosdokian – I was.
Paraprosdokian is a derivative of a Greek word that means “beyond expectation.” It is a wordplay type of literary device in which the final part of a phrase or sentence is unexpected. Its unexpected or surprised shift in meaning appears at the end of a stanza, series, sentence, or paragraph. Paraprosdokian is a linguistic U-turn that results in humour or surprise. JJN quotes Dorothy Parker’s example:
If all the girls who attended the Yale prom were laid end to end, I wouldn’t be in the least surprised.
2019 Environmental Audit
Gas boiler for home heating and hot water (bad). Took just four flights for pleasure (quite good). Took twelve flights to promote democracy (bad). Changed car to more eco-friendly lean-burn mini ( goodish) and car is green. Recycle like crazy but tormented that washing food containers may use more water than is sustainable. Bertie and I have not met our farting targets (inevitable). Almost always take cotton bags when out shopping – much helped by H G Walter giving me a capacious branded bag. Saw two street lamps in Queen’s Club Gardens that have plugs where electric cars can charge (very good, aesthetically much less intrusive than ones that look like giant parking meters).
To digress, Bertie often introduces me to people I might not otherwise meet. On New Year’s Eve we were patrolling and a chap with a foreign accent accosted us. It transpired he is bonkers about beagles, his 39 foot Swan is called Beagle but he lives in a flat – would it be suitable for a 3 foot beagle? I think not. He is from Chile and I digressed to tell him about my cousin’s voyage to Antarctica in 2011. Then he told me about a tragedy – a Chilean Air Force Hercules crashed with the loss of 38 lives while flying from Patagonia to Antarctica last month. He agreed that a Hercules is a safe pair of wings – of course I mentioned that I’d crossed the Atlantic in one in the 1970s – but this one was made in 1978 for the US Air Force and may have been a bit past it, like many of us. He talked about unrest in Chile and blamed the Russians. I asked him if he is the Naval Attaché; he is.
I Once Met
If you are a diligent reader you will remember that I met Tom Hiddleston at Eton. I thought he was a gifted actor. Kenneth Rose met two politicians in the 1980s and thought it worth recording their names.
25 November 1987
To the annual Highland Park whisky lunch at the Savoy. I sit next to a serious Labour MP for Dunfermline, Gordon Brown.
16 May 1988
To St Paul’s School, Hammersmith, to talk on the writing of Royal biography. A three-line-whip has gone out to all historians and the head of History has bagged Peter Pilkington’s study for a small lunch party with senior boys. I talk to an intelligent boy called George Osborne.
Incidentally, Peter Pilkington was Conduct (head chaplain) at Eton. I remember only part of his address to the new boys. “ I am the Conduct; I have two daughters; the major Miss Conduct and the minor Miss Conduct.”
17 January 1989
A young man called Andrew Roberts comes to see me. … He seems a bright fellow, short, fair-haired in his twenties. He got a First at Cambridge. I like his self-confidence.
May I digress? I met AR at a lunch party and found him difficult in the conversation department. He explained that he wrote books and cheered up a lot when I said that now I knew him. I confessed I’d yet to read anything by him but they are the sort of books I give to friends and they probably don’t read. Andrew is a cheery chap – “never mind, so long as you paid for them”.
Marmalade
The annual Marmalade Awards, this is the 15th year, at Dalemain are upon us again. There isn’t a literary category any more. I used to submit entries but without success – here’s why.
In days of yore, there were knights galore.
To get out of the house, they’d go and joust
Or look for damsels in distress.
Oh what fun to get a dragon on the run,
Put out its fire, tune up a lyre
And still be home for tea.
A cup of Darjeeling spreads a good feeling,
Specially with crumpets and jam.
Now Sir Mordred was one of these knights
Who liked to get out of his armour into tights
And tuck into High Tea with ham.
But there came a day, try as he may
He couldn’t find any raspberry jam.
But looking in the larder he found a gift from Granada,
The home of his maternal aunt;
Oranges too bitter to eat, not at all sweet,
And you can guess the rest of the tale.
The jam that he made, he called marmalade.
He took it to Court where all the knights thought
It was pukka tucker.
When this news to King Arthur came
He said he’d give Mordred a new name
And dubbed him Marma-Duke.
Last But Not Least
My thoughts and prayers are with the men of the First Battalion Irish Guards who deployed to Iraq last month. Their mission is to support the coalition by training Iraqi and Kurdish troops. They are in a support role not a fighting role but they are potentially vulnerable to retaliation and I have no doubt will be taking precautions. This is their Regimental Collect.
Almighty God, who through the glory of the eternal Trinity hast inspired men in every age to love and serve thee, and hast promised that none shall be separated from thy love who truly trust in thee; we beseech thee thou wouldst keep thy servants the Irish Guards steadfast in this faith, that they may show it forth not only with their lips but in their lives, who livest and reignest, one God, world without end. Amen
On a lighter note, Kenneth Rose takes Charles Guthrie to breakfast at the Hyde Park Hotel, as it was then, on 21st December 1995. Guthrie recounts advice given by his RSM at Sandhurst.
1. Never get separated from your kit.
2. Never put your trust in the RAF.
3. Never march on Moscow.
4. Never become involved in the Balkans.
Wise words but surely they were imparted by the Commandant?
This Commandant certainly espoused the first three military principles passed down to the young Charles Guthrie at Sandhurst. But I doubt whether the fourth passed his lips in December 1995; he was by then Chief of Defence Staff and had ordered the 3rd UK Division to Bosnia that very month (me included).
More likely the Balkans advice was given to officer cadets at the German Military Academy. It was after all Bismarck who said ‘the whole of the Balkans are not worth the life of a single Pomeranian grenadier’.