The political currency of hope and how V�clav Havel still wanted to conjugate verbs in the midst of a diplomatic crisis
?"Optimism can defeat despair," said Ed Miliband in his new year message. This is the Pollyanna, Pangloss, "pull your socks up" school of political discourse. You can trace it back to Ronald Reagan's team who discovered that, however bad things might be, you can always sell voters the hope that they might get better.
So when Jimmy Carter tried to get re-elected in 1980 by talking about how Americans had to cut back (the so-called "malaise" speech) he was creamed by Reagan, who won re-election in 1984 by saying "it's morning again in America", though Reagan's own life was generally built around his afternoon nap.
Since then every democratic politician in the world has known that optimism equals votes, pessimism brings defeat. So you have the weird result that our leader of the opposition outlines all the horrors to come, while simultaneously telling us to keep our chins up and expect the very best.
?Brung! It is Barry Cryer, phoning with his New Year message. "I had a letter from a friend the other day," he tells me. "He said, 'I was in my health club ? well, in a pub with the windows open ?'"
?We had our festivities in Norwich and went to family eucharist in the cathedral on Christmas morning. Alain de Botton has a new book about the inspiration unbelievers can draw from faiths, but you don't need to read it to be uplifted by that superlative, soaring building, lit inside by the low, cold, lurid winter sun, and by the knowledge that people have been worshipping on the site for 900 years.
The dean gave the sermon and chose as his text ? I am not making this up ? the words of Lady Gaga, "changing the world one sequin at a time". It more or less worked. As he explained, a sequin on its own is a tiny, insubstantial thing. But combined with thousands of other sequins, it creates something luminous and dazzling.
The trouble is that this kind of pop culture reference leads to a suspicion that someone is trying to get down wid da kidz, and reminds us older folk of Alan Bennett's vicar in Beyond the Fringe, comparing our mortal existence to a tin of sardines. ("Is there a bit in the corner of your life? I know there is in mine ?")
And as the dean spoke I thought of the stonemasons of the past, in their lodge by the great door, huddled together in the freezing East Anglian winter, thinking that one day, centuries hence, thousands of people would gather inside the mighty walls they had built, to hear the word of Lady Gaga and be awed by its majesty.
? Downton Abbey was as silly as usual, though great fun if you regard it as a sort of spoof soap opera. I wonder why the papers make such a fuss of the programme, since only 8.9 million people ? fewer than 15% of the population ? watched it live on Christmas night. No doubt many recorded it, so they could whizz through the ads later.
Lots of folk have pointed out that no aristocratic family would ever have shown such tender solicitude for their servants, though it's dramatically necessary since if they were realistic, we would hate them.
One scene that's been hugely criticised was the servants' ball, at which the upstairs people danced and generally cavorted with the staff. But years ago I went to a not dissimilar event on a Scottish estate, and the whole point was the annual blurring of established roles.
The lady did have to dance with the tractorman, the daughters with the farm hand. Unlike the psycho-babble that fills much of Downton, I thought that rang true.
?I had lunch this week with an old friend from the BBC, Rachel Wright, and she told me about her memories of V�clav Havel who, when she lived in Prague in the early 1990s, hired her to improve his English. He was, she says, an extraordinarily shy, even retiring man, who liked nothing better than to sit anonymously in a bar, having a quiet drink or a bite to eat. Of course people did come to recognise him: once a wedding party arrived in high excitement and asked to be blessed. A woman bustled up and cried, "Mr President, we must save the cows in south Bohemia!" Havel looked puzzled until an aide said crisply, "Don't worry, we will take care of the cows."
On the day there was an attempted coup in Moscow against Gorbachev, the whole of Prague was in a ferment, terrified the Russians might try to re-establish control of their old satellite states. Rachel rang the palace to ask if Havel wanted his lesson that day, and a secretary assured her he did. As the situation seemed to worsen, she phoned twice more, and was twice told to come. But when she arrived the place was seething with ambassadors from round the world. She explained why she was there; officials said, "are you mad?" and sent her away. But it had never crossed Havel's mind to change his routine.
?Your round robin letters continue to arrive. Just another tiny sample, this one from Essex: "We started the year with drainage problems, and the snow conditions hampered their repair. Using the outdoor toilet for a few days was not much fun." And apart from a family holiday and a birthday party, that is pretty much all they have to report. A full round-up later.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2011/dec/30/simon-hoggarts-week
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