O ne of the basic divisions in human character is between
those who expect the imminent end of the world and those who don’t. This can take a religious form, but in modern times it often appears in other guises. In the early 1980s, the apocalyptists feared nuclear war. Martin Amis wrote that the idea of it made him feel sick, as if that were a knock-down argument against the Bomb. Today, when the danger from the Bomb is actually much greater because Pakistan has it, North Korea more or less has it and Iran is getting it, the millennial fear of it has not revived in the West, perhaps because the people most neurotic on the subject tend to be those with an obsessive suspicion of their own civilisation. The possible return of nuclear power will bring back their fear. For the rest of us, the word ‘nuclear’ has a warm, nostalgic feeling — evidence that the Western mind can solve the problems which it creates for itself.
George Best is ‘coming home’ to be buried in Belfast. But it is interesting how little Best was touched by the sectarian Troubles of his home town. In interviews he was always vague about his religious and political background. Best was from a Protestant family, and said that his parents were Free Presbyterians, but this does not seem to have inhibited a certain fondness for drink. He also remembered a religious rivalry between two local football teams, Glentoran and Linfield, the former being, he said, Catholic. In this he was mistaken. Both teams were overwhelmingly Protestant. What was true, however, was that Glentoran was less deep-dyed. Each time their team scored a goal, the Glentoran fans used to tease Linfield by ostentatiously crossing themselves in Catholic fashion. Best came out of an oddly idyllic moment in the history of Belfast. When he was growing up, sectarian tensions were low, and politics in Cregagh, his part of east Belfast, would have been between moderate Unionists and the Northern Ireland Labour party, not unlike the politics of mainland Britain. By the time the Troubles really got going again, he had left. The same era and the same part of town also produced Van Morrison, the two of them proving that the romantic, troubled spirit associated with Celtic Ireland can be just as strong among Protestant boys. I gather that Best received the homage of a deathbed visit from the Revd Dr Ian Paisley. And now his funeral is to be at Stormont.
Behind all the current discussion of the pension problem lies a simple but terrifying fact. It is that almost no possessor of a private pension scheme really understands it. This is partly because most of us are bad at thinking clearly about future financial needs rather than present ones. But there is a more excusable reason for incomprehension, which is that political changes make it genuinely impossible to work out what will happen. If you really cannot understand something, you are obviously unwise to invest in it: are we near the point when people give up on private pensions altogether? People prefer houses, simply because we know what they are.
The Times reported that the Bristol Old Vic production of Marlowe’s Tamburlaine the Great at the Barbican was censored by the director to remove unfavourable references to Mohammed and the scene where Tamburlaine burns the Koran. The original text would have ‘unnecessarily raised the hackles of a significant proportion of one of the world’s great religions,’ said the artistic director. So what? That is in the nature of the character that Marlowe created. Tamburlaine is a monster of conquering egotism, and mocks all religions for their uselessness in the face of his power. In the play, Christians are also scorned. One Muslim character denounces Christians as follows: ‘Traitors, villains, damned Christians!’ and calls on Christ to ‘prove thyself a perfect God’ by being ‘reveng’d upon this traitor’s soul’, in the mocking knowledge that he won’t. I doubt if this was cut on the grounds of unnecessarily raised Christian hackles. People in the arts constantly and rightly emphasise the importance of free speech and the accompanying right to offend, but they prefer to offend, one notices, people whose offence will be pretty mild. If threatened by Sikh or Muslim militants, they tend to pipe down. So Jerry Springer: The Opera goes out, with a display of self-righteous courage, but 400-year-old plays get doctored. On Sunday night I turned on the television. A drama about Princess Margaret was in progress. In the 30 minutes or so I watched, you could see her getting drunk, having sex with Antony Armstrong-Jones and with Armstrong-Jones’s best friend. You also saw the Duke of Edinburgh (at least I think it was he, though he seemed to be wearing a reddish wig) advising Armstrong-Jones how to enjoy women on the side on foreign trips. No thought was given to unnecessarily raising the hackles of monarchists who, polls suggest, outnumber Muslims in this country by roughly 20 to one. You can depict almost anything about the sister of the reigning monarch, but God help you if you make a film about the sex lives of Mohammed’s family, or even, I suspect, those of the current Saudi royal family.
‘The WI to shed fuddy-duddy image,’ says the headline, as the organisation appoints a new chairwoman. This story has appeared so often that it is itself fuddy-duddy. Ever since my childhood I have read articles with WI spokeswomen saying that they aren’t ‘just jam and “Jerusalem”’. It is true — as Tony Blair discovered to his cost — that the WI engages seriously with social issues and doesn’t like being talked down to, but it seems pointless for it to pretend that it is not also rather domestic and cosy. Surely that is one of its attractions. I love reading WI reports in parish magazines. Here’s our most recent one: ‘After a rather wet morning the sun came out in time for our picnic lunch. It was lovely sitting in the shade under a wonderful old apple tree. After the business part of the meeting we enjoyed a couple of quizzes and then just sat and chatted ... We were pleased to welcome Mrs X who came to talk about Rural Ways and Customs. She had some lovely photographs to show us, which conveyed some of the old customs that are still carried on, including various Morris dancers both men and women.’ Bliss.
When/if David Cameron becomes Tory leader next week, he should ban all reference to a post in the shadow Cabinet as a ‘job’. The word perpetuates the illusion, from which the Tories still suffer, that they are the government. No shadow Cabinet post, except those of leader and chairman of the party, is a job. The roles are unpaid, and they have no power. There are no spoils of office to distribute, because there is no office. If they are constantly reminded of this, Tories will be hungrier to get power back.
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