DIARY SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE
Ihate New Year's Eve: it is the worst example of what I call the National Days of Compulsion. I usually spend it alone in the countryside with my parents and go to bed early. If you do not celebrate, people actu- ally try to force you to go out. New Year's Eve is far from the only joyless but obliga- tory occasion of ostentatious heartiness: Christmas Day, Guy Fawkes Night, Easter, Hallowe'en are others when I feel besieged. Valentine's Day is no more fraudulent emotionally or nauseatingly commercial than the rest. Burns Night is one of the most frightful and boring of the lot; I once had to spend it with some Scotsmen in Moscow where, to my absolute delight, everything went wrong. The haggis was stolen by the Ingushetian Mafia; the whisky was drunk by the ex-Special Forces hotel guard-thugs; one old Scotsman lost his teeth while another contracted a vicious genital rash from his last stand with a vigor- ous Siberian slattern; the Russian guests became so drunk that they screamed down the distinguished actor who was trying to recite Burns's poetry. Finally I met the British Ambassador, who told me that the Soviet Union, which was to exist for about another six months, would never break up and that countries like Ukraine, Kazakhis- tan and Estonia, which have now been independent for seven years, would never be so in our lifetime. Altogether it was a wonderful National Day of Compulsion. But, you see, they are only fun when they go farcically wrong. I hate birthdays too: they are the classic example of Personal Days of Compulsion which are just as dire as their national equivalents. We should rebel against all of them: the point of emo- tion is that it is private, not public and not forced. Unfortunately, I have recently become the object of more emotional com- pulsion from strangers: I became engaged.
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o level of emotional exhilaration is enough for some soi-disant well-wishers. `Are you happy to be engaged?' they ask when they ring. 'Yes,' I reply. 'But surely you're far more than just happy?' these usually desiccated society women of the interfering, needy, predatorily middle-aged species suggest forcefully. 'Very happy,' I reply. 'But surely you're more than just merely very happy,' they say scornfully, almost viciously. 'Well, I'm thrilled!' `Thrilled? Surely more than that; you must be over the moon?' Yes,' I reply, increas- ingly irritated now. 'I'm exhilarated, bliss- ful, blithe, rapturous, triumphant, rhapsod- ic, gleesome. I'm in Shangri-la, Elysium, paradise! Is that enough for you? Is it? Do you want more? Well, let me tell you. When I say I'm happy, I mean I am happy. Goodbye!' Besides, there is little point in going to New Year's Eve parties if one is married or engaged. As I understand it, the sole excuse for it is to pick up a mate. But this particu- lar pastime can lead to some desperate rev- elations. I once met a girl at one. 'I'm going to try out my new Christmas presents,' she drawled drunkenly. When we reached her place, she exclaimed, 'Now I'm going to show you what Mummy gave me for Christ- mas!' and, to my fascinated horror, she undid her blouse and brassiere, declared `New breasts for Christmas!' and exposed her formidable but still heavily stitched breast implant operation.
The tragicomic trial of Carlos the Jack- al brought to public attention the bizarre habit of communists who named their chil- dren after Lenin. Carlos's second name is Illych while his brother was called Engels. When I was in Nicaragua travelling around with Bianca Jagger, whom the press claimed was running for President, I was continually meeting brothers called Lenin, Marx and even one burly hombre entitled Juan Rosa Luxemburg. The Sandinistas had been voted out but the name of the chief of intelligence did not suggest that victory was secure. His name was Lenin Cerna. His brother was called Engels. There can be no greater compliment and no longer life sentence than to have a child named after you. Incidentally, there was once an admirable British judge called Sebag Shaw.
Ms Tompson, I'm in the mood for an affair. Spread the word, will you?'
Here is a bibliographical ghost story. Years ago, I started buying early editions of authors like Maupassant from second-hand bookshops in New York. I soon noticed that virtually all these books had once belonged to someone named Mr Godney. Then in Paris I bought some early Zolas. They too had belonged to Mr Godney. Later in Vienna, I began to buy Arthur Schnitzlers: they'd belonged to this same man. When I bought Joseph Roth, they had been in Godney's library too. In fact, it was soon clear that Mr Godney and I had pre- cisely the same taste in books. I have just come from a week in Manhattan where I bought an original edition of a most obscure book — Godney owned it once. In Moscow, looking for a flat (I'm commuting between there and here next year while writing a biography of Potemkin) I buy an old Russian edition of Isaac Babel — Mr Godney has written his name in the front. Is he dead or alive? Who is this man whose tastes are identical to mine and whose belongings I'm gradually reassembling in my own house? It is almost like a . . . yes, it's exactly like a creepy Maupassant short story.
This year my favourite Jewish festival, Channukah, fell almost on Christmas. Unusually Mr Blair pleased me greatly by wearing a yamulka and lighting the Chan- nukah candles on a 'menorah' or cande- labra. This was partly also to celebrate Israel's 50th anniversary. Channukah is really a festival of political freedom since it celebrates how in 167 BC King Antiochus, descended from Alexander the Great's gen- eral Seleucus, tried to destroy Judaism by enforced worship of himself. Five brothers known as the Maccabbees rebelled and defeated the Seleucid empire to found a new Jewish kingdom that lasted for about a century, until Pompey and the Romans arrived. During the revolt, there was no oil for the candles in the temple but by a mira- cle it lasted for a week — hence lighting the candles. Because of the parallels between the historical background and today's Israel, Channukah is a very Israeli festival while hyper-Orthodox Jews regard both the deca- dent Maccabbee dynasty and Israel as wicked secular states. But the essence of it was captured best by my late rabbi, Hugo Gryn, who, in an outstanding BBC Thought for the Day, told how he and his father lit the Channukah lights secretly in Lieberose concentration camp in 1944, using mar- garine. When Gryn protested about wasting food, his father, who did not survive the war, replied that while they had often lived for three weeks without food, 'you cannot possibly live for three minutes without hope'. That's the very essence of it.
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