DIARY
JULIE BURCHILL From `Night Fever' to sun-worshipper: last week Mrs Dwina Gibb, wife of a 'Bee Gee', was crowned the first female leader of the Druids in 200 years (who was the last one? She never worked again, obviously). And looking at the newspaper photographs of the ceremony, I felt that old tingle of contempt and horror. What is it about the Druids that awakes such violent loathing in me? At least a little of it must stem from my years as a schoolgirl in Somerset. Stone- henge was our local attraction, and we made countless school trips to it during my formative years; inevitably, some over-keen games teacher would occasionally get us there too early, and the Druids would still be doing their business. Naturally, as high- spirited kiddies of the working class, we would call abuse at them as they pranced solemnly in their long dresses — 'pouf!' was a particular favourite, I recall — and they would respond in a most un-Christian manner. Which was just as it should be, they being pagans. But even more than these traumatic memories, what makes me feel hostile towards the Druids is that none of them was born a Druid. They were born Anglicans, or Methodists, or Catholic in the case of Mrs Gibb. Yes, I know we live in a world where we can be our own unique creations, born again each day. But there seems to me to be something singularly trashy about changing your religion; it's like lying about your age, hyphenating your name and poshing up your postal address — all in one.
The Jews, who were given -the most beautiful and wonderful of all religions, seem particularly prone to throwing away their birthright for the right to light a lousy candle or pester people with a tambourine all along Oxford Street. In the Sixties, Jews haunted ashrams; in the Seventies they joined the Bhagwan; in the Eighties, a lot of them became Buddhists. I don't know if there's a Druid Chapter in St John's Wood Yet, but it can't be far off. My theory is that Jews are so embarrassed by the God-given advantage they're born with that they attempt to handicap themselves by taking on board the most ludicrous set of beliefs they can lay their hands on. But whatever the reason, and whoever does it, changing one's religion remains as pretentious and relentlessly non-U as putting a quilted satinette cover on a loo roll. I speak from bitter experience: two years ago, I almost converted to Judaism myself. In the end, it was aesthetics, not doubt, which made me cancel my first chat with the rabbi. I was born, for better or worse, plain Julie Ann of the C of E — and I am never going to be Bathsheba Rachel of the House of David,
no matter how hard I try. To pretend otherwise would simply be very bad form.
Iam sick to death of the legions of arm- chair warriors who keep insisting that `we' should go into Yugoslavia and sort the Serbs out. 'We' never means the people who are saying it, of course; it means legions of clean-limbed but callow squad- dies who until a few weeks ago probably thought that Croatians were things that floated in soup. Unlike the Falkland Islands, there is no blood tie; unlike Kuwait, no oil. This is a territorial war and territorial wars should be fought by those who want the territory. Those who insist there is a 'principle' involved are talk- ing like a bunch of Fabian faggots. It's risi- ble how those countries which squeal inces- santly for their 'independence', then pro- ceed to rely on the West for absolutely everything, from food to military protec- tion. If people want independence, they should feed their own people and fight their own battles. Any country which can- not countenance these most basic require- ments of the nation state should be desig- nated a colony forthwith, and looked after properly. As the Chinese government offers bribes for couples to remain child- less, so the real countries should offer lav- ish aid to peoples who call it a day and admit they were never meant to be any- thing more than a far-flung province. Being Croatian is not the same as being English; end of story.
It is one of the sure signs of finally becoming a grown-up that you don't invent exotic racial ancestry for yourself any more. You don't pretend to be Jewish, as I did, or Italian, as a blonde friend of mine did (`from Northern Italy. There are lots of blondes there'). In children, this designer genes fetish is most pronounced; my six- year-old is, on the paternal side, American- Russian-Austrian-Jewish, and will reel these qualifications off at the drop of a
baseball cap. When he asked me if there was anything unusual on my side, and all I could offer him was a bit of Welsh, he looked at me as if I was something Jacques Delors had dragged in. But when I was a moody teen, my Welsh blood was the one thing that kept me going. If you were Welsh, you were like Dylan Thomas, Richard Burton and Tom Jones: drunk, vir- ile and touched by genius — and Liz Tay- lor. It's rather sobering to realise that today the most prominent Welsh role models are the Why-Bird (a children's television pup- pet), Ruth 'Hi De Hi' Madoc — and Neil Kinnock. But wait! That gingery colouring, that `ock' — is Neil Kinnock really a Welshman at all? No, as it turns out; his grandfather moved there from Scotland. And as we know, it takes more than two measly generations to make a Welshman. Kinnock is often accused of having been too Welsh. That never stopped Lloyd George. My belief is that he wasn't Welsh enough. There was lots of talk a while back about John Smith's Scottishness being a great bonus, but already people are cooling on him. We know we should respect the Scots — thrifty, serious, industrious — but we quickly find them prigs. The Scots are the English as they know they ought to want to be — but the Welsh are the English as they long to be in their wildest dreams.
Following the so-called defeat of the Brussels demand that the British artisan should work no more than 48 hours a week, I would like to see this law introduced instead for the members of the blathering classes who thought it was such a super idea. All those awful Luvvies for Labour, insisting that there's more to life than work and money; yes, that means you, Elton, Follet, Bragg and Mortimer. Not very like- ly, is it? It remains one of the mysteries of creation that it is always those who talk grandly of there being more to life than work and money who would put Stakhanov — and Croesus — to shame.
Wimbledon — and the agony and ecstasy of McEnroe, Connors and Becker is upon us once more. When did sportsmen stop being cheery, mindless coves and start acting like James Dean? Recently I switched on halfway through Desert Island Discs. Never in my life have I heard a man talk about 'isolation', 'alienation' and `agony' as much as the interviewee did. I guessed that it was Ian McEwan, Morrissey or perhaps a young Samuel Beckett. It was Will Carling, captain of the English rugby team.
Previous page
