The Tie That Binds

The first time I ever got paid for writing something was in 1985. I'd forgotten about it until yesterday when I found myself in a dusty corner of Manchester University library faced with a long shelf containing bound volumes of The Times Educational Supplement from the sixties to the nineties. I remembered writing a piece for them, and some of the aftermath. I knew it had printed in August, and I knew it must have been the mid-eighties, so it was easy to find. Hint to aspiring writers of educational stuff - pitch your article in July: they are desperate to fill the August columns. My piece was a lighthearted one about the tyranny (which seems even more in evidence now) of the tie as an essential item of the male teacher's wardrobe. I never liked wearing them, and expressed my view in the article. I now wear ties for graduations and funerals, never for an ordinary day at work; but in a school, then as now, it was considered a major transgression not to wrap a piece of silk or polyester around your neck every day. So I wrote this:

We were on holiday in France when the article was printed, and in those pre-mobile days, virtually uncontactable. About a week into the holiday, we found a working phone box and fed it with ten-franc pieces to speak to my father, just to report that we were having a great time. "Have you done something?" he said. "I'm sure I heard your name on the radio - something about an article.." I thought it must be the TES article, but didn't think much more about it until we got home, to find requests from various newspapers for interviews. By then, the moment had passed, of course. This was classic silly-season stuff, but I gathered that for a couple of days the article had generated phone-ins on radio shows and some brief comments in newspapers.  Probably the best part of the whole episode was the cartoon which accompanied the piece, reproduced above. I wish I could ever have looked that insouciant and elegant...

David Lodge

To the Whitworth, to see David Lodge talk about his new novel, based on the tangled love-life of H.G. Wells. I've admired Lodge for decades - Changing Places is one of the great comic novels, and certainly one of the top three examples of campus fiction ever written, I think.  Lodge also wrote The Art of Fiction, one of the most sensible things available on that topic. Mostly, when authors are promoting their latest book, the routine is that the author reads a bit, and then answers some questions (often completely footling ones: "Where do you get your ideas from?") before everyone queues to have their copy of the book signed. Lodge didn't do this. Perhaps because he spent his working life as an academic, Lodge decided that the best thing to do was to give us a lecture on Wells. It was quite a formal one - he read, at a lectern, from a script, with very few ad-libs, in a style I imagine Birmingham Eng Lit undergraduates would have recognised. It was, nonetheless, an enlightening and engaging talk, ranging over Wells's incredibly productive career, and making a strong claim for a revaluation of his reputation. At one point, Lodge recounted how the elderly Wells refused to move out of London during the blitz, declaring that he would not be beaten by "that shit, Hitler". and that he took his turn firewatching in a tin hat. Wells presciently saw how aircraft would be used in future wars, and also posited the development of something very like the WWW - the World Brain, which would keep all human knowledge on microfiche. Lodge, whose hearing is weak, was supported by an energetic assistant signing his words.  He then did the readings and answered questions, which for once were pertinent and intelligent - and no, I didn't ask any. One point which he spoke about at length was the emergence of what he called the "bio-novel", the fictional work based on the life of a real person. A Man of Parts is one such of course, as is Lodge's Author Author, based on the life of Henry James. Julian Barnes's Arthur and George would be another example. That seems to me to be an interesting line of research - I'm just wondering what other novels fit this category. Lodge said that his rule was not to make anything up except the dialogue and the extradiegetic narrative. As he said, that solves a basic problem, since the plot is already there. Rather than tell the whole life story, he comcentrated on the central years of HG's life, when he was extraordinarily entangled with a series of women.

What was so attractive to women about Wells? He was short, physically weak, and hardly a pin-up. But he was full of energy, full of ideas, and compelling as a speaker. That seemed to do the trick. His narrative gift, allied with his knowledge of science, makes his work unusual, and, according to Lodge,  ripe for rediscovery. Of course. Lodge's book will obviously aid that process. At the end of his life, according to Lodge, Wells was working simultaneously on two factual pieces, one which despaired of mankind ever evolving into something nobler, and one which predicted a utopian future. I wonder what he would make of us now?

Roma Tearne

To the place everyone now calls the Burgess for a Manchester Literature Festival event with Roma Tearne. She was reading from her most-recently published novel, The Swimmer, and talking about her career, her novels, her other activities as an artist and film-maker, and, inevitably, about her views on Sri Lanka. She left her native country for Britain in 1964, and has made her life here ever since. Sadly, when someone asked her if she ever planned to go back to Sri Lanka, she replied that it was impossible, given the death threats she has received as an outspoken opponent of the regime.
Most writers, because they are writers and not performers, don't read their work particularly well. Roma is an exception. She read a passage from The Swimmer beautifully,  bringing a poignancy that was palpable to a scene of great sadness. She answered questions with great good humour,  and revealed a good deal about her working methods. One particularly striking aspect was her revelation that she always starts with an image. In the case of The Swimmer it was a photograph of a windswept Aldeburgh beach on which three figures were walking. She imagined the story of these three characters, and the novel grew from there. Several members of the audience commented on the power of her landscape scenes, and one questioner asked whether she painted landscapes - yes, she does. The evocative atmosphere of the East Anglian coast, with its melancholy emptiness, and sense of liminality, seems an appropriate setting for this tale.
What's more, she has used one aspect of The Swimmer to inform the film that she made for the Venice Biennale. The novel, which features a plot about a Sri Lankan immigrant,  is used to complement the horrific footage of brutal attacks by the Sri Lankan army on the Tamils during the civil war. The found footage is intercut with the new film, shot on iPhone to merge with the raw images of the massacre.
It was a privilege to have a short conversation with her after the event, and now I must get down to reading the novels, starting with the semi-autobiographical Brixton Beach.

My Motorway Reading (2)

I've posted before about the fatuous and often bizarre language used by companies to describe what they do. The slogans and mission statements often use 'solutions' as a catch-all term, and tend to pomposity when describing the most mundane matters. I observed a cracker today, on a van belonging to a company I hadn't heard of before: ProLicht, with the trendy inter-capital. Their business, according to the statement on the van, is "turnkey solutions for national and international corporate brand programmes." No, I had no idea, either. So I looked them up. As you might expect from the name, they are a German company, and their business is making signs. So, "turnkey solutions for national and international corporate brand programmes" means "signage". Their website is a treasure trove of corporate bollocks-speak, often using those incomplete sentences. You know. Like this. To seem more important. Or something.
They clearly don't think it's necessary to tell us what a turnkey solution is, so I checked with Wisegeek (much plagiarised by students, I note in passing) where  I am told that a turnkey solution is "a solution that can easily be implemented based on the resources already at the disposal of a company or individual." I'm not sure that gets me much further, but maybe it means that ProLicht will make you some signs that you can afford. I'm not sure, and the language of the website doesn't enlighten me further. For example – “Our customers are happy to work with us. We see this in the fact that they are doing so more and more intensively. Every year, they develop their cooperation with us on an ongoing basis.” I’m assuming that, as a customer, developing my co-operation with them on an ongoing basis means I use them more than once. Obviously, the fact that  “The entire process chain within view ensures the best quality” will make me want to use them again. It would, I’m sure, be enlightening to meet them. After all, “We would be happy to present in a personal meeting our company, our mindset, our approach, our diverse references and why our customers continuously extend their cooperation with us.”

Far out, man.

I spotted this poster whilst enjoying an excellent Warsteiner at Mary and Archie's yesterday. I took a picture on my rather basic phone, which is rubbish, so I found a better version here.  It's a poster for Cream's farewell gig, at the Royal Albert Hall, in November 1968. It's fascinating for several reasons. The groovy outfits sported by Baker, Bruce and Clapton are, even at the distance of 42 years, startling, but you might be able to make out that there were two shows, at 6.00 and 8.00, and that there were two support acts, Yes and Rory Gallagher. And that tickets were a whole pound.  I've been trying to think what a pound would buy back then - I was just 14 when they played this concert. According to this site, it would be about £12.90 in today's money. So, quite a lot to a 14 year old, but not a fortune, to see arguably the top rock group in the world at the time, together with another huge act, and a highly regarded third act. What would it be today - U2 supported by Coldplay and Rufus Wainwright, perhaps?
They played two sets, separated by just two hours, so presumably, Cream can't have played more than 45 minutes, and maybe Yes half an hour (one song for them) and Gallagher perhaps twenty minutes. One creepy reflection: Clapton is, of course, still going strong, as are Bruce and Baker. Rory Gallagher died years ago, but who would have thought in 1968 that, with dozens of line-up changes, there'd still be an entity called Yes, still touring and making what we used to call LPs, over four decades later? This rather disturbing publicity shot of the current band, featuring three very long serving members, shows that there are no strange portraits in anyone's attic.

Feet of Clay (2)

A.C. Grayling's pieces on moral dilemmas in The Guardian (later collected into various books) always impressed me. Witty, erudite, elegant, they anatomised the modern ethical landscape, and presented solutions that were often informed by references to classical literature. Grayling has had his detractors as a so-called media don, but it always seemed to me that you don't get to be a media don without some reputation to start with. Schama, Starkey and the rest became TV personalities because they were serious academics with prestigious positions, not the other way round.
Grayling would be an obvious champion of the humanities at a time when they are under threat in the academy.  So it was not a surprise that he should be the figurehead behind the launch of a new educational institution, the New College for the Humanities, dedicated to, as Grayling says on the website, "personal enrichment, intellectual training, breadth of vision, and the well-informed, sharply questioning cast of mind needed for success in this complex and competitive world." Well, that's just great, and many of us in the humanities would love to work for an institution with that as a mission statement.
But here's the rub. Elsewhere, Grayling asserts that "We're open to anybody who has talent and ability." Well, up to a point, Lord Copper. The standard fee for the NCH will be a whopping £18,000 a year, meaning that it is out of reach for all but a tiny minority. Given the promises that Grayling is making, the fees might be justified in some people's eyes: stellar academics (Dawkins, Pinker, Ricks et al) supported by a dedicated teaching staff unencumbered by admin duties, who will offer small group and one-to-one tuition. Marvellous. But that £18k fee, despite some suggestions that some students will have the fee waived, remains a huge barrier.  I'm reminded of the well-worn quip of  Justice Mathews - 'In England, justice is open to all - like the Ritz Hotel.' 
What makes the enterprise (and that's clearly what it is) smack even more of opportunism is that perforce, since the NCH isn't an accredited university, study will lead to a University of London award, and students will use  London facilities. Even the course materials have been lifted wholesale, as Amanda Vickery, and a number of others pointed out. As Vickery said on Twitter "NCH thinks my 18th-century women course worth £18k. Come & have it @QMUL for half that, & taught by Prof who designed it." Moreover, it transpires that the "Professoriate" of big name dons might teach for as little as one hour per year.
It's difficult to see what NCH can offer, other than an alternative route into a prestigious degree for the rich who don't manage a place at Oxbridge.  The NCH, if it were to charge low fees, or use sponsorship to offer humanities degrees to the brightest, would be a noble enterprise. As it stands, though, it is, in its way, simply another example of the commercialisation of HE in this country.

Feet of Clay

I began writing this post before the news broke today that Johann Hari had been suspended by The Independent, so much of what I was going to write is redundant now - read the Guardian article for the details.  I have been a fan of Johann Hari for some time. I liked his style, and that he seemed an individual in a sea of identikit rent-a-gob commentators. I sometimes disagreed with him, but always found his articles lively and entertaining. Then the news that he routinely passed off quotations from books as quotes he had obtained in interviews appeared, and he immediately lost some credibility. That was compounded by his initial denial that this was wrong.
That was bad enough, and then, a couple of days ago, Nick Cohen wrote a blistering piece on Hari, characterising him as a vindictive and deceitful prat. Then a  tweet by David Allen Green, alias Jack of Kent, suggested that there was something even murkier about Mr Hari. Green wrote this, which confirmed that the Orwell Prize winning author seemed to be at the very least condoning some juvenile and nasty behaviour.  This evening, Green said that he now knew the identity of "David Rose", but was not going to reveal it, for fear of triggering an expensive libel action.
It's a sorry tale, and you wonder if Hari can recover from it. I can't imagine taking one of his columns at face value again.
Update: and, according to Guido Fawkes, even his Orwell piece was nicked.
Update 20th July: Hari has taken his website down completely.
Update 21st July: Hari is accused of more dishonesty here.
Update 26th July: Hari has broken his silence to say he's been instructed by the Indy not to say anything until the outcome of their investigation. Meanwhile, the Orwell prize committee all but confirm he's to be stripped of the prize.