England in the fall
Sep 28, 2007
<b>John Nagenda</b><br><br>However hard you try, especially at the changing of the seasons (which this is) when in England the weather is always on the tip of your tongue. If not, people find you strange. No point in letting them down! I arrived at Gatwick at dawn (what a horrible terminal) and th
John Nagenda
However hard you try, especially at the changing of the seasons (which this is) when in England the weather is always on the tip of your tongue. If not, people find you strange. No point in letting them down! I arrived at Gatwick at dawn (what a horrible terminal) and the sun started beating down, admittedly without the heat accompanying it at the Equator. I turned to my neighbour and exclaimed brightly at the brightness. “Give it a day or two,†he snapped as he hurried on his way. And he was right. Friends who forced a glass of red under my nose when I reached London by luncheon, explained: “We’ve had a couple of days all summer which you might accept as real summer weather. But now summer has passed. The autumn [Fall] follows with winter close behind. My God what a country!†Smiling indulgently I let it pass. Even if they were wrong it was their country. But they were not wrong. By midweek the temperatures had tumbled to the extent that on Wednesday, en route to dinner, when I waited ten minutes for a cab, by the time I tumbled into one I could hardly speak for the chattering of my teeth. The homeless were already visibly shivering in doorways as we sped to supper. But far to the north in Blackpool, the Labour Party Conference was coming to a very warm conclusion, the best for a few years. Where for a decade the somewhat “jack-in-a-box†Tony Blair had held sway (tenuously towards the end) as Leader, there was now the studiedly more grave Gordon Brown in situ. Even here Brown seemed to be announcing that he was different from the man he had, at long last, succeeded. How nice if Blair had turned up, if only for a session, and in his most elfin fashion said: “Behold our New Leader,†and led the applause! But perhaps that would be a work of fiction. Was he already amongst the Palestinians, trying to entice them (or as the Americans so quaintly put it “prepare themâ€) for talks with the Israelis, at presumably uneven footing? But you could not easily imagine the Palestinians dancing so much as a half-step. In any event, what a non-job for Mr Blair who had but latterly been dancing a fandango on nearly equal terms with his buddy, George Bush Jnr! At Blackpool there was not even a lingering smell of the ex-Leader. He might as well never have lived, let alone strode like a Colossus over every terrain he crossed. No wonder many turn away with a shudder at the thought of vacating The Chair! Next, the Conservative Party will also hold their Conference. They have a newish Leader, David Cameron, but his standing in the country has remained at a humdrum level throughout. This is strange, and very difficult to explain adequately. He seems a “good egg†and presentable with it. His heart seems to be in the right place, and sensible. He went to school at mighty Eton (the Budo of England) but he strives, and succeeds, in being reasonably ordinary. So what’s the matter? Well, all the foregoing could be brought forward as a defence for, say, oatmeal porridge. But, alas, that beverage has no dash in it. Nobody is going to jump up and down at the thought of eating it, including sporran-wearing Scotsmen. I will take bets that Cameron will never be Prime Minister of Britain. Which, for the time being, leaves its current holder, Brown, in seemingly impenetrable position. But, you know, even as he buries Blair by force of studied gravitas, the thought rears its head that after the latter’s will o’ the wisp style is banished and forgotten, some may begin to miss it, feeling weighed down by the unrelieved heavy treacle of his successor’s seriousness. You can’t win ‘em all!
************
Years ago, in 1965, I met a wonderful young woman, Judy Todd, in New York. She was the daughter of ex-Prime Minister Garfield Todd of Rhodesia. She was pretty, intelligent and extremely well-mannered. She had a merry young laugh that broke out at any moment. But she was a most determined opponent of the racist White government of the time. (Okay, she could be naïve at times about how such a government could be overthrown.) The years passed, Judy went back to her country, married a Lord, and became Judith. But at all times she continued to use her considerable international connections to wage war against the racist minority government of her country. When Rhodesia became Zimbabwe, to her utter distress it became clear that one bad government had been replaced by another. There were reasons and excuses for this, and for a while she held her tongue — wanted to, also, because the battle, and the victory that followed, had been too important to easily cast aside. Where did you begin? And when she increasingly took up the cudgels, she was immediately and brutally punished: with prison, with losing her Zimbabwean citizenship (as did her then elderly and frail dad), and she was also punished by rape. In an article about her this week, like a lacerating roar of pain, she announces that President Mugabe of Zimbabwe was bad from the very beginning. How many in Zimbabwe will say Amen to this! But wherever Judy Todd is today, and all the others bruised, maimed and destroyed by this war, the struggle was, is, a triumph of the human spirit and will never finally be lost.
However hard you try, especially at the changing of the seasons (which this is) when in England the weather is always on the tip of your tongue. If not, people find you strange. No point in letting them down! I arrived at Gatwick at dawn (what a horrible terminal) and the sun started beating down, admittedly without the heat accompanying it at the Equator. I turned to my neighbour and exclaimed brightly at the brightness. “Give it a day or two,†he snapped as he hurried on his way. And he was right. Friends who forced a glass of red under my nose when I reached London by luncheon, explained: “We’ve had a couple of days all summer which you might accept as real summer weather. But now summer has passed. The autumn [Fall] follows with winter close behind. My God what a country!†Smiling indulgently I let it pass. Even if they were wrong it was their country. But they were not wrong. By midweek the temperatures had tumbled to the extent that on Wednesday, en route to dinner, when I waited ten minutes for a cab, by the time I tumbled into one I could hardly speak for the chattering of my teeth. The homeless were already visibly shivering in doorways as we sped to supper. But far to the north in Blackpool, the Labour Party Conference was coming to a very warm conclusion, the best for a few years. Where for a decade the somewhat “jack-in-a-box†Tony Blair had held sway (tenuously towards the end) as Leader, there was now the studiedly more grave Gordon Brown in situ. Even here Brown seemed to be announcing that he was different from the man he had, at long last, succeeded. How nice if Blair had turned up, if only for a session, and in his most elfin fashion said: “Behold our New Leader,†and led the applause! But perhaps that would be a work of fiction. Was he already amongst the Palestinians, trying to entice them (or as the Americans so quaintly put it “prepare themâ€) for talks with the Israelis, at presumably uneven footing? But you could not easily imagine the Palestinians dancing so much as a half-step. In any event, what a non-job for Mr Blair who had but latterly been dancing a fandango on nearly equal terms with his buddy, George Bush Jnr! At Blackpool there was not even a lingering smell of the ex-Leader. He might as well never have lived, let alone strode like a Colossus over every terrain he crossed. No wonder many turn away with a shudder at the thought of vacating The Chair! Next, the Conservative Party will also hold their Conference. They have a newish Leader, David Cameron, but his standing in the country has remained at a humdrum level throughout. This is strange, and very difficult to explain adequately. He seems a “good egg†and presentable with it. His heart seems to be in the right place, and sensible. He went to school at mighty Eton (the Budo of England) but he strives, and succeeds, in being reasonably ordinary. So what’s the matter? Well, all the foregoing could be brought forward as a defence for, say, oatmeal porridge. But, alas, that beverage has no dash in it. Nobody is going to jump up and down at the thought of eating it, including sporran-wearing Scotsmen. I will take bets that Cameron will never be Prime Minister of Britain. Which, for the time being, leaves its current holder, Brown, in seemingly impenetrable position. But, you know, even as he buries Blair by force of studied gravitas, the thought rears its head that after the latter’s will o’ the wisp style is banished and forgotten, some may begin to miss it, feeling weighed down by the unrelieved heavy treacle of his successor’s seriousness. You can’t win ‘em all!
************
Years ago, in 1965, I met a wonderful young woman, Judy Todd, in New York. She was the daughter of ex-Prime Minister Garfield Todd of Rhodesia. She was pretty, intelligent and extremely well-mannered. She had a merry young laugh that broke out at any moment. But she was a most determined opponent of the racist White government of the time. (Okay, she could be naïve at times about how such a government could be overthrown.) The years passed, Judy went back to her country, married a Lord, and became Judith. But at all times she continued to use her considerable international connections to wage war against the racist minority government of her country. When Rhodesia became Zimbabwe, to her utter distress it became clear that one bad government had been replaced by another. There were reasons and excuses for this, and for a while she held her tongue — wanted to, also, because the battle, and the victory that followed, had been too important to easily cast aside. Where did you begin? And when she increasingly took up the cudgels, she was immediately and brutally punished: with prison, with losing her Zimbabwean citizenship (as did her then elderly and frail dad), and she was also punished by rape. In an article about her this week, like a lacerating roar of pain, she announces that President Mugabe of Zimbabwe was bad from the very beginning. How many in Zimbabwe will say Amen to this! But wherever Judy Todd is today, and all the others bruised, maimed and destroyed by this war, the struggle was, is, a triumph of the human spirit and will never finally be lost.