I’ve always been prone to little patches, you know. For most
of my adult life I’ve been given to occasional little Gallic patches, and about
twenty years ago I went through quite an extended Indian patch. These days it’s
more likely to be little American patches and little Chinese patches. Anyway,
back to Shostakovich.
I have a remote family connection with him. My ex-wife had a
great aunt called Ethel Voynitch who wrote a novel called The Gadfly, and when it was made into a film, Shostakovich wrote
the music. I liked to think of him as a sort
of cool uncle by association and marriage, three times removed. But I’m not
married to Ethel Voynitch’s great niece any more, and Shostakovich is dead
anyway, so I’m not really sure why I mentioned it. But to go off at a tangent…
I once heard a young woman refer to an older man as ‘my cool
uncle.’ Clearly, cool uncles are not to be confused with familial uncles, and
that’s where my objection lies. When a young woman calls somebody ‘my cool
uncle,’ it’s a bit like saying ‘In view of your advanced age and relative
physical infirmity, your role in my life can be to serve the drinks and tend
the fire while I give the Keys of the Kingdom to somebody else.’ What kind of a
put-down is that?
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