Getting James.

I repeat: I see no point in New Year celebrations. To me, January 1^st is simply another day after the day before. Nevertheless, I am pleased that I kept my promise to myself through the long bouts of depression and attendant apathy: I aspired to reach the magic 200-posts-a-year minimum, and so I did. And tonight I completed what I would consider my only notable achievement of 2024 – I finally learned the language of Henry James.

I tried to read him a year or so ago, starting with The Turn of the Screw, which was reasonably transparent, and then moving on to a couple of short stories which certainly weren’t, at least not to me. I wouldn’t say that he wastes words, but he does tend to use rather a lot of them and often in the kind of order to which I am not accustomed. I suppose it’s because his natural idiom was American of the late 18^th century, whereas I’m English and a product of the 20^th century. Whatever the explanation, I found him insufferably dense and gave up. But this week I tried again (he is pretty highly regarded after all) and tonight I finished his story The Friends of the Friends, and I finally broke though the barrier so now I can read Henry James.

It tells the story of a man and a woman who never meet and never even correspond, but know one another entirely through the intercession of a mutual friend. And they have something in common: they both had, during their younger years, the same kind of paranormal experience. Through this arcane process they fall in love, and eventually it comes to a head in the most delightful way imaginable. And I’ll say no more in case anybody reading this blog wants to read the story and doesn’t want spoilers spoiling it.

So there you have it: I finally achieved something in 2024. Happy New Year to anyone who considers the greeting to be worthy of note.

The First of its Kind.

I’m fairly sure I’ve never made a New Year’s resolution. Never saw the point. I don’t even see any point in celebrating the New Year at all; it’s only a change of one digit on the calendar, isn’t it? That happens every day. But this year I’ve decided to make one, and here’s the story:

I was just watching a video of a rock and pop classic from the 1980s, and the chorus consisted of a bunch of black people in New York singing their hearts out and wearing them on their sleeves. I thought: ‘You know, some people can be so fuckin’ beautiful sometimes.’ (Please excuse the expletive; I’m in a warts and all mood.) And then the conversation began.

‘You’re on the last lap of your life now, JJ.’

‘I know.’

‘You’ve done some pretty bad things over the years, haven’t you?’

‘I have.’

‘And a few pretty decent ones, too.’

‘Thanks.’

‘So why not make the last lap a good one? Make a concerted effort to stop being quite so cynical. Start to recognise and appreciate the beautiful people instead, wherever they might be found. Do something you’ve never done before: make it a New Year’s resolution. What d’you think?’

‘Mmm… sounds like a good idea. But what about the rest?

‘The rest? Oh, I see; you mean the tyrants and the warmongers and all that crowd?’

‘Right.’

‘Well, one day you’ll probably have to learn to love everybody, but it can wait until the next time around or the one after that. There are no rules.’

‘OK then, agreed. But one last question.’

‘Yes.’

‘Who the hell are you?’

‘Just another fragment of the universe, as you are, here to keep an eye on you. Think of me as the Ghost of New Years Yet to Come, if you like’

‘Good analogy, so another last question: Can I still be cynical about Tiny freggin’ Tim?’

‘If you must.’

Is the Universe Conscious?

Many years ago I came across a quotation which I found intriguing (I think it’s fairly well known):

God sleeps in the stone, dreams in the plant, stirs in the animal, and wakes in man.

I Googled it tonight in an effort to discover its origin, but without success. One website said it came from a Sufi mystic, while another gave its origin as the Bhagavad Gita (which, as far as I know, predates Sufi mystics by quite some way.)

What intrigues me, however, is that it bears remarkable coincidence with the doctrine – accepted as credible by some mainstream scientists, apparently – of Panpsychism. This is the assertion that at the beginning of existence, unformed consciousness took form and created the whole material universe, and that consciousness is the fundamental basis of all matter, and exists – to different levels of attainment – in everything material.

I suppose that’s why I liked it, because it’s something I’ve suspected ever since my teen years. It also accords closely with the Hindu creation myth and is far removed from the hopelessly simplistic notions of God promoted by the exoteric teachings of the Judaic school.

(Then again, I don’t regard anything as established fact just because a Sufi mystic or a holy book says so. Thinking on.)

Dolorous But For the Dogs.

I went to Ashbourne today to do my post-Christmas grocery shop, but before I loaded myself up with heavy bags I decided to take a walk to the top of the Market Place. It was heaving with people, a great throng filling the pavements on both sides and covering as much of the space as was available among the vehicles on the market cobbles. A van was parked among the posh cars, generously kitted out with audio equipment and playing jazz music. I approached a woman and asked her what was going on.

‘We’re waiting for the hunt to come down the Buxton road,’ she said.

‘The hunt?’ I replied with the faintest hint of anguish. ‘Better make myself scarce then.’ (I’m not the biggest fan of hunting with hounds, you see, and the very sight of them turns me into something like a thermometer with the mercury rising rapidly and the glass in danger of destruction.) Since the only businesses open in the town were Sainsbury’s and the coffee shops, make a hasty retreat was what I did, back to the sanity of the supermarket.

But before I left the Market Place I saw a familiar face coming towards me. It was the woman I wrote about on the blog a few years ago – the one I used to see regularly in Sainsbury’s, the one who used to cackle at me and exchange banter, the one whose shopping trolley occasionally collided with mine, the one who quite unaccountably used to greet me like a long lost brother. She was smiling.

‘Hello,’ she said enthusiastically. ‘How nice to see you.’ Was it? I wonder why. I exchanged greetings reluctantly but politely, and hurried on.

But in spite of the generally downbeat nature of these few paragraphs, I have to mention the pet dogs. Lots of them. All sizes and colours held on leashes by members of the Market Place multitude, all looking happy with wagging tails, and all trying to make friends with all the other dogs. That, I told myself, was the silver lining.

Don't Tell the Children the Truth.

I’m still languishing in the dark place to which I consigned myself after the events of three weeks ago, but since we’re approaching Christmas and I promised myself that I would make at least 200 posts this year, I thought I should mention something which caught my eye a couple of days ago.

It seems there was a vicar somewhere in this green and pleasant land who gave a talk to a group of 11/12-year-old children on the subject of the Nativity. During the course of his address he mentioned that Santa Claus doesn’t actually exist, whereupon a cataclysm ensued. Several of the audience burst into tears, and many parents subsequently took to social media to express their outrage and denounce him in somewhat exaggerated terms. The shockwave was so great that he felt forced to make an apology.

My first thought was that 11/12 is the age at which kids in the UK transfer from primary school to high school and effectively become adolescents. By that age I’d known for some time that the whole Santa Claus thing was just a story. I’d always had doubts because of the sheer implausibility of the yarn, and by the age of 11 it was common knowledge among children of my generation that it was just a tale for kiddies. My question is, therefore: to what extent were the parents culpable in the sad episode of the vicar’s revelation? That’s the first irony, but it goes a little deeper.

A vicar can talk to children about the Nativity in terms which plant into impressionable young minds the notion that it’s all historical fact, when modern considered opinion realises that the whole story – or at least most of it – was created to serve the veracity of biblical prophecy and vindicate what was later purported to be Jesus’s ministry. (I once heard it claimed that archaeological investigation reveals that the Bethlehem to which modern ‘pilgrims’ travel was not even occupied at the time indicated in the gospels. And further, that there was no Roman census around that time. And all the supernatural stuff is, let’s face it, a bit suspiciously convenient.)

It seems to me, therefore, that a vicar’s re-telling of the Nativity story amounts to little short of legitimised lying. And yet he can tell a simple, incontestable truth – that Santa Claus isn’t real – and be rained upon with enough bananas to make Central America one of the world’s economic hotspots. That strikes me as a further irony and one of rather greater substance.)

*  *  *

I had more to say, but I’m tired of typing so I’m off to get my coffee and toast. (I had my first Christmas mince pie after my solstice fire yesterday. The burgeoning gale just about allowed me to light it - the fire, that is. The mince pie was gobbled greedily.)

Principles and Failures.

Last night I did something in serious violation of one of my most strongly held principles. I did it because I was scared of the consequences of not doing it, which is pretty shameful and probably as good a reason as any for hiding away in a dark place for a span of time yet to be discovered. Principles are central to my priorities, you see. It’s an INFJ thing.

A supremely attractive young woman of maybe west Asian heritage (Iranian or Afghan was my guess) walked past me today pushing a baby in a buggy. She turned and smiled at me, but it didn’t help. And I watched an episode of Peep Show on DVD tonight which carried vague echoes of my experience with Sheona McCormack all those years ago. That didn’t help either because I yelled at Sheona when I shouldn’t have done and the cause was lost forever. It’s one of my most memorable failures.

But it’s all happened before, and it’s life and life only, and I expect I’ll be back eventually.

The Mad Woman of Utcheter.

(‘Utcheter’ is what the lazy locals call Uttoxeter.)

Some months ago I was walking through Uttoxeter bus station when I saw an elderly woman sitting in one of the shelters, surrounded by shopping bags and other receptacles full to the brim with household requisites, blankets and so on. I asked her whether she was homeless because I thought the bags might contain all her worldly possessions and intended to give her some money with which to buy a hot drink and a meal. She reacted sharply and denied the fact, and so I apologised and walked on.

I saw her several times in the same shelter, but then she and her ‘possessions’ disappeared for a few weeks. And then the pattern changed. At the bottom end of the bus station is a taxi rank consisting of a long glass shelter with a bench running the whole length and big enough to accommodate around eight people. A few weeks ago I took the same route through the bus station and noticed that the bench in the taxi rank was completely covered with the same collection of receptacles which I’d seen surrounding the old lady. Only the old lady wasn’t with them, and what’s odd is that this huge collection of household requisites has been in the shelter, unattended, ever since. And I should add that all this stuff looks brand new.

So, skip back a few weeks…

I was in the retail park down the hill from the town and passing the B&Q store (it’s one of a national chain of hardware/DIY/garden stores.) And there was the old lady walking out of the place with a shopping trolley full of yet more of the same bags and receptacles – all apparently new and freshly bought.

Skip back a little further…

I made a blog post about an old woman with matted grey hair who was wandering around a charity shop, eying me suspiciously and talking to somebody who wasn’t there. I realised when I saw the woman at B&Q that it was the same woman.

So now I have a mystery on my hands: Who is this woman? Why does she make an apparent career of endlessly buying household requisites? Where does she find the money, because it must be costing her a small fortune? Why does she leave it all lying around in a public place for anyone to steal? And maybe most important of all, from which attic has she escaped and should women called Jane keep a fire extinguisher handy. (I’m assuming everybody is familiar with Jane Eyre.)

End (so far.)

Sorry for the ramble, but the creature which invades the roof space above my kitchen is being particularly troublesome tonight and it’s driving me to distraction.

On Choosing When to Leave the Hell Hole.

Earlier today I read the BBC article on the upcoming Assisted Dying Bill shortly to come before the British parliament. This is the Bill which proposes that terminally ill people who are suffering badly and wish to end their lives should be allowed to have medical assistance to achieve that wish. Naturally, it has safeguards built in to preclude any possibility of people being pressured to accede against their will.

Many MPs have been expressing their views this week and making known their voting intention. Some of the objections are religious in nature, some stem from imagined demons which I think are unlikely to exist, and the Rt Hon Gordon Brown said that he will vote against the Bill because he believes that life is a ‘gift’ (without, as far as know, saying from whom) and that it is ‘beautiful.’

I could wax eloquent on this subject. In fact, I have been waxing eloquent in my mind ever since I read the article. But I dislike long blog posts these days so I’ll just offer two remarks:

To Gordon Brown I would say ‘not if you have Motor Neurone Disease, it isn’t.’ And I would suggest to other detractors that they should consider the possibility that one day they might be struck down by a condition which leaves them tormented by agonising pain, locked into a body which has become a torture chamber, and crying desperately for the mercy of release. Do they think they might then wish that they’d voted differently? 

James and the Mystery Visitor.

I said in a recent post that the last story in James Joyce’s anthology Dubliners is the longest and most tedious of them all. Seems I owe Mr J an apology because last night I read the final few pages and they contain the loveliest exposition of deep melancholy and the perception of mortality that I think I’ve ever read. So kudos to Mr J after all, although whether or not I will ever find the fortitude to read Ulysses remains to be seen.

*  *  *

And while I’m in the mood for saying things that nobody will be interested to read, I thought I’d mention that Blogger stats reports many instances of someone using Chrome browser with Windows visiting the blog on a regular basis, but the location is never shown. I wish they’d send me an email or leave a comment so I know who’s watching me.

(I should also add that I'm trying to reach 200 posts by the end of the year, because to do less would be shameful.)

Manipulation.

There’s an advert on my inbox home page for the new iPhone 16 Pro Max. Naturally intrigued, as one who declines to follow the stroke and poke brigade would be, I gave a little thought to the name: Pro Max. Sounds impressive, doesn’t it?  Well… no. Actually it sounds a bit silly.

It’s obviously a portmanteau concoction composed of Professional and Maximum, ‘professional’ suggesting elevation to a higher level, and ‘maximum’ implying that it does all a piece of modern technology is capable of doing. It’s all meaningless fakery designed to manipulate the minds of the gullible into believing that having one represents a step up the ladder in the matter of tram line status. (And I suppose it probably does, tragically.)

There’s nothing new about this, of course. I remember when manufacturers of winter clothing accessories such as gloves and T shirts began to use the term ‘thermal.’ It’s intended to give the impression that the fabric is inherently superior to normal fabric, being produced by clever modern technology appropriate to the space age. All it actually means is ‘thicker.’

(Even I was initially taken in by that one, but it was a long time ago and I was much younger then. My error was pointed out by an older shop assistant who said ‘Don’t be taken in by that nonsense. It just means ‘thicker.’ Thank you. And yet they’re still doing it.)