paulkincaid

Reading Stefan Collini's review of a 2005 biography of the very conservative historian Sir Arthur Bryant, and Collini notes Bryant's repeated claims that "an 'intellectual elite' was attempting to undermine 'ordinary people's' inherited religious and moral beliefs in order to impose a 'progressive agenda' that was alien to English traditions." Bryant would go on to argue that "(conservative) beliefs were natural and timeless, whereas his opponents' (radical) beliefs were the programmatic outcomes of 'system' and 'theory'." Consequently, Bryant's history "told 'the national story', which in turn revealed adherence to these traditional values to be the core of patriotism."

You can see exactly that process in the Brexit arguments of a few years ago ("we don't need no stinking experts"), and again in the Reform programme today. But it is not confined to England (Bryant tended to write about England rather than Britain), you see the same thing recurring across the world. The story has a familiar structure: emphasis on the great and noble past, particularly military heroics; the mythologising of defeats that somehow became a cause for celebration (Dunkirk, Valley Forge); the concentration on "Great Men" who of course just happened to look the same as us. You see this today in Netanyahu's Israel, in Orban's Hungary, and particularly vividly in Trump's America (though I suspect they might struggle with words like "programmatic"). Surely we on the left need to find a new way of telling the national story, but one that is still as vivid and attractive as the conservative version.

Yesterday I went over to Hastings for lunch with Leigh and Dev and others, a lovely day. But my train from Ashford to Hastings was cancelled. So I ended up having to catch a replacement bus service (not a very adequate one, the bus was stuffed and there were still around a dozen people who couldn't get on). The first stop after Ashford is a village called Hamstreet, which is just on the edge of the Romney Marsh, so the land round about is absolutely flat. And as we left the village I noticed a sign: "Mountain Farm". Well yes, the farmhouse was on raised ground, but the top of the rise was probably no higher above the surrounding flatness than the top of my head. I've never been called a mountain before.

I am planning a trip to Hastings this coming Saturday, so I was checking the train times. I first went to the Southeastern web site, put in my departure station, Folkestone Central, and my destination, Hastings, and the site wouldn't accept it. It kept telling me I couldn't have the same place for departure and destination. I hadn't realised Folkestone and Hastings were the same place, I'd have visited more often if I'd known.

So I went instead to the Trainline site. This, at least, realised that Folkestone and Hastings are two different places. Then I decided to check returns. If I specify the times I want to travel it was £6.10 each way, but I don't know exactly when I'll be leaving so how about a one-day return. Ah, this is £25. What?

Just had a delivery of catfood, five very heavy boxes that should keep the little monsters in food for the next three months. Except that the delivery driver thoughtfully piled them right outside my front door. For those who haven't been here, the front door opens outwards. So I couldn't actually get out in order to get the boxes inside. It took over five very strenuous minutes of pushing and pushing at the door until I managed to open a very narrow gap that proved to be just enough for me to squeeze through. All I can say is thank heavens I've been losing weight recently.

Just dispatched my second review of the year, with two more books waiting in the wings. Suddenly feeling rather busy.

I won't name the book I've just reviewed because I honestly cannot recommend it. It took me a long time to read because it is written in the most impenetrable academese that I have encountered in years. More long words per inch, less clarity per page. Then you get words like "obsolete" used as a verb (I would really love to obsolete that practice), and Anthropocene acquires an adjective, "Anthroposcenic", with an interpellated "s" that makes it sound like a tourist guide. Why do so many academics seem to believe that clear, accessible prose devalues their academic status?

Anyway, on to a more straightforward and hopefully better written book.

I don't know whether this will work, I'm not very good at keeping up with social media accounts, except for Fbook, and I'm looking for an alternative to that. So this is by way of an experiment.