Monday
The Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, normally gets love-bombed wherever he goes for being the nicest, most liberal world leader around. But on his recent trip to India, he ran into some flak for dressing up in Indian clothes and being filmed doing Bhangra dancing at an official event. Some gave him the thumbs up for embracing the Indian lifestyle and demonstrating his hands-on inclusivity, but a rather greater number of people took offence, suggesting that Trudeau’s idea of culture was lost in a time-warp of 1970s Bollywood films. It also made you wonder just where Trudeau would draw the line. On a visit to New Zealand, would he strip to the waist and do the Haka when meeting local Maori people? Or on a visit to Texas, would he wear a stetson and arm himself with a semi-automatic rifle? It would also be quite fun if, on his return visit to Canada, the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, would disembark from the aircraft in Ottawa dressed as a Mountie and greet Trudeau with a solo rendition of The Lumberjack Song. Just to show how much he understands Canadian culture.
Tuesday
Many people who live outside the M25 are probably right to suspect that the “beast from the east” is only getting so much attention in the media is because the snow and icy conditions have affected London. One friend, who lives in Herefordshire, said that he had six inches of snow before Christmas and nobody took a blind bit of notice. But this rather misses the point. One of the reasons people like me don’t live in the country is precisely because we are complete wets who can’t cope with extreme cold weather conditions. And by extreme, I mean a few degrees below freezing in the daytime. So when roads in London become mildly treacherous with a hint of ice, we panic. I’ve tried to see the beauty in winter snowscapes, but my overwhelming feeling is always one of claustrophobia. Rather than think of the opportunities for enjoying the pristine whiteness out on Tooting Bec Common, my mind invariably turns to all the things I will be unable to do. I start to worry about not being able to get to work, being unable to fulfil engagements. Everything really. Even the garden. Though my anxieties over whether the banana plants that I wrapped up last November will survive are almost certainly displacement activity. The survival I’m really worried about is my own.
Wednesday
There was concern among political reporters ahead of the annual Westminster correspondents’ dinner as Theresa May was due to give the main speech. Given her track record there were fears she would die on her feet and the whole evening would end in embarrassment. But the prime minister proved a revelation. There was not a trace of the Maybot on view. She was genuinely funny and witty – telling jokes against herself, her colleagues, the opposition and members of the lobby – and she delivered her speech with panache, comic timing and even an unexpected touch of smut. She even made it sound like a speech she might have written herself and not something she was reading for the first time. Yes, it was that good. Which left me wondering why she is so poor at giving the really important speeches that affect the future of the country. The only answer I could come up with is that this was a speech she actually believed in, whereas when she is talking about Brexit she knows she is clutching at straws.
Thursday
Barbra Streisand has revealed she had two clones made of her adored dog, Samantha, before it died last year. Now I well understand pet love. I’d be devastated if anything happened to Herbert Hound. Only this week, he managed to cut his paw out walking on the common. Now has his leg in a bandage and is in danger of being given the cone of shame if he doesn’t stop trying to tear it off, but it would never occur to me to want to replicate him. One of the things that makes him so special is that he is unique. Literally irreplaceable. So to go through the effort and expense of cloning – especially when as in Streisand’s case, her dog was a pedigree so there would be no trouble finding a puppy that looked almost identical – would feel in some way wrong. Disrespectful. There again, it’s her money and her sense of priorities. If I was to die, I can’t imagine anyone in my family wanting to go through the process of cloning me. But that said, I do come lower down the pecking order than the dog.
Friday
I was 12 when Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation was broadcast in 1969, and it was “event TV” for the whole family. As my only memory of the series is being forced to watch it by my parents who were intent on improving me, I recently re-watched the first episode to remind myself of what I had forgotten. Apart from its exclusively western-centric perspective, what most struck me was that it could easily have been mistaken for a Radio 4 Reith lecture with a few background stills and location shots thrown in as an afterthought. I’m not sure what my 12-year-old self would have made of the first episode of the remake Civilisations, which was broadcast last night, but I can’t help feeling I would have been far more engaged by Simon Schama’s take. Not just for his attempts to make global political connections between art and history, but for his passion. Schama made the 25,000 year old ivory figurine of La Dame de Brassempouy almost come to life. That’s a remarkable talent for a historian to possess. Interestingly, the only places where both Clark and Schama did struggle was in finding an over-arching definition of civilisation that wasn’t vague or patronising. In the end, Shama appeared to settle for knowing civilisation by its absence. It worked for me.
Pictures of the week:
Digested week digested: The Westminster - Camden DMZ
