Monday
Ken Burns’s 10-part documentary on the Vietnam War finally reached its conclusion. It’s been a harrowing yet utterly gripping history lesson, with testimony from those who fought and campaigned on both sides. The final episode included the impeachment of President Nixon, which inevitably drew some telling comparisons with the present day. Back in the 1970s, Tricky Dicky was often presented as public enemy number one for his involvement in the Watergate affair and his cavalier regard for the truth; I can well remember the elation that followed his resignation after he was threatened with impeachment. But time plays tricks, and more than 40 years on Nixon’s crimes don’t seem quite so bad as they once did. If all President Trump had done was a bit of recreational bugging no one would bat an eyelid – Trump would just shrug the whole thing off in a couple of late-night tweets. The bar for standards in public office is now so low that even allegations of collaborating with the Russians to fix an election are not apparently grounds for possible impeachment.
Tuesday
The news that Sainsbury’s is to launch its own line of vinyl records with two compilation albums celebrating west coast and stereo sounds has come much too late in the day to save my own record collection. I got rid of all my rock and pop albums long ago – almost certainly to my cost, as some are probably collectible by now – and can’t bring myself to reinvest in all the old technology to take advantage of the vinyl revival. It just seems like far too much hassle and expense to rearrange the living room for a deck and amplifier, only for an irritating scratch to ruin track one and for the warp in the record to make track five jump. That said, it would be quite nice to know there was some way of playing my cabinet full of opera and classical records. For some reason I could never bring myself to part with them, and they have been gathering dust for the past 30 years.
Wednesday
Nights like these remind me of why I love football. After losing to both West Ham and Manchester United in fairly dismal fashion the previous week, Tottenham Hotspur’s match against Real Madrid at Wembley gave me few expectations. Instead, Spurs upped their game and outplayed the Spanish team that hadn’t lost a Champions League qualifier in five years. But, as so often, the victory was tinged with loss. The last magical European football night I had attended was seven years ago, when Spurs beat Inter Milan 3-1. Back then I had gone with my children, and it meant a lot to me to share the occasion with them. Now they are both well into their 20s, with lives and jobs of their own, and have far more pressing things to do than go with their father to a football match. I missed them being there. But on the bright side, at least I no longer have to take them out trick or treating on Halloween. That was always a night to forget.
Thursday
When I first became this paper’s political sketch writer, the Spectator’s Parliamentarian of the Year awards were a lunchtime affair held at the Savoy and I used to get an invite. For the past two years, the awards have been a much more upmarket evening affair and I have mysteriously become persona non grata. Yet the winners still make for interesting reading. This year, Labour’s Stella Creasy won the Backbencher of the Year award, while Angela Rayner was named Rising Star. Rayner’s response was: “I’m only here for the free dinner.” Insurgent of the Year went to Jacob Rees-Mogg, while the DUP’s Nigel Dodds deservedly got Negotiator of the Year for strong-arming the Conservatives into handing over £1bn in return for the support of his party’s 10 MPs. But in recent years some of the bigger awards have proved to be a mixed blessing. In 2015, David Cameron won Parliamentarian of the Year. Look what happened to him. Last year, Theresa May got Politician of the Year. Look what happened to her. Just in case there was a hat-trick of Tory jinxes, the Spectator this year declared Jeremy Corbyn to be Politician of the Year.
Friday
There are some weeks when the digested read is hard work. Having to wade through Dan Brown’s Origin – a book that makes The Da Vinci Code seem like a masterpiece – definitely felt like taking one for the team. But for the past fortnight it has been a pleasure to be paid to read books that I would have paid to read. Lucy Cooke’s The Unexpected Truth About Animals was a joy from beginning to end. Who could resist a writer who argues that penguins have been pulling the wool over our eyes for years, and that, far from being cute and gregarious, they are actually pathologically unpleasant necrophiliacs? For next Monday, I have been reading the recently discovered letters of Marcel Proust to his upstairs neighbour. I never get bored of other people’s letters, as they offer a window on the soul that is often lacking in writings intended for publication. In these missives, Proust writes a bit about memory, but mostly about how ill he is feeling and how he would quite like his neighbour to make less noise as he is very tired and finding it hard to work. They may be typically self-absorbed, but they are also surprisingly tender and – perhaps unintentionally – funny.
Digested week, digested: 11 minutes of bliss.
Picture of the week
