{Royal News}[12th May 1970]

[Redbook1:155][19700512:0930]{Royal News}[12th May 1970]

9.30am Tuesday 12th May 1970

            I wonder if in, say, fifteen years time the princes Edward and Andrew will be subject to as much publicity and smut-and-sneer-searching as was Princess Margaret before she married.

[PostedBlogger28022013]

{Russian Imperialism}[11th May 1970]

[Redbook1:155][19700511:0000]{Russian Imperialism}[11th May 1970]

Monday 11th May 1970.

            I should have mentioned in Thursday's entry the argument that Russia wants to keep the war going in order to extend its own influence and build up a new 'empire'.  I don't know how much truth there is in this, but I doubt if the Arab states would volunteer to accept Russian domination.

[PostedBlogger27022013]

{European Translation}[7th May 1970]

[Redbook1:154][19700507:2045]{European Translation}[7th May 1970]

8.45pm

            The real breakthrough for Europe, the thing that will make it a reality to be desired by the greater mass of people, will be the cheap pocket translator of basic typed and spoken language -- i.e. in symbols and sounds, for input and output.  I should think that it is about ten years off in that version -- one capable of handling, say, thirty different languages in one model.

            It might well, incidentally, act as its own audio-learning system: constant association by the use of certain words would at length become recognisable.

[PostedBlogger26022013]

{Nationalism}[7th May 1970]

[Redbook1:154][19700507:1355b]{Nationalism}[7th May 1970]

Thursday 7th May 1970 1.55pm [continued]

            I am beginning to distrust nationalism more and more: it is responsible for so many of our present ills as a planet, and it clouds so many issues even more.  But properly directed, it can be essential.

[PostedBlogger25022013]

{The Superpowers and Regional Conflicts [continued]}[7th May 1970]

[Redbook1:153-4][19700507:1355a]{The Superpowers and Regional Conflicts [continued]}[7th May 1970]

Thursday 7th May 1970 1.55pm [continued]

            A further complication in the Middle East is the growth of Israel into a half-superpower on her own account, in military terms, under the stimulus of war.  She will probably have her own short and short-medium range nuclear-warhead missiles by 1975, and then let the Kremlin and the Pentagon look to their rule-books.  At that stage the present fairly safe system (in relative terms) of superpower backing will become extremely dangerous for the whole world.  At the present the quality of Israel's own indigenous short-range military technology -- as contrasted with Egypt's externally provided aid -- is rapidly approaching that of France and Britain.  Quantity is, of course, another matter, and so is political influence -- one hopes.

            Part of the trouble is that the Arabs know very well that Israel, as a country whose technology is deeply rooted in that of the European-based peoples, is almost certain to dwarf them economically within 20 years of the final peace settlement.

[PostedBlogger24022013]

{The Superpowers and Regional Conflicts}[7th May 1970]

[Redbook1:152-154][19700507:1355]{The Superpowers and Regional Conflicts}[7th May 1970]

Thursday 7th May 1970 1.55pm

            There is an essential difference between the present conflicts in the Near-Middle East and the Far East, as far as the superpowers are concerned.  In the Middle East the two superpowers are concerned really only to prevent their champions losing; they are not particularly interested in having an all-out victory for their side.  The Americans know that it is impossible and the Russians know their influence will probably decrease if they did.  They are, therefore, more open to moves towards peace

and even the possibility of super-power collaboration -- if the conflict was in isolation, which it is not.

            The Far East conflict is another matter altogether. Here one superpower is directly involved, with all that implies in terms of prestige, and the other is supporting its champions (with China) for ideological reasons. For the Communists to retreat to the North would be to admit defeat, if only temporarily, for their aim is nothing less than total conquest of South Vietnam.  For the Americans to leave would also be to admit defeat -- as they are doing, or trying to do. We have just seen how difficult the Americans are finding this process of admitting defeat, because it necessarily involves the other side in winning [sic!].

            The point is this: that in the Middle East conflict, where both sides are acting largely to protect friendly but uncontrolled states, de-escalation or disarmament by one side could well lead to similar moves by the other if the exercise was organised carefully. In the Far East, where the conflict is one of basic ideology and of two forms of imperialism (of a kind), -- as far as the two and a half superpowers involved are concerned -- de-escalation (horrible word) or disarmament by one side would inevitably lead to a corresponding escalation by the other, because the motives of the two powers are much more self-interested.  If the Americans retreat we know the Communists will advance with Russian and Chinese support until they hold the whole of South Vietnam, and it seems likely after such a time that if by some fantastic chance the communists were forced to retreat the Americans would also advance to take in North Vietnam.

                        In the Middle East, Egypt would certainly like to destroy Israel but it is unlikely (though conceivable) that Russia would allow her to do so. Israel has already captured much of political Egypt but would be extremely unlikely to invade further and could not do so with[out] American support.  Similarly, it seems likely that the Americans could put pressure on Israel to withdraw from what she has conquered.

            In the Middle East superpower involvement wants to preserve the balance of stability, as is shown on one side at least by Nixon's decision not to supply more Phantoms and by Russian defensive missiles (I hope).  In the Far East superpower involvement is determined to extend its own authority at the expense of the other power.

            Of course, in the ultimate, neither side is the real loser: it is the people underneath and in between what cop it.

[PostedBlogger23022013]

{The Sleeping Giant}[6th May 1970]

[Redbook1:151][19700506:2315]{The Sleeping Giant}[6th May 1970]

11.15pm

            There is a giant asleep in Europe today.  Occasionally he twitches in his sleep, but after the fashion of the spastic giant:  his limbs flail wildly in all directions.  Then he falls asleep again; but each time, he sleeps a little less soundly.

[PostedBlogger22022013]

{Vietnam}[6th May 1970]

[Redbook1:150-151][19700506:2205]{Vietnam}[6th May 1970]

10.05pm

            At one time I fully supported the Americans in Vietnam.  I still support their declared aims; but the means outweigh them in the balance.  Whatever the horrors of Communist life -- and they are horrors, I do believe, in South-east Asia -- this great horror has gone on long enough.  The number of civilians killed by accident or intentionally in South Vietnam by the American forces must now be comparable to the number who would have been executed by the Communists.  Similarly, the degree of suffering cannot be much less than it would have been.  The war has cost America far more in money, in tied-up forces, in world-image, in internal trouble and in potential citizens than could ever have been gained by keeping South Vietnam under the Western influence and than could possibly be regained now even were America to succeed.  If the people are to die either way, as seems likely, let it be the communist forces and not the Western ones, the Christian ones, that do the killing.  If this Cambodian offensive fails, or if it has not succeeded by the date set, then for God's sake pull out and let us have no more of this.

            Otherwise, I fear for the integrity of America.

            ‘Don't worry; we know you did your best.  We also know how hard it is to admit defeat, especially for a nation that imagines itself to be unbeatable.  We shan't despise you for being unsuccessful in a war where not to win is to be defeated -- for your side; in fact, on the whole, we shall like you rather better for it.’

[PostedBlogger21022013]

{Intolerance}[6th May 1970]

[Redbook1:150][19700506:1750b]{Intolerance}[6th May 1970]

Wednesday 6th May 1970   5.50pm [continued]

            I find only intolerance quite intolerable.

            I shall only

                        Question answers

                        Suspect statements

                        Dislike dislike

                        Hate hatred

                        Terrify terror

                        Be cruel to cruelty

            And Kill Death.

                                    Can I thus hope to win understanding?

[PostedBlogger20022013]

{Boycotts [continued]}[6th May 1970]

[Redbook1:146-150][19700506:1750a]{Boycotts [continued]}[6th May 1970]

Wednesday 6th May 1970   5.50pm [continued]

            Nevertheless these comparisons between institutions and individuals must be made because actions among the former so often occur later among the latter.  This might seem even more probable in view of our present ambivalent attitude to individual rights.  One example of this is the way 4 Labour MPs and the Surrey anti-apartheid group (individuals within an institution, and another institution) sent a petition to the Queen (one individual forced permanently to represent, and be, a neutral institution) requesting that she should not meet (partly as the institution, partly personally?) the mayor-elect of Epsom (representing a neutral -- on this subject -- institution) because of his views held (as a person, not for an institution) on Rhodesia (a political institution to which the petitioners are opposed). 

Now, there are several ways of seeing this.  One is to say that the petitioners are within their rights because the Queen represents the Government which does not recognise Rhodesia, and the Mayor-elect (presumably) supports this Rhodesia, and that therefore the Queen should not recognise this man or communicate with him.  On the other hand, one could say that the local left-wingers were trying to get at the local right-winger, with whom they may have other differences and perhaps personal animosities.  I think the first argument is dangerous, and the second one we cannot discuss here. 

My argument is that this becomes dangerously near to the A-B-C pattern of personal relationships outlined above -- and that would be a form of blackmail.  Every man is entitled to his own opinions provided they do not harm others (or, to a lesser extent, himself): the mayor-elect is not an official representative of Rhodesia and he should not therefore be treated as an institution as an individual, so far as his views on Rhodesia ago.  He is a representative of Epsom in local government and was elected by the good citizens of Epsom and/or their elected representatives, who presumably knew about his views on Rhodesia, if the Surrey Anti-apartheid group did.  He is therefore more representative of local people than is the A-AG -- whatever the Government may say at a national level. But as far as his personal views on foreign policy go this is irrelevant, and those views in their turn are irrelevant to (a) the official (local) status in which he might meet the Queen and (b) his worth as a person in personal relationships.

            The reason why I am so annoyed about this is because I can see myself, for example, going to Rhodesia to have a look at what's happening and being pigeonholed ever after as a racialist -- which, oddly enough, I am not!  The principles on which one must not question the thoughts of the leaders because they have been proved right by the people who don't question are (a) infantile and (b) the foundation of tyranny.  There are many reasons for their success -- such as the security they give -- which I cannot go into here, but I instinctively sheer away from movements which accept only converts as people and treat all critics as enemies.

[PostedBlogger19022013]

{Boycotts}[6th May 1970]

[Redbook1:146-150][19700506:1750]{Boycotts}[6th May 1970]

Wednesday 6th May 1970   5.50pm

            A trend which worries me appears in the way political pressure groups are trying to pressurise non-political or unaligned or neutral groups not to communicate with other groups of whose politics the pressure groups do not approve.  Hence: the Indian government recommends that the Indian Olympics committee boycott the Commonwealth Games in order to force the MCC to cancel their invitation to the apartheid-based South African team to come to Britain.  There is something doubly sinister about this: firstly, as I said above, that a politically unaligned group should be pressured to break off relations with its colleagues, and secondly, that a further complication should be added by the fact that the Commonwealth Games organisation, the group that is being directly pressurised by the Indian Government (and others), has no connection (as far as I know) with the MCC, the group that the pressurisers hope to influence -- other than the fact that both are in the same country. 

The implication must be that either (a) the MCC should be unselfish to the Commonwealth Games and cancel the tour -- which, given the MCC’s beliefs, is asking too much – or (b) the [UK] Government should respond (to pressure) and ban the South Africans’ tour -- which under the circumstances would be equally sinister because we are not, for example, at war with South Africa, nor have we declared that we do not recognise it or its people.  It would, in a word, be undemocratic not so much in the act itself, which would be no more undemocratic than many similar government actions, but in its motives and its implications for democracy and our own freedom.

            Let us bring this down to individual terms -- although I must stress that this is only to make the situation clearer, and to warn of possible developments, not to imply [sic] against the ethics of the present situation.  In the simple case, perhaps, A likes B and B likes C but A hates C, therefore A tells B to stop knowing C or A will stop knowing B.  What B does depends on his own character and his own assessment of the situation. 

However, politics is not based on friendship nor on individual welfare -- though perhaps it should be.  The situation would be better described in the following way: W deals [with] X who has fairly close personal connections with Y who deals with Z; W dislikes Z.  W therefore threatens to break off his dealings and/or friendship with X unless Y breaks off his dealings and/or friendship with Z.  He hopes that (a) X will be persuaded to urge his friend Y to do so and (b) Y will feel morally bound to help his friend X by doing so – that Y will feel the burden is on him.  In fact, of course, if Y is wise or has a mixture of ruthlessness, foresight and strong principles, he will realise that the true burden is on W, who has set the conditions of this game and who therefore bears responsibility for it.  Although X should not be harmed unfairly in this way it is not up to Y to help him by giving in, because that would harm Z through no fault of his own -- and the responsibility for that would be largely Y’s.

            Of course you cannot compare political tactics directly with the tactics of personal relationships, but equally, of course, politics is based on masses of individuals, and also on solitary individuals.  So let W be the Indian Government, let X be the Commonwealth Games organisation, let Y be the MCC, and let Z be the South African team and parallels become clearer.  But perhaps the most difficult factor for X and Y is not so much what will happen to X if Y stands firm, it is what the effect on all X’s contacts will be.  That is one of the reasons why direct comparisons are dangerous.

[continues]

[PostedBlogger18022013]

{Limitations on Good Government}[5th May 1970]

[Redbook1:146][19700505:1815f]{Limitations on Good Government}[5th May 1970]

Tuesday 5th May 1970   6.15pm [continued]

(L)       You can't expect the government to do everything (said the head of it): there are some things for the proper guidance of this country which you, the people, must do yourselves.  The government can coerce people but some things cannot or should not be obtained from you by coercion. You, the people, can persuade people, and you can persuade yourselves, to respect the vital things in our civilisation, such as respect for the law, willingness to do one’s bit, compassion, helpfulness -- all the little things that cannot be enforced but can be adopted -- by you.

            These are the things on which our way of living is founded; and in the last resort it is not the government that runs the country, your servants; it is the people, yourselves.

[PostedBlogger17022013]

{Originality}[5th May 1970]

[Redbook1:145-146][19700505:1815e]{Originality}[5th May 1970]

Tuesday 5th May 1970   6.15pm [continued]

(L)       No artistic creation -- no creation of any sort -- indeed, no interpretation -- is truly original.  Creation and interpretation are rather like mathematics, or cookery, or -- better still -- chemistry: one puts together the various influences of a heredity and environment -- which last covers everything, really, including the first -- and you may get just a mixture with the properties of all the original influences relatively discernible; but if the conditions are right, if there is a catalyst in the environment, you may develop a compound-like structure, a completely new approach and attitude: new, but not truly original, for it is wholly rooted in older matters, however different from them it may be.

            What fun this all is.

[PostedBlogger17for16022013]

{Statesmanship and Politics}[5th May 1970]

[Redbook1:145][19700505:1815d]{Statesmanship and Politics}[5th May 1970]

Tuesday 5th May 1970   6.15pm [continued]

(L)       Talleyrand, I am told, said that “the art of statesmanship is to foresee the inevitable and to expedite its occurrence.”

            The art of politics consists largely of foreseeing the inevitable and making it seem as though

                        (a) it is right

                 and (b) you have done it.

[BT, killed while filming abroad last year, gave an entertaining and irritating account of this, I think at UI: on some domestic committee, they discovered soft loo paper was to be introduced, so began to press strongly for its introduction. <870808>]

[PostedBlogger14for15022013]

{Truism}[5th May 1970]

[Redbook1:144-145][19700505:1815c]{Truism}[5th May 1970]

Tuesday 5th May 1970   6.15pm [continued]

            I've just looked up 'Truism' in the C[oncise].O[xford].D[ictionary]. as a check.  An example given is: “I don't like my tea too hot” = “I don't like my tea hotter than I like it” -- the second statement is obviously a truism, but the first?  How else would one say it?  If one said “I don't like my tea hot” one's host could be forgiven for cooling it (the tea) with ice. “ I don't like my tea very hot” -- well, “very” is a relative term and as far as drinking is concerned is almost as much a truism – “ I don't like my tea hotter than I usually drink tea” -- as well as being slightly more ambiguous because one cannot be certain what are the drinker’s heat-resistant qualities.  The mistake made by the C.O.D. is, I think, in assuming that “too hot” means “too hot for me (the drinker and speaker)” -- in fact it should usually be taken by the person spoken to to mean “too hot for most of us”; or in other words, “I don't like my tea too hot” should really be used to say “I don't like my tea hotter than it is generally liked” -- possibly a needless comment but not, I think, a truism.  However, we now come to a distinct warping of the meaning which one assumes the expression to have had originally: for someone who says in conversation, as the tea is being prepared or poured, “ I don't like my tea too hot” actually means (in most cases -- if he means anything at all*) “ I don't like my tea as hot as I have sometimes found it”, or in other words “ I like my tea rather less hot than it is generally or sometimes liked”. (The first stage) This is a definite message of importance and intends to carry a certain relative standard of measurement – the *C.O.D.’s definition of meaning has no intention of message and could possibly correspond to the second stage of the use of the expression by a person, when he says it purely from force of habit -- but a habit which grew out of the first stage.

            All of which is pretty pointless but quite fun.

PostedBlogger14022013]

{Democratic Blocs}[5th May 1970]

[Redbook1:144][19700505:1815b]{Democratic Blocs}[5th May 1970]

Tuesday 5th May 1970   6.15pm [continued]

(L)       A combination of genuinely democratic powers to support endangered democratic governments would get round the problem of the non-democratic veto in the UN, but might awaken a similar non-democratic grouping.  Would it be much more than a simple alliance, anyway?  And what is democracy?  Similarity of constitution does not imply similarity of policy -- a truism.

PostedBlogger13022013]

{Obsolescence}[5th May 1970]

[Redbook1:144][19700505:1815a]{Obsolescence}[5th May 1970]

Tuesday 5th May 1970   6.15pm [continued]

(L)       It would appear that built-in obsolescence is at last becoming obsolescent, at least in a few fields.

PostedBlogger12022013]

{Applause}[5th May 1970]

[Redbook1:143][19700505:1815]{Applause}[5th May 1970]

Tuesday 5th May 1970   6.15pm

(L)       For a speaker, one thing is possibly more disconcerting than making a joke which falls flat, and that is hearing everyone laugh at a joke he has not made.

[PostedBlogger11022013]

{Character and Opinion}[24th April 1970]

[Redbook1:143][19700424:1025]{Character and Opinion}[24th April 1970]

Friday 24th April 1970  10.25pm

            Something which annoys me more than characters without opinions -- much more -- is opinions in people without characteristics or characters: in fiction because it's dull, lazy and unrealistic, in life because it's terrifying.

[PostedBlogger10022013]

[Growing Pains][17th April 1970]

[Redbook1:143A][19700417:0000][Growing Pains][17th April 1970]

17.4.70.

Growing Pains.

                                    Ever since ape-child first began

                                    To push against parental ban,

                                    And joined the Group -- forsook the Clan –

                                                This is the Child

                                                            Becomes the Man.

                                    The same for Chimp, Orang-utan

                                    As Russian, Scot, Malay, Pathan

                                    From Shannon’s Town to North Japan –

                                                This way the Child

                                                            Becomes the Man.

                                    The prince who disobeyed his Khan

                                    Was frowned on by the Artisan –

                                    Whose son, who ATE, washed not the pan –

                                                Who saw how Child

                                                            Becomes the Man.

                                    He occupied the best divan

                                    And commandeered the chief sedan

                                    And rode about where father RAN! –

                                                They knew the Child

                                                            Becomes the Man.

                        The Girl who’s always tired and wan,

                        Obsessed with make-up, songs and tan,

                        And craves for tights, and – “marzipan?!” –

                                    She knows the Child

                                                Becomes The Man.

                        The Boy who tinkers with a van,

                        Affords the world a leisured scan,

                        Or, brooding, kicks an empty can:

                                    This way they Child

                                                Becomes the Man.

                        “He's lost his former joy, elan;

                        For future, not for now, his plan;

                        How shall I last his youthful span?”

                                    -- And so the child

                                                Becomes the Man.

[PostedBlogger09022013]

[The War Game][16th April 1970]

[Redbook1:142A][19700416:0000][The War Game][16th April 1970]

16.4.70.

Beneath Sacre-Coeur.

The War Game.

Do you see the children

                                                playing in the sun?

I'll show you then the scene, the men,

                                    I see in every one.

See you now the game they play

                                    -- the hide, the seek, the chase?

They play this game that has no name

                                    when Men come face to face.

            Ah!  Watch you there: the careful stalk,

                                    the sudden yelling run

            -- I might have seen him clad in green,

                                    with vicious, spitting gun.

            And heard you then the hue and cry

                                    as after him they ran?

            In that I hear the hate and fear

                                    the Crowd holds for the Man.

            And did you see the fight they had,

                                    the fists, the panting breath?

            In twenty years not just in tears it ends,

                                    but just in death.

            And see -- behind the bush -- the one

                                    with darting, frightened eyes:

            So soon, she knows -- the knowledge shows

                                    -- that if she moves -- she dies.

            Remember now that school, that walks

                                    in columns, four by four

            -- Remember when you saw them, then,

                                    when they march off to war.

            How can you ask for total peace,

                                    Why do you hope and pray,

            When children draw the scene of war

                                    with every game they play?

                        “I well know, friend, what in the end

                                    our hope is traded for;

                        but while I hope, and try to cope

                                    -- how will you fight this ... War?"

[PostedBlogger08022013]

[A la Tour Eiffel][15th April 1970]

[Redbook1:141A][19700415:0000]{A la Tour Eiffel}[15th April 1970]

15.4.70.

A la Tour Eiffel

            (Tres vite) “Monsieur, monsieur, voulez-vous vous souvenir de votre journee?”

            “Quoi?”

            “Voulez-vous vous souvenir de votre journee ici avec des photographie Polaroids?”

            “Pardon, monsieur, je ne peux pas.....”

            “Ah! Vous etes Anglais, n’est-ce pas...? Pouvez-vous comprendre le francais?”

            “Ah.... Oui, un peu....

            “Bon! Tenez ce-ci, monsieur... et maintenant, s’il vous plait, un petit sourire... bon! C’est cinq francs, monsieur!”

            “Cinq francs? Mais pourquoi?”

            “Pour la photographie, monsieur... ici, la photographie Polaroid.”

            “Mais je ne veux pas de photographie....”

            “Ah, monsieur, vous devez payer... ici la photographie et vous, vous tenez les cartes, monsieur... c’est cinq francs, monsieur.”

            “Mais, je ne....”

            “Eh bien, monsieur, maintenant j’appelle le gendarme et nous verrons ce-qu’il dit.  Ah, ou est...”

            “Non – non, je paie. Voici les cinqs francs!  Et les photographies?  Merci.”

            “Merci, monsieur, merci; au revoir; merci!”

LA FIN

[Accents not entered, mistakes not identified!]

[PostedBlogger07022013]

{Emotional Politics}[13th April 1970]

[Redbook1:143][19700413:1005]{Emotional Politics}[13th April 1970]

Monday 13th April 1970  10.05 a.m.

            One of the basic questions for British socialism is this: Does one believe that one will earn more real wealth for the bulk of the people of the country by emphasising redistribution of incomes or by concentrating on providing incentives for everyone?  Since it is not easy to measure either possibility, the question becomes rooted -- like so many others in British politics -- in emotion and (dare I say it?) the psychological make-up of the individual who holds the view.

            In fact, nearly all our arguments are chosen because of our emotional base, and rationalised thereafter.  And absolutely all of our approaches to a question are emotionally orientated i.e. they reflect our personal psychology -- even in "lack of emotion".

[PostedBlogger06022013]

{Children in War}[12th April 1970]

[Redbook1:142][19700412:2400]{Children in War}[12th April 1970]

Saturday 12th April 1970 [continued]

12 midnight

            One of the things which annoys me most about wars, I think, is the way children get brought into them and up in them.  It seems so unfair.  What on earth have they done to deserve it?  And (so often) what good will it do them, in the long run, obvious gain [if any,] against subtler loss?

[PostedBlogger05022013]

{Paris}[12th April 1970]

[Redbook1:140-142][19700412:1015]{Paris}[12th April 1970]

Saturday 12th April 1970  10.15.

            I am feeling rather depressed here in Paris.  I expect it will pass; it is probably something to do with having been slightly ill; but that doesn't alter it here, and now.  I know that I shouldn't be depressed, but there it is.  I am.

            Actually it's not surprising really.  I am dumped in a foreign city, one of the largest in the world, whose inhabitants all speak a language which is not yet my thinking language; I am two hundred miles from home, I have no friends here (just two cousins whom I've hardly met before and the elderly family in which I am staying), I know no one who speaks English well, I have nothing to do but sightsee and learn French for six weeks, and already I am bored stiff!

            I am writing my novel as usual, but it seems a bit of a waste.  In two weeks time -- at the most -- I shall have seen all there is worth seeing of Paris as a physical structure and of Paris as Art and Dead Culture.  If I meet someone English whom I like I shall probably be alright for the next two weeks, but that is unlikely to say the least.

            I need new horizons, of people as well as – indeed, more than – country.  I feel cooped up in this structurally beautiful -- in parts -- city.  I want to be on the move, but at the same time I want to be getting to know more people, especially of my own age, and more interesting people.  Poor old L, the son, is very kind except when he feels called to justify La France -- when he is quite preposterously rude, mostly without factual basis -- but his horizons are, as far as I can see, pretty limited.  He is not very bright -- which sounds awful, but it makes a difference when you are talking different languages.  The same goes for the rest of the family really; though as [my cousin] N said, they are very ‘gentil’.

            But I digress.

            I want to get out, so get out I will.  I shall put on my best clothes -- this in about a week’s time -- my best expendable clothes, stow a few vital belongings in shoulder bags etc., take some money(!),  and go for a practice hitch-hike out of Paris.   They are all rather depressingly sure that it doesn't work in France; we shall see.  If it does work I’ll go further a little later, perhaps across the border, perhaps sleep out one day/night; if it doesn't, then, damn it, I'll go by train!

            And if that doesn't work, (i.e. to rid me of my depression), I’m flaming well going home.

            I think that the fact that I couldn't take the food was the last straw.

[PostedBlogger04022013]

[On Welfare State][11th April 1970]

[Redbook1:139-140][19700411:1945][On Welfare State][11th April 1970]

Saturday 11th April 1970  7.45 p.m.

On Welfare State

            Every child should be given equal opportunity insofar as that is possible -- and though the methods are not easy to discern, at least here the aims are clear.  However, in the interest of this country the means should be positive, not negative: to raise standards to the highest reasonable or obtainable factor, not to lower them to the level of the mass, even as a short-term means to a long end -- for that is a dangerous gamble.

            In the end, however, the economic system must be left to work in its own way on the adult in society.  The economics of scarcity affect every living human, as even the Russians have found; it is no use pretending that they operate against the human interest and for the benefit of the few, as theoretical left-wingers so often maintain: they are a vital part of the human predicament, and as far as we are concerned they exist only because of us.  We can prod the economic system but we shall not be able to change it and remove its emphasis on scarcity until there is no scarcity -- and the fastest way to eradicate scarcity is via the economics of scarcity -- prodded gently.

            It is vital to remember that economics, for all its mathematics and technology, deals primarily with people; this is something often forgotten by economists themselves.  People are physically pliable but mentally resistant*; and they are, after all, the prime reason for the whole science, not (as economists often seem to imply) an awkward, unreliable factor within it.

*[but cf 111,158?]

[PostedBlogger03022013]

{The Spirit of the Fell}[c4th April 1970ff (undated)]

[Redbook1:139A][19700404cff]{The Spirit of the Fell}[c4th April 1970ff (undated)]

The Spirit of the Fell

                                                The spirit of the Fell

                                                I brood upon the Moor

                                                Within the Moor I dwell

                                                I hold, I am the Key.

                                                I ride the wild wind free

                                                Which whistles through the dell,

                                                To strain and toss the tree

                                                That roars and bends, alone.

                                                Within the whine and moan

                                                The wild unearthly glee

                                                The shriek and crash and groan

                                                The agony of gale

                                                Upon the wind’s full sail

                                                Beneath the silver throne

                                                Beneath the star-specked trail

                                                Within the wind I blow.

                                                I sweep the moor, and low

                                                I swing my deadly flail;

                                                I reap the ground I sow:

                                                Rebounding hail, swift hurled

                                                That batters down my world,

                                                A curtain drifting, slow,

                                                Across the moors, ice-pearled,

                                                Beneath the rolling cloud,

                                                That beats the moor-things, cowed

                                                And trembling, fearful, curled

                                                And freezing, dying: bowed

                                                By weight of thunder head

                                                The mountains of their dread,

                                                Pitch-back, advancing proud

                                                To evil, quick but dead,

                                                Swift-seared by lightning-flash

                                                And swelling, deafening crash

                                                That rolled away and fled

                                                Then hissed again its lash;

                                                I ride upon the storm.

                                                I weave my shapeless form

                                                Into the mouse’s dash,

                                                The kestrels dive, the warm

                                                Unending days, sun-kissed.

                                                The waving grasses hissed;

                                                The bleak, unending norm

                                                Of moor surrounds the Cist

                                                That is my ancient Door,

                                                The centre of my Law.

                                                I hold the creeping mist

                                                I brood upon the moor

                                                The Spirit of the Fell.

[PostedBlogger02022013]

{Spirit of the Fell}[4th April 1970]

[Redbook1:139][19700404:2350b]{Spirit of the Fell}[4th April 1970]

Saturday 4th April 11.50pm [continued]

            The Spirit of the Fell is growing in my mind; but it won't quite break the surface.

[PostedBlogger01022013]