{Interruption and Depression [continued]}[20th January 1991]

[Redbook8:178-179][19910120:0945e]{Interruption and Depression [continued]}[20th January 1991]

19910120:0945

[continued]

The problem* should not apply to the rural manual worker,** eg the peasant farmer (at least in reasonably good times), for the same reason that I find in practice that I am best able to pursue a train of thought when working alone outside – precisely because I am less likely to be interrupted by anything requiring thought, when working alone (or even, to some extent, in a team) outside.

*[See last previous entry]

**{But I believe that there is depression in rural communities}

[Correct; and not least among farmers]

[continued]

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{Interruption and Depression}[20th January 1991]

[Redbook8:178-179][19910120:0945d]{Interruption and Depression}[20th January 1991]

19910120:0945

[continued]

When I am interrupted during the working out of some (for me) fairly serious process of thought or mind, the reaction is one of slight but significant stress – knotting of the stomach, tightness in the head – and the beginnings of depression, even now;* although the strength of the reaction does depend upon the basic state of mind (eg whether I am already tense or excited).

I do wonder whether much of modern Western Man’s unhappiness is not** due to the way in which demands made by the requirements of Western civilisation, upon the mind of the Individual, require him to continually interrupt or even suppress the more profound and inner-motivated workings of his own mind.

*{(ie these days)}

**[sic – ie ‘is’!]

[continued]

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A Dream: Utopia Square? [continued (3)]}[20th January 1991]

[Redbook8:176-177][19910120:0945c]{A Dream: Utopia Square? [continued (3)]}[20th January 1991]

19910120:0945

[continued]

After looking in a narrow, gloomy street (with ?a covered way or alley back onto the Main or High Street), I emerged unexpectedly on the corner or edge of a broad square across which many individuals were passing about their business. The other end was completely taken up by a white or pale grey building (a palace?) in a type of |* Hispanic** style of architecture, with Italianate and even slight Palladian influences (the details are vague!). There was a feeling of well-being, of contented activity, about this square and this building.

I looked round to check the layout of streets radiating from my location, and, yes, that they did radiate in a regular eight-spoked wheel plan (one***, presumably, although I did not consider this at the time, leading to the building); but I noted that the ways representing r~ and s~ were narrow (and straight)**** alleys, not broad roads. These I think may have been at 45º and 135º to the building, in the direction of the High Street, although this conflicts with my original entrance to the square.

Perhaps the entry road and High Street on the one hand, and the r~ and s~ alleys on the other, were on different ‘planes’: one for starting, one for completion. I don’t recall seeing route C, for example, or route a~, as individual ways, although the 8 radial routes were certainly all there.

(This is as much conjectured as observed.)

|*interrupted by viewers’ visit; resuming 1159

** – It is a pity that I did not at the time draw an outline of this architecture, which in retrospect seems to have been notable for its upper outline curves, eg something like this:

or perhaps this sort of thing:

Neither of these is right; the fact is, I have (or had) an overall impression as though it was a complete image, but I cannot express it in detail.<920226>

[A colour photograph inserted in the ms here on <920620> shows the front of the house into which the writer and his family eventually moved, which is dominated by a triangular gable frontage with curved timbers and a church-style (gothic-arch) window at high level.]

***[of them, presumably]

****[sic]

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{A Dream: Utopia Square? [continued]}[20th January 1991]

[Redbook8:176-177][19910120:0945b]{A Dream: Utopia Square? [continued]}[20th January 1991]

19910120:0945

[continued]

In a dream this morning I was walking on the road from Llan[...]* to Llan[...].** Leaving a village which could have been either – I may have thought at the time that it was the latter – I decided that it was too far from the station, which I could not yet see round the left-hand curve. I returned to the village.***

I was trying to find a house in Church Street (or Road). I asked in a shop, where a middle-aged/elderly woman told me that there was no Church Street (or Road) (?only a Church Road/Street?).

*[To which the writer and his family eventually moved]

**[The same village as referred to in the last previous entry, fn=*]

***(This is why Llan[...]** seems less likely as the village behind)

[continued]

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{A Dream: Utopia Square?}[20th January 1991]

[Redbook8:176-177][19910120:0945]{A Dream: Utopia Square?}[20th January 1991]

19910120:0945

(I have been thinking about my encounters with the clergy, and about a likely-sounding house in Llan[...]* of which particulars are being sent to us by a potential new agent (for us) in Leominster; and I have been doing little jobs around the place, all last week, in preparation for today’s visit by house-viewers.)

*[Not the village to which the writer and his family eventually moved]

[continued]

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{Academic Standards}[13th January 1991]

[Redbook8:175][19910113:113b]{Academic Standards}[13th January 1991]

19910113.1130

[continued]

[A cutting in the ms* of an article in [The] G[uardian] 19910118:[p]10 headed ‘Chief defends exam critic’ by James Meikle, Education Correspondent, of which no part is highlighted in the ms, reports on conflict in the world of higher education concerning academic standards, and includes a statement attributed to the Chancellor of Manchester University, Chair of the Council for Academic Freedom, and emeritus Professor of Law at London University, as follows: ‘The real charge against [a lecturer at another university] is that she protested publicly against the running sore in the institutions of higher education today, visible in universities and polytechnics, that academic standards are being lowered so that income may be increased. We all know this to be true, but most are afraid to say so’.]

ref earlier comments on breakdown of scientific and academic standards, (III? IV?)**

*{(19910118: inserted 19910121)}

**[]

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{Circular Vision}[13th January 1991]

[Redbook8:175][19910113:1130]{Circular Vision}[13th January 1991]

19910113.1130

‘... Kustow and Cubitt* see in the work of several radical writers a return to the classical ideal of a circular, total vision.’

– [The] Guardian 19910110:26, Hebert, ‘Battle lines from the past’, reviewing BBC TV’s television version of Thucydides, ‘The War that never ends’.

**(TV producers, The Greek Collection company, for C[hannel] 4)

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{The River}[8th January 1991]

[Redbook8:175][19910108:2050]{The River}[8th January 1991]

19910108.2050

‘The fluent translation by Margaret Jull Costa carries us, like the narrator, to the source of the “age-old river that washes away * the useless paraphernalia of the visible”.’

[–] T[imes] L[iterary] S[upplement] 19910104: 16, Hopkinson ‘Lost Souls’ reviewing Saér** ‘The Witness’[.] (pub[lished by] Serpent’s Tail)

(I don’t know where the inner quotation comes from.)

*

			C
	R~		|
		\		/
	–		☼		–
		/		\
			|

**[Juan José Saér]

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{Views from the Right [continued]}[8th January 1991]

[Redbook8:174][19910108:0000b]{Views from the Right [continued]}[8th January 1991]

199101(08?)

[continued]

[A cutting in the ms of an article in [The] G[uardian] 19901231 New Year Guardian:[p]23 headed ‘Quote...’ consists of 5 quotes of which the final one is highlighted: ‘“I’ve always thought there were only three kinds of women: wives, whores and mistresses.” – Mr Justice Harman, on use of the title “Ms”’.]

This one is in, on a personal basis, because of the last quote. Jerry Harman was an old and close friend of my family, and I am sorry to see this remark[,] which (allowing for lack of context[,] and judicial humour) is still pretty remarkable.*

*[sic]

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{Views from the Right}[8th January 1991]

[Redbook8:174][19910108:0000]{Views from the Right}[8th January 1991]

199101(08?)

[A cutting in the ms of an article in [The] G[uardian] 19901231 New Year Guardian:[p]5 headed ‘Quote...’ consists of 8 quotes from politicians, mostly from the Conservative Party, of which the first, from Norman Tebbit [MP & former cabinet minister] in February [1990], reads as follows: The word “Conservative” is now use by the BBC as a portmanteau word of abuse for anyone whose political views differ from the insufferable, smug, sanctimonious, naive, guilt-ridden, wet, pink orthodoxy of that sunset home of the third-rate minds of that third-rate decade, the 1960s”.’]

I include this mainly because of the first quote. You have to be able to picture Norman Tebbit saying it, to get the full effect of this view from the Right. In its comprehensiveness it is almost * archetypal: managing to associate with general Leftiness in constitutional politics, several of the major apolitical attributes associated with the G~ semicircle: wetness, pinkness (of course), lack of intellectual power (or application), feelings of guilt, naivety (= lack of worldly knowledge?), perhaps even Sunset; and above all, rooting the whole lot in the 1960s.

**

*(like the man himself)

**[For the sake of balance –naturally – I feel obliged to include the second quote in the list, from the Labour MP Denis Healey, also in February [1990]: ‘While the rest of Europe is marching to confront new challenges, the Prime Minister*** is shuffling along in the opposite direction like an old bag lady’.]

***[Margaret Thatcher]

[continued]

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