Over morning coffee, ”our group” – sounds like something out of a Dostoevsky novel – ruefully discussed the despicable state of the world, while our youngest member, a seven year old girl unconcerned with contemporary plights, amused herself with whatever trinkets she could find in my living room. She was intrigued by a calendar on my mantelpiece, consisting of ten pieces of wood forming a cuboid structure of dimensions roughly 10 x 8 x 4 cms. A base holds six wooden strips bearing on each side, in gold lettering, the names of the months; and on top of these, two cubes bearing again in gold the numbered dates. There is a subtlety about this simple structure. One cube holds the numbers 0-1-2-3-4-5. So the other cube holds 6-7-8-9. But you also need to repeat 0-1-2 in order to be able to produce, say, December 01, 22, and 31. In other words the second cube appears to require seven sides. It would be impossible, but for the fact that 6 can be inverted to double for 9. For some reason this fact delights me, and I was amused to see that my remarkably self-sufficient young visitor was similarly delighted. While we discussed the desperate state of the Middle East, she would periodically lighten the mood by contriving an absurdly impossible date and holding it up for inspection.
“April the 65th!”
She and I both found this hysterically funny. Children can escape the bleak world by simply stepping into another dimension. Shakespeare did the same. Didn’t he conjure “forever and a day”? And perhaps even “the 12th of never” – or am I confusing Twelfth Night with Johnny Mathis?
Now I find that whenever the world gets me down I can raise my spirits by slipping through a wormhole into an alternative universe. For example, this morning I see that the government is minded to broaden the definition of extremism. Officials in the Department for Levelling-Up, Housing and Communities, have come up with the following:
Extremism is the promotion or advancement of any ideology which aims to overturn or undermine the UK’s system of parliamentary democracy, its institutions and values.
“September the 78th!”
What on earth are the UK’s “values”? Perhaps they were in evidence last week in the Palace of Westminster, during the Covid Enquiry, when we heard that the erstwhile PM was apparently minded to sacrifice the elderly for the benefit of the economy. Expletive deleted.
My young guest also amused herself by drawing a picture, which I subsequently found after our group had left. I remember she borrowed my pen, but I didn’t pay any attention at the time to her artwork. I think we had moved on to the war in Ukraine. Anyway I have her picture before me now. It is a simple line drawing of a robust double decker vehicle. It might be a bus, but it could as easily be a security van bearing a prisoner from the underpass of a court in the direction of a jail. There is a single individual, at an upper window. It reminds me of the similarly whimsical line drawings in John Lennon in his Own Write (Jonathan Cape, 1964). I think I might frame it. Incidentally, Lennon would have appreciated distortions of the calendar. Eight Days a Week.
Talking of John Lennon, I see that Now and Then is, as I write, heading for the No. 1 spot. It will be the Beatles’ 18th No. 1 single. I suppose it would have gone to No. 1 even supposing it had been released in its crackly state straight off the original cassette. But thanks to the miracles of modern technology, all four members of the band have been able to participate. I think it’s terribly good, a tad overproduced perhaps, but Lennon’s voice is instantly recognisable, and it is recognisably a Beatles song, delivered in a characteristically Beatles fashion, the tempo rather slower than you might expect, the tune memorable, and full of an ineffable sadness. D’you know, I went to hear the Royal Scottish National Orchestra in Glasgow on Saturday night. They were terribly good, too. They opened with a contemporary work. I can’t remember what it was called and I can’t remember the composer, and I can’t remember the “tune”. I didn’t make much of it. In a way I understood the genre. It was filmic, and atmospheric. It conjured a mood. But I confess most of the time I have a problem with contemporary classical music. I’m always waiting for it to start. It seems to set the scene. But the scene neither commences, nor develops. It’s one long intro. Give me the Beatles any time.
But I guess it’s time to let them go too. Indeed, Now and Then has been billed as a last hurrah. The Beatles’ incandescent light shone for a remarkably short period; the phenomenon of Beatlemania really only lasted from the release of their second LP With the Beatles on November 22nd 1963 (not exactly a slow news day) to their final public appearance (aside from atop the Apple roof) in Candlestick Park San Francisco on August 29th 1966. So let it be. Now we must balefully turn our attention to Mr Sunak’s interview with Mr Musk, who tells us that, thanks to AI, no-one need go to work any longer.
“December the 99th!”
But hasn’t Mr Musk already told us that AI is an existential threat? And come to think of it, that particular date is even beyond the reach of my mantelpiece calendar. It would bamboozle the best cruciverbalists in Bletchley Park back in 1940.
But that was then; this is now.
jamescalumcampbell 