British Air Power

BA is grounding its 747s- and a good thing too. We don't need to be pumping all that toxic shite into our atmosphere. We fly too much and for reasons that are often extremely frivolous. We are going to have to stop being so self-indulgent- and now is an excellent time to make a start...

It's odd thing but I've always experienced the sound of aeroplane engines as warm and friendly. I don't understand why. If I'd ever lived in a city that was being bombed from the air I'm sure I'd feel otherwise.

Our friendly neighbourhood Spitfire just flew over- as it does most days. And, as always, I jumped up to catch a glimpse. I think it was Matt who was saying that it costs something like £2,000 to book a short ride in it. Men of a certain age and degree of affluence think that's cheap at the price. Not me. I'd rather stand on terra firma and marvel.

The other day I unfolded a scrap of weak tea-coloured newspaper that will have come out of some drawer or other and found it carried the text of a poem by Noel Coward (quite a well-known poem now) making what was probably its earliest appearance in print. The poet is lying in bed and hearing a wave of allied bombers passing over on their way to give Jerry a taste of his own medicine. It is by turns touching and down to earth and mystical- with a strong whiff of Rupert Brooke about it- and little flashes of the self-hatred the civilian- especially in wartime- is obliged to feel in the presence of the the man in uniform. I assume it was my granny who tore it out and kept it- and here it still is, passing down the generations. Coward feels for the boys in the sky- whose life expectancy is not good- but ignores the people on the ground who are shortly going to be obliterated by their payload- because there are limits and there is a war on. It's really rather good- and it celebrates what some would not consider a war crime. It's called "Lie in the Dark and Listen" and you can find it on line if you so choose...

The Mystical Strain In Dickens

Noisy place the countryside!

A tractor is going up and down the field next to ours, mowing the grass for silage. It makes a high-pitched buzzing noise which is much less friendly than the noise made by a passing warplane (odd that!) but the smell of new mown hay makes up for it.

The middle chapters of Oliver Twist move of us out of London and into a rural idyll somewhere on the outskirts of Chertsey. Dickens knew nothing of country life and his descriptions of the rural landscape- so unlike his descriptions of the urban landscape- are generalized and conventionally expressed- and feature a lovely old lady and even lovelier young lady who are also generalized and conventional characterized- suggesting- as with the landscapes- that Dickens had only come across such things in dreams. One taps one's foot and longs for the reappearance of Fagin- which come unexpectedly and ghoulishly- and with the impact of a very large stone landing in a very still pond.

These middle chapters could be removed from the story (as they tend to be in the filmed adaptions) with little loss to its coherence but they were clearly important to Dickens himself- and not just because they padded out his monthly numbers. He was reaching after transcendence- and falling short- but doesn't everybody?

Sometimes he comes close. And this, I think, is rather beautiful...

"The memories which peaceful country scenes call up, are not of this world, nor of its thoughts and hopes. Their gentle influence may teach us how to weave fresh garlands for the graves of those we loved: may purify our thoughts and bear down before it old enmity and hatred; but beneath all this, there lingers, in the least reflective mind, a vague and half-formed consciousness of having held such feelings long before, in some remote and distant time, which calls up solemn thoughts of distant times to come, and bends down pride and worldliness beneath it."

The 20th century either disregarded or mocked the mystical strain in Dickens- calling it sentimental- but perhaps the 21st century will be more in sympathy. I say this because my 20th century self would have skipped lightly over a passage like this- while my 21st century self pricks up its ears and slows down and reads carefully. My older self knew that Dickens believed in an afterlife but my newer self has just noticed that- less conventionally- he also had intimations of pre-existence...