Missive from the dog house

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

I forgot the most vital thing.

Today is SARAH'S BIRTHDAY.

So, my lovely co-conspirator, if you should by any chance be reading this:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY.

I am hopeless. I did not remember. I sent no thrilling boxes or extravagant bouquets. I shall not be surprised if she sacks me on the spot.

I hope there is plenty of this:

(I mean: having of birthday cake, rather than morphing into a tragic love goddess.)

And metaphorical if not literal doing of this:

And eating of these:

And, one year, someone should throw you one of these:

(That's the Queen Charlotte's Ball there, by the great Henri Cartier-Bresson.)

And if I had damn well remembered, I would have sent a card like this, by the always perceptive Edward Monkton:

In the meantime, extra birthday woofs from these:

In Brief

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

I keep thinking: I must do a really big, meaty political blog. Thoughts race around in my head like bumper cars. Then I think: what have my poor readers ever done to deserve it?

It feels too sunny and springlike to have a meticulous debate post-mortem. All the professional political writers have done that, anyway. So I'm keeping it brief, today. The sun is shining like gangbusters, and the daffodils are properly out at last, and it's Friday. I find my thoughts straying to food.

Very quickly:

I freely admit my prediction about Nick Clegg was wrong. Everyone says he won it, except for one grumpy man on the radio, and a couple of comments on the political blogs. I still have serious reservations about him as a politician. I find his blanket refusal to talk about a hung parliament shifty, and slightly hypocritical, when his big pitch is that he is the one person who trusts the voters enough to tell us the truth, unlike the other showers.

I thought David Cameron brought his B plus rather than his A game. I found his direct apology for expenses refreshing, and his closing statement strong. Visually, and visuals are important, as every fule no after Kennedy and Nixon, I thought he looked as if he would be plausible standing outside Number Ten. I have a secret suspicion that, when the dust settles, people will think he did better than the instant reaction suggests.

My judgement on Gordon Brown is clouded by the fact he kept saying 'less' when he meant 'fewer'. He certainly lost the pedants' vote for that. I know it should not matter, but when a party says education, education, education, it surely should have a leader who can speak the Queen's English with grace and correctness. He refrained from breaking out the weird smile, but instead did the empathy voice when talking of soldiers and old people, which I found equally phoney. As for his continuing claim that no one could have seen the global meltdown coming, well, Paul Krugman and the Canadians did. The Canadian banks stood strong like rocks. The Spanish banks also survived, due to strict regulations which protected them from wild punts on dodgy derivatives. I believed in Gordon very much once, but I believe in him no more.

I think there were two winners: democracy, and Twitter. The debate was generally courteous, lucid, and surprisingly free of sound bites. (I wish it had not been quite so free of women, but that's a story for another day.) The politicians did not dazzle, but they appeared serious and on top of their brief. The Twittersphere, by contrast, dazzled and shimmered and danced like all get out. I followed the entire debate on Twitter, and I never saw so many jokes, rants, and moments of surreal naughtiness in ninety minutes in my life. I did wonder if the Twitterers from abroad might have been slightly puzzled by the whole thing ('who is this Mister Leg?').

That's quite enough of that.

To celebrate the coming of spring and the first proper heat this year (we are sweltering in Scotland under a mighty 14 degrees, which is quite tropical for us) I made a lovely fresh salad for lunch. Inspired by a goat's cheese and toasted almond salad from the excellent The Kitchn blog, I invented a little version of my own:

I took a big handful of dark green leaves - baby spinach, rocket, lamb's lettuce, baby green and red romaine, and added a little celery and cucumber and radish, very finely sliced. The fine slicing is important, because the point of this salad is that it is elegant and delicate. I crumbled over some soft, tangy goat's cheese, and sprinkled a handful of toasted slivered almonds to finish. I dressed it with extra virgin olive oil, a good squeeze of lemon, and some Maldon sea salt. (The Kitchn's version has honey in the dressing, which I do not like, personally, but if you crave a little sweetness in your salad that would be the way to go.)

And here it is:

Have a lovely Friday.

In which we wait

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

Are you on the edge of your seat for the first ever leaders' debate? I know. I'm not either. I hold a forlorn hope that it might serve to set the entire process ablaze and turn the sluggish state of politics on its head. I have a tiny dream that once it is over, people in the pubs and bars and buses shall talk of nothing else. We shall talk of it to our grandchildren, in years to come. 'Grandchildren,' we shall say, a faraway look in our eyes, 'remember the night of April the 15th.'

My horrid fear is that in reality there will be a terrible collective shrug, and the citizens shall merely ask what possessed Nick Clegg to wear that particular tie.

Or, almost worse, there will be a slight pause, in which people remark that David Cameron isn't really that posh, Clegg has a tendency to sound petulant, and Gordon Brown is looking more and more like the mad uncle in the attic. Then they will go back to discussing the cloud of volcanic ash that is hovering over poor old Blighty, like a geological metaphor.

Here is my prediction of the debate itself, for what it is worth. Clegg will not come quite as brilliantly out of it as all the commentators suspect. Cameron will do well if he can face the economy head on and make one of his little self-deprecating jokes (he does have a good sense of humour, which the other two do not display). Brown could pull off his doughty elder statesman stick with the devil you know number, but I have a suspicion he will not be able to stop himself doing that freakish fake smile which his focus groupers have obviously told him to deploy. The problem is that he breaks it out at the most inappropriate moments, so it looks as if he has some kind of worm in his brain. Then it will be: mad uncle, back to the attic.

I am almost certainly wrong. I just hope it is not a festival of dullness, soundbite, platitude, and mind-sapping minutiae. For those of you playing drinking games, if you want to get really hammered I suggest 'fairness', 'new modern Conservative Party', 'the British people', 'the many not the few',  'the big society', 'a future fair for all', 'hard-working Britons', and possibly, should Gordon lose his temper, 'Lord Ashcroft'. If you want to stay stone-cold sober, mark your card with 'national debt', 'it was all my fault', and 'bugger off back to Eton, Lord Snooty'.

In the meantime, to take your mind off things, here are some more of my utterly pointless but mildly diverting collages. Today, the colour is blue:

And another version:

And one more, of three of my favourite things: dogs, snow and Scotland:

Finally, just for fun:

These are mostly for my friend So Lovely, who is unsure about the new Hipstamatic craze, and likes a bit of true colour in her photographs.

(All snaps by me except the eye, which is torn from a very ancient magazine and is stuck on my office wall.)

Hipsta what?

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

I know I should embark on a disquisition about The Big Society, but I don't quite have the heart. I was so excited about this election. My geeky little political junkie's heart beat fast with anticipation. I have to admit to a shattering sense of anti-climax. Despite the glorious BBC doing its absolute and utter best, despite the joy of a double dose of This Week, possibly my favourite programme ever, despite the political writers writing their hearts out, it all feels horribly, irredeemably flat. I cannot quite identify why. They really are not all the same, and there are some serious philosophical arguments being had. And yet, and yet. I wonder if it has to do with elephants, and rooms. I grow daily frustrated with what is being not said.

So, instead, I am going to talk about my iphone. Don't worry, not for long. I hate my iphone. My groovy friend Paul made me get it, and although I loathe being told what to do with a burning passion, I almost always obey when he speaks. What he did not tell me is that you have to recharge it every five minutes. What is so damn clever about THAT? (And why is there a conspiracy of silence around the maddening need for the relentless recharging?) Also, I don't like the tapping thing you have to do; it makes me feel as if I have fat clumsy fingers. I often find the whole contraption slightly baffling. It comes with the most cursory instructions, as if Steve Jobs expects us all to understand every last working of any Apple product by osmosis. I object to the very word 'app', one of the ugliest neologisms in the entire wide world. The apps themselves I find heart-sinkingly disappointing.

However, thanks to my blogging friends India Knight and Miss Whistle, I discover that it does have one redeeming feature. It is an application called Hipstamatic, and it makes the otherwise shoddy iphone camera take pictures as if we were all back in the halcyon days of childhood. It reminds me of trips to the beach at Frinton and summers when the sun shone all the time. I love it. Almost single-handed, it has stopped me staring at my malevolent black device with fury.

Here are my first shots.

Room with dog:

Lawn with other dog:

(Even out of focus dog somehow looks elegant.)

Yet another shot of first dog, because you can never really have enough:

(Observe 'yeah, yeah, but when are we going to play with the ball' face, as is tradition.)

And there they both are together, in a strange nostalgic haze:

My chair suddenly looks as if it was taken in 1955:

My oddly green garden is clearly a den of swallows and amazons:

It is almost impossible to take a good picture with an iphone camera. The lovely thing about Hipstamatic is that its special effects mean that rotten photographs (which I admit these absolutely are) appear rather charming.

Now I must go and listen to the news.

PS Oh, oh, OH - on the news, at this very moment as I type, Vince Cable is talking of 'the elephant in the room'. Then he goes and ruins it by only mentioning the deficit, not the debt. He ruins it is bit more by making a self-regarding joke: 'I am the elephant man'. Not that funny and not that clever, really. And may I just crossly point at that the Liberal Democrats have their very own elephant in their very own room, which is that they are never going to win the election. Some of their policies are quite interesting, but they spoil the whole thing by making this childish pretence that any of them will ever be implemented. If only Nick Clegg or Vince Cable would admit this unavoidable fact, then I would take them seriously. As it is, it just puts me in mind of children playing dress up.

Sarah on food

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

Read Sarah's latest piece from The Times here.

And a little illustrative spring food collage to go with:

Images by Alexandra Rowley; Joanna Miller at The Kitchn blog.

Just looking at that gloriousness makes me want to go at once and make a delicious salad of green leaves and goat's cheese with some grassy olive oil and a squeeze of lemon.

Today's final piece of political miscellany

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

This is quite funny. Alex Massie, with whom I do not always agree, has a naughty take on Labour's central message for the electorate:

Things are so bad! Can you risk them getting worse, punk? Gordon led us into this hole so there's a better than even chance that, having explored it in detail, he can lead us out. Do you think Dave Cameron even knows what a hole looks like, let alone what to do once you've blundered into a deeper, darker, scarier hole than you've ever even thought about in the worst of your worst nightmares? No, I didn't think. Gordon, by contrast, lives for holes. So there.

Can't quite get the picture out of my head of Gordon living for holes.

Technorati Tags: British politics,Alex Massie

This is what happens when you take the afternoon off

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

I have always been searingly envious of those clever bloggers who do glorious collages of photographs, often on a theme or a colour or even a mood. I am always looking for delightful visual blogs, and the collage is one of the things that often distinguishes the really good ones. I had NO IDEA how to achieve such a thing myself. I can't even work out how to get Windows Live Writer to put the little red frames around my pictures that I had when I wrote my posts directly onto Blogger. (Live Writer is so superior in every way, so much more fluid and pleasurable to use, especially when it comes to uploading pictures, which it does in a second instead of in minutes, that I think the red frames a sacrifice worth making. I can't ever go back to Blogger's horrid little cramped white box.)

Anyway, enough with the excessively dull technical talk. The point is, I decided today that instead of telling myself of my internet limitations, I would see if I might have a hidden capability. I googled about until I discovered that a nice thing called Picasa will do collages for even idiots like me. After several false starts (the selection process was confusing, and I am rotten at reading instructions) I achieved a result. I feel ridiculously pleased with myself.

So here, dear readers, is a little symphony in green, my favourite colour. Four of the pictures are by me, some are just bog standard sample pictures from the computer, some are lowly clipart, some are downloaded from the net. I do apologise for lack of attribution; I have not quite worked out how to gather all that information and form twenty pictures into a box at the same time. I shall persevere, as I generally think it bad manners to put up other people's photographs without giving them a credit. Apologies for this momentary lapse.

Here is my first attempt:

I think I selected too many pictures, as they look rather small and cramped.

Here is my second try:

And a third attempt, with fewer pictures, so they may be more clearly seen:

Or this - same picture selection, different layout:

(The mint and the trees, top and bottom left, are two of my own photographs. I have very little talent for photography, but I am quite pleased with both of those shots.)

Now this last one is very, very naughty indeed. It is entirely self-indulgent, and everything that the ranters say is bad about the blogosphere. It combines two of the things that delight me most in all the world: the colour green, and my two dogs. You will have to forgive me:

Now I really am going to stop.

Sometimes it is the little things

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

I was planning to give you a rest from politics for today. I know it is the thrilling launch of the Conservative manifesto, in which power will, marvellously, be handed to The People, but my brain is tired and we shall turn to that tremendous document tomorrow.

I cannot resist, however, guiding you towards the fun that some of the columnists are having with Labour's vision of the next five years. Harry Mount, over at The Telegraph, is not so much affronted by the policies as wounded by the horrid use of English. It is not only a basic illiteracy that so offends him - principle for principal, less for fewer - but also a nasty tendency to lapse into meaningless jargon. 'Secondary schools: excellence for all, personal to each' certainly goes into my personal hall of infamy. The management-speak dooms this promise to vapidity. It also fails to meet my own political sniff test. When a politician mouths a slogan, I judge it against its opposite. Would anyone ever say: Secondary schools: lack of excellence for all, impersonal to each? (Labour's election slogan also falters on this mark. 'A Future Fair for All' as opposed, presumably, to a future unfair for all, or a future fair for the chosen few.)

The glorious John Rentoul at The Indy picks up the baton and runs with it. He doffs his hat to Mount's grammatical objections, and adds his own:
"Referenda, held on the same day, for moving to the Alternative Vote for elections to the House of Commons and to a democratic and accountable Second Chamber." That is "referendums"; referendum is an English word; we do not put it in italics; as the plural of forum is not fora and the plural of bottom is not ba.

'The plural of bottom is not ba' is my runaway favourite sentence printed in a national newspaper today.

I also commend the restrained Mr Rentoul for concentrating his fire on the incorrect use of 'referenda' and not pointing out the sheer ugliness of that alternative vote sentence. Clarity, clarity and yet more clarity is my daily writing cry. I think we should all play around with the language; that is what it is there for. It is not a grave thing set in granite. Grammatical rules may be bent for amusement; antic prose is a thing of beauty and a joy forever. (As you see, I don't mind the odd platitude either.) Obfuscation, on the other hand, should be taken out and shot. I had to read the line about the alternative vote twice before I was sure what it meant. There is no excuse for that, when the entire nation's future is at stake.

And now, my darlings, I am going to do something radical. I am taking the day off. At the moment, I am working seven days a week, except, of course, for the occasional naughty afternoon spent watching the racing. I have 25,000 words and pages of notes for the new book, but my panicking mind chants: not enough, not enough. Sarah says that I must take a deep breath, calm down, and have a little rest. I love it when she says things like that. It is the absolute joy of having a co-writer. The great thing about writing a book with a partner is the obvious advantage of two brains instead of one. Sarah's mind takes up where mine leaves off; she knows things I do not; she sees the world from a slightly different angle. But sometimes I think that her very greatest talent is that she knows exactly how to stop me running mad.

Picture of the Day comes courtesy of Paul Waugh's excellent politics blog:



Could you ever, in your whole wide life, imagine any newspaper saying, of Harold Wilson, or Winston Churchill, or Tony Blair, or John Major, or James Callaghan, or Gordon Brown, or Edward Heath: Give the BOY a chance?

PS For those of you who kindly asked after dear Virginia the Pig, she is still hanging on. She has had much penicillin and seemed a bit perkier this morning when I took her some pig nuts. I keep my fingers crossed, but the vet is not hopeful.

The Elephant in the Room.

Posted by  Tania Kindersley.

Here is what no one has mentioned. I had to go and look it up. The British national debt is £780 billion.

Let's look at that another way. It is

£780,000,000,000

Is there a reason no one is talking about that? Is it just one too many zeros? Is it because no one knows what to do about it?

The current economic argument is not about the debt, it is about the deficit. The deficit is about £160 billion. Compared to the debt, nothing. Small change. Pack of fags. Still, the best the parties can do is offer about £20 billion, tops, of reductions in that deficit. No one mentions that gnarly old elephant of the debt. It is like Fawlty Towers: for gawd's sake, don't mention the war.

Gordon Brown says that none of this is his fault. I know I am cross with him because I once believed and I feel betrayed and singed. I know that perhaps I am more angry with him in some ways than natural Tories, because he is giving my party a bad name. But I am attempting, with every fibre of my being, to be fair. It's just that when he tells Jon Snow that it was nothing to do with him, it was the banks, it was the global crisis, and anyway, he was warning the world about lack of regulation and under-capitalisation ten years ago, but no one would listen, I want to throw large objects at the television.

There are economists who will tell you that this level of debt is not quite the disaster all those zeros would suggest. They point to Japan and Italy, who have much worse situations. They remind us of the levels of debt which poor old battered Blighty survived after the second war. Yet, if you look at a graph of the national debt, it goes up to a terrifying peak in the early fifties and then comes down on a stuttering downward line all the way to the noughties, before shooting upward again. This suggests to me, ignorant laywoman that I am, that quite a lot of people of all political stripes thought debt reduction must be a good idea. Otherwise why did all the parties do it? I know that common sense can be deceptive; I know that people who bang on about common sense are quite often crazed right-wingers who think that government should be drowned in a bathtub. On this occasion, I think that spending £30 billion each year on interest payments might be something that common sense suggests is a reckless waste of money, and I think common sense might, for once, be right.

I'm just saying.

In the meantime, here is some more wildlife to cheer you up:

At least we still have the penguins.

(Genius photographer sadly unknown.)

Grand National, redux

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

It's nuts, really, running a race over four and half miles and thirty enormous fences. The only nuttier race is the Pardubice in the Czech Republic, which is so various and labyrinthine and terrifying that you get vertigo just watching it.

I think there is something terribly British about the Grand National. It is anchored in ancient tradition, going back to 1839. It leaves room for a departure from the usual racing professionalism. Because of the curious nature of the event, the idiosyncratic fences, the huge field, the need for luck in running, amateurs get their chance. I remember getting keen pleasure out of watching 54 year old John Thorne finishing a gallant second on Spartan Missile, which he had bred himself. My dad, also an amateur rider, never got round the course. He had broken his back and his neck for the second time when the doctors told him he must never ride again. Even if he fell off at a walk, he might be paralysed for life. He lay for months in a steel cage. The next year, against all medical orders, he lined up at Aintree.

'What happened?' I said, breathless, when I was old enough to understand this story. 

'Fell off at the third,' said my father, laconically.

In 1963, he was injured again, and so could not ride his horse Carrickbeg. His friend John Lawrence, another amateur jockey, rode instead. Carrickbeg jumped like a dream, and steamed round The Elbow in front. 'Go on, John, you've got it won,' said Pat Buckley, who was riding Ayala, as Carrickbeg sailed past him. As the winning post was in sight, and the roar of the crowd was in his ears, Lawrence sensed something wrong. It was Ayala's head, coming up beside him. After four and half miles of hard riding, Buckley flashed past, winning by a mere three quarters of a length. I remember a haunting photograph of the finish from my childhood: Ayala and Buckley, with their heads up in delight and victory, while Carrickbeg and Lawrence, so close, have both their heads down, slumped in last minute defeat.

The National also pleases the great British desire for an underdog fairytale. There was the rank outsider Foinavon, who was cantering round the back at 100-1 when a loose horse ran across the Canal Turn, and everything behind it fell, refused, or catapulted the jockey over its head. Old footage shows a Keystone Cops style pile-up, with unseated jockeys running around like headless chickens and horses going everywhere except over the fence, while commentator Michael O'Hehir desperately tried to make some sense of it. Foinavon was so far behind the field that he managed to pick his way round the chaos, neatly jump the fence like a cat, and gallop on to win, followed by a disconsolate string of remounted horses.

The greatest fairy story of all was of Bob Champion and Aldaniti. Champion was diagnosed with cancer and given four months to live. Meanwhile, Aldaniti suffered injury after injury, and it was touch and go whether he would be put down. While Champion underwent experimental and extreme chemotherapy, Aldaniti was slowly rehabilitated. The two crocks came together, managed somehow to get fit enough to race, and romped home by four lengths as grown men cried (and women too).

Even Red Rum, the legend who won three times, was not an obvious candidate for heroic status. He only cost four hundred guineas, was trained in a tiny, unfashionable yard on Merseyside rather than one of the mighty operations in Lambourn, and had a fatal tendency to go lame. Ginger McCain, his trainer, managed to get him sound by galloping him along the Southport Sands. From that unlikely seaside, he ran into racing history.

Yesterday was a combination of the high professional and the plucky amateur. AP McCoy, the steeliest, toughest pro you can imagine, finally won his race after fourteen tries, with a perfectly timed ride. The hard man broke down in tears, and said that he hoped now his two year old daughter would be proud of him when she grew up. (Cue: not a dry eye in the house.) But for me, the sweetest story was of the seventeen-year-old Sam Twiston-Davies, having his first ride in the race, despite being still at school. Sam hunted round on the lovely, honest Hello Bud, who jumped like a stag. He was up with the leaders the whole way; for a sweet moment he was in front, and it must have flashed across his young rider's mind that he might emulate the great Bruce Hobbs, who won at the same age on Battleship, many years ago.

In the end, Hello Bud just ran out of steam, and finished an honourable fifth, but he gave the determined and talented  jockey a ride he will remember for the rest of his life.

Here are your pictures of the day:

Dear old Carrickbeg at the last:

Sam Twiston-Davies on Hello Bud:

Grand National 2010 - And they're off:

The tremendous Comply or Die, who won in 2008 (backed by me, I braggingly add), jumps The Chair:

AP on Don't Push It starts to smile as he sees the winning post:

 

(Last three photographs by Tom Jenkins; first two, photographer unknown.)

There we are, my darlings. Now I must pull my head out of the clouds and get back to the election.

Saturday

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

Too exhausted after the excitement of the Grand National to give you a proper post today, for which I do sincerely apologise.

It was a great day, a great race, and I might write about it tomorrow, when I have recovered. Politics and racing, what I put you through.

The sun is out here and the air is as gentle as June. The ducks are nesting on the burn and the first daffodils came into bloom this morning. My beautiful niece and my lovely sister just came round, and we walked through the evening light with the dogs.

I leave you with a picture of a horse called Tataniano, whom I think a star in the making. I don't just love him because he won me fifty quid this afternoon, but because he is only six, and he jumps with the accuracy of a veteran, and the joie de vivre of a baby:

He stormed to victory under the great Ruby Walsh. In the next race Walsh took a horrible fall and was kicked hard. He was driven away to hospital with a broken arm. (My racing friends in the Twitterverse, all of whom adore him, were beside themselves.) I hope he heals well.

(Photograph by Tom Jenkins.)

Naughty, naughty, naughty

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

There I was, doing my work, pondering some good meaty political thoughts to put up on the blog, generally carrying on in a respectable manner. I thought: I'll just have a little look at the racing. Just for a moment. I ruthlessly ignored it yesterday, because it was a Thursday, and there were things to be done. But today is a Friday; it's practically the weekend. It's Aintree, the last big national hunt meeting of the season. Just a barely discernible peek. Just a tiny little tenner on that nice mare of James Fanshawe's.

The mare lost, and I was lost too. My heart is thumping, my head filled only with horseflesh; I can make no sense of work, or the election, or anything else. I only hope my publishers do not read this, or I shall get the sack. What a rackety creature they have hired. (My mother does read this, but she will not be at all surprised. She was married to my father, after all; she knows how strong that gambling blood runs.)

Thank God it will soon be six months of the flat, which does not stir my blood in the same way, although I could bore you to death about the day I watched Dancing Brave win the Arc de Triomphe in 1986.

Think of me at 3.10, when I shall be hoping that lovely fleet Poquelin wins:

Sarah Meets Kate Winslet

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

And, for today's final treat, click here for Sarah's latest piece in The Times. She interviews Kate Winslet.



PS. I have just heard on the radio David Cameron saying he wants to 'put joy in people's souls'.  First of all, I want to know: has he costed that?  Second of all, how will it play in the key marginals?  But really, it's a vote-winner. Joy for everyone. You've got to love that.

PPS I also heard someone talking to Eddie Mair on PM about 'skilling people up'. Maybe the Tories should put out a policy about banning idiot neologisms. I'm all for the heavenly elasticity of the English language, but if anyone tries to skill me up, I shall give them a slap.

Mr Obama shoots some hoops

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

I don't often put up videos on the blog because I think they look a bit clunky and ugly, but this one is just too marvellous. I'm not sure quite why it appeals to me so much, but I think it is the combination of good manners, good humour, understatement and grace. This is, after all, a man who has just signed a historic nuclear arms reduction treaty, even though he is, of course, a crazed commie fascist, coming to get take every last one of your freedoms away with his bare hands.

As you watch it, I want you to try and imagine Gordon Brown doing this.

In which character matters

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

It has become fashionable to trot out the trope: personality does not matter, let's get to the substance. Everyone nods and clears their throat and goes rhubarb rhubarb as if this is just so damn true that no more words are necessary.

So what if Gordon throws telephones at secretaries, and Dave is a bit posh, and that other fellow said something about shagging thirty women? It's the deficit that counts.

Oddly, this morning, I find myself saying What. I suddenly think it matters like hell. We are in an awful lot of trouble in this country, and even though I hate jingoism, and know it is categorically a Good Thing that Britannia no longer rules the waves, I would like dear old Blighty to be able to hold her head up in public. Call me old-fashioned, but I would like the young people to have jobs. I would be awfully happy if only the children could read. I would die of joy if someone would come along and save the public libraries.

I think the reason that the pundits tend to dismiss the personality issue is because of sex. Yes, my darlings, you read that right. Look, look, everybody says, at JFK with his thousands of women, and Gladstone bringing the ladies of the street home for tea with his wife, and Lloyd George with his mistress. (You don't have to look at Bill and Monica, because that is just too nasty for a blameless Thursday.) They were all great leaders, despite their blatant flaws. The rider goes: if we had had the internet and the tabloids then they would not have been elected dog-catcher.

Well, yes, except I think there is a sand in the eyes thing going on here. I do judge infidelity to be a defect, but it is not the only mark of a person. It is not the most important defining feature. George W Bush appears to have been marvellously faithful to poor Laura, but I do not think he was a fine man. He was spoilt, intellectually lazy, excessively parti pris, and pig-headed. Kennedy, while not the gilded saint of Camelot myth, was, when he was not catting around, brave, stoic, loyal and oddly grown up. I say oddly, because the having of all the women is such a childish give it to me now trait. But when the chips were down, he took responsibility for his actions, which is the kite mark of an adult. He shouldered the blame for the Bay of Pigs, when he could have thrown any number of subordinates to the wolves. He stared down the rabid generals during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and quite possibly did literally save the world, which is not something you see every day.  One of the reasons I keep faith with President Obama is that I think he has character. He, too, has a lovely tendency to take responsibility for mistakes; 'I screwed up,' was one of the earliest and most memorable things he said in his presidency; no ifs or buts or it was really the other fellow. He is patient, thoughtful, resilient and still keeps his sense of humour when everyone about him is losing theirs.

Gordon Brown did two things yesterday which make me wonder very much about his character. He stood up in the House of Commons, denied that the troops in Afghanistan were ever short of kit or helicopters, and then, in the very same breath, blamed the generals. Not only did he refute something that twenty different sources say is true, but he  said it was nothing to do with him, guv. Then he went on Channel Four News and refused to answer any of nice Gary Gibbon's perfectly reasonable questions. Instead, he did that strange chewing thing with his mouth, as if he had just swallowed a handful of bees, and, even worse, kept remembering to break out a phoney smile. You could almost see him remembering the pollsters' advice: grin, Gordon, the voters like a happy warrior.

Oh, and just to cap it all off, he walked straight past a voter who was trying to ask him about schools, despite the fact that he has been banging on about how he is going to be transparent and accessible and get out and meet the public, because he is an 'ordinary middle class' person, just like the rest of us. As he strode away, he might as well have said: I am on the side of the people, until they start asking awkward questions.

People say that Brown can be very funny and nice in life. Years ago, I met someone who worked for him. 'Oh, I love Gordon,' the operative said, with as much swoon as if he were talking about Ava Gardner. I am perfectly certain that he would never cheat on his charming wife. But I think that he has a fatal crack in his character, because, in his world, nothing is ever his fault. The selling of the gold at rock bottom prices was not his fault; someone told him to do it. The trashing of the pensions was not his fault, for the same reason. The piling up of record debt was not his fault; it was the global meltdown. The refusal to pay for helicopters was not his fault; the generals made the decisions.

I believe in government. I believe in the power of politics to do good things. But I do not believe in Gordon Brown. Policies matter, but the people who implement them matter too. Is it too much to ask for someone to have the character to stand up and say the buck stops with me?

 

(Photograph by Getty Images.)

Election Fever, Day Two

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

I do apologise in advance to my international readers (how I love writing those two words) and those ordinary decent Britons who think the whole political class a bunch of showers. There is going to be a bit of election hysteria in this parish for a while, although I might have calmed down by the end of the week.

For now, I am in hog heaven. The BBC outdid itself yesterday by turning the entire News 24 channel over to the Great Event. On top of that, I get Paxo going paxolicious on Newsnight, Jon Sopel presenting an all-singing all-dancing daily election special, and good old Andrew Neil still attempting, without success, to GET SOMEONE TO ANSWER THE QUESTION. Reporters are being sent out on buses and trains to hunt down actual voters, most of whom say lovely sensible things like: 'I'm going to listen to what they all have to say', thus maintaining my enduring faith in the great British public.

I suppose there had to be a fly in the ointment. Just as I am throwing bouquets at the Beeb for representing public service broadcasting at its crest and peak, I wander onto the iplayer for an extra little political fix as a tea-time treat, and I find What The Election Papers Say. At first, I think it must be a spoof. There is someone who sounds like Kevin McGuire, except instead of being his normal sceptical self, he is attempting to be funny. Then there are two actors, reading out excerpts from the newspapers in mad shouty voices. When they read from The Times, they do extravagant cod-posh. When they read from The Mirror, they do ey-oop North. (I can't work out which bunch of readers or social demographics this is more insulting to.) They obviously think they are being perfectly hysterical. In fact, it sounds as if we have gone back into some sort of 1970s time-warp, when comics thought that doing accents and telling mother-in-law jokes was amusing.

BBC, what are you doing to me? Can you not get Samuel West, who has the best voice in the entire world and should be made to read everything ever written out loud? (Peter Firth comes in an honourable second.) Can you just stop with this nonsense before I go all Disgusted from Tonbridge Wells on your ass and start asking for my licence fee back?

Thank goodness it is almost time for PM with Eddie Mair.

 

Picture of the day is not a naughty little political dig. It is of dear Virginia the Pig. She is not well, and we think that she may be in her last days. She is a very splendid lady, and we shall all miss her. Here she is, during the last snow, with a little avian friend:

A state of high excitement

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

At last, the election has been called. For a political geek like me, this is Christmas and Easter rolled into one. It is not only a potentially historic election, whichever side wins, it is also the first time ever in my life that I am not certain who shall get my vote. This is making me feel febrile and uncertain. I have voted Labour since I was old enough to put a cross in a box, but I don't think I can go on with Gordon Brown. There are many reasons, but perhaps the most crucial is: he spent £18 billion on two wars, still did not get the right kit to the troops in Afghanistan and then misled Chilcot about it. And: too many of the children still cannot read.

Can the Tories convince me? It would go against muscle memory. I am the mythical Floating Voter, ready to be enlightened. The next four weeks are going to be fascinating.

Here is what I am least likely to say:

They are all the bloody same.

Here is what I am most likely to say:

Answer the damn question.

 

(Photograph by Rui Vieira.)

Bank Holiday Monday, with gratuitous wildlife

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

Another huge family lunch. This time there were fifteen people, including the smalls. I cooked sausages in onion gravy, my own special smashed-up new potatoes with olive oil and basil, baby peas with mint, and a mash of neeps, carrots and celeriac with a hint of saffron.

Now I must sit very quietly in a still room to regain my wits.

The weather has gone flat. The sky is the colour of old teeth and the trees are bare and brown. There is still not so much as the hint of a daffodil. I feel slightly nostalgic as all the relations fly off in their different directions. Tomorrow I must tidy my desk and take my library books back and reset my brain and do some serious work.

In the meantime, I am thinking about giraffes, because a bank holiday isn't a bank holiday without a giraffe:

Via Pixdaus, photographer sadly unknown.

Via A Cup of Jo; photographer happily very much known, the really rather brilliant Sharon Montrose.

Happy Easter.

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

Cooked lunch at my sister's house for eighteen relations, from four months to seventy-something years old. There was a huge amount of family sweetness.

Sample conversation:

Very small blonde person, extremely seriously:

'I had chocolate.'

Me:

'You did?'

VSBP:

'Because it's CHRISTMAS.'

Me, to her mother:

'She really doesn't know if it's Christmas or Easter.'

I made: medallions of pork in lemon and basil sauce; new potatoes with butter; slow roast tomatoes with garlic and basil; slender baked strips of aubergine and courgettes; tiny green peas with olive oil, mint and crumbled feta cheese; roasted sweet potatoes and carrots; and green and cannellini beans dressed with olive oil, lemon juice and a hint of crushed garlic, and which I must admit is Sarah's special recipe. I was beautifully assisted by my younger niece, who appointed herself to the job, because, as she explained to everyone else, she is the only one who knows not to take it personally when I SHOUT in the kitchen. It is just the perfectionist genie getting the better of me.

Before:

 

 

After:

Then I drank several glasses of white wine to recover and admired my mother's excessively elegant silk shirt, in a huge swirling paisley pattern that reminded me of Marrakesh in the 1970s.

When I got home, I found that my dear friend Sophie, who lives all the way out on the west coast of America, had sent me a picture of the hot cross buns she made with her own bare hands. I was so impressed I stared at it for some minutes in heartfelt admiration.

Now I am sitting quietly in my room, while the dogs slumber on the sofa, and the dying light comes in through the Venetian blinds:

It was a lovely day. I'm not generally one of those people who gets misty-eyed and sentimental about families. I can be quite shockingly cynical about the whole shooting match, when the mood takes me. We, like all families, have our fights and irritations and misunderstandings. But today harmony fell on everyone, and it was very touching to see all the generations together, and I felt glad and lucky.

I hope you all have a very, very happy Easter.

Good Friday

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

Today is the goodest of Good Fridays. Practically my entire family is here, all the babies looking particularly sweet and fetching, and everybody wreathed in special Easter smiles. (I should point out that we are not The Waltons, and this smiling business does not always obtain.) It is a perfect Bobby Dazzler of a day, the sun shining gaudily out of an azure sky.

I went to the village to run errands, ostensibly to get pork, hot cross buns, and a newspaper. Those were my three things. I have been on an anti-stuff jag lately, partly because of the recession, partly because I fret mildly about landfill, partly because I already have too much stuff, partly as a responsible economy drive. I don't know if it was the sun, or seeing all the happy family faces, or just weeks of not shopping, but I suddenly had a Nicole Diver moment.

I came back with: a white hydrangea in a pot as a present for my mother, gaily coloured rubber ducks for the children, bunches of tulips and roses, two little blue plants whose name I now cannot remember, sirloin steaks for lunch (from happy Aberdeen Angus cows who live about three fields away, thus pleasing my need to buy local), great bunches of basil and watercress, eight hot cross buns, a lovely white heather, and a glorious plaid blanket from Johnston's of Elgin. All of this was very, very naughty. There was no call for any of it. I suppose I could say I am doing my bit to keep the creaking economy going, and supporting my village shops, but really it was just about pure, naked pleasure.

I wonder too if it carried a slight edge of defiance. I was told yesterday that there are people I know who think my life is a waste. Apparently, it is so peculiar for a women to choose to live without a husband that she must be pitied. I sometimes think I can bear almost anything except pity. I know that there are people who crave it, blowing every tiny set-back into a three act drama, so they may receive a chorus of poor yous. For whatever reason, I do not. If anyone says 'poor you' to me, I go very gruff and reply that I am not living in the Congo. The irony of all this is that I spend half my time feeling slightly guilty that I am so blatantly, unfairly lucky. I have all my arms and legs, I have utter freedom, I have time and solitude, both of which I crave, I do a job I love, I am surrounded with the love of family and friends, I have beautiful black dogs who make me laugh, I can type, and I live in the middle of one of the most glorious landscapes on earth. But apparently, because I neglected to marry, it is all a WASTE.

So, in true philosophical fashion, I went shopping. Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke. I have roses. Sometimes, as the tremendous Miss Gertrude Stein once said a rose is a rose is a rose. Sometimes it is the floral equivalent of the red banner of everyone can just bugger off and mind their own business.

And really, no stupid chatter means a damn, because it has been such a glorious day.

I woke up and I saw this:

And a sky the colour of this:

And my dear little garden looked like this:

(How could anyone pity someone who has such a fine dry stone wall? Really?)

And I bought this:

And this:

And this:

And these:

And then I arranged them so they looked like this:

And this:

And, meanwhile, the dogs were doing this:

(Notice slightly cross 'when are you going to stop faffing around with boring flowers and find me a nice stick to catch?' face.)

And this:

(Notice contrasting oblivion to floral matters, and instead utter concentration on finding most comfortable position on the sofa.)

And my dear old mum gave me these:

And soon the children will be playing with these:

(All profits from which will go to the RNLI, because one must never forget the lifeboats.)

And somehow, all of that made me remember that people will say what they will, and I must let them, and none of it matters very much, not when there are days of dogs and roses.