Graeme Archer: Bob Crow, Ian McEwan and wire flowers

Bishopsgate, 7.30am  The world, someone once said, divides into two groups of people: those who divide the world into two groups of people, and those who don’t. I think I’m one of the former. The world also divides, another way, into people who are fairly relaxed about social interaction, and those for whom any attempt at organising a group event becomes an enervating, Abigail’s-Party type nightmare. I fear I’m closer to the latter there.   

Thus it was last night. Mr Keith and I invited a couple of friends over to our manor to sample a bit of Hackney life. You may have noticed, I’m very fond of Hackney; so I arranged to meet my mates at Bishopsgate, from where I planned a leisurely stroll through Spitalfields, pointing out Jeanette Winterson’s house, and the Hawksmoor church, up Brick Lane (really: I’ve read enough novels about Brick Lane now, thank you), over onto Columbia Road (flower market), past the Hackney city farm and up and over the Regent’s Canal to Broadway market, and then into the Evening Standard five-star, Fay Maschler loved, uber-trendy eaterie I’d selected to show off the East End at its culinary best.

Well. That was the plan. Of course the tube strike intervened, so when my very hot and sticky friends eventually made it to Liverpool St (from St James, via Mile End), I was so worried about the table reservation that, rather than the pleasant wander home  I’d envisaged, I pushed them onto the lower deck of a heaving 388 bus, to get dragged along Bethnal Green Road at its busiest, and then marched them straight into the restaurant that I switched to at the last minute because I didn’t trust the over-full signals I was getting from the uber-trendy eaterie. Of course the one I selected was as dead as a doornail. Food was OK though.

What did I learn from all this? Somewhat laterally: anyone who wants my vote to be the London mayoral candidate has to talk loudly and publicly about smashing the RMT, a trade union that exists in an alternative universe, where passengers are pawns and jobs are for life. A determined Tory mayor, with a fresh mandate from the people, could break them: a once in a four year chance. So what about it, Andrew/Warwick/Victoria/Boris? I think (repeating myself somewhat from a week or so ago) that transport failure is the shortest route to demonstrating Livingstone’s incompetence. Bob Crow is Livingstone as a trade union leader. Make the connection. Make it stick. 

*

Private Eye had a very funny skit on “Books of the Year” this week, with everyone taking part declaring On Chesil Beach to be a “masterpiece”. I’ve read everything that Ian McEwan has published, and will shortly be cooing away in the Barbican cinema at the film of Atonement, but if I had to choose one word to describe his style it would probably be “arid”, meaning that I’m more often impressed by his voyeuristic technique than I am moved to care for his characters. I remember being shocked by the sudden violence of The Comfort of Strangers, but not especially upset by it. My book of the year so far is Rose Tremain’s The Road Home, which tells of Lev, a handsome, nearly-good Russian from Auror, who travels on a bus to London to work and fall in love in a restaurant in Clerkenwell. With appalling consequences. It’s a beautiful book. On Monday morning I had the full-on ridiculous spectacle-of-self thing of sobbing away on the 8.10am train, when Lev’s heart is broken by the English woman he (foolishly) takes up with. A few chapters later and I wanted to kill him. Lev is amazed, inter alia, by how fat the English are, since he expected them to resemble Alec Guinness in The Bridge Over The River Kwai. I think Rose Tremain has written “a masterpiece”. 

*

Cameron at his best on Newsnight (I’ve only just seen it), telling that ridiculous interviewer that he’s an unapologetic supporter of marriage. Has anyone from the BBC ever made themselves look so foolish as economics editress Stephanie Wossername? She sneeringly asked The Dave how an extra twenty pounds a week could possibly encourage people to marry. There goes a woman for whom twenty quid is what you flutter as a tip at your cab driver, as he drops you outside some yuppy dump in Clerkenwell (I’m anti-Clerkenwell this week: Rose Tremain’s fault. Anyway it’s over the border in Islington, so really). I don’t mind rich people, except when they display breathtaking ignorance of how most people cope with levels of income that are orders of magnitude lower than that which they pay their nannies. I remember a candidate selection meeting in an outer, eastern borough, where one of the candidates was asked how he would cope with a somewhat, ah, rougher landscape than he was used to. Oh that’s fine, he drawled, there are ever so many flats next to my mother’s house in Finsbury. I think he meant the square, not the park. 

What’s wrong with the current system – what Cameron articulates so well – what non-BBC types know in their bones – is that it discriminates against pair-bonding. Government can’t and shouldn’t make people marry; but it has to do its part by removing any and all of the barriers that act against it: yes, you stupid economics editress person, even if that means a difference of only (!) twenty quid a week. There’s nothing more important for a healthy society than a solid institution of family, and marriage is the family’s bedrock. Next time you hear a (putative) Conservative criticising David Cameron, ask them to tell you which other Tory politician has been able to make such a moral case so powerfully? Was it, um, Michael Ancram? 

*

Late summer sunshine this morning. What a transformation. I was smiled on by the sun, so I smiled in turn on the bloke who offered to make me a wire flower for the price of a cup of tea. He explained to me that he formed the loops of the petals in the shape of a figure eight, as this was the symbol of infinity, and would surely help me get through the day well. My smile froze. I could feel Richard Dawkins breathing in my ear, urging me to smash this delusional offer of good fortune into the gutter. My right-brain maths-trained self agreed (“Don’t you tell me about infinity”). Oh well. I knew I had a left-brain for some reason. I have the wire flower now on my desk, and it looks smashing. 

*

Amy Winehouse was robbed. 

Comments

[Tony Makara]

While watching the David Cameron newsnight interview it struck me several times that the standard if interviewing was very poor. David Cameron performed well and would have performed even better if he had been interviewed by a Brian Walden or Jeremy Paxman.

David Cameron is a leader who sees beyond the standard macroeconomic/foreign policy remit of most prime ministers. Mr Cameron is a leader with an eye on social policy, a policy which has been ignored by previous premiers. This I think has unsettled political commentators like Stephanie Flanders who are not used to the socially conscious politican and really don't know what questions to ask. So we end up with a GCSE standard debate where David Cameron is attacked for having been educated at Eton and having a wealthy wife.

If the BBC want proper political debate with gravitas they would do well to hire former politicans to do the interviewing. Brian Walden, in my view was the best, showed that debate can be aggressive, articulate, and actually tell us something about the person being interviewed.

[Effie]

I am not a natural Tory supporter Graeme but I do enjoy your article on a Sunday morning. I find it witty and very informative.
I cannot always agree with your politics but you would be surprised how much more unites us than divides us.
I thoroughly agree with you regarding Bob Crowe. My honest opinion of this man I could not put to print for fear of offending people and you may be pleasantly surprised to find a lot of other Labour supporting people agree with both you and myself about this disruptive individual.
Unfortunately he is leading sheep, brainless morons who do not realise that these stupid strikes are a thing of the past and nothing can be gained from them.
Please keep your mini-tours of London up they are very interesting.

[Londoner]

Graeme,

Just enjoyed reading your piece, including the literary parts. Maybe you could continue that theme with recent novels set in London - OK, not Brick Lane maybe. I think Zadie Smith evokes modern London very well and loved "On Beauty" (half London, half New England). Have you read it and did you like it? I'm wondering whether part of the appeal is heterosexual.

But I am really posting out of curiosity (a) with total moderation, what time will this go up in the morning (posting at around 1.45am) and (b) what on earth were you doing in Bishopsgate at 7.30am on a Sunday morning? I know and (sort of) love it most hours of Monday to Friday, but Sunday 7.30am??

[Graeme Archer]

Hello Londoner. Well spotted (the lack of proper chronicity in this week's piece!). I wrote the first bit at Bishopsgate at half seven last Thursday (that's me sat outside Cafe Nero every morning, tapping away) and then the last couple of paragraphs somewhat later in the day!

I loved On Beauty. It's Howard's End really innit. But reworked so magnificently. I have not read White Teeth - would you recommend?

Hello Effie. You wrote such very nice comments - thank you very much. I am in paroxysm of terror every Saturday night, waiting for this to go online, and it's incredibly nice to get such nice feedback.

(Hello Tony too!).

[Effie]

thank you very much. I am in paroxysm of terror every Saturday night, waiting for this to go online, and it's incredibly nice to get such nice feedback.

Just nerves, however if you keep this standard up they will soon go and I am glad you do not come over as insulting to Labour voting people as I am sure you realise that each has their own reasons and opinion for voting one way or another.
There is much more that unites people in this country than divides them and it would not do for everybody to be the same.
This is what makes people so interesting.
My grandmother was born within the sound of the Bow Bells making her a real cockny, I know nothing of that area and would be glad to be educated on the area.
As I am nearly seventy you will realise that London in her day was very much down and out, I do believe she came from Bethnall Green but could not put my hand on heart to swear that as a fact.
My Grandfather was a ships painter on the docks.
Effie.

[Londoner]

Graeme

So, by implication, you didn't find the heterosexual sex in "On Beauty" leaving you cold? (And written by such a sexy person as Zadie is too, but that'll pass you by.) Maybe I should try that Hollingsworth (?) 1980s political/gay novel to see if that works both ways. I presume you have read it?

Yes, I would recommend White Teeth - not as deep characterisation as On Beauty but a rip-roaring plot with even more well-observed multi-racial London in it. Her second, Autograph Man, is much weaker and I did not finish it.