The Daily Novel

John McCain trounced his rivals in the Florida primary yesterday. He took 35 per cent of Republican votes against only 31 per cent by ex-Governor Romney. His victory is the more impressive because voters cited the economy as uppermost in their minds. No surprise because George Bush focussed on it in his State of the Union speech to Congress this week. And Florida, unlike most of the other states which have reported so far, only allows Republicans to vote in its primary. Romney has strong support amongst the party faithful. McCain’s gains have hithertoo been fuelled by the independents.

He enters super Tuesday as the clear frontrunner. Rudy Giuliani, who last summer was the Republican favourite, and who had concentrated all his efforts on winning Florida, where many New Yorkers go to live when they leave the treadmill, only managed to win 15 per cent of the poll. According to the Washington Post he is expected to throw his support behind McCain now. Giuliana had a bruising time in the sunshine state. His main card is his reputation for rallying New York after the suicide planes flew into the twin towers on 9/11. But yesterday the families of three of the firemen who died turned up on the campaign trail and attacked the ex-New York mayor for failiing to protect the fire brigade. They portrayed him as a villain not a hero.

Mick Huckabee, who grabbed the headlines with his surprise win in Iowa only managed to get 13 per cent of the votes. He is fighting on but it is very doubtful if he will survive super Tuesday. 

For the present it looks as if Republican support is solidifying around McCain. But what actually happens will also depend on who is the Demcocratic candidate. Because the Florida party brought the date of the Florida primary forward, it had been declared illegal by the national committee. The votes do not count and the candidates did not campaign there. Hillary Clinton, however, went there yesterday to collect some cheers, as she won by the forecast big margin.

Since Florida has an elderly population, it is not surprising that she did well. But it was the first primary after the Obama camp won its much publicised support from Edward Kennedy. And Clinton got half the vote, actually winning more votes than McCain.

 The result is a timely reminder that it is much too soon to write off the Clintons. It is not necessarily true that Obama is the only Demcocratic candidate who can beat McCain. In this race everyone is guessing, including the party strategists and the journalists who are the most experienced in covering presidential campaigns. In the event the choice of both parties will be affected by which candidate is the frontrunner for the other side. And it certainly true that if Obama trouces Clinton next Tuesday, the Republicans will start to consider whether it can pitch a 71-year-old against a young man in his forties.

I intend to try to resist the temptation to blog on this subject again until the last state declares next Tuesday, which will be long after I am in bed. But how California votes is a crucial part of the jigsow. Clinton has a big lead there. But Obama just might pull off a win if he can inspire the state’s youth as successfully as he did in South Carolina.

The death of serious journalism has been announced many times during my working life. The lastest proclamation, was delivered on Monday night at the University of Westminster in a lecture by no greater authority than Alaistair Campbell. If you want to know the essence of what he was saying you can read it on The Guardian web site.

Rather to my surprise I agreed with most of it. The Guardian extract is entitled, ‘A crisis of credibility’. There has been a shift, Campbell alleges, to ‘a culture of negativity’. News is only news when it is bad for someone. This is broadly true of a lot of British newspaper coverage in the printed media. And as Alastair says, ‘Politicians and journalists both have a job to do, and should try to do them without regarding the other as sub-human.’

What Campbell’s article does not acknowledge is that he himself is in part responsible for what has happened in Britain. Between 1997 and 2003 he was ‘director of communications and strategy’ to Prime Minister Tony Blair. The former Daily Mirror political editor turned gamekeeper for a spell. And he treated journalists, as my students told me, as if they were a species of scum.

What my students had to tell me, I listened to. But the really shattering verdict on Campbell as what used to be called the Prime Minister’s press secretary, was that he didn’t rate the foreign press at all. They felt, so they told me, that he treated them with contempt. And this included journalists who had dealt with Margaret Thatcher’s press sectrary, who was a formidable bully who could rival Jeremy Paxman as a human Rottweiler.

And so I can tell Alastair, that the spirit of journalism, with it’s core emphasis on the vital role of reporters telling it as it happens, is still alive and well. In the US press, which I have been reading thanks to my interest in the US election. What readers can get from the Washington Post and the New York Times, is detailed reportage of what is happening on the campaign trail. Not only what the candidate says, but what some of those listening thought about it. And the reporter also tells me what the candidate’s spin team told them.

To do this, requires acres of newsprint, which would not leave enough space for British newspapers to get in the advertisements. But in Britain it not only the heavies, The Times and The Telegraph, etc., it is also the Daily Mail. If you read them online, you can get a lot more detail than you can read in the print version. And, of course, today. Before tomorrow comes.

I am not at all sure what this means for our future in this rapidly changing world. But I am sure that good journalism as still being done, and that it is available to readers. And my guess is that readers, or viewers since the medium is often computers, are savy enough to realise that what a good reporter says is actually of a different quality than the lonesome blogger. The blogger can tell us direct what it is like in trenches. But the journalist, given his daily access to Presidents and their spinners, can reveal to us not only the news, but how the authorities are spinning the news.

Campbell mentioned in his lecture the huge number of non-stories that have emanated from the McCann case. But, he did not read, as I did, the Daily Mail story from their reporter who was given the job of minding the wife of the Reginald Perrin canoeist. She told the full story of what happened between them on the Daily Mail web site. Giving the reader, the opportunity of seeing what was actually happening, while the media circus was hovering around their prey.

The rules of the game are changing and in ways that are not easy to predict. But we should not assume that what we are now getting is far worse than what we used to get.

Which was, as we all know, far from perfect.

There is a long and detailed piece of reportage by Howard Kurtz, a Washington Post staff writer, about how Barack Obama is actually dealing with the press. (It is in his Media Notes slot, but for some reason my program will not allow me to give you the URL) It demonstrates that he is scarcely dealing with them at all. Taking a rather aloof attitude and spending his time encouraging his team NOT to spin. In marked contrast to nearly all the other candidates is this and all previous US elections. It should be must reading for all those interested in this US election.

Kurtz reports, rather than editorialises.

But if his picture is as true as it is compelling, the implications are staggering.

Obama has got from obscurity to his present position without the help of the media pack. By using concentrating on speaking to the people direct. Perhaps because we now live in the age of twenty-four news on television and instant direct access by politicians via the internet to those who want to find out what they stand for, his approach seems to be working.

Far be from me to suggest that the age of the internet means that everyone can influence opinion in this age. On the contrary, the internet is more and more dominated by the old media groups and the new media empires, who now produce such a volume of compelling and seductive content, that the individual viewer has little time left, to browse around looking for interesting obscure bloggers who have something interesting to say.

This is one way in which Obama is quite different than JFK, whose rise was fuelled by his admirers in the east coast media.

I don’t want to say more about this now. Because it behoves oldies like myself to stop and think. Maybe the world has changed much more than we have allowed for. Overwhelmingly America’s youth and young adults are listening to Obama. And for all sorts of reasons, including many I do not know about, think his personality and his message and his proposals is something they can get out of bed for and support.

All this will be a great deal clearer after super Tuesday on 5 February when we will know how many Americans have actually voted for him.

For the present the only thing I am certain of is that this is the most interesting US  election of my lifetime. And, given the size of the world’s problems and America’s still enormous power, the most important election of my lifetime.

You can find the Kurtz article on the Post site. Which is www.washingtonpost.com.

The Times today carries two long pieces about the US Presidential race. One from its US correspondent suggests that Obama is picking up Kennedy’s mantle. A second from The Times most distingished (i. e. oldest) columnist is headed ‘Is Barak Obama the new JFK?’. William Rees Mogg gives a resounding positive answer to the question and writes admiringly of Obama’ capacities, including the ability he did share with Kennedy, his ability to win the hearts of young people in America, including many of those who have not been politically active.

I immediately posted a comment. They did not publish it.

I wonder why.

I told Mogg that I agreed with most of his argument but that he had ignored the many radical differences between Obama and JFK. I also reminded Mogg that he was not always right. I reminded him of the time in 1968 when, as editor of The Times, he wanted to back Robert Maxwell in order to stop Rupert Murdoch getting his hands on a British newspaper. In the event he dropped the idea because only one of his senior colleagues (Peter Jay) thought he was right in that judgment.

Since those days, of course, Mogg has become buddy buddy with the brash Australian he dreaded. He is almost the only surviving member of the Thomson Times who is still on the Murdoch payroll.

In my own blogg of three weeks ago I pointed out the differences between Obama and JFK which are quite as compelling as the similarities. My blog was pegged to an earlier story in The Times, in which their North American editor made the comparison. In that blog I speculated that maybe Murdoch was toying with the idea of supporting him.

It is well known that Murdoch likes to back winners, so that idea is certainly not ruled out. And I can well believe that Murdoch is not a Clinton fan. But I doubt whether Murdoch has made up his mind about whom he will vote for next November. (And since, unlike me, he is an American citizen, he acutally has a vote.)

My guess is that Murdoch will back Obama if there is no other credible candidate. And, Mogg, in his article today, says bluntly McCain would not beat Obama. A judgment with which I agree.

But we don’t yet know whether McCain has got the Republican nomination. And when we don’t yet know whether the dark horse, Blomberg, the Mayor of New York, is going to throw his hat into the ring as an independent.

Readers of the Wall St Journal, Murdoch’s latest media prize, would not need much presuading to vote for Blomberg rather than Obama. And neither would many of the viewers of Murdoch’s Fox Television channel.

Barack Obama’s landslide win in South Carolina makes him very definitely the most probable winner of the Democratic nomination. In trouncing Hillary Clinton two to one, he confounded the opinion polls which had been predicting that if he did win it would be a narrow margin. Clinton was expected to do well there they are well known and mostly popular in the state. South Carolina is the first state to declare which has a slight majority of non-white voters. But the reasoning of many of the commentators, and of several opinion polls, is that the Clintons have been picking up a decent chunk of the black vote and a bigger proportion of the Latino vote. Because of their excellent track record in supporting the rights of these minorities.

In the event Obama got 80 per cent of the black vote and and more than them of the Latino vote. Equally important it was a huge turnout. Obama again took the bulk of the young people’s vote. And it is now absolutely clear that much of his success is due to the fact that he has caught the imagination of young people.  He has stirred them to politiccal involvment. It is not a matter of them switching their vote. They have been stirred to vote whereas they might not have bothered.

Later today, if the leaks are to be believed, Obama is going to appear on platform in Washington with Edward Kennedy by his side pledging support. This is an enormous boost, and, particularly for a man who was virtually unknown nationally when his campaign started. Kennedy, whose career took a nose dive, after his moonlight drive over Chappaquiddick Bay, which led to the death of young female Democrat, has served his penance and established himself as the elder statesman of the Democratic Party. Additionally he has acquired a substantial following amongst young people by speaking out on issues which more careful politicians avoid.

The other reason Obama was not expected to do well in South Carolina is a significant part of the white population in this southern state are more used to dealing with blacks as servants ratther leaders. There is still a lot of unconscious racism, as there is in other parts of the US. Obama’s massive victory does not prove that he will not suffer at all from such unconscious racism, particularly if he wins the Democratic nomination, and and thus becomes the clear favourite to be the next President.

In the run up to South Carolina, the Clintons indulged in some nasty anti-Obama campaigning, in an effort to win more of the coloured vote and in an effort to suggest  he was guilty of forming friendships with people of dubious financial probity. Thus far they have only managed to unearth one. It as at least possible that this tactic has mis-fired. It could be one reason why South Carolina’s voters trounced the Clintons.

But as I pointed out in my last blog this kind of negative campaigning makes it more difficult for Clintonites and Obama freaks to work together to defeat the Republican candidate next November. It is time for both Clintons to face up to the fact that Obama might win the nomination, which would, of course, be a bitter disappointment for Hillary. Almost as big a disappontment as when she found that husband Bill was fooling around with Monica Lewinsky. But Bill the political Rottweiler is no better for her than Bill the sexy alley cat.

It is time for both of them to start thinking of America. In terms of policies and basic values Obama is the candidate who is the same side as the Clintons. If they really care as much for America, as their speeches claim (and I think they do) they should be already concentrating on their Plan B. If Hillary loses to Obama, what can the Clintons do to help Obama win the White House.

And if Obama becomes President what can they do to serve the new President. Hillary has the capacity of being a very effective Secretary of State. Bill could perform an invaluable ambassadorial role in helping to restore America’s reputation the world after the battering it has taken during the Bush regime.

Academic thought takes as long to turn around as a giant tanker. And journalists rushing to get their copy in when responding to the latest crisis take even longer to catch up with what, we in the trade, call the cutting edge of new thinking. Partly because we spend so much of our time talking with people, who are themselves stuck in the basic assumptions of the past. I have been reminded of this in the last few days, reading and listening to the comments on the spectacular crash of the world’s stock markets over the last few days. And these comments are still filling the air waves and pages and pages in the print media. Economics temporily is deemed even more worthy of wall to wall coverage than the old staples of sex and crime.

I was jolted into realising this the night before last, half asleep watching BBC Newsnight. Jeremy Paxman was interviewing a man from the New Economics Forum called Andrew Simmins. It was an undramatic conversation. Paxman is undoubtedly a Rottweiler but he is the thinking man’s Rottweiler. And on this occasion he was probing for what is really important about the very serious recession facing the US and the quite serious recession facing the UK. It did not get any coverage in the newspapers, which it would have done if Paxman had been harrassing a cabinet minister to get at the lies and half truths beneach what he was saying. Even The Guardian the following morning went big on a speech by George Soros, the international financier who was forecasting that the British recessin could be just as bad as that in America.

The essence of the New Economics is that we pay far too much attention to growth whereas the real problem is that we have too much growth. This is not only because growth of the kind we have been used to since the rise of American consumer capitalism at the end of the nineteenth century is creating global warming that is going to blight the lives of our children, and even more our grandchildren. Much of the talk currently is about whether the booming economies of China and India can make up for the slow down in Britain and America and so prevent a recession as that heralded by  the Great Wall Street Crash of 1929. India has just annouced its equivalent of Henry Ford’s Model T Ford, which threatens to escalate global warming as the expected millions buy it and pump more pollution into the air as their engines tick over in India’s traffic jams. What the planet needs is an expensive hybrid, where the engine can switch over to electric power for most of urban driving. China is already making an even bigger contribution to global warming with coal fired power stations similar to those prevailing in my childhood.

But the essential point of the Paxman/Simmins conversation is that growth is also bad for economic development. We are driven by old-fashioned economic ideas which still dominate our thinking. Even though the New Economics is quite old. Many of the ideas of were around in the 1960s when the Club of Rome, bunch of academics from universities all over the world, were challenging the dominant wisdom. Despite their efforts the dominant wisdom is still dominant.

One point emphasised in the Newsnight programme was that decisions are still made as if human beings were driven by economic motives. Despite the increasing volume of research that demonstrates that people in the most highly developed economies are no more happy than they were when they were poorer. And in many cases they are far more unhappy. Despite the crash in the stock marbet, far more spectacular than 1929 in percentage terms, Wall Steet brokers are not throwing themselves off their skyscapers. But there is a real increase in the number of suicides by teenagers in Britain.

We should be concerned about this, because although they are a tiny minority, they are reflecting in the extremity of their despair what many young people are trying to tell us. And what at some deep level we know ourselves.

 Happiness is a vague concept. In writing this I paused, because it is a difficult subject to write about without seeming simplistic. I paused and looked up. The sky in front of me is streaked with a brilliant mixture of pinks, reds and greys. The sea is lapping gently on the shores of Lyme Bay. Two or three birds are flying around. It is entirely silent. At least it was. Just now a jumbo jet passed over reminding me that I am supposed to be writing about global warming.

I’ve still got the light on, because it was just before dawn when I started writing. I left my computer on standby all night. So I am not practicing what I preach. And I am not sure whether I have even now conveyed why I found the Newsnight programme so helpful.  But you can see for yourself what the New Economic Forum is about by following this link.

And if you think that human nature never changes, consider this. Yesterday MPs in the House of Commons voted to accept a measly 1.9 per cent increase in their own pay. Even though the police have been marching the streets in their weekend clothes demanding 2.5 per cent and the teachers are getting ready to strike over their pay claim.

Even politicians sometimes do the right thing.

The American people will cast their votes next November, mostly after thinking through the issues and making up their own minds. But in the meantime they will be influenced by all the spinning and the dirty tricks campaigns which are alreaady in evidence. Obama has been hit by suggestions that he is a closet Muslim. Whereas, so far as I have been able to ascertain, he is a Christian, who attends his local church, not just because it is politically sensible for a politician seeking office in the US, which substantially bigger on church attendence than the UK.

So I half expected Obama to be in his local church this Sunday, with the television cameras allowed in to witness him humbly praying. In the event he hot-tailed it down south to worship in the church of Martin Luther King, with all the world’s media in attendence. Therein he paid homage to the most significent Black leader of recent America. And pledged himself to make real the dream that King had. A hugely powerful emotive message, because King, like Jack and Bobby Kennedy was struck down by an assassin’s bullet. And the vast majority of American voters now know, that Jack and Bobby were not killed by Soviet spies, but by home grown Americans.

So the message from Obama’s tactic gets home to white Americans as well as black Americans. To the majority of white Americans, who do not buy the conspiracy theories of the American right.

Hillary Clinton realises this as well. So while Obama was at his nearly all black service, she was shaking hands with a line of black Americans. By the time she got the last one of the line in the television clip I saw she was looking a bit strained.

But she should not be under-estimated. Neither should husband Bill. Most of the world would be happier with a Clinton retro administration than a replay of George W Bush. And the Clinton family dynamic plays well with US values. Their marriage has survived all the indignities of the Monica saga. To American men, Bill is not despised because he took advantage of what he was offered. And Hillary is mostly admired by women, because at the time she was fairly frank about her feelings, although she stood by him.

So the Clinton’s have a messy marriage. But one that has endured. And that fits the experience of most Americans, who no more believe in the Hollywood myths, than we do on our side of the Atlantic.

While Gordon Brown was uncomfortably putting on fancy dress to receive an honary degree in India, his future was being decided back home. His plan for getting out of the Northern Rock debacle was being put to the House of Commons by his Chancellor, Alastair Darling. And not at an auspicious moment. The stock market was crashing on fears of a deep recession in America, fuelled by the monumental over-borrowing in the US housing market.

Darling was saying that Northern Rock’s portfolio was sound. No need for the Government to nationalise it. The private sector would take care of it. No mention of the fact that Northern Rock got into trouble, because along with most British building societies and banks they fuelled a boom based on people being allowed to borrow as much as nine times earnings. Fine, so long as property prices continued to rise. But bound to run into trouble if the boom did not last for ever. Which it has not.

The British economy is not yet is such dire straits as that of the US. But it is pretty bad. And it is not only Northern Rock which has issued mortgages to people who are going to have difficulty in meeting the payments. Unless the Government bails them out.

Brown says he will not nationalise British Rock. Because he is New Labour, and nationalisation is Old Labour policy, which Brown and Blair were united in overthrowing. But the private sector solution is only possibly because Brown has sent out signals that the Government will pour in billions to stop not only Northern Rock, but all those banks and building societies who have lent extravagantly from the commercial consequences of their own actions.

In the House of Commons today, it was Vince Cable, the former acting leader of the Liberal Democrats, who nailed this one. What Brown is doing is nationalisation by the back door, dressed in the clothing of the modern jargon of private finance initiatives.

Most of the media pundits have been concentrating over the last few days on the US election, where change is the catchword of the hour. The outcome is probably more unpredictable than any US election since the second world war. But one thing is certain. The next US government is going to be radically different than the regime of George W Bush, which has ruled America, and much of the world, for more than seven years.

Gordon Brown does not have to worry about this, he thinks. Because he does not have to have an election until after the new President is installed in the White House. Or does he?

Because most of the commentators think that the best he can hope for is a hung parliament. And since the British do not have a Presidential system, he has to face Labour MPs in Parliament and his own party in leadership contests. Which will not be easy to win the way he is running things at present.

Because he, like his erstwhile pal, Tony Blair, likes to act like a President, thinking things out for himself and then telling his colleagues what to do. But the world is bigger than the British electorate. And New Labour is not exactly top of the pops in international circles. The left in Europe have noticed that Blair is now on the payroll of the arch US capitalists, J P Morgan. They have also noticed that he is letting it be known that he would quite like to be President of Europe.

How would that play with the Labour Party? What would Gordon Brown do if it happens?

In the House of Commons today, Wiliam Hague,  a former Tory leader, demolished him effectively. But the present Tory leader, David Cameron, has to be more circumspect, given his problems with his own party, which thinks he is too left wing, and is still split down the middle on matters European.

The person who is best placed to make political capital of this situation is the new leader of the Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg. He has not had a easy press, partly because he is easily targeted as a slim version of David Cameron. Because he is of similar age, and is equally eloquent in wooing voters. He needs to learn from Cable and add some gravitas to his speeches. And also some of Cable’s courage.

Cable has argued that the only sensible solution for Northern Rock is straightforword old fashioned nationalisation. He has done this without attracting any negative comment. Because the Lib Dems are a coalition of the old very liberal party and those Labour members, who left the Labour Party, led by Roy Jenkins and Shirley Williams, because they did not agree with doctrinaire nationalisation.

Such is the present state of British politics that the Liberals can argue for the nationalisation of British Rock more easily than Labour.

The contest for the US Presidency is still wide open. John McCain made a triumphant speech to his cheering supporters on winning South Carolina, beating both Mike Huckabee the evangelical hopeful and ex-Governor Romney. But Romney won Nevada. And the in the next big contest in Florida ex-Mayor Rudy Giuliani fires his own long prepared salvo.

 Meanwhile Hillary Clinton’s supporters greeted her victory in Nevada ecstatically. And the pundits reminded us that it is Clinton who is still leading the national opinion polls. But detailed analysis of the votes cast shows that the Clinton and Barak Obama are both continuing to atttract devoted support but from entirely different groups. Obama is overwhelmingly getting the votes of the young, whereas Clinton is thought the best choice by the middle aged and elderly. Obama is getting almost all of the black vote and Clinton most of the women. And Clinton is also winning most of the Latino vote, which is dominated by Mexicans many of whom are illegal immigrants.

What is bad news for the Democrats is that the intensity of the battle has created a dirty tricks campaign by supporters of both leading candidates, with allegations that Obama was involved in shady property deals, for instance. Are there no powerful figures in the Democratic Party who can remind both candidates the the real enemy is the Republicans? Fighting together they might be unstoppable.  But the chances of them working together are slim.

In the American system the Vice President’s role is mostly cosmetic unless the President becomes ill or gets killed. For Hillary Clinton she might have less influence on decision making than she had when she was First Lady during Bill Clinton’s Presidency. And the people who are supporting Obama, partly because they don’t like Clinton, would not vote for a ticket when he was merely Vice President.

The American system does not allow for the way out that Tony Blair and Gordon Brown found when they were neck and neck for the leadership of the Labour Party. They able to seal a pact over dinner at the Islington restaurant of Granita. But Brown knew that he would have the immensely powerful and influential role of Chancellor of the Exchequer as well as support from many colleagues around the cabinet table. Under the American system the President’s position is far more powerful and he can choose ministers to run the economy and foreign affairs, who are not part of his own party hierarchy if he is so minded.

Although it is my seventy-fourth, this is the first birthday I have spent by the sea. So I am determined to make the most of it. The electronic barometer shows a picture of the sun but I fear the reading is more influenced by the central heating than the weather. Outside the sky is an unrelenting grey. I can just make out the outline of Portland Bill. On the other side the wreck of the Ice Princess lies on the ocean floor. It sank a few days ago in a 90 mph gale.

Today, the wind is brisk but nothing like gale force. And there were only a few specks of rain in the air as we set out on the muddy coastal path to walk down to the sea front. The Golden Cap was clearly visible but its colour was almost as black as the original Model T Ford. When we got down to the Charmouth sea front the waves  were splashing the one hundred yard promenade, so, unsurprisingly, there were no promenaders. The car park was scattered with pebbles thrown in by last night’s tide. The River Char was swollen by the rains of the last few days and by the incoming tide. The swans had retreated to a quieter pool, created in a nearby pool. On a dry in summer you can jump across it at low tide. But today you would have had to swim.

The footbridge was still above the water level and as we crossed it a cormorant spread its wings and gave us a demonstration of the best way to travel in weather like this. And it flies with grace and beauty. Nothing Boeing has produced can compete. Only the Concorde got near to matching it. And given its fuel consumption we are unlikely ever to see another plane like it.

My brother rang from Birmingham and was able to listen to the waves crashing over the rocks. Walking back through the village I saw a sign I had not noticed before, indicating that I was on the 615 mile route that Charles II took when he was fleeing from the Roundhead troops. Which reminded me that one of his first stops on that journey was in Mosely Old Hall, less than a mile from the house in which I was born in Fordhouses, Wolverhampton.

Back in the house I opened my presents which included a copy of Thomas Hardy’s Wessex Tales and a collection of his poetry. I quote one of the shorter ones, entitled ‘Epitaph on a Pessimist’.

I’m Smith of Stoke, aged sixty-odd,

I’ve lived without a dame

From youth-time on; and would to God

My dad had done the same.

Hardy could have told Stephen Fry a thing or two about manic depression. I wonder how his life would have worked out if he had been born in our time. Would he have accepted the bi-polar label and gone on the pills? And if he had done so, would he have written Tess of the d’Urbervilles and all that poetry? Answers please from psychiartrists, poets and anyone who feels that the bleakness of  Egdon Heath is an apt metaphor for depression.