The Daily Novel

My contact in the Henley on Thames constituency was not at all surprised the Conservatives comfortably won yesterday’s vote to replace Boris Johnson now that he has London to look after. He thinks the Conservatives acted shrewdly by picking a low profile local man, John Howell, an accountant who could not be more unlike the media-hugging bicycling blond. And he thinks the Liberal Democrats blew it, by bringing in Stephen Kearney from Plymouth to fight the seat.

Labour had no chance of winning, given the current unpopularity of Gordon Brown. The fact that they finished fifth in the poll, behind the Greens and the BNP as well as way behind the Lib Dems makes the headlines, but the more serious political story is that the Lib Dems only managed to increase their vote by 1.8 per cent, despite an energetic campaign spearheaded by their new leader, Nick Clegg, and supported by the party’s big guns.

It is the second major setback for Nick Clegg since he took over. He could not be blamed for the first one, because he inherited the mayoral candidate, Brian Paddick, the former policeman. It was not Clegg’s fault that he failed to make the transition from walking the beat to knocking on doors.

But the responsibility for last night’s disappointment rests firmly with Clegg. Many Lib Dems must be wishing when they changed their leader yet again last Autumn that they had chosen Vince Cable, who was a huge success as acting leader. Cable did far better in the House of Commons than David Cameron. His ready wit enabled him to get more laughs at Brown’s expense than Cameron. But he stood out because his speeches contained plenty of shrewd analysis of the issues.

Clegg, by contrast, has been dubbed Cameron-lite by sections of the press. That label has stuck. But unless he changes his tactics pronto he may be stuck with the even worse one of Calamity Clegg.

The only party leader who is smiling this morning is David Cameron. In retrospect the Lib Dems made a mistake in picking the candidate most like him for their new leader. The opposite strategy is to pick someone quite unlike him. In this connection it is interesting that two weeks ago there was a move to get Jack Straw to challenge Gordon Brown. The former President of the National Union of Students is now nearly old enough for a bus pass, and has the experience of several ministerial jobs in his portfolio.

My blogging has been interupted by several pressing matters, not least the arrival of the digger to sort out my driveway and hopefully make it possible to use my scooter without hazard from treacherous gravel.

The picture says it all.

At a buffet supper last night I ate my meal perched at a small circular table with two men whom I had just met. I will call them Harry and Jim. Harry and I were doing most of the talking, mostly about the joys and problems of living in the beautiful coastal village of Eype a few miles east of Charmouth, which all three of us knew and liked. But Harry had actually taken the plunge and bought a beautiful old house there. He loves it, as well he might. It is little different than it was one hundred years ago and not much different than it was two hundred years ago. It has escaped the developers. No 1930s bungalows. No glass palaces built by the seriously rich which you find up the hill in Charmouth. And, as Harry was quick to point out, he is only a short walk from the one and only pub.

Tranquillity indeed.

But for any incoming twenty-first century townie there are some practical problems. No shops. So to get any food which you don’t grow in your garden, or to buy a daily newspaper, you have to drive to Bridport. Not very far. But it can a take a long time in the season, because the lanes to the A35 are narrow, and you have to reverse to a passing place because of the tourists wanting to get in and have a few hours of this tranquillity.

Jim had said very little. I knew from what he had said that it was not because he was not interested in the subject matter, because, from what he had said, he was interested in the subject matter. Which was basically about what people do when they retire. All three of us had lived lives constrained by the economic needs of earning a living and providing for families. All three of us had decided that after retirement they would try something different. Against the advice of most of the retirement manuals, which warn people against moving away from friends and neighbourhoods they know well, to an idyllic spot of their dreams.

We were three retired folk talking about our present, but also relating it to our past. But as we explored our past we found that there was a considerable difference in our ages. Not surprisingly because I did not finally retire until I was 73, and then only reluctantly. Whereas both of my supper table friends had taken early retirement.

In the street in which I now live in Charmouth there are quite a few retired people (as there are in the street in London, from whence I came). And retired folk, as we all know, when they get together bask in shared memories of the past. That is certainly how it was in my father’s time, when nearly everyone, apart from a few company chairmen I had to interview at age 91, retired at aged 65.

Today’s world in Britain, let alone the rest of the world is radically different.

So in the street in which I now live I am probably the possibly the only person only finally retired until the ripe old age of 73. But amongst the people living in my street whom I have actually met, there is a an international company executive who retired aged 46, because by that time he qualified for a full pension, because he had spent much of his life working in places like the tropical rain forests, which most managers are not that keen on. And another who retired from ill health aged 45 from a fire brigade because his heart had murmured in protest as he climbed the ladders rescuing all those people from blazing buildings.

So in Britain 2008 there is a possible difference of 28 years in the ages of ‘retired folk’. More than a generation.

In my new neighbourhood I have also met people who have moved here while still raising young families. Two particularly. Both of them told me that they had moved here from metropolitan towns for ‘quality of life’ factors, much to do with their feelings about bringing up their children somewhere where they could swim in the sea and walk the hills. The wonders of computers and the internet make it entirely possible for many professionals to live in a place like Dorset, which boasts it does not have a motorway in the county, and still earn a living in the mainstream.

So the world is changing and not entirely for the worst.

Back to the supper table. When I turned my attention to Jim and asked him a question he said, ‘What did you say?’, he replied ‘What did you say?’. So I then asked if he was hard of hearing.

In his ears he had two of the latest digital hearing aides. Which were of course were quite invisible to the rest of us because, unlike the old fashioned ear trumpet, which was a signal that the person using it was deaf, the modern hearing aid conceals the disability, in contrast to the white stick and black glasses of the blind.

So I then spent some time with Jim urging him to read the latest novel by David Lodge, which I have just read because my eldest daughter got Amazon to send it to me on Father’s Day. It is quite the most insightful book I have read about being deaf that I have read. But since it is a novel it is not just about deafness. It says quite a lot about the subject of this blog; about what professional men do in our society when they grow older and realise that they can make some choices about what they do in the rest of their lives.

And though Lodge deals with two pretty heavy subjects his narrative is punctuated with his substantial wit, which raises laughs from youngish women who hear perfectly as well as oldish deaf men.

But in part two of this blog I will set out some reasons why every person who is ‘hard of hearing’ and every person who has a partner or close relative or friend who is so impaired, should read it.

While I was reading the book I wondered whether it was a work of the imagination and research. Or whether it was based on his own personal experience. I did not find the answer until after I had read the last page of the novel.

Because, contrary to usual publishing practice Lodge has put a section at the end called ‘Acknowledgments’ which according to usual publishing practice is at the beginning. The first sentence reads:

‘The narrator’s deafness and his Dad have their sources in my own experience, but the other characters in this novel are fictional creations….’

Fans of Lodge, who love his wit and humour will not be disappointed with his novel. But for those who are deaf, or who have a spouse who is deaf, this novel might transform their lives.

I will attempt to explain why in my next blog. Which will be written whenever. Because tomorrow I am due to commune with the New Zealand branch of my wife’s family on one of their much treasured visits to the home country.

Meanwhile the reference is:

Deaf Sentence. By David Lodge. Harvill Secker, London. List Price: £17.99. And worth every penny. Deaf Sentence: Part one

At a buffet supper last night I ate my meal perched at a small circular table with two men whom I had just met. I will call them Harry and Jim. Harry and I were doing most of the talking, mostly about the joys and problems of living in the beautiful coastal village of Eype a few miles east of Charmouth, which all three of us knew and liked. But Harry had actually taken the plunge and bought a beautiful old house there. He loves it, as well he might. It is little different than it was one hundred years ago and not much different than it was two hundred years ago. It has escaped the developers. No 1930s bungalows. No glass palaces built by the seriously rich which you find up the hill in Charmouth. And, as Harry was quick to point out, he is only a short walk from the one and only pub.

Tranquillity indeed.

But for any incoming twenty-first century townie there are some practical problems. No shops. So to get any food which you don’t grow in your garden, or to buy a daily newspaper, you have to drive to Bridport. Not very far. But it can a take a long time in the season, because the lanes to the A35 are narrow, and you have to reverse to a passing place because of the tourists wanting to get in and have a few hours of this tranquillity.

Jim had said very little. I knew from what he had said that it was not because he was not interested in the subject matter, because, from what he had said, he was interested in the subject matter. Which was basically about what people do when they retire. All three of us had lived lives constrained by the economic needs of earning a living and providing for families. All three of us had decided that after retirement they would try something different. Against the advice of most of the retirement manuals, which warn people against moving away from friends and neighbourhoods they know well, to an idyllic spot of their dreams.

We were three retired folk talking about our present, but also relating it to our past. But as we explored our past we found that there was a considerable difference in our ages. Not surprisingly because I did not finally retire until I was 73, and then only reluctantly. Whereas both of my supper table friends had taken early retirement.

In the street in which I now live in Charmouth there are quite a few retired people (as there are in the street in London, from whence I came). And retired folk, as we all know, when they get together bask in shared memories of the past. That is certainly how it was in my father’s time, when nearly everyone, apart from a few company chairmen I had to interview at age 91, retired at aged 65.

Today’s world in Britain, let alone the rest of the world is radically different.

So in the street in which I now live I am probably the possibly the only person only finally retired until the ripe old age of 73. But amongst the people living in my street whom I have actually met, there is a an international company executive who retired aged 46, because by that time he qualified for a full pension, because he had spent much of his life working in places like the tropical rain forests, which most managers are not that keen on. And another who retired from ill health aged 45 from a fire brigade because his heart had murmured in protest as he climbed the ladders rescuing all those people from blazing buildings.

So in Britain 2008 there is a possible difference of 28 years in the ages of ‘retired folk’. More than a generation.

In my new neighbourhood I have also met people who have moved here while still raising young families. Two particularly. Both of them told me that they had moved here from metropolitan towns for ‘quality of life’ factors, much to do with their feelings about bringing up their children somewhere where they could swim in the sea and walk the hills. The wonders of computers and the internet make it entirely possible for many professionals to live in a place like Dorset, which boasts it does not have a motorway in the county, and still earn a living in the mainstream.

So the world is changing and not entirely for the worst.

Back to the supper table. When I turned my attention to Jim and asked him a question he said, ‘What did you say?’, he replied ‘What did you say?’. So I then asked if he was hard of hearing.

In his ears he had two of the latest digital hearing aides. Which were of course were quite invisible to the rest of us because, unlike the old fashioned ear trumpet, which was a signal that the person using it was deaf, the modern hearing aid conceals the disability, in contrast to the white stick and black glasses of the blind.

So I then spent some time with Jim urging him to read the latest novel by David Lodge, which I have just read because my eldest daughter got Amazon to send it to me on Father’s Day. It is quite the most insightful book I have read about being deaf that I have read. But since it is a novel it is not just about deafness. It says quite a lot about the subject of this blog; about what professional men do in our society when they grow older and realise that they can make some choices about what they do in the rest of their lives.

And though Lodge deals with two pretty heavy subjects his narrative is punctuated with his substantial wit, which raises laughs from youngish women who hear perfectly as well as oldish deaf men.

But in part two of this blog I will set out some reasons why every person who is ‘hard of hearing’ and every person who has a partner or close relative or friend who is so impaired, should read it.

While I was reading the book I wondered whether it was a work of the imagination and research. Or whether it was based on his own personal experience. I did not find the answer until after I had read the last page of the novel.

Because, contrary to usual publishing practice Lodge has put a section at the end called ‘Acknowledgments’ which according to usual publishing practice is at the beginning. The first sentence reads:

‘The narrator’s deafness and his Dad have their sources in my own experience, but the other characters in this novel are fictional creations….’

Fans of Lodge, who love his wit and humour will not be disappointed with his novel. But for those who are deaf, or who have a spouse who is deaf, this novel might transform their lives.

I will attempt to explain why in my next blog. Which will be written whenever. Because tomorrow I am due to commune with the New Zealand branch of my wife’s family on one of their much treasured visits to the home country.

Meanwhile the reference is:

Deaf Sentence. By David Lodge. Harvill Secker, London. List Price: £17.99. And worth every penny.

I shall be singing and dancing in the rain later today, not on the streets of Paris, but on the terrace of my house on Lyme Bay. The rain, forecast by the weather men for the last two days will be here shortly. I can see it advancing across the sea from Chesil Beach.

The Texan dancer, Cyd Charisse, who has just died aged 87, is remembered by some for her million dollar legs. But I remember her for the zest and fun she showed in her dance with Gene Kelly in the 1952 movie, Singin’in the Rain.

The memory of it still cheers me when the rain comes down when I am walking the coastal path. Me, and probably millions of others.

Thank you Cyd and Gene.

The picture is from AP.

Al Gore’s emphatic endorsement of Barack Obama is the clearest sign yet that the leading Democrats of the Clinton era are lining up behind him. Since his defeat by a few votes in Florida seven years ago, the former vice president has taken the lead by focussing attention at home and abroad on the need for the US to do far more than it has done for climate change. His experience in this area will help Obama, particularly when he begins to launch himself on the world stage, with a visit soon to Iraq, Afghanistan and Europe.

Most of the media commentators say that Obama is weak on foreign policy and has little hands on experience of the rest of the world. But thanks to the images which have been flashing on to the world’s television screens he already has a following in places he has never been. Last week one of my ex-colleagues emailed me with the news that Bareelona, which he has just visited, is engulfed in Obamamania.

He may find his visit to Europe a doddle compared with Iraq and Afghanistan. The troops are more likely to be be keen on John McCain, and Obama will have to walk a tight rope between demonstrating that he is tough enough to run a war. And showing that he is capable of bringing a fresh initiavies seeking to find polical solutions to the chaos and complex enemnities in both reasons.

George Bush concluded his two-day visit to London by praising Gordon Brown to the hilt. It won’t help him. The demonstrations on the street, and the opinion polls, showed that neither man is popular with the electorate. This visit is definitely the symbolic end of the Buhs era and his ’special relationship’ with Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. The chances of Brown surviving another two years are not high. And he may even be gone before Bush leaves the White House in November.

At times of change like this, although the leaders take centre stage, most of the important work of sorting out how to deal with Afghanistan and Iraq is done by ministers and the civil servants on both sides of the pond.

The Queen is probably looking forward to a change. She has always got well with black Afican leaders. Let’s hope she is still up to spin around the dance floor if Barack Obama is her visitor next year.

David Davis’s attempt to provoke a national debate about the erosion of Britain’s civil liberties using the way Prime Minister Gordon Brown steered his controversial 42-day-detension bill through the House of Commons, turned to farce today. Downing Street has been telling journalists that Labour will follow the Liberal Democrats, who have already announced that they will not fight the by-election, which Davis has provoked by his resignation.

But Rupert Murdoch, the Australian, turned American citizen, has decided that the interests of British democracy are best served if Davis does get the fight he is looking forward. He is encouraging his own champion to stand and put the case for the 42-day-detension bill.

He is sending into battle one of his most trusted men, Kelvin MacKenzie, who was editor of The Sun, when in the days when it established a new high in British daily newspaper circulations and a new low in British popular journalism standards. MacKenzie later went on to adapt his popular journalism to television, introducing the much-ridiculed news bunny.

It is a quite astonishing development which demonstrates the old saw, ‘you couldn’t make it up. Since MacKenzie has declared his intentions on the BBC Radio Four Today programme there is no doubt that the story is not journalistic invention. Sun journalists have been known to invent quotes, when they could not find real people to voice the opinions they were seeking.

But MacKenzie in this instance was the news.

I still doubt, however, whether Rupert Murdoch will follow this one through. For Britain’s most powerful media tycoon to fund a parliamentary candidate in this way is gift to all those who question whether the free press in Britain is served by so much media control in the hands of one family.

And think how this will play in the US, which is gearing up for the Presidential election. This week Fox News, Murdoch’s US television channel, was forced to suspend one of their lead presenters because of offensive racist jokes about Barack Obama. Murdoch now also owns the Wall Street Journalism, which is traditionally Republican. But the New York Post, the leading popular newspaper in New York City, now owned by Murdoch, is traditionally Democrat.

Recently, as reported here, Murdoch lavished praise on Obama, though stopping short of endorsing him. His daughter, Elisabeth, hosted a fund-raising dinner in London last month for Obama.

But now that the Presidential battle is a straight fight between Obama and McCain, Murdoch must be seriously worried about his left-wing sympathies. McCain’s personal views are much closer to Murdoch’s. But, temperamentally, Murdoch, although he is now an old man, tends to prefer the young thrusters.

My view remains that if Murdoch thinks Obama is going to win, he will offer his support, as he did so often with Blair, in the hope that he can influence him in the direction of his own business interests and political preferences.

And I think, that he may well have second thoughts about funding his former editor as a candidate in a British election. That is not going to do his credibility in the US any good at all.

Indeed it might cause Americans to start crusading against media barons with ‘power without responsibisty’

It is now four days since Barack Obama met with Hillary Clinton, but the thousands of journalists in the world have still not told you, and me, what took place in this very private conservsation.

Because they do not know, although they are doing their job to the best of their considerable abilities.

That is because Barack Obama is running this campaign in a quite different way from all previous contenders for the US presidency. He is using the internet.

So he delivered his response to Hillary Clinton’s Saturday night speech, you will find it not on the television channels, not in the world’s newspapers, but
on his own blog
on the internet.

Obama has not yet made up his mind of who he wants for Vice President. But today he has launched his campaign for President in a speech in North Caroline. Which addresses the issues which newspapers are also highlighting, what to do about the crippled US economy.

So to find out what he is thinking today look

at that.

Obama is a complex person. He is very much in tune with the internet era and with the youth of America.

But he is also following a deep American tradition of the whistle stop tours which past presidential candidates undertook to speak to Americans on their doorsteps.

That is why he is in North Caroline today.

That is why he is talking about the economy. Not who he is he is going to choose for his Vice President.

I reached my London flat on Saturday evening just in time to get a ringside seat for Hillary Clinton’s much advertised and much delayed pull out speech. I missed the 5 PM deadline because we hit heavy traffic but then so did Hillary on the other side of the pond. So she was just starting up as i settled into my arm chair.

She certainly laid in on with a trowel. ‘Barack Obama has lived the American dream’, ‘want you to work as hard for Obama as you have worked for me’, ‘my commitment to him is unyielding’, ‘today our paths have merged’, ‘restore our standing in the world’, ‘Obama has grace and grit’. And then lots of ‘Together we will work for…’, starting with an America in which ‘no child, man or woman will be without health insurance’.

‘Together Obama and I have achieved milestones’, ‘There are no acceptable prejudicies in the 21st century’, ‘An African American or a woman can be President’, ‘This is a time to take back our country’.

It was, in my view, quite the best speech I have heard from Hillary Clinton, or read, in the whole sixteen month campaign. She rose to the level of eloquence that Obama has shown. And she was still true to herself. Now that is an irony. Her best speech the one which conceded defeat. This time she did not shed a tear, she said defiantly, in the part of the speech when she disclosed her own feelings, ‘Never listen to anyone who says you can’t go on.’ And over the last few weeks many of her closest advisers, as well as much of the world media, have been telling her not to go on.

I sat down immediately and wrote the first draft of this articile with the headline I use now. The speech had restored my faith in America. Hillary was rising above her own personal ambitions, and throwing her weight behind the values she has been fighting for. And, since I started commenting on this US election last autumn, what has struck me is how close her values are to those of Obama.

So my opening paragraph in the Saturday night draft, went on to say, that my comitment was not to all Americans, but to the 18 million Americans who have voted for Hillary in the primary and the 18 million Americans who have voted for Obama. This particular campaign has been electriying and both Democratic candidates have reached people not usually engaged in politics and got enthusiastic support. A big contrast to the Republicans, who settled early for the candidate the Party was not keen no John McCain, because neither of their front runners found any favour with the electorate.

But I did not post my article on Saturday night, because one thing niggled me.

Hillary’s speech sounded like she was speaking as the Vice Presidential candidate. Which was a possibility I was keen on back in February but I have since gone on record in this blog, as saying I am not in favour of that way of healing the divisions in the Democratic Party which have emerged.

And I was bugged by the fact that I did not know what Obama and Hillary Clinton said to each other in their hour long meeting last Thursday night. He might even have told her that he was happy to have her as VP.

So I decided to wait until Sunday, when the journalists on the other side of the pond would have had a chance to find out what happend at that meeting and tell their readers.

It is now Monday evening. And nothing has yet come out about what the two Democratic candidates said to each other last Thursday. So it is 99 per cent certain that no promises were made on either side (unlike Blair and Brown Islington’s Granita restaurant.. But equally it is clear that the meeting was amicable and these two ambitious and able politicians are ready to work together to win the Presidency for the Democrats.

To be continued. After dinner or after breakfast tomorrow.

……not all Americans but the 18 million Americans who have voted in recent months for Hillary Clinton and the 18 million voters who during the same period have voted for Barrack Obama.

Because I am British I am still turned off by the screams of adulation I hear on my television set from their supporters. But I also warm to those supporters who are screaming because they absoloutedly want to make a better America. They scream with the same spirit which led the Pilgrim Fathers to said away from the tyrannical regime of Britain’s King George III whom historry has decided was not only a tyrant. He was mad. In total that amounts to 36 million Americans who are voicing values which I believe in.

Contrast the McCain campaign. He is not the candidate the Republicans wanted. He is not liked, to put it mildly by the Bush crowd. He is widely distrusted by them because his social views are much more liberal. But they are prepared to stomach him because he wants to be the toughie who uses America’s might to wage war against the most media prominent threat to America’s power.

McCain’s campaign has not won any such entusiastic support from the electorate. Noboday screams for Jonh McCain, but Republican voters have decided he is a less worse bet, than evanelical born again Bushites or rich Mormans, with a rational agenda, like George Romney.

So the Democrats ouugt to win the 2008 election by a landslide. They won’t because from now on, they will have to contend with the forces of American consumer capitalism, which is a model adopted, not only by Americans but even many of the Eurapeans and even the Chinese. And those forces are very powerful.

And what is clear from both the Obaaa and the Clinton capaigns is that neither of them want America to go on being the bully boy who determines the fate of the world. They want America to address its own inequalitise, which would have disgusted the Pilgim Fathers.

No journalist has yet told me what Barack said to Hillary on Thursday night.

But today they are both fighting on the same side. That is why 36 milliions of Americans have supported them enthusiastically.

Today Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have both declared they are going to act together to defeat the Republicans. The media commentators are saying that it is by no means certain they will win.

They are right because both Obama and Clinton are in polical terms, left of centre. So no multi-natianal bosses, takiny home there telephone number salaries, are going to vote for them.

Obama has said that he wants a ’special relationship’ with Britain. I hope he sticks to this, but not to the extent of cosying with Gordon Brown who, though currently Prime Minister, does not represent the views of Brits. Even those, like me, who have admired many of the things he has done, are urging him to resigen and go and look after his garden.Is power he has outdone Blair in cow-towing to the big company bosses. He is justiiedly unpopopular. And he should make way to a new leader if Labour is going to have a hope of winning the next British election.

Ich bin ein American - Part one

I reached my London flat on Saturday evening just in time to get a ringside seat for Hillary Clinton’s much advertised and much delayed pull out speech. I missed the 5 PM deadline because we hit heavy traffic but then so did Hillary on the other side of the pond. So she was just starting up as i settled into my arm chair.

She certainly laid in on with a trowel. ‘Barack Obama has lived the American dream’, ‘want you to work as hard for Obama as you have worked for me’, ‘my commitment to him is unyielding’, ‘today our paths have merged’, ‘restore our standing in the world’, ‘Obama has grace and grit’. And then lots of ‘Together we will work for…’, starting with an America in which ‘no child, man or woman will be without health insurance’.

‘Together Obama and I have achieved milestones’, ‘There are no acceptable prejudicies in the 21st century’, ‘An African American or a woman can be President’, ‘This is a time to take back our country’.

It was, in my view, quite the best speech I have heard from Hillary Clinton, or read, in the whole sixteen month campaign. She rose to the level of eloquence that Obama has shown. And she was still true to herself. Now that is an irony. Her best speech the one which conceded defeat. This time she did not shed a tear, she said defiantly, in the part of the speech when she disclosed her own feelings, ‘Never listen to anyone who says you can’t go on.’ And over the last few weeks many of her closest advisers, as well as much of the world media, have been telling her not to go on.

I sat down immediately and wrote the first draft of this articile with the headline I use now. The speech had restored my faith in America. Hillary was rising above her own personal ambitions, and throwing her weight behind the values she has been fighting for. And, since I started commenting on this US election last autumn, what has struck me is how close her values are to those of Obama.

So my opening paragraph in the Saturday night draft, went on to say, that my comitment was not to all Americans, but to the 18 million Americans who have voted for Hillary in the primary and the 18 million Americans who have voted for Obama. This particular campaign has been electriying and both Democratic candidates have reached people not usually engaged in politics and got enthusiastic support. A big contrast to the Republicans, who settled early for the candidate the Party was not keen no John McCain, because neither of their front runners found any favour with the electorate.

But I did not post my article on Saturday night, because one thing niggled me.

Hillary’s speech sounded like she was speaking as the Vice Presidential candidate. Which was a possibility I was keen on back in February but I have since gone on record in this blog, as saying I am not in favour of that way of healing the divisions in the Democratic Party which have emerged.

And I was bugged by the fact that I did not know what Obama and Hillary Clinton said to each other in their hour long meeting last Thursday night. He might even have told her that he was happy to have her as VP.

So I decided to wait until Sunday, when the journalists on the other side of the pond would have had a chance to find out what happend at that meeting and tell their readers.

It is now Monday evening. And nothing has yet come out about what the two Democratic candidates said to each other last Thursday. So it is 99 per cent certain that no promises were made on either side (unlike Blair and Brown Islington’s Granita restaurant.. But equally it is clear that the meeting was amicable and these two ambitious and able politicians are ready to work together to win the Presidency for the Democrats.

To be continued. After dinner or after breakfast tomorrow.

p>To Bath for Friday night’s dress rehearsal of the FullSail Theatre’s production of Beowulf, A tale of the Dark Ages. This is one of the many offerings at the Bath Fringe Festival 2008
, the west off England’s answer to the Edinburgh Festival. Beowulf opens on Sunday night at 8 PM and closes the following night. It is billed as a multi-media promenade production. If that sounds a bit daunting fear not. What it actually means is that the company is part of that refreshing move in the arts world to take the theatre back to the people. Far away from astronomical West End theatre prices and princely salaries for star actors.

That’s not too different from the Globe Theatre in Shakespeare’s day. Last night the cast gathered in Sydney Gardens, one of the City’s beautiful parks, on what proved a not too chilly and entirely dry evening. The prompter, a bloke of about my age, had enough light to see the script. And it was just warm enough for him to stand in thin purple cloak, bare legs and sandals without shivering.

This being just a dress rehearsal the park was empty apart from the cast and a few friends. And a group of young teenagers sitting on the grass a hundred yards ago. (Judging by the girl’s this year’s skirt length is hyper micro, as near the navel as it is possible to get.) As the performance got under way the teenagers came over to listen and then followed the cast around, as they performed different scenes in different parts of the park.

In the opening scene there was a whoosh of noise rather like a modern train going by, which I thought must have come from some concealed loudspeaker. When it happened again twice I realised that it was a modern train because the main west coast line runs in a cutting right through the park. As does the canal, as I discovered when we all trooped down to the tow path into a tunnel. Then we watched a film projected from a lap-top computer on to the wall of the tunnel.

My mobile phone had difficulty in coping with the light as nightfall approached. But below is a picture of the opening scene which should give you a taste of the scene.

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