Posted 6:04 PM by Paul
Home and Away

It was great weekend. On Saturday Heather and I got away for three precious hours and had a drink by the Thames. It was one of those beautiful spring evenings in London. Winter a distant memory but a still a chill in the air at dusk. Sitting by the river across for St. Pauls with the tide coming in we could smell the sea as we talked about the London of Pepys and Handel and the millions of had looked at this same scene. We got home around 9 o’clock and the kids were disappointed that we were back so early. They had enjoyed the time away from us and had a great time with the babysitter Kimberley. We had better got used to it. The kids not necessarily being pleased to see us that is. Alice and Emily fell asleep together reading a book. We finished the evening off with a most traditional of British meals, an Indian take-away and a bottle of French wine.

Sunday we went on a picnic with Heather’s family. Mary is over from Canada working at the London School of Economics and is staying in a beautiful flat in Bloomsbury overlooking Tavistock Square. So, instead of heading for the countryside when the sun came out we headed on the 171 bus to Holborn. There was a lot of good natured joshing between the four Hardy kids (there are 5 but John could not make it) about past indiscretions, useless girlfriends/ boyfriends and teenage angst. This kind of banter always leave me feeling a little uneasy as I hope that people will forget what an idiot I have been over the years and never mention it ever again.

Tavistock Square is dedicated to Peace. It features a statue of Ghandi and a monument to conscientious objectors from across the globe. When the Falklands War broke out in 1982 I was teaching English in Spain. Rumours spread amongst ex-pats that Thatcher was about to bring back conscription. I vowed to stay in Spain and not return. This was an immense cop out. If I had been really committed I would have returned home, refused to serve and gone to prison. But spending another year or two trying to sleep with Spanish girls and whiling away the week ends at village fiestas was more appealing than Wormwood Scrubs. The war was over before Spring term finished so heroics were not needed. Lest we forget on that occasion we only attacked when we were invaded. A subtle distinction lost on the present tenant of No. 10 Downing Street. All this made me wonder if somewhere there a was monument to people like me - draft dodgers and unconscientious slackers.

After a couple of hours in Tavistock Square and couple more in the flat we headed back to the bus stop with the kids accompanied by Mary and her husband Phelem. He is an Irish Professor of Maths and Finance who manages to be intelligent, charming and warm hearted. A rare combination in an academic. Normally they barely manage the first. We stopped off at a pub with outside tables in Lamb’s Conduit Street, close to Coram’s Fields where Hogarth and Captain Coram set up their foundlings hospital in the 18th century. Coram was appalled by fact that thousands of children were abandoned on the streets of London and nobody seemed to care. It is easy to forget how barbaric England was in recent historical times. The practice of having to bribe the hangman to ensure a quick death only stopped in the mid 19th century. Before that if you did not show him the money he ensured a lingering demise to please the notoriously blood thirsty crowd at Tyburn. Bit like Jeddah. Only rainier.

Next to the pub an Italian restaurant with a terrace on to the street was doing a roaring trade. Laughing kids in their Sunday best were playing on the pavement, while grown ups tucked into plates of steaming pasta and drank wine. If I were to start a religion and write my Holy Book this would be the description of Paradise. It would always be dusk, the wine would never stop flowing, no one would get aggressively drunk and the kids would never get bored. We would just laugh for eternity

Alice suggested that we try to get a table and as I started to launch into the stock parental speech which goes:

“ Come on. Be happy that you have had a lovely day and don’t be greedy…”

I then remembered that this was exactly the kind of thing I would have suggested aged 9. The difference being that I can afford it, but my mum and dad couldn’t. She trying to carry on the fun and I moaned. Are all middle aged men like this?

Monday dawned in glorious sunshine but Emily had been up all night with a bad cough. We decided to keep her off school. She spent most of the day on the sofa eating grapes and watching Spirited Away, a full length Japanese fantasy animation about a girl who slips into the spirit world and has to save her parents after they have been turned into pigs. All of this is the fault of the adults. The film revolves around the little girl’s fortitude and intelligence as compared the self seeking arrogance of adults. Some kids would see the film as a documentary. Emily has seen it about 10 times including once in Japanese. The father is a well intentioned know-it-all who eats too much. Emily already knows that art imitates life.

She stirred from the sofa to watch a blackbird that has nested in the loquat tree in our front garden and we left some bread out for it. The tree was planted 25 years ago by a previous owner, a Greek Cypriot woman who brought back a cutting from her village as a memory of home. I am from Sheffield in the North of England. What piece of my culture should I leave the next owners? A coal mine in the back garden? A drop hammer forge in the loft? Maybe open a fish and chip shop in the lounge?

Heather came home from work early and I packed for a business trip to Northern Ireland. If you are a Protestant I was speaking at a marketing meeting in Londonderry if you’re a Catholic I spoke at a marketing meeting in Derry. I am not a very good flyer. It just doesn’t feel natural to be up in the air. I am always happy to be coming in to land even if it is bucking over the lochs of Western Ireland. We are getting closer to my natural habitat – a strip of tarmac – and that feels good.

The arrivals hall was tiny and dominated by the city crest of Derry/Londonderry – a laughing skeleton sitting on a yellow cushion, church in the background, St.George's Cross at the top. It wouldn’t have been out of place on the cover of a death metal album but I am sure it has some heraldic significance. The hotel was very pleasant but the restaurant shut at 9.00. I hope they don’t get many Spanish visitors. They would think the place was empty at that time because it had just opened. . I ended at a place across the road with bouncers on the door up - a 12 oz. rump steak, salad half a bottle of house red and then to bed.

The meeting went very well and I spent the afternoon catching up on my e-mails and then wandered out to look at the historic city walls. I finally settled down for a pint of Guinness in a pub opposite a retail outlet called The Holy Shop – Religious Objects and Fancy Goods. Very useful. You can pick up a yo-yo with your crucifix. The pub was friendly and snug. Dark wood and Irish Republican artefacts on the walls which is not surprising for a pub the edge of the Bogside - the legendary neighbourhood that resisted the British in Ireland for decades. During the early 70s it was run by the IRA and British soldiers did not set foot in its streets. Then my eyes drifted to the flags on the ceiling. It was all a little odd. The old East German flag next to the Stars and Stripes, both rubbing shoulders with the flags of Cuba and the old Soviet Union. Added to that an Orange Lodge sash was hung up next to the optics. All very strange. Then my attention was drawn to a pig’s head and sides of bacon hanging at the end of the bar. Except they were plastic. Then it struck me. I wasn’t in an Irish pub at all. I was in an Irish theme pub in Ireland. Artefacts provided by the brewer’s Comms and Marketing department. Surreal.

So a good few days.

Across the world one corrupt septuagenarian announced that he was now going to kill another corrupt septuagenarian. If Arafat does get a missile through the window killing him and anyone who happens to be near the building at the time, Blair will ask us to see this as an opportunity for peace.

The Iraq War continues in bloody chaos. You get the impression that it is being run like the personal campaigns waged by medieval princes. On cue the Government has announced that they are talking to our coalition allies, to see if more troops are needed to fill the gap left by the Spanish. Does anyone think that we are consulting the Ukrainians? Let’s be serious. This is about receiving instructions from the White House.

The right wing columnist Max Hastings, who is usually gung ho for anything involving troops, weapons kit and giving the fuzzy wuzzies a good thrashing, has announced his misgivings about the war. This is a bit like Jesse Helms announcing that Positive Action has its good points and Teddy Kennedy is a really great guy. Hastings compared Blair to the pillion rider on a super charged Ducati weaving in an out of the traffic at high speed, driven by Bush. Is the passenger terrified or exhilarated? A nice metaphor, but inaccurate in one respect. Bush can walk away from the forthcoming crash unscathed, whilst Blair will be wrapped around a tree.

Being away is fine for a while providing you are in Derry not Baghdad and I am most definitely looking forward to being home not away.