The pantomime season.

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Unlike the English, the Italians don’t put on pantomimes at Christmas. With Berlusconi providing  an endless supply of corny gags, why would they? This year’s annual pantomime in Ambridge is proving unusually absorbing. The BBC itself has announced that Sunday’s episode will “change the Archers for ever” and everything seems to point to some catastrophic event at the Village Hall which will decimate the cast. Something along the lines of Tony Hancock’s The Bowmans.

   This morning Radio 4’s Today programme introduced its own edgy pantomime which inspired me to offer the following item to the spoof web-site News Thump (formerly known as Newsarse) which Sophy had drawn my attention to earlier this year:

     “Instead of a man dressed as a woman, this morning's featured Pantomime Dame was a  Dutchwoman born in Canada pretending to be British. ‘Dame’ Clara Furse wowed the audience with her insights into British culture and ‘foods’. Radio 4 listener Signor Grandicoglioni - ‘Hey you canna call me Don’ - here on a business trip from Sicily said, ‘Wadda fica. She no Breeteesh. Me, yes. Porca madonna, we Italians rulla your poxy little island for 400 years until those bloody English eemmigrants arrive and take alla da good jobs.’”

    

Don’t get me wrong, like Defoe I not only recognise that we’re a mongrel race but rejoice in the fact. When I read Hugo Rifkind’s article in today’s Spectator, ‘Nothing makes me feel as Scottish as an English New Year’s Eve’ I didn’t sneer and think ‘You’re not Scottish, you’re an Eastern European Jew’. Like his father, the former Scottish Secretary, Rifkind was born in this country which in my book makes him as British as any of the successive waves of immigrants - Anglo-Saxons, Danes, Normans - who’ve colonised or - Romans, Scandinavians, French, Dutch and Germans - ruled this island. Dame Clara, though, is a different kettle of fish.  Being naturalised, she’s technically British, but only someone with the complacent arrogance and lack of self-irony which this former head of the Stock Exchange displayed today would pick Britishness as a theme when invited to guest-edit Today. Like the banker she is, she thinks everything’s for sale in the globalised world she extolled in the programme. ‘Hey, I fancied being British, so I bought it!’ She’s no more British, than living in Italy for another twenty years and getting naturalised would turned me into Signor Grandicoglioni.

The nightmare journey.

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In my last post I wrote that Pat and I would be spending our first Christmas for thirty-two years without the girls. That seemed bad, but worse was to come: until yesterday afternoon I thought there was a very good chance of spending my first Christmas for sixty-seven years utterly alone. To explain:

Pat flew to England from Rimini last Tuesday. The journey was hazardous because the roads were covered with snow and ice, and, because we’re about to change the car and our snow tyres had worn out last winter, she was driving with ordinary treads. Despite this she got to the airport in time to catch her plane at 1.30. Unfortunately the plane from Stansted was half an hour late by which time it had begun to snow at Rimini. The pilot circled the airport until the runway was snow-ploughed. Whilst it was circling the plane was struck by lightning. Although it landed safely it couldn’t be used until it had been thoroughly checked which meant that Ryan Air had to send another plane from Rome. Meanwhile the snow continued to fall putting the runways out of action. Eventually the passengers were bused to Forli and from there eventually reached Stansted at 23.30 rather than 14.50 - almost nine hours late.

She was due to come home yesterday. I spent Saturday glued to the BAA web-site which reported the vast majority of flights from Stansted cancelled. At the same time the Met Office was forecasting more heavy snow. So I was virtually reconciled to spending Christmas trapped in Montefalcone - the car, of course was at the airport - sans turkey and sans Pat. But yesterday the gods smiled: Heathrow was virtually closed but nearly all the flights from Stansted took off. The plane got to Rimini on time; Pat managed to avoid crashing the car despite the snow and ice and lack of snow tyres and arrived home a nervous wreck but in one piece.

This morning I had an email from Jayne and Norman saying that the foul weather had prevented their getting to Stansted. So if Pat hadn’t made it I think I might well have died from loneliness.

End of year round-up.

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This year for the first time for 32 years we’ll be spending Christmas without the girls: Candy’s son, Quinn, wants to see his father, and Sophy and Adam have used up their annual leave. We spent Christmas in England last year for the first time since 2002, joining Deborah at her holiday home on the outskirts of Southwold.

  The highlight of the year has undoubtedly been Sophy’s marriage to Adam in Dubai on the 12th November. Being several thousand miles away we weren’t able to be as actively involved in the preparations as we’d have wished. However I did create a website for Adam and Sophy which enabled guests to keep up to date with information on the wedding and contains a link to their gallery of wedding photographs. As well as the wedding itself one of the great things about the trip to Dubai was seeing James and Gabrielle again for the first time for nine years.

  Pat’s been back to the UK virtually every month to look after Quinn when Candy’s away on business. I’ve only been across three times: for Quinn’s fourth birthday in February, in June and, finally, last week. We should have gone across together for Candy’s birthday in April but our flight was cancelled owing to the volcanic ash-cloud.

  Another of the good things about this year has been the number of family and friends who have come to see us: Warren in March, Dave in May, Sophy, Quinn and Candy in August, Mike and Julie and Richard and Jane in September, and Chris and Kate in October. Our social life has also been enhanced by Jane and David, Tony and Shona and John and Judy who have holiday homes in the comune.

  Last year’s success in getting two letters published in the Guardian was followed this year by getting one published in the Independent. However, I was completely overshadowed by Candy who had a whole article devoted to her in the Guardian in July.

   We followed this year’s election campaign in the UK with interest and weren’t surprised to see that, like Italy, the country continues to be run by an elderly media plutocrat with a fondness for much younger women. The Italians, at least, elected  Berlusconi; in Britain it doesn’t matter which party people vote for: Murdoch still pulls the strings. We noticed that Nanny England seems to be getting increasingly paranoid: not only was a chap fined for tweeting about blowing up Robin Hood airport  but a bloke from Stroud was imprisoned for having a political argument with his television set!

  I spent a lot of time this year preparing a course which didn’t run. I didn’t really expect it to: the fun was getting it ready. Apart from that, intellectual activity has largely been  confined to reading detective stories and a couple of Italian novels, one good, the other rather dull. 

  Pat’s off to England again on Tuesday, snow permitting: according to the weather forecast the sunshine and mild temperature we’ve been enjoying gives way tomorrow to snowfalls every day for the next fortnight. Unlike the UK, however, the country won’t grind to a standstill: Italy knows how to cope!

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Cap'n Jack Sparrow.

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Got back yesterday from ten days in the UK helping Candy and Quinn settle in their new labrador puppy, Cap’n Jack Sparrow, commonly known as Jack. On Friday evening I went to the Crown at Gayton with Richard and Chris Horwood. Monday afternoon was Quinn’s Nativity Play, and in the evening Matthew picked me up for dinner with himself and Charlie at their house in Dersingham. Tuesday evening I had dinner at Richard and Jane’s, and on Wednesday Candy, Quinn and I dined at the Crown Lodge.

The weather was cold but the snow held off while I was there and I got to Stansted yesterday without any problems. Unfortunately we’ve snow forecast here from Monday onwards for the foreseeable future. Pat is due to fly to the UK from Rimini on Tuesday to look after Quinn while Candy’s away on business. Whether she’ll make it is a moot point: we haven’t got snow tyres on as we’re about to change the car. Could be an interesting week!

On translation.

I have read very few texts both in their original tongue and in an English translation. Apart from cribs of O level Latin set-texts half a century ago, the only ones which spring to mind are Gil Blas in Smollett’s translation, Il gattopardo, and a few pages of Il cane di terracotta, before I gave up the English version in disgust. 

  A few days ago there was a discussion on Radio 4 between translators of The Little Prince. They had approached their task from different perspectives: one seeking to make the text seem the product of a twenty-first century Englishman, another to preserve its original tone. Although both positions have their merits, my sympathies lie with the latter. It’s sometimes true that viewpoints which strike the foreign reader as bizarre may well be normal for the culture which has produced the text, thus creating a case for finding an everyday equivalent in that of the reader; but if literature is to fulfil its function of enlarging the mental horizons of the reader that case needs to be dismissed. So while Smollett’s Gil Blas is great fun to read, it keeps the reader firmly within the digressive tradition of the 18th century English novel rather than conveying any sense of Le Sage’s tight structure and finely-chiselled prose. When Chaucer uses the word Bishop rather than High Priest  in Troilus and Criseyde or Shakespeare has clocks striking in Julius Caesar they’re writing from within a belief system that, viewing all societies as essentially the same,  has no problem with altering their accidents to conform to current practice - no longer a tenable position. As for the translation of Il cane di terracotta it somehow coarsened Montalbano, making him seem a hard-boiled American cop rather than a sensitive Sicilian commissario. Not from what he said - the translation was accurate - but from how he said it: the register was slightly out of kilter. And register is crucial. When I was translating Troilus and Criseyde into Italian, Ornella advised against Troilus addressing Criseyde as Lei rather than tu. But I felt it important to preserve the formality of the original (you rather than thou) which was so integral a part of courtly love.

   Which brings me to Wallander. Pat and I first met Mankell’s detective in the Swedish television series, then saw some of the BBC version starring Kenneth Branagh, and finally read a translation of the first novel featuring Kurt. The translation seemed fine and the plot was engaging if not as feverishly absorbing as those of Larsson. But  the Swedish television series was better. And better too than the BBC version. Now it’s not unusual for a film to be better than the book it’s based on: The French Lieutenant’s Woman was spoilt by Fowles’s self-consciously clever and slightly preachy tone- irritating the reader in the same way that Melvyn Bragg irritates the listener - which  Pinter’s film-script mercifully jettisoned. What I find difficult to pin down is why I preferred the Swedish to the English television version. Both series were made by the same company, Yellow Bird, and both were filmed on location in Sweden. Perhaps it’s because one felt that the Branagh version was merely a translation of the Swedish - although they shared no plots - rather than an imaginative reworking in the tradition of  Sturges’ treatment of  Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai  in The Magnificent Seven. Of course, if the Swedish version hadn’t been screened, I guess I’d have been perfectly happy with the English one. In the same way I’d have probably quite enjoyed The Terracotta Dog if I hadn’t previously read Il cane di terracotta.

The Truman Show

Got back from Sophy’s wedding on Sunday having been in Dubai since the 3rd. We had a wonderful time: Adam’s parents had arranged various events including a barbecue at their house on the Wednesday before the wedding, a desert safari on the Thursday and lunch at their house the day after the wedding. They also took Pat and me to lunch at the Desert Mirage on the day of the signing of the marriage documents.

On the 4th we got up early so that Pat could go riding with Sophy at the Desert Palm. I went with them and read The Reader, which Chris had lent me when he was over with Kate, while they rode. In the evening Adam and Sophy treated us to an Indian meal at Bab Al Sharm - it was Duvali. The following day Pat and I walked to Um Suqquiem Park and in the evening we went with Sophy to the Desert Palm: she rode, we sat on the terrace. On the Saturday, Pat and I went on the metro to Union station, then back across the Creek by abra, went round the Heritage House and lunched at the VVA café. In the evening we went to a barbecue given by a couple of Adam and Sophy’s friends, Stuart and Kate. The following day Pat went riding with Sophy again. I stayed in bed! Candy, Quinn and Debbie arrived the Monday before the wedding. On the Tuesday I went to the Atlantis aquarium with them. James and Gabrielle and Richard and Jane arrived on the Wednesday. I went up the Burj Khalifa with them (minus Jane) and James and Gabrielle came back to Sophy’s for a while. While I went to the Burj, Pat, Sophy, Candy and Quinn went camel cuddling.

Got to spend a lot of time with Candy and Quinn who were staying at Sophy’s, and saw a lot of James and Gabrielle at the events arranged by Adam’s parents and at the wedding itself. They also came back to Sophy’s after the lunch on Saturday. Click here to see my pictures of all these events plus the wedding. Together with photos taken by other people, they should also be appearing on Sophy and Adam’s Mobile Me Gallery.

This was our third visit to Dubai. It is certainly different. Somebody I met there summed it up as being like The Truman Show. I think she was spot on. The place is unnaturally clean. Everybody speaks English, even Asians who were born in Dubai and whose ancestors have never lived in the UK or the States use it as their first language. As James remarked, the buildings look as though they belong in Sim City. Each one is plonked down as an autonomous item in the way a child might place his lego constructions on a play-mat. It defies reality in the same way that an economy based on sub-prime mortgages does. On Sunday we flew into Fiumicino. There are certainly some parallels between Ancient Rome and Dubai. Both were the stupor mundi of their day. But Rome was sustainable because it was built in a fertile region not a desert, and its wealth came from running a huge empire, not from bubble economics. I hope for Adam and Sophy’s sake the bubble lasts a few more years before it bursts and the skyscrapers collapse back into the lone and level sands.

New Tricks Swedish style

Yesterday I finished reading the final volume of the Millennium Trilogy: The Girl who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest. In some ways it was a gothick version of the BBC police series New Tricks, as both involve old codgers returning to active operations. With one difference: the BBC series is basically a comedy, Larsson’s is a nightmare. The BBC has three pensioners - played by Dennis Waterman, James Bolam and Alun Armstrong - recruited to a newly established section devoted to investigating cold cases. Larsson has just two geriatrics - Gullberg and Clinton - but they make Bolam et al seem positively sprightly. Gullberg is 78 and suffering from terminal bowel and bladder cancer, Clinton spends alternate days on dialysis. Unlike their English counterparts, they have returned to a long-established, sinister and highly secret organisation within Sapö, the Swedish security police, known to the very few who are aware of its existence as The Section. And they have returned not to right past injustices but to prevent those formerly committed by The Section being uncovered -  and to perpetrate fresh ones. Unlike the redoubtable Amanda Holman, their boss, Wadensjöö, is only nominally in control.

  Larsson’s novels have several irritating features. The main character, Blomkvist, like his creator  is an investigative journalist. A great deal of time is spent on telling the reader what a wonderful job his magazine is doing rather than simply letting him discover this for himself. Every other page tells us how Blomkvist is irresistibly attractive to women and is a wonderful shag. Unless Paul Newman was using ‘Larsson’ as a pen-name, the author’s wish-fulfilment is a fantasy too far. The prose is often leaden, not helped, one suspects, by an American translator whose grasp of English grammar is less than perfect.

  Yet none of this really matters. After around fifty pages of the reader’s feeling rather distanced by the author’s thinly-disguised self-congratulation the magic kicks in as the plot goes up a gear and one is completely swallowed by the story. Not great literature to feed the soul, but very effective entertainment.

   Unlike Kate Atkinson. Her plots grip, but she also leaves you feeling that you’ve gained fresh insights into human nature. Her characters have real inner lives and her portrayal of a woman suffering from Alzheimer’s in Started Early, Took my Dog  was a frighteningly convincing forecast of a condition I’ve, statistically, a good chance of experiencing first-hand in the fairly near future. I’ve now read all four of her tales featuring Jackson Brodie and they just get better and better. I’m sorry that Larsson won’t be writing any more books; I’d be devastated if Atkinson’s came to an end.