Coming Home to Story

Sunday 18 June

Captain Midnight here, reporting from a very pleasant campsite near Blarney Castle.

I’m pleased to say that we are back on the road after a bit of an unplanned interlude last week. Hedda and Himself spent Thursday fishing on the Blackwater and while she (nearly) caught a salmon, Himself caught salmonella.

That’s right, the Eejit managed to poison himself with a dodgy sausage and ended up in hospital for 24 hours. Oxygen, saline drip, the whole shebang!

Needless to say, Herself and I were magnificent. She stayed by his side while he was looked after by the nice doctors and nurses in Accident and Emergency, while I selflessly allowed Glenda our fishing guide to take me home to stay with her family and pamper me mercilessly for a couple of days.

It should be noted however that I did administer first aid when Himself collapsed on the riverbank. I snuggled up to keep him safe and warm until Glenda and Herself discovered what had happened and hot footed it along the path to take over.

I don’t quite see what all the fuss was about. If I eat something bad I just throw up and carry on. But Himself was carted off at high speed to Cork University Hospital where, as far as I can gather, he pretty much slept for a day and a half while everybody else did all the work.

If Himself had given me the sausage in the first place, as I suggested at the time, he would have kept out of trouble and my superior digestive system would have dealt with the offending item.

Let’s hope he learns from his mistake.

PS: Himself has graciously stirred from his daybed in the camper van long enough to make sure I tell you that our fishing guide, Glenda Powell is an absolute star, for whose speedy and determined help he will be eternally grateful.

Captain Midnight here, reporting from Acton, lifestyle capital of West London.

Himself had a haircut yesterday. Not such a big deal you might think, but you would be mistaken because we didn’t go to a barber or even to a hairdresser.

No.

We went to Arthur Razor himself: the dapper gentleman’s choice for personal grooming. My job was to ensure that Himself didn’t get too carried away with his new hipster self-image. No shaved temples and product-bolstered quiff; no topknot and biblical beard for us, thank you very much. Just a nice trim, if you please.

I can tell you that Mr Razor runs a very fine establishment and that – judging by the preening glances in the mirror and self-satisfied grunts –  Himself thoroughly enjoyed being pampered for an hour or so by expert snip-artist Corinne and resident beard-trimming consultant, Nick.

Great music in the background (I detected some early Led Zepp in the mix) plus a decent cappuccino got us off to a good start and the whole thing wound up with a relaxing shampoo, hot towels, and 10 minutes in the massage chair.

Now, I don’t begrudge Himself a little luxury (and it was a fine haircut) but I would like to point out that when I go to the groomers it’s a rather different experience: plonked on a table; hitched up in slings at both ends; and generally set about with electric clippers and anti-flea shampoo.

No hot towels. No massage chair. Not a cappuccino in sight.

Talk about double standards!

Arthur Razor at 12 Churchfield Rd, Acton, London W3 6EG
http://www.arthurrazor.com

When it was originally aired, between 1999 and 2006, during Bill Clinton’s and George W Bush’s presidencies, Aaron Sorkin’s White House drama The West Wing, a fictional representation of competent, humane, political leadership was a beacon of hope. I remember watching it unfold season by season, a vision of how things could be in a better world.

Until Barack Obama’s election in 2008, Jed Bartlett played by Martin Sheen appealed to many of us as the best president American never had. The series even presaged Obama’s victory in the Hispanic character Matt Santos who succeeded Bartlett to the fictional presidency.

But watching The West Wing now would be a futile and painful exercise in nostalgia. The promise of the Obama years has given way to the demagogic mummery of Trump and his pack of alt-right hyenas. Like all would-be tyrants they are both terrifying and ludicrous (the more terrifying for not being able to see how ludicrous they are).

Obama was an articulate, intelligent, and decent president, stymied at every turn by a Republican majority in Congress determined to prevent the implementation of progressive policies at all costs. Ironically, their very success ultimately created Trump’s impoverished and disenfranchised constituency. Their irresponsible and self-interested opposition to Obama created a monster who despises them as much as he does the Democrats.

In 1992, American political scientist Francis Fukuyama wrote a book called The End of History and the Last Man in which he argued: “What we are witnessing is not just the end of the cold war, or a passing of a particular period of postwar history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalisation of western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.”

Plato knew better and we would do well to heed his warning. In Book VIII of The Republic he explains in some detail how tyranny arises from the failings of democracy to care adequately for all its people. When things get bad in a democracy, he says, the people look for a saviour:

And is it not always the way of a demos to put forward one man as its special champion and protector and cherish and magnify him?

At first, an elected demagogue provides hope:

Then at the start and in the first days does he not smile upon all men and greet everybody he meets and deny that he is a tyrant, and promise many things in private and public…

But when promises fail and opposition arises:

Then the tyrant must do away with all such if he is to maintain his rule, until he has left no one of any worth, friend or foe…

And ultimately:

[He] is always stirring up some war so that the people may be in need of a leader… that being impoverished by war taxes they may have to devote themselves to their daily business and be less likely to plot against him…

The end of history? I think not.

Captain Midnight here aboard the Henriette Antoinette.

She’s a fine vessel, built in 1920 and still going strong, which Himself – also being a bit long in the tooth – found very encouraging. Herself took the picture from what he insists on calling the pointy end, as she navigated us through the treacherous, crocodile infested, backwaters of The Loosdrechtse Plassen, somewhere between Utrecht and Amsterdam.

Himself was First Officer, under my command as Captain (naturally) with Herself as pilot. He’d like you to think otherwise, but frankly, he didn’t have much to do apart from turning the wheel now and again when we told him to.

When we got to the lake, we crossed a stretch of open water to dock at the local equivalent of the Royal Yacht Club for a spot of lunch. Disgracefully, even old sea dogs like me weren’t allowed inside the premises so the entire ship’s company dined on the terrace instead: a rare and welcome act of solidarity.

The return voyage offered frequent opportunities for viewing the indigenous wildlife. Herself alleged that she saw many aquatic birds but by the time she had pointed them out, all we could see were ripples where – according to her – they had been until the moment before we looked. We did manage to scare up a family of geese by gunning the engine, but old Henriette Antoinette was no match for a pair of black Friesian stallions galloping by the waterside.

Back at the mooring, Himself got out his fishing tackle and lobbed the line over the side of the jetty. We had a tricky moment when I mistook the float for a ball and jumped in to rescue it. He accused me of “frightening the fish away” and yelled at me to get out of the water.

Calls himself a fisherman?

He couldn’t catch a cold.

International dog-about-town Captain Midnight here, reporting from the mean streets of Utrecht. Herself was very keen for me to come and meet her Dutch family. I’m pleased to say that they are a friendly bunch and have made me feel very welcome.

Himself would have pined if we’d left him behind in England so we let him come along as well. But he’s a country boy really, not much used to traffic (especially all those bicycles) and a bit prone to panicking and dashing off after pigeons. So, as a precaution, I’ve been taking him everywhere on the lead. It’s also coming in handy to stop him jumping in the gracht.

That’s Dutch for canal, by the way, for all you monoglots.

Walking on the lead is an important skill. It takes a bit of practice but it’s worth the time and effort required to train your human. Mine is coming on quite well although his performance does still leave something to be desired.

He usually obeys direct commands but I don’t think Himself actually understands the practical implications of being joined to another creature by a piece of rope. Namely, that the arrangement works best when both are heading in roughly the same direction at roughly the same speed. Also – obvious though it may seem to you and me – that it is not possible for us to pass a lamppost on both sides at once.

He can generally be trusted not to run off when we get close to home so I sometimes let him off the lead to make his own way indoors. He looks so pleased with himself when he finds the right front door that I wag my tail to tell him what a good boy he’s been. Positive reinforcement and lots of encouragement are, as we know, the keys to successful training.

Now we’re safely indoors again, it’s time for a delicious locally-sourced supper (VitaKraft Beefstick and Biscuits) and an early evening snooze.

So long for now, superdog fans.

A few hours before the attack on Westminster Bridge on 29 March 2017, I was far away in Oxford working with an international group of students at Saïd Business School. Halfway through a tutorial, sitting at a table next to the plate glass windows of the Club Room, I heard a sudden thump and looked up to see a female blackbird fall to the ground, killed instantly by flying full-tilt into the glass.

The speed of the transition between life and death was shocking and I was reminded of it when hearing the news later that day of the human lives that had been snuffed out by a terrorist driving his car at innocent tourists and stabbing PC Keith Palmer. Flying to Dusseldorf that evening I began writing this poem as a tribute to the fallen and finished it yesterday morning.

Harbinger

It was a small life, the blackbird’s,
a windborne incarnation,
plumed with joy and light.

Heedless of our heavy-footed need
to touch the earth below;
an arrow loosed in flight.

We, engrossed in earnest work,
startled by a single thud,
turned our heads around,

Looked up in time to see her fall,
a limp and lifeless thing,
perished on the ground.

Death had caught her unawares,
dashed her life-blood out
against the window pane,

Snuffed her like a candle flame
to sing her holy requiem
amongst the newly slain.