It's been a year

I started this blog a year ago today. I  decided I needed something to take me out of my routine and challenge me. It was the time of the first lockdown and life was going to be lonely and tedious for a while with regular activities such as visiting friends, pubs and coffee shops banned. So a blog.

As I said in the very first post "I needed to fill in some time. Between this and that. Too much of this (playing computer games) and not enough motivation to do that (gardening)."

To date I have published 225 posts. Two every three days approx.

I have blogged about books, movies, football, garden birds, scientists, engineers, faithless electors, music, beautiful fish and the Ethiopian calendar. Amongst other things. My Twitter tagline says "Blogging random topics to share knowledge of obscure and useless stuff." But stuff is knowledge. In a year, in my widening knowledge of the world, I have made up for five years of schooling. 

It's been a voyage of discovery. I am the Christopher Columbus of bloggers. My discoveries come from myriad sources: newspaper articles, books, websites, YouTube videos, friends, computer games, TV programmes. A cornucopia of rich material. A passing reference in a Times comment column by Giles Coren brought me to Klara And The Sun, thence Never Let Me Go and The Buried Giant. Civilization VI brought me Jang Seung-eop and Three Sisters Playing Chess; my friend Tony introduced me to Mother Carey's Chickens. It was on CNN that I saw Lucy McBath, leading me to read her book Standing Our Ground. Watching football on TV (yes, even that!) re-introduced me to punk rock and - even more punkish - a TV documentary about Hillary Clinton revealed ska punk.

Books I wouldn't otherwise have read, music listened to, paintings I wouldn't have seen, history I wasn't taught. Growing outside my bubble, after 76 years.

Two days ago an item on the BBC website mentioned the actress Emilia Clarke describing how, in lockdown, she joined a book subscription service as a substitute for her regular browsing in bookshops. A book she particularly enjoyed is Why Didn't You Just Do What You Were Told?, a collection of essays by the late novelist Jenny Diski. I wondered what the difference between an essay and a blog post was so I ordered the book to find out. If it's good enough for the Mother of Dragons it's good enough for me. I'll let you know.

I recall suggesting that I'd try to post once a day but turns out it's not as easy as it sounds. My post activity goes in fits and starts. Silence for a week followed by a burst of five successive days has not been uncommon. Is that a sign of a restless temperament or because I have other things to do? If you miss me for a few days you can always check out @usedtobecroque1 on Twitter.

On we go for year two....

The Colossus of Rhodes

One of the seven wonders of the ancient world, the Colossus of Rhodes is a statue of the Greek sun-god Helios. This is he.

Rhodes is an island in the Dodecanese group of Greece. The medieval city is a World Heritage Site. It's a beautiful island. I've been there but I didn't see the Colossus. Maybe I'm not ancient enough (although getting there). Mr Wiki tells us that "Rhodes' nickname is The Island of the Knights, named after the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem, who ruled the island from 1310 to 1522." I didn't see any knights either.

The Colossus is referenced in Emma Lazarus' poem The New Colossus:

The ancient Colossus and the new Colossus are both about 33 metres high. One built to celebrate success in a year-long defensive war, the other defying oppressors and encompassing all humankind (the seven stars on her crown may represent the seven continents; although the above drawing shows Helios with a seven star crown, no-one knows what the statue actually looked like). So freedom in both cases.

Of the seven ancient wonders of the world, I think the one I'd most like to have seen is the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Although it's not certain they ever existed, as no archaeological evidence has ever been found. They seem so pretty and Babylon sounds a nice place to live. Maybe not so much recently though.

Why seven wonders? The number seven was chosen because the Greeks believed it represented perfection and plenty. Worked for them.

Am I cultured? Ask Mr Plato

If the meaning of cultured, as applied to people is: polite, well-spoken, generally civilised in discourse, then I wouldn't consider myself cultured (none of the above). But I definitely am a lover of culture - music, theatre, visual arts, written prose, dance. Anything from ancient times to the present day. The only thing missing for me is poetry. I've never been into it and I find it difficult, even daunting. And is poetry supposed to be read or spoken? This is Billy Collins, US Poet Laureate from 2001 to 2003:

And this is the now well-known poetry performance by Amanda Gorman at Joe Biden's inauguration:

I'm also interested in the notion of the culture of a nation or a civilisation. What are those things which make up that culture? The arts obviously but much more - norms, behaviours, beliefs, customs, and values shared by the population perhaps.

Sean Bean says in Civilization VI: "The worth of a culture is not measured by its accomplishments but in how those accomplishments last and how they are remembered."

One of the problems with this is that measuring culture by longevity may devalue what that culture morphs into. The 2,000 year long ancient Greek culture was an icon of cultural greatness and you could argue that it survives to this day in our modern democracies but how fragile are those now? The Persians were the most powerful nation in the world for 200 years; a kingdom unified by Cyrus the Great and defined by leadership which respected the customs, beliefs and rights of conquered peoples. Are those 200 years less valuable than the 2,000 years of the Greeks?

If we look at our modern Western culture, how will our norms, behaviours, beliefs, values and customs stand up to the test of time? Even more importantly, to what extent are those shared by our increasingly fractured populations? I'm not sure how to describe our English culture, our British culture, our European culture or even if any of these actually exist.

We live in a time when every cultural norm is questioned, to an extent which hasn't been prevalent in any previous cultures. I suppose this in itself is an inevitable result of democracy, one which perhaps the Greeks (except for Plato - read on) didn't anticipate. Could it be that democracy is inherently unstable and cannot survive? Plato, in his Republic, postulates that democracy degenerates into tyranny where no one has discipline and society exists in chaos. Democracy is taken over by the longing for freedom. Power must be seized to maintain order. A champion will come along and experience power, which will cause him to become a tyrant.

Sound familiar? Plato clearly didn't have much time for the idea of democracy and his preference was for aristocracy, grounded in wisdom and reason and ruled by a philosopher king. I think our future Charles III might be attracted to that.

So cultures don't last but Sean Bean could be right to suggest that the longer a culture does last the more worthy it is. Except that, as in technological advance, there maybe an exponential decline in the amount of time required for change so maybe Persia's 200 years were equivalent to Greece's 2,000 years - and that means about 20 years today.

Our modern democracy probably only started in the early years of the 20th century with universal suffrage and so is a pretty recent phenomenon. It may be starting to decay but we can nevertheless see and value our cultural norms even though they may be transient.

Our (English/British/European/Western) culture is different today from what it was 20 years ago - in essence as well as in the engagement of the population - and it could be argued that the 20 year old culture didn't last and therefore wasn't worthy. But if you do argue that, you are effectively saying that there is no such thing as culture.

I believe my parents' post-war culture was defined by a respect for (maybe even deference towards) institutions - the monarchy, politicians, teachers, GPs who came to visit when you were sick - that doesn't exist today. Although those are not my cultural norms I still respect them for the time and context in which they existed. My parent's culture was as valid as mine is.

Indeed, I'm not sure that I personally have a culture.

So maybe the answer to the title question is still: No.

Shout out for the Passport Office

I needed a new passport because mine had expired.

Looking at that sentence again and examining it for tightness and precision - as writers should - I wonder whether "mine expired" would improve it or if it would change its meaning. My original is passive - the passport was not responsible for its actions - whereas "the passport expired" could suggest the pages, much yellowed after years of use, simply refused to live any longer.

Anyway I digress.

The original expiry was in August but the Passport Office was in lockdown with reduced staffing and were discouraging renewal applications from those with no urgent need to travel such as me so I left it then made a renewal application on 9th April had to send the existing passport to them plus a different photo because the one I took on my phone you've no idea how hard it is to find a plain background with just the right amount and balance of light in your house wasn't sufficient then sent a new photo and finally received the new passport this morning.

I thought that I'd had enough of tightness and that a bit of stream of consciousness wouldn't go amiss in that sentence. James Joyce I'm not. Obviously.

The new passport is apparently blue, although you'd be forgiven thinking black, so dark is the hue. I was perhaps hoping for royal blue, which is such a nice colour, but at least it's no longer EU Burgundy. Hooray!

I'm the first to harangue organisations for poor service but good job Passport Office for a swift turnaround. 👍

Shah Jahan

Shah Jahan was a Mughal Emperor who reigned from 1628 to 1658. He is known for his architectural achievements, most notably the Taj Mahal.

He wasn't an architect or engineer but brought his experience of military command to the exercising of administrative organisation. He brought together a team of the greatest architects of the time - Ustad Ahmad Lahori and others - to create great monuments. He gave his name to Shahjahanabad, which he took as his capital as Agra, the previous capital, had become overcrowded. The rest of the world called it Delhi.

He built there the Red Fort, which was used both as a military barracks and a home for Emperors. It's a huge building, the size of a small city. Muhammad Waris, appointed as Shah Jahan's personal historian, tells us "it had six gateways with as many as twenty-one bastions, of which some were circular and some octagonal." I've been there and seen a Son et Lumiere production.

Lest we imagine that Jahan was always a power for good, let's ignore the vulgarity and self-serving of the Taj Mahal (it's a mausoleum where he and his wife are buried) and concentrate on the fact that he murdered his three brothers to take the throne after his father, Emperor Jahangir, died. I did say he was a military man, didn't I?

Eventually he was overthrown and imprisoned by his son. Karma.

But his monuments remain, so that we all know Shah Jahan and none of us his son.

I won't be joining any short term social media boycott

Reports today that the Premier League, English Football League and Women's Super League clubs, and other football organisations, will join in a four-day boycott of social media platforms in an effort to combat abuse and discrimination.

Four days. That'll scare them!

After four days they'll all go back to incessant tweeting about their boring lives (as do we all @usedtobecroque1), because they're hooked on celebrity and adulation.

Virtue signalling.

I'm not a great user of social media. I share my blog posts with my twitter account and I tweet about my video game successes from time to time. It's a low key plan to drive readers to my blog. I find both blogging and tweeting liberating: they allow me to express my life and my interests in a way which would otherwise be internal, talking to myself. When I tweet a screenshot of my latest video game win, I do so because that is part of who I am and it is one of the things I do in my rich and diverse life. If I ever feel down because one day seems much the same as the next (as I guess everyone feels from time to time), blogging and tweeting allows me to see that's not true.

It's obvious that social media are vehicles for horrendous abuse; I'm not blind to that. But the problem as I see it is not social media but people. It's people who abuse. Over the years, decades and centuries hopefully humankind will develop into a tolerant, kind and collective species. For the moment, we are what we are and there are people with ugly mouths and attitudes who exploit the freedom of social media for short term selfish gain.

But don't forget the positives. After the debacle of the European Super League this week, when some of the richest football clubs in Europe sought to make themselves richer, and the backlash from fans and players forced the clubs to re-think, a football agent said "had this stunt been pulled 20 years ago, the players would not have had a voice ... their voice comes from social media."

Ultimately, people, you have choices. If people were to abuse me on Twitter or in blog comments, I can choose to ignore the abuse - or to stop tweeting or blogging. I have the power.

If you want to make a stand against abuse - rather than against social media companies - don't do it for four measly days. Leave social media for good.

That's what Thierry Henry did.

The Mist

In Kazuo Ishiguro's The Buried Giant the central characters are husband and wife Axl and Beatrice. They are on a journey to find, and be reconciled with, their long-lost son. Who is thought to live in a not too distant village. But enveloping everyone and everything is ... a mist. Which appears to cause forgetfulness in everybody. And may or may not itself be caused by Querig the she-dragon. It's a tale of Britons and Saxons, orcs and pixies, all of which may or may not be real - or figments of mist-addled illusion.

There are warriors and Authurian knights but it seems that it is down to simple peasants Axl and Beatrice to slay the she-dragon and release the mist. But they are ambivalent about whether this would be universally beneficial or would cause them to bring back memories which they might regret.

The tale proceeds at Ishiguro's usual pace: slow. Axl and Beatrice link up with Wistan, a warrior claiming to be on a mission for his King from a kingdom in the west, who is himself attached to a young boy Edwin, who exhibits strange behaviours but seems to be training with Wistan for warriorship. Then there is Sir Gawain (of course), an aged devotee of the long-dead Arthur, who clomps about in full but rusting armour, astride his trusty steed Horace.

This motley crew somehow find themselves joining together to try to kill Querig. Possibly by persuading her to eat a goat that has been infected with some kind of poison. By three children, living without their parents. It's clear that each of them has a back story which they may or may not be happy to be revealed and much of the story telling includes hints as to what those histories might be. Beatrice nervously reveals "I'm thinking I'm the one to fear most the mist's clearing ... it came to me there were dark things I did to you once, husband." And Axl muses "What became of our son, princess? Does he really wait for us in his village? Or will we search this country for a year and still not find him?"

They climb a steep mountainside towards the giant's cairn, where they tie the goat to a stake. It's not clear to me at this point whether the giant is the same entity as the she-dragon or exists just in the book's title. We'll see. Horace, by the way, has been left behind, being as old and lacking in mobility as his master. For some reason, Edwin has also been left behind, tied to the same stake as the goat.

Finally they reach the dragon's pit. And she is a sorry sight, "so emaciated she looked more some worm-like reptile accustomed to water that had mistakenly come aground and was in the process of dehydrating." "'Can this really be her, Axl?' Beatrice said quietly. 'This poor creature no more than a fleshy thread?'"

Now Wistan and Gawain prepare to battle each other, for the former wishes to complete his mission whilst the knight wants the dragon to be allowed to live out her remaining months in peace. And Wistan sees Gawain as "a kin of the hated Arthur".

Wistan kills Gawain and then Querig. He reveals a prediction that the death of the dragon and the clearing of the mist will result in Saxons and Britons, long at peace and living alongside one another, will recall their violent histories, rise up and fight a dreadful war. "The giant, once well buried, now stirs."

Very early in the book, at the beginning of their journey, Beatrice and Axl come across a sad couple, apart by virtue of their wish to be transported to a nearby island by a boatman who will only take one of them. The island only allows individuals to live separately rather than as a couple, other than in exceptional cases of extreme love and devotion, proven by each answering a question out of the hearing of the other in the same way. As they now descend Querig's mountain to the valley, helped by Horace, they again come across the boatman. He can take them to the nearby island, on which Beatrice hopes to find their son, but - purely as a formality - he must ask them each questions, out of earshot of the other.

As he does so, their back stories are revealed by their answers. Long ago, Beatrice was unfaithful to Axl. As a result, their young son left home, soon to be taken by the plague. Axl forbade her to go to his grave. Many years later, as old age mellowed them, he relented and they agreed to go on a journey to visit the grave. The boatman now carries Beatrice, too weak to walk, and places her in the boat. As Axl tries to board the boatman says "this is but a small vessel. I daren't carry more than one passenger at a time." Arguments ensue between Axl and the boatman but it is Beatrice who insists that she trusts the man and being  transported separately is the only way they can be together for ever more. They say farewells.

The boatman has the final word: "I hear him coming through the water. Does he intend a word for me? He spoke of mending our friendship. Yet when I turn he does not look my way, only to the land and the low sun on the cove. And neither do I search for his eye. He wades on past me, not glancing back. Wait for me on the shore, my friend, I say quietly, but he does not hear and he wades on."

For me, this is a 3½ out of 5 book because, despite the supreme story telling and wonderfully detailed descriptions, the subject matter simply doesn't interest me enough. Nor am I attracted to any of the characters. Nevertheless, I am glad I read this book. If you haven't read it and, as a result of my endeavours, are thinking of doing so, you might easily come to different conclusions.

Jang Seung-eop

How do like these (to my mind) beautiful paintings?

Jang Seung-eop was a 19th century Korean painter. There's a film about him: Chi-hwa-seon, which won numerous awards and was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Tell me if you like the images.

Page Eight

What do you do when you start watching a movie and, early on, you are pretty sure you have seen it before?

I had that experience last night with a film called Page Eight. I had thought it was a new one but it turns out it's a 2011 film. Although it has the feeling of the 1980s.

It's an all British affair, written and directed by David Hare. If you think of classic British - particularly English - male actors, who do you think of? Bill Nighy - yep, he's here. Michael Gambon - yep, he's here too. Also Ralph Fiennes, Rachel Weisz, Felicity Jones, Saskia Reeves, Holly Aird. I suppose not quite Brit A listers by a good B+ team.

It's described by Mr Wiki as a "thriller" but that's just wrong. There are no thrills. It's about espionage and politics and how they interact but it proceeds at a comfortable pace, Bill Nighy in the lead doing his bumbling, stumbling, flawed but loveable Englishman and a direction style of a series of set piece episodes as though in a stage play. Which, considering Hare's career, isn't surprising. At one point he seems not to have got the hang of television: in a meeting, Nighy says "have you read page eight?" and it's obvious the others haven't, so the camera pans to the printed page and someone's finger follows the words along. Maybe it's an attempt at self-deprecating cinematic humour that I missed.

The film moves through a sequence of espionage memes such as American black sites, Israeli West Bank atrocities, thoughtful spy doesn't trust his political masters so goes rogue, spy steals classified documents and threatens to leak them to the press; none of them treated in any detail - perhaps because this isn't a ten episode TV series. It's very undemanding with a just about plausible plot - it's clear from about the fifth minute who are the bad guys - and no action of the kind you would expect in an espionage thriller; no guns, no confrontations. It's John La Carré without the depth, done and dusted in less than two hours.

I'm not really selling this well, am I? But the thing is, despite my sneering pomposity, I enjoyed the company of the people in this film and the facile and relaxed style. I subsequently discovered it's the first of a series called The Worricker Trilogy [Johnny Worricker is Nighy's character]. I have put the follow up films Turks & Caicos and Salting the Battlefield onto my Netflix watch list.

If you want a warm, cuddly movie to watch for an hour and three quarters, on the couch with your loved one, some wine and popcorn, and you don't want to have to think too hard or follow a complicated plot, this could be for you!

Oh and did it turn out I had seen it before? I'm not actually sure but I think not; that feeling was triggered by one scene where Bill Nighy and Rachel Weisz meet. Looking back, it's a scene you could see in any Bill Nighy film, so probably not.

Wind

I was driving through the Cornish countryside yesterday and saw a number of these wind turbines.

 

I know plenty of people consider them ugly. But not me. I find them things of great beauty - slim, elegant, minimalist and purposeful. I guess that's how I'd like to be remembered one day. Although the chances of anyone remembering me as slim are ... well, slim.

When they process across the fields in formation

I can see that they might be considered threatening, like triffids

or clone troopers

But how can you not like this peaceful scene?

According to https://globalwindday.org/ "Onshore wind is now the cheapest form of new power generation in most of Europe, and offshore wind is not far behind with costs having fallen over 60% in 3 years. And it’s getting easier and cheaper to integrate wind power in the energy system. As a local resource, wind also means much less money spent on fossil fuel imports. And of course it means less CO2 – and cleaner air – in our cities.".

Global Wind Day 2021 is on 15 June.

Spring cheer

Thank you St Austell Town Council for bringing some spring cheer to our lockdown emergence lives.

And to Cornwall Council's Austell Project for looking after the local fauna. 

"to drive forward positive change to make St Austell and its hinterland a great place to live, work and play. Proud of who we are"

Ninety

My dear pal Tony is 90 today. I got him a 10 year old Islay single malt, which I hope will sustain him for another ten years so that he gets a telegram from.... the monarch. I'm hedging my bets on who the monarch will be or even if we still have one by then.

I don't know whether the telegram is still a thing or whether it's an email, WhatsApp message or tweet. In ten years' time it could be an android representation of the monarch knocking at your door. If there are such things as doors then; we might all be living in one vast open-plan universe.

Tony shares his birthday

with an illustrious populace, including Joseph Pulitzer, Omar Sharif, Vincent Kompany (of whom he definitely will not have heard), William Booth, Charles Hallé, Mandy Moore and heavy metal guitarist Mike Mushok. The only people actually born on the same day as Tony that I could discover were René Follet, William Wingfield, Gérald Forton. I have no idea who they are - do you expect me to do all the work for you?

Three Sisters Playing Chess

The Game of Chess (Portrait of the artist's sisters playing chess) is a painting by Sofonisba Anguissola from 1555. Anguissola was 23 years old when she painted it.

It looks like a bit of a mismatch. I think the confident-looking elder sister (Lucia) is about to declare 'Check', maybe even 'Checkmate'. And the youngest (Europe) looks a bit of a mischief - she might tip the board over if her favourite sister (the stern-looking Minerva) is about to lose. Minerva's King looks a bit exposed and it's possible Lucia has captured the Black Queen and has it in her hand.

It looks like Minerva has her hand raised - is that a concession of defeat?

The painting is in the National Museum in Poznan, Poland. I hope nobody makes it into a jigsaw puzzle.

Mother Carey's Chickens

Mother Carey's Chickens is a phrase I learned today from a dear friend. Tony is a long-retired Royal Navy officer and apparently these words are (or at least were) much used by mariners. They refer to storm petrels, which are small birds - a little larger than a sparrow - common in the world's oceans, migrating to warmer climes in the southern/northern winters. There are 24 species of storm petrel.

Mother Carey is supposed to have been some kind of supernatural figure, definitely of a seafaring ilk. Here's John Masefield's take on her:

She's the mother o' the wrecks, 'n' the mother

Of all big winds as blows;

She's up to some deviltry or other

When it storms, or sleets, or snows;

The noise of the wind's her screamin',

'I'm arter a plump, young, fine,

Brass-buttoned, beefy-ribbed young seam'n

So as me 'n' my mate kin dine.'

This painting by the late 19th century Dutch bird illustrator Johannes Gerardus Keulemans.

Philip Carteret, Commander of his Majesty’s Sloop the Swallow noted this in his diary of 18 April 1767:

we saw also a great many pintado birds, of nearly the same size, which are prettily spotted with black and white, and constantly on the wing, though they frequently appear as if they were walking upon the water, like the peterels, to which sailors have given the name of Mother Carey’s chickens

Mr Wiki tells me that "Storm Petrels' presence in rough weather at sea has led to various mariners' superstitions, and by analogy, to its use as a symbol by revolutionary and anarchist groups."

Not sure that this, by the band Alive 'N Kickin', is either of those. However, Stormy Petrel (formerly known as Virus) is the Anarchist Communist Group’s theoretical journal. Whatever a theoretical journal is. The latest issue claims to be a "bumper 60 pages of revolutionary anarchist communist thought and ideas". It contains the following: 

• Building Resilient Communities: The Challenges of Organising Locally
• Community Activism in South Essex
• Mutual Aid during the Pandemic
• Charity or Solidarity?
• Covid Mutual Aid: A Revolutionary Critique
• ACORN – no mighty oak!
• Anarchist Communists, anti-fascism and Anti-Fascism
• Women: Working and Organising
• What is Anarchist Communism? (excerpt from Brian Morris’s forthcoming book)
• Poll Tax Rebellion – Danny Burns
• Book Reviews – Putting the poll tax rebellion in perspective
• We Fight Fascists: The 43 Group and Their Forgotten Battle for Post-War Britain
• Class Power on Zero Hours
• McMindfulness: How Mindfulness Became the New Capitalist Spirituality

Frankly that doesn't sound very anarchic to me but each to their own. I couldn't find out how many members they have but I declined to join their mailing list. Dunno why I'm publicising them really. It's as long way from John Masefield.

Never Let Me Go

After enjoying Kazuo Ishiguro's novel Klara and the Sun, I thought I'd try another of his works. I chose Never Let Me Go.

Like Klara, it is a first person narrative, the narrator being Kathy. Kathy is a young woman who tells the story of her life at Hailsham, a boarding school, and in particular her friendship there, and subsequently, with Tommy and Ruth.

From the beginning there are hints of something different. Kathy is a carer and her 'patients' are referred to as 'donors'. What they donate and why they need care unfolds gradually. At the time of telling the tale, Kathy is 31 years old and it is her reminiscences of Ruth and Tommy that take her - and us - back to the  beginning at Hailsham.

The beginning, because there is no reference to what came before.

The students at Hailsham were taught by Guardians. Once a month or so, a mysterious female whom the students and guardians called Madame appeared at the school and took away works of art which had been created by the students. They are led to believe that there is a 'Gallery' to which these paintings and drawings are taken, with no knowledge why, or of what happens to them. 

"I keep thinking about all these things. Like why Madame comes and takes away our best pictures. What's that for exactly?"

"It's for the Gallery."

"But what is her gallery? She keeps coming here and taking away our best work. She must have stacks of it by now."

Thus the author creates an air of mystery, perhaps even darkness, which he subjects to a process of slow reveal throughout the book.

At this point in my story, if I have tempted you to read the book, you should stop reading this, because spoilers follow.

About a quarter of the way through the book, Kathy finds a cassette tape of a song Never Let Me Go by Judy Bridgewater. Later she reflects:

"There's a bit which keeps coming round when Judy sings 'Never let me go ... Oh baby, baby ... Never let me go'. By then, of course we all knew something I hadn't known back then, which was that none of us could have babies."

And there it is, a casual remark that is the first shock for the reader. It's a technique I noticed in Klara and the Sun; you are reading at your normal speed - which is perhaps a bit too fast - and you are jolted into "Wait! Did I just read they can't have babies? There's been no mention of that before."

Shortly after this episode, Miss Lucy, the most open of the Guardians, responds in class to a discussion about the future for the students.

"If no one else will talk to you, then I will. The problem, as I see it, is that you've been told and not told. None of you will go to America, none of you will be film stars. And none of you will be working in supermarkets as I heard some of you planning the other day. Your lives are set out for you. You'll become adults, then before you're old, before you're even middle-aged, you'll start to donate your vital organs. That's what each of you was created to do."

Looking back on this some years later, Kathy says that Ruth said Miss Lucy "told us a lot more; how before donations we'd all spend some time as carers, about the usual sequence of the donations, the recovery centres and so on - but I'm pretty sure she didn't."

Just before halfway in the book, when Kathy, Ruth and Tommy are at a new place, the Cottages - which feels like a hippy commune: a bit of gardening, some general mooning about - Ruth tells Kathy about two of the 'inmates' taking a trip to Cromer and claiming "they saw this ... person. Working in an open-plan office. They reckon this person's a possible. For me."

Kathy muses "since each of us was copied at some point from a normal person, there must be, for each of us, a model getting on with his or her life."

And that's it; Kathy, Ruth, Tommy and the others are clones. We don't hear anything of their pre-Hailsham life because they didn't have one. They are part of an organ farming factory process. It's the genius of Ishiguro that, despite it being a dark, dark context, he invests it with a sense of normality. The actors - not in the drama, because there is no drama, just events - slowly awaken to the realities of their 'lives', but not with any emotion, just acceptance.

Years later, Kathy and Tommy seek out Madame, who tells them "we challenged the entire way the donations programme was being run ... we demonstrated to the world that if clones - or students, as we preferred to call you - were reared in humane, cultivated environments, it was possible for them to grow to be as sensitive and intelligent as any ordinary human being ... that was why we collected your art. We selected the best of it and put on special exhibitions ... 'There, look!' we could say. How dare you claim these children are anything less than fully human?'"

By this time, Kathy has become carer to Ruth, who gives her four donations and 'completes'.

Now Tommy is her donor and, after three donations, he muses "You know why it is, Kath, why everyone worries so much about the fourth? It's because they're not sure they'll really complete."

"I'd been wondering for a while if this would come up ... You'll have heard the same talk. How maybe, after the fourth donation, even if you've technically completed, you're still conscious in some sort of way; how then you find there are more donations, plenty of them, on the other side of that line; how there are no more recovery centres, no carers, no friends; how's there's nothing to do except watch your remaining donations until they switch you off."

At the end Kathy, after many years as a wonderful carer, opts to begin the transition to become a donor. The cycle nears completion. There are no tears; no regrets. Perhaps a sense of inevitability rather than duty. It's written in such a calming way that the reader doesn't feel extremes of emotion, rather reflecting on the beauty of three young lives lived well. The author warns us of where we as the human race might go, but with a poignancy that helped this reader at least to see through the darkness into the light.

Give us an 'N'

That's what you'd be shouting if I was playing football and you and the other fans were encouraging me with chants:

Give us an 'N'
Give us an 'I'
Give us a 'G'
Give us an 'E'
Give us an 'L'

And so on until you had spelt out my surname too.

Imagine yourself a fan of Sutton United, whose striker is...

Isaac Tanitoluwaloba Aduraoluwatimileyin Olaofe. Don't worry, there are 90 minutes in a football match so you've got time.

Isaac is actually a Millwall player, on loan at suburban Sutton. He scored a hat trick in November.

Sutton are currently top of the National League, with a decent chance of getting promoted to the Football League come the end of the season. At the other end of the National League table there is...

Dover Athletic - played 0, won 0, drawn 0, lost 0; goals for 0, goals against 0. How come?

Sadly, the lockdown measures - no fans in stadiums - have ruined the finances of many small clubs and Dover decided that the cost of playing home matches, set against the total lack of match day income, was simply not sustainable. So they decided to not play any matches, effectively defaulting.

It's very sad so...

Give us a 'D'
Give us an 'O'
Give us a 'V'
Give us an 'E'
Give us an 'R'

Let's hear it!

Puzzle Palace

More clunky video. I hope you can enjoy the content despite my obvious lack of movie making skills!