Salò

Salò is an Italian town which was for a short while Mussolini's capital in exile. Situated on the banks of Lake Garda, it is 142 km from Venice and has a population of around 52,000. So Folkestone-by-the-lake. For reference.

If the town is famous for anything reputable - which is debatable - it could be for the musical instrument maker Gasparo da Salò, one of the first violin makers. Here's Katha Zinn telling you about that:

I came across Salò in a book by Martin Cruz Smith, The Girl From Venice. It's my kind of book with my kind of hero: a fisherman, a peasant I guess you'd say, giving the appearance of being uneducated but smart as a whip, a shrewd observer. An outsider who relishes that status, not a materialistic bone in his body, flawed but comfortable in his singularity.

It's a novel set in 1945 as the Second World War comes to a conclusion and Mussolini's Italian Social Republic, a German puppet state, is crumbling before our eyes. It begins in Venice, where the descriptions of the Lagoon and the life of the fishermen are vivid. Our hero Cenzo rescues a young Jewish girl from the waters of the lagoon and learns her story of escape from the Germans. Cenzo sets out to find a way to get her out of Italy and the story moves to Salò, where his brother Giorgio is a film star and a Nazi collaborator.

The characters we meet include a Swiss film director, an Argentinian consul's wife and a friend of Mussolini's mistress. They are well painted and the writing is good.

The Germans are leaving town, Mussolini is disappearing, various groups of partisans are ready to battle each other for the soul of Italy...will Cenko be able to find a safe way out for Giulia?

I often read trashy spy and crimes novels but this is a league above that. Easy to read, difficult to put down. And an introduction to Salò.

My epicurean day

08:00 Cereal of bran flakes and Kellogg's hazelnut and chocolate crunchy nut granola with semi skimmed dairy milk. Cup of decaffeinated tea with semi skimmed dairy milk.

10:30 Cup of instant decaffeinated coffee with semi skimmed dairy milk.

12:30 Thai chicken and lemongrass soup - not home made obviously since I don't, to my knowledge, have any lemongrass in my garden. Or chickens. Or Thais. Two glasses of home made banana/oat/whey protein/cocoa/peanut butter smoothie.

13:15 Cup of instant decaffeinated coffee with semi skimmed dairy milk, with two squares of Lindt "a touch of sea salt" dark chocolate.

16:00 Cup of Jasmine tea and one maple and pecan plait (courtesy of Lidl bakery).

17:30 Hors d'oeuvres of salmon and king prawn sushi with four lemon and herb olives.

19:00 Dinner of one cod and prawn Thai style fishcake (not home made since I don't like the smell of fish in my kitchen) with Marvellous tomatoes, spring onions, wild rocket followed by a fresh fruit salad of strawberries and grapes with mango, papaya and passion fruit yoghurt. One bottle of zero alcohol beer. 

20:00 Cup of percolated decaffeinated coffee with a dash of hazelnut milk.

21:00 Second cup of percolated decaffeinated coffee with a dash of hazelnut milk and a small glass of Armagnac.

Total carbs: too many to count.

Satisfaction rating: 9.5/10 (marks deducted for not the best yoghurt in my fridge - and it's too strong for the fruit - and for instant coffee).

Nigel, this is definitely not an essay. And Coco says "where pictures?"

A woman, a man and a cat called Coco

I've started reading essays by the late novelist and poet Jenny Diski. They were originally published in the London Review of Books and 34 of them have been brought together by Jenny's editor Mary-Kay Wilmers in Why Didn't You Just Do What You Were Told?. I'm reading one a night, in bed.

I'm interested in the notion of: what is an essay? As opposed, say, to a blog post. Or a newspaper comment item. Is it a matter of length? Quality? Purpose? The very word essay reminds one of school - a duty performed reluctantly, with quantity and topicality the primary goals (marks for length and relevance). A comment piece, as written perhaps by one of my favourite columnists Giles Coren in the Times, is attention-seeking and designed to titillate whilst a blog post might be argumentative and persuasive. But I can't seriously be comparing myself with Jenny or Giles. It's a statement of the bleedin' obvious that they are proper writers and I am not. Jenny is a writer, Giles a journalist, I a blogger. A poet, an artisan and a dilettante. The sheer quality of Jenny's writing in particular is unassailable.

Nevertheless it leaves open the question of genre. One of Jenny's essays is typically around 4,000 words, a piece by Giles 500, one of my blog posts maybe 400. So there is undoubtedly substance to essaying, indicative probably of breadth of thought and depth of subject matter. I don't think I could write 4,000 words about anything or even think enough thoughts on a single topic to engage to that degree. There is also the readership question. The London Review of Books has a circulation of 45,000, the Times 400,000. I have, measured by frequency of comment and interest expressed, a woman, a man and a cat called Coco. And I have yet to receive a comment from Coco, although she is clearly an influential reader. I say reader but cats obviously can't read - but they can look and, shortly after I started blogging, came a request for ... pictures. Later, a suggestion of moving pictures. Cats have eyes and paws and I can be pretty sure whence came these requests. What next, a catcast?

Worth noting that essays and comment columns don't have pictures or videos; hah!

The first essay in the book is Moving Day. It's initially about a live-in-lover moving out and segues to post-lover life as Jenny describes it:

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Nothing. Nothing. These are the days. Don't speak to anyone. Leave the answering machine on. This is it, then. Me in my space. Me and my melancholy. I do nothing. I get on with the new novel. Smoke. Drink coffee. Smoke. Write. Stare at ceiling. Smoke. Write. Lie on the sofa. Drink coffee. Write. It is a kind of heaven.

It does sound heavenly. Well, perhaps without the fags. And the caffeine. And the melancholy. She claims that "a fraud is being perpetrated: writing is not work, it's doing nothing." I don't really know what this means but I find it an attractive notion.

There's a deal of self-revelation in her writing which I personally could not countenance. I guess it's one of the many things that would distance me from any proper writer, that I write at a distance from my subject matter, keeping myself at arm's length from the reader by deflecting into frippery. A serious writer reveals her soul; I'm not sure I have one.  There's a final question: longevity. In fifty years' time there will be people in this world reading Jenny's essays. In comparison, my blog posts are transient, of momentary interest hopefully but nothing more, almost designed to be disposable as I move on to the next topic passing by my impatient mind.

What I do have is personal contact with my readers; can a novelist hope to replicate that? I'm not sure who a novelist writes for but I suspect it might be herself. I write for my readers. Who will probably be relieved to know that I won't be troubling you with reviews of all thirty four of these essays. I made this decision after reading the second, with its gruesome details of the murders committed by Jeffrey Dahmer and Dennis Nilsen, in which the author explores the realms of background, motive, remorse and punishment. I can imagine Coco covering her eyes and ears already.

Tonight's essay subject: Howard Hughes: "He Could Afford It". Maybe it will sleep me a good sleep. "Our little life is rounded with a sleep" (The Tempest).

Throughout my life, I never thought of myself as a writer. That's not going to change.

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.