Local elections are not for me

For the first time, I did not cast a vote at the last UK general election. In those, I tend to vote on a broad cultural basis rather than any expectation that a particular group of politicians will be able to make a meaningful difference to me, my country or the world. In December 2019 I could not find a party whose culture I embraced in any way. Rather than signal my virtue by entering the polling booth and splashing a big NONE OF THE ABOVE MORONS across my voting slip, my indolence won the day and I stayed at home.

I am generally of the view that all governments are incompetent and eventually become corrupt. I don't mean corrupt in the sense of ministers accepting bribes or concealing their ghastly errors - more the corruption of power; the belief that they are omnipotent and can get away with any obviously crazy and authoritarian act they wish. I have no faith in politicians and I eagerly peruse the media for news of their demise. Yet I generally vote for one of them in a general election.

Local politics, on the other hand, are a complete blank to me. A mystery. I suppose I am a globalist by nature - I love travel, wallow in the histories of countries and indigenous peoples around the world and who somehow seem more interesting than those whom I meet every day in my street, pub and on the beach. I have zero knowledge of what my local council - I don't even know whether it's a parish council, district council, county council or any other kind of council; let's call it a tribal council - does. OK I interact with council services such as refuse collection but I don't imagine that is something which is changed by local politicians. I don't know whether the candidates stand as independents (which sounds like it would be best for dealing with mundane, non-controversial issues) or for Mebyon Kernow. So I don't vote.

Nigel, that's terribly irresponsible, I hear you say. Actually it's the most responsible thing I could do: I leave the voting for the local people who know whom and what they are voting for. I definitely should not stick my nose in and potentially distort the probably sensible outcomes of the election.

In general elections, I stay up all night, manipulate voting numbers and percentages in my head and enjoy it as though it were a momentous event like the moon landing. Tonight, I'll be in bed with a book.

As a Spurs fan...

..no not me. Heaven forbid! But, if you are a Tottenham Hotspur supporter - II believe they do exist - who would you like as your new manager/coach?

First though there is the Harry Kane question. If you assume that Kane will not stay at Spurs for the rest of his career - which seems likely given the club's dearth of trophies - when is the optimal time to sell him? Kane is 27, arguably in his prime. He has a contract until June 2024. He has a consistent, although slight, problem with ankle injuries - and a tendency to push himself to come back from injury before fully recovered, resulting in a game or two at less than full effectiveness. transfermarkt.co.uk estimates his value in the transfer market at £108 million, down from a high of £135 million three seasons ago. Is this an ongoing, age-related decline in value or a reflection of a difficult post-pandemic market? It's not clear but you would have to conclude that the value trend is more likely to be down than up.

In the 2018/19 season Spurs made £90 million from their run to the final; last season £61 million from a run to the round of 16; this season they were in the Europa League, which provides much lower income. Currently they are on the cusp of not being in Europe at all next season; certainly not in the Champions League. Supposing Spurs keep Kane this summer, hire a coach with a strong Champions League history and earn £60 million in 2022/23 and again in 2023/24: that's £120 million in the bank but Kane then leaves for nothing.

So the maths suggest that, if you could get £150 million for Kane this summer, that would be the optimal financial decision. There are two problems though with this scenario:

• in the post-pandemic world there are probably only five clubs which could afford that money. Of these, Barcelona and Real Madrid are hugely in debt but still pursuing as their first choices Erling Haaland (age 20) and Kylian Mbappe (age 22) respectively, so can be set aside. PSG would need a replacement for Mbappe, have Pocchetino - Kane's manager at Spurs - who would probably like to hire Kane but Leonardo, the Sporting Director, calls the shots on transfers. Which leaves the two Manchester clubs. United have posted profits in recent quarters despite the pandemic causing a decimation of match day income, so are in the ballpark for a £100+ million signing and a proven striker seems a perfect fit for their team development. City posted a staggering loss of £126 million for 2019/20, which included only three months of no match day income. They do however have something like unlimited investment possibilities from the Abu Dhabi owners.
•  The kind and quality of manager Spurs are able to attract probably depends on whether Kane is at the club.

Which brings us back to the original question. But first - why would Manchester United or City take a punt on a player whose value will halve over the period of a three year contract, where Spurs might not? Simple answer: Premier League titles. If Harry Kane costs us £60 million plus wages over three years but helps us win two League titles, job done. You might quibble that I haven't included Liverpool in the list of potential suitors but I think their owners are much more conscious of resale values, e.g. the sale of Coutinho to Barcelona enabled Liverpool to bring in Van Dijk and Alisson, which enabled them to win the League title last season.

Managers likely to be willing to come to Spurs but only if Kane is there probably include those with huge experience such as Rafa Benitez, Max Allegri and Maurizio Sarri (of those apparently available) but the list of those with a penchant for developing young players, forging a strong collective and overachieving as a club is longer: Brendan Rodgers, Roberto Martinez, Julien Lopetegui, Eddie Howe, even perhaps Gareth Southgate. Ex RB Leipzig coach Ralf Rangnick has been mentioned recently but he's 61 and that doesn't seem Daniel Levy's style.

As for a recent trend for clubs to go for distinguished ex players to bring in a strong fan support base, that has had mixed results - Frank Lampard, Stephen Gerrard, Mike Arteta, Scott Parker - and would be a punt, if you could even find one suitable. Jurgen Klinsmann's name always comes up but he's a bit of a transient with no real interest in long term visions. Spurs tried with Ossie Ardiles and he took them into the bottom half of the Premier League.

Given the recent hiring - and firing - of Jose Mourinho, it seems Spurs chairman likes big names. But that proved that there is only room for one big beast at the top for Tottenham, and it won't be the manager.

I would have thought that Brendan Rodgers would be the perfect fit but he has ruled himself out (at the moment). Maybe Martinez or Southgate after the Euros.

I'm not sure where this is going but I'm willing to bet Levy will be tempted to cash in on Kane this summer, with a big bid from Manchester City who have cleared the decks for a new striker with Aguero leaving. He will hope to engineer a bidding war between United and City and take it down to the deadline day wire. As is often the case it will come down to the player: do you want to join the League champions on almost double your current wages and play in the Champions League, Harry? Only one answer to that.

Finally, how would Tottenham replace Harry Kane? There's a ready made replacement in my opinion: Gareth Bale. I watched him on Sunday thrash a hat trick past Sheffield United (I know, it's Sheffield United) in a game where Kane was peripheral. Aged 31 but where else is he going to spend his final contract? Cash in on Kane, give Real Madrid £20 million and Bale Kane's wages and a lifetime membership of Wentworth and in three years he'll get you a bagful of goals. And he'll be happy as Larry.

What do you Spurs fans think?

Maggie Thatcher did something good

Never heard "may the force be with you"? You're not a Star Wars fan then. It's an iconic phrase first uttered, I believe, by General Dodonna to his Rebel troops just before the Battle of Yavin in Star Wars: A New Hope, the original movie of the franchise. Now called Episode IV - don't ask.

The Battle of Yavin was also known as the Battle of the Death Star, with which my loyal readers will be familiar as a result of my documenting jigsaw puzzle travails.

Here's how it's going, by the way.

In other words, slowly.

Anyway, Star Wars fans, never knowingly undersold, spotted the close pronunciations of force and fourth and have for two decades now celebrated the Fourth of May as Star Wars Day. The first formal celebration was in Toronto in 2001 but in fact “May the Fourth be with you” was first used by Margaret Thatcher’s party to congratulate her on her election on May 4th, 1979, and the saying quickly caught on. I couldn't discover the authoring genius of the Conservative party that thought of this but the phrase is now protected by trademark by LucasFilm for use in toys and for "Fan club services; entertainment services, etc. I think this blog is OK because no-one ever accused me of being entertaining. I hope the original author got recompensed.

I know plenty of my readers will never utter the phrase again as a result of my revealing its origins. If you're not one of those, what should do on Star Wars Day tomorrow? Here are some suggestions.

1. Show up to work as Darth Vader.

2. Make a Baby Yoda puppet.

3. Make some Portion Bread (Episode VII: The Force Awakens).

4. Host a virtual Star Wars fancy dress party.

5. Binge watch all nine episodes: 25 hours 7 minutes. Bring some popcorn.

Don't forget - your children, grandchildren and great grandchildren will surely ask you "what did you do on Star Wars Day?" You'd better have an answer ready. 

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.