Have Yous All Gone Mad?

I spent the weekend after the British EU referendum at our house in Ireland, on the southern side of the border. I'd hoped to avoid discussing the vote entirely but it was all anyone wanted to talk about. Here's a snapshot of some of those conversations. You may notice a common theme emerging.

In The Post Office
S: You're welcome home, Brian.
Me: Thanks very much.
S: So what do you think of the referendum?
Me: I'm horrified.
S: Well I think yous have made an awful hames of it. I do, really.
Me: You're right there.
S: I'll tell you this much - any of them that has a few shillings in their pockets now will have a lot less to jangle next week. And aren't they the same eejits that voted for it?
Me: They are, indeed.
S: I'm not a conservative thinker, Brian, but I thought your man, Cameron, did a bully job. I can’t believe you turned him down. But what was wrong with the Labour fellow? Sure he was a total wash out.
Me: He was that.
S: Completely useless, so he was. I'd say he bears a big responsibility for the result.
Me: I'd say so, too.

In The Bar
T: Well, what do you make of this Brexit?
Me: It's a nightmare.
T: A nightmare is right. Will we have the border back again, do you think? All them customs posts and everyone smuggling butter and tea and the lord knows what?
Me: I hope not.
T: Have yous all gone mad or what?
Me: Looks like it.
T: I'll tell you what that man Corbyn was a dead loss.
Me: He was.
T: Sure he might as well have stayed in bed.

Outside The Church
M: What in God's name has got into you all?
Me: The referendum, you mean?
M: The referendum, of course.
Me: It's a disaster.
M: It's worse than that. I can tell you now, Brian, your father would have had something to say about this.
Me: He would have been disgusted.
M: Disgusted is right. What I want to know is this: what was the matter with the Labour party? Me: I couldn't tell you.
M: They disappeared off the map entirely.
Me: They did.
M: Well, yous are on your own now. And good luck to you.

A Rough Guide To Racism

Those who have not been following the UK political scene avidly may be surprised to learn that analysts have made a remarkable discovery about racism. There are, indeed there always have been, two distinct kinds of racism: Bad Racism (the well-known kind) and Good Racism (the recently-discovered kind). Confused? No need to be. Here are some handy tips to help you understand and deal with the two kinds of Racism.

First, how do you go about telling the difference? Well, it's quite simple. Bad Racism is racism that is perpetrated by your enemies; Good Racism is racism that is perpetrated by your friends, or by any of the following.

• People who used to be your friends but have gone a bit mad
• People who you mistakenly believed were your friends but who were always a bit horrible when you weren't looking
• Up-and-coming people it might be worth keeping in with
• People who are on the way down but are not yet out

Obviously, being associated with any kind of racism, good or bad, is not desirable from a public relations point of view. So there are a number of strategies you can adopt to try to minimize the negative effects on your public profile. Here are a few suggestions.

• Stick your head in a bucket of sand
• Stand on your dignity
• Try to turn it into a joke
• Insist that comments have been taken out of context
• Point out some Bad Racism and shout very loudly about it

Alternatively, you could suggest that it was all part of a conspiracy. This usually works. It's best to make the conspiracy big. Really big. World-wide, in fact. And make the conspirators rich - bankers, financiers, that sort of thing. Make them powerful, influential and grasping. Oh no, wait a minute, scrub that strategy. I think it's been used already.

Old Man With A Handbag

"When I grow up," observes Zoe, "I will be a mummy and Theo will be a daddy". I consider pointing out that it is not quite so simple, that there are adults who cannot have children, adults who decide not to have children, adults who do not actually make a decision but because they don't meet the right person or because of circumstances - work, finances, health, whatever - just don't end up having children. However, she is only three and we are approaching the nightmare of municipal planning that is Lewisham Roundabout so I just say, "Right."

"Mummies have handbags," Zoe continues, "but daddies don't have handbags."

I glance at my man-bag lying on the passenger seat and decide this has gone far enough. (It is always the small things we focus on, the assaults upon personal vanity rather than the those against principle.) "I have a handbag," I point out.

Zoe revises her formula. "Mummies and grandpas have handbags," she decides.

I am tempted to continue the discussion but people are hooting their horns behind me so I just say, "Right" again and we set off across the roundabout, a little girl with firm opinions and an old man with a handbag.

Planting Trees

I have been reading the poetry of Po Chu-i, a minor government official living in China at the end of the eighth, beginning of the ninth century. This is one of my favourites. He wrote it after being packed off to be the governor of Pa district, where he knew no-one. He had to leave his family behind and it was clearly a lonely time for him.

I took money and bought flowering trees
And planted them out on the bank to the east of the Keep.
I simply bought whatever had most blooms,
Not caring whether peach, apricot, or plum.
A hundred fruits, all mixed up together;
A thousand branches, flowering in due rotation.
Each has its season coming early or late;
But to all alike the fertile soil is kind.
The red flowers hang like a heavy mist;
The white flowers gleam like a fall of snow.
The wandering bees cannot bear to leave them;
The sweet birds also come there to roost.
In front there flows an ever-running stream;
Beneath there is built a little flat terrace.
Sometimes I sweep the flagstones of the terrace;
Sometimes, in the wind, I raise my cup and drink.
The flower-branches screen my head from the sun;
The flower-buds fall down into my lap.
Alone drinking, alone singing my songs,
I do not notice that the moon is level with the steps.
The people of Pa do not care for flowers;
All the spring no one has come to look.
But their Governor General, alone with his cup of wine,
Sits till evening and will not move from the place!

Po Chu-i
(from Chinese Poems, translated by Arthur Waley
©The Arthur Waley Estate)

Activate Kadinskis!

My five year old grandson was running around the house last week with his four year old cousin shouting out, "Activate booster-packs!" at regular intervals and then, from time to time, "Activate Kadinskis!"

After a while I stopped him and asked, "What's a Kandiski?" He held up an object he had made from Duplo. It looked a bit like a long gun but even more like a scale model of the Heron Tower in Central London. Then he rushed off again.

A little while later, after persistent questioning by myself and his mother, it emerged that his class at school had been studying various modern artists and he was in a group that was looking at pictures by Kandinsky.

Education seems to be a bit like that these days. In an effort to improve standards that is reminiscent of Stalin's infamous Five Year Plans, curriculum guidelines are constantly being revised to include all sorts of improbable topics: bel canto opera for reception class, quantum mechanics for seven year olds. The teachers do their best to make it work but sometimes the children just end up running around activating Kadinskis.

As I watched those Kadinskis being activated it occurred to me that I shouldn't complain. This is exactly what I have been doing all my life - getting hold of half-understood scraps of knowledge and turning them into stories for my own amusement. It's why I became a writer, not an academic. It's so much more fun than learning.

Je ne suis pas Charlie.

I'm sorry if this doesn't accord with fashionable liberal sentiment but I thought those cartoons published in Charlie Hebdo were an unnecessary and offensive provocation. The thing is this: Islam is much more than a religion. It's a matter of identity.

I can't help but remember my parents who came over to England from Ireland in the middle of the twentieth century and encountered widespread hostility. (And they looked exactly like the rest of the population.) My mother described encountering signs in lodging houses that read 'No blacks, no Irish, no dogs.' So they sought refuge in the only place that welcomed them: their religion.

I recall, also, how when that religion was attacked by someone like the Ulster Unionist politician and notable rabble rouser, Ian Paisley, who would sometimes appear on the TV news mocking the Pope, calling him 'Red Socks' and various other silly names, they were very upset, not because they worshipped the Pope but because they felt it as another blow to their dignity.

Religion is very personal to a lot of people and it's about a lot more than just a belief in the supernatural. It's also about community and about trying to find a place for yourself in the world. That's not always easy, particularly when you are poor or when you find yourself in a mainstream culture that seems to look down on you, to regard you as a second-class citizen, or perhaps not even a citizen at all.

None of this means that you should go around attacking people, obviously. But I find this huge media circus involving all sorts of dubious people suddenly standing up for free speech very uncomfortable. Moreover, I strongly suspect that being an Arab in France means being considered an outsider and I don't think the cartoons were hugely different from outright racism by a privileged middle-class intellectual elite.

I do not believe the right to free speech is absolute. Yes, that's what I said. I do not believe the right to free speech is absolute. For example, I don't think you should go round being homophobic, misogynistic or racist. Because it's bad manners and because those groups have been marginalised in the past. Similarly, I don't think you should go round Arab-baiting, even if unspeakable things are being done in the name of Islam.

Pillow Talk

I've always had a problem knowing what day of the week it is. I'm not talking about just being a bit absent-minded. I really have experienced considerable difficulty with this all my life.

It was an absolute nightmare when I was at school because you were liable to get beaten if you failed to hand in your homework on the day it was due. Even now, I regularly have to get my wife to tell me what day it is. Anxiety about this is something that often features in my dreams. However, the dream I had two nights ago was something else.

I found myself in a city I did not recognise and yet I knew exactly where I was going: I was going to see the wife of my cousin. I entered a house by the back door and in the kitchen were a young woman and a girl about four years old. They were both extremely alike with the same jet black hair and there was something subtly unusual about their features, though I could not say what.

The woman greeted me and I thought at first that her accent was Irish but after a while I began to doubt this. I felt quite sure I had never met her before yet she seemed to know me well enough.

She introduced her daughter and I talked to the little girl for some time. I remember nothing of our conversation except that she seemed far too intelligent for her years.

Then the woman told me I should stop worrying about the days of the week. Those were not the real days, she said, and the reason I could not fix them in my mind was simply that the shadow of the true days lay underneath them.

After saying this, she told me I should go now because her husband would be home soon and he would not like to find her talking to me. I knew then that she was no relation of mine.

A moment later I found myself out in the street once more, and a moment after that I awoke. Lying in my bed, recalling the dream, I was immediately filled with the conviction that the woman I had spoken to was a fairy.

Narrative Focus

We spent last week at our house in Leitrim. I needed a break from looking after grandchildren, helping people write novels and trying to find time to write my own. I'd spent a week in which I found myself constantly having to explain about narrative focus to people who seemed never to have thought of it before.

Leitrim was as magnificent as ever. Autumn was raging around the countryside, driving the rain before it and tossing great handfuls of leaves into the air. Once we reached our house I spent most of my time sitting beside a roaring fire, reading, with a cup of tea and a buttered scone at my elbow. On the opposite chair sat my wife, similarly occupied. The only sound was the crackling of the logs as the fire slowly devoured them.

We went to bed early each evening and slept late. Nights in Leitrim are as dark as at any time in the history of the world. And they are entirely silent. Going to sleep felt like embarking on some great sea voyage.

Sometimes I would wake from confused dreams in the the small hours and it felt as though our ship had put into port to take on more supplies. Up on deck the crew were busy loading and unloading but there was nothing for me to concern myself with. Satisfied that all was as it should be, I would tumble back into sleep once more.

On the Sunday we went to the little town of Strandhill on the Sligo coast and walked out along the dunes, watching as the great grey sheet of the sea constantly unmade itself. Far out to sea a little group of surfers were dancing across the cold white foam with extraordinary skill. Now that's narrative focus, I thought to myself.

Too late we saw the the squally clouds racing across the sky towards us. We turned for home but were soaked to the skin long before we got back.

My Symbolic Life

Yesterday, I had to go into hospital for an operation to repair an inguinal hernia. Today is one of the days my wife and I look after our grandchildren. My daughter emailed me to say that she had explained to two year old Noah that they wouldn't be going to grandma and grandpa's today because grandpa was poorly.

Naturally, Noah wanted to know why. With admirable matter-of-factness my daughter told him that my 'guts were coming out' and I 'needed an operation to put them back in again'. He replied, 'Oh, is that grandpa's hernia?' He had been hearing with interest about this hernia for some weeks. (He is completely fascinated by the workings of the human body.) When my daughter confirmed that this was indeed, the much-discussed hernia he wanted to know whether Grandma also had a hernia and was most disappointed to learn that she didn't.

I can clearly recall how I spent all of my childhood and young adult years in a furious battle to be seen as an individual, someone with his own distinct identity who would be taken seriously as a person. Now I find I am delighted to be regarded as part of a 'set', like one of a couple of senior dolls with matching repairable hernias.

For me, being a grandparent means existing in a state of barely-subdued ecstasy and not even being cut open with a knife and then used as an example in an Early Years biology lesson can diminish that.

Do You Go To Dublin?

I spent last week in Ireland at our family house in Leitrim. The drive down from Belfast was wonderful, the gorse blazing away on the hillsides, the hedgerows frothing with cow parsley. Then we left the main road and made our way across the border via a road like a green tunnel, through the little village of Kiltyclogher where you could safely lie down in the middle of the road without worrying about the traffic, up the hill to Straduffy, where there is no TV, no landline, only intermittent mobile reception and no internet, and where each morning and evening a hare comes lolloping around the house, grazing on the snow-in-summer that grows beside the path.

Our days and nights were silent except for the birdsong, the bewildered cries of sheep and cattle in nearby fields and the frenzied buzzing of bees in the sycamores. On occasions we wandered down around the broken stones of the old house where my father was born, following the stream that runs through our land in a series of waterfalls. On all sides the bluebells were running riot and here and there orchids peeped shyly from the grass.

It was a blissful few days until, towards the end of our stay, I was obliged to drive into Sligo town on an errand. I like Sligo with its old grey stone buildings and its ridiculous over-supply of bookshops, but it still felt like a betrayal of something to venture back into the busy world we had so briefly and willingly left behind.

As I was leaving, my business conducted, my attention was caught by a man in his late forties standing outside the supermarket. He was smartly dressed but in a strangely unfashionable way, so that he looked as if he had somehow materialized from the early nineteen sixties. There was an unreadable look on his face: anxiety and hopefulness, eagerness and embarrassment, innocence and guile. I couldn't place it.

As I watched, he approached a woman in her twenties who was coming out of the supermarket pushing a trolley. 'Do you go to Dublin?' he abruptly asked. She looked at him in confusion. 'No, I don't,' she said. 'Why do you ask?'

'I just thought, you know, you looked like you might,' he mumbled, crestfallen. Then the eagerness returned to his expression. 'Where are you from?'

'Round here,' the woman said, but she was beginning to edge away from him.

People are friendly in the West of Ireland. It's very common for someone you don't know to speak to you in the street but I realised, at about the same time as the young woman, that the smartly-dressed-but-strangely-old-fashioned man was not just being friendly. He was either slightly unhinged or, more probably, 'going to Dublin' was a euphemism, for what exactly, I leave to your imagination.

It spoiled the picture for me, but it also made the picture. The serpent in paradise – it's peaceful without him but there's no story.