Banal questions
Jeremy Clarke same territory with one group dominating the other is apartheid in my book, and to hell with those who will call the poor little Greek boy a racist and an anti-Semite. I've been called these names before, and they have yet to break any of my bones. But Jimmy has been getting worse flak than I ever did. 'Holocaust denier', a 'patron of former concentration-camp killers', a 'Christian madman', a 'man who condones mass murder of Israeli Jews' are some of the grenades lobbed Jimmy's way by the likes of those who would rather shut one up than debate the issues in DC. Namely, the Israeli lobby.
The trouble with Foxman, Dershowitz and their ilk is that they've cried wolf once too often. They doth protest too much over the slightest criticism of a country which has a hell of a lot to be criticised about, and whose most respected newspaper, Haaretz, has long pointed out the brutalities perpetrated on the Palestinians by Zionists of the old school of Begin, Shamir and Netanyahu. Let's face it, a vocal Palestinian viewpoint is nonexistent in America, but Foxman is outraged by any suggestion that this might be the case. 'The reason he [Carter] gives for why he wrote the book is this shameless canard that the Jews control the debate in this country, especially when it comes to the media.' Well, yes, Foxman old boy, that was the point of the book, and that's why you've gone bananas over it. The Jewish lobby in America has stifled debate, and if one refuses to admit it there is no point me banging on about it.
Read the book and make up your own mind, says the Greek sage. Which brings me to the European apartheid practised by our Muslim cousins (distant cousins, I might add), aided and abetted by our own politicians and media. Channel 4's courageous exposure of what extremists preach within the walls of Britain's leading mosques had as much coverage as Taki's win of the Sudan Open in 1959 did. Channel 4 managed to film mad mullahs preaching against Kuffars (that's us) and calling for a holy war against us, yet none of the busybodies who pounce on anything they deem offensive to Muslims have raised a finger. No politician has stood up and demanded the arrest of these hate-mongers, and none of the police seems perturbed in the least. Where are all these watchdogs now that we need them? Don't European Christians have any rights left? Can you imagine the reaction if a Christian church allowed a priest to say such things in, say, Saudi Arabia? Well, not really as there are no churches allowed in Saudi Arabia.
Not to worry. We have David Cameron who will save us once these Scots go back up north. Well, the poor little Greek boy is not going to wait for his rescue. I am Ukip all the way, and hope all the rest of you Kuffars back the only party which might save a little bit of Britain the way we knew her to be.
Las Alpujarras In 1919 a young outer satellite of the Bloomsbury set called Gerald Brenan came to Spain looking for somewhere quiet to read and recover from the shellshock he'd sustained at the battles of Ypres and the Somme. He found a suitable house in an impoverished and remote village in the eastern Alpujarras and lived there on and off for 15 years.
Brenan later wrote a book about his experiences, called South from Granada, published in 1957. The style is lucid and correct, the content an engaging mixture of anthropology, history, geology, botany, acute psychological observation, erotic tittle-tattle and sheer prejudice. It's a minor classic of British travel writing.
Two of Brenan's chapters are digressions about visits from his Bloomsbury pals. From a close reading of the text, and by studying a map, I've worked out that, if I was loitering on the bridge just below this house in 1920, I would have witnessed the extraordinary sight of Lytton Strachey, Dora Carrington and Ralph Partridge passing by on a procession of mules; Strachey wailing in agony at every step because his piles were playing him up. And if I were to have wandered down again three years later, I'd have witnessed the equally extraordinary sight of Leonard and Virginia Woolf, also on the backs of mules, heading up the valley towards Brenan's place. Not that they'd have paid the slightest attention to so obviously a plebeian character as myself, of course.
Brenan's presentation of Las Alpujarras as an earthy paradise untouched by the horrors of the mechanical age, populated by a race of hardy yet noble peasants, and sanctified by Bloomsbury, still exerts a powerful attraction, if the disproportionately large amount of English people living here, and the cult of Gerald Brenan thriving among them, is anything to go by.
And no wonder. The voice that comes through his prose is very beguiling. It is that of an energetic, fearless, practical, self-taught, independent-minded, somewhat priapic young man, who is desperate above all else to be thought of as an intellectual. Nowhere in his book does he mention his Military Cross or his Croix de Guerre. But to an almost pathetic extent he name-drops this or that high-brow author he claims to have been reading at the time, or nods self-consciously in the direction of this or that canonical authority. I like him Such unrealistic and transparent pretension reminds me of me. And since I've been here in the Alpujarras, I've been as drawn to the relics and holy places of the cult of Gerald Brenan, including his house at Yegen, as everyone else.
I've also had the privilege of taking afternoon tea with a couple who are said to have known Brenan for 20 years. We sat around the log fire. Lars was a reserved and intelligent Swede, formerly a painter; Linda a vivacious and intelligent Englishwoman and a poet.
`So what was he like, then?' I said, as Linda poured the tea. A banal question, I know. But, as people who know me who are asked the same question will no doubt testify, I'm full of nothing but banal questions. 'What was who like?' she said. 'Gerald Brenan. You knew him, I heard. You were friends of his.' She looked at her husband, handing over the conversational baton, and went away to refill the teapot. 'You knew him, I hear,' I repeated. Lars's gentle painter's eyes betrayed embarrassment. 'Quite well,' he said. Whether by 'quite' he meant 'totally' or 'almost' was maddeningly, and, I felt, intentionally unclear. Linda returned with the replenished teapot. `Go on, tell me,' I said. 'What was he like?' They looked at each other as if to say, 'Isn't it your turn, darling, to answer this beastly question with something we can laugh about together later on?' Eventually Lars said, 'Well, if I had to describe him in a word, I would say that he had plenty of open energy.' Yes,' said Linda, who obviously relished a parlour game. 'That's it! He was a man of tremendous energy!' He was very active, you mean?' I said. 'Oh yes. Active's the word. Tremendous activity,' said Linda. The feeling that I was being made fun of intensified and I changed the subject.
But I liked Lars's and Linda's company. And, besides, they are the only people in the village I know who speak English. My going there for tea and cake has turned into a regular Sunday-evening event. I tried just once more to draw them out about Brenan. 'Brenan was a good writer, wasn't he?' I said, in fine banal form. 'Who?' said Linda. 'Brenan,' I said. 'Good writer."Oh, yes!' she said, with great feeling. 'More cake?'
Imagine my surprise at and admiration for such reticence when I was told last week very categorically that Lars was Gerald Brenan's best friend for 20 years, that Linda was Gerald Brenan's secretary, and together they are the legal executors of his estate. Roll on next Sunday.
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