phespirit.now:   words archive

Year 2007 reading matter

RYSZARD KAPUŚCIŃSKI
"Another Day Of Life"

"Ndozi has years of guerrilla warfare behind him, but the troops he is leading are green. A green soldier fears everything. When he is transported to the front, he thinks death is watching him on every side. Every shot is aimed at him. He doesn't know how to judge the range or direction of fire, so he shoots anywhere, as long as he can shoot a lot without stopping. He is not hurting the enemy, he is killing his own terror. He is stifling the dread that paralyses a man and prevents him from thinking. Or rather, the dread doesn't let him think about what is happening around him, about how to win the battle that his unit is engaged in, because at that moment he has a more important battle to win: He must win the war with his own fear. During the attack today, says Ndozi, I ran up to one who was standing there shooting a bazooka straight up in the air. Don't aim up, I screamed, aim in front of you at those palms, that's where they are. But I could see that he had a grey face, that finding the enemy hadn't crossed his mind, that nothing was getting through to him because he was fighting his own enemy, who wasn't among the palms but inside him, in the boy himself. He was firing because he wanted to stun himself, he wanted to stupefy himself and survive the attack of fear."
Ryszard Kapuściński lived in Luanda during the chaotic three months leading up to Angolan independence in November 1975. Working for a Polish Press Agency, he was the last European journalist filing reports from within the country. His book of that time is slim but successful in painting a raw, vivid picture of the fear and uncertainty that followed the disintegration of Portuguese colonial rule, where competing internal forces and external mercenary armies battle through persistent maddening heat whilst the established order and infrastructure collapse around them. Tough stuff; excellent journalism.

GRAHAM McCANN
"Spike & Co."

This is the story of Associated London Scripts (ALS), the pioneering creatives' company conceived by Eric Sykes and Spike Milligan, and launched with Ray Galton and Alan Simpson in 1954. They were later joined by Johnny Speight and a host of others. From the mid 1950s and throughout the 1960s (and beyond) they were responsible for some of the greatest British comedy ever created, including: The Goons, The Frankie Howerd Show, Sykes, Hancock's Half Hour, Steptoe and Son, and Till Death Us Do Part. Graham McCann's book is a highly readable history of ALS, pacey and amusing, that has only one significant flaw: the title. Spike Milligan was a genius, still frequently regarded as the godfather of post-war British comedy, to whom all subsequent comedy writers and performers can trace their influences or owe a debt. The creation of ALS, however, is one of the few original endeavours in which he did not break ground alone. It is harsh that Spike should get sole billing (or even top billing) in the title when, at the very least, parity for Eric Sykes would be in order. Probably a marketing decision.
"Each writer had his own distinct space, habits and schedule. Spike Milligan, for example, was soon ensconced in an office at the top of the stairs above the reception. It was here, seated behind a medium-sized wooden desk upon which sat an old typewriter, a new paperweight, a small hole-puncher, an in-tray and an out-tray and a shiny black Bakelite telephone, that he began to bring some kind of order to an otherwise chaotic world - dividing up his possessions into various different categories and then surrendering them to the regiment of box files that were stationed all along one of his walls. One box was for unused, but still usable, ideas; another was for his children's notes and drawings; one contained correspondence with old war comrades; another one stored troublesome bills. Anyone who sent him something that caused any measure of distress was banished immediately to the box file labelled 'Bastards'; once that file was filled to the gills, any fresh pests were deposited in a second box labelled 'New Bastards'."
This is a nostalgia book. A warm remembrance of happy, innocent beginnings, of people drawn together by sublime chance and mutual admiration, and the subsequent sense of optimism and creative outpouring. Not everything clicked; when it did it was a joy, and when it didn't it was painful. The ending was sad but probably inevitable given the complex personalities involved. By then a mark had been made, though, and the memory of the highs will last forever.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
"God Is Not Great - The Case Against Religion"

All pretty intuitive stuff really, but Hitchens makes an efficient job of setting out the basics, garnishing with extracts from appropriate texts, and just about containing his anger over the whole sorry business. The vast majority of his broadsides are directed at the unholy trinity of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, but he finds room to aim a couple at Hinduism, Buddism, and any other -ism that might stray into his path. He's not afraid to give modern icons such as Mother Teresa and Gandhi a proper kicking, along with the innumerable false prophets that have blighted civilisation since before records began. The whole thing is more vindication than education, but that in no way diminishes its value. This is indeed a 'good book'.

HARRY THOMPSON
"Penguins Stopped Play"

"It's happened to all of us, of course. Some cricketers have turned the act of running their fellows out into an art form. (I'm not bad at it myself, in point of fact.) One teammate, who shall remain nameless, once did me up like a kipper with an almost surreal piece of genius - a veritable work of art. Having patted yet another forward defensive harmlessly on to the turf, I looked up to see him standing before me, wraith-like, in the exact centre of the wicket. 'Do you?' he said cryptically. Confused and unsure what to do, I set off for the other end. He didn't even flicker, but simply raised a priestly palm when I drew level with him. I froze. Suddenly he turned and scampered back to the other end like a startled squirrel, leaving me alone in the middle of the wicket. I heard the click of the bails being removed behind me. I had been utterly, thoroughly and completely outwitted, and to what purpose I still have no idea to this day."
This anecdote is a rare example of the guilty remaining nameless. The late Harry Thompson has generally packed this narrative of his "village" cricket team's world tour with great barbs of frankness, and the book is all the funnier for it. The most brutal flak, quite rightly and relentlessly, is reserved for British Airways. The whole work stands as a fine and fitting way for a noble cricketer to depart cruelly early from the crease.

ERIC SYKES
"If I Don't Write It Nobody Else Will"

An intriguing autobiography by a man whose star has faded a little, and who now stands as one of the less heralded heroes of post-war British comedy, but whose significance in its evolution cannot be underestimated. His judgement wasn't always spot on, but his instinct for humour remains razor sharp. This will probably stand as an important document.

BAO NINH
"The Sorrow Of War"

Written by a veteran of the Vietnam war on the North Vietnam side, this novel - in its cheap photocopied form - is now ubiquitous in modern Vietnam. It is both grim and delicate and unflinching in its handling of the effects of war before, during and after the conflict. There is no clear beginning or end, there is little sympathy, and there are no winners or losers. There is only sorrow. For a book of just 217 pages, it tells an awful lot.

REVAK PUBLISHERS
"Pergamon"

A guidebook bought at Pergamon, Turkey, in 2002, and now read at last on the occasion of a visit to the Pergamonmuseum of Berlin, Germany, in 2007. It is not the most sophisticated guidebook ever written, but Pergamon remains one of the finest ancient sites that Phespirit has visited anywhere in the world.

WENDY E. COOK
"Peter Cook: So Farewell Then"

"In time, though, once I grew accustomed to their social niceties, I became fond of Peter's parents. It was a household in which I learned much by observing and listening. Sometimes, for instance, a conversation might veer off in a controversial or unacceptable direction, or questions might be asked (usually by me) which perhaps should not have been asked, and then there'd be a painful silence, or the subject would abruptly be changed. I have pondered these taboos for years. Whatever people may say about the erosion of the British class system, it is still in place. It thrives on innuendo, silences and on the tyranny of politeness. I also wondered about the provenance of these taboos and realized that Peter, although complicit while a guest in his parents' home, was determined to tear down, parody or destroy many of their hidden agendas. Nevertheless, he was inculcated with some of these social prejudices himself, though you needed to be a sleuth to uncover them. Finding this upper-middle-class family so different from mine, I took time to understand it and fit in. As a new mother, for instance, I wondered how Margaret Cook could possibly have torn herself away from seven-month-old Peter for long periods of time - months, years - in the name of duty to her husband in Nigeria. It must have involved a tremendous amount of repression of her emotions. They were always such a polite family and would often greet Peter almost as though meeting for the first time. Saying the right thing was an ingrained habit, but for me it took a bit of work."
Although the strapline on the cover is 'The Untold Life of Peter Cook', this is really the untold life of Wendy Cook, in which Peter Cook played an enormous early part. And that's fine. Wendy - as Cook's first wife (of three), and mother to Lucy and Daisy Cook - was his partner, facilitator and homemaker at a time when the whole world wanted him. They wanted each other, and the whole world was there for them. Alas, it proved impossible for Cook to combine being a history-maker and taboo-breaker - a living legend with both comedic genius and human frailty - with being a reliable and devoted husband. He probably put equal effort into both roles. The difference is that one role came naturally to him and the other didn't. It all unravelled in the end, and the depressing thought remains that it probably couldn't have been any different. Society still expects its geniuses to be perfect.

HUMPHREY LYTTELTON
"It Just Occurred To Me..."

"The dichotomy in my parents' religious approach became especially apparent when, between 1929 and the outbreak of war a decade later, we went regularly to Harlech in North Wales for the long summer holiday. Every Sunday, my mother would take us to church. And every Sunday she would say, 'George, you are coming with us, aren't you?' Ever ready with an apt and useful literary quotation, my father's answer would always be the same. 'No. I shall be worshipping in the vast cathedral of immensity.' He was referring specifically, as we children soon discovered, to the St David's golf course."
This book is the literary equivalent of an orienteering expedition without map or compass. Its terrain is the mind of Humphrey Lyttelton. Phespirit bought his signed copy of 'It Just Occurred To Me...' whilst attending the London Coliseum recording of 'I'm Sorry I haven't A Clue' in May 2007. Sadly it was taken from a pile of similar books rather than direct from the great man's hand, which Phespirit may well have felt compelled to kiss.
This web site, www.phespirit.info, takes as its six central themes: places, music, words, pictures, games and comedy. Humphrey Lyttelton is nature's gift to connoisseurs of all these things. And to think Phespirit only discovered him by the accident of tuning in to BBC Radio 4 one Monday afternoon at six-thirty .....

Chairman Humph, waking from a long coma

Edited by JOHN KEAY
"The Mammoth Book of Travel In Dangerous Places"

This 'mammoth' book compiles extracts from the works of forty-three explorers who undertook hazardous and, in some cases, fatal journeys across all parts of the world in the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Star contributors include John Cochrane, Wilfred Thesiger, Mary Kingsley, Samuel Baker, Meriwether Lewis, Hiram Bingham, Fridtjof Nansen and Ernest Shackleton, along with all the other usual suspects. The compilation format is handy as it would be a tall order to read every individual source book, but the downside is that each view is a glipse rather than a panorama. The explorers of equatorial Africa definitely seemed to have it toughest.

THE GIOI PUBLISHERS
"Vietnamese Folk-tales - Satire And Humour"

A small book picked up in Hué airport for two bucks. The humour is not especially sophosticated, but it lacks nothing for charm. Here's one of the brighter examples:
Nothing to complain about
The main course is fish - two of them on the plate. One of the diners promptly picks up the bigger one with his chopsticks. This provokes the wrath of his partner.
  - What bad manners! - he exclaimed.
  - What's the matter? - asked the surprised friend.
  - You've taken the bigger fish.
  - What would you do in my place?
  - I'd certainly pick the smaller one.
  - Well, what are you complaining about? It's still there!

PAUL THEROUX
"The Old Patagonian Express"

An interesting and engaging narrative of Theroux's journey 'by train through the Americas', beginning in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A., and ending in Esquel, Patagonia, Argentina. This is appetite-whetting stuff, with moments of exhilaration and great passages of tedium, typical of long distance travel, skilfully conveyed in a detached observational style that allows the reader a sense of shared experience. For example, vicarious wonderment at a football international in San Salvador, February 1978:
"We were frisked at the entrance; we passed through a tunnel and emerged at the end of the stadium. From the outside it had looked like a kettle; inside, its shape was more of a salver, a tureen filled with brown screeching faces. In the centre was a pristine rectangle of green grass.
  It was, those 45,000 people, a model of Salvadorean society. Not only the half of the stadium where the Suns sat (and it was jammed: not an empty seat was visible); or the better-dressed and almost as crowded half of the Shades (at night, in the dry season, there was difference in the quality of the seats: se sat on concrete steps, but ours, being more expensive than the Suns, were less crowded); there was a section that Alfredo had not mentioned: the Balconies. Above us, in five tiers of a gallery that ran around our half of the stadium, were the Balcony people. Balcony people had season tickets. Balcony people had small rooms, cupboard-sized, about as large as the average Salvadoreans hut; I could see the wine bottles, the glasses, the plates of food. Balcony people had folding chairs and a good view of the field. There were not many Balcony people - two or three hundred - but at $2,000 for a season ticket in a country where the per capita income was $373 one could understand why. The Balcony people faced the creaming Suns and, beyond the stadium, a plateau. What I took to be the lumpish multi-coloured vegetation covering the plateau was, I realized, a heap of Salvadoreans standing on top or clinging to the sides. There were thousands of them in this mass, and it was a sight more terrifying than the Suns. They were lighted by the stadium glare; there was a just-perceptible crawling movement among the bodies; it was an ant-hill.
  National anthems were played, amplified songs from scratched records, and then the game began. It was apparent from the outset who would win. Mexico was bigger, faster, and seemed to follow a definite strategy; El Salvador had two ball-hoggers, and the team was tiny and erratic. The crowd hissed the Mexicans and cheered El Salvador. One of the Salvadorean ball-hoggers went jinking down the field, shot and missed. The ball went to the Mexicans, who tormented the Salvadoreans by passing it from man to man and then, fifteen minutes into the game, the Mexicans scored. the stadium was silent as the Mexican players kissed one another.
  Some minutes later the ball was kicked into the Shades section. It was thrown back into the field and the game was resumed. Then it was kicked into the Suns section. The Suns fought for it; one man gained possession, but he was pounced upon and the ball shot up and ten Suns went tumbling after it. A Sun tried to run down the steps with it. He was caught and the ball wrestled from him. A fight began, and now there were scores of Suns punching their way to the ball. The Suns higher up in the section threw bottles and cans and wadded paper on the Suns who were fighting, and the shower of objects - meat pies, bananas, hankies - continued to fall. The Shades, the Balconies, the Ant-hill watched this struggle.
  And the players watched, too. The game had stopped. The Mexican players kicked the turf, the Salvadorean team shouted at the Suns.
  Please return the ball. It was the announcer. He was hoarse. If the ball is not returned, the game will not continue.
  This brought a greater shower of objects from the upper seats - cups, cushions, more bottles. The bottles broke with a splashing sound on the concrete seats. The suns lower down began throwing things back at their persecutors, and it was impossible to say where the ball had gone.
  The ball was not returned. The announcer repeated his threat.
  The players sat down on the field and did limbering-up exercises until, ten minutes after the ball had disappeared from the field, a new ball was thrown in. The spectators cheered but, just as quickly, fell silent. Mexico had scored another goal.
  Soon, a bad kick landed the ball into the Shades. This ball was fought for and not thrown back, and one could see the ball progressing through the section. The ball was seldom visible, but one could tell from the free-for-alls - now here, now there - where it was. The Balconies poured water on the Shades, but the ball was not surrendered. And now it was the Suns' turn to see the slightly better-off Salvadoreans in the Shades section behaving like swine. The announcer made his threat: the game would not resume until the ball was thrown back. The threat was ignored, and after a long time the ref walked onto the field with a new ball.
  In all, five balls were lost this way. The fourth landed not far from where I sat, and I could see that real punches were being thrown, real blood spurting from Salvadorean noses, and the broken bottles and the struggle for the ball made it a contest all its own, more savage than the one on the field, played out with a kind of mindless ferocity you read about in books on gory medieval sports. The announcer's warning was merely ritual threat; the police did not intervene - they stayed on the field and let the spectators settle their own scores. The players grew bored: they ran in place, they did push-ups. When play resumed and Mexico gained possession of the ball it deftly moved down the field and invariably made a goal. But this play, these goals - they were no more than interludes in a much bloodier sport which, towards midnight (and the game was still not over!), was varied by Suns throwing firecrackers at each other and onto the field."

LEE KUAN YEW
"From Third World To First - The Singapore Story 1965-2000"

This, the second volume of Lee Kuan Yew's memoirs, considers the development of Singapore alongside the geopolitical developments affecting its neighbours and trading partners. Lee says, "I always tried to be correct, not politically correct." Refreshing words from an international statesman, but ones guaranteed to alienate him from some Western audiences. His observations concerning the world and its woes intuitively appear wise, nonetheless. For example, observations on France and England:
"At my departure from Paris, I was driven at speed through heavy traffic, escorted by police outriders from my hotel to Charles de Gaulle Airport. It was a beautiful summer's day. The expressways lined with trees and embankments covered with creepers were a glorious sight. Charles de Gaulle Airport was modern and efficiently laid out. Then I arrived in Heathrow, all higgledy-piggledy; a labyrinth of roadways took me from plane to VIP lounge, then out to scruffy streets with roundabouts and grass verges unkempt and overgrown with weeds, on to my Knightsbridge hotel. The contrast between Paris and London was stark.
  My mind went back to my first visit to Paris in June 1948 with Choo. It was a scruffy, down-at-heel, post-occupation city, a poor relation compared to bomb-scarred but neat and tidy London, a city of confident people, proud of their record of standing up to the Nazis and saving mankind from tyranny. I remembered also the chaos in Paris in May 1958 just before Charles de Gaulle came back as president to form the Fifth Republic. Through his culture minister, Malraux, he cleaned up Paris, scrubbed the soot from the buildings and made it a city of lights. They restored French pride and injected fresh hope, while London muddled on as the British economy stumbled from one crisis to the next. I believed there were advantages in revolutionary change as against Britain's slow and gradual constitutional evolution. The British held endless meetings over new airports around London including Stansted and Gatwick, all leading to nothing, as planning authorities were stymied by local interests determined to preserve their amenities at the price of the nation's progress. Even after the Thatcher years, Heathrow still stands as an ancient monument to symbolise a lack of dare and dash."
And on China and democracy:
"China's history of over 4,000 years was one of dynastic rulers, interspersed with anarchy, foreign conquerors, warlords and dictators. The Chinese people had never experienced a government based on counting heads instead of chopping off heads. Any evolution towards representative government would be gradual. Nearly all Third World countries were former colonies that, after decades of colonial rule without either elections or democracy, received democratic constitutions fashioned after those of their former rulers. But the British, French, Belgian, Portuguese, Dutch and US democratic institutions had taken 200 years to evolve.
  History teaches us that liberal democracy needs economic development, literacy, a growing middle class and political institutions that support free speech and human rights. It needs a civic society resting on shared values that make people with different and conflicting views willing to cooperate with each other. In a civic society, between the family and state, there are whole series of institutions to which citizens belong, voluntary associations to promote specific common interests, religious institutions, trade unions, professional organisations and other self-help bodies.
  Democracy works where the people have that culture of accommodation and tolerance which makes a minority accept the majority's right to have its way until the next election, and wait patiently and peacefully for its turn to become the government by persuading more voters to support its views. Where democracy was implanted in a people whose tradition has been to fight to the bitter end, as in South Korea, it has not worked well. South Koreans battle it out on the streets regardless of whether they have a military dictator or a democratically elected president in charge. Brawls in the Legislative Yuan of Taiwan, plus physical clashes in the streets, are reflections of their different cultures. People will evolve their own more or less representative forms of government, suited to their customs and culture."