Related articles by Zemanta

• Guy Kawasaki Explains the Art of Innovation in 10 Steps (futurelab.net)
• How to Build Collaborative Software That People Will Actually Use (enterprise2blog.com)
• After Lehman: How Innovation Thrives In a Crisis (blogs.harvardbusiness.org)
• Practicing Continuous Innovation, IDEO Style ” Customer Experience Matters (fredzimny.wordpress.com)
• The front end of innovation change (fredzimny.wordpress.com)
• Outsourcing Isn’t a Problem for Silicon Valley But Is for Detroit (blogs.harvardbusiness.org)
• My Best Innovation Advice? Be Promiscuous (blogs.harvardbusiness.org)
• Is Reverse Innovation Like Disruptive Innovation? (blogs.harvardbusiness.org)

In Allied occupied Naples, Norman Lewis was an Intelligence Corps NCO with a marvelously vague remit. He turned his experiences there into great literature – certainly one of the best books on war I’ve read. But what interests me here, given our running theme on Afghanistan and Iraq, are the parallels.

Some are superficial, others more profound: Criminality is rampant – military and medical provisions are lifted straight off the ship, copper wire is no sooner installed than stolen. Pervasive corruption extends to the provisional government, whose officials are deeply complicit in the huge black market. Armed groups patrol the countryside, raiding convoys and villages. Allied soldiers, in this case rapacious Moroccans, are captured by locals, tortured and decapitated. Flagellants march through the streets, beating their bloodied chests. Nascent democracy, imposed by the allies, produces great political fragmentation, extremist ideas, and politicized religion – nuns distribute bread in exchange for votes. Rumour and superstition are rife, as are hunger, disease and poverty.

The occupiers, Lewis and a few others excepted, operate in deep cultural ignorance of local dialect, history, or habit. Through it all runs an underlying theme of clashing cultures. In time, Lewis comes to sympathise with the corruption, recognising the need for complicity to smooth the regular operation of society.

The fact is that we have upset the balance of nature here. I personally have been rigid when I should have been flexible. Here the police – corrupt and tyrannical as they are – and the civil population play a game together, but the rules are complex and I do not understand them, and through this lack of understanding I lose respect. [...] My predecessor, who was more flexible than I, handed out dashes in accordance with the list he left me.This I have not done, and by failing to do so, I am probably dismissed as ill-mannered and avaricious.

But are the Italians inherently corrupt, superstitious and tribal?  Apparently not. As Lewis relates, the Americans, by inadvertently importing and sponsoring leading Italian American figures from the US underworld, have done much to revive the  criminal syndicates of the Camorra, and the Mafia, much diminished by the efforts of Mussolini’s Fascists. These thrive in the economic and social chaos of a society shattered by the war.

It’s a beautiful book, full of startling, sometimes brutal scenes. And it made me think again about Afghanistan and Iraq. First, where are the great works of art from these wars? In prose, I can only think of Rory Stewart’s Occupational Hazards or George Packer’s Assassins’ Gate – but good as they are, they don’t come close. On a more practical point, where are today’s Field Security Officers and NCOs? Lewis and his colleagues had great latitude, and allied to intelligence, flair and persistence they achieved a degree of understanding.

A more positive thought came too – Naples was greatly traumatized by its years of war and privation, and by the re-emergence of organized crime. But it has changed, slowly. The culture of ‘44 was not its destiny.

Naples, photographed by Ginaluca Ruggiero from Flickr

Destination: Naples, Italy

Book: Naples ‘44: An Intelligence Officer in the Italian Labyrinth by Norman Lewis

Have you discovered the British travel writer Norman Lewis? Between 1938 and 2003, he published 23 travel books and 15 novels that can serve as travel books. I owe my discovery of Lewis to the manager of an inn on St. Lucia. Being British, he was quite astounded that I, a travel writer, did not know Norman Lewis’ work. He was quite right.

As a young soldier, Lewis was dispatched to (practically abandoned in) Naples after the Allies had driven out the German forces, but before the German army had left Rome.  A fact that complicated communications greatly, and gave a job to Lucky Luciano, who later became a Mafia chief in America.

The high command scarcely knew what to do with this situation.  One example of the idiocy that the occupation forces had to deal with. The people were starving. One of their mainstays before the war had been fishing.  But the army declared that no small boats could venture into the bay. So the fishermen lashed together doors to make a raft. The land was bare for several miles around the town, as the people walked out each day to harvest every blade of grass and stalk of weed to eat, sometimes having to walk ten miles for a couple of handsful. Much of the book deals with the lack of food.

Italian culture has enough inexplicable quirks on its own, as was pointed out ably in Italy Out of Hand. Pile on top of that decisions by military brass miles, if not continents away, and the friction between American and British forces and you have a situation both tragic and comic.  Sometimes I thought of Naples ‘44 as the true forerunner of Joseph Heller’s Catch 22 or M.A.S.H, except that Naples ‘44 is not fiction.  Lewis lived through this. The people of Naples lived through it, amazingly.

I did not visit Naples when I was in Italy, but this books makes me want to go back, wander the streets and wonder at the resiliency of people.  A reader’s comment on Amazon caught my eye.  The reader, from Naples, wrote “The way people live then and now has not changed. Minus having sex in the cemetery.”  The book, from page to page, is filled with moments that catch your attention like that second sentence.

One paragraph, particularly, made me pause and think about the aftermath of war.

Learn more about the life of Norman Lewis in the Guardian’s obituary.

Have you been to Naples? What else should we read before going to Naples? And what are the not-to-be-missed sights?

If you have not yet subscribed to read A Traveler’s Library every day, please consider the RSS subscription button, or the opportunity to subscribe by e-mail.

Photograph by Ginaluca Ruggiero, Rome.

Day One

Lets Start with our first 10 words –

1. Penury – Poverty

This word is derived from “Penny”, Penniless. Penny is money, Penniless is money less. Penury is a word which says no money or Poverty

2. Vicarious – Secondhand feeling

When you see a 3D movie you feel you are part of the movie. Such sort of feeling are called as vicarious feelings.

In sentimental story you feel Agony; this agony in you is a vicarious feeling

3. Ephemeral – Impermanent

Animals like Elephant, tortoise live long life on other side dogs, cats live for 10 years. Some insects have a sort life time. One of such insect is called mayfly in Greek it is called as Ephemera. Means not permanent or short life

4. Euphemism – Spoken in good manner

There are some words like “euthanasia – good death “, Lady of the night – prostitute”. You are not hurting some one with your words. Such a speech is called Euphemism.

5. Badinage – Banter, half teasing

6. Bovine – Cow like, Silent, Clam

having ox-like qualities; thought of as ox-like; slow, dull, stupid, stolid, etc.

7. Nostalgia – Home Sick

You go for a picnic for more than 15 days. You want to meet your family, friends, relatives etc. The feeling which you are under now is nostalgic feeling

8. Cacophony – Harsh Sounds

Kakos means harsh,bad. Phony means Sound (Kokos+phony = Cacophony)

9. Carnivorous – Meat eating

carnival mean Flesh vorous means eating. Hence the flesh eating animals are considered as carnivorous.

10. Clandestine – Secretly, covert, stealthy

_________________________________________________________

10 WORDS FOR THE DAY

Penury – Poverty

Vicarious – Second hand, Substitute

Ephemeral – Impermanent

Badinage – Banter

Euphemism – Circumlocution, Pleasant words

Bovine – Cow-like, clam

Nostalgia – Home sick

Cacophony – Harsh sounds

Carnivorous – Meat eating

Clandestine – Secret

PENURY – POVERTY, ABSENCE OF MONEY

Penny is money

Penurious – Close-fisted, niggard

Parsimonious – Stingy

Penuriousness – Stingy

Indigent – Absolutely no money

Affluent – Flow of money

Opulence – Much richer

Affluent = Ad + Fluent = Money Flow.

Confluence – Flow together

EPHEMERAL – IMPERMANENT

Ephemera = Mayfly in Greek, Short-life

Evanesco = Vanishing

Ex + vanesco = Out + vanish = Vanish out

EUPHEMISM – CIRCUMLOCUTION, PLEASANT WORDS

Eu means GOOD

Eulogy – Good speech

Eu + logy = Good+ speech

Euphony – Good sound

Eu + Phony – Good Speech

Euphoria – Good Feeling

Eu + phoria = Good + Feeling

Euthanasia – Good Death

Eu + Nasia = Good + death

Euphemism – Circumlocution, Pleasant words

Eu+ phemism = Good + words

BADINAGE – BANTER

Persiflage is same as badinage, Half teasing

Cliché – hackneyed phrase

Bromide – trite words

Anodyne – Allays pain without cure

Ano + dyne = Less + pain

Platitude = Flat statement

Platy means flat

Plateau – Flat land

Platypus – Flat foot animal

Platter – Flat dish

BOVINE – COW-LIKE, CLAM

Nostalgia – Home sick

Cacophony – Harsh sounds

Carnivorous – Meat eating

Clandestine – Secret

VICARIOUS = SECONDHAND FEELINGS

Hi All,

This is the place where you can learn some vocabulary. I am here to train you all with some basic words on daily basics. Come along with me for the world trip of English Language.

Since, this is our initial days of learning we will work on the terminology and simple English Word power as the days move we slant towards the grammar and Fast reading too.

Work with me for 10 working days, Daily 3 hrs you can master the vocab sessions. Don’t read this Blog rather work with this. Take a pencil and Notebook(don’t use papers and slips). Also try to write and recall these words daily. As you complete some session from this ,do recall daily while you are traveling, Before sleeping and eating. Especially at you free or leisure time.

Tips to be followed:

1. Should use PENCIL/ PEN with a note book.

2. Note down all the complex words.

3. Use these words regularly when you chat with your friends

4. Recall the words while traveling in bus, train.

5. Recap your session on daily basis.

6. Read News paper, Novel, Magazines. So that you might find the word which you have learn’t.

This increases your confidence and communication skills. Follow this for your better future.

Thanks,

Norman Lewis

Comrade Duch – doesn’t sound too bad does it? And yet it’s the alias of a man responsible for more human suffering and misery than most of us could ever imagine.

Comrade Duch’s real name is Kaing Geuk Eav and during the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia, Duch was in charge of the Phnom Penn facility known simply as S-21. A former high school, set in an ordinary suburb surrounded by houses, S-21 was simply a torture factory. About 16,000 Cambodians passed through the gates and only a dozen or so survived. They were all tortured until they confessed their ‘crimes’ and if the authorities didn’t like their confessions, they were tortured again until the authorities were satisfied.

Those who survived the torture were transported 15km out of Phnom Penn to an orchard at Cheung Ek where they were killed and their bodies dumped in mass graves.

And Comrade Duch oversaw all of this.

He escaped after the Khmer Rouge fell but was found in 1996, a born again Christian working in a refugee camp close to the Thai border. It’s taken a long time to bring him to trial, mainly because a lot of the people now running Cambodia are ex Khmer Rouge themselves and they’d rather not re-open history – either that of Cambodia or their own.

It’s pretty certain Duch will be found guilty of crimes against humanity and end his days in jail but there are plenty of others who should be in the dock with him. They never will though, Duch is the only one, his is the token show trial.

I’ve visited both S-21, or Toul Sleng, and the Killing Fields at Cheung Ek. S-21 is little changed, it still looks like a suburban school. And it’s this very ordinariness which is so chilling. You’d expect it to be an evil and malevolent place, but it isn’t, outwardly there’s nothing to tell of the horrors inflicted there. Inside there are cells and instruments of torture and relics of the wretched lives people endured there but you have to let your imagination go to even grasp a fraction of what those ordinary Cambodian people must have endured in their final days.

The most poignant things at Toul Sleng are the photographs. The Khmer Rouge photographed and documented all the prisoners, men, women and children. And a lot of these photographs are now on display. I found it very sobering to look at these images of ordinary people and realise that they were all dead. You can see the fear in some of the faces, incomprehension in others and even stubborn defiance in a few. What would I look like in similar circumstances?

Cheung Ek is a different experience. You walk past pits which contained many bodies, pass other mass graves which haven’t been excavated and you look at the thousands of skulls in the memorial tower – each one was a mother, father, son or daughter. As you walk round, especially in the more remote parts, you’ll see bits of tattered clothing either lying on the ground or sticking up from it. And you’ll also see bits of white stick everywhere but when you look closely you’ll see it’s not stick at all, it’s human bone. If you go and you see some, pick at least one piece up and take it to one the little piles collected on the small shrines. That bone was a part of an ordinary person who was tortured and killed and least you can do is show their memory some respect.

Cambodia is a wonderful country but its people and politics are complicated to put it mildly. If you go, read some history first and then maybe, just maybe, you’ll start to get an inkling of the place. I can personally recommend:

Pol Pot – the History of a Nightmare by Philip Short
Voices from S-21 by David Chandler
Tiger Balm by Lucretia Stewart
The Gate – Francois Bizot
A Dragon Apparent by Norman Lewis – a glimpse of SE Asian life by a travel writer in the 1950’s, absolutely compelling.

YouTube have a good report on the trial from Al Jazeera, find it here

I came across this last year and only bought it because Hunter S. Thompson was in it. At first glance I thought yeah whatever, no great shakes and I put it on the shelf. Due to a dry spell regarding books to read I picked it up to see if there was anybody in it that was worth reading and it turns out there was.

“The Art of Fact” was compiled by Kevin Kerrane and Ben Yagoda, (both journalists and teachers of journalism) originally as a text book for their students, it’s purpose was to highlight some of the finest examples of literary journalism. Spanning over 300 years it includes works by Daniel Defoe, Jack London, Hickman Powell, Hunter S. Thompson, Norman Mailer and many more.

It’s broken down into four sections. Pioneers, Telling Tales, The Reporter Takes the Stage, and Style as Substance.

“The Pioneers.” Daniel Defoe, James Boswell, Henry Mayhew, Charles Dickens, Walt Whitman, W. T. Stead, Stephen Crane, Richard Harding Davis, Abraham Cahan, Jack London.

“Telling Tales” Morris Markey, Hickman Powell, Walter Bernstein, John Hersey, W. C. Heinz, Lillian Ross, Norman Lewis, Gay Talese, Truman Capote, Tom Wolfe, Piers Paul Read, Tracy Kidder, Sylvester Monroe, Peter Goldman, Bob Greene, Gary Smith, Richard Ben Cramer.

“The Reporter Takes the Stage” George Orwell, Marvel Cooke, A. J. Liebling, Al Stump, Norman Mailer, Hunter S. Thompson, Ron Rosenbaum, Ted Conover, James Fenton, John Simpson, Bill Buford, Rosemary Mahony, Lawerence Otis Graham, Dennis Covington.

“Style as Substance” Ben Hecht, Ernest Hemingway, James Agee, Martha Gellhorn, George Orwell, Joseph Mitchell, Rebecca West, John Steinbeck, Jimmy Cannon, Jimmy Breslin, Tom Wolfe, Joan Didion, John McPhee, Michael Herr, Ryszard Kapuscinski, David Simon, Svetlana Alexiyevich, Michael Winerip.

Before every piece there is a brief and informative summary giving some background on each author.

Hunter’s contribution to this anthology is “The Scum Also Rises”

Norman Lewis.

Righty ho!  I’m very tired and I want to get this done so I can go and lie in my lovely, lovely big bed and steal the duvet from my complacent husband, who is snoring away as I speak, hogging the covers all to himself and being far too warm and cosy for my liking.  Treat ‘em mean and keep ‘em keen, is my motto.  At least, in the province of duvets and duvet related doings.  That puts me in mind of Trev and Simon (Saturday morning kids telly): “We Don’t Do Duvets!”  Well, they might not, but I do.

I did have the brilliant idea of taking two king sized duvets and sewing them together to make an emperor of the universe sized duvet.  Jason said it still wouldn’t work, and that no matter what, he would still end up freezing to death, clinging to the remnants of the bedding like a goat on a windy mountain.  He’s probably right.  And as we have already established that sewing is not really my forte (last week’s blog) I am going to take the get out clause that he has offered me gratefully and with the dignity befitting my advanced years!

I had a wonderful night’s sleep last night and woke up at twenty past nine just because I did.  Now, for those of you who don’t have children this seems like a) an absolutely rubbish lie in, and b) so what?  For those of you who do have children, you have probably ceased reading this blog, fainted, fallen backwards out of your chairs and are even now gazing in stunned awe at your light fittings, thinking envious thoughts, and realising you really should dust more often.  In real terms having a morning like this is the equivalent to staying in bed until the second showing of Neighbours.  I haven’t had a lie in like it since my birthday in April, which is the last time we managed to escape without the children.

I have of course slept in until this late or even later between April and now, but usually with caveats.  Jason will allow me to sleep in if I promise to change all the dirty nappies all day, or if he can go back and have a sleep later.  Or because I’ve been ill (by ill read: actually physically knocking at death’s door), or I’ve taken the children to school and nursery and then come back and gone to bed.  These, therefore do not count as real lie-ins because there has been some point earlier in the proceedings where negotiations have been made and being awake enough to make those negotiations has been required.  Now even then I can usually go back to sleep.

I can force myself back to sleep at almost any moment with very little practice.  It’s a skill I’ve developed since having children, and one I’m particularly proud of.  If I knew how to do it consciously I could probably teach classes in it, and hire myself out to tribes of sleep deprived individuals at hundreds of pounds per hour.  Sadly, it is a buried skill which only surfaces at the moment at which I am about to slip into unconsciousness.  Naturally it is at times like these that I am unlikely to have a notebook and pen handy with which to chart my process, and if I did it would probably turn out to be complete and utter gibberish (first, take your haddock…etc).  It will therefore, have to remain a selfish and singular skill.  Jason does not yet possess it and is very jealous.  He has to resort to ear plugs, pillows over the head and calming, meditative thoughts to get back to sleep once he has been disturbed.  Sometimes he even abandons his bed altogether.  Not something I would ever do.  I have to be prised, screaming from my pillows.  Sometimes I even weep gently as the alarm goes off in the morning.

Not only did I get a lie in, but I got to eat my breakfast uninterrupted whilst reading my book.  I am still travelling around Burma with Norman Lewis.  Love him dearly though I do,  I was a bit annoyed with him this morning.  He put me right off my toast as I was just reading a passage about how he went to sleep and woke up with a sore lip only to find a large cockroach clinging to his face.  It was reading that combined with the crunchiness of the toast that did it for me. Urghhh!

My ex-husband said that a friend of his once ate a cockroach for a drug induced bet.  He (the friend that is, not my ex-husband), said it was quite nice and that it tasted like pineapple.  I am very impressed that he didn’t say it tasted a lot like chicken, which is what most things taste like.  I am sadly also unlikely to believe him(because I like pineapple), given that his experiment was undertaken at a time in which he had just ingested a shedload of class A drugs.  This does tend to impair ones judgement in such matters.  They don’t tend to mention it in the anti-drug leaflets, as there are usually other things they’re keen to include, such as the risk of imminent death, but it is nevertheless true.  I shall not be eating cockroaches until Gordon Ramsay puts a recipe for them in his latest book.  I shall not even trust the great King Ray of Mears, even though he probably hasn’t taken any drugs recently.  He is however, keen on eating bark, and has never been seen to eat a chocolate eclair, both of which when put together, make him very unreliable on the tastiness of food items issue.

The other great disappointment of my day was the fact that Jason and I went to the cinema.  Now this should be what is known in the trade as ‘a good thing’ as we both love films, but we have a small baby who doesn’t like to sit still for more than two minutes, even when he’s asleep.  Naturally we were very excited at the prospect of a visit to the flea pits of Leeds.  We even tried to go last night, but all the things we wanted to see were on too late for us, and we didn’t want to get thrown out for snoring in the aisles.

Sadly, in the case of today’s much anticipated trip, it turned out to be a very ‘bad thing’.  I worked out today that I haven’t been to the cinema with Jason since before I was pregnant with Oscar.  So naturally today was a big, big deal.  I like to buy into the whole experience; you know, the roar of the crowd, the smell of the greasepaint, the overwhelming aroma of stale popcorn.  I don’t actually like popcorn (unless it is home made and covered in enough butter and salt to speed you on to meet your maker in less than twenty four hours), but I do like cinema hot dogs and all the awful ice-creams, whatever the equivalent of the King Cone is nowadays.  I even like all the crappy adverts and the trailers.  I think it’s brilliant.  There was a time in my life when I used to visit the cinema at least twice a week and knew all the words to the ‘Crusader’ nuts advert off by heart.  Now I go once every three years, unless it’s to see something garish and stupid made by Nickolodeon or Disney, with the sole purpose of gouging as much money as possible from parents and rotting the childrens’ brains all in one mighty swoop. So, as established, a big deal.

We decided to go and see Beowulf.  We’d heard a lot about it.  I liked the idea because I’ve read the book (and before you write in, I know it’s a poem), and I was interested in early Nordic mythology type stuff, ‘cos’ that’s the nerdy kind of gal I am (I wear glasses you know!).  Jason liked it because it had got Ray Winstone, Anthony Hopkins and lots of killing (we’re drawing a veil over the question of Angelina Jolie – I can guess, but I don’t actually want to know).  We were both happy.  Who can go wrong when mixing cultural pursuits with blood thirsty mayhem and gratuitous use of CGI?  Oh, woe, woe and thrice woe.

It was terrible.  There aren’t really words to describe how terrible it was, and that’s coming from me.  Here is a potted version of the things that were wrong with it:

1. Ray Winstone plays Beowulf.  Beowulf in this instance who has come many miles across the sea to kill the evil mutant Grendel, from a used car lot in Epping.
2. Anthony Hopkins is the great Scandinavian king Hrothgar, but has a Welsh accent!
3. They film it like a computer game – don’t ask…
4. I’ve seen better graphics on pac man
5. The acting is terrible.

We left after forty minutes, so luckily for you I can’t say much more about it.  I’m just delighted that we were in agreement over how terrible it was and didn’t have to waste any more of our precious free time pretending we liked it so the other person wouldn’t feel bad and wrong.  We ran off to Borders where we spent an agreeable hour compiling a list of books we would buy if we had all the money in the world and telling each other how crappy Beowulf is, and what a lucky escape we had.

We then drove for three hours in the lashing rain down the motorway to save Granny from the clutches of the evil children.  Tallulah announced on the way home that she was very lucky she had a window seat in the car because it meant that she could see Las Vegas and Africa, whereas Tilly clearly couldn’t because she was in the middle.  Tilly then said that if Jason didn’t let her watch Harry Potter when we got home she was going to make him eat a hat soaked in brussel sprout juice.  When he asked how, Tallulah said very patiently: “You just cut it into bits with a knife and fork and then swallow it Daddy.” Obviously!  It is good to have them back, even though it has been brilliant without them.

There was an article in the Sunday Telegraph today which said that the average woman with kids gets two hours per week to herself.  Now, if this is true, I must count myself lucky, as I get more than that.  I do sympathise however.  Since starting writing this, with my optimistic ramblings about bed time, Oscar has woken screaming because his teeth are hurting him yet again.  I am at my wits end.  I’m thinking of having them all extracted and having him some made of adamantium, the hardest, fictional metal in the world! (X-men and Green Wing Fans I salute you)  I have dosed him with homeopathy, the dreaded Calpol and Bonjela.  He has also had a bottle of milk, which he proceeded to prod until the teat fell out and it leaked all over his bed. I have changed his bed sheets, and finally in desperation so that everyone else can sleep, I now have him balanced on my knee as I type. 

We have been like this for the past twenty minutes.  I now have snot and dribble down my clean pyjamas, and am unlikely to be able to get any rest for at least another half an hour until his meds kick in.  He keeps helping me with my work, which although I am convinced he is a genius and one day his work will be recognised throughout the land, is perhaps a bit early for publication, even for him.  It’s not quite on a par with the juvenailia of the Bronte’s, although given six months I think we could give Anne, at least, a run for her money.  I feel that I am paying a kind of karmic debt for daring to have one night off in six months, and am now doomed to spend the next eight hours stumbling round in an exhausted haze, a la last week.  What joy.

I think I must bundle him downstairs with Norman Lewis and a large cup of tea to fortify my shattered nerves.  He can wreck the lounge and rewire the DVD player while I thank my lucky stars that I’m not six thousand miles away being bitten to death by giant cockroaches and being forced to eat cockerel’s ankles for breakfast.  I suppose it could be a lot worse really.  Stay at home mum versus international adventurer and purveyor of derring do?  I’ll put the kettle on…

I woke up this morning with a two large spots on my chin, and what looks suspiciously like the beginning of a cold sore. This is very, very depressing.  I haven’t had a cold sore since 1978, and I’m sure it’s just a conspiracy because we’re going to this wedding.  I will probably wake up tomorrow with alopecia, galloping ring worm and scrofulous warts.  It’s been that kind of week.  Anything is possible at this stage.  Although I am glad to report that my hair has calmed down to much more sensible levels since Monday.  Having said that, it could hardly have gotten any worse.  People were beginning to mistake me for Ken Dodd.  I also have huge, and I mean huge, bags under my eyes.  Oscar has been reasonably settled for the last two nights now.  This is good, as it means I am beginning to catch up on my lost sleep, but I am still at that stage where my body is just remembering what it is like to sleep the night through and realising how much sleep it has been deprived of.  Consequently, when the alarm goes every morning I have a fit of the body sulks and extra bags are added under my eyes as a special punishment for having dared to have more babies.  This is a true medical fact and may be found in the 1893, Flingelhoffer, Really, Really, Honest Guvnor’ Medical Dictionary, along with a cure for chilblains where you thrash them with holly leaves and then pee on them! Very efficacious.  I actually did have chilblains once when I was a kid, and that was what my grandad told me to do to make them better.  I sat all the way home in the car with my feet tucked under my bum in a muck sweat, thinking my mum was going to carry it out when we got home!

 Maybe Mrs. Rance (the P.E. teacher from yesterday), has been reading my blog, not knowing it was me, and then suddenly remembered everything.  She could have had a horrific ‘Nam’ type flash back and then hexed me to get revenge for spoiling her golden years with hideous images of abortive cross country runs and my failure to throw the javelin anywhere except behind me.  I expect that’s what it is.  Well, woman, if it is you, I’m not paying your therapy bills, and you deserve everything you get.  If I die of an obesity related illness it will be your fault for making me gymphobic, and not mine for eating all the pies.  To be fair to the woman, if I met her again she would probably be a nice old lady.  Good!  She wouldn’t be able to defend herself when I kicked her in the shins for ruining three years of my life.  And let’s face it, it doesn’t take much to tip a spot, needy adolescent with bad hair and no social life, over into the slough of despond (Bunyan – Pilgrim’s Progress – Lit spotters!) does it?

I finally managed to finish George Orwell.  As suspected there was nary a happy ending in sight.  It will end in tears, as my mother so rightly said, about seventy times a day during my formative years.  I am now reading Norman Lewis’s, Golden Earth: Travels in Burma.  It is excellent.  I have already laughed several times, not something I can say I had a problem with in George’s case.  Apparently Asian countries have a problem with the name, Norman Lewis, and on one occasion he ended his trip being called, Mr. Thirsty Bedford!  This is fantastic.  What a wonderful name.  I wonder what I would end up being called?  Probably something like Hildegard Fishbungle.  It puts me in mind of the fantastic Eddie Izzard sketch where he talks about how they decided on the name Englebert Humperdinck, from the original Gerry Dorsey.  Presumably they sent him on a six month trip round the Golden Triangle (sounds like a particularly challenging bit of municipal planning in Slough.  Talking of Slough, I wonder if Slough took it’s name from Bunyan’s Slough of Despond.  Having been to Slough and got lost in the hideous one way system, I can say it is a richly deserved name.), and it was just a natural progression. I also ended up reading a rather strange book about Orthodox Jews and lesbianism in Hendon.  It was supposed to be for pleasure (the reading bit!), although when I started it, I didn’t know it was going to be about Jewish lesbians.  I only picked it because Woman’s Hour said it was nice and I used to live in Hendon.

I have to say that I don’t remember it being a hotbed of lesbianism in the synagogues. Not that I did more than pass by them on the pavement.  I decided Judaism wasn’t for me, even though it is quite matriarchal.  I had a problem with the pinafore dresses and the shoes.  It’s not exactly a festive looking religion.  The food was also quite bothersome.  I’m a great one for salmon, but I could live happily for the whole of the rest of my life without ever having to eat another gefilte fish again.  It’s extremely gelatinous, and that is not a good word to apply to anything, anything at all, particularly fish or food products of any kind.

There was an excellent chip shop and a very nice Italian deli in Hendon though, as well as some cracking charity shops.  She didn’t mention those those in the book, although when you’ve got such a lot to pack into such a short time, I suppose the deli takes the first hit.  The book was called Disobedience by Naomi Alderman if you either: a) want to rush out immediately to find out about the Sapphic delights of our Hebrew neighbours or b) want to avoid it like the plague.  If you’re choosing a) because you’re hoping for something hot and steamy I feel obliged to disillusion you first.  It’s a lot like I imagine Catholic lesbian sex would be; hurried, furtive and with a lot of guilt afterwards.

I really don’t know what Radio 4 is coming to! Is it possible to trust Woman’s Hour again?  Should I be writing to Jenny Murray (slightly perplexed of Glenfield).  I feel a bit cheated.  It wasn’t that it was a terrible book, or that it offended my sensibilities (I don’t really have anything to do with words like ‘sensible’ at the best of times), it was just rather odd and a bit unsettling in a: ‘that’s not really what I signed up for’, kind of way.  I think it’s a clear sign that I should just stick with Burma from now on.  I don’t think I can boycott a whole radio station because of one book recommendation so I think I will let my liberal tendencies guide me and carry on listening to I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue regardless.  It will be a sacrifice, but someone has to do it.

I am feeling slightly overwhelmed by the dreaded ‘C’ word today.  Not the rude one (wash your minds out!), but the one that ends in ‘hristmas’.  I was feeling alright about it until this week, when Tallulah has been learning all her Christmas songs for the concert they’re doing in a few weeks.  Apparently it’s called: “The Grumpy Sheep”.  It may be called that, but as she is being an angel, and she keeps telling me all about:

“The little, tiny child.  That little, tiny child is Jesus you know mama, and he’s just king of the whole world, but he’s a little, tiny child as well, you know?”

I have the feeling that it will end up being a full blown nativity play with a complete cast of shepherds and a dodgy box of myrrh (because nobody really knows what it is do they?), like every year. I bet they only called it ‘The Grumpy Sheep’ to get round the fact that we live in a religiously diverse neighbourhood, and don’t want to upset anyone, and the fact that Tallulah’s teacher is very Welsh, and they wanted to pay homage to the land of her fathers.

Tallulah is very excited about being an angel.  She is pleased because she doesn’t have to wear a costume.  I don’t really understand this, as most of the time she puts on a costume if she’s leaving one room and entering another.  Perhaps it’s the pressure of performing on stage, or more like the pressure of having to live up to the reputation for being an angel.  If I was casting her to type she would be Beelzebub’s most inventive minion, complete with pitchfork and flames licking round her ankles.  As it is, she regaled us with forty seven verses of “4 men on camels”, which she can only really remember the first two verses to properly!  It was on heavy rotation all the way to Halfords to buy Jason a sat nav (he’s been thinking about it for a year! A year! That’s insane…), and I came in for much criticism when I said I was sure there were only three wise men.  I don’t know if they’ve filled their quota of shepherds this year and are desperate for something for little Billy to do, or maybe they’re working from a more modern version of the Bible than me (the Bratz, scratch ‘n’ sniff version perhaps), anyway I gave in to her superior wisdom.  On the way back she was about to sing us the eponymous title track; “The Grumpy Sheep” when I had to silence her by putting on Radio One with Scott Mills, ‘Avin it Large.  I hate Scott Mills, but I had reached the Chinese Water Torture moment that comes in all school recitals, even if they’re only practice sessions, and it was either that or throw the TomTom at her.  At least Scott’s ‘bangin’ choons’ drowned out the singing from the back seat. By the time we got home Oscar had gone into a catatonic trance brought on by the Phil Spector like wall of sound that we had created.  That and the fact that he was entranced by all the car stereos he could fiddle with in Halfords and nearly blew his eardrums out fiddling with the bass and putting his ear to the speakers!

Tilly didn’t come with us to the shining beacon of vehicular accessories that is Halfords, as she was busy going to her very first meeting of Brownies.  It has changed a lot in the twenty four years since I last entered the hallowed portals.  They have quite groovy uniforms now. It’s all very slick and modern.  They wear tracksuits and don’t have to wear hats or belts, or carry 2p for the phone in an emergency.  Now they all have Iphones and Blackberry’s, but they still do daft quizzes about wildlife, and my daughter still can’t spell tortoise (they’re haunting me ever since I started this blog), tour toys indeed!

I had my auntie’s uniform, which given that it was twenty years old when I inherited it, and my aunty was considerably taller than me (repeat after me: “You’ll grow into it.”) made me look like a badly filled bag of potatoes.  I had long hair in bunches, which when forced under the itchy monstrosity that was a Brownie bobble hat gave me the appearance of a rather mournful spaniel, peeping out from the badly filled bag of potatoes.  Is it any wonder that I only got my Safety in the Home Badge?

I was a disgrace to the whole pack, especially on the days when I a) turned up in bright red tights because I didn’t have any brown ones, and b) poured porridge all over Catrina Evan’s arm when she joggled my elbow at camp.  I couldn’t wait to leave.  My mum couldn’t wait for me to join Guides, so that she could have another evening of peace every week.  I won.  I screamed blue murder and refused to join under any circumstances.  There was a heated debate. Mum debated, I sulked.  I expect in the end the clincher was the exorbitant price of the new uniform, which made everyone look like trainee air hostesses and was absolutely useless when doing anything in the least bit practical, as your hat would shoot off your head at the slightest provocation, and the skirts were so tight you couldn’t run for a bus, let alone rescue an old lady from a burning building.  These days they probably have Kevlar vests and semi automatic weapons.  That’s more like it.  Guides, locked and loaded!  Baden Powell will be revolving in his grave.

Aquest és el llibre que em va acompanyar durant la major part del viatge per Cambodja. Gràcies a ell he aprés, entre d’altres coses, que la Coxinxina és una zona geogràfica real, no un país mític i llunyà que s’emprava només com expressió figurada.

El Regne Unit havia deixat de ser formalment imperi l’any 1.948, quan de manera prou intel·ligent va resignar-se a atorgar la independència a la Índia i el Pakistan. D’aquesta manera van poder mantenir uns llaços, dins l’aleshores naixent Commonwealth, que altres potències colonials no han sabut mantenir. Dos anys més tard era prou evident que les colònies franceses d’Indoxina també assolirien la independència, però com que el parlament francès només va aprovar-la dins la unitat francesa, era també prou clar que no seguirien el mateix camí. Norman Lewis va decidir donar-se una volta per allà per retratar-ho amb la seva ploma abans que desaparegués per sempre.

Norman Lewis era un periodista, escriptor i gentleman anglès. Armat d’una càmera en blanc i negre, cartes de recomanació del seu diari i el Foreign Office i tota la ironia i la flema que un anglès podia desplegar en públic als anys 50, es va plantar a Saigon i va viatjar tant com el pressupost i les condicions del país li van permetre. Es va interessar especialment per les tribus indígenes que llavors encara vivien en poblats enmig de la jungla, per la vida dels vietnamites urbans que habitaven Saigon (la única ciutat digna d’aquest nom), i pels colonitzadors: soldats, religiosos, granjers, la majoria francesos, que estaven de pas intentant treure el màxim profit.

L’interès del volum com a llibre de viatge ha caducat, òbviament. Però els atractius que hi podeu trobar són prou interessants. El primer és la lúcida mirada d’un senyor que retrata de manera molt tendra la vida quotidiana de la gent del país. Les descripcions de com la gent passeja per les avingudes de Saigon o fa la vida a les cases que suren al riu, escenes que fa pocs dies hem pogut veure a la Cambodja que acavem de visitar, són colpidores pel que troben de factor comú i de racionalitat entre dues cultures, la occidental i aquella, totalment diferents. Lewis li dóna un èmfasi especial a destacar la influència de la religió budista, per la que sembla fascinat, al comportament de la gent.

Un passatge especialment memorable és aquell en que explica que les petites aldees tenien un monjo budista o un home gran savi que era el que deia la quantitat d’arrós que necessitava una família per tirar endavant. És conreava allò i prou. O quants ous s’havien de prendre de les gallines, o quants arbres havia de talar un fuster. Només es consumia, es produïa, s’agafava allò que es necessitava. Aquest esperit de manca de superació era el responsable, segons un comandant francès, que les tropes natives d’indoxina fossin tant poc combatives. Ho va dir abans de Dien Bien Phu.

La seva mirada és molt més dura quan la desa sobre els colonitzadors. Retrata amb amabilitat els pocs francesos que troba pel camí interessats en el benestar dels asiàtics, però és implacable amb els altres. Quan parla de les escoles que munten els francesos, on expliquen els rius de França i les campanyes de Napoleó a jovenets que han de deixar de llaurar el camp per anar a escola; o quan qualifica de col·leccionista de conversos el predicador americà que només està interessat en les ànimes dels indígenes però no en el seu benestar material, el llibre assoleix el seu cim d’interès.

Lewis retrata gent, les seves actituds i les seves condicions de vida. Afegeix el seu judici personalíssim i ho fa des de un pla d’igualtat, sense creure’s millor que uns o altres, confessant les pròpies limitacions. Et deixa amb aquella nostàlgia per allò que mai no podràs tornar a veure, perquè ja s’ha esvaït, però també amb la dolçor del que ha tastat, encara que sigui fugaçment, la visió del paradís.

Salut i sort,
Ivan.

Norman Lewis
A Dragon Apparent: Travels in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam
Eland, 1999.