D.C. Diary

A legend in his own lifetime

I was writing a congratulations card yesterday to some friends in Australia who have just had a baby. I asked Simon if he would like to add a note, and passed him the card and a pen. Five minutes later he was still scribbling. How sweet, I thought, he's obviously writing a heartfelt message, extolling the virtues of fatherhood and recalling those heady, sleepless, early days. 

Sadly not. What our friends will receive instead is a running commentary of a fantasy England v. Australia World Cup rugby final, to be held in Sydney in 2033. I won't repeat the whole thing here, but here is a flavour:

" The young England captain rounds off a brilliant year in charge, rampaging over the Aussie line after picking up the ball from the back of a messy ruck, formed after 11 phases of quality rugby. The Australian defence, hitherto rock solid, just a fraction too late at the breakdown - who can blame them for being tired after such an immense effort. The crowd go wild. Alex Shercliff, already a legend in his own lifetime at the tender age of 23, leads his country to World Cup glory with the winning try. The Webb Ellis Trophy finally returns to where it belongs. England 22, Australia 15. What an incredible day...".

And not a mention of their newborn.

When I asked Simon if he thought that this obsession with Alex's future sporting success might be a little unhealthy, and perhaps rather premature for a baby not yet six months old, he said that he wouldn't be too disappointed if the England rugby captaincy doesn't come to pass - as long as Alex makes the team. And in the unthinkable event that Alex doesn't shine on the rugby pitch, then apparently there's always his reserve sports of cricket and hockey to fall back on.

Poor Alex. At this rate we'll have him turning into Tiger Woods. I'm pretty sure that Simon is exhibiting symptoms of Achievement by Proxy Disorder and am not quite sure of the best way to deal with the imaginary vicarious victories. 

But I can't wait until Alex is fifteen and tells his father that he'd like to go to ballet school. 

Nantucket

 "Nantucket! Take out your map and look at it. See what a real corner of the world it occupies; how it stands there, away off shore, more lonely than the Eddystone lighthouse. Look at it - a mere hillock, an elbow of sand; all beach, without a background. There is more sand there than you would use in twenty years as a substitute for blotting paper". Moby Dick, Chapter 14. 

And so to Nantucket, for a week of relaxation, home-cooked meals, catching up with good friends, cycling in the sunshine and being woken several times a night by a small child fighting his way out of his travel cot. This small island, just off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachussetts, is famous for its maritime history, its cranberries, its artistic output, its lightship baskets and for boasting more celebrity vacation homes per square inch than almost anywhere else in the US. (The lawns and hedges are not quite as well-manicured as The Hamptons, but come pretty close. And, yes, Nantucket also has Plum TV). Nantucket was once home to the biggest whaling port in the world and the island's nautical heritage is hard to escape: On our street alone, we had an 'Anchor Inn', a 'Cliff Lodge' and a 'Captain Gardiner's House', as well as a 'Scrimshander Gallery' and a 'Brotherhood of Thieves' pub. And when the mist came up in the evening, one could almost imagine Ishmael and Queequeg scouring dark, cobbled streets for Mrs Hussey and the Try Pots inn. Although I'm not sure what they would have made of the designer boutiques. 

  
 
Unsurprisingly, atmospheric Nantucket is the setting for a large number of films, books, songs, poems and novels - Edgar Allan Poe, Dylan Thomas and Robert Lowell all took inspiration here. As did Billy Joel. But most famous of all is that literary tour de force, the most-hailed of all American classics, memorized and quoted by every schoolchild in the land: ''There once was a man from Nantucket...'. And Moby Dick runs a close second.

  
 
We rented a house with our friends Katy, Simon, Dom & Vicky and their children, and had a fantastic week on the island. Early May is a great time of year to visit, being just ahead of the season, when the population of the island jumps from 10,000 to 50,000. It must be said that the Nantucket pace of life was pretty tough; it took me two days to leave the sofa and four days to work up the energy to cycle to a yoga class. However, we did make it as far as Siasconset (pronounced 'Sconset') for an afternoon on the beach and on our last day even visited the island's main tourist attraction: the fascinating Whaling Museum - where I must admit we spent a disproportionate amount of time trying to convince the children to pose for a photo. This was as close as we got to a decent shot. And this was as close as we got to a whale:

    

And then, all too swiftly, these particular shipmates were packing their bags and heading back to shore. But not before purchasing another famous literary tome to remind us of our holiday: Good Night Nantucket. Thank you for sharing a wonderful day...

Pyjama Police

Since my recent posting on the subject, I keep coming across stories about people wearing pyjamas (or pajamas as they say out here) in public. The latest item was on NPR this morning, warning visitors to the Shanghai Expo not to gad about in their nightwear unless they fancy being arrested by the Pajama Police.

An Op-Ed in The New York Times expands upon the subject: 

"Catchy red signs reading “Pajamas don’t go out of the door; be a civilized resident for the Expo” are posted throughout the city. Volunteer “pajama policemen” patrol the neighborhoods, telling pajama wearers to go home and change. Celebrities and socialites appear on TV to promote the idea that sleepwear in public is “backward” and “uncivilized.”

The article continues: 

"Mr. and Mrs. Wang, who lived on the street where I grew up in Shanghai, used to stroll after dinner in their pajamas — nice matching costumes for a loving couple, now that I think about it. Then Mr. Wang would go out to buy cigarettes. In the mornings, Mrs. Wang, still in her pajamas, would dash to a street stall to pick up sheng jian (fried buns) for breakfast."

The similarities with the BBC item made me smile - Mr. Wang is the Chinese equivalent of the Welsh woman 'popping out for a pack of fags'. 

Shanghai. The Cardiff of China.

Polling across the Pond

 

A breath of fresh air....

It has been illuminating to follow the US media coverage of the UK elections, which has perked up considerably in the past week or so. There has been some amusingly wry commentary from the US press, notably The Lede in the NY Times and Jon Stewart's excellent take on 'Bigotgate' and the 'laughable tameness of British political scandals'. There was a particularly interesting discussion of the campaign this morning on National Public Radio's Diane Rehm Show. One of the guests was Jacob Weisberg, editor-in-chief of slate.com, who has spent the past three weeks in the UK on a 'hack's holiday'. (His article in The Guardian describing his stay is here). Weisberg casts a very positive light on the British election campaign, which he described as 'pure' when compared with the antics of the Americans. Although acknowledging that this campaign has been perhaps more 'americanised' than previous elections, largely as a result of the TV debates, Weisberg maintains the UK election is a 'breath of fresh air', drawing out the contrasts between the way in which the Brits and the Americans conduct themselves:

" [The British] do not have a process that revolves around the raising and spending of huge sums of money as we do; they do not have a process that revolves around television advertising, in particular the effect of negative thirty-second spots; they don't have the security apparatus that we have here...the candidates move quite freely, people can walk up to them, within some bounds; ....you don't really have the whole parasitic decadence of what American presidential campaigns have become..."

Weisberg was also rather taken with the 'civilised' four week period of official electioneering in the UK, compared to the 'permanent campaign' of US presidential politics, and praised the fact that the parties all publish manifestoes that the public can actually access and engage with. Listening to all that made me feel quite pleased to be British, although not as pleased as I would be if the seats in parliament actually reflected the views of the populace. 

I must admit that the British election has been a welcome distraction from the issues that are currently dominating US political discourse: the divisive Arizona immigration legislation; rabid tea partiers raving about socialism; John McCain's barmy push for DC gun laws to be relaxed, despite the fact that no-one in the city actually agrees with him. Listening to the civilised discussion about the UK election has been a welcome relief and reminded me how close the three main UK parties are on many policy issues. And it feels so refreshing that guns, religion and abortion just don't feature in the debate.

Nevertheless, it has been rather strange to be participating in this election at a distance. (But participate we did, managing to get our postal votes back to the UK in the nick of time, despite Eyjafjallajokull's best efforts). I have been avidly scouring the UK blogs and news sites for the latest shifts in public opinion, and tuning in to Radio 4 even more obsessively than usual - albeit in a rather oddly jet-lagged fashion, listening to World at One in the morning, PM at midday and The World Tonight at teatime. Which means that I am entirely reliant on the media and have no sense at all of the public mood, except for that which I can glean online. Jonathan Raban's article in the New York Review of Books at the weekend captures this exactly - and is one reason he cautions against undertaking any analysis at a 5000-mile remove. As Raban notes, it's just not the same when you can't wander down to your local pub to sound out the mood. It was only on Sunday, when a friend at home mentioned how everyone had their election posters on display in their gardens, that I realised how much I've missed out on.

And on the theme of missing out, Simon will be attending an election night party at the Embassy this evening, to which spouses are not invited. So I will be having a little election party of my own. Guests so far are me, Alex, the BBC website, a chicken pot pie, a bottle of wine and a pile of ironing. Not quite the whirlwind of glamour and glitz that I was envisaging when I signed up for this diplomatic gig. I guess I should have read the manifesto more carefully.