Commentariat

Independent

The last that most people in this country knew of Zimbabwe was that a power-sharing deal had been done between Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai, the opposition leader. Some of us might have been aware that the implementation of the deal had become a bit sticky, and we might have wondered what had become of Mr Tsvangirai in recent weeks.

Finally, the breakthrough. After six years slogging away on the Cotswolds social scene desperately trying to avoid Ruby Wax and Laurence Llewelyn Bowen, I get the call. I’m going to meet the kingpin, the head of the social salon: Jeremy Clarkson.

The terrorist attacks in Mumbai have dramatised how the urgent will often take precedence over the important for the incoming Obama administration.

Barney Bubbles drew my youth, carved it out of coloured paper, counterintuitive typography, bald modernist graphics, old bits of cardboard and photographs of Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe, Generation X and Ian Dury. Unwittingly I had bought into his world via a Hawkwind album that he designed and I bought in 1974, when I was 13 and he was 32, but it was the punk explosion two years later that really brought him into my life, like it did for thousands of others.

Until fairly recent times, even sportsmen at the pinnacle of their sports had to keep half a mind on what they might do when the reflexes slowed. Before a proliferating media afforded so many opportunities, there was coaching for those who wanted to keep their tracksuits on, and pubs for those who didn’t.

As if all his troubles weren’t enough, George Osborne now finds himself being pestered with press enquiries about his brother Adam.

Political leaders tend not to speak about the arts. I’m not sure why. Perhaps they fear it looks a little “soft” or peripheral to the “big issues”. Whatever the reason, they certainly give the subject a wide berth. We’ve been bombarded with Barack Obama’s collected speeches and philosophy, but I defy anyone to give me chapter and verse on his cultural policy. I’m not sure that I know where Gordon Brown stands on cultural issues either.

I had almost forgotten what a shit Yeats could be. I don’t mean his flirtation with Italian fascism, which Conor Cruise O’Brien first publicised; after all, Churchill was a bit enamoured of the younger Mussolini. And Yeats remains one of my favourite poets. No, what I am recalling – thanks to a wonderful book just published in Dublin – is his outrageous decision to expel the poetry of Wilfred Owen from the 1936 Oxford Book of Modern Verse.

Last weekend, I went on a “fact-finding” trip to The Hague. I would like to be able to say that the facts in question were to do with the processes, ramifications, and perhaps shortcomings, of international justice and its implementation, but I’m afraid they weren’t.

I had almost forgotten what a shit Yeats could be. I don’t mean his flirtation with Italian fascism, which Conor Cruise O’Brien first publicised; after all, Churchill was a bit enamoured of the younger Mussolini. And Yeats remains one of my favourite poets. No, what I am recalling – thanks to a wonderful book just published in Dublin – is his outrageous decision to expel the poetry of Wilfred Owen from the 1936 Oxford Book of Modern Verse.

I used to look out from the balcony of The Independent’s first floor room in the al-Hamra hotel in Baghdad thinking that one day the hotel would be attacked and wondering from which direction the attack would come.

These have been a serious few weeks, our country locked in profound moral debate about aesthetic judgement versus popular appreciation, the boundaries of good taste, the rights and wrongs of telling radio audiences whose granddaughter you’ve been knocking off, the case for universal suffrage when it comes to deciding who should win The X Factor or remain on Strictly Come Dancing.

Of course, the recession isn’t funny. But sometimes you have to laugh. The media is hungry for real-life stories of sudden and decisive changes in circumstances, but Frank’s picaresque is so outrageous that names have had to be changed to protect the guilty.

The first time I met Gordon Brown, at a briefing for local newspapers, he gleefully handed round a bundle of leaked government papers revealing plans to cut its spending in the regions. It was the mid-1980s, and he was shadow trade and industry secretary.

There is no law, no system, no set of regulations which can more effectively hold governments to account than the conscience of man. Opposition parties, the public and the press rely on individuals, not systems, to tell us what those who rule over us would like us not to know. We call them “whistleblowers” because, like referees, they seek to keep the players in our political system in check.

The global economic storm continues to rage and national governments seem about as commanding in these conditions as small boats tossed around on a tumultuous sea. The week began with an emergency bailout of Citigroup, the world’s biggest bank, by the United States Treasury. A few days later the Federal Reserve released news of an $800bn credit market intervention. This was followed by a €200bn European Union-wide stimulus package from the European Commission. And expectations are rising that Barack Obama is planning an even bigger spending plan for when he takes office in Washington next year.

I had almost forgotten what a shit Yeats could be. I don’t mean his flirtation with Italian fascism, which Conor Cruise O’Brien first publicised; after all, Churchill was a bit enamoured of the younger Mussolini. And Yeats remains one of my favourite poets. No, what I am recalling – thanks to a wonderful book just published in Dublin – is his outrageous decision to expel the poetry of Wilfred Owen from the 1936 Oxford Book of Modern Verse.

Outrageous, obviously, although no one yet knows the full facts behind Damian Green’s arrest yesterday. But joyous too, certainly. To hear the squealing from the Conservative blogs and newspapers about the political use of the police, about how Jacqui Smith (at least) if not Gordon Brown (probably) ordered the arrest of a political opponent.

I woke the other day to the sensational news that the skull which David Tennant apostrophised in his recent performance of Hamlet had belonged to the great Russian dramatist Chekhov. Sadly, this news had become considerably less sensational by the time I came to my senses. Chekhov, it turned out, was a bit of dreamwork by a still groggy mind, and the skull actually belonged to Andre Tchaikowsky, a Polish pianist who had requested that his cranium be given to the Royal Shakespeare Company after his death and used in performances.

Love, Ali McGraw once said, means never having to say you’re sorry. Not in our house. Here, love means never saying “24/7″. It sets my wife’s teeth on edge, which obviously I try not to do, which is why I also avoid “No-brainer” and “It’s not rocket science”. In return, she never says eaterie when she means restaurant, or moniker when she means name, which are two of my betes noires. We’re both cool with bete noire, incidentally.

While the horrific terrorist attacks on Mumbai left me dumbstruck, sadly they are by no means unique.

Had I known at the beginning just what I was letting myself in for, I wouldn’t have had the guts to do it.

Mangroves have been one of the poor relations of the world of plant conservation – at least until recently. The bushy trees that fringe the muddy estuaries of the tropics have been taken for granted and never considered as glamorous as orchids or rainforests.

A few years ago, you knew where you were. If you took a job in the private sector the chances were you’d enjoy a higher salary, but have a little less job security and a rather less generous pension than if you became a public servant. The traditional image of Sir Humphrey’s “gold plated” index-linked pension was justified on the grounds that he would have earned far less over his lifetime at, say the Department of Trade and Industry, than if he’d decided to become a bureaucrat with Shell or BP. He would also, towards the end of his career, collect a “K”, and his wife would become a Lady. Early retirement, a world cruise and the golf club beckoned. By the same token, nurses earned less than factory workers and teachers less than journalists – but were better provided for in old age.