My cloned son: already let down and never getting better

Have you noticed how the most vehement opponents of the hereditary principle never seem to hesitate about giving their own kids a leg-up in their careers?

I’m thinking of the sort of bien-pensant lefties who line up to sneer at TV programmes like Sunday night’s heartwarming two hours of “Our Queen” on ITV, yet curiously ensure that their favoured professions of acting, broadcasting, journalism and politics are stuffed full of their own sprogs.

The same individuals are usually full of praise for the comprehensive school system, and quick to condemn those who seek to opt out of it. Except in the case of their own children, whose needs must always come first, and who would suffer so terribly if they were sent to the local state school.

I should say right away that I do not condemn their actions, merely the hypocritical disjoint between their words and deeds.

I can also understand how they come to feel that little Tristram is peculiarly suited to following them into a TV studio or the House of Commons if they chance, like me, to have a child who appears to be a perfect clone of themselves.

Firmly ticking the box for 'no publicity', as usual

Charlie Hann, aged 3¾, is currently experiencing a severe dose of his first proper childhood illness, all the other major horrors of my own infancy having been more or less eliminated by vaccination. The NHS website helpfully advises that “Chickenpox in children is considered a mild illness, but expect your child to feel pretty miserable and irritable while they have it.”

This could not be more spot on (no pun intended), but Charlie adds to it a quality of existential despair that is surely quite unusual at his age. So every attempt by his mother to dispense some helpful medicine or soothing lotion is rebuffed with a firm assertion that it is not going to work.

Similarly, her repeated assurances that he will soon be well again, like his convalescent younger brother, provoke a shake of the head and the bleak certainty: “Mummy, I’m never going to get better.” 

A statement capped only by his recent sad pronouncement, in response to his mother’s guarantee that she would keep a promise: “The thing is, Mummy, you’ve already let me down.”

In this context as in so many others, my wife assures me that it is spookily like talking to me. Indeed, the only difference she can discern is that Charlie has yet to obtain an encyclopaedic grasp of the major dread diseases, and so does not tack on the words, “It’s cancer, I know it is,” as I am prone to do when contemplating anything from a small spot to a mild cough.

Meanwhile Mrs Hann herself has been ill with an infection that four courses of antibiotics so far this year have failed to shift in the sense of eliminating it, though they have been quite successful in moving it around a bit between her sinuses, throat and chest.

Suggesting that there might be more than a little truth in the Chief Medical Officer’s recent suggestion that we can all stop worrying about terrorism and global warming because the thing that is actually going to kill us is our growing inability to cure infections because of antimicrobial resistance.

Though within a couple of days of that chilling warning a report from the House of Lords, whose members know a thing or two about old age, predicted that half the children born in 2007 would live to be 103. It is hard to avoid the feeling that both these forecasts cannot be correct.

Perhaps, if Charlie defies his own predictions and overcomes his current brush with disease, he will indeed live for a century. But it will be 100 years of acutely argumentative pessimism, in which a red cross will regularly be painted on his front door and an undertaker placed on stand-by.

Unless, that is, I can somehow divert him from my own career path of bumblingly amateur attempts at historical research, public relations and journalism, and persuade him to become a funeral director instead. Because, on the evidence to date, no one since Walmington-on-Sea’s Private Frazer has been better qualified to pronounce “We’re all doomed!”

www.blokeinthenorth.com

Originally published in The Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne.

The royal filling in my wedding cake

The only thing that prevents me from spending Friday at a patriotic street party is the fact that I do not live on a street.

Otherwise I would undoubtedly be out there hanging bunting above the trestle tables in preparation for a hog roast and a lively debate with my Jewish and Muslim neighbours.

As it is, I shall have to be content with decking myself in Union flags and remaining glued to the television all day, as I have done for every royal wedding since Princess Anne’s in 1973.

The fact that nearly all these unions subsequently ended in divorce does not detract from my enthusiasm: hope springs eternal in the monarchist breast.

But what of the rest of the great British public? I accept that I was probably in a fanatical minority in making my 22-month-old son stand to attention in his cot for the 7a.m. airing of the national anthem on Radio 4 to mark the Queen’s birthday last week.

The media, as usual, are attempting to hedge their bets, on the one hand producing supplements and programmes about the happy couple and their day of days; and on the other predicting that no one is really interested and it will all turn out to be the most ghastly flop.

I wonder whether it was slapdash proofreading or subtle Murdochian republicanism that led to the main drag of Westminster Abbey being labelled “the naïve” rather than the nave in the little booklet that dropped out of The Times on Saturday morning?

Cynicism is as time-honoured as any British tradition. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle probably carried a gloomy editorial on the day before King Canute did his thing with the waves, forecasting that none of his courtiers would turn up.

Yet there were many predictions of public indifference before the Queen’s golden jubilee and the Queen Mother’s lying-in-state, and somehow vast crowds materialised. Surely they can’t all have been off-duty policemen incentivised from a secret palace slush fund?

I spent last Saturday at a joyous family wedding in Oxford, and I shall be off to the marriage of some friends next weekend. The royal event is but the sandwich filling in my personal wedding cake. This is just as it should be.

You see, I told you it was joyous

Because only one thing has really changed in the 144 years since Walter Bagehot coined his famous axiom that “A princely marriage is the brilliant edition of a universal fact, and, as such, it rivets mankind.” Public interest in the weddings of princes, or indeed other celebrities, has not diminished, but marriage is now anything but universal.

If there is any argument to be made against the increasing grandeur of royal weddings during the twentieth century, it is that it helped to raise the bar for all of them. Walking down to the church then raising a glass with your witnesses in the local pub will no longer do.

But weddings need not cost thousands, or take years to arrange. The only really important thing is finding someone you feel that you could bear to face across the breakfast table in the twilight home 60 years hence.

As Shakespeare observed “Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks within his bending sickle's compass come: love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, but bears it out even to the edge of doom.”

I have no hopes of living to see the accession of Prince William to the throne. Given that the Queen seems vastly fitter at 85 than her mother was at that age, I see little chance of even witnessing an octogenarian Prince Charles tottering to his coronation.

But I very much hope to see William and Catherine enjoying a happy marriage for as long I am around, and that many others may be encouraged to follow their example.

www.blokeinthenorth.com

Originally published in The Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne.

Honour our saviour from the euro

Last week brought a flurry of anniversaries, several triumphs of social mobility and a disturbing sense of déjà-vu.

It all began on Sunday 14th, which would have been my parents’ 74th wedding anniversary and was the Prince of Wales’s 62nd birthday. Can you also remember when Charles was the future?

On Monday my father would have been 102, while on Tuesday my next-door neighbours, Andrew and Etta, celebrated 64 years of marriage. I was minded to crack open a bottle of something fizzy in their honour even before I heard the news of the long-anticipated engagement of Prince William and Kate Middleton, which clearly demanded a proper celebration.

The only sour note for me came not from the legions of left-wing columnists churning out their entirely predictable critiques of the monarchy, but from Prince William’s father. Doorstepped by the media in Poundbury, he claimed to be “thrilled” but looked anything but, adding glumly that “they have had enough practice”.

The next day I read suggestions that Kate Middleton’s father bore a passing resemblance to Gordon Brown, both physically and in his evident discomfort as he read out his notes on how happy he and his wife were about the engagement. And as I did so, it occurred to me with mounting horror that the real parallel lies elsewhere.

An intelligent man with passionate enthusiasms who really believes he can do good for his country and is forced to wait far too long to fulfil his destiny. That would serve equally well as a description of both our last Labour Prime Minister and our King-in-waiting.

And given that The Queen is by all accounts much fitter than her mother was at 84, Prince Charles might have to kick his heels not just for another decade, which was long enough to leave Gordon Brown with no real clue what to do when he finally achieved his lifelong ambition, but until he is an octogenarian himself.

Meanwhile William and Kate seemingly resemble Dave and Samantha Cameron. Not appealing to all, no doubt, but clearly rather more in tune with the Zeitgeist.

With the coins already minted to mark the Duke of Edinburgh’s 90th birthday next year, a monarchy with longevity genes on both sides has important questions to consider on how it can continue to project the glamour that seems the key to popular appeal in any walk of life.

My own thinking on this weighty issue was interrupted by another night of celebration on Thursday to mark the 40th birthday of Iceland, the frozen food chain. A charity ball featured amazing pyrotechnics, performances by Dame Edna Everage and Tom Jones, and helped to raise £1.5 million for Help for Heroes. At the time of writing, the only attention this has received from the media has been through an anonymous e-mailer complaining that the fireworks disturbed his horses. As William and Kate surely already know, some people are never happy unless they are moaning.

Meanwhile on Friday, the heady social ascent of Miss Middleton was followed by the elevation to the House of Lords of a load of people no-one other than those passing around the party collection hats had ever heard of, plus Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes. A mere life peerage is surely far too little for a man who is the essence of poshness and has done so much for national morale.

On past form Prince William will be made a duke on his marriage. Why confine this bounty to your own family, Ma’am? Surely the time is ripe for Earl Fellowes?

And, as we watch the precipitous downward mobility of the entire Irish nation, let us also give appropriate recognition to the man who may have failed as PM but performed the truly historic service of keeping Britain out of the euro: Gordon Brown, Duke of Kirkcaldy.

www.blokeinthenorth.com

Originally published in The Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne.

Foot in mouth disease strikes again

Out of step with the national mood as ever, I sat happily watching the highlights of Trooping the Colour on Saturday evening, while the rest of the country was glued to England’s inglorious World Cup performance against the United States.

As my elderly neighbours remarked when I called upon them during the live broadcast of the parade that morning, “There’s no other country in the world can put on a show like this.” The same might be said of the football, of course, but for sadly different reasons. On Horse Guards Parade, everyone looked smart and knew their roles to perfection. No-one made any risible mistakes, and there was no sign of any of the participants feeling the urge to hug and kiss each other when it came to a successful conclusion.

I was reminded of my late father’s ritual declaration at the start of each FA Cup Final that the best players on the pitch that afternoon would be the Guards band entertaining the crowd at half time.

Soldiers’ wages seem remarkably good value compared with those of footballers, too. And who would you rather have on your side if you came under terrorist attack? The Brigade of Guards or Fabio Capello’s finest? I rest my case.

My son Charlie, who will be one on Friday, was enthralled when I showed him edited highlights of the royal birthday celebrations on Sunday. He particularly liked the men shouting orders, the big drums, the slow marches, the horses and the gun salute. He also seemed quite chuffed to see the Queen and Prince Philip, though a little puzzled that they looked so different from their appearance in his favourite picture, a cinema poster on my dining room wall for Flight of the White Heron, the film of their Commonwealth tour of 1954.

That was also the year I was born. Since then Britain has changed almost beyond recognition, though some of us can shelter from that reality by living in favoured rural areas where some aspects of traditional life survive; and by carefully choosing our TV viewing to focus on those few unchanging rituals that the BBC still feels obliged to cover.

Most of this sea change has taken place since I left school in 1971, a fact of which I was reminded on Thursday night when I went to the Bacchus in Newcastle for a reunion drink with a couple of men I have not seen since then. (Even at 56, it seems a bit unnatural to be writing “men” rather than “boys”.) We had taken the precaution of exchanging a couple of photographs beforehand, but I still found them surprisingly recognisable. Apparently the main difference in me is that I am a lot less reserved than I was 39 years ago, which may not be an unqualified blessing.

I should certainly have kept my mouth shut when one of them explained that he too had waited until he was over 50 to start a family, following his marriage to a lovely Russian lady, and I jokingly piped up “You did not find her on www.russianbrides.com, did you?” Only for him to reply “I did, actually.”

First prize for tactlessness to Hann, as usual. Trooping the Colour is not the only thing in national life that never changes, but I dearly wish that I could learn to engage brain before opening mouth. However, recent disturbing signs of failing memory and increasing confusion make it increasingly unlikely that I ever will.

So if there is anyone else out there who has not seen me since 1971 and feels that they would like to get together to be accidentally insulted over a pint or two of real ale, may I urge them drop me a line immediately, while I might still have some vague idea who they are.

www.blokeinthenorth.com

Originally published in The Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne.

The doomed buffalo of Downing Street

Perhaps the most distressing thing I watched on television last year was David Attenborough’s film of an unfortunate water buffalo becoming a tasty snack for a group of Komodo dragons.

First one of the giant lizards gave it an apparently innocuous nip on its leg. Then a hungry posse haunted the doomed animal for days, as they waited for the poisonous bite to take effect.

I am reminded of this scenario every time yet another half-hearted attempt is made to ease our beleaguered Prime Minister out of Downing Street. He certainly shares many of the characteristics of the hapless buffalo and his Cabinet are doing an excellent imitation of the dragons pitilessly watching his demise. Unfortunately, however, their fangs seem to lack the requisite killing power.

The most telling charge made by those who doubted Gordon Brown’s capacity to be an effective Prime Minister was his long track record of dithering indecisiveness, so it is wonderfully ironic that his closest colleagues now prove to be even more utterly useless in this respect.

It is crystal clear that most of them cannot stand him, yet lack the nous to give him a shove even though he is standing on a sheet of ice in flat-soled leather shoes.

The back roads of rural England last week were not the only places suffering from a potentially fatal lack of grit. Will anyone ever take David Miliband’s aspirations to lead his party seriously ever again, even when advancing grey hair and wrinkles have overcome his handicap of looking like a 12-year-old Rowan Atkinson?

It has to be admitted that Mr Brown was wonderfully well served by his choice of enemies. Probably the last person in the world likely to kick-start a successful popular revolt was that Australian nursery school teacher who did so much for the nation’s cigarette and booze industries when, as Health Secretary, she kept lecturing us about the virtues of abstinence.

Only her merciful retirement from the front line has enabled Harriet Harman to seize the title of most irritating woman in British politics, as she shamelessly bangs on about equality in the self-assured accent of the privately educated niece of a belted earl.

As for Ms Hewitt’s comrade in arms, everything that needs to be said is in the cheery nickname by which he was known throughout the armed forces during his tenure as Defence Secretary: Buff Hoon.

And so we must stagger on, looking uneasily upwards at that massive avalanche of bad news about tax increases and spending cuts that must inevitably descend upon us after the general election, whatever its outcome. In the absence of some sort of coup, that cannot be deferred beyond June 3.

So we could be in for almost another six months of this epically tedious version of Macbeth, in which Duncan, sorry Gordon, remains on his throne because all concerned persist in “Letting ‘I dare not’ wait upon ‘I would’ like the poor cat i’ the adage.”

Putting off administering the necessary economic medicine for half a year hardly seems sensible, either, but what else can we expect of our leaders? Those controversial pictures of the Queen wringing the neck of a wounded pheasant at Sandringham a while ago demonstrate that she knows exactly what needs to be done with her first minister, but it seems unlikely that she will take the constitutional risk of attempting it.

If it drags on long enough, perhaps Mr Brown will even start to attract a worthwhile sympathy vote. After all, by the time Stephen Fry arrived on our screens with his own account of the Komodo dragons in Last Chance to See, as part of the BBC’s ongoing efforts to squander our licence fees, I had identified with that water buffalo so strongly that the possible extinction of its assailants seemed a positively welcome development.

www.blokeinthenorth.com

Originally published in The Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne.