Two nobodies and a local somebody

Few things are more frustrating than sitting through a long joke, novel, play or newspaper column, eagerly expecting a satisfying denouement, only to have it lamely fizzle out.

My wife was rather aggrieved recently after we invested five hours watching ITV’s drama serial Collision, only to discover that the catastrophe was caused simply by a wasp.

Yet the selection of an insect to be the first President of Europe would have been a positively enthralling result compared with the one we got last week, the haiku-writing Belgian Herman Van Rompuy. Risking great confusion in all the capitals of the world apart from Brussels, given that the President of China’s name is also pronounced “Who?”

The former French head of state Valery Giscard d’Estaing, the prime mover of the EU Constitution, hoped that Europe’s first President would be a figure like George Washington (or, as he was just too modest to say, Valery Giscard d’Estaing). Instead we have got a George with all the charisma of the one who was married to Mildred in the 1970s sitcom.

As for the High Representative for Foreign Affairs, I do not count myself a political obsessive, but I do read at least two quality newspapers and listen to several news broadcasts every day, and I had never heard of her. Knowledgeable commentators snigger that our Prime Minister has been conned by those wily Continentals Merkel and Sarkozy into accepting the external affairs job for this nonentity so that they can insert their own nominee into the EU’s key economic role, and proceed with their mission of destroying London as the world’s leading financial centre.

This is highly credible, given that Mr Magoo could probably outmanoeuvre Gordon Brown on his recent form, though after the recent triumphs of our banking industry I am not sure I care too much about the City’s fate. Even so, I prefer the alternative theory that Baroness Ashton of Upholland owed her elevation to fanatical support from the Dutch, who mistook her title for a declaration of intent.

But can this really be the conclusion of the decade-long saga of the European Constitution, for which ways had to be found to defy the wishes of the voters of France, the Netherlands and Ireland? Can it really have been so vitally in the interests of Britain and Europe to install these two nobodies in grandly titled and well-remunerated positions that Labour had no alternative but to renege on its manifesto commitment to a referendum?

A little hard to believe, is it not? Leading one inexorably to the conclusion that the political leaders of Europe must have some other motive that we are deemed too stupid to be told about.

Last week I attended a fascinating and highly entertaining talk in Newcastle by another leader few people have heard of, His Most Eminent Highness the Prince and Grand Master of the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta, Most Humble Guardian of the Poor of Jesus Christ (a title even Lord Mandelson might envy).

Fra’ Matthew Festing, as he is also known, is a most distinguished Northumbrian elected by his fellow knights to head this enormous global charity dedicated to giving practical help to the needy: running hospitals and homes for the elderly, and assisting refugees and the victims of natural disasters across five continents.

The Order maintains diplomatic relations with 104 states that acknowledge its sovereignty. It is not recognised by Her Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom, though curiously Her Majesty the Queen of Canada has no such scruples.

My modest proposal is that we should recognise Fra’ Matthew’s Order immediately, and tell President Van Rompuy to take a running jump. After all, which of them is the greater force for good in this world, and has our best interests closer to his heart?

www.blokeinthenorth.com

Originally published in The Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne.

Clear vision of a nearly blind man

This time last week (assuming that you read The Journal at breakfast) I was on my way to London for the memorial service of a man I hardly knew.

Patrick Pierre Max Wiener was what would now be called vertically challenged, and almost perfectly spherical. His curly hair was so blond that many took him for an albino, while at close quarters his breath smelt powerfully of garlic and Turkish cigarettes. And you always did get close if you wanted to conduct a conversation with him, because the most striking feature of the man was that he was practically blind.

I only discovered the precise nature of Patrick’s condition from his son’s eulogy last week. It was a form of exceptionally severe myopia combined with an acute sensitivity of the eyes to light. This meant that he peered at the world from behind a very thick pair of tinted glasses, and could read documents only when they were held about two inches from his face, or inspected through a large magnifying glass.

In many ways he resembled Mr Magoo, the chronically nearsighted cartoon character who was a popular figure of fun in my childhood, but has now been banished by the forces of political correctness.

His handicap naturally prevented Patrick from driving a car. But it also meant that, whenever he hailed a bus, he had not the slightest clue where it was going until it had stopped and he had spoken to the conductor or driver. This sort of behaviour attracted a certain amount of unsympathetic abuse, to which he was splendidly impervious. Indeed at all times he exuded total confidence that he was doing, saying and wearing the right thing, underpinned by an encyclopaedic if quirky knowledge of correct etiquette.

My own slight acquaintance with Patrick began 30 years ago when I was pretending that I wanted to be a stockbroker, and he was my employer. Although occasionally critical (“Hann, you are not intelligent enough to be an atheist!” was one of his more memorable pronouncements) he was encouraging, and he gave me the largest percentage pay rise I had ever received. It was so generous, in fact, that I wondered whether he had made a terrible mistake as he squinted at the papers in front of him. But, if so, it was honoured and it enabled me to buy my first flat. It was gratitude for this that led me to make the long journey to pay my respects.

Our careers diverged in 1983 and I could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times we met after that. Yet each time our paths crossed, I was struck by the fact that a man who could barely see had such a remarkable memory for faces. That was all part of what the priest who gave the homily described as Patrick’s “tremendous natural courtesy”.

The service underlined my huge ignorance of the man. I was dimly aware that he was a Roman Catholic, but not that he was so devout that he attended Mass almost every day. Nor did I have the slightest knowledge of his consuming passion for horse racing. Could he have chosen a less appropriate hobby than trying to watch animals thundering at high speed several hundred yards away?

Yet it fitted perfectly with his choice of a career that required close attention to figures. As the priest said, Patrick’s greatest contribution was in teaching us all to think positively. Even the most severe handicaps can be overcome: a lesson I thought worth sharing more widely.

He also said that Patrick was “an intensely good man” who will have “gone straight to heaven” and be waiting for us there. Well, we can hope; and there could surely be no more fitting tribute than to place a bet on it.

www.blokeinthenorth.com

Originally published in The Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne.