Politics is always good for a larf. The ink is hardly dry on France’s vituperative propaganda against the UK’s protection of its sovereignty and its ‘City’, when suddenly the excess of sweetness and light is enough to induce chronic nausea. Maybe Bismarck was right: politics really is only the art of the possible. But I wonder if it is also the art of selective amnesia.
A caption or two wouldn’t come amiss either.
Sorry to hog the page, but some things get my goat.
Does anybody here think we or anybody else knows what really happened when Meredith Kercher died? No. Nor me. So why on earth does any civilised judicial system allow Amanda Knox to make megabucks on a ‘very thoughtful, reflective and serious book’ deal with a respectable publisher?
Some things are worth raving about.
As far as I know, the USA has exploited China’s low-wage economy for decades, sourcing every conceivable consumer product via its mammoth retail businesses like Wal-Mart, to satisfy its people’s insatiable appetite for throw-away possessions.
On the back of this trade, which has allowed Chinese workers to improve their own standard-of-living and save money, Chinese banks have become major lenders to the creaking US economy, with dollars earned quite legitimately, and arguably saved the USA from serious embarrassment during the latest credit crisis.
Now Obama has the nerve to lecture Chinese leaders on their moral obligation to do ‘fair trade’, to allow their currency to float up to its ‘real’ market value! Otherwise the USA can’t export its cars to China.
Excuse me if I find this hard to swallow.
(As cherished colleagues must have noticed, Backside has now had his gadfly clamped and impounded far away from the the Colosseum where these games are played.)
Our daily visits here bring us all enjoyment far beyond the allure of panem et circenses or Androcles and the Lion or Spartacus. And it was a local Roman playwright, Terence, who wrote a play called The Eunuch, in which one of his characters explains that a love-affair is ruled by its own illogical laws:
“All these vices are in love: injuries, suspicions, enmity, offenses, war, peace restored. If you think that uncertain things can be made certain by reason, you’ll accomplish nothing more than if you strived to go insane by sanity.”
Doesn’t that describe our correspondence on the Chariot? Debates about the uncertainties of life? And most important: a good larf! As WS remarked, “Present mirth hath present laughter. What’s to come is still unsure.”
So I do hope we can all continue to come here, taste the wine, hear the band, blow that horn – and generally be entertained!
I’m borrowing a thought from the insightful Ambrose Evans-Pritchard (to name but a few!) in today’s DT, where he describes the German proposals for Greece as ‘Carthaginian’. (Google, if you will.) The point is that when Carthage lost to Rome in 146 BC (3 – 0) the ensuing ‘peace’ settlement was unforgiving and ruinous. (Not unlike Man Utd’s moral defeat of Liverpool after Suarez-gate.)
The facts indicate that since Greece has never been able to implement any plan involving the collection of taxes and control of its civil service, yesterday’s ‘approval’ by the Parliament is worth less than the paper the local Hansard will waste on recording it. If the Troika of money-lenders (sinners that they are) decides to drop further trillions down the Hellenic drain, it will precipitate revolution in Greece: a phenomenon which has relatively frequently been the result of any attempt at government there.
Better by far, if like a parent out of patience with a profligate teenager, the Troika says no. Then the Greeks can find out what their economy is worth, as opposed to what it costs the rest of Europe.
Luckily for me, St Valentine’s burial in Rome is celebrated on 14th February, which happens to precede my birthday by a couple of days (69, yin yang, nod nod, wink wink, say no more, cheeky!). So every year I get the chance to romance Mrs Janus in good time, to ensure that my birthday will receive the attention it so richly deserves. Yer gotta speculate to accumulate, innit?
But, cherished readers, have you ever wondered what my title is doing in Blake’s famous poem, ‘Jerusalem’?
‘Bring me my Bow of burning gold; Bring me my Arrows of desire……‘ What on earth is the mischievous Eros doing in a hymn? As far as I know, the random or serendipitous demands of lust are not recognised as Christian (or even Roman Catholic) virtues.
Answers, please, on a pink, perfumed blank cheque addressed to yours truly.
It’s Danaergeschenk, meaning a (suspicious) gift from the Greeks. Anybody who has holidayed in the Ægean archipelago will vouch for the locals’ charm and skill as hosts and caterers. And we usually give good old Homer the credit for pointing out the inherent danger in accepting their offerings. But as so often with Homer, that’s just another myth. No, not the bit about Greeks; the idea that Homer said it.
Vase 670 BC Continue reading “The Germans have a word for it”
Boadicea's Chariot 
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