And so ends this strange election and strange time for me (at the weekend, a few weeks short of my 75th birthday, I wrote my last Saturday column for The Times). I shall not add to the millions of words already written about the general election of 2024 beyond, perhaps, one footnote that is truly weird: in 2017 Jeremy Corbyn, the disastrous then Labour leader crashed to a humiliating defeat, winning for his party 12,877,918 votes. In 2024 the triumphant Sir Keir Starmer swept to a landslide victory, winning for his party 9,704,655 votes. Corbyn-led Labour attracted 40 per cent of those voting. Starmer-led Labour got 33.7 per cent.
Two worlds coincide
Casting off my columnar chains on Monday I hurried to the Buxton International Festival where, in that Peak District town’s jewel of an opera house, I heard the soprano Golda Schultz, accompanied by Gary Matthewman, sing Mozart, Schubert, Clara Schumann and Richard Strauss. Glorious. Schultz was captivating. But my attention was briefly distracted by a moth. Airborne, the insect had come in from the lovely gardens outside and, momentarily caught in the spotlights, was exploring the stage, auditorium and even Golda’s shimmering blue gown.
On she sang, oblivious. On the moth flitted, oblivious. Though geographically in the same place, each was in a different world, the moth knowing nothing of human beauty, music or occasion, nor in any real sense seeing or hearing it; and Golda, wrapped in song, knowing nothing of moth-world, probably not even noticing the creature. You may say the moth didn’t know where it was but moths might say Schultz didn’t know where she was. Two planes, two universes almost, coinciding only in space and time.
Are we ourselves, perhaps, moths in somebody else’s universe, observed but not observing: unaware?
Efficient ecosystem
More on moths, but with a practical note: I was at a marvellous party in Lincolnshire on Saturday. Conversation with a lady moved to her husband’s refusal to throw away old suits that, though he never wears them, retain a sentimental value. “But Mr Moth comes to my rescue,” she said. “Moth?” I asked, puzzled. “Yes,” she said, “I’m much in favour of clothes moths. They don’t have time to breed in cloth that’s being used, washed and ironed. Only clothes that stay undisturbed in the dark become their home. In their way they’re helping us distinguish between what we need and what we don’t. Once Mr Moth has done his work, my husband is able to part with his old suits, the grubs’ dinner. They help him come to terms, emotionally.”
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Back home
Staying with Lincolnshire, did you know that Matthew Flinders’s remains are being re-buried this coming Saturday in Donington, the village where he was born 250 years ago? Flinders is one of the greatest chart and map makers in history, plotting the first inner circumnavigation of Australia. It was he who gave the continent its modern name, confirming too that it was an island.
Arrested by our then-wartime enemies the French when calling at Mauritius on his way home, he was imprisoned for six years there.
He died in Britain in 1814 and was interred in a burial ground in Camden, London. The headstone was lost in the 19th century but the inscribed lead cask was uncovered during digging for HS2. It will be taken to the church of St Mary and the Holy Rood in Donington and re-buried in a public ceremony. Flinders’s name is less famous in Britain than those of many other explorers, but in Australia his achievement is celebrated. Happy 250th birthday, Matthew!
Never flying solo
Discussing the costume of some of the younger women at that Lincolnshire party, someone used the term “scantily clad”? “Scantily” is a lovely word, somehow marrying sound to meaning, like another of my favourites: “nubile”. But is “scantily” ever used except followed by “clad”? Evidence can be “scant” — but “scantily”? Reminds me of “motley”: is anything ever motley but a motley crew? Other thoughts, readers, on words that take their partner for life?
