Daffodils in full bloom are a general mood-lifter, but there is a particular reason why they cheer me up. A decade ago, my then 14-year-old daughters evaded the network of care I had set up for them while I was away for a week and held an illicit party. The details are too ghastly to recall, but suffice to say it involved lies, alcohol and the police; and it brought upon our family the sort of shame that would have had us cast into the wilderness by a society less tolerant than 21st-century south London.
The only pleasing element of the story is the punishment I inflicted on them. They were, of course, grounded and deprived of pocket money for aeons, but given that they had caused considerable disturbance in the neighbourhood I thought they should also do public penance. So I got hold of a sack of 1,000 daffodil bulbs and, with the approval of the residents’ association, stood over them for a weekend while they planted every last one in the square outside our house in full view of their friends, their friends’ parents and every boy they fancied. Not all aspects of my parenting were admirable, but I reckon that bit was top notch. Every year, the daffodils remind me of it.
Language barricade
Videos of Russian tanks being destroyed by drones make this war look startlingly modern. In other ways, it is as primitive as war always is. To identify spies and saboteurs, Ukrainians ask strangers to pronounce “palianytsia”, the word for “loaf”, which Russian-speaking Ukrainians can say but Russians can’t. This trick is at least 3,000 years old. The Book of Judges recounts that the Jews asked those who wanted to cross the river Jordan to say “ear of corn”, which they pronounced “sibboleth” and their enemies the Ephramites pronounced “shibboleth”. That’s how the word came into our language. Some 42,000 Ephramites failed the test and were slaughtered.
Ours is such a difficult language that there’s a range of options for us next time we’re invaded: “further” for the Dutch and the French (who turn “th” into a “z”), “wharf” for the Russians (they can’t do either the “w” or the vowel-sound), and “squirrel”, which sends the entire non-English-speaking world into convulsions. Wales, obviously, is safe for ever.
Pick a side
I’ve now had a couple of conversations with people who think the Ukraine crisis is a nuanced affair in which both sides’ actions can be justified. One regards Ukraine’s language and history, bound up as they are with Russia’s, as evidence that the two are essentially the same country. That, in his view, makes Putin’s actions understandable. The other thinks American and European arrogance is to blame. They had no business, in his view, sweet-talking Ukraine into thinking it is, or could ever be, part of the western club.
Advertisement
During the five years in which this country argued over Brexit I tried, with mixed results, to maintain relationships across the divide. I’m not doing that over Ukraine. The question of Britain’s role in Europe was emotional and political; decent people could disagree. The murder of tens of thousands of people is a moral issue in which relativism has no place. The division in this country over Brexit is healing, but how we deal with the fact that many millions around the world appear to side with President Putin I do not know.
Same old story
When I started re-reading John le Carré — our greatest novelist of the past century, I reckon — last year, his subject matter was historical; suddenly, it is startlingly relevant. The old enemy is back, and the gap between this country’s official stance and the private interests of its elite is once more visible. I’ve just finished Our Kind of Traitor, about the links between a Russian money-laundering business and well connected people in the City and the Conservative Party. The master certainly had an eye for a durable theme.
