I am delighted that today a statue of Mahatma Gandhi is being unveiled in Parliament Square. It is not simply that Gandhi deserves a memorial because of his non-violent campaign for Indian independence. It is also because of the particular place that has been selected.
Gandhi will now stand in a square opposite the Houses of Parliament that already contains, among others, statues of Winston Churchill, Nelson Mandela, Lord Palmerston and Abraham Lincoln. And each of these had very different ideas about the best way to protect liberty. Mandela, for instance, studied Gandhi with admiration but concluded that he could not be a follower. He became an advocate of the armed struggle. Meanwhile Churchill, outrageously, once said of Gandhi that he “ought to be lain bound hand and foot at the gates of Delhi and then trampled on by an enormous elephant.”
So parliament will now have outside it the perfect monument. A collection of statues of men who were all heroically right yet at the same time thought each other completely wrong. Men whose ideas were each essential to the survival of freedom yet at the same time directly contradictory.
There couldn’t be a more powerful statement about the nature of politics.
Me and my shrink
Advertisement
My article on dieting in last week’s Times Magazine has provoked a number of reactions.
There has been thanks (from readers who have now started their own diets). There have been admonitions (I drink too much Diet Coke). There has been advice (I should take up badminton or try getting off a station earlier and walking to work). There has been irritation (a government minister complained that his wife has put him on a diet). And there has been professional admiration (I managed to get 2,000 words out of not eating a sandwich).
My favourite comment came from a friend who hasn’t seen me for a while and hadn’t read the article. “You’ve put on weight,” he said. Proudly I replied that, on the contrary, I had lost three stone.
He looked me up and down and then said: “Oh dear.”
Time travel
Advertisement
I am sure I am missing something, but I am struggling to understand why everyone is so pleased about the new law giving ten minutes grace when your parking ticket runs out.
There was a running joke in the wonderful television series The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin concerning his train to work. Every day he would arrive in the office flustered, announcing that his train had been 11 minutes late.
“Eleven minutes late, staff difficulties at Hampton Wick”; “Eleven minutes late, defective junction box, New Malden”; “Eleven minutes late, derailment of container truck, Raynes Park”. And so on.
Eventually, he asks his secretary to take a letter. “To the Traffic Manager, British Rail (Southern Region). Dear Sir, Every morning my train is 11 minutes late. This is infuriating. This morning I took a later train. This also was 11 minutes late. This also was infuriating. Why don’t you re-time all your trains to arrive 11 minutes late, then they will all be on time.”
Why don’t they just add ten more minutes to everyone’s parking ticket?
Advertisement
Football crazy
My wife asks if I am coming home and I remind her that I am going to watch Chelsea play Paris St Germain in the Champions League.
“But didn’t you just win the cup?” she asks, recalling that Chelsea had just won the Capital One Cup and wondering why they have carried on scheduling games after that.
“Why go again? You might lose. Wouldn’t it spoil things?”