Prosit

It is undoubtedly one of life's little ironic nose-tweaks that, at the very time I'm on next to no alcohol due to the accutane, I have been given three bottles of wine in as many weeks.

One of these was for replacing my sister as a judge in a Schools' Debating Tournament. My sister is a big wheel in Schools' Debating circles, and I was sort of accepted as her proxy. My childhood was spent as my father's son, and now I'm my sister's brother. Curiously, there was an occasion in my undergrad career when my other sibling was drafted into our understrength college football team, and for the first and last time I was my brother's 'keeper.

Debating is not easy, and to be fair to the students most of them did a fine job. But that didn't stop me jotting down their more amusing slips of the tongue or less than elegant phrases:

'Some other points of clash'
'The Liberal Democrats went "eek!"'
'People dying, as you're putting it' (is there room for dispute?)

and my personal favourite -

'You could suffer from cancer, leukaemia, hair loss...'

Alcohol reminds me that 'I Have Never' was also a drinking game we played as undergrads. One player would declare 'I have never [whatever it might be]', and all those players who had, would have to drink.

It should be immediately obvious that the purpose of this game was public exposure of sexual peccadiloes. It should be equally obvious that, with no device for enforcing honesty, this tended to be a game beloved of sexual exhibitionists and/or those with the desire to embarrass their friends.

We didn't play this game very much. We preferred Bunnies - which, to my slight alarm, can be found at http://www.mydrinkinggames.com/bunny.htm. Truly, everything is online these days. Prosit!

Geese fatten, while vixens vex

Christmas is coming. I know Christmas is coming because Starbucks told me so. When Starbucks goes all red and gingerbread, the Santa season is upon us. Not much is as incongruous as Adeste Fidelis in the Starbucks at Birmingham New Street station, but there it was.

According to wikipedia, source of all information, the literal translation of 'adeste fidelis, laeti triumphantes' is 'be present, faithful, joyful, triumphant' (presumably in that order), which is quite an instruction. I strongly suspect that there will be a blog later this month fulminating at the 'updated' lyrics of carols; the only amendation that has to my knowledge ever improved a carol was the change from 'hark, how all the welkin rings!'

Sacred music is on my mind right now, although it's more scared music when it's on my mind. Today I had one of those singing lessons in which you can, perhaps fortunately, feel rather than hear your voice sounding like a sack of gravel being dragged over a chain-link fence. I don't know how I'm going to cope with Messiah; I need only sing one chorus and my voice has gone. And trying to sight-read is like trying to follow a runaway retriever through a wood. And what's most annoying is that whenever I hold the book up to try and follow the conductor, the top edge of my glasses lies in exactly the wrong place and I have to hold my head at a funny angle or risk sliding off into the tenor part.

All of which may explain why I murdered 'September Song' this morning. This isn't going to stop me from prowling the House singing 'Silver Bells' for the next month, of course, despite the fact that there's nothing at all to be done with the line 'ring-a-ling, hear them sing.'

It's also Christmas in the House. The decorations are up, the tree is up and some very fetching superimpositions of the House tutors' faces on Christmas figures are up. I am a reindeer. The obvious question is, which reindeer?

Prancer is obviously out, not only because of a slight rhoticism (which also, incidentally, makes singing 'Prince of Peace' a four-syllable exercise) but because it's too gay.
Donner is a girl's name. Or a kebab, which is worse, and something else I've never done.
Dasher is just ironic.
Dancer is just inaccurate.
Cupid might give the wrong impression.

Which leaves Comet, Blitzen and Vixen. I was idly musing on this with a couple of the Lower Sixth when one of them informed me that 'vixen' was a German verb. As he's German, I believed him; and, according to K, it means 'to polish' (as in shoes) and, by extension, to masturbate.

It says a lot about my life that I immediately began wondering how it was conjugated. Ich vixe, du vixest, es vix, wir vixen..?

If anyone can confirm or deny, please do so. It's keeping me awake.

I Have Never Read The Da Vinci Code

Avid readers will have noticed that I incorrectly claimed Part 3 of the American Trip had yet to be blogged. It's Part 4, of course, that is up next. Unfortunately, my brilliant thoughts on Sin have, like Saint Laurence, been placed on the backburner, due to the failure of my friend Chris to clarify his thoughts on Hellhouse. And if you're not following any more, don't worry about it.

The word 'genius' should be used, like polonium, with extreme rarity and care. But even so, I'm not sure that Chris is not such a person. One of the finest performances I ever saw at Yale was Chris playing Heisenberg in Copenhagen, an undergraduate performance of such skill and maturity that it outshone most of the Yale Drama School actors I saw in my three years. Not only was the shifting personality, or rather remembrance of personality, of Heisenberg fully explored - you might expect that from a talented student actor - but Chris has the rare gift of being totally in control of the part. Terrific performances are not infrequent at Cambridge and Yale (and elsewhere, no doubt) but rarely is one lucky enough to see an actor so at one with his/her role that nothing they do would seem surprising, because it would seem entirely in character.

Chris is also one of the friends I blogged earlier who blame everything on President Bush, so I disagree with him there. But more of that anon. And because I won't otherwise get to it until Part 4 or maybe even 5, I want to point everybody towards http://theapocalypseandme.blogspot.com/. I mentioned this last time, but I really want to direct all readers to a blog on life in NYC written by an unusually articulate and elegant author. The link is (currently) under David on this page, so do take the time to go see.

I've been spending a lot of time on trains lately, and going down to London at the weekend I was interested to find that Telegraph readers have been forming groups concerning things they haven't done and don't intend to do. I sympathise, partly because I'm in a facebook.com group called I Have Not And I Will Not Read the Da Vinci Code. I think it says something about modern culture that conspiracy theorists are assumed to be right. Not that anyone who reads Da Vinci Code need know anything about the subject, but do they seriously think that the Church Fathers sat round and, instead of saying (as they did) 'this gospel doesn't account with what the first few decades of tradition and practice have said about the life of Our Lord, let us not include it in the canon,' they said 'well, this appears to be more or less true, but we don't like [women / Judas / gays / insert your own paranoid fantasy here], so we'll stick with the four we've got and not bother to tidy up the little inconsistencies'?

According to polls, far too many of them do. But according to polls, 75% (of all religions) think that the UK should 'retain Christian values'. Uh-huh. Right. Sure they do...

I also sympathise partly because whenever I pick up those books of 1000 Things You Must Do / Places You Must See / Wines You Must Drink / Books You Must Read / Positions You Must Try, I always feel vaguely inadequate. No, let's be fair - highly inadequate. There's something horribly Eeyore-ish about Telegraph readers in the wrong mood; just as Guardian readers in the wrong mood are sanctimonious, Independent readers desperately brickable and Mail readers liable to inspire thoughts of homicide. It is in such a frame of mind that they have been enthusing over things they haven't done, with some sad pedants rubbing their hands (and Lord knows what else) with glee at their perfect life free of split infinitives.

I tend to take the view that you should try everything at least once, just so you'll know you don't like it. Admittedly, I usually say this when I'm trying to get someone to sleep with me, but I do actually agree with it. Within certain sensible limits. Obviously. Such as reading Da Vinci Code.

So, while on the train, I jotted down a random selection of Things I Haven't Done, which included:

Have never been to Spain, Germany, Portugal, or even the Republic of Ireland.
Have never seen Star Wars, Terminator or Gone With the Wind.
Have never read any Joyce, Milton, Donne, Cervantes, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Proust, Alexander Pope, Thackeray, Pound, Faulkner, Edith Wharton and many many more (and if you think I'm being pretentiously self-deprecating, the specific titles I haven't read, or plays I haven't seen, is a long and embarrassing list).
Have never finished Lord of the Rings, Elmer Gantry, Midnight's Children, The French Lieutenant's Woman, or The Riddle of the Sands. Or the New Testament, for that matter. Or any Dickens longer than A Christmas Carol.
Have never scrambled eggs nor made a omelette. Nor roasted a chicken. Nor made a white sauce. Nor (to my knowledge) blanched a sprout. And I have no idea how to make a Harvey Wallbanger.
Have never grasped how my car works (which makes me a sitting duck for mechanics. 'Oooh, your piston head valve's gone. That'll be £429.53. Plus VAT').
Have never really learnt to ride a bike.
Have never owned an iPod.
Have never learnt to tie a bowtie.
Have never ridden a horse, been in a hot-air balloon or whitewater rafted.
Have never wired a plug, at least not outside Year 9 Physics.
Have never scaled Snowdonia.
Have never wallpapered anything, such as a wall.
Have never drunk goat's milk from between the breasts of a dusky Nepalese maiden, although I don't entirely blame myself for that.
Have never finished an article in the New York Review of Books, though I blame myself even less for that.

And so on.

It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

Part 3 of the America Trip is coming up very soon, with some stimulating thoughts on Sin, but for the time being I offer one of the happier outcomes of the whole jaunt, which is:

http://theapocalypseandme.blogspot.com/

Explanations later, but they involve toy soldiers, bears in bags and surprising amounts of courage.

I spent most of the weekend conducting practice interviews for Oxbridge candidates. This is a seriously wearing process, and it must be quite draining for the candidates as well. Eleven on Saturday were followed by nine on Sunday (which should have been more, but two helpfully didn't appear), and by the twentieth student the conversation was something like this:

Candidate: And we can use archaeology to investigate the reality of literary descriptions.
Me: Hmm, that's interesting. Can you give me an example?
Me (thinks): Oh God, my head hurts...just smile and nod...hope he talks for a while...

Candidate: Well, for instance, when Homer describes Troy, we can use archaeology to determine the sea level at the time, 'cause he describes Troy as being close to the sea, but by using archaeology we can prove that at the time he was writing the sea level was different...

Me (thinks): Don't yawn...DO NOT yawn...hope he doesn't notice I'm pinching the skin between my fingers...

C: ...and so by excavating the site we can compare that with what Homer says and see if perhaps it might be Troy.
Me: (nods) Yes. Let's turn to your personal statement...
Me (thinks): Shit, I've used everything I know about Classical Archaeology and Ancient History...oh fuck he's got nothing on his Personal Statement...hope he thinks this silence is high-level cogitation and not blind panic...

Me: (turning and frowning) I see you're part of a Buddy Scheme at school?
C: Yes. Would you like me to tell you about it?
Me: (nods sagely; smiles condescendingly) If you would.
Me (thinks): Oh crap there's still ten minutes of this interview left...why are there no cute guys in the room?...will he notice if I start looking somewhere else...DO NOT yawn...

Fortunately most of my interviews were in English, about which I know quite a lot, although most of the students have morphed into one nebulous female blue-stocking who is terribly keen on Women in Shakespeare.

My latent identity crisis was not helped today when an elderly man stared intently at me as I rossed the road in search of breakfast (thus answering the question: Why Did The Badger Cross The Road?). I was immediately fearful that he'd seen my profile on a dating website, as I seem to exclusively attract old people, which wasn't quite the constituency I was after; yesterday I had a message from a married man who described himself as a 'bum virgin.' I mean, what have I done to attract these people? Nowhere on any of my profiles does it say 'seeking a slightly overweight guy, must be at least 37, with view to slobbery sexual experimentation.'

Actually I think it's my photo. There are no good photos of me, imho - why do you think I'm on accutane? - but I can hardly put that as a caveat on my profile. 'Sorry I don't look very good on these photos, but you should go for me above all the hot guys in their early twenties because I can discuss Women in Shakespeare.'

Fortunately this particular old man had merely mistaken me for Stephen. Not sure who Stephen might be, and for all I know he may be on a gay dating website as well, but I am not he. And then when I went to buy breakfast I found I'd forgotten my wallet.

This sort of absent-mindedness happens too frequently for my liking. Fortunately there was a lovely lady called Meryl working at Barclays, who allowed me to withdraw £10 on the basis that my school ID had the same name as the cheque I was paying in. Hurrah for local banking.

Speaking of lovely middle-aged ladies, my poor mother, already troubled by her inability to create an inventive way of writing this year's Christmas letter, had to undergo a colonoscopy. I nearly txtd a sympathetic message on the lines of 'even I wouldn't like that' but decided that would be just too crude. My mother is dealing very well with her baby son not being sexually normative, but there are limits. She txtd this morning to confirm that she was ok, but it had probably not been a good idea to 'go into tillage.' That's so often the case, especially with a parent who hasn't quite grasped the intracacies of txt-messaging.

Reporting on the Russian spy poisoning, Sky News had the marvellous formulation that people 'want to see the dead hand of the Kremlin at play,' which is a wonderfully sinister image, albeit I suspect unintentional.

Today's biggest mistake was to look out of the window, see the sun and assume that it wasn't going to be freezing cold. This assumption led me to take the senior boys' football session in a white t-shirt and tracksuit trousers. Goodness knows what possessed me to do this, but I have a horrible fear that it was a twisted sense of machismo caused by the nature of the responses I'm getting from these websites. I've survived winters in Cambridge and New Haven, but it was not long before my hands were turning orange and purple (I've got Raynaud's Disease) and I was idly wondering what would happen if the circulation actually ceased.

Today's best idea was to schlep along to the school's Choral Society, which commenced rehearsals for 'Messiah,' to be performed in March. I was somewhat alarmed to discover that Handel had thoughtlessly neglected to write a baritone part, so I snuck in with the basses on the grounds that the number of low notes I couldn't reach was smaller than the number of notes I couldn't reach in the tenor part. Now, my musical ability is not instinctive, and I have as much trouble locating middle C as the proverbial straight guy has locating the clitoris, but the session generated that rare and beautiful sense of exhilaration gifted when you begin on something that will clearly be a challenge but which promises something wonderful as a reward. It has happened when a foreign language first begins to make sense; when a book seems to open a door to the rightness of the universe (Barth's Epistle to the Romans, for instance); when experiencing a really good net in cricket (there must be somebody who knows what I mean by that); and especially when, after the inevitable stumblings and misdirections, a play finally begins to come together.

And then Celtic beat Man Utd, which deserves its own little Hallelujah Chorus.

I Like To Be...Part 3

So I arrived back in New Haven. I spent three academic years in New Haven and that is quite long enough. It is not an especially pretty town, even with the faux-Gothic splendour of the Yale buildings (at least, most of them - the Art & Architecture building is one of the ugliest edifices anywhere ever, which seems disproportionately the case for Art & Architecture buildings). But after a while the faux- becomes more apparent than the Gothic, probably because I attended a genuine Gothic university. (Which was awful, really - the mad servants and mood lighting I could cope with, but the shrieks in the night from an unidentifiable room do become rather wearing).

I made my way back to the undergrad college where I was a graduate affiliate, and met the guy with the key to my guest room. This guy, my friend Sam, is one of the nicest most adorable people I know and whichever female gets him will be very lucky. Take note of that, because it's one of the few absolutely sincere paragraphs I'll ever write.

So I busied myself for a while, mainly with moisturizing products it has to be said, before returning to one of my favourite New Haven coffee shops for a date. Yes, a genuine date, and all thanks to the wonders of facebook.

What can I say about this date?

Well, what with the disobedient epidermis and PhD qualifying exams and a little depression on the side, it had been a long while since I chatted with somebody for 2 hours. I can barely talk to my family for 2 hours, and not only do I quite like them but we know each other pretty well. He was clearly intelligent and attractive - not classically handsome, but attractive, and desire is a funny beast - and we had things in common and...well, you know where this is going, don't you?

Don't you? Have you not been reading? This was the guy, and - so as not to instill unnecessary suspense - nothing will come of it.

But there was a spark, which was comforting because I'd begun to wonder if I wasn't being too picky. Not that I'm in a position to be picky, but maybe I'd lost all sense of perspective. Ergo, the confirmation that sparks did exist for me, and that I could differentiate between people I liked and people I really liked, was a moment of unalloyed happiness, even if the medium-term result was sadness. Well, maybe not sadness. Perhaps tristesse.

There haven't been many people in my life who generated such a spark. There have been people to whom I could in different circumstances have happily been a boyfriend who didn't strike my flint, as it were. But as my friend Phil says, 'tis better to have loved and lost a short guy than never to have loved a tall.

And then my date had to go to a meeting, and the rest of my Saturday was terribly dull.

Quick Questions

Why are Liverpool so erratic? How can the same team of superb and pretty good players have the best home and worst away record in the Premiership simultaneously?

When will the accutane finally do its work? Will I ever wake up and think 'well, you look ok this morning?' Why is six weeks not long enough?

Why do the boys in the house refuse to eat the ends of loaves of bread? Is there something wrong with them and I've never known?

Why do so many people want my money? Where does it all go? Is it in the small print of bank statements that I don't understand?

Why are the guys whom I like and those that like me never the same people? Is this some sort of life law? Why, on the rare occasions when they match, is there immediately a fucking huge ocean between us? (as with my ex)

When did the Independent abjure being a broadsheet? You expect it from the Mail (Iraq a 'lost cause') but has nobody at the Independent ('a wretched, futile war') noticed that 61% of Iraqis in September believed that ousting Saddam was worth it (and that 47% believed Iraq was moving in the right direction)? Bet you never noticed that in the media (and yes, I'm surprised the figures are that high, but there you go).

So many questions, so little time. Sigh.

I Like To Be...Part 2

Just in case I'd moved in the past three years and hadn't noticed, I re-took the test at politicalcompass.org. And lo, I've hardly moved an inch. I am -1.88 economically and +3.28 socially, placing me where I belong in the Authoritarian Left. Not sure where this would put me in Congress, but that's not something I need worry about.

I wrote an article on the subject once for the YDN and, acceding to a request, the archival link to me can be found at http://www.yaledailynews.com/Search.aspx?Search=nick+baldock. As well as my articles, you can also find a bad review I got for 'Betrayal,' which was almost fair enough. I mean, I don't like the play. I don't like Pinter and I don't like Beckett, and Pinter on Beckett -

'I don’t want philosophies, tracts, dogmas, creeds, ways out, truths, answers, nothing from the bargain basement. He is the most courageous, remorseless writer going and the more he grinds my nose in the shit the more I am grateful to him'

- neatly illustrates why. Recondite nihilist scatology is not a sign of brilliance.

I also once wrote a piece on the whimsical nature of desire, which has again been occupying my thoughts. Why do some people make the heart leap and the pulse quicken while other, perfectly attractive people, have as much erotic effect as - well, as Beckett?

But this is not directly connected with my American diary, other than the fact that I left DC for New York and my friend Henry took me out to the Phoenix, which is a rather dingy gay bar in the East Village. I have a fantasy idea - I nearly wrote Platonic ideal, but that doesn't seem quite appropriate in the context - of gay bars, which involves studs in their twenties throwing themselves at me in an environment of perspex, chrome and formica. (Goodness knows why, because I'd hate to live in an environment of perspex, chrome and formica). The lighting is subtle and flattering, the music at a level not necessitating conversation conducted at a volume akin to the Heathrow flightpath. The latter in particular is not conducive to flirtation: sidling up to someone and yelling 'I SAID, YOU'VE GOT NICE EYES' somehow doesn't quite catch the mood.

That's not a very original chat-up line, but then I've never used a chat-up line. I've used lines intended to evince interest, but that's not quite the same thing. 'I'm new here, can you tell me how the library works?' was fairly successful, but difficult to repeat. I once accidentally invited a line by wearing silver-glitter nail varnish, but that's a whole different story. In fact, my dating career can more or less be summed up by Eartha Kitt: 'think of all the fun I've missed, / Think of all the fellas that I haven't kissed.' Maybe a short series for later.

But anyway, this place seemed to be under-populated, cold, and frequented by the middle-aged types who wear strange haircuts and unflattering sleeveless clothes and generally look at you in much the same way as do fish in aquariums. And the walls needed repointing.

Fortunately I had Henry with me. Henry will be eternally blessed for suffering through the tribulations of my Adventures in Dermatology, and for once meeting me in Starbucks and refusing to leave me until I'd bought a new pair of trousers to replace the shoddy and vast corduroys I was wearing. Henry gave me pep-talks and, by occasionally telling me to 'get over myself,' probably provided better, and certainly cheaper, therapy than a psychiatrist. Incidentally, the Yale department responsible for this branch of well-being is called 'Mental Hygiene,' which evokes horrible images of sterilisation and white-coated people snapping rubber gloves and claiming that it won't hurt a bit.

(Even more incidentally, Sweden abolished compulsory sterilisation in 1976. How long before compulsory genetic manipulation of the embryo? Just wondering).

I met a brilliant friend of mine late that night, had a couple of drinks and a slightly emotional farewell - another case of appalling timing - and then I went back to my Club. I've always wanted to be able to say that, and thanks to the Yale Club of New York, I can. In truth, the accommodation isn't much above a decent-ish Holiday Inn, but it's convenient and relatively inexpensive and exclusive enough to appeal to possibly a not very nice part of me. When I grow up and get a real job, I want to join the Oxford and Cambridge Club, but it's far too expensive.

Playing with the TV, I discovered a marvellous channel that only played songs from musicals. No visuals, apart from wallpaper. My students would regard this as Hell. Even in a gay bar I'd consider it somewhat outre. It's the sort of indulgence that should be shared only among the select; rather like gnosticism, but without the mystic self-justification. Much in the same way of initiation, though, and the Cathars would probably have had a contribution to make.

And then the following morning I watched Liverpool play 45 minutes of beautiful football as they defeated Aston Villa 3-0, then packed my bags and caught the train to New Haven.

And another one

I intended to post a link to this article by Charles Moore last week, but I'd added comments as requested by the website, and was waiting for them to be included. They haven't been and probably never will be, so here's the link anyway: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/11/04/do0402.xml#comments

I'll skip the comments just in case they appear on the website, but also due to the fallout from the Midterms - including my friend Max, indirectly. I can't quite see how this defeat for the GOP can be equated to 'drubbing' or 'nightmare' or 'meltdown,' but I've long grasped that the media is not wholly rational in these matters.

Two Yale friends were chatting last week; the context is important, so it can largely wait for the next blog, but it became clear that they actually believed everything was all President Bush's fault.

No, no, darling friends...no no no. Problems did not begin with Bush and they will not end with Bush. The only debatable question is the extent to which he erred in (a) the decision to attack Iraq; and (b) the handling of the - war? occupation? - and regulars will know that I have accepted my lot is to be among the last folk standing when it comes to Bush. Me and 40% of the American population.

At its silliest, this Yalie belief causes people to write (on facebook) that they are 'finally starting to feel there may be hope for Americans.' Oh please.

On paper, I may well be a Democrat, albeit a Blue Dog. I'm pro-immigration. I'm in favour of taxing luxuries. I support a minimum wage. I think government should be used for the moulding of society. I'm further to the right (or, less statist) than many of my friends when it comes to education, say, but I can happily sit and argue about the mechanics.

The problem is sharing houseroom with the wings of the Party I really don't recognise, and Yale was full of this particular type of idiocy, shoving me relatively further to the right. Had I gone to school somewhere else, I may have reacted against their idiocy (it can happen - I have on occasion been the most left-wing person in the room, although probably never at Yale, at least not in a group of less than four). No doubt I would react badly to Republican idiocy...but, at its worst, maybe I have more in common with Republican idiots than Democrat idiots.

I don't have many flashpoints. (Abortion is one). But my core belief is probably that any governing ideology is, or certainly should be, fundamentally a religious ideology - ie, based on unprovable ideals. This could put me anywhere and nowhere in the political spectrum, but doesn't militate against winding up among the Authoritarian Left. This may be why I've never thought much of Nancy Pelosi...well, you can hardly expect me to like a San Francisco Liberal.

A small interlude

The bloody computer at my parents' house went doo-lally and refused to publish the post explicating my point about Hattifatteners, which just goes to show that, however middle-aged and frugal, one should never buy serious hardware from Tesco.

Perhaps the best thing to do is just to point people towards 'Tales from Moominvalley' (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tales-Moominvalley-Puffin-Books-Jansson/dp/0140306099/sr=8-1/qid=1162754456/ref=sr_1_1/202-3917978-2857417?ie=UTF8&s=books - gosh I'm helpful), which explains why you wouldn't want to be, or be led by, a Hattifattener. You might also look at Tove Jansson's The Summer Book, which is for grown-ups but shouldn't be discarded on that basis.

A friend posted an interesting quiz on facebook, perfect for procrastinators like me, to be found at http://quizfarm.com/test.php?q_id=43870. This quiz (and there are many) is called What's Your Theological Worldview?, and I scored as Roman Catholic.

'You are Roman Catholic' (said QuizFarm). 'Church tradition and ecclesial authority are hugely important, and the most important part of worship for you is mass. As the Mother of God, Mary is important in your theology, and as the communion of saints includes the living and the dead, you can also ask the saints to intercede for you.'

Those results in full:

Roman Catholic 79%
Neo orthodox 75%
Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan 71%
Charismatic/Pentecostal 50%
Emergent/Postmodern 46%
Reformed Evangelical 46%
Classical Liberal 43%
Modern Liberal 43%
Fundamentalist 32%

Actually I'm not Catholic, I'm Anglican. Not for much longer, perhaps, although it's quite difficult to square active Catholicism and active (note) homosexuality. But I do think this is all of a piece with my results from politicalcompass.org. I have a couple of problems with this site, but it does have me tapped as a member of the Authoritarian Left.

The Anglican poet John Betjeman reputedly said in the last year of his life that a great regret was not having had more sex. I'm tempted to agree, but I find it difficult to write about sex, partly because it's basically crass and partly because I don't want to upset any of my partners who happen to be reading.

So let's approach this obliquely. A friend of mine has slept with - damnable euphemism! has had sex with - literally dozens of other men. I sometimes wish, I really do, that I could do the same - that is, enjoy the pleasure of sex on its own merits. We all - and if this isn't true I apologise - have this fantasy idea of perfect sex, mutual physical understanding with a handsome partner. No emotion, no regrets, no calling it a shame. And the aforementioned friend is a very attractive guy and there's a certain amount of envy that lots of other guys have enjoyed his attentions.

But I can't do it. There's a line somewhere in CS Lewis where he says that, although what he calls 'fornication' was transiently enjoyable, he couldn't shake the feeling of 'okay, so what?' And this is no sign of great virtue on my part to sympathise; I wish it were different. But in practice, it isn't that easy. Accomplishing fantasy sex, in fact, isn't that easy - and again, a part of me wishes it were different. Every hook-up is undertaken with the idea that it might work this time; that this guy will square the circle (which is not a euphemism for some bizarre sexual practice).

There must be some people who can enjoy sex with a partner and casual sex, and somehow separate the two without injuring themself or their partner. (Actually, that's theologically impossible, but I'll stick with baser levels for now). Of all the people I've kissed, leaving sex on one side for a minute, 25% can reasonably be categorised as a mistake on any criterion.

Crunching these numbers is interesting if unpleasantly clinical. But it's clear that the occasions of satisfying sex are way below the occasions of sex, and the usual correlation is an emotional attracttion. This happened last week, and I have to leave the guy on the other side of the Atlantic, and so maybe I'm a little sad.

But then one of my friends writes to tell me that a previous entry ' made me smile and go to some sort of chocolate brownie mooosh'. And that is, I assume, a good thing. So, not being a hattifattener, I'll carry on for the time being.

I Like To Be...Part 1

The American Blog.

My whistle-stop tour of the DC-New Haven train line this past week has taught me two new and reinforced one old lesson:

First, it is now apparently impossible to function without a cellphone.
Second, if you want to make yourself feel loved, attempt to see as many people as possible in too little time.
Third, Timing Is Everything.

What did people do before cellphones? Answer (because I remember those days perfectly well), they made arrangements in advance and stuck to them. My poor sister was an undergrad before email and mobile phones, so she had to undergo the barbaric (if healthy) process of walking to people's rooms, finding them out - in whatever sense - and leaving a message on the door. The flipside of all this convenience is, I suspect, an over-reliance on the medium; although to be fair that doesn't excuse my extreme stupidity in waiting for ten minutes on the corner of 43rd and 5th when I should have been at 42nd and 5th. Sorry Greg. But then, I may be (at least, I hope I am) the only Cambridge and Yale student to lock themself in a disabled toilet at Geneva Station.

That display of incompetence wasn't what I meant by timing, of which more in a later blog...suffice it to say that I think I may have met him, were circumstances different. Sigh.

But regulars will recall that I had struggled past the obnoxious Spence into my adopted country, the country that persistently shows no signs of going to the dogs, despite what my Yale friends tell me. That said, there's a not infrequent strain in American public life that, like a precocious but erratic child, essays a long word with borderline accuracy. My 'plane ticket carried a small sticker calling itself a 'SECURITY ADMONISHMENT'. Admonishment? I hadn't done anything. Presumably it was a pre-emptive admonishment in case I had any uppity ideas about leaving my baggage unattended.

So I got to DC on a very good train and was met by my altogether splendid friend Dolphin and her manfriend Ben, who live in a splendid town house in the splendid suburbs of North Virginia, on the trail of the Lonesome Pine, or somesuch.

I hope you've had those days in which everything goes right, and life is coated with a layer of happiness that, maybe, offers a glimpse through the clouds of what heaven might be like? I had one such day last week. It was a beautiful day in late Fall, and the Dolphin and I walked to the National Cathedral, a monumental building in every sense. It's huge - the sixth largest cathedral in the world, to be exact. It's a vast temple of cream Indiana marble, a triumph of neo-Gothic; and if you're yawning in the knowledge that Britain has quite enough magnificent Gothic cathedrals of greater antiquity and charm, I stop your mouth with stained glass. The vivid colour of the Washington glass not only plays on and with the marble, and dazzles where the light from two windows combine, but radiates a power that apprehends the divine creative energy as well as any form I've seen.

In the afternoon was the National Portrait Gallery, or as much of it as could be accomplished, which frankly was very little as we spent all of our time admiring the exhibition of the Presidents. Every last one was represented, John Adams looked understandably pissed off and Theodore Roosevelt straining to leap from his frame and get on with something more exciting. Apart from the artistic appreciation of the styles of representation, it's also useful to push the presidents back into context, to remind ourselves that reputations rise and fall, are made and remade and the 'best' presidents attracted some of the harshest criticism and vitriolic opprobrium at the time. This should come as no surprise, I guess: the leader beloved of all at all times is probably only a myth. After all, who wants a Hattifattener as President? (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hattifattener for some sort of explanation of that most cryptic reference).

And then in the evening was dinner at the Watergate Complex, which particularly appealed as Watergate played a cameo role in the Cold War course at Yale, during which Professor Gaddis, to the bafflement of his graduate student-teachers, declared that the Watergate burglars wouldn't have been caught if they were smart enough to know the right way to tape the doors. Apart from Ben, the Dolphin and myself, at dinner were Max (of previous entries, and also, according to a Yale friend, of 'gay eyes,' although Max is entirely straight) and Alan, another Yale friend, with his boyfriend Lee.

To relate all the stories would take this blog to unimaginable lengths as well as being impenetrable to anyone who wasn't there, but a rather alarming story was told of a thumb grafted onto a chest after an argument with a water moccasin. Considering that Max works for Secretary Rumsfeld, a job with as much public appeal right now as snow-shovelling in the Irkutsk, he was on excellent form; although Max always did work best when stating his case in the YDN against the howls of public opinion. He was, however, annoyed at having failed to spot Secretary Rice at the table next to us. Only when she sashayed out, glamorous in green to the accompaniment of six double-takes, did any of us know she was there. That's probably a useful skill in diplomatic circles.

Despite being dismissed as a 'bland, white fish,' the John Dory was excellent. But the most endearing part of the evening - to me, at least - was when Al thanked me for something, and I said 's'alright'. He, who hasn't seen me in eighteen months, reminded me that I always say that, and he's remembered it from the first time we met. It's that sort of unexpected detail, which suggests that you have played a part in somebody's life, that can not only make a day but somehow convince you, on a much bigger level, that things are going okay. Truly, one can never know the full repercussions of one's actions - and inactions. If we knew everything in advance, there would be no room for hope, nor faith, and I suspect precious little for charity. As I've said before, ignorance is one of the divine mercies.