Who still think there is some device (if only he could find it) which will make pain not to be pain? It doesn't really matter whether you grip the arms of the dentist's chair or let your hands lie in your lap. The drill drills on.

And grief still feels like fear. Perhaps, more strictly, like suspense. Or like waiting; just hanging about waiting for something to happen. It gives life a permanently provisional feeling. It doesn't seem worth starting anything. I can't settle down. I yawn, I fidget, I smoke too much. Up till this I always had too little time. Now there is nothing but time. Almost pure time, empty successiveness.

— C.S. Lewis, "A Grief Observed", originally published under the pseudonym "N.W. Clerk"

Tags: cslewis, grief, pain.

There is one good side to the cricket no longer being terrestrial television. I've had to resort to listening to Test Match Special on Radio 4 long wave, which in a digital age is surprisingly difficult. To my knowledge it wasn't available today on digital radio on account of the French Open tennis taking over Radio 5 Live Sports Xtra, so the only way I could listen was through the internet. Unsurprisingly, today's play was interrupted by bad weather, comprising rain and hail, but Test Match Special is at its best when filling in for a lack of actual action. We were treated to absurdist reminiscences by Viv Richards about the first time he was in Britain as a young man. He told a story of how he was stood at a bus stop waiting to go to a party, when it started hailing. Having never seen hail before (Antigua doesn't get much), he thought the world was ending and ran all the way home. There was a dispute about the meaning of the word "bravo" and many descriptions of variously dressed nuns, leprechauns and "Hawaiian dancers or whatever they are".

England won by a record margin, and TMS succeeded in accompanying the extreme tedium of my day's work indexing book proofs. Happy fiftieth birthday!

Tags: testmatchspecial, tms, radio

Labels: cricket

What. The. Fuck.

Labels: politics

A month to go until Tony Blair leaves office. I've decided the ideal way to mark the occasion is to lose half a stone before June 27th. Anyone else in? We can all be fit and trim for Brown to take they keys to Number 10, and just in time for the summer holidays too!

Tags: blair, brown, diet.

Nothing really prepares me for the big emotional crash which happens every now and again, perhaps because they have become less extreme in recent years. Nevertheless, I suppose this week has been one of these. I am feeling much better now and have had an enjoyable and productive couple of days, but every time I am literally overwhelmed and surprised by that feeling of absolute passivity in periods of depression, exhaustion, call it what you will. It makes me think of A-Level Religious Studies when we learn about various theorists of "religious experience", many of whom identified passivity as a key element in people's description of religious conversion or experience. I can understand this, I suppose; the mind of each one of us occasionally, or perhaps frequently, puts us in a vulnerable psychological position, and this can be immensely creative and positive in the long run. The experience can change your outlook on the things you do and experience when you're feeling better, it can make you feel renewed when you are able to "re-enter" the world of human transactions. This is the abiding possibility of religious faith: to pull us out of passivity and into action, to equip us with tools to understand our dejection and to work with it and through it.

And by the same token, coming out the other end of the process each time becomes an act of self-deception; I can already not comprehend how I was barely to drag myself out of bed for the last four or five days, although I can just about believe that this was the case. So it goes on: we deceive ourselves that our relationships have permanence, have some kind of continuity between the times that we physically see the other person; but in truth our relationships do change from day to day, are constantly in negotiation with the changes in our characters.

Labels: metathought

A better couple of days. Had fun playing poker at a friend's house last night, but I lost five whole shiny pounds in the process. Although, today I found a five pound note, which I had accidentally put through the wash. Easy come, easy go. This afternoon I was cooking chips at the church's spring fayre, then I managed to do a couple of hours' organ practice and just went out on my bike for a bit. Off out for some beer now. Ciao.

Usually this feeling only lasts a few days, but for at least two weeks now I've just felt completely dead. Today I have done almost literally nothing, although I did hoover, and hoovering is something. I ate crisps, biscuits and cranberries, drank some water, had a cup of coffee, watched daytime TV, got frustrated that ITV have started chopping up episodes of Morse and Poirot and spreading them over two days, etc. I have a head that feels like it's full of lead, cannot muster any motivation to do anything, and feel very much at home curled up on the sofa hiding within my nice khaki-coloured hoodie. There is no end in sight, even though I've got loads of things to do.

Any suggestions, folks?

It's been a mixed few days. One of my oldest friends came up from London on Sunday to do a recital, but misjudged the trains and arrived at church with two minutes to spare, having managed to convince a taxi driver that he was a complete lunatic in the process. It was so nice to see him though; it was like catching a glimpse of when we were tiny choirboys, which was both nostalgic and melancholy, because that world was not without its problems, and because neither is this one. He's the kind of person to move onwards and upwards; me, the kind to live in the past. Thus was our meeting full of warmth and happiness, yet also tinged with alienation and a sense that we talk different languages these days.

We ended up in Cloud 23 again last night, but this time it was light. Here's one of the views over Manchester, looking out towards Old Trafford football stadium.

Tags: cloud23, manchester, beethamtower.

Labels: manchester, photography

Today was much more positive and substantial at the conference: six speakers compared to yesterday's three, and they each engaged much more competently and interestingly with the issues on the table: ten years of New Labour, faith, morality, and governance. Nevertheless, the biggest disappointment was again the biggest name: Will Hutton, whose paper suffered from some similar faults to Giddens, although none of Giddens' twattishness was evident in Hutton. Common to Giddens' and Hutton's talks and delivery was a fuzziness of logic, an undisciplined and uncritical approach to terminology, and an attempt to avoid discussion by elevating highly contentious propositions to the level of assertion, or even unquestionable fact. I don't think that in either man this was a particularly deliberate or pernicious gesture, but simply a consequence of having spent so much time in journalism and politics — a realm that thrives on the soundbite, the convenient phrase which sounds authoritative but really hides a great deal of confusion and lack of intellectual rigour.

The particular highlight for me was a very well prepared presentation given by Jess Steele, which addressed very well a wide range of issues associated with urban regeneration and the values implicit and necessary in achieving regeneration goals. There was also an interesting paper given by John Atherton on the "happiness hypothesis" which seems to be fashionable (particularly amongst David Cameron's drones). Atherton's basic argument was that politicians do need to pay more attention to the emotional, psychological and general well-being of people as well as their economic status, but that also the language of the "happiness hypothesis" was somewhat deficient and lacking in the clarity required to express the diversity of factors making up human wellbeing. I found myself disagreeing quite strongly to the discussion at all, though; it seems to me that striving for "happiness" is quite anachronistic, and not obviously compatible with a Christian worldview. As I've written before, a state of contentment, satisfaction, or general "happiness" can be stultifying, and it is no place (utopia) to think from. Happiness can be just as negative as depression; it inhibits our ability to respond with a range of emotions and attitudes to the world, and therefore diminishes our imperative to act in the world. While there is so much injustice left in our society both locally, nationally, and globally, it seems to me that seeking "happiness" for its own sake is a particularly pernicious and selfish ambition, and it is in any case unrealistic, since human nature does not seem thus inclined. Furthermore, that there could be a political incentive for government to produce and distribute happiness is a prospect I find deeply disturbing.

Tags: remoralising, britain, willhutton, will, hutton, anthonygiddens, anthony, giddens, contentment, happiness, happinesshypothesis, hypothesis, manchester, university, conference.

Labels: manchester, politics

Wow, people are even stupider than I thought. One mention of "Madeleine McCann" in a post yesterday and my site's traffic increases by 1000%.

Labels: politics

Earlier today I attended the first day of a conference in Manchester, "Remoralising Britain? Ten Years of New Labour: Faith, Morals and Governance". The big name for today was Anthony Giddens, Labour peer, sociologist, eminent academic, and one of the architects of New Labour, and particularly "third way" thinking. With such a reputation I was expecting a really inspiring lecture — and I expected to agree with much of what he would say, since I am basically a New Labour supporter and agree with the rationale of the "third way". It was therefore a huge disappointment, and a big surprise, to discover just how shallow Giddens' lecture turned out to be.

Aside from the obvious fact that Giddens didn't want to be at the conference at all — he turned up late and then had to get a train back to London before he could answer more than two questions — his speaking was just straightforwardly weak. He was due to speak on "New Labour and Multiculturalism", but actually failed to address anything about New Labour or its record, aside from saying that "Gordon Brown needs to continue to pursue a policy of multiculturalism". He spoke in the most general terms possible about multiculturalism in Britain, and relied on a set of political, racial, and national stereotypes to form what "argument" there was in his speech, and there was precious little of that. He did not read from notes, which leads me to believe he probably just jotted down two or three bullet points on the back of an envelope on the train. In short, Giddens proved to be the worst public speaker and least rigorous thinker I have ever heard speak. I could literally not believe how many absurdly obvious criticisms he seemed completely blind to. I am amazed that he has had such influence given how watery his language and air-brained his methodology.

The positive side of this is that Giddens actually made me recoil so strongly against his idiotic speech that it produced some motivation in me to bring the severe deficiencies of his thinking into the open, and convinced me that there really are people still around in politics and academia who are quite genuinely rubbish, that they are unfortunately quite close to those responsible for running the country, and that there is therefore something to fight for here.

Let's hope tomorrow's speakers prove rather more constructive than Giddens...

Tags: giddens, anthonygiddens, manchester, university, remoralising, britain, conference, speech, anthony, lecture, politics.

Labels: manchester, politics

Nick's email (thx) pointed me towards a very timely press release from the National Missing Persons' Hotline in response to the tabloid-led absurd hysteria about the Madeleine McCann disappearance:

The UK's only charity dedicated to missing people today (15.05.2007) reveals that it has recorded enquiries on almost 450 incidents of young people disappearing since Madeleine McCann (03.05.2007) went missing and asks the public to 'share support' for all missing people.

National Missing Persons Helpline, the UK charity working with young runaways, missing and unidentified people, their families and others who care for them, says it provides ongoing support to around 2,000 families each year and directly finds 10 missing people each week.

Paul Tuohy, Chief Executive of the charity said: "Everyone hopes that Madeleine's disappearance will have a swift and happy ending. However, in the meantime we believe the awareness raised has helped to educate the public that 'missing' is a social issue that could affect every one of us."

An estimated 210,000 reports of missing people are made to UK police forces each year. Around two-thirds of these concern young people under the age of 18.

Mr Tuohy continues: "Madeleine's disappearance has prompted many people to support a 'Fighting Fund', which we applaud. However, we do not want the public to lose sight of the fact that for £2.5million each year (our annual expenditure) we support thousands of families, directly find more than 500 missing people and provide vital support to 4000 young runaways. We now need the public to share support for all missing people."

Also, a discussion (also courtesy of Nick) of Matthew Parris' comments re the same absurdity on the PM programme.

Tags: madeleine, mccann, abduction, disappearance, portugal, praiadaluz, hysteria, tabloids, matthewparris.

Labels: politics, tabloids

Urgh. One thing after another. Little things, not important or particularly consequential things, just little things that you know you shouldn't moan about, but when added together become one big moan which might end up really being a big shout like all the little things which added up to the shouty Panorama man losing it at the Scientologist. All that summery promise of a fortnight ago has been replaced by rain, I feel sluggish on my bike, and suddenly driving around feels right again and I'm in one of those moods where my brain doesn't register the danger of driving around the M60 far too fast, or of eating take-aways every day for a week.

In other news, the Bishop of Manchester visited church yesterday as part of his "Run the Race" "pilgrimage" around the diocese. I was, I admit, quite cynical about the event, and the whole idea, before he came, but in the end it was much better than I had imagined. It succeeded in getting people together from all parts of the community (about 250 people came to the service in the evening), and, as the Bish said, visiting means that when discussions are had about the church at diocesan or deanery level, he will actually know what's being talked about. Given my repeated complaints about the distance between the central institution (embodied by cathedrals and bishops) and parish life, it would be stupid if I didn't welcome this gesture, even if it was still very much a top down exercise. I will try to write more about this when I've got time.

Labels: manchester, urgh

Over a pint in Kro Piccadilly earlier, I misread a line in Polly Toynbee's column today in the Guardian: "great political coroner" for "great political crooner". It must be the Marxist dyslexic in me.

The essay was completed this morning, though not particularly well. I celebrated with a jacket potato at the Titchy Coffee Co in The Triangle. If you're a fan of proper jacket potatoes (for only £2.50), it's the place to go.

Tags: toynbee, blair, coroner.

Labels: manchester, politics

It's 19:23 and I'm less than half way through an essay due in tomorrow. This bodes for a late night, with only various ground coffees and this retro X-Factor mug of Stuart's for company. Oh, and the books. All the books.

I'll keep you posted etc.

21:23 Update

I'm up to 2,400 words of 4,000. I have realised how much I truly love the music of Poulenc, however. I could listen to it forever.

22:03 Update

2,630 words, but it's all bullshit. I wish essays could write themselves. Or that coffee could write essays if you paid it enough money.

00:30 Update

Having got distracted by Coco Pops and Newsnight, I've only just toppled over the 3,000 word mark. I'm trying to resist the urge to go to bed. It's a real struggle.

Labels: essays

A sort of conversion, they say.

Not from the old to the new,

So much as from sheen to lacquer,

From smooth to flat,

From perhaps to tomorrow.

In these subtle shifts, we find

The unexpected whiff of famil-

iarity:

A replacement radio, without the interference,

With still the same voices

and still the same programmes.

The sun sets behind that pinker sky

Which was grey from behind a dirty pane of glass

Which was contingent, not

necessary

and blossom falls

and a leaf

and a gate swings just like it used to:

a sort of conversion, they say.

Labels: poetry

1. We set up our wireless network at home.
2. I put instant coffee in my cafetière by accident. How service station chic.

(Since paddington claims to be engrossing in Derrida in front of the snooker, I thought I'd join the snooker—Derrida party by throwing this book review into the ring.)

Richard Beardsworth, Derrida and the Political (London and New York: Routledge, 1996. 174pp. ISBN 0-415-10967-1)

Shortly after Jacques Derrida's death in October 2004, The Economist published a scathing obituary which remarked, "The inventor of 'deconstruction' [...] was indeed, and unfortunately, one of the most cited modern scholars in the humanities". The dismissive tone of the article was telling, and highlighted the continuing distance between the "obscurantist" French philosopher's work and mainstream political discourse. Richard Beardsworth's Derrida and the Political, aware of this, sets out "to redress the misunderstandings of Derrida's thinking on the political" (xi) in the light of hitherto "poor negotiations with the political tenor of his thought" (1).

Beardsworth attempts to move away from apolitical uses of Derrida's writings in literary criticism by turning instead to some of his major philosophical influences. The first chapter, 'From Language to Law, an Opening onto Judgement', takes the reader through Derrida's critique of Saussurean linguistics and establishes the 'originary violence' reflected in, and produced by, the opposition of speech and writing, which is by extension the opposition of the 'empirical' and the 'transcendent'; it will be similar notions of 'violence', radical opposition, 'alterity', and 'différance' which form the bedrock of Beardsworth's political reading of Derrida. An engaging discussion about Kafka's short story 'Before the Law' and Derrida's essay of the same name seeks to establish that this violence is "the law of law"; the principle upon which all 'political' thought is predicated. Accordingly, chapter two demonstrates that Kant's opposition of the universal and the particular in his moral philosophy repeats this 'absolute violence': "Kant's description of humanity's asymptotic progress to the 'Highest Good' is at the same time an asymptotic regress to a pure realm of nature" (67). Metaphysical structures of ethics, Derrida argues, are non-ethical because their logical conclusion is self-annihilation.

In Hegel we meet one of Derrida's closest philosophical informants, in that "Both Derrida's and Hegel's philosophies are concerned with the impossibility of logical thought as such and of the fateful (Hegel) or contaminating (Derrida) consequences of this impossibility" (72). It is in Derrida's divergence from Hegel, Beardsworth argues, that Derrida begins to attract accusations of being non-political. Where Hegel wishes to bring injustice into the open, Derrida turns instead to the notion of 'aporia', which implies an insoluble contradiction demanding suspension between the two 'impossibilities' constitutive of originary violence, alterity, and différance. In chapter three, Beardsworth argues that the destructions of metaphysical logic attempted by Heidegger and Levinas fail because they each end up 'reinscribing' this logic, turning away from awareness (and truth) of aporia in favour of a new pair of oppositions, the result of which, it is argued, is Heidegger's Nazism and Levinas's radical Zionism.

Derrida and the Political is a well-structured and well-informed book which deals competently with a large amount of opaque material. Above all, Beardsworth successfully explains and analyses the relationship between Derrida's thought and his philosophical influences and predecessors. Articulating this genealogy will help many readers to place Derrida in a philosophical, and ultimately political, context, and certainly aid in understanding the development of Derrida's key ideas. Beardsworth skilfully builds redundancy in explaining some of Derrida's difficult terms, which helps to negotiate the initial problem of understanding and contextualising concepts like 'the trace', différance and aporia. The book's disciplined structure also gives the reader every chance of following some extremely complex and abstract argumentation.

However, there are problems. While Beardsworth excellently demonstrates that Derrida's thought provides a cutting analysis of contemporary politics, particularly through notions such as the 'promise of democracy' (reminiscent of political discourses in psychoanalysis), he does little or nothing to combat the charge that Derrida's work is apolitical, or even amoral, in that it offers no theory of political action and little advice on how the injustice of originary violence should, practically, be rectified or ameliorated. The nearest we get is the principle that, residing in the aporia of time and law, we should judge the 'lesser violence' (155). However, even then, there are no clues as to how we go about making this judgement. Perhaps it is unfair to level criticisms at Beardsworth for shortcomings in Derrida's own work. Nevertheless, this book could have been improved with explicit 'real-world' examples of where the analytical tools assembled by Derrida might be useful, or perhaps an expansion of the two speculative paragraphs at the very end of the book which suggest two 'possible futures' of Derrida's philosophy. Ironically, though, Beardsworth articulates these two possible futures as a 'left-wing' and a 'right-wing' 'Derrideanism', which seem to return to a pair of political oppositions which Derrida himself would almost certainly have found to be completely against the spirit of his thought.

Beardsworth undoubtedly succeeded in improving the "poor negotiations with the political tenor of [Derrida's] thought" (xi) on a theoretical level, but ten years since this volume was first published, its effects are still to be felt in the realm of political action.

Tags: derrida, political, jacquesderrida, aporia, deconstruction, differance, richardbeardsworth, philosophy, review, book, bookreview, beardsworth.

Labels: derrida, levinas, politics

Bloody fucking shitting motherbag. It's a good job I don't have heart problems because if I did, I'd probably not have survived watching Mark Selby win tonight. As some of you will know, we used to play at the same club when we were teenagers and is someone whose career I've followed over the years since then. Well, he's only in the final of the World Championship, and I'm now wishing I'd taken my own betting tips seven years ago and actually put some money down on him then. Hurrah!

He played some amazing snooker today, and must at least be even money for tomorrow's final, especially as he thrashed Higgins at their last meeting here.

Tags: selby, snooker, final.

Labels: selby, snooker

There's a great line I just read in a journal article about the Israeli ethno-class divide:

A social structure is not a bookcase.

Wittgenstein, eat your heart out.

Labels: politics

Sociology of the Whole: The Greeting

The institution of listening in common became the premise of living in common. The community was called by a common name and as it responded, it began to exist. Now they could sit down at the table of life together. But the common meal united the community only at the hours in which the meal was eaten. And this meal constituted community only of those whom it actually united. Only invited guests come to a meal. But anyone at all who hears the word can obey it. Only he who is invited can come to the meal, and that means he who has heard the word. Before he comes to the meal, he does not know the other guests. He himself did indeed hear the invitation, but then each one heard only himself being invited. Not before the meal does he become acquainted with the others. The common silence of those who heard the word is still a silence of the individual. Only at table do the guests become acquainted, in the talk which springs from sitting at table together. And so, when the guests leave, they are no longer strangers to one another. They greet one another when they meet again. Such greeting is the loftiest symbol of silence. They are silent because they know one another. If all men, all contemporaries, all the dead and all the still unborn, were to greet one another, they would have to eat a pound of salt with one another — as the saying goes. But this premise cannot be established. And yet it is only this greeting, of all to all that would constitute the utmost community, the silence that can never again be broken. The voices of all who have not heard the call disturb the devoutness of listening. The quiet of the family table is not respected by the noise of those who have not been invited and pass unsuspectingly beneath the lit window. The silence would be perfect, and the community common to all, only if there were no one who were not silent. The precondition for the greeting of all to all, wherein this common silence expresses itself, would have to be listening in common, just as every ordinary greeting has for its premise at least an introduction and the exchange of a few words.

The Star of Redemption, Notre Dame University Press, 1985, p 322 [my emphasis]

Tags: rosenzweig, meal, silence.

Labels: rosenzweig

1. The pathetic, shoddy future of social housing in New Islington

2. From atop Cloud 23, where my glass of Pinot Grigio cost £9.75

Tags: manchester, view, newislington, cloud23.

Labels: manchester