Oh, What Very Charming Weather

 Essential Classics R3 19/12/22

Tony Blackburn's not been sympathetic to a couple of Northern Soul suggestions for his R2 60's Show but this morning on R3 was an opportunity too good to miss.

There isn't much horse racing on R3 but today's playlist item was Jockey's Dance from Eleanor Alberga's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Listeners are invited to suggest pieces with any sort of connection to it and so I immediately thought of Oh, What Very Charming Weather, or anything else from The Arcadians by Lionel Monckton and Howard Talbot, a sort of Gilbert and Sullivan operetta that I was convinced by when hearing James Bowman and Catherine Bott do it in Portsmouth Cathedral several years ago.

It's at 1.48 in the above link which will last 28 days.

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Robert Graves in Goodbye to All That is much more phlegmatic, or even funny, than one might expect from time spent in trench warfare but maybe one has to be. Perhaps the most shocking thing, if only because we have heard about the unspeakable atrocities of WW1, is how the British Army wasn't all on the same side with any amount of rivalry, brutality and horror perpetrated in its own ranks nerver mind in exchanges with the enemy. By all means institutions like the public school and the army, being all male then, are likely to bring out the lowest common denominator of masculinity but, really, it makes one wonder how they ever won.

I take it that all bullying, cruelty and gratuitous violence is a disguise for insecurities and fear, to cover inadequacies, protect against 'loss of face' and such like and it is illustrated in all tyrants. Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown but, before even that, we should beware any who want to.

 

I had found nothing in common between two famous Johnsons that have been in the forefront of my thoughts this year. Gladly we hear less about Boris now but it has been my year of Samuel and it carries over to next year.

Both Johnsons were Tories but where the good one worried away at investigating the world, defining it and, sir, seeking clarity, the bad one sought obfuscation, bluster and blather and his instinct was to trade, and live, in untruth. Both presented preposterous figures but one did it through no fault of his own and could be found underneath that surface to be a good man of endless interest whereas the other did it deliberately and any further enquiry into his character only revealed worse and worse.

However, beginning David Nokes's Samuel Johnson, a Life, we find that at Oxford, he neglected to learn the set exercises and,

was obliged to begin by chance and continue on how he would,

which sounds familiar. Indeed,

these stories, and many like them, present the picture of a young man who, rather than accept the college or university authorities, went out of his way to defy them

which is the story of how Boris treated the office of Prime Minister in his mid-fifties. Samuel did it for better reasons and grew out of it, though, which might be why he is revered in Eng Lit whereas his bumptious later namesake is a paragon example of all that stands for unmitigated self-serving and cheap tat.

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Yes, that was The Great Game, that World Cup Final, despite the fact that France only started to play after 75 minutes. I could appreciate the football and the drama but as my interest in sport is more often focussed on gradually increasing the bank balance rather then the sublime, I mainly noticed that I could have made more out of the World Cup than I did but, sticking to the plan, I'd cashed in bets for paltry amounts to ensure I made a profit when, with any sense of adventure, I could have let them ride.

I would have been ashamed of myself if Messi had been top scorer which, coupled with Argentina winning, I'd had at 33/1. But mid-stream, I burnt those boats and sided with the Brazil-France final.

The original selections included Argentina winning, Mbappe as top scorer and a Brazil-France final so two and a half out of three ain't bad but the opportunity to 'cash in' is a bookie's trick and I fell for it this time.

I'm not saying don't do it, I'm just saying think twice or three times. For small money you might as well chance it.

 

I'm sure we'll be back here in the New Year if not before but, in the meantime, thanks for being there, I'm not dreaming of a White Christmas and,