In the meantime, I’ve been reading a fantastic new book by the American travel writer, who paradoxically now lives in the UK, Bill Bryson. His theme is America in the summer of 1927 and it’s absolutely amazing how he has turned a series of seemingly disparate news events into a continuous thread that’s every bit as
gripping as the best suspense novel. You just can’t wait to turn the next page to see what scandals lurk therein and that’s a great recommendation for any book.
One of the things that struck me most about the book was how indolent and incompetent the American administration was then. It made laissez-faire seems the ultimate in driven events! They even had a
president, Coolidge, whose main aim in life was to work for four hours of the day and spend most of the rest of the time napping. This calamitous approach to running a country was epitomised by the meeting, in the US, of heads from the four main regulatory banks from the old and new world. They made a disastrous
decision to reduce interest rates and this precipitated the boom that led to the bursting of the stock market bubble on Wall Street in October, 1929. The Wall Street had innumerable side effects, not least the rise of the Nazi party in Germany. It’s amazing how one bad decision like that can have so many fateful
consequences.
Something else that struck me about this book is the way in which Lindbergh’s epic flight across the Atlantic was received in 1927. The sheer scale of the hero worship was unbelievable and completely
disproportiate. The French went as mad as the Americans. Yet later on, when Lindbergh revealed himself as a Nazi sympathiser, he became an outcast.
Coming right up to date with America, I see that one commentator said the other day that the Obama presidency was shrivelling by the day. Obama and the French president Hollande could start the wrong kind of exclusive club between them! But then I am suspicious of so many aspects of American life and in particularly, this intense devotion to the social media. It seems as if America is merely trying to infantilise the rest of the world. I was struck by this concept the other day when a woman I know well in Dublin told me that her grandchildren are so obsessed by the social media that they can’t stop messaging each other and their friends, as well as sending a vast amount of pictures, of things as trivial as what’s on their dinner plates. I’m all in favour of kids learning new technologies but this kind of obsession is daft.
However, when I took the Bill Bryson book back to the library the other day, I was pleasantly surprised to find schoolchildren sitting in the library absolutely engrossed in the books they were reading. It was great
to see them so enthused over reading and reading old fashioned books at that.
Meanwhile, there are other signs of hope, like the new Pope with his wonderful hands-on and down to earth approach. Pope Francis seems to really know and appreciate the problems that so many people have in their lives and understands all the modern perils all too well. It’s amazing the kind of reaction his Papacy is having already. Here in Ireland, there are also some signs of hope, including the fact that well over 1,000 people a week are now getting back to work. It’s a small movement, but at least it’s in the right direction.
It’s in stark contrast to what’s happening in Greece. This week, I was shocked to learn from an international medical report on the effect that the severe depression in Greece is having on people’s health that many people in Greece are deliberately infecting themselves with HIV so that they can claim the €700 a month benefits package that HIV sufferers get in Greece. What a truly shocking state of affairs and what an equally damning indictment of the way in which the EU runs its affairs that it can be so concerned with getting the budgetary figures right that it couldn’t care less what the social consequences are.
And talking of astonishing news, when I saw the outburst against his former wife, Nigella Lawson, that Charles Saatchi made, I was quite astonished. Presumably all his claims about her taking of illegal and
prescription drugs will turn out to be true, which won’t do much good for her career as a TV chef. But knowing how odd the world has become, it’s quite likely that all this publicity might have the reverse effect!
At least, everyone in France has had a laugh with the weathergirl on Canal+. Doria Tillier had been a model in a previous life and she is now a very good looking weathergirl. Recently, people in France had been promising to do all kinds of mad things if France beat Ukraine, which would mean getting to Brazil in the upcoming World Cup. France did make it through to the semi-finals, so a lot of people had to eat humble pie! But the way in which Doria kept her promise was so funny. She had promised to go “poil”, which means naked in France. Everyone looked forward to her keeping her promise. Instead, she did a weather bulletin from a small village called Poil and there in the distance, in long shot, was Doria running across the fields naked!
Another piece of rather funny news from France came courtesy of SNCFG, which it turns out, is now
offering English lessons to travellers on the TGV between Paris and Reims. A peculiar way of passing the time on a train, but no doubt the scheme will have plenty of people to take it up.
I had also said recently how much Je ne regrette rien by Edith Piaf had become so much of a musical cliché it wasn’t true. So many people on Desert Island Discs on Radio 4 choose this particular song and when I heard that Ed Milliband the leader of the Labour Party was going to do just that, I groaned just a little. But the version he choose was a recording of a live show done in Paris in 1960 and somehow this sounded much better.
The past week has been rather momentous newswise, including the deal with Iran, so it’s nice to know that the tried and trusted, like Piaf’s famous song and good old fashioned books, can create such a thrill.