The DISINTEGRATION OF AN INDIVIDUAL
I will admit it. I am completely hooked on waiting for the outcome of Fitzgerald's investigation. Nothing else that is being written, and certainly nothing that I could write, seems to have any real relevance at the moment that is greater than this one event.
It is taking the edge off everything else. My playing partner and I were one up yesterday and had just lost the last hole when we drove off on the eighteenth. We had to get a half to win the match on one of the most difficult holes on the course. Yes, yes but the U.S.A had been awake for four hours, what was happening over there? What was being said? Had Fitzgerald's office let something slip?
Eleven hours later. Top of the eighth, the Sox had a tenuous one run lead and it was 4.00 a.m. in the morning here. Forget it. I was still constantly getting up from the TV to click on yet another site to see if it had any new slant or insight on the indictments.
TAKING HIM HOME TO MEET THE FAMILY
What makes concentrating on non-Fitzgerald news worse is that there is no discussion of Rove and Libby in the U.K. media. Doodly Squat! Nothing in my Sunday Times. Nothing in the Independent on Sunday. Today's (Sunday) main political programme on the BBC leads with an interview involving Condi holding hands with new found boyfriend, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, after visiting her home town. Sweet. Watch out Syria. There was no answer to the question posed at the top of the section enquiring why on earth was this three day visit taking place. It was a bit snide, I thought, to ask if neither of them didn't have one or two more pressing things to do and even snider to suggest that the photo-op contributed towards Condi's future electability. Has the BBC no romance left?
Penetrating interview, though. Or not. They both said that Iraq had made great strides with the completion of the referendum on the new constitution. That is a surprising stance by the two Bush and Blair appointees, isn't it? Despite their proclaimed fondness for each other, I can foresee a very dull relationship. Pillow talk will consist of sharing clear and compelling reasons why our countries should continue to observe daylight savings time.
THE ATTACK ON THIS DIARY LAST WEEK - THE BUSH/WINDSORS AND DEAD PARROTS
In taking this diary out of the box of everyone else's reality last week, I came under severe attack. I was denounced for having photo-shopped Barbara and William and Harry and Jenna. I was forced to withdraw the item, together with the other suggestion made alongside it about sneezing dead parrots. Such was the vehemence of some Kossacks that I was undermining the credibility of the site with my meanderings.
Except within three days, all the UK mainstream media was leading with the story of a parrot that died, passed away, turned moribund, ceased to exist with sneeze-making bird flu whilst in quarantine in the UK.
So much for some treating me like the Dan Rather of Daily Kos. I now await the sound of wedding bells.
MORE ROMANCE
Well not really. It's just that I am at that age that many Kossacks have yet to reach when you fall in love every week, without ever being unfaithful to your last one because it is all very remote and unfulfilled. Just like when you are fourteen, really.
This week I have fallen in love with Oxford historian Bettany Hughes.
Prior to watching the first game in the World Series, I switched on to see the programme "Helen of Troy" that has also been showing on your PBS in the States. Two hours of history and archaeology, without gimmicks and computer animations, just serious talk-to-camera by the soul stirring Bettany against well-filmed background shots of sites in Greece and Turkey.
My TV listing described her as "pulchritudinous". Well, I don't see why I should save you the time finding out what it means as I had to go to all the trouble to look up the word myself, but, I have to agree, she is most certainly "pulchritudinous", with a big "whooarrrr!" at the end.
I am told that there is a moment in her breathy commentary during her programme on the Minoans that is enough to disturb the blood of even the weariest of Welshman. It occurs when she exclaims about one newly found site that it shouts out to you "Excavate me!". Now that is delicious intellectual candy from someone who retains respect for her academic credentials despite her projection as the thinking man's Brittany Spiers.
THE TWO CONSERVATIVE DAVIDS
So the election of a new leader for the UK Conservative Party has come down amongst its party members to David Cameron and David...err...well the other one. (Edit: Davies, I believe). From being nowhere in the race four weeks ago, one-speech Cameron has now jumped into being front-runner. He is young (thirty-nine for all you real youngsters out there). He is billed as the new Tony Blair, which should damn him when his serious election by the country occurs. He represents the "new face" of the Conservative Party.
A new face but still an old Etonian by background. Now that is innovative for our party of privilege and wealth, isn't it? Poor old Davies comes from a single-parent family and went to a State school. He is regarded as boring - or so the story goes. So Cameron it will be, unless the revelations of his taking <gosh>DRUGS!!!<Wow!!!> at university turns into stories about cocaine sniffing in the House of Parliament toilets (where sampling has revealed that such magic occurs - although by whom is not known).
The great debate is whether, to regain power, the Conservative Party should move to the centre or to the right. Should it appeal to its base or to the swing voter? Sounds like a familiar argument to any Kossack. As does the demand that it should modernise and get clearly distinguishable policies that create blue sky between them and the ever right moving Blair Labour Party.
Ah, the opportunity that now exists for the Liberal Democratic Party! The trouble is that they need a new leader as well if they are to seize the moment.
TILTING AT WINDMILLS
No one dare try and get a diary recommended these days without trying to make some connectivity to mon Cherhomme a Paris's fan base. So, I am pleased to report that the longstanding argument about his damnable wind turbines desecrating our land and seascapes has now been resolved by our photoshop friend Smalbrainfield at New International Times. It is all to do with how they are sited. The solution is simple:
I remember Cherhome published a neat view from his flat showing a certain feature of Paris that seems ready made for rotor blades:
It might interfere with the comfort of those using its restaurant half way up as the tips of the blades slice through the local bird life but the ready availability of the French country dish "Pigeons Aux raisons" may reduce what I found to be a horrendous bill when last I visited that establishment. All the recipe requires is 6 small pigeons , 2 kilos of sweet white grapes , 1 bottle of fresh grape juice, 1 bottle of dry white wine, 1 bunch of mixed herbs (bouquet garni) and olive oil . Delicous.
FROM PIGEONS BACK TO PARROTS
The research that I do for this diary, which I assure you is phenomenal, did reveal to me that an answer has been produced by a Spanish judge to the unanswered question of John Cleese and the Monty Python team: "What is the value of a dead parrot".
It appears that the parrot of Maria del Carmen Dotras was examined by doctors to see if it was causing her allergies. Sadly, the doctors virtually suffocated the bird by putting a towel over its head, and took out six times as much blood as they were supposed to. Eventually, a consultant ordered it to be put out of its misery.
Ms. Dotras put the dead bird in the freezer, to facilitate an autopsy. In fact, the deep freezing made it impossible to determine the cause of death. Judge Nunio de la Rosa observed "The parrot has been deceased, and cannot be revived."
He decided the hospital authorities and the doctor responsible should pay the sum equivalent to a new bird. He dismissed Ms. Dotra's claim for damages of one million pesetas ($5,435).
Quoting directly from the Guardian article, drawing a fine distinction that will be of assistance in future similar cases, the judge ruled that it merely "articulated sounds similar to those of people." "If the parrot had been able to talk," he reasoned, "it would have complained."
And last week I was accused of making things up!!
AND FINALLY FITZGERALD, AGAIN
Has anything happened whilst I have been writing this diary? Really, you must understand that I am of the Nixon generation. The way that the whole scenario developed then, over an achingly extended period of time, made me the political junky that I am today.
What has done it for me this time is the sudden emergence of Fitzgerald's new web site. It is unbelievably fine. Impressively designed and with just enough material in it to let you know that it is waiting to be filled up. It is like a Colt Peacemaker with its revolving chamber open, ready for the bullets to be placed in it.
So I will end on a serious note. The pulchritudinous Bettany Hughes filmed a distinguished law professor in his rooms in Kings College in July 1999. (The continuity that flows through this diary is breathtaking). Short clips of various parts of the interview can be seen on his site that can be seen here. In a couple of them he discusses the importance of law within our society and why the rule of law is so important and unique to our civilisation. Particularly, he discusses the concept that no person, whatever their position, can be deemed to be above the law. It seems a very appropriate statement of the forces that are struggling for ascendancy in the United States at the moment.
One thing that I do take from the Nixon era is that the Bernstein/Woodward role is something of a myth as the sole mechanism for the downfall of Nixon. In reality. by far the larger part was played by Congress. Fitzgerald will need all our attention if he is to succeed and, beyond that, all your efforts to get your friends in Congress to support him. Please stay obsessed by this issue. I will risk being accused of hyperbole by saying that it is another of those that defines our civilisation.