Why I've been overdoing it on LinkedIn

'Arguing with a fool makes two,' is one of the few motivational saws I've liked on LinkedIn. Which hasn't stopped me doing it, in the last couple of days especially, rather defeating the purpose of my not joining Facebook or Twitter (reason: I'd waste time and get into pointless spats). Why? Because I still can't get my head around the difference - which still seems to me to hang in the balance in these crucial few days - between this,

namely a truly lovable President, with an equally adorable wife and daughters, pictured above with Haben Girma, the first deafblind graduate of Harvard Law School, and this,

which I don't need to explain.

Meryl Streep had the unarguable moral high ground on that one. Anyone who defies her speech has to be a retarded school bully; and Trump's lie that he wasn't imitating the reporter's disability is negated by three seconds of horrible video evidence. I can't bring myself to watch the press-conference meltdown; am I wrong in replaying instead both Obamas' last speeches, and Michelle's best speech of the election campaign? Like so many millions, I can't believe the President-Elect will arrive in the White House.

But that's America for you. Which won't stop the fightback against Trump, Putin and Brexit, with renewed fury and focused vigour. Take confidence in the fact that America's best President - in my lifetime, at any rate - and the best of First Ladies will be there to hold the country's hand and speak out more forcefully in the eye of the storm, should it arrive.

Meanwhile, one good piece of news which doesn't seem to have made the UK press: Somalian-born refugee Ahmed Hussen has been appointed Canada's Minister of Immigration (pictured with Justin Trudeau above). What a parallel universe to that of America, Russia and the UK - though we do have our so-far impeccable Mayor of London Sadiq Khan. But we also still, unbelievably, have dangerous doofus Jeremy Hunt as Minister of Health. It bears repeating that Trudeau's cabinet of experts includes an opposite number who's a respected doctor and medical expert as well as a Minister of Education who's long been well thought of in that profession. Again, enough said.

Plots against America

That's Charles Lindbergh on the left, the famous aviator who was to lead the America First campaign and decry 'the Jewish race' for trying to lead his country into the Second World War, in the delightful company of Hermann Goering, presumably at the time of the October 1938 dinner in Berlin where Goering presented Lindbergh with the Service Cross of the Golden Eagle. No such photos of Trump with Putin have come to light, prompting some amusingly creative collages which I assume are copyright so won't use here. But you can be sure that if the world's worst-case-scenario comes true and Trump is elected, he'll be holding meetings with Putin like the one Philip Roth imagines a putative President Lindbergh having with Hitler in Iceland, and later with Von Ribbentrop in the White House, in The Plot Against America.

There are probably more differences between Trump and Lindbergh than similarities - no-one sees DT as a clever operator hiding behind others, for instance. But it seemed timely to read this what-if masterpiece of a novel by a great American under present circumstances. Apart from the lethally eloquent and/or direct prose style, Roth's genius is to put himself and his family into the alternative picture, building on the anti-Semitism he experienced in New Jersey as a child.

I can't tell which of the friends and relatives gathered around the Roths are real - would love to read a biography or an alternative study which sheds light on this - but the portraits of his honest ma and pa break the heart. It isn't easy to make ordinary decency that interesting, but put it up against its opposite and you have some powerful situations. If you don't think you want to work your way through the whole book - amazing how people keep on saying 'I don't have the time to read'; there is ALWAYS time to read - then the second chapter. 'Loudmouth Jew (November 1940-June 1941)', about the Roth family visit to Washington and the anti-Semitism they experience there, is a locus classicus of vivid writing. Roth also makes some powerful statements throughout the book about the kind of man his father was, both as an American Jew and as a Mensch. More often he highlights what he was not:

It went without saying that Mr Mawhinney was a Christian, a long-standing member of the great overpowering majority that fought the revolution and founded the nation and conquered the wilderness and subjugated the Indian and enslaved the Negro and emancipated the Negro and segregated the Negro, one of the good, clean, hardworking Christian millions who settled the frontier, tilled the farms, governed the states, sat in Congress, occupied the White House, amassed the wealth, possessed the land, owned the steel mills and the ball clubs and the railroads and the banks, even owned and oversaw the language, one of those unassailable Nordic and Anglo-Saxon Protestants who ran America and would always run it - generals, dignitaries, magnates, tycoons, the men who laid down the law and called the shots and read the riot act when they chose to - while my father, of course, was only a Jew.

Roth (pictured above) makes the distinction between his father and other Jews they knew, though:

For good or bad, the exalted egoism of an Abe Steinheim or an Uncle Monty or a Rabbi Bengelsdorf - conspicuously dynamic Jews, all seemingly propelled by their embattled status as the offspring of greenhorns to play the biggest role that they could commandeer as American men - was not in the makeup of my father, nor was there the slightest longing for supremacy, and so though personal pride was a driving force and his blend of fortitude and combativeness was heavily fueled, like theirs, by the grievances attending his origins as an impoverished kid other kids called a kike, it was enough for him to  make something (rather than everything) of himself and to do so without wrecking the lives around him.

As for the Jews who in Roth's dystopia kowtow to Lindbergh (pictured above before the 1941 speech which in reality toppled him), there is a devastating portrait in the shape of Aunt Evelyn who marries the self-satisfied, self-compromised Rabbi Bengelsdorf.

As always with Aunt Evelyn, there was something very winning about her enthusiasm, though in the context of my household's confusion, I couldn't miss what was diabolical about it as well. Never in my life had I so harshly judged any adult - not my parents, not even Alvin or Uncle Monty - nor had I understood until then how the shameless vanity of utter fools can so strongly determine the fate of others.

One can't take it for granted, unfortunately, that more than half of voting Americans come to understand the same thing before it's too late. If they don't, the world will sufer from a regime that might be longer-lived than the fictional presidency of Lindbergh. In the meantime, here's hope

and here may be a greater part of the reason why Donald behaves as he does - behold The Mother.

Deepest shame and disgust

...on/at the 294 MPs who voted against our accepting 3,000 frightened, unaccompanied and endangered refugee children into the UK*. Whatever the arguments - 'we're doing enough to help them where they are' (still leaving them prey to traffickers), 'this sets dangerous precedents' - it's morally wrong. The list of 294, named and shamed here, needs to be posted everywhere with mugshots attached - there is more than one kind of criminality. It might also be worth finding out how many are the children or descendents of refugees: the majority, I'd imagine.

This man, Sir Nicholas Winton, honoured with a statue here in Prague (there's also one at Liverpool Street Station), would be turning in his grave.

We don't need to go back to World War II - Belgian refugee children in the UK pictured up top - for precedents (our dear friend Edward Mendelson, by the way, was on the last of the Kindertransports from Vienna which also brought the current heroic - and so far rejected - proponent of compassion, Alf Dubs, saved - as it later turned out - by Winton, who became a friend). These are Bulgarian refugee children in 1914.

And so back into history. I wish Dickens were alive today to write a savage invective.

Can't we take a leaf out of Lebanon's book? It has more refugees than it can reasonably cope with, but education programmes for Syrian children are now strong. Gordon and Sarah Brown have been doing an admirable job to ensure more funding flows for the right to school.

The moral bankruptcy currently rife in this country, or at least among its so-called leaders, seems to be coming to a head. All you have to say is 'Theresa May wants us to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights' and you know what's wrong with that. Though this film starring Patrick Stewart, with acknowledgments to Monty Python, is a good way to respond. Do watch through to the end, which had me rolling about with laughter. Doesn't seem embeddable as yet, so click on the link above to watch.

You don't need to make a parody of Jeremy Hunt (not the brightest button in the box, as this article by a former employee makes all too clear) vs junior doctors - it's way beyond satire already**, though the outcome is already looking tragic. Excellent clarity - from the medics' perspective - here. Everyone needs to know that senior doctors are to hand to make sure emergencies are handled during the current strike, so don't believe the scare stories.

What horrible people we have in power. But I know this isn't true of the UK population as a whole - unless support for Brexit proves me wrong, in which case it will just be dangerous ignorance of the facts, which IS a problem here. Let's just hope Obama, the greatest AND most lovable statesman I've ever known in my lifetime, has had the desired effect. While he was here, he went to the Globe, too, on Shakespeare's birthday, happily coinciding with the grand finale of the company's amazing Hamlet world tour. Hope this picture is 'fair use' territory.

I wish it were simple for people to decide when faced with the equation 'Obama wants us to stay in Europe; Putin, Trump and Marine Le Pen want us out'. That and the pitiful roster of damaged human beings leading, if you can use the word, the Brexit campaign, should be enough to show folk what's going on.

Incidentally, when I last looked at the Patrick Stewart film, up popped an ad: 'Canadian immigration: do you qualify?' I hope I do if it's out of the EU for the UK: already having thoughts about moving to the diplo-mate's homeland, Ireland or, when it detaches, Scotland

Rant over.

PS - but let that wonderful artist Wolfgang Tillmans, one of the 12-Star Gallery's finest exhibitors, do more of the addressing in a sequence of sparely-designed messages. They can all be found here - my thanks to Graham Rickson for e-mailing the link - but this one is especially good. The main message (albeit in small print here): register to vote before 7 June

*Yet there is one notable exception among the Conservatives - Stephen Phillips QC MP, whose speech here should be the rule rather than the exception.

**Though Frankie Boyle can always go one better, and just has in The Guardian.

Because we could

That's the answer to the question 'why get married when you're already civilly partnered and you've essentially been married for 27 years?' It's a question of everything being fair and equal at last, of more rights, practically speaking. In an iconoclastic moment, the 'habibi' - which we agreed would be as close to the rather proprietorial title 'husband' as we're going to get - gave his permission for one facial shot on the blog, chosen by him. So I waive the objection that I'm not at my jolliest-looking - I assure you I was extremely jolly throughout - and not wearing my garland, one of two woven out of  favourite flowers, peonies and cornflowers, by our delightful Swedish friend Pia (on the right below) and presented by her as a complete surprise during our wedding tea party at the Garden Museum.

This is me on the day, 15 June, speaking about how glad we were to follow so serendipitously in the wake of the people's choice in Ireland ('a sad day for humanity,' according to a Catholic cardinal, a jubilant one for the majority).

I also wanted to draw our friends Claire and Howard, 18 years together, into the picture. Some weeks back, Claire and I were having a deliriously topsy-turvy time at the all-male Pirates of Penzance on its Richmond leg. She asked why we were buying into the marriage thing, said she'd always been dead against it but that a lawyer had suggested that for the sake of the legal aspect, with special regard to their two children, she and H probably should. My 'no big deal' line clinched it and they announced their banns on the same day as we got our certificate. Which meant returning to Camden Town Hall and finding, from our very delightful and warm registrar, that the form-creating might take 45 minutes on top of an extended wait. So she said she'd do most of the paperwork and post the certificate so we could get off to the party. The odious Mr Panz - featured here in the days when I called him Pantz - had promised to behave himself, though he took a chance for a nap during registration

and was generally soothed by one of his family, bridesmaid and youngest goddaughter Mirabel (she, mother Edwina and Panz were the only attendees up in Camden). Here she is admiring five of the seven princess cakes from Bagariet, the superb Swedish Bakery in the West End, which went with the champagne for the party

after which about 15 of us went on to Gypsy - me for the second time, Ma, J and goddaughter Rosie May among the rest for the first. And who could not love it? I'm so glad and proud that Ma, 84, made it up from Banstead for the tea party and the show, which was just her thing (a thousand thanks to Liz, her valiant driver and friend). I reckon Imelda Staunton, who's not missed a show so far, has added stuff to "Rose's Turn". We agreed that the ensemble is uniformly excellent.

Broadway no doubt lit the lights and hit the heights for the big American victory after the Supreme Court decided, rather surprisingly, in favour of same-sex marriages across the States. We feel privileged to have sandwiched our afternoon coincidentally between the Irish and American victories. Best of blogging friends Susan Scheid, a recently retired New York lawyer, celebrated (with the proviso that the law has been way too slow to catch up with the way we live our lives) and provided a link to the document here. Obama has been on a natural crest of a wave recently, too, handling a heckler at the White House's Pride Month party, speaking eloquently about the judgment and leading 'Amazing Grace' to commemorate the Charleston Christians massacred by a would-be White Supremacist.

Another thing I heard which moved me to smile through tears was a group of friends and colleagues of the late Reverend Clementa Pinckney on the BBC World Service, remembering him with laughter and affection as remarkable senator as well as good religious pastor, proving by their very testaments how 'alive' he still is. Oh, and let's not forget Charlotte Church's amazingly good speech at the End Austerity Now demonstration march (which I couldn't attend because we were still basking in Sicilian food, footpaths, sun and sea). There's an awful lot of good in this struggling world, despite the daily chronicles of suicide bombings, persecution of gays in countries less fortunate than ours, Putin's dangerous lies and IS pathology.

29/6 Another reason to be cheerful, even as the Greek state totters. Courtesy of Greenpeace:

Wingnuts adrift

After 154 episodes and approximately six months' viewing - when exactly did I pick up Series 1 and 2 in a charity shop for a fiver? - our sole addiction to the telly screen of late has come to an end. The West Wing (hence 'wingnuts' = fans) went out with a stylish whimper, and organically as ever, with the conclusion of President Josiah Bartlet's sometimes compromised but by and large pretty ideal two-term reign and his handing over of the reins to...

Can't divulge, since it was a surprise to my fellow-watcher even if I'd snuck a look at the episodes precis. Suffice it to say that part of the series' natural evolution was to find a potential Democratic successor as charismatic as Martin Sheen's lovable President, Jimmy Smits's Matt Santos - modelled, I recently read, on the speeches of a then largely unknown Barack Obama, with the emphasis shifted from black to Latino - and a Republican challenger as sympathetic as Alan Alda's Arnie Vinick. Both proved more than equal to the rest of the fabulous ensemble.

The presidential campaign is eye-opening to us barely comprehending Brits, and bears out in its twists and turns the famous 'events, dear boy' saying (or as Thucydides put it, 'the persistence of the unforeseen').

Americans would have found special pleasure in the live debate where Vinick takes up Santos's gauntlet to drop the usual format and go uninhibitedly head to head (I understand two versions were filmed, one for the west coast and one for the east; we should have had both, as well as the promised extras about the making of this episode which were not to be found, on the DVDs).


Interesting, of course, but what makes The West Wing unique is the flexibility of tone in the behind-the-scenes dialogues and developments. I thought, for instance, that the old 1930s screwball-comedy flavour had disappeared somewhere in Series Five; and yet there it was again, in an achingly funny episode based around Josh Lyman's post-campaign burnout ('Transition', superb script by Peter Noah and actor Bradley Whitford at his peak). Then the focus shifted back on my favourite of all, C.J. Cregg (the ineffable Alison Janney), with whom I'm just a little bit in romantic love, and another superb instalment, this time in the sentimental-drama mode. We also got to see Toby of the sensitive eyes again - Richard Schiff, low-key and hardly on screen for more than a few minutes in later episodes, if at all, but powerful as ever.

Loose ends are all tied up, to a point, but the last episode is no wave-farewell-to-all-you-best-loved-characters; some don't reappear, and the end of run mood is pointedly subdued. The viewer is encouraged to share in the feeling that this is how it has to be, and no regrets. True, one imagines, to how it was and how it is. And there was never a point where I felt the classic series had dated or was no longer relevant to ongoing issues. No wonder Obama, currently taking up the constant gauntlet mentioned here of taxing the millionaires, adores the show. It actually made me love America again.


Postscript: a final word from Martin Sheen, long before a seventh series was so much as a glimmer (and yes, I have a second-hand copy of the 'official' West Wing Companion covering series 1 and 2; it was a present, if you must know):

One of these only comes along in a lifetime, let's face it...Why would I want to look back? What am I going to follow this with? I may as well go and do Shakespeare in Minneapolis or something.

Given Bartlet's Lear-like attack on God at the end of series 2, that might not be a bad idea. Could one do Shakespeare's greatest tragedy in a contemporary political setting, with Sheen Martin not Michael? There's a thought.