Cold, grey morning in Falmouth. Sky a uniform grey. Not a cold with any drama to it, just a silence of no colour. Stillness, I mean. The sea, earlier on, was ruffled a little, but there wasn't really a wind. Thinking about the homeless man who was ejected from his encampment behind the waterfront pub. Gave him a blanket one morning. He turned up in the entrance to the library and was ejected from there too. The guy who sleeps in the entrance to the Methodist Church is always up early, hugging himself for warmth. Central European, I think. Very neatly tucked away inside himself. We exchanged greetings.
Turned on the radio: earnest discussions of how it could all go wrong for the new President. The striking factor is not what's happened - he won; we're leaving - but the huge volumes of hot air extruded into the atmosphere by commentators. All the talk. It's a factor. I remember, may years ago, a time of my life when I used to attend regular inter-departmental meetings. The trick to appearing well-informed was to frown. To imply negativity. Not to smile, or nod, because that meant you weren't thinking hard enough. Frown, and thereby look as though you knew something big enough to be bothering you.
Not that I would queue to get stuck in a lift with the man who - if legions of highly paid political reporters are to be believed - spent his first night in the White House last night, but I wonder whether gloom is habit-forming in the reporting business. You need to look as though you know what's going on, so you frown. And talk about what "could" go wrong. And all that negativity is infectious. We're watching a guy with negative qualities and - it's even hard to say this - positive qualities; a guy who is (at least?) as fallible as the rest of us. Sure, it could go wrong, but isn't the culture clash - the media-political establishment versus that guy, with that background - the real point of interest?
We go from <Why him? Why now?> to <What will happen to the old ways? Who will "win", and what wisdom will we receive from that?> Mind you, the transition has started - media teams moving their story to this year's elections in Europe - so maybe the sign-off "should" be: One Thing Is Certain: The World Goes On.
Turned on the radio: earnest discussions of how it could all go wrong for the new President. The striking factor is not what's happened - he won; we're leaving - but the huge volumes of hot air extruded into the atmosphere by commentators. All the talk. It's a factor. I remember, may years ago, a time of my life when I used to attend regular inter-departmental meetings. The trick to appearing well-informed was to frown. To imply negativity. Not to smile, or nod, because that meant you weren't thinking hard enough. Frown, and thereby look as though you knew something big enough to be bothering you.
Not that I would queue to get stuck in a lift with the man who - if legions of highly paid political reporters are to be believed - spent his first night in the White House last night, but I wonder whether gloom is habit-forming in the reporting business. You need to look as though you know what's going on, so you frown. And talk about what "could" go wrong. And all that negativity is infectious. We're watching a guy with negative qualities and - it's even hard to say this - positive qualities; a guy who is (at least?) as fallible as the rest of us. Sure, it could go wrong, but isn't the culture clash - the media-political establishment versus that guy, with that background - the real point of interest?
We go from <Why him? Why now?> to <What will happen to the old ways? Who will "win", and what wisdom will we receive from that?> Mind you, the transition has started - media teams moving their story to this year's elections in Europe - so maybe the sign-off "should" be: One Thing Is Certain: The World Goes On.
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