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Been there, done that
The 60s are back. I shall confidently be expecting an influx of educated Americans. Of course, as with our immigration policy, we won't be taking the people who really need to be here. And of course I can still hope for the backlash. Although the great reversal happened because of Nixon, and we've had worse than Nixon with no fallout whatsoever. Not to mention that the swing away lasted all of five years until Reagan was elected and then late stage capitalism started with a vengeance, and here we are.
I am old, and keep being reminded that I'm old. Not just the never-ending crippledom, but other things like people helping my walker into stores and coffeehouse, and kind young men offering to carry my tray for me at the cafeteria-style Futures. It's very nice and I approve the behaviour but perversely I wish it wasn't necessary because I thought I'd be walker-free by now. Well, and I would be if I could bicycle, but I still can't.
Meanwhile I read Brideshead Revisited, and think how grateful one should be not to have been born an upper-class Englishman in whenever it was Waugh was born. The hothouse Oxbridge world that Ryder paints so glowingly must have stunted the emotional growth of generations. Well, like Cyril Connolly. As Waugh reminds us, that jeunesse doreé will have to face the war and the Blitz, so no wonder everything previous to it is bathed in the golden lying light of memory. What annoys me is that I find myself falling into the same mindset: that summer at Brideshead segues into that summer on Palmerston, both alike a long happy succession of sunny days and blue skies. This annoys me the more because I have absolutely no use for Evelyn Waugh himself, that nasty nasty man. Oh, and the reminders of Catholicism give me the cold grues, thanks to my childhood upbringing. Yuck.
I am old, and keep being reminded that I'm old. Not just the never-ending crippledom, but other things like people helping my walker into stores and coffeehouse, and kind young men offering to carry my tray for me at the cafeteria-style Futures. It's very nice and I approve the behaviour but perversely I wish it wasn't necessary because I thought I'd be walker-free by now. Well, and I would be if I could bicycle, but I still can't.
Meanwhile I read Brideshead Revisited, and think how grateful one should be not to have been born an upper-class Englishman in whenever it was Waugh was born. The hothouse Oxbridge world that Ryder paints so glowingly must have stunted the emotional growth of generations. Well, like Cyril Connolly. As Waugh reminds us, that jeunesse doreé will have to face the war and the Blitz, so no wonder everything previous to it is bathed in the golden lying light of memory. What annoys me is that I find myself falling into the same mindset: that summer at Brideshead segues into that summer on Palmerston, both alike a long happy succession of sunny days and blue skies. This annoys me the more because I have absolutely no use for Evelyn Waugh himself, that nasty nasty man. Oh, and the reminders of Catholicism give me the cold grues, thanks to my childhood upbringing. Yuck.
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