The Lost Diaries. Craig Brown

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СКАЧАТЬ and fine furnishings. There is nothing dirty in mud! This pervasive and wretched belief in household cleanliness is the sign of a decrepit age! There is no good carpet, no good sofa, that has not been splattered with the mud thrown off as two or more bold and muscle-bound men come a-grappling! Your priggish mud-hatred fills my blood with contempt.

      Finally, once again, many thanks for the most marvellous stay. You made us feel so ‘at home’. We both came home greatly refreshed, and full of wonderful memories of a really terrific weekend.

      Yours ever,

      David

       D.H. LAWRENCE,LETTER TO LADY CUNARD

      I spoke to TB and started drafting resignation letters. I felt desperately sorry for Peter Mandelson. He had clearly been crying, and needed my support.

      I went over to him, said this is all absolutely dreadful but we just have to get through it. I put one arm around his shoulder, and with the other I eased the knife, as gently as I could, between his shoul-derblades. By this time, he was writhing in pain, but I assured him that I would be strong for him, and do everything physically possible to ease his passing.

      He kept saying why, why, why, but I reassured him that it just had to be done. As the tears cascaded down his cheeks, I sat alongside him and comforted him and read him his farewell resignation letter, and I gripped his shoulder and told him he had to be strong and then I gave it one last thrust. ‘You don’t deserve this, Peter, you really don’t, you’re one of the greatest ministers this country ever had,’ I said.

      Bumped into JP on the way home, and he congratulated me on a very smooth operation. We agreed that Mandelson’s no better than a cartload of bollocks and we’re 100 per cent better off without him.

       ALASTAIR CAMPBELL

       January 25th

      To Cuba. Introduced to President Castro. No oil painting. Very full of himself. Absurd bushy beard, army ‘fatigues’, regional accent (Welsh?). Inquire whether he is a Derbyshire Castro. ‘I myself am a regular at Chatsworth,’ I add, helpfully. He fails to take the bait. Instead, he drones on about the Missile Crisis. Missile Crisis this, Missile Crisis that. Typically lower class, living from crisis to crisis. So dreadfully panicky.

       JAMES LEES-MILNE

      PHILIP PULLMAN: I don’t like the word ‘God’, never have done, never will do. It’s meaningless, for the simple reason that God doesn’t exist.

      DR ROWAN WILLIAMS: Well, Philip, that’s a fascinating point. I think you’ve hit on something very very profound there, indeed something very meaningful, in a spiritual way.

      PHILIP PULLMAN: Christianity is on a hiding to nothing, because Jesus was not the son of God.

      DR ROWAN WILLIAMS: That’s marvellously bold, Philip, and I salute you for it! It takes a creative artist of your tremendous powers of observation to say something so challenging and stimulating for the rest of us! But would you mind awfully if I took you up on something you said just now about Jesus?

      PHILIP PULLMAN: As you know, I’m a very busy man, but not too busy to spare you a moment or two, Rowan. Fire away!

      DR ROWAN WILLIAMS: You said something to the effect that Jesus was not the son of God, and also that – do please correct me if I’m wrong! –Christianity is on ‘a hiding to nothing…’

      PHILIP PULLMAN: Absolutely.

      DR ROWAN WILLIAMS: Well, that’s a wonderful phrase, tremendously powerful. ‘A hiding to nothing’. You at your impressive best! For me, it’s a phrase that carries real emotional power. And of course, in a very real sense, the Christian pursuit of God – or whatever we want to call him! –is indeed a pursuit of nothing, in the sense that the divinity, or what-have-you, is immaterial and not of this earth. So the expression ‘a hiding to nothing’ very much sums up what the Christian Church should be aiming for. I think we’re entirely at one on that, I must say.

      PHILIP PULLMAN: Rowan, in my new book, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, which you have so kindly agreed to help me publicise –

      DR ROWAN WILLIAMS: Oh, it was the very least I could do…

      PHILIP PULLMAN:…Very kind, nevertheless. In my new book, I attempt to show organised religion as a source of falsehood and wickedness. As a theologian, would you go along with this?

      DR ROWAN WILLIAMS: Well, of course, it’s a fascinating topic for conjecture, tremendously rich and intriguing, but, no, as the leader of an organised religion, on the whole I’m not sure I entirely buy into that. Frankly, I can see problems with it. Put it this way, Philip: it gives me pause.

      PHILIP PULLMAN: Really, Rowan – it’s so easy to be dismissive!

      DR ROWAN WILLIAMS: I hope I wasn’t dismissive. Perhaps I was, and if so, I can only apologise.

      PHILIP PULLMAN: Apology accepted. So I think we can both agree that the established Church is a source of falsehood and wickedness. We have plenty of common ground.

      DR ROWAN WILLIAMS: Well, though it’s a profoundly interesting point, perhaps I wouldn’t want to go quite as far as…

      PHILIP PULLMAN: So we’re entirely at one on that.

      DR ROWAN WILLIAMS: I’ve always considered ‘at one’ an extraordinarily helpful phrase, and I must say it thrills me deeply to hear you use it, Philip. It reinforces my sense that, for all our surface differences, the two of us are really thinking along the same lines. Very much so.

      PHILIP PULLMAN: And another point I make in my book is that any head of an organised religion is likely to torture and kill anyone who disagrees with him.

      DR ROWAN WILLIAMS: That’s a very striking point, Philip, though we may have one or two minor points of difference on the detail – for instance, as Archbishop of Canterbury, I would never seriously consider torturing or killing anyone just because they disagree with me, whatever we may mean by ‘disagree’! But I think we are united in our search for human value, and that’s the most important thing.

      PHILIP PULLMAN: You say you won’t torture or kill those of us who have the temerity to disagree with you! Well, if I’ve extracted that promise from you today, Rowan, then our discussion won’t have been a complete waste of time! Now, I’ve got to rush to another speaking engagement, so I must go. Some of us have work to do! If you could just carry my bags to the taxi, Rowan, there’s a good fellow.

      DR ROWAN WILLIAMS: I’m frankly overwhelmed that a great author such as yourself thinks of me as a good fellow, Philip!

      PHILIP PULLMAN: That’s very literal of you, Rowan. Hurry up, now! Chip-chop!

      

       PHILIP PULLMAN IN CONVERSATION WITHDR ROWAN WILLIAMS

       January 26th

      Have found a way of knotting my necktie using an extraordinary little gadget on my Swiss Army СКАЧАТЬ