"Any Human Heart" by William Boyd

"Any Human Heart" is the edited journals of Logan Mountstuart, 1906-1991, sometime journalist, novelist, spy, art dealer, terrorist associate and flawed human being. It is the creation of the wonderful William Boyd and has shot straight into my all time top ten. Logan Mountstuart starts his journal with schoolboy pomposity at the age of seventeen and by the close of his journals, the end of his life, at a point where the bequest of a house from an old writer friend has saved him from a life of dogfood-eating penury in London, he has reached acceptance and wonder.

His route from one end of life, and the century, to the other is one which brings him into contact with many of the famous names of recent history - he encounters Picasso, Cyril Connolly, Hemingway, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, to name but a handful - and he has brushes with many of its formative events. This slightly Candidesque quality which imbues the novel is one of the things I find fascinating about it; Candide has been one of my favourites since teenage. But I find it astonishing that I am still thinking about the book weeks later and about the character of LMS himself.

In one memorable passage LMS describes his life as “Not so much a rollercoaster — a rollercoaster's too smooth — a yo-yo, rather — a jerking, spinning toy in the hands of a maladroit child”

Now why couldn't I have written that?

It's an extraordinary feat of writing and of invention. I recommend it wholeheartedly.

Welcome to Britain - now do as you're told.

What a shock it was stepping off the plane at Heathrow.

For starters it was cold. Not unpleasant after the 42 C of Oman, but a shock. Then it took 45 minutes for the transit bus to make it to the terminal. No explanation or apology. I wished I hadn't decided to wait to go to the loo! Other passengers talked about their onward journeys, most to the US and Canada. Conversation started to peter out as they wondered if they'd make their connections.

From the moment we set foot in the terminal building until we got into the taxi we were screamed at by hatched-faced women holding walkie-talkies. We were also admonished by enormous posters designed by people who clearly believe that all passengers are slack-jawed idiots.

As we trudged wearily along after getting off the transit bus from hell, a large woman with a loud voice yelled "STOP!" at us and stretched out her not inconsiderable arm to bar us from passing. Catching sight of a miscreant passenger she barked "Walk to the LEFT, sir. The LEFT." A pause, and then "Yes, you sir! Don't look around. I'm talking to YOU." The use of the word "Sir" was, as you will observe, ironic.

When the arm was lifted without explanation, she herded us into the right lanes.
Walking obediently on, we saw a tiny, rather timid Asian girl being harassed by two fat white women with their arms crossed. "She SAYS she's lost her sponsor." One yelled at the other, who was about six inches away. "She SAYS she can't find her boarding pass." she carried on with a meaningful look. "Oh did she?" bellowed the other. "Did she really?" They gurned at each other. The timid girl clearly didn't understand a word of what they were saying. "YOU CAN'T CONTINUE WITHOUT A SPONSOR OR A BOARDING PASS." shouted the first woman. "SECURITY." We all know, don't we, that if we talk really, really loudly in English, foreigners will understand us? Crowds of people passed by and watched, grateful that they weren't the ones being thus singled out.

"BE CAREFUL ON THE ESCALATOR" screamed a poster at the top of the offending machine.

People shouted at us a bit more as we shuffled towards the passport control. A couple of people got told off for various misdemeanours by a woman passport controller who clearly does not have a life outside work. A man in his fifties who ducked under a rope barrier got a particularly vicious dressing down.

Going through customs another sour woman pulled around a sniffer dog. As we passed my son let his hand trail over its back. "DON'T DO THAT." she yelled. A small hint, dear lady: where there are dogs, children will touch them. Deal with it or adapt the training so that the dogs will back off whimpering if they encounter anyone under four foot nine. I said rather loudly, but not too loudly in case she set the dog on me; "Don't worry, darling. She's a silly lady. You didn't do anything wrong..."

Another poster. This time it said "DON'T LET YOUR CHILDREN RIDE ON THE TROLLIES. IT IS DANGEROUS." Hitherto I had had no intention of letting the kids ride on the trolley, but seeing this, I scooped my son up and stuck him on the top of the luggage.

"CHILDREN AREN'T ALLOWED TO RIDE ON THE TROLLIES" said yet another officious old harpy, pointing at my son.

"Mine are." I said, and we swept out of the door.

Welcome to Britain. I'd just like to say - we're not all like that.

What lies beneath

In these days of 'let it all hang out', 'if you've got it flaunt it', 'what you see is what you get', 'in yer face' physical self-expression, perhaps it is unsurprising that modesty is regarded with such suspicion. Considering this, and the uncomfortable tendency to paranoia about overt religious expression, nothing rattles the unquestioning Brit like a niqab, or full Islamic veil. Once an oddity on our streets, now we are increasingly accustomed to the sight of young girls clad in Muslim headwear, whether it be hijab, burqa or niqab.

But of course, despite all the rhetoric about inclusiveness and religious tolerance, it couldn't be a matter of simple personal choice. Oh no. So we get stories about 'terrorists' (by which of course, they mean people the police want to talk to...) fleeing the country hiding under a veil, women jurors listening to MP3 players under their headwear and other heinous things associated with the veil. Or just being a Muslim, actually. And the implication is that It Is Not Healthy. Going out in your smalls at night (Sienna Miller), wearing belts across your tits and foregoing the small matter of a dress (Jodie Marsh), gracing the Oscar ceremonies with hot pants and a gaping cleavage (Pamela Anderson) - absolutely fine. Covering up; no.


In Oman, outside the hotel, and to a substantial degree within it, most of the people we met were Muslims, and they were mostly dressed in traditional clothing. The men and boys wore dishdashas, the loose white gowns fastened at the neck, and caps, and the women and girls over a certain age wore black gowns and various degrees of black headwear. Only the little girls wore Western clothing. People were dignified and restrained, and were enjoying themselves. Knots of girls laughed behind their hands with each other in the soukh as the men drank tea together. Some of the black robes were embellished with gold embroidery, and I caught glimpses of the odd Gucci handbag over an arm. The clothes are the expected norm. Some slightly hysterical commentators think that this in itself is a bad thing, but frankly there are worse things. While I'm sure in some countries there is a substantial pressure on some girls, and maybe occasionally coercion, to take up the veil, I'd guess that for most it's just what you do. In my country, in Britain, it's a girl's choice, and frankly, religion apart, I can easily see how it might be a very attractive one.

The overwhelming pressure in British society to value yourself in terms of how sexually atttractive you are, and in some cases how available you make yourself, has disempowered girls to an astoundingly depressing degree. When I was a child I was taught that my body was just a vessel to carry my mind and my heart around. And just as you'd keep your car in good running order, so you should maintain your body properly. The idea that we are put on this earth to look good for men and have sex with them transports us in a heartbeat back to the stone-age. It's as if we never moved on. And the ubiquity of booze enhances this. "Get drunk and get laid". That's the overwhelmingly accepted idea of how to have a good time. And that is propoagated in advertising, on radio shows, in songs, and to an extent on television and in films. Certainly there is no perceived shame in aiming no higher than this.

And now that I have a daughter, I object. I object so massively you would not believe it. I object to the models of womanhood with which she is presented. I object to the objectification of women and to their own self-objectification. I do not think that Jordan is a great role model for women, as it is now fashionable to assert. I am very pleased that she's happily married and she seems a sweet girl, but she's a rubbish model of femininity. Firstly I am training my child, against all odds, that she is not too fat at ten because her hip bones do not stick out; she is not going to be failing if she doesn't have gigantic jugs; it is her brain that will get her where she wants to go and no; falling out of a club at three in the morning with a huge smile, a dim-witted man and vomit down her dress will never make her a success. At the moment she aspires to greatness rather than to shagability; she admires singers who keep their clothes on and aims for quirky rather than self-abasingly sexy. At the moment I'm winning, but give it six years, when the opinion of her peers is more important to her than mine...

So yes, I can see the appeal of saying no, I'm not playing, and covering yourself up and getting on with that old-fashioned idea of life while all around you frenetic people let it all out and drink and shag and do drugs. Absolutely. And I don't see anything wrong with it, or suspicious about it, or that is an odd decision in any way.

And interestingly I couldn't stop myself staring at the girls who had the fullest veils, those ones with the little grille over the eyes. In the airport there was a woman wearing one.She was with a multi-generational group, so there were no clues as to her age, but she walked like a beautiful woman. I kept turning to look at her and at one point saw her holding her veil up while she talked on a mobile phone. She was young and pretty, if not as exquisite as I'd thought. It struck me that the hiding of oneself is very powerful. I noticed the details of the women in Oman much more than I'd see in any number of scantily clad, louche party-girls in the West.

Oh and one other thing. There was a moment at the pool when I was strolling around looking for a child, clad in my one-piece swimming costuime, and I met a couple of women in veils. I felt rather abashed as I looked at them, and thought to myself, this is where two worlds collide. And then they smiled and nodded at me and I smiled and nodded back. And I thought; no actually, it's where two worlds meet and shake hands amicably and pass on.

Perspective

Well, I'm back, and I have so much I want to record, from the inadequacies of the British system of welcoming guests to its borders, to the admirable dignity of the Arab world and the attractions of modesty, to the wonderful work of a certain William Boyd, to the mysteries of how people can be so utterly, utterly unalike in all that they think and all that they do and yet have humanity in common, to all sorts of other stuff. I'll have to gather my thoughts and post them one by one or it'll come out as so much sileage, but really, my mind is awash. It doesn't help that I'm sleep-deprived as anything and can barely keep my eyes open.

See you later.

From Shangri-La

This is all new to me. Despite all those years spent toiling in the IT industry I'm such a Luddite. When I left computers I left computers, if you get my drift, and I didn't keep up with the accelerating advance of technology.

But thanks to Martin's boyish enthusiasm and need to keep in touch with his burgeoning business Empire from holidays, here I am on the computer. Rather inexplicably, given that it's about 8am, I'm sitting in my waffle bathrobe in our rather lovely room in the Shangri-La, Muscat, Oman, keeping up with my blog while the children sleep and Martin pounds the treadmill in the gym. I have a cup of Twinings Earl Grey on the go and I couldn't be happier. I'm going to go do some exercise when he gets back, because I've eaten something just shy of my bodyweight in the 36 hours since we've been here and something has definitely got to give.

We haven't left the hotel compound yet and probably won't until tomorrow. It's their off-season here because it is, to put it frankly, bloody hot. About 37 degrees and it's only the pool, the shade of the umbrellas, the slight breeze and the cold towels that the staff pass round periodically which make it bearable. The idea of sightseeing in this heat really doesn't bear thinking about. We have to build up to it. Anyway, the children are having an amazing time in the pools and the sea and I can't face the sulky faces. Despite repeated lashings of Factor 50, Son has burnt his face and shoulders for the first time in his life, and is bewildered by the soreness. T-shirt today, I think. And maybe he won't whinge so much about the sun cream application. Nevertheless last night as he came back with the pieces of cake he'd drenched under the enormous chocolate fountain, he sat down at our table and said "I am so loving this holiday." I'm kind of with him on that. Much as I hate to admit it, I who like to rough it a little and yearn for a camper van, a bit of luxury is a wonderful thing.

O Man! Oman...

We made a decision a while back to try and book our summer holiday last minute to get a bit of a bargain.

Ho ho. That was before the heavens opened with biblical flair and Britain shut down for the summer. Summerwear is bring discounted ferociously everywhere in the shops as sales of cold and flu remedies rocket. For a month we looked at everything through a curtain of rain. While the sun is now blazing in the sky, the fiasco of July sent everybody scurrying to buy a ticket our of this sodden land. So what are the chances of getting a bargain on a holiday? Non-existent. What are the chances of booking a holiday, any holiday at all? Slim. Having tried to book promising looking holidays on Malta and Madeira only to be told that they rooms had already been allocated, Martin walked into Trailfinders last week on a mission to book a holiday. When he came out we were booked to go to Oman. They didn't have anything else for our dates.

I think we can safely assume that we may not be followed by the rain jinx which has followed us over the last three holidays we have taken, when on each occasion we were staying in the only place in the country where there was not tropical sunshine(although I still cling to the theoretical possibility that everybody, including the weatherman) was lying to us.

Oman looks good. I'm hoping for immense luxury, great food, relaxation and the odd sightseeing treat in the shape of a souk, a palace or a visit to a beautiful mosque. It will be, as my friend Jo remarked, "pigging hot" so our pale blond children will be swathed in sun-repellent clothing and soaked thoroughly in Factor 50. But I'm really looking forward to it. I've never been to that part of the world at all, so it'll be something completely new.

Was it a bargain? Er... no. But we'll revel in the luxury for a week and then live on offal for a few months when we get home.

Losing the twins

I was away with a number of other families in a nice hotel. We were having a fab time and all was going swimmingly; I looked out into the sea of children and identified Son and Daughter and then panic set in - where were the twins? I looked for the two little boys, tousle-haired; one with dark straight hair, and the other brown curls. And they were nowhere to be seen. Absolutely nowhere. My panic escalated as I scoured the hotel.

Then I found myself outside the hotel in my bikini in a strictly religious Muslim country. I was careering around beside a busy road, barely knowing what I was doing. The fumes were choking me and people were pointing in outrage at my indecent attire. Women pulled at their burqas and men dialled angrily on mobile phones. My panic was increased by the sense of guilt I suddenly felt at having not looked out for these two fragile boys, exacerbated by realisation that in all other areas of our life I was not giving them the opportunities that we had provided for the other, older children. In fact while I could remember Caleb's name, I wasn't even sure that David was the name of the other twin. My mind was unravelling.

I woke up disoriented in bed, turned to Martin who was getting ready for work, and experienced a huge surge of relief.

"I dreamed we lost the twins..." I said.

"What twins?" he answered, "We don't have any twins."

It took me a good few moments to get over the shock and convince myself that he was right.

Not quite sure how to read this: am I so attuned to guilt that I have to conceive of imaginary children to feel guilty about? Am I convincing myself that I was right in my decision not to have more children (as if I ever had a moment's doubt about that...)? Is it something to do with my teaching? I have no idea. All I know is that it has been a long time since I've had such a vivid and terrifying dream, and one which took so long to surface from.

Hey Eugene

Yes, I know it's not brand new or terribly off the wall, but I love this from Pink Martini...

I owe you an explanation

If anyone ever reads me, ever, and needs an explanation for the radical shift in mood since I was last here, no, I'm not bipolar. As far as I know.

St John's Wort, mate. Nature's Prozac. Marvellous stuff. That and the Evening Primrose (which I share with my neurotic dog) and the romantically entitled Starflower Oil are getting me back on track.

A little patch of heaven

This is a tiny little Grade II listed cottage in Wales, miles from anywhere, nestling in a lush valley, its grounds bordered by a stream. There is no mobile phone reception and you can't get television. It only has reed bed drainage and open fireplaces, there's no kitchen and it's minuscule, but utterly, utterly perfect.

And we've just had an offer accepted on it! How happy am I? Unfortunately we can't afford to use it for ourselves so we are going to let it out for as much of the year as we can once we've done enough to it to make it attractive for holiday lets. Which is as little as we can, because we don't want it spoiled. We will put in a composting loo and run some radiators off the Rayburn stove and put out loads of books and board games and a stove and a Welsh dresser and people like us will love it! We've been saving bits and pieces for ages against the day when we found the right house, and this is so it! Now I have time to go and cruise antiques sales and bric-a-brac shops to make it irresistible. This little house deserves to be full of paying customers all year round, and the pub and the garage-cum-grocery-store could do with the business.

Please let it all go through! Please, please, please!!

A little pen portrait I wrote a while back

There’s an artist who comes door to door and breathes whisky fumes at you. Every time I open the door to find him there I get a shock of annoyance and wish I’d used the peep-hole. He gets maudlin when he sees my children behind my legs. He leans down and exhales over them and tells them that he’s lost his kids. He seems to think I’ll be surprised. Even now when he’s been on my doorstep half a dozen times and told us the same thing.

I feel sorry for him with his rheumy eyes and his threadbare clothes but not for long, because then he starts to annoy me with his whining and his self-pity. You’d think he was the only man in the world to have lost his job. And wife. And kids.

He says that his street is the worst in the world for drug-dealers. Or rather it was, because he’s been moved now. He says it’s better now but there are still drug deals going down. Well, of course there are. There’s a dealer down every street in the land. And everyone’s always stunned by the revelation of criminal goings-on in their leafy avenues and nice neighbourhoods. My parents had a coke dealer operating out of the house on the corner of their Georgian cul-de-sac. There was a dealer on our last street who’d get his methadone at the chemist while I was picking up nappies. There’s probably one in the street we live in now, nestling among the students and the therapists and the social workers and the teachers.

The artist carries his wares in a plastic bag. Not a solid carrier from a high street shop, but one of those paper-like supermarket jobs which rustle when they fold and cut into your hand. He does beautiful architectural drawings, complex, technical. Not my taste, but admirable. I’m always astonished by them, and have a sneaking suspicion that he doesn’t do them himself. No one could drink the amount his breath tells me he does and draw straight lines. He says he used to be an architect before things went wrong for him. I always wonder if it was the drink first, or the marital breakdown, or the job loss, or whether they came thick and fast, a tidal wave of sorrows that engulfed him. So now he’s living in a council flat in a drugs-infested street and telling his woes on the doorsteps of strangers who will say anything to get rid of him.

Once when I’d protested several times, but pleasantly, that I didn’t have any money and therefore couldn’t buy one of his drawings, he pressed one into my hand.

“Take it anyway,” he said, “No bugger seems to want to buy any today.”

And he pinched my tiny girl’s cheek half-heartedly, as she stared back at him with blank curiosity.

It was a drawing on a post-card of St Philip’s and St James’, down in the centre of town, a run-down old Victorian church set amidst the concrete and glass of the shiny newly rebuilt shopping centre. It serves during the day as a drop-in centre for the city’s waifs and strays, a place where they can tip their contraband liquor into plastic cups of weak coffee and exchange misery.

I didn’t want it, but I couldn’t give it back. It sat on the hallway shelf for ages and has now made it into a drawer somewhere. I feel bad about it, because I really didn’t want it and I should have told him that, rather than saying that I had no cash. Now when the doorbell rings, if I remember, I use the peephole. I don’t know why, because I still open the door because I know he can hear me and I don’t want him to think badly of me. I think I’m probably nicer to him than most people because he relaxes when he sees me, leaning on the door jamb in a way that makes me search in my mind for excuses to get away; “there’s something on the stove”, “the baby needs changing”, “I’m terribly sorry but I’m really desperate for the loo”; that sort of thing.

“Hello, it’s me again,” he says, and I smile wanly, “I’m here with more of these drawings,” and he holds them up resignedly, knowing that no bugger wants them.

Rain, rain, go away

It's raining again.

It feels as if it's been raining for weeks. It hasn't of course, but it feels like it. We have had some sunny spells, but I don't think we've had a whole day without rain for ages.

Since I walk dogs every day, I am aware of the rain. They are so encrusted in mud now that I don't even bother to clean it off. So our house is festooned with dog towels. The windows were cleaned inside and out yesterday; a triumph of hope over experience if ever there was one. My house is full of washing draped everywhere in the vain hope that it might dry. We don't have a tumble dryer because we don't think it's a good thing environmentally, but if this goes on we'll be turning on the heating, which won't be doing our carbon footprint any good.

Tomorrow we're off to West Wales with kids and dogs to househunt for a holiday home. We'll be pootling round Pembrokeshire coast and the Brecon Beacons looking at seven houses. None of them will be improved by the rain, I dare say. But at least we'll see if any of them let in the water. What a joke! Apparently torrential rain will be making travelling difficult - we're to expect an average two months rainfall to happen in the next two days. Excellent. Just what the doctor ordered.

None of this is good for repelling the dog. I know some people suffer in winter with SAD - seasonal affective disorder, and they have to spend time in front of those sunlamp thingummies. Me, it's rain does it. I hate it. I can feel myself getting sadder and sadder. I don't care if the sun doesn't shine. I just want it to stop raining.

Yes, we Brits do talk about the weather all the time. We're sympathising with each other. And we laugh, if we can; it's all we can do.

Down tempo

I'm in full flow on my novel, but I have to break to post something which has troubled me for years.

Is it just me who hears songs I used to love years ago and thinks they're much SLOWER than I remember them?

Is it?

If anyone else thinks that, any ideas why?

Doing the Tony Benn historical perspective on politics thing.

In response to Andrew's comment on my post yesterday, I'm expanding a bit, as much to make sure that my thoughts hold water as from any need to convince anyone!

I have to confess to always having been a bit of a Brownite. I could see that Bambi was a Good Thing for the UK in 1997, but the gilt very soon wore off the gingerbread for me, being someone who likes a little substance with their style, and has the old fashioned belief that politicians should lead their country bravely to do the right thing rather than checking with the public whether it would be all right by them if the governement followed a certain course of action. Ironically the only time when Tony Blair did 'lead' us, when he didn't talk to a focus group, it was into that disastrous war. I don't think Gordon Brown would have done such a thing, because I don't think he is as concerned with his place in the history books, and I don't think he would ever have been blinded by the Bush dynasty.

In short, I think that had the little chat in the Ivy turned out the other way, the world would be a very different place today. But such conjecture, although interesting to me, is ultimately pointless.

But as to this government being dead in the water, well, that doesn't only depend on the leader of the party in power, or indeed the party at all, but very largely what you'd replace them with. I don't really think that David Campbell is the next Prime Minister. He's lost a lot of his own party who are bewildered by the direction he's taking the party in. He's very policy-lite. He swings from Hug a Hoodie to We're The Party Who Support Marriage in that populist way which TB made work so well, but the British populace are wise to that now, so he comes off as doing a pale imitation of Blair ten years too late.

I think there's a historical precedent for what's happening in British politics today. The post-1997 turmoil in the Conservative party looks very much like the post-1979 turmoil in Labour.

In 1979 Thatcher slaughters Callaghan and Labour panics. With Britain having elected a right wing government they lurch sharply to the Left and choose Michael Foot as their leader over arguably the best leader they never had in Dennis Healey.

In 1997 Blair slaughters Major and the Conservatives panic. With Britain having elected a soft left government, they lurch sharply to the right and elect William Hague over arguably the best leader they never had in Ken Clarke.

In 1983 Thatcher wins again. Michael Foot ditched. In comes another left winger in Neil Kinnock. He in turn is defeated in 1987.

In 1992, unbelievably and unexpectedly, Major, who’s knocked out Thatcher, wins over Kinnock, who stands down. The marvellous John Smith comes in, but death cheats him of his election opportunity and it’s young Tony Blair who wins the election.

Now the Tories implode. In 2001 Blair wins again, predictably. Hague is ditched in favour of Ian Duncan-Smith, another right winger. Then Michael Howard loses in 2005, and now our Dave will pitch at the next election. They haven’t got it right yet and they’re all over the place. I can’t see that they have yet earned the right to run the country. No one knows what they stand for. Not even they know what they stand for.

True, David Campbell looks, politically, a little like Tony Blair a decade ago, and not, I think, in a good way. His ‘modernisation’ of the party has a whiff of TB c.1996-7 about him, but really, it’s all a bit pallid and passé.

I reckon that GB will win another election; the Tories will change leader and win the next one. Maybe I’m wrong, but I might even be persuaded to place a small wager that I’m not.

Nice one, Gordon.

I think Gordon Brown has made a good start to his leadership. I like the fact that he's a little dourer and less televisually appealing than Bambi, (whom I liked until he decided to stop leading and start pandering). Where politics has turned into a beauty contest, the intellectual level of the debate is usually low, the wrong people get elected and stuff starts going hideously wrong. I like that Brown is as likely to spin events as my dog. He's a plain-speaking Scotsman and I respect him for it. I like that he's inclusive and wants a cabinet full of big brains and big talents. (Pity the new Home Secretary, clever, talented Jackie Smith; a big mipper if ever there was one, whose statement about the Glasgow airport and London bombs was subject to press scrutiny...because of the depth of her cleavage - what crass tossers the press are sometimes. Would they discuss a male member's package, if you'll pardon the pun? I think not.) I like that Gordon doesn't talk about his religion. Note to future participants in the British electoral process; we're not American - we don't do that. I like the fact that he's ditched the supercasinos - what a rubbish idea that was! I like that he's serious, intelligent and he won't be the story if he can help it at all.

The reason I've put up the two photos above is because of an interest I've had for many years. When I was studying for my French degree I wrote a paper about press political bias in the French newspapers. To illustrate my point about this I included a large section on the choice of photographs of particular plitical figures. Jacques Chirac, at the time mayor of Paris, was depicted as hard, untrustworthy and borderline misshapen in the left-wing papers, and shiny, smiling and handsome in those of the right.

One of these photos comes from the Daily Mail, the other from a Northern Labour website. Any guesses?

What's your theme?

Martin likes animals. He'll watch animal documentaries, reads animal books, supports animal charities. He'll cry about the plight of polar bears. He's not anthropomorhic about them either. He doesn't attribute human characteristics to our furry friends. He respects animals in all their bloody, fierce, primal, instinctive, essence.

Me, however, there's only so much wildlife I can watch. I like people. I watch documentaries about people, read about people and support people charities. And like Martin, I don't really expect people to be any different from the way they are. I accept people's petty vanities, prejudices, idolatries, their brutality and their potential to be sublime.

And for that reason I am fascinated by the twin issues of memory and identity. I only mention that because that's what my novel is about. And because I'm so fascinated by memory and identity I'm getting carried away on stuff which isn't strictly plot-driven. But as I'm not writing a screenplay this time it's okay!

How much of our identity is dependent on memory; from our earliest days to what we chose to eat at our last meal (in my case a prawn sandwich, even though I'd promised myself I'd take the time to make a salad - and then I beat myself up for being overweight...)? I would argue that all of our identity is based on memory; those we remember but also those which through choice or overburden, we have elected to forget.

Memory is interesting on so many levels. Not long ago I sat with a friend in a group and we shared memories of a holiday we took together some fifteen years ago. She was telling anecdotes which were hilarious, but which featured incidents that I didn't remember. When I told stories, I could see her wrinkling her forehead in an effort to recall. Sometimes people recount things that happened and I was there and I don't remember it at all like that! But who's to say my memory is right and theirs is wrong...?

And sometimes when I'm sharing a little story with my friends or family, I wonder even as I'm recounting it whether what I remember actually happened. I'm not beyond embroidering a story for effect, and I think that my memory has become entirely untrustworthy.

So when all these noteworthy (and supremely un-noteworthy) people pen their memoirs years after the event, how much of their memories are reliable? Clive James recognised this when he wrote his "Unreliable Memoirs", and a terrific read it was. How much of what happened to me exists in my memories, fragile, malleable things that they are, and how much in what actually happened, even if I can't, or don't want to, remember it?

Which leads me onto the subject of identity. Traditionally, and I can't quote the source, your identity is supposed to be made up of how you see yourself, how others see you and how you think others see you. Well, by that token I'm a different person every day of my life. Yesterday, for the very first time in my life, I was alarmed by a very fleeting, but quite intense, suicidal thought. Now that's a big thing, but I can't say that I'm a suicidal person. As soon as this thought flitted into my head I immediately rationalised it, and within a couple of paces had about five reasons sorted out why I shouldn't do what had popped into my head. Some days I think I'm the life and soul of the party; somedays something approaching a hermit. Some days people would describe me as friendly and approachable; some days a bitch on wheels.

I think memory and identity are so fluid as to be intangible. That thing about never stepping in the same river twice? Same thing with who I am or who you are. To try and pin people down is to diminish them and render them in their simplest possible likeness - a walking waxwork. Never trust one of them. And never trust those studies which try to categorise us... I am not just middle class, nor middle aged nor an AB1, nor an INFP, nor a auditory learner. I am me.

Black Dog

You will have noticed that I'm generally fairly up. But every now and then I fall into the clutches of the black dog of depression, and it floors me. It doesn't last that long, I'm pleased to say, so that I always know that I just have to get through it and I'll be cracking jokes as usual, but while I'm there it's not good.

While I've never, ever considered ending it all by topping myself, there have been a number of times when I've considered how easy it would be just to walk away from everything. I never would, naturally, as I'm far too responsible for that, but every now and then it's a tempting thought.

Now since I'm not a teenager burdened with too much make-up and an unnatural desire for negative attention, I'm not going to detail the ins and outs of my tussle with the dog. I am instead going to give you the opening of my current work in progress, the idea of which came to me in a previous, very similar, episode in my life.

Given all that followed, it is ironic that the most formative experience of my early life happened to someone else. After all, if the body lying partially hidden among the waste bins behind the Tudor Rose Hotel had been mine, as it should have been, as it was intended to be, then the existential crisis that led me to where I am today wouldn't really have cropped up.

They should have discovered me there, Claire, crushed and bloody. But instead it was Heidi, an exchange student from Hamburg earning a little extra money to indulge her passion for Miss Selfridge and glass paperweights, who was struck with a baseball bat on the back of the neck by a large, aggressive, but sentimental petty criminal. It was her family who were deprived of the chance to see her flower into womanhood and middle age, while I am heading stolidly in that direction.

I was coming out of a club in Bristol at the time of the murder, going through the lyrics of Joan Armatrading's "Walk under Ladders", and reflecting once again what an underrated artist she was, how absurd it was that she hadn't achieved the popular success of the likes of Culture Club. Entertaining as they were, they couldn't hold a candle to her for lyrical power. She had a profile, it’s true, but it was a low-key one. I comforted myself that their light would blaze and go out, but hers would be like the Olympic Flame. Later I traced the timing back to that one moment, that specific train of thought, and marvelled that I was unable to sense the life of a colleague, a friend even by some definitions, being snuffed out.

If Heidi had said 'no' when I asked her to swap shifts so that I could go and see Joan Armatrading at the Locarno; if Joan Armatrading had had a sore throat and had to cancel; if there hadn’t been a spare ticket for me in the first place, it wouldn’t have been Heidi pulling up her coat collar against the winter chill as she locked the kitchen door at midnight, relieved to be away from the smell of chip fat and looking forward to a beer and a cuddle with her rather thick English boyfriend in the comfort of her own flat. And I, Claire, would be dead.

Then it would have been my parents sitting, blotchy and stunned, in the pew-like seats of the court, listening to the evidence of how their daughter had been killed - the physical details, the scene of crime reports, the events leading up to it. Only it wouldn't have been so senseless, because it wouldn't have been a mistake. The events leading up to it wouldn't have been events that occurred in someone else's life. So they wouldn't have been able to turn their empty faces to another, similar, young woman, blaming her, all the while knowing that there was no reason to do so, but seeming guiltily almost to wish that if they looked hard enough at her the dreadful mistake might be rectified in retrospect.

If Heidi and I hadn't shared an enthusiasm for the same shade of a well-known hair colorant, if we hadn't been such slaves to fashion that we'd both rushed out to buy that black wool coat recommended in Cosmo, if Heidi had been a little thinner, or a little fatter, then perhaps he'd have realised I wasn't there, postponed the murder for a night, gone home and had a cup of tea and realised that it was an overreaction to want to crush the life out of me, to shatter my skull just because I warned Stephanie about him.

But then if Stephanie had never decided to overcome her natural disinclination to talk to unsuitable men in pubs, determined to quash her tendency to judge people by their looks, or if she'd picked instead the weedy, anoraked Mummy's boy whom she'd never normally have spoken to either, then perhaps Heidi would still be alive and so would I. Perhaps Mark Hunter would have met another girl, in his own time, in his own way; maybe she'd have shown him it didn't have to be like this. Maybe he'd have given up the gear, gone into rehab, got himself a job somewhere, settled down and had children, watched TV of an evening and warned his kids about the perils of drugs. Instead of doing life in Broadmoor.

And had I not decided that a seaside town was the ideal place to spend my summer holidays in 1985, surfing by day and washing dishes by night, then confronted fifteen years later with the opportunity to become someone else, maybe like most people I would have decided against it, wouldn't have taken Heidi's name and wouldn't now be living with one foot in fact and the other in fiction.

Mull and Manrique

Yes, we went to Mull. Yes, it has a micro climate. Yes, it rained. And rained and rained and rained. I believe that you should never ever go back to somewhere you've enjoyed because it is NEVER the same the second time around. Never.

I was adamant that I was going to do some writing and guess what. I didn't. I was BORED. I'm never bored. I believe fervently that only boring people get bored; interesting people can always find something interesting to do. My children know this mantra. They never complain of being bored. So there you are. It rained and I got bored.

I think I must be a bit of a jinx on holiday. Last month I went with a group of friends to Lanzarote for Denise's 40th birthday (Thanks, Ant!) and, while it didn't rain, the weather was dreadful. I learned two new Spanish phrases, which we heard every where we went: "Hace mal tiempo" - It's bad weather, and "Hace mucho viento" - it's very windy. Mucho viento? I should coco! We spent one afternoon on a beach and had a full body exfoliation from the sheets of sand which stripped us of comfort and skin. I think we managed to pretend we were enjoying ourselves for about an hour and a half before we gave in a headed for the bar for a refreshing beer.

But because it wasn't really hanging around the pool weather we went all around the island in search of culture and volcanoes. What an amazing place!

The twin influences on Lanzarote, each of which has left an indelible mark oin the place, are the volcano and an artist, a contemporary of Picasso and Miro, a man called Cesar Manrique.



The island is volcanic. In the eighteenth century the volcano erupted...for six years, wiping out everything, every man, woman, child, every tree, every blade of grass. We were told this in a matter of fact way as we were touring the volcanic craters in a tour bus. I looked out over this desolate lunar landscape and tried to imagine what that actually meant, what it actually looked like at the time. Can you imagine such an awful event - the volcano belching forth fire as you were working in the fields? Worrying about your children, not far away in the house which was in moments to be enveloped forever. Appalling.

The agriculture of Lanzarote has been coaxed out of the lava which coats everything like a thick mud pack. Farming here is hard, what with the unforgiving lava beneath and the harsh wind above ground. So vines and other plants are sheltered in small dips in ythe lava, surrounded by the shelter of dry stone walls in three quarter circles, the earth weighted with a sprinkling of lava stones. Even walking across this terain is exhausting; to farm it must be backbreaking.

Take a look at this:

Then there is Cesar Manrique. Artist and architect, it can be rarely that a man has left so vast a mark on his native land. Manrique worked with the landscape and the climate, harnessed it to make strange and wonderful things - buildings which use the difficulties of the locale and turned them to his advantage. His house was built out of a series of volcanic bubbles in the ground. By clever use of paint and mosaic and cutting just the right apertures in the stony walls he created beautiful rooms bathed in astonishing natural light. I could barely tear myself away.

He also built the Mirador, a point at the extreme end of Lanzarote looking over the bloest sea. He designed and built the Vistors' Centre in the volcanic park, and the curious, but compelling cactus park. Even if you hate cacti, which I really REALLY do, you find yourself giving in to this place. Stand one one of the raised levels and look over the planting and you have surrealist art. Extraordinary. Andon many of the millions of roundabouts all over Lanzarote are huge and colourful wind sculptures designed by... yes, Manrique. I'm not sure we saw any art by anyone else. To be honest, I'm not sure there's room for anyone else.

I loved being in Lanzarote, not least because of the company. Away from the family for a week, I did miss them, but in a good way, and they had time to miss me, and be pleased when I got back. But being with such a diverse group of fantastic women was a real joy. We drank far too much, we talked even more. We cooperated and had an amazing time.

All in all, fabulous. And to the beautiful and ridiculously youthful Denise, cheers!

Back to Mull

We're going back to Mull tomorrow to see if it's as gorgeous at Easter as it is in high summer. Given that today we've spent the day in the garden, all the French windows flung open, for all the world like an August day, I suspect it might be rather wonderful. Having said that, the Western Isles seem to have their own micro-climate, and not in a good way.

So for once my absence will be justified. I'll have lots to say when I get back.

The picture was taken by Martin while walking the dogs in July. Makes your heart soar, doesn't it? God's own country indeed.

Old rockers don't know when to stop

From the BBC news website this morning: "Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards has claimed he snorted the ashes of his late father during a drugs binge.
"He was cremated and I couldn't resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow," he told NME."

Now I've always had the suspicion that behind the hard-living, high-rolling, head-banging facade of most of those 70s dinosaurs of rock lie some really mind-blowingly stupid people and now I think I have the proof.

What was he trying to prove with this? "I am more decadent than anybody else"? Perhaps "I don't adhere to the small-time taboos of the little people"? How about "Hey, look at me - what a raging twat." The NME readers will surely be bemused. Will there be many who aill applaud him "Yeah! Go Keith, you old rocker!"? Some, I'm sure. But probably not many.

Maybe he did it, maybe he didn't. His publicist, who's probably scanning the appointments pages or leafing through her contacts book as I write, insists that she can't believe anyone took the claim seriously. If he did it, he's as addled as the most addled addled thing in the history of being addled. And frankly, if he made it up, that really smacks of desperation. A pensioner, clinging to the remnants of his bad-boy reputation; a pensioner who falls out of a tree when drunk or stoned. Frankly it's very disappointing. I remember Keith Richard when I was a child, when he was gorgeous; etiolated and wan but wiry and devastatingly glamorous.

I went to see the Stones at Wembley years ago and they were already past their best. My brother made jokes then about Zimmer frames. And here we are, some fifteen years on, and they're still churning out music, going on tour and bragging about excesses. I have some sympathy with the Who's position. But I don't want them to die - I just want them to retire. The music's rubbish, the debauchery is embarrassing and they're not fooling anybody.

Hang up the leathers and the headband, Uncle Keith, and have a nice cup of tea.