I’ve read a few of John Boyne’s novels over the years, and enjoyed them all. It was therefore no surprise at all that I enjoyed this short 2023 novel, the first of a promised quartet themed around the elements.

Set on an isolated Irish island, we follow 53-year-old Vanessa Carlin—who changes her name to Willow Hale right at the start—as she spends time coming to terms with the collapse of her family life. The collapse was caused by the actions of her husband, which are gradually revealed across the whole course of the novel, and in which the world assumes her to be complicit.

The arc of the novel, following Carlin/Hale’s retreat from the world, reminded me a lot of the non-fiction book Wintering by Katherine May—there is certainly a degree of thematic similarity between the two. It’s a novel about reflection, regret and recovery, as well as much more besides.

I enjoy Boyne’s writing for its deep interest in people: his characters seem complete and emotionally complex. I find his novels comforting, even while the content is often challenging, as I can be confident in his robust storytelling skill.

However, Boyne sometimes veers towards cliché in his expression of ideas. I’ve sometimes wondered whether this is a deliberate authorial choice to represent the way that real people often make sense of the world, or whether Boyne has a bit of a blind spot for cliché. In this book, a character reflects on the lack of a word for a parent who has lost a child: a clichéd observation that collapses after a moment’s thought about the speed of change in infant mortality rates versus the speed of the development of English. This stood out because I didn’t believe that the character would give in to that sort of cliché, which made me favour my blind spot theory over authorial intent.

But regardless: I thoroughly enjoyed this, and have already bought the second book of the quartet.

One of the greatest pleasures of attending an art exhibition with Wendy is her reaction to the more pretentious object labels.

There was a moment in Madrid’s Reina Sofia when, after reading a particularly florid text, she just said ‘I don’t have the bandwidth for that’ and turned on her heel. It’s usually hard to disagree.

Wendy wasn’t able to attend ‘Fragile Beauty’ at the V&A with me, but when I read the label accompanying Richard Caldicott’s untitled triptych, I did wonder what she’d have made of it:

Richard Caldicott’s red, yellow and blue triptych playfully transforms everyday objects – in this case Tupperware food-storage containers – into a sea of colour. The artist’s choice of primary hues references classic colour theory, underpinning hundreds of years of optical experiment. To stand in front of Caldicott’s photographs is to be confronted by a field of light refracted by luminous kitchenware.

I think she may well have furrowed her brow and exclaimed: ‘But why would you want to be confronted by luminous kitchenware?!’

Fragile Beauty continues at the V&A until 5 January next year.

I passed these friendly folk on my way home from work. Most people in the UK think that cows lie down when it’s about to rain, but I’m pleased to report that beautiful sunshine saw me home.

One of the problems with posts like this, which repeat stories that are simply untrue, is that the lie can stick longer in the mind than the truth. One suspects that some politicians may be choosing to exploit that fact at the moment.

The 2019 General Election result showed that being sacked for lying twice was no barrier to gaining the public’s trust—but one wonders whether that trick can be pulled repeatedly.

I borrowed this 1944 novel from the library after seeing it featured in the New York Times newsletter Read Like The Wind. I found it to be a funny and gently comforting read.

The book is set in England in the late 1930s, and the titular character is an orphan in her twenties whose self-confident temperament does not fit the social mores of the time. Uninterested in what is ‘right’ and ‘proper’ for a young lady, she ploughs her own furrow with innocent charm.

In an attempt to get her to conform to her social standing, her uncle sends her into ‘service’ as a parlourmaid in a large country house, with amusing consequences. On the surface, this novel is a traditional farce, but scarcely beneath the surface, Sharp uses that comedy to skewer pretty much all contemporary societal norms. The looming war doesn’t escape judgement either.

Sometimes, I read historical novels and find them a bit of an effort, even if that effort is rewarded by what I take away from them. Not so this book: the pages flew by, and the humour was right up my street. It didn’t feel like I was reading something that was eighty years old.

Some highlights:

She had got to the Ritz. She had got as far as Chelsea—put her nose, so to speak, to a couple of doors—and each time been pulled back by Uncle Arn, or Aunt Addie, people who knew what was best for her, only their idea of the best was being shut up in a box—in a series of smaller and smaller boxes until you were safe at last in the smallest box of all, with a nice tombstone on top.

“She likes to see a young lady who doesn’t put stuff on her face,” said Mr. Wilson. “If I may say so, so do I.”

“Well, it wouldn’t do any good,” said Cluny frankly. “I’ve tried it, but I look worse.”

“They all look worse,” said the chemist. “Only they haven’t the sense to know it.”

The bluntness of a friend in pain is never hurtful.

“Please can you lend me a good book?” he asked politely.

Before answering Betty switched on a second light, which thoroughly illumined the whole room. The conjunction of a highly desirable appearance with a great deal of sense had inevitably taught her much that young girls were not commonly supposed to know: for instance, that a strong light is almost as good as a chaperone.

“Darling,” said Andrew, as they finished their coffee, “would you like to marry me next month?”

“No, thank you,” said Betty. “What a fool idea, darling.”

I have so often thought how in all English art the place of women is taken by landscape. Your poetry is full of it, you are a nation of landscape painters. In other countries a man spends his fortune on a mistress; here you marry a fortune to save your estates.

If you had a smattering of education you would realize that perfection of form can give validity to any sentiment, however preposterous.

It feels strange to live through an election period where a change of Government is forecast with—by the sober analysis of The Economist—99% certainty. While it’s democratically essential, even going through the motions of the campaign feels a little disconnected from reality, even before one considers the specific promises made by candidates.

Tonight, Julie Etchingham will host the first televised debate of this election, ostensibly between the two candidates who could plausibly be Prime Minister on 5 July—though it’s hard not to wonder whether more people ought to be involved if a 1 in 100 chance is considered ‘plausible’. It feels like false equivalence—not that I have a better suggestion. It also feels narrowly composed: the recent experience of Prime Ministers leaving office between elections shows us that the candidates are asking us to place our confidence in the leader selection process for each of their parties as much as in them personally.

On Saturday, the always-excellent Stephen Bush had a brilliant article in the FT Weekend exploring how British politics has lost touch with reality. He points out that both Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer are guilty of promising things that they cannot plausibly deliver. It is this three-paragraph excoriation of Rishi Sunak’s failure to make even the simplest of changes that particularly stands out:

Remember, too, that Sunak has been unable to achieve some seemingly achievable policy challenges. Although it is early days, it is hard to see how any political party in the general election will manage a better argument as to why Sunak should not be re-elected than the one that came from the man himself. He described his failed attempt to ban future generations from buying cigarettes as evidence of “the type of prime minister I am”, and he was right. Rishi Sunak is the type of prime minister who, when he wants to do something, when it is backed by large majorities in both his own party and the Labour opposition . . . still can’t reliably deliver.

In this case, his attempt to bring about a “smoke-free generation” — the flagship not only of his attempt to rebrand himself as a “change candidate” last autumn but also one of his signature achievements in his speech calling the election — came unstuck because he couldn’t manage the simple trick of not expediting the legal change ahead of an election he didn’t need to hold.

Whether you agree with Sunak’s phased smoking ban or not, the difficult truth for the prime minister is that passing his ban into law was a public policy challenge with the difficulty turned all the way down to “casual”. Yet he could not manage it. Nor is it an isolated example. One of Sunak’s earliest initiatives was a push to teach all children in England a form of maths until 18. If, as looks likely, he leaves office in five weeks’ time, the country will be less equipped to teach maths to 18 than when he took office — because there are fewer maths teachers. There is no prospect that Sunak, a limited prime minister with few achievements to his name, is going to be able to keep the promises he is now making, any more than he could make the snow fall on Christmas Day and the sun shine in June and July.

In 2024, comparisons are inevitably drawn with the 1997 election. In the exit poll for that election, 57% of the respondents felt that John Major could be trusted, versus 56% for Tony Blair. At the start of the 2024 election campaign, 21% of respondents considered Rishi Sunak to be trustworthy, and 28% considered Keir Starmer to be trustworthy. Those figures portend poorly for Sunak, but perhaps worse for the population, representing as they do a complete collapse of trust in politicians.

We can debate how much of that collapse is attributable to a failure to keep simple promises, and how much to the criminal behaviour of some politicians. But it seems unlikely that the continued disconnect between political rhetoric and reality will repair trust—or that a fantastical television debate will do anything but further damage trust in our politicians.

The image at the top of this post was generated by DALL·E 3.

The first weekend of summer took Wendy and I for a walk along the spectacular coastal footpath between South Shields and Sunderland. We stopped for some lunch at the unique Marsden Grotto, carved from the cliff face.

The last time we did this walk, we were soaked to the skin by lashing rain, but nevertheless enjoyed ourselves. Repeating it in glorious sunshine was a treat.

Our route from South Shields Metro station to Sunderland Metro station was 10.7 miles in all. I dare say it won’t be long until we tackle it again.

I was sorry to learn yesterday that Midnight Trains, a company promising ‘luxury hotels on rails’ connecting European cities, has admitted defeat… though I quite liked their whimsically melancholy animation.

For the last few years, I have enjoyed their weekly newsletter about their progress setting up the service. They have talked often of the difficulty of setting up a new international train company, but I had hoped (and perhaps assumed) that the strength of their vision would see them through.

Wendy and I have often reflected that we’d love to be able to board a night train in Newcastle and wake up in—or on our way to—any number of European cities. I’ve written before about how I’m particularly attracted to the more luxurious end of the spectrum. The en suites with showers in the new(ish) Caledonian Sleeper rolling stock played a big part in my decision to give it a go.

Wendy and I both believe, as I wrote then, that ‘there’s something ineffably luxurious about spending time in the act of travelling rather than rushing from place to place’. We recently reflected that a recent trip had felt less relaxing as a result of hopping on a point-to-point flight rather than giving ourselves time to ease into the journey.

I’m sorry that Midnight Trains has hit the buffers before it really got going, but I’m pleased to see the continued re-growth of European sleepers—and it surely won’t be long until I’m back on board.

Steinbeck’s 1945 novel has been on my ‘to read’ list for years. I’ve finally got round to it after a friend pressed it into my hands. I had recommended Sombrero Fallout by Richard Brautigan to her, and she said that she felt the two had similarities of style and theme. I agree.

There’s probably little point me rehearsing the plot of such a famous book, but if you’re unfamiliar as I was, Cannery Row is set during the Great Depression and is formed of a series of interlinked short stories about characters who live on a street of sardine canneries. It’s a charming, nostalgic, funny and wise book whose characters live long in the memory.

It’s one of those short classics that I wish I’d read sooner.

I’ve visited Durham Cathedral many times over the years, and it’s where I matriculated as a Durham student in 2003. Yet, only in the last few days have I made my first ascent of the 325 steps to the top of the central tower.

I’ve always found it hard to imagine time in the context of Durham Cathedral. Bits of it are nearly 1,000 years old, which is a span that boggles my mind. The scale and grandeur of the structure also challenges my preconceptions of the technology of a millennium ago.

The tower I climbed is over 500 years old, and while the narrow spiral staircases felt like it, it’s still astonishing to contemplate that age—and in how many people’s footsteps I was treading.

On emerging at the top, the view is breathtaking. Particularly prominent to the East is HMP Durham, which I’ve previously visited in a professional capacity.

I also find the timeline HMP Durham mind-boggling, but in the opposite direction: young men were still being hanged at the prison gallows in my parents’ lifetime—an act of the state that seems unimaginable today.

It’s truly discombobulating to stand at the top of a very tall building and contemplate how little has changed over a millennium, and yet how much has changed in a lifetime.

Today, the UK’s parliament is due to be dissolved, meaning that we cease to have members of parliament (MPs), because there’s nothing for them to be a member of. But when, exactly, does this happen? It’s taken more reading up than seems sensible, but I think I now know.

If the Prime Minister had decided to just let the parliament expire, it would have been automatically dissolved ‘at the beginning of the day that is the fifth anniversary of the day on which it first met.’

I’m not completely sure of the meaning in law of ‘the beginning of the day’—I assume it’s effectively midnight, but perhaps the intention is the beginning of the parliamentary day? In which case, I’m not sure whether that would mean immediately after the close of the previous day’s session (which could run past midnight), or the morning after. But we needn’t detain ourselves on this point, as the Prime Minister asked the King to dissolve parliament early, which is done through royal proclamation.

You might think that a royal proclamation would come into force at the moment it is signed by the monarch, or perhaps the moment the seal is affixed, or perhaps some moment when it’s read out in parliament, but you’d be wrong.

Under the Crown Office Act 1877, a royal proclamation takes effect from the moment it is published in The Gazette. In recent years, there seems to have been a convention that proclamations are published online at midday, so it seems likely that we’ll have no MPs from this afternoon.