Swimming

Early Saturday morning
changing my son for his swim lesson
his skinny ribs and slender limbs.
He points his hands and toes in delight -
expectation of the water.
It is hard to remember what life was like at the age of eight.
Mixture of my build, wife's skin,
his grandfather's hair colour in the sunlight.
A re-expression of all of us, and yet unique.
He swims better than I could.

Context

The other day I awoke slightly later than I should have done, and came down to see that my eight-year-old son had been amusing himself quite happily for about an hour on our laptop, sitting at the dining room table. I asked him what he was doing.

“Watching videos on YouTube,” came the reply, with a large grin.

I am aware of the sort of thing he watches, and know if he strays off track to something unsuitable. His browsing history is hour after hour of tedious videos of other children playing computer games and providing a commentary. I can’t think of anything less inspiring than watching someone else play a computer game, but I am assured that it is another possible route to stardom and riches, and that some of the most successful gamers are stars in their own right.

What I find troubling about my son’s entertainment is that he jumps from video to video, rarely watching it all, and there is no continuity or sense to his viewing. His selection is Magpie-like and random. It is a powered-up kind of channel surfing. There is no narrative.

I have to fight hard to stop this pondering turning into an ‘In The Good Old Days’ rant.

But compare his experience to mine at the same age.

In an age before internet, there were four TV channels (three before 1982), you had to go to an amusement arcade to play computer games, and if you wanted to watch something, you had to look in the newspaper and be in at the time – and wait.

Only with the wide availability of video recorders did this change. I had plenty of friends who had a video by the mid-eighties, but ours did not arrive until 1988. Even when videos became available, the recording was unreliable, playback inferior, and for many years people’s habits did not change. We simply turned up at the same time every week for Blue Peter, Tomorrow’s World or ITV World OfSport.

My televisual excitements had context. Blue Peter aired on Mondays and Thursdays every week, and if I wanted to overindulge in making things with toilet rolls and sticky-backed plastic there was no quick fix.

I am intrigued that my son and his generation of viewers never have to wait for the next instalment. It’s all there: thousands of hours of film, video, music and sport; all a click away. We have become so used to this amazing availability that I for one feel indignation if something is not easily found on the internet.

As a result I know my habits have changed. I am impatient, and I rarely watch something all the way though. Even though I am always around, I still hit the magic button to record Pointless Celebrities, just in case. I have a digital box that was recently replaced, because the memory wasn’t sufficient to cope with the hundred or so hours of Alexander and Richard and their gentle quizzing of the public. When I do watch Pointless, I have honed the viewing experience down to a fine art of fast-forward and pause, so that I can watch a forty-five minute episode in about twenty minutes.

Music has changed even more fundamentally. I grew up in the age of the album. The first burst of rock n’ roll was conducted through the single, and various people have suggested that it changed about the time of Sgt Pepper. The album, whether on vinyl or cassette, demanded time and care. When I was a teenager a great pleasure was to put on a whole album and listen from track one to the end. I was not one to jump up and skip to favourite tracks. As a result I have a pretty comprehensive knowledge of a lot of 1980s rock and metal, and a lot that preceded it as I mined Led Zeppelin, the Eagles and late Beatles for the sheer joy of it.

Musicians used to take a lot of time and care over the playing order of their songs on each album, because they knew there were people like me out there who would listen to every second of it. A pleasant side-avenue to all this is that very often they would put one of the stronger songs at the start of side two. Sgt Pepper had ‘Within You Without You’ to start the second side, which really got me thinking. Pet Sounds had ‘God Only Knows’. One of These Nights by The Eagles had ‘Lyin’ Eyes’. See what I mean? They were worth waiting for, and got the mind racing after you had turned over.

An album was a bit like a story or a journey (Sgt Pepper is the classic example of this) and the start of side two was where you really got into it.

I don’t want to labour the point, but I can say that listening in this way makes some albums (especially mid-period REM) a transcendent experience.

What is music like now?

Music is consumed.

Music isn’t even paid for anymore. A generation of digital listeners have grown up thinking that it is their right to rip music off the internet for free. As a result, those making the music are obliged to go out and perform a lot more, to make ends meet. The stadium tour is where the money is at. The Rolling Stones juggernaut is proof that the sellable thing is now the brand of the band, rather than what they have committed to vinyl.

That isn’t the most important change. The most important thing is that all music is now heard out of context. If you want to listen to ‘Losing My Religion’ it is unlikely that you will hear it as part of the album ‘Out of Time’ (not the first track on side two, incidentally). It is more likely that you will either flip, twirl or click on your phone, or Google it. What happens? Equally as impressive songs like ‘Near Wild Heaven’ are overlooked, relegated to the back of the virtual drawer with the safety pins and plastic spoons.*

Reading has also become a fragmentary experience. Much has been written about the way that e-Readers have changed people’s habits, and liberated us from carrying so many books around. I am suspicious that the main change is the way that people read. In this respect I am a Luddite. I take great pleasure in reading from real books, sharing them, writing my name and the year in the front, and knowing exactly how far into the book I am. The ‘percentage left’ at the bottom of the screen is not for me. I prefer to take a train ticket as a bookmark and leave it in the back when I have finished. Books are physical markers of the passing of time – I look at my bookshelf and can remember with pleasure where I was when I read certain books. They bookmark my existence – if you’ll excuse the pun.

I read books from start to finish. With a real book I am much more likely to do this. I know, because when reading on a Kindle I often have three books going at the same time and flip between them. Reading becomes a less immersive experience for me. Am I typical? What do the rest of the reading population do? I strongly suspect that they give into temptation, like me.

My concern is that there are many young people who live lives without context, and therefore without meaning. They never eat a three course meal. They do not write letters. They rarely deal with money in any significant way. They are unable to tell the time on an analogue clock. They barely talk to anyone on the telephone, preferring text. Even the telephone is a poor substitute to a conversation face to face.

Is it healthy? What does it do to our brains?

And is anyone worried?

Should we be providing more opportunities for our children to learn about life in context, with patterns and time for reflection?

__________________________________________________________________________

Whilst I was writing this I listened to the whole of ‘Led Zeppelin I’, and it was fabulous. I did, however, check Facebook and Twitter four times each.

*The 1991 REM album 'Out of Time' named the sides 'Time Side' and 'Memory Side'. Them were the days...

The Longest Afternoon – The 400 men who decided the Battle of Waterloo, Brendan Simms, Penguin, 85 pages

Brendan Simms, a Cambridge professor, has written a surprising and fascinating book about just how close the Battle of Waterloo was in 1815, and how a small group of men – no more than four hundred – were crucial in the outcome of the battle. It is a valuable addition to knowledge of the events for English-language readers.

The revelation is actually that it wasn’t the Thin Red Line of British soldiers that turned the tide against the Napoleonic French – it was a small group of Hanoverians who were part of the King’s German Legion.

Simms asserts that the farmhouse at La Haye-Sainte, which was at a crossroads in the middle of the battlefield, was crucial to success or failure. It was held all day by the Hanoverians, and only lost when the vital support of the Prussians had arrived on the battlefield. Of the four hundred that started the battle that morning, when roll was called at the end only forty-two were able to account for themselves. It is a story of epic bravery, amazingly skilled soldier-craft, and considerable luck. The force was held together by an indomitable Hanoverian called Georg Baring. He lived to tell his tale. His companion, Colonel Ompteda, was less fortunate. Ordered at the end of the day to chase down French skirmishers and attempt to re-take the farmhouse, he perished.

In a short book – little more than an extended essay - the author manages to give a real idea of the colour of the battle, the sacrifice, the importance of the stronghold, and how it really was the turning point. Had the French been able to shift the Hanoverians from the farmhouse earlier in the day, Napoleon could have set up his big guns close enough to the British to annihilate Wellington. He would have won the battle, continued to dominate Europe, and may even have attempted an invasion of England to remove them from the alliance. You are welcome to explore the ‘what ifs’ of that scenario.

Brendan Simms also manages to describe the political aftermath of the victory, and how it shaped Europe for years to come. There are a few interesting passages at the end about how awkward the hundredth anniversary was in 1915, and of how French diplomatic pressure prevented the Queen laying a wreath in 1965.

His main point politically is how the allied army was a truly international force, and a sort of proto-NATO. It wasn’t just The Iron Duke against Old Bony. Von Blucher was just as important, and his late arrival saved the day. Had the brave Hanoverians not stood their ground at La Haye-Sainte, however, there would have been nobody left saving.

It really was a close as the historians have always said.

William IV

William IV A King at Sea by Roger Knight, Penguin, 86 pages, £10.99

Penguin have long been the purveyors of good ideas for short books. Who remembers Penguin 60s, the simple little extracts that fitted neatly into a pocket for a quiet escape to the pub?

Beginning last year, they have set out to capture a short picture of every monarch from Athelstan (924-7) to Queen Elizabeth II. In doing so they have enlisted the penmanship of some of our finest writers. Philip Ziegler has written on GeorgeVI and David Cannadine on George V. Elizabeth II was awarded to Douglas Hurd. The project will be completed by 2018 when the aptly named Edmund King will write about Henry I.

They are attractive volumes, produced by Allen Lane, and easy enough to read in a day. I decided on William IV to dip my toe in the water because I had only read briefly about him and do not have the courage to embark on Philip Ziegler’s landmark study from forty years ago.

There is a reverence for some of the monarchs of the past, some of which is earned. The commonly held belief that Alfred was Great and Edward II was a disaster is difficult to shake. In this short study of William IV the author makes it quite clear that the life of Billy can be split into two stages: ignorant, loud-mouthed drunken buffoon, and more pleasant amenable but tired old king. The drunken years are by far the most interesting.

William’s father, George III, did things by the book. He educated his first son (later the Prince Regent and then George IV) in statecraft, and hated him with a vengeance. His second son, the idle and unpleasant Frederick, was bussed off to Germany to learn some diplomacy (a failure) and catch venereal diseases. William, as third son, was passed off at the age of thirteen to the Navy for the life of a sailor.

Roger Knight explains at length that William was a disaster. Promoted above his abilities because of his position in line to the throne, he needed skilled advisors to steer a course for him – many of whom he ignored. He spent years drinking in ports in the Caribbean, whoring, gambling, and generally being a nuisance. When the time came to step up and actually do something (Empire-building struggles against France and Spain) his chance to shine came but was prevented by his father. Indeed, the only redeeming feature of these years appears to have been the good relationship he built up with a young Nelson, by then preparing for greatness. William also cultivated a rather different relationship with Rachel Polgreen, a freed slave, in Bridgetown, Barbados.

There is some interesting content about the Reform Act, which came during William’s reign. He appears to have been able to steer a sensitive course through the initial stages of the attempt to widen the franchise, only to get cold feet halfway through. It defined his short reign, and he was in some ways the last monarch to wield any influence on parliament.

It is quite a skill to summarize a life in less than a hundred pages, and it makes it a very handy reference. The only thing missing, in my humble opinion, is a bit of detail about William’s many illegitimate children. With Dorothea Jordan he had ten children, and they are only alluded to briefly. Who knows how things might have gone if one of his legitimate heirs had survived?

I will be dipping next into the life of William II (Rufus), and I might even take him to the pub.