Time Keeps on Slipping...Into the Future

There were a lot of things I meant to do in 2007 that I can't quite recall just now. I'm sure some of them involved writing best-selling non-fiction books or critically-acclaimed novels. Perhaps I was going to pen a screenplay ("It's 'Stars Wars' meets 'Sense and Sensibility'--in the Wild West!").

Alas, unless I was hit on the head and suffer from memory loss, I didn't do any of those things. But we can't live our lives full of regret. Whatever excess energy I had this year was funneled into the Kellys' Grand Adventure: uprooting the family and moving them to this scepter'd isle. If there was an element of "Now what?" after we'd unpacked, well that's to be expected, right?

I don't like making New Year's resolutions for myself. I much prefer making them for other people. Making a New Year's resolution is too much like buying a diary at the stationery store: You get it, you dutifully make a few entries, then you taper off and stop, and for the rest of the year the damn book is staring back at you, a reminder of your inadequacies. Still, I'd like to learn Spanish this year. I mean, in between the non-fiction/novel/screenplay writing.

As for you, dear reader, I hope you enjoyed your 2007 and that your 2008 is as good as it can be.

In Other News
Months and months ago I blogged about how 2007 was seeming like something out of a bad movie, how the war and global warming and the mortgage crisis were coming together in an apocalyptic sort of way. I keep waiting to be disabused of that notion. The latest uncomfortable harbinger is the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, an event that is hardly surprising but tragic nonetheless.

Murdering people hardly seems the way to run a democracy. Of course, the murderers--whoever they are--don't want a democracy. But I'm not sure if the edifice that Bhutto's supporters are building is a democracy, either. It's a political dynasty, one that assumes it's the birthright of a Bhutto to have a hand in running Pakistan. One could argue that it's no different from the Kennedys (or Clintons or Bushes) in America, but if one of those U.S. politicians should be murdered, the Democratic or Republican parties wouldn't be torn asunder or face extinction. The parties--and the impulses they represent--exist outside of specific personalities.

That doesn't seem to be the case in Pakistan. I saw a quote recently from a PPP member who said that after Bhutto's death, "We are all orphans now." And now Benazir's son, Bilawal, is pegged to lead his mother's party. He is 19, a student at Oxford. Can anyone believe he has the skills for a such an important role? His father will keep the seat warm for him, but this is what royalty does.

Of course, I don't pretend to understand the intricacies of that troubled region and I admit it's not particularly incisive to point out that democracy as it exists over there isn't very recognizable.

In Sports News
The Redskins beat the Cowboys yesterday. I didn't see the game, though I followed along online during the first half. When I was in college, the Redskins were actually good. They'd make the playoffs and even win the Super Bowl occasionally. Since Dan Snyder (boo, hiss) bought them they've stunk, and there seemed some karmic justification for this, since Snyder is so disagreeable a character. I even felt a frisson of pleasure when they went down, if only to see Snyder sour-faced in the owner's box.

But this has been a particularly bad year, what with the murder of Sean Taylor. I don't buy into all those sports cliches about grit and determination, and I'm particularly immune to coach Joe Gibbs's brand of Christian pap (gee, God helped you win? really? isn't He kinda busy?), but it is nice to see the team in the playoffs. And the Skins can lose every other game of the season as long as they beat the Cowboys.

Duck, Duck, Goose Fat
We held an informal taste test during our Christmas dinner. Actually, it was during our Boxing Day dinner. (We traveled to my sister's in St. Albans on the day; My Lovely Wife made another meal at home for her sister and company the day after.) Half the roast potatoes were made with olive oil, Ruth's traditional method. The other half were made with the goose fat I purchased at Alcock's Family Butchers.

The winner? A few people preferred the olive oil. And both sets of potatoes were delish. But those we spooned from the goose fat tray had a crisper exterior and a creamier interior.

Of course, our arteries probably have a creamier interior after eating them. Add to New Year's resolutions: Start jogging.

Xmas Marks the Spot

Sorry if you're sick of Christmas already. I mean, why shouldn't you be, given that we've been celebrating it since September or so. I'm taking it easy for a few days while we host My Lovely Wife's sister (My Lovely Sister-in-Law?) but I will offer this image for those who think the holiday season is downright dangerous:


This decorated evergreen is in the center of Oxford, at St. Giles, near St. John's College. I wonder, is the chain link fence around it to keep passersby from attacking it? Or to keep it from attacking passersby?

Alcock's Family Butchers

The line to Alcock's Family Butchers, on the Banbury Road in Summertown, was out the door yesterday morning. They'd opened at 6 a.m. on Christmas Eve Eve to deal with the holiday crush. Baskets of root vegetables and other fresh produce were arranged on the sidewalk in front of the shop window. A woman holding a fidgety 4-year-old in her arms started scooping chestnuts onto a scale, trying to entertain the boy as his father waited in line.

"Tell me when we have enough," she said in a chirpy, let's-make-this-a-game voice. The kid had already recognized her idea for what it was: a trick. Well two could play at that....

"Enough!" he said after a single scoop.

His mother frowned. "Do you really think that's enough," she asked, weighing her options: Dump in another scoop or two and risk the kid exploding or not have enough chestnuts for her stuffing needs. I turned my attention to the scene inside the butcher's, beyond the plate glass window.

Three butchers--in identical blue smocks--were going about their tasks in an unhurried way: consulting order sheets, disappearing to the back then reappearing holding turkeys, pulling fistfuls of sausage from the refrigerated case, bagging little plastic cartons of what looked like mashed potatoes. (Mashed potatoes?)

There was room for only about 10 customers at a time inside; the line didn't look like it was getting any shorter. Finally a man emerged clutching his meat and we all shuffled forward one place. In a voice that was more matter-of-fact than annoyed, the woman behind me said, "That's the first one I've seen come out since I've been here."

"It always worries me when people go into a butcher's and don't come out," I said. "I've seen that movie before."

"Sweeney Todd," agreed the woman.

Though the air was cold--shot through with the freezing fog we'd had the week before--none of us were in much of a hurry. We didn't mind waiting, for as we stood there we thought about our Christmas meals: ones from our pasts and ones in our future. We thought of the meal we'd enjoy two days hence. Somewhere in Alcock's Family Butchers was a turkey with our name on it, an unsullied bird with, if not its whole life ahead of it, at least the promise of a mouth-watering dinner.

Finally I was inside. I grabbed some cheeses--a Jarlsberg, some brie, a wedge of Stilton and a hunk of Oxford blue--and waited my turn. Some people were getting a goose; one man was getting a capon. When customers gave their names, the butchers fetched the bird then read the address back: "Squitchey Lane?" "Hawkswell Gardens?" "Cavendish Court?" It was as if the butchers wanted to make sure the birds were going to good homes.

Most of the customers, I noticed, asked for some goose fat. After I'd gotten to the head of the line and seen my personal turkey set down on the counter--its breast bristling with a few unplucked feathers, as if it had shaved too quickly that morning and missed a few spots--I asked why so many people were getting goose fat.

"Roast potatoes," explained the butcher. "It's really good for them."

Except for perhaps a morphine drip and a hot oil rub-down from a Swedish masseuse, there is nothing more pleasurable than a mouthful of English roasted potatoes. I asked for a helping of goose fat, not knowing what he would pull from the case. It was the stuff I'd earlier thought was mashed potatoes: a tub of fluffy white lard.

The butcher patted my bird through its clear plastic wrapper, then assured me it would rise to the occasion this holiday. He put the turkey and the giblets in one carrier bag, placed the cheese in another, and after the handover of a not inconsiderable amount of cash (no credit cards accepted at Alcock's Family Butchers) I was on my way, taking care not to slip on the ice and thinking of Christmas.

Friday Grab Bag: Xmas Wrapping Edition

I like to think that I invented the practice of newspapers giving away free wrapping paper. Back when I was editor of The Washington Post's Weekend section I was casting around for what to do as a cover story on the Friday closest to Christmas, a story no one would read anyway, so busy would they be preparing for the holiday. I decided to have an artist create a wrapping paper design which we would print in the central double-truck position. The following year, we made it a contest, inviting children to send us their designs and printing our favorite.

I thought of that this week while reading the Guardian. They asked five high-profile artists to design wrapping paper, which they've been printing all week. The first was by Mark Wallinger, who just won Britain's Turner Prize. Wallinger is one of those artists who bugs people who prefer their artists to be, like, artistic. He's best known for his work "Sleeper," which is a two-hour video of him wandering around an empty Berlin gallery dressed in a bear suit. The piece he won the Turner for was "State Britain," a painstakingly accurate re-creation of a protest camp set up outside the Houses of Parliament by a peace campaigner against the Iraq war. Wallinger and his assistants redrew every poster, banner, flier, sign, sourced every teddy bear and wooden cross. Again, the sort of thing that drives people who like their artists to have original ideas and be able to draw crazy.

But what was his wrapping paper like? It was the words "Jesus Christ" set in a sans serif typeface of about 12 points and printed hundreds of time on the sheet of white paper, alternating in red and green (detail above). At least it looks like wrapping and it coyly toys with the reason for the season. I think it's my favorite of his works and I own one of the limited-edition prints. Well, limited to 400,000.

Heavy-hitter Louise Bourgeois contributed a swirly red-and-white pattern that will at least look good around a box. Handwritten in the white bits of her design are such words as "hours," "minutes," "years" and her own signature.



Also this week was a design by R.B. Kitaj. His design was a crudely sketched face, a bit Chagall-like in its choice of colors to my untrained eye.



Then there's today's design:


It's by a collage artist named Barbara Kruger and it consists of a B&W photo of a blindfolded face imprinted with the red words "Blind idealism is reactionary." Makes me want to enjoy my Christmas pudding!

The mistake the Guardian's editors made in this project was accepting whatever the artists gave them. I'm sure they're all good artists. They obviously want to provoke thoughts. ("'Blind idealism'? Does that mean my belief in Santa Claus or my support of George Bush?") But use the medium you were given, folks. This wasn't a poster contest. Only Wallinger and Bourgeois created anything that plays with the wrapping paper form. The other two just dashed something off. (I didn't buy the Guardian yesterday so I didn't see Gary Hume's design. I had to buy the Daily Mail for its "canoe man" coverage.)

It was always hard picking the winning kid's design at Weekend, but there was always a clear winner, one that had a design that was attractive to look at in its entirety but also worked when wrapped around a bottle of perfume or a paperback book. We got our designs for free. The payment for the kids was the honor of being published. I hope the Guardian didn't pay too much for their designs.

BritNews RoundUp
I wonder what kind of wrapping paper the Daily Mail would print? Scantily-clad elves, no doubt. This week their cutting-edge journalism included a story on what sort of underwear men want their women to wear. (I'm thinking "clean," but what do I know?)

I couldn't find a good Daily Mail breast story this week, but the News of the World gamely filled in, asking the question that has occupied U.S. intelligence agencies ever since they finished their Iran nuclear weapons report: Are Victoria Beckham's boobs shrinking?

Speaking of weapons of mass destruction: A social club in Devon has reprimanded a 77-year-old member for farting too much in their midst. Said the flatulent Maurice Fox: "I sit by the door anyway and try to get out when I can. But sometimes it takes me by surprise and just pops out." I hear you, Maurice. Unfortunately, I also smell you.

Here are some words you never want to see in the same news story: "penis," "firefighters" and "mini hand grinder." Yes, it's this week's episode of Britain's favorite game show: Sex With Inanimate Objects. Don't worry, there's a happy ending.

Stone Carving of the Week


This gob-smacked fellow, and 11 others, gazes out from around the Sheldonian Theatre. The heads are huge, almost three feet high.

Have a great weekend and thanks for reading. This is a bit of a stealth operation so links, and comments, are always appreciated.