Post-Mandela

On the "Sunday" programme this morning, The Rev. Dirkie Van Der Spui from the Dutch reform church in South Africa was asked whether he felt guilty about his church's complicity with Apartheid. In a disarmingly honest response, he confessed that he wished he and his colleagues had found a prophetic voice with which to tell the world that all was not then well with the way his country was being run.

This made me reflect on all those conversations we have at the dinner table - one such was Friday night's - where we skate between trivia, not confessing to any great feeling during the whole evening. Opportunities may occur, but rather than upset the rhythm of politeness, we duck them, apologising for any disquieting reflection that may slip out.

Things were easier at lunch here today, sitting with people of more passion around me. The sunshine pouring into the room will no doubt have helped; and the same sunshine enlivened our walk on Friday: we caught the bus from Charlton Kings to near Northleach, and walked back to Andoversford for lunch via five more or less small villages to the North of the A40. This photograph was taken between Hazleton and Salperton.

During the walk, I was horrified to hear a tale of what happened in a Catholic parish near Petersfield a while back: the priest fell in love with a woman and wanted to marry her. So he was forced to leave his post, and the priesthood. In his place came a new priest - a former Anglican. And who accompanied him to live in the presbytery? Why, his wife! How can the Church begin to give a credible prophetic witness to injustice in the world, when it treats its own so unjustly?

Medicine Unboxed

Agnes knows Dr. Sam Guglani who is on her creative writing course: a man of many parts, Sam is the brains behind the two-day part conference, part entertainment on at our local Parabola Arts Centre this weekend, Medicine Unboxed. Though it has been running for more than a decade, this is the first time I've been brave enough to book for it, and so far without regret.

As I suspected it would be, the 325-seat theatre (sold out) was mainly full of medics of one variety or another, but the balance of contributors ensured that the content was largely intelligible to a general audience. Unusually for an event in a Cheltenham auditorium, I felt well above the average age.

This year's theme was "voice", echoed by contributions from the Birmingham Medical School Choir and the "remarkable" duo, Melanie Pappenheim and Rebecca Askew. (I had first heard them five years ago at the Riverside Studios.)

One of today's highlights was Fi Glover's talk about Radio 4's Listening Project. She described it as consenting eavesdropping, vitamin supplements for the soul. A move to call it "The Talking Project" had been resisted. "The best doctors are the ones who really listen," concluded someone.

"Why do we have to get richer?"

This was the question posed by Mark Tully in Sunday's Something Understood on Radio 4. (It's on - live - either very early or very late, but you can of course listen online till Sunday next.)

Something Understood is my "go to" programme each week, when I reach for the button of my bedside play again radio. Five eclectically-chosen pieces of music, four prose or verse snippets (Ronald Pickup is one of the readers this week), and a shortish informal interview: that's the pattern. Tully concentrates more upon the questions than the answers, often drawing on his long experience in India.

Gandhian economist, Devaki Jain, this week's interviewee, considered the value of craft work as a contribution to a nation's health and wealth. This question was in my mind also yesterday, as I inspected the modern designer furniture etc. at this year's Celebration of Craftsmanship & Design, held just down the road from us. Caroline and I biked along together, meeting up with friends. They, unlike us, were prospective buyers, so I tried to divide the prices by the number of hours I imagined the piece had taken to make. Ikea, it's not.

The exhibition is held in one of Cheltenham's finest buildings (in recent years, part of Cheltenham College). The catalogue attempts - not entirely accurately - to narrate the history of the building and its owners: I took a particular interest in that aspect, as the first major name on the list, the 3rd Baron Northwick has a walk-on part in my ancestor, Peter Davis' The diary of a Shropshire Farmer. They were near contemporaries, born in the same parish.

Photography wasn't allowed in the exhibition building: this impression is therefore the best I could manage - taken through one of the windows, where a trio of Judith Nicoll's driftwood wading birds were displayed. Godwits (though "Goodwits" for some reason in the catalogue).

We came away, stimulated, but in need of a cup of tea.

Bloomsday

Radio 4 went to Dublin yesterday, and did so in style. Bloomsday has never been so widely publicised, surely! I failed to stay awake for Molly's soliloquy, but have hopes to ListenAgain.

My battered copy of Ulysses has two covers: this is the inner one. (The outer one contains photographs from Joseph Strick's film.) I bought it in July 1967, rather later than the Lady Chatterley trial: Philip Larkin, whose ‘Annus Mirabilis' also dates from 1967, had therefore already received his sexual awakening.

I can't recall Ulysses doing much for me in that regard. The linguistic ingenuity grabbed me far more than any dirty bits. I know I took a long while to struggle through it - I recall reading part one hot Summer's afternoon when lying on the deck of Freddie Harmer's boat, as we sailed down the River Alde. The dust cover has a quote from The Times, half a century pre-Kindle: it begins: "That the format of a book can affect its readability has long been known..."