Author Archives: Tim Lenton

Despite huge demand, I am using this opportunity to present you with an excerpt from the Alternative Carol Service at St Augustine’s Church in Norwich. We like to intersperse the carols and readings with figments of our imagination – in this case an episode of Mastermind.

We had this a few years ago, when an angel did quite well. This year a Shepherd tried his luck. It went like this. You may think it loses something in the translation.

Quizmaster:  Please be seated. And you are?
Shepherd: A Shepherd.
Quizmaster:  No, I mean what’s your name?
Shepherd: Shepherd. A Shepherd.
Quizmaster: No, I mean…
Shepherd: My friends call me Andy. Andy Shepherd.
Quizmaster: Oh, I see. And are you sure you’re in the right place?
Shepherd: I think so. I got directions.
Quizmaster: In the e-mail we sent you?
Shepherd: From an angel.
Quizmaster: An angel?
Shepherd: I find they’re more reliable. They don’t crash. Or freeze. Or go astray, like sheep.
Quizmaster: Oh, I see. (Suspiciously) And where did you see this angel?
Shepherd: Outside town. High up.
Quizmaster: I see. All right. Well, you’re here anyway. (Consults card) That’s all right then. And your special subject is?
Shepherd: Sheep.
Quizmaster: Of course.
Shepherd: I know all about sheep.
Quizmaster: Is there a lot to know about sheep?
Shepherd: You’d be surprised.
Quizmaster: I’m not sure…
Shepherd: So we went looking for this manger. I’m not sure this is the place. Do you have a manger?
Quizmaster:  Umm, no. What is a manger, exactly?
Shepherd: It’s a kind of feeding trough. Do you have a feeding trough?
Quizmaster: We have a canteen.
Shepherd: This is a canteen?
Quizmaster: No. This is a studio.
Shepherd: What’s a studio? Never mind. Probably a mistake in translation. Where’s the baby?
Quizmaster: Baby?
Shepherd: The angel mentioned a baby, too.
Quizmaster: I think you may have got a bit mixed up.
Shepherd: No, the angel was quite specific. I remember it clearly. I was keeping watch. Over the flocks. It was already dark.
Quizmaster: So perhaps it wasn’t an angel.
Shepherd. It was definitely an angel. The glory of the Lord, you see.
Quizmaster: The glory of the Lord?
Shepherd: Yes. Quite frightening. At first.
Quizmaster: At first?
Shepherd: Yes. But he told us not to be afraid. So that was all right. And then he told us about the baby.
Quizmaster: I don’t think we have a baby.
Shepherd: (Accusingly) What have you done with it?
Quizmaster: There is no baby.
Shepherd: I’m sorry. But if you’re asking me to believe you rather than an angel…
Quizmaster: I don’t think there was an angel. You must be mistaken.
Shepherd: There were loads of them. A multitude. A host, even.
Quizmaster:  A host of what?
Shepherd: Angels. It’s a collective noun. Host of angels, school of whales…
Quizmaster: I think we’re getting away from your special subject. It was sheep, wasn’t it?
Shepherd: Yes, I know all about sheep.
Quizmaster: Right, then. First question: Do you like sheep?
Shepherd: Of course. All we like sheep.
Quizmaster: That’s a strange way of putting it.
Shepherd: All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned every one to his own way. You must know that.
Quizmaster: It sounds familiar. I’m not sure this is going to work.
Shepherd: Of course it will work. If God does something, it always works.
Quizmaster: If you’re talking about the producer…
Shepherd: Producer?
Quizmaster: We call her God. The whole programme is her baby.
Shepherd: Baby. Right, so you do have a baby?
Quizmaster: (Sighs) We don’t seem to be getting very far.
Shepherd: Look, if the baby’s not here, I’m going to have to go. The angel said I had to find him. I’m sorry.
(Exits)
Quizmaster: Mr Shepherd, you have scored no points, with no passes. You seem to have everything right.

I am not really much of a political animal. On most issues I find myself in a minority, and I am sceptical about received opinion. I am suspicious of experts.

Actually, that’s only partly true. When I was operated on for the removal of prostate cancer, I was glad that the knife was yielded by someone who knew what he was doing. Likewise, when I fly, I am glad that the aircraft was constructed by experts. Expert engineers, doctors, dentists, builders, plumbers, electricians? Yes, please.

But experts at defining details of the past? Experts at predicting the future? Experts at reconstructing the traffic system in my home city? Experts at economics? Politics? Statistics? Not so sure.

Economists and statisticians in particular seem to suffer from a certain delusion, because they tend to forget that human beings are involved. Kenneth Boulding, himself an economist but also a poet, a mystic and a Quaker, observed: “Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on for ever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.”

And yet many companies and by extension government activities seem to regard continual growth as the only road to success. Can you imagine anything more idiotic than demanding that police hand out an ever-increasing number of speeding tickets to demonstrate their efficiency? Or a school required to demonstrate continual improvement in its results?

We should be able to rely on scientists. But in many areas they are prey to a kind of conservatism that will not accept any challenge to basic beliefs. As Tolstoy put it, “most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.”

Does it really make sense to believe that the forces we see at work in nature now have always been the same and will never change? You might be surprised to discover how much science is based on this assumption.

But what I really want to write about is horse manure, because it sums up my political outlook.

I know what you’re thinking, but you may be interested to know that in 1898 the world’s first international urban planning conference was baffled by the problem of horse manure.

In those days, of course, traffic was horse-drawn, and more deadly than motorised traffic is today – which is a bit of a shock if you happen to think that cars are a massive social evil. (Some people do.)

There were the usual problems with people getting run over (rather a lot of them, incidentally), but there were other less obvious drawbacks – like the disease carried by flies found in horse manure.  Worst of all, though, was the sheer bulk of it. The manure, that is.

In 1894 The Times estimated that by 1950 every street in London would be buried nine feet deep in horse manure. Another expert at the same time reckoned that by 1930 the horse droppings would reach Manhattan’s third-storey windows.

No-one could see any way out. They thought they were all doomed, rather as many people today think we’re doomed for different reasons.

What could possibly save them? Something completely out of the blue and which no-one had foreseen. The internal combustion engine.

The point, though, is that this was unforeseen and out of the blue. No expert had predicted it. How could they? And yet they were making confident predictions that the world they lived in was doomed.

I have heard it said that, looked at this way, motor cars have saved millions of lives.

Less importantly, they have shown that experts in certain areas don’t know what they’re talking about. Literally.

So I am not a political animal. I am an optimist.

I was rather disappointed with The Daily Telegraph, which normally does a good line in obituaries.

Leonard Cohen, who has died aged 82, is a man who deserves a bit of depth, but there in the first paragraph was the tired old cliché about “music to slit your wrists to”, which is as superficial as it is wildly inaccurate.

Cohen’s songs, to those who have ears to hear and admit to possessing at least a modicum of spirituality within, are inspiring, uplifting and life-changing. “I know there’s a spiritual aspect to everybody’s life,” Cohen said, “whether they want to cop to it or not. It’s there, you can feel it in people – there’s some recognition that there is a reality that they cannot penetrate but which influences their mood and activity.”

Bob Dylan, a big admirer of Cohen’s songs, described his work as “great, deep and truthful, multidimensional and surprisingly melodic”. He added: “I see no disenchantment in Leonard’s lyrics at all.”

Suzanne Vega described his work as “a combination of very real details and a sense of mystery, like prayers or spells”. Rabbai Mordecai Finley called him “a great liturgical writer”.

It has always been surprising to Cohen admirers like me that his quality is not immediately obvious to everyone. Everything he writes is deep and at the same time playful, mixing such apparent opposites as sex and spirituality with gentle panache.

The Daily Telegraph seems not to be totally convinced. It mentions accurately that his record company CBS decided not to release the album Various Positions in the USA, but fails to point out that this album, far from being a dud, was one of his best, including the stunning “Hallelujah”, plus brilliant songs like “Coming back to you” and the moving “If it be your will”.

Maybe some Americans are not much into self-deprecation, ambiguity and indefinable  spirituality.

It cannot be denied that Cohen – a Canadian Jew from an upper middle-class Montreal background – had a huge impact on many people’s lives through his songs, poetry and his two novels. But in person he was charming, generous and self-deprecating. The two concerts of his that I went to (one at the Albert Hall in the 1980s and one in 2013 at O2) were outstanding.

After O2 I wrote that his “magnetic presence shrinks the arena into an intimate setting, with the audience as friends who have dropped by, and who the singer is surprised and delighted to see. His injection of spiritual awareness into everything he writes gives a depth that is lacking in so many modern lyrics, and the musical arrangements come with matching profundity, but with lightness too.”

Perhaps Cohen was a little too concerned about God for some tastes. The lead song from his last album, released only last month, contains the refrain “Hineni” – a biblical Hebrew word meaning “Here I am” and carrying the implication “I am at your disposal” or “Send me”. It is another example of his endearing lack of pride – among other things.

It is tempting to quote at length from his songs and poems, but they are easy to find online, and pointless repetition is not his style. I will end with a quote from one of his songs, however, not because it’s his best, but because it’s true and makes us realise how lucky we are sometimes to live in an age of quality recordings:

“You’ll be hearing from me baby, long after I’m gone
I’ll be speaking to you sweetly
From a window in the Tower of Song.”

Don’t forget to listen.

Should Bob Dylan have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature? He certainly doesn’t need the money. But does he merit the applause?

Looking back at recent Nobel prizewinners in literature, I recognise only three of the names in the last ten years. This may say more about me than about the prizewinners, and we certainly wouldn’t want to turn it into a kind of oleaginous celebrity event like the Oscars. But three out of ten ain’t good, as Meat Loaf might have said – or to be more precise, Jim Steinman, since he wrote Meat Loaf’s songs.

There is little chance of Jim Steinman getting the Nobel Prize in Literature, but he did write some amazing lyrics, as did Don Henley, Jackson Browne, Dory Previn and John Fogerty, not to mention Chuck Berry, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Dougie Mclean, Billy Bragg, Paul Simon – and Rory and Calum Macdonald.

There is no reason why song lyrics shouldn’t be considered Nobel prize material. Are they literature? Well, they aren’t physics. Perhaps the very name of the prize – donated by the explosive Mr Nobel – has a subliminal effect and we think, pop songs aren’t very noble, are they?

Books are substantial things. Songs float around in the air, and they have tunes, which is cheating.

But I prefer to think of literature in terms of the effect it has on me and others. A few books have had profound effects on me: Catch-22 and The Lord of the Rings, to name but two, but also Lavondyss and Pale Fire. I don’t think it would be stretching the truth, however, to say that Bob Dylan has had a deeper effect on me than any book written in the last thousand years.

I was captivated by his lyrics from the outset, although – unlike all those journalists who based their approval on the early songs that everyone knows – I think his material from the late 60s and 70s was even more poetic and imaginative. And I don’t think I’m totally alone in admiring his singing: he threw out the boringly technical and introduced a whole new dynamic timing to the voice which was taken up by Mark Knopfler and many others.

Of course prizes are by their very nature subjective. Most of you will have nodded wisely when you read a few of the names above, and taken a mystified step back when you came to a couple of others.

Bob Dylan got his prize for “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition”. I can’t begin to argue with that. Objections come mainly from those who have only heard his songs from a distance and not paid them the compliment of close listening.

My only caveat would be that there is someone else who deserves the prize, and deserves it now. He too is a songwriter, a singer, a poet – and a novelist. He too gets to the heart of things and creates magic with words. He is not American; he is a Canadian. His name is Leonard Cohen. Perhaps they could share it.

When I was a young lad, many moons ago, we used to have three weeks of holidays a year. I know this is hard to believe – many of my contemporaries, I am assured, had to make do with a one-day coach trip to Blackpool. I knew nothing of that. We had a car.

I read recently that there were only one million cars on the road in this country in 1950. A trivial number – one with which even the inept Transport for Norwich might be able to cope.

We had a Vauxhall: strangely, I remember its number: DPW 155. Later, we had a Rover, and then we had a Lea-Francis. Quite exotic. Then my father died, and we had nothing.

But that’s another story. Before that we enjoyed what I had become accustomed to expect: a fortnight in some such desirable location as Croyde, Hope Cove, Perranporth or Llangennith. The first two are in Devon, the third in Cornwall and the last in South Wales. Remote enough, but not foreign. We weren’t that well off. As I recall, we generally stayed in a caravan, which was static only in the sense that it wasn’t moving.

In addition to The Summer Fortnight, we also had a week at Hemsby, which was on the brink of becoming the arcade capital of the East. I remember putting pennies into strange machines where the only incentive, as far as I can remember, was getting them out again. These were old pennies, of course: trivial money, 12 of them worth 5p today.

But that wasn’t Hemsby’s main attraction. There was The Marrams, where we stayed in a rather exciting bungalow, and there was the Valley. Both are still there, though the sea is nibbling away at the protecting dunes.

I could go on in nostalgic vein, but the point I really want to make is that holidays in those days were relaxing. Holidays nowadays are anything but. On a recent Swiss train holiday (which I enjoyed tremendously) our journey home took 17 hours and required six trains, a coach and a tube journey. While we were away we also reached 11,000 feet above sea level, travelling by local railway, cog railway, funicular, cable car and through mountain tunnels, emerging into ice and snow.

On a previous trip this summer to the Outer Hebrides we experienced four ferry journeys and eight hotels, and travelled a total of more than 2000 miles.

Not exactly relaxing, and that’s without the dreadful hassle of air travel, which can induce a nervous breakdown all on its own.

So what are holidays all about? As my friends Linda and Anne might say, they are about relaxing on a beach, but I’m not all that keen on sand. I like a bit of wilderness. Most holidays I go on nowadays require several weeks at home to recover. Maybe I’m just getting old.

Well, I am getting old: no question about it. And with that comes the urge of the bucket list. How long have we got to go where we want to?

I am resisting desperation: my bucket is considerably smaller than some, and my horizons are not expanding. I even fancy a week in Hemsby. How sad is that?