Fulfilling His Destiny

Did you see the expressions on the faces of Mo Farah and his defeated rivals after that epic 5,000 metres race? Mo looked absolutely at peace with himself, a young man who had fulfilled his destiny, the historic 'double' of gold medals in both the 10,000 metres and this distance. The Ethiopian and Kenyan runners who came second and third had shock etched into their features; they just couldn't believe what he had done to them. I have never seen siver and bronze medal winners look so disappointed with their results.

I am old enough to have watched Zatopek, Kuts and Viren, the first three runners to achieve this feat in the modern era. Their victories were nothing like so impressive, because they dominated their rivals from the gun. Zatopek and Kuts led out, Viren lurked with a menace that left no-one in any doubt that he alone could burn off the rest with a blistering last lap. Mo's victory was always so much on a knife-edge that it was hard to believe it possible until he broke the tape. I can never remember any distance runner hold off persistent challenges from just behind him for the whole of the last lap.

Afterwards, like the world record-breaker David Rudesha, Mo was modest and self-effacing, giving the credit to others. I hate to say it, but they both made Usain Bolt look a bit cheap.

On Being a Carer

Jean and I have been partners for 35 years. For half of these she has suffered from Alzheimer's Disease, and I have been at home caring for her for the past 7 of these. Plymouth University genrously let me work from home; Jean used to accompany me to classes and on lecture trips abroad, but it became too stressful for her. We have had Anna as a live-in carer for 15 months. (By the way, she has gone to the BMX Olympic biking contest in Leigh-on-Sea today.)

We first met when we taught together at Exeter University, where Jean was the Head of the programme. It was great working so closely together for 20 years, and we remain in touch with many of our former students. Some are visiting us this month.

Jean was always a beautiful woman, and she has put on not an ounce of weight; she is 79 years old now, but is often taken to be 10 or 20 years younger. She walks 20 miles a week, and even runs a bit, though she never did when she was younger. But she suffers some existential as well as orientation distress now, which is horrible for her.

I can never forgive the writer John Bailey for publishing his account of the decline into dementia of his wife, the great novelist, Iris Murdoch (later made into a film). A literary pygmy in comparison with his creative genius of a partner, I see Bailey's book as a kind of retaliaton for her deserved fame and his equally deserved lack of it. In my eyes, he demeaned her in an attempt to draw some attention to himself.

I owe a vast debt of love and gratitude to Jean, who always supported me (for a time financially as well as emotionally, when my children were younger), and who never sought her own advantage, though she was universally respected as a researcher in public services for children. It is both a pleasure and a privilege to be able to be with her for a few more years, perhaps longer.

Jean's mother cared for her father, her parents-in-law, her brother-in-law and her husband for over 40 years; Jean herself cared for her parents. As you sow, so shall you reap.

The Big Society? Do It yourself

The three of us (see previous blog) are all sociable, but in the winter we sometimes feel a bit isolated from the wider world. At this time of year it all changes, with visits from family, friends and ex-students, seeking some Devon sunshine and relaxation. We are looking forward to a month of entertaining and sharing our home-grown produce (some of which has survived the monsoon rains and unseasonal frosts) and several glasses of wine.

We are a kind of micro-community with our friends and neighbours, Chris, Pauline and their daughter Tamsin (17) and son Damian (16). They live in the renovated barn which is a part of the complex of seventeenth century farm buildings here, and they keep animals and poultry (sheep, goats, geese, chickens and ducks) in the orchard where we grow fruit and vegetables (some of the browsing animals, especially the goats, have to be confined in electric prisons, because they would destroy the trees). It is just coming up to the season for picking up the apples and transporting them to the cider factory (in Chris's land rover and trailer). Anna and Jean are very effective apple-gatherers.

Anna and Jean also like singing, and this prompted the idea of a concert, in which they performed Slovak folk songs, accompanied by Tamsin and Damian on violins, as would be the tradition in Slovakia. It went very well, despite deteriorating into vulgarity when Pauline, her mother (who was visiting from South Africa) and myself ended the evening with renditions of well-known Afrikaans and Xosa anthems.

So enjoyable was this that we all decided to be more ambitious, and put on a series of summer concerts for our friends in the barn, which has one very large room that is ideal for the purpose. Tamsin and Damian both play piano, and Damian is an excellent classical guitarist also; we brought in Jamie (13), a harpist, and Kiko (11) who plays clarinet and piano. My role is roadie for Jamie, whose harp has to be transported each time she comes to rehearse or perform.

Last night was our first public concert, and several friends came. Rachel and Jonathan rode the 10 miles from Exeter on a tandem. The programme was much more ambitious, with pieces by Beethoven and Mozart as well as traditional folk music and Anna and Jean's Slovak songs. Everyone is looking forward to the next one in two weeks' time, when we hope for a larger audience.

It all reminds me of the success of the Olympic Games, where volunteer effort and the friendly and humorous welcome of the police and armed forces made visitors from abroad so welcome, and a real community spirit was created - despite the G4S fiasco and government's attempts to free ride on the goodwill that has been generated.

There is such a thing as the Big Society, just don't look to our current rulers to enable or promote it. They are too busy with cuts and privatisations.

Thanks Again, Mr Rossi

On Wednesday, we (myself, Jean, and Jean's carer, Anna, a retired volleyball player from Slovakia, who lost an eye as a child) went to Weymouth on the train to watch the Olympic sailing. We took with us the huge, heavy, leather-cased binoculars, made the year I was born, and bequeathed to me by the naval war hero, Harold Bunt.

It's a fair walk from the station to the Stone Pier, from where without a ticket one can get a good view of the sailing (yachtovat in Slovak); the pedestrian route goes past the clock tower, along the sea front, and right past the very spot where, on the forecourt of Rossi's Icecream Parlour, I set up as a Lightning artist, drawing people's portraits with a newly-invented felt-tipped pen, almost 50 years ago. I had never been back there since.

Mr Rossi had taken pity on a student with a pregnant wife who was down on his luck, so he allowed me to use this pad to accost passers-by, sit them on a stool, and execute a rapid likeness. I did 100 of these a day, and made a great deal of money, but he never asked me for a penny.

His grandson runs the business now, and smiled to hear my story. He said that his grandfather died several years ago, but still visited them quite frquently. When I asked him which kinds of occasions he attended, he replied that he came to all kinds, mainly to play practical jokes, such as locking people in the toilet. He had been a bit of a joker during his life. I asked if he would mind thanking his grandfather for the help he gave me back then, when he next turned up.

The weather became quite splendid as we reached the pier, and we had a better view than I expected. The atmosphere was great, and everyone was friendly and helpful.

I don't have the remotest grasp of sailing, so I had no idea what I was watching. Perhaps Anna is quicker to learn such things, or maybe, like Nelson, she has keener vision with her one eye and the aid of Harold's field-glasses. Anyway, she said that New Zealand were winning, Sweden were second, and we were third.

Rossi's Ice Cream Parlour was doing a roaring trade when we passed it on the way back.

What's Good about the Olympics (and Globalisation)

It has been a euphoric few days for followers of British sport, and the media have been full of celebration. The effects on national morale, dented by the recession, have been very positive, and the whole population has joined in making the Olympics a huge success.

But for me the most exciting thing has been to see athletes from very small, poor countries, with few facilities, winning medals in events that they could not even have entered 20 years ago. For instance, Kirali James's win in the 400 metres race yesterday evening was the first medal of any kind gained by his island nation, Grenada. The runner placed second was from the Dominican Republic.

John Inverdale pointed out that all the runners in that race, traditionally dominated by the USA, Germany and Britain, were either from small Caribbean countries, or from one family in Belgium (the Borlee twins, Kevin and Jonathan). In the wide world of sport, it sometimes come down to the very local and particular.

Similarly, the 400 metres hurdles was won by a 34-year-old guy from the Dominican Republic (again), beating three American superstars and the British world champion and team captain, David Greene. It was a triumph for someone not tipped for a medal.

Globalisation has destroyed the economies of many small nations, and eroded the cultures of more. But it has also given a few individuals from the most obscure communities (even in Belgium) the chance to show that talent is not confined to the rich world.

Olympic Capital

The first few minutes of the London Olympics' opening ceremony were a magnificent, awe-inspiring tableau of the power of both human co-operation and capitalist economic relations. Both in the scenes of Britain's industrialisation portrayed, and in the show iself, they demonstrated the creative destruction that could be achieved through this particular way of harnessing human ingenuity and money with political authority.

Were the herders, shepherdesses and ploughmen in the opening rural idyll contented with their lot, or were they village idiots? Did the factory-builders and railroad constructors who destroyed their countryside rescue them from their idiocy or take away their souls? Did the governments that then sent them to their deaths in two world wars defend the liberties of Europe and the future for democracy, or did they sacrifice them for the globalisation that would eventually smash those factories into dust, and leave them desperately seeking some new sense of identity and purpose in a post-industrial desert?

The show itself was staged in a glittering new stadium, part of a superb complex of buildings, public art and gardens, equidistant from the most multi-ethnic and most impoverished borough in London and the shining towers that are home to Barclays, HSBC and the rest. As the news media broadcast hourly bulletins of the latest billion pound scams by the financial sector of the City, bringing ruin and shame across the globe, those same institutions have helped to fund a development which will leave a legacy of renewal and hope for the eastern half of London.

In some ways the sport will be an anti-climax after that display. It will show that we humans can run faster and hurl further than our ancestors, and that we can harness the discipline to work in small groups to cross water or scale heights. Capitalism has not destroyed these capacities for our species, though it has refined them in the bodies of a tiny athletic elite, and consigned the rest of us to roles of passive spectators, chewing excess food in front of TV screens.

We will be inspired, for sure, but what opportunities will capitalism give us after the Games are over, either as individuals or collectively, to express that inspiration in projects for the common good? It leaves us free to do so, but it does not point the way. We must find that for ourselves.

Sport, Society and G4S

The impending Olympics and the scandal over G4S's failure to supply contract security staff present a snapshot of our society. On the one hand, we can organise a vast collective celebration of human physical prowess for the whole world; on the other, the outsourcing of our concerns about the threat to our political order to an enormous private company has made us something of a laughing stock.

Both sides of this paradox can be traced to our stone-age heritage. We survived and prospered as a species, despite our relatively puny physique and our massive need of protein for our large brains, because we were capable of conceiving and executing fairly complex forms of collective action, such as persistence hunting in groups. Here the skills of a few members complemented the ingenuity of those who planned the operations, and the patience of those who made up the numbers.

But such predatory collective forays, which also could involve conflicts with other such groups, always ended with feasts and celebratory chanting, dancing and drinking round a fire. We have been shaped by evolution, both as individuals and as groups, for these activities; yet modern society seldom supplies us with opportunities - except brifly in our teenage years - to behave as gangs of hunters, or tribes of alcohol-fuelled ravers. And, of course, the Olympic Games -  for their few participants.

Instead, the majority of us are trapped in lives of quiet, conformist, domestic desperation, and many suffer terribly from the afflictions of anxiety, depression or back pain. We turn to therapists rather than witch doctors for remedies, and we would never accept a prescription of night pursuit of wild beasts or mass ritual feasting for our ills. Only one third of us take any exercise at all, a recent report in The Lancet revealed, and this is fatal for as many of as as smoking and obesity are.

Our individual worries are mirrored in our governments' concerns about the threat of terrorism by those who reject consumerism and secularism as the bases for societies. These covert forces from a bygone age of superstitious violence must  be deterred by shows of strength (warships in the Thames, fighter jets overhead), and monitored by guards on the ground, especially at the Olympic venues.

Unfortunately, we cannot mobilise our citizens to defend their democratic and enlightened way of life, to take collective action against these foes. They are too busy sitting at home watching the Olympics on TV, and taking tranquilisers. Our police and army could have done it, but this would have been expensive, looked bad in the public accounts, and sinned against the prevailing orthodoxy of contractual outsourcing. So we brought in G4S to quell our fears; the rest is history.