Morning:
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The pictures of Nelson Mandela's 90th birthday dinner party are a gift to us all. They are the birthday party pictures to end all birthday party pictures. None of us will have to bother taking any more of our own in future. We can just point to these ones and say, well, it was sort of like that, you know?
These people, for all intents and purposes complete strangers, clasp each other with expressions of overwhelming delight, excitement and mirth. A luridly tanned man with straggly hair much too long for his age is caught by the camera with his eyes tight shut, making him look hopelessly pissed, proudly clasping around the waist a batty-looking lady who obviously yearns to break free but is instead trying her best to seem thrilled. It's Geldof and Cherie, as it happens. But, put another way, they are archetypes.
And of course there's the birthday boy himself, togged up to the nines, happy just to be there and not have to do much but look pleased.
That's not always so easily done on such occasions. The truth is that for many of us birthdays are always a false celebration, more an occasion of dread than of joy. Who feels sincere glee at having tottered another decisive step nearer the grave? Nobody.
Many birthday parties end not in jollity but tears, for good reason. As the poet Leopardi said: "Meeting again after several years a person I knew as a young man, at first I think I see someone who has suffered some terrible misfortune." And he has. Most of us would just as soon forget our birthdays, if we can.
I was, I think, about seven when it struck me that this was the only seventh birthday party I would ever be having and if it wasn't quite what I wanted, that was that. Thereafter, they have always seemed to me best downplayed.
Although not perhaps downplayed quite to the extent of my 40th, when I was derisively presented by my then partner with a small plastic watering can, which seemed best taken directly to the bin.
But here's Mandela giving us hope, showing that if we can only hang on long enough, birthday parties come good again. When every year is a bonus, birthdays become an occasion genuinely to celebrate, however sticky the 60-odd anniversaries in between may have been. Nice of him to encourage us. He's got another party tonight, in the park. Many happy returns.
• The opposite of many happy returns, I suppose, is the one-night stand. Professor Anne Campbell from Durham University asked 1,743 men and women who had had one-night stands to rate their reactions the next morning. Some 80 per cent cent of men had positive feelings, compared with only 54 per cent of women.
Professor Campbell could, of course, have arrived at much the same conclusion by spending a few minutes in a farmyard watching chickens - who gave us "the Coolidge effect".
Former US President Calvin Coolidge and his wife were touring a farm. The farmer showed Mrs Coolidge a rooster and said it could do its duty many times a day, day after day. "Tell that to Mr Coolidge," said the First Lady.
"Is it the same hen each time?" asked the President. "No, different hens," said the farmer.
"Tell that to Mrs Coolidge," said the President. And the expression has been popular ever since. With men, anyway.
Gordon's really quite Squeers
Is it only a year that we've endured the Gordon premiership? The problem is, never mind the ropey policies, the poor chap simply hasn't got a winning face.
To command popular support, it's not necessary to have a luminous complexion or perfectly symmetrical features but you do need to have a face that's alive, at least engaging. He doesn't have the phiz to win a single by-election, let alone launch a thousand ships.
Mostly, it's his lugubrious expression, of course. But that's not quite all. Every time Gordon lumbers on to the screen, it just happens. Dickens springs to mind - Nicholas Nickleby, to be exact: the unforgettable first appearance of Wackford Squeers. Never mind: it won't be long now.
My laws for a civilised Tube
A friend says she's amazed that Boris's encroachment on our liberties by banning the drinking of alcohol on the Tube has passed off with so little resistance or comment. Not only do I disagree, I've started daydreaming about what other life-enhancing little by-laws might be applied.
No eating, for a start, already officially discouraged but not violently prevented, alas. No buzzing personal stereos, ditto.
Begging and busking, ditto ditto.
How about no more public makeup application by women - and no more gross leg-splaying from men? Obviously no backpacks should be worn, to stop travellers swinging around and knocking you to the ground.
But once you start thinking like this, it becomes hard to stop. You know they have these signs in swimming pools telling people to shower before they get in? Well ...
Reader views (1)
David Sexton’s friend has a novel view on what constitutes liberty, let alone courtesy and simple good behaviour. It is always tempting to ask the question ‘Where will it all end?’ and follow it with examples of the irritating but trivial activities of other people for comparison.
It really is much more straightforward than this. Alcohol makes people over-confident and aggressive. Alcohol makes groups of people troublesome and threatening. Indeed the latter was fully demonstrated by the mob that assembled as a protest against the ruling in question – their action proved the need for the ban. So, whose liberties are encroached upon when such people are not restricted? Mine, I believe, rather than those of fools who cannot wait to get home for a can of beer.
- Alan Wenman, Ruislip, UK, 30/06/2008 00:02
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