I have been much perturbed this month by the fact that I managed
to lose a sofa. It was a Knopparp, too. When, at the suggestion of the local gendarmerie, I went along
to the municipal Lost Property office, the woman at the desk laughed when I
told her that I had come in search of a missing sofa. She explained by way of
tacit apology that people usually come into her domain to enquire about a
missing wallet or a misplaced bag. I assured her that I quite understood. Her
ridicule was less excoriating than the kind of self-punishment I have been
meting out most of the month. I can take it, like a man: on the cheek or on les fesses.
With all that has been going on in the world this merry
month, I really shouldn't be getting quite so upset about a lost item of
furniture. In the long run of things, the renewed terrorist attacks, the fires
in Corsica and the south of France, the Trump-tastic diplomacy in Korea and the
renewed threat of nuclear annihilation, the assassination of another
environmental hero in Tanzania and the sheer awfulness of the 21st
century all add up to something much graver. It's an interesting facet of the human
condition that we frequently expend far more mental energy on little aspects of
our little lives than we do on the big issues that really matter. I keep
finding myself, for example, re-living in my head the sorry sequence of events
that led to the disappearance as if doing so could magically bring my missing
sofa back to life.
To be fair to myself, said sofa was still in its flat-pack.
Had it been a fully-formed sofa, then I might really have cause to wonder
whether I am already succumbing to Alzheimer's Disease. It's kind of
understandable that a busy person might just prop a heavy carton against a wall
in a public street while trying rapidly to empty a car full of Ikean effects –
and then go off and forget all about it. Once I realised, several days later,
just what I must have done, I posted a Perdu
– Canapé! (note the ironic exclamation mark) notice and my subsequent
enquiries revealed that the mystery package had been seen for several days
until the day came when it was seen no longer. I can only hope that some
impecunious person took it away and that the sofa has brought a little joy and
comfort into his or her life. Since it didn't cost a great deal of money, I have
my doubts though about its solidity and durability.
Such is life and one has to get over its little
disappointments. The visit of old friends from Sheffield helped. The weather
wasn't great for tourists. In marked contrast to last year's aridity, August
has been neither too hot nor too dry, which suits me – and the vegetation –
down to the ground. Nevertheless, we sat and/or ate outside whenever the
opportunity was there.
I had one particularly interesting al fresco conversation
with Nigel, which exposed our differences and probably explained why we've been
friends for so long. Like my dear wife, he's an incurable optimist. He exudes
so much positivity that it can be exhausting to try and keep up with him.
Together, he and the Good Wife could move mountains. Like Fitzcarraldo, they
could certainly at least have come up with a way of moving a boat over a
mountain. Both believe in the transcendent power of love to right all wrongs
and put everything back on an even keel. Whereas, I explained, the wildfires in
Corsica, say, offer me a compelling example of why evil will ultimately
prevail. Many of these fires have been started by an individual who, for one
reason or another, wants to create mayhem. All the collective good in the world
won't bring back the beauty that has been scarred or re-build the houses that
have been destroyed or breathe life back into all the creatures whose existence
has been snuffed out by scorching flames. So surely one person's evil is much
more potent than a hundred people's good. Think Hitler, think Stalin.
In the end we decided that it was much more fruitful to go
and play golf. It's a game about which we both agree, only Nigel practises it a
whole lot more than I do. Consequently, he's a whole lot better than I am.
Being much more competitive, too, he came up with an elaborate handicap system
that would create a more level playing field. Since we were playing on the
hilly course at Puy d'Arnac created by an enthusiast with the money he made
from the swimming pool trade, it seemed irrelevant – particularly as winning
the match really didn't interest me. It might be maddening to my playing
partners, but when I play golf, I'm competing against my own incompetence. If I
can play even a handful of shots that feel sweetly struck, then my happiness
will overcome the frustration of customary ineptitude. And if a handicap system
meant that technically I beat someone who hit the ball properly just about
every time, then victory would seem Pyrrhic and just plain wrong.
It's a lovely little course and the patron's enthusiasm is
delightful to behold. He bombed around the place on his motor mower, shearing
the greens as if for our sole benefit, so our putts would roll that much more
quickly. It's only nine holes, so you become quite familiar with its quirks in
going round twice to make up the customary eighteen. One hole is effectively
spliced in two by a runway for light aircraft and I played the shot of the day
by driving onto the tarmac and watching the ball bounce along it until it
disappeared over the horizon. The joy, the untrammelled joy!
Being a professional coach in the wonderful world of
business, Nigel has a coach's eye. He spotted all kinds of little things that
would help my game. One thing, however, I discovered for myself – and not for
the first time – is that it helps a whole lot if you keep your eye on the ball.
I thought I'd learnt this invaluable lesson last time I played with my brother
in the county of Hampshire, but apparently not. Try it sometime. It works a
treat. Such knowledge has renewed my appetite and I'm determined now to dust
off my discarded second-hand clubs at least a few more times this coming
autumn.
Our friends went off after breakfast one Sunday to a wedding
in distant Brittany. They were hoping for at least one swim in the sea as they
drove up our drive, GB sticker resplendent on their rear. There have been
noticeably fewer on the road this summer. The pound has sunk to near parity
with the euro, which makes my British credit card painful to use. So the droves
of Brits seem to have kept themselves far hence. Indeed, the number of visitors
to UK shores has risen in direct ratio to the fall of the value of sterling.
There were plenty of perennial Brits in the local cinema the
other night, though. Two whole rows of us, in fact. Chattering away in English,
which makes for uncomfortable seating – particularly as the film in question
was Dunkirk, with all its concomitant
Anglo-French issues. It was De Gaulle and the Free French
who won the war, wasn't it? The British did (literally) desert the sinking
ship in 1940, didn't they? I'm sure I heard murmurs of discontent within the
auditorium and I turned around to shush my loudest compatriot in best
exaggerated pantomime fashion.
Fully prepared by a very unfavourable review to dislike the
film, I found it a remarkable cinematic experience. Certainly not enjoyable in
the way that I enjoyed Christopher Nolan's earlier films, Memento and Insomnia – it
was way too harrowing for enjoyment – but impressive for sure. The scenes from
the cockpit of a Spitfire, looking down at the carnage on the sea as seen in
different chunks of the film in different timescales from inside a small boat
or from the jetty or the beach where the soldiers waited for rescue, were
especially memorable. Quel
cinematography! I could have done without some of the musical bombast and a few
of the jingoistic notes towards the end, but it gave a vivid impression of what
this kind-of-victory-from-the-jaws-of-defeat must have been like. The so-called
lack of character development didn't worry me, because it was much more about
the collective endeavour rather than any individual heroism that needed a 'back
story'.
While I came out of our local cinema feeling like I'd been
through a tumble dryer in search of a missing sofa, neither The Good Wife nor
The Kid surprisingly found it particularly harrowing. The skies were too blue,
there was too much pomp and circumstance and it was generally too handsomely
staged for them. We must have been watching different films. Well, each to his
or her own. They don't agree about good and evil either. Nor do they find golf
such a beautiful but frustrating game. Life is, as I think Talk Talk suggested
in one of their songs, decidedly what you make it.
