Conversations Part 2

As I said, four panels today. The first featured historian David Reynolds who wrote a book called Summits. He compared Neville Chamberlain/Hitler meetings to those of Kruschev/Kennedy and Reagan/Gorbachev. He talked about the role of the diplomatic corps vs. elected leaders--the latter aren’t too keen on the former, leading neophytes like Tony Blair to charge into Iraq. But sometimes the power of personality can trump the years of diplomatic training. He spoke highly of the Reagan/Gorbachev meetings and how they led to the dismantling of nuclear warheads. He wasn’t as kind to Kennedy or Chamberlain. He said Chamberlain was taken in by Hitler, while Churchill saw right through the Fuhrer. Yet Churchill was thoroughly taken in by Stalin.

The second was another panel with Anthony Powell, although I think I’ve conflated today’s remarks with yesterday’s. Third was two ambassadors (for UK and Ireland) discussing their experiences in posts around the world. Fourth was the UK’s most recent ambassador to the Holy See. He told some very funny stories, mostly involving what happens when you have elderly Italian cardinals with poor hearing/eyesight/English running things. For instance, one of Tony Blair’s female advisors was being escorted with a full Swiss guard to meet the pope--she had been mistaken for the Queen of Jordan, who was standing outside the palace not getting the royal treatment.

As if the day weren’t full enough, I went to the Lyric tonight for an event held to draw attention to the building of a four-lane highway through Ireland’s largest bogland and through the homeland of Seamus Heaney. I was treated to a reading by Stephen Rea from Heaney’s translation of the Aeneid and readings of Heaney’s poems by an A list of local writers, and a selection of Irish music, and three piano pieces by local legend Barry Douglas. An amazing night of art and culture.

I have had three days of culture, history, music, entertainment. And none of it cost anything. It’s embarrassing. I really think I should be paying for these things. Because someone is.
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