Trees & Poetry
This weekend was Mount Stewart Conversations--three days of talks by authors, journalists, political scientists, etc. at lovely Mount Stewart. The first presentation we went to was by Oxford literature professor Fiona Stafford, who has written a book called the Long, Long Life of Trees. She grew up near a forest and has always loved trees. Her book is part history, part science, part poetry, part ancient myth--anything with bearing on trees. The highlight for me were two BBC archive clips, one of Seamus Heaney reading Sweeney Astray and another of someone reading a Louis MacNeice poem, [Woods].(http://www.blueridgejournal.com/poems/lm-woods.htm). Sweeney Astray is Heaney’s translation of a medieval Irish poem about a man turned into a bird. The bird catalogues what he loves about each type of tree, offering the bird’s eye view of what makes a yew superior to an ash, for instance.
I’m a tree lover and her paean to trees was fascinating to me. She’s also a Jane Austen scholar and she has written a biography, which differs from other biographers in its interpretation of Austen's views on marriage. In essence that she would rather not be married than to marry for status or money.
The second event was a panel discussion about Brexit. It was just depressingly bleak about how Brexit will affect Northern Ireland tourism, farming, manufacturing, everything. We are a small country and the influx of workers from other countries has been a boon here. As chefs and electricians and farm workers decide to leave (due to a weakened pound and/or to perceived animosity toward foreigners), companies will take on less work because they won’t be able to deliver. It’s already happening. Well done, Boris, you @#$% head. And Nigel, you wanker. The tourism guy said the north and south have developed very effective approaches to promoting all-island tourism. He doesn’t expect that will continue when the border is more of an issue. Words fail me for describing the bastards who sold a mountain of lies to a gullible public. Will the millionaire tabloid owners suffer? Hell no, they don’t even live here. I think Nigel has fucked off to France or somewhere. Sorry. It’s just outrageous what a stunt UKIP and its Tory enablers pulled off.
Where was I? Ah yes, event three. In the 1970s there was a show called Yes Minister, followed by Yes Prime Minister, that offered wonderful political satire. It lampooned self important politicians and made clear that it was a cynical civil service that actually runs Britain’s affairs. Today's conversation was between a popular Radio Ulster presenter and Jonathan Lynn, who co-wrote both series. He now lives in the U.S. and has written a book called Samaritans, a satirical look at the U.S. health care system. As with the Minister series, things written as satire were overran by reality. In Samaritans, the board hires a Las Vegas casino operator. Apparently, Aetna has just done something similar. The session featured many BBC clips of Yes Minister, whose razor-sharp satire appears to be timeless.
Having spent most of two days in street clothes, I was in a world of hurt by the time I went to bed Sunday night. But it was good to stimulate the brain cells a bit.
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