Today representatives from every nation on earth have jetted to Glasgow, in the wake of enormous fuel emissions, for a climate conference where they all agree that man is totally to blame for global warming. Yet, climatology is complex. When I was born in 1947 England, December saw snow piled high and people skated on rivers. Scientists then warned of a new ice age. But that couldn’t be blamed on industry because most CO2 emissions then were small. And what caused the ice age billions of years ago, long before man? Most believe that the causes were the movement of continents and volcanism. So, as world leaders jet in, smug like children that there’s only one reason for today’s climate change, ask them what caused the ice age before man and industry appeared on earth? None can answer. What then should they debate today? Forget dismantling all of the improvements introduced during the industrial revolution and discuss how to move people away from danger areas like coasts, rivers, volcanoes etc and build/renovate all buildings on climate-resistant sticks, high above the ground.
24th October 2021
Watching the Carol Drinkwater programme A Year in Provence brought it all back. As described in my best-selling, comic memoir Pensioners in Paradis (click image on the right), there’s a lot to be said for living in France - not least the sunshine and le bien manger. But, and it’s a big but, I learned some painful lessons over the 12 years we lived there. Don’t confuse capital from the sale of your UK house with income. Don’t expect to earn enough to live on, especially from renting out a gîte. It’s very hard work, soul-destroying and relentless. Don’t create an English clique. It’s not a holiday club but the rest of your life. Even if you speak the language fluently, in general the French won’t warm to you and rarely invite you into their homes. By nature, the French are fermé (closed). If you’re a pensioner, think carefully whether you wish to be buried there, where few will visit your grave. Returning to the UK takes a lot of energy and effort, so if you think this is likely at some point, or if one of you suddenly becomes disabled/in a wheelchair, do it whilst you’re still fit enough. Carol Drinkwater married a rich Frenchman, instantly integrating her and removing most of the obstacles. Most of us don’t and suffer the consequences.
17th October 2021
As promised, the main points of the speech I made at the book launch of The Meleke Stone:
“As a writer I have to deal with many questions. The most common is How do you write a novel? My answer: write about what you know. That way it comes over as more realistic. As I started to write The Meleke Stone, therefore, my thoughts flew back to when we used to attend a synagogue in Toulouse. One day after the service, a male congregant came over and asked me why I wrote in the name of Olga Swan. Wanting to impress him I said that the name was an anagram of my late brother (A. Olswang): my way of remembering him. But there was a pause before the man asked me how long I’d lived in France. I was puzzled but told him. He then said Don’t you yet know that the name Olga here means a lady of ill repute, a streetwalker! I was shocked. Maybe I should have called myself EL James instead. I already have 50 shades of grey in my hair! Back home in Birmingham, there were more questions. How did I choose my current book cover? Local bookshops seem to stock a plethora of wartime novels, all featuring scenes of rubble plus a young, attractive girl wearing - for some strange reason - a red, expensive coat, looking far too clean for the surroundings and make-up that’s far too modern for the era depicted. I’m pretty sure they didn’t have liquid eyeliner in the war. So I didn’t want such an unrealistic image on my cover. Then I thought Well, my story’s about Israel so maybe I should use an image of Jerusalem, but the cover ended up looking like a glossy travel brochure. So, in the end, I thought ‘less is more’ so I chose an image of a wall of meleke stone representing Herod’s Temple, with two ancient keys with Roman heads. The subheading pointed the way to the storyline: Survival is the eternal key. I didn’t want to write an academic non-fiction book because I wanted to interest the ordinary reader - so it had to be a novel. My challenge was to counter antisemitism by writing an enthralling story but wrapped around the real, true historical facts about the Jewish people and the land of Israel. I’d like to now read a few pages from the start of the novel. A bomb has just exploded in a Toulouse synagogue and Moshe, a Holocaust survivor, is on his way there unaware of what’s going to happen….
Before this lady of ill-repute bows out, thank you everyone and (turning to my good friend Graham Stone) ‘Graham, perhaps you should call your future granddaughter Anna Meleke - then she will be A MELEKE STONE!
10th October 2021
Yesterday I found myself in the hall where my teenage life began. My mind flew back to the youth club I attended in the early ‘60s at the age of 13. Along each side of the room was a line of chairs, boys one side, girls the other. On the stage was a record player where the Shirelles were singing Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow. Strange how a place can evoke such strong memories. I shook my head and tried to focus on the coming week as, glass of kiddush wine in hand, I chatted to the other people present. Would they like to come to my book launch of THE MELEKE STONE on Tuesday evening in that very hall, where I’ll be donating the proceeds to a community care home? The message in my novel is so important. Only last week a German hotel, of all places, asked a man to remove his star of David necklace before checking in. Can you believe that? No other innocent, kindly people have had to suffer wave after wave of attacks over 4000 years. It simply has to stop for good. I’ll let you know next Sunday how the book launch goes. Let’s hope they’ll all still love me tomorrow…
3rd October 2021
Today is 11 years since my eldest brother Robert died. I wonder what he would have made of today’s crazy world. Not for him travelling the world. He refused to get a passport. Not for him a driving licence. He never learned to drive nor cook - he had no cooker in the house - so today’s fuel crisis/food shortages/lorry driver paucity would have passed him by. Every day he took the bus into town and ate his main meal in Rackham’s cafeteria. No mobile phone/computer for him nor did he ever use the direct debit/credit facilities at his bank; just a cheque book. As a bill became due, he’d write a cheque. He kept no paper records at all. At his death, his house was scrupulously clean, devoid of anything other than furniture and a few clothes. His neighbours loved him. He was always very kind to everyone. I wonder what he would have made of the Labour Party conference last week. He certainly wouldn’t have approved of the deputy party leader’s very public use of the word “scum” regarding the government. Like me, he expected our leaders to be well-educated and polite. RIP Robert. We could all learn a lot from him.
