Clive Davis

CHECKING IN

Well, I knew I wouldn't be able to stay away from blogging for a whole twelve days. It hasn't been quite as hard as I expected, though, because the weather has been fantastic, the view from our house across the sea is glorious (pix to follow when I get home) and the cybercafe down the hill in Ventimiglia only has four PCs and a huddle of people waiting to use them.

I'm not hanging around long today. All I want to say is, check out Daniel Finkelstein's column on Tony Blair's Congressional Gold Medal. As Stephen Pollard says, it's a must-read.

Also, Martha Bayles - the last interviewee in my Transatlantic Voices series - wrote a long and thoughtful article on America's international image in last Sunday's Washington Post. It revisits some of the arguments she set out in her recent Wilson Quarterly essay, so if you missed that, now's your chance to catch up. Some of the commenters to this blog didn't take kindly to her views on American pop culture, but even if you don't agree with everything she says, she's definitely sharper than just about every media critic around.

INTERMISSION

I'm going to be on holiday in Italy from tomorrow until September 2nd. (We're setting off for the airport at the unearthly hour of 4am.) If I can find a cybercafe, I'll try to add the occasional post. Otherwise, normal service will be resumed next month.  Thanks for checking in.

QUOTABLE

In the early hours of 16 April 1945, civilians in the eastern quarters of Berlin were awoken by a distant rolling thunder. The vibrations were so strong that telephones began to ring on their own and pictures fell from their hooks. Women emerged slowly from their apartments and exchanged meaningful looks with neighbours. They hardly needed to speak.

Antony Beevor, introduction to A Woman in Berlin. 

LEONARD COHEN'S MONEY TROUBLES

He's all but penniless, according to The American Scene:

Fortunately, there's something we can all do about it - namely, buy Cohen's forthcoming album, which he claims is "one of the best" he's done. Or we can just go back and listen to "Tower of Song"...

MEGAPHONES AT THE READY

Good to see two BBC programmes, The World Tonight and Newsnight casting a sceptical eye over the anti-war activists who've signed on to the Menezes case. An honorable cause risks being hijacked.

Is the same true of the Cindy Sheehan campaign?  At the Daily Ablution, Kasparsohn objects to Christopher Hitchens' critique. I thought Hitchens made perfectly fair points about how the affair has become an exercise in media hyperbole. I hate saying that, because we're talking about a grieving mother. But it's true all the same.

Vodkapundit evidently ran out of patience some time ago.

DOES MICK KNOW?

Mick Jagger, ace neocon-basher, may be upset to hear that Angela Merkel, Germany's answer to Margaret Thatcher, is using "Angie" as a theme song on the election trail. Perhaps Ol' Rubberlips should rustle up an attack on her on the Stones' new album. After all, he knows how to rhyme "hypocrite" with "shit". Nothing is beyond his powers.

How about this? "Hey, Merkel, you're just a cow in a girdle. You make my brain go purple...."

Oh dear, I forgot to call him Sir Mick. How tactless of me.

As I've said before, if you ever feel you're in danger of taking him seriously, get hold of a DVD of Gimme Shelter. That film tells you all you need to know.

UPDATE: Still talking of things German... When I was being given a tour of Berlin recently, my guide pointed out the landmark Axel Springer Building in a tone of voice which implied that it was the modern-day equivalent of Hitler's Bunker. (You get the same reaction in New York if ask left-wingers the way to the Fox News offices.) Medienkritik takes issue with the conventional wisdom.

TON UP

100 already? Norm celebrates wth a compendium of his profiles. (In case you're wondering - which you probably aren't - I chose the Edward Thomas poem.) Here's a gem of an answer from Matt Welch, responding to the question, "Do you have any prejudices you're willing to acknowledge?":

Oh, lots. For starters, I'm not generally fond of Southern Italians, Austrian law enforcement officials, Czech waiters, Yugoslavs who begin sentences with 'but you don't understand our history', British lads on Mediterranean islands, most groups of men larger than five (especially if soccer is involved), doctrinaire types just out of college (especially those with freshly minted journalism degrees, though these are good for sport), middle-aged American women who heart [sic] Castro, Californians who can't tell the difference between 'recession' and 'them dang Mexicans!'... and, obviously, prejudiced people.

THE POVERTY OF THEIR ASPIRATIONS

Taking its cue from Posh Spice's reluctance to do anything so strenuous as reading a book, On An Overgrown Path explains how new technology can bring us better role-models:

In the old model the big players controlled popular culture because they also controlled the high entry cost media through which it was communicated. This meant Victoria Beckham's image was defined by mass media players including her record company, Virgin Music, and her book publisher, Penguin Puttnam.

But all that is changing. Already we have seen major record companies such as Virgin brought to their knees by the new technologies of file sharing, and internet distribution. Now texting, webcasting, podcasting, blogging, and e-publishing are rapidly undermining the stranglehold that the old media companies have on popular culture. This is opening up enormous opportunities for the visionary to influence aspirations, life skills, and appreciation of the arts.

I really do hope he's right. BuzzMachine, a true evangelist in this realm, thinks the nuts and bolts of writing fiction could be set to change too.

QUOTABLE

Thomas Jefferson once said that "every man has two countries - his own and France." Today every man has two countries - his own and America.

John Micklethwait & Adrian Wooldridge, The Right Nation

MUSICAL

Nothing quite matches hearing a Mahler symphony at the Albert Hall - even when it's a small-ish work like the Fourth and you're high up in the cheap seats. Loved it. As for the Lulu Suite, I felt a terrible weariness coming on after just five minutes. Sorry. I've reached the point in life where I can happily admit that Alban Berg ain't for me.

PS: Forgot to mention that Alex Ross has paid a visit to Mahler's lake-side composing hut. He's got the pictures to prove it.

Talking of, er, aesthetics,  I'm smitten by this Frankophile line from John Derbyshire:

I note, by the way, from Mia Farrow's memoirs, that Sinatra, just likethe rest of us, put on a Sinatra record for purposes of seduction.