Big man, pig man, ha ha, charade you are

I was in London again last week for a research trip (five days of intensive microfilm viewing at Colindale...both a pleasure and a torture, somehow).

I found the city to be -- as ever -- both quite enjoyable and rather frustrating.

It's that kind of place.

And I'm always grateful for the long train ride along the Rhine that brings me home to my small town.

Anyway, I had the pleasure of making a new acquaintance, for which I am grateful to Chris W (as for so many other things).

Some divine serendipitous gleanings from this research will be appearing here soon (as part of the 'historical bycatch' series), probably after we return from this week's travel to Montreal, where I'm giving a paper at a conference on justice and public opinion.

For the moment, though, as is my wont, I'd just like to register my disgust with something.

There I was, returning to my hotel from a hard day's slog in the archives. Having crossed the Worst Road in the World (i.e., Euston Road), as usual, I rounded the corner onto Upper Woburn Place where, as usual, I was assaulted by a paper-wielding thug handed a copy of one of London's various free papers, London Lite (Friday, 1 May 2009).

Given that we are in the middle of a panic (justified or not, who knows) about swine influenza -- otherwise known in the British press by the more catchy and economical 'pig flu' -- I was interested in reading the cover story, with the subtle title of 'Pig flu hell of London student, 22'.

I got as far as paragraph five when I ran across the following:

Max Clifford, who is representing the family, said: 'He's in a bad way and is suffering from awful sickness and vomiting.'

OK, not for a moment do I wish to condemn someone suffering from a potentially fatal illness.

But still, I had to think: Max Clifford. Max Clifford. A PR agent.

What: given 'awful sickness and vomiting' the first call is to the NHS, the second to a publicist?

Am I missing out on something? I mean, am I insufficiently prepared for the current Zeitgeist when I don't imagine that coming down with a bad case of the flu is the kind of thing that requires...um...an agent?

And this is not just envy speaking.

No, I've had several conversations with myself over the last three hours, and this this has nothing to do with the fact that I've spent the better part of a year and a half fruitlessly trying to interest publishing agents in a fascinating book I've written about a half-forgotten murder case from the past whilst receiving all kinds of lame excuses (when I receive any feedback at all) .

No. I am not bitter.

Much.

Except for when I think that instead of slaving away for two years on a sophisticated-yet-entertaining manuscript, I should have just hung around in places likely to generate the pandémie de l'année and sold my story when the projectile vomiting really got going.

Why do I keep missing out on these great opportunities?

(Title reference)

Smells like...victory

I seem to have escaped London just before the invasion of unpleasant smells that the conservative press has had such a joyful time blaming on ancestral enemies (which, in the British case, means just about anyone other than themselves).

It appears that this scourge has actually been the result of unfortunate winds coinciding with the fertilising of agricultural fields in northern continental Europe. (What...don't British farmers fertilise their fields?)

Now, it strikes me as more than a bit odd that The Mail has identified the source as a country (in this case, the Germans) rather than a profession, i.e., farmers.

As you might have noted if you pay attention to these things (and we do, oh yes, we do), farmers are usually quite a favoured group in the Mail and the Telegraph and other assorted advocates of a traditional way of life.

They are known to often display contempt for the sensitivities of the modern, effete urban dweller. They also display more than a passing admiration for a Golden Age gone by that the now vanishing rural world represents.

Which puts the current obsession with the brief stinky wind in a bit of perspective.

I spent a number of years living in a rural university town in the American midwest. I now live in a fairly rural small town in southwestern Germany. (Located just about where The Sun seems to think the 'German pig muck pong' got its origin.) And in graduate school I spent more time than I care to remember studying the social life of early modern Europe.

And let me let you in on a tiny secret.

The countryside -- now as in the past -- sometimes smells...well...like shit.

Where, one wants to ask, do you think your food comes from, city boys and city girls...and where, after you've scarfed down your over-priced, pseudo-gourmet, factory processed calories, do you think it goes?

Yes. You'd be right.

Get used to it, urban sissies.