ALTERNATIVES

I used to think there was an alternative to everything, and the alternative way would be the better way. This approach allowed problems to be looked at always with a fresh view and sometimes solved as a consequence. With age I’ve found there to be many alternatives and none is necessarily better than the other, just different. Also I’ve learned that problems are often not solved only lived with.

THELMA & LOUISE

I loved that movie. But of course actual women don’t do what these women did. They don’t shoot guns and blow up trucks. That’s always been archetypal man’s prerogative. In this sense the women in the movie are behaving like traditional male heroes. The men, by contrast are depicted as slobs. They are dull and uninteresting. They are recognisable to me, almost real, like West of Scotland males, kind of feckless and emotionally shallow. The use of archetypal fantasy females alongside stereotypical real males is a welcome device for a feminist agenda. It’s a reversal of form. For decades films usually employed the opposite method: tough guys with attitude alongside superficial women. It’s a sign of the times and something I approve of - up to a point.

QUINCY JONES

He was totally committed to his career and said that people who get to the top are addicted to their calling. Another facet was that he was clearly a hugely positive guy. This may even have been to the point of denial in his emotional and personal life. I imagine he was fairly fucked up at a deeper level and wasn’t keen to embrace that part of himself. Still, he liked people and people liked him back. He hung out a lot. He was easily mentored by older men. Basie, who helped him financially at a crucial point, was probably the most important. He said music made him strong, popular, self-reliant and cool.

TREACHEROUS

We are all of us, each to the other, treacherous. That’s too often the way of human relations.

DELIVERANCE

There is invariably a deliverance of some kind in life. Okay, ultimately you are delivered out but that’s another matter. As Wittgenstein says, death is not an event in life. Within life itself there is often a redemptive factor, a certain quality that comes through that gives meaning even in the bleakest of times. It may be impossibly difficult to recognise but on reflection it can usually be identified. Perhaps this is the transcendent aspect.

RETRIBUTION

People should realise that society can’t provide total immunity from the worst aspects of life. It can do its best but that will be far from adequate in certain cases. However contemptuous we may be for those who defile us, society still has to deal with them in a way that remains faithful to liberal principles. A society that doesn’t is one likely to fall short in other ways, ways indeed that would leave us all very much worse off. Retribution itself carries a heavy price.