Hugo Rifkind
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I certainly don’t understand what has been going on at Cern, although that seems to be OK. In fact, there would appear to have been some sort of columnists’ moratorium circulated on Cern, even though I wasn’t cc’d in on it, which basically says that nobody needs to understand it, but everybody can write about it anyway, and the fact that nobody really knows what the hell they are on about is just one of the things that makes the whole damn shebang so thoroughly clever and super. I’m hoping this approach doesn’t catch on, and spread to other areas, or I might be out of a job.
I don’t understand what all those people from Lehman Brothers have in their very neat cardboard boxes. Indeed, I don’t understand where all those people from Lehman Brothers even got their very neat cardboard boxes. Inasmuch as I understand anything at all, it would appear that right up to the very last minute of their 158-year history, Lehman Brothers failed to predict that they were going down the pan and failed to predict that nobody would bail them out, but still somehow managed to predict that they would need a very large supply of aforementioned neat cardboard boxes to hand. Frankly, I can’t even pretend I understand their priorities.
Still on the economy, I also don’t understand how much I am supposed to understand, bearing in mind that I did get an A in half a GCSE about the economy in 1993. I don’t understand why John McCain apparently has special dispensation on the economy, and is allowed to a) not understand any of it, and b) sort of boast about not understanding any of it, as if this was a positive boon. I don’t understand if I’d be allowed to do this, too, or if my half GCSE might get in the way.
In fact, there is so much going on that I don’t understand that I have found myself trawling world events, more or less at random, to see if there is anything going on that I do understand. In Tallahassee, Florida, a naked man was Tasered while walking his dog. ‘Allah told me to watch a Bruce Willis movie and walk the dog,’ the man explained to police, shortly before they opened fire. This, I understand. Allah doesn’t mention clothes, you don’t bother with clothes. I don’t understand why they Tasered him, but this somehow seems less important.
In Saudi Arabia, a barking senior cleric has announced that purveyors of horoscopes should face ‘death by the sword’. This I also understand, even though I stand by the ‘barking’ bit, and I’m slightly baffled as to why Allah should be so fussed about your moon in Pisces, or whatever, when he hasn’t even got time to say ‘put on some shorts’. But still, Saudia Arabia has a crazy system. Horoscopes are a rival crazy system. You can see why one of them had to go.
In Jerusalem, meanwhile, ultra-Orthodox Jews have started beating up women who are wearing ‘immodest’ clothing. This, I also understand, because even though it’s not very nice, it is not very different from the Tasering policemen in Tallahassee (minus the ‘Allah’ bit) or the mullahs and their horo-scopes (plus some partial nudity). Because it reminds you that in a world where people are confronted by endless scary things they don’t understand, the temptation will always be to cling to stuff that they think they do. Just like I did. And the Mail on Sunday did. And Sarah Palin does. Maybe.
Julius Caesar put himself on coins. He was the first dictator to do so and, arguably, that was why they killed him. Google creatively and you can find pictures of a few. In one, he had a full head of hair. In another, he was ducking under a toga. If it hadn’t been for all those pesky statues, history’s most famous slaphead might have got away with it.
This I can understand. And so, I feel, we should be tolerant that on the £5 coin issued to mark his birthday, the Prince of Wales has allowed the Royal Mint to be mildly creative with his profile. The coin shows him looking distinguished, which he is, and wise, which he has become. Less faithfully, it also shows him as a man in no need of Ambre Solaire on the pate, even on a very sunny day. This he is not.
So be it. It’s not normal for a mere heir to even make it on to cash, and with Ma’am long reigning over us, and showing no sign of shuffling off anywhere, and with cash inexorably giving way to plastic anyway, Charles may have felt this was his one stab at a hirsute posterity. If he tries the same trick when he is 80, it may be worth making a fuss. For now, let us grant the heir his hair.
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