Across the pond

Now that Barack Obama has won the election I can say, without any fear that my blog might damage his chances, that deep within the heart of Barack Obama there lurks the spirit of the British romantic poets, whose hopes were dashed by the leaders who took power after the French Revolution, and who lived to mourn the fall of France to the new imperialist, Napoleon Bonaparte.

In my view, Obama is a true revolutionary, imbued with the spirit of the founding fathers of the US, who sailed away from England to create their own Utopia. But American independence from the British crown was won after a bitter war of independence, when the Generals, including George Washington, ousted the Brits by firepower.

Obama, by contrast, came to power via the ballot box, and with no allegations so far of vote rigging. So his victory is a triumpth for democracy. And, note, that far from executing his opponents, he is offering them a place in his government, which takes power shortly after my 75th birthday in January.

So I write tonight full of hope, for myself, for my children and, above all, for my grandchildren. Which does not mean that I underestimate the difficulties he faces, including the recession, which I am now convinced is going to be the worst since the 1930s. I don’t want to speculate just who he will have in his cabinet, whether Hillary Clinton will be Secretary of State and whether John McCain, might be enlisted as an ally.

The point is that it is now clear that Obama is going to a different President than any President in history. Not another Jack Kennedy, nor a black Bill Clinton, not even a twenty-first century version of Franklin D Roosevelt. But his own man, an unusual mixture of romantic poet, Harvard egg-head, political organiser.

So I am full of hope. But dismayed. Because although I have repeatedly said that this is the most important US election of my life-time, I have not written a blog since 5 November. And that blog was full of mistakes which I have not had time to correct.

Problem is that a lot has been happening in my own life, which has required my full attention, and damaged my ability to blog.

I have been seeking to follow my own dream of 2006, buying a bungalow by the seaside and a flat in town. The bungalow was bought in August 2007, but there were no flats available we could afford, so I have been renting a second floor flat, whereas I need to pause to catch my breath at first floor level.

The good news is that we found a ground floor flat we liked and could afford in early September. It should have been easy and quick. But thanks to legal complications, which my lawyer had to investigate and minor calamities while the decorators were doing their job once we had taken possession, we did not actualy move in til last Saturday. And we had to leave at dawn on Monday morning to meet commitments is Dorset, where I am now.

The decorators stopped work on their second day, because the loo had flooded. This was because the plumbers who fitted the new bathroom of my vendor, just over two years ago, had fitted the wrong innards. Which I did not know for sure, until my own plumber made it right in less than two hours on Saturday, while the removal men were putting our possessions from our rented flat into their van.

But I was already incapacitated, because in hurrying to meet the plumber I had slipped on wet leaves and ‘dislocated my little finger’. The duty doctor at Royal Free accident and emergency, injected my and attempted to pull it straight. When that did not work, he called in his boss man, who turned over my hands, and told me that I had Dupuytren’s Contrature, which was indentified by Baron Dupuytren in 1831. He thought it was caused by too many years of holding on to the reins of his horse.

Now, 177 years later, the doctors are sure that this was not the cause, but they have no idea what the actual cause is. Pictures, and more thoughts on this in a later blog.

The Royal Free man said that I should go to to my doctor and get him to get me an appointment with a consultant surgeon who would operate to repair my hands. I saw my doctor in Dorset yesterday, who confirmed the diagnosis, but said that I need not have an operation, unless my crooked little finger and the bumps on my hands prevented me doing what I needed to do.

Which they don’t. Which is why I am able to write this blog.

And why I am able to get back to thinking about Obama’s election and what it means to the world. Not tonight.

But over dinner my wife passed across the table the picture below of three pregnant ladies, who all happen to be friends of my eldest daughter’s. And the picture was taken on Hampstead Heath about 200 yards from my new flat.

The products of those pregnancies are now growing up. And thanks to the election of Obama, I am hopeful that they will be able to grow up and enjoy the ‘country in the town’ which is Hampstead Heath.

And be inspired by the poetry of the romantics – Keat’s Ode to a Nightingale was written two hundred yards away. And the prose of George Orwell, some of which was written in the Prompt Corner cafe, two hundred yards in the opposite direction.

God Bless America. And all those Americans, including Obama, who still strive to make a better world than the one we inhabit.