Tea with Neagu Djuvara on my birthday

A nice birthday present was being invited to tea by Neagu Djuvara, the 100-year old Romanian historian and thinker.

I was pleased that my Romanian was good enough to understand pretty much every word he said. He welcomes Trump's election - Trump is the sort of 'primitive peasant' who is needed, 'a bull', rather than Hillary, who is 'too harmless'.

But he does not think Russia a threat to Romania - it's simply Romanians' habit to think Russia a danger. The real danger is Muslim immigration and the inevitable Muslim conquest of Europe.

He slightly offended the woman friend I brought with me, whom he seemed to enjoy, by saying she was was 'too intellectual for a woman'. She was not offended on behalf of her sex but because he might have meant she was not attractive. I saw yet again the unbridgeable chasm that separates Romanian from British thinking. 

I think he was flirting, but with 100 year-old savants it's not easy to tell.

Morally disgusting people praise Castro

Before the Castro tributes, the last time left-wingers were so funny was when Marchais, Yasser Arafat and the others welcomed the Moscow coup in 1991.

But it's not just the left. The BBC are kinder to Castro than they were to Lady Thatcher when she died:

“His critics accused him of being a dictator.”

The Lord Mayor of Dublin has opened a Book of Condolence for Fidel Castro to allow the people of Dublin to "pay their own respects", which is reminiscent of Eamonn de Valera signing the book of condolences in the German Embassy in 1945 on the death of Hitler.

Americans disapprove of it but owe their country's existence to colonialism

It's strange that Americans owe their country's existence to colonialism but are so prejudiced against it.


Other people's colonialism, that is. They have their own colonial empire. Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Alaska, various islands, Cuba and the Philippines in the past, Europe west of Russia.


All the USA east of the original 13 colonies is the result of American colonialism, I suppose. Including the lands taken from Mexico, that the Mexicans are now reoccupying.


AJP Taylor, the greatest 20th century British historian said: 

“If the Germans had succeeded in exterminating their Slav neighbors as the Anglo-Saxons in North America succeeded in exterminating the Indians, the effect would have been what it has been on the Americans: the Germans would have become advocates of brotherly love and international reconciliation."

US gets angry when Putin wants a sphere of influence in Ukraine and the near abroad but the Monroe Doctrine delimits the US's sphere of influence (to include the whole Western hemisphere). This justified the Bay of Pigs invasion, for example, and the US embargo on Cuba which continues to this day.

Note how US reacted over Suez (because of anti-colonialism) with our support over Cuba (their colony).

I am not opposed to the Bay of Pigs invasion or the British attempt to land a force of émigrés in Albania to overthrow the Communists there. (Kim Philby ensured that didn’t work.) I just note American inconsistency.

Juncker, Hollande and Corbyn praise Castro, Trump rejoices

European Commission - Statement

Statement by President Juncker on the passing away of Fidel Castro

Brussels, 26 November 2016

Fidel Castro was one of the historic figures of the past century and the embodiment of the Cuban Revolution. With the death of Fidel Castro, the world has lost a man who was a hero for many. He changed the course of his country and his influence reached far beyond. Fidel Castro remains one of the revolutionary figures of the 20th century. His legacy will be judged by history. 

I convey my condolences to the Cuban President Raúl Castro and his family and to the people of Cuba

He has not so far gone as far as Eamonn De Valera who signed the book of condolence at the German embassy on Adolf Hitler's death.  

French President Francois Hollande has mourned the loss the "towering" former Cuban leader Fidel Castro, while noting concerns over human rights under his regime.

British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn hailed Fidel Castro as a “champion of social justice”, following the announcement of the former Cuban leader’s death, admitted there were “flaws” in the revolutionary leader’s long rule over the Caribbean island, but praised him as a “huge figure of modern history”.

Mr Corbyn said: 

“Fidel Castro’s death marks the passing of a huge figure of modern history, national independence and 20th century socialism. From building a world class health and education system, to Cuba’s record of international solidarity abroad, Castro’s achievements were many.For all his flaws, Castro’s support for Angola played a crucial role in bringing an end to Apartheid in South Africa, and he will be remembered both as an internationalist and a champion of social justice.”

President Barack Obama said: 

“We know that this moment fills Cubans — in Cuba and in the United States — with powerful emotions, recalling the countless ways in which Fidel Castro altered the course of individual lives, families, and of the Cuban nation. History will record and judge the enormous impact of this singular figure on the people and world around him.”

The BBC praised Castro's health care programme and role in fighting the apartheid South African regime, without mentioning mass murder, political prisoners or Cubans celebrating his death. Welfare has taken the place of freedom (and religion) in the minds of many people.

In fact South Africans of all races can be grateful that the National Party regime held on long enough to save them from Castro-style communism.

I don't recall Pinochet getting this treatment and yet Pinochet, not more brutal than Castro, was the saviour of his country and made it the prosperous First World economy it is today. He also stepped down after losing a referendum.

And Donald Trump called Castro a "brutal dictator".

A Facebook friend commented: You know what? I think Donny's going to work out just fine.

Donald Trump also said:

"While Cuba remains a totalitarian island, it is my hope that today marks a move away from the horrors endured for too long, and toward a future in which the wonderful Cuban people finally live in the freedom they so richly deserve,"

Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump  4 hours ago

3 hours ago

Fidel Castro is dead!

0 replies50,484 retweets85,323 likes

The purpose of a nation is to exclude people

The purpose of a nation, like any other club, or like any house or dwelling, is to exclude people. This is its raison d'être. Discuss.

Excluding others is one important purpose of states, rather than countries, I suppose. I am not sure countries or nations should have purposes. I rather think they shouldn't.

I think Trump's victory is good news for America and Europe

Reality is not always probable, or likely. Jorge Luis Borges 

It's true Trump's win has sparked an increase in racist rhetoric, but we can hope this vilification of white voters will eventually abate. Ann Coulter

I stopped supporting him after the groping allegations. I was more or less neutral before the result but influenced by Rod Liddle who told me Trump was probably the lesser evil by a whisker. Watching in the early hours of Wednesday, I found myself delighted when he won so many states he wasn't supposed to have a chance in. I now think he will be good. After all, he has defied expectations all along.


He has proved to be a remarkably good politician and a salesman of genius who likes to win. He has achieved something huge by overcoming both the two parties, the Clinton machine, the Bush machine, the religious right and the bipartisan establishment. Now he may get to sideline the climate change industry and institute a rational immigration policy.


I think he'll choose good people and astonish the world by his reasonableness, though I fear he may be too reasonable.


This is the first time an obviously unpleasant man has won a presidential election since ...when?


Johnson maybe (before my time) but he got in because of Kennedy's murder. Nixon though crooked was not so repellent as Trump. Before that the 19th century I suppose.


Hillary of course was even more unlikable.


People who have had business dealings with Trump testify to how unpleasant he is, though he is said to be charming at dinner parties. But the coarseness he displayed throughout he campaign was I suddenly see a brilliant act to appeal to the voters he wanted and to provide endless free advertising.


And he addressed a sassy feminist journalist at a press conference as 'beautiful'. This might be the end of PC. And only someone as uninhibited and unafraid of causing offence as he (can't think of such a person offhand) could end PC.


What I like is that he won despite a chaotic and amateur campaign and hopeless organisation. This meant his movement was a people's revolt.


And he is the nearest to a Pat Buchanan that we can hope for.


It was a remarkable victory and a landslide even though he lost narrowly the popular vote. Had the electoral college not existed the campaign would have been fought in another way, Never Trump voters who lived in safe blue states would have voted for him and he would still have won.


The big question - have the Northern non-graduates left the Democrats for good as the Southerners had by 1980?


It's interesting that the Republican candidates for the nomination had to make a pledge to support the nominee (devised because it was feared Trump might run as a third party candidate). Bush and for some time Cruz refused to honour this.


People said that Trump would refuse to accept the result and now some Democrats are asking the Electoral College to vote in Hillary. The wheel of fortune turns.


What clinched victory? The FBI reopening the email case, Obamacare subs going up 25%, Black Lives Matter, Hillary's 'deplorables' remark, her pantsuits? I suspect that the two most important reasons, even though America is inward looking, may have been Angela Merkel's decision to enable an invasion of Europe by asylum seekers and the ISIS atrocities.

Brexit and Trump are very different, but both show that the left's and centre left's irrational attachment to open borders may keep them out of power for the foreseeable future. However, I am not sure they are capable of changing.

Why Aren't I 50 Points Ahead You Might Ask?

"Reality is not always probable, or likely." - Jorge Luis Borges

I was more or less neutral  before the result but influenced by Rod Liddle, who told me on Tuesday evening that Trump was probably the lesser evil by a whisker. Watching in the early hours of Wednesday, I found myself delighted when he won so many states he wasn't supposed to have a chance in. I now think he will be good. After all, he has defied expectations all along.

He has proved to be a remarkably good politician and a salesman of genius who likes to win. He has achieved something huge by both both the two parties, the Clinton machine, the Bush machine, the religious right and the bipartisan establishment. Now he may get sideline the climate change industry and institute a rational immigration policy.

I think he'll choose good people and astonish the world by his reasonableness, though I fear he may be too reasonable.

This is the first time an obviously unpleasant man has won a presidential election since ...when?

Johnson maybe (before my time) but he got in because of Kennedy's murder. Nixon though crooked was not so repellent as Trump. Before that, the 19th century I suppose.

Hillary of course was even more unlikable.

People who have had business dealings with Trump testify to how unpleasant he is though he is said to be charming at dinner parties.But the coarseness he displayed throughout he campaign was I suddenly see a brilliant act to appeal to the voters he wanted and to provide endless free advertising.

And he addressed a sassy feminist journalist at a press conference as 'beautiful'. This might be the end of PC. And only someone as uninhibited and unafraid of causing offence as he (can't think of such a person offhand) could end PC.

What I like is that he won despite a chaotic and amateur campaign and hopeless organisation. This meant his movement was a people's revolt.

And he is the nearest to a Pat Buchanan that we can hope for.

It was a remarkable victory and a landslide even though he lost narrowly the popular vote. Had the electoral college not existed the campaign would have been fought in another way, Never trump voters who lived in safe blue states would have voted for him and he would still have won.

The big question - have the Northern non-graduates left the Democrats for good as the Southerners had by 1980?

It's interesting that the Republican candidates for the nomination had to make a pledge to support the nominee (devised because it was feared Trump might run as a third party candidate. Bush and for some time Cruz refused to honour this. People said that trump would refuse to accept the result and now some Democrats are asking the Electoral College to vote in Hillary. The wheel of fortune turns.

What clinched victory? The FBI reopening the email case, Obamacare subs going up 25%, Black Lives Matter, Hillary's 'deplorables' remark, her pantsuits? I suspect that the two reasons, even though America is inward looking, may have been Angela Merkel's decision to enable an invasion of Europe by asylum seekers and the ISIS atrocities.

Brexit and Trump are very different, but both show that the left's and centre left's irrational attachment to open borders may keep them out of power for the foreseeable future. However, I am not sure they are capable of changing.

I think Trump's victory is good news for America and Europe

Reality is not always probable, or likely. Jorge Luis Borges 

It's true Trump's win has sparked an increase in racist rhetoric, but we can hope this vilification of white voters will eventually abate. Ann Coulter

I stopped supporting him after the groping allegations. I was more or less neutral before the result but influenced by Rod Liddle who told me Trump was probably the lesser evil by a whisker. Watching in the early hours of Wednesday, I found myself delighted when he won so many states he wasn't supposed to have a chance in. I had assumed Hillary Clinton would win yet when results came in they seemed oddly unsurprising. I now think he will be good. After all, he has defied expectations all along.


He has proved to be a remarkably good politician and a salesman of genius, who likes to win. He has achieved something huge by overcoming both the two parties, the Clinton machine, the Bush machine, the religious right and the bipartisan establishment. Now he may get to sideline the climate change industry and institute a rational immigration policy.


I think he'll choose good people and astonish the world by his reasonableness, though I fear he may be too reasonable.


This is the first time an obviously unpleasant man has won a presidential election since ...when?


Johnson maybe (before my time) but he got in because of Kennedy's murder. Nixon though crooked was not so repellent as Trump. Before that the 19th century I suppose.


Hillary of course was even more unlikable.


People who have had business dealings with Trump testify to how unpleasant he is, though he is said to be charming at dinner parties. But the coarseness he displayed throughout he campaign was, I suddenly see, a brilliant act to appeal to the voters he wanted and to provide endless free advertising.

The view from India: 'Trump's victory and Brexit are the West girding its loins to face off the Wahhabi threat'

Here is a very interesting Indian view of Donald Trump's victory.

Under a Trump presidency, expect a profound rearrangement of the world order. This is Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations playing out. First it was Brexit, for essentially the same reasons. Now it’s Trump. The West is girding its loins to face off the Wahhabi threat that has arisen. It has no patience for a hoity-toity liberal elite that only gets in the way and compromises the West’s economic and social vitality. Americans are ready to put America first. That’s why Trump won.

Facebook fascinatingly shows you how the liberal elite think. An example is this comment left just now on someone's wall:

We had the demented moral relativism of the left making excuses for 9/11 and other such acts of terror, now we're seeing the demented moral relativism of the right defending Trump. This will show a lot of hypocrites up at least, there will be plenty who make excuses for one and not the other. We should come up with a name for them...

Find an equivalence between defending Mr. Trump and murdering 3,000 people and then complain about demented moral relativism. Isn't it wonderful? And people like that think Trump supporters are stupid.

And don't understand why the Donald was elected.

Someone else on Facebook yesterday opined:

This is the worst day in the entire history of the nation; worse than Pearl Harbor, worse than 9-11, worse than JFK's assassination.

How painful the next four years are going to be for these people, whether President Trump succeeds, as we must hope, or fails.  

Another reason Trump won

A lot of the craziness comes from cultural/ethnic issues—rural White Americans who feel they are losing their country, and they are right. They are losing their country. In the end, the power they now have will go away, but it’s a very difficult and dangerous time until then. 

That was the annoying Nobel prize winner and political polemicist Paul Krugman, in 2014. 

Professor Krugman, nevertheless, was shocked by the election result and took it hard. He tweeted:

I truly thought I knew my country better than it turns out I did. I have warned that we could become a failed state, but didn't realize 1

that it wasn't just the radicalism of the GOP, but deep hatred in a large segment of the population. How do we move forward? 2/

This tweet elicited the reply:

Yeah it's almost like when you deliberately try to destroy an entire group of people, they get mad.

1. 
   

The phrase "épater les bourgeois" might have been invented for this moment

Social media on Trump



Ann Coulter ‏@AnnCoulter 14 Nov 2015
They can wait if they like until next November for the actual balloting, but Donald Trump was elected president tonight.



'This is like Brexit in at least this respect: The morning after, lots of people will be staring into their coffee and wondering how screaming insults at people didn't win them over.'



John Rentoul tweeted:
My fellow members of the metropolitan liberal elite: let's stop insulting the US electorate and try to work out why, shall we?

Latin American Trump

Ironically, Trump seems like he will be a rather Latin American leader. A populist in the Morales mould.

Why Trump won

I am tired after only three hours' sleep last night but instead of blogging give you this from a very interesting article by Scott McConnell in 'The American Conservative'. The whole piece is here.

On some issues, establishment liberal opinion had moved so far to the left as to be unrecognizable. As blogger Steve Sailer noted, in 2000 the New York Times editorial page opposed amnesty for illegal aliens both because it would encourage more illegal immigration and because it would have deleterious effects on the employment and wages of lower-income native-born Americans. Sixteen years later, when Trump suggested that the core of immigration policy should be concern for its impact on the well-being of Americans, he was denounced as a raving bigot by the same New York Times...............

There is, of course, much racism in American history, and there are enormous crimes for which Europe continues to strive to atone. But neither anti-racism nor respect for other cultures should be turned into a national or civilizational suicide pact. Here what Irving Kristol famously wrote about Sen. Joseph McCarthy comes to mind: “There is one thing that the American people know about Senator McCarthy: he like them is unequivocally anti-Communist. About the spokesmen for American liberalism, they feel they know no such thing.”

In the now global faceoff between Western civilization versus mass immigration fused with multiculturalism, Kristol’s words describe with uncanny accuracy the dichotomy between Donald Trump and his supporters on one hand and those most feverishly denouncing him on the other. Among the former, for all their faults, are those who want, unequivocally, Western civilization to survive. About the latter, no such thing is certain.

Revolutions bring odd people like Trump to power

NC called for Trump. It does look like he will win. What a revolutionary year 2016 is like 1989 and 1789.

Trump is a demagogue and unknown quality but this is a non violent revolution. Revolutions bring odd people to power. Demographics probably made this the last time something like this could happen. I suppose the 1933 election was the last comparable election but the New Deal was largely a cut and paste of Hoover's policies.

It's partly a revolt by women against feminism and whites against mass immigration. The Trump voters don't think Trump is a good candidate but he is a battering ram with which to force a citadel.

Of course Trump is not far right or even right at all but Andrew Neil compares him to Orban and the Greek communist-ish government.

Is the decadent West in terminal decline?

An article in Xinhua, the state-controlled Chinese news agency said that the US election shows 

the twisted mentality of an empire moving downhill.

That makes sense, though I think it is Europe that is in decline much more than America.

Christopher Booker in the Telegraph thinks the same. In an article headlined

It doesn't matter who wins the US election. The decadent West is in terminal decline

he says :

...Britons of the early Fifties could see the society this revolution has now brought about, with half of our children born out of wedlock, same-sex marriage, the all-pervasive cult of empty celebrity, the rise of intolerant “political correctness”, the woefully diminished standing of our politicians, our ever-rising sea of national debt, they would reel back in horror at our “decadence”.

The period since 2000 has been as dramatic as the one 1985-2000. The disastrous wars of the last fifteen years have diminished the standing of the West, while its economic dominance of the world lessens. The euro, immigrants and terrorism pose huge, insoluble problems for Europe. 

This reminds me of historians Neagu Djuvara's and Bernard Lewis's conviction that Europe's inescapable destiny is to become Muslim.

The fact that Europe, more united than at any time since the fall of Rome, feels it requires American, British and Canadian help to defend itself is very telling.

I increasingly feel that we may be living in a period like the reign of Marcus Aurelius, the golden age where Gibbon starts his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Come to think of it, there is something of an outlandish late Roman emperor about Donald Trump, perhaps a rich wheat importer who got his position in an auction held by the Praetorian guard. 

As Goldsmith put it,

Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay.

Europe has been in relative decline since the late 19th century and no longer enjoys the ascendancy that it once did, measured in all ways, over the rest of the world. Clearly this process is continuing. On the other hand, Europeans are enjoying in many ways a golden age, as are most parts of the world, measured not only in material but in many other terms.

But think how few great men Europe (and the West in general) has produced since 1945, outside the spheres of technology, medicine and hard science. Who are the great writers, painters, composers, philosophers?

Christianity is flourishing in Africa, China and Korea, but Islam is flourishing in Europe. Europe is flourishing vicariously in the former British colonies of the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, but they are becoming much less European, less Christian and more multicultural. The old order changeth.

Few conservatives in England want Trump to win

A lot of Americans who like Donald Trump assume that British people who voted for Brexit also want Mr. Trump to win. In fact this is not so. 

According to a Gallup polls of 32 countries, 15% of British voters want Mr. Trump to win, 64% want Mrs Clinton and 21% don't know. I am told most committed UKIP supporters want Donald Trump to win but UKIP polls around 6% of the British electorate. Most people who voted for Brexit therefore do not want Mr. Trump. 

I live in Romania but I know that to most Britons he seems terrifying. We rarely respect American presidents because they are so different from our leading politicians, for many reasons to do with very different cultures and to do with our parliamentary system. Kennedy, George H W Bush, Obama and Romney were the sort of men who at a stretch seemed imaginable as British Prime Ministers - possibly Clinton and more easily Gore. The perpetually grinning Carter, Reagan the B-film actor, Pat Buchanan, George W Bush, Cruz, Ben Carson and Donald Trump certainly did or do not. 

This is partly about style and in Mr. Trump's case the looseness of what he says

A tight race between two awful people, one of whom is a skilled politician

What happened to the decent Democratic party of Carter and Bill Clinton? Economics happened to it and demographics, I suppose. They gave up on working class men and the South.

The big developments in America since 1989, apart from September 11th, are the decline of religious belief and Third World immigrants. You see this with both parties.

The Republican party of Reagan is dead forever and George W Bush killed traditional American conservatism, which was never conservatism anyway but 19th century liberalism plus pork-barrelling.

Hillary would intervene in Syria which is bad - very bad. She is the war candidate and a globalist who'd fit nicely into any Western European country. She is secretive, dishonest and has no political skills beyond craftiness. Everything she touches goes wrong, most of all Libya.

I am undecided about who should win. Trump might be good. Or terrible. If the latter he would be the best thing that could happen to the Democrats and left-of-centrists around the world. He is a bad man - a twice divorced womaniser - with a controversial business record - who boasts of groping pussies. Vain, very easily distracted, a short fuse.

Still he might - already is - changing thinking worldwide about many things, most of all PC.

He addressed a woman journalist at a press conference as 'Beautiful'. This is appalling or magnificent depending on taste.

One term for Hillary, stymied by a Republican Congress, and then an impressive Republican POTUS who is not a globalist might be the best outcome.

Is the Pope Catholic?

'Is the Pope Catholic?' used to be a jocular way of saying something was certain. Now it almost seems like a real, not a rhetorical, question.


At least he made it clear this week that women cannot be priests. 

Trump presidency and victory for Assad might make the world safer

Former Chief of British Defence Staff Lord Richards on Syria:

“The fact is, the only way to get it to stop now is to allow Assad to win and win quickly and then turn on [ISIL] with the Russians.” 

Lord Richards also thinks Trump less warlike than Hillary (obviously). 

This is what I have been saying for a long time. The article is here. Not because I like Putin or fail to see that the Assad is monstrous and ha\s committed far more terrible crimes even than ISIS at least in Syria.

The article is here.

God Save the Queen

On the BBC's main political news programme, Newsnight, presenter Kirsty Wark's response to an MP's suggestion that the BBC should play God Save the Queen at close down every night, as they used always to do, was to play the Sex Pistols singing their version of God Save the Queen. 

All stuff the BBC was, of course, far too terrified to broadcast when it came out 40 years ago. A song that offends the sort of people who vote Tory or even voted for Brexit, so of no concern to the BBC.

The BBC, paid for by all TV users, doesn't understand why people say it is biased to the left or should be abolished.


Romanians would be outraged if the state TV did something like this - but in Eastern Europe people think like normal human beings and have not become decadent.

No outrage in the British press - where are the mauve faced retired majors of yesteryear?

The BBC in fact used to be very reverential about just one British institution, the monarchy. No longer. 

In fact the BBC still is reverential - but about foreigners not the Queen. Compare the way they treated and treat Nelson Mandela. The mourning on the BBC on his death made my friend Sean Gabb compare it with the official mourning in the USSR on the death of Stalin.

Donald Trump and Hillary neck and neck! Oh my fur and whiskers!

I started the morning with the BBC World Service, pro-immigrant and pro-Hillary. 'This is bad news' said the newsreader at the end of an item about low black turnout in early voting in Florida, adding as an afterthought, "for Hillary". Some woman is saying "I have seen her comfort children who are scared their parents will be deported." That remark perfectly encapsulates why people who like Trump do so.

Another woman says: "Imagine a president  [Trump] whom it's so easy to rile up. That's a much better point."

It's not the bias so much as the perfectly objective reporting from the Jungle at Calais that shows the essentially pro-migrant point of view of the BBC. The accurate, uncritical reporting of the migrants and the activists trying to help them get into England.

Yet the Jungle doesn't even matter - more migrants than are in the Jungle are entering Europe day by day without discussion, except when activists say they are in some way being mistreated.

If you only follow the news that has happened and ignore what's going to happen you miss surprisingly little. Turning from speculation about the US election the really interesting news today is that 20% of the world's population is on Facebook.

The evening before last a Labour-supporting novelist who's my Facebook friend was deploring 'how they will furnish the White House'. 'Will' not 'would'. I went to Google news and saw the extraordinary improvement in Trump's numbers.

Am I wavering, having decided that he just won't do?

He'd badly damage US prestige. And he's a ghastly man, vain, touchy, self-interested and a demagogue. But he has created and given voice to a very important social movement and would change the zeitgeist. He would be the anti Angela Merkel.

Hillary is much safer than Trump and, after all, I thought Obama was mediocre but OK. Bill was fairly good.

But she is not her husband or Obama. She is very bad news. It will be four years of scandals, but not even interesting scandals. Four years of the emails. I don't know if I have the strength.

Hilaire Belloc's Ballade of Good Tidings

The other day the £ fell out of bed

With consequences that are far from clear ;

For instance, Eldorado Deeps, instead

Of jumping up, incline to lurch and veer ;

And while Commander Turtle thinks it queer

Professor Guff is willing to explain ;

But anyhow, the quiet profiteer

Will miss the Riviera and Champagne.

 

The out o'work will miss his loaf of bread,

The half-at-work will miss his glass of beer,

The City clerk — who might as well be dead —

Will miss the slight advance in his career,

And very many of my friends, I fear,

(Like Algernon, who hasn't got a brain)

A'pacing hollow-eyed on Brighton Pier,

Will miss the Riviera and Champagne.

 

Ladies and Lords who once on glory fed,

Renaldo, Pharamond and Guinevere,

And Francis, that in glittering armour led

The long defile of Lance and Halbadier ;

High Captains of an elder world, give ear —

Csesar and Bonaparte and Charlemagne —

The nobler masters of our modern sphere

Will miss the Riviera and Champagne.

Envoi 

Prince, Oh my Prince, 'Tis heavenly to hear ! 

Stroke the piano ; croon it once again " 

The Rich, the Very Rich, this very year, 

Will miss the Riviera and Champagne."