R&R at the NRR

 This is a picture of the Redwood Athenaeum and Library Newport. It was set up by the civilised and educated seniors of the town in 1747 and is reckoned to be one of the oldest such places in the country. Obviously I like it and am a subscriber. I often go there on a Saturday morning to collect books and DVDs and read the Economist, Foreign Affairs and, for a change, hard copies of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. There's also a little backroom where they sell off unwanted books at ridiculously low prices which are really, really hard to resist. This is not the time, as I am beginning to think about packing up this whole Newport package, of accumulating yet more detritus so I am stern with myself. From here I walk on to A Market to do some shopping, stop off at Empire for a cappuccino and cinnamon coffee cake, before coming home the long way, even when heavily laden, by the Cliff Walk. Maybe with a brief stop at 'my' beach at the end of Marine Drive (which most unusually for Bellevue Avenue is just a dirt track at the end). Even when the tourists are out in force as they now are, it's usually a very private place. I rest up on my rock, watch the waves and make plans for the rest of the weekend       

It's been quite a couple of weeks. A most unfortunate and quite unexpected combination of final commitments that included four late night transmissions to Singapore, which is currently 12 hours in advance of Eastern Standard Time. What made it all so difficult though was the fact that Cox - the local WIFI provider - are turning out to be quite as hopeless as everyone round here says they are. The problem apparently is a broken wire on a nearby telephone post which I can see in the back of a neighbour's garden. A nice young chap turned up diagnosed the problem said he couldn't do anything about it and promised deliverance 'in a few days.' That was 10 days ago. I think 10 is more than a few myself. Anyhow because the service is so unstable I felt I had to go back into College and operate from my office there. It was a bizarre experience roaming around the place at 0100 in the morning and driving home afterwards through totally deserted streets. they keep early hours here in Newport. WIFI is too good from College either, at least on the special academic channel so it was all a bit of a challenge. Still, it got done.

It's also the culminating couple of weeks of both courses that I am teaching with a lot of presentations to attend, dissertation examinations and mark sheets to compile. On top of that there was the need to copy edit both my latest book and a separate chapter in another book that all arrived the same week.

The triviality of all this was demonstrated by the fact that John my colleague here and friend had a heart attack. It was apparently all very dramatic. They couldn't handle it at the local hospital so apparently sent him off to the main hospital in Providence. He was picked up by a young lady with huge hair and covered in tattoos who drove the ambulance to Providence with sirens dramatically blaring at 85 mph down I-95 (where the speed limit is 60) because he was 'one sick dude.' He was rushed into surgery where stents were inserted which seems to have saved the day. I went along to visit him at the huge  Rhode Island Hospital. It was an opportunity to see the American (private) health system, and I have to say it was pretty much like ours. He had a room all on his own that was full of machines that bleeped all the time, especially when he was wired up. His room was on a corridor directly opposite the desk where all the nurses were burbling away, answering the phone etc etc. Clearly all the arrangements were specifically designed to prevent him from sleeping. All the same he looked very chipper when I visited him, even in a floral bed gown in a rather fetching shade of green. He's back home now, fortunately, but being carefully monitored not least be his family.

That same week though, even more of a reminder of the real world there were obituaries of two leading people I had worked with or for, one was my old head of department in student days who later became Chancellor of Newcastle University and my PhD examiner. The other was a particularly lively senior naval officer who went on to run the RUSI. I remember him particularly for a visit to the Soviet Union in the last days of the Cold War as part of a series of UK-US-Soviet naval consultations. After work, the Russians grew very hospitable, especially when the vodka flowed. They sang to us some really quite tuneful Russian ballads. Our Admiral not to be outdone got the UK team (about six people including me) to sing a particularly bawdy lower-deck navy song. The only detail I recall was the chorus 'Oggie, oggie, oggie' for some reason. The American team who refused to participate were clearly appalled. But the Russians were absolutely delighted with us and the evening went from bad to worse. Rarely were UK-Soviet relations so good. It carried on for the rest of the time into the work sessions too. It seems extraordinary now of course.

So after all this week I felt I deserved a break and attended what's called a 'Porch Dinner' that John had invited me to at the exclusive Newport Reading Room, where a couple of his friends had been organised to look after me. It was a kind of outdoor formal barbecue in the garden. The weather was glorious, sunny and warm  and the whole thing totally enjoyable   

Constitutional reflections

 

Well at last it seems to have finally happened. I turned up for a working lunch with a Coastguard student of mine at the 4th Street Diner, and we found it closed with a sad little notice in the front window saying 'For Sale.' So instead  of going through his paper surrounded by 1960s Americana and alongside my much loved 'Omlet Caboose', Coffee and buttered sourdough toast we found ourselves doing so in a sandwich bar on East Main in Middletown, which frankly could have been anywhere. This cultural disaster has been threatening for ages but it's one of those things you think somehow is so awful it won't ever happen. There's probably a moral there.

It also fits the profoundly depressing news we hear all the time. I listen a lot to NPR - National Public Radio, which broadcasts quite a lot of BBC World Service material too, and I must confess that what I hear about the trend of things in the US is disquieting. It is admittedly true that NPR like quite a lot of the conventional media over here has a little bit of a liberal bias (and it is a 'little bit' I think) but their analysis of the trend in opinion isn't cheery. The latest issue is of course, the likely suspension  of Roe v Wade, on abortion rights and the total mess of very different laws in different states and even more polarised debate, if not fighting, between the deeply committed on both sides doesn't bear thinking about. For all their veneration of the Constitution, I am coming more and more to the conclusion that its irremediably dysfunctional. Perhaps mainly because of the dominance of lawyers in every aspect of society and government.

And yet everyone one meets is as nice as pie - at least here in Rhode Island. When you want to use a zebra crossing, and you hang back so that the nearest car can go past, you find yourself in a battle of politeness. If you're anyway near a crossing, pretending to be interested in the nearest hedge, cars will still stop and very often at least 20 feet short of the white line so as not to put pressure on you !  But maybe that's because they're frightened of being sued. (This is much less true of out-of-towners, and they sadly are beginning to clutter up the streets as the tourist  season opens up).

Talking of which last week I went with colleagues and some of the staff to the Constitution the super-frigate referred to in 'Master and Commander' which was such a nuisance to the RN in the war of 1812.  This entailed a trip to Boston for which one of my colleagues was driving. Following the suggestions of the satnav to avoid the awful traffic, we took a circuitous route which enabled me to see parts of suburban Boston which I hadn't seen before -  and quite tolerable they were too. Very different from other parts of the city. Boston I was told has the biggest social divide between rich whites and poor blacks and others, apart from  Chicago. Driving habits are different from Newport's too. Go on a zebra crossing here and you become a target.

The meal and drinkies before and the after-hours tour of the ship were both fun.  I had fish and chips and very nice it was too.  Most unusually I couldn't finish it ! My Coastguard student turned up wearing a rather fetching pink top and had his baby strapped to his chest. Notwithstanding  that, as he was quite senior, he was 'piped aboard' - only on the Constitution they do it with bells. It was both funny and touching at the same time. We were allowed to poke around in all the parts of the ship that the public doesn't get to.  This included an opportunity to see the Captain's loo - comfortable if a touch public one would have thought. This culminated in the chap who organised it all being allowed to fire the evening gun. Interestingly he had organised the whole  thing partly as he wanted his brother's flag flown from the mast. His brother had just retired and if you're senior enough, getting your flag flown in as many prestigious places as you can manage is 'a thing', as they say. Afterwards the flag party showed us how they fold the flag into a little triangle, just as they do in 'Clear and Present Danger,' or whatever that Tom Clancy film is a called. Fascinating. So a thoroughly enjoyable evening that nicely took one's mind off things.