Mostly, a waste of time

The flurry of comments about my views on Marauders slash was utterly unexpected. It happened weeks after I had posted the original comment, and in a situation where I had not yet got a single comment on any other posts, including many that I for one find more interesting. (Eventually a correspondent explained that this whole Livejournal thing has a strong connection with HP fandom, which I did not really realize. I just look on it as an opportunity to do some writing on whatever strikes my fancy.) It was not very welcome: there were a very large number of insults and stupid posts, most of which I deleted. I have left a particularly pathetic one, deposited on the unrelated "British Ruling Class" post by a peculiarly foolish member of the phylon Anonymus, purely for its value as instance of the sort of thing this sort of person finds worth while saying. Ridiculous is not a strong enough word. And I know that there are a couple of threads in cyberspace simply filled with this sort of thing, with some of the FA moderators (an unusually detestable body of people) prominent in displaying infantile features. Sad. Their employers ought to be notified that there are so many people with nothing worthwhile to do and so much time on their hands.

The worst thing is that it happened as I was beginning to commit myself to my first big push for a new campaign of research and book-writing since about 1999, when I started work on the HISTORY OF BRITAIN 407-597. That committed me for most of my waking days for about three years, and produced, at the end of it, a single piece of work whose sheer size meant that most publishers would not look at it - I have a whole file of publishers' replies and referees' comments that all say in effect "Lovely job, but..."

Now, so far as one can see the end of a job that is barely begun, I have an idea that this campaign will result in a number of separate books; one about Taliesin (for which I already have most of the materials and must find the proper shape), at least one about comparative Celto-Latin religious studies, and probably a couple on Roman religion and early Roman history - a more manageable format. I am still nervous about starting a new campaign of studies: the last one put an effective end to my eight-year-long involvement in comics fandom, took almost every day of my life for three years, and, while it resulted in work I am proud of (and helped me survive that grim period when I was unhappily house-sharing with a criminal and a drug addict), it represents a level of commitment that is rather difficult and a bit painful to sustain. For three years, I was basically getting up, going straight to my computer, and either reading or typing or both, till I was too tired to go on. Kind of a hard life to envisage for a basically lazy fat man.

This entry is mostly a matter of clearing my mind to myself. I know that I have a great deal of ideas for research in mind, and that it would be wrong not to carry them out; so I think I should. I regret not winning the Lottery so I could carry out my research without having to worry about income; but the work is there to be done.

Of course, it's an ill wind that blows nobody any good. A few of the people who wrote in (mouseybrown, Falco Conlon, sbbo, Froda Baggins and a few others) turned out to be decent, thoughtful opponents whom I would not mind meeting again. Perhaps, if and when the stupid polemic dies down, I will get in touch with these people and ask them whether any of them minds if I "friend" them. Meanwhile, there is work to be done.

Heartbreaking

I wonder how many sports fans in Britain and around the world feel sad almost to tears after seeing what happened in Athens in the last couple of hours. Let's make no bones about it: Paula Radcliffe has been trashed, beaten as convincingly as she has been beating all opponents for two years - since her sensational first marathon in London. Let us make no excuses for her; she would not make any for herself, anyway. And I will add that, beloved though she may be among the sports public, one wonders whether her popularity extended to the dressing room. Paula has always run to be the first, run for herself; and this means running against everyone else, doing nothing to help others - like for instance taking turns to be at the front. On the famous occasion at Sydney when she led the 10,000mt from beginning to end, only to be overtaken by all three Ethiopians in the last few hundred metres and end up out of the medals, one would imagine that the Ethiopians felt far less compunction about humiliating her in that she had done nothing at all to share the pain of running. Her whole style is based on almost literally grinding her opponents into dust. She has a reason for it, since she famously has no kick and cannot outspeed opponents at the end of a race; but it is not a style to endear her to competitors.

But to the lovers of sport for its own sake, Paula is everything an athlete and a woman should be. She is almost tangibly upright, has a personal presence of melting sweetness - her voice is remarkable, it almost has a smile in it - never spares herself, runs as we would like to see people run. The tactical devices and watching-each-other that are the life and blood of most distance running are not things that a spectator appreciates; the sight of a lot of athletes bunched together, moving almost in step, taking turns to take the lead and keeping the time low until the final sprint, is not something I for one find appealing, however much skill there may be in it. We love courage and commitment: and Paula had nothing else. And I have to say that, while on the one hand it was agonizing and almost intolerably humiliating to see her with her head in her long arms, crying her heart out on an anonymous Athens roadside, on the other hand it seems almost typical of her touchingly open, heart-on-sleeve character. It is for things like this that nobody who has ever followed her career can bring him/herself to believe that she would ever dope or cheat.

Some TV commentator spoke of Paula "considering her future" - an euphemism for retiring. My immediate reaction was that I could have throttled him. Even after thinking about it for two hours, I hope to God she never even thinks about it. If I were her, what I would do would be to go straight back into training, enter all the races I have to, work in the most unfavourable conditions, try harder than ever to win, and do everything in my power to make sure that, by the time Beijing 2008 rolls around, I stand a better chance. Paula is not only a lovely human being, she is - along with Caroline Kluft - the finest female athlete currently in activity. She deserves better than to be counted as an Olympic almost-was.