This was going to be a post about piano music, and on Sunday this week I spent a couple of hours attempting to write it. Quite by chance, over the weekend I discovered exactly the right expression for what I went through on Sunday, in my own modest way. In Friday’s Times (of London), ex-England captain Mike Atherton (if you have to ask ‘Ex-captain of what?’ then please skip to the next paragraph) attempted to make sense of the extraordinary events over the previous two days in Ahmedabad. (Root’s first innings stats alone are enough to set your head spinning: 17 and 5 for 8? What’s that supposed to be?) In his match-end summary piece, Atherton quoted Red Smith: ‘The art of fiction is dead. Reality has strangled invention. Only the utterly impossible, the inexpressibly fantastic, can ever be plausible again.’

This quote intrigued me, because I was curious to know more about Red Smith. (Atherton simply identified him as an American sportswriter – which I now realise is the equivalent of identifying Atilla the Hun as a bit of a bully.) Anyway, to get back to the second diversion: Red Smith. (And before you smile at that so-American nickname ‘Red’, bear in mind that you might have adopted something similar if your parents had had the insensitivity to christen you Walter Wellesley.)

For 50 years, Smith was recognized as “the greatest sportswriter of two eras” (at least in America – remember, he overlapped with Neville Cardus – perhaps the only sports correspondent to double as a reviewer of classical music.). Google soon revealed that the ‘…fiction is dead’ quote came from his coverage of Bobby Thomson’s 1951 home run. The actual home run starts at 1’40” on the video, but the whole video is great fun.

And then, I stumbled across another quote from Smith. There is actually some debate about the originator of the quote. What seems most likely is that the kernel of an idea was written in the 19^th Century, and picked up by a number of other writers, then developed, principally by Paul Gallico, in the mid-20^th Century. However, Red Smith’s newspaperman’s phrasing is, unsurprisingly, sharper and pithier than any other I have seen. When asked about the challenge of writing a daily column (and, faced with my weekly post, I understand the challenge), Smith replied: ‘Writing is easy. You just open a vein and bleed.’

Which is more or less – without wishing in any way to over-dramatize – what I did on Sunday. After two hours of torture, I spent the rest of the day in avoidance mode – suggesting to Bernice that we read, breaking off to make sourdough crackers, watching I Care a Lot, a film which we both knew, from the reviews, Bernice would find unbearably unpleasant. After watching it, I told her there was one 30-second patch during the entire two hours that she would not have been disgusted by, but, on reflection, there wasn’t even that. I found it well-made and well-acted, although a little too slick. I prefer a bit of grainy, myself.

However, what is most striking about it is that if you’re looking for a film that will restore your lack of faith in humanity and leave you wanting to take a shower immediately after viewing, look no further. I see that Rosamund Pike won the Golden Globe award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture (Musical or Comedy) for her role in I Care a Lot. I’m not entirely sure whether I missed the singing and dancing or the humour in the film; all I know is that I certainly didn’t experience any of either.

Right. I think that’s it. We have explored all the interesting byways, and now, finally, we can get started on this week’s actual blog.

Those of you with elephantine (that’s what we in the lit biz call foreshadowing – hold that thought) memories will recall that, just six months and one day ago, I wrote about my favourite authors with the first name John. Today I plan to revisit, at least in spirit, one of those Johns – John Irving.

As those of you who are fans will know, Irving is an astonishingly consistent author. With him, you know exactly what you are going to get in every novel; and what you are going to get is at least one elephant, a circus, and wrestling. Even I, knowing what was coming there, find that last sentence astonishing. You can’t make this stuff up!

So, as my humble cap-doff to a great writer, I offer you an elephant, a circus and some wrestling.

The elephant is, as it has been for a year now, the one in the room. I have tried to avoid mentioning the coronavirus in my blog – I’m sure we all get enough of that from the media and in our zoom calls with family and friends in other countries. However, as I discovered on Sunday, I don’t seem able to focus on anything else at the moment.

As the weeks go on, our desire to visit Portugal grows and grows, just as our belief that we will be able to do so shrinks and shrinks. Until now, I have been, as I usually am, the pessimist, but even Bernice is now wondering when it will be even possible to go. One thing for sure is that the risk of travelling is becoming less and less of a deterrent. If we were able to fly directly to Lisbon, I don’t think we would hesitate at this stage.

We went back to our own synagogue for the first time together since February 1 2020, just before we flew to Portugal. Our shul has reopened at 50% capacity, for certificated double-jabbees and recovereds. We were expecting a far better attendance, but apparently more than a few people are understandably reluctant to ‘desert’ the prayer quorums they have been attending in people’s backyards, and most people with young families are unable to bring them to shul. In addition, I was amazed to discover that at least a few of our members, and not only younger members, were refusing the vaccine.

Nevertheless, I expect that the trend of the last couple of weeks will continue. The government is easing some restrictions for those who have had the double vaccination, and this is encouraging some reluctant younger adults to take the plunger. In addition, there have been a number of ‘campaigns’, such as employers arranging for (voluntary) mass vaccination of employees onsite, and offering t-shirts and shopping vouchers. Astonishingly, or perhaps not so astonishingly, the take-up in these campaigns has been high. It seems that many people couldn’t be bothered to make an appointment and drive 10 minutes for a vaccination, but if it is offered to them with no effort, they are happy to go along with it.

And so to the circus, which is, sadly, the only way to describe some aspects of the handling of the crisis by the Israeli government. This is, it hardly needs saying, a circus with only one ringmaster, but a whole gang of clowns, and a couple of high-wire artists. I certainly don’t envy Netanyahu, or the leader of any other nation, the task of handling this pandemic. There was no playbook for this. However, I believe that it would have been possible, in an alternate universe, to co-ordinate the activities of the various key players, to make decisions and abide by them, to give the public a sense that the Government had a clear strategy.

Instead, far, far too often, the people have felt confused and betrayed by their leaders, and have therefore been unwilling to play their part. We have all been involved in a wrestling match, between different sectors of Israeli society, between different factions in the government, between the powers-that-be and the people.

I said, right at the beginning of this terrible year, that the very first appointment the Prime Minister needed to make was a behavioural psychologist, who would be able to advise on how best to encourage the public to follow guidelines and instructions. Instead, the Prime Minister issued guidelines that were ignored, the Government policy stood no chance of success, and we now find ourselves at a point where civil disobedience is a very real threat.

I am really sorry to have laid all this woe on you, dear reader. I undertake to make no mention of the elephant for at least the next few weeks, and to revert to the normal trivial musings. Meanwhile, at times like these I find performing routine household chores often helps to lift my spirits. Or, indeed, watching someone else perform them.