Ken Clarke
Auteur de Kind of Blue: A Political Memoir
Œuvres de Ken Clarke
Étiqueté
Partage des connaissances
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Membres
Critiques
Prix et récompenses
Statistiques
- Œuvres
- 7
- Membres
- 97
- Popularité
- #194,532
- Évaluation
- 3.6
- Critiques
- 3
- ISBN
- 13
So drop through your insubstantial cloud of certainty for a moment and follow me over the Rainbow Bridge as it crumbles away to peek through one of many windows in another place where the sun sets peacefully beneath a gathering of souls.
“That really is too slow”, the shade that had once been Vercingetorix complained. “Open a window to cool it all down or this coat is going to set too quickly.” Amelia Earhart made a long arm and flicked open the catch, spiritually abetted by a yawn from Cardinal Richelieu.
“Time isn’t very important in the grand scheme of things”, chattered Mozart, elbowing a sleeping Einstein. “not if you’re a connoisseur and you like to relax and properly enjoy it”. Shaka Zulu nodded wisely.
“Why do they order this ‘chemical catalyst’ rubbish anyway, when the stuff we used to have stayed sticky for ages and had that distinctive watery pong to it that you could only clear with a sliced onion? I mean, look at this” Ernest Shackleton huffed, indignant. “if you so much as turn away from this brand, it’s gone solid as a ruddy vinyl tea tray. They didn’t have it in my day and I don’t remember it turning yellow two years later either, so then you have to do it again. I’m pretty sure I could sail to South Georgia on a coat that thick.”
“Stands to reason it’s not like the old stuff. They banned that type because of the lead in it. That’s Health & Safety mate”, advised Baron von Richthofen, with his usual Teutonic adherence to the rules. “It was cyanide in the wallpaper ink that did for poor old Boney over there”. The compact Frenchman in question appeared resigned to the issue but Nico Machiavelli whispered a correction, “cyanide”.
“Inheritance powder, is what we used to call that” chided Madame Curie as her smile quivered at the edges. Anna Seacole looked out of the window languidly and then focussed back to the paint, commenting “Walls used to be more interesting back then, even on tents. I hear now you can hardly see the paint for Star Wars decals in most kids’ bedrooms”.
Gertrude Bell seemed to be locked in a staring contest with the wall but in reality her eyes had glazed over several decades ago and she was being propped up discreetly by T.E. Lawrence and Clive of India.
Marco Polo wasn’t listening either, tuned out and absorbed as he was with the wet wall in front of him. The sun finally dropped and rapt attention wrapped harder around the audience. Eyes bored.
CAUTION. WET PAINT.
Biggles stood up and shuffled closer to the inaction, upsetting those who said he was getting in the way of the view. They’d been surprised enough to find out that he was a real person but now this impertinence capped it all; and Julius Caesar spoke for all of them with a “Quiz decorum est?”
“Back on the ship”, said Magellan, I used to imagine the heavens were an endless expanse of fresh paintwork, approaching the tacky stage at the edges where they curled down into the seas.” Rameses nodded crankily to royally endorse a shared experience, then the more aesthetic of the others, their eyes still attending the settling paint nodded in solidarity with the image the explorer had presented.
“I thought the stars were numbers” mentioned Archimedes, before he got waved down. “Painted numbers, obviously” he supplemented to little effect, before abandoning the conversation altogether. Picasso’s eyes toured a weary arch across the heavens but no doves were out this evening.
The thing is, heroes and other extremely high achieving mortals have very unusually, very particularly, very, very exciting lives. Sometimes they have short lives but even those are very, very exciting. When the mightiest conquerors, the most inflamed thinkers and unbelievably hard working discoverers do drop off the perch and come to claim their eternal reward, in a dimension where nothing is material, what they really want above all other things is glorious rest, peace and quiet. Dull is the new perfect. There are isolation tanks nowadays and you might even find yourself some day in zero gravity but although quiet, neither of those things are comfortable; but there is watching paint dry, which works much better.
“It’s building up to the good bit”, announced Nefertiti. “See? It’s getting ever so slightly sticky and if you get a hair in it now, you’ll mess up everything when you try to pick it back out”. Machiavelli had a dagger for work like that but didn’t say because Alexander Fleming had temporarily borrowed it.
“How long before it’s ready for another coat?” asked Ernest Hemmingway, but Shakespeare pointedly ignored him, as a drooping P.T. Barnum went 12 points ahead crossing ‘lethargy’ and ‘inactive’ at Scrabble. The showman’s hat fell off and rolled away, increasing the pleasure of those behind who had been trying to spectate around it. “We could ask again in a week or two”, Hemmingway suggested.
“Or do the work yourself for a change”, scolded Marie Antoinette.
“I just love this stage”, Mohammed Ali interrupted. “Look how the brush strokes like the veins in a butterfly’s wing seep in and merge tiny furrows together into a perfectly even surface. It’s like gravity, but sideways. What an adventure.”
“Hey y ’all, if we flick a speck o’ grit on that they’ll need to sand it down in the mornin’ and start the whole thing over again. What say?” This suggestion by Calamity Jane, or perhaps she was Annie Oakley because they wore the same hat, sparked a murmur of agreement in the throng.
“It’s still not dried. We’ve got at least another three hours” protested Leonardo, willing them all to stay. He needn’t have bothered because they weren’t going anywhere. Unseen but fervently admired, a few more watery molecules evaporated from the surface of the paint.
Farther up the metaphorical mountain of eternal and exquisite boredom, which happened to be, also metaphorically, situated far up in a torpid sky, according to the most ancient of legends from the dawning of time, there is a unique place to those super-rare and precious few heroes whose unbelievably energetic accomplishments qualify them for an experience even less exciting and fabulously dull than watching paint dry. What this reward might be, only the transcendental scribes of the Universe can hint at – and they’re not telling, but there is hope of an answer if you ask around the more attentive of seekers.
See how your attention turns to the seldom noticed errand-boy who serves this little niche of heaven, whose obligation it is to descend from the mountain once in an age and drop to the surface of the Earth, whereupon he crosses the threshold of a bookshop with a shining fifty pee coin out of petty cash, reaches into the remainders basket and traipses back up to provision those in the silent sanctum, the only place of its kind, to feed the ultimate, unadulterated epicentre of boring in the Universe with the perfect fit for their requirements: Ken Clarke’s autobiography.… (plus d'informations)