Current reading
Intellectuals by Paul Johnson (I’m enjoying this immensely, probably because it’s just enough like an issue of Heat or Us Weekly to keep me hooked. Johnson explores the lives of various intellectuals in order to determine their “moral and judgmental credentials to give advice to humanity on how to conduct its affairs”. So far my favourite chapter is the one on Karl Marx, who is about a million times more reprehensible and intellectually bankrupt than I had ever imagined - and that’s saying something. Norm Geras, my Marxist friend, you become more and more mysterious to me by the day.)
The World of Karl Pilkington (I’ve taken to reading the transcripts aloud to Antoine, which I’m sure will grow old for him soon enough, but this is a good one to read on boring train journeys or while you wait hours and hours and hours to get a damn x-ray at the Royal Free.)
Humble Pie by Gordon Ramsay (I thought I had accidentally ordered the large print version when I opened this; there are about 100 words on a page. Surprisingly, it’s a very compulsive read, and so far I’ve read nothing that will relieve me of my crush on the man.)
Egypt: Eyewitness Travel Guide (I have learned a lot from this, including the fact that we will not be eating any raw vegetables while we are in Egypt, as they are often not washed properly or at all. Yikes.)
Magazines: Runner’s World (really motivates you to go outside and run round), Men’s Health (still great), O: The Oprah Magazine (ugh, Streisand), Zest (which is lame)
To be fair to Norm, at least, any future edition of “Intellectuals” could do with a chapter on Paul Johnson himself - it would be the liveliest in the book.
I’ve never thought of Johnson as an intellectual, ‘just’ a historian, but I guess it depends on your definition of the term. Was he an anti-Semite and racist like Marx?
I’ve just been trying to find online my favourite interview with him, thus far without success. He’s interviewed in his own home, and after twenty minutes or so of essentially refusing even the politest questions, he leaves the room. It takes the interviewer rather longer to discover that he’s actually also left the house.
Oh, that sounds like me on a bad day, so I’m afraid I can’t be too nasty. I would be interested to read about Johnson, though, as biographers and historians do intrigue me.
On the subj. of Norm and Marx, Norm once pointed me to this online essay of his - http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/us/geras.htm
worth anyone’s time, although not as amusing as the Johnson interview I can’t find.