On the whole, this hasn't been a good year for peacenik environmentalists, or anyone who likes their politics to be logical or humanitarian.
Right now we have violence and hatred in the streets of the UK. Where, as everyone knows, nothing is supposed to happen. Those on the far right – who are anti-immigration, Islamophobic, anti-Semitic , and against just about everyone who isn't a white Anglo – are opposed by the left who are for everything the far right is against. The bulk of both sides seems to be made up mostly of young men. One side wants to set fire to the hotels and hostels that are sheltering the dispossessed and homeless immigrants; the other side throws bricks at the people with the petrol bombs. Whatever happened to peaceful demonstration?
I turned 80 this year – another reason to be somewhat anxious. And I can say, with some truth, that I've seen it all before. The Notting Hill riots happened just up the road in London when I was 14. In, I think, 1963 I was in Trafalgar Square trying to listen to Bertrand Russell tell us why nuclear weapons were cruel, wrong, self-defeating and a waste of money when the crowd was attacked from behind by, yes, a bunch of young white men who threw fireworks into the packed audience. The anti-nuclear pro-peace rally was defeated by violence and broke up in fear and disarray.
Somehow, in spite of a long, cynical life, I can't believe we haven't learned to do better.
But then along came the Paris Olympics where what is demonstrated is the dedication and determination to do things better, faster, higher and more beautifully. Oh my! Was that ever a relief from the anxiety and horror of a world tearing itself apart! I'm in total awe of what the human body can achieve. Well, not mine, of course. Let's inject a little realistic envy here. And, being a cynical oldie, I notice that the Paris Olympic Committee had no mandatory policy about Covid: the gold medal winner of the men's 100 meters and bronze medallist in the 200 meters apparently had Covid. He was wheel-chaired off the track after the 200 – third fastest in the world, too sick to walk. How was that possible? And why didn't anyone think to protect other athletes or organisers?
Neither I nor my partner has had Covid at all. I think we're the only people I know who haven't. Again, how is that possible on this crowded little island?
But my new book, The Short-Order Detective, is now on sale in the UK, the US and in Germany. And I'm about a third of the way through the as yet untitled sequel. Like Olympians, I'm forever trying to do better than last time. There's no World Record for writers, but I can aim for a Personal Best, can't I? Olympians, even when they fail, fall or come last, are still unbelievably good, almost super-human.
All you can say about writers is that we keep on trying.