Adloyada

Probably more than you wanted to know

Desert Island Discs is one of my favourite BBC Radio 4 programmes. Like an awful lot of the Radio 4 schedule, it's been there for ever. Like over sixty years. There's a story that Herbert Morrison,  1940s Labour cabinet minister and leader of the old London County Council so longed to be chosen to appear on it that he used to carry around a list of the eight records he'd selected, just in case he got the call. He never did.

Well, yes, I'd love to be on Desert Island Discs, and I think I could put together an interesting eight track playlist. But I haven't got a pre-selected list I carry around with me. If I wanted to, I could do a Desert Island Discs blog post anyway. It would mean that I'd never get invited, but that's the way it is, anyway. With an iphone with over 900 tracks on it, the whole concept looks a bit absurd.

Then of course, the real reason is the vanity one, the lure of being selected.

So I'll readily own up to my own vanity and say how pleased and flattered I am to have been asked by Norm to be the subject of a normblog profile. Blogging royalty. In a pantheon which includes international star bloggers like Glenn Reynolds, Omar of Iraq the Model and Michele Malkin. And a great many of my own favourites. The thing is, Norm's now up to number 252 . OK, he doesn't do them in rank order, as far as I know, but maybe he's down to scraping the barrel? 

So Norm sends me this proforma to fill in for the profile. Consternation. There are fifty questions to answer, and I have to choose just thirty. As you'll see from my archive, I tend never to use one sentence where fourteen will do, so how am I going to work out which ones I can bear to leave out?

Would I prefer to tell the world which political or philosphical thesis I think it more important to promote, or would it be better to reveal what I'd do with a huge amount of money if it came my way? Believe me, the choices weren't easy.

And then, I really like putting links into my posts. It's a sort of extreme pedantry. There are no links in normblog profiles, yet here I was going to identify so many ideas and references to things I'd really like to share with people. I emailed Norm. Could I just put links in? No. But if I supplied the links separately from the draft, he'd try put them in for me. When I sent him my draft, there was a list of about fifty links. Norm's tone was slightly pained, but tolerant. There were an awful lot of links; normblog profiles don't usually have links, and would I mind if he made decisions about which if any to put in? No, of course I'd be happy to leave it to him.

So that's what he's done, being a very excellent mensch, as well as an ace blogger.

Thanks, Norm. And thanks for unwittingly giving me the idea of doing a post in which I include the answers to the rest of the fifty questions that didn't go into the profile, updating it to add a few at a time over the course of the day.

Which is almost certainly more than you want to know. But here's the information if you care to read it.

What has been your worst blogging experience?

Being threatened with being sued by a writer who didn't like what I'd written in relation to a comment she wrote on my blog, and then deluged with emails from her friends and allies who piled on the pressure and some of whom organized various forms of ostracism. I didn't back down, she didn't sue and the whole thing petered out but left me feeling resentful and indignant.

What philosophical thesis do you think it most important to disseminate?

 The idea that groups of ordinary people can organize and achieve enormously beneficial changes, even if they don't belong to a political party. The history of zionism, of the Soviet Jewry campaign, and the various movements that led to the downfall of Soviet Communism are cases that come to mind.

Do you think the world (human civilization) has already passed its best point, or is that yet to come? 

The best is definitely yet to come. That's Jewish optimism for you. I think the problems of global warming will be solved, and the forms of terrorism that blight our world today will be eliminated by changes in technology. I realise this is very much a minority opinion.

I'm still thinking about who might be cultural heroes for me. And then I've run out of time for the moment. I'll be back to do some more later today.

 At 12:27:

Who are your cultural heroes?

Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny, Elvis Presley, Superman, Lord Snooty, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev, Sunny (my aerobics trainer at LA Fitness--she has a huge following), Princess Diana.

Do you have any prejudices you're willing to acknowledge? 

Mmmm. I'm prejudiced against pretty much any variant of English blokeishness, especially the shouty outdoor drinking, upperclass braying and football fan types, but ditto for macho cultural wannabees of every nation.

So I'm now thinking about:

If you could choose anyone, from any walk of life, to be Prime Minister (President etc), who would you choose? 

Given the present incumbent, tempting to say almost anyone, but it's not quite true. The obvious choice is Tony Blair. I liked Lord Desai's comment that Gordon Brown was put on earth to show how good Tony Blair really was.

What is your favourite proverb?

Many waters cannot quench love

What, if anything, do you worry about?

Like Imshin said, if you're a Jewish mother, you worry about just about everything. On a personal basis, how to provide for an old age which could well include years of dementia; on my daughter and son in law's behalf, what will they live on, and how will they be able to afford a house; in the wider world, how will we be able to keep the rogue states and terrorist groups from blighting our lives and theirs before we find the technologies that will totter them. 

If you were to relive your life to this point, is there anything you'd do differently? 

 I can think of some people I should have walked right by.

What would you call your autobiography? 

 Getting the Lightbulb to Want to Change

Who would play you in the movie about your life? 

 Imshin wrote after she met me that I reminded her of Judy Davis. I don't look like her, but I'm flattered by the comparison, so I'll opt for her.

What is your most treasured possession? 

My grandmother's brass candlesticks and my grandmother's silver betrothal spoon, both of which came from Galicia in Poland

What talent would you most like to have? 

I'd love to be a brilliant street dancer

Which English Premiership football (soccer) team do you support (or which baseball and/or basketball team)? 

See my comments above on commonly enjoyed activities which I regard as a waste of time.

If you could have one (more or less realistic) wish come true, what would you wish for? 

 To be able to give up paid working and devote my energies to all the other things I don't get enough time for

How, if at all, would you change your life were you suddenly to win or inherit an enormously large sum of money? 

Firstly, set up a charitable fund of ten percent of it, and devote a part of my life to using the income anonymously to help individuals and causes I like. Secondly, buy my daughter and son in law a fabulous home and everything needed to make it into whatever kind of place they dream of. Thirdly, use the opportunities to travel to spend time with family and friends across the world, plus attend some fancy workshops run by top people in their trade--like Linda Weinman's Photoshop and Susie Fishbein's cookery workshop. Fourthly, sponsor groups of young Jewish families to get housing near synagogues so they could become long term communities. Finally I think I'd get plastic surgery to do some pin and tuck work on the saggy bits that you get when you're my age.

What animal would you most like to be? 

 A much loved and indulged Abyssinian cat.

Nice Jewish woman wins London Marathon

That's definitely a headline I didn't expect to write.

Deena Kastor has just won the women's race in the London Marathon, and has become one of only eight women to run it in under 2 hours 20 minutes.

Friday's Jewish Chronicle had an extended report on her, portraying her combination of general niceness and less than conventional Jewish awareness with what I assume is unintentional humour:

She added, with a tinge of regret, that a Pesach-friendly diet was unsuitable for serious marathon preparation.

"One day without carbohydrates would kill my hopes of winning this race. Andrew and I went on our first date during Passover six years ago and I will always acknowledge the significance of the time.

Although hailing from a non-religious background, Kastor and her sister try to get together for the festivals. "I've never raced in Israel, but if the opportunity arose, I would love to do so."