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TO BE BLUNT, HE'S NO GENIUS BUT FULL MARKS FOR EFFORT;
The Times, UK
Feb 11 2015
My Week
by Matthew Parris
'Shalom Tel Aviv!" And with that the singer James Blunt bounded across
the stage of the Nokia arena in Tel Aviv last Saturday, a small,
feisty figure who manages to convey the impression of being psyched-up
and a little bit scared, like a boy soldier about to go into battle.
Eight thousand Israeli fans roared back in delight. This was his
first visit.
Mine too. On the flight over I'd seen Blunt, and mentioned this to
the air steward. "Yes," he said, "and we've got Melanie Phillips on
this flight too."
Good heavens. James Blunt, Melanie Phillips and Matthew Parris all
on the same flight. What a loss to the nation if the plane should
go down. In future we three must take care to travel separately,
as the royals do.
But I liked James Blunt more than I'd expected. He carried the
whole show on his own with no supporting acts, sang the old stuff,
You're Beautiful, and some good new stuff too, and threw himself
into it all with terrific energy, working so hard, running all the
way round the arena near the end and vaulting over a high railing
to avoid crashing into a group that included (had he but known it)
the British ambassador disguised in jeans. If I tell you what won me
over it may sound like damning with faint praise - but here goes.
This was a man maxing out on the talent that he's got, and giving it
all he had. He isn't a genius song-writer but he's pretty good. He
hasn't a towering voice but it's quite distinctive and it works. His
show isn't ground-breaking but it keeps you gripped and it's really
him, with a kind of vulnerability.
History sends us a few luminous, timeless talents and they don't always
even have to try. These we may worship but need not admire. But history
also sends people who exploit every ounce of the talent they have,
who never let discouragement break them, who just keep doing their
damnedest, and who succeed. These are the people I admire.
Unholy mess
It's 46 years since I've been to Jerusalem but the Christian quarter
of the old city has hardly changed. People find it moving but it
moves me only to despair.
How I longed for the open hillside, the grass, the cave, the wind, the
stones and the silence. Now everything feels interior and crushing:
Christian churches bicker over the demarcation of property, and
pilgrims queue to light candles in dingy corners, kiss inanimate
objects and weep with emotions induced by silver, gilt, glass, paint
and carved wood.
Why was I not surprised to learn that, though the population of the
Armenian quarter is falling all the time as Armenians queue for their
Canadian visas, and though the Armenian Catholic church is pitched
against the Armenian Orthodox church, the latter is now itself riven
by an internal schism?
Bring in the bulldozers and sweep it all away. Were I not an atheist I
might experience an anger that was divine. Amid all this nonsense about
relics and holy places, this twisted icon worship and delusion, and
the Jews at their Wailing Wall, and the Muslims grovelling in prayer,
I can almost see the Jesus I was brought up to believe in, see him
gazing sadly at the grotesquerie, and hear him lament, with TS Eliot:
That is not what I meant at all;
That is not it, at all.
Under desert skies
So what I loved best was neither the ancient nor the modern, but a
night in the Negev desert in simple cabins under the stars, where a
man called Ilan keeps llamas, alpacas, camels and horses; and a great,
dry ravine called the Ramon crater; and the mountains of Jordan lit
palely pink across the Dead Sea after sunset; and a charcoal fire
in the evening. Surely the Gospel writers misunderstood. Those forty
days and forty nights in the desert will have been the best days of
Jesus's life.
We loved visiting our friends in Israel; we liked our morning in the
friendly West Bank; but there's always something melancholy about
arriving with many preconceptions, and leaving with them wholly
undisturbed. I return to Britain more determined than ever to have
no views about the Middle East.
It's all a horrible mess, all sides are to blame, and outside
intervention only seems to make things worse.
The Times, UK
Feb 11 2015
My Week
by Matthew Parris
'Shalom Tel Aviv!" And with that the singer James Blunt bounded across
the stage of the Nokia arena in Tel Aviv last Saturday, a small,
feisty figure who manages to convey the impression of being psyched-up
and a little bit scared, like a boy soldier about to go into battle.
Eight thousand Israeli fans roared back in delight. This was his
first visit.
Mine too. On the flight over I'd seen Blunt, and mentioned this to
the air steward. "Yes," he said, "and we've got Melanie Phillips on
this flight too."
Good heavens. James Blunt, Melanie Phillips and Matthew Parris all
on the same flight. What a loss to the nation if the plane should
go down. In future we three must take care to travel separately,
as the royals do.
But I liked James Blunt more than I'd expected. He carried the
whole show on his own with no supporting acts, sang the old stuff,
You're Beautiful, and some good new stuff too, and threw himself
into it all with terrific energy, working so hard, running all the
way round the arena near the end and vaulting over a high railing
to avoid crashing into a group that included (had he but known it)
the British ambassador disguised in jeans. If I tell you what won me
over it may sound like damning with faint praise - but here goes.
This was a man maxing out on the talent that he's got, and giving it
all he had. He isn't a genius song-writer but he's pretty good. He
hasn't a towering voice but it's quite distinctive and it works. His
show isn't ground-breaking but it keeps you gripped and it's really
him, with a kind of vulnerability.
History sends us a few luminous, timeless talents and they don't always
even have to try. These we may worship but need not admire. But history
also sends people who exploit every ounce of the talent they have,
who never let discouragement break them, who just keep doing their
damnedest, and who succeed. These are the people I admire.
Unholy mess
It's 46 years since I've been to Jerusalem but the Christian quarter
of the old city has hardly changed. People find it moving but it
moves me only to despair.
How I longed for the open hillside, the grass, the cave, the wind, the
stones and the silence. Now everything feels interior and crushing:
Christian churches bicker over the demarcation of property, and
pilgrims queue to light candles in dingy corners, kiss inanimate
objects and weep with emotions induced by silver, gilt, glass, paint
and carved wood.
Why was I not surprised to learn that, though the population of the
Armenian quarter is falling all the time as Armenians queue for their
Canadian visas, and though the Armenian Catholic church is pitched
against the Armenian Orthodox church, the latter is now itself riven
by an internal schism?
Bring in the bulldozers and sweep it all away. Were I not an atheist I
might experience an anger that was divine. Amid all this nonsense about
relics and holy places, this twisted icon worship and delusion, and
the Jews at their Wailing Wall, and the Muslims grovelling in prayer,
I can almost see the Jesus I was brought up to believe in, see him
gazing sadly at the grotesquerie, and hear him lament, with TS Eliot:
That is not what I meant at all;
That is not it, at all.
Under desert skies
So what I loved best was neither the ancient nor the modern, but a
night in the Negev desert in simple cabins under the stars, where a
man called Ilan keeps llamas, alpacas, camels and horses; and a great,
dry ravine called the Ramon crater; and the mountains of Jordan lit
palely pink across the Dead Sea after sunset; and a charcoal fire
in the evening. Surely the Gospel writers misunderstood. Those forty
days and forty nights in the desert will have been the best days of
Jesus's life.
We loved visiting our friends in Israel; we liked our morning in the
friendly West Bank; but there's always something melancholy about
arriving with many preconceptions, and leaving with them wholly
undisturbed. I return to Britain more determined than ever to have
no views about the Middle East.
It's all a horrible mess, all sides are to blame, and outside
intervention only seems to make things worse.