Charly's Bakery - Cairp Tahn

Its not so much that Leon and our childminder, Mary, were completely felled for a day and a half, after eating a carrot cake cupcake from Charly's Bakery (and getting severe food POISONING) that made me mad as a snake - it was the behaviour of the manager when I reported it to her!

Look, I suppose I was naive. I fondly imagined that the manager of Charly's Bakery (you know that uber trendy place opposite the Fugard - with the lovely pink and white cake boxes which everything comes in - at one hell of a price?) would actually care that two of my family were POISONED by her beautifully decorated, but POISONOUS product. I thought she would care.

The encounter went something like this: Picture it (uber trendy bakery filled with uber trendy Cairp Tahnians). Me: not uber trendy and clutching an ice-cream tub with two of their POISONOUS cupcakes inside. I ask one of the serving ladies if I could please speak to the manager. She glances at my ice-cream tub like it might contain a piece of turd. She nervously puts her head around the corner and calls one of the people sitting at the tables in full view who are decorating cakes. Even in the crammed and noisy serving area, I can hear an irritated sigh. She (one of the daughters, I think) appears. "What is this about?" she asks, hostile and put out - (like I am begging for money, or asking for sex). I say, "Is there somewhere a little less public we can talk?" "No! she says, "what do you want to say?"

At this point, I seriously considered shouting "Your fucking carrot cake gave two members of my household food poisoning", but I restrained myself. I said, calmly, "You really don't want to have me discuss this with you here." Reluctantly, she moves to a slightly less peopled space. I tell her my story. 

"Firstly", she said, "I don't believe it". I looked at her gobsmacked. "We sell thousands of cakes here and no-one has ever complained". She was now glaring at my ice cream tub like it contained fraudulent products from some other bakery. "Secondly", she said, "I have an order to finish". I said, the blood rising to my head, "Oh, do you? Well, would you mind awfully if I demonstrate to you how you should have handled this encounter?" I explained to her that I wasn't asking for a refund. I wasn't even asking for an apology. I had come, out of my way, bearing my ice-cream tub with two of her bloody cupcakes in it, because I thought she might be interested. Because I thought she might be ever so slightly concerned. Because I thought she cared a fig about what kind of product she was pumping out there and what was wrong with it.

She waivered. She explained to me in an irritatingly patronising voice that she was under huge pressure with her order and she hoped I didn't feel "undervalued". (Bloody hell! "Undervalued"!!!) One of her staff had died on duty the day before (I'm still trying to work out the relevance of this - unless before dying that staff member had decided to POISON the carrot cake cup cakes). "So what I suggest is", I said, "that I give you this ice cream tub with your cup cakes in it and you investigate what is wrong with them. I will leave my name and number and you can let me know your findings". 

She saw her chance, grabbed the ice cream tub and ordered one of the lackeys behind the counter to get my details.

I am absolutely certain that will be the last of the matter. She simply wasn't interested.

That is what I wrote over a week ago - but then this:

Well, the Charly's Bakery saga continues: You will recall (or maybe you won't) that Leon and Mary had food poisoning from two of Charly's Bakery's carrot cake cupcakes. I took two of them back, wanting to suggest to Charly's that they get them tested. Before I could do so, I was firmly put in my place, by one of the managers who I have subsequently discovered goes by the name of "Rock" - or something like that (my hearing is deteriorating fast). Anyway, I presumed nothing would come of it - and posted something on Trip Advisor, on the advice of a friend.

Yesterday, more than a week later, I had three messages left on my cellphone. The last, complete with an irritated sigh on the word "three" as she impressed on my answering service how much she was trying to get hold of me and how irritating it was of me not to be sitting waiting for her call - (this was the indefatigable "Rock" again).

Today I called back. "Ah", said Rock. "I'm sorry it has taken us so long to get back to you, but we wanted to wait to see if anyone else was going to complain". (I interpreted this to mean, "we have only just seen your rather unflattering review of us on Trip Advisor"). "No one did complain!", she said - as though that clinched the case. But if that wasn't enough to convince me, then she added the following: "I even forced one of my staff to eat one - and nothing happened, so clearly there was nothing wrong with them". 

Now, seriously, is one so unbearably stupid as to believe this?! (And even if one did, why didn't she eat the damn thing herself, instead of forcing a hapless staff member to eat a potentially poisonous cup cake? And, gosh yes! A staff member who has the kind of relationship with his or her employer which involves being forced to eat potentially poisonous cupcakes is bound to admit to being poisoned! I believe it all! I am a really gullible idiot!)

"So" said Rock, triumphantly, "seeing it is not our fault, we won't be able to refund or replace". (I pointed out again, at this point, that I had asked for neither).

Now I heard the trap shut. "However", she said. (There was an ominous pause) "I did read your review on Trip Advisor and I would like to say that I found it extraordinarily insensitive of you to make a joke about our employee who died". I tried to point out that the joke was about her - not about the dead employee. I tried to point out that it she she who had raised the dead employee as an excuse for her shoddy behaviour - but she was having none of it ... "common human decency!!!" I heard her saying. "Every one of my staff" - (the same staff whom she forces potentially poisoned cupcakes on, you remember) "read that review and they were absolutely traumatised by what you said!" 

She went on and on, teaching me a lesson. Telling me that "In future" - (I assured her there was going to be no future) - "making a complaint is one thing, but making jokes about dead employees is just beyond any kind of decency".

I was now the problem. The fact that I had questioned what possible relevance a recently dead employee could have on a suspicious carrot cupcake, was the primary issue to be dealt with. Well, she said, she could see that nothing was going to satisfy me. She had apologised for the way I had been treated (actually her words were she was sorry IF I FELT I had been badly treated). And that was that!

Appalling. The entire encounter was appalling. Rock, or whatever her name is, really needs to go on some kind of basic customer relations course, instead of being so smugly self-satisfied with her television persona of a caring, edgy, interesting, lovable baker woman, with a penchant for bright colours. Just the basics - just the absolute basics, would have been completely fine with me. How about "Terribly sorry this has happened. We will investigate. Is there anything we can do to make the situation better?" But then where am I? Oh yes! It's Cairp Tahn. We are all so very pleased with ourselves here!

Out Damned Spot.

I have had my share of dealing with large government tenders.  It is a hell of a process and it would, in my experience, require an enormous amount of collusion to get round or to manipulate in favour of one or other particular company.  That it can happen, and does happen, is undeniable.  But what is clear from the recent price fixing revelations of the major construction firms involved in the bids for the 2010 soccer infrastructure tenders, is that they recognised this – and sought a more reliable and more effective way of beating the system.  Price-fixing only requires the collusion of others who stand to benefit in the industry – not rogue government officials.  That is why it is, generally, such a reliable mechanism for corruption.

I once, in casual discussion with a relative of mine who was high up in the business stratosphere, asked him why it was, in his opinion, that I had never been asked by anyone to manipulate a tender. In all the years I have worked in government, I have never been approached by anyone in business, to do anything. I found this strange, because frankly, in some of the large tenders I have handled, I had been expecting it.  But nothing! Not a knock on a door.  Not the offer of a holiday in France. No cars, no shopping vouchers, no houses, no expensive suits, no Rolex watches. Every year, I have filled in my disclosure of interest forms, disclosing the paltry fact that I own one serious debt - my house, and nothing else. No shares, no gratuities, no gifts over R300. I am director of no companies.  It is a fairly depressing disclosure, to be sure.

My relative looked at me amused – (actually it was worse.  He looked at me as though he had suddenly come to understand just how stupid I really am).  “Michael”, he said wearily, “do you not know that in every serious business, there is a whole unit which is dedicated to profiling people like you.  They will have done a detailed scan on you and come up with the fact that you would probably have too many difficulties with an offer.  So they look for other more likely candidates”. I was scandalised.  His quizzical look turned to unabashed pity (verging on disdain) at my naivety.

So, “corruption” is very much a word bandied about today, as if the ANC has invented it.  But if we are in the least bit honest, we will admit that corruption is much bigger, much deeper, much wider, much more endemic to our society than being simply an ANC or government problem. To characterize it as such is really not to understand the nature of the problem. It is a problem which reaches back far into the country's nationalist part, where corruption was pervasive, state enabled and unchallenged. Those same nationalist politicians, in close alliance with big business and multinational companies, simply carried over their corrupt practices, virtually unchanged, into the democratic era -  but now enabled, where it has succeeded, by black and government (by which I mean the whole span of government, from ANC to DA) support, either explicit or implicit.

I have certainly had personal experience of less than savoury demands made by non- ANC politicians, who happened to be my political heads at the time. On the scale of things, the demands made on me were minuscule and did not succeed, because of the tight prescripts of the Public Service Management Act.  On the other hand (and let me say this clearly) in all my years of government, I have never had any similar demands made on me by ANC politicians, nor have I witnessed anything personally, amongst the senior officials I have worked with which could be termed corrupt behavior. I am merely making the point that the ANC does not own the sole rights to corruption, nor is it the only party which can be corrupt.  Nor would I want to ignore blatent cases of corruption where the ANC is involved.

I agree completely with the assertion that corruption is key to the attainment of justice in our society, but I would urge that we don't get sucked into the easy and comfortable analysis that this is merely an ANC problem. Get rid of the ANC, I sometimes hear, and corruption will miraculously vanish, day will dawn, birds will sing overhead, rainbows will form in the sky.  I don’t think so.  The ANC has no monopoly on corruption in our society.

Clearly, yes, it is a government problem, but it is also very obviously a private sector problem as well. And even more than that, it is a problem which involves every citizen. It involves every one of us when we pay a bribe, because we are in a hurry. It involves us when we grease a deal. It involves us when we make a call to a friend or relative in a government department, who can fast-track a decision, or tweak an employment process. It is about feeding the demand.  These are the ways in which corruption is fed and sustained. 

Corruption is a state of the collective mind.  It cannot happen in insolation.  It requires two to tango. It cannot happen only somewhere else – with others – over there somewhere.  If you think about it, hard enough, you will likely start to see how uncomfortably close a thing it is, to all of us. And if we do that, and if we are honest, perhaps that might be the beginning of the end.

The soul of the first people

It has always struck me as singularly odd that the national Coat of Arms should be so spectacularly anachronistic.  Why would we choose a language for our coat of arms, which we recognise nowhere else?  (You must admit, that is a strange thing!)  And the stick figures on the Coat of Arms are clearly meant to represent either the Khoi or the San or something in-between.  Why would we choose them, when we continue to recognise almost nothing else about them in our national life?

So I was both pleased and interested to attend a day and a half, in what was called a national “dialogue” with the so-called “Khoisan”, in Kimberley, earlier this month.  They came from all over the country.  From every province.  They spoke, mostly Afrikaans.  Publicly though, there were some demonstrations of the spectacular shower of clicks of a fast disappearing tongue.  The mood was high.  There was much banging of tables and blowing of a Shofar (or Ram’s horn) at the mention of anything slightly anti-government.  Or, indeed, anything which told of their dispossession and their anger at it.  Their sense of deep loss.  Their mutual nostalgia for values and traditions which lie only in a distant world, in another time.

Some do not recognise this government at all.  I have sat in meetings in the past where they have shouted at me, consigning me and “my” government to hell and damnation.  I noticed, when we stood to sing the national anthem, that there were some amongst them who refused to do likewise.  They sat, sullenly and pointedly.  It was not theirs.  They would not be coaxed into making it theirs, either.

They came in various hues.  Racism was sometimes extreme and often overt.  I heard one or two of them complaining that the delegates from the North looked “more like Ngunis”.  The focus of their dislike and venom was aimed at “die swartes” – the blacks – and their government.  Unsurprisingly, (to me, anyway) whites, and the previous white government, seemed to get of relatively lightly.  It was “die swartes” who were to blame for the majority of their woes.  It is “die swartes” who are taking their jobs and robbing them of their land.

Many of them spoke of themselves as though – in the hierarchy of dispossession – they were at the very bottom.  (I have no doubt that there were many who actually believe this).  There was a tendency to adroitly re-shade history and to present the Khoisan as the only and the ultimately dispossessed.  Some bemoaned the perceived fact that they fared a whole lot better under apartheid.  There was more and better education.  There were jobs.  There were houses.  It wasn’t paradise, but it wasn’t anything worse than their present conditions and possibly a whole lot better.

I was powerfully struck by their obvious and sad lack of unity, caused, undoubtedly by the fact that they have had relatively few opportunities to ever get together.  The majority spoke in glowing terms of a world they didn’t know and of which they had almost no experience.  There were young children there – maybe 15 or 16 years old – who really should have been in school.  These children whipped themselves up into a fervour that was chilling, when handed a microphone.  They each reflected their parents fervour, and longing, and hatred and sense of betrayal.  They would storm whichever citadel they were aimed at.  They would stop short of virtually nothing to achieve their goal.  Such is the passion – such is the volatility of youth.

The “dialogue” ended, when a woman sitting a table in front of me (and who had introduced herself as the spiritual leader of the Khoisan) took the microphone on the stage to close in prayer.  Before she did so, she called on other religious leaders to join her on the stage.  Half the audience stood and went forward.  There was very little space left on the enormous stage, when all of them had made their way there.

Then she started.  She screamed relentlessly into the microphone.  Hands elsewhere were raised.  The name of Jesus was shouted.  The ram’s horn blew. She wasn’t so much praying as providing marching orders for God. This is what was going to happen.  He just needed to take note and implement. 

The prayer carried on for probably a full 15 minutes.  In the middle she built up to a thundering crescendo, with tears pouring down her face.  Her voice breaking and rising at the end of each sentence.  There was shouting in front of her and behind her.  Hands, outstretched, reached for the ceiling.  The horn blew from the back of the hall.  And then it was suddenly over and everyone went on their way.

I could not help wonder why people striving to recapture something  of their culture and the tradition of their forebears would choose to engage in, (and with such remarkable enthusiasm and vigour) the religion of the coloniser.  And then, not only that, but in its most extreme and most obviously American form.  That is a strange thing indeed.  Perhaps someday, one amongst them, will explain it to me.

And secondly, I could not but fail to notice my own repugnance of that thing called “Nationalism”.  It is always built on such shaky foundations.  And it almost always leads down the road to disaster and ruin.

Lies, stories and truth

JDF Jones, Storyteller - The Many Lives of Laurens van der Post, John Murray, London, 2001

I bought this book many years ago, on one of those Exclusive Books sales, where there are piles and piles of mouth-wateringly inexpensive books lying on tables outside the shop.  And you simply can’t resist.  It is hardcover, with one of those dust sleeves on it and it cost nothing!  Who, I ask with tears in my baby blue eyes, can resist that?

I knew virtually nothing about the man.  Naturally, I had heard his name.  Naturally I had, at some point in my life, fingered a copy of something he had written  – though (I admit) I never actually read anything of his, at any point.  But he was part of the background tapestry to my life.  Perhaps, when I was a student, having an unread Laurens van der Post on one’s bookshelf meant that one could be considered somewhat avant garde?   Maybe I can remember my mother getting a sympathetic smile of ownership at the mention of his name, because of his links with the British Royal Family?  Was his, perhaps, just one of those names, like Joe Slovo,  that every white South African knows?  Who knows?  But I bought the biography and it sat on my shelf for year after year.

I started reading it, largely because I felt some kind of responsibility to do so.  You can’t have large, dust-covered hardcovers on your shelf forever.  There is some kind of law of the universe which decrees that immoral behaviour – or at least deeply irresponsible.  So, after looking at it, as I say, for many years, I finally started reading it.

And what an extraordinary pleasure it has been!  JDF Jones is a journalist and journalists often make really good writers.  To be sure, I am not used to journalists being such painstaking researchers.  But this one is and it simply adds to the great pleasure of reading this book.  Because it is meticulously researched – not to the extent that you get lost in footnotes – but to the extent that he makes no statement that cannot be backed up by some form of evidence.  And that kind of rigour is very necessary, not just in life, but in relation to this subject matter in particular.  Because the subject matter is such a strange contradiction.

Laurens van der Post grew up in a tiny village of what was then the Orange Free State.  His nanny for a time, was a woman of Khoi descent.  His family was typical in many ways – with some eccentrics and a couple of heroes thrown in.  But, from an early age, he seemed to have seen his future outside South Africa.  It was the war, eventually, which would be both the making of him and the springboard to a different life. 

From the very start, however, it becomes clear that Laurens van der Post is a complicated and beguiling character.  But more specifically, he is a liar.  He lies about virtually everything, whether he needs to or not.  This psychopathic condition is given the edge by an almost pyrotechnic ability to spin a story.  He was so good at it and the combination of fabrication and storytelling so bewitching, that he could write his own history, remake his own story and convince everyone of its truth and serious meaning.  So the Khoi maid starts to become the central pattern of his knowledge of and relationship to “Bushmen” in their primordial human purity.  His ventures in captivity in Singapore become templates for human behaviour in general.  A walk down a road becomes a venture into territory hitherto unexplored by humankind. The ordinary becomes the super extraordinary.  The mundane becomes charged with meaning and power.  Nothing he does is ordinary.  Everything is material for another grandiose and wondrous tale.

I have known a person like this and loved them very much, despite the tissue of lies that was part of everyday existence.  I know the magical world they invent and somehow manage to negotiate.  To be in their presence is a rollercoaster ride of highs and lows, of magic and wonder.  But to live with them, you have to suspend disbelief.  You cannot enquire too closely.  It is imperative that you lend them your trust, knowing, as you inevitably will, that it will be broken.  And still the ride continues.

Laurens was all sorts of things - some of them even approaching noble.  But many and much of them were a sham, a sleight of hand, a mirage.  Even though he was not very highly educated, nevertheless, he held academic court on a range of subjects, in a number of countries and in a number of extraordinarily wide contexts.  Even though he had extremely limited experience of “Bushmen”, nevertheless, he set himself up as a worldwide expert – and was accepted as such.    His stories about them, borrowed and reworked from books.  Even though he had virtually no idea of the politics of Rhodesia at the time of settlement – nevertheless, he credits himself as virtually solely responsible for the transition.

He became an advisor and confidant of Mrs Thatcher.  He was father-figure to Prince Charles, as a young man.  He befriended Chief Buthelezi at the time of South Africa’s grasping for a solution to its terrible problems.  He gave them all the most weird, ill-informed and perplexing advice – based largely, not on any facts, but on his own imagination.

Why was he listened to?  How did a bald faced liar become so highly regarded and so highly connected?  This is indeed a great mystery.  Some of it had to do with his charm and wonderful personality.  Some of it had to do with his created and uncontested history.  Some of it had to so with flaws in the very people he managed to influence.  But it happened!  That is what makes the reading of this biography so extraordinary and compelling.

If you have known such a person, believe me, you will not be able to put this book down.  If you have not known such a person, this book will forewarn and forearm you.  Because they are usually the most seductive and wonderful people.  Ruthless? Yes.  Calculating? Yes, indeed.  But wonderful and astonishing nonetheless.

Laurens discouraged any biography during his lifetime, saying that he had written it all himself in his books.  But the real reasons become obvious with the reading of every page.  His status as some kind of secular saint starts to pale as one hears of his illegitimate daughter whose mother he had seduced when she was only 14 years old.  His claim to brokering the Lancaster House Agreement, does not bear scrutiny. His intimacy with CJ Jung was somewhat slight – despite his grand claims to the contrary.  It was all, or if not all, then mostly, a mirage.

But the book also looks at his ability to inspire love, not only from those in close association with him, but from a wide range of people the world over.  And it is this, which is perhaps, his redeeming feature.

Reflections of an ex-Christian at Easter

(Pic - "The Sermon on the Mount" from Ecce Homo. Elizabeth Ohlson Wallin, 1998, Photograph, 79" x 60")

My journey with Christianity has, it needs to be said, been a fairly robust one – on both sides, I suppose. I was born and raised in a fairly ordinary Christian home.  By this, I mean, that we went to a little parish Church within walking distance of our house.  We cooked a turkey at Christmas and had Christmas pudding aflame with brandy.  We had Easter Eggs at Easter and otherwise lived fairly ordinary, middle-of-the-road lives.  My parents were standard parents, with fairly standard ideas.  It was a happy home and the Church was a reasonable part of it.  We got baptised as infants and confirmed on reaching puberty.  If we got married, it was in the parish church. If you died, that is where you got buried from.  It was just the way you did things.

My siblings were much older than me and had gone their separate ways by the time my hormones started raging.  And when they did, they raged within the fairly safe confines of Church youth groups and choir practise – so generally, it was all relatively safe and sound.

I knew from an early age that I wanted to become a Priest.  I used to explain to my easily bewildered students, many years down the track, that it was primarily the gorgeous clothes the priest wore that had initially attracted me to the priesthood.  Of course, my motives all got dressed up in stuff the bishops wanted to hear, like calling and vocation and things like that – but actually, it was the glamour – the sheer outright drama of the thing, which did it.

I went to study theology at Rhodes University and Cambridge and Manchester.  I loved it all! I loved the academic rigour, the debate, the sheer, glorious liberation of being able to think things through and to discard the nonsense and hold on to what made rational sense.  I had some pretty amazing teachers – I think of the extraordinary Canon John Suggit.  I think of Bishop John Robinson, who was quite happy to throw the baby out with the bathwater and still was able to maintain some kind of link with both the religion and the institution of the Church (and more amazingly, was allowed to do so!)

I worked for a while as a priest in Lesotho.  In reality, it was a convenient cover for political activity.  But it was also character-moulding in all sorts of ways.  If I close my eyes, I can still remember the day I was made Deacon in the Cathedral of St Mary and St James, Maseru.  There is a point in the service, where the Deacon is required to prostrate himself before the altar.  I remember the freezing cold of the stone floor, the smell of the incense mixed with wood smoke.  I remember the overwhelming drama of the thing and the sense of dignity and communion as the massive congregation welcomed me.

I was ordained Priest in Manchester Cathedral, after long negotiations with the ecclesiastical authorities, because of my refusal to swear any oath of allegiance to the Queen.  I remember the growl of the organ and the triumphant procession.  I remember the taste of the wine at the first Mass where I was the celebrant.

So when I call myself an ex-Christian, it is not an easy thing.  I have so much of the religion etched in my brain, in my consciousness and my unconsciousness.  The images, the sights the sounds, the smells – these are a significant part of me. And I entered into it, for a massive chunk of my life, fully and passionately.  Doubtless, I would still be there, if it were in any way possible.

When a new Archbishop of Canterbury is enthroned – something happens inside me.  It is difficult to explain – but I am still connected to it long enough to remember that I have since rejected it all.  When a Pope resigns and a new one is chosen, something in my inner being awakens and reacts.  When we approach Eastertide and my child asks me about the plagues in Egypt, I react with something much more than passing interest.

And it is not that I believe in any kind of objective God, really, it is not.  And it is not that I regret not believing in God.  It is something quite aside from that.  It is a strange and eerie connection with the rich past which has made me who I am.  It is impossible to pretend that it means nothing, or that it achieved nothing or that it is worth nothing.  And I would not want to do that.

In the end, we, as a same-sex family with two adopted children, decided to cut ties with the Church once and for all, for reasons which have nothing to do with belief.  It was simply impossible to continue in it as second-class citizens and for our children to be brought up in an environment where we were not fully and completely accepted. It became abundantly clear that it would be asking too much of an institution, riven with its own lies and contradictions, on the question of sexuality – (let alone theology!).

And so, I live my life without the Church any more.  There are some things I miss intensely and many more things I don’t.  I miss the drama and the ritual and the rumble of the organ.  I miss the hieratic language and the powerful, living poetry which accompanies it.  I don’t miss the bigotry and the anti-intellectual conservatism and the lies and the all-pervading, inescapable hypocrisy, which is allowed to grow and flourish and flower and seed, without any hinder or check.

I know beyond a shadow of a doubt, that for all of it, my children – in their particular circumstance are better - much better - without it.  I am not sure I will be able to protect them from its worst excesses forever, but I am going to do my best to shield them, for as long as possible.  So they will have to be content with Easter eggs rather than the extraordinary story of hope rising from the darkness of the tomb.

"Sweet Tooth" by Ian McEwan,

 Sweet Tooth. A Novel by Ian McEwan, Alfred A Knopf, Canada, 2012

It didn’t take much to get me excited about reading the latest Ian McEwan.  I saw, firstly, that it was dedicated to one of my favourite people, the redoubtable Christopher Hitchens, who died in 2011.  Secondly, McEwan has a way of hooking the reader into his story from the first page.  It is a remarkable gift, this – he seems to do it every time, for me, at any rate.

Then, I like the way he savours his words.  I like the way in which they are packaged and presented. I like the way he uses words like “orotund” – meaning pompous, or pretentious – and gets away with it, without sounding it.  I like the way he can set you the scene by a simple phrase  - “Among the favoured topics in letters to The Times were the miners, ‘a worker’s state’, the bipolar world of Enoch Powell and Tony Benn, flying pickets, and the Battle for Saltley” – and there you have it!  You are plunged immediately back into the Britain of the 1970’s. 

I love the way he lets the reader see the ways in which his characters think and look.  Of the main character, (a somewhat conservative MI5 Agent called Serena Frome (rhymes with plume), who was recruited by a much older lover – “I went on working in Curzon Street while I tended the little shrine of my secret grief”.  Of a minor character, who becomes hugely significant later on in the novel “It was the case that his ears protruded from strange hillocks of bone at the sides of his skull and those ears were awfully pink”.

She, the narrator, describes one passing character as someone with a “dry gingerish look and the tightly swallowed vowels of a South African, though he originally came from Surrey”.  These are brilliances.  They are polished and they duly shine.  They have a savour and a scent that is just wonderful and ravishing.  And the book is laced with them.

Then there are the casual observances – “Reality isn’t always middle class”.  “We were like tennis players warming up, rooted to our baselines, sending fast but easy balls down the centre of the court to our opponent’s forehand, taking pride in our obliging accuracy”.  Now that is dazzling writing!

The story is, nonetheless, an easy one.  Miss Frome is tasked with signing up a talented young novelist to a foundation – run by MI5 and codenamed “Sweet Tooth”.  A fairly daft idea of the secret service funding novelists, who, it is hoped, will project a particular view of Britain, inside and out.  She falls for the smart young novelist whom she has tethered and has to live with the strange, but delicious deception of not revealing to him who she really is. 

Her background is ordinary.  She is the daughter of an Anglican Bishop.  “It was”, she says, “one of the blessings of our family life, and perhaps Anglicanism in general, that we were never expected to go to church to hear or see our father officiate.  It was of no interest to him whether we were there or not”.

She is mendacious, for sure.  But she isn’t evil or wanton.  She is ordinary – the perfect spy.  The fact that she is “rather gorgeous as well” certainly counts in her favour.  Her task is a relatively small one.  The project is peripheral.  But she derives great pleasure from it.

The book describes the tests and turns of a fairly ordinary, very happy and rather fulfilling relationship.  The sex is good.  The money coming from the Foundation makes life easy.  The couple enjoy good dinners with good wine on a much more regular basis than would normally be the case for people of their age.  They are happy and content.  And then a disaster which was waiting to happen, does.

Now it is at this point that an ordinary, pleasant read gets turned into something quite extraordinary.  There must be very few writers who could manage to play the reader so thoroughly and so comprehensively as does McEwan.  He does it in a single, deft, flip.  In a moment.  In a twinkling of an eye.  And he does it with such dexterity that I guarantee you will be left breathless and laughing.  Such is the measure of real intelligence in a writer.  It is not that you have been manipulated – it is rather than you have been played.  And the final moments bring the entire chorale together.  It is magnificent, without being pretentious.  It is memorable without being laboured.  It is a light-headed joy to read. 

The Ultimate Lentil Burger

You can relax!  The search is officially over for the ultimate veggie burger.  (Believe me, the search has been a long and a hard one - but finally, here it is!)

These patties have past the most stringent family tests in my household, with requests (I could hardly believe it!) for more!

I make a bigger batch, by trebling the quantities and then freezing them for use on other occasions.

400 g dry lentils (if you insist - I just use 1 tin rinsed)
1 large onion finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic crushed
2 T Nomu Egyptian dukkah
1 egg
10g of chopped parsley or coriander
1/2 cup of oats
1 round of feta, crumbled
Olive or Canola oil to fry

Cook the lentils in the normal way, or just open the can and rinse in a sieve or colander.

Heat some oil in a pan and fry the onion and garlic until it is soft and golden
Add the dukkah spice and fry for 2 minutes (I have also used chermoula spice, if I can't find dukkah)

Remove the onions from the heat and allow to cool completely. Mix the onion mixture with the rest of the ingredients in a bowl.  Shape into four large patties and allow to stand in the fridge for about an hour.

Heat a little oil in a frying pan and fry the patties for about 3 or 4 minutes on each side.

Serve in a bun with a hummus base (if you have some in the fridge) and all the usual burger toppings, to taste.

You will not regret it, I promise!