James on Trump

Clive James does a marvellous job of cutting the real Donald Trump down to size with this splendid column in The Guardian

Clive's opening paragraph deserves some kind of prize and he is also full of praise for Alec Baldwin's portrayal of 'Donald the Demagogue' on Saturday Night Live.

"Donald Trump has not yet been elected president, so my plans to leave the planet are still on hold. I might have to leave soon anyway, but I would rather not have to book my seat on the rocket just because some baroque narcissist in the Oval Office had declared atomic war on North Korea, or South Dakota, or whatever target took his fancy when the hottest patootie in the West Wing typing pool swerved away from the outstretched plea of his tiny hands"

It's great to see the Australian raconteur still going strong despite his illness and you can read Clive's full article via the following ling to The Guardian.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/oct/29/clive-james-us-election-hillary-clinton-should-have-told-trump

 

Clive James: ‘Hillary should have told Trump at least once to go screw himself’

If Trump loses, we will still not be free of his extravagantly coiffed shadow, because the analysis will begin as to why he lost

By Clive James - The Guardian

Donald Trump has not yet been elected president, so my plans to leave the planet are still on hold. I might have to leave soon anyway, but I would rather not have to book my seat on the rocket just because some baroque narcissist in the Oval Office had declared atomic war on North Korea, or South Dakota, or whatever target took his fancy when the hottest patootie in the West Wing typing pool swerved away from the outstretched plea of his tiny hands.

If Trump loses, we will still not be free of his extravagantly coiffed shadow, because the analysis will begin as to why he lost. Nobody sane will ascribe Hillary’s victory to her own command of language. If either of them commands the language, Trump does, by sticking a short finger in its ribs and walking forwards until it walks backwards.

Subjected to such treatment, Hillary was rightly praised for her poise, but she should have told him at least once to go screw himself. As things turned out, the figure who really had Trump’s number was Alec Baldwin on Saturday Night Live. Baldwin has the wrong mouth to be Trump – Baldwin’s mouth looks like a mouth – but in all other respects, he was a terrifying simulacrum of the terrifying reality, in which, no matter how much ordnance Hillary hit him with, Trump kept on walking forwards, like the robot Gort in The Day the Earth Stood Still.

Japanese Maple (02/10/14)

The Australian writer, comic and raconteur Clive James was at the peak of his powers some years ago and has been out of the public eye recently because he is dying, sadly, from a chronic lung disease which ambushed him late in life.    

But Clive has not lost all his sparkle just yet and wrote this lovely poem about a Japanese Maple tree, a gift from his daughter, which he wants to see change colour one last time.

So I salute Clive and hope he gets his last wish because he has felt like a friend over the years with his great love of words and irrepressible sense of humour.  

Poem: Japanese Maple

Your death, near now, is of an easy sort. 
So slow a fading out brings no real pain. 
Breath growing short 
Is just uncomfortable. You feel the drain 
Of energy, but thought and sight remain: 

Enhanced, in fact. When did you ever see 
So much sweet beauty as when fine rain falls 
On that small tree 
And saturates your brick back garden walls, 
So many Amber Rooms and mirror halls? 

Ever more lavish as the dusk descends 
This glistening illuminates the air. 
It never ends. 
Whenever the rain comes it will be there, 
Beyond my time, but now I take my share. 

My daughter’s choice, the maple tree is new. 
Come autumn and its leaves will turn to flame. 
What I must do 
Is live to see that. That will end the game 
For me, though life continues all the same: 

Filling the double doors to bathe my eyes, 
A final flood of colors will live on 
As my mind dies, 
Burned by my vision of a world that shone 
So brightly at the last, and then was gone.