Taxi driver: So, are you going to be over here for long, then?
Me (with some pride): Until Tuesday – I’m doing commentary on the elections for the BBC.
Taxi driver (with greater pride): I was the second person to vote in my polling station, at seven this morning. Did you exercise your democratic right today?
Me: No, I live in Belgium and we don’t have elections today. And voting is compulsory there anyway so it’s not really the same question of exercising your rights.
Taxi driver (suspiciously): But can you still spoil your vote?
Me: Yes, you can.
Taxi driver: That’s all right then. That’s what I did this morning, I spoiled all three of my votes. I’m an anarchist and I have to be true to my principles.
Me (incredulously): You spoiled all three of your ballot papers?
Taxi driver (taking advantage of the fact that we have stopped at traffic lights, showing me a picture on his mobile phone): There. See?
(On the phone’s screen is a picture of three ballot papers, each of which bears the handwritten message “ANARCHY + FREEDOM”. Each also appears to have a paragraph of printed text pasted to it.)
Me (even more incredulously): Did you actually glue your manifesto to each ballot paper???
Taxi-driver (with even greater pride): Not mine, but a quote from Pierre Joseph Proudhon; he was the first of the great anarchist thinkers. It’s too long to write out by hand, so I have a stack of copies printed out, and I make sure I always have them with me. And a tube of Pritt-stick of course.
Me: Do you mind if I write a blog entry about this?
Taxi-driver: Fire away, just as long as you don’t use my real name.
Graves was rejected, reveals Schueler, because even though he had written several historical novels, he was still primarily seen as a poet. Olsson was reluctant to award any Anglo-Saxon poet the prize before the death of Ezra Pound, believing that other writers did not match up to his mastery; he further dismissed Pound in response to his political stance.
I’d never thought of Graves as a victim of fascism before!