Latest pointless exchange on humanities.lit.authors.shakespeare:

Me: So, once again, you decline a direct request for evidence. Why is this not surprising?

Paul Crowley: A discussion with you is invariably like explaining Euclidean geometry to someone who has never seen a right angle and doesn’t know what it could be. No. I take that back. It’s much worse than that. There’s a deliberate obscurantism — a kind of doctrine that nothing can be known unless it’s been written up in a textbook by a professor of whatever-subject-it-may-be — and then, of course, whatever the professor says MUST be true.

Me: All I did was ask what evidence you had to support your views. I didn’t specify that it had to be from a professor; I didn’t specify that it had to be in a textbook. As usual, you couldn’t provide any evidence to support your views. And when I pointed that out, you resorted to abuse.

But you do this routinely — on the most basic dumb-ass topics.

Ask for evidence, you mean? Yes, I do. Your statement was that “given a simple case where we have two texts, saying much the same, demonstrating the influence of one on another, the most probable situation is that the greater influenced the lesser.” This seems to me unlikely – to me, the ostensible dates of the two texts is a much better starting point – but for some odd reason I prefer to have evidence before making my mind up one way or the other. Hence my request whih you were unable to comply with.

This is the second time within a fortnight.

Third, in fact. The first was your assertion that many Stratfordians think “the truly remarkable burst of literary ‘genius’ in Elizabethan England BEFORE Shakespeare (and culminating in him)” can be explained “by saying that the language was passing through such and such a phase (and something much more than a ‘standardisation’)” – but the only person you found to support this statement was Elizabeth Weir, who is not a Stratfordian. I admit that I confused you a bit by asking if you knew of any literary historian who espoused this view of the history of literature, when in fact I just meant if you knew of anyone whose opinion is worth noticing who thought so.

The second was your assertion that Alan Nelson has found “mistakes” where there are none in Oxford’s Latin. If this were the case, it should be dead easy for you to show which of the phrases “de benne esse, quantum in nos est”, “leuare facias”, “fyre facias” and “summum totale”, which Nelson describes as incorrect, are in fact acceptable in 16th century legal Latin.

You make it clear that you are NOT querying my statement.

I don’t see how asking for evidence can be construed in any way other than that I *am* querying your statement.

You imply that you have an open mind on the issue and are merely waiting for more evidence.

Absolutely, which is why I often query statements which contain information which is surprising to me.

Yet then you deny that.

When have I done so? Can you give me any evidence of my doing so? Oh, sorry, asking for evidence again.

You don’t have an open mind, yet you are not prepared to come down in one way or the other. So WHAT IS THE POINT of asking for evidence?

To enable me to come down one way or the other?

It is obviously clear that you DON’T know whether what I say is true or not. And neither do you know how to find out. Yet you cannot admit to either fact.

I hereby admit, Paul, that sometimes I don’t know whether what you say is true or not, though I am always inclined to doubt it. And when I want to find out if what someone says is true or not, my first step is often to ask them to explain themselves better and to tell me what evidence they have. Since you cannot explain yourself and do not supply evidence, I am still inclined to doubt.

Is THIS what a modern Cambridge education does to a human mind? It fills it with empty pomposity. You can never — at any stage — admit to ignorance of anything. Honesty goes out the window. You forget what it is ask ordinary questions. You cease to know what it is to think about anything. (You pass exams simply by regurgitating lecturers’ notes.) You become quite incapable of any learning — and as thick as two short planks.

You have all the qualifications to be a Stratfordian academic.

I don’t know what it is about asking you for evidence that drives you to higher and higher levels of abuse. A more effective debating technique would be to say, “The clearly inferior text A borrowed from the clearly superior B.” Or, “The Stratfordian scholar C argues that the English language was passing through a peculiar phase in the late 16th century.” Or, “Legal document D, dating from the 16th century, spells the word ‘bene’ with two n’s.” But to do this you would need evidence to support your views, and I am increasingly sure that you have none.

Let me tell you how I actually operate this principle, Paul, with a real example from my life last week. For some time I have been closely following negotiations between the European Union and Ruritania (not its real name, but those interested in the region will work it out). On Monday it was announced that an important step in the negotiations had been reached. On Wednesday two mid-ranking EU officials informed me gloomily that on the previous day the President of Ruritania had demanded new concessions from the EU before the latest step could be implemented. This seemed unlikely to me, because I know the President and the political situation there quite well. On the other hand political life is somewhat surprising at times, and these officials had access to the EU’s negotiators, so I could not rule it out. I needed more evidence before making up my mind.

So on Thursday my colleague in Ruritania contacted the President’s office directly, and I myself contacted the Ruritanian ambassador in Brussels, to find out what they thought. Both of these approaches to Ruritanian officials produced a consistent story: that the President had written to the EU making certain suggestions that he felt would be a good idea in the context of implementing the new agreement, but that these were certainly not new preconditions, certainly not rolling back the agreement that had already been reached, and in any case less far-reaching than I had initially been led to believe. On Friday I notified the EU officials that there seems to be a misunderstanding on their side, and hopefully will have played my little part in sorting it out. If on the other hand I had adopted your approach, Paul, and made up my mind one way or the other as soon as I heard the news, it would have been impossible for me to do this.

That is why I ask for evidence: because it usually brings out a fuller picture and helps me understand the context for the original statement. I find your views difficult to understand because I cannot see what evidence you have for them. I admit that I don’t have a particularly deep knowledge of the 16th century, and that is why I often ask questions when statements which contain surprising information are made. When the person asked has no evidence, I have to draw my own conclusions.

Father Chris Jenkins has died. I sent this note to Belmont Abbey:

“Fr Chris preached a mean sermon at Cambridge. His annual questioning of the theological credentials of the Cambridge Intercollegiate Christian Union was the most notorious, but his other set-pieces, including his welcome and words of advice for new students, and his challenge to those seeking jobs in the milk round not to devote their lives to salary scales also stay with me. Over beer in the chaplaincy bar, or wine on other occasions, he would be controversial and provocative, but (as Lucy Hartley rightly says) he nurtured diversity of opinion and approach in the Chaplaincy. (Lucy also is right about his tendency to fall asleep during films.) His influence on my own intellectual approach to the Faith was profound; he will be remembered with fondness and respect by many.”

To which I would add that I hope his dislike for the Welsh was a put-on, given that he had just been posted to Dolgellau and died in Gwent. He could be socially disastrous; I remember one awful evening when he came round to my room and completely alienated many of my non-Catholic friends. But my Cambridge world was much more interesting for having him in it, and his farewell dinner as Chaplain in Newnham in June 1988 was an emotional moment for all of us.

When the Challenger exploded, I was working at Armagh Observatory during my year off. I’d just come back to my lodgings and found the daughter of the house glued to the TV – “Have you seen that?” she asked, as the news service replyed the fireball over and over.

Yesterday I’d been at a brainstorming seminar organised by Martti Ahtisaari and George Soros on the future of EU policies for the Balkans, around a recent ESI paper. It was a bit odd because I had decided to be smart casual, wearing a new jumper rather than jacket and tie. However apart from Daniel Gros and Stanislav Daskalov, everyone else had taken the formal option. Oddly enough the three of us had collaborated on a paper on trade a few years back…

I had a good seminar, and was able to make points in favour of the excelent Greek Presidency paper, conditionality re ICTY and military reform, a more liberal EU visa regime, and a better outreach program from the EU to the Balkans. A dispute ensued with a German diplomat. Then home through the heavy snow, and turned on the television to find the shuttle story all over the media.

Had to interrupt writing this because Bridget got into the toothpaste and got some in her eyes, poor child…

People ten years or more older than me always remember where they were when they heard that President Kennedy had been shot. The two space shuttle disasters are moments like that for me. Princess Diana’s death a bit less so, because like most people in Europe I was in bed, with my radio still on and tuned to the World Service, which is less dramatic. On Sept 11 2001 I was in a meeting with Branislava Alendar from the Yugoslav mission to the EU; I’d just heard the first tower had been hit before the meeting started, and by the time we were finished they were both down and the Pentagon had been hit too. Oddly enough Branislava was at yesterday’s meeting too. And back in 1981-82 there seemed to be an awful lot of shootings, the Pope, Anwar Sadat, our local MP Robert Bradford, and indeed Ronald Reagan.

Do these seven people deserve having more of a fuss made of their passing than any other seven killed in a transport accident yesterday? Well, yes. I think the Observer’s editorial got it right this morning when it argued that “manned space travel is a cultural achievement, a measure of what we aspire to as a species. If we turn our backs on future missions we will gain nothing and will lose a sense of vision and purpose that the world can ill afford to lose.” It is an important endeavour on a world scale, and it’s more than just a personal disaster for the astronauts and their family, friends and employers.

My second attempt at blogging lasted for a few weeks in February-March 2003, and petered out after the Djindjic assassination. I only really got into my stride whe I set up this blog in May.

A dramatic few days.

I spent the weekend in Belfast at MeCon, my first ever science fiction convention. Greatly enjoyed it; long conversations with Scottish socialist author Ken MacLeod, brief hallos with Belfast based author Ian McDonald, which was the aim of the trip. Also made friends with a good group from Dublin led by Pádráig Ó Mealóid. Very much committed now to going to OctoCon in the autumn.

So on Tuesday I opened my email and saw a job advert from ELDR which made me think, hmmm, perhaps I could be persuaded to leave CEPS for the right money; so I forwarded it to Anne. On the way home I was stuck in a traffic jam and pulled out my phone to see if she had got the email, and saw that I had missed a call from a vaguely familiar number a few minutes earlier while I must have been in one of the tunnels. I called back and was answered by Gareth Evans, who basically offered me the job of Director of Balkan Programmes at the International Crisis Group.

After some discussion with him later on, with Anne listening in, we decided to accept. The money is much better than CEPS, and the work at a somewhat more exalted level. So much cause for celebration. Karel and Daniel at CEPS were sad but not really surprised. Michael is in Cyprus and I didn’t manage to talk to him until yesterday (Thursday).

And then the next excitement was the agreement between Serbia and Montenegro. A dubious piece of work, this, with lots of serious questions left unanswered. My NGO friends very upset about it because it looks bad for Djukanovic. My European Commission friends very upset because it looks good for Djukanovic. I think it’ll fall apart before the end of the year, and Djukanovic’s challenge is to make it look like someone selse’s fault.

Weekend! Hurrah!

An excellent evening this evening with the Brussels and Luxembourg Lib Dems hosting a dinner with John Alderdice. JA very much feeling at home among Lib Dems of a European bent. He completely won the hearts of those present. I remembered just how exciting it was to work with this man in the mid-1990s. Which makes me realise that it’s over five years now since I left Belfast, and despite the occasional desperate call from University Street I am really not plugged in there any more. When I talked with John Cushnahan the other week about the relative fortunes of SF vs SDLP, he (having left NI in 1989) was sure that Mark Durkan could pull the SDLP round. I (having left in 1997) think they probably can’t. John Alderdice (still living there) is sure they can’t.

The Montenegrin talks troggle on, and I am ready to give an optimistic spin to the final settlement if it deserves it. I emailed Paddy Ashdown, newly appointed High Rep for BiH, about organising a seminar for him at CEPS in the near future; he gave a 70% positive response. Meanwhile I got a distressing email from the Macedonian President asking if I could come to the seminar scheduled in Skopje for 23 March, but on 6 April instead. Since that is the day of Julie and Garth’s wedding I told them I couldn’t. A humble email came back asking if the first or the second weekend in May would suit. Since the Romania conference I thought I was going to this weekend is actually the first weekend of May, I opted for the second.

Spent an hour this afternoon delivering anti-spam missives to MEPs with the help of Herman Beun, Lousewies van der Laan’s assistant, who I met for the first time. Last week’s open letter to Solana on Montenegro has certainly increassed our profile on the question, though the entire issue is somewhat cast into the shade by the Milosevic trial. Various calls with colleagues, and with numerous journalists.

The Ant-Men of Tibet and Bridge of Birds both turned out to be excellent buys. Also really enjoyed a novella by Fritz Leiber in the Lovecraft vein that I picked up in Leuven on Saturday. And have been preparing website for inclusion into QUB. Laborious but rewarding.

Met this morning with President Djukanovic, in the Plaza Hotel downtown. He seemed in good form, though understandably harassed. He gave me an hour of one-on-one conversation over coffee, with the only others present being his translator, and Slavica and his foreign affairs advisor Milan Rocen on the edges, and some bodyguards. His main concerns were 1) the internal dynamics of the EU encouraging nationalists in CG and Serbia; 2) safeguarding his own economic autonomy and the existing reforms; 3) the unworkability of the institutions of any federation and 4) the sheer cost of Montenegro’s contribution to keeping the Yugoslav army afloat. His determination seemed undiminished.

I told him that his weak spots were the budget deficit, the perception that they were weak on crime, and their lousy press strategy. On the budget he was a bit complacent (as was his Prime Minister when we met in January), on crime he was quite defensive, but claimed they had done a big clean-up and that the EU and Washington had declined his invitations for them to take a stronger role in policing. He took my point on their press strategy. Generally rather thrilling to be able to say this kind of thing to an actual head of an almost-internationally recognised state.

Also Elizabeth Meehan offers me the choice of “Honorary Senior Research fellow” or “Honorary Reader” at her Institute in Belfast, once I transfer the website to their keeping. So that is nice too.

On my way back up the hill from town I picked up “Bridge of Birds”, “The Ant-Men of Tibet” and “Ship of Fools” from Sterling Books. They all three look promising…

Spent yesterday in Paris as guest of the WEU Institute of Strategic Studies, who were holding a conference about Albania. Considerable drama in the morning as James Pettifer, well-known Albania expert, walked out rather than share a platform with Misha Glenny. Misha told me about this at breakfast in the hotel; I then bumped into James who said to me that he was leaving, that he and Miranda Vickers and Noel Malcolm all had the policy that would not share a platform with Misha because of his “racialist and chauvinistic views”. Since James Pettifer is the most rabidly pro-Albanian writer I have come across, including any Albanian or Kosovar, it seemed to me completely unjustifiable. Misha of course has his biases, but so do we all, and he certainly doesn’t have Pettifer’s fanatical devotion to one particular ethnic group. As I said to him later, some people – especially those who believe in the myth of a multi-ethnic paradise in pre-war Bosnia – cannot forgive him for writing about the faults of all sides in the Yugoslav war. Nicole Gnesotto, the president of the institute, impressed me by inviting Misha to replace James in making the keynote speech at the conference. Which he did extremely well, though clearly upset by the affair.

Rebecca West wrote sconfully of the late nineteenth century that “English persons, therefore, of humanitarian and reformist disposition constantly went out to the Balkan Peninsula to see who was in fact ill-treating whom, and, being by the very nature of their perfectionist faith unable to accept the horrid hypothesis that everybody was ill-treating everybody else, all came back with a pet Balkan people established in their hearts as suffering and innocent, eternally the massacres and never the massacrer”. She was right. Of course Rebecca West herself then broke her own rules and formed an unbalanced attachment to the Serbs.

Meanwhile the Montenegro story rolls on and on. I found I was getting nowhere with drafting the statement by concerned citizens, and finally Michael got interested and did it for me. We shall therefore try and go somewhere with it next week. A journalist called me on Thursday to say that he had seen a draft constitution for a reformed federation comling out of Solana’s office. I called Solana’s office and found that this was not quite true, but they had been “helping” Belgrade write their proposals. Hmm; secretariat to the Council of Ministers to the European Union, or legal consultants to dodgy Balkan governments?

Great fun this morning as we met with Petar, Veselin and Slavica from Montenegro. It seems the EU, or to be precise Solana, has really overreached themselves on this one, to the extent that a journalist tells me the Dutch and Belgians are beginning to doubt if they have taken the right tack. So I am finally drafting a public statement to be signed by various concerned citizens. Tired now though, time to go home.

Long time no post. But I should record my visit to Croatia at the weekend for a conference of the European Movement. In a lot of ways I felt like I was returning to the beginning of the cycle of my interest in the Balkans. The Europe House was where Michael Emerson and I gave our first public presentation of CEPS’ work on the Balkans, back in May 1999 (and that was the week that Milosevic was indicted for war crimes, and his trial is now going ahead). I was staying in the Astoria, whose Chinese restaurant was where I went for my first NDI meal with Francesca Binda, after I had arrived to work in Banja Luka in January 1997. And to cap it all as I was leaving I got a lift to the airport, quite unexpectedly, with Koraljka Tomasic, who had first got me interested in the Balkans when we met at a LYMEC conference on using the internet in November 1995.

But the conference itself was a very good event. The headline attractions for the organisers were the Euro-federalist enthusiasts of various European Movement national branches, including Willy de Clercq from Belgium, and Alan Dukes from Ireland. I found the latter very easy to get on with, if anything rather shy, but also friendly in contrast to when I had last encountered him at a British Irish Association conference in 1989, when he was still leader of Fine Gael and I paranoiacally suspected him of chatting up my girlfriend. I was able to bring him greetings from John Cushnahan who I had bumped into on Wednesday night at the opening of the Northern Ireland Executive’s office in Brussels.

I also renewed contact with Erhard Busek and Janez Potocnik, and met for the first time Jacques Paul Kein. But I particularly got on with Andrew Hardie and Kate Lane, a British couple on the verge of getting married; Andrew perhaps in his mid forties, Kate in her mid twenties, but obviously devoted to each other and very sweet.

Read Kissing the Beehive by Jonathan Carroll, and Impakto by Richard Calder, and to be honest not especially impressed by either. Things Unborn by Eugene Byrne a different matter though, an audacious alternate history where the Cuban Missile Crisis became a nuclear war and the dead are returning to life.

Meanwhile in Montenegro the expert teams were in Brussels yesterday to meet with the EU, and after some manoeuvring my colleague was able to get in on one of the meetings. They will give me their debriefings first thing this morning (Tuesday). But it is very late now and I must go back to bed.

Am off to Montenegro tomorrow to advise them on their future status negotiations with Belgrade. The call from Slavica arrived yesterday just before Anne’s parents; Anne and I went into CEPS this afternoon for me to print out some Montenegro/FRY reading material and also incidentally to finalise the sale of our house in North Belfast by fax with our solicitor.

The EU’s diplomatic intervention in FRY appears to be disastrously badly aimed. Rather than acting as honest brokers to ensure a soft landing for whatever solution is worked out between Podgorica and Belgrade, they are trying desperately to hold together a federation which even the Serbs don’t want on the present terms. This will strengthen Kostunica, Bulatovic and Soc in the respective internal political struggles against a) Djindjic and other relatively good guys in Belgrade, and b) Djukanovic and his multi-ethnic coalition. The smearing of Djukanovic (using Italian courts and Croatian press) as a smuggler is pathetic; it’s not as if he is the only politician in the region whose past is not beyond question, and it’s quite obvious to me at any rate that the potential replacements for him in Montenegro are bad news.

As for the eventual set of relationships, it’s clear to me (and indeed seems to have become clear to the Serbs back in October) that a two-member federation is an exceptionally unstable set-up. I don’t go all the way wth the Montenegrins – I think it could become viable if given enough outside support. But the only players who actually have both the incentive and the resources to keep such an arrangement going are the US and EU (and to an extent Russia). And at the moment I don’t see them offering enough to the Serbs, let alone to the Montenegrins, to make the continuation of Yugoslavia a worthwhile prospect.

And to be honest I think the international community overrates the importance of preventing Montenegro’s secession in terms of the destabilising effect on the region. Djukanovic has been arguing in every capital he can reach that Montenegro is a special case with no consequences for Kosovo, Western Macedonia or the Republika Srpska. In terms of international law (which I don’t really rate as a useful concept anyway) he is undoubtedly right.

Time for bed.

Today’s achievement: getting the decorations up. However, er, no christmas cards were sent from this address…

Today’s culinary success: cooking 1.3 kilos of wild boar in the microwave. Our ordinary oven is pretty unreliable, but I was able to improvise using a recipe for cooking gammon steak. After ten minutes on full power, and forty on half power, it was well cooked but swimming in gravy. Not crispy, of course, but very tasy indeed. So we have enough left over for tomorrow and Christmas day, and then once Catherine arrives on Christmas evening we can go vegetarian for a few days.

Today’s superb TV programme: Omnibus on BBC2, talking about Tolkien. I have to confess I was moved to tears by a) the archive film of the man himself talking about his writing; b) Terry Pratchett talking about his influence and c) Rayner Unwin, reminiscing about how as a ten-year-old he had reviewed “The Hobbit” for his father, and recommended publication. Also to an extent reflecting on Mordor and the places in the former Yugoslavia which are, or have been, close to it.

However I was not so convinced by the programme’s central premise, that Tolkien was trying to create a “mythology for England”. I think Gene Wolfe is much nearer to the mark in this month’s Interzone, where he reflects on Tolkien’s fascination with the purer, simpler times of the Middle Ages, and his revulsion againste the chaos of the twentieth century.

“We might have a society in which the laws were few and just… we would also have a society in which the lack of wealth was not reason for resentment but a spur to ambition, and in which wealth was not a cause for self-indulgence but a call to service. We had it once, and some time in this third millennium we shall have it again; and if we forget to thank John Ronald Reuel Tolkien for it when we get it, we will already have begun the slow and not always unpleasant return to Mordor.”

Wolfe almost portrays Tolkien as a conservative and almost makes it look as if he is one too; but he leaves enough wiggle room that I’m not inclined to disagree with him. I think it’s significant that Wolfe, like Tolkien, is a practising Catholic, the most prominent Catholic currently in the sf field.

Good to hear that the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction is heading for a third edition, and interesting that Dave Langford will join John Clute on the editorial team…

Today’s internet activism 1: Goading euro-sceptics on talk.politics.european-union.

Today’s internet activism 2: fine-tuning our anti-spam literature for MEPs in an email to George Mills.

Today’s real-life activism: Slavica Milacic called from Montenegro. I’d seen in B92 that she is part of the Montenegrin negotiating team for the EU-brokered talks with Belgrade. She invited me to come and do some work with the team over the first weekend in January; sounds like a fine idea to me, since I’ve never been to Montenegro.

Today at work: finishing Europa South-East Monitor, bits and pieces of website.

My first attempt at blogging lasted from late December 2001 to mid-March 2002. I’ve rescued the entries and put them on-line here.