It was our last full day on the island (though we don't get picked up til 6pm tomorrow so it's not quite over) and we went back to lounging and trying to top up our tans (or in my case create even more bizarre swirls of sun burn on disparate parts of my body). The weather this week has not been great. I think it's probably been great compared to the UK, but it's been cloudy and a little bit rainy, though still warm. The sun came through every now and again and in the late afternoon finally broke free of the clouds and reminded us how powerful and hot it can be.
I am now reading "Rasputin" by Edvard Radzinsky, as I am half thinking about doing a play about Felix Yusupov, the man who supposedly killed him. I have of course already done one great work about the Mad Monk, the 1993 comedy musical Ra-Ra-Rasputin based on the music of Boney M (which no doubt gave everyone else the idea to do Mama Mia and We Will Rock You and even Daddy Cool, a failed one also involving Boney M's tunes). But my new work, if I do it, will be a little more serious, though Yusupov is quite a comic figure, as is Rasputin up to a point.
I've had Radzinsky's book for ages, but not got too far into it before, but this time I am well past the half way mark and enjoying it greatly. It's a very thorough look at the life and the motives of Rasputin as well as the slow and inevitable decline of the Russian royal family. And the loss of aristocratic privilege is a bit reminiscent of Brideshead, funnily enough, although this is true and horribly tragic. Nicholas and Alexandra were ridiculous twats in many ways, but there is an innocence and fecklessness about them and whenever I read about them I want them to escape Russia this time. Or at least not make their stupid mistakes and maybe hand over power and institute a democracy, rather than ending up gunned down in a cellar with all their children. But in every book I read about them they still die.
According to Radzinsky (and I am not sure I agree with all his conclusions) Rasputin had a remarkable amount of influence over the decisions made in war time Russia, but there is also the suggestion that he was not just a dirty old man tricking vulnerable women into having sex with him and that he might have sincerely believed (at least in the early days) that he was purifying them or playing the
"Holy Fool" by his actions (which might make a great title for an Edinburgh show), especially as, it struck me quite profoundly, that in the modern world the job of comedian is quite similar to this foolishness for religion. To be acting ridiculously and against the rules of society in order to challenge accepted ideas and then occasionally to allow a lucid and wise statement to emerge from the gibberish.
Once again, overall, I am left with the realisation that all those things that we think are solid and permanent are fragile and transient. The Tsar of Russia must have believed that the 300 year old Romanov dynasty would continue forever (and seemed to accept that God was going to make sure it did, however little the way they lived their lives had to do with Christ's teachings), but suddenly in a couple of years of Hell and confusion it was smashed to pieces. Is our society any more secure? Perhaps a little, but I think most of us don't even consider how little it takes to turn everything upside down.
Anyway....
In the late afternoon I fulfilled an ambition that I've been harbouring all holiday (but have been to lazy to fulfil), to drink a beer at one of the barstools that is situated in the swimming pool of the hotel. I was in the pool, but at the bar. I was drinking a beer. This surely is paradise and if Heaven doesn't turn out to be an eternity of this I will be most disappointed. My girlfriend has a waterproof camera and took photos of me at the bar and underwater. At one point I realised that Georgia was standing just behind me in the pool. "Try and get a picture of me with Georgia," I told her. In my mind I was thinking that if I could a photo of the tiny witch that I could make T shirts saying "I hate Georgia" illustrated with her actual child's and innocent (looking) face. Imagine if thousands of people were walking around with "Georgia is a Prick" T shirts. Imagine if she was ever to see one. What would she make of that?
But I thought better of it. I wondered what her parents would think if they saw me trying to get into a photo with their daughter. It would be hard to explain. "No, it's not what you're thinking. I'm just trying to get a picture for a T shirt that lampoons you're spoiled and annoying child. I am not strange."
So we decided against it and that's probably for the best. My vendetta with Georgia must end with this holiday. But I will continue my war against the Dutch. I think it would be worth the vilification of this one small country if it meant that everyone else in the world was united in peace. Sure it would be tough for the Dutch people, but the overall benefit would surely be worth it. Admittedly Hitler tried to do something similar, but at least mine isn't based on religious hatred, just a random decision based on the dodo thing. And I wouldn't want the Dutch to be wiped out. It's actually important that they survive and flourish because if they were to become as dead as the dodos and tortoises that they cared so little for, then everyone else would go back to hating and killing each other. The Dutch would be a protected species. Protected, but reviled.
I have a dream....
