Once one has hit the mid-fifties, as I have, one should have acquired a good deal of knowledge, and perhaps a little wisdom. Parenting is a great opportunity to learn and to share learning, and I hope my children learned a few good lessons from their father. However, as I approach what I call my ‘second innings’ I thought it might be wise to review some of the things that I have learned. What I know more profoundly than ever, is that one does not stop learning, and I think that is one of the most exciting things about growing older. What follows, obviously, is a far from exhaustive list, but it is the type of thing that I want my children to understand. I hope I share these ‘learnings’ with them, but most of us are familiar with the volumes of unsaid things that happen in a loving parent-child relationship, when one is concentrating on far smaller things, but which seem so important at that given time. So, this is for me, something to revisit when I plan to see any one of them, and to tell them some of the important things that I have learned. And that I love them.

People

People are endlessly fascinating. I know some people get a buzz out of the natural world, and are awe stuck by David Attenborough and his discoveries, documentaries and research, but I am convinced that nothing is of greater interest in this world than people. And the really good news is, that the world is filled with many more ‘good’ people, and likeable people, than any other kind. When I first started work, my boss was an extraordinary man, who seemed widely, almost universally, liked by his colleagues, peers and business contacts. I asked him about how he managed to be so amenable so much of the time, given I knew that he did not care for some of the people with whom we conducted business daily on the old Stock Market floor. He told me that everyone he had ever met could do at least one thing better than him. And for that reason they merited his respect. I think that that is a powerful and attractive thing to have learned. Regard people with curiosity, and demonstrate respect for them. Generally that will have good outcomes.

Appearances

This is about judgement. It is about books and covers. It is about the dangers of homophily i.e.. when we like people who are ‘like us’, which provides validation, positive feelings and facilitates communication. This is about right brain emotional, instinctive reaction, overwhelming left brain cognitive processing and consideration. It is Kahneman’s thinking fast process obstructing the thinking slow part of the brain. It is the similarity-attraction paradigm, or cultural cloning as these things sometimes get called. Growing up in Essex in the 1970’s was to grow up in a school with very few black or brown faces. Going to work in the City in the 1980’s was to repeat that experience. I think my tastes in people, politics, fashion, just about everything, were conservative. I was also consumed with the value and validity of my views. I look back on these periods of how I chose my friends, and the social gatherings I was happy to attend, and note how restricted it all was. Sport, about which I write more below, was the first thing that started to shape my views to being able to admire, and to want to be associated with people of different appearance.

Now, thanks to a couple of Crisis at Christmas years, and to being a mature student at university, and to getting to know many more ‘creatives’ through my theatre interests, I see my world’s people differently. It is so rewarding, and I hope I have let my children know that making swift assumptions based on someone’s appearance will ultimately impoverish them, their minds, and the pleasures of a multiplicity of social opportunities. I grew up determined that where I could be, I would be courteous and that I would invest in my friendships and otherwise try to stay away from social groups to which I felt unsuited. This is a tougher lesson to learn. It does not really work. This avoidance approach means that one becomes a stronger communicator, often unwillingly, by non-verbal means. My body language, and particularly, my facial expressions usually reveal what I think about something and especially, somebody, before anything comes out of my mouth. The true richness of life comes from communicating. It generates positive surprises too. I am not especially gregarious, and I regard myself as quite shy. The City was a great industry to work in because it forced one to be more sociable and it helped me, but I still find it difficult to introduce myself to new groups and I think about avoiding some people. The key is to ask oneself why. What is it one wishes to avoid? The key lesson for me has been to remind oneself that more engagement trumps less engagement. It certainly trumps avoidance. In short, embrace variety, especially amongst people.

Work

When I left school and entered the work place things were very different. There was still a widely held assumption that the way to ‘get on’ was to join a firm, and ‘work your way up’. My careers advice at my ambition-free, comprehensive school, was to consider a role at any one of four High Street banks or become a PE teacher. A chance visit to the viewing gallery at the old London Stock Exchange building, ahead of a lunch with my father, and after a university interview, led me to making applications to City firms in either stockjobbing or money broking. Having secured a job my sole ambition was to keep it. At the time, the firm I joined swept in graduates and school leavers, like me, and put them through a swift apprenticeship of sorts, which allowed them to sample the delights and pressures and conventions of working on the stock market floor. More of these young ‘blue buttons’ failed to make it to dealer, or authorised clerk status, than were promoted. The discipline of trying to impress every day and not to attract any negative attention in order to preserve my employed status was instructive. Fortunately, I prospered.

But the world of work today is hugely changed, and I suspect is about to change even more radically. First, the idea of working one’s way up is now considered unusual. ‘Portfolio careers’ are much more likely, and the richness of experiences outside a one firm, or a one industry, or even a one-geography bubble, are, I think, to be welcomed. The increased likelihood of remote working is a positive insofar as it gives more autonomy and personal liberty, but perhaps a significant negative in the way it has created the modern ‘always on’ work environment. I used to welcome long hours, and to take a perverse delight in being earliest at my desk, and prepared to leave long after my seniors. I now realise how naive that all was. It demonstrates one’s inability to complete tasks in a sensible time frame, and it is a strange way to demonstrate some sort of corporate loyalty and machismo. It is also a madness in an era when the world of work is going to have to get better at employing a much older demographic. Highly competent knowledge workers in their late fifties and sixties and perhaps even seventies are not going to be disciples of ‘presenteeism’ and may work differently to the more technologically proficient younger cohort. But they will have an enormous value, and I think the best firms will be those that hire a time-flexible, older workforce that can bring a valuable and longer term perspective.

I sat in a business ethics class last night and my old industry came up in a discussion about Boatright’s ‘Moral Manager’ and ‘Moral Market’ models. I found myself discussing the greater self regulation of the pre-Big Bang era, and the proliferation of rule making in the post Global Financial Crisis era. We may not have drawn many conclusions, but it is an interesting debate. My point, though, is that the benefit of having lived through a structural change in an industry is of value, even if just used in a mentoring exercise. The best firms will want to pay for good mentors and some industry sages, just as the best sportsmen pay for coaches and advice. These are the small, incremental, 1%s that establish one firm’s primacy over another.

But what I have learned about work, is that it is a good thing. Having structure in one’s life is generally to be welcomed. To have a daily focus is sometimes tiring, but always worthwhile. Obviously it is important for meeting one’s needs, but once one goes beyond Maslow’s lowest tier on the hierarchy of needs, and can meet the demands for food and shelter, the essence of the work one does is what is such a good thing. It might provide physical demands that can be satisfying, but in the modern economy is more likely to exercise the mind and the imagination. These are major positives. Invariably it leads to a multiplicity of social interactions, and man is a social animal. Clearly, that is a good thing. But I have learned a good deal from my past year of ‘not working’, as I examine my options for my Second Innings. And, I swiftly discovered that my whole demeanour was changed once I had alighted upon what I wanted to do next and started to do something about achieving those goals. I may not be back in paid employment yet, but I am structuring my days like a worker, and getting things done and meeting people. It may not feel like traditional ‘work’ but it is giving me what I think the very great majority of us need. So, when work seems repetitive or overwhelming or unrewarding, think about it with fresh thoughts and think about what it is giving you. I look back at the many soft and modest skills I picked up, and the many fine relationships I developed with colleagues, and the sense of achievement that several of my roles gave me. Conclusion: work is a good thing.

Time

Having said that work is a good thing, I need to add that having time is perhaps the greatest asset in life, and often feels like something of a luxury. Having time, by not working, at least in a non-traditional way, has made me truly appreciate the single greatest asset we all share. Time, as we know, can hang heavy, but more often passes too swiftly. How we utilise time is one of life’s great challenges. What defines a ‘good life?’ Perhaps it is simply the best use of one’s available time in spreading goodwill and sharing one’s industry and providing love to one’s family. I think an essay on Time could go on for tens of pages, which is not my intent. My intent is to say what I have learned. And I have learned to value time. Preparation for a task, a skill, a performance requires time. If one is a subscriber to the 10,000 hour theory (Ander Ericsson) to achieve concert pianist proficiency, one can easily see its value.

As a now (very) mature student, I get to value time ahead of exams. I never found revision easy and I find it more difficult than ever, so I like having time available to me. Time is also useful in helping one to forget. We all suffer some pain from the vicissitudes of life, and sometimes we get angry because we feel we have been let down. Time allows a forgetfulness to descend that allows us to look forwards in our lives rather than keep returning to a slight, or a hurt in the past. Clearly, in such a context time is a healer. My lesson learned is that I am generally an impatient individual. It is an unhelpful feeling. The more I have learned to appreciate the value of time, the more I have sensed my levels of impatience declining. Perhaps that is just age. But, of course, ageing is primarily about the utilisation of time – time that is given to us until death. Try not to waste it; never resent it if it feels like it is ‘passing slowly’ and be excited when it passes quickly, because it probably means you are in a dynamic, demanding, fulfilling, challenging phase of your life.

Family

Not everyone gets blessed with a loving family, but most of us do. Family, for most people would be something to value more highly than time. I was fortunate to be brought up in a loving family unit, and to have the (sometimes) joy of a sibling, close in age. Even greater blessings came my way when I found myself a partner with whom to raise our own family. Three amazing children have given me the most profound, emotional experiences of my life and are the sources of my greatest feelings of pride. I know, though, that family is not always a welcome and safe place. I also know that family can extend beyond blood relations and one can think about family in a broader sense of community or tribe. For me, the lessons have come from the family I grew up in, and the family I subsequently helped to raise.

The first thing is to value it. My mother’s family is from the East End of London, and my father’s is mainly North London heritage. Just this Christmas I was discovering new things about my grandparents and about my parents’ upbringings and I realised how much I liked this feeling of a ‘deeper connection’. Memories change, and perceptions change so it is important to revisit family tales. It is very difficult to understand oneself without having a strong understanding of one’s parents and their struggles and motivations. My parents’ early relationship was defined by an horrific car accident. I am still learning about it and the impact it subsequently had. My mother did not see her father for quite some time during her developmental years, because he was in North Africa serving war time duties. She tells me he rarely spoke of his experiences and she rarely tells me of growing up with his absence. When she does speak about it, though, I feel a very great and wonderful sense of belonging to something far greater than me and the family I have had.

The second thing is to accommodate it. By this, I mean to accept that it will be far from perfect, and the way one feels about family will not necessarily be positive. Loving family members is an overwhelming sense, but there is no guarantee that one has to like other members of the family. As we know, all too often the case is that there are huge tensions within families and often a reservoir of dislike. There is no rule that requires us to like our family and/or its members. But when one does it is a great gift. I have learned that I love my parents, my sibling and my children, but what has been most exciting for me is that as my children have turned into independent young adults, I really like them. Time spent with them is as rewarding as any time I enjoy. They are responsible and courteous, but opinionated and energetic and enthusiastic. Families break down, and families deal with discord. When family life is good, it can transcend all other difficulties with which one may be faced. The lesson is, find a way to enjoy the bickering and the tensions. You have only one family, and usually their redeeming features outweigh any negatives. For some, sadly, that is not true. If it is a truth for you, and I think all members of my family know this to be a truth for us, be grateful.

Words

There are few greater tools to have in one’s armoury. Think, ‘pens and swords’. The wittiest debater will overwhelm the brawniest of playground bullies. That said, it was infuriating to note a comment in James O’Brien’s book, about how one can win, but not necessarily be right. I wanted to comment on words and wordsmiths, because people who use language well are those that tend to command my greatest attention. Words are seductive. In this world of increasingly polarised views, driven by exploitation of people’s emotions, it is easy to ignore alternative arguments. It is less easy when they are elegantly and well expressed. Somehow the persuasive power of well chosen words and syntax, is easier to consider than emotional, one sided pitches in the twitter-sphere, in the media, or public oratory.

I am not sure there are many lessons I have learned about words, but the best use of words can change opinions; touch and unlock hearts, and inspire tears or rage. I have learned to cherish them, to be amused by their uses, and to appreciate introductions to new ones. Only last week a tweet introduced me to ‘jabroni’, which is a stupid, objectionable, ridiculous man, a loser and a knuckle-head. I am sure we all have people in mind that we think meet these criteria. And that is the thrill. One never knows enough of them, but can always be affected by them. I love the way we attempt to ‘interpret’ them. I remember the few times I was given a decent review at work, and I would spend days interpreting what the words I was told ‘really meant’. And yet meaning is something we take for granted. Lesson; love words and appreciate the best wordsmiths.

Friendships

Friendships. The most wonderful of things. These may be as valuable as time. The mutual respect, perhaps seasoned with some deep seated admiration, and the pleasure of being with someone that one can believe ‘really understands me’. My experiences have taught me that the evolution of friendships is extraordinary – no two are alike, and no two offer the same benefits. Friendships may make demands on oneself, but they never feel like a burden. Almost paradoxical. What I have learned is that they require some investment, mainly time, but they could never feel like a commitment. They happen organically and happily because ‘it feels right’. Some friendships only work for a short duration, others mature like fine wines. Short friendships are no less valuable, though. Indeed, there are some phases of one’s life, childhood and adulthood, that require the attention of a particular friend and a particular type of friendship to make life more enjoyable, or perhaps, simply bearable.

I wanted to consider friendships because I think I have been spoiled by having a large number of very fine friendships, but also because I was given a nudge this week by a ‘phone call from Africa. It came from an old, male friend. We speak infrequently, but we easily slipped into our usual exchange of views, with its usual, quite long winded interpretations of the world as we currently see it. When I had finished the call I reflected that this friendship began for me in my late teens and is now more than 35 years old. It started with a love of cricket, as we were playing for rival teams in the Essex League, and survived our early City careers and his switch into education, a university life in Ireland, and a teaching career in Kenya. He moved into tourism and has lived in Kenya, S Africa and Tanzania. He was there when I needed some support not long after I first became a father, and I was able to attend his wedding some years later with my wife and youngest children, which included a fabulous safari and a brilliant ‘Ashes’ cricket match (he married a delightful Aussie).

As I thought about it, and more especially about why this friendship was important and why it had endured, I thought of two of my other significant male friendships. One friendship is now over 40 years old. He was a next door neighbour and has gone on to become a leading academic, and has taught at Harvard and Oxford. Appropriately, he teaches History, mainly of Science and of Ideas, and I think his perspective on the friendship is a good one. In a recent conversation, after the passing of his mother, we reminisced about the intensity of our childhood sporting contests which included him, his brother, my brother and another set of brothers down the road. He noted that despite the capacity such a mix had for abusing the hierarchy of ages, we had football and cricket matches that went on all day of just about every day of the school holidays, and never needed adult supervision, refereeing or umpiring. That says something to me about mutual respect, and may be the foundation of the friendship I have so enjoyed.

My best friendships have been with two girls I met at secondary school. There are few things more valuable to an awkward teenage boy than the wise counsel of teenage girls. Yes, I did fancy each of them, and wanted to be a date and a boyfriend, but the relationships we developed have turned out to be something far more profound and special. Obviously, I was not that good a friend because they both fell in love when they got to Australia on round-the-world trips, married and stayed there, so I see them infrequently. When I do, though, it is with a sense of joy that is difficult to equal. The conversation is easy, and not just confined to our pasts, and I am thrilled that they have had great happiness having their own families. What I have learned is that the joy of friendships can sometimes lie dormant, as people deal with fresh interests and challenges in their lives, but are not diminished as a result. Equally, new friendships can be as important to me at any given time, as any of my long standing ones. Friends can and will be honest with you. Sometimes that will be a little uncomfortable. It will always be valuable.

Money

A trickier subject. It is very easy for smug people like me, who have lived lives of some comfort, and been able to travel and see a good deal of the world, to say off-handedly that it is not that important. It certainly is for those that do not have much of it. I try not to be patronising when I think about money, and am tempted to say something similar. In fact, I think I have probably been a little too attached to money and to acquiring it. It is useful, of course, but can be unhealthily seductive. When I first worked in the stock market I was struck by how well dressed most people were. The first time I made a successful trading investment for myself I made the princely sum of £120 profit, and bought my first pair of Church’s shoes. It helped me feel just a little more like I belonged. Then I wanted Jermyn Street double-cuff shirts, Then it had to be bespoke suits. And so it goes on.

I had a deep seated desire and ambition to own a house that was larger than the one in which I grew up. That is neither a good nor bad ambition, but in a residential property-obsessed society, with high rates of house inflation, as we had in those days, it makes money a very narrow focus. I recommend appreciating money, caring for it, nurturing what one has, but not to become slave to its acquisition and use. I read that my children’s generation is much more focused on experientialism and has abandoned a good deal of the materialism that drove me when I was younger. Good for them. What I wish for them is they earn sufficiently, to fund a lifestyle they enjoy, but can ask themselves ‘how much is enough?’ and be prepared to look at the trade that will come to them, as it came to me, of do I value my income or my time more highly? Latterly I have been generating more time for myself than income for myself. Most of my life’s trade was diametrically opposed to what I have now. There is no right way, but if I want to say what I have learned about money it would be that it does not have to be one’s master, and if it feels like it has become your master, it is time to re-order your perspective.

Exercise

There is plenty of good academic literature that supports ‘sweat therapy’. As someone who has had a few self-esteem/depressive episode issues with my mental health, I have understood the benefits of physical work to support the personal mental world. It helps that I love sport, enjoy exercise and have a competitive spirit, so gym sessions are turned into games and races against myself. That is good for me, but plainly does not suit everyone. What is clear to me is that exercise has endless variety and it is unusual for someone to find there is nothing that they can enjoy. We now accept and assume we are going to live longer than our ancestors, but living happily when we are much older is likely to be reliant on how we look after ourselves now. The best way of taking care of oneself is to eat nutritiously. It is to make sure that the calorific content we ingest is appropriate.

Whilst I like being (relatively) fit, and I have a good deal of vanity that demands I need to exercise, the core of my exercise programme is probably to compensate and sometimes to justify the alcohol and chocolate for which I have weaknesses. Nonetheless, several years of exercise, back to my ‘pocket-money football’ days in the old Vauxhall Opel League, and playing in local squash leagues and ladders, taught me that physical activity absolutely relieves the mental pressure one puts oneself under. The learning then, for me, is that exercise is not really a vanity thing, although looking good to oneself, and knowing one suits a good cut of clothes is very helpful to one’s self-esteem. The benefit is to transfer one’s focus to something very demanding and intense, and then to appreciate the impact it has had on the mind. Often it takes as little as thirty minutes.

Food

Having returned to a bachelor and singleton lifestyle, I now spend more time buying, preparing and cooking food than I had done for many of the previous years put together. Food, I think, is under-appreciated, even in an era of TV chefs and more cookbooks than one can possibly want to use, being produced annually. Why do I think that? The reason is that for many people it is defined as little more than a fuel for the body. I have been guilty of that thought process many times in the past, largely because I worshipped at the altar of ‘busyness’ and thought I was in too much of a hurry to think deeply about food. This is especially embarrassing to admit, because my lifestyle allowed me to eat in many of the world’s finest restaurants. I was also fortunate to be married for a long time to an exceptional cook. I am not a good cook, but the last couple of years have allowed me to try my hand and to start to improve, and I have enjoyed the satisfaction that comes from good food preparation, cooking and presentation.

I thought about this earlier this week, when I met an ex-colleague for lunch. I am proud to call him a friend as well as an ex-colleague, and was delighted when I had the opportunity to hire him into the last team that I ran. We talked about food in detail. He has cooked for me in the past, and it was a superb meal. He is Indian, and we talked about the importance of meal times and the pace at which one eats. We compared Indian culture with Italian, and the importance of family time around a table of food. We realised that food represents so much more than what is actually consumed. It is an expression of thoughtfulness and generosity in what is prepared and how it is prepared. We discussed the importance of savouring food, at leisure. We think it is difficult to savour food at length and not savour the conversation that goes with it. This was the genius of the ‘Slow Food’ movement – that it was not just about food in isolation. What I have learned is that it is possible to share food, at relatively low cost and create something that enriches the people around the table in many ways more than feeling satisfied in their bellies. I have also learned that if you marry an excellent cook it inhibits your desire to be in the kitchen and takes away your desire to cook. Or maybe I was just lazy.

Wine

This has been one of the great pleasures of my adult life. My recommendation is to drink as fine a wine as one can, when the opportunity presents itself. I recall a client telling me about tasting a le Pin ’82. What a thought! In more affluent times, I bought wines en primeur, and I had a decent stock cellared with a handful of wine merchants. I attended tastings that they hosted including some amazing vertical flights of great Bordeaux that meant I can still recall the way I felt about drinking something as fine as Cos d’Estournel vintages including 1982, ’85, ’86, ’88, ’89 and ’90. I recall being at a champagne dinner – I think it was Roederer, where only the lamb course was drunk with anything other than a champagne. I have been lucky enough to visit vineyards in France, Canada, S Africa, the UK and Australia.

But the learning I have taken from drinking wine is about conviviality. Wine is designed for sharing. It is designed for conversation. It is designed for partnering with food. It is a comforter and a provocateur. I believe in the whole ‘terroir debate’. I like drinking wines close to where they are grown. I often get the opportunity to ski in Austria at the start of the year. I cannot imagine being at the bar, at the wonderful Maiensee Hotel and not drinking Gruner Veltliner with my friends, and the wonderful host Stephan Traxl. What I most like about wine is that it is unpretentious. I know wine drinkers can be pretentious, but the product itself, and the way it is produced – vineyard to bottle to table – is about many unflashy, required, considered steps. And it makes for the core of wonderful films. My son and I love Russell Crowe in ‘A Good Year’, and I defy anyone who does not think ‘Sideways’ is a work of cinematic genius, that behoves one to truly appreciate pinot noir.

When I was thirty, my father treated me to a wine tasting course at Sotheby’s with Serena Sutcliffe. His only condition was that he could come too. I learned how to taste and I learned to appreciate different varietals but above all I learned about the joy of that shared experience with my father. That is what wine means to me, and I have learned that few people are not better company when they are sharing wine and discussing it. One of my daughters has passed a couple WSET exams and I love the fact that I think she now knows more about wine than I do. I like her critical appreciation of what we drink together and I happily let her consider a wine list, which some of my friends will admit is unusual – I frequently want to choose! I have learned that like many of the great pleasures in life, wine appreciation fits a ‘less is more’ label. Enjoy it, savour it; it is particularly good in moderation, and best partnered by conversation and food.

Books

I like to think I have few vices, but if overspending on books is a vice, it may be one of mine. I can read a newspaper on a kindle, but somehow I need to have a book in my hand. I love books – surely the cheapest form of travel. That moment when one’s imagination transports one to another locale and perhaps to another age. I love the way they are a gymnastics course for the mind; how one can play with the finest of ideas and minds and shape views one reads to being allied to one’s own world view, or to work out how to dispute those views. I can never read enough. There are always fresh ideas, fresh writers, fresh styles to appreciate. What I have learned is that books open conversational doors. I recall meeting a couple of women on a safari in Kenya. Apart from our holiday choice we seemed to have little in common. They were sisters and spent most of their time together, but the dining at the safari camp was communal and we were sat together. Within an hour we were combing through literary preferences and alighting on a common appreciation for Thomas Hardy novels. That is why books are magical.

Last year I read Reni Eddo-Lodge’s book “Why I am no longer talking to White People about Race”. What an amazing conversation starter that was. And how interesting it was to see my black friends look at me and say “I never expected you to read that”. So, books reveal something about the reader, and they help to introduce one to worlds apart. Little wonder they are a focus for bonfires. What can be more subversive than published ideas? I read Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 in my teens. It feels like it needs reading again, and for more debate about its implications, in its descriptions of wall size TV sets, and empty lives, and contempt for nature and the natural world. Relevant?

Paintings and Visual Art

When I was growing up the culture in the school playground was that the arts were for the effeminate. They were in the argot of the day, ‘pouffy’. As a keen and useful sportsman, but not a naturally clubbable boy, I made sure I did not contaminate my mind, or my sexuality, by anything as daft as appreciating anything artistic. What a loss. I have spent much of my adult life in an attempt to educate myself for that stupid playground view. I have had one great compensation for that teenage playground culture. I have a daughter who graduated in History of Art. Thanks to her, I am now a member of both the Tate and the Royal Academy and those memberships have given me much pleasure. My real joy is portraiture. I am not sure why, and I suspect it says something about my particular psyche, but it is my thing. I cannot think of a single moment spent at the National Portrait Gallery as a moment wasted. Johansen’s 1919 painting of The Signing of the Treaty of Versailles is one of my favourites.

What got my thinking about visual art was a couple of things. First, I am very fortunate to live in an apartment on the Thames with a spectacular view of Tower Bridge and of The Shard. I had little appreciation for architecture when I was younger but I am wiser now. The RA’s exhibition of Renzo Piano’s work is jaw-droopingly impressive. The filmed interview with him which reveals how he thinks and works (and I love the comments on his two families which are much more profound than those I highlight above) is one of the things I most enjoyed seeing in 2018. So, the first thing is architecture. The second is the Titian painting, ‘The Flaying of Marsyas’. I was introduced to this as part of my introduction to Psychotherapy. I cannot look at this without wincing and catching my breath. It exudes menace, pain and cruelty. How can a few (well, quite a few) daubs of oil paint have an emotional impact like that? I love other artists too. I have come to appreciate Picasso and having lived for some while in Constable country, I appreciate John Constable, but Titian’s work is something else. My learning is that great visual art inspires more learning. I knew little about Marsyas and I was only modestly aware of what my reaction to a painting like this really told me about myself. More learning is good learning.

Dance

If Art was a difficult subject and field for me to appreciate in my schooldays, despite the efforts of a strange woman called Miss Tyson, Dance was way beyond me. We had to study Art and Music and Drama until we were fifteen, but Dance was not on any curriculum. It held zero appeal to me (or so I thought). I certainly had no appetite to learn to dance. Why do sons not get told by their fathers that the best looking girls always pick the guys that can dance? I did at least try to tell my son that. Problem is, I ‘cannot’ or will not dance, so we are in the realms of ‘as I say, not as I do’, which is poor direction to a youthful mind. When I was older I discovered that my father was a dance fan. He was fascinated by Fred and Ginger, he loved, Gene Kelly, and he introduced me to great tap dancers and Cyd Charisse’s legs. I watched Bob Fosse’s show in London (I think in the ’80’s) and started to change my views, but ballet seemed beyond me. Fortunately some friends, who were heavily involved with both Sadlers Wells and the ROH persuaded me to attend a charity evening which was followed by a ‘meet the dancers’ drinks session. The third of three short ballets was a piece about War with an all male cast. I have never seen such grace combined with such power. The athleticism was overwhelming and I was, at last, converted. Recently I watched The Ballet Boyz perform at Wilton’s, near me in Shadwell. Simply amazing. I still recoil at the idea of dancing. I still say “I can’t dance”. But I have had a couple of lessons, and it is amazing how few steps one needs to persuade the other guys around the floor that somehow you are different and better than them. And if you are even semi-competent, you can be sure that a lady will be looking for a partner to lead her. So, I may yet appreciate dancing, as well as a now established pleasure in watching dance. Lesson: Keep trying new things, and some old things that did not seem to suit temperamentally when first encountered.

Music

Last week, I watched the film The Front Runner. It is brilliant, and Hugh Jackman excels. How a live ‘politician hunt’, which savages his family life, to expose his moral shortcomings, can seem to come from a more innocent time will be something I leave you to consider. But for me, the film was memorable, in part, because its opening scenes are shot with a soundtrack of Brubeck’s ‘Take Five’. This was music introduced to me by my father. I am pretty sure it remains one of his favourite handful of tracks. It was part of his introduction to me of jazz music. We listened to a few things but Satchmo and Bing singing ‘Now, That’s Jazz’ in High Society, and ‘Take Five’ are the things I recall best as the first foundation stones of my jazz appreciation. The point of this is that if I talk about these tracks, and as I sit here typing, I cannot do it without smiling. Music evokes. I love what it does to me.

Once again, my school education was not really conducive to music appreciation. At my primary school we sang a few hymns. We sang ‘Morning Has Broken’. A few weeks ago, a friend and I watched Rick Wakeman in concert at Union Chapel and he played it, as he had done for the Cat Stevens chart topping hit. I was aware that I had a lump in my throat and my eyes were moistening. That is the power of music. And I love its many forms. I find myself appreciating rap (true street poetry), yet feeling a need to sample and enjoy more and more classical pieces. I can sing hymns, but often have to stop because I find myself choking and welling up. I am sure I am just a bit precious and fragile, but ‘I Vow to Thee, My Country’ and ‘Jerusalem’ both do that to me. Despite my Scottish name, I have no Scottish blood, but I get emotional listening to ‘Flower of Scotland’, and when I am at Murrayfield listening to it being belted out by the natives, I sometimes feel a wee bit intimidated.

My children have very different musical tastes to me, and I am quite sure that that is a good thing. Nonetheless I love it when they appreciate the things I do. Why it is I well up when ‘Do you hear the people sing’ from Les Miserables is played, or how affected I become from Tevye’s ‘Tradition’ in ‘Fiddler on the Roof’? I remember Marti Webb knocking me out with ‘Tell Me on a Sunday’. I know I am not musical. Despite having a piano teacher for a grandmother, and having tried to take it up when I turned forty, I am pretty clear that my musical talent is remarkably modest, but that does not stop any of us from loving music, and what it does to us. And like the male dancers in the room, the guy who can pick up a guitar and play something, invariably seems to walk off with the best looking girl at the parties. My son did not take my advice on this, so I shall have to try to influence my grandchildren.

Sport

Well, these lessons have gone on a bit, and sport is something that I could write multiple essays on. Put simply, I think the sports fields and tracks that I have visited, and on which I have competed, have taught me as much as I have learned from time spent in classrooms. Earlier I referenced how sport had introduced me to an appreciation of equality amongst races. (My thanks to Keith Boyce, Laurie Cunningham, Carl Lewis and of course, Muhammad Ali). I learned how to win, how to be gracious in defeat (but to practise even harder in order not to be defeated again) , and how to cope with adversity. I learned the value of teamwork and of team members having different skills. I learned that few people succeed without hard work. I learned to respect rules and authority. I learned that things are not always ‘fair’, and that sporting journeys, like artistic ones, are invariably emotional.

This week we may have seen the curtain come down on the career of Andy Murray. I hope he can drag his tired and damaged body through a few sets at Wimbledon, but we will have to see. He has been one of Britain’s most magnificent sportsmen of all time. Watching his career from sulky youth to gracious maturity, from wannabe to champion, from pretender to world number one, has been so exciting. Tennis is not my main sport by some distance but he has been someone with whom I found it easy to associate. What his career has done, because it elicits so many emotional responses in me, is to highlight the emotional impact of sport. I love the tide of emotion that comes over me at an Olympic Games. Even though I am a big football fan, I was bemused by the impact last year’s World Cup had on me, especially when I walked through a baking London to hear the Horse Guards playing ‘Three Lions’. England’s rugby team can affect me emotionally. Obviously Johnny’s drop goal, but I recall leaping out of my seat watching Rory Underwood’s mother cheering as her son crossed the line again. I get fired up for Northampton Saints, for Essex cricket and for the Hammers.

Having highlighted these affiliations that I have, the thing I note is my love of sport always seems to attach itself to the individual. Murray’s first Wimbledon win, Brooking’s amazing goal against Hungary caught in the frame of the goal, Cook’s amazing century at The Oval to finish his Test career in such fine fashion, McGinley at The Ryder Cup and so it goes on. Playing sport has been great to me. I talked earlier about the value of friendships, and many of my finest were catalysed by sporting competition or shared interest. I play little now other than pottering around the real tennis court at Lord’s but I do know that whatever time is left to me, much of it will be spent watching and debating sport. I know that some people find other passions and interests to enhance their lives. I even tried to understand the joys of fishing and of gardening, but frankly, they were completely lost to me. What I have learned though is that sport is life enhancing, on the pitch/court/track or simply admiring the players. Wine may be something I love where I understand that ‘less is more’ but with sport I find myself thinking ‘more is more’. I hope my family and my friends all get as involved in the sporting world as much as is practical.