Relationships

There is an Ozzie advert that I stare glumly at whilst hurtling deep underground from my work to my cubicle . It is headed up ......“Relationships” ,and with antipodean mateyness it goes on.”...well that got rid of the blokes so lets have chat about hair products “ .But why shouldn’t men think about relationships too ? .Women usually mean sexual- relationships, which for them is ‘horse and carriage’ .For men its more ‘beast and burden’, so I `m going to range a little more widely.

I came up with the quote on my blog header, slightly amended, from Don Quixote. Don Quixote could not live without his companion Sancho Panza, the long suffering and earthy servant that follows his masters tragicomic progress with glum despair .Quixote is spiritual , romantic , tall , aristocratic , deluded , fragile visionary. Sancho Panza is short, stouter, realistic earthy and sardonic.Is there a template for here for a succesful relationship?

Iain Dale suggested that Cameron needs a Willie ,as in his Willie Whitelaw ,to communicate with the Party ,and he suggested Willie Hague .He is recalling the success of Prescott as a sounding board for the Labour Party .I`m not sure.They are in many ways too alike, both lifetime politicians, smooth performers and Westminster animals. Boris Johnson, for all that he too similiar socially, would have been better. He is the hero’s companion, funny , flawed and loveable and he could have made Cameron’s discipline less grating

Diving deep into the Jungian race psychi ,mysterious archetypes roam in their pure form. Generally they would shrivel in the light but they can be detected in comics . My favorite comic was 'The X Men'. The heart of the X men was the love triangle between Cyclops, Wolverine and Miss Marvel ( later Phoenix ). I have pictured them above. Cyclops is tall visual and cerebral, he is the leader and it has a price , his glasses, controlling the terrifying power in his eyes are his mythic identity. Wolverine is short and animalistic, he smells truth, and his powers are chiefly invulnerability which matches his indomitable spirit , Cyclops has problems controlling the Wolverine`s ferocity but in this realtionship lies the well spring of the team`s spirit .They are the Apollonian and the Dionysian principles expressed in narrative .

The elements recombine eternally. Every Othello wants to play Iago ,sensing the incompleteness of the Moor without his nemesis. Othello is noble, simple and strong and the fragility of his world can be destroyed by something as tiny as a handkerchief. In the famous scene when Iago pours poison into Othello’s happiness Othello almost begs him to do it ...

“By heaven, he echoes me,
As if there were some monster in his thought
Too hideous to be shown. Thou dost mean something:
I heard thee say even now, thou likedst not that,
When Cassio left my wife: what didst not like?”



The high and low churches of men are always present . Holmes the visionary cocaine taking musician,and Watson, a Doctor with corporeal common sense . Morecambe laughing at the hysterical pretension of the Ernie’s “Play wot I wrote “. Gowers elegance versus Botham’s belligerence. Between men and women this notion of “The Other half” has never been more beautifully expressed than by Donne in his celebrated exploration of the platonic. Souls existing eternally in love and crying out to each other from their temporary bodily home . This is the sacred moment of realisation...

“As, 'twixt two equal armies, Fate
Suspends uncertain victory,
Our souls—which to advance their state,
Were gone out—hung 'twixt her and me.

And whilst our souls negotiate there,
We like sepulchral statues lay ;
All day, the same our postures were,
And we said nothing, all the day.”...

Conservatives have many political and doctrinal dualities to resolve. Public Sector and private ,for example. Why are we paying 98p into a public sector pension for every pound we pay ,into our own . Can we afford the £500 billion of liabilities sitting in this mess. How do we retain tradition and yet be new and hopeful. How do we value freedom and yet care for others. Conservatives wrestle with these problems of balance as if they were in a relationship .It is an attempt to express the whole man or woman publicly. In these dark days when Marxist half-men hack at our souls daily ,I like to think of the eternal hero’s Cyclops and Wolverine watching over us from deep within our tribal dream.