Oh I have been slack. Do I need an alibi? I do. Well, a sense of unreality as I approach final treatment (after 6 months) on Wednesday. Time has seemed suspended. But I have, in alibi number two, been getting minor, but unpleasant side effects which are just easing now. Hope there is no repeat after this week. And, alibi number three, I planted two fruit trees.
That phrase doesn’t quite conjure up reality. These events are nothing like the occasions when royalty, or celebrity (and no, thank you, but I have not quite achieved Charlie Sheen’s importance), “plants ” a tree by putting a spadeful of dirt on a silver spade into a hole dug by an underling in which a tree already resides. Nor does it resemble those gardening shows where someone photogenic in clean overalls puts hands into soft rich soil and “digs” a hole deep enough for a tree with a few hand movements, quickly returning soil to cover the tree roots in the same way.
No, planting trees (indeed anything down to the smallest seedling) here involves furiously attacking, with frequent rests in my prematurely (well, not that premature but you know what I mean) aged condition, solid rocky ground with mattock and spade. Chipping out small slivers of rock in the way a woodpecker chips out wood. Eventually I achieve, just, a hole big enough (carefully measured, not a chip more, not a chip less) to take the root bundle. Gasping for air, and being careful with my now tender back muscles, I plonk tree into hole fill up, water, protect from rabbits and parrots, and then collapse in heap while contemplating the second tree.
Strange thing that gap between imagination, what you pictured when I said “planting a tree”, and reality, on this rocky hill top
That gap seems to be getting wider all round the world. Last week there were photos of Steve Jobs looking, as my grandmother used to say, like death warmed over. People were already sympathetic, given his sudden retirement, and here was proof of our worst fears of what a terrible state he was in. Except the photos had been photoshopped to make him look much worse than he actually is. Why? A good question.
Over the weekend New York waited to be pounded or lashed (depending on the preference of the reporter) by cyclone Irene, and the world waited with her. How bad was it going to be? And suddenly there were the pictures we had all been dreading, flood waters rising on the streets of New York. Oh no. Well, that’s right, oh no they were faked images.
Then came the images of the “rebels” flooding into Green Square in Tripoli, the war, it seemed, as good as over. But hang on a moment, says Hugo Chavez (managing to lose any remaining admiration I had for him, which he has frittered away in the last few years), those images are faked, must be, propaganda, my good friend Ghadaffi is still in control, defeating this rag bag bunch of terrorists supported by the oil hungry countries of Europe.
Well, it wasn’t that silly a guess. A few weeks ago we had faked video (from the Lebanese civil war) being used for propaganda in Syria. We all remember the faked images (no doubt what Chavez was remembering) created by America in pulling down Saddam Hussein’s statue, the fake story of the kidnapped female American soldier, the contradictory stories about the killing of bin Laden.
Except in the case of Tripoli it wasn’t a fake, indeed given the number of western reporters around (not always insurance, I know), it would have been impossible to fake this particular event. But who is to know? Obama is dead. No he isn’t. In that case he can appear in person to misquote Mark Twain, but the more insidious cases of photoshopping, fake videos, facebook rumours, are impossible to get to the bottom, take on a life of their own among the conspiracy theorists.
In fact the belief that nothing is real, things ain’t necessarily so, is so pervasive now that we can have fake fakeries, as it were. The classic case being the hacking of emails from the climate research unit of the University of East Anglia, and the pretence that these demonstrated a conspiracy to deceive the world about climate change. The people who believe this fake conspiracy continue to do so, in spite of a number of enquiries, and the application of a modicum of common sense.
Now I know you are waiting for me to wrap this up with a dollop of good advice hard-earned from my years of education in the school of hard knocks. But I remain as baffled as you. How do you tell a photoshopped model from a non-photoshopped model on the cover of Vogue? All I can suggest is to take what you are told, especially but not only by politicians and business interests, with a grain of salt. But not a spoonful of salt. Even conspiracy theorists occasionally find a real conspiracy, but on the other hand Elvis remains dead. So tread warily these days, seeing isn’t always believing, nor is hearing or reading – remember my trees. And Hey!
Be careful out there.
