The sadness of taking down Christmas decorations abounds, with people walking into the temporary tree recycling service in Highgate Wood carrying their now less perky Christmas trees. I bin my chocolate Advent Calendars and like the idea of thinking that was all I lived on in December. It wouldn’t be true, but it’s a good image.
To a preview screening of Amazing Grace, a historical drama about William Wilberforce to mark the 200th anniversary of the Abolition bill. This was just the curtailing of the slave trade and not slavery per se, which didn’t end till 1833. But as the drama points out, political change – then as now – had to be implemented gradually, so it became inevitable rather than radical. Anything that looked vaguely like revolution – particularly at a time of uprisings in America and France – was branded as nothing short of sedition. Seems ridiculous now that something so obviously wrong couldn’t be stopped as soon as the campaign gathered public support in the hundreds of thousands, but one only has to look at a million people marching against the Iraq War (and ignored) for a modern echo.
In 1788, supporters of Abolition could wear fashionable cameos depicting a Negro in chains and inscribed with the Abolition Committee’s seal, “Am I not a Man and a Brother?”. Rather like the Make Poverty History wristbands today.
In the movie, Mr Wilberforce is played by Ioan Gruffudd, last seen as Mr Fantastic in The Fantastic Four. For this real-life 18th Century superhero prone to bouts of illness, his hair is frequently tousled and messy. I can’t help thinking he looks like a young Bob Geldof. Which is rather fitting.
The film lacks the wit of The Madness Of King George, and I note its screenplay is by the writer of Dirty Pretty Things, another well-intentioned but thinly characterised film of late. But it’s otherwise rather good, and definitely needs to be seen by anyone unware of Mr Wilberforce and the story of Abolition in the UK. The singer Youssou N’Dour plays Olaudah Equiano, a former slave who bought his own freedom and published a bestselling book of memoirs in 1789, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano. It’s one of the earliest known British books by a black writer, and is still in print – I pop over to Borders after the screening to have this confirmed.
I’m reminded of Mr Blair’s statement last year to the New Nation newspaper, where he expressed sorrow for Britain’s role in the slave trade, but stopped short of an actual apology. Among those wanting him to go further was an irate caller to a local radio programme. She pointed out her lifelong anger at having to bear the surname given to her ancestors by a slave trader, and never knowing what her family name should really be.
Billy Reeves, former songwriter in The Audience turned BBC London traffic news reporter and general London character, is managing a new band called Friends Of The Bride. They are young men in impeccable suits who play a kind of Monochrome Set-type jazzy swaggering pop. I approve.
Alex de Campi writes:
Three days ago, in a small North African city on the edge of the Sahara, Mr B brandished his newly-purchased fez and declaimed, “I shall wear this to the next Beautiful & Damned!”
I thought it might amuse you to learn that your night was remembered even in deepest Tunisia.
