MEMOIRS

On any other website I suppose this would be called the Blog section, but I’ve always found that word rather ugly, no matter what its etymology. I was originally going to call it ‘Essays’, until I realised these informal musings were mostly autobiographical in nature, and I didn’t want to mislead anybody. Basically, “This is me,” as the bearded lady sings in The Greatest Showman, with possibly far more humility than I’m able to conjure up these days.

Mind you, ‘Essay’ has a distinguished pedigree. The form was first popularised by the 16-century French philosopher Michel de Montaigne, who liked to merge casual anecdote with autobiography and intellectual insight (which I think I was aware of before I checked on Wikipedia to make sure I wouldn’t be making a fool of myself). Still, I imagine that as my faculties begin to decline and it becomes more of an effort to haul my weary bones around the Med, I shall end up jotting down more of these random thoughts and reminiscences as they occur to me. On this I am with the great French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who in his Confessions said “Je sais bien que le lecteur n’a pas grand besoin de savoir tout cela; mais j’ai besoin, moi, de le lui dire (I know very well that the reader has no great need to know all this, but I still need to say it).” Writers. We’re all the same.