Cahal Milmo: The Leisure 'Interests' of Public Figures
Rather as medieval peasants believed that touching the hem of the king's robe would cure them of disease or bring them good luck, we are pathetically grateful for any scrap of information that reveals the true character of our rulers.
In theory, we should be looking for the things that make them special: magic and mystery among the Royal Family, wisdom and foresight among presidents and prime ministers. In fact, we want to feel that, underneath, they are just like us.
We expect the heroes of popular culture to be extraordinary people with extraordinary tastes, perhaps staying in bed all day, as John Lennon did, to promote world peace. But in our democratic age, we want a president, a prime minister or even a monarch to be what the Americans call a regular guy. So we were thrilled to learn that the Queen can make tea, that Bill Clinton went on camping holidays, and that the teenage Tony Blair wanted to be a rock singer.
Since the advent of mass democracy, all politicians have cultivated a public image. All that is new is the sophistication and thought that goes into the marketing. The aim is usually to make a political leader seem like the rest of us, but a bit more serious, conscientious and thoughtful: people should see him as the sort who might chair the school PTA or look after the cricket club finances. Excessively nerdish or highbrow tastes " for science fiction, say, or French philosophy "should be avoided, in Anglo-Saxon countries at least.
Between the world wars, Stanley Baldwin let it be known that, as he began a radio broadcast, he lit his pipe. Harold Macmillan was famed for reading Trollope's novels, confirming his image " in contrast to his predecessor, Anthony Eden, who had repeatedly lost his temper during the Suez crisis " as an unflappable, contemplative type.
Harold Wilson's predecessor was Sir Alec Douglas-Home, a scion of the aristocracy. So Wilson, originally an economics don, wanted us to know he put HP sauce on his food. Margaret Thatcher insisted, against all credulity, that she cooked breakfast for her family. President John F Kennedy was presented as a devoted family man with a taste for the arts. We know now that all he was really interested in was getting movie actresses into bed.
Often, the spin doctors' idea is to make that kind of correction to reality, or at least to popular beliefs about reality. That, presumably, is the point of publicising George Bush's reading list. Ronald Reagan could get away with a reputation for laziness in the 1980s. ('They say hard work never killed anybody. But I say: why take the chance?') But Americans are none too sure that, with the US economy and the war on terror in trouble, their president ought to be taking such extended holidays. Long, self-improving tomes about salt, flu and Alexander the Great are the sort of things a leader should read on vacation, they will feel: factual, down-to-earth and manly....
The suspicion has persisted that the US President's leisure reading does not extend much beyond the sports pages. That has now been revealed as the baseless denigration it surely is. Faithful to a ritual initiated by President John Kennedy, the White House has released a list of the three books Mr Bush has taken with him to Texas to read in whatever time is left from clearing brushwood and attending fundraising barbecues during his five-week break. And the intended message could not be clearer. Sports reading is not on the menu. This President is no blinkered simpleton, but a man fascinated by the great sweep of world history, and constantly on the lookout for ways to protect his country from the perils that beset it. The most striking choice is Alexander II: The Last Great Tsar by the Russian historian Edvard Radzinsky, which will not even come out in English until November.
But Mr Bush has pulled strings to get an advance copy of this biography of the reformer who liberated Russia's slaves in 1861, and was murdered by anarchists in 1881.
Next is Salt: A World History a 484-page tome by Mark Kurlansky, charting the history of what was once a vital strategic commodity. And if time is left, Mr Bush will tackle The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History by John M Barry. The subject is the flu pandemic of 1918. Mr Bush has little recorded interest in this. But one presumes he wants to figure out how best to tackle any repeat, especially if terrorists use biological or chemical weapons....
In theory, we should be looking for the things that make them special: magic and mystery among the Royal Family, wisdom and foresight among presidents and prime ministers. In fact, we want to feel that, underneath, they are just like us.
We expect the heroes of popular culture to be extraordinary people with extraordinary tastes, perhaps staying in bed all day, as John Lennon did, to promote world peace. But in our democratic age, we want a president, a prime minister or even a monarch to be what the Americans call a regular guy. So we were thrilled to learn that the Queen can make tea, that Bill Clinton went on camping holidays, and that the teenage Tony Blair wanted to be a rock singer.
Since the advent of mass democracy, all politicians have cultivated a public image. All that is new is the sophistication and thought that goes into the marketing. The aim is usually to make a political leader seem like the rest of us, but a bit more serious, conscientious and thoughtful: people should see him as the sort who might chair the school PTA or look after the cricket club finances. Excessively nerdish or highbrow tastes " for science fiction, say, or French philosophy "should be avoided, in Anglo-Saxon countries at least.
Between the world wars, Stanley Baldwin let it be known that, as he began a radio broadcast, he lit his pipe. Harold Macmillan was famed for reading Trollope's novels, confirming his image " in contrast to his predecessor, Anthony Eden, who had repeatedly lost his temper during the Suez crisis " as an unflappable, contemplative type.
Harold Wilson's predecessor was Sir Alec Douglas-Home, a scion of the aristocracy. So Wilson, originally an economics don, wanted us to know he put HP sauce on his food. Margaret Thatcher insisted, against all credulity, that she cooked breakfast for her family. President John F Kennedy was presented as a devoted family man with a taste for the arts. We know now that all he was really interested in was getting movie actresses into bed.
Often, the spin doctors' idea is to make that kind of correction to reality, or at least to popular beliefs about reality. That, presumably, is the point of publicising George Bush's reading list. Ronald Reagan could get away with a reputation for laziness in the 1980s. ('They say hard work never killed anybody. But I say: why take the chance?') But Americans are none too sure that, with the US economy and the war on terror in trouble, their president ought to be taking such extended holidays. Long, self-improving tomes about salt, flu and Alexander the Great are the sort of things a leader should read on vacation, they will feel: factual, down-to-earth and manly....
The suspicion has persisted that the US President's leisure reading does not extend much beyond the sports pages. That has now been revealed as the baseless denigration it surely is. Faithful to a ritual initiated by President John Kennedy, the White House has released a list of the three books Mr Bush has taken with him to Texas to read in whatever time is left from clearing brushwood and attending fundraising barbecues during his five-week break. And the intended message could not be clearer. Sports reading is not on the menu. This President is no blinkered simpleton, but a man fascinated by the great sweep of world history, and constantly on the lookout for ways to protect his country from the perils that beset it. The most striking choice is Alexander II: The Last Great Tsar by the Russian historian Edvard Radzinsky, which will not even come out in English until November.
But Mr Bush has pulled strings to get an advance copy of this biography of the reformer who liberated Russia's slaves in 1861, and was murdered by anarchists in 1881.
Next is Salt: A World History a 484-page tome by Mark Kurlansky, charting the history of what was once a vital strategic commodity. And if time is left, Mr Bush will tackle The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History by John M Barry. The subject is the flu pandemic of 1918. Mr Bush has little recorded interest in this. But one presumes he wants to figure out how best to tackle any repeat, especially if terrorists use biological or chemical weapons....