with a flourish and a heave

One of my earlier book reviews was Homage to Gaia, James Lovelock's autobiography. I loved it. Some of the writing is clumsy, Lovelock is a classic example of the kind of (good) maverick who has been told so often that he's wrong when he's right that he has makes a very strong connection between his opinion and the objective truth, but in an appealing way, because he is fundamentally a good guy. It sounds like I am patronising him. I don't mean to. Maybe it always seems patronising when you think you understand people.

Anyway, I am a big fan of James Lovelock. In Homage to Gaia, he is happy to put anything he thinks and give it a similar weight to other things he thinks, which gives it an appealing and at times very odd tone. Here is a jawdropping passage from the second last page of his book, where he rounding up what he thinks of the world. He has been taken to the resort town of Atami Springs, near Tokyo, to a 'special entertainment' selected by his hosts. He's with his wife.

Our hostess stepped onto the platform, and began her show. At first, she warmed up her audience and made them merry; then she began her special repertoire of tricks. They were some extraordinary feats involving the muscles of her va***a. First she inserted a large cork, through which was threaded a length of strong cord, and she challenged the audience to produce a champion who could draw it out. No one who tried could, and after more demonstrations like this, she moved on to her piece de resistance. She inserted a live goldfish and, with a flourish and a heave of her powerful va***al muscles, expelled it into a bowl of water on the other side of the room. She did this several times, and missed only once. Hideo told us that it had taken her years of patient practice to perfect her skill. In the West, such an exhibition might have been criticized as unseemly, but in Japan, it rated as impermanent art. Sandy and I both felt privileged to see this unusual entertainment and, as we left, the entertainer introduced herself and her proud husband. I could not help but think later, back in England, that the Tate Gallery might have done better to stage its recent Turner Prize exhibitions in Soho, as entertainment as well as art.

(I am not normally coy about swearing, though I think that if you can do without it, it is usually a good idea, but I am very proud to learn from one of my readers that I am, unusually, a blogger who is allowed through the government firewall. I am doing what I can to protect this status.)