Diary

7 February 2009

I saw Henry VIII last Monday.

I saw Henry VIII last Monday. He looked exceptionally thin and fit. No wonder, as he was played by the young and six-packed Jonathan Rhys Meyers in the BBC series The Tudors. As it was the Chinese New Year, with the usual three-day holidays, I sat through, like a sack of potatoes, all of the 19 episodes. It did three things. First, my wife complained that I became a zombie. Second, I found my knowledge of English Tudor history continually challenged by the drama, although not by its raunchiness. And third, it reminded me of my first year at boarding school in England, when I had just arrived at the age of 13 not speaking a word of English, but was made to memorise chunks of Shakespeare (those were the good old days). I learned the famous Wolsey soliloquy in Henry VIII: ‘Farewell, a long farewell, to all my greatness...’ At the time, I had no idea what I was regurgitating. The lines were merely sounds to me. I had not heard of Henry VIII, still less Wolsey. But I am glad that I can still recite from memory, 41 years on, the words of the Bard on the calamitous fall of the Cardinal.

My mother-in-law had been staying with us over the Chinese New Year in Beijing and Hong Kong. I always love the story of my friend who was taking his boxer to the vet.

‘Why are you going to the vet?’ his wife asked.

‘I am going to have his tail docked,’ my friend confessed.

‘But why?’ his wife asked in puzzlement.

‘Because your mother’s coming to stay.’

‘What has that got to do with it?’

‘It’s just that I don’t want there to be the slightest sign of welcome in the house!’

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