Let’s hope for good cheer this Christmas

Bruce Anderson 16 December 2023 The Spectator Australia

A couple of years ago, I saw a charming cartoon. A boy and a girl aged about seven were in an earnest conversation. ‘Of course, I don’t believe in Father Christmas,’ said the boy. ‘But we’ve got to keep up the pretence for the sake of the parents.’ This Christmas, all over the world, many parents will be especially keen to dwell on the great festival’s innocent joys. Innocence: in many places, the fear is that the glory of birth will give way to the massacre of the innocents. Like the shepherds, a large number of people are afraid. Unlike the shepherds, their fear has no relief from the Heavenly Host.

A lot of friends have been converging on London, not all of them with glad tidings. A Lebanese family are especially happy to be here and they are still deciding whether to return home. For 50 years, they have had to endure intermittent strife. No close relatives have been killed – yet. But a way of life has been steadily destroyed. At the end of the 1960s, Beirut’s architecture was still predominantly Turkish. Under Nasser, Alexandria had lost much of its joie de vivre so Beirut had taken over as the discreet playground of the Middle Eastern rich. You could find every vice known to man, plus the ones the locals had invented. Those were the days. In recent years there has been plenty to remind us that vice and vicious are close linguistic kin.

In Beirut, you could find every vice known to man, plus the ones the locals invented. Those were the days.

The family, set on remaining anonymous, have a wine cellar in London. We drank Musar from a range of years: miraculous that the vineyards had produced so much, most of it excellent. The 1998 was especially good, but the old jokes had lost their savour. ’98: a hint of cordite, don’t you think? That is no longer funny. Vintages of Chateau Musar are a chronicle of a death unfolding.

With another boon companion, there was no shadow over the merriment. For some years, Eric Bush was an outstandingly successful public servant in the Cayman Islands. Cayman is often sniped at, for there are many who resent its success. Western liberals frequently seem happier dealing with poor countries that they can patronise. Cayman does not need condescension and has long since broken free from poverty. It has demonstrated the ability to bounce back from a severe hurricane, promote sustainable development, and attract investors.

Eric wanted to introduce me to an entrepreneur who has been building businesses in several countries, including Cayman Frank Schilling. He is an impressive fellow who knows how to combine success in commerce with the enjoyment of life. He recently decided to become a vigneron, in Greece, north of Salonika. We were to taste his Aphrodise, a sparkling rosé.

Frank is a brave man. Before he unleashed the Aphrodise, we had a tasting, concentrating on claret. A 2003 Léoville Poyferré gave way to a 2009 Léoville Barton. As one would have expected from a finer year, the Barton was the better, yet both were everything a serious claret should be expected to deliver. Even so, they were both outgunned. Two battle-cruisers, but a battleship inevitably took precedence. Although 1999 may not have been a great year, the paladins who preside over Chateau Latour do not deal in ordinary vintages. Their ’99 is superb.

After a strenuous evening’s drinking, champagne can work well as a bonne bouche. But to judge it after such a tasting seemed hardly fair. Nonetheless, it earned its place. At present, Aphrodise would be perfect for a beach or poolside picnic and not ideal for a filthy day in late November. But it is promising. Frank is used to success and he will not be disappointed.

I am writing this surrounded by success, in Dubai for COP28. I had not been here for more than 30 years: all changed, changed utterly. This doesn’t mean that a terrible beauty is born. But it is impossible not to salute a remarkable transformation.

Not far from the city, there are still sand dunes, camels and Bedouin. But Dubai itself has a forest of cranes and a dramatic skyline. At moments, it can seem like a futuristic version of Manhattan: breathtaking.

So this might seem a strange place to summon the world’s environmentalists. A fair number of the delegates believe mankind should return to living without fossil fuels. There will be visitors here who would prefer Dubai to return to the desert.

But mankind needs to keep the lights on, the factories working and the costs down. There is only one way to make that work. Science will have to be mobilised to solve the problems which science has created. From my first impressions, that is a widely held view among sensible environmentalists. There will be plenty of pieties and platitudes, but practicality will prevail. The tree-huggers will make a great deal of noise, and they have a point when it comes to preserving forests. But their desire to reduce the human race to the living standard of a?primitive Amazonian tribe? No.

It may be that we are in the final phase of the internal combustion engine. Electric cars, the hydrogen fuel cell, nuclear power, including nuclear fusion – some of that may prove too difficult; but in general, I suspect that we are roughly in the equivalent place to Messrs Daimler and Benz in 1895. Henry Ford is around the corner.

No one is suggesting that the human race is safe. But the threat does not come from carbon. It comes from war. The danger is not from internal combustion. Military combustion is the menace, abetted perhaps by a dreadful pandemic created as a weapon, and then escaping to become the most appalling weapon of all.

Christmas is the season for ghost stories. The BBC used to televise a classic one every year in the 1970s and has happily revived the habit in the 21st century. Let us hope such dark happenings remain at the level of fiction and do not force their way into the headlines.

Let us also hope for wassail, good cheer and feasting to accompany the great feast of the Nativity that was meant to bring hope and redemption. As there is still a way to go 2,000 years later, we might as well make do with carpe diem. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

AUTHOR Bruce Anderson