The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Joe Biden’s emotional inauguration was also a day for breakout women
Having beefed hugely about the malign influence and general disgustingness of Donald Trump over many a year, I felt it was my bounden duty to sit down and watch the inauguration of his successor on telly last week, if only as a very small gesture of solidarity for an administration whose in-tray you would not wish on your worst enemy. Or even Donald Trump. Even he wished them luck – and boy, are they going to need it.
I’ve never watched an American presidential inauguration before and, although this one was obviously well outside the norm, I must admit I felt really quite emotional about it.
Not least because, even if I didn’t agree with him, it was a refreshing change to listen to an American president speak in clear and comprehensible sentences which actually seemed to mean something, to him and to those listening to him.
I’m sure I wasn’t alone in feeling more than slightly worried – jumpy, even – about what might happen on the day, given the prevalence of opposition to the new team in the White House in the nation at large.
It was both comforting and strange to see rows of masked and camouflage-clad military and ranks of plain-clothes operatives in very lumpy suits making their presence felt.
Those seated to bear witness – at suitably social distances in front of the presumably bullet and bomb-proof glass – looked somehow both lonely and determined. I guess that’s how many of the people they were looking at, on the other side of – ironically, given one of Trump’s most infamous claims to fame – a transparent wall, those who are now buckling down to perhaps the most difficult job in world affairs for many, many years, will be feeling as they attempt to get to grips with a new order.
Although the new president himself is an older, white male, almost the template of an establishment figure, it was very much a day for breakout women – his wife, Dr Jill Biden, who will be a working First Lady outside the White House and, within, the first female vice-president, Kamala Harris – who has broken so many barriers already and, no doubt, will be looking to break down more before she is finished.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi was a strong and highly symbolic presence. And who could fail to be impressed by the opening speech given by Senator Amy Klobuchar, herself a presidential candidate and from whom, one suspects, much more will be heard.
It was almost a relief to grin at the razzmatazz of Lady Gaga’s pop-operatic take on the Star-spangled Banner, while looking not unlike one of those crocheted crinoline ladies you used to find hiding the loo roll in aspirational bathrooms of the 1960s. And how uplifting it was to hear the bright, inspiring words of the sunshine yellow-clad poet Amanda Gorman who looked and sounded like the very epitome of a new, young voice for her nation, in the eyes of the watching world.
The most striking sight for me, however, was the field of flags standing in for the usual massive crowds of citizens commonly present at such a pivotal time in their nation’s history. Somehow, as a silent symbol of past, present and future, it said more than any conventional celebratory gathering could have done.
In this era of making our own entertainment, it is surely no surprise that even reading a book – without murmuring out loud or even moving your lips – has taken on new elements for many of us.
Knowing my love of a good read, and the realisation that they’ve run out of new brands of gin to send me, prescient pals have recently gifted me literature including Jasper Rees’s biography of Victoria Wood, the latest gardening tome from Monty Don and a debut crime novel from the lofty host of Pointless and House Of Games, Richard Osman.
In her quotes, Victoria Wood’s delivery is unmistakable and Monty Don’s soothing horticultural advice comes over even in print. Being fiction, Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club probably needed a bit more help finding its voice but it was with some delight that I found myself casting the characters – I heard the dulcet tones of the great Anne Reid as Joyce and Dame Maggie Smith, in A Private Function mode, as Elizabeth. It was a hoot.
It reminds me of the wonderful American writer Damon Runyon, whose fables of Broadway – on which that glorious musical, Guys & Dolls, was based – have you reading his tales of Harry the Horse, Big Jule and suchlike in a Noo Yoik patois that sounds, even in your head, like a cross between Butch the bulldog from Tom & Jerry (“Dat’s ma boy, ovah deah, doin’ dat!”) and Tony Curtis, impersonating a mediaeval English baron in The Black Shield Of Falworth (“Yonda lies dah cassle ob my fadda!”).
Mind you, finding the perfect vocal match doesn’t always hit the right note. I have a dream that when Donald Trump produces his memoirs, the audiobook sold here will be voiced by Janey Godley.