Chris Deerin: Do not be so hasty to judge leaders over Covid – could you have done any better? by Chris Deerin
Updated: February 23, 2021, 9:12 pm
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In his new novel Light Perpetual, the brilliant author Francis Spufford carries out a “what if” experiment.
The story begins inside the haberdashery section of a London branch of Woolworths on a Saturday afternoon in 1944. There has been a rush of customers because the shop has taken delivery of saucepans, a rare luxury in straitened wartime. Eager mothers browse – “no one has seen a new pan for years” – as their children, too young to be left at home, fidget, gawp vacantly and pick their noses. Into this scene of pathos falls a Nazi bomb. Everyone dies in an instant.
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immediately everybody is saying how could they nominate that one? it s very easy. we took a vote. that s how. this is not a tablet handed down from god writ by his finger saying okay, if anybody disagrees, you re wrong, this is the official answer. this is our opinion. some people who should have gotten oscars never got an oscar. for a lifetime of work, or sometimes for work too long unrewarded, the academy offers the honorary oscar. always a bridesmaid, never a bride. my foot. our board of governors tonight salutes with a special oscar. harold lloyd. groucho marks. lillian gish. deborah clark. deborah carr. kirk douglas. lauren bacall. blake edwards. d.a. pennybaker. charles chaplain.
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