Yvette Cooper and the Total Boredom Coefficient
When I interviewed people who had known Margaret Thatcher as a young woman, I often asked whether they had spotted anything in her personality that would suggest she was destined for some kind of greatness. Universally, they said no. But everyone noted that she was a woman of considerable energy.
Yvette Cooper was a contemporary of mine at school, so conceivably I could one day be asked that question of her, if indeed she becomes the next leader of the Labour Party. This morning I was thinking that if that happened, it would be useful to have at least one strong memory of her. I should have an amusing anecdote, at least, for dinner-party purposes. But all I can remember is a vague impression of diligent, earnest dreariness.
It's as if I'm trying to remember exactly what the elevator looked like at the public library in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Wasn't I there, once? Did that library even have an elevator? Ann Arbor was kind of cold, wasn't it? You know that feeling, when you're trying to remember something that just wasn't in any way memorable? I remember that I had a cup of coffee in Ann Arbor. At some restaurant.
- Comment (12)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (0)
Comments :
Apr '11
Re: Yvette Cooper and the Total Boredom Coefficient
There's your anecdote, as you well know; like Lady Astor's putdown of Neville Chamberlain, "A modest man, who has much to be modest about".
Mar '11
Re: Yvette Cooper and the Total Boredom Coefficient
That was Lady Astor on Chamberlain? I could have sworn it was Churchill on Clement Atlee.
Memory is hell. And Google is both a blessing and a curse. If I google both of those quotes, I'll find both of them.
Re: Yvette Cooper and the Total Boredom Coefficient
Churchill, Attlee, and even that comment is vastly more memorable to me than anything about Yvette.
Man, I remember the college tortoise better. I remember everything but anything about Yvette.
Edited on Nov 12, 2011 at 6:49amSep '11
Re: Yvette Cooper and the Total Boredom Coefficient
I was puzzed till I realised that for you Balliol is a school. "Two nations divided by a common language" (Churchill?). I'm sorry she's dreary, but if she has as much as Attlee to her credit by the end of her career, I for one shall be happy.
Re: Yvette Cooper and the Total Boredom Coefficient
Yep: diligent, earnest dreariness. How perceptive you must have been even in your youth. But isn't that the problem with almost all politicians these days. No hinterland, career safety, no experience of the outside world - and thence to governance.
Aug '10
Re: Yvette Cooper and the Total Boredom Coefficient
I have never moved in or near the circles of fame real or potential - riding all those Greyhound buses probably has something to do with it - and the closest I have come to knowing a "public figure" is a college housemate who is now some kind of motivational speaker. Were I asked to reminisce about him, I think I'd say, "Well, he wasn't wearing that swami outfit. And he wasn't 'Guru,' he was 'Chad.' Once I drove him to Tompkins County General because he had pneumonia; then he got in a wheelchair and asked me to push him real fast up and down the halls! Years later, I wrote him and he urged me to visit him at a retreat in New Mexico. He said bring a sleeping bag, a white bandanna, a bag of rice, and $200. I stopped at the $200 part."
Aug '10
Re: Yvette Cooper and the Total Boredom Coefficient
Yeah, but who wouldn't? Tortoises are cute!
Re: Yvette Cooper and the Total Boredom Coefficient
Hey, did you guys know I knew the Crown Princess of Japan, too? She lived down the hall from me. I had no idea she would go on to be a Very Big Deal, either. Years later, my mother sent me a book about her. I think I might still have it.
I just remembered that, trying to remember something about Yvette.
I'm coming up with a meeting about the budget for the cheese plate. But I don't think she was at that meeting.
Mar '11
Re: Yvette Cooper and the Total Boredom Coefficient
I remember that the University of Illinois' Undergraduate Library is underground, to protect Morrow Plots, the worlds oldest experimental corn field, just east of said library. I remember that there is a courtyard in the center of the library that is essentially a two-story hole in the ground. I remember that a fraternity brother was once tied up and lowered into that courtyard on the occasion of his birthday.
I seem to recall that alcohol was involved, but that part is a little hazy.
Feb '11
Re: Yvette Cooper and the Total Boredom Coefficient
Claire Berlinski, Ed.: Hey, did you guys know I knew the Crown Princess of Japan, too? She lived down the hall from me. I had no idea she would go on to be a Very Big Deal, either. Years later, my mother sent me a book about her. I think I might still have it.
I just remembered that, trying to remember something about Yvette.
I'm coming up with a meeting about the budget for the cheese plate. But I don't think she was at that meeting. · Nov 12 at 7:14am
I lived in Japan at the time she was becoming the Crown Princess -- what a media circus. The poor woman. At the time, from my lofty position as an English conversation teacher, I felt sorry for her. She had turned down the Crown Prince several times before she accepted him, seemingly mostly for her nation's sake, certainly not personal preference. I don't think things have gotten easier for her since then.
Feb '11
Re: Yvette Cooper and the Total Boredom Coefficient
I said in my post above that "at the time" I felt sorry for her. I still do. I don't believe she has produced a male heir, which became of course her one and only occupation after their marriage in the early 1990s, and I believe she has suffered because of it.
May '11
Re: Yvette Cooper and the Total Boredom Coefficient
As far as I can tell from what I read on line, no one remembers Obama from his days at Occidental College, Columbia or Harvard Law.