Sometimes when reading the news we think, “Please, sir, can I have some more!”
On the other hand, sometimes we think, “Would that the English/American people had but one neck!”
The first sentiment, of course, comes from Oliver Twist. The second from Caligula as recorded by Seutonius in Lives of the Caesars. One neck so he could chop it off, of course.
And I have good news. Caligula and Oliver have spawned. Not by any Elon Musk neurochip. But by honest pregnancy. Well, almost…
I heard about this story from an opinion piece in the Guardian. And, as usual, being the sort of person who is more interested in the lives of John Stuart Mill and Dr Johnson than in the lives of Tailor Swift, A Dell, ‘Peter’ Grimes, Kay T Perr E and others, I had to reconstruct the story with some retrospective surgery of the Frankenstein sort.
Surrogacy might not always be good. I’ll say. She instances neglect of children, neglect of mothers, etc., which is fair enough but misses the fact that surrogacy might be intrinsically – that is, absolutely – and not only instrumentally – that is, sometimes – wrong. Might be. Anyhow.
The fact: Lily Collins (who?) has given birth – but not quite given birth – to a child. Surrogacy, you see. (Quick, check what surrogacy means: donor egg or birth mother’s egg? IVF? Abortion? It’s all very confusing.) Parents post news on Instagram. Public responds, not always kindly. Father says, “Now, now, don’t criticise the missus,” and “Hey, you have no right to know our motives.”
I was about to give up on this entertainment – i.e. “One neck” rather than “Having some more”. But I decided to ask Google about this Lily Collins. Any relation to Lily Allen? Or Katy Perry? Or Laurie Penny?
No, not at all.
Daughter of Phil Collins.
And her husband, Charlie McDowell?
I found an article that said Lily Collins had prevailed upon her in-laws to watch a television programme. Newsworthy. Please, sir, can I have some more, etc. But the in-laws were Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen, names I recognised, and – hang on, what, eh? How were they the in-laws of a McDowell? I sighed and asked Google again.
Son of Malcolm McDowell.
McDowell being a former husband of Steenburgen. Ah. Now, for those of you who are not geniuses like Einstein, this sort of thing is the closest we ever get to a Eureka moment: joining the celebrity dots. Craig Brown had fun with this in his little book of celebrity encounters, One to One, depicting encounters between Noël Coward and the Beatles, etc. (He reported no child, not even by surrogate, for that.)
So the daughter of Phil Collins and the son of Malcolm McDowell have produced a child. (By surrogacy.)
Phil Collins: drummer. Originally lead actor in Oliver! in the 1960s, famous since then as drummer in Genesis and later as singer for Genesis and under his own name. Recently had to give up drumming due to years of heavy impact and bad posture.
Malcolm McDowell: actor. Originally lead actor in the Lindsay Anderson film If…, also A Clockwork Orange. Hit a peak with Caligula, the mixed-pornographic-art film of the 1970s, and since then has been found agreeably smiling as the short-white-haired bad man in various Hollywood romps.
Oliver and Caligula.
Both famous since the 1960s.
Apex celebrities since the 1970s.
A granddaughter.
But not by nature – by art. Or by nature, oddly adjusted by art.
Surrogacy is a sort of simulacrum of natural birth, while still, just about, being natural: sperm, egg, womb, birth. We are not yet giving birth via rubber bladder, test tube, Lycra eggs or a SpaceX coffee cup. However, one sees why the progeny of actors and drummers might favour surrogacy, as art, music and theatre are all about creating a parallel reality. It is magic and pretence and living in two worlds at once: men goofing about in a room and creating magical, wonderful, involving art. Plus, no time to bear or labour over anything.
The real question is: what is to be perpetuated in the world as the Collins and McDowell bloodlines combine? Will we have an ability to play drums in 9/8 with an ability to listen to Beethoven with one’s eyelids peeled back? Possibly.
It is very tricky, morally speaking.
But it is very amusing that the simulacra of Oliver Twist and Caligula –Collins the drummer and McDowell the actor – have had their bloodlines combined.
What do you think of this news? Have some more? Or one neck?
About McDowell, I have no particular view. I tend to be a bit sneering about actors. Repeating other people’s words! Collins, however, is, as a songwriter and drummer, an originator and not merely a simulacrum artist: and, as with Bonham, Starr, Moon or Bruford, one is very close to some primal sense of time and the punctuation of time. It is profound. There is something very profound about a drum kit that turns a mere man into the closest we have to an octopus – a chess player of four limbs under extreme time constraints, always playing blitz. And there is something wonderful about well-drummed music. When I was younger, I didn’t notice, but now I marvel at Drumeo videos and exult in studies of Steve Gadd’s Aja or John Bonham’s Fool in the Rain. I spent my youth liking melody and harmony, but not so much rhythm – not consciously, at least, not the way I do now. So I feel some homage is due to these masters of rhythm, markers of time.
If you are interested, there is something quite incredible about the rhythm Collins uses for the instrumental section of Cinema Show, where he plays in seven time: 7/8 – a wholly unintuitive number to count – and does so without using the trick Pink Floyd used in Money. For Money, Roger Waters simply added one more beat after two bars of 3/4, i.e. [slowly] ONE-two-three, ONE-two-three + four. This is good, but far less impressive than what Collins did. In Cinema Show, he avoided such crude addition by dividing the bar of seven into two bars of three-and-a-half. Here the effect is [quickly] one-two-three-and, one-two-three-and, where each and is half a beat. It sounds odd when written, but what one has is a forceful and catchy rhythm that counts seven, irregularly, as if veering to the right and then veering to the left. Listen to it (from 5:55 in this). Once you learn this rhythm, you will never unlearn it. Whenever I clap, I always clap in this rhythm, which I am sure sounds as pretentious as a bald eagle of me, but it is true, and I do it – or started doing it years ago – mostly because it is exciting. By contrast, clapping in 2/4, or whatever rhythm other people use, seems like a very muted celebration of a performance.
It is a bit sad that the daughter of Collins became a mere actress, unlike his son, who is also a drummer. But there we are.
This story has no significance except its service to the gaiety of nations.
The child is called Tove, by Jove.
Good luck to everyone.
And listen to some drums, e.g. this marvellous accompaniment of an otherwise not-much T Swift song.
Have some more? Or one neck?
Dr James Alexander is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at Bilkent University in Turkey.
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Meanwhile if I remember “I Claudius” right, didn’t the real-life Caligula get up to all sorts of unspeakable things that included a demonic terminated pregnancy?
And Fagin was nasty piece of work too – much nastier than a sanitised musical a century on from Dickens makes out?
Sometimes literary truth makes celebrity reality seem a Sunday stroll in the park.
Come to think of it, same goes for party manifestos.
Freddie Truman was Raquel Welch’s brother-in-law, their kids married, though I’m not sure for how long?
Well. Thanks for that, that cheered up my day and reminded me how I loved john bonham, and underestimate Phil Collins. Much appreciated.
Checkout some of Collins work as part of his side hustle, jazz fusion band Brand X, some of the playing with them during the late 70’s was another level in complexity and execution. Having that level of talent and understanding of percussion and rhythm, is what helps you become one of the worlds most successful artists – interestingly underrated as a drummer however, mostly due to the pop success I suspect. Many of his songs have a more complex structure than is apparent at initial listening, and this extra ‘something’ could be what made him so successful. Example here with the great Rick Beato on YouTube, anyone into music will love his content – it’s fascinating to understand more about how songs are constructed, even if you can’t play a note like me!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnxcxEv-BuE
Many current songs use the same drum samples, no key changes, are perfectly aligned to a perfect beat, which never changes. The sheer lack of and complexity is what makes so many songs sound the same now…
Apparently celebs including Ms Collins have themselves photoed in hospital beds with the baby in a cosplay of having just given birth to the baby, when actually they have done zero effort in growing or pushing the child out. No photos of the post delivery surrogate.
How decadent and morally debased the world has become, when rich spoilt, celebrities decide that they want a baby, akin to wanting the latest handbag, so they just pay someone to do all the work for them, and then take the baby, presumably hand it over to a myriad of Nannys except when its necessary for a photo call. Meanwhile they don’t even bother to Marry the co- creator/ buyer of the child thus depriving the new accessory of a stable family.
Babies are just the latest in designer accessories, probably equally as disposable poor things.
I’d presume there was a medical need to have a surrogate birth?
Surrogacy? How passe. Surely somebody should be providing an upmarket, online store for one of those cute, little, pudgy things. Gucci coo.
Tove, sounds vaguely inspired by Joyce?
Brilliant!
Be brave, next time just write people’s names. This is a free country with freedom of speech. Right?