From: the.wise.one@abel.co.uk   
      
        ...A refurbished Star Wars is on somewhere or everywhere.  I have   
   no intention of revisiting any galaxy.  I shrivel inside each time it is   
   mentioned.  Twenty years ago, when the film was first shown, it had a   
   freshness, also a sense of moral good and fun.  Then I began to be   
   uneasy at the influence it might be having.  The bad penny first dropped   
   in San Francisco when a sweet-faced boy of twelve told me proudly that   
   he had seen Star Wars over a hundred times.  His elegant mother nodded   
   with approval.  Looking into the boy's eyes I thought I detected little   
   star-shells of madness beginning to form and I guessed that one day they   
   would explode.   
      
        'I would love you to do something for me,' I said.   
      
        'Anything!  Anything!' the boy said rapturously.   
      
        'You won't like what I'm going to ask you to do,' I said.   
      
        'Anything, sir, anything!'   
      
        'Well,' I said, 'do you think you could promise never to see Star   
   Wars again?'   
      
        He burst into tears.  His mother drew herself up to an immense   
   height.  'What a *dreadful* thing to say to a child!' she barked, and   
   dragged the poor kid away.  Maybe she was right but I just hope the lad,   
   now in his thirties, is not living in a fantasy world of secondhand,   
   childish banalities.   
      
        A couple of weeks ago, in a Chinese restaurant, the dapper little   
   Chinese maitre D bowed low as I left and, full of Chinese smiles, said,   
   'Sir Guin, now that Star Wars is being shown again you will be famous   
   once more.'  Oh, to be Ernest Thesiger.   
      
        The mornings, during the past few weeks, have started quite sharply   
   and yet gently blurred in hazy sunshine.  There is a very rounded cherry   
   tree in the middle of the paddock, now in flower, but the haze softly   
   obliterates the trunk of the tree, leaving the blossom looking as if it   
   might be a small pinkish-white cloud that has settled with us.  It   
   spreads a feeling of calm like a blessing.  I stand out of doors in my   
   dressing-gown, gazing at it with gratitude, but know that all too soon   
   there will be a thud of letters falling through the letter-box,   
   including glossy photographs which no ordinary pen can sign.  As often   
   as not they have already been signed in a sprawling gilded signature by   
   'Darth Vader' from Star Wars - 'so-and-so IS Darth Vader'.  Maybe but it   
   wasn't so-and-so's voice or face (when it was finally revealed) to the   
   best of my remembrance.  The 'IS', I suppose, is for reassurance, like   
   clutching at something when waking from a bad dream.   
      
        Last Sunday, as Mass was finishing, a young man leaned over my   
   shoulder and said, 'My pop is a great fan of Star Wars.  Will you say   
   hello to him as you leave the church?'   
      
        I asked where his father was.   
      
        'At the back in a wheelchair,' he said.   
      
        The priest gave his blessing and the ritual words, 'The Mass is   
   over, go in peace.'   
      
        'Thanks be to God,' we chorused back, the young man adding, 'And   
   can I have your autograph?'   
      
        'Not here,' I replied rather crossly.   
      
        At the back of the church, sitting in a wheelchair, was a large,   
   middle-aged, genial-looking man.  I went up to him all smiles, like a   
   baby-kissing politician, and exuding the sweet benevolence of a   
   hospital-visiting princess.  I took him warmly by the hand and made one   
   or two fatuous inquiries.  He suddenly said the dreaded words - 'Star Wars!'   
      
        'Ugh - hugh -uh -ha -hm,' I said, but I kept up my smile.   
      
        'Obi-Wan Kenobi,' he nodded at me and, for good measure, 'May the   
   Force be with you.'   
      
        'And also with you,' I replied, to ecclesiastical merriment.   
      
        'The Man in the White Suit; that was you, wasn't it?'   
      
        'Yes, about forty-five years ago,' I replied, with a sense of   
   relief that we might have reached saner ground; anyway terra firma.   
   Then his face became grave and he said, 'Darth Vader.'   
      
        I backed away as quickly as possible, sketched him a valedictory   
   wave of the hand and stumbled down the church steps into fresh air and   
   morning sunlight.  The young man pursued me.  'The autograph,' he said,   
   quite politely.  But that was suddenly too much for me.  'Not in front   
   of the parishioners,' I said.  Then I disappeared.   
      
        A second later I was deeply ashamed but the damage had been done.   
   No excuse, just sudden bloody-mindedness and panic.  It's no good saying   
   to myself, 'Watch out in these declining years, things could turn   
   nasty.'  Donkey's years ago I remember seeing an elderly man in Harrods   
   screaming and screaming at a shop assistant because she was buffing her   
   nails.  I felt sad contempt for him and it never occurred to me to   
   mutter, 'There, but for the Grace of God, go I some day in the future.'   
      
        The evening news announced that dust bowls have formed on the dry   
   farmlands of Cornwall.  Cornwall, of all places, where there used to be   
   so many hedges.   
      
        We all need hedges, I thought.  They don't have to be prickly   
   though, like mine.   
      
      
   from:   
   "A Positively Final Appearance: A Journal 1996-98"   
   by Alec Guinness   
   ISBN 0-140-27006-X   
   Penguin Books, 2000   
   Chapter 2: "A Dry Month"   
   pages 11-13   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)