My brother and I get along pretty well. We live somewhat different lives, but that’s never been a source of conflict between us. We tend to read many of the same books, like the same sports, and survived the same set of parents.
Our politics have grown apart in the last few years, but our disagreements are pretty civil, and we each understand how the other came to think what he thinks.
In contract, I offer you Christopher and Peter Hitchens, who evidently haven’t spoken in nearly 4 years because of a joke about the Red Army. The Guardian newspaper brought them together for an appearance, and the results are pretty entertaining:
CH: [. . .] And I thought [the joke] was quite funny, and must have told it many times, and must have told it in the hearing of Peter, because a week after September 11, when I’m up to here with fuckwits in the United States who are saying Chomskyian things, what I don’t need, is to get [in] the Spectator my brother recalling, ‘I don’t see why Christopher has become so pro-American; I can remember when he said he wouldn’t be happy until he saw the Red Army watering its horses in the Thames.’ And I thought, well what I thought was ‘Fuck you’. I don’t need this, I don’t need it from [my] brother.
Interviewer: Peter, did you falsely characterise your brother as a Stalinist?
The best part is, in the middle of a conversation about belief in the divine, some idiot in the crowd complains about Christopher’s cigarette:
Female audience member Excuse me. I’m not usually awkward at all but I’m sitting here and we’re asked not to smoke. And I don’t like being in a room where smoking is going on.
CH (smoking heavily): Well you don’t have to stay darling, do you? I’m working here and I’m your guest, OK? And this is what I’m like; nobody has to like it.
Interviewer: Would you just stub that one out?
CH: No. I cleared it with the festival a long time ago. They let me do it.
FAM: We should all be allowed to smoke then.
CH: Fair enough. I wouldn’t object. It might get pretty nasty though. I have a privileged position here, I’m not just one of the audience, so it would be horrible if everyone was like me. This is my last of five gigs, I’ve worked very hard for the festival. I’m going from here to Heathrow airport. If anyone doesn’t like it they can kiss my ass.
Interviewer: Would anyone like to take up that challenge?
(Laughter. Woman walks out)
“I’m not usually awkward at all”? I love the British.
Anyway, read the whole thing.