You know how it is. You make a mental note to send your Mum a Happy Birthday card, and then the note slips out of your mind.
You wake up on the day and suddenly the date displayed on your bedside clock sounds a distress signal in your half-dormant consciousness.
Bother! you scream, if your neglected mother brought you up well. If not, or more likely if you’ve since forgotten all she ever taught, you scream something else.
One way or the other you get the idea of how I felt this morning upon realising that yet again I forgot that yesterday was the birthday of Vladimir Putin, Vlad to his friends, among whom I proudly number myself.
My only consolation is that the bitter disappointment Vlad doubtless felt was amply assuaged by many others, those more diligent than me in marking the key dates of the Christian calendar.
I was particularly impressed by the 100,000-strong celebratory march in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya.
The marchers wore blue, white or red clothing, which enabled them to arrange themselves in three files looking from above like the Russian national flag, 2,000 feet long. What a fitting, touching tribute to the man who made Russia what it is!
The tribute is particularly touching if one remembers that Grozny was bombed flat during the second Chechen war started by Putin to consolidate his power.
As a result, the UN designated Grozny as the most devastated city on earth. Thousands were buried under the rubble, adding to the 250,000 Chechens killed in the two post-perestroika wars.
Against that background, the unbridled enthusiasm of the Grozny marchers looked a bit odd. It was like watching the extant Auschwitz inmates taking to the streets to celebrate Hitler’s birthday, a rather surreal sight by any standards.
One can only congratulate the surviving denizens of Grozny on the truly Christian spirit of forgiveness animating this supposedly Muslim nation. Unlike those sore losers with numbers tattooed on their forearms, the Chechens let bygones be bygones.
And what about this beautifully produced video of a children’s choir celebrating the historic event with childish brio but very grown-up mastery: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqGaDP7z52g&feature=youtu.be
If you don’t understand Russian, eat your heart out: you’ll miss the full moving experience of watching a hundred tots, most of whom no older than five, singing hosannas to their beloved leader.
Yet pictures, as we know, speak louder than words, and you’ll get into the spirit of things by just watching, even if the high poetry of the lyrics goes by you.
The refrain evokes Marilyn Monroe singing “Happy Birthday, Mr President” at Carnegie Hall. The tots have embellished the line only slightly by belting out “Happy Birthday, Pre-si-dent of Russia!!!”, which is as far as the parallel can be allowed to go.
For Marilyn was having an affair with the birthday boy, something none of the tots can probably boast, although, if Moscow mauvaises langues are to be believed, Vlad isn’t immune to their appeal. But then loving children is de rigeur for Russian national leaders, and how they express affection is up to them only.
The frames of ecstatic vocalising babes are expertly intercut with sequences of them making a giant birthday cake and decorating it with the song’s refrain placed within a pink heart shape.
The same shape is formed by the children themselves as they sing, “May you achieve everything you’ve set out to, dear President!”, a sentiment probably not universally shared in the Ukraine.
Not to be outdone, grown-ups also fall over themselves to celebrate the glorious occasion properly.
The singing tots come from Vlad’s native Petersburg where he grew up as what he himself proudly described as “your regular street thug”. But Moscow evened the score by staging an exhibition titled Putin’s 12 Labours, drawing a well-merited parallel between Vlad and Hercules.
One painting rivals Velazquez’s Surrender of Breda as the greatest battle painting of all time. It shows Vlad, loincloth-clad, sword in hand, fighting a giant hydra whose heads are helpfully marked as ‘The USA”, ‘The European Union’, ‘Japan’, ‘Canada’ and ‘Sanctions’. If I were Australian, I’d feel left out, but I am not, so I don’t.
Another, equally majestic, painting depicts Vlad taming the ox of Crimea, so identified on the animal’s side. The defeated beast is twice Vlad’s size, which some may construe as a slight misrepresentation of the actual balance of power. But who says a work of art can’t take a little licence?
Hundreds of thousands of Putin T-shirts are selling like proverbial hotcakes, each depicting the National Leader’s likeness. My silk-screened friend Vlad appears naked to the waist (mercifully from the top), clutching a rifle, strangling a snow leopard, on horseback or simply in full, grinning face.
Similar pictures adorn numerous hoardings strewn all over Russia. Some simply say “Happy Birthday, Our Leader!” but others go further in their commendable zeal.
One caption announces that Vlad is “holier than the Pope”, though a claim to infallibility is modestly withheld. Another describes Putin as “the most polite president”, which is richly merited.
Yes, he has publicly stated his intention to “whack’em in the shithouse”, “hang Saakashvili by the balls” and do many other things along similar lines. Yet none of the nouns was preceded by the modifier ‘f***ing”, and if that doesn’t justify describing Vlad’s politeness in superlative terms, I don’t know what will.
Then again, a devoted subject must be attuned to the Leader’s thoughts and plans. Hence the TV personality Tina Kandelaki declared, to wild cheers from the audience, that “Putin has the essential characteristics to captain a ship the size of our continent.”
One hopes the less polite leaders of Germany and France, not to mention Poland and Latvia, sit up and listen. Before too long their people may also be made to celebrate Putin’s birthday just as effusively.
Or perhaps ‘made’ is a wrong word. All those Russian masses must have been driven to the streets by an outburst of spontaneous enthusiasm, not seen in their country since Vlad’s role model Stalin (or anywhere else this side of North Korea).
However, Vlad has a long way to go. His popularity rating is still languishing at a meagre 87 per cent, way short of Stalin’s customary 103.
But if these festivities are any indication, he’s on the right track. Just to think that this was merely his 62nd birthday. Imagine the celebrations of a rounder milestone, say his 65th. It’s just possible that by then every hydra will lose its heads, every ox will be tamed and every snow leopard throttled.
In anticipation I have to apologise for my forgetfulness. Vlad, if you’re reading this, sorry, mate. Never again.
My forthcoming book Democracy as a Neocon Trick can be pre-ordered, at what the publisher promises to be a spectacular discount, from http://www.roperpenberthy.co.uk/index.php/browse-books/political/democracy-as-a-neocon-trick.htmlor, in the USA, http://www.newwinebookshop.com/Books/0002752