In Memoriam John MacDonald
A tribute to John MacDonald
I was in Samarkand, Uzbekistan last week when I heard the sad news that John MacDonald had passed away. For those who didn’t know him, John was the host of the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature’s weekly radio show: Talking of Books on 103.8 Dubai Eye Radio. He was a journalist, a raconteur, a voracious reader of books, and a Dubai institution in many ways. It is no exaggeration to say that John was one of the most charismatic, charming, and delightfully interesting personalities in Dubai.
I first met John in 2013 when I went on his “Talking of Books” radio show to talk about quantum physicist David Deutsch and his latest book, The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations that Transform the World. It was sufficiently scientific and highbrow enough to impress John and we instantly developed an intellectual rapport — based on our shared disdain for superstition and our mutual love of scepticism, reason, rationality, and Enlightenment values. At one of his not infrequent cigarette breaks during the show, he confessed that he was bored of listening to people talk about Harry Potter and the endless stream of pot-boiler, pulp fiction, mainstream novels and that it was a welcome to change to discuss cerebral stuff for a change.
For my part, I was in admiration of John’s depth of knowledge about everything from art, philosophy, poetry, and science and was more than impressed by the rich and varied life experiences he had had. John had a great facility with words and was always ready to share a fascinating anecdote or engage in humorous banter. He had a quick mind and a splendid gift of repartee. Add to that his distinctive baritone voice and his wizardly Scottish accent — it was not hard to see why John was so captivating as a radio host.
Café Scientfique Dubai and SciFest Dubai
After that initial meeting on the radio, over the years, John would go on to host several panel discussions at our annual SciFest Dubai festivals and was a regular guest at our Café Scientifique Dubai events where we talked about everything from the origins of the cosmos and the nature of mind to the meaning of consciousness and the purpose of life. John always had deeply insightful ideas to share, and it was a pleasure to be in his company. I subsequently went on his radio show numerous times — as did my wife, Lara Matossian, who was also a huge fan and fast friend of John’s.
What she loved most about John were his impish sense of humour and his mischievous playfulness. In addition to regaling folks around him with fascinating stories, John would often whip out his guitar and entertain his friends with Caledonian folk songs and obscure ditties from the Hebrides — suitably raunchy and humourously risqué, as was to be expected of John. The memory of John in his Tartan kilt and with his glass of scotch remains etched in my mind.
♬♪ 𝄞 ♪
Of a’ the trades that I dae ken, the beggin’ is the best
For when a beggar’s pauchled* he can aye sit doon an’ rest
Nae heed for boss’s biddin’ or a maister’s call tae heel
Ye maun be daft tae be a king when beggin’ pays sae weel.
His long-suffering partner, Linda Mulvey (whom he would fondly refer to as the Resident Sassenach), would sip her gin and tonic and benignly indulge his forays into Highland vocal callisthenics. However, she had a steadfast rule: the moment John started to sing with one hand over his eye, it was a surefire sign that John had had too much Laphroaig, and it was time to drag his Scottish arse home. John would dutifully comply and would reluctantly shuffle out. We’d all be very sad to see him leave.
Enoch Madonella and Cerebroscopics
John had a wickedly clever sense of humour. I, too, had had a reputation for being a prankster. So, it was only natural that he and I should collaborate to pull off something suitably big. We decided that he would be the internationally renowned but thoroughly imaginary Enoch Madonella — founder of the cerebroscopic school of artistic expression, a movement which has been acclaimed as the most significant development in modern art for generations. Of course, both Enoch and cerebroscopics were a complete figment of our imagination.
We satirised the often hollow and pretentiously highfalutin jargon that is characteristic of much of the modern art world:
As we advance into a new and uncertain millennium, Madonella’s art offers cathartically thought-provoking analyses of who we are, where we have come from, and where we are going. The most striking aspect of Madonela’s oeuvre is its total lack of echoic derivatives. His constructs are entirely ground-breaking in form and concept. Like footprints in virgin snow, their source and destiny are limited only by our culture-bound capacity to attune with the startling originality of his imagination.
The plan was to convince a group of my high school students to prepare for the arrival in Dubai — for the first time ever — of the enigmatic and mysterious Enoch Madonella (who, in fact, would turn out to be none other than John MacDonald). Ostensibly, the reason for Enoch’s arrival in Dubai was for the opening of his top-secret and super-exclusive art show: M!NDSIGHT, which would be a showcase of his latest Cerebroscopic Art (Latin: cerebrum = brain + Greek: scopos= vision).
I informed the students with sufficient gravitas that many leading experts regarded Madonella’s work as “seminal”, ranking cerebroscopics with impressionism and cubism in terms of artistic progress and innovation. When the students asked what exactly cerebroscopics was and what made it so important to the art world, they were told that Madonella’s exhibition would provide all the answers, leaving viewers and visitors with a profound sense of intellectual expansion by powerfully opening new windows to the mind.
John and I provided the students with quotes to sufficiently impress them:
Madonella forces us to revise our conventional understanding of art in much the same radical manner that Stephen Hawking has forever reconstructed our thinking about time and space. –The Enquirer
“M!ndsight” is a highly appropriate title for this collection, a word as creative as its content, at once illuminating the dark hiatus between the physical restraint of mere visual reality and the sublime and intangible mysteries of the sub-conscious which connect us with a deeper and more metaphysical plane. — Art Forum 2003
Madonella’s art lies in a hitherto inaccessible realm somewhere between the Fourth Dimension and the Second Coming. — The Rad Brigade
Together, John and I built a fake website with a catalogue of his make-believe art that would show at the fictitious event. The students were set up to believe that Enoch would be visiting their school and they were part of a special select few who would get to interview him. By now, they had completely fallen for the ruse and were excited beyond words to meet Enoch. John MacDonald played his role as the orphic Enoch Madonella with great aplomb. He conjured up ludicrous tales of a fictitious childhood and spun yarns about his misadventures in a non-existent art world. When we finally revealed to the students that this was all an elaborate prank, the look of shock and disbelief on their faces was priceless. To make up for it all, John went on to regale them with a truly insightful commentary about the power of words, the importance of semantics, and the humour behind top Literature.
Bertrand Russell and Christopher Hitchens
John was, without a doubt, one of the most well-read and erudite people in Dubai. A freethinker, a lover of science, and a rationalist, he was someone I looked up to. However, you can imagine my consternation when, during a conversation with him, the name of the great Mathematician and Philosopher Bertrand Russell came up and John expressed his disdain and contempt for him. I, of course, stoutly defended Russell and challenged John to articulate why he felt so negatively about Russell. Over the course of the discussion, it transpired that John had confused Bertrand Russell with the British journalist Malcolm Muggeridge (who, it was later revealed, had groped women at the BBC and converted to Roman Catholicism after an interview with Mother Teresa). Muggeridge and Russell were contemporaries, so it was easy to see why John had got confused. Luckily, we cleared that muddle up.
For one of John’s birthdays, Lara and I presented him with a collection of H. L. Mencken’s collected works and Christopher Hitchens’ latest collection of essays, Arguably. John had not followed Hitchens as much as he would have liked, so to hear him go into rapture about Hitchens’ prose and his essays was a treat. It was especially interesting to hear John’s commentary on Hitchens’ essays on North Korea, Apartheid, and the Iranian counter-revolution because as a journalist, John had lived through it himself. It was gratifying to hear John’s words: “The depth and breadth of Hitchens’ knowledge and his critical analysis of events and reviews of authors are simply unbelievable.” Lara and I said to him, “Welcome to the Hitch club, John.”
Prose and Cons
John and I used to have many conversations about literature, history, and politics. During one conversation, he told me about Prose & Cons which began life in 1990 as a weekly column in ‘The Mercury’, the morning paper in Durban, South Africa. He wrote it under the pen name, Wordsworth, the reason for which is self-evident: you got your “word’s worth” from the read. The column ran for about 10 years and pre-dated the internet when not everyone had access to the full Oxford English Dictionary and other etymological reference books. Now, of course, anyone interested in the origins of words and phrases can find all they need to know with a few strokes of the keyboard.
I came to know John much later — well after his halcyon days as a journalist. Back then, when we first met, I used to teach pre-university students A-Level Literature at an English National Curriculum school in Dubai. I suggested to him that we digitise the entire Prose and Cons series and post it on the internet for a new generation of readers. Together with another English teacher, Debbiejo Miranda, and a group of A-Level students, we transcribed the entire collection of articles (well over 30,000 words) and posted it online as part of Project Tesseract. John was quite chuffed and thanked me and the students for bringing the Prose & Cons archives into the electronic era.
Srem, Bulgaria
After many years in Dubai, John and Linda decided to leave the city in 2016 and settle down in the remote village of Srem in Bulgaria. Lara and I were sad to see them go and resolved to meet them in their new home as soon as we could. So, in the winter of that year, we went to meet them. John, gracious as ever, picked us up at the airport in Sofia and accompanied us to Plovdiv (Bulgaria’s second city) where we met Linda and were treated to a glorious dinner. After that, we spent an idyllic few days in the rustic environs of Srem and enjoyed its bucolic delights: “Kalinka Klan Kollektiva assembly every evening, feeding pub cats, minding domestic menageries, and catching up on village gossip and who’s doing what and to whom.”
Sadly, that was the last we were to see of John and Linda though we stayed in touch online. John’s health took a turn for the worse. He approached it with his characteristic sense of stoic irony. In one of his missives, he said:
“Medical adventures continue, and what adventures they are! Often frustrating, sometimes infuriating, but always redeemed by outbreaks of mirth and hilarity. At least three such episodes so far, all personal ‘firsts’… first time in a wheelchair, first time in an ambulance, first time to be mistaken for a beggar.”
Over the next few months, the various tumours required regular regimens of radiation therapy (RT). John reported with typical sardonic wit:
“I’ve been in Plovdiv for more radiation therapy as my warfare with the Tumour Dynasty continues. This time with a female member, as far as names go. In best sub-editorial fashion, I’ve got rid of a redundant capital, so bloody Mary describes her equally well.
I hasten to assure you there’s no bloodiness involved, other than my disposition. As the redoubtable Dr Peichova (who excised Mary’s Tumour predecessors) assured me, this one could go untreated for two years, maybe five, “After that, you’re in cod’s hands.”
As an atheist of long standing, I refrained from asking which fish or deity she had in mind. Zeus, Krishna, Yahweh, Athene, Mars… maybe even my own favourite, Might All Crucking Feisty. No thanks, I’d rather put my faith in RT, even if it does mean being parted from the Resident Sassenach for five-day stretches.”
Over the next few months, we kept in touch over email. He gave us regular updates about his radiation therapy. On one occasion, the newly customised mask they had made for him didn’t fit as well as it was supposed to.
“Dr Pavlov, head of oncology and officer-commanding RT, happened to turn up and declared that if I could not cope with the mask, treatment would have to be abandoned. The mask had been moulded to the contours of my face — made to measure — so must be a perfect fit.
Perfect excuse for a tantrum. If my bespoke wedding suit does not fit properly, must I cancel the wedding, not shoot the so-called effing tailor?”
Final Farewell
In the end, it all got too much. Christopher Hitchens once remarked, shortly before he died of oesophageal cancer: “I know what’s coming. I know no one beats these odds. And it’s a matter of getting used to that and growing up and realising that you are expelled from your mother’s uterus as if shot from a cannon towards a barn door studded with old nail files and rusty hooks. It’s a matter of how you use up the intervening time in an intelligent and ironic way, and try not to do anything ghastly to your fellow creatures.”
John was always in good spirits (and the good spirit was often in him). He loved his books, he loved his scotch and he loved his cigarettes. And he used his intervening time to share with us his intellect and fill us with mirth. John MacDonald the man is no more with us. But John MacDonald the person will forever reside in the hearts of all his friends who knew him and loved him. And as the Upanishads say, “The little space within the heart is as great as the vast universe. The heavens and the earth are there, and the sun and the moon and the stars. Fire and lightning and winds are there, and all that now is and all that is not.”
I learned a lot from John. He was a special man. He was a dear friend. I miss him.
