The term whitewash has a long and sometimes ignoble history. At its best it recalls the biblical metaphor for being washed white as snow, and garments washed pure white in the blood of Christ. But it has far less attractive connotations. Poor Stephen Hendry suffered his first snooker whitewash this week at the Sheffield World Snooker Championship – a whole session of 8 frames with no wins. An old friend in Aberdeen recalls his army days when the coal was whitewashed to avoid offending the scrutiny of visiting dignitaries. Gordon Brown attempted the impossible task of whitewashing over the electoral meltdown of last week, and the even impossibler (I know that such a comparative is grammatically impossible, but using it makes it more rhetorically effective) task of whitewashing over the flaws and cracks of a doomed leadership.
Whereas, simple and semantically straightforward blogger that I am, I’ve spent most of the Bank Holiday whitewashing the house. And all that I’m covering up is 6 years of weathering which has made the house an unattractive off-white – so I’m whitewashing it, – well painting it with Dulux dead expensive, all weather, eternally lasting, one coat application stuff. It’ll take a few sessions to do it all – and meanwhile I continue to ruminate on metaphors of clean whiteness, cover-ups, the aesthetic appeal of brilliant white as ethical aspiration, or its ethically dubious flip side of denial of unpleasant political realities.
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