Sunday, 15 June 2025
Wednesday, 21 May 2025
A little more inconsequential bollocks and a one-off in as far as it is semi-personal, about writing and disguising art (and I trust that won’t put you off)
A while ago, I started a second blog so that I could keep it private and where I could post stuff I would not want to make public, such as my wife’s - - - - - - - when she - - - - - during the - - - -, and my brother’s - - - - - - - -, my sister’s - - - - - -, that kind of thing.
It was to be ‘my space’ for letting my hair down – the quote marks indicate that ‘my space’ is a ‘new’ expression for us over 70 in that it evolved and became current in the past twenty years rather than last week, and that I’m not overly fond of it as in I’m not accustomed to it.
It wasn’t to be: somehow it was also listed on ‘my other blogs’ with this one, so it was not at all private. Worse the ‘stats’ indicated that he had been read several times.
Well, I couldn’t have that, could I! How would I be able to call my best friend a - - - - - who doesn’t - - - - - - - - - - - - on a good day when he’s sober in a month of Sundays knowing that he might well, solely by chance, come across my second blog and realise that I am not the nice, affable guy he first met in - - - - when we were both working on the - - - - - - but essentially just another two-faced - - - -?
You see my dilemma, but then in a way it got worse: I realised it was my fault that the third ‘private’ blog had been listed and thus accessible to all and not in the lightest bit ‘private’.
So I de-listed it, but, in a sense, that created another problem: as an ‘aspiring writer’ – yes, even at 75 – 76 on November 21 next, sadly – and like all other ‘aspiring writers’ I am more or less convinced that Fate will be kind and that my genius will, it time, be acknowledged and that legions or PhD students and ambitious academics and – well, why not! – biographers will be trawling for details of my life, my work and my thoughts. And where else to trawl, now that writing long letters is a thing of the past, than in a blog.
Yet by keeping my thoughts and all the other crap that sustains biographies private in their own separate blog would – will not only would their job be far harder, but I will be running the risk that would-be biographers finding the tasks of digging out ‘telling details’ so tiresome that they might conclude ‘what the fuck, think I’ll biographise someone else’.
To cut to the chase: I’ve decided to get a little cute and post the occasional ‘private’ blog here in public and in full view of the word, which, of course, will not make it in the slightest ‘private’.
NB I’ve long known that I sharpen my ideas best in conversation and by getting them down in words. Mere ‘thinking’ doesn’t cut it for me. Of those two, in conversation is best as whoever you are talking with will, as an outsider, spot flaws in your thinking which were not apparent to your.
As for writing down my thoughts, I worked as a newspaper sub for 37 years and I’m accustomed to re-writing in order to clarify what I’m writing. That doesn’t necessarily mean it is perfect, but in the reading and rephrasing I, myself, do get more clarity.
It was to be ‘my space’ for letting my hair down – the quote marks indicate that ‘my space’ is a ‘new’ expression for us over 70 in that it evolved and became current in the past twenty years rather than last week, and that I’m not overly fond of it as in I’m not accustomed to it.
It wasn’t to be: somehow it was also listed on ‘my other blogs’ with this one, so it was not at all private. Worse the ‘stats’ indicated that he had been read several times.
Well, I couldn’t have that, could I! How would I be able to call my best friend a - - - - - who doesn’t - - - - - - - - - - - - on a good day when he’s sober in a month of Sundays knowing that he might well, solely by chance, come across my second blog and realise that I am not the nice, affable guy he first met in - - - - when we were both working on the - - - - - - but essentially just another two-faced - - - -?
You see my dilemma, but then in a way it got worse: I realised it was my fault that the third ‘private’ blog had been listed and thus accessible to all and not in the lightest bit ‘private’.
So I de-listed it, but, in a sense, that created another problem: as an ‘aspiring writer’ – yes, even at 75 – 76 on November 21 next, sadly – and like all other ‘aspiring writers’ I am more or less convinced that Fate will be kind and that my genius will, it time, be acknowledged and that legions or PhD students and ambitious academics and – well, why not! – biographers will be trawling for details of my life, my work and my thoughts. And where else to trawl, now that writing long letters is a thing of the past, than in a blog.
Yet by keeping my thoughts and all the other crap that sustains biographies private in their own separate blog would – will not only would their job be far harder, but I will be running the risk that would-be biographers finding the tasks of digging out ‘telling details’ so tiresome that they might conclude ‘what the fuck, think I’ll biographise someone else’.
To cut to the chase: I’ve decided to get a little cute and post the occasional ‘private’ blog here in public and in full view of the word, which, of course, will not make it in the slightest ‘private’.
NB I’ve long known that I sharpen my ideas best in conversation and by getting them down in words. Mere ‘thinking’ doesn’t cut it for me. Of those two, in conversation is best as whoever you are talking with will, as an outsider, spot flaws in your thinking which were not apparent to your.
As for writing down my thoughts, I worked as a newspaper sub for 37 years and I’m accustomed to re-writing in order to clarify what I’m writing. That doesn’t necessarily mean it is perfect, but in the reading and rephrasing I, myself, do get more clarity.
It is always quite surprising how badly phrased a passage might be when you read it the first time around. I don’t know where I first came across this observation, but it is most certainly true: ‘Confused writing betrays confused thought’. Remember that the next time you read something and ask yourself ‘what the fuck is he / she / it on about!’ It might not be your fault.
Sorting through my ideas, in this case by writing this blog entry it the purpose of this and previous and subsequent posts on my private blog. I hope all that isn’t too longwinded and that your are still with me.
Those who have dipped into this blog before might know that I am shameless enough to plug what I have previously written. Those books – a novel, five volumes of short stories, three volumes of verse and a non-fiction opus looking at why Ernest Hemingway, in my opinion really not a great writer at all got to be so bloody famous. But rather than clog up this bit of the post, I have listed them and links on Amazon at the end.
I conceived of what I am obliged to call ‘my second novel’ quite a few years ago and have been thinking about it ever since, but that thinking was not ‘what the story would be’. Ironically although there is ‘a story’ of sorts – and I have now written just under 45,000 words – telling that story is not at all the purpose of this new work.
As far as I can see ‘telling a story’ as in ‘things happening’ is useful in as far as it might serve to hold the reader’s interest while you – that is I in this case – gets on with attempting something else.
I shan’t say what the ‘something else’ I have in mind and will eventually be – or better am – attempting is because if I don’t pull it off, I shall look a little silly, not to say a tad big-headed. But it does relate to the notion, which I find attractive of ‘art that conceals art’. To sound a little more impressive, not to say pretentious, here is the original Latin – ars est celare artem.
I’ve been beavering away at it for a few months now and although progress has been slow in as far as I, like all other would-be writers, will pretty much do anything rather than sit down and fucking writer, though not that I find writing difficulty.
Frankly, I now regard what I am doing as a learning process and I am learning a little more about writing as I go along. And talking of ‘writing’, as far as I can see there are as many different kinds of ‘writing’ as there are writers. Then there’s the fact that different writers will be trying to do different things.
At its most basic some might be hoping to write romance, other murder mystery, others still might be hoping to ‘save the planet’ by pointing out the dangers of ‘global warming’. Some might hope for money and fame, some might purport not to give a fig about money and fame, some might be persuading themselves that they want ‘to create literature’ and so on and on an on (and I have read some real guff from supposedly ‘serious writers’ but no names, no pack drill.
Me, I’m doing it for only two reasons: that I enjoy it and because ever since I was sixteen I’ve persuaded myself that I was ‘a writer’. I shan’t tell the story here as to why I came to believe that, but I shall confess that I more or less did fuck all writing until I sat down and wrote what became Love: A fiction. Essentially, I want to prove to myself that I am not just another of life’s bullshitters, though now it does go just a little deeper than that.
One thing I keep in mind is that nothing, but nothing is perfect from the off and ‘my plan’ is to get it all down, then ‘shape’. The trouble is every time I sit down to write – and see above about procrastination – I am for ever doing a little re-writing when strictly I should not bother with that until the first draft is finished.
NB (the second so far) The other day I looked up the history of pens, mainly those used in the 16th, 17th, 18th and early 19th century.
Sorting through my ideas, in this case by writing this blog entry it the purpose of this and previous and subsequent posts on my private blog. I hope all that isn’t too longwinded and that your are still with me.
. . .
Those who have dipped into this blog before might know that I am shameless enough to plug what I have previously written. Those books – a novel, five volumes of short stories, three volumes of verse and a non-fiction opus looking at why Ernest Hemingway, in my opinion really not a great writer at all got to be so bloody famous. But rather than clog up this bit of the post, I have listed them and links on Amazon at the end.
I conceived of what I am obliged to call ‘my second novel’ quite a few years ago and have been thinking about it ever since, but that thinking was not ‘what the story would be’. Ironically although there is ‘a story’ of sorts – and I have now written just under 45,000 words – telling that story is not at all the purpose of this new work.
As far as I can see ‘telling a story’ as in ‘things happening’ is useful in as far as it might serve to hold the reader’s interest while you – that is I in this case – gets on with attempting something else.
I shan’t say what the ‘something else’ I have in mind and will eventually be – or better am – attempting is because if I don’t pull it off, I shall look a little silly, not to say a tad big-headed. But it does relate to the notion, which I find attractive of ‘art that conceals art’. To sound a little more impressive, not to say pretentious, here is the original Latin – ars est celare artem.
I’ve been beavering away at it for a few months now and although progress has been slow in as far as I, like all other would-be writers, will pretty much do anything rather than sit down and fucking writer, though not that I find writing difficulty.
Frankly, I now regard what I am doing as a learning process and I am learning a little more about writing as I go along. And talking of ‘writing’, as far as I can see there are as many different kinds of ‘writing’ as there are writers. Then there’s the fact that different writers will be trying to do different things.
At its most basic some might be hoping to write romance, other murder mystery, others still might be hoping to ‘save the planet’ by pointing out the dangers of ‘global warming’. Some might hope for money and fame, some might purport not to give a fig about money and fame, some might be persuading themselves that they want ‘to create literature’ and so on and on an on (and I have read some real guff from supposedly ‘serious writers’ but no names, no pack drill.
Me, I’m doing it for only two reasons: that I enjoy it and because ever since I was sixteen I’ve persuaded myself that I was ‘a writer’. I shan’t tell the story here as to why I came to believe that, but I shall confess that I more or less did fuck all writing until I sat down and wrote what became Love: A fiction. Essentially, I want to prove to myself that I am not just another of life’s bullshitters, though now it does go just a little deeper than that.
One thing I keep in mind is that nothing, but nothing is perfect from the off and ‘my plan’ is to get it all down, then ‘shape’. The trouble is every time I sit down to write – and see above about procrastination – I am for ever doing a little re-writing when strictly I should not bother with that until the first draft is finished.
For much of that time writers of every kind were using quill pens, dipping them in ink. ‘Re-writing’, composing drafts was all done by hand and it must have been a bloody pain like no other.
For example, Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, published in six volumes between 1776 and 1789, is estimated to be about 1,105,000 words long. And I am certain that Gibbon made many changes to what he was writing as he went along.
For example, Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, published in six volumes between 1776 and 1789, is estimated to be about 1,105,000 words long. And I am certain that Gibbon made many changes to what he was writing as he went along.
Apart from juvenilia, Jane Austen wrote six novels before she died at the age of 42 in 1817 and all were written with a quill pen.
Later came the metal nib pen but writing was still only done by hand, and although typewriters became common in the last decades of the 19th century, I have no idea how many writers used them in preference to writing by hand. Finally, word processing software such as Microsoft Word (and Bean which I use on my Macs) took over from typewriters.
To get to the point, because of all the re-writing I do, I would find it a real pain to write on a typewriter. Yes, it’s possible, what with crossings out and such, and I did write stories in the early 1990s on a little portable typewriter (and still have them somewhere, though I doubt any would shake much fruit from the trees).
Later came the metal nib pen but writing was still only done by hand, and although typewriters became common in the last decades of the 19th century, I have no idea how many writers used them in preference to writing by hand. Finally, word processing software such as Microsoft Word (and Bean which I use on my Macs) took over from typewriters.
To get to the point, because of all the re-writing I do, I would find it a real pain to write on a typewriter. Yes, it’s possible, what with crossings out and such, and I did write stories in the early 1990s on a little portable typewriter (and still have them somewhere, though I doubt any would shake much fruit from the trees).
Originally a word processor was a kind of digital typewriter and in 1993 I bought one made by Panasonic, a WL50 or a WL55 according to the picture of one I have just found in the net. This was a halfway house 
and certainly not as good as a laptop as it had a limited memory and once you got to a certain point, you had to save what you have written to a floppy disk (look them up, kids) which as a pain. But I am now vastly off track by writing all the semi-irrelevant bullshit.
In fact, I’m going to end this post here. Sorry. I’m sure you are all panting for more, but . . . (I’m tired, so nothing more today, not even another NB).
Here is the work I have so far had printed – I put it that way because although, strictly, they have been published, it was me who published them, and claiming ‘they are published’ might be a tad misleading. In fairness to myself, I haven’t even tried to interest a publisher (and getting one interested in publishing short stories is just a little harder these days than squeezing blood from a stone.
Although all these are available to be bought, I am not interested in ‘making money’ (and would be deluded if I thought I might, frankly), but I would just like the different works to be read. I mean surely that’s at heart all that most writers want? No? OK, I did try.
In fact, I’m going to end this post here. Sorry. I’m sure you are all panting for more, but . . . (I’m tired, so nothing more today, not even another NB).
. . .
Here is the work I have so far had printed – I put it that way because although, strictly, they have been published, it was me who published them, and claiming ‘they are published’ might be a tad misleading. In fairness to myself, I haven’t even tried to interest a publisher (and getting one interested in publishing short stories is just a little harder these days than squeezing blood from a stone.
Although all these are available to be bought, I am not interested in ‘making money’ (and would be deluded if I thought I might, frankly), but I would just like the different works to be read. I mean surely that’s at heart all that most writers want? No? OK, I did try.
Verse:
Oh muse! Where the fuck are you!
My life, the early years – Poems volume 2
I know where you live – Poems volume 3
My life, the early years – Poems volume 2
I know where you live – Poems volume 3
Monday, 19 May 2025
Trump and his gang of no-hopers are still cretins, but here is the first post this year that is not about the Desperate Don and his stupidity, but about short trip of Canterbury to see an old friend and two more recent friends
Canterbury, May 17-19
I have rather neglected this blog and have post only five times since the turn of the year, four times in February and just once in January. Furthermore, all four posts were about what a cretin Donald Trump is and the fifth on the related question of wondering why the far-right in Germany is making a comeback.
None of those posts will have been popular with supporters of he Desperate Don and Germany’s Afd (Alternative für Deutschland) party. Those who happen upon this ‘ere blog might also be wondering ‘can’t the old chap bang on about something else for a change?’
Well, of course, he can and so here and now I shall bang on about a tripette I’ve just made to Canterbury and from where I am returning home to North Cornwall as I sit on the 12.35pm from London Paddington to Exeter St Davids, then to driver the final 60 miles home. And if that topic, most certainly not about morons around the world, including Donald Trump and his assortment of cabinet deadbeats – Rubio, Hegseth, Bondi, Noem, Kennedy, Burgum, Duffy et al – doesn’t shake your tree, piss off and read someone else’s blog and consider yourselves banned from reading mine for a month.
The occasion of my trip was a reunion of sorts with a very good old college friend – ‘old’ as in ‘longstanding’, although neither of us will see 70 again – and two more recently acquired friends, the former drummer in the band they were both in in the 1970s and his wife.
The former drummer was born in Barnard Castle, on the County Durham / Yorkshire border, but has lived in the US for more than forty years and now has American citizenship. His wife is fully American, born in New Jersey.
We chose to meet in Canterbury because our mutual friend lives in Deal on the Kent coast and it was easy for him to drive to Canterbury for Sunday lunch at The Old Weavers in Canterbury old town, built in 1500
This was our second such reunion, and although I had been in touch with the Americans over then net, only the second time I had met them face-to-face. (For those interested, they – all three – had roast lamb but I stuck to chicken Kiev as I am not much of a meat eater these days).
The Americans and I stayed Canterbury’s Cathedral Gate Hotel, sitting in Butter Market and, as the more astute reader will gather, right next to the gate leading to Canterbury Cathedral. The cathedral was literally as stone’s throw away and either backed on to our hotel or our hotel backed on to the cathedral. That’s up to you.
The hotel was as old as the cathedral itself built for monks. Quirky does not even begin to describe it, and the quirks delight most foreign visitors, especially Germans and most Americans, though, the owner assured me, it does get some guests with a vanilla outlook who far prefer very bland, very straight lines and somewhere with as little character as possible. This, I suspect, are wholesome, God-fearing folk from the American Mid-west who can’t be doing with fiddle-faddle of any kind however ‘charming’.
There are no straight lines in the Cathedral Gate Hotel, none at all. Everything is at an angle, uneven and leaning over. I assume the health and safety bods have been over it with a tooth-comb to ensure it is safe to live in, but we can only go on the promise.
Stairs are steep and narrow and uneven. Corridors lead here, there and everywhere. I had a reasonably simple trip to my room on the fourth floor overlooking the Butter Market (which I could not see, however, as the – quite modern – window ‘curtain’ refused to be raised).
My American friends, however, had a more adventurous trip to their room from the reception area. This took them down one narrow corridor, into another off to the left, then up a few stairs to a door leading on a roof. This they had to cross along a short gangway which did have a rubberised floor to avoid slipping in the rain and a guardrail on the sides, but did not have a roof to keep guests on their way to their room dry on their brief crossing from one part of the hotel to another.
Inconvenient? No, not really, just a charming quirk that amused guests (except those from Kansas, Wyoming, Oklahoma and Nebraska).
The weather forecast for Canterbury when I looked at it on Saturday morning just before leaving home promised quite warm temperatures and sun, sun, sun and the more sun for the weekend. And that’s what we got throughout Saturday. We did not on Sunday or this morning. Sunday was distinctly chilly.
Because of that forecast I decided to set off with in just a T-shirt and shirt and dispense with a jacket. Come Sunday I wish I had taken a jacked of some kind, or a hoody. Just after nine when the streets were pretty much deserted and did not fill up with tourists as they did later in the day, I went for a walk around the cathedral and got
colder and colder. Finally, my hour of sightseeing over I decided to find a local Asda or Tesco to get some kind of cheap pullover or hoody. And here in medieval Canterbury old town, of course, there was nothing of the kind.
So I went into one of the – very many – touristy shops to ask where I might find an Asda or Tesco (think Walmart or similar – I was not looking for anything fashionable just something a tad warmer than a thin cotton T-shirt and a thin cotton shirt).
There an extremely helpful shopowner told me there was a Primark in ‘the high street (and the Asda and Tesco superstores) were some distance away for a walker). He checked and told me it would be opening in and hour at 11am. Then he did something quite touching: he insisted that I borrow his jacket (something like a North Face item) while I found my way to the Primark branch. I refused. But he kept insisting until I could no longer refuse, and I then set off
As it turned out a branch of Sports Direct was already open and I bought a hoody for a very reasonably £16 (after having to ask whether they had anything cheaper than the £59.99 hoodies more prominently on display). Then it was back to the shop to return the jacket, and this led to a long conversation.
The owner, a man from Uzbekistan, was a former sociology lecturer at the University of Kent. I discovered this when I asked where he was from as his kind of generosity, though not unknown in Britain, was unusual. We then talked bout this and that for the next hour and a half.
He explained that since Brexit – remember Brexit? Funding for universities, much of it dependent on European Union money, and the number for European students had fallen alarmingly, his department staff of 60 had reduced to 13 and fearing the worst he and his wife and decided to open their shop (though why that kind of shop was not clear and nor did I think of asking).
After that lunch at The Old Weavers followed by a trip to pub showing Sky sports and see Arsenal beat Newcastle, secure its participation in next season’s Champions League.
That’s it really. A little break in routine which has been welcome.
Pip, pip.
I have rather neglected this blog and have post only five times since the turn of the year, four times in February and just once in January. Furthermore, all four posts were about what a cretin Donald Trump is and the fifth on the related question of wondering why the far-right in Germany is making a comeback.
None of those posts will have been popular with supporters of he Desperate Don and Germany’s Afd (Alternative für Deutschland) party. Those who happen upon this ‘ere blog might also be wondering ‘can’t the old chap bang on about something else for a change?’
Well, of course, he can and so here and now I shall bang on about a tripette I’ve just made to Canterbury and from where I am returning home to North Cornwall as I sit on the 12.35pm from London Paddington to Exeter St Davids, then to driver the final 60 miles home. And if that topic, most certainly not about morons around the world, including Donald Trump and his assortment of cabinet deadbeats – Rubio, Hegseth, Bondi, Noem, Kennedy, Burgum, Duffy et al – doesn’t shake your tree, piss off and read someone else’s blog and consider yourselves banned from reading mine for a month.
The occasion of my trip was a reunion of sorts with a very good old college friend – ‘old’ as in ‘longstanding’, although neither of us will see 70 again – and two more recently acquired friends, the former drummer in the band they were both in in the 1970s and his wife.
The former drummer was born in Barnard Castle, on the County Durham / Yorkshire border, but has lived in the US for more than forty years and now has American citizenship. His wife is fully American, born in New Jersey.
We chose to meet in Canterbury because our mutual friend lives in Deal on the Kent coast and it was easy for him to drive to Canterbury for Sunday lunch at The Old Weavers in Canterbury old town, built in 1500
although dated on its sign as 1500, much of the structure of the building is earlier with the foundation having been laid in the 12th century. The fabric of the street frontage is 15th century with 16th to 20th century alterations and additions. The external river frontage has been much altered and extended from three to five gables, disguises the original 15th century fabric. In the interior of the building much of the original Tudor structure has survived with Jacobean, Georgian and later additions.
This was our second such reunion, and although I had been in touch with the Americans over then net, only the second time I had met them face-to-face. (For those interested, they – all three – had roast lamb but I stuck to chicken Kiev as I am not much of a meat eater these days).
The Americans and I stayed Canterbury’s Cathedral Gate Hotel, sitting in Butter Market and, as the more astute reader will gather, right next to the gate leading to Canterbury Cathedral. The cathedral was literally as stone’s throw away and either backed on to our hotel or our hotel backed on to the cathedral. That’s up to you.
The hotel was as old as the cathedral itself built for monks. Quirky does not even begin to describe it, and the quirks delight most foreign visitors, especially Germans and most Americans, though, the owner assured me, it does get some guests with a vanilla outlook who far prefer very bland, very straight lines and somewhere with as little character as possible. This, I suspect, are wholesome, God-fearing folk from the American Mid-west who can’t be doing with fiddle-faddle of any kind however ‘charming’.
There are no straight lines in the Cathedral Gate Hotel, none at all. Everything is at an angle, uneven and leaning over. I assume the health and safety bods have been over it with a tooth-comb to ensure it is safe to live in, but we can only go on the promise.
Stairs are steep and narrow and uneven. Corridors lead here, there and everywhere. I had a reasonably simple trip to my room on the fourth floor overlooking the Butter Market (which I could not see, however, as the – quite modern – window ‘curtain’ refused to be raised).
My American friends, however, had a more adventurous trip to their room from the reception area. This took them down one narrow corridor, into another off to the left, then up a few stairs to a door leading on a roof. This they had to cross along a short gangway which did have a rubberised floor to avoid slipping in the rain and a guardrail on the sides, but did not have a roof to keep guests on their way to their room dry on their brief crossing from one part of the hotel to another.
Inconvenient? No, not really, just a charming quirk that amused guests (except those from Kansas, Wyoming, Oklahoma and Nebraska).
The weather forecast for Canterbury when I looked at it on Saturday morning just before leaving home promised quite warm temperatures and sun, sun, sun and the more sun for the weekend. And that’s what we got throughout Saturday. We did not on Sunday or this morning. Sunday was distinctly chilly.
Because of that forecast I decided to set off with in just a T-shirt and shirt and dispense with a jacket. Come Sunday I wish I had taken a jacked of some kind, or a hoody. Just after nine when the streets were pretty much deserted and did not fill up with tourists as they did later in the day, I went for a walk around the cathedral and got
colder and colder. Finally, my hour of sightseeing over I decided to find a local Asda or Tesco to get some kind of cheap pullover or hoody. And here in medieval Canterbury old town, of course, there was nothing of the kind.
So I went into one of the – very many – touristy shops to ask where I might find an Asda or Tesco (think Walmart or similar – I was not looking for anything fashionable just something a tad warmer than a thin cotton T-shirt and a thin cotton shirt).
There an extremely helpful shopowner told me there was a Primark in ‘the high street (and the Asda and Tesco superstores) were some distance away for a walker). He checked and told me it would be opening in and hour at 11am. Then he did something quite touching: he insisted that I borrow his jacket (something like a North Face item) while I found my way to the Primark branch. I refused. But he kept insisting until I could no longer refuse, and I then set off
As it turned out a branch of Sports Direct was already open and I bought a hoody for a very reasonably £16 (after having to ask whether they had anything cheaper than the £59.99 hoodies more prominently on display). Then it was back to the shop to return the jacket, and this led to a long conversation.
The owner, a man from Uzbekistan, was a former sociology lecturer at the University of Kent. I discovered this when I asked where he was from as his kind of generosity, though not unknown in Britain, was unusual. We then talked bout this and that for the next hour and a half.
He explained that since Brexit – remember Brexit? Funding for universities, much of it dependent on European Union money, and the number for European students had fallen alarmingly, his department staff of 60 had reduced to 13 and fearing the worst he and his wife and decided to open their shop (though why that kind of shop was not clear and nor did I think of asking).
After that lunch at The Old Weavers followed by a trip to pub showing Sky sports and see Arsenal beat Newcastle, secure its participation in next season’s Champions League.
That’s it really. A little break in routine which has been welcome.
Pip, pip.
Wednesday, 26 February 2025
A new American civil war? Can it happen? Will it happen? Who knows, but it ain't looking encouraging for the Yanks. Mind they were stupid enough to elect a rapist fraudulent felon who paints his face orange every morning
Unlikely? Well, as unlikely as a convicted felon, proven fraudster and ajudged rapist being elected US President.
That happened, so frankly all bets are off.
Face it, ALL of us here might be outraged and predict the worst, but in our - I’ll say it! - complacent liberal way, there’s a corner of us which keeps whispering ‘don’t fret, it won’t come to that’ and, guiltily, we take a quiet solace in that ‘well, this is America, this kind of thing doesn’t happen!’
Well, what HAS happened is that SCOTUS has declared that ‘a president is immune from criminal prosecution for any presidential acts’, and that will in time certainly open a can of worms.
What is so piss-poor about that ruling is not what is says, which is dubious enough, but far worse: how utterly vague and supremely debatable the phrase ‘presidential acts’ is! It can mean anything depending upon who is being asked. And, of course, it bloody will!
So while we outraged angel-souled liberals get our lawyers to complain to the federal courts that this and that can certainly NOT be construed as a ‘presidential act’, La Trumpa and his organ grinders (of whom I suspect there are several and La Trumpa is to dumb to realise he is fundamentally a patsy) are already having the lawyers argue the toss in court in the standard delaying tactic will also committing more ‘presidential acts’.
Result: total bloody legal logjam and it will be one which really will divide the nation. It’s the old and very useful political tactic to neutralise opposition: ‘send it to committee’.
It’s even worse than that, however. What if, say, one of La Trumpa’s ‘presidential acts’ is not necessarily to murder opponents - though we are now assured ‘he could in the course of doing his duty’– but far simpler: to detain under house arrest as many Democrat lawmakers as he need as well as potential Republican ‘trouble-makers’.
More democratic outrage and thundering editorials in the Washington Post, New York Times and even the Wall Stree Journal ‘that this is wholly unacceptable!
Then, after a federal judge has put a temporary stay on the relevant presidential order and ruled that the deatainees must be released - sparking more confusion about ‘judges overreaching their authority’ – what then? Simple, La Trumpa and his mobster, simply ignore the judicial rulings.
There, in a nutshell, is the simple liberal democratic dilemma: WE ‘play by the rules’ and are stymied when other simply don’t do so.
And the first such two-fingers (US middle finger) to the judiciary makes subsequent two-fingered salutes ever easier and they come thick and fast.
You Yanks have guns and aren’t afraid to use them (and we Brits are perpetually baffled by the bullshit about ‘it’s every Americans right to bear arms’ – yes, in the frontier days 240 years ago, but in 2025 when it is now something of a weekend sport to take out as many elementary school kids and students as you can before lunch.
So how soon might it be that someone takes up arms to make a ‘democratic’ point about La Trumpa and MAGA pissing all over American democracy, then getting an armed response.
Lord, what a fucking bloody mess you guys have allowed to evolve. Seems you took your eye off the ball.
Monday, 24 February 2025
East and West and never the twain shall meet – the Romans cottoned on fast, so what’s the future for a country so divided and with a rising far-right party scoring well in a federal election?
There’s a very good overview of the 2,000 years of the part of central Europe which we now know as German and Austria called The Shortest History Of Germany (by a James Hawes). I stress that it is an overview and is not a detailed, academic history. But, like me. you might initially want and overview and later go on little by little to refine what you have learnt little by little and fill in the cracks.
One of Hawes’ central contentions is that since the Roman occupation of part of Germany, the part of the world has been quite radically divided into two quite distinct spheres, along a line which runs more or less as the same course of the river Elbe.
Hawes contends that when the Roman empire came to expand into that part of the continent, they had so much trouble first conquering the tribes east of the Rhine, then holding on to the territory they had conquered, that they eventually decided that trying to do so really wasn’t worth the hassle.
The worst encounter with those tribes was in the first decade AD when an estimated 20/25,000 Roman soldiers of three of its best legions were wiped out in the Teutoburg Forest by a Teuton tribe under the leadership of Armin / Herman.
So, Rome decided, that’s it – let those savages stew in their own juice.
OK, the Elbe is further east than the Rhine, but the course of the Elbe was a very good line to draw. The divide was not hard and fast. The Romans did allow trading to carry on across the Rhine into the area west of the Elbe, but they never bothered with the territory to the east of the Elbe.
Hawes fleshes out his notion by contending that from the Middle Ages and until unification ‘West Germany’ – and I mean the term in a geographical sense, not a national or political sense – looked west for its alliances, cultural links
and trade, and regarded itself as ‘belonging’ to western Europe.
Conversely, ‘East Germany’ and its people felt far greater kinship with the Slavic peoples to their east, and made their alliances and cultural and trading with them. And frankly both sides of Germany had rather less to do with each other than we might think.
Hawes also contends – and research, archives and documentation of different kinds could well bear this out – that there was also a notable religious and political divide between ‘West’ and ‘East’ Germany.
The west was, largely, Roman Catholic and the East was largely Lutheran. And the values of both the parts of Germany reflected the values we (perhaps generalising a little) associate with Catholics and Prots.
That is a plausible notion and if nothing else might explain some things. But as far as the map here is concerned, Hawes writes that support for the National Socialists was rather lukewarm west of the Elbe but enthusiastic to the east.
Again this suggestion might well be tested by looking up voting patterns etc (although not by me). As a ‘half-German’, I do get a little pissed of by ‘traditional’ lazy Brit stereotyping of the Nazi era that ‘the Germans were all Nazis’ – bollocks!
There most certainly was resistance to the Nazis from the start, but as you could end up dying and eventually dead in a concentration camp for opposing the thugs in charge, it is not surprising that many kept their heads down and opted for a quiet life. And Brits better not try to persuade themselves that the vast majority would not have done the same.
And that brings me to the map here: except for a part of East Berlin and a tiny part of ‘East’ Germany, ALL of ‘East’ Germany Germany voted solidly AfD. On the other hand in ‘West’ Germany the Afd only scored in a small part of the Rhineland Palatine and apart from isolated and small areas which went the social-democrats, the CDU/CSU held sway.
And that fits in rather neatly with Hawes’ contentions.
One of Hawes’ central contentions is that since the Roman occupation of part of Germany, the part of the world has been quite radically divided into two quite distinct spheres, along a line which runs more or less as the same course of the river Elbe.
Hawes contends that when the Roman empire came to expand into that part of the continent, they had so much trouble first conquering the tribes east of the Rhine, then holding on to the territory they had conquered, that they eventually decided that trying to do so really wasn’t worth the hassle.
The worst encounter with those tribes was in the first decade AD when an estimated 20/25,000 Roman soldiers of three of its best legions were wiped out in the Teutoburg Forest by a Teuton tribe under the leadership of Armin / Herman.
So, Rome decided, that’s it – let those savages stew in their own juice.
OK, the Elbe is further east than the Rhine, but the course of the Elbe was a very good line to draw. The divide was not hard and fast. The Romans did allow trading to carry on across the Rhine into the area west of the Elbe, but they never bothered with the territory to the east of the Elbe.
Hawes fleshes out his notion by contending that from the Middle Ages and until unification ‘West Germany’ – and I mean the term in a geographical sense, not a national or political sense – looked west for its alliances, cultural links
and trade, and regarded itself as ‘belonging’ to western Europe.
Conversely, ‘East Germany’ and its people felt far greater kinship with the Slavic peoples to their east, and made their alliances and cultural and trading with them. And frankly both sides of Germany had rather less to do with each other than we might think.
Hawes also contends – and research, archives and documentation of different kinds could well bear this out – that there was also a notable religious and political divide between ‘West’ and ‘East’ Germany.
The west was, largely, Roman Catholic and the East was largely Lutheran. And the values of both the parts of Germany reflected the values we (perhaps generalising a little) associate with Catholics and Prots.
That is a plausible notion and if nothing else might explain some things. But as far as the map here is concerned, Hawes writes that support for the National Socialists was rather lukewarm west of the Elbe but enthusiastic to the east.
Again this suggestion might well be tested by looking up voting patterns etc (although not by me). As a ‘half-German’, I do get a little pissed of by ‘traditional’ lazy Brit stereotyping of the Nazi era that ‘the Germans were all Nazis’ – bollocks!
There most certainly was resistance to the Nazis from the start, but as you could end up dying and eventually dead in a concentration camp for opposing the thugs in charge, it is not surprising that many kept their heads down and opted for a quiet life. And Brits better not try to persuade themselves that the vast majority would not have done the same.
And that brings me to the map here: except for a part of East Berlin and a tiny part of ‘East’ Germany, ALL of ‘East’ Germany Germany voted solidly AfD. On the other hand in ‘West’ Germany the Afd only scored in a small part of the Rhineland Palatine and apart from isolated and small areas which went the social-democrats, the CDU/CSU held sway.
And that fits in rather neatly with Hawes’ contentions.
Saturday, 22 February 2025
Q: What is the difference between a clueless, cack-handed twat and Donald Trump? A: There isn't one
Proving again that he has van Gogh’s ear for music, Donald Trump has once more shot himself in the foot: piss of the Democrats if you like, Donny - but DON’T piss off your own side! But you are!
American conservatives don’t like Russia and Putin IS Russia. And they want nothing at all to do with that ‘Evil Empire’ (© Ronnie Reagan) and are pissed off with Donny is crawling up Putin’s bum.
The Murdoch-owned Post has the fourth largest circulation in the US and has been staunchly conservative since it was founded 224 years ago. Very conservative as are its readers!
Listen up MAGA and other conservatives: this is the cretin you have put back in the White House. End the Ukraine war ‘in a day’? Yeah, right! Bring down inflation? It’s going up! Bring down prices? Er, they are still going up.
American conservatives don’t like Russia and Putin IS Russia. And they want nothing at all to do with that ‘Evil Empire’ (© Ronnie Reagan) and are pissed off with Donny is crawling up Putin’s bum.
The Murdoch-owned Post has the fourth largest circulation in the US and has been staunchly conservative since it was founded 224 years ago. Very conservative as are its readers!
With his usual cack-handed skill Donny has - all on his own - landed himself in a terrible fix: carry on sucking up to Putin and lose the support of your own. About-turn and take against Putin, and you will
1) look very, VERY weak and silly, and,
2) Putin will take against you with a vengeance.
Listen up MAGA and other conservatives: this is the cretin you have put back in the White House. End the Ukraine war ‘in a day’? Yeah, right! Bring down inflation? It’s going up! Bring down prices? Er, they are still going up.
But what Donny IS good up is screwing up - he did it in the 1990s but was rescued by NBC, he did it between 2020 and 2024 and was on his way to jail, but was rescued by the voters electing him again. Now, though, he is doing his best to make sure they will withdraw their support.
Nice going, Donny!
Tuesday, 4 February 2025
America, your country is now a fucking mess so do something – we don’t want the rest of the world to be dragged into your lunacy!
I have no idea whether you now reading this are from Asia, Europe, Africa, an Aussie or an American. And if you are American, I have not idea whether you support Trump and voted for him last November or whether you think not only does he have several screws loose but is worse than clever and dangerous – as Stalin was: Trump is stupid and dangerous (as the man with the funny moustache was whose ‘Empire of a thousand days’ – das tausendjähriges Reich – lasted just 12 years). Ironically, as far as that is concerned it doesn’t matter either way.
I have already posted several blog entries making it clear that I think Donald J Trump is a $9 bill who should not get the time of day from anyone and who is bad news all round, and not least the millions who voted for him, so there seems little point in repeating all that.
But what I haven’t written about is the odd situation that – as far as I can see – in America there is an elephant in the room which everyone is ignoring. And that – the head in the sand – is far more troubling than even the fat orange fraud occupying the White House and the damage he will do to his own country. Patriot? Really?
The elephant in the room is this: the United States now has as its president – it’s legitimately elected president, and that feature of the matter is pertinent – a man who is a convicted felon, whose sexual assault on magazine journalist E Jean Carroll has been adjudged to be tantamount to rape, a man who, most probably knowingly, inspired insurrection and so on. But none of that is new.
The question is, and I’m sure it is being debated in some parts, not least in the US, but which oddly seems to get no public showing: how on earth did such a ridiculous situation come about? How on earth did such an apology for a man get within 1,000 miles of the White House, a man who, for example when he was first president, had to be told that ‘the Balkans’ were not the same as ‘the Baltics’?
like Trump of which, apparently, in MAGA land there seem to be quite a few. The bottom line is that Trump won the White House because of America’s decidedly wacky electoral college system
That 238-year-old electoral college system is archaic, hugely flawed and as the man once said ‘not fit for purpose’. You can even hear it creaking every four years from this side of the Atlantic, in cosy Old Blighty. But although that is not news to anyone and many – though not all – Americans agree the electoral college needs root-and-branch reform, it would be easier to establish total harmony in the Middle East in perpetuity than get agreement on how – even whether – to reform: getting the 50 US states, all intensely jealous of many aspects of their autonomy is seemingly impossible.
In the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia it was at first proposed that Americans should elect their leader (i.e. the President) by a direct popular vote. This was rejected, partly because the mover and shakers in Philadelphia writing the constitution were not keen on the ordinary man in the street (or as then was the ordinary man in the field).
There was also additional concern from the southern, slave-owning states where almost 90% of the five states population was black and didn’t have a vote. Thus the number of voters they had would be far fewer than in those states in the north which was equal in population size and so the north would always dominate the union.
So the compromise was the electoral college system whereby each state was allocated a certain number of electors and the five southern states were allocated a disproportionate number of electors given the size of their population.
stolen’, that Donald Trump is ‘the victim of “lawfare” and is as innocent and pure as the driven snow’; the list would go on, but you reading this are familiar with it.
The elephant in the room which is studiously ignored by the United States of America it that this state of affairs did not develop from overnight, or from one week to the next, or from on year to the next or even from one decade to the nest.
There is something very rotten in the United States of America yet no one, but no one is prepared talk about it. Trump has been guilty of many crimes, but perhaps the most egregious because as supposed Republican who professes to champion law and order, he pardoned all those convicted of any crime committed in the January 6 invasion of Congress.
I have already posted several blog entries making it clear that I think Donald J Trump is a $9 bill who should not get the time of day from anyone and who is bad news all round, and not least the millions who voted for him, so there seems little point in repeating all that.
But what I haven’t written about is the odd situation that – as far as I can see – in America there is an elephant in the room which everyone is ignoring. And that – the head in the sand – is far more troubling than even the fat orange fraud occupying the White House and the damage he will do to his own country. Patriot? Really?
The elephant in the room is this: the United States now has as its president – it’s legitimately elected president, and that feature of the matter is pertinent – a man who is a convicted felon, whose sexual assault on magazine journalist E Jean Carroll has been adjudged to be tantamount to rape, a man who, most probably knowingly, inspired insurrection and so on. But none of that is new.
The question is, and I’m sure it is being debated in some parts, not least in the US, but which oddly seems to get no public showing: how on earth did such a ridiculous situation come about? How on earth did such an apology for a man get within 1,000 miles of the White House, a man who, for example when he was first president, had to be told that ‘the Balkans’ were not the same as ‘the Baltics’?
And you don’t have to be a Democrat to think that: the GOP is full of staunch conservatives who are in despair at what Trump is doing and think he is a ‘fucking moron’ (© Rex Tillerson).
If, of course, you are one of those who ‘like what Trump says, he gives it too us straight’ and that ‘he will make America great again’ and don’t believe, as I do, that he us full of 24-carat bullshit, I am the one you will insist is ‘an apology for a man’.
If, of course, you are one of those who ‘like what Trump says, he gives it too us straight’ and that ‘he will make America great again’ and don’t believe, as I do, that he us full of 24-carat bullshit, I am the one you will insist is ‘an apology for a man’.
Well, that’s as maybe, but I certainly fancy my chances of coming out way ahead of Trump in any morality beauty parade.
The essence of the problem facing America – and I suggest it is not at all too dramatic or pretentious to describe it as an existential problem – is that Trump has tens of millions of supporters, tens of millions of folk who we can only assume are as straight-up as everyone else. So he does have a lot of folk backing him, although despite Dumpy Trump’s crowing and bragging, he did not enjoy a ‘landslide election’ of any kind last November. And that claim needs some unpacking.
In terms of ‘electoral college’ votes, a case might be made – as does Trump – that his election was ‘landslide’: because then the votes were tallied up in different states and the different state electors were divvied up, at the finish line he won 312 of the electoral college votes, 86 more than his opponent, Kamala Harris.
But hold on: the crucial detail here is ‘the electoral college’ and in terms of how many of the popular votes he won, it was a very narrow victory if not close run, though given the electoral college set-up pretty much every US election in recent times has been close run on the popular votes metric.
Nationwide Trump won 77,303,573 votes with Harris taking 75,019,257 of the popular vote on a turnout of 63.9% of those eligible to vote). That is certainly not a landslide in anyone’s book, unless you are state-registered fantasist
. . .
The essence of the problem facing America – and I suggest it is not at all too dramatic or pretentious to describe it as an existential problem – is that Trump has tens of millions of supporters, tens of millions of folk who we can only assume are as straight-up as everyone else. So he does have a lot of folk backing him, although despite Dumpy Trump’s crowing and bragging, he did not enjoy a ‘landslide election’ of any kind last November. And that claim needs some unpacking.
In terms of ‘electoral college’ votes, a case might be made – as does Trump – that his election was ‘landslide’: because then the votes were tallied up in different states and the different state electors were divvied up, at the finish line he won 312 of the electoral college votes, 86 more than his opponent, Kamala Harris.
But hold on: the crucial detail here is ‘the electoral college’ and in terms of how many of the popular votes he won, it was a very narrow victory if not close run, though given the electoral college set-up pretty much every US election in recent times has been close run on the popular votes metric.
Nationwide Trump won 77,303,573 votes with Harris taking 75,019,257 of the popular vote on a turnout of 63.9% of those eligible to vote). That is certainly not a landslide in anyone’s book, unless you are state-registered fantasist
like Trump of which, apparently, in MAGA land there seem to be quite a few. The bottom line is that Trump won the White House because of America’s decidedly wacky electoral college system
That 238-year-old electoral college system is archaic, hugely flawed and as the man once said ‘not fit for purpose’. You can even hear it creaking every four years from this side of the Atlantic, in cosy Old Blighty. But although that is not news to anyone and many – though not all – Americans agree the electoral college needs root-and-branch reform, it would be easier to establish total harmony in the Middle East in perpetuity than get agreement on how – even whether – to reform: getting the 50 US states, all intensely jealous of many aspects of their autonomy is seemingly impossible.
. . .
In the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia it was at first proposed that Americans should elect their leader (i.e. the President) by a direct popular vote. This was rejected, partly because the mover and shakers in Philadelphia writing the constitution were not keen on the ordinary man in the street (or as then was the ordinary man in the field).
There was also additional concern from the southern, slave-owning states where almost 90% of the five states population was black and didn’t have a vote. Thus the number of voters they had would be far fewer than in those states in the north which was equal in population size and so the north would always dominate the union.
So the compromise was the electoral college system whereby each state was allocated a certain number of electors and the five southern states were allocated a disproportionate number of electors given the size of their population.
Whether or not it was noticed that under that arrangement the boot was very much on the other foot and the south would dominate the union does not seem to be recorded. And unsurprisingly, for the next fifty-odd years the US president came from the southern states given that part of America’s electoral clout
Since then there have been two constitutional amendments to sort out this and that, but the number of proposed reforms – more than 700 over the past 250 years – highlights how dissatisfied many Americans are with the system.
In brief, Donald Trump can stick his ‘landslide election victory’ where the sun don’t shine: it is 24-carat nonsense.
All that, though, is a side issue to the problem which dare not speak its name: that even were Trump to die tomorrow or otherwise leave the stage and perhaps deflate the MAGA movement, the political sentiments in America which sustained the rise to power of a man who is akin to a lunatic would still be be present.
Since then there have been two constitutional amendments to sort out this and that, but the number of proposed reforms – more than 700 over the past 250 years – highlights how dissatisfied many Americans are with the system.
In brief, Donald Trump can stick his ‘landslide election victory’ where the sun don’t shine: it is 24-carat nonsense.
. . .
And as eggs is eggs another similar cynical character – and quite possibly far cleverer man or woman than Trump – would step up to tap into those feelings.
Thus the elephant in the room is that American men and women in their tens of millions are happy to condone rule by a man who is a contradiction from every angle.
Thus the elephant in the room is that American men and women in their tens of millions are happy to condone rule by a man who is a contradiction from every angle.
So how did that situation arise? I ask because I am certainly not suggesting that all those tens of millions are terminally stupid or plain evil: a great many will want the best for their country as the next voter.
They pledges their allegiance to Trump and gave him their vote because he said the right things: he promised ‘to beat inflation and bring down prices on day one’, but now (as I write) we are on day sixteen of his regim and the signs are his ill-advised tariffs will push up inflation and prices.
However vacuous and insincere his slogan Make America Great Again might be, it did and still does resonate with a great many Americans, though frankly, given America’s economic clout I’m at a loss to call to mind a time when America, more or less, was not great. But that is beside the point.
Similarly with the angst he is stirring up about immigrants: yes, there are a great many immigrants living in the US who did not enter the country legally, apparently as many as eleven million. Unfortunately, a vast number of them are so well-integrated that in many industries they have become crucial and those industries would be in a jam if they were no longer available. This is particularly true in the agricultural industry in the states to the west and southwest.
Just days ago I read a report – the usual caveat, of course, that we should not necessarily believe everything we read in the papers – that when in California and at Trump’s instigation Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers set about rounding up whatever illegal immigrants they could find, on orange farms where the picking was done my illegal immigrants on the first day 25% of pickers did not show up for work, and on the following day the figure rose to 75%.
They are scared to be caught. Meanwhile, the orange grove farmers are going spare because their fruit is remaining unpicked.
Then there the question that these immigrants, partly no doubt because they are keen to keep a low profile don’t object to doing the dirty jobs good ol’ patriotic Americans feel is beneath them. Well, get rid of the immigrants and someone will have to do them. It seems ‘joined-up thinking’ is not in the Trump MAGA playbook.
Several years ago, the magazine the Economist organised a survey in Britain about ‘the number of immigrants’ and how people felt about immigration.
They pledges their allegiance to Trump and gave him their vote because he said the right things: he promised ‘to beat inflation and bring down prices on day one’, but now (as I write) we are on day sixteen of his regim and the signs are his ill-advised tariffs will push up inflation and prices.
However vacuous and insincere his slogan Make America Great Again might be, it did and still does resonate with a great many Americans, though frankly, given America’s economic clout I’m at a loss to call to mind a time when America, more or less, was not great. But that is beside the point.
Similarly with the angst he is stirring up about immigrants: yes, there are a great many immigrants living in the US who did not enter the country legally, apparently as many as eleven million. Unfortunately, a vast number of them are so well-integrated that in many industries they have become crucial and those industries would be in a jam if they were no longer available. This is particularly true in the agricultural industry in the states to the west and southwest.
Just days ago I read a report – the usual caveat, of course, that we should not necessarily believe everything we read in the papers – that when in California and at Trump’s instigation Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers set about rounding up whatever illegal immigrants they could find, on orange farms where the picking was done my illegal immigrants on the first day 25% of pickers did not show up for work, and on the following day the figure rose to 75%.
They are scared to be caught. Meanwhile, the orange grove farmers are going spare because their fruit is remaining unpicked.
Then there the question that these immigrants, partly no doubt because they are keen to keep a low profile don’t object to doing the dirty jobs good ol’ patriotic Americans feel is beneath them. Well, get rid of the immigrants and someone will have to do them. It seems ‘joined-up thinking’ is not in the Trump MAGA playbook.
Several years ago, the magazine the Economist organised a survey in Britain about ‘the number of immigrants’ and how people felt about immigration.
The odd result was that opposition to immigration and condemnation of the then government’s immigration policy was highest in areas with almost no immigrants at all. And those who did live in those – quite affluent – areas were professionals who rubbed along quite well with their neighbours. On the other hand in cities where a large number of immigrants did live, there was not a great deal of enmity to them.
At least 80 million of its people are prepared to accept the kind of violence we saw live on our TV screens on January 6, 2021; that at least 80 million people are prepared to believe that black is white, that ‘the election in was
At least 80 million of its people are prepared to accept the kind of violence we saw live on our TV screens on January 6, 2021; that at least 80 million people are prepared to believe that black is white, that ‘the election in was
 |
An American patriot exercises his constitutional right on January 6, 2021, to smash his way into Congress to disrupt the peaceful handover of power |
stolen’, that Donald Trump is ‘the victim of “lawfare” and is as innocent and pure as the driven snow’; the list would go on, but you reading this are familiar with it.
The elephant in the room which is studiously ignored by the United States of America it that this state of affairs did not develop from overnight, or from one week to the next, or from on year to the next or even from one decade to the nest.
There is something very rotten in the United States of America yet no one, but no one is prepared talk about it. Trump has been guilty of many crimes, but perhaps the most egregious because as supposed Republican who professes to champion law and order, he pardoned all those convicted of any crime committed in the January 6 invasion of Congress.
Some of the crimes were compartatively minor, rather a lot were violent. Trump pardoned them all: he had continually described those jailed as ‘hostages’ so one wonders why rather a lot of those hostages admitted violent acts on January 6.
Pertinent is that at least 78 million Americans are quite happy to accept Trump’s hypocrisy and see nothing wrong with what in less blinkered eyes was an insurrection. Yes, it is now that bad in America.There is a very long, very broad yellow streak in the US and it will only grow longer and broader if it is not addressed
I might end on a gratuitous gibe, but one which from these shores seems less fantastical than might at first appear: what else can expect in a nation where millions insist on their right ‘to bear arms’ so that shooting up a nearby elementary school and killing fifteen young children is now something of a weekend sport.
America: do something before you go the way of the dodo!
I might end on a gratuitous gibe, but one which from these shores seems less fantastical than might at first appear: what else can expect in a nation where millions insist on their right ‘to bear arms’ so that shooting up a nearby elementary school and killing fifteen young children is now something of a weekend sport.
America: do something before you go the way of the dodo!
Sunday, 5 January 2025
Think 2024 was bad? Breaking news: 2025 could get a lot worse if Lady Luck doesn’t smile on the world. And from what I hear Lady Luck has taken the decade off
There was a comment by someone or other in one of the Times Radio interviews (many of which are available on Youtube) which, for me, sums up why after 80 years of comparative peace, the world might now be in for a colossal and very unpleasant shake-up.
Peace? Well, the relevant word above is ‘comparative’, and certainly when we think of the Congo, Libya, Vietnam, Biafra, Malaya, Cyprus, Korea, the Gulf and so on, there has been precious little peace for those living ‘locally’ in these past 80 years.
But, ‘locally’ is the second relevant word: however awful each war was, it was always ‘local.
What the Times Radio interviewee (I think it was Phillip Ingram) pointed out was that the huge danger facing the world – except, possibly, South America which tends go its own merry way, though it, too, has its troubles – is that the current crop of ‘local’ danger hotspots might ‘merge into one global hotspot’ (though cv above South America).
What do we have? Well, as far as war is concerned there is, at present, Ukraine and the Middle East. But a growing danger is the indisputable rise of and the indisputable growing support for the the far-right in Europe: in Germany, Austria, France, Italy and, if Nige’s Reform does hi-jack the Tory Party much as a virus can hi-jack a body, contentiously even Britain.
Hungary already has it’s own – in his own cynical words – ‘illiberal democrat’ in Viktor Orban (below right with his pal Vladimir Putin). Slovakia and Georgia are heading down that road, and there is active, if as yet reasonably
Peace? Well, the relevant word above is ‘comparative’, and certainly when we think of the Congo, Libya, Vietnam, Biafra, Malaya, Cyprus, Korea, the Gulf and so on, there has been precious little peace for those living ‘locally’ in these past 80 years.
But, ‘locally’ is the second relevant word: however awful each war was, it was always ‘local.
What the Times Radio interviewee (I think it was Phillip Ingram) pointed out was that the huge danger facing the world – except, possibly, South America which tends go its own merry way, though it, too, has its troubles – is that the current crop of ‘local’ danger hotspots might ‘merge into one global hotspot’ (though cv above South America).
What do we have? Well, as far as war is concerned there is, at present, Ukraine and the Middle East. But a growing danger is the indisputable rise of and the indisputable growing support for the the far-right in Europe: in Germany, Austria, France, Italy and, if Nige’s Reform does hi-jack the Tory Party much as a virus can hi-jack a body, contentiously even Britain.
Hungary already has it’s own – in his own cynical words – ‘illiberal democrat’ in Viktor Orban (below right with his pal Vladimir Putin). Slovakia and Georgia are heading down that road, and there is active, if as yet reasonably
dormant and ineffective, far-rightism in Italy, France, The Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and Poland.
One of the attractions of those far-rightists for the many ‘ordinary voter’ is that they are vociferously against, not just immigration, but immigrants who have already settled in their countries. And like all authoritarians those far-rightists like to play on ‘people’s fears’.
I have the usual and necessary respect for my fellow individuals, but something happens to individuals when they coagulate into ever larger groups: they become very stupid.
To be blunt, I have no respect at all for ‘the people’ or as it all too often manifests itself ‘the mob’. Sadly, ‘the mob’ thinks in monochrome – if it thinks at all – and is far too easily led. Furthermore, ‘the people’ is almost wholly an artificial construct which can be used to mean pretty much whatever one likes depending one what you are selling.
More obvious are the dangers in the Middle East: Iran is domestic pressure from a younger generation fed up with the old ’uns and its stooges in Syria, Lebanon and Gaza are getting their comeuppance. We do not have a clue how matters will pan out in Syria. None.
One of the attractions of those far-rightists for the many ‘ordinary voter’ is that they are vociferously against, not just immigration, but immigrants who have already settled in their countries. And like all authoritarians those far-rightists like to play on ‘people’s fears’.
I have the usual and necessary respect for my fellow individuals, but something happens to individuals when they coagulate into ever larger groups: they become very stupid.
To be blunt, I have no respect at all for ‘the people’ or as it all too often manifests itself ‘the mob’. Sadly, ‘the mob’ thinks in monochrome – if it thinks at all – and is far too easily led. Furthermore, ‘the people’ is almost wholly an artificial construct which can be used to mean pretty much whatever one likes depending one what you are selling.
More obvious are the dangers in the Middle East: Iran is domestic pressure from a younger generation fed up with the old ’uns and its stooges in Syria, Lebanon and Gaza are getting their comeuppance. We do not have a clue how matters will pan out in Syria. None.
And backed into a corner, Iran might choose to act is desperate ways. It does not, we think, yet have a working nuclear bomb, but it does have the necessary for a dirty bomb.
Furthermore there is the problem of Israel or – a far better way of putting it and more to the point – of its government of right-wingers, far-right-wingers and monsters.
I have and will not make a secret of my initial admiration for how Israel stood up for itself but since October 2023 increasingly Netanyahu (below right) has completely lost it: there’s ‘standing up for yourself’ and ‘how you stand up for yourself’, and the government – which must be distinguished from the people of Israel and, most
pertinently ‘the Jews – long, long, long ago overstepped the mark. Morally it is now on the same level as Hamas.
Putin, too, is in a corner, to put it mildly. And as I’m sure we have all heard over these past few years from someone or other, when in a corner Vlad gets ever more dangerous: he does NOT like giving up and it might seem now he has very little to lose.
Even if ‘after talks’ (and why should Ukraine surrender territory?) ‘the war ends’ that will not be the end of the troubles he will face by any measure.
Finally, there is Trump: the soft-bellied, blinkered, cuddly liberals out there – of which I am usually one, by the way – like to preach that Donny ‘likes to shake things up, he ‘likes to see how others react’, he ‘won’t do most of the things he has promised to do’ and so on. Really?
That thinking is flawed if only because it assumes Trump is rational, that he has an understanding of geopolitics, that he actually does understand economics and does not really believe his own barfly bore interpretations of ‘how things work’. I suggest and fear that he does not.
Ingram (if it was he) also pointed out that if the endgame in Ukraine sees the conflict ending with Putin and Russia acquiring a sizeable chunk of the south-east of the country, there might be ‘concern’ in the West, but after a few months it will die down. As the Arabs say, the dogs will bark and the caravan will move on.
His point was that Xi Jinping (below) might make the following calculation: take Taiwan now in the aftermath of attention being on the ‘war ending in Ukraine’, settle for the resultant global uproar and possibly hit to China’s
economy but that eventually ‘the dogs will bark and the caravan will move on’.
If Xi did move on Taiwan, what would America do? Trump has vowed he does not want to get involved in any more ‘foreign wars’ and might pass as ‘well, that’s Taiwan’s problem’.
Even far brighter folk in the US than Donny might counsel caution about getting involved as they would not know what outcome they are seeking – what’s in it for America? And Xi will know that and it will be part of his calculations.
Thus 2025 might seem to be taking on a rather bleaker hue than did previous years, however bleak the hue was in previous years.
As Ingram says ‘things are bad, but they would get a damn sight worse if all those ‘local problems’ merged into on big problem, rather was happened in the 1930s.
Furthermore there is the problem of Israel or – a far better way of putting it and more to the point – of its government of right-wingers, far-right-wingers and monsters.
I have and will not make a secret of my initial admiration for how Israel stood up for itself but since October 2023 increasingly Netanyahu (below right) has completely lost it: there’s ‘standing up for yourself’ and ‘how you stand up for yourself’, and the government – which must be distinguished from the people of Israel and, most
Putin, too, is in a corner, to put it mildly. And as I’m sure we have all heard over these past few years from someone or other, when in a corner Vlad gets ever more dangerous: he does NOT like giving up and it might seem now he has very little to lose.
Even if ‘after talks’ (and why should Ukraine surrender territory?) ‘the war ends’ that will not be the end of the troubles he will face by any measure.
Finally, there is Trump: the soft-bellied, blinkered, cuddly liberals out there – of which I am usually one, by the way – like to preach that Donny ‘likes to shake things up, he ‘likes to see how others react’, he ‘won’t do most of the things he has promised to do’ and so on. Really?
That thinking is flawed if only because it assumes Trump is rational, that he has an understanding of geopolitics, that he actually does understand economics and does not really believe his own barfly bore interpretations of ‘how things work’. I suggest and fear that he does not.
Ingram (if it was he) also pointed out that if the endgame in Ukraine sees the conflict ending with Putin and Russia acquiring a sizeable chunk of the south-east of the country, there might be ‘concern’ in the West, but after a few months it will die down. As the Arabs say, the dogs will bark and the caravan will move on.
His point was that Xi Jinping (below) might make the following calculation: take Taiwan now in the aftermath of attention being on the ‘war ending in Ukraine’, settle for the resultant global uproar and possibly hit to China’s
If Xi did move on Taiwan, what would America do? Trump has vowed he does not want to get involved in any more ‘foreign wars’ and might pass as ‘well, that’s Taiwan’s problem’.
Even far brighter folk in the US than Donny might counsel caution about getting involved as they would not know what outcome they are seeking – what’s in it for America? And Xi will know that and it will be part of his calculations.
Thus 2025 might seem to be taking on a rather bleaker hue than did previous years, however bleak the hue was in previous years.
As Ingram says ‘things are bad, but they would get a damn sight worse if all those ‘local problems’ merged into on big problem, rather was happened in the 1930s.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)