‘Ah’ (I think) I said, ‘Putin won’t invade. He’s not THAT stupid’. Guess what? As for that nice Mr Xi, what is he to make of the antics of his new best friend?

Well, I got it wrong. I think — I really can’t be arsed to read through my last blog entry, but I’m pretty sure I remember correctly — that I suggested it was all some big bluff on Putin’s part, that all he wanted was to scare the shit out of the West and to remind them that he was still around and that in the event he wouldn’t invade, because what would be the point?

Well, to be frank from what we know now there is no point: Putin seems to have shot himself in the foot badly and there seem to be no advantage of any kind he can gain from his ‘special operation’, the phrase the Russians are using in to avoid calling it a war.

I feel oddly uncomfortable referring to ‘the Russians’ in that way as if the bear some of the responsibility for the invasion. They don’t. This is Putin’s war, Putin’s doing, not Russia’s. ‘The Russians’ weren’t consulted, not least the parents and women who have already had a son or partner killed.

And given that, as is the way of dictators, Putin has now shut down every media outlet he does not control, the only ‘news’ a great many Russians are getting, especially those in the back of beyond, about what is going on in Ukraine is what Putin wants them to hear: that the ‘special operation’ was necessary to rid Ukraine of a cabal of Nazis who were perpetuating genocide (on whom is never made clear) and that Ukraine can be returned to the bosom of Mother Russia.

It is also all ‘going to plan’. So please, let’s not lump in ‘the Russians’ as being in any way to blame for the killing and bombing. This solely down to Putin and those around him supporting and facilitating him.

. . .

As for the ‘facts’ of the case, I would not deny that the West is also inclined to put a suitable spin on what is happening, but given the nature of our media it is very unlikely we are being spun a crock of lies simply because to do so is nigh-on impossible.

I shall, though, reiterate that all I can do in these blog entries as far as the ‘facts’ are concerned is repeat — parrot? — what I hear on the news and, to a lesser extent, read in the papers (though I am inclined to give more credence to reports in the Financial Times and The Economist than in the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail).

Apart from those facts, there is also the central mystery: why is Putin doing this? Why has a man who hitherto was regarded as supreme pragmatism and rational to a fault undertaken such a stupid operation.

One popular explanation is that he is ill, possibly with cancer or Parkinson’s and being treated with steroids. That, ‘they’ say, would explain his puffy face and, ‘they’ say, it could be the cause of what the tabloids call ‘roid rage’, personality change which makes you more aggressive.

Bodybuilders who use a steroids a lot are known to suffer from ‘roid rage’ (two words which for the tabloids has the useful virtue of being just four letters each and which will fit very nicely in 200pt Franklin Gothic in a splash headline. What would fit was also a consideration when the tabloids arbitrarily renamed (‘dubbed’) Prince William as ‘Wills’ — shorter and more suited to a snappy headline).

We are also being told here in the West, and it is a very plausible explanation, that the pitiful nature of Putin’s invasion is because is intelligence service are so scared of him now that they tell him what they think he wants to hear. The same was true of Hitler.

So he seems sincerely to have believed that his invading troops would be welcomed by the Ukrainians with open arms and there would be very little resistance. That is one reason for his opening strategy, to send in light vehicles in an intended swift operation rather than rumble in with heavy and slower tanks. He seems to have expected to have taken over Kiev in a matter of days.

We are told he was also badly informed about the state of his armed forces. Supposedly a great deal of money has been spent over the past decade modernising his army, but we now believe a lot of the money was syphoned off to pay for baubles and yachts for those able to syphon it off.

One example given is that the original tyres (US 'tires' though I don't know why) on one state-of-the-art military vehicle were substituted with cheap Chinese retreads which would and did not last at all long.

But in a sense all this is just me whistling in the wind. What is going to happen? Will Putin behave in some way which gives the West, as in Nato, not choice but to get involved, (and so far they have been keeping their noses very clean because of the likely consequences)? Could the war in Ukraine spread to other parts of Europe? Will nuclear weapons at some point be launched? Will other states hostile to the West — Iran and North Korea — use the problems the US and the West have on their plate to cause them trouble elsewhere?

One of the tunes we are, perhaps, whistling is that Xi Jinping, China's president (a kind of more upmarkat Vladimir Putin) is getting very worried about the effect the Ukraine war will have on the global economy. It seems that China's wheat harvest this year will be terrible and it will have to import wheat whose price is soaring because Ukraine will not be able to produce as much.

China imports 70% of its oil and 40% of its gas. So it will pay a hell of a lot more than most on oil it uses. Russia will, of course be able to offload some of the oil and gas the West will no longer be getting on China — but, China is not sentimental and given that beggars can't be choosers it will be able to push down the price considerably. It certainly won’t be paying top rouble, besties with Russia or not.

Another dilemma is that in world trade, China does far more business with the US and the EU than with Russia: just $147bn with Russia last year but $828bn with the EU and $756bn with the US. What with sanctions flying around, China will really not want trade with the EU and the US to collapse - and the comparatviely piddly Russian trade wouldn't help.

A related embarrassment for Xi is that at the launch ceremony for the Winter Olympics, his Vlad the Lad came along and Xi proclaimed him to be his best mate. All fine and dandy but . . . Did Putin tell him that he was

 

planning to invade Ukraine? If he did, Xi will look very bad indeed, especially in view of all the problems it might cause China. And bearing that in mind, it we might speculate that tried to talk Putin out of it.

If he did not? If he knew but kept schtumm? Well, it makes the image he likes to portray as the wise, farsighted, all-knowing leader China needs look very silly. Farsighted? Not quite. Xi Will not be a happy bunny and might no longer want to be besties with Vladimir.

So how's it all going to end? Who knows?

On March 9, Russians forces shelled a maternity hospital in Mariupol, in the south of Ukraine, Mr Xi. Several women were giving birth when the shells struck, but they survived because they were sheltering in the basement. Is this really the kind of thing you want the world to see you associated with, Mr Xi?

What’s going on in Russia? Buggered if I know

I am writing this on the morning of Tuesday, February 15, the day before the mooted invasion of Ukraine by Russia. I say ‘mooted’ because that is merely a claim by the US, possibly just another element in the baffling and very odd ins and outs of the whole business.

The US is warning that Russia is now ready to invade Ukraine from three directions: south from Belarus north from Crimea and north-west from the Donbas area (where there has been what is described as a ‘low-level’ are for several years in which 14,000 people are said to have died). Whether the invasion goes ahead tomorrow or this

 

week or even at all remains to be seen. But as far as I am concerned baffling and odd are two very good descriptions of prety much all angles of what has been going on. Nothing is straightforward, not Russia’s — for which read Vladimir Putin’s — motives, not the West’s disjointed response and, to be frank, unconvincing response. And the logic of it all is certainly not straightforward.

As usual for ‘facts’ and ‘opinion’ I can here only repeat what I have heard on the radio and TV and read. I can, though, add my own thoughts. The fact is that Russia began moving troops to the Ukrainian border towards the end of last year, but steadfastly denied it intended to invade Ukraine.

Yet that build-up of troops continued, with more of them moved to the border of Ukraine with Belarus and to the Crimea (which Russia got away with annexing seven years ago and whose seemingly trouble-free acquisition might well have encouraged Putin to try his luck further).

The purpose of these troop movements seemed obvious: Russia intended to invade Ukraine. Well, that at least was probably the impression Putin wanted to give. It might well have been a form of blackmail. Russia has denied to this hour that invasion is its purpose, but it is difficult to believe anything else.

So the next equally obvious questions are: why would it want to invade Ukraine and if, as it claims, it has no intention of invading, why marshal those troops on the border? Well, the answer to the second question might, as I say, merely be to increase pressure on the West. But pressure to do what?

One issue has been Ukraine’s possibly membership of Nato (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation). Russia says, correctly I think, that at some point after the fall of the Soviet Union the West promised that it would not expand Nato any further than its then borders. However, it did and the Baltic states, all three of them former Soviet bloc states, are now members of Nato.

Then there’s another oddity: Nato is on paper, in theory, but also in reality a defensive body. Yet Russia’s stance on the matter of implies that Nato is essentially an aggressive body and, by further implication, will at some point in

the future be put to work aggressively. How likely is that? It is certainly far less likely than Nato fulfilling is mission to go to the defence of a member if that member is attacked.

In fact, arguing on purely practical grounds, an aggressive Nato would be unlikely to see action: far too many of its members would veto any such move, even if it meant Nato, in that jokey phrase, was ‘getting its retaliation in first’.

Thus how worried is Putin about Ukraine becoming a member of Nato. If, as I suggest, Nato is essentially defensive not aggressive, why on earth should he be worried. Certainly, if as he claims assurances have been ignored by the Baltic states becoming members he might rightly feel peeved. But is that really a good reason for invading Ukraine? It doesn’t seem obvious.

Another explanation for Putin’s actions are that he is worried that Ukraine, a democracy, is not a good look for Russia which is nominally a democracy but where real political opposition is discouraged. For example Alexei Navalny, a brave man if ever there were one, was poisoned, treated by doctors in Germany, then returned to Russia where he was silenced by being jailed. That, too, is plausible. But how would invasion help?

It might make Putin in the eyes of some a ‘strong man’ but it might equally persuade those who tolerate him no longer to tolerate him (though given that free elections are at present as unlikely as a month of Sundays that is more of the theoretical danger). Aligned to that reasoning is the suggestion that Putin is following the principle that if you have domestic troubles, take the country’s mind off them by causing trouble abroad.

However, in short there is no way of reading Putin’s mind and establishing just what he might be up to.

Another consideration might be — and this will surely have crossed Putin’s mind — that invading the Ukraine might create more problems than it would solven and it is very unlikely that Russia would be in the Ukraine for the long haul.

Invading would be the easy bit, but holding the country and dealing with certain insurgency would not. Putin will well aware of the fiasco that the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan became (and arguably it facilitated the eventual rise of the Taliban).

More likely would be that Putin would set about setting up a government beholden to him in the Kremlin, but that too might not be as successful as he wold like: insurgencies and possibly violent opposition might carry on.

Still, he would have made his point: that Russia is still of consequence in the world and it and its interest must be taken into account. Establishing a new status quo between Russia and the West, one which resembles the status quo of the Cold War, might be his goal. But it still begs the question: why? Is that really worth the hassle.

. . .

In its response to the Russian build-up of troops the West has been — I would like to say ‘predictably’ — at sixes and sevens. The US and Britain say one thing, France quite another and Germany for rather too long decided not to say anything at all.

One explanation for that I heard given yesterday by some bod who is an adviser on international affairs to Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz was that Scholz’s background is more in finance than foreign affairs and that he left the matter to his foreign minister. It doesn’t help the Annalena Baerbock, his foreign minister belongs to the 

Green Party and who likely solution to the crisis is to sing Kumbaya ever more loudly. However, Scholz has since been embarrassed into action.

On the question of retaliation to an invasion of Ukraine, the West is also badly at six and sevens. Military action would be out of the questions (unless, of course, Russia then attacked one of the Baltic states in which case Nato would be obliged to defend them). So far the talk is off ’sanctions’, notably shutting Russia out of the global banking system (which, as one commentator claimed yesterday, although I have no way of knowing whether or no this is the case) overnight ATMs — cashpoints — throughout Russia would cease working and folk would not be able to get ready cash.

Russia would, though, hit back, notably and most probably by shutting off the gas is supplies to Western Europe. That would hit Germany harder than other European countries. Overall, Russia supplies Europe with 40% of its gas, but Germany is more dependent on the supply ever since Angela Merkel, the previous chancellor decided to close down the country’s nuclear power industry a decade ago.

The final plants will shut down later this year. (Many Germans are baffled that although their country no longer produces power from its own power plants, it is quite happy to buy in such nuclear-produced electricity from neighbouring countries.) In the real world it is no surprise that Germany is, or seems to be, dragging its heels.

So, it’s not looking good, but the West must do something. If in time it pretty much allows Putin to get away with invading Ukraine — which, as I say, is not definitely likely to happen — other ‘hard men’ might be encouraged. As it is Viktor Orban in Hungary, who has not shown himself to be much of a man to encourage opposition, has been notably half-hearted in expressing outrage over Russia’s apparent plans. For one thing, Hungary is also dependent on Russian gas and oil, but for another he fears a war in Ukraine would see thousands of Ukrainian refugees flooding into Hungary, and he doesn’t want that.

. . .

As for the prediction from the US ‘intelligence sources’ that Russia plans to invade Ukraine tomorrow morning (Wednesday, February 16) I read that — as I’m sure the Russians do, too — merely as just another tactical move to disconcert the Russians, as in calling their bluff. It’s as though the PR departments of the various Western governments are calling the shots and formulating policy.

For example, the recent visit to Moscow by Emmanuel Macron, France’s president, to see Putin was widely seen as Macron knowing a good photo opportunity when he saw one: France will be voting for its new president in a few

months and although Macron has not yet declared his candidacy, he will run and it doesn’t harm his cause to be seen ‘statesmanlike’ discussing urgent matters with the president of Russia.

One final worry for the West is that if Putin pulls of whatever he is hoping to pull off — suggestions, please, on a postcard address to The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, No 10 Downing St., London SW1A 2AA as Johnson might like a hint for five — and does invade Ukraine, his fellow stooge in the line-up of The World’s Bad Guys, Xi Jinping, might be encouraged to try his luck with annexing Taiwan.

Tricky, eh. And it’s not ‘partygate’.

So, not a complete waste of time

What have I been doing? Well, I have been busy, though not with what I felt I should have been doing. Tomorrow is the January deadline day for the Deadlines For Writers prompt and this month I didn’t as sometimes happens forget about it. In fact, I’ve known about it pretty much since the beginning for the month.

The prompt is ‘Jewel’, but can I think of anything? Can I come up with a story? The obvious ones — a jewel, a gemstones or a gem and, perhaps discovery someone’s worth ‘as a friend’ or as ‘a parent’ blah, blah didn’t excite me. Then it occurred to me I could try a little lateral thinking and write something along the lines of ‘duel’ and ‘dual’. (I have two identities so submit two stories.

But still nothing sparked: I did think of one story, a ‘duel’ between two ultra-rich and snobby families in an exclusive ultra-rich ‘community’ in Vermont as to who was ‘top dog’ (that kind of thing is important to some people’ (and I have quote-marked ‘community’ because there is bugger all ‘community spirit’ there at all). But I just couldn’t get it off the ground.

Thought of this, thought of that, but nothing really convinced me, and so earlier today I decided I wasn’t going to force anything. It would probably been crap if I did. The trouble is that I was and am still feeling guilty about passing this month. It’s as though begging off will be the thin end of the wedge, and I’m proud that I have supplied two stories a month for over two years. But I had to be honest: I didn’t want to force anything and finally ‘gave myself permission’ to cop out this month.

That has helped a little, although not completely, but then life is too short. However . . .

I sat down around noon and started pissing around with Garageband and came up with this. I was trying to recreate a tune I cobbled together quite a few years ago, but in the event it turned out to be something different. I rather like it.

When I say cobbled together, that is precise: the guitar is an acoustic sent through a cheap portable amp (just €25 from Amazon) and the sound recorded through my Macbook’s pretty cheap and crappy ‘internal microphone’. Then I duplicated the guitar track twice and used a different setting for each of the three tracks. Here it is:

And here is the original, recorded as I say about 20 years ago. You can spot the similar bassline:

And I might as well post this one, what with that nice Mr Putin sabre-rattling and hoping to make a name for himself as a strong man. Not quite, Vlad, more of a prize dick, though I doubt I’ll get the chance to tell you to your face.

Abstract this, abstract that — is there anything which can’t be abstract? Let’s have a look see

Here’s a question: we talk of ‘abstract art’ and atonal music (which for the sake of argument might for the purpose of this blog engry be spoken of as ‘abstract’), so might there be ‘abstract writing’?

The term ‘abstract art’ is certainly from a different era, and although the term is still used today, what was once called ‘abstract art’ is now as much mainstream as any of the other ‘plastic arts’. What was once regarded as ‘abstract art’ is now simply ‘art’; and, similarly, these days to single out ‘atonal’ pieces — although the term ‘atonal’ does have a technical use — from contemporary music and thereby to indicate it is less than usual might be veering on eccentric.

So: could there, using the essence of ‘abstract’ as in, say, ‘abstract art’, be ‘abstract’ writing as in an ‘abstract novel’?

I am not here necessarily talking about ‘experimental writing’, although, I suppose, ‘abstract writing’ might be regarded as ‘experimental’. I have read accounts of ‘experimental writing’ — most recently, notably and ludicrously biographer Michael Reynold’s claim that Hemingway was ‘experimental’ and in Green Hills Of Africa ‘took writing to the fourth and fifth dimensions’ (and I have not idea what that might mean) — though I have not attempted to read much of it, and I have not been attracted to reading much more.

In fact, when I see that word ‘experimental’, I inwardly shudder and consider on or two things or both might be at play: here again someone is kidding himself on (or herself, though in this world, himself is far more likely) and that he/her won’t be short of acolytes all keen to praise the ‘experimental work’ and thereby stress their aesthetic chops.

Cynical ole’ me is inclined to see self-conscious claims by a writer that he is now attempting ‘experimentation’ in his writing as nothing more than a bid to cut a dash with the impressionable. As for occasional descriptions in the Sunday lit sups of an ‘experimental writer’, I suspects there’s a little more going one than just ‘talking about writing’.

There’s also this question: does someone with a mind to breaking free from hitherto conventional techniques and trying novel ways of creating her or his purposes and effects differ in any particular from being ‘experimental’? What if that writer doesn’t bother describing his or her work as ‘experimental’ and simply wants to get on with it? It’s a fine point I’m trying to make, but I think it’s a valid one.

Furthermore, the word ‘experimental’ does imply that the ‘experiments’ might or might not succeed. An added hurdle is that deciding whether an ‘experiment’ was a success is rather difficult: given that literary appreciation and judgment are wholly subjective — it’s not a question of adding six eggs to a bowl of another six, counting them up and confirming you now have a dozen eggs in your bowl — the view of one critic, academic or reader that this or that did or did not succeed is of no greater intrinsic value than that of others.

As I point out above, though, I am not here considering ‘experimental’ writing as such but what ‘abstract writing’ might be and trying to distinguish between the two. Certainly, ‘abstract’ writing need not necessarily be experimental, though it would certainly be seen as such, and no doubt the Sunday lit sup hacks would — if the writer is one in favour and has not fallen out with them — gush over ‘this fearless and dangerous attempt to breathe new life into contemporary literature’ or something fatuous along those lines.

. . .

Whether or not writing is ‘abstract’, I suggest there are certain imperatives that would have to be observed. First of all: don’t forget your reader. Don’t leave your reader behind. Keep in touch with your reader.

It seems to me ‘the reader’ is all too often taken for granted, but doing so is not just shortsighted and arrogant, but puts the cart well before the horse.

OK, the writer is crucial — of course he or she is: the work has to created in the first place. But ‘the reader’ is arguably equally, though not quite as obviously, important. Unless a piece of writinf is subsequently read by at least one reader, its existence tends to become a little pointless. Certainly, once completed it will now ‘exist’ — but would that even matter?

Along those lines I can never understand folk who say the verse they write is ‘only for themselves’. I don’t doubt I am missing something here — I tend to miss a great deal — but if that is the case I would quite like someone to tell me what. I write first and foremost because I enjoy writing — it’s pretty much why I do it (and have even written a poem about ‘writing verse’ which you can read below).

But whether one has written a piece of verse, a story (or even just an entry for this blog), there is always the hope that at some point not only will others read what has been written but that they were in some way ‘engaged’ with, or ‘entertained’ by, it.

As for being ‘engaged’ or ‘entertained’, I’m sure you know what I mean by being ‘engaged’. As for being ‘entertained’, that is intended to be understood in a rather broader way than usual. Let me provide an analogy. When we have friends around for a meal or a drink, we are said to ‘entertain’ them, and the meaning of the word in that sense is rather different to what many might take it to mean: some lad or lass warbling a song, performing conjuring tricks, telling jokes and so on. So so a writer ‘entertaining’ a reader is rather as a host might ‘entertain’ a guest.

The analogy is useful in another way: the host and guest both have ‘obligations’ and ‘privileges’ (and if I could at this point use other words, I would — please don’t take those two words too literally and ‘murder to dissect’); and similarly, I suggest, do the writer and the reader.

By ‘being the host’ one is obliged to put oneself out a little, provide, perhaps at some cost, food and drink to treat the guest as ‘honoured’, let him or her feel your home is their home, make sure they feel welcomed and so on.

But the host is also entitled to expect his or her guests — and these are the guests’ ‘obligations’ in return for the hospitality — to behave themselves (not steal the cutlery or get so drunk as to puke all over you carpet and generally not to misbehave). Crucially, both host and guest must make a little effort.

Such ‘entertaining’ is a two-way and symbiotic relationship, and I feel the analogy does reasonable service in describing the relationship between the writer and reader, the composer or performer and listener, the painter or sculptor and viewer and so on.

But please let me repeat: the above is merely analogy, not some sodding holy writ! It is intended as a possible way of looking at the matter in hand, and there are surely many others. I repeat, don’t, as the man said, ‘murder to dissect’.

As regards ‘the writer’ and ‘the reader’, I suggest that in what he or she writes, the writer is obliged in to provide the reader — in some way or other and there are no hard and fast rules — with the necessary ‘means’ or ‘clues’ to grasp what he/she is trying to do, trying to convey, what effect he/she is trying to achieve and so on.

What is intended to be conveyed and what effects are attempted can, of course, be anything, whatever the writer chooses — ‘art’ is surely one of the last areas in life where there are no rules of any kind.

Thus the writer is ‘obliged’ to treat the reader with a modicum of respect; in return he or she can assume the reader will apply a modicum of intelligence, intellect and taste to try to ‘comprehend’ what the writer is hoping to achieve and trying to do.

Thus — the inverse obligations — the reader must be prepared to put in a little intelligent effort and to ‘try a little’, on the assumption that if he or she does put in some effort, the work will ’succeed’.

. . .

Equally as important is that the reader is be carried along, made to feel still ‘part’ of the book and that his or her attention is needed. That is quite obviously as true of conventional literature as it might be of ‘abstract writing’ (and even ‘experimental writing’).

If some bod chooses then buys a thriller, a romance or an adventure yarn in a station bookshop to read on the train, starts reading and soon loses interest, that book might broadly be thought to have failed (and the publisher will duly take note and bear that in mind when the time comes to renew the writer’s contract).

It does, of course, very much depend upon the reader’s expectations and the book’s intentions. Some readers might soon give up and toss the book aside; others might give it more time but then also abandon the book.

Others still might for some reason continue giving the book benefit of doubt and carry on reading, putting a little trust in the writer; and having carried on reading, the book might eventually persuade them they were right to carry on. It is up to the writer to provide such readers with sufficient reason to give him or her the benefit of doubt and to justify the trust given.

As far as putative ‘abstract writing’ is concerned, that ‘trust’ would certainly not just be useful feature but pretty much essential.

Look at it this way: what you have read so far inclines you to carry on reading, even though you do not have the slightest clue as to what is going on. Somehow — and that ‘somehow’ will come down to how gifted (or even cynical) the writer is you have been persuaded you to do so and continue to be so persuaded: you are ‘engaged’ enough and feel you are being successfully ‘entertained’ that continuing to read on is easier and more welcome than giving up.

The longer such a piece of ‘abstract writing’ is, of course, the harder — the far, far harder — it would be to keep the reader on side, however much successful ‘engaging’ and ‘entertaining’ is going on. I can only speak for myself, but there are some books I look forward to carrying on reading. If nothing else, that book has ‘succeeded’ with me. Carrying on with other books might well be something of a chore: not quite as successful.

As for length (and as the lass says, it isn’t everything) we might well be prepared to read 500 words of what seems to us at first blush to be complete gobbledegook; we might even settle for attempting 1,000 or even 2,000 words.

But if the work is the length of a short novel, about 80,000 the task of gaining the reader’s trust and confidence that he or she is not completely wasting their time is immense. But that is not so say it is not possible.

The ‘abstraction’ could take any form, but that is the beauty of it all: there are no rules. The one, the only proviso is if it works, it works. If it doesn’t, well don’t kid yourself — try again and again or take up bricklaying or knitting with yoghurt.

I believe there is a third factor which might be important, not just with ‘abstract’ writing but with all fiction writing. Whatever you do, put the reader centre stage, for that is where the reader puts him and herself.

Whatever they might think, at the end of the day, they don’t give a flying fuck about you and your feelings and your history and your notions and all the rest (or those of your central character which, nine times out of ten is just the writer’s alter ego).

What they care about — and most will not even realise this — is that your feelings, history and notions resemble theirs: THEY want to be who YOU are writing about. Bear that in mind and you are more than halfway there. Each of us is the king or queen of the world as far as we are concerned.

. . .

If — and a huge if at that given that I’ve not even attempted much conventional writing — I ever try my hand at composing an ‘abstract novel’, I don’t yet have a title for it, but do have an opening line, which would also be the opening paragraph and opening chapter: ‘Where to start?’

But I have no idea what else I would write. And — well, I’m still not too convinced I’m not talking out of my arse (subs please check).

NB In 1939, one Ernest Vincent Wright published his novel Gadsby in which, he claimed, no word containing the letter E was used. Me, I can’t quite see the point of that. What I have in mind would be a little less whacky. In fact, I quite dislike gratuitous whackiness. Whackiness should always have a purpose, even though quite what that purpose is might not immediately be apparent.

Of course, there is always ‘abstract cooking’. If ‘abstract writing’ doesn’t catch on, I’ll give that a whirl. My mate tried ‘abstract driving’, but he was killed in a rather bad pile-up.

Some call it poetry

Why write verse (or, as some call it, poetry)?

It’s simpler than you think.

When I was very young,
then not so very young
then less very young than that
I talked a lot and would not, could not shut up
and silence from my corner of the room
was always valued and encouraged,
so rare it was.

‘All right now that’s enough’
was a constant refrain
‘now pipe down, please, just a little’
was another. But I did, could and would not listen.

My father complained more than once
’you’re for ever on transmit, my lad’
and made it very clear
it was not the preferred mode he wanted me to adopt.

But we are young just once,
just the once, then just the twice,
then just the thrice,
until, perhaps, two heart attacks, a little grief,
(some, though not all, of it romantic)
two parent deaths
(and the Lord knows what else)
drop the penny finally, and we wise up.

Wise up? You say ‘wise up’?
Was that ‘wise up’ as in ‘wise up’?

I did and do, but thereby I mean not
the ancient socratic or reputed
Far-Eastern kind of wisdom
of sitting still and staring into vacant space,
but just the simple kind,
the fact of not being quite as stupid
(or aloud) as once we were.

It happens, it does, you know.
It happens quite often, apparently
and it has happened to me.

I am not wise (no, leave wisdom to the fools),
but I am perhaps not quite as stupid as once I was
and I now appreciate
that as Bucolic of Wessex once observed
‘Less is more, dear boy, and more is less’.

Ah, so wise, so wise!
(Or, better, not quite as bloody stupid).

But old ways die hard and never die young,
and the yapping of which my father
more than once complained
when I was six and he was himself still young
has not been abandoned, no, just modified.

So still I yap, but no longer out aloud.
Now I yap on paper (so to speak)
and I write my verse
(or, as some call it, poetry).

To many all that’s left seems to be a right turn, especially in the good ole’ US of A. Concerned? Yes, we should be, even those who do not live there

The original title of this post is/was ‘To many all that’s left seems to be a right turn’ and it was written, unusually, in fact uniquely, before I wrote the body of the post itself. But I had to come up with something to help me focus on what I want to write. I might re-write it or I might stick with it. I don’t yet know, and what I have decided will certainly be obvious to you reading this.

But so far (14.35 GMT on January 5, 2022, several thousand feet up in the air — I’m on my way to Germany for about three or four weeks) though not having access to the internet sitting in a plane it cannot be posted for a while yet) that is the title. I’ll repeat, because such a wordy, possibly quite boring, intro needs some justification, the title is intended to help me keep my eye on the ball.

With that out of the way, let me add another pre-script (and does that word even exist? Well, it’s derived from postscript, so perhaps . . . and it does now, if only as an accidental neologism): I might now be 72 (and will turn 73 on November 21 next), but increasingly — not despite, but ironically because of my age — I dislike the attitude of rather too many over 60 that ‘it’s all going to the dogs, and I despair’.

I am a firm believer in plus ca change, plus la meme chose. It’s not ‘all’ going to the dogs. However, some of it might well be going rather badly wrong. And for a guy of my moral, political and social persuasions an apparent ‘drift to the right’ in many Western hemisphere nations is not encouraging.

Admittedly (and contentiously, of course — I’m not looking to upset people and when I do so, it is usually, although not always, unintentional) not all nations ‘in the Western hemisphere’ are of as much consequence as other.

But that is for another time, and I’m sure we, on both sides of the contention, can agree that the US of A most certainly is of ‘consequence’, not least because of the size of its economy and the role it has — so far — played in world affair. And that is one nation where a ‘drift to the right’ is rather serious for a liberal, possibly even ever-so-slightly-though-not-really-wanting-to-make-too-much-of-a-point-of-it-left-of-centre chap like me is worrying.

Since the horrors of WWII, of which I, born in 1949, have only heard, things seem in Western Europe have been on the up and up.

Go elsewhere in the world at any time in the past 74 years — at random and in no significant order — Chechnya, then Czechoslovakia (though admittedly part of the Western hemisphere but de facto not until the Soviet bloc collapsed in 1989), the various nations which make up the Congo, the Middle East, formerly Burma but now Myanmar, Sri Lanka and I don’t know where else — and it has really not been quite as bright, not by a long chalk.

I don’t have the figures to hand, but I suspect the world’s ‘non-democracies’ rather outweigh the world’s democracies. And even in some of those democracies, democracy itself is not in as healthy a state as it might be.

Here, in western Europe things look a lot rosier (notwithstanding that corruption still thrives in Spain, Italy, Greece, Romania, Bulgaria and I don’t know where else). One problem is, though, that weWestern Hemispherians have tended, and still do tend, to see the world through our own prism.

Thus we are persuaded that the development of the world seems to us to have been one of increasing enlightenment. Really? Tell that to the Chinese — now far more prosperous but they are obliged to keep their noses clean — the Burmese, the Thais, Zimbabweans and rather to many else.

The world becoming more enlightened? If only. We might now have seen women slowly gaining more confidence after ‘Me too’, but female genital mutilation is still practised in far too many parts of the world. Enlightened? Up to a point, Lord Copper.

Perhaps the bizarre and wholly unprecedented attack — make that invasion — of the US Congress on January 6, 2021, might well get us to think again about just how established our various ‘democratic’ principles are.

For many years — ironically given its past history since the late 18th century and well-documented intrusions into the affairs of other nations — the US has billed itself as the promulgator of democracy in the world. Yet again, if only.

But before I carry on, I must make the point that I wholly dislike, despise and distrust a general anti-Americanism prevalent in far too many bien pensant folk (for that is how they like to see themselves) in the western world. It is a nonsense, but it is a persistent nonsense.

Whenever I hear loud claims made about the US and ‘Americans’ about how awful they are, I immediately respond ‘what all of them, all 380 million of them?’ But that never cuts any ice with — let me call a spade a bloody shovel — such stupid people. It might sound very arrogant, but as a rule, never try to debate or have a serious discussion with stupid people. I don’t, life is far too short.

We simply cannot and must not think and judge in broad-brush terms like that. Yet what we can do, what we must do, is call out the disturbing developments in the US over these past 20 years.

It is a fact that a substantial proportion of American citizens, and their number must be counted in several tens of millions, sincerely believe that ‘the election of Donald Trump to a second term in office as president of the US was stolen’. 

It does not concern them that many investigations into that claim, some by the Republican party itself, have not established any proof that was the case.

Yet each such conclusion is met with the cynical reaction that ‘they’ have cleverly covered their tracks’. Perhaps some reading this might even be inclined to believe that I, too, ‘have also been fooled’.

Well, believe what you want, but I prefer to listen to people who are not inclined to subscribe to conspiracy theories and who are more inclined to judge Donald J. Trump by his past behaviour and the judgment of those he appointed, then fired — John Bolton, John Kelly, H.R. McMaster, Rex Tillerson to name just a few — and who by no stretch of the imagination can be regarded as Establishment patties or Democrat stooges.

Yet those supporters — I repeat who can be numbered in the tens of millions — who are Trump’s incarnation of those Lenin called ‘useful idiots’ — are of consequence because it is, I fear, likely that either Trump will be elected US president in 2024, or more likely because the orange buffoon will be 78 years old in 2024 and a man who is addicted to Adderall, a similar cynical player will stand and reap all the support Trump might have got.

What is worse is that the Republican party has allowed itself to be hi-jacked by an unscrupulous and mendacious failed businessman. Many intelligent and otherwise respectable Republican politicians have caved in to that unprincipled showman for the simple reason their political lives depends on ‘keeping in with Donald’. The key is

the electoral support Trump has: fall out with Trump, give your honest opinion about his — that he is a charlatan — and your voting support, all those who sincerely believe ‘the election was stolen’ and many of the other big lies Trump has told and tell, will desert you.

Ergo: you want to survive, play Trump’s game! It’s a simple equation. Stop playing his game and you are dead and yesterday’s congressman, senator, state governor.

There are thus very good reasons why many fear for democracy in the United States. To a great extent it depends on Tweedledum and Tweedledee agreeing to the same rules when it comes to battling over that rattle. But they no longer do.

If all it takes is for one side or the other simply to declare ‘we don’t accept the result of this poll’, in a flash democracy — even in apparently super-democratic US — is in dire risk of imploding.

Were that to happen, of course, it is equally possible that states would declare UDI and the US is in dire need of imploding. Fanciful? Not really, no. Who in 1985 when Mikhail Gorbachev became de fact Soviet leader would have believed that within five years the Soviet Union would no longer exist.

A betting man would have been given very long odds on that happening and made mint had he laid his bet. But of course he wouldn’t have done — why not just burn my money, he would have told himself.

Just last week a Canadian political scientist, Thomas Homer-Dixon warned that ‘By 2030, if not sooner, the country could be governed by a right-wing dictatorship. We mustn't dismiss these possibilities just because they seem ludicrous or too horrible to imagine.’

Aware of just how outlandish his suggestion might strike some people he added: ‘In 2014, the suggestion that Donald Trump would become president would also have struck nearly everyone as absurd. But today we live in a world where the absurd regularly becomes real and the horrible commonplace.’

What is notable was that Homer-Dixon’s focus was not on the US, but the future of Canada: he was warning that a wise Canadian government would and should plan for every contingency, however fanciful it might seem now.

OK, this is just one prognostication of many and as always happen with such prognostications the author of the one in a 100 which ‘comes true’ is lauded, whereas the other 99 prognostications which did not ‘come true’ are simply forgotten now and forever.

What is pertinent, though, is the subject of this warning: the US a right-wing dictatorship within nine years? Surely some mistake? Well, one hopes so, but that it is even not considered likely is notable.

This is not — or at least this is not intended to be — just another anti-Trump rant. OK, so the guy is, from where I sit the mother of all morons. But that wouldn’t just be unimportant but in the context of the possible demise of democracy neither here nor there.

In that rise, future historians might regard him as a progenitor and bit player: the man’s narcissism made it possible, but what came next was of far greater consequence.

I’ll repeat: in 2024 he will be 78 and who know what the state of his health is. It is who follows his lead, who is equally willing to enlist the useful idiots to turn the US into a dictatorship where dissension is not just frowned upon but punished.

Three more long entries for my Hemingway bollocks to keep you from killing each other . . .

Here you go, another three entries for you to ignore, but please, do so gently.

These entries consist of just over 12,000 words in total and I didn’t knock them off in one rainy afternoon, so treat them genetly.

Here they are. Comments welcome (I have to say that, just to keep my spirits up).

There’s 1929-1930 — Part I,

1929-1930 — Part II and

— wait for it — 1929-1930 — Part III.

Shalom and salam — pretty much the same word, but for Christ’s don’t tell the Jews or Arabs that.

Roll up, roll up and stroke my ego even more! Oh and Quark Xpress and Indesign aren’t the only players in town

Roll up, roll up and stroke me ego even more! Oh and Quark Xpress and Indesign aren’t the only players in towns

Busy little bee that I am, yesterday I published my second volume of poems/verse on Amazon. It is a collection of all the more recent pieces I have written. You can find it here. If you think you might be interested, you can find the first volume here.

Go on, spend a dime or two. Short arms, deep pockets? Never an attractive trait in man, woman or beast. Treat yourself. Push the boat out. Summon up that Santa spirit. Go for it. Live dangerously.

Oh, what the hell.

. . .

A few weeks ago, I wrote about commercial publishing, vanity publishing and doing it yourself. I think I also wrote that ‘vanity publishing’ is a tad unkind as a description of doin it yourself. You simply might not want to try your luck at having some commercial publisher taking you up. You might just want — as I do and my friend and former colleagues Tully Potter did — a few nicely printed and bound copies of your book to give to family and friends. It is a collection of verse for children and is called The Lockdown Poems.

So using Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing is a godsend: it costs you nothing. You only pay if and when you order discounted ‘author’s copies’. The two books of poems I am plugging cost just £1.70/$2.26/€2 each, just the cost of printing. Try buying a cappuccino or a latte for that sum. And if someone else buys a copy, they pay. Here is a link to the KDP website if you want to chance your arm.

However, as I said a few weeks ago, not everyone might want to format/prepare their manuscript for printing, or feel capable of doing so. For the books I had printed (i.e. published) myself and for Tully I used Indesign. A friend, Ben Le Vay who has about a dozen commercially published books to his name (his publisher is Brandt and, for example there is this on British railways and this about British eccentricities, also uses KDP for some projects. He also used Indesign at work but told me the other day I saw him for lunch that he used Microsoft Word for his latest book, about the invasion of Pearl Harbor. This was self-published).

KDP is really not difficult to use and is open to everyone (and as I pointed out, a great many of the online shysters who will publish your book also use — at no cost to themselves — KDP, but don’t tell you and you will pay through the nose).

I also recently offered to do the formatting work for anyone who would like to have copies of ‘their book’ printed by KDP. But I shall not charge the earth, just charge by the hour for whatever work I am asked to do.

With a view to possibly getting such work, I have started a new KDP identity call St Breward Press (which is what I used for Tully’s book) and if you would like me to do that work formatting your manuscript for you, please get in touch with me via the form above on the right  and I shall send you more details and you can tell me what you want.

. . .

The once reigning piece of software, Quark Xpress, is also still available, but Indesign has taken top spot for the simple reason that it is not half as expensive as Quark (though sadly if you want to use either, you now have to take out a ‘subscription’ which is the new model for flogging software and in my view something of a rip-off).

Quark shot themselves in the foot: for many years it was the only sophisticated software versatile, capable enough and with sufficient features to use to publish newspapers and magazines. It was used around the world, but because it was the only software then available, it charged through the bloody nose, and then some.

The Daily Mail, where I (and Tully and Ben) used to work as a sub-editors) ditched Quark several years ago. This was for several reasons: cost was one and because it was using Apple Macs and wanted to switch to Windows and needed software which would integrate with its other Windows software. I then began using Indesign.

Eventually, Adobe (of Photoshop, Premiere, Illustrator etc) which then sold Pagemaker (and which in the mid-1990s Quark was hammering and sales were dropping), turned down an offer to sell up to Quark and decided to come up with its own desktop publishing software and started developing Indesign. Since then it has never looked back. Moral: don’t get greedy.

NB Another excellent piece of desktop publishing software is Affinity Publisher. It works very much the same as do Quark Xpress and Indesign (and it can open Indesign files which have been saved in a certain format).

But it has one, for me distinct, drawback: the working area is cramped and the tool palettes encroach to much. In Indesign it isn’t and they don’t.

But it is a true bargain if you are on a budget and want excellent software. An annual Adobe subscription will cost you £239.64. And — annual — you pay that some again a year later. But it is still cheaper than Quark which charges £358/$474/€423.

Affinity Publisher costs just £47.99/$63.56/€56.56, and it is yours for life. (I bought it several years ago when you could still buy it outright. You might find a legacy copy on eBay, but don’t hold your breath as there don’t seem to be many of them around.)

Don’t be put off by such a low price — it is not a cheap and nasty piece of kit. Most of what you can do in Indesign — and 9/10 users will be need just a few of its features, so make that all of what you can do in Indesign — can by done by Publisher. But, as I say, its workspace is cramped.

Take a look a these screenshots. The respective working areas are marked out in red:

Adobe Indesign

Affinity Publisher

The Publisher workspace might not look that much smaller, but believe me it is just a tad too small. And the tools’ palette really need not be that big. Making it smaller would allow the workspace to be bigger. 

Ironically, Affinity began as a small firm called Serif producing inexpensive software for Windows machines. That software wasn’t bad, but with Publisher, Photo and Designer — the counterparts of Adobe’s Indesign, Photoshop and Illustrator — there has been a qualitative leap forward and they can stand tall beside the Adobe versions.

Professionals might disagree, but in my experience for what many of us want to do — and frankly what we can do — the Affinity software certainly does the work. The main point about subscriptions is that I should imagine many companies can afford to take one out for Adobe (and Quark’s) products because the cost is tax-deductible.

Volume three of a fab, fab, fab collection of my stories now available in print — good Lord and just in time for Christmas! Apparently, the Queen has already ordered 50 copies to be distributed as festive gifts at Buck House, London. Oh, and beware shysters — there’s a lot of them about and apparently double-vaccines, boosters, voodoo cockerels and mouthing MAGA bullshit is not protection at all against them. You were warned

Just published — on Amazon KDP, so sadly no bona fide commercial publisher involved yet (and a very wistful ‘yet’ at that) — my third collection of short stories. If you are interested, you can check it out here (and perhaps even buy a copy).

I’ve written about ‘vanity’ publishing before (and that was the old-fashioned, rather unkind though not always unfair, term for ‘self-publishing’ in the past), and I’m sure I’ve mentioned Amazon KDP (and Lulu.com who I used before Amazon).

Amazon will print your book to a very high standard and at a very good price — each book is printed as and when it is bought, which keeps costs down and the printing costs are part of the price you specify. So don’t be taken in by any of the many shysters who will charge you a fortune to do an exceptionally simple task.

There are one or two other ‘print-on-demand services, but very few — and I think all those are in the US — will do it as cheaply as Amazon. And as far as I can tell, all the UK-based firms simply have it done through Amazon themselves. As always, caveat emptor.

Many might ask you to ‘submit your manuscript to be considered for publication’ and, of course, it will always pass muster. Nothing wrong with that, of course, except for the very steep prices they will charge you for ‘publishing’ your novel, memoirs, autobiography, guide to Shanghai brothels, guide to blind sheepdogs in Cumbria or whatever other delight you have spent years writing, only to find no bloody commercial publisher is in the slightest bit interested.

To be fair to myself, I haven’t even started trying to get a commercial publisher interested in my short stories, because, to be blunt, they wouldn’t be interested. Everyone and his hamster writes short stories these days, but more to the point short stories do not sell.

I did, briefly and some years ago, try to find an agent — in the belief that if an agent thought your work would sell, which is what it is all about, they would put in the work. And if they thought it would not, they would not waste your time or theirs — with a view to getting my novel published. I could raise no interest whatsoever though I only tried three. BTW you can check it out, then ignore it here.

In short, a swift check on the net of how many ‘publishers’ there are who will help you publish our novel — and you will carry all the costs, of course, though they couch it as you ‘contributing’ to the costs — shows that all of them are pretty expensive to bloody expensive (though it is up to you how you spend your money).

It can cost you anything between £700 and £2,000 to use their services, and all you will get is about ten copies. Print-on-demand costs might be cheaper, but what with shipping etc, not a great deal. Always do your research.

Remember, all they do is format your manuscript for printing — which does not take long at all (I used Indesign) — then upload a pdf of the formatted manuscript to Amazon KDP. They might also offer your extra services such as designing your cover, editing your manuscript, ‘marketing’ your book, and it is up to you whether you choose to use them.

Some even tell you they will get your book ‘reviewed in the national press’. Bollocks. Here in Britain the nationals get enough books from bona fide commercial publishers to bother considering someone’s memoirs of dear Aunt Jane who baked the most delightful cakes.

I can’t speak for other countries, though I’m certain the large-circulation papers would not be interested. However, local press, radio and TV might be, because they always need ‘copy’ to fill their papers and programmes — but you can get in touch with them yourself and don’t have to pay some shyster to do it.

Personally I cannot think such editing will be up to scratch, and if your manuscript needs editing, it cannot have been that good in the first place and you would be none the wiser as to how good or bad the editing was.

Oh, and many make a point of saying ‘they will get your book listed on Amazon’ — but that happens as a matter of course with all the books printed by Amazon KDP. (I’ve not looked at Lulu.com for many years and don’t know what promises they make but are not one of these ‘self-publishing’ shysters. They are just a little dearer than Amazon by my no means much at all.

To put the shysters’ charges into perspective, the 100-page slim volume of short stories I am plugging here has a nominal price, listed on Amazon, of £6. Of that the printing costs just £1.70. Furthermore, you, the author/originator, can buy ‘author’s copies’ at cost, i.e. in my case £1.70.

So those ten copies your ‘publisher’ gives you as part of the £700 to £2,000 ‘service’ cost her/him only £17! As always caveat emptor.

Admittedly, a little work is required to format the manuscript (though then saving it as a pdf takes about ten seconds each time) which is what they will do, but only about an hour or two (depending on the complexity of the manuscript.

For example, earlier this year I published a volume of colour photographs on Amazon KDP — as a trial run to see whether it was any more complex with a colour interior and it isn’t — and what with getting the colour right 

etc, that did take a little longer (though it was still done in Indesign).

Just last week I ’published’ — that is I formatted and had printed — a slim volume of verse for children called the The Lockdown Poems by a friend and former Daily Mail colleague and although it did take a number of days, the actual work involved was minimal.

But that ‘number of days’ is a tad misleading: every time there was a change, a new illustration was added, a detail changed here and there etc, I insisted on sending Mr Potter (my friend) a new pdf for his scrutiny and approval (to

make sure if there were any cock-ups, they were not mine). And as emails were not answered immediately, and he made several changes and made several tweaks (as did I, on the monochrome — posh word for black and white — piccies in Photoshop, the whole operation did ‘last’ a few days. But the work I did (and it wasn’t ‘work’ as I enjoyed doing it) was — in total — just a few hours.

. . . 

In fact, having written all the above, I might as well offer to do the same for anyone reading this, though I would charge an hourly rate, though it would not total sodding £2,000 or whatever they think they can get away with).

I shall stress: if you know your way around Adobe Indesign, Quark Xpress, Affinity Designer or Microsoft Publisher (which I’ve not used, though) or any other desktop publishing software, you can do everything yourself, and thus it would not cost you a penny.

My offer is for those who feel a bit daunted by the ‘formatting’ and rather doubt whether they could do it or simply can’t be arsed. If that is you, get in touch. With such work vaguely in mind, I have opened a second Amazon KDP account under the name St Breward Press.

Note: you would supply a manuscript as Word doc (and any illustrations as pngs rather than jpegs) and would be emailed a pdf to check at every stage to that the final decision to ‘publish’ — have printed by Amazon KDP — is yours and noting any errors and literals etc are your responsible (although I would correct them according to your instructions.

A day after posting:

To see what’s what, I’ve just uploaded and am having printed by Lulu.com two copies of the third volume of short stories. The process is extremely simple (and all I had to do was slightly reformat my 5in x 8in volume to the 5.5in x 8.5in size Lulu offer (the closest to the original). Lulu do exactly the same as Amazon KDP but are a little more expensive: I’ve ordered two copies at $3.39 (£2.55 at December 1 exchange rate) each and with shipping ($6.41) that is costing me $13.19. Amazon copies were just £1.70.

More stories and poems (if you are interested)

More poems (bottom two rows are the latest) here and more stories (the bottom two rows).

Is it just an old codger resorting to type, or are things perhaps getting a little hairy? I hope it’s the former. I fear it might be the latter. But never mind, at least the free West is getting its beauty sleep

It’s almost a commonplace that was we grow older and are usually less adaptable to change, we become more reactionary. Perhaps. There is some truth in the view that when young folk ‘settle down’, have to start paying real taxes, face monthly bills and have children, they often abandon their ideals, or at least water down, and that explanation makes sense.

To be blunt when the oddly artificial world of our salad days is left behind and we face the daily chore of going to work — though it is not necessarily from Monday to Friday or from 7/8/9am to 5pm — and what it entails, life can lose some of that marvellous sparkle it had when we were teenagers (in between the bouts of woe and doom, of course) and everything was possible. But that early change in life is not a mirror image of what happens to many later on when their teeth become loose and their hearing begins to go.

Later on, as we hit 50 or 55 and find ourselves slowly being edged to the periphery of existence and consequence, our once central role in matters and affairs of the world (or village) being taken over by younger versions of ourselves, we might well begin to see the world in a different light. Ten years on, perhaps after we retire and lose the ‘structure’ employment gave us and feel somewhat cast adrift, a certain disenchantment might well creep in, though most of use are apt to blame everything and everyone about us rather than accept it is the prism through which we view the world which might be the cause.

Yes, I am speaking personally, but I’ve talked about the ‘effects’ of retirement with others who have also professionally called it a day, and it seems that what I experienced and am still experiencing is common: somehow you seem to be something of a spare part, hoping you might be needed, but realising you could well not be that lucky; and we who have called it a day and have discussed it all, also agree that until you retire, you won’t know what the hell I am talking about. But that isn’t what this entry is about.

Obviously, we all react to growing older in different ways, but there will certainly be things we have in common. And, I suggest, for many one of the things we have in common is a sinking feeling that ‘it’s all going to the dogs’, a conviction which is closely tied in with viewing the past through distinctly rose-tinted specs.

I mention that because, being conscious that I, too, am equally as liable to suffer from that possible tendency, I want to try to ensure I don’t adopt it. I don’t like it and I can’t respect it. I want to try — and trying is all I can do — to retain as long as I can a balanced, proportionate outlook on life, the world and current affairs. I want to try to evaluate developments in the world with as neutral an eye as. Yet now I have made that point and considering developments here, there and everywhere, I am bound to confess that I do not things are looking too bright.

. . .

I don’t doubt that over the past 71 years of my life — 72 years on November 21 — when men and women heard the news on the radio and TV and read their newspapers, there seemed much to feel bleak about. Just five years after World War II ended, ‘the West’ faced another war, in Korea (no doubt billed to a gullible public on both sides as ‘a battle between freedom and tyranny’. Decide for yourselves who were battling for freedom in the face of encroaching tyranny.)

Later, for the Brits, came the insurgencies in what were then still its ‘colonies’, in Kenya and Malaya and elsewhere. France almost had a civil war over Algeria, and the ‘certainties’ of post-war 1950s America were wholly disrupted in the 1960s by the — then young — ‘boomer’ generation and the national divisions caused by the Vietnam War. And on it went.

Many were persuaded we were only that far from all-out nuclear war and some bright spark dreamed up the notion of the Doomsday Clock, though arguably in such terms the world is now a far more dangerous place and running even further out of time: in the 1960s and 1970s only France, Britain, the US and the then USSR had nuclear weapons. Now India, Pakistan, China and Israel also have them. As for that insufferably melodramatic Doomsday Clock’ the cause of the demise of humankind has since shifted via AIDS to global warming.

If you want melodrama — and it seems a huge number of us do — fuck off and watch your favourite soap. To paraphrase P. T. Barnum or H. L. Mencken (or whoever else claims to have originated the quote I am about to paraphrase) ‘No one ever went broke scaring the living shit out of Joe Public’ (and certainly no newspaper. Note to younger readers: when you have time, look up what newspapers were).

. . .

Bearing all that in mind, are the dangers we now face from a far stronger, richer and more determined China led by a man who is to all extents and purposes a dictator; and the dangers we face from Russia, not as strong and rich as

China, but also under the leadership of a cynical and determined — and very bright — quasi-dictator, as well as dangers posed by an increasingly nationalistic India any worse than those faced by our parent’s generation all those years ago? Are they?

Well, I’m inclined to suggest that no, they are not. But I must add that there is more than a certain nonsense in believing ‘dangers’ and ‘the dangers we face’ can somehow be graded and qualified. I know the foreign offices of governments and their backroom spooks have to do just that — grade and qualify ‘dangers’ — for practical reasons of formulating policy; but seen in a certain way, it doesn’t really make much sense: a danger is a danger. And we know from how World War I came about and was well underway in a matter of months that nothing much is neatly predictable.

As I write there seem to be two distinct dangers facing the world. One is in eastern Europe where Putin has amassed around 100,000 troops on the border between Russia and Ukraine, which might or might not be used to

invade Ukraine. A little further north the Belarusian dictator Lukashenko has — this sounds ridiculous, though is anything but — amassed several thousand migrants’ which he wants to pour into Poland.

I heard on the news earlier on that ads were put in the media of various countries where many folk are looking for a better – ‘stress-freer’? — life selling flights and visas to Belarus with a view to entering the EU. There was an enthusiastic response, it seems, though the reality was that once they arrived in Minsk, they are loaded into lorries and driven to the Polish border where they are now stuck in sub-zero temperatures. Sounds like an urban myth to me, though is was ‘on the radio’. And stranger things have happened at see.

In the Far East, China’s dictator — no one has yet used the word, but it is the only realistic one to use as far as I am concerned — Xi Jinping has made if very clear that an invasion of Taiwan will take place sooner rather than later. The big question to be asked about both these situations is: how will the West react? Will it get involved? Or will it cave in?

Before I write anything more, I must candidly admit that I have no idea which reaction would be appropriate or wise. Really I don’t. It is Hobson’s Choice, and I’m not going to claim the role of Joe Wiseacre and lay down the law of what ‘Western governments’ should do.

Putin will be encouraged that when, again to be blunt, he invaded and annexed The Crimea, part of Ukraine, the West did fuck all and he was allowed to get way with it. If we are dealing in Brownie points, one Brownie point to Vladimir and none to the West.

Putin might now be calculating that if he invades Ukraine and annexes part of the country’s east, the West will again do nothing. (His excuse might be that the east of Ukraine, which has had a small-scale war for several years now, has many ethnic Russians and they need the protection of Mother Russia.) 

Certainly, we will condemn such an ‘international outrage’ in the strongest possible terms, if not even stronger (subs please check if that is possible), and we will ‘impose sanctions’ and place punitive tariffs on the import of vodka and all those delightful little dolls which fit inside each other after you unscrew the head of the bigger one (for details contact the FSB). But Russia will know we are cack-handed wankers. We need their gas more than we need to stick to our increasingly tawdry principles. Welcome to the ‘global world’.

China has long insisted the Taiwan is not a sovereign state as Taiwan itself insists, but is still one of its provinces (a point lawyers could argue about for weeks on end, of course). China recently got away with imposing its totalitarian will on Hong Kong (where you can now be locked up for a very long time for in any way being critical of China) and Xi Jingping believes he can do the same with Taiwan. He’s probably right.

On paper the US has insisted it will somehow protect Taiwan’s sovereignty — but it has been careful not to specify quite how. More to the point, though Taiwan would most certainly defend itself and it has quite strong armed forces, it is doubtful to that it could do so for long. However, what is crucial is how the US would — will — react. And how other nations in the locality who will also be pretty pissed off with China’s increasingly bullying behaviour will react.

. . .

These two dangers are compounded by unrelated but still pertinent developments in the UK, the US and Europe. In the UK our prime minister is a useless twat who even himself admits he’s not ‘a details man’. He is also losing his support in Parliament and could well be gone by the middle of next year, for a number of reasons, though none 

of which are relevant to the above. The Opposition Labour party — I use the word ‘Opposition’ purely in its technical sense in as far it is about as effective as an Opposition was a chocolate teapot — is equally as useless and the point is that at present the UK has exceptionally weak leadership and political clout.

The same problem faces the US. After the four years of chaotic, insane and damaging leadership by Donald Trump, Joe Biden is proving to be distinctly underwhelming. Germany at present has no government and various parties are horse-trading to form a governing coalition.

France is on the brink of a presidential election, one which might well see a far-right figure gain the presidency (though, to be frank, that is less likely than not given that such a development will be fought tooth and nail, though that would not rule out civil strife in France — well, Paris — which might prove equally as unhelpful).

On balance, of course, the picture is no bleaker than it has at any point in the past 50, 100 or 1,000 years. The difference and possibly a pertinent factor is the ‘global nature’ of world economies. Disruption elsewhere might well have led to shortages ‘at home’, but the sophistication of many of our economic practices — I’m thinking of the ‘just in time’ supply of parts — means some aspects of our economies could then — can then — grind to a halt far sooner than later.

An added complication is the ongoing covid-19 pandemic, which is also ‘global’ (NB I keep sticking that word in quotes because it has become something of a buzzword and I hate buzzwords and being seen to use them.) Sooner or later we will pay the bills accrued in one way or another dealing with it. Just how is that going to pan out?

Let me reiterate my initial point: the above has been written but a lad who won’t even see 70 again so please bear that in mind. Such folk — old crocks such as me — are apt to look on the dark side of life as a matter of course. But in the above I have tried to be less ‘ageist’ and more neutral. Things ain’t looking grand. The question is: is that just how I see them or are, finally, things really not looking too grand?

Answers please on a postcard. And if you can’t be bothered, just fuck off and watch your favourite soaps instead. At least they have no consequences.