The seasons change

 

Subject: The seasons change





As the season changes there’s a nip in the air, the trees loose their leaves and the garden takes on a more bedraggled look. The sight of a hedgehog brought much excitement yesterday as my next door neighbour and I discussed the frogs her cats carry live and unhurt indoors. Frogs and hedgehogs are from that outer group of co residents who live nearby, out of sight, themselves a whole world away from the worms and slugs who are starting to batten down for winters hibernation. The birds migrate to Africa leaving only the stalwart Robin to brave the snow. Such a fearless cheeky bird, he stands only a pace away contesting the space you both occupy, not in the slightest bit perturbed by your size and unpredictability he thrusts out his red chest as if to say, come on then test me.

The plants withdraw and the weeds die back as the earth cools and then freezes, this seasonal dance of life and death which we, in our artificiality have no fear. Perhaps this year will be different with the high price of gas, perhaps the more vulnerable will die for lack of heating, the sleepers in the doorways or under the bridges, the ones too tired to care any more, made desperate by the gnawing of hunger, knowing that yesterday, today and tomorrow will be the same.

The bright lights and tinsel of Christmas  will soon be upon us, the excited gasps of children receiving their gifts, the old hoary platitudes as we work ourselves up like so many robots to buy things, in a desperate frenzy of  consumerism.

The trees become gnarled, much like the residents below who withdraw into their coats and stamp their feet or simple stare out through the window at those who have ventured out. The cheery welcome from the people in the pub, crouched around the fire, the backchat, the stimulation of a tummy absorbing its alcohol and the sensory hit as the brain cells relax just a little.

Soon it will be time for the seasonal songs, the movies on television, the assumptions we make and the effort to better communicate. The hallmark of a religious festival which has lost much of its religiosity but continues to give us the excuse to try a little better. 

Reason has been supplanted by rant

 

Subject: Reason has been supplanted by rant.



I am baffled by the speed of change going on around me and the apparent randomness of effect it is having on the people here in the UK. People have become homogenised into flavours pink, blue, green, yellow with little acknowledgement that they are a blend.

The mindset has become so predictable depending on whom you pin your allegiance, no more an ideological or cosmopolitan intent willing to meet the other half way seeing the subtle half shades of truth in every argument and unwilling to deny the other person that half truth. 

Black or white, good or bad there’s no ‘paradigm twist’ to enable people to get on, it has to be this or that. 

I don’t know what caused this intolerance other than forces at work poisoning our minds with fake news, news which once upon a time you had to go to a certain watering hole to drink but which now a days is deafening our senses by a media which, 24/7 pummels our brains with critical propositions. There’s no solace, no quietus, no peace only conflict and conflict breeds conflict. The full time use of “think tanks” to develop and put over an agenda in business and government which is only beneficial to one side or the other cleaves a divide in society which drives a deep wedge between people. This destruction of the ‘accommodating aspect’ in our personality sets us like rabid dogs at each other’s throat. You used to disagree, vehemently, forcefully, passionately, without loosing sight of the other persons truth. In every argument there has to be grains of truth but in the vitriolic name calling on the so called communication platform, all sense of even handed analysis has been discarded for a rant.

God bless the Queen. Long live the King

 

Subject: God bless the Queen, Long live the King.

It’s hard to imagine the space left by the death of anyone. We all have friends and family who meant  more than a name but were a place to go to for wisdom or solace, a place to back up our failing spirts

I’m sure the Queen was such a person amongst those closest to her. She had the wisdom of experience and old age she met and talked to people well above our pay grade and must have siphoned off a great deal of useful information to form her opinions. I’m sure for her family she was the go to girl, for her son, his mommy who remained his pillar until her death today.

That firm but hesitant girl thrust into early monarchy surrounded by elder statesmen and courtiers, challenged by her sisters way-fulness and her husbands lack of a role which in the early years made him a difficult partner. That serene image of her moving down the central isle on her coronation day with the huge crown on her head was almost surreal and yet she carried it off, as with all her duties with poise and immense good taste.

God bless the Queen, long live the King

Waking up

 

Subject: Waking up

My bedside radio sprang into life this morning with the sound of the Queens voice. I was jolted into life by the reality that she was no longer here and that the routines she slavishly carried out, ‘what she would deem her duty’ we’re no longer hers to do. They have passed to Charles her eldest son to make of them what he can.

It’s a rather chilling thought that after death things carry on as if we hadn’t been here and it’s particularly scary that all the effort we attended to any task we thought important is now being done just as competently by another. We have the notion that we are indispensable, even important when actually we are not, we act a part, often construed in our own head, praised and promoted by ourselves, paraded as our own competency when in fact we only play a two bit part in some mystical play written by an evolutionary author.

Somewhere she lays at peace now, no red boxes to open disgorging the dull routine ramblings of other people who also think they are important. All this ‘importance’ which, one day will be taken over by Artificial Intelligence leaving us free to consider other things. That duty the Queen so reflected and often missing in our own dealings, is highly praised but in a robotic world soon becomes superfluous as will much of our classical evaluation of worth. You see it now with modern standards of communication dragged by the expletive to the building site, used these days almost as a punctuation mark. I often smile when the announcers on the media apologise because an expletive was heard in the background as if the word used was not common in the playground.

It’s a world so changed at the personal level. From abortion to seatbelts but not equality. From racial awareness to a lack of awareness when it comes to our ain folk. From greed to the assumption that without it you are somehow stunted. A world without rules or compassion, of individuality and to hell with society. It’s a world so mangled up by individual pressures and assumptions which somehow turn into rights.

The longevity of the queens life saw all this change as she sailed on mostly unaffected, separated by tradition and household status, only in her own family was she exposed, to mishaps which befall us all. The odd arrangements which would have been almost impossible when she was young. Those pangs of remorse when baffled that someone very close rejects our concerns and of course the death of a companion who had shared breakfast and tea for all those years is now an empty plate.

I’m sure in Balmoral this morning the gyroscope around which all spun, now no longer a force has to find new fastenings. There’s an empty space at the table until the King is crowned and he has such large shoes to fill that it’s doubtful he will. Poor old Charles with his infidelity which marked his card with the people, to the slightly weird relationship with plants and his less weird relationship and concern for the planet.  His time spent waiting off in the wings made him look slightly ridiculous his  hand stuck in the pocket of his jacket, definitely old school, but generally with a benign homely look on his face, something his mother never quite learnt to manage.

Please pass the kippers ma’am but the responsibility has moved on.

The gift to be different

Subject: The gift to be different.



Watching the commemorative programs marking the life of the Queen one sees one’s own life lurking there in the shadows reflected by those times and events.

Where were you when that happened, how the social fashions of the day ruled our contemplative ideas at that time, how have we changed, if at all and how have we learned to cope with the passing years. The Queen was a cornerstone, apparently unchanging in her fundamentals, as should we all be in ours. I don’t care much for popularism, it’s ebb and flow, it’s catch all pronouncements, it’s strictures, as if we had non of our own. This centralising effort to shape us  and homogenise us when our gift is to be different.

Of course norms do change, fashions come and go but our fundamental beliefs remain the same. You can teach a dog new tricks but it remains a dog and my own bark hasn’t changed all that much in 82 years. People say that is a weakness your stuck in the same groove unwilling to learn but what if what they want to teach you is shallow and irrelevant, only presented to please. Pleasing is not the same as believing and whilst you may believe in the wrong thing as far as current trends are concerned your old fashioned concepts regarding value is special. Values change only if you have non, values mark you for mention, only if you have some.

The Queen is a case in point. Her values are now the things for which she is best remembered, her stoicism her unflinching purpose to do the job she had been given to the very best of her ability. In a world of short term gain where change is regarded as fundamental but how can we keep on changing. Where are those fundamentals which might rule our lives if change is so valued since in essence, change is to deny and often trash what went before. The values your parents bestowed were hopefully precious and not negotiable. Stick with them, don’t be dragooned into flim flam, the deceptive nonsense which passes for  wisdom. Don’t be hoodwinked to modernise for modernising sake when all that means is swopping old values for rhetoric 

The Queens last journey through her beloved Scotland

 

Subject: The Queens last journey through her beloved Scotland.

The overhead shots of the simple funeral cortège threading its way through the Scotish countryside carrying the body of the late queen, small groups of people standing together to see for the last time one of their neighbours on her way to London is being played out on our television screens. As the cars sweep by  they the neighbours will turn and return into their homes to reminisce on previous sightings, proud to know that's the lady who had lived in the big house, just up the road and the special place they had in her heart.

As the fields and trees give way to the outskirts of small towns and the people swell and recede , as the town gives way once more to to open countryside with the individual person guarding his entrance gate. From the bothy to clachen,  people stand, soberly by the side of the road, I wonder if there isn't a the loan piper or two amongst them sending her off with swirl or a dirge from his pipes.

I am quite a softy and fill up on the occasion of acknowledgment and remembrance which a crowd can bring. It's the gathering of the clan in this case but it can be the singing in the rugby stadium in Wales, it's the ordinary man and women who make me pause and realise that it's not all bad. It's not the massed bands or the pageantry as much as the simple tolerance and respect which ones 'ain folk' can bring to an occasion. That deep sense of remorse when someone loved passes away.

I remember when my father died and the funeral procession arrived near the church. The men, his workmates dressed in their working clothes (they had to go back to work) removed their caps as a symbol of respect. I choked at that point and never really recovered my composure until after the service was over.

Conclusions made by others

 

Subject: Conclusions made by others.









How in this fractured world today is it that interactions between people get out of hand so quickly and even more tragically, opinions and prejudice take over as we take sides. This morning a snip of a recorded conversation, played out in the streets of an American town slowly got out of hand as the authorities, in this case the police, answering a call from a neighbour, were responding to what the neighbour reported was a unknown black man on the on their neighbours property. The officer doing his job was responding to the call and from what I heard on the voice clip was respectfully asking for the man’s identity and who gave him permission to be there. The man it turned out was from across the road ad was watering the flowers in the garden as he had on a number of occasions. The conversation between the man and the trooper slowly became an issue of rights. The policeman’s right to demand answers and the man’s resentment at being interrogated for doing a good neighbourly act.

Of course this was only the cusp of what was going on in a country split into segments of prejudice, prejudice of all kinds and often motivated by years of a ‘them and us mentality’. Why this relatively innocuous interaction was broadcast on the national airwaves in this country has deeper implications following recently the shooting dead by our police of a young black man in London. Racial overtones immediately drown out rational conversation and we go down the familiar route of perceived oppression by one race of people towards another. Our minds having been soured by incidents such as the one in America concerning the gruesome death of George Floyd, into a cry of ‘institutional racism’ of which there is some but often highly coloured by the local conditions. In this country there are areas which are dangerous to set foot in at night made dangerous by gangs which themselves identify each other by their skin colour. The issue of even handedness when a black person is interrogated by the police, who are mainly white and who on occasions are over officious is a fact of life in that particular environment, they feel scared and outnumbered on the streets in a non white area and resort through fear to overbearing aggression. We all fear for our lives when threatened and because the police, having been hollowed out and cut back in numbers are now very thin on the ground.

The prejudice of racial intolerance is different given the age of the person being engaged in this act of intolerance. People of my age years ago experienced a different street experience in the city, different shops, different dialects, different customs and religious observance. Of course we also experienced many other differences so why, we must ask ourselves  single out the prejudice of race above all other. Intolerance be it political or racial, is a sign of the decay of social justice, something we hold important since without justice society crumbles away. There will be kick back to change, given the circumstances but it’s mainly consensual, depending on the environment, most of us seek alliances not confrontation but there are people who would prize their racial affiliation above much else. Are these people wrong or simply out of tune, is religious affiliation right and racial affiliation wrong and why. When we travel abroad and I don’t mean the overseas hotel experience where foreigners cluster together but in the streets of Kandahar or Timbuktu. Would we expect even handedness there.

This even handiness is patchy where ever you go, from the streets of Bolton and the prostitution of white girls as being lesser and not of the faith to the nimbyism of the middle classes. Intolerance of others is not only a white persons affliction but exists everywhere largely because we fear change and exceptionalism, change which largely hasn’t been negotiated beforehand. Even the word negotiated is loaded since often before negotiations begin, the decision  has been made and ordinary people are simply pressured into conclusions already made by others.

Discombobulate the people

 

Subject: Discombobulate the people.



Our future is with the collective but our survival is as an individual and so the paradox continues. As in private life so in public we profess to know the route we are on but because we clash with those who we should carry with us we are bound to fail. Only the powerful have the resources to be two things at once, only they can pay the piper and call the tune,  we must simply trail our coats in the mud looking for scraps amongst our past glories.

If we can finally summon some panache, some style, if we can stop electing dummies for leaders and settle our debts first before moving on to some new escapade. If we could remember more of Kipling than Kierkegaard “we would be a better man my son”.

Our lives are gripped by the straightjacket of slavish conformity, a perishable commodity if ever there was one, there’s no originality in our thinking only a constant reference to what others think, a sort of fear of our own shadow. The grist of who we are is lost in an accommodation of others, people who don’t care to thank us for our hospitality and only deny us the keys to the house when we return. Somehow we need to seek clarity for what we stand for and it can’t be a melting pot,  we have to have the strength to decide who are our friends and who the foe.

As the world turns slowly and we go through the movements of our requiem reminiscence the political movement seems to have shuddered to a halt with delay taken for action. Prime Minister Truss and her motley archers stand ready to shoot down our cherished institutions. The right to be heard in court, the right to protest, the right to see a doctor on the National Health, the right to ensue our BBC has full independence from government edict. The list goes on.  The challenges from the ‘right wing think tanks’ which provide Ms Truss with a teleprompter brief, a substitute for real  policy statements and the disestablishment of links to parliamentary democracy in exchange for cabinet diktat, ordinary people cut right out of the negotiating process as unions are further demonised, the safety valve from actual revolt tied down and the pressure allowed to rise. It’s all bound up in the Friedman/Murdock/Trump hymn book, the denial of truth and the rise of falsehood.

Discombobulate, the people and you have the fodder for what ever you want to do.

Blessed with good weather

Subject: Blessed with good weather



There is such sadness etched in so many of the faces of the people edging their way passed the coffin laying in state in Westminster Hall. For some it verges on grief and one wonders, as we did when Diana was buried why people who can’t have known the Queen seem so invested in her death. The anguish, with Diana almost hysteria', was palpable

 as the people openly crying flung flowers towards Diana’s coffin.   Now, sotto voce, the scene is more dignified in Westminster Hall as people walk passed the coffin in almost total silence. Big burly men, unabashed, wiping away their tears, the strained look on the faces of women, wing tailed morning suited attendants officiate, their breed mindful of the power they hold. Some, and our exclusion zoned establishment orientated society have always been keen to make exceptions, don’t have to join the queue but are given a platform opposite the coffin where they can come and go without actually mixing. Yesterday I noted Theresa May and her husband bucking that trend, endured the queue and filed passed with everyone else which I thought spoke volumes for this much derided Prime Minister. Derided by charlatans who gathered around Johnson in his passage to the job and the evil chorus played out by the evil press which denied her a fair platform or hearing. Perhaps her resolute belief in the church and its congregation has something to do with her preference.

The camera in the Hall pans along the faces as it perfectly references our multifaceted society. Old and young, tall and bent, all shades of the human rainbow, some in casual clothes, some resplendent in their uniforms decked with medals celebrating a life of duty to the Queen. Wheelchaired oldies who’s journey this may be their last but they are determined to make it. Teenagers who hardly know an earl from a viscount are also in the queue hypnotically drawn to the flame.

Eleven hours to queue and the queue winds for 4 miles along the other side of the Thames. Thank goodness we have been blessed with good weather. 

Nationalism, a good or evil

 

Subject: Nationalism, a good or an evil.

How do we and even, should we, counter the nationalistic urge to look after our own local situation first and forget the interlocking reaction that the ills which beset a nation are often are best combatted by a collaborative effort rather than a purely national one.

It's hard not to be tempted by Vladimir Putins offer that to stop supporting Ukraine and the gas will start to flow again. The history of Ukraine and its relation with Russia is complex, (as is our own with Ireland),  but resorting to an invasion of Ukraine always had the crude hallmark of the USSR written all over it and we have, at least in Europe put that nationalistic bully boy tactic behind us. Never the less the temperament and the ethnic makeup of each nation within the EU not always assumes collaboration and common goals. History and it's specific interpretation within a national debate is fertile ground for dissent and political point scoring. The rise of right wing parties within the national framework is the product of many things, for instance that the elitist concerns are not necessarily the same as that of the masses, that black and white solutions don't take into account unforeseen calamities if the delicate balance of interests is threatened. People can be weaned into value stances by extreme rhetoric and promises, as was the case with Brexit, promises unattainable but still held as possible by those swayed into believing in them. People are mentally fragile and seek assimilation in their goals by tuning in to programs and media platforms which give support, it's hard to listen to criticism, still more so to admit ‘they’ were right and you were wrong and it becomes almost impossible to support a plan of action when it begins to inflict pain on you. The strength of your support is usually measured in the actual concern and your reason for that concern.

People still deny climate change or the effect the melting of the ice caps will have on us and is dependent of their perceived understanding of its effect on them. People no longer believe in their elected politicians, other than in totalitarian states and so leadership becomes ‘opinion led’ which in the era of fake news becomes easily manipulated.

In an quasi idealistic world this fragmented opinion led democracy has the seeds of proper democracy where people will do their own homework and form their own opinions and the collective opinion should always best suit the majority. (Except where Brexit is concerned).

The long long wait

 

Subject: The long long wait.

Symbolism, deference, nobles oblige, patriotism these terms hardly fulfill the description of the people who on turning  the corner descend the steps into Westminster Hall after spending 16 hours advancing through the chilly evening for their moment of glory, a brief pause in front of the coffin, a bow of the head, a curtsy, a salute, if in uniform and then it’s over and they walk on away into the street where dawn is breaking and their anonymity returns

What makes people behave so, is it the compliance which made young men sign up for the horror of trenches in 1914, a compliance rooted deep within us to remove ourselves for an hour or two from the banality of everyday life and seek some sort of equity.

At five in the morning I don’t see the great and the good pausing on the VIP balcony, whilst, if truth were told they have benefitted the most from hierarchical privilege. They will come later when, after breakfasting and having read the paper the car draws up on the drive to make the transition an easy one. Not for them a flask of cold tea and a dry sandwich, instead kippers and scrambled egg, with coffee which befits their post and the obligation we owe them.

Today is the last day of this homage. At some time people will be discouraged from joining the queue and slowly it will wither away separating the people from their sense of belonging, returning to act out their lives in solitary compartments as bequeathed by birth. They will long remember the friendships formed whilst waiting, the stoicism of the people around them, the unflagging humour shared throughout the long dark night that sense of nostalgia and purpose which they can relate to their children when they get home.

And still they come

 

Subject: And still they come.







I’m still fascinated by the faces of the people who are still arriving in a never ending stream to pay their final respects. They are a census of the people who inhabit these isles. Old, young, fat, thin, worn weary and fresh with their lives ahead of them. They reflect who we are in 2022 better than the national census they are the living example of a society which has had hard times but also success. They are respectful of each other there’s no queue jumping no mocking no joking just a slow acceptance of each other and why they are here. And still they come, the aged unsure on their feet suffering their arthritis and a doggy back, the guys off the building site who normally wouldn’t give you the time of day for monarchy, the women wrapped in their discarded coat, the holy men in their dog collars, the Sikhs and the Presbyterians, and people of no religion shuffle forward. All creeds and colours of the rainbow respectful of each other in a strange symbiosis.

Would that we could bottle this mood and spread it around not only here in the UK but around the world a world which seems to be entering once more a fit of peek 🫣

How much more intriguing this montage or cross section of ordinary folk to borrow a line from the Archers. So much more interesting than watching the antics on Love Island or the game shows which invade our sensibilities each day on the tele. Real textured people, not contrived people who are continually on show but never reveal who they really are. A fabrication of our fabricated world, the synthetic ad man’s pallet of preposterous idealism.

The realism of the people paying their respects is what attracts me, their warts and all ordinariness which melds this country into the place it is.

Little children wide eyed not sure what to make of it all, hesitant searching a lead from big sister or mommy and daddy, aware of the gravitas and the sense of importance adults are attaching to this occasion and hardly being able to wait until they see their class mates to tell them “they were there”.

It occurs to me that the BBC could make a fortune selling bits of video as people file past like the official  photographer at a wedding.

The slow march home

 

Subject: The slow march home.

When in the 1960s I travelled to the far side of the world, many of the countries I was fortunate enough to visit, entry was gained by passing alongside many structural icons which reminded me of that little island in the stormy North Sea. The provision of docks, the means for ships to tie up, to be offloaded by cranes manufactured in Belfast and on the Clyde. Colonial Architecture abounded, buildings built to a standard and a style which saw light from the offices of political force that resided in that island, my home.

As a 12 year old boy I had watched, on television, the pageant which was the enabling act in 1952, for that almost unique process which ensures the quiet but respectful continuance of our governance. No storming of a Capital Building by crudely dressed popularism, just a quite tradition which helps us to link the past with the present.

People here are not demonstrating, whipped up by orchestrated comments on Twitter, here a solemn cortège draws passed, a silent procession marching to a slow march, only the sound of the tramp of boots on cobbled streets of old Edinburgh. The crowds pack the spaces, motionless, quiet as church mice hushed in reverence for an old friend.

The Queen had always felt more at home in Scotland, she seemed to like it’s people their gritty resolve, a little old fashioned but a fashion I’m sure she preferred.

Viewers around the world, some more used to Molotov cocktails and the smell of tear-gass when a change of government or leadership is required, must marvel at the sense and the gift we have of community and discipline. The sense of structure and orderliness is a long cherished trait of these islands, even now, as it’s composition is changing so quickly. We must relish that as we go forward into the Reign of Charles the III.

Our own brand of idolatry

 Our own brand of idolatry

,



The description of China and its relationship with Covid and the draconian efforts to eradicate the virus altogether make them totally at odds with what most of the world is doing. In the West we have got used to accepting that there is no way to escape the effects of catching the virus and we must learn to live with it, that a number of casualties are acceptable and must not be overwhelmed by fear.

China on the other hand seem to become paranoid by the danger and has the practice of closing cities with a populations the size of Australia virtually overnight on the evidence of a dozen or so instances of Covid . Given that China’s Wet markets (markets where live animals are sold for consumption) appear to be the initial source of a virus, (unless you believe the virus was deliberately let out from a laboratory) and where it seems to have jumped species from bats to humans, the Chinese  are much more volatile in their actions to minimise It’s contagious effects.

Is there something they know that we don’t, since the economic cost of closure seems to far out weigh the medical cost. Is it simply a case that they do it because they can in an authoritarian State which brooks no dissent.

Out of step with the West in so many ways they now they sidle up to Russia in its war with the Ukrainian, seeming to propose an alliance in an effort to defeat an opponent, the whole of western democracy. This question of opponents and the need to aggressively defeat them is part of man’s strategy throughout history, never has there been total peace, always some conflict somewhere bubbles and breaks to the the surface. Conflict then seems our fallback position. We see it in town planning even the funeral arrangements of our late Queen where a spasmodic outbreak of Republican protest and people disagree feeling  they must make their point of view in public.

Are we nihilists at heart, rejectors of any type of collaboration, incapable of setting aside our differences for the common good and instead rely on sophistry to weave a special brand of  capitalist idolatry.

War has never been the choice of the common man they have too much to lose, their lives !  The general in his bunker the capitalist in his factory or more likely these days holed up on a remote island far away from the action. The spectre of hunger and deprivation, such as in the Ukrainian, are not keeping the protagonists awake at night. Safe in the ideological surety they consult their maps or their business plans without a thought to the destitution they are unleashing. It’s a strange mindset that can propel your own kin towards destruction and penury but of course, like the gambler they only have ‘winning’ in mind. And why are we, the cannon fodder so willing to go along with it all. The gains will not effect us to any appreciable degree the spoils are not ours and yet we queue up to take the Queens shilling. Handed a gun or coopted into a strategic industry, unsuited for our skills or temperament we conform, like animals in a circus forgetting our own ideals to perform a task for others.

Why do we capitulate our own concept of what’s right or wrong, our own rational, for the jingoism of the ring master.  People are still blind to the economic damage inflicted on this country by Brexit, they are still wedded to the gung ho Brexiteers call of independence in a world that is more and more interdependent, where our wish to recall our 1910 independence and its commercial reliance on empire to trade across the globe, to once more assume the white mans burden of independence at any cost. The books of account are starting to reveal what was clear then, that we had been profligate in the years when we could have done what Germany did twice, rebuild industry and train a workforce. We did nothing, we talk the project up but are unwilling to invest. We talk of low skills and poor productivity but do little to amend the situation. The reawakening of a need for skilled apprenticeships has had an abysmal take up in industry partly because industry these days consist of small organisations unwilling to risk their cash flow, or the trice yearly holiday in Marbella, with the national delusion that an apprenticeship in hairdressing is the answer.

The ‘gig industry’ which has blossomed under the Tory’s is nothing more than old fashioned industrial servitude fashioned to exploit labour and offer no security. The proud proclamation that it suited our transient, work shy, work force with an hour or two here and there, with no sick pay or holiday provision but to be on instant call was the mindset of any fly-by-night business but now, as we enter recessionary times, the minimum wage and little or no savings leaves so many people facing  economic purgatory.

We can hardly expect Liz Truss to understand. She is wedded to Milton Friedmans far right, low taxation, trickle down economics in an economy where vast numbers simply don’t earn enough to pay taxes. The great Tory experiment of a disenfranchised sector of society who wouldn’t enter into the mathematical ratios of being counted, even as a sub set and who have been demonised as lazy, is truly Orwellian and I fear for our society.

Hunger and debasement brings out the worst in people and with a slimmed down, much pilloried police force, the bulk of whom are out in London protecting the Establishment,  I hate to think of what happens when mothers and fathers turn to crime en mass  to feed their children. 

The death of Diana

 

Subject: The death of Diana.

The anniversary of the death of Diana is being broadcast this morning and it's a bit of a shock to be reminded how the influential opinion now in this country, the 25 year olds were born after the event. They didn't have that moving experience of the day of the funeral which effected so many of us. The sea of flowers, the highly critical eulogy given by her brother who was critical of the attitude of the Royal Family towards her. The immensely poignant moment when the applause out, outside the Abby in response to what Earl Spencer had to say. The sound of Elton John singing 'Candle in the Wind' reverberating through the old crusty antiquated tradition seated in stiff rows according to rank and finally, the sight of oceans of emotion as men and women lining the route of the funeral corsage wept openly without any sign of embarrassment. From the well known landmark streets in Whitehall to the more humble streets now strewn with flowers and finally on to the ubiquitous motorway with people standing in silent mourning on the bridges hoping to catch sight of the procession and, in their own way, wished to wave goodby.

I was in Birmingham on that day making ready to drive home from a weeks work when the broadcast started. I too became emotionally riveted watching the television broadcast of events as they unfurled. I too had tears in my eye, not because of Diana but because, for once,  we were seeing people unite in their emotions. It was a rare truly moving sight, it joined  me with the thousands of others, not at a football game which is manipulated emotion by league tables which act as a flag to unite the troops in battle. This fragile young women linked to an emotionally stunted member of a family, itself stunted by protocol who had become the victim of the newspapers in their search for headlines. Her courage to strike out against aids that scourge of the gay community her willingness and ability to place her arms around someone who had AIDS and not be concerned she might catch it was so ironic that it took a beautiful young women to elevate the issue so we could start talking about it.

Where has that emotional moment gone in a society which is now falling apart in some sections of society where young men set  off on a night out, tooled up with weapons. Young kids being stabbed on the street or women being molested as part of some sort of cultural safety valve, it’s all a far cry from that moment we all came together twenty five years ago.