One of claims I hear about the articles I write is that my pieces revisit time and again the same subject matter and people then wonder why I "bang on so".
One would have to be dead from the neck up not to have an opinion about say Brexit or the dreadful state of our once governmental, nowa quango, bodies who's job it is to oversee our builders, with the dreadful disaster of Grenfell Tower in mind. To have an opinion about the extremely lax attitude to fulfilling building regulations and abiding by building standards, from a professional building contractors point of view, (where to them cutting corners is an accounting 'bottom line' issue) but, even more serious is the lack of oversight by the 'Industry Standards Inspectorate' which is supposed to monitor what is going on during the build. The evidence of poor building practice, particularly by the large construction firms, especially when it comes to houses built to so called "affordable housing" standards seems to indicate that the 'Inspectorate' is much too close to the builder to disturb its lucrative practices.
In the past in the 'pre quango era' it was always the fear that quangos, and the deliberate distancing from ministerial responsibility (a political contravention which went on irrespective of who was in government), would not, in the long term, fulfil the needs of the public for unbiased scrutiny.
As a topic, this and issues on pollution, global warming, the failing of children in our educational system, the apparent in-affordability of the NHS and the looming disaster of old age accommodation (where we warehouse the oldies until their maker relieves us of the problem), all topics we should be aware of, and I believe, have opinions about.
And yet it seems that many have no wish to be reminded of the mess we are in, would rather bury their proverbial heads in the proverbial sand.
Governments response is to kick most problems into the long grass, initiating 'enquires' under the chairmanship of one of their own. "Give Howard Winston Smyth a call he is free for a couple of years to collect and correlate some facts but remember, make his remit so narrow he wont frighten the horses and disturb too much".
Much of our ambivalence is rooted in our attitude to belonging.
The importance of 'belonging' and our need to belong to something, or someone, is at some levels nearly universal. There are few people who feel they don't need to belong who feel they are quite independent, the vast majority need to feel they belong to something, a club, a sense of neighbourliness and of course ones family.
The belonging of a child, initially to its parents, especially its mother. The identification with friends and the assumption of tribal affinity. Then for many comes a sense of nationality with the recognition of national values, the norms and customs which we absorb as if by osmosis without much questioning. The intellectual assimilation of ethical standards and morals comes later, along with a sense that we all have a common currency, our humanity.
People who live for any length of time 'abroad' know the conflict as they try to assimilate the new country with their old assumptions of what is fit and proper. It soon becomes apparent that norms are far from universal. We sit and listen to people rant about something we loved or felt had been unduly smeared. We wish to set the record straight but of course the record is so personal, it's impossible to convey.
And so we bumble along, recognising the gap between us, missing the unspoken bonds of home and people we would affirm as a friend. The convention which grows when we live abroad is to tread carefully and avoid at all costs being defined as a "soutpiel" or a "whenwe". We try to fit in and understand the vagaries of the society we have chosen to inflict ourselves upon, at least this is the sensible individuals route to acceptance but unfortunately when a tipping point is reached and enough "whenwe's" gather together then good form goes out of the window and a bout of nostalgia brings out the what we miss from "back home".
Have a Happy Christmas where ever you are.
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