Where the heart lies

Subject: Where the heart lies.

One of the difficulties when reading the different scenarios on the outcome of Brexit is the plausibility of all of them, even when they come to different conclusions.
The straight break with the EU and muddling on has the ring of a fresh start.
Revoking 'Article 50' and holding up our hands crying, "no mas", has an equal appeal.
If we continue to try to find a way to break and yet retain much of what we had it will mean years of wrangling and misunderstanding between, not only ourselves and Europe but even more damaging, between the people's inside the UK as we throw brick bats at each other for missed opportunity. 
Already the lines are entrenched and the passions are high and we haven't even left the EU yet or felt any appreciable economic hardship. The historical grass has grown so long around matters such as the Partition of Ireland and the associated simmering unrest, an undergrowth in which lie many land mines just waiting for the unwary to step Diplomacy was always the art of sweeping the unpleasant under the carpet and 'back then' we were the world leaders in diplomacy. 
If we could imagine it as moving into a new house after the collapse of the business, a house half the size of the last but at least it's paid for and there's no mortgage to worry about. Yes you will have to get rid of some furniture and the car sits on the street, not the driveway but does that matter. The clutter of ones past life is replaced with minimalism the art of having space to see and think about the important things in life. 
Maybe it would be a moment to recreate the whole edifice of being British, throwing out the tradition and valuing our society for what it is. No more Polaris submarines, no more propping up evil dictatorships my selling arms to them or lending troops to keep the dictator in power. A lessening of foreign aid all round and harking back to our colonial past. Like a new puppy we could seek out new friends, people we have more in common with and, instead of trying to punch above our weight, be prepared to read our kids the stories of when the thin red line held the difference between civilisation as we knew it and much older civilisations who had questioned our right to be there.
This decontaminated self image, where we prosper as people and are not measured in terms of GNP, much like the Scandinavians, seems a goal to be examined at least.
Perhaps we could be world leaders in climate change, not flying off everywhere because Ryanair make the tickets cheap. I know the climate is grand in Spain but if you don't make it one of your priorities to holiday abroad, at these the conversations in the pub which seem based on one-up-man-ship, we are going to so and so this year, will be more locally based and reflect the beauty of our own island.

Of course I'm dreaming. The tabloids won't leave us alone, they won't let us breath without seeking to whip up discontent. Perhaps if the first thing we did on exiting the EU is to burn down these temples of discontent and with the bricks build youth centres and old people's homes,  a fresh indicator of where our new heart lies.

Subject: Defining Yorkshire.

Yesterday the Yorkshire Dales was in all its majesty. The shots of the peloton descending amongst the dry stone walls, dipping and turning through the open moors which on some days are stark, somedays beautiful open stretches of countryside which typify Yorkshire. 
Yesterday it was the woman's World Championship Road Race and our girl, Lizzy Armitstead, born and raised in Otley a small market town about 10k from where I grew up in a village called Esholt, was one of the favourites to win.  Otley was one of the focal points in our cyclist experience. It was at the gateway to the Plain of York, and on through Ripon to the East Coast, and the holiday towns of Scarborough and Whitby. 
Gathering together with friends and club cyclists, at the cyclists cafe in Otley's  high street which cyclists from all over used for an early morning mug of tea with which to eat a sandwich.
Armitstead who has become the leading female road cyclist learnt her skills on these unforgiving up and down roads and much was made of the local enthusiasm as she raced through at the head of the field at the start of the race proper. They had started in Bradford and traced the route of many of my rides, out through part suburbia, up Hollingsworth Hill, down past Harry Ramsdens, the world famous fish and chip restaurant and on into Otley. 
Yesterday the weather was good and the helicopters were up in the air showing us aspects of the countryside we couldn't appreciate from the road. The undulating nature of the geography, the large houses set in gracious gardens  in which the occupants lived another life to us on our bikes. The River Wharfe and the wide bridge at Otley, the scene of pleasant boating weekends where you could hire a boat and row up and down the river.  Once whilst rowing on the river I came across a dead body which had been in the water for some time and was pretty gruesome as the police dragged him out of the water.

Today the bodies are on the bikes as the rain lashes down. The cyclists who are more used to riding in the sunshine on the continent, look particularly miserable but the crowds, impervious to the weather, cheered  and cheered as the riders pass showing that indomitable spirit which defines the people of Yorkshire.

Two World Champs, two very different experiences

Subject: Two World Champs, two very different experiences.

They bought the World Athletic Championships. They bought the occasion. They bought the Media. They bought the advertising. Oil money, lots and lots of oil money allowed Doha the capital city of Qatar to host the World Champs, but unfortunately they didn't tell any of their citizens to turn up and watch and so each night the stadium is empty. The worlds best athletes turn on the performances of their lives but having won, their lap of honour, is in front of an empty stadium. It's yet another example of the corruption of neo-liberalism and the  values we used to hold dear. 

Today in Yorkshire in the heavy rain the fans turned up, soaked to the skin, cold and wet, they cheered the cyclists round each lap of the race and in doing so added enormous value to the race. There was no oil money in the choice of the circuit, no massive advertising rights, it was after all free to air on the BBC. It was simply an event run in the old traditional way, which, in the British Isles meant not letting the inclement weather get in the way.
Money unfortunately taints everything it touches, the people who are bought by it, the opportunity of ordinary people to experience the event.  The roof over your head when you stay in the hotel and the food you eat along the way.  Empty stadiums say only one of two things, the people of Qatar are not interested in athletics or, they can't afford the price to enter the stadium. 
What was the Sheik of Qatar  thinking when he bid for the 2019 World Championships. Did he have the wild delirium of the London Olympics in mind, every event sold out and packed to the roof tops. Did he imagine the image of crowds of happy fans somehow transported to his stadium in Doha, because tragically  it backfired.  Instead it was an event held in the wrong place for the wrong reasons. 
The Athletics Governing Body, the IAAF headed by Sebastian Coe has a lot of questions to answer. Like Sepp Blatter, the ex president of FIFA, the International Footballing Organisation, the taint of money destroyed his career through accusation of malpractice could this event hold a similar judgement on President Coe's tenure in the job.
It doesn't matter which sport, money destroys as much as it creates. 
Indian cricket mired in betting controversies and match fixing. The Football League engaged in hideously over inflated pay and bonus schemes for the players, who's sense of fan loyalty is tempered by the size of next years pay rise. 
The Championships will run their course but the 2019 event is a damp squib.   In another place the dampness never got in the way of proper folk to show their enthusiasm even when drowned on Chevin.

The camera tells it all,or does it

Subject: The camera tells it all, or does it.

Machael Hooper is definitely not pofaced. He wears his emotions on his face exemplified by the shots in slow motion as the game ebbs and flows. The game, Wales v Australia is now caught on camera to be forensically examined, was it a try, did he ground the ball, was it a high tackle or did he slide down into what is deemed, these days a dangerous tackle. 
The danger of playing rugby is apparent to anyone taking the field. The slow motion camera shots show the impact of these huge, muscular men colliding with each other. It’s the essence of being a man to enjoy the rough and tumble of rugby it’s in the combative genes to exercise your power against another man of similar size, the push and shove which starts in the playground, carried on onto the playing field.
Unfortunately the cameras also introduce a frame by frame, segmental shot which often does little justice to actuality. How often we search for that one shot which shows us in the best light (as they say), a fraction earlier a grimace, a fraction later a smile and depending on which one we send, dictates the story.
In today’s rugby, the TMO camera is constantly roaming the pitch, looking for incursions to the law, a little like the camera in our streets surveying us when our guard is down so it is on the field of play, looking for a niggled response, a payback to something done earlier.  It’s all being analysed by someone who is outside the emotional field force of the pitch and are we in danger of over sanitising the game, reducing it to a  skipping contest much preferred by girls.
Are we also in danger of feminising all of our daily experience, getting onside with the girls in an effort to find a social compromise. Are we making a fetish of inclusiveness, to the exclusion of common sense.
When you take anything apart, you lose sight of the composite whole, the essence of the what makes it what it is, you lose  the character of the beast if you dictate the motive to some sort of ideal.

The basis of governance

Subject: The basis of governance.

The archaic structure of this countries rules of governance which were created at a time when the King and his court were all powerful, centuries ago still hold sway in the governance of the land. The old statutes which are the basis of common law  can be unearthed when convenient to substantiate or refute the law under which we executed our business.  In days gone by there was no quibbling with the King, you risked losing your head otherwise but as Parliament slowly asserted its control, gradually cutting back the Kings power, he fell , in times of crisis on arcane tradition which the Palace had maintained from a time prior to the age of Parliament when the Court was all powerful. 

One such is 'The Privy Council', a strange construction of privilege councillors (private advisors) to the monarch which, when invited to join, the MP  joins a special club with its own rules and protections, a club which has special connections to the crown, a club which can therefore can bend the rules.
Boris Johnson has threatened to invoke a privy council loop hole by which he will be able to avoid the recent ruling of the Supreme Court. We thought the court had tied his hands but like Houdini he wriggles around a rogue amoeba, searching for a weakness to exploit in the body politic and, because we don't have a modern constitution and instead rely on law books full of prescient some dating back to 1066, any of which could be invoked to substantiate a counter argument.
The question which needs asking is, how can we find a secure foundation for a modern society, if the rule which apples to our lives today, can be countered by a rule appraised to handle a situation which arose, 300/400 years ago.  
The application of Privy Councils exceptionalism may be applied by Boris when and if he asks the Queen to suspend parliament again and there seems little to prevent it. 
Dominic Cummings the master mind behind the Leave Campaign said yesterday that the current maneuvering in parliament was easy, compared to getting the Brexit Leave Campaign up and running back in 2016. He is confident he has the measure of parliament and can thwart its wishes. His confidence is based on his long term plan of destabilising the nation creating two clearly definable camps and ensuring that by whipping up popularism to appose  the Establishment and particularly parliamentary democracy, when an election comes round the populace will follow the popular route, a route prepared in advance by the tabloid press. People often vote with their emotions rather than their head, raise and funnel the emotion with a catchy tabloid headline and the votes at the ballot box will surely follow.

Queen and Country

Subject: Queen and Country.

Oh why, oh why are we so conflicted by matters pertaining to the Queen. The feigned establishment  terror if the Queen gets drawn into the constitutional fray surrounding the proroguing of parliament. Why do we create such a hierarchal pedestal, a platform, a throne for her to look down on us from on high. Is there nothing more to say of her than, how well she looks at 93 or how that dress and hat suited her on television.
She's a manufactured icon from a country which still carries on with an archaic, medieval, expensive pantomime, the Windsor family monarchy. Fixated with the trappings of noblesse oblige, which is clearly beyond some members of the family, we bow and curtsy as instructed, and in so doing we ourselves becoming the walk on characters in the same pantomime. The hushed tones used in her presence the ridiculous do's and don'ts and the horror which is professed if protocol is breached. 
Of course a couple of hundred years ago kings and queens played a hands-on role in the affairs of the country and in fact were often the instigators of much of the trouble we found ourselves in. Idiotic spats amongst the aristocratic European family,  the aunts and uncles, who represented the blue blood in the 18th and 19th century and who's feuding provoked thousands, if not millions of deaths, of which history treats lightly whilst becoming apoplectic at the thought of Colonialism (nothing much more than a form of business operated by businessmen).
Crazy to think that the House of Hanover and the House of Saxe-Coburg Gotha, (what became the essence of the State of Germany), a direct blood line to our rebranded the House of Windsor, instigated two world wars without the loss of a single member of the  extended family, in Germany or in Britain. So precious were they that we were shielded from the fact that some sections of the royal family were ready to swop sides, attracted by the supreme power of fascism and its dictatorial hold over the people.
The Queen, a young woman on holiday in Kenya was handed the reins of Monarchy early on the death of her father and one assumes, like her father who himself unexpectedly assumed the reign through the abdication of his brother (a Nazi sympathiser) would have preferred a more normal life before taking on this figurehead role.
Fortunately for those in the country who feel we benefit from having a monarch, she took to the job like a duck to water, temperamentally regal she set the fashion for being a successful Queen. 
The question hovering in the background is, how in the 21st century can we support such a medieval idea, that of needing a chieftain, an isolated, iconic symbol who is supposed to represent us as a national figure but  couldn't be further away from the people, isolated as she is by damn protocol. 
Are they special, or do we insist on making them special. Does the hot house into which they are born and have spent all their lives, make them nothing more than a quaint extension of an historical artefact  
Do the people wish, along with their palaces and fine estates, for them to be a symbol of  themselves, as if their finery were in some way ours. Does it caricature my oft stated amazement at the unemployed in this country, voting for the Establishment Party, when their interests seem so poorly supported. Is it the case that, if I wear the school tie, I'v attended the school.
A perfect example of being trained to exclude your own experience for the glamour of Hollywood 

I mustn't leave my mobile phone at home

Subject: I mustn't leave my mobile phone at home.

And so we ask ourselves, should old people be allowed out at night by themselves without being accompanied or, without some sort of electronic tag so they can be found if lost. The stress of losing an older member of family if they go shopping and they have a 'funny turn' as we used to call it, is similar to losing a child in the fair ground. Both are vulnerable and we panic thinking the worst. Thoughts flood into our mind of how to begin the search, where to go, who to ask and who to contact to help in the search, the police, the ambulance service or the hospitals. You are a novice at this detective work and because the person is dear to you the typical response is to think the worst.
I remember the panic we felt when Angela wandered off unnoticed in the Blackpool Tower pleasure resort. Sheer unadulterated panic as you tore around calling out desperate to find her, which of course we did, she unaware was engrossed in watching something which had caught her eye. The trick of course is to be there at their side day and night, never taking your eye off them, always on guard against any sort of threat, losing what might be described as your own individuality and subsuming it in the child's every need There was a fashion where young children were fit up with a harness to which a lead was attached and the mum or dad simply trailed around at the other end of the lead, much like the tail wagging the dog.

When we get old many of us become, once more vulnerable, slipping away on some adventure or simply out on a shopping expedition but unknown to anyone and therefore, if and when things go wrong, as they can, the thread is lost and the sanctuary of a lead is also lost. The options are endless as you start to consider your best action.
Would she have gone to Morrisons, Aldi or Tesco. Has she or he gone to visit friends. 
Your repeated call to the mobile phone you assume she/he has on them rings and rings asking to leave a message. Where can they be it's dark, after 7pm and far too late to be out. Anxious you start the needle in a haystack search, Tesco first. You feel such a chump not having the car registration number, reluctant to approach  the police and anyway it's only 7pm, the police are short staffed so you get into the car and drive to Tesco.
Have you seen an old lady (yes dear we have thousands of them) you ask the desk. Yes comes the reply she's in the office being looked after my the paramedic. A wave of relief and then the worry pulses through your system, what can have happened, is she ok. There she is surrounded by people who are trying to piece together the next course of action, taxi home or hospital for the night. Your relief is palpable as the horror stories flooding your mind are filed back for another day and the smiles say it all, the smile of a daughter who has found her mum and the smile of a mum who has found her daughter. Like a naughty child the look of relief is made more poignant by the realisation, perhaps for the first time, of their vulnerability  and the stinging reminder that I mustn't leave my mobile phone at home when I come out !!

Heaven help us

Subject: Heaven help us.

In cricketing terms if you take the field and send in your opening batsman then Geoffrey Cox the Attorney General would be expected to carry his bat and score a century. 
Like a master batsman who's skill with the bat lies as much in the speed his eye picks up the flight of the ball so the oratory and quickness of mind provide the space between a definitive answer and obfuscation. Cox a barrister by trade is a master of the weighted pause, the all encompassing gesture, the turn of phrase and a clinical choice of words.
As Parliament is called back to debate the issue of the Supreme Courts ruling, that the PMs motives for proroguing Parliament were illegal, then the spotlight fell upon the Attorney General who's legal advise was sort on the legality of proroguing. 
He was in the hot seat, or so it seemed but the power of personality, oratory and hiding behind the law regarding non disclosure (due to client/lawyer privilege) he was able to avoid having a hand laid upon him.
As opposition members of parliament rose to make their point they were overwhelmed by the pomposity that a legally trained person brings to a conversation  and it highlights the difficult in finding usefulness in the parliamentary debate since so many of them are lawyers.
The clamour for recalling parliament seems to have been a call to release more hot air.
The toing and froing and the cat-calling, the derisory terms of cowardice and spinelessness whip up the emotions and are the tools of trade MPs use in their school yard behaviour.
With bated breath we have been watching the infighting between the supporters of Boris Johnson and Brexit and the Remain group each side bitterly opposed to the other, then the high drama of the Supreme Court being called to make a ruling and all for what.
Watching Parliament is like watching some slow moving prewar film, full of cliches, pre-rehearsed  lines, old arguments repeated ad infinitum. It reminded me of a tennis match, the ball flowing backwards and forwards, the gruff voice of the speaker/umpire deciding the point 30/40 but with no end in sight. We seem to have become so polarised that there is no room for amalgamating the views into some sort of consensus. We are locked in and out by ideology and the iron rule of not giving way. 
A day has already been spent on specious rhetoric from both sides. The importance of Brexit and our future as a country hardly touched as old animosities were the fuel that kept the fire going. The same old, same old comes to mind when what we need is a measure of honesty and a willingness not to tell lies but Minister after Minister stood up speaking  from a script written by a backroom team and vetted by No 10. Nothing original just the vetted party line. 
Was it worth getting their Lordships to provide that  parliament could sit when, to the unaccustomed ear, it was as if the contestants hadn't stopped quarreling and simply picked up the script from the act of dissolution. 
Listening to Micheal Gove ripping through his statement, a statements of platitudes and what ifs, a series of jotted notes on the back of an envelope. A plan to obfuscate to the end even as the ship is sinking.  It's a scandal of huge proportions as we sit and watch this national soap opera acted out by supposedly the finest minds in the land.
If that's the case, then heaven help us.

A unanimous decision challenged

Subject: A unanimous decision challenged 

It runs to the deep seated crisis as to who we have become in the 21st century when, by a unanimous decision the Law Lords place their collective minds together and make a decision, the tabloid press openly contest the decision. Years ago it would be unheard of to go head to head with the judiciary, it was instinctive that the balance of power in the country wouldn't be served by whipping up opposition and resentment. 
The Law of the land was held to be technically watertight, a fine tuned assessment of previous rulings based on the opinion that law was, in part like ethics and morals, a set of assumptions which had been tested to destruction down the years and was the best basis on which to secure democratic government. The idea that editors would let their dogs loose and write headlines designed to raise the public into a frenzy of opposition to a legal judgement was unheard of.
This morning the Sun runs with the headline " Our readers slam the proroguing farce and 'Oh you are lawful but we don't like you'" aside a picture of the chair of the Law Lords.
The Express goes with "Unlawful wats lawful about denying 17.4 million Brexit voters".
The Daily Mail splashes its headline "Boris blasts 'Who runs Britain"
These papers are deliberately vilifying the decision of the highest Court in the land and urging their readers to do the same. 
In olden times this would be seen as treason but it's the state of this country today that the editors and owners think it's perfectly ok and of course profitable to stoke up resentment amongst their readership and the wider public. Of course many people will have their own ideas about the decision based on their notion of what they want the outcome of Brexit to be but it's unconscionable to openly provide a platform for revolt on this cherished symbol of what makes a state civilised.
Without the acceptance of law you have anarchy and the harm you do to the fabric of a society rooted in the acceptance of its courts is unacceptable. 

The Tower would be an acceptable place for these media ragamuffins to cool their heels but we can't do without the income of the tourist flocking through the gates. Perhaps a flogging on Tower Green or at least time spent in the stocks with cheap rotting veg to throw at them (preferably taken from a truck held up at Dover) as an alternative to Watching East Enders.

Hands in the cookie jar

Subject: Hands in the cookie jar.

The collapse of Thomas Cook and the huge bonus the directors have paid themselves over the years of gradual demise of the company highlights another fault line in capitalism, the unfettered ability to get away with financial shananiigans which we, the general public would find ourselves on the wrong side of the law if we practiced the same moves.

From awarding bonuses for assumed good governance when clearly the governance was poor, to the tax evasion of Amazon and Goggle where billions of pounds of profit are sidelined, not in the country where they are made through the sale but in obscure, tax efficient (what a deceitful description) islands or countries such as Luxembourg or Ireland which set themselves up as places where the tax is scandalously  low for businesses.
You would think that it would be easy to stop. Bonuses and other perks should bear some reference to the financial health of the company and tax should be born on the sales in a particular country where they are made not some illusory place where the head office is situated.
One is drawn to the conclusion that the powers that be don't want it that way. 
Drawn from the same well the politicians cover these financial diversions, what we in our ignorance would deem illegal (or should be)  by  obfuscation, they promise to reform the system but never do, perhaps they are too close to the people who practice the deceit, old school tie comes to mind, and whilst they will come down like a ton of bricks on a small business who try's to claim an expense such as a lunch they seem totally unable to pursue millions which are placed in these tax efficient schemes. 
And so the bonuses are paid out, 4 million to the last chief executive who oversaw the final stages of the companies dive into bankruptcy. The staff who go home today are penniless other than their last salary, no golden handshake to tie them over, no special dispensation for them since they are the mere chattels in this feudal system which has blossomed since the neo liberals took over. We sit and watch it unfold, unable to do a damn thing as the power has been gathered by market forces unanswerable to anyone. No wonder Greta Thunberg shows her in frustration at the powers which lie at the root of our system.

How dare you

Subject: How dare you

It's rare and humbling to see such an impassioned speech from this young climate change activist Greta Thunberg who's demeanor  has usually been a critically measured one but today, in front of the UN she fell apart emotionally and with good reason. 
The antipathy or aversion of the money men to listen is the crowning moment of man's madness and greed 
There is no better comparison than to consider the image of Sweden today portrayed in the face of this young girls impassioned plea, to think for all of mankind especially the future of the children and the faces on British television of people angry and upset that a gas guzzling aeroplane isn't at their immediate disposal to bring them back from their overseas holiday after the collapse of Thomas Cook. 
It reflect the priorities of a spoil't 'me me me' society, the immediacy of my needs set against tomorrow's needs 
It reveals in part the psych of the two nations and whilst I don't doubt that there are many Greta Thunbergs here in this country, as there are 'me me' people in Sweden, it does fit the profile of an Anglo/American society gripped with the concerns of market led capitalism, gripped with the fear that somehow economic growth is the only thing to worry about.
Thunbugs anger and frustration as she faced the 'suites' was that when she had finished she knew the platitudes which would flow with little realistic commitment to trying to reverse climate change. 
Perhaps the most telling picture was the one in the UN foyer when the smug self congratulatory figure of Donald Trump, the arch climate change denier passed not yds away and Greta's face, a picture of loathing and contempt was there for all to see.
We are on a debt fueled roller coaster spending money we don't have on things we don't need. We continue telling our self that our contribution wouldn't make any difference but know that underlying that claim is our selfish attitude, that it's always someone else's fault. Our journeys by car and plane are our contribution, the only one we can effect and have control over but we hide behind the thought that everyone around is polluting the atmosphere so why shouldn't we. It's that cycle of measuring yourself against neighbours rather than having that internal debate yourself and making your own choices regardless of what others are doing. 
I have a feeling that Greta Thunberg will be around for some time reminding us of our failings and our responsibilities.

Thomas Cook, RIP

Subject: Thomas Cook,  RIP

I suspect I am one of the few who haven't been an a proper annual holiday in 20 years. For some holidays are more stressful than being in work, the arrangements to travel, the packing, the accommodation,  getting around the language barrier are all factors in the stress. Staying at home, not booking  a flight or, taking the easy way, arranging a package holiday for an amazingly cheap price is another option, amazed at how the cost seems close to the cost of staying at home. Is it any wonder in this murky world of cut price holidays that Thomas Cook have gone bust, struggling to compete for the cheapest offer, since there was no  meaningful  profit in the contract.
The media has been saturated with stories of people missing weddings in Las Vegus christening's in Australia, even funerals in Timbuktu. It seems that the normal compass of family and friends is now so widely spread we need a plane to cover the ground between us. Whether we should feel sorrow for those who have been stranded or feel that with so many people in the country barely  able to make it through the week financially and certainly unable to afford the cost of an overseas holiday, should we temper our sympathy and rather ask the question, if you get something for virtually nothing, please judge whether it's a good deal for all concerned.
People have become enticed into thinking that everything they do is covered in terms of recovery, bodies and money are all retrievable if things go wrong. In my day we bore the brunt of any miscalculation or injury with the ready assumption that it was, in part our fault. We would accept that if a journey was cancelled, or a company went bust it was all part of having to work in a cut price market and we took it on the chin. In today's  world of rights and the lawyers who chase them, the companies offering a service are made to bear the cost, irrespective of circumstance.
We were always willing to accept the ups and downs in life as part of the game. We weren't insured for every move we made, we didn't count the cost of failure into our package and readily accepted our share of the reasons for something going wrong. Todays Teflon kid assumes that nothing sticks and that it's always someone else's fault if they are in any way inconvenienced, this was not part of our psych. When things go wrong, so what, there was always the next opportunity, another chance and the more you escaped from the bubble of conformity the more likely you exposed yourself to things happening over which you have no control.
If I missed a wedding or a christening by not being able to fly halfway around the world then one should rather question the circumstances of being so far away. The sums of money people, ordinary people are prepared to spend on a wedding in some exotic place is beyond me. The tickets for not only yourself and the bride but also for bridesmaids and family members runs into many thousands, it seems ludicrous to spend so much
Thomas Cook are no more and as our high streets close their doors on so many household retail names  soon the only company you will be trading with will be a combination of Amazon and Goggle, both with head offices in Lichtenstein where a right of reply might be more than you can expect.