Principles and Failures.

Last night I did something in serious violation of one of my most strongly held principles. I did it because I was scared of the consequences of not doing it, which is pretty shameful and probably as good a reason as any for hiding away in a dark place for a span of time yet to be discovered. Principles are central to my priorities, you see. It’s an INFJ thing.

A supremely attractive young woman of maybe west Asian heritage (Iranian or Afghan was my guess) walked past me today pushing a baby in a buggy. She turned and smiled at me, but it didn’t help. And I watched an episode of Peep Show on DVD tonight which carried vague echoes of my experience with Sheona McCormack all those years ago. That didn’t help either because I yelled at Sheona when I shouldn’t have done and the cause was lost forever. It’s one of my most memorable failures.

But it’s all happened before, and it’s life and life only, and I expect I’ll be back eventually.

The Mad Woman of Utcheter.

(‘Utcheter’ is what the lazy locals call Uttoxeter.)

Some months ago I was walking through Uttoxeter bus station when I saw an elderly woman sitting in one of the shelters, surrounded by shopping bags and other receptacles full to the brim with household requisites, blankets and so on. I asked her whether she was homeless because I thought the bags might contain all her worldly possessions and intended to give her some money with which to buy a hot drink and a meal. She reacted sharply and denied the fact, and so I apologised and walked on.

I saw her several times in the same shelter, but then she and her ‘possessions’ disappeared for a few weeks. And then the pattern changed. At the bottom end of the bus station is a taxi rank consisting of a long glass shelter with a bench running the whole length and big enough to accommodate around eight people. A few weeks ago I took the same route through the bus station and noticed that the bench in the taxi rank was completely covered with the same collection of receptacles which I’d seen surrounding the old lady. Only the old lady wasn’t with them, and what’s odd is that this huge collection of household requisites has been in the shelter, unattended, ever since. And I should add that all this stuff looks brand new.

So, skip back a few weeks…

I was in the retail park down the hill from the town and passing the B&Q store (it’s one of a national chain of hardware/DIY/garden stores.) And there was the old lady walking out of the place with a shopping trolley full of yet more of the same bags and receptacles – all apparently new and freshly bought.

Skip back a little further…

I made a blog post about an old woman with matted grey hair who was wandering around a charity shop, eying me suspiciously and talking to somebody who wasn’t there. I realised when I saw the woman at B&Q that it was the same woman.

So now I have a mystery on my hands: Who is this woman? Why does she make an apparent career of endlessly buying household requisites? Where does she find the money, because it must be costing her a small fortune? Why does she leave it all lying around in a public place for anyone to steal? And maybe most important of all, from which attic has she escaped and should women called Jane keep a fire extinguisher handy. (I’m assuming everybody is familiar with Jane Eyre.)

End (so far.)

Sorry for the ramble, but the creature which invades the roof space above my kitchen is being particularly troublesome tonight and it’s driving me to distraction.

On Choosing When to Leave the Hell Hole.

Earlier today I read the BBC article on the upcoming Assisted Dying Bill shortly to come before the British parliament. This is the Bill which proposes that terminally ill people who are suffering badly and wish to end their lives should be allowed to have medical assistance to achieve that wish. Naturally, it has safeguards built in to preclude any possibility of people being pressured to accede against their will.

Many MPs have been expressing their views this week and making known their voting intention. Some of the objections are religious in nature, some stem from imagined demons which I think are unlikely to exist, and the Rt Hon Gordon Brown said that he will vote against the Bill because he believes that life is a ‘gift’ (without, as far as know, saying from whom) and that it is ‘beautiful.’

I could wax eloquent on this subject. In fact, I have been waxing eloquent in my mind ever since I read the article. But I dislike long blog posts these days so I’ll just offer two remarks:

To Gordon Brown I would say ‘not if you have Motor Neurone Disease, it isn’t.’ And I would suggest to other detractors that they should consider the possibility that one day they might be struck down by a condition which leaves them tormented by agonising pain, locked into a body which has become a torture chamber, and crying desperately for the mercy of release. Do they think they might then wish that they’d voted differently? 

James and the Mystery Visitor.

I said in a recent post that the last story in James Joyce’s anthology Dubliners is the longest and most tedious of them all. Seems I owe Mr J an apology because last night I read the final few pages and they contain the loveliest exposition of deep melancholy and the perception of mortality that I think I’ve ever read. So kudos to Mr J after all, although whether or not I will ever find the fortitude to read Ulysses remains to be seen.

*  *  *

And while I’m in the mood for saying things that nobody will be interested to read, I thought I’d mention that Blogger stats reports many instances of someone using Chrome browser with Windows visiting the blog on a regular basis, but the location is never shown. I wish they’d send me an email or leave a comment so I know who’s watching me.

(I should also add that I'm trying to reach 200 posts by the end of the year, because to do less would be shameful.)

Manipulation.

There’s an advert on my inbox home page for the new iPhone 16 Pro Max. Naturally intrigued, as one who declines to follow the stroke and poke brigade would be, I gave a little thought to the name: Pro Max. Sounds impressive, doesn’t it?  Well… no. Actually it sounds a bit silly.

It’s obviously a portmanteau concoction composed of Professional and Maximum, ‘professional’ suggesting elevation to a higher level, and ‘maximum’ implying that it does all a piece of modern technology is capable of doing. It’s all meaningless fakery designed to manipulate the minds of the gullible into believing that having one represents a step up the ladder in the matter of tram line status. (And I suppose it probably does, tragically.)

There’s nothing new about this, of course. I remember when manufacturers of winter clothing accessories such as gloves and T shirts began to use the term ‘thermal.’ It’s intended to give the impression that the fabric is inherently superior to normal fabric, being produced by clever modern technology appropriate to the space age. All it actually means is ‘thicker.’

(Even I was initially taken in by that one, but it was a long time ago and I was much younger then. My error was pointed out by an older shop assistant who said ‘Don’t be taken in by that nonsense. It just means ‘thicker.’ Thank you. And yet they’re still doing it.)

A Short Note on Equivalence and Anti-Semitism.

No doubt we’ve all heard or read about the International Criminal Court issuing an arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu, among others, on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Joe Biden of the USA – which is not a signatory to the ICC and is keen to keep Israel onside purely for strategic purposes – called the warrant ‘outrageous.’ He said there was ‘no equivalence’ between the actions of Hamas and those of the IDF. Well, nobody takes much notice of anything Biden says any more, but let’s suggest an analogy:

Somewhere in America live two families, one white and one black. They’re near neighbours, but the white family believe themselves to be superior to the black family and constantly treat them badly in all manner of ways. One day the black father snaps. He breaks into the white family’s home and shoots the mother dead. That’s murder, no doubt about it. When the white father discovers what has happened he goes to the black family’s house armed with an assault rifle. He sprays bullets everywhere, killing everybody in the house including the children. That’s multiple murder. And that’s the equivalence.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu predictably called the issue of the warrant ‘anti-Semitic.’ And here we have the same old smoke screen belching out ad nauseum to shield the Israeli hard liners from blame, no matter how hideous their actions might be. The warrant has nothing to do with anti-Semitism, which is an expression tragically misunderstood by those of little brain and frequently misappropriated by those who should know better. I needn’t go on because I’ve done so often enough on this blog. (But I do suspect that there are probably a lot of good Israelis in Israel who would love to see the back of Netanyahu and his cohorts.)

Notes for a Mostly Downbeat Week.

It’s interesting, isn’t it, that if you become obsessed with death it’s considered negative and unwholesome, whereas musing on the issue of mortality is considered philosophical. I understand the generalised difference between the two of course, but I find myself frequently musing on the particulars.          

*  *  *

I worked out today that I’ve spent 40% of my life living alone. I don’t remember why I worked it out, but I did and it’s true. I gave some thought to the fact and was going to write a long piece on issues such as privacy, freedom, and the disinclination to compromise, but I can’t be bothered. I will just say that I was probably happiest back in the mid-nineties when I lived alone but had the theatre people to engage with when I wanted some engagement. I suppose that’s the sigma way. Any form of engagement is rather thin on the ground these days, and occasionally I miss it.

*  *  *

On Monday I mentioned what I referred to as a ‘coating’ of snow. That was before the real thing started – heavy snow (both bird feeding tables were under 8” of the stuff in the morning) and temperatures hanging around freezing during the day and plummeting further overnight. That would be considered cold by UK standards in January, and it’s only November. By common consent it was quite a shock because we weren’t ready for it, having just had several weeks of mild, pleasant, and dry autumnal weather. I wonder what the real winter will bring, and to what extent mortality will be the byword.

*  *  *

The last short story in Joyce’s Dubliners is by far the longest and arguably the most tedious. It’s all about aunts and nephews, husbands and wives, roast goose and puddings on the dinner table, and piano recitals by diffident young ladies (oh, and the cold darkness of the city streets lying under a layer of snow, damn its withering whiteness.) And it’s very, very drawn out. I’m coming close to the end now, and it all seems to be leading up to the classic old Irish balled The Lass of Aughrim and its relevance to current company. There are several versions of the song on YouTube, of which my favourite is the album track by Susan McKeown. That’s because I like her voice and presentation. It’s a bit sad, as you might expect of a classic old Irish ballad, but I suppose a little bit of pathos can be enjoyable if you’re in the mood.

A Bottle at Bedtime.

When I was a young boy, languishing among the labouring class in a northern English industrial city, the prospect of ever having an electric blanket to warm my bed on cold winter nights was too distant to be countenanced. A person had to own their home and be firmly convinced of their status as petit bourgeoisie to have one of those, or so it seemed to me. But I did have the benefit of the next best thing – a hot water bottle.

At this point I find myself unsure as to whether the concept of the hot water bottle is known beyond the bounds of Britannia. In case it isn’t, I suppose I should offer a simple description:

A pouch-like rubber receptacle about 12 inches tall and 9 inches wide with a screw-in rubber stopper at the top surrounded by a small lip. It was half filled with very hot – but not boiling – water and tightly sealed with the stopper to preclude leakage. And such an article was my only solace when going to bed in an unheated bedroom and an unheated bed. And I had a system (Jeffrey had a system for everything and still does.)

First I would place the bottle straddling the pillow and the area of mattress immediately in front of it while I was changing into my pyjamas. That was for the benefit of my head and neck. When I got into the bed I would force the bottle to the far end to take care of my bare feet (going to bed with socks on was simply not done for some reason that was ever a mystery to me.) And when my feet and the bottom of the bed were deemed warm enough I would grip the rubber artefact between my feet, draw it up to my outstretched hands, and then cradle it to my chest ready for a now slightly more comfortable repose. And then go to sleep.

I suppose you could say that my hot water bottle was my first partner (although I probably wouldn’t), but we never discussed the affairs of the day, what we should have for breakfast in the morning, or how on earth we managed to arrive in this God-forsaken world in the first place. That came later.

*  *  *

And I’ll tell you something else about my childhood bedtime habits. I often used to attempt to climb down the bed head first with the intention of coming out at the bottom end, but I could never do it. After only a couple of feet I was gripped by strong claustrophobic anxiety and came back. I suspect that might have had something to do with a past life memory because my rational mind saw no danger or difficulty in the exercise at all. We never know, do we?

*  *  *

My ex, Mel, is a big fan of hot water bottles. She tells me that she still takes one to bed even though she has an electric blanket and a cat. I have an electric blanket too. I just switched it on.

The Other Winter Sting.

We’re having our first taste of winter in the UK at the moment: low temperatures and a coating of snow. I’m being reminded that this is the time of year when I worry constantly about the animals, consigned as they are to an entirely outdoor existence.

I know that winter brings death to a lot of wild animals, but what concerns me more is whether they suffer an emotional reaction. We know that animals have emotions, but do they function the same way ours do? Do cows, for example, suffer debilitating depressions while standing out in cold, wet fields through long winter nights? And what of those birds which spend the nights roosting in now-naked tree branches open to the elements?

I don’t know the answer to that. Does anybody? Maybe it’s better that I don’t.

I changed my bed linen over today. Off came the summer cotton to be replaced by heavy flannel and a (purportedly) 17-tog duvet. The trouble with feeling comfortable in bed, though, is that it makes me think of all the creatures out there, and then I feel the sting of guilt. Maybe I should try to develop the habit of feeling privileged instead, but to somebody like me it amounts to the same thing.

Conscientious Doctors, Dumbass Politicians, and the Numbers Game.

The problem with the doctor’s surgery to which I’ve referred in recent posts was settled amicably this evening. I’d already had the blood test and so I was given a phone consultation appointment for 5.15. The call duly arrived at 6.40…

So why, you might ask, did the call materialise nearly an hour and a half after the due time? Well, it’s like this:

Doctors – at least the conscientious ones – define success by reference to clinical outcomes. Politicians, on the other hand, define it strictly in terms of numbers. Numbers are easy to handle, you see, and since neither politicians nor the general public are required to have at least a reasonable IQ in order to exist in their respective forms, numbers are the natural means by which both parties may be satisfied. But it causes a problem:

Some years ago, when even the more mentally challenged were coming to realise that our grand socialist flagship, the NHS, was beginning to creak at the seams through underfunding, the politicians introduced a new policy of restricting the length of GP appointments to ten minutes. That was so they could put out press releases to demonstrate that GP surgeries were now treating more patients, and could cry from the rooftops ‘Aren’t we just wonderful? Vote for us again next time.’ (Because numbers don’t lie, you know. They don’t. At least, no more than politicians do.)

But the doctors saw it differently. Many of them – especially the more conscientious ones – knew that to treat patients effectively it was necessary to spend as much time as was needed to give the patients’ conditions proper attention. Ten minutes was often not long enough, and so their appointments grew later and later as the day wore on. My doctor happens to be one of the more conscientious types, and that’s why he was an hour and a half late calling me. I respect him for it; he’s a good man. And I even managed to convince myself that it really didn’t matter that my evening meal was stewing quietly away on the hob. I’d arranged it that way because I’m an INFJ and therefore a master of anticipation (a quality which causes me a hell of a lot of stress sometimes.)

But back to the issues. The appointment was required because I was due my annual medications review, and the results were as follows:

Blood cholesterol good, kidney function good, liver function good, blood pressure just about perfect. And so I asked him: ‘If my liver function is good, may I now increase my consumption of whisky?’ to which he replied ‘The phone signal was breaking up just then. Bye.’

A Woman of Note.

I was thinking tonight what an honour it would be to meet Julia Navalnaya. Such a strong and beautiful woman, a most compelling combination.

And since I get occasional visits to the blog from Russia, I felt that I would like to have some correspondence from a Russian to tell me what the people really think of the great dictator and his damnable ways.

I doubt anyone would do that, of course, for fear of winding up prematurely dead in some ice cold Siberian prison. And who knows but that the tyrant’s tentacles might even stretch as far as my little piece of earth. I doubt it, but you never know.

And so, since little old me is in no position to make a difference, it’s probably better that I remain ignorant and continue my habit of musing on the meaning of life. It seems likely that we all have to face our own karma sooner or later, even Mr P.

Questioning the Priorities.

There’s a piece in the BBC news about ignorant people among the British bureaucracy (and probably the British government) arranging a Diwali event for Hindus, Sikhs, and Jains at which meat and alcohol was served. Their ignorance has been soundly pointed out to them and a government official has apologised and said ‘it won’t happen again.’ He then went on to say that the occasion marked a celebration of the shared values between our various cultures. So what were these shared values in order of importance?

Kindness? Compassion? Consideration? Mutual respect? Co-operation? Social justice?

No:

Hard work, ambition, aspiration

These may not necessarily be bad values taken in context, but the most important? They do, after all, distil to self, self, self.

I decided to forego the concluding sentence for fear of offending a few people I hold in high esteem.

On Receptionists, Empaths, and Daemons.

I managed to get somewhere with the GP surgery today. I talked to the young woman receptionist instead of the older one who likes to identify as an Anglo-Saxon battleaxe. How many times have I said that young women are usually the easiest to deal with and the best at resolving issues? This could have been a longer paragraph, but I’ll leave it at that.

*  *  *

Skip back a day to my Ashbourne shopping foray. On walking up to the town I was aware of emergency vehicles rushing in from all directions and static traffic blocking the roads. Clearly there was something amiss, and when I walked up to the top of the old market place I discovered the source of the commotion. There were several vehicles and people milling about on the Buxton road leading uphill out of the town, and they were all crowded around two white sheets set up on frames, clearly covering something on the road. Since there were ambulances involved, I assumed it was a person.

It’s surprising how disturbing – even enervating – that can be to somebody with empathic inclinations. I was grateful I could hear no screaming, and I didn’t hang around.

*  *  *

Many years ago I read Phillip Pullman’s trilogy His Dark Materials and found it utterly enthralling as very many people did and still do. The early part of the story is set in a parallel universe to ours which is mostly similar but with a few notable differences. One of those differences is that every human wears their soul or essence on the outside as a free-living animal known as their daemon. They communicate freely, often work through problems in tandem, and their closeness to one another is essential to the survival of both.

Ever since I read it I’ve often idly mused on what my daemon would be if such a thing existed, and nothing I ever thought of fitted the bill. If I had to choose two animals to which I feel most closely aligned it would be the dog and the brown bear, and yet neither felt right. And then a few nights ago I watched a video accompanying the Lisa Gerard song Sanvean, and I finally found my daemon.

The video featured wolves, and for the first time in my life I saw the majesty, nobility, and intelligence of those magnificent animals. Why have I never ‘seen’ them before? I don’t know, but I was suddenly left in no doubt that my daemon would be a sigma she-wolf. (It should be noted that daemons are always the opposite gender to their hosts, which I suppose is about complimentary masculine and feminine principles co-existing in the composite whole. Nice idea, and one of which I approve.)

Icing on the Hedgerow and the INFJ.

One of the sights I find most appealing at this time of year is the sprinkling of fallen leaves lying on top of the neatly trimmed hedgerows and mingled with the green of evergreen species. I stand and look at them with a sense of delight at the contrast between the shiny, green, living leaves, and the browns and mixed golds of the fallen, dead ones. I’ve come to think of the phenomenon as ‘autumn icing.’

And it always prompts me to think again about the nature of perception. What is it, apart from being a fundamental part of consciousness which deterministic science still can’t explain and possibly never will? More intriguingly, why do I find the sight of autumn icing a little magical while others don’t even notice it?

I think it might have something to do with being an INFJ personality type. From what I’ve heard, it appears that all INFJs go through life being aware of their strangeness, and some suffer badly through being rejected, sometimes ridiculed, regarded with suspicion, and generally written off. I’m used to it by now and it doesn’t bother me.

Quote from someone I once worked with: ‘You’re good at your job, Jeff, but my God you’re bloody weird.’

Good, good. (That’s the Irish way of putting it. My ancestor’s voice, no less. There’s probably a connection. And for those familiar with classic Irish folk songs, another thing that fascinates me is the sight of the wind shaking the barley so it ripples into waves.)

On Dire Prospects and Damnable Presumption.

Over the past year or so my mind has entered a state which I used to think of as being merely apathetic, and probably temporary, but now it’s been upgraded to my End of Days mentality.

I often muse on the future of planet earth, you see, and all who sail in her. I think of the threats we might face any time from tomorrow to a few decades down the line – economic meltdown, global warming, WWIII, power-hungry Presidents, giant asteroids, coronal mass ejections, and so on.

And then I look around at all my possessions which are showing signs of needing repair or renewal and my end of days mentality kicks in unfailingly. Will the gadgets hang on long enough to see me out and save me the trouble and expense? It’s becoming a regular hope and habit because life now seems to have entered a race between the state of the world and my own mortality. Which of us will pack up first, or will it be a dead heat because the endings will be simultaneous?

‘You shouldn’t think like that,’ I hear you say. ‘I don’t think like that,’ I reply. ‘It’s the way I feel.’ ‘Then you should learn to control your emotional state,’ you remonstrate with a level of sagacity born of your deluded imagination. ‘Please don’t patronise me; go away,’ is my only riposte. (Actually I would probably use stronger language and drop the ‘please’.)

*  *  *

But for now I’ve drunk my mug of tea and eaten my slice of toast and jam, so I’m off to see whether my alter-ego Mr Joyce can depress my mood even further with tails of desperate and dysfunctional Dubliners. Odd that I should find them entertaining, but maybe it’s something to do with my Mayo roots from way back (the song Rocky Road to Dublin comes to mind.)

And now I have a new problem. I bought a fresh pot of jam last week, a more expensive and therefore upmarket brand than Sainsbury’s own. It’s blackcurrant flavour and has real, whole blackcurrants in it. They keep falling off the toast and having to be picked up from the floor with a piece of kitchen roll so I don’t have to bother washing my hands. Maybe it’s the universe’s way of telling me that peasants like me should avoid the presumption of buying upmarket jam.

A Minor Irritation.

There are some new advertising posters all around the scruffy, near-defunct shopping precinct in Uttoxeter. They’re for KP Nuts, one of the leading brands of packaged nuts in the UK, and the catch line reads: 

There’s nuts, then there’s KP nuts

Now, any native English speaker – and even those blessèd people over the water who have learned English to a reasonable level – know that ‘there’s’ is an abbreviation of ‘there is’, and they also know that the conjugation of the verb ‘to be’ has ‘is’ when relating to a singular object, and ‘are’ when the object is plural. And so this catch line should read ‘There are nuts, etc.’

So why has the writer made this glaring error? Would he or she have written, for example, ‘there is thirty children in the classroom’? Was the erroneous verb a product of ignorance, or was it deliberately engineered for some arcane reason known only to advertising copy writers? You might argue that if writers can take refuge in the principle of poetic licence, isn’t it right to allow advertisers the same indulgence? I’m not convinced.

I thought about it for a good five minutes as I was walking to Tesco, and eventually asked myself: ‘Does it matter?’ Well, yes and no. It all depends on where I’m currently standing on the question of the meaning and purpose of life. It keeps changing, you see.

Interpretations.

I was in a discount store today and behind me in the checkout queue was a youngish couple accompanied by a girl of around ten or eleven, presumably their daughter. I soon noticed that she was staring at me, and so I glanced at her several times and every time I did she was still staring at me. I thought I’d try a smile to see what might happen. She smiled back and continued to stare at me, and when I’d finished my transaction at the checkout she was still staring at me.

And so I asked myself the obvious question: Why? Why would a young girl of that age be seemingly fixated on my physical presence, and the first answer I came up with was rather sad. It occurred to me that maybe she wanted a granddad and didn’t have one. It further occurred to me that maybe she’d had a granddad but he’d died and she missed him. (That sort of thought process is one to which I’m much given as a result of the sad stories my mother used to tell me as a child.) And then I felt like a complete piece of festering detritus at the recollection that I hadn’t waved to her when I left.

But then I had another thought. Maybe she was simply fascinated by just how ugly people become when they’re getting old. There, now; that’s much better and much more likely.

(I never had a granddad, you know. My mother never knew who her father was, and my father's father died of TB long before I was born. My step-father's father was a sort of surrogate, but it's not the same as somebody you've known since you were born. And he lived a long way away in London, so I only saw him a few times. He also gave my mother the gift of a gold swastika, and as I grew older I naturally wondered why he had it and where he'd picked it up.)

A Little Literary Question.

Having just read my favourite Dubliners short story so far (A Painful Case for those familiar with the opus) I felt an instant need to write an autobiographical one of my own and pass it off as fiction. And then a question occurred to me:

How can any story be truly autobiographical when it’s told only from the writer’s angle? Life isn’t that simple, is it?

Desperately Searching For Something to Say.

I had some time on my hands this evening and went in desperate search of something profound to write to the blog. I didn’t find anything, so eventually I gave up the quest and read some more of James Joyce’s Dubliners instead.

But by way of salvaging the evening’s surfeit of spare time, I suppose I could mention that yesterday I saw an old friend from my theatre days on the TV. And today I went searching for one of my favourite songs from my teenage years, and discovered that it had been written by a man who now lives a mere five miles from me. And maybe I might remark on today’s encounter with the Lady B, especially since such encounters are so rare these days. We had a conversation consisting of seven words – four of hers and three of mine. In mitigation, however, I might add that she was out jogging and braving the damp, dour November day dressed in a sleeveless top and shorts, while I had the benefit of multiple layers and a beanie hat.

But none of that is either profound or interesting, is it?

So what of my impressions of Dubliners? I haven’t said much about it yet, have I? It’s an odd sort of work, a collection of short stories in which the plots are always perfunctory at best, and only there to provide the platform for a character study. Since character is of paramount interest to me, I am finding it entertaining, even though the plots – such as they are – are generally as depressing as a foggy night in a dingy alley somewhere off O’Connell Street.

And it takes me back to what an indy publishing editor who wanted to use four of my own short stories said to me once: ‘I read some James Joyce today, and thought “he writes just like JJ Beazley.”’ Was that a compliment or a statement so strange as to be unworthy of note? Well, the man in question was young, American, and training for the priesthood, so maybe that explains it.

Hoist By Old Words and Pax Americana.

Several senior Labour politicians who are now seated at the top table of power in Britain since the General Election have been highly scathing of Donald Trump in recent weeks. Words like ‘fascist’, ‘neo-Nazi’, and ‘sociopath’ (and worse) have been used by people who are now government ministers to describe the Old Pretender heading for the White House.

Clearly there is an almost palpable sense that the people now running the UK are mortified to say the least that Trump is heading for a second term. The problem is that they’re going to have to deal with him, especially one of the foremost detractors, David Lammy, who is now Foreign Secretary.

‘No problem,’ says Keir Starmer (who is also known to be less than a fan). He says that the ‘special relationship’ between Britain and the USA is far too deep to allow personal differences to get in the way. Besides, there’s the matter of economic exigency to be considered. The USA is Britain’s biggest export market, and given the difference in population sizes, the corollary to this argument must be that we need the US more than the US needs us. We also need American arms to help protect us from Putin, who lives much closer to us than he does to America. And so we have to grovel and tug our forelocks even if we detest every bit of Donald Trump, from his sociopathic mentality to his Simpsons hairstyle.

And that’s the bit I don’t like. As a Brit – and with all due respect to some of the splendid Americans I’ve been fortunate to know – I don’t want to be a citizen of the American Empire. I’ve even taken to wondering how the citizens of the Roman Empire felt when Caligula became Emperor.

Musing on the Bardo.

I watched a video last night on the Bardo Thodol – a Buddhist text known in the west as The Tibetan Book of the Dead. It was written by a Tibetan master quite a long time ago and describes the experiences and trials the disembodied mind must expect when entering the bardo – the state between losing one physical body and taking up occupation of another. I didn’t much like the sound of it, but reasoned that it represents one man’s opinion to be accepted as a possibility along with countless others.

But one little random statement was cause for encouragement. The narrator said that those who had never contemplated the matter of death while still in their now-defunct bodies were at a disadvantage. Well, that accusation can certainly not be levelled at me, so maybe there’s hope that the angels on the light side of the picture will preserve me from the hideous demonic projections of my imperfect mind after all. And that ray of hope encouraged me to desist from leaving a very long comment asking all manner of questions which were never even referred to in the documentary.

That’s the problem with life, isn’t it? Nobody ever gives us a definitive annual report so we can see how we’re doing and make the necessary adjustments. I suppose that’s why I prefer to follow such finer instincts as I might have rather than slavishly following the babble of any religious tradition.

Knowing November.

I’m probably more familiar with the month of November than I am with any other month because it’s the month in which I was born. (And a year later it was the month in which I first heard the word ‘birthday’ cast in my direction. I suppose that was when learning the value of words began in earnest.) And November, I think, is one of the profoundest in marking the progress of the year.

October is the month of being distracted by the kaleidoscope of coloured leaves adorning the countless trees gracing hill, dale, pasture, and hedgerow, mixing with and decorating the remnants of summer green. The clean leaves fall with a wholesome dryness which makes them crackle underfoot and whisper as we accidentally brush them with our shoes.

But come November and all begins to change. The decorated trees are mostly skeletal and stark, and the fallen leaves are congealing into an oily mass which offers only silent padding to accompany the walk through the woods. The light is noticeably falling now, and the view is frequently misty as the dampness clings to the cooler air. Fogs form erratically, and the longer nights are more noticeable for starting at around the time when folks return from their daily work. And when I was a boy living in the city, the night air on 5^th November – Bonfire Night – grew almost opaque from the smoke of a thousand bonfires, while the cracks and bangs and flashes of fireworks gave the impression of having suddenly entered a war zone.

(Two particular memories of 5^th November stand out for me. The first is of driving home from work and rescuing a panic-stricken dog frantically sprinting along the main road. The second was at around age seven or eight. I was holding a supposedly safe-to-hold firework which exploded unaccountably. Fortunately the blast only bruised my thigh, and I recall punching my mother’s thigh as hard as I could to demonstrate how it felt. I think she sympathised instead of catching me one around the ear which would probably have been more appropriate.)

And so we shuffle through November until the world settles into a state of cold stasis for three months, when little moves or grows and colour becomes almost a memory. And nine months later I get to have another birthday.