Redaction and Recovery.

I was just reading about Trump’s latest foray into absurdity with his attacks on the Smithsonian and other institutions. He says they’re giving a false view of American history, and what needs to be shouted from the rooftops is everything which can be presented as glorious or grandiose by those with a conservative mindset (or maybe that should be mind(less)set.) Oh, and run by white men of course. Everything dark or dubious must be airbrushed out so as to give a true picture.

You know, we British had a very big empire at one time, and some people still regard it as a glorious achievement. But we don’t pretend that the Amritsar massacre didn’t happen, or that the forced labour camps in India didn’t exist, or that the Croke Park massacre in Ireland is just an urban legend. If history is to be worth anything it must be on a warts-and-all basis, otherwise it isn’t worth a hill ’o beans.

I’m beginning to have a vague, so far unformed suspicion that there’s more to Donald Trump than appears on the surface. He’s too far out, too extreme, too volatile, too bird brained to be just another Republican President. He looks more like a conspiracy theory beginning to take shape, and it looks to me as though America – and maybe the world at large – could be heading for something bad and irreversible if he isn’t stopped sooner rather than later.

*  *  *

Meanwhile, a shout-out for Mark the technician at Plusnet (my ISP.) I spent an hour this afternoon wallowing in techno devices, many twisted and unruly yards of various cables, the litter of cardboard boxes, and much of it spent balancing awkward things on my lap or crouched uncomfortably under the desk where my computer lives. And at the end of it all the new device didn’t work. A further hour was then spent with Mark the technician on the phone. It was hard going but he got me there, and there was even an element of serendipity thrown in for good measure. That little story is a rare one these days.

On Judgment, Ventricles, and Wasted Days.

When I think of my earlier rant about Musk and Starmer I find myself feeling guilty, or at least feeling a sense of failure. It’s because I feel sure that I’m not here to judge; I’m here to observe. It’s a Buddhist teaching, you know – ‘non-judgemental observation’ they call it (unsurprisingly.) But cruelty, injustice, and disregarding the needs and rights of others make me angry. And then anger transposes into judgementalism and I feel it shouldn’t. I feel it lays down a barrier to the process of becoming closer to the universal consciousness, which I suspect is what we’re all supposed to be doing if only we weren’t so blinded by such a narrow perception of reality. And I might be wrong.

*  *  *

I feel nauseous and have a slight pounding in my chest tonight. It’s probably due to my gardening exertions today – digging and raking and sowing the mangetout and potatoes. I think it’s probably my underperforming left ventricle judging me and getting angry for subjecting it to the sort of exertions to which it is not kindly given these days. (I wonder whether a left ventricle can learn to be Buddhist.)

*  *  *

Yesterday was the seventh anniversary of my kidney operation and all the attendant fallout which followed. Doesn’t time fly when you’re getting closer to the terminus?

*  *  *

And I’m getting those inclinations of inevitable mortality again when I realise that my life as a human being called JJ is finite and has only so many days in it, and every evening it occurs to me that I’ve used up another one and ask whether I did anything worthwhile with it. Usually I haven’t.

America's Ebeneezer.

Did I read it right this morning? Did Elon Musk really say this week: ‘The biggest weakness in the western world is empathy’? If I did, I’m curious to know whether he has ever been known to utter Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses? or maybe let them die and reduce the surplus population. (I think he was also a little lacking in the matter of vocabulary. What I’m sure he probably meant was ‘sympathy’, not ‘empathy.’ They’re different. But that’s a minor point and his meaning is well taken. And if there’s one thing we don’t expect of people in the higher echelons of power in the US these days, it’s precise English. It’s even becoming almost a rarity in the UK.)

*  *  *

Meanwhile, back on home ground, Mr Starmer and his Chancellor are pushing forward with their war on welfare. The main victims are the sick and disabled, but Starmer continues to decline the option of taxing the very rich a bit more which I’m told could produce comparable pecuniary benefit. What he is considering is giving special tax breaks to American tech giants in order to appease Donald Trump in the hope that Mr President will be kind to Britain in the matter of trade tariffs. The word ‘blackmail’ springs easily to mind. And the concomitant phrase ‘giving in to blackmail’ follows close behind.

This is a strange affair. End of rant.

A Lesson to Suit a Loner.

Young Sarah passed me in Sainsbury’s today. She’s the young barista in the Costa coffee shop whose working style I so admire and to whom I recited one of my ditties recently.

I watched her as she walked by, intending to say nothing more than ‘hello Sarah’ but she sidled past without giving me so much as half a glance. In fact, her demeanour suggested a thought process along the lines of: ‘I know I’ve noticed you, but I don’t want you to know I’ve noticed you.’

I wonder whether she interprets my frank and forthright manner as indicating creepiness. Or maybe she’s just shy. Or maybe I really am creepy and never noticed.

I hardly ever talk to anybody, you know, but if I’m going to be thought creepy I think it would be better if I stopped talking to anybody at all. I have only so many breaths allotted to me for this lifetime so why not be greedy and keep them all to myself?

Leaving With the Dolphins.

The statements of certain senior political figures in the US have made one thing quite clear over the past few weeks: America is no longer interested in watching Europe’s back. It has to stop, they say, because it’s ‘pathetic.’ They’ve shifted now to describing Putin in glowing terms. He’s being described as a good man, honest and trustworthy. ‘I like Putin,’ said one senior member of Trump’s team ‘and the President was very moved by the portrait.’

(I’m all for politeness and even conviviality in matters diplomatic, but the relationship between the Putin and Trump teams is becoming a little too close, methinks. It’s more than strange, more even than creepy. It looks menacing for the cause of world peace.)

And so we have portraits and palliness, and all annotated with infantile language and emojis on official documents. So are we now heading for the biggest diplomatic divorce case in world history? Has the time come to say ‘So long, America, and thanks for all the candyfloss.’ In the case of the UK, is the ‘special relationship’ now dead and come to dust?

I can’t know the answer to that one because I don’t know the complexities of macro economics, and there are those will say ‘don’t worry, it’s only for anther 3½ years and then we can become adults again.’ But is it, or will Trump somehow contrive to change the system? He’s already reminding me of the little guy who runs North Korea, and in so doing suggesting a whiff of a third world dictatorship about the USA, so who knows?

Given the state of my body these days, I think there’s a good chance I’ll be watching with interest from the other side.

The Starting Gun.

The snowdrops which have proliferated in the Shire this year have faded into a well earned rest now. The narrow strip of woodland at the top of my lane, which played host to a regiment of snowdrops, is now being washed with the creamier white of the wood anemones. A forest of heavy bluebell growth promises to turn the woodland floor blue before very long. The blackthorn trees have donned their all-encompassing white cloaks, and the hawthorn bushes in the hedgerows are garlanded with the green of fresh new leaves. Yesterday I saw the first pink blossom on a cherry tree, and today it was the slightly darker pink on a flowering currant in my neighbour’s garden.

And so the race begins. We will now rush with indecent haste past the ever-changing exposition of nature’s colourful bounty of flowers and leaves and berries and fruit until the wool appears on the willowherb and it will all be over for another year. It all seems to happen so quickly.

Remaining Circumspect.

We were treated to the first of the summer-style sunsets this evening. A vast swathe of the western sky was awash with salmon pink mackerel clouds set among a background of pale grey and pale blue sky. Very summery, I thought, but then asked myself whether this was an example of nature smiling to deceive because that’s what I always think. Tomorrow is the vernal equinox.

On Nursing and Netanyahu.

I was thinking this morning about the rationale for not paying nurses high salaries. I think I might have said this before, but I don’t remember so I’ll say it again.

It seems to me that nursing is more than just a job; it’s a vocation. As such, the people who choose nursing must do so – as with any vocation – primarily because it’s what they want to do irrespective of the level of pecuniary reward. If nurses were paid high salaries it’s likely that the profession would attract those driven by the money imperative, and that would be likely to lead to a dilution of the general standard. It sounds unfair, I know, because in a perfectly reasonable sense it is unfair. But it’s a valid point of view nonetheless.

But let’s not kid ourselves regarding the real reason why nurses are not paid high salaries. The fact is that we in the west live under rampantly free market economic systems in which the value of everything is assessed according to its capacity to make money. Nurses are not there for that reason; they’re there to care for people in situations of ill health and distress, and caring for people will always come second best to the making of money in a rampantly free market economy.

*  *  *

Meanwhile, I note that Benjamin Netanyahu is still racing through the field to challenge Genghis Khan for first position in the World’s Greatest Mass Murderer Stakes. Fortunately I’m not a betting man, but merely a compassionate one who feels greatly disturbed by the suffering of the innocent.

And my concern naturally extends to those Israelis who still have loved ones held hostage because the need of revenge is a highly potent force in the human condition. Further, it strikes me as ironic that, notwithstanding the original atrocity committed by Hamas in October, if they should leave the remaining hostages unharmed in spite of Mr Netanyahu’s latest descent into genocidal behaviour, the balance of the moral high ground would swing in favour of Hamas. The quality of reason does so like to spring surprises sometimes.

For my part, I try to fall back on the theory that if this world were perfect there would be no reason for it to exist.

On the Divine Right of Presidents and Other Notes.

There’s an interesting smell coming over the water from the USA. It’s a little rancid, but interesting nonetheless. Having read about the redactions on the Arlington Cemetery website, the crackdown on Voice of America, and the invoking of a historical wartime process in order to justify the expulsion of Venezuelans, it appears that Donald Trump is rapidly shifting his position from elected President to genuine, right wing dictator.

This is fascinating because it bears a vague echo of the spat between King Charles I and the English parliament in the 17^th century, and Charles eventually lost his head – literally. Remember me once saying that it might take a revolt by the military to get rid of Donald Trump? Bit of a long shot I admit, but you never know.

*  *  *

A psychiatrist on YouTube told me last night that social isolation can cause changes to the brain and is a bad thing. If anybody tells me that to my face, I have my answer ready.

*  *  *

And I’ve started watching the second series of the Norwegian cop drama Wisting. Did I say it was just as glum as the Swedish cop drama Wallander? It’s becoming glummer. Lovely.

*  *  *

Two or three years ago I sprained my left wrist and all I could get out of a physio was ‘I don’t know what that is.’ It passed off eventually and took to making intermittent but relatively minor reappearances. Last night it came back with a vengeance, just when I need my left wrist to contribute to spring work in the garden. Not lovely. (But possibly a side effect of changes to the brain as a result of social isolation.)

Decisions Easy and Hard.

I had a phone call from Mel this evening. ‘Something urgent has come up,’ she began. She went on to explain that her cat had developed a condition which she’d been advised could be fatal if not treated quickly, and could she borrow £250 to pay the vet’s bill. She had a taxi booked to take her to the surgery because her car’s in dock at the moment. And so I went online and paid the requisite amount into her bank account and felt relieved that I’d finally been able to do something useful for the first time in a long time. Louie is very precious, you see, and still young. This is a picture of him as a kitten – irresistible, don’t you think.

 

And then I decided to watch the final episode of Inside Number 9, which has been entertaining me at the rate of one episode a night for the past eight weeks. Half way through the programme I entered a dreamlike state in which I was standing on a balmy tropical shore with the waves of an azure sea lapping gently against the golden sand and the air suffused with the combined aroma of pineapples and camel dung. Standing in front of me side by side were Cary Mulligan and Amanda Abington. They looked imploringly into my eyes and spoke as one: ‘Please take one of us as your own,’ they began, ‘for without you we can no longer revel in the pleasure of being alive. Which one of us shall it be?’ And then I turned into the Buddhist goat – you know, the starving one faced with two paths, each of which has a pile of food at the far end; the one that stands there wracked with indecision until it dies of starvation.

Perfidious Spring.

The multitudinous snowdrops are sinking back into sleep now ready for their summer rest. The crocuses are following close behind, while the daffodils, primroses, celandines, and hyacinths are stepping forth to take their place. The willows are heavy with catkins and the blackthorns are wearing their purist white coats. Spring is here in the Shire and colour is increasingly in the ascendant.

Today we had cold rain and hail, and tonight is forecast to chill us with 2°C of frost. It all reminds me of another favourite line from Macbeth:

Away, and mock the time with fairest show

False face must hide what the false heart does know

 

(I always thought that catkins were seeds, but only today I discovered they're actually densely packed strands of tiny flowers. Still learning after all these years.)

A View of Orange Skeletons.

I saw a strange sight this afternoon, one that I’ve seen only once before and I think I mentioned it on the blog. It goes like this:

The front of my house faces due west, and the back due east. This afternoon I looked out of the bathroom window which faces east and saw that all the still-naked trees in the hedgerows and on top of the hill had been painted orange.

In order for this to happen there has to be a particular set of circumstances. The atmosphere needs to be clear enough for the setting sun to retain its power, the western sky needs to be clear of clouds, and the atmospheric pressure has to be high enough for the refractive index to take out some of the lower wavelengths, but not too many. If it loses too much of the lower end the sun becomes a blood red disc with little brilliance, when it needs to be dark orange and blazing.

And so it was today. And so I stood enthralled by the sight of gold/green grass and numerous skeletal trees glowing orange. It really felt as though I’d entered a different world.

Then again, I suppose I might have done. Or maybe some farmer with nothing better to occupy his hands had painted them all orange, and then gone round ten minutes later and painted them all black again. You can never be sure, can you?

Still Awaiting the Chariot.

I was reading earlier of a transgender woman who’s in big trouble in Indonesia. She has a TikTok account and was recently trolled by somebody telling her to get her hair cut so she ‘looks more like a man.’ She responded with a video showing her talking to a picture of Jesus and telling him to get his hair cut. A good response, I thought – intelligent, ironic, and amusing. She’s now been found guilty of blasphemy and sentenced to 2½ years in jail.

You know, the older I get the more entrenched is my view that the human animal routinely uses its superior intelligence to be the stupidest creature on the plant.

*  *  *

And should I mention the British Labour Party’s latest hobby horse? I should explain for the sake of those who don’t know that the Labour Party has always been – at least since before I was born – the major party on the centre left of British politics. The Labour Party invented the welfare state after WWII, and welfare has always been a cornerstone of its identity. Now the current Labour Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer have announced their intention to wage war on welfare. They say the country can’t afford it, and they’re probably right, but only because Mrs Thatcher – a diehard right winger – switched the economic points and established the presumption that a more free market policy was necessary in order to follow the American way. (And oh how Mrs T did love the American way.) Meanwhile, the good old Labour Party, born of the need for a moderately socialist alternative and with the promise always to be its champion, still declines to touch the mega rich. So who do we vote for now?

And, of course, we have Trump stomping around casting the grenades of his crazy trade wars right, left and centre, and threatening to erase Canada from the map so the USA can be bigger.

When, I ask, will my little hill o’beans be allowed to get off this crazy world and see whether the land of the dead makes any more sense?

On Conversations and Countesses.

I had three conversations with denizens of the Shire today: one with a couple who live around the corner, a second with the Lady B’s dear mama, and a third with a donkey in Meadow Lane who brayed at me so loudly that I feared he might wake some of the residents of the churchyard half a mile away. He shut up when I picked him a handful of fresh grass from the verge outside the gate, and that gave me an idea.

I sometimes feel irritated when people stop my way upon the blasted road when all I want to do is keep on walking. Maybe I should hand them some fresh grass from the verge, and then maybe I’ll be able to make my escape while they chew on it.

Dear Mama was outside in the sunshine doing a job in the garden while the painters were busy painting her stucco cottage. I stuck my courage to the sticking place (that’s two references to Macbeth in one post) and asked her the question which has long intrigued me: ‘How do you manage to look younger every time I see you?’

It sounded crass, if not actually creepy, but it’s true that she does and it’s true that it intrigues me, so why not? She smiled (nicely.) And that makes her not only the classiest dame I’ve ever known, but also the only woman of her age I’ve ever encountered and found attractive. If she became invisible when she turned forty – as women are supposed to do – she’s certainly managed to somehow reverse the trend ever since. Maybe she was a Hungarian countess in a previous life (or even two hundred years ago in her present one) and keeps a vat of virgin’s blood in one of her outbuildings (the one next to the dung heap I expect, so people will give the location a wide berth.) And maybe she’ll get chased to the burning mill before I do.

On Smiles and the American Connection.

I was sitting on one of the benches outside Sainsbury’s today (it being a fine and pleasant day, you understand) when I spotted coming towards me a pit bill terrier with a woman in tow. I watched with amusement as the dog insisted on taking his human companion for a ramble among the bank of shrubs lining the walkway at the front of the store. I’m fairly sure she had no choice in the matter, and eventually they both emerged seemingly none the worse for their adventure in the wild woods.

As they came past me I smiled at the dog and the dog smiled back. And then I looked at the human companion and she was smiling at me, too. I pondered the question: ‘should I compare thee to … to… to… a toad with acne?’ It seemed a little unjust since I’m not exactly a Brad Pitt lookalike myself, and a smile is a smile when all’s said and done, and so I smiled back. And I’m only relating this story in this form to attempt some revival of my old blogging habits, and to offer incontrovertible evidence that I really am a most high functioning depressive.

And then the American arrived and sat on the bench next to mine. He, too, had a dog – an overweight beagle. How did I know he was American? I didn’t, but let’s describe him: overweight, baseball cap, shades, and a ZZ Top beard. I considered that he might have been one of that rare breed of Europeans who thinks Trump might be human after all, but there aren’t many of those about and I don’t suppose I shall ever know. His wife came out of the store and she was overweight, too. They walked past me and none of them smiled, not even the dog.

*  *  *

On the subject of the big T, I found this week’s cover of Private Eye magazine even more apt than usual. It showed a photograph of Keir Starmer talking to King Charles, apparently about the upcoming state visit of the leader of the free world (about which there has been much grumbling and petitioning, I might add.) Starmer is saying ‘You should treat him with the courtesy and respect due to a President’ and Charles replies ‘In that case I’ll shout at him and then boot him out.’

And now I’m wondering what precautions the police will take if the Trump drives through London in a motorcade. Will they move among the throng of onlookers suitably equipped with egg detectors?

The Matter of What Matters and Some Firsts.

I was walking around the lanes this morning seeing the occasional individual or couple cheerily going about their business with an evident sense of purpose, and down dropped the same question that such a sight always evokes: does any of it matter? At that point my mind split, as it always splits, into the two conflicting factions: one insisting that none of it matters while the other insists that all of it does. The war goes on.

Ironically, my own sense of purpose raised its profile after lunch when I decided to weed and dig one of the vegetable plots at the bottom of the garden. The ageing body with a heart issue finds such activity both tiresome and tiring these days, especially since I don’t even know whether any of it matters or not. But irony will be irony and convention will be convention, so get on with it I did. It was the first of this year’s crop of heavier garden jobs, and I’m not looking forward to any of them.

The big thrill of today, however, was seeing two bats hunting around the house at twilight. My love of the twilight bats has been remarked many times on the blog down the years, and although I’ve never kept a diary of firsts, I’m fairly sure that I’ve never seen them come out of hibernation as early as 5^th March before. And it was particularly noteworthy that there were two of them because it meant that the summer will probably bestow the added pleasure of seeing little kiddie bats following their parents to learn the game. 

Whether that matters in the greater scheme of things I don’t know, but it matters to me and that will do.

Mixed Up March and an Odd Thought.

The Great British climate is known for its capricious nature, and March is probably the most capricious month of them all. This year she’s wearing her spring outfit so far. The end of February was mild, and the beginning of March is even milder. We’re forecast temperatures rising to 15°C (59°F) this week, which we’d be reasonably content with in early May.

And so the blue tits are paying a lot of attention to their regular nest box behind the kitchen.  The white snowdrops on the fringes of lane, field, and garden are more prolific than usual. The hares are seen in pairs (there I go finding rhymes again.) The wild garlic leaves are well advanced on the high embankments of The Hollow, and the first celandines, daffodils, and even dandelions are casting splashes of golden yellow among the new wild grasses everywhere. And next week winter might re-assert its grip.

*  *  *

Next week I have to go to my home-from-home, the Royal Derby Hospital, for a cardiac MRI scan. Apparently they take longer than most MRI scans, and the pre-procedure dietary disciplines are a little draconian. Every time I go there I look at the bulk of the massive monobloc building and imagine that it’s probably where I’ll take my last breath one day. And do you know what saddens me every time I think that? The fact that the Lady B never visited the inside of my house. She came up the garden path with her mother once, but that was as far as she ever got.

America and a Matter of Balance.

Ever since the end of WWII America has strutted its stuff across the western world, boasting of its power and wealth and influence. It has even promoted the notion that it is ‘the leader of the free world.’

Sounds very paternalistic, doesn’t it? And what do parents do when their ‘children’ are in trouble? They nurture and protect them, because with parental benefits come the concomitant parental responsibilities. It appears Mr Trump doesn’t see things that way. He would prefer to take all the food on the table for himself and elevate a couple of assisting acolytes to the status of wicked uncle.

Just a random thought (which is a little more specific than a ‘random country’) while I’m bored and waiting for dinner time.

(And if I'm to continue pondering the question of balance, I must acknowledge that imperial powers have been wont to take all the goodies for themselves throughout history. That being the case, Mr Trump might be seen as no more than a traditionalist. Humans are what humans do.)

Reminiscing and an Unconnected Question.

Every night, usually starting at around midnight, I set a YouTube mix of favourite music playing and read a bunch of old blog posts. And every time I do, I feel nostalgic for the person I was back then. I miss the humour, the reasoned arguments, the sometimes petty and sometimes profound observations, the reminiscences on old adventures, the tales of girlfriends past, the visits from my quirky friend the llama, the ditties of variable quality, the film and book reviews, and the conversations with so many valued people in the comments section. I want it all back again, but life doesn’t seem to work that way and maybe it’s right that it shouldn’t. And then I go to bed.

*  *  *

I said I was going to cease offering opinions now that the cold water brought on the slowly rising tide of incipient senility is beginning to make its presence felt around my ankles. I did, didn’t I? But maybe I can still ask a question concerning one of the feverish messes that humans are making around the world. It goes like this:

Let’s suppose that the Russians and the Chinese decide to join forces and sweep across the Pacific with a mighty armada of military power. Soon they have complete control of part of America’s western seaboard. Let’s say they’ve taken Washington in the north and California in the south, and America’s own relatively inferior military is unable to move them off it. And then they make an offer:

‘We’ll take a rest for a while as long as you accept that Washington and California now belong to us. If you fail to agree these terms the war will be all your fault because you declined to make peace.’

I wonder how Trump would respond to that.

A Day of Two Halves.

Oh, America! What have you done? The chameleon known as Trump is throwing firecrackers all over the place, isn’t he? I’m sure he’s more than a little deranged, you know. But since I performed badly on my own cognition tests my opinion is no longer valid, so I’ll leave it at that.

His spat with Mr Valensky did give me pause for thought though. I imagined various scenarios growing out of the fact that the fate of the world is currently determined by four major power blocs, and it struck me that if any two of them joined forces an interesting situation might ensue. The possibility of a novel began to take shape, written in retrospect from some sort of dystopian future. It won’t be me who writes it, of course. Too old and mentally challenged, and I expect it’s already been done.

At the other end of the scale, I think the invisible presence of my lovely Lady Fu might have been tagging along on my walk this morning. Who else could have conspired to place three young ladies in my path at different points – one with a cute little girl, one training a ‘bad boy’ horse on a lead rein, and one with a brand new car with no door handles? I learned something interesting from all of them. That was nice.