Matters for a Cold Spring Day.

When I was wondering what to say on the blog today, my first thought went straight to the matter of how wrecked and useless and uncomfortable I’m feeling these days, both physically and mentally. But that seemed unconscionably whingey, and I’ve done quite enough whingeing over the past four years as it is. So I thought I’d move onto the matter of Ukraine.

It didn’t help. The problem here, you see, is that when I read about the atrocities being committed by the Russian troops I wasn’t in the least surprised. The dogs of war have always had a tendency to turn feral and rabid whatever colours they were wearing, and so I’ve been expecting it all along. (When I was researching Gustavus Adolphus, the Swedish military genius, I came across a reference to the fact that after a successful campaign, one of the decisions he had to make was whether to allow his troops to have some soldiery fun with the local civilians. It all came down to political exigency, apparently. This is the nature of war, as any political leader would know.)

So I wasn’t surprised, but I was still shocked and sickened. And the problem with me nowadays is that such feelings no longer stay on the outside of my consciousness; they go deep into the core of me until I feel like one of the victims. It isn’t pleasant, but that’s the nature of empathy.

(Let me side-step onto a completely different track here and suggest that the Belarusians might consider being a little more circumspect in their support for Russia. If the hyena in the Kremlin goes off his head and escalates the war into direct conflict with NATO, Belarus will be in the unenviable position of providing the hyena with his very own human shield. I suppose that’s why he’s keeping the junior hyena close by his side.)

*  *  *

And now let’s move onto a prettier and more wholesome matter. I saw the first lambs of the year today, in the field at the top of my lane. There were seven of them to raise a smile on my jaundiced visage, but one of them was lying by a fence on the far side of the field and looked dead. That was sad, but I reasoned that the little guy might well have been hale and hearty and merely resting after a long frolic. My mind does tend to wander so easily into dark imaginings these days.

The Question of Worth.

On the subject of Ria Lina again (see last post.)

When I looked her up I came across one of the standard questions you nearly always encounter when researching a well known individual on Google. It asked: ‘How much is Ria Lina worth?’

It’s the phrase ‘how much’ that indicates something about modern attitudes because the more transparent version of the question is ‘how much money does Ria Lina have?’ It can be taken to imply that in most human societies, worth is synonymous with wealth. It happens to be an impertinent question because Ms Lina’s wealth is nobody’s business but hers, but the point I’m making is the more important one: a person’s worth is assessable by all manner of personal qualities, none of which have anything to do with money. I would be loath to suggest that any human being is entirely worthless, but some of those who possess the greatest wealth come closest.

A Woman for All Seasons.

I’ve been watching Ria Lina on a TV show this week and I’m much impressed. She has everything – looks, presence, personality, an offbeat sense of humour, an intriguing voice, a brain the size of a planet, and a generous, self-effacing spirit. What more could a woman need to simulate perfection? (Legs, that’s what. She has excellent legs, too.)

I decline to post a picture of her because none of the ones I’ve seen do her full justice. That’s usually the way with people whose projection of self derives more from a strong personality than mere good looks. And I’m only making this post in case she becomes a fan of mine and needs an excuse to invite me to tea.

On Statistics and Suspicions.

Being a veritable anorak when it comes to statistics, I quite like working out how long it’s been since I had an email from a person. The priestess, for example, hasn’t sent me an email for six weeks. It’s exactly six weeks to the day since the priestess communicated with me. (Seems I’ve also developed a penchant for saying the same thing twice using slightly different words.) This does contain a grain of minor significance, however (unlike some statistics), because it seems eminently possible to me that the priestess might never darken my doorstep with her brightness ever again. And that statement makes more sense than you might think on first reading it.

It’s also just about 2½ years since I last visited Ms Medeea, my lovely dentist. This is also of some minor significance because I lost a piece of filling from one of my teeth earlier in the week and now have a grand total of three cavities (one of which was aching in the wind this morning.) I had no cavities the last time I went to the dentist, which causes me to worry that Ms Medeea might not recognise me, and that would be a shame because she’s one of the nicest people I know. So why don’t I pay a visit to my dentist, you might ask. Because…

1. The rate of Covid infections is currently at record levels, and I harbour a vague suspicion that dental surgeries might be a hotbed of Covid infection.

2. Given the progress of my life over the past four years, I’ve become massively reluctant to submit to the attention of any more clinicians. (There’s something I should really see a doctor about, but I’ve had enough. Being in thrall to statistics is a more peaceful – and mostly less painful – pursuit.)

Seeking the Real Metaphor.

I said in an earlier post that the Japanese venerate cherry blossom as a symbol of the perennial state of flux which permeates all aspects of life. It seems to me that the same can also be said of gardens generally. 

When I look at an attractive garden in spring I often feel a hint of frustration that the view is in a state of passage. You can’t hang onto it however much you want to. The flowers that are there now will be gone in May, and new flowers will have taken their place. In June the view will have changed again, and so it will continue until everything will have passed and autumn will be on us to presage the seeming emptiness of winter. At such times I can’t help seeing the garden as a metaphor for the finite nature of life, and that includes mine.

But is it only that? Could it not also be nature’s way of showing us the cycle of life, death and rebirth which, according to eastern religions and philosophies, also applies to us? Is there something hidden in plain sight here, or am I pointlessly juggling concepts because I have nothing better to do?

Getting Away with Murder.

Following the discovery of mass graves in Ukraine, along with other evidence of atrocities, Boris Johnson has said that ‘those responsible must be brought to account.’ This is typical of the empty rhetoric to which politicians are routinely given.

Let us accept for the sake of argument that the received presumption is accurate, and that Russian troops are guilty of committing wanton acts of murder against civilians. The chances of individual soldiers being ‘brought to account’ are effectively nil. So if Johnson is being serious here, who does he consider to be ‘those responsible’?

The fact is that soldiers are necessarily conditioned, both constructively and by dint of circumstances, to have a different perception of right and wrong, and even the value of life itself, to that held by civilians. Such has always been the case to some extent or other. Ergo, anyone who starts a war without impeccably justifiable reasons is de facto a murderer. And we all know who that is in the case of Ukraine.

So what are the chances of Mr Putin being successfully arraigned on a charge of war crimes? Again, virtually nil. There have already been calls for Mr P to be subjected to a Nuremburg-style trial, but this isn’t 1945 when Germany was held in the grip of the Allies and the Nazis could be rounded up to end their days on mass gallows. Nobody is going to invade and crush Russia unless Putin crosses a line and starts WWIII, which isn’t very likely. So unless the great dictator goes completely mad, the person responsible for mass graves and other atrocities will almost certainly get away with it. And that, it seems to me, is that.

(And while I’m on this topic, I have to say that I regard both Tony Blair and GW Bush as also being guilty of mass murder, since the civilian death toll in the 2003 Iraq war was immeasurably higher than that in Ukraine. They both got away with it, and now live a prosperous peace far from the madding crowd.)

Age Problems.

Do you want to know what really worries me about getting old? The fact that I might start to smell bad without realising it so I could keep my distance from people. I suppose the solution is to keep my distance from people anyway, just in case. Come to think of it, I already do, so maybe I should let that one go. 

Hmm… What about dribbling into my tea just as I’m about to drink it? That one would really freak me out, even if there were no witnesses. (Even more than making babies cry by peering into their prams to say hello and welcome. And did you know that I declined to meet the priestess because she would remind me too much of Esmeralda?)

On the Matter of Bed.

I’m having terrible difficulty finding something original to say today, so I thought I’d fall back on the tried and tested remedy of quoting somebody else’s words for a change. These come from Mr Flann O’Brien in his tome, At Swim-Two-Birds. Not only are they fine words in themselves, they also represent the kind of thing I would say if only I had a mind original enough to say them. In other words, I suppose I sort of agree.

Several men are engaged in conversation, and one of them is called Byrne.

What is wrong with Cryan and most people, said Byrne, is that they do not spend sufficient time in bed. When a man sleeps, he is steeped and lost in a limp toneless happiness: awake he is restless, tortured by his body and the illusion of existence.  Why have men spent the centuries seeking to overcome the awakened body? Put it to sleep, that is a better way. Let it serve only to turn the sleeping soul over, to change the blood-stream and thus make possible a deeper and more refined sleep.

He pauses for a drink, then continues (and this is the bit I really like):

I’m not ashamed to admit that I love my bed, said Byrne. She was my first friend, my foster-mother, my dearest comforter…

He pauses for another drink (this is familiar):

Her warmth, he continued, kept me alive when my mother bore me. She still nurtures me, yielding without stint the parturition of her cosy womb. She will nurse me gently in my last hour and faithfully hold my cold body when I am dead. She will look bereaved when I am gone.

These are fine words indeed to somebody much given to reflections on mortality, and much wondering on the place and nature of the final consummation.

Tomorrow I will try to find some words of my own, if indeed I will have a tomorrow, but these will do for now.

On Titles and Values.

I haven’t had a moan about the existence or contents of adverts for a while, have I? OK then, here’s one:

There’s an ad in my inbox at the moment for some sort of employment agency. One of the jobs being advertised is for a Change Management Consultant, and the salary on offer is £950 per day. Two issues arise:

1. I’m curious to know what on earth a Change Management Consultant is. I assume it’s yet another example of that trend prevalent among right-thinking business types to invent gobbledegook at every opportunity so as to sound deeply important. (Remember the ticket collector, now known as a Revenue Protection Assistant?)

2. People on a state pension who’ve spent fifty years working their butts off and paying into the system get less than that in a month.

Further comment would be redundant.

World Cup Woe.

I only watch one TV programme as a matter of routine, and tonight it was displaced to make way for the football World Cup draw. Why? Why does the BBC do this when the full draw results are available on the BBC Sport website within minutes of it being made? I expect there will be complaints, and I expect they will be ignored because the prospect of vicarious success has long been one of the greatest narcotics to which the human animal is ensnared.

But this is just the start. The competition will begin in November, at which point the thoroughfares of Britain – both vehicular and pedestrian – will become heavily laden with drunken, noisy, brain dead idiots resembling rampaging howler monkeys on speed. And if you decline to join them because you regard football as merely one of life’s moderately interesting diversions and nothing more, you will be treated with suspicion at best. In some people’s eyes, declining to drug the dog, lock the baby in a sound proof room, and send the wife to her mother’s for a month so you can settle in an armchair surrounded by large bags of salt-and-fat laden comestibles and at least ten cans of cheap lager makes you no less than a traitor to your country.

Previous World Cups have been relatively untroubled where I live in the countryside. Here’s hoping.