The Question of Trump and Appeasement.

I read today that Mr Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, says there would be no point inviting Europe to take part in the discussions over Ukraine because Europe just wants to prolong the war. This sounds farcical on first reading, but I assume that what he meant was that Europe doesn’t want Putin to come out of the conflict without a significant land grab. Trump, on the other hand, is now putting distance between America and Europe and probably doesn’t give a monkey’s toss if Ukraine loses some of its territory. Trump is, therefore, the one the Russians want to deal with rather than Ukraine or any other representative of Europe.

And Trump’s own position would appear to be very simple. If he can get a deal – by hook or by crook – in which Russia withdraws but keeps some prime real estate close to the warmer parts of the Black Sea, he can then present himself to the world as a peacemaker. (He could even come up with some pathetic, fallacious sound bite as he did when he said ‘I took a bullet for democracy.’ And he would be more easily able to save billions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine, which would be more acceptable to the folks at home than firing half the American civil service.) Some people would no doubt see Trump’s position as appeasement and draw parallels with Anthony Eden’s response to Nazi aggression in 1939, but probably not enough to count for very much.

And I might be completely wrong, of course. Time will tell, won’t it?

(But do I detect a slight whiff of the potential for a much bigger conflict here, one which I expect America would watch from the sidelines? I hope not.)

The Lady B's Letter and the Wishing of Luck.

The weather here has been unremittingly dull and cold for the last week, and such conditions are unfavourable to my perceptions of life and the human condition. I’m tired of one and dismissive of the other. I’ve fallen into a state of mind comprising a sour cocktail of apathy, relentless musing, and the seeking of alternate worlds in which to immerse myself. Hence no blog posts.

Much of that musing has concerned the remote figure of the Lady B. She follows me as the scent of a tropical island might follow the lonely sailor heading west long after the fruits and flowers and seductive palms have sunk beneath the eastern horizon. Her physical presence is still in this world, but the phantasm lives only in a veiled place and out of reach.

Five and a half years ago I wrote her story down and settled it in an envelope. I asked my ex, Mel, to give it to her I’ve gone, but tonight I considered destroying it since what purpose would be served by her reading it? None at all, I suppose, but I’d still like her to read it anyway (although whether I shall care when the time comes remains to be seen – or not, of course.) I didn’t destroy it.

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I wrote most of that last night until it began to bore me. Today has been dull and cold again with occasional drizzle, but we’re forecast to have higher temperatures and a little sunshine from Wednesday on.

Tonight I feel I should mention the big news from across the water. It appears that the USA – at least in the guise of Messrs Trump and Vance – is tired of playing Europe’s older and bigger brother who occasionally steps in to help when the latest bully is going around biffing everybody. America wants to stand aloof now, still being the Big Boss when it suits, but declining to spend dollars on the ne’er-do-wells over there. That way, Mr Donald can add 'Charity Begins at Home' to 'God Bless America' as he stands with hand on heart planning how to cement his position at the head of the table for the long haul. And more middle class Americans will get jacuzzis, and the truly rich will become truly richer, and America really will be great again. And can you blame him? (Whether it will work or not is part of a different argument.)

But what about us Brits? We gave up being part of Europe with the Brexit vote, didn’t we, and Donald has real estate over here. So will he make an exception for us? Well, whether he does or not, I think we might have to decide whether we want to be the obedient lap dog tucked securely in Donald’s folded arm, or go cap in hand back to the EU and build a bigger army.

And do I really care? No, I don’t really care, at least not for my own sake because my time is nearly up. Tomorrow is the business of today’s young, and it’s for them to deal with. I wish them the best of luck.

Trump and the Grabbing of Gaza.

Now let me see whether I’ve got this right. My understanding of the Israeli hardliners’ attitude towards the Palestinians runs roughly thus:

This whole land is our land. God gave it to us thousands of years ago and so it is scared ground. That being the case, only we have the right to occupy it; you have none. That’s why we’re forcibly evicting you from the place you have called home for many centuries and making it available to proper Jews. (If I’m in error, please feel free to correct me.)

If I’m right – or even approximately so – I wonder how the hardliners will feel about having part of their sacred ground owned by America and developed into yet another Mediterranean playground for wealthy westerners. I wonder whether this was the reason for Mr Netanyahu’s visit to his pal Trump a few days ago. I suppose Mr N might well be in favour of allowing a part of what he considers to be Israeli territory to become American-owned because Israel will then have another level of security against the dastardly Muslims. And so maybe he can persuade the hardliners to agree to having part of God’s own country swallowed up by American capital. Strange world, isn’t it?

But what about Hamas and other dissident groups in the Middle East? How would they feel about it? I can’t imagine they’d be too pleased, and I feel it would be logical to expect deaths and bloodshed to follow in the wake of such a project. If Israel really wants to take the steam out of Hamas, surely it needs to reach an acceptable accord with the Palestinians, not throw stinking mud in the faces of the armed wing.

And what of the Gazans themselves? I gather tens of thousands of them died in the recent ‘war’, and those that are left are now trying to rebuild their lives. How must they feel about somebody living over 4,000 miles away seriously threatening to relocate them and turn their homes and homeland into an investment opportunity? (It’s interesting that I haven’t yet heard anybody in the media use the term ‘diaspora.’)

I think it must be obvious that this plan of Trump’s is both heartless and the height of disrespect, but that’s just the nature of Trump. I’m quite sure that he has no heart, and I doubt he could even spell the word ‘disrespect.’

And another point occurs to me: For nearly forty years I’ve been complaining about the despoliation of the Mediterranean coastline by the tourist industry, especially the northern part fringing Europe. Even the locals are now complaining about it. They want tourism rationed there, and a return to something like sanity. Now Trump wants to do the same thing in the eastern Med, just as he took part of the wild Scottish coastline and built commercially attractive golf courses on it.

But will he succeed? Personally I doubt it, but Big Capitalism is a powerful enemy so maybe he will.

Taking the Wrong Line.

There’s a piece on the BBC sports website about Kadeja ‘Bunny’ Shaw, the Manchester City striker who is widely recognised as one of the best strikers in the women’s game, receiving ‘racist and misogynistic’ abuse on social media. The piece carries a statement from the Man City management expressing the usual outrage in the usual predictable terms: ‘There is no place for racism in our beautiful game and we will take all necessary steps to identify the culprits and punish them!’ and other similar platitudes. We’re seeing this kind of thing all the time now.

When are they going to realise that by taking this line they are only making matters worse because they’re letting the perpetrators know that their vomitous bile is having an effect? Social media has become huge now, and trolling comes with the territory. It’s as common as cow dung in the farmyard. So what can the players do about it?

Simple. They need to realise – and it shouldn’t take too much effort – that the women’s game has grown immensely and the top players are now basking in the limelight of celebrity. They are, by the societal perceptions of the day, highly successful people in their chosen field, whereas the perpetrators of abuse are sad little nobodies with nothing better to do. The perpetrators are also very much in the minority among the people who follow the sport.

So don’t publicise the abuse. Ignore it. And if they can’t ignore it, come off social media because it isn’t going to stop while it continues to be given big publicity and made to seem important.

The New Cold War.

Well, what a turn up. The old Cold War was a nice tidy business between, principally, the USA and the Soviet Union. The new Cold War is between the USA and Canada/Mexico. What fun. I wonder whether the fact that Canada is still part of the British Commonwealth of Nations has been given any consideration. Not that it would matter, I suppose. Maybe the French Canadians would even welcome being part of the 51^st state, although I somehow doubt it. Yes, fun indeed.

But I gather there’s a bigger concern – the effect of Trump’s Tariffs on the global macro economy. I remember it being said during Donald’s last occupation of the hot seat that, being a businessman rather than an economist, he understands micro economics but not the macro variety. I don’t suppose we need worry, though. I’m sure there are much bigger fish in the global economic sea than Mr Trump, and I expect they’ll be able to put him firmly in his place if the situation becomes too turbulent.

(Although I have been saying for many years that I can’t see big capitalism lasting forever - so did Karl Marx. It seems to me – and I admit that I know nothing about the intricacies of macro economics – that it’s all based on money, and we all know that money doesn’t exist in an objective sense. It’s all about trust and consensus, and those two pillars of support can be a little fragile when the waves of turbulence swell.)

*  *  *

By the way, my computer is following my lead. It really, really doesn’t like getting up in the morning. Neither does it like being given too much work to do. I apologise to him frequently, but just in case you hear never more of me…

Imbolc Oddities.

Soon after the clock struck 12 last night…

(What’s brown and sounds like a bell? Du-u-u-ng. I like that one.)

… I remembered that it was the start of the Celtic season of Imbolc, and so I did my usual ‘white rabbits-plus-two-repetitions’ thing as I always do at the start of every month. (Imbolc is a particularly propitious time, you see, because spring is when rabbits are known to multiply. And it’s impossible to know whether superstitions have any effect or not. It’s no good saying ‘I did the white-rabbits-with-two-repetitions thing and nothing good happened’, but you can never know whether something bad would have happened if you hadn’t. See?) And then I listened to lots of Celtic music on YouTube before going to bed.

Now, it is a fact that most of the odd things that happen to me happen in bed. Last night I was dreaming that I belonged to some sort of organisation which was twinned with a German organisation of like mind, and we came by the intelligence that our German friends had made us some soup. The problem was that we were unaware of how much soup they’d made, and so we didn’t know whether there would be enough to go around and that was causing consternation. In fact, so much consternation was being caused that it woke me up, and guess what – I felt chilled. There was no obvious reason to feel that way because it wasn’t a particularly cold night, the bedroom heater was working perfectly, and I was covered with a good quality flannel sheet and a 17 tog duvet. But chilled was what I felt, so I pulled the covers around my head and began to feel my whole body warming up rapidly. That was reassuring until I noticed that my hands were warming to an alarming degree, so alarming that I began to fear that they were about to burn. Seriously! And then they returned to normal.

So what was that all about? The German connection was probably the result of having read about the spat between Mrs Merkel and Mr Merz over the AfD thing (I did say I was keeping an eye on German nationalism, didn’t I?) Maybe the desire for soup was engendered by the fact of feeling chilled. But what about the burning hands? Was that biological, psychological, or paranormal? It’s never happened before so how can I know? But I might add that I’ve started to get intermittent sharp pains at the base of my fingers when I grip things, so maybe there’s a connection.

All I did today was pay my electric bill, which hopefully should ensure that I’ll have a functioning heater in my bedroom for at least another month. And this morning’s walk was uneventful, being entirely devoid of rabbits, Germans, or creatures with flaming talons.

And I know this post is tedious, but I wanted to get something on the blog to mark the start of Imbolc. Such things matter to a mind which spends most of its energy on the question of whether there’s anything meaningful about living a life.

Contrasting Fortunes.

A strange week, this. On the downside have been the aching legs, the tight chest, the usual depressions, and meeting the replacement dentist (who’s actually the practice owner) now that my dear Ms Medeea has sailed away to far off shores. On the upside were the dog fixes, the cow fixes (Mr Robinson’s new, all black bullocks), and the lady fixes courtesy of the coffee shop.

There’s a new one, you see – lady that is. Ellie by name. Yesterday she was on with the established Sarah who appeared to be in charge for once, even though I always feel she should be revising for her A-levels rather than skipping around doing the barista thing more expertly than any others of my acquaintance. Ellie is even younger.

So, in order to break the ice and not appear gloomy in the face of such shining young stars, I offered to recite one of my ditties. Sarah gave Ellie a look which I’m still trying to interpret thirty hours later. I think it was meant to convey: ‘I’ll bet this is going to be a right load of old crap, but he is a customer so I suppose we’d better humour him.’ I warned them that it would be one of my darker efforts (I had just been to the dentist after all.)

And then I began:

As Tom lay sleeping in his bed

A lady came and crushed his head

With talons sharp and molars red

Then sucked his brains ’till he was dead

‘Ooh,’ said Ellie, ‘that is dark. Thank you.’ I told her I would recite a more wholesome one next time, and so I will. Meanwhile, Sarah had walked off to clear and clean some tables. (As much as I do so enjoy the vibrant energy of young women, I suspect I might have lost the ability to impress them. I suppose that’s as it should be.)

And tonight I read the Wiki article on Sylvia Plath. It appears there’s some dispute as to whether she definitely intended to commit suicide that day, and I was reminded again that the gas which now comes through domestic pipes is no longer fatal. Modern times, eh.

Becoming a Reluctant Bad Guy.

Every night I play one game of chess against the computer, and every night I lose. I’ve said before that I simply don’t have the mind of a chess player. I’m too straight thinking and straight dealing for the Machiavellian process of preparing to outwit someone in a process of perpetual threat and counter threat. And since I see it as Machiavellian, I’ve even been led to consider that maybe all good chess players must have a dark and dubious side to their natures.

Tonight I won. Congratulations, proclaimed the little dialogue box, you have won by checkmate. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen that. So here’s the question:

Should my self-image rise a little on the occasion of such a red letter day, or should it slip further than it already is? Whatever the answer to that, I feel I should treat myself to a Bushmills Irish whiskey tonight. It’s rather splendid.

(Incidentally, I was also treated to both a dog fix and a cow fix this morning. Does that settle the question?)

The Leaf and the Lady.

As I was walking through Uttoxeter this morning, well huddled in winter coat, muffler, hat, and gloves, my mood was sombre. The high street was sparsely occupied as it usually is on a Sunday, and the two charity shops which open on the sabbath had offered nothing of interest. The dark sky glowered and the cold, damp wind had a most inhospitable feel. I caught sight of my reflection in a shop window, and saw there a parallel with a fallen, withered leaf rustling mindlessly along a kerb towards the nearest road grid and oblivion. Advancing age sometimes encourages the perception of such a parallel.

I walked down the hill and crossed the road into the retail park, and there I met a young woman with whom I felt an immediate connection. Though not classically pretty, she was certainly fair of face. Much more than that, however, was the air of affability and authenticity which shone from her to an extent which is most unusual. We talked for all of two minutes about the reason for my approaching her in the first place: I’d seen her driving into the car park in an early 90s vintage VW Golf, the like of which I haven’t seen in several decades. (I thought it was a Mk1, but she informed me that it was actually a Mk2.)

The image of the shrivelled leaf disappeared, and it never occurred to me to peruse my image in any further shop windows. But the thought was not lost on me that mood can be so radically lifted by the merest pressure of just the right nature.

America and a Dubious Road.

I watched a YouTube video last night made by an American woman currently living in the UK who raised the question: ‘Will American Patriotism Be Its Downfall?’

She began by citing the fact that American children are spoon fed masses of patriotic conditioning from a very early age, referring to school children being required to swear the Oath of Allegiance every morning, the singing of the national anthem, and the proliferation of Star and Stripes on nearly every spare piece of ground; features which most of the rest of the world find pretty damn silly because they’re just not necessary.

She had a lot to say about this – and did so with a commendable sense of balance, I might add – including the fact that she saw nothing wrong with patriotism as long as it doesn’t step over the line into the area of nationalism. There’s a difference between the two, and nationalism – especially when embraced by a country as powerful as the US – can be very dangerous to everybody else in the world and even to itself. (Inevitably, I suppose, Hitler and Nazi Germany was quoted as an example.)

At this point the post could become very long, but I’m too lazy and tired of life to write lengthy tomes these days so I’ll just mention one thing she included in her argument. She pointed out that the USA is very powerful – possibly the most powerful country in the world – but that, with power comes responsibility. It’s another way of saying that if we want the world to be a reasonably sane place, self-interest has to be tempered with an ethical dimension. To any right-minded person, it’s entirely wrong for a country to use its excessive wealth and power only for its own benefit.

This morning I read that Trump has suspended overseas aid (apart from military aid to Israel and Egypt apparently.) That surprised even me.

And so I wonder again where Trump and his cohorts are going to take the US over the next four years. And I’m tempted to think that the much-vaunted ‘special relationship’ between the US and UK is doomed to become an object of faded regard (with thanks to an American called Zoe who coined the phrase.) It certainly sheds new light on the decision to take the UK out of the EU nine years ago.