The full force of the life choice the Great British voters have made is dawning over a wounded & strangely muted Country. Peasants are not waving pitchforks & Hayricks are not actually burning.
Although we got close in Bristol last week when an anti-police bill protest went sour. It is all beginning to vaguely smack of 1930’s Nazi Germany where a populist Government of fringe Circus Clowns gradually became more sinister until the inevitable political grotesque played itself out in such terrible fashion… It couldn’t happen here? Could it?
The Great Unwashed British public are taking huge pleasure & satisfaction in the EU satraps tripping over their own coat-tails trying to get the bat-flu antidote rolled out across the Continent. They are making an awful mess, but I can’t help feeling we are behaving like the passengers on the high side of a ship that is sinking. Congratulating ourselves on being dry, without realizing we’re all in the same fix. Sooner or later it will dawn on the more cognizant that the market that fills half the shelves in our shops and provides most of our sun-beds in the Med is still shut and that will do us no good at all even if we get let out of school first! If we have no one to play with – what is the point?
It’s hard not to be pessimistic in these uncertain times, all public life in turmoil and no discernable traits of a plan from our leaders – whatever their stripe.
These bleak prospects compel me to reach for the hair shirt although I know itchy beige won’t help. Through all the noise & cant I have a moment of revelation that we all could be living better, more fulfilled and helpful lives, but we are caught in this terrible danse macabre by the Society that brought us up & the ultimate need for constant change while ferverently hoping everything stays as it was in an imagined halcyon past!
This flash of insight opens a dark road to travel – the life we could have lived… Any more of this soul searching and I shall have to go into retreat and find a religion that suits my current temprament – Welsh Chapel should cover it.
My Grandmother was Welsh chapel, it bred a lifelong inclination towards Baptist teachings in my mother & an aversion to all forms of Religious observance in her Grandson – except for the occassional Hymn singing. Doris – my Grandmother – eventually quit the congregation as the local vicar frowned on Women wearing make-up, a femine right she was not prepared to conceed even at the cost of her immortal soul. I wonder whether she regrets that decision now?
On the current affairs front Pitt-Quickly reliably informs me that no one in Business or Finance has the first clue what is going on. Between Brexit, Covid & some outrageous posturing from all concerned, any ‘safe heavens’ for my filthy lucre and future material well-being are all on a storm-tossed Ocean.
Bunter & the Fourth Form & Van der Hosen & her political Goblins are all trying to blame each other for any political or economic issue the press get wind of, which fires up the fringes on all sides to demand more shooting of our own feet.
And on the domestic front Mitzi goes from strength to strength in her grasp of the on-line World we all now inhabit for society. From telephone sex to knitting socks for Soldiers at the front, she belongs to a virtual forum on any given subject. From dawn until dusk she is chattering away in the back room to people she hasn’t been formally introduced to about the intricacies of yoghurt weaving, basket casing & level 2 car mechanics. It is a wonder to behold how much information, custom and practice is being shared across the Internet. However from what I have (distantly) observed, most of it is in the form of gossip, playground inneuendo, and disarmed polemic. Even in the time of Social Distancing it seems leaning over the Garden Fence to talk about the neighbours is still the occupation of choice for the most virtually socially literate amongst us!
Bulk and The Devil 