Something old, something new, That may be the thing to do. When I first started writing these blogs some nearly four years ago, people said I would just be a grumpy old grandad (correct) moaning about the young people of today (incorrect). Many, nay a very large percentage, of my moans are about my generation or the one directly following. I admire young people and I once had a hope that I would be able, with others, to leave them a better world than the one I had entered all those years ago. I don't mean they should be better off at the start of their adult lives than I and others are at the end of theirs. I wanted the world to be a safer place, a cleaner place, a more sustainable place and a happier place. Oh dear. Big failure there. I have been deeply heartened by people like Lara Spirit and the young people of Our Future, Our Choice not only for the way they have conducted themselves, not only for their views but for the simple ability they have to articulate those views clearly, succinctly and with purpose. I have had no need to resort to specsavers (see yesterdays post) when listening to them. I have long believed that a mixture of young and old, both respecting the other, both giving their talents to the other and both understanding where the other is coming from, is a superb blend for any venture. We do not know everything because we have lived longer. We have experienced more because we have lived longer. But sometimes, that experience is clouded by how it was gained. Looked at with fresh eyes, completely new ideas can emerge. I will leave you this week with two quotes and a song. Marcel Proust said that “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” and any young people can provide those eyes while the Hungarian biochemist and Nobel Prize winner Albert Szent-Gyorgyi said that “Discovery consists in seeing what everyone else has seen and thinking what no one else has thought” and young people can do that too. In both cases our experience can balance and guide them. The song is perhaps my favourite of all time, a song by the late Charles Aznavour, usually sung with his daughter. Sadly, for all of you non-linguists, it is sung in French so below, after the link, I have printed the very literal words translated by a lovely young French lady I met some years ago. After many attempts, and several years, I have now completed a less literal version and one day that may be allowed, with suitable permission from Mr Aznavour's estate, to escape. Old and young on a journey together for different reasons with different feelings but ending the same way. Je l'aime, to paraphrase slightly Gainsbourg and Birkin. Oh and French is an incredibly beautiful language
Say, what are you doing there, my sunshine, on that bench, your lost look under your silver haïr,
Charles :Je regarde fuir mes ultimes printemps emportés par mille chevaux blancs
I am seing my future spring seasons escape on a thousand white horses
Je voyage, je voyage, vers les lieux bénis de ma vie de voyage en voyage, à travers erreurs et acquis
sans bagage, par images, par le rêve et par la pensée de voyage en voyage, sur les vagues de mon passé
I travel, I travel, towards the blessed places of my life journey after journey, through mistakes and gains
Without luggage, by images, by dreams and by the thought journey after journey, on the waves of my past
Katia :Ce voyage dans les limites de vos regrets, de vos remords, est-ce un refuge, est-ce une fuite, ou bien une aventure encore ?
This journey in the limits of your regrets, of your remorse’ is it a refuge, is it a flee, or just an adventure once again?
Charles :Sur l'eau calme de mon âge, où l'orage ne tonne plusde virage en virage, vers mes plages de temps perdu
je voyage
On calm water of my age, where the storm does not thunder bend after bend, towards my slots of lost time
I travel
Et toi jeune fille, aux sources de ta vie fugueuse à seize ans, que fais-tu par ici?
And you young lady, the sources of your sixteen year old of your runaway life, what are you doing around hère?
Katia :Je vais au devant du comprendre et savoir, voir la vie de l'envers des miroirs
I am going ahead of understanding and knowing, to see the life of the other side of the mirrors
Je voyage, je voyage et je cours pour aller de l'avant de voyage en voyage, sac au dos, cheveux dans le vent,
parfois folle, parfois sage, refusant les idées reçues de voyage en voyage, dans l'espoir de trouver un but
I travel, I travel and I run to go ahead, journey after journey, backpack on my back, hair in the wind,
Sometimes crazy, sometimes wise, refusing received ideas, journey after journey, in the hope of finding a goal
Charles :Tu es l'enfant d'entre deux guerres, d'un monde cru, au désarroi d'hommes et de femmes de misère,
sous le joug du chacun pour soi
You are the child born between two wars, of a harsh world,distress to men and women of misery,
Under the yoke of everyone to himself
Katia :De rivage en rivage, pour des grèves à découvrir, de mirage en mirage, vers les rives de l'avenir
Shore after shore, for strikes to discover, mirage after mirage, towards the shore of the future
Charles et Katia :Je voyage, je voyage, un peu plus de jours et de nuits de voyage en voyage, à travers rêve et insomnie
par temps clair, ou d'orage, d'un pied léger ou d'un pas lourd de mirage en mirage, par la mémoire et par amour
je voyage
I travel, I travel, a little more by day and by night, journey after journey, through dreams and insomnia
On a clear day, or stormy, on a nimble foot or on heavy one, mirage after mirage, by memory and by love
I travel
I'll send you the GPS of my bench, Ms Spirit. I'd love a chat.
4 February 2019Now there's a thought. Is it true that negotiations with the European Union are going so slowly because in Canterbury a group of women are busy stitching the Brexit Tapestry which shows over 50 different exit scenarios, all stitched on to a completely blank face, and we are waiting for them to finish 5 February 2019
Safer Internet Day may be an oxymoron. Today is Safer Internet Day and so I'm going to have another grump about the social media companies and their total failure to be able to monitor what appears on their sites. We all know that whatever anyone may say, there is no way that some inappropriate posts will not be missed and will appear. It is also pointless for the companies to say that as soon as they spot something (seldom) or as soon as they are notified of something (quite a lot) that blog, post , picture, video will be removed. That's no good. It's already been seen by probably thousands of people. It's only any use if they can stop it being uploaded. We now live in an age where the providers of social media are not in control of the behemoth they have created. And they never will be. Some time ago I had reason to complain to one of them about a post that appeared about me. After almost a week I received a reply which said that they would not remove it as it appeared to be written by me. I asked why they thought that but, to date, five years, I have not had the decency of a reply. In the past, before social media and there was such a time, it was mainly published writers who were able to give their thoughts to the masses. Some books were banned or an attempt was made to ban them. D H Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover was one such example in the nineteen sixties. I have to tell you that what Lawrence wrote was a mere snowflake of obscenity compared to the blizzard that the masses are now free to write. It cannot be stopped unless you ban all social media and, I promise you, that will never happen. We can try to make the internet a safer place but I feel, in that blizzard, we are are trying to push a car, without studded tyres or chains, up a glacier. I want to try to understand why people have the need to share everything about themselves, have the need to hide behind anonymity and then bully and make fun of others or have the need to think that they have the power to force someone to take their own life. As of tonight, I have no answer. I shall return to this soon. 6 February 2019
Donald Tusk: He saw Jacob's ladder to hell. I have to admit that Donald Tusk has totally endeared himself to me today. Not only has he pointed out a fact that is so obvious to everyone with half a brain but he has done it in a calculated way and, admit it, with humour. In case you are unaware, or read this some time in the future, Mr Tusk said in a press conference today that he had “been wondering what that special place in hell looks like, for those who promoted Brexit, without even a sketch of a plan how to carry it out safely. In reply Jacob Rees-Mogg, the man who may well have put the twit in twitter, tweeted that “Mr Tusk is hardly in the Aquinas class as a theologian and he seems to have forgotten the commandment about not bearing false witness”. No, I didn't laugh either. Nigel Farage, the man who put the wit in witless, tweeted "After Brexit we will be free of unelected, arrogant bullies like you and run our own country. Sounds more like heaven to me." Mr Farage has obviously experienced heaven at some point to have such knowledge. Meanwhile leader of the House of Commons Andrea Leadsom, another Brexiteer said that Mr Tusk should apologise for his disgraceful and spiteful comments. She felt that “when he reflects on it he may well wish he hadn't done it," The thing they are all ignoring is that those who did campaign for Brexit have no plan for how to leave and when you add this to their elaborate (synonym for dishonest in this case) promises, there is no way that Mr Tusk's comment is not accurate even if a trifle exaggerated. I particularly liked the way, at the end of the press conference where Tusk made this comment, Leo Varadkar, the Irish premier who had been in talks with Mr Tusk, was heard saying “They'll give you terrible trouble in the British press for that”. Mr Tusk nodded and they seemed to enjoy a spot of laughter. The problem is when you campaigned on a lie, have built your beliefs on a lie, it can be so difficult to actually see a piece of truth when it hits you. I'm sure all those Brexiteers thought they were acting with the best intentions but dare I point out that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. 7 February 2019
Just do it My Way (oh and the end is very near). Well old Leo Varadkar was right. The British press had a field day with Donald Tusk's comments but they all seem to have forgotten something. When you make a decision, it is your responsibility, and yours alone, to carry it out. If you decide to climb Mount Everest and can't make it, you cannot complain that no one made the mountain a bit smaller for you. In the same way, if you decide to leave a club of 28 nations, it's no good complaining that they are not being helpful. If you decided to leave, you should have had a plan to leave which didn't require you to rely on others. Now, many people think that there is of course a way we can leave the EU without anything else happening. It's called no-deal. However, being part of the EU involved us in signing a treaty and you can't just tear up a treaty without very serious international consequences. So no-deal in the widest sense is not possible. We might get away with leaving without any withdrawal arrangement and paying what we owe but even that would make times hard in the UK. With 50 days to go till we leave we haven't got any trade deals agreed with other countries and once we leave we will not be part of any EU deals. We could ask countries to continue to trade with us on the terms we had but they may not agree. It was, as Mrs May frequently, or even ad nauseam, points out her government's responsibility to fulfil the will of the British people in the vote. So why has she, her cabinet colleagues, her back bench MPs, people like David Davis and Boris Johnson, not got a plan of how to do it. The plan has to be workable. It's no use saying what they want when they can't get it. It's no use saying well we could get it if everyone changed their mind and did what we tell them. And the thing I like least, which smacks to me of a dictatorship, is to hear people say well if you don't want no-deal then you have to agree to this deal. That will enable a no-deal scenario to be taken off the agenda. Full stop. Don't argue. Do what I tell you. I'm not sure Enabling Acts are a good idea. 8 February 2019
Live repeats, speech need pictures and a damp squib in action. I know I've had this sort of grump before, twice possibly, but I never go back and look at things at a time like this. Far better to do it in a few weeks time and see how my feelings have changed; or not. One of my problems with this modern world is there is too much of so many things. I'm not talking about having a choice; I'm talking about having to be told, or shown, too much too many times. People having to make a story out of a fact. I was watching a BBC local news report today. It was about a van being driven up a railway line. The reporter, having told us the facts, obviously felt he needed a bit of vox pop and up popped a local who said, “well it's unbelievable. I would never expect anything like this happen”. Think about that. She was amazed that something like that should happen. She never would expect it. Based on that knowledge the next remark by the reporter was, in my mind, crass, stupid, ridiculous. He said “very surprising?” She then replied “ Oh, yes, yes, very, yes, very.” Did not her first comment imply, nay state, how surprised she was. Am I alone in thinking that if you don't expect something to happen, when it does it is a surprise. In the first place I am not convinced we need a local to tell us that a van driving down a railway track is unexpected to see. But, if you need to pad out your reporting with this, then there is no need to question whether she means what she said and give her the chance to say it again in a slightly different form. It's called tautology and, as an example to this reporter should he ever read this, what she meant was blatantly obvious the first time. Leading on from this grump I have noticed a tendency for BBC main news reporters needing to demonstrate their words with pictures. To the comment will the UK be locked in a permanent backstop I have seen a picture of padlocked gates; random and for no reason. Will the PM ride out this storm and we see a picture of heavy rain falling in a puddle. True that was in Westminster but........ And finally.......I have tonight watched the Fed Cup. Superb commentary from David Law and Jo Durie. Knowledgable, succinct not ruining my viewing. Then along comes Clare Balding. Sounding more like a fairground stall-holder trying to entice customers, telling people exactly how tennis players feel when to the best of my knowledge she has never been one, I would agree she may well sparkle all the way through strands she does but to those of us who like to watch our sport accompanied by informed comments, she is more like a damp squib. I could do without her court side interviews although the put down by Alex Krunic today was delightful. 11 February 2019
Forward to the future. Woooah, hold your horses, an MP has said something incredibly intelligent, nay brilliant. Robert Halfon, chairman of the Education Select Committee, has spotted something so many others have missed. We are now living in the 21st century. Jobs that people work in are 21st century based. The education system, which should equip young people for these jobs, is based in the 20th century and not the end of it either. Mr Halfon says that GCSEs for 16 year-olds are pointless and that the “A” level exams, taken at 18, are too narrow in their subject matter. He would like to completely scrap any exams at 16 and he wants young people to have a broader curriculum, with vocational training alongside traditional subjects. The MP is proposing a baccalaureate system to replace A-levels, with a mix of arts, sciences and vocational subjects and exams at the age of 18. "Get rid of GCSEs, which seem to me pointless. Instead there should be some kind of assessment to show how far you're progressing," he says. "I would rather that all the concentration should be on the final exam before you leave." In so far as the school leaving age is now 18 and when GCSEs were introduced it was 16, this seems eminently sensible. It's no use changing the leaving age but keeping the same exam system as before. Even Lord Baker, who introduced the exams as education secretary in the 1980s, said "the days of GCSEs are numbered". Of course it would prevent some problems but that should not be a reason for avoiding it. Young people are being poorly prepared for their future life. A basic level of education is necessary but gaining knowledge and an aptitude of skills that will help them both find, keep and even enjoy work is vital. We no longer teach using wax slates because nobody writes that way. We should no longer force children to remember by rote things which google can tell them in an instance. We should be preparing children to question, to create, to problem-solve, to interact, to understand and use modern technology. My grandson has just, as part of his homework, written and recorded on his phone a rap song. I hated it but I thought his ability to do it was outstanding. (I don't like rap – I'm not over keen on cling film either) Geoff Barton, leader of the ASCL head teachers' union, agreed and said that “GCSEs are a product of a different era when many young people left education at the age of 16, but this is no longer the case, and young people are now expected to remain in full-time education or training until the age of 18," Nice to be in agreement with you there Geoff. All sounds good to me but there could be a problem in moving forward. The Department for Education defended GCSEs as "gold standard" exams. Sadly the gold standard has had its day. It went in 1971. Let's all rejoice and listen to Mr Halfon. Move forward, move with the times. I suppose it's too much to think anyone could actually be ahead of the times 12 February 2019
Being brought back to fantasy earth. In the last few days I have heard two things which I never expected I would hear. Donald Thump told people to stop attacking the press and a Conservative cabinet minister said that the increased use of food banks might have been a result of the roll out of Universal Credit. I began to wonder if I had moved to the reality of a parallel universe. Then I listened to our PM in parliament and I knew I was still in the fantasy of this one. The way to avoid a no deal is to vote for my deal (doesn't matter whether you like it or not). I wanted to have the meaningful vote in December but parliament stopped that (doesn't matter that she actually pulled the opportunity of parliament voting). The leader of the opposition doesn't have a plan (he doesn't need one, his job is to oppose yours if he disagrees with it). I am not running down the clock (the meaningful vote will happen some time before March 29th). Oh yes, I'm still in fantasy land. 13 February 2019
Be who YOU are. The pressure on young people today is incredible and yet, that pressure is inflicted not natural. Celebrities are shown as having the perfect body, the perfect figure, the perfect face but there is no “perfect” because every single image, every single picture is viewed by a different pair of eyes, with different standards, different likes, different views. What is perfect to one set of eyes, to one brain, to one mind, is almost certainly not to another. Life is not about trying to achieve the perfect image; life should be about searching for that special person who sees your image as perfect. I am not in the habit of naming and shaming and I will not change that at this late stage of my life. However I will say that there are many, many celebs who others find perfect that I find totally unattractive. The advertisers, magazines, catwalks are the ones who create this positive body image that they tell us we should all adhere to and then we will be attractive. But we will only be attractive to someone who likes those images. It would be a very sad world if we all liked the same thing. It would also be a very sad world if our likes never changed. On a very personal level I find tattoos repulsive. Why would anyone want to disfigure the beauty of the human skin. I can accept small tattoos, just. But I don't expect the people to stop doing this to their body if that is what they want. We all have a choice. What I want to say to young people in particular is that you are who you are. You do not have a body image, you have a body. It is yours to do what you want with, to do what you can to and to be happy inside. If you feel you have to have the same body as someone else, think what use that would be. We'd all look alike. Accept what nature has given you, never be ashamed of it and realise that, firstly those who are proclaimed as being perfect are only seen as that in the eyes of those telling you that they are perfect and secondly a replica, a copy, a forgery is never as good as the genuine article. Be who you are because it's a dam sight better than being what you're not. 14 February 2019
Oh children, stop being so stupid. As a parent my method of discipline was fairly simple. Up to the age of 7 or 8 my children did what I told them. After that I was prepared to discuss what I wanted, listen to their views and make my final decision. But, in that initial stage, there were never any aimless threats. I have, however, listened to other parents for whom words are just that; words. “Do that again and you'll go to your room” loses any credibility when said for the fifth time. Listening to our MPs in parliament today reminded me of this. To keep repeating negotiations in Brussels are ongoing, to keep saying if you want no-deal then accept my deal, to keep losing votes in parliament makes everything meaningless. Credibility is lost. And once again, amendments are voted on but these are essentially meaningless too. Although like that parent who is on their fifth threat, anyone watching or listening can see the losers actually have no control. Now we are told that February 27th is the day when it will all happen and some time after that there will be the meaningful vote. You'd forgotten about that hadn't you? Except by the time it is made it will, like everything else, become meaningless. If the deal is voted through it will be too late to put it in place and if it isn't then, unless parliament and those sensible MPs there can gain control, we will crash out of the EU with no deal. Come on children, be sensible. 15 February 2019
Oh children, real children, you are the future and I think there's hope. After all the stupidity of Brexit, the idiots who spout a load of nonsense, I finished the week with hope for the future. Those of you who have followed these grumps over the last months will know of my admiration for the young people of Our Future, Our Choice. Not only are they able to hold very sensible views, not only are they well aware of what they will face if those in charge have their way, but they also come across as articulate, sensible, reasonable individuals. So there is hope. And now there is even more hope. Many children across the world went on strike today to try to create a greater awareness of the dangers of climate change. Some idiots (my word of the day obviously) said they would be better off if they had stayed in school and learned their lessons. The problem with that is these young people have learned a very important lesson. If something is not done, and quickly, all the learning will be in vain because our planet will not be habitable. I hope these kids continue in their efforts to make us adults, or those who don't care, aware of what we MUST do. NOW. What seems like an eternity ago, I designed a project which was aimed at bringing the children of our world closer together. For various reasons it never happened as I envisaged, the main one being that the partner I had taken on for the project was too self-centred and too interested in enjoying herself rather than putting in the hard graft needed to make these things work. Anyhow, when it was in its earliest stages, we organised a concert in Poland to explain more about the idea and, amid all the chat, I choose some songs that pupils from the local music school would sing to further emphasise the aims. This song here was one of the ones performed. It encapsulates the problems that are now affecting our world, our planet, our only home so far as I know. What are we going to leave our children? When I was born the population of the world was about 2½ billion. Now, just 68 years later it is three times that. That means three times more rubbish, three times more homes needed, three times less space each. Put another way, in 5,000BC, if everyone went outside and stood as far apart from everyone else as they could, each person would have a square 9 kms by 9 kms. Today, we would have a square 70 metres by 70 metres, about the size of a football pitch if it was square, and in another 7,000 years all we would have each is a square 50 centimetres by 50 centimetres and I don't know about you, but I won't fit. Still, I also probably won't live for another 7,000 years either so I guess I'm OK. But, hopefully, some form of human life will be around and we should try to think about them now. W have more information about things than any previous generation but the problem is that it needs thought and imagination to turn that information into knowledge. I like the urgent drum beat in this song and I consider it to have a very Australian Aboriginal feel. Those people had a vast amount of knowledge on how to preserve their homeland, perhaps we should make use of some of it.
18 February 2019
Do convictions breed cowards? I'm a great believer of freedom of speech, freedom of choice. The seven ex-Labour MPs who resigned today exercised that freedom. Whether I agree with them or not is immaterial. They had the right to follow their conscience and leave a party they felt no longer represented them. What they have no right to do, in my opinion, is to remain a Member of Parliament for their constituency. If they wish to sit as an independent MP then they should resign as a Labour one and open themselves up to being re-elected for whatever they now represent. They stood for Parliament in 2017 on a Labour manifesto. They were elected as a Labour MP. Had the result been different then they could have ended up being part of a party, part of a government party, led by a man they now seem to so despise. I can accept their decision to leave Labour but they are, in my view, the most hypocritical, two-faced, lying people if they do not now, with immediate effect, resign their seats. If they don't, then to me they will look like publicity-seeking individuals who do not have the courage of their convictions. They will be cowards. The leader they so despise led the Labour party to its biggest ever vote gain in many a year. Is that what is frightening them? I'll wait and see how many of these seven people are still around in a few years. I'll also wait and see what happens with Brexit where they were also very critical of their ex-leader. 19 February 2019
Just a tinge embarrassing when you complain of racism. I'm not sure that I can cope with the stupidity of some MPs. Angela Smith, who resigned as a Labour MP yesterday complaining about Jeremy Corbyn failing to do anything about anti-Semitism then went on live TV and talked about people with a “funny tinge” when giving her thoughts on racism. She later apologised for the fact that she misspoke. How pathetic. She didn't misspeak. She spoke and said something very wrong. If this is the quality of the so-called independent group, the Labour party is well rid of them. I have talked before about non-apology apologies and this was a classic example. Furthermore, her group, because they are not a political party merely a group of like-minded politicians, do not have to declare any donations to their cause. They say they are being backed by a limited company but no one knows who. Is it a limited company in the business sense or is it a company of people who are limited by membership, like a collection of newspaper owners. Is Freddie Corsa real? Personally I wasn't worried by any damage they could do when all was announced yesterday. Now, knowing they are so secretive and, if of a like mind it may be the same mind as Ms Smith, a mind of which her mouth has no control of, I am more concerned. I don't think they can really be fit to represent any body. Be brave and resign your seat. 20 February 2019
Let's find that silly billy.
Now that's made a difference. Three Tory MPs have left their party and joined the new Independent Group. Why is that different you ask? Most of those Labour MPs that left, and certainly the one who left today, made the point that they could not be a member of a party led my a man they thought unsuitable to ever be a PM. They complained of anti-Semitism which the leadership were not doing enough to stamp out and condemn.
The Tories who left today complained of a PM who was being high-jacked and bullied by members inside their party. They were complaining about a number of MPs in their party. Labour's complaints, while being about their leader in general, were more about the leader being influenced by an outside group, a group who had been accused of bullying MPs in their constituencies. I was there when the SDP group left the Labour party. Their influence wasn't that great until they joined in with the Liberals. I also believe, with just one more defection, that their influence could have been even greater. They needed that one big name, a name the public knew, a man or woman of the people, to push the new party into a a position of greater significance. And, as I understand, the one name was courted to join but refused and decided to fight from inside. So, is there that one big name out there that will join this group. A person with whom the public could identify. It is clear that this new group are totally unhappy about the way our present leader is handling Brexit. The way she is refusing to allow the public, the voters, to have a say. The way “that bloody woman” answers questions with bland, repetitive answers making listening to her “like being savaged by a dead sheep” and “while the rest of Europe is marching to confront the new challenges, the prime minister is shuffling along in the gutter in the opposite direction, like an old bag lady, muttering imprecations at anyone who catches her eye.” Now where is that silly Billy who can make this Independent Group even more significant. 21 February 2019
Hypocrisy must not happen.
I am a great believer in any country upholding international laws. Firstly, if you don't, what is the point of having them and secondly when others break them for whatever reason, you have lost any argument against those countries. You risk being called a hypocrite.
Therefore, I am uneasy with the decision our Home Secretary has taken with regard to the woman who fled our country to join ISIS and now wants to come back. It is obvious she thought she could come back back saying anything she wanted but has now become far more pleading, far more contrite. Hypocrite comes to mind here too.
However, international law states that no country can make a human being stateless and that seems to be what the UK is doing. We quote a rather tenuous link with Bangladesh but that country has stated that is untrue. I see no alternative to allowing her return and then taking appropriate action against her. And that action, which should certainly involve a fairly long custodial sentence, must be taken. 22 February 2019
Poverty is not as you know it, Jim. Another week, another load of rubbish, another group of people who inflate their own importance and influence. There is no way that the world, and particularly the United Kingdom, are heading in a direction where the young people growing up in it will be better off than those who grew up before them. They may have more money, arithmetically, but they will be unlikely to spend it as well as we did. They may well have more technology to assist their lives but they will never have the lifestyle that we had. Poverty is not just about money, poverty is more in your mind. Poverty lacks understanding, poverty means being unkind, thoughtless, uncaring. Poverty means putting yourself above everyone else. On that basis, the majority of the elected body we voted into place, suffers with poverty. They are also the poorest species of humanity, with some exceptions, of which I have ever come into contact. Next week they will all have the chance to prove my belief. Wait and see. 25 February 2019
A delay is a delay. Two pieces of wonderful news. Our PM is not as stupid as she appears. Today, during a press conference, she told everyone that a delay is a delay. Brilliant. Wonderful. Her understanding of the English language shines through. A delay, she said, is not a solution. Oh. My second sentence may have to be re-worked. She did, of course, delay the meaningful vote back in December which we now know, in her own words, was not going to be a solution, was not going to make a difference. The second piece of wonderful news, which may be more helpful to the PM than anything she can do, has done or would be able to do, is that Jeremy Corbyn is, having explored every other means, going to support another referendum. This was the position the Labour party took at its conference is September last year. The reason I say it may help Mrs May is that every member of the ERG and every MP who has no idea what democracy is, will oppose another referendum especially as a recent poll has shown the majority of young people who were too young to vote in 2016 are totally opposed to Brexit. Now, many of those Brexit supporters have gone on, ad infinitum, about the 2016 referendum being the greatest democratic exercise ever. So, if we have another, with those youngsters now added in, it would be an even greater democratic exercise. That would be wonderful, unless you are a true blue hypocrite. Furthermore, the Dutch Prime Minister has said we are sleepwalking into a no-deal Brexit. My understanding is that most sleepwalkers have no idea what they are doing. They do not run down the clock, even an alarm clock, to try to get their own way. Mrs May is playing stubborn, stupid, silly games with the lives and livelihood of every single British citizen in the hope she will be seen as a brilliant leader who got us Brexit based on her deal. That will never be a judgement if I have anything to do with it. 26 February 2019
And the time is maybe not what you think. Leaving aside the strong and stable government of Theresa May and ceasing to dig up the pavements of London looking for gold, my thoughts turn today to our incredible reliance on technology. When Roger Bannister broke the four minute mark for the mile, I assume there were a number of registered timekeepers, stop watches in hand, who checked their chronometers when he finished and announced the time. How old fashioned, I hear you say. Bit hit and miss wasn't it? I was watching the alpine skiing over the weekend and every time a Swiss skier crossed the finish line, the on screen clock didn't stop. Now machines fail, we know that but it was a strange machine which only failed a Swiss skier. Subsequently the international skiing federation (FIS) said that the times of the four skiers were not recorded electronically due to "the set-up of the photo cells at the finish, which were mounted too high." There were rumours on the day of the system being hacked and, while this may not be true, it did get me thinking. Because the clock didn't stop, the FIS had to refer to a manual system. Fair enough, although it transpired that the manual times were initially incorrectly calculated. However, supposing a hacker could get into the system and change things so that for some skiers the times were shown as, maybe, 0.25 of a second faster. Unless, in normal circumstances, every skiers time is checked against a manually taken time, who would know? This same hacked alteration could be used in any sport where timing is involved for an individual event. Obviously it would be dumb to change the time of the guy who blatantly finished third in a running race but motor racing practice could be adjusted. Then there's hawk-eye used in other sports like cricket and tennis. Slight hacked adjustment and the whole thing could change. I have seen many tennis players looking incredulously at the video playback of a shot. That may be their poor judgement but what if it wasn't. It's all very well to call this reliance on technology as progress but there may well need to be more checks undertaken. No doubt I shall return to Mrs May's strong and stable government tomorrow. Wouldn't it be nice if she did although perhaps you can't return to where you've never been. 27 February 2019
Repetition does not improve any position. Yesterday I wondered about what our reliance on technology could mean. Sadly I now have to wonder if in this country we have appointed a robot as PM. “Strong and stable” were repeated ad infinitum in 2017. Those words have be shown, by the speaker herself, to be a complete load of nonsense. Now, all we hear is that “if you want to avoid no-deal then vote for my deal”. This presupposes, rather arrogantly, that one believes her deal to be acceptable. If you don't, why should she insist you vote for something you don't believe in just to avoid something you think is even worse. That is not an option that any intelligent, free thinking, human being would take; a robot, perhaps. There are many precedents in history of people accepting the second best option to avoid the worst. There are also examples of people fighting against both options and never giving up. It was Charles de Gaulle who first vetoed are application to join the Common Market. Just saying. 28 February 2019
I'm waiting. The United Nations is a well respected organisation. So, when a UN human rights expert says that Israeli soldiers may have committed war crimes while responding to Palestinian protests on the Gaza border last year, we should take note. A commission of enquiry found reasonable grounds to believe that Israeli snipers shot at children, medics and journalists, even though they were clearly recognisable as such. Israel's acting foreign minister however referred to the UN as the “Human Rights Council's Theatre of the Absurd” and said the report is hostile, mendacious and biased against Israel, He further stated that "No-one can deny Israel the right to self-defence and the obligation to protect its citizens and its borders against violent attacks." However when those borders were claimed by force, when the claiming of those borders has displaced thousands of innocent human beings, I find such comments a bit rich. The UN commission of inquiry, which was set up by the UN Human Rights Council in May, has said that more than 6,000 unarmed demonstrators were shot by military snipers at designated protest sites over nine months. It investigated the deaths of 189 Palestinians at the sites on official protest days and found that Israeli forces had killed 183 with live ammunition. Thirty-five of the fatalities were children, while three were clearly marked paramedics, and two were clearly marked journalists. I hope that no one would claim anybody to be anti-Semitic if they felt a certain amount of disgust at the findings from the UN. There are several MPs from whom I would like to hear condemning such killings. I await this with interest.