Tell me you are kidding!

 

 

 

 

 

The question that I keep asking myself is, “All Johnson is doing at the moment, it’s all just theatrics?  Right?”

     No one in their right minds would accept a no-deal Brexit as anything other than a disaster.  A disaster on so many different levels that it will take an age just to work out the detail of the disaster, as every day will bring new revelations of extra dimensions of “shotinthefootery” that we had not previously anticipated.

     Seeing that ungainly scruff represent the safety of my future in Brussels was a true low point.  How has it come to this, that an entitled chancer is ‘leading’ negotiations for an agreement in the dying days of our membership of the EU?  Johnson puts himself forward as a spokesman for the people of Britain, a concept he neither understands nor believes in.  He is a spokesman only for himself.  He cares nothing for the ‘people of Britain’ because they are, clearly, not him.  And he is his universe.

     I would love to believe that the charade of negotiation that is going on at the moment is nothing more than window dressing for the final capitulation to economic reality as some sort of agreement (any bloody sort of agreement) is signed.  He can then bask in the excitement of pushing the EU to the limit and managing to extract something that he will display as a triumph of his steely determination.

 

   Johnson has already displayed his linguistic ‘imagination’ in redefining what “oven ready deal” meant; his explanation/clarification that he was referring to the withdrawal agreement and not to anything more is puerile in its mendacity and laughable in its believability.  But if it works for him and allows him to redefine a few other realities to get an agreement signed, I will settle for the gibbering word soup that he uses for communication and be relieved.

     But, if Johnson’s character is as nakedly, narcissistically, opportunistic as we have had ample proof of in his actions since he landed in Number 10, then we could be looking at someone who judges that a hard Brexit of no agreement could be something that he could get away with.  Whatever that means in his insular world view.

     I am more worried today than I have been since the awful result of the referendum.  All my worst imaginings could be crawling (it has been four and a half years of negotiation, after all) to reality.

     I am, by nature, an optimist, but my essential cheeriness is being stretched to the limit.

 

I usually try and find something of a lighter nature to end my piece of writing, but I do not feel that it would be appropriate.  I remember watching an excellent TV drama during the time of a previous Conservative regime which showed a mother bringing a tray with tea making things on it, which she dropped, and then shouted, “Look what that bloody woman has made me do now!”  We could still laugh at such an overreaction, even as Thatcher’s malign premiership poisoned so many aspects of British life – but what is threatened by a no-deal on Brexit will make what Thatcher did look like the “sunlit uplands” compared to the all-encompassing, unfolding misery of the reality of Brexit.

 

 

LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 68 – Friday, 22nd May

It is difficult not to term the Conservative Government’s U-Turn on the migrant workers health surcharge ‘humiliating’, but I suppose it is better to consider it a ‘fitting’ recognition of the essential service that such workers do, often on minimum wage and to ‘welcome’ any sign from the discredited third-raters that form the cabinet of humanity.  One can only hope that such grace is now applied to the self-harm of Brexit!  Fond hope – and that two-word expression of despair doesn’t merit an exclamation mark, just a weary sigh.

     At every step in the management of this crisis the government has come up short.  They have blustered, prevaricated, lied – but why go on, I have been writing the same sort of verbs about the Tories for the last decade, why, especially after the catastrophic debacle of the Brexit vote and its on-going car crash implementation should I be surprised that an even worse tragedy produces a signature catalogue of crass ineptitude?

The more I think about the production of A Streetcar Named Desire last night, the less satisfied I am with it.  Although it did give me shivers and almost reduce me to tears, I am left feeling that the production was slightly superficial, I was using my knowledge of the piece to flesh out my response; part of my involvement was recognition of the revisiting of the most effective parts of the play and a remembered delight in the structure and emotional complexity of the action.

     I was also struck by the artificiality of much of the dialogue, especially from Stanley, where he says things, and in such a way that he seems to step outside of his character and become a too eloquent part of the Tragedy with a capital T rather than the rough character in a gritty drama.

     Blanche is a role to kill for: camp, grotesque, twisted, vicious and unbearably vulnerable.  Salacious lush she might be, but she has lines of almost unendurable pathos – and truth.  At the height of her self-pitying drunkenness she shows a self-awareness of the essential strength and worth of her character that takes the breath away.

     At the end of the play as Blanche is led away and the card game recommences and the old life goes on, we get the same feeling as at the end of Death of a Salesman when Linda says of her dead husband and failed salesman, “Attention, attention must finally be paid to such a person.”  But, it’s too late, that’s the tragedy; it’s always too late.

     Thursday nights at 8.00pm have become a fixture in my week, and I am grateful to the National Theatre for making their films of productions available to the public.  If you have not yet see the productions on Facebook then I do urge you to experience the productions – and donate to the organizations as well of course!

     The next production (free streaming on Facebook from the 28^th of May for one week) is This House by James Graham, set in the House of Commons in the period from the General Election of 1974 to the Vote of Confidence in James Callaghan in 1979.  The major political figures are characters off-stage while the main action of the play is centred on the Whips offices of the Labour and Conservative parties.

     This is one of those plays that I regretted not being able to see, so I am delighted to have the opportunity to experience it via Facebook.

There was little increase in the wearing of facemasks as far as I could see today, though they are not mandatory for exercise.

     On Monday of next week we move to level 1 from level 0 here in the province of Barcelona.  This means that restaurants will open with service on sparse terraces; churches with be open up to 30%; groups of no more than 10 and various other loosening’s of the regulations.  There seems to be a belief that the mere passing of days will mark progress towards the mastering of the virus.  This is a false assumption.  The only way to cope with the virus is through testing, contact tracing and lockdown.  None of this is securely in place, neither in Catalonia nor in the UK.   Everything about this virus and its management is worrying.  Frightening.

Just to make things that little bit more difficult, a filling fell out yesterday evening.  I have been punctilious about brushing and looking after my teeth exactly because of my fear of what dental treatment might be in lockdown.  It was therefore with a certain amount of trepidation that we contacted the dentist this morning.  I was delighted (well, you know what I mean in relation to dentists) to find that not only was the dentist open, but they were making appointments and amazingly, I was fitting in at lunchtime next Tuesday.  That is what I call service!

     I do feel a certain trepidation about the appointment; it is difficult to be physically distanced when you are sitting in a dentist’s chair!  Another experience to add to the lockdown life!