Down, down we go!

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the creepiest speeches that I have heard delivered was by That Bloody Woman when she quoted Saint Francis on the steps of Downing Street.  Absolutely stomach churning to listen to That Hag try and pretend that selfless generosity and inclusivity was anywhere near the core philosophy of The Conservative Party – even then!

     Now we have a resident of Number 10 who probably regards Saint Francis as a twelfth century enemy of the people leftie.  With all the hesitant charm of a broken reel to reel tape recorder, The Creature Truss gave her acceptance speech to the Conservative faithful and left the rest of us thinking of just how low a country has to sink to ‘welcome’ such an inarticulate cypher as even a titular leader.

     Unless she now (tomorrow) performs a series of policy U-turns that would tax the capabilities of a F1 driver, we are going to be stuck with someone whose ideology driven wrecking will demean, bankrupt, and kill.  Someone who has lauded the concept of NOT redistributing wealth in the face of the greatest cost of living crisis since the banking fiasco; who welcomes tax cuts that benefit the wealthy as a way of EVENTUALLY helping those in dire need now; who has shown less than a scintilla of interest in the realities of Global Warming.

     I will leave it to others to list her self-serving non-achievements; her lies; her ‘flexible’ beliefs – but I am preparing myself for the real moment of truth when she takes centre stage in front of Downing Street (or inside in case of rain) and says something real about what she is going to do.

     I am steeling myself for the list of cabinet appointments, but the fact that commentators have written that Dorries and Braverman are being considered for any post in government, let alone the highest positions, without breaking down into hysterical sobbing at the Ship of Fools that will be sailing under her captaincy, is horrific.

     Let’s get one thing straight – I care about my country, and I would rather see an excrescence like Truss succeed and the country thrive than have her fail and bring the country down further than it already has with twelve years of Tory Misrule, in which, let us not forget, she has been an active and maleficent wrecker.

     Truss went out of her way in her speech to laud her ‘friend’ Johnson, her friend the lying, narcissist, criminal Johnson.  If she takes his approach to honesty and responsibility, then we are in for a very rocky couple of years before the scythe of the next general election can do its long-delayed work!

 

 

 

LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 38 – Wednesday, 22nd APRIL

An unconvincingly dry start to the day, where the most you can say about the weather is that it is not raining.  I will, however, take the opportunity to go for my walk in the dry, or dry-ish conditions, about which I will not complain – for fear the rains return!

     At times such as these one takes pleasure in small mercies, so I am truly thankful that I was able to complete my regulation walk unaccompanied by the lashing rain that has been such an obtrusive feature of the last three days.  And I had to wear a jacket, as the temperature was nowhere near the twenty-one degrees that my London cousin told me would be the norm where she was!  Still, I will bide my time and as we move nearer to the summer, I think that the balance of warmth will tip back in my favour!

Spain is going to ask for a two-week extension to the lockdown, putting its possible end some time in May.  Although the curve is flattening, there are still deaths and new cases of the virus and I am not sure that we have a convincing exit strategy.  It would be tragic indeed if the loosening of restrictions resulted in a virus spike towards the end of May.  I suppose the government is putting a great deal of hopeful expectation on the summer heat doing more efficiently what they have failed to do.  God help us all in the autumn!

     In Britain the controversy over the non-joining of the EU bulk buy initiative to get PPE shows no signs of calming down with the Civil Servant’s mea culpa letter being scrutinized stylistically in a way which would have done credit to the reading of the runes that used to go on in the gnomic pronouncements of the old USSR during the Cold War.  I do agree that paragraph three in the letter is one of Mandarin double-speak and the refutation of what was a clearly stated ‘fact’ that Brexit was the root cause of our non-participation is far less than convincing.

     It is depressing to realize that the government is more concerned about getting away with questionable statements, or maybe downright lies, in the short term in the hope that the inevitable inquiry in the longer term will be bad, but people will have moved one and memories are inevitably fickle and we will probably be back on the old territory of Brexit chaos to take people’s minds off what happened all those weeks ago.

     In the USA Trump is demonstrating on a daily basis that consequences are for little people and that lies, blatant and proven, are no hindrance to a narcissist’s grip on power if his base is indiscriminating enough.

     I feel very much the same about those people who voted for the present Conservative government and feel that the “Vote Conservative!” badge that I used to wear years ago is still more than valid, as around that injunction in smaller letters it had, “Young and stupid?  Old and selfish?”  Some things never change.

     Our ostensibly “socialist” government here in Spain, propped up with left wing parties’ support, is a little less than impressive and, apart from moving the corpse of the dictator Franco, it is difficult to point to any real achievements.  Admittedly, Trump has set the bar absurdly low for competence in crisis for a so-called democratic government, but his fatal dithering in the early days of the crisis has been mirrored to an extent in other governments in Europe.

     It remains to be seen how the releasing of the Plague Children into the community works out.  It has been said that kids can be unwitting carriers of Covid-19, so without testing allowing youngsters out from lockdown is something of a gamble, especially for the more senior parts of the community – in which category I firmly place my good self.  I can’t help thinking that there will be a whole age group re-watching Chitty-chitty-bang-bang and thinking that the figure of the ‘Child Catcher’ is one whose time has come round at last!

The story of the EU Bulk Buying Scandal has taken a further turn with the EU detailing when and how many times the UK had been informed about the whole thing.  One, or all of the front bench ministers is/are lying, as the ‘missed email farce’ is not really gaining any traction, while the 'Brexit Prejudice Pantomime' is seeming more and more like the truth.  So these unutterable bastards put the absurd foot-shooting of Brexit before actual people’s lives.  Who would have thought that Conservatives would have done something as despicable as that?  Well, I for one!

     This is obviously a resigning matter.  At a time of national crisis there might be some who might say that to change the people at the top would be counter productive.  Fair point.  But what if the people at the top are a bunch of vicious incompetents whose actions have killed people?  Surely getting rid of them is an act of self-preservation?  And don’t forget, the first to offer his too long delayed resignation should be the Blond Buffoon for his dereliction of duty in ostentatiously going out of his way to mix with Covid-19 carriers and thus become infected and deliberately taking a NHS bed that could have been used more profitably for those who, in spite of taking every precaution, caught the virus.  Vile man.  Vile government.

The Spanish government has now (again) come round to the point of view of the Catalan government over the question of the Plague Kids and how free they should be in the Great Breakout for this weekend.  The untramelled liberation of the Plague Kids has now been modified to bring it more like the Catalan suggestions that stipulated that kids under 12 would be allowed to accompany a parent for recreational short walks but not NOT going to places like supermarkets and places where real human beings could be infected.

     It remains to be seen just how the population interprets this relaxation, though I do not think that people are going to be too scrupulous and if they are not, then we are looking at more deaths later.

On the more positive, cultural side, I have, at last been able to print out a copy of The Coasts of Memory – though I think that there is more editing to be done before I am satisfied!

    

Four Days Later

It has now been four days since I returned from hospital to a more domestic setting.  And four days in which I have had to supress all my natural impulses, and try and learn to relax and rest and take it easy.

You might think that would be easy.  Just think of it as a ‘holiday at home’ with ‘butler’ service provided by my partner, I told myself.  Sit down in a comfortable (reclining) armchair, write, eat, watch television and allow the sun to warm the back of one's neck through the closed window.

It has been much, much harder than I thought it would be.  The basic problem is that my medical problem (thrombosis, pulmonic embolism etc.) while serious has no outward indication and, apart from a slight tightness across the chest, I actually feel fine.  But I’m not.  And I have to keep telling myself the same.

Walking up stairs is a problem.  Not because I can’t, but rather because I can too easily!  I have to tell myself to climb three steps and pause and the next three and pause and so on.  When I need something, it is an automatic response to get up and get it.  And if I do get up quickly, there is no stabbing pain or twinge to remind me I’m ill.  Presumably the only indication that I will get is when I drop dead!  However, let us not dramatize this too much.  I am feeling well, indeed very well, when you take the ‘waiting on’ that Toni is doing into account!

I keep telling myself that this enforced, unnatural tranquillity is only for a fortnight and then I can start taking little walks.  And I’m already 4/14ths of the way through!

Given what has happened to me over the past week or two, my view of life has (in the short term) changed somewhat – priorities change when a doctor explains the significance of my condition with horror stories in which some foolish patient ignored medical advice and went for a walk smoking a cigarette AND DIED!  Well, I don’t and have never smoked, but the import of the story is not lost on me!  Therefore, in the reworked version of my ‘way of life’ the two ‘luxury’ basic needs that I have are to drive the car and go for a swim.

I have been told that driving a car may be possible in ‘a couple of months’ – and there is nothing which defines captivity for a driver than lack of access to wheels.  The going for a swim is even more tenuous.  My usual daily total for my swim is 1,500m. crawl.  I have been told that in a month or so I might be able to complete four lengths in a slow breaststroke!  Now that is going to be difficult, the temptation to do more will be almost overwhelming – but the possible outcome of ignoring advice is, after all, terminal!  So I may well stay in line!

Although the last two weeks have been somewhat focussed on me and what is happening to me (at least to me and mine) the outside world has, allegedly been carrying on as if there were nothing wrong with me!

The travails of the Conservative (“Lower than vermin”) Party in Britain over Brexit would be laughable if it were not so important.  May is a disaster, but I am not sure what sort of leader would be able to take the terminally divided party forward.  And certainly looking at the dearth of talent on the ‘government’ side there is no one who immediately springs to mind as intellectually, politically or morally eminent enough to take the party out of the morass into which it has sunk.  I suppose that we, the people, are looking for a politician of the calibre of Sir Robert Peel who was prepared to split the Conservative (“Lower than vermin”) Party in the repeal of the Corn Laws because it was the right thing to do for the country above the needs of the party.

I think that even Peel (1788-1850) would be uncomfortable with the grotesque anachronism of Rees-Mogg, and the fact that this reactionary throwback is the most favoured candidate for the leadership of the Conservative (“Lower than vermin”) Party in the eyes of activists, is a crushing condemnation of the present positioning of a right-wing minority government that doesn’t seem to have any idea about what specifically it wants from one of the most significant episodes in the history of our country since the Second World War!

Meanwhile in Spain there seems to be a descent into the world of the comic, given the news that fills our television screens.  This infantile approach to government is not helped by the fact that the minister who is mostly in the news at the moment has both the name and the look of a cartoon character himself.  Señor Zoido (sic.) is the Minister for the Interior and is responsible for the present hysteria in Spain as the investiture of the next President of Catalonia approaches.

So far, in their frantic response to the independence issue in Catalonia, the Spanish government has dismissed the Catalan government; instituted direct rule from Madrid and imprisoned Catalan political leaders. 

The past President of Catalonia, Puigdemont went into exile in Belgium and in an embarrassing series of inept actions by the minority right-wing Spanish government they attempted to use Interpol and an International Arrest Warrant to get him extradited to Spain where he would have been arrested.  It was clear that the Belgian authorities regarded the warrant as baseless and the Spanish withdrew it before it was ignominiously rejected.  They are now paranoid that Puigdemont (the only candidate for the presidency) will somehow or other make it back to Barcelona for the investiture.

Zoido (sic.) has been poncing his rotund, porcine way across our TV screens preening himself on the risible (but expensive) and futile ways in which he has ordered the security of the frontiers.  To illustrate the security of our borders, on TV this morning one reporter drove from Spain to France and back again with no police or security at the border, illustrating the expensive waste this political propaganda continues to be.

Our glorious walking joke of a national president keeps himself out of the limelight – as he always does when anything difficult raises its head, pushing others into the firing line in order to save his own non-existent prestige.

To some extent, it is necessary for the minority right-wing national government to concentrate on Catalonia because, otherwise, it would have to focus on the number of PP corruption cases that are coming to judgement.  Bear in mind that literally hundreds of PP officials, ex ministers, workers, etc. are involved in billions of euros of corruption presently in the courts and you can see that any distraction from the systemic corruption of the party is a positive for them. 

I also fail to see why they worry.  No member of the government ever resigns, no matter how overwhelming the evidence of wrongdoing is.  Documents, film, tape recordings – no matter the evidence they ignore it all and hope that it all goes away.  And with the politicization of the judicial system in their favour, they have little really to worry about.  At the moment, however, some of the accused in the most notorious of the corruption cases are ‘singing’ and implicating all of our favourite villains in government.  

Even so, I do not hold out much hope for those thieving criminals to be behind bars any time soon.  After all, look at the thief that is the husband of the sister of the King.  He has been tried and found guilty; he has been given a seven-year prison sentence.  Is he in prison?  No, of course not, he is living in Switzerland and recently went on holiday to Rome.  As his philandering father-in-law once remarked on a television broadcast, “Justice is the same for everyone!”  Except of course for when it isn’t!

So, in spite of the fact that I am stuck in the house, my irritation and disgust reach out through this country and the United Kingdom.  It keeps me occupied!

Tomorrow is the Catalan investiture, so I expect Spanish hysteria to reach a point of melodramatic queenliness unparalleled in recent political history.  Each action they take against Catalonia merely serves to make them appear more ludicrous and less democratic.  

Bring it on!