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.

 

 

Concerned? Write!

 

 

I am determined to write something which related to my next book.  I have written notes and sketched out possible content, but I haven’t formally written a passage which could be part of the finished product.  I feel that I am at the stage where the writing of anything is better than writing nothing, just to get me going.  I do realize that what I write today may well be discarded in the future, but that junked writing is usually a way of forming my literary path forward to what I regard as a satisfactory conclusion.

     What makes the writing more difficult is that I am attempting to use a central theme as the unifying element in a book that will be composed of a number of discrete parts.  If it is not to be too ‘bitty’ then the theme will have to play a major role in the cement keeping the whole thing together.

     I will be able to work on the detail of the different parts, but they will only be effective if I can unite them in a way that is not too forced.

     Any writing I do tonight, will be a way of keeping my mind off what is happening (or perhaps not happening) in a certain dinner party in Brussels where one of the politicians in whom I have no trust whatsoever is seeing himself as a sort of White Knight bravely jousting his way in the savage lair of the EU and staunchly defending the national freedoms that he has done so much to imperil!   

     I truly believe that Johnson is coward enough to risk a no-deal outcome rather than get a deal which, while it might be good (or at least better than no deal) for the country would do little for his prestige and life in the Conservative party.  But, sufficient unto the day and all that, let’s wait (again) to see what happens.  But I remain pessimistic and, let’s face it, I have the evidence of the last four and a half years to justify depression when I see Conservative politicians going to Europe to do their thing!

 

The swimming pool was substantially emptier today now that the Puente is over and people are back to work.  I managed to do my entire swim in a lane to myself, so that always starts me off in a good mood for the day.

 

I am hearing more people express qualified doubts about early acceptance of the vaccines.  The rumour mills are working overtime and I have already heard a number of what I think are unsubstantiated claims of reactions to the drugs.  Considering how few have actually been vaccinated, it is truly remarkable how quickly people are speaking authoritatively about them.  I am still, however, staunchly in the early adopter camp.  All I need now is someone somewhere to offer me a jab.

     At present I am not clear about how Spain and Catalonia are going to roll out the vaccinations, but I am determined not to be disappointed if I get mine sometime in April.

     I have also noted that some experts are saying that we should get used to the wearing of masks for virtually the whole of next year, with next winter being a time when we will need to be especially careful, no matter who has had the vaccine.  An important point was made by one expert who said that being vaccinated did not meant that the individual was incapable of spreading the virus to others, only that the person would be unlikely to suffer the effects of the virus personally. 

     This is going to be a very difficult message to get across, as it is much more likely that people will consider themselves immune as soon as they are injected and make the assumption that they are safe, when they most assuredly are not.

     Well, if nothing else, it will give me the opportunity to purchase a daffodil mask that I will wear on St David’s Day, March 1^st, 2021!

 

We exist too, Mr Johnson!

 

 

 

 

 

Only a two-faced lazy chancer like Johnson could appeal to “the power of sweet reason” to get a Brexit agreement “over the line” without apparent recognition of irony.  This is because there is no real link between what comes out of his mouth and any discernible link to what might be loosely termed “reality” in the Conservative dystopia that passes for politics nowadays.

     “Reason” is the very last thing that has driven the Brexiteer Vandals, they have behaved like berserkers drunk on their intoxicating brew of bigoted self-interest and blind adherence to a twisted ideology of purist Brexit where mere reality is relegated to a lowly, nay insignificant place in what passes for their thinking.

     Given Johnson’s morbid narcissism it is impossible to tell whether his assessment of a Brexit agreement as “looking very, very difficult at the moment” is yet another of his macho taunts to the EU showing that he can play the poker hand with steely nerves, or whether he is really preparing us for the fact that we are not actually going to get an agreement as all.

     The inherent contradictions (or lies as it might be fairer to call them) in the Brexiteers’ position have always been there.  The questions that are the sticking points today have been the areas of confusion from the start, and in the years that the Brexiteers have had to make their plans clear in how they were going to work, they have done virtually nothing, except talk incoherent, self-defeating nonsense.  They have no ideas about how to get what they want (when they actually know what it is that they want) except through tantrums and unreasonable demands.

     And in the middle (sometimes, when he can be bothered) is the joke of a man who wears the title of prime minister. 

 

Johnson must know that he is in a no-win situation.  To gain the agreement of the rabid Brexiteers in the Conservative party, he will lose the majority of the ‘moderate’ (whatever that means in Conservatism nowadays) majority that makes up the Parliamentary party.  If he gets anything like a reasonable (whatever that means in terms of Brexit nowadays) agreement, he will have the right-wingers frothing at the mouth.  Whatever he manages to get from a reasonable agreement to a full repudiation of Brexit to a no-agreement Brexit, he is going to be pilloried.

     You might say, with some justice, that he fully deserves to be attacked en mass; the only thing that drove him to espouse the Brexit ‘idea’ was naked cynicism wrapped in all-devouring ambition.  Public service and the country didn’t get a look in.  So, we could stand back and watch the blood bath and say, “jolly good riddance!”

     Except we can’t.  As John Donne stubbornly reminds us, “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent” – the irony of the word ‘continent’ being used when you  think about Brexit is tellingly ironic!   

     Although Johnson doesn’t give a damn about us, the ordinary people, we cannot share his wealthy distain for the realities of lived life, we are directly affected by his decisions and the decisions of his party.  Johnson may be concerned with his self-image and be concerned about how posterity sees him; we have to live in the world and country that he is making.  His wealth largely insulates him from the financial and practical effects of his policies: he is not concerned about the problems of being able to live, he is more concerned with how he appears.

     When all is said and done, I simply do not trust Johnson.  I don’t trust him as a politician and I don’t trust him as a person.  He lacks morality.  He is a liar.  He is a deceiver.  He is an opportunist.  And he is deciding my future.

     It is a sad and almost tragic thing to say, but I do put my trust in one aspect of Johnson’s modus vivendi, he is a betrayer.  He betrays because, as one commentator put it, he lives in the moment and the past is not of any real concern to him.

     And that is our hope!  Johnson will produce an agreement that goes back on virtually everything that he has said because that is what he does!

     It’s a frail hope, but I think it is the only one that we have because “sweet reason” left the room many years ago.

 

Today has been, continues to be, cold.  13c.  It rained briefly last night, but today we have had fluffy clouds with patches of blue – not much actual sunshine, but no rain.

     The weather is important because today is a holiday and this time (as opposed to the weekend) people from outside Castelldefels can legally come and walk along the paseo.  It is an opportunity for bars and restaurants to try and get some cash flow before Christmas.  We went to a restaurant, one of our usual haunts, and it was quite full (with the 50% limit), there were certainly people around and yesterday there were television pictures of queues of people waiting to go into shopping centres to get their Christmas gifts organized.

     Which begs the question of what people are going to do during the holiday period.  As I have said before, I think that the next month or so is going to be critical in the way that the pandemic pans out.  If people regard Christmas as a time to be laxer than they already are, then the middle of January will show a massive jump in infections.

     Realistically people are not going to be vaccinated until the middle of next year.  I think that I may be lucky if I manage to be vaccinated by April, as I manage to tick a few boxes for the early application of the needle!  This means that we will be well into the summer of next year before the majority of the population have had their double injections.

     But what I am hearing are sighs of relief that a vaccine, or series of vaccines, are being rolled out and that the horrors of the pandemic are numbered.  Which they are not.  We are not safe until everyone is safe and we have been told by numerous authorities that Covid is a virus that is not going to be eradicated and is something that we are going to have to live with.  For ever.  That hard truth has not found its way into many consciousnesses.  And that means more death.

 

On a different topic entirely.  I am trying to find out how to treat the rather exotic book cover that I talked about yesterday.  This cover is made of suede and is falling to pieces.  I am not sure what to apply to the cover to preserve it.  Would leather cream or polish do anything?  Any thoughts gratefully received!