What’s up?

Writing to a friend,  Alix, a journalist who escaped a fate worse than death in Uganda,  when I just couldn't find the word, 'shameless'. The sentence wanted to be, "The children went to bed with just a few bribes, I'm .... " I had to substitute, "without compunction" but I was curious. Where had the word gone? How many more have vanished without trace and I don't  even know it yet?

I decided it was useless to worry about it: instead I chose to make a game of it .. Reckless ?
Lacking in moral fibre?

I went all around the houses. Or kept fishing. Both.

As is the way of these things the word came back in a eureka moment in the bath. Now there's another thing:some autonomous programme deep beneath my consciousness was bevearing  away until, BINGO! I wrote a poem about it.

Shameless

I put my hand in the sack and
Realised some of my words were missing!
What now? I thought, observing this
Peculiar phenonemum with
Concern and curiosity.

Phew! How reassuring!
The ones I wanted for this
Particular poem
Are STILL HERE.

Ode To Joy

Today I formally cease to be a citizen of the European Union, and this fills me with great sadnessThe arguments rage backwards and forwards on the merits of being in or out of the EU, and I am not going to rehearse them here. Time will tell. I comfort myself with the belief that that which truly unites people across international boundaries, goodwill, friendship, willingness to work for the common good, cannot be negated by a single act of folly.

And my very last act as an EU citizen is one of splendid defiance. Take it away Beethoven!

https://youtu.be/kbJcQYVtZMo

Y

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OK, We’re Stuffed!

Do you know that projections on the economic  effects of climate change are predicted on the assumption that 87% of industry won’t be effected by it because it “takes place indoors”?? 

And this includes mining. 

Professor Steve Keen tells it likes it is: you have to engage your brain, because he explains the science, and he says, “fucking” once. As his home town is now on fire, I’m inclined to forgive him that. 

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/macro-n-cheese/id1453085489?i=1000462989017

Keeping Calm And Carrying On

On occasion I write a title with no idea what I'm going to say, knowing from experience that once I'm, "in the flow!" Something of interest will emerge, at least of interest TO ME.  Oh yes.

I fought alongside socialist friends for the Labour Party in last month's election, and am still saddened by the result. That we lost, is a deep wound. Fighting for the homeless, the hungry, the stranger, for redistributing wealth so that working families are raised above the poverty line, protecting workers rights and universal healthcare was important to me. I console myself with the thought that I stood with the good guys, and I have no regrets for doing so. A deeply conservative neoliberal administration has been given an unassailable majority and will take it as permission to continue the process of ripping apart the social fabric of this nation. But not with my consent. 

How then do I deal with disappointment verging on despair? To acknowledge it, and to make something of lasting significance, if possible, I suppose. 

Maybe the worst won't happen. (It won't happen to ME, at least ...) I hope not. But if catastrophe is to be avoided,  everyone of good will is going to have to step up. When you have elected  a government that will withdraw from caring for its citizens, you need to choose. Are you prepared to watch more people die from broken services and the removal of a welfare safety net, or will will put the energy you mustered for  a political fight into a humanitarian one? 

The omens are not good. 

So, "Keep Calm And Carry On"? Not there yet. I'll keep you posted.