JANUARY BLUES

I am glad to see the back of January 2018. January is always a trying month, with bold New Year resolutions colliding with grim reality, piggy-banks empty and chilly winds blowing up one’s kilt. This year I have had in addition a heavy dose of this winter’s bug, coughing incessantly, producing quite excessive amounts of phlegm (why do we honour the phlegmatic?) and being afflicted with much more than my usual lassitude – a stroll to the shops requiring the energy for a trans-polar expedition.

Such grim January feelings are not unexpected; Blue Monday (allegedly the most depressing day of the year) is always in January – this year it fell on 15 January – but it seemed no different from many a January day. 7 January was worse in that on that day Arsenal were knocked out of the FA Cup 2-4 by lowly Nottingham Forest, sackcloth and ashes obligatory!

Outside events as usual do not brighten up our lives. A fund-raising function in the City of London thrown by the so-called President’s Club, a stag occasion, was said to be a “groperama” and triggered off noisy protests from lady crusaders and the usual agitators. As the President’s Club seemed to be mainly the province of property executives (not a famously enlightened group) we could have expected the worst but it is sad that the attitudes of Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Clubs, already tacky in 1960, should persist in the aged loins of some superannuated British satyrs. Thankfully we also learn that pretty but totally irrelevant girls are being dropped from F1 grids – the days of blatant arm-candy are soon to be history.

Long past your sell-by date, Hef (RIP)!

Scotland contributed her own toxic dose of venom by clarifying an earlier decision from Alex Salmond that the Union flag would only be flown on certain royal occasions and normally public buildings would fly the Saltire. Neglected for some time, this decision seemed a gratuitous shaft aimed at Her Majesty. Far from gallant from Nicola Sturgeon (who hid behind Salmond), and as the SNP’s noisy Republican credentials range against the tacit loyalty of Scots monarchists, I see this as bad politics and do not believe the SNP would win many votes on this issue.

Trying to cheer myself up by reading, I bury myself in Yanis Varoufakis’ Adults in the Room, his memoir of his 6 months as Greek Finance Minister in early 2015. His very detailed and illuminating account tells an alarming story of how the EU would only discuss more (failed) austerity and refused to engage in any discussion of debt reconstruction, even though intellectually almost all acknowledged that Greece could never meet her obligations. The catalogue of prevarication, obstruction, red herrings, invented rules, collusion and blatant lying displayed by the cream of the EU, ECB and IMF at that time, by Schäuble, Dijsselbloem, Draghi, Weiser, Lagarde and Thomsen chills the blood as a similar team is negotiating with the UK over Brexit. These people, like Juncker and Barnier, do not negotiate in good faith. Varoufakis represented a left-wing government, anathema to the EU, but the UK government is also cordially despised. Feeble Greece caved in eventually but I do not expect the UK go down the same road despite all efforts by Brussels to subvert our government, aided by our home-grown Eurofanatics, and the flabby leadership being displayed by uninspiring Theresa May. God help us if we fail to show true British grit!

We need your spirit now, Winston

My January bug has prevented me from boosting my morale by seeing Gary Oldman as Churchill in The Darkest Hour but I hope for that treat in a few days’ time. I did stagger out to a Folkestone Burns Supper, which was pleasantly convivial even though the kilted master of ceremonies had acquired his accent on the Old Kent Road rather than on Glasgow Green. Of course Burns is not entirely cheerful:

But Mousie, thou art no thy lane,

In proving foresight may be vain:

The best-laid schemes o' Mice an' Men

         Gang aft agley,

An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,

         For promis'd joy!

Still thou are blest, compared wi' me!

The present only toucheth thee:

But Och! I backward cast my e'e,

         On prospects drear!

An' forward, tho' I cannot see,

         I guess an' fear!

Dispel the gloom of January, bright February has arrived. The Six Nations Rugby starts this weekend and I have high hopes for some classic performances. Scotland Forever!

SMD

02.02.2018

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2018