BEGONE, DULL CARE

I am hugely relieved to read that the gloomy weather recently – 12 miserable minutes of sunshine so far in all November in part of Sussex, but dismal in most places - is nothing to do with fraught international politics but can be confidently ascribed to a “static anticyclone” hovering over Northern Europe – don’t worry it will move East soon, and we will see more light even though it will get colder. It would have been natural to suppose that the gloom was some kind of prelude to a cosmic catastrophe – listening to the sensationalist media would reinforce that prognosis – but it’s a false alarm and everything will be hunky-dory in a week or two.

    `                                                            
Emmanuel Macron

Certainly, elections have not cheered me up, to say the least. I suppose the rot set in with the French, when Macron took fright at right-wing Marine Le Pen’s party success in European elections and called snap legislative polls to thwart her. But this backfired by handing a probable majority to all the most extreme Leftist parties headed by the appalling Jean-Luc Mélenchon and decimating Macron’s own clique, though Macron still heads his government with no majority. Macron may well end up as a lame-duck President (far from his Napoleonic ambitions) but then the French are ungovernable, as de Gaulle remarked, - how can you govern a country with 246 varieties of cheese?

                                                Rachel Reeves and Sir Keir Starmer

Then in July the UK election unsurprisingly booted out Sunak’s increasingly shambolic Tories, when outwardly dignified Starmer won by an unexpectedly large landslide. Starmer sadly has not impressed, being evasive and economical with the truth. There have also been signs of corruption and cronyism, much at odds with the squeaky-clean image in which Labour had presented itself. The cabinet is largely untested, but Rachel Reeves has presented a budget with swingeing tax increases, wildly biased towards Labour supporting groups in unions, public sector entities and, of course, the sacred NHS, an unreformed bottomless pit. Fiscal policy is unstructured, and the UK government is already foundering.

Kemi and Hamish Badenoch

 

William Hague

I was pleased by the election of Kemi Badenoch as leader of the depleted Conservative Party. She is a thinker, with firm Tory instincts and should start to lead a revival of her party’s fortunes, though she will have to fight some racial prejudice from diehards and reactionaries. I also voted in the arcane election for Chancellor of Oxford University. The original 38 candidates, swollen by no-hopers and over-zealous academics has been whittled down to 5 – I have gone for moderate Tory William Hague, biographer of iconic William Pitt the Younger, fundraiser and reliable bulwark against the rising tide of academic wokery.

                                                                              Donald Trump

Of course, the big story has been the enormous triumph of Republican Donald Trump in the US Presidential election. He walked it, condemning Kamala Harris and Joe Biden to outer darkness. The hand-wringing despair of the Democrats and Leftie Americans has been a joy to behold and many of them say they are fleeing to Europe – not sure how welcome they will be. Their horror and fear of an unrestrained Trump is understandable.

The Donald is an unpredictable oik, a convicted felon with the morals of an alley-cat, with no intellectual interests nor oratorical skills. He has made alarming comments about NATO and Europe and holds equivocal views on Ukraine, Israel, Russia and China. Yet he will back American businesses and the aspirational middle classes and will deregulate oil and energy companies, all of whom will prosper. We Brits are hoping the UK is exempted from some of his tariffs, even clutching at straws that his Scottish mother’s memory will soften his MAGA impositions, or that his pal Nigel Farage will somehow help us out! But it is early days yet – we have not seen his cabinet nor the quality of his team and entourage.

There may well be a rocky road ahead, but the worst does not often happen. Be of good cheer!

 

SMD

10.11.24

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2024

ANYTHING GOES!

 

Cole Porter summed it up beautifully:

The world has gone mad today
And good's bad today,
And black's white today,
And day's night today,
When most guys today
That women prize today
Are just silly gigolos
And though I'm not a great romancer
I know that you're bound to answer
When I propose,
Anything goes!

My generation, a slowly disappearing but vocal band of brothers and sisters hailing from the 1930s-1950s, value tradition, order, logic, consistency, patriotism, scientific progress, kindness and fairness, however imperfectly. The world of 2024, and no doubt in 2025 too, will turn all that upside down and somehow, we must resist or meekly accept the resultant anarchy. No prizes for guessing my point of view – Aux barricades, mes braves!

 

                            Liberty leading the People by Delacroix (The Louvre, Paris)

But we are uncomfortable in revolutionary mode and much prefer some gentle, if quizzical observations on ordinary life. I have the good fortune to be in North Carolina this Christmas – a chilly but bracing minus 2C today – and I have already consumed some traditional American delicacies, Blueberry muffins, clam chowder, Chesapeake oysters, moist brisket, Chick-Fil-A and blackened trout, washed down with a draught beer called Good Morning, Vietnam! All this is quite normal to Americans, but many Brits would find these names unfamiliar. Americans are different, to be sure. Some small confusion is only to be expected when Americans think trousers are pants, a jacket is a coat, and a waistcoat is a vest!

Naturally Americans cherish their history, their Constitution and are proud of their achievements. And yet, they have voted overwhelmingly in favour of a second term for Donald Trump, a convicted felon, a stranger to the truth and an ignoramus outside his passions for property development, flashy women and the game of golf. His policies of large-scale migrant deportation, weaponising tariffs, withdrawing from non-American obligations are popular but simplistic and likely to have nasty unintended consequences. I only hope he listens to experienced advice after 20 January 2025, (some hope!).

                                                Trump’s sinister police mugshot

We Brits cannot gloat – we have a much smaller economy, and we are already in a fiscal and culture-war mess as Starmer’s Left-wing fanatics begin to flex their muscles. We are seeing taxes confined to the private sector, exemptions granted to the public sector, occupational pensions attacked, farmers losing inheritance tax concessions. Much worse, the Left (including the Wet and the Woke) has infiltrated the civil service, demanding hefty rewards for failure, and has undermined the ethos of our cherished universities by supporting the practice of cancel culture e.g. trying to silence J.K. Rowling, Margaret Attwood and many others. I am not talking about some catchpenny, dim universities but leading Oxbridge colleges taking “decolonisation” to absurd lengths, under the bogus guise of “diversity”, and cringing shamefully to attract Chinese cash endowments in the case of the University of Cambridge. John Milton and Dr Johnson, robust believers in free speech, must be spinning in their graves.

Europe is in an even worse pickle. After Macron blunders, France is without a government and a coalition looks impossible. Government by decree seems inevitable, bringing who-knows-what instability. Everywhere but Britain is moving Right - Spain, Italy and the Netherlands – German elections in February will probably move in the same direction. Ireland, grandstanding as ever and dependant on American investment, has amazingly so upset Israel over anti-Semitic criticism of actions in Gaza that the Israeli embassy has closed. Trump is highly supportive of Israel and hates European parasites – expect an American exodus from tax-dodging Ireland. This Nemesis will be richly deserved. Tact and diplomacy matter! The EU has long not been a powerhouse, but rather a millstone round the neck of her undoubtedly capable business community.

With the erosion of many of her great domestic institutions, and the palpable enmity of Russia, China, Iran and N.Korea, what is the West to do to defend herself? Well, first principles first; it must arm itself to the teeth and create modern, highly professional armies. NATO will remain a bedrock, but bi-lateral alliances may play a part. The best of Western values, toleration, freedom of speech, civil order, the rule of law, genuine compassion for the disadvantaged, all must be rigorously defended. We do not need to be shy of our superiority over “third world” economies, it is beyond dispute and likely to stay that way. We have no obligation to open our borders or grant asylum to impoverished masses, who bring their native fanaticisms and hatreds to our shores. They have their ample space – do not intrude enviously upon ours!

 

The West will slay the looming dragons threatening her– do not doubt it – and preserve her eternal values. Hallelujah!

 

SMD

17.12.24

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2024

A Winter's Tale

 

Winter has arrived rather decisively, mellow Autumn is a vanished visitor, Summer a fading memory and Spring a distant hope. Meanwhile, we tackle cold, dark and wet British weather with as much spirit as we can muster. Some, alas, sink into debilitating Seasonal Affective Disorder, otherwise “SAD”, the bringer of a host of depressing afflictions caused, it is said, by lack of sunlight and deficiencies (or is it surpluses?) of melatonin and serotonin. They shiver “in their Stygian cave forlorn”.

Others adopt a more robust attitude, taking brisk walks, hunting, shooting, skiing, even indulging in those crazy ice-breaking swims but winter is surely best enjoyed indoors at home or in a friendly pub where you can play shove-ha’penny, darts, drink beer copiously from Toby Jugs and disparage the smart-ass political tribe. At home things are even cosier, as you can play whist, eat crumpets and whisper sweet seductive nothings into the tingling ear of your beloved as a preliminary gambit in the oldest indoor game known to Man.

   

      Venus, Mars and Cupid by Rubens                                A Doulton Toby Jug     

        (Dulwich Picture Gallery) 

Yet keeping warm and amused is only half the story this Winter. We must also keep sane in a world descending into madness. The election of Donald Trump to a second term is a hugely disruptive event, as he is a proven liar and felon, unfit for high office. His cabinet appointments are eye-popping as several are simply “disruptors” like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Such people can be useful in challenging the prevailing orthodoxy but can cause chaos if they have no experience of running a government department. The unconfirmed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is conventional in his economic views but, by UK standards, wildly unconventional in his private life as he is openly gay with a husband and 2 kids. Vice President J D Vance is a one-time Democrat and erstwhile arch critic of Trumpism who saw the light in 2020 and who has all the ardour of a convert. Many others in the Trump team are above all loyalists, swallowing all MAGA policies, like tariff wars with Europe and China, mass deportation of illegal Mexican migrants, and the imposition of a peace treaty on Ukraine. All these policies are difficult and controversial, and a bumpy political road is unavoidable.

 

    J D Vance                                                  Scott Bessent          and                Robert F Kennedy Jr

The UK’s new government has had a rocky first 100 days and it has largely lost the momentum its sweeping electoral victory initially provided. Sir Keir Starmer is a wooden performer, with a very unsure political touch, and he has allowed his Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, to introduce a class-war budget, taxing the private sector, sparing the public one and needlessly offending the farming community. Naturally he blames the previous Tory government for any financial stresses, but that alibi will not last long. The extreme Leftists seem to have plenty of influence and the front bench looks exceptionally weak, a rum crew of misfits and preening fanatics with the Monstrous Regiment over-represented. Much international hobnobbing and feasting also disillusions many electors who are beginning to revise their enthusiasm for Labour.

Angela Rayner, Rachel Reeves and Yvette Cooper

 Despite her huge wealth, I venture to guess that life next year will be more pleasant in the gloomy UK than in Trumpland, when native mania is finally allowed to run riot. Both countries are paying for the complacent neglect of many years of resource management, of public services, of basic budgeting and of confused international alliances. We are more used to such setbacks than our American cousins and our skins are thicker.

We will all emerge one Spring soon to a more rational and happier world.

 

SMD

29.11.24

Text copyright © Sidney Donald 2024

 

LOVING A LORD

 

  

Now that we are embraced by the new Labour Paradise (aka Nirvana) we can be sure that an early and easy constitutional change will be the expulsion of the hereditary peers from the House of Lords. The hereditaries’ privileges cannot be defended but their final departure should not proceed without some tribute and nostalgic regret.           

   As it happens, I am currently re-reading the delightful anthology The Library Looking-Glass by Lord David Cecil, not a hereditary peer himself, but a sibling of the 5^th Marquess of Salisbury, entitled to a courtesy title, and a sprig of a powerful aristocratic family. Lord David (1902-1986) was an author, critic and Oxford Professor of Literature. He made an early reputation with his study of the poet William Cowper The Stricken Deer (1929) and was an expert on 19^th century writers and poets like Scott, Austen, Pater and Bridges. His biography of Lord Melbourne, Lord M, (1954) was widely admired.

 

Lord David Cecil

He neglected his tutorial duties and one of his undergraduates, Kingsley Amis, was enraged when Lord David took 1 ½ terms to contact him, promptly to disappear to Italy again! He was a public figure and was familiar to the public for his machine-gun staccato verbal delivery. I think he sometimes appeared on the BBC TV Brains Trust programme on a Sunday afternoon in the late 1950s. Remember that? Chaired urbanely by Norman Fisher, its discussions contained the wisdom of the likes of Isaiah Berlin, Noel Annan, Barbara Wootton and Jacob Bronowski – light years away from the pap served up by the BBC these days!

Lord David’s brother, “Bobbety” Cranbourne, later 5^th Marquess of Salisbury was a sterner figure. After the classic Eton, Oxford and The Guards, Cranbourne became a Tory stalwart, winning pre-war minor office and he developed a particular knowledge of Africa. Befriended by Churchill, he joined the war-time cabinet, becoming Dominions Secretary and leader of the House of Lords when he inherited the Salisbury title. A power in the post-war Churchill and Eden ministries, he famously interviewed the Eden cabinet to establish who should succeed when Eden’s health broke down in 1957. The contest to “emerge” (nothing so vulgar as a leadership election in those days!) was between Rab Butler, the favourite, and Harold MacMillan. Bobbety, with his peculiar speech impediment, shot the same question at all the ministers: Well, is it Wab or Hawold? Harold won.     

Bobbety, 5th Marquess of Salisbury

Bobbety’s opinions were Imperialist, not to say reactionary. When MacMillan sought a way out of the inter-communal bloodshed and terrorism in Cyprus, by recalling Archbishop Makarios from exile in the Seychelles, Bobbety resigned in a huff. He later defended Apartheid in South Africa, became chairman of the right-wing Monday Club, supporting Rhodesia and Roy Welensky. His racial opinions would be unrepeatable in polite society today. In short Bobbety was an anachronism, ultimately damaging the reputation of his beloved native country.

Boofy Gore, Earl of Arran

Boofy was a harmless aristocrat of no great distinction who wrote a lively column in the Daily Mail. He was persuaded in 1965 to sponsor a private member’s bill in the Lords to decriminalise homosexual acts between 2 consenting adults, as recommended in the Wolfenden report of 1957. Boofy’s bill sailed through the Lords although Leo Abse’s Commons equivalent encountered stiff opposition. “A Buggers’ Charter, it was dubbed. Wilson’s government refused to handle this hot potato but eventually this liberal step became law in 1967.

Boofy’s other passion was the protection of badgers but his attempts to legislate against badger culls failed miserably.

In his dotage, he claimed not to understand why his homosexual bill triumphed while his badger bill failed. A friend gently observed “Boofy, perhaps there are not many badgers in the House of Lords…”

So, after centuries of dominance it will be time soon to say farewell to the famous names of Cecil, Cavendish, Gore and Spencer.

We can only echo the eloquent words of Lord Chief Justice Crewe in the De Vere Oxford peerage case of 1626;

Time hath his revolutions. There must be a period and an end of all temporal things, finis rerum, an end of names and dignities and whatsoever is terrene; and why not of De Vere? For where is Bohun; where is Mowbray; where is Mortimer; nay, which is more and most of all, where is Plantagenet? They are entombed in the urns and sepulchres of mortality.

 

SMD

15.9.24

Text copyright© Sidney Donald 2024

INCONVENIENT VOTERS

 

INCONVENIENT VOTERS

The West is currently greatly pre-occupied with elections of importance, some have already happened and throw up tricky issues, others are yet to come and fill us with foreboding. Our democratic systems demand regular elections but briefly we envy the tyrants and dictators who dispense with or rigidly control such events, as the campaigns surrounding democratic elections are ugly, destabilising and often feed our dangerous self-delusions.

Phizz’depiction of the Eatonswill election for Dickens’ Pickwick Papers (1836)

Dickens satirised these events but did not greatly exaggerate noisy electoral turmoil. Just go this week to a Tommy Robinson demo in scruffy old London, a Donald Trump rally in rust-belt America or a Jean-Luc Melenchon manifestation in deprived Paris and you will certainly see some nasty-looking characters. These characters need to be kept at a great distance from government. As ever:

The best lack all conviction, and the worst are filled with passionate intensity (W B Yeats).

The Western democracies are often saddled with cock-eyed voting systems.

Thus, In the UK the revered first-past-the- post system over-rewards the strongest party and marginalises also-rans.

Party           Candidates   Votes         Vote share         Seats

 Labour             631         9,708,716       33.70%            411

 Conservative    635         6,828,925       23.70%           121

 Reform UK      609         4,117,610       14.29%               5

 LibDems          630         3,519,143       12.22%             72

Green Party     574        1,842,436          6.40%                4

 SNP                      57             724,758         2.52%            9

 Sinn Féin           14             210,891          0.73%              7

Reform split the vote on the Right and let in Labour many times. The LibDems concentrated their fire-power and prospered mightily. Labour’s vote share was unimpressive but delivered a stunning victory. Reform’s vote was too thinly spread to translate into seat wins. Regional anomalies abound.

In France, the system is a form of proportional representation, which is fairer, but there is so much fragmentation that fanciful coalitions become established. Thus, France Unbowed, a far-Left coalition, has come out as the largest grouping, after Macron foolishly called a snap election after the populist Right FN, under Marine Le Pen, won the highest vote in the European elections. France Unbowed led by crackpot veteran Jean-Luc Melenchon is now the largest group in the Assembly. Among Melenchon’s policy gems are a 100% income tax on salaries over Eur 360,000pa, strong support for Hamas, anti-Zionism and support for the reunification of Belgian Wallonia with France! This grouping’s sole purpose is to frustrate the Right – a perilous road towards civil war. Macron is drunk with Napoleonic fantasies and metropolitan France is beset by decadence as the Olympic Opening Ceremony sadly demonstrated. A malodorous Gallic stew!

 

                                                                    Macron

                                                                    Melanchon

                                                                    Marine Le Pen

                                                     
                                                     But all this is of nothing compared to the mess in the USA!

 First the US election is an interminable torture starting in mid-2023, at last voting wearily in November 2024 but not actually inaugurating a new President until January 2025! The hot air generated is truly Herculean, but the likely candidates are unworthy of all the trouble they create.

 The front runner is shop-soiled ex-President Donald Trump, of whom the outside world is heartily sick, but who commands the Republican support of prosperous, but not mega-rich, professionals and hayseed proles dazzled by the rhetoric of MAGA jingoism. He pretends his record is wonderful, but he alienated NATO, failed to solve any international problem and appeased Russia (Putin no doubt has some dirt or financial lever on him). Trump has no original thoughts, his speeches ramble on (I 1/2 hours at last count) with endless self-congratulation and now childish mocking of Kamala’s’ name. By good fortune he dodged lawsuits and an assassin’s bullet, but he remains a convicted felon, a blowhard and an ignorant oik. Yet he may well win.

The Democrats were hobbled with the incumbent Joe Biden, a third-rate stopgap at best and embarrassingly senile and gaga for many long months. Finally forced to stand down from the election, in his vanity Biden stays on as President for 5 more months, babbling about his love of Ireland and dislike of Britain. He could not run a whelk-stall, yet Americans trust him with their nuclear codes. God help us!

 

                    Joe Biden  and  Kamala Harris

 

                                                                           Donald Trump

He has nominated as his successor his vice-President Kamala Harris, who was not popular as she embodies Californian Wokery – championing sexual diversity, soft on drug offences, border security and prison sentencing. But she is not Biden and is female and black, so she appeals to a certain constituency. Even so, I think she is only a long shot for the winner’s laurels.

So, elections are a lottery, electorates are fickle, and we are addicted to their use.

 

SMD

30.7.24

Text copyright © Sidney Donald 2024

THE IDEAL OF A HOSPITAL

 

THE IDEAL OF A HOSPITAL

I have had the good fortune to enjoy robust health most of my life and apart from minor episodes have been a stranger to inpatient stays at hospital. Recently a 2-week stay, involving a bowel cancer op, has opened my eyes to the many admirable things in the NHS system in general and my excellent local hospital in particular. I unreservedly withdraw all the critical shafts I may have directed at such organisations in the past, in my profound ignorance.

Our local hospital in Ashford is dedicated to the name of William Harvey (1578-1657), who was a native of Folkestone. Harvey achieved immortality through his vital discoveries and insights surrounding the circulation of the blood, following his studies at Padua University and he was an honoured ornament of the corps of medical men at the London City Hospital of St Bartholemew the Great, still going strong.

                                                                                     

                              William Harvey

In later life, Harvey lost favour and preferment, being identified as a Royalist, but he was not a political person and he died peacefully in his bed in turbulent times. Schools and institutes in Kent have long been named after him and the fine Hospital in Ashford opened in 1977 is a wholly deserved tribute.

The William Harvey is a thoroughly modern institution. We live in a multi-cultural society and as a patient, I was humbled by the ethos of the place. Whatever the background of the professional staff, they are firmly wedded to Western medicine with its rigorous standards. More than that, the Hospital treats the whole patient, and one does not leave it without effort being made not just to treat the principal ailment but also any other you may be carrying too. Several emotionally challenged or disruptive patients were sat with, comforted and calmed by charming nurses and if they had a sore elbow too, that also would be ministered to.

All the nursing and support staff were mutually supportive, helping each other out in their various duties, and easily radiating kindness and optimism. This hugely lightened the atmosphere in a place which inevitably possesses a degree of sadness and anxiety. There were many English nurses, often of the no-nonsense, jolly type pursuing outside interests passionately. Others, for example came from Nigeria, Poland and Ireland. There was a particularly attractive group of nurses from Nepal, poised, delicate and aspirational. All had family connections with Gurkha veterans. Long esteemed in Britain, it is a joy to see these good people enjoying full residence rights and opportunities in the country their ancestors served with such courage and devotion. Poignantly many of the nurses spoke of their nostalgia for “home” however remote that might be or unlikely their return.  

Before getting too dewy-eyed, it is well established that the NHS faces huge management challenges, which successive governments have failed to solve or contain. It is an idealistic experiment but that brings its own nobility. Ramsay Macdonald said in the 1920s “The watchword of socialism is not class-consciousness, it is community-consciousness.” The William Harvey is a shining beacon of community-consciousness, and we can only hope its spirit can thrive anew amid the rough political seas before us.

 

SMD

28.06.24

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2024

TWILIGHT, MOONLIGHT AND DAWN

 

As I never sleep through the night (a fact of life for the aged!) I am often lying in bed at say 4am and being surprised at how light the day is, as I try to snooze again. Twilight has become moonlight and now dawn is not far away. I am tempted to burst into song with some appropriate ditty – like those listed below – and I invite my kind readers to tune up their tonsils, get whistling and make the window-panes rattle!

1.       It’s Twilight Time by The Platters

Great favourites in the 1950s, the Platters somehow squeezed in as crooning gave way to rock ‘n roll.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0kprJ30_HU&ab_channel=ThePlatters%C2%AE

2.       Love’s Old Sweet Song (Just a song at Twilight) by John McCormack

A very popular Irish-composed Victorian “parlour song” – I am not normally a fan of John McCormack but his lyric tenor voice is admirable in this 1927 recording.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viW5rT2duoc

3.       Moonlight Sonata by Ludwig van Beethoven

A timeless piece, evocative in so many ways to so many people

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VmQNKaOeEw&ab_channel=AnastasiaHuppmann

4.       By the Light of the Silvery Moon sung by Doris Day and Gordon MacRae

A feel-good American classic sung by great stars of the 1950-60s. Dig those perfect teeth!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=td7lCCO9aaQ&ab_channel=HyakuShiki.

5.       Au Claire de la Lune

This traditional French nursery song has stuck in my memory ever since it was sung in a House Singing Competition at my Edinburgh school in about 1958. It was sung as a duet and one singer was “Speedy” Young, later a Highlands hotelier! He won!

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=au+claire+de+la+lune#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:5fc0a989,vid:CynKwMmxhNo,st:0

6.       Claire de Lune by Claude Debussy

Once reckoned the epitome of French music in the good old days when the French were justly proud of their cuisine, wines and cheeses and chic fashions. Less heard now in a world of gilets jaunes, urban terrorism and Anglophobia, alas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvFH_6DNRCY&ab_channel=CHANNEL3YOUTUBE

7.       Give me the Moonlight, Give me the Girl by Frankie Vaughan

This was the signature tune of good-natured Frankie Vaughan, never a big star but a stalwart of the variety theatre circuit. Many a teeny-bopper fan screamed in ecstasy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilo83LRCJrE&ab_channel=NottsUK

 

8.       Welcome, welcome Glorious Morn by Henry Purcell

This Welcome Song by Purcell, welcomes the Dawn and was a birthday ode for Mary II in 1691. It is a typical piece by England’s finest composer.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=welcome+glorious+morn+by+purcell#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:ec6ae7f3,vid:iSnV6IXBIQ4,st:0

 

I hope some of this entertains you all this Bank Holiday. Enjoy!

 

SMD

26.05.24

Text Copyright ©Sidney Donald 2024

THE GIFTS OF LIFE

We are lucky beyond words! Every time I start feeling sorry for myself, wallowing in doleful self-pity, I give myself a metaphorical kick up the back-side and proclaim – Forget it, our First World complaints are wholly redundant, we are living a life of cushioned comfort and protection - our generation must be the happiest in the millennium!

Yes, it is true, the post-war generation in the West has been particularly blest. Just to put it at its most basic, in 1945 average life expectancy in the UK was 64 and is now in 2024, 81 years. Better healthcare, cleaner air, better food, child vaccination, better working conditions and more leisure – all contribute to remarkably positive outcomes. Our material world has improved beyond recognition, better housing, easier transport, mobile phones with global coverage, laptop computers, TV, regular food deliveries, accessible cars, music and entertainment from diverse media, all on a plate.

The trap of Materialism

And yet…it is well said that Man does not live by bread alone. Our lives are a journey, much enhanced by beautiful experiences or beautiful objects. We need this stimulus to warm and comfort us. Our journey inevitably comes to an end and all mankind needs to make some sense of that conclusion. There are thousands of cults, religions and philosophies competing to provide an answer. Personally, I am not attracted to transcendental devotion, much as I respect the artistic contribution great religions have made and I am basically rationalist and humanistic. I have however, in an ecumenical spirit, recently bought the well-received A Monk’s Guide to Happiness by the Buddhist Gelong Thubten, promoting the value of Meditation. He is an engaging and up-to-date writer, but I doubt if I have the stamina to obey his precepts!

I am more attracted to the wisdom of the Ancient World and in particular the Stoic philosophy of the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius (121 – 180 AD). Stoicism was founded by Zeno, a Phoenician born in Cyprus who taught in Athens (flourishing c.300 BC). In a memorable passage the historian Gibbon paid grandiloquent tribute to the Antonine Emperors who presided over a Golden Age of relative peace and prosperity, first the efficient Antoninus Pius and then his adopted son Marcus Aurelius: -

 

 

The virtue of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was of a severer and more laborious kind. It was the well-earned harvest of many a learned conference, of many a patient lecture, and many a midnight lucubration. At the age of twelve years, he embraced the rigid system of the Stoics, which taught him to submit his body to his mind, his passions to his reason; to consider virtue as the only good, vice as the only evil, all things external as things indifferent. His Meditations, composed in the tumult of a camp, are still extant; and he even condescended to give lessons on philosophy, in a more public manner than was perhaps consistent with the modesty of a sage or the dignity of an emperor. But his life was the noblest commentary on the precepts of Zeno. He was severe to himself, indulgent to the imperfection of others, just and beneficent to all mankind.

    Emperor Marcus Aurelius 

Zeno the Stoic

                                           The Stoics set high standards, which I try feebly to observe.

Moving on from mind-addling philosophy, I am sure that all people benefit from contact with beautiful objects and beautiful places and I give a few examples to my taste.

                                        Chiswick House, London by Lord Burlington

The most civilised public amenity in London thought Sir David Piper

                                Majolica Plate of Women Bathing, made in Urbino c 1530

From the Wallace Collection, Manchester Square, London.

The Skating Minister by Sir Henry Raeburn

from The National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh

 

I have written much guff in the past about UK politics and taken positions with partisan relish. I now turn my back on the so-called political elite, Tony Blair Gordon Brown, Jeremy Corbyn, David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Keir Starmer, Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak et al. In judgment, I echo the immortal words of gap-toothed favourite Terry-Thomas who would snarl: - “You’re a shower, an absolute shower!

                                                              Critic Terry-Thomas

To revert to life-affirming matters, one of life’s great gifts is the Gift of Friendship. I was on the receiving end a week or so ago, when 5 old friends, knowing of my immobility, came down to the Kent coast to visit me and have lunch. Although not all of us were hale, we certainly were hearty and reminisced, bantered and chatted the day away – as we had over the past 50 years. For me it was one of the happiest days and made me glad to be still going strong and blest by the Gifts of Life.

 

SMD

22.5.24

Text Copyright Sidney Donald 2024

WHEN GREAT SOCIETIES DECLINE

 

In life all things change, usually quite gradually. The cataclysmic upheavals seen in America in 1775 or in France in 1789 were exceptional, though they were matched by the Bolshevik coup in Russia in 1917 and the election of Hitler’s Nazis in Germany in 1933. The inevitability of eventual substantial, evolutionary change cannot be avoided, yet sometimes it goes in an unfavourable direction. After all, Persia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, Spain and the Ottomans famously declined and fell. I would like to draw contemporary parallels from modern Russia and from my native Scotland.

                                Yasmine Naghdi as Odette/Odile in Swan Lake

A few days ago, I had the delight of attending with friends a cinema relay from Covent Garden of Tchaikovsky’s celebrated ballet Swan Lake. The supremely elegant dancing, the ravishing music and the magical ambiance were entirely Russian. How civilised and moving it all was! The 19^th century and early 20^th century saw a glittering Russian culture embracing giants like Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Pushkin and Chekhov; music was graced by Borodin and Mussorgsky. This culture flourished in exile, with Rachmaninoff and Stravinsky in music and Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes enchanting the dance. Even under Communism, the cultural flame did not die with Prokofiev and Shostakovich in music, Eisenstein revolutionizing film, Pasternak and Solzhenitsyn producing novels of global significance. In all, a wonderful legacy.

                                                               

        

Leo Tolstoy

                                                                 Boris Pasternak

But look at Russia now, the least regarded nation in the world, abhorred, isolated and despised! Her leaders and their heartless ideology carry a heavy burden of guilt. Under Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin the Russian aristocracy and liberal elements were persecuted and exiled. Prosperous peasants were dispossessed and starved, notably in Ukraine (4m dead in the man-made Holodomor famine of 1933-4), political dissidents were ruthlessly suppressed and executed. WW2 Victory by 1945 made the regime impregnable, even though Stalin died in 1953, and most of his henchmen removed, to be followed in time by the vulgarly ruthless Khrushchev and the imperialistic Brezhnev, who successfully entered the space race and brought a modicum of prosperity to the Russian masses.

                                  Joseph Stalin

 

                                  

                                                                            Nikita Khrushchev           

Vladimir Putin

                                 

Relations with the West were uneasy, despite a brief glimmer of tolerance with Gorbachov, the USSR finally disintegrated, riven by its own contradictions, ushering in a period of anarchy under Yeltsin. A strongman and ex-secret policeman, Vladimir Putin, initially steadied the society and economy from 1999. Tragically he has made bad even worse. A fantasist and a killer, he mounted an entirely unprovoked attack on the newly independent Ukraine. The descent to the gutter has been unrelenting, suppression of all creative art, crude nationalism demanding a recreation of Tsarist Russia, the worst popular instincts mobilized, opponents murdered, often in the guise of “accidents, untimely illnesses, and unexplained suicides or defenestrations”. Many thousand young Russian and Ukrainian soldiers have perished in this wholly unjustifiable conflict. Currently the tide of war is moving in favour of the Russians with their huge weight in numbers and their air superiority; but their entire enterprise is morally bankrupt and will never be forgiven. Russia, with no doubt millions of her quite innocent citizens, has lost the respect of the civilised world and will not be re-admitted to the top table in the West, her dreams of Empire forever shattered.

………………….

 

The stirring annual Edinburgh military Tattoo

But what could all this possibly have to do with Scotland? Well, think about some parallels. Scotland too has a proud cultural legacy. Edinburgh, dubbed “The Athens of the North” was the centre of the 18^th Century Scottish Enlightenment, a brilliant circle including David Hume, the empirical philosopher par excellence, Adam Smith, father of modern economics and Thomas Reid, founder of the Scottish philosophic school of Common-sense. Do not forget the great biographer James Boswell nor the matchless poet Robert Burns, painter Allan Ramsay, nor the peerless architect Robert Adam. The 19^th century saw the flourishing of Walter Scott, poet and inventor of the historical novel, painter Raeburn, florid historian Thomas Carlyle, novelists R L Stevenson and Conan Doyle, not to mention dramatist J. M. Barrie and idiosyncratic modern poet Hugh MacDiarmid.. Quite a gathering of talent!

David Hume

                                                                 Sir Walter Scott

Politically Scotland was pre--1914 a Liberal stronghold with prime ministers Lord Rosebery and Henry Campbell-Bannerman but it soon revolved towards Labour with worthies like Kier Hardie, Ramsay Macdonald and Arthur Henderson. The Tories held on to their support holding a majority of Scottish seats in Westminster in Eden’s 1955 administration. Then Tony Blair’s ministry 1997-2007 had many prominent Scots – Gordon Brown, Derry Irvine, Robin Cook, Alistair Darling and Donald Dewar, who became the first First Minister when her devolved Parliament was reconvened (adjourned since 1707!) in 1999. So far, so conventional. Scottishness was not boasted about, rather it was quietly accepted, and many Scots prospered within the UK.

All this changed with the explosion of the cult of Nationalism in the early 2000s and the rise of the SNP. Like class war in Russia, Scottish Independence became an ideology not a mere policy. Previously Scottish nationalism was a rather forlorn gentlemanly cause, espoused by figures like Sir Compton Mackenzie and by romantic intellectuals winning the odd by-election but basically a protest vote. Suddenly it displaced Labour as the creed of “Weegies and their Wains” (Glaswegians and their Kids) and other working-class constituencies. The race to the bottom was begun when in 2007 the SNP became the largest party in the Scottish Assembly and in 2011 it achieved an overall majority, (69 seats) all under Alex Salmond. The SNP lost the crucial independence referendum in 2014 and Salmond resigned, to be succeeded by Nicola Sturgeon who was a well-established First Minister from 2014 to 2023. Her style was fanatically fixated on Independence, secretive and Anglophobic and she wowed the chip-on-the-shoulder nationalist mob. She suddenly resigned under a cloud, as police investigation into the SNP ‘s finances gathered pace. Her successor was Humza Yousaf, Scottish born and bred, of Pakistani Moslem origins, who was politically less adept, and who blundered over his alliance with the Leftie Greens. Humza resigned today facing votes of confidence and persistent ridicule.

It has to be said that the SNP leadership carries a rather mixed reputation for honesty and good sense. Alex Salmond was tried and acquitted for sexual misconduct including rape.in 2018. Also, his regular programme later, on the Russia Today TV Channel, was heavily criticised – it ceased with the Ukraine invasion. He left the SNP to found the ultra-Nationalist fantasy party Alba. Nicola Sturgeon dabbled in gender politics, maybe unwisely, and her reputation was damaged when her husband was charged with embezzlement of SNP funds. Humza Yousaf has been naïve in some of his dealings, but is presumably straight, though there is a recent cloud over his brother-in-law in Dundee about alleged extortion and a fatal defenestration / suicide. Plummeting moral standards and a ghastly drug-culture are the bane of beautiful Scotland, the worst in Europe. What a shameful political inheritance!

Alex Salmond

 

Nicola Sturgeon

Hamza Yousaf

 

SMD

29.04.24

Text copyright © Sidney Donald 2024