UNQUIET TIMES
Sitting here in February 2022, listening to news, true and false, emanating from Ukraine I have a spooky feeling that we have heard of all this before. I remind myself of events in Sarajevo in August 1914 and wonder how many Britons in those days had ever heard of Sarajevo or Bosnia or even of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Similarly, Neville Chamberlain, struggling with Nazi Germany, but ultimately surrendering the Czech Sudetenland in September 1938, described the crisis in a BBC broadcast as “A quarrel in a faraway country of whom we know nothing.” Would these words echo with most Britons who today hardly know Ukraine, have just about heard of Kiev (or is it Kyiv?), believing it to be some garlicky chicken dish, and care even less?
Russian “exercises” with Belarus
And yet we do face the
existential peril of another horrible war. We are faced with ruthless gangsters
like Putin of Russia, like Lukashenko of Belarus and the grey eminence of aggressive
Xi Jinping of China. We are not in a good place as our valiant champions are
terminally catatonic Joe Biden of The United States, hopelessly woke Justin
Trudeau of Canada, narcissistic surrender-monkey Emmanuel Macron of France,
green and unreliable Olaf Scholz of Germany and, let’s put it kindly, highly
erratic Boris Johnson of the UK. Not a very inspiring defensive team! Somehow
these adversaries must avoid a general war for the sake of sanity and of the
future of mankind. We are haunted by heavy thoughts!
It is not perhaps a surprise in
these circumstances that my Muse has been muted and my fluency reduced to a
feeble stammer. Our sense of security has not been much strengthened by Storm
Eunice, which struck with considerable force reminding us of our vulnerability
and our mortality. We are midgets too in the face of Nature!
Nor are we wholly convinced that
the Covid plague has been conquered, much as we would like to break the bonds
of regulation, social distancing and limits on normal human dialogue. People
are much diminished if they cannot easily talk together, eat and drink
together, play games together, work, dance, joke, embrace and, no doubt, bonk
together. The medical profession deplores the relaxation of their control – a
source of huge self-esteem and recognition – but it needs to stand back and
trust the common sense of the population, most of whom are reasonably sensible.
I know that is a tall order when faced with feral tattooed morons, anti-vaxxers
of all shapes and the chronically anarchic, with all of whom our nation
abounds.
But let us leave these
complicated matters to our betters (maybe not now our elders). As one occupies
oneself with life’s normalities, what does one see? One of my brothers waited 3
years and 2 months for an NHS follow-up call (he soon went private and has had
5 private consultations and 2 procedures) and suddenly he was called in and
received instant GP and NHS hospital treatment.
I can report that my experience with the NHS has been excellent too. I
asked to see a doctor and actually saw one of these elusive creatures, all
togged up in protective clothing. He most civilly referred me to a hospital
specialist, seen within a week – and I was given the all-clear. Very good
going!
In winter one stays in a good
deal. This suits me fine as I can wallow in nostalgia. In the last week I have
watched videos of Disney’s 1937 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, with
such inventive animation, and The Adventures of Robin Hood with
sparkling Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland and its rousing Erich Korngold
score of 1938.
A most cheerful distraction
Perhaps more in tune with the
spirit of the time, I finally finished reading Doom; The Politics of
Catastrophe, by Niall Ferguson, a masterly, but hardly cheerful account of disasters,
wars, plagues, eruptions etc through the ages. (Covid was only a small sideshow
in that context). He also summarised some of the literary visions of our
future, mostly dystopian and depressing, though many past sci-fi authors have
been alarmingly accurate!
Heigh Ho!
SMD
20.02.22
Text Copyright ©
Sidney Donald 2022
