SWEET NOTHINGS

 

SWEET NOTHINGS

 

Let me take your minds, temporarily at least, off Ukraine, Covid and Boris and I give you 5 random thoughts to amuse and divert.

 

1.       What a peculiar institution are forenames (my generation were still able to call them “Christian names”). British Prime Ministers were reassuringly conventional – Robert, John, William, David, Andrew, Stanley etc. Only Boris strikes a clanging false-note. But across the Pond, Americans went crazy. Presidents sported monikers like Zachary, Millard, Abraham, Ulysses, Grover, Woodrow, Warren, Calvin, Dwight, Lyndon and Barack. Sadly, Americans have always been trail-blazers in such matters and I predict the inevitable crop of UK Premiers called Brooklyn, Elton and Cilla.

                                 Ulysses Grant, President 1869-1877

 

2.       National anthems and patriotic songs vary greatly in quality. The UK anthem is worthy but dull, eclipsed by the rousing French La Marseillaise or the inspirational Welsh Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau.  My native Scotland uses the ineffably feeble Flower of Scotland, worth at least 6 points to the opposition when it is sung before a rugby game at Murrayfield. It is a dirge and we need a cheerful marching song. The Americans have their splendid Battle Hymn of the Republic, with its poetic text. The Tsarist God save the Tsar was heady stuff too, but in a more contemporary style, I enjoy Oz’s I am, you are, we are Australian, composed in 1987 for that vigorously energetic country (below).

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

 

3.       As every day passes, we are reduced to digital bytes rather than sentient human beings. I read that credit card transactions will become even more complex by the introduction of a new level of identification, with the retailer requiring a code which will be imparted to the customer through his mobile phone. This ignores the fact that plenty of older folk do not  have mobile phones and that we oldies anyhow are rather slower to manipulate these gadgets. Even the youthful cannot react in nanoseconds, whatever the banks or credit card companies fondly dream. So, expect yet more queue congestion at the checkout! These measures are supposed to protect us from fraud – by God we need it!

 

4.       Years ago (1937 actually) John Betjeman, in his Slough, pithily warned us against brain-rot as we become more influenced by the media:

 

It’s not their fault they do not know

The birdsong from the radio,

It’s not their fault they often go

To Maidenhead

 

And talk of sports and makes of cars

In various bogus Tudor bars

And daren’t look up and see the stars

But belch instead.

 

Somewhere else in the poem he talks of “tinned minds, tinned breath”. How much truer is his piece now! We suffocate in the world of fake news and, since its woke opposition to Brexit, I no longer believe the snide BBC as readily as I once did. Truth is an absolute, there is no relativity involved: there is no such thing as Tory truth, Leftie truth, LibDem truth or Communist truth – although there are armies of “activists” dedicated to convince us otherwise.

Yet I too watch “bubble-gum TV”, the mindless pap served up in huge dollops day in day out. I confess to watching Tipping Point, Dancing on Ice and moronic films with Jason Statham or Matt Damon. Brain rot has set in and it is seldom leavened by a decent book or an uplifting drama. I know better but old age, apathy and idleness have me in their tentacles. I will not resort to the “bare bodkin” so I will set myself free. Forget about my various ailments, raise the cultural level drastically, brush up my Shakespeare, sharpen my epigrams and dump any reluctance to join the 21^st century! Sorry, readers, this has become a pep-talk from me to me!

 

5.       Watching Crufts dog show on TV, one cannot fail to be won over by the character of most dogs. In the past we had a Yorkie, an Elkhound and a Peke, all greatly loved and we currently share a Shih Tzu in Athens with my middle son. We are reluctant to have a dog in Britain as we are not able to walk him and groom him adequately or house him when we are away. But the absence of a dog leaves a big gap. The affection and fidelity you get from a well-behaved dog is wonderful. You feel safer and both of you revel in mutual companionship.

                                               

Flat coated retriever Baxer, Best in Show Crufts 2022

SMD. 15.03.22 Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2022

 

PUTIN THE PUTRID

Russia is a talented and remarkable country which has made a huge contribution to European culture in terms of literature, music, film and architecture. Her persistent and brave armies turned the tide against Nazi Germany in WW2. Her technological progress confirmed her status as a Great Power. This vast country has many beauties and valuable natural resources. She should be an honoured member of the European family. Unfortunately, her record in government is a very poor one. Always dictatorial and autocratic, for centuries we have seen her neighbours attacked and plundered, minorities oppressed, the weak exploited, laws ignored, democratic ideas squashed and violence employed recklessly. The Russian world is totally alien to the Liberal-Democratic one in which we live.

The West had hoped that after the murderous horrors of Stalinism, a more moderate political climate would emerge. Khrushchev opened a few windows and Brezhnev had some success in redirecting the economy away from military spending towards a consumer society. Only Gorbachev understood that communist dogma was at the root of Russia’s problems, but his reforms offended many Russians used to the older order, although they were hailed by the West, and the regime of Yeltsin fell into crime and confusion. In 1991, the then Soviet Union had disintegrated into its 15 far-flung constituent republics. All proclaimed their independent nationhood, including, in Europe, the Russian Federation, Belarus, the 3 Baltics, Moldova and Ukraine. The Russian Federation became heir to the assets and liabilities of the Soviet Union.

 In 2000 Vladimir Putin, a middle-ranking ex-KGB-policeman, who entered politics in St Petersburg and later Moscow, ascended to power. As President or Prime Minister, he has held the reins ever since. He cleaned up urban lawlessness, restored much prosperity as oil and gas prices bounced back after a prolonged glut, and controlled the influence of the robber-baron “oligarchs” who had profited hugely from the bungled denationalization of Soviet assets. He is a popular figure in Russia.

                                              Putin on crumbling foundations

Putin, like many other Russians, angrily resents the diminution of the old Tsarist and Soviet state. He disparages the successor states and their connections to what he sees as a weak and decadent West. He has sought to draw them back to the Russian sphere of influence, which he wishes to expand and control. He is too late to recover the Baltics (members of the EU and NATO), Belarus is a Russian puppet under sinister dictator Lukashenko, while Moldova is weak and of little value. This leaves the Ukraine, (population 44m) once known as “Russia’s breadbasket” for its fertile plains, a country with a proud place in Orthodox history and with bitter memories of the needless and brutal famine imposed by Stalin in 1932-3 killing some 4 million Ukrainians, split and ravaged by WW2.

Relations between Russia and Ukraine have been rocky since the end of the Soviet era. Power in Ukraine has fluctuated between the pro-Russian side (Kravchuk and Yanukovych) and the pro-Western one (Timoshenko, Poroshenko and now Zelensky). In 2014 Putin decided to annex Crimea (which ironically had been ceded to Ukraine by a friendly Khrushchev in 1954) and supported separatist militias, no doubt Russian guided, in the Eastern provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk. This action was naked aggression, condemned by the civilised world, who were ignored by Putin. In 2016 Ukraine became an associate (but not a member) of the EU with a trade and travel agreement and she has expressed a wish to join NATO. But the West will not get deeply embedded in a lethal Slav hotpot.

In 2022, for no obvious reason, a paranoid Putin raised the temperature against Ukraine and manufactured a fake crisis. Claiming bizarrely that Russia was threatened by Ukrainian “Nazis”, in February 2022 he sent in a strong invasion army to subjugate the country. The Ukrainian defence was spirited and effective, but Kiev and Kharkov were besieged. We await a military outcome, but fear that in time the Ukrainians will be overcome in dreadful circumstances with heavy casualties, civilian and military. Putin has threatened all-comers with Russia’s nuclear arsenal. We pray he will be removed from the scene somehow.

                      Brave and inspirational Zelensky

Putin has never accepted the reality of Ukrainian independence. His mindset is typical of his KGB background. We know how such Russians operate, we have seen the unsuccessful assassination plot against renegade spies in Salisbury, the attempted poisoning of pro-Western Victor Yushchenko, premier of Ukraine, the persecution, abuse and imprisonment of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Russian armies devastated Afghanistan, flattened Aleppo in Syria in 2016 with cynical brutality and turned on their Chechen compatriots in Grozny in 2000. The West’s enemy, Putin. is unmistakably a monster from a bygone age.

Fortunately, Putin’s actions have united the West in a determination to wage comprehensive economic warfare against him, so that he cannot fully mobilise his death legions and loses all momentum. We can hardly credit that in 2022 such a figure can roam around freely boasting of his nukes, bringing a cloud of fear over innocent fellow-humans. We know that Eastern Europeans enjoy the consumerism and entrepreneurial instincts of the prosperous West and wish to participate in that kind of peaceful society. Other nations, the Chinese, the Indians and the Arabs stand uneasily on the sidelines. They can throw their weight behind Putin the Putrid if they wish, but, let us proclaim with all our hearts, they would be much better served joining the West and opting for the eternal values of Freedom, Truth and Beauty.

SMD 4.03.22

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2022