Welcome to my penultimate blog for 2020. Well I say that assuming that I’ll manage to get another one in before the New Year hits us like a Brexit brick in the teeth.
I’ll start on a more light-hearted note by announcing the winner of the 2020 Brookesy Literary Award. I have decided to have awards for both fiction and non-fiction and in which both categories are open to old and new writing. Reading (and some might add writing – this blog for instance) has been something of a saviour for my mental health since spazification. A line from Shadowlands struck me as Karen and I watched it on the TV yesterday – ‘we read so we know we aren’t alone’ – a statement that really made sense to me given the loneliness I feel trapped, as I am, in my mind while my body is incarcerated in a wheelchair. One thing I have been able to do is devour the written word and whilst non-fiction – history and biographies especially – are my preferred genres I have gone back to areas I’ve known about and avoided or revisited old favourites.
One writer in particular really grabbed me and takes this year’s 2020 Brookesy Literary Award for Fiction, unfortunately posthumously and that’s John Steinbeck for ‘East of Eden’. It would be somewhat pompous of me to offer a cod academic critique of this book, a saga about two families in California at the end of the 19th Century and beginning of the 20th Century but there is a standout passage for me in the book, especially given the times we live in and the way those we elect to look after all our best interests actually lie to us, either barefaced or by repeating twisted versions of the truth. You will find it in the last few paragraphs of Chapter 36, where Lee (the Trask family Chinese servant) is trying to explain to Aron (one of Adam Trask’s twin sons) his loathing of a lie;
‘If something was untrue and you didn’t know it, that was error. But if you knew a true thing and changed it to a false thing, both you and it were loathsome.’
There’s a message there for Johnson and his mob of morons – underscored by yet another example of Johnson’s chronic inability to tell the truth when he can (only have) deliberately ‘played down’ the real size of the problem at Dover and the number of trucks backed up and waiting to get across to the Continent. ‘Not so’ Priti Patel compounded the lie this morning (22nd December) on Radio 4. Will someone please give her elocution lessons – she mangles the English language every time she speaks with her inability to pronounce ‘ing’ at the end of every word that should end as such. Am I being cruel? Well listen to her speak (if you are up to listening to her lies) and tell me what you think.
All I will say about ‘East of Eden’ is that it gripped me from the first page to the last and, if this world gets back to normal ever and you find yourself looking for a book for that long-haul flight or two week beach holiday, try this. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.
I’ve also made my mind up as to who, I think, captured my undivided attention with a work of non-fiction and that is Giles Tremlett and his ‘The International Brigades: Fascism, Freedom and the Spanish Civil War’. This charts the story of people from all over the world who answered the call of democracy to fight the rise of fascism, firstly in Spain and then more latterly in the countries of Nazi-occupied Europe. Whilst much of the conduct of the Republican cause was led by Communists from across Europe and especially the Soviet Union, who were suspicious of these volunteers, the International Brigades fought long and hard and to this day are revered as heroes in Spain. So, Giles Tremlett, take a bow, 2020’s Brookesy Literary Award for non-Fiction is yours.
So now let’s get down to the serious business, the bones of which are covered quite adequately in the title of this mistletoe tinged missive.
On Wednesday last week Starmer was being referred to by that pre-fabricated Tory Fabricant as a ‘smarmy lawyer’, Johnson was telling all and sundry it was Starmer who wanted to cancel Christmas and then over the weekend Johnson created ‘Tier 4’ to whack the mutated mole and at a stroke adding further confusion to his already indecipherable rules around Covid-19 – and cancelled Christmas!
Now I never really was any good at Science in school but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that viruses – or is that viri (no – it’s viruses LOL) mutate the longer they’ve been out in the wild. It’s not for no reason that there’s a new ‘flu vaccine every year – it’s there because the seasonal ‘flu virus changes every year. All the clever experts were expecting the Covid-19 virus to mutate, and it hasn’t disappointed has it? Yet somehow they experts were taken by surprise and as a consequence Johnson and his morons didn’t know (or so we are led to believe) until Door Matt Hancock owned up to it on 14th December. It had actually been recognised in London in September and was responsible for 28% of Covid-19 cases by November. This figure had risen to 62% by 9th December. What took Hancock so long to come clean? Were SAGE keeping it secret?? We pay our experts an awful lot of money so I would expect them to be up front and honest in front of Cabinet, the public and the Press. The Daily Heil reckon Vallance and Whitty earn £400,000 between them so for that kind of money I would expect them to have a modicum of cojones – more than enough to stand up to Johnson. In fact, given the look on their faces at times when he’s been ranting and rambling I’m surprised they both haven’t turned round and told him to stick the job – it’s not like they won’t get more work given how talented, experienced and clever they are.
In fact the more I think about Covid-19, the science, the scientists, the lies, the confusion, the deaths and the costs the more I wonder why those we depend on the politicians to listen to haven’t just all got up and gone and left Johnson to the shit show of his own making! Nevertheless the scientists are, I believe, by virtue of their silence on the ineptitude surrounding the growth of Covid-19 in the UK, failing the people who pay their wages – and I don’t mean Johnson and his bunch of mealy-mouthed morons – I mean us – you, me and every other UK tax-payer. I’m happy for other arguments about just how good, or bad, our experts are and/or have been – you know me – ever welcoming to any comments.
Johnson’s reign of terror might well come to an end soon after Parliament reconvenes as his ‘very little Christmas’ will have mightily p####d off the various Tory factions, who are bound to gang up on him for ruining their Christmas and/or Brexit. We will then be able to watch in mock admiration as they scramble around to find a new Prime Minister. The question that needs to be asked is a simple one – who in their right mind would want to pick up the shit-cake that is Brexit (with or without a deal) and the social, health and economic cost of the pandemic? I suppose the clue is in the ‘who in their right mind’ bit given that the few with occasionally colliding grey cells between their ears have been booted out or left of their own volition. If you are thinking of Dishy Rishy I’d advise you think again – he is just another rich posh boy (see earlier blog posts of mine) with his own masters and own agenda. Owen Jones pretty much nails it in this recent article – laying blame at Sunak’s door for the increase in Covid-19 following his ‘Eat out to help out’ initiative and his resistance to lockdowns and circuit breakers. Take the time to read this article, its well worth it.
So as Covid-19 variant B117 accelerates through the UK (threatening to move parts of Cumbria into Tier 4 from Tier 2), not helped by the appalling mass exodus witnessed at London train stations last weekend, Brexit stumbles headlong to the wire. The sight of Johnson mobilising the Royal Navy in preparation for a renewed Cod Wars, this time with Europe, tickled me. The UK actually has 6 destroyers and 13 frigates – a total of 21 surface combat vessels and 8 off-shore patrol vessels – tasked with fishery protection duties amongst other things.
Given ships refitting or sailing around the world advertising ‘Global Britain’ I think you’d be safe thinking we haven’t got a capable Royal Navy worth a mention these days. Do you really think spending tax-payers money chasing little French fishing boats with the spanking new white elephants Queen Elizabeth 2 and Prince of Wales is a price worth paying for the fact that the UK Government sold off our fishing licenses and basically handed them to ‘Johnny Foreigner’. I think not! There’s a link in Polly Toynbee’s article here which explains all and adds to comments of mine in earlier blogs.
As I start to wind up this piece let me show you how this once mighty United Kingdom has fallen in the eyes of neighbours and allies. We are now the joke of the western world and it’s all down to Johnson and his lying, cheating, incompetent cretins. What went wrong for Plague Island Briton?
As we stumble into a very dark and dangerous 2021 let me wish you all the very best possible Christmas and New Year. Please keep safe, keep your nearest and dearest safe and do whatever is necessary to help stop the spread of Covid-19 – in all its forms, past, present and future. How fondly will you look back on a 2020 family get together if one or more of your loved ones aren’t with you for 2021’s festivities as a consequence?
Stay home and stay safe.
Love to you all
Jem