“..In the distance a humming sound reached his ears, increasing steadily in its velocity as a dark shape circled overhead. He looked up and saw, through the light of the streetlamps, the insignia of a British military plane...Out on the tiny airstrip there was a screech of tyres on concrete, sparks flying on impact, then dissolving into the heat of the night..Inside the plane, the pilot, distinctive in close-fitting cap and goggles, hauled them unceremoniously into the cockpit....Like a huge, monstrous bird, the British military plane raced along the runway, picking up speed until with one graceful movement its tiny wheels lifted off the ground, clearing by inches the flailing fists of the wrathful Germans..”
Lamplight.
If ever you wonder why the referendum vote swung away from mainland Europe, read the sentiments in the above extract taken from my WWII novel Lamplight (click the icon on the right.) To be British back then was everything. Everyone in this region is invited to a special #RAF100 event featuring the Red Arrows flying spectacularly over Birmingham’s Victoria Square: date: Sun 26 Aug 2018, 15.00h. For all lovers of old planes, the history is there. The RAF was formed in 1918, making it the oldest individual airforce in the world. And there’s the enigma: it’s individual, nothing to do with any other country. That’s what I hear Brexiteers saying all the time. They want to feel British, not beholden to anyone else. For the future, who knows? But today we’re all celebrating those magnificent men in their flying machines.
19th August 2018
When, one year ago, we were speeding back to Birmingham, I had visions of shopping in all those giant department stores of my youth: Lewis’s, Rackham’s, Grey’s, Debenham’s etc. But this week Rackham’s successor, the glam House of Fraser, was taken over for a song by Sports Direct, and the others seem to have simply disappeared. Oh how I used to love swanning around, spraying the expensive perfumes when the exquisitely-groomed sales girls weren’t looking. France, of course, more or less invented le grand magasin. If you read Zola’s novel Au bonheur des Dames (a paradise for ladies), you’ll see that in 1860 Paris he based his story on the original Le bon marche superstore, which itself put local market stalls out of business. But now? Birmingham is to introduce a new expensive pollution tax for city centre shoppers arriving by car, marking the death knell of traditional city centre shopping. Despite the Chancellor vowing to redress the tax burden between store and internet sales, buying stuff from Amazon just won’t be the same somehow. Sigh.
12th August 2018
When I worked for undergraduate admissions, August was always a nervy time. This week, as we approach A-level D-Day, how different things look. In 1970 only 8.4% applied for a place; now it’s nearer 50%. But even this is down by 3.4% this year. A combination of more stringent exams plus £9,000 p.a. tuition fees plus too many graduates chasing too-few graduate level jobs tells its own tale. Now there’s the Brexit effect. EU students pay the same fees as UK students but, after graduating, many return home without paying back their loans! But after March presumably EU students will have to pay far higher overseas fees. The Education Secretary needs to get a grip to redress the balance. Introduce just two types of school at 11: academic grammar schools and high-powered technical schools allied to industry offering apprenticeships. Only then will August Thursday admission day have real meaning again. Want to find out what goes on behind the corridors of power in academia? 3RD DEGREE MURDER. authl.it/4ia
5th August 2018
Europe is feeling the heat in more ways than one. Brexit fears increase exponentially as the March 2019 D-day looms. I decided against calling it B-day! If we make too much fuss, the government may crumble and bring in a Corbyn government espousing extremist Communist policies. And what of the poor British expat still stuck in the limbo land which is the EU? Should we then have another referendum? What would the choices be this time? Or is all this too complex and dangerous to put to the man in the street (who largely just wants less immigration)? Britain needs urgently a new Centrist party like Macron’s En Marche to guard against the real fear of extremism. So, as Theresa liaises with Emmanuel in his glorious summer Med retreat, don’t think that’s what they’ll be discussing somehow. The long hot summer of oppression continues.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
