30th December 2018

2018. A year of fire, eruptions and tsunamis - and that’s just in government! There’s the usual array of Honours given to the unremarkable whilst the true heroes, those who put their lives on the line for others, with no desire for publicity, are left with nothing. Meanwhile, the man in the street is busy contaminating the oceans with all that festive plastic. Globally, Merkel prepares her swansong, Macron has turned a ghastly shade of yellow and Trump fights a wall of his own making. Elsewhere, nations fight over whose land belongs to whom. My dream for 2019? Taking the criterion that land belongs to those settlers who have the earliest claim to it - e.g. the Jewish people residing in biblical Judea and Samaria, who were ejected by the Romans in AD 135, the Romans then renaming it ‘Palestina’ (the Hebrew word for which is Plishtin, the invader!) - that should solve all land disputes. At the first hint of fighting, a global committee of impartial, learned historians and archaeologists should publish academically-reviewed, historical timelines, the land awarded to the oldest known settlers. That should quench the fires.
A calm, soothing and healthy New Year to you all.