A year ago this week, unimaginable things happened to the whole world, probably caused by unverifiable human error in a secretive State. First we couldn’t travel, socialise or go to work. Schools and eating establishments closed, followed by something unheard of: a national lockdown. How on earth would everyone afford to live? Who’d have wanted to be a national leader at such a time, having to deal with an unprecedented disaster for which there were no guidelines anywhere? Last night I was watching a new documentary on Churchill and wondered what he would have done. Certainly Boris is a maverick, like him, and that’s exactly what was needed in such an emergency. Daily I read on social media the left wing views of so many, castigating what the government has done and rubbishing the PM and his appearance, completely ignoring the amazing systems he’s put in place over the last year. Who cares what Boris looks like? I shudder to think what Corbyn would have done as PM. Instead, TG, state of the art vaccines were produced, we had daily public scientific advice on data and guidelines, new NHS protocols and financial furlough packages, welfare benefits etc. About time we congratulated Boris for a job well done.
21st March 2021
Things are changing. Over the last year, more than a million foreign-born people have left the UK, a larger number than the population of Birmingham, and the greatest amount since WW2. But, others are now arriving to fill the empty spaces, including visa-waving Hong Kong residents. When I wrote my best-selling Pensioners in Paradis, things were very different. Twenty years ago, we all hankered after the sunshine of France and Spain. It was so easy to up-sticks back then and become expats. But, rather like my book, which has just run out of contract (my publisher Crooked Cat Books has now closed), the momentum has now completely reversed. As predicted, Brexit proved too difficult. Removal companies in the Costas report that they’ve never been busier. British expats don’t want to apply for Spanish citizenship, can’t afford extortionate private health insurance, and legendary bureaucratic EU dithering over Covid vaccines is the final straw. 150 years ago my grandfather, fleeing from E. European pogroms, was welcomed here. TG for the legendary welcome he received in Britain.
14th March 2021
Mothers Day here. One woman who’ll never be a mother is Sarah Everard, murdered by a serving policeman this week in London. In the past after such atrocities, posters everywhere would urge women to stay home, and not to wear provocative dress etc. All too easy for the police to target innocent victims when really the curfew should be for testosterone-driven men, the perpetrators. So what can be done? Mass castration’s hardly an option, its result anyway the end of society. Certainly there’s too much internet porn available. Page 3 girls may have disappeared from the tabloids, but society’s still awash with females feeling the need to ‘attract’ men in ever more alluring ways. Schools could help by teaching boys how to treat girls but I’ve another idea. 25 years ago, the BBC’s Today programme asked for suggestions to be turned into law. My entry was a finalist: “mandatory pre-natal classes for all new parents-to-be on how to rear their children, including respect for others and good citizenship, a certificate to be awarded on successfully passing the course, which would then need to be presented to obtain child benefit.” Women could then have gone out at night in safety. Pity it didn’t win.
7 March 2021
Parents here sigh with relief as children go back to school tomorrow, but the only tests in sight will be for Covid! Much is being said about mental health provision for children, something unheard of in my day. Some teachers talk about play and games being the most important thing. But whenever I see teachers or university students on TV quiz shows, it’s remarkable how narrow their general knowledge is, even in their own specialist subjects! In 1954, when I was 7, each child needed to take tests in English and arithmetic in order to progress to the junior school. I remember being able to read the word pneumonia and to do long multiplication and division so was admitted to the junior school. Rightly, the education system back then concentrated on academic rigour. It was all important, trumping all other concerns. How many of today’s 8 year olds could do the test below, set in 1931?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
