6th November 2016

Remember, remember, the 5th November...I've always hated Guy Fawkes Night. Why commemorate burning someone live at the stake? There's been explosive action around the world this week. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have been sparking each other off in the most malicious way. Is this how politics should be run? I don't mind special artistic events such as the one in Montreal or Le festival l'art de pyrotechnique held in Cannes each year. But, even then, it's not worth the very real danger to spectators. These are explosives of the sort used in war zones. As a child in the '50s I could buy packs of these explosives from our local tobacconist's shop.  Madness. And just look at the explosive action in the seat of the English parliament this week, when the judiciary had the temerity to cast aspersions on the actions of the government. In days gone by this would have been treason. Just ask Guy Fawkes! Should we eat rocket salad and bangers and mash before sending the judges to the stake, commemorating burning them alive for centuries to come?

24 August 2014

Tomorrow sees the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Paris. Fast-forward to today's world. What might people in the '40s have made of Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Tumblr and Google? No-one could possibly have imagined how all this technology has changed the world for individual citizens. I remember, post-war, reading futuristic comics of flying cars and supermen, but nobody foretold of how in the future ordinary people would be empowered to learn and liaise via amazing instant technology, within the reach of everyone from Alaska to Africa to China. Hillary Clinton says the internet has become the world's town square, classroom, marketplace and coffeehouse. You'd think that wars would no longer be with us, now that individuals can talk things through so easily. Back in 1916 a Frenchman called Francois Georges-Picot tried to bring order to a chaotic world by re-drawing the Ottoman empire. But now? Yet another faction has emerged, vowing to restore and extend all these lands under its supreme domination. They have all the modern benefits of i-technology to liaise and consult freely with the people, but do they? No. Ancient barbarism reigns, yet again. Where is Superman when you need him?