It’s about all one can do isn’t it: keep your fingers crossed and hope for the best. There certainly doesn’t seem to be much one can do individually. We (I mean me and my nearest and dearest, not everyone collectively) try to do our best for the planet but even driving an EV, buying local, recycling, only flying short-haul once a year and living in a relatively energy efficient home, we’re probably still stretching the world beyond its resources. Then there is the worry about the state of politics in the world, not to ignore the conflicts, Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, etc, the rise of the right in Europe; what’s going on in France; can Biden see off Trump, again. All things to make one anxious.
And then there is the General Election. I can’t say one feels a great surge of hope. Yes, I dearly hope that Labour sees off the Tories, but a Starmer government does not really hold out the prospect of a bounteous future. Fourteen years of Tory incompetence have damaged the NHS, welfare and local services perhaps beyond repair, while leaving the economy holed in the water. It would take a generation to sort things out in an ideal environment. That we don’t have (see above) so we are left with the likelihood of continuing slow decay into penury and chaos. Optimistic eh?
Still, we have a choice of whom to vote for. I don’t understand how anyone can think Sunak is our saviour. A man so out of touch that he doesn’t even think of the value of standing alongside our allies (yes, USA, France, Canada etc are still our allies) even if it is just a photoshoot and not a business meeting, and so unfamiliar with the British psyche not to recognise the regard in which the veterans of D Day are held (notwithstanding that nostalgia for the war is perhaps our biggest weakness). So out of touch with almost every citizen as to even mention his lack of Sky TV as a child. How can anyone think that someone with that level of intelligence should be in government defeats me.
Starmer is so scared of losing voters that he proposes to do nothing except make up fanciful numbers of new doctors, nurses, teachers, police officers without any plan to change the foundations of the society that nurtures such people. Yes, I think a Labour government is more desirable than a continuing Tory rabble, but I am not holding my breath for a better Britain.
What about the others? I voted Liberal for decades, but with the exception of Vince Cable, the lot that entered the coalition in 2010 showed themselves to be inept. It wasn’t just the university fees debacle it was the way that they allowed the Tories to roll them over in the referendum on proportional voting and the 2015 election. The Green Party has dreams and may be effective in local government, but apart from some specific seats, a vote for them is a waste. I won’t mention the others.
The problem with people in politics is that they adore the campaigning and the electioneering. I have seen them get high on the leafleting, canvassing and especially, the count. The boring business of governing is another matter.
Where do trans and non-binary people figure in the election. Well, despite being just 0.4% of the electorate (perhaps), surprisingly large, since the Tory manifesto wants to change the Equality Act to exclude particularly transwomen. Labour has not responded to Badenoch’s wicked proposals so we will wait and see. One interesting bit of trans news occurred in the USA. Swimmer, Lia Thomas, a transwoman, has been refused permission to contest World Aquatics decision to ban women who have experienced any part of male puberty. I can accept an argument about “protecting” female sport but the legal case has been refused solely because Thomas is no longer a member of USA swimming. Why is she not a member? Because she was barred for being a transwoman. A classic Catch 22 situation.
I’ll be taking a break for the next couple of weeks. My next blog will be the day after the day after the election.
Writing group’s theme this week was “sea change” or possibly “see change” or even “C change”. The origin of the phrase (the first one) is of course, Shakespeare, in the well-known poem from The Tempest (see below). Of course its meaning has expanded to include any dramatic change (I don’t think a change of UK government will count). I stuck pretty close to Shakespeare’s useage in this piece, Whalefall.
Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
Ding-dong.
Hark! now I hear them,—ding-dong, bell.
The Tempest, W Shakespeare
Whalefall
He is old and tired, and knows it. For decades he has made the annual migration from the winter breeding ground in tropical waters to spend the summer in the north where food is plentiful. The warming of the ocean means that the shoals are moving ever closer to the pole and the pod has to pursue the melting ice.
He has sired dozens of offspring; some survived, and a few swim beside him. Now, he feels the need to be alone. He dives, swimming away from his family, making his final whistling calls. They let him go, knowing he has made his decision. He surfaces and blows air from his blow hole. Then he sinks beneath the surface, his massive heart still.
Putrefaction begins immediately, filling his guts with gas. He rises to the surface one more time, lifeless. Gulls descend, pecking at the parasites on his skin. Sharks, sensing death, arrive and attack the corpse, tearing strips of skin and blubber. The spilling of blood attracts more carrion eaters. The ocean froths pink as thousands of frenzied animals feed.
The foul gas released, the vast body begins to sink, pursued by the feeders. Down, down it goes, leaving the sunlight behind. The water turns blue, violet, ever darker, till no light penetrates at all. Still the carcase of the whale descends, slowing as the pressure increases, pursued by hagfish and sleeper sharks. Until, a mile beneath the surface, it comes to rest on the bed of the ocean.
The seabed is devoid of plant life here in the pitch black, but not uninhabited. Patient creatures, animals, microscopic and large, that can wait for years between meals, taste the whale’s presence on the currents. They approach this bounty, a sea change in their environment.
The huge body of the whale turns a barren wasteland into a land of plenty, becoming a metropolis for hungry creatures, crabs, starfish, sea urchins, worms. Some radiate light, illuminating the corpse like a grand ocean liner. The flesh feeds many for generations till just the skeleton remains. Yet that is not the end.
New invaders take over. Bacteria infect the skeleton. They break down the fats and proteins in the bones using sulfur in place of oxygen to give them energy to grow and multiply. They release hydrogen sulfide (bad egg gas) that kills others that don’t share their metabolism.
Decades pass, more perhaps than the whale lived, until just the inorganic wraith of its skeleton remains in the depths of the ocean, undisturbed by surface storms. At last, the whale is united with the structure of the Earth. Filter feeders, such as mussels, attach themselves to the slightly raised reef made of whale bone and catch their food drifting by on the deep ocean currents. The cycle of life goes on.
……………………….
ellifont 