Why Brexit Must Be Stopped

Why Brexit Must Be Stopped

Let's be clear. I want Brexit stopped, so I'm biaised. Many others don't. But I think there are compelling reasosn to stop it even excluding economic factors; it's about the kind of country I would like Britain to be.

If Brexit happens, those who lied and committed electoral fraud will win. If they win, why would they change their methods, because those methods will have worked? Those who voted Leave because of xenophobia and racism will win. I'm sure that xenophobia and racism were not factors for many Leave voters but equally sure that they were an important factor. Police statistics show a steep rise in race-related crimes since the referendum. The Archbishop of Canterbury has said that he fears civil violence if Brexit does not happen and I think he is right. I think, as he does, that disappointed Leavers are very likely to take to the streets, violently. Historically that has always been what extreme right-wing supporters do.

So, if Brexit happens, what kind of Britain will we have? One in which liars and fraudster, xenophones and racists prevail. Possibly even one in which the government gives in to threats of violence in the streets. That is not a Britain I wish to see.Ask yourself who would want to see that kind of Britain.

Gilets Jaunes Etc

The Gilets Jaunes

There's been quite a bit in the English as well as the French press about the «gilets jaunes» protesters in France and the disruption they are causing. Let it be said right at the beginning that there is nothing the French love as much as a protest; they have more practice at it than most and generally do it better. In this case the protest is supposedly all about the tax on car fuel but it goes rather deeper than that. There is widespread underlying unrest at what are perceived to be fat cat public servants too and the wealth gap that is growing in France as it is in England.

The initial protests were mild and benign ; stopping motorists so the protesters could make their case, disrupting but not totally stopping traffic flows and also, on occcasion, line dancing across roads: a marked protest but non-violent. In Mollan they had a barecue at a road junction. The big mistake the French authorities have made, in my view, is to engage the CRS (a big French mistake in itself in my view) to disperse the protesters. I can only describe the widely hated CRS ae a kind of rent-a-thug organisation that has official backing. It is a volunteer force, quite heavily armed, whose rôle is to curb and prevent civil unrest. What type of person do you think is going to volunteer for that? Intervention by the CRS virtually ensures violence. I asked friend Daniel about why France had the CRS and he could only answer that the French authorities were always sensitive to civil unrest in a negative way, perhaps with the historical example of the Commune in mind.

There is another historical precedent. During the wars of religion in France in mediaeval times the king François premier licensed bands of thugs to beat up protestants and take their possessions. But, being thugs, these bands didn't generally ask too many questions about religion but took what they wanted anyway. It helps explain the nmber of villages in my region plastered on hillsides or in other difficulty accessible places. But France is supposed to be civilised now. Whatever. Macron has given a few inches, a 6-month moratorium on rises in fuel tax, but also faces the problem of somehow reducing the over-generous terms of employment of public servants.

We've discussed the «gilets jaunes» in our English conversation classes and also the translation in the English press. Yellow vests? That's a hopeless translation. Literally a «gilet» is a waistcoat, wnich would not be a good translation but neither is replacing it with an undergarment. Maybe some confused journalist thought that the «gilet» is really a jacket and jacket in French is «veste» and somehow mixed them up. For the benefit of any journalist (????) reading this, in English we call them high-visibility jackets.

Birds Disappearing

I've been puzzled by the lack of birds feeding on my balcony. The feeders are full of grain, sunflower seeds and fat balls and have been since the latter part of the summer but I haven't yet had to refill them once, as against once a week formerly. Now only one or two great tits come regularly. The probable reason has only just occurred to me. Last summer some heavy (and very noisy) machinery was used to flatten the bed of the river opposite my house and clear it of shrubbery. This was no doubt in anticipation of a probable wet autumn and as a flood prevention measure. However, the birds that come to the feeders on my balcony come primarily from across the river. They alight in the lime trees opposite, then fly onto the grape vine over my balcony and then onto the feeders. It's a bit like watching planes in a stack coming into Heathrow. The heavy machinery obviously will have disrupted the birds' environment but I fear it may also have destroyed many nests. I wonder how long it will take for the birds to recover confidence and return.

Christmas Lights

The coloured Christmas lights are up in all the villages around. In Mollans, I am pleased to report, the village council has eschewed the normal Christmas colour of red and instead our lights are all blue and white. As a Chelsea supporter, albeit one in the glooms at the moment, I find that most tasteful.

Progress

Progress Towards Christmas

I'm on schedule. All my Christmas greetings that go by post are in the post. Those I deliver locally or send by email have still to be done but they can wait until next week. All presents for family have been ordered and are on their way. The Christmas quiz for the Beaumont library is done and I've run off copies. The Christmas carols, under Jo's management, are well on their way; we all have our «bonnets rouges» and three of us red capes (the three kings). I've written the historical introductions to the carols, subject to any amendments by René, and done the rounds putting posters in both bakers, the Bar du Pont, the Mairie, the library and the Post Office. The English conversation classes finish next week until the end of January and the students have very generously given Steve and I each a bottle of single malt scotch and a basket of wine, pâtés and chocolates. We'll drink some fizz at the last session next Tuesday. Finally, I've planted another 50 narcissi in various places in the front; should look good when the spring comes. Friends will be coming to me to eat on Boxing Day but there is nothing to be done for that until a day or so beforehand. So all is on schedule, barring any last minute crisis.

Parliament Rules Again

With the government defeats yesterday the outcome of Brexit is still unclear but there is at least one good result: parliament has decided to reassume its proper rôle and rule again. For the pasr two years there has been a danger that the result of a referendum which, constitutionally, could never be binding whatever any politician said, would be allowed to be regarded as such, with parliament neglecting its rôle as ruler of Britain. Britain has never been ruled by plebiscite; it is parmiament's duty to rule. If Brexit doesn't happen, this will not be a betrayal of democracy as many Brexiteers and some of the gutter press want to claim. It will in fact be the opposite; a reaffirmation of democracy. The gpvernment, time after time, has tried to avoid scrutiny of its proposals by parliament and now, perhaps just in time, parliament has asserted its authority, as is its legal right and duty. That the government has been found in contempt of this, for the first time in history, is a true and proper judgement on the government's macinations. All the chaos, and the referendum itself, has been the result of a deep divide in the Conservative party, exploited by various individuals for their own purposes without regard for the consequences for the country. So let the Conservative party put its own house in order and let parliament in its own house rule.

Christmas Is Coming

Christmas Is Coming

And so is winter. I've discovered that the threshold for when I really wake up to this is the remembrance ceremony in the village on the 11th of November. It's quite a low'-key and moving ceremony and always has it's Clochemerle element with the sound system. It is guaranteed that either at least once microphones will be off when they should be on for the speeches or that the recording of the national anthem played will be out of step with the children from the school who are singing it. It happens every year and I find it rather endearing. Every formal ceremony should have its Clochemerle moment.

I know that the advent of Christmas is heralded in the shops long before then but that is too early for the perception to really hit home with me. After the remembrance ceremony, however, three things happen in quick succession: I get asked to create the Christmas quiz for the Beaumont library again and I get asked to come to the first rehearsal of the Christmas carols and those two things remind me to check the number of Christmas cards I have left over from last year and to think about presents for family in England. Also, Beaujolais nouveau arrives in the village.

In fact the first rehearsal for the Christmas carols was on the 15^th of November, which is when the Beaujolais nouveau arrived at the Bar du Pont. So immediately after the rehearsal Steve, Jo and I went along to the Bar du Pont for a tasting. This year I thought it was quite good and Patrique and Valérie in the bar provided skewers of chicken, mushrooms and slices of quiche to go with it, all on the house. It made for a convivial evening.

I had two suggestions to make for the carols this year. The first was to make more of an introduction to each carol than the usual “and now we will sing…..”. I feel there should be more time between each carol. The second, because we now have a repertoire of over a dozen with which we are all familiar, whether in English, French, German or Latin,was to get the audience to chose one of those in the repertoire but not in the programme. We try to get the audience singing along with us and this would increase audience participation. I'm not sure yet whether these will be accepted but have been researching the history of carols anyway to get the story behind those we will sing. One interesting point to emerge is that carols weren't sung in churches in England until late in the 19^th century. They were sung long before then but in the streets, the age old tradition of wassailing. The word “carol” itself originally meant a dance in a circle so the origins are specifically jollity rather than religion. It points up a different attitude to religion between Britain and France. We Brits sing primarily for the conviviality; the fact that most, but not all, carols are religious is incidental to many of us. For the French, the religious connotations can be a serious inhibition. Many of my French friends who would like to sing won't join in because of the hard religious-secular divide in France.

I've been creating the Christmas quiz for the Beaumont library for two years now and have developed a structure. The total of around 100 questions is divided into around 10 sections, each section with a theme. After grouping potential questions under each theme I review them to try to ensure that there are two hard questions and two dead easy ones in each section; and therein lies the perennial problem: personal knowledge. What seems easy or difficult to me isn't necessarily so for anyone else. I just have to hope that, over 100 questions, the differences even out.

Another sign that Christmas is approaching is that Roberto has started offering a seafood platter, oysters and prawns, as an alternative to the Monday evening pizzas at the Bar du Pont. Oysters figure prominently in the traditional French Christmas meals. And with Christmas comes winter. Snow is forecast tomorrow down to 1000ft; the ski station at Mt Serein will be pleased but the road to the summit of Mt Ventoux is already cut off. I hope the snow stays up there. Even so, you can hardly get out of the village without getting to 1000ft so I'd better check my tyres.

Soup And World Domination

Soup

Every year there is a local soup contest here, a contest that should receive much wider popularity. It's so much more civilised than many other contests and everyone benefits, tasting soups and learning what has gone into them. Each village in the region has its own contest and the winners from each, voted by the tasters at large, congregate later in Vaison La Romaine to decide the regional winner. I went along with friends to the contest in Mollans. I'd invited them for a meal and decided that rather than make a starter myself we would all go first to the soup contedt in the village. There were half a dozen on offer covering a range of tastes but my personal choices were a creamy chicken soup and a spicy Thai one. I haven't yet found out who won.

World Domination

This evening I xas referred by a friend to a book he said was titled «Who Rules The World ?» but I have been unable to find it. He said it was by a writer who was basically a Marxist but embraced some aspects of caoitalism via Confucianism. Don't ask. Nonetheless the very title provoked some questions in my mind, such as by what means do you rule the world (or at least become top dog)? We all know how it has been done in the past but how can it be done in the future?I have to admit that I don't particularly care and you might not either but the question is there to be answered ;

Answers from the past, which could just still be valid, are by war or economic domination; in the future intellectual domination (having more clever/skilled people than anyone else) or the opposite, having more uneducated people than anyone else might just do it. This last could support a powerful dictatorship or provide plentiful cannon fodder for a war.

Let's deal with war first, as it seems the least viable. Any future war, other than on a purely local scale which wouldn't secure world dominance, would ammost certainly involve nuclear weapons so thete is unlukely to be any viable winner. Cannon fodder would not be needed.

If we don't need an uneducated workforce in large quantity as cannon fodder why else could we need them? Well, they could support a dictatorship (even if only under duress) but both the USSR and China have demonstrated that that situation is not durable.

Economic dominance is still very possible; the question is how? A large what the Americans call «grunt» (uneducated) workforce won't do it, however poorly paid, as many developing countries have already demonstrated. Wealth is obviously needed for investment and most of that will have to be attracted from outside or internally generated; no individual or likely group of individuals would have enough, however rich they were in realistic terms. Neither does having rich natural resources hack it for long. To create wealth these have to be used and they are finite. Being cleverer looks like the best bet, in quantity as well as quality. If the skilled/qualified labour force is not too expensive, relative to other similar labour forces, then investment and wealth should be generated. It looks a winner to me.

So which countries have that? One of the largest, the USA doesn't. I well remember an American professor friend telling me that he despaired of America's future because his IT classes were full of Asians; American students preferred law or sociology. And America anyway, at the moment, seems to prefer grunts. I think China and India fit my criteria best, so I would bet on one of those. But it's just an idle bet; whoever dominates it is unikely to affect the rest of my life in a small French provincial village so I don't really care. As for a resurgent, globally influential Britain….………..it seems to be trying hard not to be and certainly isn't working on the necessary credentials.

Where Britain Is Headed

The Problem For Would-be Neo-Fascist/Communist Regimes

The principal problem is democracy; it isn't authoritarian. Worse,it tends to be unpredictable, subject to swings. However, where a coup d'état is not on the cards, it has to be dealt with, perhaps managed. A majority is needed to gain any power so a block vote of some sort is needed. In Britain in the past «tribal voting», voting by family tradition, provided that but tribal voting seems largely to have disappeared to be replaced by other block interests such as unions or commercial interests. Unfortunately (for neo-Fascists/Communists) neither of these is solidly aithoritarian. So how to overcome democracy and the need for a block vote?

One key has to be to make democracy more prdictable, by managing it. The other key is to identify an appeal, or several, (a feeling, a goal, an ambition, a fear) that is common to a large set of people who are persuadable by something other than reason. People who reason tend not to like nything authoritarian by nature so putting the (jack)boot into any thing intellectual, experts and the llike, is obviously a good idea. An appeal to emotion among persuadable people is needed. Support for what, fear of what? There are two obvious candidates: support for nationalism is one and fear of «outsiders», other nationalities or people visibly different by behaviour or appearance, is another. Bingo! All that is needed now is a sizable budget, which shouldn't be beyond important backers even if it is beyond electoral rules (but who cares about those?).

If any of this sounds familiar, rings any bells, then you know where Britain is headed…….unless democrats themselves do something about it.

Brexit: The Will Of The People?

Every Democrat In Britain Should Read This

This is the conclusion of a Guardian article at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/07/the-great-british-brexit-robbery-hijacked-democracy?fbclid=IwAR3rrOQ29qxMYL98qXmqNr

«This is Britain in 2017. A Britain that increasingly looks like a “managed” democracy. Paid for by a US billionaire. Using military-style technology. Delivered by Facebook. And enabled by us. If we let this referendum result stand, we are giving it our implicit consent. This isn’t about Remain or Leave. It goes far beyond party politics. It’s about the first step into a brave, new, increasingly undemocratic world.

Key names

SCL Group
British company with 25 years experience in military “psychological operations” and “election management”.
Cambridge Analytica
Data analytics company formed in 2014. Robert Mercer owns 90%. SCL owns 10%. Carried out major digital targeting campaigns for Donald Trump campaign, Ted Cruz’s nomination campaign and multiple other US Republican campaigns – mostly funded by Mercer. Gave Nigel Farage’s Leave.EU “help” during referendum.
Robert Mercer
US billionaire hedge fund owner who was Trump’s biggest donor. Owns Cambridge Analytica and the IP [intellectual property] ofAggregateIQ. Friend of Farage. Close associate of Steve Bannon.
Steve Bannon
Trump’s chief strategist. Vice-president of Cambridge Analytica during referendum period. Friend of Farage.
Alexander Nix
Director of Cambridge Analytica and SCL Group.
Christopher Wylie
Canadian who first brought data expertise and microtargeting to Cambridge Analytica; recruited AggregateIQ.
AggregateIQ
Data analytics company based in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. Worked for Mercer-funded Pacs that supported the Trump campaign. Robert Mercer owns AggregateIQ’s IP. Paid £3.9m by Vote Leave to “micro-target” voters on social media during referendum campaign. Outside British jurisdiction.
Veterans for Britain
Given £100,000 by Vote Leave. Spent it with AggregateIQ.

BeLeave
Youth Leave campaign set up by 23-year-old student. Given £625,000 by Vote Leave & £50,000 by another donor. Spent it with AggregateIQ.
DUP
Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland. Spent £32,750 with AggregrateIQ.
Thomas Borwick
Vote Leave’s chief technology officer. Previously worked with SCL/Cambridge Analytica and AggregateIQ.
ASI Data Science
Data science specialists. Links with Cambridge Analytica, including staff moving between the two and holding joint events. Paid £114,000 by Vote Leave. Vote Leave declared £71,000 to Electoral Commission.
Donald Trump
US president. Campaign funded by Mercer and run by Bannon. Data services supplied by Cambridge Analytica and AggregrateIQ.
Nigel Farage
Former Ukip leader. Leader of Leave.EU. Friend of Trump, Mercer and Bannon.
Arron Banks
Bristol businessman. Co-founder of Leave.EU. Owns data company and insurance firm. Single biggest donor to Leave – £7.5m»

No News Is Good News?

No News Is Good News ?

After Nat, Andy and Eilidh returned to Scotland life has returned to normal with raoifity, which leaves me with many happy memories but little to write about. I have, however, included here my current favourite photo of Eilidh with me.

 October has been a beautiful month weatherwise for which we have paid over the last four days with solid rain. Tonight (Wednesday) there is a storm which, I hope, will change the weather pattern. We needed rain but it has been too much of a good thing. I've bought cyclamen and bulbs for planting out the front but had no opportunity to get out and do anything with them. I suppose that I should be grateful that this area is not suffering the floods that are cauing chaos in other parts of France.For floods to reach my house would require a veritable tidal wave. There was a cold snap on Monday however that brought the first snowfall on Mt Ventoux, more than a month earlier than usual, and indeed coated the hillsides down to under 1000ft.

I've been playing boules, cooking for friends and generally doing what I usually do. Steve and Jo arranged a birthday lunch for me in mid-October, with many fruends present but now the last of the summer visitor friends, Claudine and Jacques, have departed, in their case back To St Malo.

Steve and I restarted our Englsih conversation classes at the beginning of October and have been pleased to find 9-10 people attending since then. I got some new ideas from Claudine, who goes to English classes in St Malo, pne of which was to read a book together. Claudine is reading Animal Farm and both Steve and I thought this was a good choice as the novel is fairly short, the vocabulary not too difficult and the theme universal. Also I get Connexion, the weekly English langage newspaper that covers the news in France particularly in its relevance to Btitish residents.

It was Halloween tonight but I wasn't trick or treated as I usually am, probably because of the wet weather. It's just as well as I was watching the Chelsea vs Derby game and probably wouldn't have answered the door anyway. Tomorrow is Toussaint so the shops have been full of large pots of chrysanthemums for the past week. I quite like the brown and deep red ones but never buy any because they have been forced and never last more than a week. One year I did buy a pot and tried to separate the individual plants and grow them on but that didn't work.

During October I had the pre-scheduled phone call to Immigration, which was auite straightforward and now have a date for my interview re naturalisation; it is the 27th of March next year, two days before Brexit day if Brexit happens. I have yet to establish whether I need a carte de séjour or whether my naturalisation submission will suffice. Brexit seems as chaotic as ever. I caught a video clip of a middle-aged man, quite well-spoken, saying in all earnestness that «we need to get back to the British Empire». I wonder how India, Pakistan et al feel about that;.where do these people come from? How stupid (or rich, they've all got EU passports or resident permits) do you have to be to realise that Brexit would be an awful mistake?

Eilidh In France

Eilidh In France

The delay in making a new posting to my blog is entirely explained by the two-week visit of Natalie, Andy and Eilidh. And I think their holiday here lived up to everybody's hopes and expectations.

We all considered my house too dangerous for Eilidh as she has started toddling: too many stairs, banisters she could get her head through and hard surfaces. So I hired J-P Thomas's house on the edge of the village, which had the added benefit of a swimming pool, and we all settled in there for the fortnight. The weather played its part with temperatures mostly in the high 20s and low 30s and so the swimming pool was put to use. The aim was for everyone to relax, as far as that is possible with a 14-month old. Actually, that is not possible; I'd forgotten how tiring a child of that age can be, a perpetual motion machine when not asleep. The most strenuous activity planned was Andy' aim to cycle to the top of Mt Ventoux, which he duly did (with a little help from an electric-aided bike).

This was my big chance to get to know Eilidh and get her to know me. She seemed to have trouble assimilating or pronouncing “grandpa” so we settled on the French “papi” which she gleefully announced, when pointing at me. Eilidh, naturally, was the centre of attention when we were out and about, at the pizza evenings and at apéros, and she resonded by charming everyone with her happy smile and determined toddling.

The rest of this post is given up unapologetically to Eilidh's first visit to Mollans and France, as follows:.

Eilidh at the top of Mt Ventoux (above)

Eilidh vrossing the bridge in Mollans

Eilidh's first paddle in the Ouveze

Eilidh meets pain au chocolat
Eilidh gets fashionable
Me reading to Eilidh

Patriotism

Patriotism

What is it? Some seem to think it is being willing to die for their country. But, as American general George Patton said, that wasn't your duty; your duty was to see that some other poor bastard did for his country. So it's not about giving your life. It quite possibly is about feelings of belonging and even affection and loyalty to a country in which you have lived a largely successful and happy life (if that is what you have done). What it most certainly means, if you feel patriotic, is that you want the best of outcomes in any situation for your country of allegiance.

We have to be careful here for, as Samuel johnson pointed out »patriotism is the last refuge of a rogue». (Much the same, I think, could be said of appeals to democracy). In other words, appeals to patriotism can be a desperate act of someone who has no other argument to other in his/her cause. So, with that in mind, who in Britain's current political situation wants the best outcome for Britain and who is making spurious appeals to patriotism (or democracy)?

A number of polls now show that the UK population is largely in favour of remaining in the EU, as high as 60% in favour of remaining. All Leave advocates now accept that the UK will suffer through Brexit, for different numbers of decades. So what should a patriot hope for? I can think of only one reasonable answer: that the UK should remain in the EU, to avoid damage to the UK. That would be the most popular and most patriotic decision.

But that option is apparently not on the table. Why? Why would an elected Parliament refuse to consider the most popular and patriotic vote?

The only answer I can think of is that patriotism is not the issue. There have to be other issues. What could the other issues be? Clearly, they have to be either personal issues among the power brokers or party political issues. Who stands to gain, because it is obviuosly not the country? The motivations can only be a question of debate but how can a situation arise in which an elected Parliament decides across the board to act against the interest of the population whose interests it is supposed to represent?

I don't want to go into what the personal or political motivations might be (although I have strong views on them) or indeed to the patenntly spurious appeals to patriotism and democracy. All I want to note here is that a democratic Parliament that overtly rejects the clear view of its population is in an untenable, hence unstable situation. There has to be a revolt, although it is very unlikely to be a bloody revolution in the UK. Many politicians in the UK must foresee this and what they decide to do about it will shape their futures (as I am sure they are aware) as well as that of the citizens of the UK. Revolutions, even peaceful ones, tend to produce notable casualties. Many politicians must be asking themselves who will be called upon to answer for what will follow.

The Manipulative Society

The Manipulative Society

People supposedly seek facts, the truth, whatever. They do so to understand their situation, quite naturally: who wouldn't want to understand the situation they were in, what could threaten them, what might be to their advantage? So does society, which is what individuals collectively form, help or hinder that understanding? Currently, in the UK as often elsewhere, I conclude that it does not. Society, which is simply a collective of individuals in a given area, seems to me to conspire against the individual's goal of achieving understanding of their own situation. How can that be and why; why should society conspire against its own constituents; who could benefit from that?

I believe the problem lies in the area of the facts, the truth whatever. These are crucial to an individual's understanding of their situation. In a democratic society, the individual has a vote; how can that individual place that vote so that it reflects their interests if they don't have the information to know what those interests are? So who, and with what resources, is going after the information they need?

There are branches of Academe designed specifically to seek them. Philosophy is one seeker after truth but, after Wittgenstein, there's probably not a lot of hope there. Science is another. The problem with science is that it is (understandably) shy of facts. It is a popular fallacy that science establishes facts; what science will say is that a given proposition accords with all known facts or evidence but yet may not, in a genuinely universal, extra galactic, context, be true. Nonetheless, science is very good at showing what is demonstrably not true or liable to be false.

How does that help truth seekers? Not a lot, but it does expose fantasies, and it must be said that the resources behind such endeavours are not very considerable.

What about the other side, the side that might like to obscure facts and the truth, for gain of some sort? Well, there is the whole of the huge advertising and publicity industries for example, whose sole purpose is to persuade and to sell, whatever the facts of the matter. They legitimately sell, by popular consent, cars, toothpaste, soap or whatever, but also what else? Truth is irrelevant to them but they do deal in fantasies. Then there is the huge media industry, whose function is supposedly not just to entertain but also to inform. So what information should the media give? The facts (as currently known)? That is possible but virtually all the media are owned by people who have views and agendas. So why shouldn't they express their opinions and try to implement their agendas through their media, for their own gain? As of course they do. So we have a society in which resources are largely geared not to truth and facts but to manipulation and individual gain. The owners of the manipulative industries can (and do?) persuade individuals to act against their own individual interest.

Where does that leave the individual trying to assess their own situation, looking for facts, truth? I think that leaves the individual very much on their own, with only their own brain to assess the almost certainly biased information being fed to them. “Society” can offer no help. Probably their only help is the realisation that what is being fed to them as ”true” information is almost certainly biased. Does the society's educational system help, teach people to think for themselves? Or does it teach them to think and learn by rote? I think these are questions that any healthy society, any society that values the welfare of its citizens, should ask itself. And so should the citizens themselves.

(ollow The Money (And Ambitions)-

Follow The Money (And The Ambitions)

A clue was given to the Watergate reporters that eventually resolved the case. «Follow the money». I suspect (totally believe) the same may reveal the motivation of the hard Brexit proponents. Many leading proponents have already made money out of Brexit and also made sure that they and their interests remain in the EU. They stand to gain from a hard Brexit; too bad for the country.

Leave that aside for the moment. As both Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn have consistently refused to answer the question as to whether they think the UK would be better off in the EU we can easily conclude that it would be. So the UK is going to be worse off. Leave that aside too for the moment.

The EU is now reportedly going to make a determined effort to offer a deal to the UK (in the absence of anything sensible coming from the other side) , a deal being reported as possibly «exceptional». That would avoid a «no deal» Brexit damaging to both sides. If a proposal emerges, what are the chances of the UK accepting it?

Any proposed deal will split the Conservative party, with the hard-liners against it. I don't know what the numbers are but maybe 1/3-2/3. It will also most probably split the Labour party, depending on the exact terms. Continuation in the Customs Union, which would resolve the Ireland border problem (and thus a most likely item in the proposal), would be unacceptable (so he says) to Jeremy Corbyn, What then would be the split in the Labour party? Again, I have no numbers, even less in this case, but it could well be the converse of the split in the Conservative party, 2/3-1/3, or slightly more favourable to Corbyn.

So what happens if it comes to a vote in Parliament? I don't know more than anybody else. What I do know is that, if this test comes before Parliament, it will clearly show which MPs value limiting the damage of Brexit to their country above personal financial and political ambitions..

The Brexit Fiction

The Brexit Fiction

Politicians of both of the UK's main political parties are maintaining that Brexir must happen because they said that the result of the EU referendum would be definitive. That is indeed what they said, despite the fact that all the legislation around the referendum clearly stated that the result could be only advisory. Have you ever known politicians change their mind, their stance on an issue? Who hasn't? So why not change their minds on Brexit. They can't??????…...Empty phrases such as "the will of the people" are used by both sides to maintain this fiction, homage to Orwell. Yet the leaders of the main political parties remain clinging to this Brexit fiction despite overwhelming evidence that Brexit will significantly harm the UK, as indeed a large majority of those same politicians said before the referendum. So, the UK's political leaders are determined to harm the UK. Why?

In the case of Theresa May the situation is obvious: she is trying to hold together a political party that is split in two anyway and will quite surely sooner or later split asunder. She's looking for a temporary fix, as with the DUP alliance. Any withdrawal agreement with the EU will split her party asunder; a «no deal» Brexit will lose her party its traditional commercial and industrial support and possibly make it unelectable, given the consequences, for a generation. (That would of course depend on the opposition response). Anyway, she can't win; she's hanging on.

The case of Jeremy Corbyn is slightly more complex. Asked in a recent interview, six times, whether he thought the UK would be better off in the EU, he six times refused to answer the question. Conclusion? He knows the UK would be better off inside the EU but doesn't want that. So what does he want? No one seems to know but he is a Marxist dogmatist so presumably that has something to do with Marxist dogma. At the moment, he is in a position to potentially bury his political opposition for a generation (what political leader could ask for more?) but apparently doesn't want that. He wants to maintain the Brexit fiction.

Where does that leave us? It leaves us, I think, in a situation where the principal political leaders, for their own political reasons, want to ensure that the UK is damaged one way or another. Maintaining the Brexit fiction ensures this and suits both main political party leaders. But isn't democracy supposed to ensure the welfare of the majority of people; which apparently can't happen in this case. So whither democracy in the UK?

Brexit: Current Thoughts

Brexit: Resume Of Current Thoughts

I've been reluctntly coming to the conclusion that a «hard» Brexit has to be the most likely outcome unless…...……………..

I'll take you through the thinking process. Firstly, May can't agree anything by herself; the best she can do is come up with a proposal that she thinks will be acceptable to the EU. Secondly, Barnier can't agree anything by himself; the most he can do is get from May a proposal he thinks may be acceptable to the EU. What if that happens? If I understand the process correctly, the proposal has then to go to the EU Parliament and to each of the Parliaments of the 27 EU countries, each of which has an individual veto. The proposal could get through but I wonder what odds any bookmaker would give on it doing so. I doubt that the odds would be attractive.

How did we get into this situation and how can we get out of it? We got into it undoubtedly because two years of supposed negotiations have achieved nothing. I say «supposed» because I believe, although I can't prove it, that chief UK negotiator David Davis never had any intention of coming to any agreement; I believe (and again can't prove it) that he wanted and intended a «hard» Brexit.. He has been criticised in some of the media for laziness and lack of preparedness but I believe that was intentional on his part. With accusations of treason popular in the UK gutter press re opposition to Brexit, where does agreeing to undertake an assignment intending to defeat it come?Anyway, the result is that we have run out of time.

So what can be done to recover the situation? A «hard» Brexit would, by general consent, be catastrophic for the UK economy in the short to medium term but also noticeably damage the EU economy, so neither side really wants that. What could happen (a forlorn hope?) is that May goes to the EU, lays her cards on the table and says something like «we are in a mess and need more time to sort this; can we have more time?». What would the likely EU response be? I suspect the EU would take a hard line and say that the UK is either in or out in March next year and the UK has to decide on that. The UK would then be faced with two choices: face a «hard» Brexit and its consequences or vote to stay in the EU for the moment, (by no means certain to get UK Parliamentary approval) and face a probable second referendum.

An alternative, of course, is that some agreement is reached over the next 6 months that meets approval in the UK Parliament, the EU Parliament and the Parliaments of the 27 EU countries.

It's not a pretty picture but that is how I see it at the moment.

To Hell With The Country, Party Poltical Power Politics Rule

To Hell With The Country, Party Political Power Politics Rule

The news that Theresa May has taken personal charge of the Brexit negotiations I take to be a good sign, in as far as anything concerned with Brexit can be termed good. It hadn't occurred to me before but a possible reason that negotiations with the EU have been going nowhere is that that is precisely what the hard-line Brexiteers intended: a no-deal exit. That, as is generally acknowledged, would be catastrophic for British commerce and industry, traditional supporters of the Conservative party, in the short to medium term (20-50 years even in the estimation of arch-Brexiteer Rees-Mogg?) and Theresa May is unwilling to lose that support. Hence her take-over of the negotiations. What then happens, as some kind of deal acceptable to the EU makes its appearance in Parliament, is anyone's guess. Much will depend on the attitude of Labour's Corbyn to any proposed deal, and since he is off with fairies on a cloud somewhere above his ivory tower, that too has to be anyone's guess. The eventual result, no doubt the crux of the negotiations here on in, is what can be presumed to obtain a majority approval in the British Parliament and be acceptable to the EU.

What should be abundantly clear in all this is that the welfare of Britain is the least of concerns of anyone in power in the UK. Prognosticators on all sides seem to agree that Brexit will damage the UK and that is OK with both of the main political parties. All previous appeals to patriotism, sovereignty, taking control, etc, can now been seen as in truth the window-dressing they always were. What is at stake for the politicians is not the country but their power in the party political battle. With the British public presented with a choice between political extremes of right and left, and no one of significance in the middle, moderate ground, the interests of the country can go hang.

I find that very sad. In practical terms, it may (or may not, depending on the eventual outcome), matter to me very much, but our children and grandchildren will have to live with the result of a purely temporary, sordid little party political power struggle. And it looks as though nobody in political power in the UK, the guardians of the country's welfare, cares.

Brexit Update

Brexit Update

Oh the irony of it! Cameron promised a referendum on the EU in 2016 to avoid a split in the Conservative party and the referendum has become the cause of that split. The circus clowns were going to have their day anyway and now they are having it. Boris Johnson is right in one respect: May's Brexit proposals please no one, neither those who voted Remain nor a considerable proportion of those who voted Leave. It must be obvious to a blind man that there is now no real desire on the part of the British people for any realistic form of Brexit. The right-wing fantasies, given sway by chicanery and probable electoral fraud, have been exposed as such. So what poliician now can, with a straight face, call the referendum result «the will of the people»?

It is very difficult not to conclude that the will of the people now is, albeit perhaps reluctantly, to stay in the EU. Politicians rightly say that they should represent the will of the people but how many of them will represnt that will now? How many of them will have the courage to put the welfare of the country and its peoples' wishes before their own political ambitions? We will see over the coming weeks.

Brave New World

Brave New World

After watching England's football team (mercifully but deservedly) beat Tunisia in the last few minutes two nights ago I spent a very enjoyable hour on my balcony, calvados in hand and breathing in the scent of the jasmine all around me (see photo), and got to wondering about the rôle of the middle classes in a society. I'm not sure why that thought occurred, although I am very conscious of a battle that seems to me to be going on for supremacy between the extreme right and the middle ground in Europe (and elsewhere).

I immediately recalled something that a Ghanaian student had said to me at Bristol university in the early 1960s. At the time, the Ghanaian president Nkrumah was busy slaughtering the middle classes in his country in order to cement his power. She said, ruefully: “At least it shows we have a middle class”. Why was that important? Because at the time most of the rest of the post-colonial, recently independent countries were engaged in conflict between extreme right and left-wing contenders for power, promoted by external capitalist/communist influences. They didn't have a middle class.

So what is the significance of a middle class, in Napoleon's scornful terms Britain's “shopkeepers”? According to George Bernard Shaw it was the bastion of morality (of a sort). GBS said that only the middle classes valued morality; the rich didn't need it and the poor couldn't afford it. And the middle classes, the bourgeousie, were widely ridiculed in artistic circles for their presumed philistinism; they rejected art that was extreme in any sense, irrespective of its artistic value, and embraced what was unchallenging. In general, the middle classes got a poor Press, neither one thing nor the other, portrayed as having no aesthetic sensibilities and as having aspirations only to distinguish themselves from the lower classes and aspiring to (slavishly aping ) the upper classes. This was the stereotypical picture of the middle classes in a lot of Europe in the (post-war) 1950s.

Someone significant (shame on me, I can't remember who) once said that all important battles have to be fought continually; they are never truly resolved. That is most certainly true of democracy. And, I think, the role of the middle classes in democracy is now more important than ever. Philistines to art and the possibilities of how life might be lived (keep the aspidistra flying) they may be, though not necessarily, but they are the bastions that keep extremes of political greed and power at bay. They also, almost innocently, assumed the importance and general acceptance of standards: honesty, integrity, moderation (and, OK, often God and the Queen and so on but so what). And no one believes that they always adhered to these “principles” but they did assert the importance of them. I believe that that assertion (in practice or not) had great importance in itself.

What I think is happening in our brave new world is that this “innocence” persists in middle classes but has become increasingly different from reality and blinds them to that reality. You could believe (and did) in what you read in newspapers, heard on the radio or saw on TV. OK, there were slightly different slants/angles but you could generally accept the substance as true. You most certainly can't now. There was a pride in the journalistic profession that journalists checked facts and gave reasoned opinions on them; that is most certainly no longer true. The distinction, once the “credo” of The Times newspaper, between the facts and the opinion, has long gone. There was a belief that institutions such as the BBC was independent and would report accurately and fairly, overlooking (innocently) its dependence on the government for budget. Broadly, you believed what you heard and saw and that, generally, wasn't too far from reality. You believed that your local MP did have the interests of his/her constituency at heart, whatever the conflict of views. The assumed standards prevailed. Only a true innocent or ignoramus would believe that now.

What, in contrast, we have now is “nature red in tooth and claw”. The power struggles are naked; lies repeated ad nauseam can become accepted as fact. But persisting innocence makes the middle classes blind to them and, perhaps, to the power that the middle classes have in a democracy if wielded as a collectivity. I think we need the middle classes and their value of standards more than ever now but we also need the middle classes to lose their innocence and wake up to the new reality.

Society, Community And The Politics Of The Pigs' Troth

Society, Community And The politics Of The Pig's Troth

I had some friends around to eat the other night, among them friend Nick who lives just along the road. We ended up, over coffee and calvados, reminiscing about our childhood. Both of us had what could today be called a deprived childhood, although neither of us wanted to claim that, but it certainly wasn't privileged. It was both happy and innocent but involved actions that today could have called down the wrath of authorities, court cases and who knows what else. So exactly what has changed, and made things worse?

I think there are three basic causes. one is political correctness, another is the politics of the pigs' troth and the third is a lack of any sense of society and community.

In our youngest days (and I speak here without Nick's specific if perhaps general consent) we would try to see a girl's knickers, claiming to be one up if we did so, and girls would collapse giggling if they saw a boy's penis (or nearly). So what? It's what kids of 7-8 do, isn't it? They're curious and want to get one-up on their mates. But a boy bending down to see a girl's knickers or flipping up her skirt, or a girl doing something to see a boy's underpants /penis is technically a sexual assault. Similarly, a kid scrumping apples/pears/cherries even flowers (which we all did; I well remember pinching a rose from someone's garden to give to a girlfriend) is technically theft but would be met with a thick ear if you were caught. There was never any question of making a court case out of such routine occurrences. Of course there were paedophiles then, as there are now, but then you lived in a community who knew who the paedophiles were and kids were warned to stay clear of them. It wasn't watertight prevention but was generally effective.

A clue? I've used the word “technically” twice and that is what the political correctness adherents do. They advocate that what is technically true has to be the truth and want the full force of the law to back them. To what end? To prove that they are right, whatever the social consequences; necessary at the time, perhaps they would claim, in denial of the consequences.

If this is music to the ears of anyone it is to those of unscrupulous lawyers and insurance companies. Lawyers want legal challenges; that is their source of revenue. Insurance companies want risks you might be persuaded to insure against.

Which leads me to the politics of the pig's troth, of which unscrupulous lawyers and insurance companies are only part. When Nick and I were young there were numerous trades, disciplines, potential careers apparently available; but just making money wasn't obviously one of them. You made money if you were successful in your career. Now, making money is a career in itself (means irrelevant) in an analogy to those people who, by general consent, are famous for being famous rather than for anything exceptional that they have done.

Once making money becomes a career (means irrelevant), the idea of achievement in any field becomes irrelevant. It doesn't matter how good you are, at anything, what matters is how much money you make, by fair means or foul. So we have the rip-off society, which ignores all social consequences. Society is dismissed. It is a hymn to Thatcherism, “there is no such thing as society”.

Mitterand once said that “nationalism is war”. The same could be said of a lack of any sense of society or community, as is evidenced in numerous suburbs of large towns around Europe. In the place of community and society, destructive gangs proliferate, feeding off their own. “Alienation” is the word always used there. So, we need to get rid of aliens? Or do we need to build a consciousness of the importance of society and community?

Days Of Boules And Roses

Boules

I went to the regional boules championships last week and, as usual, spent an agreeable few days with the regional championship regulars. My team didn't do that well but we will never know exactly how well. The regional President of the national boules association gave a (too) long speech at the beginning saying nothing of relevance except not to beat him up and to play in a good spirit. It wasn't clear at the time why anyone should want to beat him up but became so very shortly afterwards when it turned out that he had changed the system for deciding teams positions at the end of the championships. Few players, if any, understood the new system and it seemed that the officials didn't either. Only the top ten teams were given their positions and we weren't one of them. So the President's actions served simply to ensure that the players were pissed off and wanted to beat him up, the opposites of what he stated as his objectives. I think that properly qualifies him as what the French commonly know as a “vieux con”. It also made me reflect, not for the first time, that to appreciate Provençal methods of organisation a good understanding of chaos theory is required. Whenever I made public speeches I always wanted feedback; the honourable President clearly doesn't but someone should tell him he needs it.

The trip was nonetheless very enjoyable. Michel, who drove me and his wife and friend Jacques to Gréoux, in the Alpes de Haute Provence where the championships were held, chose a “straight line” route through the Alps' foothills just north of here. It took us through country that I hadn't seen before and where lavender fields stretched from horizon to horizon. I made a mental note to return there sometime in the summer when the lavender is in bloom; it must be a magnificent sight (and smell). The height we were at, well over 1000 ft, suggested that what was growing was what the French call “lavende” rather than “lavendin”. I'm unclear about the distinction (both look the same) but understand that the former keeps its colour longer when dried and has a milder smell. However, “lavende” apparently grows well only in land at over 1000 ft and fetches a much higher price in the markets so I presumed that that was what I was seeing. However, when I buy lavender oil I buy the “lavendin” variety. My nose can't detect the subtle distinction in smell between the two and the “lavendin” oil is both much cheaper and more intense.

Roses, Roses, Roses

They are one of my favourite flowers, a preference that I probably share with very many others. So here are photos of some of those that I have. The first two photos show the two roses I have climbing over the arch at the back of my garden; the yellow and white one is Pilgrim, the pink one Shropshire Lad, both from David Austin. The third photo is of two bush roses in my back garden; the yellow one is Graham Thomas and the copper-coloured one Pat Austin, again both from David Austin. I visited David Austin's garden some 20 years ago and it is an experience that every rose lover should surely experience at least one time in their lives. The other rose garden I remember from England with great affection is the walled garden at Mottisfont, in Hampshire, which is open to the public in June in the evenings, when the perfume of the roses, and the pinks and peonies planted below them, is at its strongest.

To supplement the roses both honeysuckles in the front are in full bloom (and I have roses in the front too, also in bloom, Penny Lane, Dublin Bay and The Fairy). The perfume on my balcony and around the front of the house in the evening is wonderful.

Clochemerle Country And Garden

Clochemerle Country And Occam's Razor

Friends Steve and Jo have just moved house, as readers of this blog will already know. So they have changed address (obviously). A problem is that the village has recently named all previously unnamed roads and given every house a number. These new names and numbers have been notified centrally to the government, as required, but not to any other body that may be involved, such as utility companies. That is the responsibility of the residents themselves. And this is where drop-down menus and the tick box mentality come in. Quite obviously, when you move house you have to have meters read and new addresses for bills notified. But…………..the utility companies have drop-down menus for addresses to be recorded and, since they haven't been informed of the new addresses they can't recognise them. In the case of Steve and Jo, they also have a right to a new identity card. Same problem; they have to register their address but from a drop-down menu that does not recognise their actual address. Problems, problems………….and what is the solution? It's easy; when new addresses are registered they should be made to update all relevant databases of addresses. Why doesn't that happen, automatically? Because someone isn't THINKING. Why not? Who gets paid to THINK about the work they do?

I am about to confront what I suspect may be a similar problem in submitting my request for French nationality. The submission form is quite clear on what proofs are required and I now have all the necessary documentation to hand. So what problem could there be, other than an outright refusal, which the French government has the right to make? Well.…………….Steve and Jo in their application were asked for information that was essentially superfluous; so the same could apply to me. That could, in the worst case, amount to more than a hundred pages and, in again the worst case, need translation from French into English by an officially qualified translator at an official rate of 65 euros per page. The result could be 5000+ euros of expenditure for no useful purpose. Obviously I'm hoping that this situation does not arise but…………..why should it ever be possible?

Occam's razor. Occam's razor proposes that the simplest solution to any problem is most probably the best. Above all, you eliminate what is superfluous. Is there a Civil Service in the world that applies it, at probably an enormous potential cost saving to the Civil Service itself? There are, around the world, numerous professors of administration. Do any of them have a project to produce some kind of algorithm/template that would enable a government to extract the maximum of the information it requires with the minimum of documentation? If not, why not? Oh, and if they did, would any government pay attention?

Political Analysis

I have to confess to being a tribal Labour voter, although I did vote Lib-Dem in despair at the last general election. Over the years, my political stance has become pragmatic rather than tribal (pace my ancestors). I've now come to the uncomfortable conclusion that the political future of the UK must lie with the Conservative Party. This is how I see it.

Power in the UK has always, at least for more or less 100 years, resided in which political party gains the support of most of the middle ground. At the current time, neither of the main political parties owns that and neither seems to be seeking it so the UK is crying out for a party that woos the middle ground. That has happened before, in the 1980s, when the Social Democrat party, subsequently merged with the Liberals, was formed by disenchanted Labour party heavyweights. The party had a short life and any such new party formed would most probably have a similar life. Why? Because such a party is really just waiting for either of the two main contenders, Labour or Conservative, to come to their senses, at which point it gets blown out of the water. So which of the main parties might first come to its senses?

Ed Milibrand changed the decisive vote for the election of the leader of the Labour Party from the elected MPs to the Party members. These are people who will vote for all desirable social measures but not necessarily realistic ones or ones that will find favour with the electorate at large. They are a force for the kind of revolutionary government for social change which had power in 1945. Whether they are desirable or not is a matter of personal opinion but they are definitely not the middle ground. And..………..the Labour Party at the moment is powerless to change that. As currently constituted, it cannot change unless it can change the profile of its party membership, which is not within its own power.

The Conservative party, as I see it at the moment, is a hostage to its extreme right wing. Theresa May, whatever her inclinations, cannot afford to offend the extreme right wing because a revolt by it would bring down the government. She can afford to offend the left wing of the party as long as she manages to avoid too many abstentions/adverse votes by her MPs. So that is what she is trying to do in order to cling to power (whatever the consequences). The consequences may well be that the Party loses the next general election but that is not the issue here; the issue here is whether the Party can change. And it can, whether it chooses to do so or not.

Am I exaggerating the importance of the middle ground? Given the extreme right wing measures of the current government, an extreme left wing spell could well legislate corrective measures that would be welcomed by many (me included). But, in the longer run…….? The Labour government of 1945 succeeded in some amazing achievements and had its share of revolutionaries but it also had its pragmatists. Despite them, it lost the next general election. Is there a Harold Wilson in the current party to save the day? If there is, he is most certainly, on the evidence to date, being sidelined; the dogmatists rule.

My House

The Banksia rose at the back has more or less finished blooming but there are plenty of other pleasing spots of colour waiting for the other rose bushes to come into bloom and supplement them. The photo below of the front of the house doesn't quite do it justice as the blue petunia surfinas in the hanging baskets don't show up because of the shade thrown by the lime trees opposite. I've asked the Mairie to prune the lime trees hard but without success so far; I'll get more insistent next year. The problem for me is that, because of the shade, I need in the front plants that will flower happily in it and there aren't so many of those. That accounts for the number of geraniums, which I don't particularly like. I try to avoid the cliché scarlet variety (in the worst possible taste according to Oscar Wilde) but geraniums there must be at the moment. Anyway, I've had the first tourist photographers of the season taking photos out front so it can't be that bad.

Photos And Sham Solutions

Catching Up On Photos

I haven't been showing many photos lately but I have been taking them so I thought I'd catch up. The first of those below is of friends Steve and Jo receiving their French citizenship in the Prefecture in Valence. The second is of one of my attempts to capture the blue of the sky here, at the boules courts in Buis. It doesn't fully capture the intensity of the blue but shows someof the gradations of shades. The third is of my back garden right now. 

Sham Solutions; The Inherent Conflict In Democracy.

Most countries have problems of one sort or another and Britain has as many or more than the rest. So what are, or may be, the solutions? How do you find them? It sounds simple; rack your brains (and most countries have a fair percentage of very good ones) and look at what solutions other countries have found. It has been baffling to me why the UK hasn't found better solutions to many of its problems, better solutions that friend Steve and I even with our political differences, often find. But I realise that I have been naive; it isn't at all that simple.

From the electorate's point of view the problem is simple to state, even if individual solutions may differ widely. It's much more complex from the politician's point of view. There there is not just the problem itself, there are also the Party line and Whips, convictions and the desire to be re-elected.

Citizens within a country may feel they have a big problem, be concerned about the effectiveness/efficiency of their education systems, their healthcare systems, their (personal) security systems or whatever; a single, perhaps difficult problem but not one difficult to define. But they will need a political solution. Over to the politicians then.

Their big problem, whatever issue the electorate raises with them, is how to get re-elected. So their obvious solution is not necessarily to solve the problem that the electorate has raised but they must appear to have addressed it. Illusion is all, from their perspective. If they can successfully provide the illusion they don't need to address the problem at all. Which is easier?

Democracy, to the slight extent that it has succeeded in the world, has depended on two essentials; education of the electorate and the existence of independent sources of information available to the educated public. Only these can constrain any politician whose major concern is to retain position and power (by no means all politicians). The health of any democracy depends on the respect accorded by politicians, of whatever persuasion, to these two essentials. Subvert them, downgrade education and spread false information and the real victims are not just the electorate, fooled into accepting lies and fantasies and unable to discern them, but the very democracy itself.

Spring And Colours

Spring And Colours

All the evidence says that spring is definitely here now. In the open daffodils, narcissi, muscari, forsythia, japonica and violets are all in bloom and friends Steve and Jo's lawn is carpeted in primroses. My garden is too exposed for primroses to take hold but I have one that has sown itself in the front, nestling in the shade between two pots. In the markets and shops there are local asparagus to be had, expensive for the moment but they will reduce in price by a third over the next two to three weeks.

Spring and Easter always gave me a psychological boost in England and they do even more so here because I know that so many of the things I like here are about to appear. There are already Charentais melons from Morocco, which are good, in the shops and the local ones won't be far behind, followed by apricots, peaches and nectarines. My lilac and roses will start blooming, eating outside will become the norm and there will be warm evenings when I can sit on my balcony with a Calvados to hand.

Spring does, however, seem to be rather late this year, somewhat surprisingly after a mild winter. We have had really cold weather, plus the customary one day of snow, for only a couple of weeks in December, since when temperatures have held up during the day. And most of the flora blooming now would normally have been in bloom a couple of weeks earlier. At the beginning of April the hillsides would normally be blue and yellow, the yellow of coronilla and the blue of irises; but the coronilla is just showing signs of coming into bloom and I haven't yet seen an iris blooming anywhere. Anyway, my back garden and the pots in the front are pretty much ready for lift off so there is much to look forward to.

As for colours, blue is the colour, as every Chelsea fan knows, and I have been trying to capture the blue of the skies here on camera, with little success to date. It's the quality of the light that drew impressionist painters here in the past and that comes from the blue sky. I've been tempted to describe the blues in the sky as deep blue but that is inaccurate as the blue is not necessarily dark. Rather it is an intense blue, light or dark, and it tends to have a slight shade of violet within it. It varies from what I would call a pale Wedgewood blue to an intense violet and the deeper shades are generally apparent when the temperature is at its highest. On some days you can see the gradations increase from early morning as the day heats up. And the intensity of the blue tends to be emphasised by the frequent lack of even a whisp of cloud in the sky. One day, hopefully, I'll capture it in a photo.