The General Election And The Future

The General Election And The Future

The general election result left me with feelings of sadness, frustration and anger which I have to try to set aside in writing this. I felt sadness at the result, frustration that the right-wing bias in UK media had not been overcome by independent and other sources and anger that the UK is, in my view, mortgaging its future and, most specifically, that of its young people. Those are my feelings. But a new government regime inevtiably poses a number of questions and here are my thoughts on some of them. I shall also attempt a Nostradamus act; it’s close to the time of year for one of those.

Will the UK stay as currently consitituted? The Scottish Parliament wants independence but has been denied a referendum on the subject. How will the Scots react to that? I don’t forsee violence , although that may result, and wonder what passive resistance can achieve. Neither of the political axes in northern Ireland likes Johnson’s current proposal for a solution to the border problem, Stormont now has a Sinn Fein majority and amalgamation withe rest of Ireland (which would solve the border problem) is an option. Johnson can prohibit that but, if he does, the outcome is certain to be violent. English nationalism helped win Johnson the election but other nations have their nationalists too. I wouldn’t like to guess the outcome but there will certainly be tension and conflict there.

Brexit on the 31st of January will present the UK with numerous administrative challenges. The EU has said, several times, that a trade agreement between it and the UK cannot be completed in the 11 months currently prescribed, No 10 disagrees. Will Johnson blame any failure on the EU and go for the no-deal Brexit that he has formerly seemed to want? It seems quite probable.

There will be some 50+ further trade agreements needed to replace those the UK now has through the EU and a further 700+ treaties to be renegotiated. Trade agreements trypically take 3-10 years to be completed and in many cases the UK will necessarily be negotiating not with individual countries but with established trade blocks. Most smaller countries ally themselves with others to provide combined financial mucle in trade negotiations and the UK has chosen not to do this. It outmuscles most individual countries but possibly not most trade blocks. And trade blocks require agreement by all in the block, not just individual countries, which partly partly expalins the time involved. This situation will not be resolved speedily, whatever Johnson claims, and the interim is anybody’s guess. Johnson has trumpeted a trade agreement with the USA but it would have to increase trade between the two countries fivefold to replace the trade we currently do with the EU (and to whose advantage, who has the most financial muscle?)..

Britain has depended for centuries on the effectiveness of its trade, still does, and does 40% of it with the EU. WTO trade rules will be applied if Trump doesn’t succeed in destroying the WTO before then, as he is trying to do. The WTO rules have been much discussed. What has escaped attention is WTO’s rôle as a negotiation arbiter to avoid trade wars so we may well see more of those. In a trade war, the country or trade block with the most financial muscle invariably wins.

Immigration was an issue at the heart of Brexit and the general election result. The UK needs some degree of immigration; that is an undisputed fact. The idea of selecting just those immigrants that are needed is seductive but illusory. It presupposes a queue of desirable immigrants waiting to enter the UK for which there is no evidence. Xenophobia and racism also played some rôle in Brexit and race-related crimes have escalated in the UK since the referendum. Potential immigrants who wish to leave their countries may therefore find The UK a less desirable option (than the EU, for instance) and leave the UK with serious manpower deficiencies. I think we will see these in healthcare and possibly science-related activities but I can’t guess in what other sectors.

The NHS was a major issue in the election and Johnson has said he will make it a priority. That means he will give it his attention but little else I think that private health insurance schemes are sure to play a larger rôle and wonder at the cost and coverage of these. I forsee a health system much closer to that in the USA 5 (where the mean standard of healthcare is much lower; the USA is ranked 20th by the World Health Organisation) than health systems in the EU.

The wealth gap between the richest and poorest in the UK is wide and has been getting wider for years. There is no evidence from Johnson’s political past and stated opiniuons that he considers this a priority, rather the reverse, and its continued existence implies political instability. The UK has experienced zero growth in productivity over the last 10 years (OECD figures) and a large cheap labour force discourages investment in machinery and modern means to boost productivity. The signs are all for a free market economy in which, ironically, nothing is free. That means, among other things, only very basic.public services, which are a means to share wealth. The same is true of the EU development fund, used to ameliorate conditions in deprived areas of Europe, including those in the UK. I cannot see those initiatives being replaced in anything like the same amount. That would run counter to a free trade economy. A free trade economy typically relies on cheap labour and the life expectancy of people is increasing. Cheap labour has no hope of saving enough money to cover the expenses of retirement and old age and I forsee an increased number of destitute old people in the UK, unable through no fault of their own, to provide for their old age. (as there are in the USA).

Finally, I worry about the possibility of independent assessments and the rôle of the media. Johnson has not exactly welcomed open debate and scrutiny up to now (even discounting hiding in a fridge) and No 10’s attack on the BBC TV and radio stations and Channel 4 looks ominous to me. The proposed curtailment of courts’ scrutiny of government actions upsets the long British tradition of the roles for government and the judiciary and would make the government less accountable.. Will, for instance, we be allowed to know the basis for government statistics? Will the detail of trade agreements be published? The predominant right-wing press won’t be interested in any of this but independent journalists and commentators will be and so should every democratically minded citizen. If government accountability lmeans anything it depends crucially on the information made available. I fear that the possibility for independent assessments and critique is being curtailed and and may be more so and that is a serious threat to any democracy.

Johnson, with his majority, has a great deal of power. How will he use it? For the good of the country as a whole, as Corbyn claimed to want to do, or primarily for the already rich and powerful? I’ve made my own guesses on that but you have to make your own.

A final couple of questions. Even such a prominent Brexit camapaigner as Ress-Mogg has estimated that the benefits of Brexit will take at least 20 years, and possibly 50, to become apparent. If British people wake up in five years’ time and find that EU citizens are experiencing a much greater quality of life than those in the UK, what happens then? What measures would be needed to keep UK citizens happy?

Government Incentives

Government Incentives

Two ways to govern a country are to do what you think is best for the country or two plunder it to make you and your associates rich. If you choose the latter, à la south America, you obviously need passpaorts or rights of residence from/in other countries. UK national debt since 2007 has risen from 68% of GDP to 85% of GDP, money borrowed by the government while public services such as the police, fire brigade and NHS have all suffered cuts in budget and services have degraded. So who got the money and for what? Look at candidates for the general election in this light and draw your own conclusions.

Standards Of Information

Standards Of Information

In a previous post I said that I think that the British Standards Institution should create a standard for information integrity to which media might sign up or not, as they wished, with the obvious connotations. I feel that even more strongly now.

Institutions are not just bricks, mortar and committees but can be abstract as, for instance, in the British reputed insistence on fair play in sport. That, at one time, was an accepted British characteristic and, as such, an abstract institution. As an aside, a French IT colleague once said to me that the English breakfast was not really a meal but an instituiion. Something simuilar, in my youth, was true of The Times newspaper; it rigourously separated news reporting from opnion so that you knew which was which in any article you were reading and could make up your mind accordingly. Again we have an abstract institution, in this example on information integrity. And, in times past, the BBC was viewed by millions throughout the world as a medium through which they could learn the truth when they could not rely on their national media. That may still be true of foreign news coverage but…...

It’s a personal view, but I think that all these previously respected abstract institutions have more recently failed to live up to their billing, generally quite demonstrably so. The void that needs to be filled is one of integrity. There are practical difficulties as I know from personal experience in chairing an IT standards committee at BSI in 1996. Standards typically take around 2 years to formulate, for practical not bureaurocratic reasons, but can be fast-tracked in around 9 months (as my own committee did). Any standard implies at least and may specifically state tests that have to be passed to meet the standard and some very simple tests on reasonable attempts to verify facts are possible. Indeed, the assumed professuonal code for journalists implies most of the tests. I think we need such a standard on the integrity of published information as soon as possible. Without it, the population at large is at the mercy of very clever manipulators and the considerable sums needed to employ them. If you disagree, are you happy to be manipulated or what would you suggest ?

Birthday And Dark Money

My Birthday

My birthday in Scotland was great. I’d booked to fly by Ryanair for economic reasons and also because that was the most convenient flight, although the flight was to Edinburgh rather tha my eventual destination of Glasgow. L had the usual caveats one has with Ryanair but, in the event, all went well both coming and going. I spent the afternoon happily and interestingly after my early arrival with friends in Edinburgh and then continued to Glasgow and my family in time to see my grand-daughter, my daughter and son-in-law in the early evening. Mission accomplished!

I was taken out by Nat and Andy to lunch on my birthday, the following Monday, to a tapas restaurant which was excellent and spent the rest of the 10 days with my family doing nothing much of consequence other than visiting the Kelvingrove museum/art gallery and the house for art lovers of MacKenzie. Both were good experiences but the best experiences were with my family. I also did some shopping (my daughter characterised it as intensive) to get items hard or expensive to find in France and presents for my French friends here. I’m pleased to say that all the presents were well received, plus one to come, a kind of French Burns evening which we will do with the haggis I brought back. All good, photos included.

 

Back to reality in France has proved easy. Daniel and Evelyne picled me up from Marseilles airport and I was home in under two hours with all my merchandise. It took me 2-3 days to get myself together but then life resumed as normal. I had arrived in Marseilles somewhat to my surprise in the middle of a rain storm as in the six weeks prior to my departure we had had only 5cm of rain in 6 weeks. What the hell, the rain was welcome.

Now, having got myself together, I’m back into the morass of documentation demanded by the French for the right to stay and for citizenship. I’m also, it seems, into a general election because I still have the right to vote in UK elections, not that in my case that will serve much purpose When I was in the UK my constituency was Reading east, which was swingable; I now find myself, for reasons unknown, in Wokingham which has something like a 20,000 Tory majority. Nonetheless I will try to reduce that by at least one vote.

I’ve no idea what the outcome of the election will be but hope that it will be for the good of the UK, which is most certainly not Johnson in my opinion. My hopes rest on one statistic that I’ve seen, that if 40 percent of Remainers vote tactically then Johnson doesn’t win. All the media messages to Remainers are to forget party loyalty and vote tactically so I have to hope they do that correctly. Fingers crossed.

Dark Money

I’m increasingly preoccupied by the directive given to the Watergate investigative journalists to «follow the money». Dark money is money that arrives somewhere from no currently identifiable source. We know that it played a part and was used illegally (and unprosecuted) in the Leave campaign and that Boris Johnson is sitting on and refusing to publish a report that would at least shed some light on the matter.

We also know that it arrived in northern Ireland and that northern Ireland has different electoral rules to the rest of the UK. That may surprise some people but the source of money used in democratic electoral campaigns has to be declared in all of the UK apart from northern Ireland. The obvious question here is why that situation persists and the only obvious answer is because it suits some power-seeking group to have it that way.

The EU directive due to come into force next year aimed at reducing tax avoidance will, incidentally, curtail the movement of dark money, including money being laundered. Officially, countries in the developed economies are united in trying to prevent money laundering so why are anomalies like northern Ireland allowed to continue? As suggested above, it must suit some power-seeking group; it also, incidentally, suits the funding of the IRA. Which opens up the question of security and terrorism and what security agencies know about the movement of dark money and what governments allow them to say and do about it. Now enlightenment there could be really interesting, such as what happens when dark money is useful to the government.

Brave New World?

Brave New World

I’m worried, very worried. If Johnson gets his no-deal Brexit and the following genereal election, look at the power he will have.

He can suspend parliament, that we know. Look at the Investigatory Powers Act (2017) which gives the governement power to evesdrop on any indiividual’s conversation (just for national security of course????). Then think of the Leveson report on Press responsibility, with all major recommendations unimplemented. Ever heard of Big Brother, Brave New World, but from the right rather rthan the left?

If It’s Not Reported It Didn’t Happen

When I was still at school I was amazed to learn from a teacher that the only newspaper recently admonished by the Press Council (I think that is what it was then called, the Press regulatory body) was The Times, at the time the supposed bastion of good journalism, for not reporting the Sharpeville massacre in South Africa. Everybody knew about the massacre except, presumably, those who relied only on The Times fot their news (and TV was far from universal then). The Times was reprimanded for not reporting what was obviously news whilst some debs marriage or flower show was. Does anyone care to look for coverage of the demonstrations against pro-rogation of Parliament in such «responsible» newspapers as The Telegraph, The Express, etc? Obviously, if it wasn’t reported it didn’t happen. And a free press is essential to democracy? And a respnsible press…..? And a toothless regulatory body? Ah well…...

Health Warning

Don’t Talk To Strangers

I remember a time when paedophilia was in the headlines and the warning to children «don’t talk to strangers» was widely broadcast. The warning was a bit heavy-handed: as an aging man I felt it inhibited me in any potentially mutually happy and innocuous encounter with a passing child. However, the caution may well have been effective in many cases and, if so, was worth much more than any slight inhibition or inconvenience on my or anybody else’s part.

I’m concerned with a different issue now, one that would come with a warning along the lines of «beware what you believe, what you think you know, becuase you are being manipulated». In this case the danger is not just possible, it is certain. It’s obvious because product advertising is all around us and that is exactly what product advertising seeks to do. However, everyone by now should be conscious of that and the worst outcome is probably that you buy something you don’t really want or need or, more seriously, really can’t afford. Apply that to your view of the world though, your view of other people, your country, the whole planet even, and the question becomes very much more serious.

Let’s be clear; attempts, often very subtle, subliminal and sophisticated, are now being made all the time to manipulate you in these much wider aspects. So how do you warn a population at large that that is happening in a way that they will appreciate, understand and take to heart?

There is an easy but ineffectual answer: the educational system. The answer is ineffectual because most current educational systems fail most people to some extent most of the time. It might be effective if everyone on the planet had a PhD but that is never going to be the case however low governments make standards in order to show superficially better statistics.

I can’t think of an answer at the moment but I have a flight of fancy. Suppose that, just as every cigarette packet (in Europe) now has to carry a health warning, every newspaper and news bulletin had to carry the warning that «while every effort has been made to ensure that the factual content of what you read/see is true, it may not be». And suppose that any divergence from that, in any medium, should be actionable in a court of law.

OK, it’s fanciful and heavy-handed but it addresses the really big question: how can the manipulators on national and global questions be subjected to some control?

Pandora's Box

Two Very Important Questions: Pandora’s Box

If Johnson succeeds in by-passing Parliament and getting a no-deal Brexit, and if Corbyn wins the next general election and wants to pass extreme socialist legislation unlikely to get through Parliament, why shouldn’t he use the same mechanism? Rationally, what’s the objection?

Secondly, if Parliament can be by-passed in this way, how effective is Parliament as the bastion of British democracy? Read Orwell before sending answers on a postcard.

Conspiracy Theory

Everyone loves a conspiracy theory so why not? When we think of solidarity and collective protection we typically think of unions and cooperatives, the less privileged trying to protect themselves from more powerful individual people or organisations. But suppose some of those more powerful individuals and organisations decide to themselves form a collective? Individually they don’t need to because they are rich and powerful and can do more or less what they want. But suppose they have higher ambitions; to control a large part of the world in their favour? What is to stop them if they so choose? They would need to control the media but already mostly do. Most people read only one newspaper or watch only one news channel so the main media need be the only targets. Their only problem is the Internet. It has been designed so that it cannot easily be controlled but it holds limitless information to be used and that can be obtained at a price. And who can best afford that price? So at least if they cannot control it they can make good use of it to further their purposes. Who or what can counter this?

Answers on a postcard again (after having read your Orwell).

Summer Or Autumn?

Summer Or Autumn?

As happened last year for the first time in my memory, autumn seems to have arrived in mid-August. The days are still hot but below 35 degrees in the sun and the early mornings and evenings are cool, typically around 11-14 degrees. I find that very pleasant and, if the past is anything to go by, it should last into October. Winter as known in the UK doesn’t usually start here until December.

When my son Carl was here he immediately remarked that the blue of the sky here is a type of blue that he had never seen in the UK. It’s what I have been trying to capture on camera but it probably needs a better camera than mine. I’ve been trying to define the difference without much success but am coming to the conclusion that it is less a matter of shade (although the shade here seems to have more violet/purple in it than in the UK), than of depth: the blue in the sky, of whatever shade, seems to have much more depth than in the UK sky.

Last night I went to the mussels and chips evening in the square in front of the Bar du Pont. Despite the fact that there were far more visitors than locals, so fewer people I knew, it proved to be a lovely evening. There was music from a man from Faucon playing a guitar, dancing and, what I love most, people of all ages just having a great time. Just before I left the guitarist struck up with «Emmenez-moi», an Aznavour song that always makes my own heart sing.

«Emmenez-moi au bout de la terre, emmenez-moi au pays des merveils, il me semble que la misère, serait moins pénible au soleil». As a friend once remarked, «c’est joyeux».

I couldn’t ask for more.

The Garden

Because of the change in intensity of the weather, watering has become a less desperate activity, although it is still needed every other day. Many of my plants have been «fried» despite my attempts to keep them thriving and I’ve had to replace the plants in the hanging baskets and will have to look later on at what has survived in the back garden. However I have a bumper crop of grapes on my balcony. I never, in any musings on my future, imagined having a home where I could simply reach up from a seat on a balcony and grab a bunch of grapes but now I can.

The Environment As An Equaliser

Around where I live in France there have been a number of improvements to open spaces, cleaning them up, refurbishing or developing them, to the benefit of everyone, whatever their status, who lives there. These have all been projects paid for out of the public purse. Why would any individual, other than an altruistic benefactor, want to do that? And therein lies the rub.

Anyone very rich needn’t bother with such matters; they can simply move, as and when they please, to an environment that suits them. Most of the less wealthy may be able to move where they live a few times in their lives or take occasional breaks but wull live for years continuously in one place. The poor are stuck with what they have got. So improvements to the environment are a great equaliser, benefiting everyone, but they are dependent on a public purse to provide them. Anyone happy to disregard or trivialise the need for public services should take heed.

Brexit Theory And Practice

Theory And Practice In Brexit

I have an acquaintance who has a bag emblazoned with the slogan «I want to live in Theory, because in Theory everything works». There can be a general problem with referenda: whether the question posed asks what you want, or what you want within what you can can get. That is, do you want to live in Theory or in Practice? The UK referendum asked what people wanted, not what they wanted within what they could get. It asked for decisions in Theory rather than in Practice. Hence the unicorns. You can get unicorns, paradise, in Theory but not in Practice.

Paradise has easy slogans; who doesn’t want it? Wish what you like and you, in Theory, can have it. Who wants to live in Practice, where everything we want doesn’t always work? Except that in fact that is where we all live. Like it or not, and you probably would like it to be different, we all live in Practice.

So we all want independence, soveriegnty for our country and for our lives. Who wouldn’t? But the UK can’t even feed itself, some 40% of its food is imported. In Practice, how much independence does that allow, if we all want to continue being fed? So the UK needs to trade successfully, pitting its offer of access to a market within the EU of 520 million or alone of access to a market of 60 million, against access to markets of hundreds of millions more than in the UK alone in the USA, China, Japan and India. Where is the relative market strength to negotiate with there? In Practice rather than in Theory, where is the UK’s strongest position?

But there are other considerations in the UK, of course. The question of the Irish border, for instance. Northern Ireland’s independence rests, in Practice, on a delicate balance between, among other things, wars of religion that Britain and the rest of Europe gave up on around the 18th century. The Good Friday agreement resolved that in Pracice but Brexit proposes to re-open the dispute, an essentially meadiaeval war, in Theory.

Then there is Scotland’s desire for greater independence from England. While Scotland is in the UK which is in the EU, the EU quite naturally said it wouldn’t consider Scotland as an independent applicant for EU membership. And an independence referendum proposal in Scotland failed because primarily the old and nationalistic voted for it; the young and less nationalistic saw their future within the UK within the EU. In Theory Scotland will always be part of the UK but take the UK in the EU out from that scenario and how will the young and the EU itself vote then? What do you have in Practice?

And there is the problem of national independence. We all want the nation whose nationality we claim to be independent. In Theory, that is sacrosanct. In Practice, we know that is not true because otherwise why would nations ever conclude alliances, for military, commercial or other reasons? In Theory we are independent (even for food) and have to give nothing we want in exchange: in Practice we know we are interdependent. The only question, in Practice rather than Theory, is on whom: the EU, the USA, or which countries and for what and what do we have to give in exchange?

The problem with Practice is that it doesn’t promise dreams of paradise, all that you want, without conflicts. Theory of course can, provided that you are happy to assume that there are never, anywhere at any time, any conflcits to resolve. Where do you live?

Brexit Review

Review Of Brexit

Everyone now knows, or should know, the battles going on with regard to Brexit. It’s still possible some kind of reasonable deal can be made but the major bets seem to be on a no-deal Brexit, whatever the consequences, which are generally presumed to be seriously negative.

So, to get perspective, let’s go back three years to pre-referendum times. What was happening in the UK then? The UK then was a major player in the most important economic block in the world, economically robust in itself with a strong currency and positive trade balance. The country was prosperous, even if that prosperity wasn’t being shared equitably.

What were the promises of Brexit? Another £350 million for the NHS, now a subsidiary budgetary consideration, subsidiary to emergency measures. Independence to conduct our own trade deals? Some 50 or so to be renegotiated on the basis of access to a market of 60 million rathet than 510 million and new deals in which we pitch our 60 million market strength against that of the size of markets in the USA, China and India. Who are we trying to kid?

Now? There is talk of the Dunkirk spirit, emergency measures to counteract resource deficiencies of food, medical supplies, etc, and major budget allocations not to grow the natioçn’s wealth and make citizens better off but to ward off penury and economic failure. Why? As a political manifesto when no one is at war with the UK, how does that stand up? Where is the gain, who benefits? Certainly not the average working person in the UK, who faces loss of jobs and higher prices for food and other essentials. So why are so many people still voting for this? It makes no sense at all.

If it makes no sense, and most people can be credited with reasonably good sense, what has happened to peoples’ good sense? They must have been manipulated in some way, en masse, and that can happen only via the mass media. So who owns the mass media and what have they to gain? And who in positions of political power are backing this deception and why? Think about it, read your Orwell.

Summer Continues

Summer Continues

We’ve had a spell of more reasonable weather with somewhat lower temperatures and a persistent breeze but that has ended this week. We are now back in heatwave territory. My son Carl (photo below) has been with me for 10 days and will be for 10 days more and I have been showing him around, when I can get him away from his computer. We’ve been for scenic rides and had some good meals and yesterday went to Avignon. Because the festival is on, which is rather like the Edinburgh festival, I didn’t attempt to drive into Avignon but drove to Carpentras and took the train from there into Avignon. The train is a new and welcome addition, the opening of a previously closed branch line, which takes about a half an hour to get into Avignon and costs just 6 euros. It was as well I did as all car parks in Avignon were showing «full» signs when we got there.

Apart from that we have been enjoying pizza and mussels and chips evenings in the square in front of the Bar du Pont. We also went to the crocodile farm outside Bollène as Carl wanted to see it although I wasn’t too enthused. It turned out to be much better than I expected. It’s name is presumably to attract the tourists and it does have over 300 crocodiles and alligators but it is also a centre for research into reptiles more generally. There were tortoises and snakes too and even some birds, apparently on the basis that birds share a lot of DNA with crocodiles and have common ancestors in dinosaurs. Slightly unfortunately most seemed comatose when we were there but the trip proved interesting nonetheless. I experienced a surreal urge for some dance music to get the reptiles moving.

One thing that struck me was translation into English of details of the exhibits. The English was generally of a fairly poor standard and had some words that won’t be in any English dictionary. The one that stood out was «conspecifics» which I took to mean something like predators; anyway they were something that the species displayed were in danger of. Also, the translator was apparently unaware that the noun prey is both singular and plural. It’s yet another example of the French apparent arrogance with respect to translations. The translator was presumably qualified in some way but clearly had a fairly poor grasp of English. Why on earth the French don’t get translations checked by a someone who is a native language speaker I’ll never understand. It would be so easy to do that the French attitude seems a form of arrogance. Some years ago I went on a crusade to find bad English transaltions on the Internetn and get them changed. Maybe I’ll try to restart that.

The Tour de France this year passed Mollans at the end of my road so I went to see the cyclists pass. My son-in-law said he would be watching it live and told me to wave as the cyclists passed, which I did, but I don’t think the cameras in the helicopter overhead caught me. Tough. Anyway, I chatted with other villagers watching there and took a photo of the break-away group in the front, for what that is worth. At least, this year, witnessing this was easy: I didn’t have to get in place three hours beforehand because all surrounding roads were blocked off. 

Champion

Enough Said

As appeared in the local newspaper Le Dauphiné, I am now known in the village as «le champion».

Summer.....and How

Summer………. And How

The weather forecasters got it right and the predicted heatwave is upon us. I am still playng boules almost daily in 40+ degrees but can't say I do so with a lot of vigour or enthusiasm. In this sort of weather the time to play boules is about 9.00 at night. The «haute aire» above the Cafe des Sports can be floodlit through a control box we can get at so I'll see if I can drum up some support for boules sessions starting at 9.00.

The pots on the balcony need watering daily but they are giving value for money. The jasmine is doing its nut (see photos) and perfuming the whole area around; it can go on blooming for a couple of months or more so I'm keeping it well watered. 

At the back there is still plenty of colour despite the main roses having finished and the tiger lillies in particular seem to be enjoying the heat. So are the frogs in the river opposite; the noise they make at night is enough to wake the dead. Usually, in the past, they have risen to a crescendo and then all cut out together before starting up again. But they seem to have done away with their orechestra conductor this year and carry on continuously.

Last monday was the feu de la St Jean and it lived up to my expectations this year with mussels and chips and music as wall as the usual bonfire and fireworks. The result was a large turnout of villagers and a good time had by all. Next up is Bastille day on the 12th of July.

I finally managed to get all the documents required for my French citizenship application accepted by the immigration service and was given a date for the next stage, an interview in Grenoble. But it is for October 2021 i'm finding the whole process a bit Kafkaesque.

Ideas

An Ideas Factory?

Looking back on my working life I find that there is a common thread. I worked in various roles in IT and businesses but the common thread seems to be that I was above all paid to think and to think differently (outside the box). That holds true from my days in teaching, through the early fundamentals of computing to drawing up business plans. Thinking originally, differently is what has done it for me, often borrowing ideas from others that related to other contexts. So here are some more thoughts along those lines, of whatever import.

My balcony is an obvious place to have an aperitif or late night drink for much of the year. Up one side I have a honeysuckle growing and over the balcony itself is a jasmine, providing beautiful scent through the spring and summer. Anybody else might have planted the same but the way I came to this is as follows. An American architect, Christopher Alexander, had a significant influence on software development through his ideas on how to use space and to define and connect spaces and I was familiar with his ideas. His prime criterion for how to design within a defined space (my balcony in this instance) is a dependence on how that space is going to be used. I have read that he was given the task of designing a university campus and plotted out the main buildings, halls of residence, lecture theatres, laboratories, etc, but left the canvas otherwise blank (grass actually, between the buildings) and said he would complete that 7-8 months later. When he returned, students had defined paths between the buildings by tramping grass down and also defined areas where they congregated in leaisure hours. He simply endorsed the status quo, creating concrete paths where the students had shown where they were needed and leaving grass areas with tables and benches where students congregated. This was not artistic design but design according to use. Others may well have decided on my balcony plants by another route but this is how I decided on mine.

Friend Steve and I often have discussions of a semi-political nature and recently he said that governments should be care ful not to tax the rich too luch because then they might decide to migrate and they paid the most tax. I said no they didn't and Steve, being a friend, rather than tell me to piss off said something like «well I must have been misinformed«. It was a misunderstanding. Steve was talking about the tax individuals paid and I was talking about the revenue that the Exchequer receives. Leaving aside for the moment tax avoidance and how much tax rich individuals actually pay, the open question is what is the importance to the Exchequer of tax paid by the rich? We're still looking for data on that, to test my off-the-cuff contention that if all the rich buggered off it wouldn't make that much difference to the Exchequer.

I had a follow-up thought. Tax avoidance is obviously a reason many tax specialists/accountants are hired. So what if all such costs above some earnings threshold, say £100,000 for an individual and £1m for a company, were made non tax-deductible? There would obviously be a bun-fest on cost attribution but could that have a useful impact? I don't know but it's a thought. My focus on tax currently is, incidentally, because that is what I believe that Brexit is fundamentally all about; all the rest is theatre to sidetrack the plebs.

A final thought for football fans. Technically gifted players get fouled constantly. In the last season in the UK Hazard and Saha were the most fouled players in the Enhllish Premier League. Some of the fouls are no doubt unintentional but there are fairly obvious attempts to avod red and yellow cards by spreading the fouls out between defenders. Referees already keep count of the number of fouls committed by a player, issuing yellow cards to repeating defenders. So what if they also kept account of he number of fouls commited against one player, with a ruling that, for instance, the fifth foul against one individual automatically incurred a yellow card irrespective of the player who committed that foul? It might be unfair to the player committing the foul but would protect technically gifted players (whom everybody wants to see display their skills) and would send a message that such players can't be taken out of a game by fouling them.

Ah well, just thoughts.

Summer Musings

Summer

Summer is here, even if the weather doesn't seem quite sure about it. We've recently had very hot days and warm but overcast days in almost equal measure. Rain is often threatened but rarely materialises, which means I've spent a lot of time watering. The results are definitely worthwhile, however, with bot front (pictured below) and back looking good. My numerous clematis, mostly blue (fancy that) are in full bloom in both the front and the back, as are the fuchsias and the pelargoniums and, at the back, the campanulas (blue again). Come on Chelsea!

Also, for reasons unknown to me; the honeysuckle this year, of which there six front and back, seem to have found their perfect conditions and have run riot.  The perfume at the front is overwhelming and those at the back have combined with climbing roses to break the pillar and arch over which they climb. That is going to be a major job in the autumn.

Summer doesn't begin officially here until the 24th of the month (don't ask), with the fêu de la St Jean. There follows a whole month of celebrations of various sorts which I find enjoyable and look forward to, as well as the weekly Saturday market throigh to the end of August and the mussels and chips sessions on Thursday evenings. Bring it on.

Musings

I keep wondering what makes plants either perennial or annual in different places. If the winter kills them, obviously they must be regarded as annual but I can't understand what it is about winter that kills some plants and not others. Temperature doesn't seem to explain it entirely and neither does position and I wonder if humidity has a rôle. For instance, marigolds, antirrhinums, larkspur and california poppies all proved to be annual when I grew them in England but are generally perennial here despite winters reaching much colder temperatures. On the other hand, winters are drier here. I shall just have to muse on.

UK politics also occupy much of my musing. I remember a time when political debate was subject to thought. Now lies, fantasies and illusions seem to be the order of the day. As Saul Bellow once remarked «Great intelligence is invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep». The front-runners to replace Theresa May as PM and leader of the Conservative party, the traditional home of prudent economics, all propose a no-deal Brexit to wreck the economy and tax cuts and extravagant spending as a way out. To ensure that the democratic Brexit vote is implemented, it is proposed to suspend democratic parliament. Meanwhile the Labour party, almost certain to win the next general election in spite of itself, unless there is a hung parliament (please God!), is tearing itself apart. My mistake in my musings here is probably to try to apply any sanity to the situation.

There has been one disturbing legal development. A private prosecution of Boris Johnson for deliberately lying to the public when in high public office was thrown out by the High Court. The Court has yet to give its reasons. An initially suggested reason, that it was because the case was politically motivated, surely cannot be true. That would give the green light to all public officials to lie ad nauseam. I shall be interested in the Court's explanation for its judgement.

Raoul Taburin And Garden

Raoul Taburin

Raoul Taburin is a comic strip created by Jacques Sempé, one of my favourite cartoonists, who displays a very dry sense of humour. The comic strip was made into a film last year and and the film was shot in Mollans, a good part of it in my very road and not 100 yards from my house. So of course I went to see it when it was shown in the local cinema in Buis last week.

The story line is typical Sempé, about a Frenchman who suffers the ultimate disgrace for one of his nationality: he can't ride a bike. In the film he is befriended by another man, a photographer who doesn't know how to take photos. In one delightful scene he is being cosied up to by a lady who clearly wants a declaration of love. He becomes coy, says it is very difficult for him to say what he wants to say, says he has never told it to anybody before, and with the lady all encouraging smiles and expectation, finally blurts out that he can't ride a bike. A tragic end to the budding romance!

It's a truly delightful film, and not just because it was shot in Mollans.

The Garden

The Mairie managed to prevaricate its way out of pruning the trees opposite my house (never underestimate the ability to prevaricate in Provence) but I've ploughed ahead with my gardening plans. The back has been looking good for some time although the Banksia rose is more or less over no; but the other roses will kick in soon and a couple of dahlia tubers are sprouting nicely on my kitchen windowsill and will add to the colour later on (photo below)

My take-over of the Mairie's pot in front of the wash-house, with its Banksia rose and clematis, has also worked well this year and is being appreciated particularly by neighbour Mercedes, whose house is opposite, so she tells me (photo below)

And now the front (photo below) is beginning to look good too. I managed to get a new blue pot onto the roof of my porch and I think (hope?) it's stable there, barring any exceptional winds. Visitors to the village and even some villagers are already taking photos so some people at least think it looks good. The shade makes photos difficult but I've done my best.

And In General……..

This is my time of the year. The garden is done, barring casualties, and all that remains there is for the plants to do their stuff (and rather a lot of watering). Asparagus, strawberries and melons are plentiful and reasonably priced in the shops and markets; the asparagus will be finished in another month but the strawberries and melons should remain for most of the summer. Peaches and apricots from Spain (of variable quality) are appearing in the shops which means that the local produce is only a few weeks away. My fruit-aholic cravings will soon be fully met.

The Mad English Gardener

The Mad English Gardener

I've been doing my best to live up to my reputation here. The back garden is essentially done. Friends René and Armelle asked me at the pizza evening yesterday when they could come to see my back garden and I suggested that they wait until the roses are in bloom. I can conceivably get one more clematis in a pot there but there is room only for one or two “fill in” plants at most otherwise. Pictures on this blog will certainly follow then.

Across the road in the front the daffodils and crocus are over but some grape hyacinths are still in flower and the first of the irises is out; Last year the clematis over the wash-house across the road came into flower only when the Banksia rose had finished but this year the clematis, a light lilac in colour, looks to be ahead of the rose. I'm hoping they both come out together. I've also stuck some old nasturtium seeds in the ground around the trees in the hope that they may come up. And I've put some sunflower and morning glory seeds in pots and will find somewhere to put them when they come up.

Nobody has yet come to prune the trees opposite but I'm betting that they will and so bought more petunia surfina and will put up a third hanging basket. I also bought marigolds to go in the pots outside my bedroom window. That's it for the front, barring any casualties. The mad English gardener strikes again!

It was Steve's birthday today and he and Jo invited me to have lunch with them at the Dandelion cafe in Faucon. We sat outside in shirt sleeves gazing up at one of those pale lilac skies we get here and at the snow on the top of Mont Ventoux. Blissful. I got Steve half-a-dozen muscat grape vines, black French grapes and white Italian ones, which je can plant to grow up the fence around their garden. Jo wants some plants climbing up/down the wall on their terrace as I have on mine at the back so I've been building stone “cups” into their terrace wall. It will take a little while to get going, as mine did, but should look good in the end.

Then there is the watering to come………………….

Nationalism

Nationalism

I was born, grew up and, for most of my life, lived happily in England. I regard it as a moderately well run country most of the time, often beautiful, there are many things within it that I love and its people are generally kind; in fact, it's like many other European countries. I can say that it has served me well, and for my part I always tried to act positively while there, but I have never felt any need or desire to claim allegiance to it in any nationalist sense.

If I view Europe, or indeed the world, in terms of human subdivisions, in terms of peoples' language, work habits, aspirations, culture, cherished traditions and so forth rather than in terms of historical wars and fiefdoms, then regions make far more sense to me as subdivisions than do current countries. Countries are just what we're stuck with. Indeed, most European countries as currently constituted have been so only for the last 150 years or so. In that relatively short space of time millions of people have had their nationality changed, sometimes more than once, without any say in the matter. And various sets of genetic testing sessions reported suggest that during that period or very slightly longer we have nearly all become national mongrels.

I therefore regard nationality as essentially arbitrary and of little fundamental importance, a question of having the right piece of paper.

As an aside I find hilarious the millions of ardent American nationalists who are the most mongrel of all.

All this leaves out the question of education. Prior to 1945 and the advent and threat of nuclear weapons, wars were quite frequent events, even if it was just a question of beating up the natives, of whom there were many, often rebellious, in colonial dependencies. There was therefore a need for troops who would be willing to die for country, God, king/queen, whatever, my country right or wrong. Education inculcated that need and fuelled nationalism. Those educated in the 15 or so years after 1945 were fed that propaganda and many still feel that nationalism and have passed it on to their offspring. Leave aside the rights and wrongs of that but how relevant is that to today's world? I venture to suggest that the current nationalist movements in Europe demonstrate how successful that early propagandist education was and how family loyalty, probably, has passed it on. But it is essentially of the past and not of today.

We need to think differently

Spring Is Sprung

Spring Is Sprung

Signs of spring are all around now, in the weather, gardens and shops. When out, as it mostly is, the sun has real warmth in it. Unfortunately the Mistral wind has been unusually frequent since the turn of the year which lowers temperatures significantly unless you are in a sheltered spot. Out of the wind the temperature reaches the low 20s and the evenings continue to get lighter; and we' have an extra hour in the evenings to look forward to at the end of the month. We have had virtually no rain now for over a month, though, so I have already started watering sporadically.

Two weeks ago friends Steve, Jo and I want down to the coast to Carry La Plage, as we had done 10 years previously. It was a very pleasant day and we had a good lunch on the sea front in Carry Le Rouet. Carry La Plage though was a disappointment. Ten years previously the sea front was untouched apart from a a simple promenade skirting the beach and a couple of cafés. Now the very large car park well behind the beach has been extended forward in a concrete and metal maze which entirely spoils the feel of the place. No doubt that has been done to accommodate increasing numbers of summer visitors but it made me think I wouldn't want to go back there.

In the shops we now have the first asparagus, melons and strawberries, a sure sign of good things to follow. These are not yet local and so not yet to be found in the markets; they are from Morocco and Spain. The strawberries look good but don't have nearly as much flavour as the local ones but the asparagus are fine. I've not yet tried the melons but may get tempted if I start thinking about melon and ham as a starter for some meal.

In the front of the house the bulbs I planted last autumn are mostly in flower, giving the view (below) from my front window and of the bench on the opposite side of the road. 

When Steve and Jo call round for a coffee, that is where we sit to drink it if the sun is out. Most of the plants in pots, apart from the few annuals, have survived the winter so there has is little to do there for another month; I've already cleared the winter debris. At the back I've decided to add another climbing rose, Guinée, which has an exquisite perfume, and a couple of patio roses. There isn't much room for anything else other than some ground cover, some of which I've already obtained from friend June in Beaumont. Since my lemon tree, despite being now a large bush and looking rudely healthy, still refuses to produce any lemons I've bought a small one to replace it which already has some lemons (and flowers) on it. Then it is just a question of letting time do its work.

There is a booklet on the history of the village that I translated some years ago so that the text was in both French and English. It sold quite quickly but there was little incentive to reprint it as the print costs were more or less the same as the price at which it was felt it could be sold. Since I had a copy in electronic form I've put it on DVD (DVDs cost about 1 euro and nothing to reproduce) and proposed to the Mairie that, since there is plenty of space on the DVD, the content be supplemented with more photos of the village and surroundings, the content of my website on the village and anything else that the village council thinks appropriate. We'd then have a DVD that could sell for probably around 10 euros for a cost of just 1 and a souvenir that summer visitors could take back with them. There seems to be some interest in the idea so I will just have to wait and see if it catches on.

The EU Has To Be Destroyed

The EU Has To Be Destroyed

This, I conclude, is most probably the goal of the main force behind Brexit: the money; the money from the UK, Russia and America that paid (fraudulently) for the campaigns in favour of Brexit. That is not speculation, we know that those countries were the source of the expenditure and that the expenditure was a so-far unprosecuted fraud.. That is established fact. So who was behind the money?

What do we know about the sources of the money? Not a lot; some of the individuals (e.g. Arron Banks) and some of the companies (e.g. Wetherspoons, Dyson) and where some of the money went (e.g. Cambridge Analytica) but it's an incomplete picture. However, what we do know leads me to hazard a conspiracy theory. The base premise is that the mega-rich, people or organisations worth a billion or more (i.e. that excludes all simply rich people), have formed some kind of collective alliance Previously they haven't been very active politically, certainly not visibly as a collective. They haven't needed to be because there has been sufficient mobility of assets, residency, etc, to suit their purposes. But that situation is changing. The EU, the richest single market in the world, very attractive for investments from the mega-rich, is imposing obstacles to even greater riches for them.

What they all want is to make more money (quite reasonably) and to keep more of the money they make (not so reasonably, to avoid taxation). Hence their ideal scenario is one in which labour is cheap and unprotected (low wages, little or no redundancy, pension and holiday entitlement) and taxation is low. That is all very reasonable from their point of view but the diametric opposite of what the workforce wants. The EU has protected the rights of the workforce and promises even more legislation to do so; it has also introduced legislation to prevent tax avoidance and will quite possible tighten that, depending on how effective the initial legislation is. So the EU, as a block, is an impediment to the mega-rich. Less tightly coupled, many of the individual countries will still be rich markets to invest in but won't have the binding worker protection and tax avoidance rules. So the EU as a block has to be destroyed.

Purely as an aside, this of course did not appear in the Leave campaign manifesto nor was it the reason that many poor people voted for it.

Home Jobs And Politics

Jobs

There is not a lot to say right now but I feel that a new posting is due. Weather-wise, spring is struggling to get the better of winter and has been succeeding during the day with temperatures in the low 20s from midday through to late afternoon, although the evenings are still very cold. I've tried once again to capture on photo the blue of the sky in mid-afternoon, a deep violet without a cloud n the sky. It's a blue I have never seen in the sky anywhere else. The result is below.

Because of the weather I'm once again playing boules regularly but also beginning a mental list of the jobs around the house that need doing. In the garden I've cut down the clematises (is that the plural of clematis?) but not done much else. I think I may have won my battle with the Mairie to get the lime trees in front of my house pruned, if only because on my last visit to the MairieI said that some of the lower branches of one of the trees could hit a truck if a large one happened to come by (they rarely do). Anyway, hiring some contractor to do the work is apparently on the agenda. There's a lot of preparatory work to be done for the spring but it is still slightly early to do most of it other than clearing winter debris. In the autumn I planted another 50-60 bulbs in various places out front and they are coming through but have yet to bloom. If the trees get pruned I'll pobably add another hanging basket in the front.

In the house there is essentially little that has to be done, other than a little clearing up and freshening things up, but both my son and my daughter and family have sad they want to come, as have some friends. I'm not house-proud (far from it some might say), but there are several small jobs that would no doubt add to the pleasure of any visitors. I'll get at least some of them done.

Nothing much else is on the agenda until May, when I shall go with the village team to the regional boules championships on the coast in the Var. Then follows the merry-go-round of village festivities in June and July, the pizza and moules-frites evenings in front of the Bar du Pont, etc. It's a lot to look forward to.

Brexit And Politics

As ever, I'm still puzzling over Brexit and politics in the UK. If and when I get French nationality this will all be academic to me but I think that I will never entirely lose my UK roots. It seems to me that when the Leave campaign made an appeal to nationalism half of the UK population mislaid its brains. I had never realised how powerful that appeal could still be. I've always cheered on the England football team, if only half-heartedly at times, and wanted it to whop the foreigners, but that is as far as it went. I had thought that with so many Brits taking holidays abroad they must have appreciated some things in other cultures. As one commenter put it years ago, the Brits had been Romans but had become Italians. In fact, it seems, they simply took Rome (Britain) with them and transferred it temporarily to sunnier climes. I can understand why those seriously deprived, a large number in Britain today, might find the idea of radical change appealing, and why the message of hope would be powerful. What I still fail to comprehend is the lack of forethought and intelligence and the apparent complacency and fatalism when the dream sold to Leavers has become so obviously a lie. If I had been one of them I think I would not still be clinging to the impossible dream but howling for the blood of those liars, cheats and fraudsters who had sold me it

The crux of the political problem in the UK seems to me that around half of the population is essentially unrepresented. For the moment, the Conservative party is irrevocably split and I can't see anything that would genuinely unite it. A similar split is becoming ever more apparent in the Labour party. The Conservative party seems determined to deliver Brexit, no matter how. The Labour party seems determined to force a general election which it's leader thinks he will win, although current polls and events throw considerable doubt on this. If there is to be an early general election, I would hope for a hung Parliament, which would marginalise extremes in both parties. Anything Parliament could then do would probably be not much but would rely on consensus, which is nowhere around at the moment when dogmas hold sway. In short, Britain’s future is at stake but neither of the main political parties seems interested in that, only in their own internal squabbles.

The breakaway of Labour MPs was perhaps inevitable at some point. They can have no hope of power and have put their country before their party, among the first politicians to do so. If they form a party it will have a short life, as all breakaway parties do, just waiting for the main parties to come to their senses. While there is little prospect of that happening the breakaway MPs may yet serve a useful purpose for the country.

What I find most dispiriting is that blatant lies, fraud and dubious ,at best, arrangements (agreements, honours, contracts) based openly on bribes and financial self-interests go virtually unchallenged and seem to be accepted as the norm. I cannot accept that and, were I still in the UK, would be tearing my hair out and howling, if no one would listen than at the moon. A great deal has inevitably changed during my lifetime but I have never known a time before when lies so consistently were not exposed, when fraud was not penalised and when cheating was assumed to be the norm. Why does an apparently large proportion of the British population now apparently accept this and not fight against it? That is what I cannot understand.

Food For Thought

Food For Thought

I'm becoming more and more conscious of how weather affects diet. In the past that must necessarily have been the case since you could only eat what was available at the time. Now, with ubiquitous supermarkets, fridges and freezers, you can eat most things within your budget at any time of the year. But…….what do you feel like eating?

I find, much more so here than when i was in the UK, that what I want to eat/drink depends a lot on the weather. Most of the year I'm happy with a typical French breakfast: next to nothing plus coffee. But the weather has been cold for the past 2-3 weeks, sunny but cold, and so I have been indulging in plates of porridge and bacon sandwiches for breakfast. They set me up to face the cold outside. Also, when I'm entertaining friends to eat in the evening, I cook stews, casseroles, pies, curries and the like; and the wine to go with the meal has to be red.

In the warm weather, despite the fact that my body probably needs similar sustenance, I'd never dream of cooking a stew. I might cook meat, even a curry possibly, but the meat would probably be chicken and fish and salads would be on my mind. Rosé and white wine also; I almost never drink rosé wine in the winter, despite this region having some of the best rosé wine in the world. That's unremarkable except in that the preference is dictated by the weather. The food in supermarkets here is more seasonal than in the UK but I can still have more or less anything that I want; but I find my choices are very much influenced by the weather, which was rarely the case when I was in the UK.

The Wrinklies' Lunch

Still on food, «crumblies» might be a better translation for the French slang «croulants» to describe those of us of mature years. This year, as every year, the village offers everyone over 60 years of age a free lunch, served by members of the village council and the mayor. The reason given for this generosity is to thank the wrinklies for past services to the village. For the record, the menu this year was as follows.

Apéritif

Feuiilleté forestier sur lit de salade verte

Cassolette de la mer

Sauté de canard aux agrumes

Petite épautre des Baronnies et légumes de saison

Fromages

Tiramisu au café

Café, thé

Vins: Côtes du Rgone rouge et blanc, clairette de Die

The meal was great and so was the company. Having got through that lot I managed (just) to get home without going down on all fours and crawling. I think this is just one more brilliant thing about this village ;

A Thought On Brexit

If you are old enough to remember the early years of TV you may remember a frequent message on a screen showing extreme interference («snow»): Do not switch off your set, there is a temporary fault in transmission. I remember seeing somewhere a variation on that: Do not switch off your mind, there s a temporary fault in reality. Apt or what?

Brexit Summary

Brexit Summary

Given what I have been saying on Brexit I can't let the latest development, the defeat of May's Brexit deal, go uncommented. The defeat of Corbyn's no confidence in May vote was not a development, simply a miscalculation by a dogmatically inclined politician and, unfortunately, leader of the Opposition, who seems not to, or refuses to, accept anything outside his dogma.

According to the latest You Gov survey around 12% more people in the UK want Brexit to be cancelled than for it to go ahead. I'm shocked. Well, at least that disposes of the «will of the people» argument. If the will of the people is to be done now Brexit will be cancelled. What I can't get my head round is the 44% who apparently still want it to go ahead. Why?

I've disposed of the «will of the people» argument so let's address the democratic issue. If anyone claims the referendum result was a democratic vote they are right. However, if they claim that therefore it must be enacted they are wrong. Constitutionally a referendum in Britain can only ever be advisory, whatever any politician says (and who on earth believes that politicians should always be taken at their word?). Both the Act of parliament that allowed a referendum (necessary, as a referendum is no part of the UK's democratic process, please note) and the Act that defined it both clearly stated that the result could only ever be advisory. So why do some people still insist that the result has to enacted? Quite simply, that is not true.

So much for those theoretical arguments. What of the practicalities? I can see only four possibilities going forward. The first is that May's deal second time around is accepted but, given the huge majority against it first time around, that has little credence.

Another is that a «no deal» Brexit happens. I think it could do, but only by accident. A significant majority of MPs have said that they will not let it happen because of the disastrous financial consequences (an economic recession of up to two decades estimated by one of its supporters, Rees-Mogg). Put it this way, if the Leave campaign had proposed an economic recession of up to two decades, higher food prices, fewer jobs and less money for the NHS, who would have voted for it? More pertinently for the Government, who would at a subsequent general election? The will of the people? An undeliverable impossible dream was needed.

A third is a second referendum but, realistically, that would in May's probably more or less accurate estimation (two more Acts of Parliament and considerable discussion and organisation needed) take a year to organise. It looks impractical.

The fourth possibility is to delay or cancel Brexit. The EU is probably thoroughly fed up with the UK by now and its reaction to a proposed extension is unlikely to be positive and, if granted, would probably include onerous conditions. Cancelling Brexit would have no negative implications, apart from the considerable costs already incurred for no reason.

So the obvious conclusion as I see it is that Brexit should be cancelled. But………….44% of the population apparently still does not see it that way. So which of the alternatives above do they want? There is an understandable reaction, I think, which ignores my first two points above and says: we are now fed up with the whole mess, just get on with it. However, that just gets back to my second set of points; which of the possibilities do you want?

There is another counter argument. If we are not going to deliver the result of the referendum, why did we have one? The answer to that is clear and generally accepted. We had one because the Conservative Party was split before the general election before last and David Cameron, not confident of winning the election and afraid of the UKIP influence, chose it as a way of trying to avoid a split in the conservative party. That failed; the Conservative party is still split. There was discontent with the EU in the UK, as in all EU countries, but no public clamour for a Brexit. The referendum came about not through any debate on the UK's future but because of a spat in the Conservative party. It' really should be only as important as that but has got out of hand. Again, impossible undeliverable dreams needed.

For myself I can explain the 44% in only one of three ways. Some part of that percentage must be the neo- fascist racist boneheads who support such organisations as the EDL and BNP. Another part I can only explain as people who have bought the impossible dream sold to them: return to the days of Empire (reconquer India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Hong Kong, etc). Do these people ever reason, think of practicalities? A final part, I suspect, are fed up with the whole process and just want done with the mess. These, in my view, are the most dangerous because, in throwing up their hand in despair they despair of their own important part in the democratic process; indeed of democracy itself.

So, if Brexit is cancelled, which is still just a possibility; what do we have? Certainly not Nirvana. We return to a situation, at significant cost, in which a large and important minority of people are discontented with the EU of which we are still a part. The good point there, I think, is that we share that situation with many other EU countries and that is the best indicator that the EU will be subject to the necessary reforms, for the benefit of all concerned. Somewhat paradoxically, a Conservative Thatcher handbagging will be needed.