Rewriting History

 

Rewriting History

The weather is inclement so not much boules playing or gardening and too much TV watching. I’m already to go on the allotment but need to wait another week or so. IMarch is the starting point for me. So here’s another blog post.

The TV watching hasn’t been entirely without point though. I was aware that archaeology h had gone high-tec, no longer just scrapers and paint brushes, but not up to date on recent findings, some of which I find greatly pleasing. I have always been much more interested in social history, books like Mayhew’s London, Akenfield and Montbaillou, than the kings and wars I was taught about at school; and some recent findins have reinforced that. In particular some findings about the so-called Dark Ages in Britain after the Romans all left, a period of presumed misery about which there is precious little documented evidence. Now, it seems, we understand it wasn’t like that at all.

I was taught that after the Romans all left (which they didn’t, only the army left, or most of it) Germanic Anglo-Saxon hordes invaded the country, laying waste to the land and driving the Britons, mostly Celts, into Wales, Cornwall and Scotland. Good kings and wars stuff that. With the new archaeological evidence, the picture doesn’t look like that at all. It looks rather more as follows.

There were probably already some Anglo-Saxons in England at the time anyway, through trade. But the Romans left a bit of a vacuum so a few boatloads arrived on a beach somewhere (sound familiar?). The local lord of the manor thought “great, I can use more manpower to farm more of my land”. The locals thought “great, more choice of whom to couple up with” and they all got coupling and farming together. Word got back to the continent that England was a good place to be (lots of pretty girls there) and boatloads more came over. DNA proves that at least the coupling happened. Of hundreds of skeletons unearthed from the period only a tiny minority show signs of violence; so no bloody invasion, perhaps a few spats (“too many foreigners here” – sound familiar?) Other technologies indicate extensive building and farming and that England was thriving at the time. The Celts in Cornwall, almost certainly not all Celts, far from beaten and cowering in rocky enclaves were doing a roaring trade with countries across the seas and building large settlements. Of course this may not be exactly as it happened but it is a more likely version than the one I was taught at school.

All this gives me the same feeling of elation that I felt when I came across chaos theory in the 1990s, which destroyed all those neat little equations I had been taught in physics. I do love it when everyone has to think again. It may be obtuse of me but it does brighten up a gloomy day.

Civilisation At A Crossroads?

 

Civilisation At A Crossroads?

This is one of my occasional “thoughts from my balcony with a Calvados to hand” pieces except that it is too cold outside to sit on the balcony. But there is still the Calvados.

I think the next few years may be a turning point in human civilisation. It’s easy to overlook how recent higher levels of education for the masses have been. In the UK it didn’t start until the 1944 Education Act and didn’t have much effect until the 1960s. I think t was pretty much the same in most other advanced European nations. I do remember from my school history lessons that collectivism, as against mob rule, didn’t start in the UK until the mid 19^th century, with the Tolpuddle martyrs, only gradually gathering force decades later. France did start it earlier, at the end of the 18^th century but remembered it only intermittently afterwards. Before that there were the rich and powerful on the one hand and the servants. Dictators and would-be ones always militate against collectivism unless they can organise it in their support. Is that where the world is going now?

What could prevent it? I think the answers les lie in George Orwell and education. Every body now should read George Orwell but they don’t and won’t. I believe, but don’t have the figures to prove, that Europe is probably the continent with the highest average level of education er inhabitant. If this is so then Europe is the only continental bastion against the move to a return to servitude and serfdom for most of the population. A collectivism of European nations is required.

The odds are quite heavily stacked against it. The rich and powerful, people or nations, control most of the media and therefore most of the means of persuasion, used to further their own interests against the interests of the general population. Forget whatever you were taught about civilised principles such as honesty, decency, thoughtfulness for others and abhorrence of corruption, this is a naked battle for power. The gloves are off. Russia is actively trying to create discord in Europe.

So can Europe (alone?) with stand the forces against it? The next few years will provide the answer and decide whether the world recedes into a quasi mediaeval state, with its wars, famine and plagues, or whether civilisation as we have come to know it continues, in Europe at least.

Footnote

Blaming the attacker for the attack is a ploy well known in feminist circles: she asked for it. Lies are a standard ploy of the extreme right, known as a useful tactic by such as Hitler, Mussolini and Johnson and now Putin and Trump. Misinformation is a standard tactic in war, made more likely when nations fail to unite. Education and collectivism are the only defence.

February And Trump: A Deadly Combination

 

Dead February

I feel I should write something this month but February is something of a dead month for me, Why? Because even in January there are vestiges of the end/ beginning of year celebrations and there can be some good weather. In February the weather is debatable and so far it has been damp and gloomy. I am longing for March. In March the weather improves, I can play boules more often, I can start serious work on my allotment and the bulbs I always plant out front are blooming; it is spring, which always gives me a psychological lift.

The one good memory of February I can recollect was in England when my children were young. We went to a local park and came back with some frog spawn in a jar which I put in an old saucepan in the garden. The following year we had 4-5 pairs of mating frogs. In the year after February was extremely wet and the clay in the garden soil resulted in pools of water everywhere, all filled with frog sporn. So we took two buckets full of frog spawn back to the park. Repayment with very generous interest.

I can feel my fingers twtching and wanting to garden but know it is too early, even for planting seeds which I shall shortly do. I’ll start them in my living room and then transfer them on to the balcony. But even that needs to wait a couple of weeks. The one thing I have been able to do is buy seed potatoes, which are starting to sprout in my junk room. When March arrives I can get going and, by the end of May all will have been sown and planted both around the house and in the allotment. Until then I find myself in limbo, with jst a sigle daffodil in the front to console me.

On the cooking front I’ve been searching for some Chinese curry paste and finally found some on Amazon. When passing through Paris in days long past I often ate at a restaurant called La Pagoda at the foot of the boulevard St Michel. They did an excellent chicken curry and I’ve often thought about tryingto replicate it at home. Now is my chance. Unlike in Indian curries the vegetables need to be fairly crisp. I shall try it on some French friends who can’t tolerate much chilli. The last time friends came to eat I made a rougail de saucisses which went down very well. There’s someone in the village who makes that and offers it as a take-away meal and I find that rather insipid and dislike chewing on the casing of the Montbeliard sausages that every recipe seems to include. Trying to get the casing off these sausages when cooked is a thankless task. Instead I used Morteau sausages, took off the casing when they were cooked and added lots of ginger and cumin and also some sage and turmeric and topped it all off with fresh coriander. Two of my friends asked for the recipe so it obviously worked.

Heil Trump?

Trump swinging his demolition ball seems to be causing consternation all around, even in his own party. Using it against multinational agencies is certainly very destructive, particularly for those around the world providing aid to those who need it. It is not clear to me whether he is using it as a negotiating tool or whether he is simply being destructive and I don’t suppose he cares either way. It obviously feeds his ego.

By siding with Putin and the Israeli IDF Trump clearly shows that he believes militarily stronger nations have the right to take territory from militarily weaker ones. Military and economic power bestow the right would seem to be the new rules of the game. That has very wide implications, for Taiwan for instance. The implications are stark for Europe too; and for US bases around the world. If the USA is to take no part in the defence of other countries, other countries have no need of them. There are important implications for NATO too. Maybe NATO needs an Asian alliance, with or without the USA. If smaller countries are to bt the mercy of larger ones their only effective defence has to be very wide ranging alliances. The USA need have no fear of Russia but what about a Russia, China, North Korea alliance? There is little honour among dictators.

Limiting Trump’s destruction will require coordinated effort by other countries and the strength of the US courts will be tested if he is not to weaken democratic processes in the USA for which he clearly has little regard. It’s a big ask.