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.