It strikes me that I am not alone in feeling mute this morning.
We are, as a country, waiting for our prime minister to declare she has made an agreement that almost everyone (her included, I suspect) knows is dire for the country and, come to that, its partners, but which she can see no way round.
I feel as though we are waiting for what seems like an inevitable death sentence to be passed and we are all already praying fervently to whomsoever we might believe in for at least a stay of execution; a successful plea in mitigation on sentence, or better still, a retrial.
But we have no clue what might happen. And execution might still be possible, in the form proposed, or something still more grizzly.
It may not be a great metaphor. But it's what it feels like
It feels as a result like the day to take the dog for a long walk with a pair of binoculars hung round my neck. There has to be a better world than that of politics out there, surely? .
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Buy me a coffee!
My advice? Go for the walk or dip into your extensive collection of railway books. Or both.
Why?
Because:
1) This should not be happening at all. The conduct of the referendum was riven by corrupt and dishonest practice well below anything we were led to expect from our democracy. It was an invalid process delivering an invalid result. It showed us more than at anytime before or since that our politics is now a playground for idle money in the hands of those who want a country fit for them and their myopic vision – not us.
2) We have only just begun to recover from the 2008 crash and that recovery has been undermined since 2010 by a stupid but ideologically driven government with a method in its madness. But to allow a referendum on a subject that potentially adds economic pressure to a country still in recovery………….!!?
The referendum should never have happened at this time. Maybe in another 10 years or so, but to walk away from a successful trade treaty whilst still in the choppy waters of a post crash world is just so, so stupid. It’s economic suicide.
I could go on but I’ve got some rather nice railway books to look at too plus I’ve just seen a new one about the Stanier 8F’s that has caught my eye. The issue is, how do I make room for it on the bookshelf?
Hmmm……………! You see – my mind has already been taken off crass stupidity of BREXIT to consider more pleasurable problems.
Slates to Velinheli is waiting to be read
On the railways in Dinworic slate quarry
It’s a niche interest
‘Niche’ or ‘nice’ – makes no difference to me – it is an eminently more enjoyable pastime as the country takes ‘the deep breath before the plunge’ as Gandalf says to Peregrine Took before the siege of Minas Tirith.
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=minas+tirith+the+deep+breath+before+the+plunge+to&view=detail&mid=4E42A5AD57609AE10D8A4E42A5AD57609AE10D8A&FORM=VIRE
Right as usual PSR; I wish you weren’t though.
Dear Mr Murphy
I woke up early this morning feeling exactly the same way. Before I’d even read your latest post this brexit non-sense all reminded me of Anne Boleyn’s sis, Mary. I’d recently seen the telly dramatisation of her life (Mary’s not Anne’s) called the ‘Other Boleyn Girl’ and promptly bought the book in a charity shop. Mary was the sweet, demure one who had a fling with the king before her feisty floozy of a sis, Anne, married him.
Mary goes to beg with Henry 8th not to execute her sis and he agrees… kind of. But the scaffold goes up and poor Mary is as confused as hell. As she trusts the king, she attends Anne’s execution not knowing if she’s coming or going convinced there is to be a last minute, then last second, then last nano second stay of execution. But Anne gets the chop, quite literally, and the rest as they say is history.
I know just how poor Mary must have felt, convinced to the very end that common sense and plain humanity must prevail. It didn’t. I suspect something similar with brexit.
I don’t have a dog to walk so I’ll settle for some gardening instead and some tweeks I need to do to the composter bin I’ve turned into a Dalek called Zygolex.
Good luck
I may do a bit of that too
I’m waiting for my Lab to buy me a pair of binoculars! He has learned to run off with my socks so far. I still favour him over our politicians re running Brexit. Maxwell (I wanted Faraday but was over-ruled by the masses) puts on the same show everyday. This always enjoyable. Brexit never is. With May appealing over the heads of everyone else directly to the masses with her letter we have reached the “Nero turn”. Go long on fiddles and matches.
In 1745 an army of mostly unarmed Scots over-ran a Government one that might have been led by a classic Hindmost English general who arrived to be killed after the battle. The infamous Highland Charge might be enough to dislodge Brexit given its generalship. I envisage a massed-throng of dog walkers surrounding Parliament. There is no sensible language left.
The dog has had his 6 mile walk. He chased a muntjak deer and we stopped at our usual places for his breakfast and my coffee. Wonderfully cathartic as usual. At home and I shall dip into London Under by Peter Ackroyd. I’ve read it before but having had a long weekend in London I’m fired up to learn more about the finest city in the world. I studied there and it’s always changing, changing and surviving. We will change too and we will survive – well some of us have less time than others. It’s going to be different but the EU is in choppy waters too. Cheer up, it’s not the end of the world but it will be if we don’t address the one really big issue which makes Brexit look like a picnic.
There is much to be pessimistic about. What is really galling is that the so called leaders of the so called left/progressive movement are sitting on the sidelines giving the forces of darkness a free ride.
While the talking heads go on ad infinitum, the moneyed elite continue to rob the nations finances and ignore that our most vulnerable citizens are being systematically stripped of vital services and their paltry benefits. Shame on them. At least in Scotland, we have a way out; if only we can take the opportunity.
Illegitimi non carborundum!
This episode in the nation’s history will not go down as one of our greater moments. But then the human race has always expended more energy compensating for its mistakes than it ever has in building sustainable futures. For our very survival it’s essential the relentless search for, and application of, wisdom continues. In so doing we must constantly remind ourselves that it’s better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. And drink good, strong, organic Fairtrade coffee!
Enjoy your walk. I hope it’s as sunny in the east as it is here on the south coast. Steam trains, books and dogs make an excellent regenerative cocktail.
Sadly the British may have to pay an arduous price for the torpidity and stupidity of a significant number of their fellow citizens who fail to take a detailed interest in economic and monetary matters let alone their nature as human beings. There are no free lunches in life and many British people will now have to learn this lesson. You can’t buck reality!
As for the next 2 weeks I’m trapped in my house with a swollen right knee (the colour scheme on and around it has to be seen to be believed!) and a set of exercises devised by a sadist (which I, as a convinced and lifelong masochist am doing religiously – I do want to climb Cader Idris eventually!), there’s not much more to add – this country has signed its own death warrant, and May has a blunt sword at the best of times…
Good luck
It will get better!
It will – I am certain, even though climbing our stairs tires me more than an ascent of Kilimanjaro (and yes, I have! during my three year period in Kenya, forty-odd years ago…)
An Italian pharmacist who works in the hospital jokingly told me that he’d asked my surgeon for my old patella to sell on the internet – the surgeon told him it wouldn’t fetch anything, even among the biblical lame, because I should have gone to them twenty years ago for the full replacement, and he (the surgeon) wondered how I’d managed to compensate for the lack of structure around the back of the knee for so long – ‘if that had been a chicken leg,’ he told Fabio, ‘even KFC would have slung it out as too gristly.’
I’ve been a fool to continue against the pain, but the left knee will receive more sympathetic treatment…
I have been warned that I have a badly worn left hip – found on an X Ray for something else
So far it gives me no grief
Oddly my right hip is apparently fine -the suggestion is I have lugg3d lap tops on my left shoulder for thirty years
When the time comes I may not suffer in silence
Go well
Richard
Jennifer (aka Jeni, Havantaclu) Parsons says:
” exercises [..] which I, [..] am doing religiously….”
I hope you are being truly devout……. not just doing them on Sunday 🙂
Cader awaits 🙂
To die, to sleep – or to walk the dog, perchance to think – ay, there’s the rub, for in that walk of dog what thoughts may come when we have shuffled off from this Brexit mess?
On said dog walk I met a couple of neighbours and their dog. They had voted Leave (don’t know about the dog – oh, it wasn’t yet born, so the future [what future] belongs to him) and fell out with their daughter. I said our dog may need a visa next year when we go abroad. The Leave lady said, “what a mess”. I thought, “well, you voted for this!”
In youth I thought something like democratic communism would work. The snag to all organisation structures is what is done by leaders abusing legitimate authority. So you look to design-in countervailing scrutiny. Accounting is one of these institutions, along with government, education, law, independent research and a free press. None have flourished in terms of freedom. I see plenty of books lauding classical times with bare mention these were slave economies and failures in modern terms and constitutional reform. It will be good if Brexit dies because MPs and Lords shoot it down. Even this will be done in a manner that conceals the whole thing as a long, shabby failure that has destroyed what shreds of credibility political argument had. May’s playbook is clearly from the most ignoble sources and our media can’t say so.
I have been looking out for industry and business to speak out. This looks financial services are but maybe it’s a little late.
https://www.ft.com/content/59a58e3e-ecc6-11e8-8180-9cf212677a57
There’s a strong summation of of the Brexit debacle and Scotland’s position in it at;
https://weegingerdug.wordpress.com/2018/11/25/a-scottish-reply-to-theresas-letter/
Excellent
Just tweeted
Well, I’m reading this post-sentence day, and my dog must be feeling the stress. He’s lying in front of the fire with an unchewed chew-stick in his mouth, looking stunned, like Churchill thinking of the next battle.
Next stop is Parliament.
Ken Clark, already toning down his attack mode, will support the agreement, so I suppose most Tories will fall in line, as usual.
Feels like another lull before yet another battle. Endless.
Irises need splitting, that’ll get some anger out.
Well, there is another concurrent sentence we are still suffering under the existing Government and also New Labour (this started in the early 2000’s):
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/nov/25/mc-donnell-calls-for-check-on-council-loans-that-will-waste-16bn
“The sentence of the court M’lud is Debt. Where you will be taken to a place of consolidation and budget cutting and strung out and hung by your creditors until your are ineffective”.
What a way to run a country. Blind to the potential of MMT, still sipping from the Neo-lib cup. We can only spend money if the private sector benefits not only from the projects but gets a nice little (?!) income stream too.
My response? Bollocks.
God – if only for some imagination.
Paul Mason is on song again though:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/26/liberals-politics-emotion-right-wing-populists
We need to commute the sentence. Not only that imposed by the Tories but also the uncourageous in Labour.
Just read Paul Mason’s article in the Guardian, from your Link. Thanks you.
Gosh! for a minute there, I was visualising myself in the polling booth, having to put a tick in either Le Pen or Mélenchon’s box.
So of course, as the box couldn’t stay blank (grandmother’s ghost appeared, waving finger) I had to tick Méluche!
Me, a feminist, voting for a bullying, patronising mysogynist in order to stop a female neo-fascist!
Dear me! Palpitations ensued and I couldn’t breathe!
Back to my irises I think…
(38) For the issue of revocability of the Notice to become live, Parliament must first have directed the Government, against the Government’s settled policy and against the popular answer provided by the Referendum, unilaterally to revoke the notice.
Second, either an EU Member state or the EU Parliament must then object to the United Kingdom’s attempt to unilaterally revoke.
Third, all attempts at finding a consensus for revocation must fail, so that the effects of revoking the Notice becomes a live issue.
If that stage were reached, any such live issue and dispute would be at the inter-state or EU institutional level.
At that time it would fall to be adjudicated by the CJEU in a direct action.
This appeared a couple of hours ago on Jo Maugham’s twitter.
Significant?
Appeared in the text of the Government’s failed application to appeal to the Supreme Court.
Published under pressure. The Govt formally recognises MPs can simply direct it to revoke the Article 50 notice.
(38) For the issue of revocability of the Notice to become live, Parliament must first have directed the Government, against the Government’s settled policy and against the popular answer provided by the Referendum, unilaterally to revoke the notice.
Second, either an EU Member state or the EU Parliament must then object to the United Kingdom’s attempt to unilaterally revoke.
Third, all attempts at finding a consensus for revocation must fail, so that the effects of revoking the Notice becomes a live issue.
If that stage were reached, any such live issue and dispute would be at the inter-state or EU institutional level.
At that time it would fall to be adjudicated by the CJEU in a direct action.