A blank page. White. Snow? Snow in May? Hay, hay, hay..
I trudge through the emptiness, the whiteness, the ice. Ice! Ha ha! The only water or concentrated fruit juice is in the title.
Trudge. Snow. Ice. Not a Frost-Giant’s daughter in sight. Just my luck. Or is it? I’m not a Cimmerian. Good chance I’d be Frost-Giant steak.
Then I see it. A block. Not a writer’s block or a mitre block, just a block. Like me..
In this Godforsaken world, there’s just the two of us.
Getting organised back here in Blighty has been hampered by the wholly admirable tendency of authorities to doubt my claims to be me. They have had plenty of practice dealing with incomers of all shades and I applaud their even-handedness. Of course it would have been easier if I had kept a record of all my British identifiers – like my NHS number and the first name of my doctor almost 20 years ago – but I didn’t.
Back in the land of the Vikings, the bureaucratic logic is easier to follow. Every resident is given a ‘health card’ displaying a number. (No difference there then, unless the GB resident doesn’t register with a doctor.) This number is then used for all official registrations and services: tax, utilities, banks, insurance, local gubmint. There are supporting security systems too to avoid identity theft.
I never felt my official ID threatened my independence or limited my freedom as a citizen but it avoided the circuitous routes one has to follow here to be recognised. Generally speaking it’s in my own interest to sign up for things without complications.
But the two societies are different! Over there it is uncommon to see a post box without the occupant’s name. How very un-British that is!
Well, this wasn’t supposed to happen. The Tories have been in power since 2010. The hapless/hopeless/charmless/unloved/useless Toxic Tess’s government has a 29pc approval rating. Saint Jeremy of Islington walks on the Thames every day on his way to Parliament. The enthusiasm of young voters will make historical gains inevitable. Wandsworth, Westminster and Barnett will go Labour causing a Tory collapse in all parts of London, blah, blah, bloody blah. So far, neither party has done especially well but the Tories have held their own. That Labour are so desperate to spin an underwhelming performance as a great success makes one wonder if Saint Jeremy is even more useless and Toxic Tess.
I have long advocated an electoral system that requires a minimum level of qualification. The great and the good have always countered that such a system would be undemocratic and even raising the subject bordered on fascism. So it is with a sense of sweet irony that I read this article in the Guardian, written by none other than a black lady from Zambia, (formerly Northern Rhodesia) in which she extols the benefits of a qualified vote. Has she really forgotten what Rhodesia was all about? Anybody from any race was able to vote, provided they met certain qualifications. Whether those qualifications were too rigorous is a moot point, but the principle remains. And that, hopefully, is the thin end of a wedge which for one will certainly welcome.
When I was in California I noticed a profound change from just half a year earlier. Continue reading “Drift”
Ratha Yatra, Brisbane style
When I saw the headline in the local paper, I thought we must have done something rather well if we’d achieved such an exalted status. But no, nothing to do with us. Just an annual event that’s been running for about 5,000 years or so. And even for the past 5 years in Brissie, I find.
It’s a celebration within Hinduism which has caught on in many cities around the world, possibly because of the Beatles’ early fascination with Krishna, and a jolly good thing it has, in my ‘umble opinion. You can look it up in Wiki, or on this local site.
Unlike many other religions, which are so often associated the screaming of dire imprecations and much frothing at the mouth, Hinduism likes to look on the sunny side of the street, so notice that everyone is smiling broadly, and entering into the spirit of the thing. Which seems magically to make pulling a four-ton chariot a pleasant task. Good on ’em! Here’s the article in the Brisbane Times which caught my eye.
Boadicea is in Japan for a while, but she’ll be back soon. I hope.
One of the things that will remain with me when I leave Vikingland for pastures old and loved is the memory of compulsory outdoor lunches and preprandial drinks sessions dictated by the first marginally optimistic weather forecasts of Spring. ”16 grad. Dejligt. Det er så hyggeligt!”’ They’ll happen throughout the country next week – after I leave. Perhaps, in some cases, because I have left! The participants will be pale, cold and prevented by tradition from escaping inside to a warm fire.
Ever since the world’s media started to report hygge a few years ago, the natives here have allowed their inbred hygge to acquire disproportionate importance in their lives. And now they want UNESCO to recognise it as an ‘intangible’ treasure alongside the Mediterranean Diet and Turkish Coffee.
Back home I shall retaliate post haste with Afternoon Tea and the Village Cricket Match experience. Now that’s what I call hygge.
The problem with planning a trip nearly five months in advance is that you can never know what last-minute hiccoughs will arise. Travelling from Dorchester South to London Waterloo is generally speaking straightforward. I drag myself out of bed, clamber awkwardly through Dorset’s county town and board a direct train. Track work and industrial action made this impossible on the one day I had to travel to London.This necessitated drastic action; namely, National Express. Continue reading “California Dreaming (Via Sweden)”
The Danes have a reputation for putting up iconic buildings. But around the coasts there are countless ugly silios in grey, decaying concrete. Just 15 miles from here they have just tried to get rid of one with unexpected and costly results.
It’ll soon be the 50th anniversary of the historic Apollo 11 moon landing. On that Sunday 500 million viewers worldwide tuned in, mostly on black and white TVs, to watch the Lunar parking. I missed it myself, only three at the time, and probably in jammies in bed. Now for the older, wiser (?) me the buzz words “over eyes” and “pull the wool” knit my brows. Was this a big hoodwink?
You could say I am an agnostic Moon Landing conspiracy theorist because I believe it could be 50% right. Firing a rocket with men in it to the moon seems possible. It’s the getting them back that puzzles me. The spaceship has shrank, there’s no scaffolding on the moon that can support/straighten Apollo’s back to earth trajectory and the computerised age of steering things is in its infancy. No drone technology here, only rotary dial phones. Cars in the 60s were basic beasts and prone to breakdown, what chance a ship going all those light years without any wear or tear? I mean, even the communication system was on the blink and the sound man missed an a on Armstrong’s rehearsed script.
I blame Concorde. Continue reading “Ripley’s believe it or not!”
Boadicea's Chariot 
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