Covid and Power, by Sackerson

Here we are in Week 40, the first of the 2020/2021 winter flu season. After all we’ve been through so far, there are still revisionists downplaying the threat of coronavirus, so let’s review the situation.

The first UK cases where coronavirus was mentioned on the death certificate occurred in Week 11 (ending Friday, 13th March). This week’s data (as usual, a fortnight in arrears) bring us up to Week 38 (18 September).

In total, the excess of deaths from all causes over the previous 5-year average for the same period is 53,663 so far. Deaths where Covid-19 was referenced total 52,056 so apparently it was a factor (not the only one, but surely contributory) in 97% of the bulge. Maybe doctors don’t deliberately misdiagnose causes of death, after all.

Minimisers compare the scale of CV-19 deaths with the big killers: ischaemic heart disease, cancer and dementia/Alzheimer’s; but these are already included in the orange line above.  A different yardstick might be UK civilian deaths in World War Two: 70,000 over six years then, versus 52,000 in only six months now, with indications of a second wave starting across Europe - cases rather than deaths, but we’ll soon see whether there is a significant uptick in mortality. Like influenza, with which it has similarities, Covid-19 may spread more easily in cooler, damper weather.

Can we agree that a) Covid is real, b) it is more contagious than flu and c) it is more lethal than flu? We are under attack, from germs rather than Germans this time. What are our options?

1. Do nothing

2. Lock down and close off the whole country

3. Work out a packet of measures to save lives while sustaining the economy as best we can

1. Some point to Sweden as an exemplar of splendid inaction, but they are comparing apples and oranges. Sweden has a population density of 59/square mile as opposed to the UK’s 725; and (I suggest) the cool Swedes are more cleanly, less back-slappy and not so rebellious against their authorities’ detailed guidelines (yes, they have them) even though they hide their heads in the sand on other issues: in Malmö, for example, I would be more worried about stray bullets. 

Here in Britain, what would have been the result of standing back and letting the disease rip? We are developing an understanding of who is more vulnerable, and it’s not good news that 28.7% of us are clinically obese, and nearly 4 million are diabetic; as regards the age factor, we have some 1.8 million people aged 85 and over. Just how ruthless are we prepared to be – shall we simply cull the old, fat and sick? Maybe Monty Python was prescient (clip Bloggerbanned but use link!):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=W4rR-OsTNCg 

2. We can’t copy Tonga, either. Tonga declared a state of emergency on March 20th that will last until at least March next year; inbound international flights are banned to foreigners, and thousands of Tongans have been stranded abroad since the declaration, with the first repatriations starting only in August, from New Zealand. Consequently, to date, there have been no coronavirus cases in Tonga; this is a very good thing, since 69% of Tongans are obese and 18% diabetic  – letting in the virus could lead to a lethal scouring like the flu-related ones we have long accepted (or ignored) in our British ‘care’ homes. 

Inevitably, the lockout has a financial implication, but (e.g.) the money Pacific Islanders send home annually from seasonal work in Australia (A$8,000 each – around three years’ worth of on-island earnings) helps keep the pot boiling. As an aside, we need to look at the bigger picture of global relations: the Chinese are lending money around the world (Tonga asked them for debt restructuring in July) and the West should think about increasing foreign aid to Pacific nations in terms of enlightened self-interest.

However, the UK simply cannot follow Tonga’s suit: we are an open, trading nation that imports half our food. The virus has found out our economic vulnerability and, to quote Chinua Achebe in a different context, it ‘has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart.’ It’s going to cost us to keep going.

3. That leaves us with compromise. We chafe against restrictions and what some characterise as the curtailment of civil liberties – but that wouldn’t be the first time. Consider the Emergency Powers (Defence) Act 1939 that was rushed through Parliament (and subsequently renewed and extended, to consistent protests by Robert Boothby at the Commons’ ‘apathy’), and the 1940 invention of a new crime of ‘treachery’ to make it easier for us to shoot enemy agents. 

The current emergency has highlighted once again the need to address the huge, arbitrary power of the office of the Prime Minister and the Privy Council (did Blair teach us nothing?) – otherwise all that Dunning’s 1780 motion to curtail the power of King George has achieved is to move tyranny down one step to the Executive, as Lord Cormack has recently observed.

There is certainly scope for revising our strategies; and especially the means by which they are enforced, as our editor (at The Conservative Woman) personally witnessed a few days ago in the bully-boy tactics of the police against middle-class softies. It’s not just the Germans who go crazy when given a uniform and powers – remember the special needs teacher Blair Peach’s death at the hands of the SPG? We don’t do fascism half as efficiently as our Continental cousins used to; we British are more amenable to being led than ordered about; we need persuasive leadership, and a vigilant and loyal Opposition; a Parliament, in fact.

For Something Happened, and may well happen again, and Something Must Be Done, but wisely, and with every effort to gain our voluntary support.

SOMETHING FOR THE WEEKEND: Scrooge's Children, by Wiggia

Watching yet again Alistair Sim’s wonderful version of Ebenezer Scrooge and his miserly callousness made me reflect on people I have known with tendencies to be of the 'short arms, deep pockets' variety.

I cannot give reasons for this what is a very apparent affliction in some people as I am not a psychiatrist, it is only that there is no apparent pattern in why people behave like that and we have all met them.

This is in no way a reflection on people who are down on their luck and have to reign in their spending to suit the occasion, we have mostly all had experience of that at some time in our lives; no. this is about those unexplained traits people show when it comes to actually parting with the green stuff or the ‘laughing lettuce’ as an old friend once called it.

Just sometimes you can see why previous experiences influence this reluctance to part with the aforesaid moolah: people brought up in poor households often find it difficult in later life to change when the circumstances they live under change for the good, it is as if it is engrained in them from those years of little to continue life in that vein even when there is no longer a need to do so.

But how does that explain the child, and I have a cousin who was and is exactly like this, who would have a bag of sweets in his pocket, leave the room to put one in his mouth and return, never ever offering anyone else one, something he has retained all his life despite being never anywhere near penury at any time, never a round of drinks, nothing but collecting items for his own presumed pleasure to be locked away somewhere; the vulture when a family member dies, I am sure we can all relate to those.

The there is the one in a group who never buys a round in the pub on a Sunday morning, or any other time come to that, who will as it approaches his turn find a timely excuse to leave or make a prolonged visit to the toilet, always long enough for everyone else to say sod it waiting and get another round; or the friend who would take a drink but not reciprocate, saying he only had one so was not buying a round as he doesn’t drink despite taking that first one purchased by someone else - you have to have some brass neck to do that but again I know someone who did exactly that and on more than one occasion.

Life would be extremely boring if we were all the same, it is the differences that make the world the interesting place it is, yet there is no doubt that some traits or more than a little puzzling and on occasions annoying to put it mildly.

The ones above all that interest me are the ones that have no real reason for this miserly conduct. I had a neighbour who was also a friend. He sold out a car retailing business after an offer he couldn’t refuse was made; until that time he spent money, had a Rolls Royce, liked clubbing in town, even sponsored a boxer and promoted him.

He wasn’t married but had a long time girlfriend who contracted cancer and died; before she died they married. At that time he lived in a big house with six acres of grounds and part was a mini industrial estate bringing in more income, so he was not what you call short of a bob or two, yet that moment apparently changed his whole view on life despite no obvious reason for the change.

He became obsessed with having what he called a 'result' with everything he bought, spent a lot of time polishing an old wedding car he used to hire out in the belief it was worth a lot more than it was (this from a successful car dealer), drove around a Ford Escort that had seen better days and took great delight in telling me where I could buy socks like his at only a pound for three pairs although that is exactly what they looked; he even put in a nonsense offer for my house when a sale fell through, saying he thought he was doing me a favour. He was totally obsessed with not spending money despite being a millionaire.

After remarrying he and his wife went on honeymoon. The house they were in when we were neighbours was up for sale and had been for some time because he insisted it was worth more than anyone who valued it, and had no viewers, but as luck would have it while away a buyer made an offer as it reminded them of the house they currently lived in and he would be near the football team he supported; my neighbour cut short his honeymoon to come back and seal the deal. There was no need but that instinct meant he couldn’t help himself; he has never changed, but why did he become like that in the first place?

The late J Paul Getty was renowned for his miserly stunts; that was not so much because he was a miser but rather a show of power over people, e.g. the pay phone in the hall for his guests at Sutton Place in Surrey. I also know for a fact that a typical stunt would be to arrange a business lunch, invite those guests who would inevitably be wanting some of his money for projects and then get up before the final dish and simply disappear, leaving the ‘guests to pay.’ Would any complain? Of course not! How do I know this? Simple: a friend at the time actually attended one of these lunches.

He is often slammed as being a miserly jerk, but that comes mainly from people who wanted something from him and didn’t get it, though in his latter days distinguishing life from art was not easy as reports of his appearance in crumpled suits and the rumours that he washed his own underwear started to filter through. Perhaps the life part took over from the acting; so many stories that have been embellished over the years make it difficult to sort the truth.

I also had a very rich client who shall remain nameless who started to serve half bottles of wine at dinners with business people in case consuming whole bottles would cloud his actions. Was that sensible or just mean? It’s a rarefied world there at the top; mind you it was Château Lafite - I saw the empties.

I now have another neighbour who openly admits he is tight; again his parents struggled when he was young and he blames this as the reason. In his case though it is like a dual personality disorder: he cannot say no to his family and even friends have been helped financially, yet he buys a £40k car after years of running around in bangers but gets the bus into town because he won't pay the multi-storey parking fees. His excuse is that he has a bus pass, but even when he does take the car in he stops short, parks in a side road and gets the bus the rest of the way.

Again, his lovely old house - it was the village pub - doesn't have a piece of furniture that was not picked up in sale or handed down from deceased family members; and new clothes? - don’t be silly. Amazing how someone can switch from philanthropy to refusing to part with money when buying for themselves; everything has to be a 'result' - where have I heard that before?

The wearing of the same old clothes is a recurring theme among the stingy it appears, as is the use of cheap supermarkets even if it means visiting several to get the whole shop and travelling miles to do it. If they tell me Aldi do a very cheap coq au vin but I have to travel 10 miles to get each way, it is not being thrifty, but that 'less' sign goes a long way to expunge any common sense. 

In the same way, being shown a packet of white rolls for 45p that look like 45p rolls does not inspire me to make the trip: they could be like the ones below and probably are. We stayed in an hotel on Lake Como years ago where the rolls were indeed as pictured. We were friendly with a German couple who also had noticed these empty rolls and we waited for the surprised looks as new guests would put a knife through one for the first time to see their reaction. We never complained as the reactions were worth putting up with the air rolls during the stay; it should have been on Candid Camera.

The funniest story regarding miserly conduct was not about someone I knew but a neighbour of my oldest friend in Australia. The Australians use their sprinklers liberally in hot summers  to save the grass from dying; in this particularly hot summer a neighbour told him he was not paying for the extra water, they have a fixed fee and you then pay above a certain usage, and tso he turned off the sprinklers. What then happened was that the ground shrank and the newly added extension to his bungalow started to part company with the house; as my friend said, you don’t turn off the sprinklers if you use them on a regular basis as those sort of problems are not unknown there, and he added ‘He always was a tight bastard’; Karma indeed.

We all have within us a bit of this reticence to spend. It shows in different way. It’s a bit like getting insurance quotes that leave out the extras you always need; one becomes very reluctant to pay for the extras and some people won't on principle. Naturally we look for the cheapest option only to discover it is inferior and then moan; we eschew certain brands and retailers believing the same (they are too expensive) then buy rubbish that has to be replaced far too early in its claimed life span and again moan about it. That is not meanness though, that is greed: 'something for nothing / BOGOF.'

Every now and again though you are surprised by the Scrooge effect. Some time ago, someone I knew well used to get by mistake two copies of a trade mag that interested me so he said he would mail the spare one to me, which he did. After several months it stopped arriving; when I spoke to him again I asked what had happened. He replied, 'I used to write your name over mine [I hadn’t noticed] and reposted it, they must have noticed and stopped sending the mag,' and then he said he wasn’t going to put a stamp on it - this from someone in business I spent thousands with. Sometimes these tight bastards can’t help themselves.

Still Christmas is coming, with the usual suspects who have declared they won't be sending cards any more and give to charity instead: a lie, of course, because they are too mean to send a card once a year. Now they will now be getting the same treatment from me after years of resisting the temptation to copy them: we can all be Scrooges when we want to.

FRIDAY MUSIC: Original 'Girl Power', by JD

 The Wikipedia entry for 'Girl Power' asserts that it began in the 1990s and is associated with female vocal groups of that decade. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girl_power

Sorry to disappoint you, editors and compilers at Wiki, but the golden age of musical girl power was long before that: The 1950s and the 1960s were undoubtedly the high point of popular music's 'girl groups' with more than a few solo artists added for good measure.

The National Trust Guide for rioters who like to torch buildings with style

Dominic Sandbrook pours scorn on the National Trust's breast-beating booklet about some of their properties' (often very tangential) connections with colonialism and slavery (Wordsworth is bad because his brother captained a ship for the East India Company!)
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8762205/DOMINIC-SANDBROOK-dare-National-Trust-link-Wordsworth-slavery.html

Keep the NT but abolish the finger-wagging rubbish. I offer a list below for you to print out and keep, either to tick off your visits or as a hit list for arson, vandalism etc.

___________________________________________________________________________________

I-SPY GUIDE TO NATIONAL TRUST COLONIALIST CR*P

Remember that Great Britain abolished slavery in 1838 and then fought against it across the globe

NT’s List of Shame: 

https://nt.global.ssl.fastly.net/documents/colionialism-and-historic-slavery-report.pdf

Visit checklist (“Gotta Catch ‘Em All!”):

 

East of England:

Anglesey Abbey

Blicking Hall

Felbrigg Hall

Hatfield Forest Shell House

Ickworth

Oxburgh Hall

Peckover House

Wimpole Hall

 

London and the South East:

Ankerwycke

Ashdown House

Basildon Park

Bateman’s

Bodiam Castle

Carlyle’s House

Chartwell

Clandon Park

Claremont

Cliveden

Greys Court

Ham House

Hatchlands Park

Hinton Ampner

Hughenden Manor

Knole

Leith Hill Tower and Countryside

Morden Hall Park

Osterley Park and House

Owletts

Petworth

Polesden Lacey

Sheffield Park and Garden

Stowe

Sutton House

West Wycombe Park

 

Midlands:

Belton House

Berrington Hall

Calke Abbey

Charlecote Park

Coughton Court

Croft Castle

Croome Court

Dudmaston

Hardwick Hall

Kedleston Hall

Lyveden

Shugborough

Sudbury Hall

Tattershall Castle

 

Northern Ireland:

Mount Stewart

 

North of England:

Allan Bank

Cragside

Dunham Massey

Fountains Abbey

Studley Royal

Hare Hill

Nostell

Nunnington Hall

Quarry Bank Mill

Rufford Old Hall

Seaton Delaval Hall

Speke Hall

Wallington Hall

Washington Old Hall

Wentworth Castle Gardens

 

South West:

Barrington Court

Bath Assembly Rooms

Buckland Abbey

Castle Drogo

Clevedon Court

Compton Castle

Greenway

Cotehele

Dyrham Park

Glastonbury Tor

Godolphin

Kingston Lacy

Corfe Castle

Lacock Abbey

Lanhydrock

Lundy

Newark Park

Saltram

Sherborne Park Estate

Shute Barton

Snowshill Manor

Stourhead

Trengwainton Garden

Tyntesfield

Scots Warriors: The Black Douglas, by JD

Image: The Scotsman newspaper

Herewith the tale of 'Guid' Sir James...  a tale from Scottish history with a surprising legacy:

It is the story of Sir James Douglas (c. 1286 – 25 August 1330) also known as Guid Sir James in Scotland and the Black Douglas in England. He was one of the chief commanders during the wars of Scottish Independence and indirectly was the inspiration for the song Flower of Scotland - "and stood against him, proud Edward's army and sent him homeward to think again" Following the Battle of Bannockburn it was Douglas and a party of knights who pursued Edward's army, a task carried out with such relentless vigour that the fugitives, according to Barbour, "had not even leisure to make water" Eventually Edward took refuge in Dunbar Castle which is approximately 70 miles from Stirling. That was a long chase!

(John Barbour (1320-1395) was a Scottish poet whose principal work was the historical verse romance, The Brus (The Bruce) which included the story of the Battle of Bannockburn.)

Upon his death (7th June 1329) King Robert Bruce assembled his captains and tasked Douglas to bear his heart on crusade to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, possibly as posthumous repentance for Bruce’s murder of his rival for the crown, John Comyn, at the High Kirk in Dumfries in 1306 and the suffering he inflicted on his own people with his ‘scorched earth’ tactics. When Bruce was dead, his heart was cut from his body and placed in a silver and enamelled casket which Sir James placed around his neck.

Around this time, King Alfonso XI of Spain was engaged in La Reconquista to drive the Moors out of Spain. The word was sent to Christian Nobles and Knights throughout Europe to assemble at Alfonso’s headquarters in Cordoba. Sir James Douglas as history shows was one such Knight who responded to the call. Jean de Bel in his Chronicles tells that Bruce wanted his heart taken to the Holy Land and presented to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, while the poet John Barbour says that Bruce wished his heart be carried into battle against God’s foes. 

Whatever the true specific request, the call to arms by King Alfonso fitted in with Sir James Douglas’ mission. In the Spring of 1330 Sir James Douglas armed with ‘a safe conduct’ from Edward III of England and ‘a letter of recommendation’ to King Alfonso, left Berwick to sail for Sluys in Flanders. Jean de Bel said that Douglas was accompanied by one Knight Banneret, six ordinary Knights and twenty Esquires. Douglas and his party remained in Sluys for 12 days and then departed by ship for Spain, finally embarking at Seville. There he presented his credentials to King Alfonso.

Sir James and his fellow Scottish knights joined Alfonso's army as they set out to reclaim the Moorish stronghold of the Castle of the Star (Castilla de la Estrella) which is near the village of Teba in what is now the province of Malaga.

There are several conflicting accounts of the Battle of Teba which is not surprising because this was 690 years ago and stories come down to us now through translation and with added 'colour' such as the tale of how Douglas, after attempting to rescue another comrade who had become separated, was surrounded by a rallying cluster of Moors. He tossed the silver casket and heart into the thick of the battle and shouted: ‘Now pass thou onward before us, as thou wast wont, and I will follow thee or die.’ The story of the thrown heart is a literary invention from C15th that evolved through various stages till the one shaped by Sr Walter Scott and published in 'Tales of A Grandfather' in 1827.

Sir James died in the battle as did his fellow knights Sir William de St.Clair and the brothers Sir Robert Logan and Sir Walter Logan. All of the accounts tell how the bodies were recovered from the field and were later returned along with Bruce's heart to Scotland. The bones of Sir James now rest in St. Bride's church in Douglas, Lothian and Bruce's heart is preserved in Melrose Abbey.

And so we come to the aforementioned surprising legacy. Several years ago a historian at Malaga University was researching the expulsion of the Moors and uncovered papers which shed some light on the battle. The story as handed down tells of how the Moors did not recognise the colours carried by the Scottish knights and were unaware of their high status. The Moors had been familiar with the colours worn by English or French knights but had thought the Scots were of lesser rank.

This is how la Cronica de Alfonso XI desribes the death of Sir James -

"Douglas, y casi todos sus hombres resultaron muertos en la batalla, incluyendo a William St. Clair de Rosslyn y Robert Logan de Restalrig. Su cuerpo y el relicario conteniendo el corazón embalsamado de Bruce se encontraron juntos en el campo y cuando Muhammed IV supo que pertenecía al rey escocés, envió los cuerpos de Douglas y sus hombres a Alfonso XI con una guardia de honor. Fueron llevados a Escocia por los escoceses supervivientes, William Keith de Galston, y Simon Lockhart."
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batalla_de_Teba#La_muerte_de_Sir_James_Douglas

The Moors under the command of Uthman ibn Abi al-ula knew whom they had slain in the battle and so the bodies were gathered up and taken, flanked by a guard of honour, to the camp of Alfonso. Chivalry is not exclusive to the European ideal of knightly gallantry, it is a universal code among the warrior caste throughout the world.

In the spring of 1988, Douglas Mackintosh who is a direct descendant of Sir James, arrived in Teba with a one ton slab of sand stone sculpted by Hew Lorimer.

Diario SUR published a piece entitled "The descendants of a Scottish national hero will erect a monument to his memory in Teba." The text, signed by the journalist Mabel Moya, explains how the residents of Teba had ignored their relationship with the figure of the knight until recently. They were unaware of the relevance and admiration that this historical figure arouses among the Scottish people, and received with amazement the visit of a family from the United Kingdom, direct descendants of Sir James Douglas.

On this visit, they brought with them "a slab, weighing about one tonne," which "succinctly tells the story of Douglas," designed by sculptor Hew Lorimer and sourced from Creetown in Kirkcudbrightshire, Scotland. “Its price is estimated at about 8,000 pounds (around 1,680,000 pesetas) and its anchoring in the ground will amount to about 3,000 pounds (630,000 pesetas), an amount that is being paid with donations from people interested in making this project a reality.

The stone slab was kept in a warehouse until its location was decided, the Plaza de España. On August 25, 1989 , a grand opening ceremony was held attended by the mayor of Teba and George Nigel Douglas-Hamilton, Count Selkirk.

During the ceremony there was "an Anglican-Catholic ecumenical religious service", carried out by the priest of the Parish of Teba and the Vicar of the Anglican Church of San Jorge de Málaga, in addition to a military offering with the notes of the hymns of Andalusia and Scotland of the music band and bagpipes in the background.

Both Count Selkirk and the then mayor of Teba, Francisco González, made two speeches in which they expressed the desire to carry out a true twinning from which "exchanges of young people, schoolchildren, the elderly, sports, folkloric events, language learning and practice, integration of immigrants, commercial relationships, exchange of experiences in municipal management and administration ”, as recorded in the archive of the Teba City Council.

The stone itself is inscribed in English on one side and in Spanish on the other.

The Spanish love their fiestas and many town and villages have an annual Fiesta de Cristinos y Moros in celebration of La Reconquista. Teba City Council, now with the memorial stone in place decided that they too would have their own Cristianos y Moros but with a Scottish flavour. Every year on Aug. 25, the village celebrates the day of El Douglas. A pipe band from Scotland performs and there is a ceremony between the Teba mayor and other grandees and the visitors from Scotland. The square is also known as the Plaza Douglas.

======================================

Sources:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Douglas,_Lord_of_Douglas
• https://castlehunter.scot/blog/james-the-black-douglas-the-most-feared-knight-in-scottish-history/
• https://boydellandbrewer.com/the-true-chronicles-of-jean-le-bel-1290-1360.html
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Teba
• https://www.scotsman.com/whats-on/arts-and-entertainment/day-1330-black-douglas-died-while-carrying-robert-bruces-heart-jerusalem-1468700
• https://www.douglasdaysteba.com/pag-noticias
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Douglas,_Lord_of_Douglas
• http://www.douglashistory.co.uk/history/Battles/teba.htm#.X2tpMmhKjtQ

SOMETHING FOR THE WEEKEND: A tale of excess, by Wiggia

All of us of a certain age have got involved in conversations about what we had as kids as opposed to today, the usual hard luck stories would emerge and then people would make jokes that reduced their own level of receiving to something like, and at the time I thought it funny, “all I got for Christmas was a quire of old newspapers and a packet of crayons” - the fact that 'quire' was in the sentence dates it but you get the drift.

 And it is true we certainly never got the items today's kids do or adults come to that. What did we get? Well, virtually nothing other than on birthdays or Christmas. I was quite fortunate in getting a Hornby train set one Christmas and how I cherished it, it really meant something and was played with for years; other notables were some nice Dinky toys and a wonderful large scale clockwork Foden truck that I kept well into my late teens and simply lost track of it - where it went I do not know, quite valuable today.

 In general, though, apart from a couple of pennies to go and get some flying saucers or a giant gobstopper that changed colour over hours and your tongue with it, all presents or gifts were reserved for the two occasions above. I was unfortunate in this regard as my birthday is three days after Christmas so I got combined presents, hmmmm!

 Why have I come up with this? Well, it was something that I could not help notice in recent weeks whilst house hunting (yes we COULD finally be moving after the longest running saga since the Forsyte one.)

 It wasn’t that I hadn’t seen sights like this before; it was seeing so many and so much. Almost every family house we viewed with children had rooms absolutely stuffed with soft toys, games, toy soldiers, expensive electric items and all in the case of the girls in very pink rooms and in the boys autographed footballers prints on the wall and the child's name emblazoned above the bed – “Thabita” said one, no Mary or Ann these days. 

Thabita had a lot more than this, I saw it all.

But it didn’t stop there. In the last house we viewed, not the one we hope to move to, the garden was an obstacle course of children's apparatus: the now obligatory caged trampoline, a climbing frame, a full sized slide, two different sized paddling pools (one in the shape of an alligator – no, me neither) and numerous other objects I could not put a handle to. It was like the children's play area in the local park; why so much? 

The worst case of excess I have seen was with a client of mine whom I worked for on and off over eighteen years with his four acre garden, very nice people and he a very successful business man for a world-wide company. They only had one child, a boy, who I saw grow up over those years. What was lavished on him had to be seen to be believed: as a kid he had every single piece of Action Man and would be given every new piece as it became available, he had three different battery powered kiddy cars, when he started to kick a football he was kitted with dozens of shirts, some obtained from the company’s foreign offices where the CEO would send for instance a Brazilian official team shirt signed by Zico or someone, and the same with Inter Milan and many others now forgotten. He even had his own small fridge in the playroom he had, stuffed full of his favourite ice lollies he could help himself to at any time.

Whether all this as a child had an effect I don’t really know but he grew up to be an obnoxious teen who at private school despite having private coaching and a bowling machine installed on the family tennis court still could not make the first team. There was a lot more I saw over the years but you get the drift: every day was Christmas.

This was more like it…

Now few parents have the wherewithal to give on that scale, yet what I have observed in these last few weeks means they all think the same but on a different scale of expense. The sentiment is the same: to give on demand, or not even wait for that request.

There is nothing wrong with parents wanting to help their children or give what they can to their kids but the scale is obscene in many cases and not that small a percentage if what I saw is to go by.

So yes, things have changed since my child hood. Obviously my parents did not have the resources to shower me with toys after the war, nor did the majority of parents. Given the living standard of today would they have replicated the excesses I have observed? We will never know of course but I doubt many would, it was a different mindset then and the parenting was very different as well, the ‘do what they like’ approach had not yet started. It is indeed a very different world.

And yes, I have seen more than one like this

Running parallel to what the kids have was the the stuffed garage. It seems few use a garage any more for keeping a car in, so many I viewed were stuffed to the gunwales with dead gym equipment, bicycles, more electronic equipment, an amazing amount of discarded musical instruments like electric pianos, drum kits, various outdoor cooking ranges and barbecues, boxes full of clothes, boxes full of toys, boxes full of you name it, a wonderful example of the consumerist society we now are.

Now we all have too much stuff but I can get in my garage and park the car there and I think I have too much stuff; obviously not. I must make a bid on that exercise bike I saw on eBay, I am sure it is the missing piece in the jigsaw of my life.

FRIDAY MUSIC: Cathars, by JD

"Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius" ( "Kill 'em all, God will know his own.")
- Arnaud Amaury, Abbot of Cîteaux.

First a potted history of the Papal Crusade, followed by some music:

• http://www.cathar.info/cathar_whoswho.htm#arnaud
• https://warontherocks.com/2016/01/provences-bloody-past-six-lessons-from-a-forgotten-crusade/
• https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1902203.The_Great_Heresy
• http://www.cathar.info/

 

There is a painting by Velazquez of Pope Innocent X in the Prado and he has a face of pure evil and yet he told Velazquez he was more than pleased with the representation. You have to stand in front of the painting to see and feel the malevolence of the man; chilling.

That Pope was about 400 years after Innocent III who ordered the Crusade against the Cathars. The only depictions of the latter are stylised being before the Renaissance invention of perspective so it is impossible to tell what he may have been like but his deeds speak volumes. 

Why were medieval Popes so bloodthirsty? Not very Christian, were they!