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Photo by Violetta on PixabayIt would be a brave man – or indeed woman – who would attempt to argue the continued existence of Socialism in any nation state on this delicate blue/green planet.

We can discount – I think – any of those one-party (or one-man!) ‘dictatorships’ that have done their utmost to appropriate the philosophy – or even a pretense of it – just as we can any suggestion of a tenuous link with those well-meaning social democrats, who – when all is said and done – just don’t go for the whole ‘social ownership of the means of production and co-operative management of the economy’ thing.

The use of the term itself as an insult by those on the right wing of American politics when referring to anyone marginally to the left of their own position would be laughable – were it not actually somewhat scary. That such occurs is – sadly – all too redolent of the offensively patronising tone taken by the majority of those who practice politics just about anywhere on the globe these days, and helps to explain why they are – in so many parts of the world – held in such low esteem.

No – Socialism is dead! In much the same way that democracy – famously said by Churchill to be “the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried” (mind you – he also said “The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter”!) – has come to be accepted by the majority of nation states as the fairest form of political organisation, so Capitalism has won the battle against all other forms of economic organisation. Most – even – of those nations that had once believed fervently in what the British Labour Party particularised in the fourth clause of its constitution had – by the end of the last century – reluctantly reached the conclusion that Capitalism in some form – along with its essential tool, the market – was the only game in town.

Was this – as posited by Francis Fukuyama in his 1992 book – ‘The End of History’?

As it turns out – it was not!

In British politics the decade whose culmination was marked by the fall of the Berlin wall and the vaporescence of Communism also saw the belated realisation by the majority of those on the left of the political spectrum that to remain true to their erstwhile ardently held beliefs was to render them effectively unelectable – quite possible ad infinitum! The fall from power of the rebarbative Margaret Thatcher was – as a result – rapidly followed by an unseemly scramble to appropriate the central tenets of her political philosophy, whilst at the same time abhorring the inevitable outcomes thereof. The centre ground was becoming a particularly crowded space.

What followed over the subsequent decade and a half – culminating in the world’s worst financial crisis for the greater part of a century – has already been widely documented. Those of us in the UK are not alone in the struggle to come to terms with the after-effects thereof and it will take much study and deep thought before a clearer picture of the future landscape will emerge. There is much to be done indeed if the political systems of the rainbow nations are ever to be rehabilitated.

A battle has been lost (or won – depending on your point of view!) – there is still a war to be fought.

 

And the title of this post? All will become clear…

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Flaming_June,_by_Fredrick_Lord_Leighton_(1830-1896)“And what is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days”

 James Russell Lowell

Gentle readers of the regular variety will doubtless already be aware of my predilection for this season above all others.

I have waxed lyrical on more than one occasion concerning the joys – the virtues – the delights of the sumptuous months of May and June. The first fresh flowerings of summer – the crisp munchy greens of the new foliage – the delirious aroma of fresh cut grass – the scarce-remembered warmth of the sun on one’s shoulders – the caring caress of the balmy breeze – the drowsy hum of a somnolent afternoon…

…and so on…

…and so forth…

It matters scarcely a jot that in reality ‘Flaming June’ tends as often as not nowadays to the chill – the vaporous – the tenebrous… What counts are the possibilities – the promise!

And so as each day dawns we know that the sun will shine, that we will venture forth with a song in our hearts, and that all will indeed be for the best in the best of all possible worlds!

Or it would be – were it not for the fact that we have to go to work!!!

For those of us in academia these last few frantic weeks of the summer term are seldom restful. The days are ever filled with stresses and strains as a million and one things must be signed off before everyone else rushes off for a (well deserved!) long summer break.

This is just one of the many things that I eagerly – nay, hungrily – anticipate in my impending retirement…

I am looking forward to getting back my Junes!

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Photo by Andy Dawson ReidLast Sunday there was a break in what appears to have become in recent years the accustomed pattern of weather for the English month of May – chill, damp and unremittingly grey! The cricketing gods clearly smiled on me, however, for the day marked my first (and quite possibly only – though who can tell?) appearance in whites this season. The match was to be played on the downs above Guildford.

Long-time scholars of these humble scribblings might sense at this point that they can distinguish the sounding of some distant carillon – and they would be right so to do. Two years ago – almost to the day – I posted a screed entitled ‘Perfect Day’ in which – amongst other things – I extolled the simple pleasures obtained from the equivalent fixture then – the which was played on the self-same spot.

To quote myself (odious practice though that might be):

“The match was played in a suitably amiable spirit, I scored a few runs and the right side won. It was, all in all, a most satisfactory result and I rolled home close to 9pm tired but happy.”

I am delighted to report that I can repeat that sentiment word for word this year, even though – on this occasion – the spoils went to the opposition. The match had gone to the final over, was close and satisfying, and everyone was content.

The substance of my posting two years ago – however – concerned less the Arcadian charms of the occasion itself, but more the fact that such pleasures counted for little if one happened to be – as I was then – separated from one’s significant other. The Kickass Canada Girl was at the time but a few months into her sojourn in Victoria and I was missing her badly.

How different are things now! Not only was the Girl waiting to greet me when I stumbled back home after the match, but she had earlier driven over to Guildford to watch a little of the game – in spite of knowing that I would be in the field at the time and thus unable to speak to her beyond the odd snatched exchange. She strolled instead around the boundary – looking particularly windswept and gorgeous in the sunshine – and I found myself accruing serious kudos from my fellow flanneled fools for having snared what the tabloid press would most certainly term ‘a stunna!’ (defined by the Urban Dictionary as – “Someone who is always fly with gear, cars, jewelry.” – whatever that means!).

I am minded of a comment made by Oldest Friend (of whom I have written previously in these annals) concerning his wife. “A day not spent in her company” – he opined – “is a day wasted”.

He’s not wrong…

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photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/trawets/523630550/">trawets1</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/">cc</a>On re-reading my recent post – ‘Blue remembered hills‘ – I realised that I had not expressed to my satisfaction that which was on my mind when I composed same. This is a not infrequent occurrence for me as it happens, but on occasion – this being one such – I feel moved to revisit a topic… to give it a second shot, as it were.

The seed for that particular post was in the photograph that accompanied it – the which I took over the bank holiday weekend on the West Sussex/Surrey borders whence we had gone in search of azaleas. Whenever I find myself gazing at a vista comprising ever distant ranges of hills – each hued in an increasingly translucent azure – I am reminded of those lines from Housman’s ‘A Shropshire Lad‘ most commonly known as ‘The Land of Lost Content‘. There is to this – of course – no surprise and I feel sure that many another stargazer would float reflectively down a similar stream.

There has been a fair degree of conjecture as to the subject and meaning of Housman’s verse – this segment no less than any. Its enduring appeal may – quite naturally – be in fair measure attributed to its ambiguity. On one point – however – there can be no equivocation… this particular poem is concerned with Loss!

I suspect that my fascination of recent decades with Loss – which along with Longing and Love (as I have ventured previously) comprise the three great subjects of all art – is in no small way connected with my advancing years. Those of a similarly cogitative nature will quite probably also find themselves at some point thus contemplating the infinite.

Some read Housman’s lines as a lament for a passing pastoral idyll – the mythical ‘golden age’. ‘A Shropshire Lad‘ was published in 1896 but did not really catch the public’s attention until the turn of the century, by which time the second Boer war was well underway. The work’s depiction of the premature deaths of young men clearly struck a chord and its popularity only increased further with the outbreak of the Great War – many soldiers reputedly carrying a copy into battle with them. At a time of great change – the thinking runs – it is hardly surprising that those caught up in the maelstrom should needs cling to the certainties of the past. As the mechanised beast of the war machine devoured Europe, longing for a lost arcadian utopia made perfect sense.

Those critical of this view claim that such a paradise never actually existed – that this ‘chocolate box’ view of pastoral life was a myth and that in truth rural life for many really was – to quote Hobbes – ‘nasty, brutish and short‘.

An alternative reading of this ‘lost content‘ is that it refers to childhood – and more particularly to the blessed state of innocence with which those formative years are commonly associated. Denis Potter dealt this view an irrevocable blow in his 1979 BBC television drama for the title of which he ruthlessly appropriated Housman’s own phrase – ‘Blue Remembered Hills‘. This classic – if somewhat dyspectic – work required adult actors to take the roles of a group of children, demonstrating in the process that savagery and intolerance are by no means the exlusive preserve of those of us supposedly old enough to know better.

What does that leave us with?

Well – whenever I am brought up short by some breathtakingly beautiful vista of varigated cerulian and those lines of Housman’s insinuate their way into my brain – it is not the loss of childhood innocence that I lament (for though I have no complaints about my early years I certainly have no wish to revisit them) and nor is it a rose-tinted yearning for some mythical golden age – and that even though I grew up in the magical decade of the sixties! Rather it is that the distant azure horizon speaks to me of all of the choices not made, of all the opportunities let slip – and that however wonderful life actually is (and mine is particularly blessed) it is our human nature to regret that we can only select from the astonishing palette of life a limited number of possibilities… and all the rest must be forever lost as the flood tide sweeps them away into some far ocean.

Time to turn away from the view – to count one’s blessings – and to focus on that which is…

 

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I am one of those people for whom a vista – a distant prospect – is of considerable import, whether I be in my own home or off traveling. For as long as has been possible – in other words, ever since I could afford so to do – I have chosen to live in a domicile with a view.

I feel sure that someone, somewhere, has written a learned treatise on just why human instinct seems – for most of us at any rate – to be thus inclined. I would be surprised if this disquisition did not posit the survival instinct as probable cause – the desire to live on a hilltop that one might better recognise approaching danger.

The poet’s cynosure might lie elsewhere – perhaps on the notion that gazing upon a distant panorama is in fact emblematic of our longing for the unobtainable – for that which is beyond our reach – and that the resultant wistful longing tugs at our heart-strings in a manner that we find strangely gratifying.

As I say – I am sure that there have been studies of this phenomenon. I – however – could not find one and you will have to make do instead with one of my favourite poets…

Into my heart an air that kills,
From yon far country blows.
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?

That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain.
The happy highways where I went,
And cannot come again.

A. E. Housman

Photo by Andy Dawson Reid

 

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Photo by Andy Dawson ReidBeing in a marriage that spans continents inevitably results in a slightly uncomfortable disjoint, by which those involved effectively lead two different lives – one on either side of the divide. Two distinct groups of family and friends – two strands of shared history and experience – two evolving tapestries documenting unfolding life stories.

Every so often – however – the delicate tracery of a bridge emerges, spanning the gulf between these two worlds – crossing the oceans.

At Christmas the Kickass Canada Girl and I packed up our daily existence and took a stride across the Altantic to immerse ourselves into the richly flowing river that is life in British Columbia. We have – of course – been making such pilgrimages together at irregular but frequent intervals for the last eight years, and we are – also of course – intending ultimately to turn that stride into a giant leap – transporting our ongoing history to the other side of the ocean. Subsequent to that event our transits will be in the opposite direction – revisiting friends and family on this side of the pond.

On occasion others also assist with the weaving of this trans-Atlantic skein. Such is the case now, as one of the Girl’s best girl-friends from Victoria flies in tomorrow to spend a few weeks with us. We are very much looking forward to entertaining her and showing off the countryside as it awakens in the emerging English spring.

Welcome to the UK!

Spare a thought for me, though. Two kickass girls under the same roof might prove too much even for me!

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Baby_feetBob:    I can’t do that. It’s too big!
Dr. Leo:    Baby steps Bob. Baby steps.

From the movie: “What about Bob?”
Written by Tom Shulman
Directed by Frank Oz

The illation of this post from January of this year – wherein I pondered the next steps in our glacially slow progress towards a new life in British Columbia – was that all depended on our being able to sell our property in Buckinghamshire… which objective would – in consequence – be our main focus over the coming months. The first landmark along this route was to be the date in March on which the tenants currently occupying our apartment could be given notice to quit –  after which we could move to bring the property once again to market.

On Wednesday this week such notice was duly served.

We are currently in discussion with several local estate agents with a view to establishing a fair and reasonable price for the property – subsequent to which we will stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, take a deep breath and return to the affray! Fingers – and much else – firmly crossed…

Now – because selling a property in the UK is such a big, grown-up, scary prospect we have decided – instead of taking the risk of biting off more than we can reasonably chew – to sell the apartment bit by bit!

Well – no… of course we haven’t really – though just at the moment that might appear to be the case!

I’m being cryptic! I will stop at once…

We are in the final stages of selling a brick built bin store that is located behind the main house. There are four such stores – assigned to four of the seven apartments into which the original residence was divided – in a row abutting the rear wall of the estate. The roofs of these stores had – of late – fallen into such a state of disrepair that urgent remedial works were required. Naturally the Kickass Canada Girl and I were reluctant to invest further monies into a feature of the property that adds little or no financial value to the apartment as a whole, so a deal was done with one of our neighbours. She will pay the costs of the roof repairs in return for the transfer into her name of the store itself. She can use the space – we can do without the expense!

It would – of course – be really good if the rest of the sale were to proceed as expeditiously and smoothly as this. Let us be optimistic and assume that this will indeed be so.

 

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Each year there is one early weekend – one glorious (if brief!) window – the effect of which is to renew afresh our faith in the continuing cycle of the seasons. However hard the winter may have been (and in terms of storm and deluge this one has been tough indeed) we can once again see the light at the end of the tunnel. We are alerted by the cry of the distant harbinger… “Spring is coming”!!

This was such a weekend…

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson Reid

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson Reid

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Image from http://www.freefoto.comLord, here comes the flood
We’ll say goodbye to flesh and blood
If again the seas are silent in any still alive
It’ll be those who gave their island to survive
Drink up, dreamers, you’re running dry

Peter Gabriel

It is broadly held that were it not for the weather we Brits would not have two words to say to each other. This is – of course – a vicious calumny, though it cannot be denied that the subject has – of late – provided much on which to confabulate.

Those resident in this green and pleasant land (what can yet be discerned of it through the murky drab by which great swathes of it are currently concealed) will be only too aware that the weather here throughout the past two months has been truly terrible. Ceaseless rainfall – giving parts of the UK their wettest January on record – and a constant conveyor of storm fronts from the Atlantic has resulted in catastrophic flooding, downed trees, damaged property and severed railway lines. Though the recent run of storms has abated somewhat this week there is no sign of an end to the apparently perpetual precipitation, which deluge has nowhere to go – landing as it is on already sodden ground.

Concurrent with this local cataclysm eastern Canada and the US have been experiencing freezing rain, wind and snow, whilst California – conversely – basks in record warm temperatures and suffers an ever-worsening drought.

Clearly – something is up. Equally clearly – to many of us at least – that something is ‘climate change’.

It would appear that the pattern of the jet stream that controls the weather in the northern hemisphere has started to alter – slowing down and beginning to meander in a previously unheralded manner. As a result weather patterns that would once have passed by expeditiously are now becoming bogged down for extended – and dangerous – periods…

…not that you would know any of this should you rely for your information on the say of  the ‘climate change deniers’!

These deniers come in two varieties. The first – and perhaps worst – breed are those who deny that there have been any climate changes at all. These disbelievers hold that there have always been extreme weather patterns – and point out that the recent disturbances are merely ‘once in a hundred year’ events. This view would hold more credence were it not for the fact that the same was said last year – and quite probably a year or so before that. In actual fact, the frequency of these ‘unprecedented’ events appears to be increasing.

The second brood of deniers are those that accept that the climate has changed, but deny that this is in any way a result of man’s activities. This would – by itself – mean little, were it not that these cynics further decree that since we did nothing to cause the change we need do nothing about it. More – that we should do nothing about it. This marvelously perverse view has its roots in the Weltanschauung that is common to all deniers… they are all at heart free-marketeers! As such their blinkered world-view extends no further than the short-term cost of anything and everything, and is informed by the belief that – given its head – the market will resolve all issues. This tenet is adhered to blindly in the face of all recent evidence to the contrary and might – quite literally – one day be the death of us all!

I need to lie down in a darkened room!

Stay dry – stay warm…

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Image by Damián Navas on Flickr

If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it.

Abraham Lincoln

 

January is just about done. It is the time of year to put aside retrospection and to engage instead in a little gentle anticipation. Time to make a plan…

Our approach in this instance will be subtly different to that which we previously pursued. On that occasion our grand strategy was launched with due ceremony.  ‘Full steam ahead’ was the command and away we sailed – all guns blazing – only to founder on the ragged rocks of an unfriendly shore and to slip slowly beneath the waves – lost with all hands.

This time – with the memory of running-before-we-could-walk fresh in our minds – we are taking things one step at a time.

Step one: Sell the apartment in Buckinghamshire. Until this has been accomplished nothing else can be done – thus nothing else need currently concern us.

The good news on this front is that the market has picked up appreciably. The UK economy has now enjoyed four consecutive quarters of growth and a considerable number of new jobs have been created – many of them in the corridor between the M4 and M40 motorways to the west of London. Our humble apartment is located slap-bang in the middle of this area.

Even better – we hear through the grapevine that one of our ex-neighbours is also selling her apartment, which happens to be the one immediately below ours. As far as we can tell it was only introduced to the market around Christmas time, but it is already under offer and the asking price – which I imagine has pretty much been achieved – was considerable. We can’t put our apartment on the market until the point that we are able to give our tenants notice (toward the end of March) but we are – naturally – now eager to get things moving.

Further on the positive news front… the good old Pound Sterling has itself also been doing jolly well of late against the Canadian dollar. When I started tracking the exchange rate around two years ago it was hovering around the 1.55 mark. It is now slightly above 1.8 and is – apparently – slowly but surely still rising… as are house prices in the south east of England! I am not going to excogitate this scenario further for fear of jinxing the whole kit and caboodle but – as you might imagine – we now have fingers, arms, legs, eyes and everything else crossed. We must look pretty damned funny!

 

There is actually one other thing that we do need to get on with at this point. Regular readers may experience a strong sense of deja vu as I revisit the subject of my application for Canadian Permanent Residency. You might recall that the whole process ground to a halt when the Kickass Canada Girl returned to the UK the Christmas before last. Well – figuring that our delayed move is now likely to take place within the next two years it is essential that we re-ignite the process. Otherwise I might find myself in British Columbia but unable to stay there.

The process will – of course – be somewhat different now that the Girl is based in the UK rather than in Canada. I will update my previous musings on the subject (here, here and all points west!) so that those lighting upon this post in search of useful information regarding permanent residency will be able to get the complete picture.

 

“So we beat on…” – though unlike Fitzgerald’s protagonist we are in this case carried onward toward the future…

…and our motto for the day shall be “Softly, softly, catchee monkey!”

 

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