Green And Pleasant Land Matters

A few years ago this was a happy place with amusing articles and pictures of life in the village. I am so sorry that it has turned into my series of log-winded moans about what is happening in the world but, to be honest, there really isn't much happening in the village. In 2020 COVID-19 sent the vast majority of its residents scampering for the safety of their homes, bolting the doors, refusing to see visitors and getting food delivered from Tesco or Ocado vans. They're an obedient lot. The Government said they had to be locked down and so they did. A few of us needed to keep a business going and I made one or two trips each week to the Post Office in a nearby village where I could also buy an 'essential item' or two in case my trip was queried by some officials. I genuinely did expect to be stopped by Police from time to time. We had seen reports of people walking in Derbyshire in a way that was apparently illegal and so this seemed just as ridiculously feasible at the time.

To be quite honest, my life and activity didn't change a great deal throughout the COVID period now that I can look back and see what happened. I was able to make many trips to Ukraine which must have relieved the boredom and, by good fortune, this area escaped the high level lockdown too for almost all the time. I do believe that we should all have been left to make our own decisions about our activities and health and that the mass of Government regulation and expenses was largely wasted. Having said that, it is easy to write in hindsight but I really have never supported the way the State was able to rule our lives or restrict our activities. Obviously, the remarkably successful development of a vaccine was marvellous and many people did many good things but I was very glad to be able to burn sacrificially those horrid masks we were forced to wear a little while ago. Some people are still wearing them - looking like Chinese tourists in London. The Chinese always seemed to have them, presumably believing that our cities are as bad as theirs for pollution, although why they didn't just visit some more pleasant, beautiful and definitely pollution-free places in this country and discard the masks I do not know.

All this regulation stuff was what did for Boris. I rather think that his views on lockdown were similar to mine but he seemed to forget that, whereas no-one was too bothered about what I was doing from day to day, the eyes of many disgruntled people or downright enemies of the chap and his Party were very much focussed on the parties, cake and whatever may have been in the glasses at various occasions. He was totally screwed and probably could not believe how it became not just headline news but stayed on the front pages of newspapers for weeks on end. A very, very effective campaign by people who disliked Boris and the Conservatives generally was able to gather support not just from obvious sources like the baying Labour voices and almost everyone in the North who hate 'Tories' anyway, especially posh-speaking ones, but also from much of his hitherto solid Conservative rank and file membership who had been so keen to follow the rules and do as they were told who were quite upset that they were effectively being told to do as the boss says not as the boss does. That didn't sit well with that section of society either.

I really had no objection to the parties, cake or whatever but I did feel that Boris handled things poorly. He may well still be Prime Minister had he opened up the nation at the very start and said "Sorry, chaps." 

I really do wish he were still Prime Minister as Liz Truss is frankly a huge embarrassment. I can imagine how many Americans must have felt when Donald Trump was holding forth on this and that and generally making a fool of himself. We pitied the States then, and yet we recognised something in the Trump style which did work. He did seem to know what he was doing ninety-nine percent of the time and he did have balls, personality and was the guy that you'd want on your side in a fight. Mrs Truss has so far shown no personality, no determination or cohesion of policy and has also made seemingly illogical decisions and made no attempt to explain herself in words of one syllable. She strikes me as a little dim and way, way out of her depth. I voted for her, believing that she was the most likely to continue to support, and, indeed, beef up, support for Ukraine and reckoned that she might eventually become more of a leader in time.

Now, I would like the Conservative Party to arrange a replacement as soon as possible so that we can, hopefully, all get behind one individual who has some talent and can engender respect across the world as well as appeal to voters in Britain. I do not believe there is any great likelihood of a massive Labour victory in 2024. Voters have seen nothing much of interest in anything that Labour is proposing and are unlikely to trust them any more, especially if things have started to get better by then. What could be more concerning would be the rise of the Liberals as the natural go-to party for disillusioned Conservatives. No-one has any idea of what they stand for nowadays and any coalition with Labour could be scary with Stonewall, Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil type of organisations' supporters taking charge.

As it is we are seeing the country run in many places by Stonewall, Pride and people who believe everything pushed out by Black Lives Matter, and a whole raft of organisations that have sprung up to bring sex and gender into mainstream debate and communications. We have a situation now whereby some universities and colleges, many government-funded bodies too, are obliging their staff to do crazy things like add their preferred pronouns to signatures, include the Black Lives Matter logo, and the Pride one and others to communications. Although one particular organisation has since said that its 'instruction' to do so was intended as a 'please think about doing' so the damage is done. Many people will have felt they had to do so to avoid being sacked or accused of not supporting the trans community. How many people are there in this community? Are they all supporters of BLM and Stonewall, and Pride? Do they all agree that everyone should now be calling themselves Alice, He, His or whatever now? I doubt it. There are a million minorities in this country and each deserves respect but we can do that by being human, kind and polite. We do not need regulations and we most certainly do not need Black Lives Matter or Stonewall, each awful organisations that have erupted in our HR departments midst since some bloke died resisting arrest in America. 

I do not want any institution or firm or body or organisation that is in receipt of taxes I pay to be in any way associated with BLM or Stonewall. Or a whole raft of others who will no doubt be getting massive funding from Councils across the country anxious to show that they are doing the right thing in this wacky woke world in which we now exist.

I am trying to recall when I first heard or read the word woke. It is an odd word and would have stood out like a sore thumb but I can't tell. It just seems to have grown and become more common over the years. I am thinking that I had not heard the word before 2018. It was after BLM too, so that dates it to May 2020 at the earliest. I dislike the word a lot but I am not sure why. I think it is because it is the past participle of wake and so a part of a verb in my usage. I woke up at 8am. It seems to be similar to the woke in 'I woke up to what was happening". But "to be woke" makes no sense to me. I can be awoken, maybe even, at a pinch woken but I cannot be woke. At least that's what I thought. It seems that I can and the dictionary does define woke as an adjective, first appearing in 2017 and meaning awake to sensitive social issues. So I could be woke after all if that means aware of. I feel that awake to implies some essence of agreement that something has to change so the jury's out on that.

So far, I have disliked and genuinely oppose just about all that I read and see being done in the name of woke. How has this come to pass? It appears that organisations like Stonewall and Pride really have managed to get a shoe-in to so many of our institutions and so persuaded umpteen thousand of those counties' middle managers and executives in HR posts that we desperately must use their services, running courses and something akin to re-education camps for some, to show us white people how terrible we all are. In 2020 the Government said that they would be cancelling all Race Bias Training in the Civil Service and, I understood, all Ministries including the NHS, arguing that it was effectively useless. However I see many training websites still offering Race Bias Training, including some that are run by the Government themselves as quangos!

I remember something called Black History Month back in the late 1990s at college. Lecturers were obliged to include material relating to this history of black people or their countries, as I recall. More often than not this involved some nice curry in the canteen and posters in classrooms where cut out shapes of Jamaica or Fiji were stuck on sugar paper. They stayed up a long time and often were brought back for Inspection when the glue had dried out on some of the fallen cut-outs leaving the original bright colour of the sugar paper standing vibrant in the otherwise very faded purple, blue or magenta colours that sugar paper always was. I didn't do much by way of posters or celebration of Black History myself. It seemed a bit odd. Why did we never have a Yellow History Month, Brown History month or even a more polite Asian History Month perhaps? My college in Dunstable, Bedfordshire had a massive number of Pakistani students, mostly doing IT or Business Studies as a way to maintain income benefits for their families for a few years more rather than their attendance, such as it was, being, for all but one or two, any real attempt to complete sufficient BTEC assignments to have a chance at university entrance. I can remember maybe four students that I would call black. But they came from countries as different as Uganda and somewhere in America. They didn't see the point of Black History Month either as they and their parents had been here for a long time and, whilst they might have some interest in their parents' or grandparents' roots, the posters and menu were not of much significance to them. And the Asians, as a whole, were pretty much ignored completely until Ramadan or maybe some Festival of Lights came along for a day or two. Then we'd have a few posters again but nothing like Black History Month. Month, for heaven's sake!

At about the same time I remember the Academic Board being presented with a draft document which was proposed by some very serious woman as our Equal Opportunities Policy. At least I think that it was Equal Opportunities that came first. Equality and Diversity came later. Probably some variations in between. Let's say it was Equal Opportunities. I have regaled readers of another blog on education matters about this particular event in the past and how my suggestion that we merely say we will treat everyone the same fell on deaf, if not somewhat stunned and, one set of amused ears. I mean, why say more? Where does that take us? By attempting to specify who might be needed to be treated equally one is almost implying that they're not in the first place. By attempting to list all the minority groups you're almost bound to miss out one and they'll have something to complain about. Then you have to think about what activities are to be dealt with in this policy - from how we handle admission enquiries at the outset to telling people they've failed their exams at the other end? And all that comes between.

We finished up with a 96-page document which no-one ever read and I was branded something close to but not quite, obviously, racist. All I had wanted to do was to put respect for all people, including majorities as well as minorities, as a fundamental duty which we should all not even have to sign up to but was simply the right thing to do. If there were instances where our paperwork or a procedure might offend someone from some minority or another then we should fix them. The time wasted drafting those 96 pages, and probably another 96 for each of the subsequent new policies required, could have been considerably better spent. If we'd been asked to dig into our pockets and pay for that time then the whole thing might have been different - but time paid for by our taxes doesn't feel as if it is a cost coming directly out of our earnings.

I am probably very fortunate not to be involved directly in such matters now. Because I would have refused to add any BLM or Stonewall or Pride logos to my correspondence and not wished to have Hill, He His on my name badge, suggested that instead of Black History Month we have White History Week for a change; because I would have slapped some students on the back either to congratulate them or wake them up from time to time, refused to attend training sessions designed to correct my attitude to white supremacy or whatever similar bollocks was on the menu or, more likely, did attend and tried to argue a few points with the tutor doing the PowerPoint show; because of all this I would have been in trouble most, if not all, days and, at best, encouraged to retire gracefully. At worst, I would be visited by the Police investigating a 'hate crime incident' as no doubt one or more the things I had done could have triggered someone to say how upset they were that I'd said they were only there because their parents told them to be there.

There was just one trans person in the classes I taught that I was aware of. I did get a shock when someone who had worn a suit and looked definitely masculine one week walked in in a bright blue dress and wig the next. I couldn't help but stutter in whatever Level 3 Business Studies lecture I was giving that day but I regained my composure and made no big thing of it at all. This was at Vauxhall Motors' premises in Luton where we ran an outreach course for employees to gain more qualifications and the students were all in their 20s or 30s. At Dunstable there were none. A few professed to be gay but no-one disputed whether they were male or female. Every single one was, in 2010, happy to be one or the other. No-one wanted or needed a Don't Know or Unspecified box to tick. Even the chap, er, sorry, student, at Vauxhall signed on as a bloke. I do accept that I was temporarily troubled by what to call him, er, them, no, that's rotten grammar, I give up, the person. I managed to avoid needing any hes or shes, though, throughout the 30-week course and we got on fine.

So I can accept that we need some help in how we address trans people but they are so few and far between that I do feel we can take care of that without special training and expensive organisations instructing us for fear of a visit from Mr Plod. I would simple chat to them and agree what to do. End of story. I also refuse to accept that there has been a sudden massive splurge of people who have become trans or declaring some other variant between or outside the confines of male and female. Nor has there been any requirement for me or any of my colleagues or students to know anything at all about our colleagues' or students' sexual preferences. Indeed I would be surprised if many of the staff I knew would admit to any! "Sex, old boy? No idea. Can't remember!" So I couldn't give a toss about anything to do with the LBGTQOO+ community or whatever it is called these days. And why don't they call it the NLBGTQOO+ community and let us Normals in. By Normal I mean men or women who don't give much of a toss about all this and get on with their lives as men or women, probably having relationships with the opposite sex if they're lucky or just remembering old times. Now by calling myself Normal I could be implying that everyone else in the group is abnormal. Insofar as 94% of the population in 2020 defined themselves as heterosexual or what I've loosely called normal then that seems fairly clear. The others are all minorities, some minute minorities and certainly not what one might encounter normally. As individuals they're not abnormal but their preferences are. It is not meant as an insult, it's just a way to emphasise the point. We're spending an awful lot of time pulling our hair out and defending dismissals or statements, re-educating grandad and making sure that we don't upset university students by allowing someone to speak their mind about something or we try to warn them that the content of an old film might have a reference to Tranny or Poofter. A horror film might even have a shock at some point. Oh dear.

The National Education Union, Britain’s largest teaching union have a resolution to develop a definition of transphobia, passed at the last annual NEU conference in the spring, and now looks likely to be adopted.

The proposal suggests that anyone who expects trans people “to participate in discussion or debate about their rights and/or identities” is transphobic, and cites “propagating ideas, concepts and misinformation harmful to trans people and which erase and ignore trans history” as examples of transphobic behaviour (while neither outlining what is meant by “trans history” nor what “ideas, concepts and misinformation” would be considered harmful). It further defines transphobia as a “rejection of trans identity and a refusal to acknowledge that those identities are real or valid” or the “incorrect use of pronouns”.

While protecting trans pupils, trans teachers and trans support staff from harassment is a worthy aim, it’s clear that this proposal goes way beyond legal compliance and would have the effect of rendering any challenge to gender critical ideology or the agenda of transrights activists as a form of extrajudicial hate crime.

That’s problematic because, statistically, it’s inevitable that in a mass membership organisation like the NEU many members will reject the central tenet of gender identity ideology, namely, that sex is a social construct, and instead believe that sex is binary and immutable. Is the NEU effectively saying to all its fee-paying members that don’t want to go along with gender identity ideology that it regards them as ‘transphobic’ and no longer wants to represent them or defend their rights? As member relations campaigns go, it’s certainly daring.

And what about the policy’s effect on staffrooms up and down the country – will it have a chilling effect on free speech? If this definition is accepted, anyone who says: "You can’t logically self-identify as the opposite sex", will be a transphobe. How many teachers will be too scared to speak up in schools and they will just go along with the NEU policy? It becomes something you can be dismissed for. Just like that.

All this is happening in Great Britain today. I look around and these topics of racism and diversity, Pride and BLM feature increasingly in news reports and those delivered by the BBC, as well as many new series produced by them, seem to feel that we all need to be educated, with a dreadful Dr Who series from 2019 or thereabouts and even the presenters or teams of people sat on chairs to debate matters seem to have to obey some rule of one from each minority wherever possible. I can almost hear the Programme Manager at a W1A-type meeting shouting " . . . OK, if there's only one make it a black woman first choice. Asian woman second, then black bloke. Gay white next. But no old white bloke on his own . . ." You may grin or grimace but I have no doubt whatsoever that they is a list of preferred minorities! Nothing to do with knowledge or ability.

Basically the Conservative government has been well and truly set-up and I suspect there is not a great deal anyone can do now. These things all happened under the radar. It was so difficult to refuse to take the knee at the time. Rather than risk offence many of our leaders and stars of field and screen did so. The police did and the BLM movement must have thought it was Christmas with all the money that poured in. Never to be seen again, but that's another story.

I have been reading the Spectator recently and have been particularly taken by Rod Liddle's articles and occasional ramblings in the magazine or on-line. So far, I have not disagreed with a single word that he's said. That's unusual for me but we seem to be of a like mind. He is a member of the SDP. I presume that is the Social Democratic Party which I really had thought had died out some years ago. I recall the two Davids, a bustling woman and a few others launching it but had no idea it still existed. I have just read some of their aims and policies and there's nothing in there I would disagree with. Might I suggest that Rod and I see what we can do to persuade a few of the more intelligent Conservative and Labour MPs to switch allegiance? Something has to change. 

I expect to see the Online Safety Bill redrafted to refer purely to the safety of children and a campaign to prove just how preposterous much of this woke training is, together with effectively removing any publicly funded associations by organisations with Pride, Stonewall and BLM and others. No-one denies their right to exist but I believe many would prefer they raise funds directly without taxpayers' support. The same applies to a vast array of organisations set up to garner charity, lottery or similar funding but which have objectives which need rather closer examination. 

This is a green and pleasant land, in places. It certainly remains so here in Astcote but I do fear for some other parts. The Conservative Government need to start running this country again. At the moment it seems effectively to be in the hands of assorted Socialist HR and local government personnel who, with their cronies in much of the media now, are having by far the greatest impact on this pleasant land. We need a Green And Pleasant Land History Year.

Holiday plans and the trouble with refunds

As it happens, it would seem that I am not going to be leaving the car on Jason & Steve’s drive for some considerable time anyway. No-one can travel anywhere by plane at the moment, as of this week. Even if, by some good fortune, flights do resume in a month or two, I am expecting to find that I still won’t be able to land in Ukraine without being put in quarantine for a couple of weeks. Ukraine is where Olga lives and I’ve been going there every other month for a while now. They’ve now started to see numbers of people with the virus increase and people have started to die there. It seems that Ukraine is about two or three weeks behind the UK and I have a feeling that we will be more efficient in getting things under control. Over there I rather suspect that it will be free to circulate very rapidly as few seem to be taking much notice of any distancing policy and many, many people live in quite close proximity in the huge apartment blocks. Generally, Olga is very self-sufficient and can create wonderful food that could last a good length of time. So she shouldn’t need to go out as often as I do but when she does she will, I feel, be more exposed than I am to getting it from someone.

Olga is comparatively young at 51 and seems strong and fairly fit so I am somewhat less fearful about the outcome if she does catch it than I am for myself. I haven’t had any ‘flu or even much of a cold for many years now and I worry that a bad dose of something like this virus could hit me hard. I also do my very best to avoid hospitals and, even if I do get it, I am unlikely to tell anyone for as long as I possibly can in the hope that I can get through and out the other side of it. Obviously, if I find myself in real trouble I will go wherever I have to but that will be a distinctly last, although hopefully not final, resort.

I had spent quite some time and money arranging a holiday for Olga and myself in late April, early May. I’d booked a smart-looking apartment in Qala on Gozo. It was all looking pretty good. My friend Derek lives nearby and he went to check out the place. He reported that there was some building work going on to the rear of the place which could be nuisance. I had hoped we would have a nice quiet place and could spend time on a balcony but this might result in one of the balconies being less than ideal. Having said that, the work may be intermittent and the lady owning the place said they had only just started that week and had actually only been working noisily for a day or two. She reckoned they might be finished anyway by the time we got there but, nevertheless, she had offered us a refund if we decided to cancel. I didn’t think we would find a better place in the short time available so I left it and reckoned we’d be fine. If it were noisy then we’d pop off t a nearby field or beach instead.

One of the nice things about Gozo is that you are never far away from anything. And you can park easily in most places. Just avoid Victoria. I have spent three holidays now driving around the island and not once have I had trouble. We see a beach or a nice view and stop. Just not in Victoria. I do remember the last time I parked in Victoria and needed to use Google Maps to find my way back on foot to the town centre! On another occasion I actually took the TomTom navigation device with me!

We will still get back to Gozo but the question on my mind, and most people’s minds too at this time, is when? Just how long will this go on for and when will we be free to travel again? I heard reports today that the ‘distancing policy’ could remain in force for the rest of the year. The rest of the year?! I understand that the virus may remain in and around so that if we do start meeting and greeting people again as we used to then it could have a revival and there will be another burst of infections. Quite what that means for my prospects of getting a plane to Kiev this year means, I don’t know. I had assumed and kept at the back of my mind the hope that I would go back in late summer and we’d get to Gozo in the autumn, maybe going somewhere else first as Gozo can be way too hot for me in summer. I am beginning to have doubts now. That’s quite heavy.

When trying to get some money back for the apartment reservation I had made I did think that, if the worst came to the worst, I could ask that it be re-used for an autumn period and I had even started to consider which dates might be good, like the second part of October, maybe. Now I’m quite glad I didn’t! Although getting anything back from AirBnB is not simple. My first effort, with total backing from the very understanding host, produced no response at all, despite my stating that the coronavirus affecting travel permissions was the reason for cancellation. My second attempt produced a zero refund! My third, and I think I’ll have to settle for this, produced a £70 credit against a future booking and a request to the owner for the balance of what I’d paid. I am hoping that AirBnB will either pay the owner the money she is due and that will come to me from her or that they will simply pay me with her agreement.

The refund thing is further complicated by the fact that ArBnB don’t give the owner the money until the reservation starts! So the lady won’t get it until the end of April and I have a feeling that I won’t see it before then even if they are supposed to pay me. It must be tough on people who rely on these bookings to get by. I don’t think that Chelsi, the lady owning the apartment in Qala is in that category will be OK, albeit a lot worse off in terms of extra income this year. I do appreciate that it’s not her fault and so I would have accepted some reduction but, hopefully, if I do use AirBnB next time, then the cancellation will not, in the end have cost me anything.

Flights should be OK too. Air Malta may well take a while to get round to making a refund but they have promised that I can have one. I’ll live with that and have a lot more confidence than I have with the AirBnB thing. Even better, however, have been good old WizzAir. They propose to refund my fares plus 20% to my account with them if the travel restrictions are still in place. At the moment the restrictions are stated as applying only up to 3 April but I cannot imagine them not being extended. It would be odd if I can travel to Ukraine after all on 22 April. Surely that is not going to be possible? All will be revealed soon enough, I guess.

Risk

Well that has been quite a week. The postman knocks and then scampers half-way down the driveway before I open the door, leaving my post and parcels in a little pile on the gravel. We shout our news and greetings and I can’t help but smile at how ridiculous this all seems. Coming indoors I then have a dilemma: should I wash the outside of the envelopes and parcels? I decide instead to open them there, throw the unwanted wrapping in the bin and then wash my hands for the approved twenty seconds or so.

I wake each morning really pleased that I have no signs of the virus and say to myself that, provided I keep away from people and possibly infected things, I should make it through the day. That’s all very well but then someone buys one of my Corgi Toys and I need to go to the Post Office. Greens Norton Post Office doesn’t seem too much of a risk to me. As long as my card works on the contactless point, I have noted that my fingers don’t touch anything throughout the whole visit, but I still wash them vigorously when I get home.

The other risk I have to take is a trip to the supermarket to buy food and whatever else I need. I don’t do the monthly shop with a massive trolley. I don’t even do the weekly shop. Until now, I have tended to go in two or three times a week and that has led to my waste being almost zero. Before, I found myself throwing away quite a few items that had passed their ‘Eat by’ dates so my simple get what I need when I need it system was eminently suitable and worked. OK, so I use more fuel but it’s only a few miles to Towcester and I like to keep the car well-used. It always seems happier than being left for ages.

On the occasions that I have had trips abroad I leave my car at Jason’s house and either he or Steve take me to Luton Airport. It saves me a fortune and it’s nice to catch up with the lads from time to time too. When I return, however, every time my car spews petrol on to their drive and I can see the river flowing down to where I had parked as I reverse up and stop to drive off. It used to scare me but now I know that, after a few minutes, it will stop and, provided that I don’t leave the car for another long period, it won’t happen again. It seems to be a problem with some seals around my fuel injectors - they don’t expand at the same rate as some other parts and that allows the fuel to escape until they have, eventually, expanded to the size they’re supposed to be and thus block the flow in the wrong direction. Even when stopped overnight, the metal still doesn’t seem to cool to the extent for a leak to develop or, if it does, it is minimal. But leave it for several days and the gap gets bigger.

Yes, I know, I’ll have to get it fixed one day before I disappear in a puff of smoke but I have yet to find any helpful reference online to tell me or my mechanic friend exactly what needs to be done. Every time I take the car to him it is behaving itself perfectly in that respect and he sees no sign of a leak either. He knows what he’s doing with the old BMWs that I have too and is reasonable enough to tell me that he could replace part X and then find that we need to change Y and Z too and still have the problem. To replace any more could cost more than the car is worth so I’ll carry on taking the risk for a while longer yet.

Vincent's diary - September 1916

I inherited a set of diaries from an old friend, Mr Vincent, and have recently started looking through them. A fascinating entry for Friday, 1st September 1916 . . .