A creature of habit

 I am a creature of habit. I guess I always have been - and as I get older I could easily be a fully paid up member of the dull men's club. Like nearly every Monday night for the past 30 plus years I sit listening to my beloved music in the silence of the house. The lovely Patricia is out at her choir practice so I have the house to myself and my music. The music tonight is, as it is more often than not, Bach. As I write this I am listening to the magical sound of Canadian pianist Angela Hewitt (picture left) playing Bach Toccatas (click link Hewitt Tocattas ). Hewitt is unarguably the greatest living exponent of Bach's keyboard works. Other Mondays it might be another great Canadian Bach master, the late Glenn Gould. Gould is and was, in my view and of many others, the greatest ever interpreter and performer of Bach's keyboard works. To listen to the sublime brilliance of Gould playing Bach's Goldberg Variations ( click link Gould Goldberg Variations) or Bach's Forty Eight Preludes and Fugues or the keyboard concertos is for me (and I believe many others) breath taking, spiritually uplifting and almost guaranteed to reduce me to tears.

On other Monday nights I might enjoy and marvel at Bach's contrapuntal brilliance as I listen to Gould or Hewitt perform his Art of the Fugue. All of these are defining works of western music, and all acknowledged as some of - if not - the highest musical achievements of mankind. It is no surprise to me that Gould's rendition of the Forty Eight Preludes and Fugues and the Goldberg Variations were recorded on a golden disc and placed into the 1977 Voyager spacecraft and sent into deep space. The intention being that if the spacecraft and disc were discovered by some far off civilisation they would represent some of the greatest achievements of humankind. Nor can I disagree with Dr Toby Lipman's comment that: "If humanity and all our works were to be destroyed but just one thing saved to represent us, I would save the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. For if that small remnant of what we were was discovered by Intelligent beings across the galaxy, then they would say of us: ‘they must have been a great and noble race’."

I have loved Bach for almost as long as I can remember - certainly since I was about 9 or 10. When I was about that age my mother somehow came by a second hand piano. She could play a little and sent me for piano lessons - which, as I became teenager, and to my later shame and great regret I did not take too seriously. None of my friends played musical instruments and football, cricket and other teenage pursuits took over, much to the frustration of my mother and I think the sadness of my piano teacher - a gentle and kind silvery haired lady called Miss Sylvia Halton. So, although I learned to play the piano, I never pursued it to the level I ought to have done - a thing I regret to this day.

However, when we got this piano there came with it a piano stool and in the space under the seat was a pile of old sheet music. Most of it was of no interest and unknown to me but one piece stood out - Bach's Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring. In the early and mid 1950s when all this occurred this piece was often heard on the radio (no TV for us then!) - it was popular request on radio shows like Two Way Family Favourites. This was only 10 years after the war had ended and the piece had become very famous during the war. The great pianist Dame Myra Hess (picture left) often played it in lunchtime concerts that she organised and were broadcast to the nation throughout the blitz from the National Gallery in the centre of London (click link Hess Jesu Joy ); it was a small act of defiance but an important rebuff to Hitler's bombers who flew over the capital every night with their deadly payloads - and as such it caught the nation's imagination. So, when I saw the sheet music for Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring my enthusiasm for the piano suddenly increased and I can remember deciding that I was going to learn to play this work that I had heard so many times on the radio. It, was, of course far too difficult (Bach's music is never easy!) but I persevered and slowly but surely I managed something approximating to the real thing - and as the years passed I could play it without the sheet music! It became part of me - and is still today very much part of who I am. Patricia and I had the piece played at our wedding in 1969 and throughout my teaching career it became part of almost every week. It was not unusual - especially if it had been a bad day - to find me sitting at the piano in the empty school hall before the school day, at lunchtime or when the kids had gone home, playing Jesu Joy. It wasn't just about relaxing or destressing but I think more about reconnecting with what was important to me as a person.

And that is what my Monday nights are. A time to indulge myself and reconnect with what is important to me. It's not always Bach that I listen to when I'm alone - Handel, Scarlatti, Vivaldi, Purcell, Telemann, Rameau and other Baroque composers get a look in - but Bach is my first and last love. As I say, I'm a creature of habit!

Two, Four, Six, Eight - Who Do We Appreciate.......?

I've always loved sport - especially football and cricket - but as I get older I am increasingly of the mind that sport and associated physical activities are becoming a modern day - and perhaps unhealthy - obsession in the hearts and minds of many. My much loved Guardian newspaper - allegedly a "serious" paper - has page after page of sport related news every day which suggests to me that many want to read about it, but makes me increasingly wonder and worry about the priorities of much of the public. If I go to my local Lidl supermarket I walk past a gym with huge windows and no matter what time of day or night I pass the place is full of people pounding the treadmills, trancelike, their eyes glazed over, almost a modern day act of religious homage. And, watch the crowd at a Premier League (or any other league) football match and you will see thousands of man-babies dressed in their replica team shirts emblazoned with their hero's name, all in various stages of ecstasy or rage, losing all sense of reason and maturity when their team scores a goal or when something upsets them.

Of course, all sport has many desirable benefits: fitness and good health, healthy rivalry and fun, a sense of comradeship and team spirit but as George Orwell famously said when talking, especially about professional sport "Sport is war minus the shooting". Orwell was not wrong; in the end for both participants and audience most sports are intensely tribal and innately aggressive. This manifests itself in many ways: on the field aggression and violence on the terraces, tribal (and often obscene) chanting and hooliganism, hate mail sent to officials and others and a myriad of other less desirable" virtues". Even children's football is today not exempt from unpleasant on and off the field misbehaviour or worse.

The great Liverpool FC manager Bill Shankly once said "If you are first you are first. If you are second you are nothing" and he quickly followed that up with perhaps his most famous comment: "Some people think that football is a matter of life and death. I can assure you, it's much more important than that." Mmmm! - as a football player, a manager and a man Shankly was second to none but he was dreadfully and awfully wrong in these comments. Football or any sport is not more important than life and death except in the minds of grossly immature and easily influenced people, nor is being second "worthless". Once one accepts that winning, being first, is the only thing that matters then it is a recipe for feelings of mass failure (for there can only be one winner) and a potential springboard for aggressive response; if being the "winner" is the only criteria for my or my team's success then I will fight - perhaps aggressively - use any means, to ensure that I win.

A couple of days ago my much loved and home town football team, Preston North End, put out a notice on social media and in the local press requesting and warning that fans should not sing/chant various songs during matches. Anyone doing so, the Club said, would be banned from games and there may be police involvement. Songs and chants have always been part of football but when I read the words to some of these modern match day "hymns" I was horrified at their content. These were not simply humorous or mildly mocking ditties of the type I knew as a teenager (e.g. "2, 4, 6, 8, Who do we appreciate? .....Preston!" or sung to the tune of the Rolling Stones' hit 'Not Fade Away': 'You're gonna know how it's gonna be be.......Blackpool 2, Preston 3") but crude verbal pornography aimed at the opposition or the players or match officials. And as I read the vulgar and obscene words I wondered what must go on in the hearts and minds of those who happily chant and sing them. I wondered do these man-babies use such language and thoughts in their homes, to their children, or to their mothers? Are they not ashamed of what their parents might once have been ashamed of? Have we as a society fallen too far - does football (or any sport) justify this? And if so, is it worth it? Is it worth the pages that my Guardian and all the other media outlets devote to it, is it worth the obscene amounts of money involved in modern day sport and especially in Premier League football?

In the end football or any sport, is a pastime, an entertainment, a game to be enjoyed either by playing or watching - nothing more, nothing less. It might provide certain benefits like physical fitness or the opportunity to join with others in a positive manner, a "team spirit", a sense of belonging and these are all well and good and highly desirable. But when aggression, loss of "reality", violence, obsessive behaviour, or hero worship become part of it, when it becomes the be all and end all of life and reason then it has no place in society.

In his 2006 novel "Kingdom Come" author JG Ballard prophesied with huge accuracy the world of England 2026 where so many have taken sport to obsessive limits. Ballard's futuristic, but in the event wholly accurate, tale tells of marauding gangs of men in their replica football shirts, attacking those of other ethnic origins, surrounding the homes and businesses of those they pick upon, and waving flags of St George as they make their way to the next big sporting event to fill their minds and waking hours. It is a prescient and alarming work that depicts many of the events we saw in 2025 in places like Essex. Ballard wrote: "Sport is the big giveaway. Wherever sport plays a big part in people's lives you can be sure they're bored witless and just waiting to break up the furniture." The twenty years since 2006 have shown that he was not wrong.

But it doesn't have to be this way; enjoyable though sport might be, there are other less provocative and potentially less aggressive outlets for the emotions and mankind's "need" to come together.

This letter in today's Guardian(click link) Guardian Article and the article it refers to are exactly right. There are many other ways of getting the same benefits provided by sport: comradeship, team spirit, achieving a goal, physical and mental well being etc. The arts in particular provide positive frameworks for people to come together and experience the emotional, social and mental well being that sport might provide without the negative and competitive aggression and tribal "baggage" Dancing of various kinds, making music - be it classical or heavy metal, performing in a play or being part of a theatre back stage "team" can and do provide exactly the same opportunities, experiences and outlets that sport might provide.

When I watch an orchestra, choir and soloists perform (say) Bach's B Minor Mass I see hear and enjoy great talent and skill combining perfectly with many individuals and groups to produce this glorious music - it's the ultimate team endeavour as well as one of the great musical wonders of the world. Like a great football match it can and does uplift, inspire, bring you to tears and excite your senses, drain your emotions and at the same time give a huge sense of camaraderie and social fulfilment to know that you are enjoying it surrounded by other like minded people. When I watch a ballet I see dancers, their physical skills honed to levels that Premiership footballers can only dream about, perform with hugely talented musicians to create a visual entertainment that is infinitely more stunning and beautiful than anything that can be created on the football pitch. It's the same when I go to the theatre to watch Shakespeare or the opera to watch "The Magic Flute". And the bonus is that when I'm enjoying a Mahler symphony or the ballet Swan Lake, or Shakespeare's King Lear I am surrounded understanding, mature, knowledgeable and enthusiastic fellow travellers and not by belligerent, immature, bull necked man-babies in their cheap but grossly overpriced replica football shirts screaming obscenities and losing all sense of reality and any grasp of basic humanity.

Sport is not and must not be an excuse for excess, for permitting behaviour on the street or in wider society that is an affront to the ordinary man or woman. The behaviour now accepted as alright because it is just blokes enjoying their sport on the streets, in pubs and in football stadiums when a goal is scored or when the referee gives a decision with which the crowd disagrees would be considered unacceptable, a sign of mental breakdown or worse in bygone days or in any other aspect of human life - in the supermarket, in the workplace, at the cinema, in the street. It has no part of what should be an enjoyable pastime, a friendly rivalry, a coming together of like minded enthusiasts.

Cheap Jibes to Perpetuate the Great American Myth

 

I am very definitely not a supporter of jingoistic nationalism, the waving of the flag or my country right or wrong. I am suspicious of all things military and abhor violence of any kind or any mindless worship of battles and "heroes". An old friend said many years ago (she was about 80 at the time) when our TV screens and news broadcasts were filled with one of the many anniversary "celebrations" of the end World War 2: "Why are we still fighting this war 50 years after it ended". Betty was not wrong. When nations choose to go to war it means that reason, humanity and common decency have failed and we should all be ashamed.

However, Trump's latest outburst stating that soldiers from NATO were not in the front line during the campaigns in Afghanistan cannot and must not go unchallenged. I know nothing about the tactics of war or "the front line" that Trump refers to but having been around for 80 years I do know a cheap jibe when I hear it and I can usually spot a dodgy snake oil salesman, a dishonest charlatan, a bullying "wannabe" when I cross their path. As a teacher I've seen lots of them on the school playground - the school bullies, demanding an audience and craving misplaced "respect" from the rest of the children. Trump is just another immature playground bully, craving respect through fear and aggression rather than through any positive, worthwhile or even decent personal qualities and his offensive comments say more about him than they do about brave troops of any nation. Of course, he is, in many ways just regurgitating, spurting out (in Trump's case I think the word vomiting is more appropriate) the usual repetitive and tired Hollywood version of reality, a reality where history, events, people and actions are rewritten to fit the American narrative that America is the shining citadel on the hill and saves the world from itself, again and again and again. This bending of reality, or to use a more accurate term - lying - by Hollywood and wider America even extends to their own history, such as it is. The "cowboy films" of "the old West", or films and books like Gone With the Wind paint a picture of the good and virtuous white man, overcoming the evil native American or in the case of Gone With the Wind (and other such tales) being justifiably superior to black slaves. And no matter that the world has moved on, these myths are still perpetuated by Hollywood and firmly fixed in the mindset of white America - and especially so in the hearts and minds of Trump and his MAGA supporters. Both at home and globally America has, almost since its inception, manufactured, rehearsed and intentionally promoted and exaggerated its false image. Donald Trump is the latest and most objectionable promotor of this and his claim that only American soldiers were front line troops, saving the world and Afghanistan from themselves is just another dimension of the tired and disreputable old myth.  

If we are going to engage in cheap jibes in the Trump fashion how about this one? On 9/11 New York was hit by a dreadful terrorist attack and the world held its breath and rightly mourned for America. But I often wonder what America would have done if it had been faced with years of blitz of the kind we in the UK suffered in the last war, or that the Ukraine is suffering now or that the people of Gaza have suffered? To put it bluntly we would never have heard the end of it, the beating of American breasts and the uncontrolled weeping, wailing and wallowing would drown out all else. I wonder where Donald Trump would have hung out in such a scenario? Would he have been alongside John Wayne, Arnie Schwarzenegger, Tom Cruise and the rest of the faux American heroes, saving his Trump Tower from obliteration and rescuing the planet yet again - and then spending the rest of eternity retelling the great American myth, blowing the American trumpet? I suspect a more likely scenario is that he would be deep in his bunker, counting his gold, making a pact with the devil and making another deal to make money out of the dead and homeless - and having done his deals he would emerge into the wrecked world and boast that he had stopped another war. If you think that's a bit over the top then remember he proposed buying up ruined Gaza for "real estate", expelling the Palestinians and building a holiday theme park, the "Palestine Riviera"; the man is morally bankrupt and inhuman with absolutely no saving graces . No, there would be no front line for him or any of the other plastic "all American superheroes" - they'd be in their fox holes, cowering, all aggression and false bravery spent. In fact, just like the school bully standing in the Headmaster's Office blubbering, saying "It's not my fault, they told me to do it, I was only joking, please don't tell my mummy.....…"

I would humbly suggest (and going against all my pacifist principles!) that Trump "discusses" his view of NATO's front line involvement and the contribution of troops from the UK, France, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, Spain, Poland, Italy etc. with people who know what they're talking about when it comes to Afghanistan, Iraq and other war torn areas. This discussion should be behind locked doors in the White House and involve Trump and a couple of war weary and battle hardened NATO squaddies who were in Afghanistan fighting, putting their lives on the line, sustaining terrible injuries and losing old comrades in what was, after all part of American President George Bush's "War on Terror" following 9/11. I'm sure that the two squaddies could and would, in true Don Corleone fashion, make Trump an offer he couldn't refuse. And, like the school bully when confronted with reality, he would squirm and bellow, sob and scream, have another tantrum but in the end be quite easily convinced when raw power explained it all to him and he would be keen to agree that he had "misspoke". He is essentially a coward, brave only when he is not challenged; he would beg forgiveness as the two squaddies towered over him and be anxious to apologise. And, hopefully, when he emerged from the Oval Office he would have the bruises to prove the depth of the "discussion" with the squaddies! Whether he would learn anything, however, is doubtful - he is beyond learning or redemption.

The man is an offensive and dangerous fool. Shame on America and Americans for giving him the power and the air to breath and vomit out his mindless and offensive ranting in 2016 and then again in 2024. And even more shame on them for not now removing him as unfit for public office. It says much about America and Americans - none of it good. All nations get the politicians and leaders they deserve and those leaders reflect the electorate and its culture. Over seventy years ago in his seminal work on 1950s America, "On The Road", an indictment of his country's rampant consumerism and the shallowness of the American dream, novelist Jack Kerouac, searching for meaning in life,  asked “Whither goest thou, America, in thy shiny car in the night?” His question was never answered and that same shallowness and rampant consumerism has brought us to where we  are today. Trump cannot be viewed in isolation, he is what America is and always has been; a nation that should be ashamed of what they are and what they have spawned.

"Resist the piping pedlar....... Choose to hold on tight to your humanity......."

Pamela Ireland's poignant, perceptive and pertinent poem “Choose” was written in 2018 at the height of the first Trump Presidency and the UK’s own deep social and political divisions over Brexit. It is powerful and prophetic commentary upon our times, even more relevant today, perhaps, than it was in 2018 as the world tumbles into a new dark age: Gaza, Ukraine, Putin, Netanyahu, Trump - evil and unstable mad men and each in charge of frightening power. In recent days the world has watched in various states of fascination and horror at the events in Venezuela: bombings, kidnapping, piracy on the high seas; a mad American President contemplating "buying" or invading and "stealing" another country (Greenland); an American President plumbing the depths of morality and demeaning that Great Office of State by justifying the common and shameless murder of a young woman on the streets of Minneapolis..... and today that same President advises us that “I don’t need international law” and that his power is only limited by his “own morality, my own mind.”  That explains a lot. His idea of right and wrong is wholly subjective. He is his own ethical and legal adviser, his own priest and confessor. He is a church of one. Trump lies to himself as well as everyone else. And the resulting damage is pernicious. It costs lives, harms democracy and destroys trust between nations. And yet, and tellingly, few across the world or in power raise their voices in protest. It is time, as Pamela's poem pleads, for the world to choose which path it takes:

Choose

What maggot eats

a human heart

that it would follow

willingly

a sly pied piper

peddling old lies

who wears the flag

like a cheap salesman’s smile?

What dark music

draws so many of us on

cheering and chanting

in an insane dance

towards a truthless land

where fear and hatred

are the people’s daily bread?

Already unseen hands

tap out orders

as behind the wire

faceless guards

take children

from their mothers.

Who perpetrates

such acts of separation

from their own humanity?

It could be any one of us

when the only choice

is guard or prisoner.

Choose.

Choose now

before the gates close.

Choose to defend

the hard won freedoms

that are every human’s right

before law dances to the piper’s tune

and fear trumps justice

and betrays the just.

Choose to resist

the piping pedlar

for he is the reaper

in disguise.

Choose to hold on tight

to your humanity

and wear it like a hazard suit

around your heart

for you will need it.

Those who would claim

to buy their freedom

with the suffering of innocents

sell everything

a human heart holds dear.

Pamela Ireland Duffy 29.06.2018

The greatest of the First World War poets, Wilfred Owen said that the role of all poets and writers is to speak the truth and Pamela Ireland’s poem does just that, it forces us to choose the world and the morals that we want and need. It puts to the test the unforgivable shame of swathes of the American electorate, American politicians, and our own UK Prime Minister and government, who will not choose to speak the truth, who sit on their hands, silent, afraid or unwilling to say what must and should be said and do what should be done. Their message to Donald Trump should be simple and unequivocal: "This shall not and will not be”; it must be said to state the importance of right over wrong, good over evil. As the great political commentator oft regarded as the father of the Conservative Party Edmund Burke reminded us in the 18th century "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing". If we and our elected representatives do not speak the truth then we become complicit in those deeds committed by those intent upon evil - in this case the malefic perpetrators in Washington who are supported by millions across America in the name of shallow pragmatism, failed economics, irresponsible might and untrammelled greed.

The world no longer pays heed to the wisdom found in Shakespeare's King Lear: in the final lines of this tragic tale of desolation and misrule Edgar warns that there are times when we must "Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say". In the terrible aftermath of the First World War which had wiped out a whole generation, as Russia descended into revolutionary and communist chaos, and as fascism rose in Europe William Butler Yeats told the truth and said what he felt in his poem “The Second Coming”. Yeats' words were prophetic for his time - and now ours, but this time the beast has risen in Washington’s White House not in Nazi Germany and it is spreading its tentacles across the world:

The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

William Butler Yeats

These dark cold days of January, the start of the year, are a frightening metaphor for the dark age into which we are descending. Bright Spring might bloom in a few weeks as the seasons change, but mankind is tumbling into darker times, a cold winter it will be for us all which even gentle yellow daffodils, bright golden sun or the early morning blackbird's sweet song will be unable to brighten or cure. As Yeats foretold “….things are falling apart, anarchy is upon the world, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned”. The words in Pamela’s poem and Yeats’ warning from a century ago are profound and articulate wake up calls; it is time for us all to choose, to follow Edgar's advice and "say what we ought to say". The rough beast is upon and within us; its hour come on the streets of Minneapolis, on the streets of wider America - and it is slouching towards our own streets and to the corridors of power across the world; a sly presidential pied piper peddling again the old lies while wearing "the flag like a cheap salesman’s smile", the beast's Presidential "gaze blank and pitiless as the sun", demanding obedience and that knees be bent in servile homage as it snuffs out mankind's Spiritus Mundi. And America and we stand and stare, wring our hands, weep crocodile tears, confess our rage, betray our heritage, betray our fathers and grandfathers, and do nothing, and the beast leers and howls its victory cry.

Thank you Pamela for sharing not just your poem but your wisdom and foresight.

Donald Trump: a latter day Don Corleone or Al Capone. A President who bombs and kidnaps others rather than clearing up the mess in his own back yard.

 

So, the President of the USA tells us that on his orders American planes have bombed the capital city of another nation, Venezuela. He further tells us that the elected President (and his wife) of Venezuela has been "captured" (a euphemism for "kidnapped") and taken to an unspecified destination. And, in a breathtaking piece of arrogance he says that America is going to "run Venezuela" until a new government (presumably favourable to Donald Trump) is installed. If previous similar US actions during my lifetime (Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan et al) are anything to go by this will not end well - for anyone. It is prime example of what Einstein suggested was idiocy - namely doing the same thing over and over again and hoping for a different result. Clearly, the numbskulls of the current Washington White House have not learned the lessons of their own history. But then again, this is Donald Trump and his sycophantic wannabes, individuals known for their rank stupidity, lack of reason and, all too often, criminal intent. We should not be surprised.

The justification for these actions is that "Venezuelan drug cartels" are responsible for importing vast amounts of drugs into the USA and the Venezuelan President is himself corrupt, hated by the Venezuelan population, and won't or can't do anything about this. Or so Donald Trump informs us.

Mmmm! Maybe all this is true and maybe a majority of Venezuelans want rid of their thoroughly disreputable President - but that can never, ever justify what America and Trump have done, attacked another nation. It is reminiscent of the "gun law" of the old West where might equals right. We do not want or need a world where "might" justifies action; it only ends in one way - badly. And, I might add, I am not comfortable with the most powerful man in the world, a man who has consistently displayed his erratic and irrational personality, operating as if he thinks he is Marshal Wyatt Earp or a latter day John Wayne or Clint Eastwood using his guns and his might to keep the world in whatever order he desires and willing to bow their knees to do his bidding.

But there is another more fundamental issue which Trump's actions do not address. The illegal supply of drugs depends entirely upon the demand for them. Drug dealers, dreadful though they are, are merely satisfying a demand; they would not run the vast risks they do if they were not certain of being able to sell their produce. It is the most basic law of economics that supply grows to meet demand; if there is no demand (i.e. people not wanting to buy a product) then businesses, shops and, yes, even drug dealers go out of business or go elsewhere to sell their goods.

So, it seems to me that Trump (and any other national leader) would be far better ensuring that the population of his own country were not minded to desire/purchase the drugs - thus creating a demand - in the first place; no buyers, no suppliers, it's as simple as that.

America is the biggest consumer of illegal narcotics, prescription drugs and opioids in the world by a considerable margin (16.9% - almost 47 million - of Americans aged over 12 years in 2024 and rising at a rate of 1.9% per year compared with 8.8% of the population in the UK, 11% of the French population, 6% in Norway and a European average of 6.8%) which illustrates clearly America’s problem, its increasing akrasia, its entropic decline and the drift into nihilism in its politics, its society and its culture. This, culminating in the election of Trump, indicates with great clarity a society in terminal decline, increasingly unable or unwilling to save itself from its own excesses, unaware or uncaring of its inherent and rising shallowness, its immaturity and its rising tide of violence on its streets, in its schools and shopping malls, and now towards other nations. So, maybe, Trump should concentrate on putting his own house in order before bombing and kidnapping the citizens of another country. And, further, perhaps the American electorate should be ensuring that their President is (like the President of Venezuela) held and charged for being unable or unwilling to do anything about his own citizens actively participating in the illegal use of drugs, for it is them, the millions of American drug users who are creating the demand and thus the eventual supply of illegal narcotics into the USA. But, as always - and certainly with Trump - it's easier to blame someone else (Venezuela) and bomb them rather than clean up the mess in his own back yard.

And one thing we all know is that America and its back yard are the mother and father of all messes; a mixed up society unable to moderate its own behaviour. If it were not so they would not have mass shootings, and out of control drug problems or ingrained racist division, nor would they have defied all logic, common sense and political wisdom by electing a convicted felon and common racketeer as their President. Over a century ago Oscar Wilde famously said that "America is the only country that has gone from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between". He was not wrong then and his words hold even more true today. Trump himself in his manner, his views, his life style and his moral bankruptcy personifies that decadence. His actions this weekend are all about blaming America's contemporary self imposed decadence and chaotic social climate on others - in this case Venezuela. America has elected, and shamelessly continues to tolerate, this modern day Don Corleone or Al Capone figure. America prides itself, they often tell us that they are the great democracy - indeed they have a track record of trying to impose this on other nations - and yet, and despite their famed "democracy" and the crocodile tears from millions of Americans they complain, beat their breasts, write critical tweets but do nothing; they fail the test of democracy to remove a leader who brings shame, discredit and disaster upon the nation - and Trump is allowed to continue unopposed; ultimately, they do not care and in being so they have shown, and continue to show, America's contemporary lack of moral fibre and compass.

Roosevelt, Kennedy, Obama must weep, and so should we - and we should worry. Venezuela is being bombed today, but which country, I wonder, will it be tomorrow? Which of us will suffer the madness and criminal intentions of America and its President. And, I wonder, will Trump simply use the language and rhetoric of his friend and mentor Vladimir Putin and say that this was not an act of war but simply a "Special Military Operation".

Memories of a childhood

Throughout my childhood – and even today – my Dad was my rock. As a long distance lorry driver he was often away from home for two or three days each week so my time with him was often short but he was so important to me. My mother, unfortunately, was prone to fits of anger that flared up almost daily – and were nearly always directed at my Dad. Although we were not beggars we were poor, there was little spare cash, and despite my Dad never being out of work and always each week bringing his pay packet home unopened and handing it to my mother as soon as he walked through the door, money was a constant source of anger in my mother’s mind. But the anger and rage flared up for any reason and no reason and always started with my mother. Dad would just sit quietly while she raged at him. As a child I sat nightly on the top stair of our little house sobbing, listening, as downstairs mother raged at Dad about whatever had upset her; at times like those I wished dearly that I had a brother or sister to relate to, to confide in - I felt very alone in the world. At the meal table I was always frightened that something would ignite my mother’s ire – as it often did. It might be (and this is true) the way Dad had peeled the potatoes (Dad always cooked Sunday lunch while mother stayed in bed reading the paper till almost noon) or perhaps he had not cooked the meat for long enough. But whatever, it was common that meal times would more often than not descend into my mother raging at Dad as I sat sobbing, worrying, afraid that my Dad would simply walk out and leave and I would never see him again. As I got older I became angry because although I knew that my mother loved me dearly, fiercely even, in the end I also knew that Dad was between a rock and a hard place – he could do nothing right in my mother’s eyes; and I also increasingly knew that Dad did his best and was, I believed and still believe, rarely if ever in the wrong. As I sat at the dinner table as a child and a teenager I would make up inane conversations, jokes, anything to keep the focus on me rather than allow my mother’s ire to irrationally flare up in the silent vacuum of the meal. By the end of meal times I was sweating, fearful, anxious for the meal to be over when the likelihood of a row lessened - mother going into the front room to read her paper or knit and Dad would stand at the sink washing up. Still, today, when I sit down for a meal, I often feel my heart quicken and I begin to sweat, in the back of my mind fearful that something will occur to cause an argument between those at the table, whoever they are, and that I will have to sit and witness, relive a much dreaded part of my young life.

Dad just took it all; never fought back. Mother would stand and beat him with her fists, screaming in anger into his face but he just let it happen. When her rage dissipated he would quietly and calmly get on with whatever had to be done, washing up, tidying the house, chopping wood for the fire, hoovering. And I, even as small child, made a promise to myself that I would never, ever allow my children to witness the sorts of things that I had - I would never lose my temper, never row with my wife if I ever had one. In other words, I’d be like my Dad. And whatever happened Dad was always there for me. We went to the pictures together – a time I remember with great fondness - occasionally went to watch Preston North End, he sometimes took me out on his lorry during the school holidays, or went fishing together. These, and others were precious times – I suppose nowadays we would call it bonding – but to me it was a place of safety, when I was with Dad I knew I was safe from mother’s ire.

I never knew what was at the root of my mother’s rage. I do know that she also frequently “fell out” with her sisters, brothers and other members of the wider family – I grew up unaware of aunties, uncles and cousins and only made contact with some of them via social media in the years after my mother’s death; to have done so before would have been a source of rage and venom from my mother. I tried as a child to rationalise, to explain her flare ups but never succeeded. I often thought lack of money was the issue and it clearly produced pressures in the family, but then, in those days everyone was the same, we were not unusual, and in many ways we were better off than many. In more recent years I have pondered that it might have been the stage in life that mother was going through – but that doesn’t really hold true since the rage and anger were always there from my earliest days to the time she died. I do, however, believe that she was frustrated. She was a bright woman and had had a hard life. Her own mother, my grandmother, died when mother was ten years old leaving her as the oldest girl to look after the four other siblings. The impact of this was that she was unable to study, take up a career that might have fulfilled her and I think this was a matter of great regret throughout her life. To add to that I think my Dad “disappointed” her; he was not ambitious and was happy doing his driving and living a quiet life. At one point, when I was a teenager, the Transport Manager at his company retired and Dad was prompted by the company to apply for the job – but, whether it was lack of confidence, or an unwillingness to give up his driving, or maybe even he didn’t relish the thought of being at home seven nights a week rather than being on the road I don’t know but he wouldn’t apply. The job would have meant an increase in pay and probably a gentle wind down towards his own retirement but it wasn’t for him and I know it upset my mother.

My mother, although she loved me ferociously, never showed any fondness – never a cuddle or a kiss – with me or anyone else. When I first met my wife Pat’s family I was bemused and embarrassed that they always hugged and kissed each other when greeting family and friends; it was a thing unknown to me and I felt very uncomfortable with it. I still do; even today I am unsure, uncertain, embarrassed when I am greeted with a hug. Mother never ever showed any outward affection towards my Dad – or her sisters. Dad would always address mother as “love” or “dear” but mother never reciprocated, there was no outward never a hug, never a kiss, never a spontaneous kind word. I have often thought my mother saw affection as a sign of weakness; as she often told me “It’s a hard life” and you had to be strong all the time and never show weakness. Against this background Dad, who would hold my hand when I was a small child, or talk kindly to me when he came home from work, or playfully rub his whiskery chin against my face when I was very young, became, although he never knew it, my safe place, my role model, my rock – there is absolutely no doubt he got me through my childhood. When my mother died I did not weep; I was sorry but never upset. When my Dad died, however, I knew I had lost not only my anchor but the quiet steadfast rock that had kept the family together through all the years; he had quietly got on with life when I’m sure it would have been easier for him to walk away – but he didn’t – and for that I was and am grateful, he made me what I am.