The Orange Vindictive Narcissist is Back

Donald Trump will be President of the United States for another term of office, four years after we thought we'd seen the back of him.

I'm feeling bereft today - a mild depression that has lasted until the now, the late evening. Everyone knows the democratic Party are useless, and at times, as Joe Biden has shown, murderous. But the idea that Kamala Harris would have been a worse president that Donald John Trump is laughable. Anyway, the orangse buffoon is back, 78 years old, fizzing with resentment and stupidity. The rot that started with the "election" of George W Bush in 2000 continues. At least this time around the result is clear, and Trump, to his cedit, may even have won the popular vote.

As a good little liberal, I used to believe in abstract concepts like democracy. But then as an ill-tempered Jewish Professor once hissed at me "Even Adolf Hitler was elected, never forget that!"

Steve Wright is Charged with Another Murder

Convicted murderer Steve Wright has been charged with another murder, this one six years before his horrible killing spree in 2005, the trial of which I blogged about years ago.

A couple of days ago Wright was charged with the murder of 17 year old Victoria Hall in 1999, and an attempted kidnap of a 22 year old woman In Felixstowe the previous day.

To those of us familiar with the Steve Wright case, the fact that he's been charged with more murders is not a surprise. Most serial killers are active at much younger ages than Wright, and police have long suspected his 10-day murder spree in 2006 wasn't his first. 

But favourite for reinvestigation and possible charges was the unsolved murders of two Norwich prostitutes  Natalie Pearman (killed in 1992) and Michelle Bettles ( killed in 2002) . Another Norwich sex worker, Kellie Pratt disappeared in 2000 and has never been seen again.

Wright used to run a pub, the Ferry Boat Inn which was in Norwich's red-light district, for a time in the late 1980s. No doubt the police have taken a really good look at all these cases, but so far they remain unsolved.

The authorities have urged the media to remember that Steve Wright deserves a fair trail for these new charges, which he does, so I'll stop this post now. 

Gaza

 A couple of months ago, Arwa Mahdawi one of The Guardian's American correspondents wrote this passionate and heartbreaking article on the plight of Gaza. 

Strangely after a day or two, and no reader comments permitted on  it, it seemed to disappear, along with its author. Was Mahdawi serving some kind of suspension? Had she been fired? The answer, thankfully seems to be 'none of the above.' 

Still, her article deserves to be better known and shared, which is why I'm doing so today. It's excellent throughout, but I found this paragraph a credible and disturbing prediction:

Twenty years from now, when it is far too late for journalism to make any difference, someone will win a Pulitzer for telling the truth about this moment. They’ll be celebrated for unequivocally and unapologetically using the words that people are currently losing jobs or being targeted by hate campaigns for saying: occupation, genocide, ethnic cleansing. Only when every single Palestinian is dead or displaced will it be acceptable to treat us as human.

 

Julia by Andrea Newman

1984 is one of my favourite novels.

On the surface at least, it's relentlessly grim and depressing novel of a brutal Anglo-American Stalinist dictatorship. A regime that seems useless at providing for its people, but ruthlessly efficient in the control and suppression of its citizens. This applies especially to the educated middle class who comprise the Outer Party, and a kind of aristocracy, the Inner Party who form the government. 

Read with a more sceptical eye, some of the books more absurd and comedic elements can raise a smile. Julia, our hero's love interest, is a member of the Junior Anti-Sex league. An organisation founded by the party to discourage young women from having sex in favour of artificial insemination. Unless you happen to be a keen follower of Andrea Dworkin, it's unlikely such an organisation would have much support or success.  

It's Julia, who wears a narrow scarlet sash, emblem of the Junior Anti-Sex League, around her waist just tightly enough to bring out the shapeliness of her hips who's the subject of Andrea Newman's latest novel. It's a kind of companion volume to 1984, not a prelude, not a sequel but with elements of both. Rather like a franchise film, it takes the basic setting of novel and a few key scenes to push in all sorts of interesting and surprising directions.

One of the major criticisms of George Orwell is how undeveloped, even two-dimensional his female characters are. Julia in 1984 is one of the "better" ones, but this book reminds you just how much of Julia we don't know. For example, we never even learn her surname, let alone much of her background, and her work, that of mechanic is barely mentioned. 

Andrea Newman does a great job filling these gaps in an interesting and convincing way. We learn of Julia's day-to-day life at the hostel where she lives with about 30 other young women. We learn of her job, in some detail, maintaining and occasionally repairing electromechanical equipment in the Fiction Department of the Ministry of Truth, where she and Winston Smith work and first meet. 

But this is way more than a retelling of 1984 from another character's perspective. Instead it's goes much further, with some significant plot twists and perspectives of its own. Newman does a fantastic job of this without changing Julia's character from the original novel. In 1984 after all, it's Julia that makes the initial pass that starts the relationship. It's Julia who seems to know how to operate in Air Strip One's flourishing black market. Her choice of safe spaces are better than the room above the junk shop that Winston chooses, and where they eventually get caught by the Thought Police.

I had a few reservations. Minor characters like Parsons and Syme feature in the story in ways that change their characters. I didn't like that. The book is probably a bit long, although Orwell, who was very seriously ill with TB when he wrote 1984 told friends it should have been longer and more rounded. That's harsh but he may have made a point.

In these rather puritanical times, I was also pleasantly surprised by some of the sex scenes (Orwell was rather prudish) and some of detail of the horrors "in Love." That's the term Julia uses to those imprisoned in the Ministry of Love, the terrifying Gestapo-like organisation that imposes ruthless discipline on party members. My favourite scene in the book featured a famous, fearless old female revolutionary, hard, needle-sharp and still ruthless, not least on herself in Love.

This is an excellent book, and everyone who's enjoyed 1984 would enjoy reading it. 

Murderous Hate in and around Gaza

On Saturday 7th October, with complete surprise, Hamas fighters broke out of the blockaded Palestinian territory of Gaza and attacked Israeli soldiers and settlements in the area. There was also a rave going on which turned into a bloodbath.

The attack was without mercy, and it showed the extreme cruelty that indoctrinated young men are capable of when well led and motivated. No Israeli citizens were spared; men and women, the very old and even babies - all killed. Think about your worst nightmare and the reality of what happened that day is worse. With over 1,300 people killed, the vast majority Israeli, it was the biggest single lost of life in a day in Israel's history. 

The Israeli Army and the armed Israeli police force reaction was slow and hesitant. Incredibly it was several days before all the Hamas fighters were killed or forced back into Gaza. The world response was faster, instant condemnation of Hamas and offers of help. President Joe Biden, hopefully the last of the Israel-can-do-no-wrong democratic presidents pledged full support to Israel, American military support and extra ammunition. Much of the media, especially in the USA devoted itself to parroting the pro-Israel line. 

Israel's response is depressingly predictable and familiar. An orgy of bombing and shelling the Gaza Strip, one of the most densely populated areas of the world. This has been the standard Israeli response to any act of Palestinian resistance since the state's bloody and morally dubious foundation in 1948. The result is also depressingly predictable and familiar. Thousands of innocent Palestinian men and women, the very old and even babies - killed and maimed. The survivors and relatives will of course hate the country, society and people that has done this to them, and not a few will look for opportunities for revenge in the future.

It's tempting to write on, but fortunately there has been some outstanding writing already done on the situation. Sarah Helm has written a brave article on the dangers of Netanyahu's extreme nationalist government ethnically cleansing the Gaza Strip by expelling its population to Egypt. And the ever reliable Andrew Sullivan has written an outstanding article on this episode that is the best I've read so far.

Here at home, our doomed Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak has shown unprecedented levels of support for Israel, including the offer of some ships and a unit of Royal marines. I assume these will contribute to the blockade of Gaza so that countries like Iran cannot ship weapons into the enclave. Perhaps as a British Indian he feels he has to do twice as much to avoid accusations of antisemitism. 

Labour leader Sir Kier Starmer has built his power base in the Labour Party by accusing people like me of antisemitism. So it's no surprise that he's given Israel unqualified support, to an extraordinary extent. As Marina Hyde writes: 

[It was] pretty unedifying to note Keir Starmer and Emily Thornberry seemed unable to stand behind the idea of international law in interviews this week (particularly given the suspicion they might have said the diametric opposite four years ago). Well quite.

The media have also been irritating. For the first few days there was reporting that seemed to assume that this attack had been completely unprovoked and come out of a clear blue sky. Antisemitism was the official Israeli explanation for the whole thing. Belatedly, perhaps as a result of fury from people like me, there is now a lot more context given to the attack and more explanation of the general situation and history of the conflict. But there is a horrible, pervasive assumption behind much of the coverage that Israeli Jewish life far more valuable than any Palestinian Arab one . 

My own feelings are ones of deep sympathy to anyone who's lost anyone in this conflict. But coupled with that are feelings of anger and sorrow that my and many other good people's efforts to get a political solution to this conflict in the early years of this century failed. If there had been a just and fair negotiated solution to the conflict back then, I have no doubt that all the Israelis killed last Saturday, and all the Palestinians killed then and and being killed now would be alive and well. 

Hell of a Year

 2022 is now over, to almost universal relief.

It featured the worst war in Europe since 1945, the sacking of two Prime Ministers and the death of our Queen, who had reigned over us since the mid 20th Century. 

On a personal note I left Worldpay in February after nine years, then lost my job at the next company after six very stressful and unhappy months. But luckily, the current UK job market is the best it's been for decades. I managed to find a new job within a couple of months and (so far) it seems to be going OK.

The outlook is not good for 2023 - the war in Ukraine has disrupted the world energy market. It seems that we're in for a recession, and the stupidity of Brexit isn't exactly helping either. Hopefully the experts are wrong and things will pan out well in 2023.

The Funeral of Queen Elizabeth II

Today we watched the funeral of Queen Elizabeth the second. 

It was a brilliantly choreographed and performed piece of high ceremony, replete with soldiers, sailors, and countless other uniformed staff and dignitaries. 

To begin with I found it funny and rather ridiculous, like some Gilbert and Sullivan rubbish produced with a billion pound budget. But gradually, as the ceremony, or rather ceremonies progressed, I found myself immersed, and eventually quite emotional.

I never met the Queen, and was only ever in the same room as her once. It was the ballroom at Buckingham Palace in 1997, and my father was receiving the OBE for services to agriculture. The Queen was a small lady, conventionally but immaculately dressed. She asked my father a question, listened politely to his answer, and shook his hand. Prior to the ceremony, he'd been briefed that she had a firm handshake - he confirmed that she had.

I'm no ardent Royalist, but believe in the madness of a constitutional monarchy. People, often very ordinary people, seem to love it. I like the way it absolves our politicians of having to pretend to be acting in the interests of the whole country - in our system they never do. I've also been lucky enough to live in two republics, France and the USA. In both, the citizens didn't seem to be any happier or freer than in the United Kingdom. 

Andrew Sullivan has written a brilliant article on Queen Elizabeth II and constitutional monarchies. I urge you to find it and read it yourselves, but here's an extract:

You can make all sorts of solid arguments against a constitutional monarchy — but the point of monarchy is precisely that it is not the fruit of an argument. It is emphatically not an Enlightenment institution. It’s a primordial institution smuggled into a democratic system. It has nothing to do with merit and logic and everything to do with authority and mystery — two deeply human needs our modern world has trouble satisfying without danger.

The Crown satisfies those needs, which keeps other more malign alternatives at bay. No one has expressed this better than C.S. Lewis:

Where men are forbidden to honour a king, they honour millionaires, athletes, or film stars instead; even famous prostitutes or gangsters. For spiritual nature, like bodily nature, will be served; deny it food and it will gobble poison.

The Crown represents something from the ancient past, a logically indefensible but emotionally salient symbol of something called a nation, something that gives its members meaning and happiness. However shitty the economy, or awful the prime minister, or ugly the discourse, the monarch is able to represent the nation all the time. In a living, breathing, mortal person.

The period of mourning for Elizabeth II lasted 10 days, and with the funeral today comes to an end. It's been a strange slightly disorientating time. There have been ceremonies in Edinburgh, and a prolonged lying in state in the medievally atmospheric Westminster Hall. An estimated 300,000 people queued up to pay their respects. The BBC had a 24 hour live feed going the whole time, and it was weirdly compelling viewing. 

I'd hoped the funeral today would bring a sense of closure, but instead I feel sad and still slightly disorientated. Hearing "God Save the King!" and a national anthem that now starts with "God save our gracious King, long live our noble King..." feels very strange. Likewise seeing "E II R" emblazoned on the outfits of trumpeters and other royal functionaries, probably for the last time. I wonder when a brown envelope will arrive through the door that says "On his majesty's service" and when I shall see my first post box with "G III R" on it?