One year of the lockdown.

 

Today the nation is marking one year since the start of lockdown and remembering the 126,000 Covid victims. We are in a better place just now. I think 17 people died of it in the UK yesterday. But it has been an appalling roller coaster. It has not been Britain's finest hour although the vaccines do now offer real hope. Make sure you get yours! About the linked photo, my father 1916-2004 and mother 1923-2005 in their heyday. Three cars before their demise. Working backwards they had a Polo, a Golf, this BMW in 1971 and in the years before that back through to 1959 when I was born, two Rover P4s. The major impacting moment of their lives was World War Two. Now as it happens 16 and 17 years ago today and tomorrow we buried them. March is really tinged for me and Fiona's mum was a March death and burial too in 2018. I think the death rate in this Pandemic against one year of the war is broadly comparable. My mother was big on stories about parties at USAF airbases. They did not meet until after the war. In a sense they both had "good wars". But the chaos of the war certainly left scars which would impact their lives and those of their children for many decades. At least in the war, the front line forces were found leave. You could not be on duty all the time. Travel around Britain remained just about practical. I believe in this crisis for NHS staff a very difficult challenge has been getting away from the extra-ordinary PTSD level scenes they have had to deal with. We have simply not had enough troops! I am so glad neither my father or mother saw this pandemic. They would not have been impressed.  I can confirm that photo was taken in 1984 at Lymington by their friend John Brice.

Rugby

RUGBY: I speak as someone who went through the entire British private school system and never played a game of Rugby 1967-1978. That took some doing. But these doctors have completely missed the proper point and in so doing reveal so much of what is going wrong in our nation. The proper point is not safety but permission. No-one of whatever age should be forced to play a game of Rugby, it is dangerous. I had worked that out when I was 8. I wanted nothing to do with it. Of course children should be free to play Rugby and run the risks of death. So long as the child makes that choice. And it is no good saying wait until you're 18. As a Rugby player said today, it is about discipline, camraderie and the adrenaldine of risk. We need our children to be able to learn this. Rugby is organised brutality. That appalls me, then and now. But nations need well organised and disciplined forces of brutality. You are naive if you think this world will function without brutality. It is why we in Britain should be proud of our armed forces (which need to be much larger (the Australians are re-arming (Britain needs to re-arm))). And if you disagree that a responsible nation needs to know how to conduct itself in a disciplined and brutal manner then you will find yourselves on the end of Islamacist or Russian brutality. In each case I would rather be dead, because (certainly the former) they glory in causing pain. Rugby does not glory in causing pain or even death. it is the unfortunate but accepted risk of performing in a nobler cause. Those who have signed this appeal completely fail to appreciate the reality of the world they are in, a world that if we lose our ability to defend ourselves and our ability when necessary to be brutal, will eat us for breakfast. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-35696238

Rampant credit, a lack of care, the loss of corporate Christianity create Britain 2013.

In Britain we live in one of the wealthiest countries of the world. Only in debt due to individual and national rampant stupidity.  We are also all living a lot longer and there are a lot of us and our population having been stable is rising again. One consequence is a health service under immense strain and talk of rationing. That health service is run by the best paid professions in the land: NHS admin, lawyers and doctors. Who wonders whether this rationing is coming to past? You smoke (I don't), we asked you to quit. We helped you, but you still smoke. We're warning you. You will not be prioritised for cancer treatment. You drink - a lot (I don't, hardly ever). You're under 40 with a fucked up liver. You won't kick the habit. Why should the NHS care after it has tried for a while? Your enjoyment of chocolate and 21st (and 20th) century eating habits has headed you to Type 2 diabetes, along with millions of others. Will we the NHS start rationing and prioritising treatment according to how good you are at self monitoring and providing the figures to prove it?

I don't precisedly know if we are going this way but I have a hunch we are. And I have a punch line. The day any doctor tells me I am not as important for treatment as anyone else because of health service rationing this will be my answer. Said person will almost certainly be a very well paid person (were this not Britain, were this Syria in a civil war, I can understand how the health service cannot do everything for everyone, although the very opposite of the case would apply in America). This then is my answer, my stupidity, my lack of discipline, my indulgence, my sin, all this did not stop my God and his Son putting their lives on the line and carrying the burden of our foolishness (possibly their's as well) to Death by our hands, beyond into Hell before arising again. We corporately as a nation need the Risen Life of Christ, to inform us from top to bottom. In the health service the decisions which may manage us to rationing care are the same principles that created Stafford. Not only are we heading to rationing but we are losing the very basics of Care (something which my mother's death in Norwich in 2005 informed). Numbers count more than people. And what is so sickening about this, is that it is the wealthy people who make these decisions. The bankers who led us astray, even the politicians, all speak from comfort. And when you talk about taxing the rich more, it is Schhhhhush, you may not do that. Whilst all the figures reveal that the gap between rich and poor in this nation in my life has grown.


Rampant credit creating boom and bust, a failing care system and the loss of corporate Christianity create Britain 2013. This makes me sound like a Marxist, Class War, a Communist. I am none of these things. I believe in Capital. I think the Bible shows a God who believes in Capital, in creation, in abundant wealth. But I also think the Bible says that good stewardship has to be the guardian of Capital. Personal morals and faith all connect intimately to the management of capital and care in a nation under God.