The key-word here seemed to be “constructions.” We construct so much – thoughts, arguments, theories and views, no less than buildings, machines, policies, laws and stories…
Yet do we pause and check very carefully the materials used for those constructions ? Are they sound ? Are the foundations on which they are based trustworthy, honest ? Is their true purpose open or hidden ?
If unsound, expect the worst of everything that follows.
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There was a strange pause in Brexit proceedings at around the time this stanza was written. May asked the EU for another extension and obtained it, amid outrage from the Tory grass-roots and right-wing. The right wing newspapers began to change the subject. Some writers began talking cautiously about Brexit having “failed.” Might that really be possible ? If so, had it taught us anything ? In the meantime, I moved house and found myself in a place I loved immediately.
The “Bird of Paradise” reference takes us back to the original source and inspiration of this collection of rhyme royal stanzas. In his “Speak Parrot” poem, John Skelton was very clear that his parrot was exactly that : a bird of paradise, brought from that exotic place far away by recent explorers in small wooden ships. The parrot would have been a rare and startling creature in England in those days.
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This stanza was written just after Theresa May had accused the Commons of merely obstructing her and the “will of the people” and just before she headed back to the EU to beg for an extension. The thought occurred that it is possible to have no pride and no humility, both at once.
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There’s Jez and John and the Final Say. And there’s Bill and Ben and the Little Weed. Bill and Ben were Flowerpot Men and belong with Listen with Mother in the nurseries of the past, along with the Little Weed. And Jez Corbyn and John McDonnell ? Where do they belong ?
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I’m thinking here of our sleek new Foreign Secretary’s recent comment, saying – as reported in the Guardian – that “relations with the EU will be ‘poisoned for many years to come’ if Brussels fails to budge in the Brexit talks.” In other words, says Mr Hunt, he of the bell which keeps breaking in his hand : “Yah boo. It’s all the EU’s fault that we can’t get our way in doing the wrong thing ineptly.”
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