In all our sanctuaries we sit at risk

  • A Brexiter Takes Stock of the Dark Star

    I know that, in writing this, I was remembering a scene from an early “Star Wars” film. An ominous planet approaches. And I remember that image occurring to me, when I came across a book by Iain McGilchrist called “The Master and His Emissary – The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World.” The distance between our two brain hemispheres is widening and they are at odds in our space, not complementary. And we make a world that reflects our civil war. Or we seek to escape the world we’ve made, by cutting off (so we like to think).

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  • Jez, the Phantom Striker

    Jeremy Corbyn is apparently an Arsenal supporter. Yesterday’s “Independent” editorial came up with the image of the open goal and Corbyn’s failure to shoot. Thanks for that. The piece ended by taking the image a stage further : if the Arsenal manager had a striker who repeatedly failed to shoot in times of need as well as opportunity, the manager would sack that player.

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  • An English Word of Apology to Europe

    Yesterday, Mr Donald Tusk, President of the European Council, said in a speech :“The facts are unmistakable. Today, there is no political force and no effective leadership for Remain. I say this without satisfaction, but you can’t argue with the facts.”

    And : “I have been wondering what that special place in hell looks like for those who promoted Brexit without even a sketch of a plan to carry it [out] safely.”

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  • The Parrot Speaks of Fre-dom

    In the fourteenth century, Geoffrey Chaucer introduced Rhyme Royal to English poetry and all these stanzas of mine about Brexit share that long established rhyme scheme. And Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales and one of those is “The Franklin’s Tale” which I love. And that’s where this medieval word “fre” keeps appearing, later to become “freedom.” But in The Franklin’s Tale, the word means something very different from modern usage. Does that imply corruption just of language, or corruption of spirit ?

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  • How Chaos Multiplied

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  • The Parrot Weeps for the Lost

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  • The Parrot and the Lie

    This stanza was written late on the night of January 30th, when the Commons debated a series of amendments, at least one of which might have resulted in Parliament wresting control of the Brexit process from May’s Tory government. That result failed to materialise.

    Instead, the Tories enjoyed some rare moments of apparent unity. They came together around a puerile fantasy that, out of the blue, the EU would agree to make a change that the EU has said all along and repeatedly that it would not. But that’s all right. Their own unity comes first and delusion is acceptable so long as it brings the family together, if only for a few hours. And Yvette Cooper’s sensible and adult amendment that would have prevented No Deal was voted down – due partly to a fear among some of her own party’s MP’s that by thus disturbing the suicidal delusions of their constituents, they might lose their seats.

    Quote from “Speak, Parrot” by John Skelton : “Parrot is my own dear heart and my dear darling.”

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  • Plain Words from the Cage

    The balloons are a Bristol image, since hot-air balloons often appear above the city. I ought to say, though, that whatever fills the Bristol balloons does not appear to be foul.

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