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Not Dark Yet #341: Positive Thinking

25/2/2022

5 Comments

 
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Ts and Cs apply. For more than two years, I have observed the Covid regulations to the letter. For months, I didn’t see my elderly mother. For years, I have not entered a shop or store un-masked. I am triple vaccinated. I have tested each time we were likely to enter a social situation, as we were this last weekend. And then this happened: a positive test and the prospect and reality of isolation. Time for some positive thinking.

How long this period will last will depend on subsequent tests. I am assuming a week. Which is long enough to put into practice many of the aspirations and resolutions made at the start of the year; as well as indulge in reading and news-junkie-ism.

It is the latter which is taking precedence. Ukraine. And more particularly, the paucity of the response from Johnson and Patel. Not to mention the sudden mainstream coverage of Johnson’s involvement with Russian dirty money.

Johnson and his cronies have embraced not so much the Russian oligarchs themselves as the Russian oligarch’s money. He is not the only politician with this obsession (cf Blair, Mandelson, et al) but his regime appears to have institutionalised it.

Such observations have been made frequently before in organs such as Private Eye and Novaramedia but now they are commonplace. I cannot turn on my mainstream radio without hearing the conversations between those who had previously denied or ignored such connections.

It is now accepted that Abramovitch and Lebedev are merely the tip of the iceberg. Corruption and fraud are now endemic.

Thinking positively, this is a Good Thing. But in reality it is chitchat from the political elite.

Thinking positively, we have some control over - they are, after all, our elected rulers. In reality, all we can hope for is an inquiry and a report.

Speaking of reports, despite wall to wall news broadcasts, I have not heard mentioned the names of Sue Grey and Martin Forde, putative authors of reports into Tory parties and Labour shenanigans respectively.

Sue Grey has been superseded by the Metropolitan Police; Martin Forde by Information Commissioner’s Office.

In other words, we shall never discover the full extent of the institutional self-serving corruption at the heart of government and opposition alike.

It’s difficult to be positive right now. But baseball is back. And so (see below) is Bob.


Today from the everysmith vaults: the return of Bob to the live stage, notably the concerts in Phoenix and Albuquerque, and in particular, his performances of Crossing the Rubicon. “I lit the torch, I looked to the east/And I crossed the Rubicon.”
5 Comments
Paul
15/3/2022 15:47:33

Bit rambling, Max. But that's Covid for you. Keeps moving on. get well soon.

Reply
StephenL
16/3/2022 11:05:35

Only connect. The war in Ukraine has exposed many flaws (contradiuctions?) in our politcal system and our political elite. Thank you.

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Ellie
16/3/2022 13:51:05

get well soon. x

Reply
Allan
18/3/2022 08:34:03

How's it going?

Reply
Max
18/3/2022 08:36:54

Still COVID positive. Still feel ill. Still struggling to stay positive. Otherwise, terrific! Thanks for asking.

Reply



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    Max Smith

    European writer, radical, restaurateur and Red Sox fan. 70-something husband, father, step-father, grandfather and son. Resident in Warwick, England.

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