Life's Not Fair

I'm supposed to be working right now but I'm finding it hard to concentrate. This morning I woke up to find out that twenty two people had been killed at a music concert in Manchester by a suicide bomber. Amongst those killed were children and teenagers. If I stopped writing this to concentrate on my Excel spreadsheet, maybe it will stop the urge to cry. But from experience, too much time on Excel can kill other signs of life.

I've tried to avoid most of the news today. In spite of this, I've heard the words 'terror' more times than I care to. I am not scared though. It's something else that is bothering me.

I should be used to waking up to catastrophic news by now. When I woke up to Brexit, I was shocked. Such shock that there was no room for tears but instead, profound grief. For I sincerely believe that it's a decision that will change the course of world history for the worse.

After that Trump was a breeze. I cried but more from anguish than pain.

Months later when the guy bulldozed pedestrians off Westminster Bridge right outside my work place, I made a point of walking across the bridge many times to and from work thereafter.

Brussels, France. France again. Germany. Idiots sacrifice others for misguided reasons. This has always happened of course. Right now, political instability, rising nationalism, a 24-hour news cycle and social media are the forces working to create a playing field fueled by suspicion, worry and protectionism. If continued, the Hunger Games may become non -fiction in years to come.

Maybe it's disingenuous of me to lament this latest tragedy because it is closer to home. Manchester is my patch. More so than places like Syria, Sierra Leone or Papua New Guinea where many young people endure unthinkable suffering and die every day.

Last night I checked on my six year old before I went to sleep. She looked so peaceful in repose. Such a contrast to her high energy antics during the day. I stared at her sleeping face and was struck by her vulnerability and also my own. It occurred to me that someday in the future we would be parted. I felt a physical pain in my chest and snuck out of her room.

It was an Ariana Grande concert those kids were at. I can imagine their excitement, going to a concert with their parents or unsupervised with their friends. I remember going on my own to my first concert. It's a rite of passage, something I hope my daughter experiences one day. You don't go to a concert expecting to die. Until recently this wouldn't even have been in the lexicon of 'concert going.' But with Bataclan and now Manchester, it is becoming so.

Walking home from school yesterday, my six year old told me about her day. They had been learning about an African animal that was becoming extinct.

People kill it because they think it brings bad luck.

What does it do that is so bad? I asked

Nothing. They just think it is bad luck.

So the animal does nothing but they kill it anyway? 

Yes.

That's not very fair.

Life's not fair Mum. Don't you know that? Life's not fair.


It certainly isn't.

Can I Have a Biscuit?

After weeks of post referendum uncertainty, Theresa May has by default, become the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

I remember Ms May from her time as Home Secretary. I remember the headlines she made with her stance on immigration (anti people), her push for the UK to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (anti people)  and her position on legalising adoption for gay couples (anti people). Apart from that, I don't really know that much about her.

Yesterday was a critical moment in UK history. The youngest ever UK Prime Minister to take pension spoke his last speech outside Downing Street flanked by his wife and kids. Afterwards, the second only woman to hold office as Prime Minister spoke her first speech under the gaze of her husband, and the world.

The BBC were broadcasting May's drive to Downing Street when Dragon and I got home yesterday. We were both tired, bedraggled from being caught in the rain on our way back. Dragon wanted her dinner but it would have to wait. History was being made as we shrugged out of our raincoats and switched on the TV.

Look, I told her as we watched Cameron approach the lectern. That's the old Prime Minister. He's leaving.

We listened as Cameron listed all the amazing things he claimed to have done; most remarkably his belief that Britain was now stronger than ever before. After that I saw his mouth move on the screen but only heard:

BlahBlahBlahBlahBlahBlahBlahMeMeMeMeMeMeMe.

Which was probably what five year old Dragon heard too, for all the sense it made.

Then it was May's turn.

Is that the new one? asked Dragon

Yes. Let's listen to what she has to say.

Theresa May launches herself on the world at large

Maybe the media buzz of her being the second Thatcher had affected me for when May spoke, I had expected a graver, more imperious tone. May's pitch was warbly and thin. Not that that stopped her getting her message across. The speech she gave was strong and centrist. Her speech reached out through the media and slapped the world in the face.

Wake up, she seemed to say. I am here and here I am. 

I was left in no doubt that here was a person determined to make her mark as PM. She seemed a force to be reckoned with,. She seemed like a leader.

It was only a speech though and May's real reckoning is yet to come. I have my fingers crossed.

What did you think? I asked Dragon who had been riveted to the broadcast.

Good, was her conclusion, Can  I have a biscuit?

Which seemed as apt a summary as any.

March for Europe

Today London marches to protest the results of the Brexit referendum.  Over the past week, the world has watched our union unravel at the seams. Not only the union with our European neighbours but the union within our country, the United Kingdom. The Conservative and Labour parties are both in disarray. We have no real leader and whilst people cling to hope, despair is not far from the surface either.

I am at a writers retreat this weekend hosted by the Arvon Foundation. It is a sanctuary; tranquil and beautiful amidst the lush Shropshire countryside. I am sifting through old and new work trying to unravel and and tease out new stories and words. I found this old writing exercise from many years ago. A villanelle based around the election race between Obama and Hilary Clinton.  Somehow it seems fitting for the spirit of the pro EU march today so I will share it here:

Villanelle  #1

‘What a historic moment,’ the broadcaster said

She cried as she watched the election unfold.

‘Obama’s the man. He’s got the street cred.’

Thirty years ago, she’d gone to buy bread,

then walked back out into the cold.

'All blacks should be shot,' the baker had said.

And now naught for nothing had her ancestors bled.

She heard the echoes of voices of old.

‘Obama’s the man. He’s got the street cred.’

It was a moment for hope, but instead

she couldn’t forget the time she’d been told

‘All blacks should be shot,’ the baker had said.

The next morning she opened the paper and read

that to vote, people had queued for hours in the cold.

‘Obama’s the man. He’s got the street cred.’

What good is the hope that fills you with dread?

A movement for peace with their flag soaked in red

‘All blacks should be shot,’ the baker had said.

‘Obama’s the man. He’s got the street cred.’

In solidarity. Good luck and here's to a peaceful protest

Goodbye To All That

Since the results of Brexit have come through with 51.9% of the UK voting to leave the EU, I feel that the terra firm upon which I stood so recently is rapidly disintegrating beneath me. I am on unstable territory.

My frame of reference. The place I call home. The axis against which I based my choices on where in the world to live has irrevocably tipped over. For good. And I know I am not the only one to feel this way.

In the months leading up to the Brexit referendum, the sensationalist scare tactics used by both the Remain and Leave parties left me cold. However I was in no doubt that I would vote in. To leave the EU, an alliance which I regard as having immeasurably more benefits than disadvantages for the world at large, seemed to be sheer stupidity.

When the polls called it a neck and neck race, I think most did not really believe we would ever leave the EU. Or maybe that was just me. With my head in the sand. In a state of denial.

After all, why would a UK citizen vote for insularity over cosmopolitanism. Competition over alliance. Borders up rather than bridges built. Why would someone think it is stronger to stand alone rather than together?

Why?

Nationalism is a dangerous tool to wield in a world which needs to work together. Our generation is a global one and the technological access we have cuts down borders of geography, distance and time. None of us are isolated from one another if we choose not to be and if we have the access to technology. It is political artifice to create a golden vision of insularity and sell it as strength.

It is a lie.

Which is common enough in politics but this lie is one that British citizens will be suffering the consequences of for generations to come.

And me. All the reasons I love living in London are to be tested. The feeling of being a part of the world at large. The freedom of access. The inclusivity, diversity, dynamism and integration are all under threat. It may not be all doom and gloom but at a visceral level, this just feels wrong.

As John Donne wrote in fricken 1624:

No man [sic] is an island entire of itself; every man

is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;

if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe

is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as

well as any manner of thy friends or of thine

own were; any man's death diminishes me,

because I am involved in mankind.

And therefore never send to know for whom

the bell tolls; it tolls for thee

Will we ever learn?