It beggars belief, but yesterday’s domestic news was dominated by our recently ousted PM’s unsubtly trailed and somewhat premature angling for a comeback. In her forty-day tenure – the shortest serving PM in history – she crashed the markets, wiped billions off investments, stunted the growth of defined benefit pensions for millions of workers, and ruined the UK’s reputation for sound financial governance. But, she writes, it was not her fault. She was badly advised. And worse, there are those within the now bitter dregs of her party who think she’s right. My heart sinks, says the leader of the opposition. Mine too, mate.
Then, political journalist, Andrew Marr, now released from the constraints of corporate news media, has been more frank and informative in his analysis of world events of late. Rumours of an early end to the war in Ukraine are premature, he says – though I must admit I had not heard any such rumours – and we should be prepared for it to go on for another five or ten years. This will cast a dark shadow over European – indeed world – affairs throughout the 20’s. But the UK is particularly exposed, it being now the worst performing of the western nations, including Russia, with stagnant growth and levels of entrenched inequality that are quite staggering. You are better off being poor virtually anywhere else in the world, than in the UK. We must expect energy and food prices to remain high, for a long time.
All of this paints a bleak picture, one that is in contrast to the positive vibes of the morning, with clear skies and the frost still lying across the meadows. We leave the car on Dole Lane at Abbey Village, and walk down to the Hare and Hounds, then strike out along the right of way whose signage does its best to say it is not a right of way, but access only to a private residence. But a right of way it is, and has been forever, so off we go.
Just a short walk today, more of a dog waking circuit for Abbey residents, and incomers like me, around the lower reservoirs, and the Roddlesworth plantations. We have no dog, but there is no shortage of yappy canine accompaniment, and our trousers are soon muddied by an over-friendly, jumpy creature, who gets a telling off by a scold-faced woman. I am ready to wave away her apology, but do not get one. Most people we meet are open and friendly, but we tend only to mark the ones who are not.
We’re planning a bigger walk in the Forest of Bowland for later in the week, when the weather is looking iffy, but today, being such a good day, it was a pity to waste it indoors, so here we are, but not wanting to wear our legs out for the upcoming epic. We have time to linger over familiar ways, to take photographs, and to ponder world affairs. As we move from winter’s dark into the first hints of post Imbolc light, and the snowdrops begin to show, there is the feeling of a weight lifted, of an optimism returning. The media, however, have other ideas and would sooner scotch all hope before it has the chance to bud.
I have the long lens today, not the obvious choice for woodland photography, but I’m looking for details in isolation with blurry backgrounds. The obvious targets are the lone juvenile copper birches, holding onto their leaves, and rising into shafts of sunlight against a backdrop of fuzzed out darker woodland. I’ve a feeling it’s a cliché, but I’m not selling photographs, so it doesn’t matter. There’s something in them that’s worth a moment of contemplation, anyway. The branches have poise, like a dancer, expressive of,… well,… something.
The big international news of course is this devastating earthquake in Turkey and Syria. Over 5000 souls are known to be lost, so far. It’s an unimaginable and sudden tragedy that puts our European troubles into perspective. It’s also worth remembering, however, that a study by the University of Glasgow concludes we lost 335,000 souls, across the home nations, between 2012 and 2019, due to poverty alone, as caused by political austerity a fact the media seems curiously reticent about. But to dwell on these things, says our redoubtable chancellor, is to talk Britain down.
On the middle reservoir, the fly-fishermen have pulled their boats in for the winter, so the cormorants are perched instead on the mooring buoys. Patient birds, they share the character of vultures in their Victorian funeral feathers. We are also befriended by a robin which hops onto a post within arm’s reach, and eyes us cheekily. He bobs about there for ages, so enchanting we forget about the camera, and as soon as we do remember it and try to get focus, he’s gone.
Then we meet a bunch of guys we used to work with, the entire department actually, all retired, but still keeping in touch and meeting up for regular walks. It was a tonic to see them looking so hale and hearty. The chancellor scowls and tells us we are part of the problem, we, the early retired, and economically inactive, and should get back to work, along with the sick and disabled, fill in all those vacancies left by our European friends who went home post BREXIT. But the taxman still collects his dues from us, which is more than can be said for certain members of the cabinet. He will have a tough job coaxing us back into the office, should we even be wanted, which I am sure by now we are not.
We have in common our freedom from the constraints of those things we cannot alter, like the clocking machine for a start, and the daily deluge of bullshit emails. We have the freedom to focus on those things that are within our remit: to stay at home and write, do a bit of DIY, tidy the garden, come out for a walk, explore an unfamiliar part of the country, choose which lens to bring with the camera. These are small things for sure, but important all the same, if not as things in themselves, then as vehicles for exploring the deeper self. But even granted such freedom, we risk ignoring it, to go fretting instead over those things we cannot change, like what further madness the chancellor and his swivel eyed colleagues might be planning next. How about scrapping all environmental, food, employment and animal welfare standards? And making it illegal to go on strike.
I have begun a new story, about a man living alone on a remote Scottish island. He finds a humanoid robot of the type they are now developing, and hyping to a ridiculous extent, washed up on the beach. I take all the frankly improbable tech utopian projections, and bestow them in spades upon my fictional bot. It wakes up and proves itself both intelligent and an astonishingly capable companion, as well as gorgeously female in appearance. In what ways does it alter the man’s outlook on his own life?
Artificial Intelligence is a hot topic, but even as a romantic with an increasingly non-dualist perspective, I hesitate to make fun of it. It is a thing to be reckoned with and, if the impact of the Internet is anything to go by, it will render the near future unrecognisable, and in ways that are not predictable and not entirely benign either. Again, this is something we have no control over, but at least as a writer I can explore it, whilst being careful not to be too shrill in its condemnation, or as its advocate. We’re up to three chapters and the ideas are still coming, but we’ll say no more in case I jinx it.
Anyway, just two and a half miles today in frosty sunshine, then a pleasant drive back over the moors. At home, we clean and waterproof the boots for Bowland. I read on a blog recently of a method of spiritual and philosophical reflection, where we cast our minds back over the week, and ask what lessons we learned, something our former PM would do well to dwell upon. I’m not sure if I’ve heard this before – I think I might have – but it’s not something I do by habit, and it’s early in the week yet, so I hesitate to jump to conclusions.
We’ll see come Friday.
Thanks for listening
The Rivendale Review 
I think we have created a world in which each of us can know instantaneously what happens everywhere. But we aren’t made to handle that overwhelming knowledge, and I don’t know if we can ever learn how to.
So the challenge is how to stay involved without getting crushed by all the calamitous goings-on. I find it extremely comforting to–still–be able to escape into nature, whose cycles and rhythms are–still–reassuring, even though I have a great fear of the future.
Hi Tanja. I think you’re right. We’re in danger of sensory overload and a state of permanent fixation on fearful things we cannot alter. The natural world helps enormously – just to be in it – but the deeper you go, the more intimate you become with it, the better the healing. So many of us are losing touch though with those cycles.
I wholeheartedly agree.
I’m listening, but some if not all of your news is depressing.
“a scold-faced woman” and poodle – you did well to bite your tongue there. I didn’t today as on my cycle I collided with a woman coming towards me with her head totally engrossed in her ******* mobile phone. Things like that tend to spoil the day.
I’m afraid I went against my own advice, and mixed a rant with a walk. I should stop reading the news before I blog. The phone zombies can certainly be a hazard to themselves and others. I hope no damage was done.
I’ve good brakes on my bike.
You state that Britain might be the worst place in the world to be poor, and I might add, that since our recent triumph of democracy, it is a lot harder for any, but the rich, to escape. Having a German wife is no promise for me of a welcome in Krautland, and although I am lucky not to be poor, my wife could probably get a job there, and though I would score nothing higher than arse wiper, or carer to give it its polite name, we could probably, just demonstrate ourselves capable of paying our way, and therefore my visa application might be accepted. But my dear, recently widowed mumsie has made it clear that she would cut me out of her will so it will be a hard decision.
Not only are our options reduced in this mean, and becoming meaner, world, but I am very clearly aware of the politics of fear. My mother fears losing me as much as she fears losing her money, and despite having been an intelligent woman, I think she is losing the faculty to even ponder which has more worth, or which she fears more. I think this sad state is mirrored in a thousand or a million, or a million million lives, and it is desperately sad, that most people will be, if they aren’t already, too wrapped up in their own worries, to make time for, or enjoy, the simple pleasures you describe.
As for A.I. perhaps there is a solution there, and perhaps we should leave the world to the enjoyment of a handful of sentient automata? But I expect they will be used to reap more death and destruction, and to oppress an already oppressed political opposition. They are probably reading this and marking me out as one that is not fit for the brave new future of positive thinking Britain First bollocks.
Sorry for going on. I enjoyed your piece as much as I enjoyed my rant.
On a brighter note, before my wife fell asleep this evening, we were reading about Harvest Mice, and looking at pictures of the cute little things, apparently they are thriving in the Northeast. Harvest Mice are real perfection better than the most perfect robot, or boat, or anything that we have created. They have perfectly adapted to their environment and live in beautiful harmony with it.
Best wishes Michael,
Enjoy the Bowland walk.
Thank you. I hope to write the Bowland walk up without a rant this time. I remember reading up about spirit animals once, and being asked which one I would choose. Mine’s a harvest mouse.