Young innocents were slaughtered in Manchester, adult innocents (most, it seems, from foreign parts) were slaughtered near London Bridge.
In a tiny speck of national unimportance, V and I sing, full volume, Mozart's duet about the rightness of men and women getting together. V, exhilarated, to be married next month, applauds my progress and delights in lending her voice to the duet. I present her with champagne and, for a moment, we try not to dwell on Manchester kids also entranced by music.
The Sun, The Daily Mail, The Express and other newspapers combine to vilify Jeremy Corbyn. Yet he, one of life's natural protestors, comes over as more human on telly than Theresa May. The Guardian christens TM The MayBot for her mechanical, repetitive and hopelessly abstract responses to questions.
The Hay Festival, a celebration of cultural unity - from Jane Austen to the marvels of human microbiology - arrives and departs. An Italian professor at Oxford University (Oh, hateful, hateful Brexit) discourses wittily on the ways we must react to an IT-dominated world.
Donald Trump quotes the London mayor (a Muslim) out of context and sneers at him. A presidential spokesman suggests DT's tweets could well be ignored.
Our grandson, Ian, arrives early for Hay and prepares casseroles, etc, in advance for ourselves and our guests. An aid to VR whose shingles has now endured almost a year.
Sydney Nolan, Australia’s greatest painter, lived nearby during his final years and a new gallery of his work has opened. We visit. Observe vigorous yet profound paintings, each an unmistakable expression of his quirky personality.
We eat asparagus and refuse to be seduced by promising Labour figures in the opinion polls.
It is pleasing to see you used the adjective "mechanical" to describe Theresa May's responses because I had used the same relating generally to politicians in my last post. TM is the extreme example; it is as though she has a pre-recording for each question. All her replies seem to hinge on finding the wealth for her financial programme from a hypothetical increase in productivity after Brexit - I reckon that it is odds against that happening anytime soon, especially as that will also hinge on her hypothetically optimistic prediction of the results of her exit negotiations. Perhaps she has a crystal ball? Steve Bell could make something of that?
ReplyDeleteSir Hugh: She has admitted that times may be tough. Given her normal reticence, this suggests they'll be very tough. As one old guy said to me after a wildly driven car ended up among his ornamental shrubs: "But it's not like the war." Within a year he was dead.
ReplyDeleteSteve Bell has already dressed TM as Harlequin - described as "a comic servant character" in Wiki.
What a sad lot of news. And poor VR. But Ian and song and asparagus...
ReplyDeleteMarly: 'Tis the stench of our times, and I am not getting any younger. Singing, especially the technicalities of singing (pitch, beat, duration, tone), can provide what the French call un abri but by its nature it can only be temporary.
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