It’s a long time since Lá Féile Padraig. I’m still here,
chemical attacks rumble on, Syria’s been bombed, Mrs May didn’t see fit to ask parliament;
Donny told her what to do, so that’s OK. I expect Putin told Donny what to do,
just don’t damage any of our stuff or there’ll be trouble I’d guess. I don’t know
who tells Monsieur Macron what to do, it might be Madame Macron.
Demonstrations today, to try to get the people to have the
final say on Brexit, seems too late to me I hope not though.
Fifty years this week since Enoch Powell spouted his
vituperation, if there is a heaven and hell that man is surely in the latter. I
heard on the radio this morning Peter Hain speaking about Powell and how his
vile racism was being repeated on the doorsteps of the South Wales valleys, the
Labour heartlands, places of deprivation, places of industrial scarring, places
where no one goes, places where people leave, places with bright new roads and libraries
built with EU money. Places where Hain canvassed to remain in the EU, places
where he heard that there was no more Britain, places where he was told hordes of
immigrants were rampaging over that land, taking jobs, filling the hospitals, taking
the houses, taking school places, sully the nation. He heard it I heard it in
the work place I worked in a health service setting, I heard rants about
Romanians, Polish, Bulgarians et al. These rants weren’t from uneducated
deprived jobless; they were from nurses and managers. I left in sadness. There
are no hordes of immigrants in the valleys. The hospitals would collapse
without immigration, you will not be in a queue behind an immigrant to see a doctor
or nurse, the doctor or nurse seeing you is likely to be an immigrant. Racism
in all its forms is a foul stain on what passes for humanity, but it’s alive
and well and usually in a person who prefaces what they are to say with… ‘I’m
not a racist but…’
On a lighter note, went to a music session this week, at The
Park Inn Mumbles, I took the accordion. What a lovely evening. I’ve revisited
the Session.org to find some more tunes. Sitting and playing passes the hours,
if more people played music there’d be less war. Also has prompted me to search
out a vinyl or two. Oh my word I’ve found the Bothy Band again. Now a song to
sing, sing it in the shower, sing it walking the dog, sing it making dinner,
sing it drinking beer, sing it twisting rope for the thatch, sing Casagh an tSúgáin.
Slán go fóill
