Decisions

November 17, 2025 / aggiemurch / 2 Comments

Decisions,

Written and read for you by Muriel Murch with WSM by my side

It started with relentless knee pain that would not go away and it was time to see a doctor. Mr. Mazin Ibrahim took one look at my walking and, with experienced confidence, says. “It’s not your knee. It’s your hip, it’s completely worn away and here are the X-rays to prove it.”

It was a slow dance, back and forth, a cortisone injection to the hip, an appointment with a fantastic physical therapist, another determination to lose weight, and for a month or two the cortisone worked – until it didn’t. The pain returned and with it the realization that it was time for ‘The Decision.’ As I begin the emails, phone calls the explanation of schedule, the booking, the payments and the appointments, I have to accept I am on the other side of the nursing desk. Each time I said “I am a nurse too” I can see my nurse dance partners take a deep breath and guide me to their agenda. As Mibaba, the diminutive Philippine nurse, goes through the detailed admission her voice lifts with a musical “Mam” at the end of each question. Before she is finished, she is asking for a full report from my cardiologist. There is no stone this young woman left unturned. Eventually satisfied, she leads me along the corridor where I see a pair of leather-shod feet which I know, just by the way they are pointed, belong on the end of long legs. Mibaba introduces me to Desmond, from Essex and Uganda. He is tall and, as an orthopedic specialist nurse should be, light on his feet. He has seen it all before and fielding my “I’m a nurse too,” slipping into the nurses’ banter and humor. He is laughingly professional with deep knowledge and warmth and we exchange phone numbers.

It’s a 7 a.m start as we arrive at the brightly lit entrance to the Princess Grace Hospital. A cheery Scottish receptionist checks me in, all my paperwork and payment is in order. In the reception area we are joined by other couples. One by one, we are picked up by out admitting nurses and taken to our own private rooms to change… Walter helps me settle in, and himself to the waiting ahead.

And it is in. That seems to be a real screw in there!

Two attendants come with a gurney and I am slipped onto it. The basement is where the action is, the corridor so narrow that there is only room for one gurney at a time – one in, one out. The door to the surgical suite is open and two men are still mopping the floor as we wheel on past them to a blunt-nosed tiny tool shed. There is just room for the gurney to slide in, with the tool benches all around. “Anesthesiologist” He shouts at me through his mask while pointing to the words on his cap. There are two of them, both Indian, both male, doctor and nurse, a team dancing together as they prepare their next patient for the umpteenth time. Sit up, legs over the edge of the gurney and, cradled in the safe arms of the young nurse who holds me as the anesthesiologist calls out, “Don’t move. Be still”. Now this gurney is wheeled into the newly cleaned and mopped surgical suite. There are fresh big blue containers of sterile equipment, the all-male team also clothed in blue, among them is my surgeon, ready to help hoist me from the gurney onto his table. ‘Wait” I want to say, “I haven’t lost enough weight.” Then an oxygen mask covers my nose and mouth and I’m out.

Back in room 312, Walter is waiting. He sits quietly, watching over us all as I look at my numb legs in my big diaper, “better than a catheter” and I have to agree while watching and participating in the incredible disposable waste that clogs our planet. Day moves to night and back to day. Walter walks across the park from home to hospital and back again. Nurses and therapists, their voices blending in a symphony of all those who make up the serving faces of England today, come and go. Dawn is late while, carefully watched, I get up to the bathroom and wash before a reasonable pot of tea shows up at 7.30 with breakfast. My bladder is working unaided – for which I am truly grateful. As a liquid laxative is washed down with an oral suspension of Morphine I am dimly aware that they might not be the best of dance partners. It is not until the next day when Saturday’s supper returns with a vengeance that everyone gets serious about those absent bowel sounds and my discharge is postponed.

The physical therapist pops in to tackle up and down stairs, and so we go up and down the stairs with no problem until the last dose of morphine kicks in and I slide into a chair. Well if this is a way to change this dimension for the next – it’s fine with me.

Then home, bags of drugs, wise unheeded words from the nurses ‘Don’t let the pain get ahead of you’. And I leave the safety of their care. The world of nurses, these are the voices I want to hear. Melodious, musical and on the brink of laughter if you are someone who would let that in.

Back at home there is warmth by the fire, a kind and willing helper for all things, those exercises to be done and the pain iced away. Walter is ever-vigilant as friends come bearing meals. With such care it takes only a few days to accept that this was the right decision and I am going to get better.

October chilled into November and there are distractions. November 4th was an election day in North America. There were celebrations from New York as Zohran Mamdani is voted to be the new Mayor, redistricting passes in California, and governorships going to Democrats Abigail Spanberger in Virginia, and Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey. All this on the night before we sit together watching the fireworks from the remembrance of Guy Fawkes who tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605. The King and Crown also chose this time to banish Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, to the dark forest of Norfolk. From the depth of next January he will call a corner of the 20,000 acre Sandringham Estate home. It is time to start sorting books from bookshelves and suits from his wardrobe.

While I write, the United States President has risen up from 20,000 leagues under the sea and murky waters of the Eastern Seaboard. Not content to wave his tentacles across the American media, crushing those who displease him he has, in a circular sweep with his pal Benjamin, now focused on the BBC. Searching for a hook which which to snare this big fish they have found a questionable editorial choice from an October 28th Panorama Program last year about the US President.

The hook is tightly embedded, heads have rolled, and the mighty organization is left rudderless with no captain or first-mate to hold the ship steady. Another decision is to be made, apologize or stand firm, or even let the Government make this decision for them. Pontus Pilate did not have it any easier.

This has been A Letter From. A Broad Written and read for you by Muriel Murch with WSM by my side and as always supported by Beatrice from MurchStudio

Let’s Talk About It.

September 20, 2025 / aggiemurch / 1 Comment

Written and Read for you by Muriel Murch with WSM by my side

Several elephants go around and around a circus ring, trunk to tail, holding onto each other, scared to let go and be separated from the herd. But the elephant trainer cracks his whip calling one to the center and perform a special trick. Lets call this elephant Charlie. Charlie is a good elephant, mature, smart, and expressive as he performs his trick and is well rewarded. Until one day something bad happens to Charlie and the show is disrupted.

Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Combined Circus : 5 big herds of performing elephants in 5 circus rings at one time by Boston Public Library

We, the audience, take in this pause, viewing it all around, from one side of the arena to the other. There are few clues in the circus program notes to see what will happen next. We all find different truths for what has happened and we talk to each other following a clip, with no date, on the internet showing Charlie Kirk, answering questions from a woman, “What are you doing, what is the point?” is met by “ … When people stop talking, that’s when you get violence…” And we don’t want to see the elephants stampede. But there is little footage of him engaging with students. He tosses out unsupported statements in his strong, intimidating voice, cowering students not versed in the skills of debate. I sadly find such old-world prejudices that it is hard to believe an educated young man could hold them such as this comment on race from his show on January 23 rd 2024

“If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, boy, I hope he’s qualified.”

In the 1990’s, while exploring books and authors for radio broadcast, I slipped into a rabbit hole of the writing of Saint Exupéry. At the same time a new friend, George Nixon, came into our lives. George was among the very first African-American Pilots on a commercial airline, and a captain for United Airlines. He was being recruited onto the board of directors for the Full Circle Program. George was definitely feeling like a duck out of water and knew that the board was eager for him to join as the token black man. George was back-peddling until we got taking and he realized that like Heather, his wife, I was English, and could see I was as itchy at board meetings as he was. George had also become the United Airlines poster boy encouraging us to ‘Fly the Friendly Skies of United.’ When he told Heather he was going to try out for the video she immediately replied, “Oh don’t be so silly George, you are far too black.” But George, with his ‘I don’t give a damn’ attitude went for it. And got it. His blue-black face was seen up and down the freeways in and out of San Fransisco with his smile grinning down to the commuters as he dared other young African Americans to reach for their dreams.

Now with my rabbit hole search into aviation, and the writings of Saint Exupéry, I also had a pilot pal with which to explore the friendly skies. Once I flew on a night flight with George from San Fransisco to Boston with a plane load of flatulent first class fellows. I was excited and awake all through the night watching America unfold underneath the plane, until that moment that she didn’t. The hum of the engine was constant as I looked out of the window to see no lights below but only the stars ahead, not even really above us, just there in the night sky. Later, when we sat down together and I turned on the tape recorder we talked about his yearning to fly, I asked about the night sky that I had seen, talking about how Saint Exupéry flew by the stars.

“The stars,” said George, “The stars are my friends.” It is over thirty years since we had that conversation. I wonder how many pilots today still know where they are in the world by following the stars in the night sky. George retired in 1995 and with Heather moved to Tasmania at ‘Blackman’s Cove’ “Only you George, could do that,” laughed Heather and I in chorus. He stayed close to the edge, facing the ocean as he wondered what ahead for him.

It’s well into September now and there are storms coming in from the Atlantic ocean and tumbling over the Welsh hillsides on into the home countries. The winds are squally and the rain spits like a disgruntled snake. This is not a good day for landing a plane at Stanstead as the American President arrives for his second state visit which has been planned out very carefully to suit his tastes. As we work, the US President’s helicopters have just left the US residence in Regent’s Park, flying on their way to Windsor Castle. There will be soldiers standing with a guard of honor on the lawns before a carriage ride around the grounds, and inside in the evening a gold-plated meal – all within the safety of the castle keep. Hopefully the King will be wrapped up warmly and not catch cold.

The King gives his speech after the State banquet. From the Independent news paper

On Thursday the US President will leave Windsor for Chequers where the prime minister will have another guard of Honor – this time a band of bag pipers. There are Churchill’s archives to view, if not read, before getting down to the business of deal-making with the leaders of GSK, Microsoft and Rolls-Royce. Meanwhile Melania will linger with the queen viewing the Windsor Royal Library along with Queen Mary’s Doll’s House. By the time the President and his wife leave they will have seen very little of the people’s displeasure at their feet on our soil.

Friends on the Castle Tower from UTube and The Guardian.

The Trump Baby blimp rises over London’s Parliament Square (in 2018) by Michael Reeve

On Saturday over a 150,000 people came to London joining a far-right street-protest. Billed as a festival of Free speech, Tommy Robinson then eased his people through into racial conspiracies and Anti – Muslim hate speech. Having Elon Musk dialed in on the big screen was not that attractive as he railed against the “woke mind virus” and told the crowd that “violence is coming” and that “you either fight back or you die”. It didn’t sound much like Charlie Kirk’s suggestion to talk about it.

This morning the recycle truck came roaring down the street. The four lads jumped out, and jogging to the pavement, rolled the carts up to the lorry to chuck-in the recycling. The men are quick, laughing, shouting and getting on with it. I stand at our door with my bucket of compost, “Am I too late,” “No Aggie you’re fine, give it ‘ere.” And Nick takes my little bucket of compost and tosses it into the truck’s container. “How’ve you ‘bin Aggie?” “All right, and you?” “I’m retiring in two years Aggie.” “NO. You’re too young.” “I’m 64.” “No, you can’t be.” “I’m 82.” “No, Not a day over 42.” And he gives me an appraising look, as I stand there on the door step in my PJs and not a bit of uplift underneath. Back in the house after this early morning banter, I’m smiling. If Nick and I were having a pub-time drink we would undoubtedly be sharing very different views about the worlds we live in. But we would talk and laugh together and buy just one more round.

This has been A Letter From A Broad. Written and read for you by Muriel Murch

And as always supported by https://www.murchstudio.com

Dress to Impress

July 13, 2025 / aggiemurch / 2 Comments

Written and read for you by Muriel Murch with WSM by my side

Dress to impress and dress for success, sometimes we try – but what does that mean – and for whom and for when are we dressing? This week I dressed for an appointment with a new doctor because I wanted him to see and receive me, and not to toss me off as another white 82 year old female with knee pain. So my fingernails were a playful bright green.

I may not be a spring chicken but I’m not ready to shuffle off with a walker just yet. I’m praying for a physical exam and an x-ray and a picture that would tell me what is going on with my knee and how can we fix it. It is 15 years since that knee was replaced and I’m aiming for at least another five. It looks like the green nail varnish worked and slipped this fast-talking professional fellow out of total keep-it-together efficiency to ask ‘So how tall are you’? and we laughed – before getting serious again and him telling me what the x-ray pictures showed. ‘Your knee is fine – your hip is worn out.’ Seems like another case of ‘rode hard and put away wet’. But I know to be beyond grateful. I am fortunate to have options in front of me and live a life where such care is accessible.

In countries that are at war, with themselves and each other, this is not so. The old, the infirm, the young and sick, are all vulnerable and frequently dying for and from the wars that ravage around them. Within the jungles of Myanmar, the city streets of Belarus and the open fields and villages of Ukraine, we are not privy to the unseen hardships played out in those lands. This week we watched ‘Gaza: Doctors Under Attack’ a documentary that was first commissioned by the BBC. Then, according to Stuart Heritage writing for The Guardian, “dropped due to the risk that it created “a perception of partiality”. Luckily Channel 4 picked it up and it is also now available on YouTube. Channel 4’s Louisa Compton warned that Doctors Under Attack would “make people angry, whichever side they take.” She is right. This is the sort of television that will never leave you. Maybe it can provoke an international reaction and we owe it to the people and the countries to not look away. And I don’t, instead finding images remain front and center in my mind making me think deeper about what is happening and how it is happening.

Mangos by JACQUELINE BRANDWAYN on Unsplash

A doctor, who has just lost members of his own family, kneels beside a bed shared by two staving children and asks the older boy fed with a gastric tube “What do you want, What would you like?” The boy whispers, “Mango, mango and grapes”. “And the doctor laughs gently with him, “Mangos and Grapes. You shall have them” while in his heart he knows that joy may have to wait for another life time. As he pats the boy, feigning reassurance he steadies himself against the weeping that is in his soul. And maybe we too must at the least bear witness to the horrors that are happening just around our global corner, as a less than five hours flight from London to Israel has become.

Some of the doctors followed in this film are still alive and working. Some are not. Almost all have been imprisoned, tortured and lost family members. The film follows a trajectory of sorts. It begins as hospitals are warned to evacuate – but there is nowhere for patients or staff to go. Then an air strike happens, causing more chaos and casualties among the patients and staff who remained. There is a final follow-through as the doctors homes and families are bombed before the attacks move onto the next hospital and repeat the format. Hospital buildings can be rebuilt – though it is doubtful that is the agenda here – but the taking out by imprisonment, torture and death of top medical personal leaves a hole in the knowledge of medicine that will take more than one decade to repair.

‘No water, no electricity’ … surgeons at work in Gaza: Doctors Under Attack. Photograph: Basement Films

Since the film was made last year, medical officials of all areas in Gaza are facing mass casualties and deaths of Palestinians wounded by Israeli fire as they scramble and fight for food. Relief aid distribution is now almost solely in the hands of The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a US and Israel-backed organization, formed in February 2025, and now helmed by Johnnie Moore Jr of Delaware, an evangelical leader and businessman – which seems awfully close to Washington DC. In May the GHF took over from any organization sanctioned by the United Nations. I am not alone in feeling that this organization is disguising target practice as aid.

But we see very little of this on our daily evening news. Summer sports keep us happy, the heat waves keep us worrying, and we sigh at the incredible slowness of the government body inquiries into biggest miscarriage of Justice – the Post Office scandals – between 1999 and 2015 – finally come to a conclusion, exonerating those 900 sub-postmasters who were wrongly accused of masses of thefts, – the Horizon computers did it. 13 sub-postmasters committed suicide, many died of old age. The inquiry’s chair has begun to release the reports. Judge Sir Wyn Williams is a singing Welshman, president of Pendyrus Male Choir, which somehow makes one feel that he is a sensible fellow able to lead this committee walking through the dutiful steps to bring the officials to account, saying what needs to be said. It has taken a singing Welshman to steer this inquiry into publication.

After the relief of seeing this debortle coming to an end, we watched French President Macron toss the prickly ball of illegal immigration back and forth with Prime Minister Starmer in the House of Commons before they both enjoyed the perks of a State visit. President and Madame Macron’s State visit to Britain is the first of France, or indeed Europe, to England since Brexit. The final banquet, hosted by the King and Queen at Windsor Castle, brought out all the medals and sashes one could find, a tiara or two, good will and good manners to all, with proper speeches and – we hope – good French wine. A little brightness to end the day.

Sashes, medals and a Tiara but no green nail varnish

As censorship continues pulsing in with the tide of fear we must watch for rogue waves while the ripples over the sand show us where the truth is hiding, like clams under the sand sending up spouts of sea water, cleaning its breathing and screaming for life. But in England, coming down firmly in favour of censorship, protesting and supporting the pro-Palestinian, anti-Israeli activist group Palestine Action, has washed in another ruling under anti-terrorist laws as the government hurries to project its own agenda. There are spouts of truths in all the theaters of war and governments and while those in authority try so hard to hide them they continue to wash up on the shores of our consciousness.

This has been A Letter from A. Broad. Written and read for you by Muriel Murch

Grateful to be supported by murchstudio.com/

Hove Actually.

April 29, 2025May 1, 2025 / aggiemurch / 9 Comments

Written and Read for you by Muriel Murch with WSM by my side.

Last week we took the train from London’s Victoria Station to Hove. Brighton and Hove that is, Hove tagging along beside its more famous big sister Brighton, never quite able to keep up. Which is why we were to spend the night in a cheaper seaside hotel in Hove rather than Brighton, and though the hotel boasted of a five-star breakfast, it remained Hove as the shingle beach stretches all along the Essex county coast line. It’s been a bitter marriage. Hove remains the smaller sister, its houses on the roads to the seaside crammed side by side with no breathing room between them.

After the last war, every few houses became a boarding house, helping widows and poor relations hold onto their homes. Such was the lot of my Uncle Geoff and Aunt Gertrude, Geoff having retired as a Canadian Mountie and failed as a real estate developer returning from Canada. There was possibly not a lot of interest in development for the wilds of Alberta in the early 1950’s. I was sent to stay with Uncle Geoff and Aunt Gertrude in what I now see as an attempt to revert the family estate back to me, the only offspring of six children. I failed at that, but learnt to swim in the King Alfred seawater baths at Hove. I also learnt about hunger for the first time in my life, Geoff and Gertrude’s Canadian life style didn’t include three meals a day. Another spinster aunt, Edith, lived close by, and her house was even more dismal than Geoff and Gertrude’s. Looking back I realize that my father was the only one of those six children to make it out of Canterbury and into a more successful life. No wonder Geoff and Gertrude were not going to hand back the small-as-it-was Slater Estate.

The Peace Statue that marks the entrance to Brighton

We taxied to the hotel, that looked no different from the houses along the road, and were greeted by a sweet young European woman who looked no different from all the European hotel staff who arrived at Victoria Station in the 1950’s, looking to better their lives and those of their families back home. The outline of the old house is still visible as we climbed the stairs to the top floor. All done over and with the necessary wifi connections. A quick change, back downstairs, to the next taxi and through the rush hour traffic along the coastal roadside, passing the Peace Statue into Brighton. A supper moment meeting the co-guests of this event, Victor and Wendy Armstrong – fellow film makers, English – who made their home and livelihood in Los Angeles. Victor being the world’s most prolific stunt double. His career is as legendary as Walter’s and this evening’s event is an interesting twinning of production action and post production manipulation of that action.

But supper has to be quick, we are on location with a gig after all and we walk our way from the restaurant to Horatio’s Bar and ‘The Space’ on Brighton Palace Pier. Dusk has arrived and day trippers were leaving the pier as film buffs are arriving, bustling in, ordering a drink or two and settling into the chairs arched around The Space. It is late by the time the last fans leave and we walk back along the pier, with the waves lapping underneath drowning out the sound of the cars heading back to ‘Hove Actually’.

The morning gets us down to the 5 star breakfast which was probably the most appalling breakfast I have ever been faced with. And it must have been appalling for those poor European girls to prepare, never mind serve. Even the coffee – we won’t discuss the coffee. So we walked to the beach, the shingle stones as large and unforgiving as they were to my 10-year-old feet. The sun was shining, the beach huts all still closed up and only a few brave souls were at the water’s edge. The cold and the currents take no prisoners here in Sussex.

We took the train back to London, where the cottage was waiting for us, and the pigeons were impatient for feeding. Fred, I think it is Fred, has been doing a dance, turning in circles in one of the flower pots to attract Freda, who is not that impressed with this swirling dervish courtier. The parrots are having better luck, a pair cozying up to the feeder together. They give us pleasure, these birds as we watch their antics in relief to those we see having in the United fractured States of America. But are cracks slowly beginning to be visible as the axes of untrained gardeners slash into the undergrowth of Government? There are checks occurring, the latest being that while the Pope honored King Charles and Queen Camila with an audience, he guided JC Vance into the learned hands of Cardinal Pietro Parolin and the foreign minister, Archbishop Paul Gallagher. “There was an exchange of opinions on the international situation, especially regarding countries affected by war, political tensions and difficult humanitarian situations, with particular attention to migrants, refugees, and prisoners,” said the statement reported in The Guardian. Whereas the parameters of Islam follow the concentric expansion of interests that little by little extends to other persons and groups. The Christian one – as in this Easter Message – read for the Pope –

“I appeal to all those in positions of political responsibility in our world not to yield to the logic of fear which only leads to isolation from others, but rather to use the resources available to help the needy, to fight hunger and to encourage initiatives that promote development. These are the ‘weapons’ of peace: weapons that build the future, instead of sowing seeds of death!”

No matter which religion one follows, none include the concept of ‘Proizvol’ a Russian word that means the arbitrary abuse of power, the effect of which is a feeling that anything can happen to anyone at any time and that there is no accountability. Russia has this word for it, I wonder, do we?

Vance has to go to India, fast on the heels of China’s president Xi Jinping, who manages with a smile and charm to show Beijing having a steady hand on the tiller of commerce. But the Indian farmers, who outnumber any of those in North America, could rumble into Mumbai powering their concern and displeasure at Usha Vance bringing this American husband to her homeland. They are not convinced that he has come in the spirit of cooperation.

Vice President JD Vance has been tripping about and often tripping on unforeseen obstacles such as other countries opinions of his ‘America First’ Foreign Policy. It just doesn’t occur to him, or other members of this US government that going around the world shouting “America First” is – to put it politely – very rude. It’s also not polite to so brashly criticize your hosts defense spending or saying, while in Greenland, “We have to have Greenland.” Over this Easter Weekend it was touch and go if the ailing Pontiff would in fact grant Vance and audience, but finally – as it would – kindness and good manners prevailed and JD and his wife were allowed into the presence of the Pope. It was brief, Vance’s Motorcade idled in the Vatican grounds for a mere 17 minutes as JD nipped in and out it, appearing to listen, before patting the ailing Pope on the arm. They were give chocolate for the children and sent on their way.

As Vance boards his plane flying into India he will have heard of the Pope’s death. Will he, can he, reflect on his ‘America First’ attitude maybe being one more endurance that the Pope shouldered before putting down his burden ?

This has been A letter from A. Broad, written and read for you by Muriel Murch.

As always supported by murchstudio.com

The Limit

March 18, 2025 / aggiemurch / 2 Comments

Written and read for you by Muriel Murch with WSM by my side.

When Winifred Forsyte’s husband, Montague Dartie, stole the pearl necklace that her father had given her for her wedding and then gave it to his mistress before setting sail to South America, she said to her brother: “It’s the limit!” And now, across the country, Americans reacting to the nine weeks of this new government administration, are reaching the same conclusion, with all the bombastic fireworks and scrawled penmanship erupting from the Oval Office at the same time. At first it was hard to see where to focus – which was the point of the mass display of bogus authority. As we each tried to settle on something that meant America to us: immigration, freedom from persecution, a land of opportunity, many people returned to The National Parks that display the majesty of all that this country can offer.

Protest at the Bear Valley Visitors Center in Pt Reyes, California

The Parks belong to the people of America and the people who work in them, coming from all walks and persuasions of life, work for the American people. The wild actions of the President and his puppeteer Elon Musk are enraging ordinary folks from the Rockies to the Mid-West plains and the rivers that join them. The limit may not yet have been reached but it is getting close. The forests and parks are the American Jewels, beloved by peoples of all parties, persuasions, income levels, rural and city dwellers alike. And they – we the people – are coming together, supporting where we can the rangers and Park personal dismissed out of hand by the playboys in Washington.

What are they thinking, strutting around the corridors, cruising into conference and press rooms, wandering along halls leading to nowhere in particular? They are plucking what seems like easy pickings off of the laden fruit of America. Things that they don’t use. When was the last time Elon drove a Tesla into Yosemite National Park? Was there even a first time? It is more than doubtful. Up one aisle and down another he trolls with his shopping cart, as if in a giant supermarket of cheap value. The park service here, an unforgivable rudeness to another nation there, a Palestinian immigrant kidnapped. It is enough to shake up America to join together in saying ‘This is the limit’ But when and how will that be reached? The display of bad manners – the politest words I can find – shown in the Oval Office last week for President Zelensky’s visit was another limit reached.

And this one – that one – has left lasting damage to how North America, not Central or Southern America, is seen across the world. ‘No taxes to Kings’ was the battle cry of the first republic but now this America is being ravaged by a despot and his henchmen.

Sunflower Seeds at an event for guests to take and spread in support of the Ukraine.
Photo by WSM

Meanwhile across the Atlantic, on the boarders of Europe, a real King is welcoming President Zelensky as he should be welcomed, with good manners and concern for his well-being, reminding us all it’s not the title – it’s the person. King Charles III is joined by his Prime Minister and the leaders of a still free and Democratic Europe. Which is poised – understanding that the rise of fascism starts with a slow simmer before reaching a boil. And then it can boil over, like an unwatched pot of soup to be mopped up – or not – by those left in the kitchen that is Europe. The Ukraine, sits boiling on the stove rising to a boil in the kitchen that is Europe, the heart-beat of any home. And America is a home to those who were here before the rest of us who arrived – in free will or slavery. For we all came as immigrants, some in fear, struggling from persecution, some in greed seeking opportunities and some with good heart looking for a better life without the need to hurt another.

As we live, around the block, up the street, in the cul-de-sac or along the lonely highway that weaves from farm to farm our families grow together in community. We celebrate, mourn and disagree together. These times make us who we are. And when some outside force threatens the community – disease, natural disasters, governmental bureaucracy and corruption – then we put aside our differences and come together, clustering like bees to protect our queen, in this case the integrity and sanity of North America who is in danger. The people know that a killer wasp has entered the Bee hive and is threatening all that work there.

It is beginning, the gathering of small groups leading to larger ones, coming together forming bigger and stronger communities and blessed Bernie Sanders out there stomping around in the midwest states. So far it has the smell of “We’re right behind you,” not too many daring to stand along side or step up to the lead. Sanders is a Truth Bomber. He has nothing to lose by speaking out. And as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, said of Sanders’ efforts. “You look around — who else is doing it? No one. My hope is that the dam will break in terms of Democrats going on the offense … We need to take the argument directly to the people.” “It’s not about whether Bernie should or shouldn’t be doing this. It’s about that we all should,” she said. “He is unique in this country, and so long as we are blessed to have that capacity on our side, I think we should be thankful for it.” Ocasio-Cortez said she will join him on the road in the coming weeks planning solo appearances in Republican-held congressional districts in Pennsylvania and New York — as now local House Republicans are reluctant to face the angry questions coming at them in their Town hall meetings. Rather than blame the chap sitting in the swirling chair in the Oval office they are turning on Elon Musk and that is a good start.

At this time we feel the threats coming at us nationally and globally and cluster even closer. Each national park is holding rallies that are growing each week and beginning to unite in mass gatherings. Citizens march and protest outside of Tesla Dealerships. Decals are stuck on parked Telsas in America and Europe. They are saying no – and at some point that no could overflow into a protest that will rise from a simmer to boiling point giving this government the excuse to bring in the national guard, pitting Americans agains Americans.

It is called Civil War.

This has been A Letter from A. Broad. Written and read for you by Muriel Murch.

And as always supported by https://www.murchstudio.com

Behind Closed Doors

July 15, 2024July 18, 2024 / aggiemurch

Written and read for you by Muriel Murch with WSM by my side

The Piazza Santissima Annunziata is almost empty with only a few tourists bearing the late afternoon summer heat while seeking refuge in the churches and museums. Idanna drives straight into the empty Piazza and parks the car. We get out and look around. In the center sits The Grand Duke Ferdinand (from 1608) astride his horse. The horse is facing the little telescope alleyway that leads directly to the Duomo, but the Duke’s eyes, if you look carefully, seem to glance up to two windows, three stories high, on a red building. The shutters remain open so that through the centuries he can look to, and be seen by, his mistress behind them. His arm is raised in salutation to the Pope of the day, or to her – it is left to the onlooker to imagine. On another side is the hospital of the Innocents, an orphanage and museum still run by the nuns from the Sisters di Maria. A small grilled window sits facing the square where – at night time – a mother could – between 1660 and 1875 – raise the grill and lay her new-born babe on the rota where friars, on their night-time shift, sat waiting for a delivery, not as midwives for a wanted child, but as caretakers receiving the fruits of enslaved and then abandoned love. These are the buildings and stories we take in as we make our way to the side door of the Church of Santissima Annunziata, for our friends, Idanna Pucci and Terence Ward have something to show us.

“It is a surprise,” says Idanna after we had stopped at the Palazzo Pucci to pick up the ancient key that would have weighted heavy on the twisted cord belt of a monk’s cassock. Again, her face lights with that impossible grin she has when holding a happy secret. The door is thickly double paneled, over eight meters tall, and the strong wood is sun-cracked. Terry takes the key from his pocket and places it in the single lock.

In the bright late afternoon sunlight the key is reluctant to turn and it takes several wiggles before it catches and the door is opened. We enter the tall cool space of this chapel dedicated to St. Sebastian and now lovingly restored by Giannozzo and Idanna Pucci with the help of World Wide Friends of Florence.

WSM and Terence Ward look up to St. Sebastian.

Terry gathers the three red velvet chairs placed in the chancel for musicians together and we gather around as Idanna tells the story. Her lilting voice takes us back to 1082 when a little house of prayer was dedicated to St. Sebastian, then leads us down the path of history through the Middle Ages, the building of this church of the most Holy Annunciation and this chapel, to the paintings commissioned, sold (by one of the unscrupulous relatives) and now lovingly replicated through the guiding hand of her brother Giannozzo. Her voice sings with the joy of the story, coming to when the chapel was reopened and rededicated in May of this year. Idanna is grinning with the happiness of sharing their gift to the city with us. They then lead us around the three major paintings of Saint Sebastian hanging above the alter sanctuary while underneath there are sculpted reliefs of Pucci ancestors, the good and the maybe not so good. Finally we look up at the breathtaking cupola. As we lingered in the beautiful sanctuary a guide from the main church brought in two more visitors to see this sidebar of history. Taking our leave, we walk over the moveable stones that cover the crypt holding Puccis and maybe even a Medici or two. “Have you been down there?” I ask Terry, and he firmly shakes his head. “I have looked. It is a jumble of bones all tossed about, from the flood’. In 1966 the Arno river flooded and swamped Florence ravaging much of the art and bibliotic heritage of the city. The Pucci crypt would be one among many holding places of the dead to be tumbled into confusion and dust. Leaving, Terry turns the key once more in the lock. Walking to the car in the still almost-empty Piazza, I silently said goodbye to the orphanage museum, the Convent of the Sorelle di Maria and the old Duke with his arm raised in salutation.

The Hospital of the Innocents – Orphanage and Museum – Photo by WSM

With our time in Italy we missed the final run up to the UK general election and returned only in time to watch Ukrainian Prime Minister General Zelensky meet his Hungarian counter part, Victor Orbán. Orban, who for six months more is head of the European Union, then went on to chat with his pal Vladimir Putin.

The countries that make up the EU cried ‘Foul, He is not speaking for us,’ but Orbán merely shrugged, figuratively speaking, saying he was just going to listen and hear what each side has to say. He may be dreaming to broker a peace deal – always a good thing to have noted – but his hand is more eager to grasp Putins’ than Zelensky’s. As each Eastern European leader swims across the tides of history pulling and pushing the boundaries of their country it is within our memory to recall Hungarian refugees arriving in England while fleeing their own county’s oppression.

As July 4th – the UK polling day ended – TV screens lit up like a game show as presenters pointed out which constituencies were turning from blue to red with touches of amber for the Liberal Democrats and green for – well – the Green party. But it is the red of a Labour takeover of the country that has prevailed. As Dishy Rishi drove off to hand his resignation to the King, the movers were quickly packing up the Sunaks’ plates and cutlery, curtains and bed linens to take out of the back door. An hour – or is it two – later, steady Sir Keir Starmer was off to Buck House, asking the King’s permission to form another government. The handover has to be quick so the country is not left to its own devices. The moving vans are as quick in and out which is rather lovely, for #10 Downing Street is just an old run-down city house in constant need of repair. The inconvenience of any refurbishments only heightens the impermanence of the position, as power comes and goes and hopefully, while you have it, you can do more than change the curtains.

Sir Keir Starmer has not been idle. The smell of Pledge furniture polish was barely cleared from the cabinet room before he gathered his new team around the oval table and gave them each their work orders for the weekend. There was not an old Etonian among them and there would be no potting shed moments. For some, their bags were already packed to fly out, meet and greet, and start work. The weekend saw Keir begin his trip around the British Isles meeting the other UK government leaders. While with the First Minister of Scotland, Sir John Prescott, the chants from protest marchers could be heard through the ministerial walls before Sir Keir was whisked away past the waving Pro-Palestinian flags to meet the First Ministers of Wales and Northern Ireland. On Monday, he arrived in Washington DC, attending the two day Nato conference, filling his movable dance card with more meetings of world leaders, some who are uncertain about their political future. As Sir Keir enters the stage, others are exiting, stage left or right or hovering in the center holding an unenviable heavy portfolio. While Zelensky can be assured of continued support from the UK, the State of Israel, Gaza and the Palestinians remains out of balance. The elections in France have handed Macron a mixed plate but there is relief that, for the moment, the Far Right parties of Farage in England and La Pen in France, though now more visible than ever, have been contained – but only just.

When thirteen of us gathered together at a Palestinian restaurant on the Marylebone Road, for a Coup 53 reunion and an early celebration of Walter’s 81st Birthday, I looked around the table counting our birth-countries: Sweden, The Caribbean, Finland, Iran, North America, Ireland, and England, and am grateful to break bread in a place of such multiplicity.

By the closed door of the ladies, I stood with a tall, young, beautiful Palestinian woman just back from the day’s march. “How was it?” “Really good, we were over 100,000 strong.” Smiling together we know that however dissimilar we appear our women’s hearts beat in one accord.

And always supported by Beatrice @ murchstudio.com

A Dog’s Dinner

November 25, 2023 / aggiemurch / 1 Comment

Written and Produced by Muriel Murch with WSM by my side

The dictionary defines A Dog’s Dinner as ‘A situation, event, or piece of work that is chaotic, badly organized, or very untidy.’ Such as when an unschooled dog gallops into the scullery for his bowl of specially formulated dog food moistened with a little water. It is gulped down in a flash, the bowl knocked about noisily until it hits a wall. But then there is a pause as his tummy swells. A burp is followed by a belch before up comes dinner again, now glistening and sticky with saliva and the first tentacles of stomach acid. The dog looks puzzled wondering what happened but then he spies the food, all over the floor and with excited tail wagging, eats it all up again. Only a mop and a big dose of disinfectant can clear the damage away.

This is the image that comes to mind after Suella Braverman’s published remarks that homelessness was a lifestyle choice. As Rishi Sunak sent her back to her kennel he had to reshuffle his cabinet once more. Even the newspapers had to print charts with pictures of who has come and gone and where to. We watched – soon to be Lord – David Cameron stride back into Downing Street, knock on the door of number 10 with his tail wagging as he tucks into the mess of Brexit that he created. It looks to be a dog’s dinner all over again.

On November 14th King Charles celebrated his 75th birthday by popping into a food bank between holding a couple of tea parties for people and organizations that also turned 75 this year. A tea dance was held in Dumfries House and then more tea was served at Highgrove with members of the Caribbean Windrush generation, nurses and midwives from the NHS. This week, The Big Issue, a weekly magazine sold on the streets by homeless vendors, has The King on the cover highlighting his Coronation Food Project, launched on his birthday. The King is quoted – saying that “Food need is as real and urgent a problem as food waste,” …. “If a way could be found to bridge the gap between them, then it would address two problems in one.” It seems to take a football player like young Marcus Rashford of Manchester United and a King like Charles the Third to steer this ship into a clearer lake of fresh water.

On Tuesday, we left for Poland and the Camerimage International Film Festival in Torun. It takes a full day of travel getting to the festival and we were only traveling from London. Cinematographers, manufacturers, filmmakers from other disciplines with films come from around the world. It is a jumble of festival and trade faire, a little glamor and a lot of graft for the craft of cinematography. We gather at breakfast, the same as on a film set, such is the comradery of international filmmakers.

The plane landed in Warsaw and the afternoon light stayed for the first hour of the two-and-a-half hours it takes to drive to Torun. Leaving the city there are single-gauge railway tracks that emerge and disappear in and out of the paved road. They are old, disused but along with the tree-covered mounds of larch, silver birch, and pine that cover the detritus of an ancient war, a chilling reminder of the wars past and present. The city names of old wars are now joined with new place markers that move traveling east into Russia and Ukraine, and then south with the eruptions in Jerusalem, Gaza, and Palestine.

The city disappears giving way to bare winter fields. There is very little green left to harvest, only tall dried-out corn to be cut for livestock. As we pick up speed, the farmhouses appear small, even tiny, most look old and decrepit. There are no lights shining to welcome a farmer home from the plow. As we drive north a storm is crossing Europe and for those moments that we are on the open barrier-less road, the raw wind beats across the motorway making this all-electric German limousine slip and tremble and the windshield wipers pick up speed.

We settle into the hotel with memories that slowly come back to us. Beyond the window the river flows fast, the current pushing and pulling fallen trees into the mud. There is no shipping. The countryside is bleak this far north in November. Even though it maybe earlier in the year than our previous visit winter feels like it is coming sooner.

Walking into the old medieval town we pay homage to the statue of Copernicus. Torun is not a big city but as Copernicus’s birthplace it is rich in history and over two million people come to visit each year. Some come for astronomy, Copernicus, science, and some for this festival. Walter is here to join Professor of Astronomy, Leszek Blaszkiewicz in a moderated discussion on ‘Copernicus, Dreamers, Inspiration and Science.’ Held in the beautiful old Camerimage Cinema, the audience is primed and happy to hear, think, and discuss such things. After the talk is over they linger and some have already brought with them the beautiful Golden Book on Walter’s Golden Ratio exploration that the festival produced. The days are busy although we don’t get to see one film.

Mateusz Józefowicz moderates Walter Murch and Leszek Blaszkiewicz in conversation on Art, Inspiration, Science, and Dreams.

On Saturday as we walk over to the main building for the closing ceremony and awards event, dusk has already busied herself with night and the street lights proclaim it is winter. The big theatre has filled up early and fast. The ceremony begins and is almost all in Polish though there are head-sets for translations and it all goes along easily and quickly. The Golden Frog is the symbol for this festival, with tadpoles for the rising stars of cinematography. Each film festival has its symbol, Berlin has the bear, Locarno a Leopard, Venice a Lion, and of course, it’s Oscar for Hollywood. While the Torun festival celebrates the art of Cinematography it is also a huge trade faire. It is overwhelming to see the equipment. The festival also acknowledges the other disciplines and those who – within their fields – carry a particular understanding and integration of cinematography and their own discipline. Walter brought his frog home in 2015 and it sits sweetly and discreetly on a bookcase shelf here in London.

The last award is given and the festival director returned to the stage for his closing remarks before beckoning a line of assistants to file in behind him, and then another line and another, and – as we rose to our feet – he has assembled everyone who made the festival happen on stage. It is the first time we have seen such an acknowledgment from a festival and it seems fitting that it should occur here where the emphasis has always been on the heavy lifting that it takes to be a cinematographer and to make movies. The yellow-vested stage hands arrive carrying three sofas and the recipients of this year’s gold frogs and tadpoles come to sit alongside those who have made this year’s festival possible and still the full audience is on its feet acknowledging that just as Copernicus wrote in his revolutions, we are all like the stars in the heavens and the universe beyond, elliptically revolving around each other.

Brava and thank you to everyone who made this 31st Camerimage possible.

As we walk back to the hotel we can see our breath and the sky prepares to scatter the first flurries of snow. The final party is going strong but we are too old for that and even in flat shoes my back hurts. At the bar, we sit among those who would rather drink and talk than stand and shout, enjoying a glass of wine and a bowl of Polish soup. The next morning camp is broken and the lobby is full of puffer jackets, wheeled cases, and fond goodbyes. We have barely left the city when a huge owl swoops down across the car, just three feet in front of us, and with wings unfurled for balance, he nails his meal of young bunny on the snow-covered grass beside the road. We drive on past the mistletoe-encrusted trees, the wind turbines emerging from the fog where acres of bare apple and pear fruit trees, red and black currant bushes are already dormant, preparing for the winter ahead. We quietly understand that life in this corner of the world is not easy for those who live here.

This has been A Letter from A. Broad written and read for you by Muriel Murch

Summer’s End

September 17, 2023 / aggiemurch / 4 Comments

Written and recorded by Muriel Murch with WSM by my side.

The summer blasted out with a heatwave that left those of us of a certain age floating in a sea of lethargic sweat. This morning there is a lift in the breeze as brown leaves fall and swirl, crackling underfoot, telling us that autumn has arrived. Children are returning to school, politicians to their chambers, and nobody really knows what is happening in Ukraine. The huge earthquake and toll of over 2,500 deaths in Morocco has blasted the Ukrainian war off the front pages but not completely out of the news.

Widowed 26-year-old Margo sits at her desk inside a small brick mortuary close to the front line in Donetsk. Unknown soldiers are brought for her to check and record what she can about each body. And where she says – she speaks to the dead. “It may sound weird… but I’m the one who wants to apologize for their deaths. I want to thank them somehow. It’s as if they can hear, but they can’t respond.” Ukraine gives no numbers of its war dead – but Margo knows the losses are huge. US officials, quoted by the New York Times, recently put the number at 70,000 dead and as many as 120,000 injured. This from an armed force estimated at only half a million strong.

Crime Watch Live was a BBC weekly program in which the public were asked to help the police solve a crime that has been reported yet remains unsolved. Britain loves this work, it plays into the ancient forest hunter. In Crime Watch the police would put up a situation, giving as much detail as they could and a phone number to call. And sometimes it worked, while the show was still going on ‘a suspect was apprehended and brought in for questioning’. The TV public loved it and so the escape of the ex-army soldier and terror suspect Daniel Khalifa from Wandsworth Prison on Wednesday brought the public out hunting again alongside the police. Daniel is only 21 years old, with an Asian name and light coffee coloring. Dressed as a chef he managed to escape the prison strapped onto the undercarriage of a food delivery truck as it left the prison. I was not the only person with a smile on my face. An ex-prisoner interviewed by the BBC, could not stop grinning as he said. “He’s off out of here now.” But it was not to be. 75 hours after dangling under the truck out of Wandsworth Prison he was pushed off of his bike by an undercover police officer while cycling the towpath by the Union Canal in Chiswick. While Daniel faces the law on Monday it is time to point a finger of blame at someone. The finger circulates around and comes to rest on the conservative government as the country pays the price for another slice of the Austerity measures put in place by George Osbourne and David Cameron. On BBC radio, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth affairs James Cleverly, previously secretary for Education – so it’s not clear how much he really knows – claimed there was no evidence that cuts imposed by his government were to blame because, “the number of escapes had decreased dramatically, while “4,000 extra prison officers” had been recruited. To which the Prison Officers Association national chair, Mark Fairhurst, rebutted that the Prison Service was “now unable to retain the staff we recruit. That tells you everything about the working conditions in our prisons.” And blamed the escape on “The link goes back to 2010, when the Tory government came into power and hit us all with austerity measures.”

But this little bit of amusement is only one part of the austerity chickens coming home to roost.

As children put on their uniforms, several schools will be closed due to those chickens roosting. Construction codes were loosened in the 1980s and 90s and buildings built during those years are now crumbling apart from the light-weight, porous, cheaper, easier concrete. Classrooms are getting soaked through in the rains and even clumps of ceilings are falling down in classrooms. The hold-your-breath not-said-yet page-turner are those other buildings – hospitals, apartment blocks, offices – built during that boom – and is going to be a very big problem once someone puts the question to the government. Which is maybe why the Prime Minster nipped off to India for the G20 summit. Better to be shunned and dissed by world leaders than hounded in parliament. It’s tricky for Rishi and he really has no way out. There is no one else to blame for the state of the nation but the Conservative government and everybody knows it. And Rishi will have to show up in parliament soon.

The King and Queen must also come down from the highlands and back to London. The King managed a few weeks away in his beloved Scotland, to take the time to honour his mother and reflect on the first year of his reign as he moves forward. Where now can he now shine a careful light without poking his finger into politics? It is rumored that his first big personal project is a national initiative to tackle food waste. The Evening Standard newspaper – which reports a surprising amount of truth – writes that 2.9 million tons of good-to-eat farm produce, enough to provide the equivalent of seven billion meals, is being dumped in landfills each year. And you can be sure that more than one someone is making a profit from that.

This caption quote is from ‘Left Foot Forward’
The campaign to hand out EU flags at the Last Night of the Proms was spearheaded by the Thank EU for the Music group, which said that “tens of thousands of music lovers have taken our free European flags into the Royal Albert Hall for each Last Night of the Proms in solidarity with musicians who feel (like countless others) the destructive impact of Britain’s recent isolation from Europe.”
The group also posted a letter it had sent to the BBC’s Director General Tim Davie on its Facebook Page, where it added: “Our flags represent the hope that the Last Night of the Proms musically celebrates “Britannia ruling the airwaves”, hopefully transforming the problematic post-colonial anthems into something more, shall we say, enlightened and collaborative?”

The Promenade Concerts from the Royal Albert Hall ended this weekend. The last night of the Proms usually concludes with a roar of British national fever but this year it was pitched a little differently and though ending with the usual Rule Britannia – sounding a little tired – the National Anthem – God Save the King and For Auld Lang Syne while people stood swaying together singing along in harmony. But there were as many European Union flags and berets in the audience as there were Union Jacks. Members of the Government are asking for another investigation by the BBC but it could be – that just like the late Queen before them – with her clear message hat, the people are speaking calling for a greater self than just this treasured Isle.

`The Late Queen at the opening of Parliament 2017

September 8th marks a year since the late Queen died. An evening program set out the timeline of the day leading up to her death. Little nooks and crannies of tit-bit information came to light as we watched and remembered that day and our Queen. While the Queen’s condition became more grave, the then Prince of Wales took himself off for a solitary walk in the forest as he began to prepare himself for what lay ahead. This program was a moment for the nation to reflect on the passing of a beloved monarch and mother, a person who affected all of our lives, like remembrance prayers for all of our dearly departed. Years ago coming to All Hallows Eve, St.Michaelmas – of the daisy and the dead – an old friend wrote to ask if I would like my mother’s name included in the prayers for the dead at St. Paul’s Cathedral. It was an unexpected act of kindness and a remembrance of all things past. And we do remember them, those we knew, those we loved, and those who taught us life lessons. We will remember them until we become among those who are remembered.

This has been A Letter from A. Broad.

Written and read for you by Muriel Murch

We Seek him Here … and then There

July 17, 2023 / aggiemurch

Written and Produced by Muriel Murch

We seek him here we seek him there and the whereabouts of the Russian General Prigozhin who took a group of mercenary fighters towards Moscow and then back again, is reminiscent of Humpty Dumpty who took a big fall – as I remember – and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty together again. Prigozhin and his men may or may not be in Belarus. Only five days after the aborted march on Moscow, Prigozhin met with Putin at the Kremlin, and now the location of the mercenary soldiers has got a little murky. Alexander Lukashenko shrugs as he responds to a direct question about Prigozhin during a conversation with a few invited journalists – that reportedly lasted for four hours. “I’ve no idea where General Prigozhin is.” And when asked further about the mercenary soldiers he responded “Every country has them.” Though he may be lying on the first count he is probably right on the second. The newsreels from Belarus show farmland fields filled with rows of army tents flapping gently in the sunshine. Soldiers camping – I remember them on summer exercises in the fields when I was growing up five miles from Aldershot, a military town. But over twenty years ago I also remember crossing a mountain gravel road in Idaho where grown men were taking the lads out “camping” – with bows and arrows and rifles – almost hidden in a mountain-pass meadow. It is so easy – when you feel under threat – to believe you must defend yourself.

While searching for Prigozhin we also look about for Rishi Sunak who does not pop up on the telly quite as often as his two predecessors, Boris Johnson and Lizzy Truss. While the 75th birthday of our pride and joy, the National Health Service, is celebrated with cup-cakes for the working staff, the accompanying discussions on what to do about Britain’s Health care – “charge patients more and pay staff less” seem to be the Government’s only mantra. This is a greasy pole Sunak may fall from. If he isn’t careful and Keir Starmer is careful there could be a change of government in the not-too-distant future. But can such a steady hand with Starmer’s hectoring voice fix all that has been destroyed in the last 12 years? It’s a tall order.

The sun shone as King Charles drove along the Royal Mile from Holyrood House to St. Giles’ Cathedral with his queen and the Prince and Princess of Wales beside him. The crowds came out along the mile, mostly to welcome, wave and shout ‘God Save the King’ but some to show – with large yellow placards – that for them he is ‘Not my King’.

As a historic rule, Scotland does not care for kings though it’s a little more sympathetic to queens. The King kept it short and accepted the crown with a touch but not wearing it, along with a new sword, and the scepter. The ceremony ended with the familiar fly-pass of the Red Arrow fighter jets – always a crowd-pleaser. For the moment the Royal couple can go on holiday at Berkhall and Balmoral – the homes that his grandmother and mother loved the most. There they can rest a little as they reflect on the legacy he has been given and the job at hand. They may even manage a barbecue in the forests but that might be pushing history and memory a little bit too far. It’s a tough transition. King Charles knows he is a bridge slung between an old Great Britain and a floundering England and not everybody’s King.

We are in the midst of the summer season with the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis World Championships fortnight. 2018 was the last year that England had any showing at all on the last week of competition. England’s men, Andy Murray, Cameron Norrie, and Liam Broady, and the single woman, Katie Boulter have been knocked out already and the country is embarrassed but maybe not enough. Somehow the play at Wimbledon symbolizes – for me – England’s place – not quite good enough to match the rest of the world. The fixture is of such importance and now with roof lighting – the show must go on – until 11 p.m. The BBC ten o’clock news is at times pushed aside and the quick brush war between Israel and Palestine barely got two evenings. The Israeli forces did a quick in-and-out three-day attack, killing ten Palestinians in the Jenin refugee camp – job done from the Israeli point of view while the Palestine forces gather once again, vowing not to rest until they have reclaimed their land taken in 1948.

Somewhere in the world a battle is raging, people are being killed while others are trying to escape. Boatloads – some carrying unaccompanied children – are sent off and with luck arrive alive at the English shores in Kent. They are housed in detention centers where Robert Jenrick the Minister of Immigration has ordered the reception area pictures of Micky Mouse and Baloo from The Jungle Book to be painted over, to show something less welcoming. We know by now that we are less welcoming than Germany, Italy, and other European countries but is the painting over of Micky Mouse really helpful?

Naturally, the shadow immigration minister, Stephen Kinnock, condemned Mr. Jenrick’s order, saying it was a sign of a “chaotic government in crisis. Labour had a plan to end the dangerous crossings, defeat the criminal smuggler gangs, and end hotel use by clearing the asylum backlog.” Well, good luck with that.

Just as things seem quieter and we prepare to enjoy a week of family celebration, The Headlines of Murdock’s Sun Newspaper breaks another serious scandal coming directly from The BBC. Allegations made against an as yet unnamed TV presenter of – at the least – sexual improprieties are now being reported by the BBC as the mostly women presenters carefully chose their words. We watch to see who is not bringing you the ten o’clock news and like a game of Wordle, fill in the blanks by elimination. The country is hushed with a communal sense of betrayal. Though this week the mood beckons consideration of some serious falling-on-your-sword action by whoever ends up at the bottom row of this puzzle.

We refill the bird feeder that hangs from the Acacia tree over our little terrace. Along with the familiar families of birds – a small flock of Indian Ring Neck Parrots have found the feeder and have figured out how to work their way through the entire tube of food in a morning. It looks as if they aim to stay with us for a while.

This has been A Letter from A. Broad. Written and read for you by Muriel Murch.

Back to Work

May 29, 2023May 29, 2023 / aggiemurch / 2 Comments

Written and read for you by MAM with WSM by my side

The coronation is over, the King and Queen have had their little rest and are now back working; the King shaking hands with ministers and world leaders, and reading those dispatch papers that keep him informed as to who is doing what- and where – while the Queen goes out and about visiting and spreading good cheer as she continues to learn who is doing what in this country. The flags are still flying over the London streets teasing the tourists out to take another picture or two.

King Charles III. Photo by Victoria Jones /PA

The roses are only just beginning to bloom and have not yet pushed spring into summer. The bluebells are fading and the air in London is rich with the attar of cowslips growing in the hedges around the parks and along the canals and rivers. Last week while, walking up alongside of Primrose Hill I saw two vans parked on the same side of the street – back to back with their boot hatches open facing one another. The two men – from street-savvy habit – look up, always conscious of who might be watching, and we catch each other’s eyes. I’m smiling at them and – like fourteen-year-old boys caught smoking at school – they sheepishly grin back. There is an exchange going on. The slightly younger man is holding a plastic fitting, something that could be used in plumbing or electrical works. He seems to have at least a box of them and is proudly showing them to the slightly older man. Both are in their forties and when they were babes such things would appear on the lot of the film studio at Elstree, ‘It fell off of a lorry’ was the phrase for such items. Here in town, lorries are too conspicuous in the city streets and an unmarked white van can disappear quickly into the traffic. The men know that I know – and that I remember such mischief – and am too old to do anything but go on my way. And with another grin exchanged that is what I do.

The newspapers are quieter, looking as they can for other news. Well, there are always wars, and though we have a hard time keeping up with the Ukrainian president as he moves from the front lines of his country’s war to diplomatic meetings and back again, he does keep visible and keep the world informed. Is he luckier – in a sickening sense of that phrase – than the people of Syria with their multi-sided civil war or the Sudan where civilians are killed on a daily basis. Wars continue in what could be called the B column. In the C column, news of the treatments of refugees from Somalia and Ethiopia by the Greek authorities are not even reaching the English papers. The refugees fleeing these wars have made their way from Turkey to Greece only to be captured – by whom – and pushed into vans – driven to launches – taken out to sea and transferred to the Greek coast guard vessels before being set adrift in rubber dinghies. Is this bounty hunting as in ‘I’ll give you so much for an adult, so much for a child’? We are horrified and sickened as we catch glimpses of such cruelty – and yet – it is hard to think of a time or place in ‘civilized history’ where and when this has not been true.

But at home – in England – the Prime Minister is missing. Rishi Sunak and his wife have gone to Japan for the G7 conference where everyone has a chat and so politely says ’After you’ as in ‘if you give Ukraine bombers we will too. If you shake China’s hand – we will too’. All are consumed with the war in Ukraine. Well, almost all, India and the Arab States are keeping a distance from that chat while Volodymyr Zelensky strides about this world stage, clad in his army fatigues moving and talking to anyone and everyone he can. What deals can he cut? A little pilot training here, a couple of fighter jets there. It may not be much but he wouldn’t get any of it without showing up and giving a photo opportunity for the supposed great and good.

While Rishi is away, the little problem of Suella Braverman’s speeding ticket has blown up across the papers. It is almost good for a laugh. Those pesky cameras are everywhere and even with the warnings, ‘speed camera ahead’ one can get careless, and click, click there is your license plate picture in a civil service office and the next thing you know a paper notice comes through the letter box. Then what do you do? Well if you are the Archbishop of Canterbury and you get nicked popping in and out of London you may try to resolve it out of court but accept that, “No your worship – you was speeding – a hot 25 in a 20 mph zone.” He may have muttered some words about the press getting ahold of this one but paid up and accepted the points on his license. But a politician is different and good – not so old – Suella Braverman tried to wiggle out of taking her speeding awareness course within a class. The media spotlight swung quickly onto her – again – and she looks more and more like the most recent hole in the Tory bucket shining light into the murky interior of her political party.

And with Rishi still in Japan, Boris popped back into the news announcing that he and Carrie are expecting another child, bringing this family up to three children trotting along beside the other known five he has begat. What a lovely old word begat is.

But some words are not so lovely – they are hard to pronounce and to say. Nigel and Farage are two such words heard again as he showed up on the news once more to finally admit – ‘Brexit is not working.’ He goes on – that of course it is not Brexit’s fault, but the bureaucratic administration that has got it all wrong. The communist party said the same thing but no one remembers that. What is so terribly sad is how this country cannot yet see itself as a minor player on the world stage, and behave accordingly. Europe has no need of England, but England has great need of Europe and European business, industry, and people.

On Monday evening our plane touched down in Athens Airport, 59 years after we left – not knowing if we would ever see each other again. The drive to the city dips in and out of old memories. Small towns and old olive groves spread out in age, showing dreams made, broken, and reset as the trees are realigned to the country’s fortunes. The scattered sage and scrub are muted in the decaying dusk before we enter the city center where there is not a refugee to be seen. The limousine pulls up beside the hotel, and we are welcomed to Athena. For 24 hours we can disappear into an old marble suite, deep hot baths, and room service before reemerging to work in the world once more.

Yorgos Mavropsaridis and Walter Murch in conversation with Orestis Andreadakis at the Astor Cinema for the Rolex Arts Festival. Photo Credit – in Greek!

This has been A Letter From A. Broad. written and produced for you by Muriel Murch.