The Sky is Crying

May 12, 2024 / aggiemurch

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

“Look Granny, The sky is crying,” David says as he peeks out from underneath our umbrella. And we laugh because the rain is soft and light and warm and we know that it is just a little late May-time cry from the sky. And of course it is raining because the cottage windows have just been washed.

The park Elderflowers are bowed down with the rain

First I see his ladder, it wobbles as he perches it up against the study windowsill before ringing the door bell.

“ello Aggie – I saw you was back.”

“Perfect Chris – I have been thinking about you wondering when we would catch up. How have you been?”

“All right – middling you know.” And together we laugh as old friends do. Chris drives up from Sussex and parks his van somewhere in Camden. His tools are simpler now, an old wooden six-foot ladder that is wrapped in cloth and duct tape to protect the windows, a black plastic bucket, spray bottle of dish soap, window wiper, and cloth. He has a route of regulars through Camden, up Parkway and Regent’s Park Road before curling down through Primrose Hill until he has had enough for the day and can circle back to Camden, load up his van and drive home before the commute traffic gets too full.

“You’re limping more,” I say to Chris, Such is our familiarity over close to 20 years that I can say such things.

“it’s uh cyst on my muscle,” he replies. “Never heard of such a thing.” And he limps up and down the stairs. Chris is a London lad who, with his move to Sussex, has dipped his toes into semi-country living. He is old school and while he will go to the doctor he will not voluntarily step foot in a hospital. With Dickinsonian knowledge he knows well that you can die in there. As Chris does less for us – I pay him more. No longer able to hoist a big expandable ladder, nor not steady enough to carry our flimsy one upstairs, he no longer clears out the junk and leaves from our gutters. There was a time when he could reach the outside of the upstairs kitchen window and then help me replant out that lonely flower box. But no more. He can’t get up on the ladder and I can’t get onto the kitchen window ledge. About an hour in it is time to ask.

“ Would you like a cup of tea now Chris?”

“Oh, wouldn’t mind at all.” And so I make the tea. Chris is close to finishing up but the tea must come as tea break – not the end of the job. With milk, no sugar, and two biscuits. Chris needs the break and I sit down beside him. It is time to talk over matters most serious. But before we start Walter comes up to say hello and goodbye. Chris doesn’t quite stand up but returns Walter greeting.

“Morning Sir, you are keeping her well then I see.” While my husband chuckles his response I feel like an elderly dairy cow – still producing. But this again is our familiarity. Now it is time to get comfortable with our conversation.

Chris tells me of his sister in France – doing well with her family. And then it is on to politics.

John Swinney is sworn in as First Minister of Scotland – Photo from Hollyrood

The Scottish National Party is doing the Highland Reel with their changing of the presidential guard – for a moment longer – the leading Scottish governmental party with the First Mister of Scotland, and have just chucked out their leader Humza Yousaf as First Minister. He seemed to go quietly – almost too quietly – some saying he fell on his own sword with his dismissal of a collaboration with the Green Party and then begging them back to no avail. Sir John Swinney steps up to the helm, saying he will continue Yousaf’s independence strategy. A brown man steps down for a white one – who – admittedly is apparently untarnished – unlike Nicola’s Sturgeon’s husband Peter Murrell or her mentor Alex Salmond, neither one as yet in jail for any financial slipping and sliding and who both look like 19th century Moreland farmers still eating beef in quantities over and above the necessary calories for sitting around in government houses. Stepping up to the microphone as the new first minister, Sir John Swinney is trimmer. At first this looks like a right old stitch up, but maybe he is a guiding tugboat bringing this limping ship of the Scottish National party into safe waters. It remains to be seen.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson with his dog Dilyn after voting at a polling station in London in 2022. (Photo: AP/Matt Dunham)

Meanwhile Chris and I continue, curling our lips in mock horror at the buffoonery of Boris Johnson showing up to vote in the English by-elections without any ID – a law brought in by his government under his watch – and his – “you’ve seen me with my terrier dog on a lead” – just does’t cut it. We shake our heads in mutual disdain. Now the tea is finished, and it is time for Chris to carry on along his rounds and we say goodbye until he comes knocking on our door again in a few month’s time. I will see him through the summer, with his little ladder propped up against the window of a rock and roll bar on Parkway.

As the by-election results come in we watch the Tory party begin to implode. Rishi Sunak holds a tight grin as he speaks and congratulates the few Tories who have held onto their seats. A photo-op occurs in an Indian Restaurant where he is filmed chopping carrots with such inefficiency that the by-standing chefs are biting their lips and holding a tight smile as if watching a child with a knife for the first time. The Labour Party Leader, Sir Keir Starmer tries to look hard-working and casual as he goes about the country congratulating those who have worked hard on winning their labour seats. Poor man – someone should tell him that a white tee shirt under a jumper doesn’t suit every male figure. And all this hopping about the country for these by-elections puts the real business of government aside. The Conservatives are in the process of taking a whipping at the polls and government ministers are shuffling from one foot to another, not yet quite sure where to land and where to speak.

But Foreign Secretary Sir David Cameron has stayed busy, and along with the French President Emmanuel Macron, committed money and arms to Ukraine while still trying to broker any kind of peace in the Middle East. Russia’s President Putin has plenty to say about that.

The student protests with Pro-Palestinian sympathies about the bombing of Gaza are growing around the world, each country’s universities going about their demonstrations in their own cultural way. On the campuses here in England, because so far there are no overt clashes between the students, the administration and police, they are not covered by the evening news. While the young students and some professors already know the cost of speaking out, they are prepared to do so. When asked by the Guardian columnist Nesrine Malik about the cost – of their education, their reputation – a student replied, “The students in Gaza don’t have schools to protest in; they don’t have medical care to be taken away from them. This is nothing compared to what they’re experiencing.” Could it be that this time it is the young of the world who can silence the guns of war.

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

And always overseen by – beatrice @ murchstudio.com

Fading Flags

April 27, 2024 / aggiemurch / 2 Comments

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

Driving out along the lagoon, over the mountain, and down the twisting road through the Redwoods into another town, the large Ukrainian flags are faded and torn but still fluttering under the trees.

They look weary like the soldiers themselves must be. That war, between Russia and Ukraine, is into its second year and is now being jostled out of the headlines and overtaken by the three way shootout that is occurring between Gaza, Israel and Palestine. The weariness that is shown by the torn Ukrainian flags is but a reflection of the faces of both the Ukrainian and Russian soldiers. Satellite pictures of Russian graveyards show their expansion and a rough estimate is over 50,000 Russian and 31,000 Ukrainian troops killed from this war so far. Mothers do not like to hear such numbers and know that their sons are among the fallen.

Daily, more young, untrained Russian boys and old men are sent into battle to wear down the Ukrainian military. In 2022 the Russian Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin began recruiting prisoners for his private army – until that all went pear shaped and ‘angry words were spoken’. Shortly after that Prigozhin was killed in a plane crash. But – to no one’s surprise – the Russian defense minister has continued with the same policy, containing the stipulation that enlisted prisoners must fight until they die or the war is over – whichever comes first. Prison recruits remain crucial to the success of the Meat Grinder… The modern term for Cannon Fodder.

Nobody really knows how many Russian and Ukrainian solders or civilians are dying. But all Russians steeped in their history know, from Tolstoy’s War and Peace to Maylis De Kerangal’s Eastbound, war in Russia is carried genetically through ancestral bloodlines. For the Ukraine it is not a lot different – maybe the war dead figures are more honest – it is hard to tell. President Zelensky is anxious and impatient calling for the military aid package just passed by the US Congress over the weekend to be delivered now – not in six months time.

Back in London, though there are no more welcome signs for refugees from any country, this war is still on the page. The prancing dance that is happening with Putin, the West, China and the East is keeping at least some journalists on their toes.

London welcomes me back into a land of brown people and I am grateful. There is kindness all around me. I push my trolly-load of luggage towards the parked taxi driver at the airport, who, when we reach the cottage, brings my suitcases inside and lifts them onto the spare bed.

But our UK Government remains as tight, shortsighted and corrupt as ever. Another Tory minister resigns here, mud is slung at Angela Rayner the labour Deputy Prime Minister there, and, goodness me, Peter Murrell, the husband of the last Scottish First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, is under arrest again. Released of course – the only polite thing to do – and to be investigated further – in due course. Well maybe. This is beyond sad, another betrayal as most people whatever they felt about an independent Scotland admired and even liked Nicola Sturgeon as she brought Scotland through the Covid crisis. Lifting its head slightly out from underneath these stained seats of government we find other unbelievable act of fly swatting.

Through The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, the EU have proposed free moment for young European Union citizens and Britons across the borders, allowing young people from the EU to stay in the UK to work or study for reciprocal periods of time. As Ursula said, this would have been where there could be “closer collaboration. The topic of youth mobility is in both our interests, because the more we have youth mobility being on both sides of the Channel, the more we increase the probability we will be on good terms because the next generation knows each other very well.” But Rishi doesn’t seem to want to get to know anyone outside of his home-county set and has rejected that, the government saying that ‘Brexit had ended free movement and it had no desire to reopen that conversation, even with strict conditions on length of stay.’ God help this country.

As I began to write, the question of shipping undocumented immigrants to Rwanda was being batted back and forth across the aisles of Parliament for maybe the fourth time. There is no doubt that if the bill passes, those held in ‘safe housing’ will disappear into the urban ghettos of this country. Some will die, many will be extorted, while only a very few will reunite with their families or move on to make some kind of a life for themselves. Sunak will merely have transported the jungles of Calais to the cities of Liverpool and London. After a night of back and forth from the green seats of the Commons to the tattered red ones of the Lords the bill was passed – at the cost of 1.8 Million pounds per person – before it was time for an early morning cup of tea. It goes to the King on Tuesday evening and goodness knows how he is going to keep his mouth shut and sign it.

It is hard to think about this as I sit on the sofa at dusk watching the evening light soften and glow, as if to say, ‘That was an ok day wasn’t it? The plants in my pots on my small terrace garden must have bloomed for our guests: volunteer Bluebells coming out of home-made compost, yellow Cowslips raised and bowed down. The geraniums and fuchsias are not quite ready to come out of hibernation while the unpruned rose buds are reaching for any weak spring sunshine. The pigeons and squirrels scurry around though the bird feeder needs replenishing and rehanging before the smaller birds will return. But it is dusk and Lucy the fox is back. Her coat is full and healthy while her udder glistens from the recent suckling of her kits. She too has sensed the movement behind the glass, the lights flickering on and off, and has come to check my egg supply. I go to the fridge and get one for her. Sliding open the terrace door I place it just inside the cottage. Tentatively, checking my smell and my seat on the sofa, she steps froward and takes the egg in her mouth, turns and neatly hops off between my pots to trot along the wall and disappear.

Lucy comes for her first egg of the evening Photo by WSM.

She returns ten minutes later for a second egg. How many kits does she have this year? A famous Italian designer has a trophy home just across the wall and with his garden unused for the winter months this could be where Lucy and her family live. The park – with its tall grasses and hedgerows – is just across the road and the canal with its river-rat filled verges is only a quarter of a mile away. Can Lucy and her family live peacefully in that garden or will they too be evicted out of their found safety to wander to find a new place to call home.

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

And always overseen by – beatrice @ murchstudio.com

Below the Fold

June 16, 2023 / aggiemurch / 2 Comments

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

It came on Saturday – effectively immediately – Boris Johnson resigned from his parliamentary seat of Uxbridge and South Ruislip, a Greater London constituency inside of the M25 motorway for those who need to know. It was on the front page of the Financial Times Weekend Supplement but – below the fold. Michael Heseltine, the former deputy Prime Minister under Margaret Thatcher (keep your friends close but your enemies even closer) described the move as “a brilliant coup de théâtre – and – it is … totally unprincipled and dishonest.” It is worth remembering that in 2019 just before Johnson became Prime Minister, Max Hastings, Johnson’s former editor at the Daily Telegraph, reportedly said: “There is room for debate about whether he is a scoundrel or a mere rogue, but not much about his moral bankruptcy, rooted in a contempt for truth.”

While his counterpart in America – across the increasingly bigger pond – struts out on stage once more – our home-blown blond – who has handed Kelly Jo Dodge, his hairdresser, an MBE, has had enough for the moment. In a dance of betrayal about not getting popped upstairs to the Ermine chamber of which I have quite lost the plot, two further Conservative MPs have also resigned their seats: Nadine Dorries from Mid Bedfordshire, and Nigel Adams from North Yorkshire. So geographically, the Conservative holes to be plugged are fairly evenly spread in England’s ‘green and pleasant land.’

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and US President Jo Biden had a nice chat

When Rishi Sunak arrived back from his spin around Washington with Uncle Jo Biden, the political and geothermal heat had risen. Politically he now has three seats to fill in by-elections. Luckily the arrest on Sunday of the past First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon – pulled in for questioning on financial misconduct by the Scottish National Party – proved a timely diversion. Whether one is in favour of Scottish independence or not – and though I can see their point I’m rather fond of Scotland – Sturgeon proved herself a first-class politician, even as she saw her party’s cause chipped away beyond her grasp. Looking back at Scotland’s history, Sturgeon joins Gordon Brown and the late John Smith as ministers that carried some visible moral backbone.

During the week that was, Prince Harry’s got himself in a right pickle – showing up a day late and leaving a day early for his court case against the Mail newspaper – not making the judge a happy fellow – and though Prince Harry has a point about journalists seeking him out for fodder, he is out of his minor royal depth as to how to fix it. He has returned to California and journalists are all busy taking a good bite of the political backside of the British Parliament. And for that, we can be grateful.

At the beginning of this month, there was an event on the other side of town. Cadogan Hall looks like an old church and is tucked away just off Sloane Square. It is where the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra calls home. Two high-profile journalists for The Guardian Newspaper, Marina Hyde and Jonathan Freedland, would be in conversation to celebrate Hyde’s book launch of ‘What Just Happened!?’ Walter had bought the book and tickets. He was determined to see them in person and to ask his question. The book is a big one – and sits prominently on our table. It is easy to dip in and out of with its short article-sized chapters.

Book Cover for What Just Happened by Marina Hyde

Marina Hyde now holds the lead position as “a thinking man’s crumpet”, an English expression first used in the 1960s to describe Joan Bakewell when she appeared on the BBC2 late-night discussion programs. There have been other crumpets of course, smart as well as beautiful actresses, news and semi-smart presenters, the chef, and author Nigella Lawson, Nicola Sturgeon could even be considered as such. The oldest crumpet of the moment is Kirsty Wark with – thank goodness – her own quirky style and smart mind – she still holds our attention as the senior co-hostess of Newsnight. But for now, Marina Hyde takes the pretty position with her political journalism and she definitely has my husband’s attention. He is not alone and on entering the bar to the hall we see many more left-leaning types – mostly of a certain age. There are young men out on a date, “Would you like to come and hear Marina Hyde – I’ve got tickets?” But I’m not sure Marina is really the come-on that they hope she will be. She could be just too intimidating. Us oldies look at her and remember – we too have been a bit of crumpet in our day and now just smile, seeing husbands getting frisky. The conversation on stage was good – Marina seemed a bit nervous which was comforting and when it ended Jonathan opened up to questions from the audience along with some on his iPad. My husband’s hand popped up and down until he was called and could ask his Brexit question. “ With the referendum being so important why was it not a super majority vote?” There was applause for the question but sadly no real new answer. Walter has met his third Russian as in “When three Russians tell you you are drunk you might want to lie down.” The sickening truth is that the then Prime Minister, David Cameron, was so confident of winning he saw no reason to make the vote more than a simple majority. His arrogance began the spin that has taken this country into a downward spiral of decay.

The war in Ukraine goes on, and both the Ukrainians and Russians know and are admitting this is not going to end easily. God is apparently on both sides. We see Putin holding up his latest Icon in gold, while Volodymyr Zelinskiy posts videos of captured Ukrainian soldiers being swapped home. Nope, this is not going well – God may be just too busy with wars all over the world along with global warming and the terrible mess we are creating on our planet.

This evening I pass a young Asian man and an older English lady trying to move a crippled gentleman down the last steps of his house and into a wheelchair on the street. It is dusk. I don’t know where they are going but they look a bit unbalanced – the man’s feet are caught up and twisted together. I stop, put down my basket and rest my thigh against the wheelchair. From behind I lean over the man and say “This old nurse is going to put her arms under yours and bring you back into the chair” and lift him safely into his seat. Our heads are close and a sweet smile breaks over his uncleaned teeth. He turns closer to me. ‘Thank you” he says and our eyes smile a secret together. I pick up my basket and don’t look back as I walk on home.

While I write, a small storm flicked a little lightning and a thunderclap, caressing us with the sweet smell of summer rain across our deck. It was not enough to soak the potted plants – only for the leaves to cup and drink.

At the age of 86 the past Prime Minister of Italy, Silvio Berlusconi has died. His life set out the playboy playbook that so many politicians read. It will take more than a little light rain to wash away the pages of his legacy found amidst the dry crevasses of corruption and decay in Westminster today.

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

Truth Bombers

April 28, 2023 / aggiemurch / 2 Comments

Recorded and Produced by Muriel Murch

I’m remembering a Chinese restaurant – probably in Manhattan – it was loud with cooking and cleaning noises from the kitchen and impatient traffic from the street and even then – when we were half our present age – we had to raise our voices to hear each other.

“What we need are Truth Bombers,” said our friend and immediately Walter and George began to expand on the idea. All that was needed were people whose reputations are so strong, so respected, that everyone would listen, believe them, and would act accordingly – doing – as Spike Lee said – The Right Thing. ‘Well that’s all sorted’ we thought as it came time to crack open the fortune cookies. How on earth could we have been so naive?

Now as governments become stronger in their authoritarian rules, there have always been truth bombers who are shot down before they can clip the sharp manicured nails of those iron fists. Truth Bombers come from all walks of life, particularly among artists and their offspring – celebrities, and activists – with politicians far down the list of those who follow this path.

Somehow this has all bubbled up in my mind from another British boil-over – you can’t be serious – the country says – when Boris Johnson, past Prime Minister of bumbling, put his father forward for a seat in the House of Lords where he had already booted his brother Leo to safety.

On 7 March, Gary Lineker spoke out – well, tweeted actually – which now amounts to the same thing – that the language being used around asylum seekers was “Not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s” and that put the government’s knickers in a twist and Lineker off the air. When he first joined the BBC, Lineker had clearly stated that “there are two things that I’ll continue to talk about, the refugee crisis and climate change.” When Lineker was reinstated to Match of the Day the following weekend, the director-general, Mr. Davie, said he had taken “proportionate action”. Adding “We believe we did the right thing. I think I did the right thing.” The row over Lineker’s tweet led to fresh calls for BBC chairman Richard Sharp to resign. After things quieted down, Lineker added: “What they have to think about first and foremost – the government of the day whether it is Tory or Labour – cannot decide who the chairman of the BBC is, or have any kind of influence on who they put in the director of news or anything else – though it looks like another ermine robe could be floating down the BBC’s back staircase.”

The ten-hour flight from San Francisco was as smooth as those things can be. Dear Taghi Amirani met us at Heathrow – driving us into five minutes of sunshine before the grey clouds of England covered the sky over the old A4 road into London. It is a scruffy road, airport hotels sit bossily beside old fields that have been given up and over to scrub and travelers of all kinds. A few plum trees are in blossom and new emerald-green leaves are appearing on the roadside trees. When the sunlight strikes them my spirits lift at this harbinger of spring. Even the houses in Hounslow, that sit directly under the flight paths of so many planes, look fresh and optimistic. Tulips have been planted to follow the daffodils along grass verges. As we come into the city, blackened tree trunks and branches are leafing out saying yes to this season.

Slowly we begin to settle in – unpacking this – rediscovering that and wondering where on earth is the other thing. And we look at the shift in the news items of today. The main themes of course remain the same, corruption by public political figures. Boris and his Papa now receding into the back pages while two Scottish figures from the Scottish National Party were arrested and then released on bail. Last month it was the former chief executive Peter Murrell – husband of Nicola Sturgeon – the recently resigned First Minister of Scotland – and this week the Scottish National Party treasurer Colin Beattie. Then there is the little matter of Rishi Sunak’s wife’s investments in childcare firms not being mentioned on some disclosure forms. Instead, we get to see Rishi and his wife – who wears the taut skin of a supremely rich woman – on the floor – smiling as they appropriate jumbo Lego blocks from nervous children.

Meanwhile, inflation in England is at over 10%, the highest in Western Europe – Brexit – Thank you again. Junior doctors are out on strike for more than their £14 an hour – the supposed living wage in England. The nurses are once more teetering on striking while surgeries and other procedures are being canceled. The National Health System appears to be falling apart which may be the no-longer-hidden goal of this government that put forward a Prime Minister of color as the fall guy.

It is time for the ten o’clock news and though the Scottish indecent party politics lead, followed by a smiling Rishi on the floor with a toddler’s Lego, the main item is the recent trial of the Russian activist and journalist Vladimir Kara-Murza. Murza is Russian and came to England as a teenager, later attending Cambridge University. He worked in journalism before becoming an adviser to Boris Nemtsov, another Russian political opposition leader who was shot and killed in 2015. Murza now lived in the United States with his wife and family. Then later, he wrote from his cell, “We all understand the risk of opposition activity in Russia. But I couldn’t stay silent in the face of what is happening, because silence is a form of complicity”. He has survived two alleged poisoning attempts but at the onset of this war knew that he had to return to Russia where he was immediately arrested and now found guilty of criticizing the war in the Ukraine, spreading “false” information about the Russian army and being affiliated with an “undesirable organization”. all equating treason. He has been sentenced to 25 years in jail, the harshest sentence yet for political dissidents. Along with Russian Alexei Navalny, Belarusian Alex Bialiatski, and others, Vladimir Kara-Murza is a Truth Bomber.

Which brings us to Sir David Attenborough, another truth bomber – Still flying missions – Sir David Attenborough’s new flagship series, Wild Isles, looks at the beauty of nature in the British Isles. Five episodes are currently airing in primetime slots on BBC One. But the sixth episode – a stark look at the losses of nature in the UK and what has caused those declines will only be available on the BBC iPlayer. It is understood to include examples of rewilding, a controversial concept in some deep rightwing circles. Once again the Government’s knickers are in a twist – and all of a sudden it doesn’t seem so far a stretch between rapping Gary Lineker’s knuckles, clipping Sir David’s prime-time wings, and jailing Vladimir Kara-Murza.

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

February Cold

February 27, 2023 / aggiemurch / 3 Comments

Recorded by WSM knit together by MAM

When in August 2021 western Military forces withdrew from Afghanistan, a plane-load of dogs was evacuated from the country leaving even less room for those Afghani families who had helped the allied troops during the war. Today in the UK an estimated 9,000 Afghans are still living in temporary accommodation in hotels along the Bayswater Road. Some settling occurred. Jobs were found, low-paying and under the table for sure; children went to school and learned English along with math as they began to make a new life. Now the British government plans to move these families to Yorkshire. It won’t even be the same English.

Rumor has it – via The Daily Mail – that Boris Johnson has made over five million quid since leaving office as Prime Minister, not a bad haul for a bumbling bear. And with that – (offers accepted at over four million) – his offer has been accepted on a manor house – with a moat. But the moat only runs around three sides of the house so it won’t do a lot of good when the people finally come for him. He may think he is safe in Oxfordshire, but outside of the university Quad, there are country folk who know what he has done.

As Polly Toynbee writes in The Guardian, the true legacy of Boris Johnson is that dishonesty is standard, the Commons has lost sight of the truth. The former leader’s disregard for truthfulness emboldens others happy to follow his example, knowing the system rarely holds them to account.

Nicola Sturgeon is stepping down as First Minister of Scotland. This is a big blow for the independence movement she has championed for her entire political career. Nicola, recognized in the western world, like Angela, by her first name, is a deeply respected politician. Her daily briefings through the Covid pandemic were a relief to everyone in the British Isles. When mistakes were made by her politicians, the retribution was swift. Nicola’s level of honesty was never equaled in the English government and only highlighted the ‘let the bodies pile up’ leadership south of the border. Though there may be plenty of young politicians coming up through the Scottish ranks, the question of Scotland’s independence remains in deadlock. Nicola insisted that her decision to step down was anchored in what she felt was “Right for the country, for my party, and the independence cause I have devoted my life to.”

Nicola Sturgeon Photograph: Xinhua/Rex/Shutterstock

Russian President Vladimir Putin thought he had Alexei Navalny ‘done and dusted’ when last year Navalny was sentenced to 20 plus years in jail. For a few months, Putin could allow himself a grin and a chuckle thinking of all the lost years of family and political life that Navalny would endure. If Navalny did survive the sentence, Putin could hope that he would emerge a husk – a broken man. But this month that grin turned tight-lipped. The documentary film Navalny was nominated for both a British BAFTA and the American Oscar Awards. And on Sunday it won the British BAFTA for the best documentary film.

Navalny won the BAFTA for best documentary in Feb 2023.

However, the Bulgarian investigative journalist Christo Grozev, who features in the film Navalny was, along with his family, banned from attending the ceremony in London due to a public security risk. In the film, Grozev and his fellow journalists tracking the poisoning of Navalny clearly show the Russian States’ involvement. Pushing the blame hockey puck around the stadium, the British Metropolitan police force said that while it could not comment on the safety of an individual or advice given to them, it was “absolutely concerned” with the “hostile intentions of foreign states” on UK soil. And they have a point. The finger of accusation points straight northeast to Russia with the successful poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko and the botched attempt on Sergei Scribal and his daughter Yulia that killed a British woman, Dawn Sturgess, in error. All this, mind you, when the aforementioned past Prime Minister Boris Johnson gave a cozy seat to the Russian newspaper mogul (owning among other things the Evening Standard) Lord Lebedev, in 2020. A heavy sum supporting the Conservative party was added to their coffers. I can’t get the image out of my mind of a snake charmer playing his flute as his pet cobra rises in the woven basket of his hiding.

But the Met Office truth remains that “the situation that journalists face around the world, and the fact that some journalists face the hostile intentions of foreign states whilst in the UK, is a reality. Which begs the next question, How will the American academy respond to the nomination of #Navalny? Navalny knows this film is his cross on Calvary and that he may be the one who does not make it down from the Hill. Havel made it through – Mandela made it through – will Navalny?

Found lying on the streets of Bucharest 1999 by Walter Slater Murch and Dei Reynolds. Looked to be used by someone homeless as a cardboard mat. Brought home to remains as relevant as ever.

In the early days following the news of the earthquake in Turkey and Syria, a friend of a friend wrote letters, and – as we spread the news of this tragedy – we share them. Tuna Şare wrote to Lucia Jacobs who wrote to A. Broad. Here is a part of Tuna’s letter and I have updated the numbers ….

“I am deeply shaken, still in Oxford but will go to Turkey in two days to join the rescue and help operations.

You may have heard about the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria. Two earthquakes (7.8 and 7.6 in magnitude) affected 10 cities in Turkey. The area affected is the size of the entire United Kingdom. Earthquakes caused an unprecedented energy discharge equivalent to 130 atomic bombs, and the earth’s crust moved by 3 meters, damaging roads, bridges, and airports.

The recent estimates of the people under the rubble (and dead by now) are around 47,000, and millions are left homeless in bitter winter conditions. The scale of destruction is apocalyptic. Our beloved city of Antioch, for example, is literally all gone along with its cultural heritage. Many archaeologists and academics, students have died and lost their families. Homes too.

Best Wishes”
Tuna

Mother is very angry. She has tried to hide it, burping and farting, holding her wind in as best she can until she exploded. Two weeks after this initial emesis she has vomited again. The latest death count is up to 47,000 and still rising. How can one care for the fusses of politicians and small scrappy wars where the planet is so attacked by the creatures who feed off of her.

As we hear the news I think about those still buried – alive – and waiting for help that may or may not still come.

There is a line -a scene – at the end of the film The English Patient where Katharine is mortally injured and alone in the cave. Almasy has gone to get help and left her with a flashlight, a pencil, and paper.

Katharine is writing. The FLASHLIGHT is faint. She shivers.

“…the fire is gone now, and I’m horribly cold.
I really ought to drag myself outside
but then there would be the sun …
I think of those still living, trapped, crushed,
buried in the rubble of our making
The light has gone out …
and we watch it flicker and fade.”
KATHARINE (O/S) – The English Patient

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

Stuck

April 2, 2021 / aggiemurch

Recorded and knit together by WSM

One fine spring day, after Pooh had done his stoutness exercises, he went for a walk in the Thousand Acre Wood. He wondered what his friends were doing and decided to visit Rabbit who often knew the news. Rabbit was rather busy and not expecting visitors, but being a well brought-up Rabbit and not wanting to offend his friend he offered Pooh a snack. And, as can happen with Pooh, and others like him, Pooh ate so much honey – all there was in Rabbit’s jar – that when it was time to leave he got stuck – halfway in and halfway out of Rabbit’s front door. There he had to stay for a week while Rabbit dried his tea-towels over Pooh’s legs and Christopher Robbin read to Pooh outside Rabbit’s front door. Nobody said anything about eating too much, more than one really needed, or minding ones’ manners, thinking of others, or how much honey did Rabbit have in his pot. Eventually, after a week, all of Rabbit’s friends and relations came and with great effort managed to pull Pooh out of Rabbit’s front door where he shook himself off and continued on his walk. We are never really sure what Pooh learnt as so many of his scrapes are about seeking out pots of honey as well as helping his friends in distress.

This week, watching the big ship Ever Given lurch and ram sideways into the walls of the Suez canal we can see a little bit of Pooh in all of us. Shipping company cargo ships are like Rabbit’s pots, and at this writing there are 367 more of them lined up waiting to pass through the canal. And the honey – is all the goods not made in our home countries that we crave.

A work crew using excavating equipment tries to dig out the Ever Given wedged across the Suez Canal Photograph: AP

The canal’s history goes back to the time of early Pharaohs with successive kings trying this way and that to open up this trickling passage way between the Red and the Mediterranean Seas. Like the Panama Canal these little streams hold an almost magical power in terms of the world’s global trading systems today. The Suez canal is not very big, a mere 120 miles long, 673 feet wide and allows for a ship draft of 66 feet. And, as David Pilling notes in the Financial Times, the late president of Egypt, Abdel Nasser, would surely allow himself a wry smile, having nationalized the Suez Canal, which prompted the UK, France and Israel to invade Egypt in 1956.

More years ago than I can remember I raised my eyebrows hearing of redwood timber cut in California being shipped to China for milling and then returned to the Pacific Northwest for sale. But now we learn that fish caught in the Scottish waters are frozen, shipped to China for filleting and then returned to the UK supermarket shops as ‘fresh frozen fish’ where they definitely look a little travel-weary.

Scottish fish remain in the news as Alex Salmond strikes back at Nicola Sturgeon on Friday with his launch of The Alba Party, which sounds far too white for comfort. Kristy Strickland reports for the Guardian that Alex Salmond (pictured sitting on a wall smiling into the sunshine like an unaware Humpty Dumpty)pitched himself as a man just trying to be helpful while the fact that nobody asked for his help seems to be of little relevance.

Strickland goes on, astutely, that the odds are against him but that doesn’t matter. He isn’t driven by a burning desire to win an independence super-majority any more than Boris Johnson was sincere about wanting to free the UK from the ‘shackles’ of the European Union. The stated aim of both men are merely vehicles for their egos and need for relevance. Neither man is known for his care of a woman’s personal space and I get the feeling that if Alex Salmond can squeeze Nicola Sturgeon’s political space in the upcoming Scottish May elections he will take great pleasure in doing so.

What is it with these men? Older, bully boys, with no hint remaining of what made them – a long time ago – considered smart or attractive? Their arenas are in politics, business and the military and they see no other way to be relevant than to be powerful.

This weekend in Myanmar marked Armed Forces Day, a day to commemorate the beginning of the Army’s resistance to Japanese occupations in World War II. But as the military Chief Min Aung Hlaing watched the military display before holding a lavish dinner party for significant guests from China and Russia, the military increased their attacks on the people of Myanmar killing over 100 in the cities’ streets. Finally other world leaders are calling for a stop to the killing and discussing sanctions. Not that anyone is as yet taking any notice. Sadly Saturday was also the full moon day of Tabaung, the end of Myanmar’s lunar calendar, a day of Buddhist celebration.

As I write the sun is finally shining. Daylight savings has come into effect and as of today six people from two households are allowed to meet together outdoors. European countries such as France, Germany and the Netherlands are all in various forms shaking their heads at the United Kingdom’s political maneuvering of the AstraZeneca vaccines. And it is hard not to blame them as this Prime Minister shifts his feet and blame here and there. But Boris always wants to be at the party and has joined the 20 other world leaders whose aim is to cooperate in meeting and dealing with future pandemics. Can England accept a role as just another tugboat? It would be good if that could come to pass.

This has been a Letter from A. Broad.

Written and read for you by Muriel Murch

First aired on Swimming Upstream – KWMR.org.

Web support by murchstudio.com

Coming Home to Roost

March 24, 2021March 24, 2021 / aggiemurch / 2 Comments

A shout out for KWMR.org. This post is going out a day early so that those of you who listen or read have the opportunity to support KWMR.org. Letter from A. Broad is aired every Wednesday at 9.20 a.m Pacific Time. Usually I post the show on this blog, Face Book and Twitter after it has aired on KWMR. But today/this week you have the fantastic opportunity of supporting Community Radio by just clicking the button below. Whatever you decide, thank you for listening and reading and staying tuned. MAM.

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Recorded and Knit together by WSM

The bantam rooster Little Richard and his two wives in 2009 — Little Richard and his two wives in 2009

Every rooster who’s lived on the farm had a distinct personality. But none was as independent as Little Richard. He was a small Bantam Rooster gifted, as we do with roosters, by friends – so in a moment of weakness, one Sunday afternoon we drove back down Spring Mountain Road with Richard and two wives. Richard quickly decided that he was not going to live in a chicken coop when the wide world was waiting. Instead, he roosted with his ladies on the high stall walls in the horse barn where, like his namesake, he crowed and sang through the pre-dawn hours of the morning. It was too much, and so I took him up into the hills to fend for himself. After all, he had shown an independent enough spirit to outwit predators at least for a while. During a torrential rain storm two days later, as I was finishing chores in the barn, Little Richard came strutting in – dripping wet, a little battle-weary maybe – but still strutting. He walked with a look of righteous indignation as he came home to roost.

Indignation is what I feel now. For weeks we have been looking outward at the police and military’s clampdowns on protests in eastern Europe, Belarus, Moscow, the Far East in Hong Kong, and Myanmar but now protests are happening in Clapham and Bristol!

A vandalised police van on fire outside Bridewell police station in Bristol. Photograph: Andrew Matthews/PA

I look back in anger or is it despair at how the two bombshells of Brexit and COVID-19 that have hit the UK have been handled by three Conservative Prime Ministers. None of whom liked or respected each other as they handed on the baton of government.

Before we began to really come to grips with what Brexit would mean for England, along came COVID-19 like a low-lying fog that seeped into the walls of our homes, work, and all aspects of our daily lives.

Now fingers are pointed at other countries as new variants naturally arise to name and shame the country of their seeming origin. And – dare we say it – if Brexit had not happened many discussions of travel bans and governments hoarding stashes of vaccines might not be taking place. The British cry, ‘When will we get out of lock-down? When will we be back to Normal? When can we go on holiday?’ as those thinking it is their right to escape the dreariness of an English summer by climbing aboard an EasyJet, emerging into the Spanish sunshine, and oozing out onto the warm beaches.

But hold on. The great big British rollout of vaccinations is making a real difference on the numbers of COVID-19 infections and serious illnesses. There is breathing space in the Intensive Care Units of the NHS hospitals. While there is tentative talk about the nine most vulnerable groups getting their second vaccinations, there has been a pause on vaccinating those under 50 years old, leaving young men and women, with energy to spare, and often distanced from the immediate pressures of Covid, frustrated with now mounting anger in need of an outlet.

They know that Boris will not listen to them. The Home Secretary, Priti Patel, who has so far successfully clawed her way upstairs, misstep after misstep, apology after apology – only when necessary – has sought to bring greater control for the police force anyway she can. After the events of last weekend when the Metropolitan police crowded in on those women gathering at the Clapham Common band-stand in a vigil for Sarah Everard, she saw another opportunity. Some of the police that night carried a mixture of sympathies; for the protesting women, shame and guilt that the reported perpetrator of the murder was a Metropolitan police officer, and confusion at the messages from Government to the Met. Frequently Priti Patel causes more problems than she solves. Now she is grabbing this time to try and push through a bill that would give the police in England and Wales extended powers to impose heavy fines or prison sentences on non-violent protesters who are considered ‘too noisy’ or are ‘creating a nuisance’. Naturally, this is an alarm bell for those who are vigilant to government behaviors but whose only access is to the police forces acting as a river running against the tide.

Upstream and downstream swim the fishes, First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon and her mentor and predecessor, Alex Salmond, as they battle out who said what, who promised what, or didn’t, regarding Salmond’s trial for sexual harassment of nine women. In the redacted report James Hamilton, the independent legal advisor exposed a clear situation when the law gets in the way of the truth. In his cover letter to his report he writes, ‘that the removal of sections of his report by the government would lead to an incomplete and even at times misleading version of what has happened.” Reading between the lines may be the only way to glimpse the truth of this affair. The Scots are good fishermen and good fishermen have a lot of patience. This fish has not yet been reeled in and landed.

James Hamilton, the independent legal advisor — James Hamilton

In 1697 William Congreve wrote ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” in his play “Mourning Bride” but the Scottish minister Alex Salmond seems hell-bent on the destruction of his protege Nicola Sturgeon, whom he may feel is under an obligation to him – a situation a smart woman will try at all costs to avoid. For all his shouting and crowing, Alex Salmond may not find his way home to roost.

This has been a Letter from A. Broad.

Written and read for you by Muriel Murch

First aired on Swimming Upstream – KWMR.org.

Web support by murchstudio.com

Sunday Snow

January 28, 2021February 12, 2021 / aggiemurch / 2 Comments

Recorded and Knit together by WSM

It is almost time to mute Andrew Marr on Sunday mornings. The program is getting upsetting, not so much in the content but in the sharp delivery, so early and with breakfast on the sofa, and it is not good for digestion. When there was art, cinema, and theatre to discuss, Marr’s tone would soften and he would be coy like a schoolboy in a candy shop. But the politicians do not move him in the same way, while now some are figuring out how to defuse him. “Call me by my Name” is a book and a film of love, and to call Andrew by his name somehow takes a touch of the wind out of his sails. Matt Hancock has begun to do it, but it works best with the Shadow Foreign Secretary, Lisa Nandy, or Annelies Dodds, the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, and best of all, with Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland. They have also learned that other trick, to keep talking, and not let him interrupt. It takes practice and breath control and would be funny if some of the topics were not so serious and pertinent to our daily lives.

Matt Hancock is still working from his home office and needs to close the kitchen door. But there is a rare smile on Hancock’s face as he recited the rising numbers of those in England who’ve had their first vaccination, including 80% of those over 80 years old. But like the working terrier he is, Andrew has his nose on an important question. Originally the scientists recommended that the two doses of Pfizer/BioNTech and the Oxford University/AstraZeneca vaccines should be given three weeks apart for the maximum benefit. But now politicians and their statisticians, say actually no, the doses can be given up to twelve weeks apart. It seems some serious number-crunching is going on, trying to lower the number of people who would get sick enough to require hospitalization and further burden the National Health Service. But today, as the UK death toll from the Coronavirus tops 100,000, there leaks news of petty behavior from Boris Johnson to João Vale de Almeida the ambassador sent to represent the European Union in England. This rolls back to past behaviors and slights between brief-cased men and women over the last painful years of the Brexit negotiations and now rumbles on into questions of who holds how many doses of which vaccine, manufactured and stored in which country, and who is going to share, what, when.

Boris Johnson in Trouble
The Independent

This brings back a shadow remembrance of the Ford Pinto number-crunching that went on from the 1970s to 1980s. After the gas tank misdesign was uncovered and Mother Jones published ‘The Pinto Memo’ that said the cost of recalling the cars would have been $121 million, whereas paying off the victims would only have cost Ford $50 million. ‘It’s cheaper to let them burn” in ‘the barbecue that seats four.’ For the moment the UK Government, The European Union, and medical scientists are at odds, as they wrestle with the numbers that may not be, how many lives will be lost, but whose.

The situation with the COVID-19 virus, vaccinations, questions about schools remaining closed, and with no end in this degree of lockdown in sight, have pushed even the American political changes under President Biden onto page two. News of other nation’s pandemics and war deaths are barely covered as if the continents of South America, Africa, and India are too big for us now to comprehend and explain.

Coverage of the protests in Belarus has given way to those in Russia over the arrest of Alexei Navalny. Before Navalny left Germany he made a video film, “Putin’s Palace: The $ Billion Dollar GRIFT” in which, at almost two hours long, Navalny also narrates in staccato bullet-point sentences. It is an amazing piece of work, gathering all of Navalny’s research over the last ten years as well as help from those who also see that things are not as they should be in Mother Russia. By the time Navalny returned to Moscow and was arrested, the film was already available to anyone on YouTube, and, at this point, remains untouchable by Putin. Even as the temperatures are well below freezing in Moscow, St Petersburg, and other Russian cities, the outpouring of demonstrators has filled the city streets and the protesters arrested number in the thousands.

The Russian police look like plated armadillos as they take on the protesters. The chain-mail effect as iron gives way to the sturdy plastic of their interlocking shining plates harks back to Tudor England and copied from the ancient armor held in the museums of Europe.

The harshness and speed of the clamp-down has been so severe that Western countries are ‘considering their next steps,’ as they watch Putin and the Kremlin close the fist of authoritarianism.

Back at the kitchen sink after our morning dose of politics, I look out of the window and the sky stares back at me. “Watch now,” it seems to say, and then slowly, thick drops of moisture begin to fall and, as they gathered in strength and courage they grew bigger, fatter, and fell covering the pavement, the cars, and shrubs outside with a solid blanket of snow. The old words return, none are better: solid blanket, silent night, or, in this case, day, as the snow fell for a sweet two hours, and we smiled with childlike excitement to see it so. Young Charlie fox padded softly by, paused at the window to look in on us before continuing his morning hunting rounds.

This has been a Letter from A. Broad.

Written and read for you by Muriel Murch First aired on Swimming Upstream –KWMR.org.

Web support by murchstudio.com

Striker

December 3, 2020February 12, 2021 / aggiemurch

Recorded and Knit together by WSM

Scotland is quick off the mark as it takes Footballer Marcus Rashford’s goal of free school meals one step further, proposing giving all primary aged children breakfast and lunch throughout the entire school year. Yesterday the Scottish First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, announced a one-time thank you gift of £500 for every full-time Health and Care Worker in Scotland. Take that England! Today there is a big vote in Parliament about the tier restrictions, ‘where’ will be classified as ‘what’. Through this country-wide lockdown the number of COVID positive tests continues to rise and fall in waves across the country. But as we come out of the national lockdown and into tier two, the number of cases and deaths in London is down. There is even a suggestion that we might have crested the peak of a second wave.

The Weekend Financial Times newspaper editor, Alic Russell, lays two pink-paged obituary columns side by side.

Leading is the article on Jan Morris, ‘The Greatest Travel writer of her generation’ writes Russell. And more so. From James to Jan she wrote of her travels with eloquence, insight and a dry wit. During the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Clinton years she published a collection of essays, ‘Conundrum’. One a reflection on the physical beauty of an army officer, as they rode side by side in an army tank, transporting the tank, and the officer, back to that of a Greek chariot.

In ‘Thinking Again’ Morris quotes Arthur Clough writing in 1861, “Thou shalt not kill: but need’s not strive officiously to keep alive.” She is musing on an old clock that hangs in her kitchen in Wales, supplanted in use, but not in beauty, and I smile, for behind me is a similar clock, probably an old golf prize of my father’s. It has always been tricky, needing frequent winding, but after a day or two it slowly winds down to a stop. When it first came into my care I took it to a clock-maker who worked with it for a week, before handing it back, with a bill, and a wry smile. “Not much I can do here unless you want to…” His voice trailed off and I understood that this was a moment that “one need’s not strive officiously to keep alive.”

Beside the reflective Jan Morris is the smiling brash Diego Maradona who many consider the greatest footballer of his generation. His epic scoring second goal in the World Cup quarter-finals against England in 1986 was a moment of triumph, a ‘take that’ kick up the English backside that left two of the English players hard-put not to applaud.

I never really got football, it is my failing and I apologize. When we were first in Buenos Aires I was often alone long into the evenings in the apartment on Calle Estados Unidos. At least once a week, echoing out of the hallways and up the shafts between the apartments, would come what I took to be the sounds of after a drink and pre-dinner sexual activity. It took a while before learning that, no, it was TV football-watching and probably La Boca Juniors were playing.

It was with grim pressed lips that the assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, reportedly by an Israeli ambush team, was broken last week.

Countries watched and remained silent – for the most part – for there is movement on the chess board. While President – Elect Joe Biden says he intends to rejoin the 2015 nuclear deal, Jared Kushner has taken up the baton from Michael Pompeo and is very busy flying here and there through the Middle East.

The ambush of Fakhrizadeh was planned like an age-old assignation. An assault twelve member team with another fifty personnel in back-up. The area’s electricity was cut half-an-hour before the assassination took place at a road round-about in Absard. The helicopter could not land close-by and so time was lost for those killed and injured as they were all flown back to Tehran.

Somehow it is these details, which lead me back in memory to the gangster killings in New York, and the history of the assassination of the Iranian General Afshartous in 1953. I should be paying more attention to the travel Itinerary of young Jared Kushner. This week he is meeting Saudi Crown Prince MBS in Neom before ‘having a word or two’ with the Emir of Qatar. These could be some interesting tea parties as he tries to gather the Middle Eastern countries into alignment with Israel. I’m not sure he really knows what he is doing – or does he? He is young and must have his own aspirations.

Winter is here. The Thanksgiving Holiday has rolled from the last weekend in November into the first week of December. The family traditions that we built over the years adapt with age. We would prune the wisteria over the barn this weekend and then hang the funky lights over the front windows on the farm. Often we were told that as friends drove around the lagoon, seeing those small unfussy lights, made them know they were coming home. Now here in London we will choose a wreath for the front door and pull out the old Fortnum’s hamper of lights to decorate the little cottage.

Last week saw Chancellor Rishi Sunak lighting an oil lamp on the doorstep of Number 11 Downing Street, for the Hindu festival of Diwali, now the big Christmas tree is up outside of number 10.

Whatever our cultures and religions, coming together in gratitude will bring joy and for that we can all be grateful.

This has been A Letter from A. Broad
Written and read for you by Muriel Murch. First aired on Swimming Upstream – KWMR.org. Web support by murchstudio.com

An Eton Mess

August 19, 2020February 10, 2021 / aggiemurch / 2 Comments

Recorded and Knit together by WSM

Despite being arrested and badly beaten, protesters are not giving up and protests in Belarus continue. Over 200,000 people took to the streets in Minsk over the weekend while TV Journalists are refusing to work in the state-sanctioned stations. Europe and much of the world are watching, appalled at the police and army violence used to control the protesters. Beleaguered President Alexander Lukashenko is feeling the heat and has turned to Vladimir Putin asking for help, which may – or may not – be forthcoming. Is this a world-warning to the U.S. if, in November, the U.S. presidential elections appear to be overtly tampered with?

An Eton Mess, as described in Wikipedia – the now go-to in depth Encyclopedia Britannica – is a traditional English dessert of strawberries, meringue, and whipped cream. As the name suggests the Eton Mess originated at Eton College and began life when served at the annual cricket match between the Eton and Harrow Schools at Lords Cricket Grounds in London.

In the summer time of the early 1960’s, as young student nurses, with our end of the month brown envelopes, we would walk up the hill to The Corona Cafe on the Guildford High Street. Crowded tightly into our little booth we would each order, not an Eton Mess, which was not yet on every restaurant’s menu, but a Knickerbocker Glory, which was.

A Real Knickerbocker Glory from Gastronomic Bong

Before the European Market, and a global economy, soft fruit was truly seasonal and ripe only in June and July. The berries then faded, giving way to August’s blushing peaches and plums.

But here we are in August, with strawberries and raspberries still in the markets and so, if we choose, we can make up our own versions of an Eton Mess; mashing merengue, ice-cream and fruit all together, or we can be more creative, putting together an elegant Knickerbocker Glory.

Now in this mid-summer moment, Boris Johnson’s Government has produced its own Eton Mess within the education system, taking all the good things of a last school year and, with a hairy fist and no thought for the consequences, crushed them into the industrial blender of the Ofqual algorithm. Whether it is G.C.S.E.’s or A levels, leaving school exam results are hugely important to the students, teachers and their schools. I can remember fearfully waiting during exam result’s week for the brown envelope containing my O Level results to come though the letter box. This year, because of the Corona Virus, there have been no A level exams. They are vital indicators for a student’s way forward to a university – or not – and if so which university can they attend. The government’s first choice was to wiggle through two paths. In Private (called Public) schools, the teachers were allowed to give their assessments of a student’s grades. In State schools the government implemented an algorithm from the exams watchdog, Ofqual, based on previous results from these schools. This appeared dependent on post codes for schools and students alike and did not address the hard work of the schools and teachers struggling to improve and equalize the opportunities for students throughout the country. The gap between rich and poor has been broadened and deepened more that ever.

The Scottish Prime Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, was the first to think ‘Rubbish, off with that computer’s head, we are going to listen to the teachers,’ though she put it more politely saying:
“We’ve got this wrong and apologize to both students and teachers. We are going to do whatever we can to put this right.” Northern Ireland and Wales followed suit. Quickly, old Etonian Boris Johnson, and the Education Secretary, Gavin Williamson, far from an Old Etonian, but maybe with such aspirations, were left watching their Eton Mess collapse into a proper Dog’s dinner. And now the students have voices; quickly they formed protests around the country and posted their stories on Social Media. Those whose post-codes down-graded their results are not going anywhere quietly. This maybe the first time that Domonic Cummings’ computer and puppet-strings for Gavin Williamson have tangled and crashed. The government has been forced to abandon their algorithm from Ofqual and now slides into a U-Turn. Like a cur that has regurgitated its Eton mess, it has turned tail, eaten its own words as a dog’s dinner and retreated.

But this week we are preparing for the Virtual launch of COUP 53 on Wednesday August 19th. That is this evening if you are listing on KWMR.org, one of the over 90 venue hosts in four countries, for COUP 53. Yes, I’m putting in a plug for the film and our own beloved radio station, where you can get tickets for Wednesday night and thereafter as long as the venues keep the link on their website. If your tickets are for the Wednesday opening you also get to see the on-line Q & A moderated by Johnathan Snow and featuring the writer/director Taghi Amirani, the writer/editor Walter Murch and actor, Ralph Fiennes. Ticket sales are split between the host venue and the film.

Everyone involved in the making of COUP 53 at times wondered what rabbit-hole we were falling into as these historic events from 67 years ago played out in more than unusual footage and film. The Press coverage has been amazing and maybe is in part due to the guts and determination it has taken to not only make the film but now to release it in these Covid-19 times. I’ve seen COUP 53 many times but truth be told, I’m looking forward to switching on and watching it again on Wednesday night.

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