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.

Donate to KWMR

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

Taghi Amirani and Walter Murch – Almost Done

Gilbert is Gone

July 30, 2020February 6, 2021 / aggiemurch

Recorded and Knit together by WSM. First Aired on Swimming Upstream KWMR.org

And where is Boris? The Prime Minister thought it a good idea to fly to Scotland last week. But did he drop in on Scotland’s Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon? No, he did not. Either she didn’t know he was coming, or more likely he just wanted be seen popping in and out, like popping into a fish-and-chip shop.

Fishing. That’s the thing. On the News at Ten, Boris Johnson was seen holding up a very substantial Atlantic Crab. One that could definitely go on some kind of a diet if it didn’t want to avoid the pot. But all evidence showed that the pot was to be the crab’s destiny. It was hard to tell which variety of crab this was as it was on its back, where Mr. Johnson may find himself if:

He doesn’t pay attention to the women leaders who can deliver daily briefings on their country’s Covid-19 situation, alone at the podium, wearing stiletto-healed shoes.

He doesn’t get himself on the imposed dietary restrictions he is putting in place for England. Photographs of him jogging in London are not a pretty sight. Johnson has now declared a campaign on adult and childhood obesity. And it is true that in England 70% of the deaths from Covid-19 have been for patients who were seriously overweight.

The weather has turned blustery, as English weather does, and is the reason that the English migrate so steadfastly to Spain, Portugal and Southern Europe for their summer dose of sunshine. Now suddenly the UK government has mandated a two-week quarantine on people returning from Spain. Even a government minister has been caught out, and will have to self-isolate when he returns to the UK. Dominic Raab made the announcement from home, with the backdrop of delightful delphiniums growing in his garden – reminding us all that really the government has ‘shut up shop’ and gone on holiday. Is anyone paying attention?

For some of us are watching North America go into free-fall.

This weekend saw the beginning of Senator John Lewis’ journey home, including his funeral procession over the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. The quiet dignity of the procession befitted a man of quiet dignity and good trouble. I have pulled out blue and purple ribbons and tied them onto our front door. Blue for Mr. Lewis, and Purple for the pancreatic cancer that felled him. Over the course of his life John Lewis returned to Selma again and again. He often said, “This is where I come for renewal.”

A book, ‘The Best of Ruskin Bond,’ was given to me by Shubki, the wife of a government minister who welcomed us to Pune in 2004. This collection includes many of Bond’s short essays. In ‘At Home in India’ he asks, ‘What is it that holds me back in India, that I don’t leave?’ And he replies, “It is more than the land that holds me. For India is more than a land. India is an atmosphere. Over thousands of years, the races and religions of the world have mingled here and produced that unique, indefinable phenomenon, the Indian: so terrifying in a crowd, so beautiful in himself. … Race did not make me Indian. Religion did not make me Indian. But history did. And in the long run, it’s history that counts.” I like to believe that John Lewis would have nodded in agreement as the history of his country and his work unfold before us.

The West Indian Cricket Team is playing the English Team in the third Test. And ‘Rain Stop Play’ is holding the last day’s play hostage. This is of no interest or importance to anyone outside of cricket fans. But in a box of old family memories there is a sepia photograph of the first West Indian team to be invited to play in England at the Dulwich Cricket ground where my father was captain. The photograph is dated 1928 and shows the team striding sternly out to take the field at ten minutes to noon. I looked at the man standing at the entrance to the club house, Trilby-hatted with a hand in his old raincoat pocket, and I wonder if it is my father. Like a message in a bottle I have sent a copy of the old photograph to the team’s captain, ‘To wait for their arrival’ at Lord’s Cricket Grounds. If it reaches that shore – or their captain – I can give them the original. For this memory belongs to them, not to me.

West Indian Cricket Team at Dulwich Cricket Grounds in 1928

Gilbert is set in Place 2015 Photo by WSM

Between the showers on Sunday we walked in the park. Clustered on the playing fields and under the trees by the lake were groups of families and friends, wanting to picnic together but not venture inside another’s home. The roses in Queen Mary’s Rose Garden are blooming in waves and every bench is occupied by family or friends taking time to be together. Leaving the rose garden to return to the park I look for Gilbert, a fine, standing topiary of tight yew and ivy shaped into a hard-working gardener, complete with a tin watering can. But Gilbert is gone. Once, when questioning a live gardener working close by he had assured me, “‘is name is Gilbert”. Gilbert had been a signature at this corner of the rose garden for at least five years.

Now he has been replaced by a very elegant succulent elephant, with tin ears. I admire the succulents and the handiwork of this new sculpture. And think maybe it is a homage to the zoo which has struggled with the pandemic shut-down, or maybe it is more, a homage to those whose work has made these gardens and the park as beautiful as they are.

The Elephant comes to the Park Photo by WSM

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