Up Early

I'm up early to do an online student tutorial: alas, the student is not up early. All the more time for blogging! I'm two thirds of the way through a second article for The Conversation, this time about women instrumentalists, but it needs a rest for the time being so I can collect my thoughts. It's bristling with citations and I got stuck on whether to include an out-of-print book or not. The editor will tell me.

Probably like a lot of other people, I have been avoiding the news. It is deeply ironic that it appears to be those British people who are fixated on the Second World War due to a type of nostalgia for 'wartime spirit' (which is actually nationalism, and it's ugly sister jingoism), who can't see that we have a government and a leader who are actively pro-eugenics (let only the strong survive!), racist, and financially corrupt to a horrific degree. Who in history has been such a person? Hitler, of course. You know, that evil guy that plucky little Blighty and her army, navy and air force overthrew!

Our very own Evil Guy had a huge portrait photograph on the front page of the London Evening Standard on Monday. I picked one up at the station, but could not bring myself to read it. He is a very powerful and frightening man, all dressed up in a clown costume. I've always hated clowns, always sensed a sort of evil narcissism behind their desperation for attention, and this one is no exception. The owner of the newspaper is a person who should be being sanctioned. Now wonder he is being visibly obsequious.

Oops- I didn't mean to go off in that direction! It's just that going anywhere at the moment means diving into a pool of virus, and viruses are just as clever as the horrible clown. They mutate, like he does. They wear a harmless costume and we need to learn to live with them, just like we are being told that we need to learn to live with him. They only attack the weak (and hence, deserving), just like the Tories do. They thus cause endless divisions between the sick and the well, just like the very personal and political divisions that are multiplying in our communities for so many reasons (so very Coronavirus, with its' 3-6-9-12 infection rate).

The bottom line is that I'm really upset by people that I'd assumed were compassionate demonstrating an angry harshness that makes it impossible to interact with them. And look what I've just written! Angry and harsh! Have I become infected with that fatal virus, Conservatism? 

Over my dead body! (is that tempting fate?)