Last Tuesday Finn set off for Brussels with a group of 6th Formers from his school. They left very early in the morning, and I got a bit upset when I heard on the 3 pm news that there'd been a "shooting incident" in Brussels - so I went onto Facebook (the fourth emergency service) to find out what anyone knew. The answer, of course, was that they were all fine and quite a way away from the shooting. Finn reported that he didn't find out about it until after dinner and that the city was full of heavily armed men, military rather than police.
This morning, exactly one week later, we woke to the news of the multiple bombs on the metro and at the airport. People are going to say all over again "Why don't we make this fuss about Burkina Faso or Ankara?" and I'm going to say again, because we haven't been there, we may only know one person, if any, who has been there; because Brussels is local - I could drive there in a couple of hours once I crossed the Channel... it's easier to get to than Birmingham (although I've never been of course - to Brussels). And of course all the Brexit types are going to say "YOU SEE! This is all because of immigration". I am disgusted, saddened and, although it's frivolous to say it, bored, with all this. Round and round it goes, there are a few initiatives that make things better, but over all 'they' do this shit to divide 'us' and make us argue with each other - and we fall for it. They do it for other reasons of course, but you would have to be a bit blinkered to think that religious faith, rather than political expedience was the real mover. It is difficult to discern because Islam is a much more potentially theocratic religion than Christianity - we rather gave up on that idea by the 17thC (and earlier in a lot of places). ISIS are of course proclaiming their caliphate and the glory of sharia law, while we have to settle for dreary old man made law and precedent and living in a society where you get to vote on the government occasionally, but at least the Pope or Justin Welby doesn't make undemocratic pronouncements of what we can and can't do which have the force of law, and we no longer have to almost worship our royal families as though they were God's spokespeople.
Meanwhile...
The new IDS substitute turns out to be another right wing Christian who thinks homosexuality can be cured. I just wish Toryism could be cured and they could all settle down and become collectively minded lefties. He's called Stephen Crabb - I wonder if he's descended from Lionel "Buster" Crabb - the notorious spy frogman...who disappeared. Probably not, L Crabb was gay I suspect - married late, divorced after 2 years, no kids and clearly more at ease in male company (yes, I know, only circumstantial evidence, but good enough for me at this time of night).
This morning, exactly one week later, we woke to the news of the multiple bombs on the metro and at the airport. People are going to say all over again "Why don't we make this fuss about Burkina Faso or Ankara?" and I'm going to say again, because we haven't been there, we may only know one person, if any, who has been there; because Brussels is local - I could drive there in a couple of hours once I crossed the Channel... it's easier to get to than Birmingham (although I've never been of course - to Brussels). And of course all the Brexit types are going to say "YOU SEE! This is all because of immigration". I am disgusted, saddened and, although it's frivolous to say it, bored, with all this. Round and round it goes, there are a few initiatives that make things better, but over all 'they' do this shit to divide 'us' and make us argue with each other - and we fall for it. They do it for other reasons of course, but you would have to be a bit blinkered to think that religious faith, rather than political expedience was the real mover. It is difficult to discern because Islam is a much more potentially theocratic religion than Christianity - we rather gave up on that idea by the 17thC (and earlier in a lot of places). ISIS are of course proclaiming their caliphate and the glory of sharia law, while we have to settle for dreary old man made law and precedent and living in a society where you get to vote on the government occasionally, but at least the Pope or Justin Welby doesn't make undemocratic pronouncements of what we can and can't do which have the force of law, and we no longer have to almost worship our royal families as though they were God's spokespeople.Meanwhile...
The new IDS substitute turns out to be another right wing Christian who thinks homosexuality can be cured. I just wish Toryism could be cured and they could all settle down and become collectively minded lefties. He's called Stephen Crabb - I wonder if he's descended from Lionel "Buster" Crabb - the notorious spy frogman...who disappeared. Probably not, L Crabb was gay I suspect - married late, divorced after 2 years, no kids and clearly more at ease in male company (yes, I know, only circumstantial evidence, but good enough for me at this time of night).
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