England Expects That Every Man Will Do His Duty

And women too, of course.

So signaled Horatio Nelson from HMS Victory, in what has become one of the most famous moments in our history.  So, where are we at with this?  What duties does England expect now from its people?  And what do we expect back from the state?

If Coronavirus has done anything, I think it's confirmed what we already sort-of knew about British society in the 21st century - that it's become inherently selfish, self-serving, and individualistic.  The notion of pulling together, of battling through as one united nation, of facing down our collective threats together, is dead, isn't it?

Why do you say this Nich?  Well, firstly I know that a lot of good things do go quite unreported in this country, instigated by people with big hearts which are full of compassion.  But we're in the midst of a very unpleasant global pandemic, and all some people seem to have been able to do so far, is try and exclude themselves from our collective responsibility.  Rather like the BMW driver in Torquay last week that cruised up the wrong lane and then tried to push in front of me because they couldn't be bothered to wait in the queue along with everyone else: "Those rules are fine, but surely they don't apply to me."

The BMW driver, by the way, was left floundering in no-mans-land because I stood my ground and refused to let him bully me into submission.  But alas I cannot do the same about the idiots in Nottingham last night, who went out in their huge groups, observed no social distancing rules, got plastered, got off with each other, fought the police officers who had to attend, and generally spread their germs around the city.  Slow hand clap all round.

I should say at this point that I'm generally a fairly conservative human being; I don't believe in big state; I'm not a massive fan of Government intervention; and I think people should be allowed to live a free life, uninhibited by the powers that be.  But you know what, I'm in Nelson's camp with this one - England expects that every man does his duty.  Because these are not normal times - we're at war with a virus, and we have to start pulling together if we have any chance of winning and getting our lives back to normal.  The state's not asking anybody to pick up a gun and jump into the trenches, as our forefathers were made to do.  It's not asking you to parachute out of a skytrain and secure Pegasus Bridge.  It's not asking you to lay down your life for your country, as Nelson did.  So is it really that much of an ask to curb your activity a little bit, for the good of the entire nation?  I'm managing to do it, and so is everyone else that I know, even though some of the things we've lost are of far greater value than the memories of a drunken night out.

To conclude, if you were out in Nottingham last night grappling with police, then you're a moron who should be placed at the back of the queue when it comes to medical assistance.  But you won't be, because even though you've failed to do your duty, you'll still be looked after and given the best care available.  That's the daft and beautiful thing about this country - it will try to look after you regardless.  And maybe that's a lesson that everybody needs to take away from the present, and put into their every day lives.  England's expecting - let's not let it down any more.

Would the last Twit out of the building, please turn out the lights

 

October soliloquy from an autumn child

Let me photograph you in this light
In case this is the last time
That we might be exactly like we were
Before we realised
We were sad of getting old
It made us restless

The dreams are strange.  They come in the night and wrest me from my peaceful slumber, they dance with me and push me around, and they take me on constant circles, revisiting the same old ground time after time after time. I'm not brilliantly well at present, I have no resilience, my confidence has been shot to absolute pieces.  Problems and issues, which a year ago I would smash out the ballpark for fun, now weigh heavily on me, and become exaggerated into mighty mountains within the confines of my mind.  At the age of 34, I seemed to be all over life.  At the age of 35, it all seems to have come crashing down from the inside.  What happened?  COVID, I suppose, changed everything.  Work pressures, home pressures, family pressures. And I think the eradication of so much in a social sense - be that watching the Gulls, meeting friends for a drink, shopping, and so on, has taken a substantial toll.

Thank goodness for English history, which has become my primary means of escapism during this whole sorry episode.  At least there's Simon Schama's inimitable A History of Britain DVDs, which I put on whenever there's a spare hour, and plenty of books to crack through.  There's a comfort that I've always found in studying our history - first of all, it reminds you of the hardships and battles that those before us had to fight, thus instantly connecting our struggles to the bigger picture; and secondly, it remains unchanged as the years draw ceaselessly on.  And I suppose that's comforting to me because I've realised that I'm getting older too, and that nothing is static, everything is always moving, evolving, becoming different.  And I'm not comfortable with that - as inevitable as it is, it scares me, and it makes me sad because I feel as though with every passing year, I'm losing my connection with my past, and with a lot of the people who are, or were, important to me.

I realised not too long ago that life is all about those people.  I don't know if I'm late arriving at that conclusion, or if I'm early for my age.  In Club 18-34 you live for yourself, your mind's busy grasping everything that life throws at you. It's a very exciting time, and I suppose that as you travel along your own road, you tend not to give too much thought to all the other drivers.  But then you realise - or at least I have - that without your fellow travellers, the road is barren and pointless.  So you make more frequent stops, you check in more with your friends, reconnect with the ones you haven't seen for ages, and try to reconcile your differences with the ones that have slipped away.  Then along comes COVID, and we're back to square one.  Nobody wants to go out anywhere because it's miserable.  You can't invite people over because it's no longer comfortable, or even permissible.  So what do you do?

The truth is that I'm tired of caring so much about things like this.  Absolutely, utterly tired of it.  I've tried so hard to make all kinds of things work this year, and I'm exhausted.  There have been some successes, of course - we finished the building project; I have a good core group of friends who are important to me; I think my marriage is in a good place.  But honestly - I'm all over the place at work; I can't deal with all the demands of family; and I miss too many people.  And I just don't have any answers to these problems at the moment.  So I'm trying to do what you're told to do; to be kind to myself, and take breaks, and go for walks, and get plenty of sleep, and so on.  Because I'm aware that I'm not firing on all cylinders right now, and I need to spend the remainder of autumn putting myself back together again. 

Autumn itself presents a dichotomy of joy and melancholy for me.  It's hands-down my favourite season, not because it brings a birthday, but because of the crisp clear mornings, the colours in the falling leaves, the early nights, the cosy house, the smell of stews, the thick jumpers, and the earthiness that speaks straight into my soul.  But these same aspects are also the ones that make me so very reflective - they always have done.  If spring and summer tune your senses to the optimism of the future, then autumn makes you look back, sometimes years, and offers the natural time to think, to remember, to grieve - and possibly also to atone and to forgive.  Autumn is the time when the bandages around my heart are liable to slip just a little bit, when ancient wounds unpick by a stitch or two, and when the questions of "why" and "what if" make their subtle creep out of the undergrowth and into the consciousness of the season.  It's not a great thing, but I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing either - I accept that I am a product of everything that has happened in my life, and with this version of self-awareness comes the memories.  It's just an inevitable part of me, so if you see me around town in a nice thick coat, kicking through the leaves and watching my breath dissipate in the morning air, be aware that my mind is likely to be nowhere near the rest of me.

So, here we are - late October 2020, Halloween on the way, Christmas inching into view.  And thank God for Christmas, for it's my sole aim at present.  At Christmas time we will make merry, we will watch the old familiar films, we will sing the timeless festive songs, we will breathe easier, we will love deeper, we will reconnect with each other, and we will reaffirm just how wonderful life really is.  In the meantime, I'm keeping my head firmly down as a means of pure self-preservation from the battering autumn winds and the driving autumn rain.  And I guess that's enough right now - the better dreams can happen another day.   

Blog, meet Schnitzel. Schnitzel, meet blog.

Ulysses

It little profits that an idle king,

By this still hearth, among these barren crags,

Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole

Unequal laws unto a savage race,

That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink

Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd

Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those

That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when

Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades

Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;

For always roaming with a hungry heart

Much have I seen and known; cities of men

And manners, climates, councils, governments,

Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;

And drunk delight of battle with my peers,

Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.

I am a part of all that I have met;

Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'

Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades

For ever and forever when I move.

How dull it is to pause, to make an end,

To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!

As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life

Were all too little, and of one to me

Little remains: but every hour is saved

From that eternal silence, something more,

A bringer of new things; and vile it were

For some three suns to store and hoard myself,

And this gray spirit yearning in desire

To follow knowledge like a sinking star,

Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

        This is my son, mine own Telemachus,

To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,—

Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil

This labour, by slow prudence to make mild

A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees

Subdue them to the useful and the good.

Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere

Of common duties, decent not to fail

In offices of tenderness, and pay

Meet adoration to my household gods,

When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

        There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:

There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,

Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me—

That ever with a frolic welcome took

The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed

Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;

Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;

Death closes all: but something ere the end,

Some work of noble note, may yet be done,

Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.

The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:

The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep

Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,

'T is not too late to seek a newer world.

Push off, and sitting well in order smite

The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds

To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths

Of all the western stars, until I die.

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:

It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,

And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Seen around Dorset - Abbotsbury Subtropical gardens