Snippets and gleanings

Bull in a China shop 
Is China a threat to the UK? Do we need China? With a population touching 1.5 billion it certainly can't be ignored. Chinese investments in the UK amount to £135bn. It's the world's second largest economy and a growing military presence. China is the UK's third or fourth largest trading partner while the UK is the fifteenth or sixteenth of China's. China isn't going away. Get over it.

You're nicked!
So Daniel Abed Khalife has been recaptured after seventy-five hours on the run from Category B Wandsworth Prison. The 21 year-old has been remanded in custody, apparently to Category A Belmarsh Prison (doubtless to be embraced as a hero by other terrorist suspects held there), for absconding from custody. He arrived at Westminster Magistrates' Court under unprecedented security where the magistrate refused a police request for him to be handcuffed in the dock. Good call. We should be so lucky to see that many police officers on the beat in our local neighbourhoods!

Where's the king?
No, not Charles III (frankly, who cares) but Mohammed VI of Morocco. He was in Paris (as he often is) when the earthquake struck and although he flew home he hasn't yet been seen visiting destroyed communities in his kingdom. When the volcano erupted in the Spanish island of La Palma, King Felipe and Queen Letizia were there rápido. The optics matter, your majesty.

Livin' it up at the Hotel California
Is it just me or does the news that thirteen new or refurbished 5-star hotels are due to open in London by 2025 with rooms starting at over £1000 per night make you feel queasy too? The Evening Standard describes the phenomenon as "an unprecedented 'gold rush'", with the first glitzy offering, the £1.1bn Peninsula London at Hyde Park, opening today. Amid a cost-of-living crisis, with thousands of families living in temporary accommodation in the capital and rough sleeping at an all-time high this is an obscenity. Never mind 'Singapore on Thames', London has become La Costa Dubai.

It's not just us
We in the UK have got used to nothing working but it appears that even the notoriously efficient Swiss are not immune. A Swiss Airlines flight en route from Zurich landed in Spain over the weekend without a single piece of luggage on board, leaving passengers bewildered andx frustrated. The airline attributed the mishap to a shortage of ground staff. Schadenfreude is the only consolation we have left.

Crème de la crème
As recession looms and the country goes to the dogs (notably American Bully XLs) it's good to see that we haven't entirely lost our sense of priorities as a nation. In a poll conducted by confectionery brand, Quality Street, into our favourite retro sweet flavours, 39% of respondents voted for Coffee Creme. As a result, the chocolate will be available for Christmas for the first time in twenty years. God is in his heaven, all's right with the world.

Popular posts from this blog

Looking to Africa - long read

As I sit here on an island just off the coast of North-West Africa I can't help pondering the future of that vast and seemingly unknowable continent, so near and yet so far. I'm writing this in Tenerife, one of the eight Canary Islands forming an archipelago off the coast of Morocco and Western Sahara - tantilisingly close and yet a world away from the 'mainland' of continental Africa. As an Autonomous Community of Spain, the Canaries form an outpost of the European Union (EU). Yet, despite their proximity to Africa, their outlook, politically, culturally and economically, is resolutely European. Africa may as well be Mars, though only a narrow gulf of the Atlantic Ocean separates these offshore islands from their continent. I say resolutely European but that resolve may, little by little, be weakening. There is a growing sentiment, especially, though not exclusively, amongst young Canarians, that they have been sold a pup. True, the economy is superficially buoyant, du
Read more

On old age

"The fact is that when I come to think it over, I find that there are four reasons for old age being thought unhappy: First, that it withdraws us from active employments; second, that it enfeebles the body; third, that it deprives us of nearly all physical pleasures; fourth, that it is the next step to death."  Writing his essay,  De Senectute (On Old Age), in 44 BCE, Marcus Tullius Cicero went on to refute these four supposed reasons in characteristically robust and forthright manner. Cicero wasn't one to sit about moping in his own old age; he remained actively engaged in the political life of the Republic whose survival, in the face of tyranny, he championed so fiercely.  Cicero was nine years younger than I am now when he met his untimely end yet he considered himself already an old man; or, rather, his society judged him to be so. His second point about age enfeebling is more germane. Physical decline had not yet impacted him but, six years on from my retirement, I
Read more

Born to rule

When, ten days ago, I posted my piece about the manipulated image of Catherine, Princess of Wales, and her children (see Snap Judgment) I didn't know of her cancer treatment. Had I known, I would have adopted a gentler, though I hope no less critical, tone. But I didn't know, and nor did any of us outside the immediate royal circle, which rather goes to strengthen the case against the monarchy. For Kate and her family the diagnosis of cancer (as yet unspecified) will have been a devastating blow, as will the chemotherapy she is currently undergoing. On a human level, of course I sympathise and extend my best wishes for a full recovery as, indeed, I did at the time of her father-in-law's diagnosis. It is particularly cruel, then, that on top of all this she has been obliged to record a video statement to reassure the public. As if she didn't have enough to contend with already. But such is the unpalatable obligation placed upon any royal personage - noblesse oblige. Whic
Read more