Slightly Bonkers

I try to avoid truisms but we are living through uncertain times not seen since 1940 when, instead of leaving the EU, it looked likely to come to us.

Derek comes to clean the windows three times a year and since he started pre-Brexit referendum I say, “when you come again it’ll all be decided”. Has it, heck! I try to avoid exclamation marks, screamers as journalists call them, too. His next visit is on 20th March. He comes on Saturdays because his real job is as a lecturer in Law. I doubt we will be out the woods and thickets by then.

But, and I try to avoid starting sentences “but,” there is an interesting development; something pioneered by the rag trade and the food industry. Track and Trace has not been a success with the pandemic in the UK but T&T is successfully deployed to find out the source of products like palm oil, fish and garments and many more that I’m not aware of. This technology may allow the border between the UK and the Republic of Ireland to remain open, respecting Brexit and the Good Friday agreement. It’s a ray of hope in a dark firmament.

Jamie was at Eton, we were in the same House, contemporaries and had neighbouring rooms. We both made boxes to store LPs at prep school as parental presents and both forgot to take into account the width of the wood, so they didn’t fit. He was an Oppidan Scholar, GaG (good at games), popular and went on to Christchurch Oxford, so no more similarities. He was also richer than most of us – he mentions a Trust Fund of £350,000 in the 1970s and some commercial property as well.

Almost everything that could possibly go wrong went wrong and his over-long, self-indulgent autobiography is a cathartic exercise explaining his riches to rags story. The ray of hope to light up his dark firmament has been Jesus Christ, to whom he turned after financial and mental meltdown and divorce. As a teenager I remember his kindness and generosity to me. He lent me an expensive suit to wear to Henley. It was a hot day; I was a sweaty adolescent; the suit didn’t really recover even after a trip to the dry cleaner. There were no reproaches. I must close with another truism – I feel sorry for the gilded Icarus I admired at Eton.