It’s quite possible that you are unaware of one very significant anniversary. On this day in 1066 William the Conqueror and his army of barons, knights and peasants landed in Pevensey Bay, which just happens to be on my regular cycle route from my current home in East Sussex. It’s not an awe-inspiring place. Seventeen days later in nearby Hastings (well, nearby, nearby Hastings) one of King Willie’s archers showed extraordinary accuracy in piercing King Harold of England’s left eye, (or was it right?) thereby gifting the invaders victory and our Crown. With that injection of Frenchness, how come our culinary skills have, until quite recently, been so mundane, so lacking in imagination and creative artistry? Thankfully things are changing now and not just on the food front. English wines are rising up as serious challengers to the traditional viticulturists across the Channel. Ironically Sussex is proving to be a particularly productive region for the new vines. It’s also a hotbed for delicious cheeses of all hues from sheep, goats and cows, any one of which is a match for Le Fromage de France. It would seem that we have all we need to survive without the EU.
Watching the BBC News last night (I am a masochist), I was pondering what will happen when Coronavirus is but a distant memory (hopefully) and Brexit is signed, sealed, delivered and our fishermen are pulling cod and haddock from the North Sea uninterrupted by a fleet of cheese-eating surrender monkeys and other noble europeans. What will the news editors find then to fill thirty five minutes of air time every evening? Listening to the BBC World Service News at 5 am this morning my question was answered. There is stuff going on all over the World that is really interesting. I mean, really interesting. Things that have nothing to do with Coronavirus or Brexit, that we should know about and should be part of the daily reporting on our screens. Hopefully the new Director General and yet to be appointed Chairman will have some influence on the newsrooms and their thinking……or lack of it.
Regular readers will know that the current President of the United States is not high on my Christmas Card list. It was intriguing therefore, to read the New York Times’ assertions about his tax affairs; namely that he has contributed only a few thousand dollars in Income Tax to the IRS over the last fifteen years and is claiming a tax refund of $72.9m after declaring net losses of $47.4m in 2018 alone. Of course The Donald has dismissed it as Fake News, which it may be, although it does appear to be remarkably detailed and well sourced. Assuming the story is only half right, it would seem the great entrepreneur, businessman and philanthropist isn’t quite as great as he would have us believe. Is it possible that he is in fact a multi-talented conman who has duped the American people from start to finish with his bullshit? In business, his motto has always been to think BIG. The trouble is, when big edifices crumble they tend to come down with a helluva crash. How long will it be before he gets rumbled and crumbled? Of course, I could be completely wrong and he might turn out to be the ultimate hero of our times, in which case I will apologise abjectly.
Until then I will make do with Huw Edwards droning on about revolting students and sparring negotiators and ponder what might have been had that fateful arrow missed?
ADayInTheStrifeOf 