LONDON LETTER MARCH 2014

I write against the background of the unfolding events in Russia and the Ukraine. At the same time reading Christopher Clark’s excellent book about the origins of the First World War, ‘The Sleepwalkers.’ The juxtaposition is extraordinary in that at the same time as I am reading about diplomatic arrogance, obfuscation, misrepresentation and confusion, the misreading of events and the peddling of myths and propaganda, I am witnessing the diplomatic disaster of the Ukrainian crisis.

Putin’s recklessness certainly has parallels in the Russia of 1914 and also follows a pattern established since the war in Chechnya and the later invasion of Georgia. Putin gambles on the west being, as we used to say when I was young, all mouth and no trousers. I fear he may be right. The current lack of cohesion between the US and EU does not augur well. However whilst Putin is able to carry out audacious short term actions he has no long term strategic vision other than a vague wish to see the glory days once more return to Russia. His vision is also incredibly limited, he may gain Crimea but he will loose the goodwill of Ukraine for generations to come. He is also risking serious disaffection within the Russian army. Will Russian soldiers really shoot at their Ukrainian comrades and brothers?

This ability to accomplish tactical successes whilst incurring strategic losses will I believe result in his ultimate undoing.

Respecting the Clark book I will be returning to this in a future blog. There is currently a plethora of serious programmes on the BBC respecting the outbreak of World War One one hundred years ago, including some excellent TV debates. This is what the BBC does so well, it is what the BBC, currently under such political pressure is for. I am like a kid for whom Christmas has come early when presented with such fare.

Whilst touching on my viewing habits I cannot but comment on the excellent ‘The Good Wife,’ the current series is outstanding having reached a point in the drama that positively vibrates with dramatic tension. It also manages to avoid black and white scenarios; there are no heroes in the programme. It also manages to be highly topical and relevant to current concerns, the recent episode on NSA spying being a case in point.

The Good Wife

TV has this ability to present long running dramas, soap opera’s if you will, that draw you in and makes the characters feel part of your own lived experience. At its most extreme this of course can become absurd, with lonely people identifying more strongly with the ‘lived’ experience of soap opera characters than the actual content of their own lives, whilst others seem to find it difficult to disentangle actors from the parts that they play. Soap opera actors receiving hate mail addressed to the characters they play.

One cannot help feeling that this speaks to something about the nature of the lives led by so many people in ‘developed’ societies, not least to the degree of alienation in modern life.

The Independence referendum in Scotland has begun to heat up, though south of the border down old England way the full import of the poll has yet to fully register. I recently had a conversation with a Labour Party supporter who expressed himself relaxed about Scots breaking away until I pointed out the implications for the Labour Party with its heavy representation in the strongly social democratic Scotland. The worst case scenario I pointed out was that we might be saddled with a permanent right of centre administration. His response, “I never thought of that.”

There is one aspect of the campaign that is beginning to grate for this particular Englishman and that is the response in Scotland to any contribution to the debate coming from anywhere south of Carlisle as being impertinent in the extreme. It all it seems is none of our business. One thing is clear whatever the result of the referendum things will never be the same again and I fear relations between the two countries have become increasingly polarised.

Yesterday felt like the first day of spring, beautiful sunny day, if cold, and I saw my first tree laden with blossom. I had a meeting with someone in Piccadilly which was rather magnificent in the spring sunshine. Piccadilly like Regent Street or The Strand being one of those streets that can only exist in London, housing as it does The Burlington Arcade, The Ritz, Fortnum and Mason’s and The Royal Academy.

Piccadilly Arcade

I met my friend in the Café inside the grounds of St James, one of the few Wren Churches to have survived the blitz. This café, once run by the church is now a Café Nero franchise. What would Jesus think?

Actually St James’s became the centre of the blossoming New Age movement in London in the 1990’s, a place were every form of quackery was promoted, every form that is except standard Christian doctrine, which one imagines the high priestesses  of the magic stones thought somewhat passé. This could only happen in the Church of England where it seems that even belief in God is now optional.

Just about to start reading Luke Harding book The Snowden Files. I do so with a somewhat heavy heart since I know it will only depress and disturb me. Still the only alternative is denial which is no alternative at all.

AT March 2014

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