Picking Up The Pieces.

 

The Bruges Diptych on Goudenhandrei.
The new pavilion echoes the mediaeval house to form
an architectural diptych.

Inside the Triennale exhibit one can see
the proximity of the old and new.

I keep intending to include a photo of the Triennale exhibit on Goudenhandrei, The Bruges Diptych, which instantly showed me what I hadn’t understood before. The photo, taken from the far side of the approach to the pavilion, clearly demonstrates the idea of an architectural diptych which Jon Lott had. His construction, almost joining the rear of the building which now stands where the house of Jan Van Eyck probably once stood, echoes it in several ways. Two attic windows in the old house are twinned by similarly-shaped window ‘spaces’ in the new, pavilion. The new house is similarly shaped and sized as the older building and I was amazed when I entered the new ‘shell’ at how very close it is to the old brick of the earlier place; sufficiently close to be in contact, a virtual shadow. Jon Lott speculated on the interplay with what can be seen, outside, with the naked eye, and what takes place behind the facade, suggesting that this enquiry underpins the whole of this year’s Triennale.

Other pieces to pick up this week include my regaining, chiefly, my normal cheerful Brugse routine after a certain lethargy and disinterest set in, following news of my sister’s death. Unexpected death of a loved one does somehow throw the compass out. I just wanted to be alone, slumped in my own thoughts and memories but several little things have happened to intervene. An unexpected invitation to lunch from a friend who will be in Brugge briefly, tomorrow. Long and kind messages of support over Heather’s death and lots of family Face-time. Discussions over the ceremony for my sister who did not want a funeral and which have concluded in the decision to have a Celebration of her Life in a beautiful garden, probably her daughter’s where her 80^th party was held a little over a year ago. And the ongoing kindness of friends and acquaintances. All these have conspired to assuage the grief a little and energise me so that normality has more or less resumed.

Oude Zomerstraat.

Exquisite figures on a fireplace

Another unexpected opportunity occurred yesterday when I was invited to join a tiny group, with English commentary, for a brief tour of the only house in Oude Zomerstraat, off Oude Burg [as part of Open Monumentdag.] It is a magical place though we didn’t really see the 15^th century areas; mainly the huge 1900 addition which is currently being renovated and upgraded with a new mediaeval fireplace inserted and a magnificent 15^th century ceramic stove installed, large enough to heat an assembly room, from Romania. The son of the previous owner who died two years ago and who had lived in the house for many years, is currently renovating the 1900 addition with a view to providing a future life as a B&B. And a rather special one at that!!

The view from the Minnewater Petanque court
incorporates the Triennale too.

Change of venue for Petanque, now moved from Minnewater [my favourite in spite of, or perhaps because of, its slightly unkempt, bumpy surface which favours my erratic play] to the court adjacent to Astridpark. This is in a public way, parallel to the Park, so that our expertise, or lack thereof, is frequently commented upon, or watched in amusement by, passers-by. It is certainly a sociable place to play! On Wednesday next, we shall move for coffee to Le Pain Quotidien in Simon Stevinplein for a trial period perhaps. The manager is more than happy to have our low-spending custom [only coffees usually] but cannot guarantee a place for us in this popular tourist spot every week. We have to take our chance. We have been meeting in Kaffee Kamiel in Zilverpand since the Lockdown was relaxed enough to permit groups to gather outside. KK has a splendid terrace but now the Wednesday market has moved back to the Markt, we want somewhere nearer to it, to meet. Our former home in Hotel Martin in Oude Burg is not currently available.

Le Pain Quotidien, Bruges.

Mah Jong continues on its weekly satisfying way; on my terrace last week and this. The flower-filled terrace, with plants beginning the long slow fade into Autumn, is still enough of a floral bower to give a garden
atmosphere to our third floor terrace games. And this week, we hope to welcome back a member of the group who has been ill. Another excuse for a bottle of celebratory bubbly I suspect.

Requiem for a Sister

 

July 28th 1940, with Mum.
Our birthdays: 1,5,7.

My lovely sister, Heather, died on Monday morning [Sept.5th] and while we have known for ages that she wasn’t very well with heart and cancer problems, and was slowly deteriorating in her physical health, it was nonetheless, unexpected and heart-rending. She and I had Face-timed on Sunday as she sat in her daughter's lovely garden, when she felt really, really unwell but still had a conversation about a number of things, as usual, and indeed, when I heard today’s news, I had been about to ring her again. In spite of all, news of her death was a shock.

Communal hair curled; probably for our birthdays
Heather was probably 5.

It is unsurprising that a death cuts short a relationship; ours had lasted for over 80 years, and as the oldest sister, I had always felt protective about both my younger sisters but Heather and I had developed a strong and lasting friendship since she had been about one or two!! Over the years, with separate lives unfolding, we remained close confidantes and friends. When I was poor, as a young mother, she used to give me her cast-offs, always gratefully received. My first husband and I had bought a somewhat derelict old hall in Derbyshire, much in need of restoration, and Heather often helped me with the enormous amount of curtain-making etc which was necessary in a huge old place with fairly poverty-stricken owners! She and her family spent frequent weekends with us so that our families, too, grew up together closely.

Unbelievably, Heather at 15.

Before I married, I used to send her to meet the current beau in my place when I wasn’t quite ready to go myself. After I married, she used to spend most of her free time at our house until, in fact, she married and moved away and we carried on our friendship at a greater geographical distance. Wherever we lived, we always remained psychologically close and open with each other, almost dependent, in our frequent chats, on each other’s good will and approval.

Heather was a brilliant needlewoman and dress-maker, in particular, she excelled in making collages and patchwork. She had a particular feel for the aesthetics of a garment, house, a person, a garden. Her sensitivity to aesthetics always resulted in elegance and discrimination in her taste and choices for her home, her children and her appearance. Throughout her life, she was centrally involved with plants and flowers and as a young woman, could always have been described in the French manner as “une jeune fille en fleur”. She had inherited our mother’s ‘green fingers’ and created a number of stunning gardens and as her botanical knowledge and experience grew, so her gardens became more creative and aesthetically appealing. Perhaps her last garden, created out of a virtual wilderness, was her most impressive achievement and one which she could not bear to leave eventually. She was the ‘go to’ person in our family and friends for gardening/plant advice and her wonderful flower arrangements graced so many occasions; family weddings, christenings, parties, birthdays, house warmings. In fact, looking back, we can see that she was always ‘en fleur’.

Heather at the Beguinage, 2017.
She often visited Bruges which she loved.

I seem to have omitted mention of her qualities apart from the creative. She was warm, kind, funny and generous. There was always a regret there, not spoken, that she could have achieved more with a better education. Had she come from a different family, she might well have gone on to study a design course, perhaps, which would have led to other outcomes. In fact, she became educated through her life’s experiences in her marriage to Michael who climbed the heights in his professional career in which she was greatly involved, but also through her own strong artistic inclinations.

Heather and I playing Mah Jong on the terrace.

It seems a little melodramatic to say so, but life for me, without Heather will be existentially lonely and much less rich. Quite simply, she has always been there from the baby who had always to sit near me at meals, to the young woman who went in my place to meet my latest beau, to the confidante I Face-timed several times a week from Bruges over the last six years. We could, and did, say anything to each other. Losing her is a grief that cannot be easily spoken.

Heather's 80th birthday party, she clad in white, with her children 
and me with two of mine.

Not at all sure when or where this photo was taken.
Perhaps 2004? Heather on the left.

Memories

July 28th 1941 with my mother celebrating
our joint birthdays when we were 1,5 and 7.
Esme, as always, in winsome pose!

 To age is to forget! Not necessarily entirely as in Alzheimer’s, but to some degree, and to some extent. While ageing is, in any case, a story of gradual, often imperceptible, loss, as in swiftness of thought and movement, if we are reasonably lucky, the forgetting of some events and peoples in our past lives, is relatively pain-free and indeed, relatively unrecognised by the person concerned. Many of the details and people in my life in my twenties and thirties have disappeared from view while at the same time, many incidents and people during the same period, remain strongly and clearly in sight. Those remembered, both people and situations, seem to be associated with strong emotions like love or fear; many are SO strong that images appear unbidden to the mind’s eye of an occurrence or part of an occurrence, or of a person much loved, not as they are now but as they were at the time of the memory. There are limitless vivid mind pictures of my children over the years; many happy reels of my mother and my sisters when we were young; only frightening ones of my father [who died in 1969 when I was 35]; snatches of children in my classes over the years, mainly of those is some distress who needed help and many images, some fleeting, others more intensely, of friends at different times of my life. I have been composing a narrative of Childhood Memories, mainly during Lockdown when the time was so accommodating, and surprised myself at how intense some of those times and people recalled, were and are.

The trigger for this blog was an essay in The New Statesman of 27 August to 4 September 2021.

Livia Drusilla 

In an article entitled, Dining al fresco, Michael Prodger has written an informative and delightful article on Livia Drusilla, eventual wife of Gaius Octavius, the future Emperor Augustus. I have had an intermittent memory of a museum, definitely not in Firenze and probably in Rome, which I had visited with my husband, in the 1990s, when I had been utterly enchanted by murals depicting a garden Paradise. That was a memory about which I wished I could identify more. I just knew I had had strong feelings of aesthetic pleasure from this museum exhibit but that was that!

So, imagine my delight on simply seeing the illustration below in the New Statesman article, when I instantly knew that here was depicted this long-lost memory. I felt ridiculously excited before reading the narrative of Livia to discover some of her life story after her marriage to Gaius Octavius. Possibly a part of her dowry, they had a much-loved retreat at Prima Porta, eight miles outside Rome, from which estate they could look down on Rome, the Tiber and the Apennines. Livia expanded this comparatively modest oasis into an idyllic haven with extensive gardens and courtyards covering half of the area, including one terrace surrounded by 150 columns.

"Luscious with fruit and birds."

Although Livia did not die till AD 29, the villa and its gorgeous gardens were abandoned in AD 5 and, astonishingly, lost for over a millennium, discovered but not identified in the 16^th century but not truly unearthed until the extensive excavations organised by Count Francesco Senni in 1863-64. A celebrated marble statue of Augustus and other statuary including a purported head of Livia were discovered [and eventually lost] but the chief delight was a semi-underground room with a collapsed roof but intact walls decorated with extraordinary frescoes showing a garden in full, imagined, impossible bloom with the seasons blended, luscious with fruit and birds.

Prodger quotes the Augustinian architectural writer, Vitruvius, describing walls for frescoes, prepared with seven layers of plaster, with sheets of lead inserted when necessary to block moisture and a top coat of marble dust to give a smooth painting surface. The paints merged with the plaster as it dried, with touching up a secco as needed. Not a quick or simple process then. The room had measured 40 x 20 feet, and had been a dining room or triclinium partly underground to protect against the fierce heat and affording the diners lounging on couches in groups of three, a continuation and embellishment of the fertile landscape outside. The flora depicted represents “a botanical catalogue” with 24 species identified including laurel, myrtle, quince and pine, all of which had symbolic connections to the Golden Age of Augustus. The range of painted birds covers 69 types from pheasants to finches and an empty painted bird cage suggests that perhaps the diners were beguiled by birds singing and flying around them and in cages suspended nearby. So a feast for the eyes and the intellect too.

These so-called Garden Room murals covered all four walls and are the most complete works of nature painting to have survived from antiquity. They are, as I have delightedly discovered, on display in the Palazzo Massimo in Rome which is where Eric and I had originally stumbled over them. Rome was his ultra favourite Italian city where he had done consultancy work over the years and loved to re-visit. Always an effort for me, Firenze being my supreme Italian city in all its Renaissance glory! But the Garden Room is one of life’s total surprises and pleasures.

More of the Painted Garden of Livia.

Livia's orange tree.

Augustus Prima Porta discovered
in the Senni 1863/4 excavation.

De Tuin van Heden.***

 

Sint Godelievesabdij, Bouveriestraat, Brugge.

Last Friday, a visit with a friend to Sint Godelievesabdij in Bouveriestraat, open to the public for a month until September 12. I had read that it is ‘a hidden gem’ and this phrase rather under-sold it! It is truly magnificent both in its immense structure; its atmosphere which provides an almost mediaeval ambience, and the beauty of the various rooms and spaces which suggest the Benedictine nuns have recently departed. [They left in December 2013.] The magazine [produced by ToerismeVlaanderen] provided with the free entry is in itself a splendid catalogue of the history of the place and contains many nudges to the reader to consider the various features such as the silence, and the beauty, and to imagine what might be the future of this place. This opening up to the community is part of Open Monumentsdag but it is more than that. It is a huge exercise in consultation in which ideas from as wide a community as possible are sought so that local opinion in particular can be considered as long-term decisions are made on the future purposes of this august space.

Depiction of the strangulation of Godelieve.

Sint Godelieve was born in 1050, an aristocrat married at a young age to Bertolf van Gistel who treated her very badly and eventually had her strangled with her own scarf by his servants who dumped her body in a nearby pool. The Bishop of Tournai canonised her on 30 July 1084. She was buried in the church at Gistel and the daughter of the murderer, Bertolf, born blind but who had gained her sight through a miracle attributed to Godelieve, built Ten Putte Abbey on the spot where she had been murdered. It is now one of the oldest Flemish women’s abbeys. Godelieve’s scarf which ended her life, became her virtual trademark, then called her attribute and it always appeared on any representation of her in paintings and sculpture. There are numerous examples of women saints adorned with scarves in the Bouveriestraat abbey and Sint Godelieve would have been instantly recognisable to the illiterate peasants in the Middle Ages.

The sisters of Sint Godelieve are Benedictine nuns and they live chiefly in silence, devoting their lives to prayer and meditation. They follow the rules of Saint Benedict [480-547 A.D.] praying seven times a day and eating no meat. Their motto is Ora et labora/ pray and work and their days were spent working in the garden, producing all the food needed for the inhabitants of the abbey, and also in contemplation and in religious celebrations. But as the attraction of the monastic lifestyle has waned, so

 the number of sisters has declined until the last five sisters finally closed down this venerable institution on December 23rd 

Abdij Ten Putte, Gistel.

2013. At its height there would have been at least a hundred sisters living there. The original Abbey in Bouveriestraat was begun in 1626 when the first six sisters moved into the modest two room building known as Het Fountainken given by Henricus vanden Zype, Abbot of the Capuchin monks in the same street. The sisters fled from Ten Putte Abbey after Protestants had attacked it and wandered hopefully in search of a home for nearly 50 years before finally settling in Brugge, though over the ensuing centuries they had to leave several times fleeing violence, from the effects of the French Revolution when the Abbey and its contents were sold at public auction and again during the two twentieth century World Wars. Frankly the history of these sisters and their Abbey needs a book to retell in its entirety!

Choir stalls in the Church.

The Abbey now, empty but redolent of its holy past, has most of the furniture and accoutrements from the past four hundred years [excepting those lost at the State-initiated public auction] The main rooms currently on view are St Godelieve’s Baroque church; the Abbess’s Room [the Mother Superior’s office]; the seventeenth century kitchen; the Sewing Atelier [established in 1663]; the Recreation Room and the Chapter House. In addition to the hard work cultivating mainly vegetables and herbs for the vegan community, the nuns also earned income by repairing, washing and ironing liturgical textiles from the numerous churches and convents in Brugge and this continued into the twentieth century. The Recreation Room was used for guests’ dining, [near the Refectory but separate from it]; singing classes for the sisters and Bible classes; a silent space for reading and contemplation while gazing at the garden beyond. The Recreation Room was also used for the training of novices.

Order of service board showing particular
responsibilities for nuns when seven only
remained in the Abbey.

The Chapter House with its democratic seating around the walls to enable all to contribute, was a place for discussion on order and discipline in daily life; the entry of new sisters; special celebrations and commemorations and news from the bishop. The principle of silence was suspended here. The wooden interior of this room was destroyed in WW1 and eventually restored by the carpentry shop of the Zevenkerken’s Abdij in Sint Andries.

There is a wealth of furniture, utensils, books and cupboards, part both of the old and recent every day monastic life and, essentially, all made for the place where they remain. The kitchen has recipe books lying open to be read but its essentially enchanting feature is the Delft tiling. ALL the walls are covered, floor to ceiling in hand-painted Delft blue and white tiles depicting 46 different scenes of children’s games like flying kites, blowing bubbles, bows and arrows plus older games long since forgotten. It is a delight to see and suggests both the temporal innocence of the nuns and their inevitable childlessness.

Well in the Garden of Remembrance.

The exceptional
garden, a square in the centre of the Abbey buildings, is named here as de Tuin van Heden, a Dutch play on words to describe The Garden of Eden but also to suggest The Garden of the Present. It is a place of beauty and reflection and was also a garden of remembrance as sisters who died were buried here until the French Revolution. This earlier conjunction of the dead and the living was more comfortably accepted in the past than perhaps today. In addition to this splendid central garden are other green spaces; the orchard and the vegetable garden; the herb garden with culinary and medicinal plants; the bee hives among flowers; the modest farm with chickens and a cow, the main home farm being in Gistel. There was also an outside oven where bread was baked and a brewery for the beer supply, safer than water often. The whole enterprise was aimed at self-sufficiency within silent and graceful surroundings pervaded by a deeply religious ambience.

More Delft  tiles decorating a fireplace in the earliest
part of the Abbey.

Archway approach to part of the extensive gardens.

Whip and top

Bowling hoops

Catapults?

*** De Tuin van Heden.

A play on the Dutch to mean both

The Garden of Eden               and            The Garden of the Present.

Sint  Godelievesabdij is a must to see now and a place to keep in focus as decisions are made for its future use as it is transformed from a monastery, a sacred space, to ................ whatever is decided. 

An indication of the former size of the Abbey community.

Covid Trials and Tribulations.

 

Covid test

Oh the difficulties of getting the right solution to the problem of having a compulsory Covid test on arrival on holiday from England into Belgium. Recently my son, having had two vaccinations some time ago, needed only a Covid test before travelling to see me in Bruges last Sunday after quarantine for British visitors to Belgium was axed. OR rather, abolished for visitors from England and Wales; visitors from Scotland and Northern Ireland still had/have to do the quarantine which is 

Testing for Covid.

something to do with the technology used for Covid tests in those two countries! On Day 1 or Day 2, the English visitor to Belgium must then have another Covid test. But where to go for this essential part of happy tourism? My local pharmacist supplied the name and phone number of the appropriate pharmacist in Zedelgem and an appointment was made for Monday morning and taxi booked. After the taxi ride there and back [90 euros], my hapless visitor discovered it was the Wrong Test; a P.C.R. was necessary, available only in hospitals [I think] The kind second pharmacist made an appointment for a P.C.R. at Knokke Hospital Monday afternoon, AZ St Jan’s Covid testing queue being full. SO son and I to Knokke by train as I have no car. I will spare some of the details of the afternoon which involved waits in bars; taxi rides to and from the hospital [by the pretty route through countryside, the main route being very slow due to road repairs] and a fairly tortuous procedure in the hospital to get and pay for the P.C.R. test.

The taxi dropped us off perfectly, outside what appeared to be a garage on the edge of the hospital campus. All was straightforward. Details taken by an efficient girl behind glass; stroll through to the

AZ Zeno Knokke-Heist.

adjoining room, empty save for two medics and a routine swab was taken. The surprising thing was the next requirement; we had to walk [through fierce wind and rain as it happened] quite a long path to the entrance to the hospital [superb new building] en route to the office for him to pay for the test! Help was quickly given to direct us to the appropriate office where paid 89 euros. The unexpected next move was the return of his test in a plastic bag for him to deliver to the laboratory! This turned out to be situated in the basement at the opposite side of the hospital! None of this was difficult but it did seem to fly in the face of sanity as he was supposed to isolate until he had received a positive test result. We waited for the return taxi in the tempest outside, just managing to miss the Brugge train by one minute, arriving home around 18.00 hours, cold and tired. It had taken my visitor most of the day in effort to comply with the current Covid rules during a short break of three days plus a morning!!

Ancient method of bartering.

As I don’t know the difference between a lateral flow test and a P.C.R. having assumed that there were simply ‘Covid tests’ I can hardly criticise the system here but, to be fair, it does seem opaque to the non-Dutch speaking visitor! This has strengthened my determination to stay at home as long as possible until the pandemic has passed OR until Christmas comes round, when I would like to go back to join the family over the festive season. Wonder if the Belgians will administer booster doses to the vulnerable which seems to automatically include those in their 80s. This might be useful!!

Interesting information gleaned during my son’s visit. He never normally uses or carries cash; he only carries his phone which has a slim space to store a plastic card; e-mails are out-dated and used much less; train and plane tickets are online not in the old paper versions; C.D.s are antique, only Spotify will do. This invaluable info makes me feel like a pedestrian version of the Ancient Mariner weaving my way via peregrinations in a strange land! It will soon be time to go back to live in England and speed up my e-capabilities.

Blissful Post Script

Just seen online: 

"The Compact Disc was quite a revolution when it came out ...."

[I received three as birthday presents 3 weeks ago!]

Amazon description:

C.Ds   " You know, those round shiny things collecting dust in the back of your closet. You can now exchange your C.D.s for Amazon.com Gift Cards. These can be used to purchase anything on Amazon including any of Amazon 19 million MP3s."

No longer an endangered species;
now extinct!

N

Brexit Hides Behind Covid While Boris Lies and Blusters

 

 

Matt Hancock

As I have now revealed to everyone including myself that I will return to live in Britain some time in the New Year, I think I will share my feelings about the current state of this Promised Land. The view from here is not good! Inexorably, the country, my country, is moving to the right and doing so on a tide of Boris lies, half-truths and dishonesty worthy of …. let’s not mince words …. Trump or Orban or Bolsonaro. Obviously Boris is more adorable than most wannabe dictators with his ruffled hair, disregard for suitable diplomatic language, impressive classical allusions and apparently unwise, off-the-cuff remarks demonstrating his devil-may-care attitude so admired by white males. Meanwhile he attacks popular targets like the judicial system and the BBC plus other non-compliant media with a bumbling insouciance.

Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro

He ignores inconvenient behaviour by Cabinet ministers loyal to him and Brexit, ensuring that it is almost unheard-of for a minister to resign over charges of inappropriate behaviour such as bullying for instance, or for labelling lawyers “human rights activists” [Priti Patel] The recent resignation [a newly-minted move] of Matt Hancock came only after Boris refused to sack him and after the public clamour grew so loud, especially from older Conservatives in the South-East whose votes Boris needs.

Priti Patel

Astonishingly to yours truly, there seems to be comparatively little criticism of the ill effects of Brexit which continue to grow in the economic damage being done to the country. The only cris de coeur I hear on the BBC are from desperate exporters of a wide range of goods who have lost huge swathes of business because of punitive tariff procedures and bureaucracy, plus the difficulties over, for instance, a real shortage of lorry drivers. There just does not seem to have been a plan, like a National Plan for post-Brexit Britain to formalise a productive path through the minefield left after the contentious end of a forty year period as part of a union of 28 countries. Post-Brexit trade deals merely replicate chiefly what the country already had within the E.U. despite the latest agreements being sold by the preternaturally perky Liz Truss as new and better. They aren’t, and Boris’s non-existent Northern Ireland border running through the North Sea, is predictably stirring up worrying signs in Northern Ireland such as delays at Customs and supermarket shortages plus ominous rumbles of nationalistic tensions. So much for Boris’s “no border whatsoever” and his airy advice to Northern Irish businessmen to bin any

customs forms. Now the predictable problems rearing their ugly, potentially dangerous, heads are attributed by Boris to the E.U. as the cause. This is as if the agreement signed by the U.K. and the E.U. a few months before, never happened. Predictably, the message from this dishonourable, deplorable dishonesty for the rest of the world is, “Don’t make treaties/agreements/arrangements with the Brits because they cannot be trusted to keep their word.”

Peter Oborne, the journalist who wrote, The Assault on Truth describes his co-Conservative and former friend, Johnson, as having a pathological relationship with the truth. Oborne makes an important point illustrating what really drives Boris and the Brexiteers. He sees, behind the amoral and dishonest Boris behaviour, a sustained and growing attack on the judiciary, and the rule of law, the Civil Service and Parliament and the gradual, insidious move to authoritarian rule in which an unassailable Government makes un-monitored executive decisions. In a splendid article by Annette Dittert in the New Statesman, 23-29 July 2021, she attacks the media, in particular, the Murdoch Press and increasingly, the BBC 

Peter Oborne

for the their unwillingness to hold the Government to account. Press empire owners like Murdoch and the Barclay brothers, universally support and applaud Johnson’s lies and subterfuges as the perfect vehicle for a huge ideological project involving a systematic effort to dismantle oversight of the executive. Without a written constitution, just centuries of fudge and nudge and reliance on the ultimate integrity of governmental leaders, Britain seems almost defenceless in the face of an extreme right-wing government which is also integrity-free. An indication of Boris’s direction of travel is in public body appointments. Charles Moore, a professed ‘chief opponent’ of a public broadcasting system’ was first proposed by Boris as new Chairman of the BBC, and on his eventual disappearance from the field, Richard Sharp, a member of the right wing Centre for Policy Studies and a considerable Government friend and Tory donor, was appointed, Hardly the independent chair of the British public broadcasting service. Similar to the lack of a written British constitution, there is no written document guaranteeing the independence of the BBC, preventing centralised access to the BBC by politicians of any stripe.

Richard Sharp

I have always admired the Scots and their communal ability to sniff out a phony. Scotland has quickly judged Boris for his lies; unethical, often illegal, behaviour; his deeply dishonest Brexit campaign with Dominic Cummings; his vow to get back the British sovereignty which was never lost; his obfuscation as he hides behind the carefully-cultivated, lovably incompetent public persona to make empty gestures of governing when, for instance, there is no trade policy, post-Brexit [referendum, five years ago], and living standards in the Red Wall can never equal those in the rich South East for a variety of reasons such as the lack of the sorely-needed educational reforms in the North not being seriously funded. Small wonder that the Scottish independence movement is surging. Oh dear! The times I have sneered at the Posh Boys’Club as Little Englanders but I hadn’t expected to be taken this seriously!

Boris-as-naughty boy P.M.

Annette Dittert