Update 3
This has been a good week with only small physical changes. My Steroid dose has been reduced in an effort to minimise insomnia. If I go to bed at say 2200 I can sleep until 0100 but then I wake. Last night I lay awake until 0400, then got up and did some music editing and wrote a couple of letters until M came looking for me at 0600. I’m starting to experience cramp attacks in both hands and climbing the stairs is getting harder. In fact I’ve set up an appointment for Monday to investigate the possibility of putting in a stairlift. Because the need can only be temporary, there’s a rental deal under which you pay for a minimum six months to include installation, maintenance and subsequent removal.
Very much on the positive, a good friend has already seen the ‘Elvis’ movie twice so this afternoon we’re walking to the local Tivoli cinema for what I understand are some excellent performance sequences. Love him or hate him, what Elvis did was to fast forward the growth of Rock n Roll - he didn’t invent it, but around Memphis he grew up with an intimate understanding of the poor black folks’ music alongside that of the poor white folks and uniquely he was able to bring them together. The result was the most significant cultural change of the 20th century - a musical revolution responsible for almost all of popular music since the late 1950s. (Later - I loved the film - terrific sound, editing, photography, Tom Hanks’ portrayal of Colonel Tom is pitch perfect whilst Austin Butler is the very personification of the Elvis I’ve studied.)
On Thursday I developed a restriction in my chest and hoping for a bit of that “gold standard” care that Dr Fox offered I rang the surgery. I was no 1 in the queue and the call was picked up in 5 minutes. I asked for Dr Wilson to call and no sooner had I rung off than he was on the line insisting I take antibiotics: “There’s no way you want anything else on top of what you’ve got”. He wasn’t wrong and after 48 hours the restriction and the cough are in fast retreat.
It may surprise you to learn that I have now developed mixed feelings about the future for the lying oaf who currently occupies Downing Street. On the one hand, of course the country would be in safer hands with almost any sentient other human being, but while he remains there, the likelihood of an election defeat of the current Conservative crop remains strong. His replacement by a sane rational Tory ( they can still be found - usually cowering behind their own spinelessness) might well ensure continuity of Conservative power with more of the enforced damage to the UK that has been their signature achievement thus far. It’s not just the Partygate nonsense; the truth is that they have embraced everything that is mean spirited, backward looking, and xenophobic, and then wrapped it all up in their pseudo patriotic jingoism.
After 12 years of Conservative led government, our infrastructure has been run right down, investment in education and health (apart from emergency/covid measures) has been slashed, our legal system is being stripped of resources and even abused by the government itself. Our society is experiencing a massive imbalance, with government championing the need for ludicrously high rewards for their CEO donors whilst denying the need for public sector workers to receive any more than minimal reward. If amidst the legacy of austerity and this rampant inflation we are to avoid a social catastrophe, we must find the way to some sort of reset, and do so before it is too late.
It’s also time to show some very real concern for the USA. That country’s obsession with its 18th century Constitution is leading it into several really dangerous waters. The situation is highlighted by the overturn of ‘Roe vs Wade’ - the landmark ruling that for the last 50 years has given women the constitutional right to choose or reject abortion. What the highly political judges of the US Supreme Court have done, is to pitch themselves against the people - to be precise, against the 67% (CNN poll) of American women who want ‘Roe v Wade’ to stand. The same situation has occurred with other rulings such as environmental protection and gun control. Last year two of the judges, Alito and Thomas announced their own personal ambitions to eliminate the right to same sex marriage. ‘Of the people, by the people, for the people” ?
These are the steps by which democracy is undermined. Read about 1930s Germany or even about Victor Orban’s Hungary today. America’s problems go even deeper: their Constitution protects the individual States by guaranteeing equal representation for each. This means that tiny states like say, Maine ( 1.3 million) have the same two votes as say, California (40 million). The result is that power in the Senate can never be in the hands of the majority - as a result it is very much dominated by the opinions of a largely rural, bible led, and often politically uninformed minority. These are the kind of folk who are happy to be fed on slogans rather than solutions: ‘Make America Great Again’ is more than enough for them not to notice that their country is being taken apart at the seams.