What's He Like?

I once knew a kid who liked to play at being The Little Metal Man- a robotic war machine of his own invention that was always on the attack, going dee-dee-dee-dee-dee with its head bobbing from side to side. It was all but indestructible. Explosions had no effect on it, bullets bounced off its hide- but if it couldn't be stopped it could be deflected. It would lock onto a person- and chase after them- at a walking pace, nid-noddying as it came- until someone else stepped in and got its attention, whereupon it would forget about its first quarry and go after the new one instead. When it banged up against an obstruction it couldn't destroy it would ping off at an angle and follow another line.  It had no goal, no objective- except to go on and on until its batteries ran down.

I was thinking about Trump last night and what he's like and it suddenly came to me; he's just like the Little Metal Man....

Lapis Lazuli

November 5 falling on a Saturday should mean that most people will have had their bonfire parties on the proper day. It was very noisy last night. We don't have many near neighbours but those there are have lots of dosh to spend on fireworks.

Once upon a time the effigies on civic bonfires would have represented Guy Fawkes and the Pope. This year a lot of English towns chose to burn Donald Trump. I wonder if any US presidential candidate (not sitting President but presidential candidate) has had that honour before. It bother me a little that the craziness in the States should be infecting us as well. Yes, Trump is awful- but whenever a person becomes elevated into a universal hate figure you have to wonder who or what he's acting as a decoy for.

Yesterday, briefly, the mass circulation papers were trying to make folk demons out of the three judges who had thwarted the will of the press barons people by ruling that the Referendum wasn't enough to trigger Brexit and the matter needed to be put before parliament. It was ugly. I'm not saying judges should always be respected- or anything like that- but in this instance they were simply doing their job and were almost certainly right in law.

Edgy times, brittle, hysterical; mobs on the prowl...

I got my Yeats down yesterday and re-read "Lapis Lazuli". Everyone knows "The Second Coming" which says "Bad Times are coming" but "Lapis Lazuli" which says "Bad Times are coming and...." is the greater and wiser poem.