Under A Fading Star

All the still-extant British Prime Ministers- from Major to May- were lined up yesterday, sitting in the front seats at the memorial service for someone you and I have never heard of- a civil servant, one of our secret rulers- and it was like they'd been hoiked out of storage and no-one had thought to dust them down before putting them on show.

Even Cameron is looking a little the worse for wear and as for Gordon Brown...

Question: What is all that grey stuff?

Answer: It's the ashes of burned through privilege and power.

And now I've got Eliot running through my head.

"Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar."

This is the company Johnson and Hunt are fighting to join- a freemasonry of the unfondly-remembered, seen-through, disrespected and no-longer-listened-to. Did either of them see the pictures and think, "That'll be me in a few years time."?

Extraordinary

An extraordinary thing just happened. A US president called off an air strike because it would have caused a hundred and fifty eight deaths and he felt that was an inappropriate response to the shooting down of an unmanned drone. When I heard the news it made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.