These Fragments I have Shored Against My Ruin

My last post didn't quite seem to hang together. Perhaps it's because- as a friend pointed out- I left the money out of the picture- the money that will accrue to whichever entity comes up with the medicine first- if anyone ever does...

But I also left out the sense I have of our politics as insubstantial, papery and unreal. We're harking back to the conflicts of the 20th century because we don't understand the times we're in- recasting the present in the shapes of the past- even though nothing really fits. Russian spies trying to steal our science?
How cross-making and yet how comforting. These are enemies we've dealt with before and know how to deal with- because we've seen the movies and read the books.

The Prime Minister says it'll all be over by Christmas. What an unfortunate choice of words. And I thought he knew his history...

Russian spies, "over by Christmas", a very old monarch knighting an even older soldier for walking round and round down his garden with a zimmer frame...

But this is a new world we're in.

Back To Harry Palmer

So lets go back to the Ipcress File.

British movie. 1965. Based on a novel by Len Deighton. Stylishly directed by Sidney J Furie. Starring Michael Caine.

British scientists are being nobbled by a foreign power which we have to assume means the USSR. At the end Harry Palmer- who has been played for a sucker by both sides- has two men in his sights; one of whom is a traitor.

But the thing is there's nothing to choose between them- morally speaking. They are hollow men- unfeeling, arrogant, sociopathic. If one dies and the other lives it may be chalked up as a win to our side but it won't represent any victory for humanity.

And this is the world we're being asked to defend and think in terms of- when even at the time (see the work of John le Carre too) it was clear that it was rotten.

At least back then there were (pretty threadbare) ideological reasons for the world being divided into armed camps. Now it's about nothing but power.