Grandparenthood

Our grandson is a handsome wee mite. His mother's family think he looks like me...

His face has filled out. It was oval and is now square. He still has all the hair he was born with.

I felt very angular when he was handed to me, very conscious of how close my bones are to the surface. He wasn't comfortable. I tried singing "One Man Went To Mow'- which is one of the things my mother sang to me- but he didn't think much of it.

Another thing he doesn't think much of is having his nappy changed. We had a long conversation- which his grandma Becky led- about the best stuff to put on baby's bottoms. In our day- by which I mean the 80s- it was zinc and castor oil- which you purchased cheap in huge tubs the size of snare drums (I exaggerate slightly.) "None of you," said Becky- meaning the baby's father and his siblings- "suffered from nappy rash" and I nod sagely because this is one of the many, many things I no longer remember...

The "Good" War

For most of my life it was people on the political right who were keen on war and the industries of war- and people on the left who favoured peace- but somewhere down the line there's been a switching of gears- and now it's the other way round- and the parties of the left- headed by the American Dems- are the ones who are jonesing for war and the parties of the right who- if not exactly pacifist- are less sure about it's being such a good idea.

Until quite recently I was happy to call myself a liberal and even- in certain moods- a socialist- but not any more. Those labels no longer mean what I used to think they meant...

Glenn Greenwald has an interview with the German politician Sahra Wagenknecht- who began as a leftist but is now heading up a loose grouping of fringe parties opposed to the escalation of the war in Europe. She points out that the only beneficiary of this war is the USA- its energy companies and its weapon makers- and reminds us of the charged memories it will awaken in the Russian people if once again battle tanks stamped "made in Germany' start rolling through the Ukraine...