Year Of The Buffoon

Let the Chinese keep their Year of the Horse, the Year of the Monkey, Year of the Rat, and all the other animal signs.

Let Al Stewart keep his Year of the Cat (and how many of you remember that?.

This year must surely be the Year of the Buffoon.

Just consider: Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson, and, wait for it, buffoono supremo Donald Trump. What a set of human disasters they represent!

Then add to this sad list the names of the likes of Recip Eroğan, Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un, and the ultra right-wing upstarts in Europe.

All you then need are some religious fanatics and you've got a recipe for disaster.

Oh, hang on, such religious fanatics are already present in the USA in the form of fundamentalist Christians (home teaching, anyone? Yes, the world is six thousand years old. I ask you!) and in Europe and the Middle East, Daesh, who claim to be fundamentalist Moslims, but act like no true Moslem would ever act, fill that rôle. (Personally, I think that fundamentalist Christianity, as practised in the USA, is a far more dangerous manifestation.)

Generally, the world seems to be going to pot, with ultra right and fundamentalist viewpoints gaining way too much ground, as people look for simple solutions to relatively minor problems that are blown up out of proportion, as a way of gaining support for extremist ideas and movements.

I had intended on writing rather more on this subject, but came across an excellent article that really says all I have to say, so rather than read my drivel, please take the time to carefully read Brian McNair's When Terror Goes Viral It's Up To Us To Prevent Chaos—it says it all.

(But just to finish, can you really imagine Trump as the president of the USA?)

Castilla y León

Elise and I have not long returned from a trip to a part of the north of Spain with which we were not previously familiar, Castilla y León.

The initial idea was to go to León and from there to drive further to Bilbao. That's not the way it worked out, however, and instead we visited a number of other places in the same autonomous community as León itself.

The main purpose of the trip was to see the Pantheon of San Isidoro in León, and to visit some Romanesque churches. A strange goal for a couple of atheists, you might think, but we look upon these treasures perhaps in a different way to that in which Christians (and so-called Christians) do.

The trip was a great success: León is an excellent mixture of old and new and harbours plenty of interesting things to see.  From León, we travelled to Astorga, and from there to Zamora; we then drove via Toro to Segovia, which we had altready visited a few years ago, but this time went with the purpose of seeing the gardens of La Granja.

Sadly, photography is very restricted in most of the ancient attractions, so here are some links to sites where others present a visual appreciation:

Royal Pantheon of San Isidoro, León

Virtual reality visit to Zamora, including three excellent views of the Flemish tapestries

Flemish tapestries of Zamora (information in Spanish)

Romanesque churches of Zamora

Portal of the collegiate church of Santa María, Toro

I have placed some photos that Elise and I took during the trip on Flickr:

León (incl. Parador, cathedral, Gaudí building…)

Astorga (with one of only two Gaudí buildings outside Catalunya)

Zamora and Toro

La Granja (gardens and fountains)

Bridiots

So the voters of the United Kingdom have chosen to leave the European Union.

Well, that's not entirely true.

The results of the referendum are not legally binding. The decision for the UK to leave the EU can only be made in the UK parliament. The majority of MPs are in favour of staying with the EU, but whether they will have the guts to stand up and vote so in the eventual debate is, of course, a different matter.

As for the referendum itself, it demonstrates just how divided the UK itself is.

The UK is an old union of four countries: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.

The English voted 53.4% to 46.6% to leave the EU. Hardly overwhelming.

Northern Ireland voted 55.8% against 44.2% to remain in the EU.

Scotland voted 62% to 38% to remain, a huge win.

Wales voted 52.5% to 47.5% to leave (an even smaller win than in England).

So two countries voted to leave and two countries voted to remain. The countries that voted to remain did so in a far more convincing manner than those that voted to leave.

Hardly a United Kingdom!

(Incidentally, I am of Welsh origin and am deeply ashamed that Wales voted to leave the EU.)

Assuming that the UK parliament ratifies the decision to leave, what might the consequences be?

Well, the break-up of the UK seems highly likely, with Scotland the first to go. If Northern Ireland has any sense, it will also leave the UK and allow Ireland once again to become a single island nation.

Wales, of course, followed England. Hardly surprising, given the high level of unemployment there (and the high number of English who live in Wales): the No campaigners put the blame for high unemployment on the EU and particularly its immigration policy. People like to believe easy solutions and look no further to find the real truth. I wonder how the people of Wales and the rest of the UK will feel when unemployment increases as a result of less sales to the EU and less investment from the EU.

The people cast their No votes based on a lack of information and misinformation. The result is a demonstration of why one should not allow ordinary people to decide such vital issues : they simply do not have the knowledge to make a decision based on facts, so instead they make an emotional decision based on fiction. They look at short-term issues that seem important, such as immigration, and ignore the long-term, truly important issues, such as investment, development, long-term employment… These are the things that will play huge roles in the lives of the now young people of the UK as they grow older. Basically, their future has been destroyed.

More worrying than the self-inflicted problems of the UK, however, are the possible knock-on effects in the rest of Europe. Extremist right-wing factions will be spurred on by the unfortunate result to further their own causes, perhaps to demand referenda in their own countries, with the possible break-up of the EU.

As nationalistic tendencies grow in these countries, so, too, will grow the likelihood of conflict. The EU (and its predecessors) have kept Europe at peace for seventy years; prior to that achievement, Europe suffered almost constant conflict in some part of its boundaries. In the first half of the previous century alone, two World Wars were ignited in Europe, during which millions of people were killed and otherwise suffered. Nationalism of the type displayed in the UK and in other countries of the EU is likely to lead to similar conflicts should the EU break up. Furthermore, Russia will feel less reticent to atttempt to take back its former territories and will therefore likely set its sights on the Baltic states, the Ukraine, and elsewhere, in the face of a weak and divided Europe. Clearly a recipe for a Third World War.

The EU has made mistakes, of course. Any organisation attempting to achieve what the EU has achieved is bound to make mistakes. But this does not mean that its members must bleat and moan: they must learn to work better together, to learn from what is wrong in order to create a better right. The achievements of the EU should be applauded: peace, a single currency, freedom of movement of people and goods, the world's largest trading bloc…

Some sense

Belgium's a great place. I'me Welsh, so I'm also supposed to be British, but I spent 35 years of my life in Belgium (more than in any of the other three countires in which I have lived, Wales, England and Spain), so I feel as much Belgian as anything else. I left the country for health reasons and miss its tidiness, its completeness, its pastries…

Belgium has had it rough during the last few months, having been shown to be a spawning ground for terrorists and now, just this week, being itself the target of some major terrorist attacks.

Sadly, the growth of terrorism has been matched by a growth of right-wing tendencies, with foolish non-thinkers jumping onto the easy solutions of "keep out the refugees," "down with Islam," and other nonsensical nationalistic propaganda.

Thank goodness, then, for some good old common sense, as demonstrated by Anwar, a young schoolboy, when he was interviewd at his school gates on the day after the attacks in Brussels for VTM News:

Here's a translation:

Reporter: Indeed, the attacks do not represent true Islam, says Anwar.
Anwar: Muslims are not like those that you see; Muslims are people that love peace and not killing.
Reporter: That's an important message.
Anwar: Yes, a very important message. Thank you very much.

What do you know about the EU?

Soon the UK will hold a referendum to allow its voters to decide whether to stay in the EU.

Bonkers. The average bod has no idea what the EU does, what it has achieved, what its powers are, what its powers most certainly are not, and so on. Most people are swayed only by what they are told by ignorant spouters of nonsense on the television, or by what they read in the gutter press that is so prevalent in the UK, where such intelligent publications as the Sun tell half-truths at best and downright lies at worst.

The Establishment of the UK of course wants the voters to choose to leave the EU: this will provide them with the continued power they seek. What it will not do, is help the ordinary people of the country. But what does the Establishment care for them?

How much do you, dear UK voter, actually know about the EU and how it functions? Very little, I bet.

Well, here's a chance for you to find out a bit more before you go to vote.

The EU has just published a report on its activities in 2015. Do you want to know what the EU achieved in 2015? What progress it made in delivering on its priorities? The measures it took to boost jobs, growth and investment? The part it played in the climate deal achieved in Paris? How it handled the refugee crisis? And how EU citizens benefited from the Union? You can find the answers to all these questions and more in The EU in 2015.

The publication is available in various formats (HTML, PDF, EPUB) for free (a printed version can be purchased) at http://publications.europa.eu/en/web/general-report (It can also be obtained in numerous other languages through the dropdown menu at the top right-hand corner of the page.)

And if you'd like to learn more about the EU, or to find resources for use in presentations, a good place to start is http://europa.eu/publications/index_en.htm (again, information is available in other languages through the dropdoan menu at the top right-hand corner of the page).

USA

To quote another obnoxious American, "You cannot be serious!"

Still, at least we now know the real meaning of USA:

Unbelievably
Stupid
Americans

To allow a creep like Donald Trump to run in the primaries for the election of the new President of the USA is crazy enough; that such a buffoon, such a mountebank, such an obnoxious, megalomaniacal, clearly prejudiced individual can then actually gain sufficient support to win numerous primaries and to look as if he stands a good chance of becoming the Republican Presidential candidate is just grotesque (as if the Republicans were not already grotesque enough!); it is frightening, not only for the USA (the country and those Unbelievably Stupid Americans), but also for the rest of the world.

Eat your heart out, Dr. Strangelove, for here comes someone far more sinister.

Closing the circle

In an earlier post, Three Boys, I described how my friend, Terry Cleverley, had died just a couple of years after having left school. A reply to that post led me to search for and eventually find Terry's gravesite.

Terry Cleverley didn't start his first year at Woolverstone Hall with the rest of the boys. He joined us in the second term, coming, if I am not mistaken, from Singapore, where his father was stationed. Like myself, Terry was then in Orwell House and we soon became friends. In our second year we moved to Corner's House, where we remained for the rest of our time at Woolverstone.

The reply to my earlier post indicated that Terry had died in January 1969. This is incorrect. In fact, Terry died in the early hours of 6 June 1969 as the result of a traffic accident in Benidorm. However, the information that he had been buried in Alicante seemed promising, so yesterday, Elise and I decided to visit the Municpal Cemetery in Alicante to see if we could find Terry's grave.

The Cementerio Municipal, also called Nuestra Señora de Remedio, is located on the outskirts of Alicante, between the town itself and the A70/E15 motorway. Its main entrance is on the small and unpretentious Plaza Cementerio, otherwise occupied almost entirely by florists and stonemasons, with just one small bar for those in need of refreshment.

To the right of the entrance hall of the cemtery is an office, so we went in there to see if we could glean any further information regarding Terry.

The young lady who received us was very helpful and kind. I told her what I knew, which was basically just Terry's name and year of death. With just that information, she searched the digitalised records of the cemetery and was soon able to tell me that Terry had indeed been buried in the cemetery. After some further explanation, we were given directions to the location of Terry's grave.

Passing out of the entrance hallway and into the cemetery itself, one is immediately struck by two things: the cleanliness of the place and its enormity. It really is a massive, massive cemetery, but it is also extremely well maintained. Initially, one passes through an area of huge, almost monumental tombs, far too ostentatious for my liking, but still impressive (some small examples can be seen behind Elise in the photo).

This is followed by somewhat smaller tombs of a more "normal" size. Spain being a Catholic-dominated country, crucifixes and other religious symbols are well in evidence. Very few of the gravesites are reserved for a single person and many have whole generations of families, the names of each member carefully inscribed in the stonework, which is almost always marble or granite.

The only date indicated in Terry's records was 9 June, 1969: this was the date of burial. As explained above, Terry was killed in the early hours of 6 June, 1969. He was first buried in his own grave, with a gravestone. The lease for the grave was not renewed, however, so after ten years, Terry's bones were removed to the communal gravesite, known as the Osario or osuary.

After walking some way, we finally came to the Osario, marked by an imposing crucifix.

The back of the Osario

It has to be said that this part of the cemetery is perhaps the least well cared for. Passing around to the front of the Osario, we could see the irrigation piping sitting on top of very dry soil (it looks as if the irrigation does not work) which is sparsely covered with dried-up vegetation. A few small memorial tablets have been placed here and there, with some photos stuck to the large stone crucifix that is largely hidden behind a poorly positioned yucca.

Having seen where Terry now lies, we decided to place some flowers there to at least add a little cheer to the site. We walked back to the Plaza de Cementerio, purchased a colourful bunch and left it lying on the dry soil of the Osario before continuing our walk through the cemetery.

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Here are some impressions of the cemetery, which is quite a remarkable place and well worth a visit. It is remarkably quiet and has various sections containing different styles of memorials. The highest point is occupied by a chapel, below which is a shaded green area, provided by a copse of mediterranean pines. What was at the time of the Spanish Civil War a mass grave, now forms a memorial to those Republicans executed by the Nationalists.

Chapel on the hilltop

Copse of mediterranean pines. In the background, "chapel" memorials.

Burial niches.

Ever more burial niches.

Memorial field (ex mass grave) to executed Republicans.

Orange trees