Between golf and my new granddaughter fresh over from Japan, blogging has taken a back seat.
It is nice to see my son and his wife for the first time in over a year but centre stage has to be little Rinka, our granddaughter, our new hope for the future.
Golf is about winners and losers - yes, thanks, I did win my first ever open seniors championship, in a field of 85, on Friday with a six under par net score - as you did not ask.
Grandchildren are about a new hope, a hope that maybe her generation will see a more peaceful world in a Japan and world that does not feel squeezed by the USA or threatened by China or Russia like the nut in the jaws of a nut cracker. A Japan which finds balance between its creative traditions, Buddhism and the modern world. Finding time to venerate the sheer beauty of its countryside even as modern pressures weigh heavy on it. She is lucky her dad started trudging the hills of Scotland first with me and then with friends, he and his wife regularly hike in the mountains around Fukui, while his sister in law, Mayumi, is the Japanese equivalent of a 'Munro Bagger' when not snow boarding or half marathon running.
Of course every one in the swim is talking about what, for Yes supporters, seems to have been a bit of a car crash last night for Alisdair Darling as his big stick - the poond - was debunked by his own mouth and his pointed approach to Wee Eck turned the selected BBC audience against him to the extent there was open laughter at some of his statements. The BBC minders clearly had not done such a good job for Mr Darling as had the STV ones, demonstrated by the angry lady who ripped into him about his 'only the Union can save the NHS in Scotland' line.
Darling appeared flummoxed that 'ordinary people' had him sussed, they were not having his 'sound bite politics' on the pound, NHS, Oil and the rest, they were not willing to give him a new hope that the Union could be saved. In fact as Darling blustered and prevaricated it was clear, with out Eck saying a thing, the Yes Campaign was gaining traction at Darling's every word and gesture, he was ever more becoming the man in the Stevie Smith poem - Not waving but drowning.
As the months have become weeks and the weeks rapidly turn to days I have gone from wishing the people of Scotland would wake up to being made fools of by a London centric government and turned into yet another neo-liberal clone, through realising the people of Scotland were waking up in serious numbers to what Westminster's intentions were for Scotland, via amazement at the support and personal involvement the 'Yes campaign' has generated amongst folk who felt disenfranchised but are now engaged and now to the point it increasingly looks like Yes will win the day.
Only after a Yes vote is secured can I and the rest of my fellow Scots start to consider; Scotland - A New Hope, and what it will look like.
It is nice to see my son and his wife for the first time in over a year but centre stage has to be little Rinka, our granddaughter, our new hope for the future.
Golf is about winners and losers - yes, thanks, I did win my first ever open seniors championship, in a field of 85, on Friday with a six under par net score - as you did not ask.
Grandchildren are about a new hope, a hope that maybe her generation will see a more peaceful world in a Japan and world that does not feel squeezed by the USA or threatened by China or Russia like the nut in the jaws of a nut cracker. A Japan which finds balance between its creative traditions, Buddhism and the modern world. Finding time to venerate the sheer beauty of its countryside even as modern pressures weigh heavy on it. She is lucky her dad started trudging the hills of Scotland first with me and then with friends, he and his wife regularly hike in the mountains around Fukui, while his sister in law, Mayumi, is the Japanese equivalent of a 'Munro Bagger' when not snow boarding or half marathon running.
Of course every one in the swim is talking about what, for Yes supporters, seems to have been a bit of a car crash last night for Alisdair Darling as his big stick - the poond - was debunked by his own mouth and his pointed approach to Wee Eck turned the selected BBC audience against him to the extent there was open laughter at some of his statements. The BBC minders clearly had not done such a good job for Mr Darling as had the STV ones, demonstrated by the angry lady who ripped into him about his 'only the Union can save the NHS in Scotland' line.
Darling appeared flummoxed that 'ordinary people' had him sussed, they were not having his 'sound bite politics' on the pound, NHS, Oil and the rest, they were not willing to give him a new hope that the Union could be saved. In fact as Darling blustered and prevaricated it was clear, with out Eck saying a thing, the Yes Campaign was gaining traction at Darling's every word and gesture, he was ever more becoming the man in the Stevie Smith poem - Not waving but drowning.
As the months have become weeks and the weeks rapidly turn to days I have gone from wishing the people of Scotland would wake up to being made fools of by a London centric government and turned into yet another neo-liberal clone, through realising the people of Scotland were waking up in serious numbers to what Westminster's intentions were for Scotland, via amazement at the support and personal involvement the 'Yes campaign' has generated amongst folk who felt disenfranchised but are now engaged and now to the point it increasingly looks like Yes will win the day.
Only after a Yes vote is secured can I and the rest of my fellow Scots start to consider; Scotland - A New Hope, and what it will look like.
Excellent post sir, I do like the drowning man analogy so much so I posted on facebook. Thank you
ReplyDeleteDarling exposed as the smug,arrogant,self serving xxxxxxxx that he is.
ReplyDeleteGolf is not good for you.
40 years of golf left me with lower spine problems, knee and hip joint pain and an aversion to hanging around on tees waiting for others to get on with it.
Apart from that it is great fun.