questions never answered

Who is paying for the legal representation of Shamima Begum,

she who quit the country for Isis and became a casualty of its fall?  a lot of money is involved.   I am not masochistic enough to want to listen to 14 podcasts in that monotonous voice but I am fascinated that, in amongst allegations of trafficking, sexual abuse, Canadian double agents, nobody has mentioned shock.  I am big on shock.  Not  “oh my goodness, how could you ?” but the quantifiable medical kind.

The mental and physical interact in shock.

And if you have left your country, embraced a malevolent and violent fairy story, and if you are as bright as you are supposed to be, you can see that it is, surrendered to a member of the prevailing clan, had and lost three children under bombardment, I suggest shock should be part of the story.  Because – never mind how bright you are – it will make what you say unreliable.

Why is Helen Mirren (don’t bother me with the dame, I couldn’t care less) willing to pose with thin grey hair in a string down her back, unbecoming to put it mildly?  I suppose I should remember that there is no such thing as bad publicity.

Of what interest is the emotional rehabilitation of Nicky Campbell through meeting the child of his abuser?   Why is the declaration of abuse both prevalent and misunderstood? 

  I know medical services of every kind are overstretched but media is not the same as medicine.   Allowing for the fact that there are as many dubious therapists as there are bad restaurants and hairdressers,  speaking to  somebody privately about difficult things – as difficult in their verbalisation as their perception –  is not the same as giving a newspaper interview.  I’ve done both.   We are in grave danger of electing the press to be judge, jury, mediator, therapist and priest, if we haven’t already done it because we are scared of losing ground to social media.  

And while every so often we hear a good story about social media, most of them aren’t. 

Social media is the logical extension of that person you spotted briefly in the body of the hall, from the platform on which you were speaking, and thought “Oops, be careful.”  Only now they hide.  We do not see them and they are not less violent and nasty for being unseen.

Apart from human compassion, why should I care about a man with a brain, a job and a bike

– who rides without a helmet so that rescuing him took hours of police time, ambulance driver, paramedics, skilled hospital staff?   He may have eyes but he has no vision.  And in his article he writes of “vulnerable road users”.  Pause for gnashing of Raeburn teeth.  Bike riders who observe any kind of road safety, road courtesy or the Highway Code are in a minority.  They may think they are a higher form of life but they’re dangerous.

And then you wonder about the explosion of couples having babies.  I know the positives – oh heaven, do I !  But the world is compromised in terms of global warming.  Extreme weather abounds – and is increasingly impacting on food.  

People can’t eat and they can’t earn.  In the UK we are sitting on top of the breakdown of much of our accepted (because it has operated successfully for so long) social structure. 

The housing shortage has existed unattended for 50 years.  There aren’t enough places in schools.   We are busy mechanising thousands of jobs so what price work?  The country is about to take on board another refugee intake – and they all have to have something to eat, somewhere to live, put children in school, be cared for when they are unwell. 

I am not a negative person – I have just had a wonderful half hour in Harrods and I never thought that would happen again – but I am a realist and I am not sure who else is.  I am delighted Grant Shapps has helped a Ukrainian family (photo op) but I want to know when he is going to do something about the rapine of the energy companies upon the citizenry.  Isn’t that part of what he is paid for?  

10 months to resolve my dispute