A story about Donald Trump: sources not yet established

     This afternoon a friend of ours told us a story about Donald Trump. She told it over the phone because in these times of special measures she couldn't enter our house but fortunately her voice could. I've confessed all this in case it entered your mind to report me for illicit association.  Here is the tale and please forgive me if you have already heard it from another source. As far as I know it is not fake news. I hope too that it is not overly cruel.

      Five people were flying in a plane, Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, the Pope, Angela Merkel and a ten years old boy. The plane developed a fault and was destined to crash but there were only four parachutes to share among the five passengers.. Donald Trump shouted “ I’m a certified genius, the smartest guy on the planet so I must have one!” and he grabbed his and jumped out of the plane. Boris Johnson declared “I’m the prime minister of the United Kingdom so I must have one!” He grabbed one and jumped out. The Pope cried “I am the leader of the catholic world, I must have one!” He took one and jumped. Angela Merkel said to the boy “I’ve led a long life and you have your life before you, you should have the last  parachute. The boy replied “No we can both be saved. The cleverest man  in the world just jumped out of the plane carrying my schoolbag.”

A Parable For Our Time? A Paddle In The North Sea

     Even the clearest instruction loses clarity when it engages with the  human beings it is intended for. As someone may have said before, if you make a plan be assured that once human beings are asked to implement it, it will go wrong. 
     I am reminded of a time in the early 1970s when I was teaching in a boarding school for boys between the age of 8 and 13 years. The school was situated by the North Sea on the east coast of Scotland between Dundee and Aberdeen. 
    On the occasion I am recollecting the weather had been for some time very wet and the sports grounds were so waterlogged it was deemed impossible to play rugby or any kind of game on them. After a couple days of this the younger boys, lacking any exercise, were becoming restive. This perturbed the headmaster and his wife to the extent that they asked the boys if they had any ideas of their own for outdoor activity. The boys said that they would like to go down to beach to play in the rock pools. The beach adjacent to the school was rocky and slippery and the headmaster was anxious about this but tended to want go along with the boys' wishes while his wife was anxious for the boys' safety and concerned that they would be soaked and catch a cold or worse.
 As well as her sincere concern for the boys she worried that news of such an informal escapade would get back to the boys' parents and that in consequence the school's reputation might suffer. Her  anxiety was heightened because the boys insisted that they be allowed to paddle in the sea. What, they protested, would be the fun of going down to the sea and not being able to paddle? An impasse had been reached and the headmaster and his wife asked the deputy headmaster to join them and after the three had huddled together for about half an hour they hatched a plan. 
    The three junior teachers who had been charged with the responsibility of supervising the expedition were called together for a briefing. I was one of those teachers. The deputy headmaster was entrusted to deliver this briefing. He informed us the boys had been told they could paddle in the sea and that they were somewhat over-excited about it. No such expedition had ever previously been ventured and we were informed  some very strict rules would be laid down.  It was explained that in order to keep them warm the boys would wear their full school uniforms as well as their belted raincoats. We were told too they would wear wellington boots and be allowed to paddle into the sea to the depth of three inches but that under no circumstances were they to allow sea water to enter the inside of their Wellington boots. This rule was reinforced to the boys by the headmaster and we three teachers were ordered to ensure that our charges complied.

The scene of the maritime catastrophe on a fine day

     On some days the sea in those parts can be rough and at other times still and calm. On this occasion it was neither. I estimated the height of waves to be between a foot and eighteen inches high.  We were with a group of about 40 boys between the ages of 8 and 10 years. I leave it to your imagination how the expedition fared. 
     The boys enjoyed their afternoon but the headmaster's wife was apoplectic with rage when we returned with 40 saturated boys. It was made quite clear to my two colleagues and I that we had been 'entirely responsible for the afternoon's catastrophe' and thought of any future littoral outings must be banished from our minds.

Life in the time of coronavirus

  
March 15th, 2020

     Search my memory as best I can, yesterday was the worst Saturday afternoon of my life. There was no football match to go to and none to listen to on the radio. There was a dystopian void as I gazed into the middle distance at a loss as to know what would fill the emptiness of my life. It was all so incomprehensible. I had never known anything like it. Football had been postponed indefinitely because of the coronavirus pandemic and the havoc the latter has caused is even more incomprehensible to all of us. 

    

      Life as we have known it has been indefinitely postponed. Human beings the world over are in a state of panic. Nothing like this has ever happened before or if it has we didn't all know about it at the same time. 

       The wifie* and I were out shopping early this afternoon. You can do that nowadays. Sunday is just as loud as all the other days now. When in the mid-1950s as a boy living in Dundee Sundays were quiet days, some went to Kirk, some went for a stroll in the park but most sat in front of the television to watch ITV the new channel which had split the BBC's monopoly. ITV screened programmes on Sunday afternoon! Well, I never! when it first happened it created quite a social splash but we did still talk about other things.

   
     Today my wife and I have only talked about the coronavirus and its impact. Indeed when she and I went out to the Asda supermarket in Paignton to purchase some essential items, (which we failed to do because of the mass purchasing frenzy brought on by the fallout from the current crisis), the virus was all that people were talking about. Even other topics of conversation are in the context of their relationship to the virus. It is as if we cannot allow ourselves to think of anything else. A mass hysteria has overtaken the human world. If something like the coronavirus ever happened in the past the news of it passed more slowly but now everyone can know about it immediately. 

           
      It is to be hoped that the human imagination is such that the time will not be long in coming when our thoughts are directed to issues other than the coronavirus but for the time being the collective psyche of our community is at a loss as to how to deal with it. It is too difficult to assimilate at the speed we receive information. There are scientists but they have no definitive answers. There are politicians but their foresight as ever is not even as good as ours.

   
      I've read today that people like me  - someone over 70 years old - will soon be required to put ourselves into exile from our fellow human beings because we are more prone to contracting the virus and developing life threatening diseases from it: diseases which are expensive to treat. We are seen as a threat to our fellow human beings. We are viewed as lesser human beings : untermensch I believe the Nazis called them.

  
      I think most people who like me, are over 70 years of age have the guts to change and perhaps to sacrifice their lives that a younger person should live but I for one would prefer to be trusted to do it of my own volition and not because some smart Alecs order me to do so. They say they've listened to the panacea they call 'science' and we are seduced. Yet, Science is not entirely objective, it is as subjective as any human inquiry. There are huge areas of the physical and psychological qualities of life on our planet that scientists do not, or have not, chosen to research. It may be that these potential fields for research are of little interest to the profit makers.

   
      Human beings are not solitary creatures. Before birth we are contained inside another and from birth we are dependent on a relationship with another and, later on, further relationships with others and this continues through life. Few would wish to die alone,  either physically, or emotionally.

"No man is an Ilande intire of itself; every man

is a peece of the Continent, a part of the Maine..

....any man's death diminishes me,

because I am involved in Mankinde;"

Meditation XVII

Devotions upon Emergent Occasions

John Donne, 1624

* Old respectful Scots word 

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