Trolley 485

Captured from outside the creationists' accommodation block in East Street and returned to the M&S stack, fairly tidy this morning, but no one pound coin returned despite locking this trolley into its stack.

On the way, not impressed by a large thirty something dad getting angry with his son, quite small, maybe eight or nine years old. I dare say the son was whining, or at least moaning, about something or other, but getting angry in this way was not the right way forward. Almost to the point of thinking that one should intervene somehow, but there were enough people about that I thought things would not get carried too far. A chap who might have had anger management problems.

Much better outside the library where various young mums appeared to be gathering for some pre-school activity, with young girls getting rather excited when they spotted their friends. Much jumping up and down and so forth.

While inside the library, I was invited to fill in a survey form about what I thought of them. A form with a surprising focus on what might be called the social work side of libraries, of providing people who needed it with somewhere to go. I didn't have anything to say about that side of things, but I did say I was very pleased that Epsom still ran to a good library service, all the cuts to local government budgets notwithstanding. 

When we get around to giving local authorities some proper fund raising powers, to give them a bit more freedom to manoeuvre in such matters, freedom from the central government dictat of the day, in the way of most other modern democracies? One more much needed reform on which there is little visible progress.

And while we are on modern democracies, making a change from coverage of matters Russia vs. Ukraine, there was the article in the latest NYRB (reference 2), about how the US doesn't look likely to climb down gracefully from its No.1 spot, any more than Russia seems to be able to tolerate neighbourly independence. The story seems to be that the movers and shakers in Washington, ever since the end of the first cold war, don't seem to be able to shake off their zero-sum view of relations with China. Either we win or they win. Either we are on  top or they are on top. Nothing like enough thought being given to about how they might learn to live together, in more or less friendly rivalry on commercial and sporting matters, but working together on things like climate change and building mutual respect and trust. Agreeing to be different.

And just in case we start getting sanctimonious, it has taken us quite a long time too to learn that we are no longer a first class power and to adapt. Britannia has not ruled the waves for getting on for a century now. And the battle of Trafalgar was more than two centuries ago. By way of a footnote, I might add that we did win the Battle of North Cape a bit less than eighty years ago. The last but one battle fought with battleships and their big guns, a battle fought to protect the supply conveys to the Soviet Union. H.M.S. Belfast, of London Bridge, was in a supporting role.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/03/trolley-484.html.

Reference 2: Washington's Crackpot Realism - Jerry Brown, NYRB - 2022.