March Or Die

[Sweder]

Another long night in a pub, another restorative short-range blast, this time with the Twitten Runners. My word, there's nothing like twelve consecutive lung-crushing hill-sprints to blow the cobwebs away. Happily, Arch Duncan (not of this Parrish) joined us. Arch Duncan is a lapsed ex-smoker who struggles as much with his inner demons as he does with the hills. All this internal wrestling affords those of us putting the effort in to catch a breather at each summit. I was immensely grateful to him this morning, as I was for the absence of Mr Cat, for I was able to lead the group at a comparatively leisurely pace.

I've been following the shenanigans in the US Primaries with morbid fascination. Just last week a journalist recorded a range of Vox Pops amongst Donald Trump's supporters. He read what they assumed to be quotes from Mr Drumpf (his actual family name, according to the brilliant John Oliver - see clip below) and recorded their apparently supportive reactions. The quotes were from one Adolf Hitler. This is rather like shooting fish in a barrel, given that so many Americans seem quite happy to see this monstrous asshole in the most powerful seat in the western world, but it serves a purpose in reminding us that you can not only put lipstick on a pig, you can brush up a bug-eyed fruit-loop with homicidal tendencies to appear electable.




Whilst we here in the UK point and snigger, we would do well to reflect on the state of our own leaders. Our Prime Minister, for example, attended an institution where performing a sex act with a severed pig's head is considered normal. A good many of his colleagues and a fair slice of the so-called opposition attended the same or similar institutions, and his likely successor plays Boris the Clown to such effect that many British voters think of him as a national treasure rather than a Very Dangerous Man. People in glass houses, and all that.


Last night we celebrated our youngest's 21st in the Pelham Arms. Thinking of absent friends, I was given pause to reflect on something I wrote about a while back. It has to do with how we measure our wealth. My 'Dad's speech' was short, much to the relief of the fifty or so gathered, swaying, good-natured heckling subsiding as I sought to pull the words out of the surrounding warmth. 

Those of us lucky enough to have children want many things for our progeny. Health, success, happiness. What struck me last night, as I watched my son move easily amongst the throng, chatting to undergraduate dancers and tipsy grannies, is that we want them to become people that others want to be with. Both my children have turned out to be people I love to spend my time with, and, if our recent holidays are a barometer, who enjoy the company of their parents. I'm eternally grateful for this, and I said so to those faces beaming out of the soft-lit room. We raised our glasses, hugs were exchanged and we drank on into the night.

Some fondle their money, others polish their sports cars, watch their stocks rise and fall, peruse their portfolios. I prefer to count my personal wealth in friends. In this regard I am surely amongst the wealthiest of men, and I count you all amongst my treasures.

Fear not. Normal grouchy service will be resumed before you know it.
Carry on.