1 By comparison, the first journey was a trivial one. I drove my Ford Fiesta for the first time. When the major features work, then the attention is on the ancilliaries. I could not - still cannot - adjust the tripmeter. I had to erase the Estate locking process and replace it with the Fiesta. So too with the raising and lowering of the windows. I was conscious of the unscratched car. And I was reluctant, in any case, to use the car as its proper place seemed to be in the garage. A car for possession not for use.
2 During a visit to a client I broke a standing rule. The client and another visitor were talking about how better things were in their youth, how children them were disciplined, how children now lacked discipline. I listened. And I voiced my dissent. Ah, I had crossed the line, one which separates the personal from the professional (even though I had called for general amiability rather than with any particular need in mind.).
3 To Tinsley. Well greeted, well handled. Esoso, a Biafran, left Nigeria in 2004 or 2005 and reached England, by way of Libya and Italy, in 2009. Arrested by Immigration because he had tendered a forged ID document, he was convicted (of ....) and served six months of a 12-month jail sentence. He now awaits deportation. He has no family in England, no relatives or friends; he knows no-one here. He does not want to be returned to Italy, as he does not speak the language and has no connection with the country. He does not want to return to Nigeria as he faces arrest there, imprisonment, or execution. (He was arrested, together with others, in 2004 when he took part in demonstrations against Nigerian rule of his part of the country. (Akin in a general way, I thought, to Nationalist protests against the Unionist government in Northern Ireland.)
4 And so he has come to rest, in England, in prison, in detention. He is 25 years young. He has tried unsuccessfully for bail. He has no sureties. He has no money. The onetime undergraduate has obtained a job in the kitchen at £1 an hour.
Where does he go?
What does a visitor do? I promised to visit him again on Saturday.
(Meanwhile, there was fresh white stuff on the sides of the road when I returned from Liz Ashton's.)
Time for the warmth, time for a week off in the warmth.
Stayathomeinthecold
1 comment:
1 I keyed a comment earlier on today. About the experience of an earthquake being a first, a palpable first. About the inclination to get out, put on a dressing gown, pull back the curtains, look about, and then make a cup of tea before taking self and tea to bed.
2 Independence. Yes, we're all inter-dependent. Managers rely upon workers; indeed, what do managers do? Meanwhile, workers rely upon managers. A duff manager means hard labour for the labourers. And so on.
2.1 The self-made man is a contradiction in terms, an oxymoron.
3 Keep reading. Ah, Berlin. To be admired are those who opposed Hitler. To be admired even more are those who were afraid of Hitler and who opposed him.
3.1 I recall Miles Giep's visit to the local Gestapo office, there to witness some officers listening to the news on the BBC, there to plead for the Franks. She knew what the Gestapo did for their brekfast.
Stayathome
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