Sunday, 8th November, 2026
Week nine hundred and thirty three of Blogging. Just 4 weeks to go until it starts Year 18. A catalogue of Retirement. It will be 18 years in April that I retired from work and began to wander the world as a lost soul searching for the lost chord.
We are all hearts, minds, bodies, and souls searching for something – you are not the only one, So search, and you shall discover, look, and you shall certainly find…
Albert Camus
Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained are two eternal yearnings which were crystallised by John Milton in the 17th Century but reflect the Biblical theme of The Garden of Eden and of Original Sin. Perhaps it is an innate human trait to believe that past times were much better than the present. There is certainly no empirical evidence for it.
Look at the Tweet from this bonkers Reform supporter. She hates what she sees as the Modern World and longs for a return to our old, normal country – a return to Paradise Lost. The trouble is that when you start to interrogate this view, they never seem to know which period that would be. Would it be pre- internet on which she is now expressing her views? Would it be pre-telephone and pre-car? Would it be pre-electricity in homes? Would it be pre-women having the vote and going out to work? The actuality is none of these positions. It is a figment of her imagination.
And, of course, that Far Right sense of loss weaves the warp of religion through its weft of indignation. They claim to regret the country’s loss of Christianity which is undeniably borne out by the BSA Survey which demonstrates that most of these people who publicly bemoan this loss, rarely are active believers themselves. Indeed two thirds of Britons never attend a religious service. But it suits their purpose to make these claims of dissatisfaction.
It is to recreate the European fabric… and to provide it with a structure under which it can dwell in peace, safety and freedom. We must build a kind of United States of Europe.
Winston Churchill: Zurich speech of 19 September 1946
The biggest irony of all this is that today these Right Wing influencers will celebrate the Armistice Day where our boys fought for our freedoms and our country’s border but, at the same time they will denigrate moves to re-join our European neighbours and partners who fought with us. It is the lack of joined up thinking that is most worrying and must be resisted.