Author: R J Adams

Err, excuse me, have you seen Christmas? No, really, is it around here anywhere? The Adam’s household appears to have mislaid it. They only caught New Year at the last moment. One minute to midnight and Mrs Adams suddenly looks up from scrubbing the kitchen cooker, to say, “I think it’s nearly 2016.”

They’ve been rather busy of late. After four months living in a hellhole blatantly advertised as, ‘an authentic 300 year old French cottage, full of charm and elegance…’

…the heating system was definitely 300 years old, as was the bed. The cooker only had half an oven and the three piece suite was plastic from the nineteen-seventies. Sit on it too long and it adhered to the legs like superglue. There was a distinct ripping noise whenever one attempted to stand up…

…but now they have a house of their own. It’s a nice house but the previous owners left in rather a hurry and forgot to tell them nothing had been cleaned since they moved in six years ago – and possibly long before that. Consequently, (Mrs A being a stickler for hygiene) they’ve been scrubbing and disinfecting since December 18th. Christmas dinner was tomato soup hurriedly spooned down before the mop water went cold. Boxing Day was celebrated with beans on toast.

Still, at least the kitchen is finally exhibiting a sparkle. Now it’s time for them to start on the rest of the house.

The internet arrived yesterday. Part of the charm of living in France is waiting forever to get anything done. They were promised the phone wouldn’t be disconnected, then arrived to find it as dead as the proverbial doornail, though why one would expect any metallic object to have ever harboured a lifeforce is quite beyond me.

The phone suddenly resurrected itself on Boxing Day. The internet took a little longer – two weeks longer to be precise. Still, on a good day it provides them with a whole megabyte of download. It’s almost quicker to watch the BBC News on TV rather than wait for it to descend – one agonizing byte at a time – from the internet.

You can understand why there’s been no Sparrow Chat postings since mid-November. Hopefully, things’ll get better before long.

So, if you’re one of the two, possibly three, folks who live in hopes of a few words of Adams’ wisdom occasionally, please don’t despair.

Like Christmas, he’s got to be about here somewhere.

Any regular reader of Sparrow Chat will be well aware of the contempt in which I hold most politicians. Corrupt, self-obsessed, wealth and power-grabbing, utterly unconcerned with the welfare of those who elected them to office, the average politician today is unworthy of his/her position; sad imitations of those few great men of history worthy to bear the title, “statesman”.

And yet, this afternoon, I sat spellbound as the words of a great statesman resounded around the Palace of Versailles, resulting in an enthusiastic standing ovation from both Houses of the French Parliament.

François Hollande, President of France, did not mince words. Neither platitude nor poll-tested pabulum passed his lips as he laid out for the world how France would deal with the evil monster, ISIS, responsible for those heinous crimes against humanity that were perpetrated in Paris last Friday evening.

I would encourage everyone to take time to listen to his words. Words that, even when spoken through a translator, stirred the soul and made one realise that, perhaps, it was time another country became, “Leader of the Free World”, rather than the insipid, spineless, shadow of itself, that is the USA today.

Indeed, by comparison, Obama’s concluding speech at the G20 in Turkey left one painfully reminiscent of that comic Gilbert and Sullivan character from, “The Gondoliers”, the Duke of Plaza-Toro.

As Obama concluded by stating, somewhat anaemically, that the world, “led by America” (of course), would eventually defeat ISIS, W.S.Gilbert’s colourful description of the Duke came flooding back:

In enterprise of martial kind,
When there was any fighting,
He led his regiment from behind —
He found it less exciting.
But when away his regiment ran,
His place was at the fore, O —
That celebrated,
Cultivated,
Underrated
Nobleman,
The Duke of Plaza-Toro!”

Move over Obama; move over Cameron, your platitudes are history. There’s a new kid on the block and no-one’s going to push his country around and get away with it.

He may be balding; he may only be 5′ 7″ – but so was Napoleon.

Vive La France!

Yesterday’s post, regarding ISIS and the Paris atrocities, noted that the American President Barack Obama had emphasized, in an interview on ABC, the ‘containment’ of ISIS, viz:

“I don’t think they’re gaining strength,” Obama responded. “What is true is that from the start, our goal has been first to contain and we have contained them…”

Last night three Democrat candidates debated the situation on live US television. One of them, Hilary Clinton, was also emphatic. According to the BBC:

IS[Islamic State] cannot be contained, it must be defeated, Mrs Clinton said, adding that while American leadership was essential, “we will support those who take the fight to Isis.”^[1]

These are our top world politicians. Our fate is in their hands. If they can’t agree on such vital issues what hope is there for any of us?

There are three major issues threatening the safety of our species right now, though many others are knocking at the door: 1. Climate change; 2. ISIS and Islamic extremism, and 3. The refugee crisis in Europe.

It would seem our leaders haven’t the faintest idea how to effectively handle any of them.


^{[1] “Democrats argue over Islamic State fight after Paris attacks” BBC, November 15th 2015}