(2015)

Author’s Thoughts:
My Great-Uncle Aubrey once said to me during my teens – he wasn’t eavesdropping but had overheard a conversation I was having then at his house which I looked after during the entire and busy crop season; he worked shifts as a highly skilled engineer and pan-boiler in charge of the totally integrated system whereby the massive deposits of sugar cane at the factory were systematically and expertly transformed into either molasses or sugar, as required, at the long established, very popular, local cane grinding and sugar producing factory located two miles distance from his home - with some basically largely school friends of mine who regularly congregated there to either jointly do our homework together or else play dominoes which Uncle Aubrey was not only an aficionado and expert of but also generally recognized by all those cognizant of his phenomenal expertise as a formidable opponent to cross swords with when playing a game of dominoes with him: a love of his that was on a par with his passion for cricket and more akin to a religion with him we would all tease him when invariably he either singly or in a partnership with others thrashed his opponents, ourselves included, during those contests we had with him

And not unnaturally his home, whether he was there or not, became a Mecca for teams of domino players, all of whom were determined to challenge each other and simultaneously hopefully improve their own expertise. A situation that was largely practicable because Uncle Aubrey was a bachelor all his life, even though there hadn’t been any deficiency of important lady friends in his life, though I doubted that any “legal auntie” of mine on his part would have tolerated the intrusion, as she clearly would have seen it, of so many comings and goings of domino players and spectators into her matrimonial home but thankfully as an avid domino player myself who had acquired my skills from the master himself I never minded too much, and for a number of personal reasons, that there was no formal Mrs Uncle Aubrey around; at least not permanently in the house that is.

Anyway, to slip back to Uncle Aubrey’s sagacious and measured interjection relative to the conversation that my friends and I were having and which had revolved around a homework assignment we had on the merits and demerits of democracy, my Uncle Aubrey’s contribution was along the lines that democracy was like sex: something most of us assume that we must in one form or another have, then afterwards convince ourselves that our own individual approach to it shouldn’t simply be regarded by ourselves as the best there is but more often than not also as the only and definitive appropriate manner of acceptably dealing with that particular personal issue. And because it’s something that is intrinsically part of our psychological and physical make up and irrespective of whether or not one is directly involved in participating in it, the future implications of either doing so or knowingly withholding one’s self are nevertheless forever prevalent in our minds, and therefore can be a very sensitive topic indeed, in a multitude of ways, for those that either egotistically think they indisputably have all the answers required, set against those others who’re still literally feeling their way around what for many of them will continue to be a very thorny subject indeed.

Politics is very much like sex Uncle Aubrey authoritatively explained with very often those that know the least about either doing the most shouting in relation to their narcissistic and often highly disquieting disclosures on the matter. How absolutely right my Barbadian Uncle Aubrey was; God rest his immortal soul!

However, in winding up this conclusion, I’d like to finish off with three comments which I think are most apt in relation to this poem and the sentiments behind it. The first is from Ken de Silva of Kent who writes: “Nicholas Houghton could have expressed his views on the nuclear weapons issue without resorting to deliberate political bias, just as the military expresses its vehement opposition to the Conservative budgetary cuts to the armed forces without expressing political hostility to them. His comments were partisan and anti-democratic and he should apologise. Furthermore, the anti-Corbyn right of the Labour Party should have a refresher course in democracy and cease undermining Mr Corbyn at every opportunity or leave the party.”

OR PREFERABLY BE SUMMARILY DESELECTED! My personal interjection in this MATTER.

Dr Richard House of Gloucestershire adds: “Jeremy Corbyn’s disquiet at the undemocratic outburst of Nicholas Houghton is entirely justified. “If he were a public-sector whistle-blower he’d have been summarily dismissed.” And on an allied subject Catherine Warner of the Wirral sums up my feelings entirely when she says: “To those complaining about the protests against university fees, an educated workforce is not a privilege but a necessity. Universities create doctors, teachers, social workers, scientists and much more. Without them, society would be nasty, brutish and short.”

#Politics