Sunday 9th June
This was a lovely song from Paul’s first album after he split from Artie. A sad, but true reflection of the impermanence of everything. The atrophy of the Universe, the slow decay of all our achievements etc… And yet these sort of songs do give me hope in a funny way. Every Government which comes in has a certain reformist agenda. Institutions, education, health – all seem in constant need of reform. Sometimes it is just sticking plaster, sometimes wholesale reform. And yet inevitably, in a few years’ time, they will need reforming yet again. And it seems we are no cleverer as the years slip by. It is easy with hindsight to deplore the errors of the past, and yet we seem condemned to repeating them. Who would have thought that ‘modernising’ those ugly old concrete tower blocks of the Sixties and Seventies with brightly coloured panels would have been such a disaster?
And yet….we are living in a small town in South West France. The castle is falling down, but has probably been falling down for centuries. It will almost certainly outlast most of the houses in town. And slowly things improve. They have been replacing water and electric services all around town – we had months of chaos. But most of the work is finished now, and it all looks much the same as it did before they started. Maybe we will still be around when they dig up and repair them again.
Sometimes you just want a rest from it all, the constant updating and renewal….of, well everything. When I return to London, the City is forever throwing up new skyscrapers, if you stayed away for ten years you wouldn’t recognize the place I am sure. But of course, I am looking at the World through cynical old eyes. To the young it is still a time of opportunity. New stuff is simply exciting for them – the next phone or tablet or gadget which bewilders and confuses us is simply the next thing to have for them. And sooner or later everything put together falls apart. But that is simply an opportunity to renew, to replace, to rebuild….and so life goes on.