A rumbling in the Garden of England

Having spent much time in Greece over the last three years I have grown used to the occasional earth tremor. Nothing too serious, but still surprisingly unsettling.

So imagine my surprise on my current trip to the UK to experience a 4.2 magnitude tremor while staying in my mother's home in Kent, the county also known as the Garden of England.

I knew straight away what it was, but that still doesn't stop you wondering if there's more to come. There wasn't but this relatively insignificant seismic event still made plenty of copy for the following day's TV and newspapers.

We are fortunate not to have suffered anything catastrophic such as was experienced recently in Nepal, but much was still made of the tremor. As any reporter knows, sometimes you just have to work with what you've got, even if the material is a bit thin.

I'm trying to blog when I can, but I shall be a bit peripatetic over the next few weeks so the service might be a little erratic. AND I've still got to sort out the name change, which will probably also entail a bit of a redesign of the blog. Not exactly a seismic shift for my blog, but still a time of change.

Anyway, I'm in Devon now - on the other side of the country - and the sun is shining, a walk beckons, I think.

For a musical finish, I thought a little bit of Dr Feelgood doing Rolling and Tumbling would be quite good.

Thank goodness for those old guys

I've not been a very good blogger recently. It's a combination of a post A to Z Challenge slump and a certain amount of turmoil on the domestic front as we get ready to leave Greece to return to the UK.

My blogging "slump" might also be termed laziness and is overcome by pulling my finger out, but the turmoil takes a bit more working through.

I am beset by doubts about what we are about to do and, to be honest, my only response to those doubts is to plough on and hope that all will be well in the end.

But sometimes even that tactic can struggle. This morning, for instance, we were drinking coffee with friends in a harbourside café. It didn't take long before people started pointing out - I was among them - that the weather in Devon, might not be conducive to such outdoor gatherings. And that led to me wondering just what on earth I thought I was doing leaving Skopelos.

So what a relief it is to learn that such thoughts are nothing new. Romain brainbox Seneca the Younger, who lived from about 4BC to 65AD, offered some pretty incisive thinking to a friend who moaned that after a recent journey he didn't feel things had improved.

Seneca the Younger, although he's looking a
bit worn around the edges here.

In his no-nonsense way, Seneca told his friend: "You need a change of soul rather than a change of climate.

"What pleasure is there in seeing new lands? Or in surveying cities and spots of interest? All your bustle is useless. Do you ask why such flight does not help you? It is because you flee along with yourself. You must lay aside the burdens of the mind; until you do this, no place will satisfy you."

So while Seneca's advice will not lead to me staying put in Greece, it will encourage me to "lay aside the burdens of the mind" or at least recognise them for what they are. I know the reasons for our move are the right reasons, even if we have to experience a bit of angst along the way.

I wanted to put some music with this, but was struggling to find something I felt would fit and then I remembered Sit Down by James. I think it goes well with Seneca's talk of fleeing along with yourself and having to lay aside the burdens of the mind.

Postscript: I am still trying to come up with a name for this blog to be used after I return to the UK. I had a moment's inspiration in the middle of the night recently only to discover that there was already a blog with that name. As Mr Micawber said: "Something will turn up".

• Picture of bust of Seneca: CC BY-SA 2.5-2.0-1.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5-2.0-1.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Q: You're a special woman, Brenda

Q, arguably one of the trickiest letters in the A to Z Challenge, but it's got to be done, so here goes, and it's another woman who has made a big impression on me..

I'm not being facetious when I say that my reason to be cheerful for the letter Q is none other than the Queen. That is MY queen, the monarch and head of state of the country I come from, the United Kingdom.

Yes, I think Queen Elizabeth II is a reason to be cheerful, even if sometimes she does look a little glum. And why have I referred to someone called Brenda in the title of this post? Readers of the magazine Private Eye will know that Brenda is their less than respectful nickname for the queen. Sometimes it seems very fitting. Sorry, your majesty.

Princess Elizabeth serving her country during the Second
World War. This picture was taken in 1945, seven
years later she was Queen.

Some people who know me may be a little surprised that I have warm feelings for a non-elected head of state, but I think she does a difficult job very well. She was only a young woman when she came to the throne, several years before I was born, and she continues to show grace and dignity when sometimes she must long to say: "Oh do shut up" or worse.

People from countries where their head of state is elected may feel slightly superior at the idea that they get to choose, but we live in times when political candidates' success depends very much on the amount of money they can gather for campaigning. That money comes from vested interests and if their candidate is successful there will presumably be some returning of favours. To what extent you might regard that as risking corruption I leave to you.

I'm definitely not trying to say that voting is wrong, but you can't guarantee that you'll necessarily get the best person for the job. The selection process that takes place before you even go to put your X in the box next to a name could easily winnow out some good candidates and leave some real duffers to go before the people.

Anyway, I digress. The UK struck lucky with the Queen, but let's be honest, we've had some well dodgy monarchs in the past and one in recent history who didn't even want to do the job. And we have absolutely no idea what the heir to the throne, Prince Charles, will be like. After all, he's on record as talking to plants. As I don't wish to end up in the Tower, I would merely observe that talking to plants is a charming eccentricity. It's only if you believe the plants talk back that you need to seek help.

So there we have it. Q is for Queen.

What music could go with this? The National Anthem? No, a bit of a dirge. I know, how about Queen singing Don't Stop Me Now. I'd like to think that occasionally Queen Elizabeth wanders the draughty corridors of one of her palaces singing this at the top of her voice. Unlikely, I grant you, but it would definitely qualify as a reason to be cheerful. If she did I expect she'd actually sing Don't Stop One Now. 

• Question: Have you ever met the Queen? If so, did she ask you "Have you come far?".

* Picture by Ministry of Information official photographer [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

N: Nobody chooses to be ill

The letter N in my reasons to be cheerful Blogging from A to Z Challenge takes us, as you no doubt realise, just past the halfway mark.

If you're still jogging along with me I'm really pleased - in fact, it's another reason to be cheerful - and I'd just to like to remind everyone AGAIN that I welcome comments. The opportunity to comment on each blog post is at the bottom so give it a go.

So far, I don't think I've come up with a particularly political reason, but all that could change with N which is the National Health Service of the United Kingdom.

I absolutely and utterly believe that the NHS is a reason to be cheerful and one that we in Britain are in danger of letting slip through our fingers. Set up in 1948, the NHS provides a comprehensive range of healthcare the vast majority of which is free at the point of use having been paid for by taxation.

The best explanation I can think of for the rationale of the NHS comes from Labour politician Nye Bevan, who was Health Secretary at the time the NHS was founded.

He said: "Illness is neither an indulgence for which people have to pay, nor an offence for which they should be penalised, but a misfortune, the cost of which should be shared by the community."

 I fully accept that the NHS is a costly and flawed organisation which needs to be improved, but I find it difficult, not to say impossible, to accept that privatisation in its various forms is the way to bring about that improvement. Some may call it the introduction of private enterprise, I would describe it as finding ways to make money out of other people's misfortune.

While I would lay much of the blame for this approach in the NHS at the feet of the Tories, it has to be said that previous governments of all political persuasions have done little to enhance the NHS. The infamous private finance initiatives imposed on the NHS have, in my view, been a colossal disaster, resulting in NHS money going to banks and equity investors rather than being used on patient care.

I know many people, in my family and elsewhere, who have benefited from NHS treatment and I suspect there is a growing possibility that in Britain we are at risk of taking the service for granted. Thanks to the NHS the time when falling ill was not only a worry in itself, but also led to the added burden of trying to pay for treatment, is becoming a receding memory..

Nye Bevan has been dead more than half a century, but it would be a crying shame if another quote from him came to be applied to us now. "No society can legitimately call itself civilised if a sick person is denied medical aid because of lack of means." Let us hope that never comes true.

We might need a bit of music to cheer us up after all that, so here's Dr Feelgood performing Down at the Doctor's. I'm fairly certain it's not about a medical appointment, but never mind, eh?

• Question: What would you do to improve the NHS?

Sings can only get better

There's a lot going on in May, a General Election in Britain, my birthday, and...oh yes...the 60th Eurovision Song Contest.

Eurovision is one of those things that's easy to make fun of, but difficult to stop watching once you start as you try to work out if what you are looking at is for real.

This year, the contest is being held in Vienna from May 19 to 23, and 40 countries will slug it out with strange songs and dubious voting practices.

Most of the countries taking part are members of the European Broadcasting Union, although this year Australia is a guest entrant. Yes, that Australia, the one that's as far from Europe as it's possible to get.

The reason that I'm writing about Eurovision now is that participating countries are going through the process of choosing their entries and I happened to notice that Greece had made its choice.

This year Greece will be represented by Maria-Eleni Kyriakou, who is singing One Last Breath. I can't help feeling that's a slightly unfortunate title for a song, particularly from Greece bearing in mind the countries economic woes. Having said that, I should point out another of the contenders was a song called Crash and Burn.

Maria-Eleni Kyriakou will sing One Last Breath.

Maria-Eleni will be familiar to Greek TV viewers - not me, I don't have a telly. She also took part in The Voice of Greece.  How she will do is anyone's guess. I wish her well, but maybe not too well. Does Greece really need the burden of having to stage next year's Eurovision if it wins this year's? This year will be the tenth anniversary of the last time Greece won the contest so maybe it is time for another taste of success.

In other Eurovision news, Germany - funny how often they crop up on this blog - chose its song and singer who promptly stood down and said the second-placed song should vie for honours in Vienna. Andreas Kummert, a slightly tubby gent with a beard and glasses, something which I would have thought would guarantee success, said he wasn't ready to do vocal battle and called on second-placed Ann Sophie to do the honours. Her song is called Black Smoke.

And the dear old UK has made its choice. The cynic in me wonders what the point is because other countries in Europe seem to have made it their mission to find ever more amusing ways to humiliate the brave souls representing the UK as a form of punishment for Britain's part in the Iraq war. I concede that could be me being paranoid, but as I don't really care who wins Eurovision it doesn't matter..

Anyway, this year the UK has pinned its hopes on musical duo Electro Velvet - Alex Larke and Bianca Nicholas - who will be singing Still in Love with You.

Conceivably, I could have put music from all three countries on this posting, but I thought that might be a bit much so I've opted for the UK entry. Apparently, it comes from a genre known as electro swing....yeah, me neither. See what you think and post a comment with your thoughts.

* Picture of Maria-Eleni Kyriakou by Mad TV from the Eurovision Song Contest website.