I’ve written little here lately. Summer permits a different day-life, and the garden calls well into the evening. But sometimes I wonder whether there’s any point to it. I look at our selfish Narcissistic smug and mocking UK politicians and can’t believe that we’ve arrived at this state of national awfulness. And that’s one small country – never mind the rest of the world.
Our Prime Minister has been unseated by his lies and clumsiness, and his aspiring replacements continue to lie clumsily with no shame or remorse. British politics is a quagmire of desperation and so many otherwise decent people simply look the other way, tolerating the breathtakingly overt corruption and self-interest by which the country is managed. We have a return of the old ethos: money and cronyism rules!
I blame myself, of course. For not standing up and fighting for decency; for turning my face to the wall as the smugglers go by; for opting for a quiet retirement rather than political activism. But I’m too f****** old and tired. And I blame you too, for seeing only the rose-hue shadows obfuscating truths and misrepresentations.
Remember that Welsh word: hiraeth? It’s that sense of nostalgia we feel for a place or time which probably never really existed other than in false memories. That’s what’s happening in Britain today – a relentless regression to the good old days which actually were irredeemably bad for the vast majority of people. We should be ploughing onwards, looking not back but ahead to progress and enlightenment. Instead: we have the likes of Rees-Mogg throwing down a mud anchor so this rusty leaky old ship swings round to face the wrong way.
And what do I do? Dig around in the past, looking back: the irony of genealogy, undeniable contradiction. I’ve tried to find a way to research the future, to write a history of what will happen, but nature gave us humans the benefit of hindsight rather than prescience. She still smirks at that little joke… I tried to look into that future and write about it, but the future was too depressing. So I stick to turning soil of the past hoping to find some grub of new information. It’s safer.
Have a good summer. Now: back on topic: where is Blanche?
alan kahn
Kahn Family Genealogy 
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