Saturday 14th March

The Chicago River has been dyed green to celebrate St Patrick's Day.   How stupid is that.  I'm sure St Patrick's Day is celebrated more over here than it is in Ireland.

 

One has to feel sorry for Obama.  These serious global crises are not what he signed up for when he ran for President, and he is way in over his head.  A stronger, older, more experienced President - someone perhaps like John McCain, would have stopped ISIS in their tracks but it is way too late now, they have become a very serious threat to world peace.

When he came into Office I understand he went on a tour of the Middle East, and apologised for America's imperialism in the past, thinking presumably that would ensure peace and stability in the area, and he would concentrate on bringing social justice to the nation.   Instead of which the country is teetering on the verge of anarchy, and I can't recall a time when world peace seemed more far away.  Even the Suez Crisis and Bay of Pigs pale into insignificance compared to this.

I haven't been out today.  I have been engrossed in a very good book.  Set during the Second World War, it is basically about a 16 year old evacuee and her six year brother from the East End evacuated to the south coast.   And memories have been flooding back.   Ration books.  Shortages.  My Grandma's air raid shelter at the bottom of her garden - my grandparents and aunties lived on the edge of Croydon airport, which was heavily bombed, so I can say I was in the thick of it from six months until I was 4.   My aunties often talked of rushing me down to the air raid shelter when the sirens went off.