2B or not 2B ?
We got home from Chantilly, but only just. Air France asked us to check in the day before we left, and download our boarding passes. Their website told us to scan our passports and a QR code. Which I couldn’t do. I am old enough to think that scanning is about putting your hand over your eyes and peering at the horizon, possibly searching for enemy soldiers. It took a phone call to Air France customer services in York, in the UK, and a conversation with a helpful Indian woman to get sorted out. She simply told us to ignore the instruction. And she was right.
It was a 9.40am flight, and Keith and Janet very kindly took us to the airport. I stupidly hadn’t checked which terminal, and they dropped us at Terminal 2B. The woman at Easyjet [who were also flying to Edinburgh at much the same time] directed us to Terminal 2E. Which is about 15 minutes walk away. There was more scanning to be done as we deposited our luggage. Three attendant Air France staff, who preferred to talk to each other, were as much use as a chocolate teapot. There was an interminable and slow-moving queue for passport control. Followed by a shorter but equally slow-moving queue for baggage control. We rushed to Gate K 33. Where we were told by an Air France woman that the gate was closed, that we had missed our flight. And that our bags had been unloaded. I shouted at her, and then at her more senior colleague. Even Susie nearly shouted at her ! They spoke to ‘the Commandant’, the flight was running ten minutes late, and we boarded. Except for Susie’s suitcase, which arrived after numerous text messages the next day. The cabin crew were excellent. Trying to persuade me that my cellophane-wrapped Breton galette was really eggs, bacon, and mushrooms. It wasn’t Air France’s finest hour. But it was partly our fault.
Home on the range
Edinburgh feels cold. The temperature is much the same as Chantilly, but it is damper and feels colder, especially in the wind. The heating in the house hasn’t been on for six weeks. Which makes a difference. Thursday was our 49th wedding anniversary. It was a distinct low point last year, when we were in different countries mourning the loss of Joanna. This year we went out to breakfast. The cafe I had in mind didn’t really suit us, so we ended up in a Turkish cafe just off the Royal Mile. And came home via the trusty OXFAM bookshop, where I bought volume 2 of Martin Stannard’s life of Evelyn Waugh. All I have to do now is to find a copy of volume 1. In the evening Susie went to band practice with No Strings Attached; while I went to the Priestfield prayer meeting.
The wider world
TF1, the French television channel on which we relied for news in Chantilly, is extraordinarily parochial; the evening news rarely got much beyond severe floods in the Pas de Calais and the increase in French rail fares. Back at home we are catching up with the news from elsewhere. The suffering in the Gaza Strip seems to go on getting worse. And the constant bombardment of the Palestinians by the Israeli military looks very like a war crime to me. Even Lord ‘call me Dave’ Cameron seems to think that too many Palestinians are being killed. Well spotted!
Equally the struggle against the Russian troops in the Ukraine seems to have ground to a stalemate. It is two years since we were in Kiev, and two years next month since the Russians invaded. It’s not clear to me that a visit from Rishi Sunak will help them much. But this is very much a year of elections and photo-opportunities. Whether military support for Ukraine will survive the coming election in the States [and elsewhere] is one more thing to pray about.
The state of the nation
On the domestic front the big news story is the Great Post Office scandal. The appalling story has [re]surfaced as a result of a four-part drama on ITV. The most influential tv drama since Cathy Come Home in the mid-sixties. It seems clear that the Post Office continued to hound and prosecute sub-postmasters for more than a decade after they had been told that their Horizon computer system was faulty. And that they concealed the fact that hundreds of prosecutions were taking place. While individual sub-postmasters were given the impression that their’s was an isolated case. Furthermore it seems likely that during this period the Post Office were substantially underpaying their tax liabilities and substantially overpaying their own executives.
Two little facts have emerged. According to a report in the Church Times, Ms Paula Vennells, the former CEO of the Post Office, and an ordained priest in the Church of England, was on the short-list of candidates to become the Bishop of London when the Rt Revd Richard Chartres retired. ‘Dim’ and ‘over-promoted’ is an [anonymous] friend’s comment in today’s press. Meanwhile Fujitsu, the Japanese company responsible for developing the Horizon system, have to date been deafeningly silent. But they continue to hoover up tens of millions of pounds worth of contracts from the British government. And their former CEO is married to a Tory MP, who is currently Minister for Education.
Not quite relatedly, we are also reading a lot about Baroness Mone, aka Baroness Bra, ennobled by David Cameron, who used her parliamentary connections to secure a £200-plus million contract for PPE during the COVID crisis. The contract gave her and her children a £67 million profit, and much of the material supplied was below standard and passed directly into landfill sites. Which speaks volumes about Cameron’s chumocracy. Very sadly, there is something rotten about the way this country is governed.
Looking ahead
We will go south for the grand-children’s half-term next month. And after that we will go [back] to Grenoble to do another locum spell over Lent and Easter. Before that I must get back into walking round the hill [Arthur’s Seat] every day. Photos of today’s circuit are above and below. And I’m going to enjoy re-reading Evelyn Waugh’s Men at Arms trilogy. And to look at a 2001 book by the American theologian Alan E. Lewis: Between Cross and Resurrection: a theology of Holy Saturday.
January 2024
Through a glass darkly 