I think it's more than four years since I posted anything here, during which time I....Good question.

I wrote books that have not been published, and probably won't be. I watched Covid wrecking each society in the manner each society's government chose; more recently I have been watching the soap opera of the UK government, endlessly changing bums on seats hoping this would keep a hold on power - which, to do the bums justice, it has done so far.

I read about the distant but approaching war that isn't a war in UKraine, where Russia's non-invasion is needlessly destroying the insfrastructure of a neighbour and may well culminate in self-desctruction. What, after all will Russia become without its educated and resourceful young? Although, let no one kid themselves that the removal of Putin would miraculously bring peace, contrition and reconciliation. As the Russian author, Mikhail Shishkin (sensibly domiciled in Switzerland) wrote at the outset: Putin isn't the disease, he's a symptom. 

I have been having the experience of a Ukrainian family of seven people, ranging from (growing) baby to great-grandmother of 89, domiciled mostly in the flat above mine, but one with me. The younger generation speaks English, the older ones not. And through them I am getting a sense of how different their lives in peacetime were from mine: what they might consider beautiful, or entertaining, or important, or tasty. And inevitably, of how strange my city is to people who did not choose to be domiciled here (though one of them did, and I am waiting for disillusion to set in), but who are learning to navigate its strange ways, its alien bureaucracy, its multi-racial streets, its incomprehensible accents, by which I mean the native-born English ones.

A couple of days ago I went with the three oldest to Moorfields at St Anne’s Hospital in Tottenham. Moorfields is a famous hospital specialising in eyes, but its main centre in the City area has outposts at hospitals all over London. It was raining, which made the rather scruffy-looking building in the hospital complex look even more unpromising than it usually might. A sign at reception warned people in the waiting room that they should expect to be there for around three hours. They were right - but not for the reasons I feared.