{"id":8235,"date":"2022-12-27T10:33:52","date_gmt":"2022-12-27T10:33:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=8235"},"modified":"2022-12-27T10:33:52","modified_gmt":"2022-12-27T10:33:52","slug":"at-one-with-nineveh-and-tyre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2022\/12\/27\/at-one-with-nineveh-and-tyre\/","title":{"rendered":"At one with Nineveh and Tyre?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Times on July 17th 1897 published Kipling's poem <em>R<\/em><i>essional. \u00a0<\/i>This includes the lines<i>:<\/i><\/p>\n<div>... The tumult and the shouting dies;<br \/>\nThe Captains and the Kings depart:<br \/>\nStill stands Thine ancient sacrifice,<br \/>\nAn humble and a contrite heart.<br \/>\n...<br \/>\nFar-called, our navies melt away;<br \/>\nOn dune and headland sinks the fire:<br \/>\nLo, all our pomp of yesterday<br \/>\nIs one with Nineveh and Tyre! ...<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>This was a reflection on the transience of empire written at the time of Queen Victoria's Jubilee.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>There is something of a recessional air around these days; with many in the country fretting over the challenges we face, others (a small but vocal minority) increasingly uncomfortable with much of our history, and more (particularly younger folk) rather fearful of the future. \u00a0And to my surprise it has got to me. \u00a0My normally sunny self has clouded over. \u00a0It might be winter: grey and cold out there. \u00a0Perhaps it's my age: it's getting harder to pretend anymore that I'm still 56. \u00a0Perhaps it's because our society's great institutions seems a lot less competent than they did. \u00a0Confronted with the question \"<em>What do we do really well?\", <\/em>the answers seem uncertain<em>.<\/em> \u00a0A few examples:<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\u00a0 \u2013 We have been effective at building wind farms in the seas surrounding us, but slow at connecting them to an electricity grid that we have failed to upgrade to deal with the realities of having very many diverse sources of power.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\u00a0 \u2013 We are pathetically poor at insulating our existing housing stock whilst continuing to build shoddy new properties and slow at bringing building regulations up to required levels.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\u00a0 \u2013 We have spent 30+ years dithering about the role of nuclear power and so we now have a much reduced base load of continually-available power and are utterly reliant on increasingly expensive gas.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\u00a0 \u2013 The health service, whilst still being regarded by those who only England know as \"the best in the world\" is itself in intensive care with not enough people caring for it or caring about the need to care for it.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>And so on. \u00a0Well this is probably overblown as England has been going to the dogs since at least the 12th Century \u2013 and maybe it is time to take the idea of the Normans paying reparations for the damage they did more seriously. \u00a0But it does beg the question: <em>what do we do really well?<\/em><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>My only response for now is artisanal cheese making. \u00a0No country in the world surely matches us which is something to celebrate.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>That's it for 2022. \u00a0I'm hoping for a sunnier 2023 in every sense ...<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Times on July 17th 1897 published Kipling's poem Ressional. \u00a0This includes the lines: ... The tumult and the shouting dies; The Captains and the Kings depart: Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice, An humble and a contrite heart. ... Far-called,...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8235\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}