April splendour

April, after July, is the driest month in Britain. And thus it has proved this year, with the bluebells in our garden (stolen from the Forest of Dean more than 30 years ago by my second wife), coming into flower a full 3 weeks early in the almost summer-like conditions we have now enjoyed for several weeks.

This morning, with the temperature hitting 21 degrees by 10 am, I took an hour-long walk through our local park, collecting recyclables along the way. I filled nearly 2/3 of a green sack with little difficulty, though I should report that the richest pickings were to be had on my own street and the one adjacent.

This afternoon, while I wait for the gas people to come to service our central heating, I shall edit one of my short stories and get on with my reading of Robert Tressell's classic "The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists", bible for the pioneering socialists of the early 20th century, and still popular today, coming in at number 62 in a poll of "Britain's 100 best loved books". Socialism itself isn't very popular in Britain these days. We're too well off, with our smart phones and wide screen TVs, to bother about the fact that a tiny minority of people still control most of the wealth and own most of the land. The conditions for revolution do exist in Syria, however, where the people are beginning to organise seriously to bring down a regime where free speech has been banned for over 50 years, and arrest and detention without charge or trial is commonplace.

POWER TO THE ORDINARY CITIZENS OF SYRIA!
THROW OFF THE YOLKS OF OPPRESSION!