Sandra Patricia Scovell 26.6.1951 – 13.11.2022

Each one of us knows a side to her and we all know her by one Christian name, Sandra. Although the name on her birth certificate is Sarah and she had three different surnames during her life, namely Bittles, Moore and finally Scovell.

We’ve all seen different sides to her character, the little girl, the teenage tomboy, the hippy, the rebel, the socialist, the worker, the wife. But I know her as the mother.

She and I went back a long, long way, even before I was born. She carried me about in her womb for nine months, right up until my birth in London.

In 1972 she and my father brought me to Belfast. Now it must have defied common sense to bring a one-year-old child into a war zone, which is very much what Belfast was. But in the long run I think they did the right thing. They managed to find a place to live that wasn’t too much affected by the Troubles.

During the course of the 70s, while my father was perfecting his work as a cartoonist, my mother was studying at the Polytechnic (which is now the University of Ulster, Jordanstown campus). She came out of it in 1980 with a BA Honours degree and the next year she started work at Belfast Gas in Corn Market.

Later she moved to London where she eventually found work as an accountant in various legal firms. She came back to Ireland in 2003 as Mrs Sandra Scovell, with her second husband Alan. And they lived happily in Downpatrick.

Unfortunately Alan died in 2008. And a few years later my mother’s health began a slow, steady decline. But that’s not to say she was suddenly housebound. No, as long as she retained a degree of independence and could still see her friends every so often, she was content.

Now she had her public side, but she was quite a private person too. She was a voracious bookworm. The books she read during her life, whether they were books she bought, library books or books she had downloaded onto her Kindle, would probably fill up a three-storey house. And they weren’t the cheap and nasty pulp fiction either. Her literary tastes ranged from science fiction and sword-and-sorcery to espionage novels to Jane Austen and Sherlock Holmes to historical fiction.

And she was well and truly into historical fact. She left dozens of history books, not to mention some 200 back issues of “History Today”.

And I must mention her artistic side. While my father and I showed our artistic side in cartoons, caricature and graphic design, my mother showed hers in knitting and embroidery. She never thought of selling her work, though. She would give it as gifts to friends and family. I myself have worn exclusive woollen sweaters at home and at school.

She was first-rate cook too. Even in times when the money just wouldn’t flow, she was always able to make a meal from the cheapest and most basic ingredients.

Cook, clothes maker, historian, wife, drinking partner, activist…

…she was my mother.

Brexit at long last!

Well, it’s finally happened! The event that I never thought would come about in my lifetime has happened. In spite of the best and worst efforts of the Remainers, Remainiacs, Remoaners, scaremongers, Eurocrats, industrial and political elites, insufferable, condescending buffoons who think they know what’s best for us, not to mention out-and-out liars and bullies, the United Kingdom has officially left the European Union.

Ever since the UK joined the European Economic Community in 1973 (along with the Irish Republic and Denmark), British relations with Brussels and Strasbourg have been anything but smooth. Over the past half century the EEC has mutated from a loose grouping of countries which shared a common market into a monstrous entity, one that is not only economic but political and is starting to become more federal and military. Being a part of that monstrosity does not suit the UK at all.

Where do I stand in all this? Well, I was born in 1971, two years before the UK joined the EEC so I have no memory at all of what life outside the EEC was like. I gradually became aware of this entity called the European Economic Community as I was entering adolescence in the early 1980s. At first I saw it as an alternative way of life and government to what I had known before. Northern Ireland, with all its troubles, a growing dole queue and an economy heading further and further down the plughole, was anything but a utopia. I learned of the benefits that membership of the EEC brought and the millions of pounds they gave to regenerate Belfast.

After 1990, however, I began to see the EEC in a different light. I already knew of their agricultural policies which had led to gross overproduction of food, especially meat, butter, milk and wine. I also knew of how overfishing was depleting stocks of fish in the North Sea. Now I was learning of their plans to become more politically cohesive, more federal, more like the USA. And the UK and Ireland were going to be sucked into it willy-nilly.

This vision of a United States of Europe did not appeal to me. Looking at the EU in its present form, all I can see is a lot of nobodies that somehow got elected as Members of the European Parliament blowing volumes of hot air. The most important of them are mostly nameless, faceless and totally unaccountable to the common folk like you and me. For every practical and sensible piece of legislation they pass there are who knows how many more that are quite pointless.

Now the UK is not entirely free of EU rules just yet. There is still a transition period which will run until the end of 2020 where politicians on all sides hammer out all the deals and deal with all the paperwork necessary and unnecessary.

How will Brexit affect me? It won’t, not directly at any rate. I’ll simply dot and carry on as I always have while being amused at all the scary predictions and worst case scenarios that failed to come true.

Brexit: confusion and disappointment

Friday 29th March 2019 is the day the United Kingdom was supposed to quit the European Union with secure deals on future trade, relationships and everything else. Now I wasn’t expecting this to be anything like a smooth transition. There were bound to be snags and snares along the way. When trying to disentangle a whole country from the web- actually it’s more like a manky ball of steel wool- that the E.U. the government of the U.K. had a monstrous job on its hands.

Well, it’s a job that Theresa May and her goons have botched. Summit after summit, debate after debate and vote after vote later and it has all come to nothing. The Daily Mail, on its front page, called this period “1000 Wasted Days”.

What I was expecting was for the U.K to be completely free of the E.U., free to set its own trade and tariffs, free to pass its own laws and free to deal with the world without any of the arbitrary rules set by faceless, unaccountable and unelected pen-pushers. But thanks in no small part to the innate self-serving nature of the buffoons we’ve elected to represent us, the U.K. s position in Europe is neither in nor out. Yes, the U.K. is still officially a member state of the E.U. and will be there until the 12th of April. But it is like a child’s milk tooth that been forced out of the gum and is hanging by a single thread.

I’m probably being churlish and idealistic here, but I’m hoping that my version of the U.K. s future will come true. My worst case scenario is one where everything is irredeemably fudged and the U.K. is shackled to the E.U. indefinitely, still shelling out millions in dead money while enjoying none of the benefits.

Brexit: 29 days later

So this is it. The United Kingdom is on the way out of the European Union. Some are hailing Brexit as a victory for the common people against the monolithic government of the EU with its plethora of faceless, unelected and unresponsive bureaucrats. Some among them see it as a poke in the eye for the forces of “globalism” and “multiculturalism”.

However, the supporters of the “Remain” campaign have for the most part fallen silent. Most of them have realised the situation is not going to change no matter how much they protest. They realise also that we’re on our way out because not enough of them got off their idle backsides to cast their votes when they had the chance. Perhaps, most importantly, there is no sign of the economic disaster that the leaders of the “Remain” campaign were predicting.

It’s true the Pound and the FTSE-100 index dropped sharply when the vote was announced, but the Pound has been stable against the Dollar since then, (up slightly from its low point of £1=$1.2887 on 7th July to £1=$1.3101 today). The FTSE-100 recovered from its jitters of 24 June within a few days and today closed up 30.59 points at 6730.48.

Indeed, Britain’s industry is performing as well as ever and there has been a decline in the unemployment rate.

Now one would think that quitting the EU would be a fairly straightforward matter, one of just clearing your desk and warehouse and saying goodbye. Unfortunately this operation is run by politicians and bureaucrats and it will be a costly and convoluted affair, one which neither our new Prime Minister Theresa May, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel nor anyone else is looking forward to.

Digital One is here at last

Digital One is a clutch of radio stations on DAB, or multiplex, that has been broadcasting to Britain for more than ten years. It includes Classic FM, TalkSport and Planet Rock. But because of “frequency scarcity” and “regulatory issues”, two arcane and abstruse reasons which I can’t be bothered to investigate, Digital One was not available in Northern Ireland until last month.

Of the fourteen stations in this multiplex, BFBS is the one I tune into most often. That’s not to say I can’t pick it up on FM;  I can, but the signal from Ballykinlar is very weak in Downpatrick. It takes very careful positioning of the radio and the extended aerial for the signal to come through and even then there’s still a lot of hissing. With DAB I have no such hassle. I don’t have to be close to an army base to get decent reception.

100,000 remaniacs

It was two years ago today that the electorate of the United Kingdom voted to quit the European Union.  The vote, admittedly, was quite narrow — 51.9% voted to leave — but it was still a majority.

This afternoon something astonishing happened in London.  About a hundred thousand people descended on the centre of the city in a protest.  Some were demanding a second referendum, some were calling for the Brexit process to be halted and all were voicing their displeasure at the government for caving in to the majority.

To these remoaners and remaniacs I have this to say: You as U.K. citizens have a right to voice your displeasure but you’re wasting your time.  The Brexit process is too far advanced and, as I’ve said in previous posts, there would be no need to do this if more of you had actually got off your backsides and cast your votes two years ago.

Brexit: Nine Months On

This afternoon, after many delays, negotiations and calls from many to “get on with it” the Prime Minister Theresa May has sent a document to European Commission President Donald Tusk informing them of the U.K.’s intention of quitting the European Union. After this will be two years of political and bureaucratic wrangling, the basic details of which can be found in this clipping from the Daily Telegraph.

By 29th March 2019, if everything goes to plan, the U.K. will be free of all the rules and restrictions of the European Union.

Now I don’t normally take much interest in politics and I didn’t think I’d be rebooting my blog with political posts, but the U.K.’s exit from the European Union is a major milestone. I always knew the U.K. was a member state of the E.E.C., an organization which would morph into the European Union. I was also aware of how sometimes U.K. law could be overruled by the European Court in Strasbourg. I was further aware that many people, especially conservatives, disliked the way things were vis à vis Europe and believed that Britain was better off outside. What I didn’t know until quite recently was that the U.K. was dragged into the E.U. in 1973 by the government of Edward Heath with none of the people being asked. (To be fair, the people did get a referendum in 1975 and they voted by roughly two to one to stay in the E.U.)

I must also mention the monolithic bureaucracy, the waste of time, money and paper that keeps it running and the unnumbered Eurocrats who are accountable to nobody. And what of the seventy-three M.E.P.s who represent the U.K.? Did they ever have any influence at all in Brussels?

Now there’s the single currency and all the problems that have come with it and I thank all the politicians on our side who kept the U.K. of it.

All in all the E.U. is a vast sinking ship and the U.K. is the rat deserting it.

P.S. I said in a previous post that Iceland had applied to join the E.U. In fact, although they began talks for their accession to the E.U. in 2010, they shelved plans in March 2015.

Brexit: 29 days later

So this is it. The United Kingdom is on the way out of the European Union. Some are hailing Brexit as a victory for the common people against the monolithic government of the EU with its plethora of faceless, unelected and unresponsive bureaucrats. Some among them see it as a poke in the eye for the forces of “globalism” and “multiculturalism”.

However, the supporters of the “Remain” campaign have for the most part fallen silent. Most of them have realised the situation is not going to change no matter how much they protest. They realise also that we’re on our way out because not enough of them got off their idle backsides to cast their votes when they had the chance. Perhaps, most importantly, there is no sign of the economic disaster that the leaders of the “Remain” campaign were predicting.

It’s true the Pound and the FTSE-100 index dropped sharply when the vote was announced, but the Pound has been stable against the Dollar since then, (up slightly from its low point of £1=$1.2887 on 7th July to £1=$1.3101 today). The FTSE-100 recovered from its jitters of 24 June within a few days and today closed up 30.59 points at 6730.48.

Indeed, Britain’s industry is performing as well as ever and there has been a decline in the unemployment rate.

Now one would think that quitting the EU would be a fairly straightforward matter, one of just clearing your desk and warehouse and saying goodbye. Unfortunately this operation is run by politicians and bureaucrats and it will be a costly and convoluted affair, one which neither our new Prime Minister Theresa May, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel nor anyone else is looking forward to.

Brexit seven days on

10:00p.m. 30th June 2016 and it has been exactly one week since the polling stations in the U.K. closed and the votes began to be counted. Early the next morning the results were announced: 48.1% Remain, 51.9% Leave.

The last seven days have been extraordinary. David Cameron is resigning as Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party and the remaining European leaders are telling Britain to make their exit as quick as possible.

Now, the Scots and the Northern Irish aren’t too happy about this. The vote in Northern Ireland was 56% Remain and the desire to Remain was strongest in Scotland with 62% voting to stay. So with the certainty of being yanked out of the cosy European Union against their will it’s easy to understand why there are protests and calls for a second referendum. In Scotland’s case there are also calls for independence from the U.K..

The youth of the U.K.are also upset. The percentage of those aged 18 to 24 who voted Remain was estimated to be 75%. Now if more of them had taken the trouble to vote then the Remain camp would have won, David Cameron would still be in No.10 Downing Street and it would be business as usual for the U.K. and the rest of the E.U..

But while the turnout for this poll was quite high- 72%- the turnout for those aged between 18 and 24 was a paltry 36%.

If you are in that age group and you voted Remain, well, I’m sorry, but you’re in a minority of spirited young people who actually care about the future of your country.

As for the sixty-four percent of young people who were registered to vote and had their polling cards ready but didn’t bother their backsides going out to cast their vote, you are part of the reason we are on our way out.

Brexit: 23/6/2016

The events of the past seventy-two hours have given me a grand opportunity to reboot my blog which has been idle for the past three years. It’s a string of events that I never thought would come about, something that numerous people have been campaigning for and dreaming about for more than forty years. I am, of course, talking about Brexit.

Over the past few months there’s been intense debate about the European Union and the United Kingdom’s place in it and it’s been brought about by the Prime Minister David Cameron. On February 20th he called for a referendum to ask the people of the UK whether they want to leave or stay in the EU, and this referendum is something that so many people on every walk of life have been wanting for years.

When the UK joined the European Economic Community, along with the Republic of Ireland and Denmark in 1973, it was a loose grouping of countries who traded with each other in mutual friendship and trust. Nine nations could swap money, goods and workers with each other without the usual boundaries and restrictions. Over the next twenty years, however, the eurocrats in Brussels took more and more governing powers away from the member states.

By 1995 the European Union had swelled to fifteen states, and since the Soviet Union disintegrated and the Iron Curtain came down more and more states wanted to join. There were signs that the EU could evolve into a single federal state like the USA, but Europe was never meant to be anything like that. Whatever the top brass in Brussels wanted has failed to come true. Today the EU has become like a cross between the Hydra (the giant nine-headed serpent that Hercules fought) and Victor Frankenstein’s monster. It comprises twenty-eight states and twenty-eight economies moving at as many different speeds, some managing to stay afloat and others simply drowning in debt. And yet at least seven more states, including Turkey and Iceland, want to join.

The economic meltdown of 2007 and 2008 had a grave impact, not just on Europe and the USA but on the whole world, and it’s a meltdown from which the world has still not recovered. Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia, which had recently joined the EU in the hope of getting richer, suffered badly but not as badly as Greece. Greece’s woes were made worse in 2015 by a tidal wave of migrants fleeing the fighting in Syria. Italy’s problems were likewise worsened by waves of migrants fleeing the anarchy in Libya.

David Cameron’s decision to hold a referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU in February was welcomed by everybody for and against the EU. But he was doing deals with Brussels to get special status in the Union for the UK (whatever that means) and he was really seeking approval from the public and to appease his opponents within the Conservative Party.

As March, April and May went on, the campaigning intensified, with the Leave and the Remain camps blowing volumes of hot air about their respective causes. But people’s perspectives on the referendum were blurred by the constant sensational headlines that were splashed across the tabloid papers. The worst of them came from the Remain campaign with David Cameron and Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne adding to it. Unemployment will rise, prices will skyrocket, no more money for the NHS or other social services, Britain will lose vital foreign investment, Britain will lose its influence in the world…

Countless business leaders tried to sway the electorate to remain, but the majority of people could see these men had a vested interest in staying in the EU and didn’t care a bean about the ordinary folk. US President Barack Obama didn’t do much better in trying to influence voters to remain. He was told quite bluntly to mind his own business. Former Prime Ministers Sir John Major from the Conservative side and Labour’s Tony Blair united to tell the people that everybody of every political persuasion would be better off in the EU.

But their combined efforts (and by that I mean coercion, scaremongering and bullying) all came to nothing. In the early hours of Friday June 24th the final results were confirmed. 48.1% voted to remain in the EU, 51.9% voted to leave.

The greatest loser here is David Cameron. What started out as a ruse to get the whole of the Conservative Party on his side and silence the Euro-sceptics has blown up in his face and culminated in his resignation as Prime Minister. Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Labour Party, is also under pressure to step down for not backing the Remain campaign vigorously enough. Nicola Sturgeon, the First Minister of Scotland and leader of the Scottish National Party, is calling for a second referendum on Scottish independence. Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel and France’s President François Hollande both say it’s a sad day for us all and the faceless brigade in Brussels say that the British had better make their exit from the EU fast. Oh, and Spain still wants Gibraltar back.

As for Northern Ireland, leaving the EU will impact on relations with the Irish Republic, but there won’t be a return to the stringent border controls that existed during the Troubles.

It will be interesting to see how things pan out, especially with the remaining twenty-seven member states of the EU. There are many elements in those countries, especially in Greece, France, the Netherlands and Sweden, who are calling for a referendum in their own countries.

As for me, it remains to be seen how Brexit will affect me. I’ve lived all my life in the United Kingdom and the only other EU member state I’ve ever visited is the Irish Republic. I have no contacts in any other EU state and I have no plans to go abroad. I’m as clueless as anyone about what the future outside the EU will hold. All I can do is keep living and hope for the best.

“Savoir se libérer n’est rien; l’ardu, c’est savoir être libre.”
André Gide