I am in the middle of a blog - believe it or not - about pineapples! but it is quite late on Christmas Eve - I am affected by alcohol from a family session in the local boozer - but my jobs are done - food prepared as far as an amateur can manage - my offspring are home (almost). I am anxious about my 22 year old son - still out on the town - but he will be a doctor in 2 1/2 years time - so do I really need to fret - who would be a parent! I am thinking about my wonderful daughter - a mother of two darling girls. She is a ward sister on an acute medical ward. She is working a full overnight night shift - will not finish until 8am on Christmas Day. What an amazing contribution. So many people take things for granted. My daughter is at the coal face. So proud of you Victoria.
Christmas has been coming in our household for three weeks at least. Every year we have the same discussions. What will we do when. When will we shop. What will we buy. When do we open the presents. What to eat. When to eat it. How shall we shape our Christmas. When will we walk or swim. Maybe a bike ride or play tennis. Monopoly or Newmarket!?
Every year for at least the last twenty years we eventually come to the same conclusion - even if it is by default. We will do the same as we did last year! It is what we want. It is the conclusion we all secretly engineer. We want it to be the same. We love tradition. We love the family tradition. We love the traditions established by our parents. We replicate them - maybe in a different setting yes but essentially the same. It probably helps to define us without perhaps realising it.
More widely. The UK is not a happy place at the moment. There is a sense of anxiety. Why? In my view and in the view of many others - is because our culture and traditions seem to be under siege and are being diminished. My fellow citizens I am sure in the main are deeply conservative (small c). We value our traditions. As our Prime Minister said today in a speech to the nation - it is important we uphold/consider our Christian values as a nation. He is right. While Britain is nominally a church state - in reality it is largely secular. However it is underpinned by the values of Christianity. British people do uphold the traditions we take from hundreds of years of Christianity and they are important and valuable in our sense of well being and continuity (the simple act of singing traditional Christmas carols for instance).
The anxiety comes from the gradual erosion of freedom of speech - ground down by a right of not to be offended (thin skinned intolerance) - a sickening political correctness. The anxiety comes from the impact of immigration from the east. We know mass immigration/migration is having a dramatic effect on our country. I shall not make a response to a good or bad economic effect here/now. The underlying impact is those from the east are not in the main people who subscribe to Christian values. Cut to the chase. The Muslim faith - many would say cult - are not being quietly and reasonably assimilated into our culture. There is a feeling they want to change how we live. Many are zealous - activists - intolerant - superior in their righteousness. We know many despise how we live. Many live quite differently from us. But they want to be here because they are free here. Despite this so many Muslims seem to have little or no humility. They throw the rights and freedoms our traditions offer them back in our faces. They exploit our tolerance as weakness. Ironically we are still going majorly out of our way not to offend them - we tip toe round their sensitivities (of which there are many) at our own expense. They are running rings around us. It is desperately sad and misguided. It is making very ordinary people very wary - it makes us feel we must guard - emphasise the traditions that define us otherwise we will be overwhelmed. We are not very good at it. Sadly it is making ordinary people quietly militant - but at the same time anxious - because actually all we want is to live in peace with our deep rooted traditions and way of life.
How will it end?
Christmas has been coming in our household for three weeks at least. Every year we have the same discussions. What will we do when. When will we shop. What will we buy. When do we open the presents. What to eat. When to eat it. How shall we shape our Christmas. When will we walk or swim. Maybe a bike ride or play tennis. Monopoly or Newmarket!?
Every year for at least the last twenty years we eventually come to the same conclusion - even if it is by default. We will do the same as we did last year! It is what we want. It is the conclusion we all secretly engineer. We want it to be the same. We love tradition. We love the family tradition. We love the traditions established by our parents. We replicate them - maybe in a different setting yes but essentially the same. It probably helps to define us without perhaps realising it.
More widely. The UK is not a happy place at the moment. There is a sense of anxiety. Why? In my view and in the view of many others - is because our culture and traditions seem to be under siege and are being diminished. My fellow citizens I am sure in the main are deeply conservative (small c). We value our traditions. As our Prime Minister said today in a speech to the nation - it is important we uphold/consider our Christian values as a nation. He is right. While Britain is nominally a church state - in reality it is largely secular. However it is underpinned by the values of Christianity. British people do uphold the traditions we take from hundreds of years of Christianity and they are important and valuable in our sense of well being and continuity (the simple act of singing traditional Christmas carols for instance).
The anxiety comes from the gradual erosion of freedom of speech - ground down by a right of not to be offended (thin skinned intolerance) - a sickening political correctness. The anxiety comes from the impact of immigration from the east. We know mass immigration/migration is having a dramatic effect on our country. I shall not make a response to a good or bad economic effect here/now. The underlying impact is those from the east are not in the main people who subscribe to Christian values. Cut to the chase. The Muslim faith - many would say cult - are not being quietly and reasonably assimilated into our culture. There is a feeling they want to change how we live. Many are zealous - activists - intolerant - superior in their righteousness. We know many despise how we live. Many live quite differently from us. But they want to be here because they are free here. Despite this so many Muslims seem to have little or no humility. They throw the rights and freedoms our traditions offer them back in our faces. They exploit our tolerance as weakness. Ironically we are still going majorly out of our way not to offend them - we tip toe round their sensitivities (of which there are many) at our own expense. They are running rings around us. It is desperately sad and misguided. It is making very ordinary people very wary - it makes us feel we must guard - emphasise the traditions that define us otherwise we will be overwhelmed. We are not very good at it. Sadly it is making ordinary people quietly militant - but at the same time anxious - because actually all we want is to live in peace with our deep rooted traditions and way of life.
How will it end?
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