It has been an intense month for international events, most emanating from North America. As I write it seems that there may be a trade war brewing thanks to the tariffs Trump’s government wants to impose on Canada, Mexico and China. Lenin is reputed to have said “there are decades when nothing happens, and then weeks when decades happen”. That is how January felt to me. I begin this blog with some reflections on the situation the world finds itself in. Then, because this is all quite depressing, and beyond my control, I will move on to events, books and other things that have made life in Norwich worthwhile.

The stream of executive orders emanating from Washington are deeply troubling. Some of the commentators say this is on purpose, if enough is proposed then people won’t be able to keep up, and things will slip through the cracks. They are going to materially affect the livelihoods of many friends and colleagues.

The biggest concern in my world is what is going to happen to US overseas development assistance (ODA). On 20th January Trump issued an order that requires a

“90-day pause in United States foreign development assistance for assessment of programmatic efficiencies and consistency with United States foreign policy. … All … heads with responsibility for United States foreign development assistance programs shall immediately pause new obligations and disbursements of development assistance funds.”

On Friday 24th January ‘the US State Department issued a “stop-work” order for all existing foreign assistance’. It seems some orders may have been lifted and there have been other waivers. My small survey of people in the field suggests it is very confusing.

We hope there will be more clarity soon, but this is very damaging. It seems programmes are grinding to a halt; people will not be paid from February; and, even if there is a reversal of some of the orders, the impact on people’s work and lives will be profound. There was an example in the Guardian:

“The system for monitoring global food crises appears to have been suspended after President Donald Trump’s executive order froze US foreign aid. The website for the US-funded famine early warning systems network (Fews Net) was not accessible on Friday. A banner said reports and data were “currently unavailable” without elaborating. Fews Net is considered the most important tool for judging levels of hunger and preventing deadly famines”

I will try to make sense of this for future posts. Let me end with a quote from Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592), a philosopher of the French Renaissance. He wrote: “and upon the highest throne in the world, we are seated, still, upon our arses”. We would all do well to think on that!

On to other topics. The family went to see A Complete Unknown, a Biopic of Bob Dylan. Dylan is a part of the soundtrack of my life and so it was a treat to see this excellent film. It, perhaps, raised more questions than it answered, it focussed entirely on his days as a folk hero, from his arrival in New York and his making his way in that milieu and age to his infamous performance at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965.

Dylan was born in Duluth, Minnesota as Robert Allen Zimmerman in a Jewish family that moved to the town of Hibbing where he grew up. He moved to New York when he was 19, where the film takes up the story. It was good to see the characters of Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie and Joan Baez developed. I recommend it as an excellent story, although I would have liked more of the back story, and some of the other characters such as Joan Baez to take a more prominent role. I wonder what Dylan makes of the present US political situation.

Some months ago, Rowan and I went to see Girl From The North Country at the Theatre Royal. Interestingly it was only the two of us that wanted to go. This show reimagined 20 legendary songs of Bob Dylan, including “Forever Young,” “All Along The Watchtower,” “Hurricane,” and “Like A Rolling Stone.”

Ailsa and I were back at the Theatre a few days ago to see Singin’ in the Rain. The production was staged by the Norfolk and Norwich Operatic Society (NNOS) to celebrate its 100th year. If one makes allowances for it being an amateur production, then it was a real treat. One or two of the cast were a little weak but what they lacked in ability they made up for in enthusiasm.

I am making very good use of the inter library loan system here in Norwich. I look at the book reviews in the two papers I get each week, the Saturday Guardian and the Observer. If there are books I would like to look at and possibly read, I fill an interlibrary loan form, which costs a mere 60p per book, and wait for them to be delivered to our local library. I’m afraid I occasionally go a bit overboard and currently have at least a dozen books waiting to be assessed for their readability.

I recently finished Sebastian Junger’s ‘In the Time of my Dying: How I Came Face to Face with the Idea of an Afterlife’, 2024, Harper Collins, London. Junger suffered a ruptured aneurysm in the pancreatic artery and thanks to good luck and amazing medical interventions he survived. The last sentences in the book are:

‘we are all on the side of a mountain shocked by how fast it’s gotten dark; the only question is whether we are with people we love or not. There is no other thing – no belief or religion or faith – there is just that. Just the knowledge that when we finally close our eyes, someone will be there to watch over us into that great soaring night’.

Junger comes to this conclusion by a careful examination of the evidence which includes many reports of near-death experiences. He draws science into the argument. The conclusion I come to having read this book is that when we die, we simply die, more interesting and relevant may be the ‘how’ we die. I had reason to write to a friend who was on this journey, and I quoted Dylan Thomas:

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day:
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Sadly, at the end of January, I learnt of her death: Tash Allain was a yoga teacher, musician and altogether exceptional person. She had been dealing with cancer for some years and died far too young, in her 30s! A few days later I was informed of the death of Wayne Haves, the accountant who did my tax returns in Waterloo, he was in his early 60s. He was always calm and collected as I panicked! I was filing returns in three jurisdictions. I pay tribute to two people I appreciated.

Finally, to mention a very moving book that I read about and ordered from Bookbugs and Dragontales, my favourite Norwich Bookshop. Meadowlands Dawn by Jo Beall, Epoque Press, 2024, begins with the detention of Verity, an anti-apartheid activist in 1980s Durban and ends with her returning to the city 30 years later. Jo was part of our circle in 1985 before she went into exile.

The book has a ‘no holds barred’ description of what it was like to be held in solitary confinement, the brutality and unbending bureaucracy. The character revisits the city to try to make sense of events, and the message I took from it is, as Junger said “There is no other thing – no belief or religion or faith – there is just that.” It is well written and brought back many memories of that stressful period in South Africa’s history.