The sure and certain knowledge of your own impending mortality affects people in different ways. For some the surety of knowing that they have started on their final slow walk into the arms of the Reaper sets them to quiet contemplation and a conscious effort to make peach with the world. For others, suddenly the meaning of Carpe Diem becomes all too clear; time is a racin’ and they have so much to do and so little time if they are to rest, at the last, fulfilled.
This is, I think, what Frank Herbert was alluding to when he wrote; “To suspect your own mortality is to know the beginning of terror, to learn irrefutably that you are mortal is to know the end of terror.
I strongly object to your characterisaton of Blair’s initiatives as “market-led”: They are cronyism-led, or “corporatist” to use the older term. The day Tony Blair embraces the free market, rather than the allocation of privilege to his business cronies will be the day that I bow down and worship Baal. Fortunately, it is more likely that the Pope will be worshipping Baal before I am on those grounds.
Thanks so much for this. I’ve been unable to effectively articulate my feelings for Blair and his style of government, but now you’ve pretty much done it for me. Any chance you could do John Reid next?