Thursday 27 September 2018
Thursday
One of the difficult things when one is retired is to keep track of the days of the week. I rushed to sit down and watch Michael Palin in North Korea last evening thinking it was Thursday. That was the bad news. The good news was that at least it meant that I didn't miss Joanna Lumley on the Silk Road - last night going through Iran.
My neighbour came round this morning - she, like me, is well travelled - and we both agreed that we were brought up to believe that nobody in the world had buildings like our cathedrals - that we here in this country had the best everything.
Then you see the countries on the Silk Road - the buildings - ruins many of them but still spectacular- and above all the colour and the pattern everywhere. I must say that the people in Iran looked happy enough with their life style, as indeed do the people in North Korea. Yes, I know there is repression as there is in so many places in the world. We are lucky here to have so much freedom and to not live in constant fear of being arrested, but it is good to see these places and to see them opening up slowly. That can only be a good thing. It is to be hoped that the woman who has been in prison in Iran will be released before long. She was allowed three days of freedom in order to see her daughter; going back to prison after that must have been hell.
Enough of that - the sun has shone today but the wind is quite strong and we certainly have not had the temperatures they have had down South. Now it is going to turn colder everywhere - ah, Winter draws on.
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13 comments:
Definitely aware of the seasons changing up here in the NE Scotland. Wind appears to be back permanently, rain too but not that cold yet. I am never sure what day it is either!
It was warm here today but the minute the sun moved round and left my windows in the shade, I felt a drop in temperature.
Those temples in Iran were so beautiful - but I still think our cathedrals are beautiful too in a different way. It is good to know that the lives of the people in Iran and other nations are beginning to improve but I hope we were getting a true picture from the TV programmes.
By the way, tomorrow is Friday. Just checked the day and date in the corner of my laptop screen!
Thanks Heather for the date reminder!! I have to think hard every day to make sure I have the right day. It's comforting to know I am not the only one.
We are getting some cooler weather also. It was only 98 today ! ! ! I looked it up and it was 36 ?
cheers, parsnip and badger
I watched Palin in Korea last night and to be honest found it quite frustrating. So much of it was artificial and clearly stage managed by the authorities that there was little opportunity to really see how people live their daily lives and in particular, how they genuinely feel. He had a lovely and bubbly young girl with him most of the time and I thought that they formed quite a bond between them but his attempts to draw honest opinions from her resulted in very little. No - I found the programme frustrating.
You read The Times daily, don't you? That should give you a hint at what day of the week it is :-) Whenever we have a bank holiday mid-week, I have to remind myself of the day after, that it is not Monday! Usually, I have very regular patterns for each day of the week, as I work at different clients' offices on Tues-Wed and Thurs-Fri, but when I am on holiday, I often forget what day it is, too.
My weekly paper has featured articles about North Korea some years ago. The journalist also had difficulties in getting close to anyone; he was constantly under supervision by the authorities, and people would speak to him alright, but only voicing their official opinions.
As for greatness, does not every country bring up their children to think theirs is the best in the world? Germany is an exception - we will never get over what happened in the years 1933-1945.
I can't even find my winter drawers, I'm not sure which box I packed them in!
Well I watched Palin last night and loved the gentle way he looked at the country. The interpreter gave a whole new interpretation as to how they view their 'leaders'. The people and the leaders are one and the same, you cannot criticise yourself! Beautiful countryside with empty roads, sadly because of a poor economy. They want so much in North Korea but of course we only saw the 'good' side, talk of a famine was not really gone into.
I suppose that thinking our own country's buildings the best is no more unreasonable than parents thinking that their children are lovelier than other people's.
An hour or so after I posted the above comment, I came across a letter in my Daily Telegraph from a lady who had had two tourist holidays in North Korea in the last eight years. She felt that the programmes gave a false impression of the country. She said that it only takes a day or two to realise that something is very wrong and that everything is a set up. What the tourists saw was only what the authorities wanted them to see. The flats that Palin was so impressed with in the first programme are in very poor condition and contain radios which are permanently tuned into the only (state) station. The food he was eating was tourist food in "tourists only" restaurants.
For me last night the programme did a good job of hiding a lot of sinister state management.
It is Autumn and there are many pleasant days and weeks before winter.
I think you are absolutely right about the programme and North Korea = there is no doubt about that. But the people were lovely and obviously the two guides were going to be people trained by the authorities to say the 'right' thing and toe the official line. But the very fact that they were allowed to speak on our television is at least a break through and hopefully the first of many to come.
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