Wake up to the sound of rain on the tiles of the terrace. Go to check the radar on the iPad and draw a blank page. No internet. Does that mean no power? Seems so. Reflect that a day squeezed in between Friday the thirteenth and the Ides of March is likely to have some negativity attached. But in all fairness can think of few places with a happier winter climate, which is a large part of why we’re here - although the culture is at least as significant. And the electricity is back before it’s time to make coffee - though we could always have boiled water on a gas burner.
Today is the twelfth anniversary of the death of Tony Benn, patriarch of the Labour left, orator, anti-war campaigner. He spent over fifty years as an MP and eventually retired in order to “have more time for politics “. There are a number of memorial tributes online today including one from journalist Owen Jones, who included this photograph of himself with the eighty-eight year old Benn at an event in London in November 2013, Benn’s second last public appearance. A photograph of particular interest to us because we were there, actually in the front row as a result of my having mistaken the starting time so that we arrived very early.
We were in Malta at the time of Benn’s death and I reflected on the London event and posted :
“We knew then that we were lucky and it might well be our last chance. A beacon of the left, yes, but beyond that a man of overwhelming personal integrity. No quiet retirement, though he would have been 89 next month. Certainly no ossifying of ideas or principles. As Harold Wilson quipped, he immatured with age.”
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