The antics of our political leaders before the election, and now the games of the Brits, gave CHRIS BENNETT something to think about.
"I HAVE done nothing illegal," said the British politician. Like most British politicians lately, he was squirming about the publication by the daily Telegraph of his expenses claims.
I remember some years ago, when I was working in this paper's newsroom, we had on more than one occasion office bearers in our local council who were also under some scrutiny, by this paper among others, for their conduct in the matter of openness and honesty.
Not so long ago we had the spectacle of supporters of our new president saying he had done nothing illegal. Well, actually that was never proved; but you get my point. It is not about legality; it is about humanity.
Just because something is not illegal does not mean it is right. What happened to the moral compass, and its twin brother, moral courage?
What has become of our sense of right and wrong? What became of the old fashioned idea of making a clean breast of things?
There is nobility in holding public office, whether it be here or in the mother of parliaments; a nobility that is also to be found in selfless hard work. Somehow the two go hand in hand.
The modern febrile tactic of resorting to the letter of the law is pathetic. It does little more than imply guilt on the part of the accused. As the French put it, so very neatly, “Qui s’excuse, s’accuse”. He who excuses himself, accuses himself.
A word no longer used, but like so many old words, pithy and apt, is “inwit”. It was formed in Middle English from in plus wit, the latter meaning the mind as the seat of consciousness and intelligence (we continue the same idea when we talk about native wit or we describe somebody as having a quick wit).
To have inwit meant that you had an inward sense of what was right and wrong. Think halfwit.
But enough of the thieving magpies.
Winter is with us again, which will mean wrapping up for walks on the beach. The four-thirty afternoon sky has a greyness to it, and there is almost a chill in the air. Winter is always a time for slowing down a bit, and thinking about what has gone before in the year, and what one has done; it is a time for pondering what lies in the year ahead.
Lots of great people have said some glorious things about winter. They may have been talking about the cold, hard and long winter of the northern region of our world, but we have our winters too, though they are milder and shorter.
Shakespeare’s Duke of Gloucester spoke of his ‘winter of discontent’, a marvellous expression. Incomparable in its misery, Lord Byron wrote in Don Juan of the ‘English winter, ending in July/To recommence in August’.
Here, down on the idyllic coast, the winter brings very special things. The whales, of course, are perhaps the favourites of many. They come here to be away from the Antarctic bitterness, to find safe haven to calve and school their young. Then there are the dolphins and the sardines, accompanied by all the frenzy and excitement of a festival; and, of course, the holidaymakers.
In just over a week we shall reach the winter solstice, mid-winter’s day, June 21. The sun will start its return journey to our hemisphere and the days will get longer. It never ceases to amaze me how short our winter really is.
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