Pancake Day

There is sliced banana, a shmear of Nutella,
and small shavings of vanilla ice-cream
between these two pancakes. 

Today was Shrove Tuesday, also called Pancake Day in the UK. Spiritually speaking it's the day before Ash Wednesday - the first day of Lent. So what's Lent? It's 40 days of solemn reflection when Christians abstain from certain foods, festivities and celebrations. It is supposed to replicate Jesus' sojourn for 40 days in the desert before his ultimate sacrifice (and resurrection). And then they have a massive celebration for Easter. 

Nothing to do with me, right? Wrong. First of all I grew up in England and Pancake Day meant pancakes for tea in the same way as Guy Fawkes meant Bonfire Night and fireworks. But I like to go deeper with religious traditions as everything always leads back in some way to pre-religion and the agricultural year. I'm all about finding the things that bind us, rather than what makes us different and I especially like the rational connections to nature and the natural world. This is where I personally find God. 

It is no coincidence that Shrove Tuesday is a bit of a feast, Purim has a big festive meal, and Mardi Gras and Carnival all fall in the early spring. (Sorry I don't know enough about the Muslim calender.) At this time of year everyone needed to clear out whatever was left in the winter storehouses. They used up all the food in an enormous binge-out and gave the the place a good spring clean. They were then ready for the first harvest of the year - the barley harvest in the Middle East - celebrated a few weeks later at Easter and Pesach (Passover) time. 

The religious significance of these festivals were tagged on later. 

They're forecasting snow in Jerusalem tomorrow. After a couple of weeks of spring, winter has returned with a vengeance. Of course the snow won't settle and snow days are irrelevant now that school is on Zoom. However, I made an emergency run to the supermarket to stock up on supplies for the duration. 

Tonight DD and I had a bit of a pinukiada. I just heard that word for the first time today. Pinuk means pamper or treat in Hebrew. In the way that a multi-sport sports day is called an olympiada, a multi- pinuk evening can be called a pinukiada. 

We ate pancakes. I found tiny jars of Nutella for DD. We don't use it at all otherwise, so I'd have had an almost full jar of Nutella in the fridge until next year. Next to the almost full jar of Dulce Deleche that we bought for her to make ice-cream on a school zoom activity. Not that we're such healthy eaters. I never met a carbohydrate I didn't like but we're not particulalry into sweets. Our poisons of choice are crisps, chips, pasta, and all thngs savoury. 

I actually like my pancakes with salt and lemon juice. Shoot me, I don't care. 

And now we're full and ready to eat less until the next big festive celebration. As Purim is virtually cancelled again this year (only nuclear families are allowed to meet for the festive meal), I guess we're doing Lent. 

A Monarchy in Crisis

One of my favourite books that I got for my
Bat Mitzva and have kept all these years. 

I've always been a staunch Monarchist. I love the pomp and ceremony. It adds to the unique flavour of the UK. The Monarchy brings in tourist revenue. It emphasizes a connection to other Commonwealth countries, ties which can only be beneficial. I like that ordinary people who do extraordinary things can be rewarded with a knighthood - a purely honorary title with no cash prize. 

The Queen has been a model of dignity, duty, and good manners. In good times and in bad the British public enjoys her support and encouragement via television broadcasts. The Queen's speeches are unifying in a way that only football and natural disasters can compare (and we don't have street parties for natural disasters).

My attitude thus far has been that they do their jobs and I do mine. All careers have pluses and  minuses and there are plenty of overpaid civil servants, that's just the way it is. But now I'm changing my mind. 

"The Queen successfully lobbied the government to change a draft law in order to conceal her “embarrassing” private wealth from the public, according to documents discovered by the Guardian."

Is it acceptable that a woman who owns vast swathes of the country and is paid from taxpayers' money, should be able to hide the fact that she is wealthy to the tune of billions of pounds? 

Last year the Duchy of Cornwall made £21 million profit which went straight to Prince Charles' private purse. Last March (arguably before we knew the extent of the economic crisis to come) he raised rents on the Isle of Scilly, of which he owns most of it. Some leasholders have seen their rents increase from less than £100 a year to arounf £7000 a year in the space of a few years. 

The 1967 Leasehold Reform Act gave leaseholders the right to buy their freehold at a price calculated according to set guidelines. This law does not apply to land owned by the Duchy of Cornwall. Leasehold rents are usually a nominal yearly charge but it means that when the lease is up, the land and your property, and any improvements you made, all revert to the freeholder. You have nothing to bequeath your children, you have no equity and you cannot get a mortgage on leaseholds with few years to run. And certainly no one is going to buy a property with less than a 99 year lease so you can't sell and move somewhere else. 

Prince Charles owns four palatial residences in England, Scotland and Wales, for his family of two. This is a complete throwback to when the world had a quarter of its present population and the poor "knew their place". Do we really want a king who lives so much in the past that he hires a man to dress him in the morning and put toothpase on his toothbrush? Is this sort of extravagant lifestyle at the expense of the working people going to be a model that we can repsect? Are we going to look to King Charles for support in times of crisis? I think not. 

Then we have the arrogant, entitlement of Andrew who in any other role, would have been fired without keeping all the perks of the job, incuding living in a grace-and-favour mansion. 

Harry and Meghan are playing at being Prince and Princess of LA. She says, "we are not ranked, we are linked," whilst fiercely retaining her HRH and Duchess titles. She sues photographers for publishing a photo of the back of her baby's hooded head but releases photos of other people's children when she visits a school during lockdown where the parents aren't even allowed to enter. And lies to the court in another of  their multiple and potentially money-making law suits. Whilst at every opportunity lecturing us about our responsibility to heal the planet (from their 16-bathroom mansion) and being kind to one another (although not to her own father, obviously). 

It's not Andrew and Harry that bring down the Monarchy. Every family has rogue members. They are no longer working Royals (even though Harry thinks he still is) and we don't have to see or hear from them (except that Harry and Meghan haven't quite got the hang of the privacy they craved and so we do see and hear from them. A lot). The complaint is that we the public, are still paying for their extravagant lifestyles, directly or indirectly, and the Queen and Prince Charles continue to fascilitate this violation of privelege. This is not just not a parent and grandparent supporting children, This is public employees abusing their position which, it seems, is above the law. 

The covid pandemic and ensuing economic crisis has made extreme privelege and extravagance much more of an issue than it ever was. With internet informaton, nothing can be hidden from the masses. We need a fresh start with a new approach to the British Monarchy. 

I would like to see Prince Charles stand down and let William and Kate become the next King and Queen (or whatever title she gets). The civil list should be restricted to them and them only. (It's a fallacy that public appearances by other Royals bring in any extra revenue for the charities they patronise.) King William would be the figurehead for all the three military branches. If they send other family members on official visits, they should be paid a daily rate - same as everyone who travels for work. 

Other members of the family can keep whatever properties they own if they can afford them - same as all other stately home owners. But leaseholders living on their lands must have the same rights to buy their freeholds as any other citizen. Grace-and-favour properties belonging to the crown should be subject to rent with the revenue going to the public purse. 

 Save the Monarchy but make it real for the 21st Century. 

Reasons 2B Cheerful

Spring is in the air

 I started this new blog and then neglected it. I almost decided to transfer the posts here back to Midlife Singlemum and just change the name. However, I do want a clean break and a completely new image, not to mention the challenge of living up to the name Panache. Spring has arrived so I'm giving Midlife Panache another go and I'm long overdue for a R2BC post. 

1 Fully Vaccinated

I got my second shot exactly three weeks after the first. The place was as empty as it was the first time so despite arriving half an hour early, I went straight into one of the vaccination booths. This time while waiting for 15 minutes before leaving, a staff member came round and asked all of the 20 or so waitees if we were feeling OK. I was impressed with that. The drive-through testing centre has been moved from the car park opposite the vaccination centre in the Jerusalem Arena, so I was able to get a taxi outside the door without worrying that it would take 20 minutes of meter time to leave the stadium-arena campus. Apart from flushed cheeks later in the evening (like a fever could break out but didn't), I had no side effcts at all. It's now two weeks later and I consider myself fully vaccintated and 95% safe - although I'm not exactly sure what that means. 

2 Spring

We really didn't have much of a winter this year. The temperature has hovvered between 15C and 20C since the beginning of December with only a few days falling below 15C and a few rain storms lasting a couple of days each. But now we're firmly back in the 20s and it really does feel like spring. 

3 Social Zooms

It took a while for this to take off as, being a teacher working from home, the last thing I want to do after a day at the computer, is to have more zoom meetings. There were a few family meet-ups with a friendly quiz which were fun. Last week I zoomed with four friends from my schooldays. We all live in different cities and on three different continents so I don't know why it took the pandemic for us to do this. This was our second zoom and we've cemented the custom of doing it on our birthdays. We may need another excuse in the summer as we were all born withn six months of each other. Or not. I've also fallen into a welcome monthly zoom date with a friend in London. Second month this Sunday as we  only started in January this year. Although I spend a lot of time on Face Book, it's not the same as actually chatting as opposed to typing. I'm starting to feel more connected to the world again. (This may also be because the balcony door is wide open and there are people outside in the sunshine.)

4 New Job

I am [remote] teaching a course at a new (to me) college this semester. It's the sister college to the one I already teach in and also very local. I'm hoping that if things go well, the work will continue next year. The pay doesn't quite cover the cuts that were made in September so it's lots more work for almost the same money I got last year for fewer hours, but under the current circumstances I'm just grateful to still be employed at all.

In a nutshell, lots to be cheerful about.