Rick´s News

Neville Chamberlain` s famous words as he brandished a piece of white paper, the signatures on which he saw as a guarantee there would be no war with Germany.

The wording in the three short paragraphs of this agreement between Chamberlain and Hitler stressed the importance of Anglo-German relations and the desire never to go to war with one another again as well as stating a common resolve to use negotiation in all future disagreements.

We all know how that worked out and the ink on the paper had hardly dried before Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia and a year later, Poland.  Unspeakable horrors and millions of dead and a Continent in ruins are the legacy on which both the EU and the independent European Court of Human Rights were founded. Europe was never to go to war with itself again. We had learnt our lesson. 

Anyone might be excused for believing this even after the annexation of Crimea by Russia which, in a combination of relatively little blood-letting and contortional political thinking, allowed us the luxury of not believing what we were seeing. 

On the 24th February 2022, Putin deprived us of even that luxury. 

There are some frightening parallels with the events leading to the second world war. Hitler was right in assuming that a more or less welcoming Austria, as his troops marched in, would see no military response from Great Britain or France and he gambled on a similar response to a full-scale invasion of Czechoslovakia after having successfully negotiated the annexation of the Sudentenland.  His invasion of Poland however,  or at least as much as the Molotov/Ribbentrop pact specified, brought on a declaration of war from both Great Britain and France who by then must have accepted the harsh reality that peace by negotiation was no longer, if it ever had been, an option. 

Ukraine has not lived up to Putin` s delusions of ”one People, one Russia, one Führer” nor has the country been cowed into surrender in the face of the unbelievable brutality meted out by Russia`s armed forces; a brutality defended as being less than ”squeaky clean” and rather more as a manifestation of Russian character by Russian  foreign secretary Lavrov. My thoughts on that are, just as not all Germans were Nazis, not all Russians are mad dogs, something to be remembered as the war drags on.

Ukraine is paying a heavy price for its ferocious resistance to Putin, although faced with extinction as a nation, as a culture, as an identity, it should surprise no-one it is a price they are willing to pay. It may also slowly be sinking in for the rest of us, that if Ukraine loses this war there will be the inevitable follow up question, ”Whose next?”  The alternative, in the form of a negotiated peace with Russia being allowed to keep any conquered Ukrainian territory, would justify a, ”When next, ” instead. 

Even if Russia loses this war, with Ukraine retrieving its territories in Donbas and Crimea, Russia will not have lost anything more than it has already lost in the way of prestige and dead soldiers. The former being one of the main reasons for Putin`s war in the first place. The ”When next” will not go away irrespective of negotiated agreements whether jotted down on little pieces of white paper or steeped in international law.  Expecting any form of decency, legal or otherwise after having witnessed Russian barbarity in Ukraine, is beyond naive. 

Putin has not only overplayed his hand but exposed himself as the reprobate he is. The former rather than the latter will be the reason for his exit from the world stage. The botched special military operation in Ukraine has resulted in a stronger NATO with Sweden and Finland joining its ranks, turning the Baltic into a NATO lake. Russia has become politically and economically ostracised and labelled a terrorist state, whose depraved behaviour on the battlefield has been greater in targetting civilians than anyone else.

The path Putin has taken his country down is leading nowhere, least of all to anything that could be described as beneficial for Russia. No amount of propaganda will conceal that in the long run.  Given this predicament the temptation for Putin to use nuclear weapons is as credible as it is frighteningly insane. Putin has shown himself to be a loser and the question is, if his power base is prepared to take anymore chances other than the final one, of removing him. Peace for our time depends very much on the answer.

Last week Russia published a long list of Americans permanently banned from entering the country.

I mean like seriously, who in the name of the Lord would get upset about not being allowed to visit Russia. Even during the brighter post-Soviet era it was never on most peoples´ ”must visit list.”

Fair enough, I actually did a Trans-siberian run all the way to Beijing a few years back, which included some interesting museums in Moscow before we boarded our train. Surprises me that Russia still has museums as there seems to be a penchant for flatttening Ukrainian cultural institutions including museums, theatres and schools. Maybe it´ s  not anti-culture at all, just a plain case of eliminating the competition.  I don’t know why they bother, they have the drop on the rest of us anyway. The whole of Russia is a museum, with cities like Moscow and Vladivostock doing a good impression of western Europe at the time of the fall of the Berlin wall, with the rest of the country providing scenes representative of various decades, all the way back to 1917.

Have to give it to Putin though, living up to communist egalitarianism by psychologically ushering everybody into the Stalin era. He is killing thousands in the name of nationalism, set to starving millions, condoning rape, torture and other war atrocities in order to satisfy his fetish with a war that he not only has no experience of but that ended before he was born.  If opinion polls are to be believed, your everyday Russian nationalist on the street is fine with all this. Not my prime holiday target if you see what I mean and if anybody wanted to send me there on business, being able to tell them I was banned from visiting, would leave me in profound debt to the Kremlin. 

I mean honestly, they have to be kidding. 

On the other hand, you never know with the Kremlin. On that list of 963 people there are five dead Americans. I can just imagine listening to Laurel and Hardy discussing the pros and cons of that. 

This is Keystone Cops/Charlie Chaplin slapstick humour of the 1930s and 40s and unintentional or not, it´ s pretty weird. 

It must have come as a surprise to Putin at not being able to oust Zelenskyy in a relatively short war thereby exposing the manner in which Russian troops carried out their  ”special military operation.”  A no-holds-barred approach making a mockery of international law and giving the finger to humanity. The indescriminate shelling of civilian targets, the annihalation of complete towns and villages, the murder and rape of women and children all with a sprinkling of Orwellian logic that Russia is the victim, is nothing if not the writing on the wall. 

This is the total war, once so popular with the Nazis and carried out on people they considered inferior with little right to live, other than as slaves to their conquerors.  Putin and the dystopian power elite of Russia have taken us all back to those dark days and I am sure not unintentionally so.  In my opinion, the reason why is best answered by a psychiatrist or a psychologist rather then a political analyst, a terrifying thought though historically not unique. The ability to do what Russia has done however lies in a backward and tormented country with a nuclear arsenal, believing it can keep its place amongst the nations of the world by intimidation. The similarity with North Korea is striking.

Russia has gained little with its invasion, thanks to the courage and military ingenuity of Ukraine.  Like it or not however, that places western democracies in indirect confrontation with Russia not only through renewed sanctions but now also by having no other alternative than to arm Ukraine. 

The Ukrainians have humiliated the great Russian bear on the battlefield and Putin is left holding a Teddy Bear with a nuclear missile under its arm and that is what has to be dealt with.  

History might give us a clue by casting a thought to Hungary in 1954, the Prague Spring in 1968 and the Berlin Blockade and Wall in 1948 and 1961 respectively.  There was no U.S. intervention. WWlll wasn´ t worth it then and won´ t be worth it now, might be a qualified guess and in my opinion a correct one.  

Russia has to be stopped, there can be no doubt about that; not only for the sake of Ukraine but for the rest of the democratic world. Arm Ukraine and they will do their bit, to not only keep the Russians at bay but make them wonder if sending their young men to die for the vainglory of a man living in the past is worth it; although a decisive military defeat of the Russian army would also mean a step closer to a nuclear knee-jerk reaction from Putin.  The defining input for bringing this war to an end are serious sanctions depriving Russia of the income to feed its war industry, a definite boost would be for Germany to stop scratching its arse on that one. Things are not looking good for Russia, neither militarily, economically nor politically.  Russians have become outcasts in a modern, democratic and global society taking a stand against inhumanity and Russia´ s atrocities in Ukraine.  

Somewhere along the line, today, tomorrow or next year, decision making in Russia will once again be best judged by political rather than psychiatric analysis, depending on how long it takes for the money to run out and the penny to drop.

Suddenly we see what it is to be European. Putin has done us all the favour of highlighting our peaceful democracy common denominator, in fact the very thing that until now has restrained us from reacting earlier. 

Time after time the Kremlin was given the benefit of the doubt in the hope they would come around and now they finally and totally blew it.  

There is a certain amount of comedy in this tragic circus and a striking simularity to other autocratic regimes in whatever century you care to look.   Flag waving politicians and their mastering of the political platform by blatant mendacity are unfortunately too often successful, but in a democracy reality eventually comes around and bites them in the backside.  It did with Trump and it will with Johnson.  The rather enticing alternative for any politician wishing to avoid that fate, at least in the short term, is to become a selected leader rather than an elected one. Manipulating the electoral system, restricting the right to protest or harnessing the judicial system with legislators holding the reins are just a few of the things to be found in the would-be autocrat´ s  tool box. The next step is the taming of both the truth and the people through propaganda and censorship;  effective to a certain degree and honed to perfection by the use of draconian punishments on anyone who doesn´ t toe the line.  

So far so good you might think if you were a Putin, although this is where the trouble starts. It all gets very cosy in that leadership bubble that filters out all the traitorous negativity aimed at ruining the country.  History is re-written not only to make everybody feel better but also in the belief that it will be a recipe for winning the future.  ”We won WW2, we beat the fascists and we´ ll beat them again, our army is the greatest, Ukraine is not a country, Ukrainians will welcome us as liberators.”

If Putin had left it at the feel good stage and satisfied himself with having gobbled up the Crimean Peninsula and not been seriously held to account for it, he might have had a future.  He didn´ t leave it at that and worse for him, he began believing in his own make-believe world.  It might be argued that he knew he wouldn´ t be hailed as a liberator by the Ukrainians but there can be no doubt he was convinced that Ukraine would be fought down in a matter of days.

In a less autocratic country, somebody might have told him that the Russian army was not fit for purpose, unless that purpose was the indiscriminate slaughtering of civilians by shelling them from a distance.  Somebody might have told him that Ukraine is not Syria and unlike Syria, Ukraine is a European democracy with an elected president and that there is every chance they will fight like hell.  Somebody might have told him that, like the Soviet Union in 1941, the Ukrainians will be defending their homeland.  Somebody might have asked him the follow up question, ”What will that make us?”

Putin went down that rabbit hole and is now so far down, that his propaganda machine is saying Ukraine is shelling its own cities, ”Tut, tut look at Mariupol,” she said on Russian state television standing in front of a picture of the flattened city. This is as Orwellian as it gets and I suppose Putin and his mate Lavrov are hoping there are enough patriotically stupid people in Russia who will believe that Ukrainians are killing their own women and children. I do not know. What I do know is that when the truth comes out and it will, there are going to be a lot of Russians realizing why their country has suddenly become a pariah state in Europe and why the mention of the word Russian will, for at least a generation or so, conjure up images of Mariupol and Russia´ s war of aggression.  

The bravery of the Ukrainian people and their fight for democracy will live on, forever casting a shadow on Russia´ s aspirations to grandness. The world-wide condemnation of this imperialistic war and the imposed sanctions will have serious consequences for Russia, economic as well as for Russia´ s standing in the international arena. Cosying up to China for survival, comes at the price of servitude.

That is one hell of a legacy the would-be Czar of all Russians has bequeathed on his people.

It is said Putin is obsessed with the fate of Muammar Gadaffi. No smoke without fire!

Thankfully I wasn´ t there the last time, underlining the fact that a lifetime has passed since anything like this stained our continent.  Speechless is a popular way of expressing being overwhelmed by emotions.  I can´ t say I´ m speechless, just angry, disappointed and frustrated and realize there are few new words I could add to the torrent of condemnation from all corners of the world directed at Russia. 

Nice words, though it all seems so inadequate when people are dying in a European democracy just across the water from me. Inadequate it is of course, which is the evil calculation made by the megalomaniac in the Kremlin, that nobody will go to war and risk nuclear escalation in support of the Ukraine.  That makes sense to most Europeans, excepting perhaps the extremely bellicose.  In the short run all we can do is gnash our teeth and do what we can to help. In the long run we should do everything possible to ensure that this aggression, accompanied by disgusting political rhetoric and propaganda to justify it, does not go unpunished.  I think Germany needs to stop behaving like a reformed arsonist who refuses to lend out his garden hose as his neighbour´ s house burns down, with the motivation that he´ s done with all that; but if asked, he might consider calling the fire brigade.  Sweden has a history of looking the other way which was brutally brought to mind by her Prime Minister, Magdalena Andersson being caught with her knickers down, when she couldn´ t say whether it was an invasion or not, until someone defined the word for her.  Since then I suppose she´ s looked it up in a dictionary, as soon afterwards she was on her way to have a chat with Jens.  Sweden is after all an associate member of NATO.  Not being a member is a risky but considering public opinion, political expedient, which now has egg on its face.

There is hope, highlighted by almost universal condemnation, barring China which surprises no one.  Despite individual politicians squirming in their political and oh so vital democratic straight-jackets, there appears to be a united European front.

It´ s not all about politicians though. We have a global economy, the internet, social media, a world of international sporting events, a system of international travel and if we as individuals, all make use of whatever tiny possibility we have to exert influence on any of them to boycott Russia, then we will have done our bit. #StopPutin

I´ m beginning to think that following the countless news flashes on my mobile phone is offering me more entertainment than watching the latest series on Netflix; with being part of the story adding a little spice. The lengthiest, still going strong news series has been climate change but even Brexit and Covid have been around for quite a while. Trump´´ s news value has dropped dramatically and the whole Republican show has now, for most of us in Europe anyway, morphed into a never-ending Coronation Street style nonentity.

Russia and the Ukraine crisis are newcomers in the field, feeding on over 100 years of history. The retake of the once popular Soviet Republics series now featuring Vladimir Putin in the leading role has moved to primetime news with Putin asking some very difficult questions.

”My friend said you are threatening my country!”

”Most certainly not,” is the reply.

”Are you calling my friend a liar?”

With a fight picking dialogue like that you might think backing down is the best answer until you remember your history and then wonder if anyone else does. 

We won´ t have to wait too much longer though, as things seem to be coming to a head but if it all comes to nothing and stays with the ´ my dad is bigger than your dad` type of diplomacy then Covid and climate change will once again be top of the news charts in 2022. 

Brexit, yes what about Brexit? The word banned by Johnson but like him won´ t go away, makes me think of a one-time graffiti many years ago in a pub gents. ”While you are reading this, you are pissing on your boots.”  Of little concern to anyone, other than the owner of the boots that is.

It´s going to be another interesting year.

A rather depressing article in today´ s (20th November) Svenska Dagbladet where three Swedish female celebrities lament getting old. The women are not only struggling with their mirror images brutally reminding them of their journey through life but also with a diminishing sense of  importance, based on eye catching good looks claiming presence in any room withering away. Their story is sad enough for me to refrain from twisting any knives in that wound, with the wound in itself being more than growing old and dying.

No life without death as the saying goes although when learning about the birds and bees at school, the latter is conveniently played down. As time goes by the phrase becomes less abstract with more focus on the rather more inconvenient part of living which for most of us is a grudgingly accepted price to pay. 

What seems to be less accepted is the view that life is a journey with no cherry picking to be had. Rich or poor we experience much the same discomfort albeit in varying degrees of comfort. 

Greying hair, wrinkles, weakening muscles, weakening eyesight, weakening hearing, breasts or scrotums surrendering to gravity are all part and parcel of our lives and for the sake of our mental health need to be acknowleged and dealt with as such. 

No easy matter but to stress my point I feel there is an argument for being as unashamedly incontinent in old age as in infancy. 

The side effects of growing old may be taken as preparatory although I no longer need these symptoms as hints of when and what is to come as arithmetic in conjunction with statistics complemented by various health warnings attributed to a number of my habits are sufficient.

I too glance in the mirror at times and I see me….. and it´ s looking good.

Living at the top of a building in a two storied apartment with a glazed in roof terrace overlooking Västerås harbour as well as a large section of the adjoining waters is difficult to find fault with. Not to mention the absence of virtually any motorised traffic thus maintaining a calm, unusual in an area so close to the centre of the town.

On most days of the year the only outstanding sounds to be heard are the birds, not even a  Ryanair flight from Alicante or London, seen but not heard as it disappears in the distance behind the trees to land at Västerås airport a few miles away. Idyllic is the word and even though the rest of the world is only 7 floors down it is an existance that could match any country retreat deep in the woods. 

Apart from the occasional very popular Zumba session on the quay during the summer months with music loud enough to upset some apparently, little is to be heard from a very popular harbour with several restaurants, bars and ice cream stalls. Getting upset is of course a very individual thing and should be respected if not necessarily acted upon. However complaining that a boat in the harbour is obstructing someone´ s view of the lake is perhaps a little too Monty Python to be taken seriously.

Living up in the sky so to speak entitles you to a bird´´ s eye view of the world and all that comes with it. For the most part the screeching of seagulls or a swarm of jackdaws darkening the sky and then hundreds of soft thuds as they land on the roof are on and off occurrences of shoulder shrugging consequence.

Not so with pigeons where the icing on the cake does nothing to enhance the idyll. Pigeons are intelligent creatures and although lazy, rather unskillful nest builders, they are also very attached to their ”homes”  Keeping them at bay therefore requires a permanent, well thought out response and we found that spikes attached at strategic locations kept them at arm´ s length. Arm´´ s length is the word as these birds are fully aware of our shortcomings as airborne predators and will completely ignore you while they go about their business of making sure the world never runs out of pigeons, when they´ re not icing the cake that is.

The emotionally closest we ever got to our friends in the sky was when a tern couple decided to make their nest in the corner of the roof adjacent to our terrace. At first a no-brainer that turned out to be rather the opposite. No sooner had the couple laid an egg than we became persona non grata. 

It wasn´ t just a case of angry stares but actual dive bombing attacks accompanied by gatling gun sound effects. For several weeks we felt like squatters in our own home surreptitiously watching a small bundle of fluff waddle around the terrace to finally grow into a beautiful, fully fledged tern. 

The indignity of being treated as a threat was exacerbated by us being almost as concerned as the parents that their chick should come to no harm. We were not even granted being party to the epilogue as one fine morning the nest was empty.

Our family of summer guests had departed, to who knows where?

Having decided to leave my publisher´s representative job for McGraw Hill in Germany, Gunilla and I moved to the small town of Arboga. Extensive travelling from a home in Sweden for one publisher to be replaced by extensive travelling from a home in Germany for another publisher was somewhat of a status quo for me and definitely not an improvement for Gunilla. A newly born added to the pressure of getting things right. Gunilla had done some of her student teacher training at a school in Arboga so we were quite familiar with what to expect when she got her first teaching job in a village school close by. Looking back I am always overwhelmed as to how decision making never seemed to cause us much of a headache. As I do not consider myself a reckless person I suppose it will have to be put down to ”being young”

Now the boot was on the other foot, with me a newly baked dad out of a job in a foreign country. Problems are there to be solved, not least self inflicted ones. It didn´ t bother me at all, well at least not until I actually had to start solving them. Problem number one was that I suddenly found myself in charge of a six month old baby. Not just for a few minutes of coochie coo and tickling under the chin before handing her back to Mummy but for most of a working day. Talk about a crash course in how to be a Mummy. (These days it´ s called how to be a parent) I was a complete novice and Gunilla had a thing or two to say about the way I handled things. Number 1 (girls two and three were to become later additions to the family) and I both survived however. I say both because apart from the more conventional chores of baby care I had to deal with behavior normally associated with BamBam. Never turn your back or something will come crashing down, drawers will be emptied on the floor or the dog will get his tail pulled. If there had been such a thing as a baby crawling competition I would have entered her at the drop of a hat. Needless to say I was completely exhausted by the time Gunilla came home. To add insult to injury I distinctly remember her once asking me, ”is that what you do all day, sit and stare at the child?”  I think I just gave a tired shrug and explained that I had actually taken her for a push chair ride in the park together with all the other mothers. (Things would change but in 1975 I was definitely a pioneer in the field)

Problem number two was me being out of a job. As Gunilla was making enough money for both of us, problem number two would therefore perhaps not have been of such importance had it not been for problem number one, at least as far as I was concerned. Even if Dads at home were still considered a bit freaky, two working parents was not unusual even in the mid 1970s, so for me to start looking for a job would hardly have been frowned upon.

No sooner said than done found me sitting in front of a careers advisor at the local employment agency. I had filled in a form with a list of previous experience backed up by a knowledge of four languages, two fluent and two wobbly ones with Swedish as one of the latter. His exact words have eroded over the years but were to the tune of, ”sorry, but we have no jobs available to match your qualifications.” This didn´ t come as too much of a surprise to me and I explained to him as such, adding that I was prepared to accept any sort of job, like working in a council parks department of which I had previous experience. It soon all boiled down to him admitting he had no jobs available at all. To this day I am not sure whether he didn´ t like the cut of my jib, didn´ t actually have anything to offer or had fixed a job for himself that he couldn´ t handle. That afternoon my suspicions were confirmed although I was no closer to identifying the reason. I had invested in a copy of the local newspaper and finding an advertisement looking for workers at the local paper mill had called them immediately. After a quick interview that same afternoon I found myself in work.

I have never really liked factories or at least the kind that spring to mind at the mention of the word but this paper mill was of a different calibre. My job as it turned out was raw labour and apart from having to adjust to a shift system I was far from unhappy. 

Basically all I had to do was stand in front of what can best be described as a gigantic automatic toilet roll dispenser where the paper is unravelled and automatically cut into large sheets and deposited in front of me to be picked up at the correct batch size and placed in a criss cross fashion onto a nearby pallet. Maybe I should mention that each batch weighing anywhere between 10-20 kg depending on the order, was to be aired by holding it up and compressing the sides allowing air to enter between the sheets. 

This is the closest I have ever been to what nowadays is called a workout. Mine was not glamourous but I was getting paid and the results would easily have matched any present day bench-presser.