PLUS ÇA CHANGE

I sit pondering on questions of morality. I am dumbfounded by the chicanery and lies that permeate the planet. Indeed, as I sit in front of my ordinateur I am assaulted by endless advertisements and scam emails. There appears to be a never ending resource of such communications sprinkled like salt and pepper over the internet. I am Congratulated by someone or other for having been chosen (?) to view their products. I am asked to renew my TV licence as it is about to expire. Not even remotely correct.   Surely the scammer must know that many people deal with their TV licence by direct debit, yet they still send out the emails. How does anyone fall for it?  The real TV licencing office ask people to report any scam emails they might receive. I have done so on a number of occasions, seemingly to no effect as they keep on coming.

 

I suppose people still get sucked in, which keeps the scammers scamming; but, why are there so many people investing their time in hacking and scamming?  Are we meant to just accept that there are millions of people for whom honesty is a redundant word or concept? I can only presume that so long as our elected representatives reveal themselves to be without conscience, are willing to defend the indefensible, blindly pursue manifestly disastrous isolationist policies and openly display astonishing hypocrisy whilst triumphantly claiming outstanding leadership, we will have given free licence for the scammers to carry on ad infinitum as if none of it mattered. It has escaped no one’s notice that Rishi Sunak is extolling the citizens of Northern Ireland that they are the luckiest people in the world to have unfettered access to the EU and UK markets, and it’s all thanks to him. Hello!!??

 

You will note my use of the word ordinateur, which is what the French use for computer (Please pronounce the word in your best French accent). It is from the Latin ordinare which is to ‘order’ or to ‘put in order’. The French clearly see these machines as organisers capable of imposing some neat arrangement of things or putting things to rights. The English see computer more as an instrument for calculations assessing values from vast stores of data for producing statements of account and analysis. I use the words account and analyses in their many definitions:

 

Account:

·  noun A narrative or record of events.

·  noun A reason given for a particular action or event.

·  noun A report relating to one's conduct.

·  noun A basis or ground.

·  noun A formal banking, brokerage, or business relationship established to provide for regular services, dealings, and other financial transactions.

·  noun A precise list or enumeration of financial transactions.

·  noun A sum of money deposited for checking, savings, or brokerage use.

·  noun A customer having a business or credit relationship with a firm.

·  noun A private access to a computer system or online service, usually requiring a password to enter.

·  noun Worth, standing, or importance.

·  noun Profit or advantage.

Etc….

 

Analysis

·       noun The separation of an intellectual or material whole into its constituent parts for individual study.

• noun The study of such constituent parts and their interrelationships in making up a whole.
• noun A spoken or written presentation of such study.
• noun The separation of a substance into its constituent elements to determine either their nature (qualitative analysis) or their proportions (quantitative analysis).
• noun The stated findings of such a separation or determination.
• noun A branch of mathematics principally involving differential and integral calculus, sequences, and series and concerned with limits and convergence.
• noun The method of proof in which a known truth is sought as a consequence of a series of deductions from that which is the thing to be proved.
• noun Linguistics The use of function words such as prepositions, pronouns, or auxiliary verbs instead of inflectional endings to express a grammatical relationship; for example, the cover of the dictionary instead of the dictionary's cover.
• noun Psychoanalysis.
• noun Systems analysis.

As to the French and order, it is difficult to assess. They use words in a rather cavalier fashion. The phrases “Je suis navré” and “Je suis désolé” or simply “désolé” are translated as a simple “I’m sorry”. The French mainly say “Désolé”.

 

The word navré however is given a meaning in Larousse as ‘suffering great morale pain” and “being actively saddened by some event, being desolate and confused or manifesting feelings of great sadness”.  As to désolé, it comes from the Latin for causing desolation, or being angry, saddened or very upset, or even ‘afflicted with great sorrow’. In any event, devastated, rather than a simple sorry. Imagine bumping into someone and claiming “I am afflicted with sorrow” The language thus used would seem to indicate the world as we know it has come to an end, when in fact it is just, “I’m sorry”.

 

Donc (another word used almost as often as desole) where do we go from here. Everyone is apparently relieved by the rapprochement of Rishi Sunak with the European Union via Ursula von der Leyen. She has also had a tête-à-tête with King Charles. Certain emotional Conservative MP’s can now breathe a sigh of relief and stop having nervous breakdowns falling into floods of tears. It’s the best thing since sliced bread etc. It was so sweet watching the two of them at their podiums gesturing to the other “Je vous en prie, you go first” “No No, it’s your home turf, you go”, And so he did.

Fifty two years ago in 1973, the United Kingdom did away with Green and Red channels and duty free shopping between the UK and the continent. Now they are brought back as if it was a eureka moment to have found a solution to the problem of the protocol. Let’s just do what we did before. How about that, aren’t we clever? The phrase “Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose” has never seemed more appropriate

If that doesn’t make you happy than all I can say is désolé.