Cassandra
2012 is retiring. He has been here for close to a year now which is about what
I expected when I gave birth to him. I am quite proud of the fact that I have
managed to keep him alive that long. Certainly the fact that I included 2012 in
his name means that he was doomed to breathe his last no later than December 31st
2012.
I cannot
claim that he has been successful, certainly not as measured in page views. He
began as an attempt to present an alternative view of Irish and UK politics in
the context of collapsing currencies and government imposed austerity. There is
a multitude of columnists, bloggers and angry citizens all too ready to tell
the world how wrong the coalition governments in both countries are; how much pain
they are causing to their populations. Cassandra 2012 came into existence in
order to counter this cacophony of protest and to point out that it was not
just the bankers who got us into this mess.
Previous
governments created the circumstances in which bankers were able to do what
they did and the vast majority of ordinary citizens who surely ought to have
known better were happy to go along with the erroneous belief that how ever
much they or their governments borrowed today they would be able to find the
means to repay their creditors in the future. We were all complicit in the deceit
– it occurs to me that conceit might be a more appropriate word – and must all
now pay the price.
Work is the
Only Way
“Why,” you
ask, “should the bankers be allowed to get away with it?” And, in truth they
shouldn’t. The problem is they did it all with other people’s money, people
like you and me, people who believed that they’d get their money back with
interest. If we write off those debts it is those ordinary people who will lose
their savings. Either way it is us ordinary folk who will suffer, whether
through government imposed austerity or through loss of savings. So Cassandra
2012 came about in attempt to remind people that the only way out of the mess
is to work our way out of it.
My other
objective was to provide a platform from which to market my books to potential
readers. That of course depended on the blog reaching that audience, and it
hasn’t. So it is time to say farewell and look forward. For if Cassandra 2012
must pass into history on or before 31st December 2012, something
has to take his place in 2013 and beyond.
Important
Anniversaries
2013 marks
the bi-centenary of the creation of the school that I attended in the 1950’s.
It will also see mine and Freda’s golden wedding. Later in the year the 70th
anniversary of my father’s death will pass. He died when the Lancaster
bomber of which he was a crew member crashed near Mannheim
in Germany.
2013 is
also the year in which my home town will host Europe’s
largest agricultural event, the Irish National Ploughing championships. One of
my neighbours when I was growing up in Herefordshire was English National
ploughing champion so there is yet another link of a sort between the county of
my birth and the one in which I now reside.
A much more
significant link is the historical one concerning Roger Mortimer. Roger once
owned a castle near my present home. He was born in Wigmore
Castle in Herefordshire and is
notorious for having ruled England
(and Ireland!)
after the suspicious death of the King and having entered an adulterous
relationship with the Queen (Isabel).
