Diary

And this is Friday.

And first thing Saturday morning, I'm in an operating theatre lying by a television screen watching my old hip being removed and being replaced by an utterly remarkable artificial one.

And then on Monday, this is me home again:

Learning to make friends with my crutches, taking the painkillers, doing my exercises: doing everything I can to enable myself to walk normally again.

And in the meantime, England has voted to leave the European Community.

England has no idea where it's going. England has no government. England has no opposition.

The Westminster government has proved itself completely inadequate of dealing with this crisis.

I'm astonished,  yet again,  at the contrast between the extraordinary levels of human co-operation and amazing technological advances that make my recovery possible and our utter lack of knowledge as to how we can live together and govern each other and create a functioning, just, and humane society.

And it's hard not to feel a certain satisfaction in knowing I predicted this, way way back in the early nineties:

http://teatrodomundo.com/about-teatro.shtml

But I can't help but feel sorry for my family and friends stuck in the nasty self-deluding little country England has become.

And I can't help but note that there are no painkillers for them. No programme of exercises. No immediate path back to a functioning system of government.

In fact, I'm not at all sure they altogether understand how broken and useless their system of government has become.

All I can see for them are many more years of atrocious suffering and terminal decline.

I have a glimmer of hope that here in Scotland we at least have a shared understanding that the system is broken, and a determination to take responsibility for our own future.

What is making my recovery possible is a system of healthcare that does not rely on "the market" nor on isolated individual effort. nor on blaming other people for my suffering or condemning them for them.

If I get better, it will be because I am able to take responsibility for my own future and work with other people in a creative and determined way to make it happen.

And that's true of all of us. 

Hopefully we will all be healed, and hopefully together, at least here in Scotland,  we will be able to use this dismal situation to create a better world.