© Am Ang Zhang 2011
It is interesting to be revisiting Athens and listening to stories of Ancient Gods.
In this modern age of the World Wide Web it must be ridiculous to still stay in the ancient mode or in the later ones of Witches and Curses. Yet no one would deny that it was scary looking at what happened to the Kennedy clan to still think that we in the 21st Century should disregard the so called Kennedy curse.
Nearer home, we have the Bevan Curse:
Nah, no way, this is the 21st Century.
But hang on:
Daniel Hannan (MEP):
Look what has happened to Daniel Hannan, the too-articulate-for-his-own-good Tory MEP, since he went on Fox TV in American to dis the NHS? He has been reduced to praising Enoch Powell and Ted Kennedy in the same month. Not a good place to be, Dan, but David Cameron will probably take heart.
Anyway all that changed this summer holiday when I came home to discover she'd popularised the notion that the NHS runs "death panels" to decided who lives and dies. This was Palin's pernicious contribution to the US healthcare reform debate and one that was both stupid and shallow.
……That wouldn't be so bad if Johnston, a carpenter who is also trying to triple his own money as a professional celeb, did not also reveal – I should say allege – that Mrs Palin didn't cook, didn't do household chores and didn't look after the kids when home. She took long baths and watched home improvement shows on TV. Who knows, perhaps she's a Grand Designs fan? Perhaps not.
……But the Curse of Nye just bears down on me: that woman talked about NHS death panels! And besides, it all serves as a useful reminder that politics can sometimes be as fraudulent as a banker's bonus.
Even if this is half true, Palin wasn't the person she pretended to be, not by a frozen Alaskan mile. She was – and is – a monument to that strand of American life, more pronounced than in most countries, which is parochially ignorant and proud of it. They used to call them Know Nothings.
I came back from my Cruise totally oblivious to the goings on with NoW, Murdoch & Cameron.
Could it be the Bevan Curse? What a dramatic two weeks! Our PM was pulled back from Africa at short notice and such a powerful man as Murdoch was so humbled.
For all their cameras, it was difficult for the press to get a bad photo of David Cameron! But please Mr Prime Minister, be careful: ignore history at your own peril as the Bevan Curse is perhaps as active as ever.
"The NHS will last as long as there are folk left with the faith to fight for it"
Aneurin Bevan
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