collective madness/sanity

continuing from my earlier email this morning, i dropped Stephen at the bus-stop, returned via the village shop (to post a note to the american ambassador, keeping him informed - well, doing my best, as i have done all along - i get no acks, just like the club of budapest....) and bought a Guardian, returned fed all, and with my bowl of oats+ and a cup of coffee, glanced through the paper. well, yes, i know the crisis in the levant is stepping up (Israel will attack "till Hizbullah is destroyed" - reminiscent of the Moses mission, i suppose...?), but of interest is perhaps Martin Kettle's tirade against the state of affairs in politics/media in London , ennui i call it:

"It's a form of collective madness that feeds and is fed by what Max Clifford, a reliable witness, last week told a parliamentary audience was "the most savage media in the world". France is bored, announced Alphonse de Lamartine shortly before the revolution that carried away the last French king in 1848. An editorial in Le Monde presciently repeated that phrase in March 1968, and a few days later the streets of Paris were full of barricades and rioting. Today there is something of that mood in British political life too. mBritain is bored. There is a yearning for a different kind of politics - or p e r h a p s f o r n o p o l i t i c s a t
a l l. That's why i say be careful what you dream of, lest your dreams come true.........(...martin.kettle@guardian.co.uk )