Thinking twice – about everything

Any sensible person might think twice about travelling overseas at the moment, given that the US has been bombing Iran. However, I realised that there has never been a moment in living memory since the 1953 coup in Iran where the US hasn’t been bombing or invading someone, hasn’t recently bombed or invaded someone or isn’t planning to bomb or invade someone. Though, as one commentator pointed out, the last war they won was World War 2, and that was with the help of others. Maybe it’s best to treat it as situation normal, simply ignore it and get on with your life.

It would be nice to think that America was bombing the terrible Iranian regime to help rebelling Iranians, but I’m sure it’s only because of the oil. After all in 1953, Britain with the aid of America, overthrew a democratically-elected government there to keep control of the oil, thereby setting in train the long string of events that led to what’s happening today.

To our glorious dead - the collateral damage from an earlier war that was just as pointless. This monument is in the glorious historic port town of Oamaru on the East Coast of the New Zealand South Island. I was in one of the sandstone buildings that had been converted to an arts and craft centre when I realised that long after all the warehouses and wharves in these old towns have closed, there will always be the art centres and the breweries.