RIP Captain Tom 1920-2021.

The thing about feelings is that they don’t always get to the surface. And by typing that I feel that I’ve just concluded a blog instead of just starting one. I’m not sure how I feel at the moment and I have no idea what I should be feeling. I suppose I feel okay in a way, but I don’t know if I feel too angry or not angry enough. And why is this that I started going on about anger? Of course, I could just feel nothing, which seems to happen more often than not.

My first feeling is a want for a beer and that’s not even a feeling, it’s a desire. I only drank on two days during Dry January. It was tough in some places, but I’ve been there before and now it’s not Janurary anymore and a couple of cans has given me the taste again, which is why I’m writting about it here. Having a drink would mask how I feel. At least I’ve written this down. I won’t be the only person in history or indeed in the last second to have done that. Sometimes, it was about physical pain which makes me feel emotionally unwell from the reminders of how I took my knocks and the steps that led me there.

Writing nonsense was another way of distracting myself from how I feel. And then I started writing about what was going on in the world and couldn’t process what I saw. But I might be losing track a little. I probably didn’t want to face up to how I feel. And that’s bloody awful, and I’m angry about it! That’s all I have, except for self loathing, which isn’t great. But the great thing is that I’m going to be strict on my 400 word limit today. This is probably for the best, because I’m not ready to open up the boxes I’ve locked up in my head.

How should I feel about the passing of Sir Captain Tom Moore? I never knew of the man until he was 99 years old and was made famous by his daughter and the Government. I prefered it when 108,000 faceless people, whose names I’ll never know died. Bringing a 99 year old in to the concious of the public during a pandemic was never going to be a long term affair. He was used, but he did get the freedom of the City of London, a knighthood, and a free first class trip tip Barbados during a pandemic from British Airways. On his return to the UK he developed pneumonia, which in turn meant that he could not get his Covid vaccination, and now he’s on the pile of dead bodies who died from Covid, and I’m not sure how I feel about that.

An after thought:

I’m annoyed that the response to the passing of Sir Tom was clapping – which few people did, except staged events with TV cameras. A much better response to the passing of Sir Captain Tom Moore would have be a bugler playing the last post. I’d have been all for that. But this lot in charge have no class.