Long life to the British Imperial Army!

Long life to the British Imperial Army!

 Or, what's the EU doing?

 In the Malay States

 they have hats like plates

 that the Britisher won't wear

 [“Mad dogs and Englishmen”, by Noel Coward]

 No, not for how they managed to keep together the biggest and more extended empire that the World had ever seen. If anything, the Navy was the real glue, and the story of the Royal Navy and the Commonwealth Navies is a fascinating subjects, and HRH Prince Philip was an accomplished and highly regarded Naval Officer. 

They were a small lot anyway, numbering at the height of British power, shortly before WW I, in the region of 200.000 men. Local militias supplied most of the manpower, usually. No, I am celebrating the British Army because given the economic and political situation in the EU, and the response to COVID, it looks as if the European Elites have taken the Old officer corp traditional toast, the one that resonated from the humid jungles of Bengal to Africa and the Pacific expanse, to heart.

 The number of laws, decrees, limitations, directives coming out due to what is basically a deadlier form of flu boggles the mind, and here in Italy we have a front seat. Where else you can be subjected to European National, Regional AND town imposed limitations?? Even Frau Merkel, who initially wanted to stop most activity during Easter, had to back down and apologize in public. Italy 2 – Germany 0 ! 

But enough of the day to day, Easter is gone, Summer season is on a fair way to being gone also, better to keep focused on if we will be prepared by next winter, when inevitably flu cases will seasonally increase. I am hopeful, not certain, which is fireworks in comparison to my grumpy self. What I am worried about is the day after. 

I had very little expectations about our new and improved government, but that was to be expected since Italy for better or worse (spoiler alert: worse) HAS to adhere to whatever floats the EU boat. After all, they are the paying customer. Yet, Italy has always been at its best when going through the motion of complying with any order from high up without in practice doing anything of that sort. 

The EU is sort of helping in some spots: Alitalia, for the umpteenth time, will as predicted survive the narrow confines of economic sanity and come out as good as new, with taxpayers abut 3bn. the poorer, thanks to elastic interpretations of EU laws when State actors are on BOTH sides of the negotiating tables. But on others, alas, the end result might not be as pretty.

 In fact, COVID has allowed the EU to throw rulebooks to the wind and happily engage in anything they ever liked, be that big deficits, mutualization of debt between countries, ESG mandates, Climate change rulebooks... Only in one field they have been rigorous: almost anything having to do with actually solving the problem. 

For example: Italy suffered a lack of people inoculating vaccines more than of doses. Part of that is a logistical problem linked with refrigeration requirements and such. But as a former conscript who was taught how to self inject atropine in case of Nerve Gas attacks, son of a town MD for 35 years who had been taught one idle Sunday afternoon, and a patient who was told in advance of minor surgery “you can self inject heparin sub cute the evening before, or your wife can do it for you”, the judicial/ medical kerfuffle seems only a way to not wake up labor disputes later on, and if people have to wait a couple weeks more for their dose, so be it. After all, my premier said that Astra Zeneca was safe, “his son lives in England has already had his shot”, so instead of complaining I should probably ask Boris for a visa. 

But to go back to the title: the more time passes, the more it seems that authorities under the COVID shield are forcing through measures that would not have stood close scrutiny in normal times. So I DO hope that they are not thinking about BOTH parts of the old British officers' toast, never uttered when civilians were present, especially politicians, but too good not to be eventually disclosed so that some young avid Italian lover of history would read it: it made sense only if you stop and think that most promotions happened because the previous post occupant had to be either sent home in a wooden box, if enough of him was found and the family willed it, or simply buried on site most times. 

 

 So, Ladies and Gentlemen, let's hope that “To bloody wars and sickly seasons” doesn't fully come to pass.