What a week. It just keeps dialling up. Last weekend I was in Vigo, Spain celebrating the late love wedding of a couple of fellow Harvard ALIers. This weekend, one of them is in a bunker in her basement in Tel Aviv trying to evade Iranian bombs. Another is back in Georgia where her pro-democracy work is, since last week, considered criminal after a change in the law targeting these kinds of efforts. The wedding couple have left Trump’s America and moved to Mexico. They don’t think they’ll be back.
Our little cohort is a sign of the broader cracks in our global order. As is our alma mater, Harvard, under siege by a deranged government trying to weaponise anti-intellectualism. Because knowledge and the pursuit of truth are always the enemies of autocrats.
As climate change fast disappears from our world’s priorities, we are like lobsters cooking in a slowly boiling pot of bubbling geopolitical turmoil. As the US loses international power and credibility and withdraws or cedes ground on everything from values and aid to health and humanity, every rising autocrat is seizing their moment. From Putin in Ukraine to Bibi in Iran and Gaza, via Xi in China, long-held fears, plans and frustrations are exploding, literally, into a firestorm of violence and opportunism. What better time to strike than when Trump is busy planning his birthday parade?
This is just the beginning of the post-American order. It ain’t gonna be pretty.
And we watch.
Or You Buy a Puppy
I gotta say it helps. We waited a year after the sad loss of our much-beloved Poppy. But then it was time. The daughter had moved home and was ready to share. Summer was nigh. Nature and her healing wonders were calling.
We drove up to Ludlow (a lovely, foodie town I’d never visited) to pick up Tigger, a miraculously colourful mix of a cocker spaniel mom and a king charles cavalier dad (the latter an American import, helping with healthy genes and less inter-breeding problems). Adoring, impatient owners of the eight puppies in the litter were coming from all across the UK.
Victoria, our lovely, friendly, and completely dog-mad breeder had kept us abreast of the Tigger’s development with weekly videos. She lives in exactly the kind of house that would figure in a novel. At the top of a hill above a huge and active slate quarry, a lone house sits with astonishing 360 degree views of the surrounding Shropshire countryside. You could see 50 miles in every direction. Inside, there were about a dozen dogs of all shapes, breeds and sizes, with our little puppies happily mixed up in the middle of a very cosmopolitan mutt hub.
Victoria wouldn’t see us to the car because she said she’d cry too much. So she kissed Tigger a last, tearful farewell and handed her over with a little bag of first necessities. A blanket smelling of her mum, the food she was used to (paleo raw, of course), and a packet of parental health checks and vaccination records. And off we set, with our new charge in our lap, towards the big city.
She slept all the way…
These were distributed via our new owners’ Whatsapp channel, where we are now sharing stories and photos of our treasured charges’ homecomings. The greatest challenges we face there are how to get the pups to sleep through the night and pee on their pads rather than our fluffy red living room carpet Tigger absolutely prefers tickling her bum.
Power & Presence
When the wheels of history turn, the powerful make militias move (against their own or others), and age reminds us that mortality in on its inexorable march towards us, it’s helpful to stay humble. And present. Every day can be lived in fear, shock and outrage. The algorithms are designed that way. We barely had time to mourn the hundreds who lost their lives on the Air India flight that went down before we’re on to the next crisis. The fires are beginning to spark and burn in head-turning succession.
Or in a conscious contemplation and engagement in the issues we choose to pay attention to. And those we relinquish. Staying sane in a world gone mad is an exercise in itself. Some read great books, some turn off the news, others swear by meditation or service.
I’ll go for a puppy anytime.
I don’t want to turn away from the world and its travails. (My man wouldn’t let me, he’s completely addicted to the news.) But I need to remember that is not all there is. And Tigger is a tiny but powerful injection of hope and joy. (My granddaughters too, but they are far away and not a daily dose).
The gift of animals - especially young ones - is their reminder of what life is all about. And I’d sum it up in three things: wonder, love and joy.
Watching Tigger (I watch her almost constantly, first to head off another errant pee, but mostly just to follow her discovery of life and see the world through her astonishingly blue eyes) is an almost constant balm to the soul.
She wakes in delight and anticipation. I open my eyes to see her tiny, fixed stare on me from within the confines of her bed-side crate. Waiting. When, she seems to be asking, will you turn on and begin to play? The first rollover merits some excitable tail wagging. Emerging from the covers elicits the kind of excitement that you will get from no one else in your life. Sheer, delighted joy. Expressed in endless cuddles, licks and adoration. The passionate reunion of long-parted soulmates. She’s conquered us all.
I tell you, she’s powerful stuff.
It makes you put down your phone and get down on the floor to be fully accessible to the leaps, licks and finger-chewing worship of a tiny creature as surely programmed for human addiction as any app. Wonder in awe at the leaf that mesmerises her, the yesterday-sceptical husband today cradling her tiny head in his besotted hand, the humans she has dancing to her every joy-filled flop-on-the-back invitation to rub a tummy - now. The love she pours out of every pore, and the way she stares at me like a lover, eager to trace every thought, ever mood, learn every opinion and habit.
Regime change happens at all different levels.
Here, it’s a total takeover.
Reading & Recommended
Beware the masculinisation of power, a feature of the new autocracy. A brilliant 2-part podcast from Intelligence Squared on Understanding Xi, plunges into the background, policies and evolution of Xi Xinping. It’s presented by Rana Mitter, a historian at Harvard’s Kennedy School and previously the Director of The University of Oxford’s China Centre. He’s interviewed by the FT’s Gideon Rachman who wrote a book called The Age of the Strongman. They both note the adoption of an aggressive form of masculinity by Xi, Putin and Trump. Not just in behaviours, but in policies too. Gone are the days of Communism’s gender equality pushes.
FT notes Japanese fertility rates are dropping a lot faster than forecast. They are now down to 1.15. Those are heading towards Korean levels.
“This month there were a total of 686,000 Japanese births in 2024, falling below 700,000 for the first time since records began in the 19th century and defying years of policy efforts to halt population decline.“
Want to Get Reimbursed For Elderberries?
Here’s a form letter to submit to your organisation if you think they might let you write off your subscription. A substack colleague of mine gave me the idea, and since I think most of you are too busy for such things, I thought I’d be able to at least help you to ask. Here’s the link to the suggested letter. And thanks for supporting me, whether or not this works. And whether or not you pay. I appreciate you joining me for the ride.
I am printing the puppy photo and posting it next to my desk. Whew, I need that!
Since I’ve been visiting London this week my grandchildren here have been strong and persuasive advocates for my getting a puppy, and how I might bring him/her to my next visit. Grandchildren are very hard to refuse ;).