FRAGILITY

Fragile

I am reminded of how fragile everything really is. Just now in our intercessions we are praying for two young men who have been stabbed. One, the nephew of a congregation member, was stabbed in the street in broad daylight in Luton, where his family had moved, ironically in order to get him away from all the nonsense that confronts teenage boys in London. It seems to have been nothing to do with gangs, but a vengeful ex-boyfriend of the classmate he happened to be walking along the street with. Fortunately he is recovering. Not so fortunate was the son of someone who works at one of our schools, who was killed in Earls Court on Sunday morning, the victim of what the Standard says was a fight between gangs who were attending two nearby parties. If that's the case then I am confident that this young man was the victim of something that was nothing to do with him, which is all the more tragic. His family are, of course, devastated.

Yesterday I spent quite a while with a labourer on our building site, who was rather unwell. His colleagues clearly thought his crisis was religious in nature from the way he was talking, which is why they called me in, but I'm not so sure: I think a lot of that was cultural. The poor man has come to London from a very troubled country, whose former president was frequently named in his conversation with me. I think this chap has a number of reasons to be troubled, and the fact that he came to work carrying a Bible was more about his attempt to deal with his problems. I hope he's able to get some proper help, but I was impressed by the way that his colleagues reacted; they were all keen that he should be looked after.


The Star-Spangled Banner

I noticed on Saturday that the flag was at half-mast outside the US Ambassador's residence, presumably in respect of the Parkland school massacre. The cynical side of me thinks they must be doing that fairly frequently, though I've never noticed it before. I may be noticing the flagpole because they've cut down trees recently, so that may be no indication. I have previously wondered whether the flag flew to indicate that the Ambassador was in residence, but I had already reached the conclusion that it would need to be a personal standard (like the Queen's) for that to be true, not the US flag.

I did wonder whether the Ambassador might be moving house now that the US Embassy is moving to Nine Elms, after all Regent's Park is hardly convenient. He might go to Wimbledon, like the Papal Nuncio, which would surely be handier for Nine Elms. That said, though, I can't imagine anyone wanting to move out of Winfield House, which is supposed to be very splendidly appointed, and has the largest private garden in London after Buckingham Palace. In truth it's a rather stolid, ill-proportioned house, red-brick, Neo-Georgian, built for the Woolworth's heiress Barbara Hutton in 1936, to replace a Decimus Burton villa, which had once been rather spectacular, but which had fallen on hard times, but a succession of multi-millionaire ambassadors has seen to it that it is full of precious works of art and has been regularly refurbished. The lawns are of course large enough for Marine One to land when the President comes to stay, and that, I suppose, is why they won't move out, because with twelve and a half acres of garden and no neighbours, it's pretty secure. Mr Trump is, of course, quite right that Nine Elms is not nearly as grand as Grosvenor Square, but perhaps he thought the residence was there as well, in which case I can understand his anxiety, because it's always a bit hairy being a pioneer in a gentrifying area.


Contributory Negligence

You will be aware that I get very cross about cyclists being blamed for getting killed on the roads, but sometimes you do see things that shock you. This afternoon I was waiting behind a concrete mixer at the traffic lights on Chippenham Road. The concrete mixer was waiting to turn left, around The Squirrel, which is sharper than ninety degrees, so he was sat in the right hand lane, with his indicator flashing, and the audible warning saying he was turning left. As the light turned to green a female cyclist came up the left hand lane and went straight across the junction; fortunately for her, the concrete mixer was slow to move, but that was one of the stupidest bits of cycling I've seen in a while.

I just sat here in the Office and watched as three boys from Paddington Academy interfered with my bicycle. The first two just wiggled the bars in passing, but the third stopped and had a good attempt at wrestling the bike away from the fence to which it was locked. I did go out and remonstrate, but he'd already got bored and was walking off. I congratulate myself in being careful about security. A previous bike was written off by a thief who tried to do the same thing and found the lock was stronger than the aluminium frame, which bent under torsion (as did the railing).