It’s the season of mellow fruitfulness. Hey, I didn’t even know I was quoting Keats with that apt short line. It’s so embedded in my thoughts.
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing Sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;[1]
It’s so appropriate to the day. To the week. We are in that spot of the year that marks a transition. Summer is behind us. The ground is covered with acorns and conkers. Leaves are contemplating the end of the duties. A mist hangs over the grass in the early hours.
Just to be clear, I don’t live in a picture box thatched cottage in some hidden English valley. That said, from one long-standing vine, this year, I’ve collected a mass of grapes. This vine, being so deep rooted, it hasn’t suffered the desert like conditions that prevailed for weeks.
Autumn can be a wonderful season. For a few weeks the siren sound of the winter’s coming is held in suspension. There’s time to think about whether to turn on the heating or not as the temperature dips at night.
Transitions are political too. In Britain, it’s the season of conferences. A time for the faithful to gather and spend a few days running around like headless chickens. A harvest of policy papers and last-minute speeches. Condemnation of opponents. Accolades for friends and good company. Tee-shirts, hats and posters plying slogans old and new.
It’s difficult to explain. Might seem tiresome to those who have never spent 4-5 days at the seaside in September but mostly indoors or waving banners in the sea breeze. This week the Sun has blessed all concerned. Those of us who went to the south coast to share time with family and those who went to change the world.
For the party of government, they may be asking:
Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?
The optimism of last year has dramatically subsided. Now, they seem like the Mars company marketing gurus who rebranded the Marathon chocolate bar to Snickers[2]. A lesson in how to cause confusion for no material gain. Labour’s problem is clear. The chocolate bar is a good national trend indicator. Off the shelf, the bars are smaller, but you pay the same price or more for the pleasure. Arresting decline is proving to be difficult.
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
For those who may wonder at this line, Keats didn’t have social media.
[An Aside: AI, and its unsolicited interventions, can be right plonkers. It suggested that I change the grammar of Keats poem. It offered to rewrite the lines above. So, billionaires are spending billions trying to prompt us to rewrite romantic poetry. What a mad mad world.]
[1] https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44484/to-autumn
[2] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-13873067/real-reason-Snickers-changed-Marathon-chocolate.html
John Vincent 