When Guernica was painted

Picasso knew stuff we didn't

Strike that, its not we, I didn't, as some of you are quite smart!

What Franco had done in destroying a culture, in providing the unforgiving iron fist of another, which people sang songs about including Elvis', "Tramp the dirt down", for me has in my old age, reminded me that we polarise at our leisure and unite with displeasure and yet we always unite in the end. Like a pool of mercury, we fracture, splinter, lose pools, join back up, there's a common bond that prevails.

In Spain I've walked the camino discussing Scotland and our independence while contrasting that with Catalonia. I care not a jot as I honestly believe all of these things serve a purpose to distract from the only show in town. Are you rich or poor.

I mean this from a librarian's point of view. I don't ask do you squander money or preserve it, I ask can you read, have you the ability to make conscious decisions or has education education education rendered you illiterate.

In our country today we have mothers and fathers unable to look after their children and a harrassed, damned if you do/don't, social services send them off for adoption/fostering or gamble on leaving them in their struggle. Guess what, another child comes along and the same poor mother/father loses another child and the state shafts them again. We slag American values and yet we have created in the last 30 years a society so divided that the quiet middle ground has kept its mouth shut and moved across the street.

Guernica is all around us and what we need to do is see it and act accordingly.

Religious intolerance has been our specialised subject in Scotland and Northern Ireland meaning we have little time for racism but we're still good at sexism. Let's not deny that we have a great ability to be taught by rote. Every bone In my body knows what religion I practiced until I was 18. I also know that the body of Christ was a big part of that nonsense. I'm not angry now, just reconciled to the fact that people believe in rules conceived a long time ago when the Medicine man was male and the stoning of the puir wee hungry bread thief was the football of its day. See life of Brian for confirmation!!

Can we all move forward please and not need Guernica to remind us where we came from.

The atrocities depicted mask the commonality of existence. Whether they were all bombing together or starving together, its there. Cause and effect, is there. Your actions define you, is there.

These themes continue as we navigate towards a posturing Brexit then an apology for leaving, a reconciliation as the mercury divides then gently comes back together. Building a wall in Berlin was as useful as the ones the Roman Hadrian had constructed, a hard border for the Brexit of the future, aka Revexit. Walls have a great gift for dividing but ironically they unite too as proven in Berlin.

Sent from my iPhone