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Cadwell NOT Caldwell

Being UKish

[2 minute read ] 

Opinion

07:28 Sunday 20th August 2026:

You know, tea, no matter how strong, just cannot compete with strong coffee for waking me up. Yet, I cannot help but to think, 'Why do I need to "wake up!" today?' Well, it is not a case of today being a special day that requires me to be more awake than any other day, it is more that my self-analysis checks are showing that I am in the doldrums. The doldrums is the 'Intertropical Convergence Zone' where the Northeast and Southeast trade winds converge, which according to Wikipedia encircles the thermal equator. I am not physically there. It is where there is long periods of no wind or a sailing ship is becalmed. Not good if you have to be somewhere else. Mentally, I want to be somewhere else. I don't have any coffee so I am going to the shop. It is 08:15

08:51

Do you ever start talking to someone and suddenly realise you are preaching to the choir? It is always difficult for me to talk to people from Ireland. We have very close ties with Ireland . Even the idea that we should not talk about religion or politics, I think, may be based on Ireland. I was in conversation with a lovely lady from County Mayo to whom I had to explain that the six counties that make up 'Northern Ireland' are not British, and the citizens are not British by a round-about way of saying that England is not even a real country because Scotland has never agreed that England should be recognised as such, somehow.  I had heard that from a YouTube video by 'Mapmen' and I mentally logged it. True or not, it may be useful to impart such information into a hectic conversation on sovereignty when you suddenly realise you are talking to an Irishwoman outside the local village shop who thinks that the people in Northern Ireland are British. But there are layers to be peeled back in the whole issue that may pour oil on the stormy waters, ameliorate, or simply obfuscate an argument.

Apparently, in order for a country to be a country it must have sovereignty. England does not regulate its own foreign or domestic trade; which control is determined by the UK Parliament, a body with members elected from England, Scotland, and Wales. A country also needs to have control over its social engineering. There is a UK-wide decision making body that determines this in the form of the Department for Education and Skill, a government department. (Rosenberg, M. 2025)

I really don't care whether it is the UK or England that is a country or not and always default to telling people who might want to be appeased that England is not a country because Scotland won't let them be one. I then mention 1707 and King James. You know, King of Scotland and England. I usually stick to facts because I abhor mis-information but sometimes I let my ponderings be heard with caveats such as, 'I think...' and 'Some people think.....'.

Anyway, it might explain why English people should not fly the England flag when there are no sporting events in which the province of England is competing, and why I cannot write 'English' as my nationality on some forms, and I think that included my passport when I was sixteen.

       'All rise!'

       'You are accused of flying an England flag when there is no sporting event in which England is competing. How do you plead?'

       'Guilty'.

       'Hence, you are now charged with separatism and committing an act likely to foment rioting.'

       'Eh?'

       'UK is a province of the country of UK and by flying the England flag you are acting in a similar way to people in Catalan who wish to have independence from Spain. Entiendes?'

       'What?'

       'Do you understand? You are not English! We only need you to think  you are. Vous comprenez?'

       'Er...no'

       'England no longer exists but we don't want you to realise that your wonderful history is no longer relevant. It is a new world with no place for the pesky English or Bavarians. Verstehen Sie mich?'

At this point the judge put a black piece of cloth on his head.

       'Increase his taxes!'

The crowd roared for more.

       'Make the hose-pipe ban permanent for him!'

       'Boo!' This time the punishment was too severe. There would be an appeal, but first a Scotsman and a Welshman would appear in a dock in Edinburgh and Cardiff, their provincial capitals.

One thing for sure, there is a world-wide mystery about the UK and its constituent countries; England - Great Britain - UK? If England was to describe its current relationship status on a dating app it might have to say, 'It's complicated'.

(09:46am)

References

Rosenberg, M. 2025, 'England is Not an Independent Country', ThoughtCo (website)

Available at: https://www.thoughtco.com/england-is-not-an-independent-country-1435413

Accessed: 30 August 2026

All my posts: https://learn1.open.ac.uk/mod/oublog/view.php?u=zw219551

or search for 'martin cadwell -caldwell' Take note of the position of the minus sign to eliminate caldwell returns or search for 'martin cadwell blog' in your browser.

I am not on YouTube or social media

Have we met and what did we do in the future?

[ 5 minute read ] 

What chapter are you on?

It seems I am a ghost or a zombie and quieter than a cat. Sally, my next door neighbour, was cutting her hedge and didn't notice me when I walked up to her, bare-footed, with a handful of strawberries for her. The look of horror on her face will stay with me for a long time; probably the whole weekend. What did she expect after she jumped out of her skin?

We just stood there, staring at each other; she with shears in her hands and me with my right arm extended as though I wanted a fist-bump. Eventually, she placed one open palm under my fist and I released the strawberries. I wouldn't say there was a sense of relief but I would also say I felt a change in her. She didn't smile and thank me; she, instead, turned away and started walking towards her front door; not a word. I told her, to her retreating back, about the damp and mould experts who visited me in the week. She smiled then.

It puzzles me.

In a fantasy medieval world, I might have been paying a token amount for entry into her secret areas:

       'This is the last time, Martin. I know you serve the community well and I suppose I can contribute to the goodwill we all want to offer you, but I am a good Christian and I have only myself and sanctuary in my home to give. You know I live frugally.'

On a spiritual plane, we might have once met before and she thought she had killed me but I am alive or re-incarnated:

       'I see I was not ruthless enough, and left off from drowning you too soon, and I have failed to suppress your force long enough to make it last. What now?' She walked away in silent resignation.

She was alarmed! Both of those imagined scenarios are steeped in resignation, aren't they. Yet, she might have simply been confused. How did I manage to suddenly appear next to her when she is convinced her hearing is so acute that she can hear the hedgehogs munching outside with the noise passing through double-glazing, and she is woken by her cat walking towards her bed?

Of course, Sally has a very loving cat and I know Sally is affectionate and caring. I am pretty certain that her cat recognises the change in Sally's breathing as she starts to wake up and pads across the floor towards her for a cuddle. Hearing hedgehogs is a bit of a mystery to me though. I am no expert but a passing car is pretty loud and cannot really penetrate the double-glazing. Maybe, Sally leans out of her window and listens.

It doesn't signify. That is an old expression I got from the writer C.S. Forester in his books on Hornblower. Through some kind of magic transmogrification it means 'It doesn't add up' or 'It doesn't make sense as it stands'. Just like Shakespeare wrote in a language that the people of his time could understand, but modern people need a translation book for, it seems that Sally and I speak different languages, or have lived on different planets and now both find ourselves bumping up to one another on Earth.

If Sally and I were reading the same book but separately, I imagine she might have gotten to the pages where we know each other much better and either we are close, as in relaxed in each other's company, or have fallen out for some reason. It isn't hard for me to lazily lean on an old and obsolete notion that she might be, as a woman, absorbing the passion of a story of love and betrayal, while I, on the other hand, stereo-typically, as a man, might be reading the same book but enjoying different parts; the interplay of characters but with a bent towards understanding the function and progression of relationships; work-like, if you will. It is difficult for me to put this notion aside. Of course, this is glaring sexism, even misogyny, by the back door. Yet, I would offer that I have detached emotions and all people are romantic fantasists to me; people who skillfully and silently weave their own lives into stories, with a hope for a future they have already secretly enjoyed.

Sally, is an intelligent woman. I admire her. She is not silly; she is practical. I sometimes think I have had glimpses from the future. Certainly, when I was driving throughout Europe I have had a prescience that there is something blocking the road beyond a blind bend and braked almost to a crawl as I rounded the curve. Yup, loose cows or broken-down vehicle. I think Sally might be a few chapters ahead of me in the same 'book' we are reading. Actually not, she has somehow flicked forward a few pages to read a passage or two and then returned to the 'story' in the right place, where ALL of us are reading. You know, when something is happening in a story and we simply must know the resolution; will they, won't they?

I have had a few relationships, both romantic and platonic, in which there was an expectation that I would fill a role. The classic one in the romance realm is when a long-term relationship breaks down and then, unbeknownst to me that there ever was one, I turn up; perhaps even having been snared by a well-prepared web, and innocently think I am entering a fresh relationship, only to find that it is stale from the outset. I have had to fill the role of a long-term lover, even a married man of many years. It is really sad. I see new relationships as green buds of potential growth that are shaped by the environment and nutrition that the people involved in the relationship give to it. Old relationships, of course, need fertiliser, just as plants and trees do.

I married a woman who had a notion of how we should be. She didn't tell me. The marriage failed after only a year or so, but trundled along for another three years. Her fantasies had advanced our relationship so far that even with a limited amount of prescience I was left only guessing. Truth be known, I never tried to guess or work out what was going on because I was always wrong-footed.

       'Why won't you comply with what I imagined you to be like?'

       'Why, are you not in the now, without ever having read forward to see what the resolution is in a fantasy novel?'