You in London and I in Zamora

The women in my family share some obsessions that have to do with our irrational passion for certain movies that we watch non-stop and that we talk about in code.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
24 June 2022 Friday 15:37
8 Reads
You in London and I in Zamora

The women in my family share some obsessions that have to do with our irrational passion for certain movies that we watch non-stop and that we talk about in code. The most notable is that of Pride and Prejudice. We discuss for hours whether we prefer Laurence Olivier’s Darcy or Matthew Macfadyen’s more modern, to end up always claiming the superiority of the 1995 BBC version with Colin Firth (lasts six hours, I warn you). Katharine Hepburn's films also fall into the family obsession category, as do You in London and Me in California, where the discussion remains unresolved about whether the bad times to get rid of the stepmother are better in Hayley Mills' version. or in that of Lindsay Lohan.

And don’t ask me why (this is what happens with obsessions), but I was thinking about this movie the other day when I was in London and I had a chance to talk to several people we could define as involved. and informed. When we talked, they explained to me the axes of the debate: cultural war and personal attributes of Johnson and Stamer, but nothing about the real effects of Brexit or plans to overcome them. The parallels with the film's childish tactics no longer seem so outlandish.

Because the consequences, to exist, exist. I recommend the latest CER report, which through the Doppelgänger method (creating a hypothetical economy very similar to that of the UK before the referendum, based on the real economic performance of the best set of other similar countries) provides real estimates of the impact of Brexit. The GDP of the United Kingdom is 5.2% lower than that of the Doppelgänger. The investment is 13.7% lower; trade in goods decreased by 13.6%, and trade in services was 7.9% higher.

But it’s not just Brexit. The excess of rhetoric, the inflammation of identity, the cultural war, the excess of noise, the digital acceleration ... They politicize us while moving us further and further away from politics, which is only (sic) what it has collective consequences. It doesn't matter to me whether I declare a government from the left or the right; what matters to me is what it leaves on the country it rules. Still, we are clueless about things, about what they mean, what they involve. Look for the detail of pragmatism: you won’t find it.

That’s why I’m desperate to think about what we should have done to prevent or minimize the terrible fires that are raging halfway across the country, the worst in Zamora. Fighting climate change? Of course. Outraged us? Too. But maybe do something else. Fire is caused by three elements: heat, oxygen and fuel. Of the three, we can only act on one, the fuel, which is what our ancestors who lived in the countryside already did: take care of the forest. Landscape management, forest management and the circular bioeconomy are perhaps the only path that will allow us to fight mega-fires with some tangible results in the short term.

“Argentines! To things, to things! ”Said Ortega y Gasset in 1939. Almost a century later we are off-center again. I followed the Andalusian campaign with interest, I listened to many analyzes, very valid. That if Yolanda Díaz, that if Ayuso, that if Ferraz that if Feijóo. That if a new political cycle opens, that if it is the beginning of the end of the far right. It will probably be my clumsiness, but it has been much harder for me to find things, the meaning of the political project that confronts each other.