EDITORIAL The theme for this issue is Journal Of A Plague Year, a kind of annual review of the recent incomprehensible and steadfastly destructive delusions and actions of mankind. How, in the name of Saint Anthony Wedgwood-Benn, did we all come to comply with and swallow such rancid and draconian policies and public orders? Why were such directives really created and how do so many of them result in the disenfranchisement, injustice, hardship and even death of ordinary folk? All these and many other pressing quandaries will never be answered. As the Christmas season passed away and the world order threatened to plague the jabbed and unjabbed alike many thoughts turned to the New Year and the dastardly ovenready plans being cooked up by those in corporate and political power. Climate change continues to promise the end of the world, as we knew it supported by the myriad pledges that remain unhonoured as fossil fuel corporates successfully lobby politicians for a flood of concessions ensuring their industries, unlike coastal towns and villages, remain above water. Over the last few months these pages have severally questioned the relatively rapid if spectacularly inevitable descent of previously diligent and well-behaved primate into a swaggering, deceitful bully that Flashman would have envied. Summoned before the Select Committee for Political Impropriety so-called leader after leader is seen to sit impassively as their list of failings and crimes are exposed before exiting the light grilling with a nonchalant shrug of the shoulders. The Chancellor declares the state largesse of the lockdown is over and the 2 Groat a month Universal Discredit payment is to be curtailed for all but the wealthiest. Simultaneously Members of Parliament fail to challenge and stop an outrageous £2,000 pay increase despite their inaudible protests. As we reflect upon what has occurred before our incredulous eyes we will, perhaps foolishly, hope for a better future and the traditional uKUNST non-fungible bemusement will apply. We live in hope. In our post-vaccine, post-brexit age however it is even more important to express interest or indeed disinterest in any current affair including the further stench of sleaze emanating from the political class as their snorters pig out from the infinite trough that is the public purse. And what of anarchy in the Un-united Kingdom? Are the public really still bound by the archaic and parasitic conventions of our democratic titular monarchy? How many times must the privileged and wealthy laugh in the face of public impotency when faced with yet another royal roggering by the bastard descendents of Charles II? If Her Majesty is suffering from a horrible annus then it maybe the cause emanates from her own royal household. A glance at our former European cousins illustrates that a modernised monarchy is the best outcome for a modern state and that the shameless excreting of multiple honours and elevations to the second chamber (pot) are a direct betrayal of the Conservative Liberal agreement to reduce the House of Gourds and move towards a meritocratic second house. So as we drift into the apocalyptic daymare of World War III and the return of public birching let us blame not those that trespass against nature and ourselves but we as the people for our apathy, at best, and collusion at worst with the architects of our united and global endgame. It isn’t a good look or a happy state but we can be proud of our primate cousins who, inventive to the last, continue to show us how to use basic tools to ward off enemies and improve our miserable lot. Welcome to this latest delayed, pro-heresy, lampoon-filled and achingly dishonouring edition. uKUNST Enjoy Der Herausgeber April MMXXII
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