May Day
No.32
May Day 1 May is a traditional Spring festival in European nations. But there are other May days - 5 May, 9 May and 12 May for instance.
May Day is a festival of traditional observances, folklore, Morris dancing, maypoles and ambitious parties in Oxford. If you are lucky you will find "the Green Man" dancing in the streets, really a guy dressed like a topiary bush. Choristers sing in attenuated voices at dawn on top of Magdalen tower while students betimes cast themselves into the river. The shadows over this year's celebration were the damp overcast weather, the sun resolutely refusing to shine, unhappiness at the Conservative Party, and the Ukrainian War.
My family and I were fortunate to be invited to an all-night party that offered facilities for the children to retire at 9pm. It was a meeting place for people with an interest in the Ukrainian War to discuss it in relaxed and natural circumstances privately. I offer some thoughts that arise from that occasion.
It was said that Putin no longer knows Russia in the way that David Cameron did not know the UK in 2016.
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