mind, and I momentarily reflected on how my own life of ritual work, ritual holidays, ritual meals, and ritual conversation probably served a similar function. It was an irony which rankled, but I completed my ablutions, mouthed a silent farewell to the deeply sleeping forms of my children, ventured downstairs to the kitchen, and flicked on the radio: “The government is concerned at the number of people killed by ex-mental patients. It is estimated that there have been 100 murders by care in the community patients in the past five years, and that 1,000 have killed themselves over the same period.” This was just what I wanted to hear (not), so I switched the radio off, parted the gingham curtains and looked out on a row of dead stick trees bending under a heavy frost. There was a solitary sparrow attempting to pierce the rock hard lawn with its beak, a fat black cat lurking under the bramble hedge, and an endless sweep of red brick walls and stained picket fences - as our toy town estate rolled on and out. Not even the greatest romantic poet could infuse this view with any transcendental meaning, yet I knew that by the end of my shift I would be yearning for these same sights with nothing short of rapture. An amplified trump reverberated around the toilet bowl upstairs, and an invisible hand pushed me to my feet. It was time to go.
Mutually Assured Destruction (M.A.D.) In the 1970’s the cold war was still pretty hot, and there were endless news items and documentaries about the proliferation of nuclear weapons. The impotent masses tended to see this practice as dangerous, but a series of governments assured us that the frightful threat of atomic warfare was effectively keeping the peace. This was the policy of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD).
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