Hopes there were already hanging by a thread, but even that thread has been cut by the bombastic populism that appears to be the new norm and hopes that responsibility would ameliorate the tantrums have also been dashed. Neither I can I help but note the irony of my posting on this on day in which the monstrosity that is now the President elect of the United States choose to use twitter to undermine decades of work on the peace settlement between Israel and Palestine.

The picture still hangs there which raises its own questions. For that reason I chose a picture from Sandomierz Cathedral in Poland depicting the blood libel, they myth that Jews kidnapped and murdered the children of Christians to use in religious rituals. Anyone who has been there (and everyone should go) will remember the huge glass display case with the hair cut from the heads of over 140,00 items and contaminated by hydrogen cyanide. As a part of that tour we came to a cupboard lapelled human hair something that took be back to the 17th April 2013 when I visited Auschwitz-Birkenau for the first time.

Something I strongly recommend to anyone in Stratford with a couple of hours free. This morning suitably bandaged and with The Tempest secluded for the evening we did a back stage tour of the RSC.

That reflection will have to wait for the January rebooking. The play is based on CaravaggioвЂ™s masterpiece and astute readers will have realised I was looking to that performance to inform my final post. Attempts to see a performance of the Seven Acts of Mercy at the RSC were thwarted last night by the need to take my son to A&E after a cut sustained earlier in the day refused to stop bleeding.

Dum spiro spero