Friday 18 March 2011

Nearly midnight

Oh dear, my notes from the meeting covered eleven pages.  I shall, of course, condense them into two at most.  Thing is, you don't know what's going to have to be put down until the debate is over - fear not, I won't do 'he said, she said' sort of minutes.  A few main points and the conclusions will be all.

I can't help thinking about the cheerful Japanese family I passed in Piccadilly last week as I was going down from the RA towards Waterstone's.  There was a shop with intricately shaped sweets or cakes or something, very Oriental in style, I didn't really take much notice, but these people coming the other way were very pleased to notice it and stopped to look in the window.  I didn't wait to notice if they went in, but they looked as if they were having such a good time.  Whatever must they feel like now?  I've been thinking about them all week, still seeing them as a mental snapshot.

4 comments:

Christopher said...

It must be very difficult being Japanese at the moment, trying to make sense of the cruel selectivity that follows great disasters. Some figures were published the other day (Guardian?) showing other nations' proportional giving to various disaster funds: what little there is stirring for Japan at the moment still far exceeds what was given for victims of the great Pakistan floods.

Z said...

It's strange, what provokes generosity. Africa tends to get celeb backers, all keen to be photographed holding starving babies, but Pakistan didn't attract that sort of attention, I suppose for political reasons. I think there's a great sense of shock and sympathy for Japan, but maybe it's seen as wealthy and not in need of aid. I've donated, maybe not enough. A lot of American bloggers are campaigning for fundraising for Japan.

So many natural disasters in the last few months, just dreadful.

MOTB said...

And far more perished after the quake in Haiti - but you hardy hear about it any more, even though conditions are still appalling

Z said...

Indeed, there's an assumption that you give money, it gets put right - but it takes years and in the meantime how do people live? It's devastating.