A 'Fistful' of ... Dollars?

I don't know about you, but there's something irresistible about a tiny fur-ball with prominent eyes and pointed ears, known familiarly as ... a kitten.  When I say irresistible, I don't mean that I want to buy one, or even have one as a present.  For one thing the lease on my flat prohibits animals; for another thing, I recognise that owning such a creature commands responsibility and a degree of expense, neither of which are, of themselves, so attractive.  

But to watch one at play could entrance me far beyond the time I can really spare for the task.  One thing that fascinates me is the consequence of placing a kitten for the first time in front of a mirror.  You can see the curiosity - for which cats are lethally famous - spreading across its face.  'Who is that?'  'Can I make friends/play with him/her?' 'Why does he/she move when I move?'  Eventually an explorative expedition is mounted to the far side of the mirror, only to find ... nothing!

Another thing that fascinates me, with absolutely no desire to be part of it, is war.  During the course of the recent Covid-caused personal restrictions, I've discovered the Western Front Association, and a series of publicly available webinars they have produced regularly ... so much so that I've now developed the habit of booking up for each one as it's announced, anxious to absorb as much as I can of their content before the series comes to its inevitable conclusion in the next few months.

There's one aspect of a battle that is difficult to convey on-screen, whether we're talking about those in comparatively recent times, i.e. the twentieth century, or those longer ago, and that is the sheer chaos, resulting from the noise, smoke and smell of the conflict.  The result, as those who have survived can testify, is a partial or complete loss of spatial awareness: you have no idea where your comrades are, whether near or far, and in what specific direction.

And what have these two fascinations do to with each other ... let alone with my title?  I can sense your bewilderment.  Let me put you out of your misery forthwith.  I was surprised when research told me that the expression 'smoke and mirrors' was coined by an American newspaperman in the 1970s.  I felt sure that it was used in one or other of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories decades earlier.  It seems I was wrong as regards the origin, but I'm confident of its meaning as derived above and as I'm about to apply it.

I woke up this morning to the news - announced, if I have the story right, late last night - of a pay award of just 1% to our hard-working and self-sacrificing nurses.  It's described as an award but, in reality, with inflation running somewhere near 2%, it's actually a pay cut!  Hardly what they deserve after their indescribable contribution to the fight against Covid.  

When interviewed about this, the Health Secretary replied, I understand, 'It's all we could afford.'  I imagine that he then followed up by listing all the other costs that the pandemic has caused, the furlough scheme, the enhancement to Universal Benefit, awards for this and that, not to mention the additional funds announced only this week for major new projects such as the Freeport scheme.

One of my earliest political memories is when I realised for the first time that politicians never give a direct answer about money.  When the question is 'Why haven't you done X, Y or Z?', nine times out of ten the answer is in the form of, 'We have spent £k millions on A, contributed £m billions to B and funded C to the tune of several hundred thousand pounds.'  where A, B and C are only distantly, if at all, linked to X, Y and Z, and the sums of money mentioned are way beyond the imagining of the average listener to the interview.

It's all done to sound as if the most phenomenally generous things that had been done in the field outweighed the need for the specifics enquired about, so why should such a trivial matter be raise at all?  Another memory comes to mind.  It was a day when I had made a banking blunder that would have resulted in my employer's bank account being overdrawn by some thousands of pounds.  The 'penalty' I had to bear was no greater than a train trip to the nearby city, bearing in my pocket a bundle of £50 notes, brought after lunch by my boss from his home, and amounting to several months' of my salary, to be paid over the counter into the affected account.  

Money ... the answer to anything, it seemed, except for the real need.  In that case, a lesson to be learned in checking what I was doing before committing such a faux pas; in the case of the nurses - an interview with one of whom I heard on this evening's news bulletin - some genuine compensation for the years of under-payment, putting up with the unbearable combined pressure of demand coupled with staff shortages, and the additional strain and embarrassment of being dependent on foodbanks to feed their families.

I think of some of the £million scandals that have been in the news in recent months,  A BMJ article in July, for example, quoted £10 billion being set aside for test and trace systems, of which £9 billion remained unaccounted for.  Apparently £4.25 billion would increase NHS salaries by a more realistic (considering recent years' shortfall in pay increments) 12.5%.

When I put these figures side by side I wonder whether my title should have come from another film in the same Western series: 'For a Few Dollars More' ...