Shortages, shortages, shortages. I’m not talking about tomatoes in Brexitania or sensible politicians anywhere. (Could that be a contradiction in terms, I wonder?). No I’m referring to shortages of rescue vessels in the Mediterranean to save all those embarked on so-called ‘voyages of hope’. I’m referring to lack of food in North Korea while there’s a new missile launch in that benighted place. I’m referring to shortage of artificial limbs for Ukrainian soldiers disabled by a senseless war perpetrated by their neighbours.

Overriding all this must clearly be the shortage of any sufficient sense of intelligence in the world. Will this intelligence ever happen? Will this shortage ever be addressed? But let’s leave these hopelessly optimistic ideas about man’s evolution behind us and discuss the three shortages which rather affected me on this morning’s News.

First let’s take the shortage of rescue vessels in the Med. In particular I’m referring to the incident where a large number immigrants were drowned in Greek waters. This is such a repetitive news item that it glides over too many people’s heads. Now, however, even Brits have realised that it affects their beloved Channel and the legendary White cliffs.

With regard to the Aegean tragedy numbers would have been much higher if a luxury yacht hadn’t rescued a lot of these unfortunates. The contrast between the cocktail life afloat these oceanic Rolls Royces and the distressed saved from disintegrating vessels boggles my imagination! Welcome on board and to Europe!

But why are desperate people lured by desperadoes and paying them sums – which I would be more than glad to have in my bank account – in search of a better quality of life?  If I want to find an improved quality of living elsewhere I’d search out immigration schemes, evaluate what I have to offer and get some money together. That’s why I’m here, after all. Why then are people paying thousands of pounds to gangsters to get them illegally to a supposedly promised land? Why are they spending money which they could very easily use to set up their own businesses in the country of origin? Why are they risking their lives across a temperamental sea when they could at least travel via the safety of a plane flight or even a bus and then apply for asylum if needs be when they reach their destination? Moreover the majority of these people are educated with some even having higher education qualifications – just the sort who could give a valuable contribution to the development of their country of birth.

It just doesn’t make sense. Or does it? And what about the countries these people are coming from? OK there’s a terrible war and unbearable hardships in Ukraine but the majority of young Ukrainians are staying and fighting for their country and freedom.  The Ukrainians who have left for the relative safety of Western Europe don’t want to stay in a foreign country for ever but wish to return to their beloved Ukraine.

As for Pakistan? I’ve visited the country, stayed at the sylvan hill station of Murree, visited the great mosque of Rawalpindi and walked the modernistic streets of Islamabad.

Despite an often unstable political situation and major ecological disasters like the Indus valley floods – but don’t these happen in Italy too as the Romagnian floods and sixty-six governments since WWII show – it’s a country not much worse off than any others around the Indian subcontinent. Why not go then to India which is experiencing an incredible economic boom with the need for more and more labour? 

What is the bloody point of going to a relatively old and tired continent already suffering from over-population, recession, inflation and, in the case of the UK, a catastrophic trading dysfunction because of the ghastly Brexit vote? I might understand distressed people coming from Syria or Afghanistan and even North Korea (if they manage to avoid being shot at the border) but Pakistan?

Regarding North Korea. The first duty of any nation is to enable its population to survive without which that country would rapidly fall into extinction. This is what has happened to several civilizations before ours (if we can honestly and fully call ours a civilization) starting from Neanderthal man and continuing through such cultures as original Tasmanians and Caribbean Indians. Evidently the beloved leader of North Korea thinks that avoiding a shortage of rockets is more important that dodging a dearth of nourishment for his population. What then? Are the beloved’s weapons going to defend a country of famished families and decomposing corpses? What gargantuan Guy Fawkes scenario is he longing for?

Which brings me to another horrific shortage. That of artificial limbs for mutilated Ukrainian fighters, most of whom are young men. What’s going to be more important for that martyred country? Lack of air fighter power or artificial arms and legs? Medals or a wheelchair? The massacre or disablement of a whole generation as happened after WW1? OMG!!!!

I don’t think it’s going to be too healthy for me to listen to the radio news headlines any more here where I live in the relative tranquillity (bar a few boars, wolves and deafening thunderclaps) of the central   Italian Apennine forest.

What, however, is one to do to address these shortage problems? Above all what do we need to address the worst shortage of all: that of sufficiently intelligent people to guide our nations in the betterment of our life quality – for that’s where the overriding shortage problem lies: shortage of intelligence and humanity, utter lack of any coordinated responsibility for the future of our planet. It’s a sort of globalised hara-kiri for the whole human race and its dependent natural friends to my mind.

How long will war endure to be peace? How long will freedom carry on being slavery and, most of all, how long will ignorance continue to be regarded as strength?