Piffle and Other Matters.
Every Thursday afternoon I am part of a Zoom conversation which was initiated by my friend Dr. Grace Jones. As well as Grace there are six of us, having one thing in common - we are all Friends of Grace - hence the group is named FOG. We've been doing this for more than a year. Our conversations were at first rooted in the conviction we have in common: that Black Lives Matter and that reparations for the descendants of the enslaved are long overdue. As our weekly conversations have continued, we have each come to the same conclusion: that our FOG conversations via Zoom have become one of the highlights of our week. We can be serious, we can ask questions, and we can be silly. Yesterday (12th August) as we reflected on the political response to the COVID pandemic, rather than on medical wisdom I blurted out "that's just piffle." " Piffle" a word that I had not used in so many years. Here is what it means in British English: talk or ideas that are