Something to get hung about

Updated: Feb 16, 2020

Let me take you down cause I’m going to.

"Let me take you down ´cause I’m going to, Strawberry Fields, nothing is real and nothing to get hung about, Strawberry Fields forever."

Whenever I heard the lyrics to the Beatles Strawberry Fields, I always wondered if they were referring to capital punishment which was present and possible all over Europe when the Beatles sang their song.

Before the Berlin Wall came crashing down and Europe united East and West, soldiers shot indiscriminately at people wishing to cross Berlin's borders.

General Franco was busy signing death sentences right up to his death in 1975 and far far away in France and a year after the release of Star Wars, A New Hope; The French used the guillotine for the last time in 1977 on a murderer called Hamida Djandoub.

Within a short time, all European countries would re-evaluate their use of the death penalty.

I'm sure people would like to see me hanged for confusing hung and hanged but other than judges and editors, I'm sure many people could confuse "Nothing to be hung about" as being nothing to be killed about.

A man (whose name I refuse to mention) shot and killed John Lennon in a misguided attempt to become famous. Sadly John Lennon became the victim of his own success and was actually killed over "Nothing real".

While we cannot imagine a sovereign state indiscriminately killing people, Jamil Khashoggi's violent murder in an embassy in Europe last year should question how dangerous life can be for journalists, opposition leaders and those who question the status quo.

The Beatles classic song comes from a very different European era but as people celebrate that England is a sovereign nation free to keep their own laws and not ones handed down from Europe, I wonder if people realise that Britain is free to create all new laws and also some surprisingly old ones too.

While I can't imagine Boris Johnson is going to Hang, Draw and Quarter people, I do question what laws will change and why?

As inhumane as it sounds, Theresa May was always very vocal in speaking out against Human Rights.

Ironically, people will imagine William Wallace being executed in the film Braveheart when it comes to such archaic laws but the Scottish have already started to cry out FREEDOM.

The United Kingdom is free to create whatever laws they wish to but when it comes to selling goods to Europe, cars, for example, will still need seatbelts and brake lights, airbags, and crumple zones.

Inferior goods will not receive a premium price and England has some premium cars. Rolls-Royce, Bentley, Aston Martin, Jaguar, Land Rover, Mini and Morgan but most of these cars are owned by German companies such as Volkswagen and BMW. Jaguar and Land Rover is owned by an Indian company and the waiting list for a Morgan is about two years.

We will all have to wait and see what happens but I imagine the British Government will have to accept European and International Laws that they once helped create, whereas the people living in the UK might not see the benefit of laws that keep them from travelling freely within Europe.

I hope I haven’t depressed you too much but I did promise to "take you down".