Jungle all the way

When the news emerged on January 10 that rock legend David Bowie had died, I was among the army of fans who went into overdrive to try to explain the terrible implications to anybody who dared to listen.
Seven months later, a particular tweet posted after the Brexit vote went viral: “This may be a stretch but is it possible that David Bowie was the only thing holding the geopolitical landscape together?”
Of course, the theory that Bowie was more than just a rock god was somewhat exaggerated, yet you have to be an eternal optimist not to realise that the glue of common decency has been spent.

2016 was such an abysmal year it's become almost an adjective. Bowie, Alan Rickman and Prince were among the stars who kicked the bucket well before their sell-by date. But while death is inevitable [yes, that includes the famous and wealthy], in 2016 it seems the whole world imploded.
A demagogue has been voted in as US president, the British voted themselves into a political limbo, and the far-right has reared its ugly head in too many countries. Xenophobic populism and hate crimes have stomped all over the western world to the extent that the historical parallels with the 1930s are no...