#decoding hugh laurie

Hugh’s tweet this morning refers to the proposed “Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill” in England (policing is a devolved issue in Northern Ireland and Scotland, so much of the bill only relates to England and Wales). This bill was raised in light of recent protests in England and is dubbed ‘Police Crackdown Bill’ or ‘Anti-Protest Bill’ as it is feared that it will have far-reaching consequences for people’s right to peaceful protest. There are several Twitter threads about this issue, for example this one - https://twitter.com/IanDunt/status/1370322183793295370 by Ian Dunt, political editor, columnist and author.

Today was the last day of shooting for Veep. Hugh has guest-starred on the show several times as Tom James, so it’s only fitting he said goodbye as well. 

While it’s no mystery that Hugh is inviting us to watch the second installment of ‘The Night Manager’ on BBC One tonight, the first part of his tweet might be a little more obscure. 

He quotes from the end of W. B. Yeats’ poem ‘The Second Coming’, written in 1919 after the end of the first World War. William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet who lived from 1865 to 1939. 

 THE SECOND COMING

   Turning and turning in the widening gyre    The falcon cannot hear the falconer;    Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;    The best lack all conviction, while the worst    Are full of passionate intensity.

   Surely some revelation is at hand;    Surely the Second Coming is at hand.    The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out    When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi    Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;    A shape with lion body and the head of a man,    A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,    Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it    Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.