A Bit Downbeat.

The Shire today has been a place of dark skies and dirty water. Lots of it. And what I thought of writing about Trump isn’t worth the effort.

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But something’s bothering me. I’ve paid to have a direct cremation when the time comes for me to leave this earth, and that means no funeral. On the one hand, you see, I consider funerals to be a waste of money because only the decaying remains of the body are in the coffin. The person has gone. On the other hand, a funeral is a way for people to say their final goodbye to somebody who mattered to them, and there are nine people who I would like to say goodbye to me. They are my daughter and her six children, Mel, and the Lady B. They’re the people who matter to me.

Now, dependent on the manner of my demise, there’s a reasonable chance that Sam, the kids, and Mel might have the opportunity. They might even be present when I leave. But the Lady B? Not very likely, is it? The best I can hope for in that regard is the conveyance of the fact.

‘I hear Jeff died.’

‘Jeff?’

‘The man who used to live up by the school.’

‘Oh, that Jeff.’

I suppose it’s a goodbye of sorts.

The Stink in the Atmosphere.

The very air we breathe these days seems to be suffused with the name, the face, and the blathering of Donald Trump. He’s become a bad smell – incipient, intrusive, and insufferable. I for one am becoming sick to the back teeth of his omnipresence on the news pages and YouTube recommendations.

I note one historian on YouTube drawing parallels between the political situation in 1930s Germany and the USA under Trump. That might well be true, but I see relatively little similarity between Trump and Hitler.

Hitler was a leader and a bully; Trump is no leader, just a bully. Hitler had charisma (dark though it might have been) where Trump has none, except to those addle-headed Americans who count their worth in the number of guns they own, and many of whom are probably descended from good white men who once used live black babies for alligator bait. Hitler was hard-edged, where Trump is blubbery. And Hitler had excellent speech writers who could rouse the masses of whatever political persuasion. All we get from Trump is lies, threats, overinflated ego, and juvenile rhetoric dribbling from his mouth like so much regurgitated stomach bile. The only parallel I perceive between Hitler and Trump is that they’ve both been said to smell bad. I categorise Trump more in the Mussolini mould, and maybe he will come to the same end one day (although that’s unlikely unless there’s a major war which nobody with any sense wants.)

So what do I do every day when my major worldwide input comes from the BBC news and YouTube? Skip over it quickly, I suppose, picking up the basic facts, and hope there will be an end to it one day. As I said in an earlier post, I don’t have a great deal of faith that such will happen. The feeling is growing stronger that we are slipping into a darker, more dystopian place. Let’s hope I’m wrong, or in my case that I have relinquished this mortal coil before it gets too bad.

Fearing a Consortium of Bullies.

The world’s attention is currently on America and the schoolyard bully known as Trump. Europeans are outraged at the proposed land grab as you might expect, but our PM in the UK, Mr Starmer, is taking a conciliatory view in order ‘not to provoke President Trump.’ And so the schoolyard bully goes unchallenged yet again. We did it with Hitler in 1938.

And it seems pretty obvious to me that Trump’s given reason for stealing Greenland is not so different than Putin’s reason for invading Ukraine, and yet the dunderhead gets presented with a peace prize for something or other. It’s positively surreal that a man determined to take somebody else’s land and threatening military action to achieve his end should be given a peace prize. What killed the concept of sanity?

But maybe there’s a broader point to be considered. Attention is currently focused on Trump, but I suspect that he’s just the current highlight in a broader, world-wide movement to force humanity into a more authoritarian future. I fear I can hear the drums of dystopia just over the far horizon. Suggests a ditty, doesn’t it? Can’t be bothered.

Bellowings and Learnings.

I was a little late topping up the birds’ feed table a couple of evenings ago and the twilight had deepened to heavy dusk. I heard a tractor coming down the lane and the immediate onset of bellowing from the cows in the field beyond the hedge. The vehicle drove by with a hay bale on the front forks, and I heard it turn into Bag Lane and stop at the bottom of the field where the cows were. The bellowing stopped.

The following day the same thing happened, only that time the tractor was coming up the lane from the direction of the pub. Again the bellowing rose to a crescendo. I heard the tractor turn into Bag Lane and I heard it stop by the gate to the field, and again the bellowing stopped.

On both occasions the cows began their cacophony when the vehicle was about 200 yards away and around a corner, so I assume they must have learned to recognise the sound of its engine. I think it also safe to assume that twilight is hay feeding time in the bovine world, and I’ve now learned the language in cow speak for ‘What kept you?’

Lionesses and the Value of the Pride.

Readers of this blog will be aware that for some years now I’ve been a supporter of the English women’s football team, nicknamed ‘the Lionesses.’ I’m not any more, and I would like to explain why.

The lionesses won two consecutive European championships in 2022 and 2025, and reached the final of the World Cup in 2024, losing by a single goal to Spain. That’s success on a grand scale and the politicians (or bureaucrats) decided to honour them in this year’s New Years honours list. The coach, Sarina Weigman, was awarded an honorary damehood (a damehood is the female equivalent of a knighthood, but the full award can only be given to British nationals. Weigman is Dutch.) They gave a CBE (that’s the most senior of the old Empire medals) to the captain, Leah Williamson, and they gave MBEs (the middle rank of the old Empire medals) to four of the players.

Why only four? All through the years of high success, Weigman and all the players have stressed that foremost among the reasons for their performance was the quality of togetherness in the squad. They worked for each other, played for each other, supported each other through good times and bad, and had a real one-for-all-and-all-for-one attitude. Or so they said.

So I ask again: why only pick out four? And on a personal level, probably the most notable absentee was a player called Lucy Bronze. She is one of the oldest and therefore most experienced members of the team, and one of the most influential. She is credited with being one of the best defenders in the world; is fast, strong, resourceful, scored some important goals, and assisted with several more. And best of all, she played the whole of the 2025 tournament with a broken leg, and yet played as well as ever. The break might have been a relatively minor fracture, but it was obvious in nearly every game that she was in pain much of the time. But she was awarded nothing.

And maybe the bigger picture is this:

Given what appears to be rank favouritism (or at least a serious error of judgement by politicians or bureaucrats who appear not to know how powerful team spirit is) applied to just four players, what effect will that have on the mentality of the squad? I feel that there is a very real danger that it might dent it irrecoverably. So why did those four players not gather around and decide to decline the award and take an 'all or none' stance? Let’s face it, an MBE is worth little to nothing in the modern world anyway.

I felt that Weigman and Williamson should have brought the squad together and said: ‘It isn’t right that some players have been singled out and others – the majority – ignored, and so we are going to decline ours. What you do is your choice, but we don’t want to see the spirit of the team adversely affected by this.’

As far as I know it didn’t happen, and as far as I know the four selected players are keeping their ‘honours.’ That disappoints me, and that’s why I’m not much of a fan any more.

Is Jenrick Hiding a Dagger Under His Toga?

For those who don’t know, a new right wing political party has formed in the UK. It’s called Reform UK and is the latest incarnation of previous xenophobic, rabble-rousing collectives (yes, the extreme right is just as keen on rousing the rabble as the extreme left) called the British National Party (BNP) and the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) respectively.

It’s mostly a bunch of amateur wannabees led by the arch xenophobe and political non-achiever, Nigel Farage. It aims its message at the small minded, those who know nothing about the history of population movement or the existential imperative of constant flux, and those who cheer mightily when the tabloids assert that all migrants are criminally minded and the committing of a single crime by a single migrant proves the fact beyond all doubt.

You would think that such a party would have little chance of doing well at a general election, wouldn’t you? The BNP and UKIP never did very well, so why should this latest incarnation? Well, because Britain – like most western economies – is having a hard time at the moment with inflationary pressures, falling living standards, homelessness, and the proliferation of food banks for the new poor; and the three traditional major parties seem to have little clue as to how the situation might be improved. So, who do the more mentally-challenged in the great British electorate blame for this perilous state of affairs? Why, the immigrants of course. It’s all their fault, and Reform UK is the party raising its stock by promising to excise the cancer. And that’s why they’re doing well in the polls.

And now we have another neat little twist. A man called Robert Jenrick, a right wing member of the Tory shadow cabinet, apparently said that he was considering defecting to Reform, and so the Tory party leader had him expelled. (Whether that was a big mistake or not seems to divide opinion. I think it was, but that’s another story.) And so Jenrick has now turned his back on the Tories and become a member of Reform UK.

This is where it gets interesting. Jenrick has been up there with the big boys in a major party, and so he has far more big time experience – and therefore more political capital – than Nigel Farage. Is he, I ask myself, planning to take over the leadership and push little Nigel aside? Is there even some sort of conspiracy going on? It happened before with Theresa May and Boris Johnson (or so it seemed obvious to me at the time.)

And this is where I get scared. If the ne’er-do-wells and amateur wannabees in Reform win the next election, we Britons will be in a similar position to those good Americans suffering under the yoke of Trump. That’s a worrying prospect.

White Man With Forked Tongue.

I, along with millions of others in Europe, have been taking more than a passing interest in Trump’s threats and rhetoric over the grabbing of Greenland. It seems to my simple mind that there’s an obvious parallel here with Putin’s excuse for attacking Ukraine, so maybe it’s all just a matter of ‘anything-you-can do.’ No need to worry then, eh?

But was it perhaps heartening to hear more of Trump’s ranting at Iran, threatening dire consequences if the regime continued to murder protesters? Maybe, but I don’t recall Trump raising any objection when tens of thousands of innocent civilians were being slaughtered in Sudan. And when the IDF were busy killing people queuing for food in Gaza, Trump continued to supply the killers with weapons.

Or am I being overly simplistic?

(Oh, forgot to mention Trump sending the might of the US military to grab poor little Venezuela’s oil reserves. Maybe that was justified on the grounds that American cars are bigger than everybody else’s and so need more gas. Fair enough I suppose.)

A Few Little Birthday Notes.

No, not my birthday; the blog’s. Sixteen years ago this very night I wrote my very first blog post. Happy Birthday blog.

I tried to engage a millennial in banter again today. Blank looks as usual. No response. I’m seriously taking to wonder whether this is a sign of the end times.

The man who drove the community bus which took me to Ashbourne this morning kept giving me little facts about the role of this area during WWII, and some of the reminders which can still be seen in the landscape. In return I told him of the anti-tank defences which could still be seen on the Northumbrian beach where I lived at one time, so we both learned something. No banter was attempted.

I’ve felt unusually chilled today to an extent not entirely warranted by the outside temperature, so I suppose it must be me.

The lack of a vehicle to move around freely is proving to be irksome and a little stress-inducing. I do believe this world was never meant for one without a car, at least not if you live in the countryside.

The post I made sixteen years ago this very night was a little more interesting than this one. Sorry.

Aspects of Perception.

To a person like me there are few sounds more distressing than that of an unopened litre bottle of whisky falling onto a hard surface and smashing. The terrible twins of mess and waste can lead a poor man’s mind into a sorry state indeed. It’s happened to me twice in my life.

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My Calendar Notes

August 31^st. Can it really be the end of summer? Did we have a summer this year? The last thing I remember was the Mayday Bank Holiday which was about a week ago, wasn’t it?

January 13^th: Oh my giddy aunt, we’re not half way through winter yet. Will it never end? (Noted on January 13^th 2026.)

Keeping it Going.

A dark mist hung over the Shire all morning today. Everything dripped but nothing else moved. I went for my walk at lunchtime anyway, as I always do, and then the weather gods changed shift. The mist lifted, the sky lightened a little, rain began to fall, the wind rose, and the temperature dropped. (And the Lady B’s dear mama drove past me on the lane to give added impetus to the new regime.)

Am I talking trivial rubbish? I think I do sometimes, especially when the weather is the primary concern. But you see, we people of Britain and Ireland – we merry mix of Celt, Pict, Nordic, and Saxon – usually bear the brunt of Atlantic cloud, Atlantic storms, and the dropping of Atlantic water. And so the weather gods who rule our little islands have their home not on some sun-blessed mountain in southern Europe, but on the wild and heaving wastes of the grand Atlantic Ocean. That’s why we notice the weather a lot and talk about it on a daily basis.

And besides, it’s my blog’s birthday tomorrow and I like to keep it moving even if it is much given to desultory dawdling at the moment.