March's Malaise and the Nippon Connection.

Since this is the last day of March, let’s talk about the weather.

The March weather has been kind this year, especially over a space of about ten days up to and including Tuesday of this week. We were getting temperatures of around 18°C during the day, with mild nights to keep the frost at bay (there I go making things rhyme again. I sometimes wonder whether I was William Wordsworth in a previous life. Maybe it’s why I miss never having had a sister.) Anyway, the fact is that nature was getting way ahead of itself, but since it was late March there was reason to hope that spring had really sprung in earnest and the rest would be a gentle stroll uphill to the verdant meadows of summer.

But no. Yesterday the temperature dropped to 5°C and it was a bit of a shock. I do realise that there are people in the world living in temperatures far lower than that, but it comes back to that old matter of perception. What we find acceptable in terms of the weather is based on what we’ve become used to, so a drop of thirteen degrees in little more than twenty four hours is a bit of a slap in the mouth. Today we had some sunshine interspersed with cold winds, dark skies, and three or four mini blizzards. And the nights have followed suit. It was substantially below freezing last night, and we’re forecast more of the same for at least another two nights.

The thing is, you see, this doesn’t only depress the spirits, it also damages the blossom which gets blown off even if it survives the frosts. And if the blossom on fruit trees gets damaged, you don’t get any fruit. And then there’s the most important matter of the cherry blossom. There are three large and bountiful white cherry trees on the section of the school playing field opposite my house, and one of the great delights of every spring is to see them in bloom. This year they’ve been precocious, as many things in the plant world have, and are currently a mass of white flowers which glow alluringly in the sunshine. They suffered badly from April frosts last year, and I fear they’re going to go the same way again. If this were Japan, there would be much wailing and gnashing of teeth at the moment.

I assume everybody know that the Japanese venerate cherry blossom, only they call it sakura over there because they use different words for things than we do. (Maybe that’s why they bombed Pearl Harbour, but I’m only guessing.) The fact is, though, that as soon as the cherry trees are in flower, they have wild and noisy parties which they call Hanami when all the bright young things go out into the parks and gardens with gallons of saké and a mountain of ghetto blasters. And it’s all because the cherry blossom reminds them that one day they have to die. (That was a joke on the ubiquitous fact of impermanence in case anybody didn’t get it. And it brings me back to Pearl Harbour again, but I’m still only guessing.)

So that is the current state of things on this last day of March. Glumness abounds, the kamikaze spirit stirs, the bees are getting confused, and it’s all because March has suddenly developed a headache and become grouchy.

Russia and the Worry Factor.

I’m getting regular visits from Russia at the moment, and such a fact is bound to give me pause for thought. It’s like this, you see:

I know that plenty of Russians – probably the majority – at the populous western end of the country are normal, feeling people with more or less the same character traits as the rest of us Europeans. I know that they have doctors and nurses and bright young things just as we do. I know that they have scientists and engineers and artists to match the best in the world. I know that their cities have McDonald’s and KFC sitting incongruously next to grand architectural edifices. I know that they have modern transport facilities and other infrastructure. I know of their enviable reputation in the fields of Romantic and Modern period music, and that the Bolshoi Ballet is testament to their sophistication. And yet…

Russia is still perceived over here as having a dark and dangerous underbelly. We still see it through a veil, and behind that veil we see demons disguised as humans moving anonymously among the mass of the population. And in these troubled times the predominant face of Russia is the face of one man. It is neither a handsome nor a friendly face. The eyes are cold, and even when the mouth smiles it is a disingenuous smile unsuccessfully trying to hide a permanent snarl of ill will. It isn’t the kind of smile one would be advised to trust.

And so I can’t help just a hint of wondering whether I’m being watched. Are there people sitting in a dimly lit basement somewhere in Moscow, trawling the vastness of cyberspace armed with algorithms which spot any derogatory reference to Mr President? Are they making a list of people to be visited by demons carrying ricin-tipped umbrellas, and have I made it onto the page yet?

Well, I don’t have the ego to believe that such might really be the case. Neither I nor my blog have sufficient gravitas. Anyone with a brain cell (and even demons have brain cells) would know that I’m a million miles from being any kind of an influencer (and just for the record, the term ‘influencer’ has become one of my pet hates.) So I’m not losing any sleep over it (I’m losing sleep over several issues, but not that one.)

Nevertheless, it would be good to receive a comment from my Russian visitor along the lines of: ‘Hello. My name is Svetlana. I’m young and pretty and I think you’re wonderful. I’m so looking forward to meeting you in the next life when we will be carefree kids living somewhere in the remotest part of Indonesia. Catch fish for me and you will be amply rewarded.’

There now. It’s good to end on a joke, isn’t it?

A Pen in the Right Place.

I swear that during my early French lessons in high school I was taught that silly old rhyme: 

 

La plume de ma tante 

Est dans le jardin de mon oncle

It confused me a little. I remember wondering why my aunt’s pen would be in my uncle’s garden, and I imagined several scenarios to explain it (I was only 11, don't forget.) Only recently did I discover that the rhyme actually runs:

La plume de ma tante

Est sur le bureau de mon oncle

Ah, so now we know. It’s still pretty damn silly, but at least it is now rationally so. (And should I be taking life this seriously anyway?)

The Hole in Education.

It seems to me that the most important component of the schools curriculum should be the one which considers the question: ‘Is life worth taking seriously?’ Because it’s on the answer to this question that the whole value of education hangs. As far as I know, all educational systems skip the most important component because the reply is presumed to be axiomatic, and I don’t believe that it should be. Imagine what a difference this could make to the way in which we humans conduct the business of our ridiculously short life spans.

Being Devoid of Distressed Damsels.

I know I’ve said often enough that regret is pointless, but now I’ve discovered something that counts. I watched a video on YouTube tonight which reminded me that in all my life I never rescued a damsel in distress. (At least, not real distress. I once rescued a woman in the Lake District from two hefty sheep which were treading all over her recumbent form while trying to steal her sandwich, but that’s not exactly a fate worse than death is it?)

So if I’ve never rescued a damsel in distress, how can I expect to make my final journey to Avalon in the company of three legendary queens as is my fervent wish? I expect I’ll get a grey and grizzled ferryman instead, a creature with no sense of direction who will bore me rigid with trivial chit-chat, then take me to some desolate island entirely populated by celebrities engaged in making cookery shows for one of the lower orders of celestial TV. I could think of other versions of hell, but that would be near the top of the list.

Joining the Poke and Stroke Brigade.

I did something today that I’ve never done before: I took a picture with a smart phone.

Mel was visiting to accompany me on a rural walk on her way back to Nottingham, and she wanted to go to our mediaeval church again. I saw her leaning on the churchyard gate preparing to take a picture, so I advised a different angle in order to place some gravestones and a show of spring flowers (daffodils and crocuses) in the foreground. I explained that this would add interest and depth to the picture. She pushed the phone towards me.

‘You’re the professional; you do it,’ she instructed.

‘I wouldn’t know how to,’ I objected.

‘You point the phone and press the button.’

‘Which button?’

‘That one.’

The big one in the middle?’

‘Yes.’

And so I did. And because I’ve never even held a smart phone before, let alone operated one, I accidentally touched the screen a couple of times so she ended up with three versions of more or less the same picture (but they were all good, the day being sunny and the composition classic.)

So, for the first time in my life I took a picture without a camera. I’m more used to mounting a Mamiya 6x6 TLR on a tripod, wandering around for a while to examine different angles, spending even more time assessing the balance of light and shade, taking meter readings etc. Pointing a piece of plastic seemed verging on the disrespectful, but finding something new to do at my time of life was actually quite refreshing. I suppose I should have asked her to send me a copy of the picture so I could post it here, but I was so blown away by the oddness of it all that I was too dizzy to think about it.

(I pressed the button with my thumb, by the way. Does that count as poking?)

A Reminiscence in Precis.

Today is the fourth anniversary of my operation to remove a cancerous kidney.

I remember the early part of the day quite vividly (well, you would, wouldn’t you?) I remember sitting patiently with my bag at 5am, waiting for the transport to arrive and carry me to the hospital. (I hadn’t bothered going to bed, just dozed in an armchair for a couple of hours.) I remember paying the driver when we arrived. I remember the long walk up the corridor to the reception area, and I remember the little cubicle where the preliminary preps were performed. I remember being taken to the waiting room outside the operating theatres where I exchanged banter with the other patients because I assumed they were more nervous than me, and because I always resort to banter in unfamiliar circumstances. I remember not being in the slightest bit nervous myself, which might sound odd but it’s true. (It’s a strange fact about me that I tend to be the least nervous in the most hazardous circumstances. I could give several examples if pressed.) I remember a big nurse giving me an unusually painful injection and telling me what an excellent reputation my surgeon had.

The next thing I remember was waking up in a hospital bed in a ward, with Mel looking down at me. She told me it was 9pm and I’d just been brought up from the recovery room. I asked her later what I looked like. She said: ‘sunken.’

I remember the week that followed during which I ate hardly a morsel of food because I couldn’t stand the smell of it in my nose or the taste of it in my mouth. At the end of the week I saw myself in a long mirror and was shocked at the sight of a scrawny little creature with a big belly (because part of the process of laparoscopic surgery involves pumping air into the abdomen, and it takes a while to return to normal. Mine never really has.) There was hardly any muscle mass left, but there were plenty of unfamiliar bones to be seen. It seemed as though I’d aged ten years in the space of a week and was close to the status of cadaver.

And then the so-called recovery began, punctuated by complications consequent on the procedure, one of which involved experiencing the worst pain I’ve ever known. There were more visits and more incarcerations, but at least I was getting out and about and exercising to put some muscle back where muscle is supposed to be. It was a process characterised by two steps forward and one back as the days went by, but at least that’s progress of a sort.

Eighteen months, they told me; that’s about the average to get back to normal after a kidney removal. So what’s ‘normal’ I might ask? I’ve never got back to where I was before the operation and never shall; the combined assaults of ageing and further health problems have precluded such a hope. But I’m still here for a while longer yet, and none of us knows how much time we’ve got left, do we? The current mantra can only be ‘carry on while you’re able and let the life force decide when it wants to move on.’ And so it shall be.

And I think that’s enough reminiscing for one day. The laundry is done and needs dealing with.

Dumbass Algorithms.

OK, it seems that this is how YouTube algorithms work:

One little algorithm with its eyes rotating in opposite directions notices that I sometimes watch historical documentaries. ‘Ah,’ says wobbly-eyed little A, ‘this man watches historical documentaries so he’ll be bound to want to watch videos about brutal executions.’ No he won’t.

Another one that tucked its thumb under its fingers an hour ago and is still looking for it spots my habit of occasionally watching animal-themed videos. ‘Oh look,’ it intones absentmindedly while becoming increasingly worried about its missing thumb, ‘this man watches animal-themed videos so I can be sure he’ll like videos of one animal eating another animal alive.’ No you can’t.

So, is there anybody in the YouTube department of Google to whom I can say: ‘the fact that somebody is interested in history and animals is no reason to presume that they’re perverts, so please don’t. Instead, give me a button to click which says never offend my eyes and sensibilities with videos of this sort ever again.’

I’ll bet there isn’t.

On a Famous Swede and Looks in General.

In furtherance of my current interest in Sweden, Swedes and all things Swedish, I decided last night to find out a bit about King Gustavus Adolphus (or Adolph the Great as he is officially known, not to be confused with Adolph the Infamous about whom the less said the better.) Most of it boiled down to two inescapable facts:

 

1. He was a military genius.

2. He wasn’t the best looking bloke, and probably had difficulty getting even a Swedish woman to share a sauna with him.

What interested me most, however, was the fact that he was killed in battle in 1632. This is surprising to an Englishman because by 1632 English kings had long ceased to put their bodies on the line when there were nasty sharp things and destructive heavy things flying around. As far as I’m aware, the last English king to die in battle was Richard III in 1485. Take King Charles I, for example, a more-or-less contemporary of Gustavus. His method was to sit on a speedy horse on a hill with a good view of the playing field so he could hightail it back to Oxford (or even Scotland) if the day failed to go well. And so he did after the Battle of Naseby in 1645.

But maybe the matter of looks has to be taken into account here. Being not the best looking bloke on the block, Gustave probably didn’t think it mattered too much if he came to a sticky end with things sticking into him which shouldn’t have been there (although I was much saddened to learn that his horse also got injured in the affair, and he was probably very good looking as all horses are. I met one today which proves it.) Charles I, on the other hand, was rather more favoured in that regard and so probably thought that it mattered a very great deal.

But nemesis is full of little tricks, and so it proved with poor old Charles. Less than four years after escaping the mob at Naseby, his much favoured features (along with the rest of his head) were severed from the rest of him in the only judicial execution of an English king. And who should have been the main mover in this dastardly act? Why, none other than Oliver Cromwell Esq who was even uglier than Gustavus Adolphus. This is one of history’s great ironies, or so it seems to me.

Two connected notes:

1. Watching Crystelle Pereira on the TV this evening brought into sharp focus something I’ve known for a long time: It isn’t so much the physical features which make a face attractive, it’s how the incumbent uses it.

2. The local squirrels have taught me that:

• They are probably unique in the world of wild animals in having an instinctive understanding of right and wrong.
• They much prefer to do wrong than right, and are capable of running away at lightning speed when caught in the act.

Squirrels actually have a number of unsavoury and destructive characteristics, but everybody likes them anyway because they’re so good looking. Have I made my point yet?

Just Wishing.

I was feeling bored because I’ve finished watching The Legend of Korra and have nothing to replace it with, nobody of note is corresponding with me, and nothing worth reporting happened today. Accordingly, I thought it might be interesting to list my most notable wishes on the blog just to have something to do. I began with the most immediate and obvious, and then spent around twenty minutes thinking of a few more. This was the result:

I wish I had a video to watch. I wish I had an interesting email to answer. I wish I had a blog post to write. I wish I had all my physical faculties back in pristine condition. I wish I could eat my favourite foods with gay abandon. I wish I had a very great deal of money so I could give it to good causes. I wish I could go back in time and meet the Brontë sisters. I wish I could tell the Lady B she has Carey Mulligan’s eyes. I wish I could drink as much alcohol as I like without worrying about the effect on my liver. I wish I had the capacity to observe more and judge less. I wish I could speak French fluently. I wish I could meet a Swedish woman with a sense of humour and tell her why I find Swedish people interesting. I wish I could project the right energy so that birds might trust me. I wish I could tell the story of the frog which ate the princess to a bunch of kids old enough to get the joke. I wish I could truly know that death holds nothing to be afraid of. I wish I could stop feeling guilty about ending a sentence on a preposition. I wish I could make all the sad people in the world happy.

There were more, but they were either less substantial or in some way conditional so I stopped there. It isn’t very compelling is it, not unless you happen to be a Swedish woman who wants to know why an Englishman finds her compatriots interesting, or a French person who wants to know why an Englishman wants to speak their language. But it filled a gap and might as well go up to keep the scoreboard moving.

Next Life Choices.

The first sign of an upwardly mobile season was evidenced tonight by the first beetle wandering aimlessly around my office floor. It looked lost. Beetles always look lost, and it occurred to me that when I’m floating patiently around that nether region known to the Buddhists as The Between, and the disembodied voice asks me what I would like to be  in my next life, I might answer ‘a beetle.’

‘But beetles are always lost,’ will intone the disembodied voice.

‘So what,’ I will answer ruefully, ‘I felt lost for the whole of my last life as a human. Nothing new there.’

‘If you’re a beetle you might get eaten by a bird or something.’

‘If I’m a human I might get eaten by a lion or something.’

‘True, but beetles spend most of their time in dark, damp places.’

‘Most of them do, but I’ll be a smart one. I’ll find myself a nice little niche under the floorboards in some rich person’s house which has proper central heating where I can stay all winter and be comfortable. I never had that privilege as a human.’

‘Really?’

‘No.’

‘You poor thing. OK, you can be a beetle if that’s what you want. But I thought you had your eye on being a deep space astronaut.’

‘Mmm… I did, didn’t I? Do they have beetles on spaceships?’

‘Doubt it.’

‘Oh, right. Leave it with me and I’ll come back to you.’

It occurs to me that it would be a good idea to come back as an apex predator like a salt water crocodile, but I don’t think I could face being that ugly.

(I just heard a disembodied voice coming from somewhere beyond the veil. It said: ‘Have you looked in a mirror lately?’)

Notes for Yet Another Tuesday.

Tuesdays just keep on happening, you know. One of these days I must work out how many Tuesdays I’ve encountered in this life. But anyway…

Today was bad in just about the same ways as yesterday was good. The see-saw effect is becoming tediously routine.

I used to have three hen pheasants visit my garden daily and I became quite fond of them. This morning I found one of them dead on the road near my gate. She looked quite uninjured, but it is a well known fact to those well versed in the matter of pheasants that they never lie on their side with their eyes closed unless they’re dead.

I had reason to suspect that my old stomach ulcer was back to add further to my litany of physical woes, and they’re not as easily fixed as they were when the GP services were in full swing (pre-Covid, of course.) I have observed that few things are as good as stomach ulcers for bringing you down.

Another American woman loved one of my comments on her YouTube channel today. It’s not entirely surprising since she’s a rare example of someone with whom I feel I could get on, and she has a splendid dog which makes regular appearances. Her channel name is SoGal if you’re curious to see what kind of person I could get on with. (I ended that sentence with a preposition for no other reason than that I wanted to.)

Talking of YouTube, I’ve had several examples recently of visitors to the blog having been referred from there. I have no idea how that can happen. And on the subject of YouTube and mystery, here’s another one: My recommendations are becoming ever more copiously littered with videos which appear to have no other purpose than to titillate me with either partial views of women’s breasts, or the sight of buttocks hanging out of the skimpy shorts worn by women athletes.  I can think of nothing I’ve done to encourage the view that I would want to watch them. On the contrary, my watch history should leave even the dumbest algorithm in no doubt that my late night viewing is geared to matters of rather deeper significance.

I finished watching the extensive saga, The Legend of Korra, last night. It was my second watching and I enjoyed it more than I did the first time around. What I found particularly interesting was how quickly and completely an anime-style video can suck you in to the point where you really believe that these are real people doing real things. In my case, I think it probably says a lot about my suspicions regarding what is real and what isn’t.

Tonight I developed a sudden yen to visit Slovenia, and all courtesy of a rendition of Borodin’s Polovtsian Dances. It includes the melody later used for the popular song Stranger in Paradise taken from the 1950s musical Kismet. It became my favourite melody when I was around six, and remains so to this day. And I must say that the original version sung by a women’s choir accompanied by an orchestra is infinitely superior to the popular song. At least to me it is. So why Slovenia? The orchestra happened to come from there, and I’m easily influenced to the point of making irrational connections.

Springing.

Today was an uncharacteristically good day (by standards known only to me.) When I went for my walk this morning I felt something almost approximating to a spring in my step (you might find it hard to believe just how rare a sensation that is these days.) The landscape looked alive for the first time since last September, and I could feel nature’s life in the air. It seemed as though today was truly the first day of spring, and this time it meant business.

Mel told me she felt the same way yesterday. Must be something to do with the equinox I expect. The days are now longer than the nights, and will remain so for six months.

On the way back I heard my name called and turned to see the Lady B’s Dear Mama with the two venerable canine companions. I got to pet my favourite cocker spaniel for the second time in just over a week, which was another treat I haven’t had for a long time. Her friend, Honourable Sister’s dog, barked at me as she usually does. Seems you really can’t have everything in this life, but enough is enough.

A Message to Like-Minded Russians.

I’ve lived in this area for sixteen years now, and apart from a few Union flags being in evidence during the Queen’s Jubilee celebrations ten years ago, I’ve never seen a flag flying here. We’re not especially given to that sort of thing in the UK, regarding it as a mildly amusing American habit. But there’s one here now. My neighbour across the field has rigged up a makeshift flag pole and is flying the yellow and blue of Ukraine on it.

This says something about the strength of feeling in Western Europe; how Russia is seen as the cowardly bully and the Ukrainians as innocent victims becoming heroes for fighting back. But we also know it isn’t quite that simple. We’re cognisant of the old ‘good Russians/bad Russians’ reality, and there is some sympathy for the good Russians because we know it can’t be pleasant living under Mr Putin’s evil eye.

It strikes me, therefore, that it would be helpful if someone could design and manufacture an alternative flag to the official Russian one – a flag which represents the good Russians who just want a peaceful world in which we can all be friends. No one would dare fly it in Russia, of course, because I expect such an act would be a capital offence, but we could fly it freely just to demonstrate to the good Russians that we know they’re there.

Spring: The Good and the Bad.

The good news is that spring sprang most splendidly in the Shire today. The upwardly mobile sun shone benevolently from an azure sky while the temperate breeze blew softly and an archipelago of soft cumulus drifted at snail’s pace across the hills above the river valley. Crowds of stately daffodils joined with the rampant celandines in turning their golden faces to the great orb, patches of fresh green appeared in the hedgerow hawthorn, the whiteness of the blackthorn blossom glowed happily, and the plumping leaf buds of the horse chestnut trees looked set to burst into beneficent grandeur.

For the first time since last November I sallied forth on my walk today without the protective thatching of my beanie hat or the insulating qualities of my best winter coat. Fortunately there was no one around to fail to recognise me, thereby troubling my equilibrium with a confused sense of identity. And when I took my afternoon tea and biscuit, I did so outside in my usual spot close to one of the bird tables. A robin spoke to me in an irritated tone: ‘Do you have to sit there?’ he remonstrated. ‘You know we’re reluctant to feed when you’re sitting too close. Good job it’s warm and sunny today, so we’re not as ravenous as usual.’ ‘But that’s precisely why I’m sitting here,’ I answered smugly. ‘Mmm, suppose so,’ he replied, and then flew into the nearby hedge, studiously avoiding the low-life sparrows which congregate there. (Robins are well known for exhibiting a sense of superiority in the matter of sparrows.)

But all the time I kept on reminding myself that March can be treacherous. The verges of the Shire lanes might be set in frozen mud next week, and my beanie hat might be augmented by my voluminous red scarf to make the business of walking tolerable.

*  *  *

The bad news is that I read about Mr Putin holding a rally to help convince his supporters that murdering innocent Ukrainians is a fine and heroic way to celebrate the arrival of spring. It occurred to me – not for the first time – that the human race is broadly divided into the good people and the bad people, and that Russians are presumably no exception. It further occurred to me that the simplest way to solve the Ukraine crisis would be for someone to separate Mr Putin from his life force, but that isn’t likely to happen because good people are, thankfully, not given to committing murder. Such an action is generally the preserve of the bad people, and they’re all standing in line behind their leader, no doubt cheering and singing patriotic songs. Ironic, isn’t it?

Dark Windows and a Difficult World.

I’m still not entirely sure why I find it disturbing to sit in a lighted room at night with the curtains open. I think it has something to do with the window forming a barrier between two worlds – the closed, immediate environment which is dry and light, and an expanse of inscrutability beyond in which the unspeakable might lurk.

But tonight I was made aware of something else: I have an even stronger aversion to an uncovered window loaded with condensation, as my kitchen window was after I’d cooked my dinner this evening. The aversion was strong enough to puzzle me, and I could only conclude that the darkness was still apparent but was being hidden by the congealed water vapour. Somehow that made it even more inscrutable and therefore more potentially menacing. I’ve no idea whether I’m right or not.

Oddly, however, I have no problem with going out into the darkness because then I’m part of it and have no reason to feel menaced. I learned that lesson many years ago when I had to get out of a car parked in a wood in order to relieve myself. I found the wood scary while I was in the car, but not at all scary once I got out. I think there might be a deep lesson to be learned here, or maybe it’s simply the fact of my being a little strange and growing stranger with the passing years.

*  *  *

Meanwhile, I’m growing tired of the health issues clouding my view of the future. I’m tired of Covid pollution still hanging in the air and getting thicker again. I’m tired of the impending assault on my financial integrity as the price of nearly everything rockets. I’m tired of the post-truth generation and its spawning of fake gurus trying to lure me into their pathetic webs with spurious propaganda. I’m tired of trying to avoid the traps laid by the corporate world in order that they should have more control over my life and lifestyle. And I’m particularly tired of a mediaeval-style Russian dictator apparently believing he’s justified in killing pregnant women and children and trashing the reputation of a whole population into the bargain. Making cheerful blog posts isn’t easy at the moment.

Today was a wet day and it turned cold as the light fell. Tonight’s twilight was not a pleasant twilight. No bats.

A Little Person's Ides of March.

Something reminded me earlier that today is the Ides of March, that fateful day when Julius Caesar met his end and Mark Anthony cast a sly eye in the direction of Egypt. It is a day worthy of note, a portentous day, the day on which I had probably the strangest experience of my whole life. I decided that I couldn’t let it pass without making a blog post, but I knew I’d told the story of 15^th March 1995 before on this blog and it wouldn’t do to repeat myself. Good writers don’t do that, do they?

I did. I searched the date and found that I’d told the story of 15^th March 1995 three times in different years. They were told in different words and set in different contexts, but they were all the same story. I felt truly ashamed of myself (but you can read one of them here if you’re interested.)

So did anything of note happen to me today? Yes it did: I saw the first bat of the season out hunting at twilight, which is always one of spring’s great pleasures. I also did the first of the serious shrub-trimming jobs in the garden which included using the heavy pole hedge trimmer for the first time since last autumn. The effect on both my injured arm and my cardio-vascular issue was most uncomfortable, but as far I know I haven’t died of either yet. Sorry to disappoint.

Today's Lessons and Irritations.

I learned from my long-deceased Irish friend, Mr O’Brien, that I habitually use the figures of speech known as litotes and meiosis in my writing, especially in contexts where they’re effectively synonymous. I doubt that many people reading this statement will have a clue what either term means, which affords me a fraudulent sense of superiority because neither did I until about fifteen minutes ago.

Another strange dog leapt affectionately at me today (strange in the sense that I’d never seen it before, but actually rather handsome), leaving muddy marks on my £250 coat purchased from a posh coat shop a mere five years ago. It being easily the most expensive coat I’ve ever had, I couldn’t decide whether to be pleased by the gesture or irritated by the effect. I settled on both.

Two emails arrived in quick succession from two employees of a damnable denizen of the corporate world. They both irritated me mightily. One I considered beneath contempt and therefore ignorable, the other occasioned much gnashing of teeth and a modicum of unwelcome employment at an inconvenient time.

I performed the first trimming job of the season in the garden, and learned that the wrist pain which began last autumn is not only still with me but is worse than it was last autumn. I suspect this will continue to irritate until next November, assuming I make it that far.

It rained unexpectedly. This was the least of the irritations.

A pretty woman from America loved my comment on her YouTube channel, which failed to irritate me at all. I thought it unusual not be irritated by something.

Alcohol and the daily YouTube session now beckon, so that’s probably it for today.

Rejecting Ancient Roots.

I just watched a YouTube video on how the various body parts are an indicator of genealogy. It started with foot shape, divided into the five standards which are Greek, Roman, Celtic, Germanic and Egyptian. Seems I have a Greek foot (which is the best, of course.) But judging by some of the Greek statues they showed, I think it would be inadvisable to explore further.

Heading for Santa Fe.

I recall that as a young boy I felt a longing to travel to the Wild West, only it wasn’t the wildness of the west that fascinated me. It was the sense that here was the ultimate setting of the sun, and the setting of the sun was my goal, and the cow catchered train that sought to plunge headlong into the crimson and cloud-scattered sky was taking me home. And now it seems I feel the need to write like an Irishman. Must be in the blood (or the whiskey, or from reading Flann O’Brien for my sins.) But it’s all true.

A Sign from Doris.

Why, oh why do I have Doris Day singing The Black Hills of Dakota looping around in my head mercilessly? It’s not as though I’ve heard it anywhere recently. It keeps impressing on me my sense of the world when I was a small child, and maybe therein lies the clue to something.

Tentative Signs.

It was bright and mild in the Shire today, and I saw several bees feeding on the early spring flowers in the garden and on the embankments. I told myself not to see this as the precursor of summer because in the month of March it might only be the precursor of winter’s late sting, but it was good to see them anyway.

At twilight I looked for the return of the bats, but no luck there. Maybe they have the gift of foresight. And I’ve started to find ladybirds wandering the floors in the house. They hibernate around the south-facing window frames in the autumn, and it seems that some of them now want to be about their business. Unfortunately, they’re going in the wrong direction. Such are the perils of life.

Hoping.

One of the reasons why the Ukraine business disturbs me so much (and it really does) is the fact that after many thousands of years of evolution, the human animal still feels the need to do this sort of thing. Why can’t we grow up, I ask myself? What is this obsession we have with territory and wealth and superiority? Why can’t we tip all the weapons into the Mariana Trench and concentrate on just getting on with each other

But maybe there’s a glint of light to be seen in all this…

I think it’s probably true to say that throughout human history people haven’t generally cared about what this psychopath or that empire builder has been up to as long as it didn’t affect them personally. Now it seems they do. It seems that people from Argentina to Alaska to Australia are united in their condemnation of Russia (or at least Putin and his military lackeys.) People now feel an emotional stake in global affairs as well as local ones, so maybe globalisation has something going for it after all. Maybe we’re slowly getting there.

(Do you know, every day I try to find something funny to say on this blog but it’s mostly a lost cause. Tomorrow, maybe.)

Missing the Coffee Shop.

You know, I haven’t been into a coffee shop since lockdown descended in March 2020. That’s two years without taking my seat in the cinema of life at its most immediate. For that’s what the coffee shop was to me: the place where I could watch anonymous strangers, picking out the occasional interesting specimen in order to observe the human creature going about its business and reporting the observations to these pages.

I still don’t go into coffee shops for several reasons, not least the fact that Covid is on the rise again at the moment. My only window on life now is the news pages beamed from the BBC onto my monitor screen, and there’s little to see there except politicians and people in distress.  It’s edifying only in the fact that it projects a world in a state of inscrutable flux. It’s all so impersonal, producing a sense of anxiety where the intimate nature of the coffee shop once offered a mild form of enlightenment.

Another Irish Connection.

The following is a small extract from chapter 1 of Flann O’Brien’s novel, At Swim-Two-Birds:

Whether in or out, I always kept the door of my bedroom locked. This made my movements a matter of some secrecy and enabled me to spend an inclement day in bed without disturbing my uncle’s assumption that I had gone to the college to attend to my studies. A contemplative life has always been suitable to my disposition.

I regard Flann O’Brien as one of Ireland’s most notable personages, and that extract goes some way to explaining why. Both style and content are eminently suitable to my own disposition. Accordingly, I like to imagine that I, too, might think of myself as one of Ireland’s notable personages, albeit around five generations removed.

And isn’t it interesting that some of the best writers of English prose were Irish? Did you know that Charlotte Brontë – she whose prose style might be likened to the finest Cognac – was half Irish? You do now.

On Corporations and Cockapoos.

Having just won my minor skirmish with the land agent, I now have a battle of slightly more magnitude to fight against E.ON Next, my energy supplier. They’re happy to tell me that my energy bills are to rise by a staggering 40% from next month, but they’ve gone suspiciously quiet on the matter of paying me an allowance to which I’m clearly entitled. The corporate world is becoming enemy number one these days, what with its self-serving interests, its campaign to seize greater and greater control of the way in which the culture functions, and its persistently faulty computer programs adding further stresses to an increasingly stressful life. I wonder whether Mr Putin has any connection with it.

 

But I did get assaulted most affectionately by a cockapoo today, and returned its good favour with much gratitude and enthusiasm. And I was understandably relieved that its accompanying human showed no similar inclination. This is a cockapoo:

 

Becoming Subordinate.

The Lady B used to drive a perky little Mini, but has now gone over to the far side and cruises around in a big, studiously bourgeois Land Rover Discovery. One effect of this metamorphosis is that she now looks down on me when our vehicles pass, as they did in a car park recently.

I find it mildly disconcerting to be looked down on by the Lady B. I wouldn’t be in the least discomfited if the person taking the vulture position was some innocuous creature like a TV celebrity, senior politician or captain of industry, but the Lady B occupies a rather more rarefied plane in what passes for my consciousness.

Fortunately, there’s no reason why it should matter any more (and her dear mama still seems to acknowledge that even savages like me can be noble) so that’s OK.

Ukraine: A Furrowing of the Brow.

I have two questions regarding the current situation in Ukraine:

1. I presume the Russian military chiefs are real people with a modicum of intelligence and the capacity for finer feelings. If that is the case, why is it that when the President goes too far and orders them to invade a smaller and weaker neighbour without provocation, they don’t just say no?

2. How does Russia manage to remain one of the five privileged members of the UN Security Council when its behaviour flies in the face of everything the United Nations is supposed to stand for (and against which the Security Council is supposed to safeguard)?

Sorry, Bhutan.

Some years ago something I read in some arm of the western media led me to the view that Bhutan was a quaint but rather backward country. It’s why I occasionally make jokes (respectfully) about it on my blog.

So, I just came across a YouTube video of people from Drukair, Royal Bhutan Airlines, taking part in the Jerusalema dance challenge. First thought:

Bhutan has an airline? I thought they didn’t even have TV.

It got better. The landscape, the people, the architecture, all stunningly beautiful. (And they really do have an airline. Judging by the uniforms, it seems they even have women pilots.)

Now I want to go to Bhutan, if only to apologise for being led astray by some arm of the western media. No more jokes.

Two More Incongruous Notes.

This week there has been an American comic called Sara Barron on virtually the only TV programme I watch. I liked her accent, so I looked her up. Seems she hails from Chicago, which presumably means I like the Chicago accent. Isn’t it odd how you can find little things to like in this bloody awful world? Seems the god of small things is still riding shotgun for me.

*  *  *

I had an email from the land agent last week telling me that I owed £60 on my rent account and would I please pay it. The problem was that she didn’t tell me why I owed them £60, so I queried it in somewhat direct terms. Yesterday I received another email, this time from the accounts department, offering the explanation. Not wishing to stray into the boring details, let it suffice to say that I thought it unreasonable so I asked them to write the debt off. Today I had another email from the accounts department telling me it had been written off. My reply included: ‘May your karma be ever in credit.’ It seemed apposite.

Putting Russia Back on the Map.

I have a dream.

All the top brass in the Russian military wake up one morning and discover they’re not the psychopathic cyborgs the rest of the world thinks they are. They’re actually human beings with souls and a sense of right and wrong.

So off they go to the Kremlin, pick Mr Putin up by the ears, and send him off to the remotest gulag they can think of. (I assume the gulags are still there in some form or other.) They withdraw all their forces from Ukraine, undertake to make such reparation as they are able, and make a TV announcement to the Russian people:

‘We are now in charge and will remain so for a period of six months, at which point we promise to hold free and fair elections so that you may have the President and government of your choice. We will support you in that choice and there will be no skulduggery.’

And then they keep their word.

Am I being naïve?

An Appearance and a Coincidence.

I was coming out of my bathroom this morning when something small and dark flew towards me and continued over my shoulder. At first I assumed it was a moth, even though moths are rarely seen in winter. I turned and saw that it was, in fact, a butterfly trying frantically to get out through the closed window.

In all the years I’ve lived here I’ve never seen a butterfly in the house. Butterflies are not much given to the habit. Moths are regular invaders, being attracted to the room lights after dark, but butterflies don’t fly at night. They spend their days outside busily feeding on flowers, and then disappear until the next day. And they only fly during the warmer months.

And then there are two interesting coincidences. It was a Red Admiral butterfly, which is the same species as the one featured on my blog banner and also the species which plays such a notable part in my short story The Visitor. The circumstances of its appearance are also eerily similar.

So what was it doing in my house? Hibernating, I suppose. But why did it wake up into a cold bathroom in early March?

I did a little research into the folklore around butterflies, but it was all rather vague stuff about butterflies being identified with the soul or spirit, and their appearance representing signs of changing fortunes which can be anything from unexpected luck to death. Not much to go on there, and probably irrelevant anyway.

The main point, I suppose, is that I opened the window and set it free. I have little confidence that it will survive whatever remains of the winter season, but I assumed that freedom would be the overriding priority for a butterfly.

Variation on a Theme of Moaning.

To add to the woes which are making a habit of landing in my lap from a variety of sources, today I received an email from my electricity supplier. It sought to inform me of the extent to which my electricity tariffs will be going up from 1^st April. 40% (forty percent!) They say it’s all to do with wholesale prices, and who am I to argue? And since my old house is entirely heated by piecemeal electrical appliances (but still remains mostly uncomfortably cold throughout the winter months) there’s no way of escaping it.

So, a little story: when I first moved to this house nearly sixteen years ago I was massively insolvent, burdened with a large amount of debt which wasn’t mine but for which I was legally responsible. Fortunately, I know how to economise. I come from poor, working class stock and had a naturally frugal mother, so it’s in the blood. I put this skill to good use and eventually moved from debit into credit, and since then I’ve managed to build a little capital so as to have a modest sum to leave to my ex and my daughter when the big day arrives. That seems only right and proper because my mother did the same for me.

I worked out how long this little capital will last, assuming all other factors remain constant, given the projected increase in electricity charges. It came to ten years. Better hope I don’t last that long.

*  *  *

Today’s nice news is that I was able to pet two donkeys, a horse and a Shetland pony in Meadow Lane at the bottom end of the Shire. It hasn’t escaped my notice that making physical contact with friendly animals is most beneficial when you’re feeling glum, and so it was today. And doesn’t ‘Meadow Lane’ have a delightfully pastoral ring to it? I assume it’s so called because it runs along the eastern edge of a range of meadows leading down to the river. I haven’t seen the river for a long time. I assume it’s still there.