Negative Musings on the End of June.

I always feel a little sad when we reach the end of June. I’ve often said that my two favourite months of the year are May and June because they’re so replete with the burgeoning energy of natural development. They’re also full of optimism because high summer is still in the future. When July begins we’ve now arrived at high summer, and July is often the warmest and most summery month of the year. But July is the plateau and the beginning, albeit imperceptively, of the decline back to the cold, dark days of winter. It reminds me of that phenomenon I used to feel as a child when I found Christmas Eve the most magical day of the Christmas season, and Christmas Day an anticlimax.

I suppose this is just another example of one of my principle faults – seeing everything in terms of its potential rather than its present qualities. I think I must be the very embodiment of the donkey and its carrot.

And this year’s end of June hasn’t been the best of them. It’s been chilly, breezy, and very dull today, and both my body and mental state are insanely sensitive to climatic conditions these days. And so it’s been a depressing and pessimistic day with uncomfortable physical side effects, and I’ve been feeling a sensation to which I’m almost a complete stranger: I’ve been feeling lonely. Loneliness is a sensation to which natural loners are unaccustomed because such would be irrational, so where today’s feeling came from I don’t know.

Actually, I think I might know. I suspect it’s because the tyranny of advancing years eventually leads to pernicious physical and mental decline, and then a sense begins to take hold that you’re becoming uglier, less attractive, less desirable, and therefore less entitled to have close associates. And that leads to the suspicion that the faculty of lone-ness is being forced upon you rather than being a matter of choice. At least, that’s how it is for me. Whether it’s the same for other people I have no way of knowing.

I think I’d better shut up now. I might mention that the next set of CT scans are scheduled for Monday, but musings on that fact are a subject for another day.

Blood and Bullocks.

I went for my umpteenth blood test at the doc’s today. As usual, I didn’t faint. And as usual, I talked too much. I mentioned to the (middle aged) nurse that a couple of years ago, several nurses tried to take a blood sample but had great difficulty owing to the insistence of the veins in both arms to slip sideways when they tried to insert the needle. ‘That’s unusual,’ she replied. ‘That usually only happens in people older than you.’ What could I say but ‘Gee, thanks.’

*  *  *

And now for a sad story. You might remember me mentioning the little black bullock who was alone in the field behind my house for a few days. I looked out of the bathroom window today and saw that he was back and still alone. I watched him trudge slowly up the hill, occasionally stopping to glance around, and felt intensely sorry for the little guy. That sort of thing really gets to me, you know, and it stays with me for a long time. Cows are herd animals and need to be with others of their kind, and it’s my heartfelt belief that those who fail to take account of the fact that animals are sentient and emotional creatures shouldn’t be allowed to have custody of them.

Sainsbury's and a Curious Coincidence.

As I walked past the entrance to Sainsbury’s store in Ashbourne today I saw a woman lying on the floor in the doorway having presumably collapsed. She was being attended by several members of staff who were no doubt waiting for the paramedics to arrive.

As I walked on I recalled that I’d seen several people collapsed in Ashbourne in the twenty one years I’ve been living in the area, and here’s what’s odd. As far as I remember, all but one of them was lying either in Sainsbury's store or outside on the paved area close to the entrance. And even the single exception was less than 100 yards from the entrance to Sainsbury’s lot. And here’s another little addition to the coincidence. When my brother suffered the aneurysm which led to his death, he collapsed in another Sainsbury’s store in a town called Abingdon in Oxfordshire.

So should I have suspicions regarding the possibility of Sainsbury’s hosting a malevolent genius loci, especially in towns beginning with the letter A? And given the fact that I have a (relatively minor, apparently) heart condition, should I be giving Sainsbury’s a wide berth?

*  *  *

And now I wonder whether I should I mention in passing that the post I made on Tuesday about the ‘greed gene’ was the 9,000^th published post since I started this blog in 2010? Well, now I have, but I’ll forego offering extended statistics on the matter (much as I’d like to.)

Being Alive for Once.

A combination of circumstances provided me with a rare treat this evening. The first was that the old fatigue problem was less in evidence than usual and so I felt a little more alive. And then we had an hour of blessed light rain, the breeze fell quiet, and the temperature rose a little. Well, how many times have I said here that warm, damp, calm summer evenings give the best possible conditions for a late perambulation? And so I donned my walking shoes, threw on a light raincoat, and went out for a stroll.

The nature of the treat is easy to explain. My walks at the moment are made out of a sense of duty to take low intensity exercise, and can sometimes be an uncomfortable trudge. This one was taken purely for the pleasure of enjoying the experience, and that’s a rarity.

I only walked to the top of my lane as far as the entrance to the Harry Potter wood about half a mile away. There, I stood leaning on the gate for a while, gazing at the darkening path leading downhill between the trees. The atmosphere was utterly seductive, and silence reigned apart from a single bird chirruping from a treetop. And then I felt a sudden, intense impression that something magical underlying the natural world had come alive and was filling my personal world with an energy rarely felt.

And just to add a drizzle of raspberry sauce to the ice cream, Caroline waved and smiled at me as she passed me in her car. Do you realise what it means to a sad old goat like me to be able to say ‘Caroline waved and smiled at me’? I don’t suppose you do.

Musing on the Greed Gene.

When considering the state of the human condition, it seems to me that greed is the most destructive pollutant in the human genome. It drives so much that is damaging to life on the planet, from the massive disparity of wealth on both a national and international scale, to the increasing impact of climate change, to the relentless pursuit of power and the misery it causes to the innocent masses, to the obsession with lifestyle driving mindless consumption, to morbid obesity and the predominance of toxic chemicals in the food supply. It’s all driven by greed one way or another.

And that’s why I’m feeling more and more crushed by the sense that the world is falling into a maelstrom of major change. Some economists are forecasting the possibility of economic collapse, climate change is bringing more frequent and more powerful natural disasters, and the leaders of the world’s biggest power blocs are sparring and snarling and slowly bringing the possibility of world conflict ever closer.

And let’s not forget that major events in one part of the world have a ripple effect these days because there probably isn’t a country on earth that is self-sufficient. We’re all dependent on each other to live the way we’ve become accustomed to living. The only exceptions to that are the small groups of indigenous peoples, mostly in South America, who have made a point of maintaining distance between themselves and what we call – with a hint of arrogance I feel – the ‘outside world.’ And even they’re slowly disappearing as the loggers and miners and ranchers move in, destroying their environments and callously murdering them if they get in the way. And all to feed the greed of company bosses, the corporate world, the politicians who profit from their actions, and those of us in the ‘outside world’ who insist on living the way we’ve become accustomed to live.

So where is all this likely to lead? I don’t know, but one optimistic thought is that if we humans are reduced to scattered fragments returning to the practice of hunter-gathering, maybe the greed gene will eventually die out and we can make a better job of it next time. And should any of this matter to me? Not unless you believe in reincarnation.

The next post will be pleasanter.

Now You See Them...

This time last year the field at the back and around the side of my house had approximately a hundred sheep in it (the ewes still had the lambs with them, you understand.) And then they disappeared in the autumn and the field was empty through the winter.

A few weeks ago they returned, but there were only fifteen of them. That’s a big reduction, so what had happened to the rest? I don’t know, but shortly afterwards four young cows took up residence – three small black ones and a slightly bigger brown one. The fifteen sheep were a bit suspicious at first, but soon settled down and bucolic peace was restored.

But not for long. The sheep disappeared again but the young cows stayed on. And then the cows disappeared and the sheep returned, only that time their number had reduced to three. Just three sheep. They looked a little lost and forlorn to me, but I supposed they had each other for company and so I wasn’t unduly concerned.

It didn’t end there, however. The sheep disappeared again and were replaced by just one small black cow which looked very lonely, poor lad. He wandered alone and forlorn, seeking shelter from the hot summer sun for a few days, and then became uncomfortably conspicuous by his renewed absence. Two days ago the three sheep were back, but I haven’t seen them since and the field is presently empty.

That sort of thing matters to me, you know, because if there’s one thing that makes me concerned to the point of feeling fractious, it’s any suspicion that animals – and little humans – aren’t happy and settled. Call me oversensitive if you like, but that’s how it is.

Politicians: Responsibility vs Rhetoric.

It’s becoming a matter of some concern in the UK that violent behaviour – most notably knife crime – perpetrated by young men is on the increase to an alarming degree. Murders by stabbing are sadly becoming an almost daily feature of the national news.

My generation experienced hardly any of this sort of thing, so are we to believe that today’s generation is somehow genetically different to us? It seems most unlikely. I’m fairly sure that humans throughout the ages have been constructed of the same raw material, so what’s different? I think it self evident that social conditioning is what’s different, and social conditioning comes primarily from the many aspects of life which make up the culture. And who is responsible for those many aspects? Why, politicians mostly are. And yet I’ve never yet heard a politician accept any responsibility for increasing social violence.

*  *  *

The latest upshot of Mr Prigozhin’s March on Moscow comes from Mr Putin’s address to the Russian people. He refers to Wagner’s puzzlingly theatrical display as a ‘mutiny’, and says that the ‘mutineers’ wanted to see Russian society ‘drown in a river of blood.’ This is, to say the least, a somewhat amusing exaggeration, and strongly suggests that Mr Putin is either losing the plot to a major extent or has a very low opinion of the average Russian’s intelligence. Alternatively, maybe it's just the latest act of some piece of political theatre written to divert attention from the rivers of blood which Mr Putin's policy has visited on Ukrainian civilians.

Minor Mysteries.

I’m a little nonplussed regarding Mr Prigozhin’s March on Moscow and the ‘chaos’ he supposedly wrought in the Russian capital. The media cognoscenti are hopping about like bears in a bagel shop with their analyses and theories and speculations on what brought it to fruition and what will happen next. It seems to me that there’s a whiff of artifice about it all because too much of what we ‘know’ doesn’t stand up to rational consideration. It’s like one of those films full of plot holes which the writer and director hope the audience won’t notice, but some of us do. I’m curious to know what will happen next, of course, but curiosity is about the limit of my interest.

*  *  *

I’d like to know why young girls in the 11-13 age group stare at me. It happens quite a lot, you know; it happened again today in Tesco. I don’t stare at them so why do they stare at me? I glance in their direction occasionally just to see whether they’re still staring, and they always are. I can only theorise that they’ve reached that state in their emotional development where some aspect of intuition is awakening, and they’re driven to study the male animal in order to find clues as to how they might destroy it and hang it on the wall when the time comes. The infamous Mary Davies comes to mind (see earlier blog posts.) It occurs to me that she must have been in the 11-13 age group a few years before hanging me out to dry.

*  *  *

And I’m still intrigued as to who owns the hand which waves in my direction from the Lady B’s car when it drives past me in the lane. It happened again this afternoon. That’s twice in the space of six days, and I’m wondering whether it’s some sort of device you can buy in Halfords.

Some Recapitulations.

Let me recap on something I’ve mentioned several times on the blog. The Shire that is my environment is an undulating landscape of fields, hedgerows, mature trees, copses, bigger woods, and low hills, and the whole of it is green at the moment. Let me further recap by saying that the colours in the patchwork of fields vary according to the season. There are four choices on the palette: green when the crops and hay plants are growing, brown when the earth is bare, yellow/buff when the wheat and barley are ripe, and golden yellow when the oilseed flowers bloom in the spring. 

 

(If only some of the farmers would grow lavender we could add blue to the mix, but the farmers in these parts are sturdy English yeoman types who would probably consider the growing of lavender to be women’s work. Some of them are probably still sharpening their arrows in case they ever get the chance to shoot them at the French aristocracy again. And there’s a thought: Maybe that’s why the French Revolution happened. Maybe the French got so fed up with their great and good being skewered by smelly, ne’er-do-well English ruffians that they decided it was better to get rid of the aristocracy than lose face. Never thought of that one before. I wonder what the French history books say about it.)

Anyway, at the moment – the moment being early summer – it’s too late for the early oilseed blooming, too early for the cereal harvest, and much too early for the ploughing and muck spreading. So the colour green predominates completely, which is fine by me. And it will all change soon because everything does.

And now for another recap.

I’ve mentioned several times that the number of migrant birds has been diminishing over the past few years. Well, it’s getting worse. I go for a walk nearly every day (surgeon’s recommendation, you understand), and over the past few weeks I’ve seen a swallow on only about one occasion in three. And I do mean a swallow – a single bird hunting alone over a field. The old adage one swallow does not a summer make refers to the false presumption that summer has arrived on seeing the first swallow in late April or early May. But it’s now nearly the end of June, so where are the flocks of maybe 15-20 birds which used to treat us to the spectacle of power, grace, and speed and bestow one of summer’s primary delights? Where are this year’s young? Are there none? Seeing a lone swallow repeatedly is a sad sight indeed. And their cousins, the house martins, have been conspicuous by their total absence so far this year. I assume it’s all due to climate change, but who can tell?

And now I’m desperately trying to think of a way to wrap up this post, but my imagination has fallen asleep. Maybe I should mention that my new lady friend, the lovely young blackbird, now has a name. She’s called Henrietta. I told her that she looked like a Henrietta and she didn’t disagree, so I must have got it right in one.

Questioning Midsummer.

It having been the summer solstice yesterday, I lit a small fire outside in the garden as I do every year. In my case, however, it isn’t really the solstice I celebrate, but an acknowledgement of the fact that midsummer’s day is the feast day of the Irish goddess Aine (pronounced Anya in case you didn’t know. Aine is close to my heart, you see, for those who’ve never read my novel.)

But people do celebrate the summer solstice for its own sake, don’t they? They gather on the east coast of England and at Stonehenge every year come hell or high water and I sometimes wonder why. The summer solstice is the day on which the sun starts lowering in the sky and the days start growing shorter, so what is there to celebrate? It isn’t even a seasonal marker like Beltane and the other three.

I expect I’m missing something here. Maybe people think it appropriate to celebrate cycles. Is that it? I expect it probably is.

Declining to be Dominated.

I read yesterday that the American regulator is taking Amazon to task over their nefarious business practices, most notably their habit of luring the unwary into the trap of having a Prime account and making it the Devil’s own job to extricate themselves. It happened to me once, and getting myself out of it was indeed a torturous labyrinth of tricks and traps and attempts to dissuade. I managed it, and felt like a rare example of a house fly which has managed to release itself from a spider’s web. That was the day on which I swore I would never shop with Amazon again. I never have, I never will, and maybe herein lies the solution:

Consumerism.

It’s a popular term these days and is usually defined as the process whereby the desire to spend money is elevated to a primary driving force, a process in which acquisition becomes supremely important and the main basis for establishing social status. I gather economists consider it a good thing because it drives economic growth. Well, maybe it does in the kind of economy we’ve developed in the west, but it also has some pretty serious drawbacks, such as the elevation of stress levels, the degradation of the environment, and the power of the corporate world to order our lives and lifestyles. (Not to mention its connection with big capitalism which produces the wondrous spectacle of having a very tiny number of people possessing ludicrous amounts of wealth while the rest tire themselves out trying to keep up, or sleep in dumpsters because there’s nowhere else to go.)

The original definition of ‘consumerism’ was quite different. Back in its seminal years it referred to the power the buyer can have over the seller if only they choose to exercise it. It means that if there’s something you want but don’t actually need, and if there’s something you find objectionable about the seller, you simply refuse to buy and do without it. That’s the position I took with Amazon, and if everybody did the same it would soon bring the corporate spider to heel.

‘Ah, but,’ the economist might say, ‘if you do that the economy will collapse.’ Well, with all due respect to their expertise, I would make two suggestions here:

1. Not necessarily. Manufacturers could still make things and retailers could still sell them. Such has been the case for thousands of years. But it would force them to be more judicious in their methodology and more considerate of the wider implications.

2. Even if the economy did collapse, a new system would eventually arise to take its place. The human animal is ever resourceful in solving problems, and no doubt it would rise from the ashes one way or another. Maybe it would be the fulfilment of Marx’s prophecy that capitalism will eventually destroy itself through its own greed. And the way things have been moving over the past 50-100 years, I feel it will have to happen one day. The corporate world needs a shock because life is getting too close to being intolerable for too many people.

So should we start a popular movement designed to take the power away from the huge multinational retailers and the corporate world in general. I think that would be a good idea, but I doubt it will happen because too many people are too brainwashed to follow the bandwagon. (And on a point of semantics, should we call it an anti-consumerism movement or a pro-consumerism one? OK, now I’m being pedantic. I’m also shutting up.)

And now for something completely different.

As the gloaming gathered this evening, a gentle rain began to fall. It didn’t last long, and when the clouds moved away and the darkness beckoned, the new moon kept Venus company in the western sky. Such evenings go some way to calming the troubled breast.

The Summer Shire and a Subtle Scent.

We had several hours of rain again this morning, but it was not the demon rain of yesterday, driving in torrents on a gale force wind through air enshrouded in mist and near-darkness and gaining access to places to which it was not invited. Today we had friendly rain, which declined to roar but merely pittered and pattered quietly on grateful leaves. Today’s rain was insistent but gentle, and fell vertically through the morning brightness while the pale sky smiled the smile of the gift giver.

And gift it was after several weeks of warm, dry weather. The stunted crops in the fields were visibly struggling to grow out of baked and arid earth, and even the peripheral leaves on the standard trees were turning brown and dropping as though precocious September had arrived three months early. On the other hand, the grasses and wild flowers in meadow, verge, and embankment had a different story to tell. They’d grown well in the mild air and frequent rain during March and April, and so the farmers at least had the benefit of a busy haymaking at the beginning of June, several weeks earlier than usual.

*  *  *

I went out for my walk in the rain this morning, and was delighted to smell again the scent of fresh water. I often question my olfactory sense when I smell fresh water. I sometimes think it’s all in my imagination. Can water really have a scent, I ask myself? I’m quite sure it does because I remember it being one of the delights of fishing trips when I was a boy, especially on quiet days spent close to a placid, freshwater lake. The smell of salt water on the coast is quite different, though equally pleasant, but here in the green and pleasant countryside the scent is the equal of any wild flower.

Odd Birds and Car Encounters.

The most momentous event of today was being waved at by the Lady B as she passed me on the lane in her car. At least I assumed it was the Lady B. I find it an odd fact about Land Rovers that I can never identify the people in them when they pass me. I presume it must have something to do with the angle of the windscreen and the way it reflects skylight. But the car had the Lady’s registration number, and whoever or whatever was behind the wheel lifted what appeared to be an arm and waved it back and forth three times (I think.) And doesn’t it say much about me and my life that such an event should be a matter of such moment? (I offer its rarity value by way of defence.)

And while I was out perambulating, I came across the oddest dead bird on the road where said Lady used to live. In size it was midway between a blackbird and a jackdaw. Its body was uniformly black, but the legs were a curious day-glo yellow/green colour, and its beak was brick red with a yellow tip. I’ve searched my bird book and I can’t find it, which leads me to wonder whether it was a foreign visitor. It made me sad to think of some poor bird flying all this way from a foreign land, only to end up dead – courtesy of a vehicle I assume – on some innocuous little lane in the middle of England. Pathos was ever my strong suit.

On a lighter note, the new young lady blackbird continues to hang around my close environment. Today she sat on the bird table for quite some time, not feeding but seeming to be admiring the view. It appears to have become her home-from-home perching place. I talk to her often, you know, giving her advice on how to feed herself, telling her how lovely she is, that sort of thing. She hasn’t flown onto my shoulder to say hello yet, but maybe one day.

And then there were the two wood pigeons singing a duet in a couple of trees near the bottom of my garden. The wood pigeon’s call is always a five note sequence, but the rhythm and pitch of the notes varies. When there are two birds close together, one will call and the other will follow with a call of its own. These two weren’t doing that. They were both singing the same sequence with the same rhythm and pitch at the same time. I’ve never heard that before. If only I could tell them apart from the other wood pigeons (all wood pigeons look the same, you understand) I could name them Sonny and Cher and get them signed up with some record company on a promise of royalties. But I can’t, so there wouldn’t be any point.

And now the other sad encounter, and it’s back to cars. I went up to the village hall car park this evening – and what a delightfully balmy evening it was – armed with raw carrot and looking for Millie the Horse. When I came around to the back of the hall there was a single car parked there, and in the driver’s seat was a woman leaning forward with her head in her hands. My suspicion was aroused, naturally, but I carried on to the fence so as not to disturb her. And then I heard the engine start and turned to see the car drive away. The woman turned briefly to look in my direction and it was obvious that she’d been crying. I felt awful. I assumed she’d wanted a quiet place, free from prying eyes, in which to conduct her dark reverie, and then I’d gate-crashed her misery and forced her to move on. I wondered whether she might have liked to talk. I would have happily given her all the time she needed if such had been the case, but in the event I’d simply been a pollutant. I didn’t like that very much.

Sunday Bloody Sunday.

The same thing happened today as happened last Sunday. It was fine and warm through the morning and most of the afternoon, but then the electricity in the air decided to have fun with the poor, benighted humans down below. The thunder and lightning weren’t quite as bad as last week, but the 15-minute monsoon was.

My house leaked again in the same places as last week, plus one more for good measure. This week it also threw a load of water up from a drain that runs beneath the kitchen, thereby causing a minor flood in said kitchen and my office. It wasn’t quite a proper flood when the whole downstairs is under water to a depth of several feet – which must be pretty soul-destroying – but it did involve an awful lot of mopping and squeezing into buckets. And it happened just when I was making dinner, so half my attention was given to removing water and the other half to stirring, timing, and turning sausages over. Such fun.

It’s the third time I’ve had a flood there, and the last time it happened I called the agent and asked for the issue to be remedied. She sent out five contractors, arranged as one group of three and another pair of two. They said they’d fixed the problem, but it was obvious to me that their remedy wouldn’t work. And so it hasn’t because they were the next best thing to useless. Such is the way of things with land agents and rented houses, and such is life.

There was a time when I would probably have found it funny, but I was younger then.

The Trinity Cometh in Nautical Notation.

I’m sure it must be obvious to anybody familiar with me and my blog that the Titanic has got nothing on me when I first get up in the morning. I’m the wreck to end all wrecks, both physically and mentally. And so I was this morning. In fact, I was even more of a wreck than usual because I’d overslept and oversleeping adds yet another layer of pressure to function at least as well as the Marie Celeste.

And then I heard a knock at the door.

(It’s necessary to point out at this juncture that knocks on my door are almost as rare as pirate ships in the Grand Canyon. Nobody visits me, you see, so who is there to knock on my door but the odd contractor, or the postie in the rare event that he or she needs a signature for something? A sense of intrigue crept into my mind so I opened the door to see who it was.)

Three people stood a little way along the path: a large, middle aged man, a woman of around thirty (pretty as peaches with perfect teeth and a smile to wake the wind in the Sargasso Sea) who I assumed to be his wife, and a little boy of around nine or ten whose visage carried the merest hint of a scowl. I got it straight away, didn’t I? Of course I did, and the man’s opening gambit confirmed it:

‘What a beautiful garden you have,’ he began, smiling (though nothing like as prettily as the pretty-as-peaches thirty-something with the perfect teeth.)

By now I’d realised that they were obviously here to sell me a lifetime subscription to the Jehovah’s Witnesses. (I had the same experience with a couple of Mormon missionaries once when I was young and impressionable. ‘Thank you for inviting us into your beautiful home,’ they began, and it didn’t take me long to work out that they’d say the same thing even if your ‘beautiful home’ was a cockroach-infested hovel with nothing but a tea chest for furniture. Religious missionaries are, after all, just door-to-door salesmen.) I offered the first thought that came into my head:

‘It’s a mess.’

‘Oh no, no, it’s beautiful,’ he continued to enthuse. ‘If my wife were here she would love it.’ (Actually, he probably said ‘was’ because few people of the common persuasion have ever even heard of a subjunctive, much less know how uncommon they are in English or when their use is appropriate. I can’t be certain of that, however, because I was still reclining three miles down with the last of my funnels rusting quietly away.) ‘There’s something wild about it, like a true cottage garden.’

At that point my brain took a single reef out of the mainsail and offered two thoughts. The first was: are cottage gardens supposed to look wild? I never knew that. And then it occurred to me that if his pretty-as-peaches companion was not his wife, and if she had a little boy lurking reluctantly about her left leg, she was probably married to somebody else and so I must endeavour not look at her too often in order to avoid the suspicion of inappropriate attention. But then I decided that I really needed to have some breakfast and the encounter should be truncated without further delay.

‘If you’ve come to talk to me about religion and spirituality, I’m afraid there wouldn’t be any point,’ I offered. ‘The subject has been something of a lifelong obsession with me. I’ve reached the position where I know nothing, believe nothing, and am content to continue in such vein.’

But then he got me.

‘Let me ask you one question,’ he began with the air of man about to give the coup-de-grace. ‘Do you believe in God?’

Oh my giddy aunt. Do I believe in God? He got the lecture, which must have lasted at least ten minutes, after which he said little of substance, or at least little that I remember. I decided to demonstrate that I was quite a nice person really, and so I turned to the little boy and asked: ‘Are you a bit bored with all this?’ He moved even closer to his (presumptive) mother’s leg, kicked one of his feet with other, but said nothing. His (presumptive) mother continued to smile prettily. And then came the closure.

‘I’m (something or other), this is (something or other), and this is (something or other.)’

‘I’m Jeff,’ I offered cordially.

‘Well, Jeff, it’s been good talking to you.’

Has it, I thought? And then they all trotted off, while I went back into Titanic mode for about two hours and missed Ms Pretty-as-Peaches for about the same duration. And have you noticed that the man did all the talking? You can tell which book they must have sitting on the bedside table, can’t you?

On Birds and Their Tables (and a Bit About Boris.)

Today I finished the job which only got half done yesterday. It’s a new bird table for the front of the house, and now that it’s finished it looks so smart, functional, well made, and pristine that I’m reluctant to put bird feed on it. I want it to stand there, resplendent in its perfection, as a monument to my constructive genius, not messed up by bird droppings. That’s a typical human failing, isn’t it? Ego, pride, vacuous self-satisfaction. Any job worth doing is worth doing well, right? Right. Doing a job well should be taken for granted, and there’s no need for pride because virtue is its own reward. Got it. And yet I still keep looking at it and thinking how smart it looks and taking pointless pride in a job well done. I wonder whether I’ll ever grow up.

I covered it with bird seed and rolled oats anyway, and topped the water bowl up to the brim, and that should be the end of the matter.

But then I saw a female blackbird behaving oddly. She was letting me get too close before flying away, and seemed to have taken quite a penchant to my plastic garden chair. When I went to sit in it myself this evening she merely hopped off and stood a few feet away watching me. Blackbirds don’t usually do that.

She was one of those females which have the usual brown bodies and wings, but a pale chest which shows off the speckles that all females have. She was very pretty and new-looking (like the bird table, whoops) and I decided she was one of this season’s juveniles and would soon learn that two-legged creatures are dangerous and to be avoided at all costs. That’s a shame because making friends with a blackbird would be a nice thing to do (and if the locals got to hear about it they could nod their heads knowingly and my reputation would be even more secure.)

*  *  *

So should I now make the post in which I compare Boris Johnson’s dishonesty (the Covid issue which is dominating the UK news at the moment) with Tony Blair’s at the time of the Gulf War, and consider whether there’s a little hypocrisy going on here? No, I don’t think so. Dishonesty and hypocrisy are natural features of the world in which senior politicians operate and we all know that, so why bother? My nightly YouTube fix is beckoning and there should be a new Why Files video up today. They’re always a little eye-opening and far more interesting.

Considering the Useless Sage Stage.

You know how it is. You’ve been working one way or another all day, and the last job you began over an hour ago is proving to be such a pain that you’ve decided to leave it half done and finish it tomorrow. (You've also discovered that the painful wrist which you contracted two autumns ago, and which you thought was history, is back, courtesy of the job you just half-did.) It’s now 8pm. The evening air is warm and mellow, the evening sun is still bestowing its beneficence through a light veil of diaphanous cloud, and so you decide to call it a day.

You make a cup of tea, grab something to nibble, and go outside to enjoy the peace and pleasantness of it all. Just as you’re settling into your plastic chair (which came free with the house when I moved here), you remember a final job which can’t, or shouldn’t, be left.

I do it nearly every day, you know. There are jobs demanding my attention everywhere and I’m faced with the decision as to which to do and which will have to be left. And nearly every day I forget at least one of the more urgent jobs until after I’ve gone into relaxation mode. It’s very trying.

I suppose it’s just one of the trials of ageing. I’m told that I should welcome advancing years and luxuriate in the growing capacity for wisdom which they say it brings in its wake. Well, maybe I would if only somebody could explain to me what possible benefit the faculty of becoming wise confers. Nobody has managed it so far.

The Dreaded Blood Test.

No great dramas with the blood test. My liver is behaving itself, apparently, and my blood count is normal so no iron-deficiency problems. (That one surprised me actually, because I’ve been suffering such bad fatigue symptoms lately that I thought I might have the great-granddaddy of iron deficiency. Computer said no. The only deleterious result was that my heart isn’t functioning to full capacity, but I’ve known that for over a year so it came as no surprise.

The doc’s main concern now seems to be keeping the wicked old demon, high blood pressure, at bay. Mine’s actually quite good for my age (140/80 was today’s reading, which also surprised me because I’d just spent half an hour being driven to distraction in the reception area by the inane babbling of some crappy radio programme, and the fact that there were two grammatical errors in the ‘We Won’t Tolerate Abuse’ notice on the video screen. The first thing I did when I entered the doc’s office was complain about it. Fortunately, my doctor is a pretty laid back, tolerant sort of chap. I recall spending most of one consultation discussing our favourite Laurel and Hardy films. And it’s all free…)

… but he still increased the anti-hypertension medication, the old reprobate. Fortunately, that’s all free too, since I no longer qualify for heavy labouring jobs. And he wants me to have another blood test in two weeks and another consultation with him in a month. It’s all a bit tiresome, you know. It is.

I think that will have to do for now. Do you realise that I’ve spent so much time writing recently (mostly emails) that I’ve made three attempts to watch the DVD of Hot Fuzz and am still only an hour into it?

Oh, and I might just mention that I was observing the staff in the surgery while I awaited my appointment, and realised that you can immediately tell which is a doctor, which is a nurse, and which is a receptionist purely by their body language and facial expressions. I suppose it made the stress worthwhile. (And the lady doctor – with whom I have never yet had the pleasure of a consultation – was second only to Doctor Helen in the gorgeousness stakes. I think I might try to arrange it one of these days if only I can live long enough.)

Simpers and Stigmata.

The old fatigue problem has been back with a vengeance today. It isn’t just feeling tired you know; it affects just about every part of your body from head to toe. It defines ‘feeling ill.’ It even brings our mutual friend, depression, along with it for company. (And the one thing that eases it is whisky. True.)

Off to the doc’s tomorrow for the blood test results. I might make a post about it if I’ve got nothing better to do.

And here’s something interesting: I’ve got a sore little wound in the middle of the palm on my right hand. The rationalist in me presumes that it’s the work of a thorn from the climbing roses I was working with today, but the other half wonders whether I should write to the Pope and ask whether it qualifies me to become a saint.

On Ants, Storms, and Leaky Houses.

The first rumbles of thunder began at around 6pm. I was doing a few light jobs in the garden and noticed that the ants were unusually active. (I assume ants become a bit restive when there’s electricity in the air, but I wouldn’t know. If ever I was an ant in a previous incarnation, I don’t remember it.) Whatever the reason for their restiveness, however, they were directing it at me. I got bitten a lot. (Do ants bite or sting? I think they probably bite, but whatever it is they do, the result is a red spot which is a little painful for about ten minutes. I had lots of them.)

But then, after an hour or so, the occasional rumble gathered both frequency and volume. And then the lightning became visible and the thunder more thunderous. (There, I said it. I considered the adjective ‘cacophonous’ so as not to sound amateurish in the matter of writing, but settled on ‘thunderous’ because it sounds silly and that suits me.) Soon the lightning and thunder were directly overhead, very bright and very loud. And then came the rain, closely followed by a mighty wind which shook the trees to near breaking point and drove considerable quantities of water hurtling sideways like horizontal stair rods.

Now, the thing is you see, one of the peculiarities of my old house is that it leaks water when rain is driven at speed against the south wall. And so that’s what happened, except it engaged in a little variation because only one of the places where it normally leaks did so, but the worst leak of all came in a place where I’ve never known it leak before. I’ve just finished cleaning up the little pools of water, complimented by wet mortar dust, off the stairs. 

Such circumstances make you long for dull moments, you know. They do.

The Tesco Spectre.

I called into Tesco in Uttoxeter today to pick up a couple of small items and took them to the self service checkout area. Like most supermarkets, Tesco has two rows of tills, one that’s marked up ‘Card Only’ and one that says ‘Card and Cash.’ Since I had only two small items, I decided to pay cash and waited for a till to be free.

And then I became aware of a movement in my peripheral vision. It grew larger as it approached me, like a spectre appearing from a closet in an old fashioned fairground Ghost Train. I took the positive option and turned to face it.

A young woman in a Tesco uniform was standing close, looking at me intensely but silently. I waited for a few seconds and then took what appeared to be the only available course of action: ‘Hello,’ I said. ‘Cash?’ she replied. ‘Yes.’ She retired to her corner, the air became breathable again, and I remembered one of my favourite lines from a movie:

If it be a nat'ral thing, where do it come from? Where do it go?

Wilting in the Heatwave.

We had a heatwave today. 28°C was the forecast, and that was about what it felt like. People in the tropics might smirk, but 28°C is a heatwave in this little corner of north-western Europe. The Met Office had put out a yellow alert, warning the elderly and those with cardiovascular issues to sit in a cold bath and eat ice cubes all day (or something like that.)

Well, whether I’m eligible to be called ‘elderly’ is a matter of both perception and definition. Personally, I don’t feel that I’m quite there yet, but who can say? What is an apparent fact, however, is that I do have cardiovascular issues, so was I worried? Not a bit. Last year the mercury climbed to 38°C and I suffered no ill effects at all, so why should 28 be a problem?

It was. Today was a day of excessive fatigue problems – weakness, lack of energy, pressure around the heart, headache, and when I stood up after drinking a cup of tea in the garden I felt so dizzy that I thought it advisable not to move for a few minutes. I took my routine walk anyway this morning, and got through it. I took another walk up the lane this evening just to prove to myself that I wasn’t quite dead yet. I managed that one, too.

So what was today all about? Am I older than I think I am? Has my cardiovascular issue grown worse since last summer? Was I simply having a bad day, as I sometimes do? Or was it a physical reaction to the sudden change from the cool airflow we’ve been experiencing so far this month. Since I’m becoming increasingly physically sensitive to sudden meteorological changes, I’m choosing to presume it was a combination of the last two. Sorted, maybe.

*  *  *

The final hour or so of twilight brought some recompense. The wind that had risen during the later part of the afternoon fell away to nothing, the hot sun had retired behind a modest cloud cover, and all was silent save the calling of a single wood pigeon. The air felt warm and benevolent, and all that was missing was the light rain which makes such evenings magical. I suppose it would be unreasonable to expect perfection while verging on being elderly and in possession of cardiovascular issues. Small mercies are most welcome.

*  *  *

And I did see something interesting today. I never cease to be fascinated by the level of agility displayed by squirrels when they’re negotiating tree branches, but today I saw one go a step further. It was walking confidently and with apparent ease along a telephone cable carrying fibre optic wires. I suspect it was showing off. I think squirrels are congenitally inclined to demonstrate their superiority to all comers. They already have me convinced.

A Reaction.

How should you react when you discover more and more often that things you said years ago, things which seemed a little outrageous at the time, are now being written into books by the great and the good because they’re proving to be correct?

Do you cultivate greater respect for your intuition? Do you feel the need to continue saying these things on the off chance that somebody somewhere will take it seriously? Do you allow yourself to believe that you matter to some extent, even though you’ve always doubted the fact?

No, I don’t think so. You tell yourself: ‘This is me. Nothing else matters.’ And then you carry on breathing and talking for as long as you’re able. And one day you fall silent forever, which also doesn’t matter.

Tonight’s YouTube viewing was remarkably enlightening.

Another Message to the Russians.

I read a feature in the news this morning about Russians – mostly young people, I gather – who write and send letters and postcards to those many poor souls imprisoned for expressing views which do not meet with Mr Putin’s approval. (It appears to be a fact that freedom of speech is enshrined in the Russian Constitution, but Mr Putin seems to regard the Constitution with the same dismissive attitude as that held by Donald Trump towards the American one. Something else they have in common, but I digress…)

The point I want to make is this: The people writing these cards and letters say they do it out of sympathy for the victims of Putin’s tyranny. They want to help them feel less isolated, victimised, and depressed. They want to offer some sense of optimism towards the future.

Well, I want the writers to know that the prisoners are not the only beneficiaries of their kindness. I for one – and I suspect this is true of many people in Europe and the west in general – are also heartened by their actions. It gives us confidence in a belief many of us already hold – that the darkness we currently perceive as hanging over Russia will one day lift when Mr Putin either goes the way of all flesh or comes to the point of annihilation favoured by the scourge of tyrants. And then a light will shine and we can all be friends again. This is our hope, and we applaud your actions.

Mickey and the Age of Aquarius.

Something odd happened when I re-booted my computer tonight. Everything worked normally until I loaded the browser and waited for my home page to appear. Just before it did so, an image appeared on the screen and disappeared so quickly that there wasn’t time to identify the subject of the picture. My first impression was that it was a cartoon representation of a bee, but then I thought it might have been Mickey Mouse, but the fact is that it came and went too quickly to have a definite opinion.

So where did it come from? Where did it go? I’ve been using computers for twenty eight years and I’ve never seen the like of it before. Was it something subliminal being beamed into my computer by Microsoft, the CIA, or one of these alien beings everybody’s suddenly talking about? Was it a hallucination, maybe, or has it appeared many times but I’ve not been sufficiently attuned to some wavelength or other to see it before? Is it further evidence of my growth into a more enlightened state and will I soon be invited to afternoon tea on the terrace of a higher plane?

So far it’s a mystery. I would welcome sensible suggestions.

A Note on the Terrible Twins of Control.

I was thinking of one of my favourite opinions today: that consumption mania is the western world’s greatest addiction, and advertising its most pernicious pollutant. But then my musing took on a more general tone. I noted that I’m becoming ever more concerned about the degree of manipulation to which we humans are subjected in nearly every aspect of our lives.

Depending on the kind of culture in which we live, the process is being continually operated to varying degrees by the corporate world, advertisers, the media, politicians, bureaucrats, dictators, religions, and even charitable institutions – all hell bent on manipulating our perceptions, desires, and opinions. They do so with carefully chosen words, images, overblown promises, and outlandish rhetoric, and it bothers me a lot because I spot any attempt at manipulation in a nanosecond.

I don’t like it, and that’s partly why I’m such a loner who refuses to have anything to do with the likes of Amazon, Netflix, and Sky. It’s why I decline to use fast food ‘restaurants’ or submit to the need for the latest high tech piece of equipment or the expensive updates which drop off the conveyor belt like different flavours of chemical-laden snacks. It’s why I stick a middle finger up at the power companies when they suggest I pay by direct debit because it will make my life easier. No it won’t, and you’d have to be pretty stupid to believe the companies’ weasly claims that that’s what the direct debit system is there for. Pull the other one, do.

And this gives me problems, because if you spot the manipulation and refuse to play ball you get left behind. You find yourself using up more and more mental energy trying to hold back the torrent of manipulation which is designed to further the interests of the rich, the power-hungry, and the ideological extremists. And sometimes you even find that you can no longer do the things you want to do because the whole system has been changed to deny you membership of the club. If you don’t go into somnambulist mode and do what they want, you’re out in the cold.

But what about the other side of the same coin – control by force? It seems that nearly every day there’s a report from somewhere in the world about public protests being aggressively – and often violently – put down by the authorities. And it isn’t only in those countries with dictatorial regimes like China, India, Afghanistan, Iran, and Belarus. It’s happening more and more in the western world which professes to be democratic, relatively liberal, and tolerant. We haven’t quite regressed to the 19^th century yet with the Tolpuddle Martyrs and the Peterloo Massacre, but it’s beginning to seem that we’re getting there.

So which is worse, control by manipulation or control by force? Control by force is at least visible and recognisably horrifying even to the daydreamers. Does that make it preferable? It’s an open question, isn’t it, so you decide.

On Refined Awareness and a Haunted Inbox.

I used to really like crisps, you know (chips to the Yankees), but since I had the old atherosclerosis problem I’ve more or less given them up (all that saturated fat, you know.) But tonight I had a pack for old time’s sake, and do you know what I found? When I’d finished the pack – and it was only a small one – I could feel the fat on my lips and teeth, and it was quite unpleasant. I never noticed that before I more or less gave them up. I’m more of a beetroot and bananas fan these days, which is a little disturbing but at least not disgusting.

It reminds me of when I became vegetarian. For a while I found that I missed eating meat because I’d always been a big fan of the stuff, but after about a year I began to find the thought of eating animal flesh – however well cooked it was – quite repulsive. Isn’t it interesting how your perception of something changes when you give it up for a while? Pity the same isn’t true of women.

*  *  *

The left hand panel of my Hotmail home page has a folder which says Junk 1. Nothing odd about that; it quite often says Junk 1. What’s odd in this instance is that the number 1 is grey instead of the usual blue, and when I go into the junk folder it says ‘You have no junk emails.’ The only explanation I can come up with is that there’s a ghost lurking in the dingy basement of my inbox.

Money and the Next Step.

I was reading earlier about the latest computer hack striking at some of the world’s major corporations when a thought struck me:

Banks were invented to give people a safe place to keep their money, weren’t they? But with the development of computers and the internet, and the increasing sophistication of the hackers and their practices, maybe it would be safer to draw our money out of banks and keep it in a cardboard box on top of the wardrobe instead.

The trouble is, we can’t do that any more because the facility to pay by cash has become impracticable to the point of impossibility in so many areas. Cheques can still be used – although the practice is largely discouraged these days – or you can use a piece of plastic, a mobile phone, or a smart watch pointed in just the right direction. (Using a wristwatch to pay for your groceries… the mind boggles, doesn’t it?) But just imagine what’s coming next.

It won’t be long before supermarkets and other retail establishments discontinue the practice of having checkout operators. You will be required to load your purchases onto a conveyor belt while a smart little piece of technology hovers with omniscient aspect overhead and scans all the barcodes as the belt moves. (It will still beep, of course, so you know it’s alive, or maybe sing She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain When She Comes so you know it isn’t.) In either event, when the scanning process is complete you will be invited to look into the pair of eyes at the end of the belt, blink three times to verify your identity with The Database, say ‘in Google we trust’ for the purpose of voice recognition, state your National Insurance number to make payment, and then a smooth, velvety voice will say:

Thank you for shopping with us today. Your custom is greatly valued and you may now proceed to the exit gate where you will be allowed egress without fear of fatal electrocution. In the rare event of an electrical malfunction, the company, its management and colleagues, and all its affiliates and contractors, are hereby indemnified against claims for compensation and will in no case be liable for funerary costs. But for the purpose of maintaining the best of relations between us and our valued customers, we are prepared to reimburse the value of your purchases to your next of kin. They should go to www.ingooglewetrust.com and use the following unique password. Please memorise it because I will say it only once: qivx948?@!_goai***$aregood. A different but equally simple password will be given to the next customer in order to avoid any possibility of fraud. Goodbye and have a nice day.

You think I’m joking, don’t you? Well, I suppose I am, because the way the world is going suggests the possibility that we won’t have time to develop the software before what few of us are left will be transported back to the heaven of hunter gathering.

A Mind in Transit.

After I’d given Millie the Horse some pieces of raw carrot over the fence bordering the village school this evening (because her human doesn’t like me going into the field bearing treats for reasons I’ve already explained in an earlier post), I turned to leave and became suddenly aware of all the disparate elements combining to form material reality as we perceive it. And I mean hyper-aware.

I saw the grass, the animals, the fence posts, the bricks of which the school is built, the grey gravel on the car park, the black tarmac on the lane, the leaves on the trees, and everything else in my field of vision as though I’d never seen them before. It looked all so clear, so complex, and had a feel of the manufactured about it.

So let’s consider the possibilities here:

1. My consciousness is evolving to a higher level.

2. My mind is regressing to a lower level.

3. The Panini roll I had with my home made soup for dinner had traces of LSD in it, put there by some mischievous person at the bakery because people do so like to play practical jokes.

I would accept any of the above, but please don’t tell me I’m becoming a poet.

Fatigue and that Old Awareness Thing.

For some reason I’ve been feeling a lot better over the past few days. The uncomfortable and dispiriting fatigue symptoms which have been holding me down for a few weeks lifted and I’ve come disturbingly close to having a spring in my step again. I would hardly describe it as being on top of the world, but at least I haven’t been hanging onto its tale quite as grimly. Today they’re back. C’est la vie.

(I thought I’d start on the downbeat so there’s nowhere for the rest of the post to go but up. Seemed like a good idea.)

*  *  *

So, I might mention that I have lots of cornflowers growing in my garden – quite out of control actually, and that’s fine by me. But one small clump grows between the plum tree and the pear tree, and that one I do keep under control with canes and string so that it looks terribly tidy and mature. (Did I say I like tidiness and maturity in certain areas? It’s complicated, but anyway…)

This year it has a small growth of buttercups growing up among the main plant, and it’s holding my attention most oddly. There’s something about the combination of colours – the egg-yoke yellow of the buttercups against the purple/blue of the bigger cornflowers – and the contrast of shapes and sizes that that has me fascinated and staring at them for several minutes at a time. I am aware that blue and yellow are on opposite sides of the colour wheel, and that such a combination is known to be attractive, but my reaction goes beyond that and I don’t know why. All I can say is that being possessed of a manically high level of awareness can be both a curse and a blessing, and in this instance it’s a blessing. They look magical.

I feel the same way about pregnant young women, you know. I saw one in Uttoxeter today wearing a loose-fitting cotton dress which failed to hide the bulge. For some reason I find such a sight close to breathtaking. I choose to presume the rational view that pregnant young women are the ultimate expression of productivity in the material world, and that there’s nothing strange about being aware of the fact.

*  *  *

For the last twenty four hours I’ve been consumed with thoughts of the Lady B. It’s probably due to having seen her car whizz past my gate yesterday afternoon, and it was towing a trailer. I’ve never seen the Lady B’s car tow a trailer before and I was beset by the notion that this might be the end of civilisation as we know it.

Shire Sightings.

I saw the first baby robin of the season today. It’s always a delight, not just because of their speckled buff and brown chests, but because they have such a self-assured air abut them. I normally see baby birds following their parents around, flapping their wings by way of asking to be fed and having a general air of uncertainty about them. Not so the robin. Robins are loners by nature and the babies start as they mean to go on. They’re independent, sigma types, and can even be feisty with adult birds when some perception of need arises. I’ve posted this pic before, but I’ll forgive myself posting it again.

 

 

 

And then this morning I encountered the postie, and he told me that he’d seen a Red Deer stag on the common above the village. As far as I know, I was the first person to see Red Deer stags in these parts – two of them in fact – about three years ago. And then Mrs Murphy who owns the pub was severely startled by one leaping over a hedge in front of her one day. Red Deer make light work of leaping over hedges, it seems. They’re big and can be a bit scary at close quarters. So this is a Red Deer stag. (Both pics are stock shots, by the way, not mine.)

 

 

 

And that’s it for today because it’s been otherwise uneventful (apart from briefly giving my undivided attention to the slightly mad little scrufty dog at the bottom of the lane which barks aggressively while wagging its tail frantically and begging to be fussed. It always gets fussed by me.)

The Good, the Bad, and the Sweet Lady Pittie.

Blood test today – long story, but let’s just say that I await the call to be informed of the results. I was unusually nervous about today’s blood test, but I’m aware of the way the wind is blowing and I’m waiting to see what the writing on the wall says when it finally becomes clear.  That was the difficult bit about today, but here’s the nice bit:

I went into a charity shop while I was in Ashbourne and found a thick winter shirt – heavy, well-lined, looking more or less new, and just my size – for the princely sum of £5. I estimate that such a shirt would cost in the region of £40 if bought new from an outdoor activities shop. I decided to buy it even though my faith in the future is no better than circumspect at the moment. I reasoned that if I am still here next winter, the shirt certainly wouldn’t be and £5 seemed a paltry sum to risk in the circumstances.

It got better…

While I was perusing the shirts I became aware of a movement nearby. There was a lovely lady pittie, ears back, smiling hopefully, and edging respectfully towards me to make my acquaintance. Acquaintance was duly achieved and a good time was had by all. The god of small things comes in many guises, and a smiling lady pittie is one them.

Concerning the Pendulum Effect.

Let me say at the outset that I am not aggressively anti-woke. I think it a perfectly reasonable and proper process that we own up to the darker aspects of our history and make changes for the betterment of today and tomorrow. But I also recognise that this process can be divisive and can lead to the pendulum effect in which the movement lurches way off course and becomes ludicrous. Let’s take the latest example.

There is a movement afoot to have the word ‘field’ expunged from the English lexicon. Why? Because slaves used to work in fields and so any use of the word is likely to offend black people.

OK, so should we ban all words which can be seen as having some connection to slavery and the work done by slaves? Should we, for example, ban the word ‘cotton’, in which case we’ll have to invent a new word which will have same meaning? Should we cover our mouths in shame at any mention of a ship, because it was on ships that slaves were transported to the New World? What about ‘plantation’, the environment in which slaves worked? The movement of English, Scottish, and Welsh farmers to Northern Ireland in the 17^th century is referred to by historians as ‘the Plantation’, and woods sown to produce timber are universally known as plantations. There’s one at the top of my lane, so must I now call it something else? And then there are the ‘party whips’, the MPs in the UK whose job it is to enforce official party policy during votes. ‘Whip’ is a really bad word and should surely be the first to go.

And maybe it’s worth mentioning that there must be a good many black farmers in the English speaking world who refer to their land as fields without giving it a second thought, because that’s the word for a patch of ground on which animals are raised and crops are grown.

And while I’m on the subject, here’s another example:

My ex works at a university where the employees have been told that if they wish to address a group of students they mustn’t use terms like ‘lads’, boys’, or ‘girls’. Why? Because there’s a danger that the occasional constituent of such a group might be experiencing gender identity issues and be upset by the presumptive term.

And so the question arises: must we tear up the dictionary and start again so as not to offend anybody who might be connected to a historic grievance or affected by a personal psychological issue? Is this a matter of aiming for perfection or creating yet another hobby horse for extremists to flog? And in the final analysis, where does it all end?