A Short August Swansong.

On the local front, August is going out in the manner to which it has become accustomed this year. This evening’s twilight walk was cold, grey, and rather miserably wet. But Millie the Horse was close enough to have her attention attracted so at least the treat of raw carrot was dutifully bestowed to lighten the gloom just a little.

*  *  *

On the international front, I’m curious to know why Russia’s leaders make such strangely illogical public statements. They chose to attack another sovereign state. They chose, and continue to choose, to aim missiles at civilian targets, thus knowingly killing and maiming innocent people. And yet when Ukraine responds by damaging one of Russia’s bridges or a couple of their military planes, the Russian leadership calls it ‘terrorism’ and says ‘it will not go unpunished.’ Now, it would be hard to believe that there aren’t at least a few brain cells among Russia’s high and mighty, so even they must realise how absurdly hypocritical their responses are. Why do they do it? To persuade the patriotic proletariat that Ukraine is the bad guy? If so, are the patriotic proletariat thus persuaded? I really would like to know.

*  *  *

On the personal front, the pressure of woes continues to increase. My daughter and her family have now been made homeless and I have no way of knowing where they are and in what sort of condition because I have no way of contacting them. That’s a constant worry. In addition, I’m surrounded by malfunctions, breakdowns, health issues, certain bleak prospects, and the corporate world being a pestering pain as the corporate world is wont to be these days. Some issues are more serious than others, but they all add weight to the backpack and it’s getting close to the point of being just too much. So what do you do when that point is reached? I suppose it depends on what sort of person you are.

*  *  *

And that about wraps it up for August 2023. Let’s see what September brings.

Dark Days and Dark Corners.

Another cold, wet, and gloomy twilight this evening. And I’ve got that old August feeling hanging over me – the one which comes from noting all the signs that summer is nearly over for another year. The lowering sun, the lengthening shadows, the occasional chill in the air, the drying leaves, the depleting colour in verge and hedgerow, and the harvested fields now naked and littered with scattered straw bales awaiting collection. 

*  *  *

Last night I was woken in the early hours feeling cold, not on the outside but in my body core. There was nothing obvious to explain it because the panel heater was running on its thermostat so the room was warm enough, but uncomfortably cold I was nonetheless.

I opened my eyes and looked around the bedroom. The night sky was beginning to show the first tepid hints of brightness, and the wall opposite the window was sufficiently lit for its reflected light to show detail in the room. But when I looked at the end of the room opposite my bed I was surprised at how dark it was, so dark that I could hardly discern the white painted door in the corner. It looked as though a cloud of black mist was obscuring that part of the room, and I thought I saw occasional white, filmy streaks appear and disappear.

I expect it was all an optical aberration of some kind, but I’m congenitally inclined to wonder whether reality is quite as simple as we think it is. In fact, the older I get and the more I listen to modern scientific thinking, the more tempted I am to consider it likely that there’s a lot more to reality than we generally perceive. I lay in bed wide awake and wondering whether to get up and make a hot drink, and then I fell asleep again.

So what’s the verdict on last night’s event? I don’t have one. Unusually for me, I prefer not to think about it too much. Black mists in the corners of rooms are a tiny bit spooky, and I’d prefer to sleep uninterrupted until the sun comes up.

On the Fake Mug Shot.

The BBC online news page this morning showed a copy of Donald Trump’s ‘mug shot’ from his latest arraignment. Only it isn’t a mug shot. Where’s the impassive expression? Where’s the portrait format? Where’s the head-on look into the camera? Where’s the symmetrical composition? Where are the height markers?

This is an elderly man’s feeble attempt at self-promotion. This is: Look at me doing mean! This is the face of your rightful Commander-in-Chief. Strong, determined, uncompromising, the only one who can make America great again. Eat your heart out, Clint Eastwood!

So how did he get away with it? I wish I knew.

It reminds me of one of little Nigel Farage’s publicity shots where he poses with a fat cigar à la Winston Churchill. Utterly juvenile and transparently fake, but you know what? Trump’s supporters love it. They’re even using it as the face of their hero in his election campaign. They believe it will sway the waverers and place the Great Dunderhead back into the White House where he belongs. And maybe it will.

I have to say this…

With the utmost heartfelt respect and apology to those few splendid Americans of my acquaintance, I have to offer the opinion yet again that there is something seriously wrong with America. And if Trump is not actually the cause of it, he’s certainly tapping into it.

(I might just add that I should have included the picture somewhere on this page, but the blog and my spirits are both ailing mightily at the moment and the last thing I want polluting either of them is a picture of Donald Trump. And the fact that I don’t live in America means that none of this should matter very much to me. I’m just the European commentator.)

A Current Note on Endings.

The old black dog has me pinned well into a corner at the moment. I don’t think I’ve ever known him be quite this aggressive. It seems a lot of it has to do with a growing sense that everything within and without me is reaching its end, but whether that’s the cause or merely a symptom is difficult to say. I could list them but lack the mental energy.

*  *  *

Today’s one bit of light relief is the matter of Mr Prigozhin and the plane crash. The BBC news is full of it at the moment, and the general tone of the reaction is based on the presumption that Mr Putin has had his revenge. It surprises me a little that no one is offering the equally plausible possibility – that the Prig, being a fairly resourceful and very rich gentleman, has taken steps to fake his own death and is now on his way to a plastic surgeon with a Mongolian passport and identity papers settled securely about his person. Maybe we shall never know. (I wonder whether the Russians have a man in Ulaan Baatar.)

A Crisis Come Home to Roost.

This is what is happening in the UK at the moment:

The Bank of England is steadily and remorselessly increasing interest rates in an attempt to control high inflation. One effect of this is that mortgage lenders are protecting their position by increasing interest rates to their borrowers to a staggering degree.

So, let us take the case of a landlord who has purchased a property, not to live in but as an investment. He or she rents it to a tenant so that the amount coming in compensates for the mortgage payments going out and the owner has a property which gains value as the years go by.

But now there’s a problem because the higher mortgage payments are not matched by the rent chargeable for the property. He or she is, therefore, financially inconvenienced and decides to sell the property. In order to do this he has to get rid of the tenant, which he does by applying for a Section 21 (‘no fault’) Eviction Order. Once that’s been passed by the court he can then send in the bailiffs to remove the tenant.

You might think that such an action is not unreasonable. Landlords have a right to protect themselves financially, and since they own the property they have every right to re-possess and sell it. That makes sense as far as it goes, but how does it stand in comparison with the corollary, the other side of the picture? People are being forcibly removed from their homes through no fault of their own and made homeless, and at a time when rented properties are like gold dust and rents are rising at such a rate that the lower echelons of society are virtually excluded from qualifying.

This is exactly what is happening to the only family I have – all six of them.

This situation didn’t exist until Mrs Thatcher came along. Before that, local councils had a large stock of modest but adequate housing available at low rents so that nobody needed to be homeless. (I spent the first fourteen years of my life in one.) But Mrs Thatcher – the arch American Dreamer possessed of little intelligence, foresight, or appreciation of any values higher than market forces – put a stop to it. She forced the councils to sell off their properties at knock-down prices so that ‘everybody could be a home owner.’ Those with a modicum of common sense argued that it wouldn’t work, but they were ignored in the face of the mindless capitalist imperative and now Britain has hundreds of thousands of homeless people.

There are more strands to this situation, but I’m writing a blog here not a tome of substance. The point I’m making is, after all, simple enough: The housing crisis in Britain is one of those situations in which a ladder of circumstances exists, starting with the politicians and the Bank of England at the top, and ending with those of modest or sub-modest means at the bottom. And they, as usual, are the ones who take the fall. Does it always have to be that way?

On Losing Ears and Lacking Logic.

I noticed when I passed the field at the top of the lane this evening that one of the lambs had lost an ear. (I say ‘lost’, but how can one know? Maybe the little chap had given it to a passing gypsy in exchange for a goldfish in a plastic bag, or maybe some carnivorous miscreant had eaten it, or maybe it had been injured in a lamb fight and had to be amputated by a vet. Whatever arcane circumstances should have been responsible, however, the fact was indisputable: the poor little lamb was deficient to the tune of an ear.)

And sad as it is to recount, it became immediately apparent that the little creature was deficient in another respect: it no longer had that lambish cuteness generally associated with its breed. And so I was forced to conclude that the fabled cuteness of lambs is dependent on them having two ears properly placed either side of their heads. Interesting undoubtedly, but a shame nonetheless.

*  *  *

On the way back I noticed that the field below the Hansel and Gretel house was totally and unusually devoid of sheep of any age. Only Millie the Horse was in evidence, grazing quietly and lifting her head briefly to watch me pass the gate. A thought instantly occurred to me:

We loners should stick together.

So now it appears I’m given to constructing oxymorons without let or hindrance. That’s a shame, too.

JJ Oddnesses.

On a clear night I can see the waxing moon through my bathroom window at about the time I go to bed. I’ve decided I don’t like it. Be it crescent or gibbous, it looks deflated, disheartened, depressed, defeated. And when it’s that curious dull yellow colour as it sometimes is, it looks ill as well.

That’s one oddness.

I was going to make a detailed post about all the things which scared me witless as a child, but I think I did that some years ago so I’ll merely append a brief list as a reminder:

Lions, even stone ones standing on the porticos of pubs called The Red Lion.

Walking under railway bridges because I feared that a train passing over the top might cause a collapse and I would be crushed or trapped underneath.

Persistent loud noises like long rumbles of thunder building to a crescendo. (Oddly enough, I wasn’t bothered about short loud noises. I even used to play the game of lighting a banger (firework) and then throwing it away just before it exploded.)

Going to bed when it was dark outside because I knew that ghosts were more likely to appear when it was dark.

Crawling head-first down through my bed in an attempt to exit from the bottom end. I tried it several times but always succumbed to such uncontrollable panic that I never succeeded.

Possible Reasons for Said Fears

Having a deep-rooted memory of unpleasant incidents in past lives

Being unusually aware of consequences and alternate realities

Being an unmitigated wimp

But that was a long time ago. Now that I’m a big boy and all grown up, I’m subjected to quite different terrors. They include being charged by a hungry brown bear, being told that if my life is to continue flawlessly I must download the app or go to wwwdot, and being trapped into having to engage in conversations with normal people.

On Dates and Deep Thoughts.

Today is 13^th August. If I were to draw up a list of the most momentous dates in the history of JJ, 13^th August would come second only to 8^th January in the matter of coincidental substance. So did anything momentous happen today?

No (unless you count being highly surprised at the difference in price of Epson printer ink cartridges depending on where you buy them. £45-£81 is pretty astonishing, but not sufficiently astonishing to rant about.)

Then again, one little discovery I made today did make me think a bit. I was reading an old blog post I made nine years ago this very month, and a person who was of substantial significance to me back then left a comment which said, among other things:

Just know that I still think highly of you, and that when I feel alone and like a speck of nothing in an under/overwhelming universe I remember that I knew you and I feel less alone.

You’d think that such a statement would have boosted my ego, wouldn’t you? Well, it didn’t. On the contrary, it produced vague feelings of guilt and embarrassment because I simply don’t deserve it. I’m a harsh critic, you see. I’ve always been given to observing myself just as much as I observe others and the world around me. I know my faults and my failings. I remember the times when I chose the easy road rather than the harder one. I’m aware of the distress I caused others in the pursuit of self-interest. I’m sure I could have been a better person and more deserving of approbation if only I’d put more thought and effort into my actions instead of following my passions and being generally lazy.

But maybe it doesn’t matter in the grander scheme of things. The world has room for only a few Mahatma Gandhis, Nelson Mandelas, and Martin Luther Kings. And maybe life is only a stage for the enacting of dramas anyway, whether to any purpose or not we have no way of knowing. And that’s how I live with my faults.

This year’s 13^th August has only half an hour to run. I wonder whether there will be any more.

*  *  *

Tonight’s twilight was one of those in I which I feel the urge to linger outside engrossed in a rare sense of wholesomeness. And a bat flew to within a foot of my face. That was nice.

A Little Word Post.

I was thinking earlier about what I might have for lunch tomorrow (because I’m congenitally inclined to need forewarning of all eventualities, however seemingly innocuous they might be) and decided that it should be baked beans on a bagel accompanied by some cherry tomatoes and a large dollop of coleslaw. And then I had a thought:

Do Americans use the word ‘dollop’? It seemed unlikely, although the evidence for the presumption is weak. But if they don’t, I think they should because for all its inherent softness, ‘dollop’ is quite an expressive word.

And that led me further to remember Enid Blyton’s infamous phrase ‘lashings of fresh cream’, and to wonder whether she was responsible for a veritable plague of atherosclerosis among a whole generation of unwary children.

(And then I was shunted into the question of vegans and ice cream, but it went off topic so I decided not to add it. And my final thought was that a person's thoughts are about as close as it gets to defining who a person is. Shutting up now.)

Braverman's Bullshit.

A couple of nights ago central London was unexpectedly subjected to violent disorder when groups of young people went rampaging about causing trouble, attempting to steal from shops, and so on. In response, the Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, said that those responsible should be ‘hunted down and locked up’ (chilling shades of the hue and cry in that phrase, and eminently suited to the sensibilities of the smug denizens of the Tory heartlands.) She went on to say: ‘We cannot allow the kind of lawlessness seen in some American cities to come to the streets of the UK.’

Well, first let me say that I don’t want lawlessness coming to the streets of the UK either. But let me also point out that this is the typical knee-jerk reaction of a half-witted, bigoted, right wing politician: blame the disorder on the perpetrators 100% and don’t bother to look any further. So let’s look a little further.

Back in 1979 Mrs Thatcher began the process of turning the United Kingdom into something approaching a clone of the US. The old socialist-oriented, mixed economy was largely swept away and replaced by an aggressively capitalist, free market model. And that had a profound influence on the societal pecking order in Britain.

The old graduated, but fundamentally homogeneous, social order became more stratified. At the top it produced a tiny minority of staggeringly wealthy beneficiaries. In the middle developed a large number of aspirational hopefuls running around like scalded cats trying to keep up with received standards of wealth and material possessions. To the bottom sank another large number of people struggling to subsist, while the marketing forces continued to manipulate them into not only wanting, but feeling entitled to have, everything the middle class had. Only they can’t have those things without either stealing them or getting hopelessly in debt, for which the system punishes them mercilessly. And don’t let us forget that at its heart, big capitalism is essentially driven by competitiveness, selfishness, and greed, and therefore has to produce a few winners and a lot of losers. We all know by now - or should do - that the American Dream is, and always was, a myth.

So what effect does this have on the mindset of the ‘lower’ class, a mindset to which they have largely been conditioned from birth and therefore consider normal? It produces tension; it produces indignation; it produces anger and the need to hit out. And it’s been growing ever since the days of Margaret Thatcher, the pale blue Tony Blair, and all the other Tory overlords who have been running the country for most of the past forty or so years.

So when Suella Braverman says she doesn’t want American problems coming to the streets of Britain, let her take a look at the way in which her predecessors tagged Britain onto America’s economic coat tails. That’s if she’s capable of understanding it, of course, which frankly I doubt.

A Moan and Some Tangential Meanderings.

Today’s major cause of high blood pressure was the incidence of delays and frustration caused by traffic issues. You’d think that a short journey of seven miles to make a shopping trip to Ashbourne would be simple and uneventful, wouldn’t you? And usually it is, but not today. Today produced a plethora of delays mainly occasioned by three sets of road works in and around the town, two involving temporary traffic lights causing reduced traffic flow, and the third preventing any traffic flow at all because the road was blocked. And they were so strategically placed as to ensure that no amount of amending one’s route would miss them all unless the amendment was so extreme as to be farcical.

The problem is this: The schools are out at the moment, and when the schools are out there are far more parents with children visiting the town. August is also the height of the holiday season in the UK. It’s when Ashbourne gets visited by a monstrous regiment of Peak District tourists. In short, August is Ashbourne’s busiest time of the year unless you count the week leading up to Christmas.

So why do the clever people in Traffic Management – or whatever it’s called these days – at Derbyshire County Council arrange for three sets of road works to take place concurrently at the busiest time of the year? Could they not have been done at a quieter time, or at least spaced out rather than all being done together? On the surface it appears to be another example of the brainless tendency which often infects the bureaucratic machine, but what would I know?

OK, moan over. So now for something completely different…

Mel mentioned the ‘Opening of the Lion’s Gate’ tonight. It’s something to do with ancient myths, apparently, but she couldn’t remember the details because Mel is generally given to skipping over details on the way to the bottom line. In this case it seems to be about delays, frustration, and a feeling of heaviness in the matter of life in general.

I had a couple of videos on the subject in my YouTube recommendations last night, but skipped over them on my way to a medley of Irish folk music. Tonight I will search the topic and see whether I can find a reason for the brainless tendency coming to the fore among the Derbyshire bureaucrats.

(Couldn’t end without reprising the moan, could I? And given the subject of a recent post, I might add that a black beetle died in my house tonight. Such an incident always bothers me because I like beetles and venerate life even when it’s small and seemingly insignificant. But when it also happens to coincide with the Lion’s Gate opening, well…)

Rueing Late Appointments.

I went for my latest medications review this afternoon. (It’s been a 4-weekly routine for the past three months, which I find a little overly fussy but I suppose I shouldn’t complain about a doctor being conscientious.)

The appointment was for 5.30 and I arrived at 5.15 because I like to be early for appointments. The check-in screen said ‘there are five appointments before yours.’ Five appointments take longer than 15 minutes, so I knew I was in for a bit of a wait. I finally got called in at 6.05, by which time I’d watched most of the staff leave, the metal window screens being drawn into place, and the one person left in the waiting area trying not to fall asleep.

‘How are you today?’ asked Dr John. I couldn’t resist the obvious reply:

‘Is it still today?’ I queried. ‘I thought we might have gone into tomorrow and I hadn’t noticed.’

Being the laid back, affable sort of person Dr John is, he merely smiled at my typically British love of sarcasm. He could have answered: ‘Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit. Do you want this appointment or don’t you?’ I’m fairly sure that my previous doctor – an irascible Scotsman called McLeod – would have been at least that harsh or even harsher, but he’s now tending his Venus Fly Trap plants, or whatever irascible old doctors do in retirement.

The consultation was undertaken, questions were asked and answered, the medication was changed again, and I was given a prescription for yet another sort of pill with an unpronounceable name. I took it the pharmacy.

‘You’re only just in time,’ said the pharmacist. Oh, for heaven’s sake, is that my fault?

‘Dr John said you should still be open so here I am’ was the best I could manage in reply. She disappeared for several minutes and returned bearing a paper bag containing pills with an unpronounceable name. She handed them to me with a smile (which didn’t seem false, oddly enough.)

And while I stood there waiting, the woman who was trying not to fall asleep earlier wandered wearily past on her way to see Dr John. I greeted her but she seemed disinclined to reply. The rest of the building was eerily empty and silent, but the automatic doors still opened to let me out. That bit went well.

Considering the Beetle Conundrum.

Over the past few days I’ve been surprised by the number of beetles I’m seeing crossing the road in front of me. It’s always been normal to see the occasional one – I’ve referenced it a few times on the blog – but recently there have been very many more than usual. Everywhere I walk I see single beetles scurrying across the tarmac, and so I’ve naturally taken to wondering why that should be.

My first thought was to wonder whether there’s some sort of event happening in the beetle world – you know, something like the Glastonbury Festival or the football World Cup. That seemed silly, so then I took to wondering whether it’s the good old universe sending me a message again. That might or might not be even sillier depending on your attitude to such matters, but I Googled the seeing of black beetles in folklore anyway just because I had nothing better to do.

By and large the news was good. The seeing of black beetles is significant in several ways, apparently, mostly along the lines of signifying spiritual rebirth, resilience in troubling situations (and oh my giddy aunt, do I need some of that), and embracing change as a factor for good. But then the website from which I gleaned this encouraging information had a large panel entitled:

Five Facts About: The Spiritual Meaning of Black Beetles, followed by bullet points outlining five facts about the spiritual meaning of bees. Makes you wonder why we bothered to invent the internet, doesn’t it?

The Bad Side of Connection.

I’ve read several times that the genome of the chimpanzee is the closest to that of homo sapiens. I gather it’s also a fact that the wild chimpanzee is by far the nastiest of the great apes (and other mammals generally, come to that), being given to much violent behaviour which includes hunting small monkeys and then tearing them apart and eating them alive. When you look at the way so many humans behave – especially those running the show – it seems reasonable to presume that the two facts are connected.

(I was amused to read of the violent mayhem experienced in New York City today over the giveaway promotion of Playstation 5s by some YouTuber I’ve thankfully never heard of. I’m also more than happy to admit that I don’t even know what a Playstation 5 is. Where oh where is that sweet chariot of a bloody space ship?)

On Mind and Messages.

I was standing by the gate that leads into the Harry Potter wood this evening. The light was low for the hour, the air was cool but calm and dry, and I stood there idly musing on the scene before me: the wide path that curves downhill to the right and out of view, the wild undergrowth beneath the nearest trees, the saplings springing up on a small clearing beyond, and the leaf-laden treetops still and silent above.

At first I felt nothing but the sweet serenity of a woodland scene, and then something richer and more vibrant swept over me. I felt a sense of something subtle but scintillating in the atmosphere, something unseen but unquestionably real. Or so it seemed at the time. A presence perhaps? An energy of a sort unknown to the physicist? I really couldn’t say, and I’m forced to concede that it might have been nothing more than the product of an overactive imagination.

But the sense was of having become aware of a more rarefied aspect of reality lying outside that to which our minds are normally attuned, rather as electromagnetic radiation produces colours beyond those which our eyes are designed to recognise. It felt like shifting sideways into a more fantastical and mysterious dimension than the one in which our human brains are conditioned to function.

*  *  *

Two days ago I had to visit the doctor to pick up some medications.  As I pulled up to the kerb a woman and a little girl of around six or seven were walking past. The girl turned to look at me through the window and smiled. I smiled back. As they walked on the girl turned around and smiled at me again, but this time she added a wave. Needless to say, I smiled and waved back. And I thought to myself: ‘Musk can keep his millions’ (if you’ll excuse the understatement.) ‘A smile and a wave from a little girl is gold dust personified. More than that even, it’s invaluable. The pecuniary principle is powerless in the face of true worth.’

*  *  *

So is this a mind attuned to higher levels of perception, or merely an aberration within a faculty ruled by an imperfect organ? Does the universe convey messages via a woodland scene and a child’s smile, or do we simply go a little off the rails occasionally? How can we know? And what are we to do with the messages if they’re really there?