On Blackbirds and Bonding.

There’s something unusual going on with the blackbirds in my garden. Around the time of sunset and shortly after, they suddenly become active and numerous just when the other birds have mostly disappeared for the day. The males are usually flying fast and determinedly from tree to tree, often chasing other males. The females are mostly hopping around the lawn and vegetable plots, or in among the vegetation in the flower beds, picking up unidentified morsels from the earth. And they come closer to me than usual, only moving away if I put a foot one step too far in their direction. It feels almost as though I’m beginning to bond with blackbirds in the twilight hour.

But as I said to the woman in the pet shop where I went to buy my sack of wild bird seed yesterday: ‘there are worse things to bond with than blackbirds.’ She agreed. And then I asked whether she was familiar with the story of Molly Lee, ‘the Burslem witch’ who was buried with a live blackbird in her coffin, and how disturbing the thought of such an atrocity is. She did know the story; she’d even visited Molly’s grave which had been re-aligned north-south in an apparently successful attempt to lay her ghost.

I also suggested that the pet shop acquire two friendly dogs to work shifts sitting by the till near the door. It occurs to me that the shop would be constantly full of people wanting their dog fixes (as I do.) You wouldn’t think a visit to a retail park could be interesting, would you?

Alice in America.

There’s something real and yet surreal going on in the USA at the moment. It has a distinctly Lewis Caroll feel about it.

First there was the man thrown into prison for writing something critical of Israeli policy on social media. Then there was the college professor sacked and deported for taking part in a pro-Palestinian rally. And then along comes Mr Bannon bemoaning the fact that the new Pope might be American, but critically is not America First. Why would anybody think that he should be? The Pope is the spiritual leader of the world’s Catholics, not America’s altar boy. (It’s hard to know with Bannon whether he’s a complete imbecile, or whether he’s sufficiently au fait with the culture to realise that 43% of Americans really are complete imbeciles and he can get away with acting like them.)

But we haven’t come to the best one yet, and this is the important one: Trump’s entourage are seriously – or so it is said – considering suspending habeas corpus. If there’s one thing giving rise to the serious suspicion that the USA, the ‘leader of the free world’ (and for ‘free world’ read ‘democratic world’), is sliding or being pushed into fascism, it’s this. Habeas corpus is a major part of the foundation of any democracy. It has to be, otherwise you might as well be living in 1930s Germany, and look where that led.

Personally, I think one of two things needs to happen. Either the bulk of Americans needs to rise up to remove Trump and his donkeys from their positions of power, or the rest of the world – especially Europe – should find a way to turn its back on the USA.

Neither is likely to happen, of course. Big capitalism has ingratiated itself too far into the American psyche. I’m quite sure that the lure of trinkets and baubles, devices and lifestyle accessories has long since killed off the spirit of 1776. Nobody with an outdoor swimming pool, four cars in the driveway, and a plethora of electronic devices with which to bitch, insult, or praise effusively is going to want to occupy the barricades. (Ironically, the only ones likely to do that are the hardcore Trump supporters. That’s part of why the whole thing is surreal.)

As for the second part, that’s also not going to happen because it would mean reordering the whole system of world economics. America is too big a player to simply shut it out, much as we would like to.

And so I suppose all we can do is wait and see. Sometimes I like the idea of a cataclysmic nuclear war coming along to kill off most of the human population, and then maybe we could start again and make a better job of it next time. But it’s easy for someone like me to say at my end of life. What about my daughter and her kids? What about the Lady B and hers? What about all the young and middle aged adults and the millions of babies being born every day?

And so we wait. And, as usual, maybe I’m wrong.

Excitement Shire Style.

I saw the first two swallows of the season at the bottom end of the Shire today. I watched them approach from a southerly direction and settle on somebody’s TV aerial.  I thought it reasonable to presume, given their southerly approach route, that they were finally making their first landfall after leaving South Africa a few weeks ago. I said ‘welcome and good luck’ to them as you would. Exciting things like that often happen in the Shire. Sometimes the adrenalin rush is hard to tolerate, especially if you’re blessed with an underperforming left ventricle.

The second exciting thing which happened to me was being passed in a motor car by the Lady B. She slowed, smiled, and waved, which is exactly what her mother always does so I suppose it’s an example of learned behaviour. I fully expect that one day one or the other will actually stop the car, lower the window, and proclaim:

‘Good morning, Mr Jeffrey. I presume you’ve noticed that I always slow down when I pass you on the road.’

‘I have indeed, ma’am,’ I will make hasty reply, ‘and I cannot thank you enough for your care and courtesy.’

‘Well actually,’ one or the other will continue, ‘the reason I do so is to avoid making an intolerable mess on the road. You know, all that blood and skin and broken bone and gelatinous tissue and so on. I fear it might frighten the horses, you see, and that would never do. I’m sure you understand. Goodbye.’

Being in a Deep, Dark Hole.

This post was begun on Monday 5^th May, three days after my phone line became comatose and my internet access naturally followed suit. The people at British Telecom said they were sending an engineer to trace the fault, but no result so far. I decided to write a post anyway – mostly for the sake of having something to do – and publish it if and when BT get their lethargic fingers out and resolve the matter.

During my enforced separation from the internet I discovered a file of images which I’d forgotten I had. It was a large selection of photographs from my pro days, held at that time (and probably still held as far as I know) by the publisher of a magazine which specialised in the landscapes and other places of interest in the UK. It’s a long time since I’d seen them and I was truly surprised by how good many of them were. I never realised how good an eye I had for form, visual balance, atmosphere, and the qualities of tone and texture. And then I remembered something else: I remembered how massively enthusiastic I was about my photography. Here are a couple of examples, chosen only because they remind me of the difference between nature’s endeavours and those of mankind. Nature is all about softness, sinuousness, and impermanence; the works of man are hard, run in straight lines, and built to last forever or as close as we can manage:

 

And that took me back to something I once wrote a blog post about: the tendency throughout my life to be subject to a variety of monomanias. There were mostly three of them – fishing, photography, and the writing of fiction. These were interests which consumed my waking desires at all times when I wasn’t being forced to walk the treadmill of school or salaried employment. I remembered the day when I went for a walk around the lanes where I lived, cameras and notebook at the ready to practice my new interest in the craft of photography. I was working as a revenue inspector at the time and a dispiriting revelation suddenly descended upon my consciousness and almost forced me to my knees – a sense that the time I spent in the office or out doing visits was akin to being trapped in a cold, musty crypt with only desiccated bones for company. It was at that moment that the aspiration to become a freelance pro was born.

And so the monomania became a career, and a very pleasant career it turned out to be. The enthusiasm never waned, you see, and being paid to do something you really like doing is a blessing indeed. Mrs Thatcher’s recession eventually killed it off and circumstances led me into theatre work, first as a volunteer and later in a paid position. I wouldn’t quite call the theatre work a monomania, but I was certainly enthusiastic about it and that means a lot.

And this brings me to the point of the post: the operative word is ‘enthusiasm.’ I was massively enthusiastic about all my obsessions – fishing, photography, the writing of fiction, and even the lesser matter of the theatre work. And that’s what’s missing in my life now. I have nothing to be enthusiastic about, and without enthusiasm life is a cold, grey affair. (I think that’s part of the explanation for the Lady B’s place in my life. Her presence was about the only thing which raised my consciousness to a state resembling enthusiasm, and why she has been mentioned so much on this blog. But life moves on, and so do people, and that’s just as it should be.)

So now for the complication:

There is something in my life which now provides the fuel to keep the motor running. Strange as it might sound to those who know of my attitude to the modern world and its oft-disturbing ways, it’s the internet. The internet has achieved a place in my life which I would never have thought credible in the early days. It’s where I go for information on news, sport, and the weather. It’s what I use to control my bills and general finances. Google searches provide most of the information on people and various sundry subjects. The internet provides my blog and feeds my love of Blogger stats. It’s the source of both learning and entertainment through YouTube and BBC iPlayer. And it’s been my main medium of correspondence for the past fifteen years. The internet very nearly fills what remains of my life when I’m not engaged in the chores of gardening, housework, and grocery shopping.

*  *  *

It’s now Tuesday 6^th May and I still have no internet because the land line problem remains unresolved. The consequence of this is to feel an overwhelming sense of something massive missing from my life. When I look at my computer monitor all I see is my desktop looking impassively back at me. It reminds me of a cold fireplace on a cold winter’s morning. Where there should be glowing embers, flickering flames, and wholesome heat, there is only black metal, soot-stained fire bricks, and dead cinders. That’s what having no internet is like and it’s depressing.

*  *  *

Wednesday 7^th May. My phone line is restored and I have access to the internet again. There were a lot of matters awaiting my attention when it returned this afternoon, including two emails from BT which provides the phone line. They were both apologies for the delay, and they’d been sent to me by email (duh?)

1st of Beltane.

In the pleasant month of May

As I roved out on a fine May morning

In the merry, merry month of May

Three lines from different folk songs, all recognising the fact that May is a special month. In the Celtic calendar, May is the youthful first month of summer, and in the Shire this morning all was green and bountiful in the Mayday sunshine. Vast swathes of white flowers on the wild garlic in The Hollow, veritable regiments of fresh young bracken everywhere, rockery gardens festooned with hanging colour of every hue, and the tree canopies in wood, field, and hedgerow proudly presenting their summer finery of leaf and seed.

When I came back to my house I heard music playing. I looked over to the school playing field where the kids were performing their maypole dance, and doing so to the lively brilliance of an Irish jig. Perfect; and for a brief few minutes the conviction held that life in this often torturous place called reality has compensations.

In the afternoon the loss arrived. I decline to go into detail, but I was reminded again of the connection between the forces of creation and destruction. But even that was ameliorated by the steady shower of light rain which graced the gardens and the dusty fields for a while this evening. We needed it after weeks of warm, dry, sunny weather.

And that was the first day of Beltane in a nutshell.

A Muse for Beltane.

It was a good Beltane fire this evening. No rain to spit indecorously in the embers, and no harsh wind to rouse the flames to demonic hostility. Just the temperate, dry air and the merest hint of a breeze to give harmonious life to the flickering.

And then I noticed something satisfactorily apposite. I looked westward into the uninterrupted blue of a darkening sky and saw the new baby reclining peacefully in the firmament. I’m referring, of course, to the slim crescent of the new moon which always reminds me of a new baby these days. (Does that indicate a growing awareness of symbolism, or is it mere incipient senility? I don’t know and I see no reason to care.)

Whichever it is, it put me in mind of the ouroboros which featured in a video I watched on YouTube last night – the snake or dragon which is constantly consuming its own tail, and which is a symbolic representation of the cyclical nature of reality, the persistence of soul, and the connection between the forces of creation and destruction. This is an ouroboros:

And that took me into further musing on the two active constituents of the Hindu lower trinity – Shiva the destroyer and Vishnu the creator. I asked whether they, too, are symbols of ancient pedigree and represent ancient knowledge of which the modern human is unaware, or whether they’re simply an early form of philosophical speculation.

I didn’t know and it didn’t seem to matter. It was just rather satisfying that the musing was engendered by the burning of a Beltane fire. And this is the 13th post of the month, which is probably irrelevant.

Being an Object of Scrutiny.

I was walking along Mill Lane today when a car drew up alongside and stopped. The view through the open driver’s window revealed an elderly woman of unknown identity, and she said:

‘I see you’re not wearing a coat today. You usually wear a coat when you go for a walk, but not today. Is that because it’s warm and sunny?’

I replied in the affirmative, of course. What else could I do? (Actually, I could have asked ‘Who are you and why do you stop my way upon this blasted heath? You should be a woman and yet your beard forbids me to interpret that you are so.’ I think it unlikely, however, that she would have been familiar with the provenance of the question, and that the irony and humour contained within it would therefore have proved elusive. In other words, she might have been offended, so I’m glad I didn’t think of it at the time.)

What little remained of the conversation was too perfunctory even to be memorable, so I won’t bother trying to remember it. Eventually she drove on. I think I waved.

It was a salutary experience nonetheless because it demonstrated yet again that I’m being observed in my solitary perambulations. Maybe I’m being studied, analysed even. And that’s the problem with small English villages. They’re full of Miss Marples.

A Special Sight

Most parts of my garden have plants in them that shouldn’t be there. (By that I mean they’re what people call weeds, only I find the term disrespectful and decline to use it.)  But anyway…

One of the wild flowers I have growing in my garden is the periwinkle. It grows on the narrow strip of land next to the side wall of my house, and looks quite at home with other plants which should (purportedly) be there such as snapdragons, teasels, climbing roses, basil, and a forsythia bush.

Well, yesterday – when it was sunny – I arrived at the top of my garden and something leaped into my vision like a nugget of gold on a pebble beach. There was an orange tip butterfly (the first of the season) sitting on a periwinkle flower and feeding on the nectar in the middle.  This is a periwinkle:

And this is an orange tip butterfly. (Sorry I can’t overlay one onto the other, but I don’t have the equipment or the expertise to do fancy stuff like that. Please employ your imagination):

I found the relative shapes, patterns, and colours so startling that everything else – the wall, the plants, the tall hedge, the shrubs, the lawn – became merely three-dimensional, but the butterfly on the periwinkle belonged to the fourth.

It’s because I’m neurodivergent, you see. I’ve known I’m neurodivegent ever since somebody on YouTube told me I am, but I haven’t been so diagnosed as yet because I don’t know anybody who would consider it an issue.

On Danegeld, Bad Ditties, Ducks, and Days.

Yesterday I read that President Xi of China has warned the countries of the world not to give in to American bullying in Trump’s trade wars. It reminded me of that episode in history when bands of Danish Vikings would rampage across a territory, terrorise the population, and then demand money in return for some peace and quiet (for a while at least.) The payment was known as the Danegeld, and Kipling wrote a poem about it which includes the line:

If once you have paid him the Danegeld, you never get rid of the Dane.

If Trump wins this one, he’ll know he’s got the world on a string, won’t he? We’ll all be puppets to be played with at will. Not a good idea, so let’s hope he loses.

(This week’s cover cartoon on Private Eye, by the way, shows a brat-like Trump bleating: ‘It’s Easter. Where’s my egg?’ And the reply comes back: ‘On your face, mate.’)

*  *  *

I made mention of Ellie, the new barista at Costa Coffee, didn’t I? I did. It occurred to me that the name Ellie should be suitable for the creation of a ditty, something I haven’t done for a very long time. I tried to think of suitable rhymes and decided that ‘smelly’ and ‘belly’ were entirely inappropriate. In fact, I didn’t do very well at all and could only come up with a second rate Limerick which doesn’t really pass muster. I’m going to publish it anyway, though, because even a cupfull of your own urine is better than nothing when you’re stuck in an arid desert awaiting rescue and there’s no water for miles.

There was a young woman called Ellie

Who saw something strange on the telly

A cook with no taste

Preparing a paste

With cow dung and raspberry jelly

*  *  *

For a span of several evenings last week I saw a pair of ducks flying over my garden at twilight. I thought it a rather comfortable image, but on the fourth or fifth night only one duck flew over and I thought it a little sad. The following evening there were no ducks at all, so I reasoned that they might have argued over the best place to spend the night and one of them had won. The female probably. Females usually win that sort of argument. So then I felt better.

*  *  *

I often wonder why I’m still trying to keep this blog going. It isn’t what it was, I know that. It lacks the flow, the humour, and the little bits of cleverness it used to have. It’s all in the mind, of course, beleaguered and belittled as it is by a consciousness become very demanding. I’m trying to stay afloat in a sea of existential speculation replete with capricious tides and opposing cross currents. Most of what I have around me is malfunctioning and so is my body, so there’s an ever present end-of-days feeling in the air and in my dreams. But the blog is still here and sometimes plays the role of pressure valve, so letting it go would probably be a bad idea.

Did I ever mention that words have a similar effect on me that certain foods have on other people? The wan day went glooming down in wet and weariness is my baked Alaska, and Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable Dominion over all my slice of chocolate gateau. I expect I probably did.

On Pitfalls and Pleasant Things.

Let’s have something we haven’t had for quite a long time, eh? A My-Day-In-Ashbourne post. (Sounds grander than it is, but I suppose it will do in the absence of anything better.) Here goes then:

The generally quiet little market town called Ashbourne has a troubled air about it at the moment, courtesy of the county council choosing to spend millions of pounds it doesn’t really have making a difference that doesn’t really need making. They’re digging up all the pavements (sidewalks) and replacing them with smart, off-white flagstones which obviously won’t stay off-white for very long. They’re also re-laying and making changes to the two town centre streets which carry all the summer tourist traffic heading for the Peak District as well as the year-round quarry wagons going in the same direction. Consequently, the quiet and normally unobtrusive little town is littered with yellow signs redirecting vehicular traffic, and red barriers doing the same to pedestrians.

It’s occurred to me a few times that if only we had steam vents blowing off and the odd broken fire hydrant treating us to an impromptu fountain, it would be easy to imagine being in Manhattan. Apart from the honking of horns, that is, or rather the lack of them. I think it’s probably self-evident that British – and other European – drivers are less given to impatience, angry outbursts, and the making of excessive noise in protest, than those who frequent New York City. But I might be wrong.

*  *  *

(The line break is so you don’t get bored because you think there’s something completely different about to take the stage. There is actually.) This:

Costa Coffee has a new Ellie. She has all the physical credentials to be eminently noticeable, and I was somewhat intrigued by her nose. I couldn’t decide whether it was Jewish or merely aquiline, but decided it didn’t matter. She’s also energetic – constantly shifting from one foot to the other and occasionally breaking into a little dance to complement the background music. Ashbourne Costa has become somewhat downbeat and characterless since the last crew left after the Covid lockdown, so I have hopes that the new Ellie will re-invigorate the old place.

And do you know what she said to me? ‘I think I remember you.’ That’s what she said. Me? Memorable? The only time I remember anybody saying that was seven years ago in a different coffee shop (that was Lucy, the ex-dental nurse.) That’s how rare it is. It transpired that Ellie used to work in the pet shop where I bought seed and peanuts for the feeding of wild birds, although that doesn’t explain why she should have noticed me and remembered my face all these years later. (Then again, both Gollum and Quasimodo had pretty memorable faces, so maybe…) I chose not to smile at her lest she thought me creepy. I’m not, you know, not at all. It’s just that some people are wont to get the wrong impression when faced with the odd creature that masquerades as me.

But it got even better. The Bernese Mountain dog sitting with its humans at the next table, and the chocolate Cockapoo I encountered in the street following my departure, both insisted that my company and approbation were every bit the equal of a juicy bone and became my very best friends for a few minutes. And life made sense after all.

A Notable Week of Sorts.

The past week has been a bad one, hence no posts. Matters are a little improved at the moment, but not by much.

*  *  *

I’ve listened to several people talking about the nature of the sigma male on YouTube and they all described me pretty well. Imagine being a sigma male, an INFJ, and an HSP all in one person (if you can.) Not much hope for a contented dotage, is there?

*  *  *

Nevertheless, I still managed to be mildly intrigued by the news that Signorina Meloni of Italy has gone cap in hand to visit Mr Trump of somewhere over the big water, hoping to persuade him to be kind to us poor Europeans. The news report suggested that she might have some success because, being one of the most right wing of Europe’s leaders, she has more in common ideologically with Mr T than most other European leaders. If she does, I suspect it will owe more to the fact that she is blonde, petite, good looking, and thirty years younger than him.

*  *  *

I also caught a video on YouTube made by a well spoken and intelligent American man (a creature rather commoner, no doubt, than we poor Europeans are wont to acknowledge in the circumstances currently prevailing.) He spoke about the possibility that, contrary to popular belief, consciousness is not a product of the brain but the creator of my brain, your brain, and every other fragment of material in the whole of the universe. This idea is not new to me, but the way he explained it impressed me to the point of almost believing him. I didn’t, of course, because I don’t do belief, but I did feel a satisfying sense of vindication.

*  *  *

Should I talk about the three knocks which woke me up at 3am a few nights ago, and the shuffling sounds I subsequently heard in my bedroom? Don’t think so. That sort of thing is best left to fly past on the wind.

On Trump and the T Word.

I read earlier that a woman has been charged with criminal damage after splashing some red paint on the walls of the clubhouse on one of Donald Trumps Scottish golf courses. Donald called it ‘an act of terrorism’ and said he hoped that she would be very harshly treated.

Well, come on. Turnberry isn’t exactly a national monument, is it? And the building hardly stands out as a notable piece of architecture. Vandalising property is, indeed, criminal under British law, but it’s a pretty minor sort of criminal. It doesn’t come close to wanting to steal Greenland from the Danes, or evict the Palestinians from Gaza so he can turn their ancestral homeland into another Mediterranean playground for the rich.

And have you noticed that Trump reacts to every bit of protest aimed at him or his entourage by calling it ‘terrorism’? He’s obsessed with the word and clearly hasn’t a clue what it means. A simple definition of terrorism would be: ‘purposefully hurting the innocent with the aim of reducing their resolve or morale.’ Writing ‘go home Trump’ - or whatever it was - in red paint on the wall of an unprepossessing building is hardly hurting the innocent. And I wonder whether Trump realises that American policy has been responsible for some of the greatest acts of true terrorism the world has ever known. How many innocent people were cruelly killed or hurt by the bombing of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Dresden in 1945? There was a war on, yes, but none of them were combatants. That’s terrorism. Defacing a building or trashing a Tesla car isn’t (except to Mr Dunderhead.)

On the Battery God Being Belligerent.

I was on my way out to go to Ashbourne for my weekly shopping trip this morning, but when I pushed the button to unlock the car nothing happened. I tried it from a different direction but still nothing happened. I tried it from several directions, and even returned to the house and came back again, thinking it might be one of those odd temporal shifts in the matrix. And then I unscrewed the key fob and jiggled the button cell in there. Nothing. Not a clunk or a wink-wink was in evidence to set my mind at rest. And of course, the door wouldn’t open.

Thus began a long period of telephonic and other activity aimed at remedying the situation, the details of which may be mostly omitted to avoid the risk of inducing an atmosphere of terminal boredom to the relating of the tale. Apart from one interesting fact:

When I made the first call using my mobile phone I noticed that my phone battery had hardly any charge in it, so I plugged the charger in and proceeded with the calls in situ. But the screen kept flashing up a message saying ‘charger plugged out.’ Only it wasn’t plugged out, so now I had another problem. Was it a fault with the charger, the phone battery, or the phone itself? You never know these days, do you? That’s one of the problems we have with modern technology in the modern world.

But here’s the interesting bit: at the end of all the testing and theorising, the problem with the car was diagnosed as being simply a flat battery. It wasn’t flat yesterday, but now it is. ‘That’s the problem with modern batteries,’ said the mechanic. ‘Full of life one minute and dead the next. They don’t give you any warning any more.’

A new battery was ultimately located and fitted, and now the little French princess is purring and blushing prettily again just as she should, and opening her doors freely to welcome my august presence into her midst.

But isn’t it odd that I should have two unconnected battery failures at the same time. Is there a god of batteries up there in the cosmos somewhere, and might he have a toothache today? And there’s a little adjunct to the tale:

Yesterday I went to the GP surgery for my spring Covid booster, and when the nurse came to insert the needle she jumped back. I suppose I probably asked some feckless question like ‘do I really smell that bad?’ (because that’s what I usually do). ‘No,’ she replied, ‘I just got an electric shock off your arm.’ Well, maybe the battery god has a more extended portfolio which includes all matters electrical. And maybe he’s had toothache for two days. Whatever the likelihood or otherwise of such speculation, there definitely seems to be summat up (as they say in the wild north country.)

The Mystery of Donald and Greta.

I’m currently thirty minutes into a documentary about Greta Thunberg, and one of the questions which has become uppermost in my mind is this:

How can Donald Trump and Greta Thunberg both be members of the same species?

One sub-ordinary and the other super extraordinary; one deluded follower and one a visionary leader; one of achingly narrow perception and one who sees the world as it truly is. And both claiming descent from Adam.

Didn’t I read once that the chimpanzee has 98% of its DNA in common with the human? That might be true of Trump, although I suspect the figure might be higher in his case, but Thunberg? Therein lies the mystery.

Having Prospero for President.

I once read that an American – presumably a sound man of business – had stated the opinion that the president of a country should always be a businessman. Well, America now has one and the question has come into sharp relief. Personally I think it’s a load of tosh, so I thought I’d make a case for the opposite assertion.

The problem with businessmen, certainly at a level which would qualify them to run for President, is that they’re conditioned by, and committed to, the notion that the overarching concern in any organisation is the pecuniary principle. Money is the bottom line; money is everything. This must surely give them an unrealistically narrow view of the spectrum of cultural concerns and values, and lead them to consider that the only thing which really matters when creating a stable and contented society is economic growth.

But economic growth, at least in an overwhelmingly capitalist system, doesn’t create a contented society. What it creates is the illusion that having things like prestigious cars and big houses and trinkets and gadgets and expensive pastimes is the predominant means by which happiness and contentment are gained. And it simply isn’t true. The main effect of having more and more things is to create a permanent desire to have yet more things once you’ve become habituated to those you’ve already got, and that in turn produces a perpetual state of discontent. It’s usually subconscious, but it’s no less real for so being.

The creation of stability and contentment requires the right balancing of the spectrum, and this is something the high flying businessman is ill prepared to understand. Money really isn’t everything, and that’s a fact. And as long as the businessman running the country thinks it is, the pestilence of discontent and social division will not only continue to thrive but probably grow stronger.

As Edgar Allan Poe wrote at the end of Masque of the Red Death, when the plague has taken Prince Prospero and proved it knows no boundaries (and I hope I might be forgiven the necessary paraphrase):

And Darkness and Decay and the scourge of the mighty Dollar will hold illimitable Dominion over all

The Matter of the Reflective Posts.

A little way down the lane from my gate stand two curved metal posts hammered into the shallow grass verge. They’re reflective and coloured red, white, yellow, and black, and were put there a couple of years ago to warn drivers at night away from the drainage ditch which lies the other side of the verge.

The problem is that the red, white, yellow, and black had been completely obscured by road dust, leaving them a dirty dark grey and anything but reflective. Today I went out and cleaned them, and also hammered one of the posts further into the ground because it had worked loose and was in danger of falling over. Several cars passed me while I was so engaged because it was school run time. Two people and a dog also passed me on foot, and none of them stopped to ask ‘what’ya doing?’

And so I fully expect that one day someone will be driving along that part of the lane at night and say: ‘Oh look, somebody’s cleaned those reflective posts. I wonder who it was.’ And any generally uninterested passenger will probably reply: ‘The council, I expect.’ And they’ll be wrong, but I won’t mind a bit because I will tell myself that virtue is its own reward. Yeah.

A couple of hours before that I was taking my walk when a young Cocker Spaniel gleefully made my acquaintance. He then proceeded to wrap his paws around my arm and chew my thumb. My, how it took me back to happier times when another Cocker Spaniel and I got on famously. (This is the point at which ‘hey ho’ would come in useful if it weren’t such a cliché.)

And then I got the ladder out and trimmed the ivy festooning the side wall of my house, so now it looks all smarty pants.

I’d say that today might be described as ‘productive.’ Do you know how rare that is?

Coincidence and a Dark Suspicion.

I came across a second hand book in a charity shop today, a glossary of mainly archaic, but with some new, words which have fallen out of use or not yet become common. One of the archaic terms is the verb ‘to betrump’ which means to deceive, to cheat, to evade by guile, and the example of usage is given as ‘he betrumped her out of winning the election.’ (And the book was published long before Kamala Harris entered the presidential lists, just in case you’re wondering.)

It seemed to me that this is the good old universe showing us connections again, so I bought the book.

*  *  *

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Starmer is apparently going ahead with his plan to give tax breaks to the American tech giants – huge, soulless multi-billion dollar organisations – in the hope of gaining favourable terms in the matter of Trump and his trade war. He also still declines to extract a little more tax from the multi-millionaires in this country, but remains committed to reducing welfare payments to the sick and disabled. Methinks there is something rotten in the state of Albion.

And it isn’t just dear old Albion under the microscope. I’m beginning to sense the spreading of an aggressive cancer across the politics of the whole western world. I read today that Putin’s little lackey, Mr Orban of Hungary, is to allow a visit from the genocidal and land-grabbing Netanyahu without arresting him, in spite of an arrest warrant being issued by the International Criminal Court to which Hungary is a signatory. And I gather that the new German Chancellor is likely to do the same.

So am I right with my cancer analogy? And if so, has it reached stage 3 yet?

*  *  *

While I was eating my dinner tonight I took to thinking of all the things I’d done today. And then I thought about the things I did yesterday and the things I’m likely to do tomorrow. A sinking feeling began to take over as the realisation set in that it’s all completely bloody pointless. And then I remembered that there were lots of dogs in Ashbourne today and they all seemed happy, and as long as the world has happy dogs in it there’s reason to carry on.

Open Wounds and the Baby Moon.

A week or so ago I was doing a small job at the top of the stairs using a piece of hollow metal tubing from an old vacuum cleaner. I dropped it and one end of the tube scraped along the white-painted lining paper on the opposite wall, scraping off a small piece of about 2”x½”. I carried on with the job meaning to repair it later.

But then I looked at it more closely and noticed something. Behind the paper is a thin layer of polystyrene sheeting which is meant to provide a little insulation between the paper and the plastered wall. It’s normally smooth, but the sharp metal had dragged across it and broken the surface into small polystyrene granules. At that point a sense of horror and disgust came over me, so profound as to be genuinely enervating, and it lasted for about ten minutes. Every time I went up or down the stairs my eye was drawn to this scar and the same thing happened. Eventually I had to make a point of not looking at it until I got around to repairing it.

That’s a little strange, isn’t it, and it reminded me of how I’d felt as a boy when I read a horror story which I think was called Lukundo, or something similar. It was about a man camping out in a remote area who develops a nasty condition: every so often a small, human-like being breaks out of his skin and talks to him in a foreign language. I felt the same sense of horror and disgust then. I also remembered that there was a time in my young life when the sight of a tree troubled me because it was growing out of the ‘skin’ of the earth, and anything coming out of the skin from beneath it produced a sense of loathing. Seeing the skin broken, and that which is normally hidden become visible, appears to have a strangely disturbing effect on me.

So where does this odd sensibility come from? Is it a form of neurosis which has it origin in some long forgotten trauma? And could my adverse reaction to very loud noises spring from the same source?

*  *  *

Meanwhile, the nice news this week is that the first bluebells are flowering. They’re early, as are the flowers on the wild garlic and the blossom now growing heavy on my plum tree. But we need rain because we’ve hardly had any for about two months. Unusually dry springs are becoming the norm in this little outpost of Europe.

*  *  *

And yesterday evening I noticed something unusual about the super thin crescent of the new moon. Its height in the sky relative to the position of the sun below the horizon put it a certain angle, which caused me to see a new-born baby lying back in the crook of its new mother’s arm. Such is the potential for imagination in this little outpost of the human condition.

Redaction and Recovery.

I was just reading about Trump’s latest foray into absurdity with his attacks on the Smithsonian and other institutions. He says they’re giving a false view of American history, and what needs to be shouted from the rooftops is everything which can be presented as glorious or grandiose by those with a conservative mindset (or maybe that should be mind(less)set.) Oh, and run by white men of course. Everything dark or dubious must be airbrushed out so as to give a true picture.

You know, we British had a very big empire at one time, and some people still regard it as a glorious achievement. But we don’t pretend that the Amritsar massacre didn’t happen, or that the forced labour camps in India didn’t exist, or that the Croke Park massacre in Ireland is just an urban legend. If history is to be worth anything it must be on a warts-and-all basis, otherwise it isn’t worth a hill ’o beans.

I’m beginning to have a vague, so far unformed suspicion that there’s more to Donald Trump than appears on the surface. He’s too far out, too extreme, too volatile, too bird brained to be just another Republican President. He looks more like a conspiracy theory beginning to take shape, and it looks to me as though America – and maybe the world at large – could be heading for something bad and irreversible if he isn’t stopped sooner rather than later.

*  *  *

Meanwhile, a shout-out for Mark the technician at Plusnet (my ISP.) I spent an hour this afternoon wallowing in techno devices, many twisted and unruly yards of various cables, the litter of cardboard boxes, and much of it spent balancing awkward things on my lap or crouched uncomfortably under the desk where my computer lives. And at the end of it all the new device didn’t work. A further hour was then spent with Mark the technician on the phone. It was hard going but he got me there, and there was even an element of serendipity thrown in for good measure. That little story is a rare one these days.

On Judgment, Ventricles, and Wasted Days.

When I think of my earlier rant about Musk and Starmer I find myself feeling guilty, or at least feeling a sense of failure. It’s because I feel sure that I’m not here to judge; I’m here to observe. It’s a Buddhist teaching, you know – ‘non-judgemental observation’ they call it (unsurprisingly.) But cruelty, injustice, and disregarding the needs and rights of others make me angry. And then anger transposes into judgementalism and I feel it shouldn’t. I feel it lays down a barrier to the process of becoming closer to the universal consciousness, which I suspect is what we’re all supposed to be doing if only we weren’t so blinded by such a narrow perception of reality. And I might be wrong.

*  *  *

I feel nauseous and have a slight pounding in my chest tonight. It’s probably due to my gardening exertions today – digging and raking and sowing the mangetout and potatoes. I think it’s probably my underperforming left ventricle judging me and getting angry for subjecting it to the sort of exertions to which it is not kindly given these days. (I wonder whether a left ventricle can learn to be Buddhist.)

*  *  *

Yesterday was the seventh anniversary of my kidney operation and all the attendant fallout which followed. Doesn’t time fly when you’re getting closer to the terminus?

*  *  *

And I’m getting those inclinations of inevitable mortality again when I realise that my life as a human being called JJ is finite and has only so many days in it, and every evening it occurs to me that I’ve used up another one and ask whether I did anything worthwhile with it. Usually I haven’t.

America's Ebeneezer.

Did I read it right this morning? Did Elon Musk really say this week: ‘The biggest weakness in the western world is empathy’? If I did, I’m curious to know whether he has ever been known to utter Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses? or maybe let them die and reduce the surplus population. (I think he was also a little lacking in the matter of vocabulary. What I’m sure he probably meant was ‘sympathy’, not ‘empathy.’ They’re different. But that’s a minor point and his meaning is well taken. And if there’s one thing we don’t expect of people in the higher echelons of power in the US these days, it’s precise English. It’s even becoming almost a rarity in the UK.)

*  *  *

Meanwhile, back on home ground, Mr Starmer and his Chancellor are pushing forward with their war on welfare. The main victims are the sick and disabled, but Starmer continues to decline the option of taxing the very rich a bit more which I’m told could produce comparable pecuniary benefit. What he is considering is giving special tax breaks to American tech giants in order to appease Donald Trump in the hope that Mr President will be kind to Britain in the matter of trade tariffs. The word ‘blackmail’ springs easily to mind. And the concomitant phrase ‘giving in to blackmail’ follows close behind.

This is a strange affair. End of rant.

A Lesson to Suit a Loner.

Young Sarah passed me in Sainsbury’s today. She’s the young barista in the Costa coffee shop whose working style I so admire and to whom I recited one of my ditties recently.

I watched her as she walked by, intending to say nothing more than ‘hello Sarah’ but she sidled past without giving me so much as half a glance. In fact, her demeanour suggested a thought process along the lines of: ‘I know I’ve noticed you, but I don’t want you to know I’ve noticed you.’

I wonder whether she interprets my frank and forthright manner as indicating creepiness. Or maybe she’s just shy. Or maybe I really am creepy and never noticed.

I hardly ever talk to anybody, you know, but if I’m going to be thought creepy I think it would be better if I stopped talking to anybody at all. I have only so many breaths allotted to me for this lifetime so why not be greedy and keep them all to myself?

Leaving With the Dolphins.

The statements of certain senior political figures in the US have made one thing quite clear over the past few weeks: America is no longer interested in watching Europe’s back. It has to stop, they say, because it’s ‘pathetic.’ They’ve shifted now to describing Putin in glowing terms. He’s being described as a good man, honest and trustworthy. ‘I like Putin,’ said one senior member of Trump’s team ‘and the President was very moved by the portrait.’

(I’m all for politeness and even conviviality in matters diplomatic, but the relationship between the Putin and Trump teams is becoming a little too close, methinks. It’s more than strange, more even than creepy. It looks menacing for the cause of world peace.)

And so we have portraits and palliness, and all annotated with infantile language and emojis on official documents. So are we now heading for the biggest diplomatic divorce case in world history? Has the time come to say ‘So long, America, and thanks for all the candyfloss.’ In the case of the UK, is the ‘special relationship’ now dead and come to dust?

I can’t know the answer to that one because I don’t know the complexities of macro economics, and there are those will say ‘don’t worry, it’s only for anther 3½ years and then we can become adults again.’ But is it, or will Trump somehow contrive to change the system? He’s already reminding me of the little guy who runs North Korea, and in so doing suggesting a whiff of a third world dictatorship about the USA, so who knows?

Given the state of my body these days, I think there’s a good chance I’ll be watching with interest from the other side.

The Starting Gun.

The snowdrops which have proliferated in the Shire this year have faded into a well earned rest now. The narrow strip of woodland at the top of my lane, which played host to a regiment of snowdrops, is now being washed with the creamier white of the wood anemones. A forest of heavy bluebell growth promises to turn the woodland floor blue before very long. The blackthorn trees have donned their all-encompassing white cloaks, and the hawthorn bushes in the hedgerows are garlanded with the green of fresh new leaves. Yesterday I saw the first pink blossom on a cherry tree, and today it was the slightly darker pink on a flowering currant in my neighbour’s garden.

And so the race begins. We will now rush with indecent haste past the ever-changing exposition of nature’s colourful bounty of flowers and leaves and berries and fruit until the wool appears on the willowherb and it will all be over for another year. It all seems to happen so quickly.

Remaining Circumspect.

We were treated to the first of the summer-style sunsets this evening. A vast swathe of the western sky was awash with salmon pink mackerel clouds set among a background of pale grey and pale blue sky. Very summery, I thought, but then asked myself whether this was an example of nature smiling to deceive because that’s what I always think. Tomorrow is the vernal equinox.

On Nursing and Netanyahu.

I was thinking this morning about the rationale for not paying nurses high salaries. I think I might have said this before, but I don’t remember so I’ll say it again.

It seems to me that nursing is more than just a job; it’s a vocation. As such, the people who choose nursing must do so – as with any vocation – primarily because it’s what they want to do irrespective of the level of pecuniary reward. If nurses were paid high salaries it’s likely that the profession would attract those driven by the money imperative, and that would be likely to lead to a dilution of the general standard. It sounds unfair, I know, because in a perfectly reasonable sense it is unfair. But it’s a valid point of view nonetheless.

But let’s not kid ourselves regarding the real reason why nurses are not paid high salaries. The fact is that we in the west live under rampantly free market economic systems in which the value of everything is assessed according to its capacity to make money. Nurses are not there for that reason; they’re there to care for people in situations of ill health and distress, and caring for people will always come second best to the making of money in a rampantly free market economy.

*  *  *

Meanwhile, I note that Benjamin Netanyahu is still racing through the field to challenge Genghis Khan for first position in the World’s Greatest Mass Murderer Stakes. Fortunately I’m not a betting man, but merely a compassionate one who feels greatly disturbed by the suffering of the innocent.

And my concern naturally extends to those Israelis who still have loved ones held hostage because the need of revenge is a highly potent force in the human condition. Further, it strikes me as ironic that, notwithstanding the original atrocity committed by Hamas in October, if they should leave the remaining hostages unharmed in spite of Mr Netanyahu’s latest descent into genocidal behaviour, the balance of the moral high ground would swing in favour of Hamas. The quality of reason does so like to spring surprises sometimes.

For my part, I try to fall back on the theory that if this world were perfect there would be no reason for it to exist.

On the Divine Right of Presidents and Other Notes.

There’s an interesting smell coming over the water from the USA. It’s a little rancid, but interesting nonetheless. Having read about the redactions on the Arlington Cemetery website, the crackdown on Voice of America, and the invoking of a historical wartime process in order to justify the expulsion of Venezuelans, it appears that Donald Trump is rapidly shifting his position from elected President to genuine, right wing dictator.

This is fascinating because it bears a vague echo of the spat between King Charles I and the English parliament in the 17^th century, and Charles eventually lost his head – literally. Remember me once saying that it might take a revolt by the military to get rid of Donald Trump? Bit of a long shot I admit, but you never know.

*  *  *

A psychiatrist on YouTube told me last night that social isolation can cause changes to the brain and is a bad thing. If anybody tells me that to my face, I have my answer ready.

*  *  *

And I’ve started watching the second series of the Norwegian cop drama Wisting. Did I say it was just as glum as the Swedish cop drama Wallander? It’s becoming glummer. Lovely.

*  *  *

Two or three years ago I sprained my left wrist and all I could get out of a physio was ‘I don’t know what that is.’ It passed off eventually and took to making intermittent but relatively minor reappearances. Last night it came back with a vengeance, just when I need my left wrist to contribute to spring work in the garden. Not lovely. (But possibly a side effect of changes to the brain as a result of social isolation.)

Decisions Easy and Hard.

I had a phone call from Mel this evening. ‘Something urgent has come up,’ she began. She went on to explain that her cat had developed a condition which she’d been advised could be fatal if not treated quickly, and could she borrow £250 to pay the vet’s bill. She had a taxi booked to take her to the surgery because her car’s in dock at the moment. And so I went online and paid the requisite amount into her bank account and felt relieved that I’d finally been able to do something useful for the first time in a long time. Louie is very precious, you see, and still young. This is a picture of him as a kitten – irresistible, don’t you think.

 

And then I decided to watch the final episode of Inside Number 9, which has been entertaining me at the rate of one episode a night for the past eight weeks. Half way through the programme I entered a dreamlike state in which I was standing on a balmy tropical shore with the waves of an azure sea lapping gently against the golden sand and the air suffused with the combined aroma of pineapples and camel dung. Standing in front of me side by side were Cary Mulligan and Amanda Abington. They looked imploringly into my eyes and spoke as one: ‘Please take one of us as your own,’ they began, ‘for without you we can no longer revel in the pleasure of being alive. Which one of us shall it be?’ And then I turned into the Buddhist goat – you know, the starving one faced with two paths, each of which has a pile of food at the far end; the one that stands there wracked with indecision until it dies of starvation.

Perfidious Spring.

The multitudinous snowdrops are sinking back into sleep now ready for their summer rest. The crocuses are following close behind, while the daffodils, primroses, celandines, and hyacinths are stepping forth to take their place. The willows are heavy with catkins and the blackthorns are wearing their purist white coats. Spring is here in the Shire and colour is increasingly in the ascendant.

Today we had cold rain and hail, and tonight is forecast to chill us with 2°C of frost. It all reminds me of another favourite line from Macbeth:

Away, and mock the time with fairest show

False face must hide what the false heart does know

 

(I always thought that catkins were seeds, but only today I discovered they're actually densely packed strands of tiny flowers. Still learning after all these years.)

A View of Orange Skeletons.

I saw a strange sight this afternoon, one that I’ve seen only once before and I think I mentioned it on the blog. It goes like this:

The front of my house faces due west, and the back due east. This afternoon I looked out of the bathroom window which faces east and saw that all the still-naked trees in the hedgerows and on top of the hill had been painted orange.

In order for this to happen there has to be a particular set of circumstances. The atmosphere needs to be clear enough for the setting sun to retain its power, the western sky needs to be clear of clouds, and the atmospheric pressure has to be high enough for the refractive index to take out some of the lower wavelengths, but not too many. If it loses too much of the lower end the sun becomes a blood red disc with little brilliance, when it needs to be dark orange and blazing.

And so it was today. And so I stood enthralled by the sight of gold/green grass and numerous skeletal trees glowing orange. It really felt as though I’d entered a different world.

Then again, I suppose I might have done. Or maybe some farmer with nothing better to occupy his hands had painted them all orange, and then gone round ten minutes later and painted them all black again. You can never be sure, can you?

Still Awaiting the Chariot.

I was reading earlier of a transgender woman who’s in big trouble in Indonesia. She has a TikTok account and was recently trolled by somebody telling her to get her hair cut so she ‘looks more like a man.’ She responded with a video showing her talking to a picture of Jesus and telling him to get his hair cut. A good response, I thought – intelligent, ironic, and amusing. She’s now been found guilty of blasphemy and sentenced to 2½ years in jail.

You know, the older I get the more entrenched is my view that the human animal routinely uses its superior intelligence to be the stupidest creature on the plant.

*  *  *

And should I mention the British Labour Party’s latest hobby horse? I should explain for the sake of those who don’t know that the Labour Party has always been – at least since before I was born – the major party on the centre left of British politics. The Labour Party invented the welfare state after WWII, and welfare has always been a cornerstone of its identity. Now the current Labour Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer have announced their intention to wage war on welfare. They say the country can’t afford it, and they’re probably right, but only because Mrs Thatcher – a diehard right winger – switched the economic points and established the presumption that a more free market policy was necessary in order to follow the American way. (And oh how Mrs T did love the American way.) Meanwhile, the good old Labour Party, born of the need for a moderately socialist alternative and with the promise always to be its champion, still declines to touch the mega rich. So who do we vote for now?

And, of course, we have Trump stomping around casting the grenades of his crazy trade wars right, left and centre, and threatening to erase Canada from the map so the USA can be bigger.

When, I ask, will my little hill o’beans be allowed to get off this crazy world and see whether the land of the dead makes any more sense?

On Conversations and Countesses.

I had three conversations with denizens of the Shire today: one with a couple who live around the corner, a second with the Lady B’s dear mama, and a third with a donkey in Meadow Lane who brayed at me so loudly that I feared he might wake some of the residents of the churchyard half a mile away. He shut up when I picked him a handful of fresh grass from the verge outside the gate, and that gave me an idea.

I sometimes feel irritated when people stop my way upon the blasted road when all I want to do is keep on walking. Maybe I should hand them some fresh grass from the verge, and then maybe I’ll be able to make my escape while they chew on it.

Dear Mama was outside in the sunshine doing a job in the garden while the painters were busy painting her stucco cottage. I stuck my courage to the sticking place (that’s two references to Macbeth in one post) and asked her the question which has long intrigued me: ‘How do you manage to look younger every time I see you?’

It sounded crass, if not actually creepy, but it’s true that she does and it’s true that it intrigues me, so why not? She smiled (nicely.) And that makes her not only the classiest dame I’ve ever known, but also the only woman of her age I’ve ever encountered and found attractive. If she became invisible when she turned forty – as women are supposed to do – she’s certainly managed to somehow reverse the trend ever since. Maybe she was a Hungarian countess in a previous life (or even two hundred years ago in her present one) and keeps a vat of virgin’s blood in one of her outbuildings (the one next to the dung heap I expect, so people will give the location a wide berth.) And maybe she’ll get chased to the burning mill before I do.

On Smiles and the American Connection.

I was sitting on one of the benches outside Sainsbury’s today (it being a fine and pleasant day, you understand) when I spotted coming towards me a pit bill terrier with a woman in tow. I watched with amusement as the dog insisted on taking his human companion for a ramble among the bank of shrubs lining the walkway at the front of the store. I’m fairly sure she had no choice in the matter, and eventually they both emerged seemingly none the worse for their adventure in the wild woods.

As they came past me I smiled at the dog and the dog smiled back. And then I looked at the human companion and she was smiling at me, too. I pondered the question: ‘should I compare thee to … to… to… a toad with acne?’ It seemed a little unjust since I’m not exactly a Brad Pitt lookalike myself, and a smile is a smile when all’s said and done, and so I smiled back. And I’m only relating this story in this form to attempt some revival of my old blogging habits, and to offer incontrovertible evidence that I really am a most high functioning depressive.

And then the American arrived and sat on the bench next to mine. He, too, had a dog – an overweight beagle. How did I know he was American? I didn’t, but let’s describe him: overweight, baseball cap, shades, and a ZZ Top beard. I considered that he might have been one of that rare breed of Europeans who thinks Trump might be human after all, but there aren’t many of those about and I don’t suppose I shall ever know. His wife came out of the store and she was overweight, too. They walked past me and none of them smiled, not even the dog.

*  *  *

On the subject of the big T, I found this week’s cover of Private Eye magazine even more apt than usual. It showed a photograph of Keir Starmer talking to King Charles, apparently about the upcoming state visit of the leader of the free world (about which there has been much grumbling and petitioning, I might add.) Starmer is saying ‘You should treat him with the courtesy and respect due to a President’ and Charles replies ‘In that case I’ll shout at him and then boot him out.’

And now I’m wondering what precautions the police will take if the Trump drives through London in a motorcade. Will they move among the throng of onlookers suitably equipped with egg detectors?

The Matter of What Matters and Some Firsts.

I was walking around the lanes this morning seeing the occasional individual or couple cheerily going about their business with an evident sense of purpose, and down dropped the same question that such a sight always evokes: does any of it matter? At that point my mind split, as it always splits, into the two conflicting factions: one insisting that none of it matters while the other insists that all of it does. The war goes on.

Ironically, my own sense of purpose raised its profile after lunch when I decided to weed and dig one of the vegetable plots at the bottom of the garden. The ageing body with a heart issue finds such activity both tiresome and tiring these days, especially since I don’t even know whether any of it matters or not. But irony will be irony and convention will be convention, so get on with it I did. It was the first of this year’s crop of heavier garden jobs, and I’m not looking forward to any of them.

The big thrill of today, however, was seeing two bats hunting around the house at twilight. My love of the twilight bats has been remarked many times on the blog down the years, and although I’ve never kept a diary of firsts, I’m fairly sure that I’ve never seen them come out of hibernation as early as 5^th March before. And it was particularly noteworthy that there were two of them because it meant that the summer will probably bestow the added pleasure of seeing little kiddie bats following their parents to learn the game. 

Whether that matters in the greater scheme of things I don’t know, but it matters to me and that will do.

Mixed Up March and an Odd Thought.

The Great British climate is known for its capricious nature, and March is probably the most capricious month of them all. This year she’s wearing her spring outfit so far. The end of February was mild, and the beginning of March is even milder. We’re forecast temperatures rising to 15°C (59°F) this week, which we’d be reasonably content with in early May.

And so the blue tits are paying a lot of attention to their regular nest box behind the kitchen.  The white snowdrops on the fringes of lane, field, and garden are more prolific than usual. The hares are seen in pairs (there I go finding rhymes again.) The wild garlic leaves are well advanced on the high embankments of The Hollow, and the first celandines, daffodils, and even dandelions are casting splashes of golden yellow among the new wild grasses everywhere. And next week winter might re-assert its grip.

*  *  *

Next week I have to go to my home-from-home, the Royal Derby Hospital, for a cardiac MRI scan. Apparently they take longer than most MRI scans, and the pre-procedure dietary disciplines are a little draconian. Every time I go there I look at the bulk of the massive monobloc building and imagine that it’s probably where I’ll take my last breath one day. And do you know what saddens me every time I think that? The fact that the Lady B never visited the inside of my house. She came up the garden path with her mother once, but that was as far as she ever got.

America and a Matter of Balance.

Ever since the end of WWII America has strutted its stuff across the western world, boasting of its power and wealth and influence. It has even promoted the notion that it is ‘the leader of the free world.’

Sounds very paternalistic, doesn’t it? And what do parents do when their ‘children’ are in trouble? They nurture and protect them, because with parental benefits come the concomitant parental responsibilities. It appears Mr Trump doesn’t see things that way. He would prefer to take all the food on the table for himself and elevate a couple of assisting acolytes to the status of wicked uncle.

Just a random thought (which is a little more specific than a ‘random country’) while I’m bored and waiting for dinner time.

(And if I'm to continue pondering the question of balance, I must acknowledge that imperial powers have been wont to take all the goodies for themselves throughout history. That being the case, Mr Trump might be seen as no more than a traditionalist. Humans are what humans do.)

Reminiscing and an Unconnected Question.

Every night, usually starting at around midnight, I set a YouTube mix of favourite music playing and read a bunch of old blog posts. And every time I do, I feel nostalgic for the person I was back then. I miss the humour, the reasoned arguments, the sometimes petty and sometimes profound observations, the reminiscences on old adventures, the tales of girlfriends past, the visits from my quirky friend the llama, the ditties of variable quality, the film and book reviews, and the conversations with so many valued people in the comments section. I want it all back again, but life doesn’t seem to work that way and maybe it’s right that it shouldn’t. And then I go to bed.

*  *  *

I said I was going to cease offering opinions now that the cold water brought on the slowly rising tide of incipient senility is beginning to make its presence felt around my ankles. I did, didn’t I? But maybe I can still ask a question concerning one of the feverish messes that humans are making around the world. It goes like this:

Let’s suppose that the Russians and the Chinese decide to join forces and sweep across the Pacific with a mighty armada of military power. Soon they have complete control of part of America’s western seaboard. Let’s say they’ve taken Washington in the north and California in the south, and America’s own relatively inferior military is unable to move them off it. And then they make an offer:

‘We’ll take a rest for a while as long as you accept that Washington and California now belong to us. If you fail to agree these terms the war will be all your fault because you declined to make peace.’

I wonder how Trump would respond to that.

A Day of Two Halves.

Oh, America! What have you done? The chameleon known as Trump is throwing firecrackers all over the place, isn’t he? I’m sure he’s more than a little deranged, you know. But since I performed badly on my own cognition tests my opinion is no longer valid, so I’ll leave it at that.

His spat with Mr Valensky did give me pause for thought though. I imagined various scenarios growing out of the fact that the fate of the world is currently determined by four major power blocs, and it struck me that if any two of them joined forces an interesting situation might ensue. The possibility of a novel began to take shape, written in retrospect from some sort of dystopian future. It won’t be me who writes it, of course. Too old and mentally challenged, and I expect it’s already been done.

At the other end of the scale, I think the invisible presence of my lovely Lady Fu might have been tagging along on my walk this morning. Who else could have conspired to place three young ladies in my path at different points – one with a cute little girl, one training a ‘bad boy’ horse on a lead rein, and one with a brand new car with no door handles? I learned something interesting from all of them. That was nice.

The Glumness of the Nordics.

I’ve started watching a Norwegian cop drama called Wisting, thinking it would be interesting to compare it with the Swedish Wallander. Well now, if you think the Swedes are the world champions in the glumness stakes, think again. Norwegians, it seems, are even glummer (though a little less self-absorbed.) No wonder the Vikings spent all their time risking life, limb, and sanity desperately trying to be somewhere else. (But at least the Danish Vikings had the good sense to settle in Britain and France.) And it appears that both Swedish and Norwegian detectives are similarly saddled with troublesome daughters.

I do have to add, however, that they’re all so very decent and earnest. I like that.

And I’m only kidding anyway…

Oh, and another difference: Norwegian detectives drive big, meaty vehicles. Swedish detectives drive posh ones. There's generalisation for you.

On Falling Below the Mark.

I took a cognition test tonight devised by Professor Something-or-other from Imperial College, London. I did badly – below average in nearly everything except crystallised intelligence, whatever that is. Sad, isn’t it, but it did at least validate my decision to tell the priestess in my last email: ‘I’m not worth knowing any more.’ And also why I terminated my connections with everyone except my immediate family and my ex. I like to know myself and make rational decisions, you see.

So is there any point in continuing this blog if my opinions no longer count? I think so. It uses up a bit of time when I’m bored but still feel inclined to exercise my fingers, so I might still make the odd jotting now and then.

In other news:

I kept getting hijacked by random encounters while taking my walk this morning. I ended up talking to one dog, one postman, one French woman, and the man who came to fix a problem at my house. (The latter was causing me quite some concern; it was even leading to the suspicion that I might be prey to some condition related to cholera, however unlikely that might sound. Put it down to loss of cognisant ability if you like. The reason for such a suspicion is rather long and not very palatable, so I won’t bother to expound further.)

A Worrying Political Muse.

Would I be guilty of a silly flight of fancy if I look at the recent German election results and wonder whether one in five Germans want to welcome Adolf Hitler home? I suppose I probably would because I’m sure that it’s not so simple and not so extreme – yet.

And now we have indisputable signs that Trump wants to put distance between the US and Europe (he wants to do lots of other unsavoury things as well, but let’s keep it simple for now.) The old post-1945 security connection between the two is seriously under threat and might soon be a thing of the past.

One result of this is that the British Prime Minister has now undertaken to increase defence spending and says that it will be funded by a reduction in international aid. Just when the world seems to have entered a phase in which the common humanity of people everywhere is recognised – and the rich and powerful undertake to help the poor and vulnerable – it is being thrown out of the window. Mr Starmer justifies this – and it does have logic to commend it – by saying ‘the British people must come first.’ But isn’t there an unholy whiff here of ‘America first’ and ‘Germany first’ and ‘Italy first’? It seems that the fires of dangerous nationalism are being stoked in the whole western world by Trump’s complete disregard for humanitarian values.

But let’s accept for the moment that this is simply a major shift in the prevailing political wind. Increasing defence spending to build up and train an increased military profile will take several years to make a substantial difference. So what happens if Trump’s new best buddy Putin decides to start reviving the Soviet bloc by invading one or all of the Baltic States next week and Trump says ‘Tough’? That would certainly test America’s commitment to NATO, wouldn’t it? Might we then witness what would effectively be the start of WWIII, and might it lead to America (and presumably China) remaining aloof and picking the best bones off the battlefield? (That’s as long as the losers don’t unleash the N word, of course.)

Is this Trump’s big stratagem? Is Trump capable of thinking that far ahead? Or is it all just me giving vent to wild fantasies again? I certainly hope so.

The Blog as Travelogue.

If somebody were to ask me: ‘What is your blog about?’ I suppose the easiest answer would be to categorise it as a sort of travelogue. It’s a running commentary on the myriad things I see, experience, and comment upon as I walk the road of my life. In short, it’s a description of the scenery that I walk through.

But now there’s a problem; my life has become a wasteland of late and so there’s no scenery to describe. About the only thing which catches my eye at the moment is the incomprehensible behaviour of Trump and his fairy godfather, the mega-rich South African, and I’ve become a little weary of that so I shut it out. Otherwise, there’s nothing to observe, experience, and comment upon (unless you count the ever-present depression and I’ve done that one to death.) So what should I do about it?

I began countering this state of affairs by searching for alternate worlds to briefly inhabit, and found a most engaging BBC series based on a well known trilogy of books here in the UK. Watching one hour-long episode a night for the last two weeks kept me well engaged, until last night when a bombshell exploded. I suddenly developed a profound dislike for the main protagonist, and accompanying her was my principle reason for being there. I no longer find her company acceptable, you see, so that’s one alternate reality gone. Maybe I’ll find another one soon.

(I suppose I might mention that I feel ill tonight – sore chest, light headedness, fatigue, and an odd taste in my mouth. I expect it’s down to the changeable weather we’re having at the moment. It usually is.)

So now I ask myself whether this is worth posting. Why not? It’ll keep the little counter ticking over and I doubt I shall die of it. Sorry about the tedium.

The Worm Turns.

Given the nature of international relations over the past eighty years, I find it somewhat odd to witness the President of the USA clearly siding with transparently guilty Russia, while exchanging childish insults with the President of the equally transparently wronged party. He even goes so far as to label Zelensky ‘a dictator.’ And Putin isn’t?

I could go on to speculate on the dubious state of Trump’s mind and the questionable nature of American ‘diplomacy’ over the years, but more fruitful duties call so I won’t bother. (And then there’s the fact that my outcries and asides don’t amount to a hill o’ beans in this crazy world anyway.)

The Question of Trump and Appeasement.

I read today that Mr Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, says there would be no point inviting Europe to take part in the discussions over Ukraine because Europe just wants to prolong the war. This sounds farcical on first reading, but I assume that what he meant was that Europe doesn’t want Putin to come out of the conflict with a substantial land grab. Trump, on the other hand, is now putting distance between America and Europe and probably doesn’t give a monkey’s toss if Ukraine loses some of its territory. Trump is, therefore, the one the Russians want to deal with rather than Ukraine or any other representative of Europe.

And Trump’s own position would appear to be very simple. If he can get a deal – by hook or by crook – in which Russia withdraws but keeps some prime real estate close to the warmer parts of the Black Sea, he can then present himself to the world as a peacemaker. (He could even come up with some pathetic, fallacious sound bite as he did when he said ‘I took a bullet for democracy.’ And he would be more easily able to save billions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine, which would be more acceptable to the folks at home than firing half the American civil service.) Some people would no doubt see Trump’s position as appeasement and draw parallels with Anthony Eden’s response to Nazi aggression in 1939, but probably not enough to count for very much.

And I might be completely wrong, of course. Time will tell, won’t it?

(But do I detect a slight whiff of the potential for a much bigger conflict here, one which I expect America would watch from the sidelines? I hope not.)

The Lady B's Letter and the Wishing of Luck.

The weather here has been unremittingly dull and cold for the last week, and such conditions are unfavourable to my perceptions of life and the human condition. I’m tired of one and dismissive of the other. I’ve fallen into a state of mind comprising a sour cocktail of apathy, relentless musing, and the seeking of alternate worlds in which to immerse myself. Hence no blog posts.

Much of that musing has concerned the remote figure of the Lady B. She follows me as the scent of a tropical island might follow the lonely sailor heading west long after the fruits and flowers and seductive palms have sunk beneath the eastern horizon. Her physical presence is still in this world, but the phantasm lives only in a veiled place and out of reach.

Five and a half years ago I wrote her story down and settled it in an envelope. I asked my ex, Mel, to give it to her I’ve gone, but tonight I considered destroying it since what purpose would be served by her reading it? None at all, I suppose, but I’d still like her to read it anyway (although whether I shall care when the time comes remains to be seen – or not, of course.) I didn’t destroy it.

*  *  *

I wrote most of that last night until it began to bore me. Today has been dull and cold again with occasional drizzle, but we’re forecast to have higher temperatures and a little sunshine from Wednesday on.

Tonight I feel I should mention the big news from across the water. It appears that the USA – at least in the guise of Messrs Trump and Vance – is tired of playing Europe’s older and bigger brother who occasionally steps in to help when the latest bully is going around biffing everybody. America wants to stand aloof now, still being the Big Boss when it suits, but declining to spend dollars on the ne’er-do-wells over there. That way, Mr Donald can add 'Charity Begins at Home' to 'God Bless America' as he stands with hand on heart planning how to cement his position at the head of the table for the long haul. And more middle class Americans will get jacuzzis, and the truly rich will become truly richer, and America really will be great again. And can you blame him? (Whether it will work or not is part of a different argument.)

But what about us Brits? We gave up being part of Europe with the Brexit vote, didn’t we, and Donald has real estate over here. So will he make an exception for us? Well, whether he does or not, I think we might have to decide whether we want to be the obedient lap dog tucked securely in Donald’s folded arm, or go cap in hand back to the EU and build a bigger army.

And do I really care? No, I don’t really care, at least not for my own sake because my time is nearly up. Tomorrow is the business of today’s young, and it’s for them to deal with. I wish them the best of luck.

Trump and the Grabbing of Gaza.

Now let me see whether I’ve got this right. My understanding of the Israeli hardliners’ attitude towards the Palestinians runs roughly thus:

This whole land is our land. God gave it to us thousands of years ago and so it is scared ground. That being the case, only we have the right to occupy it; you have none. That’s why we’re forcibly evicting you from the place you have called home for many centuries and making it available to proper Jews. (If I’m in error, please feel free to correct me.)

If I’m right – or even approximately so – I wonder how the hardliners will feel about having part of their sacred ground owned by America and developed into yet another Mediterranean playground for wealthy westerners. I wonder whether this was the reason for Mr Netanyahu’s visit to his pal Trump a few days ago. I suppose Mr N might well be in favour of allowing a part of what he considers to be Israeli territory to become American-owned because Israel will then have another level of security against the dastardly Muslims. And so maybe he can persuade the hardliners to agree to having part of God’s own country swallowed up by American capital. Strange world, isn’t it?

But what about Hamas and other dissident groups in the Middle East? How would they feel about it? I can’t imagine they’d be too pleased, and I feel it would be logical to expect deaths and bloodshed to follow in the wake of such a project. If Israel really wants to take the steam out of Hamas, surely it needs to reach an acceptable accord with the Palestinians, not throw stinking mud in the faces of the armed wing.

And what of the Gazans themselves? I gather tens of thousands of them died in the recent ‘war’, and those that are left are now trying to rebuild their lives. How must they feel about somebody living over 4,000 miles away seriously threatening to relocate them and turn their homes and homeland into an investment opportunity? (It’s interesting that I haven’t yet heard anybody in the media use the term ‘diaspora.’)

I think it must be obvious that this plan of Trump’s is both heartless and the height of disrespect, but that’s just the nature of Trump. I’m quite sure that he has no heart, and I doubt he could even spell the word ‘disrespect.’

And another point occurs to me: For nearly forty years I’ve been complaining about the despoliation of the Mediterranean coastline by the tourist industry, especially the northern part fringing Europe. Even the locals are now complaining about it. They want tourism rationed there, and a return to something like sanity. Now Trump wants to do the same thing in the eastern Med, just as he took part of the wild Scottish coastline and built commercially attractive golf courses on it.

But will he succeed? Personally I doubt it, but Big Capitalism is a powerful enemy so maybe he will.

Taking the Wrong Line.

There’s a piece on the BBC sports website about Kadeja ‘Bunny’ Shaw, the Manchester City striker who is widely recognised as one of the best strikers in the women’s game, receiving ‘racist and misogynistic’ abuse on social media. The piece carries a statement from the Man City management expressing the usual outrage in the usual predictable terms: ‘There is no place for racism in our beautiful game and we will take all necessary steps to identify the culprits and punish them!’ and other similar platitudes. We’re seeing this kind of thing all the time now.

When are they going to realise that by taking this line they are only making matters worse because they’re letting the perpetrators know that their vomitous bile is having an effect? Social media has become huge now, and trolling comes with the territory. It’s as common as cow dung in the farmyard. So what can the players do about it?

Simple. They need to realise – and it shouldn’t take too much effort – that the women’s game has grown immensely and the top players are now basking in the limelight of celebrity. They are, by the societal perceptions of the day, highly successful people in their chosen field, whereas the perpetrators of abuse are sad little nobodies with nothing better to do. The perpetrators are also very much in the minority among the people who follow the sport.

So don’t publicise the abuse. Ignore it. And if they can’t ignore it, come off social media because it isn’t going to stop while it continues to be given big publicity and made to seem important.