Atrophy and Ambivalence.

The daily news continues to push my mind into a parlous state. I see a world run by men with ice in their hearts and greed in their eyes, while millions more seek to emulate them on some level or another. Greed for wealth and power, and in some cases, for glory. If only it were the right kind of glory, but such is a forlorn hope as long as we continue to laud the conquerors.

It seems to me that the world and its human cargo are now shifting into a desperate need for a reset, and we all should know that the transition will not be a pleasant experience.

For my part, I feel I’ve reached a point of no return. My prospects now consist of little more than sitting on a rail platform waiting for the last train out. Maybe I’m wrong; maybe it’s just another bad day when the god of mischance and malfunction is in a particularly malevolent mood.

*  *  *

I wrote the above before I watched the England women’s victory against Italy in the Euros semi-final. With just one minute of the match left the Italians were leading 1-0 and heading for their first ever Euros final. And then England scored a goal and extra time was needed. England scored a second goal to send the Italian girls out, and that was when a sense of ambivalence set in. The English were ecstatic, naturally, but the pitch was littered with young Italian women sitting or lying on the pitch sobbing their poor bloody hearts out. My feelings were, therefore, understandably mixed. That’s the problem I have when there have to be winners and losers.

But the best moment of all came during the other semi-final between Germany and Spain. During the first half the German goalkeeper pulled off two splendid saves from one of the Spanish forwards, and when the half time whistle blew the Spanish lady (and she must surely be a lady to my way of thinking) went over to the German and gave her a substantial embrace, presumably by way of congratulation. That, for me, was the highlight of the whole competition. Sport as it should be; the Corinthian ideal. Much kudos to Esther Gonzalez.

Such moments are the ones to hold onto when you’ve all but given up on the world as it is. (But you still have to wake up again the next morning.)

Questioning the Doctor's Duty.

There was a bill making its tortuous way through parliament recently on the question of assisted dying. The purpose was to enact a law permitting doctors to help those patients suffering incurable and terminal conditions to voluntarily end their lives peacefully.

It attracted much impassioned debate, which is understandable up to a point given the view in modern cultures that suicide is somehow a sin or at least a crime of sorts. In other words, that longevity is the first moral imperative to which we must all adhere. It’s a view I strongly disagree with, and it’s interesting to note that suicide is no longer deemed a crime in law as it used to be.

But the problem lies with the position of doctors in the matter, the question being whether it is reasonable or ethical to expect a doctor to be complicit in an act of suicide. A lot of doctors went public with their vehement opposition to the idea, and herein lies my point:

One has to ask what a doctor’s function and order of priority should be. The first priority is simple: to cure the sick and maintain good health in those who are not sick. But what of those patients whose conditions are incurable and who are suffering as a result? To my mind the second priority then applies, which is to alleviate the suffering. If the only way of achieving that is to help the sufferer to voluntarily end their life, then that is what we have a right to expect the doctor to do. And so it further seems to me that any doctor who objects to doing so is abdicating his or her professional responsibility.

Quo Imus.

There’s an organisation in the UK called Palestine Action, formed to protest at the treatment of Palestinians in Palestine. In a purportedly democratic country, that’s a perfectly legitimate thing to do. Ah, but…

Some of their supporters recently broke into an RAF base and sprayed red paint on an aeroplane, Oh dear, now we’re into serious stuff – far more serious than troops killing innocent civilians queuing for food or water at an aid centre. These ne’er-do-well protesting types are now guilty of two serious crimes: being in a place where the government says they mustn’t go (and thus ‘putting the security of the nation at risk’; you’ve got to laugh, haven’t you?) and vandalising an expensive piece of equipment. So the organisation can now be seen as being in the business of encouraging criminal behaviour. But let’s not call it ‘criminal behaviour’ say the politicians, let’s call it ‘terrorism’, and then we can make it illegal to belong to the organisation or even show support for it. (Should one laugh or cry at this attitude? It’s difficult know, isn’t it?

Unsurprisingly, a series of protests was held to object to the proscribing of the organisation, action which, in itself, is considered to be supportive and therefore defined as criminal behaviour… The police turned out in force and arrested over a hundred of them. And so I ask again:

Where are we going?

Meanwhile, the government has enacted another law making it illegal for people to show interest in violent activity, even though they haven’t yet actually planned any, much less carried it out. ‘This,’ say the politicians, ‘will catch the offenders before they can do any harm. That’s good, yes?’ Well, that view has at least an element of logic behind it, but how far is it reasonable to go in taking people out of society before they’ve done anything wrong? (The maximum sentence for showing an interest is life imprisonment, by the way.) It reminds me of another idea which was aired recently – the compulsory mapping of everyone’s genome so that any proclivity towards criminal behaviour can be spotted in advance and people can be locked up before they’ve committed any crime. Is there a difference? I find myself asking again and again:

Where are we going?

Feeling for the Swedes.

The English women’s football team won their Euros match against Sweden two nights ago, and when it was all over my feelings were ambivalent.

It had been a strange sort of game in which the usual balance between skill, physical strength, and tenacity were thrown out of their normal proportions. With three quarters of the game gone Sweden were leading 2-0 and had played the better football. But then Weigman made some inspired substitutions, England got two goals back, and the game went to extra time which produced nothing. The penalty shoot-out which followed was a comedy of errors which seemed to go on forever, but England prevailed in the chaos and the Swedes were on the plane home. I doubt they were very happy.

I dislike seeing Swedish ladies looking unhappy. It should have been noted by regular readers of this blog that I have a soft spot for Sweden and the Swedes because their attitude to life/lifestyle balance appears better to me than that exhibited by most nations. And they tend to be a very thoughtful people, which I also like (despite the Swedish fan in the crowd carrying a placard claiming that ABBA are better than the Beatles, but I can be a forgiving sort of chap when I need to be.) But in the final analysis fate can be a hard arbiter and what’s done is done.

And through all the mystery and mayhem of an unconventional football match, one redeeming factor stood out: the Spanish referee (at least her name suggested she was Spanish) was drop-dead gorgeous. I kept wishing that the producer would show a little less of women kicking a ball about and more of the referee. (Objectifying women is my only vice you know – quoting that old queen Ernest Thesiger – unless you count scotch and tobacco. But they’re dietary, so I don’t.)

How to Handle a Woman.

The man coming out of the Tesco store on Sunday was carrying a little girl of around two in his left arm. I risked a wave, as I always do with young children. The child was regarding me with some interest, and after a couple of seconds favoured me with a return wave. And so I went for the jackpot: I smiled at her. Another two or three seconds elapsed while she evidently considered the matter, and then she beamed broadly and waved frantically back. Success; job done.

You’ve no idea how much of a lift that sort of thing gives me, even more than the sight of the large, luminous, and seductive eyes of the young woman in the pet shop. I considered asking her whether she had some Mediterranean in her ancestry, but resisted the urge on the grounds that it might appear creepy. At my age I feel I should be entitled to express such interest without fear of impropriety or worse, since I no longer offer the slightest threat to any woman young or old.

It’s just that the matter of women and their eyes is of such great import to me, and becoming more so as the years advance into dotage. But then I can’t be absolutely certain that my boyish charm has quite gone the way of the dodo yet, so maybe circumspection should remain the order of the day. (I think I’m joking here.)

Contrasting Encounters.

Do you remember the elderly woman who stopped her car when I was walking along the lane and asked ‘You’re not wearing a coat today. Is that because it’s warm and sunny?’ (Well… erm… there’s probably a connection…) She did it again this morning, this time with the opening gambit: ‘You’re wearing a sun hat today.’ My reflexes must have been razor sharp because I managed a reply before the obvious question was raised. ‘I have two of them,’ I said, ‘this one and a blue one.’ I thought of taking the matter further by advising her that I also have two other hats – a black beanie and a tan beanie – for winter wear, but her second move was too quick for me: ‘You’ll be wearing a raincoat later in the week because it’s going to rain.’

What is it with old ladies and outdoor apparel? Should I feel sorry for them? Or should I contrive to start a new conversation beginning with an opening gambit along the lines of ‘It all depends on the nature of reality, doesn’t it? According to the quantum physicists, reality isn’t what we think it is.’ I wonder what her next move would be. (Could be interesting.)

The afternoon was very different. I had a dental appointment booked for 5.30, but I had a little time to spare and so I popped into the homewares and garden store on the retail park. And who do you think I bumped into? (Not quite literally, of course): Honourable Sister and Mr Oscar the sprocker dog. And how very delightful it was. It’s no exaggeration to say that it’s the first time I’ve ever had a substantial conversation with HS in the nearly two decades during which I’ve been aware of her presence. And Oscar was as wriggly and friendly as ever.

And I wasn’t done yet. I went into the dentist and found that the same young woman receptionist was there to book me in as before. She’s the one who so reminds me so much of the Lady B. Same dark hair, same eyes – even the same colour as I noticed today – and the same smile. I suggested that she might have a psychic twin in the area in spite of the approximate fifteen years of age difference. She thought it possible, but didn’t seem convinced. (I sometimes wish I could be as aloof with young women as I am with old ones, but we all have faults, don’t we?)

But the upshot was that I returned home in a good mood, and that’s rare these days.

On the Bee and the Boss.

We view bees as one of the tough guys of the flying insect world. Bees have stings, and a bee sting is quite painful. Some people are scared of bees, usually needlessly so but not always because bees will occasionally swarm and attack people en masse. Bee stings can even kill certain people with strong adverse reactions. And so people are wary of the tough guy that is the bee.

Not so with butterflies. Butterflies are the stuff of children’s story books and pretty pictures. Their wings are multi-coloured and endowed with pretty patterns; they’re delicate creatures with gossamer for wings; they float and flutter in the sunshine; they’re everybody’s favourite in the summer garden. Nobody is wary of butterflies.

It’s interesting to note, therefore, as I have, that when a bee and a butterfly contest the space on a food-bearing flower, the butterfly usually wins.

(When I write my magnum opus – What the Hell This Life is All About – in my next incarnation, I think I might mention the case of the tough bee and the pretty butterfly. That’s forward planning, that is.)

Amerca Approaching the Ferryman.

I read today that the UN Human Rights special rapporteur has been sanctioned by the US for making remarks critical of Israel’s actions in Gaza. The sanctions are also connected with her support for the International Criminal Court, other members of which have also been sanctioned. And this on a day when a further eight Gazan children and two women have been killed by Israeli action while queuing for food at an aid centre.The report failed to mention how many children were blinded or had limbs blown off.

Sad, isn’t it? And maybe it might be worth mentioning that Trump congratulated the President of Liberia – an English-speaking country set up by African Americans and greatly influenced by American culture and architecture – on his good use of English. He even asked him where he went to school. Further comment would be redundant, I think, although I might admit to feeling a little nonplussed that Trump has ‘demanded’ that the trial of ex-Brazilian President Bolsonaro must be stopped. Trump does so like pardoning the right people, doesn’t he?

I’ve said it before – America’s international reputation has been sliding down the scale at a rate of knots ever since Trump was first elected. I think it’s now very close to rock bottom. Next stop Hades.

On Crisps and Cussedness.

I haven’t made any posts lately because I’ve been spending my evenings watching footie games from the women’s Euro championships in Switzerland. And on that note I might offer a comment on the marketing ploy used by Sainsbury’s to take advantage of it. They have big banner pics of the England women’s football captain with the tag line:

 

No Walkers

No game

And all to sell more of what? Walker's crisps, would you believe – potato chips – that ubiquitous doyen of junk food overloaded with fat to encourage atherosclerosis and obesity, and salt which greatly assists in the development of high blood pressure. According to Sainsbury’s, you can’t have sport without crisps. The world – and the abject effrontery of the retail sector – just get gets madder and madder.

*  *  *

On a totally unrelated note, I’m becoming aware that there’s a movement in so-called western democracies for the leading politicians to become gradually more right wing in their policies and attitudes. One of the favoured targets is the practice of public protest against perceived wrongs. Protesters are being vilified, some are being arrested and even sent to prison, and the groups to which they belong are occasionally being proscribed. Don’t they ever take note of history and see that many of the basic rights and freedoms which we now take for granted were brought to fruition by public protest? Don’t the women politicians on the right who rail against protesters for committing minor acts of sabotage and causing some disruption in day-to-day business ever consider that the suffragettes who enabled them to hold political office were treated the same way, and that we now regard them as heroes?

*  *  *

A man on YouTube says I should keep on writing a blog (well, implied I suppose) because words have power. But they must be the right words because it isn’t the words themselves which are powerful, but the individual letters. OK, I’ll try to remember. (It can be very difficult to know what you’re supposed to do and not supposed to do in this life if you’re the sort who feels the need to break ranks.)

Four Reasons to be There.

I was just about to start some gardening jobs this afternoon, but on a whim I decided instead to walk up to the school and village hall car park, there to lean on the fence bordering the field where the sheep used to be. If anybody had asked me why I was there I would have said:

First of all I like to look over fields while leaning on gates and fences. (It’s one of my favourite occupations.)

Secondly, I was curious to see whether Millie and Rosie (the two horses which used to share the field with the sheep) were back because I haven’t seen them for a few days. (They were.)

Thirdly, I knew it would be school run time and I would be in close proximity with a gaggle of young mothers collecting their charges. I like young mother energy. It gives me a lift. (Which is usually most welcome in present circumstances.)

Last but not least, it occurred to me that the Lady B would probably be among the young mothers and might honour me with a greeting and quick conversation. That, too, gives me a lift. (She wasn’t, or didn’t, if you see what I mean.)

So that’s what I would have said and that’s what I’m sticking with.

On the way back I saw a dead baby blackbird lying by the old school well. (That didn't give me a lift.)

On Baby Milk and the Mothers of Israel.

I signed a petition this morning raised as part of a movement to persuade Netanyahu to allow baby milk into Gaza. I asked myself the question: ‘What reason would the tyrant have to disallow Gazans baby milk, if not to kill Gazan babies?’ And then I read the response by Britain’s Chief Rabbi to an admittedly controversial anti-IDF chant raised by a performer at the Glastonbury Festival, and asked myself the question: ‘Why would a man with the authority of a Chief Rabbi spout words which are both stupid and mind-bogglingly hypocritical, if not to gain favour with the weak-minded?’

I often wonder how the ordinary people of Israel feel about all this – those who just want to live a peaceful life in which decency, justice, and inclusivity prevail. I wonder whether they are aware that Israel has become such a pariah state while the world watches agog at the atrocities being committed by the hard liners and their henchmen. I wonder whether they’re aware that these very actions only serve to augment the blossoming of those anti-Semitic attitudes which Netanyahu uses as a disingenuous shield against every criticism.

And I wondered whether Israel is relying too much on American support to keep them safe in their Middle Eastern bubble. As long as Israel remains of strategic benefit to America, no doubt the support will continue. But what if that situation changes in a world growing ever more fluid and volatile in its allegiances. What then?

There was one more wondering to be done when I’d finished with the questions. I wondered whether the future security of Israel should be placed – by consensus rather than design – into the hands of Israeli mothers. Mothers understand the importance of baby milk in the general scheme of things. Mothers are a power to behold when protecting their cubs. Jewish mothers have always had a high reputation in the matter of strength in such situations. Lionesses have been known to gang up on and kill a bigger male which is threatening their offspring. And I’ve come to a more than tentative suspicion that mothers are the most important people in human society.

Maybe there’s a seed to be planted there in hope. I expect to have gone on my merry way before it does or doesn’t come to fruition.

At the Tipping Point.

Today is 30^th June, and in just a couple of hours time it will be 1^st July. This means we’re now standing on the cusp between the up half of the year and the down half. January to June is moving towards lighter days and higher temperatures while we watch nature being reborn. July to December is the opposite. That’s why I’m always a little sad on 30^th June.

30^th June is Mel’s birthday, and I’ve read that 30^th June people are special because they’re straddling the change in polarity. I’m inclined to think they’re probably just indecisive because I tend to be cynical in matters speculative. My loss, I suppose.

I wonder whether birds are aware of this fact, and whether they, too, have been sad today.

Changing Spots and Things.

I think my aura must have changed colour or something because yesterday two horses came over to a farm gate to say hello to me. And when I crossed the road to another gate, two goats came to greet me. They even put their front hooves up on the gate so I could scratch their ears more easily. Further along the road I leant on another farm gate and a cow walked almost the length of the field to pay its respects.

During the long, dark, depressive period recently, the only animals which would have anything to do with me were dogs. I suppose that probably says something about me. Does it? I don’t know; maybe it just says something about dogs. But I remember some of the things people have said to me down the years:

You’re an old soul. (OK.) You’re one of the chosen ones. (OK again.) You’re a light worker. (I wonder what one of those is.) And then there was the woman in the coffee shop who stared at me for a long time before coming over and telling me there was something I needed to know and she would tell me when I’m ready. I never saw her again.

What should I make of it all? If any of it is true, when is it going to start being of some benefit to me or those with whom I come into contact? Haven’t noticed any benefits yet. Maybe I’ll find out when it’s too late to make a difference. That’s usually the way. Although I did learn one thing from my animal encounters: one has to be careful with goats when they’re throwing their heads about because their horns are very hard and very sharp.

(Sorry this post is a bit egocentric, but I couldn’t think of anything else to talk about. Well I could, but it was terribly serious and I wasn’t in the mood.)

I saw the year’s first Red Admiral butterfly in the garden today. It’s pretty warm here.

Trying to Run Before Learning to Walk.

I watched a YouTube video last night which considered the question:

‘If all sentient life ceased to exist, would the whole universe also cease to exist since it would no longer be observed?’

This was based, of course, on the discovery by the quantum physicists that sub-atomic particles exist in a state of infinite but undefined potential until they are observed, although they don't understand why yet. And so the commentary speculated that the universe would probably become invisible but still have form.

It was quite fascinating, but then I listened to an old Simon and Garfunkel song and asked myself why I should be using my time considering level 10 of the great existential enquiry when I don’t fully understand level 1 yet. The most profound question I considered today was how slugs and snails feel about the extended spell of dry weather we’ve been having for the past three months. They’re probably not very happy.

Taking our Language Back.

If a student were to write the expression ‘computer programme’, he or she would be told off and downgraded. ‘That’s not how it’s spelt,’ says the person-in-the-know. ‘When you’re referring to computers, it’s spelt program.’

‘Who says so?’

‘The Americans do.’

‘Quite.’

And this is why I would like to spread the word throughout the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and every place where English is commonly spoken as a second language:

‘Spell it “programme,” I say, with two Ms and an E at the end after the French fashion.’ (English gets much of its structure and vocabulary from French. Did you know?) And that would be sweet revenge for the Boston Tea Party.

Technicolor Shire and the French Non-Connection.

The Shire is in its summer colourful phase at the moment. The barley is just about ripe and their fields are glowing pale yellow. The wheat is beginning to ripen and the heads are now yellow/green rather than blue/green. The borage (I’m told that’s what it is) which flanks the edges of the cornfield as part of a re-wilding policy is in flower, and they add a most fetching lilac blue to the mix. And of course, the copper beech trees still have their full mantle of deep wine red. Add to that the blue sky, white clouds, and the pale green covering the hills across the valley, and the whole is a picture to lift the spirits.

Over the next two moths the harvest will happen and the borage flowers will die off. And then the fields will be a scrubby mess of pale straw until the muck spreading and ploughing turns the fields back to dull brown.

Autumn will begin to show its face and soon the autumn colourful phase will be upon us as the leaves turn to gold and red. And then they’ll fall as so much dry detritus and return the land to a brown vista dotted with black skeletons.

And so we enjoy the picture postcard view as long as it lasts because we know that nothing ever does.

*  *  *

A car with French plates passed me slowly and respectfully on the lane today. It was only the second car with French plates I’ve ever seen in this Shire or the previous one. The last one I saw some years ago stopped and a young woman with what sounded to me like a Parisian accent asked me for directions to the Old Manor. Today’s car didn’t stop at all, and that was a shame. Maybe I would have better luck if I wore a badge proclaiming I’m Currently Driving a Renault. Not much point though, is there? I’ll probably be long gone before another car with French plates saunters and shrugs its way along the local byways. (It was red, by the way, instead of blue as one would expect of a French vehicle.)

We do have a French woman living in the Shire, but she drives a German car. It’s black.

Mixed Fortunes.

I saw a female chaffinch on the bird table yesterday for the first time in a very long time. There’s an air of cuteness about the female chaffinch which is entirely absent in the more colourful male.

I also saw three house martins feeding over the garden yesterday for the first time this year. I used to see a flock of 20-30 more or less every day from May to September, but times change as do we all. I haven’t seen a single swallow for about two weeks.

*  *  *

While perambulating the lanes earlier, Honourable Sister waved to me from her mother’s garden. She was wearing blue shorts. I felt truly honoured, if not actually elated.

*  *  *

The one thing that pleases me at the moment is that, while my body and most items of previously functional technology continue to fade inexorably towards terminal dysfunction, my capacity for enjoying irony and ironical expression remains undiminished. This is a useful attribute since it means you can dispense with the need to seek excitement.

The garden requires my attention.

America Today.

Pictures of the potty political trinity in America keep appearing in the BBC news pages, and I find myself being almost mesmerised by their images. I keep trying to clarify what those images mean to me so I can give them all nicknames. It isn’t easy and all I’ve come up with so far is Donald ‘the Windbag’ Trump, JD ‘the Robot’ Vance, and Plastic Pete Hegseth. And so shall they be addressed henceforth until I come up with something better.

We often see all three together, and whenever we do I note that their relative positions in the layout have been carefully choreographed (deliberate choice of word) to leave no doubt that Donald is King and the other two but minor acolytes. I wonder whether they employ a theatre designer to set the chairs out so that the little guys are placed in such a way as to keep them strictly in their place. It seems that Donald is no King Arthur. No round tables in his court.

You know, I remember the days when American Presidents were imbued with the authority gene. Eisenhower and Kennedy come instantly to mind. And then American politics became really silly and gave the world Reagan, GW, and Clinton, and now it’s hit rock bottom with Trump. Seems to me that Donald is entirely devoid of the authority gene, relying instead on mock frowns and empty bluster.

So what about the Iran situation? Trump says ‘We cut the Iranians off at the knees, but they done nut’n to us,’ and the Ayatollah replies with ‘Tis but a scratch, but we really biffed them damn Yankees.’

You can’t believe anything anybody says these days, can you?

A Minor Ramble.

According to Blogger stats my page view count broke the all-time record last month by a country mile. 36,935. With five days still to go in June they’ve broken it again at 38,779. Do I believe it and does it matter? I think the answer to both is ‘no’, but just in case I really have become the darling of the blogosphere I thought I’d better say something just to keep the old girl going.

The trouble is I have nothing to say. A few things happened over the past few days which I thought worthy of a short mention, but they all floated past the ship and disappeared on the wake with the rest of the gash. And the current news in the political sphere is dominated by two features:

Home: The Labour Government in Britain continues to be set firm in its demolition of the welfare state in order to have more money to spend, and is aiming its fire mainly at the sick, the disabled, and the pensioners. Meanwhile, the insanely rich are being quietly passed by. I think it’s about time the Labour Party changed its name.

Abroad: The Great American Windbag continues to leave no-one in any doubt that he is King of the World and everyone must obey his diktats without question. And he used a questionable expletive in a public statement to augment his authority.

I could go on and on about Trump and his laughably theatrical sidekicks, but why bother? I’m sick to death of their presence in a world I have to share.

Apart from that, nothing worth reporting apart from my two rescues this week – a newt which I thought I’d trodden on, and a ladybird slowly drowning in the birds’ water bowl. The god of small things who normally provides my life’s better experiences is largely absent at the moment.

I finished reading Siddhartha but didn’t learn anything new, which was disappointing. Then again, lessons sometimes jump into your pocket without you noticing, and then jump onto your shoulder and say ‘boo’ somewhere down the line when they feel it’s time to be relevant. So who knows? And I could see why Siddhartha’s Kamala was a reflection of my priestess in one regard, but it’s unlikely the priestess will pre-decease me. I still wonder where she is sometimes.

Bye for now.

Damned by Our Own DNA.

I read today that the NHS is to start mapping the DNA of every baby born in the UK, and I’m not happy about it. They say it’s so they can forecast everybody’s susceptibility to particular conditions. That way they can be ready for it, treat it earlier, and in so doing increase longevity and general health. The Health Secretary says it will change the NHS from ‘a service which diagnoses and treats ill health to one that predicts and prevents it.’ Sounds good, doesn’t it? It’s a nice bit of writing, too, and if there’s one thing which attracts my favour it’s a nice bit of writing. This one sounds like something a good scriptwriter might have written (and probably did.) But I’m still not happy about it.

It feels to me like just another way for the system to keep tabs on us. A person’s DNA is their own affair, so it’s another invasion of privacy. If you commit a crime you can expect to have your DNA mapped. That’s reasonable. And there might be other reasons to have it done, such as searching for you ancestry. That’s voluntary. But a blanket process applied to every baby born in the UK? Extend that to its inevitable conclusion and one day every citizen of the land will be trapped on a database controlled by an unsavoury partnership of artificial intelligence and the Establishment. That’s going too far because surely people don’t expect that it’s only the NHS that will be using it. It has more than a whiff of excessive state control about it.

It surprises me that nobody mentioned the security aspect. Having everybody’s DNA on the database will make the police’s job easier, won’t it? The reason I’m surprised is that the politicians only have to play the security card these days and the denizens of Middle England, who mostly have trouble seeing beyond their garden gate, fall to their knees and beg for the benefit. But what happens when the state decides to look for signs of criminal proclivity in this all-encompassing DNA record, and choose to lock the potentially guilty ones behind bars before they can commit a crime. I believe there’s a film based on just such an eventuality.

*  *  *

Today is the summer equinox – Midsummer’s Night. I didn’t see any moths and Titania hasn’t called on me yet, but I suppose there’s still time.

The Problem With Winning.

When I was younger I was quite keen on playing sport – rugby and cricket mainly with a little basketball and football thrown in. The odd thing is, however, I found winning difficult to enjoy because I was always aware that a winner’s pleasure is inevitably reflected back as a loser’s pain. Even as a youngster I baulked at causing pain unless I truly thought it warranted. And so I played for the pleasure of playing and developed a sense that winning should only be enjoyed as long as it is accompanied by humility.

And that’s why I so hate to see aggressive, triumphalist gestures made by a player who has just scored a point against an opponent he or she has left floundering. To me it suggests strong psychopathic leanings. I don’t think I could ever have had a top sportsperson as a friend. I doubt that he or she would have been the sort of person to whom I could get close, even though I know that there are other ways of seeing it.

I suppose I’m just a bit of a Corinthian at heart, so whenever I hear a sports player being interviewed and trotting out the same old mantra time after time – ‘winning is everything’ – I groan because to me it isn’t.

The Dominance of White.

I’ve lived in the English countryside for about 40% of my life, and yet there’s something about it I’ve never fully noticed until this year – the fact that the colour white dominates and decorates all expressions of the landscape from late winter until the end of summer.

It starts with the regiments of snowdrops which remind you that the darkness and drabness of winter is beginning to lift and the season will end as all seasons do. And as they return to the earth and sleep, copious white blossom clothes the blackthorn trees in March. As that fades in April, the even more copious hawthorn blossom begins to show itself, soon leaving the landscape dotted with giant ice cream cones as the world grows white with May.

The white umbrellas of the cow parsley come next, competing with the wild garlic flowers to ensure that white is never out of sight on the field margins and embankments of our precious piece of earth. They don’t last long, but before they fade away the cow parsley’s more robust cousin, the even bigger umbrellas topping the hogweed plants, take over the duty. And they have a competitor, too. As the sharp-white hogweed blooms strut their presence in the fields and lane verges, the creamy elder flowers display their more sedate presence from the hedgerows bordering every field, copse, and wood. And as their presence becomes more pronounced, the furry, white, and highly scented flowers of meadowsweet open to join them.

It doesn’t end there, either. Convolvulus – the bane of gardeners everywhere in its feral state – shows scant regard for prissy human concerns. They colonise hedgerows at the edges of fields and produce the biggest white flowers of all. They’re bell shaped, and almost as big as a hand bell. They’re prolific too, and last until nearly everything else is preparing for its winter sleep in the autumn.

All these years and I never noticed, but now I have.

Brand Trump and Other Questions.

I read yesterday that lucky Americans who have $500 dollars to spare on something really worth having can now obtain a gold (painted) smart phone on which is printed:

 

TRUMP

 Make America Great Again

I thought it pretty amusing – just the latest reason for the world to laugh at America, especially when it came to the bit about Trump insisting they be made in the USA while the tech boys politely informed him that the USA doesn’t possess the means to do so

But then I came to the more serious aspect. This is an American President to whom holding the highest position in the land isn’t enough. Now he wants to be a brand as well. I’ve never known this before in my lifetime, and it’s another reason to ask: ‘What on earth is going on over there?’ Is it simply what happens when you allow a businessman to take over the reins of politics? Is it another step along the road towards making America a dictatorship, in spite of banner-wielding crowds explaining that America is not a monarchy – constitutional or any other sort – and they’d prefer to keep it that way? I’m curious.

I’m also led to wonder whether an American President should really be acting as a disinterested intermediary in the Israel/Iran affair, not as a partisan authority figure ordering Iran to surrender unconditionally.

And on a slightly connected theme: is it true, as was written in a BBC news feature recently, that the IDF has developed the habit of shooting near-starving Palestinian civilians queuing for flour at aid centres? If so, I’m naturally curious to know what orders Trump has given to Israel on the matter.

You know, my head is shaking so much these days that I sometimes wonder why it doesn’t fall off.

PDA Revealed at Last.

Readers of longstanding might remember a post I made some years ago in which I jokingly tried to invent some psychological condition which I could have printed up to wear as a badge. Well, it seems I needn’t have bothered because I think I’ve now discovered a real one.

It’s called PDA, which stands for Pathological Demand Avoidance. I don’t claim to understand the symptoms in great depth, but they appear to run along the lines of:

A fear or hatred of being required by a second party to do something, no matter what that something might be.

In serious cases, I’m reliably informed, it can be highly debilitating and cause high levels of anxiety. And it’s included in the catalogue of conditions associated with autism.

I’ve been experiencing this all my life, you know. Most recently it’s manifested in appointment letters from the hospital. Your next appointment is on Friday 13^th of June at 11.30. I wilt almost visibly when I get one of those. I groan and start to consider whether I can think of a credible reason to refuse, even though the nature of the procedure or interview or whatever it might be is not at all taxing. And they’re doing it for my benefit. And it’s free. So what am I complaining about? The fact that I didn’t decide to go somewhere at a certain time, date, and place myself, that’s what. They were given to me by somebody else, and amounted therefore – in my mind at least – to a demand. I can’t tolerate demands, even small, innocent, or helpful ones. The foot goes down and the cry goes up: No!

That was how I felt for the whole of my school years and the jobs I did for employers. It’s one of the reasons why freelance photography was so amenable to me. For as much as my working trips were controlled to some extent by nature and the weather, I was still free to chose the date, time, and place in between the natural strictures.

And maybe this explains why my daughter has the same difficulties, as did Emily Brontë. I regard that as quite an exclusive little club.

(Add this to being an HSP, a sigma male, and an INFJ, and I really do wonder why I bother to stay here. To learn things, I suppose.)

Keeping It Short.

Something caused me to consider the subject of ambition again earlier. I have no time for it, you know. I believed in it as a callow youth, but as soon as I had climbed enough of ambition’s ladder I was kicked off it again by an enemy who was one of my greatest teachers. It hurt at the time but it was a good lesson.

Yet still the human race regards it highly, failing to see that ambition is one of the factors keeping people walking the well trodden path between the tram lines. It’s very evident that the majority of people are easily fooled, and those who are both ambitious and clever know this and use it to hold and exercise power over the population. The Churches and the great dictators have always used it, and today it’s the main tool of the advertisers.

(But I mustn’t go on. The last thing the Illustrious One said to Siddhartha before they parted was: ‘You are very clever, Siddhartha. Avoid being too clever.’)

I was never clever, you know. For all my elevated IQ score in the good old days before my brain began to fade, cleverness was never my strong suit. Maybe it’s fortunate that I never felt the inclination to hold power over people, and I never really wanted to either lead or be led.

(But I mustn’t go on…)

On Vendeta and a Simple Mind.

Let’s see whether I’ve got this right. Netanyahu launches a pre-emptive strike against Iran without any direct provocation (a reason of sorts, maybe, but no direct provocation.) It kills some military leaders, some scientists, and some innocent bystanders. Iran strikes back and some innocent bystanders in Israel also get killed. This is tragic, but the cycle is complete.

Not according to Mr Netanyahu, it isn’t. He’s outraged and swears massive revenge against Iran. How can revenge be justified against retaliation? It can’t; it’s irrational; it’s the stupidity of vendetta taking hold of a simple mind.

I did suggest in a recent post that Mr N is lacking natural intelligence, didn’t I? People lacking intelligence do have an unfortunate habit of putting carts before horses. If I were Israeli, I think I would be feeling frighteningly insecure under such leadership.

Is This What Really Happened to Galahad?

I recently included a link to a YouTube video which posited that the relationship between the brain and consciousness is completely misunderstood. The received presumption is that the brain creates, feeds, and operates our consciousness, but the alternative view is quite different.

This view maintains that every individual consciousness is a tiny fragment of the universal consciousness which holds all knowledge. In this view, the brain does not operate our consciousness at all, but instead acts as a ‘restricting valve’ to keep us from accessing all but a small and simple amount of experience and knowledge. And the reason it performs such a function is that to be made aware of everything there is to be aware of would be far too heavy for the simple human animal to bear. In short, it would kill us.

So let’s turn this theory to the search for the Holy Grail, and let’s remind ourselves that the meaning of the Holy Grail has never been known. It was first mentioned in a work by Chretien de Troyes in the 12^th century in one of several Arthurian romances, but Chretien died before the work was complete and he never said what the Holy Grail actually was.

Mediaeval Christianity was quick to seize upon it and invent the notion that it was either the cup from which Jesus drank at the last supper, or a cup in which Joseph of Arimathea caught some of Jesus’s blood as he was dying in the cross. Such speculation was readily accepted and has been the received view ever since.

Now let’s make another big leap to Malory’s collection of the Arthurian romances in his book Le Morte D’Arthur. According to that source, several knights undertook the quest for the Grail, and as I said in post some year ago there was:

Lancelot, who searched for the Grail but didn’t find it, Perceval, who saw the Grail but didn’t recognise it, and Galahad, who found the Grail, recognised its significance, and then died almost immediately from a surfeit of ecstasy?

I don’t know whether this story of the three knights was taken from Chretien’s original or whether it was added by Mallory, but I’m now tempted to wonder whether somebody knew the true nature of the relationship between the brain and consciousness, and that he also knew the true meaning of the Grail.

The Pull of Siddhartha.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I wanted to read the novel Siddhartha again. Something in my mind suggested it was important that I should do so, and that I would understand it better than when I last read it many years ago.

I wondered how I would find a copy since there are no book shops in either of the towns I frequent. I supposed I would have to seek a copy online, consciously avoiding both Amazon and eBay of whom I’m not the greatest of admirers. And so I thought I’d begin a probably fruitless search of the charity shops. I didn’t relish the effort and had little confidence of success; most of the novels in charity shops are either of the populist variety or at least the more popular and well known classics. I also considered that the sort of person who would happen to have a copy of Siddhartha was also the sort likely to want to keep it with them for multiple readings.

But I decided to try anyway and began the search yesterday in one of the Ashbourne shops. I went straight to the second hand book section and saw a small wire carousel-style display unit – the sort that has books stacked from the outside to the inside and swivels. And there on the outside and directly facing me was a second hand copy of Siddhartha. It was a little shabby but entirely readable, and what else did I need? I think I might be forgiven the fancifully self-indulgent suspicion that it was put there for me to find. By whom is a mystery (for now, maybe.)

On the inside of the front cover is a handwritten note which says:

To Emily

This book is my all time favourite, and I wanted you to read it too. You will probably best be able to read it, though, in another ten years time, so keep it safe eh?

Lots of love

Uncle Steve.

ps I’ve given you a £10 book token so you can buy a book to read now!

There’s that name again: Emily – much mentioned, and fondly so, on this blog. And I do hope that Uncle Steve and Emily were well worthy of one another.

On Birds, Bees, and a Bit on Blood.

The grass on my lawn has been growing strongly this year and needing frequent cuts. I’ve been unable to mow it for several days because the occasional rain showers have been keeping the grass damp and my mower doesn’t work too well on damp grass. But yesterday we’d had a long enough break from the showers to leave the grass dry enough to mow, and so I got all the equipment out of the shed and was ready to do the job.

And then I noticed something incongruous on the path beside the lawn. It was a baby blue tit – looked fresh out of the nest – sitting there looking confused and unsteady, so I performed my duty. I picked it up and cradled in both hands to keep it warm while it rested uncomplaining, occasionally blinking at me and looking around. We stayed like that for about ten minutes until I felt some movement. Five minutes later the movement grew into something like a struggle, so I opened my hand. The bird perched on my finger for another five minutes, still regarding me with apparent interest and blinking a lot. I began to wonder whether it simply didn’t know how to fly and considered throwing it up into the air, but decided that was risky and so I kept my patience. And then, in little more than an instant, it was gone – into the branches of a nearby tree.

Good. Job done. Now to get on with mowing the lawn. Problem: one of the blades of grass on the lawn had a bee on it looking (yep) confused and unsteady, and there’s no way I would mow over a bee. Another rescue was called for, but this one was easy – encourage the little creature onto my finger and place it on a leaf. It seems that bees are much easier to rescue than blue tits.

Now to get on with mowing the lawn…

*  *  *

Remember my post offering the opinion that nurses should be regarded as equal partners with doctors? Well, yesterday I met the new nurse at my GP’s practice when I went for my blood letting (which wasn’t ‘blood letting’ at all – I just like being melodramatic sometimes. It was to have a blood sample taken in preparation for my next CT scans. It appears they have to check the condition of my liver so they can be reasonably confident that it won’t explode and cover the walls in yellow matter when the contrast dye is injected. Or something like that.)

Anyway, I related my opinion to the new nurse and she said ‘Ahhh, thank you.’ She was quite lovely, actually. And my only reservation was that she has some way to go in learning how to insert needles without causing a sharp pain (which the best nurses are very good at.) And then she told me that I have ‘good veins, but they’re a bit wiggly.’ I suppose if she can tell the difference between wiggly and non-wiggly veins, she’s doing OK.

So what did I see on the BBC News when I came back? A news report to the effect that NHS nurses are currently voting on the latest pay offer from the bounders in government. The junior doctors have been offered the highest percentage rise, the senior doctors and consultants a little lower, and nurses the lowest of all. Maybe I should send my blog post to the Chancellor.

Suffocating in a Fog of Wrongness.

For some time now I’ve been wilting under the growing yet foggy sense that there’s something very wrong with the world and the human condition. It seems to be getting worse, and this morning there were two photographs on the BBC News page: one of Greta Thunberg after she’d been turned away from the Gaza carnage, and another of Ben-Gvir. Greta looked sad; Butcher Ben was smiling and looked happy. Their juxtaposition lifted the fog just a little.

Even the purportedly peaceful USA is having its crises. A worldwide poll was conducted recently in which people from twenty five (I think) countries were asked whether they had a positive or negative view of other countries and their leaders. The USA got a seriously negative score, and so did Trump. Trump’s negative score was even higher than Putin’s. Hey, ho. There goes America’s ‘soft power’ down the drain. As for sending the marines into California to quell the left wing ‘scum’ fomenting trouble, that raises its own issue. Has nobody noticed that Trump will stop at nothing to crush left wing protests, but when right wing protesters violently storm Capitol Hill he cheers them and waves them forwards? Hey, ho again. There goes democracy.

And this is being played out against the background of a world more and more geared to serve the greed of the bankers, the billionaire entrepreneurs, and the corporate world in general. Seems to me that capitalism is doing its best to destroy itself through its own greed, as Marx predicted it eventually would. If and when that happens, the very root of how human society functions will have to undergo radical change, and it won’t be comfortable.

That’s if WWIII doesn’t happen first. The west is gearing up to increase its percentage of GDP spent on arms production because someone in the know has forecast that Russia will attack a NATO country some time in the next four years. He might be wrong, of course. He might be giving vent to some partisan agenda of one sort or another. We really can’t tell in this post-truth age, can we?

Anti the Anti.

I gather one of Mr Netanyahu’s so-called reasons for disallowing Greta Thunberg entry to Gaza is that she is anti-Semitic. Is she? I couldn’t honestly claim to know because I don’t know the woman personally. I’ve never had the impression that she was prejudiced against Jews, I’ve never heard her say anything to give rise to such a suspicion, and from what I’ve seen of her she doesn’t seem the type. So where is the evidence? I’m interested.

But herein lies an example of the wider problem. The term ‘anti-Semitism’ has become so misused and overused in the past few years that it has become effectively meaningless. Maybe Mr Netanyahu has generated a self-motivated and self-interested definition of his own, quite separate from any appeal to logic which normally accompanies a universal expression. Or maybe not. I can’t know that either.

But I also have to say this: It has been evident for a long time that Mr N is a dark-hearted individual and I see little point in trying to manufacture any defence against the charge of genocide levelled at him by the ICC and most fair minded people around the world. What I’m only now coming strongly to suspect is that he is also of low intelligence. That surprises me and makes me wonder why he’s there.

Doctors and Nurses.

No, this isn’t about shenanigans in the playground. It’s about real doctors, real nurses, and their relative merits.

We think of doctors as superior to nurses, don’t we? Their training takes longer; they get paid more; they’re the bosses while the nurses assist. It’s an acceptable and inevitable view, but I’m not so sure that it’s wholly reasonable.

When all’s said and done, doctors are fundamentally mechanics whose tools are the stethoscope and scalpel rather than the spanner and screwdriver. They’re highly trained and highly skilled, certainly. They need to know the function and interrelation of every aspect of the physical body. But ‘physical’ is the operative word. They don’t need a good bedside manner, however laudable one might be. I seem to recall Gregory House once saying something to the effect that the business of doctoring is not about curing conditions, but about solving puzzles. He didn’t have much of a bedside manner, did he, for all his genius. And I’ve had personal experience of other doctors who didn’t have much of a bedside manner either.

Nurses, on the other hand, are the care givers. They’re more highly trained technically than they used to be, although not to the level of doctors, obviously. But they still need to understand how people – as opposed to merely the constructions we call bodies – function. This is a vital skill which nurses need but doctors don’t. A good nurse needs an innate understanding of psychology while the good doctor gets on with solving the puzzle and mending the broken bits.

And that’s why I think they should be regarded as equal partners.

Remember that student nurse I mentioned on this blog back in 2018 – a young Pakistani girl called Sabs? She was around twenty years old and not yet fully qualified, but as she went off duty at 7pm she turned to the ward full of elderly men and said ‘goodnight boys.’ I’ll lay odds that she’s now a very valuable nurse. And we hadn’t seen a doctor for hours.

Educating the Non-English.

Since the garden has been constantly challenging me to keep up with its growth imperative for the past few weeks, the inside of my house has been largely ignored. In consequence, this afternoon I gave my full attention to the bathroom which was looking a bit grotty.

Now, there’s an interesting word which might be unknown to non-native English speakers. It’s an English colloquialism freely used by people of all classes, and means dirty, dishevelled, or sometimes as a derogatory opinion. And there are few, if any, situations where it might be inappropriate. The matter of my unkempt bathroom is a typical example, or it might be used to describe a coffee mug which hasn’t been washed for the last two or three months of daily use (which used to be a habit of mine when I worked in an office. The women used to tut at me and insist on correcting the issue.) Then again, a person of even moderately elevated class might address a peasant like me as ‘you grotty little man.’ It has been known.

So now I’m wondering whether the Chinese have a pictogram approximating to the word ‘grotty.’ I expect they probably do.

The word ‘tatty’ is similar, but is used to describe things which are not only unkempt, but generally cheap and of low quality. (Unless you happen to be from the north of England where ‘tatty’ is a noun synonymous with potato.)

Have you got that?

The Reaction Formula.

Yesterday was one of those days which start off badly shortly after you’ve climbed out of bed. Something goes wrong, and then things continue to go wrong with disturbing regularity right up to bedtime sixteen hours later. The whole day is one long progression of malfunctions, outright breakdowns, and various forms of mishap.

Initial reaction to this is mild irritation. That gives way to the second stage which is serious annoyance. The third stage is the point at which you turn your eyes skyward, searching for any god which might be peeking over the top of Mount Olympus so you can demand to know what the hell is going on today. And then, just as you’re dropping off to sleep, the mind settles and you regard the whole things as an Interesting Phenomenon.

Pity we can’t skip the first three stages, isn’t it?

The Reducing Valve.

I want to commend this YouTube video to anybody interested in the relationship between the brain and consciousness. I found it very compelling because it explained – if right – a problem I’ve had throughout the second half of my life. Make of it what you will.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOdk1rb5mZc&t=604s 

Blogger won't allow me to upload the thumbnails of YouTube videos any longer. Just another example of the modern techno world becoming more fascist. I'm uploading this in the hope that the URL will act as s hyperlink. If not, copy and paste.

Reaching the Peak.

I’m always a little sad when we reach the end of May. May is the last month in the year during which the days continue to grow longer for the whole of its span. And then along comes June which brings us to the summer solstice. The days begin to grow shorter again and the sun begins its gradual descent en route to the dark days of winter.

And it’s usually the month when the swallows first appear to thrill us with their aerial acrobatics. And the kiddies dance around the maypole to the sound of an Irish jig on the school playing field. And the wild birds feed their young ones with great energy and diligence. And things of – usually beneficent – great consequence often happen in May. (Although not this year, and there’s only three hours of May left.)

And the wheel turns. And nothing is meant to last beyond its allotted span.

The young are generally unaware of this, even though the knowledge must be hiding somewhere, waiting for the right time time to spring the ambush.

(The priestess - remember her? - was an exception of course. She felt the knowledge from an early age. It's why she was one third hedonist, one third philosopher, and one third explorer. Unlike hedonism and philosophy, exploration has no limits. If I remember the novel Sidhartha correctly, there would appear to be a direct parallel between me and the eponymous hero in the matter of the priestess. If so, all I have to do now is work with the ferryman until it's time for the crossing. Maybe I should read the book again.)

*  *  *

I’ve decided that when I die I want be greeted on the other side by a pack of friendly wolves, come to guide me to wherever I’m supposed to go. They are, after all, the ultimate dog.

*  *  *

I found a picture of mine, published as a postcard, in the 'classic postcards' section of eBay. It was priced at £5.99. Fancy that. (And that was the second, incidentally, both taken in the English Lake District.) Mel thinks I'm going to be famous after I'm dead. I won't care as long as I have wolves for company.

Swamped.

Over the past two years the pageview count on this blog has been massively higher than it ever was during the previous thirteen. The month of May has already exceeded the all time record, and what’s odd is that in the earlier years it attracted many comments from mostly regular readers; now it gets next to none.

I’ve often wondered whether bot activity could be responsible, but it doesn’t fit because there’s no regularity of pattern and the visits are made by a wide variety of browsers and operating systems. And the individual posts are all listed on the stats page. It appears that a lot of people from disparate parts of the world – most notably Singapore, the USA, Brazil, Vietnam, and Mexico – are spending a good deal of time reading my old blog posts.

So the question is: who are they and why are they doing it? Is my blog performing some kind of function in various parts of the world? If so, I’d love to know what it is.

Bird News:

The blue tits in the nest box behind the kitchen fledged yesterday just as the weather turned cooler and damp. And also yesterday, I saw the first baby robin on the bird table. What’s concerning me is that some of the adult birds are now in full moult, and today we had the first proper rain for several months – several hours of it. This was good to see because the land was becoming dangerously dry, but if the birds don’t have their proper quota of water-repellent feathers, how will they cope with the cold nights? Being chilled is a major hazard for birds.

And I’m reminded of how easily we take the good things for granted. On nearly every day for the past three months it would have been appropriate to say to a passing stranger: ‘Good morning. Isn’t it a beautiful day?’ because nearly every day was. And yet I never heard anybody say it. But when I went out this evening to replenish the bird table, the remains of the day had a distinct ‘glooming down in wet and weariness’ feeling about it. I hurried back to the house, grumbling inwardly. It appears I don’t deserve to live in California even if I wanted to.

Trump's Tablets.

I see Trump is now directing his fire at America’s Ivy League universities. He says they’re not doing enough to prevent pro-Palestinian protests and are not supportive of his brand of American conservatism. Well now, what can they be thinking? And so the dear old US of A takes one more faltering step down the slippery slope to fascism.

American Conservatism According to Trump:

1. You will stand with hand on heart to recite the Oath of Allegiance every day.

2. You will repeat: ‘God bless America, land of the free where all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds’ every time you see my face or hear my name. (Although he won’t realise that Voltaire was joking.)

3 You will revere the insanely rich as demi-gods, for they are the descendants of the Founding Fathers and represent the spirit of America.

4. You will do as you are told at all times by men of wealth who wear the badge of status conferred by me.

5. Women will be treated as objects of play to suit your pleasure, for that is their purpose in life. You will only take them seriously if they are young, pretty, and reading from an autocue words written by me or which have my approbation.

6. You will have no truck with dictionaries. However I define ‘terrorism’ or ‘anti-Semitism’ shall be the new truth.

7. You will develop the habit of somnambulance at all times and remain quiet except to roar angrily at my enemies.

I didn’t make this up, you know. This is what I’ve heard Americans with brains say about America.

Hypocrites or Specimens?

Two items on the BBC News website caught my attention this morning. The first was the shooting of the Jewish couple in Washington DC, and the second was the ‘meeting’ between Trump and Cyril Ramaphosa in the Oval Office. What most caught my eye were the words attributed to Netanyahu regarding the first incident, and those of Trump in the course of the second. The level of gross hypocrisy was staggering even by the sad standards of senior politicians generally, and I wondered yet again why, since there are so many good people on this planet, we allow our sacred space to be so hideously polluted by men such as these.

(Although I think it likely that conspiracy theories will soon start circulating around the murder off the Jewish couple.)

My first thought on entering Sainsbury’s to do my grocery shop yesterday was for the people of Gaza, especially the children who haven’t yet been slaughtered by Netanyahu.

*  *  *

You know, I was watching a magpie pecking at something on a fallen tree branch this morning, and as I wondered what was attracting its attention I had a deep inner sensation that I’m no longer connected to this world. If only I could hold on to that feeling, maybe I could start being merely observant of the dark creatures instead of being angered by them. Seems I have a way to go yet.

Things I Don't Understand.

I don’t understand why a charity shop on Ashbourne has a sign on the door saying ‘No Dogs.’ It’s why I rarely visit that one on principle.

I don’t understand why the human race regards sex so highly. I’ve reached the point in life where I now realise it’s boringly trivial and rather messy. (I didn’t used to see it that way, and I gather that neither do certain religious traditions.) Maybe my new focus in life should be to consort only with virgins.

I don’t understand how Netanyahu can commit genocide willy-nilly and get away with it.

I thought of another one earlier, but I’ve forgotten what it was.

*  *  *

I encountered Ms Medeea, my ex-dentist, in Ashbourne today. It seems she hasn’t gone back to Romania after all. She omitted to say whether she lives in a castle and engages in nocturnal, ne’er-do-welling practices guarded by a troop of gypsies and a pack of wolves, but it was good to see her. (Readers of longstanding will remember that she’s one of my heroes.)

An Unrealistic Suggestion.

I find myself asking why the US – preferably in conjunction with European partners – doesn’t have the balls to organise a massive airdrop of food supplies into Gaza, thereby challenging the Israeli armed forces to try to stop them.

Imagine what a shockwave would reverberate around the world of international diplomacy (especially if the Israeli armed forces tried to stop them.) And I suppose that’s the answer to the question, for we all know that politicians hold the world of international diplomacy in far higher regard than the mere matter of the deaths of children.

Dogs and Drones and Stuff.

Been too busy for blogging this week, so now I’ve got half an hour to spare let’s see whether I can remember anything worth remembering…

Nope, but a few nondescript oddments might avoid the next half hour going to  waste, so here goes:

I heard a loud noise going over my house one day. It was much louder than the commercial jetliners heading for East Midlands Airport, and it didn’t sound like a jet engine anyway, so I went out to take a look. Four big drones were crossing the field beyond my garden, so big that I assumed they must have been military drones. I’ve only ever seen one drone before. A small one spent five minutes hovering around me as I walked along Mill Lane last autumn. (Nearly everything of interest that happens in these parts happens in Mill Lane. Have you noticed?)

I encountered the Lady B’s dear mama, honourable sister, and Oscar the dog on my walk yesterday (as I was approaching Mill Lane.) ‘Hello Oscar,’ I said enthusiastically, because that’s what you normally say to dogs called Oscar. ‘You remember his name,’ said honourable sister in a tone indicating both surprise and approbation. Well, of course I remembered his name. It’s people’s names I can never remember.

I’m doing the toughest of the spring garden jobs at the moment – out with the pole hedge trimmer and ladder trimming the tall boundary hedge which runs down the length of my garden. It’s hard going these days because my energy, strength, and sense of balance are a little depleted now, and so I have to rely on courage to get the job done. The problem is that my courage is much depleted as well.

I was woken up last night by a deep, scraping sound above my bedroom ceiling. It sounded like somebody pulling a heavy object across the floor. This is a little odd because all there is above my bedroom ceiling is the house roof space, the floor of which is not boarded. I was reminded of the short but deep growling sound I heard outside my bedroom door one night, and so I did the same as I did on that occasion – decided I was unlikely to think of an explanation and went back to sleep.

The half hour is conveniently up.

An Assertive Avian and Another Mystery Maiden.

I’ve mentioned many times that it’s fun at this time of year to watch a pair of blue tits raising a brood in the nest box behind my kitchen. A few days ago I saw one of the birds fly in – from probably quite a long way away – carrying a caterpillar to add to the dinner table. He perched on a nearby branch, evidently aware that there was already activity in the box (and nest boxes aren’t very big, you know?)

And then the other bird flew out, joined the one on the branch, and flapped her wings rapidly. (That’s how I’m fairly sure that the second bird was the female, because females get more practice at rapid wing fluttering. It’s their way of saying ‘gimme, gimme, gimme.’) The male bird gave her the caterpillar which she then took into the box.

She tried it again today, but Mr B was having none of it this time.

‘No, I won’t give you the caterpillar.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I fetched it from quite a long way away, and I don’t see why I should give it to you so you can fly a mere three feet to the box while I fly a long way away again to fetch another one.’

‘You’re mean.’

‘No I’m not, I’ve just grown wise to that rapid wing flapping stuff. Go and fetch your own caterpillar.’

And then he flew the mere three feet to the box and disappeared inside. The female flew off rapidly in the opposite direction, presumably in a huff. Fascinating.

*  *  *

I passed another unidentified maiden in Mill Lane today, but this one did at least half turn her eyes in my direction and grunt something which I presume was meant to be taken as a reluctant greeting.

But where are these unidentified maidens coming from? If somebody’s opened a maiden factory somewhere in the vicinity of Mill Lane, why has nobody told me?

Baby's First Neighbour.

I heard somebody say on a YouTube video recently that part of the value of a mother to a baby is that she’s the first ‘other person’ the baby experiences in his or her new life. Sounds profound, doesn’t it? But is it true?

Not usually. The first other person a baby experiences is usually a midwife, a doctor, a paramedic, or a policeman in an emergency. And in America they charge the poor parents a fee to allow the mother to be, at best, only the second person the baby experiences as other. I believe they call it something like a 'skin contact' charge.

You know, I’m surprised that some American entrepreneur hasn’t developed a device to take the oxygen out of the atmosphere, then they could charge everybody to have a continuous supply of oxygen tanks strapped to their backs. If Trump only had a brain, he’d probably be working on it right now.

Mill Lane Bits and the Mystery Maiden.

I saw three swallows flying above Mill Lane today. ‘One swallow does not a summer make’ says the old adage. Maybe three do.

Walking north along Mill Lane gives a comprehensive view of the Weaver Hills, a final outcropping of the Pennines before the land descends southward to the Trent valley. In the years I’ve lived here I’m sure I’ve never seen them look so bare and brown, presumably because we’ve had the driest spring in Britain for sixty nine years.

Paradoxically, however, the barley growing in several fields alongside the lane is a very healthy bright green and growing well, with fully formed ears and beards. The blue-green wheat in other fields is showing no sign of ears yet, but it looks happy enough. And the maize seed which was sown a week or two ago is already germinating.

The hawthorn trees and bushes have been unusually heavily stacked with May flowers this year – in Mill Lane and everywhere else (which fact would be worth a post of its own, given the magnificent sights it’s produced.) What’s odd is that second showings are appearing which I don’t remember happening before. Maybe hawthorn likes dry springs. If I’d been aware of that sort of thing as a young lad I would have kept notes and would probably know by now.

And then there’s the mystery maid of Mill Lane who I’ve now seen twice. I first saw her about two weeks ago and at first thought it was the Lady B: same slender build, same height, same elegant, upright walk, same shoulder length dark hair. We were walking in opposite directions, and as we passed I saw that she was probably about fifteen years younger than said Lady. I intended to offer a greeting but she declined even to look at me, much less speak. And so I walked on (because gentlemen don’t accost young ladies – unless they have a dog with them, of course – but merely invite them to speak if they so wish.)

Today I saw her again, only she was following me this time. And she continued to follow me almost to the end of the road. When I stopped to talk to the sheep in the little paddock where the white pony used to be, I looked over my shoulder to see that she’d turned tail and was walking back the way she’d come. Evidently she had no intention of entering my orbit and saying ‘isn’t it a wonderful day, and did you see the three swallows flying above the lane earlier?’ Maybe she dislikes men. Maybe she dislikes old men. Maybe she’s been told that I’m the village weirdo and might behave unpredictably (though surely not inappropriately, surely not that; I’ve never given anybody the slightest hint of a reason to suspect I might be that sort of weirdo.)

The fact is, I’m familiar with most of the people who live at the bottom of the Shire where Mill Lane is situated, but I haven’t a clue who this young woman is. Maybe she’s a ghost, or somebody come through a dimensional or time shift. I thought the same about the young Chinese woman I saw wandering aimlessly around the environs of Mill Lane a few years ago, with no vehicle in sight. We don’t get Chinese women in the Shire – ever.

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 since 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.