The Peasants Are Back.

The House Sparrow (Passer Domesticus) has long been regarded as the humble runt of the bird world. It was also the most numerous, at least in Britain and possibly the rest of Europe too, and maybe its sheer ubiquity was the reason for its peasant status. It suffered a decline some years ago but is now, as far as I'm aware, back up to something like full numbers. 

In the twenty years I've lived in this house I've always had a resident population of between twelve and twenty birds. One shrub in the garden was their regular perching place during the day, and another was where they retired to roost at twilight. My garden was never without sparrows for the whole of that time and I was very fond of the little guys. I couldn't care less for their peasant status. Most of my ancestors were peasants, and what's wrong with peasants anyway? And there were several sections of hedgerow lining the lanes and fields where I'd see a small flock them every time I went for a walk, especially in the late autumn, winter, and through the spring while the hedges were neatly trimmed with flat tops. They usually twittered as I walked past, and it was nice to think they were offering a greeting even though they probably weren't.

But this year they disappeared. Completely. No sparrows in the garden, and no sparrows on any of the lanes. Not a single one. It went on for months while the hot, dry summer lasted, and I was obviously curious to know what had happened to them. I missed them, you know? I really did. My best guess was that they'd relocated to spots near the river a mile away where there was water to be had because bird numbers were low generally during the summer. But I still saw the odd robin, blackbird, dunnock, blue tit, and so on. So why no sparrows? Could the whole population have died out for some reason? I hoped not.

Today was a day for celebration because the were two of them on the bird table, one male and one female. I watched them for some time to make sure I wasn't mistaking them for the similar looking dunnocks, but no. They were unquestionably sparrows, and hopefully more will arrive soon and the peasant status quo will be re-established. If I see them tomorrow I'll ask them where they've been. And if I get a reply I'll be sure to report it here.

Latecomers.

Every year at around this time I report on the appearance of one or more skeins of geese flying overhead, honking loudly, and evidently heading for some place with a milder climate before the winter arrives. Tonight was the night. There were eighteen of them and they were headed ESE.

But then, a few minutes later, I saw another pair of birds coming from, and heading in, the same direction, and the sound they made was less of a honk and more of a quack. So what's that about? And why were they late.

(And they were definitely geese, by the way, just in case anyone thinks my eyesight or my judgement is fading with my mood.)

Virginia's Gift.

I'm warming to the writing of Virginia Woolf. 

 

Tonight I read one of her short stories called The New Dress. It's about a woman with a new yellow dress which she wears to attend a soiree at the house of Mrs Dalloway (the eponymous MC of a novel which I must read one day.) But she has a problem. She's utterly lacking any trace of self-esteem, and the whole work is a ramble on the issue. Over the course of eight pages she lays down her train of thoughts as she mingles dutifully with the other attendees, using metaphor, simile, memories, general allusions, and even logic. And she isn't truly mingling at all, of course, but seeing her shortcomings reflected back to her in every conversation and situation. A recurring theme in these rambles is that she isn't actually depressed, just flat, and the yellow dress is the fulcrum on which these many sided musings pivot.

I'm beginning to get the impression that all of Virginia's writings are effectively one long string of autobiographical fragments, strung together through a brilliantly perceptive mind and a penchant for prose which is perfect for the endeavour. Eight pages of self-absorption or not, I found it most compelling.

 

(I was meaning to write a post today about the growing sense that my own connection with this mortal life is fading -- not physically, but mentally. Hardly anything attracts my interest nowadays. When I'm not depressed, I feel flat. But maybe we've had enough self-absorption for one day, so I'll leave my own ramblings for another.)

The Eating Dilemma.

We think of eating as one of life's great pleasures, don't we? It's wired into us, presumably because a body has to eat in order to live and function normally. But I have a problem with it. 

One of the INFJ personality type's leading characteristics, or so the experts in such matters tell us, is the unconscious need to dive deeply into every subject and assess it from all angles (it's why we tend to be slow at making decisions) and if you do that, the practice of eating shows its dubious side. I wrote a long post about it in my head last night, but it was getting close to bed time and so I decided to leave writing it until today. Today I changed my mind because the main thrust of the piece was, should we say, unacceptably unsavoury. Instead, I'll just mention the way I was brought up with regard to the matter of eating.

My mother was raised in poor circumstances where social niceties held little sway, if any at all. It was also an unhappy upbringing, and I always had the impression that she wanted to adopt the mindset and -- where possible -- the mannerisms of the more genteel folks (and all without ever being snobbish, I might add.) She had spent time as a young woman working in service for a posh family somewhere in the more refined suburbs and had observed their habits with regard to meal times. And these she passed onto me in case I ever graduated to a more rarefied level so that I wouldn't let myself down. Eating came with strict rules which I took to heart in childhood and have never relinquished. They are:

1.Know the right table settings for cutlery, glasses, side plates etc so that you are always sure to use the correct implement.

2. Be diligent with regard to the rules of using such implements. They are immutable. Any careless descent into using your knife like a pencil or a skinning tool, or your fork like a coal shovel, will consign your reputation in the minds of the genteel to the grubbiest of gutters. And never allow your elbows to extend more than two inches from your waist whilst eating.

3. Only put small amounts of food in your mouth, so the fact that you are engaged in masticating is hardly visible on the outside. This even applies to casual eating of things like biscuits, cake, and pastries.

4. Keep your mouth tightly closed as long as there's even a small amount of food in it.

5. Never open your mouth to talk until you've swallowed everything.

6. Never take a drink while there's food in your mouth (because few working class habits are quite as disgusting as that one.)

7. Avoid picking things up with your hands. If there is a spoon or fork available, use it.

8. Never grunt while eating (as my step father did every meal time.)

 

So there you have it. Those genteel folks managed to devise a code with which to balance the necessity of the act with the unsavoury nature of the process. Clever, weren't they? And all this is one of the reasons why I would never go into a fast food joint even if I wanted to.

Confused By the Darkness.

I've been wondering all day how to make a post about the Christa Pike story, and I'm uncommonly confused as to what my feelings on the matter really are. I don't even know why it's bothering me so much. I suppose it's the layers of tragedy, the smell of injustice, the abject nature of capital punishment, the surreal denouement and presumed incompetence, the question of what will happen next... and probably more than I can think of at the moment. There's almost something of the blackest of comedy about it if only it weren't real

The one thing I can be sure of is that the whole affair will do no favour to the reputation of the USA justice system and the state of Louisiana in the minds of compassionate people everywhere.

No more. Too late.

Ronnie and the Reluctant Horses.

I encountered my first ever robotic lawn mower today. It went by the name of Ronnie, or so a small voice in my head suggested with not a little conviction. And it was quite small -- maybe 30 inches by 15 or thereabouts, and looking for all the world like a vacuum cleaner with a mind of its own -- and was wandering up and down a patch of grass on one side of somebody's boundary wall. I watched it for some time to assess how it knew when to go straight, when to turn, where to go next, and so on. There was an appendage at the front with a glass panel which I assumed read the height and spread of the grass in front of it in order to make an informed decision. My attention paid off because I was eventually afforded the opportunity to say 'you missed a bit' because it had. Modern technology isn't all it's cracked up to be, you know.

The real problem, however, was evident a little way along the lane. Two handsome palomino horses were standing by a farm gate looking a bit tetchy, while their two women riders had dismounted and were holding onto the bridles looking irritated.

'They won't go past that robot thing,' said one of them. I had the impression she was blaming me in the absence of easier alternative.

It's hardly surprising, though, is it? A vacuum cleaner wandering about on its own, apparently aimlessly to a horse's perception no doubt, and making a funny buzzing noise to boot. Maybe I should have gone back to the machine and said 'Morning Ronnie, and how are you today?' And maybe Ronnie, bless his mindless modernity, would have performed something approximating to an Irish jig and squeaked happily. And then the horses would have strolled past in all their haughtiness and everything would have been well with the world. Never thought of that.

Goodbye Today.

In a matter of minutes, Wednesday 30th September 2026 will qualify to enter the history books and never be seen again. That's the sort of fact I find profound.

Winds of Change.

The feeling is growing in me that, in a world run by sadists, psychopaths, technocrats, and the big corporations, the winds of change are strengthening. It's happened before, of course, just not this quickly. And change isn't necessarily a bad thing. Indeed, a state of flux has ever been natural to the progression of life and reality. But natural change tends to happen slowly and allows for adaptation, and one of the things which most concerns me is the battle cry of politicians everywhere now: 'We must have growth.' They mean economic growth, and that's where the problem lies.

 

As I understand it, economic 'growth' is based on the amount of money in circulation (and we may conveniently forget that money doesn't actually exist for the purpose of current concern.) This is where the epidemic of consumption mania comes into the picture.

Britain's new left-leaning Prime Minister is saying a lot of good things in his attempt to level the playing field a little, yet even he is now attacking the state pension -- not radically or immediately, but he's put the cards on the table. And there have been others recently who have railed that the state pension is too much; the country can't afford it; honest, working people are going short while the pensioners get richer. Richer? I don't think so. 

 

The real reason for attacking the state pension is the simple fact that pensioners are the least active consumers, and so -- if my understanding is correct -- they're the least likely to contribute to economic growth. Why keep the pensioners (who have, let's not forget, spent fifty years or more working and paying into the system through national insurance contributions) comfortable when what growth really needs is tax breaks for younger, middle class working people. They're the ones who are driven by expectation to spend £1000 on a new smart phone every two years instead of three; to buy 60" TVs to make their living rooms look like cinema auditoriums; to buy newer, more prestigious cars so their social status gets a boost; and so on. The fact that they're burning themselves out and often neglecting their children just to keep up with the consumption game is sidelined in favour of the growth imperative. Lifestyle is everything now because the elite want it that way.

(I'm even tempted to ask whether economic growth has any actual value at all, but I'm not an economist so I decline to expound upon the question. My best guess is that the presumption of necessity is inevitable in a free market economy, but not so much in the sort of mixed economy we enjoyed in the UK before Mrs Thatcher shackled us to America's coat tails.)

That's just the start of my feelings about the winds of change. Technological overkill is another, but this post is too long already so I'm going to shut up. I think it's at least three weeks since I stroked a friendly dog and I'm feeling denied one of life's real essentials.

A Seasonal Note.

Today in the Shire seemed to encapsulate that defining shift in the turning of the year. The air was mild and the sunshine comfortable, a far cry from its burning aspect in July. This week's twilights, however, have embraced the first few cutting chills of autumn to remind us that cold will soon be the new normal. It's a little premature for me because I make it a point of pride, principle, and pecuniary discretion to delay the switching on of the various electric space heaters in this house until at least 1st October. The result is comfortable days, but uncomfortable nights in the office and in bed. Won't be much longer now.

 

*  *  *

I was going to make posts on two subjects of interest to me: the case to be made for not preventing Iran from having nuclear weapons, and the lesser matter of elite sport losing its heart. They seemed inappropriate to September so I might make them later in the year. (And I don't expect anybody to care one way or the other, by the way. It's just that if you have a blog you have to say something on it.)

Choosing One's Reading Matter.

In the Virginia Woolf story I was reading tonight she frequently uses the phrase 'the contagion of the world's slow stain.' I felt truly ashamed because it revealed the uncomfortable fact that if one is going to presume to read Virginia Woolf, one should at least be sufficiently erudite as to recognise her references. A trip to Google had to be made to hide the slow stain of my own ignorance. Apparently it's a line from a poem by Shelly in memorium to the recently deceased John Keats, and refers to him now being free of the slings and arrows of mortal life. I should have guessed, shouldn't I?

And then I saw something quite startling when I loaded YouTube. There was a video in the recommendations claiming that a lot of young people no longer read all the text in books. They only read the conversations because, they say, description is so boring. I suspect many of them might go the way of John Keats if they tried to read dear Virginia. I clicked on the video in hope of leaning more and thereby finding something worthy in the state of being old. It wouldn't play.

Today's Numbingly Fascinating Notes.

1. We now have a new village mailbox after four weeks without one. It's a brand new one, too, featuring a modern fascia with CR (Charles Rex) instead of the old ER (Elizabeth Regina) as the last one was. It's odd to have a mail service in Britain which is now fully privatised but still called Royal Mail. You wouldn't think so from the way they act sometimes.

 

2. After two days of activity it appears the electrical engineers have now got the telecomms cabinet back on the main. Hopefully we won't have any more -- almost daily -- 10 minute internet drops while the temporary battery was being changed, or much longer ones when the battery ran flat.

3. The pain at the base of my fingers on left hand is back when I put any stress on them. This is inconvenient when you're doing garden work with tools. Ever the martyr to the cause, I still managed two hours today and wore myself out in the process. (That's a slight exaggeration, but not by much.)

4. I encountered two strangers and a dog in Bag Lane today. One of the humans was a middle aged woman who said 'hello' with a vocal nuance which I found quite unable to read. The other was a girl of around late teens who scowled at me and said nothing. She was the one leading the dog, and the dog being a young and rather delightful Cocker Spaniel, I naturally wanted to ask 'may I make friends with your dog?' (By an interesting coincidence, they were precisely the first words I ever said to the Lady B back when the world was young.) The scowl was fierce enough to preclude such intimacy, however, so I walked on.

5. Lydia waved to me today.

And that's about it. Bye.

An Unlikely Theory.

I have a new theory. It's pretty implausible, but here goes.

I've always wondered, you see, why the Japanese attacked the USA at Pearl Harbour. I can understand their interest in conquering Asia, but why the US? Now I'm led to suspect that the British and Russians raided their respective piggy banks and paid the Japanese to do it, thus encouraging the damn Yankees to come over here and do their bit to help us spike Mr Hitler's guns. No doubt a historian would tell me something completely different, but history is forever changing so who knows?

I said it was implausible, didn't I? I like implausible theories.

Being Annoyed by an Obvious Error

Today is the autumnal equinox. To be precise, it occurred at six minutes past midnight this morning, and I'm reminded of an error I've encountered recently from several people claiming expertise in the matter of folklore and the old ways. They've pointed out that Halloween on 31st October is the beginning of the Gaelic season of Samhain, and is therefore 'the start of the darkest half of the year.' No it isn't.

Half a year is six months, and so the darkest half of the year runs from the autumnal equinox in September to the vernal equinox in March. Today is the start of the darkest half of the year. To say that Halloween is the start of the darkest quarter of the year would be more or less accurate, or it would be acceptable to say that it's the start of the darkest part of the year because 'part' is open ended. To use the word 'half' is simply wrong.

Maybe I'm being picky, but words matter to me, especially when they're coming from self-proclaimed experts.

On Mr Green and Me.

I just watched a YouTube video well worth watching. It was a documentary telling the full story of that most enigmatic of rock guitarists, Peter Green, the founder of Fleetwood Mac in its first incarnation. It's here if you want to watch it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMohqVHNCZ8

 

What left me somewhat enthralled by the whole sad story was the likeness between Mr Green and me in the matter of his nature and approach to life as a human being. I could say 'There but for the grace of God could have gone I' but I was fortunate in having guitar skills limited to strumming and ripple picking over a very short range of keys. My public performances were restricted to my post-school social group and a wild rabbit sitting in my garden one day, and they were limited to mostly Bob Dylan covers. I think I should be feeling grateful.

A Sort of Serendipity

 Somebody loves you deeply but they're staying away from you. Here's why...

So says the taster on the YouTube video. It's dominated, as is often the case, by a large picture of Carl Jung who you can rest assured is in no way relevant to what the uploader wants you to read. And of course, you scoff at the whole silly business. YouTube, and life in general, is overflowing with that sort of nonsense.

Ah, but is it nonsense you wonder? You can be quite certain that the video is pure click bait and watching it would be a really silly thing to do. But suppose the taster is a message sent by some spiritual agency because they feel you ought to know an intriguing and important secret? Who could the sender be, you ask yourself, and who the lover? And when you do that you come up with a surprising number of possibilities.

And then you repair to the kitchen to prepare your dinner, amused by the mind's little follies but pleased to have something about which to make a blog post and make the statistics flow nicely.

Mourning the Maize.

I stood out for about fifteen minutes in the growing gloom of a September twilight tonight, watching the harvester and trailers harvesting the maize crop in the field opposite my house. I find watching the process most interesting, but it's tinged with a hint of regret because the sight of a seven-foot-tall forest of maize  is a little spectacular. Mel found it fascinating because it reminded her of the early scenes of Lord of the Rings where it played host to much mischief by the young male characters. Maize is also typically garnered in the autumn, so the harvest is another marker telling us that the summer is definitely over.

For the first ten years of my living here, that field was pasture land on which the farmer's herd of heifers spent the spring, summer, and early autumn, occasionally calling to the young bulls in another field on the opposite side of the lane. But it had been ploughland before then, as evidenced by the clear ridge and furrow pattern on the ground dating at least to mediaeval times. No doubt they would have grown various beans and brassicas back then because the British climate wasn't warm enough for maize. In fact, maize didn't become a major agricultural crop in Britain until the 1970s. Not many people know that (at least I didn't, so I choose to believe that not many other people did either.)

My Captive Audience.

I was walking along Meadow Lane today when I spotted a herd of about twenty young bulls in in a field. I stopped to watch them for a few minutes, and when I did they all came dashing up the field and crowded around the gate to give me their full attention. They didn't want me to touch them, but they did jostle for position to get as close to me as possible. They seemed to want me to talk to them, and so that's what I did.

So why do they do that, because today wasn't the first time that's happened? Well, I've heard that pre-verbal creatures -- human babies and animals -- can sense the energies we give off, and on that basis decide whether to voluntarily associate with us. And in particular, non-predatory animals are more likely to gravitate towards humans in whom they sense non-predatory energies, which I presume would include me. That's rather heartening, isn't it? And maybe that's why the squirrels are coming closer.

But there's a sad side. Animals are my only friends these days, but that's not the sad bit. What's sad is that I don't want to get too close to a herd of young bulls because I know what's going to happen to them a couple of years down the line.

Idiot!

I was just reading through some old posts which visitors have accessed when I came across one entitled The Story of the Browser Playing Dead. A sense of dread came falling -- dark, damp, and desperate -- from the ceiling. It wasn't the browser I was talking about; it was the router. Browsers are software. They don't have hidden on/off switches, but routers do.

Now, Blogger isn't quite as sophisticated as Word; it doesn't have a search and replace facility which allows you to change every example of a misused word very easily and quickly. And so I had to set about editing the post manually, replacing every 'browser' with 'router.' There were twelve of them including the post title. I chose to blame the heatwave we were having at the time of posting.

Killing the Original American Dream.

The news from the USA is getting sillier and sillier. Trump's banning of CNN and like-minded channels from the White House is the latest example. He says it's because CNN and their ilk purvey fake news and spread lies. And Fox and Trump don't?

We all know by now that journalism in the US is more about taking sides and purveying propaganda than it is about impartially reporting facts, and that's not so bad as long as people understand the fact and both sides are represented. But now Trump wants the peddling of disinformation and misinformation to be restricted to the right of the political spectrum, while keeping the left quiet and setting himself up as King of the USA and Bretwalda of the western world.

Isn't that what the War of Independence was about? And isn't that central to why Americans are Americans?

A Recommendation.

I just finished reading Virginia Woolf’s short story A Society, and would recommend it to all women of an enquiring bent and all men of a disinterested one.

It tells of a group of idle-but-enterprising middle class women who meet in a tea shop and spend a few years before WW1 dedicating themselves to the nature of the gender divide. It’s full of irony, highly amusing in parts, and very clever in the whole. It makes you think of how society has changed in little over a century, and the narrative pays little heed to the dreaded stream of consciousness style for which Virginia is celebrated (and rightly so if you have the mental energy and staying power.)

As a male raised¹ to embrace the masculine mindset but who generally gets on better with women, I found it most enjoyable.

¹ Word insists that this word should be ‘rose.’ Why would I call myself a male rose?

The Purpose of Ads.

The adverts that frequently interrupt YouTube videos cause me a lot of annoyance. That's because the majority of them are little or no better than sub-juvenile in form and content. I wonder why this should be and would propose two possible answers:

The creators of adverts know, or think they know, that the majority of people are themselves sub-juvenile, and it makes sense to spend the vast sums of money available to the advertising industry on that section of the population most likely to be receptive to to them.

 

There is a plot afoot to use the ubiquity of advertising to create or advance a negative movement in the mental acuity of the population as a whole. This could be for several reasons, all of which are easy to guess.

I favour the latter, even though it's hard to imagine how it could be achieved. I'm well aware, you see, of a thought process becoming ever more prevalent from a variety of sources. It runs roughly: 'Why are the people who run our culture becoming so stupid? How and why have we created  this idiocracy?' 

 

Some people would say that it isn't true, that it's just me being cynical, but I was having thoughts along those lines long before I began to read of others saying the same thing. Or maybe I'm just sulking because no dogs came to say 'hello' to me today.

Endless Thinking.

It began when I got up this morning, and for some unknown reason a line from a Bob Dylan song ran through my head: '... while life goes on all around you.' It's an innocuous little phrase, isn't it? A simple, throwaway line, and yet it began the process of raising questions about life and the nature of reality that went on for about an hour. Every question led to another question and a discussion between one part of my brain and another. Eventually it came to the last question, one to which nobody knows the answer. At that point the slot machine ran out of money, the world went dark, and I moved on to something completely different. (This is quite normal for me. When people accuse me of overthinking I conclude that most of my fellow humans prefer paddling in the littoral surf because they've heard some mention of giant squid.)

 

*  *  *

So, the next pause for thought concerned the value of consensus. (I'd just passed the village notice board, you see, which showed mug shots of all the members of the parish council. I used to be a committee type myself, but not any more.) I'm aware of the fact that consensus is often useful, but I wanted a good, dramatic example of a situation which led to something pretty dreadful. I thought of the story of Moll Dyer, a story which I assume is well known to most Americans, but I'll offer the bare bones for those who've never heard it.

Moll Dyer was an elderly, unmarried woman living in one of the North America colonies towards the end of the 17th century (in Pennsylvania, I think.) One winter was particularly harsh and compounded by an outbreak of some serious health epidemic, so the townspeople got together and decided that Moll must be a witch causing the calamities and should be done away with. They went to her house, duly buoyed by the opinion gained through consensus, to do the deed. Moll escaped through the back door while the mob were setting her house alight, but she didn't escape death. She froze. And perhaps I might add to this the sight of strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees. My only conclusion to this was that consensus must be accompanied by fine judgement and not be allowed to run amok.

 

*  *  *

 

And then there was a third subject occasioning a great deal of deep thought, but I can't remember what it was. (This is quite normal for me, too, these days.) I might mention that squirrels have started coming closer to me than they've ever done before. One ran past me on the lane this morning, carrying something -- presumable edible -- in its mouth. And yesterday one came dashing towards me, also carrying something edible. I thought for one blessed moment that it was bringing an offering to swell my food stocks, but no. It changed its mind at the last minute and turned right instead.

The Real Reason for Christmas Presents.

I was thinking about Christmas today for some unholy reason (I prefer to call it Yuletide now, by the way) when I was struck by an unholy notion.

It seemed to me that in the modern western world the main reason for celebrating what people like to call Christmas is to condition children to the notion that consumption is the truest way to happiness. And further, to establish in the unconscious minds of said children the persistent and pernicious hum of discontent which is the bedrock of consumption mania.

At least that's one way of looking at it.

Interestingly, I'm given to understand that a lot of extremely rich people who have every material thing there is to have also suffer discontent, and even depression, because they experience feelings of emptiness when there is nothing left to want. Humans are a bit of a failure really, aren't they?

(And now I have something to look forward to. When someone next asks me 'what are you doing for Christmas?' I intend to reply: 'Christmas? What's that? How do you spell it?)

The Woman.

I have to post this. I've been meaning to for a long time and haven't got around to it. I'm listening to it as I type. It's just that this woman is my idea of the ultimate in... erm... strong femininity. That'll do. And the way she walks off the stage at the end is pure magic. All down to my convoluted taste in women I suppose.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpiFmZLICgM&list=RD1pK02USyU8M&index=12

What I'm hoping is that some kind Norwegian (at least, I think she's Norwegian) will tell me how her name is pronounced.

A New Worry.

I had a text message this morning advising me that last week's blood test was satisfactory and no further action is required. But this morning I had a missed call from a Derby number, and the only telephonic communication I've ever had with anybody in Derby has been with the hospital.

 

So could this be connected with the other half of last week's proceedings - the urine test 'to check on the condition of your kidneys' (which should have been kidney, singular)? Now I wait with trepidation for a letter. I really don't want any more dealings with the hospital after the experiences I've had over the last eight years.

And a new concern has developed in my mind over the matter of mortality. Death is a pretty scary prospect, isn't it? It's the ultimate 'drop everything you've ever known or possessed and walk into the darkness, not knowing whether you're going to fall off a cliff into complete oblivion or have to get used to existing in a totally different environment with totally different rules' experience. 

But now there's something else bothering me. When a body dies it begins to decompose, and in very little time it begins to smell bad and gets worse as the days progress. What a horrible thought. I hate bad smells.

A Sudden Shift.

I just relinquished my undertaking -- reported a couple of days ago -- and picked up my book of Virginia Woolf 'short stories' again. (I had some time to fill while attempting to re-boot my ailing computer, and it was too early to make my night time cup of coffee.) 

 

Well, what a revelation. Everything I said about dear V's style went completely out of the window. I thought I'd just try to struggle through the first paragraph, but instead read two pages and didn't want to put it down when my computer needed assistance.

It's a pretty straightforward narrative, you see, about a group of bored young women deciding that they must get out and discover the world run by men before they so much as contemplate bearing a child. They've become suspicious, you see, of the notion that the women populate the world while the men civilise it. And it's full of Virginia's keen observation, lively intelligence, capacious imagination, and subtle wit.

I am now persuaded to open a new label down below, a Virginia Woolf label. And that means I have to scroll through the last week or two's posts to find suitable players to enter the new team. It won't be a trial, and it's nearly time for my late coffee anyway.

Forget the Stereotypes.

I was looking down the women's rugby WXV results earlier and saw that there was a game between Hong Kong and Brazil yesterday. Intriguing, eh? I thought so. And tonight YouTube was showing highlights of the match, so I watched them.

It was notable -- to one of my sensibilities -- that none of the Brazil team looked like a beach volleyball player, and few of the Hong Kong side looked Chinese. You just can't trust your expectations, can you?

(And for those Americans of the MAGA persuasion who don't know that the Romans and Arabs used different numerals, 'WXV' is shorthand for Women's 15.)

On Me and Virginia's Style.

Reading Virginia Woolf can be quite challenging. I'm currently working through an anthology of her short stories, only they're mostly not stories at all, but observations and flights of imagination.

She had the kind of mind which, it seems obvious to assume, never stopped observing, and she observed every little detail of people, places, atmospheres, social situations, and whatever else which I can't be bothered to think of. Nothing, it seemed, missed her gaze which decanted into a mental world in which every nuance that could be caught on the radar of her five senses was dissected and described in minute, often lyrical detail. (No wonder she got depressed, poor woman.)

The difficulty comes from the fact that she tells it all in rapid, staccato fashion, which first leaves you a little breathless and then increasingly confused as you try to hold the pieces together into something resembling a narrative. At least, that's the effect it has on me. Virginia's perception of a narrative is not what most of regard as a narrative: a string of connected facts leading logically from one step to another to form a mental journey.

I have to admit at this stage that part of the problem lies with my habits. Living alone and having little contact with people and the outside world apart from observing the landscape and the animals, my life has become organised into a series of routines. (I suppose it's because they provide structure in an unstructured, personal existence.) And my routines are such that reading is naturally done at night. That can be a problem because at this time of year my house is cold at night, since I decline to switch on expensive electric heating until at least October. Being cold can make you tired; and being tired can make you colder. It's a vicious circle which works against the appreciation of complex wordsmithing, which is why tonight I considered giving up the attempt to make sense of Virginia's 'short stories.'

But is that reasonable? Virginia Woolf was clearly highly intelligent, blessed with a keen observational faculty, and possessed of a complex imagination. No doubt it's why she is considered a leading pioneer in the development of stream of consciousness writing. My paltry routines surely provide a poor excuse to give up on a writer of much substance. It's interesting, too, that I had little problem when I read her novel To the Lighthouse a few years ago;

And so I think I'll put the book aside until the storage heaters go on in October and the office is warmer. And perhaps the near daily hassles which life has been throwing at me for the past few months will also have eased. (Hassle is something else which makes me tired.)

Lay on Macduff.

All this evening I've wanted to make some sort of a blog post, just to prove to myself that I'm still alive, but I've been too tired and too drained by the business of struggling through the daily round. Today has been another difficult one. Usual things -- transport hiccups, nurses' appointments running late, no morning coffee, no lunchtime food, lots of time spent sitting or standing around like a lemon. And then there were the daily glitches, the most irritating of which was the fact that tonight my computer refused to play YouTube videos. It got half way through one and then stopped and said 'hold; enough.' You wouldn't think a computer would be able to quote Macbeth, would you? Mine can, even though it can't play YouTube videos.

And I've got a post sitting in 'draft' waiting to be finished and posted. I started writing it last night but stopped when it began to hurt my brain. It was a commentary on Virginia Woolf's writing and was becoming almost as convoluted. Maybe I'll finish it tomorrow.

 

But I did finally provide a phial of blood for medications-related analysis this afternoon, only this time they also wanted a urine sample. The nurse gave me a little bag containing the newfangled apparatus which is more complex than the simple old specimen bottle. She spent approximately three seconds explaining what to do, and then left it to my befuddled brain to get it right. I think I did. I was also concerned, however, that the examination and analysis of bodily fluids might occasion the accrual of consequences, and that brought the dark mist back down on the matter of future prospects.

But for now I'm going to call it a wrap. I'm feeling unusually oppressed by the metaphorical cow dung being thrown at me nearly every day, and I'm feeling bereft of company now that all the people with whom I used to commune in cyberspace have gone. Sorry this is a miserable post. Miserable people are such a pain, aren't they?

A Good Surprise and a Mind Aghast.

Well, what d'ya know. I mentioned recently that I'd written a letter of complaint to the infamous BT, and also that previous letters of complaint had gone unanswered. Today I had a phone call from a personable young chap in BT's complaints department, wanting to discuss the nature of my current issue. He listened, he understood, he agreed, and he said he would raise the matter with the relevant people. (And he apologised, in writing, for the previous lack of response.) We even had a chat about certain technological issues I've been experiencing. So let's hear it for Ashley from Tyneside. Good chap, Ashley.

 

*  *  *

So what about Trump offering every adult American $5,000 if the Republicans win the midterms? This is quite astonishing even by Trump's bargain basement standards, so I'll offer my thoughts as they occur to me (if you don't mind.)

1. It seems that Trump is becoming rather more desperate than he would care to admit.

2. I think this is the kind of thing you must expect if you put a big businessman in charge of a country. Big businessmen tend to go through life wearing polarising glasses, which see dollar signs clearly but very little else. They're also prone to the certainty that every individual has his or her price, and every situation is solvable by simply throwing money at it.

3. Trump's statement amounts to a naked attempt to buy votes. Apart from striking at the very roots of democracy, it insults all Americans by casting them as latter day Esaus by presuming they will be willing to sell their birthright for a mess of pottage.

4. Given the above, I don't see how a serious legal challenge can fail to be made.

5. Even if Trump is allowed to maintain his outlandish proposal, he has failed -- as usual -- to say how the expenditure of several trillion dollars would be financed.

6. When he made his proposal to some Republican gathering or other, the BBC reported that it was met with 'rapturous applause.' It should have been met with stunned silence. This suggests to me that the delegates at Republican gatherings come from the same litter of swivel-eyed loons as the UK's Tory faithful.

Apart from that, I don't really care. Why should I?

A Whinge and a Wasted Joke.

This being the thirteenth post of the month, what should I write about? Another whinge? OK, another whinge. Today I added two more members of the corporate world to the gathering number who now decline to speak to me. 

 

First we'll  have an update on the local delivery office of Royal Mail. It was confirmed by a post lady I met in the town that her depot no longer takes telephone calls from the general public, in spite of the fact that it exists to serve ... the general public. I already suspected that.

The query I wanted to address concerned the non-delivery of this month's credit card statement from HSBC bank, so I set about trying to contact them. I called the number given on page 2 of last month's statement and set about the task. I was faced with very many hurdles and had to start again very many times, either because their instructions were unclear, or maybe I'd pressed the 8 key on the phone instead of the 9 key and my phone has no backspace to delete it. (It's easily done when you're more than a little stressed.) 

 

The pressing of number keys went on longer than I care to remember. Eventually, however, I reached the final hurdle which promised the prospect of being able to speak to a real human being (although it would probably have been a machine pretending to be human) about the nature of the problem. I was asked by the current machine (probably operating under a John the Baptist delusion) to state the nature of the query, which I did several times in as many different ways as I could think of.  The machine, however, was evidently unacquainted with my all-too-human logic. In the ended I simply said 'I would like to speak to someone.' Ah, now we have a response. I was told to press 1 for this type of query, 2 for that type, or 3 for the third type. None of them was remotely connected with my actual query, and that was the end of the matter. I gave up because there was no other option.

Maybe this accelerating decline in the ability to communicate in the time honoured manner with those who effectively run the cultures of the 'developed' world is happening everywhere. Maybe one day somebody in a position of power and influence will wake up and address the problem. Maybe Excalibur will rise again and King Arthur will return to rid the land of the techno bandits, but I doubt it.

And they weren't quite the end of today's glitches. The transport I had booked to bring me back from the grocery shopping was late turning up and I had frozen stuff in my bag. Hopefully it won't have defrosted enough to make me ill when I come to eat it.

But on a happier note, there's this:

I was going through Sainsbury's checkout when I saw a woman using a self-service till nearby turn and stare at me most pointedly. I questioned whether I recognised her; I didn't. And then she looked away. But then she repeated the long, pointed stare twice more, and my only guess to explain her strange degree of attention was that maybe she'd heard the opening conversation between me and the checkout operator and didn't like it.

'Are you all right for bags,' the operator asked. 'Yes, thanks,' I replied. 'I have two. I'm very well organised. I used to have a third but we got divorced.'

A Matter of Flexibility.

I was reading a short article earlier about a 78-year-old British woman who has lived in Sweden for the past twenty two years. She moved there with her husband, who has since died, and settled there, but now the bureaucrats and the government say she is no longer welcome because the UK is not a member of the European Union. I found my good opinion of Sweden and the Swedes fracturing a little when I read the piece, but I don't suppose I should. Rules are rules, after all, and bureaucrats will be bureaucrats wherever they may be unearthed.

And I think it likely that most Swedes would sympathise with her predicament and want her to be allowed to stay. She has friends there, and activities, and her husband's grave to visit and tend. Even some government ministers are given to expressions of understanding and sympathy, apparently, and are seeking to find a solution in the woman's favour. I have developed the impression that the Swedes are a caring and compassionate people, so maybe they will.

But of course, there remains the the primary argument. How can the the rules be applied to make an exception for one person and not the rest? Where should the line be drawn? The tyranny of the line is, after all, the bureaucrats' principle guide post. How can any system be properly managed without a line to lead the way or place the barrier in the correct position? I occasionally came up against this problem when I was a bureaucrat, and had to rely on ingenuity to make exceptions -- under the radar so to speak -- in deserving cases. (Surprisingly, I always got away with it.)

But maybe the answer in this case is simpler and above board. Why not simply enact a law which states something along the lines of:

If any person has made Sweden their main place of residence and one of their loved ones has died and been buried there, they may be allowed to remain for the purpose of tending their loved one's grave.

 

No doubt they would argue almost interminably about the definition of 'loved one', but with a little goodwill I expect they could manage it.

The Story Not Written.

I was listening to a Loreena McKennitt song on YouTube earlier when a most bittersweet fable began to play before me in realistic detail. It was truly 'bittersweet', being both intensely bitter and intensely sweet at the same time. It seemed to me that I should write it as a short story, but within seconds I decided that I absolutely must not. 

 

I've long suspected that giving expression to stories -- or other creative works -- can have the power to turn fable into fact, and such a fact as this I could not countenance. It would affect others as well as myself, you see. Those who know the great tragedy in the life of Gustav Mahler will know what I mean.

But then the opportunist in me asked: 'How about quoting just the last line in your blog?' That, too, was instantly dismissed because the five words which constituted the last line were the most powerful of all.

A Fault and a Fear.

You know, sometimes I'll be reading an old blog post and discover that I've used a wrong word. My brain's getting tired, you see, and it's a bit embarrassing. Since I can't speak any other language than English (a fact which causes me some consternation, regret, and even guilt occasionally,) I feel I owe it to myself to at least get my own language right. And I imagine some Swede, or Spaniard, or person from South Korea thinking: 'If this dimbo can't even write his own language properly, what's the point of reading anything he writes?' It can be quite chastening.

(It is a fact, of course, that certain good writers (like Virginia Woolf) do sometimes misuse a word deliberately because they feel it serves the sense of what they want to say better than a commonplace uttering which is more technically accurate. Even I've done it, and I'm no more than moderate in the matter of meaningful diction. But I don't make excuses when I've simply used the wrong word because what's the point of lying to yourself?)

 

*  *  *

I fear I might have to argue quite forcibly with a nurse at the GP surgery on Thursday. I don't like that because anyone who has been reading this blog over the past eight years will know that I venerate the nursing profession above all others. I can only hope she'll be one of those rare, hidebound ones who believe with religious zeal in the rightness of rules and resistance is useless. In that case it won't be any different than arguing with the wife.

A Dark Horizon.

I had three phone calls to make today: one to the community transport people, one to a taxi firm, and one to the local mail delivery office to find out whether and when they are likely to replace the village mail box which was trashed by a runaway tractor two weeks ago. That should have taken about ten minutes, right?

Very wrong. Glitch after glitch was the order of the day. I managed the community transport call on the third or fourth attempt. The taxi firm took seven or eight, spread over the day from about twelve o'clock to after five thirty. I needed the delivery office's website to get their phone number, but after struggling through  the slow, crotchety mess of irrelevant pages, no phone number was given. Those three calls or attempted calls effectively wasted the day.

The sad, simple fact is that today's experience was typical of a society cracking at the seams, courtesy of the bureaucracies, the corporate world, and the tech giants placing profit before service. People are becoming superfluous except as a largely invisible cash cow, as is the provision of personal contact while there are machines trained to pretend they're people.

 

And this isn't just one old curmudgeon being reactionary. I'm hearing the same complaint from people of all ages, apart from the very young who haven't known any better. So who should we rely on to correct this deteriorating state of affairs? The politicians? I hardly think so. It's a basic tenet of modern politics that they mustn't interfere with the workings of a free market economy. Mrs Thatcher said so and it became writ in stone. So who else? Nobody, as far as I can see. And as far as I can tell, the people of the Nordic countries are not suffering the same problem, or at least not to the same extent. Could this be because they kept hold of their mixed economies, the system which kept us largely content here before Mrs T cast her dark shadow over the land? The last life satisfaction survey I saw placed the five Nordic countries in the top six spots. The UK languished in 23rd, one behind the USA.

So here's the bottom line:

People reading this blog might suspect I have a death wish. I sort of do for the first hour or two of the day, but not for the rest. But if this situation continues to worsen, as I suspect it probably will, and if there's nobody willing to or capable of changing it, the only way out will be to die. Chilling, isn't it?

AWOL Goats and Other Bits.

I met three goats on the road today. 

 

Sounds like the beginning of a children's story, doesn't it, because unaccompanied goats aren't supposed to be on the road? Maybe I could write such a story, about how an old man meets three goats on a road (whether my three were Billies and whether they were gruff they didn't say) and a conversation ensues, mostly focusing on the fact that goats are not required to submit to formal education, and whether this is deleterious to their future prospects or not. This morning's encounter occasioned no such conversation, of course, but only some 'hellos', much stroking, and a little scratching of ears. And then I found their human to tell her that three of her charges had escaped, and she said 'Again?' It isn't the first time I've noticed that goats are unusually adept at escaping.

Around the corner to the farmhouse near the pub next, there to give much fuss to Molly the Collie, my current favourite dog. She's never pushy, you know. She waits until you call her and then comes to you with much squirming and tail wagging, which is all very splendid.

The oddest encounter came next when I spied a horse tethered to a hedge and grazing the fresh new growth that's appeared on the verges since the rain finally returned. She got much stroking of the neck until a voice with an unfamiliar accent warned me not to do that 'because she bites.' Well, I already had done that so it didn't matter. 

This afternoon I did more gardening than I intended to do. It left me with a stiff neck and feeling wasted.

Over and out.

Considering Wild Beauty.

A writer of travelogues or fiction might describe a landscape as having ‘a wild beauty.’ It’s a reasonable term, being mildly evocative, although rather hackneyed now. But what if the same turn of phrase were used to describe a woman, especially one you might encounter in unusual but entirely apposite circumstances? Would that make it less clichéd and therefore more acceptable?

I met one once, you see, when I was hiking along a path which followed the cliffs rising above the Irish Sea in south-west Wales. I’d been there earlier in the year, in June, when the hot sun shone, the sky was uniformly blue, the sea bluer, the cliff tops festooned with wild thrift so they resembled a cottage garden, and the slithering of adders could be heard as they escaped my approach. But this was not June; this was in the autumn of the year and the view was different. Might I say that it was wilder but not as beautiful?

The sky was as universally grey as it had been blue on the earlier occasion, the sea a nondescript colour approximating to brownish. The breeze was light and cool, the rain moderate, and there was neither a carpet of thrift nor the sound of adders in the now fading wild plants at the edges of the path.

A woman stood before me a little further along the path and remained motionless as I approached. My eyes were naturally fixed on her, since she was superfluous to the view and yet seemed oddly to belong there. The view of her became clearer as the distance lessened: a slim woman of apparently middle age dressed in what looked like a gown of some rough material. Her hair was long, wavy, thick, and appeared untended. Her face, however, was the stuff of which portrait painters might dream – perfectly formed and radiant, as though glowing without being obviously so. The term ‘wild beauty’, for all its commonplace vulgarity, would be entirely appropriate to the lady. And then she spoke to me in a language I didn’t understand. I assumed it was Welsh, but before I could apprise her of my ignorance, she said something in English:

‘You are the son of Lotte.’

I said nothing while I considered who Lotte might be. And then she said:

‘Careg Guinion.’

And then she faded and the dream ended.

It happened when I was young man and intrigued me more than a dream has a right to intrigue. I wondered why it was so clear. I wondered how I could know that the name Lotte (I heard Lottie) should be spelled that way. I was unaware of ever having heard the name. I gather the word ‘Careg’ means ‘rock’ or ‘island’ in Welsh. There are several rocky islands so named in that vicinity, but I couldn’t find one that preceded ‘Guinion’ on a map.

It still intrigues all these decades later, so if any Welsh speaker happens to read this post and can offer elucidation, I would be glad to hear it.

A New Song for August.

My walk this morning took me along Church Lane. The wind was stronger than a breeze, but not quite strong enough to be called a gale. (In spite of frequently finding pieces of arboreal debris littering the road surface. I hate seeing bits of tree dying on the cold black tarmac. I'm in the habit of picking them up and putting them onto the verges so they can go back to the land whence they came -- bit like rescuing earthworms, I suppose. Ah, the memories...)

Anyway, as I passed the creepy copse I was intrigued by a strange, consistent hiss coming from somewhere among the trees. I stopped and listened, attempting a solution to an unfamiliar sound. It stopped when the wind died for a few minutes, and then I realised that it was nothing unusual after all. It was but the rubbing together of old, dry leaves, a sound I've noted before as being characteristic of August, but in a new form.

A new song for August, no less. A change of key in the score to herald the movement that is autumn. And maybe nature offering a hint of the impending change in the climate.

More Fragments.

I was thinking deep thoughts about the human condition and the state of being this morning. (I don't know why I do it; I really don't.) I intended to write a blog post around the theme, but it became too deep, too complex, too wordy, and I wasn't in a Virginia Woolf mood, so I decided to stick with the bottom line: 'Why did the Universe decide to place an indivisible fragment of God mind into the body of an animal?'

And then I read a biography of Virginia Woolf and it depressed me.

After that I received my monthly electric bill from those nice people at E.ON, and that drove me to distraction. Not the bill itself, but what happened when I tried to pay it online. I wouldn't dream of relating all the details; suffice it to say that the online method is becoming slower, more crotchety, more irrational, more marketing-oriented, and evermore frustrating with each passing month. I'd like to call them (which isn't exactly easy in itself) and ask: Please may we go back to the old method? You send me a paper bill; I send you a cheque. I doubt it would do any good. The idiocracy is gaining ground everywhere it seems.

What is also likely to drive me to distraction is the whole day 'music festival' at the local pub planned for tomorrow. If I were to mention it to any of the locals I would no doubt be asked: 'Why? Don't you like music?' And then I would have to explain to them that music is closer to my heart than nearly everything else, which is why being forced to listen to music not of my choosing drives me to distraction.

 

This brings me back to what set off this morning's early thought process. It seems that 95% of people are under the misguided impression that 100% of people are basically the same in thought, attitude, and behaviour, with just a few minor differences here and there. What they don't seem to understand is that 5% of people -- and that doesn't include the rare few who are actually psychotic -- are very, very different and have a difficult life because of it. And so they call you a miserable old git and walk away.

A Change of Mind.

I intended to make a post in praise of Virginia Woolf's stream of consciousness writing. And then I intended to make a post about the problem of being without the internet for seven days, written in the style of Virginia Woolf (to my eternal shame.) And then I couldn't be bothered because the hour was getting late (which led me to make a connection with Bob Dylan's song All Along the Watchtower, and now I can't get the phrase -- or the song -- out of my head.)

 

Instead I'll just mention that I had two splendid dog fixes today, both with Cocker Spaniels. I'm particularly fond of Cocker Spaniels, and they seem to like me. All except Honourable Sister's one time companion Ivy, that is. She always barked at me, which was unusual and perplexing in equal measure.

And that brings me neatly to the main point of the post -- to repeat with some conviction that if I lived in a world populated exclusively by little girls who want to talk to me about the meaning of life, attractive women who like the way I think, and friendly dogs who want to be my very best friend for ever and ever, I think I would be content. It would, however, cause me to be terribly scared of dying and going to heaven where angels would no doubt patronise me. Hateful.

Suffering an Unwelcome Companion.

I have an invisible but highly irritating friend, you know. He doesn’t have a name, but he looks (to me only) and sounds like somebody I used to know and didn’t like very much.

He sits, or more usually stands, next to me if I’m playing a game of solitaire or free cell on the computer in between writing something, or watching a film or YouTube video accompanied by appropriate music. He interrupts me by telling me that there’s a red seven which can be transferred to that black eight over there, or maybe there’s a two at the bottom of a file and he has to tell me that I have the ace of that suit and the two belongs on it.

I know these things and tell him I know. He asks, rather mockingly, why I don’t do it then, and I tell him that I have my reasons. He asks what my reasons are, and it’s usually at that point that I lose patience with him and tell him to go away. He does so, sullenly, and then I pity him because rejection is not a nice thing to experience.

I’ve often asked myself who this highly irritating friend is and where he comes from. Is he a common psychological condition to which many people are prey, or could he be the product of another source? I favour the latter; I think he has something to do with my indoctrination by the officers of the Anglican Church to which I was in thrall as a child. I was often cautioned that God watches every one of us, constantly judging the rightness or wrongness of everything we did. It was a conviction I carried with me throughout my childhood until I began to see the branching roads of different possibilities when I was around age 12.

And maybe the analogy is not so far-fetched. Maybe the branching roads were but a plant growing in a woodland glade, and maybe the root that was the source of my conviction never died but rather developed in a different form. That’s my theory for what it’s worth.

And why am I writing this now? Because I’ve just been reading Virginia Woolf, why else? I imagine it’s the sort of thing she might have written, and maybe she did. I had to give up the book because I was falling asleep, and I discovered long ago that while reading tends to make me sleepy, writing usually has the opposite effect. And so it has, and now you know.

On Tales and Tails.

The short story I jotted while my internet was dark has now been posted at the stories site here. It's the first short story I've written for nearly six years, so maybe the farmer and his runaway tractor (for such was what caused the destruction and seven-day internet hiatus) produced one positive result after all.

 

*  *  *

 

I had to buy a new set of printer cartridges today and it cost me £75. The last time I made such a purchase it only cost me £39. And back in the day -- not so very long ago -- when I had a printer which was just a printer and not the modern multi-function type, I used to buy pirated ink cartridges for £5 each. They worked perfectly. I think somebody is making a lot of money somewhere.

 

*  *  *

But at least I got to stroke a lovely Labrador/Retriever  dog, and was reminded again that, for all the ills of the world, being approached by a dog with eyes which say 'will you be my friend please' (augmented by an active tail, of course) is still a substantial source of pleasure.

The Dark Time's Daily Journal.

What follows is the daily journal I wrote to give me something to do while my internet was down. It's probably slightly more interesting than watching paint dry, but only slightly. If you make it to the end you have my sincere respect. And now I'm back - for now.

*  *  *

Wednesday 26^th August

I’m writing this to give me something to do because I have no internet at the moment. More on that later.

Today has been troublesome. Upon waking I received another pestering text message from the GP surgery which annoyed me as they always do. This will have to be dealt with since I’ve had quite enough of dealing with medical matters to last me a lifetime. At about the same time a power cut began, the result of which was no breakfast, no early cup of tea, no later morning coffee, much worrying about how long the freezer contents will remain frozen, and no internet. (And therefore no news, no sports news, no emails to check, and no updates on YouTube.) I was due to get the transport to Ashbourne to do my weekly grocery shop, and the power returned just as I was leaving. But at least I got to see the Lady B for the first time in several months, or it would be more accurate to say that I got to see the Lady B’s car and a waving hand which it seemed natural to presume was attached to the Lady B.

The bus turned up a little late and so it was a rush to get everything done – which wasn’t much – in the town. I managed it and was ready for the return trip with about ten minutes to spare. I saw a person – hard to tell whether male or female – coming out of Sainsbury’s with a wheeled walking frame. I would say he or she was around fifty and somewhat disabled, as evidenced by the time it took to walk the forty feet or so from the doors to the benches opposite. He or she sat on the bench and began to eat an apple. Slowly. Deliberately. With head bowed. I found it a poignant sight, and wondered how a life should be lived when there’s little to do except get through it. The young woman of around nineteen or twenty walking briskly past with a child in a buggy painted a different picture.

And then the bus turned up with an incoming woman passenger onboard. This could be a very long story, so I’ll keep it brief. She didn’t seem to know what she was doing or what she wanted, whether through drink (as the driver maintained), drugs, medications, or some pathological mental disturbance, I wouldn’t know. There was no incident as such, but her confusion and indecision – and the need to take her home en route to taking me – meant that a fifteen minute exercise took fifty. And I’d still had nothing to eat or drink except half a glass of water. (And yes, I know I should be grateful for even that blessing.)

The best of today’s misfortunes, however, was yet to come. At 6.15 in the evening my internet dropped out. It does so frequently since I switched to British Telecom, so I reset the router. That usually works, but not this time. I tried it again with no result. It dawned on me that I was without internet, and naturally felt the need to talk to somebody in BT about the problem. I can’t do that now because, as previously reported, BT’s customer service line restricts access to customer service advisors exclusively to customers in proud possession of a smart phone. I am not such a case, being one of those small minded mortals who still think it possible to negotiate life armed only with a dumb phone. And so I used the automated fault reporting line. I received an automated reply advising me that there was an issue in my local area and they were working ‘really hard’ (note the word really) to rectify the situation, since they ‘know how important it is to stay connected.’ They expected to have me ‘back up and running’ by 1700 hrs on 4^th September. That’s nine days away. And that’s BT.

The internet is very important to me, you know. I would rather it weren’t, but it is. I can read a book, of course, but I find myself becoming a little restive after about twenty minutes and my eyes begin to get sore. TV and radio offer nothing of interest to me. I don’t do night time things like cinemas, theatres, restaurants, or pubs. I live alone and my only friend is my ex, Mel, and so I rarely get to talk to anybody. Chores like housework and gardening keep me busy at times, mostly during the day, but I can take only so much of those. The internet provides my music, my entertainment, multifarious subjects on which to muse, and occasionally information. My only – dare I say it – ‘creative’ pastime is my blog which depends entirely on the internet. Without it I’m all but lost.

So how do I change this sorry situation short of engaging some intelligent, personable, slightly neurodivergent young woman to keep me company and feed my insatiable curiosity regarding the female of the species? I can be quite sure there would be no takers, and so I must bear my lot with fortitude until the god of technology and the corporate world chooses to release me.

Thursday 27^th August,

This morning we had a thunderstorm in the Shire, accompanied by torrential rain. When the storm passed the rain became steady and quite heavy, and remained so for several hours. I went out for my usual walk anyway, duly protected by my trusty Mountain Warehouse raincoat with the hood up, and was treated to two interesting sights.

Two girls of around late teens were walking down The Hollow, the sunken lane which has received many a mention on this blog. One was wearing a raincoat with the hood up; the other was wearing what looked like a flimsy bodice-style garment, leaving her head, neck, shoulders, arms, and the top of her chest bare for all the world to see and all the rain to rain on. I’ve never seen a girl dressed quite so openly in the Shire even in dry weather, let alone heavy rain. I tried to think of something funny to say, but failed miserably and the moment was lost.

The second interesting sight came at the top of the lane on the area of grass which the locals call the village green. For as long as I’ve lived here it’s been home to the millennium oak tree which is growing rather grandly, the old, traditionally red public phone box which has probably been there for about a century but has latterly been de-commissioned and given over to a book exchange facility, the village mailbox, and the telecommunications cabinet which plays some pivotal role in directing the phone and internet signals from the lines to individual properties. The millennium oak is the only occupant still standing. The phone box and mailbox are missing altogether, and the cabinet is dented, scored, and leaning at a jaunty angle. And the road sign which says Bag Lane is flattened. Clearly something big and hard has crashed into everything, and credence must be given to this being why our internet is currently out of action and likely to stay that way for an unconscionable length of time. I’m not happy. And thunder is rolling around the heavens again as I write.

Finally, I made my difficult phone call to the doctor’s surgery today to tell them that I was unwilling to play their games, no matter how noble they might seem to most right-thinking people. (I’m not most people, you see.) I must have seemed a bit heavy at times to the poor receptionist, and so I eventually apologised to her since none of it was her fault. The fact that she was unruffled by my heaviness and equally unmoved by my apology impressed me.

Friday 28^th August

The Great Internet Famine continues into a third day. Another six days to go if BT’s prognosis proves accurate (which is unlikely, but we’ll see.)

I took a walk down to the site of the disaster in Bag Lane to see how the work was proceeding and maybe get a more realistic prognosis from the people doing the job. The road was marked as closed, but when I arrived at the workface there was no closure. There were also no workers. Maybe it was because it was raining, and maybe telecoms engineers don’t work in the rain. They are not, after all, farmers or deep sea fishermen.

I had a bill payment to post, but the mailbox which used to be next to the telecoms cabinet is no longer anywhere in sight. No doubt it is probably awaiting its final trip to a scrap metal pile at some foundry by now. Accordingly, I had to make a two mile round trip on foot to the next nearest mailbox on the other side of the Shire. It rained the whole way back.

(If this missive is going to make its first night appearance when the internet finally raises its curtain again, I doubt many people will read it to the end. But continue it must if I am to remain as sane as I usually am.)

The empty night time hours are growing longer now that the year’s end is beginning to whisper its impending presence, and I’m beginning to feel the need of a companion while the internet is sleeping. I’m also being reminded again of a parallel with the character of Dr Haynes from MR James’s story The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral. He, too, feels the need of a companion as the night time hours lengthen. His sister has decamped to the south of England where the air is kinder to her delicate condition, and the friend who came to stay for a short while has gone home. That’s when Dr Haynes begins to feel the incipient presence of something supernatural and unfriendly stalking his aged abode, and one morning he is found dead at the foot of the stairs. The cat is implicated, even though the house does not have a cat. Neither does mine. And so, like the good (or rather, bad) doctor, ‘I must be strong.’

Saturday 29^th August

So, how have I negotiated the third full day without my friend the internet?

With an ever present feeling of frustration, of course. Every time I come into my office I see my desktop image staring lifelessly at me from my computer monitor. I get a little jolt every time. I think to myself that even residual hauntings appear to have some purpose. A computer without an internet connection is but a darkened theatre stage between performances. I noted that we had thunder for a third consecutive day and wondered whether there was a meaningful coincidence involved. I also went to the demolition scene in Bag Lane again. Still nobody working there, but then BT did say that they are ‘working really hard to rectify the situation because we know how important it is to remain connected.’ (‘Fine worts, fine cabbage,’ as Sir John Falstaff quipped.)

On a brighter note, I’m using some of my excessive down time writing another short story. It’s a time slip story, and is the first I’ve written for several years. I’ve even been persuaded to engage in a minor piece of planning which I never usually do, but only insofar as plotting the birth and death dates of three generations of women so as to avoid a glaring plot hole. I hate plot holes. I’m also reading the third story in my new book – the complete short stories of Virginia Woolf. She had a splendid faculty for observing human characteristics and the dynamics of different social groups, and she was a fine crafter of words to boot. The latter, in particular, means that her stories are not only interesting, but even enjoyable to one such as me. Being an inveterate observer myself, I can well understand that she must have had a difficult life mentally, and am not at all surprised that she ended it on purpose in a river.

Sunday 30^th August

Dead Internet Day 4 of 9 (allegedly.)

I didn’t go around by Bag Lane today because I had a letter of complaint to send to BT and that took me in the opposite direction. Accordingly, I have no idea whether any work was underway at the crash site. And Mel reminded me tonight that tomorrow is a bank holiday in our little piece of Europe, and on such days it is customary to pay workers twice the usual rate. I don’t suppose BT are any more prepared to pay double wages than they are to look kindly on those to whom the internet has become an essential commodity, so I’m fairly sure that tomorrow will be another unproductive day and the wait will continue.

Apart from that, nothing of note happened today. I got a little gardening done when the rain stopped. And this journal is becoming quite the weighty tome.

Monday 31^st August

Dead internet day 5

Nothing of any note today except thinking about Plato and realising a rather strange fact: Human society has always been, and remains, ruled by stupid people committed to destroying, or at least nullifying, those who say sensible things. It appears patently obvious that there is no place for wisdom in politics, only opportunism.

The new short story is proceeding and now has a name. It’s called Time After Time. If it does get finished, and if ever I get my internet restored, I’ll post it on the blog stories site.

 

Tuesday 1st September

 

I walked to the crash site again this morning and found a gang of engineers replacing the wrecked cabinet. My internet came back - a little tentatively - at 1430. Hurrah.

A Slight Change of Emphasis.

I'm endeavouring to see Donald Trump differently. He remains as undesirable as ever as he lumbers around farting his rancid, overblown ego into the face of anyone who disobeys or disagrees with him, but I'm trying to see him as a phenomenon.

I tell myself, you see, that I'm letting myself down by ignoring his ignorant and ignoble approach to the rest of humanity. I've long held the view that my role in this life is to observe and learn, and you can't do that by judging too harshly. So I should try hard to see D Trump as an Interesting Phenomenon.

 

I tell myself that he's probably mentally ill, and I tell myself that he usually fails in the end despite the bluster, lies, and empty rhetoric, and I tell myself that he will die one day anyway because everybody does. It helps a bit.

A Reason to Feel Uncomfortable.

I often emphasised during the early years of writing this blog how much I wanted to stay in this locality. It’s set in the southern foothills of the Pennine massif as they gradually give way to the flat land of the Trent valley to the south. It’s a patchwork vista of trees, copses, bigger woods, hedgerows, pasture land, plough land, hay meadows, low hills, and a river valley. As such, it’s not so rugged as to make life tough, and not so flat as to make it tedious. It’s as near perfect as you could wish and a delight to the senses. The problem with living here is not the location, but the house I live in.

It’s not particularly old by European standards – a little over 100 years and therefore Edwardian – but it has a lot of shortcomings which make it uncomfortable at times, especially during high winds, heavy rain, and in the winter. Such difficulties I’ve largely learned to live with and accept for the benefit bestowed by the wider environment, but I’ve often been led to wonder whether there’s a more speculative issue in play.

In common with the style of the Edwardian period, there’s no hallway at the bottom of the stairs. Instead, the stairs are accessed from the living room, and there’s a door at the bottom of them which can be closed in the winter to stop the heat from an open fire escaping upstairs. What I found odd when I first moved here was that the door to the stairs had a bolt fitted on the living room side, the purpose of which could only be to stop somebody upstairs from coming downstairs. That has something of a mad-woman-in-the-attic feel about it, I would say, and I was led to wonder whether there was something dark in the history of the house.

And there have been occasions when I’ve woken up in the early hours and felt a presence in the bedroom. Sometimes I’ve even fancied I could see a figure, slightly darker than the darkness, standing in the corner of the room. I realise, of course, that this can be put down to a simple mental aberration and I’ve always been able to go back to sleep easily enough.

But what about those times when I’ve woken in the night feeling chilled, even when there seems to be no reason for it? It happened again last night. I awoke feeling chilled, and when I moved my legs the sheets were icy cold. And this was on a mild night in August with the temperature perfectly normal for the time of year. I woke up again later and the bed was warm again.

More latterly I’ve been more concerned about my waking state. I feel utterly exhausted both physically and mentally nearly every morning when I wake up. My legs struggle to carry me weakly to the door, and my mental state is all for giving up on this life. It improves to some extent as the day wears on, but it has begun to have me wondering whether some vampiric entity is draining my life force at night. Naturally I’m inclined to dismiss such a speculative suggestion, but times are changing and perceptions of reality are changing with it. The fact that a range of health conditions began shortly after moving here may be put down to the simple matter of ageing.

Put all these factors together, however, and it should come as no surprise that I don’t feel entirely comfortable here. I wonder whether houses and other buildings really do have a genius loci, and whether the one attached to this place doesn’t like me for some reason. Or maybe it’s a previous tenant who’s reluctant to move on and objects to being invaded. Or maybe I’m simply being fanciful and overly imaginative. My nature has always been a little strange, no matter how hard I’ve tried to hide it.

So should I tolerate it or seek to move? Well, moving house requires a lot of time, trouble, and effort, and I would find it more than merely difficult to raise the will and energy to do so. If I had a partner to share the load it would probably be feasible, but since I don’t the answer should be obvious.

Nonsense for the Sake of It.

Flowers will be blooming in Sydney today.

I wanted to post that because it reminded me of an old Brit TV show called Candid Camera, in which silly scenarios were visited on unsuspecting members of the public while a hidden camera looked on. I think they still produce such a programme, but with a different name. The only one I remember had a man sidling furtively up to a shopper and saying quietly: 'Is the Count eating kippers with your mother-in-law tonight?'

I tried it in a branch of Argos once, at a time when they followed the practice of asking you for a password before they'd give you the goods. The assistant at the counter didn't smile one inch, but frowned and said: 'I'm sorry?' Different generation, I suppose. And when I related the fact on an early blog post, somebody commented: 'What are kippers?' That was when I realised that the joke was all but lost.

I did half of the toughest job in the garden today. When I finished it, my energy level had achieved a negative value. Such a situation can be quite alarming, yet here I still am. 

And then my daily daydream broke forth. I was speaking French fluently and rescuing an elderly lady, whose English was inadequate, from a false accusation of shoplifting in Sainsbury's. It reminded us both of something from a M Hulot film and we both giggled. I can be quite a nice guy in daydreams, you know. I can.

Tit for Tat.

It occurred to me today that it would be amusing if Canada acceded to Mr Trump's invitation to become the 51st state, and then waited until the next 4th July to issue a Declaration of Independence.

Another Little Coincidence.

According to one of my stats trackers I had a visit today from the District of Columbia. It appears I get lots of visits from lots of American states, but DC isn't even a state, is it? As I understand it, it's effectively just the city of Washington. And who lives in Washington when he isn't sunning himself in his back yard in Florida? If I spy a black limo parked by the little grassy triangle down the lane, or a couple of plastic-looking men eyeing up the house and environs, I'll let you know.

But that isn't the coincidence. The coincidence is that when I looked at today's page view count up to that point, it gave 1776. Where on earth is Mr Jung when you need him?

What Dreams May Come...

I was picked up early in the evening by a friend of mine and taken to a place out in the countryside which I'd visited during my years as a revenue inspector. But this was no belated, official visit, but the opportunity to go to a party.

It was held in a large, shed-like structure fully kitted out with tables and chairs, bright lights, a bar, and even toilet facilities. The music was loud and and the place full of revellers, and I spent my time in my usual way -- observing the multitude, sometimes from the side of the room and sometimes in the midst of the throng, and exchanging the odd pleasantry here and there.

It went on for several hours until the outer door opened and three or four young women entered. The room went quiet and we were told by the newcomers that the party was over and they'd been engaged to clean up the place. I looked for my friend who had brought me there, but he was nowhere to be found. He'd obviously left earlier and forgotten about me. I knew I would have to walk home and began the trek.

The lane ran downhill to a dip where water had gathered to form a shallow pond due to heavy rain, and I was forced to walk through it. As I began to continue uphill on the other side I became suddenly aware of a profound stillness which arrested my progress. No sound of wind and no perception of either temperature or my own tiredness. And then I opened my eyes and discovered that I was lying in my own bed in the dim light of early morning. For a second I felt mildly shocked, since the recollection of the party and the rational, hours-long process was fresh in my mind. I soon realised, of course, that it had all been a dream.

But was it merely a dream? If so, it was of a most unusual kind, so unusual that I would call it unique. It went on far, far longer than dreams usually do, and it was all totally realistic and lacking the fractured logic normally present in the recollection of dreams. So what should I make of it? A dream or some sort of shift into a different reality? Now that such and similar possibilities are being given credence by a few on the fringes of mainstream science, you have to wonder.

I decided not to expend too much time on wondering, but instead feeling grateful that at least my feet were not cold and wet courtesy of a reluctant walk through a shallow pond.