Cats' Eyes.

I made friends with a young husky today and noticed how intense his eyes were. They reminded me of cats’ eyes. I’d never noticed that of huskies before.

(The woman accompanying the dog, an elderly lady in a cheap woolly hat, smiled and told me: 'He's actually my son's dog, but the courts sent him away.' I assume they had a reason, and the euphemism was appreciated.)

There’s a pretty impressive cat in the following video. A big one with eyes that are wild, soulful and hypnotic. As for the women, well…

I’ve had 4-5 hours sleep every night for the past three weeks, courtesy of much disturbance. Blog posts aren’t coming easy, therefore, so do excuse yet another music video. It’s nice.

Grey Humour and Rejecting Pollution.

You know how much contempt I feel for the plethora of themed TV shows which swamp the airways and provide solace to the woolly-headed ones? Well, my current pet hate is the Isn’t Life Funny genre in which they show private webcams of kids falling over and crying while the canned laughter machine swells fit to burst. The latest trend is to film animals – you know, things like cats falling off walls – and putting them out under the title of Cats Do the Funniest Things.

The problem with these shows is that they’re fraudulent, being mostly about as funny as spending a wet February weekend in a cheap Morecombe guest house with your flatulent mother-in-law while the elements conspire to deny you any hope of escape.

And YouTube is full of them. They usually have an intro which includes the instruction: ‘try not to laugh.’ Do we need to?

*  *  *

I signed two anti-Trump petitions today (one being: We don’t want Trump coming over here. We’re happy to welcome Syrian refugees, but Trump is a dozen steps too far. It’s already got enough signatories to ensure a debate in Parliament.)

When I was a cub scout I was told that we should try to do at least one good deed every day. Mine is in the bag for today.

Suggesting a Fine Solution.

I don’t understand why Trump is closing the USA to Syrian refugees. Why is he failing to see an obvious opportunity here? Why is he not acting true to form for once? Surely he should be grabbing as many as care to come in and then sending them off to newly-revived cotton plantations in the south.

What a glorious new dawn that would be for an old American tradition. What a splendid opportunity for a few enterprising white folks to get rich and enjoy a level of luxury unparalleled since the Civil War. What a boon it would be for the American economy, and what a salutary example of how to put America first.

What are you waiting for, Mr T? Why are you faltering? You’re already trashing America’s reputation among the decent folks in the world, so why stop at half measures? That’s not your way, surely.

Mid-Atlantic Suspicions.

There’s something rotten in the state of mid-Atlantic. First we had Trump’s love affair with Putin, then we had Trump somehow managing to get elected US President, and now we have Trump holding hands with Theresa May.

And don’t forget that there was something distinctly suspicious about the way Mrs May got the job of British PM in the first place (I wrote about it at the time.) I think I should give serious consideration to climbing off the fence and becoming a conspiracy theorist.

Chicken or Egg?

Have you ever noticed that when the advertisers are trying to sell you on the idea of buying an insurance policy from the Trustus Insurance Company, they use a scenario in which a terminally naïve young couple go all doe-eyed while basking in the glow emanating from a friendly-but-authoritative man, usually in his late thirties or early forties, wearing a dark suit (usually blue), a white shirt and a tie that is at least discreet if not positively sombre? Oh, and his hair looks like it was created using waste polystyrene in the Disney prosthetic workshop.

Why do they do that? Don’t they realise that anybody with an IQ in double figures or above is instinctively mistrustful of men with artificially smart hair who strike a pose in dark suits, white shirts and discreet ties? They look like estate agents, for heavens sake.

It makes you wonder which came first: the ad man or the idiot.

Wishing for Good Riddance.

Preparatory to her visit with Donald Trump tomorrow, Theresa May says that ‘… together, the UK and US can lead the world again.’ This is typical politician speak – childish, disingenuous, populist waffle. It’s the tabloid mentality at work in the corridors of power.

She also says that she intends to ‘renew the special relationship’ between the two countries. Well, there’s nothing wrong with that in principle, but principles are in short supply at the moment. Just at the point where the rest of the world should be distancing itself from Trump and everything he stands for (like ‘waterboarding is a damn fine thing’), Mrs May is threatening to bring him closer. So what’s going on with our Prime Minister? Is she just appealing to the lowest common denominator as politicians are wont to do, or do we have another poodle in the family? What is to become of us Brits while Mrs M is contentedly settled in Donald’s lap?

Meanwhile, there have been protests in Australia against the celebrating of Australia Day on 26^th January because of the date’s association with the subjugation and abuse of indigenous peoples. Any decent thinking person should at least respect such a view because the principle involved is the same as that which has made the N word rightly so loathsome. Australia’s Deputy PM has responded, however, by saying that the protesters should ‘crawl under a rock and hide.’ You crawl first, Mr Joyce, and we’ll be right behind you…

I wonder how the building of the B Ark is coming on. If we get all the world’s political leaders together (with the odd rare exception) we should be able to fill it in a day, and then homo sapiens can have another shot at growing up. After all, if you have diseased wood at the top of a shrub you prune it out to save the plant.

Odd Encounters and the Origin of Tiffin.

As I approached the cashier in the discount store today it became obvious that she stood out from the rest.

‘You’re not a typical P******** employee,’ I ventured.

‘Aren’t I?’ she replied.

‘No. Is this job temporary?’

‘I don’t expect to stay here very long.’

‘I’d say you have a degree.’

‘Two actually.’

‘Well there you are.’

Oddly, she didn’t ask how I knew. I didn’t, of course, it’s just that when you’ve eschewed the normal human imperative to connect with people and followed a course of incessant observation instead, you can tell quite a lot about a person before you’ve even spoken to them. So much is revealed by the eyes, the set of the mouth, their body language and their general bearing. This young woman appeared affable, relaxed, confident, and eminently capable of holding an easy, intelligent conversation, so guessing she had a degree was most unlikely to be wrong given her age and the ways of the times. She smiled throughout the transaction, and it was a genuine smile.

*  *  *

The couple in the coffee shop were very different. I was standing in the queue at the counter when I heard a piping woman’s voice from my left.

‘... and get me a piece of Belgian chocolate tiffin.’

The man to my right, who was ahead of me in the queue, was tall, angular, and had an odd sort of bearing which I won’t even try to describe.

‘What?’ he replied.

‘A piece of Belgian chocolate tiffin.’

‘A piece of what?’

‘Belgian chocolate tiffin!’

‘Belgian chocolate what?’

At that point I had to intervene:

‘Tiffin,’ I repeated with contrived authority. ‘It comes originally from the term for afternoon tea during the British Raj in India.’

He said nothing, but stared at me for longer than seemed normal in the circumstances. A piping voice, rendered louder and more strident through evident frustration, assailed my left ear again:

‘A PIECE OF BELGIAN CHOCOLATE TIFFIN!’

‘Alright, alright, there’s no need to shout. The gentleman just told me what you said.’

And that was just one of many odd encounters which kept tapping me on the shoulder in Ashbourne today, mostly involving men. (Oh, apart from the elderly woman with a walking frame who pushed me aside at the coffee shop counter so that she could reach out and touch the charity donations box placed there. ‘Are you looking for something?’ I asked. Her reply was quiet and totally incomprehensible, and then she left at a pace rather less than leisurely.)

Keeping Us in the Slime

I watched a documentary tonight on the rise and development of racial prejudice and hostility in the southern US. It was depressing as hell.

The leader of one of the many white supremacist groups said that the United States is not a nation, but a multi-cultural muddle which has no national identity. He also said that he believes in re-establishing official segregation because that’s the normal way for human society to operate. The imperative of separateness is in our blood, apparently, and shows no sign of changing

In a way he’s right, but what he seems to have failed to notice is that it’s people like him who are blocking human evolution, preventing it from growing out of a state of fear, suspicion and conflict and progressing to one of wholesome tolerance and integration. That’s why separateness remains in our blood. It isn’t set in stone; we can grow up if we want to.

It’s a classic case of self-fulfilling prophecy – coming from a state of prejudice and trying to justify it with a show of fallacious logic. And those equally prejudiced listen to him and feel vindicated and empowered and so the misery goes on.

It was also interesting to note that although Trump was never mentioned, many of the attitudes which gave rise to the Ku Klux Klan bore chilling similarities to the attitude and pronouncements of the man now holding court in the White House. America, what have you done?

And I wish I could find something funny to say for a change. One day, maybe.

Impressed by Another Emily.

The sort of disturbance which only a fellow HSP would understand continues to block out the sun and put a dampener on the writing bug. Nevertheless, I've got into the habit of watching re-runs of Wallander - an emotionally-charged detective drama set in Sweden and starring Kenneth Branagh - every Saturday night and never cease to be wowed by the music used for the title sequence.

So I Googled 'Wallander music' and tracked the singer down to this video. It's the best musical discovery I've made in years (and the TV show is pretty good, too... and it's probably better that I post a piece of music than post nothing. I think.)

A President Missing the Point.

I see that Israel has given approval for hundreds of homes to be built in occupied East Jerusalem as a result of the pro-Israeli Trump taking office. ‘Now we can build,’ they are crowing triumphantly, and the Palestinians face yet more abuse and humiliation.

You know, when Trump talks about defeating terrorism he seems to be missing a fundamental point (as you would expect of such a man, I suppose.) Doesn’t he realise that he is conniving in the very actions that spawn terrorism in the first place? And if Israel’s bullying behaviour in occupied Palestinian territory does produce a terrorist outrage, and Americans do get killed or have their limbs blown away, I hope that the citizens of the US will have the good sense to lay the first level of blame firmly at the steps of the White House.

 

Edited to add - May 2024

 

Gaza.