At the Tipping Point.

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

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

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

Changing Spots and Things.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Trying to Run Before Learning to Walk.

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

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

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

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

Taking our Language Back.

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

‘Who says so?’

‘The Americans do.’

‘Quite.’

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

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

Technicolor Shire and the French Non-Connection.

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

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

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

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

*  *  *

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

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

Mixed Fortunes.

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

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

*  *  *

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

*  *  *

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

The garden requires my attention.

America Today.

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

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

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

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

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

A Minor Ramble.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bye for now.

Damned by Our Own DNA.

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

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

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

*  *  *

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

The Problem With Winning.

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

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

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