I'm All Right, Jack.

I read this morning that, a few months ago, a plane due to carry Donald Trump and the usual hangers-on to a meeting in Iran was delayed. This was to allow Trump to be smuggled secretly off the plane because there was credible evidence that Iran was planning to attack it. It said that Trump was transported incognito in a service vehicle to another plane and completed the trip. Although the article didn't explicitly say so, the natural presumption must be that the original plane then completed its journey once the President was clear.

If that was the case, it would surely mean that the original plane would have flown into the 'credible' danger still containing the captain, co-pilots, cabin crew, politicians, diplomats, and journalists. Isn't there a serious, but unasked, ethical question here?

A Very Short Note.

There's an awful lot of anti-Trump invective doing the rounds of the internet these days, and yet I don't see anybody talking about 2028. If Trump hasn't been committed to an asylum or six feet of good American earth by then, I can't see him going quietly. For the sake of all good Americans - and I know there are plenty of them - I do hope contingency plans are being made behind the scenes.

Noting the Lunar Graveyard.

I've mentioned the waning crescent moon and its sickly aspect before on this blog. At the moment it's in the north-eastern sky when I go to bed at around 2.30, and it looks as though it's about to utter the death rattle. I regarded it through the bathroom window last night and a thought occurred to me. 

If I'd been the tribal wise person in a group of hunter/gatherers during less complicated times, I probably would have advised my flock not to walk in a north-easterly direction at night because that's where moons go to die.

The Brit Priority.

One of the YouTube channels I regularly watch is called Lauren the Mortician. It's run by a woman called Lauren who is a mortician. She's American - from somewhere in the Midwest, I think - and her channel covers the whole process of death from the effects of crashing on a motorbike to spirits haunting the corridors of the funeral home for a few hours after decease. It's all fairly light-hearted and even funny in parts.

But at the end of her videos she usually brings her French Bulldog (called Mango) into the act. Mango is very boisterous, squirms an awful lot, and licks the Lady Lauren furiously around the chin and mouth. Lauren refers to the whole process as 'mango kisses.' I would call it something else, which is why I dropped a comment on a recent post, praising her personality, humour, commentary skills, and storytelling, and finished with an opinion that when it comes to her turn to be laid out on the mortuary table, her embalmer will probably have difficulty washing all the dog spit off her chin. She hasn't replied.

Expletive Accepted.

Being a natural student of the English language, I often wonder where our expletives came from, and also how they've progressed in terms of strength and commonality of use down the years.

When I was a boy the expletive 'bloody' was considered reasonably serious, and any child using it would have been soundly reprimanded. But it became less serious over the following few years, and when my young nephew attended a wedding and exclaimed loudly about one of the guests: 'Look at that bloody hat!' everyone thought it was funny. The f-word is the current serious one, of course, but even that is now becoming very nearly acceptable and used at all levels of society.

What caused me to think about this was wondering how the word 'blasted' became a mild expletive - as in if he does that again I'll box his blasted ears or you're a blasted nuisance, boy. I wonder whether it came from Macbeth's question to the witches: Why do you stop our way upon this blasted heath? I don't suppose I'll ever know.

A Modern and Mathematical Issue.

Because I live in a rented house I had to submit to a four hour check on the whole electrical system recently. The electrician found one issue: my bathroom had a standard pendant light fitting on the ceiling – you know, the simple sort into which you screw a new bulb when the old one blows. Apparently, this is now frowned upon and deemed to be unsafe, so today I had to have a new light fitting mounted in its place.

I went to have a look at it after the electrician had finished because it was completely unfamiliar in design and I wanted to know how to change the bulb.

‘It doesn’t use a bulb,’ said the expert. ‘It has an LCD panel permanently fitted.’

‘So how do I change the panel when the old one blows?’

‘You don’t. You have to have a complete new unit.’

‘Sounds expensive.’

‘It is.’

‘In that case, how long should the LCD panel last?’

‘I believe it’s about 10,000 hours.’ he replied confidently.

Right, so now let’s do the sums:

I estimated that the light in the bathroom is on, year round, for about 20 minutes a day – less in the long days of summer and more in the short, dark days of winter. So 20 mins a day equals an hour every three days. That’s step #1. Now for the calculation.

How many periods of three days are there in a year? Let’s call it 120 for simplicity. So the light is on for 120 hours per year. Is that correct? (I think so. I used to find that kind of thing very easy but my brain is older than it used to be.) Now for the big one. Let’s get the calculator so my brain doesn’t melt.

10,000 ÷ 120 = 83 years.

That seems an awfully long time to me, but if it’s correct I needn’t worry too much because it will see me out by a long way. Then again, the electrician might have been guessing. And if my logic is faulty, please, please, somebody tell me.

But now for the real problem. All the bulbs in my house are Warm White in colour temperature. The one in the new fitting is Daylight and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it. And what it means is this. Since my eyes are accustomed to Warm White, when I go into the bathroom and switch on the light, every white surface – and there are a lot of them – appears pale blue. To an ex-photographer who is very sensitive to colour, that’s irritating.

Wilding the Shire With Yellow.

We have a re-wilding programme in the UK through which farmers are paid a subsidy to give part of their cornfields over to the sowing of wild plants. Two of the fields in Church Lane, at the dip below the landlord's mansion, have been so treated. (That's where the huge Copper Beech tree stands, the one under which I've requested that my ashes be scattered when I'm gone. There's a very fond memory attached to that spot, you see, and it will be a pleasant place for my ghost to say 'boo' to unsuspecting passers by. I might even whisper their names if I happen to know them.) 

 

In previous years the predominant colour of the flowers growing there has been blue, and blue is beginning to show itself again this year. But this year we have a treat. Rising above the wild plants are a number of golden yellow sunflowers. I assume certain insects and birds must be partial to sunflower seeds, but to us mere mortals they simply provide a feast for the eyes.

A Brief Note on Defining Value.

I was thinking again this morning about the fact that money doesn't actually exist; it's just a theoretical exchange mechanism which relies solely on consensus and trust to establish its apparent validity. And then it occurred to me that a far more 'concrete' form of currency is gold because gold is at least solid. People covet gold because it's so valuable, but gold is only valuable because people covet it. An ingot of gold is actually just a lump of metal. Don't we humans have some very silly ways of doing things? (And then it occurred to me that the most valuable commodity on earth is clean water which falls freely from the sky. And some people accumulate monetary wealth by being in the business of supplying it. Capitalism disappearing up its own fundament?)

Adding to the Knowledge Base.

As a result of discovering a spider trapped in my kitchen sink this morning -- and being subsequently rescued by me, of course -- I discovered something interesting. Spider silk is remarkably resistant to water pressure.

Fancy getting to my age without discovering that little gem, so many thanks to the arachnid in my kitchen. (And does this go some way to vindicating the old maxim that your enemy is your greatest teacher?)

The Problem With Imagination.

I went into my bathroom tonight and was suddenly beset by a vivid flash of imagination. Something was in my house and approaching me – something which the most extremely speculative reasoning couldn’t possibly account for; something which clearly had no right to be there. It was surprisingly scary, especially since it allowed the possibility of a repeat encounter.

I considered whether I should write it down as a piece of fiction since it had a commendable hint of Murakami about it. But you see, all the scary stuff I wrote during my period of writing scary stuff never scared me. Why would it? My imagination was, after all, just having fun. This wasn’t fun, so I probably won’t.