On Trump and the Matter of Colour.

Once upon a time I decided to leave Trump off the blogger radar. I felt he just wasn’t worth it and I was going to stop wasting my time on him. But now I’m intrigued by the latest headline of him asking a question about Kamala Harris: ‘Is she Indian or is she black?’ For some reason, he seems to think it matters, either to him or to his fellow Americans.

You see, I seem to recall that not long ago he was promising to ‘bring America together’ (I think it was shortly after he made that supremely fatuous remark about having ‘taken a bullet for democracy’), yet here is now playing the racist card. And what intrigues me is the effect this will have on ‘middle America’ – all those people we in the UK refer to as floating voters, people who have no regular political affiliation and make their decision at the end of the line.

I’m sure Trump’s remark will go down well with his loyal band of brothers, but that’s just preaching to the converted. And the true blues will probably be outraged, but that doesn’t matter either because their Democrat vote is already safe. But what about the don’t knows? Given the rules regarding Presidential nominations, it must be evident that Ms Harris was born in America. And it’s also evident that, apart from full blood Native Americans, nobody else’s ancestors came from America either if you go back just a relatively small number of generations. Will the don’t knows realise that and say ‘what the hell’, and pass it off as an ignorant rant by a man hardly qualified to run a hot dog stall?

Maybe I’ll never find out (although November should give some indication), but I am hoping that the opinion pollsters will take this matter up and the result will make the UK media. I’m guessing that it will make a difference and Trump might have shot himself in the foot this time, but that might just be wishful thinking.

On Pressures and the Paucity of Passerines.

I remember mentioning in a post a few years ago that a woman had told me about her daughter’s high school where 50% of the pupils were taking anti-stress medication.

I’ve long been interested in this apparent epidemic of mental health issues. Some say that there is no epidemic; it’s simply a matter of us being more aware of mental health. Others argue that the mental health of the nation really is deteriorating to an alarming degree, and I’m inclined to agree because I think we’re seeing the signs of it in the cracking of British culture. So I naturally ask myself: who’s to blame? And I’m tempted to conclude that a major aspect of fault lies with an alliance of the medical establishment and the politicians.

We’re constantly bombarded these days with ‘advice’ (for which read ‘surreptitious instruction’) on matters of diet, exercise, vigilance, and so on. We’re constantly being told that that we must eat five of these vegetables every day, that we must drink this much water every day (apparently ignoring the water we get from tea, coffee, milk, breakfast juice, fruit, vegetables, potatoes, and so on. How is one supposed to know, for example, how much water there is in a 12oz baked potato?) We must restrict our daily consumption of salt/sugar/calories/saturated fat etc to a prescribed number of grams, because if we don’t, the daily round will be made miserable and our lives substantially truncated

And then there’s the question of exercise. People under 50 must do so much of this form of exercise every week. If you’re over 50 the numbers change. If you’re over 60 you must stop doing this and do that instead. And if you’re over 70, gardening is no longer beneficial. You must do strengthening exercise instead in order to maintain muscle mass. (This is to prevent you from falling over... seriously!)

The information screen in the GP’s waiting area is crammed full of this kind of thing, and plenty more besides. It even includes a detailed exam to ensure that all these facts and figures are now learned by heart and will be acted upon. We must carry a calculator at all times, noting the nature, weight, and composition of everything we consume and reading every label assiduously.

The latest example has now appeared in the men’s toilet in my local Tesco store. Above each urinal is a notice telling each man who is just in for a pee, y’understand (quoting Billy Connolly) to check their… erm… discharge for signs of cancer. What on earth will they think of next?

Of course it’s good to eat a well balanced diet and to maintain a reasonable level of exercise. But to achieve that end it would be necessary to rein back the amount of advertising put out by manufacturers of ultra high processed and other junk food, not to mention the innumerable retail outlets selling it.

(Can you imagine the politicians allowing that, except to a limited degree in order to save face by pretending to be on the side of fitness and good health? Hardly. The purveyors of unhealthy comestibles form a major part of the free market philosophy on which we’re all now dependent. They can’t be interfered with too much or the government wouldn’t be free to witter on about economic growth and congratulate themselves in the process.)

And so the constant pressure of facts and figures and general scare tactics will continue and probably get worse, and it’s my view that the constant, pernicious descent into mild paranoia is probably a major factor in the development of mental health issues.

I could go on, but it would lead into other areas and become yet another tedious rant, so I’ll mention a couple of totally unrelated items of personal interest instead:

1. I’ve seen hardly any birds in my garden over the past two days of warm weather. Even the wood pigeons and jackdaws, which normally assail the feeding tables so voraciously, have been almost entirely absent. And most interestingly of all, I’ve seen no sparrows – normally the most numerous of the many species – all summer. That’s very unusual.

2. I saw the first of the blackberries in the hedgerows ripening today. That’s about the only nice thing I have to say. Sorry.

On Politicians and Selective Blindness.

I was just reading about the horrific incident in Southport in which a 17-year-old boy attacked a group of children with a knife. The children were aged between six and ten. At least two of them are dead and several more are seriously injured. The politicians, as usual, take no responsibility for this appalling state of affairs. They offer their ‘sympathy, condolences and prayers’ to the families of the victims, and that’s all.

This sort of thing never used to happen, but it’s becoming ever more frequent now. Knife attacks on innocent – usually young – victims are becoming almost routine. It was part of the reason why I asked a question before the last General Election, and I ask it again now:

Why do politicians witter on about economic growth and the iniquity of budget deficits – and all those other pecuniary concerns which are deemed to be of paramount importance in a free market economy, and which are mostly aimed at benefiting the rich and the reasonably well off – while British culture at grass roots level is cracking to an uncomfortable and dangerous degree?

There are many angles and outcomes to this issue – senseless murders and burgeoning mental health issues to name just two – and the politicians are ignoring the problem because they seem to think it has nothing to do with them.

Sorry politicians; you might think you have the Nelson touch when you put your telescopes to blind eyes, but this is a different situation. It does have something to do with you because you’re the ones entrusted to guide the culture along safe, sustainable, and reasonably egalitarian lines. If you continue to ignore your culpability, this general breakdown of cultural standards and behaviour will likely get worse, and then your sympathy, condolences and prayers will be utterly worthless. In fact, they already are.

On Bats and Their Relevance to Bladders.

I was watching a pair of bats flying around the side of my house at twilight this evening when I noticed something small and round ascending slowly through their flight path. It soon became obvious that it was a spider climbing a length of spider silk and heading for an old TV aerial still attached to the wall at about half the height of the sloping roof. When the spider reached the aerial, it walked along the top until it disappeared from view. At no time did the bats attempt to catch and eat it.

And then the questions came flooding in: Do bats not eat spiders? If not, why not? Do some bats eat spiders, while other bats don’t? Do bats generally eat some sorts of spiders, but not other sorts? Should I consider investigating this question, and if so, how? Do I really want to know this? Do I really need to know this? If I do investigate, will that make me an anorak? If I don’t, will it carry the unwelcome whiff of either laziness or apathy?

This is all to do with having an enquiring mind, you see, and I came to the conclusion that having an enquiring mind is not dissimilar to having a full bladder. They both become uncomfortable when they’re stretched to the limit. So what to do about it?

Well, it seems to me that there are two ways of dealing with a full bladder: you can either empty it or you can stop drinking so it never gets full. The same is, therefore, true of an enquiring mind: I can either stop asking questions or I can write them up as a blog post. I chose the latter. Bye.

A Malfunctioning Machine and Losing Ms M.

Today was my six monthly dentist visit and it proved to be a bit of a trial.

Problem number 1: The first thing that happens when I go to my dentist is that the receptionist gives me a form to fill in. It’s all to do with having a record of health issues, medications, allergies, and so on. And until now it’s always been a paper form. Today I was given a tablet (the computer variety, as you’ve probably guessed.)

I’ve never used a tablet in my life because my entire computer experience has been limited to a desktop with a mouse. I’ve only ever seen tablets at short distances across the aisles of railway carriages or on adjoining tables in coffee shops. (‘Oh look: must be one of those tablet things. I wonder how you make things move without a mouse and a pointer.’ You get the picture.) Furthermore, the dear old tablet was mildly deficient in its functionality. (Modern times, modern technology, you know?)

The upshot of all this was that I had to make several visits to reception in order to find out which bit I should poke or stroke next to move the exercise forward or to circumvent the device’s latest minor malfunction. (Having said which I have to admit that this was not as onerous a task as you might imagine, since the receptionist is new and bears an uncanny resemblance to the Lady B. I did, therefore, receive brief bursts of weak sunshine coming back over the desk, especially when she smiled at me as she did frequently with commendable tolerance. I think my fairy godmother, the Lady Fu, must have come along for the ride and I did proffer my thanks. And I might add that I managed to work out a few solutions for myself and gave congratulations to a brain which appears to be still operating slightly more reliably than most modern technology.) And the final upshot to all this was that an exercise which normally takes ten minutes took half an hour today. Fortunately, Ms Medeea was running late (probably due to a large number of people my age having to fill in a form on a bloody tablet!)

Problem number 2: The big one. After being subject to the usual Dr Mengele stuff with grinder, sucky tube, and scraping tool, it was time to say ‘see you in six months’ to the incomparable Ms Medeea. ‘No you won't,’ she replied, ‘I’m leaving. I might stay around this area or I might go home.’

Shock-horror in abundance! Medeea leaving my orbit? This cannot be. I know I’ve waxed eloquent about her attributes before, but now I can add a little extra. I think she is the only adult I’ve ever completely trusted (at least since my parents’ separation when I was five.) I inclined to trust too easily, you know, and so my compensation for the flaw is probably a little overstretched.

I did, nevertheless, make an appointment for next January, and can only hope that Ms M’s replacement is a woman. The fact of the matter is, you see, I don’t mind women sticking their fingers in my mouth – there’s something vaguely motherly and natural about it – but I’ve never been too keen on men doing it. Besides, male dentists are prone to the delusion that they have the right to boss you around, and that inevitably produces unwanted conflict.

Then again, I’m currently awaiting an appointment for my annual CT scans at the hospital. If they should prove unfavourable, maybe my disembodied spirit will be able to accompany Ms Medeea on her way home to the Carpathians. I doubt she’d mind.

A Bevy of Blackbirds.

My orbit has suddenly become inundated with female blackbirds – feeding on both bird tables and often watching me through the window, sitting on the lawn when I have reason to go down the garden, standing at the edge of the lane when I go for a walk and waiting for me to get very close before flying away… And yet nearly all the other garden birds have virtually disappeared (just as the butterflies and bees have virtually disappeared.) My world is replete with female blackbirds and very little else. And I ask again: why have the blackbirds not been singing this year?

Are we into omen territory here? Does the preponderance of female blackbirds denote something of substantial import? Maybe I should look it up (or maybe I shouldn’t because sometimes they’re right and that can be stressful.)

You know, I sometimes have the impression that birds are constantly bringing me messages from the universe (there are those who claim it to be a natural function of the universe’s patterns.) If that is the case, the local avians must be getting pretty frustrated with me because I never know what they mean. I don’t speak the language, you see. I’m not yet attuned to that sort of thing. But maybe there’s only one message I should be taking:

When you’ve shuffled off your current mortal coil and returned with a new one, be a shaman. You’ll learn a lot.

(Oh well, there go my hopes of being a deep space astronaut hopping onto the asteroid belt singing Benson, Arizona.)

Recognising a Worthy Cause.

It’s my daughter’s birthday today, which means that it’s also the anniversary of my becoming somebody’s dad. I hardly ever celebrate anything, but I think this one is worth a double tot of Bushmills Irish whiskey. Sláinte.

Questioning the Source of Knowledge.

I just read a quotation attributed to Abraham Lincoln. It says:

All I have learned, I learned from books

I find it a little odd that the quoting of it should be considered an indicator of great wisdom (as indicated by the quoting of the statement.) I mean no denigration of books – they have, after all, been a primary source of learning for a very long time – when I say that you can’t claim to truly know anything just because somebody said it, whether in a book or by any other means. I would be more comfortable with the statement:

All I know, I have learned from personal experience

Maybe I’m being pedantic again, but I might just mention that I found the quotation on a bookmark given away free by a book retailer.

Of Mice and Men and Women and Things.

The weekly visit to Uttoxeter was a little odd this morning. Women of various ages kept smiling at me, and several young men on bikes nodded to me. One even said ‘hello.’ Have I somehow become a local celebrity, do you think? And then there was the matter of the woman store assistant in B&Q for whom I’ve held a bit of a candle for something like twenty years. But maybe that can be left for another post a little further down the line (when I’ve stuck my courage to the sticking place and have something – probably humorous – to report.)

But of course, today’s real madness was going on over the big water. I saw the headline about Trump claiming that he had ‘taken a bullet for democracy.’ Well now, I said recently that he had uttered the first sensible words I’d ever heard from him when he said ‘I shouldn’t be here’ (even though he’d intended something quite different from the meaning I’d chosen to take.) But of all the dumb things I have heard him say over the years, this latest claim is the dumbest of all. How can it be that a man can say something so transparently misconceived and so gloriously stupid, and yet still people cheer? This is America?

And then we got the big news: old Joe is pulling out of the race and handing the baton to his female assistant. I said to Mel a few weeks ago that I didn’t think America was ready yet for a woman President, and I still hold to that opinion. But who knows? Could it be that there are enough people strategically placed in the swing states who are so desperate to keep the dunderhead out of the White House that they’d vote for a wombat with rabies to achieve that end? You never know, do you? After all, this is America.

(And I decided this evening that I’m no longer fit to engage with human company, but I decline to say why.)

Pondering Perception Again.

I had two encounters with the Lady B today, one passive (meaning she didn’t notice me as I stood a mere twenty feet away for five minutes) and one active (she spoke two words as she drove past me in the car.) I cast no hint of aspersion towards the said dear lady when I say it appeared to be a message from the universe, one rather more transparent than they usually are: ‘You are now an object of faded regard. Get used to it.’ (Thanks to Zoe Mintz for that excellent phrase, by the way. I wonder what she’s doing now. She was quite a star in my life for a couple of years.) Anyway, no problem: I already am used to it.

But I did make friends with a little girl making her way home from the kiddies’ party with her bike. She seemed a little wary of me at first, but I kept the contact on very low burn and eventually received the grace of a smile. And then all was well with the world again.

*  *  *

Meanwhile, my current preoccupation is with one of my old hobby horses – that the more you examine the meaningful things in life, the more you realise that they all eventually distil down to the abstract. It appears that perception really is the whole of the life experience (and I sometimes wish that one day I might hear somebody repeat that phrase back to me so that I might have reason to believe that it has entered the lexicon of Well Known Phrases and Sayings. This is, of course, a bad thing to wish since it demonstrates that my ego still has life in it. But why should Zoe Mintz, bless her, get all the plaudits?)

And while I’m on the subject of perception, I want to make a point about all those times when politicians react to difficult behaviours exhibited by the homeless, the poor, the unemployed, and others in situations of disadvantage. They sit on their high horses and rain down the vilest curses on the transgressors. They use language like ‘audacious criminality’ and ‘they will be subject to the full force of the law.’ Do they not realise that the way people behave stems mostly from their perceptions, and that perceptions are largely generated by experiences, and so the homeless, the poor, the unemployed, and the disadvantaged see concepts like right and wrong, fair and unfair, acceptable and unacceptable, just and unjust, and so on and so forth, differently than the well-heeled politicians and others living in relative comfort. But they never take that fact into account when they’re passing arbitrary judgement.

A Few Titbits and Trump's True Words.

Lately I keep trying to think of something to write to this blog in order to keep it going but I keep drawing a blank - largely, I think, because my frustration with the human animal is reaching the point where I’m almost welcoming the prospect of being able to say ‘stop the world, I want to get off.’

I could write about the disturbing, almost total, dearth of bees and butterflies in the garden this summer, even on warm, dry, sunny days when their favourite nectar-bearing flowers are in full bloom. I could write about meeting little Nell in the lane yesterday evening, and of talking at length to the male half of her human hosts. He told me that a friend of his has moved to the US and prefers it there. (I didn’t argue.) I could recount how I washed and polished the Lady Clio (my latest wheels) this afternoon. It took me 2½ hours and wore me out, but she’s now spick and sparkly and a credit to the world of motor cars. I could mention the fact that I still haven’t heard the song of a blackbird or robin this year, and the belief in some quarters that birds act as messengers from the universe.

But why bother making the effort to write more than a short paragraph to cover all such minor matters when you’re tired and waiting for the world to stop?

One thing that did amuse me briefly this morning, however, was reading something Trump said to his tribe of admiring simians at some gathering or other. He referred to the shooting incident and said ‘I shouldn’t be here.’ I do believe it’s the first intelligent comment he’s probably ever uttered. Yes, I do realise he was merely milking the martyrdom cow, but it was pleasant to appreciate the irony for a few minutes.

The Lone Gunman Rides Again.

Whoopee! I see Donald Trump is now appearing in public sporting a white bandage on his ear which endows him with a hint of the sweet odour of near-martyrdom for all good Americans to smell. He is now the truest of all-American heroes and deservedly riding the wave of popular hysteria. I wonder how many other good Americans detect the rank odour of a rat mixed in with it. Or is that just an illusion? How is it possible to know (yet)?

The Matter of Trump's Bloody Ear.

I read some of the British media’s report of the Trump shooting this morning. I had questions because the facts presented didn’t quite add up to a wholly credible story. 

But I’ll keep my questions to myself. None of my business. No doubt in the days and weeks to come (at least), social media will be awash with claims and conspiracy theories. And maybe some of them will be right. This is America after all, where it appears very little can be taken at face value. And frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.

I Wonder...

I wonder why certain flowers in the garden have bloomed more profusely than ever this year, while other plants have failed miserably.

I wonder why I’ve seen hardly any bees, butterflies, or house martins this year. By this time in July the garden is usually full of birds and butterflies, and the sky above used to be heavily populated by flocks of house martins hunting for airborne food. Where have they all gone?

I wonder why I haven't heard a single blackbird or robin sing so far this year. I still have plenty of both  birds gracing the garden, but not a single beautiful note from either. Allow me to reprise a little ditty I recorded quite a few years ago when their singing was a regular pleasure:

When I have given up the ghost

And gone to take my final rest

Please lay me where the robin sings

For robin's song is quite the best 

I wonder why I’m suddenly beset by existentialist uncertainty again. I can’t stop the flow of thought which tells me that the past no longer exists, and the future hasn’t arrived yet, and the unceasing flow of time precludes the existence of a moment. So how do I reconcile that with the perception that I – and everything else for that matter – exist. It would appear that there is some deficiency in either my perception or my logic. Of all the things I feel I need in the time that’s left to me, maybe the most pressing is the advice of a logician.

I wonder whether I’m the only person on the planet who doesn’t know what a podcast is.

Small Pleasures and Big Numbers.

OK, so here’s another fine mess… (Sorry, I’m currently watching a collection of Laurel and Hardy films) little mystery to ponder:

I went out to replenish the front bird table yesterday morning and found a large pebble on it – about an inch and a half long, an inch wide, and correspondingly thick. It goes without saying that such articles are not much given to rising from the path of their own volition and depositing themselves on a piece of wood 4½ft above the ground. So somebody or something must have put it there. It certainly wasn’t me, and the only other visitor to this house is the postman who is not the practical joking type. So who – or what – was it?

I suppose it could have been a mischievous fairy, but the more likely explanation is that it was a jackdaw. The jackdaw is a member of the crow family, and the crow family is well known for having a high level of intelligence. It’s widely thought that they are capable of understanding the concept of exchange, and there are many instances of crows leaving items on bird tables where they’ve been able to get food. That’s my best guess, and it’s rather endearing don’t you think? I wonder whether I might have done something to attract the approbation of the god of small things. It’s usually the small things which give me the most pleasure.

 

 

And talking of small things, today I saw a jackdaw bring one of its fledglings to the bird table at the side of the house. I’ve never seen a fledgling jackdaw before because they’ve never been in the habit of visiting the garden before. They’ve always stayed out in the fields where they’re too far away to pick out the young ones. And it was noticeably smaller than the parent, which is common in mammals but not so much in birds. So that’s something else I’ve learned his week, something small as usual.

*  *  *

On a different tack entirely, Blogger stats tells me that the number of page views to this blog passed the ½ million mark this week. When I started fourteen and a half years ago I would never have countenanced such a large number, but that’s if it is to be believed. Frankly, I don’t believe it. A lot of the recorded visits over the past six months have been decidedly suspicious, and big numbers are generally of little consequence to me anyway.

On Ballots and Roller Blinds.

I had a sudden thought last night: I’d half written a post about the General Election in the UK (which is taking place today) – a post about the absurdities, the disingenuity and sometimes rank dishonesty of politicians, and the pointlessness of having choices which will simply keep us playing the same misguided game on the same inadequate playing field. I deleted it because it occurred to me that I should stop making posts about political matters. It struck me that politics is all about the governance of human life at local, state, and international level, and I’ve never really felt that I belonged to the human species occupying this planet. Ergo, maybe I have no right to pass judgement on it because it’s none of my business.

But maybe it is, so we’ll see.

I did go and make a choice, though, at the polling station set up in the village hall a little way up the road. I won’t bother going into the reason why, except to say it had nothing to do with ‘doing my democratic duty.’ I hate that concept. Australia is welcome to it. (They do seem to like being weighed down by an overabundance of laws in Australia, but what would I know? It’s just an impression they project to somebody who’s never been there.)

I presented my driving licence (one is required to show photographic evidence of identity in order to vote these days) and said to the young woman at the desk: ‘There you go – proof positive that I’m even uglier than you think I am.’ She pretended to disagree, but only half heartedly, and then a man gave me a ballot paper and all was for the best in the best of all possible worlds.

The only interesting thing which happened today was that I cut and fitted a new roller blind to my kitchen window. It took an hour and a half and looks splendid. Aren’t I clever?

Dancing With a Dexter.

I think I just gained a new lady friend.

I decided to take an evening stroll to post something in the box at the bottom of Bag Lane, and on the way there I noticed that the five Dexter cows (four ladies and a little boy who says his name’s Bobby) which live in the big field at the back of my house were close to the gate that leads onto the lane. I said ‘hello ladies’ – naturally – and the cows walked over to say ‘hey’ back.

And then one of the ladies came close up to the gate and was very happy to have lots of ear scratching, neck slapping, nose stroking, and chin rubbing. She was well into it, and a happy ten minutes was had being best friends with a friendly cow (who didn’t happen to mention her name, nor whether she’s Bobby’s dear mama, but that didn’t matter.) Bobby, incidentally, showed a good deal of interest in the proceedings, but seemed a little reluctant to join in, despite my earnest entreaties. Maybe he’s still a bit shy yet, or maybe boy cows don’t do that sort of thing (although readers of long standing might remember that Graham the bullock was well into that sort of thing. Mind you, Graham was clearly mad as a badger, so he’s probably not a good example.)

(So who says cows don’t have personalities? Hmmm… Dexters, by the way, are a small breed of black cow, about the size of an average donkey. It probably gives them the edge in the cutesy department.)

Anyway, my new friend eventually decided she’d had enough of being up close and friendly with a human. She turned around and walked sedately away. And Bobby went with her.

You know, if only I could get on as well with humans as I do with animals, I might suddenly find a reason to get up in the morning.