Missing Miss India.

This post is yet to be written. I pick up some of her old comments occasionally and try to describe the uniqueness of tone. I always fail. It seems that certain things are beyond my capacity to describe, but the will persists.

Being Non Didactic.

I hate the thought of being a teacher. I’ve nothing against the practice in principle, it just isn’t me.

‘I’m going to tell you what you need to know and you’re going to learn it.’

Not me.

‘I know things you don’t and I’m going to give you the benefit of my knowledge.’

Not me.

‘I’m going to help you learn to think things out for yourself.’

Even that isn’t me. It’s all too superior. I like throwing random crumbs out, just for my own amusement.

And what I really hate are those rock stars playing to a sea of adoring faces, and then taking the applause as though they're really, really important. I like the twin bedfellows of silliness and adroit reflection. It's more me.

Note for 4th July.

There was a major news item in Britain recently about three sisters who decamped from Britain and went to join IS in Syria, taking their children with them. One of the women has since been in touch with her family here to explain that they simply didn’t want to live in Britain any longer. She said it was becoming ‘too like America.’ She has a point, although whether that’s a reason to become disenchanted with it is a matter of opinion.

So, let me just say ‘Happy 4^th July’ to those splendid Americans whose acquaintance I am grateful to have made. Let me also say to all Americans that you did well to kick us out the way you did. Congratulations. But let me also say that we now seem to be following in your wake (mostly courtesy of Mrs Thatcher) and some of us wish we weren’t.

This isn’t an unfriendly post, just a frank and balanced one.

Counterproductive.

Two days ago I ordered something online, and it arrived in the post this morning. On the package, in big, bold letters, is printed:

SENT FIRST CLASS IN APPRECIATION

OF YOUR VALUED CUSTOM.

So what they’re claiming is that they’re doing me a favour in return for my buying something from them. But hang on a minute… They charge for the freggin' postage! So where’s the favour?

And then there’s the email they sent yesterday confirming dispatch. It didn’t begin: ‘This is to let you know that your order has been dispatched.’ It began:

Great News!

Why is it ‘Great News!’ I’ve ordered something, I’ve paid for it, they’ve sent it to me. That’s all there is to it.

Did I ever say that I get quite cross when companies try to manipulate my image of them with transparently disingenuous hype? It really discourages me from using them, you know? It does.

A Summer Pleasure...

... going outside at 1.40 am without feeling the need to slip a coat on. Britain is, after all, on the same latitude as southern Alaska, Labrador, and part of Siberia.

I'd heard the sound of banging over the top of YouTube, you see, and was curious to know it's source. It was thunder, so I turned off the computer and went to stand by the open door in case there was a show to see.

There was. I don't think I've ever seen an electric storm of quite such intensity.

For maybe three quarters of an hour the sky was lit every 1-3 seconds, and with each flash the tree in the corner of my ground jumped into stark silhouette, before disappearing again into the oblivion of darkness. Sometimes the flashes were so intense as to be temporarily blinding, and the thunder that came with them raised the incessant rumble to a deafening crescendo. It was classic thirties Universal Studios stuff. And in the middle of these pyrotechnics, Harry or Hermione Hedgehog (I still can't tell them apart) pottered past the potting shed. Quite surreal.

Then the rain came, while the show moved east.

I'm undecided whether I'm a Horace Femm or a Morgan.

Comings and Goings.

I make very few deep connections with individuals. It isn’t because most people aren’t ‘good’ enough, rather that most people are just not right for a very peculiar and demanding taste. But when they do happen, they’re special. So how should I feel when, in the space of four days, I discover that:

1. A connection that was once bilateral has become unilateral and therefore has to be relinquished. Connections don’t work one way.

2. A connection that I had long thought irreversibly faded has returned to good health.

3. A relatively new and valuable friendship appears to have been laid waste by my unfortunate habit of being careless in what I say and how I say it.

A bit tempest-tossed?

(A Russian woman spoke to me today via YouTube. That’s unusual, but not special yet.)

Power Plays.

Powering Down

I note that certain big names in the world of corporate America, being ever mindful of their public image, are distancing themselves from Donald Trump over things he’s been saying.

Why on earth did it take them so long?

Powering Up

1. A company in China has told its female employees that they must apply for permission to get pregnant so they can go onto a family planning roster.

This is too transparently laughable to be graced with a comment.

2. A school head in England has warned parents that if they take family holidays in term time they will not only be fined the statutory £60, but their children will also be expelled from the school.

When I was at school we took all our holidays during term time. I caught up. Kids do. Life is bigger than the education system. And some people become frighteningly tunnel-visioned when given a little power.

Giving to the Most Valued.

The government has announced that it is considering cutting Housing Benefit. That’s a welfare payment designed to ensure that even the poorest people in Britain can at least have a roof over their heads, even if they have to apply to food banks to feed themselves. The cut is necessary, they say, to help reduce the fiscal deficit.

This comes not longer after the same government announced an increase in the Inheritance Tax threshold, which means that people can now inherit up to £1m without paying any of it in tax to the beleaguered coffers.

Mr Cameron gets angry when he is accused of running a government for the rich. It’s all about giving assistance to the most deserving, apparently.

Today's Few Tedious Notes.

I had another chance encounter much more remarkable than Tuesday's. It's been that sort of week so far.

*  *  *

I saw another splendid helmet in the City Museum, displayed next to the Sutton Hoo facsimile. There were several similarities, but the chain mail neck guard suggested to me that it was a later version. Unfortunately, there was no information displayed with it and no one to ask. That's pretty bad in my book.

*  *  *

I never claim to know anything that isn't proven, and keep an open mind with regard to everything that can't be disproved. I hope my verb forms are correct, but it wouldn't surprise me if they're not.

*  *  *

I began to feel slightly alarmed that a day will come when those few people who have reason talk about me will all do so in the past tense.

*  *  *

On a more cheerful note, tonight's premium beer tastes mercifully of nothing but beer.

Not a Fan of Festivals.

For the past several days the news in Britain has contained a feature on the Glastonbury Festival. Glastonbury is Britain's biggest and most prestigious rock music event, and to prove it they had Kanye West there this year (whoever he is.)

So, am I the only person in this fair land who is left as cold as a cod fish swimming north through the Bering Strait in January by rock festivals? It's just that music for me is a matter of enhancing a personal sense of reality or creating a new one. Hence, it's an essentially solitary pursuit (although the occasional rare special companion might be permitted.)

I was never one for joining in with communal obeisance, especially where music is concerned, and more especially where rock music is concerned. It's too full of ego-ridden, self-proclaimed gods and goddesses, and they just dilute the magic of music.