The night before last after I had gone to bed, I had one of those strange and nightmarish type dreams from which one is glad to eventually be awake. A companion and I were wandering around a fairground in some continental city trying desperately to find the bus that had transported us there. But either of us could remember the colour of the bus, the name of the city we were in, the name of the hotel in which we were staying or even the country in which we were located. We started looking for a taxi, assuming that the bus that had transported us there had left without us, but realised that without the name of the hotel then even this would not be our salvation. At that stage, I woke up and saw with some dismay that it was only 1.00am in the morning so there was a night’s sleep to be had. I watched TV for a little and then went back to bed and slept quite soundly but the dream was not a pleasant experience. After I returned from walk around the park the evening before, I switched on Channel 4 news and found myself near the start of a Channel 4 News investigation into the funding of the Reform party.  Reform UK has denied breaking party funding rules over an allegation that top officials arranged for a US company to fund three polls. It comes after Channel 4 News broadcast a programme which featured undercover footage of Nigel Farage appearing to say that the polls commissioned by the party described as were amazing and bang for buck. According to its report, James Orr, the party’s head of policy, and Dan Jukes, a close aide to Farage, arranged for an American company to fund the polls. The three polls allegedly cost £32,500. The undercover reporter was posing as the British-based son of a rich American businessman. When discussing the subject of a bigger donation to Reform, which would ultimately be funded by the US-based father’s firm, Farage appears to reply: ‘Thank you.’ He also appears to say that the donation would be ‘all above board’. Foreign companies are not a permissible source of funding for parties, including for payments for studies and research, under electoral law. A particularly revealing aside broadcast in the programme was the absolute contempt with which the Electoral Commission was regarded. The Electoral Commission is the body charged with ensuring that UK political parties comply with the law, particularly with reference to finance and the disdain of the Reform Party may well not be without foundation. The Reform party is arguing that it has been the subject of a massive hoax and recordings indicating that they would readily accept a source of overseas funding was not proof that they had done so and so no Electoral law had been broken. However, there is a narrow area in which the Reform party could be held to account and that is three opinion polls, one given prominence by ‘The Times’ and the another by the ‘Daily Telegraph’, were secretly financed by the Reform party and may have broken some electoral rules. The Reform party are meeting for their annual conference in  Birmingham and corporate donors are present in abundance so these revelations may give them some of them pause for thought whether Reform has robust systems in place to avoid illegality. For their part, an Electoral Commission spokesperson said: ‘The law requires political parties to report all permissible donations they accept with a value over £11,180 and all impermissible donations over £500. Information about any potential attempt to evade the controls on donations is for the police to consider.’ But, at the end of the day, this is an intended breach of electoral law but no actual money, although promised and suitably ‘laundered’ has been paid so the police will probably say ‘Nothing to see here. Move on’ In the morning, my son and daughter-in-law called around and I was very pleased to see them. not least because they were going to few days away on the South Coast so we would be out of contact for several days.  We discuss the ‘Reform’ exposures on Channel 4 last night in some detail and my son was of the view that Reform could be charged under the rubric of conspiracy to commit a crime. But conspiracy is very hard to prove in law as no document trail exists and jurors would have to rely upon circumstantial evidence. This morning Reform is claiming that it has been the subject  of an massive hoax and no illegalities has occurred. But it has made two of its key officials shown in the videotape to step aside whilst they wonder what to do. Reform UK has banned at least three journalists from its annual conference who have reported critically on the party and Nigel Farage. The Guardian’s City editor, Anna Isaac, the investigative reporter Peter Geoghegan and the broadcaster and biographer Michael Crick were told this week that their credentials to cover the event, which begins on Thursday, had been declined. The party has billed its conference, which will take place at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham, as ‘the most talked about event of 2026”’ Reform figures are hoping to use it as a reset after a difficult summer consumed by questions about an undeclared £5m gift Farage received shortly before he was elected in 2024. When questioned by interviewers, delegates to the conference responded to the fact that Reform was subject to a witch-hunt from the other major political parties and implied that all political parties would have done the same. It is very instructive that the Tory party has not joined calls for the Reform finances to be investigated and one wonders whether similar ‘dodgy’ donations have been made to the Tories in the recent past.

Meanwhile, on the international scene. Doald Trump has indicated that he would not support the UK in any future conflict with Argentina over the Falkland islands (Malvinas to the Spanish speaking world) This has given the Argentinians a green light to make bellicose statements and they undoubtedly have eyes firmly fixed on the oil deposits discovered near the Falkland Islands but lying some 400 miles off their coast line. Now that Margatet Thatcher is dead and the armed forces have been so hollowed out, it remains an interesting question whether the UK would be in a position to defend the Falkland Islands in a subsequent invasion. Even on the last occasion, the USA took a lot of persuading to support the UK position as it had more than a hint of rampant colonialism and the Trump regime would not offer any support to the UK in a future conflict. Trump himself argues that the UK did not come to the assistance  of the Americans in the conflict against Iran although the UK did allow Americans refuellng and some logistical support even if not direct miliary assistance.

The evening before last, I ensured that I had my evening repast strictly at 6.00pm so that I could eat it whilst watching the news and could then go for a little walk in the park at 7.00pm. This took quite a lot of will power because all I wanted to do to stay snug at home and it was rather a muggy day outside anyway. Nonetheless, I made myself do it because there were two TV programmes that I had promised myself to watch as a treat. The first of these was a history of Rome by Sebag Montefiore and it detailed both the rise (and the fall) of the Vatican whose history is intertwined with that of Rome. Two little facts stuck with me as a result of this viewing. In the first place, after the excesses, as they appeared, of the voluptuous paintings of which the highlight was MichaelAngelo’s depiction of the Last Judgement, I had not realised that in the Counter-Reformation, a sense of prudishness had swept across the Vatican. This resulted in any of the genitals displayed by figures created by MichaelAngelo to be overpainted with fig leaves. Following decrees from the Council of Trent in 1563 condemning nudity in sacred art, the artist Daniele da Volterra was hired to paint drapery and loincloths over the exposed areas (where. they remained to this day). The second  fact that I learned from the film was that the status of Vatican City as an independent state, the smallest on earth was only fully settled in the Concordat signed by Mussolini after some sixty years of conflict between Vatican and Roman militia. So all of this was very enlightening but then I made myself watch the harrowing account in a documentary entitled ‘Stolen Babies’ of the ways in which the British state was complicit in the forced adoptions of babies born to unmarried mothers in the 1950’s. This was not confined to the UK or even to just unmarried mothers but was part of a wider phenomenon in many countries, including Spain. The phenomenon of stolen babies and forced adoptions up until the 1980s represents a dark chapter in modern history, spanning several countries under various regimes. These systems primarily targeted vulnerable women—such as political dissidents, unmarried mothers, or indigenous families—and separated newborns from their biological parents through coercion, deception, or state-sanctioned theft. The programme shown recently focused on the accounts of the then unmarried mothers and the fact that they were often forced to give birth with no pain relief, given no anaesthetic in any stitching that was required as a ‘punishment’ and then their babies were often removed within minutes of birth. As the film explained, this was a system in which largely working class women gave birth to children who were then handed over to predominantly white, middle class families. The passing of the Abortion Act and more easily available contraception meant that this practice died out as the ‘supply’ of babies radically diminished  but the women whose children  had been forcibly removed from them carried the feelings of guilt and shame for decades. The devolved administrations on Scotland, Wales and even Northern Ireland issues public apologies but in the case of England, it was left to Keir Starmer to make a formal announcement of the state’s guilt and complicity as late as July of this year – 2026.

I attended my Tai Chi class for the first time for a fortnight and was pleased that everything seemed quite unenergetic on this particular occasion. The Methodist Centre in which the classes are held will not re-open its coffee bar area until next week so after the class, I strolled along to the ‘Gifts of Love’ charity shop that I frequent once a week and can always have a chat with the volunteers who are manning it (as well as supplying me with a cup of coffee) Then I returned home and made a sort of fricassee with some frozen ham ends added to some fried onions and then supplemented by one of those instant veg in a microwavable bag which I use on occasions. After my lunch, there was nothing much on the TV schedules which caught my attention, so I turned to Channel 4 in the catch-up mode and watched a programme on the rise of the far right in the UK. This turned out to be a compelling watch because a journalist from the ‘Hope, Not Hate’ anti-fascist campaigning organisation had infiltrated one of their journalist members into some right wing groups in an attempt to discover the wealthy but anonymous donor who was funding all of these groups. This turned out to be quite an exciting watch as the  journalist gained the trust of some of the right wing groups and then posed as a potential donor who wanted to supply funds but had to ensure that his money was not ‘wasted’ The journalist succeeded in his aim of discovering the millionaire  donor who denied all of the allegations put to him but nonetheless pulled out all of is funding as the source of funds was no longer clandestine. Then in the late afternoon, my chiropodist called around for my monthly foot treatment and we discussed my holiday trip in some detail. I am trying to maintain my daily walk around the park after a light supper but I am aiming for an hour earlier today to give me a fairly uninterrupted evening. I have spent a certain amount of time making sure that I have all of my U3A (University of the Third Age) commitments appropriately calendared. This week has been quiet but I have two engagements next week and two the week after that and I find that this is just about my limit because were I to engage in even more group activities, this might start to appear a little burdensome to me.  After a summer in which  I have been spared the weekly ritual of grass mowing, I also think the time is rapidly approaching when I need to refill the petrol can and start on a regular mowing regime again although the grass appears patchy and the only thing that seems to have thrived after the intense hot weather followed by copious rainfall are the weeds. The autumn is a generally a good time when one starts to think of a certain degree of pruning and cutting back but there is quite a lot of that to do in  my garden at the moment. As with many of these things, I suspect I need to devote a regular 30 minutes a day to these gardening activities, provided the weather holds up of course. We may well be having another spell of good weather with which to round off our strange summer but the heat cannot be as intense as it was in July.

The night before last, I treated myself to a delayed viewing of the romantic  comedy of ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’ which is always worth a repeat viewing. After I had viewed this, I went to bed but thought I would watch one of the many documentaries that are being broadcast to commemorate (if that is the right word) the destruction of the World Trade Centre twin towers in New York some 25 years ago now, the Americans referring to the disaster as 9/11 (11th September). The documentary was mainly a compilation of video shots taken from people’s mobile phones and stitched into a commentary-less account more or less echoing the events as a type of real-time event. What I think was most dramatic was that the collapse of the second tower which was not a slow crumbling  but a huge instantaneous collapse after fire had gutted the upper stories. This was followed by a huge cloud of dust and debris with the intensity of a tsunami and although many people were running for their lives, they still caught up in the speed of the huge dust and debris cloud speeding towards them. I wondered how many people would have their lungs affected for the rest of their lives by the catastrophe in which they were engulfed. We have never seen huge buildings being deliberately destroyed by aircraft being flown into their upper stories and no wonder the effects were unpredictable. Even Bin Laden was reported as saying in subsequent years that he had only expected the destruction of the upper stories and had not imagined the progressive collapse of the lower storeys which we all now know is what happened. This film did not make for easy viewing but after I had watched over an hour of it, I thought I had had enough and decided to go to sleep. The following day, I awoke to a night where we had evidently had rain during the night which is always welcome. On the domestic front, although we are expecting a budget from the new Chancellor within the month, the omens are not all all good and we may be heading for another financial crisis if the AI bubble of speculative stocks comes to burst. The most immediate cause for concern is how much extra we are having to pay to service the debt on the monies that the government has borrowed. In the UK, the yield on 10-year gilts stretched to 5.22% from 5.15% on Friday, while the 30-year hit 5.85%, up from 5.79% on Friday. The 10-year gilt had traded earlier on Tuesday as high as 5.25%, an 18-year high, and the 30-year at 5.89%, a level last seen in 1998. As the Sky News analyst Ed Conway explained in the article, bond yields are effectively the interest rate in the markets: ‘the ultimate interest rate’, if you like. ‘We are used in the UK to talking a little bit about bond yields – we all remember the mini budget. This time round it is an international story, but the problem in Britain s because we start this with really high bond yields; we are more in the firing line than most other countries around the world.’ It does not really reassure us to know that the UK shares this problem with several other advanced economies, including the USA, but the effects for a variety of technical reasons is so much more severe. But there is huge political pressure to increase the volume of defence expenditure, the enormous costs associated with the funding of social care still has to be fixed and the costs of the welfare expenditures seems to rise inexorably. In the latter case, cuts will do tremendous damage to the social fabric and thus we have the familiar situation in which the poor and disabled are being asked to bear the brunt of economic problems, even though the causes lay beyond their control. Whilst on the subject of shortage of money, the last day has seen the transfer deadline for the large football clubs to buy and sell players from each other. Premier League clubs have broken their all-time summer transfer record with spending reaching £3.49bn. English top flight clubs had already pushed well beyond the £3bn barrier when Iliman Ndiaye’s move from Everton to Manchester City on deadline day for an initial £60m took the amount spent past the previous mark of £3.14bn from 12 months ago.  A total of £506.5m was spent on deadline day itself, up from £391m last year. The total amount spent during the window considerably dwarfs the £1.13bn spent by clubs just five years ago and underlines the power top English clubs have to attract talent, according to figures provided to BBC Sport by Paul Macdonald, founder of FootballTransfers.com. These sums are subject to VAT which is reclaimed anyway so to my mind, here is the opportunity to tax some of these really sums with a special ‘Football Transfer Tax’  Bankers’ bonuses are subject to special taxes on occasions and given that houses are taxed when  they are bought and sold with ‘Stamp Duty’ why could the principal not to be extended to these obscene amounts of money. Just out of interest, £3.5 billions matches the exact estimated cost required to clear the highest-risk safety-critical maintenance backlog across crumbling NHS hospital buildings. Historically, a £3.5 billion real-terms boost was earmarked to transform out-of-hospital care, funding 24/7 rapid response teams of doctors, nurses, and physiotherapists to prevent hospital admissions. In terms of Social Care and Workforce Reform then this amount of money aligns with cost models for broad social care reforms, such as implementing financial caps on personal care costs or raising social care worker pay to NHS band standards. So if I were in government, I would subject football transfers to a large transfer tax (of the order of 20%) since they can evidently afford it.

In the middle of the day, I did my normal weekly shopping and was relieved to have a fairly light week as I was spending more than usual on my days away in Yorkshire. Upon my return, I cooked myself a simple lunch of quiche accompanied by some mange-tout peas (which always to keep especially well, even if beyond their sell-by date).I thought I would engage in a little experiment to make the meal a little more exciting and a bit less bland, so after microwaving the mange-touts, I gave them a quick toss in olive oil to which  added a teaspoon full of mint sauce (after all, one adds sprigs of mint to garden peas) and this worked out OK as an experiment as well as a thin sliver of sweet chilli on the quiche sauce although I am sure this is not good for you unless consumed in the most sparing of quantities. 

I must say that it feels rather good to be in the month of September when something similar to ‘normal’ life reappears after summer vacations and the disruptions to a more normal routine. I have always throughout my life started either new jobs or new ventures such as attending university in late September/October so I always associate this time of year with new beginnings or a fresh start. Now that the summer vacations are over, I am hopeful that the cafe area in the Methodist Centre in town which is one of my regular haunts will re-open after its summer refurbishment and the same applies to the parish hall which is adjunct of my local church. To complete the sense of ‘new beginnings’ Parliament is to reassemble and Andy Burnham is due to meet MPs, both supporters and opponents in the new session with a host of urgent problems on the agenda, not least in the prisons crisis. I am always reminded when one political figure was asked about his ‘enemies’ in Parliament, he reflected upon the fractious nature of politics when he opined that ‘it is my opponents who are in front of me, my enemies are behind me’ (i.e. in the same party but perhaps in a different wing of it) It is interesting to observe the domestic political scene at the moment because one does get the impression that with their long history as the governing party, the Conservatives naturally much more take to being in power than they do to the role of opposition. This feeling has its obverse in the Labour Party who one feels are very good at Opposition but much less sure-footed when it comes to the business of actually being the governing party, despite their huge majority. In their attempt to solve the short term problem of the absence of enough prison cells in the system, the government are resorting to the expedient of throwing a certain amount of money at the prison estate and asking prison governors if they can identify some spaces such as laundry rooms or storage cupboards into cells. I happen to think that this is quite a good idea even though temporary solutions have the habit of becoming more permanent ones as happened with income tax. There must always be some prisoners in any particular prison who are  old or infirm but can be regarded as trusty and would never think of anything such as an escape. For such individuals, the amount of security could be appropriately light and perhaps their ‘trusty’ status could be rewarded by their own cell converted out of a store cupboard or odd space somewhere. I am always reminded of the days when I used to teach the BASIC programming language and when one was concerned with sorting an array of data,  one always had to have one spare unit of storage space (analogous to a prison cell) whilst numbers were being swapped in the sort process. My niece in one of our recent coffees together was telling me about a book which I think I must both buy and read. I am pretty sure it was called ‘Counterfeit Gods’ and according to the publisher’s blurb it details the following:’ Success, true love, and the life you’ve always wanted. Many of us placed our faith in these things, believing they held the key to happiness, but with a sneaking suspicion they might not deliver.’

Our domestic help called around this morning and we always seem to have a lot of things to discuss with each. She had discovered a very friendly and heart-warming little cafe in a district away from our High Street so this might be worth a look, particularly as they do a good line in bacon butties. There is also a good nearby charity shop run by AgeUK where they seem to always have an extraordinary range of goods so this, too, is worth a visit after an absence of several months. Half way through the morning I got a telephone call from my Italian friend who lives down the Kidderminster Road and I have accepted her invitation to have a nice cup of coffee in the morning. In the past, I have taken my Italian friend to join in the chatty table in the Methodist Centre. When I was out on the road collecting my newspaper I called around to remind myself via a note on their door when normal service is to be resumed and was delighted to learn that it is going to be next week after a summer refurbishment so I am pleased to able to share this good news with my friend. n the middle of the day, I attended our normal weekly Pilates class but our number was diminished to just three of us today. After I returned home, I made myself a mackerel salad and then settled down to watch the statements to be made in the House of Commons by both Andy Burnham and also Kemi Badenoch who are squaring to each other for the first time. meanwhile, an intriguing London by-election may be in the offing. Sir Keir Starmer has indicated that he will step down as an MP for the London seat of Holborn and St. Pancras. Now this is a seat in which the Greens made a strong showing in the last election and Zak Polanski who has lived in London for decades evidently has ambitions to become elected to give the Green party a seat I Parliament for their elected leader. Now it is too early to say whether Polanski will rise to the challenge but in politics, you have to seize the opportunities whilst you can. Polanski is a very erudite and accomplished speaker who can think quite quickly on his feel but has made a couple of gaffes recently upon his opponents have seized. Under the leadership of Zack Polanski, the Green Party of England and Wales experienced a historic and rapid surge in membership and polling support following his election in September 2025. Membership climbed from around 68,000–70,000 in September 2025 to over 200,000 by March 2026. The massive influx allowed the Greens to overtake both the Liberal Democrats and the Conservative Party, establishing themselves as the third-largest political party in the UK by membership numbers. If the Burnham government tries to embrace a form of electoral reform (which is unlikely but not impossible) then I imagine the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens could form a coalition, either loosely or in more formal terms, that would keep the right out of power in the UK for a generation.

Most of the packing got completed satisfactorily and then I watched one of the repeated ‘Pilgrimage’ programmes normally broadcast on a Sunday morning. In sharp contrast to the evening before, when I went down to the bar/lounge area, I find it practically deserted so perhaps most people are having a meal and then going straight to bed. I anticipated meeting up again with the American actor with whom I had socialised so much throughout the late morning, but he was not in evidence – or anyone else for that matter. I have to complete my packing first thing in the morning and so I had to content myself with an early night hoping that the Bank Holiday trains run true to timetable for my return journey. It now looks as though the Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, has bowed to the public outcry by ordering changes in the ‘Early release of Prisoners’ scheme. Two of the men in prison for the killing of PC Andrew Harper are set to stay behind bars after the prime minister this morning revealed changes to the planned early-release scheme. Andy Burnham said people convicted of unlawful killing, including manslaughter, would now be excluded. Eligible prisoners are due to start being released from October in an effort to ease chronic overcrowding. However, the prospect of Albert Bowers and Jessie Cole being freed caused an outcry, and they are now no longer set to be released at the halfway point of the 13-year-sentences they received in 2020. The excuse for not having done this early was the possibility of appeal under the ‘Human Rights’ rubric and it is hard to see how a challenge that could have been made yesterday is so suddenly nullified today, I awoke yesterday after not a particularly good night’s sleep, perhaps a little concerned about the journey ahead of me back home but it promises to be a bright day. My niece is giving me a lift to the station which will be quite a boost as the journey from the hotel to the station is up quite a steep hill so this is welcome. The political news is dominated by personalities this morning. Priti Patel has lost her position in the Shadow Cabinet and her services dispensed with by Kemi Badenoch so there is no sisterly love shared between  these two female, black right-leaning politicians. But the bigger news is that James Cleverly, a Londoner, is to resign from the Shadow cabinet in order to run in the next election for London mayor. He is the biggest hitting candidate on the Tory side since Boris Johnson and although the capital city inclines towards the left, I would rate his chances as fairly high because I am not sure who the Labour party would put up against him. Sadiq Khan took office as mayor on 9 May 2016, and was re-elected in 2021 and 2024 so has already run two terms of office The position had been held by Ken Livingstone from the creation of the role on 4 May 2000 until he was defeated after two terms in May 2008 by Boris Johnson, who also served two terms before Khan was elected. Cleverly immediately becomes the front-runner for the nomination. He is, as one admiring senior Tory in London puts it, ‘Well liked, experienced, good on the media and can connect with London Conservatives.’ He previously served as a member of the Greater London Assembly in 2008 and 2016, in which capacity he drove through a difficult reorganisation of the capital’s fire services. Among some Conservative colleagues, there was a feeling at times that Cleverly was not across the detail in various briefs he held. Yet he can plausibly claim to be more experienced and tested than any of the three mayors who have held the post since its creation in 2000 and so I would rate his chances as fairly good.

My niece phoned up a good half an hour before she was due to pick me up from the hotel so we popped into a nearby coffee bar for some quick refreshment before she dropped me at the station (which was very welcome) the train that transported me to Leeds was a LNER Kings Cross bound train and seemed much superior to the Cross Country trains offering. The very helpful travelling ticket inspector on board the train found the platform to which I was heading in Leeds which was useful as I only had about thirteen minutes to effect the transfer. In the event, I made this with a few minutes to spare on board the Plymouth bound train which became hideously crowded in the journey through the Midlands from Derby onwards. At one stage there were about eight or none people standing in the carriage  in which fortunately I had a booked seat although I had to ask for it to be vacated when I boarded the train. The train was rerouted through Lichfield and Sutton Coldfield but arrived in Birmingham only about 5 minutes late and so I had plenty of time to get to the Bromsgrove train which, Hereford bound, turned out to be faster than the normal service. So the overall journey like  the proverbial ‘curate’s egg’ was good in parts. I was delighted to see my son who gave me a lift home having only got back from his own travels earlier in the day. Then during the course of the afternoon, I was unpacking, restoring things to their rightful resting places and getting the washing underway. I have a few set things that I like to take away with me which make hotel life a little more liveable of which the most important is an extension cable for the laptop I take away with me and a spare cable and batteries as well some items when I breakfast in my room. Tonight, I shall probably indulge in Paddington 2, being transmitted, no doubt, as today is a Bank Holiday and the film ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’ is always  worth another look but as the transmission time is late, I will save that for ‘catch-up’ the next day. I am contemplating my larder to see what meal I can prepare from my tinned stock as I tried to run down supplies before I went away (five days ago) less they go off. Now that this mini-Yorkshire vacation is over, I feel I probably need to re-establish an exercise routine for myself (some daily walks, for example) but I have a Pilates session tomorrow which might be a good start. Some people swear by a walk after a light evening supper and my local park always has a fair sprinkling of dog walkers as well as other more purposeful walkers at about 7.00pm.

The evening before  last turned out to be extremely entertaining but in which ways that I could never have predicted. My niece had popped into the hotel to see me for a brief half an hour and afterwards I contemplated how I would spend the rest of the evening. As I had only a bacon sandwich for the rest of the day and was starting to feel in need of some food, I decided to venture out to my favourite Chinese restaurant which I have patronised on many occasions before when I have made trips to Harrogate. In the restaurant I ordered a house special fried rice meal for myself which was delicious and very filling. The only other diners in the restaurant were a group of youngish people who were engaged in talking politics, principally Liberal Democrat politics. As I would be tired of my own company, as I was paying my bill I asked them if they would like  to hear some good political jokes/stories of which I had quite an abundance. They were more than happy for me to share their table and we exchanged as many good political jokes as we knew until the restaurant decided they were going to close, quite early at about 7.30pm. I made my way back to the hotel and thought I would just casually have a look around the really good pub that serves the excellent locally brewed dark mild beer just across the road. It was quite a fine summer evening and several people were outside the pub and a a group observed me looking around and engaged me in conversation, asking me to join them. They were a group of two young men and a sister celebrating their parents 30th wedding anniversary and seemed in a very jovial mood. They asked me to guess from their accent which part of Yorkshire they were from and although I am not very good at discerning varieties of Yorkshire, I made a stab at Hebden Bridge which was only 8 miles away from their home town of Halifax. They seemed intrigued by my back story which I readily gave and we spent some time discussing the Yorkshire film of ‘Brassed off’ which I had seen on the TV recently with my American friend. How we got onto the subject, I really have no idea but they wanted to guess my age giving estimates of 68 and then 73 and could not believe my actual 81 years of age. They were extremely good and jovial company. evidently really enjoying themselves and were joined by some cousins before they all set off for a family meal somewhere in the vicinity. I must say that I never before experienced such camaraderie, after all, I was a complete stranger to them but they are staying in ‘The Crown’ like myself so it is quite possible I will run across them on another occasion. After they had had gone off for their meal somewhere, I returned to the hotel and buoyed up by the experience of two lots of friendly chats decided to have a beer and see who else I might happen to meet rather than returning to an empty hotel bedroom. After about half an hour, a family group of about six and their 4 year old grand-daughter turned up and whilst the little girl ran around playing an imaginary game of hide-and-seek with her mother, the rest of the family invited me to join them in a drink. They were from Kent and were absolutely enamoured with Yorkshire life and Yorkshire people having stayed at ‘The Crown’ before. So I stayed in conversation with them until about 11.00 when they decided that the night was young and they decided to go off as a group and seek other perhaps musical entertainment in the Harrogate night-time scene, once their little girl and the mother had gone to bed. So this was my third encounter of the night and was completely unpredictable but it was certainly better than sitting alone in a hotel bedroom all by myself. It rather put me in mind of my stay in Jakarta, Indonesia, when my birthday coincided with an early teaching session – the students had got wind it was my birthday and had brought along a range of delicacies and sweet meats to try. Being an Islamic society there was no alcohol involved but when I returned to the alcohol in the early evening, I felt the need for a little celebration and did not want to drink on my own. I espied a couple of men, one in their 20’s and the other evidently older. They were Australians as were many other guests in the hotel but I remember marching up to them and saying to them ‘My name is Mike – its my birthday – what would you like to drink?’ to which the response was a couple of beers and this was the start of quite a friendship, particularly with Tom the younger man who was Brit who intended to go round the globe, got as far as Australia, met a girl and then married her and stayed on in Australia and was employed as a mining engineer. So feeling the need for company, I not averse to having a drink in a bar and then seeking out some enable company. Yesterday was quite easy as the little three year practically bumped into me as she was running about and the conversation and the camaraderie flowed from that point onwards – I know that I will probably meet the Kentish family in the bar again in the evening.

I received a telephone call from my niece and we arranged to meet with her and her sister (i.e. my two nieces) in my favourite coffee bar in Harrogate named ‘Lago di Como’ which has a very friendly and homely upstairs lounge for those in the know. My nieces and I had some delicious coffee and portions of home cooked spinach pie served with a few bits of salad and had a wonderful period of time in each others company before we had to part. I called in at an Oxfam bookshop which had all kinds of interesting books arranged by subject matter and I bought a little trinket box as. present. Upon my return to the hotel, I resumed a long and extensive conversation with a very engaging American actor (although he was born in Harrogate) who was over here to arrange some long term care for aged relatives who I had met briefly in the morning and with whom I continued our conversation about diverse matters before I needed to go up to my hotel bedroom and get packed up. I have a feeling that the evening might be quite busy so I thought I had better get the bulk of the packing done this afternoon.

So the little tea party arranged for my sister at the home of one of my nieces went off as planned. I caught a taxi to get to the address and had taken along with me a beautiful 30″ high orchid for my sister which I am sure will adorn her room, a hand crafted birthday card bought from an Oxfam shop and a magnum of Prosecco for all of the members of the family to share. This latter proved not to be the best of buys as everybody was drinking tea rather than consuming alcohol during the afternoon and there was no point in opening the Magnum bottle. But we agreed that this could be stored until a bigger and perhaps boozier family  gathering perhaps at Christmastime if not before. The party started to break up in the late afternoon as young children were taken away to be put to bed and the adolescents had other things to do so eventually I was transported back to the hotel armed with some extra scones which proved to be useful to me. I was not particularly hungry but made myself some packet soup in a cup which was sufficient for me. I watched some of the Test match on the bedroom TV and then turned in and had a fairly early night, wondering about the next couple of days. After doing some research on the internet, I decided that a trip to York would not be a good idea as the trip to the Railway Museum added an extra mile onto the journey as they are doing some reconstruction work so I decided to go to the small market of Ripon the following day. I am pretty sure that I should be able to board the relevant coach just around the corner from the hotel but I will check with the hotel reception staff first. I spent a certain amount of time messing about to download and install the relevant bus app but eventually decided I would be better off paying the bus driver in cash as the website informed me this this was possible. First I will get a newspaper and then negotiate my way to the point where I can catch the bus if the information provided on the website proves to be accurate.

The joining point for the bus I located after some fishing about. But I was fortunate in that a young woman with her six month old baby were waiting for the bus and as she made this journey regularly and was a Harrogate resident, she was a fund of local knowledge. We chatted all the way to Ripon and then as the bus station was located just round the corner from the principal square, this was easy to find. But as there is a Bank Holiday on Monday, some extremely noisy fairground rides were occupying the centre of the square and to the noise of the fairground rides was added the screams of the children rather ruining the ambience  of a quaint market town.  I did a complete circumnavigation of the square and found a store that was amazingly popular because not only was it huge but it sold every type of hardware item one could imagine. I located the special charging cable that I know my iPhone 16 deploys ( a ‘Type C’ which is oval and will work whatever direction it is plugged in) and I paid only a quarter of the price that I paid for one in the specialist phone shop the other day. It seems to be working fine as my phone is being recharged as I write and spare cables are always useful to have. Having circumnavigated the square, I espied a little arcade which I suspect (rightly) lay in the direction of the cathedral for where I was eventually bound. Down the arcade was a little independent coffee shop which I was happy to patronise rather than one of the national chains and in which I ordered a bacon sandwich (which turned out to be huge) and a cup of tea which in the event was a teapot of tea containing three cups. So this really set me up for the day and from then on it was quite easy to locate the cathedral which one approached via a variety of short cuts.

I have  visited Ripon cathedral on about three of four varied occasions, the first time being when I was a teenager aged about 17 or 18 and I journeyed there on my Lambretta scooter from Harrogate. I visited with Meg on at least one or possibly two occasions and the last time was an invitation to an impromptu performance by a Russian soprano that an old schoolboy acquaintance of mine had smuggled out of Russia and was seeking to reestablish her career in the West. As I remember she sang ‘Exsultate, jubilate’ in a manner which equaled some of the best performances of which I have heard recordings after which we had a magnificent banquet in a large mansion reminiscent of ‘Gosford Park’ In the cathedral, I lit a candle in Meg’s memory and then went onto study the wooden misericords. Ripon Cathedral features 34 rare medieval misericords in its choir stalls, carved between 1489 and 1494, which are celebrated as some of the finest wood carvings in the UK. The word misericord comes from the Latin misericordia, meaning ‘act of mercy’ and the small hinged wooden ledges allowed clergy to rest discreetly during long periods of standing required for monastic services. Attributed to master woodcarvers of the late 15th century, the seating area showcases intricate, surreal, and sometimes humorous medieval artistry. After my visit to the cathedral, I knew that some heavy showers were forecast for the afternoon  so retraced my steps but called in at a local Sainsbury’s to replenish my supplies of fruit and caught the bus back to Harrogate. Then I bought myself fresh supplies of milk and rested on the bed having a quick conversation with my American friend as although we had texted we had not spoken for some days. My niece called in to the hotel for a flying visit and we had a nice catch up until her parking time expired and then I contemplated going out later on in the early evening to my favourite unpretentious but excellent little Chinese restaurant for a meal. In the later part of the evening, I can either choose Paddington 2 or yet another viewing of ‘Murder on the Orient Express’ and I am not sure which way to go as I have them seen them both several times before.

The evening before last, I went out for a meal in a really authentic Spanish restaurant in Harrogate which was less than a five minute walk from the hotel in which I was staying. A table had been reserved for us and so I dined with my nephew, his wife and their two children aged about 22 and 17. We had the most beautiful meal out and there were many Spanish delicacies in which to indulge. To go with my chicken, I chose a side order of ‘pimientos de padron’ which are a small, bitter-sweet peppers fried in olive oil and served with a liberal helping of sea salt. All of this was helped down by a couple of bottles of rioja, needless to say, and we had the most wonderful of conversations as we ranged over family affairs, our social activities, and every topic on earth besides. What emerged at the end of the evening was that my nephews were in the habit of organising a ‘ceilidh’ at regular intervals. These are traditional gaelic folk festivals with singing, dancing and no doubt some drinking and once they had engaged a top rated band and hired a venue, invitations were distributed liberally to family and friends. Now to cut a long story short, my nephews would very much like myself and my American friend to attend the next event they are going to organise, probably in mid-October and accommodation will be no problem because they can rustle up some sleeping arrangements for the two of us. So, this sounds like a most marvellous event to which to look forward and I earnestly hope that it all comes off. I have invited as many members of the family as feel inclined to come and spend a few days with me in Bromsgrove as, again, accommodation will be no problem as we have bedrooms to spare. Later on in the day, there will be an afternoon tea party in celebration of my sister’s 84th birthday and I hope that many family members will be able to attend that gathering. I have one or two little  surprises planned for that event about which I shall be silent until the events have taken place and then all be revealed. In the morning which I have free, I shall concentrate my attention upon a walk into  town and buying a birthday present for my sister and then the festivities will take place during the afternoon. As well as my iPhone, I shall take along my iPad which has on it several family photos which I think may be of interest to members of the family and which I doubt they have actually seen before. I am trying to make connections with the younger members of the family who are now in their late schooling or higher education phases of their lives and to whom I may appear as a rather distant great uncle (one thinks of ‘Great Uncle Bulgaria’ of the Wombles fame and I think that Paddington bear’s relatives are Uncles and Aunts rather than grandparents) Meanwhile, more mad things seem to be happening on the other side of ‘the pond’ as they say. Donald Trump has said he will rename Lake Ontario as ⁠Lake America in the US following the escalating trade war with Canada. The US president signed an executive order on Thursday and said the change would take effect immediately. It will only apply in the US, as Mr Trump cannot force Canada to follow the renaming. Signing the order in the Oval Office, Mr Trump told reporters that Canada is the worst to deal with on trade, adding that they feel entitled and we can’t have that. Last year, he said he would be renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America – a move that was rejected by the Mexican government. Whether these international re-naming’s will have an effect upon the world’s cartographers remains, of course, to be seen.

After I had got myself up, showered and breakfasted I collected a copy of my regular newspaper and then made my way slowly into town – actually, rushing is not an option as I have to ascend pretty steep inclines to get into town. But passing an Oxfam shop, I purchased a handmade birthday card for my sister which she can keep if she feels so inclined. Once there, I made for Marks and Spencer and eventually located their flowers and plants section. It was quite easy for me to choose a stunning orchid as a present for my sister and although I think it was about 30″ in height, the checkout have a specially designed triangular-shaped carrying bag for the safe transport of flowers and plants. I also purchased a magnum of Prosecco for the mutual enjoyment of everyone at the party and this is the first time I have ever in my life purchased a magnum of any sort of wine. As I traversed the Harrogate streets, I came across a specialised phone accessory shop so that I could always ensure that I had a spare charging cable of the relevant type for my iPhone. I made my way towards a very special kind of coffee shop which some have claimed in the past to be the best in Harrogate. The original owners were Italian and they always have a range of excellent pastries all crafted on the premises. I made my way up some steep stairs to a beautifully comfortable lounge furnished with settees as well as tables and chairs and with the bonus of a stunning TV display showing drone generated images of continental landscapes. Meg and I, as well as my niece, know this upstairs room well and always made a beeline for it. I enjoyed a cappuccino and a very tasty almond pastry, warmed and then delivered up the stairs for me, I got into conversations with other groups of visitors, the last two being a Yorkshire man and his wife who had left Harrogate to settle in Brisbane, Australia but had returned to Harrogate to settle up some property matters. As I was in no rush to go anywhere this morning, these conversations were very welcome, after which I returned to my hotel bedroom to have a cup of soup for lunch as I had brought some packet soups with me for such a contingency. After lunch and a wash-and-brush-up, I know there is a direct link with a local taxi firm to arrange my transport to the afternoon’s tea party. I had been in contact with one of nieces who informed that her sister (another niece) would be attending, together with her two girls.

Apart from stories of a natural disaster in Nepal in which many Britons may have died, news percolated through of the results of a massive court case in America. Meta has agreed to pay up to $18bn (£13.2bn) to dozens of US states to settle claims that its social media platforms harmed children. The landmark trial – the biggest ever of its kind – saw Meta accused of knowingly and deliberately designing features that get children addicted to its platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. According to court papers, the company has denied wrongdoing while agreeing to the settlement. Alongside the payments, the company has agreed to make major changes to Facebook and Instagram, including daily ​usage limits and a restriction of nighttime usage by children who use Facebook and Instagram. The company will also enhance measures ‌to prevent children from accessing age-restricted content. The settlement ​resolves claims brought by 29 US states and ends a federal trial that had been one of the highest-profile tests yet of allegations that social media companies harmed young users. The settlement will be paid out over 10 years. California will get the largest sum of at least $1.5bn, but several other states will still collect hundreds of millions of dollars each over the decade. In order to put this seemingly enormous sum in con context, in the last full fiscal year (2025), Meta Platforms generated $200.97 billion in total revenue. After deducting all operating costs, taxes, and expenses, Meta brought home a net income (pure profit) of $60.46 billion. So the payout sum which extends over several years is less than a third of one year’s profits. Personally, I am surprised that Meta succumbed so quickly in this court case which I thought would drag on for months or even years so the case against them must have been pretty overwhelming. Turning to domestic issues, the evening that I arrived in Harrogate, I went out for a long anticipated drink with one of my nieces and her husband in the pub immediately opposite the hotel which serves a magnificent and locally brewed dark mild beer. We had a wonderful evening together and I had taken along with me two little items of Meg’s jewellery to pass onto my great nieces. At the same time, I had brought along with me the card that had been signed in a variety of European languages by members of an international linguists conference that Meg had attended in the past before her bad back put paid to international travel. But one of the early testaments on the card mentioned about Meg dancing on a table on a restaurant in Thessaloniki (Greece). Meg had mentioned this to me and she knew, even at the time, that it was going to be her ‘swan song’ and the extraordinary sequel to this story is that whilst my daughter-in-law was going through mountains of family snaps, we actually managed to discover ‘the’ photograph which is the definitive proof of Meg dancing an a restaurant table. By the way, exuberant acts like dancing on tables are much more common in diaspora communities (such as Greek-American celebrations) or entertainment-focused tavernas than standard domestic dining. Just as our evening was concluding and my niece and her husband were on their way home, I discovered another piece of the jigsaw that is my family history. I mentioned that I thought that it was probably the case that my mother had worked briefly in WW2 in the Crown Hotel (in which I am staying) when it was commissioned as an operations HQ for the Air Ministry. I had known that my family had moved from a small village on the North Yorkshire moors (Levisham) to Harrogate but why Harrogate? Apparently, a lot of research has been done locally and during the location of ministries to the large Harrogate hotels, there was a massive demand for trained secretarial labour so my mother (and my grandmother) probably moved to Harrogate as my mother being Pitman shorthand trained would have some of the skillset which was very much in demand at the time. This, of course, is conjecture rather than proof but I think the chances of it actually being the case are probably very high.

In the morning, I caught the train to Knaresborough actually missing one by 2 mins but there was another half an hour later. My sister seemed to be quite in good spirits and we reminisced about family matters. The residential home provided me with a lunch which was good of them and then I left in giving myself 15 minutes before the rain back. But this had a fault on it and the running of it was delayed so after a wait of 45 minutes we limped into Harrogate where they immediately took the train out of service. And it was raining when I arrived back so I was thankful for the shelter provided by my broad brimmed Australian style bush hat. My sister had been taken out yesterday by the residential home where she is lodged and had been to an art exhibition which was ‘so-so’ but afterwards had been taken for tea at Betty’s Cafe in Harrogate which is almost a national institution by now. The care staff were also talking with my sister about another ‘day out’ but this time to Harewood House which  is a very well known day trip out in the Harrogate/Leeds area. Naturally, I am every pleased by this because it means that my sister had some existential stimulus instead of staring at her own four walls. Meanwhile I have just been contacted ‘urgently’ by a local hospital to enquire whether I still am in need of an ENT appointment which was requested more than 12 weeks ago – I was informed that failure to fill in the online form would mean that my place on the waiting list would be forfeited and the pending appointment cancelled. I just wondered to myself how many of the ‘information poor’ in our society may be adversely affected by such waiting list management practices and, however good the intention, I do get the feeling that all of this reflects a political imperative to see what can be  done by getting waiting lists ‘down’ by hook or by crook. Now that I am safely back in my hotel room, it has stopped raining but I suppose we can hardly complain as the rain is so badly needed. Although I had put a light raincoat on one side before I left home, I did forget to pack it which I now regret somewhat. But the restaurant to which I shall repair in the evening  to dine with nephews and great nephews/nieces is only a few minutes walk from the hotel and I think should be quite easy to find.

So the evening before I was due to travel, I made a journey to one of our local supermarkets to see if late in the day, they were discounting any of their sandwiches. As it happened they were not, but I did pick up a triple chicken and bacon wrap, a little bowl of fruit, a tray of sushi and a small bottle of mineral water which was all discounted by about a quarter if you bought them together as ‘meals deal’ So these were popped into the fridge and will be transferred into my food bag in the morning. During the course of the evening, I had a brief conversation with my American friend  now recovering from the virus which had afflicted her but she has a doctor’s appointment in the morning. I spent some time filling in an insurance claim for the travel ticket which my friend cannot use but they needed documentary proof of a medical condition which, of course, we were not able to provide. Quite unusually for me, I intend to turn in and have quite an early night tonight and will set the alarm to get up at 6.00am in the morning to finish off my packing. I am relieved that my son is giving me a lift to the station which alleviates the overall stress of the long journey somewhat although I generally enjoy travelling by train if the carriages are not too bulging with people and/or noisy and the direction in which I am travelling there may, of course, be holiday makers returning from the South coast to the North of England. The death has been announced of the Country and Western singer Dolly Parton who, it must be said, was a national icon in the USA. She died at the age of 80 and it always comes as a bit of a shock when well known figures pass away who are younger than you are. Although it must be said, the repertoire and stye of Dolly Parton is hardly my cup of tea but one can only admire the philanthropy. It is said that she earned about $600 million but gave almost all of it away. She had a passion for helping the youth. The Dollywood Foundation was created in the 1980s during her career peak, helping children in Sevier County, Tennessee – where she grew up – to achieve educational success. Through it, she created the Buddy Program, which gave $500 to every seventh and eighth grader who finished high school. The foundation’s website claims the initiative saw the dropout rate go from 35 per cent to just six per cent. Parton also began a scholarship program in 2000, giving $15,000 to five high school seniors from Sevier County who wished to go to college to follow their dreams. The Dollywood project became one of her most incredible legacies, and as of 2025, it gives over 3.4 million books per month to children in the USA and internationally. Practical philanthropy on this scale is almost unparalleled and can only marvel at the good that she did, and will continue to do. She was the 4th in a family of 12 children but never had any children of her own. Returning to practicalities, the Chinese have a saying that a ‘journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step’ so I got up an hour earlier than normal and will concentrate on the final packing of toiletries, food and important things like daily medication (which I have forgotten before) and things like spare batteries which the remote control in the bedroom inevitably needs.

And now for the story of my journey. I caught an earlier train into BNS (Birmingham New Street) and all seemed to be going well as the platform for the departure of the train for York was just around the corner from which I had alighted. At first, the York train seem to have been delayed by about eight minutes but this grew and grew until the delay was of the order of 25 minutes. Then 5 minutes before the train was due to arrive there was a sudden platform change and I was fortunate not to board a Leicester bound train that has just ‘snuck’ into the gap. When the train arrived it was a five coach train and I was one of the first to board the correct carriage but the luggage compartment was already filled with huge suitcases. So I located my seat but there was no way or indeed room that I could have hoisted my large suitcase aloft so it occupied my seat space and I sat on a seat next to a young lady who turned out to be a PhD student at Oxford University. The train was having to go quite slow in case any of the rails were damaged and so the train actually got into York about 1 hour and 50 minutes behind schedule. When I started to speak with the yong lady next to me (actually we were both having a little meal break, sushi on my part which was delicious) we found we had quite a lot in common. My travelling companion was either Ukrainian or Serbian but spoke these two languages as well as Russian and Spanish as well. We exchanged a lot of linguistic stories as well as stories about submitting a PhD but when we were getting up to get off at York, a rather extraordinary thing happened. Another young lady smiled broadly at both of us and told us that she hoped we didn’t mind but she had overheard a lot of our conversation and was absolutely enthralled by it! She herself was a student at Henley Management College in Oxfordshire but that was all we gleaned in a quick snatch of conversation. I had to locate a train to Harrogate but this was easy to find and I only had a 20 minute wait. When I got to Harrogate, I immediately went and bought my ticket to go to Knaresborough in the morning to see my sister and then got a taxi to go to Crown so that I didn’t wear myself out. Having got myself installed in me temporary home for the next five nights, I went shopping to the little store across the road where I bought some milk and, as it cold from their fridge, immediately transferred it to some vacuum flasks that I had brought with me. Thinking  about the things I had forgotten to bring with me, one is some light rainwear so I hope to dodge the showers in the next day or so.