Assiduous readers of this blog might realise that this is ‘Blog No. 1,000’ which is about two and three quarters of a year’s worth of scribbling. I have never been a diary keeper as such but when I was in Madrid, I did write a daily bulletin (‘Carta de Madrid’ or ‘Letter from Madrid’ vaguely based upon the veteran broadcaster Alistair Cooke who used to write ‘Letter from America’ for a weekly broadcast on the BBC. I did a similar thing when I spent a month in Jakarta, Indonesia teaching IT on De Montfort University’s distance MBA program. Whether anybody ever read any of these documents I cannot say but as the years roll by, it can be reasonably interesting to remind oneself of the practical day-to-day concerns that you had probably decades ago. So perhaps the same will happen (or perhaps not) to this blog in the years to come.

Today being a Sunday, I get up early and make sure I am warmly attired before my walk down into town to pick up the Sunday newspaper. As I got out of the house, I checked that the couple of wreaths that we had commissioned from our friend down the road and which were delivered to the house the other day were securely in place in our porch. These are the only Christmas-like decorations that we have put up this year and some time in the next few days, I am going to make an excursion into our loft area to rescue the Christmas tree. We generally keep all of the Christmas stock in one place so that they should be quite easy to locate when the moment comes. When I returned from town, I settled down in front of the TV with a bowl of cereal to see what the politicians on the Laura Kuennsberg program have to say for themelves. When asked to justify why the Secretary of State refused to talk to the nursing union, due to go out on strike shortly, the response was to hide behind the mantra ‘It is for NHS Management to negotiate, not the Government’ which is sidestepping the issue that the Government of the day holds all of the purse strings which could be loosened if they were so inclined. By prior arrangement, we met two of our park friends in the Waitrose coffee bar – I think that we had decided that in this particularly cold spell, we were going to meet in the relative warmth and comfort of the coffee bar instead of shivering in the cold park. Naturally, we talked about last night’s football and then onto a ridiculous discussion about our little techniques in our day-to-day to save pennies (if not pounds)

After lunch, it was time to start thinking about the annual task of writing the Christmas cards. The first thing I had to do was to see if I had any of the sheets of labels of the requisite size and type and fortunately, we had enough in stock to run off this year’s supply of labels. Whilst I was at it, I ordered an extra supply of labels so that next year I will not have to beat about the bush but I will have the materials I want to hand. I also have a page of ‘news’ largely updating family nd friends about the changes in Meg’s health and finally I have yet another set of labels which extends the details on my normal address labels by showing a mobile number, web home page and blog addresses. So every card I write, particularly if I have not been in touch with people for a year, have an individual message as all as the three sets of labels mentioned above. I made a start on this quite large task because we really need to get cards into the postal system quite early on this week as we are away seeing friends the whole of Tuesday and then off to Yorkshire the first thing on Wednesday morning (weather permitting) The first tranche of cards did not go particularly well as people had moved and I did not have an up-to-date address or in the case of Meg’s uncle died. Incidentally, it is always quite a poignant moment when you come to the actual task of crossing people off your Christmas card because they have died in the last year – this does tend to happen once or twice a year at this stage in our lives.

A fairly terrible accident seems to have occurred in a local lake in Solihull. Although reports are still emerging, it looks as though people were ‘playing’ on the ice on a local lake and the ice, which could not have been very thick, had given way and several people were dumped into the freezing cold water. The emergency services have pulled various people out of the water and they required medical attention and some are reported to be in a ‘critical condition’ but whether there any fatalities at this stage has not been reported. By the way, it seems to have been a particularly foolhardy thing to do to skate on the ice which could only be of sufficient thickness to sustain people’s weight if it had been below freezing temperature for several days now.

Yesterday was the first day of the quarter-finals for the World Cup and both of them ended in penalties after extra time. During the afternoon, we watched the Brazil-Croatia match where the Croations snatched a very late equalising goal and finally won the penalty shootout at the end of extra time. This may well have been due to the fact that the Croations are used to penalty shootouts and the experience may be embedded into their collective memory whereas the Brazilians are used to winning matches (and not being taken to extra time and then penalty shootouts) It was an exciting match with genuine end-to-end stuff. The evening match was Argentina versus Holland and was a much more dour affair. The Dutch were very well organised but hardly had any shots on goal but when they did, they scored. It looked as though Brazil would sail through after they went ahead about 7 minutes before the end. But the Dutch scored in the 83rd minute and then actually equalised in the 11th minute of stoppage time. This second Dutch goal was completely extraordinary. The Netherlands were awarded a free kick in the 11th minute jut on the edge of the penalty area and the Argentinins formed a wall to prevent an easy shot on goal. Two or three Netherlands players took their place in the wall (this often happens) after which the Netherlands free kick taker rolled the ball towards his own player in the wall who promptly turned around having received possesion of the ball and then shot it into the net to equalise. Eventually, the game went through extra time and then it was onto penalties where the Netherlands players missed two of their penalties of their own and eventually the Argentinians won the entite match on penalties. The Argentinians seemed to have masses of support within the ground which may have had an impact on the penalties as the Netherlands players were subjected to a loud crescendo of boos and jeers whilst the Argentinian players took their penalties in silence. Today, it is the Morocco-Portugal in one quarter final and the big clash between France and England this evening.

As the weather is so cold at the moment, Meg and I are not in the mood for sitting on an icy cold park bench so we decided, when we met with our University of Birmingham friend yesterday, that we would meet in Waitrose cafe again this morning. There we met with two of our pre-pandemic friends who we know often frequent Waitrose on Saturday mornings. So we had nice ‘catching up on things’ chat before they departed to do their shopping and we resumed our conversations with our University of Birmingham friend who we will probably meet in the same place tomorrow. Then it was home for a lunch of quiche, after which there was more World Cup football. In this match, Morocco were playing European champions, Portugal, against whom the Moroccans scored a goal about half way through the the first half. Then the Moroccans hung on for dear life, nearly scoring a second in a breakaway and repelling the repeated assaults on their goal. So this game did not need to go to extra time and the celebrations were wild in the extreme. Morocco is the first African (or Arab) side to get through to semifinals and is probably a turning point as well established footballing nations such as Germany, Belgium, Holland, Spain have all been knockd out but small and emergent footballing nations (Croatia, Morocco) march onwards into the semi-finals. To round off this footballing section, England have just lost thir match 2-1 to France (as I thought they probably would a week or so ago) The match, though, was a little bizarre – France had the better of the first half and England the better of the second, in general. But there were some bizarre refereeing decisions throughout the game which often worked to England’s disadvantage. One example was a clear foul in the penalty area on an English forward which was initially dismissed and only the intervention of the VAR referee persuaded him to change his mind and award a penalty (which Harry Kane unfortunately missed) Also, the English forward Bukayo Saka who is a player who dribbles the ball and twists this way and that and who is often unplayable and the French players seem to kick him off the pitch whenever he had the ball without much intervention by the referee.

I have found a website often some searching which allows me to download classical and royalty free .mp3 files to put on my little thumb drive and then play in the kitchen. Having downloaded the file, I often have to tidy up (shorten) the name and then use an additional online resource to ‘stitch together’ the various movements of a concerto into the total work which can then be saved on my thumbdrive. In the last day or so, I have managed to download some of my favourite Mozart being the Clarinet Concerto and the Piano Concertos no. 20 and also 21. This means that as I write I have about 3 hours of music on my thumb drive which will prove especially useful when we go on long car journeys (which we will be doing next week, as it happens).

So we survived another cold night aided, of course, by an electric blanket, but Meg and I ensured that we had plenty of warm clothing on as we still have several more days of this really cold spell to survive. Before we breakfasted and at the most inconvenient time (I was dripping wet having just emerged from the shower) I got a call from the Fraud department of the company of the one and only credit card that I possess and only use occasionally. I was asked to verify whether the charge to the card from an organisation whose name was a jumble of letters and numbers and which turned out to be a ‘dating agency’ was genuine or not. The charge to the crdit card had been attempted at 8.29 this morning and was for £31.92 in total. This had so many ‘dodgy’ elements to it that it was no wonder that the Fraud department had managed to pick it up and refused payment. After ensuring that neither myself or anyone else in my household could have used the card to pay this organisation and for this amount, the credit card company immediately put a block on that number and are going to issue me with a new card immediately. Naturally I was both relieved and intrigued. I was pleased that the credit card company had intercepted this payment and prevented it quickly but I asked myself what kind of services one could possibly buy from a dating agency for £32, whether it included VAT or not. On the other hand, I was intrigued how it was possible for my card to be ‘scammed’ by whoever and how they managed to pick up whatever details they did possess. The last time I used the card was to pay for a Pilates group of sessions so I hope that it was nothing to do with that physiotherapy clinic where the Pilates sessions were held. However, this delayed us somewhat this morning.

After we had breakfasted, we made a quick telephone call to our University of Birmingham friend to consult where we might have our customary coffee together. We settled on the Waitrose coffee bar and had our customary friendly chat for nearly an hour, treating ourself to some discounted mince pies en route. Then it was a case of getting home and thinking about our Friday lunch – rather than having sea bass as we generally do, we had some cod in parsley sauce that was cooked in the oven for us. This afternoon we knew that it was going to be one of the first World Cup quarter-finals matches, nmely Brazil vs. Croatia. We tuned into this match about 15 minutes before the end of the first half and it seemed a pretty entertaining match – not the slow, patient build ups that we have witnessed in teams like Spain and even England but rather long range, adventurous passes upfield with plenty of brave runs at the opposition. This being so, we decided to watch the second half of the match which we did in its entirety. At the end of full time, it was a score of 0-0 so extra time was evidently called for. Brazil managed to scored quite a dramatic goal towards the end of the first period of extra time but the Croatians came to the match with a ‘never say die’ attitude and scored an equally good equaliser towards the end of the second period of extra time. And so it came to penalties in which Brazil missed their first but the Croatians missed none with the result that Croatia dumped Brazil out of the World Cup and march on towards the semi-finals. They will be a hard team to beat because in the face of adversity, they never, ever give up. The critical match for everyone here in England is the England-France game tomorrow night which starts at 7.00pm, just about the time that we return from Church but we will watch the match in any case. Tonight, we are going to watch the Netherlands-Argentina match which may well prove to be entertaining.

It is very, very rare for politicians to admit that they were absolutely wrong but that has certainly happened tonight.
The former chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng has admitted he and Liz Truss ‘blew it’ and got ‘carried away’ with bringing in sweeping economic reforms (from which we are suffering the pin, even now) Apparently, as soon as she became Prime Minister, Ms Truss said she did not want any opinion polling as she felt politicians were obsessed with ‘optics’. But despite advisers warning her and Mr Kwarteng that their plans would be seen as a ‘budget for the rich’, they were ignored. I do find it an extraordinary mindset to be surrounded by all kinds of intelligent, well-informed and knowledgeable people who tell you that you are mistaken but you think that you actually know better than all of them and press on regardless (with the dire consequences from which we are all now suffering) I suppose ideologues always think that they have all of the answers but the arrogance of it all still amazes me.

Today was a really cold day with temperatures at the start of the day some way below freezing. It was a day when before I went shopping, I had to engage in the really cold weather routine of pouring a watering can full of warmish water over the car windows to melt the ice and then driving off quite quickly before the water has a chance to freeze again. I got to my local supermarket a few minutes before it opened and then did a more or less routine shop conscious of the fact that next week is going to be a little forshortened as we are to see our friends on Tuesday and depart for Harrogate on Wednesday next for a little pre-Christmas break. Once breakfast had been eaten and the shopping put away, we prepared our elevenses and then made a trip to the park as things have intervened in the last day or so to interrupt our normal pattern of walks. It was particularly cold out in the park today but there were clear blue skies and hardly any wind and we made our way to our normal bench. For the first time ever, we had to spend some time removing ice from the bench before we could dry it off and then proceed to (eventually) sit down. The minute we had finished our elevenses, we were glad to retreat back to the car and then decided to drop by some of our church friends who had kindly supplied us with a couple of wreaths for our front porch. We were delighted to see them because, apart from actually paying for the wreaths, we had not actually seen them for a week or so and so we were delighted to catch up with some news. We exchanged quick updates about our respective plans for the Christmas period and we mentioned the fact that we were due for a short break but promised each other we would get together once we had got our immediate commitments out of the way.

The media this afternoon hs been dominatd by the sentencing (broadcast live in this country) of former US spy Anne Sacoolas. She has been sentenced to eight months imprisonment suspended for 12 months for causing the death of teenage motorcyclist Harry Dunn by careless driving. Whether she was a spy’ or not is unclear but she was certainly the wife of an American CIA officer who was working on an airforce base in Northamptonshire in 2019. The facts, which are not disputed, is that the American woman drove out of the base and immediately started driving on the wrong side of the road – shortly there was an encounter with a young British morotcyclist who died of his injuries. Mrs Scoolas seemed to be granted immediate employment status by the US base and she then fled the country back to the USA within a day, claiming diplomatic immunity. The American system is that very, very rarely if ever, does the USA allow its citizens to be extradited in order to be charged. So Americans do not convicted of any crimes that are committed abroad and Mrs. Sacoolas refuses to return voluntarily to the UK, even though she admitted her guilt. After protacted legal wrangling, she was charged in a UK court and appeared by videolink from the United States where she was received a suspended prison sentence. We have come to expect this lack of symmetry in the relationships of USA with the rest of the world – the Americans cannot conceive of any of their citizens, however guilty, being extradited and then interred in a foreign gaol. So much for the special relationship! What was particularly galling was that after the video appearance, Sky News reporters tried to question Mrs Scoolas and her lawyer to which the galling response after the admited manslaughter of an innocent UK citizen through dangerous driving was to reply ‘Have a nice day’. No wonder the British family of the young man who was killed are absolutely incensed.

The country as a whole seems to be in a parlous state as there are strikes threaned wherever one looks. There seems to have been ongoing train strikes for months now with many more planned over Christmas. Of much more concern to the general public are the planned strikes by the ambulance service which would mean that if an elderly person were to sustain a fall at home, no ambulance would be available. However, a suspected heart attack and stroke victims could still request, and perhaps receive an ambulance service. Nurses on the NHS have voted to go on strike as have border control staff at our ports and airports. Trying to avoid a miserable Christmas could land you with an even more miserable Christmas stuck in an airport with massive queues and cancelled flights. The root of the problem is that for years and years, public service workers have received pay increases less than the cost of living (and therefore real wages have been cut) This year, on top of these cuts, they have been threatened with an even more savage cut as inflation hits anout 10%-111% and the government are trying to offer about 4%. Public sympathy has been mostly with the striking workers but thus may soon dissipate as the strikes bite really hard.

Today was quite a full day, as we always suspected it was going to be. My son and I had made plans to go into Worcester by train to visit the local branch of a bank to get a financial transaction completed. The meeting had been set up for some time and we had made great efforts to ensure that all of the relevant documents were in place before we started our meeting proper. The train station in Bromsgrove is only about two and a half miles from our house but we knew that getting through the town at rush hour was going to be time consuming. We had allowed ourselves three quarters of an hour to get to the station but in practice were about 5-10 minutes late as I did a final check though all of the documents I had run off. In the event, it was touch-and-go whether we were going to make it to the station on time as the traffic appeared particularly horrendous this morning. Then of course we had to get the tickets bought and the car parking ticket sorted out. It was a case of running through the car park and running for the train – we arrived on the platform some 30 seconds after the train was due but as it happened to be one minute late, we caught it on time. When we arrived in Worcester, we dived into a Tesco and bought some plasters so that a cut on my finger did not open up and drip blood over all of our documents and then we treated ourselves to a coffee and a cake near the main shopping district and arrived on the dot when the bank opened its doors at 10.00am. Our transactions were not particularly complicated or problematic in any case but it seemed to take a long time to complete all of the formalities. We had a little break half way through the morning and had to visit my own bank for one particular document and then returned to discuss the options we were offered (what the financial services industries calls ‘products’) and then completed all of our formalities. As this had taken most of the morning, my son and I bought a sandwich and a drink which we consumed in the waiting room in the station (out of the cold) whilst we were awaiting our train back home. I collected our newspaper from our local, friendly newsagent and then went home for a cup of tea and a debrief. Then I made a lightning visit down into town to make arrangements with a solicitor who we needed to complete our legal work. I took lots of ID with me but I needed to return home and make a phone call, which I did and now have an appointment set up for a few days time. So all in all, we have a good day and have a lot of confidence in the bank’s personnel who have given us a very good and professional level of service.

Tonight is the night in the week when we take out our dustbins and haul them to the end of our drive which is necessary as technically we are a ‘private’ road and hence local authority refuse collection vehicles will only collect from the end of it. I did take the opportunity, though, to throw away about a dozen VHS tapes that I still had, which were practically all operas that we had recorded or bought a least a couple of decades ago. Just out of interest, I decided to see when video cassette recorders (VCRs) had ceased to be manufactured and got the answer that the last date of manufacture was 2016. `The same source informed me that if you had a collection of valuable videotape that you still wanted to play, you could probably find machines offered for sale on eBay. I was in no way tempted to buy one of these vintage machines and have absolutely no regrets about junking the tapes I had which had not been played in years but, if I had really been tempted in this direction, then there offers of pre-owned machines on the web with prices ranging from £20-£40. I can well understand that some people may have some really precious material recorded on tape (which we do not) and for those individuals, I suppose the price is not too high if you want to keep alive a memory of a deceased loved one or a wedding video.

Another bit of sleaze is swirling around the Tory party this evening. A Tory peer, Baroness Mone, has been accused of vigorously advancing the interest of a company to bid for and obtain a large contact to supply PPE at the height of the pandemic. The allegations of impropiety have been denied but nonetheless, Baroness Mone is absenting herself from the House of Lords in order to ‘clear her name’. Meanwhile, in the Commons today, Rishi Sunak said he was ‘shocked’ to read allegations about Baroness Mone, adding it was ‘absolutely right’ that she is no longer attending Lords. So it does look as though she is being hung out to dry by the Tory party who did not oppose a Labour move to demand that all of the documentation surrounding the granting of the contract be made available for examination by a Commons select committee.

Today being a Tuesday, it is our Waitrose day as well my Pilates day. As we are by now accustomed, Meg and I went down to our usual haunt to see if we could hook up with old friends. We are well ahead of ourself this morning so we wandered down the High Street to get another opticians’s appointment for Meg and this was arranged without undue fuss and bother. We popped into a local ‘Health and Beauty’ type shop to buy some of the things we cannot get in our local supermarket. Then we eventually made it into Waitrose and did, indeed, meet two of our pre-pandemic regulars whose company we always enjoy. When we arrived back home, we found two magnificent wreaths laid out in our porch. These were two that we had pre-ordered from a friend who who lives down the road and who specialises in making them, primarily for those in the church congregation who would particularly want one. I am not sure but it may be a local tradition for some people to buy wreaths and then put them on the graves of loved ones, particularly if quite recently departed. Then it was a case of walking down to the Pilates class where the class was joined by another male class member who generally attended at another time. We men at Pilates classes always seem to joke a fair amount and today was no exception with me at at one end of the class and the other male class member at the other. I had to be a little bit cautious with some of my Pilates ‘stretches’ because my neck has provd to be a little problematic. However, it is just possible that an hour of stretching and other exercises, including shoulder exercises, might have eased it up somewhat.

What follows now is a World Cup story but not of the usual type. The match between Croatia and Japan, which we did not watch, had run to full time and then to extra time. As the scores were tied, it was evidently penalty time so we decided to tune in to watch the exciting part of the match. The Japan players looked both young and exceptionally nervous when they came to take their penalties. As one of them approached the ball, I remarked to my better half that he was going to miss as indeed he did. The Japanese did not score in three of their first four penalties and, in general terms, it was evident that they had not practised the art of penalty taking. The Croations on the other hand seemed to be quite relaxed (and in one case, over-relaxed as his casual shot hit the post) so it was not a surprise to see that Croatia won the game on penalties. But it was part of the crowd reaction that I found particularly amusing. The Croation flag (and colours) is a series of red and white chequered squares and some of the (male) Croation supporters had attired themselves in what looked like completely Arab dress and head-dress but the material being the same that makes up the Croation flag and national playing colours. This looked so incongruous that it impossible not to let out a loud guffaw when the camera panned over them in the course of filming the ecstatic crowd reactions to the victory. I wonder if the same crew will show up again when Croatia play Brazil in the next round on Friday. I might watch part of the match although I am sure that Brazil will quickly sweep Croatia aside. Mind you, they were finalists against France in the last World Cup and so far, a very small nation certainly punches above its weight. And as a little footnote to this story, in a second penalty shootout, Morocco has just beaten Spain which is quite a turnup for the books. it confirms the reputation of this particular World Cup as the revenge of the underdogs (or the up and coming nations, in any case)

No sooner had I got back from my Pilates session and was in the course of dishing up our delayed lunch, than I got a telephone call from the Bank which my son and I will be visiting tomorrow. Some of the documents that I submitted to the bank recently needed sone revision and when I got back onto my computer, I could see where the problem lay. As I was attempting to download various documents, I used the ‘Print to PDF’ option and assumed that the ensuing PDF would be the complete document and not just the first page of it. So I had to go and re-do several of my documents to get the desired result and am going to take them along as hard copy tomorrow as well emailing them to the Bank (their own ‘secure’ system not working as it should) I could have done without this extra work all afternoon but at least the efforts were eventually crowned with success and I am a little older and wiser than I was. We are having an early night tonight as I do need to be up at the crack of dawn tomorrow to brave the vagaries of the Bromsgrove rush hour on the way to the train station.

Today is what I would describe as an ‘itsy-bitsy’ type of day. We thought that the weather was going to be quite a lot colder this morning so Meg and I made sure that we had plenty of layers of nice warm clothing on before we got going for the day. To get us going, we raided our supplies and had a nice hot bowl of porridge which as we all know is slow-release carbohydrate and therefore helps to sustain you right throughout the morning. We tend to have treacle on our porridge and supplies of this were soon exhausted but as we will be going to Waitrose tomorrow morning, we can soon replenish these. We collected our newspaper and set out for our constitutional walk through the park. We had decided to give sitting on the park benches a miss as we assumed that the benches would be wet (as usual) not to mention cold so we thought that we just do one large circuit of the paths surrounding the pond in the park which I would guess is about 400 metres long but I feel need to measure it accurately one of these days. Upon our return, we made our elevenses but had them at home in front of the TV and waited for the Daily Politics show just after 12.00 on BBC2 which is always lively debate and exceeding well chaired by Jo Coburn. Why I think she is so good is that not only is incredibly well-informed but incisive and analytical to boot. Moreover, by inclination or because of her training, she does not let her personality intrude over into whatever interview or story she is covering and this is all to the good. Anyway, we generally enjoy this show each day from Monday to Thursday and after it, I go off to cook our midday meal. We noticed that when we got back from our walk this morning, two of our neighbours had got round to giving us Christmas cards which I had hardly started to think about this year. When I complete this task, I tend to get the ones to be posted, particularly the overseas ones, out of the way first and then do the neighbours and the ‘delivered by hand’ copies of cards last of all. However, I suspect that this year I shall be sending fewer Christmas cards than usual not least because of the cost but also because many of our friends will be sending email versions if any at all.

Through the post this morning, I had delivered one of those ‘thumb sized’ USB drives which I am going to fill with music and put it into our little music centre which, as it is so unobtrustive, can be an almost permanent fixture. My first attempt did not achieve success as I had two large folders (BACH and MOZART) and perhaps the little system did not know how to process these. So I tried putting everyone onto the root, but this failed as well. Eventually, I put two large composite .mp3’s onto the root directory and the little system seemed to cope with this quite well. Not being a computer but only a ‘music player’, it depends what software ‘firmware’ is baked into the system, I suppose, but by a system of trial and error I am finding out what will work and what will not.

The cold weather snap will be with us for about a week as cold Artic air is being drawn across the UK. There is official advice being given to the general population, namely ‘Try to heat the rooms you use most, such as the living and bedroom to at least 18C if you can, and keep your bedroom windows closed at night.’ I would thought that in this cold weather, the advice to keep your bedroom windows closed is somewhat superfluous but I suppose there are always some people who are used to having the bedroom window open at least a little and are loathe to break the habits of a lifetime. The temperature today was about 6 degrees when we set forth in the car but we need to spare a thought for those surviving in the Ukraine. I read today that ‘civilians in parts of the country will be left without power, heating or water as a result of Russian attacks on infrastructure, and could face frostbite, hypothermia and pneumonia. Temperatures will get as low as -20C.’ So if we think we are going to suffer in a cold snap, we need to think about what is happening in the Ukraine where hostilities are going to go into a ‘winter phase’ as both sides find it difficult to fight when the weather is as cold as this.

The Labour Party are announcing plans to ‘abolish’ by which I think they really mean ‘reform’ the House of Lords. Whilst being committed to the concept of a second, revising chamber and loathing the hereditery principles which holds sway in the present House of Lords, the alternative is not completely clear. If there is to be a degree of democratic accountability, then a second chamber cannot completely frustrate the mandate of the lower house – the present system of practically ‘no whipping’ in the second chamber is actually an admirable one.

It really was quite bitterly cold when I got up this morning, but nonetheless I thought I still persist in my usal routine of walking down early to collect the Sunday newspaper. I did take the precaution of wearing at least two jumpers and an extra pair of socks and I put on my boots rather than my usual walking shoes. When I got back, it was time for the Laura Kuennsberg politics show which was focused almost entirely on the ‘Online Safety Bill’ which is being introduced back into Parliament tomorrow, having been several years in the drafting. The bill is likely to have a rocky passage through both the Commons and the Lords because some of its provisions smack of censorship and are bitterly opposed by the libertarian lobby whilst others feel that provisions that have been dropped to make internet companies responsible for ‘harmful but not illegal’ have certainly weakened the bill as a whole. So, we shall have to see how this bill progresses and whether it will prove to be a toothless tiger.

Meg stayed in bed whilst I was getting the newspapers this morning and slept in somewhat so the rest of our morning was a bit delayed. Whilst Meg was eating her breakfast in front of the TV, I was busy trying to stitch together some music .mp3 files into a composite whole. I had prevously downloaded some bits of Mozart piano sonatas which I assumed would play as a group once I had the files highlighted and put in the direction of the Mac’s Music Player but for some reason, the list of files stopped playing after the first. I tried two online resources that advertised that they would ‘stitch’ together .mp3 files into a composite whole and both of these appeared to fail (i.e. they did produce a composite file which did not actually play). But my efforts were rewarded with the third source that I chose so I now have achieved what I wanted, which was a continuous play of the sonatas. We then pressed ahead with cooking the Sunday lunch of gammon, cavolo nero and baked potato and settled down for what I thought might be quite an entertaining afternoon. I had seen a 1940’s film advertised which was ‘The Life and Times of Colonel Blimp‘ and we thought that this might be quite entertaining – in the event, it was completely ‘missable’ and we abandoned the TV altogether and had a search for some films tht we could watch during the afternoon. I should add that most of the population are in effect waiting for the England v. Senegal match which starts at 7.00pm this evening (and where I have some foreboundings that England might be dumped out by a more innovative style of play)

This afternoon, we have been watching some clips from the ‘Yes, Prime Minister‘ series which is still funny despite being made years ago. There is a story that many of the episodes which are the most memorable for this series have more than element of truth about them. Apparently Marcia Williams, later Lady Falkender and another policy wonk whose name I have forgotten used to meet with the scriptwriters over a liquid lunch each Monday morning. The guts of the story having been communicated to the scriptwriters, they then wove a story around them and the rest is history. One of the most famous, of course, is when there was a visit to a middle eastern country where alcohol was banned – but the civil servants kept a secret supply of ‘hooch’ hidden away in the outer office. When the occasion demanded, they would burst in on the British minister explaining that the Russian Ambassador wanted an urgent interview – a Mr. Smirnoff. Another favourite was to say that an aide-de-camp sought an urgent interview with the Prime Minister and when asked about his name, the PM was told that a Mr. Walker, a Mr. Johnny Walker (or additionally, A Mr. Gordon) was available outside the office.

We learn from the weather forecasters that there is going to be a sharp drop in the temperature next week with cold blasts of about -8 degrees in the middle of the week. I must say that I am not looking forward to this with a great deal of enthusiasm but if the temperature falls to this low level, then it might be too cold to snow which is a sort of bonus. Of course, we have had cold winters before and I remember 1963 because at that time I was travelling on a scooter between Leeds and Boston Spa (near Wetherby) and came off my bike almost everyday. In fact, one got quite used to sliding down the road and then picking up the pieces and proceeding on my way. The first house that Meg and I bought was a terrace house in Fallowfield, Manchester and that had no central heating but we did have a sort of coke stove in the kitchen downstairs and, I think, a couple of gas fires downstairs. The upstairs bedrooms had no central heating at all but we did have a stone hot bottle which regularly dropped out of bed in the middle of the night, waking us both up.

Today as soon as we woke up, we realised that the weather had drifted somewhat colder, so we had to ensure that we had lots of warm clothing to face the day. We picked up the newspaper and then made our way to the park, wondering whether it was too cold to actually sit down. On our perambulation through the park, we met with some of our park friends we had not seen for a few weeks and we chatted about her neighbour who we both knew. The neighbour had been widowed just before the pandemic struck and we went along to the funeral of her husband to whom we tried to give some advice and consolation about the cancer which killed him all too quickly. Anyway, the neighbour had met a soulmate in the golf club which she attended regularly and despite the 16 year difference in their ages, we were informed that they were to be married in the spring. We carried on our way and eventually decided to brave the park bench but it was decidedly cold so we kept our sit on the bench to a minimum, gulping down our coffee and then walking quite rapidly to seek the comfort of the car. As soon as we got in, we made ourselves a ‘cuppa soup’ of some packet soup we already had in stock and this was very welcome and filled a gap before lunch.

Just before lunch, I made contact with the Bank with whom we are having dealings and (eventually) got through to a person who was quite helpful and who promised to send me a link to submit the documents that the Bank still needed. No email arrived which I thought was suspicious but we broke off to have a lunch of largely curried vegetables (well, my mixture of onions. tomatoes, peppers and petit pois) served on a bed of low-calorie rice. Once I had a hot lunch out of the way, it was back on the phone to the Bank to enquire why the promised email failed to arrive. After negotiating all of the security protocols once again, eventually I got through to a person who after some serching located my details and it became evident why the promised email had failed to arrive as a mistake had been made in the email details I had supplied to them. So whilst I was on the phone, I checked that the email had now arrived and, fortunately, it was quite a simple job to upload the various documents that were still needed. Then they had to be electronically signed and all seemed to be safely transmitted. I also sent an email to our contact in the bank, telling her what documents had been submitted and that we were loooking forward to our forthcoming appointment in the middle of next week.

After getting all of this necessary task completed, I thought I would treat myself to watching the second half of the USA vs. Netherlands match in the World Cup. I tuned in one minute before the end of the first half and said to Meg that I would watch until the end of extra time before I made a cup of tea as things ‘often happened’ the the last minute or so of a half on a football match. There happened to be one minute of extra time and about 45 secods of the way through it, as I thought might happen, the Netherlands scored a second goal, doubling their lead. I then thought I would watch the whole of the second half, knowing that the USA would have to score three times to win. In practice, the USA did get one goal back after the Netherlands had played a little dangerously but then the Netherlands scored a third goal and that sealed the fate of the Americans (I am pleased to say)

We hear tonight that the footballing legend, Pele, is in hospital after the chemotherapy he was having to combat colon cancer was failing to have much more effect. Although he reports that he is feeling strong, nonetheless it looks as though he will now be receiving end-of-life palliative care in a Brazilian hospital. He is receiving good wishes from all over the world, including the English captain (and, no doubt, many others) This reminds of me of a story that I read in a book called ‘Great Footballing Anecdotes’ which was being remaindered in a local bookshop. In a local football match, one player received a blow to the head and was being treated by the side of the pitch with about two minutes left to play. The manager was desperate to get the player back on the pitch to either win or save the match and urged the trainer to get the player back on the field. The trainer replied that the player had only just recovered consciousness and didn’t know who he was, to which the manager had responded by saying ‘Tell him that he’s Pele and get him back on the pitch‘ To true footballing fans, Messi has just appeared in his 1,000th game and won the game for Argentina (against Australia) with what is being descibed as a moment of true magic.

So here we are at the end of the week with a typically gloomy day – the weather was best described as ‘raw’ in that it was cold with a bit of a damp edge to it to add a little bit of extra discomfort. As I was getting ready this morning, the telephone rang and it was the service engineer who had come to attend to the flashing lights on our Biodisk, which normally indicates a fault on the system. The service engineer who called round, though, was unsure how the electrical control panel worked so he was managed to indicate that the mechanical bits of the system seemed to be working correctly but he was not sufficiently knowledgeable or trained to deal with an electrical malfunction. We encouraged the service engineer to photograph and then consult with his base for technical support but to no avail. At the end of all this, and despite the gratefully accepted mug of tea, it was concluded that the servicing company had better send around someone who did know how their own unit worked (and which we assumed was all covered by our maintenance contract) So the day did not get off to the best of starts. Meg and I eventually made it to the park and we had prepared some elevenses which we consumed on the park bench, once it had been suitably dried off. We did not stay too long as it was getting a little cold and miserable but we did bump into some of our church friends and spent a few moments chatting, until the damp cold encouraged us all to move on. Once we got home, we had a meal of sea bass served on a bed of salad and then settled down for some afternoon jobs.

This afternoon proved to be one of those frustrating ones, as it turned out. I needed to gather some documents together before a visit to a bank which my son and I are due to make next week. One of the documents entailed a visit to the Teachers Pension Agency which required an email (OK) and a password (now forgotten) Several attempts to use it and then use these credentials led to the website locking out with a ‘website error – please contact us’ So this then involved a telephone call, going through several protocols to establish credentials and so on, just to get a link to reset the password. But after a frustrating hour (it seemed a lot longer) we got the link we needed and therefore the document we needed so now we all have all that is required. However, the last time we did this, the bank’s own upload facility was about as friendly as a cornered rat and we succeeded in doing this by hook or by crook but need to make to do it once again before we meet face-to-face.

Last night’s football was incredible (as was todays) It was the last matches to be played in the ‘group’ round where only the first two of the four teams go through. Germany was playing Costa Rica whilst Spain were playing Japan and, at one stage, about ten minutes before the end of both matches, it looked as though both Japan and Costa Rice would go through. In the event, Japan beat Spain who failed to equalise but they still both qualified as the ‘top two’ whereas Germany beat Costa Rica but neither of them made it out of the group stage. Whether one got through this round was often dependent not just one’s own game but what was happening in the other game, being played at the same time. Germany felt particularly robbed after an incident where a ball in the Japan v Spain appeared to all of the naked eye observations as if it was over the dead ball line. But apparently the technicalitie are such that of the VAR can prove that the finest sliver of a ball’s curvature is judged to be not over the the line, then the ball is judged to be ‘in’ and this proved to be critical. The last few minutes of both games proved to be so exciting that we were flicking backwards and forwards across the two matches to see if a last gasp goal was possible (which it often is when both teams are playing their hearts out to score/prevent a goal). We had similar histrionics this afternoon when Uruguy were beaten by South Korea who now progress to the knockout stage. In summary, we are witnessing a situation in which long established, often European, teams are being defeated by Asian up and coming footballing nations. Hence we see Germany, Belgium, Portugal out of the competition, their places taken by the likes of Japan and South Korea. The other massive talking point is the role of VAR which is now causing as many problems as it appeared to solve. We are arriving at a situation such as the infamous Japan ball (in the ball ‘may’ or ‘may not’ have been judged to have crossed the deadball line) that would have been called ‘out’ by 99% of referees, linesmen and casual observers is now being being ruled ‘in’ with devastating consequences. But it does make the whole of World Cup both interesting and unpredictable.