Today being a Saturday, we are always in a bit of different routine. Meg and I slept in a little this morning but we got our act together once we actually got up, had breakfast and then repaired to our Waitrose cafe hoping to see some of our regulars. We made contact with one of our pre-pandemic Waitrose regulars and spent an interesting half hour chatting with each other, mainly talking about the health needs of our respective partners and we how we were both managing to meet them one way or another. When we got home, I read my emails and we had received one from one of the sons of an eminent professor of publc administration in Spain, who died about two years ago. His name was Mariano Baena and he actually helped to frame the modern Spanish constitution after the death of Franco. As the Professor of Public Administration at the Complutense University in Spain (roughly equivalent to our Cambridge) he made contact with us at Leicester Polytechnic and, cutting a lot of history short, helped to form an exchange relationship under the then Erasmus scheme, designed to facilitate students (and staff) to spend a certain portion of their study in a partner university. We sent several students to Spain once we had given them a crash course in Spanish and received several back, some of whom are now amongst our oldest and closest friends. I spent a term teaching Information Technology to Spanish public administration students and Mariano Baena was immensely kind to me, generally offering me a trip at the weekends to other Spanish cities such as Avila and Burgos, usually centering upon monasteries. I have one abiding memory of one trip out which we made with some of his trusted, postgraduate students. We were parked in a very tight space and even though our own car was small, it would prove difficult to get it out of the tight space. Mariano Baena’s solution was to edge his own car forwards and bump the car in front about a foot. He then adopted the reverse procedure and bumped the car behind him a similar distance. And so this proceeded until it was judged that we had space enough to get out of the parking space without more ado. All that I can remember about this particular incident is that the postgraduate students and myself were absolutely helpless with laughter. I have to add that Mariano Baena was a distinguished academic and an equally esteemed High Court judge who, at one stage, required round the clock protection lest he get assassinated by ETA, the Basque terrorist group, who had a penchant for killing High Court judges when the occasion arose.

Late on this morning, the postman delivered nearly the last of my acquisition of classical CDs, bought through eBay. I must say that I could not resist a boxed set of all 9 Beethoven symphonies on six CDs with Herbert von Karajan conducting the Berlin Philharmonic recorded by Deutche Grammaphon. This is about as perfect a combination as it is possible to get for which I paid £5.60 and so again, like my other recent acquisitions, hours of listening pleasure remain. I tend to give Meg and myself a breakfast time concert as we are preparing, eating and then washing up after breakfast – and ditto at lunchtimes. Although I haven’t done a count, I suspect that I now have a collection of about 120 classical CDs so that it certainly enough to keep us entertained and relaxed over the weeks ahead. Saturday afternoon is always a fairly relaxed affair as we attend church late on in the afternoon and when we return, we already have the good tin of soup organised for when we return, as well as scoping out the TV we intend to watch for the rest of the evening.

Politically, the big story today is how Nadhim Zahawi, a one time Chancellor of the Exchequer of the many we have had recently, has reportedly paid a tax bill of at least £5 million if not more. He says that the tax error was found to be ‘careless and not deliberate’ after calls for his sacking by the Opposition parties. But it is evident that he has paid a penalty of some 30% of the overdue tax so there is an evident lack of transparency, not least to officials of the Inland Revenue, in the past. Zahawi has repeatedly indicated that he had nothing to hide when enquiries have been made of him by journalists but it now looks as though events are overtaking him. How long he can survive as Chairman of the Conservative party remains unclear because although he has the reputation of being a good communicator, every public appearance from now on will be dominated by questions about his tax affairs. This means that he either keeps quiet on futue occasions (thus rather making a mockery of his present role) or he has to face persistent and potentially embarrassing questions. If questions about his tax affairs persist for more a week, then I suspect that like other Tory politicians who have been found out, he will soon become toast (as Alastair Campbell, ex Labour party spokesman was wont to say about other long lasting scandals)

This morning I leapt out of bed sufficiently early for me to get myself washed, dressed and ready to enter the supermarket as soon as it opened. Although we had a frost last night, the car was not as iced up as it was a few days ago so it was relatively easy to get onto the open road and the traffic was generally quite light as well. Before I went out, my son kindly donated to me a Pure Radio which is almost an exact replacement for one that I already have except that it is ‘stuck’ on one station (which happens to be Classic FM) and is therefore almost non-functional. The Pure DAB radios are really easy both to tune and to save favourite stations to presets and also has the feature of displaying the time in a bright, digital display so I am glad to have a nice functional unit in place once again. Last night, I received a special delivery from Amazon which was a copy on the actual publication day of my great niece’s first novel. This seems to be rather a ‘dark’ oevre but reading the dedications and acknowledgements to family and friends was interesting and as far as I have got at the moment. My great niece has always shown a great talent both for acting and also for creative writing – it is said that many novels have a degree of autobiography about them and I feel that this is probably true in this case as well. Once I had got back from shopping a largish prcel had arrived which was the collection of 46 classical CDs for which I had placed a successful on eBay a few days ago. Unpacking and carefully organised the CDs into some special plastic containers (already judiciously purchased from Poundland) was a pleasure that had to await our return from our visit to the Waitrose cafe where we met one of our regulars who even at her age is still a keen bowler during the winter months. I knew almost exactly what the collection of CDs would contain and, no doubt, the pleasure that they will give will unwind during the days ahead. Whilst we were having lunch, Meg and I treated ourselves to some famous Bach choruses sung by The Monteverdi Choir and the English Baroque Soloists under the baton of John Eliot Gardiner which must rate as as definitive a performance as it is possible to get. In fact, I was so delighted with the collection that I wrote a special note to the chappie on eBay who had sold them, explaining how these CDs were ones that were very consistent with our own musical tastes and how the CDs had gone to a ‘good’ home. Although a seller just wants to complete a transaction, the whole collection had evidently been been carefully thought about and assembled by a real aficianado so I felt he/she deserved to learn of their ultimate fate.

Quite a chilly air is still very much in evidence and despite the wearing of two sweaters, both Meg and I felt as though we could do with something a little hotter than our seabass served on a bed of lettuce. The dilemma was solved by serving the fish on one of those low-carb packets (sweet potato in this case)and the result was both delicious and warming.In fact, this combination reminded me of the days when at Leicester Polytechnic, the then Medical Officer of Health (who is the local government official charged with public health responsibilities)used to give a talk once a year to Health Visitors and Field Work Teachers. One, in particular, was concerned even in the 1980’s about the importance of good diet and the avoidance of obesity and junk-food generated disease patterns. His standard line of argument always used to be that we needed here in the affluent West to adopt the ‘poor man’s diet’ of fish and rice which seemed somewhat ‘way out’ when he was giving his advice but somewhat less so now that we are one or two decades down the track. Last night in the evening, Meg and I settled down to watch some back episodes of ‘Happy Valley’ on the BBC i-player in which we have become completely engrossed. I was psychologically prepared to leap up every 30-40 minutes to overcome the buffering problems that have plagued our FireStick since we have started to use it much more to catch up on past episodes. As I was poised in readiness, the technology performed flawlessly for an hour of the repeated programme – which I suppose is a sort of Sod’s Law in operation. Half way through the afternoon, our next door neighbour called around to tell us that her brother has died last night in a hospital in Wales. This was not at all unexpected but of course, it is always a bit of a shock when it occurs however prepared one feels one is. We gave what words of comfort we can and resolved to have the neighbours round for a cup of tea and a chat once the immediate turmoils are behind them. When a relative dies, there is always quite a lot to be done but her employers are expecting her back at work on the dot first thing tomorrow morning.

Today we decided to break with our normal routine somewhat and delay our weekly supermarket shopping for a day, assuming that the weather might have improved a bit by tomorrow morning. We decided to go instead to Droitwich which is just ‘down the road’ and have a toddle around our normal haunts. So we picked up our newspaper, filled up with petrol and then made our way to Droitwich to begin our peregrinations. We start off by going to one of the most popular coffee bars in the town which happens to be our favourite because the coffee is good as well as being hot and they serve a magnificent (buttered) teacake which we share between us. After we had eaten and drunk our fill, we stagger next door which is a Cancer Relief charity shop with generally a good range of clothing inside. There seemed to be an interesting pricing policy going on in this particular store because I normally take a 15½ size of shirt but if you moved up to a size 16 the price dropped by a half. I bought myself a ‘Brookes Brothers’ shirt which normally retails at anything from £50 upwards so this moving half a size upwards might be an interesting experiment for me. We generally look for a skirt for Meg but these to be in very short supply as there stores are generally overflowing with tops but very light in the skirt department (as so many women now wear trousers rather than skirts I imagine) We were also tempted into buying a small barometer/hygrometer/thermometer hanging unit which seemed neat and relatively inobtrusive. When I got this home, I gave it a clean-cum-reconditioning with some furniture polish and it is now hanging from a spare picture hook which is in our newly refurbished ‘music room’. Then we progressed onto my favourite hardware/toiletries store which is ‘Wilko‘ and from here we replenished some of our stationery supplies and did a quick tour to see if anything else happened to catch our eye which it did not. Then we got back into the car and reparked it so that it was nearer to the eating place at which we had booked lunch but made a trip to the TV and white goods store which had sold us our television setup a few years ago now. I asked them for some help with the buffering problems to which our Firestick is subject and they told me things that I already know i.e. have I checked the WiFi access speed and so on. Last night, when we are accessing some of the previous series of a programme we are watching on the BBC iPlayer, the Firestick ran into a buffering problem and froze within 20 minutes. I then performed my now, usual trick of disconnecting and then re-connecting the Firestick and this made it perform without problems for the next 1 hour and 40 minutes. So long as I have a quick and ready solution to the buffering problem, I can live with this but I am wary of spending on WiFi extenders which may not be necessary and which might not cure the problem anyway.

We finally got to our appointed lunch slot (in a kind of ‘Olde Worlde Teashoppe’ type cafe) where they do an enormous roast each Thursday and got there at 1.00pm. We waited for 30 minutes for our lunch but the cafe clientele are generally regulars who know each other so there is a fair amount of general chat and banter flying backwards and forwards. Once our dinner arrived, it was absolutely enormous slices of lamb and piled up with vegetables – the sort of ‘Christmas dinner’ type meal that you think you are never going to finish. But Meg and I ploughed onto the end but as it was a much bigger meal than that to which we are accustomed, we may well eat very light meals for the next day or so to rebalance ourselves. After that, it was a case of getting home, unpacking our shopping and collapsing in front of a warm fire and with a warming cup of tea. The shopping trip which should have taken place today is now postponed until first thing tomorrow morning but the weather should be several degrees warmer by then.

In the political world, the ‘levelling up’ agenda is having some interesting developmemts. Apparently, the phrase ‘levelling up’ is to be officially dicouraged. According to ‘The Times‘, terms such as ‘stepping up’ or ‘enhancing communities’ is now the official terminology. But even more cynically, some so-called levelling up funds are now being directed to the South East rather than the North East. The Tory West Midland mayor is furious at the process for allocating levelling up funds, calling for an end to Whitehall’s ‘broken begging bowl culture’. In an angry statement, Andy Street said he wanted ministers to justify why ‘the majority’ of bids in his region had been rejected.The West Midlands received £155m from a £2.1bn pot of levelling up funds whilst the PM’s constituency (Richmond in North Yorkshire) as received a large allocation of money of £19 million whilst £151m is going to London, the North East gets £108m and the Humber is getting £120m.

Today has been an interesting day. On Wednesdays, our domestic help calls around and we are always pleased to see her and exchange news with her. Last night, we had listened quite carefully to the weather forecast and although the weather was still freezing, it looked as though there was going to be quite a gusty wind which, at this time of year, equates to an icy blast. So we decided to give the park a miss for today and perhaps wait for the weather to improve a little. As it turned out, our domestic help had walked to our house (to make sure she had plenty of exercise) and informed us that it was quite a beautiful day to walk so we revised our plans and then determined to go for a walk around the lake in the park but not engage in a sojourn on a park bench. After our walk we make straight for home and warm up on some soup. Meg and I dived into the chest where we keep scarves, gloves and similar items and discovered a beautiful warm scarf for Meg. At the same time, I located my University of Manchester scarf at the bottom of the pile which I had not worn for about 20 years but today was surely a good time to press it back into service again together with a good pair of gloves which are also sorely needed. So Meg and I had quite a pleasant little walk in the park and muffled up to the eyebrows, we did not allow the cold to penetrate too far. We got back in time for the Wednesday ritual of Prime Minister’s Questions which was full of the usual knockabout stuff and one gets the feeling that both the PM and the Leader of the Opposition have their attack lines well rehearsed and it shows. After the initial exchanges, there is always the cringeworthy spectacle of government MPs asking self-congratulatory questions which are not really questions at all but very often contain an invitation for the PM to visit their constituency which request is always granted (but I wonder how often honoured) Just before we went out, we had a delivery from the postman which was meant to be the complete Mozart Piano Sonatas that I had bought for 99p + postage but what turned up was very different. It turned out to be a complete box set in 10 CDs of Mozart’s 50 symphonies which was actually a surprise to me as the last one he wrote is No. 42. However, I did see an explanation on the web to the effect that Mozart actually wrote 41 symphonies but No. 17 was written by his father, No. 18 by another composer and a third was one to which Mozart only added a few bars to a Michael Haydn symphony. This makes 38 but if we add in 14 early sinfonias this brings the total to 52. In any case, this was evidently a mistake by the well-known firm who specialise in selling off ‘job lots’ so I have accepted the complete box set with a degree of pleasure.

We are contemplating where to go tomorrow for a little trip out. We have been recommended a magnificent local restaurant which sounds good for a special occasion but we are still deciding whether to splash out on it or not. We may well go to our usual haunt in Droitwich where I can can call in the TV shop that sold us our TV kit a few years ago so ask some advice on the Firestick buffering problems we have been experiencing (which, incidentally, our son has also experienced but our domestic help has not)

Today in the Hpouse of Commons, Keir Starmer pressed the PM on waiting times for ambulances, starting off with a hypothetical question (looking at the Commons clock, if a person had heart attack symptoms now, how long would they have to wait for an ambulance at various locations throughout the UK?) The PM response was to attack Keir Starmer for not supporting the Government’s attempts to force Minimum Service Level agreements – the legislation for which has only just started its journey through the Commons and the Lords and may take months to come into force. Then Keir Starmer followed up his attack by mentioning the case of a 26 year old cancer sufferer who died before she could be transported to the hospital which was only a few miles away. The House of Commons heard this in complete silence and I wonder how much the clip will be replayed on the news bulletins later on today. Whilst the Government appears to be desperately playing for time, public sympathy is still with the striking nurses and ambulance drivers so the stalemate may well continue right throughout February and March. On 1st February, teachers will strike to be joined by other public sector unions. But today, a junior transport minister has admitted that settling the rail dispute would have cost less than the costs to the society of the strike. Having admitted this, I wonder how long the Rail minister, Huw Merriman, will keep his job as it seems true that the strike is being prolonged just for the government to ‘hold the line’ on pay.

Last night was the culmination of the waiting period for a job lot of 46 classical CDs that were being sold on eBay and in which I was particularly interested. Firstly, these CDs almost exactly mirror my own (classical) musical tastes and preferences which is remarkable in itself. But secondly, this was not just an assembly of CDs but were very evidently the work of a very discerning collector as all of the performers were absolutely top rate and many of the performances could be regarded as definitive in their genre. The starting bid was £15 for all 46 but I tried to be a little streetwise but did not submit my bid until about 3-4 minutes before the ending time for the auction. The eBay auction system works by automatically upping your bid in about £1 increments until you emerge as the winner of the auction (or have been outbid). In my case, there was one other bidder and evidently his top limit must have been lower than mine otherwise he would have won the auction. The system normally tells you when you have won but last night I got a rather strange message to say that ‘eBay was trying to determine who had won the auction’ followed by an invitation to pay, from which I concluded that I had won the auction for only a little over the initial starting price. Needless to say, I paid on the spot and now await the results of my successful bid in a few days time. I have already worked out the storage area because I have in the past spotted some little plastic baskets with a carrying handle on the side (rather as though it were actually a jug rather than a basket) in which some 22-23 CDs fit absolutely beautifully. So when the CDs arrive, I have a home already prepared for them but today, on the way down to my Pilates class, I popped into our neighbourhood Poundland to see if I could replenish the couple I already had in stock. I was in luck and also managed to secure some of those little felt ‘feet’ that you pop onto the bottom of items to make them effectively scratchproof.

Today the temperatures were well below freezing at about -4 degrees and before we could get the car out, we needed to resort to our ‘warm water in a watering can’ treatment to de-ice the car before we got on our way. It looks as though the cold snap will be with us for a few days yet, as well. Of course, this little system of ours has worked OK but we still have the ice on the inside of the car windscreen to cope with which we did successfully. When we got to Waitrose which is normal every Tuesday morning, none of our usual friends were there and we suspect the bad weather might have deterred some of them from venturing out. But as we were on the point of departure, one of our friends turned up and we spent an interesting half hour, discussing amongst other things the kinds of strategies in which has to engage when either moving or clearing a house. One typically has to take the decision to either keep, throw away or donate items either to friends and relatives or, in some cases, donate to the local charity shop. I recall with a certain amount of horror when we moved house some 15 years ago and, in those days, old credit card statements were paper versions not online) and often contained full details of name, address and credit card number and therefore could only be junked at one’s peril. Hence every single piece of paper had to be read to ensure that no personal information should fall into the wrong hands and the sifting process is time consuming in the extreme. When we were due to leave, our friend was having a little difficuly rising from her chair (as she has mobility difficulties) but two of the staff rushed to her aid and helped to get her onto her feet and hence on her way. Our friend is extremely independent and generally self sufficient but there are always times in which one needs a little bit of help. So incredible service from the Waitrose staff but, of course, we are all known to the staff as regulars and our particular Waitrose does have an incredible service ethic.

The major political story today is about the conflict between the Westminster and the Scottish parliaments over the Gender Recognition issues upon which the Scots have recently voted – and which the Westminster parliament will not pass through for final signature by the monarch. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the particular legislation which will be fought out in a variety of courts over the next year or so, perhaps a massive tactical mistake is being made by the Westminster Parliament. When the public opinion in favour of a second referendum is on a knife-edge in Scotland, a dispute between the Scottish and English parliaments can only reinforce the case that the SNP are making for a fully independent Scotland.

Everything got off to rather a delayed start today. Our next door neighbour called round to explain that a large van was due to be delivering some furniture to him today and whilst the van was in place, it would block the exit of our car. This did delay us for about half an hour but we did eventually get underway and made our trip to the park. Today we christened a new coffee flask as our old and battered one has been in almost constant and daily use for the past three or four years and was quietly giving up the ghost. Some of the internal insulation was evidently breaking down as the exterior was getting warm (which it should not) and I also felt that the contents seemed to taste a bit strange. I have had a spare in stock for a long time now so it was a case of ‘out with the old and in with the new’ The new flask performed flawlessly and the coffee seemed to taste good as well so the replacement proved timely. Although the sky was fairly clear, the temperature had plummeted a fair deal and it was 3 degrees when we left the house. Sitting on the park bench subjected us to the occasional icy blast so we drank our coffee quickly and made for home. The park was deserted apart from a few, brave dog walkers but Monday is normally a pretty quiet day even in the best of weathers. Although Meg and I were wrapped up fairly warmly, we had not availed ourselves of any woolly scarves of which I am sure we have enough but we have not got into the habit of wearing them whilst the weather has not been particularly cold. But we are having a sharp ‘snap’ for the next day or so, so we are resolved to wrap up normally when next we need to.

So it was case of getting home and getting some warm soup inside us as soon as we could. Then we finished off the chicken legs that we started yesterday. I did a bit of an experimentation today and it worked out fine. After searing the chicken, I popped it into the oven for a good hour and a half doused in a tin of chicken soup, supplemented by some white lasagne style sauce. Then towards the end of the cooking process, I removed the meat from the thighs, leaving behind the skin and bones and then doused the meat with a goodly dollop of honey and mustard sauce that I espied in the supermarket when I last went shopping. This was then finished off in the oven and served with some Cavolo Nero and a baked potato. I think I must chalk this up as one of my success stories and I almost certainly will try this recipe again the next time we have chicken on the menu. This afternoon was a quiet afternoon in which I was engaged in getting my household accounts up-to-date. This fairly tedious task was accomplished with no undue problems and as always, I resolve to attempt to do my regular ‘book-keeping’ every few days instead of leaving it for a month.

Meg and I have started watching operas on YouTube, ‘Endeavour’ on the IT hub and some series on the BBC I-player. However, we are finding that we are having quite a lot of buffering problems after an hour or so which could be due to a host of factors or could be a case of ‘throttling’ to prevent overuse. However, a little search of the web has found a website called ‘FireStickTricks’ and the first thing they recommended was a simple ‘restart’ of the Firestick which I have tried and I will see if that cures any of the problems we have been experiencing (which needless to say, are frustrating in the extreme when you are half way through a long program) There are other suggestions which involve the use of a VPN (Virtual Private Network) but I will not go to the expense and trouble of doing this unless I absolutely have to.

The teachers have today voted for strike action – some 90% of teachers voted for the strike and they exceeded the 50% turnout equired by law for a ballot to come into force. The teachers have voted to go on strike on 1st February and thereafter one day per fortnight for the next month or so. But the headteachers’ ballot only achieved 42% threshold and therefore their ballot does not count. However, the union representing headteachers may well rerun their ballot as the initial one may well have been adversely affected by the postal disputes just before Christmas – and, of course, the mood is worsening all the time. Both teachers and nurses seem to have very similar complaints apart from the real cut in their standard of living now inflation has reached 10% and that is a toxic mix of low pay and excessive workloads. One imagines that the government may be more worried by the impact of striking teachers which is bound to affect more members of the public than a train strike or a border staff walk out.

Today being a Sunday, I got up reasonably early and ready for my walk alone down into town to collect our Sunday newspaper. But I had a special reason for looking forward to this morning as I was going to test out out the CD player for which I had constructed a special little carrying case attached to a spare belt. So I put in the two AA batteries that are needed to make it truly portable and set off on my journey. The reviews that I had read of this particular piece of kit ranged all the way from ‘Brilliant’ to ‘The worst thing I have ever bought’ but with many more favourable than unfavourable reviews. One of the more negative reviews opined that the volume of the player did not drown out the noise of passing cars and this quite a bad fault. But with my rather limited experience of listening to music on the go, the very last thing that a sensible pedestrian needs to have is a unit that drowns out sounds of an approaching car and I would have thought that this is a recipe for a disaster in the making if pedestrians were to cross road oblivious to the sound of an oncoming car. Anyway, I found that the player worked beautifully and its claims to be ‘jog proof’ were fully justified as it dod not skip or miss a beat. I thoroughly enjoyed Brahm’s ‘A German Requiem‘ which is not really similar to the traditional requiem which follows the format of the liturgical mass for the dead. In the case of ‘A German Requiem‘, the text is written in German and draws from texts from a Lutheran Bible and does not follow the more usual format of a requiem at all. In the main, though, I shall deploy this unit by by bedside attached to a DC power supply and loaded with a favourite CD for when I need it. This morning we did have a plan to meet up again with our University of Birmingham friend in Waitrose, but we got a text before we set off saying that he could not make it this morning. So being all prepared to go somewhere, we made for the Lickey Visitors centre to avail ourselves of a little walk. This was not a bad idea in itself but being a fine day at about 11.00am on a Sunday, the car parks were full to bursting and we only manged to get parked, afer some peregrinations, when another car conveniently left a space for us. So we decided that this would be a reasonably place to visit (and the large cafe adjacent to it) but only on a nice quiet day.

We lunched on some chicken thighs which I had previously seared in some hot oil and then cooked in the oven supplemnted with a tin of chicken soup and some white sauce. When we have a meal of chicken thighs like this, we always cook them ‘whole’ but then remove the leg bone and the fatty skin before we dish it up. Although the skin can be delicious, I prefer to keep our meal relatively fat-free and today, the meat seemed full of flavour so I will do the remainder of them tomorrow. I had also bought some sprouts but after a parboil, I popped them into the oven with a drizzle of cooking oil and some poured-over honey to make them a little less ‘sprout like’ and these, too, fulfilled their potential. Tomorrow I intend to experiment with a bottle of some honey mustard which I bought on spec to tart up a chicken meal somewhat.

Although not receiving a great deal of publicity, I was intrigued to come across the following. A former Conservative minister has quit the party and thrown her support behind Sir Keir Starmer’s ‘competent political leadership’. Claire Perry O’Neill, who was part of Theresa May’s cabinet and an MP between 2010-2019, said the Tories are too ‘beholden by ideology and self-obsession’ to deliver the change the country needs. I suppose the story has not received much publicity as it did not come from a serving cabinet member or even an MP. But is is an interesting reflection of the fact that the Labour Party has a large lead in the opinion polls and many Tories are now resigned to the fact that there is no way in which the government can ever claw its way back sufficiently to win the next election which must take place within the next 18-24 months. I find her comments interesting in that the Conservative party has not, until recently, been an especially ideological party and you could say had at their heart a type of pragmatic managerialism. But with various sensible MPs being driven out of the party by Boris Johnson and their place being taken by those of a proven Brexit purity, the present Conservative government seems to be a UKIP party in all but name, having adopted the hardest of all hard Brexits. Research by the Centre for European Reform, a think tank, estimates that over the 18 months to June 2022, UK goods trade is 7% lower than it would have been had Britain remained in the European Union. Investment is 11% weaker and GDP is 5.5% smaller than it would have been, costing the economy £40 billion ($48.4 billion) in tax revenues annually.

Today has been a wonderfully enjoyable day so far. The weather was a bit cold and miserable outside and in view of the occasional showers, we were not at all tempted to go for a daily walk. Instead we had a leisurely breakfast aided by our morning ‘concert’ Since I have installed my new Panasonic mini hifi system in the kitchen with easily accessible CDs by the side of the unit, we often treat ourselves to a ‘de facto’ concert whilst we are preparing breakfast, eating it and then washing up afterwards but Saturday morning is a bit of an exception as the presenter on ClassicFM is Aled Jones. I must say that I knew him as the famous boy soprano but according to the Wikipedia entry, Jones became famous for the cover version of ‘Walking in the Air’, the song from Channel 4’s animated film The Snowman, based on the book by Raymond Briggs. The record reached number five in the UK charts in 1985. I don’t know how much influence the presenter has in conjunction with the producer but I found Aled Jones choice of music and presentational style completely consistent with my own tastes. I do not have many dislikes apart from what I call ‘te-tum-te-tum’ type music and there is a bit too much William Walton as well, but generally I am pretty content with what ClassicFM has to offer during the day (and occasionally during the night as well) Today we met with our University of Birmingham friend by arrangement in the Waitrose coffee bar and had over an hour of really informative chat with each other. We both had some little pieces of electrical equipment we are going to let each other have use of when we next meet, which is probably tomorrow. We also had the opportunity to chat with one of our pre-pandemic friends who used to be a very serious fell walker before some of the infirmities of old age struck us down. We exchanged experiences that we both had in our youth (me on one occsion only, our acquaintance much more often) of ‘skinny dipping’ – so called because the only bathing suit you have on is your own skin. Meg and I treat ourselves to whatever is on special offer from the Waitrose bakery and today we had chocolate muffins which turned out to be absolutely delicious so we must repeat the experience when we can. When we returned hom, we had some tomato and pepper packet soup and then I got cooking the lunch time meal. On a Saturday, this often is what emerges from the depth of the freezer and on this occasion it was some beef mince, mixed with some fried onions and then made a bit more moist with some onion gravy and a dollop of the cheap brown sauce that I frequently use to tart up what stews or mixtures I am cooking at the moment. The bit of rioja we had left over from a few days ago also went down pretty well.

Today being Saturday is the day when we attend church, leaving the house at about 5.30. I am looking forward to the day when we can do this in the light rather than the dark. But first, we treated ourselves to some more classical music tracks this afternoon. Because our ‘normal’ CD storage racks are quite full, when we buy new CDs we tend to put them in a bundle in some of our numerous bookcases and here it is easy to forget all about them. So it proved to be today and we found two CDs which we thoroughly enjoyed. The first of these was ‘Duets from Fmous operas’ whilst the second was similarly famous operatic arias so this proved to be a wonderful little bonus for us. By the way, as though we do not have enough classical CDs, I have recently developed a real liking for Mozart piano sonatas (as well as the well-known concertos) and last night was lucky in an ebay auction where I acquired a CD for 99p plus postage. I suppose that certain music lovers have in the past acquired huge libraries of classical CDs but now they have the technology to have digital versions which are much more space saving as well as searchable in a way that CDs are not- hence they are disposing of them at prices that might be a fraction of what they initially paid for them.

In about a fortnight’s time, no doubt, the ‘6 Nations’ Rugby season will start and at weekly and fortnightly intervals, we can be treated to a feast of matches. On ‘playing’ weekend, we can have two matches on a Saturday and one on the following Sunday and I still enjoy this so much more than football which I rarely watch. I find the arm wrestling and shirt pulling totally off-putting and in my view (evidently not widely shared) I would give a yellow card for the first offence and a red for the second every time I witnessed this. Incidentally, I think the women’s game might be more enjoyable to watch as it is a bit more ‘positional’ and a bit less of the brute physicality that characterises the men’s game.

It is always rather nice to get to the end of the week and, moreover, the weather was relatively kind to us today. Once Meg and I got ourselves turned around, we got into the groove of a more normal routine which involves collecting the daily newspaper, popping into Waitrose to pick up some supplies before we finally made it to the park. We had taken some coffee with us but to be honest the park was a little on the chilly side so we drank our coffee pretty rapidly and then made a hasty retreat for home. There we resorted to an old standby which is a mugful of a packet chicken soup which helps to restore us if we feel a little chilled. Today, for lunch, we had some fresh sea-bass (well, bought yesterday) and just served this on a bed of salad leaves. The beauty of a lunch like this, apart from being healthy, is that it only takes about 10 minutes to cook and there is a minimum of washing up to do as well. We treated ourselves to half a glass of white wine which goes particularly well with the fish and the salad but there are times when these screw top bottles come into their own if you only want to imbibe a little. Last night I experimented with falling asleep to the sound of Brahm’s Requiem on my newly acquired little Bush CD player and this seemed to work well. Later on, I hunted aound in my supplies of little electrical ‘gubbins’ and tried the experient of a small standalone speaker designed to work with a laptop which I had acquired some years go. This worked fine and although the maximum volume that be achieved is not high, this is fine if the intention is to have a just-audible system whilst you are drifting off to sleep. So this, too, was a bonus because even though the earphones are fine, they do tend to drift off your head (out of your ears) as a result of the ways in which we move around as we sleep.

This afternoon, it has emerged that Donald Trump’s Corporation (but not Donald Trump himself) as been fined $1.6 million which is the maximum allowed by the New York legislation. This will seem like a fleabite given the size of the other assets owned by or controlled by Trump himself. By itself, this would not seem much a setback for Donald Trump. A judge could only impose a fine on the Trump Organization after its conviction last month for 17 tax crimes, including conspiracy and falsifying business records. However, there are several other legal battles in the offing including one in which Trump has been charged with some of the responsibility for the death of a police officer who had died attempting to delay or obstruct the mob which rampaged through the Capitol building some two years ago. Donald Trump is facing a host of legal actions and naturally is claiming that every court case against him is just a witch-hunt or a Democratic party conspiracy but it seekms likely that all of these legal actions will damage him in his bid to regain the White House. Evidently, although he has declared himself a candidate, the Republican party will need to adopt him as a Presidential candidate and this well prove to be problematic if a series of adverse court judgements are hanging over him.

After lunch, I spent certain amount of time trawling through some of the Pilates books that I possess to see if any of them have a chapter on ‘relaxation’ tecnniques. I did find one chapter which may well prove fruitful and it only took a few seconds with a search engine to discover more fruitful sources (but I am slightly wary of these given the amount of rubbish found on the Web) However, these might prove useful if they are well ilustrated and if one or two techniques will work for me, if not for other people. Meanwhile Sky News is full of dire news from the NHS ‘battlefront’ Patients are dying and staff are broken – as workers say it doesn’t get much grimmer than this. The human toll at the sharp end of the worst health crisis in Scotland’s NHS history continues to escalate to dangerous levels. Families, who have lost loved ones on trollies in overcrowded hospital corridors, have told Sky News that it is like a ‘disaster zone’ where staff are fighting a losing battle and the ill are treated like ‘animals’. It is estimated that between 40 and 60 lives are being lost every week as a direct result of this emergency.

Meanwhile Boris Johnson is still lurking around, making money and positioning himself for a come-back as Conservative party leader. But he only has a majority of 7,200 in his Uxbridge constituency and some of his allies are suggesting that he may agree to give an undertaking of ‘good behaviour’ in return for being awarded a much more secure seat. But it has also been suggested that he would prefer to stand in Uxbridge and fight and, were he to do so, then it is anybody’s call whether or not he would be defeated if the opposition prties form a united front to attempt to remove him.

Today is my supermarket shopping day and I aim to get to the supermarket about one minute before it opens. However, it had been raining heavily for most of the night I would guess and the traffic on the roads seemed horrendous this morning, with queues at very single junction and ‘pinch point’ So having got some money out of a nearby ATM, I was quite fortunate to be only one minute late when I got to the supermarket and it seemed to be extremely quiet compared with past weeks. Fortunately, I found practically everything that I wanted but the delay in getting to the supermarket and then back home again meant that I seemed to be running late most of the morning. We were delayed by another event but this was quite a pleasurable one. Knowing that I can generally browse ebay and get a classical CD for only £2 or so, I had decided to get myself a ‘good’ version of Handel’s Messiah. The version that caught my eye, and which I bought, was Georg Solti conducting, with Kiri Te Kanawa as the lead soprano and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. When this arrived a few days ago, I really enjoyed it as the rendition was bright and vivacious (befitting of a baroque piece) and Kiri Te Kanana exhibited her usual brilliance in the recording. Once I had bought this CD which was recorded in the mid-1980’s I noticed that another rendition was available (and even cheaper) and this was the version conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham in 1959. So I did what I have never done before and bought another version of the same piece of music. Beecham had written some of the program notes and he pointed out that the original score of The Messiah has been lost so no one really knows how large the orchestra was likely to be but it is surmised that it would be principally strings with a small woodwind section of oboes and bassoons and even less brass and percussion. So Beecham had used the score adapted by Sir Leon Goossens who is regarded as one of the finest woodwind players (on the oboe) that the country has ever produced. But this version of The Messiah was so different from the later one. For a start, it seemed much richer in texture, played at a slower pace and evoking adjectives in one’s mind such as ‘majestic’. The ‘Alleluja’ chorus in which the brass and timpany are given full rein is a wonder to which to listen. Although the two recordings are both fine but so very different, how does one choose between them? I suspect that I will do on the basis of mood and if I play it around Christmas or on a Good Friday, I will choose the Beecham version but the Solti version if my mood if somewhat lighter.

As it was raining pretty hard throughout the morning, Meg and I decided to eschew any walks in the park and we lunched on a curry kindly provided for us by our domestic help yesterday. After lunch, I decided to give a good trial to the little Bush CD-player which was advertised as ‘jogger proof’ and which I got brand new at a knockdown price from my peregrinations throughout eBay. This took 2 x AA batteries and it performed flawlessly. I had imagined, in my naivety, there would be a couple of plastic tabs built into the unit through which I could thread a tape and hence around my neck for when I walk into town on my own and require some diversion. However, ‘necessity is the mother of invention’ so I did a good raid of our bathroom cabinet where I found a stout plastic case with dimensions very conveniently just a centimetre or so wider and longer than the dimensions of the player. This I have threaded onto a belt which I rarely use and it now means that when I undertake a walk on my own down into town, I can have the player performing away effortlessly in the little bag hanging from my waist (and covered by a jumper in any case). I then did some research to see how long the batteries would last and the answer was about six hours which is long enough for every train journey or even flight I am likely to undertake. But details were given of the power supply that should be used and I raided my supply of two Nokia phone chargers, differently rated as it happens, to see which would be safe to use. I did a bit of research on the web to see if I could could a charger of higher or lower amperage and assumed that a smaller amperage would be safer but this is not necessarily so. Apparently devices will only draw as much power as they need but attempting to draw ‘less’ might make the unit overheat which is not a good thing. The idea now is that I can use a DC power supply when I am listening to whatever I want to in bed (and to which I can fall asleep) whilst I will reserve the batteries for my (musical) forays into town.