After a good night’s sleep, Meg and I enter our Sunday morning routines. After the carers had got Meg up and we had breakfasted, we turned on the TV to get the last embers of the Olympic Games, the normal political programmes being off-air whilst we are in the midst of a holiday service. Then we had a visit from our Eucharistic minister and as we tend to do, we discussed with dismay the fate which is likely to befall our parish. It looks as though as part of a regional reorganisation, the number of services will be reduced from three at the weekend to one on a Sunday, attendance will fall dramatically, income will consequently fall and our whole parish looks as though it is going to enter its death throes. This is a source of some distress to the particularly committed church members but is a syndrome which is common across many denominations in the UK at the moment. After our visitor had left, we got together some elevenses, walked down to pick up our Sunday newspaper and thence to our usual bench in the park. We came across one acquaintance who we see most Sundays but our University of Birmingham friend had domestic commitments this weekend. We cooked some beef in the slow cooker and so had a lunch of beef, cabbage and baked potato. The beef was tasty enough but I often find the flavour improves the following day. After lunch, Meg and I tuned in to the ‘Pilgrimage’ programme which we often view on a Sunday. A group of celebrities of diverse faiths and none engage in the pilgrimage and today we viewed the route of St. Colomba. This might be thought of as a Catholic pilgrimage but according the Scotsman, Saint Columba is arguably Scotland’s most popular saint and certainly its most adaptable, ecumenical and all-purpose one, equally beloved of Roman Catholics and Wee Free Presbyterians. What I find interesting about the modern day pilgrims is that you can see the group engaging in physical, emotional and to some extent spiritual explorations as they journey. In today’s program, we have a practising Catholic, a lapsed Catholic, a Sikh, a Muslim, a pagan and a Jew. But in no way does the program attempt to convert pilgrims from their current belief systems but in practice, each participant seems to find their own pre-existing beliefs to be renewed and even reinforced. There is sometime in the pilgrimage for everyone – for example, the paganist could point to the ancient ‘stones’ that had been erected in pre-Christian times but which had to some extent been Christianised in that the religious/spiritual significance of the stones were incorporated into the early Christianity. Other pilgrimage programmes have explored the route to Santiago de Compostela, Fatima and North Wales.

In some ways, the riots that we have been experiencing in some of our communities could not have happened at a worse time. The political elite are all taking their summer holidays and the Paris Olympics is providing diversions for many. The response of the government seems to have worked, however. Massively reinforced policing, almost instant court cases and terms of imprisonment of up to ten years seems to have turned the tide. At one level, I applaud the activities of the government in responding to these riots and one can only wonder what the response of the Tories would have been if they still in power. The modern Tory party has drifted more and more rightwards and one can imagine that at least some members of the Tory party might be somewhat ambivalent about the attacks that are made on asylum seekers and other ethnic minority communities. It is sad to say that one level the riots have succeeded in one of their objectives because I have heard more than one member of an ethnic minority group say that they feel threatened and frightened in contemporary Britain. But one wonders after a period of imprisonment, what effect will this have on the mentality of the rioters? At least part of me is inclined to argue that the government is convicting people of being stupid and ignorant. One of those convicted said to the police that he had no idea what ‘Far Right’ (or Left for that matter) actually meant. Perhaps in our society, it is left to the probation service to help in the re-education process of those convicted and imprisoned. In Chinese society (and even in Saudi Arabia) there follows a process of ‘political re-education’ and although we in the UK might be repulsed at these measures, the point remains how we are to deal with the aftermath of the riots. The education secretary is going to generate changes in the curriculum to encourage school pupils to have a much more critical attitude to what is read on the internet and to spot ways in which fake news can be spotted and counteracted. But the genie is now out of the bottle and with the increasing influence of artificial intelligence, one wonders how easy it is even for those who are ‘internet savvy’ to spot fake news, let alone those at school. In general terms, I think that the government is on the right lines in doing what it can to counter the effects of social media but national governments are pretty powerless to be able to act unilaterally against the impacts of it. There is a complete irony in that Elon Musk, the owner of social media platform X, has claimed civil war is ‘inevitable’ in the UK as pockets of violent disorder continues to break out across the country. But if any western country is on the brink of civil war, one would imagine that the USA should be the first to be considered in this category.

The Olympic Games ends today and a dramatic closing ceremony is promised to us by the French in the Olympic stadium. Team GB ends with 65 medals (14 golds, 22 silvers and 29 bronzes). They top their Tokyo tally by one, although did win eight fewer golds than in 2021. But to my recollection, there seemed to be a large number of events in which the British athletes were literally pipped to the post by the smallest possible margins. The next Olympic games are to be held in Los Angeles in the USA and I can only see our medal total going down in four years time as the numbers of family and friends must reduce compared with Paris.

This morning dawned as rather a gloomy day but the weather forecasters tell us to expect two or three days of really fine weather in a mini heatwave before a succession of Atlantic storms are destined to sweep across the country. After we had got Meg up and breakfasted, we set forth for our Saturday morning trip down to Waitrose to see our friends and indeed saw two of them but the third was absent so we hope that she is in good health. After we had made our up the hill and the carers had attended to Meg, I set about preparing our Saturday lunch. I had bought a large chicken, bacon and leek pie which I divided into half as is my wont, cooking one half of it today and freezing the rest for later. Immediately after lunch, I consulted the TV schedules to see if any good films were being shown. Fortunately, there was one which I had seen in a documentary before but not seen the actual film. This was a wartime story entitled ‘The Man who Never Was’ and was the story of one of the greatest acts of political deception instituted by the British during WW2. Basically, the plot was to deceive the Nazis that an intended invasion was to take place through Sicily by taking a corpse, given it an authentic British identity (including papers signed personally by Churchill himself) and then letting the body, released from a submarine, to be carried by the tides to be deposited on the beech of Huelva, near Cadiz in Southern Spain. Here it was almost certain that the body and the briefcase containing papers attached to it would be handed over to the Germans who would then assiduously check out all of the details to attempt to ensure that they were not being duped. The British intelligence officers had done such a thorough job of filling in the ‘back story’ that upon a German agent checking what was possible in London, the identity of the body (actually a European vagrant) was confirmed and so the deception was successful. To my mind, the documentary when it was broadcast several years ago was even more exciting than the film but it is always interesting to see ‘true’ stories as it were.

Returning to the American political scene after a day or so, I note that one opinion poll (which might be a very small and aberrant one) gives Kamala Harris a lead of 8% over Donald Trump. Whether this poll is an accurate indication of public opinion or not, it certainly shows the direction of travel because the Harris campaign has certainly been energised of late whereas the Trump campaign seems to be going nowhere. One of the attack weapons that the Democrats are deploying is that of sarcasm and humour and I feel that the American political system is probably more used to frontal attacks rather than wit or sarcasm. Donald Trump’s running mate, J D Vance has been the object of particular mockery, one of the attack lines being that he uses eyeliner as though he was desperate to attract attention at a disco. But the more serious charge is that it is claimed that he once had sex ‘with a couch’ Now this letter claim is interesting because upon fact checking it is probably untrue. But the political damage arises from the fact that many of the American public do believe that it could be true and herein lies the force of the attack. The Democrats are persisting with their attack line or should I say, attack word, the Republicans are ‘weird’ and this appears to be having an impact. Probably one of the greatest attack lines of all time relates to the incredibly tight race between Nixon and Kennedy in the 1960’s. Richard Nixon, who of course eventually made it to the presidency was defeated by Kennedy. Nixon was one of those men who grow a beard exceptionally strongly and really needed to shave twice a day. But in one famous television broadcast, Nixon had forgotten to have a second shave for that day and when he appeared on TV had a slightly dark and sinister appearance to his jowls. The attack line from the Kennedy camp was ‘Would you buy a used car from this man?’ and reinforced the view that Richard Nixon was not to be trusted and thus deserved another soubriquet which as ‘tricky Dicky’ In the British political system, wit and humour is much appreciated in the House of Commons on both sides of the political divide. The master of this was undoubtedly Denis Healey, the veteran Labour politician who once described Margaret Thatcher as ‘Atilla the Hen’. Another political opponent was Geoffrey Howe who had a rather dreamy and languorous appearance although he was actually quite a smart cookie, as the Americans say. Denis Healey said of Geoffrey Howe that to be attacked politically by him was like ‘being savaged by a dead sheep’ One knows that these attacks are hitting their target when opposition laughs as much at the joke as one’s own side. One of the best opponents of the art of the amusing ‘bon mot’ was the Labour MP Tony Banks who made his reputation as a wit on the Labour back benches. Eventually, he was given a junior position in the Government as a junior minister for sport and his observation upon this was ‘I am completely gobsmacked. It is a bit like going to heaven without having to die first.’ In fact, it does not take much searching on the web using the search term of ‘the wit and wisdom of Tony Banks’ to find a whole slew of the amusing put downs of which Tony Banks was the master.

There is a hint in some of the American media that Trump might be exhibiting some of the first signs of dementia, or at least a degree of paranoid behaviour. Such is the opinion of an American psychiatrist but I am pretty sure that American psychiatrists are barred by the code of ethics of their own professional association not to diagnose at a distance but this principle seems to be more honoured in the breach than the observance. But even on a straight political level, Trump does not seem to be conducting a ‘normal’ political campaign. Three months from election day itself, one would imagine that there would be lots of visits to the crucial ‘swing’ states but Trump seems to be holed up in his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida rather than campaigning in the normal way. Trump has recently claimed that he has drawn a bigger crowd than the celebrated Martin Luther King in his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech but this may be yet another indication of Trump’s delusional grasp of reality.

Today our domestic help called around as a change from her usual day on a Wednesday and it is always good to see her and to have a chat. Last night, Meg had a rather disturbed evening so the night’s rest was not as restful as it could be. I had recommended our newly found cafe, ‘The Lemon Tree‘ to our domestic help and she had taken along three of the residents of the home where she works for a treat in the form of a knickerbocker glory. We met up with our University of Birmingham friend, as we did last Friday and our conversations are always something to which we look forward. However, we shall not be seeing him for about ten days as he has some family obligations this weekend and then is off for a continental holiday to do what I suspect is some delightful walking in the mountains. Our son and his wife are also away for the next ten days so I will feel a little bereft so I must find other some diversions to take my mind off the absence of a holiday. Meg and I used to have a holiday in late September to coincide with our wedding anniversary and Meg’s proximate birthday and then a winter holiday in late January in the inter-semester period when I was at work in the university. Our last holiday was planned to be in Porto in Portugal at just about the time that the pandemic struck us all down so I suppose it is the best part of five years since Meg and I actually holiday together, abroad at least.

With the Olympic Games approaching their end stages, I have been thinking about how the athletes cope with success and with failure. One of the lessons that must be very hard to learn is that success or failure is not always due to one’s own efforts but what is happening around you. This was dramatically illustrated in the case of Josh Kerr, the British 1500 metre runner who had his sights solely set on securing a gold medal. He was so intent on beating his long time rival (which he did) and actually ran a personal best, securing both a UK and European record, that he failed to notice an American who made an amazing last few seconds sprint to secure the gold medal and beat Kerr by 0.14 second. My point here is Kerr achieved a silver despite putting practically a ‘gold medal’ performance. Similarly, in many Olympic sports a medal might be secured, even a gold medal, because a very near competitor made a critical error which cost them the ultimate title. The gold medal winner in these cases is unlikely to say that possession of the gold medal was not due to his or her own performance but was due to the failure of a rival. So the wider point I am making here is the behaviour of others around you may help to account for ultimate success or failure. After I had submitted my PhD thesis and was waiting for the critical three month period in which the thesis was being tread and evaluated, I typically walked to the college where I worked at a distance of about a mile. So I had plenty of time on my own to contemplate whether I was going to succeed or to fail and so I had to keep asking myself, as someone who has enjoyed a modicum of academic success in my lifetime, how I was coping with the prospect of failure. After all, it is easy to cope with success but for how many of us is it difficult to cope with failure? At the time, one of my best academic colleagues, a much younger but brilliant young scholar who was just on the point of submitting his own PhD, gave me an excellent piece of advice. I must confess this colleague had a very wise head on young shoulders and he advised me that it was not unusual after a PhD had been submitted and examined that some additional work had to be done, for example a particular chapter to be rewritten. So it proved to be in my own case as my examiner towards the end of what I thought was a successful ‘viva voce’ defence of the thesis mentioned that he had looked in vain for evidence of ‘Fourth generation evaluation methodologies’ Of these I had never heard (nor had the other two examiners either) so I did undertake an additional piece of fieldwork, wrote a chapter incorporating the aforementioned methodologies and was duly award my PhD after a total research time of only about 2-3 substantive years. I was subsequently to discover from a lecturer at Birmingham University who I knew from my conference circuit days that this particular External Examiner invariably asked his examinees to go the extra mile as they say and to make revisions and or augmentation of the submitted viva. In some ways, this made me feel better once I learned this as I am of the view that the quality of a PhD is of the Chief Examiner who approves it rather than the actual university which awarded it. But I have known some excellent colleagues in my time who have had a setback in their ‘viva voce’ examination (as indeed I did) but who subsequently did not go on to complete their PhD although I am sure they were both very worthy candidates. Earlier in my life, I had attempted to climb the Three Peaks of Yorkshire; (Pen-y-Gent, Whernside and Ingleborough) where you are regarded as competent by the Leeds and Bradford hiking club if you can complete the entire three mountain ascent/descent and the distances between them within a twelve hour period. My first two attempts to do this ended in failure but I was successful in my third attempt. I think the choice of a good walking companion was crucial in this respect because I was a fast starter but a slow finisher whereas my companion (best man at our wedding) was the reverse. Consequently, I got us around the first part of the trek and my companion the second half so again, this reinforces the point that success may depend upon the people around you as well as your own individual efforts. For the ‘Thee Peaks’ of Yorkshire, pone had to sign in with a starting time to a log book in a little cafe in Horton-in-Ribblesdale which was the starting point. Hence, it could be judged whether you had completed the round maintain trip within twelve hours and, if so, could purchase a little plaque to hang somewhere in one’s house if so inclined.

Last night, I watched the UK runner, Josh Kerr, whose ambition it was to land a gold medal in the 1500 metres. Although he was in the lead with a few metres from the tape, he was so intent on beating his long time rivalI(which he did) that an American runner ‘snuck up’ on the outside with an incredible sprint to secure the gold medal for the US. Later on in the evening, I took the opportunity to Skype my University of Winchester friend and we were chatting with each for the best part of a couple of hours. We share a lot of notes as well as emotional support concerning the condition of our respective wives who both have long term health conditions and we had not been in touch for some weeks and hence the long Skype call. So it was fairly late when I got to bed but Meg and I both seemed to have quite a good night’s sleep. This morning, being a Thursday, is my shopping day and it was not long after breakfast when our sitter arrived, a young psychology graduate with an incredibly sunny disposition, so I got the shopping sone and then we took Meg into the kitchen so that the carer and myself could put the shopping away.

Overnight, we awoke to what must be good news. Yesterday evening, the police were intimating that they might have to attend up to 100 Far Right demonstrations or more accurately confrontations right across the country. But the government and police are determined to crack down hard on this Far Right thuggery and already some of the rioters have appeared before courts and have been sentenced to quite hefty prison sentences. The government machine is also publishing the mug shots of those given a custodial sentence and the hope is that this will act as a deterrent to demonstrations in the next few days ahead. But what happened last night was remarkable. It looks as though Anti-racist groups as well as ordinary citizens had come out in force to defend their communities against Far Right attack. In particular, as the Far Right were intending to target hotels in which it is known that asylum seekers have been given accommodation, then the anti-racist groups had managed to assemble great numbers in front of the hotels and other Far Right targets to form a massive human shield. So when the Far Right did turn up, it was not in the anticipated numbers and they seemed powerless to vent their ill-will when faced with the massed ranks of the individuals across the country. So they generally slunk away without causing any of the mayhem that we have come to expect in the past few days and the government, police and most of the rest of the country must be breathing a massive collective sigh of relief. So far, the Government strategy of confronting the Far Right with immediate force and judicial sanctions seems to be working but of course we shall have to see what happens in the weekend ahead. The more cynical amongst us are crying out for some rain (as indeed it has rained today) because this always seems to have a dampening effect upon those who wish to continue the rampages of the past few days. The government is also intending to pursue those who use the social media to promote random acts of violence across the community and are also trying to hold the social media companies themselves to account but I doubt that they have the wherewith all to challenge the social media companies head on.

In the late morning, we spent a certain amount of time watching the Olympics. We witnessed some sailing although it is a little difficulty to discern what is going on at times, quite a lot of the mens spring board diving (at which the two Chinese athletes excelled) and our two divers made a bit of a hash of things after their success in the synchro diving and finally some Taekwondo which did not interest us greatly. Then I pressed on with making a stir-fry of a fairly traditional nature for me (onions, sweet peppers, fragments of ham ends, tomatoes, petit pois, some gravy leftovers, a diced apple, some sultanas and a dessert spoonful of brown sugar, served on some basmati rice and with a big dollop of yogurt. I always tend to make a it too much of this mixture but I can always eat up the rest as a bite of supper. After that, having enjoyed ‘Pride and Prejudice’ so much over the last few days, we followed it up with ‘Sense and Sensibility’. This was a complete film but we watched the first half of it and will follow up with the second half tomorrow.

On the other side of the Atlantic, it looks as though Kamala Harris is slowly starting to pull ahead of Donald Trump in the race to the White House. One particular tactic of the Harris team, particularly after the choice of a running mate for Harris, is to poke fun at Trump, repeating the observation that he and his coterie are weird. Politicians can often cope with direct attacks but to be made fun off or be ridiculed, they all seem to find very difficult.There are some indication s also that Trump and the Trump campaign is imploding, or at least finding if difficult to cope with attacks made upon them. Trump’s running mate, Vance, attended a meeting of Republicans the other day which was very sparsely attended and his past pronouncements on women has made him the object of ridicule. Trump himself seemed to be promising that if Christians voted for him, they would never need to vote again – all of this adds to the sense of weirdness and unreality.The whole election, though, will be decided by comparatively few voters in about half a dozen swing states. It is almost certain, though, that if Trump loses the election narrowly, he will cry cheat, refuse to accept the result and bring out his supporters onto the streets. So we may see something approaching a civil war after the November elections.

Today is the day when our domestic help generally calls around but this week her visit to us was being postponed until Friday. So after breakfast, I popped down into town to collect our newspaper and then Meg and I made our way to the park, where we consumed our elevenses. On the way down the hill, we chanced across our Italian friend and had a few words with her about the crash across the road from her house before we made our down the hill. On the way we received a call on our mobile from one of the occupational therapists so I was having to conduct quite a lengthy conversation with her on the one hand whilst steering Meg down the hill in the wheelchair on the other. The upshot of all of this is that we are to expect a visit from one of the OT team next Wednesday so we will need to prepare ourselves and make sure that we are ‘at home’ for when she calls. There are a few issues that we need to discuss but I am glad that we are actually getting a face-to-face visit as there is a limit to what can be communicated over the phone. When we got home, one of our neighbours had pushed a copy of the local newspaper through our front door where the crash that we witnessed last week was the front page news. Having passed the crash site several times in the past week, I have now calculated that if we had arrived on the footpath some two seconds earlier than we did and if the crashed car’s steering wheel had veered to the right rather than the left then Meg and I would almost certainly have wiped out by the oncoming car. The other experience in my life that was vaguely similar to this was the incident that occurred in 1973 when I was employed at Leicester Polytechnic where I was moving from a lecture in one part of the campus to a seminar in other building. The Polytechnic campus straggled a main road and at a ‘T’ junction, the driver of a Hillman Imp fainted at the wheel, crossed straight over the ‘T’ junction and sent me flying (breaking both legs in the process) and carrying the two students with whom I was conversing on its bonnet through some iron railings and piling them against the wall of an adjacent building. Meg’s father to whom we recounted the accident in all of its gory detail asked the rather naive question why I did not jump out of the way in time. We had to point out that a car travelling at 40mph is covering approx 60 feet per second and as I saw the car crossing the centre line of the road I had approximately a quarter of a second to jump out of the way. This was just about enough for my brain to register to my legs to not continue walking forward and thus I was dealt a glancing blow and thrown in the air and out of the way of the body of the car which probably saved me from even more serious injury. I have a further two instances where the coordination between eye and brain assumes some importance. At Leicester Polytechnic, there was installed what was known as a ‘pater noster’ lift which resembles a series of cubicles strung together in a long elliptical chain and which made its progress up and down the building. To use the lift, one was meant to approach it and then step into it (to ascend) or of it (when alighting at the appropriate floor) Sometimes, if one was in a hurry, there was great temptation to jump onto a rapidly ascending cubicle but by the time one’s eye had judged this and the brain activated one’s jumping muscles, then the pater noster lift had ascended by several crucial inches by the time you actually arrived at. Consequently, one had to learn to ‘over jump’ i.e. to jump to where you learnt to judge the cubicle had actually arrived rather than one’s first sight of it. We also had a paster noster lift installed at Salford University where I studied for my MSc and where the Duke of Edinburgh as Chancellor was called upon to open a new building where the lift was installed. The story was often told how some adventurous postgraduate students stood on their heads as the cubicle went ‘over the top’ (which was itself quite a nerve wracking experience) to the astonishment of the visiting royal party to whom the innovative new lift was being shown. One of these lifts was installed at Newcastle University and it had the most tremendous crash but in July when all of the student population had departed – but if the lift had been populated there would have been several casualties. The Health and Safety Executive immediately slapped a ‘stop’ order on all of these lifts throughout the country and subsequently they were judged to be too difficult to maintain or dangerous to operate so they were withdrawn throughout the country. A second instance of ‘eye and ‘brain’ concerned running for a bus where one made a leap for the wide platform towards the rear of the bus. Again, one had to learn to ‘overjump’ as the bus had moved on a foot or so by the time your body actually arrived at it. I am sure there must have been accidents all over the country with people running for and not quite catching their intended targets.

This afternoon, Meg and I were just settling down to enjoy the last episode of ‘Pride and Prejudice’ when the doorbell rang and it was hairdresser who had arrived to cut Meg’s hair and my own but which I had failed to put on our planning board. The hairdresser and I put our heads together and we scoured the internet to find a special hairdressing bowl so that Meg’s hair can be washed ‘in situ’ the morning before the hairdresser actually arrives. Our hairdresser had been coming to us for the best part of fifteen years now and so knows our situation intimately so it is easy for she and I to collaborate to give Meg’s hair the attention that it needs. Meg and I have a planning whiteboard in our kitchen upon which we mark up forthcoming appointments but on occasions, the writing of a new entry can rub out an existing one and I think this must have happened on this occasion.

Tuesdays are our traditional Waitrose gathering days and today was no exception. I was particularly pleased to welcome back our inveterate fell walker who had been confined to her own house after a fall had rather incapacitated her shoulder. On the other hand, one of our other regulars did not make it into our company today and this is always a source of concern less she has a bout of illness. After our elevenses and the purchase of some excellent low alcohol lager which is stocked in the store, we made our way home getting ourselves for our ‘sit’ visit which is, in theory, is devoted to my Pilates session. In practice, I tend to go out and do some crucial non-food shopping in the High Street. I had a particular mission today which was two fold. First I needed to go to the Post Office to return a watch I had purchased back to Amazon as when it arrived, the hands were almost unreadable across the face of the watch and distinctively different to the illustration on the web. Amazon now has a system where one takes the item to be returned back to the Post Office where, facilitated by the QR code on one’s iPhone, it gets returned directly to Amazon and a refund is offered immediately. Then I needed to go onto the High Street to buy myself a new watch as my previous one seems to have given up the ghost after about seven or eight years of daily use. There is a stall on the High Street that sells cheap watches and I needed to make an instant decision between a dark face with silver hands and a white face with black hands. On the spur of the moment, I chose the latter so I now have a watch which looks exceptionally plain but is absolutely functional and has a warranty both on the watch and also on the battery. I was also pleased to be able to purchase a watch with a leather (rather than a metallic) strap already attached and so I dashed back home again. Then it was time for a quick burst of watching the diving on the Olympics before I prepared our conventional lunch for a Tuesday of fishcakes accompanied by microwaved vegetables. The afternoon turned out to be very fine so immediately lunch was over, I seized the opportunity to take Meg into the back garden and to get the back lawn cut. This we managed to do before the care workers were due to arrive to organise Meg’s afternoon comfort call after which Meg and I resumed our viewing of ‘Pride and Prejudice’ on the BBC iPlayer, the first part of which we so enjoyed yesterday.

I have been reflecting upon the wave of riots sweeping the country in which the Far Right have taken the opportunity to capitalise upon the discontents in the country as a whole. To my mind, there seems to be quite an association between the towns and cities experiencing the riots and the Brexit ‘Leave’ voting areas – Hampshire and Surrey are hardly going up in flames. The common factor is evidently those communities that have felt left behind and the last government’s rhetoric of ‘levelling up’ never seriously addressed these inequalities. The most that levelling up seemed to achieve was to invite one deprived community to vie with another for some limited funds to improve town centres which hardly started to address the scale of the problem. Like many others, I am appalled at a personal level at the levels and scales of violence we have seen displayed nightly on our TV screens and I also am in favour of the policies that the present government is adopting of having enhanced role for the courts in quickly arresting, charging and convicting those guilty of the rioting. However, it must be said that these policies are treating the symptoms rather than the causes of the present discontent. The question has to be asked whether once the rioters have been dealt with appropriately and expeditiously by the courts, what is being done to remedy the more fundamental causes. I am reminded of a remark associated with an early 20th century reformer that his aim was ‘to drain the swamp, not pull people out of it’ and of course what is implied here is a massive shift in the economic and social fabric of the country which I do not think is part of the agenda of the modern Labour party even with its huge majority. I have always found it interesting that when asylum seekers were dispersed to various hotels in towns and cities across the country, those communities were chosen in which not only were costs kept down but also the communities so chosen had the least amount of political power to resist. For example, Stoke on Trent and the Potteries have experienced a fairly massive decline over the past few decades and it is perhaps no accident that areas such as these often housed both asylum seekers on the one hand and were the highest voting Brexit areas on the other. So the affluent middle classes may feel quite justified in throwing up their hands in horror at the rioting that has been experienced but their communities have not been asked to accept asylum seekers in their midst. There are many communities in which asylum seekers are accepted by the local community and the indigenous population has made the greatest of efforts to make asylum seekers welcome but it is equally the case that this is not universal.

Kamala Harris has now chosen her Running mate for VP, a relative unknown called Tim Waltz. But he has already made considerable waves by attaching the appellation of ‘weird’ to Donald Trump and his coterie and this notion of ‘weirdness’ is certainly gaining a lot of traction. At the same time, doubts are being cast upon Trump’s mental facility not to mention his emotional outbursts and there even some hitherto loyal Republicans who had hitched their wagons to the Trump star who are now seriously thinking of ‘unhitching’ them. Whereas a month ago the Republicans looked strong and united and the Democrats in complete disarray, the positions seem to have completely reversed and the Trump camp is showing some indications of starting to panic. The view that Trump is himself too old and his mental health as problematic is gaining quite a lot of ground. Of course, there are three months to go before the election in November and much can happen between now and then. But it has to be said that the Harris campaign seems to be slowly gaining ground whilst the Trump campaign is slowly losing support.

The day started off a little overcast this morning but after we had Meg up and breakfasted it looked as though the weather was set to improve. Just before we did the breakfast washing up, we decided to treat ourselves to a little relaxation to see that the YouTube algorithm has got to offer us and we were given a rendition of Mozart Piano Concerto No 24 which we actually know quite well but didn’t realise it until we heard it once more. YouTube is a constant source of delight to us with the occasional irritation that you can be ten minutes into a performance and then the display ‘freezes’. This happened twice to us this morning and I generally back out of YouTube altogether and then pop back in again to see if the internet connection has reset itself which it quite often does. It makes a bit of change to the succession of depressing news from the wave of violence sweeping the UK and the wall-to-wall Olympics. So after breakfast, we decided to engage in our new ‘Monday routine’ which involves a longer walk than usual and includes the ascension of a small hillock upon which the local Anglican church is built and where the cemetery path leads into town. We took the opportunity whilst traversing the High Street to get to our local bank where we could access its ATM and then proceeded on the ‘Lemon Tree‘ cafe which is a new find for us. When we got into the (deserted) coffee bar, the grandmother of the two girls who now run the shop greeted me and said she recognised my voice from last week at this time. It turns out that we were both members of the our church’s parochial council although I have had to resign from the same. We then chatted quite a lot about our various experiences in catering where I could recount some stories from the various part-time jobs I had at the Old Swan hotel in Harrogate. Then we were a little short of time so had to make a rapid exit for home but got a telephone call from the care agency when we were half way home asking us if we could make do with one carer rather ham two in the middle of the day as their schedules had been thrown into disarray by a local road closure. But when we got home, the two care workers were already waiting for us as they had used their SatNavs to negotiate a way round the road closure. By the way, this type of event does not seem that unusual and there seems to be some kind of traffic problem for the care agency staff at least once or twice per week.

This afternoon after lunch, Meg and I thought we needed a break from the Olympics and sought out a version of ‘Pride and Prejudice’ on either YouTube or the BBC iPlayer. We had to navigate our way around clips from the film or ‘paid for’ versions on YouTube. We did start to watch an American made version on YouTube so the acting so unbelievably bad we actually wondered whether the whole thing was a parody and was designed to be laughed at rather than enjoyed. So it was relief that we found on iPlayer the Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle version which is regarded by some as the definitive and finest version ever made. The actors playing the part of both Mr and Mrs Bennett senior are also excellent in their way and added tremendously to our enjoyment. There were some wonderful lines delivered with real panache which showed off Jane Austen’s wit to the fullest. The pomposity of Mr Collins is brilliantly portrayed and one can imagine Jane Austen giggling to herself when she put the words into her character’s mouth. When I was 15, I was exposed to ‘Emma’ and although I enjoy the book now, I certainly did not then. In fact, I sometimes wonder whether Jane Austen’s work is a little too subtle for adolescents unless one has a very skilful teacher of English literature. Once when I was in a Winchester bookshop, I saw a book evidently written in the Austen style called ‘The unexpurgated Jane Austen’ and this was hilarious. The style of the dialogue mimicked Austen’s beautifully but there were some wicked lines in it. I remember the conversation between Jane Austen and her publisher in which the latter was admonishing the author by indicating that phrases in it such as ‘That ****** [obscenity] Mr Bingham’ really had to be excised before publication.

Now that the British general election is well and truly over, my attention is very much engaged with what is happening over the water. Kamala Harris is holding last interviews on Sunday to test the chemistry with her final vice president contenders as she gears up to announce her 2024 running mate in the next 48 hours. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, Arizona Senator Mark Kelly and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro will meet with Harris at her Washington DC residence,The New York Times reported. Harris’s final meetings are intended to test the chemistry with the prospective veeps before heading out on the campaign trail. They all hail from states considered to be battlegrounds this November, giving them an edge in the selection process. Walz, Kelly and Shapiro have been highly visible across cable news in the past few weeks, defending Harris’s record and taking on the traditional VP role of attack dog. Walz in particular has had success by labelling Republican rival Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance as ‘weird’ in reaction to Vance’s old comments – describing Democratic politicians as childless cat ladies’ and arguing that Americans with children should have more influence at the ballot box – resurfacing. Meanwhile Senator Lindsey Graham has a clear message for former President Donald Trump: Stop targeting Vice President Kamala Harris over her race and focus on her political record instead. In a recent interview on Fox News Sunday, the South Carolina senator, who has long supported Trump, expressed concern over the former president’s ongoing attacks on Harris’ race and heritage. Graham made it clear that his issue with Harris is her ‘bad judgment, not her background.’ So, here’s what I would say to President Trump, Graham advised, as reported by Business Insider. The problem I have with Kamala Harris is not her heritage; it’s her judgment. Every day, we’re talking about her heritage and not her terrible, dangerous liberal record throughout her entire political life.’

This morning we awoke to a gloomy day but we were well prepared for the couple of cheery care workers when they arrived promptly just before 8.00am to get Meg up and dressed. Then it was case of watching some depressing news about the waves of violence and the political dilemmas posed by this. With his background as the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Prime Minister’s most immediate response is to organise a series of special courts sitting 24 hours a day if necessary and to get lawbreakers processed as rapidly as possible. In the face of the violence that has sweeping across the country over the last night or so, I have been reflecting upon the role of social media in helping to distribute fake news around the country. I have to say with a certain degree of sadness that most of my professional life, I have been inducted and reinforced into a belief system which constantly stresses ‘Evidence! Evidence!’ This, of course is the hallmark of the scientific community and I have always been impressed by the work of Karl Popper who stressed the importance of ‘falsifiability’ and we should frame our scientific hypotheses in such a way that they are capable of disproof (to ensure we do not selectively adduce evidence that reinforces our own world view) So the principle of falsifiability is best illustrated by the observation that the existence of one black swan (in Australia) is sufficient to show that the logical proposition ‘All swans are white’ is, indeed, false. Through a career in sociology but with a strong interest in research methods, reinforced by an MSc in the Sociology of Science and later elaborated by an interest in, and some facility with statistics, I have always tried to follow the evidence wherever it might lead. But social media is more concerned with disseminating what are called ‘narratives’ where scientific evidence is just regarded as one ‘account’ to be set alongside other narratives or accounts that propagate a different world view. But to return to the riots sweeping across the country, so many of our citizens are regarding what they are read on social media as ‘the truth’ then fairly ugly rumours which can be proved to be demonstrably false form the backdrop which informs the violence of the mobs across the country. Whilst using the word ‘mob’ I seem to remember from my undergraduate days there was a fairly academic discussion in the 1960’s that whatever happened to ‘the mob’ that seemed to dominate the 18th and 19th centuries and against which the ‘Riot Act’ was framed. The ‘mob’ is populated by what Marx would have called the ‘lumpenproletariat’ but in which today’s language we would classify as those depressed and deprived areas often in inner cities that have felt left behind in the economic history of modern Britain. After we had our weekly visit from our Eucharistic minister from our local church, we journeyed down to Waitrose from where we picked up a copy of our Sunday newspaper and then made our way to the park to meet up with our University of Birmingham friend. With him, I discussed some of the themes mentioned above as we both profess an adherence to the scientific method and are equally interested in how widespread is the scientific ethic in today’s age and times. I recall to mind that there have often debates in our national life about the role to be accorded to science in today’s society. In the nineteenth century, there were massive debates over the primacy of science over religion and one is reminded of the huge debates following the publication of Darwin’s ‘The Origins of Species’ and nearer to our time there was a massive debate popularised by the novelist C. P. Snow on the ‘Two cultures’ Its thesis was that science and the humanities, which represented ‘the intellectual life of the whole of western society’, had become split into ‘two cultures’ and that this division was a major handicap to both in solving the world’s problems.

On our way up the hill, we popped in to see our Irish friends that we had seen on the way down to the park this morning. They had requested that we visit them on the way home but we had not expected a surprise ‘mini party’ which they put on for us (ham sandwiches, cake). Knowing that Meg’s wheelchair was difficult to get over their threshold, our friends had set up a table of chairs and chairs at the entrance to their garage and also invited along a neighbour who we have come to know very well – a French lady who used to teach both French and Spanish in her working life. It is always very refreshing to talk with this lady but then she gave us the sad news that she had taken the decision to sell up her house and then move to Sandbach in Cheshire so as to live much nearer to her daughter. She explained to us as practically nearly 90 years of age and in full possession of her faculties, nonetheless her present house and garden were getting too much for her to maintain so she was going to de-clutter, rationalise her possessions of furniture and then move in the Spring. Meg and I were saddened by this news and, in particular, the thought that a very kindred spirit would be moving away but we could admire that our friend was taking absolutely the right decision and doing the right thing whilst she could instead of being forced into doing things too rapidly which might happen in an emergency. We had to race up the hill to be in time for the carers late morning call which we were. Then they informed us that there had been another large car smash occurring at the other end of Kidderminster Road and this time near to the entrance of the park. We had not noticed this morning but had we glanced left rather than right as we were leaving pour friends, then we might have noticed some more road mayhem around us. Reflecting upon the terrible crash that we saw last Wednesday, I have made some back of the envelope type calculations and now know that we were only 2 seconds away from the point at which the crash occurred. Had the car veered to the right rather than to the left when the driver evidently and ultimately lost control, we may well have lost our lives or been severely injured. So, as one of the carers opined, there must be some being ‘up there’ looking after us.

This morning when we awoke after a good night’s sleep, it was evident that it had rained locally overnight and so the day had quite a nice feel to it. As I was getting washed and dressed, I noticed with some dismay that my watch in which I had just put in a new battery had stopped once again as it did twice yesterday. I must have had this watch for 7-8 years I would imagine so I have to bow to the inevitable and buy another one. I went online and purchased a watch quite similar in design to my now defunct one and it ought to arrive within a day. I am making do with an emergency self winding watch which is a bit chunky but seems mega reliable.This morning, we are looking forward to a nice journey down into town where we can make contact with our Saturday crowd friends, all being well. The journey down was pleasant and we made contact with two of our friends, the third still having problems with her shoulder which stops her from getting out and about.

I suspect that the BBC has realised in its programming of the TV schedules that they should provide some alternatives to the wall-to-wall coverage of the Olympics games. So last week, as Meg and discovered at the very last moment, there was a showing of the classic film ‘Dr Zhivago’ which is the all time favourite of meg and myself. This week there was a biopic of ‘The Great Caruso’ made in 1951 and starring the acting and singing of Mario Lanza. The reviewer for ‘The Times‘ was faintly scabby about the picture calling the plot plodding and Mario Lanza’s acting wooden. But Meg and I enjoyed it tremendously if only because in both brooding appearance and in the range of voice, Mario Lanza was a fairly good match for Enrico Caruso himself as it was said of both the opera star and the singer portraying him that their careers first burned bright and then became burned out. The trouble with biopics is that one never knows how much is accurate biography and how much is invented for the sake of artistic license. But the thing that we did learn from the film review was that the Caruso family hated this biopic when it was released but, on the other hand, both Jose Carreras and Placido Domingo (i.e. two of the three of the ‘three tenors’ fame) were inspired to venture into opera as a career having seen the film.

Whilst the country is either on vacation or else glued to the Olympics, there is a surge of Far Right violence sweeping across the country. More than 30 protests – many of them organised by far-right activists – are set to take place this weekend in the wake of the Southport stabbings, according to Sky News analysis.They would follow violent protests earlier this week, which saw more than 100 people arrested outside Downing Street on Wednesday and 10 arrests in Sunderland on Friday night after a building next to a police station was set on fire and objects thrown at officers. The spark that set off these incidents of violence across the country was the stabbing and death of three young girls in Southport and the injury of several more and the adults who were trying to protect them. There was a certain of fake news that spread across the social media and the crimes were said to have committed by an illegal asylum seeker. When the identity of the disturbed 17 year old who perpetrated these acts of violence was allowed by court order to be released to the press, it turned out that much of the social media speculation was completely misplaced. But the fact that the disturbed young man came to these shores from Rwanda was enough for the hundreds of violent young thugs to wreak mayhem upon many British cities. The response of the government is to threaten harsh penalties for those successfully caught and then then successfully prosecuted but one suspects that the face recognition technology deployed by the police will be utilised to the utmost and there is always the possibility of miscarriages of justice if the technology is not 100% reliable.

The reports from the other side of the Atlantic are speculative in the extreme but fascinating nonetheless to those of following the US elections. Donald Trump’s selection of JD Vance as his running mate ‘may be one of the best things he ever did for Democrats,’ according to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. Seemingly every day, the Republican senator from Ohio has made headlines for resurfaced misogynistic comments, awkward campaign appearances and fringe policy positions on issues that the former president’s campaign has desperately been trying to avoid. Vance stepped off the stage of the Republican National Convention with the worst favourability ratio of any non-incumbent vice presidential candidate in nearly 45 years, while presumptive Democratic nominee Kamala Harris erased Trump’s leads in crucial swing states and saw a surge in donations within just weeks of her candidacy. He later was revealed as a close collaborator with the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 authors and a natalist evangelist with a history of supporting extreme ideas about abortion care and IVF. So the speculation is arising by the day that Vance may be such a liability to Trump that it is quite possible that he gets replaced before the election. This is quite a dilemma for Trump because to keep Vance will only hurt his cause whilst to get rid of him shows that he made a very bad judgement call in the first place. I doubt that the Republican’s system will allow Vance to get replaced at this stage but the Democrats must be rubbing their hands in glee as every new day more indiscretions seem to appear. But Trump has finally decided to undergo a TV debate with Harris on Fox TV which, one might imagine, might be slightly kinder to Trump than to Harris but we shall have to wait and see.

Today dawned as a nice bright day with temperatures still warm but just a tad lower than yesterday so a very pleasant day upon which to make our trip into town. Now I am going to talk about the unlikely subject of cushions. Now there are cushions and cushions but that is only the start of the story. I should point out that the venues that Meg and I can now visit are so much more restricted since I cannot get Meg into the car any more – subsequently, our world view is confined to what we can reach by by pushing Meg in her wheelchair either to the park or to our local Waitrose. Consequently, our home environment means a lot more to us that formerly. My cushion story starts with a chance discovery in our local Salvation Army charity shop (not a purveyor of many fine goods as charity shops go, I have to say) where about a year ago I came across an absolutely stunning cushion. This has an owl appliqued onto a midnight sky background but as the owl has a degree of padding there is a slight 3-D effect. The whole cushion has a series of baby owls appliqued on the back and must have taken some hours of dedicated and expert needlework to produce, The extraordinary thing is that I discovered this cushion in the midst of several other quite pedestrian pieces so its true worth stood unappreciated. Now this cushion forms the backdrop to a little surface area which I call ‘owl corner’ as I have several owls to sit here including some pottery owl night light holders, some wooden carved owls and some of the more conventional plaster pieces. Around this collection, I have assembled a series of cushions with a similar feel. The next piece along is a decorated ‘golden goose’ and I have another specimen decorated with what could be canaries or yellow hammers. To complete the collection, I have an Artic fox cushion and finally a red squirrel ‘Squirrel Nutkin’ specimen. Those familiar with the Beatrix Potter story will be aware of the affinity of owls and squirrels in any case. So when Meg is in need of a little diversion other than the TV, I sit her in her wheelchair in front of ‘owl corner’ and she can admire the slight panorama that I have assembled just here. I must admit, I had not realised how popular animal themes are on cushion covers but I still keep a sharp eye out for a good example when I see one of the genre. This is the first part of the cushion story but the second chapter concerns some of the superb quilted cushions which Meg’s very talented cousin, Margot, made for us when she was still alive. These are superb examples of the quilter’s art and Margot became very talented even being part of a demonstration of her craft in, I believe, Westminster Abbey. The two pieces that Margot has bequeathed to us now adorn the one of the captain’s chairs and the monk’s bench which sits in our hall and can be admired by any/all visitors to the house. The third category of cushion covers are the more abstract designs the colours and textures of which just happen to match well some of the wooden furniture pieces we have assembled over the months. Whereas one is used to the nation of ‘scatter cushions’ often in one colour and material, which can go anywhere, the cushion covers I have accumulated are in a different league. Some cushion covers because of their texture, design, colour and materials look absolutely right on a particular piece of furniture but others less so. So one of the minor ‘avenues of pleasure’ that remain to me (to borrow a phrase adapted from John Cleese in Fawlty Towers) is to make a careful judgement as to which of our collection looks best where. for example, I only decided this morning that the red Thai silk cushion cover (all 95p of it) decorated with a procession of elephants looks best on one of our recently acquired ‘good’ chairs but just a little silly elsewhere.

As we had planned, we were preparing to go for a longer wheelchair walk into town this morning but first our son called around to see us which was a very welcome sight after he had spent some days away. Then we popped into town but as we passed the crash site of a couple of days ago, I was a smidgeon disappointed that my single, now wilting, rose was the only floral tribute left for the casualty and I expected more of the good heartedness of the local residents. We made our way to our new found cafe via the Bromsgrove Cobbler where we left them our two watches both Meg’s and my own having given up the ghost within a day of each other. In the cafe we were joined by our University of Birmingham friend and his new found squeeze and I updated them with the happenings of the past few days. Meg and I had a sort of bacon baguette between us, served with a few croquettes for good measure and a cup of tea. After that we visited our favourite AgeUk store and relieved them of a few more cushions to add to our stock and then made our way home, via Waitrose where we collected our newspaper. We had just about got back in time before the late morning carers were due to call and then immediately consumed some salted caramel ice cream to cool us down as it is still pretty warm and humid. We neither of felt particularly hungry so I prepared a type of Spanish omelette which was onions, peppers, petit pois and a tin of tuna all spiced up nth a little sweet chilli sauce which served the purpose well on a hot day and was all we fancied. Immediately after lunch, Meg and I really enjoyed watching the British team taking the team showjumping gold medal which was all the better for being somewhat unexpected. Thinking about the sports at which we do excel, I do remember how at the time of the last Olympics a rather grumpy Australian commented that the Brits seemed to exceed at any sport in which you sat down (horseriding, rowing, canooing, cycling) and I suppose there is something in that. We also observed some of the sailing races which seem baffling in their complexity and in the race that we watched there was a lot of confusion as to where the actual winning line was meant to be.