Wednesday started off with a pattern which is all too common these days as I received a text from the care agency one hour before the two carers were due to call asking if I could assist the one carer who was calling as people had phoned in sick. This is the second time in three days this has occurred first thing in the morning, so I am logging these occasions so that I can remonstrate if necessary with the agency. Having showered this morning, when I got down Meg was attempting to get out of bed but had she done so she would fallen which would mean her lying on the floor for several hours until the falls team and/or the ambulance service were called for. I need to avoid calling the ambulance service because their protocols are that fallen patients have to be taken to hospital for a checkup and once we get into this scenario, things can only go from bad to worse. So I have to make every effort to ensure Meg does not try to get out of bed and generally put a wheelchair, with its wheels locked, in a critical position to avoid this eventuality. The media having been dominated by news of the forthcoming budget have had their attention diverted by enormous flash floods in the eastern part of Spain around the area of Valencia. Some reports are saying that a combination of dried hard earth and a year’s rainfall falling in eight hours can make these floods catastrophic. We know that this area of Spain was liable to very heavy rainfall because when Meg and I visited Valencia, we paid a visit to the ‘City of Arts and Sciences’ which is a world-renowned complex that combines avant-garde architecture, entertainment, and education in one place. Apparently there had been really catastrophic floods in, I think the 1950’s in the area just to the west of Valencia. The Spanish regional authorities diverted one or two of the local rivers, created a huge flood plain and then wondering what to do with the vast area that they had cleared built the ‘City of Arts and Sciences’ The reports are that at least 90 people have died and it is expected that these numbers will rise substantially. One report is saying that this latest flood is one of the greatest floods in Spanish history but I think there may be a degree of hyperbole involved in this.

After breakfast, I felt pretty tired and did not really feel up to an extended walk into town which I might have done if both Meg and myself felt a bit better. I had intended to walk all the way into town and visit our favourite cafe on the High Street but I was a bit anxious as to whether Meg could cope with an extended walk. But on our return, I regaled us both with some potato and leek soup of which I had just bought a packet and then the two care workers turned up but not the two I was expecting according to the rota. Apart from periodic sickness factors, it is half term week which always plays havoc with the domestic child care arrangements of the carers so some disruption is only to be expected. After they had left, Meg and I saw the major elements of the Budget speech live on TV but have not caught up either with the expert analysis that will be undertaken or indeed the political reaction to it. But it does look as £40 billion of taxes are to be levied but none directly on the working population. One tax I was particularly glad to see imposed was via the abolition of the non-dom status by which so many of the rich (including the ex Prime Minister’s own wife) have benefitted. What we got from Rachel Reeves today was, in economic terms, a major departure from economic policy as we’ve known it in this country for the past decade and a half.We got the single biggest increase in taxes in any fiscal event since 1993. The tax burden itself is now heading up to the highest level in history. So all of this is quite a gamble but not the kind of gamble for which Liz Truss is notorious. The overall impact of the budget is a little hard to gauge because those who have benefitted (e.g. from the rise eon the Minimum Wage) are not very vocal whereas some small (but not the smallest) businesses are complaining about the increases in their costs that the National Insurance changes will bring. But it could be that this particular budget will be seen as ground breaking but whether it will lead to increased growth is a very unknowable question, Even the OBR has moderated downwards some of its forecasts for medium term growth once the impact of some of the tax changes work their way through the system. But budgets are judged upon political as well as economic criteria and it is possible that the budget is welcomed, if not entirely warmly, by the Labour back benchers whereas economists may themselves be divided upon the future impact.

This afternoon after lunch, Meg and I were intrigued to view on BBC iPlayer one in the series presented by David Olusoga called ‘A House Through Time’ The concept of the program is to find a house which is at least a century old and then trace through the life histories of everyone who has ever lived in it. The programme we viewed had taken a house in Headingley, Leeds which I have probably walked past and looked at the occupancy of a middle class Victorian house (built in a terrace of about three or four) and built with both basements and attics. The attics would have provided some quarters for servants in a middle class household and we found this living history programme to be fascinating. When I lived in an adjoining suburb in Leeds, I used to visit Headingley quite regularly as did my mother and as a 17 year old I used to look at the stone clad fine looking houses and wondered if I could ever live in one of them one day. So I found the programme to be particularly intriguing and the lives of those who had occupied the house through the decades was equally interesting. David Olusoga and his researchers. used Census and other records to build up a picture of the lives of the occupants and this is an excellent way to present this type of economic and social history.

Today after breakfast it was time for our Tuesday walk down into town and meet our friends for our bi-weekly chat in Waitrose. Getting Meg ready for our trip down the hill is a bit of a palaver but it works like this. I try to ensure that the carers have clothed Meg in a thick cardigan and then I put on a windproof and waterproof outer jacket. Then I clothe Meg in our University scarf and put the big, heavy Russian blanket across her knees and fortunately it tucks in securely down the frame of the wheelchair. Then I put a light little woollen blanket across Meg’s knees. Finally, I finish off with a pair of smaller men’s slippers that I had bought in Aldi the other day and just happen to slip over the thick woolly ankle socks that we put on Meg each day. Finally, we put Meg’s Dr. Zhivago style hat of (the sort worn by Tonya and played by Geraldine Chaplin if you remember the film) Once we finally got down to Waitrose, we were delighted to see our three friends there particularly as we had only been expecting one of them. So we had our normal jolly time, enhanced by the telling of a Dave Allen joke which we happened to have heard on YouTube the evening before. Then it was the journey up the hill which is not as arduous as you might suppose. There are some downhill sections as well as longer, and steeper, uphill sections but the amount of steep gradient is quite small. If the gradient uphill is slight then the weight of one’s body pushing the wheelchair is sufficient to give the required momentum. However, I do need to stop half up to don a pair of green rubberised gardening gloves that helps to alleviate the strain on the hands and fingers that can become somewhat numbed by the pushing. Once we arrive home, there is a certain degree of ritual as well. Outside in the porch, I use a brush to clean off the worst of the dirt and grit that have accumulated on the wheels. Then once inside, the wheels are cleaned again with a sponge to try to remove the finer pieces of grit and pavement dirt. Were I not to do this, then our carpets would be in a terrible state by wheeling dirt from the outside all over the house. But all in all, my little systems do their job. Having said all of that, when I start to push Meg home, I do feel in quite an enervated mood and can only conclude that some endorphins cut in, stimulated by the pleasantt chats I have just had. Similarly, when the young carers come in the late afternoon and even if Meg is having a depressed time, they do seem able to lighten her mood and even to elicit a few witticisms from Meg as they attend to their caring duties. It is pleasant all round that these young people like to come to do this particular visit and, we in our turn, are always pleased to see them. In fact today as the young male carer had some time doing his sit whilst I bought to a local AgeUk charity shop and bought Meg a new top, he was entertained by a viewing of Meg’s speech, and my own, in our 50th wedding anniversary video that we have available on a website and can be viewed on our big TV in the Music Lounge.

The conflict in the Middle East between Israel and its neighbouring states has taken a decidedly ugly turn in the last day or so. UNRWA (or to give it its full and official title ‘The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East’) was established as a subsidiary organ of the United Nations General Assembly on 8 December 1949 and became operational on 1 May 1950. It is one of the largest United Nations programmes. But the Israeli parliament (Knesset) has just voted through laws barring UNRWA from Israel, limiting it in Gaza and West Bank. This is seen as massive victory for the right wing in Israeli politics, which itself has one of the most right wing governments in Israeli history. Th fact that in the past UNRWA had within its ranks some HAMAS supporters has always been a massive irritant to the Israeli authorities but even though these elements have been identified and sacked, there is still considerable distrust of the agency. UNRWA provides practically all of the education for young Palestinians and the amount of humanitarian help that is supplied is immense. The fact that it is being emasculated and the principal individuals affected will be women and children from whom aid in its many manifestations is now being denied is being seen as a possible war crime in itself. Western governments are wringing their hands in despair but it seems that the West in repeating the refrain that Israel has the absolute right to defend itself is allowing Israel to exact punishments on the Palestinian people that many objective observers would describe as disproportionate.

Tomorrow, at long last, we will have the long anticipated budget and the media are going to fill the airwaves with all from 10.00am onwards tomorrow. Yet another important piece of budget news has been released in that we now know that the Minimum Wage is going to be increased to £12.21 although it falls short of the £12.60 an hour sum recommended by the Living Wage Foundation. Nonetheless at 6.7% it is quite a significant increase and will no doubt be welcomed by many who are struggling to get by on the Minimum Wage. But no doubt the power centres of our society including employers and the generally right wing newspapers, will no doubt condemn this as undeserved and inflationary. I will be watching the Budget debates tomorrow, though, and I wonder if the Speaker will take the opportunity to roundly condemn the selective release of parts of the Budget that ought to be announced first to Parliament. As always, there is a certain amount of shouting before one actually gets kicked, as it were, and it is always a little difficult to ascertain if tax rises can be quite readily absorbed or are the proverbial ‘last straw that breaks the camel’s back’ Budget Day is always a rather special occasion and the leader of the opposition, still Rishi Sunak, has to rise and make an instant speech on the iniquities, as he sees it, of the Budget proposals. The interesting thing this time around, compared with the Liz Truss fiasco, is that Rachel Reeves seems to have carefully sought the reaction of the IMF and the City who would not be averse to tax rises ‘per se’ provided that they can see that the Budget as a whole is industry-friendly.

Yesterday did not start off particularly well. I received a text from the care company informing me that owing to staff illness, notified to them at short notice, could I act as an assistant to the sole carer to get Meg up and dressed in the morning. Meg was rather agitated and confused first thing this morning and she did not recognise me when I asked her several times who she thought that I was. But once up and breakfasted and with some good porridge inside her, she seemed to be in a rather calmer and more reflective mood and I think that by now she recognised me. We thought that we would only make a quick trip to pick up our newspaper because it really is a judgement call that I have to make whether Meg is sufficient ‘compus mentis’ for me to push her out in the wheelchair. However, two quite experienced care workers are due to call late morning which I think is quite a relief. As it turned out, we only had time for a quick flying visit up and down the hill but I was relieved that Meg seemed somewhat better after her breakfast and some fresh air. After we had both eaten our lunch together (ham, baked potato and broccoli) Meg watched our fill of the day’s news and then as we were eating our lunch decided to treat ourselves to some music. We accessed YouTube and the great joy of this, from our point of view, is that the algorithm deployed now ‘knows’ what we like and serves up suitable offerings. We decided to listen to a performance of Mozart Piano Concerto No. 23 which is one of my favourites. The performance was given by quite an elderly pianist who entered the auditorium at the Gulbenkian foundation in Lisbon to thunderous applause and had to rely upon a stick in his right hand and the helping hand of a young female assistant (who turned out to be his page turner) on the other. The performance was pretty good but not outstanding as the pianist was evidently quite stretched by some of the Mozart runs and trills particularly in the vivacious third and final movement. I had quickly taken a note of the pianist’s name and it turned out to be Menahem Pressler who was a German Jew who fled to the US in 1940 although most of his family were lost in the Holocaust. But at the time of performing in Lisbon, he was actually 95 years of age and died four years later at the age of 99. So this must have been one of the last if not his last complete performance and I was absolutely amazed at the quality of the rendition given his advanced years. This, no doubt, explained the thunderous applause when he entered the concert hall and then when he completed the work.

After the teatime call of the carers, Meg and I repair to our main lounge where YouTube on a Fire stick device offers us a different set of options. There were several programmes detailing the life of Mozart and in one of these, there was an attempt to ascertain Mozart’s physical appearance and characteristics. Working this out is rather like trying to put together pieces of a jigsaw as there were several portraits of Mozart but none of them appear to be similar to any of the others. One of the two portraits which is often shown was said by Constanza, his wife, to be a good likeness of him but the other clues to Mozart’s physical appearance has to put together notes from a series of sources. We now know that Mozart was quite a small man being about five feet in height, and was thin, pale and with wispy hair. He had an ordinary face, which was marked by the scars of the smallpox he suffered in his childhood, and in which a large nose stood out. His eyes were large and clear (apparently a deep blue colour) and he sported a thick headful of hair, with fine, wheat-colored strands pulled back in a ponytail. His hands were medium-sized, with long, slender fingers, and his mouth was small. But Mozart’s sister Nannerl once wrote that her brother’s ‘hands were very small.’ Mozart’s left ear was missing the usual circumvolution or concha (this rare congenital malformation is now known in medical literature under the name ‘Mozart’s ear’) To those who are enchanted by Mozart’s music, it does come as a bit of a shock that the accounts that we are of his appearance do not seem match up at all with the celebrated heights that his music attains. Another fact that jars somewhat is that Mozart displayed scatological humour (obsession with vulgarity) in his letters and multiple recreational compositions. This material has long been a puzzle for Mozart scholarship. Some scholars try to understand it in terms of its role in Mozart’s family, his society and his times; others attempt to understand it as a result of an ‘impressive list’ of psychiatric conditions from which Mozart is claimed to have suffered. But we do know that Mozart wore a wig and had a love of fine and fashionable clothes that might have disguised a not very prepossessing countenance.

I am not surprised that the Speaker of the House of Commons is expressing considerable annoyance that important parts of the Budget are being leaked to the press in advance of the Budget speech on Wednesday. There is an important convention that important policy announcements should be made first to the MPs in Parliament and not briefed beforehand. This briefing may well be a breach of the Ministerial Code in any case. When Keir Starmer was in Opposition, he rightly condemned the Tory party for briefing important policy announcements to the press and it now appears that he and his government are doing exactly the same thing. The rules are clear and I cannot see what advantage it is to the government to make these announcements early and, of course, it just reinforces in the public mind that ‘they are all the same’ The Labour party spokesmen have got themselves into a terrible tangle by constantly saying that their policy of not raising the three principal taxes of income tax, NI and VAT should not adversely affect ‘working people’ but the very small employer who might be subject to increases in NI contributions is ‘de facto’ classified as not a working person and so the arguments have persisted for days and days.

Yesterday was the day when the clocks went back and we were all supposed to get an extra hour in bed. In my case, though, some of that bonus time was spent in correcting various clocks and appliances so I did not appreciate the full benefit of it. Fortunately, I could remember important things like the central heating setting and even the fiddlier things like the microwave were not too troublesome. It proved to be a quiet Sunday because we saw neither our Eucharistic minister from our church or, indeed, our University of Birmingham friend. So Meg and just made a quick trip down the hill to pick up our newspaper and back again. I had promised one of the carers that if she had sufficient time left over from Meg’s lunchtime call, she could view Meg’s 50th wedding anniversary video which we can access through our TV and so she enjoyed listening to this and also viewing some of the other wedding photos that we have on the same website.

Reflecting upon the little scraps that I have gleaned about the American presidential election, I would like to propound a new theory (or, at least, a speculation) There are literally scores of opinion polls both national and local but they all face one large problem, which is how to evaluate the views of those who do not wish their communicate their views to anyone and particularly not a polling organisation – hence the ‘silent’ ones. Now we know that there is a group of Republicans of the traditional variety who actually despair of what is happening to their country if led by Donald Trump and hence they form a silent group of Republican voters who are prepared to vote on this one occasion for Harris. But I also suspect that there is a parallel and probably larger group of Kamala Harris haters who, despite the very evident shortcomings of Donald Trump are secretly preparing to vote for him. Where does this hatred of Kamala Harris come from? Well, there are several streams that flow into this particular well. Very important are those who are appalled by the illegal immigration questions and some of these immigrants are camped (literally) on the outskirts of even Democrat strongholds such as Chicago. Secondly, there are polices such as defunding the police which sound to be barking mad. Thirdly, there are those who doubt her abilities to handle a modern economy. But perhaps of most importance are those who have heard the labelling of Kamala Harris as ‘far left’ which epithet is constantly thrown around by Donald Trump but it is a sad fact of life that if you throw enough handfuls of mud at a wall, some of it will stick. So with this label of ‘radical far left’ around her neck, Harris is already losing the support of some Latino and Black male workers. It is undoubtedly the case that she has an extremely strong case on abortion rights for women which the Trump regime has tried quite successfully to dismantle and this issue alone will persuade some younger Republican inclined young women to vote for Harris. But I contend that there are several other demographic factors at work and all of these tend to suggest that Harris is not meeting their concerns. So just as in the UK, we have the secret Tory voters who never divulge their opinions to pollsters, I suspect that there is a well of silent haters for both of the candidates but, crucially, the pool of Harris haters are probably larger than the pool of Trump haters (the intensity of whose hate may be immense but, in the last analysis, they are not that large in number in the crucial swing states) So I am ‘calling’ this election for Donald Trump and I think there are quite a lot of little straws in the wind that indicate that this may be the case – I would very much like to be proved wrong but we shall see as the results of the election gradually dribble out over the days.

I had cooked a ham joint in our slow cooker but decided to do a little bit of experimental cooking for the veg to accompany it. I had previously bought a big bag of carrots so I down loaded a BBC recipe how to do honey glazed carrots by roasting them in the oven first. So having doused them in olive oil pepper and salt I then cooked them for half an hour before spreading a mixture of lemon juice and honey over them and finishing off with a sprinkling of thyme (from a jar I already had in stock) The results were quite pleasing but not outstanding. In the past, I am pretty sure I have achieved equally good results by transferring some carrots cut into batons, then boiled and finished off in some oil to which some honey is added at the last moment. What I did this morning was quite a deal of work without the commensurate increase in pleasure in eating the final product.

The big political event this week will be Rachel Reeve’s budget which has been trailed for weeks now. There was a time when it was absolutely out of order for budget secrets to be revealed before they were announced to Parliament but a bad habit seems to have crept in whereby some of the budget items are revealed in the days beforehand. We now know as a cast iron certainty that National Insurance on Employers contributions is set to rise. Also, it looks as though another what is termed a ‘stealth’ tax will be in place by not allowing allowances before tax to rise in line with inflation. So we have a process known as fiscal drag in which people actually pay more tax and also get dragged into higher tax brackets even though the rates of tax have not risen. The public as a whole may have thought that no more money was going to be extracted from them via income tax but for many people will find that they are actually paying more tax owing to the non-indexation of allowances even though the rate of tax itself has not been altered. At the time of the Budget, a large booklet of financial data is released at the time the budget is delivered and often there are some technical changes in this booklet which may impact upon some tax payers but it does not necessarily figure in the Budget speech itself or even the many discussions that take place after it. So the airwaves will be filled with Budget news next Wednesday and probably for several days after that as well.

Yesterday morning two of Meg’s regular carers turned up on time and got Meg washed, dressed and sitting in her wheelchair. When their care tasks are completed, the care staff assiduously fill in the two sets of reports that they have to make (a Task List and Care Plan notes) and they used an app called ‘Birdie’ which the care agency staff have enable me to download so that I can check on what has been said (which, in fact I do not need to) eventually, I hope a little functionality will be added so that I can check up on the time of the next scheduled visit (which is important to me, as I need to time my little trips out to ensure that I am back here on time) When they chat with each other at the end of a care session, the workers are always talking about the logistics of meeting with the next set of clients because despite the schedules that are done on a weekly basis, this can change by the day and even by the hour. After we had breakfasted, we made our way on a really beautiful morning to meet up with our friends in Waitrose and, as usual, had a jolly chat with two of our friends. I took the opportunity to buy some heavily discounted Little Gem lettuce that I needed for our lunch and also bought some Cavolo Nero which is that wonderfully nutty and non-bitter form of dark kale which has been especially bred and has made kale taste delicious. When the care workers called around, one of them intimated that her next task along was to cook a salmon fillet for the person for whom she was a care worker. As it happened, we were due to have some sea bass for lunch and so we discussed the best way for the fish to be cooked. Our domestic help showed us a wonderful method for cooking fresh sea bass (which I had bought from the supermarket when I last went shopping) and we have followed this ever since. Basically the fish is washed and dried in kitchen paper, and then has a quick smearing of olive oil, a squirt of lemon juice and just a soupcon of salt. Then we fry it in a special grill pan that we have that is manufactured with ridges which keeps the fish from sticking too much to the bottom of the pan and cook it for three minutes on one side and then two minutes on the other. It is served quickly on a bed of lettuce and then eaten quickly before it cools. Prepared this way, the fish is absolutely delicious and its delicate flavour is enhanced and so we really enjoyed our lunch time meal which, believe it or not, feels one quite filled and satisfied. This afternoon, as we often do, we settled down to watch a programme which had been broadcast the night before. The programme for this afternoon was on Channel 5 and was ‘1984: The most shocking moments’ This programme is evidently compiled with a lot of BBC archive film and two things really stood out for me. The first of these was the scathing and delightful ‘Spitting Image’ which parodied politicians and particularly Margaret Thatcher ruthlessly. Margaret Thatcher’s image was voiced by a male actor who managed to get her intonations with a great deal of accuracy – one of her cabinet, Edwina Currie, revealed that she was certain that Margaret Thatcher watched the programme and afterwards actually became more like her Spitting Image persona with a deeper voice and portrayed as wearing male clothes. The makers of Spitting Image contemplated making John major look slightly less grey and boring by inventing an affair with a contemporary female politician. They considered Edwina Currie but eventually chose Virginia Bottomley but the shocking truth that was revealed a few years later in Edwina’s Currie autobiography that she did have an affair with John Major and they actually engaged in sex on the desk that he had in his room in the House of Commons. When the cartoonists learnt of this, they portrayed John Major as an up-to-date Superman but wearing his underpants outside his trousers. The whole extra marital affair helped make John Major’s reputation to recover from a bold and unadventurous politician to somebody much more dynamic – incidentally, the same thing happened to Paddy Ashdown the Liberal Party leader who the cartoonists promptly labelled as ‘Paddy Pantsdown’ Naturally, the program on 1984 included the horrific events of the miner’s dispute and their eventual confrontation with the massed ranks of police, some of them mounted, at the now infamous Orgreave coal coking plant. There were many other memorable shocking moments of 1984. One of them was the attempted assassination of Margaret Thatcher and the whole of her cabinet in the IRA bombing of their conference hotel in Brighton, not to mention the death on stage of the comedian Tommy Cooper (shown live on ITV) Tommy Cooper just appeared to crumple and the audience cheered thinking it was part of his act but he had in fact died. Finally, we have the appearance of Madonna who in a show sang her iconic ‘Just like a Virgin’ but dressed like a bride which outfit she discarded in stages and with a series of gyrations that completely belied the title of the song.

The quote ‘Tell a lie often enough, it becomes the truth’ is often attributed to various historical figures, including Lenin, Hitler, and Goebbels. But this is now receiving a new twist with respect to the forthcoming USA presidential election where it appears that most voters now believe the Trump lie that the last election was fraudulently won by the Democrats. Only 57% of Trump supporters said they believe this November’s elections will be run and administered somewhat or very well, according to polling of registered voters that the Pew Research Center released on Thursday — compared to 90% of Harris supporters. Forty-two percent of Trump supporters believed the elections would be run ‘not too well’ or ‘not at all well.’ Both groups had high confidence in election administrators in 2018, Pew’s historical data shows, but a dramatic split between the Democratic and Republican candidate supporters developed in 2020 and has only grown wider since. There was a similar split in confidence that mail-in and absentee ballots will be counted as voters intended, with 85% of Harris supporters confident the counts will be accurate compared to 38% of Trump supporters. Voters were also split, though less dramatically, on how confident they were that in-person votes will be counted accurately, that state election officials and local poll workers will do a good job and that U.S. election systems are secure against cyberattacks

Yesterday, I was stuck on the end of my iPhone with one of those things which is increasingly both common, and irritating, these days. I recently upgraded my EE account for my iPhone and was informed that my bills would be about the same as BT (with whom I had an account) and which had taken over EE. As part of migrating to my new account, I was asked whether I wanted to accept a TV package but declined this, only to be told ‘Well, it is free and part of the package’ Now a coupe of weeks later, I discovered that I have been sent an Apple TV package that I neither actually want or need and, to boot, I am being charged £18.00 a month for this. As soon as I received notification of my latest bill, I got onto the phone to EE only to be informed that there is a wait of 30 minutes during which time I have to listen to some inane pop song but feel that I dared not hang up as the issue has got to be resolved eventually. I am going to have to ask them to listen back to their own recordings when I am convinced that they told me that this service was ‘free’ but I suspect this is a traditional sleight of hand in which companies say a service is ‘free’ by which they mean they are going to charge you for it eventually. The frustrating part of this episode, with which we are all familiar, is that if one wishes to buy a product por service one gets connected within seconds whereas if you want to query a bill or request a refund, it is made as difficult as possible. Our domestic calls around on Fridays these days and her husband was experiencing an episode similar to mine where he was trying to disentangle his BT and Sky accounts and this, too, was taking hours and hours on the phone to attempt to resolve. After having been on the phone for nearly one hour and a half, I am pleased to say that the problem was resolved more or less to my satisfaction but it took an EE worker with a Scottish accent (in Scotland?), working remotely from home who had to consult with the recordings of the original transaction, at least three consultations with a manager, a ‘threat’ that if I had changed my mind I would be responsible for a cancellation fee of £300 and goodness what else besides before the matter was resolved to my satisfaction. What had complicated the situation was that in the course of the conversation with the original EE salesperson, I was offered a package, then a special ‘rebate’ and goodness knows what else besides until I was forced to mention the Small Claims Court and we talked our way, at length, to a resolution of the problem. In the meanwhile, most of our morning was wasted in this venture so in the very late morning, I wheeled Meg down the hill, picked up a copy of our newspaper and then wheeled her back before pressing on with a quick lunch of a curry I had thrown together. Just to compound these irritations, I have received a text from the care agency saying they are short staffed and so I could I manage with one carer for Meg’s lunch time and tea time calls today – this is happening more and more frequently these days and although I certainly do not mind helping out as and when I can to help resolve problems, this occurrence is getting all too frequent these days. After lunch, Meg and I treated ourselves to watching a catch up of last night’s ‘Question Time’ but after the traumas of the morning, I seem to have slept through most of it. This afternoon, Meg and I felt in the mood for something a little different and it was anyway a very wet and dreary afternoon. We wondered if there was a good Thomas Hardy film on YouTube but the film quality of one or two of our choices was a bit ‘iffy’ so we settled on one with Spanish subtitles. This we quite enjoyed until the whole of YouTube froze (which it does tend to do) so we had a cup of tea and chose to watch Verdi’s Rigoletto instead.

Sky News is reporting tonight on one of the worst cases of ‘catfishing’ This term refers to the creation of a fictitious online persona, or fake identity, with the intent of deception, usually to mislead a victim into an online romantic relationship. An online predator who led an American girl and her father to take their own lives has been jailed for at least 20 years after the UK’s largest ‘catfishing’ case. Alexander McCartney previously admitted 185 charges, including the manslaughter of a girl who took her own life. Police called him a ‘dangerous, relentless, cruel paedophile’ who ‘may as well have pulled the trigger himself’ and said there were about 3,500 victims. Devices seized from his bedroom contained hundreds of thousands of indecent photographs and videos of underage girls. Belfast Crown Court heard victims were aged between 10 and 16 and based in the UK, USA, continental Europe, Australia and New Zealand. McCartney, from South Armagh in Northern Ireland, used Snapchat and other sites to pose as someone else online, known as catfishing. He pretended to be a young girl to persuade his victims to send images. He then blackmailed them into sending more explicit material. Sky News is reporting tonight that these offences took place when the internet could be compared with the ‘Wild West’ and deception on this scale would not be possible today. However, it is a very powerful reminder of why we need an ‘Online Safety Act’ but one always wonders whether the law lags quite a long way behind the actual practices on the internet and it must be continue to be an incredibly dangerous terrain for the unwary. Having said that and from admittedly male perspective, I am rather at a loss to understand why anyone, and particularly a teenage girl, would willing take and then send explicit sexual images of themselves. This particular miscreant has been jailed for life, whatever that actually means in this case, but the scale of the offences is mind boggling. Apparently the abuse started the minute the explicit photo was received and an already pre-prepared type of ransom demand was immediately cut and pasted to the victim’s phone or laptop.

We approached today with a certain degree of apprehension because last Thursday, our normal shopping day, Meg experienced a period of agitation once I was out of the house. Today started off in a little harum-scarum way because we got a text to say that one of the allocated care workers had been delayed by a puncture and could I assist the remaining one of the pair. As it happens, I get on well with the young Psychology graduate who has a very cheery disposition so, not for the first time, I acted as ‘Helper No. 2’ I received a phone call from the health care agency changing the care worker allocated for Meg’s sit but by the time she was due a third worker had been allocated and she turned up once her children had been dropped off at school. Meg was OK today with this carer, I am glad to say and I got my shopping done and unpacked as per usual, even though this takes up most of the morning. The care worker and I chatted whilst I put the shopping away and then organised some lunch which was a quiche supplemented by a tin of tomatoes enhanced with various herbs. Then we eventually settled down in the afternoon to shock and horrify ourselves with a programme first shown in the evening before detailing how Trump attempted to ‘steal’ the last presidential election. The focus of the programme were the proceedings conducted in the state of Georgia where Trump made a telephone call,recorded at the time, when Trump cajoled the official in charge of the elections to ‘find’ him 11,000 votes so that he could claim the state. Eventually Trump was indicted i.e. charged in the Georgia court system but an appeal against the character of the prosecutor went as far as the Supreme Court who, helpfully for Trump but unsurprisingly, delayed proceedings until after November 5th. No doubt in a few days time we shall see all kinds of shenanigans (what a delightful Irish word!) to contest results and gain electoral advantage. There is a lot of what I would call ‘throwing sand in the eyes of the opponent’ and I suspect that this practice probably dates from the times of gladiatorial combat. If one is on the ground, potentially defeated and weaponless, then the only desperate hope that you have is to grab a handful of sand and throw it in the eyes of the opponent in order to gain a few seconds of advantage. To carry on with the analysis of Georgia, the BBC correspondent is now reporting that Georgia may represent ‘Ground Zero’ for the Republicans as the Georgian court system is already full of actual, not to say potential cases, concerned with the 2020 election. In recent days a Georgia judge has rejected as ‘illegal, unconstitutional, and invalid’ an attempt by Republicans to enforce new practices in the election process. They included the hand-counting of votes and the right to examine any election-related documentation ‘prior to the certification of results’. Opponents said the documents could have involved anything from training manuals to poll watcher credentials – they dismissed the legal action as a spurious effort to undermine faith in the legitimacy of election results.

There was a story which broke yesterday that nightclubs are going broke at a very great rate. New research by the Night Time Industries Association shows that in the past four years the UK has lost 37% of its clubs, which works out at about 10 clubs closing each month. I must confess to being a bit curmudgeonly but this news does not trouble me at all. I always associate nightclubs with a certain degree of drug taking and other unsavoury happenings. When Meg and I lived in Leicester which was admittedly a long time ago now as we left Leicester in 1997, there was a large night club in the centre of town next to the bus station and when the nightclub closed each morning there were frequent disputes and altercations (normally over girls) and the rates of stabbings averaged out at one per week. The person who acted as Meg’s assistant as a placement tutor had a husband who was a paramedic. He was regularly assaulted by club members whilst he was attending to the injuries which were occasioned by the night club clientele. So I, for one, would not miss this scene at all. I gleaned the opinions of some of the younger care workers when they arrived to attend to Meg but there was not an ardent clubber among them, so none of them were particularly enamoured of the club scene. In fact the younger female workers told me that they had to be assiduous in avoiding getting their drinks spiked with the so-called ‘date-rape’ drugs which only added to my apprehension about this particular part of our economy. I appreciate that there is quite an ecology of other commercial activities that might be spin offs from the night time trade such as fast food outlets and taxis which must do a lot of business but the fact remains that after several years of austerity, the young do not have the spending power that they did and perhaps take their pleasures elsewhere.

It looks as though Kemi Badenoch is now the odds-on favourite to become the next Tory Leader. Amazingly, she made two terrible gaffes at the Tory party conference (saying maternity pay was excessive and that 10% of civil servants should be in gaol) but she somewhere escaped undue strictures, probably because she is on the right of the Tory party and admired by the party faithful.There was a TV debate on I think GB News between the two Tory party contenders and it looks as though Kemi Badenoch won this hands down whilst her opponent, Robert Jenwick, seemed to display nervousness and tried to relate everything back to immigration. But I think she is fairly quick witted and can think well on her feet which may make her look a lot more dynamic than Keir Starmer who can appear wooden at times. Tories, though, are not really used to being in opposition as they have been in power for so long so how good an opposition leader she will prove to be is an interesting question. She has the reputation of being extremely combative so I can imagine that there may be some quite ‘sparky’ performances at PMQ (Prime Minister’s Question Time) when she has a chance to confront Keir Starmer across the dispatch box (but faced with a huge phalanx of Labour MPs in front of her and only 120 Tory MP’s behind her)

Yesterday, being a relatively free day and in plenty of time. we made our way down to ‘The Lemon Tree’ cafe in town, stopping en route to get some cash out of an ATM which is yet another reason for making an occasional excursion along the High Street. After our mug of tea and the treat in which we indulge in a bacon butty, we wondered what other delights the High Street had to offer.For the first time in quite some weeks we had a quick whizz around the Cancer Relief charity shop which I always reckoned used to be a slight cut above the others. But we did espy a couple of bargains so I bought Meg a new cardigan (decorated with sheep along the front) to complement the other two that she wears regularly – we shall have to wait until tomorrow morning to see if it fits OK. I also bought another quite deep cooking pot which I could not believe was being sold for only a couple of pounds so I will put this use with some roasted vegetables and some mince that I might do in the oven in the morning. We passed by two sets of friends on the way down but did not have the chance to stop and chat as there was other traffic in the road which we were in anger of holding up. Once we had returned home, we lunched on kippers done in the oven after being wrapped in tinfoil, baked potato and some broccoli. In truth, the dinner turned out to be huge and both Meg and I struggled to finish it. After lunch, we were blessed with a spell of fine weather and did manage to get the back lawn cut. Like the lawns in the font of the house, this was badly needed and I was relieved to get it done fairly expeditiously. This week’s cut of the lawns will be the penultimate of the season as I hope to make the final cut in about 10 days time- I generally aim for the final cut of the year about Bonfire Night time. AFter the last cut, the mower needs to be drained of petrol and oil ready for the winter sojourn until I start again on or about March 25th next year.

Every so often, one hears a story that really engages one’s attention and so it proved the other day. A BBC reporter had visited Michigan in which there are a couple of towns with high Arabic populations, the workers having come from Lebanon and other parts of the Middle East to work primarily in the car factories. At first sight, given the support that the USA is giving to Israel, one would have thought that these towns would have naturally gravitated towards the Democrats but actually the reverse is the case and the Arab populations seem to be firmly swinging behind Trump. Trump narrowly took the state of Michigan eight years ago and the Democrats equally narrowly four years ago. But it seems that the reporter might have highlighted a massive problem for the Democrats in this crucial state. The social scientists amongst us might snort and dismiss this one account as a piece of journalistic fantasy and hence ‘one swallow does not a summer make’ On the other hand, sometimes a good journalist might get the kernel of an interesting story to be reflected in the opinion polls. At the Sahara Restaurant in Dearborn, Michigan, four Arabic language TV news channels are beaming in images of the war in Gaza and the aftermath of the recent pager and radio devices explosions in Lebanon. The smell of cardamom-infused coffee and shawarma and falafel, and hum of friends catching up, stand in stark contrast to the images on the television screens. Dearborn is the first Arab-majority city in the US, and it has served as a key centre for the ‘uncommitted’ movement that is opposed to the Biden administration’s policy toward the Middle East. Because they are in Michigan – a key Midwestern swing state that Joe Biden won by fewer than three points in 2020 – Dearborn voters, like those who frequent the Sahara Restaurant, could decide Kamala Harris’s political future. What I found especially chilling was one female voter who explained to the reporter that she loathed every one of Trumps’s policies and could not abide him as a candidate. Nonetheless, she hated what she regarded as the genocide of the Lebanese people even more and she especially blamed Harris for this – and hence was going to vote for Trump. One can put this story together with other fragmentary bits of electoral news such as the fact that the Democrats are losing support amongst the young black and Hispanic males and Trump is the beneficiary. For his part, Trump has bragged that if he were President, the war in the Middle east would. not have started in the first place and even the Ukraine conflict he argues will be settled in a day. Over here in Europe, we might throw up our hands in horror at what might seem to be the political naivety of some of the American voting population but I am increasingly of the view that the election is already lost and the Trump camp, by hook or by crook aided with last minute swings, a lot of recent hot money, an army of lawyers standing by to contest results and a sympathetic bevy of Republican administrators in key positions within the electoral machine will actually manage to get Trump over the line in this election. The Trump legal team are making great play of the fact that the volunteers for Kamala Harris, encouraged by the UK Labour Party, is actually breaking US electoral law as ‘foreign interference’ in a US election. As the practicer of volunteering is quite common on both sides of the Atlantic and both parties, this is generally regarded in the British media as just a Trump ploy to distract attention from more serious issues. But given that Trump has an army of lawyers effectively twiddling their thumbs until Election Night itself, I suppose that complaining against the Labour Party gives them something to do in the meantime. This could have slightly more serious consequences were Trump (as I now think is quite likely) as it means that the whole of much vaunted ‘special relationship’ between the UK and the USA might be put into jeopardy.

The carers turned up a little late today and with a change in personnel but as the senior carer was the manager who puts himself on shift every now and again, I did not really mind. This morning proved to be an interesting one. It was the most beautiful day and we enjoyed the walk down into town through the autumn sunshine. As soon as we saw our friends, we were delighted to learn that it was the birthday of one of them and she treated us to some birthday cake which, by now, has become a tradition between us of one of the Waitrose chocolate offerings. I suddenly felt a pang of remorse at not having bought a birthday card for our friend so I shot off to another part of the store to buy a suitable offering. The one I chose is a traditional one for people of a certain age (like all of us) and was the visual joke of a couple of cows chatting in one field but one of them was displaying the hindquarters of a zebra and was saying to her companion ‘I am not completely sure about that recent hip operation’ Whilst chatting between us, I asked one of our friends whether she took her porridge pats and grind them a little smaller in a blender/grinder in order to make them simulate the finer packets of porridge oats that are sold in sachets for instant heating in the microwave. Our friend informed us that she did this regularly so I promptly went and bought a new supply of oats only to discover that the Waitrose ‘Basic’ version of oats was less than half the price of a neighbouring branded alternative. So when I got home, I located our Braun blender/grinder which I have not used for some time but will wait until Meg is asleep tonight and I will try some experimentation. I did try some in a pestle and mortar the other day but I am sure that there must be an easier and faster way of producing finer milled oats which will fit the breakfast bill. It is easy enough for us to add our own squirt of honey and so this has breakfast sorted out being the nutritional recommendation of some slow release carbohydrate to set oneself for the morning. On our way out of the store, we were presented with a beautiful bunch of roses which the relevant ‘partners’ put in our direction rather than throwing them away when they are past their sell-by date but they are always gratefully received. On our way up the hill, we noticed that a South African Asian lady that we know and have around for tea on one occasion was in the process of selling her house. We had not had the opportunity to have a chat for about a year now but she was in the process of moving to Droitwich, the Worcestershire town which is just down the road, as it were, and which we used to visit regularly when Meg could get into our car. We exchanged the news of what had happened to us in our respective lives before we each went on our way. Later in the morning, we entertained the carer who was coming for Meg’s Tuesday ‘sit’ with a view of the video we had made of Meg giving a 50th anniversary wedding speech some seven years ago now and other reminiscencies of our student life in the 1960’s. Then we made ourselves a quick lunch of a tin of chicken on some microwavable rice and petit pois which is one of those meals that one cam throw together in 5-10 minutes when the need arises. After lunch, it looked as though we were going to have a fine afternoon so we seized the opportunity whilst the weather was fair to get the front lawn cut. This will be the penultimate cut of the year and was certainly badly needed -I was amazed at how much the grass had grown in the last ten days.

One particular news item has caught my attention. This relates to the shooting dead of a young black man about two years ago and where the police marksman was charged with murder. The Crown Prosecution Service must have been convinced that there was a reasonable case to answer, not least because the car was travelling backwards away from the police marksman at the time of the shooting. When the verdict of ‘not guilty’ was announced, I was quite surprised given the details of the case that had been released. Members of the black community and some Labour MPs were going to demonstrate outside the Old Bailey later in the evening. However, there have been developments as the day has developed. Details have been released of evidence that the young black man killed by a police marksman was himself a gang member, had entered a night club recently in order to shoot presumably a member of a rival gang and himself had evidence of having recently fired on a gun on his own clothing. The issues that are raised are these. It appears that when the marksman fired the shot, he did not realise that in front of him was a member of a criminal gang but was justice actually served? The question remains whether the police did realise what was going on because the car that was used was also under suspicion as having been part of another criminal venture so in this very tangled story, do we have a case that the police did act too hastily in the original shooting and were then vindicated because, by their own account, it was a happy accident that they had actually got their man? This is a very tangled and confusing story but the fact that the Crown Prosecution Service itself took the decision to prosecute a serving police marksman must mean that they had considerable suspicions about the events and motivations of the whole case. Of course, we shall never get to the bottom of this. The details released today indicate that Chris Kaba was a core member of a notorious south London gang and accused of being the gunman in an alleged bid to murder a rival in a nightclub shooting days before he was killed. The 24-year-old’s gang links, previous convictions and violent past can be reported for the first time after Metropolitan Police marksman Martyn Blake was cleared of murder and the judge Mr Justice Goss lifted reporting restrictions.

Yesterday, before I came to bed, I decided to reinstall a banking app on my new iPhone – they had warned me in the EE shop that I would need to reinstall this app because as a security option, it would not transfer from the old phone to the new. This turned out to be quite a long and complicated procedure and involved taking photos of my driving license front and back, making a video image, speaking some numbers to get a voice sample and so on. But eventually, I got the app to install on my new iphone and can now view some banking information via the app. I was delayed getting to bed last night because when I had installed our new TV a year ago, I had used a facility to access the web and had constructed a link that allows a viewing of the videos (i.e. speeches) made on the occasion of our 50th wedding anniversary celebrations. The video clip I was particularly interested in viewing was a completely improvised speech that Meg made off the cuff and unscripted some seven years ago now and as her illness started not a great deal later, it was interesting to access this for the record. Later on in the day and after lunch, I showed these videos to Meg and I think that she remembered making the speech all of those years ago now. It was a rather gloomy day today and we found ourselves a little short of time because the care workers came a little bit later this morning. So we confined ourselves to going down into town, picking up the newspaper and then wandering along the High Street to eventually visit the AgeUK shop where we had a quick browse around without making a purchase. Then we made it up the hill in time for the scheduled carer who, as it happened, did not arrive but another worker turned up half an hour later. As I had previously rummaged around in our freezer for something or other, I found some parsnips that I thought we could well eat up and I popped these in the oven and made a meal with some petit pois and some of the beef that was cooked yesterday.

The government have instituted an NHS public consultation exercise in which it is hoping to glean the views of the public, NHS staff and any other interested parties. But is already being admitted that any real changes in the NHS might not come into effect until next April. But Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, made some interesting observations today.’I suppose you could say, well, you should just come in and impose your view of change…I would just say to people, be careful what you wish for…The last time a new health secretary came in after a general election where their party won power, that was Andrew Lansley….The Conservatives after 2010, who came down with a massive top-down reorganisation that nobody voted for, nobody wanted, cost billions and set the NHS up to fail.’ This is all relevant information but one can already say ahead of consultation what it is that most people would prefer. The single biggest complaint must be the difficulty in getting through and making a GP appointment and this is probably followed by the length of time that is taken for a treatment to start or a hospital procedure to be undertaken. So probably the biggest reforms that could be instituted would be to say a GP who one knew well and who could ensure a good continuity of care – one might almost say the reinvention of the principle of a family doctor. I seem to remember a research report that indicated, probably on the back of some international evidence, that patients who had a long term relationship with one GP tended, other things being equal, to suffer less illness taken in the round and to live longer. Perhaps a model could be tried where two GPs and a physician associate formed a little ‘pod’ who were solely responsible for a group of patients. Another government ambition is to do something about patient records so that they are more accessible and are more transferable to other interested parties such as hospitals. But there is a big problem in just assuming that you throw an app on a smart phone to many of the elderly and the elderly elderly who do not have the digital skills enjoyed by younger generations. There may be solution to this problem, at least in part. I noticed an advert in ‘The Times‘ for a very simple phone (made by Samsung) designed with the older generation in mind (big buttons, a few large icons and the like) Is there a case for an NHS ‘access phone’ that is sufficiently simple for many of the older generation to be able to employ?

Harris currently leads in swing states worth 36 electoral college votes, vs 27 for Trump, with states worth 31 effectively tied. There are less than two weeks to go until election day but even then, we might have to wait for a result for weeks more. I heard an interview with a Professor of Politics from Birmingham University who was explaining that already the Trump camp has an army of lawyers ready to pounce upon the slightest morsel that would enable to challenge a tight result that does not go their way. The postal votes have to be counted and there are probably some overseas votes to be counted as well. A clear cut victory for either side looks incredibly unlikely and one wonders what chance event might occur in the next few days to nudge undecided voters in one direction or another. But all of the major opinion polls seem to point in the same direction i.e. that an already close race is getting closer and closer. I still have the feeling that Trump will claim (and perhaps even gain) victory even if he is very marginally behind and, of course, he has a veritable army of supporters who will come to claim victory of the result is very close. Bill Clinton used a remark to clarify what was uppermost in voters’ minds with his famous phrase ‘It’s the economy, stupid’ and that is even more true now. The absence of authoritative national media in the US (but a plurality of news outlets, not to mention pollsters) plays into the hands of the Trump camp because they seem to have successfully implanted the notion that the economy fared worse under Biden than Trump. The most basic measure of the economy is how much it grows. The official data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) are clear: After inflation, real GDP has grown at a 3.4 average annual rate since Biden became president, while Trump trails badly at an average 1.8 percent growth. But perception is everything and in this case, the public perception is that Trump outperformed Biden (although that is not the case)