So, the new week starts with no particular engagements in the early part of the week. For several years, we have one of those ‘planning boards’ in the kitchen which means that one can see at a glance the commitments that lie ahead for the forthcoming week and indeed month. The night before last upon glancing at the TV schedule, I noticed that probably as a tribute to Robert Redford who played ‘Sundance’ in the famous film ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sun Dance kid’ the film was broadcast on BBC2. I had already seen the ending of it only a week or so before but nonetheless watched it sporadically during the course of the afternoon. The film is full of brilliant laconic dialogue between the two outlaws but one scene is hilarious. The pair are attempting to rob a Bolivian bank but, having no Spanish, the heroine in the film who is accompanying them has given them some phrases in Spanish such ‘Hands Up’ ‘Backs against the wall’ and she had written down a few phrases which they have to consult on some cue cards as they are attempting the robbery. This puts me in mind of a true incident which occurred when Meg and myself were returning from a visit to Mexico where we we had been to visit our son who was undertaking a scholarship year before he went to university in England. At that time, most flights to Mexico were routed through either Houston or Dallas an we were returning via Dallas as I remember. Going through security, Meg’s passport was scrutinised very closely as the security guard stared intently at his screen. Eventually we were told that ‘A Margaret Hart, born in Sheffield in England, was wanted for armed robbery across the three States of Arkansas, Wyoming and Nebraska – but the dates do not quite match up’ To this I replied ‘Are you absolutely sure?’ and I remember the security official, probably not used to black English humour looking rather quizzically at me. Another funny incident that I recall was when returning through an American airport from Mexico one of the all-American ground crew staff smiled broadly at everyone exclaiming ‘Welcome (back) to America!’ Now Meg was not feeling particular well that day and retorted to the female ground crew ‘Welcome back – I cannot wait until I get out of this bloody country as soon as I can and shake its dust off my feet!’ Now the American had never heard anybody speak of America in anything less than the most glowing of terms and her jaw dropped and she gazed at astonishment and some horror at Meg’s outburst which was one of those little images which will stay in my mind for ever. A quote which runs through my head as well given the general lack of ignorance of things geographical outside America runs ‘War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography’ a remark first coined a long ago as 1842 but still as true today.
The day was quite a beautiful early Autumn day and my walk down into town proved to be quite interesting. I passed an old lady who was in her front garden and we know each other quite well by sight. We engaged in conversation and she informed me that when I was pushing Meg up and down the hill in her wheelchair when walking was way beyond her, this had been observed by many of the residents of Kidderminster Road. When I was observed on my own, people had inferred that something had happened so it was not a great surprise when I informed them of the fact of Meg’s death nearly five months ago. I carry in my rucksack some spare copies of the eulogy that I gave for Meg on the occasion of the funeral which is also a résumé of Meg’s life. These I hand out (sparingly) to people that we have come to know for years, if only by sight and I hope her life was of some interest to them. On the same journey down the hill, I had another conversation with one of my Catholic friends and thence to Waitrose for my coffee. Perhaps because it was such a fine day, people were out in their gardens and I had a couple more conversations on my way home. I then prepared some lunch consisting of ham cooked over the weekend and complemented with some potatoes and leeks, first parboiled and then finished off with a roast in the oven setting of the microwave. I had set myself the task of cutting the front grassed area in front of the house which is rather a sorry state as a result of a rampant mole during the summer months and a prolonged drought as well.
The Tories are having their annual conference in Manchester this week and, by all accounts, numbers attending are down which is not surprising given that they are now in opposition. Perhaps they are in a similar position to Labour as they fear that a lot of their traditional right-wing support, not to mention some MPs, will drift off to the Reform party which is way ahead of them in the opinion polls. Half of all Conservative members think Kemi Badenoch should not lead the party into the next election, according to an exclusive Sky News Tory members poll. The YouGov poll found 46% think the current Tory leader should stay in place when the country next goes to the polls, while 50% say she should not. Tory members are split as to whether she will make it that far. A total of 49% think she will be out before the election, compared with 47% who think she’ll still be in place. In the meanwhile, Robert Jenwick is poised to be a new leader waiting for the moment, perhaps after the next local elections, when Kemi Badenoch gets ditched. It is often said that the Labour party dithers excessively when deciding whether or not to elect a new leader but the Tories have the reputation of being much swifter in despatching a former leader and installing a new one. But the Tories system for electing a new leader gives the final say to the constituency parties who are always to the right of the parliamentary party which generates nonsenses like the election of Liz Truss who found it difficult to have the support of the parliamentary party. The present system ensures that only a person from the right will ever lead the party. A superior system would be that MPs elect the party who is then ‘endorsed’ by the wider constituency party. The same is also true of the Labour Party where the system threw up Jeremy Corbin as the party leader – Truss and Corbin between them ought to be a telling message as to why leaving the final result to the constituency parties is almost always a bad idea.