Yesterday was the opening night of the Six Nations international rugby competition to which I always look forward and we were treated to France vs. Ireland on a rainy night in Paris. The French were superb with fast-flowing and quick-running rugby and overwhelmed the Irish in the first half and were actually three tries up and 22:0 at half time. So it looked like a very one sided contest but then the Irish came back strongly in the second half and scored a couple of tries and nearly a third but were actually no match for the French on the night. We now look forward to the England vs Wales match on Saturday but this starts quite late at about 5.00pm I believe so may cause a clash with my church-going routine. Last night saw an innovation at which the heart actually sinks and this is ‘in match’ adverts which is an innovation which I am sure was more or less inevitable but we all wanted to postpone the evil day. Actually, I have to say it was done reasonably well but this first experiment was being monitored by all kinds of bodies. Only one advert was shown and there was a split screen with both the advert and the match being visible although the sound priority was given to the advert. The advert was timed to appear during so called ‘dead’ time during the match when the scrum was being set or if anyone was receiving medical attention. But although the advertisers would see last night’s experiment as a success, it is undoubtedly the thin edge of the wedge and it is possible to envisage this technique being deployed on all types of commercial TV transmissions within quite a short space of time.
The hold of the Prime Minister on power looks increasingly tenuous and some real words of wisdom are being spoken by the Labour peer Harriet Harman who was at one stage deputy leader of the Labour Party and who I would have liked, personally, to have seen as leader. In conversation with Sky’s Beth Rigby, these are her thoughts The Labour peer told the political editor Beth Rigby: ‘I think it is so serious for Keir Starmer. I do not think it is inevitable that it will bring him down. But it will bring him down – unless he takes the action, which is really necessary for him to take, and that is this: firstly, he has got to stop blaming Mandelson and saying that he lied to me Because actually he should never have been considering him in the first place. To say he lied to me makes it look weak and naive and gullible. So it is just completely the wrong thing. He should be reflecting on why he made that appointment, not angry at the evilness of Peter Mandelson. He should also be thinking about a real reset in Number 10, because what you need from your team in Number 10, is people who share your values and your principles and who will help you be the best prime minister you can be, according to your true self. Clearly, that is not what happened because the Keir Starmer, who was DPP [director of public prosecutions], would never have appointed somebody like Peter Mandelson to represent the country.’ These are very sensible comments and do show Starmer a way forward. Probably one of the most important things that can be done is to appoint a Chief of Staff (principal adviser) who is very much in tune with the attitudes and the values of the rank and file of the parliamentary party and not seen as remote and aloof. After a few days and some changes of staff and advisers, it is possible that Starmer can limp on at least for the time being and whilst there is no very evident successor in sight.
No sooner had I got myself up and showered and was coming down the stairs when the central heating engineer came to have a look at my boiler. This young man is absolutely excellent and has excellent diagnostic skills and we had previously supplied him with the make and model number of our boiler should he need to order any parts in advance. As the water level and pressure seemed to drop when it should not, he had suspected a faulty valve so had brought the relevant spare with him and after half an hour he left with the boiler hopefully restored to good health – but we shall have to see over the next day or so. I made a trip to my usual supermarket to pick up one or two things for tonight’s meal and then made my way to a car park from which I journey out to see my friends/acquaintances in one of the local charity shops where I am regaled with a coffee and a slice of homemade cake. Whenever it is raining, which is was yesterday, the car parks always seem exceptionally busy and it took a fair bit of loitering before a space was released. Then I collected my newspaper with a similar long wait for a car parking space. After I returned home, I cooked a fair quantity of mushrooms which I had on some toasted sourdough bread and then watched some of the liberal American media on YouTube, analysing the latest release of the 3 million papers released last Friday. One particular contribution by an independent journalist was quite illuminating. She had investigated Epstein’s background in some detail and tried to wok out how as a college dropout who was teaching maths in an academy acquired the positions of influence and wealth that he did. Quite a convincing case was made of the connections between Epstein, and Ghislaine’s father Robert Maxwell who had intimate connections with MOSSAD (The Israeli intelligence service) as well as the American intelligence services (in all probability) Is it just coincidence that Robert Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein both died as a result of ‘suicide’ but in highly contentious circumstances and the very light sentence accorded to Epstein himself and the translocation of Ghislaine Maxwell to the least arduous type of prison regime also require some explanation. After this viewing, I popped outside to close the back door gate which had been open to grant access to the central heating engineer. But the bolt securing the gate would not fasten correctly which sometimes happens when gates drop a fraction and/or wooden frames swell. So I needed to unscrew and then relocate the bolt retainer about 1/4″ upwards which did the trick perfectly. Although this sounds a simple job, in fact all went well but sometimes even simple jobs have complications.