So last night, although we have waited a week for it, GB has its first medal at the Winter Olympic games – and it was a gold. The winner, Matt Weston, had been leading throughout the competition and, in a competition where the difference between competitors is measured in hundredths of a second, he increased the lead over his nearest rival to 0.88 second in a near faultless final run. GB has done quite well in this event in the past but to put Weston’s achievement into perspective, Weston is the first individual male British competitor to win gold at a Winter Olympics since figure skater Robin Cousins in 1980. So it seems hard to believe that we have had to wait for nearly half a century to achieve another individual men’s gold medal. Britain had high hopes of a medal in both the curling and also the ice dance events but we have nothing but disappointment so far. In the political world, the Epstein affair is still yielding surprises. We now learn that Epstein had installed some spy cameras in his private office and some grainy film is now emerging of young women and Epstein alone in his private office. The survivors had always claimed that it was one of their fears that the activities in which they were forced to engage would have neen captured on film and their worse fears appear to have been confirmed. Some of the Congressional hearings n which Trump administration members are supposedly being held to account are turning into pure farce. The most notable person to give ‘non-evidence’ was Pam Bondi, the Attorney General, who when faced with survivors ,who were allowed to attend the Congressional hearing, refused to even look at them or to apologise to them, Instead she answered questions with a rant about how well the Dow stock exchange index was doing under Donald Trump’s presidency or enquired why the questions that she was asked were not also asked of a previous (presumably Democrat) Attorney General. The extent of the cover-up is now becoming clearer day by day as absolutely none of the names of the rich and powerful (apart from perhaps one foreign sheikh) have been released whereas name, addresses and even photos of some victims has somehow escaped the redaction process despite the strictures of the Epstein Transparency Act passed by Congress. It is now being said that the scale of the cover up now exceeds the infamous Watergate. In the UK, ‘The Guardian’ has explained the massive asymmetry in the US political system where Trump and his acolytes lie repeatedly whereas his opponents who tell the truth are vilified. The key asymmetry can be spelled out simply. Trump pays little or no regard to the conventional bounds of truth or honesty. His documented tally of false or misleading statements runs into the tens of thousands: the Washington Post registered 30,573 such statements during Trump’s first term in the White House, an average of 21 a day. In a single interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes earlier this month, Trump spoke falsely 18 times, according to CNN. To hold him to account for this dishonesty is to cast yourself as an arbiter of truth, which creates the instant and obvious expectation that you yourself must be truthful. Here, then, is the asymmetry: he can lie, but his critics cannot. Later on today, there is an expectation that my son and daughter-in-law will call around to watch the England vs. Scotland Six Nations rugby match collectively to which I can look forward with pleasure. Scotland were beaten in their last match by Italy which the simultaneous ascendancy of Italian rugby and the parallel decline in the performance of the Scots. Meanwhile Welsh rugby is in a dire state. Tens of thousands of tickets for Wales’ three home fixtures in this year’s Six Nations have still not been sold. The matches at Cardiff’s 74,000-seat Principality Stadium usually sell out or reach high capacity for a tournament that has traditionally been a highlight of the Welsh sporting calendar. On Friday morning there were 15,300 unsold for Sunday’s clash with France; 6,700 left for Scotland and 27,000 for Italy’s visit in March, according to the WRU’s official ticket site. This is an almost unprecedented situation for Welsh rugby which have traditionally been regarded as one of the stalwarts of the game.
Life has a certain unpredictability and so it turned out this morning. Although cold, we had a clear blue sky and some sun shining for the first time in days so I decided to resume my erstwhile habit of walking down into town (avoided for the last week or so when it has been so wet) because although my left knee is a little dodgy I feel that walking as a gentle exercise is a good practical therapy. During the course of my walk, my path happened to cross that of a post-lady and I was emboldened to ask her why both she and her maLe colleagues were often to be seen in shorts even in the depths of winter. She did not mind in the least answering my question and she explained to me that both postmen and post women in wet weather might experience wet flapping trouser legs and wearing shorts was the best way of avoiding this. All of this made absolute sense so there is a little mystery of life solved for me. After I got to Waitrose, I hunted out a supply of bran buds (not bran flakes) as I know from the past that the Waitrose product probably comes off the same production line as the market leader but at two thirds of the price. I had recently read an article on the importance of fibre to gut health but I could not find the ideal product but had to settle instead for wheat flakes, enriched with bran ad sultanas with which I will have to make do. As I had my coffee, I got into conversation with a young lady also enjoying her free cup of Waitrose coffee. We opened the conversation by admiring each other’s scarves (hers was that of an Arsenal supporter, mine the ‘de rigeur’ accoutrement for Manchester University undergraduates in 1965.) She was a graduate of Durham University but had studied French and German so we found ourselves swapping stories about our experiences of Vienna (in which she had a student placement) It will be fascinating to see if we will other chance meetings in which we can explore our experiences of other European cities.